Disclaimer: The creators are right now throwing a party that I have nothing to do with the running of this show. Feedback: Like the liquor I'm going to pick up as a habit real soon now. In other words, please, yes.

Warnings: Violence, sex, body decoration, darkfic. There's your warning.

Author Notes: Fanfic is not written in a vacuum. At least, mine isn't.

Te, for the pressure to start, the encouragement (ALL THE TIME), the prodding, the lines when I couldn't figure out where to go, and the Damascenes trilogy, which helped me think about Clark when I had to. Also--drug reactions and branding websites. To think I could take classes in this. To think I'm wondering if I want to.

Pricklyelf, for Lex in the Desert thing and discussions on temptation and moral ambiguity, as well as a thorough beta. Hope for the beta as well as commentary and encouragement.

Wendi for daily emails on the subject complete with suggestions, Andy and Beth for reading, remarking, and not scheduling an intervention. Andy most especially for Clark thoughts and a promise, Matthew 4:8-11, and not letting me stop. hugs

Livia T for clothing advice.

Lex knows how to run.

At the first startling green glow against black leather, he's ready, unplugging the laptop from only ground line as he reaches for the case at his feet, shoving them both into the canvas bag on the table. The alarm is at best an afterthought before the electricity cuts out, but Lex knows the old LexCorp tower like his own hand, even in perfect dark. The lead-lined door pulls open with the lightest touch and closes with a heavy click like the bank vault from some half-repressed childhood memory.

The alley stinks of rotting garbage and backed-up sewer, and Lex leans into a clammy brick wall to catch his breath as sparks dance hazily before his eyes. Exhaustion, nothing exactly new. Sleep is a luxury; Lex doesn't remember the last time six hours were strung together with anything but dull pressure sinking into the bottom of his stomach, swimming lazily until he knows he'll throw up if he so much as breathes.

And someone had asked him--God, Pete? Dominik?--why he was losing weight. Jesus.

Outside, the car's waiting, always is, key in the ignition, and he starts it, growling to himself at the broken sound of the motor turning over. Visions in dark red and silvery-grey slick the skin behind his eyes, and then it's running, thank God; time is something he's never had enough of, not even close. He guns the engine and peals out, an ancient nondescript brown sedan darting into the worn, potholed asphalt of the Metropolitan south central district.

A step down for the kid who got his permit in a Roadster and crashed his first Ferrari before he passed his seventeenth birthday. He wonders if he remembers how to use a manual gear shift anymore.

There's a flare of bright red, brilliant in the night, reflecting off every window in front of him and into the windshield, mirror blinding for long seconds that seem like eternity. His eyes are closed; it's not like he has to worry about traffic these days.

He counts off the names like a litany--he isn't stupid, he knows that it'll never be soon enough, never be fast enough, never time enough. Michaels, Fisher, Sullivan, Winters, Steele, Forbes, Hampton, and God, there were ten this time, he knows there were ten, there had been ten, and maybe there will be, if it was enough time, if they knew their drills, if they moved fast enough....

"Don't." He breathes the word into dead air and is surprised how calm his voice sounds.

He says it like it'll work, like saying it will make it all right, will make it true, will make this stop, and he glances up only once at a broken red light (reflex, habit, not necessary anymore) to see the billboard overhead. Peeling yellowed paper cut with lines of charred black, perfect, like someone went up there with a ruler and a blowtorch, old dulled color beneath of some random advertisement, cut across with graffiti from a seriously bitter artist, probably dead in some alley years ago. The flat black on red, white, and blue is clear enough: someone with a spray paint can and a memory to expunge.

Hate, Lex thinks, is so easy for some people. They get the pleasure and the surety without the work, and it's still work, even now--takes everything in him to focus on the rage and the pain and let it burn until he can just do it.

It only takes a quick flip of the cell phone and please, God, let them be out, please. Please.

When it's picked up, Lex breathes out. "Now."

The explosion this time is green, and Lex can feel it quiver in his bones, shaking the car, and he almost loses control in a slow spin that just misses an overturned trash can. The car stutters to a stop inches from the crumbling remains of First Metropolitan Bank, fender brushing crumbling brick. He leans into the wheel, breathing through the sharp taste of blood from the lip he bit through--when?

Sometime. Whenever.

Maybe he only imagines he hears the distant screams, but he'll hear them again the next time he closes his eyes. Joins the other faces, the other bodies, the things that don't blur, never will, not for him.

Everything.

And there's this sick, crawling feeling of disappointment that the shockwave doesn't go farther than these three short blocks, even with the crash of wreckage behind him, the shudder of brick against the hood of his car, the dust thickening the air, unbreathable for days.

That, of course, assumes there's someone to breathe it. And it won't be him, not today. Like he told his father fifteen years ago--blood slicking his hands when he pushed coiled guts back beneath shredded skin; breathing like he was going to die right there, right then; wishing he was dead and knowing that would just be the easy way out--he'll damn well go when he's ready.

Lex leans over and picks up the gas mask from the floorboard.

And that's not quite yet.

People don't walk outside anymore.

He knows better than to try it himself if there's another choice. Sidewalks are death traps. The car's been discarded for three hours while he moves under the cover of night--not enough cover, really, but someone would have to know where to look if they wanted to see him. He's been doing this too long not to know invisibility's a trick that anyone can pull off with enough motivation.

The night's cold and clammy, hints of green-grey dust in the air if he concentrates enough to watch, but he doesn't. Puddles of rain in concrete depressions, chunks of asphalt torn up and tossed like kid who's dissatisfied with his toys, and Lex hates how the damp penetrates even through his coat and sweaters; the vague, sticky feeling of cold wool against bare skin.

Lex ducks between the ruins of tenements, stepping through accumulated garbage without hesitation, though God knows what's underneath and it's better, he thinks, not to know, not even to guess. He ignores a sticky-black trail dribbled over the top of an overturned steel dumpster, trickling off into nothingness on the few inches of bare concrete. Callused fingers slide slow and steady over spongy-wet wood and stone until he finds the edge of a door marked with metal Slipping his fingers against it, he traces it with his palm. Lead, yes. There's a thin burn line across it, S marks the spot, but the line's not quite clean enough, and he knows it was done by someone with an elevated sense of self-preservation and some excellent artistic skills. It even looks legit to his eyes, but his hands know the feeling of that char.

So far so good.

The confined stuffiness of an unaired room is almost welcome; smells of stale air and unwashed bodies, faint light from a few scattered lanterns and one decent light bulb catching on the dull green that hangs near the entrance. Green means safety, and he blinks as he stumbles inside, pushing the door shut behind him. His body wants to relax, even if his mind knows he's not any more welcome here than anywhere else. There's no way to hide who he is, even if he wanted to, and he accepts the shocked silence when he pauses, the gazes that are as blatant as they are terrified.

He tends to bring the nightmares they're trying to escape.

The people move out of his way as if he's diseased, which isn't far from wrong. The word Luthor hisses across the room (Smallville memories) and Lex knots his hands in his coat pockets and pretends not to hear when he crosses between bundles of rags that could be people if he cared enough to look.

But he's really only interested in one person tonight.

She's at the back, curled into a wooden chair like she's hiding. Easy to spot--she's not as thin, her clothes look too new, and she's alone. Three things that mark her anywhere she goes, and he wonders if they've recognized her yet.

Probably not. She'd have been out on the street within seconds.

Too wired, he thinks, when he crouches, finding her shoulder with the tips of the prosthetic fingers he'd had designed in a backstreet lab, last of the really good materials used up for his need. She looks up, but the brown eyes are dull, and he wonders what left in her. If she even thinks it's worth it anymore.

Not that it matters.

"Let's go."

Her right hand's in a makeshift cast, old linen and cheap plaster that wouldn't survive a strong wind, she must have done it herself--he can do better, later, but not here. But she shakes her head, pulling away, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Cancer's already taken her voice--he has to wonder if it's spread again, and there's a part of his mind already wondering if any of his labs are still intact in the city, mapping the locations, how fast he can get there from here. Pretty, airy fantasies he can't manage to really believe, but they're calming, somehow. Focusing. He likes to have clearly defined goals, always has.

She shakes her head, pushing her hair back, and he can see the flowering purple on her throat, a raw scrape beneath the torn sleeve of her loose cotton shirt. Mouth swollen and scabbed--no reading lips quite yet, not in this dark. Briefly, she presses her fingers into her throat, lingering on the green nestled in the hollow, before she slips her good hand into her pocket, pulling out a scrap of paper.

Quick left handed scribbles with a broken pencil, but he's used to her handwriting now.

Not this time. I don't want to anymore.

"No." Though, God, wouldn't it be easier to say yes? Filthy and exhausted, fuck, he doesn't have time, he doesn't have the fucking energy to persuade, too. He can't do everything, no one can. Well, no one human, and Lex chokes on a laugh, sliding to his knees, barely remembering to catch himself on the edge of her chair because his reflexes are already shot to hell. The stone floor is so cool, God, feels so good, so solid, he could sink down and never move again. "Get the fuck up."

She shakes her head, dark hair brushing his face. It's not that he can't just walk out right now; it's that this is it. Ten lives, one building, and this fucking unnecessary risk--she doesn't get a choice. He's on his feet and gets her good wrist, pulling her up, hearing her soft broken moan, feeling the attention of the room. No surprise, eerily familiar, he's Lex Luthor; he's been known on sight since birth.

"Sorry," he says, though he's not; he knows her wrist hurts, but doesn't she get it? He spent six weeks locked in a basement with a fever that should have killed him; a year ago, he was vomiting blood in the sewers of New York, and fuck if he copped out, and fuck if she will either. He can drag her, he knows no one would stop him, but--the burn of tears in her eyes makes him stop, breathe, let it out, try to remember what he's dealing with.

Who he's dealing with.

What she's just left.

"Listen to me," he whispers, getting close enough to catch the scent of filthy skin and the tack of fresh blood, a combination that's too familiar by far. "There isn't a choice. Everything will be okay, I swear, but I. Don't. Have. The. Fucking. Time. To fucking babysit."

She's shaking, fresh tears, and he hurts for her, but--not now. Later--later, he can comfort her, find someone to hold her, drug her into peace if that's what she wants, but not here, not now; it's known he's in the city, and they don't have the time.

Gently, he pulls her behind him--the eyes are on them both, they're looking at her now, they're seeing her, but that's okay. Her legs are shaking, but she's moving at least, and Lex thinks he can probably carry her if he has to.

The unmistakable sound of a phone connection cuts through the silence and Lex turns, feeling everything drop in his stomach. He can't move fast enough if that connects. No way in hell.

"No." And there's a gun in his hand without conscious thought, and he feels a strange, almost-peace at the thought of raising it to his own head. Beautiful. "Don't you fucking dare."

But he does understand--these people's lives are forfeit if this gets out, he does get it, he's not stupid. He knows that every house he enters is marked, everyone's in danger, and he knows they'd buy their safety with his life. In their place, he'd sell himself out in less time than it took to draw a breath.

He can't even really blame them for that, but that doesn't stop his aim or the echoing flick of the safety. And in fifteen years, he's never missed.

And they know that, too.

Breaths catch and there's a little silence, before the phone hits the floor, and Lex lets himself relax. Almost regret, but not quite, and she's crying soundlessly against his shoulder.

"Shh," he says absently, stroking the small of her back, and the room is watching them. Fear like something that can be tasted, touched, taking up more space than these bodies ever could. "Give us five minutes."

They won't, but really, he only needs three. Out the door into a pinkish-grey day, and he gets her to move, fast steps through garbage-strewn alleys, doesn't have a choice, hopes to God she can keep up because they can't stop.

That phone's ringing in his head like it's ringing inside that room, and he knows that their lives are measurable in minutes.

It's later.

She coils half-asleep on the tiny couch after he resets her wrist. It says something, that she barely flinches with the new break, and that Lex can wrap it in under forty-five seconds.

Air filters circulate the rotting smells of the sewers through the room; easy to tune out after the first gut-wrenching minutes that had Lana on her knees by the cheap metal toilet in the corner. Not a bad place to stay, he thinks, remembering the other bunkers he's designed over the years. This was the first, though, has that sentimental edge to it that makes him want to blow it up when he leaves this time.

After all, he's become quite the expert with demolitions. Habit makes him carry the basics wherever he goes.

She gave him everything she was carrying--sixteen rocks, God knew how she got them or what she'd had to do to get them, and he won't ask, just like she won't tell. Size of his thumbnail down to a bag of dust she must have scraped out of the floors with her bare fingers. He repacks them in soft cloth and locks them in lead. The room's lined with lead, too, which would make it a target if they were anywhere above ground, but thank God, the underground's riddled with lead pipes that he breathes thanks over every time he enters the city.

"Do you need anything else?" he asks, as if he has something to give her other than the shot of garage-quality Demerol to take the edge off. She smiles a little, and he can see echoes of the girl he'd met years ago in the lines of her face. Still pretty, he thinks, tilting his head, and he wonders if she'd be happier if she wasn't.

She shakes her head slowly and mouths the words. He's learned to read lips, too, and the swelling has gone down enough that she can move her mouth again.

I'll be fine. Just tired.

He knows the litany on that one. He watches her fastens the cord around her upper arm with slow, langurous movements, checking for a viable vein. Older track marks are fading yellow in her skin, and she traces one vein with the flat of her finger briefly before unsealing the needle and sliding it into the plastic bottle. Quick, easy dose, she can do this half-awake, in the dark, probably in the middle of a bombing. Her eyes drift closed when she pushes, a little smile curling up one corner of her mouth. Mainlining has always been his preferred method, too.

He repacks everything into its cases when she's done, looking up into her face.

"Sixteen's good," he says, and she nods, smiling more, though it doesn't come close to reaching into the blank just behind her eyes when she opens them. "This is--good." He wishes he had something better, but there's nothing else he can say that he hasn't said before.

How many died?

He'd somehow known she'd ask that question. She understands risk. And she knows the worth of those stones.

"I don't know."

She simply nods and closes her eyes, slumping into the cheap vinyl in something like relief. Lex unfastens his glove, checking the prosthetic automatically. Fast and dirty education in basic robotics let him know it wasn't damaged, but it'll need a professional's eye soon to be sure. The dull green ring on the his finger reminds him why he lost the original.

Not that it was that much to lose, compared to everything else, but he can still feel the first cut of the saw through bone and living flesh, body-memory of the sharp bite of iron in his mouth when he bit his own tongue, Pete's hands on his shoulders, holding him down. They hadn't had access to his labs or even the raw materials for decent painkillers. It hadn't been that bad after the first shots of whiskey.

The room's tiny and dank, the bare stone of the floor cold, and Lex gets to his feet, pushing the table against the wall. He wants to pace and wants to sit, but five more seconds will see him sleeping and that's a death sentence for them both. Or at least for her--he knows the worth of his life a little too well to be sure he'll be killed on sight.

He's never exactly had that kind of luck.

His phone goes off, vibrating against his hip, and he reaches for it, twitching the glove into place. The number is one he knows, and he takes a slow breath, fixing his eyes on Lana before he hits the button, holding it against his ear.

"It's not too late, Lex." Smooth voice, lower than Lex remembers, but it's been years since he heard it in person, so maybe he's simply imagining it. Clear reception, that means he's somewhere close, and Lex flicks his watch up and on, counting the seconds. Traces are easy to avoid, and this phone was built for these occasions. He's got time. "It's not, Lex. Listen to me."

The terrifying thing is, he knows that's true. It's always there, in the back of his mind, every fucking second of every fucking day, and it would be so easy. God, so easy, just to stop, and he's--God, so tired.

So fucking tired.

"Yeah, it is. Get to the point, Clark." He tries for boredom, tightening his grip on the phone, trying to sound more like the image Clark must have of the person he is--he wonders sometimes who Clark sees when they talk, what reality it reflects. Certainly not the too-thin, too-tired, too-fucking-strung-out man leaning on a wooden table in a cell smaller than the closets of the house he grew up in.

"Come home, Lex. Please." The longing is unmistakable, thick and warm, flowing over him like honey, through him, reminding him of--other things. Clothes that fit and heaters, clean water, imported cheese, silk sheets, and--rest. God, of all things, just to sleep one night straight through, comfortable and safe and warm and it's--

--Lana, rolling over on the couch and vivid purple against fragile brown skin of her throat, the scars from the inexpert tumor removal etched in pale yellow beneath, and he sucks in a slow breath.

"No." His bed, his home, soft air, filtered smells, he can have this so easily, all of it. One word and he'll sleep again.

"Lex--" Edges of anger building, Lex knows it, feels it through the air that separates them. Has to wonder how close he is, how far above the ground. This zone should be safe enough, but--he can't be sure of anything, too much to do and too little time to do it, there's so fucking much to remember. Who could blame him for not being sure? "Why do you make this so damn hard?"

"I--I'm making it easy." His voice is shaking--he can see Clark, just like the last time, edges of Atlanta. Chloe's body soaking fresh blood into his shirt and he couldn't get her out, all Clark's friends were marked like some stigmata, poisoning everyone they touched. His wonderful, beautiful Clark, all pretty fragile-seeming bones and smooth skin surrounded with death and destruction, and God, so hard to walk away, impossible, no one could have asked that of him, and he didn't remember who dragged him off the field---Pete? Dominik?

He can't stop being thankful for that. Or ever forgive. He's glad he doesn't know.

"Remember what I said about a Messiah complex, Clark?" he says, and he sounds--well, a little better, the phantom ache of the scar pulling on his ribs, reminding him of the kidney he'd lost in a shack in backwoods Georgia, impromptu surgery on a cheap metal folding table by fucking candlelight, the price he paid to get out of Atlanta a free man. "Just--stop, Clark."

Pretty Clark, shining and so bright, surrounded with all those bodies like a prince stumbling through a slum--people dropped to their knees when they saw him. Lex takes two steps, dropping onto the floor beside the couch. Shutting his eyes and leaning his forehead into Lana's hip, he wonders if this is what Cassandra saw.

There's no hell deep enough if it is.

"What do you want, Lex?" And so gentle, so soft, like this was their bedroom in the warm darkness of a Kansas spring, and he can feel Clark's hands, smooth and dry, ghosting over his skin beneath his clothes. Memories of a long, warm, tan body, the way Clark could smile and make him do almost anything. Anything at all. "Tell me what it'll take, and I'll do it."

Lex shuts his eyes and Lana stirs, soft and gentle, but she's not real enough, not for this moment.

"I want to see dusk again. I want to go fuck in a club and get so high I don't remember anything. I want to see the ocean. I want something to eat that I can actually enjoy and you know what I really want, Clark? What would make me happy?" Sleep, rest, Chloe, Dad, air that didn't stink of pollutants and death, no more bodies, his blue Porsche, his bed with clean sheets, some caviar on toast, coffee at the Beanery or even, shit, he'd take Starbucks at this point, and--"Let me go."

Clark's sigh is patient, and it scares Lex, but he's used to it, lets the adrenaline rush straighten his spine. It's all about discipline, isn't it? Right?

"I'm sorry, Lex. I can't."

Lex flicks the phone off completely, spinning it across the room, inertia dragging it until it hits the stone with a muted thump. Eyes closed, breathing Lana in, needing it. It hurts, he knows, it would be so easy, right here and right now, stand up and walk outside, just let it the fuck happen. No more bad nights, no more running, no more hiding, no more anything but something that could be peace, consciences are so expensive and he's paid enough, hasn't he?

God, even Jonah got to sleep in a whale for awhile, and he's. Going. Crazy.

Soft fingers on his head make Lex looks up into the glazed brown eyes. He could--if he walked out, she'd go free. Clark would let her take the stones, probably wouldn't even give a shit, if he even knew she had them. If he stopped, if it just happened like this....

It won't change him. Lana's lips barely move--Demerol is a wonderful thing. He wishes he could shoot some up right now. She can read him like a book sometimes--not like Chloe, she's never been that, but it's achingly close. It won't change anything.

"You don't think I know that?" he answers, and her eyes fill--she's so fragile, even as stoned as she is. Gently, he touches her face, tracing the line of her jaw. She doesn't flinch, doesn't bother to.

Are you ever tempted?

He stares at her for a long moment--there are lines around her eyes he didn't notice before, a slight weakness to the left side of her face, making her lip curve down at one corner. The dark hair has its first traces of silver feathering through. And she's asking him if he's tempted.

"Every second."

She nods, slow and understanding--there's no one else he would admit it to--not Dominik and not Sullivan and not Pete, God no, not Pete, never could, they needed him too badly. They saw--something else, when they looked at him. Someone else. Whatever the fuck it was that made them trust him when he told them to blow up buildings and hide in airtight basements and in sewage lines, and maybe they'd all gone crazy. They had to be. Years and years of this, and they put lives in his hands like it was nothing, and he can't ever forgive that, not ever.

This--this is life, and he sinks into the floor, cold and hard, his body remembering plush carpets and mattresses and God, decent shoes and this--this is his life, and that's--

--that's a long fucking time to run. It's been too long already, but to be honest, Lex hadn't known he was this strong. Or this weak. Or for that matter, that he would survive this long.

Her hand on his chin tilts it up, tracks the lines of tears he would swear appeared out of nowhere with gentle fingers.

You're very brave.

Lex shakes his head. She means it, sincerity oozing off her like cheap perfume, and he wants to just drop, right here, right now. She doesn't get it, none of them do, could, and that might be a good thing, because....

...they'd never really understand. He doesn't understand either.

"No, I'm not. If I were brave, I wouldn't have left." If he'd been stronger, braver, if he'd been anything close to the man he'd wanted to be at twenty-one, he never would have left. There never would have been a reason to. Or, God, if he'd been the man he'd been afraid to be, the man his father was--

--well, then this discussion wouldn't be happening. This is no time to start laughing, Lex, it's not allowed, it's not right, and it's for later, later, always fucking later. But he wants to. Biggest joke in creation, he's underground in a fucking sewer and he doesn't have to be.

Are you okay? Soft little hand on his face, and he flinches, can't help it, can't stop it. Wants to pace again or just walk outside and hope something falls on him before Clark can find him. Faith shines out of her like the dawn he hasn't seen in longer than he can remember, and it's almost the worst thing of all.

He's a good liar, though. Thank you, Dad. Jonathan. Chloe. Pete. Clark.

"Yeah." He covers her hand with his and wonders if killing them both would be so wrong. He has enough Demerol to make it fast and easy, a painless slide into deep and beautiful sleep that will last forever, and God knows, she deserves it so much. More than he does, probably. "Get some rest."

He's noticed in the last few years that the dreams are getting more vivid.

Probably something to do with sleep deprivation and his diet, maybe more to do with the nightmares of the real world. He misses the ghost of his brother asking him why he died, his mother's long death, his father's mocking voice. Misses cold sweat from those dreams of impromptu swims in the river with his car and images of dangling from a catwalk that woke him with his heart beating too fast and his skin slick, of guns pressed to his head, of a thousand different moments he'd been sure then that he would never survive. Except he had, because he's Lex, and nothing, nothing, kills him.

He even misses the graphic imagery of days spent running, the bodies he's seen and carried and the people he's killed himself--the way his fingers feel wrapped around the grip of a gun, the sounds of the necks he's snapped and the disposals he's carried out, the rough shake of his explosives. He wants to dream of that--and of the people who follow Clark blindly, burning his symbol into their skin; he remembers watching it once, a long time ago, when he still made himself believe that there was a way out. The smell of burning flesh and their faces, God, like they were witnessing the Resurrection itself, and he remembers how he threw up and how Pete had had to keep him upright, couldn't give away their position, their observation, he shouldn't have gone but he had to see.

Had to know in some stupid, fucked-up part of his mind if Clark ever made the connection between his farm upbringing and the branding of people like cattle. The way they just--stood there for it, the way his own flesh cringed, the way the metal turned white hot and they looked like they were getting the best fuck of their lives, and the way his body moved toward them, wanting it in that same part that wanted home.

Wanted it so badly he'd tasted blood, and Pete had dragged him out, God, he would have been up there with them, up there wanting that and....

Clark.

But he doesn't dream of that.

He takes uppers like they're candy, cocaine and speed when he can find it, make it, ephedrine when he can't. Because when he sleeps, he's never alone.

Clark, long golden body wrapped all the way around him, tongue in his mouth, hands pressing him into the bed. Slow, easy fuck on a warm mattress, sun spilling brilliant yellow around him, around them, on his hands and knees, the only way to have this, his drug of choice if he was ever given one. He can feel Clark tracing the burn with his tongue, the one he would have gotten, the one he can almost feel night and day. Clark, telling him how important he is, how loved he is, how safe he is, always protect, always be there, never alone, can have everything, Lex, everything you want, anything you want, and when Lex wakes up, it's this--this hell of realization that he's here, and he's.

Alone.

He never sleeps in Metropolis, ever. He'd walk outside and let it all go if he did.

Lana's still sleeping and it'll be hours before they can leave, hours before Clark stops looking, stops pacing the city with body and vision, before something distracts him long enough for them to slip out. Out of the room, out of Metropolis, out somewhere else, Nevada maybe, with lead-lined walls and the largest hidden cache of the meteorite. Where there's a bed and there's people he knows, and there's no blood and the processed air almost feels real.

Lex breathes out and pushes himself up, fumbling through his pockets to find the pills he'd made before he left. He's got forty-eight hours left in him at most before the crash; he's tested his tolerance to the limit. Lana and the stones have to get out; there's enough in there to protect another bunker, another hiding place. He counts victories by the bodies that still breathe free. That still want to.

It's--nothing like hope, he thinks, sitting down at the table. Hope's something Pete still has, something Martha still has, though they never say it. It only shines in their eyes when they look at him, the plans he makes that he knows aren't anything but delaying tactics at very best.

He's beginning to think they're really not looking at the situation realistically. There's the slightest chance he isn't either, because he's almost sure he and Lana are going to get out of the city alive.

He leaves the phone turned on and tells himself it's for the call that will let them leave, when Pete will tell him Superman's gone somewhere else, far enough to give them that hour or less they'll need. Taking the pills, he washes them down with the flat water stored in the metal container by the wall, faint sweet-sickly taste of something rotted that lingers on the back of his tongue, the bitter edge of moss. He's used to the sudden spike of nausea--Hamilton helped him design this, upped it as much as their resources allowed. Condensed and on an empty stomach, there's a vivid period of fascinating thickness to everything, and if the room had colors, he thinks he could taste them. Like the very edge of an acid trip, first hour in, everything too big and too bright and his mind's just clearing up now, sharpening again.

He can almost feel Clark.

It's the drugs, working their way into his system, the lack of food, the bad water, the exhaustion under it all, but it's--almost real. Clark, flying the skies of Metropolis, eyes narrowed, looking for them. Lead protection is thin here; they can't afford to be guessed out by the amount.

Clark, waiting for him with that endless patience. One of them has always been waiting. though. Waiting to grow up, waiting to be legal, waiting for graduation, for recall to Metropolis, for that first slow fuck in high summer, for everything to stop changing so fast, for things to move faster.

The first time Lex woke up and watched Clark washing the blood off in the shower, the way the stains had sunk into the floor and Lex had locked their door to keep the help out, cleaned it up himself. The uniforms with their non-random splatters and Clark's questioning gaze when Lex asked what had happened in his steadiest voice.

--"Child molester, Lex. Little girl, barely eight. I couldn't--it wasn't the first time. He's rich, he can pay his way out of it. There wasn't another way."--

--"Lex, you're the one who told me to be realistic about this. I can't be a superhero halfway here--I'm supposed to be protecting people. And sometimes--you have to get dirty to do it. You know that."--

He could trace it back farther, though, if he wants. Perfect memory, gratis meteorites, clear, vivid, sharp, he can feel Clark beside him, his voice in his ear. Smooth, slick words, could have been his own in another life.

