"The Hatfield-Berscheid experiments were not," she said matter-of-factly, "revolutionary in any way, shape, or form."

Clark scowled. He didn't see what was so bad about True Love (or the delusion thereof), anyway. True Love had gotten his parents years of happy marriage; lack of it resulted in the horrifying farce that had been Lex and Desiree's relationship.

On one intellectual level or another, Clark knew that taking AP Psychology with a full load of other classes already was a bad idea. But having Principal Reynolds remind him constantly about his lack of attractive assets for colleges was starting to make an uncomfortable amount of sense, and Clark figured that he might as well. Besides, he had always thought that Psychology was an interesting field of study.

Clark was staring to learn that amateur Psychology was interesting.

Learning about myelin sheaths, absolute thresholds, biological reasons for behavior, and memorizing obscure theory that was completely debunked, Clark reflected, was for the birds.

Birds with terrible karma. In fact, Lionel Luthor if he was ever reincarnated as a bird.

Dr. Polanski had this really sick fascination with destroying cherished beliefs in high schoolers. She's started off the class by saying simply that there was no such thing as true and forever love, and amidst the quiet dissent in the roomful of twenty-eight kids, she'd waved them for silence and went on to dissect the statement in blinding factuality.

"They just examined a few things that people had been taking for granted for years." She paused to glance around the class over her bifocals, searching for interested students, and stopping to glare at those who were falling asleep. "The researchers primarily concerned themselves with two types of love: passionate and companionate." She slipped a transparency on the projector and continued to talk quickly. "Passionate love encompassed tender sexual feelings, and the agony and ecstasy of emotions, while companionate was a deep, abiding affection."

Clark drew circles in the corners of his paper.

"They also addressed another aspect of love: its myths."

He stopped mid-circle, and looked up, curious.

"There are, they claimed, three main myths about love. One, that a person would know they were in love when they fell in love. Some sort of preternatural love-dar that would immediately alert you to the fact that yeah, you're head-over-heels for someone."

There was a class-wide giggle, and Dr. Polanski smiled at the reaction.

"You laugh now," she warned, "but how many of you have heard someone claim that they had finally found The One? Said that their sophomore boyfriend was the guy for them, or the last girl they saw was the girl for life?"

There was an uncomfortable shift in the room, and Clark thought crazily back to Lana, a flash of her dark, pretty eyes and smiling lips. He shook his head resolutely, ignoring the knowing looks from Chloe in order to banish traitorous ideas from his brain; he did love Lana, that was one of the few things he knew for certain.

"Truth is that most high school relationships don't last. Truth is that everyone one that comes along, in the minds of most people, is the one. And we're almost always wrong," Dr. Polanski concluded, looking thoughtful. "Myth number two is that love is a purely positive experience."

Clark rolled his eyes at that. Of course it wasn't; anyone who'd ever been in love knew that one. After all, the three years he'd been in love with Lana Lang had been proof enough that love's ups and downs were hurtful and abrupt: Whitney, then being noble, and finally a slew of other reasons had intervened. If it wasn't giving Lana space to be with her boyfriend, then it was giving Lana space because her boyfriend had died.

Clark felt immediately ashamed at his last thought, hearing his father's voice echo loudly in his head in admonition; Whitney had died protecting America. It didn't matter what Whitney had done before, he'd done the right thing in the end, and that was what mattered.

"Myth number three is my personal favorite," Dr. Polanski said. "And that's that True Love lasts forever."

"Why wouldn't it?"

It took Clark a whole twelve seconds to realize that he was the one who'd said it. Chloe was watching him again, and he could see her pitying expression from his peripheral vision, as if he was a little kid, and she felt bad for how young he was.

Dr. Polanski turned off the overhead, and the room fell suddenly-silent without the background sound of the projector's fan. She smirked at him, crossing her arms over her narrow chest, eyeing him carefully, sizing him up.

"So, Clark, I assume you believe that True Love is forever?"

He nodded.

Having established himself as an enormous geek as far back as freshman year left him very little face to lose at the beckoned point of junior year; social death had occurred already, post-mortem loserdom was remarkably freeing. Lex said that he was being morbid, but Clark thought those were pretty big words coming from a guy who liked to let an entire town think he was just the crazy brat prince from the Scottish castle in the middle of Kansas.

She laughed, and the sound was bright. "Well, good for you, Clark. I don't look forward to the day you realize that it isn't true."

Clark opened his mouth to contest the point, feeling angry all of a sudden. As if he'd been brushed off, turned away from the movie theater because it was rated "R" and he was still a few years off.

She checked her watch. "That's it for today."

"I don't know why you let her get to you, Clark," Chloe said, eyes never leaving the computer screen, fingers flying across the keys.

Clark was fascinated with the way she typed because Chloe tended to misspell more words than type them correctly; three fourths of the busy, productive clicks from her keyboard were from hitting the backspace key dozens and dozens of times per page.

She turned to level a knowing look at him. "She does it to get a rise out of the students. If you can't get them interested, at least you can get them infuriated, right?"

He almost pouted. "She's crushing the innocence of four classes of people, Chloe. How is she allowed to do that? In a public school?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Because she's been doing it for years, Clark."

There was a brief, almost-silence occupied only by the short sound of plastic.

Clark looked up to see a disgusted expression on Chloe's face.

"What?" he asked self-consciously.

She looked pissed.

"Don't tell me you actually think that ridiculous crush you have on Lana is you being in true love with her, Clark," Chloe said, her voice low and shaking.

The immediate annoyance flit across Clark's face, but Chloe didn't back off.

In fact, she just bit her lip, exited out of whatever she was working on violently, and started shoving things into her backpack, not looking him in the face. He could see her shoulders trembling either in anger or some other incomprehensible emotion. Like most days, Clark didn't know what he'd done wrong, but it became very clear very quickly that he wished he could take it back, that he hadn't made Chloe upset.

She stopped suddenly, turning to glare up at him.

She was crying. Clark fought against the sudden and violent urge to throw himself flat on his belly in front of her and beg for mercy.

"You know, Clark," she said, voice weak, "I let you off easy at the spring formal, and I let you off easy for two years since that."

Clark winced and squirmed. He'd always known that Chloe hadn't quite gotten over him. Pete told him daily; Lana sometimes hinted at it. At the end of sophomore year, when Lex had finally and without great patience told Clark that if he heard one more word about how great Lana was, he'd shoot himself in the ass - Lex had mentioned something about the fact that Chloe was better, and still in love with him, to boot.

Clark just hadn't figured that Chloe cared so much anymore.

At least, not enough to cry.

"Chloe - "

"Shut up!" Chloe yelled. She wiped angrily at her cheeks, sniffling pitifully as she said, "I don't expect you to ever feel the way about me that I want - ed you to, but - "

The rest of her sentence dropped off, she looked at the ground, took up her bookbag, and stumbled out, throwing a hasty "bye" over her shoulder. The sound of her footsteps echoed in the hallway, and Clark could only stare at the open door of the Torch office, wondering what exactly he'd done wrong, and how he'd done it so spectacularly.

Lex was doing something complicated with his corporation that required about fourteen thousand people to take up almost-permanent residence at the castle. There was no shortage on space, but there was a definite run on breathing room. Since Lex's secretary was obsessive, and his publicist was both obsessive and frightening, Lex had taken to hiding in a second-floor bathroom with comic books and really illicit amounts of brandy when he didn't want to answer any more questions about his company logo and who he'd be taking to the next party.

Clark had found him one day four weeks ago: pure luck, he'd called it; copious use of xray vision, he knew.

He snuck through the house as quickly and quietly as possible, avoiding in quick succession Vivian the publicist, Charity the secretary, Bill the chief accountant, Darryl the technology consultant, and Ingrid, whose exact job description no one really knew. Clark feared for Lex's sanity. Greatly.

He tiptoed into a nondescript hallway, down to the fourth door on the left, and eased it open, almost laughing out loud at the sudden sight of Lex almost jumping to his feet.

"Clark!" his friend breathed, clutching a copy of the New York Post in one hand and the tub faucet with the other.

Lex, in thousand-dollar tailored pants, black silk socks, and a dark plum-colored shirt, was sprawled out in the bathtub with a bottle of brandy and three different news publications. He looked tired, haunted, and just on this side of ridiculous, which was exactly how he felt most of the time those days, too.

Clark smirked. "Definite CEO material, Lex," he said.

Lex didn't bother to try and look dignified before settling back into the tub, smiling lazily at Clark, just breathing like there weren't at least six frantic people downstairs looking for him and yelling at his servants. No, he didn't bother - just exuded dignity, even hiding from his subordinates.

Clark sat down on the rim of the claw-footed bathtub as Lex said, "It's a leader's prerogative to give his employees room in which to maneuver. It shows them for what they really are, gives insight to human mettle." Clark rolled his eyes. "That, or the fact that a modern CEO's image Consultant is tantamount to God and I find that somewhat terrifying," Lex admitted.

"Has she been telling you what to wear, again?" Clark asked, barely repressing laughter.

"Apparently, polls indicate me too effeminate to be a strong economic leader," Lex grumbled and picked at his perfectly pressed shirt.

"'Effeminate'?" Clark asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Lex had fourteen cars, an enormous house with turrets, gorgeous women hanging on his arm at all hours, and according to Metropolis Magazine, he "dripped sex in disgusting excess." Lex played pool all the time and drank Ty Nant water. Short of erecting enormous phallic objects on the front lawn of Luthor manor, Lex couldn't get any more male. Clark didn't find any of those facts synching with Vivian's public opinion polls.

Lex frowned. "Don't go there, Clark."

Clark couldn't resist. "You do wear a lot of pink."

"It's mauve. And for your information, GQ calls it the new blue, so shut the hell up," Lex muttered, burying his face back into the New York Post, reading the box scores on the latest game between the Mets and the Dodgers. His voice was low, but Clark heard, "Better than goddamn flannel..." just under Lex's breath.

"Flannel is manly," Clark said, ridiculously chipper, all situational influences considered.

Lex made a sound that would have been a snort if he wasn't so far above those sorts of things. But he paused at something too-bright in Clark's tone and looked up, gray-blue eyes curious in the late-afternoon sun, flashing in the pools of light that pattered his floor, thrown by the stained glass. There was something...odd.

"Clark?" he asked, much softer.

Clark didn't say a word, just stared and thought, his mood suddenly somber again as he recalled the expression on Chloe's face, angry and frustrated and pained. He took a deep breath, and finally said, "Just hypothetically."

Lex raised his eyebrows. "Yes?"

"Say someone is learning about experiments about love in a certain AP Psychology class," Clark started. "And say those experiments included - "

"Yes, I know," Lex said impatiently, "Hatfield-Berscheid. Three myths, two types of love. Go on, Clark."

Clark had given up on trying to find out how Lex knew so damn much when he was only six years older. It was as if Lex had actually learned everything that he'd studied in school, as opposed to cramming frantically the nights before exams. And to add insult to injury, Lex knew more random trivia than anyone that Clark knew, and could easily win any round of play-against-the-players Jeopardy while deeply involved in explaining the controversy over whether ancient Macedonia was really a Greek-speaking nation, Alex Trebec mispronouncing things on TV in the background. Clark had seen him do it.

"And suppose said person made mention about said experiments in a certain newspaper office after class," Clark went on, seeing the knowing expression dawn on Lex's face.

"I hope you're not too badly injured," Lex said dryly.

Clark winced. "If only. She cried, Lex."

Lex sighed, setting down the newspaper and resting his head against the cold porcelain curl of the tub, staring at the ceiling, a frown on his face. "You know, Clark," he started. "I would tell you just not to mention those sorts of things around Chloe, but experience dictates that avoidance doesn't really work."

Clark wanted to say something petty about Lex and his father, but bit his tongue.

"Did you mention Lana?" Lex asked, wincing at the name, as if saying it was spelling his own doom.

"No. I just said that Dr. Polanski shouldn't be talking about how True Love wasn't real, and how she shouldn't be crushing peoples' souls," Clark argued, growing increasingly annoyed. He just didn't see where he'd been in the wrong, or why Chloe had overreacted like that and cried when there wasn't anything over which to cry.

Lex turned to him at that, looking vaguely unsettled. "The Hatfield-Berscheid experiments didn't hypothesize that there wasn't anything like True Love, Clark," he lectured. "They speculated that all love was true, every kind, every instance. But simply that True Love doesn't last forever." Lex frowned playfully. "You weren't paying attention, Clark. I'm horrified. My property taxes pay for that gold and red vacuum of school spirit of yours, you know."

Clark huffed. "I know."

"Sure you did, Clark," Lex said, turning away again. "Look, stop beating yourself up over it. It sounds like she was just wound up and, for lack of a better term, 'freaked out.'"

Clark felt a smile work its way across his face.

Lex had a way about him. Clark always felt better after having worked through his problems with Lex, like some sort of enormous verbal flow chart, and only Lex had the dry-erase marker.

It was more than a little amazing to Clark that at the not-so-tender age of seventeen to see Lex Luthor, heir-apparent to the largest agribusiness empire on Earth, leader of the fastest-growing new startup corporation in the Midwest, laying in a tub while hiding from his employees. It was beyond description that this incredibly busy man, bubbling to the brim with ambition and big plans, carefully kept optimism and barely-concealed energy, would take the time out of his schedule to sit around and listen to a high school student complain about making his friend cry.

And Clark didn't like to examine it too closely, but...

...It made him breathe a little more quickly to recognize the comfortable friendliness, the affectionate warmth in Lex's eyes as he offered advice, spouted anecdotes, and was generally there at Clark's leisure, fulfilling the role of "best friend" far better than the too-often-absent Pete.

Lex employed almost four thousand people; Pete was on the football team. It was hard to Clark to wrap his mind around how Lex seemed to make time for Clark, and how Pete found time for Clark only when it was convenient.

Lex angled Clark a curious look. "What are you smiling about?"

Not like Clark was going to tell him all that sentimental garbage, so he fumbled for the next best answer. "You said 'freaked out,' and I could hear the finger quotes, Lex."

Lex actually chuckled softly at that. "MTV tries its best, Clark, but Excelsior wins."

It made sense.

Lex was more likely to say, "Had a minor psychotic episode in relation to certain pronounced incidences of cognitive dissonance whereupon Chloe was incapable of either rationalizing or repressing" than say "Chloe freaked out." But he had, and Clark figured that had to mean something about his influence and how Lex was starting to loosen up after all. And it only took three years, Clark found himself thinking ruefully.

Clark's ears perked up at the sound of footsteps growing closer, but before he could open his mouth to warn Lex to run or hide, the door to the bathroom burst open.

