This was originally posted as part of the CLFF Second Wave and can be found in a slightly different version at http://www.kardasi.com/Lexclusive/ClexFest/2nd-wave/second-wave.htm To see the challenge that inspired this story go to the end.

Thanks to Reet and the Preyland gang for beta and hand holding.

"You're a liar, Clark."

He tried to pull his head up and see who was speaking, but Whitney and his friends slapped him. Hard.

He felt weak, dazed, and he knew his powers were gone. Gone to Eric, the boy that would be him. Had become him, with all his powers and all his temptations. Clark Kent was nothing special now.

"Such a liar."

The football players were laughing at him, running their hands over him, ripping off his clothes, holding him up by the hair. Then Whitney put one strong arm across his chest to keep him from falling on his face as they tried to hook his arms over the main beam of the cross.

"Do you even tell yourself the truth, Clark?"

He was struggling again. He wanted to see the owner of the voice. He just wanted to see, and maybe to feel.

Whitney shoved him hard, and the leather sleeve of the boy's varsity jacket clung to his chest. He gasped as it peeled away and he found himself against one of the other jocks, who held his arms behind his back as Whitney slapped him again. Twice. He felt it.

"You want everyone to think you're normal."

He gave up on the voice. It didn't understand.

He relaxed into the arms of the football players and let them position his body as they liked. He felt the rough wood digging into his arms and the ache in his shoulders as they raised the scarecrow cross.

"Do you believe you're normal, Clark?

His skin tightened as Whitney, standing on a stepladder, took a soft horse hair brush and smeared a red "S" across his chest and down around his abs. He felt his ass clench as they ripped off his jeans and boxers, and he shivered as they laughed at him, goosed him, slapped his dick, and called him a cocksucker.

"Because I have to tell you, my friend," the voice drew closer as the jocks left the cornfield and drove away to win their homecoming game.

"I have to tell you that this," white skin glowed in the moonlight as a slim hand reached out and ran one elegant finger up his aching, leaking cock, "is not a normal response to crucifixion."

He came screaming Lex's name.

"Clark! Clark! Wake up, Honey! It's okay!"

Clark sat up in bed, almost knocking his mother over as she held on to his shoulders. He clutched the sheets and quilt and pulled them up to his chest. "Mom?"

"I'm right here, Clark. You were having a nightmare." She was in her flannel nightgown, eyes as much full of sleep as worry.

She was petting his hair now and Clark flinched. "Right, nightmare." He closed his eyes briefly to try toand wipe out the images of the dream, but that just intensified the ache in his shoulders and his cock.

His eyes shot open.

"Son," his father was standing at the door to Clark's bedroom in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, looking concerned. "Do you want to talk about it? You... You called out a name in your sleep."

"I did?" He looked from his dad to his mom and back. He'd obviously made enough noise to bring them both running and he couldn't remember the last nightmare that had made him cry out that loudly. If you could call what happened tonight a nightmare. The stickiness covering his stomach made the sheet cling to him as he shifted uncomfortably.

OK.

Not a nightmare.

How much had they heard? Or, oh God, seen?

When his mom moved to turn on his bedside lamp, Clark was there first. "Don't bother, Mom. I mean we're just heading back to sleep, right? Not like I need a night light or anything." He attempted a laugh, but barely managed a dry chuckle.

His parents exchanged worried looks. Even in the dark he could see the silent communication flying between them. They weren't going to let the subject drop that easily.

His mother took it up and asked hesitantly, "You called out Lex Luthor's name. Was he- In the dream, did he-"

"These guys had him," Clark jumped in, not wanting to hear the end of his mother's question, "and I was trying to save him but I didn't- didn't have my powers any more and I didn't think I would get there in time and, you know, it was- um, scary."

Please, please, please, don't let his Mom notice the wet spot or, oh jeez, the smell.

Another look was exchanged, and Clark was worried that they had totally seen through his explanation, or maybe his quilt, then Jonathan spoke. "Clark, I know that the last few days have been hard: to have the chance to live a normal life and then to have to give it up, well, it's got to be a disappointment. And it's natural to wish that you didn't have your gifts anymore, especially after seeing what happened to Eric."

His dad came in and sat on other side of the bed and put a strong hand on Clark's shoulder. "But it's going to be okay, Son. We're going to keep your secret safe, like we always have, and no one is going to take you away for study. We've seen now what can happen when people find something like this out. It's not going to happen to you."

Clark nodded woodenly. "Thanks, Dad."

Thanks for the image of living his entire life as a lie.

"Get some sleep, Clark," his mother said as she patted his shoulder, "and call if you need anything."

He felt his Mom squeeze his shoulder and knew there was at least a little understanding there, but no way out. As far as his parents were concerned, the lies were forever.

"I will, thanks, Mom."

But he wouldn't bother her. It wasn't the kind of dream you could tell your mom about.

He listened as his parents went back to their own room and settled down for another couple of hours of rest before chores. When he was sure they were asleep he wiped himself off with a corner of the sheet and got to work. He used a touch of speed to quickly and quietly strip the bed, get fresh sheets from the linen closet, and remake the bed. Then he took the semen stained bedding down to the basement to rinse and wring out in the utility sink before finally depositing them under a stack of dirty laundry. His mom would probably run a load this morning, or he could do it when he got home from school.

She'd probably notice the extra sheets, but she wouldn't say anything. The Kents knew all about secrets.

School was going to be weird.

After speeding through the fields, Clark slowed down to a walk once he was in sight of the campus. He watched some of the other kids walking or riding bikes, arriving early for extra study, or to hang with friends.

It was like seeing everyone and everything through a different lens or something. For a few days this week Clark had felt like them. He'd had to work at running. His chores had taken forever, and he'd felt tired at the end of them.

Nothing made Clark tired now.

When the bus finally arrived, Clark was already sitting on the front steps.

"Hey, Clark!" Chloe called, getting off the bus with Pete and heading up to the entrance.

"Hey, Chloe, Pete." Smile. Stand. He was good at pretending he hadn't run the distance from home to school in three minutes. He could certainly act as if he hadn't had a wet dream about being tied up naked in a field with Lex Luthor stroking his cock.

"Clark, man, what are you doing here?" Pete fell in on Clark's left as Chloe took the right. "I have never seen you get to school before the bus!"

"Hey - first time for everything, right?" Clark grinned. "Anyway, I wanted to finish the reading for Mrs. Crissling."

"Oh, god! I forgot about the biology reading!" Chloe came to a dead halt and snapped her head up to plead, "Clark you have exactly nine minutes before the bell: WHAT DID THE READING COVER?"

As Pete busted out laughing, Clark gave Chloe his usual grin and a summary of the chapter entitled The Structure of Cell Walls and the Difference Between Plant and Animal Cells.

Ok, so maybe he wasn't such a freak. Dreams were just dreams, right?

School had been good.

The microscope work in biology had been really interesting, and Clark had managed not to break any of the tiny pieces of glass as he and Pete had put different solutions on them and examined them through the tiny lenses. Chloe had managed to bluff her way through three of Mrs. Crissling's questions, which earned Clark a big hug after class. Which was nice.

Chloe's hugs always made him feel nice and warm and normal.

He arrived home smiling, got off the bus and took a deep breath of fall air as he walked into the farmyard. The shadows were already getting long and he figured he'd better get started on the chores. Then he saw his mom loading up the truck.

"Oh, Clark, good, you're home."

"Don't know if I like the sound of that, Mom." His grin was big and natural and very normal as he teased, "If I didn't know better I'd think you only wanted me around for the heavy lifting."

His mom swatted his shoulder and smiled up at him, "I don't think you'll mind helping out with this. It's a last minute delivery out to Lex Luthor's house. Something about a dinner party tonight. Think you could run this out there for me?"

Something crawled down his spine and curled up, shivering, in his belly. It wasn't nice and it wasn't warm, and it didn't even know what normal was, but it was all for Lex.

"Clark?"

"Oh, sorry. Um, sure, Mom. I'll take it over."

"Thanks, Honey." She searched his eyes for a second, and smiled, visit too long, okay? You still have chores."

"No problem, Mom, back before you know it," he pasted on a grin, took the keys, and got in the truck.

He didn't even remember driving to the mansion.

The house line rang and Lex picked it up without looking. His eyes continued to scan the report on his laptop as he answered, "Yes, Ms. Franklin?"

"Clark Kent is here with the produce delivery, Sir. You wanted to be informed."

"Yes, thank you, Ms. Franklin."

Lex left his desk without a second glance. The smile on his face as he headed for the kitchen would have puzzled his business associates and troubled his father. It was far too real.

The game Lex was playing this evening was childish, but he couldn't help it. The confrontation with Clark over his invulnerability had been a miscalculation on his part, and no matter what Clark had said in the hospital he wouldn't believe everything was okay until he had tested it a few times.

By pressing Clark to reveal his secrets he had violated his father's first two rules of business: never risk what you aren't willing to lose, and, even more importantly, never hold anything so closely that you aren't willing to lose it. Obviously, he hadn't learned either lesson well enough.

Not for any secret, not for any truth, would he willingly lose his friendship with Clark Kent.

So tonight, having roped his cook into the plot, he sent a message to the Kent farm for an urgent last minute delivery of produce to be used in a fictitious dinner. It was calculated sponteneity. If Mr. or Mrs. Kent delivered it, then he would worry. If Clark delivered it, then they would have an excuse to spend an hour or so shooting some pool and making sure all was still on track with what should be a legendary friendship.

It was childish.

He'd known that.

He'd done it anyway.

"Hello, Clark," a breezy, casual entrance, because acknowledging to himself that he was childish and insecure didn't mean he was going to let Clark see that.

"Um, hey, Lex." Clark was half way to the kitchen door, turning in surprise as Lex came to a stand still at the kitchen's central island.

Okay, maybe this test was not going to be passed so easily after all. "Leaving so soon?"

"Well, I thought you had people coming over. A dinner party or something, right?"

"Not for a while yet, and Ms. Franklin has it all well in hand." He glanced at his exceedingly efficient cook.

