Twisted Fairy Tales

by Feygan

When things go wrong in the future, a stranger travels through time back to when it all began... in Smallville. Lex/Clark slash. AU fusion basically from season 2 of Smallville and the whole Superman mythos.

Title: Twisted Fairy Tales
Author: Feygan
Rating: NC-17
Completion Date: February 2003
Fandom: Smallville
Pairings: Clark/Lex, Chloe/Pete, Lana/Pete
Spoiler Warning: slight mention of Jodi Melville from episode 7, "Craving"; mention of Tina Greer from episodes 4 and 32, "X-Ray," and "Visage"
Disclaimer: All characters are borrowed for entertainment use only. No ownership claimed by me.

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Traveling across the universe and gaining speed with each rippling wave, a change flowed down the time corridor. Some great tragedy had occurred. History had forever been disrupted and all of the worlds and all of the possibilities shuddered and died.

In the thirtieth-century, as yet untouched by the change, the Legion of Superheroes was given a warning. Someone had tampered with the way things were supposed to be and they were going to disappear out of existence if they didn't somehow make things right.

Quick to a plan, two of their members were sent backward in time to before the catastrophe occurred. They were to give a warning to the greatest hero of that time or any other and he would do whatever he could to avert the tragedy. He was their only hope, because somehow, he was at the center of all that had gone wrong.

PROLOGUE

The Earth was a hell. Death and destruction surrounded him and there was nothing he could do about it. All of his fighting had meant nothing in the end, because though he had won the occasional battle, he had still lost the war.

Why God, why does it have to be like this?

He lay down in his old bed in his parents' house and cried. He was alone, always alone. All of his friends and family had grown old and died. He was the only one left. Even his beloved enemy had finally died--though he'd managed to take every other living thing on Earth with him. He hadn't wanted to go alone, and most especially didn't want to leave anything behind for his enemy, because without anything to protect, Superman was nothing. And in the end, Lex Luthor had hated Superman even more than Clark had.

Krypton's last son was now Earth's last survivor as well.

He could still remember Diana's whispery voice telling him that all was going to be well, that death came to everything. But he doubted the superheroine known as Wonder Woman would have accepted death so gracefully if she had known that everything she had spent her life protecting was soon to follow her into the grave. He had failed her, failed everyone. The world was littered with his broken promises.

Over the years he had loved many people, though he had never told them of course. He was Superman, a solitary being, and everyone that wanted to get close to him only saw the costume, they didn't see the man inside. He didn't want someone to love him because he was a superhero. He wanted someone to love him because he was a person.

That was one of the reasons he had divorced Lois. She'd been in love with Superman first, and though he had believed that she had come to love Clark, he had eventually discovered that Superman held most of her heart. And though he had loved her for her strength and beauty and intelligence, he had pushed her out of his life because her love for Superman was not a healthy thing, not for either of them. Because even though he dressed up in the tights and the cape, he was not Superman on the inside. He was just Clark Kent out playing at saving the world.

Even after things had fallen apart with Lois, he had still somehow believed that things would work out in the end. He would find love somewhere, would find someone that loved him, not the clothes he wore.

Now it was too late for everything. The Earth was a dead thing, and he could only hope that he would soon be allowed to follow it.

His powers had grown considerably with each year he was exposed to Earth's yellow sun. He had reached the point where he was afraid that maybe he couldn't die. He would just go on forever, never able to kill himself because all of the kryptonite had long since been destroyed, and he would never be able to find that gentle sleep everyone around him had succumbed to.

It's so lonely, he thought. And even though he had long believed that their friendship was over and that he hated his once best friend, he couldn't help but to whisper, "I miss you Lex," as he lay curled in upon himself on his old bed. Childhood was long behind him, but he could only wish that he could go back. He missed all that he had lost, and dreaded the thought of immortality.

PART ONE

Once upon a time there lived a handsome prince that spent most of his youth locked away by his evil father. He dreamed of a better life and cried over the gentle memories of his dead mother. All he wanted was to go back in time and begin again, to have the chance to be the happy child he probably should have been. But that was not to be.

To some he was an angel, to others a devil, but to himself he was a beast.

From the time all of his childhood illnesses were wiped away by the lovely radiant glow of falling meteorites, he was somewhat of a freak when he looked into his own mirror. And though he later drowned himself in the pleasures of the flesh and the blissful madness of drugs and alcohol, he knew that no one could ever love him for real because he was ugly and his father would ruin everything that he tried to possess. So he decided that he would just be satisfied with empty laughter and empty sex and never try to make anything real for himself, because it would only get broken.

He was a void.

Once upon a time, as these tales always begin, there lived a poor farmer, his beloved wife, and the son they both worshipped.

For years the couple had tried to have a child of their own, but no matter how much they loved, their simple wish was denied. It broke the farmer's heart to listen to his wife's quiet weeping in the night when she thought that he couldn't hear. He would brush his hand across her tear soaked pillow after she had finally fallen asleep, and the wetness against his palm and fingertips was a proof that he had somehow failed her.

Still, the couple loved each other with a fierce passion that was not so much dulled by the fact that it had transformed itself into quiet contentment as it was refined by it. They were comfortable with each other and they found joy in their love and the sharing of their life. And the desire to have a child of their own only added to the power of the emotion they shared, for a need denied has to find other outlets, and they sank themselves into the warmth of each others' arms, knowing that each was all that the other had.

Then one day fiery green jewels began to fall to earth and the sky was lit up with flame. Some people lost their lives or were forever changed by what that day brought. And the farmer and his wife received the blessing they had longed for, and the child they had always dreamed of enhanced their lives.

They took that boy into their home and raised him with all of the love they had to offer. From the moment they first saw him in his silvery pod, they knew that he was special, a blessing just for them. And so, after much discussion amongst themselves, the couple lied to the boy and never told him that he was anything but their son in love, admitting that he was adopted, but never that he was less than human. But they never dreamed that their deceit might hurt him, because they did it out of love and fear, wanting him so much that they hoped never to have to give him up. Their lie was a charm against the possibility that his real parents might appear to take him away, never to be seen again.

So wrapping their lives around the lie, the farmer and his wife loved their son more than anything, and their lives were made complete. A mother, a father and a child, just what they had always wanted, and even if the money was short, they made do with what they had--the love they built their lives upon. To them, wealth was a far away dream, a fantasy that need not be fulfilled for them to have contentment, because they had each other.

They were happy.

And finally, once upon a time, Lucifer, Son of the Morning Star, fell deep into the depths of the earth to wallow in the misery of the flames of Hell. In his own mind, he was happy in his disgrace, saying always that it was "better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven." But somewhere in his heart he missed the gentle love that had always been there for him, wordless and supporting, and so, without that love and not understanding the emotions that he felt, he lashed out in anger against everything, hating most the happiness he had been denied.

He lived the life of a king, ruthless and cold to everyone around him, spurning the love that might have been offered. He did not want to be weakened by any soft emotion, though wordlessly his eyes screamed out to everyone that looked into them that love was what he wanted most. Perhaps that was why he eventually lost his eyes to see--a punishment for the blindness he clung to even when he had his sight.

Money was the tool he wielded, but power was the god he worshipped. He dreamed of grandiose plots and world domination. He may have been denied the reaches of Heaven, but he was intent on plundering the spoils of Hell. There was nothing he would let stand in his way.

Lucifer had a son, Beelzebub, a child born weak in body, but that he molded into cold-blooded strength of mind. He trained his child to revile all that was good, and wrapped him up in bonds of ice. Lucifer had given up all softness for himself, and he would never let his precious heir be tainted by such weaknesses as love and compassion.

With each passing day, his son grew stronger in his shadow, until Lucifer realized that Beelzebub was grown too strong. There was a real chance that Beelzebub would topple the throne and take Lucifer's crown before Lucifer was willing to relinquish his empire.

Though Lucifer tried to sully the beauty of his son, he realized that Beelzebub was a shining light that could not be dimmed. It enraged him that such a glowing being could ever exist, and he threw himself into the task of destroying all that was good in his son. Lucifer took pleasure in causing pain.

He was jealousy and rage.

Three beginnings for a story that only has one end. A tale of magic, love, betrayal, blind lust and epiphany.

There are no fairy tales. There are no happy endings. And if anyone ever says "And they lived happily ever after," they are lying, because no one ever has a happy ever after. There are always fights and tears, griefs and petty differences, and though they may find contentment in each others' embrace, no couple ever passes through life in a blind daze of bliss.

In every lifetime there is the possibility of chance meetings and unrequited feelings, and though people occasionally find the love they long for, more often than not they settle for a lot less. And so is it any wonder that a story that's different from all of the rest should have so many beginnings and so few endings? I think not.

This tale of love began when Lucifer exiled his son to the farthest reaches of his empire. He was intent on shaming Beelzebub into obedience, but instead he opened the door to chance and Cupid.

It was not his intention to bring happiness to his son, but that was the result of his action, and he was forced to live with it. And on the way, he managed to find something for himself as well, though it could only be the smallest happiness for his black pebble heart.

Beelzebub had another name. He was Alexander Luthor, heir of the great LuthorCorp and all of the power his father had amassed. To himself he was simply "Lex Luthor," and he perhaps dreaded his future as ruler of the empire, even as he desired it with a burning passion. No one could deny that he was ambitious, and his father had taught him well the uses of ruthlessness and other peoples' greed to get what he wanted.

Shipped off to a small town in the middle of nowhere, he was angry at his father and fate and the world and everything else his eye fell upon. He wanted to destroy, to lay waste to the world around him and listen to the grieving screams of his victims. He wanted to hurt everyone and everything, and he knew that he couldn't. He had to hold to the ice around his heart and pretend that he was not hurt by his father's actions, that he did not feel betrayed and maybe a bit ashamed of himself that his father could see him as being that unworthy.

Lex wrapped himself up in a cloak of arrogance and went into exile with a smirk on his lips and pretended not to care about where he was going or why.

He pretended so hard that he was not bothered that he almost believed the lie himself. For years he had turned all of his emotional pains into bottled up rage, and so it had become common to him to equate the desire to cry with the need to destroy. He was an amalgam of missing parts, but at least he functioned, and that was all right.

He was given the running of a fertilizer plant. It wasn't beautiful or nice, but it was a purpose for him to focus on. He would turn the plant into untold wealth and prove to his father once and for all that he was a man and not a little boy. He could not be bullied or looked down upon.

Lex wasted most of his time in Smallville feeling sorry for himself and trying to force as much money out of the fertilizer plant as possible. He didn't even know it, but he wasn't as happy with the way his life was going as he had thought. He realized how lonely he really was when he ended up almost killing himself one day by driving his car off a bridge. It was only luck that Clark Kent was there to save him--not just in body, but in mind and soul as well.

With his first glimpse into Clark's clear eyes, he realized that he had found something he had thought lost forever, though he didn't even have the words to know what it was. He was just flooded with all kinds of unfamiliar emotions that still managed to produce an odd warmth in him.

Lex tried to pull his usual arrogance around himself and push Clark away from him, but no matter what he did, he only ended up being drawn closer to the boy. Without even realizing how he got there, he somehow ended up a part of Clark's life. He was happier than he had ever been, but he couldn't help questioning what had happened to him.

Whenever Clark was around he had the strange desire to not disappoint the boy. He wanted to be a good person for Clark, wanted to show him that Lex Luthor could be a good friend, someone to trust. He didn't know why, but he didn't want Clark to hate him, which was odd since he had never cared what anyone felt about him before. But this was Clark Kent, someone different from every other person in the world.

It took Lex an inordinate amount of time to figure out what was happening to him. For a man with a genius IQ, he felt like a complete idiot when he realized why just the sound of Clark's name made his heart beat faster and why he did everything in his power to impress the boy at every turn.

At first he might just have been attracted to Clark's pretty face, but as he got to know the reality of the goodness in Clark, he really began to fall in love. It was so utterly ridiculous that he didn't want to believe it at first, but after awhile he just became used to the fact that Lex Luthor, a man that could have anyone or anything that he wanted, was desperate for the loving touch of an innocent farm bred teenaged boy that had been so thoroughly cocooned in safety by his parents that he wouldn't know reality if it hit him upside the head.

Lex was sure that anyone that had known him before he was sent to Smallville would probably not even recognize him. He was a changed man, all because he had fallen in love with a hick town's version of the perfect boy.

If Lana Lang was Smallville's fairy princess, Clark Kent should have been its prince. Lex couldn't understand why no one paid the boy the attention he deserved, but he was grateful for it. As long as people failed to realize how wonderful Clark was, Lex could have him all to himself.

Moving quickly, he became friends with Clark. They had various adventures that drew them closer together, but always there was this insurmountable wall between them, and her name was Lana Lang.

Clark was hung up on Lana, crushing so completely on her that he wasn't looking at anything else but her. It made Lex ache inside, but there was really nothing to do about it. He just had to live with the fact that he was never going to have Clark, and settled himself in to just be good friends. He was going to make it have to be enough.

Whenever the darkness threatened to swallow him, he assured himself that at least he got to be Clark's friend. They saw each other nearly everyday, and even if they were never anything more than buddies, they could have been a lot less. It was good enough, or so he told himself every time depression threatened to swallow him whole.

* * *

It was a Friday, which was about the only relief Clark had. Once school was over, he had a whole weekend to look forward to. It made him want to smile and whistle a happy tune, though he didn't, because that would have been stupid.

When the bell rang at the end of fourth period, he hurriedly gathered up his books and made his way into the hallway to meet Chloe at her locker like he had promised earlier. Pete was already there waiting with her when Clark arrived.

There was a definite tension in the air and it seemed that Chloe and Pete were fighting about something.

Chloe was pretending to ignore Pete as she dug through her locker, slamming things around. Her shoulders were tight and her lips had pursed themselves in that way they had when she was upset. Practically everything about her screamed "DANGER, do not piss off more!" It was a warning Clark took to heart, though not very seriously since he could take almost anything without getting a scratch. As long as she wasn't carrying around a chunk of green meteorite, there wasn't much chance she was really going to hurt him.

As he came close, Clark could hear Pete whining. "Come on Chloe, I said I was sorry already. Do you want me to get down on me knees and beg for your forgiveness?"

"You just shut up. I don't want to hear your voice right now." Chloe began jerking books out of her locker and shoving them into her bag with such force it was a wonder the cloth didn't rip. She looked up when Clark got close. "Oh, hey Clark." Her smile was a little thin.

His eyebrow twitched and he could practically smell the anger and hurt in the air. "What are you so mad about?" Clark asked.

Chloe melodramatically crossed her arms and stuck out her lower lip, the bag hanging limply from one hand. "Pete gave me a Pokemon name."

"How bad can it be? Pete only has like five brain cells to rub together." He smirked at Pete's sound of outrage. "What's the name?"

"I don't want to say," she pouted.

"Come on, you can tell me. I'm your friend, I won't laugh. What is it?" Clark asked.

Chloe blushed, then muttered, "Jiggly Butt."

He tried, he really did, but he couldn't keep himself from laughing. "That's cute!"

She slapped him on the shoulder. "No it's not. It's horrible!"

"I said I was sorry!" Pete wailed.

She turned to glare at Pete. "It's comments like those about a girl's weight that make fragile individuals like Jodi Melville go bugshit. I don't want to end up trying to suck out people's fat for its tastiness, all right?"

"Fine, I'm really, really sorry," Pete said, throwing his arms in the air. "I just thought it was cute."

She made him suffer for about half a minute more, then turned to Clark with a smile. "So, what do you wanna do today? Fridays only come once a week, after all." It was surprising how cheerful and peppy she could make her voice sound even when she was pissed.

Clark put on his cutest look. "I rented Spaceballs last night, and I can make some popcorn if you want to come over."

"Spaceballs?" Pete said disbelievingly. "That movie's older than we are!"

"Yeah, if you count the production start date," Clark agreed. "Still, it's a great movie. Mel Brooks was a genius. I liked Robin Hood: Men in Tights, too."

"You would." Pete sighed heavily. "Well, if that's the choice of entertainment tonight, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to pass. Sorry."

"Yeah, me too," Chloe said. "I was thinking more that we could go to The Talon or to the movie theater to watch a new movie." She turned to Pete. "You want to go to the movies?"

"Sure," he said, "if you're not still mad about the whole Pokemon name thing." He was careful not to say the words "Jiggly Butt" again.

She shook her head. "I positively won't be mad at you any more if you pay for the gummi bears tonight."

"Deal." Pete sounded relieved to be forgiven.

Clark couldn't help but to feel a little hurt as they made plans without him. "Whatever," he said. "I'm going to stay home and watch my movie. You're really missing out."

"Right. Well, see you, I gotta get to my next class," Chloe said, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

"Me too." Pete slapped Clark on the shoulder. "See you later, Clark."

They walked off without him and Clark had the sudden sense that a hole had opened up somewhere inside him. They were off to do their own thing and neither one wanted to waste time with him.

He bit his lip for a moment, then threw his shoulders back and drew in a deep breath. I don't need them to have fun, he thought.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone, dialing Lex's private line by memory.

Lex picked up on the second ring. "Luthor."

"Hey Lex, it's Clark. Do you want to come over to my house tonight and watch a movie?"

"What movie?" Lex asked.

"Um," Clark rubbed the toe of his shoe against a scuff mark on the floor, "Spaceballs."

"You want me to come over to your house tonight and watch Spaceballs?" Lex asked, sounding like he didn't really believe it.

"Kinda, yeah."

"Well, since you asked so nicely, what time do you want me to come?" There was laughter in Lex's voice and Clark felt the tension he hadn't even noticed slip from his shoulders.

"I was thinking about 7:30, that way there'll be plenty of time if we want to do anything afterward."

"Sounds good. Do you have it on DVD or VHS?" Lex asked.

Clark was a little puzzled at the question, wondering why he even cared. "I got it on tape because that was all they had to rent. Small town video store, you know."

"Well that's not very good. I'll bring my DVD of it. See you." Lex hung up.

Clark stood there for a long moment staring into space. Lex had his own copy of Spaceballs. Lex was a fan of Spaceballs.

His lips twitched and he couldn't help the goofy grin that took over his whole face. He was beginning to wonder how he could ever be surprised at anything Lex did.

* * *

After he hung up the phone, Lex sat there staring at it with his eyebrows raised.

Clark had asked him to come over and watch a movie with him. It was the kind of comfortable thing that friends did all the time, but that he had never really seen himself doing with anyone.

Sure, he might go to a movie theater and sit with someone in the silent dark for two hours, but going to someone's house and cuddling up on a couch alone was completely different. There was something oddly intimate about it.

He was a little surprised at the erection that had decided to press itself against his zipper. It had been happening more and more lately, and always when he heard Clark's voice or saw the boy's face. His body, which he had kept under strict reign for years, had suddenly decided to have a mind of its own.

And it was stupid to be excited about watching a movie with Clark. For all he knew, Pete and Chloe and Lana and fifty other people might be there too. There was no guarantee that it was just going to be the two of them, and a better chance that it was going to be a group of Clark's friends, making him the odd man out, uncomfortable in his wealth and the Luthor name. But if that was the case, at least Clark was going to be there.

Feeling surprisingly cheerful, Lex leaned back in his desk chair, threading his fingers together behind his head. His day had been heading downhill until Clark's call, and now things were definitely looking up.

* * *

Clark was grinning so hard it felt like his face was going to split in two. From the point when he had talked to Lex onward, the day passed in a blur. He didn't know why he was so happy, but he was, and he was going to make the most of it.

The last bell was still ringing in his ears when he arrived home, a blur of speed. It was wonderful to just let go and run and for a moment he didn't care if anyone found out his secret. It just didn't seem to matter as long as he was happy like this.

"Hi Mom," he called, zipping through the house and up to his room to dump his books and change clothes before disappearing back out the still swinging door. He wanted to finish his chores as fast as possible so he could have the whole rest of the night free. Lex was coming over to watch his favorite movie with him and it was just going to be the two of them together, which was oddly exciting in a way he didn't want to question.

In ten minutes he had finished all of his chores and half of his dad's. He didn't do all of Jonathan's because he knew his father would be mad if there was nothing left for him to do. If there was ever a person that needed something to keep busy with, it was Jonathan Kent.

He walked back into the house with a false serenity, pretending that everything was normal.

His mother was still seated at the kitchen table, her coffee cup the same amount of full as before. Papers were spread out in front of her and she was tapping at the keyboard of her laptop with her left hand as she wrote in a spiral notebook with her right. "Hello Clark," she said, looking up at him. "I see you decided to come inside like a normal person this time."

Clark ducked his head a little to look at her out from under his bangs. He knew it made him look cute. He wasn't completely blind to the responses of the people around him. "Sorry Mom, I just wanted to finish my chores fast. I'm going to go take a shower then listen to music. Can you call me down in time for dinner?"

She smiled. "Of course."

He headed toward the kitchen door, then paused to turn and detour past the cookie jar to grab an oatmeal raisin cookie. He held it up at her amused expression. "Need my strength. Lex is coming over later to watch Spaceballs."

"He is? I wouldn't think he would be interested in something like that. He doesn't seem the sort."

Clark shrugged. "People can surprise you. He has his own copy."

After a quick shower he retreated to his room.

Holding his towel with one hand, he put a CD Chloe had burned for him in the stereo and turned the volume up loud. He changed into a clean pair of jeans and a red tee shirt, then lay back on his bed staring at the ceiling. The music was climbing into his head and it was comforting.

I should maybe go to the store and get some snacks for when Lex comes, he thought lazily. We need something more than just popcorn while we're watching the movie. Maybe some chocolate covered raisins or Jujubes. It'll be like we're really at the movie theater.

For some reason he felt himself becoming aroused, but he figured it was just a result of being a teenager. He'd gotten hard at Baskin-Robins watching the clerk fill his cup with chocolate frozen yogurt, and there was the time he was helping pass out test results in class and he'd felt all the eyes watching him, caressing him, and he'd almost come in his jeans. He sometimes thought that he was well on the way to becoming a complete pervert.

He groaned deep in his throat. His own body was starting to frustrate him. But at least this time he was alone.

Clark lifted his shirt and unbuttoned his pants, letting himself relax into his mattress. He drew in a deep breath and let himself lie there bonelessly for a moment, then he licked his finger and began to draw slow circles on his stomach, tracing around belly button and stroking the line of hair that disappeared into his pants. He closed his eyes, imagining it was someone else touching him. He could almost feel smooth fingers against his skin, fingers thinner than his own, softer, surer in their touch and confidence.

He never thought of any specific person when he touched himself. He thought of hands that weren't his own, but they belonged to some faceless, mostly bodiless Other that he wasn't embarrassed to let do anything to him. If he pictured a real person, he would never be able to look the real version in the face again.

He blushed enough as it was. He didn't need the added embarrassment of always seeing people naked, which he could do anytime anyway. X-ray vision was cool and all, but for a teenaged boy trying to keep himself under control, it was the kind of temptation that never should have been offered.

"On a cold wet afternoon

no room for love and emptiness.

By a freeway

I confess I was lost in the pages of a book full of death

reading how we'll die alone

and if a god will lay to rest

anywhere we want to go."

He slipped his hand into his pants, caressing lightly at first, pretending at a tentative touch, then harder, stronger. Somehow the hand he imagined touching him changed from gentle femininity to something larger, more forceful. He didn't think about what it meant. He was lost in the sensation and the words of the song, the sound of it. It fit his mood so perfectly, passionately wistful and alone.

"In your house I long to be

room by room, patiently.

I'll wait for you there, like a stone

I'll wait for you there alone."

He wondered if there was ever going to be someone he loved so much that he would willingly wait forever for them to choose him.

In all his time watching and admiring Lana from afar, he had always known that beyond the surface of her beauty there were depths that he would never plumb. She was sweet and smart and a wonderful friend to have, but years of unrequited desire had worn him down until he could look at her and say that she was pretty, but he didn't burn to have her. And the fact that he could freely admit that he could live the whole of his life without ever having her, that he could find happiness with someone else, told him that she wasn't the One.