Vivian was exactly a foot shorter than Clark's impressive six three, had dark dishwaterblonde hair, and had managed to gain and lose something like forty pounds in the two years that she'd worked for Lex. (Lex, however, did acknowledge that her tendency to either overeat, under-eat, chainsmoke, or panic herself into weight loss or gain were probably his own fault; she wanted hazard pay.) She had dark brown eyes and they were sparking with irritation. There were printed pages in her hands, a cell phone in her pocket, Clark knew, and dozens of people working for her twenty-four hours a day in order to make Lex look like a good, wholesome CEO. And Lex hated her. With, quote, "The passion of a thousand suns."

Lex scowled and sank down lower into the tub, whispering "Damn."

Clark snickered.

Vivian shot him a glare that very clearly screamed, Get out. She said, "Hello, Clark."

Clark cleared his throat and excused himself, feeling no small amount of pity as he heard Vivian gearing up for another speech on why her being on the LexCorp payroll would be absolutely pointless if her stubborn employer didn't follow her advice, and why hadn't Lex started wearing the cobalt blue shirt she'd had Hugo Boss send? Barney's had made available fabulously masculine ties; it was only Lex's hereditary mule-like nature that stopped his conquest of the Bible belt, etc. etc.

And from the hallway, he heard Lex:

"Has anyone ever told you what an incredible nuisance you are, Vivian?"

Clark let the phone ring fourteen times before he hung up.

Chloe was obviously taking "freak out" to a whole new and previously unknown level.

"She still not answering?" Clark turned around to see his mother looking at him sympathetically. He frowned and shook his head, noting her pitying expression.

Clark flopped down at the kitchen table, sulking. "Lex said she freaked out."

Clark, over the years, had learned that when it came to issues of teenaged girls, it was always in his best interest to consult his mother. After all, Martha Kent was no stranger to teenaged mood swings, and she'd been hearing his, Pete's, his dad's, and Chloe's for years. Twice in the past, she'd flat-out told him it was a surprise that Chloe hadn't yet lost her patience with Clark; if it was her, his mom had said, she would have probably brained him with something heavy and blunt years ago.

"She's probably just in a bad mood, honey," she said soothingly, pressing a hand to Clark's cheek. "It's always rough for teenaged girls, especially with boys they like."

Her son's face darkened: shame and irrepressible annoyance. "Well, maybe she should pick someone else to like and stop bothering me!"

There was a horrible silence in the kitchen, and Clark's eyes widened as he realized that he'd said it out loud. His mother looked appalled, and Clark suddenly felt like pond scum.

"Oh, my God," Clark whispered.

His mother's face was tight, but forgiving. "It's okay, Clark, I know you're under a - "

"No, it's not!" he protested, frantic suddenly. "Chloe's been one of my best friends since, since eighth grade!"

Chloe had always been good to him, cared even though he was the outcast. And Clark admitted it, as horrible as it sounded, that the fact that Chloe had seen enough good in him to like him had always been a huge ego-boost. She was cute and smart and everything that he should have liked in a girl, and he felt four steps beyond awful to know that not only did he not reciprocate, that he caused her pain, too.

He had no right to be angry about it.

"Clark."

He looked up to see his mom's eyes hard. "Yeah?"

She sighed. "Look... That's the thing about love, Clark, it's not reasonable, it's not rational, and we can't control is or make it work the way we like." She looked like she was talking from experience, and with the fallout between her father and herself over Clark's father, she might have been. "It would be simpler if we could tell ourselves to stop caring about someone because it's inconvenient."

Clark swallowed hard and nodded.

"So there's no point in being mad at Chloe for caring about you, and no point in being mad at yourself for being annoyed, Clark," she continued softly. "Sometimes, that's just the way it is. And you know, it doesn't last forever," she said in a consoling tone.

Clark's head shot up at that: "it doesn't last forever," and "True Love isn't forever."

Was everyone sinking into pessimism? Or was it just some fact that he'd never bothered to look at too closely before? Neither option sounded particularly good.

"Okay. Thanks, Mom," he managed.

She ran a hand comfortingly over the crown of his head, and went off to finish preparing dinner. There was only so much warm wisdom that she could be offer; there was still the real world to address, and teenaged angst was in a separate galaxy at best.

Clark sat still and thought to himself for a long time.

"Clark, you know I like you, but..."

It didn't hurt anymore, since Clark had heard it (at present count, more to follow, obviously) fourteen times already. He always asked and Lana always gave the same response; she liked him, that much had been articulated, but she wasn't ready for a relationship yet, not so soon after Whitney had died.

Lex said it was like a game, Guess the Rationalization.

So Clark had turned Not Strangling Lex With One of His Four Hundred Dollar Ties into a game, too.

The Talon was busy that night, people coming and going as if the cappuccinos were actually good. (Clark used to think so, but then Lex had gotten bored one afternoon, driven them out to Metropolis, and they'd had the real stuff.) Lana had hired two new baristas and a waitress, so she was sitting pretty, chin cupped in one palm looking over her domain. She didn't even look bothered by the fact that she'd been feeding him bad excuses for almost four months.

He had to try, anyway. It made him feel manly.

"It's just a movie, Lana, we could go as friends," he offered, and realized with a sudden and harsh clarity that he was really sick of her bad explanations.

She smiled at him sweetly. "Thanks for everything, Clark, but - "

He waved his hand absently. "Nevermind, Lana. I understand."

Lana was still beautiful, relatively uncomplicated in the grand scheme of things. She had lost her parents in the meteor shower that had been his fault, grew up an orphan, the beloved princess of Smallville who had been defined in the horrible afternoon in October when fire fell from the sky with her face on the cover of Time. Everyone loved Lana; it was so easy for Clark to love her, too. She was everything he was supposed to like, like the lead female in a romantic comedy.

Chloe was the best friend: smart, quirky, and kind. Who, according to some romantic comedies, Clark was supposed to dump Lana for at some point or another.

Though, last year, either (according to which publication one liked to read, The New Yorker or the National Review) in an uplifting example of how society was growing more enlightened or degenerating into a modern, sprawling Sodom and Gomorrah, some woman had written and directed a box-office hit romantic comedy that hadn't ended either way. Zachary the brilliant young architect fell for Julia who ignored him and he drank vodka with Gemma who introduced him to her friend, Dorian. Two hours and four minutes later, Zachary and Dorian shared the first mass-released gay kiss on screen and became romantic icons like a homoerotic version of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.

But Clark had decided, after generous teasing from what seemed like*everyone in Kansas,* that being a teenaged alien with superpowers was complicated enough without having to add questioning of sexual orientation.

Lex had dismissed the movie as garbage, and told Clark that there were great art nouveau movies about real gay romance if he wanted to see them.

That had started a really interesting line of questioning which had ended abruptly when the 36D flavor of the week had wandered into the den wearing Lex's so-called 'effeminate' plum-colored shirt. At least Lex had looked embarrassed, even if she hadn't.

Clark checked his watch.

"Look, I've got to run," he started easily. In the last year, leaving Lana had gotten easier than coming to her. "I told Lex I'd meet him."

Lana narrowed her eyes for just a fraction of a second. "You guys are close."

Clark smiled, and realized out of all the expressions that had crossed his face so far that evening, it was the closest to being real. "He's my best friend, Lana."

She looked at him as if it wasn't a good enough explanation.

For a moment, a thought flit through his head: what if it wasn't?

Clark noted the minor explosion of activity at Luthor manor with a critical eye, swung a left, and headed back home. He knew he had an open invitation to the house, but he didn't want to disturb Lex while he was in the throes of actual productivity. Besides which, Vivian sort of...scared him. A lot.

He zipped through dinner with his folks, excused himself to his room, and read there until he couldn't focus on the words on the page any longer. Forcing himself to read _The Scarlet Letter_ hadn't been fun to begin with; the prospect of a more interesting avenue of thought sort of completely defeated the purpose of even trying. Hester Prynne was a chump, though Clark had a sneaking suspicion that Lex would disagree, and start some extended diatribe about American literature and Hawthorne's rejection of some literary style or another. Hearing about Transcendentalism from his English teacher was mindnumbing enough; if Lex got into it, then Clark would probably lapse into a coma from premature brain death.

True Love and its impermanence was everywhere he looked that day.

And so were chumps: Clark was a chump, so was Chloe. So was Hester.

Hester had loved Arthur Dimmesdale enough to sacrifice her reputation and ruin her life, bear the shame of an illegitimate child on her own; her love was True, and real, and visceral, Clark thought. But in the end, Dimmesdale had been weak and undeserving, and he'd died, leaving Hester alone again. If that wasn't an unfair and tragic conclusion to an unfair and tragic affair to begin with, then Clark didn't know what was.

True Love, true and pure and good, had ended.

Just as Hatfield and Berscheid had said it would, just as his mother had said. There was a horrifying transience to it now, as if everything was simply a layer of surface material, about to be blown away in the wind like debris or sand.

True Love hadn't been good enough.

Neither was coffee, eventually, because he woke up three hours later, his face pressed into the seam of the book, smelling the Smallville High School library.

Clark blinked thickly and looked out the window, the midnight stealing over the heavens. Stars were coming out, and he fought a primal urge to sneak out to the barn, stare out of the telescope, get lost in something greater than himself.

Clark wondered if it was some sort of phase that all teenagers went through. If questioning the nature and validity of Love was something that everyone did in their teens, in between tests and pointless quizzes and studying for the SATs. He lay back in his sheets and stared up at his ceiling, wondering if Lana or Pete or Chloe had ever kept themselves awake at night, thinking too deeply about things that felt like they should have come naturally, been cut and dry, black and white.

True, Beauty, and Love, weren't those three simple, plain concepts that were supposed to touch the lives of everyone on the face of the earth in equal measure and pressure? Wasn't Love supposed to be the best, least complicated, simplest thing? After all, his parents loved him, and he loved them back. It was easy, flexible. It got tense sometimes in between fights about small things that weren't important in the long run - but in the end, Clark never doubted that his parents loved him. It was a question of degree, not presence.

So why had romantic love become so complicated? Why "passionate love" so confusing?

And why was Clark obsessing, anyway?

He'd laid out his life very clearly: he would try to reign in his powers, do what he could to save people, be a good friend and son, stay out of the spotlight, and love Lana.

He'd always loved Lana.

Clark shut his mind down, refused to let himself think any further, and rolled out of bed to wash up. It was late, and he was tired of his own brain.

Idly, he wondered if that was how Lex felt all the time: worn from a day of overactive analysis, cut to pieces by his own mind.

"So, naturally, disappointment is part of every relationship."

That's the thing Clark had never understood about Chrissy: being a teenager was equivalent to total and ceaseless misery. The idea that someone would go to such extraordinary and murderous lengths in order to preserve the most awkward years of their lives was beyond Clark's understanding. The thought that the fourteen to eighteen set were the best years of his life made Clark really antsy about living past nineteen.

"The Hatfield-Berscheid experiments, as we covered yesterday in class, destroyed some age-old stereotypes about love, and I know some of you aren't...exactly happy about that," Dr. Polanski said, an indulgent smile on her face. She seemed to be looking right at Clark, and he barely repressed a scowl.

Chloe had stopped him in the hall was a vague, uncomfortable apology, saying something about how she had been having a bad day, and that she shouldn't have taken it out on him. But there had been a grudging tone in her voice, like she didn't mean anything that came out of her mouth, like she was waiting for him to interrupt with, "No, Chloe, you were right. What I feel for Lana is crap."

What Clark felt for Lana was the only thing he really understood.

Dr. Polanski turned on the overhead, where her looping handwriting had scrawled "Reciprocity effect" in all capital letters and underlined it twice.

"Reciprocity involves liking or loving those who show they like you. It extends to idealizing one's partner or perceptions thereof."

Clark tensed.

"Like idealizing someone, thinking they have no faults or are the exception to the rule when really, it's just because you don't want to come to the terms with the fact that your sweetheart is just as fallible and bad a person as anyone else," Dr. Polanski added.

The fan in the room was inordinately loud. As if it was a drumroll. Clark fidgeted in his seat, bit his lip, tapped his pen, and tried to block out everything she was saying.

Chrissy had it all wrong, Clark reflected darkly.

Being a teenager was a hazing ritual; those who didn't lose their minds or commit suicide by the time they reached twenty-one got a 'Pass Go, Collect $200' card to adulthood and reality. Turning fourteen had led to sticky sheets in the morning, mortifyingly bad conversations with parents regarding things that parents should never talk to kids about.

Fifteen had led to nightmarishly awkward incidences with the opposite gender and locker rooms where the art of "not looking" was honed to perfection or eventual death was accepted. Sixteen was terrified "dates" where both parties were too busy panicking and regulating their heartbeats to really enjoy each other's company. Seventeen provided two bad kisses with some girl that Clark didn't even really like, crying Chloe, Lana making excuses, and Pete going further and further away.

Seventeen was also AP Psychology.

Clark hated Psychology, and decided that the entire thing was Lex's fault.

"I thought it was fascinating, frankly," Lex had said one lazy afternoon in the barn. And since Clark was new and shiny and dumb and trusted Lex's judgment, he'd signed up for the class before reading the fine print.

"Will make you toss, turn, and reevaluate those things which prove fundamental to your sanity on a daily basis," the four point font whispered. Bludgeoning Lex would only appease some of the tension, and now, thanks to AP Psychology, Clark knew why physical violence was only a temporary release.

"I know everyone is looking at this lesson and thinking, "Well, I'm different." But that's the thing about Psychology," Dr. Polanski said, her voice soothing, taming the beast of the teenaged ego. "These sorts of things apply to everyone, on every corner of the earth. There's no point in being ashamed, or embarrassed, or worried. Everyone falls victim to this, and love, being so universal, more so than anything else."

Clark narrowed his eyes and slumped down in his seat.

Dr. Polanski uncapped an overhead pen and wrote, "Proximity effect."

"I see Vivian won."

Lex was wearing a cobalt blue shirt, and it brought out the brilliant color of his eyes, flaring with almost-childlike petulance. He was sitting at his desk, leafing through a mountain of papers and frowning at all of them.

"Vivian didn't win," Lex said in a short tone. "I conceded after seeing that the shirt did, in fact, put on display some of my more attractive physical assets."

Clark smirked but didn't push. His expression faltered. "You're busy. Should I go?"

Charity, being the most patient member of the Luthor staff, had told Clark that Lex wasn't restructuring the company, rewriting the bylaws, or any of the other guesses that Clark had made already. Lex was about to however, attempt to make himself presentable to venture capitalists, for a new, large, and very ambitious project that would need massive amounts of funding. Charity had made special efforts to emphasize how utterly vital it was to the future of LexCorp that Lex take it seriously, and be left alone enough to work with concentration. So, Lex being Lex, wasn't losing his mind nearly as much as he should have been, which was why Vivian was doing it for him.