"Yes, Sir, no problems here." And you could believe it, looking at the young woman in her efficient chef-whites and the tightly pulled back bun.

"Oh. Good," Clark looked down at his hands as if there were some notes to tell him what to do next. "I guess I can stay for a minute then."

But he didn't move.

"Is something wrong, Clark?"

A rhetorical question, since it was clear that there was indeed something wrong: Clark was obviously feeling uncomfortable with Lex.

This was not acceptable.

Not at all.

Lex jerked his head in the direction of the gaming room, "Let's go shoot some pool."

"Sure."

Their footsteps sounding through the stone halls were awkward and intrusive in the silence. Lex wondered if he should apologize again for the accusations he had made about Clark's invulnerability or if he should wait for Clark to say something. Would discussing it help? Or just serve to stir things up again?

He set up the balls and let Clark break. Clark sunk the nine-ball and as he moved to take his next shot, he finally spoke.

"Lex, do you dream much?"

Okay. Not a question he was expecting, but Lex was nothing if not quick on his feet.

"Everybody dreams, Clark. Without our dreams we'd go insane."

Clark sunk the seven in the corner pocket.

"I don't mean ambition or conquer the world type stuff; I just mean dreams like you have when you're asleep." Clark kept his eyes on the table, moving around to the opposite side to set up his next shot.

"So do I," Lex agreed. "Most animals dream. Dreams and sleep are the brain's way of resetting at night."

"So you don't think they, like, mean anything." He tapped the three, but it bounced out of the side pocket. Clark stepped back, eyes still studying the table.

Lex walked up to take his shot. It was clear that whatever was bothering Clark had nothing to do with what had happened at the hospital when Clark had broken his ribs. This was something completely different.

"There are lots of theories about the meanings of dreams. The Greeks and Romans thought the gods could communicate with you through your dreams." Lex sank a ball and glanced up at his friend. Clark was watching him intensely, but Lex didn't think it had anything to do with the game. He shrugged a bit, lined up his next shot and continued. "Many cultures have traditions of dreams being a communication from the spirit world, showing a person the path they're supposed to follow."

He heard Clark's little gasp just as he stroked into the shot; his miscue sent the cue ball straight into the opposite pocket.

"Very smooth, Lex."

Lex could hear the grin. Which didn't help, as he remained leaning over the table for long moments, shaking his head as if mourning the stupidity of the error, when in fact he was amazed at the stupidity of his dick for choosing that moment to get hard.

As Clark moved around to retrieve the ball, Lex stood up and arranged his grip on the cue appropriately. He waited while Clark lined up his shot, three in the corner: no fuss no muss, and then he said, "What have you been dreaming about, Clark?"

There was a crack and the three-ball ricocheted off the table entirely.

"Shit!" Clark muttered and went to fetch it from inside the unlit fireplace. The nervous swallow, the deep blush, the eyes fixed on his task, told Lex everything he needed to know.

"There is another theory about dreams, one that I find entirely convincing." Lex said, keeping a carefully straight face.

"Yeah?" Clark stood up from retrieving the ball and looked almost fearfully at Lex.

"Yes," Lex nodded very seriously as he walked up and gently took the pool-ball from Clark's hands, "it's the theory of rampant adolescent hormones overrunning the brain." And he could nothold back the grin anymore, especially as he saw Clark blushing, not with shame, but with the goodhearted embarrassment of a friend being caught out in a mild game of 'what are you really talking about?'

"Dreams are never straight forward, Clark." Lex said, tossing the pool ball in one hand and heading back to the table. "Don't make the mistake of giving them a literal interpretation. Just remember that they're dreams and no one else is going to see them." He smiled up at Clark as he positioned the ball and then bent low over the table to take his shot. Without even a moment to line things up, he angled the two off the opposite bank and sank it in the near-side pocket.

Clark seemed to relax then, and grinned as Lex made ready to run the table. "Thanks, Lex."

And Lex knew then what true power was, because he had made Clark Kent smile.

Two weeks after their pool game, a week after thieves with glowing green tattoos had thrown Chloe from Lex's window, and three days after almost getting killed himself by the same meteor rock crazed thieves, Clark stood outside the mansion at 3:00 AM and wondered why it was that Lex was always making everything okay for him when Clark was the one with the alien powers.

Clark hadn't been able to save Chloe, but Lex had gotten her specialists that had managed to ensure no permanent damage from the fall.

Clark hadn't been able to resist the tattooed thugs when they had caught him and Whitney looking for Lex's stolen disk, trying to redeem Whitney's soul. It had been Lex who kept his cool and showed up with the Calvary just when they needed it. It had been Lex who had made the lies work, without Clark even asking.

Lex made things easier for Clark. There just weren't many people in his life that did that.

Which was no doubt why he was still here now, at 3:15 AM on a school night, wishing he could wake Lex up so that his friend could tell him not to worry about his dreams; they were just symbolic.

Really.

It was weird, though. He hadn't dreamed at all while he'd been chasing down Whitney and new buddies. His stomach clenched at the thought of them and their glowing green tattoos.

Every time he'd gotten near them it had hurt so bad. Then the ring-leader, Wade, he'd actually stuck his hand into Clark's chest. That had been pain like nothing he'd felt since getting his powers back from Eric. His lungs had been squeezed and his heart had labored, and he'd wanted to scream but he'd had no air. At the same time, he'd never wanted Wade to stop. He'd yearned to feel that intensity, that reality, for as long as he could.

The night after Wade's gang was arrested, the dreams had started up again.

He sat down with his back to an old stone wall in the garden and closed his eyes, trying to catch the feeling of acceptance he'd had with Lex during their pool game. Even as he reached for the memory of purple felt and clicking billiard balls, sleep snuck up and hijacked him back to his latest dream of Reilly's field.

The corn still sighed and the cross was waiting, but there weren't any jocks this time, just four has-beens-turned-thieves. They wore ski masks and denim vests and their arms were covered with glowing green tattoos. One of them had only one arm; another had blue eyes and only one tattoo.

Whitney.

He knew that the tattoos should make him sick, that he should fight them, but then he remembered that he didn't have his powers here in the corn.

He gave in.

They spun him around and around, pushing him into each other's arms, but instead of being caught in their hands he was skewered on them.

The pain was so intense: fire and ice moving inside him, stroking him from the inside out, and then gone. He gasped at the emptiness.

They laughed and whooped as they stripped him, shouting words he couldn't understand and spilling beer on him from over-flowing steins. Thin, cold, liquid strips of sensation sliding across his chest and down his ribs.

He didn't struggle, and he was hard before they even touched his cock.

"Your body doesn't lie, Clark."

The voice was out in the corn somewhere. He was glad it had come to watch, glad that he wouldn't be on display for nothing.

After he was tied to the cross, they didn't stand it up in the field. Instead they reclined it back onto two sawhorses until he was laid out and ready for them. He caught a flash of white skin and purple silk approaching through corn before Whitney pushed his head down.

It was enough. Whatever happened, he knew he'd be safe.

"There's truth in every line, every fiber of you."

The voice was so close he felt the vibration of the words and shivered.

While Whitney petted his hair, two of the thieves pressed his shoulders even further back into the crossbeam. He could feel the pattern in the wood grain through his skin. Wade stood over him with a needle-tipped machine in his hand. The thief was laughing as he turned it on.

When it touched his skin he thought he was on fire. His cock jerked. He bit his lip to keep from crying out.

"Your body wants to tell all your secrets, but it doesn't know the words. It can only show."

The voice was at his feet now. He tried to raise his head. He so wanted to see. But Whitney held his head down firmly.

The fire was moving now across his chest. Slowly, so slowly, it burned in a line from right to left. Then down at an angle, another turn, coming to a point over his belly and then back up the other side in mirror image.

He felt tears trickle out the corner of his eyes.

"Can I teach your body to talk, Clark?"

The fire moving across his chest had completed the straight lines; now it moved in one long excruciating curve, and as it began its sweeping crawl over his chest, something hot and slick begin to trace paths up his legs. Swirling, probing in hollows and creases, it traced searing pleasure in counterpoint to the pain over his chest. He desperately tried to spread his legs against the ropes: wanting more, needing more.

The line of pain moved to its completion across his abdomen, and there was a pause in the slick calligraphy moving over his hips.

"And by the gift of tongues shall the truth be revealed."

And just as the needle-point of the machine started to trace over its own tracks, his stomach muscles cramping with the pain, he felt a lapping and sucking at his balls that jerked him up: arching off the cross as the thieves held him down at the shoulders and the ropes anchored him at his feet, with all the pain and pleasure meeting halfway and each making the other that much more intense as he came in waves that didn't seem to have an end.

Clark awoke to a mini-avalanche of broken stone caused by his head jerking back against the wall. His entire front was wet and sticky and warm. His cock was still tingling and his lip throbbed.

He reached up to his face and found a cut through his lower lip that healed even as his fingers explored it. The healing didn't get rid of the trail of blood, however. It ran from his chin down his chest and he knew this shirt was destined for the rag bag. His pants were filled with cum as well and getting clammy. He was going to have to speed home and change before school.

He really wished Lex were here to tell him it was just a dream.

'Don't worry about it, Clark,' he'd say, 'don't take it literally. There is nothing to say conclusively that having a wet dream about being beaten, tied up and tattooed means you're a perv.'

As he ran home at top speed, Clark wondered what Lex would say about the fact that he got hard just remembering it.

At 4:30 AM Clark heard his parents get up and his mom come downstairs and go into the kitchen to start the coffee. From the laundry room in the basement, he could hear every step as she went to the pantry, pulled out the coffee and the filters, and then went over to the sink to fill the pot. She did this at the same time every morning, except Sunday, when she let Jonathan make the coffee while she slept in until 6:00 AM.

Clark had already changed and was just finishing loading his jeans and underwear into the washing machine, when he heard his mom calling him.

"Clark? Are you up?"

"Yeah, Mom, just getting a load of laundry in!" He checked to make sure that he had put in enough other dark colored clothes from the hamper to justify running a load and then added the soap, closed the lid, and turned on the washer.

