*

For Goth_Clark, who asked.
Challenge: First time + library

*

The box was wood, perfectly constructed from a tree that had undoubtedly seen the first white settlers as they fought for land and freedom. That it now held a mystery was perhaps significant - or maybe it was just ironic. Slowly, Lex stroked his hand over the polished grain, palm curled around the edge as his fingertips traced across clearly marked eddies of time.

Closing his eyes he sat quite still, trying to feel any resonance from the wood, any faint or distant vibration, anything other than silence. Nothing. Only the lingering scents of cedar and beeswax. After a moment he sighed and, opening his eyes in resignation, simply lifted the lid.

Three stones. Green, red, and black. The jewels were cut and faceted, dully gleaming against velvet. He touched each in turn, the different legacies of the meteors, rare, rarer and rarest, and wondered curiously which one had altered his own DNA, given him the strong bones and fanatically eager immune system that had proven such life-saving anomalies. Eeny, meeny, miney... Red for stop. Or for Clark and his hideous farmboy shirts. Green for go. Black for... himself maybe. The darkness that shadowed him stated in blatant color-code.

He touched the red again, feeling it warm slightly as he rubbed its surface. Meteor rocks. Time and time again they came back into his life. A mystery wrapped in an enigma. Meteors, mutants and Clark Kent, all in a line of questions that intertwined through his own life. Questions that he couldn't answer, but that burned acidly with a need to understand. Because he had to know more. As if understanding the differences that made Smallville, quite frankly, as fucked-up a place as you could hope to find, and that made Clark Kent, well, unique, made him... what? A freak? Or just Smallville-normal? He'd never wanted to bond with the hick town, but maybe the bonding was inevitable. Like calling to like. Freaksville calling the freak home.

In the shadowy layers of his mind, he knew he'd thought these thoughts before. Maybe in a different lifetime. Before Belle Reve. But nothing he tried would bring any of those memories back. He remembered so many things he'd rather forget, but the dreams that threaded through his nights, the dreams of sparkling stones that glowed brighter than emeralds under sunlight, told him unequivocally that there were some things he just couldn't recall. No matter how he tried, no matter how anyone else tried either.

The emerald dreams all involved Clark. He knew that. Perfect, infuriating, intangible Clark. But how they involved him, Lex had no idea, for every scrap of detail was gone by the time he awoke.

Leather creaked as he leaned forward, his chair tilting, adjusting. The red stone was the most intriguing. The green stones were everywhere, but these red ones, they were rare. Undoubtedly someone, somewhere would be marketing them soon. Smallvillite, perhaps, and you'd get a certificate of authenticity and a map of the area. QVC would run a midweek special and eBay would be awash with fakes. Maybe the Talon should re-name itself. Though, he thought ruefully, probably not while Lana was still there.

The red jewel lifted easily. He held it in his long fingers, twisting it in a shard of light. It was a very pretty trinket. But it didn't glow. Snapping the lid closed, he stood, tossing the stone casually in his hand. Up, and catch, the cold stone warming through as he toyed with it.

Sunlight caught his eyes, made him blink and he moved away, walking aimlessly, bored, hot, his shirt slightly damp where it clung to his back.

Denying restlessness, he went up to the mezzanine. Leather-bound volumes by the hundred. His father's idea of a library. One or two were actually worth reading, but most were just self-important, standing square on the shelf in vellum or pigskin, daring anyone to open their uncut pages. Slipping the stone into his pocket, he stroked his fingers across their spines. Pretty books, worth less then the paper they were written on. Business law, corporate ledgers, accounting strategies, crime and punishment. He'd liked those shelves when he was a kid. Enjoyed death being dealt in a thousand inventive ways. Not for the pain and misery, but for the swift meting out of justice. The bad men were punished, the good survived.

He'd lost faith in anything approaching justice - along with his innocence - around the age of ten.

Turning away he glanced at a shelf of law books. Why had his father ever acquired them? And why were none of these books his mother's? Maybe she'd had a private library in another part of the house. One of paperbacks and dog-eared favorites that she loved and re-read. Romances. Lionel would have poured scorn in a waterfall of derision. Lionel didn't believe in romance. Diamonds to say goodbye. Lex had learned that at a young age too.

"Lex?"

Almost flinching, Lex pulled himself from his reverie and walked softly to the balcony. Oblivious to his presence, Clark stood by the couch, tall and strong. Lex greedily stored the image along with a thousand others. Would Clark be so attractive if he wasn't also such a conundrum? Friend one day, foe the next. Perfectly beautiful either way.

Smiling, his bitterness contained, Lex leaned on the balustrade. "Hi, Clark."

"Oh, there you are!"

"How can I help?"

