Lex sat at his usual table at the back of the coffee shop with a cup of steaming latte cradled in his hands. The weather had taken a step backwards, just when everyone thought Spring had arrived, and the air outside was chill. The warm cup sent much welcomed heat into Lex's long supple fingers as he lightly caressed the smooth porcelain. Although there was a magazine open before him on the table, and occasionally his eyes flickered across its pages, his attention was actually upon the young couple sitting at the bar.
Whitney Fordman and Lana Lang.
They were chatting quietly, sitting close together. He had one hand upon her thigh and the other reached to brush back her hair while she held her mug of coffee and smiled at him. Her face softened as he leaned in to kiss her, and the smile broadened to laughter as he whispered something in her ear. Her green eyes were bright.
She's playing you Clark.
Lex raised his cup, gingerly sipping the hot coffee within, as he watched the two continue to preen and pose under each other's affections. It was beginning to disgust him, and he wondered why he'd ever been so intent on getting the vapid personality that was Lana Lang together with Clark Kent. Clark was so much more than she, and deserved better, Lex knew that now.
Lex knew it very well.
He lowered his eyes to the magazine, but did not see the words printed there. How many months had passed? How long had it been since Clark had brought Lex back from the brink of self destruction for a second time and once again left him more than a little dazed? Lex was not sure, but over that span of time he and Clark had continued their friendship with a little more structure, a little more depth, and a tighter bond than ever before. Clark never said one word about their "night" and following his example, neither did Lex. It remained, however, and the walls that kept it shuttered away within Lex's heart were growing a bit worn around the edges lately.
He knew what had triggered the emotions. The confrontation regarding the accident had started it, Lex demanding to know the truth and Clark not giving it. The hurt in the kid's eyes had torn Lex apart at the same time it infuriated him. He knew Clark was still lying to him, hiding some secret even after their night together, and it had made Lex understand he'd been wrong in assuming that night meant anything at all to Clark on an emotional level. He'd erased it, and anything it meant, from his mind completely. Friends. We're just friends. No love, no devotion, no desire what-so-ever to stage a repeat. You got what you needed, I got what I needed. Its forgotten.
And yet....
When Lex heard Clark was sent to the hospital unconscious and badly injured, he'd been entangled in the mess Victoria's idiocy had produced; but he'd dropped everything to go to the emergency room. Clark had been cold, flippant, and unlike himself until Lex, unable to bear it, issued yet another apology. Lex found it funny that Clark could bring apologies to his lips so easily, when no one else ever could - sincere ones too. If Clark asked Lex to put a gun to his head, Lex would probably do it, such was the power he wielded. There in the hospital he would have done more, said more, had Clark not turned to him with that wry smile and invoked a memory shared from a time many months earlier.
"If anyone ever finds out, " Lex had said. "I'll plead temporary insanity."
And Clark had murmured his response, his breath warm against Lex's neck: "Only temporary?"
Repeating the exchange in the hospital emergency room, had brought out the faint glimmer of affection in Clark's grey eyes. Lex tried to capture that affection, hold it, and make it his own, but Clark had turned abruptly away before he could do so. Watching him limp slowly out the doors and into the waiting arms of his parents, Lex felt abandoned and hurt and knew Clark was well out of his reach again. Lex had only the confrontation with Victoria to look forward to then, and he met it with a deep smoldering fury which made the end results all the more satisfying. Until, that is, he discovered his father's dirty double dealing.
Double crossing bitch. All the more reason to swear off women.
Lex raised his eyes to gaze at Lana, narrowing them as she kissed "Whitless" once again.
Perhaps Clark needed to learn that lesson too.
*******************
Clark wandered past just as Lex prepared to leave the Beanery. Lex saw him out of the corner of his eye, and noted he only paused long enough to see Lana and Whitney at the bar before continuing down the street. The expression on his face had shifted only subtly, but Lex recognized the hurt in it. On again, off again, Lana was playing Clark like a radio; turning the volume up only to switch it back down upon the next note. Lex saw him every other day, and gauged his emotions as they fluctuated between melancholy and giddy elation with every move Lana made. During the times she and Whitney were at odds, Clark was as emotionally solid as a stone but when Lana rushed back into the quarterback's arms, Clark's heart took a nose dive into chaos.
Lex caught up with him with just a little bit of effort. "Clark."
He stopped, glanced at Lex, and kept walking.
Lex fell into step beside him.
"I see she made up with Whitney, " Clark murmured. "Again."
