Some days you get porn, some days plot, some days you get... Slice of life?

[arysteia]

Written for svmadelyn's Flash Fiction Challenge. For dolimir_k, who wanted college fic.

This is set in the same universe as Met U Blues, though you don't need to have read that first.



"...and this is Marty Hanna for Radio Active, reminding you that there are three more weeks of class before finals, so get your lazy asses up and out of..."

Lex reached out blindly for the snooze button, cursing Clark and his tendency to reprogram all radios within a five mile radius to Metropolis University's student-run station. His hand collided with what felt suspiciously like a wall. Huh. He rolled over and reached the other way. Clark moved into him, snuffling quietly, and pushed him back against what was definitely a wall. A cold one. The chill against his back detracted significantly from the pleasant warmth spreading down his front as Clark wrapped a leg around Lex's and moved against him. Lex opened his eyes and craned his neck to survey the room. There was a desk piled high with books and pizza boxes in his direct line of sight, rather than a mahogany dresser. Huh.

Lex stared blearily at the low ceiling of Clark's cheapest of the cheap and smallest of the small dorm room. Well it's not like I'm going to be *there* a lot, what's the point in paying for more? Huh. Surely he'd left in plenty of time last night to stop at the library on the way home and pick up the books he needed for today's...

Crap!

He sat up, suddenly wide awake, and leaned over Clark to turn the still blaring clock radio around. 6:25.

Crap!

He flung the covers off and clambered out of bed. Clark caught his wrist. "Mmmm, stay," he whispered, voice still thick with sleep. "I don't have class till two."

"I have class at seven," Lex complained, pulling free. "It's not a good look when the tutor is late."

"Crap!" Clark sat up, suddenly alert. "I meant to wake you. Sorry."

"Yeah." Lex looked despairingly round the bombsite of a room in search of his clothes. He eventually found them, on top of a pile of Clark's unsorted but hopefully clean laundry. At least they were neatly folded.

"What the hell am I doing here anyway?"

Clark laughed. "Don't look at me like that, you're not a victim of some fiendish plot. You fell asleep in the library. I had to peel your notes off your face and carry you up here."

"You did not."

"I did. You had the last line of whatever you were writing stamped on your cheek." Clark laughed again. "You still do."

"What?" Lex stomped across a minefield of shoes and file folders to peer into the tiny mirror on the closet door. Sure enough, in what little of the glass wasn't covered in fliers for a decade's worth of O-week gigs, and stickers advocating everything from vegetarianism to safe sex, he could make out a line of neat, perfectly transferred though backwards, Attic Greek. He swiped at it angrily. Great. Stupid Mont Blanc pens. Stupid hand crushed purple ink. Stupid...

"This is all your fault," he snapped, gathering up his clothes and his shoes.

Clark got out of bed himself. "How do you reach that conclusion, genius?" he asked, rummaging through a drawer for clean socks and underwear.

Lex took them, nothing mollified. "You volunteered me to tutor this course! You know I don't have time!"

"It's two hours a week, Lex." Clark bundled the notes he'd rescued from the library into a folder. "And I didn't volunteer you. I just returned the form you conveniently misplaced. All post-grad students have to tutor. You're lucky Professor Davidson lets you get away with just one group."

"It's Athenian Social History!" Lex moaned. "Did he give it to me on purpose? He knows I hate social history!"

Clark certainly knew. He'd heard about it at length all semester. "Not all of history can be about Great Men, Lex," he said soothingly. "Spare a thought for the little guys. And the quiet times. It matters what we do when we're not saving the world, too."

"I actually have to prepare for these tutes!" Lex let his outrage show. "I don't have time to study a whole different period on top of my own research, and keep the wolves from the door at work."

"Lex..."

"And now I have to go and face them and I haven't finished the reading!"

Clark shook his head. "I think you know more than a bunch of nineteen year olds."

Lex shuddered. Clark's confidence in him was touching, as always, but... "These are no ordinary nineteen year olds," he explained. "Monday morning, 7am was the only slot I could fit, and think about it. It's all geeks with no lives who've done all the reading, and enjoy a bracing argument to start the week. They're a disgrace to college freshmen the world over. They should be in bed nursing hangovers and strange bruises after weekend long drinking binges and possible orgies, and instead they're highly caffeinated, full of zest for knowledge, and ready to correct my ignorance."

Clark bit his tongue to avoid laughing any more. Lex really did look miserable. "Well look on the bright side. The rest of us mere mortals will still be in bed. You'll have the showers to yourself.

Lex's jaw dropped in remembered horror. Clark slapped the folder against his chest and shoved him out the door into the hallway, tossing a brightly coloured towel after him. "Go. I'm sure your over achievers are always punctual, as well as prepared."

Lex glanced around to make sure the corridor really was empty, then marched bravely to his doom.

*****

The ablutions block was every bit the crime against humanity Lex remembered from the last – only – time he'd spent the night in Clark's dorm. At least then he'd had the pleasant afterglow of a thorough fucking to take the edge off. Looking around for a dry surface he located a postage stamp sized area, and proceeded to build a pyramid of files, shoes, jeans, sweater, underwear and towel, in the order he'd need them. Clark's borrowed boxers and t-shirt he stripped and threw callously on the floor lest they overbalance the precarious structure. If he'd taken the time to undress Lex, he could have taken him home.