Clark didn't even have the grace to wince. "I don't always want something! I was just passing by."

Lex listened for the sound of pigs' wings. The air remained unruffled.

"You're welcome anytime, you know that, Clark."

"Mm, what are you doing up there?"

"Looking over the books. You know, things with words in them, pages bound together. You read them. Well, some of us do."

"Ha ha." Clark grinned and started forward. Lithe and young and so fucking idealistic it hurt. Lex watched him take the steps two at a time, and suddenly he was there, heart-stoppingly alive, energy like a force, right next to Lex. "Are these your dad's?" He nodded at the stacks, then, glancing sideways at Lex, waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "So, what've you found - anything racy?"

"Only if corporate strategy counts." Lex turned, resting his hips on the balustrade. "Dad gets his porn on the Internet, just like the rest of us." Another grin. God, but Clark was happy today. Lex slipped his hands into his pockets. The stone touched against his fingertips and he stroked it. It felt different, tingly.

"Yeah, you got me. But don't tell my folks, okay?"

There didn't seem much likelihood of Lex confiding anything at all to the Kents, let alone the bedroom secrets of a teenage boy. He remembered his own far too clearly - even if he felt approximately a thousand years older than his own calendar age. "Wouldn't dream of it, Clark." The surrealism of discussing porn with the town innocent amused him. He smiled. "So, what do you look for?"

"Online?" A faint blush brightened Clark's cheeks. Lex swallowed. Though maybe it wasn't a blush, for Clark's skin was moist with perspiration, and his eyes suddenly seemed very bright. "Oh, you know..."

Oh, yes, Lex knew. "Don't tell me, pretty girls with other girls?"

Clark licked his lips. "No, not really. Lex, it's so hot in here..."

Frowning, Lex pulled his hands out of his pockets. The stone in his hand, he reached for Clark who was swaying unsteadily. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Lex..."

Sweat dampened Clark's face. As Lex looked into his eyes, he saw crimson, flickering in their depths. Clark grabbed his hand. As their skin met, Clark shuddered and the stone that Lex was absent-mindedly holding flared into sudden heat.

Gasping, he pulled his hand away, and the stone was left in Clark's palm. It was glowing, a bright, bright red. He glanced up to find Clark, all intensity and knowing, staring at him. Lex knew this was Kansas and there were no rabbit holes in the floor. But there was a shift and flicker of reality that left him breathless, as Clark smiled widely, as the dove shucked its pale feathers and became a hawk right before Lex's eyes.

"Jesus, Clark, what...?" The veins in Clark's hand and wrist were turning red. Horrified, Lex reached for the stone.

"Oh no. That's mine, Lex. You can't have it back, not when you found one of my favorite toys." He stalked forward and, if it hadn't been for the wooden bar that was already pressed hard into his hips, Lex would have backed away. As if loosed from a long confinement, Clark stretched, his muscles rippling under his shirt, the buttons straining. "And I haven't had a fix in way too long..."

A meteor fix. The red was trickling up his arm, staining the veins, rising up as Clark straightened his back and stood tall. Lex closed his mouth. Something in the stones that affected Clark. Changed him. Into what? A predator? Innocence into experience in one easy step. Suddenly Lex wondered what Clark had done in all those weeks he'd been living in Metropolis.

"Clark, give it back."

"No way!" He laughed derisively. "When it feels so damn good? Lex, you really should know better. You've always taught me to take my pleasures when I can. That's how you live, isn't it. So, you know what? I'm going to tell you what porn I hunt down on the Internet." Another pace and he was in Lex's space, his breath warm on Lex's cheek as he sighed happily, his mouth just there, rosy lips curving up in a tease that held very little other than wickedness. "Or do you want to guess?"

A hand stroked Lex's throat, skin barely grazing skin. He choked on any complex thought. "No..."

"Shame." A conspirator, Clark leaned in, mouth a mere millimeter away. "Yeah, I look at girls. Some of the ones I like are kinda oriental, occasionally a blonde will catch my eye and warm my dick. But, you know what I like to do best? I look up pictures of young guys being fucked. If the guy's bald, then hey, that's a bonus."

Jesus, fuck. Lex shook his head, hating that he was almost as scared as he was turned on. "Clark, this isn't you."

"But it is. Deep down, under the good boy, the good son, the good fucking moron, this is the real me. This," he held out the stone, rubbing it against his own cheek until Lex could see red veins lifting under smooth skin, "is me."

"No."

A hand wrapped around his throat silenced him, gently caressing the skin under his jaw with one broad thumb. "Why? You don't believe me because I never said I had the hots for you? Well, what with you being such a tricky bastard and all, I just never thought about it. Not actually doing it with you. But, you know, I've fucked you in my head a thousand times. Over your desk, in the barn, in the Talon with Lana and Chloe watching. You can't help it, Lex, you just so fuckable. D'you jerk off every half hour? I do, sometimes, when it's hot and you've shafted my parents or fucked up something good, then I get my dick in my hand and think about reaming you. You know why? It makes me feel better."