He walked up the steps sniffing appreciatively, "Smells good, Mom. Apple cinnamon pancakes?"

His mother smiled as he entered the kitchen, "I made the apples up last night. I thought I might need extra incentive to get you out of bed this morning. You were up pretty late."

"I had a lot of homework."

"Doesn't seem to have stopped you from getting up this morning. I didn't hear your alarm go off."

"I sorta got up by myself."

Clark started setting the table. It had been his very first chore: setting the table for family meals. He could lay out all the plates and silverware without even thinking, and he desperately wanted to stop thinking now.

"What time did you go to bed?" His mother's voice was casual, and her back was to him as she mixed up that pancake batter, but Clark knew this was just the beginning of the questions.

"I'm not sure. It was pretty late."

"Clark?" His mother managed to put a full sentence of meaning into his name. She knew he was hedging.

Clark played dumb.

"Yeah, Mom?"

"Are you sleeping okay at night?"

"Sure."

"Sure?"

"Yeah, Mom, I'm sleeping okay." He took a deep breath, straightened a fork and decided to come out with a little more truth. "Just not as much as I used to."

"How much is not as much?" She had dropped all pretense of breakfast preparation now and turned around to lean against the counter, frowning with concern.

"Couple of hours."

"Clark, honey, that's not enough. You need more sleep than that!" She was frowning and her mouth was pursed: she was worried. Like she always worried.

But he'd rather see her eyes worried than disgusted. Or better yet, just not see anything at all. So he turned to the refrigerator to get the milk out. As he did so he threw a question over his shoulder, "How do you know?"

"What?"

"How do you know I need more sleep than that? Maybe I'm growing out of it. Like I grew out of bruises."

"Well, do you feel like this is normal for you? It seems kind of sudden. To go from eight hours a night to two."

Clark was tired of this. Tired of the whole thing. One more freak fact about alien-boy.

"Mom, it's no big deal, okay? I just don't need to sleep so much. I'm fine. It's just another weird thing about me, and it's a heck of a lot easier to deal with than some of the other things."

"What things?" Jonathan asked coming downstairs.

"Nothing." Clark said immediately. The table was set and he had nothing to do with his hands, so he gripped them on the back of one of the chairs to keep from nervously re-arranging the place settings.

"Clark suddenly doesn't seem to need as much sleep as he used to." His mother's raised eyebrows and cautious tone were like a signal for his father: Go carefully, Jonathan.

"It's not that sudden, Mom!"

"When did this start, Clark?" His father started in with the questions now, "Have you been feeling any different? Any other changes?"

"Look, I-" Clark couldn't take it anymore. What could he say to make them stop asking questions? I'm having wet dreams about being assaulted in a corn field by my best friend, and I'd rather not sleep than have freak dreams that have no chance of coming true.

Shit. He did not just think that.

"I'm gonna walk to school today. Maybe it'll tire me out a little."

"Clark!" He heard his mother call, but he wasn't stopping.

"Mr. Luthor, Mr. Raines is here to see you."

"Send him in." Lex looked up from the report he was writing for his father and frowned. What was Raines doing coming all the way out to the plant? Generally, his chief of household security handled updates by phone.

The door to Lex's office opened and the tall, broad, blond presence of Mr. Raines walked in. "Good morning, Mr. Luthor."

"Is it, Mr. Raines? I'm inclined to doubt it when my chief of security pays me an unscheduled visit. Do we have a problem?"

Personally, the man had rubbed Lex the wrong way at first, but professionally he was just what Lex wanted: experienced, loyal, and discreet. He was one of the best at what he did, and he worked for Lex, not his dad or LuthorCorp.

"What we have is an anomaly, Sir." Raines said as he sat down and placed three videos on Lex's desk. "Whether this is a problem or not is something we need to assess."

"What kind of anomaly?"

Raines picked up a tape and raised an eyebrow to Lex, "May I?"

"Certainly." Lex gestured to the TV/VCR on the shelf to the right of his desk.

"What you're about to see is a tape from approximately four this morning." He slotted the tape in and hit play on the control panel.

A high contrast black and white security shot of part of the mansion gardens came up. The monitoring equipment was new and used the latest night vision and motion sensor technology to direct the cameras. It had been installed immediately after the break-in that had injured Chloe Sullivan and lost Lex a valuable corporate data disk.

Lex wasn't sure exactly where this shot had been taken, but at the moment he didn't care. What he cared about was that sitting in the middle of the shot was Clark Kent, leaning up against a retaining wall, apparently asleep.

Lex watched as his friend started rocking slightly. He seemed to be dreaming. Suddenly, Clark threw back his head and slammed it into the wall behind him.

The stone shattered.

Raines froze the picture and Lex stared at the face of his best friend: his eyes were squeezed shut, he was biting his lip to the point that it appeared to be bleeding, and he had a look of concentration that Lex wanted to break.

No.

Lex wanted to own it, to do whatever was necessary to see it again. Preferably in person next time.

"This was the point at which the motion sensors picked him up and upgraded the station to 'intrusion warning'. It was the vibration from breaking the stones that set them off." Raines paused and looked at Lex. "Who is he, Mr. Luthor?"

"You know who he is." Or at least as much as Lex was willing to let him know about Clark. "He's one of four people on my immediate access roster. I should think you would have already researched him."

His security chief ignored the jibe, and pointed to the image on the television screen. "Once I saw this, I went back and checked the passive recordings." Raines gestured to the stack of tapes. "He's been sitting in that same spot for an hour or two a night almost every night for the last three days. He's so still once he's there, that he doesn't set off the motion sensors. How he gets there without setting them off, I don't know."

Lex's eyes narrowed, "I thought this was state of the art equipment, Mr. Raines. Why don't you know?"

Raines popped out the tape and picked up the next one in the stack. "Watch."

The screen came up with a picture of the same spot. The wall was not broken and Clark was not there, so this was an earlier tape. Lex opened his mouth to ask Raines what he was supposed to be seeing, when from one frame to the next, Clark was suddenly there. Sitting on the wall. Staring up at the mansion.

Lex swallowed.

That was... fast.

Teleportation?

It wasn't supposed to be scientifically possible, but neither was walking through walls, and he'd seen that with his own eyes. He'd seen other meteor-altered humans do things just as strange.

Or maybe Clark was just really, really fast.

"Who else has seen this?" Lex demanded.

"The mids shift brought the initial alarm to my attention last night. Once I saw who it was, I checked the passive recordings myself. All the copies of the tapes are accounted for and sitting on your desk."

"Good." Lex felt the tightness in his chest ease slightly. Raines had contained the problem admirably.

"However, I must tell you that I consider this to be a threat to your security. I can't protect you if I don't have the facts." Raines said softly, "I've never heard of a Kansas farm boy that could get through a world class security system and just appear inside the perimeter. I am asking you again, Mr. Luthor, who is he? Or should I be asking, what is he?"

Lex went cold. Other security staff had seen last night's intrusion alarm and the video of Clark breaking the stone. Had any of them posed that question?

He'd known Clark had a habit of just showing up at the mansion. Why hadn't he warned his friend about the new security system? Too late to be worrying about that now, of course. Time to focus on damage control. Lex had been careless, but he would not let Clark pay the price.

"He's my friend, Mr. Raines, my best friend. You don't need to protect me from him and you certainly don't need to ask any such questions about him." Lex's eyes narrowed as he considered the fate of his chief of security. The man was an asset, unless he insisted on becoming a liability. "You are a valued employee, Mr. Raines. You came to me with the highest recommendations for your discretion concerning the private lives of your employers. I find I must rely on that discretion now."

"I can't operate in the dark, Mr. Luthor."

"You have all the facts that I have." Which was true. The man had all the facts; he just didn't have all the conjecture, the hypotheses, or the first hand experience of what meteor exposure could do to a child.

Lex got up and paced a few steps behind his desk before he continued, "The feed from this camera will be taken off the main security grid and recorded separately. You will be the only one to handle the tapes. I will be the only one to review them. There will be no discussion of Clark Kent among security personnel. You will find a fault in the camera or motion sensor grid that explains his sudden appearance on last night's tape. You will accomplish this by the end of the day and turn in a full report by 6:30 this evening, or you will turn in your resignation."

"You are leaving a hole a mile wide in your security." Raines' voice rose and he jabbed a finger at the picture of Clark on the television, "That boy could get into your home and assault you or kill you, Mr. Luthor, and I would not be able to prevent it."

"He's my friend."

"He's a stalker."

"I can take that resignation now, if you prefer."

The silence in the room pressed in at his temples and gave Lex the mother of all headaches. He needed the kind of competence and loyalty that Raines had demonstrated, but he would be goddamned if he was going to allow anyone to investigate Clark or his family again. He had made a promise to Clark that night in the hospital: the matter was dropped. The friendship would be protected.

Lex's first impulse was to remove the threat, but there were problems inherent in that as well.

"I'll do as you ask, but I want you to sign a statement attesting to the fact that this is being done against my professional advice."

"Very well. You will have it at 6:30, when I have my report." Lex allowed himself to breathe freely for the first time in several minutes.

Raines nodded and rose to leave; Lex rose as well, and held out his hand. After a moment, Raines took it and said, "I hope you know what you are doing, Mr. Luthor. I've never lost a client. I don't want you to be the first."

Lex smiled. "I appreciate your concern, Mr. Raines, and your understanding."

Raines simply nodded and left.

As soon as the door shut, Lex was on the intercom to his secretary, "Melanie, clear my afternoon. Tell Gabe we'll reschedule the final personnel reviews for tomorrow morning. I have urgent business at home. You can reach me by cell, but only for emergencies."

"Yes, Mr. Luthor."

Lex headed home to take a look at his garden wall, but he redirected on the way when he got a frantic call from Lana.

"Lex, there's water coming down right in the middle of the room and the contractor just keeps looking at it and shaking his head!"

