Archive of Our Own

By Lex's count he had been here for two and a half days. Approximately; his usually reliable time sense was distorted by the lack of light. The cell had no windows, and the bulb overhead stayed on through the night, the better to watch him by.

'Cell' was giving them too much credit, of course. It was really a storage closet, hastily employed to judge by the scuff marks on the floor where shelves had been moved out. A rush job: they hadn't expected to get hold of him this quickly, or more likely had never intended to hold him at all. They had asked him to the meeting in good faith, and their initial request had been polite enough. They'd probably thought that what they had to offer was more than enough.

That offer still stood, they had made clear. A sweet deal, too; with the financial leverage from the promised chemical manufacturing company up for grabs, he could get LexCorp out from under Lionel's thumb.

Sweet, but there was no price high enough for what they wanted. Not that they could've known that, or would've believed it even if told. Lex had known such as them all his life. His father being the most stellar example, a man who would sell anything for the right price, incapable of comprehending that some things couldn't be bought. Some people couldn't be bought.

Lionel wasn't behind this. That first offer hadn't been his style, much too easy. And the following offers, the increasingly desperate bargaining sessions, lacked his...expertise.

Therefore, as Lex sat on the cement floor, patiently working at the thick cords around his wrists, he could entertain himself with thoughts of what Lionel would do when he got hold of these gentlemen. His dad didn't have much patience with others playing with his toys.

That was, of course, if Lionel got to them first, which Lex had no intention of allowing. Still, alternative options must be considered, and after two days he needed the extra distraction from the monotony of blank walls and throbbing bruises.

After almost two years in Smallville, one would think he'd be used to this. Only he wasn't in Smallville; he was somewhere in Metropolis, and therein was the problem, wasn't it. Smallville came with its own dangers, but was balanced by special advantage.

So he could tell himself, but not honestly. Balance, hah! Balance implied equivalent exchange. Smallville was more than worth it, a dozen times over.

Hearing footsteps through the door, Lex hastily tucked his hands under himself. He was halfway through the rope, not quite ready, and couldn't blow his chance until the time was right. Which hopefully would be soon; he was quite thoroughly bored. The only thing keeping utter ennui at bay was the knowledge that he had seen his captors' faces, enough to pick them from a lineup. That did not bode well for his future chances, if he failed to procure his own freedom.

He had offered money, but they weren't interested in a ransom. Bigger fish to fry—bigger than him, or LexCorp. So much bigger that he seriously doubted they had any real idea what they were trying to net, the true scope of what they sought.

Not that Lex had any intention of enlightening them. Not in this lifetime. Theirs or his.

He rather counted on the latter exceeding the former by an appreciable amount.

With every hour passed, that became less of a guarantee.

The door opened, and Lex carefully shaped his features into wide-eyed fear before raising his head. Keep 'em guessing. With luck, he'd be able to make his move soon.

With luck, he would survive it.

Clark stood outside the warehouse, debating.

Chloe hadn't been certain. Actually she had said it was an off-chance at best. But Lex had been missing for two days, and an off-chance was better than no chance, and Clark had made it to Metropolis in three minutes, which halved his previous record and also had ripped a hole in his shirt. He had gotten it caught on something along the way, a tree branch or maybe a fence. He had been going too fast to notice until he was a mile past.

Two days, and the police had turned up nothing, and neither had Lionel's unbelievably expensive private investigators. If they were really looking for Lex, and not looking for something else. Lionel said he was worried, had looked worried this morning, with his face drawn and gray. But Lionel couldn't be believed.

If Lionel had something to do with this, if Lionel was the reason Lex had vanished like that, then Clark was going to—do something to him. Maybe something he couldn't tell his parents. Something so that Lionel wouldn't do anything like this to Lex ever again. Couldn't do it again.

Clark nearly had done something already. Going to the mansion this morning and seeing Lionel standing in Lex's office, by the windows where Lex should be standing, he had felt like he couldn't breathe, it'd been so wrong.

But that could wait. Finding Lex was what mattered now. If he were here...Clark took a deep breath and concentrated. It took a moment for his x-ray vision to click in, and then he was peering through the walls of the packing plant. Late Sunday afternoon, the building was mostly empty of people. There were only thick masses with skeletons showing dimly—a giant meat freezer, great slabs of frozen beef.

But way in the back, behind everything, he saw movement. Three people—no, four, one of them with his hands over his head, hung like another hunk of beef.

Lex. And maybe it should have worried Clark a bit, that he could recognize Lex's skeletal figure that easily, but he'd had practice enough, and besides, hanging from a hook, who else could it be?

Clark went over the chain-link fence and broke the padlock on the door with a swipe of his hand, easy as sliding a credit card through a lock. The thick door to the freezer was ajar, no one keeping guard, and he slipped through the clear plastic sealing curtains.

It was dim inside, the shadowy shapes of the beef sides suspended from ceiling hooks, crowded in long rows; and cold, he guessed; he couldn't really feel it, but his breath misted in white puffs. He focused his special vision again. Four figures, two with guns, one with something else in his hand that Clark couldn't make out. He could take them, but he'd have to be careful. If he wasn't fast enough and one of those guns went off—if it hit him, Lex might see, if Lex was awake. And if it hit Lex...

A sharp sound echoed through the dry, cold air, and a voice came with it. "So are you gonna talk, or are we gonna have to go through this again?"

"Of course." Lex was awake. His voice was quiet and raspy but instantly recognizable. "What would you like to talk about? The weather's been lovely, hasn't it, especially given the cyclones we were getting this time last year—"

Another sharp retort cut him off, and Clark jumped as he realized it was the sound of cloth hitting flesh. Lex's flesh; one of the men had backhanded him. "Still got that mouth on you? You better shape up and learn how to use it right."

Clark double-checked. One man had his back to Clark, then there was Lex and the guy talking in profile, and the last guy behind them, facing his direction. If he came in sideways, between the rows of hooks, none of them would see him coming. Not until it was too late. He braced himself—

"Tell us about Clark Kent," the man before Lex said, and Clark froze.

He suddenly could hear his heartbeat, so loud he thought it must be echoing through the whole freezer. His pulse, and Lex's voice, saying, "As I explained. The Kents are acquaintances I've been cultivating. Pillars of their community. I win them over, I have the town—"

"We don't care about the farmers, or your hick town. Tell us about the kid."

"I've told you everything I know," Lex said, and Clark shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the refrigerated air. Everything Lex knew...wasn't much, maybe, but what he had guessed, the piece of the ship, the caves... "Clark's a sixteen-year-old boy. He's a high school sophomore. He delivers produce for his family's farm."

"And you're cultivating an acquaintance with this farm boy—so what's your angle?" The man's voice was sneering. "He's a pillar, too? Luthors don't make friends, not without reason."

"He saved my life," Lex said. He sounded hoarse, strained, not suave as usual. "It's a matter of public record. I was in a car accident my first day in town, and he rescued me. Luthors know how to reward those who help us." He said it like a suggestion; then his voice dropped, became smoother, dangerous like thin ice. "As we know how to reward wrongs done to us."

"Save it, rich boy," the guy said. "Talk about that accident. How'd the kid save you? How exactly?"

"I have no idea. They must have had a CPR class at his high school, fortunately for me." Lex sounded bored, even when the man hit him again.

"I'm not talking mouth-to-mouth. The accident. There was something weird about it. We got someone from your household staff who said you kept the car afterwards. That you were investigating it."

"That Porsche was one of my favorite vehicles. I was hoping to have it restored."

"What about the other incidents? That time you were framed for a bank robbery. Or that so-called 'Superboy' hero. Or your marriage last fall—"

"A lot of strange things happen in Smallville," Lex said. "At the very least, it's a hotspot for rumor and flights of tabloid fancy."

"This is Daily Planet stuff, not tabloids. A lot of strange shit happens around your friend Clark Kent. What do you know about it? About him? You wouldn't bother being friends with a redneck farmer's kid if there weren't something up with him. So what is it, Luthor? What's Clark Kent's secret?"

Clark was holding his breath as if he might be overheard. As if the pounding of his heart wasn't already loud enough for the whole city to hear.

"Clark Kent's secret?" Lex repeated. "That's simple. He drinks milk. Three glasses a day. The Kents run an organic dairy farm, you know—"

The guy didn't hit him this time. Instead there was a weird crackle, and Lex's voice cut off in a strangled whine.

"I warned you about that mouth," the man said. "Now stop being a wise-ass and wise up. You tell us what we want and you're out of here. First-class treatment all the way home."

Clark could hear Lex panting for breath. "I don't know what you want," he said between wheezes.

"You don't need to give us the whole story. Just whatever you got on the kid."

"I don't—" Another crackle, another gasp from Lex. Clark's hands were curled into fists and he couldn't uncurl them. Couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

"You know something. Or you wouldn't let him hang around. Show him around town. Give him presents. So what's so special about a hick farmboy, that Lex Luthor wants to be his friend? What's his secret?"

This time Lex—didn't quite scream, but almost, a guttural, wild cry of pain echoing through the cold darkness of the locker. "Well?" the man said, with no sympathy; more like satisfaction, like he was enjoying himself. "Just tell us. All you gotta do is give us a little bit, and this ends."

"Clark's...secret." Lex was so hoarse it was hard for Clark to hear him. He sounded hurt. He sounded broken. "It's..."

"Yeah?" Casually impatient, like Lex was a clerk at a grocery register, bagging too slowly.

"Clark's...his mouth."

Clark blinked. Too difficult to hear...

"His what?" the guy demanded.

"His mouth." Lex's voice was a little stronger, but only a little, low and slurred and weird. "His eyes, his hair...and that mouth...anything, to get near those lips. See them wrapped around my cock." Lex's voice dropped as he said it, deepened into something dark and silken. "And that ass, untouched. Organic—sweet sixteen and never been...kissed. Pure virgin farmboy."

"Jesus," said one of the other guys, the first time he had spoken, sounding totally disgusted.

"You want to know his secret? Maybe it's a hick town," Lex said, still soft and low, "but he's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen, anywhere."

"Are you shitting me, Luthor?" the man demanded. "You're gonna risk your standing in the town, with his parents, screwing some underage school kid?"