"Yeah, I noticed." Lex tugged at an elbow, and guided him towards the Ferarri which was parked around the corner behind the shops. "Where are you going? I'll give you a ride."
They stopped just at the mouth of the wide alleyway, where there was off street parking for the Beanery and the bookstore next door. Clark looked abjectly miserable, and he rolled his shoulders in a shrug to loosen them as Lex pressed the button which would disarm the car. Clark's gesture, nor the look in the grey eyes, did not go unnoticed. Something was bothering him, and Lex raised an eyebrow in question.
"Are you lonely Lex? Do you miss the city?" He replied after some hesitation. "Metropolis?"
Now where was this heading?
Lex shrugged. "Sometimes, but you have to remember Clark, I was different when I lived there, especially after losing Ryan. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm occasionally quite happy with my exile here."
Clark smiled that wry smile. "Occasionally?"
"I can recall at least one rather pleasant evening."
The words tumbled out before Lex could stop them, and he cursed the way Clark always seemed to not only make him blurt out apologies, but everything else as well. He did something to Lex that made him trust, and trust was something Lex Luthor found even more difficult to do than apologize. He knew this was a sensitive subject, and one not high on Clark's list of topics he wished to discuss on a public street either, but Lex could not help expressing his gratitude even if it made Clark uncomfortable. He spoke the words, and his eyes met Clark's unwaveringly.
Clark's expression was neutral. He made no reaction, but again Lex saw something burning deep within his eyes. Clark said nothing.
Lex did.
"Lana is toying with you Clark." he said softly. "Don't let that sugary sweet exterior fool you. I've known her aunt for a long time and they are both conniving bitches."
"Then how come you were working so hard to get us together?"
"Because that's what you wanted."
Clark's eyes flickered away, then back. "And you care what I want?" he asked. "What am I to you?"
There were a thousand things Lex could have said in answer. Many of them he had wanted to say since the day they'd met. Many of them he had already said: you are the little brother I never had, you are the only friend I've ever had - and there was the thing he longed to say but did not feel he dared:
You are one of only three people in my life I've ever truly loved with all my heart.
"A kindred spirit." Lex whispered. "You are bigger than Smallville Clark. You are as much in exile here as I am."
Clark stared at him, and to Lex's utter amazement, his eyes filled with tears.
A line quirked into being upon Lex's brow. "Clark what is it? Jesus, you're falling apart now!" He meant it as a joke, but the words fell rather flat considering Clark was indeed an emotional wreck at the moment. "Come on, let me take you home."
"I don't want to go home."
Lex, his hand upon Clark's arm in his effort to guide him to the car, stopped abruptly at the tone of the words. They now stood very close together, and their eyes were locked. Clark's were still damp with the tears which glistened upon his long dark lashes like diamonds and there was no mistaking what now burned within them.
It was growing a little too warm in the alley.
"You amaze me." Lex whispered.
"Is that what you call it?"
"You made me swear Clark."
"I made a mistake thinking I could just brush it off and forget it."
Lex had to fight to make his voice steady. "You're sixteen Clark, you have no idea what you want and this might not be it."
Clark lowered his eyes and looked away. "It may be all I ever get." he whispered.
The loneliness was palatable, weighing heavy in the air around them, an echo of the pain Lex had felt just recently. It was Clark's turn, and Lex had to be there to pull him out of the tail spin. He wondered if he could do it. He wasn't nearly as strong.
"That's a good attitude to have." he quipped.
"You don't know the whole story." One hand came up to wipe away the remaining tears with trembling fingers.
Lex pursed his lips and sighed. "Not for lack of trying." he paused and added quietly, "I wish you would trust me."
Their eyes met again.
"I can't." Clark whispered. "Not yet."
Those delicate fingers brushed Lex's mouth, as much a kiss as a caress, and Lex tasted the saltiness of the tears upon them. His body was set aflame, and the answer it gave in response to the implied request made him groan out loud.
"Shit. Get in the car Clark."
************************
"Where's Vicky?" Clark murmured.
It was late afternoon, and the room was bathed in an ever darkening orange glow from the waning sunlight coming in the big windows to either side of Lex's big four poster bed. The windows made the room cold, despite the modern heating system. A fire would have warmed it more, but building a fire would require energy Lex did not want to spare, or calling a servant he did not want to be witness to his latest indiscretion. Beneath the silk sheets the bed was warm, so it mattered very little to Lex anyway as long as he did not have to get up.