"He's milking it for a higher fee. It's all right, Lana, try to get him to give you a definite estimate. If he can't provide one, tell him we'll find someone that will. Use my name." Lex smirked to himself as he pulled the car over to finish the conversation. "Put the fear of Luthor into him."

"Right." He could hear Lana take a deep breath, "I won't let him intimidate me, Lex."

"Good girl." He thought about the fact that Lana really was just a girl, and dealing with a contractor on her own showed a lot of determination. Maybe he ought to ensure that the contractor understood exactly who stood behind her. "Tell him I'll be by. Don't tell him when, just that I am going to drop in today and make sure he knows I'm a concerned owner. Okay?"

"Okay."

"You sure?" He thought she sounded a bit shakey.

"I'm fine, Lex." Lana assured him. "Clark is coming by soon, he's going to help me with some stuff, and you know, well, there's just so much to do! And now this."

Had he ever been that young? That nervous? "Nothing will be allowed to delay the opening, Lana. We'll get it all done. I promise."

"Okay, I'll see you soon."

After he hung up the phone he turned the car around and headed into town. Clark was going to be at the Talon, and certainly Lana needed his support, so there was no question of going home now.

It was going to be a fun evening.

Later, when Lana handed him an application for assistant manager, filled out with a dead man's name on it, he realized that once again Smallville had caught him flat footed and unprepared.

Speeding everywhere was not always the best way to go, Clark reflected as he walked from the Grand opening of the Talon. He kicked a stone with the toe of his dress shoe and continued to put one foot in front of the other at the rate of a very human, pensive teenager.

Walking gave him time to think, to contemplate, to meditate on the massive pile of lies that seemed to be at the heart of his life. He lied to his friends about his powers and his origins, he lied to his family about his dreams and his feelings, and he lied to Lex about absolutely everything. The worst part was that he couldn't see a way out, not now.

Not since Zero.

He kicked another stone in frustration, and winced as it embedded itself in a tree.

He'd come to rely on Lex way too much, in ways his friend didn't even know about, and probably would never understand.

At night, if he'd woken up from a dream, from the dream, he'd gotten into the habit of going to the mansion. He'd jump the wall, super-speed to the garden just below Lex's window and look up at his sleeping friend.

It had helped.

It had made him feel safe, like he could go back home and sleep and it was okay, 'cause it had just been a dream.

And then Jude Royce had come back from the dead, or seemed to, and Clark had abandoned his best friend to the machinations of a psychotic.

Clark scuffed the toe of his shoe into the asphalt, leaving a shallow furrow. He didn't even notice.

Cool it for a while.

That's what his mom had said, and how could Clark argue when they had a field full of LuthorCorp chemicals and dead cows?

He'd never seen his dad cry before.

And Lex kept telling him to stay out of it; let him handle it. Lex was the one who made everything okay, so Clark could do that. He could leave it. The past was the past and Clark really didn't want to know if his friend had done something terrible back in Metropolis three years ago. Everyone said Lex was dangerous, that bad things happened around him, and, honestly, Clark had been afraid to find out if that were true. Let Lex have his secrets since, God knew, Clark had his.

That's what he'd told himself. That's how he'd justified leaving his friend to face death on his own.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut and scrubbed at his face, trying to erase the image of how Lex must have looked, chained at the ankles and bound up in a straight jacket hanging from the ceiling of the Club Zero.

Sure, Clark had got to him in the end, but how long had Lex hung there?

And when Lex told him the truth, lying there on that filthy, soaking couch, covered in shards of glass, hardly able to see because his eyes were so puffy from all the blood having settled in his head; when Lex spilled out the truth, it turned out that the shady past everyone had warned Clark about had just been a smoke screen to save a friend.

Clark had almost hoped that there had been some other reason, some sense of self preservation in the cover-up, but Lex had looked straight at him when they had spoken at the Talon's party earlier this evening: "I was just trying to protect Amanda."

Maybe it hadn't been exactly the right thing to do by some standards, but Lex didn't really operate by anyone's standards but his own. He'd lie to protect a friend. He'd let his own father believe he'd killed a man, just to keep a friend from jail. He'd cut that friend out of his life, lose him completely, to keep him safe. Even if the friend didn't want it. Even if the friend would rather go to jail, or be exposed to the press.

Clark could understand why Amanda had killed herself.

Clark didn't want to do to Lex what Amanda had. He didn't want to draw Lex into his own secrets. Dangerous secrets. Who knew what Lex would do to protect Clark, if Lex ever found out?

Clark muffled a sigh as his mind went over and over what he had already analyzed to death. He couldn't keep using Lex as a security blanket. It was too dangerous for all concerned. He squared his shoulders and started to pick up the pace for home.

He didn't fool himself into thinking the dreams were gone, but he resolved to find some way to beat them on his own. He had to if he wanted to be able to maintain his net of lies.

As he sped up to a pace faster than what most people could see, Clark remembered Lex's final words at the party: "The truth is, I'd do anything to protect a friend."

Those were the words that had sealed it. Clark knew then he could never tell Lex.

It was almost 10:00 PM when he got home and he found his mother and father sitting out on the porch in their jackets with cups of cocoa. As if the cocoa would make it look less like they were waiting up for him.

Clark grinned and walked up with his hands in his trouser pockets, his suit jacket open and casual. There were no comments about the cold and the thinness of his jacket. Sometimes it was cool to have parents that loved you and knew your secrets.

"How was the party, Clark?" his mother asked as he came up the steps.

"It was good. Lana's done a great job with the Talon." Clark smiled as he recalled how Lana had looked. "I don't think I've ever seen her so happy. She spent all evening going around talking to everyone, organizing things. I think she's going to be a real success."

"That's good to hear." Jonathan said, although he was frowning, and Clark tensed a bit knowing what was coming next. "I just hope she doesn't get caught up in anymore craziness like last week. There's no telling what could happen now that she's in business with the Luthors."

Clark could suddenly feel the chill in the air; he crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at the tips of his dress shoes. "She isn't in business with the Luthors, she's in business with Lex. His dad doesn't have any tie-ins with the Talon."

"And it was because of Lex that a man was murdered and his hand delivered to the Talon in a box." His dad reminded him, refraining from mentioning the dead cows. Again.

Not that he had to, because Clark could fill in all the blanks himself.

"Was Chloe there?" His mom broke in with a change of topic, and Clark looked up gratefully.

"Yeah," Clark put on his best 'I'm a normal guy smile' and joined his mother in pretending the topic of Lex Luthor had not been brought up. "She and Pete were both there. Pete was teasing Lana by trying to come up with these really complicated orders that I'd, like, never heard of. He'd say, 'I want a tall, soy-skim latte with an espresso shot with wings.' The first time he did it Lana almost dropped her order pad."

That got them to laugh, and Clark felt a little less cold.

"But when Chloe punched Pete in the arm, Lana realized he was just kidding her, so after that, no matter what he ordered, all Lana would bring him was a kid's hot chocolate with extra whip cream."

More chuckles and smiles. Okay, back on relatively safe ground.

His mom was still smiling when she asked, "So Chloe hasn't asked anything else about the adoption?"

"Huh?" Clark was surprised, he'd told his folks that Chloe had dropped that. "No, she didn't bring it up. She said she was going to stop hunting for stuff and I think she meant it. Which actually kind of surprised me 'cause, you know, she's Chloe 'I think, therefore I ask' Sullivan."

"She's a good friend, Clark," his dad said, and gave him a real smile, "I'm sure that now that she understands how much it upset you, she'll respect your wishes."

"But what I really wish is that I could tell her, Dad. Tell them all."

Bad move. Clark saw his parents exchange the time-for-a-talk look and tried not to groan.

"I'll just take the cups in and wash up." His mom said, taking his dad's mug, and gracefully handing off the control of the conversation.

As the screen door swung shut, his dad leaned forward on the porch swing and jerked his head to indicate the seat next to him, "Come sit down, Son."

Clark moved, although reluctantly; he had a feeling that he could recite this conversation from heart if he wanted to.

With a cough and a deep breath it began, "I know you want to tell your friends, Clark, I can understand that. It's hard to hide things from the people you care about, but you're not lying to anyone to try and take advantage of them, or anything, you're keeping your family and yourself safe. Chloe, for example. I'm sure she would never put you in danger, but would she see the danger, Son? Or would she just see a story? The story. The one that would put her on the front page of the Planet, or the New York Times. It's just kinder not to make people choose."

"I know all this, Dad." He gripped his hands together, remembering just in time that gripping anything else would mean more broken furniture.

"I know you do, Clark, but I also know that you're entering a time in your life when relationships take a more serious turn. A time when you're more likely to feel like you want to share everything about yourself with the right person."

"And what's wrong with that? Isn't that what you have with, Mom?"

"Nothing's wrong with it, Son. It just that there's a lot of experimentation that goes on before you meet that right person. It's not something that necessarily happens right away, and with your gifts you have to be especially selective about who you... experiment with, and how far you let things go."

Clark risked a quick glance at his father and saw that he too was gripping his hands and staring at the floor boards of the porch.

"So, we're talking about sex, right?"

"Yes, partly. Not just sex, of course, but," there was a long pause, then his dad steeled himself and rushed ahead, "your mom has noticed that you've been doing a lot of laundry early in the mornings lately, she mentioned it to me. Thought maybe we should talk."

"Talk?" Oh, god. For several seconds Clark didn't know if he was going to laugh or puke. In the end he did neither. He got angry.

"You know, just to say that because of your gifts, you're going to need to have more self control than most boys. You have a lot of experience with that in other aspects of your life, though, just like when you learned how to play with kids who were weaker than you, you can learn how to... be with a woman. It just might take a little caution at first." Jonathan shrugged and smiled at his son, "When it comes down to it, though, you aren't that different from any teenage boy going through this. I want you to know that you noticing girls at your age is completely normal, and so is your body's reaction to... the noticing."

"You don't know that." His words were flat, cold, and hard, and clearly not what his dad was expecting.

"What?"