Lex sighed. "Probably." A pause. "So sit down already, Clark."

Clark smiled and made himself comfortable on a leather couch, feeling it curve and mold itself to his body. The leather gave a soft sigh, as if to say, "Finally, you're back."

Lex set down his pen and glared around the room. "I'm going to fire Vivian, Clark."

He'd been saying so for months already.

"Why do you need a publicist, anyway?" Clark asked, genuinely curious.

"The same reason my father has one, Clark," Lex said smoothly, his voice pitched like silk and satin and a dozen other flawless things. "Just because you're a brilliant businessman doesn't mean you're a brilliant diplomat, and in my case, though I'm fairly good with both aspects, I have a somewhat disreputable past."

'Somewhat,' of course, being the gentlest word for it, Clark knew. Lex's past was the type of thing that got people crucified even in the Daily Planet. And that was based purely on what Clark knew about Lex's past; he didn't envy Vivian.

They shared a brief, comfortable silence.

Clark cleared his throat and said, "I'm losing my mind, and it's your fault."

Lex raised his eyebrows, looking almost as if he was caught off guard. "Really?"

Clark frowned. "You said Psychology was fun."

"I said Psychology was fascinating, Clark," Lex said pointedly, smirking. "And even if I had said "fun," my definition of amusing and yours are vastly different: clubbing or cow-tipping. You ought to have known better, anyway."

"Tipping the cows kills them, Lex," Clark said.

His friend rolled his gray-blue eyes. "Forgive me. I've never felt compelled to brave fields full of bovine feces in order to push one over in the dead of the night."

Clark had realized sometime near the end of his sophomore year that on average, to every one word that he said, Lex could say five and make them all sound many times smarter than anything that had come out of Clark's mouth just moments before. Clark could probably read from an encyclopedia, have Lex talk in response about diet sodas, and still have Lex sound more intelligent. He'd given up on being frustrated months ago.

He chose snark now.

"So you survived the wilds of the Metropolis nightlife, and you're afraid of little dung?"

Lex smiled for real this time, eyes dancing. "For the record, Clark, I never claimed to have "survived" the Metropolis nightlife; had I accomplished that feat, I very much doubt I'd be in Smallville, processing said dung." There was no bitterness in his tone, only idle amusement, like the thing that had hurt him in the past, banished him to nowhere, had scabbed over. "Besides," Lex continued, "you were saying about Psychology?"

Yes, Clark was.

"Dr. Polanski is purposely trying to destroy my view of love, Lex," Clark whined.

Lex laughed, and Clark said, "It's not funny, Lex! She's...she's talking about "reciprocity effect" and "proximity effect" and "idealization" and "cognitive dissonance" and all sorts of things that just out and out negate the idea of love!"

"Clark," Lex finally said, "you said it yourself a long time ago:; it's entirely different when the person likes you back."

Reciprocity effect, and only the slightest twinge at the memory of Kyla. Clark figured that he should still feel bad about that, but the more he'd thought about that, the more he realized that she'd been - as bad as it had sounded - a blip on the radar. There was Lana before, and Lana after.

Besides, Lana had never tried to kill people. Clark knew he'd cared for Kyla deeply, though, and couldn't really repress the wave of shame he felt every time he remembered her without any grief, as if the affection he'd felt while she was alive was a passing fancy, not real at all. Looking at her bracelet made him feel dirty, like he'd taken something under false pretenses, and he couldn't muster enough courage to return it to Kyla's grandfather.

"And you can't say that your being around Chloe for ages didn't have an affect on the fact that she has feelings for you now."

Proximity effect, and yet another black mark against Clark. He'd never liked hurting people, and of all the people in the world, he'd never wanted to cause Chloe pain. She was so good and sweet to him, always there, bright and funny and...perfect. But oh so wrong all at the same time. It used to be simpler, but back then, Clark hadn't ever had to tuck his erection under his belt in order to stave off embarrassment and Chloe didn't have breasts, either. Not really. 'A' cups didn't really count.

"Plus, you unable to tell me one bad thing about Lana."

Clark just glared at that.

Sure he could, he thought. Lana was...short?

"Cognitive dissonance isn't even really about love, Clark," Lex said easily, like a silvertongued repository of knowledge. "It's about convincing yourself of one thing or another because it's easier to swallow than the truth."

Well, damn.

Clark huffed. Lex laughed.

"If I didn't know any better, Clark," Lex quipped, "I'd say you drop by only to be verbally abused, proven wrong, and annoyed." His eyes were bright with something happy, and it made the knot in Clark's stomach loosen to see that carefree expression on Lex's face.

"You know better," Clark shot back. "I come to take advantage of how really disgustingly rich you are."

Lex rolled his eyes.

Fast cars, servants, indoor pools, an entertainment room in the castle with technology that shamed the multiplex forty-five minutes away, and Clark was still more likely to spend two and a half hours sitting around Lex's den shooting the breeze and playing pool than enjoy any of the things that Lex would freely give.

The phone on Lex's desk burst to life, and Charity's voice piped out, sounding squeaky and far away, slightly out of breath: "Lex! Your three fifteen is here, and the photo shoot for "Fortune" is in two hours, so get rid of your guest."

Lex's mouth tensed at her tone, and Clark got the distinct impression that the only thing that saved Charity's job at that moment was the fact that Clark was there. Lex had a tendency to repress his more temperamental side around Clark, as if he felt obligated to be a positive role model or something, play mentor and big brother where Clark had no other point of reference. As if Clark would ever need to know how to be polite to people who worked for him, act incredibly smooth, be rich with class, and drink brandy gracefully, anyway.

"Thank you, Miss Everett," Lex said tightly. "That'll be all."

There was another silence. Not comfortable.

Clark squirmed for a bit and Lex fumed silently in his chair, halfway between embarrassed and enraged.

"Sorry, Lex," Clark finally said, for lack of anything better.

"Don't be," Lex muttered. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but cut himself off, rubbing a hand over his face, all-at-once exhausted again. "Maybe you should go, Clark. I'm sure your mom wouldn't appreciate you being late for dinner."

"Sure, Lex," Clark finally said.

Lex offered him a weak smile. "See you around, Clark."

Their eyes met over Lex's desk, and they held the stare for a moment.

Just four feet of actual space. Compared to the hours by plane that Clark had grown used to as Lex built his company, romanced different debutantes, argued with the stock market, and had pissing contests with his father.

It was just four feet.

Clark had never felt so far away.

Orange sunlight streamed through the kitchen windows, creating a halo of copper-gold light around his mother's head. Clark stopped a moment at the door, smiling at Martha Kent's profile. It was his honest opinion that his mother was one of the most beautiful women in the world. She made the house home and being seventeen bearable; she also made the best apple pie in Kansas.

"Hey, Mom," he said finally, drinking in the sight of her turning to smile at him.

"Hi. How was school, honey?" she asked, wiping her hands on a dishtowel and abandoning dirty pots and pans for a moment, focused entirely on him.

Aside from his parents, the only person who ever paid that much attention was Lex.

He sighed. "I'm hating AP Psychology more and more every day."

She laughed. "When I took Psychology in college, I came home from every class convinced I had another disorder." She patted him on the shoulder. "Don't take it too seriously, Clark. A lot of Psychology is just conjecture."

Clark didn't know what "conjecture" meant, but figured that he should probably find out before he took his SATs in a month and a half.

He shouldered his backpack again and said, "Yeah, sure, Mom." And started to leave.

"Wait - Clark?"

He turned to see a nervous expression on his mom's face. "Yeah, Mom?"

She sighed. "I got a call from Ms. Bertram, today, Clark."

He stared back at her blankly. Bertram? Not a teacher, not an acquaintance, not even someone on his delivery route who could be calling to complain about the service.

"Vivian Bertram?" his mom supplied, and Clark's heart jumped into his throat. His mom saw the look of recognition in his eyes and went on. "I know you and Lex are best friends, Clark, but she says that they're in the middle of something really important, and that it's for the best if you just...stay away for a while."

That made something really ugly and feral rise up in Clark's brain.

But he'd cursed in front of his mother before, and her reaction had been worse than the threat of having his mouth washed out with soap, so Clark just nodded tightly, bit his tongue, and raced up the steps.

Everything was complicated now.

His penis had a mind of its own; Pete was never around; Chloe had to wear a real bra; Lana reciprocated but didn't act; Lex was...otherwise occupied.

Everything was complicated.

Clark was sitting in a desolate corner of Luthor manor's gardens, having checked for security cameras, wandering security personnel, and Vivian. Lex never went out into the gardens. "My asthma might have gone away with the meteor shower, Clark," he'd mentioned one day, sneering at all the foliage, "but I still have a fairly negative reaction to copious amounts of flower pollen." Clark had just nodded and added "copious" to the list of words that he was probably supposed to know already; he had looked it up and endeavored (another Lex word, two weeks ago) to use it as often as possible.

Technically, Vivian had said not to bother, Lex.

And stalking, if done properly, really didn't bother much of anyone.

He was x-raying the entire compound, and he'd had some trouble at first, but settled finally on the image of Lex standing over his desk, hands slipped in his pockets and face hard. Vivian walked into the room and his eyes sparked with something just short of anger. Lex said something, and Vivian set her hands on her hips, face just as hard, before replying, her expression much more calm than Lex. Then Lex yelled something, and Vivian yelled back, waving her arms and motioning around herself, pointing at Lex's things. Lex shut his mouth, bit his lip, and looked at the ground before glancing up and mouthing one sentence. Vivian raised her eyebrows, nodded slowly, and left.

Clark blinked, and wished that he had superhearing or something useful like that.

Oh, but he could imagine what had been said.

"You called Clark's parents, Vivian," Lex had said.

"I was acting in the best interests of LexCorp and yourself," Vivian had said in reply.

"I know what's in my best interests, Vivian, and I don't need you alienating my friends in order to achieve it!" Lex had cried, enraged.

"You obviously don't because when you invite that boy into the castle to waste your time and ours, you're not thinking clearly and you're not taking your job seriously!" Vivian would yell back.

Lex had sighed and said, "You're released from your position, Vivian. Please leave."

Clark thought that would be a very satisfactory turn of events, and decided as he saw Vivian disappear down a hallway that he would call Lex the next afternoon and invite him over to hang out or play basketball. (Clark hated to admit it, but despite alien superpowers, Lex still had a better layup than he did. Which sucked, since Lex was also three inches shorter.)

Then again, Clark realized unhappily, there was also a psychological concept called "projection" and what he was saying held vague overtones of that particular defense mechanism. And maybe, Lex wasn't chastising Vivian for having called the Kents at all, maybe, Lex was arguing with Vivian the same way that Lex argued with Clark,: over stupid things, which meant that Lex liked Vivian.

Maybe Lex was picking a fight with Vivian over what kind of curtains they wanted for the castle, since, you know, maybe Lex liked Vivian a lot.

Clark hated, hated AP Psychology.

He narrowed his eye and focused again, pushing too hard because he could see through Lex's clothes now, deep in his bones, before he pulled out and focused. Lex wandering around the second floor of the castle, looking vaguely dissatisfied, though the manor was quiet for the first time in weeks. Lex was picking at the walls, pulling at tapestries, too close to pouting to be real or sober.

Though to be honest, Clark had never seen Lex inebriated.

In fact, Clark had never really seen Lex lose control when Lex had any control at all to be had. There were moments, of course, but they were meteor-rock induced. And other times, when Clark thought that he'd finally gotten to Lex, his friend had just shut down, iron walls coming down behind blue eyes, a hard tilt to his mouth, and a new, pretty girlfriend in the castle all weekend long. Clark figured that during moments like those, Lex really earned the 'Debauchery' that seemed to be his middle name. And Clark had never really figured out the whys or hows of it all; what made Lex go off on some occasions, and why Vivian could spend two months not-so-subtly questioning his masculinity and Lex could just shrug her off at the end of a day.

Clark sat there and leaned back, watching at a comfortable distance, and wondered if it was normal, accepted, average, to be completely possessed.

Lex made amazing overtures of friendship, did things that were beyond the scope of most teenagers or even adults. It was facilitated by the money, but given without intent that the dollar signs showed through: Lex was Lex simply because he was, frozen thick with a foot of ice around himself, and all geek pride and hardcore science fiend in his heart and head; Lex was having two complete sets of Warrior Angel comics, and not-so-secretly being torn over the destroyed friendship in the comics more than the so-called victims; Lex was purchasing video game systems over E-bay because he was too proud to walk into a Wal-Mart and ask for an N64, and just because he had money didn't mean he had to waste it; Lex was driving gloves and the slick smell of oil on leather; Lex was freshly polished shoes and a world of confusing devotion the likes of which Clark had never really seen before, never really understood.

Lex was also...a million miles away.

Clark glanced at his watch and felt all the blood drain out of his face before he bolted.

Missing dinner was one thing; missing dinner by two hours to stalk one's best friend was quite another.

The test on Social Psychology was probably the best that Clark had done all year. Dr. Polanski beamed at him before handing down a scantron full of neatly-darkened circles and 96 written in red marker on the corner. It was ironic that Clark would do so well in the only class he really hated.

So by the time that lunch rolled around, Clark was deep in full-scale pout. Chloe had shooed him out of the Torch office, citing that if he was going to suck every bit of joy out of her existence, then he could do it elsewhere. Pete was out sick that day. And inevitably, Clark had wandered outside the school, around the red brick until he'd seen Lana's familiar profile, sitting in the shade of a tree.

"Hey," he said, remarkably comfortable.

Lana smiled, pink and soft from her perch on the grass. "Hey, Clark."

She looked perfect there, sitting in the midst of all the blossoming life of spring in a pink shirt and denim skirt. Lana was simply pretty, simply herself, and that's what Clark liked about her so much: simple. Lana was easy for him to understand, easy on the eyes, easy on his overtaxed mind.

She patted the ground next to herself and he flopped down, sighing.

"You seem somber," she commented lightly.

Clark smirked; everyone was tossing around SAT words. He shrugged in reply.

"Want to talk about it?" she asked.

He sighed. And yeah, Clark did. "I haven't seen Lex in nearly a week," he admitted.

Lana couldn't hide her smirk. "Could you sound like a teenaged girl any more, Clark?"

He frowned and narrowed his eyes at her. "Says the girl who wears pink perpetually," he shot back, the voice snotty and vaguely familiar. It took him half a moment of staring into Lana's surprised face to recognize that the snippy tone was a directly lifted from one of the conversations he'd overheard between Lex and Vivian. It was never any secret that Clark had a sarcastic side, too; he just hadn't ever seen it manifest with Lana.

