I really hate authors' notes, but for some reason they do seem necessary when writing for public at anything less than an actual published stature. So I guess this is needed. I can't really summarize it without giving a lot away, so please just read and enjoy. I don't have a beta, but if you find a mistake let me know and I will be more than happy to give in to my OCD-writer's side and fix it for you.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or places portrayed in this story. The only parts of my creation are the plot and wording. I am not, in any way, profiting off of this story.

Warnings: None really. Can be considered CLex slash if you look closely, but I wrote it with friendship only in mind (it was a strenuous endeavor, too). I don't think there's even any swearing… if there is, I forgot about it and I apologize profusely. Almost as much as I do now for rambling so much. Enjoy.

Hidden Desire

Phalanx Dragon

Clark stared blankly down at the two words delicately scrawled on a spaciously blank piece of paper. Pulled off the same page of the dictionary. Separated by a single letter.

Covert

Covet

Covert. An adjective meaning to be hidden or disguised. A thing he knew very intimately. Clark's life had been one whole covert game of "how many people can we keep in the dark." Many as the case turned out. Few knew his secrets and a few more suspected, but the total of both could be counted on two hands. In a rumor-mill run, backwater town such as Smallville, that in itself is a miracle.

Covet. A transitive verb- whatever that meant, Clark had had to look up what vt. stood for in the front of the dictionary- meaning to want intensely. Yet another thing Clark was intimately familiar with. He wanted to be popular in school. He wanted Lana Lang to like him. He wanted to make his parents proud. He wanted to be able to play football, basketball- any sport without worrying about accidentally killing someone. But most of all, he wanted to be able to tell. Someone, anyone, the whole truth. Everything about himself. He wanted a single person to whom he could bare his soul and not worry about any consequences.

Covert, covet. They weren't even the same type of word, but in the context of Clark's life, they became opposites. He had to hide, to mask himself in this All-American, innocent, simple farm-boy exterior, when what he wanted most intensely was to lay himself, his soul, bare.

The brown leather cover of the small journal snapped shut as Clark pressed the book closed, hiding the two words from eyesight. Clark was suddenly envious of the little leather-bound book. Wishing his secrets were as easy to hide. He ran a non-calloused, large hand over the front of the book and over the grooves etched into the leather. Clark J. Kent. Chloe had given him the book on his last birthday. She said her father had a friend who worked with leather and had bound the book for her, throwing in the name stamping for free. She had handed the book over and laughed at Clark's skeptical look when he saw it was empty.

"I figured even if you can't tell your friends all your secrets, you at least need an outlet of some sort." Although he could see the hint that she wanted him to tell at least her and Pete (although Pete already knew most of it), he knew she didn't realize how right she was. She would be disappointed, however, to realize that, in the span of four months, the most he had written in the journal was two words written in thin ink on one page with no explanation to their connection. Clark's secrets weren't the type to be written in a modest leather journal and laid where the world could see them. He simply wasn't that normal.

Clark sighed and lifted his hand before his fingertips could permanently mark their place on the book cover. He flipped his hand over so the back of it pressed against the warm leather and stared at his palm, his thumb, his life-lines. It should be calloused. It was a random thought, but Clark wondered why no one ever noticed that his hands didn't have the roughness that should have come with growing up on a farm. His skin was tough, but not coarse like it should be. In fact, Clark didn't have any of the scars that usually come with the growing up process. If he was stripped naked, it would be impossible for anyone to find so much as a mark on his body- a thought that made Clark shake the blush off his face. Sure, when he was younger, he'd had his fair share of spills, but they hardly ever left him with a wound and he had only bled a couple of times in his childhood. It had taken him falling off the silo ladder and onto an upturned rake to make him bleed for the first time when he was five, or so they guessed, it was actually impossible to know whether or not Clark had actually been three when he had "crashed down", but that was their best assumption. That time had actually left a scar, but, as Clark looked down at the leg that had bled, the scar had healed itself long before Clark had the proper state of mind to revere such displays of humanity. At times, Clark found himself examining his peers to see evidence of their mortality, envying those flaws that made them so perfect.

Clark sighed, wishing he could be a little closer to the semblance of normality. Then, in a stark sense of irony, he realized that if he was to behave anything like his high-school counterparts, deep introspective thinking would not be the way to go. He needed to do something active.