--"It's--someone's gotta do it, Lex. It's got to be stopped. These people--they aren't going to just give up their crime when I say so. They've got to--they have to understand. And they don't. They can't. They're--they're flawed, Lex. And the rest of the world has to be protected from them."--

The theory's so believable--almost uncanny, and it was Clark, looking at him with wide, serious eyes, telling him that this was the way it had to be. That he didn't understand. And maybe--maybe he didn't. Not when he watched the bloodstains spread, until he could smell it on his own skin at work, at home, in bed, on Clark when they fucked. He can remember tasting it on Clark's skin, beneath the soap and water, over the sweat, sweet and brittle and almost addictive, almost normal until one day he realized he'd stopped seeing it, feeling it, tasting it.

Now--with everything so bright, everything so real, so close--he almost misses the exhaustion, never realized how soft it makes everything. Makes him remember--things.

Great things, he tells himself with a grin and another drink of water. Great things, big things, not good things. His hands are as bloody as Clark's.

The phone's ring snaps him back into the room--tiny, claustrophobically close, but that'll pass, it always does. Shaking hands pick up it up, and he doesn't even check to see who it is.

"Lex here."

The silence is short and hard, too clear to be anything but from inside Metropolis, and he wonders when he became a junkie for this voice. Probably when they met.

"Lex, your choice. Easy or hard."

Cold sweat breaks out on his palm. "Clark, just stop."

"Forty meters west of the original LuthorCorp building, seventy meters down." Clark's voice is more resigned than anything, like their arguments near the end. He's just--waiting. So fucking sure, he'd picked that up from Lex, all his worst habits, all shiny and new and clean in Clark's mind. He doesn't see. It's been years since Lex has tried to make him look.

And he's right on the money. Fuck.

"Zone's contaminated," Lex whispers, staring up at the roof. There's no way in hell. No fucking way.

"You'd be surprised what I can get done when I have sufficient motivation." And Lex in Metropolis is motivation, all right. He should have listened to Pete. He shouldn't have come, left this to someone else. "I don't have to come and get you, Lex. You'll come out when you're ready. And--Lex?" His voice softens, a hint of something like relief swimming beneath. "I've missed you."

"Jesus." He slams the phone down, turning it off. The room's so fucking tiny, boxed close and cold around him and Lana's shivering on the couch. Crossing the floor, Lex brushes his fingers over her face. Clammy skin and breaks of something like a rash red and angry across her chest. Lex leans over, checking her breathing--too slow, too thick, like she's pulling in solid air, and he knows the effects of an opiate reaction when he sees it.

He drops on the floor, chilly and hard under his knees, barely feels the pain as he pulls Lana upright, shaking her. Eyes open, please, God, Lana, don't. And it's seconds before he realizes he's talking out loud. Shifting her body, he pulls her close, her heartbeat under his fingers sluggishly slow.

She took too much.

This--isn't happening. It can't be.

"Lana." Something rises in the back of his throat, sickly-sweet--it's too soon since the dose, he shouldn't move so much, he doesn't have enough in his stomach to make vomiting anything more than sour-acid bile, and he'll lose what's left of the capsules in his stomach. Hands squeezed into her shoulders, he shakes her, watching her head snap listlessly to one side like a broken doll on a fragile, so breakable neck. "Lana! Wake up!"

There's a dozen ways to help opiate overdoses, and the remedies run through his head like a bad litany. He knows. Six years as a club kid, he's seen everything, learned the fast and dirty methods practiced in biker clinics and the backrooms of clubs. Shot of norepinephrine, he's done that, he's good with needles, but it's not like he's got a fucking pharmacy with him; there's one dose left of his own mix but he's never going to get her to swallow like this, she's got to be awake, or at least conscious, just a little.

"You're not doing this," he hears himself say in a voice he doesn't recognize. That voice, his father's voice, the one that's always command and is always obeyed, but Lana's never been terribly impressed with Luthors, and right now, God, right here, he needs her to be. "Wake up. Lana, get up."

Quick, sharp slap, not too hard, he's not trying to hurt her, he just wants her awake, that's all. She could die like this, she's got to understand, and the second slap is natural, blossoming color into her face. Her body jerks, but too slow, no reflexes to speak of, and he pushes her into the back of the couch, straddling her lap.

"Lana." Quick, sharp shake, his fingers sinking into her shoulders, and her head tilts back. He can feel her breath when he leans forward, light and thick, but just barely, and the pulse in her throat's fluttering against his fingers.

She misjudged the dose, she's never done that, never, never, never. Should have paid attention, she should have noticed, she knew her limits, dammit, did she think he had time for this?

"I don't have time to babysit," he murmurs into her hair, faint flutter of her breath like a tease on his skin, whispering that she has her way out, she's getting what she wanted in that fucking room, and no one has given him that option, have they? He copes. He's woken up so many times he should have been dead, saved by someone, something, for God knows what, and right this minute, this second, he hates them all. "Lana, get the fuck up."

He leans back, another slap across her face, that's too hard, Lex, too hard. It's not her fault, even if it is, remember where she's been, dammit. And he wants to hate himself for what he's doing, for the next sharp slap across her cheek that sprinkles blood across his knuckles, her lip drooling blood down her chin, but he doesn't, because the brown eyes slit slowly open.

Tiny pink tongue squeezes out and licks at the blood, and the dull eyes don't see him at all. Leaning forward, he presses his forehead to hers and focuses on her eyes. Hands cupping her face, feverishly hot skin.

No one has ever let him die. Fuck if he'll let her. "Stay awake."

It takes eternal seconds to get to the table, pour a glass of water with shaking hands, spilling some across the cuff of his shirt, body warm and feeling too much like blood. She's listing downward into the vinyl and he sits on her legs, jerking her head up with one hand at the base of her throat, and sits the glass between their legs, fumbling in his pocket for the pill.

Hard to break, it ends up crumbling, but the dust will be easier on her anyway. Work faster in her system, maybe, wake her up. Sprinkling half of the crumbled white on her tongue, he pushes the water to her lips, watching with clinical detachment as it spills on her chin, dripping red onto her shirt. She chokes, soft, so soft, and he tilts her head back farther. Another choke, a cough, but she's swallowing, finally, she's taking it, and he's breathing again.

In and out, she's alive, she's here, and so is he. Alive.

"Breathe. Stay with me, Lana." He can be gentle now, stroking back her hair, the sweat standing up cold on her forehead as her eyes flicker half-open. Staring back at him and he could swear he reads betrayal there. Good. Fucking great. "You're not allowed, got it? This. Won't. Happen."

Her lips part a little, forming words that he doesn't want to translate. Closing his eyes, Lex leans into her shoulder and draws in a deep breath.

"We're getting out."

She's got to know he's lying, but even to himself, it sounds like the truth. It sounds--oh God, it sounds like his father at board meetings, and it sounds like the day he was exiled to Smallville, and it sounds like it should be written in stone somewhere on a mountain for people to read and believe, and he wonders when he learned to do that. If it was something that came with the Luthor blood or just from years of ruthless conditioning.

Her lips move against his skin and Lex lifts his head, looking down into her eyes. He focuses on her mouth when it moves, slow and sluggish, blood scabbing the corners, drying into her chin. With the edge of his sleeve, he wipes it away and her mouth moves, slowly. Carefully. Making sure he understands.

Let me go. She'd known it was a bad dose. Bitch.

"I can't," he whispers, and he feels her begin to shake. "We're going to get out of here. I promise, Lana. I'll get you out."

It's an easy promise to make, easier to lie than tell the truth, always has been. God knows how many feet above the meteorite-tainted air of this part of the city, Clark's watching them, just waiting. Patient, so fucking patient, all the time.

Did Pete call?

Lex glances at the floor and reaches down, picking up the phone, flipping it on with a press of his thumb. Carefully, he shifts, letting his weight off Lana and onto the couch beside her, accepting the weight of her body against his side. Demerol and coke fighting a war in her body. No call since Clark on the screen when he flicks into the history, and her eyes find it, he knows it by the stiffening of her body before he can think to change the screen.

What aren't you telling me?

"Nothing," he says slowly. "Everything. Don't ask. I'm getting us out."

It's an hour of silence--Lana shifts every so often as if to remind him that she's still alive, and he thinks he can feel every fragile bone in her body. Silky soft skin that he doesn't mind touching--living skin, proof, they're alive, they're here, and it's not--not good, but it's something. Grounding, maybe.

And it's so quiet. The room's thick, insulated with more than lead. He'd thought about this design for a long time, he remembers that, his laptop on his lap, a simple design program loaded and ready, and Pete leaning over his shoulder. This had been the first they'd tried, and back then, it'd been so easy to get enough lead. It wasn't watched, people didn't notice what you ordered, but it had been--a joke? No, even then, he'd felt it was coming, even if Pete had thought he was crazy for jumping to conclusions so fast, but that was--well, before.

Before he thought to start putting things together, before hope became an expense he couldn't afford, faith a punchline to a bad joke, and it'd been too late by then.

Lana shifts her head against his shoulder and he looks down. There's a pink-lavender stain on her cheek in the shape of his palm--he wonders if she'll remember him hitting her.

Why hasn't Pete called?

God knows why. It's a distant feeling, and Lex is--tired. So tired, so fucking tired, even wired as he is, his skin about to crawl off his body. Wants to move dammit, and the room's getting smaller and closer by the second, the air thicker, though his logical mind's telling him that the compressors are just fine. And it's backed-up, of course--in fact, they could stay in here for weeks if they had to. Water in decent supply, there's rations here somewhere, because he always knew that it would come to this--

No, the fuck he did.

"He's waiting for a clear signal," Lex tells her and shudders at the slow, stuttering stretch of thin muscles against his. "Just relax. The--you might get twitchy in a while." But she's really--not. Ethereal warmth of her body, but more languorous, and he knows that what he takes could so easily kill normal people. Even with the Demerol blocking the punch, even at a half-dose, he can't be sure, not with her weight and not with her injuries that he hasn't asked about since there's no way in hell he can fix any of them here. "It'll be soon, Lana." Please God, Pete, get the fuck to the phone.

Lana shifts again, turning her head further to look up at him for a heart-stopping moment. It'd been years before Lex really understood what drew Clark to her--years and years and time and patience and not a little stress, but there's something desperately appealing about someone who can make you feel like you're the only person in the world they can rely on. Whitney was as much a junkie for it as Clark; Pete still is; Lex can't say he's completely immune. Years of exposure wearing him down, he supposes in the corner of his mind that's still functioning with something like rationality. Carefully, he threads his fingers through her hair, feeling her move involuntarily into the caress.

I'm scared.

He wonders how Pete does this--sends people out. Lets Lana go, when she's the poster child for vulnerable victimization like it's an art form. He knows she's stronger than she looks; intellectually, it's not even a question. But--it's hard for Lex to do it, he doesn't get it, doesn't really understand how the decision's made. He's never stopped counting the cost of every life he loses, and there are nine bodies in a building in south-central Metropolis to add to the list. Maybe less. Hopefully less. Please God.

"What happened this time?" he asks softly, and she turns her head away sharply, thick hair brushing his face. It's easy to turn her chin, she's too weak to fight him very hard. The lead case only feet away tells him what she paid for, but he wants to know how she did it. "Tell me."

He doesn't really want to know, and the rational part of his mind is screaming now, asking what the fuck he's thinking, why he's pushing for something that won't do anything at all for either of them. Just another method of masochism; he's an expert.

Nothing important. Her lips slur the words and Lex tightens his grip on her jaw, pushing into bone. Delayed-reaction wince, but her eyes look a little brighter now, her body's not this thick, deadened weight. Good, good. She's snapping out a little. I--did what I had to.

"Lana--" he breaks it off. There's the lightest drift to his thoughts now--another normal side effect, the euphoria that kicks in and he pretty much lives for this. The light blur of real life and fantasy, where there's something that's close to hope coloring everything. He's the man who can comfort her now, and it's easy to cradle her close, wipe away the tears that are leaking from her eyes. "This is the last time," he tells her, and maybe, just maybe, that's true. It sounds true, which is half the battle.

Grinning, Lex relaxes into the vinyl and watches the ceiling. Cool, clean lines of concrete, so smooth you'd think someone went up there with a sander and a ruler, sharp geometry and clean, straight lines. So--rational.

He remembers being here with Pete--that was so long ago, before the water stains marked the far left corner and when the air scrubbers could still filter out the smells of the shit rotting all around them. One week underground with no phone contact, before Lex found someone to design boosters for the phones, before he got someone to design a way for sound to travel through solid lead.

They'd been close to killing each other.

"Did Pete tell you about that?" he asks her, and her head turns, puzzlement written into the lines of her face. Right, right, she can't read his mind, good thing, very good thing that, and he hears his own laugh, low and a little edged. "When we were down here. God--years ago. You were still in Boston."

She seems to hesitate, something like distress flickering through her eyes before she slowly shakes her head.

"It was before the new phone system was initialized--my second trip to Metropolis." Lex feels himself slipping a little deeper into the soft vinyl and the shift of Lana's body into his lap is natural. His hands slide up her back, over the edges of soft, worn cotton, breathing her in. "It was--you had to be there, I guess. Neither of us thought the other would get out alive, you know. Four hundred eighty-two games of poker. He didn't even know I was cheating."

He feels rather than sees her smile.

"It was--" A long time ago. There'd been cars he liked and his accounts had been in his own name--Lex has vague memories of having money at his fingertips, more money than he could ever possibly use, taken for granted. Everything he owns now is in dummy offshore accounts, mostly thanks to Chloe and her hacking, mostly thanks to moving so fast, before his name became a liability, then a curse. More than a curse. A mark just as powerful, just as terrifying as the ones burned into the bodies that walked free outside.

And he's not altogether here, not really, because--strange, strange--it seems to be forever before he feels her wince when his hand slides over her shoulder. Thicker, layers of something beneath the thin cotton shirt, and he runs over it again, snapping back into the room.

She sits up, jerking away, and Lex stares at her for long seconds that stretch into something that could be hours or days or no time at all. Jerking her around, the cotton shirt's loose and easy to pull up, and the clean white (soft) linen is vivid against her skin.

He--hadn't. Even. Guessed.

"God." And--maybe this is insanity, maybe this second, this moment when he knows why she let the Demerol flicker in her bloodstream, when he reaches up and jerks it away. Shiny, vivid pink of barely healed skin, stylized, pretty, pressed deep and held long and he can hear her scream if he tries even a little. If he doesn't try at all. The roll of nausea's a good thing, but the instant arousal isn't. It's-- "No."

She makes tiny, whimpering noises he can just hear over the sharp, thudding pound of his heart, the hiss of his breath, the sick rush of pure envy that crowds out everything else briefly before he shuts it down and locks it away.

"Lana." There's--nothing else that applies. He has to touch it, trace it with his fingers--shiny-smooth, rough, clean and thick, heavy, different texture. She shivers with the touch, goosebumps jumping up everywhere he can see, across the unscarred lines of her back, her shoulder, the arm pressed against his leg.

Her head twists around to look at him. Nothing in her eyes but understanding, frustration, edges of grief, shame so powerful it makes everything else almost bland in comparison, but that moment's there, when his fingers slide over the scar, it's there. She did it. She liked it. She knows.

"When?" His voice is hoarse.

Early on. Only way.

She's lying.

"No, it wasn't." It couldn't be, this isn't inevitable, he's never believed in that destiny crap, fuck Cassandra and her fucking prophecies that killed her right in front of him. No. Not here, not now, not in this room, not Lana. "It wasn't." But he can't help touching it, tracing the lines. So--different than he expected, though he's not sure what he expected at all. "Did it hurt?"

That's--not the question he was going to ask.

The brown eyes grow distant and Lex feels--yes, it's back, that edge of euphoria, kicking through his system. He hasn't eaten anything for hours, days, no surprise, mood swings are normal, but nothing justifies the way he's touching her, touching that, remembering the watching, remembering the ghost-pain of what he can't, can't, can't admit he wants. He's high and he's hard and he's here and she is too--and so is Clark, written into her flesh.

Oh God yes. Every day. Her lips curve up briefly and Lex slides an arm around her waist, pulling her back. Feels her head rest against his shoulder, bare turn that grazes his lips against her face and he can watch her mouth move. I told them--to be sure. Make sure. Until I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. It still hurts. Every day.

The huge eyes are filling with wonder and shame and she twists into him, head sliding farther back. Soft, panted breaths she's trying to control are warm on his skin. So different, the feeling of her skin now he can't quite get over that--silky soft all around; raw, smooth, shiny just there. If he closes his eyes, he can trace it all by touch. Her back arches a little and Lex breathes out, feels her move against him on an indrawn breath like a gasp.

"Lana--"

They hold people down, Lex. There's rope if it's necessary, I saw it done like that. There were people screaming not to and they fought so hard, they wanted out so badly. They--they didn't have to hold me down. It was so easy.

She's not crying, not doing anything but staring back at him, wide dry eyes and parted lips.

It was so easy.

Lex shuts his eyes when her head tilts down. Her fingers trace his mouth and he bites, quick and sharp, wondering if he can taste blood when he licks her skin or if that's his imagination. Press of the pad of her fingers and she's painting his tongue with it. She doesn't pull away and when he opens his eyes, she's watching him.

Pete would never have done it. Not even for those rocks.

Pete is somewhere--distant from this room, in more than body. He never did understand, not when they watched that day, never got it, never really would. There's something in Pete's that made of--not steel, not exactly, but something that can never bend. Never be marked. She's right, Pete would have died first. He would have killed Lana first, killed Lex, killed himself. Pete gets the symbolism but not the why. He doesn't understand why people do it, why they walk up there, and he'll never understand.

He slides his fingers through hers, gently pulling them free of his mouth. "It's okay." It's not okay, it's miles from okay, it's fucking light years from okay. Okay was what he hasn't been in--years. "It's--okay."

No, it's not. You understand.

Fuck it, he does.

"Did--was Clark there?" There's an almost certainty how she'll answer. It's not even a possibility that her head will shake no, and that pause is enough. There are tears now, but they--don't matter, not really. Clark was there, he knows, he has to know. There's no way out of this room now, not for either of them.

Taking a breath, Lex pushes her up, shifting her weight until she's pressed against his cock, and she moans softly. The scar's beneath his fingers and he presses his mouth to it. Sharp, tangy taste--sweat and something indefinably different from unblemished skin, like acid, or maybe that's how pain tastes when it's good.

She makes a low, strangled sound, but that's okay, she's not moving away, pushing down against him. The slow, sinuous rub of her body on his sends a shudder through him like the edge of orgasm. He sucks at the burn and can imagine the moment, the metal they used, white hot and flaring. Her hands braced on the wall or maybe a chair, God knows, he'll let his imagination tell him. Head tilted forward, spill of dark hair around her face, and that first blinding, gorgeous moment of contact--here. He traces the edges with the tip of his tongue, and her good hand closes over his on her waist, digging into his fingers when her back arches. He wonders if Cassandra saw this part, because it sure as fuck would explain dying there in front of him.

"Lana, it's okay." And he uses that voice to make her believe him, because--it will be okay. It will be, he can do this. He can do just about anything now, he's learned that. It's been years and he knows what he's capable of, maybe he always has. And she's so soft, so smooth, and she tastes--so good. Another slow lick and he can feel her moan echo through them both. "Everything's going to be okay," he whispers into her skin. "I'll get you out of this. I promise."

And it's not a lie.

She turns her head to look at him over her shoulder--and the relief, it's physical. The way she relaxes against him, and the way she smiles, and there aren't any tears.

It's easy to reach up, take her chin in his hand, his palm flat over the mark on her shoulder, shiny-smooth skin, so different. Can't get enough of it, of any of it, and then he looks into her eyes and smiles, and jerks, fast and hard.

The sharp snap of her neck is loud in the room. Pete would thank him for making it fast.

The phone rings ten times before Lex picks it up. Euphoria wore off; now all he wants to do is move, just do something, anything. Energy's flickering like electricity through him without a grounder, and he can't quite make himself stop twitching.

It's almost like overload, but he's been a junkie too long not to know how to control himself. This will pass too, hopefully before he starts tearing through the walls with his bare hands. He heals, always has, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.

"Clark." Phone's in his hand and he doesn't quite remember moving to pick it up, but that's--well, irrelevant, isn't it? Probably, probably, and he notices for the first time that Lana's blood has dried into his knuckles, across the skin of his fingers. "Fancy hearing from you."

"Are you okay?" And if the boy--man--doesn't sound genuinely worried. Lex would laugh, but that's--not quite right, for some reason.

"She's dead." He doesn't bother with pretending Clark doesn't get it. Sliding down, Lex stretches full length on the couch and smiles up into the ceiling. Clark is just a few hundred meters up there with a cell phone; how fucking surreal is this, anyway? Flying above a cloud of green-tinted dust that would kill him in seconds with any kind of rational luck, fall from the sky and crash into the ground, and Lex could finally find out just how human Clark looks on the inside.

And to think, there was a time that might have been something he would have wanted to do himself.

The silence stretches more--Lex is used to them. Likes them, learned at his father's knee how much silence tells. Sometimes more than words ever could--you could learn a lot by the shift of another person's body, the flickers of their fingers with their pens. The questions that cause the pauses, the answers that stumble out like a coda to the real thing. Clark's never quite learned how to fix that little deficiency, and Lex is glad, so glad, that this is one thing he managed to keep to himself.

He can read Clark like a book, out there for anyone to see if they have even a clue what the fuck they're looking for.

"I'm sorry."

"You knew what she'd do." Though there's this part of Lex that suspects that, just maybe, Clark doesn't quite get it. Not really, not all the way down to the core. It's not even a human thing, Lex thinks a little vaguely while he watches the water stain and calculates how many years it will be before this room is completely uninhabitable. Longer than he'll be alive, he hopes. It's a Clark thing. Something picked up during that wholesome upbringing, possibly, the part that lets Clark do the things he does and never really notice the dichotomy.

"I didn't, Lex. I thought--" His voice breaks, and Lex remembers seeing Clark that last time. Chloe--Chloe bleeding out between them, thirty meters away, and his hands had been so wet, so slick, there was no purchase on her body. The shock and grief had been real enough. Clark hadn't wanted anyone dead. Never had, and that's the part that makes Lex sometimes just stop. They're so--different. In all these huge ways that end up the same fucking thing.

"You--where are you anyway?" He's asking--he wants the visual, somehow. Just to see it in his own head.

"Overhead. Ten meters above the edge of the dust cloud, west side. You--did a good job. It took awhile to figure out your pattern, you know."

Lex smiles and raises his knuckles to his lips, licking the taste of blood away. Lana's blood, grounding. Another grave for Clark's collection, and Lex wishes he was able to tell Pete himself. He shouldn't find out by proxy. He owes Pete that much, at least.

"I'm very good at what I do." Should be. Years and years of practice, a biochem degree turned into expertise in the kind of terrorism he's become infamous for. It'll be in the history books, if there's any history ever written again. "Very good."

He's too high to talk now, he knows it. The kicks of energy are rushes now, and he jerks himself to his feet. Tiny room, not enough to pace like he wants to, but he tries anyway, pushing off the wall to try and work it out so he can think. It'll be forty-eight hours before he crashes, and Clark can send someone in to fetch him then. If they want him alive, at any rate.

There's still the gun, but Lex keeps wondering why he took out the magazines. Or when, for that matter. Neat pile on the table, so he has lots of time to reconsider, and the needle for the remaining Demerol's packed away.

"Lex." Clark's voice is gentle, so gentle. "Don't make this so hard. Just come out now."

"You think everything will end just because of me?" And he's genuinely curious--Clark's got to know how strong Pete is. Strong in ways that just defy description--Pete will let the planet burn before he gives up. There's been too many times they've come too close, and Lex sometimes thinks he should thank God that Pete has never run across those planet-splitting nukes. Clark, or someone, had the good sense to secure those early on, and it's not like they have a lot of access to nuclear scientists these days to build their own.

Not that he can guarantee that Pete won't take it into his head to give himself an impromptu education in nuclear science. There just hasn't been enough time yet.

"Lex." And Clark sighs. Honest to God sighs, and Lex leans into the wall, feeling the shock-race of his heart. Normal people would have died with his habit--heart attack or stroke, breakdown, gibbering in some random psych ward or small padded room, something hopeful. Not him. He can survive just about anything--and God knows he's tested the theory.

Maybe that's why the gun just looks so--hopeless, sitting over there. He can't be sure, ever, that he won't wake up after. Brain damaged perhaps, mobility impaired, but alive, just like every fucking time before.

"Lex," Clark says again, and Lex flattens his hand against the wall before the shaking punches it in--that'll hurt, oh God, this is just--not working. At all. "It's not about that at all."

"Is Pete even alive?" It's brutal--he knows that, knows it'll cut right through this connection and it'll make Clark wince. Maybe fly badly into a convenient cloud of bright green, but his luck just doesn't turn out like that.

"I have no idea." Hurt, definitely. He can see Clark pout and he's struck again by the sheer imagery--Clark, up in the air, flying about carrying a phone like some demented comic book hero he never would have believed in even for a second. "I'm not a murderer, Lex."

He doesn't have to be, and--it's the wording, Lex thinks, turning his face against the wall. Such cool stone, smooth and flooring and just a little addictive. It's the semantics, these little things, little differentiations that Clark can make, the strange world of black and white he lives in that Lex can't completely understand. Killer, maybe, but murderer? Never. Lex does his own dirty work, always has, and never bothers with the labels.

"Lex, just--come out. Okay? It's--don't you think it's been long enough?" His voice is so--so soft, like velvet that you could fall into and never climb out of, never want to. Lex remembers the first time he heard that voice, sometimes thinks he's the only one who ever has. It's not as if it matters, on any level, he's--God, he needs to fucking move. "It's--I know it's bad for you right now, I know, but--just come out and talk to me. Just talk. If--I think you'll understand if you try."

Pace by the table, almost knocking against the couch. He's breathing too fast and he knows this is going to take a long fucking time to even out. He's never tried four days running on these. Hamilton didn't exactly get a lot of time to work on the design, and Lex wonders if he should start to worry. He's always been an experiment of some kind: Lionel's Borgia parenting methods, Clark's first try at homosexuality--only, for that matter--endless tests in the labs and hospitals after the meteorite, and the unapproved anti-psychotic drugs the doctors ordered for schizophrenia catatonia. Lex wonders, to this day, if his dad ever bothered to tell them why his son wasn't responding to the outside world anymore.

"Leave me alone, Clark." He shuts the connection closed and tosses it on the couch. Without it, the room's even smaller if that's possible. Ten feet by ten feet square, he's right, he's had closets bigger than this, what was he thinking? Right, right, too much lead, too much notice, look at all the good that's done him.

There's a good chance he's just going to finish going insane and why does that sound like relief?

The door is against his back before he's even completely aware he's moved, and the phone is lying there on the couch. He--wants the call. Maybe even needs it. First steps, Clark's always known his habits, how easy it is to addict him.

Shutting his eyes, Lex just breathes, sweat slicking his forehead and the palm he presses to the floor. In and out, he can do this, there's a way out, there always is if you know where to look. If you think clearly, if you know your strengths, he's been saying that for years, ground it into doctrine, and God, so many believe it now, so many. Those people in that room he took Lana from, they believe, or they wouldn't be there at all.

Just think, Lex. Think.

He thinks of Metropolis, where it actually happened. The moment he got it, really understood, the flash of comprehension that changed everything. Two inch shift of the universe, or something like it. When Lex Luthor realized that choice was something as flexible and intangible as the time it took between two breaths, the one that sent him into the elevator with nothing but his wallet and a loaded gun.

And there's a part of him that's pretty sure that the line he crossed he didn't really have to. It had never been in his nature. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing. He proves that every damn day.