She raised her eyebrows. "Touche," she finally murmured. "Why haven't you just dropped by? Doesn't he still buy produce from your family?"

Clark made a sound that was suspiciously close to a whine. "Yes."

And that was the point.

Whatever had happened between Lex and Vivian, it had obviously put Lex in a bad state, one in which he seemed to really realize that he was a CEO of a corporation, the employer of 4000 people, and no longer the disaffected scion of a multibillionaire or the always-available friend to a teenaged boy. Something had clicked in Lex's head, like the last pieces of a large, abstract puzzle, and it had told Lex that he needed to shape the hell up, because it wasn't just his life anymore.

...Which led to Lex politely begging off any phone conversations with Clark, actually listening to Vivian, working his very hardest to make his dreams come true.

"You're working too much, Lex," Clark had said a few days ago. And he'd never admit it to Lana, but he'd actually been twirling the phone cord around his finger, half out of nervous habit, half out of plain nervousness to have finally caught Lex on the phone.

And Lex, that logical bastard, had only laughed tiredly and said, "Not true, Clark. In fact, I think I haven't worked hard enough in the past. I could give you an extended lecture on Alexander the Great and Macedonia and the stock market, but I think you probably have homework. I know I have a conference call, so - "

"Lex," he'd interrupted desperately, ignoring the voice of his dignity wailing in the background for him to unroll his dick. "If - are you mad at me?"

There'd been a long silence before Lex had sighed affectionately. "Clark, I'm just busy, you know that, right?" Clark had nodded, and even though Lex couldn't see through phones and definitely not across Kansas farmland, he'd gone on to say, "Good," and hung up like Clark wasn't losing his mind on the other end of the line.

"So?" Lana persisted. "Why don't you just go and visit him?"

"The same reason that we shouldn't be friends to begin with!" Clark growled, surprised by the irritation in his own voice. Lana looked taken aback, and stayed silent and Clark ranted. "I mean, Lex Luthor. Heir to the Luthor empire, drives expensive cars with gloves, lives in a Scottish castle moved to Smallville brick by brick. Lex Luthor who started his own corporation when he was twenty-one and who really, honestly, Lana? Who really is too busy to have a friend like me."

Clark sank into the grass, flat on his back and feeling spent.

That was the crux of the whole thing, Clark realized. He'd learned about biomagnification from Chloe's expose on LuthorCorp pesticides, little doses building up into larger problems, and it seemed oddly applicable to his situation. All the tiny, tiny little things that meant that he and Lex should have just been total strangers, passers-by instead of friends had compiled, allied themselves, written up contracts and photocopied them. It was only time that had brought them to the forefront, with terribly imposing words like "impossible," and "secrets," and "too damn young" for Clark's comfort.

It was very clear to Clark then that his whole friendship with Lex was just a bomb waiting to go off. According to his folks, Lex was after his secrets; according to the lewder jokes in the locker rooms, Lex was after his ass. And aside from all of that, Clark knew that the person really in danger was Lex, since Clark was after Lex's time and Lex didn't have any to offer. Lex had been an inexhaustible well of energy, acceptance, and comfort beforehand, but that had also come with Lex's sullen disregard for the plant, his annoyance with his father, his family, his place in life.

It had all started to change, ever so subtly, and then in an explosion with the employee buyout, the beginnings of LexCorp, and now, venture capitalists.

Clark realized he hated venture capitalists.

In fact, the whole romantic notion of the robber baron itself was a huge pain in the butt; if they lived in a communist country, Lex would have all the time in the world to be friends with Clark. They could pick potatoes, salute their comrades, and Lex would have time to sleep, and breathe, and Vivian wouldn't be calling anyone's mother. Vivian probably would have been up against the wall for counter-revolutionary thoughts;, or she would be if Clark had anything to say about it.

"Clark," Lana said softly, a hand on his shoulder, "has Lex ever been too busy for you?"

Clark pouted. "He is now."

She smiled at him, the expression was genuine. "Special situations now, Clark. You know that most of the people at the Talon work for him? I mean, I work for him, sort of,. My employees work for him, and everyone from the plant who comes into town works for him." She released a deep sigh. "Lex does important stuff, Clark. I guess it's just weird because...well, he usually never lets it show."

"A week, Lana. I've never gone a week without speaking to my friends before."

That wasn't true, Clark knew. There'd been that one time during summer when he and Pete had just...seemingly had other things to do. There were no feelings of animosity or even annoyance; they'd simply been occupied with other things, separated for a while, and met back up a week before school started to do all the normal, stupid things they always did.

"Lex isn't a normal guy, Clark," Lana added, her voice slightly dreamy. "He drives a Porsche and eats organic vegetables and runs a fertilizer plant."

Clark turned to look at Lana with new eyes. "You've thought about this."

She blushed, terribly red, and Clark got a horrible and sudden suspicion.

"You ought to try poetry, Clark," Lex had mentioned offhandedly once, "Lana seems to like rhymes. I've got books in the library, if you want. We can bastardize something over dinner." Clark suddenly got a sinking pit in his stomach and knew why Lex knew that Lana was a sucker for poetry. He didn't over think the fiery, hot possessive scream in his head, because it was too complicated and had to be approached from two directions: he loved Lana Lang, so Lex couldn't have her; he needed Lex because Lex was his best friend, and Lana had better damn well keep her paws to herself.

Lana was pretty and popular and everyone loved her; Lex was the only person that seemed to be fairly immune. Clark was an only child and a farm kid; not having any competition and having nothing to have was a bad combination, and Clark admitted it: he was selfish with his things. He didn't like to share. Lex was his friend, and while Clark wanted other people to like Lex, he didn't want them taking him away.

Which brought Clark back to the problem at hand: "away."

"Lana...do you..." Clark started, "have a crush on Lex?"

"No! Clark!" she protested. "You know I like you," she added shyly. "I know...I know I'm taking a long time to come around and... But I can't just let it go. It's like after my parents died, Clark; Whitney was important even if he was...." She seemed to make up her mind. "You know I like you, Clark."

The pit in his stomach widened. Clark remembered that tone. It was the same one he used to use when people questioned him about his feelings for Lana. Negations were always on his lips, but deep inside, the answer was a very clear "yes."

It would explain a lot. Why Lana always seemed so cheerful and bright around Lex. Why she got angry with him more easily than normal business associates would, as if she was passing a moral judgment. Why his drinks always had more whipped cream than anyone else's, and more sprinkles, and definitely came with a larger smile. And Clark had always wondered why Lana seemed incapable of going through any of the Talon's paperwork on her own, why Lex always had to be there.

Lex and...Lana?

"Right," he finally said, and the skepticism showed, he knew.

Lana bit her lip. "Clark..."

Clark sighed, tamped down obvious temporary insanity, and said, "See you later."

He stood up, brushed off his jeans, and headed to his seventh period class.

Clark spent a lot of time failing Precalculus. A lot.

It was the combined effects of it being a) a math class, and b) right after lunch. Clark had spent first quarter attempting to learn things, but had given up after Lex smirked and said that there was no real secret to learning trigonometry, and that a lot of it was just memorization of various, useless things. "It's almost entirely pointless, Clark, especially since there're calculators that log formulas nowadays," Lex had said. (That, of course, hadn't stopped him from being able to do all of the extra credit problems Clark had that week in class in ball point pen without ever making a mistake.)

Be that as it may, Clark didn't hate math. Not really. It was a subject, numbers and variables, and there wasn't anything tangible to hate.

Their math teacher was too bland to be considered a target.

At any rate, it gave him time to think, which was sort of a perk. Sort of. Clark spent a lot of time writing things down he'd never understand, and thinking about Psychology.

The Hatfield-Berscheid experiments had ruined his life, and he hoped that Hatfield and Berscheid were very happy about that. Not only had they destroyed Clark's innocent, pure love for Lana Lang and polluted it with doubt and mired it with questionable intent, it also made him really...uneasy about...Lex.

For reasons that Clark hadn't quite worked out just yet.

Finally, the bell rang and Clark made his way into the hall, distracted, ducking people left and right and making no eye-contact. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to think, and to run down to Luthor manor and play a game of pool, have everything go back to the way it was before.

That was the other thing. Everything was changing.

He wasn't okay with that one, either.

Clark reevaluated his immediate dismissal of Lana's "teenaged girl" comment when he saw the flash of silver-white just outside of Smallville High School. The big, stupid smile on his face got bigger with every step he took and he just knew he looked like an idiot, bolting toward his best friend's car like they hadn't seen each other in years.

He was about four feet away when Lex looked up from the steering wheel, flashed Clark a smile, and stepped out of the car, all in one smooth, liquid motion. Lex moved like water flowed, around things, over things, never stumbling.

And then Clark took pause, just a brief hitch in his step when he realized something.

Oh, sure, Clark had always understood on a clinical level that Lex was attractive. After all, Lana had giggled over the proclamation "Metropolis' Most Eligible Bachelor" on the cover of Metropolis Magazine, cut it out, and framed it. (Much to Lex's malcontent, it still hung behind the counter of the Talon. Clark had smirked at the small, handwritten caption: Our Fearless Leader. Lex was not amused.) Lex drove shiny cars, lived in a big house, drank brandy and enjoyed ancient history, was sensitive, comfortable, and only on this side of undressed. Clark had always had the really strange feeling that Lex was mostly-naked, and it was probably because Lex always seemed so flawless in everything he wore, everything he did, as if fabric didn't crinkle for him.

But Lex, leaning against the side of an Aston Martin, casual, tired smile on his face, sunglasses propped on his nose, and arms crossed was...

And everything just got more confusing.

"Hey there, stranger," Lex called out, his voice familiar and smooth and dark.

Clark managed a smile between the blinding flashes of realization. "Hey, Lex." Paused for a minute to mentally slap himself in the face a couple of times. "What are you doing here? I thought you were swamped at the castle?"

Lex smirked, and jerked his head toward the drivers side. "Hop in, I'll explain."

Clark did, jogging over and sliding into the familiar cabin of Lex's car, Lex's space. It smelled like leather and expensive linen pants and the faint scent of Lex's cologne.

And God, just because a really rich guy in a great car who was well dressed picked him up outside of his school in front of all the kids in Smallville didn't mean that Clark was getting a really delicious thrill out of it. He could see everyone gawking and pointing, whispering. "Five dollars says they're doing it," Clark could imagine them saying.

He wasn't melting; he wasn't ecstatic. Really.

Lex started the car, and they were driving, flying down and away leaving a crowd of students who thought that Lex was something scary, untouchable, or unwanted behind, just where Clark needed them to be.

"Vivian let you out to play?" Clark asked as Lex put on a CD. SR-71 was blasting in the car, full of middle-class angst, and Clark would remember it for when Lex attempted to deny that he was still sort of a teeny-bopper.

"Vivian is on her way back to Metropolis, and a substance abuse clinic, if I have anything to say about it. I've never seen anyone drink that much whiskey that fast," Lex yelled over the music, his voice still even. "I can't help but feel guilty for wearing so much purple despite her best efforts."

Clark laughed, loud and bright and easier than he'd laughed all week. "It's your favorite color, Lex. She should have known better."

Lex nodded thoughtfully. "Valid point."

Clark cleared his throat. "So you saw the venture capitalists?"

"Graham Robbins and Norton Pryce have," Lex said, and he sounded giddy, "conceded that LexCorp's designs in the future of aerodynamics as well as medical bioscience looked extremely good. And, as such, they've sunken a truly obscene amount of money into my coffers." Clark's mouth fell open. "I'm going to squeal like a little girl, Clark, but I'm not going to do it in front of my staff." Lex turned to look at him, all bright eyes and thrill, before asking, "Know of any deserted locals?"

And wasn't that an invitation for Clark's confused mind to say something that would make him feel ambiguous? As if the odd half-thoughts from his brief stint on red kryptonite didn't set him ill at ease enough already.

"Uh," Clark said intelligently, "we could go. Um."

No, there really wasn't. Smallville, in all its sprawling farmland, lacked somewhere where there would be zero consequence. Every inch of it was probably watched by one gossip-monger or the other, one society columnist out stalking the Luthors or some friend of Clark's parents.

Lex smirked. "I thought as much. Today's Friday, right?"

"Yes, why?" Clark shot Lex a curious look, the uncomfortably comfortable proximity fading into the background of his thoughts.

Lex's smirk stayed firmly in place, and he dropped his foot on the gas pedal with abandon.

"We're going to Metropolis. You and me, Clark."

Clark's heart fluttered at that, and he didn't even bother to try and explain it away.

"But," he started, "you - you're busy, and - paperwork."

Lex laughed, and drove faster, screaming past downtown Smallville, narrowing avoiding a truck parked too far from the sidewalk. Clark thought he saw Lana standing on the curb, a surprised look in her eyes as Clark and Lex went by. Some part of his Neanderthal brain grunted in approval.

"Yes, there's paperwork, Clark, but that can wait. You act as if I never leaned to prioritize," Lex scolded.

"So, to show your priorities, you're kidnapping me?" Clark responded. He couldn't keep the giggle out of his voice, and there was no point in doing it, anyway. Lex was in a fabulous mood; LexCorp had just gotten major funding for all of those things that Lex worked so hard for. And Adult Lex seemed to be taking a temporary breather for 'Lex Luthor Why Yes, That Is Another Shiny Phallic Object' to come out and play.

"Absolutely, Clark," Lex deadpanned. "How else will I start my journey toward fulfilling my destiny? I've got to start becoming a criminal mastermind somehow."

Clark snorted. "I hardly think stealing farmboys for the afternoon is criminal."

Lex swerved in the middle of the road, and Clark hung on tightly as they finally righted themselves back into the correct lane, and Lex looked like he could breathe again.

There was a long, long silence before Lex started laughing, at first trying to muffle the sound and then giving in to it. His eyes were crinkled and his mouth turned up, laughing like a little kid or a less important person. Laughing like he was happy.

"Sometimes, you really astound me, Clark," Lex said.

Clark smiled nervously. "What's so funny?"

"Stealing farmboys, Clark?" Lex prodded. "That's illegal in so many ways that you're far, far too young to be told about."

Clark frowned, really tired of being too young to get Lex's jokes. "I'm seventeen, Lex. And I'm sure whatever you're abducting this farmboy to do, it won't be anywhere near as illegal as..." He trailed off.

There was a long, terrible pause.

Between careening down the Kansas freeway, cows and corn on both sides of them, Lex's laughter, and Clark in the driver's side feeling mortified, it was becoming apparent that Clark was missing something big.

