rec - immortality by grail

Backdated Entry from Diaryland
Added: 5/1/2008

I wrote tasteless goat related porn last night.

Don't ask. Just--don't.

Noticing the support for romance going on here. Good, good.

Now, for Grail's wonderfully torturous Immortality. Discussed this with everyone who was silly enough to AIM me the other night and so have clarified my thoughts. Distilled them even. Happiness.

Mulling my violent visceral reaction to Grail's story still. Which I know exactly where it comes from and why. I identify with Lex in this one so much it aches. That is the absolute worst break-up in the history of mankind. That is the kind of break-up that people have nightmares about.

Just think on it. You go to sleep after good sex with the man you love. The next thing you know, no warning, he's fucking you over. He's in all the soft spaces in your head. He's past all the defenses. He knows you inside and out. There is absolute perfect trust going on. You did nothing wrong.

You know, if I saw this story from Lex's pov, I'd probably have a nervous breakdown of some kind. It was bad enough living it through Clark. Just imagine those two horrifying weeks of utter disbelief, wondering what you did wrong. How every punch hits you. This blank, sick realization of something bad, but no idea what happened. Loving someone enough to forgive it without explanation, and then they come in and pour acid on you. Losing everything--every trace of stability, no understanding, nothing but this inescapable belief that you did something wrong.

It's not logical, but it's there. I can see in Lex's head--he's spending the rest of his life hating Clark and hating himself, wondering somewhere in some tiny part of his mind what's wrong with him, what made this sweet, wonderful boy do this to him. Of course he'll knee-jerk to blame Clark, but you know? At night, midnight when he's awake? He's blaming himself. He wonders what truly horrible thing he is, that would make Clark do that. It'll follow him everywhere. It'll always be there, this core of pure self-hatred that he's still not good enough. That he's not enough. That he's less than someone worth the effort of being kind to. And he can't even blow it off like he probably learned to blow off his feelings about his dad making him feel inferior. Clark isn't Lionel Luthor. And from Lex's POV, there's no comparison. Something is wrong with Lex, he's flawed, he's not worth love, he's not even worth the effort of being careful.

It's not that I don't understand Clark in this, or that it doesn't make sense with his mindset--it makes perfect sense. And I know he's suffering, and I can even see the logic of it. But you know, this isn't the kind of wound where you hurt yourself as much as your partner. He hurt Lex far, far more than he could ever hurt himself, and he set it up so Lex will keep hurting himself. It's this poisoned gift that will keep on giving for the rest of Lex's natural life. This isn't just the pain of those weeks. This is the next sixty-seventy-whatever years of Lex's life. The rest of his life. It might only most of the time be the barest buzz in the back of his mind, but it's always going to be there. And it's going to hurt as deeply as the first time, and it's never, ever going to really heal.

Clark did some seriously excellent work. Honestly? If this wasn't purely premeditated from the bottom up, this is a truly gifted amateur effort of how to absolutely destroy someone in every way possible.

And he gave Lex a lifetime of self-hatred, self-doubt, possibly an inability to ever love another person, very very possibly an active fear of ever letting anyone ever get close to him again, just so Clark would be less scared of the world.

I buy it completely. I buy it and that's why I still get nauseous just remembering the story.

The kicker is, of course, Clark's not going to really understand this. Or care if he does. Because to him, it's worth it, which makes me question the validity of love in this scenario. If I believe Clark loved Lex and not only did this, but didn't do so much as emphathize with the damage he caused--that's frightening. That's what gives me the inability to give a shit how Clark feels. It simply does not matter.

But.

Clark's, what, twenty or twenty-one in this story? A kid still. In human terms, he'd be a gifted kid. What makes me wonder, just a little, is say, ten years from now. He's wandering through the skies, angsting over his inability to save everyone, maybe exhausted, maybe not. Maybe sick of everything. Could be working somewhere as Clark Kent, or maybe Clark Kent is pretty much dead. He's more experienced. He's burned out. With any kind of luck, he's as absolutely miserable as Kryptonianly possible. Yes, I'm a malicious bitch. Keep in mind my first reaction to this was to write a scene that lovingly detailed Lex merrily dissecting a conscious Clark. No, it no longer exists, but it feels GOOD to remember it.

But anyway.

I've been mulling what Lex would do. You know, ten years of remembering that moment, and building up a truly spectacular core of pure acid hatred. Because killing Clark would be--well, by this time, Lex probably is going to at least figure out a little of the whys. Not that it'll help, but there it is. So killing him won't be enough. That would be too easy.

So I'm mulling. Hmm.

Yes, I'm still romantically inclined. *g* A girl just needs to variate with some good, old-fashioned graphic violence and psychological torture.

Jenn, merrily