Lex really doesn't think about it often, though--there's a lot of spaces in his mind that he avoids on instinct. Some of his childhood and half his adolescence falls into that category, and he can count on one hand the number of times he's gone exploring to see what's really there. A lot of it is stuff he can't quite bring himself to look at too long or too hard. The rest...

Well. It's better, in the long run, not to know for sure, but--Metropolis. His city, really, not Superman's, not Clark's. He's proven that, it's the reason he comes here at all. It's his. Not the traditional Luthor demesne, but Lex's, and it doesn't matter he's not free to walk the streets, that he's trapped like an animal in this tiny room that's too small and too fucking bright or dark or God, something. It's--home. And no matter how long Clark's been here, no matter how strong he is, it's not Clark's, not the way Lex owns it.

He wishes he could explain it better to himself.

No, he doesn't.

The ring of the phone's startlingly loud, and Lex fights the instinct to lunge for it. All Pavlovian, All the Time--his psych teacher might call conditioning theory. Fuck. Hamilton's going to pay with a finger if there's something in this mix that's making him start random reminiscing about his first year of college.

The rings are so loud--side effect, Lex, sensitivity to light and sound. Good thing the room's just about as bright as the average prison cell at night. He's got to wonder a little why he didn't think to install fluorescent lighting--there had to have been a good reason, just that bare yellow bulb that seems to be hanging far too low, like he could run straight into it if he isn't careful.

Just above him, but below Clark, undoubtedly wondering if Lex has shattered his phone or maybe just decided to try out those bullets after all...where was he going with this thought? Right, right, above him is the remains of LuthorCorp, LexCorp, whatever people remember, but he tends to think it'll be Lex, in the end. Sorry, Dad, you just didn't really get how much of an overachiever I really am. Terrorist, mass murderer, the one blocking the coming of the--what the fuck were they calling it these days anyway? He could swear he'd heard them muttering Renaissance, but even his sense of humor won't take that very easily, though he'd laughed himself sick when he first heard it. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men, do what a few million years of human civilization couldn't, not to mention a few dozen prophets, saints and wise men of all flavors--Clark thinks he's doing it, exactly what he'd dreamed of when they'd both been kids.

Lex is going to go out on a limb and bet that the fifteen year old in the corn field probably hadn't had this in mind. Different world, different time, different place, he's going to be reciting poetry any minute now and his has always sucked. Like he needs to commit to blank verse the wonders of a fucking hick town Kansas summer.

A hysterical laugh is coughed out before Lex can stop himself.

He sinks into the floor, letting the chill work its way through his pants, into his skin, and he can't remember the last time he was warm. Really, honest to God warm and comfortable and not wired to run at the slightest hint of anything going wrong.

The rings continue, endless sound that's beginning to scrape the edges of Lex's nerves like sandpaper. Pressing his palms to the floor, the leather of his glove makes a softly scraping sound. It still fascinates him--he imagines sometimes he can still feel with it, like now, like the cold is slowly shifting through the leather and his palms--both his palms--are like ice.

He knows it's his imagination, but it doesn't make it any less--what's the word? Real. Reality is this edged, slightly interpretable set of circumstances, after all. To some people, he's the one destroying Superman's vision; to Pete, he's some kind of quasi-hero that's determined on freeing them all. And then there's his own view of the events in question, no one's ever asked him, and....

The phone is on and in his hand. He stares across the room at Lana's body and sucks in a choked breath when he clicks the connection back on.

"Lex, are you okay?"

God, so worried, he remembers the times he came back home and Clark was there--usually after the bad nights with his dad, the long meetings with employees or contacts or potential customers. The way Clark would look at him for those searching moments and ask if it was worth it. If LexCorp was worth it, if his pride was worth it, if it was that damned important to be better than his father.

And it wasn't, but that wasn't the point, and maybe this is where he should have figured something was going to go really wrong.

He'd said, "It's my destiny, Clark."

Not--true.

"It's me, Clark," Lex says into the phone, shutting his eyes. Leaning his head back against the door so the cold will penetrate there, too.

"Lex?"

"You asked me. What was important. Why everything I did for LexCorp was so important. Why I put up with my father's shit. I didn't answer you. It wasn't that. It wasn't destiny. It was me."

The connection hums briefly, and Lex wonders what that means.

"Lex--"

"Shut up. It's not about you. It's not about the war and it's not about us at all. You didn't get it then. It wasn't LexCorp. It was me. I had to see--I had to know who I was. I had to test it, I had to be sure. It's identity, Clark. When I look in the mirror, I have to know who I'm seeing. I couldn't live with being in my father's shadow. I couldn't live with being--"

"In mine?"

How true is that? Lex shifts into the floor, slow and easy--his body wants movement, but this is a part of it. The Lex he's created over the years before Clark, during Clark, after Clark. This person who can't quite die and who said he'd decide when he wanted to. Who told destiny to fuck itself so often that it should be seriously knocked up, and God, he's laughing into the wall.

"No. It wasn't about you." And it's true. "I couldn't live without seeing what I could be."

Clark's quiet for a long moment.

"You're hallucinating, Lex. What did you take?" There's edges of desperation in his voice. Lex can almost see Clark circling, worried frown in place--and it'd be easy for Clark to start calling in people to come down here, and they'd do it, no question. Lex has two magazines, but sheer number would win out. This could be forced. If Clark wants it that way, but he's getting the crawling feeling that it's--not.

He's getting the feeling that Clark--

"I'm fine." Slow, casual kick into the floor with the worn heel of his boot. It's edged in some cheap metal, nice ringing sound, and he's in here and the door is right there. "I'm fine. Everything is--fine. Great."

Fine, great. Hamilton will die by inches. This isn't normal. This can't be.

"You're not. Lex, please, come out now. You're just--this is so fucking stupid. We don't need to do this anymore. I'm not your enemy. We can talk--"

"We did talk." Didn't they? Can't be too clear on that one, though--or he can, but that's one of the memories he doesn't want. He'll recall his own amputation chaser of whiskey shots first. There was--

"You didn't let me explain. You never--God, you never listen. You walked out. You didn't even ask--"

"Ask what?" Lex whispered, staring into the ceiling. "What part of that speech didn't I get? Just fuck off, Clark. I'm down here with a dead body and some seriously fucked up coke. Just--stop. Stop calling, let me rot here in peace and go save someone else from themselves. Anyone, Clark. Just. Not. Me."

"You don't understand."

"Don't fucking tell me what I do and don't understand."

The hum seems to increase, and Lex tries to figure out what that is on the connection. The logical, rational part of his mind, that is, the part that right now is having to do serious battle with the claustrophobia that wants to get out, the addict that wants to move, and it's always been like this, always this war in his head. His father's son, Clark's lover, Pete's fucking hero, and Lana's--

"I snapped her neck."

There's a breathless pause and Lex shuts his eyes. Plain painted black behind them, he can see her face against it, the knowledge, the shame.

"God, Lex--"

"I couldn't forgive her for doing it. After everything. And she wanted to die, Clark. I--" The relief on her face, the knowledge that he would do it, give her what he couldn't manage to give himself. It's called--did he call it coping, really? What was the truth on that one?

"I'm sorry, Lex." Honest grief is wrapping around him like a blanket. A cushion against the stark reality of the room. Why'd you snap her neck, Lex? Pete wouldn't ask, because he'd think he knew. Some would think it was the betrayal of their cause. Some might even think it was for her, but he's really fucking high, flying as high as Clark now, and there's not enough space in this room for lies, it being only ten feet by ten feet by six fucking feet what the hell was he thinking with something like this?

"She--" In his arms, the taste, the smell, she walked up there and she gave in. And God, she did it and he wants it too, right here, right now. "I'm not, Clark. I'm not."

He's on his feet and the door's open at his first touch. And there's something like relief when he picks up the gun from the table, loading the magazine in and enjoying the weight he shouldn't be able to feel in that artificial hand. The lead box is in the bag and this is--freeing, somehow.

"Fuck you, Clark. You want me, get me yourself."

It's the movement that shuts down his body's constant screams for action, his claustrophobia vanishing with the opening of the door and the path to the ladders. The part of him that's rational, the part of him that's kept him alive and free for fifteen very, very long years. Turn here, left there, he knows the way by heart, every filth-laden inch of it, and he barely notices how his boots sink into piles of shit and refuse and maybe, very possibly rotting bodies, but it's dark down here. And he. Doesn't. Really. Want. To know.

There are two ways out. One will come out right in the center of the dust cloud he created--and no, it's not a good idea for a normal human to breathe meteor dust, but he's about as far from normal as someone who can still claim human DNA can get.

It's a mistake to leave, he knows that, but the lead piping down here will block him a little. Even Clark can't look constantly everywhere all at once through all that meteor dust and catch more than residuals of his movement. He could go either way.

Michaels, Fisher, Sullivan, Winters, Steele, Forbes, Hampton--Reeves, and Christian. And himself. He can remember now--Reeves was the one he picked up in Denver that last time, whose wife turned him out and made him run. Christian was one of those people that was practically born to be told what to do. He could have ended up anywhere. Just Lex's luck that he found him first.

"Lex, what are you doing?"

It's a shock to realize that he's still holding the fucking phone, and so much for dramatic last words. It's--appropriate to laugh, and Lex leans into the slick wall to catch unneeded breath and laughs until his ribs ache.

Gallows sense of humor, and that's another thing Clark never learned. He doesn't laugh at himself, never has, and that--well, doesn't that explain a lot? Fuck Jonathan Kent and his training his kid for a destiny, he missed that. The most important thing, maybe, the one thing that it took Lex years to learn, so maybe it's not that much of a surprise that things are like they are.

"Lex--" the words are blurring again and Lex tries to figure out what that means. He's out of range of the boosters in that room, true enough, so maybe the signal's going out. Clark's up there, he's down here, and it's like this huge ass metaphor for their lives, together and apart. "Lex, talk to me. Don't--"

Clark had said, "Lex, we need to talk."

He remembers now.

"I know why I left, Clark."

That night, in their room. When the carpet had those flickers of something reddish-brown and dried, and he wasn't even--God, had he been paying attention at all? When the fuck had it come to the point where his lover was washing out fucking bloodstains and talking about a new way of life?

No, he didn't put it that way. It was..."There's got to be a better way, Lex." That's what he'd said. Right then. "There's got to be. I can't--I can't keep doing this."

And he'd thought that meant no more Superman, no more godawful costumes, and no more--no more blood. He hadn't been paying fucking attention. He'd been thinking about LuthorCorp stock and his father and thinking of going back to school and finishing his degree. He'd been thinking, thank God, Clark finally understood. You couldn't save everyone, there wasn't a way to do that. People didn't want to be saved, you couldn't force it. Ten thousand something years of recorded civilization and Clark was trying to figure it out with that alien mind of his. Human nature was human nature.

And he'd looked up, Clark sitting by the window, watching the sky with that strangely blank expression. Turning around and looking at him, wide clear eyes, never learned how to hide a fucking thing. It was written there, clear as day, clear as the blood on their carpet, but he still hadn't quite--seen it.

Believed it would be closer to true, though.

He'd sat down beside him, pulling off his tie. Reached out and touched that perfect face, tried to find the right words. And under it all---what had been there? Satisfaction, relief, maybe even the triumph of winning this, winning Clark. No more sharing with the entire fucking universe of idiots out there, no more long nights alone with Clark roaming the skies, and it would be--he had to have been happy, right then.

Right that second. Perfect, heady, clear happiness, he'd won. Nothing got him as high as victory. Not sex, not drugs, nothing came close to competing. Not with that moment.

"Lex? Are you still there?" Clark's voice in his ear's jarring, jerking Lex into movement again. Left up here, there's the ladder to the surface. Center of the dust cloud, he'll emerge sixteen steps from what used to be the doors of the LuthorCorp main building. Directly in that crap, Clark would have a hard time spotting him directly.

"I'm fine, Clark."

And--something else in between. Five minutes between sitting down and walking out, ten minutes into the elevator, he'd--felt Clark's hand on his. Slow, deliberate strokes. This strange glow to his face, the way his eyes were lit up. "People need a symbol, Lex. Someone to--believe in. To follow. Someone to show them the way."

Lex tucks the phone in his pocket, not bothering to kill the connection--by now, Pete's been getting a busy signal if he's tried to call at all. Worried, probably, but Lex always lands on his feet. Always.

And Clark had said..."They need hope, Lex."

And he'd said, "What do you mean?"

And Clark had told him.

"You're not a god," Lex says, and he jerks up the first rung of the ladder. Disgustingly familiar, wet and slimy, slick under his hands, but he's used to these conditions. Not like escape's ever simple. Not like there's always a helicopter or someone to blow up a building for a distraction. This isn't the movies, this isn't the halcyon days of Smallville, this is real life, where he's climbed dead bodies and seen rain fall blood-warm and wet from the sky and evaporate over fires so hot water can only feed them.

He can hear the vague sound of the connection fizzling when he reaches the top, and it's an easy push to get the lid open, emerging into a pink-grey world of rubble where there was once a living city. Hard asphalt under his boots, the remains of a street, and Lex wonders if he can breathe this stuff and if asphyxiation is really the way he wants to go. Theory sounded pretty good, but the practice--

"Not until I'm ready."

Clark had told him. It was so frighteningly simple that he hadn't believe it, not at first. Hadn't even really thought in those terms, and he was raised by a man who got off on history lessons involving Alexander the Great, a mother who gave gifts laden with symbolism. Simple and dazzlingly easy, for Clark, for Lex, and that moment, when he'd felt that pull, the way Clark could just do that, make you believe everything. That Clark really could save everyone, just like he'd always wanted.

The building's fifty feet to the left, the only one that has even the possibility of breathable air. It's also toward the outskirts of the cloud--Lex knows his payload, knows the extent of the damage, even with the wind factor in mind. Clark can't touch anything in this zone, not for weeks. And humans can't get in here and do much more than die--asphyxiation's the fast way, future cancer the slow one.

And Clark had said, "I need to do this."

Fuck. Fuck. Not the time, not the place, not now, he doesn't need to be thinking of this now. He can get out. There's hope right here, he can get out of the city and he's never coming back. Not ever. Tell Pete that Lana died here, never tell why. Never tell how. Pete needs hope like he needs air, and Lana would break him.

Maybe this time, when he's out, he'll start building Pete his nukes, and maybe this time, he'll have the will to let Pete use them.

The building's walls are thick--Lex gives a quick look around. Secondary reaction to the blast, third building down from ground zero. It should be okay; from here he can plan a way out. Clark can't find him, not in this, not until he's out and maybe, just maybe, he can make it. Just far enough.

Please, just one last time. Please.

Spots are dancing in front of his eyes and he's getting the edges of lightheadedness. But there's a door and he knows the building--interior room, air, temporary measure, safe enough. Jerks at the unresponsive handle, and he's got a gun, right? Gun, fire, no fucking way to close the door after, and he wants to start laughing again but that would be the easy way out, and he's not taking anything easy. Never has.

Fuck it, Lex, don't lose it now. You can do this. Luthors. Don't. Fail.

The door opens with a squeal of hinges and the sharp tear of a muscle in Lex's shoulder, and he barely cracks it before sliding inside. Full weight of his body to push it shut and he draws in a strangled breath, hoping he was right. Bits of dust, but--yes. Yes. Secure room, good for hiding from tornadoes and Supermen and other uniquely-Kansas natural disasters. Good for any and all occasions, people should think of these thing when they build their skyscrapers.

Slumping into the floor, Lex pulls out the phone, dropping the bag to the floor beside him, concentrating on air--stale and lightly dusted, but still. Air. Still a little ragged, but he can take a little time, recover. Let Clark meander all around that fucking cloud if he wants. Search the edges and try to scan inside, but it'll be. Okay.

"It's going to be okay," he whispers, and God, he's talking to himself.

And he'd told Clark, "It's going to be okay. You're--it's been a long night, Clark. You should--"

And Clark had said, "It's the only way. I've thought about this. I can--this is the reason I was brought here, don't you see it?"

Brought, yes, that's a word for it. Landed is another very clean way to put it. Fucking crashed is accurate. Semantics again. Clark just--sees things differently. Something to do with destiny, maybe, or hell, for all Lex's knows, it'd been percolating in that pretty head for a long time--maybe long nights alone on the streets, seeing things that brought him home with that haunted look that always made Lex's gut clench. Everything, all the worst of human nature that Clark dealt with every fucking night, and it hadn't been, hadn't been completely selfish joy at the thought of Clark stopping. There'd been--all that relief. Too young and too idealistic, his pretty Kansas farmboy who grew up in that black and white wholesome Smallville, a world that had nothing at all to do with the grey shades of daily life of Metropolis, of the cities. Of the real world.

He hadn't wanted Clark to lose that---that innocence. That belief. Faith. Whatever the fuck it was. And he never had, and isn't that just the kicker? It's all there, like fucking lights in the sky. All Clark's belief, all that fucking faith, and it's everywhere now. Carved into the rubble of cities and into the overstuffed cemeteries and into the rot of backstreet alleys and into living flesh.

His fingers do it all on their own, checking and yes, there's still a connection. Clark's there, he knows it, listening. Maybe using superhearing now to catch the sound of Lex's breathing and Lex really doesn't know how well Clark can hear through meteordust. That isn't exactly something he could have checked in the lab.

Carefully, he lifts the phone to his ear. Quiet crackle, slow burn of a bad connection, but still, he's talked over worse lines.

"I'm here, Clark."

He can hear the faint sounds of Clark's breathing--too fast, worried, maybe.

"Lex. You're--" A short pause. "Where are you?"

Lex can't help laughing, if only to himself. "I'm not making it that easy, Clark. I always wondered--is your hearing affected by the cloud?"

"Not really." Of course not. That's not how Lex's luck runs. Gritting his teeth, he picks up the bag and pushes himself off the floor. Next. Another building. Bolthole to bolthole, Clark can't guess the direction and he can hide. It's Metropolis. It's his fucking city and he knows every street, every back alley, every place Clark's eyes can't see through. He. Can. Get. Away. It's terrifyingly possible he'll survive. "Lex--you're not leaving this city until we talk. You're ill and shit, Lex, what are you burning out on? More of Hamilton's experiments?"

Clark really did know him far too well. Bracing a hand on the wall, Lex pushes himself up, finding his feet. Adrenaline rush, quick and bright, the uppers are only ten hours old in his blood and he's--he's got time. Clark--well, he doesn't.

Taking a deep breath, Lex thrusts the phone back in his pocket.

"I can do this."

He told himself that, when he stood up. When he saw everything that Clark was saying--Clark believed. He thought--oh God, he thought this was a good idea--no. He thought it was the best idea, the only idea, and the Luthor in Lex was very much awake and staring out his eyes and it made him ask, "Clark, why?"

And the response had been--unexpected. Little frown lines on his forehead and maybe it was that second that Clark had read him wrong--even after all their years together, Clark still made mistakes. Still didn't read Lex as well as Lex could read him. Still--didn't quite understand.

He'd said, "Why not?"

Lex had walked out. Thirty steps, stopping for his wallet and the gun he'd taken to carrying after the first of the assassination attempts on his father. Tucked in his jacket pocket, and Clark hadn't really--hadn't even gotten up to follow him. And it was this rational trip to the door and then he'd--walked out. In the elevator, down sixty floors, to his car, the pretty blue Porsche that he'd taken straight into Smallville and left moving when he got out, watching it crash over the side of the bridge that he should have fucking died on.

Because. This. Is. What. Had. Happened.

And Pete had stared at him with wide, shocked eyes, and that flare was there, too. Disbelief and denial and knowledge. Fear like something solid you could choke on. And that--

--that's when Lex had started running for real.

Outside, he takes a second, then chooses his direction. That way, over this, broken concrete, asphalt, exposed steel beams and yes, bodies, he could walk Metropolis blind and never lose his way. Easy not to see the blood under his feet, the flakes drifting in the air brownish-black, he's been doing that for years. And he can see--from here--the place where he sat in his car twenty-eight hours ago and gave the order, slides by it and breathes a little, less concentrated and it's not like that crap can hurt him very much, not anymore. It's done all the damage it deserves to get out of him.

Thinning cloud and Lex keeps walking, breathes lightly, and there's this sick sense of heady excitement, maybe the stims are giving him another euphoric rush, he's close to another place to hide and he's getting the fuck out and never coming back....

And--he stops. An inch from the fucking ground, no physics on earth is going to allow for that, life swirls in grey-green and sudden, clear air that has none of the rock in it, and Lex--

--remembers Atlanta. Burning. Chloe. Jonathan. Dad. Lana.

Clark.

It's--achingly familiar. Strong arms around him, pulling him off his feet, damn Clark for being those inches taller that makes him tower, it's a killing psychological edge for most people. So warm, so close, his body's asking why he's trying to get away, asking it really loudly, because, because--

--this is right, wanted, needed, and God, so warm, like home, it's everything.

Peripheral vision tells him there are people watching, and they don't look like they're Clark's. Or anybody's, for that matter. Ragged clothes and desperate looks, fear and something that borders on--what the fuck is that, and this has to be another dream, he fell asleep in the room, he's dead, this is all some fucked-up hallucination and Hamilton's balls are gonna be fucking spooned out, please, please....

...please, God, please let it be a dream.

They aren't Clark's, these people, they're not anyone's, and they're look at him with hope.

Everyone needs a symbol, right, Lex?

"Go on, struggle." Tighter clasp, and the tip of Clark's finger slides beneath the edge of his jacket, under his shirt, finding skin, and it's like electricity. "It'll give them something to believe in. Or... don't. It's okay..." Clark's voice is soft against his ear, warm, wet breath. Tireless patience and understanding, and yes, say it, Lex, love, the kind that you can't ever escape no matter how far you run, no matter where you hide. Cities had burned for moments like this. Have burned. Are burning. "It's about hope, Lex. Hope for the future, and they don't see it yet. They need you for this. To make the transition easier. Fight me, Lex, if you want to. It's okay."

"You fucking bastard--" Pushes the words out, and those clear dark eyes are beautiful--Clark's never tried to hide, to lie, never needed to. His crimes are accepted, his sins are exalted, and God, Dad would be so impressed, so amazed, this was how it's done.

"It's okay." Gentle, tender touch to his cheek, and there's blinding joy in those eyes. "It's hope, Lex. They need this. You need this. I understand."

The sharp blow to the back of his head's familiar, too, and Lex knows it won't kill him. And being happy to know he won't die right here, right now, is probably the worst thing of all.

Part II:

The faint prick of a needle brings him abruptly awake from--nothingness. Or something close to it, like the padded edges of a dark cell in some particularly expensive mental institution. Amazingly familiar, is Dad here to talk to him again? It feels like it's been seconds--or years--since he's last felt this alive, but his muscles respond like they're treading molasses, and so he's already falling back into--oh God, warm, soft, dry blankets, so wonderful, so soft. So--clean. Clean.

He expects--something entirely different. He can hear the sounds of the air filters, the barest buzz that's almost subliminal. There's a completely pleasant crawling sensation on his skin, like the first low haze of arousal, but less demanding. Afterglow, maybe. He hasn't fucked in--how long?

"He'll be fine." Distant, strangely flat voice off to a vague left. "I think a few more days will work it out of his system. The worst is over. The current dosages are low enough for what you need. You shouldn't worry."

"I probably will anyway." Lex forces his eyes open at the rueful amusement in the low voice. "Thanks."

They drift somewhere far above his head--there's not any way possible to move and look and see. It just--feels so useless, suddenly, and he feels like he'll float if he doesn't breathe.

Effects of withdrawal, his rational mind tells him coolly. That little, separate place his father created, the part that learned how to observe and respond, how to keep the emotions conveniently curbed in an emergency, and he's always laughing inside when people say he's cold. He's not. He just knows the fine art of separation, compartmentalization, when the rest of his mind's this confused, blurry place of too many different emotions to possibly use them all.

A smooth hand brushes across his face, and his body moves into it, perfectly content now that it's got what it's been starving for. There's pressure and a shift of the mattress, and he can just turn his head, see Clark looking down at him with that familiar smile of pure pleasure.

"You're going to probably feel weird for awhile," Clark says softly, still stroking. "They're still trying to figure out how you got those doses down without killing yourself. Your heart's fine, though."

Oh, well, he's really been worried about that. It's this slow, almost painful process to pull his elbows up under him, forcing his body upright, and Clark doesn't even try to stop him. Just shifts back, hand still on Lex's face like he's trying to memorize him by touch.

"How--" The word is slurred and Lex focuses. It's all about will, about discipline, and how many people has he told that to? And how many have believed him? Most of them, especially when they knew how and where he lost his hand. Licking his lips, Lex tries again. "How long?"

"You've been out a few days. I had you sedated through the worst of the withdrawal." Another slow stroke, and Lex wonders if it would be worth the energy to sop his pride and jerk away. If he even can--it's taking everything in him to just sit up, and his elbows are shaking, sinking further into that wonderful softness, five hundred count Egyptian cotton sheets, he swears they have to be. Or he's been sleeping on burlap and cheap metal-framed cots and bare dirt for far too damned long. "God, I've missed you."

There's a brush of lips across his mouth, slow and achingly sweet, and there's this--rush of pure feeling. It's so easy for some people to hate Clark, so easy he wonders how they can manage it. Effortless as breathing, and he searches for the reasons that don't seem important right now. Don't seem entirely real--this is reality, this room, this bed, Clark. The rest of it is--just not. Long nightmare or short eternity of another life he's almost sure he couldn't possibly have lived, not poor little rich boy Luthor, the kid who thinks that domestic cars are beneath contempt and credit cards don't have limits.

That he doesn't have limits.

"Don't--" The word is choked out on a breath, too soft, too low, doesn't have any force behind it, and he sure as hell isn't channeling Dad now.

"I love you." Soft mouth on his cheek, his jaw, silky tongue sliding slow and steady, eager and careful. Exploring his mouth with sweet, slow strokes, so good, he's been missing this. Craving this. Lex's hands clench with the need to hold Clark. Touch him. Feel him, breathe him, lose himself in him, in them. Remember.

"Everyone you love dies." Lana. Chloe. Jonathan. It's in every touch, it's poison. It's-- not true. Not entirely. Lex knows that, he's too tired, too comfortable, too happy, too terrified to lie. The rational mind can fuck itself.

"Not you." Lick across his throat, and Clark's hands are on his skin. Addictive, familiarity, knowing every secret, no lover he's ever had was anything like Clark. Hot breath on his bare shoulder, warm mouth following, slow and wet. "Shh. I--God, you're here, Lex. You're here."

His eyes won't stay open--this slow burn of decade-old exhaustion pulling him gently into thick comfort. He's not running because there's nowhere to go where he can escape this, not now. He can feel Clark shift, moving over him, pulling the blankets back. Warm, heavy pressure settling against his body, Clark's touching him, and he can't give that up, there's nothing on earth that can make him. His beautiful, perfect Clark, warm and strong and no different than the last time.

He's drifting. In and out, fog-heavy. But--God, it's not--

Smooth fingers on his mouth, and he fights the need to lick. "Shh. You're tired, Lex. Let it go. Everything's going to be okay now. I promise."

Oh God. He wants to believe and can't, and sleep is welcome, he needs it, he wants it, he wants everything. He wants the lies, because it's the truth that he never has been able to live with.

There's a slick, wet slide along the back of his arm, across the scar that bought his life just outside Las Vegas--Lex buries his head in a sweet-smelling pillow, the ghost of an ache in his neck instantly soothed by strong fingers. Slow, careful, utterly knowing, working out the tension that had become habitual, and it was--God, it was good. Urged onto his stomach, Lex lets himself sink and thinks of--

--the soft mouth on his spine, tracing the fading line from barbed wire, a raid in Kentucky. Almost healed. Thicker knotwork is explored on the back of his thigh, shrapnel from a bomb that went off too soon. Careful fingers mark it, soothing the thickened tissue, the raised line of past infection that had left him fevered only two years ago.