"Oh, I haven't screwed him. Yet." Clark could almost hear Lex lick his lips. He knew Lex's mouth would be open, recognized that tone when Lex had his lips parted just a bit, so his tongue moved pink behind his teeth. "What keeps me coming back, why I keep him around—it's for every chance I can feel his skin. I'm his friend, you know. He lets me touch him...they raise them innocent, on those farms. So fucking beautifully innocent..."

"You better not be playing me!" Another crackle punctuated the guy's snarl. Lex didn't cry out, but choked instead.

Clark had crept close enough to have a line of sight. They were under the only light on in the place. Lex's hands were tied together, and the rope was looped over a big metal hook suspended from the ceiling. He was hanging limply, head drooping down, his feet barely brushing the floor. Bare feet; no shoes. His shirt had been ripped open.

The man standing before him was holding a pair of metal pinchers about a foot long, with rubber handles and wires connecting them to a battery box. The crackling noise was the zap of an electric current as the guy put the tips of the jumper clamps to Lex's bare chest. Lex jerked, but his head stayed down, drooping.

"He's just a fucking pervert," growled the other guy, staring at Lex. "Two days of this shit and that's the only secret, and it's no secret. You ask anyone downtown, they'll tell you three times that about this son of a bitch. This is stupid. I say we waste him and take the body back to—"

He didn't get any further; Clark didn't let him. Lex's head was down and Clark was moving too fast to be seen anyway. The guy's head snapped back with the punch and his body flew back to thud into the frozen wall of meat behind him. The hooks and chains rattled.

"What the hell was—" began the other guy with the gun, and then Clark had taken him out, too.

The last guy, the one who had been asking Lex the questions, turned now to put Lex at his back, facing the darkness. He held out the clamps, threatening as he scanned the locker, looking for a safe way out. "Who's there?" he demanded, and he was trying to sound tough, brave; but he wasn't. He was just a coward who couldn't yet run away, so was talking instead. Lex was what bravery really sounded like, that bored, sardonic confidence, even knowing what these men could do to him.

Clark waited a moment in the shadows until the guy was looking in the other direction; then he came at him. He had his hand around the guy's throat before his head twisted back. Lex was right there, so pale his skin looked white against the dark blue of his shirt hanging open. His head was still down and his eyes were closed and Clark could have squeezed, it only would've taken a second, he could crush—

He let go, tapped the guy on the forehead before he got a look, and stepped back as the body slumped to the cement floor. Pushing the unconscious man out of the way with his foot, he went to Lex. Touched his cheek and spoke his name.

Lex groaned, turned his head, though his eyes stayed shut. Clark reached up and snapped the rope binding his hands, then caught Lex as he fell from the hook. He bore him up as Lex got his footing on the floor, his arm around Lex's waist. "Lex, are you okay?"

Lex blinked, coughed and mumbled, confused, "Clark?"

"Yeah, it's me. How are you? Did they hurt you—" Well, duh, if that wasn't the stupidest thing to ask—"very much?"

"What are you doing here, Clark? This is Metropolis." Lex sounded matter-of-fact and totally out of it at the same time, a combination only Lex could conceivably manage. "Isn't it?"

"It's Metropolis," Clark confirmed. "We're in a meat packing plant near the docks. It's owned by the same company that owns the chemical company that you were meeting with someone about last Friday." An off-chance, like Chloe had said, but it had paid off.

"Last Friday...what day is it today?"

"Sunday, getting on toward evening."

"So it has been two days." Lex sounded satisfied, at least as far as Clark could identify his tone, through his chattering teeth. He was shivering against Clark.

He was only wearing slacks and the ripped shirt, and bare feet. The guys lying unconscious on the floor were all in heavy jackets and gloves, Clark realized. He didn't notice the refrigeration himself, but Lex did, obviously. "Darn it, sorry, Lex. Are you okay? Can you walk? Here, take my jacket." He shrugged out of it, awkwardly when he had to keep hanging onto Lex. Lex managed to stand on his own for a couple seconds, more or less, swaying in place. Clark wrapped the jacket around him, then slipped his arm around Lex's waist again, for the warmth, along with the support. "C'mon, let's get out of here."

Lex blinked again, gave his head a shake. "Wait, the men—three of them, they had guns—"

"They're out," Clark assured him, gesturing. "They were, uh, like that when I came in."

Lex stiffened, back straightening. "When did you come in?"

"Lex, come on." He pulled and Lex came stumbling after him, tripping like his feet were too big for him. They probably were numb with cold. How cold was it in here, anyway? Clark couldn't tell. He couldn't get frostbite or hypothermia, but Lex could. He rubbed his hand up and down Lex's side, trying to warm him with friction, the way his dad chafed his hands together when working outside in winter.

Lex kept shivering as he walked, even in Clark's jacket, but his gray eyes on Clark were clearer, more focused than they had been, and his voice was clearer, too, if still raspy. "Clark," he said, "did you hear anything? What did you hear?"

"We should call the police, I guess," Clark said. "You don't have your cell phone, do you?—Sorry, no, dumb question. Shoot, I should've borrowed Mom's before I came—"

"Clark."

"I didn't hear anything important," Clark said, as he brought Lex through the freezer's exit, pushing aside the plastic curtains. A few more steps and they were outside the building, on the asphalt driveway. The sun was setting, but the smoggy breeze felt warm and humid after the freezer. Lex was still shivering a little, though, and he tripped again, staggered and leaned into Clark's supporting shoulder. Their hands brushed, Lex's skin chill against his.

For every chance I can feel his skin, Lex had said; and Clark froze for a second at the memory, at that touch of Lex's cold fingers.

Then Lex had pulled away, pulled himself upright. He folded his arms across his chest and forced the shivers to still. The sleeves of Clark's jacket fell past his wrists, covering half his hands, and his fingers clutched at the cuffs, tugged them close. "We should leave the grounds. Presumably any security has been paid to look the other way," he said, "so it'd be less than logical to seek their assistance now." He looked at the dockyards beyond the fence. "I should be able to find a payphone somewhere."

"To call the police, or an ambulance?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of a limo."

Clark stared at him. "But what about those guys in there?" and he waved back toward the warehouse. "The people who did this to you, they need to be arrested—"

"I assure you, they'd be taken care of," Lex said, but he stared back at Clark, a long concentrated look, then released a breath like a sigh and started for the fence, mostly steady on his feet. "But if you insist, I'll bring in the police. You'd best get out of here."

"What?"

"Rescuer's prerogative, deciding the resolution of the rescue," Lex said, with that quirk of expressive lips that said he was joking, always a private joke because no one ever got them. Except that Clark did, usually. If not now.

"Not that," Clark said, "I mean, good, that you're calling the police, but I'm coming with you."

"Don't bother." Lex sounded calm but his shoulders went tense. "I can manage."

"Lex, you've been gone for two days, your legs are wobbly, and you have no shoes."

"While I appreciate the attention to detail, I can manage farther such stunning insight on my own."

"Lex!" Clark took three long stride to get in front of Lex, cutting him off. Lex stumbled to a halt, looking up at him with an unreadable gaze. Clark met it unflinching. "Two days, Lex," he said. "I'm not going to just leave you here. Not until I know you're safe."

Lex drew a breath, then looked away before he spoke. Which wasn't Lex, to back down first; Lex could win a staring contest with a cat. But he was tired now, wan and drooping, and his voice sounded tired and drooping, too. "Clark, the last thing you need is to be present for yet another too timely rescue of the Luthor scion."

"Not timely enough," Clark said. There weren't any marks on his bare chest, that Clark could see, but the bruises on his face showed up clearly on his white cheeks.

Lex pulled Clark's jacket tighter around himself, essayed a smile. "More than timely enough, and better luck than I deserve."

Lex never could just say thanks like a normal guy. He had moved beyond trucks with ribbons, at least, but not by much. "It doesn't count as a rescue until I know you're safe," Clark told him.

"Clark," Lex sighed, then pulled another ghost of a grin, "think of our reputations. People will talk."

"Like those guys?" Clark said without thinking.

Lex's smile vanished like it had never been. His expression stiff as his shoulders, he moved around Clark and headed again for the fence.

This time Clark followed him. Lex didn't ask for assistance climbing the fence and Clark didn't offer any, though he watched Lex carefully. He waited until they had both clambered over to say anything. "Over there," and he pointed to a lone payphone stuck to a warehouse's blank wall across the street, then walked with Lex to it.

"Did you drive here?" Lex asked him, carefully polite. "Or should I call you a cab home?"

"No, I'll be okay," Clark said. "Just, the police—what if those guys wake up and get away? I can do it—"

He picked up the phone receiver, but Lex pressed down the hook to keep a connection from opening. "I can make the call," he said. "Go. I give you my word, I'll call the police."

"I know, I trust you," Clark said. "I'll just stick around until they show up, okay?"

"No need." Lex tugged off the jacket, handed it back to Clark. "Just get home. Your parents will worry if you're gone too long."

"Lex—"

"Clark, I'll be fine. I am fine. Thanks to you." His smile was real, but it wasn't saying everything—it never did, with Lex, but Clark wasn't used to the look in Lex's eyes. There wasn't much that frightened Lex, but what Clark saw there now looked more like fear than anything else he could think of. "You don't need to stay here. It's better if you don't."

It made sense that Lex would be afraid, after what he had just been through; except Clark had the weird feeling that whatever Lex was scared of, it wasn't those guys in the meat locker with their fists and jumper cables. That maybe it didn't have anything to do with Lex at all.

That maybe Lex understood everything, more than Clark ever would have wanted him to. "Okay," he said, not knowing what else he could say. "Okay, but Lex, when you get home, can you give me a call? So I know you made it?"

"All right," Lex agreed, looking relieved, and taking the phone he dialed 9-1-1.

Clark waited, listening, while Lex calmly gave his name and location and a brief summary of the situation. He heard the woman on the other end tell him a patrol car would be there in five minutes. Then Lex nodded to him; Clark nodded back and jogged away.

He didn't go far, just a couple buildings, near enough to see the police car pull up. Two officers in uniform got out and went to Lex, waiting under the closest streetlight in the growing darkness. Clark watched until another cruiser arrived and Lex was helped into the car, a blanket around his shoulders, while the first two officers headed into the meat plant.

Then he ran home, his heart still pounding too loudly in his chest, wondering if this really counted as a rescue at all.