So he thought over what he'd said.

Right. So.

Clark fumbled for the door handle and was determined to throw himself out into the straggling traffic. A Porsche couldn't kill him, but maybe a semi would do the trick, and lucky him, there was a LuthorCorp big rig coming up the road. Oh, wasn't that irony utterly delicious.

But Lex's smooth hand was grabbing at his own, and Lex was still laughing, saying, "Don't overreact, Clark. You have - " laugh "- to admit that that sounded bad."

"Oh. God. I'm so sorry, Lex. I didn't mean for it to come out that way," Clark muttered.

He just knew that reading all that porn online was going to get him in trouble one day or another. And he was going to kill Pete for daring him to watch that skinflick, since of course Clark would stumble upon the innocent farmboy one and have it pollute his mind for the rest of all eternity.

"Of course you didn't, Clark," Lex said thinly. "And for future reference? Anytime anyone male does anything with a seventeen year old boy, it's illegal."

"Like driving in a car?" Clark said innocently, waiting for Lex's annoyed-cum-amused look, which came right on time, and more amused than annoyed that day.

"Funny, Clark. My eighteenth birthday present was my sealed juvie file. Believe it or not, I'm not going to be adding to my list of rather impressive crimes," Lex said, like it was a normal conversation to have with one's best friend.

They'd settled into a comfortable silence, and Clark had gotten curious and played the Shawn Mullins CD he found in Lex's glove compartment. They were cruising at a lessdeath -invitational seventy miles per hour, and listening to a slow, cigarette-smoke-andbars voice croon over Lex's very good sound system.

It was good. Really, really good.

"So," Lex said suddenly, changing the subject, "how's Psychology working out for you?"

Clark rolled his eyes. "We're done with Hatfield and Berscheid, but it's not going to get any better. Our next unit is Abnormal Psychology."

Lex changed lanes and said, "Really? I loved that."

"You would," Clark shot back sullenly. "She says that above all else, we shouldn't try to self-diagnose, since it would only drive us crazy."

"That's good advice, Clark," Lex said as they flew past the 'Now Leaving Smallville' sign on the side of the road. "My study partner managed to convince himself he had everything from schizophrenia to clinical depression by the time the semester ended."

Clark was curious. "You had a study partner?" he asked.

Something in the car tensed. "Sure, Clark," Lex started unsteadily, as shaken as his voice ever got, "but it was mostly an excuse to get him into bed."

Clark turned this admission over in his head. Looked at it from all angles, and realized through the terrified silence in the car that Lex wasn't just telling him, Lex was asking permission, as if he was showing something bad he'd done. "Is this okay?" he could hear Lex asking, childlike and scared.

And since he was Clark, he said exactly the wrong thing.

"But you have all those girlfriends."

Lex leveled a flat expression at Clark.

"Oh," Clark murmured.

"Yes, 'oh,' Clark," Lex said, staring straight ahead. There was another break in the conversation, which wasn't comfortable at all, and Lex said, "Look, if you want me to take you back home, or if you're not okay with - "

"No!" Clark hastened to yell. "No, it's not that I'm uncomfortable. It's okay, seriously, Lex. It's just a bit of a surprise."

Lex was shaking slightly, one wouldn't be able to tell if one wasn't paying very close attention. But it was Lex, and Clark always watched carefully. He released a long, shuddering breath and said, "Surprise? You obviously don't read the society pages."

"I don't," Clark said stubbornly, and his friend turned to look at him in surprise.

They both knew why, too. Clark Kent had known Lex Luthor for four months when Lex made his way to the society pages again. Chloe had come into the class that day crowing, flashing around a newspaper, and assorted people at school would read, laugh, and refer back to it all day long. Clark hadn't gotten a chance to look until lunch, and then, he'd read "Luthor Scion Fathers Illegitimate Child!" written in bold letters. In retrospect, it was the Inquisitor, and Clark learned more and more every day never to believe a single word they published. Back then, he'd rushed to the mansion after school and seen Lex brooding at his desk, silent and mostly-unresponsive, staring at the phone. It took nearly a week for him to find out that Lex had been waiting for blood test results that he'd ordered as soon as news came in from Metropolis. "Truth is, Clark," Lex had admitted later that night, drunk on misery and vermouth, "I'm probably sterile. The doctors said that the meteor rock exposure mostly flushed my chances of fathering children down the crapper." Clark had stared, felt all the blood drain out of his face, and then, found that a really ugly sort of hate was building up in his chest, guilt and anger and the need for revenge. "I mean," Lex had gone on, "I know intellectually that baby couldn't have been mine, Melissa really was an incredible slut, but..." He hadn't said another word, and threw back another glass before asking Clark if he could be alone for a while.

So Clark made a point to throw away the society pages every single week, never bought the Inquisitor, and if Chloe tried to read him any rumors about Lex, she'd get stared down.

All of that was peripheral, though, because Lex looked like he was blushing.

"You're too good for me, Clark," he murmured.

Metropolis, 250 miles, Clark saw and smiled. "Thanks for telling me, Lex."

The two boys looked at one another for a moment, and contented themselves with a grin.

"I can't believe that we're doing this," Clark lectured.

Lex had his back turned to him, and said imperiously, "Look, Clark, while I can admit that their nefarious business practices are cutthroat and worthy of admiration, I'm not going to pay four dollars for a bag of air. The combined worth of all the soda syrup and soda water used to make a day's worth of Coke is probably less than the cost of one supersized drink."

"You drive an Aston Martin, Lex," Clark insisted. "You live in a castle. You have a masseuse and you...you...buy people trucks for no good reason!"

"You saved my life," Lex said breezily. "Plenty good reason."

Clark rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to win this one, but he had to try. "Lex, they have rules against this. It's written on a sign right over concessions every time."

They were standing in the snack aisle of a gas station and Lex was systematically cataloguing all the different kinds of sour candies available. He'd already put in a basket a box of Sour Patch Kids, and was now seriously considering Sweet Tarts. There was also a six-pack of Cherry Pepsi. Clark didn't want to even think about how they were going to sneak those into the theater, especially since when he'd asked Lex about it, his friend had gotten an uncomfortably mischievous expression in his eyes.

"Clark, I'm not going to whore my bank account out to The Man."

Clark choked on a laugh, picking up package of Twizzlers. "The Man? Lex!"

"Yes, Clark, The Man," Lex said, hiding a laugh. "Hasn't anyone ever warned you about the Establishment, Clark?"

"Lex, you're insane."

"They warned me about the Establishment a lot when I was younger," Lex said thoughtfully. "I mean, television, movies, Ferris Bueller. We all rebelled, Clark."

Clark made a derisive noise, taking in Lex's pressed shirt, black cashmere jacket, and Prada shoes. He was the Establishment. "And how, Mr. Rebellion."

Lex looked down at himself and smirked, self-deprecating. "I didn't say we all won."

Clark laughed and Lex asked him if he was ready. "There're movie theaters in Smallville, too," Clark had pointed out half an hour ago. "Yeah, but we can't sit in the back row and disrupt people who are trying to have sex in Smallville," Lex had said simply. Clark had made mention of Lex's dirty mind, and how maybe this afternoon abduction was criminal after all, contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Lex had only flashed Clark an unrepentant expression and kept on driving.

The tangle of contradictions that was Lex was becoming clearer. Sure, he was an adult, mostly, a CEO, a Responsible Person, and had obligations, but Lex was more than that: Lex was also buying snacks and sneaking them into the theater because he was too cheap to get them at concessions; Lex was making fun of the teenagers making out in the dark; Lex was bad taste in candy and great taste in clothes. Lex was bisexual, and apparently, not so proud of it. It wasn't like there was a limit to facets of personality, and Lex had always liked being different.

And Clark found that he liked all of them: every edge, every side, every sparkle and shine and cutting-brightness that comprised all of Lex's different angles. Especially since it took very little for Lex to shift from one side to another in Clark's presence, from Working Lex to Just Lex, which Clark had always maintained was the coolest version. Despite the immutable science geek that Just Lex tended to morph into, Just Lex also knew the stupidest trivia and the best pranks. Just Lex also 'borrowed' his best friends for the afternoon, drove them three and a half hours away, revealed his sexuality, and promised movies and junk food.

"Clark? You ready?" Lex asked.

Clark smiled. "Yeah," he said, and got in the car.

So this was change, too, this recognition that Just Lex now had companions. LexCorp was important, and as much as Clark wanted to deny it, LexCorp Lex was more important to Smallville than Clark's favorite Lex. Which he could probably deal with, he just needed to make a compromise. And have Lex's solemn word that if Lana ever hit on him, he would pretend to be absolutely oblivious.

He was basking in it, the easy parts of all of it. Being close and being happy and having Lex happy for what seemed like the first time in a long time.

"Here," Lex said, handing Clark the six pack. "Stick those in your jacket."

"You're kidding," Clark said.

"Luthor's never kid," Lex commented. "Go on."

"They're cold," Clark argued. Not that it mattered to him.

"Not that it matters to you," Lex said casually. While Clark flushed and fought hard to continue breathing without chanting apologies, screaming and running in terror, or simply turning to dust on the spot, Lex said, "I'm not stupid, Clark. And stop panicking."

Clark nodded, suddenly feeling insanely calm. "Okay."

They were right in front of the movie theater now, and Lex was putting on his blinker, ready to turn into the overflowing parking lot. He was also eyeing the handicapped space, which made Clark both thrilled and vaguely uncomfortable.

It was surreal, to have two revelations in one afternoon: bisexual, and freak.

And the great part: no one cared, it seemed, on either end.

Lex glanced at the six-pack he'd dropped in Clark's lap. "So stick them in your jacket."

Clark laughed. "Lex!"

"We'll tell them you're pregnant," Lex assured him, and parked in the only available handicap space, headlights illuminating the "Minimum Fine $100" sign.

Clark groaned. "Lex. No more psychology, please."

"It's interesting, Clark," his friend replied, popping a Sour Patch Kid into his mouth.

"Yeah? Well, I still haven't forgiven you for getting me to watch this movie," Clark shot back, annoyance hedging in his voice as he looked around the theater.

The theater wasn't actually full, per se. There were groups of people all over, huddled together with their friends. So Clark didn't feel terrible about talking and generally making himself a movie nuisance because everyone else was doing it, too. The usher mentioned that it was the second month that the movie had been out, so Clark wasn't surprised it wasn't packed.

At the door, feeling like an idiot with a six pack of cola shoved down his jacket and candy he could hear crinkling in his pockets, Clark had realized Luthors really didn't kid as Lex had put his arm around him, pasted a big, stupid smile to his face, and said they were expecting. "She's very sensitive," Lex had said simply, pushing them past the skeptical usher. "She did professional sports for a while, the steroids were awful. Very bad." Clark couldn't really think outside of the screaming need to injure Lex badly. They were very lucky that there weren't any vulture reporters hanging around, because if the Inquisitor had been anywhere within range, there would be a full page spread about Lex Luthor, his incredibly ugly girlfriend, and their impossible love child. The first thing Clark had done after sitting down was punch Lex soundly in the arm.

Illegitimate imaginary pregnancy aside, there was the other thing.

"This is a chick flick, Lex!" Clark insisted.

"That's based on your Representative Heuristic," Lex said, not taking his eyes off the screen. "You take a few pieces of information you recognize: the crying women, the romantic subplot, and the comedic nature of them, and deduce that it's a "chick flick," when really, this is just a comedy. Even in the classic definition of the word."

Clark stared at Lex for a minute. "I'm going to hit you again, Lex. Really hard."

"You will not," Lex retorted, eyes still glued to the screen, still popping candy like an addict. "Look, that lawyer's coming back."

Clark turned. He admitted it: the only part of "Bringing Down the House" that he was actually enjoying was the young lawyer in it. There was something vaguely familiar about the guy, the way his body moved and how he talked.

"He looks familiar," Clark finally said.

Lex shrugged. "I met him at a party in Hollywood once. Nice guy."

Clark leaned in to say, "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Lex replied. "Michael something."

Clark shrugged. "He's kind of hot."

Lex whipped around to stare at Clark, wide-eyed. Clark debated whether it had come out of his mouth simply because he was trying to scare Lex, or if it was some sort of Freudian slip, whether or not that was still a valid psychological concept.

And really? That's what had started this whole problem to begin with, Psychology. One semester ago, Clark had been content, fairly happy with his life, simply and completely head over heels for Lana Lang, girl next door, and had a best friend who was the very definition of cool. Two quarters of Dr. Polanski's psychology later, Clark was starting to see cracks in the foundation of his affection for Lana, was confused and slightly attracted to the best friend, and was now obviously suffering some advanced form of encephalitis.

It was a long time before Lex rolled his eyes. "Very cute, Clark," he said.

Clark managed a weak smile, but didn't say a word.

"How did you know about Lana?" Clark asked suddenly, feeling the warmth from the Metropolis night against his theater-chilled arms. The movie had ended twenty minutes ago; it had taken that long for them to reach a gas station in the last rush of traffic.

Lex, who was leaning idly against the side of his car, waiting for the tank to fill, looked at him oddly. "Well, Clark," he drawled, "there was this accident, on a bridge? There was a roll of barbed wire and a teenager with a messiah complex involved, and somewhere along the way, I got dragged into the tawdry soap opera that is As The World Turns For Lana La - "

"No," Clark interrupted, "about the poetry."

Lex raised his eyebrows in time to the "click." He turned around to pull the nozzle out, and crazily, a thought flit through Clark's head. Lex pumped his own gas. It seemed strange that Lex would do menial labor. That would be like Lex cleaning his own castle or doing his own laundry or cooking his own meals, none of which seemed feasible.

"Well, one of Ms. Lang's many stalkers sent her that letter, I remember, and I read it before I just quoted a few lines to her myself," Lex said, pressing his credit card into the waiting slot and pressing a few buttons before turning back to Clark. "She seemed fairly receptive. Why?"

Clark's hand was fisted, nails digging into his own palm. He was upset, terribly so, but the really problematic part was that he couldn't tell at whom. Was he angry with Lex for charming Lana? Or at Lana for having a crush on Lex? He couldn't really be mad at Lex for charming Lana, since obviously, there was no intent to do so (right?); and he couldn't really be mad at Lana, since, well, everyone seemed to have a crush on Lex. The way that Lex walked, talked, and breathed just asked for it.

"I think she likes you," Clark managed.

Lex looked shocked, and it took him a second to collect his card and slip it back into his alligator-skin wallet. A few more seconds passed and a lazy smile came to his face.

"I think you're probably reading too much into the poetry, Clark," he said reassuringly.

