Twist Upside-down

by

Kelsey

Disclaimer: SV and Superman belong to so many people I'm not going to list them all here, okay? Just be assured they don't belong to me.

Author's Note: I know, it's been a god-awfully long time since I've updated this. I'm sorry. My muses weren't cooperating until tonight, when I wrote the whole thing, so please forgive me! (this the same author's note as on #8, but ironically, true again!)

Summary: When a deadly illness befalls Lex, Clark will stand at his side. But what will the effect be upon their relationship with each other and the rest of their loved ones? Clex.

Rating: Will change as we go. This chapter: PG-13

Chapter Nine - Normality

3 days earlier:

The first thing Clark had done when he'd come over was ask Lex if he still had his doctor's appointment-- at which the younger Luthor had rolled his eyes and nodded tolerantly-- but after that, he seemed content to let the subject rest, an idea that Lex was very on board with.

It was Sunday, and though there was work to be done on the farm, as always, Clark had made time to visit his boyfriend. Though still obviously tired, Lex didn't have the same dark circles under his eyes as he had on Friday, so the teenager was willing to let the subject of his lover's ill health take a backseat, in exchange for a much more pleasant visit.

Standing from behind his desk where he'd been finishing something, Lex gestured vaguely to his right. "Pool?" He asked.

Clark shrugged. "Sure. Play it, or swim in it?"

Lex chuckled. "Both? Play it, first, though."

Clark nodded, and stood out of the way so that Lex could get past the side of his desk and lead them into the den where the pool table was.

Of course, leaning over the pool cues and making lewd comments about the pool balls let one thing lead to another, and pretty soon, they were no longer playing pool as much as... playing with each other.

Afterward, Clark lay on the pool table panting, Lex collapsed over him, sweat gleaming off every surface on both of them. "We probably shouldn't have done that," Clark said, once he got his breath back.

"Why?" Lex lifted his head to meet Clark's eyes for a second, then rested it on his lover's chest again.

"Because you're sick. It can't be good to tire yourself out."

"I thought you were going to stop playing mother hen."

"I never said that."

"I know. But it was implied when you asked about my health, and I glared, and you asked about my doctor's appointment, and I glared more and said 'Clark,' and then you stopped asking."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realize that implied I was going to stop 'playing mother hen.'"

Lex nodded sagely. "It did."

"Oh. Okay." He kissed the top of Lex's head. "We still shouldn't have. Just until your doctor clears you."

Lex sat up, then leaned down and pressed a firm kiss to his lover's lips. "I'm fine. And even if I weren't, that hardly hurt anything. In fact, I'm firmly convinced that sex is good for me, no matter what my health."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "'Sex cures all' is the Lex Luthor-ism for healing?"

"Yes." Lex nodded his head seriously, and Clark laughed, then kissed him quickly one more time.

"I guess it hasn't killed anybody yet."

Lex got a gleam in his eye that told Clark he'd just slipped up and sent his lover into lecture mode. "Actually, an amazing number of people with weak hearts have died during orgasm."

Clark held up a hand as it looked like he was going to continue. "Are you trying to discourage me from having sex with you? Cause it's working."

Lex shook his head firmly, and let a mock-panicked look enter his eyes. "Nope. Not trying to do that. In fact, I'm now sure nobody has ever died while having sex."

Clark laughed again, and then pushed his lover gently upwards. "As much as I'd love to lie here forever, the sweat is drying, and I'm getting cold." Actually, he couldn't feel a thing, but he could see the goosebumps rising all over his lover's hairless arms, and he wasn't about to let him get chilled on top of whatever it was he already had.

Lex nodded. "Shower?"

"Shower. Then the pool?"

"Sure. What time do you have to get home?"

Clark glanced at the clock on the wall. "It's only two. Not until six, so we have a while."

"Okay."

Clark let Lex run the shower, something he almost always did. The couple of times he'd turned it on for them, at his lover's insistence, Lex had ended up adjusting the water anyway, because he'd left it too cold. As much as cold showers weren't really a thing to look forward to, Clark wasn't going to take the chance that he might accidentally burn his lover. His sense of temperature was acute and very accurate, but he wasn't always sure what was appropriate for humans.

