Save the Day.

Lex was, traditionally, a fairly steady person. He had managed several life-threatening situations with aplomb, cutthroat business relations with barely a blink, and his father with a steady voice if not steady emotions. But this- this was different. This was something he couldn't handle.

Clark had been very… un-Clark-like. Arrogant, sneering, determined to take over the world. And Lex had looked at the boy he'd fallen for and seen exactly what he was going to become someday.

ClarkKent and Lex Luthor. I like the sound of that.

Yeah, so did Lex. But not like that. Jesus, never like that. Clark had been… Frightening. For more than one reason.

Clark was supposed to be the good guy. He was supposed to be the one who saved Lex from himself. It was not supposed to be the other way around, and now Lex wasn't sure which way was up and what was white and what was black. Or was it all just shades of gray?

Clark had come by the day after his remarkable recovery of his senses and personality, blushingly apologetic, and they'd both said the right words to mend their friendship while carefully avoiding the subject of why, exactly, Clark had behaved the way he did, and what had caused him to change back.

Lex had no doubt that they would be fine, their friendship restored to its usual level of comfort. Later. Right now, Lex wasn't sure he could even look Clark in the eye. Not because he was disgusted with Clark, but because he was disgusted with himself.

If he hadn't met Clark, would he be like that? Would he have bent under the weight of his father's will and turned into an uncaring, mercenary leech, determined to suck all the joy from everyone's life to satisfy his own unending hunger for more? It was a terrifying thought, and he had this irrational thought that if Clark just looked at him, Clark would know, and Clark would want nothing more to do with him.

"Hey," a cheerful voice said from the doorway of his office, and Lex closed his eyes in silent horror. Clark. Of course it was Clark. He hadn't gotten a chance to get his balance again, and he couldn't face the boy who only days before had made him so very terrified of himself.

"Hello," he said, trying to sound normal, rather than panicked. "What brings you by, Clark?"

"It's delivery day, so I thought I'd duck in and say hi," Clark said. He eyed the pile of papers on Lex's desk. "Unless you're busy?"

Say yes, the voice in the back of his head whispered. Say yes, and he'll go away, and you won't have to face him any more today.

"No," he said, inwardly cursing himself. "I can take a break. What do you have in mind?"

"Pool?" Clark said eagerly. "The teen center has a table and I've been practicing… I think I've gotten a little better."

Oh, Lex had no doubt that Clark had gotten better. Lex had no doubt that Clark could quite easily beat him. What he doubted was that Clark would let himself win, because he was always so careful not to be really good at anything. Didn't he realize that all his careful camouflage was wasted on Lex?

"Alright," he agreed, pushing back from his desk. Playing pool was better than sitting here talking, since it held less risk of Clark discovering his own secret, currently so close to the surface. Clark knew him so well sometimes, and Lex knew that a single wrong word would cause Clark to figure it out.

Twenty minutes later they were halfway through the game and Clark was, in fact, winning. Not through speed and strength and the abilities that would allow him to easily gain victory, but because somewhere along the line, he had learned to approach the game of pool as the careful mathematical problem that it was. Perhaps Clark hadn't been lying about his extensive practice on the ancient and slightly off-keel table at the teen center. Any other time Lex would have been impressed, but today he was too distracted to even ogle Clark's truly excellent ass as he bent over the pool table, much less anything else.

Then again, it was possible that Clark's winning streak had something to do with Lex's own diminished skill, which Clark, damn him, noticed. He didn't say anything for the first two shots that Lex missed, but the third time, when Lex missed a straight shot that he normally could have done in his sleep, Clark apparently gave up on the pretense that everything was fine and leaned against the pool table with his arms casually folded across his chest in a pose that Lex easily recognized as "we need to talk."

In a desperate attempt to prevent what would be an absolutely disastrous confrontation, Lex asked hurriedly, "Clark, you were right; you really are getting better at pool. You're about to beat me." Lame, and it didn't even really sound like him, but it might distract Clark enough to turn the conversation away from What's Wrong with Lex.

No dice. "Yeah, because you're playing about as well as your average chimpanzee." Lex winced at the slur to his skills- which at the moment, was deserved- and also at the knowledge of the words that were about to come. "Lex, what's wrong?"

Yep. He hated it when he was right. "Nothing's wrong, Clark. I'm just distracted."

And Clark, showing the disturbing insight that he buried under layers of country cluelessness that flashed forward at the more inconvenient times for Lex, said shrewdly, "It's about me, isn't it?"

"What do you mean, Clark?" Lex said, a smile pasted on his face. He was fairly sure it wasn't even close to his usual standard, but still. There were mitigating circumstances.

"I'm not so clueless as you think I am," Clark said, uncannily mirroring Lex's thoughts from minutes before. "I can tell something's up, and I'm pretty sure that it's something to do with me. So what's wrong?"