To take his mind off his loneliness, the fact that he didn't know what he wanted or who, he gripped his cock with brutal strength. He could have crushed cement blocks with that grip, but it didn't hurt him. He could feel the pressure and recognized that it should have been pain, but it might not have been real at all.

He stroked himself, lifting his hips a little off the bed with each pump. He could feel it growing inside him, that wonderful moment. It was a time when he didn't have to think, just feel. He was never lonely when he came--he was released from everything.

His panting breath was harsh in his own ears, though the music was so loud no one else could hear it. His head was tipped back, grinding into his pillow. He could feel the cords of his neck drawing tight and his hand pumped faster, faster, faster until it was a blur of motion and smoke drifted gently upwards from the friction.

"Oh shit!" he ground out between his teeth, feeling his whole body go tight and the throbbing of his own heartbeat in his hand. Then he came, spurting hot against his palm and fingers.

He loved this moment, when he was coming, when he was free from any other thought than his own pleasure. Lights flashed behind his closed eyelids in colors he had never seen before in the real world, and he thought that somewhere he could hear the spit and crackle of some alien language that he almost knew.

"And on my deathbed I will pray

to all the gods and the angels like a pagan

to anyone who will take me to heaven

to a place I would recall

I was there so long ago.

The sky was bruised

the world was black

and there you led me on."

Panting, he slipped his hand out of his pants, wiping his cock against his fingers to clean off any excess.

He opened his eyes to look at the blob of come in his hand. It made him think of the disgusting slime-putty he used to play with as a kid, the goop that poured out of toy-machine eggs and that his mother would throw away when he grew bored of playing with it and left it splattered on a table somewhere.

With barely any hesitation, he raised his hand to his mouth and licked it clean, tasting himself. He wondered how other people tasted, if his being an alien made him taste different from anyone else. He wanted other flavors in his mouth.

When he was sure his hand was clean, he lay it back on his stomach and let himself drift away with the music. He could taste himself on the back of his tongue.

"In your house I long to be

room by room, patiently.

I'll wait for you there, like a stone

I'll wait for you there alone--alone."

He was in a huge, familiar house, though right at the moment he couldn't say whose it was.

Time passed slowly here. It felt like he was walking for hours or minutes, both at the same time. He walked from room to room, running his hands across tables and chairs and beds, but always alone. There didn't seem to be anyone else here, which was oddly strange. Such a big house should have been filled with talking, laughing people. He thought that maybe the house was lonely.

When he came into the library, he felt his heart thump hard in his chest. Even though he didn't recognize where this was, he knew that it was somewhere important, somewhere special. This was a place that meant a lot to him, though he didn't know why.

He walked over to the desk, slipping a hand over the computer monitor, then sat down in the comfortable, official-looking chair. It was expensive and smelled faintly of something he almost knew, a scent that should have been almost as familiar as his own, but that in this time and place he couldn't recognize. A face almost presented itself to his mind, but he couldn't find the name and it really didn't seem to matter.

He was sitting at the desk, flipping through papers covered in writing he couldn't, didn't want to read, when the door opened. The light changed with it, brightening and softening at the same time. Colors began to blur around the edges and he felt himself becoming hard, but it was all almost gentle.

The man who came in was slender and beautiful. He was wearing a dark black suit with a purple shirt instead of the canonical white that most businessmen wore in old TV shows. His hands were loose at his sides, the fingers long and artistic, hands that were made to touch and mold the world. The complete hairlessness of his skull highlighted the delicate bones beneath, the eggshell fragile bones that one inhumanly strong hand could crush so easily.

The man smiled at him and he could almost say the name, could almost taste it in the back of his mind, but it wasn't really important, so he didn't try to find it. He didn't want to lose this moment, and he somehow knew that thinking too hard would ruin everything. If he thought about it, he would have to leave this place, and he wanted to stay here forever.

The man walked across the library with a casual grace, his hips swaying slightly, catlike. He moved as if he knew every bit of his body and what it could do. He came to stand in front of the desk. A little smile quirked his lips, the most he ever did, though his eyes were surprisingly open, saying things they never did in the real world. "Clark." His voice was soft, shivery and special. "Clark. It's dinnertime. Clark"

"Clark!"

Clark's eyes jerked open and he sat up in bed panting for breath. His heart was thumping in his chest so hard and fast that he could imagine his skin vibrating from the impact.

"Come on down, Clark, it's dinnertime!" his mom yelled.

He scrubbed his hands hard over his face, then raked his hair back. "Yeah, okay. I'm coming!"

What the fuck was that? The thought wasn't as horrified as it probably should have been. His heart had calmed down, but he still felt strange. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought that the dream had made him excited. But it hadn't meant anything. It was just a dream, just another weird thing in an already over-weird life. It was only a dream, nothing more.

He climbed out of bed, an oddly cotton-headed feeling falling over him when he was completely upright. He felt like he had only just closed his eyes, but a glance at his clock said he had been sleeping for close to three hours.

He was still tired.

Dinner was awkward, though his parents didn't notice that anything was wrong. They talked and laughed and acted like everything wasn't suddenly weird. Then again, things weren't weird for them. They hadn't had a strange dream that was still making them feel uncomfortable and aroused.

Clark scooped some more mashed potatoes on his plate, then grabbed another pork chop. His mom had cooked extra, knowing that he would eat more than anyone else.

"You sure are hungry, Clark," Jonathan said, "and you took that nap this afternoon. What have you been doing today?"

Clark didn't even blink, just shrugged in depreciation. "Nothing much. I think I just needed a nap to catch up on my sleep for the past month."

Martha smiled and made sure to ladle an extra big helping of green beans on his plate. "Eat some more vegetables. They're good for you," she said.

He speared about ten of them on the end of his fork, just piling them on one after another, then popped the whole thing in his mouth. The sooner they were gone the better. He could smell the pie his mom had left to cool in the kitchen. "Thanks."

"Henley Nash called today. She wanted to know if you could baby-sit Scott and Isabelle on Tuesday afternoon. What do you think?" Martha asked.

"Sure, that's cool. I don't mind playing with them for awhile. Tell her I'll do it."

Clark could feel his parents watching him. They were always looking at him with all this love in their eyes. It made him feel warm to know that they loved him so much, but sometimes it also made him want to grab fistfuls of his hair and just scream and scream. They were always expecting things of him.

He was their only child, the only one they would ever have. He was their secret alien baby that had to go out in the world and pass for normal. Sometimes it was a little much.

* * *

Driving out to the Kents place on a Friday night in Smallville, Kansas. It should have felt ridiculous, speeding along the empty road with a million stars spread out above him like an offering. It should have felt stupid, but it didn't. It was in moments like these that he felt the most as if he owned the whole of the world. There was just this sense that if he reached out he could grab the stars in his bare hands and engulf the world with his body.

Yards and yards of fences and whispering tracks of corn and wheat passed by the speeding sports car. He could have turned the radio on, but the silence seemed appropriate. He felt as if something hugely beyond him was expanding in his chest. It was an emotion so terribly sweet that it didn't even have a name, not one that he had the words for.

He was Lex Luthor and he was never supposed to feel like this. He was supposed to wear an iron expression and look down at all of the little people that populated the world. He wasn't supposed to have any softness in him, so he mostly pretended to ignore what he felt, what he had begun to feel from the first moment he had met Clark Kent.

As long as he pretended that he didn't feel anything more for Clark than friendship, he could keep Clark for his own. He didn't have to let any of this go. He didn't have to be afraid of what might happen.

Reaching the end of the Kents driveway, he drew in a deep breath and with his exhalation, let the emotions that driving here had brought him slip away. He might have wanted to retain the emotions, but when he got out of his car he knew that he was going to have to be Lex Luthor again. And Lex Luthor never felt anything even remotely like this in his cold, money-money life.

By the time he had parked, Clark had already come out of the house and was off the porch headed toward him. There was a big grin on the boy's face and Lex had to fight to keep the sudden flare of joy from exploding out of control. He was Lex Luthor, and childish excitement just wasn't a part of his cynical, forever scheming identity.

He climbed out of the car and let his lips quirk in a slight smile. He wanted to beam at Clark like an idiot, but he held himself to a vaguely amused expression. "Hey Clark. I brought the DVD." He waved the thin box and slammed the door.

Clark came bounding over to him. "Great. We can watch it in the Fortress. I already set up the TV and DVD player and laid out the snacks, so we don't have to wait. Come on."

Lex almost asked if he should say hello to Ma and Pa Kent first, but he figured there was no need to borrow trouble. He just followed Clark.

He always felt a little stupid climbing up the ladder in the barn. It was like he had retreated to some childhood that had never been his, and the only thing that kept him from tossing his head and refusing to go up was that it was one of the places where he got to be with Clark. The loft in the barn was Clark's Fortress of Solitude, his place to hide and be himself in a way that he wasn't outside.

No one else may have realized it, but there were depths to Clark, parts of himself that he hid, parts that had nothing to do with his oh-so-important deep dark secret. He wore the mask of "innocent farm boy" when he walked out in the world, but something in him relaxed when he was in his Fortress. It was something Lex had seen the first time he was invited up here. So even though it made him feel childish and embarrassed to climb the ladder, he did it, because Clark would be himself once they were up top, and that was a person Lex was always happy to see.

"Here, I'll set up the movie while you sit down," Clark said.

Lex curled his upper lip a little as he slipped out of his jacket, folding it over the back of a wooden rail. He walked over to the old couch and settled in as comfortably as possible. He could see the flex and bend of Clark's muscles as the boy knelt to load the DVD in the player.

Clark rose with a grin and came over to sit next to Lex, close enough that their legs brushed. He pushed buttons on the remote control he'd left on the couch arm and the TV flipped on. The DVD had already started.

"Wait a minute," Clark said, jumping up to jog over to the light switch. He turned it off and the only light was the glow from the TV. He sat back down on the couch with a happy little sigh.

Since it was dark and no one was watching, Lex allowed himself the luxury of his own little sigh. It was strange that he could feel so happy just being here.

The beginning sequence began scrolling up the screen and Clark was already chuckling.

Lonestar had just dropped the giant statue of Yogurt on Barf's foot and they were both laughing.

Sometime during the movie, Clark had moved closer against him and Lex could feel the warmth of Clark's skin through his shirt. He held his body purposely loose, not showing how affected he was by Clark's nearness. The boy thought they were just friends; he wasn't going to do anything to scare Clark away.

He had known from the beginning that Clark wasn't for him. Clark was for the Lana Langs or Chloe Sullivans of the world, pretty girls that would fall in love with the beautiful man-boy and introduce him to the appropriate kinds of heterosexual passion. Lex would just have to be content with being Clark's best friend. It would be enough.

"Hey Lex," Clark turned to him with the flickering glow of the TV crossing his features, "are you doing anything on Tuesday?"

"Probably a million and one things, why?"

"Well, I promised to baby-sit Mrs. Nash's kids on Tuesday afternoon and we usually go to McDonalds so they can play in the Play Place for an hour or two, so I was wondering, do you want to come and hang out with me?"

"Hang out with you at McDonalds? Are you insane? Do you know who I am?"

Clark made puppy dog eyes. "Come on. I don't want to be alone, and we can have some fun, I promise."

"You're paying for my Big Mac," Lex said grudgingly. He couldn't say no to that expression.

"Of course."

Lex felt a little smile quirk his lips at the way Clark's face had lit up with happiness. Clark was just so sweetly innocent that even the smallest gestures could make him happy.

That's when it happened. He could feel it like a burning along the surface of his skin and his breath caught in his throat. He didn't want to make a sound for fear that he would ruin it, the moment. It had finally come, all unexpected, but perhaps inevitable.

Clark was looking at him out of those amazing eyes, and his expression just went soft. Not wanting to make any sudden moves, Lex held perfectly still, afraid of scaring him. Then Clark began to lean forward, his eyes fluttering almost closed. Lex was trapped by those lips softly parted and felt himself slip forward too.

They were three inches apart, two, one, then their lips brushed across each other, touching feather light, then pulling apart only to come together again. The heat from their two bodies was aching to merge and neither wanted to be the one to ruin the moment by going too fast, but they both wanted. Their lips drew close again and they both knew that this was going to be a real kiss, the one they had been lusting after for months, the kiss that was going to change everything forever. Lex could feel Clark's breath against his lips and the sensitive skin quivered with a desire for contact. They were a hair's breadth apart, their eyes locked on each other even with Clark's half-closed and dreamy. They were going to do it, were finally going to take that next step and

"Clark!"

Clark jerked back and was on his feet before Lex could even blink. Clark's cheeks were flushed as he hurried across the room to stand over the ladder. He couldn't look at Lex right now, couldn't face whatever he might see in his friend's expression. "Yeah Dad?" he called, his voice only a little roughened.

Jonathan was standing at the bottom of the ladder gazing up at him, a worried look on his face. "You're going to have to tell Lex to go home, Clark. Something's come up and we need you, right now."

Clark was puzzled, but he jerked his head in a nod. There was something in his father's voice that told him it was serious. He turned to look at Lex, blushing a little. "Sorry Lex, looks like movie night's been cut a bit short. Are you mad?"

Lex gathered himself up and stood, twitching his shirt straight with finicky precision before grabbing his jacket. "Of course not. If a family emergency comes up, you have to answer it. Just let me know if there's anything you need me to do."

Clark smiled as he moved out of the way to let Lex down the ladder first. "You're always looking out for me. You're a good friend."

When they reached bottom, Clark walked Lex back to his car and said a hurried farewell. From the way Jonathan was hovering a few feet away, he knew he didn't have time to waste.

"I'm really sorry about this," Clark said, leaning against the driver side door so he could peer in through the open window.

Lex placed two well-manicured hands on the steering wheel and smiled at Clark. "It's all right, really. I'll see you later, right?"

Clark grinned. "Promise."

He stepped back and watched Lex drive away. There was a warmth flowing through Clark's whole body, and it originated somewhere in his heart.

Finally he shook himself and turned to his father. "What happened, Dad?"

Jonathan was frowning after Lex, but the face he turned on Clark was worried about other things than the multi-billionaire. "Your mother and I went to check on the ship and while we were there it started making this sound and floating. We didn't know how to make it stop, and the noise is only getting louder. Someone might hear it."

Clark felt the blood drain out of his face. "We better we better get over there."

Jonathan jerked a nod. "Yes."

It took everything Clark had to walk at a normal human pace and stay with Jonathan. He wanted to superspeed over to the cellar, but he knew better. His dad would never leave him behind.

They found Martha sitting on the ground a few feet from the storm cellar door, gripping her right hand with her left. There was a vaguely singed look about her and her lower lip quivered. Her eyes were so wide it was like they were trying to eat up her face.

"Mom! Mom, are you all right?" Clark supersped to her side, falling to his knees to grip her shoulder.

The air rang with a grating sound that was like horns and whistles and teakettles and screaming, dying rabbits all at once. The sound went up a notch every thirty seconds. It had already reached a delightfully headache inducing level. It made Clark want to cover his ears and close his eyes, that or vomit. Maybe both at once.

She tucked her face in the crook of his neck and breathed in the scent of her little boy. Even under the emerging man-smell, he was still Clark. "I don't know what happened. I was just standing there and it just it zapped me. I ran up here, but I don't think it wants me down there right now."

Jonathan sat down next to her, slipping an arm around her waist. "You go on in, son," he told Clark, running his eyes over her to make sure she was really all right. "I'll take care of your mother."

Clark looked at them both, capturing them in his mind, before drawing in a deep breath and jerking a nod.

"Be careful," Martha called, craning her neck around to watch him as he started down the stairs.

He gave her a quick version of his patented cheeky grin. "Don't worry. Love you."

It was almost easy to pretend not to be afraid when there were other people to be brave for. They needed him to be strong, so he was.

Golden light radiated throughout the whole cellar. The spaceship was floating about four feet off the ground and that awful noise was coming from somewhere inside it.

Clark winced as the sound grew louder. He hurried to the ship, trying to see if there was anything he could do to make the noise stop.

It stopped.

He froze with his hand outstretched. He hadn't even touched anything yet.

The light coming from the ship got brighter. He squinted his eyes and dropped his arm back to his side, his fingers curling around his palm, the nails biting into the flesh a little. He didn't want to touch anything before he knew what he was doing, but at least that annoying sound had stopped.

The ship was just hovering in the air, silently waiting for him to make the next move. Only, he didn't know what to do.

The light began to pulse, gold, orange, red, gold, orange, red in a steady pattern that was vaguely hypnotic. His eyes felt dry and gritty and he really had to wonder if he was going to go blind, which was a pretty funny thing for the "Invulnerable Boy" to think.

Clark gasped and clutched the sides of his head as the lights suddenly flared a hundred times as bright as before, not in his eyes, but behind his brain. It wasn't exactly painful, but he hadn't been expecting it.

"Clark? Are you all"

TEMPORAL ENCROACHMENT DETECTED The voice boomed directly into his mind, creating strange echoes that he couldn't shake away because they were inside him. COMMANDS TO BE FILED FOR INITIATION FOR FUTURE COURSE OF ACTION?

I don't know, he thought. What do I do? I don't want to do anything.

Whatever had been talking must have also been listening inside his mind, because all of a sudden, the ship lowered itself back to the ground and all of the eerie lights went out, pitching him into darkness.

Clark stood there for a long moment, but there was really nothing he could do. He sighed and headed toward the stairs. His parents were still nervously awaiting explanations from their alien son.

Sometimes it seemed as if his life was getting stranger instead of more normal. After finding out he was an alien from outer space he had had the hope that maybe things would at least settle into something kind of maybe resembling a routine; instead the weirdness was only growing and Chloe's Wall of Weird had expanded to almost a whole roomful. It was ridiculous, and he wished he could go back to thinking that someday he would grow up to be merely human.

* * *

He had been shuffled off so fast that Lex really didn't get a chance to think, but driving back home he knew that there was nothing else he could do. A Kent family emergency didn't need a Luthor butting in uninvited and unneeded. If there was anything he could do to help, Lex knew that even if Jonathan's stiff-necked pride precluded him from asking for help, Clark wasn't so rigid.

I almost got to kiss Clark tonight. The thought whirled around in Lex's mind, making him smile in a way that he hadn't since before his mother died. Not that he would ever let anyone see him so emotionally vulnerable, but the fact that he could be this open even to himself was a bit of a miracle.

Lex kept both hands firmly on the wheel to keep from touching his still tingling lips. And he drove fast to keep from thinking about the throb between his legs. Just the thought of Clark touching him tonight it made him almost crazy. He felt like he was a kid again, though even as a sex-starved teenager he had never been so gauche and there had always been some other body to satisfy himself with. But this wasn't about just another quick fuck. This was about Clark and warmth and silk sheets and passion.

Driving toward the mansion, he felt strangely as if he was headed somewhere else, some impossible future that he was almost afraid to look at, but that he also lusted after with every particle of his being. It was strange and unusual and he tightened his grip on the wheel, trying to focus completely on the stretch of road in front of him.

He forced himself not to think about how everything had just suddenly changed. He had become almost happy with the thought that he was forever going to be just Clark's friend. Now there was the possibility of something more, and he felt like he was going to burst apart if anyone even looked at him.

He'd almost gotten to kiss Clark.

* * *

A ripple, then a sharp CRACK of displaced air and a silver pod was disgorged, the metal so hot it should have glowed red and did make the earth beneath it smoke and burn. Smoldering flame began to writhe and twist in the night air, growing as it fed on the dry grass and fallen leaves.

The pod made a hissing, gasping sound as it split open. A figure stepped out, cape swirling in an unfelt breeze. Hands rested on hips as a cool gaze surveyed the area where the pod had landed.

With a quick breath of freezing air, the flames were extinguished. The figure smiled slightly and rose up off the ground to fly up into the night sky, headed toward an already changing future.

The abandoned pod flickered once, twice, then disappeared like a soap bubble popping. A ring of scorched earth was left behind, but it was in the middle of nowhere where no one would see it before the wound had time to heal itself.

PART TWO

The Talon was busy on a Saturday afternoon, but Clark didn't really mind. He sat with Chloe and Pete and let their conversation roll over him half-heard as he contemplated the weirdness of the night before.

After its little display, the ship had settled down with no sign that anything had happened. He had tried poking around at it, but it was completely dead. He couldn't explain what had happened, but there was nothing he could do about it.

"ark?"

He twitched and looked at Chloe. "Huh? What?"

She gave him a quick frown, then smiled brightly. Something in her eyes said that she knew his inattention was due to more of the Clark Kent: Man of Mystery weirdness and that she wasn't going to be getting any explanations from him. "Me and Pete were thinking about buying tickets for the Foo Fighters concert that's going to be in Metropolis next month. Do you want to go with us?"

"How much per?" he asked, pretending that it mattered. He forced his shoulders straight and jerked himself upright in his chair.

"The price isn't that bad--twenty-five dollars a ticket. They go on sale in three days and we're going down to buy them right after school," Pete said.

Clark played with his straw. "It sounds like it might be fun to go. If I give you the money, can you buy my ticket for me? I have to baby-sit Tuesday."

"Mr. Mom." Pete laughed. "Sure, we'll buy your ticket for you. That's what friends are for."

"Thanks, man."

They drank their coffee and nibbled at muffins while the room filled up around them. Clark forced himself to pay attention to the conversation, not wanting to see that Look in Chloe's eyes again. It hurt him that he had to keep secrets from one of his best friends, especially secrets that pretty much explained everything there was to know about who he was.

She just wanted to know so bad, and he had to lie to her.

Clark had just slurped down the dregs from the bottom of his cup when Lana plopped down in the seat next to him. She looked tired and her smile was a little frayed, though still Crest white.

"Wow, we really need to hire some more worker monkeys for the Saturday crowd," she said. "We're getting almost more customers than we can handle."

"Well, you're doing a good job to make the Talon a success," Clark said.

Her eyes sparkled. "Thanks, Clark. You always know just the right thing to say most of the time."

"I try."

They smiled at each other until Chloe snorted loudly, forcing them to look at her. Her lips were smiling again, but her eyes were screaming in that way they did sometimes when they looked at Clark. He could feel her silently begging, asking things of him that he didn't have it in him to give. He always pretended he didn't notice, didn't realize what she wanted. It was easier not to know, and if there was one thing he was good at, it was lying to the people he cared about.

"Oh, Chloe, when do you want to schedule work on that science project?" Lana asked, so perfectly cheerful. To look at her, no one would ever think that she had ever had any trouble in her entire life. There was no mark of her parents' death or her personal loneliness visible on her skin. She was the Fairy Princess, and Princess' don't cry, don't grieve, don't fall apart when they're alone or drown themselves in apathetic revelry with a grin on their faces so fake that everyone believes it's real. She was good at lying too. Clark could respect that.

"I don't know, whenever you're free," Chloe said.

Lana stood up. "Well, I've gotta get back to work, so why don't you come over here with me and we'll talk about it while I whip up mochaccinos and non-fat lattes, huh?"

"Sure." Chloe looked at Pete and Clark. "See you in a little."

Pete waved and Clark nodded. They watched the girls walk away, then both gave the same sigh at the same time. It made them laugh.

Pete slung an arm over Clark's shoulder and drew him close. "Can you imagine Lana and Chloe having wild girl monkey sex?" he said, watching them.

Clark laughed. "You're sick, you know that? And yes."

They sat there in companionable silence, watching Lana bustle around her work area, so completely in control of everything in her little mocha world. Chloe was leaning against the counter, talking about something that sounded like "high colonic," but probably wasn't, because that would be gross. Clark was not tempted to turn on his superhearing and eavesdrop on their conversation. He had outgrown that part of his life, though he didn't know exactly when it had happened.

Something like sadness flowed through him. Pete still looked so young, but Clark felt old.

There used to be a time when he would watch Lana through his telescope every day. He would gaze soulfully at her from across the room praying that she would notice him and smile, maybe walk over to him and start up a conversation, because he was never entirely brave enough to do it himself. There used to be a time when he would tell himself that he was almost grown up, even knowing that he was still a kid.

So much strangeness had happened and he'd found out so much about himself along the way that he didn't quite know where exactly he stood. He was finally old enough to realize that he didn't have all of the answers and never would. He was seventeen years old, and there was a big difference from how he was now and how he was when he was fifteen. It made him wonder what kind of person he was going to be when he was thirty.