Lex showered quickly, hopping from foot to foot rather than stand too long in the pool of accumulated water, and wondered if being thankful he had no hair meant he was growing as a person. Probably not. He climbed out, dressed, and bolted for the door. He had seven minutes to get to the next building but one, and if God smiled, he'd make it.

God smirked instead. Lex stepped into the last fly-over, and ran straight into Cindy Williams. And this was why he hated staying over, much as he liked to pretend it was the showers or the pizza boxes or the narrow single bed. There wasn't a lot of overlap between Clark's friends and Lex's students, but it always put Lex on edge when he met them. And Cindy hadn't been happy with the grade he'd given her last paper, though Clark really liked her and assured Lex she wouldn't bear a grudge...

"Mister L – Lex," she started hesitantly.

"Hi, Cindy."

"Have you got a minute?"

Lex sighed. "Not really. Can this wait till after class?

"Well..." She looked around the empty hallway. "No. Because once we get over to Easterfield, and into 301, you're going to be Mister Luthor. The tutor. The guy who marks my essays. And you marked my prostitution essay kinda hard and..."

Lex sighed.

"No! Forget I said that! The point is, we're still in MacLaurin, and you're just Clark's boyfriend, well, not just, but you know. And I've been trying to catch you here for ages, but you never seem to stay over, and I don't want to embarrass Clark by asking him."

"Asking him what?" Lex demanded suspiciously.

"If you'd like to come to dinner for my birthday. It's only small, and I'm the only one in your class, so it wouldn't be awkward. But I didn't want to make Clark uncomfortable if you'd rather not come."

"Oh." Lex stifled the automatic urge to say no.

"It's Friday, which I know is short notice, but..."

Lex bit the bullet. Clark went to a lot of boring Lexcorp fundraisers; a birthday dinner was probably the least he owed him. And Cindy was a bright girl, it might actually be fun. "I'd love to. Thank you for asking me. Us."

"Great." Cindy smiled. "I'll see you Friday then. Lex. I have to go now, I'm late for class." And with that she started walking, as though they weren't both headed to the same place.

"Cindy!" he called after her. She turned, still walking backwards.

"While we're still in MacLaurin? As your friend's boyfriend, who helps him out with work sometimes? You could probably ask your tutor for a resubmit. And if you do you should go beyond Courtesans and Fishcakes. It's a fun read, but it's not really serious scholarship..."

Cindy's face lit up. "Thanks, Lex. I'll do that. See you both Friday."

*****

By the time Lex made it to 301 it was ten after seven, and the room was rife with the sound of papers being shuffled and pens clicked in irritation. He apologised, and braced himself for grief. His nemesis in the front row cracked her knuckles and prepared to oblige.

The door opened again, and Clark shuffled in, mp3 player blaring at a volume that made Lex fear for his hearing, super or not, and looked around in dazed confusion.

"Is this Social History?" he asked the world at large.

Lex gaped. His nemesis glared. Cindy tried very hard not to laugh from the back row.

"Yes," Lex forced out.

"Cool." Clark gave his thousand watt smile, and took off his jacket to reveal his old Crows jersey. Nemesis remained unthawed, but Lex felt his own spirits begin to rise. "We have an extra practice later, and I've already missed all the tutes I'm allowed. Prof D said I could come to yours instead."

"Okay." Lex decided to play along. "Have you done the reading?"

Clark grinned again. "Yeah. About that, man. There was this party at the frat Saturday night, and I must have been unconscious all of Sunday, because I woke up this morning with the weirdest bruises..."

"Jocks," Nemesis hissed to her neighbour.

Clark glared at her. "But there was this one bit I remember. Something about a whore herder?"

Cindy gave up the uneven struggle and burst out laughing. Lex, on the other hand, had been trained by the master.

"I assume you mean the pornoboskos, Mister...?"

"Badhair. Lionel Badhair."

And that was too much, even for Lex. He breathed deep, and after explaining the difference between literal and figurative translation, announced a pop quiz on all material covered so far.

*****

Clark sat down next to Lex in the cafeteria. He really hoped he wasn't in too much trouble.

Lex stared at his chicken salad. "I'm not sure I should be seen with you, Mister Badhair," he said at last.

"Aw, come on. I was saving you."

Lex's mouth twitched. "Is that what you call it?"

"Yep." Clark grinned. "I'm a hero. I deserve a reward."

"There's a four year old truck in my garage, if you want it."

Clark pretended to consider it. "I was thinking more along the lines of sexual favours, actually," he concluded. "If we leave now, I can go to the penthouse with you and still get back here in time for my real class."

"Really?" Lex smirked right back. "And why would I want to drive right across town in midday traffic, when you have a perfectly good bed across the quad?"

"Huh?"

"What can I say? This place is growing on me."

"Huh."

"Like fungus." Lex stabbed a cherry tomato. "I'm going to finish my salad. You have fifteen minutes to get that room fit for human habitation."

"Lex..."

"And while you're at it, use your powers on the bathroom. I'll give you extra credit."

Clark smiled. "You are a bad, bad man, Mister Luthor."

Lex smiled back. "I try."

"Don't ever change."

Comments

[feliz581.livejournal.com]

Yay - College fic!! This was hysterical!! Wonderful!

[arysteia.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much. I'm glad you enjoyed it.