* * *

Transference

* * *

After seeing Clark to his lodgings, Lex went home.

Through a combination of rigorous self-training and sheer bloody-minded arrogance, Lex had mostly managed to conquer those vampiric quirks that hadn't been hammered out of him in the course of Lionel's idea of a proper upbringing. He took garlic with his meals as easily as white wine, only disliked religious icons around the house because he thought they looked tacky, and thought bright light made the place look homey.

The traditional tendency towards obsessive-compulsive behaviour, though, had taken a little more effort to tame. Lex preferred to think of it as . . . having a tidy mind.

Which was why, once he'd got home, he sat down at his desk and started a list.

He wrote at the top of the page: Thingef I would do for Clark Kent.

He was on page 49 and item 1,362 when the thought occurred to him that it would probably be easier to make a list of things he wouldn't do for Clark.

The second list took less than a minute to write out, and looked something like this:

1. Lette him go.

He paused, tapping his pen on the desk thoughtfully, and then came to a decision.

He wrote:

2. Drinke blood (unlefs abfolutely necefsary).

There was a blot around 'blood' where his pen had skidded, but the word was still clear.

Lex put the pen down, feeling obscurely more comfortable.

Dinner had been good, he thought. Remarkably good, actually, considering that all food only tasted like chicken to Lex if chicken tasted like cardboard. It was the first time since he'd gone b-zero that he hadn't spent the evening in a red haze. It was always worst in the evening. You got used to the gnawing thirst later in the night, but at first, when the dark was just falling, when the beast stirred . . .

In the early, horrible months, when he'd just taken the ribbon, the only thing that had kept Lex from grabbing an underling and diving in was the thought of Lionel's triumph.

It had got better over time, but it had still been a struggle. Lex stuck with it out of pride, in the knowledge that it would pay off in the end. Because he hadn't given up blood for any old reason -- he certainly hadn't given it up out of fear, like most of the Black Ribboners he knew had. Give up the hunt or be hunted, they said. Cling to the old ways and what you'll get is the old ways -- the mob at your door with their torches and their pitchforks and their ancient, repetitive rage. Considering the alternative, cocoa and the old harmonium didn't seem like such a bad way to spend your evenings.

But Lex wasn't scared of the mob, or the death they brought (over and over again, because although vampires aren't hard to kill, they never stay dead for long). He didn't want to escape the old ways because they inevitably ended up with the vampire in a pile of dust or pieces. He wanted to escape the old ways because they were the old ways.

Because Lex knew that the really frightening about being trapped in a vicious cycle is not the vicious part, but the fact that it's a cycle. You can't go anywhere in a cycle, can't do anything that hasn't already been done a million times before. You don't get anything out of a cycle -- not anything worth losing, anyway, because you never lose anything in a cycle either. Everything comes back to you, old and endlessly repeated.

Lex hadn't given up blood because he was afraid. He'd given it up because he didn't just want blood. He wanted everything, and he wasn't going to get that stalking small prey in the dark, infinite cold of Uberwald.

It hadn't been easy. The thing about biological imperatives is that they're imperative, and thus hard to throw off. Most vampires, upon deciding to reform, transferred the bloodlust to something else -- Otto Chriek appeared to have chosen iconography, of all the bizarre things -- but Lex hadn't bothered with transference. He hadn't gone to all the effort of forgoing blood just to become a harmless eccentric with a hobby.

The chapter of the Temperance League back home had pointed out, somewhat nervously because pointing something out to a Luthor was around the level of setting yourself on fire in terms of dangerous stupidity, that you couldn't do that; transference wasn't exactly an option, it was part of the conditioning; you couldn't just say, "Oh well, I'll leave that box unticked" and think you'd get away with it. You might last a week, maybe, a fortnight if you were strong-willed, but without anything to distract you from the compulsion, you'd break eventually. And more importantly, you'd break other people.

Lex hadn't listened. He wasn't much good at can't.

And he'd been right, hadn't he? It had been hellish, but Lex had been clean for years. He had to guard from thinking about it all the time, had to watch himself continually. He could never afford to relax his control, but then ceaseless vigilance wasn't anything new for the son of Lionel Luthor.