Lionel was waiting up for him when Lex got back to the mansion. He expected that; it was barely midnight, after all. Still, the discussion with the police had been the most tedious part of the whole ordeal, and Lex was up for little more than sleep on a surface softer than cement.

But the light in his office pronounced that there would be no rest for the wicked, and it never did to put off his father unnecessarily. Lex took a moment to exchange the police jacket for a clean shirt, and then went to beard the lion in his den.

He endured Lionel's opening volley of gracious greetings, "So glad to see you, son, I can't tell you how I felt, getting that call from the police tonight," and bypassed his outstretched hand—shake? embrace?—in favor of the liquor shelf. Poured himself a scotch and took a restorative swallow.

Then he lowered the glass, faced his father. "Better news than the calls you used to get a few years ago, eh, Dad?"

Lionel was unperturbed. "Then as now, I was of course relieved, first and foremost."

"And frustrated, right after that. The police successfully captured all three suspects; they're in custody now. And I never saw anyone else."

"You identified the suspects?"

"I didn't have much choice." Lex shrugged. "They wouldn't have talked anyway. They held me for two days and never once mentioned who they were working for."

"And where were they holding you?"

Lex leaned against his desk. "Don't bother; I've already taken steps to procure the place myself." It might be too late to obtain whatever security camera footage had been taken this afternoon; but it might not be. He wouldn't know unless he tried. "There's nothing there that you wouldn't already know."

His father offered an indulgent chuckle. "Lex, surely you can't think I had anything to do with—"

"No, you didn't, Dad," Lex said. "This wasn't your style. But I'm guessing your private investigators would have done a better job finding me if they hadn't been instructed to first find who was responsible for the abduction."

"Well, we wouldn't want a repeat incident, would we?"

"No, we wouldn't." He raised his glass, took another sip.

Lionel watched him drink, head tilted back speculatively and curiosity bright like a flame in his eyes. "So what did they want with you?"

"You must've started getting worried there," Lex mused, "by the time the second day rolled around and still no ransom."

"On the contrary," his father returned, "I wouldn't expect any thug with the daring to capture you to be stupid enough to think I or the company would cave to terrorist demands. But I did wonder at their reasons."

Wondering indeed. He must have zero leads, to be asking this openly. Lex shrugged, applied himself to the glass again to hide his relief. "Nothing special. They merely had a deal to propose, and were...disappointed when I didn't accept it."

"A deal?"

"Just a bit of leftover LexCorp business. Nothing you'd be interested in, Dad," and Lex mustered up enough energy to give his father a shark smile. Let Lionel lose sleep over the implications of LexCorp's possible revival. It would give him something else to do while he raced Lex in the investigation of this little debacle.

"Well, the important thing is that you're home, safe and sound," Lionel declared, letting the matter drop until he could regain the advantage. "By the by, how did you manage that?"

"Oh, the police didn't say?" Surprising; Lex would have expected Lionel to have bribed his MPD contacts better than that. "Stupidity on the part of my captors. They had a disagreement and took to fighting among themselves, and didn't realize I had freed myself. I took out the last man standing, got out and found a phone."

The stories of the men in police custody didn't quite tally with this, but as none of them had a clear version themselves of what had happened and all three were suffering from concussions among other contusions, Lex's versions of events was credible enough to pass. Metropolis's police department wasn't as conditioned as Smallville's to let events go without any explanation, but when one was handed to them they would take it. Especially if it minimized the time they needed to spend with a Luthor.

"Resourceful," Lionel commented. He, on the other hand, wouldn't be inclined to let any of it pass, but Lex could arrange suitably convincing proof for his sake.

If not tonight. Tonight he was feeling hard-pressed to arrange a walk up the stairs to his suite. The couch in his office would serve well enough, but if he sat on it now he wasn't sure he would be able to stay awake, and Lionel was still here. If he smelled blood in the water, wounded prey...

"But no less than I'd expect of you, son," his father said. His tone was strange, such that Lex dragged his eyes up to Lionel's face. The look in his father's eyes wasn't soft enough to be compassion; but momentary mercy, maybe. "Now why don't you get some rest?" He dropped his hand to Lex's shoulder before Lex could flinch away, just a pat, quick enough to be awkward. "I've already seen to my room. Breakfast at seven-thirty as usual? Or should I leave a message for the kitchen to make it eight?"

"Seven AM," Lex said. He'd have a lot to do tomorrow, after the unplanned absence. An eight o'clock arrival at the plant would allow him enough sleep to function, and the worst of the bruises would fade overnight.

His father looked like he might say more, but at the last minute didn't; instead he bid Lex good night and saw himself out, closing the office doors behind him with atypical courtesy. Too tired to think about it, feeling a touch of unwilling gratitude—Lionel's victory, right there—Lex turned back to the liquor cabinet to refresh his scotch, then took out his cell phone as he brought his drink to the couch.

He had hit speed dial two before it occurred to him to look at his watch. Past one A.M. and he winced, almost hung up. But he had promised, and the phone was picked up in the middle of its second ring. "Lex?"

"Clark,"' Lex said, sitting down heavily on the couch like he had been hamstrung, partly from relief, partly from the sudden tension of concerns he had been pushing aside all evening. The room spun slightly around him and he closed his eyes until it settled.

Clark's faceless voice over the phone, hushed in deference of the late hour and his sleeping parents, told him nothing. "So you made it back okay?"

"I'm in the mansion now."

"You didn't go to the penthouse in Metropolis?"

"I wanted to sleep in my own home. Though I might've reconsidered if I'd known my father had come around Smallville for the occasion."

"Ow," Clark said with sympathy. "Bad?"

"He was brimming with paternal concern. Making sure I didn't sully the Luthor name, you know, debasing myself in the custody of common criminals."

"Lex," Clark started, and then unexpectedly stopped.

Lex's nerves, unwinding as his body relaxed into the couch cushions, went taut until they were singing. His grip tightened around the tumbler's cool crystal. "What, Clark?" At least his voice stayed relatively calm.

If Clark had come into that warehouse too soon, if he had heard enough—too much—

"Just...be careful with your dad," Clark said, sounding unhappy, perhaps ashamed.

Lex let out a breath shaky enough to be a giggle. "Tell me something I don't know."

"Seriously," Clark said, getting a little louder with urgency. "I went to see him this morning, and he was in your office, on your computer. Going though your email—that's how I found you, Lex, I sort of snuck back in after he saw me out, checked out your laptop and saw the appointment you had on Friday—"

"You did what?"

Lex didn't realize how sharply he had spoken until Clark paused, too long, before finally mumbling, "Yeah...I'm sorry I was snooping. Just, it'd been two days, and there wasn't anything, I didn't have a clue where..."

"No, that's fine," Lex dismissed it hurriedly, "but coming back into my office—my father didn't see you, did he?"

"No, he was upstairs, in your rooms, I think—Lex, could he have had something to do with this? The kidnapping?"

"No, this wasn't Dad's style."

"Good," Clark said, with evident relief. "I mean, I didn't think—when I found you, what they'd done—your dad said he had all these PIs looking for you, but they weren't finding anything. They had the same lead me and Chloe did, but they didn't give it to the police or follow it up themselves, and that seemed wrong. But I didn't think even your dad would—"

"Oh, don't get me wrong," Lex said. "He would. But he didn't, not in this case. Those private eyes of his really were looking for me. Among other things."

"Other things?..."

"When you broke into the packing plant where they were holding me, you didn't see anyone else, did you?" He didn't remember seeing or hearing anyone else, but if there were a fourth, and Lionel found him first...

"Only the three guys, and you. The police got all three of them, right?"

"Yes."

"Good." He sounded fierce, not much like Clark. But then, the Clark Lex was familiar with was only one side, one facet of a complex diamond, the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

The locker's darkness was only a few hours' distant, the dry, freezing air a memory strong enough to make him shiver and wish for a fire in the fireplace. The iceberg, which would make him the Titanic, ripped open by the secrets just under the surface...

"Lex?" Clark asked. "You are okay, right?"

"Fine. Just wiped out. My apologies." Lex shifted the phone, raised the glass to take a sip. The crystal clinked on the receiver.

"So you're having a glass of warm milk before bed?" Clark asked suspiciously.

"A necessary nightcap. Fortification for facing my father."

"If you're alliterating, you definitely should be going to bed. Not staying up drinking."

Lex raised an eyebrow as he lowered the glass. That scolding was new. "You did tell me to call you."

"I know. But you need sleep."

Lex felt a surge of feeling—not stress; its opposite, warm and embracing, better at dispelling his father's chill than the scotch's burn. "Shouldn't you be in bed yourself? We indolent billionaires can afford sleeping in—" if not on Monday mornings—"but you have school and chores."

"I'll go to bed if you will."

"On my way now." Or already there. He toed off his shoes, stretched his legs out on the couch.

"Good." Clark must have realized he was channeling Martha, because he hesitated, came back sounding abashed. "Uh, sorry to go all weird on you. It's just...in that freezer. You didn't look good."

"And I usually do?" Too late—maybe he should have forgone the second scotch; the banter slipped out before he could help it, and Lex froze, feeling the memory of the locker's cold numbing his throbbing body.

But Clark only said, his voice still cautiously low, "Yeah, you do. Good night, Lex."

"Good night," Lex said blankly. Hung up and stared down into the golden liquor for a moment before he tipped back the glass. Then he put the tumbler down on the end table, switched off the lamp and dropped his head down on the couch arm to sleep.

Clark put the receiver back on the hook, was turning toward the stairs when his mother said behind him, "Clark?"

He jumped, turned the other way to face her. "Sorry, was I too loud? I was trying not to wake you or Dad."

"The phone ringing woke me. I think your father's still asleep—"

Footsteps on the stairs denied this, followed by Jonathan's voice, rough and grumpy with sleep, "I was until you got out of bed."

"Was that Lex on the phone, Clark?"

"Who else would it be, disturbing us at one in the morning?" his dad grumbled as he joined them in the kitchen.

"Yeah," Clark said, ducking his head. "Sorry, it's my fault. I told him to call me when he got home from the police."

"And of course he doesn't have the common courtesy to wait until an hour when reasonable people are awake—"

"I didn't want him to wait," Clark said. "And I was awake anyway. I wasn't going to be falling asleep until I heard from him."