"You don't know whether it's normal for me to be noticing girls. Or anyone. Or anything! We don't know what my people do... that way. I could start trailing after the Thomas's bitch next time she's in heat for all we know or-"

Clark snapped his teeth shut before saying anything about spreading his legs for their bull, Jeremiah.

Or anything about pain.

Or Lex.

Come to think of it, in this context, his dad would almost certainly prefer Jeremiah to Lex.

"Son, I'm sorry. I hadn't really thought about how this might worry you, but I can't help you if you don't talk to me. Have you had any urges that seemed," Jonathan searched for the right word, "unusual?"

"Look, they've stopped. Like you said, I just have to control it. I don't want to talk about it right now, okay?"

"Fine, but if you have problems, or if you have any questions, then I want you to come talk to me. Understand?"

"Yeah," Clark nodded, without any intention of following through. After all, what had Dad said? It was kinder not to make people choose.

"Well, I guess it's getting kind of late."

"Yeah."

"Good night, Son."

"Night, Dad."

Clark stayed on the porch until he was sure both his parents had turned in, then he slowly went inside and up to his room.

He was tired. Sort of. Or maybe not.

He took off his suit, hung it up and sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.

Clark tried to compare his condition now to how he had felt after completing a day of chores without the aid of his alien strength. He remembered Lex coming up and asking him if he was really having trouble lifting a fence rail. He remembered the leaden feeling in his arms, the soreness in his back, and the ache in his feet.

None of that corresponded to what he was feeling now. He just didn't get tired. Sure his concentration was a bit off; he felt a little distracted in class, but nothing like tired. So maybe what he had told his folks this morning was the truth, even if he had come round to it in an odd way. Maybe he really didn't need to sleep so much anymore.

But even if he wasn't tired, even if he didn't need to sleep, Clark craved a chance to just turn his brain off. He flopped back crosswise on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Maybe he'd just shut his eyes for a minute, and try not to think.

This time he was already hanging in Reilly's field.

"Ready for the truth, Clark?"

He shivered to hear the voice again, because he'd been afraid that it wouldn't find him this time. Why should it take the trouble?

A breeze rattled through the corn and sent Clark gently swinging. He was upside down. No football players this time. He missed Whitney's warm, strong arms; the straight jacket was cold.

"I know you want to tell me. Or should I tell you?"

The voice was in front of him now in a black silk shirt that absorbed the starlight and smelled of citrus and spice, and leather pants that barely brushed Clark's cheek as the voice stopped just in front of him.

He whined.

"Come on, Clark, you can do better than that. You're a very well spoken young man. So polite. So dutiful."

He tried. He wanted to speak. He wanted to say something, anything. He wanted so much.

"Let me show you."

Moonlit hands reached out and grabbed him by the sleeves of the straightjacket, pulling him closer, making the rope creak and shift. The hemp bit into his ankles and he moaned again.

The right hand kept a firm hold on the material while the left reached up. He couldn't see. He heard the shift of cotton fabric and felt, oh god, he felt-

"You see, your problem, Clark, is that you can't suck cock with a mouth full of lies."

He bit his lips to keep from screaming as he was swallowed down the pale throat. He couldn't thrust; he had no leverage, but he was so close, so close. Then it was gone. Cold air hit his dick and he heard a chuckle across the night sky.

The world spun until he was on his back in the corn.

He was still in the straightjacket, but his boxers were gone: naked from the waist down, he lay with his cock jutting up past the jacket's leather crotch-strap, aching for what scared him.

"If you can't tell people the truth, then the least you can do is show them. Don't you think?"

He tried to look around, twisting on his back, feeling the rasp of corn stalks and husks under him, but it took a moment for him to spot them in the dark. There standing at the edge of the field: Mom. Dad. Pete. Chloe. Lana. They were in front. Behind them were teachers, Principal Kwan, other students. Standing. Watching. Whispering.

Waiting.

Beauty with blue eyes, pale skin, and nothing else was kneeling between his legs, smiling. Artful hands stroked down along his thighs and fondled his balls. He gasped, couldn't catch his breath, and then his legs were up over sculpted shoulders and he heard, "Let's show them, Clark."

The first thrust sent fire up his spine, the next felt like it went up to his throat, and it kept on like that, painful and glorious, as he listened to the snide whispers and saw the disgust on his friends' faces.

The cock that had been drilling him suddenly pulled out. He whined in need and hunger.

"Pervert." The voice said lovingly and slowly sank back in.

"Faggot." In and out, the pace picking up again, he began to pant.

"Liar." One more almost back-breaking thrust, and then he was held still, knees to his chest, a mouth in his ear, breath tickling his cheek with one final whisper.

"Alien."

He was still coming as he woke up to find himself lying naked in Reilly's field.

Clark ran home so fast he practically flew. The wind of his passage dried the semen smeared on his stomach, and the tears tracking down his cheeks. After quietly washing up in the kitchen he went back to his room and started on a history paper he had due next week.

The clock said it was 1:00 AM, but there was no way he was going back to sleep.

Ever.

The morning after the Talon's grand opening, Lex went out to check on the repairs to the stone wall in the garden. Workmen had removed the shattered stone and the old masonry and were preparing to insert a new piece of granite.

Lex picked up a few fragments from the pile of debris and examined them, as if they held answers for all the questions he'd promised not to ask. He'd have to tell Clark about the cameras. Even with Raines's promise of discretion, the risk was too great. But if he told Clark about the cameras, then he'd have to tell him about the video-tapes.

Shit.

He didn't want to hear another lie from Clark.

Clark wasn't going to tell him anything. Lex knew that. He even understood it, to an extent, considering what happened to the average meteor altered human here in Smallville.

But he wanted Clark to tell him.

And he wanted Clark.

Dammit.

He threw down the stone chips. Maybe it was a moot point. Clark hadn't showed up on the surveillance tapes for over a week. It had probably been a phase, a bout of insomnia. There was unlikely to be any recurrence.

Lex sighed and headed back to the house, looking up the path as he went. Looking up at the house.

At his room.

Lex stopped and then looked back over his shoulder at the spot where Clark had been sitting. Then he looked back up at the windows of his room.

It was like watching Tetris bricks pile up in a perfect endgame pattern. Clark had been sitting in Lex's garden.

Late at night.

Watching Lex's window.

Which was all actually rather sweet and romantic, until you thought about the fact that Clark, being most probably meteor-altered or enhanced, might see more through that window than your average human.

"He's my friend."

"He's a stalker."

Fuck.

"Hey, Lex."

Lex whirled to his right and saw Clark coming down the path from the kitchen.

"Clark!" Lex hurried to meet him, not wanting to draw attention to Clark's nighttime sentry post.

Clark jogged the last few steps down the gravel path to meet Lex. It was chilly enough that his breath was visible and his skin rosy, but the temperature didn't seem to bother him: he was only wearing jeans and a thin denim jacket, with his ever-present T-shirt-under-flannel look.

"Ms. Franklin said you were out here. She said you wanted to see me. Is something wrong?"

Clark's voice was hesitant and his eyes dark with worry. Just looking at Clark made Lex's chest ache and his breath catch. He savagely thrust away all thoughts of cameras, motion sensors, fractured stone, and unrequited lust.

"No, nothing like that." He smiled at his friend, and sidestepped the question. "Look, let's go inside, shall we? I think I've had enough of the autumn colors for the moment, and the autumn temperatures along with them."

Lex had great hands. Long thin aristocratic fingers, smooth palms, delicate bones fanning out from intricate wrists, overlain with the traceries of ligaments and tendons, muscles and cartilage: they were a symphony of form, function, and sensitivity.

"Clark?"

He studied Lex's right hand as it closed over his knee: how the fingers curved around, cupping his patella, how the thumb bone was pulled back and forth by the flexing and relaxing of small muscles that linked to the joints.

Fantastic hands.

"Clark! Are you with me?"

Clark jerked up to find that he was sitting on the couch in the library, Lex's hand on his knee, Lex's face only inches away, and concern in his eyes.

"Sorry," Clark said sheepishly and ran his hand through his hair. How long had they been sitting like that?

"You were kind of out of it there for a minute." Lex pulled back and settled deeper into the overstuffed couch, "Want to tell me what's got you so distracted?"

"It's nothing, I just haven't been sleeping that well, that's all."

"Still dreaming?" The look Lex was giving him was so calculating, that Clark imagined his X-ray vision would reveal wheels and gears spinning at super speed in Lex's head.

"Some." Try last night.

He'd told his Mom he'd gotten up early to help his Dad with the cows and then do his homework. After chores he had run to school, not wanting to wait for the bus, wanting to keep active. Christ, an hour, maybe two, of rest was all he'd gotten.

Sleepwalking out to Reilly's field hadn't helped.

He'd dreamed of feeling and lying, and he'd wandered all over the countryside, and still Clark Kent wasn't tired.

He should enter a dance marathon. Sure winner.

Lex's hand was back, this time on his shoulder. Was super speed catching? "Dreams don't have to mean anything, Clark, but sometimes it helps to talk about them. Just to get them out in the open."

Okay, not good. Lex looked worried. Lex wanted to know about the dreams. Clark was outsider enough as it was. He didn't need to lose his best friend to yet another weirdness.

Shit, this had been a bad idea. He shouldn't have come here, he'd wanted to see Lex, but he shouldn't have come.

"Yeah, maybe, some other time," Clark stood up and backed toward the door, looking at the floor, his shoes, the window, anywhere but Lex's eyes, "but I gotta go, Lex. Dad's waiting for the truck."

Lex was still sitting on the couch. Still. Still. Very still. Don't-want-to-frighten-the-crazy-boy kind of still.

Clark swallowed. Blinked. Breathed.

Lex leaned forward slowly, elbows on his knees, and looked at him so intensely Clark's eyes were just caught. He couldn't look away. "You can come here anytime, Clark. Anytime you want to talk, or even just sit, whatever. You know that, right?"

Clark's turn to be still now. A rabbit hiding from a fox: don't see me. Don't see me. 'cause Lex couldn't know. He couldn't.

But he was waiting for an answer.