Lex stepped into the shower first and sighed, moving to stand under the stream of hot water for a long moment. Clark entered quickly so that the water from the multiple showerheads wouldn't splash out into the room, and wet himself thoroughly. He knew he was lucky, that most of the time when two people shared a shower, one of them got cold, but Lex was rich enough, and, Clark personally thought, more importantly, picky enough that his shower came from three different directions at once.

Grabbing the soap bar, Clark lathered his hands and started to run them over Lex's bare chest, moving slowly, almost lazily. Eyes closed, Lex reached out for the soap, which Clark willingly put in his hand, and then started to duplicate the movements of Clark's hands on his lover's chest. His eyes never opened and he held his head slightly tilted back, still enjoying the warmth of the water.

Clark made a mental note to keep an eye on Lex more closely. No matter what it was that was wrong with him, he was obviously sick, and couldn't afford to get this cold. Because, by the way his lover was basking in the heat of the shower, he'd clearly gotten more than a little chilled.

Finally opening his eyes and moving a little, Lex reached for the bottle of shampoo he now kept in the shower, and squeezed some into his hands. Reaching up, he motioned Clark to turn around, and started to lather his head. Normally, Clark wouldn't let him do this, fearing his parents would ask why he smelled like the shampoo that clearly wasn't their brand, but today they were going swimming anyway, and the chlorine smell would overpower the shampoo long before he got home.

Lex's strong fingers massaged the shampoo deep into the thickest parts of Clark's hair, and kept working, kneading with just the right amount of pressure on Clark's scalp. Tilting his head even further back in pleasure, Clark let out a low groan. Lex chuckled.

"Like that?"

"Like it? It's heaven."

All too soon, Lex's hands disappeared, and Clark opened his eyes to protest. "What? Don't stop!"

Lex grinned at him, shaking his hands near his waist. "Sorry. My hands were starting to fall asleep from holding them over my head. We can do it more some other time, when you're sitting down so they don't fall asleep."

"Oh. Okay." Reluctantly, the teenager tilted his head back into one of the streams of water and let it rinse all the shampoo from his thick mop of hair. Quickly, he ran both hands through the water and then over his forehead, making sure there wasn't any soap stuck at his hairline. "Done?" He asked, then.

Lex nodded. "Yep." Leaning down, he turned off the water and opened the shower door to grab two towels. Handing one to Clark, he quickly scrubbed down his upper torso with the other and then wrapped it securely around his waist.

"Still feel like swimming?"

Clark shrugged. "Actually, I feel kind of waterlogged. We could play chess or something, and then go for a swim. There's still a lot of time before I have to be home."

Lex nodded. "Sounds good." He grabbed his pants and pulled them on under the towel, not really trying to keep anything covered, just trying to take the towel off and put the slacks on at the same time. Clark pulled his jeans on only after ripping the towel off-- he was sure that if he tried to imitate Lex, he'd do something embarrassing like catch the towel in the zipper of the jeans and get it stuck.

Throwing on a shirt, Lex led the way out of the bedroom. "Chess?" He asked.

"Yeah. I... don't actually know how to play. I thought maybe you could help me with that."

Lex stopped and turned around. "You don't know how to play chess?" He asked, incredulous.

"It isn't exactly on the list of things farmboys need to know, Lex," Clark responded as he followed his lover down the stairs. "In fact, I think it might be on the list of things that take up time being useless while said farmboys could be doing their chores."

"Clark, chess is strategy game. It develops the mind and strengthens skills that are integral for things like math and other higher reasoning." Lex sounded almost appalled that anyone could think chess was useless.

"And you can't figure out why it isn't high on the list of things that future farmers need to learn?"

"You're not a future farmer, Clark. Not unless you want to be. Because I know how that mind of yours works, and it has the potential to do a lot more than grow corn."

Clark ducked his head, not really sure how to respond. Luckily, Lex seemed to get the idea, and headed into the corner of the room to get the chess set. Putting it down on the little table that he kept for entertaining guests, he nodded to Clark to take a seat. "Ever played checkers?"

Clark nodded, watching as Lex put together the board in a pattern he didn't recognize. "Yeah."

"Same board. That'll help a little."

"Okay."