His mother glanced at his father, one of those glances they always seemed to exchange when the subject of Lex came up. His dad was yawning at the time, though, and missed it. "Is Lex all right?" Martha asked.

"Yeah. Sort of. I don't know. He's hurt. The guys who kidnapped him, they were hurting him."

This time his dad caught his mom's glance, returned it. Then his dad cleared his throat, said, "Clark, you didn't say much about what happened today, when you went into town to rescue Lex."

"You didn't ask," Clark said, which was something of a lie. His mother had wanted to make sure he wasn't hurt, and his father had wanted to make sure no one had seen him. Especially Lex, though his dad hadn't actually said that. And he had told them no to both questions, truthfully, and then had gone to do his chores before they could ask him anything else.

"If Lex Luthor had turned up in serious condition, it would've been all over the news," his father said. Jonathan had watched the news that night, on three channels, to make sure Clark wasn't mentioned anywhere.

"He wasn't that badly injured," Clark said. "He didn't go to the hospital. But they were keeping him in this meat locker, without a jacket, or shoes—he was freezing. And they were beating him. And asking him questions, with electricity..."

His father's jaw set; his mother's face blanched. "Clark, you saw them do this?" she asked. "Torturing him?"

"Some of it," Clark said, and had to take a breath before he could open his fists; they were clenched like they had been in the freezer. He was as angry as he had been then, but there were no strangers here to be angry at; there was only himself. "I saw what they were doing to him, but I don't know how long they'd been doing it before I got there. It doesn't matter anyway, I can't testify. Lex wouldn't let me go to the police."

"He wouldn't?" The suspicion in his dad's voice was ugly. "So he doesn't want what you overheard getting out?"

It was difficult to keep the anger on himself where it belonged, and not turn it on his father. "No. What does it matter? You wouldn't let me testify anyway."

"What do you mean?" Jonathan frowned. "Of course we would—it's the duty of every law-abiding citizen—"

"So you'd want me to explain why I was there? How I managed to get to Metropolis without a car or a bus ticket, and sneak into the plant, and how I managed to take down three guys without them even seeing me?"

"Well, of course you couldn't mention your gifts," his mother began.

"But how else would they believe me? And what if one of those guys did see me—if he saw me on the witness stand, he could recognize me." If he hadn't been recognized already. They had known his name, after all...

His mother put a hand on his arm. "It's all right anyway, isn't it, Clark? Lex's testimony against them should be enough."

"It better be. What they were doing to him..."

"But he's all right now, isn't he," his mother said, calmingly.

His dad swallowed. "Clark, son, it must've been hard, seeing that. But you have to understand, the world Lex lives in—this kind of thing is one of the dangers..."

"This kind of thing? Getting kidnapped and tortured? You're saying Lex deserves that, just because he's rich?"

"No, of course not," Jonathan said. "But when you have that much money, and that reputation, getting used for ransom, or leverage, it happens. And the circles Lex runs with—"

"What circles? The people who are stupid enough to be friends with Clark Kent circle?"

He hadn't meant to say it, hadn't meant to give it away; it just came out, and then both his parents were staring at him. "What do you mean, Clark?" his mother asked at last.

Clark searched his brain, but this late at night he could come up with nothing except the truth, no matter how upsetting it might be. Maybe it was late enough that his parents would let it go. Give him time to come up with a way to excuse it, before they both dropped of heart attacks, or burst a vessel yelling at him. ...No, it was hopeless; and this was his own stupid fault, for mentioning it to begin with. He hadn't intended to tell them, but now he didn't have a choice. "Lex wasn't kidnapped for a ransom, or because of LuthorCorp or LexCorp. The guys who had him were asking him questions. About me. By name. Asking about what I can do."

His parents didn't seem to be breathing anymore. His mom's eyes were wide and his dad looked like a fly bumping into him would bowl him over. His mother found her voice first, to ask, "What were they asking?"

Then his father hoarsely demanded, "Goddamn it, what'd he tell them? How much does he know—"

"Nothing," Clark said, and knew from how his voice cracked that he'd lost his handle on his temper. "Lex didn't tell them anything at all."

"He must have told them something, if they had your name—"

"They had it already. They knew there was something strange about me, and they figured Lex must know what it was, if he was bothering to be friends with me. They were trying to force him to tell them, but he wouldn't."

"Because he didn't know anything." His dad let out a long breath. A relieved sound.

"No," Clark said, and it came out low and angry. He shrugged off his dad's hand on his shoulder, backed away from both his parents. "Lex could've told them something. About the car accident. Or the other times I've been there to save him."

"Then why didn't he?"

"Because of me. Because he was protecting me."

"You can't know that for sure—" his mother began.

"Yes, I can. Because I've seen it before—I know what you guys are like, when you're protecting me. The way you get mad, the way you get brave—Lex was the same. Is the same. Except that Lex doesn't even know what he's protecting."

"He knows enough to know there's something to protect," Jonathan said, darkly. Frightened, Clark thought. Frightened the same way Lex had been frightened. What would his father think, if he knew how much he was like Lex in the ways that counted?

"Then that's good for me, isn't it," Clark said. "That Lex knows that much. If he didn't think there was anything special about me, then he wouldn't have had any reason not to tell those guys everything he did know." Only maybe he wouldn't have anyway; Lex was the kind of guy who wouldn't tell them anything, just to be obnoxiously stubborn. He didn't take well to bullying.

Except he had told them something, hadn't he; and Clark felt his cheeks get hot, hoped his blush wouldn't be obvious. It would make this all the more difficult, explaining that to the parents. Listening to Lex say those things, about him—but it had been a lie, a joke on them. It had to be; he'd have noticed, wouldn't he have, if Lex really felt like that. About him.

"Clark," Martha said, "are you saying that Lex knows you're—special?"

His father's face was almost the color of uncooked dough. "What does he know?"

"I don't know."

"But he knows something?"

"He has to know something," Clark said. "Or guess, anyway, after everything. The accident, and what's been going on with the caves—he's the one who found me there, knocked out; and he's the one who found the piece of the spaceship..."

The looks going between his mom and dad weren't the usual Lex-related expressions of resigned dismay, but much more disturbed, and Clark doubted it was only because of the late hour. "How do you know he's seen that much?" his father asked. "Or are you just guessing?"

"I know because Lex has asked me about most of it. He's had a lot of questions lately, with the caves."

"And what have you told him?"

"Nothing! I haven't told him anything!" Clark snapped. "I always tell him that there's nothing, that I don't know—or I just lie, and say I'm writing a paper for school, or whatever. Always. Maybe Lex doesn't always believe me, though. He's smart. And I'm not that great at lying. Chloe always says she can see through me, and I bet Lex can, too. So that's how he knows, really, because I'm a sucky liar."

His mother looked like she wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what. What would she say? Tell him that he was wrong, he was really a better liar than he thought? Encourage him, practice makes perfect, he'd be sure to get it right, if he kept trying...

"But it doesn't matter anyway," Clark said, before she could speak. "Lex didn't tell them anything about me, whatever he knows. Though he could've lied to them. Or told them everything he had figured out, even if he was just guessing—"

His mom stared at him. "Clark, did you want Lex to tell them?"

"Of course not—" his father started to say.

"Yes!" Clark spoke over him. "Yes, he should've."

"Clark! You can't be serious—wanting criminals know your secrets—"

"I don't want them to know. But Lex should've told them. You didn't see what they were doing to him—if he'd told them, they would have quit. Maybe they would've let him go, instead of—they were going to kill him, that's what they were saying, before I stopped them. Lex couldn't tell them what they wanted to know, so they were going to kill him." He folded his arms over his chest. He wasn't blushing anymore; he felt cold, cold like he hadn't been in the freezing meat locker this afternoon. "If I hadn't found him then, maybe they would've killed him. Because of me."

"This wasn't your fault, Clark," his mother said instantly, no hesitation now as she reached up to put her arm around his shoulders. It was warm, but he was still cold enough he might have shivered.

"It's not my fault," he said, "but it was because of me. Because Lex is friends with me. It could happen to anyone—if they knew enough about me, they could've kidnapped anyone close to me to ask. It could've been Chloe, or even Lana. Or Pete, or you guys. But you and Pete at least would know why. You could tell them something."

"We wouldn't," his father said. "Never."

"And Pete wouldn't either," his mom added. "He knows how important your secrets are."

"You don't understand!" Clark stopped himself before he swung a fist in too wild a gesture and dented the wall or cracked the sink basin. Took a deep breath and tried not to let himself get swept away in the fury and fear pounding through him. "If you're ever kidnapped like that, if someone's hurting you—I want you to tell them! My secrets are important, but they're not that important. They're not more important than you are."

He reached out, grabbed his mother's hand and his father's, not so tightly that he would hurt them, but it was difficult, when he was so scared to let go. "If someone finds out about me, someone who shouldn't, I can do something about it. Stop them, or run away. But if something happened to you, before I could do anything, before I could protect you—what could I do then?"

"What if you couldn't stop them?" his mother murmured. She reached up to gently stroke back his hair. "What if you couldn't run away? What could we do? Your secrets are you, Clark. And you're more important to us than anything."

"We'll protect you," his father said, solid like steel. "However we can."

"Protection," Clark said. "That's what this is about, isn't it. And that's what makes it wrong."

He let go of their hands, pulled away. He was almost shaking but it wasn't from the chill of being scared; the anger was worse than the fear, now. "You've told me, Pete's told me, that it's protecting them, Lana, Chloe, and Lex, too, not to tell them. That they could be in danger if they were brought into my secret. But that's not true, is it? They've already been brought into it, because they know me; they're already in danger. They just don't realize they are.

"I'm not protecting them. I'm protecting myself. You, and Pete, you want to protect me, you're choosing to protect me. But everyone else close to me, I'm making that choice for them. I'm making them my shields—they're my fucking alibi. They'll tell anyone who asks that I'm normal. And if someone doesn't believe them, then that's too bad for them. They better hope I get there in time. Only they won't even know I'm trying to save them, they won't even have that hope."

"What are you saying?" Jonathan said. "That you want to tell the world your secrets?"

"Clark," Martha said, "we know how you don't like lying to your friends..."