He never wanted to get up. He kissed the dark head that lay upon his chest. "Gone" he said quietly. "Probably back to her other lover." One arm, thrown around Clark's broad shoulders, tightened, and the other he raised so that he could run his fingers through those glossy black curls. They were the same soft texture as the sheets.
"She had one?"
Lex made a face. "Probably several, but I think she made my father a priority this time."
Clark raised his head, his eyes questioning. "That's dirty."
"All is fair in love and war Clark." Lex whispered, and shifted himself down so that they were face to face. His hands teased, caressing back, hips and thighs as he pressed closer. No response yet.
"I don't think Lana is playing me Lex, I think she's as confused as I am."
"Unless she's sleeping with Chloe, I really don't think so." Lex initiated a kiss, found it reciprocated, and prolonged it with teeth and tongue until, breathless, they parted.
Clark licked his lips. "You know what I mean."
Lex leaned in, and also licked Clark's lips. "No." he said. "Why don't you show me just how confused you are Clark." Green eyes glittered dangerously as a hand slipped between them.
Ah, hmm. That got a response.
"I think you are playing me." Clark's voice was rough, but his eyes were half closed, and his breath caught as Lex's hands continued to explore his body. "Not Lana." he gasped.
"You bet I am." Lex said. "But you asked for it."
He received a moan in reply, and after that things got a little too complicated for idle chit chat.
***************
Clark left at seven.
"I'm already late for dinner." he'd said, with a quick parting kiss.
Lex was uncomfortably reminded by those words that he'd been lounging around making love all afternoon with a boy not far from childhood, who still lived with his parents and worried about getting home to do his homework.
It made him more than a little bit ill.
He sighed, and rolled into the warm hollow Clark had left behind. Lex could still smell him upon the pillow - a somewhat spicy, sweet scent like a bell pepper. It was something Lex noticed on more than one occasion. Even during the most passionate moments, Clark did not sweat profusely, but instead that odd peppery scent rose from a body just barely dampened. Lex sweated like a pig, and if he had not been as warm and comfortable as he was, he would have immediately gotten up for a shower. As it were he lay curled around a pillow, gradually drifting off to sleep with snatches of their last bit of conversation flitting through his mind.
"Sworn to secrecy?" Lex had asked.
"As always."
Their gaze never parted, their eyes searched each other's heart as they spoke.
"I'm not going anywhere." Lex whispered. "I'll be here."
Clark smiled gently. "For the in between times?"
"For any time you need me."
"Promise?" Clark's breath was whisper soft against Lex's mouth. His lips were warm.
"Promise."
Whitney Fordman and Lana Lang.
They were chatting quietly, sitting close together. He had one hand upon her thigh and the other reached to brush back her hair while she held her mug of coffee and smiled at him. Her face softened as he leaned in to kiss her, and the smile broadened to laughter as he whispered something in her ear. Her green eyes were bright.
She's playing you Clark.
Lex raised his cup, gingerly sipping the hot coffee within, as he watched the two continue to preen and pose under each other's affections. It was beginning to disgust him, and he wondered why he'd ever been so intent on getting the vapid personality that was Lana Lang together with Clark Kent. Clark was so much more than she, and deserved better, Lex knew that now.
Lex knew it very well.
He lowered his eyes to the magazine, but did not see the words printed there. How many months had passed? How long had it been since Clark had brought Lex back from the brink of self destruction for a second time and once again left him more than a little dazed? Lex was not sure, but over that span of time he and Clark had continued their friendship with a little more structure, a little more depth, and a tighter bond than ever before. Clark never said one word about their "night" and following his example, neither did Lex. It remained, however, and the walls that kept it shuttered away within Lex's heart were growing a bit worn around the edges lately.
He knew what had triggered the emotions. The confrontation regarding the accident had started it, Lex demanding to know the truth and Clark not giving it. The hurt in the kid's eyes had torn Lex apart at the same time it infuriated him. He knew Clark was still lying to him, hiding some secret even after their night together, and it had made Lex understand he'd been wrong in assuming that night meant anything at all to Clark on an emotional level. He'd erased it, and anything it meant, from his mind completely. Friends. We're just friends. No love, no devotion, no desire what-so-ever to stage a repeat. You got what you needed, I got what I needed. Its forgotten.
And yet....
When Lex heard Clark was sent to the hospital unconscious and badly injured, he'd been entangled in the mess Victoria's idiocy had produced; but he'd dropped everything to go to the emergency room. Clark had been cold, flippant, and unlike himself until Lex, unable to bear it, issued yet another apology. Lex found it funny that Clark could bring apologies to his lips so easily, when no one else ever could - sincere ones too. If Clark asked Lex to put a gun to his head, Lex would probably do it, such was the power he wielded. There in the hospital he would have done more, said more, had Clark not turned to him with that wry smile and invoked a memory shared from a time many months earlier.
