Work Text:
One
"I can't trust you!" Clark barely stops himself from destroying everything in the room, including his best friend, the collector.
Lex's protests and explanations fall on deaf hears. The feel of betrayal is too strong, the hurt and fear too thick.
Clark wants to lash out more, to strike a harder emotional blow, but he recalls the stricken look on Lex's face and knows, somehow, that anything more would take them directly from ex-friends to enemies.
* * *
Two
Lex's smile is genuine and it takes Clark aback. Somehow, between fighting the latest meteor mutant, again, he's forgotten. Not about the room or the fight, but that they haven't happened yet.
He feels his temper rise and he holds the anger tightly, ignoring the twist of guilt as Lex's smile vanishes. They stop just out of arm's reach of each other.
"I know about the room. The investigations and the evidence and-" he breaks off, a little surprised to find it bothers him more now than the first time he had to live this day. "Our friendship is over."
"Clark-" Lex's voice is rough, his face twitching with the effort of controlling his expression.
"I trusted you!"
Lex flinches and then the only thing on his face and in his eyes is anger. "You're a liar, Clark, and you have been since I've known you. Friends don't lie as you have."
The hypocrisy is both a surprise and a blow. "You've lied to me, too," Clark reminds him, hands fisted at his side. He wants, badly, to hit Lex, but he knows he won't pull his punch. Even now, he can't hurt him.
"I followed you're example, Clark. But I was more honest with you than I've been with anyone else. Except Helen, but we know how that turned out."
He doesn't need to resort to physical violence to land a hit. "Poor Lex, betrayed by the woman he claimed to love after investigating her and accusing her of ulterior motives."
Lex paled, the skin around his mouth going white as he pinched his lips. "How do you know about the room?"
"It doesn't matter, Lex. The fact that it exists... our friendship is over."
"You already said that. I doubt it ever truly existed."
Clark rolls his eyes at Lex's sense of melodrama. It's the only response he gives.
* * *
Three
"You look tired, honey." It's a detour from the script and Clark stops to stare at his mother.
Hopefully, he asks, "What's today?"
"It's Monday, of course." She dries her hands on a towel as Clark deflates, sitting heavily in his normal seat. "Are you sick? You don't look well."
"I'm-" Fine, he almost said, but he considered his options quickly: Track down the latest mutant, pop quiz in history, track down and fight with Lex. Or do none of those things. "I'm not feeling well. Can I stay home?"
She puts a hand to his forehead and regards him before nodding. "Do you want breakfast before you go back to bed? Pancakes?"
* * *
Eighteen
Maybe if Lex remembered and was mad, too, Clark could resist being drawn to him. He's only managed to avoid him half the time and at each 'new' meeting, he has to watch Lex's smile dim, the light in his eyes dying away. Clark alone gets to witness the repeated death of their friendship and then mourn it until it happens again.
Clark's heart breaks a little every time, no matter how mad he still is or how angry he makes Lex. It doesn't matter how much bitter betrayal he clings to.
He's avoided the mansion until now, but he's also grown tired of carrying out these pointless battles in public. Lex drives, eyes ahead, the car filled with stony silence as Clark watches the corn fields whiz by.
This morning, his mother offered, obliviously, to let him stay home again, but hiding has solved nothing. It's actually made things worse, to the point where Clark hasn't chosen to go back to bed for the last twelve iterations of this Monday.
Once they've arrived and Lex has parked the car, they traverse the maze of doors to Lex's office, where the billionaire shuts the door. "You want to tell me what's going on?" Lex asks immediately. He looks wary, yes, but also concerned. Worried, about Clark.
Always, he's worried about Clark, even when he's riled.
"What do you want from me?" Clark snaps. It's a question he should have asked before. Lex's eyes dart down for just a second, but they stop at Clark's mouth before returning. Lex doesn't answer, not vocally, but Clark knows.
And suddenly, he sees an alternative to the arguments, one that seems infinitely better. Despite his history with romance and sex, it's surprisingly easy to press into Lex's space and kiss him. Easier to shove him against the wall, the hard press of mouths belying the anger still between them.
The anger is still there, at least at first. Clark bites into Lex's lip until he tastes blood and he feels the pull on his hair that would hurt a normal man, but serves only to tell him that Lex wants him closer, near, now.
* * *
Nineteen
Clark wakes up in his own bed and doesn't wait to confirm with his mother that it's Monday. He dresses quickly and speeds out of the house without seeing either of his parents. He ends up at the Pacific ocean on a rocky beach. There's no one else around for miles and the crashing waves drown out the sound of his heartbeat, but not his thoughts.