Clark walked around to the driver's side door and slipped inside as Lex tucked himself in and buckled his seatbelt, pulling on his driving gloves. Lex's driving gloves were black leather, buttery soft. They smelled like Lex's skin, which smelled vaguely of rain and sophistication. Clark always paid attention, and Lex had let him drive the Aston Martin once, on the condition that Clark wore the gloves and was merciful on the transmission. He remembered the feeling of his hands surrounded by leather, cool around the fingertips but warm in the palms, and he imagined it was like pressing hands to Lex's, like something intimate.

"Yeah," Clark admitted, looking at Lex's hands on the steering wheel. "But what if I'm not? What if, one day, I walk into the Talon and she's flirting with you?" What was unspoken was: What if you're flirting back?

Now Lex made the derisive noise, and they pulled back into the congested Metropolis traffic. "Trust me, Clark. She's not my type. Don't worry about it." He sounded annoyed.

Clark's chest tightened. "I wasn't...I wasn't accusing," he explained. "It's that - "

"Don't worry about it so much, Clark," Lex murmured, looking left and right before switching lanes abruptly. "Honestly, Clark. Dating Lana is definitely not on my agenda, and neither is going to prison for statutory rape."

Clark shut his mouth and nodded. Lex was right.

"Now, be useful and tell me what we're doing next or I quiz you on various psychological disorders," Lex said.

Clark rolled his eyes. "You know, it really worries me that you still remember all this stuff. Shouldn't you be saving your brainspace for more important things? Like, oh, I don't know, LexCorp business, or the plant?"

Lex made a disapproving sound. "The brain is a muscle, Clark. You have to exercise it to keep it in top condition. Besides," Lex said casually, "I've always found it useful to know a bit of psychology when dealing with prospective clients and business partners."

"Mind-melding them?" Clark said, and waited for the smile.

Lex smirked. "'Mind-meld'? Oh, Clark."

"I could eat," Clark said out of nowhere, a big grin on his face now.

Lex turned to the side at a red light, looking Clark up and down thoughtfully. It made his face flush red to be regarded like that, and he had to fight the visceral urge to fidget under Lex's careful observation: it felt like he was being consumed.

"Well," Lex finally said, "you're not dressed for any of the more complicated places..."

"Hey!" he protested, blushing dark red. He felt like enough of a hayseed sometimes without Lex making fun of him, too.

"Complicated meaning tie and jacket required, Clark," Lex added, the apology was silent.

A few moments passed before Lex's face lit up. "I know the perfect place." Lex cast Clark wicked look before asking, "Do you like Moroccan food, Clark?"

He shrugged. "Never had it, Lex."

Lex smiled, and not for the first time, Clark thought it looked very much like a shark.

"Perfect."

"There are prevailing theories that all psychological disorders are imaginary, too, Clark," Lex said between fingerfuls of fragrant rice. "There are at least two psychologists who basically chalk up any disorder to being a big whiner."

The restaurant was small, smoky, and warm. There was a low din all around the room, sounds of small groups laughing. The walls were a comfortable, burnt-tan color, and most of the light provided was through tinted lamps, casting an orange glow everywhere. At the next table over, four Metropolis University students were complaining about their Physics professor. Clark and Lex were sitting cross-legged on the floor at a low table, and enormous plates of rice and meats had appeared for them - sans cutlery. Lex had simply said, "I told you to wash your hands carefully, Clark. Dig in." So they did, and Clark discovered that there was an entire world outside of tacos and eggrolls, and he loved it there.

Plus - the added bonus of seeing Lex eat with his hands.

"Every disorder?" Clark said, unbelieving, and Lex nodded. "What about people who try to kill themselves over whatever they have? They can't say that's being whiny."

Lex leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "They do. And that's why mostly no one subscribes to that theory anyway."

"Weird," Clark muttered.

Lex shrugged. "Psychology is weird. Homosexuality, up until 1973, was listed as a psychological disorder. And behaviorists and cognitive psychologists thought that it could be treated through therapy and medication, too."

Clark winced. "That's awful."

"Not really," Lex said thoughtfully. "I mean, people tend to fear what they don't understand, or something new. It's not a very enlightened response, but I can't say that the good-natured intent to fix whatever they perceive is wrong is necessarily evil."

Clark frowned and wiped his fingers on a napkin. "I'm sure the gay people they tried to 'treat' back then didn't agree."

"The gay people back then probably thought it was something bad, too," Lex responded. "America is founded on Puritanism. Most of them were probably terrified by their sexual inclinations. There's a reason being gay is equated with being closeted, Clark."

Clark sighed.

He could sympathize. The daily fear of being figured out was very real. There were always moments, retreads after mindless actions throughout classes and afternoons at the Talon or at Lex's where Clark would feel himself shift into panic, mind kicking into overdrive at whether or not his latest faux pas or lie had revealed him for what he really was: a freak. Yeah, Clark could sympathize. After all, people back then (and even now, in Smallville) thought that homosexuality was disgusting and repugnant; and the Weekly World News always had and always would treat aliens the same way.

It suddenly became overwhelmingly important that Lex not think of him the same way.

"What would be your response?" Clark asked.

Lex blinked. "To someone coming out of the closet?"

"Yeah. What would you say? I mean, if it was someone you knew?" Clark asked.

Lex wouldn't...abandon him, would he? After all, Lex was open-minded. Lex was a scientist. And unfortunately for Clark, that was half the problem:; Lex was a scientist. "I want to tell someone, Mom, badly," he'd admitted before. And then his mother had launched in a rational and logical dissertation on Why Telling Lex Was Tantamount To A Death Sentence, and tops was that Lex Is A Scientist - Do You Want To Be A Government Experiment?

Lex rolled his eyes. "Clark. I'm bisexual. Really think about that."

Clark blushed all the way up to his hairline. There wasn't really a point to doing it, but his body had the funniest idea of what was a threat to his livelihood. One day, it would figure out that Lex's smile and Lana's breasts were not going to attack him.

It was all mixed signals. Always mixed signals. That wasn't what he'd meant at all, but he could hardly explain that to Lex; he'd come dangerously close already.

So he filed the moment away, another terror for a harrowing collection of them, another drop in the ocean, another anxiety that would wake him at night sometimes, bathed in cold sweat, in the dark and suddenly, very much alone in every way that mattered.

"Right," he managed. "Never mind. Stupid question."

He was determined not to depress himself that evening. More and more frequently, time with Lex was turning into a commodity, one over which investors from Japan, venture capitalists, coffee-shop managers, psychotic fathers, and small town farmboys had to fight for. Clark had won for the evening, and he wasn't going to waste it.

"Just a little bit, yeah," Lex said, grinning, letting him off the hook.

Lex was wiping his fingers clean when the waitress came up to refill their water glasses. Clark watched in fascination as Lex eyed her, a slow, purely sexual smile on Lex's face as he started a conversation. The waitress didn't even blush, just flirted right back before smiling brightly and ran one hand down her neck, fingers dipping along her collarbone.

Clark had watched Lex flirt before, but it was still strange.

Especially now, knowing that Lex would do this...with a man, too.

Strange and oddly fitting all the same.

What was terribly out of place and totally inexplicable, though, was the roar of sudden jealousy that rose like bile in the back of Clark's throat. It took his defense mechanisms all of two seconds to kick into high gear and rationalize it all away. Lex was Clark's best friend, and they hadn't had any time together in a week. He hadn't blown off chores, listened to his father lecture him about responsibility and the Luthor family debauchery on a pay phone in a movie theater for ten minutes so that some two-bit waitress at a Moroccan restaurant could hold a monopoly over Lex's time and attention.

So. Clark cleared his throat. And glared, liberally.

The waitress glanced over at Clark in surprise, as if first noticing him. She looked him up and down before cocking an eyebrow and pursing her lips. With a careless excuse and a shift of her hips, she was gone again and Lex turned back to Clark, curious.

Lex didn't say anything, but Clark could tell he wanted to.

Clark cleared his throat and looked around nervously. "So, you come here a lot?"

Lex gave him the, 'I'm letting you off easy, again' look, but said, "Not since I was at MetU, no. It's five minutes walking distance from the social sciences building."

Clark hadn't known that. "You went to MetU? I thought you got your undergraduate degree from Princeton."

The MetU students at the next table settled down, and one of them turned a curious eye to their neighbors, though Clark was fairly certain that he was the only one who'd noticed. Lex had a general tendency to stop talking about himself whenever people who would potentially go on the record and destroy him in the newspapers were listening. Clark thought it was paranoia, and Lex mentioned an old clich about how it wasn't paranoia if they were really out to get you.

"I did," Lex said smoothly. "But that was after I was transferred there."

"Why'd you transfer? Didn't you like Metropolis University?" Clark asked, taking mental notes. College was looming ever closer, and aside from Chloe's really interesting scholarship searches, Clark was more and more temped by the campuses themselves, and in particular, Metropolis U's open campus and journalism program.

Lex actually looked embarrassed, a faint red came to his pale cheeks. "Well, I was sort of...asked to leave. By the chemistry department. There was an...incident." Clark fought hard to keep a snort of laughter hidden.

The people the next table over didn't bother.

Lex whipped around to see and before Clark knew what had happened, one girl at the table, between giggles said, "You! You're Lex Luthor! The Lex Luthor who blew up Professor Sidel's entire lab? You're legendary!"

Lex flushed in earnest now. "Thank you, I guess," he said slowly.

Clark laughed, the students laughed, and finally, grudgingly, so did Lex.

"What time do you have to be back home, Clark?" Lex asked, and they were flying down the road again.

The lights of Metropolis were glaringly red and orange and brilliant white, they streaked against the black of the evening like stars run together, and Clark was half-enchanted by the look. He'd always known the attraction of moving fast, but he'd usually been so intent on the destination he barely looked at the journey. It was cliche, he knew, but the world around him was beautiful as he moved far too quickly in Lex's car, as they moved far too quickly toward...somewhere Clark hadn't been before.

Home seemed very far away.

"Mom said to take my time, since if I let you go home, you'd probably just overwork yourself again," Clark said, and Lex smirked at that. "Dad said eleven."

The clock on the dashboard read 9:45 pm.

"But then again," Clark added, "Mom's probably keeping him distracted." When he was eight, he'd walked in on his parents, and been terrified of their bedroom ever since. Maybe he was growing up. Or maybe Lex and his occasionally perverse comments really were poisoning his mind.

Lex made a face. "I'm not going to think about why you're so okay with making that insinuation, Clark. I'm not even going to think about it."

Clark laughed. "You were made the same way, Lex."

"I was not," Lex scowled, but it was playful. "I was a test tube baby. Or virgin birth."

"Virgin birth? That would imply divinity," Clark shot back.

Lex smiled vaguely. "With my mom, I'd almost believe that."

They fell silent for a moment, and Clark stared at Lex quietly. His friend was as wired as he'd ever been, energy coiled inside of pale parchment skin, intelligence flashing behind silver-blue eyes and veiled thoughtfulness. But Lex was also smiling almost dreamily, sent into strange, astral serenity by the mention of his mother, who he, apparently, though was divine, and it made Clark want to smile and hug Lex tightly to his chest to see that expression on his friend's face.

"Worship," Lex said suddenly, as if he could read Clark's mind.

"Worship," Clark parroted.

"You haven't read Equus yet, have you, Clark?" Lex asked, glancing at him from the corners of his eyes, still soft around the edges.

Clark shook his head, no. "Not yet. That's twelfth grade. And if the PTA has anything to say about it, it's getting banned sometime this year so I won't even have to."

Lex made a dissatisfied noise and muttered something about the "back 40 being the dreck of all literary whores." "Well, then," Lex finally said, totally audible. "Equus is brilliant, Clark. You have to read it. If your library burns all its copies, come to me, I have plenty of paraphernalia pretending to be great literature."

Yeah, Clark bet he did. And he'd said that out loud.

Lex ignored it. "It's all about worship, Clark, weight with agony."

"I hear there's horse sex," Clark said, more to irritate Lex than anything else.

"It's not horse sex!" Lex cried, as if he'd heard that before. "It's - "

And Lex suddenly stopped himself and whirled about to look at Clark, despite the fact that they were on a fairly crowded road and driving at a respectable forty-five miles per hour. Which was over the speed limit anyway, not that that had ever stopped Lex. Clark gripped at the dashboard: he was indestructible, Lex was not.

"You do that just to annoy me, don't you?" Lex accused.

"Lex, the road," Clark pleaded, and when his friend finally complied and started paying attention again, he said, "Well, only sometimes."

Lex rolled his eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Why do I *bother," he said dramatically.

Clark smiled, big and bright and real like a dying sun. "Because I couldn't keep the truck?" Lex tensed for a moment and then the rough edges smoothed out again, as if it took him just a moment to catch the joke, get the affection in Clark's tone.

"Hey," Clark suddenly remembered. "Don't you have a penthouse?"

Lex's penthouse, he explained, was his twenty-first birthday present from his father.

Clark sighed and thought of what it would be like if his dad could give him gifts like that, and then he remembered the consequence of it, having Lionel as a father. Clark couldn't even stand being in the same room as the guy, much less knowing they shared genealogy and having to be nice to him. Suddenly, books and gift certificates didn't sound so terrible anymore.

The penthouse was also on the hundred and third story of a building. Which they were traveling up to. In a glass-walled elevator. Which was very, very high above solid ground. And looked like it was utterly unsupported. Clark would have clawed at the walls, but it was all slick-smooth, nothing to grab hold of unless he was going to throw himself into Lex's arms and whimper like a little kid. And of all the reactions he could have, that was the most unacceptable one in Clark's mind.

"You okay, Clark?" Lex asked, curious.

He forced himself to breathe steadily. "Yeah. Just...a little bothered by heights," he admitted finally, sneaking a glance to check Lex's reaction.

"If it makes you feel any better, I hate planes," Lex said easily.

It did, actually, so Clark smiled bravely. "So, anyone cool on your floor?"

"The entire floor is mine, Clark," Lex explained. "The elevator doors are going to open up to my apartment. That's why we had to enter a security code on that panel before we could get up here." Clark nodded; he should have expected that.

The elevator finally stopped its ascension and the doors opened.

Clark took a step out, and could only gape.

Clark had prepared himself for possible decadence, rich silks or heavy wood like at the castle in Smallville. Clark had also prepared himself for sleek, icy metal and glass like Lex's personality seemed to imply sometimes.

Clark hadn't expected Lex's penthouse to be so...lived in. Especially since it wasn't.