And he'd once said he never got sick. Even his immune system has begun to lag with the sheer amount of damage he inflicts on himself. Anyone else wouldn't have survived--antibiotics are worth more than gold.

The slow exploration ends at his right wrist and Lex smiles into the soft cotton at the stuttering pause at the edge of his glove.

"When--" Shocked breath, let out in almost a hiss.

"Took you a long time to notice." His muscles are awake this time--so is his cock, but that's such a non-issue he doesn't bother trying to hide it as he rolls onto his back, noting in approval that whoever had stripped him had left the prosthetic alone. The leather has been cleaned, but against the crisp sheets and his--very clean skin, remarkably clean, so pale, so clear--it's the equivalent of a dimestore reject. Never could have guessed it was imported Italian leather and had been bought to do nothing more taxing than steer expensive sports cars once upon a time.

Easy flex of his fingers, and Clark raises himself on one elbow, fingers stopping at the line of flesh and the hand, perfect match, nothing less than the best for Lex, pinkly fleshed as a mannequin in an upper-income boutique.

"It--feels real." Clark's voice is almost reverent, and the brown eyes fix briefly. Lex watches his head tilt, eyes narrowing more, before he blinks. "Lead-lined?"

"Never pays for your enemies to know your weaknesses," Lex answers softly, flexing the hand before pushing the edge of the glove down past his wrist, edging Clark's fingers off his skin. "Just for you."

There's a slash between Clark's eyebrows; tiny Clark-specific unhappiness, and there were days Lex would have fallen over himself to erase that look. Just the kind of strange thoughts he's going to be having, being naked in bed with Clark after--God, how many years has it been anyway?

"I--I'm not your enemy, Lex." And it could be anytime in their lives, the voice almost painfully familiar, the same voice that had convinced him years and years ago that Clark would never lie to him. Except when he did, and Lex clings to that, the memory of bright, sharp pain the day that Clark told him the truth, the rage. He doesn't have the other defenses yet--not in this warm room, clean and dry and God, so comfortable. Not even hungry, and the fresh track marks on his inner arm are a good indicator he's probably better hydrated than his body knows how to handle anymore. "Lex, I--" Soft brush of fingertips against his lips, and Lex bites, hard; Clark's not fragile, never has been, and Lex holds his eyes when he grinds his teeth down, watching the dark eyes dilating suddenly and the loose sweatpants aren't hiding a damn thing.

The taste is wonderful, though--it's been a long time since he's touched someone like this, felt like this when he did. The room--so quiet, the filters almost inaudible except for that subliminal buzz he noticed before. Slick skin, edged with something sharp like sweat, that tangy-sweet taste that's Clark himself. The way Clark's body tenses beside him, one hand fisting into the mattress and the sheet almost shredding under the pressure. Can't help sucking a little, licking the tip, just beneath the blunt line of Clark's nail.

"I'm not your enemy," Clark whispers again, and he shifts closer, the mattress dipping as his thigh touches Lex's. Lex bites down again, catching Clark's wrist on his prosthetic hand, quick hard squeeze from stronger-than-human fingers. There's no comparison in simple strength between them, but Clark doesn't move again, breath catching on something like a whine. "Lex, please...."

"Shut up." He pushes Clark's fingers away from his mouth but keeps his grip on the deceptively fragile wrist. Pretty, long bones, soft skin just inside Clarks' arm that he has to taste, just to see if he remembers. So smooth, not a blemish, not a mark, like it's brand new to the world ,and Lex follows it down the trace of a vein, the rush of blood thudding lightly against his tongue. Arousal's a taste and a scent and a feeling and most people never know it, never pay attention. Sex, good sex, is a full sensory experience utterly unlike any other. "You don't--"

"Lex, listen to me. Please. I--"

And God, does he never shut up? Always asking questions, always pushing, it's like his raison d'tre, he can't quite leave anything alone. A quick jerk of that wrist and Clark's off balance, flat against him, God, that bare skin. All that wonderful, sweet skin and that mouth, moist and so close, so easy just to lean up and taste. Sucking on the full bottom lip and feeling Clark's shudder rock them both.

Clark tries to find his balance, but Lex isn't quite ready for that, not when his is gone. A savage bite, and he gets a hand in that soft hair, and it's--yes, God, it's like he never left, how perfectly they fit together, Clark's mouth, Clark's tongue, the little broken sounds, the arching of his body. Sweet, addictive, pretty boy in his arms that he doesn't ever have to be careful with, not at all. Gets an arm around his back and lifts--

--slams them both into the mattress. His lip's cut open again, can feel Clark licking the blood away, sucking the wound and it's--shit, it's hot in that way that should scare the hell out of him, but he's too fucking hard, rubbing against that long, strong body, smooth cotton, skin slicking with sweat. Lean thigh wrapped around his, trying to move in ways that basic physics is going to say are impossible whether you think you're a god or not.

"God, Lex..." Hot breath against his forehead and he nudges Clark's chin up. More skin to touch, to remember, nothing wrong with that, nothing compromising, nothing he can't justify later. Nothing he can't live with, and adding it up, he's living with a lot worse sins than fucking protogods. "Lex, yes. I've missed you, please, come on--."

"Shut up, Clark." No reason to move his mouth from Clark's skin--yes, there's the taste. The acid edge he tasted on Lana's skin was here, stronger, a shock that makes him clench his teeth and groan, stiffening at the sharp edge of heat that hurts, that's good. "Just--" Tracing the bones of Clark's collar with his tongue, and the wrist still trapped in his hand flexes, almost pulling away. "Don't. You. Fucking. Move."

There's a sound like a whimper, and Lex lifts his head, looking into the clear dark eyes. So clear, he's not hiding anything anywhere. Curling his hand in the waist of Clark's sweats, he jerks them down, Clark arching to let them go. Flawless body he's lost himself in more times than he's ever been able to count, ever cared to. Sucks a kiss into the flat stomach, licking the light hair, dipping briefly in his navel, but he's just--he wants more, now. Luthor blood, he thinks, everything isn't enough, not for them, not with that name, but this is--close. So close.

Lex pulls himself up on his knees, shifting Clark's thighs apart and kneeling between. He wonders for a second who undressed him, maybe Clark, maybe someone else, but the thought drifts off before he can let them start to disturb him, bring this into some kind of reality he can't live with. This is real, right now; Clark, spread out in front of him, hot eyes and wet lips and tanned skin and hard cock, Lex has got the most powerful being in the world on his back in bed and he's got a sense of humor about himself.

This is fucking hilarious.

He keeps his grip on Clark's wrist in the blankets and holds the dark eyes, then ducks his head, swallowing Clark's cock.

"Fuck, Lex-" It's choked out and Lex bites, it's not like he can hurt Clark after all. Not even bruise him, remembers now the experiments he ran, hours on hours of nothing but this, sex and sweat and dark and the cling of skin to skin and the smells, until he lost himself in it.

Sucks hard, pulling back up, catching the glazed eyes, the hips trying to follow his mouth and Lex braces himself on one arm. Clark's so easy, really, so ready, any time, all the time, in the loft, the kitchen, the bathroom, the shower, the dorm, their bedroom, in the fucking Kansas cornfields, against the wall, Clark's never told him no, never looked away. Not since the first time, slow fuck in godforsaken Smallville and his body remembers.

Every. Fucking. Time.

He knows how to make Clark Kent whimper and twist and beg, promise anything and everything.

It's unreal, all of it. The way Clark tastes, like it's been just yesterday, Lex is a junkie with his favorite fix. Velvety skin, slick from his mouth, perfect fit, he had years, once, to learn everything. Thick and heavy, the weight pushing down on his tongue, stretch of his mouth, God, he's missed this and never even knew it. He knows how Clark moves and how he sounds when he wants to come, knows how to hold him just like this, can keep it up forever, driving them both crazy with it.

Another lazy swallow, switching his rhythm, and the low groan is delicious. It's like victory, and Lex has always gotten off on victory, every kind, every way, in the bedroom, in the boardroom, in the field with his bombs, in this bed with this man. He switches his grip on Clark's wrist, letting up, curving his fingers through Clark's and pinning him back down. Squeezing hard and dragging his teeth back up the length, letting Clark rest on his tongue just for brief seconds.

Squeezes Clark's fingers and looks into the hazel eyes.

Now.

One swallow and Clark is his--full-body shudder that's more like pain than pleasure, a low sound that ripples in the air, and Lex shuts his eyes and swallows. Acid-salt, thick, rich, fills every sense.

It barely slows him down.

Pulling back, Lex looks down, licking his lips, watching Clark's heavy gaze track the movement. Utterly pliant after, like he could be reshaped into something completely new, just by Lex's will, and God, he wonders if he ever has. Lex slowly unwinds his fingers from Clark's, flexing his hand. He could come just looking at Clark like this. Spread out and flushed from sex, soft and sweet and completely his.

"Where--" He grits out the word, not entirely sure he can make himself understood. Too fucking much all at once; it's sensory overload in every sense of the word. Indecently beautiful boy stretched out there, like a thousand wet dreams and too many fucking fantasies to count, doesn't even include the memories he's jerked off to for way too long. He wants this to last and wants it over with, wants to be inside and wants to just-- "Where?"

Even post-orgasm, Clark's not stupid. Panting breath and quick lick of his lips, he just points and Lex nods jerkily. Rips the drawer out and finds the little jar alone, and ironic, his favorite type, no, this wasn't planned, not at all.

He doesn't give a fuck.

Dropping the jar on the mattress, he tosses the drawer on the floor and leans over Clark, touching the tip of his tongue to those full lips. Clark tries to follow, but Lex jerks back, grabbing the sharp jaw, holding him still. Traces along the lower lip, down to his chin, over one perfect cheekbone. Sucks a little just below his ear, the way that always makes Clark whimper, then brushes his lips over the rim.

"Want to fuck, Clark?" Can't help stretching out against Clark, thrusting against his hip, God, that feels good. So good.

"Lex--" Clark turns his head, and a hand touches his face. So gentle, so careful, it's instinct for Clark now, he can't hurt Lex, never could, not this way. He learned all the other ways, though. Trace of fingers around the curve of his skull, down the back of his neck, scratching lightly into the skin. "What--what do you want?"

"Dusk. Good drugs. The ocean. Caviar. Sex." Another thrust against solid muscle and harder bone, it hurts in the right way, little edge of pain to flicker through his consciousness; everything's edged for Lex, always is. "My cars. My money. My life. My dad. Lana. Chloe. Home."

Clark stiffens, and he knows he's hit dead on. Easy to push those thighs wide, kneel back between them. Finds the jar by touch, holding Clark's eyes, wide and hurt, and that's--God, that's almost as good as everything else. Maybe makes it better. Makes it easy to slick his fingers, move Clark's legs up and push inside--and almost loses it at the feel. Hot, tight, just right, just perfect, he used to think that Clark was just made for him to fuck, no other explanation. Ruthlessly leans down and licks Clark's balls, sucking one into his mouth and the pained whimper's just about right. Twist of his fingers and Clark's arching, so sensitive, pretty virgin boy the first time he fucked him, all wide eyes and so shocked, so amazed, so eager for everything, just everything. Sex fast and dirty and hard, long and slow and sweet, any way, every way, the way Lex likes it, and he runs his tongue up the slowly hardening length of Clark's cock, catching every shudder and echoing it.

Pulls back instantly and slicks himself, breathes through it and then Clark's--God, arching, rocking up and he's pushing inside--God yes, yes, hot and tight and so eager and needing. A sharp wail that cuts through the almost-silence and Lex is breathing like he remembers his father breathing that day, death right at the door, and he can grin and grip those hips, thrust in completely and he's--

"Oh God Lex, yes, please--"

--inside, beautiful body, it's perfect, better than memory or how else could he have left?

He's ruthless with both of them, pulling out slow and careful, eyes closed; this is so fucking good. Shift of his weight to his hands and he thrusts back in, hard, every muscle screaming and aching, Clark's choked sounds goading him, pushing him harder. Deeper, Clark's neck on offer like a sacrifice, how very appropriate, sinking his teeth into flesh that will never be marked, just once he would have liked to, though, just once to get the proof, another pull out, thrust harder, shaking the bed beneath them, the sound of the frame hitting the wall. Clark's hand touches his shoulder and Lex breathes out sharply. Shift of his balance, two sweat-slicked wrists under his palms that he forces above Clark's head.

"Don't. Touch. Me." He grinds the words out, punctuated with another thrust. And there's that stupid rational part of his mind trying to comment, but it. Doesn't. Matter. Clark, staring up at him with wide-eyed wonder, just like the first time Lex showed him what his body could do, human as anyone in this one thing. Soft burn of Clark's cock against his stomach, slick wet trails that Lex thinks might mark him if he wanted them to.

Pure, rushing heat, every nerve more alive than he ever remembers; everything's narrowed down to the body he's fucking, not just any body, though he wants it to be, thinks it'd be easier if half the high wasn't coming from who was under him. Words that don't make sense, gone before he can comprehend them, and he's glad about that, so glad, and he can feel the change, the twist, the sudden gathering of tension in the base of his spine, everything in him screaming, now, now, now...

"God, Lex, yes--"

Almost there, Lex is pushing himself harder than he ever has before, it's right on the edge, just a little....

"Love you, Lex.... Come on--"

--more.

God knows where it starts, but it's there--hot rush that starts everywhere, pushing out, forced out, hot and painfully bright and it hits him like a blow, anywhere, all over, twisting, shuddering, cursing--

"Fuck, Clark, yes..."

--bright spots behind his eyes, every nerve alive, and every muscle collapsing, can't quite stop the instinctive thrusting before he can't move at all.

The wash of aftershocks are almost as intense as the orgasm, people should die after something like that. Clark's chest is heaving under his cheek and the wrists are pulling loose, slow and careful. Ghost-trace of his skin, and no one could really blame him for arching into the first brush of fingers. Thick wetness between their bodies, Clark came too, no surprise. Every touch on his back sends off another little flare and Lex twitches, can't help it, even as Clark rolls them over, slow and careful.

Brush of Clark's mouth against his scalp, slow and wet and almost reverent. He's gathered close and Clark's saying--things--that he can't listen to, just keeps his eyes closed and Lex wonders if he can stand being alone when he wakes up on that cold, narrow cot somewhere that isn't here--

"Mine," Clark murmurs, almost absently, like something so well-known it doesn't need force behind it to be true.

--otherwise, and it's another frighteningly intense shock, skin and cock and mind and soul, it's very possible he won't be alone.

He wakes to the smell of--smoke, it's Atlanta all over again. Crisply charring bodies falling around his feet and he's been stumbling through dirt and concrete turned to dust for hours. Smoke though, so powerful, laced with something like burning steak from some particularly bucolic barbecue, and he's been in this business far too fucking long.

Speaking of which, when's the last time he had steak?

The smells follow him out of the dream and he pushes off the--bed?--finding the floor with his hands and knees, breathing through his nose the blank, unremitting non-smells, soft and clean and edged with light sweat. He's trained himself to stop noticing the bad conditions of wherever he chose to sleep, but it's a new level of surreal to think that he's achieved the ability to hallucinate better ones.

Hamilton's. Balls. With. A. Spoon.

There's a shirt just in view. Lex rolls to his knees, feeling a momentary twinge in his back when he straightens, a soft burn through every muscle that's utterly pleasant. Like the post-lassitude enjoyment of bruises that you like to get, the type that don't appear after a near-death experience. Pulling the shirt down, Lex is half aware of the smoothness of the material in his hands, the catch of it on rough skin, pulling it on almost without thought. Familiar to button it up, and he glances down briefly at the--

--carpeted floor.

He's on his feet before he's even sure what he's looking at--smooth dark cream, he picked this out twenty-something years ago in that little shop downtown. Not that he couldn't have just gotten a decorator, but this was Clark's potential home and coaxing the boy along to help him pick things out made that more--concrete? Binding? The way Clark had grinned at him when they went from store to store to store, like he knew exactly what Lex was doing, and that was just fine.

The air's soft even when he's gulping it, heart racing, sweat breaking out all over--desperately clean skin, he looks down at his hands, the worn black glove, the clean hand with--Jesus, trimmed nails, when the fuck did that happen? Years of hundred dollar manicures and even more years never noticing his hands at all, and he's--

Back. Him. The other him.

He grabs the chair for support and the soft material of the slacks under his hand freeze him in place.

No no no no no...

"Lex?"

Life doesn't do this. It's like he's woken up after years asleep or he's sleeping now and doesn't want to wake up at all; there's a sharp pounding behind his eyes and the door is under his good hand, the doorknob not turning, fuck, where--Lex takes a step back, ready to claw his way through if necessary.

Out out out out out out...

"God, Lex, don't--"

Hands like steel close around his wrists, jerking them back and look at that, he is clawing the door. Very non-Luthor of you, Lex, that's not the way to go with this, Luthors don't kneel and they don't get desperate, they get focused. Think, Lex. Think. Think.

As if the rapid, image/pulse/sense of random thought and emotion pounding through his head could ever be classified as something as organized as actual thought.

Warm body pressed against his, naked body, cream carpet, that door, that doorknob, this shirt, those pants, this smell, oh God, no.

"Clark."

Nightmares have started with a hell of a lot less in the way of atmosphere, and Lex shuts his eyes.

"Lex." The hands don't loosen so much as--soften around his skin. Letting go slow and easy, sliding up his arms, stopping at his shoulders. Mouth against the side of his face, wet, sweet, Clark. Dropping to the loose collar of his shirt, Clark's hands just--caressing. Lazy, careful, so Clark, even now, wants to feel everything. "That's it--everything's okay, Lex. Shh. It's okay."

"I--" Words somehow not quite--right? What's he going to say? Get your hands off me Clark?--that's just a little too ironic considering what he was doing before he fell asleep. His body doesn't see the point, he's hard already, it's instinct with Clark. Even when their only contact was a phone and he'd jerk off to the memory of that voice.

"It's okay, Lex. Come on." He's on his feet, being led like a child, the chair he overturned carefully righted, and he's gently pressed down. There's nothing better he can think of doing, and he's not sure he's up to fighting the point of sitting anyway. "Are you hungry?"

Lex chokes and raises a hand to his mouth. Lip's swollen, there's a familiar taste in his mouth (Clark in his mouth), edged with blood and his stomach clenches with the thoughts of food (good food, cooked, clean, dry, warm) and this chair is so comfortable.

He's gone crazy, finally. It would be a relief to believe that was true.

"I--" Another breath, so easily. He can remember times when breathing was hard, when he was coughing up blood for days after--New York, Cincinnati, Norfolk, Kansas City, Atlanta. Now it's--subtley wrong. Right. Something. "My--I don't feel--"

Clark touches his forehead lightly, crouching to look in his eyes. There's no difference between memory and the real thing, not enough to notice. It could easily be fifteen years ago, Clark doesn't age, hasn't aged, won't age. Beautiful, perfect, semi-pedophilic wet dream forever. Lex's hands clench and he's not turned on by that thought at all, he's not.

"Your system was pretty shot up, Lex." Clark's voice is very low. "We gave you something to ease you through withdrawal--how long have you been taking those?"

"First dose of that mix," Lex answers, closing his eyes. Clark's hand is--so nice, and this is just surreal, this is his penthouse. His. And Clark's. Nothing changed, nothing rearranged, like it's been just waiting for him to come back, like there hasn't been any time at all since. Except for the locked door, and Lex half turns and looks at what he hadn't paid attention to before. Deadbolt, key-only.

No, Clark Kent is a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them. And on some level, it's immensely comforting, grounding. Makes this just a little more survivable.

"Reason for the new lock, Clark?" he asks, and Clark's hand stills. That strange feeling of having kicked a puppy. Clark's good at that.

"I was worried you'd run out before we had a chance to talk." Clark pushes himself to his feet, easy motion that's like silk or liquid latex to watch. The compulsion to touch him is almost overpowering--there's a reason he's never let himself come this close before. "Let me get you something to eat."

The first thing Lex wants to say is no. No, not hungry, not interested, not really sane either, and there's a balcony, though Lex knows from experience that there really isn't a way off it unless you can fly. It might eventually be an option, but not now. And the rational part of his mind, the part that took that fucking walk last night, it points out, eat. You want out of this, doing it starving isn't going to help.

Clark doesn't wait for an answer--has he ever?--pacing away across the floor, reaching down to idly pick up the sweatpants and Lex breathes out. Dark hair still wet from the shower, all long golden lines and God, so gorgeous, nothing ever walked this planet like Clark Kent. Oh, and how literal is that?

"What did they give me?" Lex asks, standing up. It's the clothes, he decides. Being half-dressed is the problem, must be the thing keeping him feeling this disadvantage. Or--something else. He misses the sharp shock of blind, unreasoning panic--everything's slipping back into faintly routine, mundane. This table was from Eckhart, chairs too, bought his second year here, six months after coaxing Clark in with his own keys and unlimited access to the refrigerator. Twelve months after Clark's clothes appeared in his closet and he started leaving dirty socks on the floor and arguing over what they'd do on weekends.

He--needs pants.

Soft, charcoal grey wool that catches on the callused edges of his palm. So smooth. Material this fine's hard to get now, and it's easy to slide them on, breathe in with a purely sensual appreciation. Fit's perfect, jarring moment of non-reality--his clothes were almost always tailored and unmistakably, these are too.

Another jarring image of being measured while he slept (You've been out a few days), and Lex sees his hands begin to shake and closes them on the edge of the chair. Fingertips on the prosthetic cut into the wood, splintering it, and Lex breathes out, fast and hard. Lightheaded, he needs to think, just think, Lex. Sewers and those fucking rocks, Lana's back, Pete, and Clark and this room.

God, this room, like he's being given everything he ever wanted, right here and right now. He's almost expecting caviar to materialize in front of him. Turning sharply, Lex glances at the doors to the balcony.

Long blinds are pulled across, and that's another moment of difference, sharp enough for him to grab onto, anchor him. Idly wiping his hands clean of splinters on his pants, he crosses the room, pushes the blinds aside and looks out.

"Lex, don't--"

Reddened sky and the view goes on forever. Lex lets his eyes burn before he can shut them against the glare.

"Red sun," he murmurs.

"It's not genuine, so it doesn't--affect me," Clark says from somewhere behind him. "I'm not sure of the science. But--" He can almost see Clark's shrug and lets his breath ease out, slow and easy. Careful, like breathing glass.

"The view was never this good when I lived here," Lex answers conversationally, and the last piece of himself falls into place with a soft thump. Maybe the pants did help after all, even if they're tailored to his very much thinner body. Absently, Lex reaches down, buttoning the bottom of the shirt, not bothering with the collar. Turning slightly, he leans against the expertly cut glass and watches Clark slowly put down the tray. More smells, good ones. Overload again, but he can handle it now, even as he feels his mouth begin to water.

"There was a lot of damage," Clark answers slowly, and Lex flickers his glance back over the rubble. Luthor-owned buildings, and be fair, Lex, you blew some of those yourself. Burying secrets, burying bodies, burying lies, burying people whose voices he can still hear screaming in his head when he's stupid enough to play masochist and let whatever passes for his conscience get a free pass. Pressing his palm to the glass, he looks down at the tiny black dots--like ants, like bugs, like nothing that he could possibly care about--scurrying here and there, doing their life thing. Clark's people, out under the red sun of a new day.

It was impossible to be sure of the time of day, though, with the pink-grey clouds hanging heavy overhead--dawn and dusk are variations of red-black, have been for too long for Lex to remember exactly what a sunrise looks like outside overdone Hollywood productions on old videotapes.

"I've always gone for that post-war look myself," Lex answers, and his voice is settling down, too. Cool, calm, controlled, and his fingers are barely aching anymore from the desperate scratches at the wood of the door. The glass is pleasantly cool under his fingers, cleaned to a high gloss. "That refugee camp ambiance. Inspiring."

Clark doesn't move for a few long seconds--Lex can't be sure what's going on in that pretty head, and it's a joke to think he ever has. Clark just--doesn't think like anyone else, and this isn't the alien thing at all. It's Jonathan Kent, dammit, how he shaped his only son, the results right here, right now, piles of concrete and steel and soot, and if he hadn't been dead already, Lex is pretty sure he would have killed the man himself. Or made the fucker live here, dammit, him and Cassandra both. Right there, corner of Eighth and what used be Luthor Avenue. Right the fuck there. Make them fucking see this.

"Why are you making this so hard?" And there's--God, there's honest curiosity, hurt in that voice. "You--it's like you want to be angry, like you like it like this. I don't--I don't understand you sometimes."

Lex chokes on an impossible laugh, blinds falling closed from his fingers and plunging into the familiar comfort of their room. Not his, not Clark's, too much of both of them still here, in the very tension. That windowseat he'd walked away from--that bed they'd slept in--everything.

"Your choice, Clark. You drag me off the street and lock me in here--I'm not feeling a lot of the spirit of reconciliation and peace." Deliberately, Lex flicks the blinds, letting the pink light stain his feet, the carpet, splashing to just short of Clark's toes. Symbolic much? "Notice a theme here?"

Clark's mouth turns down, but the dark eyes meet his cleanly.

"It doesn't have to be this way, Lex. I told you that--God, how many times? And it sure as hell didn't have to end with me practically kidnapping you either--you wouldn't see me otherwise. God knows, I've tried every other way."

Lex grins, showing his teeth. Clark's always hated that. "I know."

Letting the blinds fall back down, Lex glances at the table. Fruit. The fresh, uncanned kind--where the hell does Clark get his supplies? Bread, cheese, and Clark's somehow remembered he eats light after sleep.

Well, in the days he'd been accustomed to three meals, that is.

Resisting food is just--stupid. Stupid, idiotic, no good reason not to eat, not to take the chair, not to attack everything in range, though somewhere along the line his table manners make an abrupt and unwelcome appearance--no doubt something to do with his surroundings and clean clothes and this feeling that he's actually back in his own skin.

Disturbing thoughts, and Lex chews through a mouthful of cheese and wonders if he should have left the blinds open to remind himself.

When he looks up, he catches Clark's eyes. He expects--oh, God knows what, confusion or anger or something useful, something he can work with, but it's not there, nothing even close. Amusement, a little smile curving up the corner of his mouth, and--

--a lot of things Lex knows he can't handle, full stomach or not, clothed or not, clean or not.

"Forgot the caviar," Clark says, lip curving more, wicked grin, and Lex chokes, can't quite help it. Finds the coffee blindly and tries not to smile, tries to find--something, anything--to cling to, hold onto the anger, but hate is--not easy. Ever. Impossible right now, all he's really got is the fear. And it's--

--not helping much.

"When can I leave?" It almost hurts to frame the question, push it out between them, but Clark's smile doesn't fade. A clue to the state of his head, maybe, but Lex can't quite get over that smile. Nothing behind it at all, just Clark, perched on a chair, one knee drawn up, watching him eat.

"A week." Clark has been thinking about this. Lex takes another piece of bread, trying to turn that over in his head. "We talk. About everything. And if you--if you feel you have to go, then you can. I won't stop you. I won't even call you again."

And that sounds--hopeful? Not exactly, something in Lex dropping just a little. Not quite any emotion he can put his finger on, not quite anything he should ever want to examine closely.

And that's certainly a comforting guarantee. This is Clark. He only lies for good reasons.

"And you..." Clark lets it trail off and Lex swallows the bread--that was fast, and a glance at the table tells him he's eaten more right now than he does during the average day. Won't be good for his digestive system, not at all. His stomach, however, is something near ecstatic, with the sort of sleepy contentment that makes noises about afternoon naps on that soft bed just over there.