He stood up with a chair-scraping abruptness, making Pete look at him in surprise. "I've gotta go," he said. Clark put on his charming smile like it was armor from the world, or maybe the mask he hid behind. "There's some stuff I've gotta pick up before the store closes. I'll probably see you later."

Pete still looked puzzled, but nodded anyway. "Sure, man. See you."

Clark nodded over his shoulder as he headed toward the door.

* * *

She had thought she was finally over him. She had gotten his smile out of her mind and was in a place in her head where he could never be, not again, not ever. But watching him leave, it almost hurt in her chest, and she really wasn't sure why, except that it was Clark Kent.

Lana began mixing up a double-shot mocha, Chloe's voice still babbling in the background, but all she could see was Clark's back walking out the door.

For a while there she had thought there might possibly be something between her and Clark. He was handsome, funny, smart, and sweeter than any teenaged guy was ever supposed to be. But there were secrets in Clark Kent, things that he hid from her and that she had her own guesses about, even when he said nothing. Because though he was handsome, funny, smart, and sweet, the way he hid his secrets said they might be terrible enough to send her screaming into the night. So she tried not to pry, not even with the curiosity eating her up inside, because maybe she really didn't want to know. But she did.

There was a darkness in Clark Kent, one that was only hinted at sometimes by a spark way in the back of his eyes. There were possibilities in his broad shoulders and strong hands, enough to make her panties wet. But even though he outwardly had everything she was looking for, the secrets he hid and the unspoken aspects of his nature had made her instinctively shy off.

She used to wonder about the secret he hid, had come up with some pretty wild, and thankfully unvoiced, guesses. Like that he was a superhero in disguise, or he liked green cheese, or his parents were molesting him. But she knew that all of her guesses were wrong, because face it, Clark Kent would make a ridiculous superhero, no one would ever eat green cheese, and Jonathan and Martha Kent were practically saints. His secret was still a complete mystery to her, and now she didn't even let the guesses surface in her conscious mind, because things had changed.

She had never said anything about it, but she knew he'd been watching her for years, wanting her. Sometimes she liked to play a game, put on the innocent tone and tease him about his watching her and the crush he had on her, though she never outright said it, just hinted enough that he would squirm and sweat. It had been funny, only now she wasn't laughing anymore, because somehow the joke had changed, and she was on the receiving end.

For years Clark Kent had watched her from afar and some part of her had gotten used to it. She would dress up just to be caressed by his sweaty eyes. She would kiss Whitney with just a little extra tongue. She would throw back her head and arch her back so her breasts became the center of her being, all because Clark was watching and wanting. Only now, all of a sudden she didn't feel his eyes burning on her anymore, and it hurt worse than she had ever imagined.

Lana had gotten used to Clark's belonging to her. She had always kept him on the leash, panting after her, but had never given him the go-ahead. And now he wasn't there anymore. He had slipped out of his collar and disappeared when she wasn't looking.

Even when he was standing right in front of her, it seemed as if Clark wasn't even there. He would smile at her, tease her, laugh at her jokes, but there was a distance in his eyes. She wasn't the center of his world anymore, and it hurt.

She wanted his admiration back, wanted to feel the burn of desire in his eyes. She wanted Clark Kent to want her, because in the end, she knew that he was hers.

* * *

After lying to Pete, he didn't know where he was going to go. He couldn't stay one more minute in the Talon, but he really didn't have anywhere else he had to be.

Clark shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and scuffed along the sidewalk to points unknown. He just didn't feel like hanging out with any of his friends. There was something in him begging to be let out and he didn't quite know what he might end up saying on a day like this. For all he knew, he might end up just blurting out his secret of crash-landing spaceships and an alien birth. That would just be weird.

He had worked his whole life on trying to fit in. His dad had drilled it into his head that pretending to be normal was the best thing he could do, because he really didn't want to end up in a white room with a million needles sticking out of his body and his organs in a jar somewhere. Just the thought of what a bunch of curious scientists might do to him made his bladder squeeze tight. Because even though he was getting stronger everyday, living in Smallville meant he was so close to the meteor rocks that someone didn't even have to be using them as a weapon to hurt him. Someone's good luck charm could kill him.

Clark blew out his breath and turned to sit on the nearest curb. There was no point in wandering around, because there was nowhere he particularly wanted to be. Sitting where he was, was fine, because he would be doing the same thing he would have done anyway.

He tucked his knees up under his chin and hugged them tight with his arms. If he had been normal--human--his bones would have already been cracking and breaking. As it was, with each day that passed less and less tactile sensation reached him.

He knew when he was being touched, could feel it on his skin, but he didn't really feel it. Like there was a switch somewhere in his brain that had just suddenly started turning everything off, so less of the world around him could touch him. It made him so lonely.

He lay his cheek against the bony mounds of his kneecaps and closed his eyes. He didn't know what was happening to him, but there was nothing he could do about it.

He was cursed to be special.

* * *

Boredom had driven him out of his house. Too much time between the confining walls of the mansion had finally forced him into his car to speed along the road into town. He needed something to take his attention off his mind-dulling apathy.

Since sex with the small town folk was out of the question--he figured he would have to settle for a cup of vaguely sub-par coffee, the best that Smallville could offer.

Parking was a bitch, but he was lucky enough to be able to pull into a slot after ten minutes of parking lot circling when someone finally hopped in their pickup truck and drove away. He could almost be thankful. He was about to start ripping out his hair--if he'd had any.

Lex was walking toward the Talon when he saw Clark and stopped.

For someone so large, Clark looked oddly vulnerable. Close to being a man, he looked more like a child than at any time Lex had ever seen him. His head resting softly on his knees, he was so young that it literally took the breath away.

Lex had the urge to grab Clark and hide him somewhere. He didn't want the world to ruin such innocence and trust, and the world would, that was a given. There were dark things that Clark, in his purity, should never have to touch and know. The boy should be kept clean from the filth around him, and Lex wanted to be the person to hold him tight and save him from everything, even Lex himself.

"What's wrong, Clark?" he said, straining to keep his voice sounding normal.

Clark twitched and looked up at the approaching man. "Nothing's wrong," he said, though there was something dull in his voice.

Lex moved to stand close to Clark. "Why are you sitting out here then?" he asked. "Did something happen last night? With your family?"

Clark looked surprised for a second, then smiled a little. "No, my family's all right. I was just thinking. You know how it is."

Lex shrugged a little, not knowing what to say next. Wordlessly, he held out his hand.

Clark's hand in his was warm and solid. Lex wanted to hold onto it forever, but he knew he couldn't. As soon as Clark was on his feet, he made himself let go. Lex Luthor could not depend on anyone.

"I'll" He glanced around quickly, trying to find something to do. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

The dimple at the corner of Clark's mouth made an appearance. "I'd like that."

They walked side by side over to the Talon, not touching. Both wanted to grasp desperately at the other, but they were men, and personal space had to be maintained. They walked side by side.

* * *

"Hey Clark, you were only gone a few minutes."

Clark shrugged and smiled, settling on the chair next to him. "Changed my mind. I could use another mocha and Lex needed the company. Besides, I didn't think it was fair leaving you at the mercy of the girls."

Laughing, Pete still looked closely at his friend. He had noticed that something weird--weirder--was going on with Clark, but he hadn't known what to do about it.

It just seemed that lately Clark was getting quieter and quieter, pulling away from the world around him. There was just something lonely in his eyes and sometimes he looked so sad that it made Pete want to cringe. Clark was his friend and there was nothing he could do to help make it better.

Lex came over to sit next to Clark, setting a cup in front of him. "I got you extra whipped cream," he said. He gave Pete a nod in greeting.

Though he didn't like the man, Pete had to admit that there was something in Lex that kind of balanced Clark. He couldn't explain it, but when the two were together, something just clicked. Pete didn't like it, kind of hated it really, but he forced himself to accept it because he somehow knew that without Lex, Clark would have already fallen apart. They were perfect friends.

"So, how have you been, Pete?" Lex asked. He sounded like he really cared.

Pete shrugged. "The same as always. I just about failed my chemistry test, though, so that's kind of new."

Lex made a little moue with his mouth and nodded for him to go on.

"I have to get a little extra tutoring and take a make-up test. The teacher's being really nice about it, so I can't really complain."

"Wait a minute," Clark said. "You flunked a chem test, but you're still hanging out here sipping coffee? Weren't your parents mad? Shouldn't you be a little studying idiot?"

Pete grinned. "Probably, except I worked a deal with the teacher so she didn't call my parents. This is probably going to be my last bit of totally free time for awhile, and I'm going to enjoy it. And when it's over, it's going to be weeks of hard studying for me."

"Huh, you're lucky." Clark sipped his coffee, then made that little face he always did.

Watching Clark drink coffee always made Pete want to shake his head. They were all trying so hard to be grown up, and even though Clark drank coffee like there was no tomorrow, Pete knew that deep down Clark should have been drinking glasses of milk or juice. He just didn't have the coffee drinker's cool yet, was enough of a kid that the taste got to him more than the caffeine.

Feeling vaguely superior to his superpowered friend, Pete lifted his own cup and took a smooth drink of his latte. His face didn't writhe and his lips didn't twist, and if he thought about it, he rather believed he was turning into a proper coffee connoisseur.

He was about to share his thoughts with Clark when Lex's phone went off in his pocket.

"Sorry," Lex said, pulling it out. "No one's supposed to call unless there's some kind of emergency. I have to take this. Luthor?"

Clark looked at Pete and shrugged. They pretended not to listen while they drank their coffee and just basically heard everything.

"What happened? Was it serious? You need me to come down now?" Lex shot Clark an apologetic glance, but was still talking in the phone. "All right, I'll be there as soon as I can. All right." Lex snapped his phone shut.

Clark sat up straight in his chair and looked as his friend. He raised an eyebrow and tried to look attentive, ignoring the disappointment that had jolted through him when he heard Lex was leaving.

"I'm sorry Clark," Lex said. "That was Gabe. There was a little problem at LexCorp and I have to go in."

"Well, it's your job, and it's important," Clark said sensibly. He felt like smashing tables and throwing chairs, but he forced himself to remain logical and in control. "How long do they need you for?"

Lex shrugged. "It's only going to be for an hour or so, but I really have to go." He stood up.

"Well can you come back later?" Clark asked.

Pete shot a surprised glance at his friend. He could hear something in Clark's voice, something that he didn't recognize, but it made his stomach want to squeeze into a hard knot. Weird things were going on with his alien buddy.

"You probably have plans for tonight," Lex said.

Clark touched Lex's sleeve. "We're not really doing anything tonight. We're probably just going to hang out around her until about nine. So there's plenty of time for you to talk to Gabe and come back and hang with us, right?"

Pete was surprised at the momentary look of indecision on Lex's face, then the man shrugged. "Sure. I'll be back in about an hour. Bye Clark."

With that, he just walked to the door and left.

Pete watched Clark watching Lex and didn't know what to think. Finally, Clark turned back to him.

They looked at each other for a long moment, then Clark smiled that bright smile of his. For the first time, Pete almost thought of that smile as being a lie.

"So, uh" Pete scrabbled around for something to say. He didn't know why, but he was uncomfortable. There had been a whole realm of stuff happening that he hadn't been a part of, and it made him really have to wonder.

Clark looked at him when he didn't go on. "What?"

"Uh what's this I hear about you having an addiction for 'Rebus: Heroes for Hire'?" Pete asked suddenly.

Clark blushed a little and hunched his shoulders. "You've been talking to my mom again, haven't you?"

"Yeah, maybe a bit. She said you've been cranking up the sound on the computer speakers and getting way too into the Rebus."

"She's a troublemaker," Clark said, then shrugged. "There's nothing wrong with Rebus. It's a great Webcomic. Mercenary er, I don't exactly know what they are, but they're cute, furry and tough. With like guns and stuff."

"What's that?" Chloe said, coming over to plop down in a chair. "Tell me you're not turning into a Furry, Clark. That's a sick bit of fetishism, you know?"

"I'm not a Furry!" Clark almost yelled, then hunched even more in embarrassment as people at other tables turned to look at him. At least he had the comfort of thinking that most of them didn't know what it meant, this was a small town in Kansas after all.

Chloe and Pete exchanged high fives when Clark went so red his face should have caught fire. It was fun teasing him. They'd almost turned it into a sport.

"You guys suck, you know that?" he said. Then, against his will, he felt a little smile quirk his lips. They were his friends. They had the right to drive him crazy.

"I still don't understand why you let yourself get so involved with all of those Webcomics, anyway. They seem kinda, I don't know, juvenile," Pete said, almost rolling the last word on his tongue.

"Speaks the guy who once ate a whole can of Cheez Whiz on a dare." Chloe rolled her eyes. Then she turned back to Clark. "Still, he kind of makes a point. Why are you all of a sudden into the comics?"

Clark shrugged a little uncomfortably. "I don't know. I just think some of them are funny, though a lot of them are pretty crappy. Still, I've got my bookmarked favorites, you know."

"Oh yeah, and what's one of your favorites?" Chloe asked, leaning forward. Her eyes sparkled with excitement, waiting for the laugh she knew was going to come.

The smile faded off Clark's face. Pete could almost feel the furtiveness rising off his friend in waves. It made Pete uncomfortable, something in him saying that everything was about to change, and he didn't know if it was going to be for the good.

"I don't know if I should tell you," Clark said, shifting on his chair.

"Come on, you can tell me anything," Chloe said, sounding teasing for a moment. Then she went serious. "You know you can tell me anything, don't you? I mean, I know that there've been a couple of times when I've made mistakes that almost screwed up your life, but that is in the past. We've all grown up a lot, and you know I would never tell anyone anything you don't want me to tell them about you, right?"

"For a girl that wants to be a journalist, you sure know how to abuse the English language," Clark said with a smile.

Pete felt his heart beating a little faster. That was Clark sitting in front of him, but that wasn't exactly Clark's smile. There was just something so knowing about that smile, and the light in his eyes was darker than it had ever been.

Everyone knew that Clark couldn't possibly be as innocent as he seemed. Sure, he never gave any sign that he knew what affect he had on the girls, or that the innuendoes said about him hanging out with the older Lex meant anything. Clark never gave any sign that he was anything other than what he looked like, a farm raised guy with a do-gooder streak a mile wide. But no one could ever be that innocent, that nice all the time, not and be a real person. So there had to be some kind of darkness in Clark, something way beyond his ability to light things on fire with his eyes, see through stuff, run really fast, or hear private conversations from a hundred yards away. There had to be something more to Clark than the face he always showed the world, and right now, whatever it was inside him was peeking out.

Pete didn't know if he wanted to see what Clark really was, because it would change everything. He wanted things to stay the way they were. But he had no power over any of that.

Life was change and impossible things.

* * *

"What do you like?" Chloe asked. She was surging with something at the thought of finally getting to hear one of Clark's oh-so-precious secrets, but she didn't know if it was happiness or something else.

"Rebus is the comic my mom and dad always catch me looking at," Clark said. His eyes were firmly focused on the coffee cup in front of him. "But I look at other ones too. Like 'My Life in Blue,' 'Strange Candy,' and I have to have my daily dose of 'Boy Meets Boy.'" He said it like it was supposed to mean something, like understanding should just flash from him and straight into their brains.

"What's that mean?" Chloe cocked her head. She didn't read Webcomics, so she didn't recognize any of the titles or why they should have any kind of significance to Clark.

His eyes flicked up to meet hers and she felt her mouth go dry. Pete's arm was suddenly pressed up against hers on the table, liking he was trying to suck the strength out of her, but was too much of a guy to say anything.

"I don't like just one sex or one kind of personality. I'm drawn to people, and most times what they look like doesn't matter as much as who they are."

"And that means what, exactly?" Pete asked, though something in his voice said he had his guesses.

"I" Clark stopped and his lips twitched in something that wasn't really a smile. "I like Lex."

"Yeah, we know that," Pete said. "He's your friend."

"Which I completely don't understand, by the way," Chloe said.

"What don't you understand about it?"

She shook her head and sipped her coffee to give her a second to think. "I don't know."

Clark knew she was trying to say something by not saying something. It was one of the old games they had played, though he was usually the one not saying anything, the one hiding all the earth-shattering secrets. "Come on, you know you can just say it. What don't you understand?"

She drew in a deep breath and just let everything out. He'd asked for it. "I don't know how you can be such good friends with him, Clark," Chloe said. "He's a billionaire playboy with a shady past and some of the things he does right now aren't even very good. And you, Clark, you're a good person. You care about people and make them feel better just by being you. So how you can be friends with someone so completely different I mean, you guys have nothing in common."

"You're wrong," Clark said. "Lex and me, we're more alike than you realize. We're two sides of the same coin, and we need each other to exist.

"If there was no Lex Luthor, then I couldn't be Clark Kent, just like if there was no night, there could be no day. Everyone has to have their other half, and maybe someday you'll find yours, then you'll be able to understand too."

She looked at him for a long moment. There was just something so serious about him. She shrugged her shoulders. "Whatever."

"I'm serious," he said. "But even though I like Lex, it's not all just about him."

"What isn't? What the hell are you trying to say, Clark?" Pete demanded. "You're dancing around babbling about all kinds of shit, but you're not really saying anything. Like usual. Just say it already."

"I think I'm falling in love with Lex."

Silence.

Chloe felt like she'd been slammed into a brick wall. Her whole body hurt.

"You're falling in love with Lex Luthor." Pete's tone was completely flat. At least he hadn't started screaming and yelling. They had managed to keep this conversation private from the rest of the world.

Clark nodded his head. "Yeah. I really think I love Lex. We almost kissed yesterday, isn't that weird?"

"That's it then. You almost kissed and the rush of hormones tricked your mind," Chloe said, then was a little embarrassed by how relieved she sounded. She was just fumbling around looking for any excuse for Clark not to be in love with anyone. As long as he was alone, there was a chance that someday he might still decide to fall in love with her. It was pretty pitiful really.

"I don't think so." Clark shook his head. "I've been feeling this way for about a year, though it was mostly like a crush at first, you know? He was my friend, then all of a sudden this light went on in my brain and I saw how good looking and smart he was, but it was like I didn't have to do anything about it. Only now, it's getting stronger, and I really feel like things are going to get serious soon, and I thought you should know, 'cause I really need your guys' help."

"Need our help? With what?" Pete leaned back in his chair. His body vibrated with tension. "You say you think you're in love with that asshole, and what do you want us to do about it, huh?"

"He's not an asshole," Clark defended. Then thought about it and shrugged, a little smile twitching his lips. "All right, he's an asshole. But he's a good person too, and I really like him. Which is the problem.

"I don't want this to be a repeat of the whole Lana thing. For a long time, I thought she could really be the one, that if we only talked to each other or something, we would click and become the perfect Smallville couple. Only now I know how stupid that was, because Lana is definitely not the one. I mean, she's gonna be the one for someone, but just not me. I think Lex is. I just want to be sure before I do anything."

"Wait, wait, wait. I'm still stuck back on track one!" Chloe held up her hand, drawing both boys' attention. "You're gay?"

Clark snorted. "Like I said. I don't care what body someone wears, I like people. I guess I guess I'm bisexual."

"Wow." Chloe couldn't help herself. "That's actually kind of cool."

Pete slapped her lightly on the arm. "What are you talking about? He likes Lex Luthor, did you completely miss that whole part of the conversation?"

"I heard what he said," Chloe said. "I just it's kind of cool that I know someone that's that close to being gay. Well, I've known gay people before, but I'm living in Smallville now, not Metropolis. The ratio of straight to gay farmers is just frickin' astronomical, you know. And now there's Clark. Wow."

On one hand, she was upset that Clark might have chosen someone else over her, again, but on the other hand it really was kind of cool. Clark Kent, bisexual hound dog. Bisexual, son of a farmer, secret filled hound dog.

Thinking about farmers, though "Holy crap, what is your dad gonna say? He's like the straightest guy in the whole state, not to mention the whole he completely hates Lex thing. If this is for real, what are you going to say to him?"

Clark looked shockingly miserable for a second, then shrugged it off. It was weird. His face just twitched and his expression changed from misery to his usual happy-go-lucky, mini-smile one. No one should have been able to change that fast.

"I don't know what I'm going to say to him, but I think I want to find out if I really love Lex first," he said. "No use begging trouble when there's no need, right?"

"Yeah," Pete said. "You might just be misinterpreting what you're feeling again. You might not really like guys."

The tips of Clark's ears poking through his hair turned pink. "Well, I kinda know for sure that I like guys and girls both."

"What do you mean? How?" Chloe demanded.

"Well, I started out reading Webcomics with gay relationships in them, and things just kind of went from there," he said.

Chloe blew out her cheeks. "That's so stupid. How do you know that you really like guys if the only proof you have is that you like two-dimensional cartoon characters spouting out jokes?"

He laughed a little, a breathy sound that pretty much said he was embarrassed. "Well, I didn't say I stopped with the Webcomics."

"What did you do, Clark?" she asked. "What did you do?"

Clark's eyes met hers and suddenly went dark. There was still an almost amused twist to his lips, but he wasn't laughing. "I started with Webcomics, then moved onto slash fiction, and after that Well, there's oodles of porn sites out there and you can pretty much see anything you've got the stomach to look at. I was liking both the straight and homosexual stuff--and that's man-woman, man-man, and the hot and sweaty girl-on-girl stuff."

"Oh my God. I don't believe this," Chloe said. "You're so squeaky clean, Clark, that I can't believe you even know what porn is. You just seem too innocent."

Clark just looked at her for a long moment, making her shift uncomfortably. "If you really think I'm that innocent, then you don't know me as well as you think you do."

"I guess not," Pete said into the sudden silence. "But even if you like other guys, that still doesn't explain what's so special about Lex. He just doesn't seem your type."

"Like I said: he's my opposite."

The three of them sat there staring at each other. The world really had changed around them, even if it had stayed the same. It was just that some of the unsaid stuff had finally reached air.

All of a sudden, Chloe jerked and glanced around nervously. No one was paying any attention, but still "Maybe we shouldn't be talking about stuff like this in here. This is still Kansas, after all."

Clark shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I'm not embarrassed. And I still need your help."

Chloe hopped up and went around the table to wrap her arms tight around him. "You'll have it," she said. "You're our friend, and even if things sometimes get totally confused between us, you'll always be our friend. Right Pete?" She turned to look at him.

She could almost see Pete struggling to put Clark in some kind of neatly labeled box. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to react to his friend being in any way drawn to guys. He looked like he wanted to run away and hide, but he wasn't that kind of person. He would always be there to back up a friend.

He stared hard at Clark, and Chloe could feel the thought happening in his head. Finally he shrugged and nodded, having made his decision. "Yeah, we'll always be your friends," he said.

And the world slipped back to what it was supposed to be. Clark was their friend, forever and no matter what.

* * *

He never thought that revealing one of his secrets to his friends would be so freeing. He felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. It allowed him to relax with them and let the conversation slip onto lighter topics.

Before he knew it, he had drunk six cups of coffee, eaten three blueberry muffins and half of Chloe's raspberry scone. But they were laughing and talking in a way they--he--hadn't in awhile. For the first time in a long time, he was able to relax a little and be himself. It was wonderful.

He stood up. Chloe and Pete stopped talking and looked at him.

Clark smiled. "Sorry. I gotta go to the bathroom. I'll be back in a minute."

"Sure, take your time," Pete said, then turned back to Chloe. "What do you mean killing one grasshopper should be the same as killing a human being on the karmic scale?"

"Really," she said. "They're reincarnated human souls, which means"

Clark shook his head and made his way through the Saturday night Talon crowd over to the counter. "Hey Lana, can I use your bathroom?"

Even as busy as she was, she still gave him a bright smile. "Sure. You know where it's at."

"Thanks." He nodded and went through the door to the back, non-public area of the building. The Talon didn't have a public bathroom, but Lana trusted him enough to let him use the employee one. It wasn't like he was going to go crazy and start peeing all over the floor and ripping the mirror off the wall. He was Clark Kent, after all.