"Not the world. Just the people I know. My friends. And it's not that I want to tell them, or that I don't want to lie to them. They have a right to know! They have a right to know what they're getting into, being friends with me. They should decide for themselves, if they want to risk it, or if they think it's too dangerous, being my friend. I have to let them make the same choice you guys made, when you decided to adopt me, instead of letting someone else take me..."

His mother brushed at her eyes, then put her arms around him to hold him tight, like he was still small enough to pick up and cradle. "It wasn't a choice," she told him. "You were ours, from the moment we found you. But even if it had been a choice, we never would have made any other one than this. You're worth any risk. And anyone who really loves you would feel the same."

Clark closed his eyes, let his head drop to his mom's shoulder. "Thank you," he said. "But if I really love them, then I can't make that decision for them."

His dad's hand fell on his shoulder, warm and solid. "So what are you going to do?" he asked, apprehension in his tone, in his touch. But he wasn't furious, not as Clark would've thought he would be. "Tell everything? Is that really what you want to do?"

"What I have to do. As soon as possible," Clark said. He felt cold again, thinking about it. Thinking of telling them how he had lied. He could see Chloe's face, amazed and disappointed; could imagine Lana's betrayed eyes. Thinking of them looking at him, knowing he wasn't like them, wasn't even human. Telling them that the Clark Kent they thought they knew wasn't even real, was just a lie. Why would they even want to risk a friendship with him, after that? But it wasn't fair to them otherwise.

He thought of Lex, bruised and white with cold. Protecting him. Hurt because of him. He'd saved Lex this time, and had saved his life before, but did that make up for it? How could his friendship be worth what Lex had gone through, these last couple days? His friendship which wasn't much more than lies, anyway; lies that Lex must have guessed by now.

He couldn't picture Lex's expression. All his questions, answered—maybe all Lex really cared about was knowing the truth. Maybe once he had it, there wouldn't be any friendship left. But that was only fair, and Clark had no right to want anything more. "I don't think I have a choice."

Clark met him in the garage as Lex was getting into the Ferrari. No call from the front gate reporting his arrival; no sound from the garage door. Just Clark, standing before him as if he had been teleported there.

"Lex," he said. "I need to talk to you."

Lex propped his elbow on the car's roof. The bruises were already fading, but he was still sore and stiff. Five hours of restless sleep hadn't helped much. Breakfast with his father had helped less. He was looking forward to the quiet of his little-used office at the plant, the mundane details of his everyday work. And the phone calls he had to make would be less likely to be overheard there. Two days would have offered Lionel ample time to bug the mansion; sweeping it would take time, and would be difficult to accomplish anyway until his father went back to Metropolis.

The garage might or might not be monitored. He didn't conduct much business here, as a rule, but one could never tell with Lionel. "Good morning, Clark."

"'Morning. Uh, how are you? Are you doing okay?" Whatever resolve had propelled Clark this far apparently had deserted him in the intervening seconds.

"I'm doing fine," Lex assured him. "Though I'm expected at the plant in twenty minutes—would you like a lift to school?"

"Um, sure. Thanks." Clark climbed into the Ferrari, folding himself up into the passenger seat. Even with the seat pushed back to its furthest position, his knees were still bumping the dashboard. Italy didn't build for the likes of Clark Kent. Lex would have picked a different car, had he known Clark would be coming over. Clark had a particular fondness for the Porsches, despite his initial history with the make. But Lex hadn't driven the Ferrari in a couple months, making it a less likely choice for Lionel's taps.

Clark, to Lex's relief, didn't say anything while they drove out of the garage and off the castle's compromised grounds. "So what'd you want to ask me about?" Lex inquired once they were on the open road, turning down the music.

Clark's hands were resting on the dashboard, fingers spread, covering half the surface with their breadth. When Lex glanced over he was studying them, or else the black pebbled leather under them. "Yesterday," he said quietly, "I got into the warehouse in time to hear the questions they were asking you. A few of them, anyway."

"Ah." It wasn't unexpected. It was, in fact, exactly as expected, and yet Lex felt as if he had been kicked in the gut again. He kept both hands on the steering wheel, fingers curled around it, tightly enough not to betray him with their trembling.

"And I heard what you told them, too. What you said...about me. Why you're friends with me."

Downtown. Red light. Hit the brakes in time, and the car jerked to a stop. "Clark, that..."

"Lex, it's okay." Clark's hand fell on his shoulder. When Lex looked over, Clark's eyes were green and clear in the morning light, wide with earnest friendship and deep enough to drown in. Clark was smiling at him, a little nervously, and Lex wondered if he had swallowed the wrong painkillers, with the way his head was spinning. "I know," Clark told him. "I know you were just making stuff up to tell them. Because you had to tell them something, and you wouldn't tell them the truth. So that was the best excuse, talking about me like that."

He took his hand off Lex's arm, looked away, out the windshield. "The light's green."

Lex pressed the gas and the Ferrari surged forward, first in line in the morning traffic, with the street open for the next couple blocks. "Sorry we can't stop for coffee," he said, "but I shouldn't be late, after missing Friday."

"Can you be a little late?" Clark asked. "What I need to talk to you about—it's not that, not what you said, it's more important than that."

"You have school, don't you?"

"Yeah, but it's more important than that, too. Please, Lex."

Clark sounded earnest to the point of being plaintive. Lex didn't make the mistake of looking over at him again.

This time yesterday Lex had been sitting on the cement floor of a bare storage closet, patiently awaiting another session in his up and coming career as a punching bag. Now Clark was sitting beside him, close enough in the Ferrari's confines that if he moved his arm their sleeves would brush. Lex was tired and sore and he didn't know who might be listening and it was too early in the morning for this. Whatever this was. "Are you in danger?"

"What?" Clark sounded confused.

"Are you in danger? Is anyone threatening you, or do you think someone might, in the next few hours?"

"No, it's not something like that."

"Then why don't you go to school like your parents expect, and I go to work like my employees expect, and we can meet afterwards," Lex suggested. "I'll leave the plant around five, you can see me at the mansion when you're done your chores."

They were at the drive of Smallville High. Lex pulled to the curb and waited while Clark deliberated aloud, "Well...I guess you have a lot to do...and it doesn't have to be...okay. Okay, this evening.—Wait, but what about Helen? Won't you be having dinner with her?"

"She's at a convention in Baltimore, she won't be back until tomorrow."

"You mean—she didn't come back, when you were missing?" Clark stared at him. "She had to know what happened, Lex, your disappearance was all over the news."

"I talked to her this morning. She knew. But there wasn't anything she could do here, so she didn't bother coming back."

"That's..." Clark shook his head, a frown darkening his face. "That's terrible."

"Reasonable," Lex corrected, more weary than upset. He should say more. Helen had sounded so happy to hear from him, grateful and overjoyed he was all right. She had been making plans for this convention for months and he was glad he hadn't caused her trouble. Should be glad.

He should be defending her, but he didn't want to think about Helen. He had barely thought of her in the past seventy-two hours. Hearing her voice on the phone had been like getting a call from an old schoolmate. He could remember her face, the scent of her preferred perfume. But those details didn't matter. They hadn't been what had come to him all those hours in the storage closet.

He supposed he ought to feel guilty about that. He supposed that the lack should have surprised him. That he should at least pretend to have not expected it.

But he wasn't ready to think about that. Couldn't, with so much else to consider instead. Helen would be back tomorrow. Today, there was this to deal with. "So, I'll see you this evening," he told Clark.

"After school, at five o'clock, then." Clark sounded relieved, more than disappointed.

It wasn't until he had gotten out and shut the door behind him that Lex, replaying their conversation in his head, realized what Clark had said. You wouldn't tell them the truth.

The truth. Lex almost opened the door, called Clark back.

But it was early and he had a busy day and he would need a clear head for this. Clearer than he could manage by evening, maybe; more than he ever could manage. He felt relief himself, embarrassingly keenly, to have put it off even for these few hours. A few more hours before everything changed, that he could pretend Clark was still his friend.

He wasn't ready for this. But he would have to try. Try to salvage something, if there were anything left, after Clark came by this evening.

Clark was at the Luthor manor at ten past five. Fashionably late, politely giving Lex a few minutes to relax after getting home. Or because he was a complete and utter wuss and was putting it off as long as he could.

He hadn't said anything to Chloe, or Lana. He'd meant to, but it wasn't like he could just pass them a note in class. 'Was the Biology homework page fifteen or page fifty? Oh, and speaking of biology, I'm an extraterrestrial.' At lunch he had intended to ask Chloe to meet him after school. But then Pete had been there, and he wasn't quite ready to explain everything to Pete, who was sure to flip as badly as his parents, or worse. Pete had already wigged out when Chloe asked Clark about Lex—"I saw the news, how he got away," she'd said as they ate. "Did you call that tip into the police, about the packing plant?"

After that, Pete had spent their English period grilling Clark about what Chloe knew, and how did she know, and what did Clark have to do with Lex's rescue. Never mind that on Saturday, all Pete had had to say about Lex's disappearance was good riddance. Well, not quite in those words. But close enough.

So in the end, Clark hadn't told Chloe anything. And he could have gone to the Talon alone to talk to Lana after school, maybe bumped into Chloe there, too, while he was at it; but he didn't. Maybe tomorrow.

But he had already told Lex that he had something to tell him; it was too late to take that back. Besides, he needed to see Lex again, needed to talk to him. Those couple minutes this morning hadn't been enough.

He kept seeing Lex in the locker, hanging from his bound hands with his shirt ripped open and his breath coming in short pants, puffs of white mist in the cold. Because of him. And if Clark hadn't been there, if he hadn't come soon enough...

Unlike this morning, he took the time to check in at the mansion gate. The guard called ahead, so the front door was unlocked for him, and Clark made his way through the now-familiar halls to Lex's office, moving at ordinary human speeds. Maybe a little slower, even.

Lex was waiting for him, not behind his desk or at the pool table, but sitting on the couch before the fireplace, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked deep in concentration, gazing at something in his hands, a glitter of metal between his fingers.

He raised his head as Clark came in. The bruises along his cheekbone, which had been purple yellowing at the edges this morning, were faded now until they could have been only shadows.