There were so many things that Lex could have said right then, and Clark probably would have believed every single one of them. So no one was more surprised than him when he opened his mouth and told the truth.

"It's about the way you were acting a few days ago," he said.

Clark, of course, immediately shut down. Not visibly, not unless you knew him, but his entire body language closed down and his eyes went distant and sad. Lex had forgotten that Clark would act like this, and now that he was seeing it, he realized that he had his perfect out. He could pretend that he was uncomfortable around Clark because of Clark, not because of himself. Clark would never know the truth.

"I apologized for that," Clark said quietly. "I'll apologize again, if you want."

"It won't make a difference," Lex said, and when Clark visibly flinched this time and ducked his head, Lex knew that he couldn't go through with it. Couldn't pretend that it was all Clark's fault when it was Lex who was the one who was wrong.

"It wouldn't make a difference, Clark, because it's not you," Lex said. "It's me."

Clark looked up at him with those pretty green eyes of his that saw more than he let on. "What do you mean, it's you?"

Lex looked away. There was no way he could say this while actually meeting Clark's eyes.

"When you came in here," Lex started slowly, "you were very different." He paused, giving Clark a chance to make the comment that he thought the teenager would make, but Clark was silent. Watching.

"I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what. So I stalled you and got your parents."

He stopped. How the fuck was he supposed to say this with Clark looking at him like that?

"You did the right thing, Lex," Clark said, when he apparently realized that Lex wasn't going to continue. "You know that, right?"

"Oh, I know," Lex said. "It wasn't that. It was just… the way you were acting…" He paused, took a huge breath. Now or never, old chap. "I sometimes wonder if that could have been me."

Clark was quiet for a long time, and Lex finally couldn't bear the silence stretching between them. He risked a glance at Clark.

Who offered him one of his sweetest smiles, like he'd been waiting for Lex to be able to see it. "It wouldn't have been you, Lex," Clark said. "You could never have gotten that… evil." He seemed to stumble over the word, but he said it like he knew it was true. Lex wanted to argue, but frankly, other-Clark had scared the hell out of him, just because he had no idea what he was capable of. If Clark said that his alternate personality or whatever the hell he'd turned into was evil, then Lex wasn't going to dispute. It wouldn't do any good even if he did, because Clark was clearly carrying around a load of guilt a mile wide.

"I could have," Lex said softly. "If I hadn't met you." A world of meaning in his voice, but Clark hadn't picked up on it before, and he wasn't likely to do so now.

"I'm not your keeper, Lex," Clark said, sounding almost angry. "That's a hell of a thing to lay on someone. Especially after what I did."

"I didn't mean it like that," Lex protested. "You're not my keeper, I know that. But you are my friend. Or at least, I thought we were," he muttered, a beam of insecurity he'd forgotten he had reaching the surface.

"You know we are," Clark said. "But I still don't get what you mean."

Lex sighed and leaned back against the pool table. "You're not my keeper, Clark," he said finally. "But you are my reason."

Clark inhaled sharply, and somehow he was two steps closer to Lex before Lex realized he was moving. "Lex…"

Lex swallowed sharply at the longing in Clark's tone. If he didn't know better, he'd think Clark was- But no.

"You're a good person," Lex said. "Bizarre personality changes aside, you always know right from wrong, without really thinking about it. And I find that sometimes, if I think about you when I'm making a decision, it's easier for me not to have to think about it, either. Does that make any sense?"

"Perfect sense," Clark said. Somehow he'd migrated another step closer, and was now only about a foot away. "I know what you're saying, Lex."

And then that foot of personal space had vanished, and Clark was standing very, very close, looming over Lex with his intent written clearly across his face. Lex held his breath. "I know exactly what you were saying."

And then Clark kissed him.

Bells didn't ring; trumpets didn't sound. There was no explosion of color behind Lex's eyelids, no exquisite choir of angels. There was only Clark's lips, resting gently against his, and to Lex, that was more than enough.

Then Clark was pulling away. Lex opened his eyes in protest, but Clark didn't move far, just enough so that he could look Lex in the eye. "I'll make you a deal," he said. "I will stop you if I ever think you are turning into him- if you'll do the same for me."

"I don't know how to stop you," Lex said, almost despairing. Too much truth from him, admitting to Clark that he knew that he was invulnerable, and it had always driven Clark away before.

But this time, Clark wasn't going anywhere. "I'll show you," Clark said, and lowered his head to press his forehead against Lex's. "I need to know that if it happens again, you'll be there to save the day."

"Always, Clark," Lex told him. "If it's you."

"Good enough," Clark said, and kissed him again.

This time it was no chaste press of lips. This time, it was for real, and somewhere in the back of his mind, as Lex clung to wide biceps just to keep from falling over, he wondered where Clark had learned how to kiss.

But it didn't matter now. Because Clark was here, with him, and it looked like he'd be staying there for the foreseeable future.

And Lex was more than okay with that.