"Me what?" Last he heard, prisoners didn't do conditions.

"I let you go in seven days, you don't run until then." Clark tilts his head at the door with a meaningful look, and yes, Lex can see the point. Pushing away from the table--God, food, edible food that actually had a taste, no dirt or smells to wreck it--Lex bites his lip.

"Okay."

"You promised me once never to lie to me," Clark answers seriously, leaning an arm into the surface of the table. "I'm holding you to that now. I don't want--" Clark pauses, obviously thinking, before he leans forward and the brush across Lex's knuckles is almost electric. And his body is losing the point of talking at all. "I want you to trust me. Just--pretend you do, okay? Do this--just for now. Please."

Lex has done a lot worse than simply lie, but Clark can make you feel like a monster for forgetting to wipe your feet at the door. Had to be Martha in that, Lex thinks, raising a knee and wrapping one arm around it. And he's unable to help searching those dark eyes, tracing the pretty face that looks back at him so seriously, waiting for him to respond.

"I'll stay," Lex answers, and it's--true. Mostly. Seven days is no time at all, if he thinks about it, just empty space and maybe, just maybe, he can....

...he always forgets how fast Clark moves.

Knee pushed down, Clark straddling his lap, hard cock against his stomach, warm mouth on his. Nothing to do with strength, just Lex's reflexes that never knew how to deny Clark anything he wanted. Instinct to suck on that tongue, reach up and curve his hands around that bare back, easy slide down to his ass and pull him close, arch up and moan.

Instinct. Reflex. Put a gun in his hand and he shoots; put Clark Kent on his lap and he fucks. There are psychologists who would pay money to study him. If there are any left.

This is not a great development in the Lexian Saga of Advanced Self-Preservation, and he wonders if he's even capable of pulling away. It might actually be the catch--if Clark just keeps touching him, there's a good chance it'll be years before Lex can pry himself away.

"Clark--" he hears himself murmur, but it's not a protest, nothing like it. Sweet, willing, eager boy--man, Lex, God, where's your head?--sucking down the side of his throat with the perfect pressure, edged with that light pain he can't help arching into. Bruising too, probably, trying to pull up--caring? Not-wanting? Is that even an emotion? It's not for Lex. He doesn't have to love Clark to want him; it's this great, equal opportunity response of his body. He's never figured out how to stop that.

"Let me--" muttered against his collarbone, frantic scrape of teeth and fingers moving down the front of his shirt, unbuttoning whatever buttons happen to be fastened. "Shh, Lex, let me do this--God, it's been--" choked off with a hot mouth against his chest, and Lex knows this--God, no. No, he can't justify this. Can't.

"Clark--" Can't tell him stop, doesn't know how. "You're--Jesus." Oh God, that sounded bad, and he chokes on a laugh, trying not to gasp Sharp suck on one nipple and Clark's hand is cupping him through his pants. "This isn't--you said talk."

"Yeah." Hot breath against his chest, hint of teeth behind soft lips. "So--talk."

There's the fear--sharp edge, like sucking on a penny--slicking his tongue, or it could be blood from his lip that he'd reopened when he bit it, he hardly knows. Bends his head down, pulling his hands back from that addictively silky skin, locking them on the arms of the chair and God--

"You know how many people have died for you?"

It's--not quite a pause. A skip, maybe, a brief second of wet emptiness where Clark's mouth was, and the rush of anger and relief are dizzying. Like a tear in the fabric of reality; he has no idea how he should feel, knows it should be good, excellent, knows he should get away now, while he can, knock the fucking chair over and risk a concussion if that's what it takes, but Clark's back. Hard bite to his nipple and Lex's cock jumps.

Clark knows him. Turn ons and turn offs, what makes him hot the fastest, but those aren't the important things when it comes down to it. Sex as manipulation, as a means to an end, the game learned with the loss of virginity when Lex wasn't even old enough for some Disney movies in a theatre alone, Clark knows how this works. That's what you get with a long-term lover--

"You know how many people you killed?" Mumbled directly against Lex's stomach and Clark's hands closed over his wrists. Head coming up, fast and hard, wet mouth and bright eyes. "Did you keep count?"

"Personally?" Yes, he does know. Every one of them, the rule he made for himself. See their faces, make sure they know why--when he pulls the trigger, breaks their necks, cuts their throats, the clinical precision of death dealt out, just another skill to master. Every death, every time, he has to draw lines in himself just to get up in the morning. It's never been about the morality--it's always been his lack that's been the problem.

"All of them," Clark whispers into to his skin, and Lex swallows down blind panic that will get him nowhere. "Every one of them in those buildings, those cars, those labs. Every day. The people you send out that don't come back, the ones that run in front of you when someone aims for you. Those. All of them."

The number is--staggeringly high. Lex sucks in a breath, fingers digging harder into the wood, and Clark's teeth are on the button of his pants. A skill perfected with years of practice, done in seconds, and Clark draws the zipper down, staring up at him, tousled hair and wide eyes. Lex can't call him a boy now, even if he wants to.

"Can you?" Lex whispers, and Clark's eyes close briefly. When they open, Lex can't breathe. "Count them all? Everyone who has died for this?"

"Every one."

And Clark leans forward, mouth closing over the head of his cock. Hard, strong suck that brings his hips up, fingers reaching, but the grip on his wrists isn't easing at all. And Clark's mouth--wide, hot, so wet, tongue perfect, touching just right, teeth a bare graze on every sensitive inch of skin. Going down on him like it's the one thing in the world he's been wanting to do forever and Lex can fight--God, can he fight, in ways he didn't even know existed when he was a kid.

Not this.

"Clark--" Breath rushing out, clench in his gut, and Clark's soft humming, God, all around him. Moist heat, tight, and just looking at him is good, better than good. And then, Clark looks up, meeting his eyes, swallows--

"Fuck--"

Twisting into it, can't help it, doesn't want to. Thrusts into that hot mouth, Clark takes it, kneeling there on the floor between his legs, hands off his wrists and gently working into the muscles of his thighs, cupping his balls. Just another way to up the tension until Lex can't think of anything but that he can touch. Silky hair between his fingers, cheekbones hard under his thumbs, Clark sucking his cock like he's trying to take everything out of him, and he is, God, everything.

Orgasm is a shock--sudden and out of nowhere, fast and hard and he's barely able to stand it. The rush is so fast he's slumping, and Clark's on his lap, mouth against his, he can taste himself there. Can't help pushing his tongue inside, can't stop himself from wanting more, all of Clark, here and now, the world can fuck itself--

"It's everything," Clark whispers against his mouth. "I know, Lex--you have no idea how much I've seen. I know--God, the shit people pull every day. They need--guidance. Help. They need--"

"A new religion?" Clark stiffens, but he doesn't pull away, and post-orgasm has never, ever been like this. Entire full-body lassitude and his mind's more awake than should be possible. "Clark--"

"If you could see--understand." Clark breathes out, forehead pressed to Lex's. "You--don't see it. What it could be. What the world could be. It's this--"

"Hell." It's hard to talk around that--Clark's voice with that soft, dreamy quality, like he's walking on air and has no idea what dirt is. "Have you--have you looked out your fucking window? That--" Lex sucks in a breath, fighting down the threat of panic. Luthors don't panic. "This is better?"

And for some reason, that doesn't shut Clark down or even start another round of arguments--do anything but make Clark smile. Slow. Beautiful. Something Da Vinci or Michelangelo spent time fantasizing about between masterpieces.

"Not yet. But--it will be, Lex. Better than anything humankind has ever seen."

From anyone else, that was--ridiculous. Stupid. He'd be able to call them on it, laugh in their faces, he has, more times than he can even count, rote phrases and all, but Clark--he looks like that, with that voice, low and full of something more powerful even than hope. This unwavering certainty, the certainty that he could do things other people couldn't, and he was so often right.

Like they needed to invent a whole new fucking word for Clark just for that, and Lex drags his hands away. Clark's always been like a drug to him--he needs to fucking think. He needs to--

"I'm going to show you," Clark whispers, mouth soft on his skin. Just caressing, just enjoying the contact between them.

"I don't--" Don't what? Don't believe, that's true, that's practically the meaning of his life, look it up in the dictionary, his picture's right beside it. Luthors aren't big on the entire blind faith thing, Clark knows this, but maybe it bears repeating. Maybe even to himself. Maybe most especially to himself. Lex licks his lips, catching the taste of Clark on them. "I don't believe you're a god, Clark."

Slow lick across his mouth, bite to his lower lip.

"It's not about that, Lex," he whispers, and the tip of his tongue slides between Lex's lips. Tiny tease, wet and soft and slick. Pulling back and grinning down at him. It's as if years drop away, Clark's the kid in flannel down the road, wide eyed and young, beautiful and very possibly insane. Very human, that. "I want you to believe in me."

Exhaustion for all the wrong reasons; fucked out, he hasn't felt like this since his teens, when orgasms were cheap and he shot up with someone riding his cock. There's sensory memory of the feeling, something close to what's going on right now, except for the sex, what with the needle Clark's holding against his arm and all the clothing they're both wearing.

"Let me ride out my own symptoms," Lex tells him, not really meaning it very much. He's been through rehab twice, and the methadone period of his life is one he'd much rather forget. He can't even imagine what coming down from fifteen years of stimulant abuse will do to him. Won't kill him, he's Lex, nothing kills him, even when he's ready, but that kind of pain belongs somewhere else entirely.

"You don't mean that." Is he that readable? Really? Stretched out on the bed, stripped to those wonderful, wonderful pants that are like the lightest caress all the time, all over his skin, Clark's straddling him, lip between his teeth while he pushes the needle in. He can feel the prick, the push, the soft rush that hits him light and airy. Then the pull out and Clark bends his arm up, pad of clean linen secure. "There. You're good for another eight hours."

"Great." And he means it. Thinks about sitting up, but the lightheadedness isn't going down. "What is this?"

"I have no idea," Clark answers, putting the empty needle beside the small bottle on the bedside table and shifting his weight back onto Lex. "I had--some people do your bloodwork, and they worked out how to clean your system." A pause. "Lex, you didn't--you were sick, you know that?"

Like he's tripping in some alternate universe, where fraternizing with the enemy is something that's not only acceptable but actually encouraged. Pretty Clark sitting on him, this familiar weight that keeps him from floating off the bed and possibly into the ceiling to hover for awhile. Though Clark could float them both if he felt like it.

"I--it's strange," Lex answers slowly, trying to gather his thoughts back together. "I don't--"

"You were sick, Lex. I think they might have named a new disease after you." Little, fastidious wrinkle to Clark's nose and it's hard not to laugh.

"Great."

"Mmm." Clark's looking down at his chest, and Lex lazily wonders what he's focusing on. "These are all--new."

"Camp life, deprivation, and being an explosives expert has its dangers." He stretches a little on the sheets, he's not getting over how good everything feels, and that's rather dangerous. Clark traces the long line just below his left nipple--it'd been deep and almost took out a rib. Lex has hazy memories of Hamilton's lab and the removal of the glass. "One of your people got very lucky."

"Lucky?"

Their eyes met.

"I killed her very, very fast."

The silent moment stretches in almost perfect silence, and it's just as fucked up as anything else that it's not anything like uncomfortable. Clark's fingers find another--roughly-shiny patch of skin almost completely healed, acid burn on his side from very early on, when Lex was learning his new life's occupation and still making mistakes. "I heal, Clark. I always do."

"You--" hissed breath as he shifts down and finds the scar on his side. "Your--kidney?"

"Just one." Almost lost his liver once, but that scar is gone. It's somewhat appropriate, Lex supposes, feeling an odd distance from the body Clark's mapping with those long fingers. Just--not so much detached as--uninterested? Not exactly, not quite, semantics again, he's looking for words. Frame their reality with them, carefully. Pick and choose and do it wisely, Dad had been really great about making sure he got those life lessons every day.

"There's a euphoric in that mix," Lex says slowly. Knowing that doesn't help anything clear up. "This is your idea of rehab?"

Clark's grin isn't anything like unhappy that he's noticed. "I thought they might--cushion the shock. You know--you know it could kill you, coming down like that. Hamilton laced that dose with the meteor."

A spoon would be too good for him. Lex twists a little, just taking in the friction; it's beautiful stuff. Just--unbelievably different. His body is saying this is how it's supposed to be.

"How bad?" Should worry him, how his voice sounds. Even at his most debauched, he never felt quite like this. Not nearly this--free? Not the right word. He needs a thesaurus. Or Chloe, who knows words and what's behind them. Knew words.

Chloe. Chloe, Chloe, Chloe, and his mouth silently shapes her name. It's a surprise to see Clark's eyes narrow, head tilting, before the fingers are on his jaw, gently turning his head.

"How bad--what?" Drawing him back into the room, and the words fade again, everything fades, all soft and pretty light and God, this can't be good. Lex is getting used to it, this feeling of general detachment. He's been looking for this feeling his whole fucking life.

"What you're not telling me. When you brought me in." He always takes risks no one else could. No one else, for example, was quite stupid enough to walk inside clouds of activated meteor. Not with the payload he puts out. And he does that a lot. There are entire areas Clark can't enter even now, years later, it's become so much a part of the environment. Lex, the one mutant from Smallville who turned out to have a really fucking interesting destiny, what with all the lack of dying he does, no matter what happens.

There's a slight chance that his long career as an adrenaline junkie may have a lot to do with that.

"You--were really sick. They--did a lot of stuff." Clarks' voice is thoughtful. "Not sure of everything, but--" Clark pauses, looking down at him with wide, serious eyes. "You'll be fine now. It--wasn't easy, Lex."

His memory isn't giving him anything in the way of useful images from that time, so Lex has to assume it was really bad, bad enough that even his brain decided that was just plenty of input, thank you very much.

"Oh." It's so--Clark, he supposes. Glossing over the worst of things like that. Just--very much him, always has been, and Clark's tracing another line low on his stomach. "I remember this one."

Lex closes his eyes.

"You should."

Soft, slow stroke of the line again, and then Clark shifts back, dropping his head, tongue following the ridged line. Lex wants to tell him--stop? Maybe? Don't do that? Don't ever stop? A light flush of arousal is moving through him, the comfortable kind that leads to slow, lazy fucks in the afternoon. That slow trace of his body, beautiful and careful and gentle, finding all the scars one by one, feeling the history behind them.

"I could kill whoever did this to you," Clark breaths, and the moment--jars. Hard, like coming down off heroin and landing on concrete, and Lex twists, pulling back from the gentle hands. But there's nowhere to go.

"Just you," Lex whispers, and Clark flinches. It's obvious, Clark's never been able to hide his emotions, and it's another jolt to see that and feel--ashamed of himself? This sort of thing is so much easier via phone. His hand's already out, touching Clark's face, light and gentle, because that's what he always does when he hurts Clark, always.

"I--Lex, I think you need to see now." Clark's voice is soft, and Lex realizes he's stroking Clark's face--a hard hand closes over his wrist when he begins to pull away, holding him there. "You need to see everything, Lex."

"I've seen everything." The cities, the people, the towns, the mountains and the seas and he could, quite seriously, break into some sort of musical number to cover this moment. Wouldn't be any more ridiculous than the truth. "You have no idea, Clark--"

"Then you know." Clark rubs his face into Lex's hand like a cat. Traces of stubble a soft burn on his palm. "Everything people are capable of--you know. And you--"

"I do it. Every day." Or close to it. It's not--quite a weight. More like an inescapable responsibility, and he only really understands hate in moments like this, when he thinks of the years of training his father gave him on how to be a great leader. Thanks, Dad. So fucking much. Machiavellian childhood put to practical use. "What do you think I am?"

And he wonders--now he does, here and now, because usually, he doesn't. There's not a lot of time to get introspective when you're running between warzones and planning destruction, when time that isn't running is spent sleeping or fighting.

"Afraid."

The little frisson of shock rushes up Lex's spine and through every nerve of his body.

"Clark--"

"You're afraid of what it could mean." Clark shifts a little--nothing sexual in it, except it's always sexual between them, even when it's not. "You know Lex. You just--"

"I don't know anything."

Clark's slow, indulgent smile is worse than the petting, the fingers still tracing the scars on his skin.

"You--need to understand what I've seen, Lex. You think this is about something as simple as being tired of saving people? It's not. It's about--God, I'm changing everything, don't you see it? When I'm done, the world's going to be--"

"The burned out remains of human civilization. If we had ships, I'd be sending babies into space at this point."

Clark's jaw locks, and it's encouraging. Somehow.

"I'm the last of my kind," Clark says softly, and he's running his fingers more purposefully. Finding the oldest scars that don't show anymore, not on his skin. "You're--God, Lex, you don't see it, do you? The future--it's you. All of you. I'm making the future. We--I need you."

"Clark--"

"It's--" Clark bites his lip, staring down at Lex with that specific look--the one Lex had spent quality time examining in the fifteen year-old kid. Not quite--assessing, so much as curious, wondering. Trying to trace his own path through Lex's mind, find the right arguments, the right words, and God, he's good at it. "Do you believe in destiny, Lex?"

"Never." Roadsigns are for the weak, or maybe for his father. Ten foot high billboards are Clark's style, though. Lex can't...think. Not with Clark this close, not with this room and this feeling and this....

"Exactly. There's no such thing, right? You told me that, you said you didn't want it. And you--worked every day, trying to make your own way. But--this is the way. Your way. Our way. Humanity's way. It's going to be amazing, Lex, you have to see that."

"It's--" Bad. Horrible, has Clark stepped a fucking foot outside recently? The people who walk under a red sky and scream Clark's name like it's a prayer or a benediction and Lex wants to--show him. Tell him. In small words. In big words. In rhyme, in code, in interpretive dance if necessary, fuck it, why doesn't he see? "Clark. This isn't anyone's dream. We're dragging our asses into the stone age, don't you get it? Ten more years and we're going to lose our basic understanding of the sciences. I don't want to fucking relive the medieval period of civilization."

"For a greater good," Clark answers, the little frown line disappearing. "Everyone--everyone has to sacrifice at least once in their lives. It's not worth it if there isn't one, Lex. No one appreciates the good without the bad and no one--they don't get it, Lex. When I'm done, everyone will understand." Both Clark's hands slide to Lex's shoulders, pushing him gently into the mattress. Long, serious look, terrifying. The look of someone who knows exactly what he's doing and why. "I know, Lex. I sacrificed everything for this. And it'll be worth it. I know."

"Clark--"

"My parents, my life, my friends, Lana, Chloe, Pete, you--I gave it up to make this, create this, because I know it will be better. It's going to be incredible, and we're going to do this, Lex, just like it should have been at the beginning. You--I don't think you really understood before you left, but you've seen the world now. You've lost everything, too. You know."

And there's a flaw in that, big enough to drop the remains of Metropolis in, that sacrifice only counts when it's a choice, and no one ever ever gave Lex the choice. Not ever. Not Dad, not Clark, not Pete, not fucking life. He never asked to be anything he is, simply building until one day he woke up and this was--what he was. That just fucks over the entire destiny thing, though, doesn't it? It's one or the other, Lex, can't have it both ways, even if you are a Luthor.

"No."

"You're lying to yourself." Sweet, chiding smile, hands so gentle. Smoothing over his skin.

"You and me, Lex, we know what no one else does." The intense look is back. "You can be anything you want to be, just by willing it. You taught me that. You said no roadsigns, that it could be the way I wanted it to be. That I could do things, choose, even if it hurt, even if--" Clark leans down, so close their mouths brush. "I choose this, Lex. You have to choose it, too."

Lex draws a breath and Clark licks, quick and light. The euphoria's still there, lightly dragged with something pleasantly approaching simple tiredness. The kind you take naps for, the kind that Lex hasn't had in so long. Clark lifts himself easily, brushing another quick kiss across his forehead.

That mouth. That....

"You're tired--it's catching up with you, I know." Another kiss, softer, smoother, wet and soft on his cheek. "We'll talk more later. Rest a little while." There's a soft shift and Lex can't really help closing his eyes, even knowing this is a bad idea, all of it. He needs to argue more, push more, that's what he is, what he does but--Clark's hand is this slow, careful stroke of his belly, soothing and easy; Clark's curled up against his side, warm and solid; dark head on his shoulder, warm skin under his hands, and when did he start touching Clark again?

He--can do this. Be this. It's not that big a thing, just sleep, rest, Clark, his Clark right here, like years of absence have been nothing more than an interim. Lex lets himself drift.

This time, Lex knows where he is when he wakes up.

It should be--disconcerting? Not what he expects, but his body's thrilled beyond words with the entire lack of dirt and the calm warmth. Easy, slow stretch of his muscles, pleasant lassitude after a full rest spreading through his body. He's used to waking cramping and sudden, so there's pleasure, in a slow, easy return to reality.

Especially this reality, and Lex just lets it simmer under the surface for a minute.

A little twist of his head shows him that he's alone, and Lex sits up, looking around the room. The clothes are in a neat pile on the chair by the table. The tray's gone, leaving a pitcher of water--cold, clear, clean water, frosted with condensation. Shiny glass beside it.

There's this strange feeling that he's walked into his own past, but the pull of the scar beneath his ribs reminds him. So does the lack of feeling when he runs his gloved hand over his head.

"Clark?" No reason to not be sure, but he can't quite tear his eyes away from the table. A quick track of the room reveals nothing else is out of place--closet door, bathroom door, door out of the room--

--door out of the room.

Lex is on his feet, the carpet is startlingly warm and soft under his feet, but he's prepared for that this time. Walking to the door, he presses his gloved hand to the surface--something about instinct not to leave fingerprints, another life lesson from dear old Dad--and looks at the lock. Expensive bolt, and he wonders a little idly if the gun could take it out. Probably, probably, but not without alerting anyone out there, and someone has got to be, Clark isn't stupid, he has to have someone watching....

For no reason he can fathom, Lex wraps his hand around the knob and twists.

The door opens.

Heavy wood, expensive oak, only the best for a Luthor. Hand stained, glossed, brass knob shiny as the day it was installed. Slow, careful pull inward and he's looking out into a quiet living room, the elevator just beyond. The stairs, too, behind the tastefully understated door.

It's a shocking reality. He could walk out.

His toes curl a little, catching carpet between, and his body tenses, already prepared to move. A step, but his hand on the doorframe stops him, pausing him mid stride. He's--naked. He--should get dressed.

Pushing the door shut, Lex paces back to the table. Dressing. Yes. Soft cream cotton shirt under his hands, and he remembers when he had dozens lined up in rows in his closet. Hundreds, though he can't really imagine that now. Little thing, not important, even now, when he's gone days between changing clothes. Soft pants--not the ones from earlier, new linen, his hands tell him when he slides them. Jacket that he didn't see before, and his hands stop on the edge, tracing the material gently with the tips of his fingers. Cashmere silk blend, he thinks--he still knows clothes, even now. It catches on the calluses, old burns, the price he's paid for his choices, not the pretty playboy with too much money, but this paranoid borderline reactionary.

It's--so real.

Picking up the jacket, Lex tosses it on the bed, blinking when he glances down to see the loafers. Soft silk socks slipped inside, little rolls like he used to do back in the days he owned more than one usable pair.

Taking a breath, Lex sits down to pick them up, feeling the leather with something very close to nostalgia. And--it's simple to finish dressing, like a second skin he's somehow forgotten he needed. Almost dreamily, Lex lets the jacket slide on and settles it automatically. He's thinner than he ever was then, but now, it's comfortable.

The door is shut, looking back at him almost in challenge. A promise is a promise, and he's never broken one to Clark, not really. But--they don't count. Promises. He's broken promises left and right, lied like other people breathe, that's what he is. In this world, in this life, there's no room for anything more.

Four steps, easy to make across the carpet, and Lex slides his fingers around the doorknob, feeling the cool weight of brass between his fingers, thick against his palm. Slow turn of his wrist, maybe he imagined it, and that's actually really fucking likely the state he's in. Easy pull and the door opens with a lack of fanfare and the living room stretches invitingly in front of him.

He promised seven days. But--he's promised lots of things, hasn't he? Promised Lana he'd get her out, promised Pete he'd do his best, promised Martha he'd bring her son back to her, promised Chloe she wouldn't die that day, and he was lying every fucking time. And they believed him, still believe him, just like Clark does, because that's what he is. Father's son, born liar, and protopsychotic standing here instead of fucking running to that elevator, finding those stairs, and getting the hell out of here.

He doesn't move.

Clark has people out there, he has to. Someone to watch the building or someone on the ground floor. The elevator doesn't work. The stairs are blocked--Clark can fly, he doesn't need silly human things like that. Hell, for all Lex knows, Clark can walk through walls and on water--oh God, he is crazy.

Leaning into the doorway, Lex stares down the space of ten meters. Okay. His gun. He needs it first. The rocks, those fucking meteor pieces that were the entire point of this trip. His boots, because these shoes won't survive the way he travels. His ring. Of course, it won't be in here, Clark's not stupid, the rocks and the gun and his ring are all hidden somewhere else, but that doesn't really stop him. Mindlessly, he opens the dresser that used to be his--and apparently still is. His watch, the one his mother gave him that he left that day, neat in its case. Shaking fingers make him drop it twice, but he gets it into his hand and uses his less emotionally charged prosthetic to open it, looking at the gold for a long time.

Clark kept everything. His watch, the jewelry box with his mother's jewelry still intact. Edges of dust when he picks it up, turning over the leather case, wiping it away to see her initials on the surface. Stupid things, like the opera ticket stubs, because the night before he left he took Clark to his first opera. Leather gloves, ones that will fit still, hands don't change that much and a little dreamily, Lex picks them up, unrolling them. Stripping off the old glove and slipping on both of the new ones, flexing his fingers inside. It's perfect.

"Lex?"

His gun, two magazines lying quietly beside it. The ring, in a lead box from a knight who died for a hopeless cause, or maybe he lived, Lex isn't sure, it's been too long since he could quote history at people to keep them at a distance. Somewhere in this room is a lead-lined case of meteorites and Clark's death sentence if he chooses to use it.

Clark--

"Lex?" Arms slide around his waist and Lex chokes on a breath, looking for his center. Granted, it's been gone awhile, he's been on edge for too long to even know what a center feels like anymore, but this isn't it--this is like walking ten stories above the earth on a floor of glass--you should fucking fall, your instincts scream it, even when your brain reasonably reminds you that glass is strong.

Lex is walking on glass right now.

"You--"

"What did you expect?" Soft nuzzle to his shoulder, touching skin, hands appreciative as they track the front of the jacket, slipping underneath. "Everything's here."

Waiting, almost. It should be like a tomb, but it's not, this is living memory. Lex flexes his hands in the gloves, and it's so natural. So--right.

"You that sure of me?" His voice is soft and he lines it up with care. He's only going to get one shot, he always tells himself that, only one. It has to hit the first time. "Murdered thousands, but hey, my boyfriend'll be back for his watch anyway, so let's keep his stuff."

It's like a blow and it hurts him as much as it hurts Clark--he feels it in the slow shudder, the pull away that leaves an aching cold on his skin. Pressing his fingers into the dresser, he starts thinking again. Think hard, think smart, in the name of God, Lex, get with the program. What the fuck are you doing?

"Lex--" The hurt's something that can be tasted and it's bitter. He's never been able to hurt Clark and not feel it, like somewhere along the line he developed Clark-specific empathy or crap like that. He hates it, hates the feeling of it, like he's destroying something precious.

"I watched my father die because of you. I--" He chokes on the words, because they're bitter, from somewhere in him that he just doesn't go anymore. It's too hard to feel this much. He's beginning to remember why he liked the burnout. "I was there to see what your dream costs, Clark. I never fucking asked to make a sacrifice for anyone or anything. I. Don't. Believe."

He can almost see Clark grind his teeth.