Still too vivid reminders, and Clark almost looked away. But something in Lex's eyes stopped him, something different than this morning. Lex had looked tired then, and though he had been trying to sound casual, relaxed and normal, it hadn't been convincing. He'd been holding onto the wheel too tightly. Like whatever Clark had to say about what he'd overheard, Lex didn't want to hear it. Like he was embarrassed, ashamed to have been kidnapped and beaten and tortured for Clark's sake.

Lex didn't look embarrassed now. He didn't look anything, no emotion, his face closed off, and his eyes glittered like the metal in his hands—too hard to break through, too sharp to touch. Calculating, the way he got around his father sometimes.

This was the Lex Luthor that Clark's father saw when he looked at Lex. A dangerous man; another Lionel Luthor, only more frightening because Lex was smarter than Lionel, and wanted more. Clark had seen this Lex before. Last year, when Rickman had been mind-controlling him. Or just yesterday, talking to the men who had kidnapped him. But not when Lex was with him, not when Lex was in his right mind; Lex had never before looked at him like this. Like he was tallying all the parts of Clark in his head and comparing their value to an internal absolute.

He had almost readied himself for it, to have Lex to look at him like this. But not until after he had told Lex his secret, not until after Lex understood how Clark had been endangering him. How Clark had betrayed him. For Lex to be this way now...he didn't understand.

But he had come here to give him the truth. He couldn't back out now. He couldn't be that big a coward.

"Hey, Lex," Clark said. His mouth was so dry it didn't come out right. "Sorry I'm late..."

"Clark," Lex said in answer, and his lips turned up, but it wasn't a smile, because his eyes didn't change.

Clark stopped a few feet in front of the couch and took a deep breath. "So. I'm here to talk to you—to tell you." He'd worked it out in his head last night, what to say, but now he couldn't remember a word of it. "You—you already probably have guessed some of this, but—"

Lex stood, a sudden gesture, not smooth the way he usually moved, but jerking up like he was on a spring. One hand raised to silence Clark. "Not yet," he said. "You shouldn't... Here."

He put out his other hand. There was a key resting in his palm, an ordinary brass door key, not on a ring. "Take it," Lex said, and turned his hand downward so the key dropped into Clark's quick catch. "Third floor, east wing. Second door on the right," he said. "I'll join you there in fifteen minutes."

He smiled again, a weird convulsive smirk that drew his lips tight. "If you want to wait for me. If you don't, you can leave. You don't need to say anything; you can just go."

"I'll wait," Clark said, folding his fingers around the key.

"Don't say that yet," Lex said, and now he sounded tired, as beat as when Clark had ripped him down from the hook yesterday.

"I'll wait," Clark repeated. "What I have to tell you—it's important."

Lex twisted his wrist to glance at his watch. "Fifteen minutes," he said, and turned away.

Lex hadn't realized how badly he had been hoping Clark wouldn't come, that Clark would come to his senses and decide against this most unwise course, until he looked up and Clark was standing before him. Clark, all green eyes and black hair and soft lips, his broad shoulders tense with the revelation he was about to forfeit, the secrets he had come to lay bare.

There was a wildness in his eyes that put Lex in mind of last autumn, that brief and never-explained bout of rebellion. He almost dismissed him, called the Kents as he had then. Put a stop to this, in the name of friendship. A perfect excuse.

But Clark was in jeans and flannel today, not slickly posh apparel; and the nervousness in his eyes wasn't the electric high he had been riding then. It should have made him look younger, the wide-eyed apprehension of a boy. But the resolve that brought him here despite it was the strength of a man, older than Clark's years.

That was always the paradox of Clark, the openness of youth and the caution of maturity, together. Trusting and not trusting at once. It was an impossible balance that Lex could not question. Could not afford to. It was the only reason he could have Clark's friendship, that Clark could be naive enough to get close to a Luthor, and yet be strong enough not to break when Lex betrayed him.

Clark would not break—he could be hurt, would be hurt, but not enough to destroy him, not enough to change him. In the end he would learn, and lose nothing important. Lex was the only one who would lose anything. But he'd had more than enough time to come to terms with that. He had known since this morning; since he had been freed yesterday, had sagged and been caught and had realized from the powerful arms around him that Clark was there, that Clark might have heard.

Really, he had known since he had found Clark lying on the floor of the cave last month. Hell, since he had coughed up water and come back to life, his lungs aching and the dirty taste of the polluted river on his tongue. Since he had looked up and laid eyes on something too amazing, too beautiful, to ever be his.

The year and a half since had been only borrowed time. He had always known that.

Fifteen minutes, by his watch, and Lex pushed open the door.

Clark was standing in the center of the chamber, beside the twisted wreck of the Porsche. He turned toward the door as it opened. The halogen spotlight overhead leached his skin of color, shone off his black hair. Marble and ebon, as perfect as any Renaissance masterpiece, and as still.

Lex closed the door, turning the knob so the latch set silently. The room was sound-proofed, and his father would not have been able to bug it without his awareness. He had no space as private or as protected. He didn't take a step down, but stood at the top of the lit stairs, keeping his hands at his sides, and waited, bathed in the blue glow from the screens, the flickering of animations running on their infinite, inexplicable loops.

"Why?" Clark asked finally, not moving. His hand was resting on the Porsche's bent frame, centimeters from the jagged smash in the windshield, the warped metal where the roof had been peeled back, that was fitted exactly to the broad span of his fingers.

"Because I wanted to know," Lex said.

Clark shook his head. "No—why did you give me the key? Why'd you want to show me this now?"

"You came to be honest with me. I thought I should return the courtesy."

"You told me you stopped investigating me."

"I did," Lex said. "For almost a year."

Clark's fingers played over the car's dented and rusted body, idly aware, like a pianist's fingers recalling chords unconsciously. He was looking at Lex, but the light was too bright for Lex to make out his expression, bleaching and blanching his face to smooth, blank alabaster. His voice wasn't angry; too calm for that. Too calm for a boy's, and unafraid. "So why'd you start again?"

Lex took the steps deliberately, walked with measured paces to the display of the paintings, the photographs outlined and enhanced in clean whites and blues. "You told me about the caves," he said. "You showed me the door, and then shut it in my face. It was too much."

"You kept asking me about the caves," Clark murmured. He turned his head to take in the room around Lex. "But I didn't think you had this much...what about that?" He took a step away from the Porsche, toward Lex, and pointed to the screen with the reconstruction of the octagonal piece, rotating in spare digital lines. "Why do you have that, if you weren't investigating a year ago?"

"I was investigating," Lex told him. "I only stopped investigating you, and your family. Or what I believed was about you. I didn't stop researching the meteors, or the other enigmas of this community. I didn't realize that all the secrets were one and the same, and none of them could be mine."

That came out more bitter than he intended. Maybe he should feel vindicated, free to say what he wanted, when the friendship was over anyway. Instead he only felt sick, bruised and aching and exhausted. Not ready, not yet. "I'm sorry, Clark. I have business—we can continue this tomorrow, if you'd like. Or not; it's your choice. That's the only key to this room. You're welcome anytime, as always..."

"No," Clark said. And then Clark was in front of him. There was no visible movement, no perceivable acceleration; just a gust of unexpected wind, and Clark, paces away, was suddenly close enough to touch. Lex blinked, his heart tripping at double speed, as Clark said, "No, I'm not going. Sorry, Lex, but I came here to talk to you. You said you'd have time, and I haven't told you what I have to yet."

"What do you think you have to tell me?" Clark was younger than him, but much larger: taller, and broader, and God knew how much stronger. It wasn't something Lex usually noticed, as Clark made an effort for it not to be, and Lex had never heeded such meaningless measures of power. But he remembered, vaguely, in the locker yesterday, Clark snapping the thick cord around his wrists with two fingers, like tearing through a cobweb. And he could see the Porsche behind Clark, the twisted, wrenched metal.

"What you have a right to know," Clark said. He still didn't sound angry, didn't look angry; but he had never looked at Lex so intently. "I'm sorry, Lex. You're right. They are your secrets, too. They always have been."

Clark's hand came up to touch Lex's skull, carefully, only the tips of two fingers grazing the bare skin, skimming down the curve from the crown to the base of his ear. It was the lightest of caresses, like a whisper breathed over his skin.

Lex could barely breathe. Could barely hear Clark, over the hammering of his pulse, saying, "It was my fault. What happened to you. This weekend, and fourteen years ago, too."

"The meteor shower. You're claiming you caused the meteor shower?"

"I was the meteor shower," Clark said, his hand falling to his side.

"We never found a spaceship." Lex glanced at the rotating octagon. "That piece, but nothing else."

"It's in the storm cellar."

"Your storm cellar?"

Lex was staring. He supposed he might be excused on this occasion because Clark was staring right back at him. "So...how much do you know?" Clark asked. "I looked at everything here, but..."

"I've never written down any of my conclusions anywhere," Lex said. His own memory was record enough, and there was no one else he would ever trust those secrets with. Save who they belonged to. "I know you are, at least in certain situations, functionally invulnerable, your skin impervious to impacts and penetration. You are stronger and faster than a normal human by at least a factor of ten, at least under certain conditions."

Clark shook his head. "No 'at least.' Always, pretty much. With all of that."

Lex nodded, absorbing this and mentally editing. "I know you have a negative reaction to certain forms of the meteor rock, and to some individuals affected by the meteoric radiation. And that you have certain enhanced senses, which may or may not be related to your sensitivity to that radiation. I've also seen some evidence of long-distance manipulation—telekinesis?"

Clark shook his head again. "No, just heat-vision. It goes with the x-ray vision, kind of."

"The..." He could almost believe Clark was teasing him, except that he had evidence of both, impossible as either was. But then, the impossible might well be Smallville's chief export after corn, and Clark's eyes were frighteningly sincere. Clark never looked at him like this, never dared meet his gaze directly for so long. Not since that first moment when he had opened his eyes on the riverbank, before any lies had been told.

Lex resisted the urge to take a step back under the pressure of that look. Resisted the urge to take a step forward. The space between them now was an equilibrium he could manage, barely; any change risked complete imbalance. "My original hypothesis was that you were meteor-infected. Later, though, I began to suspect you might be—"

"Alien," Clark said. "Even if I don't look it—I don't know why I look human. But I was born on another planet, a planet that might not exist anymore. My birth parents weren't human, and I'm not, either, and if anyone found out..."