He had just finished and was stepping out of the bathroom when a hand touched his arm.

A blond haired girl had been leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door, her arms crossed over her chest. She smiled when she saw him and there was just such happiness in her face that he had to ask, "Do I know you?"

She grinned. "Kind of. My name is Kara In-Ze, and you're Clark, my strange and eccentric cousin from the planet Krypton."

He looked at her stupidly. "Huh?" His brain processes were definitely not functioning at the moment. Maybe all the coffee he'd drunk had finally overloaded something in his mind.

"I came back in time from the future."

Clark shook his head. "You're crazy. You know you're not supposed to be back here, right?" he said, looking around. "I don't know you."

"I know you're an alien," she said. "I am too."

Heat flared through him and he was more afraid than he had ever been before. All he knew was that it was time to deny everything and lie as much as possible. "I really don't know what you're talking about. I've I've gotta go. I don't want to talk to you."

Kara stopped his running away with a hand on his chest. "I'll prove it to you. Watch." She rose a few inches off the ground to hover there for a moment, before lowering herself back down. "See?"

His mouth probably should have dropped clear down to his feet, but Clark found himself nearly expressionless. "You can float. You're like me."

"Yep, and that's why I'm here, Clark. You sent me back in time to help you now. Trouble is coming. You're going to need me."

"You what could happen that's so bad you have to be here?" he asked. Idly, he had to wonder why he wasn't completely freaking out. He sounded so calm and in control. Maybe shock had numbed him.

She shrugged. "Well, basically, Apparation and Ultra Boy of the Legion of Superheroes came back in time from the thirtieth century to give Clark--future Clark you--a data disk. He looked at it and it must have had some very important info on it, 'cause he immediately dragged me to the Fortress and shoved me into the temporal warp chamber. Which is kinda funny when I think about it, 'cause he still never got around to explaining where he got the chamber from in the first place, and believe me, that's one highly illegal bit of alien tech, especially if you play around with it. Anyway, here I am, and I'm not leaving until I complete my all important mission."

"Which is what?" Clark asked.

Kara shrugged. "Dunno, he didn't have time to tell me. Darkseid was invading Earth when I left."

"Invading Earth? Someone was invading Earth?"

"Yeah, but that happens nearly every week--you know, slug monsters, bank robbing supervillains with an all-consuming urge to kill, heinous blobs, whatever. It's what being a superhero's all about. Naw, Cousin Clark gave me a disk of instructions and a mini-computer to read it on. He included some stuff for you too, so we're pretty much gonna get our answers at the same time."

"Wait a minute. Back up." He held up a hand and stared at her. "Supervillains? Superheroes?"

She smiled gently. "Yeppers, that's a roger. We're bona fide superheroes. You're" she paused and rubbed her chin, "I don't know if I should tell you, Star Trekkian temporal Prime Directive and all." She shrugged. "Oh well. You're Superman, and I'm Supergirl. Which, when I think about it, isn't really all that fair. How come you're Superman, but I'm Supergirl? Why aren't I Superwoman? Though, I really don't wanna be old, so I guess it's all right, plus, I'm only sixteen, and at least I'm not a horn-dogging monkey like fucking Superboy."

Clark realized that she had a definite tendency to ramble. His brain was clicking along pretty fast, but the way she jumped around all over the place made it wildly apparent that her conversational skills were a little lacking. "Can you start over?" he asked plaintively.

Kara stopped babbling. "Oh, I'm sorry. I just it's so weird being here, and you being so young. I mean, you're the same age Superboy is, though you look more mature or something. Probably 'cause you had Mom and Dad and all he had was those Cadmus losers. Plus well, future-you is kind of a big know-it-all, a definite answer man.

"You're always going on about truth, justice and American corn, or something like that, I don't really listen. But now I'm here and you're, like, seventeen years old, only a year older than me. It's some pretty weird shit." She froze and covered her mouth. "Oops. I should watch my language, huh? You're probably gonna tell Mom and get me in trouble. Though" She looked at him and a mischievous grin pulled her lips wide. "You're a kid too, aren't you? You're not straitlaced Clark right now who's always telling me what to do and when. You're you're a rube, from a farm, who doesn't have the first clue about how to be a real superhero. I'm the experienced superheroing personnel here. This is so cool."

"Okay." Clark rubbed his forehead hard, trying to scrub away what he thought might turn into a headache. "So, I'm a superhero that fights crime and bad guys. You think I've got a complete stick up my ass. I'm not the only superhero with superpowers out there. You're an alien like me. And I sent you back in time to help me do something. Is that pretty much it?"

"Yes." She went serious, the laughter just fading from her face like it was washed away with acid. "You are the greatest superhero Earth has ever known. You have saved the world and the universe more times than I can count, and not just in our time period, either. You've you're what people mean when they talk about a 'savior.' You are Superman.

"When you get into uniform and fly around fighting the bad guys, people sleep easier in their beds at night, knowing that you're there to protect them. You keep the ravaging hordes of über-bad guys from turning Earth into their own little hell-ground. Every day you go out and do battle to keep people safe, and maybe sometimes things are hard for you, but you always do the right thing. You are Clark Kent and Kal-El and Superman. You are what mere superheroes aspire to be."

Clark felt like he'd been hit hard. Horror was coursing through him and his mind was whirling with informational overload, so he latched onto the only thing that mattered. "What kind of future do you come from?"

She looked at him in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

"From what you said, it seems like I'm going to spend practically everyday of my life fighting some weird enemy or other. How can the world ever end up that bad?"

"It's not bad. All the work we do contributes to the future utopia that's going to take over the world and the universe after we're gone. Our powers have saved more lives than either of us can ever know. The effect of the good we've done ripples through time." Kara's blue eyes sparked fiercely as she gripped his shoulders tightly. "You told me yourself, Clark: Everyone has a purpose in life, and ours seems to be to protect the people of this little blue world. We have the power of demigods, and we have a choice: to do good, to do evil, or to do nothing at all. And it was from you that I learned what being a hero is all about."

* * *

For the first time since she got here, she felt like she was really getting through to Clark. It was kind of cool being the one in charge for once, but she found that she kind of missed Mr. Answers. She hadn't been on Earth long enough to fully connect to a teenaged superhuman that still had dreams of being normal--human.

Everything was just weird.

She opened her mouth to say more when the door opened.

"I'm sure he came in here, Lex," Lana said, talking over her shoulder as she came into the hallway. "He said something about" Her voice trailed off when she saw Kara so close to Clark.

Kara felt a sinking in her stomach. One look at Lana and she was pretty sure she was facing yet another spoiled teen princess. Her time on Earth had brought her into contact with a lot of them. High school had taught her that being nice all the time wasn't a prime characteristic of human young, no matter what their deluded parents liked to believe.

"Clark, who's that?" Lana asked, cocking her head.

Clark's mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but nothing came out. Too much had happened in too little an amount of time and his usual skill at deception had taken the way of the dodo.

Kara let go of him and stepped toward Lana, her hand outstretched. A warm smile took over her pretty face. "Hi, you must be Clark's friends. I'm Kara Kent, Clark's cousin. It's nice to meet you." Her eyes flicked over Lex quickly before focusing on Lana. And Clark didn't miss the way she did that either. She could practically feel him perking up with interest.

That's it, Clark, she thought. There are things that I can't tell you--that only you can tell you, but maybe a few hints can pave the way to your really understanding what's happening here. I don't want to have to hurt you.

"Oh, you're Clark's cousin." Kara didn't miss the emphasis Lana put on the word. The girl obviously had a little something-something for Clark. "I'm Lana Lang, and this is Lex Luthor."

Kara turned a blazing smile on Lex. "So you're the Lex I've heard so much about from D Uncle Jonathan."

Lex quirked. "Anything Jonathan Kent has told you about me probably isn't anything good, am I right?"

She shrugged. "I never fully accept what other people tell me as being the complete truth. There's always two parts to ever story."

"That's actually pretty nice of you," Lex said. "I hope I find a happy middle ground between perpetual evil-doing fiend and disreputable saint."

She looked at him for a long moment, unable to help the way her eyes went hard. She could practically feel her expression turning to stone. "I hope so too, Lex." For your sake.

* * *

Looking at Clark's cousin, Lex couldn't help being attracted to her. If he had met her before Clark, he might have thought that she was the prettiest person he had ever seen. And it wasn't just about looks--which they both had--it was the strange and pure goodness that shone from both of their eyes, like they expected him, Lex Luthor, to always do the right thing and never hurt another soul. Those clear eyes said that they trusted him, and some unspoken part of his soul wanted to be worthy of that belief.

Then, without any warning, she gave him such a look that he felt his blood run cold.

She was pretty and blond and looked as if a stiff wind could blow her over, but with that one look, he knew there was a hardness in her too. She was still a slender girl dressed in black jeans and a fitted blue tee shirt that highlighted her perfect breasts, but she was also something more than that. This was someone that could watch him die, and even if she maybe felt bad about it in a distant sort of way, she wouldn't be crying rivers about it later. She would do whatever had to be done, sensible way down deep where most people weren't.

He gave her a nod that was almost respectful. He felt as if they had matched swords, and even if he hadn't exactly won, he hadn't lost yet either. Which was strange, because there had been nothing confrontational about what she said. It was just that look in her eyes.

Lex glanced at Clark and found him watching his cousin with a strange expression on his face. If he hadn't known better, Lex might have thought it was fear.

* * *

Kara scared him. She had changed so fast that he didn't know which person was real: the laughing bubbly girl, or the cold girl of iron. And the way she looked at Lex it made him want to hit her.

She turned her head to look at him, and for a moment he was pierced by the hard look in her eye. She had faced things he had never dreamed of. She had fought monsters and nightmares and maybe accidents had happened along the way and people had died. Her eyes said that she was strong--stronger than the world around her--but there was also a vulnerability there, a lost kind of wistfulness that he had only ever seen in his own eyes on the days that everything had gone wrong and he was at his lowest.

She moved back to stand next to him and took his hand. "We should probably go see Mo Martha and Jonathan," she said. "They're gonna be surprised I came to visit." As she spoke, her face and eyes changed, the hardness just kind of sucked back into the expression of the pretty, carefree girl. It was kind of strange and vaguely terrifying.

"Yeah. They'll wanna know you're here," he said dumbly.

Kara looked at Lana. "We can probably get to know each other later," she said, "but I just got into town. I want to visit my aunt and uncle before they find out I'm here by anyone else. They're going to be so surprised to see me. It's been awhile."

For a second, Clark caught a hint of sadness in her eyes, but he didn't have time to wonder about it before she started dragging him toward the door.

"Sorry Lex," he called over his shoulder. "I'll see you later?"

Lex nodded. "Sure. Family's important."

Clark smiled. "Thanks. You're the best."

Kara led him through the Talon and out onto the street, ignoring the surprised looks they attracted. In a town where everyone knew everyone else--and everyone else's business--Clark Kent holding hands with a girl that no one knew was enough of a surprise to be written up in the newspaper. Or at least talked about at great length over the phone.

"Come on, I want to see Mom and Dad as soon as possible," Kara said. "When we get to the edge of town, let's make a run for it."

"You've got superspeed too?" Clark asked.

She laughed at him. "Sure. Doesn't everyone?"

"Jerk."

They walked along in silence while Kara turned her head this way and that, trying to catch everything. "It's kind of strange. Things are different, but at the same time, most everything is the same. Smallville really hasn't changed in eighteen years."

"Small towns never do," Clark said. "They never get enough money to get any bigger, and no one can change anything as long as what's there still works."

"That's the weirdest thing," Kara said, staring at him. "You're way younger, but you're still kind of the same too. Though you haven't quite got that noble 'Man of Steel must save the world at all cost' thing going quite yet. It's really rather refreshing."

"'Refreshing'? Is it just me, or are you talking different?" Clark asked.

Kara shrugged. "It happens sometimes. Supergirl is smarter than Kara, because Kara doesn't have the luxury of accidentally letting anyone know that she's not human. If anyone's taught me how to live with a secret identity, it's you Clark."

Clark felt strangely sad for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said, not quite know why.

She smiled with one half of her mouth. "It's all right. Having to hide who I am isn't all that bad, and besides, it definitely beats being dead. Which I would have been, if a certain man in blue tights hadn't saved me on Argo."

"Man in blue tights?" Clark asked.

She laughed, and it was a sweet sound. "You're embarrassed about the tights! That's hilarious."

"Blue tights, for real?" Clark shuddered. "They must get cold, and everyone would probably look at my" He stopped with a blush.

"At your man sack?" she teased. "Trust me, those tights leave nothing to the imagination."

He punched her lightly on the shoulder. "It's not funny! In eighteen years I'm going to be a geek running around in a Halloween costume."

"Yeah, a geek that every woman in the world would kill to get her hands on," she said.

Clark sighed a little and felt some unknown tension inside him release when she slipped a hand around his waist and half-hugged him as they walked.

He had never noticed it before, but for his entire life he had never felt completely as if he fit in. There was just something about Kara that some part of him recognized and clung to. For the first time, he felt as if he had found what he'd been unknowingly looking for. Someone like him.

When they reached the end of town and were sure they were out of sight of everyone, they supersped toward the farm.

It was strange for Clark. He'd never met anyone that could do the things that he could. For the first time, running at full speed he had someone next to him going just as fast, teasing him as they moved in that space between moments, the whole world slowed down around them until they were the only beings in existence. It was a wonderful thing. He wondered what he was going to do when she had to go home.

Probably be lonely, he thought.

When they reached the farm, Kara slapped the rail of the porch with a crow of delight. "I won!"

"What are you talking about?" Clark asked, skidding to a stop next to her. "When were we racing?"

"We were always racing," she said. "And for the first time in my life, I actually beat you, Clark!"

She sounded so delighted that Clark didn't have the heart to be mad. "You cheated," he said as he passed her up the stairs, then looked back to stick his tongue out at her and grin.

Martha was washing something at the sink and Jonathan was sitting at the table when they came clattering in through the kitchen door. They were about halfway in when Kara slapped him on the back.

It didn't hurt, and he knew it was in teasing, but that slap was more powerful than he'd expected. If he'd been normal, he probably would have gone flying across the room into a wall. She was way strong--maybe as strong as him.

"Hello Clark," Martha said, turning to smile at him.

"Hi Mom," he said, then moved to make room. "This is Kara, she's"

"Daddy!" Kara squealed, tearing across the room to throw herself into Jonathan's arms. "I missed you!" Tears were streaming down her face and there was something desperate about her.

"an alien like me," Clark finished lamely, staring at Kara wrapped around his surprised father.

* * *

She'd almost forgotten her sense of loss and pain as she joked with Clark. But coming through that door and seeing him sitting there, alive and well it was too much.

Kara'd been ignoring her pain for months, three months to be exact, ever since it happened.

Jonathan and Martha Kent had become her parents on Earth, taking the place of the family she had lost. As she grew used to a whole new world and a new life, they became everything to her, and she loved them with everything in her. They were good people.

Three months ago her whole life had changed.

She'd thought she was done with death, that it couldn't hurt her anymore, but she'd never allowed herself to think that anyone in her new family could be hurt, could die. So when Jonathan was killed it was like the world stopped.

Kara had buried herself in being Supergirl, had gone on a desperate search for her lost center, the balance that wasn't in her anymore. She had thrown herself into catching the bad guys and saving the good ones, trying to make it so no one else had to feel the pain she did when she looked at Martha, so sad and alone with her beloved husband dead.

The worst thing for Kara had been her inability to bring Jonathan's murderer to justice. Because locked in his kryptonite laced tower of blood and steel, Lex Luthor was untouchable. Surrounded by android sentinels and automatic weapons systems, Clark couldn't enter the building, and Kara wasn't strong enough to do it alone. Plus there was no proof that Lex had ordered Jonathan killed, even though everyone knew he'd done it, and without proof it was just murder, and superheroes couldn't kill people for their own ends.

So she'd stuffed her pain down deep where it could fester away and not bother her, while she flew around saving as many lives as possible, being the hero. And maybe she'd tried to pretend everything was all right by joking and laughing even when it wasn't funny. And Clark had known that she was hurting, but he hadn't said anything because he was hurting too, and she knew he spent more time hiding as Superman than she did. And they had ignored their pain together and pretended everything was all right.

Then Apparation and Ultra Boy had shown up, just stepped out of a swirling vortex from the future and offered a mission.

Someone had to go back in time and bring a message to the Clark in the past. Someone got to go back to a time when Jonathan was still alive and hug and talk to him for one last time, and it wasn't going to be Clark, because he was already there.

Kara knew it had hurt Clark when he'd sent her back. He had wanted to come himself, but he couldn't because he already existed in this timeline, and she didn't. Because not only was her Argo in another solar system, she hadn't even been born yet.

She was glad to be here, because she'd missed Jonathan, but she was sad too, because Clark didn't get to say good-bye to his father, and she did.

Thinking of poor future-Clark, she gave Jonathan an extra close hug for him, and kissed him on the cheek. "I really missed you," she said, still crying.

He was surprised, she knew that, and she didn't care. This was Jonathan and, miraculously, right now he was alive. She would explain everything to him later, but for right now, she just held on and breathed him in.

INTERLUDE

HALF AN HOUR EARLIER

"I can't believe Clark could drop a bomb like that, and then just leave," Pete said.

Chloe nodded. "Yeah. My brain is still trying to process information and he's gone."

They sat there for awhile not saying anything, then "So," Pete said, his eyes rolling away from hers, "you wanna come back to my house? My parents aren't there and we can watch a movie, or something."

A little smile quirked her elfin face. "Something, huh?" She raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged. He was starting to feel a little self-conscious. "Yeah, you know. There's plenty of stuff to talk about and stuff. So, do you want to come to my house with me?"

"Sure," she said.

He looked at her in surprise. "You really want to come with me?"

Chloe grinned. "Sure. All of Clark's talking about the liking of guys has completely I don't know, the thought of a little boy-on-boy action is pretty hot. So let's go to your house and do what friends do."

He just wanted to make sure she was talking about the same thing as he was. "And what do friends do?" he asked.

"Poor boy is all confused. Why doesn't little Chloe show you how to fix it and make it better."

They got up and headed toward the door. "When did you turn into such a nympho?" Pete asked.

"What, you don't think I've ever fooled around before?" she said, linking her arm in his. "I lived in Metropolis until eighth grade, and I've gone back oodles of times. Not to mention the fact that I've had boyfriends before and I'm about an inch away from being eighteen."

"Wow. I don't I don't quite know what to say now."

"Why Mr. Ross, if I didn't know better, I would almost say you're suffering from the blushing virgin effect." She laughed.

"Hey!" He was glad his face couldn't flame with blushes in the same way that Clark's did.

"Come on." She dragged his arm to hurry his steps. "Let's get to your house so we can make mad monkey love."

"What's with everyone and the monkeys?"

She just laughed.

PART THREE

"Clark sent you back in time from the future?"

Kara nodded her head. "Uh huh, just like he said." She jerked a thumb at the present-Clark. "I came to avert the apocalypse, or at least a suitably terrifying-enough version thereof."

They were all in the living room. There were glasses of iced tea and a plate full of snickerdoodles on the table. It was all kind of weird, since this was completely normal to Kara, only her family usually wasn't so young.

She couldn't get enough of Martha's hair.

The Martha Kent she knew had grey hair and a rather lived-in face, while this one was still kind of in her prime. She wasn't going to go parading around in a bikini, but wasn't going to be worrying about the arthritis that plagued her future version either. And her hair was auburn, rich with color.

Kara had seen pictures of Martha when she was this age and younger, but it was still weird to see it in person. Her Martha was definitely middle aged, while this one could still completely cover up any wrinkles with makeup. It was definitely not the world she knew.

"Can we see what you brought for Clark?" Martha asked.

Kara twitched herself back to attention. "Oh, yeah, sure."

She stood and began digging around in her pocket, cursing the fact that she'd decided to wear such tight jeans. Fashion bedamned when she couldn't just reach into her pocket and get what she wanted, it was time to trade in for some different clothes.

She pulled out the silver disks and held them out to Clark. "Here. I can't tell which is which, so we'll have to try them both."

He looked at them dubiously in his hand. "They look like quarters," he said.

She laughed. "Quarters. That's pretty funny."

"What do we do with them?" Jonathan asked. She felt an ache in her heart just to hear his voice.

She had to bite her lip and hold herself perfectly still for a moment to get herself back under control. Then she pulled the silver necklace out from under her shirt. From the chain hung a solid metal rod that was the diameter of the disks round, and about three inches long. When it was under her shirt, the rod fit perfectly between her breasts, which she'd thought was rather funny when Clark gave it to her. Kryptonian cleavage rocked.

"This is the reader for the disks," she said. She slipped the necklace from around her neck and offered it to Clark. "A disk fits into the end of it and an image will appear."

He took the rod and looked at it, a line appearing between his brows when he frowned. "Um, which end?"

"Either or," she said. "Future people build things simple, I guess. They don't want anyone to make any stupid mistakes."

He shot a grin at her and she was once again surprised that Clark could ever be so loose. The Clark she knew had been driven hard by Superman. There wasn't much innocence left in him, and he'd had to make hard choices quite a few times, choices that still haunted him and made him deny that he had ever wished to be merely human.

Oh Clark, she thought. Why couldn't you have stayed like this forever? You'd be so much happier if you could ever smile--really smile.

Sometimes she thought that Clark only knew how to grimace. Ever since the thing with Lois well, none of the smiles were real anymore.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Clark finally managed to fit one of the disks into the end of the rod.

There was a flash, and a life sized hologram appeared. It was pretty awesome how there were no projection lines or anything, just Superman standing in the middle of the room looking at them all.

"Wow, you never told me it was going to be a real-time projection," she said.

Superman's lips twitched a little, but he mostly remained as emotionless as usual. He looked at Clark, then moved his eyes over to Martha, then to Jonathan, where he froze for a moment. A tiny tremble went through his body when he saw his father, but his control didn't break. He was Superman through and through, barely anything of human-like Clark left in him.

Kara settled down on the couch to watch the show. She knew it was going to be worth the price of admission.

* * *

"Hello Clark," the man who wore his face said.

Clark felt like he'd been hit and hit hard. The guy was older than him, but he didn't look as old as Kara had said he was. At thirty-five years old, he still looked like he was in his early to mid twenties. And the outfit he was wearing

Clark crossed his arms self-consciously. He didn't think he would ever be brave enough to put himself on display like that. A skintight blue bodysuit, yellow underwear on the outside of his clothes, and a bright red cape that rippled in every little breeze it was ridiculous.

"Hello Clark," the man said again. "I am Superman."

"Hi Superman," Clark said, then felt stupid. This was basically himself he was talking to, a much different version, but him nonetheless. "Why why are you here?"

"I have sent Supergirl to help you," Superman said. "She was the only one that could carry this message through time, since only a Kryptonian can use the temporal warp chamber without dying, and I couldn't do it because I was already here. If I had tried to come, there was a good chance I would end up causing a paradox that would destroy the universe and everything in it. The chance couldn't be taken."

"What's so important?" Clark asked. "What am I supposed to do?"

Superman began to pace back and forth, which was kind of weird. The guy looked solid, but Clark knew that if he reached out his hand, his hand would pass right through him. Definitely a high mark on the strange-o-meter. The guy belonged on Chloe's Wall of Weird, or maybe on a wall all of his own.

"I included the original disk the Legionnaires gave me, but I though I should explain things to you personally," Superman said. "Basically, you have to change things so you don't make the same mistake that I made when I was you. It's a mistake that has haunted me for years, but that I never got a chance to make right. I've always felt bad about the way I hurt him, but there was nothing I could do about it. I've accepted my part of the blame for what he's become but"

"Clark, you're babbling," Kara said.

Superman froze, then looked at her. "Sorry," he said, sounding almost sheepish for a second, but it was over too quick. He swiveled to stare right at Clark, his eyes burning with a fierceness that was frightening. "Lex Luthor is going to become your greatest enemy. He is going to hurt you more than anyone ever will, and people are going to die."