"Jesus, Clark..." The hand was gripping more tightly. Lex swallowed, feeling the ripple of fingers around his skin as his throat muscles worked. "You only had to ask." Was that true? It felt true, now at this moment, with his cock stiff and aching, and Clark so perfectly wet-dream available.

"Ask? Oh, no, I wouldn't do that. Not nice, sweet Clark who takes whatever he has to and just gets on with it. That Clark wouldn't dare. This Clark dares everything. All thanks to this." He held the stone in front of Lex's eyes, the jewel reflecting brightly in his over-blown pupils. "With this I can do what I want. Who needs heroin, Lex? This is the most freedom you can imagine."

The press of Clark's body into his was arching him backwards. Lex hissed as his back cramped. "Clark, you're hurting me."

Mock sympathy, when painted on the beautiful face, was amazingly ugly to behold. "Really?"

"Yeah. Clark!"

A last push and Lex, close to toppling was caught, brought forward and down in front of Clark, his knees thudding hard into the parquet floor. One hand held him easily in place. "Lex, you know you make me hard just by looking at me. D'you practice in front of the mirror to get just that perfect edge of fear?" Wide, wicked grin. "Or was that something Lionel taught you?"

Fighting the shiver that racked up through his muscles, Lex sneered. "Fuck you, Clark, what d'you know."

"I know I'm going to have you." A simple statement. A smile. Lex wondered if he was actually going to survive. "I'm just curious though. Are you going to be willing, or not?"

"Fuck..."

Lex's struggles were quashed easily. Amused, Clark shrugged. "Willing or not willing. I'm easy, either way."

It was hardly a decision. Trapped on his knees, Clark's cock a thick ridge under tight denim right there in front of him, Lex closed his eyes. The hand holding him down felt as if it could rip him apart as casually as it prevented any movement. Panting slightly, he looked up, not quite meeting Clark's mocking gaze. "Willing."

One word, and a slippery slope to damnation.

Clark was seventeen. Even though Lex himself had been well on the way to a jaded overfamiliarity with perversity, let alone sex, by that age, and even though this Clark was drugged, dangerous and utterly compelling, he was still Clark Kent. Still the boy Lex had loved from the moment, long ago, when they met. The boy Lex wanted.

But not like this. Oh, God, not like this...

"Didn't quite catch that, Lex. What did ya say?"

Anger made him glare. "What d'you think, Clark? You think I'm going to say no?"

"Then say it."

Lex swallowed. "I'll do what you want, willingly."

"Yeah, that's what I wanted to hear."

Dizzyingly pulled to his feet, Lex swayed. The dizziness increased when Clark kissed him.

And he'd thought the boy a virgin. All preconceptions burning away, Lex dissolved. Lush mouth, perfect control, Clark opened him, consumed him with a skill and voracity unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Jaded? Lex moaned, and knew himself to be a novice. As the sound bled from his mouth he felt Clark smile. Improbably, the kiss deepened, teeth clashing with his own as the tongue in his mouth took possession, denying anything other than acquiescence and then simply taking. Mouth stretched wide, Lex gave up any pretence of equality. His body shuddered, and in a moment of complete submission he relaxed, his own cock eagerly agreeing. He was Clark's bitch. What shame was there in that? None. Not if Clark made him feel like this. Like the world was focussed on this moment, on this sensation and this, and on the perfect way Clark held him, angling his head to explore more deeply, thigh slipped between his legs, rubbing on his cock.

Lex moaned again as Clark's mouth, wet and still open, pulled away. Both of them were gasping, almost panting. A sweeping hand pushed Lex back to the floor. He landed hard, jarred right up through his spine - but getting the message as Clark unzipped and freed himself.

Awed, Lex blinked, hesitating. Clark wasn't the biggest he'd ever seen. But was maybe the biggest he'd ever had.

"Go on. Word on the Metropolis streets is that you used to be good at this. Show me."

That hurt. If it was true. Would Clark have asked about him? Would anyone have told...

"Lex, stop fucking thinking."

And any option was taken away.

He had been good at this. He still was. Like bobbing for apples, he tucked the perfect head into his mouth, tongue working hard, slipping and sliding, pushing into the slit, then again, much harder when Clark groaned. Suck and lick, stretch and swallow, he took the heat and solidity into himself, working slowly, half-prepared for Clark to lose it, to let his impatience run and simply force himself home. But luck held. Luck or Clark's control. And instead of the struggle he'd expected, there was only mutual pleasure. Lex had always loved this. Loved taking this, being the one to kneel, the one to open wide. Clutching iron-muscled ass, he moaned in his throat, feeling the reaction right through Clark's body. Heady, lustful pride. He relaxed his throat, choking as his gag-reflex was overloaded, forcing himself not to heave, clamping down on his gut as he opened to all of it, every inch of cock inside him.