"I- Yeah. I know, Lex. Thanks. I appreciate it. I just gotta get home right now."

Clark backed out of the room and then sped out of the mansion. He was halfway home before he realized he had forgotten the truck, so he turned around and went back for it. Driving home seemed to take forever.

The house line didn't make it through the first ring before Lex had picked it up.

"Yes?" he answered as he continued to pace behind his desk.

"The produce delivery has arrived, Mr. Luthor." Ms. Franklin's voice was quiet and hesitant, "Mr. Jonathan Kent is delivering it now."

"Thank you, Ms. Franklin."

Goddammit.

Something was wrong. Lex couldn't begin to count how many things were wrong. Clark never missed a delivery without letting him know in advance. All right, letting Ms. Franklin know. But he understood, didn't he? That telling Ms. Franklin was the same as telling Lex. And Jonathan Kent wouldn't deliver to a Luthor unless Hell was well on its way to an early winter.

The scene in the study five days ago played over in his head. Clark had been strange, a bit distracted. He'd stared at Lex as if he could see right through him and then he'd suddenly had to leave. Lex had tried to talk to him, but Clark hadn't seemed to be able to focus.

So he'd let it go.

Let the boy go.

Let his friend go.

He'd waited for Clark to come back on his own and explain what was troubling him, to ask Lex for help. He'd waited for Clark to trust him.

The great Lex Luthor.

Because wasn't that what he was always expecting?. Wanting Clark to need him, look up to him, let him run Clark's goddamn life like he ran the goddamn crap factory. What was it Jonathan Kent had said? Let him sprinkle a little money on Clark's problems and make them go away.

On top of all of this, in the back of his mind was the voice that sounded amazingly like his father, derisively chastising him for being so concerned over the well-being of his produce-delivery boy. Lex Luthor was a businessman and playboy of some standing. The idea of him obsessing like a lovesick teen over some high school student was nauseating.

Wasn't it?

But Lex almost preferred thinking of his father's objections compared to listening to the voice of his inner scientist as it theorized, in a way that he had promised Clark he would stop, about how so many of the people affected by the meteors could go for years without any problems and then suddenly crack. How they could seem perfectly stable, perfectly sane, until something set them off. He stopped pacing and fingered the psychological evaluations of Tina Greer and Earl Jenkins sitting on his desk: lack of judgment, lack of impulse control, psychotic tendencies.

Tina and Earl weren't the only models he had either. Sean and Greg hadn't lived long enough to be examined, and what was left of the gang that had broken into the mansion was unfortunately out of his reach in the state penitentiary, but he'd seen enough of them to know that they were just as mentally unstable.

He'd thought he and Clark were the exceptions.

Meteor-altered humans were called mutants in Smallville. Lex knew. He'd heard the term. Once discovered, they ended up institutionalized at best, dead at worst.

Lex wasn't going to let that happen to Clark.

He dropped the reports back on the desk, grabbed his coat and headed for the door. Clark's friends would know something. Getting most of them to talk might be difficult, but not Lana.

She'd answer him.

In his own fucking coffee shop, she would answer.

Clark had stopped sleeping five days ago.

Which at least proved he wasn't a rat. 'Cause rats die after three days without sleep; he'd looked it up. He didn't know how long it took humans to die from sleep deprivation. He hadn't found any studies on that. But that was cool. Not like he was human either.

The days passed in a blur: chores done before sun-up, away to school before the bus stopped at his house, classes all day that went straight over his head. He couldn't hear the teacher over the rustle of the corn, he couldn't see his notes through the glare of moonlight in his head, and all he could feel were the ghosts of ropes wrapped round him, holding him together.

"Clark, what is up with you today?" Chloe practically ran to catch up with him, grabbing his arm as he thudded out the front door of the school.

"Huh?" He looked down at her hand, saw the bright pink polished nails and tried to remember if they had scratched him at all while Eric had his powers. How would they feel digging into his flesh? Were they sharp enough to draw blood?

"CLARK!" This time it was Pete's voice that pulled him back. He had caught up with them and was standing at Chloe's shoulder. They were both looking at him expectantly.

"Sorry," Clark automatically apologized, and pulled his arm back from Chloe, "what did you say?"

"We asked if you were going to come with us the Talon, but maybe you shouldn't," Chloe frowned and gazed up into his eyes. "You look really out of it. Is everything OK?"

"Yeah, fine." Clark dredged up a smile and ducked his head in embarrassment. "I just haven't been sleeping real well lately. Guess it kind of shows."

"Then coffee is the way to go." Pete declared, and took both Chloe and Clark by the shoulders and directed them down Main Street towards the coffee bar. "We'll wake you up and give Lana some moral support."

Clark let himself be pushed. It felt good to be directed, to go where he was told. It was helpful too, because a couple of times today he had walked into walls because his sight had gone right through them. Now he could just let Pete guide him.

And the Talon was okay. It wasn't the mansion's garden and it wasn't Reilly's field. Those were the places he wasn't supposed to go. He'd promised himself.

"Clark, you really should have taken Ms. Patterson's psych elective, it is so cool." Chloe was saying.

"Yeah?" Clark focused on his friend's pretty teeth and the flashes of her pink tongue as she spoke. Kitten tongue.

"You just like it cause now they are getting into all that kinky Freudian stuff." Pete teased. He had a pink tongue, too, and skin like chocolate.

Clark frowned to himself. Was he supposed to be thinking things like that?

And then they were there. At the Talon. And the door was opening. Oh. Chloe was opening the door. He saw the muscles in her hand wrap around the door knob: tighten, twist, release.

The Talon was empty except for Lana behind the counter putting on an apron and Whitney sitting across from her at the counter. Clark looked away quickly. That was someone he didn't want to think about, he was sure. He saw Chloe give him a concerned look, so he smiled. That's what you did when people were worried about you.

"Hey, Lana!" Pete called as they walked up to the counter.

"Hi, guys!" Lana answered brightly and picked up an order pad.

"I take it we are the after school rush?" Chloe commented looking around at the empty seats.

"So far." Lana admitted with a small shrug and a cheerleader's smile. Lana knew about smiles, too, Clark realized. "What'll you have?"

"Hmmm," Pete made a show of contemplating the menu, "I'll have a skim double mocha latte with- OW!" He cut off as Chloe smacked him on the shoulder.

"It's old, Pete," she said with a grin.

Lana chuckled and added, "One more chance, and then it's kid-sized hot chocolates for the rest of your natural life."

"Dang. Help me out here, Clark."

Clark considered for a moment and then said, "I could drink the hot chocolates for you." Everyone laughed so he knew what he'd said was okay.

"Seriously, what do you guys want to drink?" Lana finally asked.

Clark ordered hot chocolate, Pete got a caramel latte, and Chloe ordered a Mocha Frappuccino.

"How can you drink that at this time of year?" Whitney asked from down at his end of the bar.

"It's not the drink, man," Pete said before Chloe could answer. "It's the straw. Chloe is into Freudian symbolism this term."

"Pete!" Chloe and Lana shrieked simultaneously, while Whitney was trying not to snort his coffee through his nose. Clark smiled a little uncertainly; he wasn't quite sure he had caught that.

"Okay, okay," Pete raised his hands in surrender, "but you left yourself open, Chloe. I mean all that talk about the sexual symbolisms in dreams, like you're studying in Ms. Patterson's class..."

"In dreams, Pete, dreams, not in the Talon." Chloe drawled, "And I totally don't think I can have a frappuccino now. Lana, can I change that to a cappuccino?"

"Sure. For here?"

"Yup!"

"Great, you can all try out our new mugs!" Lana told them as she turned to make the drinks, "Some people say the coffee tastes better out of a real mug, so we are giving it a try."

There were hissing and frothing noises as Lana made the drinks. Conversation flowed on for a bit, but Clark wasn't listening. Something was bothering him.

"Dreams don't have to mean anything, you know." He finally said. "They're just dreams."

"Well, Mr. Kent," Chloe turned to him with sharp eyes, "that's very 18th century of you. Care to elaborate?"

Clark frowned, "No. Just, you know, they don't have to mean anything."

"C'mon, Chloe, you have to admit, we've all had dreams that were way too stupid to have a symbolic interpretation." Pete stepped in.

"Those would be precisely the kind of dreams that could give you the most understanding of the hidden workings of your psyche!" Chloe exclaimed. "At least if you had a working psyche." Chloe said, looking skeptically at Pete.

"Hey!" Pete protested.

"Drinks are up!" Lana announced, and set out the extra large mugs. "Be careful, they're pretty hot."

"Thanks, Lana." Clark said automatically, picking up his mug and wrapping his hands around it.

Chloe wasn't letting the dream topic go, however. She cocked her head at Clark and gave him a considering look, "Now, Clark here, he is a subject with hidden depths. Tell me, Mr. Kent, what are the dreams you are having that are so unsymbolic?"

Clark jerked up as if Chloe had slapped him. His hands tightened convulsively around his mug and he watched it in slow motion as it shattered, spraying himself and the bar with steaming hot chocolate. Shards of stoneware scraped across his palms without penetration.

There was no blood. No burn. No pain. Nothing. Because, as Clark had come to realize, it wasn't real. None of this was real. He wasn't real.

He clutched his hands to his chest trying to reconstruct in his head what the pain should have felt like. He doubled up, ignoring the sound of the wind rushing through the corn, and the smell of moonlight, citrus and cinnamon.

And there were shouts.

"Shit, Clark!"

"Oh, my God, are you all right?"

"Let me see your hands, Clark, come on. Please, Clark! Pete, get some ice, he's gotta be burned."

And then there were strong arms on his shoulders, forcing him up and blue eyes watching him with concern, and Whitney said, "Don't be a wuss, Kent, let me see how bad you're hurt." The gentle tone didn't match the words, but Clark understood.

It was the dream.

"I won't go. You can't make me go." But his voice trembled, because he wasn't certain.

"What are you talking about, Clark?" Whitney looked puzzled. "Go where?"