They were standing on top of a low platform, broad and rectangular. To Lex's right, there was a small wooden table with a red bowl on top. Lex dug through is pockets and threw his car keys into it, casual, easy, as if he did that a lot. The platform descended into a large, open room. The floors were wooden, clean and fairly light, comfortable and not shining. There was a flat gray area rug in the center of the living room, flanked by one large, long couch and two loveseats, a glass coffee table in the center with six remote controls. There were also end tables with two matching metal lamps, books stacked carelessly on the available surfaces. The whole thing was on its side, so that Clark was looking at the back of one of the love seats, and the sofas were all facing an expanse of wall with an enormous flat-panel TV. A large, open doorway on the other side of the room gave a peek of a comfortable, honey-wood and glass kitchen. Sliding doors to the right of the television were thrown open to a study, with dark mahogany shelves overflowing with volumes and the barest hint of black plastic casing, the side of a computer. The wall fell away to the left of the TV and Clark assumed that if he were to disappear down there, he'd see a dining room, four thousand bedrooms, a gym, and a zoo.

"Gorgeous, isn't it?" Lex murmured.

He wasn't talking about his interior design.

Where Clark should have been facing an exposed exterior wall - Clark faced a window. An enormous, room-length, floor-to-ceiling window with the most exquisite view of Metropolis that Clark had ever seen in his life. The lights in the apartment weren't on, and so the darkness of the night outside continued into the room, dotted by the bright windows of the business district, interrupted by the gaudy neon signs from department stores and nightclubs. The traffic in downtown Metropolis became waves of red and yellow. Somewhere, in the black sky, a helicopter was zipping around, one single orange smear against the dark. It was an incredible sight, awe inspiring at how man scraped away at the edges of the infinity with cities and skyscrapers that reached to the heavens. Clark couldn't quite wrap his mind around it, how big and terrible and shining Metropolis really was, because he'd mostly seen it from the ground up. This was Lex's world, looking at everything from above. In the far corners of the sky, the last edges of dark blue fringed ebony, like Clark was staring into Lex's pupils, so close and so deep that he could only imagine the blue rims, hard and bright like Lex's mind.

It was like the tourist postcards they sold four for a dollar on every street corner, only better and more raw, alive with the ugly and amazing sides of everything.

Clark could only nod.

"I come here sometimes," Lex said softly. "Just leave the lights off at night and look."

"I get that," Clark whispered. This moment demanded reverence.

"I," Lex started awkwardly. "I wanted to show Desiree this," he finally said. "I was going to bring her up here."

Clark was suddenly and violently torn away from the view, a lighting bolt of guilt severing him from the moment and he whipped around to look at Lex's profile, pale and ghostly in the city lights. Blue eyes were black and too-white skin was nearly translucent; Clark wanted to reach out to Lex, tell him the truth, explain everything, make it hurt less.

"We flew," Lex said again, nervous, "over Metropolis and landed here before we drove out to Smallville." He didn't look at Clark. "She really loved it. All the lights. I promised her I'd bring her out here."

And Clark felt sick at that. He felt sick, and his chest hurt. He wanted to pull Lex around to face him, to shake his friend until he snapped out of it and yell about how Miss Atkins had only wanted Lex for his money, never loved him, that she was a meteor freak and the love was all radioactive pheromones. He wanted to make Lex stop talking, because every aching word out of Lex's mouth was darkening that enormous black mark against Clark in some universal scorebook, and Clark already knew guilt like the back of his own hand.

But most of all, Clark felt angry. Rage like he'd only chanced before building behind his eyeballs and he wanted to find Desiree and snap her neck for what she'd done to Lex.

Clark could imagine it, too, her eyes scared and pleading were nothing compared to Lex's voice, hollowed out, and Lex's shoulders, slumping in resignation. As if Lex imagined that he really was destined to be alone. Like Clark wasn't going to be there, too, right with him the whole way.

Clark had never been good with words. He could make "I'm Sorry" scrambled eggs, or "Oops, I Screwed Up" repairs on the tractor. He knew how to make the copy for the Torch with paper and tape an earnest apology to explain to Chloe that he was in the wrong. And he could buy Pete food and watch the Three Stooges with him while Pete complained about his girlfriends. Clark knew different ways to say "Sorry."

Just not to Lex. He...hadn't done it that much, though it was probably deserved.

So Clark did the next best thing, what his mom always did whenever Clark felt the way that he thought Lex looked and -

Pulled Lex to his chest, without asking permission, without asking if he was holding on too tightly.

Just arms around Lex's thin shoulders, his cheek pressed the side of Lex's head, and breathing hard because some part of him had wanted to - needed to - do this for far longer than Clark had realized.

It was all so terrible and confusing, this garbage about growing up. So Clark ignored everything Dr. Polanski said about psychology and Hatfield and Berscheid, wiped what he thought about Lana from his mind, ignored his lingering guilt over Chloe, and forgot every single thing that Lex had said over dinner to just breathe.

Lex smelled like night air and rain and linen, clean and male and familiar.

Like coming home, for no reason at all.

But Lex's arms were wrapped around Clark's middle now, and if he didn't know any better, Clark would say he was crying, shoulders shaking out of exhaustion and terror and grief over everything that Lex had held in so long that he'd almost forgotten about it. It was certain now, because Clark could hear Lex's hiccupping sobs though his coat and he could feel his shirt getting wet; Lex's hands were fisted in Clark's jacket, and he wasn't standing up very well, just clinging, barely upright, desperate and so tired.

And Clark just held on, waited with a terrible ache in his stomach.

This, Clark knew, wasn't part of the plan.

But that was okay, because some of the best things were unexpected.

"Shit," Lex said, and his voice was still nasal, even after locking himself in the bathroom with a box of tissues and a wounded ego. "I sound like a goddamn girl."

"We'll tell people I made you watch 'Steel Magnolias,'" Clark said.

Lex stepped out of the bathroom long enough to glare. "No one could make me watch 'Steel Magnolias.'"

"I'll say I held you down."

Lex's glare turned into a scowl and Clark turned back around and grabbed randomly at one of the many, many remote controls that were laying on Lex's bedside table. He pushed at a button and a screen rolled down from the ceiling with an efficient hiss of sound, like a thin whip. He leaned his head back against Lex's headboard and yelled back, "Hey, what's this screen thing?"

"TV," Lex explained, slipping back to his spot in front of the bathroom vanity. "Shit. My eyes are still red." There was the sound of water running and then splashing.

When Lex's sobs had subsided and his shoulders had stopped shaking so terribly, Clark had asked where his bathroom was. And following Lex's sluggish movements, Clark had stepped through the doorway at the end of the long corridor and frozen stock-still at the realization he was in Lex's bedroom. Lex had made a beeline for the bathroom door, and Clark had been left there, awkwardly aware of his surroundings. Like the rest of the apartment, it was big, had a wall of windows, and was decorated in the key of gray-andwood.

Clark had decided after standing around uncomfortably for a while that if he'd said his first "hellos" to Lex mouth-to-mouth after a near-fatal car accident, there was nothing wrong with getting comfortable. So he'd kicked off his shoes, sprawled out on Lex's bed, and willed himself not to think about all the women who had probably been there, too.

"You have any frozen vegetables in your kitchen, Lex?" Clark called, fighting a losing battle with the remote. The television was...unrolled, but it wouldn't turn on.

There was a short pause before Lex asked, "You want to cook?"

"No! Look - frozen food over your eyes would probably bring down the puffiness, and - damn it! Lex, how do you turn your TV on? This thing is impossible," Clark huffed.

Lex apparently didn't hear Clark's complaint.

"My eyes are puffy?" Lex yelled. Each word was spoken raising an octave until "puffy" was nearly a screech.

Sometimes, Clark really wondered about exactly how vain Lex was.

"Lex!" Clark yelled, not bothering to turn around because all he would see was Lex frantically examining his face, checking for abnormal volume, scowling at his own reflection in the mirror. "Lex - how do you work the TV?"

"Puffy!" Lex wailed, as if it were a curse word. "Puffy? I'll never live this down."

"Look - if you tell me how to turn on the TV, I swear I won't tell anyone," Clark said.

There was an annoyed sound from the bathroom before Clark heard a swish of expensive pants and Lex was suddenly next to him, snatching the remote control out of his hands. He went through a ridiculously complicated series of at least seven buttons before he pressed "Power" and the screen burst into life. Lex dropped the remote into Clark's hands and stomped back into the bathroom, muttering to himself the whole time.

Clark thought it was kind of cute that the TV was turned on immediately to the Cartoon Network, and that a little digital reminder popped out of nowhere to say, "Justice League - eight o'clock and eleven thirty" on the screen. The idea of Lex watching TV was foreign in and of itself, since Lex seemed so rarely to do it, but the idea of Lex watching cartoons was simply delicious. Clark channel-surfed idly through MTV, CNN, and CSPAN, watched a little bit of TLC, some of the Home and Garden channel, and chuckled over Iron Chef. All to the background noises of Lex's occasional yelled profanity and whining about how long it took for any sort of swelling to go down and how he was going to look like hell in the morning and really, didn't Clark know it was all his damn fault? Clark was the one who'd wanted to see the penthouse and then he'd gone and hugged Lex and blah blah blah...

His fingers froze suddenly, and his jaw dropped.

The television's volume was on low, and Clark was eternally glad for that.

On the enormous screen, in high-definition, tremendously expensive quality, two young, well-muscled, very attractive men were in the throes of being...extremely agreeable with one another. Doggy style. And they seemed to be...quite vocal about it if their open mouths were any indication. Or maybe not, because Clark turned an entirely new and yet undiscovered shade of red when a third joined them and...made good use of the man on the bottom and his open lips.

If he had to hear it as well as watch it, Clark was pretty sure there'd be trouble.

And outrageously, Lex's voice was still filtering through in between concussive shocks to Clark's brain and a stirring in his pants.

"This never happened, Clark. You understand that?"

One of the men was sleek, slim and well-muscled, and his tongue was pressed to the corner of his mouth, just on the outside, a slip of wet pink against bronze skin. Dark hair in bangs brushed across his forehead and Clark could see his profile, strong and lean and his hips were...

"This is going to be a study in repression. Have you gotten to that yet in class? - "

They were just pounding into the man underneath him, driving force like he'd seen in Pete's brother's porno movies. But those had all been girls and they'd been more soft and had more curves and not so much familiar skin, familiar flesh, flat and hard, and no way in hell was Clark going to let himself get a hard-on from watching boys screw one another.

Did Lex even know he had this channel? He should have warned Clark if he did. Just a friendly, "Hey, Clark, don't flip to channel 235, all right? There's man-sex and you're confused enough as it is what with being an alien and in AP Psychology, without laying on my bed, getting a boner and being suddenly confused about your sexual orientation."

" - It's really amazing the lengths to which the human mind will go to - "

The man on the bottom was pale, and thinner than the other two, eyes closed and light, ginger lashes tossed pronounced shadows on his high cheekbones. He was handsome, and beautiful in a delicate way, but oh, so very, very naked. He was smaller and one long, bronze forearm cut across the angled turn of his hip to his groin where a thick fisted hand was -

Clark was having sort of a mental breakdown.

And he knew, knew in his logical mind that he should have screamed in heterosexual horror and changed the channel...four thousand strokes ago but God almighty, his pants were getting kind of uncomfortable and he did not know how to interpret that turn of events.

The pale man's mouth was also occupied, opened almost grotesquely wide and Clark could see his tongue peek out occasionally in between swallowing and sucking and -

"There are some variations called fugues and - Clark? Clark?"

Clark's danger sense told him to change the channel.

But since Clark was seeing gay porn for the first time ever in his best friend's bed while sprouting a hard-on the size of Manhattan, it wasn't making much of a big difference.

"Clar - holy shit!"

Lex made a lunge for the remote and fumbled until Clark's wide-open eyes were seeing the Powerpuff girls instead of wide expanses of sweating flesh.

There was a long, tangible silence.

"What. Were. You. Watching?" Lex managed.

And Clark had obviously lost his mind because he actually said, "You don't know?"

Lex actually laughed in amazement at that before he sort of fell into a sitting position on the bed, face white with shock and hands shaking. "Clark, I - " Lex laughed again, more relaxed this time, like he was finally getting his breath back. "You're too young for that."

Clark remembered his erection and sat up, crossed his legs, and tried vainly to hide it. Lex was a guy, he probably knew all the tricks. And post-porn hard-ons usually went away quickly, right? Clark knew he should have watched more porn; he would be better prepared for situations like this! Yeah, he told himself, because accidentally watching men having sex on your best friend's television happens a lot.

Lex watched him for a long time before his lips twitched.

Clark knew what was coming. "Lex," he said warningly, his cheeks flaming.

"It's okay, Clark. We all go through our 'experimentation' phases," Lex said, trying vainly to hide a laugh.

"Damn it, Lex," Clark whined. "It's not funny!"

"Sure it is," Lex quipped. "I cried; you watched gay porn. I have puffy eyes and you have a puffy - "

"If you finish that sentence," Clark said, low and dangerous, "I will throw you out your window. Do you understand me, Lex?"

Lex grinned. "I'm not saying a word."

Clark scowled and tried to figure out how they'd traded facial expressions so quickly.

"Why didn't you warn me?" Clark finally asked, and he sounded petulant.

"Clark," Lex said reasonably, "I have over five hundred channels. I watch CNN, Cartoon Network, the Weather Channel, and sometimes, when I'm in a particularly selfdestructive mood, Lifetime. I didn't even know I had...whatever the hell channel you were watching."

"You're lying," Clark said, more petulant by the moment. "It was close to CNN."

Lex rolled his eyes. "Your erection is taking all the blood away from your brain, Clark."

"Lex!" Clark cried, scandalized.

Lex, to his credit, didn't push any further. He just stood up, checked his watch, and said, "I'm going to go into the kitchen. I will probably be there a long time." His tone was blandly suggestive. "In fact, I may be there for several minutes, turning on various sources of sound so that whatever noise may come out of my bathroom would be totally masked."

Clark imagined killing Lex. Just for a minute.

"Well, then," Lex said, smiling like an idiot. "See you in a few uneventful moments."

And Lex walked out, shutting the bedroom door behind him.

Clark muttered every curse word he knew and struggled to the bathroom, glaring at his dick, wondering if this was a normal thing between friends: space to jerk off.

Lex said that despite seeing Clark as red as a tomato after his first brush with gay porn, maybe staying at the penthouse wasn't doing Metropolis justice. Besides, even Martha's approval would only extend so far, and Lex set his cell phone to alert him when it hit midnight so that they could at least start trying to get back to Smallville.

It was nearly eight thirty, and Lex was rolling something around in his head.

