Power is in the Mouth.
Thanks to jacquez for the title.
Ball's back in your court, Te...
Lex studies the blueprints of the house he's building on the site of the ruined castle and ignores the burning presence of his father behind him.
"Lex, I'm running out of patience." The blueprints flare up and are ash in his hands.
He turns to face his father. The Words tug at his tongue, but he has ample practice ignoring them. "I thought you were patient as the earth was old."
"Don't be flip with me, little beast. I made you and I can unmake you again."
Lex spreads his hands--defying his father, because the alternative is unthinkable. "Do it, then."
Lionel snarls, showing fang. Lex sneers in return.
Lionel grabs Lex's coat and lifts him off his feet. His wings beat furiously, blocking out the sunlight, whipping the air with the smell of brimstone. He presses his cheek to Lex's and his skin is blowtorch-hot. "You're my creature, Lex. Remember that," Lionel hisses in his ear. "Every piece of you, every corner of your soul--I made it. You're nothing I don't know and nothing I didn't touch, and don't think for a minute that you can fuck with me."
"You may have made me but you can't control me, Dad. I know you. That's driving you insane."
Lex's clothes ignite as Lionel throws him down. He lets them burn--it doesn't hurt, it barely even bothers him.
It's amazing how fast the strangest things seem normal. He stares up at his father--his father, the Devil--stares into his eyes, and does not feel horror.
Lex curls his fingers into claws--he thinks for a moment and sprouts claws like a cat's, needle-sharp and strong as diamonds. The horns of a bull curve over his father's brow.
His father's face is still human, if you don't look at his eyes.
Lionel crouches over him and Lex holds up his claws. "You can't beat me. I'm stronger than you are. I'm human!"
"You're no more human than I am an ape. And you look pretty weak from here, little beast." Lionel burns palm prints up Lex's legs as he pulls Lex closer, bit by bit across the scorched earth.
Lex slashes at his father's face but his claws skate off the stony flesh. Lionel laughs. "You can't beat me that way, Lex. In fact, you can't beat me at all." Lionel pins his shoulders to the ground and the grass ignites beneath them. He feels his father's anger batter against his shield of rage, feels it scatter and swirl around them, melting the dirt and the rock around them, forming a seething cauldron in the very earth.
His father holds him and the fire pours from his fingers and his tongue as something--something sharp--slices up the inside of his thigh and into his body.
"Say the Words and all this pointless bickering can end," his father whispers into his ear, punctuating his words with a flicker of agony in Lex's gut. "Say them and we can fight the angels as we were always meant to. Say them and the earth is ours."
"The earth is--already mine," Lex gasps out. "funny what--money can buy you."
Lionel's talons puncture Lex's tongue as Lionel tugs Lex's mouth open. Lionel's tongue, long and strong as a cobra, sears down Lex's throat, and it feels like fire. Lionel's hand burns into his chest--burns through his chest, touches his heart. Thick, heavy rock oozes over his face and fills his mouth.
The tongue and the hand and the sharp stabbing tail rip out through his body. Lex bleeds out in the seething slag.
He doesn't die.
He comes around in a sluggish pile of half-molten rock. He sits up and spits basalt from his tongue.
The grass scorches under his hands as he crawls out of what used to be his garden. The flagstones crack under his feet as he stumbles back to the brand new house.
He can feel the rage like a living thing inside him. He can feel the Words as the soul of the Beast within.
He's strong. He didn't speak them.
The brass doorknob melts in his hand when he touches it. He watches it flow over his fingers and drip onto the ground. Hardening rock flakes off his naked skin with every step. The wooden floor scorches under his feet. He looks at the flowers in the vases and they wilt.
His father's creature. He is.
He could smell Clark before he even came in. Clark permeates the air like incense.
Clark is curled up on the ottoman in Lex's bedroom with a book. His wings brush the walls as he breathes.
Clark smells sweetly, overpoweringly of roses. The smell seeps down his raw and bleeding throat, infiltrating his flesh. But Clark also smells of bright, live blood; he's human too, as human as Lex is. Human and alien and angel.
He's the last thing Lex wants to see right now. He can't stand the rush of emotion under his unguarded skin--the sandpaper tickle of love and hate and the urge to slaughter playing over his raw nerves.
Clark gives him a bright, sweet smile. "Hey--what happened?"
Claws in his brain. Scars on his forehead where the horns once grew. His father's creature--his father's creation. He is what he is and it's so fucking hard to fight that-- "Fuck off."
"Lex?"
"Fuck. Off. Now."
"No!" Clark stands up. His wings arch over him. Lex sets him on fire and slams his way to the shower.
The water turns to steam as it runs over his body, even after he turns it all the way cold. His hands leave deep, soft dents in the metal.
"I hate when you do that. It takes hours to get the smell of singed feathers--"
"Fuck OFF."
"I will not fuck off!"
"I HATE you," Lex grits out between his teeth.
Clark gets in the shower with Lex, still clothed in what survived the fire. He holds his hands over Lex's head and the water is cool as it flows over his body.
"What's going on, Lex?"
"My father...is the devil."
"Um, yeah? I know."
"That's all you need to know."
Clark touches Lex's face, cooling the stone and brushing it away. He kisses the back of Lex's head.
Lex presses his hands into the wall of the shower and closes his eyes. "I didn't say it."
"I know. We're still here."
"I didn't give in."
"I know." Clark slides his soggy scorched-feather-stinking arms around Lex's chest and hugs him close.
"I--I hurt. Don't stop touching me." Clark's touch is better than the water, softer and gentler.
"I won't."
"I beat him." But his father's face is there in the rivulets of water on the wall, just for a second, smirking at him; and the tears roll down Lex's cheeks, silently, sizzling as they fall.
end.