This is for Isilya cause she wanted me to try and write some smut for once. Blame her, not me.

The last line that Clark says is based on 'Almost a Conjuror' by G. Ritsos. Roughly translated from Greek the original quote would read: "I have a sparrow in my head. I can't take it out." Everything else is mine, including all the typos. Apart from Lex and Clark that is. They belong to rich people. And Metropolis. That one is Fritz Lang's.

With love, or any emotion masquerading as love, comes fear. It clings to it and never leaves, like a finger forgotten somewhere among the pages of a quiet, shut book.

Lex Luthor hates that particular emotion and has taken every possible measure to shield himself from it. Find out if Clark enjoys his studies at the Metropolis University and if not blackmail a couple of his professors. Make sure he has enough friends to feel at home, but none too close, too intimate. Bribe the postman to let him go through Clark's mail before delivering it. Bug his phone. Have someone follow him and report back daily. Never ask questions.

Slowly, and perhaps not even aware of it, Lex is building a cage.

As he walks down the street towards Clark's little student flat, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup and feeling the heat biting into his palms, Lex doesn't allow himself such thoughts. In a parody of self-deception that would make his father laugh out loud, Lex prefers to call everything he has done protection. Shielding Clark. Protecting Clark. He never asks himself: Against whom?

Some people recognize him and their eyes widen, surprised at the casual way he moves amidst the shoulders of the noisy crowd that pours out of offices and shops. They don't notice the bodyguards in black ties and sunglasses that follow in the distance.

He walks across a small park that suffocates, trapped in a fortress of cement and tar. Metal skyscrapers are jabbing into a sky that glimmers after the morning rain, fresh-washed, Technicolor blue. The park is almost empty. The wind is blowing, making the rusty swings creak and the tree branches rub against each other, splashing the ground with rainwater. Only a little girl is there, sitting on a carpet of decayed leaves, disemboweling her nude doll. Innocent guillotine. She looks up and smiles, clutching a small plastic leg in her hand possessively.

He smiles back at her and they share a moment before he looks away, taking another sip from his cup. The coffee is burning hot, scorching his mouth. Lex uses that pain as an excuse and when he finally reaches Clark's house he pushes him against the wall, before Clark even gets the chance to say 'Hi' and kisses him until the numb tingling in his tongue goes away. Clark moans into his mouth, trying to shut the door behind them, Lex is breathless from running up the stairs, his lungs scream for oxygen and he bites into Clark's lower lip, breaking the kiss.

It always starts there in the hallway, in that small space between the door and the mirror, because there is never enough time for them. Clothes shed in the dim light, shirts unbuttoned, shoes kicked off and Lex still remembers one night they never left that narrow corner. Hours of the same repetitive motions; shoving Clark in the corner, lifting him up, long legs wrapped around Lex's waist like a vice, and Clark's body wet from sweat and slippery like a fish. Leaning forward, leaning back, both struggling for a rhythm that never came, a mess, with their elbows trapped in the twisted sleeves of their shirts and the trouser legs locked around their ankles, knees sore, anger bubbling underneath, and Lex saying 'Please, please, please' until his throat was rough from begging.

But this is how it goes this time: They manage to waltz clumsily to end of the corridor, kick the door open and collapse in a tangle on the bed, Clark laughing and hissing out broken, breathless words. 'Slow... slow... calm down...coffee... made coffee... want...'

A gurgle from the kitchen as the kettle finishes boiling the water, and then Clark's T-shirt comes off. Lex runs his tongue over the smooth, bare chest, nipping the vulnerable skin just above the hipbone and Clark twists and stretches underneath him, almost throwing Lex off the bed, his spasms of laughter turning into something different.

Lex slides over the mattress, kicking pillows and covers away, moving until he has Clark's hips pinned underneath his, holding him still. He strokes Clark's quivering belly with his hand, before shoving it roughly underneath the belt of his jeans.

Clark freezes, his body goes rigid and the arms linked around Lex's neck fall back on the mattress with a thud. It's always the same, the way the are brought together, the way they connect, a link stinging and sharp like a safety pin.

Lex, still fully clothed, his tie twisted in a knot, the noose around the hanged man's neck, pulling Clark's jeans and boxers down and throwing them to the floor. Clark flushed and passive, endless miles of skin unraveling on the bed. Sugar-glazed, the lips. Spread-eagled, head thrown back, easy like a sacrifice. Even when Lex moves over him, inside him, even in his arms Clark is always elsewhere, limp hands half-covering his face, his eyes a thousand years away.

Clark's radio floods their ears with tuneless noisy nothings, drowning the sound of Lex's ragged breathing as he lifts Clark's legs, putting both arms under his thighs. He can feel the coarse wool of his trousers rubbing against Clark's skin with every shove, the buckle of his belt biting into the flesh of the inner thigh.

'Am I hurting you?' he asks, but Clark doesn't reply, only makes a small helpless sound just before he comes. Lex struggles to keep quiet too, cries sink in the back of his throat and he eats them before they become sounds. His hands push Clark's shoulders into the mattress as the thrusts get deeper and rougher, then they tangle into his black hair, he yanks at them and it's all over. They don't kiss.