* * *
Thirty
"I need help," Clark admits. Lex stares at him cautiously as he slides up further in his bed.
"What now?" Lex asks. He looks wary, but unafraid. Their argument that afternoon had been little more than Clark walking, then running away from him and then refusing to be found anywhere. Now it's nearing midnight and the day is about to turn over to another Monday.
"My days keep repeating and it's going to loop again soon. How can I make you believe me tomorrow?"
* * *
Seventy-three
Clark watches every movie at least five times, some a few times more. Lex, who never changes and needs a minimum of convincing every time, watches with him and Clark memorizes every scene that makes Lex smile in surprise or shake his head in disgust.
After the eight time watching "Groundhog Day", he convinced Lex to teach him how to play the piano and he slowly learns Lex's favorites, note by note, song by song until he can serenade him. While Lex is still commenting on Clark's unexpected mastery, Clark leans over to kiss him and they end up making love on the floor under the piano, the bench knocked aside.
They only watched "Sticky Lips" twice, but Clark remembers how those days ended. Not the movie, because they didn't watch it for long. But the days ended with them laughing together and kissing, and...
Well. More and more often, they end up making out instead of fighting. It's an improvement.
* * *
One hundred two
"Please," Lex whispers, his breath caressing Clark's ear.
In response, he dips his head further, enveloping Lex's cock completely. After Lex comes and they're laying side-by-side trading Lex-flavored kisses, Lex starts laughing. He pulls back and rubs Clark's bottom lip with his thumb. "Sticky lips."
"You remember?"
* * *
Two hundred nine
"This isn't the first time you've played the piano," Lex says quietly, the last notes of the minuet vibrating on the air. Clark shakes his head and sighs as Lex's arms come around him. "Tell me again."
"You won't remember."
"Not everything. But I think it's getting there."
* * *
Two hundred ten
Clark opens the door to leave for school and finds Lex on the back porch. Blue eyes bore into him. "You know about the room."
With a burst of speed his parents would warn him against, if they could catch him, Clark shuts the door and hustles Lex out to the loft. "What else do you remember?"
"Pieces. Fragments." He watches Clark the entire time, the intensity familiar. Curious Lex who wants, needs, to know. "It's not my imagination."
Clark shakes his head and recaps the last half year plus of Mondays.
*
"I spent eight frustrating days figuring out how to woo Lana." Lex's mouth twitches, but Clark's gotten good at reading him and he recognizes the flash of jealousy. "It took forty-three days to woo you."
There's a flicker of shock before Lex twists the cap off his flask for another drink. "Me."
Clark rolls his eyes. "I can play the piano now. Quote poetry." He lets Lex have his minute turned away, time enough to replace the cap, and then he approaches and puts a hand on his shoulder to turn him around. "'I don't deserve someone like you. But If I ever could, I swear I would love you for the rest of my life.'"
Lex stares at him. "I don't recognize that."
"Bill Murray. Groundhog Day. It was the first movie we watched when I told you what was happening to me."
"Sticky Lips."
It's been a hundred days since Clark blushed, but he can feel the heat in his cheeks.
Lex slips the flask back into his pocket and then uses his left hand to cup Clark's cheek. "We were looking for answers in the wrong place. I'm sorry, but I don't think I really believed you before. Not in the beginning."
"But you do now?"
"I do." The words hold such faith that Clark has to swallow. "And I think I know how to find the right answer."
"What answer is that?"
"It's Smallville, Clark. Which means if something is going terribly wrong, there's a meteor-affected teenager generally behind it."
* * *
213 and 1
Clark watches the sun set on Monday, then stays up and watches the sun rise again on Tuesday. The first Tuesday in a long time. To be a tad melodramatic, the first Tuesday of the rest of his life.
He pokes Lex in the side when he laughs. "You laugh like you don't know what it's been like."
But Lex does. Other than Colton Phillip, Lex is the only other person in Smallville who has any idea what happened. And unlike Colton, Lex isn't in an insane asylum with a groundhog plushy bemoaning the lack of snow in French.
The laughter stops, but Lex's smile doesn't recede. "Do you know what else I remember?"
"Bad movies? Teaching me to play the piano?" Clark suggests. "Cooking lessons that made the staff cry? Or-"
Before he can toss out another memory, Lex pushes him over backward and pins him to the bed. "I remember someone saying he trusted me." He leans forward to rest his forehead on Clark's chest. "And for the first time in two years, I believe him."
* * *
Later
"I also remember sex." He straddles Clark's torso and sits back on his heels and Clark's thighs. "Specifically, I remember someone being upset that he would be the only one to remember our first time. Our proper first time. But, Clark. I do remember."