Though tonight control had suddenly become a lot easier. He hadn't so much as thought about blood since he saw Clark this morning -- Clark, muddy and adorable on the bank of the Ankh, trust and mystery in his eyes.

Lex realised he was stroking his pen, and dropped it. He'd spent the afternoon touching things and pacing, thinking about Clark, waiting to see him again. It was as if Clark had pushed out the red haze in his head and filled up the space left, replaced the blood running in his vei --

Lex bolted upright, his head ringing like a struck bell.

"Fuck!"

* * *

"Otto?"

"Yes, Villiam?" said Otto calmly. His iconograph was in pieces on the desk, and he was doing something complicated and mechanical with two apparently identical black bits.

William was puzzled.

"I thought I asked you to take Clark to check out the Short Street pile-up," he said.

"Yes," said Otto.

There was a brief silence.

"You aren't there," said William, in the manner of a man who wishes to make sure of his facts.

"No," Otto agreed.

William thought about this.

"Why?" he suggested.

Otto pointed silently. William turned, dread already rising in him like a bad lunch.

Clark was sitting at his desk, with that angelically serious expression that always made William feel vaguely guilty for unspecified sins. Sitting across him and blowing his nose in a handkerchief, tearful and somehow soggy despite the breastplate, was . . .

"Is that a Watchman?" said William.

"Oh, no," said Otto, with horrible cheerfulness.

"Don't lie to me, man, I can see his armour!"

"Oh, probably he vas a Vatchman," said Otto. "Yes, I vouldn't be surprised if he vas a Vatchman, say, zis morning. But he's not a Vatchman anymore. He has been dismissed. Zat is vat he has been talking to Clark about for the past two hours."

"Ah," said William. They shared a look of understanding.

Clark's presence in the Times headquarters had taken some getting used to -- not because he was conspicuous, because despite looking like an enthusiastic god's prototype for a better-looking, better-fed race of humans, Clark had a surprising talent for not standing out. You didn't realise he was there until you needed him for something, and then you realised he wasn't there anymore. Clark was slippery.

He wasn't ostentatious about it, though, and William might happily have gone on without really registering his presence as anything more than a vague idea of a new reporter, if it wasn't for what it drew.

Which was -- people. It was impossible to find a more specific word for them. They were men, women, children, wizards, witches, dwarfs, trolls, werewolves, vampires, banshees, Igors, gnomes, and on one memorable occasion, Foul Ole Ron. They were angry, depressed, suspicious, determined, desperate, weird, bleeding, hunted, defensive, defenceless, brittle, in tears. There was only one thing they had in common -- they each had a story, and they were each bound to tell it to Clark.

William had had a quiet word with Clark about it, but Clark had gazed earnestly at him with his wide green eyes and nodded and said sorry, he would try, and the next day they'd had a seamstress with a mortgage sobbing all over Clark's desk. The day after that, it had been a little old lady whose kitten he'd got down from a tree and whose Billy had never been quite the same since he'd come back from the war in Klatch. When Clark brought the bogeyman in, William decided that it was probably better just to turn a blind eye on it. You haven't learnt the meaning of embarrassment until you've tried to find the words to tell a weeping bogeyman that your office is possibly not the best place for it to have a crisis over its purpose in life.

They'd all got used to it, anyway -- most of the cases were quiet, and Clark was very good at keeping the suicidal ones away from everyone else's desks. In himself he was good company, if quiet and somewhat reserved, and he was a decent reporter. He was good at human interest.

Of course, there were certain difficulties attached to his unorthodox methods.

"Ah," said William again. He hesitated.

"In that case, I suppose I'd better get Sacharissa to cover it," he said.

"Oh, yes," said Otto agreeably.

"Right," said William.

Otto inserted a part of the dismantled iconograph into another part, then he looked up.

"Yes, Villiam?"

"You're . . . not going?" said William.

"I am busy right now," Otto said firmly. "As you can see, my iconograph is not exactly in a state to be taking pictures at zer moment."

"Oh, right," said William uncertainly. He paused. "Say, does something feel . . . odd in here to you?"

"Odd?"

"Something," said William. Another man might have stopped there, but William was a writer. Just because a feeling was indescribable didn't mean he wouldn't try to describe it. "Something not cold, but like the idea of cold. As if there were an invisible presence riding on the air . . ."