"I told you he was bad," Jonathan said, gripping Martha's hand on his knee. He looked at Clark. "I knew no Luthor could be trusted and that you should stay away from him."

"No Dad," Superman said, turning to Jonathan. "You were wrong about Lex, and I was wrong for listening to you in the end. I hurt him I hurt him worse than anyone has, just as much as he eventually hurt me. And he never recovered from what I did to him, and he could never trust anyone that way again."

"What did you do to him?" Martha asked, sounding worried. "You didn't hit him, did you?"

Superman shook his head. "No, though I sometimes wish I had. He probably would have forgiven me a few broken bones. No, I betrayed him and everything we could have had."

"What do you mean?"

Superman stepped closer to where Clark sat, so close that their legs should have brushed, if one of them was real. "I know it's all new and you're still not sure of what you feel, but the love you have for Lex is real. In two days you're going to tell him that you love him and want to be with him, and you're going to have the greatest sex of your life and believe me, I know. And for about a week you're going to be the happiest person in Smallville, until you decide to tell your parents"

Superman seemed to flow across the room until he was standing in front of Martha and Jonathan. "Mom, you'll be sad about the whole grandchildren thing, but you'll be happy that Clark has found someone, so, thank you from me." He turned to Jonathan. "But you Dad The fact that Lex is a Luthor will be more important to you than the fact that he's a human being, and I'm going to be dumb enough to listen to you. And even though I loved him more than anything, I gave him up because you told me to, and because I always thought that you knew what was best for me, even when I didn't know it myself. And even when I did it, I was regretting it, but the moment the words were out of my mouth and I told him that I could never be with him again and that I that I didn't love him, I wished I could take it all back. Because looking in his eyes, I saw something die in him, and I knew that I did it."

He whirled around with a swirl of his cape and stalked across the room, through the coffee table, to the spot where he first appeared. He turned to look at them. "This message is basically a warning. Lex was a good man, well worth our love, Clark. With him you can find a happiness you're never going to have with anyone else, but that's if you don't screw it up.

"Dad, I need you to put aside your enmity for the Luthors--just for Lex--and let Clark be with him. You don't have to like him, but you can't interfere either." He held up his hand to forestall whatever Jonathan was opening his mouth to say. "I know, I know everything you want to say right now, but please, just don't. After I broke up with Lex and everything started going wrong in my life, you spent years apologizing and regretting what you made me do. Lex was the only happiness I ever really had. He was the one for me, like Mom is the one for you.

"Clark, things are going to be hard for you. Things are going to happen in your life that are going to be downright terrible. You're just going to have to bull through them and be strong, and maybe if Lex is with you, you won't end up like me."

Superman turned to Kara. "I know, you think I'm perfect, but I'm not, far from it. I may make the hard choices, but even though I'm great at being a superhero, I'm not so good at being happy. And that's pretty much why I sent you, and not just because you were the only Kryptonian available. I sent you because I wanted to give you a chance at life."

"What do you mean?" Kara asked.

A little smile quirked Superman's perfect lips. "Did you really think that our future could exist when you're there changing the past?"

Kara looked horrified. "Oh no! You're not saying"

He nodded. "That's right. I can feel it happening around me already. Things are changing, and pretty soon I'm going to disappear, just like all of the misery and death we couldn't avert. As long as you're in that time period, you will remain unaffected, but when you leave Well, don't worry about it." He sighed, sounding almost tired. "That rod does more than just project pretty pictures of me," he said. "It will keep you from being wiped out of history, and maybe I should have just let it happen, but you're special to me, and I just wanted you to know that. With that necklace you won't disappear, and I'm sending the time pod to you right now. With it you can cross the dimensional barriers to Asgard."

"Asgard?" she half-asked.

"You remember Asgard, don't you? It's the universe where I put the survivors of Krypton. You won't have superpowers anymore but you'll be with our people. And even though you haven't said anything about it, I know you've missed being with other Kryptonians than me. You'll be able to fit in and you can make a life for yourself there among your own kind. Otherwise, not even the necklace will save you after awhile, and I don't want you to just disappear."

"Damn you," she hissed. "How could you do this, just make decisions for my life? You're sending me to some 'wonder world,' but you're just going to die? Why can't you come too, I know Mom won't want to because of" She stopped and looked at Martha, then shook herself and focused back on Superman. "Why don't you come to Asgard with me?"

Superman shook his head. "Because I don't want to."

"Why? Why don't you want to live?"

His mask cracked a little to let the real person show through. "I'm tired, Kara. I am more tired than you can even imagine. You haven't seen what I've seen here, and I don't I don't have anything to hold me in place anymore." He was so sad and lonely that it was painful, probably because behind the loneliness lurked emptiness where he was missing some vital piece, like his soul had been sucked out of him.

"Fine," she snapped. "If you don't want to live, whatever. But what about everyone else, huh? They may not know what's happening to them, but they're going to hate just blipping out of existence."

"No they wont."

"Why not?" Kara demanded. Her chin was stuck out angrily and her eyes were such an icy blue they should have drilled holes in whatever she looked at.

"They won't care because they're all dead. About a week after you left"

"But it's only been a day!"

"Time difference, Kara. It's a real bitch, I know, but it's been more than a day here, and a week after you left Lex took that final step. Everyone's dead. I'm the only one left, the wonderful and great Superman that couldn't even save anyone. So I'm glad to blip out of existence, because I'm all alone here, and I don't like it."

"What how what happened?" Clark asked.

"Cassandra's vision."

Looking into the eyes of his future self, he finally recognized what he was seeing there. His deepest fear was of ending up alone, of outliving everyone that he loved or being unable to die with them when the world ended. Surrounded by graves, but not having one of his own.

"About five years ago I visited a powerful psychic and had him look into the past. He was able to See Cassandra's last visions, all of the ones from the moment she took my hands. So he Saw when Lex visited her and what she never had a chance to tell him. It's taken me years to put it all together, but it was so obvious in its symbolism." Superman lifted a bit off the floor and slid across the room to stand in front of Clark, looking down on him.

"Lex was a good man with a bit of darkness in him, but he opened the doors to his own corruption when he made one little mistake, did one unforgivable thing that led to another and another until he was stained with blood. I think that he always wished that he could be a good person, that he never wanted to be evil, but he didn't know how to go back, didn't know how to apologize and let go of what he'd done." Superman knelt down in front of Clark. "I know this doesn't make any sense right now, but there's only one thing you have to understand: No one is perfectly good or evil, and there's always room to forgive. Lex will make mistakes, and so will you, but you can never let him go. You balance each other, and without one, the other cannot find his path. You need to be there for Lex when things get hard, and they will, for both of you. And you can never let anyone tear you apart, because it's lonely where I am, and I don't want you to ever feel like this.

"Bad things happen to good people all the time, and sometimes you can't stop it or even make it better. You can only watch while someone ends up hurt or even dead, and you feel bad and never forget them, but you move on 'cause that's all you can do. But Clark, sometimes the bad thing that happened is something you cause yourself, and even if you can't fix it, you still have to face it, even if you don't want to."

"I don't understand," Clark said.

"You will." Superman disappeared.

"Wait! You dumb ass, what was I supposed to do here, huh? What?" Kara cried. "Did you just send me so you could save my life, you bastard? I don't want you to be dead. I don't want you to be dead, Clark, please. I don't want you to be dead like Daddy." She crumpled to the floor, sobbing.

* * *

Driving along at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, Lex's only thought was to get to Clark's house. He had the strangest sense that he was needed, which was rather strange, since Jonathan hated him enough that not even a family emergency would let that stiff-backed asshole accept a little help.

Sometimes Lex thought that Jonathan Kent was so into his hatred of everything Luthor that he wouldn't ask for help even if Clark were dying. It was like the man loved his hatred more than he did his son.

If Clark wasn't such an entirely wonderful and well rounded guy, Lex would have long since given up on Jonathan being anything more than an irate farmer with a thousand mile chip on his shoulder. But after managing to raise someone as all-around great as Clark, Lex had to give the man a little respect. He must have been doing something right.

Even though he was a complete ass, Lex couldn't help sometimes wishing that Jonathan had been his father too. Luthor money was great, but sometimes Lex couldn't help wondering if there was something more out there. As though being able to buy anything that he looked at wasn't worth the wonder of having Lionel for a father.

Though, when he really thought about it, he was glad Jonathan wasn't his father. Something was happening between him and Clark, and if they were brothers, even adopted ones that would be gross.

Damn that stiff-necked farmer's pride, Lex cursed. He had tried hard to get Clark's dad to like him, but he knew it wasn't happening. The fact that someone like Jonathan Kent didn't like him felt worse than he had ever thought it should. He just wanted the man to look at him as something other than a Luthor.

He doesn't even think I'm human. He looks at me, but all he sees is my father.

He reached the Kent farm surprisingly fast, the Sunday afternoon sun turning the fields to gold--green-speckled gold. Everything was just so beautiful out here, the air open and the land rich. It made him wonder if a life on a farm wouldn't have been so bad. Maybe he would have been happy growing up as just another farm boy in Kansas.

As he was climbing out of his car, he wondered if maybe this was a bad idea, coming here unannounced. Clark's cousin was in town, so maybe the Kents wanted to spend some family time alone with her. Then he shrugged. He was already here, so he might as well go to the door.

It was strange to feel so nervous about such a little thing as visiting Clark, but somewhere in the back of his mind he could still feel the light brush of lips against his, and he didn't want to ruin it, whatever it might turn out to be.

He actually had to take a steadying breath before he could knock on the door. He felt like a kid on his first date, all flutters in his stomach and sweating palms.

* * *

Kara ate about as much as he did, which shouldn't have been surprising, but was, because she was still so skinny. She was a girl, but she ate three helpings of waffles at breakfast, then four sandwiches at lunch. He didn't know where she was storing all the food, and he could tell his parents were surprised too.

Still, it was kind of nice to have someone around who was like him. It was going to hurt when she had to leave, but he knew that he'd have to let her go. Just because he didn't want to be the only one of his kind on Earth didn't mean he had to relegate her to a life of misery.

There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, but he knew that he was going to have to respect her privacy. Hounding her was not going to make everything magically all right, and there were just some things he really wasn't ready to know.

She helped him with his chores and they talked about inconsequential things as they worked. She mentioned in passing that Superman was stronger than she was ever going to be, but that right now in this moment, she could kick Clark Kent's ass. It made them both laugh.

It was kind of ridiculous. Two aliens in a human world that were going to end up cape wearing superheroes in some far off future that his seventeen year old brain was trying hard not to imagine. Though she still wouldn't tell him what he did for a living, would only describe the Superman parts of his life. It really made him wonder.

They had finished working and were in the living room watching TV when there was a knock at the door.

"Hold on a second," Clark said, "I'll get it."

Kara didn't bother looking away from the screen, just bobbed her head and distractedly grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl. He couldn't really understand what she was finding so fascinating about TV shows that were practically antique in her time, but it was cool.

He opened the door and felt a happy grin stretch his lips to find Lex waiting on the other side. "Lex!"

Lex smiled a little. "Hi Clark. Can I come in?"

"Sure." Clark stepped back, holding the door open.

He couldn't help breathing in that warm scent as Lex walked by. The smell of Lex always made him a little lightheaded and happy, though he had only recently figured out why. Sometimes he had to wonder how he could have ever been so naïve.

"Look Kara, Lex has come to visit," Clark said.

For a moment, there was something hard in her eyes when she looked up, then she smiled and whatever it had been was gone. "Hey Lex."

Lex nodded his head at her. "Hello. How has your stay been?"

"Great. I've had a lot of fun visiting."

"That's good. If you'd said they were being mean to you, I would have destroyed them for you."

He was joking, but Kara's face went tight, before she consciously relaxed. "Don't worry. Everything's super."

"Oh, Lex, was there something you needed, or did you just come to hang out?" Clark asked, hating the way he always sounded excited enough to come in his pants whenever Lex was near.

Lex smiled at him. "I just came to see if everything was all right over here."

"Yeah, it's great," Clark said. He tapped Lex's arm with the back of his hand. "You want to come out to the Fortress with me for a while? There's something I wanted to tell you."

Lex looked at him for a long moment like he was trying to read his mind, then shrugged. "Sure."

They went outside and headed toward the barn, Clark casting furtive glances over his shoulder to make sure his father wasn't around to see him and Lex. He just didn't need the trouble right now.

He settled Lex on the couch, then just stood there nervously shifting from foot to foot, wondering how to start.

"What is it Clark? What'd you want to tell me?" Lex's voice was so gentle that it almost made Clark want to cry.

He suddenly felt about ten years old and the world was falling down around him. He just didn't know how to start, because he wasn't really sure how Lex was going to react.

"We we almost kissed the other night," he said.

"Yeah." Noncommittal Lex looked at him, making him want to run and hide from those cold eyes.

"I I really wanted to kiss you," Clark said.

Lex smiled a little, a bit of warmth creeping in. "Me too."

"If my dad hadn't interrupted, we would have kissed and maybe it wouldn't have gone any further, but it would have been the start. And I I want it to start right now."

"What to start, Clark?" Lex asked. "What do you see when you look at me? What do you want?"

"I want you." Clark was surprised by how strong his voice sounded. There was no hesitation in it, no teenaged angst making it crack and break and seem as though he really didn't know his own mind, that he was confused.

"You might not believe this, Lex, but I really do like you," he went on. He was feeling some strange strength flow through him and he was glad of it because it gave him the confidence to say what he had been wanting to say for awhile. "You're smart, good looking, nice to me, and you're my friend. Whenever I'm in the kind of trouble I can't get out of on my own, you're there to support me. You compliment my weaknesses and make me stronger. We're a good match."

"But Lana" Lex's voice trailed off with the touch of Clark's finger on his lips. He looked a little surprised that Clark had gotten so close to him so fast, but at least he didn't flinch backward.

"Screw Lana, this is about you and me. Sure, she's pretty, but you're you."

Lex grasped Clark's hand to push it away, but once he had it, he didn't let go. Holding Clark's wrist, he slid his hand over that warm, suntanned flesh to link their fingers together. He could almost hear a "click," as if two puzzle pieces had suddenly fallen into place. "Come on, Farm boy, don't try to tell me you haven't been lusting after Ms. Lang. Don't lie."

"I'm not. Lana is fucking hot, you and I both know it, but then again, so are you. I won't lie and say I haven't looked at Lana, but in case you haven't noticed, I've looked at you too. You both have your good aspects, but I'll tell you straight up, Lex, in a fair contest for my affections you'll always win. Because even though Lana's great to look at, she's a bit too vanilla for my tastes. You have a spark to you, a depth and a darkness she'll never have. Even if she makes a life for herself in the big bad world, she'll always be a small town girl at heart." Clark's voice lowered intimately. "You, however, fill up every space you think to occupy. Lana is pretty--but you're beautiful."

Lex laughed, a dry sound that didn't have any humor in it. "What do you know, Clark? You're just a kid. You think you suddenly love me, but but you're just confused."

Clark knelt down in front of Lex. "No, I'm not a kid and I'm not confused. I've been feeling this grow inside me and now I can finally say it: I love you, Lex."

"You don't love me," Lex ground out, sounding like he was in pain, "you can't love me. You've just mistaken the friendship you feel as something more."

"No I haven't. I love you." Clark felt as though things were trying to slip out of his control.

Lex released his hand and patted him on the cheek, his touch infinitely gentle and his eyes sad. "You're my friend, Clark, and I'll always be yours. We were both made for greatness, and no matter how things turn out, when we're in our nineties we'll meet up and laugh about all the crazy things we did, because we'll always be friends."

"But I don't want to be friends," Clark said. "I want to be more."

"You're confused, really you are. You don't know what you want and it's my fault because I was sending out the wrong signals, and I'm sorry. And once this whole thing blows over, we can forget this and still be friends, because if I didn't have you as a friend, Clark, I think I would probably end up the worst villain the world has ever known. You make me want to be better than I am."

"Come on, Lex, you're"

"No." Lex held up a hand. "The truth is that I met you at just the right time in my life. You temper my madness, and just meeting you has kept me from ending up just like my father, his little clone. So I want to say thank you for being you, Clark. You are my best friend. But you don't have to be my lover. You don't have to sacrifice yourself to my needs. You just you saw something in my eyes and you want to make me happy, because that's who you are, Clark. You're a good person and you don't want to see anyone hurt, but sometimes that's just the way things are there's nothing you can do about it. Don't feel guilty. I hurt myself."

"Dammit Lex, can it with the bullshit." Clark thrust himself forward, his hands resting flat against Lex's shoulders, pressing him into the couch. "Listen to what I'm saying and drop every fucking thing you ever knew about me."

"You're an innocent, Clark. I don't want to hurt you." Lex's eyes twisted away from him.

"God, I hate being Clark Kent."

"What?" Lex's eyes flicked to his. "What do you mean?"

Clark shook his head, making his hair fly. "I love my family and I wouldn't trade them for anything, but being Clark Kent has gotta be one of the worst things ever, because people look at me and they automatically think they know who I am."

He leaned forward until their faces were only a couple of inches apart. "You know, one of the problems with being Clark Kent is that you've always gotta be Clark Kent. It's frustrating sometimes and it makes me wish that I didn't always have to be the nice, boy-next-door kind of guy. I'm not the leather pants wearing, hell-raising guy--nope, I'm Clark Kent.

"Lana Lang is the town princess. Chloe Sullivan is the cute, smart girl. Pete Ross is the perfect best friend. Lex Luthor is the rich, rebellious bad boy turned genius businessman. And I'm Clark Kent.

"Sometimes I get tired of all the stereotypes. I want to be something other than what everyone thinks I am. Like, I'm not really the small town innocent, but everyone thinks I am, so that's what I gotta be. Or just because I think Lana's pretty, I automatically have to be one of here lust-crazed sycophants. She's pretty, but she's not that pretty, you know?"

Without waiting for Lex's surprise to wear off, he moved his head forward and pressed their lips together. If he stopped Lex from talking, maybe they both could find a little clarity and Lex wouldn't be able to twist away.

Clark thought that maybe part of what future-Clark had been talking about when he said he'd hurt Lex was that he hadn't taken the initiative. Future-Clark had probably hinted at what he'd felt, but never taken that next step, then had just sort of let Lex escape.

This Clark wasn't going to make that mistake.

* * *

Not quite knowing how he got there, Lex found himself on his back on the old couch, Clark on top. It should have been absurd, the innocent farm boy seducing the jaded businessman with the shady past, but it wasn't. It was incredibly erotic.

Clark kissed and nipped at his lips and Lex felt himself getting so hard he was half afraid he was going to come in his pants. A little voice in the back of his brain was screaming for him to stop this, but his body was liking it too much, and he had wanted this for a long time, wanted Clark.

Burning hands ran over his chest, exploring him through his clothes, then slipped lower, brushing against his erection, making him moan.

"Slow slow down Clark," Lex rasped out.

Clark lifted his head enough to grin at him, and if there was one thing in his eyes, it wasn't innocence. "I don't wanna slow down. I wanna fuck you."

Lex shivered. Clark's voice was so low and dark, and what he was saying. "Please, Clark, I you're we can't"

Clark licked Lex's mouth. "Sh. Just shut up and enjoy this, damn you. We both want this, and you know it. Just just let yourself go and make this good for me." He suddenly fluttered his eyes innocently, though the smile on his lips was a wanton bruise. "This is my first time, you know. You're supposed to help me get over my virgin flitters."

"Virgin flitters? I'm the one that feels like Uh ooooh!"

Clark chuckled against his bare skin. Somehow while they were talking Clark had managed to unbutton his shirt and now he was licking and biting at Lex's nipples, just gnawing at them until the pain was about equal with the pleasure. "Man, I love the Internet. Let's see what else works."

Lex hurriedly grabbed Clark's hands when the boy began to fumble with his zipper. "No no, we have to talk about this before we go any further. This is wrong on so many levels. Plus," he couldn't help the little grin that escaped, "I don't want to meet the happy end of your dad's shotgun."

"Don't worry," Clark said. "He's out in the field right now and won't be back for hours, and my mom had to go to the store. Kara's the only one here, and she's watching cartoons. Come on Lex, let's do this, please?"

That note of pleading in Clark's voice was what broke him. There was no way Lex couldn't give Clark something if he really wanted it. The kid may not have known it, but he had Lex pretty much wrapped around his finger, and lately Lex had given up even the pretense of resisting him. It was just so much easier to do everything he could to make Clark happy.

"Take off your shirt," he commanded.

Clark looked at him, then grinned. "Whoohoo," he said, hurriedly pulling it off over his head. His chest was broad and muscular, the nipples like dark wine. Lex wanted to taste them and everything else. If he could have, Lex would have crawled into this boy's skin, let himself be pulled so deep inside no one would ever find him and he would dissipate into Clark, become part of him, a worshipper bowing to the altar.

"We don't have any lube," he said, "and we wouldn't do that if we had it anyway. It's too soon." He nipped at Clark's right nipple, watching his chest tighten and twitch, the nipple hardening.

"We'll do whatever you want," Clark said, pulling back a little to settle on his haunches, not seeming to notice that he was sitting on Lex's feet, which were going numb. He was panting and his eyes were smoky with passion, not quite glazed, but close. "Vulnerable young virgin here, you know. Do your worst, Mr. Lex. I want to I want to feel it all."

Part of Lex still wanted to tell him to stop, but he wasn't listening to it anymore. He had wanted Clark from the first moment he'd met him, and even though he had fooled himself into thinking he was happy just to be friends all the wet dreams he'd had and the way he thought of Clark naked and ready for him while he jerked off in the shower told a different story. Now he was being offered his desire, and he wasn't enough of a saint to turn it away.

"Get off my feet and we'll trade positions. I want to be on top. You're too heavy."

Clark just smiled at the command voice coming at him. The hard on straining the front of his pants definitely didn't show any signs of unhappiness.

Lex was touching his penis, his fingers gentle as they explored the delicately pebbled head. Clark writhed and threw back his head, his eyes closing tight as he swallowed and swallowed and swallowed, his throat working hard as he grit his teeth and tried to keep from coming. Just that little touch was driving him crazy. It made him twist and turn and try to dig his ass into the couch.

Lex's laughter was a dark sound that only made Clark burn hotter. It also warned him before that touch changed and the grip tightened, making him grind his teeth and moan.

Clark was so enthusiastic, writhing under him, almost throwing him off a couple of times. It was a bit like sitting on a wild animal, though he'd never wanted to fuck one before, and he did want to fuck Clark, definitely.

He dug his fingers into Clark's shoulders, knowing that he wasn't going to hurt him, just like he knew Clark could run faster than him and could probably throw him through a brick wall if he was angry. He knew Clark had secrets and right now he didn't care, except that they meant he couldn't accidentally hurt Clark if he let himself go a little bit.

He stroked Clark's cock and could feel that heartbeat throb in his hand. He was holding Clark right now, squeezing and pulling, making him moan, making him whimper, teasing him and doing everything he had only dreamed of in the night.

The sight of Clark naked in his hand made his mouth water. He wanted to taste.

He was screaming, though no sound came out. His mouth was wide open and his back was arching but there was just this hitching, gasping breath coming out and it felt so damn good!

He writhed, almost out of control, but just careful enough not to throw Lex off, not wanting to lose that mouth and tongue, those nipping, grazing teeth. His body trembled and he could feel his balls drawing up and he knew he was about to come but he couldn't say anything because all of the words had been sucked away with his brain.

He was going to come he was going to come he was going to come he was going to

The taste of Clark in his mouth, rich and earthy, salty and with an innocent boyish tang he had loved from the first time he met him, but with a strange otherness in the back of it all that he didn't recognize, but that he found delicious because it was a part of Clark.

He sucked until coarse hairs were tickling around his face and Clark was so limp his body was practically melting into the couch.

Lex pulled back and looked at Clark, a self-satisfied smirk tugging his lips.

Clark was all heavy-lidded eyes and lax muscles, his mouth parted as he breathed. He saw Lex looking at him and grinned, and it was such a sexy expression that Lex couldn't help laughing.

"I I wanna do you next," Clark said, and Lex was all enthusiastic about that. He wanted that luscious mouth on him.