"If anyone ever finds out, " Lex had said. "I'll plead temporary insanity."
And Clark had murmured his response, his breath warm against Lex's neck: "Only temporary?"
Repeating the exchange in the hospital emergency room, had brought out the faint glimmer of affection in Clark's grey eyes. Lex tried to capture that affection, hold it, and make it his own, but Clark had turned abruptly away before he could do so. Watching him limp slowly out the doors and into the waiting arms of his parents, Lex felt abandoned and hurt and knew Clark was well out of his reach again. Lex had only the confrontation with Victoria to look forward to then, and he met it with a deep smoldering fury which made the end results all the more satisfying. Until, that is, he discovered his father's dirty double dealing.
Double crossing bitch. All the more reason to swear off women.
Lex raised his eyes to gaze at Lana, narrowing them as she kissed "Whitless" once again.
Perhaps Clark needed to learn that lesson too.
*******************
Clark wandered past just as Lex prepared to leave the Beanery. Lex saw him out of the corner of his eye, and noted he only paused long enough to see Lana and Whitney at the bar before continuing down the street. The expression on his face had shifted only subtly, but Lex recognized the hurt in it. On again, off again, Lana was playing Clark like a radio; turning the volume up only to switch it back down upon the next note. Lex saw him every other day, and gauged his emotions as they fluctuated between melancholy and giddy elation with every move Lana made. During the times she and Whitney were at odds, Clark was as emotionally solid as a stone but when Lana rushed back into the quarterback's arms, Clark's heart took a nose dive into chaos.
Lex caught up with him with just a little bit of effort. "Clark."
He stopped, glanced at Lex, and kept walking.
Lex fell into step beside him.
"I see she made up with Whitney, " Clark murmured. "Again."
"Yeah, I noticed." Lex tugged at an elbow, and guided him towards the Ferarri which was parked around the corner behind the shops. "Where are you going? I'll give you a ride."
They stopped just at the mouth of the wide alleyway, where there was off street parking for the Beanery and the bookstore next door. Clark looked abjectly miserable, and he rolled his shoulders in a shrug to loosen them as Lex pressed the button which would disarm the car. Clark's gesture, nor the look in the grey eyes, did not go unnoticed. Something was bothering him, and Lex raised an eyebrow in question.
"Are you lonely Lex? Do you miss the city?" He replied after some hesitation. "Metropolis?"
Now where was this heading?
Lex shrugged. "Sometimes, but you have to remember Clark, I was different when I lived there, especially after losing Ryan. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm occasionally quite happy with my exile here."
Clark smiled that wry smile. "Occasionally?"
"I can recall at least one rather pleasant evening."
The words tumbled out before Lex could stop them, and he cursed the way Clark always seemed to not only make him blurt out apologies, but everything else as well. He did something to Lex that made him trust, and trust was something Lex Luthor found even more difficult to do than apologize. He knew this was a sensitive subject, and one not high on Clark's list of topics he wished to discuss on a public street either, but Lex could not help expressing his gratitude even if it made Clark uncomfortable. He spoke the words, and his eyes met Clark's unwaveringly.
Clark's expression was neutral. He made no reaction, but again Lex saw something burning deep within his eyes. Clark said nothing.
Lex did.
"Lana is toying with you Clark." he said softly. "Don't let that sugary sweet exterior fool you. I've known her aunt for a long time and they are both conniving bitches."
"Then how come you were working so hard to get us together?"
"Because that's what you wanted."
Clark's eyes flickered away, then back. "And you care what I want?" he asked. "What am I to you?"
There were a thousand things Lex could have said in answer. Many of them he had wanted to say since the day they'd met. Many of them he had already said: you are the little brother I never had, you are the only friend I've ever had - and there was the thing he longed to say but did not feel he dared:
You are one of only three people in my life I've ever truly loved with all my heart.
"A kindred spirit." Lex whispered. "You are bigger than Smallville Clark. You are as much in exile here as I am."
Clark stared at him, and to Lex's utter amazement, his eyes filled with tears.
A line quirked into being upon Lex's brow. "Clark what is it? Jesus, you're falling apart now!" He meant it as a joke, but the words fell rather flat considering Clark was indeed an emotional wreck at the moment. "Come on, let me take you home."