Satisfied with his setup, Lex pushed the box aside and started pointing to figures. "Alright. So, this is the queen, and this is the king. This is a rook, and knight...."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An hour later, Clark had his head in his hands and was staring fiercely at the board, utterly clueless at what he should be doing. Reluctantly, he moved a piece, and then saw Lex countermove and wipe his piece off the board. "Ugh!"

Lex smiled. "Ready to stop?" He asked.

Clark nodded. "Yeah, I think so. I could use a swim now, too."

"Okay. Let me put this away. You can go change, if you want."

Clark nodded again. "Meet you at the pool?"

"Yeah."

In the usual place in Lex's dresser drawer, Clark found the pair of swim trunks he'd left over there. Stripping down, he pulled them on and headed for the pool, knowing that there would be towels ready down on the deck.

Usually, Clark was very fond of the outdoors, and it was true that last summer, he'd rather have swum in a pond or outdoor pool than Lex's, but now he was glad. Because, as cold as it was getting, he could still swim outside, but it would look extremely strange, and he couldn't exactly bring anyone with him. This way, he could have all the fun of swimming without the freezing temperatures and loneliness.

Dipping his toes into the water, Clark kicked his feet as he waited for Lex. Soon enough, his lover appeared in the doorway of the poolhouse, dressed in the purple swim trunks that Clark liked to tease him about. Lex was adamant that he hadn't had them made specifically for him, that there were other people out there who wore purple swim trunks. Clark had just shaken his head and told Lex to send him a picture if he ever actually saw one.

Of course, then Lex had had somebody run around with a camera and snap pictures of men wearing purple swim trunks, so that he could boast to Clark about being right. Clark had asked where he'd gotten them, it being the middle of winter in Kansas and all, and had received the sheepish answer that he'd given his professional photographer a free vacation in Hawaii as long as he took pictures of all the men in purple swim trunks that he encountered.

Clark had, of course, sighed and told Lex that that was a ridiculous thing to do, but Lex was just being Lex, and he supposed that it was nice of him to give the photographer a vacation. And money certainly wasn't an issue, in fact, it never seemed to be with Lex.

Clark wasn't entirely sure how rich Lex was, and he didn't really care. He wasn't intimidated by the amount of Luthor money there was, the way other people were, and Lex was his friend and his lover, not somebody that he went to for expensive things, though he did seem to come away with an awful lot of offers for them, so why did it matter?

"Hey," Lex greeted him. "Why haven't you gotten in, yet?"

Clark gave him a grin, and looked him over from head to toe, reveling in being allowed to do that now that they'd admitted their feelings. "I was waiting for you."

Lex nodded. "Thanks."

"I did it so that I could tease you about the purple swim trunk thing, you know."

Lex rolled his eyes and groaned good-naturedly. "You could have done that from the water!"

"I can't believe you sent somebody on vacation to Hawaii just so that you could prove people other than you wore purple swim trunks."

Lex shrugged. "Why not? It didn't actually cost that much, and the guy deserved a vacation."

Clark rolled his eyes, then pushed himself off the side of the pool, taking a few long, hard strokes out to the center and then stopping to tread water. "Coming?"

Lex nodded, and walked around to the pool's deepest end. Watching as he took a graceful swan dive in, Clark noticed how the muscles in his lover's chest rippled as he made the movement, holding his hands above his head and drawing in a deep breath.

When Lex surfaced, shaking his head to get some of the water away from his eyes and nose, Clark swam quickly over. "You going to do laps?" He asked.

"Do you mind?"

Clark shook his head. "No. I might join you."

Nodding, Lex took another breath, ducked back underwater and made for the side of the pool. Clark watched for a moment, then headed for the other side.

They made several long laps of the pool slowly, warming up before moving into stronger movements. Lex seemed to know every stroke known to man, and Clark stopped to watch him every once in a while, interrupting his own smooth crawl stroke. Finally, it was five-forty, and he pulled himself out onto the side of the pool.

"It's time for you to go?" Lex asked, holding himself up on the side of the pool.

Clark nodded. "Yeah. Thanks for the chess lesson."

"Sure. I'll see you later."

"Bye."

[Prologue] [Sleepy] [Scared] [Bloody] [Stay] [Appetite] [Reality] [Fine] [Know] [Normality]