"It could be dangerous," Lex said, "for you, if I found out, or someone like me. Someone with the will and power to exploit those secrets."

"Not just dangerous to me," Clark said, "but anyone close to me. My family, my friends—but you knew this much, all along," and he waved around the chamber.

"I didn't know anything." It was a pathetically flimsy excuse. "It was all hypotheses. Educated guesses."

"But it could've been enough—I heard the questions they were asking you. What they wanted to know."

And now he had no excuses left. "Clark, I didn't—I never meant—"

"It was my fault that you were kidnapped," Clark said. "What those guys did to you," and his hand rose again, like he wasn't thinking about it, reached out to touch Lex's face, the bruises on his cheek. At the last moment Clark seemed to realize what he was doing, pulled away with brighter color burning on his own cheeks. "I'm sorry," he said instead. "I'm so sorry about that, what happened—"

Even standing in this room, Clark didn't understand. Lex shook his head sharply. "The abduction wasn't in any way your fault."

"You could've told them." Clark sounded angry for the first time. "Why didn't you? If you'd told them what you knew about me, maybe they wouldn't have hurt you—"

"And then your secrets would've been in the hands of an individual who wouldn't hesitate to seize control of them, of you, in any way possible. Your family and friends would've been in greater risk than ever."

Clark was pale. "Why? Do you know who kidnapped you—"

"I have suspicions. I'm following leads now," Lex said. "There's a man, an associate of my father's, who has his fingers in most pies in Metropolis, and elsewhere. If it's him...you and your family cannot afford his attention."

"You can't, either. I'm not going to let you get hurt again for me, Lex—"

"This was my fault, Clark. Not yours." And he was going to take care of it, before Lionel got the chance. Before Clark even knew what he intended to do.

"Your fault? It was your fault that you got kidnapped, your fault they were torturing you?"

"It's my fault they had any reason to interrogate me—it's my fault they knew you existed," Lex told him.

"You didn't..." Clark winced, glancing around the room. "Did you show somebody—"

"No!" The denial burst out too quickly for Lex to voice it diplomatically, and more desperate than he would have liked. "Never. I'd never allow anyone in here who I didn't trust implicitly." He put his hand to the nearest screen, the car crash on its unending wireframe loop. "You must believe me...if you can. It's difficult to explain, but this room, everything here—I feel as if they're my secrets, too."

"I believe you," Clark said, though his tone was strange, and his expression was, if not hard, then distant, as if he were backing away from Lex, even if not physically moving. "But then how is it your fault?"

"I should never have become friends with you," Lex said. Clark's impassive expression wasn't so practiced that Lex couldn't see the shimmer of distress cross his face at that, but it was only the truth. "It was dangerous for you—your parents knew that from the beginning, but I didn't understand. Not really, not at first, and by the time I did, it was...I couldn't. It was too late for me to just walk away, even though I should have. For you. It was the right thing to do, but I couldn't do it."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're fast, strong, and generally invulnerable," Lex explained. "But your greatest defense, the reason you've been able to stay out of harm's way, out of the way of people who would find ways to get to you in spite of your powers, is your anonymity. You're a farmer's son in small-town Kansas. No one sees the amazing things you can do, because no one is watching.

"But I'm Lex Luthor. Everyone's watching me; everyone always is. Even here in Smallville, the tabloid paparazzi drive out from the city to check on what I'm up to. You don't always see them, even, but they're always coming around. And when you're with me, you're in their camera lenses, too. They're reporters, and you know what they're like, Clark; you know Chloe. They ask questions, questions like who are you. Where are you from, and why are you friends with me. Why am I friends with you. And they keep asking them until they get answers—until they get interesting answers, answers they can print. The truth only counts if it's sufficiently sensationalist to be publishable."

"They've been—printing stories? About me?" It might have only been one of the screens going dark, that made Clark's face go greenish. Or else he was thinking of his parents' reaction to the news. "In Metropolis papers?"

"Not many," Lex told him. "Not any that I found out about in time to buy off or otherwise block. But they don't always have to be printed. Not all reporters have Miss Sullivan's journalistic integrity; some of them will bring a story to other buyers, even if it's not publishable."

"And one of those buyers was this man your father knows."

"Possibly. Not any recent articles, I don't think. The paparazzi have been too busy with Helen lately. But before I started dating her, there were a few different stories about Lex Luthor's Smallville social life that could have gotten around."

Clark could have asked him then if the timing of that distraction had been deliberate; if Helen was about more than chance chemistry and getting over the disastrous Desiree fiasco. Lex would not have wanted to answer that question. But Clark didn't ask it; instead he said, "So they kidnapped you to find out the truth behind the stories."

"Most likely."

"Lex." Clark ducked his head to look up at Lex through his lashes, a young look, uncharacteristically shy, like the first days they had met, his first apprehensive visit to the mansion. "What is the truth?"

"The truth?" Lex turned his head, away from the hidden green of Clark's eyes, to look over the room, all the screens and secrets sealed behind glass.

"Not any of this," Clark said with a quick shake of his head. "Unless it is—why are you friends with me, Lex? Is it because of all this, after all? Because you wanted to know my secrets?"

"Our friendship has nothing to do with your secrets," Lex said immediately, his heart pounding again, until he almost couldn't think. But this was the truth; he didn't need to think about it. "Or else it has everything to do with it—we wouldn't be friends if it weren't for your secrets; we wouldn't be alive. But that isn't why—I'd have been fascinated by everything here even if I didn't know you at all. And I would have been your friend, even suspecting none of this."

"So, why?" Clark raised his head, sidled not even a half step closer. Still, close enough; Lex had to tilt back his head to meet his eyes, holding his hands at his sides, and he could feel Clark's nearness like a static charge. "Why are we friends?"

That hurt, more than Lex would have expected, and more must have shown on his face than he intended, because Clark's expression changed, softened. "Sorry—I don't mean it like that, Lex. I'm glad you're friends with me. It's just, I never really thought about it before, even when people said it. But it is kind of odd, isn't it, that you'd be friends with me, when you're Lex Luthor and I'm an anonymous kid in Smallville."

"It's only odd because you're anonymous," Lex told him. "Because no one knows you—if they did, they'd understand. If they knew you...the only odd thing is that you're willing to be friends with me, even knowing who I am. You're willing to come over and talk with me, never watching what you say. You don't hesitate to tease me, or ask for favors, or let me know when you think I'm screwing up. You don't try to tell me what I want to hear, and you don't act nice because you're trying to get something from me."

"That's just what friends do, Lex," Clark said quietly.

"I wouldn't know," Lex said. "I haven't really had one before. But that was why—when I realized you had secrets, when I figured out you were lying to me. When I understood that you couldn't trust me with your secrets, I should've stopped it then. I should have stopped going to the farm, I should've closed the mansion gates to you. I could have kept investigating you—it would have been easier, if I didn't have to worry about upsetting you with my interference and questions, or about what your parents would think. And it would have been safer for you as well; I wouldn't have been drawing attention to you anymore, save my own.

"But I couldn't. I couldn't do it, I couldn't stay away and I couldn't keep you away. The secrets fascinated me, I wanted to know the truth. But I wanted your friendship more."

"Is that all?"

"What?"

Clark swallowed, soundless, but his throat moved. "Is that the only reason? Just friendship?"

"It should have been enough," Lex said, his mouth dry enough that it was only a whisper. "I know that should have been enough, for me to stay away. If I were truly your friend, a better friend, if I were a better man..."

"No, I should've stayed away from you," Clark replied. "You talk like you're the one putting me in danger—but you were the one who got hurt. You're the one who can get hurt, and I was being the selfish one. I'm selfish enough that I make friends without giving them the chance to walk away. You said you were putting me in danger, but I knew that already; everyone knows how dangerous it is to be friends with a Luthor. But I never told you how dangerous it was to be friends with me. I didn't want to. And I didn't want to leave, either. I didn't want to walk away.

"With Pete, with Chloe, and Lana, too, I knew them before. I didn't know what I was when I got to know them, I didn't know what kind of danger I was putting them in when we became friends. But you, Lex, I knew what I was all along. And I still kept coming. I kept talking to you, hanging out with you, even though I knew it was dangerous for you, and I didn't even tell you, that's how selfish I was."

Lex studied Clark, the flawless planes of his features drawn tight with worry and shame. "No," he said. "You didn't know, did you. You didn't really realize it, how dangerous it could be."

"I should have!"

"But you didn't. You're young, you haven't seen that much yet, Clark. You couldn't be expected to understand. And now that you have—you're here. You're letting me decide."

"Yeah." Clark didn't say anymore, and didn't need to; everything else was written on his face, guilt and despair, and brave hope in how he looked at Lex and didn't turn away.

Lex might have laughed. As if there were any decision to make; as if anyone who knew Clark, who he called friend, would ever choose otherwise. Some gifts are too precious to ever return. "You're my friend, Clark. Maybe I can't be a very good friend, but I'll always be your friend, good or bad, all the same. I told you before, that's never going to change."

"Is that all?" Clark asked it so quietly that the only reason Lex understood it was because he said it exactly as he had before. His eyes slid away from Lex's, even as he leaned forward—so slightly that Lex would have thought he were imagining it, but he could feel the heat of Clark's body, this close.

"What were the articles about, Lex?" Clark asked. His gaze wasn't on Lex's eyes, but lower; fixed on his mouth. "The ones you didn't let get printed? Were they about my secrets?"

"No. No one ever saw that much. Different...speculation."

"Like what you told those guys, back in the warehouse? Just made-up stuff, like what you said about me then?"

He could take a step back, far enough away that he would no longer feel Clark's breath on his cheeks, on his lips. Away from that heat; from the green, darkened by shadows and artificial blue illumination, of Clark's lowered eyes; and the pink of his lips. He could take a step back before his hand rose to the column of Clark's neck, brush of his fingertips against the skin, as his fingers followed the line of tendons up, to be buried in thick black hair, as silken as it looked, as he had imagined it too many times.

He could, but he didn't, and then Lex's hand was in Clark's hair, and then he was tugging Clark's head down so their lips met. And now it was over; despite everything, one way or another he had ended this tonight.