"You're not being fair--"

It makes him laugh. Not a pretty sound, but he's perfected the art of faking it. "Fair?" There's a lot of words he could use, and they're all lining up in his head like little soldiers. Pushing away from the dresser, he turns, and it's even harder to see Clark's face, know the damage he's going to do. There's a reason he's never around when his bombs go off. "Fair? I have people dying of infections that simple antibiotics can cure that we can't get anymore. I've seen gutted cities and your people fucking celebrating public executions. They kill in your name for fun and you let them and you want me to be fair?" The next laugh's a lot more real, because this really is funny. "Fuck you, Superman. You're nothing but a sociopath playing deity. A murderer who expects a free pass because you have a vision." Every hero needs his foil, right? "Fuck your vision."

So he doesn't expect the blow--too fast to duck, even if he had been expecting it--and it knocks him into the dresser, sharp taste of iron in his mouth and a sense of utter relief surging upward like sparks from a fire. Hand on the dresser to steady himself, he spits blood into the carpet and thinks that it's rather appropriate, all things considered.

"You're wrong." Clark and his temper, pretty perfect boy with one flaw and Lex wants to laugh and scream and stop, stop now.

"I'm right." Grinning and he wipes a hand across his mouth, seeing the streak of red on the glove. Familiar. Yes. The right kind of familiar. "You don't know a fucking thing. You killed Chloe, your father, you might as fucking well have killed Lana after what you did to her--"

There's a wonderful second where Clark looks like death itself, hand coming up in blinding color, so good Lex wonders if he's picked up masochism somewhere along the line because this is as good as arousal, maybe better. Aggression is tied to sex, Lex, his brain offers uselessly. You fuck after you fight, always have. And it's true, he....

But Clark--stops. Frowning, hazel eyes narrowing, coming down out of his elevated mood and back into the room completely, and it makes Lex--twitch.

"You want me to hurt you." Slow, almost thoughtful, and Clark's in his head again, how the fuck does he do that? "You want me to give you an... an excuse..."

Lex breathes out, looking for words that vanish before he can draw the breath to use them.

"You're trying to force me back, aren't you?" The hazel eyes are--filling with something very like understanding. "When you didn't see me, when you could play distant, it was easy, wasn't it?" Clark takes a step toward him and the dresser is solid, heavy, and Lex can't walk through it. "Easy to make yourself believe whatever it is you think, but--you know now, don't you?" Clark reaches out and Lex wants to move, somewhere else, like the balcony or maybe just fall through the glass floor and never in his life has he wished more that his instincts would be right, dammit.

He's going bad, bad places with metaphors and it's--appropriate, isn't it, Lex? Your father couldn't break you, but superaliens can. Do.

No.

"No--"

"You--God, Lex..." And it's fast again, has to be or Lex would run, he tells himself, but Clark's touching his face, tracing it. "I'm sorry--" Thumb brushing his lip, and Clark's done worse--God, so much worse, condoned even more, but he looks stricken just by a cut lip, eyes huge and dark. "I'm sorry, Lex. I--this has got to be hard for you. All of this. I didn't think."

He's shaking, knows he is, and all Clark's doing is touching him.

"It's--after all you've seen, all you've done--" Clark shakes his head, another step closer, fuck personal space, he can feel the heat of Clark's body. Warm and strong and so solidly real, more real than Lex wants to think about. "You've been running for years, and you've done things that you can't stand to remember, and I--forgot. It's just--" Clark stops, letting out a breath, staring into his eyes. Lex can't look away. "This is right, Lex. It feels right, for us. To have you here. It's how it's supposed to be."

"You left the door unlocked," Lex whispers, staring up at him. "You--"

"You promised," Clark answers, still stroking gently. Studying his face, then steps back, but the contact doesn't end. "Come on. I got you caviar."

Lex feels the smile before he can even consider how to stop it--a slow, unfamiliar, completely involuntary stretch of his mouth. And Clark--grins, no other word for it, bright, like something out of a fairy-tale happy ending, sheer pleasure and so--so much that Lex wants to touch it, trace it with his fingers, taste it. It only takes a step, moving without thinking, no check-in with the rational part that's lagging behind everything else.

Sweet, warm kiss, familiar taste of blood and heat and Clark, and Lex shuts his eyes and lets go.

Just for now.

Atlanta burns in Lex's mind every day.

Memories don't blur for Lex like they do for other people--Pete can't remember much about Cincinnati at all, for example, despite the death toll. Not terribly unique in the catalogue. Sabotage, some rioting, some rescues, some murders. Martha--well, she doesn't remember anything she doesn't want to, and Lex has spent time envying her that when he didn't hate her for it. Lana--

--well, Lana's free now.

But Atlanta is its own special hell of memory--more vivid, more intense, more bright, not from the surgery or the bodies that piled like cordwood, not the fires that swept through the city and the suburbs that burned for months after it was over. Certainly not the smells of death and dying that Lex never feels are completely washed from his body.

Lex remembers everything.

"Tell me," Clark says softly, and it's hard not to, so close and so warm. Like a blanket, the best kind on earth, all solid strength and so much care, wrapped all around him. Lex shuts his eyes.

"You were there."

"Only at the end, only until you left." Clark's breath is soft against his scalp, gentle fingers rubbing slow circles into his back. "Lex--" He stops, tilting his head down and their eyes meet again. It's impossible to look away. "You--don't have to, but you're going to be sick if I don't give you that shot. I know--"

"Okay." There's--movement? Maybe? But Clark's already back and Lex extends an arm, letting Clark roll up his sleeve. It's slow and methodical, like Clark's had practice at it, and it makes Lex smile. "I--you're getting good at this."

"I'm a fast learner." Quick, brilliant smile as Clark ties off his arm. "I think--they said in a couple of more days, you won't need this anymore. Or something like that."

"Mm." Lex watches Clark line it up with an intense look of concentration. First light-sharp sting and Lex closes his eyes at the feeling. It's--good. Not stimulant-good, with the sharp edges and bright colors and energy, but--what drugs are actually supposed to be for, which is fun. As Lex would have very much insisted in his well-spent adolescence. Softly floating feeling, and Clark frees the strap from his arm, slipping back down on the bed.

"Tell me about Atlanta." His voice is soft, and Lex turns his head to watch Clark lie back down. Fingers brushing his lips slow and careful, before Clark winds their hands together. "Tell me what happened to you."

"I--" Lex blinks, letting the images flow over him, bracing himself for the cold shock of them. Like ice-water, he's always kept them so close, so--needed. So necessary. To keep the fact, the reasons, and he knows Pete doesn't see it that way--he thinks of New York or maybe Phoenix and the missiles, hell, maybe Las Vegas going up like the world's most gaudy bonfire, but for Lex, it's Atlanta.

"You don't have to, Lex," he says carefully. Dark head tilted against the white pillowcase, dark eyes staring into his with so much worry. "I--it hurts you. I--I'm sorry, I just--"

"No, it's okay." Focus, focus--the first seconds after the injection are like this, he knows that. And--it makes it easier, doesn't it? The sharp stab of pain at his side is almost negligible, almost--bearable? Twisting his fingers with Clark's, Lex shuts his eyes. "It was--hard. We--" Lex stops.

"We have a group of people in there, Lex," Pete had told him, and Lex hadn't been interested.

"We can't afford to lose more." Because war was like that, and this was war. The President was about as effectual as a bowl of cold soup and calling it militia clashes was beyond surreal. He didn't get it--or he did, but Superman scared the fuck out of anyone who went up against him. At least, those who got away alive.

Or rather, those who wanted to get away.

"It wasn't planned enough," Lex answers slowly, feeling Clark's eyes on him. Long in the past, so this isn't a real betrayal of anything, just sharing history. Their history, more than anywhere else, anytime else. What they did, together. "We had operatives in the city. Some of your--people caught them. And executed several. We had to get the rest out."

And Pete had said, "They depend on us."

And Lex had wondered if Pete had gone utterly insane. "The South? You want to fuck around in the fucking South, where everyone and their fucking dog owns an arsenal? They love him there. They think he walks on water. Or are you ignoring every fucking report we get?"

Well, Pete has always had a little blind spot. It makes Lex wonder if Clark and Pete have more in common than a shared childhood.

"So we went in," Lex says softly, and opens his eyes. "There was muttering around that the President might send in the state troops to stop the rioting, but it didn't happen. No one wanted to go up against you directly, not then. Not when you went around stopping earthquakes and saving orphans or whatever the fuck you were doing. And so Chloe and I went in--we didn't know they'd recognize us."

That had to have been the first time that Lex had really gotten the thing about the marks--he'd seen it in Memphis with Pete (God, don't think, not now), but it had still been--vague? No, denial, he thinks now, feeling Clark's fingers tighten in his when he pauses too long. He hadn't been thinking about it, because he felt it every night on his back. In his skin. Woke sometimes with his fingers closed over his shoulder, breathing through phantom pain.

Once he came to it, feeling the hot slick metal, knowing what it meant, what it could mean, and Lex shies from that too, closing his eyes again. He can't be sure Clark can't read it on his face.

"We were caught downtown in a gutted grocery store, interrogating--God, some idiot who probably didn't have a clue what we wanted. They--they dragged Chloe out and someone said her name and--"

"Jesus, leave her alone!" He'd been shaking, trying to get to her through the bodies that separated them. Flashes of guns and metal and the smell of burned flesh--willingly burned, he knew, and it was dizzying, like breathing ether. Hard to get his head together. Hard to think-

"You're Luthor," someone had said, and the sound of his voice ripped Lex around, dragging the person holding him another five steps before he was on his knees, dust flying, spitting blood and feeling the barrel of a gun against the back of his neck. It was a hopeful feeling. "There's an arrest warrant out for you."

Yes, domestic terrorism. Thanks, Mr. President. Hope you enjoyed that one. Your last really interesting act before the White House became a big fucking hole in the ground. And it hadn't even been Lex to do it, though God knew, he would have loved that job. Clark's people. Same day he declared Superman a threat to the United States, well after the fact, fucking idiot....

"Lex." Clarks' voice brings him back and Lex floats back in. Little frown line in his forehead and Lex wants to smooth it away. "You don't have to."

"Pete was there--he heard something from someone, I don't know who, but he was in the city and found us. And--someone must have called you--"

Lex never did figure out who made the connection, or how. Or why it mattered, except it had.

"Luthor," the man had said, jamming cold metal into the back of his head. Chloe was screaming something, and he didn't know what. The gun should have gone off, he should be dead, but somehow, he wasn't.

He wonders why the man hadn't pulled the trigger.

It'd been only a few minutes before the real rioting started, and that's why Lex remembers Atlanta. Explosions everywhere--he had to admire the sheer skill of some of Clark's people, and he'd known, fucking known they shouldn't have come, never. Not without a fool-proof plan and a shitload of weaponry. But Pete was like some sort of fucking knight and he'd come in anyway. Not enough people, no resources, they were breaking into gun shops in the middle of fucking downtown and sirens were wailing everywhere. When the war really started, ended too, and Lex thinks....

...no. That's not why he remembers.

The sound of something--someone--hitting the ground, wet soppy feeling on the back of his neck, his head, and when he looked up, Chloe was the only one standing. Wide eyed and staring at the gun in her shaking hand, and he hadn't even heard the shots....

"Lex--" she'd whispered, and this was why he remembered Atlanta. Because he'd seen it in Chloe's eyes, bright and wet and staring and hardening right in front of him.

She knew.

"It's not going to stop, is it?" she'd asked, and he'd pulled himself shakily to his feet, wondering if he could get a lie out, wondering if she'd believe him, wondering why he cared.

And he'd said, "No."

Dust had been clinging to the blood on him, on her, dirty and exhausted and frustrated and scared to fucking death, yes, he remembers that, can admit it. Taking her hand and grabbing the gun from the dead man, pulling her over the body and wondering, God, was this what he wanted her to be? The hope was gone, she understood what he'd tried to tell her and Pete, now she got it.

They weren't fighting possibility. They were fighting reality.

"We got out of downtown somehow--there were fires everywhere," Lex whispers, and Clark's hand frees his, touches his face. Smoothing slow and steady down his cheek. "I--we hid for a couple of hours and she couldn't stop crying. And--I don't even know why."

He'd left a trail of bodies of anyone who saw them. He'd lied to Clark. He didn't know their names or their numbers.

Holding her and everything rushing--everything they had to do, had to get the fuck out of the city, get free, and now, God, he wasn't alone, and it was sick and twisted to be--happy? Relieved? God, so relieved that he wasn't alone anymore. Chloe got it. He'd seen it all in her face, her eyes. Just like him.

"I--can't do this, Lex," she'd said, when they'd emerged after nightfall. They hadn't known Superman had been called, didn't know Clark was only seconds away. Didn't know that her life could be measured in minutes. "I can't."

"You can." Or maybe not. Maybe they could run. Not just run, like this, but--he could get her out. Clark couldn't be everywhere, know everything, there were at least another six or so billion people on the planet. He had money, God knew, and he had resources still. Planes and secrets and there was always a way, always. "We will, Chloe."

"We--we have to kill him, don't we?"

And he'd stood there, dark moonless night, explosives shaking the ground like some parody of fireworks, and he'd stared at her.

And he'd said, "Yes." And maybe that day he could have.

"We got out of Atlanta in a car she hotwired. And--"

They'd talked. Not so much in words, though Chloe really was all about words. Intense look of concentration, blood and ash smeared into her skin. Ten years older than when she'd come in, and they were both aware they might not make it out alive.

"Lex, you don't have to--" Clark's voice is soft, and silky fingers stroke along his cheek.

"I have to," Lex interrupts, sucking in a breath. He can almost smell her now--sweat and gunpowder, blood and fear, so much of it. Despair like running the edge of a razor and it cut with her every hitched breath.

She'd asked, "What are we going to do?"

And Lex--hadn't known. Because no one else had seen it, no one, and it'd been so fucking long that he'd begun to think that no one would, not until the gun was against their own heads, not until they had that choice, brand or bullet, not until that second would they get that this war was already over.

"How--" she'd choked, tears cutting lines in the black soot smeared on her face. "Why are you still here?"

He really hadn't understood the question.

"And she kept asking me that," Lex whispers. "I couldn't answer her. I said--"

"I don't know."

She'd jerked the car into park instantly, and he thinks sometimes, maybe he should have lied. God, lied like he knew he could, and maybe she wouldn't have stopped right then. Maybe they would have kept driving.

Maybe delayed the inevitable for just a few more minutes, but Lex would give a lot to have those minutes.

"Lex, we're going to lose, aren't we?"

He'd wanted to lie. And if Pete had asked, if Lana had asked, God, if Martha had asked, he would have said no. No, of course not, no. We'll win, Clark will figure out he's fucking insane, and all will be right in the end. All of it. Everything. You can get back to farming, I can get back to business, and it will be--right? Fitting? Logical? Destiny?

"Yes."

Her head had dropped on the steering wheel--here, in the middle of a tiny backroad leading them to something like safety, bad place, he remembers thinking, bad idea--and he'd shifted over beside her and held her. Let her cry because she needed it, because he remembered that endless moment in the apartment, remembered the haze that followed that was nothing like kind, nothing like numbing. Just--

She'd said, "Why are we fighting?"

And he'd said--

"Why did you do it, Lex?" Clark's voice is so soft, so gentle--it could be part of the memory, except Clark was two and a half minutes from showing up, and Chloe was three minutes from being dead.

Held Chloe and then kicked the door open and pulled her out and turned her to see Atlanta. Heat and explosions and riots in the streets and Clark's name might as well have been written in the sky in blood. Their future.

And he'd said, "Because there's nothing else left."

So stupid. So stupid, but so true, and Lex opens his eyes on Clark.

"They found us. Just standing there, like idiots--I knew better. I should have made her keep driving, or driven myself. I just--"

"You connected," Clark answers softly, and the edge catches his attention, pulling him out of a smoke-filled memory and into--this. This room, this bed, this man, this moment. Clark.

No.

"Why did she die, Clark?" he whispers, and Clark looks at him. Pain and guilt and hurt, like a kid, like when he lied and like when he did anything wrong, but back then he'd just ignored his dad and played football or pulled some fucking teenage clich of rebellion. Not--this.

"Lex--"

Drug haze or not, he can still react. Forcing the lethargy down and away, diamond-hard clarity that hurts to force, but he does it, he has to. Because Clark looks like that and Clark can't hide a damn thing.

"There were ten of them," he says, hearing the force behind his voice. "And they saw us. They raised their guns and you came down from the sky and stood there and. You saw us."

They'd seen him, sudden and bright and a comic-book parody blue and red. Terrifying on some almost-childhood-boogeyman level, because--he was so real. More real than the dark of the night and the hard black asphalt of that road, and those people gathered with their guns drawn, eyes wide with something like adoration. And Lex understood, and he knew Chloe did, too.

And everything had happened so fast. He remembers the burning pain under his ribs, the shock of losing his hold on Chloe, hitting the ground on his hip. The way she'd made no sound at all, even when she hit the ground and slid on her knees, and that must have hurt. He remembers struggling upright and seeing Clark look at her, and seeing the gun pointed at her chest, and thinking--she's Clark's friend. He loves her. He'll stop this.

The bullet had been nothing but a coda. Short, sweet, and brutally fast. He didn't even have time to blink before it entered her chest.

"Clark--"

"Lex--" Hand on his face, gentle and searching. "Lex, stop--"

"I got to her and tried to see--but you know, Clark, I didn't get my degree in medicine. There was nothing I could do and you--you could have stopped it. You could have." He could have. Faster than a bullet, more powerful than whatever powerful thing they were comparing him to that week, likely at that stage God, leaping tall buildings and looking at him holding Chloe. Bleeding her life out in front of his eyes and it was--

--gone.

"You'll be okay," he'd lied, and she'd shaken her head and then closed her eyes, but he keeps thinking she said something. Should have said something. Her blood was on his shirt, his jeans, his boots, his hands. He smelled her death all over him, and Clark was standing there, watching with that look that Lex didn't want to read, couldn't read, not then.

Maybe he's always been this far into denial.

"You let her die."

Clark's face turns away, and Lex moves. He's fast, recovered, very high, and doesn't give a shit if he dies. Straddles the long body and looks into that human-seeming face and--

"You--what--" Clark couldn't have known, but he did. He had to have. Big, sad dark eyes and little tremble to his mouth, Clark there under him, against him, every inch touching, it's always about sex with them, always. Even when it's not. Lex grabs his chin and jerks his head up. "Tell me that's not why she died, Clark. Tell me it was an accident."

But Clark Kent doesn't lie anymore, doesn't need to, and Lex feels the pulse of blood, the rush of it through his body, and there's a part of him that's asking, do you want to know this? Is this important? And above it all, sickening and terrifyingly bleak, is that rush. Rush of pure, unadulterated knowledge, twist like pleasure, is pleasure, this is what he has over Clark. The one thing, the only thing, and he's staring into eyes that say yes. Yes, Lex, yes. She didn't die for the vision, she didn't die because she didn't believe, she wasn't a sacrifice I had to make.

That one, Lex, that one was for you.

"I loved her, you know." Lies are fragile sometimes, but the best ones are true. Almost true. Could have been true. God, it could have been true, and he'll never know. Clark flinches, sickening little shot of pure power there. Addictive rush, it's victory, and it's so good it scares him. "When we were hiding, when there was nothing but recycled air and nowhere near enough food, I held her--

"Stop it--"

"--touched her. And it was...." Heady stuff, good as drugs, and he should have remembered that. "It wasn't just fucking. It was--knowing. What we knew. What we were against. What you made us." But really, how could he have known? Never guessed this, maybe never wanted to, suddenly Lex wonders if telling Clark about every person he'd fucked would push it further. Drive it down, drive it deeper, make him feel it. Every day. Hard and dark and let it twist, and Lex grins, can't help it. "And you know what else? It was--"

"It doesn't matter anymore." Big, dark eyes, single fluid motion that has something to do with the physics that Clark's body breaks on a daily basis. Pinned beneath and grinning, almost fucking laughing, it's so--God, so right, in some way. "It doesn't matter."

"You're sure?" Pain is good, Lex has always known that. Pain's like scars, reminds you that you're alive, reminds you that you're human, reminds you that everything has a price. "You're sure of that, Clark? How sure?"

He's--not. Lex pushes against him, lightheaded, body full of something like air, like he could just float right now forever. And Clark--his perfect, beautiful Clark--is staring at him with wide, angry eyes, and yes, sex and violence and jealousy, and, remember Lex, remember, gods get really odd when it comes to jealousy.

Gently, he pulls his hands up, cupping Clark's face. Strong bones and that wonderful, addictive skin, silky under his palms, even now, after all these years. Like life hasn't touched Clark at all.

"Clark," he whispers, and pulls his head down. Can't help bucking his hips a little, Clark's hard against his thigh and this--this isn't too bad, is it? It's surreal and scary and it's winning like nothing in his life. Bites Clark's earlobe, quick and sharp, licks inside. "You were jealous, and you let her die."

The silence is quietly damning and Lex sucks just below his ear, little spot that make Clark squirm, even now. Bites hard, once, then pulls back, staring into Clark's eyes. He wants to see this. Has to.

"She wasn't my lover, Clark. She died for nothing."

The hit is as visible as the bullet that sank into Chloe's chest in front of Lex's eyes--stark shock, pain a belated afterthought, and disbelief that knows it can't survive the truth. Then Clark's fucking gone, great way to deal, and Lex stretches suddenly stiff muscles, pushing himself up both elbows. The door's opened and Clark's out, gone, somewhere else, somewhere he can figure out something, but Lex is--

--isn't not happy. Isn't not anything, because this...God, this. What the fuck is this, Lex?

Sliding his feet to the floor, Lex feels a few seconds of serious lightheadedness before pushing himself up. The balcony blinds are still moving--possibly the way Clark made his escape, as he often does when confronted with such things as stark reality. Hmm. The socks slide luxuriously over the floor as Lex finds the table by dint of nearly falling into it, grabbing for the edge and pouring a glass of water.

No. Something--harder.

And this is a quasi-tomb of Lexness, so therefore, his liquor should be here--somewhere.

Grinning, Lex pushes through the bedroom door, emerging into the immaculate living room. Understated furnishings, very much his taste, except for the scarily brown monster of a recliner that Clark purchased in some sort of fit of vulgarity, and Lex remembers coming home and seeing it sitting there, Clark happily changing channels on the television.

It--hadn't been a pretty sight.

So. To the right, kitchen door, to the left, hallway to the other bedroom and his office, where there should be a stash of something alcoholic, but Lex isn't looking for brandy right now. Liquor cabinet, the one his father gave him in some sort of quasi-familial feeling, or maybe the fact it's been around since the Civil War is the reason it's a Luthor possession. There might have been a story involved regarding generals and battles, but Lex really doesn't care enough to try and figure it out. The smooth wood doors slide silently open and the variety of bottles stops Lex in his tracks.

It's been years since he's drank hard liquor for no better reason than pleasure.

Grabbing the first bottle, Lex retreats, lets himself fall into the cool leather upholstery of the couch, foot hitting the recliner. Why did he let Clark keep that damn thing? Staring up at the ceiling, he turns the bottle, and--

--is this a good idea? He has no idea what he's been given, and for that matter it's been years since he's had a serious alcohol binge. This could--go bad. Be wrong.

More wrong than this moment, Lex?

It's--funny. He's high in his apartment, and this is a scene from a thousand different nights he's lived. He'd gotten Clark drunk for the first time in this room--it's a memory that always makes him sweat, nothing quite like a protohero giggling on the rug with an overturned empty bottle beside him. Stretched full length, shirt half-buttoned and rucked above golden ribs, rolling on his side to watch Lex like he was eyeing dinner after a year-long fast. Mess of dark hair and soft, pliable. Sweet.

And the floating thing, which was Lex's newest and most interesting clue that Clark wasn't quite as normal as he kept saying he was, but that was--not part of that night. Not yet. Just--Clark. How he felt under Lex's hands, the soft little sounds he made when Lex touched him. The taste of him, vodka and orange juice and mint, and how he wound himself all around Lex's body until he could barely remember who was seducing who.

Sex, strangely different than any other time. Maybe the alcohol in their blood or the quiet of the room or the fact that there was no chance in any form of hell that the Kents were somehow going to wander up here and find them. The--freedom? Maybe part of it, and Lex stretches into the couch, taking a long drink, eyes closed.

The vodka's acid on his tongue, familiar, a raw down his throat. Slow burn into his stomach and he tosses back another long swallow, feeling the effects almost before he's ready. It's been so long, and it's--so good.

"Lex?" Soft voice, and Lex turns his head a little, watching Clark's uncertain steps into the room, bedroom door ajar behind him. Dark hair a windblown mess and the t-shirt looks as if it's been dragged through a few Kansas cornfields. Lex swears straw is falling off of it in slow motion to the floor. "Are you--"

"Drink with me." He holds out the bottle, and Clark hesitates, staring at him with wide, wary eyes.

"You--probably shouldn't be drinking with--what you're taking," Clark answers, coming another step closer. And it's the details that are sticking with Lex--bare dirty feet under the edges of muddy jeans. Little trail of mud left behind him on the carpet and Lex has to grin. Clark's such a mess sometimes.

"You're getting mud on the carpet," he observes, and Clark glances back, eyes narrowing as they come back to settle on Lex.

"Lex--"

"I've--God, Clark, I've been taking fucking meteor-contaminated speed. You think this will do something to me now? I--" He can't help laughing a little, turning his gaze back to the ceiling. "I've--I've lived through infections and amputation and fucking surgery on a folding table in the middle of a fucking shack and you're worried that vodka's going to fuck me up?" It's funny, really. "I've been at ground zero for two of my own explosions and I lived through your crash to earth. Trust me, nothing can kill me anymore."

"It can hurt you."

Lex twists around, and Clark's closer. Only a step or two, but enough to feel it.

"Everything hurts, Clark."

Clark looks away, and Lex takes another drink--bottle's half empty and come to think of it, a few hours of throwing up aren't going to do anything for his mood. Besides that, the bottle's getting awfully unsteady in his hand.

"Drinking's never helped." Clark says it like it's engraved in stone--sure explains the devotion, Lex thinks, and the bottle is pulled from his hand. Which he was going to do anyway, but fuck it, his decision. All his decisions, all his choices, no matter how fucked up, and Clark isn't taking this one.

"Stop it." He gets his grip back on the neck, looking up into the dark eyes. "I can take care of myself." Thank you, no, Clark, I don't need your concept of care. But saying it is too damn hard right now, and the alcohol feels too good to start pushing again.

"Yeah, you've shown that." There's a trace of bitterness in Clark's voice that's--new. Interesting, too, and Lex forces himself fully upright, wondering where this could go.

"What's wrong?" He has to smile a little as Clark pulls once, hard, and Lex gives up the bottle without a fight. He doesn't need it that badly, doesn't need to make the point or--something. "I'm fine." Better than fine.

"You're--" Clark stops, carefully setting the bottle out of reach before curling into the floor. Strangely adolescent posture, knee raised, and Lex watches as Clark stares down into the carpet. "You never liked it when I wanted to help you."

"I don't need it."

"You always said that, and you--it's like you were always scared of owing me something. Like, you could give me anything and everything and that was okay, but you--" Clark stops, frowning. A finger slowly traces the muddy edge of his jeans and Lex lets himself slide back down into the couch. Easier to think when he doesn't have to concentrate on being upright.

"That has nothing to do with--" Lex stops when Clark looks up. The determined expression is back, and Lex knows that look. And how well it works, because genetics don't mean squat when they come up against the conditioned behavior of fifteen years as Jonathan Kent's son. Stubborness above and beyond Lex's ability to ever completely deal with. Even now.

No, especially now.