Nose pressed to the soft curls that striped up Clark's belly, Lex held himself still, and swallowed. Again. Rocking back and forth he arched triumphantly as Clark cursed, and his cock pulsed thickly, spilling the first drops of precum, slicking Lex's throat for a harder fuck. Lex closed his eyes as Clark's hands wrapped around his skull. He'd cope. More. The hands pulled him away, then slammed him back. The force was bruising, and Lex's mouth, stretched wide as it was, burned. Another pull, wet cock slipping through raw lips. Another push and Lex struggled, his gut heaving, his face ground into belly and groin, his body nothing but tightness, leashed for Clark's pleasure.

Blind and dumb, he tried to scream as he came. His own untouched cock jerked spastically in his pants, spunk turning sticky and cold almost immediately, soaked into Merino wool. Face-fucked, his hands uselessly clawing at skin, air nothing but a memory, his body shutting down as the world spun into a darkness pin-pricked with stars, he finally felt Clark orgasm, his throat and mouth drowning as Clark came.

The stars went out, though the darkness only lasted a moment. Air brought him back, and he was coughing, choking, as Clark let him fall.

Like a man dragged from the edge of a precipice, he curled onto his side. Clark was standing over him, glassy-eyed, lax-mouthed. As Lex watched he shivered, his whole body rippling, his softening cock jerking in the air. Pushing himself up to sit against a bookshelf, Lex wiped his mouth. He was still panting, breath heaving into his burning lungs.

Jesus.

A cough rattled him, startling Clark, who half-turned. Something fell from his hand, bounced on the parquet, rolled a few inches, its bright red slowly fading to a dull crimson as it trickled over the edge. In the silence Lex clearly heard it hit the floor below. Almost at once, Clark groaned, his eyes rolling back as he fell to his knees.

Shock held him still for a shuddering breath, then, all frantic lack of coordination, Lex was there, arms fumbling around the wide shoulders, stopping him from falling flat. Lex closed his eyes, and took Clark's weight, his own body taking the strain. It was as close to a caress as they had ever managed. Clark's body was warm, fevered. After a moment he lifted his head.

Slowly, Lex let him go. They knelt facing each other. In a moment of foreboding, Lex knew he'd lost.

"What...?" Clark looked down, saw himself, his fly open, his cock lax and wet. He blushed scarlet and quickly tucked himself away. "Lex..."

"Shush. It's okay." It was okay. He was only a little unsteady. Really.

"No." He pulled roughly away from Lex's support, skittering away, on his feet so quickly that Lex could only blink. "Whatever I did, I'm really, really sorry. It wasn't me."

"Clark, stop it -"

"No." He looked around, panic making him wild-eyed. "The rocks. They affect me sometimes. I could have hurt you!"

"I'm fine." To prove the point Lex stood. He almost managed it gracefully. "See? No damage at all."

Taking a deep breath Clark focussed. "But I did something..."

"You had a blow-job, Clark. What's the big deal?"

"I made you."

Lex shrugged. "If you'd asked I'd have been just as willing."

That held Clark still. He processed the information, his face reflecting each and every nuance of emotion from relief to fear. Finally he reached out an unsteady hand and touched Lex's neck. "I did this."

"You were a mite enthusiastic. Nothing more."

"I hurt you. Lex, please, I'm so sorry!"

"Clark, don't...!"

Too late.

Lex watched Clark run. The distance to the door seemed forever, but then there was silence, the air shimmering for a while with aftershocks.

Cursing softly, Lex touched his fingers to his mouth and winced. Taking a step he realised there were books all over the floor. He kicked one.

His own path to the ground floor was slow. He ached, more than in his body. Loss being just as hard to take as bruises.

It took him a good half hour to find the red stone where it had rolled under the couch. It came into his hand and lay there, cupped in his palm. It looked like nothing more than a trinket. Something tawdry bought from a charlatan. Yet...

With a snap of his wrist he closed his fist. Humming softly under his breath, he went to his desk and, opening the box, slipped the jewel back into velvet. It looked so innocuous. With his raw, battered mouth, his lips scarcely twisting, Lex smiled. Then, slowly, he closed the lid. Hope in a box? Or all the evils of the world? Mystery upon mystery.

He sat back, the taste of Clark still his mouth. Later, he'd lock the box away. For there was always the possibility he might need it again.

Fin

04.05