"I don't want to go home."
Lex, his hand upon Clark's arm in his effort to guide him to the car, stopped abruptly at the tone of the words. They now stood very close together, and their eyes were locked. Clark's were still damp with the tears which glistened upon his long dark lashes like diamonds and there was no mistaking what now burned within them.
It was growing a little too warm in the alley.
"You amaze me." Lex whispered.
"Is that what you call it?"
"You made me swear Clark."
"I made a mistake thinking I could just brush it off and forget it."
Lex had to fight to make his voice steady. "You're sixteen Clark, you have no idea what you want and this might not be it."
Clark lowered his eyes and looked away. "It may be all I ever get." he whispered.
The loneliness was palatable, weighing heavy in the air around them, an echo of the pain Lex had felt just recently. It was Clark's turn, and Lex had to be there to pull him out of the tail spin. He wondered if he could do it. He wasn't nearly as strong.
"That's a good attitude to have." he quipped.
"You don't know the whole story." One hand came up to wipe away the remaining tears with trembling fingers.
Lex pursed his lips and sighed. "Not for lack of trying." he paused and added quietly, "I wish you would trust me."
Their eyes met again.
"I can't." Clark whispered. "Not yet."
Those delicate fingers brushed Lex's mouth, as much a kiss as a caress, and Lex tasted the saltiness of the tears upon them. His body was set aflame, and the answer it gave in response to the implied request made him groan out loud.
"Shit. Get in the car Clark."
************************
"Where's Vicky?" Clark murmured.
It was late afternoon, and the room was bathed in an ever darkening orange glow from the waning sunlight coming in the big windows to either side of Lex's big four poster bed. The windows made the room cold, despite the modern heating system. A fire would have warmed it more, but building a fire would require energy Lex did not want to spare, or calling a servant he did not want to be witness to his latest indiscretion. Beneath the silk sheets the bed was warm, so it mattered very little to Lex anyway as long as he did not have to get up.
He never wanted to get up. He kissed the dark head that lay upon his chest. "Gone" he said quietly. "Probably back to her other lover." One arm, thrown around Clark's broad shoulders, tightened, and the other he raised so that he could run his fingers through those glossy black curls. They were the same soft texture as the sheets.
"She had one?"
Lex made a face. "Probably several, but I think she made my father a priority this time."
Clark raised his head, his eyes questioning. "That's dirty."
"All is fair in love and war Clark." Lex whispered, and shifted himself down so that they were face to face. His hands teased, caressing back, hips and thighs as he pressed closer. No response yet.
"I don't think Lana is playing me Lex, I think she's as confused as I am."
"Unless she's sleeping with Chloe, I really don't think so." Lex initiated a kiss, found it reciprocated, and prolonged it with teeth and tongue until, breathless, they parted.
Clark licked his lips. "You know what I mean."
Lex leaned in, and also licked Clark's lips. "No." he said. "Why don't you show me just how confused you are Clark." Green eyes glittered dangerously as a hand slipped between them.
Ah, hmm. That got a response.
"I think you are playing me." Clark's voice was rough, but his eyes were half closed, and his breath caught as Lex's hands continued to explore his body. "Not Lana." he gasped.
"You bet I am." Lex said. "But you asked for it."
He received a moan in reply, and after that things got a little too complicated for idle chit chat.
***************
Clark left at seven.
"I'm already late for dinner." he'd said, with a quick parting kiss.
Lex was uncomfortably reminded by those words that he'd been lounging around making love all afternoon with a boy not far from childhood, who still lived with his parents and worried about getting home to do his homework.
It made him more than a little bit ill.
He sighed, and rolled into the warm hollow Clark had left behind. Lex could still smell him upon the pillow - a somewhat spicy, sweet scent like a bell pepper. It was something Lex noticed on more than one occasion. Even during the most passionate moments, Clark did not sweat profusely, but instead that odd peppery scent rose from a body just barely dampened. Lex sweated like a pig, and if he had not been as warm and comfortable as he was, he would have immediately gotten up for a shower. As it were he lay curled around a pillow, gradually drifting off to sleep with snatches of their last bit of conversation flitting through his mind.
"Sworn to secrecy?" Lex had asked.
"As always."
Their gaze never parted, their eyes searched each other's heart as they spoke.
"I'm not going anywhere." Lex whispered. "I'll be here."
Clark smiled gently. "For the in between times?"
"For any time you need me."
"Promise?" Clark's breath was whisper soft against Lex's mouth. His lips were warm.
"Promise."