Kneeling between Lex's open legs, he didn't know what to do at first, had to concentrate and think, remember what Lex had done to him and what he'd read on the Internet.

He leaned forward and held Lex's cock gently in his hands, his eyes rolled upward so he could watch Lex's face, see the approval or disappointment there as he figured out what worked.

His tongue went out slowly and he licked the purpled head of Lex's cock, tasting him, wondering how their tastes differed.

When Lex moaned at the touch of his tongue, he smiled suddenly, feeling a glorious burst of confidence. This was definitely what he wanted. He wanted to make Lex moan, wanted to see him burn for him.

He wrapped his lips around Lex and began to lick and suck, tasting him, trying to imagine Lex's cock as a big Lex flavored sucker. His fingers trailed along the base while he found some kind of rhythm and his head began to bob. His fingers squeezed Lex gently, careful of his strength on delicate human flesh. He didn't want to hurt Lex, he just wanted to make him scream.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god" It took him a while to realize that that voice was his.

Clark was doing everything to please him, and even if he didn't quite have the skill of it, the fact that it was Clark down there sucking on him made him almost come just from the thought of it.

"Yeah, right there Yeah, yeah, do that oh god Um, Clark. Could you yeah Squeeze my balls, Clark, I like it Uh hum, yeah, please, oh, oh, yeah" He babbled and moaned and he had to keep his hips from thrusting too hard and jamming him down Clark's throat. He was the experienced one here; he didn't want to do anything to hurt or scare Clark. He had to be careful, because even though Clark had been cursing and talking like he knew what he was saying, Clark was still just an innocent farm boy who

He turned his head and bit hard on the upholstery of the couch as Clark stuck a spit slick finger up his ass and wriggled it until he hit his prostate. It looked like Clark had found that magic button all on his own.

Lex practically bit a chunk off the couch as he came, trying to keep himself from screaming and wailing. His hips jerked uncontrollably as Clark kept stroking that one spot inside him and never stopped sucking. The kid definitely had a natural gift, and he almost didn't seem to need to breathe.

"Did did I do all right?" he hated how nervous he sounded, but he couldn't help it.

Even though he was bigger than Lex, Lex had pulled him down onto his chest so he rested with his head under Lex's chin as Lex stroked his hair. It was a nice place to be and he really didn't want to move anytime soon, even though his legs were hanging off the end of the couch.

"You did great, Clark. You did more than great. We should enroll you in the Sex Olympics, 'cause with a little training, you could be bringing home the gold."

"I would rather just bring home you," Clark said, trying to pretend he wasn't blushing. He guessed all those slash stories he'd read and the porno he'd watched had really paid off, though he'd still been a little afraid of hurting Lex. He was just glad he'd done it right, and he wanted to do it again as soon as possible.

"I love you," he said.

Lex's hand slipped down his back, tracing his spine. "I I love you to." He said the words like they were pulled out of him against his will, but Clark understood. Lex wasn't great at the whole masculine sensitivity thing. It was just nice he had managed to say it at all.

Clark nestled closer against Lex and closed his eyes, listening to him breathe. He wanted to hear this sound always. He didn't want to be alone.

PART FOUR

There was something different about Clark. It was like he had matured years overnight.

As he lifted his cup to sip at his coffee, there was something undeniably sensual about the motion. Lana found herself licking a sweating upper lip and felt her underwear practically soaking through. She wanted that tongue to touch her.

Grabbing up an empty tray and a damp towel, she walked over to his table, putting an extra sway to her walk. He didn't even look at her hips, didn't seem to see her at all even when she was standing right next to her.

"Hi Clark," she said cheerfully.

He twitched and turned to look at her, his eyes wide with surprise. "Oh, hi Lana. How are you?"

She shrugged. "It's another busy day in coffee heaven. But, actually, I came over here for a reason." She bit her lip as though she was uncertain of whether to ask him.

He cocked his head. "What is it Lana?"

"There's some stuff in the backroom and I was wondering" she let it trail off.

Clark smiled. "You need me to help you bring it out? Sure I'll help." He hopped to his feet and tipped back the rest of his coffee before throwing the cup away. "Lead on, McDuff."

"Huh?"

He shrugged and laughed. "I don't know either, it was just something Lex said."

She didn't know why, but Lana's stomach always wanted to clench hard whenever she heard him say that name.

She led him through the crowd to the back storeroom. As soon as the door was closed, she was on him.

His eyes were wide with surprise as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a passionate kiss, grinding herself against him. She wanted him so bad right now, wanted him to be inside her, thrusting and moaning along with her. She wanted those big hands stroking her breasts, those fingers up inside her. She wanted

Lana made a piteous little whine when he used two hands on her shoulders to hold her away from him. "Are you all right, Lana? You didn't get sprayed with any love musk again, did you?" he asked, sounding concerned.

She stared at him and stopped struggling. There was her lipstick smeared across his lips, but he wasn't all happy about it, wasn't crawling on his knees begging to tongue her or anything. There was just friendly worry in his eyes.

She bit her lip and stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest, pulling on her vulnerable pose. "I love you, Clark," she said, her voice low.

* * *

Clark looked at her with disbelief. "Are you joking?"

"I'm serious, Clark. We haven't been spending a lot of time together lately, and I realized when you weren't around all the time that you're special to me. I like you a lot, and I think I might actually love you."

"Are you sure you're not actually Tina Greer pretending to be Lana Lang?" he asked, only half-joking, trying to pretend that none of this was real.

Lana snorted. "Of course not." She stepped closer and laid a gentle hand against his chest, not giving into her temptation to grope. "It's taken me a long time, maybe too long, but I've realized that you mean a lot to me, not just as a friend, but as something more. If we tried, I'm sure we could make a relationship between us work."

Considering she was saying the words he had spent years dreaming about, Clark felt surprisingly unmoved. She was still as pretty as she had always been, and his overactive teenaged hormones still surged whenever she was near, but she wasn't the center of his universe anymore, hadn't been for a long time.

Clark Kent didn't want Lana Lang anymore.

He shifted uncomfortably and reached up to pull her hand away from his chest. "Lana, I'm really sorry, but this isn't going to work."

Her eyes went wide, the whites showing all around. "What do you mean?"

Clark patted her on the shoulder twice, then stepped back. "You're a wonderful person, but I can't be what you want me to be. I already love someone else."

"It's Chloe, isn't it? She got to you first." Her mouth quivered and her eyelids twitched with jealous rage. She was thinking about ripping out hanks of bimbo blond hair at the roots.

"No, Lana, no, it's not Chloe," Clark said, purposely keeping his voice soft and soothing. He could tell by the sound of her heartbeat and the tension radiating from her body that she was about an inch away from flying off the handle.

Though he had always cherished his idle dream of Lana Lang being perfect, he knew for a fact that she wasn't. Being pretty and smart had assured that she had always gotten what she wanted, which had made her rather spoiled beneath the protective layers of her sweet friendliness. She wasn't used to being denied anything that she really wanted.

"I'm really sorry, Lana," he said, then turned and left the storeroom, gently closing the door behind him. She needed a moment to be alone with no prying eyes probing her, wondering what could ever make Princess Lana cry.

"Clark!"

His heart gave a happy lurch and he turned his head toward the door with a grin. "Lex!"

He was almost to the man when the look in Lex's eyes stopped him. Something dark, almost murderous lurked in their depths and he was staring at Clark's face with creepy intensity. "What's wrong, Lex?" Clark asked.

"Not even a day later and you've already found how far love goes." Lex whirled around and stalked out of the Talon so fast that he was already out of sight before Clark broke out of his daze.

What happened? he thought.

He could feel his eyes wanting to burn, but he didn't let them, just tightened his jaw and stood there, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. Lex had looked so happy standing in the door, then had just changed with no warning.

Clark rubbed his face hard and fought the urge to smash something.

It was only when he lowered his hand that he saw the smear of color across the palm of his hand. He cursed and scrubbed two fingers against his lips and pulled them away to look at them. Lipstick. His mouth had been covered with Lana's lipstick and Lex had seen.

"Sonuvabitch!" he cursed loudly, then hurried out of the Talon, not noticing the startled looks directed his way by those that had heard.

Clark Kent cursing? But Clark Kent never cursed!

* * *

"Dammit, dammit, dammit," he ground out as he stomped down the sidewalk toward his car.

He had actually been happy for a moment, so of course the world had to come crashing down on him. It always had.

He was happy at the thought of spending a day with his father when he was nine, so of course the meteors had fallen and he'd lost all of his hair. He'd been happy when his mother was alive, then she died. And now he'd finally found what he'd been searching his whole life for, so of course it couldn't be real.

He had reached his car by the time Clark caught up to him. He had the door half-open when an arm gripped his shoulder hard and spun him around, slamming his butt against the car.

"What do you want?" he snarled, feeling his face twist. Whenever he hurt inside, he raged against the world and hurt the people around him. It was what his father had taught him, what he had always done.

Clark just tightened his hold on his shoulders and looked down at him. "Don't you dare runaway without even asking me for a word of explanation," he said. His tone was conversational, but there was something hard in his eyes.

"I don't need an explanation," Lex said. "You're a teenager with hormones, so you took the chance to get sucked off yesterday. Now today you've realized that you want a nice normal relationship and you've found some pretty girl to fuck. It's fine. Just let me go."

"No!"

Clark leaned forward and kissed Lex hard, possessively. "Don't you ever runaway from me, especially if you think I've done something wrong. You confront me and yell at me and make me feel like a complete ass! Do you hear me? I love you and I'm not going to let you go, especially not for some dumb misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding?" Lex jerked himself out of Clark's grasp and twitched his clothes straight with studied disdain, as though Clark was below notice.

"The misunderstanding where Lana cornered me in the storeroom and kissed me, but I told her that I already had someone else and left."

"Lana? Lana kissed you?" Lex said. "Why aren't you with her right now?"

"Because I'm with you, the man I love."

Lex's heart thundered in his ears. "Lana threw herself at her, but you really turned her down for me?"

Clark nodded. "Yes. You're the only one I want, Lex. I told you I love you." He stepped forward and bent down to kiss Lex again, this time gently, sweetly, the innocent farm boy peeking out.

"And they lived happily ever after," Lex said when the kiss was over, feeling just a little dazed, though of course he didn't show it.

"Screw that," Clark snorted with a laugh. "We may live happy together, but anyone that knows us has to realize we're gonna fight. It's the spark between us. So instead of living happily ever after, let's just live together."

"Amen."

---

Clark and Lex babysat on Tuesday and though they didn't get all touchy-feelie in McDonalds with half the town watching, it was a pretty close thing. Though Clark did feed Lex a couple of French fries and let the extra salt be licked off his fingers, but he didn't think anyone noticed.

Kara disappeared sometime about two weeks after she'd appeared and it was almost possible to forget that she had even been there. She left no sign of her existence behind. Just went out and never came back. She didn't even say good-bye.

Clark hated the way he felt, but some part of him couldn't help but to be relieved that she was gone. It was nice having another Kryptonian around, but she had been so sad about the loss of her world and all her people that it was hard to be around her without getting depressed.

Soon after she left, Clark carefully approached his mom with the fact that he was bisexual and that he was in love with Lex. He only gave her hints, warning her of what was going to come, the probable trouble that was going to fill the whole house with angry words and glaring eyes. She deserved to know so she could get the comfort food ready, plus he was hoping that she would be on his side when he faced his father.

Finally, a month after he began his sexual relationship with Lex, he sat his parents down and said there was something important he had to tell them.

He was gentle about it, but his father still tried to grab his shotgun to teach "that Luthor bastard" to keep his hands to himself.

Clark stopped him and took the gun away, then held him when the man surprisingly began to cry.

"I just wanted you to have as normal a life as possible, but now what are you going to have? You've got people visiting you from the future, and now you're in love with Lex? How did this happen? What did I do wrong?"

Clark hugged his father. "You didn't do anything wrong. I'm just the way I am. I'm the same person I was yesterday. Do you still love me?"

"Of course we love you," Martha said, wrapping her arms around both of them with a surprising strength. "We both knew you would fall in love someday, and we're happy for you. It's just hard to know that we're going to have to let go of our baby soon, that you're growing up and that someday you're going to leave us."

"But I'll never leave you," Clark said. "No matter how far away I go, I'll always love you because you're my parents. It's just I love Lex too, and I want to be with him, and I want you to be happy for me."

"We we will be happy for you, Clark," Martha said. "You just need to give us a little bit of time. We love you so much, and it's hard to let go."

Clark buried his face in that space between his parents' arms, feeling the human warmth of them. "I'll always be here, I promise."

Afterward, when Jonathan had calmed down enough to be coherent, Martha suggested that maybe they should invite Lex over for dinner. They had to get used to him being more than just Clark's friend, and they all agreed that it would take a bit of time, but they would try.

The dinner was strained with sudden silences and a few angry words, but it mostly went well, and after that first step, it was easier for them all. Jonathan was never going to like Lex, but they would try to tolerate each other for Clark's sake. And at the end of the dinner before he headed out to the barn to watch a movie with Clark, Martha grabbed Lex's hand and held it for a long moment while she stared in his eyes. Then she kissed him on the lips and said he was a good boy. It made him feel oddly warm.

Though it had been hard, telling Clark's parents about them gave Lex the strength he needed to tell his father. It didn't go well.

"You're a fucking faggot? Goddammit, Lex, why do you keep doing this to me?" Lionel raged.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Lex screamed. His face was red with rage and he fought the urge to kill. "This isn't about you--this is about me! I am gay and I'm in love with Clark."

"What will his parents say when they find out you've been fucking their little boy?"

"We already told them. They were upset, but they were very understanding. I just thought that you should know I'm happy." Then Lex glared at the blind man in front of him. "And I also wanted to warn you.

"I know you spy on me, and I wanted to make sure you didn't find out about me and Clark from one of your stoodges. I wanted to tell you to your face that if you ever hurt him, I will do things to you that will make hell seem a mercy."

"What's that Lexy? Suddenly grown a spine? Did your pretty boy fuck some courage into you?"

Lex couldn't help it. He just lost it.

One minute he was looking at his father, and the next Lionel was on the floor holding a hand to his split lip. A thin smirk twitched his mouth, but it wasn't in dark amusement--it was a prelude to one of his most powerful, out of control rages.

"Get the hell out!" Lionel roared. "You are not my son! I will grind you into the ground and you and your precious Kent will be penniless beggars on the street. Now get out of here before I have you dragged out and beaten!"

"Fine, Lionel." Lex turned on his head and forced himself to walk, not run out of there.

Later that night, Clark held him while he trembled in his arms. Clark whispered little secrets in his ear and said that everything was going to be all right, that that bastard old man wasn't going to hurt them.

LexCorp took a hit the next month, then another, and hemorrhaged money for awhile, but Lex worked night and day and eventually brought things back up to pre-Lionel's intervention. Then, angry at his father and desperate to make him suffer, he began to build his own empire, one to truly rival LuthorCorp. He would show his father what he had lost, what he had discarded.

For Clark it was hard to see his lover tearing himself apart, but he still stood by Lex and steadied him when he wavered. He kept Lex from doing anything that went beyond that invisible line in the sand, made sure that Lex never became his father.

And when he was certain that Lex was going to be all right, Clark finally revealed his secret. It was on the night that he proposed, offering the truth of his alien origin along with the gold ring he had scrimped and saved to buy with his own money.

Lex was angry that he had kept his secret for so long, but he understood and let it go.

They were married in a private ceremony in Hawaii a week after Clark graduated high school. Clark's friends and family were all there, and Lex invited everyone that had joined LexCorp when he started it. He flew them all out in private jets and bought a hotel on the beach, changing its name to the Royal Kent Hotel in honor of Clark.

After a week of celebration, everyone else flew back and Clark and Lex had their honeymoon in an empty hotel with a full serving staff to cater to their every whim. It was a wonderful month all around.

* * *

Punishing his son and pushing him away, that was what Lionel always did. He firmly believed that whatever harsh words he happened to say to his son were all to the boy's good. It made him stronger.

He felt like he was proved right when LexCorp began to rise up through the standings, quickly becoming a rival for LuthorCorp. It enraged him, but it also made something begin burning a little inside him, something that might have been pride.

Since the day Lex had been made bald by the meteorites, Lionel had felt a sense of shame. It was his fault his son had been there at just that time, his fault because he hadn't wanted to spend time with the boy and had been yelling at him, criticizing him. Then the meteors began to fall and he found Lex all curled up in the field, so still and broken looking, his hair fallen away so that his skull was just this shining white shell, everything inside delicate and so terribly breakable.

Every time he saw Lex, he got a flash in his head of that still little body lying there on the ground. He would see Lex in the hospital with tubes sticking out of him every which way, unconscious and unmoving. Whenever he looked at Lex, he was filled with the guilt of that little boy hurting so much and it being all his fault, and he was not made to feel such things, so he lashed out. He said the cruel words and watched the hurt rise and when Lex screamed back at him, it made him feel better, because somehow a yelling, evil spirited Lex was a proof that Lex wasn't that broken little boy anymore, that he wasn't going to fall apart and die.

Lionel knew that he hurt his son with the things that he said and did, but he believed it was all for a greater good. He was not raising a saint to walk around in the desert barefoot, no, he was raising a warrior king, an emperor that would rule over vast estates and uncountable riches and not be bowed down by the weight of such flimsy things as morality and compassion. He was raising a man that would stand at the forefront of the masses when the world ended and scream his defiance at the enemy and taunt death with his laughter.

He was raising a son he could be proud of, a man that he could look at without feeling guilty because of the hairless, fragile curves of a bared skull.

---

Lex was fascinated by the pod that had brought Clark to Earth and spent a week soon after their honeymoon poking at it. He would have spent more time playing around with it, but he accidentally pushed a wrong button and something happened.

A silver ball shot out of the back of the pod and bounced around the lab, slamming into the wall, leaving dimples in the concrete. Knowing that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to be hit by the ball, Lex ducked under a metal table and just watched to see what was happening.

The ball bounced here and there and finally managed to punch a hole through the door before disappearing. He never found it.

When Lex told Clark what had happened, Clark yelled at him for about an hour, then fell on him with kisses and worried hugs. Lex promised not to touch the ship after that.

---

Lana was never able to look at Clark in the same way after he rejected her. She still believe somewhere in her that she loved him, but there was nothing she could do about it. He wouldn't even let her get close to him like that again, though he still gave her that bright smile. They would never be lovers. They would only be friends.

After high school she attended the local community college while she continued to run the Talon. She took business courses and began thinking about what she was going to do with her little coffee shop in the future. She had dreams of it not being so little anymore, dreams of great things.

Pete Ross got a college scholarship, but managed to blow it in the first month when he got in a car accident that lost him his leg. He returned home to Smallville to recuperate.

He and Lana began to have daily meetings at the Talon. They would drink coffee and talk, and eventually they discovered that they were more than friends.

They enjoyed a May wedding and from all over their friends came, even Chloe from her New York college where she was studying journalism. She had given up her dreams of being an investigative reporter and had settled instead on being a war correspondent. She wanted to show the world the horrors or war, give them a warning about the error of fighting. She gave the happy couple an album of pictures she had taken over the years and included some from of her recent works.

Clark gave Lana a hard hug after the ceremony and ignored the way she looked at him, the tears in her eyes that she tried to pretend were from happiness, and lifted Pete clear off his feet. He and Lex gave them the deed to the new house they had had built and Lex sat Lana down with a plan for expanding the Talon into a chain of coffee shops that he hoped would put the expensive Starbucks out of business. He'd had a grudge against Starbucks ever since he found a hair in the bottom of his cup. He knew for sure it wasn't his.

Lana was happy to take the advice and began her great business. Instead of the Talon, she named the chain stores "Ross Lang's," and later went on to expand from coffee to delis to restaurants and eventually onto a hotel that she named after her daughter Lena Ross.

---

Lionel Luthor and all of his objections to their relationship died when Lex was 25 and Clark was 19. They were living in the small brownstone Clark had picked out when the old man finally died, just keeled over and never got up.

He had been going strong for a long time, but had just suddenly crumbled away with no warning. A tiny little squeezed vessel in his brain and BAM. His funeral was a week after his death.

It was sad for Clark to see how much Lex was hurting, but Lex refused to say anything about it. He had always wanted his father's acceptance, and now he was never going to get it. The old man had had the last laugh after all, leaving Lex to always strive and strain against a wall that was no longer there.

Dressed in black suits, Lex and Clark went to Lionel's funeral. There were about a million people there and flashing cameras, but they stood in their lonely front row splendor. It was kind of ironic that Lionel was having his service in a church. If ever there was an antichrist

After the funeral they retreated to their hotel room where Clark held Lex back from hurting himself as the multitrillionaire raged and screamed, cursing his father and everything the man had ever been. It only got worse when they found out that Lionel hadn't really disinherited Lex, had in fact left him everything as the sole heir.

With the merging of LexCorp and LuthorCorp under Lex's control, Lex was the richest man in the world. Too bad all that money couldn't buy him the one thing he wanted--his father's pride.

---

Somewhere in Antarctica, a silver sphere the size of two joined fists burrowed its way far beneath the surface of the ice and began to bloom. It unfolded like a flower, cables shooting out in all directions to pump nanobots into the earth.

Ice began to form together and a shape grew out of the nothingness, a palace built on the dreams and memories of a dead race. The ice hardened and was changed by the nanobots into crystals, pulsing pink veins flowing through everything, pumping with the self-replicating nanobots.

Molecular transformation was an old Kryptonian technology, but Jor-El had included a little something special for his son, the only known survivor of Krypton. Deep beneath the ice, something began to grow.

The Fortress of Solitude waited in lonely splendor in the middle of the Arctic for its master to find it and reclaim his heritage.

If he had powered up the pod, he would have seen the green blip of the homing beacon pointing the way to the Fortress. But he didn't see it. Not yet.

---

They moved into the Metropolis apartment that Lionel had left behind and Clark went to Metropolis University. They had a lot of fun through those hectic college years, going to see plays and movies and baseball games in between Lex helping to tutor Clark through his weakest classes so he ended up with a perfect 4.0 GPA. Making Clark happy let Lex forget his pain, and Clark knew it, so he played along.

No matter how hard he worked controlling the Luthor empire, Lex always had time for Clark. He would drop everything for Clark and they both knew it, so Clark was careful what he asked for, because he didn't want to be too greedy. Lex was his, and he had to force himself not to mind sharing him with the world. Plus there was the whole fear that he would make the mistake of asking for something stupid--like "I want the heart of that man"--and Lex would bring it to him. There was just no knowing what was going to happen.

At 22 years old, Clark started work at the Daily Planet as an investigative reporter. The whole thought of holding down a real job was kind of a rush, but he hid it well. He pretended to be Lex and didn't let his excitement show, and definitely didn't run around squealing like a girl. There was no reason to show off his rustic Smallville roots just yet by getting hyped up over any little thing, especially if it was just the fact that he had gotten a bottom rung position at the paper.

To make himself look older, he bought a pair of black framed glasses. Lex laughed and teased him, but he shrugged it off. Better to look like a geek, then a little kid too young to even read the paper.

Perry White called Lois Lane into his office and Clark met his partner for the first time. She was a little abrasive, but had a rough kind of charm to her. Though from the way she talked, he half expected her to dress like a merchant marine and carry a swagger stick.

"I don't want a motherfuckin' partner, Per," she snarled as soon as the office door was shut behind them. She stalked up to Perry's desk and slammed her fist on it, hard. Clark half-expected to see the wood buckle and split. There was just something about her, like nothing in the world would stop her from getting what she wanted.

"I work fine alone. I don't need a newbie hanging around, chasing off the leads. Give him to someone else to babysit." Lois turned her head to glare at Clark. "He's a fucking baby, look at him. He shouldn't be in this job. He needs to be working in metro or something."

Clark sat up straight and let a little fire enter his eyes. "I want to be an investigative reporter."

Something a little like respect sparked in her eyes for a second, but it didn't last long. "Come on Perry. Give him to someone else."