"You don't think--" Clark stops again and half-turns, bringing his body to fully face Lex on the couch. Close enough to touch if Lex just reaches out, and isn't that just always the way of it? Temptation is a lot easier to ignore when you know you can't have it. "Lex, it's like every argument we ever had, all rolled up into one."

It clicks--well, sort of, in that way that logic sometimes does when you've drunk enough to actually begin to think of the connection between your feet and movement as a whole new level of interesting.

"You think I left because I was worried about owing you for changing the world?" Which, come to think of it, wouldn't be the strangest thing to come out of Clark's head--that degree in journalism is still a close second to Clark's purchase of that damned recliner.

"Maybe you thought you could never give me anything to match it."

From anyone else, any time, any place, that would be--hysterically egotistic, but the serious dark eyes and utterly guileless words freeze the laugh on his tongue. It's this borderline of the things that Lex has been burying for years, deep as he can get them. There's been a thousand reasons he's told himself he left that night, and they're all--true? True. Yes.

"I left because you were wrong. Still are wrong."

Clark slowly leans forward, bracing an elbow on the couch. This close, the scents of the night are all over him. Dust and old concrete and wind and--something like corn. Like maybe tonight he did take a run through some field outside Metropolis, that somewhere there still is a field that grows things, and Lex shifts closer. Breathes it in. Living scent, and it's been a long time since he's felt it like this. Close, touchable. Alive.

"I--thought about it," Clark says, softly. This close, his voice is warm against Lex's skin. "After you left. After you--disappeared." The dark eyes stare into Lex's unflinchingly. "You--and everyone left me. I thought--" Clark stops, frowning now, and looks down into the leather. "I--hate being alone, Lex."

It's honest, which Lex is used to and yet really isn't. It's Clark, who's sitting quietly on the floor, and it's Lex, who hasn't admitted to an honest to God emotion since somewhere around puberty. Words get in the way, he's always known that; always easier to do it any other way possible, from gifts to his body--cheaper too. Words cost.

"Clark--"

"And--it was hard. I--didn't know it was for good, Lex. I thought you'd be back, once you'd thought it through. Once you--once you understood, and it didn't happen. And what was I supposed to do with that? What was I supposed to think? That you spent years fucking me just because you were that bored with Smallville?"

Oh. Crap. Lex pushes an elbow under himself, trying to get some balance, meeting that desperately earnest look.

"It had--nothing to do with...." Say it, Lex. Say it. "With how I felt about you. It wasn't...." Wasn't what? It's hard to focus, and this is--important, in some way.

"You--I told you everything." Clark's voice is low, but the emotion beneath it is the same. "I mean, Chloe and Pete--they didn't know until you told them, but you. You knew. And you could still just walk away, like I didn't mean anything."

Lex breathes out, pulling himself together. Vodka and questionable drug cocktails probably shouldn't mix, ever, but he's ridden through a hell of a lot worse.

"Clark--"

"It was--we lived together. We slept together. I told you everything you wanted to know. And it took you one minute to decide that you couldn't trust me. You--" Clark stops again, letting out a breath like a sigh.

"It wasn't about trust." Though in the way liquor worked on logic, it did sound almost reasonable. And--well, they both had trust issues. But that--isn't the point.

"Then what was it? You--what, didn't believe I could do it?"

And--that's not in question. Lex grins a little, unable to help it. Even after all this time....

"Clark, I always knew you could do anything. But--"

"Then why? Just--tell me that. Tell me what made you--the real reason. You always said you wanted to change the world. Make a difference. That you didn't want to be your father and just take. That you--and God, Lex, you wanted the same thing. You--I know you still do."

"Not like this."

"Not like what?" Clark shifts onto his knees, fingers digging into the side of the couch. Desperately earnest, so sure. So fucking--sure. Lex has never been that sure about anything in his life. "I--it's not the way I would have chosen, Lex. But--it wasn't like anyone gave me a choice. All of this--it didn't have to happen this way. If--if they'd believed me. If you'd believed in me."

"Clark, they think you're a fucking god."

"It was--" Clark stops, breathing out sharply. He's thought about this, and for some reason, that scares Lex more than anything so far. Logically, Clark had to have thought it through--you don't accidentally get millions followers practically overnight. There's planning involved, even if it's rudimentary. But--somewhere in the back of Lex's mind, the stupid part, there's always been this--comforting hope, that Clark hadn't really understood what he was doing. That this had all happened somewhat spontaneously, and Clark hadn't really guessed the effects until it was too late.

Stupid. Unforgivably stupid, and not very Luthor.

"I had to do something, and that way--" Clark leans a little further into the couch. "Clark Kent, human reporter, Lex Luthor's favorite toy, or Superman, who is practically immortal, invulnerable, can do anything. Which one would anyone have listened to? Remember when you used to tell me about how your father treated you in LuthorCorp? And remember how frustrated you used to get when you addressed the Board of Directors? They didn't listen to you, because you didn't have the power to make them. You were Lionel's son, nothing else. You scared them to get what you wanted, Lex--I know what you did to make sure they listened, but you couldn't walk into that boardroom and make them listen, not without--other methods of persuasion."

Scarily apt comparison--Lex could remember the first time he had, and the--indulgence? No, the flat out amusement, that he thought he could ever tell them what to do. Lionel's son, heir presumptive, but Lionel was healthy and very much alive. Lex wasn't--a force to be reckoned with, not then.

And well, those alternatives had been necessary for simple survival, but....

"You know." Clark's voice drops and he's so close Lex can feel his breath on his face. "It's not--something I would have chosen, but it's what worked. And--" Clark's smile is slow, twisted, and it hurts to look at. "It worked. They listen."

There's got to be a flaw in that argument--Lex knows there is, has to be, but nothing's coming up close enough for him to catch it.

"Clark-"

"I mean, as Clark, I couldn't even convince you, could I? So how the hell was I supposed to convince the world when even my lover didn't trust me?"

It falls between them like a rock--not quiet an accusation, though it's an implicit one. Not quite a question, not something even vaguely answerable even if Lex had been dead sober.

"It wasn't about trust."

"Then what was it?" Leaning closer, so close they could touch with only a shift of Lex's body.

There's no answer that doesn't lead right back to the beginning.

"Lex, look at me."

Intense expression, utterly inescapable, and Clark's fingers brush against his. Slow and careful and utterly sincere.

"It's--this, between us. You--you trusted me with some things--your life, your history, sex--but you gave those because they didn't cost you anything. This--this would have cost you something, wouldn't it?"

Fuck. "It's not about trust." It's not, dammit.

"Yes it is." And somehow, Clark's kneeling on the couch, and Lex has no idea how that happened exactly, when it happened, but long arms are braced on either side of his head and the smell of corn is everywhere. "I--I trusted you completely, didn't I? With everything about me, everything. My life, my secrets, the ship in the storm cellar, and--everything. I took it on faith that you'd never use it to hurt me, ever. And you didn't. I believed, Lex."

Close enough to touch, and Lex reaches up, unable to really help himself. A blur of movement and his wrists are trapped on the couch and Clark is staring down at him with wide eyes that say--God, too fucking much. More than Lex thinks he can deal with here, tonight, ever.

"It's the one thing you couldn't give me, Lex. Everything else, things I didn't even know I could want, and it was so fucking easy for you, wasn't it? Just buy me things. Whatever you thought I wanted, whatever would work. But--that one thing, you couldn't. Not trust. Not you. Not everything."

"I wasn't--trying to buy you." Well, that's a lie. And not even a good one, and Lex can't help chuckling a little. "Not--later. Not--"

"You're the only one that could have seen what I wanted to do, understood it. But you left and you--didn't even try. You know how this works, you know, you had to have known." The grip on his wrists strengthens and Lex spares a brief thought to wonder if the prosthetic really is as durable as Hamilton claimed. But it's not important right now. It's Clark, staring down at him, and the hurt is like something physical, hits Lex just as hard.

"Clark..."

"Not everything has to hurt. Not everything is about keeping score. I love you. I want you. God, Lex--just once, just fucking once, let it go. Let me--" Breath out and Clark stares down at him. "Please, Lex. Try. Just--give me that. Please."

Warm mouth on his, slow and achingly gentle, and Lex pushes up against the restraining hands that move instantly. Pulling Clark down, comforting weight and so much strength that didn't show in the slim lines of his body. Breathing him in, tasting him, close and all around him, and there's a reason this is just a bad idea, he shouldn't, he needs to think, dammit.

"I love you," Clark murmurs against his cheek, soft lips sliding down to his collar, unbuttoning with a flick of his fingers. Old trick that still fascinates Lex, even now. "I want you. Come on, Lex. Let--let yourself have this too. No running, no hiding, not from me. Together. The way it's supposed to be." Sucking bite that makes Lex arch, sharp and hard, Clark slow rocking against him just--God, so good. "Tell me--tell me you'll try, Lex. Just try. For me. For this."

A thousand responses flicker through his head like sparks and disappear just as fast. Clark's hands are on him, tilting his head up, staring at him, and there's--God, so much there.

"There's an entire world here, Lex. For you. You--you told me I could do anything, you gave me this, and I can give it back. To you. All of it. Everything in it. We can rebuild it together, and Lex, it will be amazing. And it will be us."

He can argue this, he can fight it, and he thinks, in some corner of his mind, that he can win it. Maybe. He can push Clark off, Clark will let him go. One push, hard and fast, a few words, and he can walk out. Door is open and if that's not good enough, there's a balcony and he can fucking jump. There's a gun and there's the clips for it, and he can--

"Tell me you'll trust me. Please, Lex. Do this for me."

--can do anything, right here and right now, and Clark is staring at him like that first time, that day, the day he told Lex everything. Every secret, every lie, and--God, he remembers that. Above the first flare of anger, beneath the edges of pure victory, there was the relief. It was--

"You can trust me."

--knowing that he had everything. Everything there was to Clark, one person who was completely his, still is, and Lex wonders if that day, he could have given Clark the same thing back if he'd tried, if he'd even wanted to.

"Lex?" Soft brush of Clark's mouth against his throat, more buttons hitting the floor, Clark always did lose his fine motor skills within a button or two, and Lex is-- "Lex, please, just do this. Trust me. Give me everything."

Dark hair slides easily between his fingers as he pulls Clark's head up, feeling the bruise forming already on his skin. Clark. His Clark, the one who saved him from a car accident that should have killed him, God, so many different times, and he--he can do this. Clark had never asked him for anything before. Not like this.

"Yes."

There are no words to describe it. It's like terror, but nothing like it, and that glass floor analogy is working out well--he can see how far he'll fall and it doesn't matter. Sudden pressure on his mouth, God, his entire body, washing away the fear and everything else but Clark, touching him, murmuring things that mean something like thank you and something like yes and maybe other things too that don't matter either.

"God, Lex--" Sharp, instinctive grind and there's too many clothes here and not nearly enough space, but he's adaptable. Arches up and finds the edges of Clark's t-shirt, pulling at it until Clark half sits up and drags it off. Lex hears the rest of the buttons hit the floor, Clark's mouth is everywhere, moving too fast, slick and wet and hot. "Yes, Lex. Yes. Please...."

Slick skin under his hands, pulling Clark back down and taking that impossibly perfect mouth, pushing inside, tasting everything. Jeans are an impossible barrier, should just not be there, and Lex gets a hand between them, quick work to unfasten even when he's shaking, so hard he can barely breathe. Clark gets them off in a mind-bending shimmy and Lex lifts to let Clark get his pants down, thrown somewhere over the couch before Clark's kneeling between his legs, staring down at his cock with such--God, such hunger.

"You're so--Lex. Just--" Clark breathes out, then leans over, running the tip of his tongue over the head and Lex can't help groaning, pushing up against the warm mouth. Another long, slow lick and Lex reaches for Clark, touching dark hair that tangles around his fingers.

"Clark--"

"I'm going to make this incredible. Everything."

"Yes--"

"Yes, everything, Lex." Mouth closing tight and hot over the head of his cock, shock of pure pleasure that cuts through straight to his spine. Clark sucks slow and easy, like Lex likes it, always has, the slower route to orgasm, and Clark could drive him crazy like this. Has driven him crazy. Just looking at him, beautiful mouth wrapped around him, dark eyes staring into his, taking him all in fast and hard and then pulling off. Lex's fingers tighten, and he makes a noise he knows he's never made before, not in his life, but Clark's mouth is on his balls, rough and silky at the same time, so wet, so good. Sucking, little drag of his teeth over the soft, silky skin just below, God dammit that's just--

Clark pushes his thighs up and his tongue's moving--yes, yes, yes, little circles around the hole. Clark's finger sliding slow and careful inside him, and Lex breathes out, tense and barely able to draw a clear breath. There's an eternity of nothing but bright heat, almost rhythmic, twisting pleasure he pushes down on, trying to get more. Clark's tongue sliding in and around, and he must have completely lost these memories, because he doesn't remember it ever being like this.

"More..." he hears himself breathe, harsh and nothing like his voice. There's a bright scrape of teeth, long lick and a second finger stretching him, fast burn that makes him arch. Clark's other hand closes on his cock, jerking him off in an uneven rhythm he can't match, and it's pure--God-- "Clark...."

"Yes," Hot breath just beneath his balls, and Clark's sitting up. Flushed, sweat glistening on his skin, dark hair in his eyes and Lex pries his fingers loose enough to push it back. Wet strands cling to his forehead, and hot hazel eyes are staring into Lex.

"I want--" Aborted thrust against him, the tip of Clark's cock pushing against Lex and yes, God yes, okay, anything, just..."Lex--"

"Yeah." It can't be his voice that sounds like that--achingly hollow, needy, desperate, definitely, and nothing is more important right now than this. Clark. Inside him. Clark disappears and is back before Lex can begin to miss the warmth of his body, getting the tiny jar open by pure luck and slicking himself with shaking hands. Pushing Lex's legs up higher and two slick fingers slide inside, hitting the prostate perfectly, just.... "Fuck--"

"Good idea," Clark whispers on a strained smile, bracing himself on one hand and Lex leans up, tasting that warm mouth. Soft and wet and giving, slick tongue he can't help sucking on, and the first blunt nudge that makes him push down. "Yeah, Lex--that's--"

"Come on..." Muttering against Clark's mouth, pulling him deeper, mouth and body, sharp burn and the wonderful edge of sharp pain, the stretch, he sometimes thinks he lives for this feeling. All tense muscle and panting breath, Clark pushing him open by inches, hand locked on his hip to keep him still. "Just--like that. Good, so good, Clark, so--"

"You're so tight, Lex..." He says it like it's utterly new, utterly unexpected, and Lex gets an ankle behind Clark's back and thrusts his hips up--bright, hot flash of pain and pleasure and so full, he's never felt like this before. Breathes out through the rush, Clark's hands stroking his face, shaking against him, control held by the thinnest thread possible. "Are you--"

"Fuck yes, move, Clark."

Life's lost in the rhythm, sex was always an escape from reality, but--not this time. Not exactly, not in any way his mind can possibly define; it's slick pressure and flares of heat that shakes him, grounds him in the room, in his body, in Clark. Clark's so close Lex can lean up and lick the sweat from his upper lip, catch his lower between his teeth and bear down. Earns him a thrust he feels all the way through his body, shit, in his fucking mouth, and hitting places inside that have never never been touched before.

"Yes, Lex, give it up, do it--" Clark's panting, shifting up, new angle, new everything and there's a chance Lex is yelling. Doesn't matter. "I love you, just like this, always like this, just for me..."

"God, Clark..." Clark's free hand sliding through his own, pulling it to his mouth. Roughly licking the palm, drawing it down over Lex's cock, their fingers twined, setting a jarring rhythm that makes Lex twist. "Fuck--"

"...yeah, Lex, like that, so close, I can feel you..."

"Fuck--"

"Just like that," Clark pants, head dropping close enough to kiss, to touch, sharp bite to his collar, licking all the skin in reach frantically. Lex digs his nails into the slick skin of Clark's back, pushing up with his body, wanting more, everything... "Yes, Lex. Please. Like that...."

Breathing's superfluous, everything's narrowed down to this, when it's all about sex and it's not. When it's heat and need like an ache that's never going to be eased, and Lex knows he's panting, staring up into the ceiling far above, sparks weaving drunkenly in front of his eyes. Clark's hand closes on his jaw, sharp, hard, forcing him to look, to see--

"Please, Lex, now. Come--now. Mine, Lex, show me, show me--"

"Fuck, yes, anything you want, just..."

Another sharp jerk of his cock and it's--like breaking, everything shattering like glass, like falling, like landing, and Lex yells something, has no idea what and doesn't even care. So suddenly, he doesn't have time to even think before it's all a wash of heat and light and so good it scares him. Riding out the twist of orgasm, Clark's rough breathing and aftershocks like pain on the tips of every nerve.

It's hours or seconds later when he can breathe again, see again, think again. Clark's soft and wet in his arms, damp hair against his face and warm tan arms slippery around him, Clark slowly stroking his stomach. God, everything aches, and there's no way in hell he's going to ever move, ever again.

"Clark," he breathes out and a warm mouth slides slow and careful over his chest, before Clark pulls back--no, no, didn't want that--and Clark frowns before pulling out, slow and easy. Lex hisses a little, and Clark leans down, wet, open-mouthed kiss, before Clark collapses like an exhausted puppy.

"That was--" He stops, lifting his head, eyeing Lex--God, just like the first time they had sex. Fucked-out, excited, and bone-deep worry. No kid on earth ever in their lives carried around as much worry as Clark did. Could make it--heh--a religious occupation.

"Okay," he says slowly, surprised at how hoarse his voice sounds, pulling Clark back against him. The room's too cool and slick skin gets cold fast. The corner of Clark's mouth curls up and Lex knows what's coming.

"Just a second--"

One day, Lex is going to actually enjoy Clark's speed as more than a sharp, short rush of nothingness, and then they're falling on the bed in a tangle of limbs, and his pretty Clark, grinning down at him with all the light in the world--shit, the fucking universe--filling his eyes. It's breathtaking and exalting and terrifying and something in Lex wants to die, right here and now, so he never has to lose this feeling.

"I'm going to show you everything, Lex."

The dreams are different, formless. Something like heat and light, greyish blobs of strangeness he can't define, and it's--over.

He wakes up suddenly, and his body tells him it's around morning. They grey-pink light barely filtering through the blinds is confirmation enough, and he shifts, feeling Clark's soft sound of protest, sleepy nudge against his shoulder. But Clark sleeps like the dead, and it's relatively easy to untangle himself from long limbs, though a hell of a lot harder to make himself let go.

Door on the far right is the bathroom, and Lex goes inside, uncomfortably aware of the sticky-dry feeling of sweat and semen salting his skin. Really noticing it, like an itch, which, granted, is sort of odd, considering his life, but--

The shower's right there. Easy to step in, hot water like some sort of wish-fulfillment from the days he'd thought he might sell his soul for a hot shower. Turning it up, he lets it hit his skin, shocking rush of heat that soothes every ache in his body, muscles relaxing one by one. And God--it's just something remarkable in itself, certainly worth a sonnet or two, just to stand here and get clean.

It's thirty minutes before he can pry himself out, and habit carries him to the closet, picking out his clothes, not bothering with the buttons, smooth silk and wool blend against his skin. And something--habit, too, maybe--makes him push back the blinds and slide the glass doors open, stepping outside into the reddish light of Metropolis, cool tiled floor against the bare skin of his feet.

LuthorCorp headquarters and a dozen other skyscrapers used to trek across the sky--the entire reason he'd chosen this place to live. The view was incredible. Far enough away from LuthorCorp for Clark to be comfortable, close enough to keep Lex's inheritance in easy view. The remains of Metropolis University are over to the left, and Lex remembers Clark's morning walks to school--very early at first, when he still had the dorm on campus, but by sophomore year, Clark couldn't have been sure which dorm he supposedly lived in. Junior had been the official change of residence and a corresponding drop in expenses, though Clark never quite got over the idea that he had to pay for something.

The recliner was not what Lex would have chosen.

It's only a few steps to the edge of the balcony; there aren't--hadn't been--many buildings this high, giving this space a sense of--isolation? Privacy. Quiet. Clark would fly from here sometimes, and Lex could watch for him from here, and he--remembers. Fucking Clark out here under the stars, hands braced on the balcony's rail.

"You're awake already?" Lex half turns to see Clark leaning against the door. Sleepy pretty boy (man), tangled mess of hair, smiling a little into the morning. The dark eyes flicker up and down Lex's body, enough to send a shock of heat that Lex can't possibly ignore or even want to. Muscles yell something like don't even fucking think about it; he hasn't been fucked like that in far too long. Like he's ever listened.

"I'm not that old," he answers lightly, turning completely and bracing his elbows on the rail. Clark nods slowly, another look up and down, and Lex relaxes, tilting his head to return the favor. T-shirt's long gone, and the worn jeans are like a pornography standard. He's never been able to look at a pair anywhere and not think of Clark.

"No, you're not." The teasing grin widens, before he takes the few steps that separate them. Clark's hand slides into the open shirt, settling on his stomach, and the slow kiss tastes like mint and what Lex hopes is coffee. "Interested in breakfast?"

"No." Catching Clark's lip between his teeth, he bears down a little and Clark moans, soft and touchable when Lex reaches for him. Strong back under his hands, all that flawless skin and the smell of soap when Lex bends his head, licking a little stripe across Clark's collar. Then grins again. "Well, maybe coffee."

"Tease." Clark's hand pauses on his stomach and Lex glances down when he sees Clark's eyes flicker. Nothing readable there--or nothing Lex can read, which is new and a little--disquieting? Maybe. He's not sure.

"Slut."

"Like that's a turn-off." Clark grins again and steps back. "Okay. I need to run do a few things." There's an edge of uncertainty in Clark's voice that's also new, and Lex wonders what it means. "Just a little while. And." Clark's head tilts. "I said I'd show you--what I'm doing. What I want to do. I'll--we'll go today. And you can see it all."

A little, strange frisson runs through the surface of Lex's mind, but he nods slowly and Clark grins, walking back inside, absently ruffling his hair. A few long minutes, and there's the sound of the door, and Lex looks absently back over the city before going inside.

Coffee, yes, very Clark. Something about the boy and caffeine, an almost mystical attachment he's never quite figured out. He likes coffee, granted, but Clark takes it to the level of abject devotion. Possibly something to do with that adolescence spent in the Beanery and the Talon....

Walking back inside, Lex runs a hand idly over the fading warmth of the places Clark touched, fingers grazing the edge of--

--of the scar. And--it's not his imagination, the raised ridge isn't nearly as protruding, now fading into a light line that he can barely feel.

It looks as if his body has been playing catch-up with a vengeance.

Picking up the cup from the table, Lex can't help touching it more--and it's strange. The pull's gone--muscles that had been badly rearranged had always made it tender, more likely to bruise, to seriously fuck with him when he had to sleep badly. Which was a lot.

Frowning, Lex takes a drink of the coffee. Hot, rich undertones, gourmet quality, the only kind he'd ever had at home. His hand can't help running over the line though--yes, it is smaller, lighter, and Lex takes a breath, wondering why he's so unwilling to look down and just see. It could be his imagination.

Of course, it's not. He knows that. Luthors don't hide from the truth. At least, not when it's sitting directly in front of them, under their fingers, like a sign of some kind that is usually accompanied by trumpets and some prophet or other.

Setting the cup down, Lex walks into the bathroom a little blindly, discarding the shirt on the way. Full length mirror on the door when he kicks it closed with one bare foot, turning, fixing his eyes on his own face. Some kind of--what, compromise? That--isn't right. Not a compromise. He's just...

He's just fucking stalling, and Lex--looks. Really looks.

Dark red ridge almost gone. His fingers know--they touch it every day. Reminder, warning, promise, it's what he paid and it's....

Almost gone.

The others are fading too, but Lex can't quite wrap his mind around the concept of it. Not this one (Las Vegas, infection), not that one (Phoenix, shrapnel), not all of them, and there's a startling realization that this--this is happening all over his body.

Healing. Detoxed and clean, careless elegance of silk and wool wrapped around his body, Lex Luthor is back in his own skin. He doesn't really look anything like the man who was sleeping in sewers--sometime before now. Doesn't feel it either--this skin fits like the other one never did.

Fuck.

The blind shock is actually something he likes--he knows what follows, what always does. Shock, when he walked out on Clark those years ago, long blind shock that seemed like hell until reaction set in three hours later. And he remembers sitting at Pete's kitchen table, trying to find the words that wouldn't come, because how the hell did you tell your lover's best friend something like this? Chloe's wide, shocked eyes, Pete's unmoving silence, Lana's breathing so loud, but they--

--he--

He'd said, "He's going to do this."

"No, he won't."

"Yes, he will." Shock had been wearing off, and he'd been--what? Angry? God yes, something like angry, something like afraid, but mostly--something else. "Don't fuck around with playing this one down, Pete. You know what he is now, and you know he can do it. You think I drove all the way out here just to fuck with your head?"

Maybe it'd been Chloe who'd finally sat down, legs collapsing, Pete catching her before she hurt herself.

"What are we going to do?" she'd said, and he'd seen the first shot of knowledge. It would be years until she got it all, but then--it'd been something. The twist of her hands, Pete's fingers sliding through hers to calm her down, and Lana....

"Is he going to--come after you, Lex?"

No, he'd thought, but it'd been a lie to himself. He'd always known. Even then.

"I don't know."

Lex finds himself leaning against the smooth, sharp edge of the table, and the smell of coffee is nauseating. His stomach's turning over and it's pure will that keeps him on his feet, staring into the carpet and, God....

And Pete had said, "He's not going to just--go out there and say he's a god, Lex." Like it was the most ridiculous thing ever, and it sounded ridiculous in that quiet country kitchen, with the cows mooing outside and Pete drinking coffee like he'd die if he stopped.

And Lex had said, "Who the fuck is going to stop him?"

That had been the question, hadn't it? The one they'd all stopped for, looking at each other, and it--hadn't been right, he thinks now. Maybe they would have been safer, happier, alive, if he'd just--not. Gone to them. Clark's friends. Clark's family. He could have kept driving and kept running and Clark--Clark....

"Fuck." He's dizzy and sick and there aren't any scars, history being cut away from his body by inches. Really fucking soon now, nothing left at all but the memories. He finds a chair blindly and drops into it when his legs won't hold him anymore.

If he'd kept running, let Clark do whatever the fuck he wanted with the world and found a nice island to hide on, except he'd never have stayed there, not ever. Part and parcel of it all, and he has to laugh a little now, because--

--fuck you, Cassandra, I don't believe in destiny.

The drawer's still full of his things--his mother's watch, jewelry, gloves, gun. Lex pulls it out and gets the magazine, slipping it in with a strange/familiar click of metal that makes him wince. He's done this so many times, for so many years. Reflex to know how to load, click the safety off, and push through the blinds, onto the balcony and look--fucking look Lex, look at Metropolis, now. Look at it.

It's been so many years, he thinks, staring at the destruction. They'd lost the LuthorCorp building first, his work, all his. His first try at explosives outside the lab, Hamilton gibbering about pure research and the meteor rocks' uncertain characteristics, and Cadmus had been lost only weeks later. Retaliation, he'd thought then, but they'd only left hours earlier and now, he has to think Clark was following him even then. From the beginning.

Look at it, Lex. See it.

And he knew that, didn't he? The first of the phone calls, God alone knows how, but the first one, a year to the day he left, and that's when Lex had blown LuthorCorp and made his point. No one made his choices for him. Not his father, not Clark, not anyone.

But--it's been years, hasn't it? The city's full of people--Metropolis, Clark's special city, and everyone wants to be close to him if they can, even in these conditions. A workforce, Lex thinks, leaning absently into the rail. This is--fixable. Rebuilding, and Clark doesn't have the organizational skills to even know how to start. It--doesn't have to stay like this, a living nightmare, but Lex can--that's what he was trained for, thank you, Dad.