There was a bang, and footsteps, and then Whitney was jerked away and as Clark backed up against the wall he heard the voice, and knew that Reilly's field had come to him.

Coming up the walk, Lex caught a glimpse of Clark in the Talon. All right. Good. A chance for answers, he thought, until he opened the door and heard everyone shouting and saw Whitney manhandling Clark.

And Clark looked afraid.

He looked fucking terrified and he was shouting, "I won't go. You can't make me go."

Oh, no. Not again, not this time.

Lex snarled and ripped Whitney away from Clark, shoving him hard up against the bar. "Get off him, Quarterback!"

"I didn't do anything!" Whitney held his hands high looking first at Lex and then back at Clark, who was backed up against a wall slowly sliding down to sit on the floor. Lana and Chloe crouched on either side trying to get him to talk.

"Really?" Lex was still in Whitney's face, his voice calm and almost business-like. "Looked to me like a re-enactment of Homecoming. Didn't have enough fun the first time? Or is it just that you can't stand to be in Clark's debt?"

Chloe was keeping only half an eye on them as she tried to get Clark to react but he wasn't even seeing her. "What are you guys talking about? Clark, what's wrong?"

But Pete heard enough to understand. He was coming from behind the bar with a towel in one hand and a bucket of ice in the other as he stared at Whitney. "Clark? Clark was this year's scarecrow?"

Clark was rocking, his arms wrapped around himself, his face still sticky with chocolate. Lana tried to wipe it away with her hands, but he kept flinching.

"Lex, there's something really wrong with him," she said, her voice trembling.

Lex looked at his friend and thought, 'drugs'. Then, no, it couldn't be, not Clark. But maybe Whitney. "What did you give him? When and how much?"

"Nothing, I swear, I just wanted to check out his hands and see if he was hurt." Whitney swallowed and looked to Lana for confirmation.

She nodded. "He's telling the truth, Lex, we were all just talking, and then Clark's mug broke and there was hot chocolate everywhere and I think he must have burned himself."

"It didn't just break," Pete insisted, joining Lana and Chloe at Clark's side, "it fucking shattered." He set the towel and the ice down and started trying to get Clark to show him his hands.

"You can let go of Whitney any time, Lex," Chloe told him. "He didn't do this. Clark has been acting strangely all week."

Which was true, Lex reminded himself of the missed delivery, and of the one visit where Clark had seemed so unfocused. Okay, so maybe not Whitney. This time.

He let the young man go and walked over to the others.

Clark had his eyes screwed shut and was muttering softly. Lex could just make out the words: "won't go won't go"

Chloe looked at him with frightened eyes. "What's happening to him, Lex?"

"I don't know, a flashback of some kind, I think."

"But it was just a prank." Lana whispered softly, and she was staring over Lex's shoulder at her boyfriend.

"Oh, yes," Lex agreed quietly, "The same kind of prank the Romans used to pull on political prisoners and felons. I'm sure they found it even more amusing than Clark did, since they actually died of it."

None of them had anything thing to say to that. Not that Lex expected them to. Clark was the one that always engaged him in moral debates, not these children.

"I'll call his parents." Lana said quietly.

"No, I will." Lex told her and then jerked his head towards the front door, "I want the rest of you to wait outside. Let's clear the Talon and see if he calms down. Crowding him is just making it worse."

Following his own advice he stepped back a few paces.

It took a moment of silent pressure, but they finally all left. The room was suddenly quiet. Clark had even stopped muttering. Which was when Lex realized Clark's eyes were open and he was looking straight at Lex.

"Clark?"

His friend just stared.

"It's going to be okay. I promise. Do you want me to call your parents?"

Clark's eyes shut again, and he vehemently shook his head.

"You need to talk to me, Clark. Tell me the truth about what's going on."

No reaction.

Lex laid a hand on Clark's wrist, noting that from what he could see his friend's hands weren't even reddened. He rubbed his thumb over the back of Clark's hand, and said quietly, "It's okay, I won't do anything you don't want me to."

Somehow that was the wrong thing to say, because Clark got an anguished look and started shaking. Lex felt something that was almost like a hum under his fingers.

Then Clark was gone.

Clark was racing the corn. It rushed through his head murmuring. He should have known there was no escape. There was only one place he could go now.

He'd launched himself out of the Talon so quickly that Lex had seemed frozen in place, and his friends had stood outside the coffee shop in a diarama of concerned companions. Clark was already out of town and heading towards Plant 3 before he even registered their presence. He was sorry that they were worried, but he didn't have time to stop.

Because the voice had said it: he wanted to know what was going on, and he wasn't going to do anything Clark didn't want. No more pretending, no more lying. The voice never said what he didn't mean. Clark had no doubt that from now on there would be nothing unless he asked for it, unless he admitted to what he was.

But he was too afraid to do that in the Talon, or anywhere except here, and even here it was difficult.

He was standing in Reilly's field, looking up at the cross. He felt weak, he couldn't climb it; he couldn't put himself up there, not even for Lex.

He couldn't.

"Mr. Kent, please," Lex spoke into his cell phone as he stood in front of the Talon leaning on the roof of his Ferrari. "I am very concerned about Clark. Please let me help you find him. He left here very- abruptly, and I don't think he was in a normal frame of mind. I'm concerned for his safety."

"Clark goes off sometimes," Jonathan Kent kept his voice flat and calm, but Lex thought he heard Martha make a sound of protest in the background. "He'll come home when he's ready and not before. If there's anything bothering him, he'll tell us and we'll handle it. It's family business, Lex, and I am asking you to stay out of it. Something I'd think a Luthor would understand."

Lex closed his eyes and counted to ten in Latin before answering. "Of course, Mr. Kent. I understand perfectly." He understood that Jonathan Kent would rather have his son wandering half-crazed around the countryside than accept help from a Luthor. "Clark is your son. If you say that you don't need my assistance, then I can only trust your judgment on that."

"Thank you." There was an uncomfortable pause. "I'll tell Clark to call you when he gets back. "

"I'd very much appreciate it." Lex replied, and then stabbed at the 'end' button to disconnect the call.

"You're not really going to stop looking for Clark, are you." Chloe stated. Lex turned to see them all arranged in a semi-circle behind him with looks ranging from uncertainty to suspicion. He smiled.

Chloe, at least, didn't seem to think he was the kind of man that would abandon his best friend.

"Of course not," he confirmed. "I agreed not to give Clark's father my assistance. That doesn't mean I won't go looking myself."

"We." Lana corrected him in a firm voice.

Lex frowned and opened his mouth to disagree.

"Absolutely." Pete backed Lana up, and even the quarterback was nodding.

Fuck.

"Right." He sighed and thought for a moment, "We need to think about places Clark would go if he wanted to feel safe. Places where he would go to hide."

"The Kent barn," Lana said instantly, "but I guess his parents will check there."

"Your place." Chloe said with certainty.

It was a possibility. Lex remembered the tape of Clark in the garden. It was daylight now, but still. "You have a truck, don't you, Fordman?"

"Yeah, sure."

"I want you and the others to go and start checking the grounds at the mansion. I'll call ahead and make sure the gate knows to expect you.

"Why aren't you coming with us?" Pete asked suspiciously, "And if you have to call the gate for us, wouldn't that keep Clark out?"

"The gate has never kept Clark out." Lex smirked. "I'm going to drive the circuit around the edge of town and check the bus stations, just in case, and then I'll meet you there."

"All right." More nods. Everyone agreed and started moving towards Whitney's truck.

Perfect. Lex stepped around to the driver's side of the Ferrari.

"I'm going with Lex." Chloe announced, standing at the passenger-side.

"Miss Sullivan-"

"No arguments, Mr. Luthor." She made shooing gestures at Pete and Lana, who nodded and jogged after Whitney to the truck.

Lex clenched his jaw, and reminded himself that this was Clark's close friend. And actually, it might not be a bad thing to have her along if Clark was flashing on the scarecrow incident. Lex had been there. Chloe hadn't.

"Get in."

He slid behind the wheel, gunned the engine and Chloe had barely gotten her door shut before he peeled out down Main Street.

He heard the click of her safety belt and a little gasp as he took the turn-off to the factory at eighty miles an hour.

"You know where he is, don't you," she accused after a moment.

"I have a theory." He thought she would press for details, but she didn't.

Instead she said, "Clark was here, you know, when the meteors hit Smallville."

Shit.

"So was I."

Here head snapped around and she stared at him. "I didn't know."

He gave her a sideways smile and deliberately ran his hand over his scalp. "Souvenir of the day."

"Oh."

He thought that he'd managed to distract her, but Chloe was beyond persistent.

"You think Clark's been affected, don't you?"

He thought of Clark's sudden appearance on the security tapes, and his disappearance from beneath his hands less than thirty minutes ago.

"No." He shifted savagely into the next gear. They'd be there in minutes, and god help any traffic-cop that decided to pull them over now.

"Because sometimes it happens, you know, to the people that were here. They get kind of twitchy, like Clark has been the last few days, and then-"

Lex hit the brakes harder than he had to and pulled the car over sharply, the factory looming a short distance down the road. "We're here," he announced.

Chloe was looking at him with huge eyes, mouth hanging open. "Reilly's Field?"

Lex grabbed her arm, "Look, we are here to help Clark. If I'm right, he's in there reliving what may have been the most painful experience of his life. I'm not worried about the whys and the reasons. I'm worried about getting him out in one piece."

They stared at each other for a moment, before Chloe nodded sharply in agreement. "Right. Let's go."

They got out of the car and walked into the corn.

The sky was as blue as it had been the day the meteors fell, but it was as cold as it had been the night Lex had found Clark hung as the scarecrow. Lex felt like he was on some kind of continuous loop that kept bringing him back here to these sights and these smells. As if his destiny were hidden here in the Reilly's Field.

He was walking a little ahead of Chloe and was surprised when after only a dozen rows they broke into the open. The rest of the field was stubble, and Lex almost laughed. He'd had this image of Reilly's field perpetually planted with row upon row of full grown corn stalks. He'd forgotten that what he saw as the point of origin for the mythic figure he would become, was actually a working field planted and harvested like all the others in Kansas.