The radio song finishes with an apocalypse of drums and guitars screeching and there is a moment of empty silence before Clark maneuvers himself from underneath Lex's boneless body and begins to undress him slowly. Clark is talking, murmuring something incomprehensible as he struggles with his tie, the buttons of his shirts, tendrils of hair and whispers tickling Lex's ribs, his voice a soft humming in the lukewarm comfort of the room.

There are always things Lex could say too. -Stay with me. I'll buy you things. I'll do things for you. With you. To you. You'll be happy.

Clark finishes undressing him and folds his clothes, stacking them in a neat pile on the chair.

- Forget the ones you left behind. Poor desperate idiots, they never understood.

Clark slides back into the bed and Lex feels almost lightheaded, doped with his smile, the way Clark smells. The peppermint of shampoo, the sour scent of sweat.

- I won't let you go. You won't have anyone else. You can't.

But in the end Lex never says anything.

Wedges of sunlight fall across the bed, saturating the room with a butter-gold glow, the spines of Clark's textbooks glimmer in the sun, funny how long a single afternoon can last, and then Lex's mind goes blank like a television set clicked off.

A sharp, ringing sound yanks him out of his trance. He sits up on the bed, the cover and the pillows building a lumpy white landscape around him. He can hear Clark's footsteps at the hallway, then the click as he picks up the receiver. And his voice, weakened, scratchy from the distance.

Clark says: 'I've been thinking about you. I miss you and I hope you're doing well.'

Lex sits on the edge of the bed and starts pulling his clothes on, as quietly as possible. The afternoon sunshine has dissolved into shadows that stretch long, bluish fingers across the walls. He must have been asleep for quite some time. He glances out of the window.

He can hear Clark's voice: 'You're wrong about him. He doesn't know anything, not yet.'

Lex's nails are digging into the creases of his palms. Violet colors melt across the sky of Metropolis, the windows are rolled up against the coming night.

'I love you dad. I miss you. And I'm proud of you, always.'

His nails are tearing the flesh like barbed-wire. The night of Metropolis is made of dull blue and green aluminum; clouds of smoke steam from the streets, grey phantoms rising through the air.

'I'll be home soon.'

Lex takes a minute to rearrange his body, to become himself again, sleek and faceless before he walks out. Clark jumps up startled, his face obscured in the darkness of the hallway, his hand already on the doorknob. Lex is afraid, that old fear swimming in his veins, dark fish in dark waters. If Clark walks out, if he leaves, Lex will call his bodyguards and stop him. Or have him shot. All in the name of protection.

'Where were you going?'

'I though you were still asleep' Clark blurts out, hesitates, then walks back into the room.

'Sorry to disappoint you' Lex replies, voice razor-edged with sarcasm and anticipates the usual stream of excuses. Clark has gotten so good at it, he can now stare straight into his eyes and lie without a hint of blushing. Lex's little boy has grown into a man.

'I was going home. See my parents. They need help at the farm. I'd be back in an hour or two.'

Lex can't help a mirthless laughter.

He runs his fingers across Clark's jawline and suddenly wants to twist his neck to an impossible angle, snap it, rip the head from the body like a girl does to her little plastic doll and perhaps this could be a salvation. Clark wouldn't lie any more. And he wouldn't be afraid any more.

'Really? How? I suppose you can fly. Who were you talking to, Clark?'

Clark smiles, a little sad smile curling the edges of his mouth. 'Why do you bother asking? You would find out later anyway. I know you had my phone bugged. I know you read my letters.'

'What are you talking about?' It's hard to feign indifference, when your mouth is dry and fear is swelling up inside you, screaming like the marooned finally seeing land.

'I know you keep Lana's letters. I saw them. You keep them in that safe in your office. Why don't you trust me, Lex? I love you. She is just a friend from home.'

'You could have told me that,' he hisses, his thumb against Clark's Adam's apple. He reaches between Clark's legs, rubbing him with the heel of his palm, feeling him shiver in his arms. He could push him back on the bed and not let him say anything else, offer them both the easy way out. He had been asking for so long, he is not sure he wants to know any more.

'I wanted you to ask.' Clark pushes his hand away, a cloudy mood bottled behind his eyes. 'I wanted you to ask so I could tell you. Tell you everything. And then perhaps all this could be real.'

Real, Lex mouths silently. More silence as Clark moves away from him, silence lengthening out, stretching around them like a pool in which the last words floated.

'Clark, what are you doing?'

Clark has opened the window and is sitting on the windowsill, his legs dangling outside, in the void.

'I'm telling you now.'

Lex is running inside a nightmare, where the air is made of thick honey, his limbs clumsy and slow, sinking into cracks in the floor as he struggles to reach Clark and yank him back into the room.

'I can fly, Lex.'

There is nothing he can do, frozen in slow-motion desperation, and he'll never reach Clark on time, Clark who has gone mad, and he'll fall.

'Clark stop it. Anything, anything you want-'

Clark shuts his eyes for a moment, as if in pain. 'It's like having a bird in my chest. It doesn't hurt, Lex. But I can't get it out.'

The shadow of invisible wings darkens the room.