The gun's a familiar weight in his hand as he lifts it up, bracing both hands on the rails.

And he can--Clark won't fight him on this, practically gave him carte blanche, didn't he? How to start the rebuilding process, get the world back in some kind of order. Make it work again, and the possibilities are dizzying.

An entire fucking world, right here at his feet, and he can almost feel it. Under his hands, what he can do with it. More than he ever thought even when he was that twenty-one year-old kid sitting in Smallville, marking time until his father gave him real power, then marking time until he could figure out how to take it himself. All of it, everything, because everything would never be quite enough. Not for him.

Great things, his mind offers in a voice surprisingly like Clark's. Not good things, great things. All the raw materials, right here, and a population that wouldn't dream of fighting him, and this is--

--addictive. The thought of it, it's....

"No."

But it's a way. To stop all this. He can rein Clark in; Clark's his, always has been. He can stop whatever the fuck Clark's people think they are doing--please God, don't let him ever hear the words 'holy war' again or he'll choke to death laughing....

This is what he wants. Stop the war, start rebuilding, and this can be--

The cool metal of the gun grazes his temple and he can just shut his eyes and shut this down, right here and right now.

He can't guarantee he'll die, but he knows angles and direction and basic biology--bullet to the brain and it doesn't matter what the fuck his body thinks, he'll be shut down for good. Comatose or dead, either one works, and he stares down into the remains of the city. Rubble, blackened streets, buildings falling to pieces, and he knows there's grass growing through the asphalt, though it's too high up here to see it, he's been down there, he's walked those streets, he's seen it before.

He helped make this.

It's freedom, really, in the end. Free of everything he's been running from, the fucking destiny his father spouted like some prophet on a mountain, Clark's wide dark eyes, and all those promises, just give him one thing, one fucking thing.

There's--always leaving, though. He thinks--no, he knows he can get away now. Walk out. Leave. And Clark would let him--practically wrote out the script that Lex could use, every one of them cutting and breaking and severing everything between them for good. So easy and so fast, and he could--what? Go back to Pete? To his little rebellion that's nothing more than a coda to this entire mess? Maybe just hold this bullet for a bit, go back, shoot Pete and then himself, and let it all be over, once and for all.

Lex is pretty sure there's no one else who could do what they do, after all.

So many options, but the city stretches in front of him like the biggest whore in creation, wide open. This is what you can have. All of it. Clark, this, everything.

Metal has a certain smell to it, he thinks, turning the barrel around and running the tip against his lips. Cold, hard, fast, and very easy, achingly easy. Simple choice to make, and he's made thousands in less time than it takes to draw a breath. He can't leave, even though the right words hover on the tip of his tongue. Throw them like bricks when he sees Clark again. He can leave. He can stay here and he can...

He's going in circles now, and it's.... Just. Fucking. Decide.

It's dizzying, and he leans a little into the banister. Cool metal against his lips, close enough to taste. Slide the barrel in his mouth, blowjob to end all blowjobs.

It's a--freeing thought. Something he rolls in his mind like good wine, slow, to taste it. Feel it. Metal and gun oil and gunpowder and sweat, the taste of Clark just beneath, and he can, he can do this, because this, this is what he didn't want, not this, not any of it. He didn't spend fifteen years living like an animal to just give it up like this.

"Lex?"

Clark's fast, but not fast enough. Not for this. He didn't spend fifteen years running just to--

"Lex, what are you doing?"

--just to blow his own fucking brains out now.

He has to wonder, as he watches the gun fall to the street, if irony will step in and let someone be under it. That would be--appropriate, somehow.

Clark's beside him instantly, watching it fall, probably to make sure no one actually is under it, and it makes him laugh a little. Clark, his Clark, savior of all mankind, worrying about one human life when so many--God, so many thousands, millions have died for him already. Because of him. His pretty, sweet, very inefficient Clark, who's staring at him now, and there's nothing but terror on his face. One shaking hand reaching out, and Lex shuts his eyes and leans a little, until the smooth palm slides over his face.

"Lex, what are you doing?" Voice shaking in rhythm to his hands, and Lex can taste the fear. There's a thousand questions trembling in Clark's voice, and he still has one option left--the words are there, what to say, how to say it, and he's been a liar all his life. He can lie to Clark. No, I don't love you. No, I don't want you.

No, I don't believe in you.

He laughs again, feeling an unfamiliar burn behind his eyelids, and Clark's other hand is on his face now, too, tilting it up. He wonders, just a little, what he looks like to Clark; standing here, half undressed, laughing like something's actually funny about this, which it is, it really really is.

"I love you."

Clark's breath catches, hands tightening, and the touch is almost electric. Something in Lex never wants to move from this moment.

It's--not giving up. It's--

"I want you."

Clark's moving closer, Lex can feel the heat of his body through the thin shirt, the jeans. Solid, strong, and he knew he couldn't do this twice, no one could expect him to, not walk out, not leave this. Not for anything, not for anyone. Not ever.

"I trust you."

It's letting go.

And God, it's easy.

Little caught breath like a hiss, and Lex feels them both collapse, doesn't even bother to try catching himself, Clark will, he knows it. Keeps breathing when Clark's hands are on him, touching him everywhere, along his back and shoulders and then to his face, warm breath against his skin.

"Yes," Lex hears himself say softly, and reaches up, closing his hand on Clark's wrist, opens his eyes. Clark's staring back at him, mouth a little open, eyes so wide, liquid dark, shaking in his arms. "Everything, Clark. You, me, this. All of it."

"God, Lex..."

"Where do they do it?"

Clark blinks, licking his lips, and Lex leans forward, quick brush to that warm mouth, but that's not enough, not nearly enough or even close. Gets Clark's jaw and kisses him hard, tasting salt and maybe coffee, mint and Clark, pushing him into the cool wood of the balcony floor and trying to take everything he can. Strong body twisting up against his, it's like he never left, not even a scar to remind him.

That's--good.

It's a long time before he can pry himself away, licking the taste that stays on his mouth, studying the loose body under his that gives so easily, so ready for anything he wants to do. Here and now, both of them, and he's already hard at the thoughts that are spinning through his head, all new, all different, all--

"Lex, what--"

"You know. You saw Lana do it. Show me."

Clark freezes. "Lex, you--"

"Show me."

Clark sits up, arms sliding over him, hand brushing against his shoulder for a briefly sharp moment before slipping quickly away.

"You don't have to." Clark breathes it out in a rush. "You--I--"

"Where do you want it?" And he laughs again, can't help it, taking Clark's hand and spreading the long fingers. Slowly slides it across his chest, pausing briefly just over his heart. "Here?" Clark hisses, and Lex moves the hand to his side. "Here?" Clark's breathing fast, eyes dilated, and Lex leans closer, running the tip of his tongue around Clark's ear, flicking inside briefly. Slowly slides the big hand to his lower back and Clark arches with a low moan. "Here?"

"God," Clark breathes, even his voice is shaking.

"...where you can see it when you fuck me," Lex whispers. "So you always know. Here?" He slides Clark's hand up, and God, he can feel it now, right there, and Clark's hand settles on his shoulderblade, gripping for a minute, hot and tight. "Here, Clark?"

"Yes," Clark says, slowly, dazedly, and Lex kisses him, hard. Licks inside that addictive mouth and Clark's sucking on his tongue, bucking desperately under him. "Lex, please--"

"After." He's on his feet, and the rush, it's incredible. Clark stares up at him in wonder, and Lex grins, extending his hand. "After, you can fuck me. All day. All night. Every day. Until you make me forget everything else. You asked. That's what I want."

Clark's hand closes over his, and the full lips part, slow and wet. "Yes."

He really isn't thinking much--thinking leads to places he doesn't want to go right now, maybe never again. He's not sure how Clark's doing, what with all the silence that Clark does so well when he's run out of words. It could be disconcerting, but Lex is always a little--out of it--when he gets focused.

He's focused now.

The room's almost airless, hot and thick, and Lex closes his eyes and breathes carefully through the smells. Big room, minimal ventilation. Clark's leaning against the wall, watching with wide, dazed eyes as Lex methodically removes his shirt. Neatly folds it and hangs it over the back of a chair, careful of creases, before he catches Clark's eyes and pushes the chair into the wall.

"Sit down."

Slowly, almost jerkily, Clark lowers himself down, all angles and clumsiness, like he's fifteen again and wandering around Lex's house with that look that said he worried he was going to break something if he so much as breathed wrong. Behind them, Lex can hear the sound of the blowtorch coming to life and the soft clink of metal.

Clark licks his lips absently, running both palms across his jean-clad thighs. Vaguely, Lex is aware of other people in the room--whoever the fuck has this as their life's work, and someday, he's going to ask about that, just from curiosity--but that's not now.

"Clark." Easy to straddle those long legs, and Clark jumps, head coming up abruptly. Pink tongue slides out, absently wetting his lips, and Lex leans forward, catching his mouth in a wet kiss. Slow, easy, sliding one hand through that thick hair and feeling the hard pound of Clark's heart against his chest when he shifts closer. "Shh. You're going to love this."

Clark breathes out sharply, staring up at Lex with shocky eyes. "You don't--"

"I want to. Shh." Holding the dark eyes, Lex listens briefly to the sounds behind him. "Are you ready yet?"

Quick, quiet sounds, metal and voices he really doesn't care enough to listen to. Shifting closer, he lines up their hips and rocks gently, and Clark's eyes close on a gasp, fingers closing on Lex's hips, tight and hard enough to bruise.

"Just like that," Lex murmurs, leaning forward enough to brush his mouth against Clark's ear. Quick, easy lick, before he braces both hands on the wall. "Just like that. Look at me."

Clark's hands tighten convulsively and he swallows, before he glances over Lex's shoulder. It's a matter of instinct, knowing when someone is behind him, and Lex thinks he can smell the heat of the metal, the bodies that have been here before, and there's a little shock from throat to groin, so good he shivers.

"Lex--" Uncertain, and so very Clark that Lex can't help leaning forward, almost a kiss.

"Now," he whispers, holding Clark's eyes.

Another kind of shock, the scent of burning flesh and the world goes black except for Clark's eyes, a flare of heat and a feeling like the snap of a rubber band, the sounds of something sizzling, and Lex pushes everything else from his mind for it. Not exactly pain, not yet, not yet, but--God. Clark's breathing is ragged, and Lex wonders a little light-headedly if Clark's going to break his hips with his grip.

One second and the metal's gone. Lex hisses in a breath between his teeth and pushes his hands harder into the cold wood. Everything in the room comes into abrupt, painful focus, sounds and scents and bodies, but there's only Clark.

"Again."

It feels like it should be impossible to be still--sickly-sweet smell he can't escape, the hissing sound of his own flesh cooking, and he's doing this. He's so hard he thinks he could come just from thinking about it, just from the look in Clark's eyes, dark and hot and want he can taste in the air between them.

His entire body shivers with the second loss, and Clark rocks his hips into Lex's, panting like he's been running for years and only now is remembering to breathe.

"Lex," he whispers, and Lex grins, showing his teeth.

"Tell him to do it again."

Wide-eyed shock, and then the tightness on his hips again, fuck, Clark's going to break something. Prying a hand off the wall, Lex notices from somewhere distant the cold sweat on his forehead, the hard pound of his heart. Reaching up, he locks his hand on Clark's jaw, and they're so close they might as well be fucking. It's not about sex except when it is, and this--

"Tell him."

"Again," Clark whispers, and Lex locks his teeth. It's--not the pain, because there's not much, not really, all the nerves in shock, burned out, nothing like the acid or the fires he's been in. Just--this feeling. Like being free. He could fly or float away or just sit here forever and feel this.

A second and it's gone. Beneath him, he can feel the tremble of Clark's thighs, the slow stroking of Clark's hands on his legs, the hard push of his cock against him, and it's impossible not to rock into it, hear Clark's soft hiss against his skin.

"Again."

The smell's stronger and Lex's stomach turns, but he doesn't care. "Fuck." Can barely hold still, don't move, this has to be perfect. Has to be. For him, for Clark, and he bites into his lip, catching the iron taste of blood.

"One more time," he says, and Clark shudders, leaning forward for a fast, hard kiss, licking the blood from his chin. Sweat's standing out on his forehead and Lex leans up a little, licking it away with the tip of his tongue, then presses his forehead to Clark's. "One more time and I'm all yours."

Something like a strangled gasp and then Clark's hands are steel on his thighs, God, he's going to feel this until the day he dies. He never wants to stop.

"Do it."

One second that lasts forever--Clark's panting in the quiet, and Lex wonders if he'll ever breathe again, think again, do anything at all but sit here, feeling this. Shuddering, and slowly he unclenches his hand from Clark's jaw, vaguely aware that would have crushed a normal person. There's more activity behind him, frantic and fast, something cold spread over the burn, bandaged quick and efficient, these people are good at their jobs. Clark's--God, the look on his face, like nothing Lex has ever seen there.

Leaning close, he winces at the pull of skin, the adhesive clinging and restricting, but Clark's mouth is just too hard to resist, quick bite, slow drag of his tongue to Clark's ear.

"Now I want you to fuck me. Very, very hard." Just the thought's enough to make him shiver, his cock jerking, too sensitive, it fucking hurts he wants it so badly.

"God, Lex--"

"...for a long time, and you're going to make me forget everything else but you. Everything."

Clark's hand closes on the back of his neck, pulling him into a kiss--frantic strokes of his tongue, arching into Lex's body, moaning into his mouth and so desperate, so needy. So Clark, they could do it right here and right now and to hell with anyone else.

It's no time at all to get back, and Lex is on his hands and knees on the bed, elegant wool pants discarded on the floor, and yes, just like this, exactly like this, the mattress cool and firm, Clark behind him and he pushes back.

"Now."

Frantic sounds of the jar breaking and Lex grins, his entire body shaking, his shoulder burning, so hot, so good, yes, just like this. Just the fuck like this.

"Clark. Fuck me."

"Yeah. Yes." Sounds of slicking and two fingers are thrust inside him but he wants--oh God, he wants it all, now, everything, and he pushes back against the hot body behind him, feeling Clark's free hand ghost over the bandage. Wonderful edges of pain and he wonders how long it will take him to heal. Not long, please. Not very long. "Lex--"

"Fuck me, Clark."

It's another kind of burn in that first thrust--fast and hard and furious stretch, all the way inside, Clark's not holding back and they both groan. Lex barely catches himself on his elbows, feels hot breath on the back of his neck. Clark's hand on his hip is steadying and he turns his head just enough, catches that sweet mouth and licks inside, fucks Clark with his tongue, shows him--

"God, yes, Lex, so good. You're so--God, I love you, yes...." A bare damp hand closes over his cock, slick and hot and so tight, Clark's ragged rhythm coming together. Beautiful. God, so good, so good Lex could stay like this forever, feel this. Edges of sharp iron in his mouth, he must have reopened his lip, and he buries his hands in the pillow, choking on another moan as Clark thrusts in, harder, faster, so good, so hot, yes, Clark, just like that...

"God, Clark, fuck me. Do it. Harder." He's saying more things, so much he can barely get enough breath, and Clark's saying his name like he's dying right here. Pushing inside his body, he's going to feel this for fucking years and there's nothing else but this, this moment, Clark's hand on his cock and Clark's mouth against his neck and then his lips pressing into the bandage once, hard, and....

"Yes."

He feels it everywhere, all at once, blinding like lightning in a clear summer sky. Shaking his entire body, pushing him so high he knows no one could survive this, too good, too hot, too much, shots of pleasure like pain all over his body. Every nerve on overload, it's like he was branded all over and his shoulder throbs in time to his cock. Wet heat and Clark's low, pained groan, the sound he makes for Lex, only for Lex, the sound no one else in the world has ever heard or ever will.

They collapse into the bed, sticky and tangled, and Clark's cheek pressed to the bandage, fingers slowly tracing the edges. Warm lips mouthing his spine and sucking a bruise into his other shoulder.

"Lex," Clark whispers, and Lex shuts his eyes, the burn of Clark pulling out like aftershocks, and he's never been this sensitive in his life. Clark rolls him over and crawls up his body, mouth over his and taking--everything. Every memory, every nightmare, every doubt, and it's all gone. "You--I won't let you go. I can't. Ever."

Closing his eyes, Lex smiles.

Epilogue:

It's gorgeous.

The bulldozers stop at dusk now, which makes the evenings more bearable--Lex still twitches in memory of the first days, when it seemed as though the entire city was nothing but living noise, night and day. Dust in the air so thick that he'd had all the inhabited buildings sealed, the air filters working overtime to remove the dirt and dust from the air to make it breathable. Breathing masks were standard issue for anyone leaving. They're still a good idea for long periods of time outside, but Lex only plans to be out here a few minutes.

It may be a good thing he doesn't carry weapons anymore. There's a good chance he might have snapped and taken out anyone who drove one of those fucking bulldozers and cranes steadily removing the years of debris from downtown Metropolis.

Clark hadn't taken the restriction to the building well, but he saw Lex's point. Too much of that dust was contaminated, and they still weren't clear what breathing it might do to him. No good reason to take chances, and Clark had just shaken his head and told him he was acting like a mother hen.

Not a sexy thought, but Clark had been mostly naked, so Lex worked with it.

"It's looking good," Clark says from behind him, and Lex grins, leaning both elbows into the balcony's rail. "How much longer?"

"Four weeks. Give or take." Leaning forward a little, Lex looks down at the tiny figures moving steadily in the streets below. "The timetables are on my desk."

"S'okay. Your idea of shorthand is the equivalent of encryption. I have no idea what half of those symbols mean." There's a smile in his voice, and Lex shuts his eyes briefly, reopening them on the dark-reddish beginnings of night. He's been thinking he'd like to see the sun again--he's already started work on projections to get the atmosphere cleaned, but there are priorities involved in these sorts of decisions.

But that's what he's good at. The strategy, long-term planning, and Lex had spent the first four weeks doing nothing but working this out in exacting detail, Clark perched on the desk chair beside him, watching with curious eyes. A vision's all well and good, but it needs practical application, and there hasn't been much of that up until now. He can't help smiling a little as Clark brushes a hand down his spine before leaning into the balcony beside him.

"You all right?" Clark asks. His shirt's half buttoned and his hair's still damp from the shower. Very much something out of Lex's more interesting fantasies, which makes it hard to concentrate on what he's saying, which is...

"Fine," he answers. Clark always surprises him with how he can make Lex stop breathing, just standing there studying the sky. It shouldn't surprise him, it shouldn't always hit him this hard, but it always does, just like the first time. "Thinking."

"Good thoughts?" Clark's gaze maps the city, looking for any problems. Listening for them too; Clark's a multitasker by nature.

"Yes." There's so much to do--sometimes, Lex wakes up with the sheer weight of it pouring into him like something heavy and inescapable, crushing. Clark always catches him, though. It sometimes makes him wonder when Clark learned to be so perceptive.

"I was thinking--" Clark stops, a little uncertain, and Lex glances up curiously. "Tijuana." Little, sheepish smile. "For a weekend."

Lex raises an eyebrow.

"You want to take a vacation?"

Clark shrugs a little, leaning into the banister and trying out his best puppy-dog look. It works, too.

"You, me, sun, lots of space--"

"Schedules, maintenance, rebuilding, work--"

"Fun," Clark offers with an easy grin. "Relaxing--"

"Boring."

"You can take your damn laptop and coordinate from the beach," Clark offers with a sigh, and Lex grins. "I know you ordered the ground lines rebuilt already, so you can't say we'll be out of contact--"

He's going to give, he can actually feel it. "They need me--"

"I need you, too."

Clark hadn't really understood why Lex needed to see Pete in person, suggesting that the man come here, where Lex could explain, but he hadn't fought it. And he hadn't asked what Lex did, though Lex has never concealed the damage reports from the Nevada desert.

The remaining cells went into hiding almost immediately, of course, but it was easy enough to find them, handing out their locations with the specific orders. Clark didn't like it, but he did understand the necessity.

There's been a wary sort of peace for almost a month now, and Lex is beginning to wonder if they really did get them all. He's almost certain but--well. Assumptions are never acceptable in place of facts

But--in some ways, he still finds it difficult. His instincts running against his reason, and he can almost hear his father's voice in his head, telling him he's ruled by his emotions. It's more true than he likes to admit, and it's--

"Lex?"

--difficult, sometimes, to balance the two. It's easier when Clark's nearby. But that day in Nevada...no, he thinks he's going to choose to forget that. Pete's face when he walked into the compound--not the betrayal so much as the death of hope, and he'd never wanted that, not ever. People need hope, Lex acknowledges, if only to himself. When they lose that, they become--unpredictable.

It had been the right thing to do, even if Clark had struggled with the necessity. The only way Lex could pay back Pete for those years of friendship, this personal, private choice between them. Quick, clean, and painless, and then razing the building itself, straight down. There's not even rubble left--Lex had it cleared almost immediately. The meteorite stash is locked in Metropolis under heavy guard--Lex doesn't make the mistakes that have made this useless war continue so long.

So yes, there's a very good chance it's over now.

Clark hadn't asked him any questions when he'd arrived back at the apartment, sleepily lifting his head and watching Lex strip off his clothes, tossing them carelessly aside. Standing under the shower for what seemed like years, hot water rushing around him, and he'd been shaking, and something--God, something in him was breaking, but Clark....

He seemed to feel these things, somehow. Sliding inside the shower and accepting Lex's involuntary jerk away from his hands with only a slow nod. It was--still too close, Lex thinks.

"I'm sorry, Lex," he'd said, looking anywhere but at him. "I--I'm so sorry. I didn't--"

And he'd said, "It's not your fault." He's sure he meant it.

"I shouldn't have let you go," Clark answered, fixing dark eyes on the floor, arms held awkwardly at his sides. "I--I shouldn't have. We--should have talked to him first, explained..."

"He wouldn't have listened." And that was true. God, so true. "You know that, Clark. Pete forced it to be this way."

And Clark hadn't answered, but the pain was--God, so strong, Lex could almost taste it. And Lex had forced himself to step forward, gently sliding his hands over the bare wet skin. Slick and silky soft, and Clark had just collapsed against him, little sounds like choked sobs against his shoulder.

"It's okay, Clark. It's not your fault. He did this to himself. It's not your fault."

And it wasn't, not really. It was--what had to happen, Lex thinks.

And they'd dried off and Clark had curled himself all around Lex in bed, and it had been impossible not to touch him, kiss him. Easy to lose himself in the feel of Clark's body, the sound of his voice, the mindless rhythms of sex, tense and tight, a slow fuck that ended soft and easy, orgasm like the ripple of the tide coming in.

Just letting it go, all of it--the smell of blood and the look in Pete's eyes, the familiar feel of the room around him, making him--stop. Breathe in metal and stone and fear and this frightening hope that had a scent, that clung to everything. And he didn't tell Clark that the gun had felt sticky and slick and so necessary in his hand, and how easy it would have been just to--

"Are you hungry?" Clark asks, breaking the moment, and Lex turns, a little startled, wondering if it showed on his face. But Clark's still studying the city.

"What did you have in mind?" he asks, letting the memories slide backward, off the surface of his thoughts. Clark's knuckles slide down his jaw, slow and almost wondering.

"No idea," Clark answers, still stroking. Lightest graze imaginable, something like being slowly sensitized over his entire body, just with this. A sharp throb in his shoulder makes him hiss lightly, and Clark's eyes darted over. "Hurt?"

Yes. Always. Hard burn that Lex doesn't tune out when he doesn't have to, breath speeding with the touch of Clark's fingers sliding slow and easy over the shirt. Lex had removed the bandage almost a week ago from the last time. He doesn't scar easily, but--he thinks it won't take long now.

"Nothing to worry about." But Clark's shifting closer, hip nudging his until Lex turns his entire body, smiling a little as he drops his gaze to waist level.

"I always worry."

"You're going to get an ulcer."

Clark's smile is blinding. "I don't get ulcers."

And--he remembers waking the morning after Nevada with Clark wrapped around him, dozing lightly, and he'd--stopped. Wondering a little, and he remembers that moment of looking into Pete's eyes across a fifteen foot space of bare stone and metal. Their most secure bunker, and outside, Lex already had people setting the bombs.

He lied to Clark. They'd talked.

Pete had said, "You can't want this."

And jarring reality, when he'd felt the gun waver in his hand, thumb clicking the safety back into place without a conscious decision being made.

"I chose this," he told Pete, and it'd been there in Pete's eyes--slow and encroaching something. Maybe close to fear, but not quite; even at that moment, the blind panic hadn't come, and he's glad about that. Pete had taken the steps separating them like he was walking through landmines, eyes holding Lex's, and Lex couldn't, couldn't make his fingers move when Pete pushed the gun aside, hand closing on his shoulder.

He'd winced, and Pete had known.

"God, Lex--" Breath out in shock, in sympathy, in blank, sick realization, and Pete had shut his eyes.

"Don't--"

He'd stopped the words, and there was--so fucking much in his head, so much he could barely think through it. Something like the shock that still coasted in his system, but most of it a strange sort of relief.

"Is Lana--" Pete's voice broke, splintering off into silence.

"Yeah."

The relief in Pete's eyes matched what he'd seen in Lana's. And Lex clenched his teeth, letting the gun fall to his side. His mind was counting off the minutes already--the timers had already been set by then and his watch could tell him how long he had until the doors sealed everyone inside.

It wouldn't be long.

"Is it worth it?" Pete had asked. Standing there, staring at him, and the betrayal was somehow secondary to everything else. Maybe Pete had gotten it all along and Lex had never given him credit for it.

Lex doesn't want to think about that, though.

He'd said, "You can't win." It was easy to say, it was so true.

And Pete had said, "That's not why people fight, Lex." (It's not going to stop, is it?)

And--he thinks sometimes that the conversation ended there, with Pete turning his back on Lex, walking away, making the bullet fast and easy. He thinks it, but he knows that's not exactly true either, though mostly it is.

Because Pete did turn his back and walk away, crossing to the table in the center of the room. Dark hands splayed down on the surface, almost reverently, before his head turned just enough to catch Lex's eye.

"Tell me you're not taking me back to him." (...there's nothing else left.)

And Lex had lifted the gun, let his thumb flick the safety off and took the four steps between them. The barrel rested gently on the hollow of his skull, and Lex's hand was so steady.

"I'm not."

Pete had smiled.

It was messier than his usual, and the shower really had been necessary--blood and tissue splattering his clothes and his skin, and the plane ride back had taken far too long. And Clark, warm and lean against him, muttering softly that next morning, frown line cut into his brow. Hand reaching out absently and looking for Lex, and Lex had shut his eyes and lay back down, letting Clark wind around him again. Closing his eyes, breathing even, and the absent brush of Clark's wet mouth over his bandaged shoulder, a sore shock that made him suck in a startled breath.

Reminded him who he was.

"I love you," Clark had whispered sleepily, arm around his waist tightening.

Lex hasn't taken out the gun since.

Clark's hand on his face again, a little firmer. "Hey. Where'd you go?"

And sometimes Lex thinks that's always going to be the most important question for Clark, the biggest terror, and he sees it jump in Clark's eyes for a second, a sliver of something raw that makes Lex ache.

"I'm here," Lex answers as Clark's fingers absently trace the pattern on his shoulder. Clark smiles, bright and fast, glancing back over the city. The clearing stage is almost complete, and the first tentative plans for rebuilding have begun.

"It's going to be amazing, Lex," Clark says softly, reverently. All the light of the reddened sun is filling his eyes, and he's. Breathtaking. "We're creating something wonderful."

"Yes," Lex answers, closing his eyes. "We are."

The End