Placing the book containing the barest minimum of Clark's thoughts on the low-slung table in front of him, Clark launched himself off the couch in his Fortress of Solitude and looked out the opening in his loft. After affirming that there was no one in sight, Clark leaped to the ground and took off running in-between the corn rows in a very well traveled path. The wind rushing past his face, mussing up his hair more than his mother could at her most vindictive, cleared his mind and sharpened his eyes until a large grin spread across his face. The young man, for it was an injustice to call this one a boy anymore, burst out of the corn field and into a wooded area that he knew surrounded the Luthor Castle Estate, or Fort Lex, as he liked to think of it, but stopped before he could run out into the middle of the castle's lawn. He stepped up to the edge of the wood-line and glanced around the estate. He didn't see Lex's car of the day, sure that he was on to the Ferrari today. Lex liked to think that he chose his car randomly each day, but Clark had known him long enough to discover a pattern of sorts, depending on his mood and what errand he would be running. Lex, unlike what most people thought, chose his most modest cars when he would be "impressing" possible business deals. Clark thought it was because everyone already knew what Lex actually had, so it wasn't necessary to rub that fact in their faces. Lex honestly didn't want to place himself above others because of his wealth. He would rather do it because of his intelligence and wonderful wit. Clark grinned at the thought. Today, however, Clark knew Lex had nothing hugely "business-like" to do and would be able to have fun while driving and thus, would be driving his more fun cars. The Lamborghini had been taken out yesterday, so the Ferrari was today.

Clark quickly X-Rayed the expanse of a garage and found, to his dismay, after the spike of amusement at his insight, the Ferrari's spot in the garage to be empty. To make sure, Clark ran an X-Ray over the entire castle, locating the moving human skeletons- not that there were any non-moving skeletons, thank God- and looking for Lex's signature stance, posture, or walk. After seeing only those frames of the cooks, butlers, and general helpers, Clark relaxed his eyes and sighed. So much for that plan. He made his way back to the Kent farm at what he considered to be a brisk jog and most would consider a leisurely handle-gripping ride in Lex's sports-car. The run to his house took less than eight minutes.

Clark stopped short half-way down his driveway when he spotted the cherry-red, stream-lined Ferrari sporting the license plate LEX OCF which could only belong to one person on earth. Clark grinned, knowing he was the only person who was privy to the information that OCF stood for "Owns a Crap Factory". Lex had bought the car right after he'd been exiled to Smallville and was feeling a little bitter.

"Are you going to stand there staring at my car all night, or are you going to come up and talk to me?" The sultry voice sounding like liquid seduction, a feature Clark was sure Lex could never completely turn off, drifted down to him. Clark looked up to see Lex standing on his loft smiling down at him with that soft smile he'd never used on anyone else, as far as Clark was aware. Clark shrugged.

"I don't know. Your cars always seem to have a lot to say." He replied.

Lex looked rightfully surprised by the statement, "Don't I know it."

Clark grinned mysteriously and jogged through the barn and up the stairs, slowing as he reached the final platform and walked up to Lex's side. The older man glanced at him, and then looked back up at the sky. Clark stared up as well, trying to match up the angle of his head to Lex's wondering if they were looking at the same star, the same constellation. Wondering if Lex saw the same things he did. The companionable silence carried on as the two leaned against the loft's railing and Clark took the time to let his mind wander. Back to his and Lex's first meeting, through the times he and Lex had simply hung out, back to that feeling of worth, that feeling of equality. Lex had never treated him like less than an equal, a peer, a friend. Clark's mind strayed back to his first memory, seeing his new-found parents hanging upside down in an equally upside down truck. He thought back to the rake incident, to Pete's reaction when he found out, back to Chloe's not-so-subtle hints, back to the leather-bound Clark J. Kent journal, and finally, back to two small words that were contained within.

Clark laughed and Lex jumped at the sudden sound, looking at Clark in surprise. Clark just grinned at him and said in an amused voice, "Have you ever wanted one thing more than anything else in the world, and all your life you've you told you can't have it?"

Lex's look was one of confusion, taking in Clark's elated presence coupled with his deep and poignant question. Even so, he still took several moments to think deeply on the question. His clear blue eyes stared in a soul-searching way into Clark's, before they closed; lips quirking up in a small smile while he nodded.

Clark waited until Lex had opened his eyes again before grinning at him.

"Me too."

He took Lex's hand into is own, "C'mon," he said as he began to drag a bemused Lex down the stairs to the storm cellar, "There's something I want to show you."

© Phalanx Dragon 2006