"I can't hear you," Lex said, his tone of voice the one that really meant 'I'm not listening.'  Clark didn't think this time he was even really trying very hard to act deaf.  The impression he got was more of boredom.  Of course, Clark might be biased.  Clark knew Lex's hearing was as perfect as it had ever been.  The hearing aid he wore was as much for show as Clark's glasses.  The only difference was, glasses don't spontaneously go on the fritz.  In fact, during this day and age, hearing aids rarely did either, but Lex was from an era when the excuse made sense.  No amount of pointing this out would dissuade him from using it.  He could be stubborn like that. 

"I said," Clark tried again, raising his voice to humour his husband, "The doctor said your diet needs more fiber."  It was a sham, really.  Lex could ingest nothing but coffee for a month and it wouldn't noticeably harm him.  Clark had seen him do it once.  In that, he was nearly as indestructible as Clark.  As long as he had some caloric intake, his altered body would take care of the rest.  But they were in a grocery store, their false identities now in their seventies, and there were appearances to keep up. 

"The riot needs more fever?" Lex 'repeated', though Clark was sure he'd heard him perfectly well.  Clark was actually usually impressed by these 'misunderstandings' most of the time.  He certainly wouldn't be able to come up with them on the spot like Lex did. 

His alter ego, on the other hand, was generally a bit more impatient.  "Die-et," he repeated, doing a better imitation of annoyance than Lex did of deafness.  "Your diet needs fiber." 

"Eh?  Who's dying?" 

Clark, or more accurately, 'Calvin' gave up.  He shook his head, and threw up his hands. "Never mind, Leo, I've got it," he found a dietary fiber supplement on the shelf below the the vitamin C pills and added it to their cart. "Do we have everything we need?" 

Lex looked over the contents of their shopping cart, having had no trouble hearing that question.  It was as much a quirk of Leo's personality as Lex's, Clark supposed.  There had to be a reason the hearing futzed out only while talking about Leo's imaginary bowel problems and the treatment thereof that Lex would never actually adhere to.  Well, that and anything else that either Lex or Leo didn't want to hear. 

Clark's attention returned to his husband when the shopping cart failed to pass muster.  "We didn't get the Ty Nant."  Lex was, of course, single-handedly responsible for that bottled water brand making it into the 31st century.  Clark had absolutely no doubt about that one.  Clark had stopped pointing out the inadvisability of carrying over known habits like drinking the same brands of water while under cover around the same time he gave up trying to make Lex wear hats or wigs.  

There wasn't anything uniquely identifying about either trait anymore.  Bald was in, and had been since Lex became President of Earth.  Ty Nant was the water of champions.  It would be more strange to be caught wearing a wig, covering a bald head with a hat, or drinking water other than Ty Nant than it would be to do as Lex pleased. 

Clark still wasn't sure if that was intentional on Lex's part or if it freaked him out as much as it did Clark that over half of the world's politicians shaved their heads before going on the campaign trail. 

Clark began pushing the cart toward the beverage aisle, Lex walking along side him, scanning the shelves as they walked, in case they were forgetting anything else along the way.  "So," Clark said, as the music station playing over the speakers finished a short news spiel.  "What do you think of Harry Drover running for President?" 

Lex looked over at him with an irritated and mildly disgusted look on his face, "Did you just ask if I thought the President looks hairy running in Dover?" 

Sometimes, though, Clark was in complete agreement with Calvin.  If Lex didn't like the topic or candidate or whatever he was taking a dislike to this time, he should just say so.

End