Perry White just sat back in his chair for a long moment looking at her. His elbows were propped on his chair arms and his fingers were tented under his chin. "He's yours, Lane. Show him the ropes and don't let him screw up too bad right out of the gate."

She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped when he lowered his eyelids and Glared at her. It was kind of weird that someone so nice looking could have such a sinister look. "Show him the job, Lois. He's your partner until I say otherwise. Now get out of here so I can get back to work."

Lois turned on her heel and stalked toward the door. "Come on, small town," she muttered as she passed Clark.

As he was leaving himself, Clark chanced a glance back and got a smile and a wink from Perry. It kind of made him feel better. At the least the legendary man himself thought he was going to make a name for himself here--and not one as a bumbling idiot.

Clark followed Lois out into the bullpen toward her desk, which was at the very center of everything. Perry had already told him that that was where Lois' desk was the first time she won the Pulitzer, so she kept the spot for luck. Nobody ever talked about it--because she would probably start breaking bones--but she actually had a pretty strong belief in the whole good luck/bad luck thing, and occasionally followed signs and portents that most people would ignore. Which was never supposed to be talked about because she was the 'sensible, unshakable female reporter,' not some superstitious shmoo.

She thought that believing in luck was a shameful weakness.

"Well, looks like he gave orders to wait until we got into his office before he had your desk brought in," Lois growled, snaring at the offending bit of furniture.

Facing Lois' desk was a twin, like the ugly hunks of wood, plastic and metal had mated. The desk was clean topped with only a phone and a stapler standing side by side near the right corner. Compared to Lois' computer laden shitpit, it was a wonder. How she found anything in that mess of paper, Post-It notes, chocolate bar wrappers and loose pens was beyond him.

Clark walked over to his desk and sat down, wondering what was going to happen next.

"Hey, man," a voice called.

Clark turned to see a redheaded guy with a face full of freckles waving at him from near the water cooler. "Your computer hasn't come yet. I'll have it set up when it arrives," the kid said.

Clark nodded. "Thanks. I'm Clark Kent."

"Jimmy Olsen." He filled his X-men mug with hot water. "You're lucky you came on a quiet day," he said, ignoring the fact that he practically had to yell to be heard over all the chattering voices and ringing phones.

This place is a madhouse, and this is a quiet day? Oh man, I wanna go home. Clark clenched his left hand into a fist, but didn't run away. This was the job he wanted and he would stick it through, no matter that he was having a real bad case of first day jitters.

Jimmy waved at him as he walked out the door, but didn't say a good-bye.

"That Jimmy's a real piece of work," Lois said, watching him go. "He's an intern, but he acts like he really works here. His brain is a complete chunk of shit sometimes. Occasionally, he acts like he really needs to be flushed."

Wow, she's a bit of a bitch, isn't she? Clark thought. It took a lot to keep from glaring when he looked back at her. Any guy she settles with is gonna be someone that doesn't mind being a little whipped monkey boy. I can almost see the bare chest and loin cloth now.

"So, Smallville, how does it feel to be in the big city?" she asked, sitting her butt on the side of his desk. It didn't escape him that she was showing a lot of bare leg. He wondered if the Daily Planet even had any kind of dress code. Skirts that short, and purple, probably shouldn't have been worn anywhere in public. It made him wonder if she was colorblind along with her other virtues.

"I've been to Metropolis before," he said, opening and closing drawers to see if anything was inside. All he found was a yellow legal pad and a box of black pens.

"Of course you've been to Metropolis," Lois said, humoring him. "You probably came to sell produce or something."

God, she kind of reminds me of Lex, but before he mostly grew out of his asshole stage. She's a real ball breaker definitely a leather chick. At least he had the excuse of his mega-billionaire heritage to excuse him from not knowing what a farmer really did.

"Sure, Lois. We came to sell corn at the local AM/PM ever Friday. On Saturday we'd have square dancing and wrestle pigs for a special treat." He put so much sarcasm in the words they probably should have congealed in the air.

Her lips twitched. "You really don't like me, do you?"

Clark looked right at her. "You know you're giving me a hard time and acting like a complete bitch. If I wanted to throw myself at you with hero-worship in my eye after you've made an ass of yourself like that, then I'd be an idiot. As it is, stop treating me like one, 'cause I'm not."

Something almost like respect crossed her face. "You've got balls, you know that? No one's talked to me like that in a long time. I've decided that we can probably work together."

"Oh goody."

Thus he was partnered with Lois Lane, who was nicknamed the Cast Iron Bitch behind her back. And it wasn't like he didn't know his own nickname as soon as it came out--the Bitch's Boy--but he didn't care. He had a job he was beginning to like and a husband that loved him. Nothing anyone said could ever hurt him.

---

Clark never planned on being Superman; had decided to avoid that future completely. It was just an accident that it happened anyway.

One day in March when he was 24, he was standing in a crowd of people watching Lois make an idiot of herself trying to get the "lowdown" on what the NASA over-budget spending was buying during a shuttle launch party when it happened.

The experimental shuttle Farseeker II was lifting off when it suddenly gave a sputtering sound in its launch and tipped off course, headed right toward the Control and Observation Complex.

"Oh shit," one of the headset wearing white shirts cursed. "That bitch is gonna hurt."

Alarms being blaring and someone screamed.

"People, people, you have to stay calm," Major Trent ordered, though the command was a little weak when he was that pale and shaky.

He didn't bother ordering an evacuation, because there was no way they could get out before they were incinerated by tons worth of speeding shuttle. They were all going to die, and they knew it.

Even as panic began to take over the people around him, Clark felt as if he was dropped into a moment of complete calm. Everything began to slow around him and he was just suddenly so sure of what to do.

Without hesitation, he supersped out of the building, zipping in between the milling crowd as if they were statues. No one even knew he was gone, because a second hadn't even passed yet.

He left the complex and launched himself into the air once he was outside, aiming himself at the out of control shuttle.

Without even questioning that he was going to be able to do it, he caught the shuttle and lifted it to carry it back to the launch pad. It was so much bigger than him, but in that moment it felt lighter than air. With this strength, he could do anything he wanted. It was amazing.

Once he settled the shuttle back in place, he rose up in the air to hover for a minute with a hand on his chin, admiring his handiwork.

Cheers broke him out of his silent reverie. People had come spilling out of the building and were pointing at him and cheering loudly, sounding as if they would never stop.

He waved, then zipped up and out of sight.

He moved so fast that no one saw him take a turn around the city and come up behind the complex where he slowed to become a merely walking Clark Kent, following the rest of the crowd out under the open sky. No one questioned that he hadn't always been there, because where else could he have been?

Clark wasn't surprised when he came in to work the next morning to see the Planet's headline: Mysterious Flying Man New Friend?

The phones were ringing with people calling in to say they didn't believe there was any flying man, or that they did believe, because they were him.

"That was pretty amazing yesterday, wasn't it Clark?" Lois said. She had mellowed a little from working with him for a year.

He shrugged. "Yeah, a flying man, wow."

She gave him a weird look, and he smiled. She shook her head and went back to her computer.

Clark sighed and rubbed his temple. He was glad that the only pictures anyone had managed to take of him were kind of blurry with his head turned away, or had him with a hand covering part of his face.

He really didn't want to end up on a dissection table somewhere.

Unable to help himself, he grabbed the phone and began stabbing a number from memory.

"Luthor?" Lex answered his own private line.

"Hey, it's me," Clark said, glad to hear that voice.

"Clark. This is a pleasant surprise." Lex sounded so happy to hear from him. "Are you having a good day?"

Unconsciously, Clark shook his head. "Have you read the Planet today?"

"No, just the Journal. What's wrong? You sound kind of strange," his voice lowered to a whisper.

"I miss you," Clark said, bowing his head a little as he lowered his voice, not wanting anyone to see him. "I need you. When are you coming home?"

Lex had been in Tokyo for the past month. "I should be home soon. What happened?"

"I can't read the Daily Planet. It tells everything. I I miss you. I love you." Clark choked a little and hung up the phone, not giving Lex time to say anything else.

"Who was that?"

His head jerked up and he looked at Lois. "W-what?" he asked.

She squinted at him. "Were you talking to your mysterious love bunny?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

Lois slapped her hands down on her desk. "Come on, small time. Everyone knows you've got a wife, we've all seen the ring. Why don't you just tell us who it is already? What's the big secret?"

Clark felt himself going red all the way up to his ears. He shook his head a little, letting his hair fall across his eyes. "Because he's not a girl."

"What? You've got a husband? Why didn't you ever say you were gay?" she asked. "I could have set you up with my cousin Maurice."

"Come on, Lois, just I don't need you to set me up. I'm already married, and happily."

"Well?" She leaned forward intently.

"Well what?" he asked.

"God, small time, just give me the news already! Why do you have to keep him a big secret?"

Clark shrugged. "I don't know, it's not really a secret. We've been together for years, and I just I'm not much into telling people our business."

"Oh, I know," Lois said. "You're the original reticent hermit when you get home, I bet. He's probably an accountant or something, right? Short and balding and wears glasses almost as thick as yours?"

Clark pushed his glasses up his nose. They were only plain glass, but they looked like they should have a really spectacular prescription to go with them. "Something like that," he said. "Can we just leave it alone?"

"Ooh, now you've got me interested," she cooed, her eyes flashing curiosity like knives. "I think I want to meet this mystery man."

"Maybe I'll introduce you sometime," he said, feeling desperate to let the conversation go. He scrabbled around for some kind of bone to throw her. "Did you find out anything about the flying man yet?"

She groaned loudly. "No! And it's driving me crazy. No one has heard anything about him. It was like he just popped in from another planet then disappeared."

Clark had to bow his head again to keep her from noticing his laugh. He had come in from another planet.

He was lying on the couch in the living room when the apartment door swung open and Lex came walking through, gesturing for his bags to be set down near the door and for the two young men to leave.

"Lex!" Clark breathed, leaping to his feet to bound over to him.

"I hopped a plane right after you hung up," Lex said. He sounded tired, but his arms were strong when he wrapped them tight around Clark, holding him close. "What happened?"

"It was horrible," Clark said, burying his face in the shorter man's neck. He breathed in the smell of Lex, wrapping it around him to keep the fear away.

"Come on, let's go in the bedroom. I want to change out of this suit," Lex, said, leading Clark from the room. Clark let himself be dragged by the hand, his head lowered and his body suddenly feeling dull. It was as though Lex's returning home had finally let him let go.

Lex set him down on the bed before hurriedly stripping off his suit and changed into a pair of dark blue silk pajamas. He crawled up onto the bed and propped some pillows behind his back before settling in comfortably with his shoulders against the headboard, patting his lap for Clark. "Come on, tell me what happened."

Clark knew Lex had read the newspaper as soon as their phone call ended, but he also knew that Lex wanted to get the facts from him, not from people that didn't even know all that had happened.

Clark lay his body down and rested his heavy head in Lex's lap. The bed was wide enough that his feet didn't even hang over the edge. Lex liked a lot of room when they were playing around. Right now, Clark could only be glad, because he needed to have his head petted and stroked by his lover.

"It was horrible, Lex. The shuttle was going to hit the station, so I had to stop it. But now everyone knows there's some flying freak out there and it's all they're talking about."

"You're not a freak," Lex said, stroking the backs of his fingers across Clark's forehead.

"They don't know that. To them, I'm some weird mutant." Tears filled his eyes. "At first they were just happy I saved those people, but now some of them are saying I could really hurt someone, that the only reason I don't reveal myself is because I'm evil or something. It I know it shouldn't bother me, but it does. It makes me feel bad."

"Ah, Clarky." Lex leaned down and kissed him on the lips, a nice upside down kiss with his chin bumping Clark's nose.

Clark pulled himself away and sat up. "Fuck me, Lex. Make me forget all the mean things they said. Give me" his lips twitched, "give me a complete systems reboot."

He straddled Lex's legs and began unbuttoning the pajama shirt with an intent expression.

Lex raised his hands as though to stop him for a moment, before lowering them onto Clark's shoulders instead. He began to knead the knotted muscles there, recognizing that Clark was under a lot of stress right now. "Strip and lie on your back," he ordered.

Clark nodded and knee-walked a little backward to pull his shirt off over his head and lie on his back to unzip and jerk off his jeans and underwear. Naked, he just lay there in the middle of the bed, his head lifted a little so he could look between his knees at Lex.

* * *

It was obvious that Clark was hurting, but Lex knew what to do to make it better.

He took off his pajamas and dropped them over the side of the bed. Then he crawled up Clark's body to match himself pelvis to pelvis to his lover. "Do you feel me here?" he asked.

Clark lay his head back and look at him, his eyes the only part of him moving. There wasn't even a flutter of excited heartbeat at his throat. His heart never pounded like crazy, not even when he was wracked with fear or pain or excitement. It was always this steady thrum that vibrated through his whole body.

Lex sometimes liked to lay his head on Clark's chest and just listen to that heartbeat. It was like a metronome, steady and unbroken. It always sounded as though it could go on beating forever, even after the world had crumbled to dust. It made Lex feel as if Clark was always going to be there with him. He never had to be alone as long as that heart was going strong.

He knew that Clark was afraid of himself sometimes and it hurt him to see Clark in so much pain and know that there was nothing he could do about it. No matter how many people reassured him, Clark was the only one that could make Clark believe that everything was going to be okay.

"They all think I'm some kind of monster," Clark whispered. He close his eyes tight, but tears still leaked out of the corners.

Lex sighed and pulled himself up Clark's body enough that he could lick those tears away, tasting the salt tang on his tongue. "They don't even know you, so fuck 'em all," he said.

Clark shook his head back and forth, his eyes still shut. His mouth quivered a little and he looked impossibly young lying there, vulnerable to the world and all the mean things people said about him. "I know it's stupid to let them hurt my feelings, but I can't help it. They say those things about me and it feel like a thousand knives slicing into my body. It's so stupid, so dumb, so" his voice broke.

Lex pressed his forehead against Clark's and felt anger smolder in his belly. He hated to see Clark in pain like this, and if he thought Clark would ever let him do it, he would have destroyed everyone that dared to say a single disparaging thing about his gentle farm boy. "Don't cry," he said. "I'm here with you, not them. You saved lives. You're a hero, so don't let them make you feel bad."

Clark wrapped his arms around Lex's waist. "I love you Lex." He kissed Lex's mouth. His eyes opened, glowing bright, almost burning. Sometimes Lex was almost afraid when he saw that look, afraid that Clark was going to burn out someday, and when that happened he would hurt anyone that had ever hurt his Clark, would give them back a thousand times the pain they had ever inflicted on his beloved.

"Fuck me now," Clark hissed, lifting his head to kiss Lex hungrily on the mouth. "Fuck me so hard I forget everything they said about me. Fuck me."

Lex looked at Clark, gauging whether it was the right thing to do. Sometimes Clark asked for things that he shouldn't have, things that could hurt him. But right now all Clark had in him was the need to be fucked.

Climbing to his knees to grab the lube off the headboard, Lex gasped when Clark reached after him to grab his balls, squeezing tight enough for pain before letting go, his hand trailing down and up over Lex's ass.

"That was so wrong," Lex said, bouncing on his knees on the bed to watch Clark be lifted a few inches off the mattress with impacts. "I'm going to fuck you so hard you're going to be walking funny."

Clark grinned, though there was still a residual darkness in his eyes. "Bring it on, rich boy. I want to see which will win in a fair fight: your Lex cock or my invulnerable ass."

"At least you didn't say impenetrable ass, 'cause that would make this a whole exercise in futility." Lex rolled his eyes.

Clark swatted at him, but he easily avoided it.

"On your knees, slave!" Lex added a bit of whip to his voice, putting on his dom voice.

Clark mock-trembled before flipping over and getting on all fours. His back was a smooth arch with the ridges of his spinal cord giving the eye a line to follow, a sense of perfect symmetry from the crack of his ass up and up to the vulnerable curve of his neck. His knees were braced wide and he dug his toes into the comforter, the pads of his feet flexing as he wriggled his toes.

Lex stared at Clark for a long moment, admiring his beauty. He was already hard, and it only got worse when Clark turned his head to give him a quick cheeky grin before flexing his ass, the little hole puckering and contracting. Lex swallowed.

He popped the lid off the lube and squirted about half of it into his hand, a cool glob that he rubbed between his palms to warm up before coating his cock, moaning a little as he stroked himself.

"Hey, what about me?" Clark asked, looking back at him again. There was a hungry look on Clark's face that made Lex's mouth go dry.

"Patience, patience," he said, forcing his voice to cool amusement and not raging hard-on with vocal cords.

He moved close behind Clark and closed his eyes. His head tipped back as he began to rub lube on Clark's asshole, making his touch delicate, almost feathery, feeling Clark twitch and giggle, then he stabbed his finger in, not hard enough for pain, but enough to be a surprise for someone expecting a gentle touch. Clark gasped and moaned. Lex could almost feel Clark clawing the blankets with his hands. He smiled beatifically and added another finger.

With the fingers of his left hand slipping themselves one by one into Clark, he braced his right hand on Clark's hip to keep from stroking himself. With the pulse of Clark's heart warm and solid through his fingers, he was so hard it almost hurt.

"Fuck me Lex! Goddamn you, you bastard, fuck me now!" Clark screamed.

Lex leaned forward to lay a gentle kiss on the globe of Clark's left buttock. "As you command."

He pulled his hand back and Clark groaned, then "yipped!" when Lex immediately slammed into him so hard and far that Lex made a little sound in his throat, wondering if he would manage to break something next time. He sighed a little as the tight walls squeezed around him, Clark wordlessly ordering him to move. He pulled back, then slammed in again, out, in, out, in. His hands clenched on Clark's hipbones like they were handles.

He moved faster and faster, humping so hard he felt as if his skeleton was going to rip out of his skin. His heart was singing in his ears, and Clark's pumped around his cock. He could feel himself just on the edge of some great light, heat brushing against his skin and heaven on the other side.

He opened his eyes in time to see Clark, moaning in his throat, lifting his right hand, about ready to bring it back and finish himself off. "No," Lex ordered. "Don't touch yourself."

"But I need"

"I know what you need," Lex said, then gasped and shuddered. He made a wordless, wailing noise and his hips slammed forward once, twice, three times, and he was done. He collapsed over Clark's back, trying to breathe.

"I didn't get to come," Clark complained when Lex rolled off of him and onto his back.

Lex met Clark's accusing eyes and managed a weak grin. "There was a reason for that, Clark. I want you to fuck me now."

"Oh." Clark thought about it, then shrugged. "All right, that's fairer then you getting yourself off on me then leaving me to finish up alone."

Lex laughed. "You sound like a woman complaining about how she had to fake an orgasm then retreat to the bathroom to use her vibrator."

Carefully stroking lube onto himself, Clark looked up at Lex. "You've never said. Did that happen to you?"

"No." Lex stretched his arms above his head and flexed his entire body, feeling his muscles draw tight under his skin. He liked the way it made Clark's eyes dilate. "All my lovers always left my bed fully satisfied and willing to receive call backs."

"Huh." Clark slipped a finger in Lex, laughing when Lex gasped and collapsed from his stretch, his body quivering and his legs drawing up instinctively. "I guess I'm lucky to have you for my own personal sex god, huh Lex?"

"Oh yeah." Lex gestured for Clark to move up his body. "Clark Kent, brand name sex toy."

Clark kept his finger stroking in and out of Lex as he kissed him on the lips. "I like it when we do it this way. It's fun to have you pounding into me, but its I don't know, something, when I can actually see you looking at me."

Lex smiled the shark toothed grin that only came out when they were having sex. "If you wanna let me watch you come, then you better get started, huh? I'm loose enough. Sex me, baby, sex me." He started laughing like crazy.

"You are such a freak sometimes, you know that?" Clark said, but obligingly pulled his hand out of Lex's ass to grab Lex's legs and bring them over his shoulders. "Ready?"

Lex nodded, then gasped when Clark slipped in. "Oh yeah, I like this. You have a good hand with hitting my prostate."

"It's not my hand I'm using right now."

"Whatever. Perv."

---

People forgot about the flying man when the next bit of news came along, and Clark could almost relax. He went back to his normal life and wrote several articles that won him praise and recognition from the people that mattered. It made him feel good when he framed the newspaper pages and hung them on the hallway wall. He was actually becoming a real reporter.

Then tragedy struck the city in the form of a superpowered human-shaped rock called Goliath. Literally made out of stone, the monster started crushing buildings downtown and several people were killed, much to Clark's shame.

He was watching Goliath bust up buildings on the news with everyone else at the Daily Planet, wondering if he should try to help stop the creature, but afraid to do anything because people would take notice of him again.

But when he saw a fireman rush past the creature to grab up a still and unmoving child in his arms and run to safety, leaving her mother lying where she had fallen, her head cracked wide open, Clark felt a stab of guilt. He could have saved those people, but he had let them die. He was as much of a monster as Goliath.

He hurried out of the newsroom and to the roof of the Daily Planet. Standing on the ledge of the building gazing down, he narrowed his eyes and made his decision.

He hadn't wanted to be Superman because he'd seen the misery in that future version's eyes, but he couldn't let this continue, couldn't let more people die because he was afraid of being made fun of.

He zipped across the sky to the apartment, entering through the balcony doors and striding quickly to the hallway closet and a trunk he had promised himself he would never open.

Even though he had told himself over and over again that he was never going to be Superman, he had still had a costume made just in case. He was never going to be Superman, but just in case, he wanted something ready.

He pulled the skintight black Lycra and spandex bodysuit out of the trunk and stripped off his clothes, slipping into the costu uniform.

After he had seen what future Clark was wearing as Superman--a blue bodysuit with a red and orange S on the front, yellow underwear, red boots, and a red cape--he had pretty much decided that no, he really wasn't that gay. He guessed that future Clark's conscious repression of his sexual nature had resulted in the need to show it in another way, i.e. a really hideous outfit that would drive his enemies colorblind if they already weren't.

With the help of Lex's keen fashion sense, Clark had designed a new costume. It was black with a white and black S on the front and came with black steel-toed boots and a silvery-grey cape that brushed the ground behind him when he walked. From what Supergirl had said, he figured capes were the common derigeur of the everyday superhero outfit, so he might as well fit in.

He slicked his hair back with a dab of gel, releasing one single lock to curl on his forehead. It made him feel a bit like Harry Potter, his own cheap version of the lightning bolt scar.

With a running leap off the balcony, he flew at superspeed to where the sounds of destruction were coming from. His superhearing picked up panicked screams, but his job was to take care of the monster first. Rescue aid personnel would have to handle everything else for now.

* * *

Being made out of stone meant that Goliath had a rather simplistic mind. What this translated to was that usually he existed in a state of childlike enjoyment, everything in the world a wonder to see and experience.

Right now, though, something had woken up the anger inside and his only thought was to SMASH and DESTROY.

He wanted to smoosh the squishy things, wanted to turn the buildings into rumble, wanted to break everything that he saw.

SMASH and DESTROY!

He lifted his fist to slam another one of the squishy things into putty when something zipped across his view and he found himself hurtling backward to slam into a brick building. This made him angry.

With a roar that sounded like an avalanche sliding down the mountain, he charged the new thing to break.

* * *

Lex was in a meeting when the commotion broke out in the hallway. Rising, he opened the door to look out. He found all of the secretaries and staff standing around the TV mounted on the wall in the corner. They sounded scared and excited.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Maggie, his personal secretary, looked back at him. "A monster is crushing parts of the city, but there's a guy fighting it. He can fly."

"He's that mysterious flying man from before," one of the mailboys said, staring raptly at the screen.

Lex whirled and hurried to the table to lunge at the remote control. He ignored the reaction of the men and women around him. He turned on the news.

"Holy shit, that's amazing!" Hauser Bent said loudly, raking his usually perfectly coiffed blond hair back from his forehead.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, Lex thought. His whole body was burning and he thought he might be about to pass out.

That was Clark buzzing around the sixty foot tall rock monster like a hummingbird, pausing his flight only long enough to land punches and kicks that sent the monster rolling, though it always got up. The monster roared in rage and tried to take a swipe at Clark, missing badly. Clark kicked it in the jaw as revenge.