Otto gazed at him with gentle concern.

"No?" said William.

"Probably you are feeling a draught," said Otto.

"Right. Right," said William. "Um, well, I suppose I'd better go talk to Sacharissa."

"I vill be at your disposal as soon as I am done viz zis," said Otto.

He watched William like a hawk until he was out of hearing, and then he turned to glare at a particularly shadowy spot on the wall.

The next moment was like looking at one of those pictures made up of dots that come together to make an old woman and a pot of flowers, both at once. One look: there was nothing but wall, and a suspicious gathering of shadows. Another look: where the shadows had been Lex lounged against the wall, somehow managing the trick of being both insouciant and intense at the same time.

"Vat are you doing here?" hissed Otto.

But Lex didn't answer. He was watching something else.

Or rather, someone.

Otto sighed, got up, and leaned against the wall beside Lex. In a moment the shadows had swirled up again, and there was nothing for a human to see but an interesting pattern of light and shade on a completely nondescript wall.

"Correct me if I am wrong," said Otto, "but I get zer feeling zat it is not zer vatery man banging his head on Clark's desk zat you are staring at."

"He's disgusting," Lex said conversationally. His eyes hadn't moved. "How can Clark stand him?"

"Ah, vell, Clark has encountered vorse," said Otto. "So has his shirt, come to think of it. At least zis vun has a hankie."

"Ye gods," said Lex. He sounded genuinely horrified. "Why does he do this?"

All of Clark's colleagues had asked the same question at some point or another. But it wasn't hard to answer, thought Otto. When you thought about it, really thought about it, there could only be one reason why Clark would do any of what he did.

"He likes people," said Otto. "He vants to help. He is nice zat vay. Vhich begs the question," he added, "of vhy you are here, vatching zis nice boy in zis vay." Delicacy, and a certain sense of what one was allowed to say in mixed company, restrained him from being more specific about the way Lex was watching Clark.

"I never thought you vere interested in nice," he said.

"Me neither," said Lex distantly. "But apparently what I thought I wanted has undergone a few . . . modifications."

He didn't sound terribly disturbed by this. Otto followed his line of sight to Clark's fingers, fiddling casually with a paperclip. Lex was watching in rapt fascination, almost hypnotised.

There was something very familiar about that look. Worryingly familiar.

"Und?" said Otto, troubled.

"Un -- and what?"

"Und -- " Otto would have liked to say, "Und you may not have noticed zis, Lex, but normal people don't do zis kind of thing. Zey do not stalk young men zey only met yesterday morning, by zer vay, after vun dinner date; zey do not look at such young men like a man dying of thirst looks at a glass of vater; zey respect the limits of propriety und, oh yes, zis is something you may have heard of before, sanity."

But none of this, however true, was the kind of talk a Luthor was likely to listen to patiently, so instead Otto said,

"Und vhy are you here?"

"I came to ask you something," said Lex.

Otto waited.

"You don't seem to be asking it," he said helpfully.

"I -- " said Lex. Sacharissa, who had a soft spot for Clark, dropped a jam doughnut on his desk at a careful distance from the ex-Watchman's head. Clark flashed her a swift grin, blinding and sweet the way all Clark's smiles were, and Lex melted visibly. Then he shook himself hard, as if clearing his head.

"It isn't important," he said.

Otto looked from him to Clark.

What was it William had said? Something odd . . .

"No, I don't suppose anything is to you," said Otto. "At zer moment."

Lex's eyes, fixed on the unconscious Clark, were -- Otto nearly had it, had nearly grasped the whole of it, when Lex sped the realisation.

"Oh, gods," he said. Otto looked up just in time to see Clark lower sticky fingers from his mouth, and realised at the same moment that Lex was gripping his fists at his sides, the knuckles standing out, white like carved ivory under the strain.

"Mein Gots," Otto echoed. "It's transference."

Lex smiled, sharp and utterly meaningless, his eyes bright and absorbed.

"It's not so bad," he said.

"Vat are you talking about?" said Otto. "Zis is a disaster!"

"Yes, well. Like I said," said Lex, "that isn't important."

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