SILENCE by Christie Email: tinamishi@yahoo.com Author's Webpage: http://number14.org/precious Genre: Smallville; Lana/Lex Rating: PG Summary: Lana and Lex find silence. Spoilers: None Improv #2: deny, invent, white, shadow Disclaimer: The WB owns Smallville, not me. Too bad, so sad. January 12, 2002 * Time moves slowly when you're paying attention to it. Each minute ticks by on the clock, coming only after a perpetuity of wait. Each second moves slower than the last. People seem happy, not minding that time is grinding to an agonizing halt. They smile, chat, laugh; no one looks at the clock but her. No one waits for thh next minute to pass, more impatient than the wait for the last. No one notices Lex Luthor steal up beside her, dark corner opposite the grandfather clock obscuring half of his face in shadow. No one sees him lean in closer than necessary and no one hears him whisper: "You know, legend has it if you watch that clock long enough, time actually stands still." No one pays attention when Lana Lang smiles, eyes flouting from the clock for the first time in an hour. Hazel green meets slate gray blue and something stops, but Lana is pretty sure it isn't time. "Have you ever tried it?" she asks, aware of his long, elegant fingers curling around hers. No one else notices. "No," Lex replies, toothy grin and predatory glint in his eyes that no one sees but her. "Got tired of waiting." No one sees him pull her to her feet, slip around the adjacent bookcase and through a small, barely noticeable door marked 'service'. No one hears Lana's surprised laughter at the absurdity of a hidden passageway, even in a home like this, or Lex's sharp exhale as he pushes through another door and steps onto the icy service walk on the east grounds. Lana lets Lex pull her through the second door, hears the crunch of snow beneath his shoes and only then troubles a thought for the warm indoors. A shed to the left, a glittering expanse of white all around. The snow blanketed field that crests into a small hill unmarred until their footprints mark the way to the shed, Lex still holding Lana's hand. She spares a glance back at the house. The soft clinking of glasses and muted sounds of laughter assure her: no one will hear their steps through the snow. When they step inside, Lana realizes the shed is not exactly a shed. It's a fully functioning gatehouse, warm inside, fire lit and roaring, hidden from the road. Completely obscured by Luthor Manor. No one knows this is here. Lana watches Lex knock the snow off of his far too expensive shoes, his entire form glowing golden in the fire light. Inherent suspicion that Lex set the whole thing up gives way to a vague but rapidly emergent feeling of power. She can do anything here. No one will know. "I know how this looks," Lex says, nodding to the fire as he shrugs his suit jacket from his shoulders. "But it's not an attempt at seduction. I assure you I am far more subtle than this." The comment earns only a chuckle from himself, Lana's silence brings more assertion. "You looked so bored and I was going to escape here myself." Lana still doesn't speak -- too busy listening to the astounding quiet in the small gatehouse just 100 yards east of the largest house in Smallville. She listens to the quiet, even through the hushed sounds of crystal clinking against crystal as Lex pours a dark amber liquid into a glass. "Would it be illegal to offer you a drink?" He slips the stopper into the elegant decanter without waiting for an answer, and rounds the bar. He stops, sips his drink, and maybe only now notices her silence. "My father's little soiree bore you into complete silence?" There is laughter in his tone, but the underlying seriousness that accompanies everything Lex Luthor says is evident. He closes the distance between them, drink in hand. When he begins to speak once again, Lana shushes him. "Listen," she tells him. "It's so quiet here. You can't even hear the party at the house." Lana watches Lex as he tilts his head and listens. "Have you ever heard such complete silence?" Drink goes to his lips, and Lex shrugs through the sip. "I live alone in this huge castle, Lana. I have silence constantly." Dismissive, and he turns his back to her, walking toward the fire. Lana watches as his eyes get lost in the flames, thoughts somewhere far away. Subconsicously, he lifts the glass to his lips in near even intervals. Silence. Lana steps up to the fire, stands next to him in her satin ivory dress. She stares at the fire too, unable to see what he sees, only hearing the logs crackle as they burn, sending small showers of spark and ash upward, only for them to float back down and burn into themselves. Over and over and over. "I don't mean lack of noise, Lex. I mean silence. Everywhere. In your head, all around you. Just...peace." Lex looks at Lana, really looks, hard enough that he turns away from the fire and stares. He doesn't answer, but she knows, and it makes her sad. She doesn't look -- only basks in the silence. "This place," she says, turning and smiling up at him. "I can't explain it but as soon as I walked in I just heard -- " "Silence," he finishes for her, leaning to place the tumbler on the mantle. He turns back, hands slipping to his pockets, and Lana shrugs a little. Apologetic, but not really. Just sorry he doesn't understand. "It's like this place away from everything. From everyone. It's a different world here. One no one sees, no one hears -- no one knows." He looks at her strangely, head cocked, maybe listening for the silence. Something glints in his eyes, unmistakable, but Lana ignores it. "You can't deny what you really want when it's silent. You could do anything here, and it would always be just a little bit not real. It would always be a secret." Lana catches Lex raising an eyebrow and sees the smile ghost his face. She knows what she's said, knows how it sounded and doesn't care. That's the point. In the secret gatehouse, she doesn't have to care. That's the beauty of silence. Lex moves around her and pushes a button on the cd player against the opposite wall. Lana wonders if it's instinct, to challenge. 'Here's what I think of your silence.' It doesn't matter, because she still hears it. Her eyes follow Lex's path back to her where he reaches one hand for his glass on the mantle, the other playing against hers for the briefest of moments, before he grips her and pulls her with him down to the couch. He holds the drink out between them. "I guess if nothing between these four walls matters then you can have a drink." Lana takes the tumbler, surprised at it's weight, and looks suspiciously at the liquid inside. "How does it taste?" she asks him. "You won't like it," he tells her honestly. She smiles at him and puts the glass to her lips. It's not instinct, to challenge, but 'here's what I think of your assumption'. She lets a small amount of the liquid pass onto her tongue. It burns, equal parts bitter and sweet. She hands the glass back. "Like gasoline and honey. I guess even the silent place can't make it taste good." Lex laughs. She likes it when he laughs. Maybe because it's so rare. He tips his head back and finishes off the tumbler, wincing as he swallows the last of it. She watches him reach behind and put it down on the end table, and watches him drop his other hand from the back of the couch to her shoulder. She feels his fingers there, warm and resolute. Feels his other hand slide closer, palm splays against her cheek for a brief moment, fingers combing through her hair and brushing it behind her shoulder. Lana watches him inch closer, pays close attention to the tiny scar on his lip and wonders where he got it. Until his lips are too close to focus on and his breath is warm against her lips and he leans in to kiss her. Just so. It is all silent. Even with the fire and the music and the din of her own heartbeat. He waits for reaction and she thinks lamely that he's a gentleman before leaning in for more contact. His lips taste like the sweet of the drink, his tongue like the bitter and she wonders if this is what you do to make time stop. The kiss lasts a second, a minute, an hour, or a week, it doesn't matter and all Lana knows is that she's wobbly and breathless and contented. Lex strokes her hair a little and they both just breathe for a time until it all winds down into Silence. Even Lex getting up to pour another drink and Lana examining the massive cd collection for something less classical doesn't mar the silence. The fire crackles, embers burning and popping and burning again. Over and over and over. Inside the Luthor Manor, people talk and laugh and compliment pretty clothes. It is civilized in there. And noisy. In the gatehouse, 100 yards to the east of the mansion, snow- blanketed lawn in between, two friends invent a world where they are more than friends. They never have to talk about it, and no one will ever know, because they are in complete silence. -end-