Even knowing Clark could probably survive a nuclear blast, Lex felt as though Clark was going to get killed at any moment. And no matter how many times Clark hit the monster, it didn't seem to do any good. The thing kept getting up again, and even though his strength was more than a match, Clark couldn't seem to get a grip on it to pick it up and throw it, his hands too small in comparison to each of the monster's parts.

"I have to do something," Lex said, charging out of the boardroom.

He hurried into his office and to his private elevator. There were secret escape routes creviced throughout the building, but this one was more secret than most. It led to the deepest basement of the building where he had stored a little something he liked to call Anarchy.

* * *

"Oh Jonathan, do you think that thing is going to hurt him?"

Jonathan turned his head to glance at his wife. Martha was sitting almost in his lap, her hands gripping his so tightly that it hurt. "He's going to be fine," he said, even though he was just as worried. "Clark has handled worse things than this, and with less powers too. Remember, he wasn't always able to fly and wasn't always completely invulnerable. There were times" His voice cracked and he hurriedly had to clear his throat. "There were times when he faced worse physical danger and still won."

They watched on TV as their son landed on the creatures head and began to slam punches down on its skull in a measured way that Jonathan remembered from teaching the boy to cut wood.

Dust rained down around him, but the monster didn't really seem to be hurting. It batted at him futilely, its arms unable to reach the top of its own head, but it didn't seem to be slowing down.

Finally it seemed to decide that Clark wasn't much of a threat while he was attacking its head, so it turned and hit another building, shaking the foundation.

Clark seemed to realize that what he was doing wasn't working and flew back up to try a frontal assault once again. Jonathan could read the frustration on his son's face, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was helpless as any human, while his son was not.

"I hope he's going to be okay," Martha said.

"He will be, don't worry," he soothed, giving her hand a little squeeze back.

* * *

"Look! He's amazing!" Lois knew she was gushing like a little girl, but she couldn't help herself. There was just something so awesome about a man that could fly and what a man.

He looked like he should have been wearing a crown and sitting on a throne, ruling over a pantheon of gods. He was the perfect man, the one she had been waiting her whole life to meet.

"I wonder what his name is," Jimmy said. There was a whole world of awe in his voice and he stared at the flying man like it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. "I wish I could fly."

"So do we all, elf-boy," Lois said, ruffling his hair. "I wouldn't mind the obvious super strength. I wouldn't have to bother asking any of you big manly he-men to open my bottles of green olives and maraschino cherries."

Still looking at the screen. "The thought of what you're making with green olives and maraschino cherries is pretty likely to turn my stomach and Oh wow, did you see that? Red light came out of his eyes and he carved a big S in the monster! That's so cool."

Lois rolled her eyes. Teenagers.

* * *

Since he obviously wasn't about to start kicking the monster's ass anytime soon, he had settled on desecrating it with his superhero initial, as fancily drawn as possible.

"Yeah, we be bad," he muttered, then winced as the creature slammed that same brick building again. "Shit!"

Even with all his strength, whatever the rock-thing was made of, it was definitely some durable stuff. Punching it as hard as he could barely even chipped its surface.

"Okay Kent, what would Rebus' Roy do in a situation like this? Think, think, think I know! He'd start blowing stuff up. Huh, which isn't really very helpful for right now, since I already tried that and it's not working."

He threw his arms out, pointed his toes and began to twirl and twirl around in the way he had when he was a child playing helicopter, only now he could spin so fast a mini-funnel of air could be created. He spun until he was completely surrounded, then snapped his body in half so he was shaped like an L, then flipped his feet up over his head.

It felt a bit like he had been wrapped in a blanket then had just thrown it off. The funnel was flung off his feet to shoot across the intervening space and slam into the monster.

It roared again as it was knocked backward into a building, the funnel drilling its way through it. There was this vibrating, grinding sound and flakes and chunks of rock were flung off the monster's body as a hole was burrowed through its body.

"Whoohoo!" Clark said, then yelped as the funnel went all the way through the creature, and it stepped forward, showing no sign of pain even though there was a ten foot hole running right through the middle of its chest. "Well that sucks. What's next?"

He thought it was kind of funny that once he put on the uniform he had a nearly irresistible urge to talk to himself. He laughed a little, though it wasn't really funny, and threw himself forward at the creature. The fight wasn't over yet.

* * *

The man was amazing. He spun around and made a whirlwind that actually put a big HOLE in the creature. It kept coming, but Jimmy knew that if the guy had done that to a human, there would have been blood everywhere and someone wouldn't be getting up again. It was so cool.

"He's he's like Warrior Angel," he whispered.

Lois tapped him on the shoulder. "Do you mean that lame comic book character that went out of fashion twenty years ago? I would have thought it would have been way before your time."

"They still make Warrior Angel," Jimmy said, "though it has gotten a bit lame. I've read reprints of the originals though, and they were pretty awesome for their time. And this guy," he jabbed a thumb at the TV, "he's got all these great powers and look at him."

He felt himself turning red when she kept looking at him for a second before turning back to the TV. He hadn't meant to sound like that. It made it seem like he had a crush on the guy, and he didn't. Really. Even if he did look pretty good in spandex. He definitely filled his costume out, that was for sure.

Dammit, now he was getting a hard-on. Sometimes he really hated being a teenager.

To take his mind off of his troubles, Jimmy looked around. "Hey, where's CK?" he asked.

Lois didn't a cursory glance. "I don't know. He was here earlier. Maybe he went to make sure his husband is all right," she said absentmindedly, her attention back on the action.

"Yeah, maybe," Jimmy said, then his brain caught up. "Wait a minute, his husband?"

She nodded a little. "Yeah, he's married to some guy. They had the ceremony in Hawaii when he was eighteen. I guess the guy he's hooked up with is a real cradle robber or something, took him right out at the gate."

Clark's married to a guy?

Jimmy Olsen, Daily Planet intern and future photographer, blushed to the roots of his very red hair. He could only hope no one saw his violent color change. He didn't need anyone asking him if he was all right or what was wrong, because he didn't even know if he could answer.

From the first moment he had met Clark Kent, there had been a tingle in the bottom of his belly, that kind of pre-erection buzz that he had gotten before he formed a full blown crush on some pretty girl. It had totally freaked him out when Clark had just been the new guy and Jimmy had looked at him across the room without any warning or preparation.

It was strange that no one else seemed to notice it, but Clark was absolutely gorgeous. He had this wavy hair, and this sculpted face that could have made him a good male model. And even though he wore geeky glasses, it wasn't like they could really cover up the fact that he was one of the most beautiful people Jimmy had ever met. So he was always surprised when people overlooked Clark like he was just anyone else. He didn't want to say anything, but it made him wonder if people were blind or just terminally stupid.

Knowing that Clark was off the meat market, Jimmy had thought that some girl had realized how wonderful Clark was and hit the lottery on wonderful guys. It didn't exactly make him jealous, but it did make him feel something. Only now he knew that it wasn't a pretty girl that had captured Clark Kent, it was a pretty guy.

It was just so trippy.

The guy on TV had pretty much kept the monster from killing a whole bunch of people, but he hadn't been able to stop it.

As Jimmy watched, he flew through the hole he'd put in the thing's chest and punched it in the back of the head. It made Jimmy wince, because he knew that that punch probably would have taken his own head clear off his shoulders.

It was obvious that the man was getting frustrated. He was punching at the monster and there was this angry look on his face, his eyebrows lowered over blazing eyes that occasionally shot out red beams that blazed chunks off the monster's ass.

But even though he had stopped the thing, he hadn't won either, because it was still standing, still walking around, still thumping buildings every once and awhile. And maybe the guy was getting a bit tired, 'cause he wasn't zipping around as fast anymore, and would sometimes stop and hover in the air above the thing's head and just glare at it, his hands fisted at his sides.

Just as things were maybe starting to get a bit boring, there was the sound of a chopper approaching the scene on TV. Jimmy could hear the camera guy saying something, but it was pretty garbled as the helicopter came closer and got louder.

I wonder what's going to happen now? Jimmy thought. He felt like he was watching a movie. None of this could possibly be real, only it was. Weird.

* * *

It had taken her awhile, but something had finally twigged in her brain. It was like a circuit breaker catching.

"We better get over there. Come on, kid."

* * *

Clark looked up at the helicopter hanging over his head, and drifted up that way, keeping an eye on the monster to make sure it didn't decide to go on a rampage once he turned his back.

He about fell out of the sky when he saw Lex strapped into one of the helicopter seats, a headset on his head and a paint bucket cradled in his lap.

"What are you doing here?" Clark demanded, glaring at his husband.

Lex flashed him a bright, rather cheery smile. He seemed to be having a good old time, but Clark had seen that look in his eyes before. He was pissed that Clark had put himself into danger and was here to make things right. "I brought this for you," he said, gesturing at the paint bucket he held. "Take it. It's crushing my legs."

Clark quirked his lips. He knew Lex had wanted to say "It's crushing my balls," but had stopped himself because other people were probably listening, and Lex didn't say those kinds of things where normal people could hear him.

Clark darted in and took the bucket, holding it by its handle. "What is it?" he asked, hovering close to the open door so Lex could hear him.

"It's a special little compound I mixed up that I like to call 'Monster Death Killing Glue That Sticks Nasty Monsters in Place While Hero Kicks Ass and Acid in Glue Melts Through Rock.'"

"Catchy." Clark quirked his lips.

Lex shrugged. "I've been watching those Japanese cartoons on Cartoon Network. I guess the longer the name is, the more powerful the weapon, or so it seems to me."

"Then I guess this is a doozy." Clark lifted the bucket. "Thanks."

Lex nodded. "Yep. Good luck."

Clark gave him the dark smile that only Lex got to see, the sex smile that always seemed to make him so brain-blowingly horny. It was good to see Lex have to shift and adjust himself in his seat.

"Later."

Clark flew down to the monster and stared at it. He kind of felt sorry for it--a big moving rock that didn't seem to have any kind of mind, but he knew that there was no choice.

"Sorry, big guy," he said, then popped the lid off the bucket.

His nose wrinkled at the stink and he hurriedly poured the yellow gunk on the creature, watching it splash down as a liquid, but almost immediately begin to thicken as it came into contact with the rock.

Goliath may have realized that he was in trouble, or may have just been angry that he was unable to crush and kill, but whatever it was, he opened his mouth and HOWLED.

With his sensitive hearing, Clark felt as if he'd just been battered about the head. He dropped the bucket and put his hands over his ears. That fucker was loud.

The glue stuck the rock monster where he was, then smoke began to drift up and there was this hissing sound as a special contact-activated acid began to eat through the rock.

Clark felt kind of sick watching this living thing being literally dissolved in front of him, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. And since he had been the one to do it to it, he watched until the creature burned down to nothing, a few pebbles scattered here and there the only thing left of it. That and the destruction it had caused.

Clark floated down to the watching crowd and landed gently in front of them. He looked at the highest ranking cop in view, a lieutenant. "Is that little girl all right?"

The cop looked at him. There was awe and fear in his face, as well as an almost terrible gratitude. The look in his eyes made Clark want to cringe. "You mean the girl that fireman saved?" he asked.

Clark nodded.

"We've been getting a lot of questions about her, since people all saw her on TV. She's alive right now, but I don't know how bad she's hurt."

Clark's shoulders slumped and he began to rise up off the ground.

"Wait! Wait! Lois Lane of the Daily Planet." She pushed herself to the front of the ground, ignoring the complaints of the people she'd elbowed or stepped on. Jimmy trailed after, flashing pictures. "Who are you? Where are you from?"

Clark looked at his partner, wondering how she couldn't recognize him just because he wasn't wearing his usual glasses. And she called herself an investigative reporter. It was pretty pathetic. "My name is Superman. I'm from Krypton."

With that, he shot straight up in the air and flew as fast as he could toward home, knowing that he was going fast enough to be invisible. No one was going to be able to follow him home.

Lex was sitting on the balcony waiting for him, a glass of amber liquid held negligently in one hand. "Took you long enough."

Clark landed and gave him a quick kiss, then, the stress finally catching up to him, began trembling. He grabbed the glass out of Lex's hand, drained it in one swallow, and dropped it to shatter on the floor. "I need you." His voice was strange in his own ears, desperate.

Seeming to know what he was feeling, Lex just held out his arms.

Clark practically leapt on him, his knees grinding into chair on each side of Lex as he began kissing him, their tongues tangling and their lips mashing together. His hands were all over Lex's body, tweaking his nipples, grabbing his crotch, rubbing against his stomach, everywhere. He knew he was probably hurting Lex, but Lex didn't complain and Clark was too out of control to stop.

The whole world had gone strange on him and he didn't know what to do about it. Sex seemed like a good idea.

He moaned as Clark ground their pelvis' together. The air this high up was cold on his bare skin, but he didn't really mind as long as Clark was around to warm him up.

Clark had practically ripped the crotch out of his pants and was fondling him with needy hands. The superhero outfit was carelessly crumpled up in the corner and Clark was on top of him.

"I need you in me," Clark rasped, licking Lex's face, making his skin burn.

"We'll have to go inside and get the lube," Lex said, trying to push him off.

Clark pushed him back down. "I don't care if you hurt me. I need you inside, right now!"

Lex opened his mouth to say something, but just barely managed to bite back a moan instead.

Clark sucked his cock for a few seconds to get it wet with saliva, then grabbed his own cock and began jacking off with a single minded light in his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Lex asked.

"What has to be done." Clark grunted as he came into his hand, then reached around to wipe the semen into his hole, slipping a finger up inside. There was a manic light in his eyes.

"Uh, I think I know what you're thinking, Clark, but that's really going to hurt. We need the lube."

"We're out," Clark snarled. "We used it all this morning. I was going to buy some today on my way home but I forgot. I want you now, not later. This'll work fine. Invulnerable body, remember?"

"Yeah, but I don't know if this is such a good OH JESUS!" Lex clawed at the arms of the chair and trembled.

Without any warning, Clark had impaled himself on Lex's cock, had taken him deep inside and was moving, lifting up and down with this kind of painful-joy on his face, his back arched backward as he rocked, the tendons in his neck standing out as his head was thrown back. His mouth was open and he breathed in panting gasps, his hands resting on the delicate curves of Lex's skull.

Those hands that could have crushed human bone like twigs were unconsciously gentle, not putting even the least amount of pressure down.

With warmth pressing tight around him, contracting with Clark's movement, sliding him in and out, it was a bit like heaven for feeling so good, but a bit like hell too because it always had to end eventually. The almost-pain of being squeezed in unlubricated was almost wonderful. He could feel tears trickling down his cheeks and wondered if they were really his own.

Wanting Clark to share what he was, he let go of his death grip on the chair arms and grabbed Clark's cock with both hands, squeezing and releasing in a rhythm that just kind of went with the flexing of his fingers.

Lex screamed as he came and didn't care who heard. "CLARK!"

* * *

He always felt so safe when Lex was inside him. There was just this sense that no matter what the world threw at him, everything was going to be okay because he wasn't going to have to face it alone. Lex would be there to take care of him.

It didn't really hurt him to have Lex up inside him dry, though it wasn't quite the smooth ride it usually was. He dragged himself up and down on Lex's arousal, grinding his hips a little.

Lex grabbed his cock and he felt himself tighten instinctively, which made Lex cry out and come. Three quirk spurts of warmth deep into Clark's body.

Lex jerked him hard when he came and Clark felt himself release. He shuddered twice and it was over, just this sticky mess streaked across Lex's stomach.

"Wow," Lex whispered.

Clark grinned weakly. He was suddenly feeling much more like a person.

Lex always made him feel better.

---

Clark was pretty much stuck being Superman. He didn't really mind saving people, but he felt sort of as if he was trapped into an acting role that didn't quite fit.

He had to call and explain to his parents why he had done what he had. His mother was freaked out, but he managed to calm her down. She was just worried that he might have been hurt, but was relieved to find out that the monster hadn't even managed to land a single blow.

For a beginning at superheroing, facing down a giant rock wasn't exactly a bad one. It wasn't the best beginning villain, but it wasn't that bad because he had won and nearly the whole world had seen. And everyone was desperate now for a glimpse of the great Superman.

Lois Lane was so happy that she had gotten the "exclusive." Her article was right on the front page: Superman--the Man From Krypton.

He was glad that she was so happy, but her gloating got tired pretty fast. Still, he didn't say anything about it because she would have completely freaked out. Lois Lane was well known for her permanent case of PMS, though there were rumors that at 28 she had already passed through menopause.

She was a great reporter, but there weren't that many people that really liked her. Which was why he was happy to be nice to her, even when a lot of the things she said completely grated on his nerves. He knew what it was like to be alone, and he didn't want her to feel that way, though she never seemed to really notice that she wasn't popular.

They were eating Chinese takeout at their desks while they worked.

"Have you heard about this Intergang thing?" Clark asked her, tapping the backs of his chopsticks against a manila folder.

She shrugged and shoved half an eggroll in her mouth. "Gere gew."

"Chew and swallow first," he ordered good-naturedly. "I'm not giving any one with Chinese food breath CPR."

She gulped loudly, a visible bulge going down the throat. He watched her in concern, thinking she was going to choke, but she just sipped her Coke and starting digging her chopsticks through her takeout boxes again. "They're new. Not much has been said about them yet, but they seem to be intent on taking over the underworld. There's whispers that they have a powerful crime family leading them, one that's branching out so younger members can have more territory to control, but I don't really know. You're going to have to dig into that one."

"Yeah, that's usually the" He stopped when he heard a commotion coming from near the elevator. "What's that?"

They were sitting on their desks eating, Lois completely ignoring the pile of papers she was seated on, so it was easy for them to crane and bend to see.

"Hey, isn't that Lex Luthor?" Lois said, suddenly sounding interested. She unfolded her legs and climbed off her desk, carefully smoothing her skirt with one hand.

Clark didn't move, just sat there watching him come. A smile lightened his face to watch Lex walk, like a big jungle cat moving through its natural habitat.

"What brings you here, Mr. Luthor?" Perry asked, approaching from the side.

Lex looked at him for a long moment, a little furrow appearing in his brow for moment, then disappearing as fast as it had appeared. "You're Perry White. I've heard a lot about you."

Perry blinked. "Thank you." He touched his hair. "Who did you hear about me from?"

"From Clark, of course," Lex said it as if it didn't really matter.

Clark hopped down off his desk and felt a small smile quirk his lips. Lex knew he hadn't told anyone at the Planet who he was married to. He had told Lex that he was worried about people trying to use him to get to Lex, and even though he'd said he didn't care, Lex hadn't seemed to care one way or another whether a bunch of people he didn't know knew if he was married or not. Besides, he thought it was kind of funny that none of the newspapers had picked up on the marriage even after six years.

Clark walked forward through the crowd, gently pushing aside anyone that didn't automatically get out of his way. "Lex, what are you doing here?"

Lex smiled. "Don't you remember? Today is our anniversary. I'm taking you away from all of this right now."

Clark hugged him. "Taking me away, huh?" he murmured for Lex's ears alone.

"That's right," Lex whispered back, his mouth barely moving. "I'm having my good friend Superman fly my husband and me to a second honeymoon at a certain hotel in Hawaii for the weekend."

"Hawaii?" Clark stepped back. "That sounds great. Just let me grab my coat and we can go."

When they went, they left the Daily Planet staff in an uproar. It was unbelievable that their Clark Kent was married to Lex Luthor, richest man on the planet, and had never said anything about it.

EPILOGUE

Through the dark of space a burst of speed went whipping past the planets. A small two person spacecraft with strange markings on the side and a clear cockpit shield moving at speeds that would have killed any human, but barely disturbed its pilot.

"J'on, I should be back fairly soon. This is just something I have to do. I can't leave her waiting out there forever just because the events that took me there the first time didn't happen in this timeline. And would you tell Batman to stop with all the dark mutterings? He's so moody it's a wonder he doesn't give himself constipation."

The pilot laughed at something his friend said back. It was a happy sound from a throat long used to laughter. There was no sadness in this lifetime, no burning regret to take the light from his eyes. He was a man of joy, even through all of the darkness he had seen, and he had saved the little blue ball of a planet he called home from destruction more times than he could count. But he was happy with what he was, and didn't spend his every day dragging through the motions, knowing that he would be returning home to loneliness, because in this time, he had someone that he loved, and family and friends that cared.

Superman opened the lid of the sleep chamber, listening to the hiss of escaping gasses.

She lay there with her eyes closed, a sleeping princess that had never been kissed. Her hair was spread around her head in a white-blond halo and her skin could have been pure porcelain. Color returned to her faintly blue lips first, turning them first pale, then a dark rose that most women had to find in lipstick, then the light and warmth woke her.

He waited patiently as her eyelids twitched and fluttered, finally opening. Her eyes were still unfocused, but she saw him, knew that he was there, invading her loneliness.

"Hello, Kara," he said.

"How" She coughed to clear her throat. "How do you know my name? Who are you?"

He smiled gently and lifted her out of the pod. She wasn't ready to try and walk yet. "I am Superman, but to you I will always be Clark, your strange and eccentric cousin. Come on, we have to get out of here."

"But what about the others?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. You're the only one."

Tears filled her eyes. "Mama"

Clark held her close as she cried. "Sh, sh. I know it feels like the end of the world right now, but you'll smile again someday, I know it, and I can't wait to see it. For now, we have to get back to Earth. Mom and Dad are waiting to see you, and so is Lex." He snorted a laugh. "He's saved up years worth of questions to ask you. The scientist in him has barely held patient this long, and I doubt he's going to let us waste a minute more."

She was confused, but she didn't object about going with him. There was just something so trustworthy about his face and she really didn't want to stay here in this room of death for a minute longer than necessary.

Kara wrapped her arms around Clark's neck and burrowed in close against him. His outfit may have been strange, but he was warm and real inside it. As long as she had him, she didn't have to be alone.

Time reset itself. All memory of the Great Catastrophe faded and no one even remembered that it was a possibility. A new chapter of history was written, not of the lifelong loneliness of the great hero Superman, but of the beauty of the loved shared between Superman and Lex Luthor.

THE STORY BEGINS

In all I read until the day was gone

and I sat in regret in all the things I've done

for all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged,

In dreams until my death

I will wander on.

In your house I long to be

room by room, patiently.

I'll wait for you there, like a stone

I'll wait for you there alone--alone.

--"Like a Stone" by Audioslave

Referent:

DARKSEID: great lord of Apokolips, a hellish dimension where humans are slaves and Darkseid rules all. He's one of Superman's über-enemy's and is always coming around causing trouble. He's like Apocalypse for the X-men.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES: a galaxy spanning organizations of superheroes that patrols the various solar systems, or "sectors," enforcing the laws. Superman is one of their heroes, the ideal that they strive to emulate.

REBUS: HEROES FOR HIRE: a Flash/Shockwave based webcomic that can be found at .com/rebus

SUPERGIRL: she has had several incarnations. Mostly known as Linda Danvers, here she is the Supergirl from Superman: the Animated series, Kara In-Ze from Argo.

Argo was Krypton's sister planet, and when Krypton exploded, Argo was thrown out of solar orbit, dooming its inhabitants to death by freezing. Physician Kala In-Ze created a series of cryogenic sleep chambers in the hopes of saving the few surviving Argonians. Her daughter Kara was emplaced in one, which is where Superman finds her years later when he accidentally discovers the remains of Argo. Kara's sleep chamber was the only one left undamaged and she was the sole survivor.

Brought to Earth by Superman, she moves in with Martha and Jonathan Kent in Smallville to better learn Earth's customs and to become used to her new superpowers. Taken from all that she's ever known, she has to become used to a whole new way of life, and not even her own body is the way she remembered it.

Like Superman, she receives her superpowers from Earth's yellow sun, but as she is Argonian born, she doesn't have his vulnerability to Kryptonite, though red sun radiation is still a common weakness between them.

Kara can be seen as being in some ways a stronger character than Clark. Not only does she have to become used to a whole new world, but she lives with the loss of her family and everyone else she ever knew. Clark was raised from a baby/toddler by Martha and Jonathan; Kara is a teenager that already feels out of place.