Against the shorn landscape, the scarecrow's cross stood out like a monument. Clark was there, huddled at its base, lying on his side, curled around it, as if it had impaled him. Lex just looked at him for a moment, overwhelmed by the desire to have Clark curled up like that around him.

A soft sound of distress from behind him brought him back to himself and the reality of the situation. He dug in his pants pocket without ever taking his eyes off of Clark, and handed Chloe the keys to the Ferrari. "Go back to the car. In the trunk there's an emergency kit. Bring the blankets and the first aid box."

"Got it." She grabbed the keys and he heard her run back through the windbreak, as he ran to Clark.

The sound of footsteps approaching didn't surprise him. He'd known the voice would follow. Lex wouldn't let him down.

And he needed this so bad.

The hand on his shoulder seemed warm, even through his denim jacket, and as he turned over, he smiled up at the one who always came to him, pale in the moonlight, and who was golden now in the setting sun.

"Clark? Can you hear me? Can you understand me, Clark?"

He nodded, of course he understood. He'd always understood. It was just that before he'd had nothing to say that wasn't either forbidden or a lie. But now he'd found something.

He reached up one hand and slid it behind Lex's neck, pulling him down close to smell the citrus and cinnamon on his skin.

"Clark? What is it?"

"Make it real, Lex. I want to be real. I want this to be real."

Clark pulled Lex the rest of the way down, and kissed him.

The first was a chilly kiss except for where they passed their breaths across, one to the other. The second one was warmer, wetter, and harder. That was when Lex tried to pull back, but he couldn't.

He really couldn't.

Not that he tried and it turned into a tug of war that Clark won, no, there was never even the question of a battle. Lex told his neck and his back to retract, and he felt them strain, but he didn't move even one millimeter.

Clark was strong.

Strength and teleportation. Or speed. Or whatever it was.

Wow.

But Lex would likely never make use of these discoveries since he couldn't breathe. He felt his hands batting futilely at Clark, until he got control of himself and focused, then punched as hard as he could into Clark's chest.

It hurt like hell, but got his friend's attention. Lex found himself on his back with corn stubble digging into his neck, and Clark lying half on top of him, but at least he was breathing.

And so was Clark. Into his ear.

"Please, Lex, please, make it real, I want it, promise, Lex, please-"

Then he heard silk ripping and felt a hand slide down his bare stomach. There was a groan of frustration when the hand met the belt at his waist.

"Clark, stop it." Lex tried to remain calm, then he felt his steel belt buckle give way like cheap plastic. "Shit! Clark!"

Clark was nibbling down Lex's neck while his hands were ripping out the zipper on his friend's pants, and still he kept on whispering, "In me, Lex, please, want you in me. I want to feel real."

"Lex! Oh my god! Clark, what are you doing?"

Chloe. Christ, he'd forgotten Chloe.

There was a thud and a rattle, which he assumed was the first aid box hitting the ground and then Chloe was kneeling next to them, trying to push Clark off.

"Clark, stop it, you can't do this!"

Lex could see her face now and she was frightened. She was shoving Clark but not having any more luck than Lex had.

Lex needed to get control here. Clark was going to hate himself when he came out of this. Lex had to-

"Jesus!" Hot strength wrapped around his dick and gave a gentle pull while Clark's mouth moved from his neck to his chest, ripping the shirt with his teeth wherever it got in the way.

Chloe's voice was sobbing now, "Clark, stop it, please stop it, please."

Clark paused, pulled back, looked down at Lex and then over to Chloe. His face was twisted with pain and confusion, his hands still holding Lex, carefully, but unmoving. "Please, Lex, I promise I want it, I promise I'll tell you whatever you want but I just- I'm so tired, tired of it not being real. Please."

Lex scrambled up to his knees, Clark let him, and when Lex pulled Clark in to his chest Clark let him do that, too, his breaths becoming more and more ragged as he collapsed against the older man.

Chloe sat next to them, tears streaming down her face, the blanket and first aide box forgotten beside her.

"Chloe, take the keys and go back to the car." Lex told her quietly, rubbing gentle circles on Clark's back, "Get in and start the motor. Keep it running. Don't call anyone, and don't leave. Not unless-" He glanced down at Clark, and then up at Chloe, whose eyes grew huge.

He refused to believe anything bad was going to happen, but he also knew that if it did neither he nor Chloe would be able to stop Clark. At least with the car she'd have a chance to get away.

Maybe.

She stared at them, then scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffed away her tears.

"What- What are you-"

Lex shook his head. "Don't call anyone. Don't leave. And don't ask." He locked his eyes on hers, willing her to agree, to understand, thanking God that it wasn't Lana or Pete in the field with them.

Clark began shivering.

"Shhh, shhh, I've got you, Clark," Lex murmured as he stroked Clark's hair and hugged him tighter, still staring at Chloe.

She got up slowly, nodded her head and took a step towards the car. Then she stopped and bent to pick up the blankets she had brought. Wordlessly, she draped one over Clark's shoulders, and spread the other on the ground next to them.

"Thank you."

She nodded. "I'll be waiting in the car. As long as you need me to."

Lex didn't watch her walk away. It was getting dark and he knew that the others, or worse, Mr. Kent, might come looking for Clark here at any time. He needed to get Clark together enough to get somewhere safe.

Carefully he tugged the younger man over to the blanket Chloe had spread for them. With a moan, Clark collapsed onto his side. Lex immediately followed.

"Hey," he said and brushed the bangs out of Clark's eyes.

That was all it took to go from comfort to kissing: Clark was on him, all over him. It felt good. His cock definitely thought it was better than good, thrusting out of the ruined pants that were just barely staying around Lex's hips. Lex had the strangest sensation of being touched everywhere simultaneously.

Okay.

Not teleportation, just very, very fast. Kind of like having your whole body vibrated.

He groaned and tried to reach out for something, wanting to hold, to reciprocate. It stopped.

Lex was on his back again, and Clark was over him, up on his elbows. His green eyes were wide and glowing with he last of the sunset, and his hair was jet black against a purple sky.

"I'm not real, Lex."

"No, Clark, you are. You're the most real person I've ever met." Lex reached up and kissed him, slow and deep, and this time it was Lex's hand that went questing. The denim jacket disappeared, buttons vanished, and there was skin, skin and more skin. More than Lex had thought he would ever have the opportunity to touch.

Then he quested further down and got a gratifying moan and jerk of hips from the young man above him. He ground their erections together, lining them up, as he heard Clark's breath go from moans to pants. He knew they were close, both of them straining.

"No, no. Not this." Clark gasped out and rolled away, onto his back.

"Okay, okay, it's all right, Clark. Nothing you don't want. I promise." What had Lex done wrong? He searched his friend's face for clues.

"I want it. I want it. Just- I thought- It's supposed to hurt, Lex. If it's real, it hurts."

"Oh, Clark," Lex rolled over and sat up to straddle the younger man, taking both their cocks in his hands and stroking steadily. Closer and closer and Clark bucked beneath him and Lex told him something he had only just found out himself.

"It doesn't always have to hurt, Clark," he gasped out as he started to come, "not even for us. Not always."

"Lex!" Clark yelled and then he was coming, too and their semen slid and blended through Lex's fingers as he continued to pump until Clark was practically screaming, and there was nothing left in either of them to give.

Lex collapsed down on Clark's chest, noticing the cold for the first time in several minutes, and pulled the blanket around them tighter. He licked at Clark's neck and whispered, "Real enough for you, Clark?"

When there was no answer he pulled his head up just far enough to look at Clark's face and saw that he was fast asleep.

He chuckled, and then he laughed.

Then he reached for his cell phone and hit the two-way button coded for his spare in the Ferrari.

"Hey, Chloe."

His world was warm and soft and there was a glow coming through his eyelids. Clark couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this good. He heard a soft tapping nearby: rythmic and gentle and intimate. It was good. He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow for a few more minutes of sleep.

The tapping stopped. "Clark?"

"Lex?" Clark sat up, fast. Eyes opened, he suddenly realized he was using too much speed and stopped himself as he was half out of the bed. Shit! He hadn't lost control like that in front of a person since... shit, how long had he been asleep?

Clark groaned as he remembered scenes, images from the Talon. What had he done?

"Hey, take it easy." Lex got up from his desk and walked over to cautiously place a hand on Clark's shoulder. "Should I call your mother? She's taking a nap, but she's just down the hall."

"Mom's here?"

"Has been since day before yesterday. Your dad has been in and out as well." Lex grinned, "He's sort of commuting between here and the farm."

"What?" Clark gaped.

"I know," Lex's grin widened, "I'm waiting for the memo on Hell freezing over."

"Lex, what- How did I get here?" Clark looked around and knew they were in the mansion. It wasn't a room he knew, although he recognized Lex's desk.

Lex's face was suddenly shuttered, and he let his hand fall back to his side as he said, "I found you passed out in Reilly's field. I brought you here and called your parents."

Lex was lying. That alone confirmed Clark's worst fears. "It was real, wasn't it? Not a dream."

"Wasn't that what you wanted?"

Clark tried to read the face he'd come to know so well. There was only one thing that mattered. Only one thing he really needed to know, "Did I hurt you?"

The facade melted and Lex gave one of his rare true smiles, "Don't you remember what I told you?"

Clark shuffled through the memories, both embarrassing and intense. Then he smiled looking at Lex through his lashes hoping he remembered it right.

"I think you said, 'It doesn't have to hurt to be real.' " He whispered and reached for Lex, who was, amazingly, reaching back.

"Not always." Lex agreed.

This kiss was warm and soft and, best of all, real.

~The End~

CLFF Challenge: Remember the whole scare crow thing from the pilot? Clark LIKED it. What, you may ask? Being semi-naked in front of a group of men? The humiliation? Lex finding him nearly naked in a corn field? Being restrained? Whatever... it's just been bothering him deep down and he has to confess to Lex, who of course, gets to "help". (Creed Cascade)