Clark had thought he was ready, was waiting for it, but when Lex finally touched him it was like being struck by lightning. Drowning must be like this. He couldn't breathe or move or think. Lex touching him was entirely different from him touching Lex. Lex was fragile under his hands, human; so easily hurt, so easy to hurt. Always when Clark had touched Lex before, it was to make sure he was okay, to make sure he wasn't broken.

But Lex wasn't hurt now, and wasn't fragile; he was strong enough to pull Clark's head down, and then—God—Lex was kissing him. At least that was what it had to be, Lex's mouth to his mouth, Lex's lips, tongue—it had to be a kiss, there was nothing else to call it. But kissing Lana was never like this, and not Chloe, either, those couple of times. Not even Kyla had been anything like this.

And maybe it was because Lex was a guy, though Clark thought it was more likely because the guy was Lex. Lex was against him, and Clark's hands found their way around Lex, the wiry shoulders under the rich shirt, the shift of muscles under silk and skin.

Then it was over; Lex had broken apart, backed away. He tilted his head up at Clark, the blue glow from the monitors casting rounded shadows over his skin, so that he looked like the alien in the room, smooth and pale and perfect.

"It wasn't made up," Lex said. Clark had to gasp for breath but Lex's voice was ordinary, cool and level. "It was all true, what I told those men."

Lex's eyes were hard again, but he wasn't looking at Clark, but past him. Like he couldn't meet his eyes, and Clark knew he was lying. "So that's the only reason you were friends with me? Because you wanted me?"

Those ice-hard gray eyes darted to him, locked onto Clark's own, and they weren't cold after all, even catching the bluish light. "No," Lex said, very softly, hoarse. "Not the only reason."

One step to close the distance between them, and this time Clark was kissing Lex. He was holding Lex's face, his hands cupped around Lex's cheeks, weirdly smooth, no stubble or even the invisibly fine hairs on girls' faces. That strange different skin under his fingers turned him on as much as the wet slide of Lex's tongue on his, and Lex was close enough to feel his arousal.

But Lex didn't do the awkward little twitch away and giggle that Lana had done that one time. Instead he moved even closer, arched his spine to press up to Clark, his hips grinding in, and oh God, Lex was hard, too.

He heard a thump, realized he had pushed back, into Lex, until Lex's shoulders had knocked against the closest screen, one of the giant ones set on the floor. Lex before him was a silhouette against the black of the screen, the blue-white wireframe car slamming into the blue-white wireframe person behind Lex's shoulders, changing light and shadows reflecting over Lex's skin, glittering in his eyes.

The screen was cool to the touch, when Clark put his hand to it, over the pixels delineating the bridge, where the guardrail gave way under the modeled figure of himself, over and over. Lex's skin was cool, too, as Clark slid his other hand down his neck to his unbuttoned collar. His fingers traced the bracket of Lex's collarbone, wonderingly, realizing he had always wanted to touch that hollow between and just hadn't noticed before.

He could feel Lex breathing, the rise and fall of his chest under his palm. Clark had felt that rhythm before, always with relief, confirming Lex was alive even after injury. Now it was with more than relief, so much more. He wanted to feel that life realized, wanted to feel Lex's breath quicken, deepen, catch in his throat.

"Why'd you tell them?" Clark asked him. "Why'd you tell them, and not me, if this is really how you felt about me?"

"Of all the secrets I wanted to know, and all of my own secrets—I never knew this was one you wanted from me," Lex said. He had dropped his voice, enough that Clark had to lean in to hear him. And that was probably why Lex had done it, he realized, as Lex turned his head so his lips brushed Clark's cheek, laid a kiss on the line of his jaw.

"I wish I'd told you before." Clark's voice was shaky. "I wish—God—" as he leaned in further, until he could feel Lex against him, and Lex grinded his hips up again—"I wish I'd known before. About this."

Lex stopped moving, tilted back a little, though his arms stayed where they had looped around Clark's waist. He inclined his head up at Clark, gray eyes close enough that Clark could count each auburn lash. "You didn't know?"

"I...uh...I never thought about it," Clark said. Not that he was thinking about it now, per se. The way he was pushing in, pressing Lex's lean figure between the screen and his body, didn't have much to do with thinking at all. "Not until...yesterday, when I heard you answering those guys, what you said about my mouth..." He licked his lips, swallowed. Lex swallowed, too; Clark could feel it, being so close, Lex moving against him. Clark dropped his own voice, whispering it so he wouldn't blush so hard, though he still stammered on it, not smooth like Lex. "Would you really like that? For me to—to blow you?"

"I—" Or not so smooth after all. "I—that—Clark, you shouldn't—you don't have to do anything you don't want to."

"But I want to," Clark said, which was as completely true as everything else he had just told Lex, and had the added bonus of rendering Lex still and speechless as even confessing to being born on another planet had not.

He dropped to his knees, slid his hands down the silk shirt, dizzied by the expensive fabric gliding past his hands and the heat of Lex's body underneath. At his waist, he worked at the belt, and Lex finally broke into motion again, fingers hurriedly undoing his fly, helping Clark push down the slacks and boxers, black and finer silk than the shirt.

Then there was only Lex and nothing else, and Clark grinned at the sight, took a breath and opened his mouth. Maybe he didn't know what he was doing, but his lips were where Lex had said he wanted them, and from the sounds Lex was making and how his hands were grasping at Clark's hair, Lex wasn't minding his ignorance. Clark looked up once, and Lex's eyes were closed and his head was tipped back, his skull starkly outlined against the glowing pixels recreating their first meeting, again and again and again, as Lex's hips thrust in the same rhythm as the blink of the changing lights.

He felt the vibration of sound building in Lex's throat, his groan as his hips bucked up the last time. Then it was over, and Lex opened his eyes. He put his hands on Clark's shoulders and shoved, hard enough to throw Clark off balance. He rocked off his knees to sit on the floor, leaning back braced on straight arms, and Lex knelt over him, straddling him, Lex's calves pressed to the outside of his thighs. Lex hadn't bothered to pull up his slacks; they were rucked up around his parted thighs, and he was pale rose against the black.

He pushed one hand down, wedged between the waistband of Clark's jeans and the tuck of his abs. Clark started to gasp at the clasp of Lex's strong fingers, and then Lex leaned down and took Clark's mouth with his, like he was catching Clark's sounds, swallowing his breath and voice, as his fingers worked. And Lex knew what he was doing.

Afterwards, Clark relaxed his arms and flopped back on the floor. It was hard tile over stone, with no carpet; not very comfortable, but Clark didn't care. He wasn't tired, every cell in him singing; but he wasn't much interested in moving, either. Not when Lex was sitting beside him, his legs stretched out next to Clark's. Lex produced a handkerchief and a packet of kleenex, but Clark ignored them. He blinked up at the lights on the ceiling, an array of moveable spotlights on a metal frame, designed to illuminate every individual item on display in the room. There was no light blinding his eyes; they were lying in the shadows between the beams.

"What about Lana?" Lex asked suddenly. It echoed a bit off the hard floor.

"I'm going to tell her," Clark said. He pushed himself sitting so he could look at Lex better, but Lex wasn't looking at him but straight ahead.

"Of course, if you feel you should," Lex said.

"I have to," Clark said. "Like I had to tell you. It's her right to know." He bumped his shoulder against Lex's tense one. "Anyone who's close to me, they have to know what I am. I'm thinking maybe I can tell her and Chloe together, get it over with all at once..."

"Her and Chloe?" Lex repeated.

"Yeah, since they're my closest friends, after Pete, they need to know the truth." Clark sighed. "I was kind of hoping that it might be easier, after telling you, that I'd have some practice. But...I don't think it's going to go anything like telling you did."

Lex was stiffly still, not moving, and yet Clark somehow felt him get even tenser. "Do you want it to?"

"Yeah, of course," Clark said. "I want them to still be my friends. I just don't know...Chloe's going to be pissed, unless she's figured it out already, too; she's going to be annoyed that she didn't put it together herself. And Lana...she could blame me for what happened to her parents, and she'd be right, sort of. If my ship hadn't come, then..." He shook his head. "But there's nothing I can do about that. Not if I want them to still be my friends. And if they don't want to be my friends, once they know—that's their choice. Besides, even if they don't, I'll still..."

He realized what he was about to say without thinking, felt his face go warm and stopped.

Lex at last turned his head to look at him, though the shadows over his face hid his eyes and his tone was too soft to be readable. "Still what?"

"I'll still have you," Clark said, and couldn't help but add, "I hope." As pathetic as that sounded.

But Lex's face changed, still in shadow but softer somehow, and he reached down his hand to curl around Clark's. "Always," he said. "Like I told you."

"Not as friends." Clark swallowed. "I mean. More than that."

"Always," Lex said again.

Clark hesitated. "What about Helen?"

Lex cocked his head, keeping his eyes on Clark. "I was thinking of asking her to move in."

"Oh," Clark said.

"I'm not anymore," Lex said, the corners of his mouth twitching up, and Clark grinned. Lex was the first one to lean forward, but Clark moved faster, so he was the one to kiss Lex.

They were both out of breath when they stopped, and Clark leaned back on his braced arms, sort of dazed and smiling when his eyes fell on the screen in front of them, remembering Lex silhouetted against it a little before. Maybe in a bit they could try again, Lex had given him ideas, and practice did make perfect...

Lex followed his line of sight to the screen and his able lips twitched into a half-frown. "I'll take it all down, of course," he said, in a murmur mostly to himself, "no point anyway, and if Dad ever got in here, or one of Edge's people...maybe I could change the focus, misdirect them..." He shook his head, then turned to Clark. "So," he asked. "Did I?"

"Did you...?"

"Hit you."

"Oh." Clark looked at the screen. "Yeah. Just like that. It was how I found out how inhuman I really was, actually."

"Ah." Lex looked away again, glanced at the screen. "I'm sorry."

"For...?"

"For hitting you."

"Oh. Don't be," Clark told him. "It's the best thing that ever happened to me."

Lex looked back, and the angle of light as his head turned was enough for Clark to see the surprise in his eyes. "You truly feel..."

"Well, since I meant to be honest," Clark said, and he did need to be, or else there was no point to being here, "No."

He smiled before Lex could turn away. "It's the second best," and he leaned over and kissed Lex again, just to confirm it.