Clark could tell that Lex was debating with himself from the way that his brow furrowed, how his eyes were more gray than blue, and how his mouth was set into an irritated little line, as if Lex was more annoyed by having trouble making the decision, than by making the decision at all.

Weird how he knew that. Maybe it was just the proximity.

Which led, like a lot of things had been doing recently, back to psychology and the 'Proximity effect,' which couldn't possibly be applied to the situation since he and Lex were not doing that. This is kind of like a date, his brain suddenly and very unhelpfully supplied, and Clark wished he could take a metal bat to his own head, not that it would work, but at least it would seem therapeutic.

Therapy. Psychology. God damn it.

"You're brooding," Lex said, casting Clark a curious glance from the corner of his eye.

Clark flushed, hot and quick. "We-ll."

Lex rolled his eyes. "You know, I'm just going to use being a freak for most of my life as my excuse for being a piss poor friend here, but if it's about Lana, just lie and say you were thinking about the environment or the most recent incarnation of the tax code."

Clark almost choked, amazed. He wanted to be angry (or at least offended) with Lex for being so cold and so unpleasantly frank in his assessment of Clark's relationship with Lana. He wanted to pout that he had allowed himself to become so predictable. He wanted to ask Lex why his two conversations options were taxes and trees, when Clark knew lots of interesting lies, good ones, too.

"You're not a freak," was what Clark said out loud.

Lex sighed and looked sheepish. "Sorry."

Clark shrugs. It... wasn't as big an issue as it should have been. "S'Okay."

They sat for a while, lounging on the floor in front of Lex's incredible window, staring out into the ever-darkening cityscape. Clark felt soft and fuzzy all over, lethargic and comfortable, but his brain was teeming with activity, too much thinking.

"Jesus, I wanted to do something tonight," Lex complained.

Clark turned to look at his friend lazily. "Yeah?"

Lex looked dissatisfied. "I was going to impress you with my Metropolis suave." Clark laughed and Lex continued, ignoring him. "I used to rule this town in my teens, Clark. You said the name Lex Luthor at any bar, any restaurant, any club, and you were talking about a legend." Lex looked distinctly annoyed, off-put almost, but most of all, tired. "And now, I can't even will myself to get up and go somewhere."

Clark hummed in agreement. "Is that what you wanted, though?"

Lex turned to him with a curious, blue gaze. "What, to be boring?"

"To be that legend," Clark said slowly, turning back out to the evening, breathing slowing, feeling his arms relax.

Every muscle in his body felt remarkably loose and he felt lighter, almost suspended, the end result of moments hanging in the infinity that was Lex's smooth, sandalwood voice and the blackness that engulfed Metropolis. It was like flying, almost, the largeness of the window, the broadness of the city, and the depth of the silence that he and Lex had let flourish. In the background, the refrigerator hummed, Lex's computer occasionally made a clicking sound, and somewhere, he thought heard a dim thump, but everything was so contained, so far away this high off of the ground -

For the first time in his life, Clark Kent thought that he might like heights.

Like them a lot. To be so removed from everything terrible in the world, gliding.

Lex looked thoughtful, the quiet, scholarly nature underneath the cutthroat capitalist emerging while he categorized the city streets below them, outside the window.

"I'm not sure," Lex replied finally. "It was just something a lot of us did."

"Us?" Clark asked.

"Us, Clark. The maladjusted offspring of the extremely wealthy. On any given night in Metropolis, New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, you would find the spawn of the billionaires and millionaires of the world doing extremely bad things."

Lex's voice was low and solemn, raw like he was peeling something aside, carefully showing Clark something, so Clark listened carefully, thinking that it was important. That whatever happened for the rest of his life, as long as he was with Lex, it would be important. Because Lex was important, and he'd started realizing that with more and more certain clarity.

"I used to see the same kids at cotillion that I saw snorting coke the night before, and we'd all pretend in public, Clark," Lex went on, eyes hard like nails. "It was like a big game, who can go the furthest, the fastest. We all waited for some sort of reaction."

Clark had the inexplicable urge to do something.

He fumbled through his brain, tried to think of something, anything, to ease the growing tension in Lex's shoulders. Because as important as Lex's revelation might have been, Clark didn't want him unhappy. He never wanted Lex unhappy, and that was getting clearer and clearer, too.

So he reached out, and without really thinking about it, laced his fingers through Lex's, laying their hands on the carpet, palm to palm. Thick, sun-browned fingers twined with Lex's pale, smooth hands; ragged nails clicking with manicured cuticles, and it worked somehow, somehow, the weight and intimacy of it all worked. It wasn't awkward, like the not-just-friendly hugs that Chloe had sometimes given him; it wasn't like the discomfited kiss he'd shared with Lana the night she'd finally admitted to caring for him. It didn't even arrive with the giddy, nervous nausea-cum-excitement of reciprocated affection; it was just comfortable, simply good. It felt...close.

Clark stopped thinking about Psychology then, stopped driving himself crazy over whether or not he really liked Lana, if maybe he liked Lex too much, if everything was wrong or if anything at all was right. If something worked, why question?

It didn't really matter right then.

Lex didn't even turn to meet Clark's searching gaze, just let his hand be held, tightening his long fingers around Clark's and kept talking.

"And eventually, one by one," Lex murmured, "you'd see it happen. Tristan in rehab, then moved back into his father's house. Julian gets legally emancipated at seventeen, moves in with a fifty-five year old performance artist. Jensen writes a book, destroys her mother in it, and then reconciles." Lex was smiling now, the kind of edgy, unreal expression that Clark hated to see on his face. "They all fade, Clark. One by one, they disappear and the game usually ends when you're seventeen, because you realize how stupid it is to destroy yourself over people who always cared, or never would anyway."

Lex was quiet for a long time before he finally said, "Sorry."

Clark squeezed his hand, gently. "Thanks for telling me."

Lex turned to look at him for a long time before he laughed softly, shifting against the couch, his shoulders rolling but his fingers still comfortably twined with Clark's. "You're such a dumbass, Clark."

"Yeah? How's that?" Clark asked, more amused than offended.

Lex made a sound that was suspiciously close to a snort. "I buy you a truck, and you give it back. I offer to save your family farm, and your folks say "no." I try to give you expensive things, great things, needful things, and you turn them away. And then I tell you stupid stories about dumb things I did when I was younger, and you treat them like they're the best gifts in the world."

Clark blinked. He hadn't really thought of it like that. "I like that you tell me."

"Why, though?" Lex asked.

Clark shrugged. "Makes me feel important to you. Like I can help, or something."

Lex looked at him for a long time, the all-consuming concentration that had led Clark to distracting curiosity and the somewhat frightening possession playing across his face in the dim light.

"Don't say things like that, Clark," Lex finally whispered, eyes big and bright.

"Why not? It's true," Clark replied, softly.

Lex stared at him for another long, considering moment.

And slowly, painfully, sadly, and so awkwardly untangled their hands.

"Come on," Lex said, standing up, turning away. "I want to show you something."

Clark nodded, and struggled his way back on his feet, ignoring the part of his chest that seized up, tightened, and ached, wailed in protest. Everything that had been so right just went horribly wrong again, and he couldn't let himself think about the reasons why.

That would overcomplicate things, and Lex clearly didn't want it to be that hard.

Clark didn't know that cities could have bluffs, especially not in the Midwest.

"Martin Schuller," Lex said grandly, "America's drywall king had this made; it used to be a landfill."

Clark looked around himself and found no resemblance between his surroundings and the Hiller Landfill and Dump just forty miles from Smallville. For one, Hiller lacked a lake, and sure as hell didn't have sparkling lights just off in the distance, the low sound of street music and peoples' voices.

"That's the thing about Metropolis, Clark," Lex went on, "everyone hears it and thinks of slick buildings, metal, glass, and corporate technology. But on the sidewalk, street level, if you're too busy looking up, you miss all the really great things."

Like the Schuller Vista.

It was a tiny, forgettable little crche of green in the sprawl of concrete that made up Metropolis, but it was remarkably beautiful there. It looked like a tiny smear of wilderness in the middle of honed domestication, like Nature had one last stronghold, and she was armed to the teeth there. There was grass - sort of, but it was mixed with weeds and flowers and trees, lots of them in copses, huddled together and hiding groping teenagers, playful kids. The artificial hills and valleys seemed at bit over the top for one tiny block of green, but it didn't seem out of place.

Clark smiled, the depressed atmosphere from earlier leaving. "This is great."

Lex smiled triumphantly.

And then Clark frowned. "Aren't you allergic to flowers?"

"I made them replant ones I'm not allergic to when I bought it," Lex said offhandedly, like buying a park was like picking up an extra pack of plastic spoons at the Wal-Mart.

"Okay," Clark said stupidly. He looked around again before whirling back to Lex with a wary expression on his face. "You're not going to, to try and give this to me, are you?"

Lex laughed, loud and bright. "No, Clark. I just wanted to show it to you."

Clark relaxed. "Good."

"What's your problem with gifts anyway?" Lex asked, settling down on a bench.

Clark flopped by his side, letting his long arms run along the back of the bench, and it was only as his fingertips brushed expensive wool that he realized that he was practically stroking Lex's shoulder. "I don't have anything against gifts," he shot back.

"Lies, Clark," Lex said reproachfully.

Clark sighed, and realized he still hadn't moved his hand. He wondered how they looked, sitting on that park bench at night, his arm practically around Lex's shoulders. Like a couple, Clark, stop being obtuse, his brain lectured, and Clark figured he ought to stop reading all those SAT word lists before he went to bed, because they were starting to incorporate themselves into his mental vocabulary, too. Aside from diction, he was also irritated that his brain was being so shallow about the whole thing he and Lex were friends - just friends. Good friends.

"It's just," he started, and stopped. He didn't really know how to say it. "Cheap."

Lex's eyes bulged and he whipped around to stare at Clark. "The truck was cheap?"

Clark pulled his arms in front of his chest, warding Lex off and waving off his own innocence, eyes wide with surprise that it had actually come out of his mouth.

"No! No! Not like that kind of cheap, Lex!"

"Like there's a good kind of cheap!" Lex said, frowning.

"No, like, you didn't have to really think about it," Clark said, articulating himself badly. He would kill to have Chloe's verbal talent sometimes, and it was one of those times. "Like, you just thought, 'Hey, farm kid. What does a farm kid want? A truck.' Like you had your secretary order it and didn't even give it a second thought."

Lex looked at him strangely. "I'd known you one day."

Clark didn't pout, but it was a near thing. "I saved your life."

"You loved the truck!" Lex argued. "You gaze at the truck every time you come over! You visit the truck in the garage and you fondle it!"

Clark blushed dark red. "I do not fond - that's not the point!"

Lex rolled his eyes. "Right. So. It's not actually 'cheap' - " And Lex said it as if it was a dirty word " - it was 'impersonal.'"

Clark thought on that for a second. "Not even that, actually. It was almost...dismissive."

Lex blinked, honestly interested now. "Explain."

"Like you were settling a debt," Clark went on, thankful that he could make himself clear on this point at least. "Like you thought you owed me something for saving your life, and you picked the easiest way to quietly shuffling me out of your life, getting rid of that mark in your book, you know? Like you didn't want to have to deal with me."

Lex winced at that. "Clark, it wasn't - "

"I know it wasn't, Lex," Clark interrupted quickly. "I know that now. You want to be nice to people. That's just how you are, and I get that," he finished confidently.

Lex smiled wryly. "Cheap," he said, barely hiding laugher.

Clark blushed again. "I didn't mean - "

"I know, Clark," Lex teased, eyes dancing, and Clark knew he'd been had.

"Oh, screw you, Lex," he muttered, crossing his arms and looking down at the ground, the sound of Lex's chuckles in the background, mingling with the sounds of the park.

It was a warm night, and Clark felt alive.

It was a long time before Lex said, "Thank you for knowing that, Clark."

"How can you eat so much?" Lex asked, awe in his tone, or something close to it.

Clark, packing away his fourth roast beef sandwich, glanced up, swallowing before saying, "I'm a teenager, Lex. I'm still growing."

"I was a teenager before, too, Clark," Lex shot back, "and I grew, and I still didn't see anyone eat as much as you do."

They were sitting in Haverford's diner, frequented mostly by hate-filled double E majors from Metropolis University. According to Lex, Haverford's made legendary roast beef sandwiches at legendary prices, four dollars for something that would have you stuffed from mid-morning to midnight, when most people dropped by for a slice of pie and banter. Lex had gleefully explained how lab groups often met there to bicker over how to set up their experiments, and how it always dissolved into mindless ranting about how much they wanted to stick which flaming/sharp/poisonous object or substance into what orifice of their teacher. "It's some of the most incredibly venomous ranting in the world, Clark," Lex had said, grinning.

Clark smiled, goofy and big. "I'm special."

Lex laughed easily, leaning back in the booth. "Most people don't like admitting that."

"I didn't mean short bus special, Lex," Clark shot back, wiping his mouth with a napkin before taking a sip of coke. "This place is really great, Lex," he said, genuine gratefulness shining in green eyes.

Clark felt good. Clark felt relaxed. Clark felt warm all over. Maybe it was the atmosphere, maybe it was the sandwiches, maybe it was simply the fact that he hadn't seen Lex in so long and they'd just spent the last several hours together, talking and driving and laughing and watching stupid movies. There was something wonderful in taking pleasure in someone's company simply for the sake of it, and he figured that Lex appreciated that, too.

"How do you know so much about Psychology, anyway?" Clark suddenly asked.

Lex raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you the one avoiding that conversation topic?"

"Even if you took an introductory class," Clark went on, ignoring Lex's question, "it must have been years ago, and you would have forgotten all of this stuff." Which he knew was blatantly untrue given Lex's eerie ability to remember any and everything, most especially that which would embarrass Clark if Lex said it with a wink and a grin.

Lex rolled his eyes. "First off, not 'years' ago. I'm only twenty-three. Secondly, I have an extraordinarily good memory, Clark. You should know that."

Clark did, but little entertained him more than watching Lex be teased about either his age, having his intellect questioned; his friend defended both rabidly.

"The last guy who thought that highly of himself turned into a flower, Lex," Clark said, playful disapproval in his voice even as he leaned over the table to be closer.

Lex leaned in as well, their faces just a breath away now. "That was Narcissus, Clark, and I told you that. Which, by the way, just adds credence to my claim that I am brilliant and have a great memory, etcetera."

Clark smirked. "You're shameless."

"Never bothered you before," Lex shot back, grinning.

Clark suddenly realized how close they were.

Eye to eye, they were literally just a shift apart, like the origin of a kiss.

When Clark had kissed Lana, she'd been (first of all) so much shorter than him, that he'd bent his knees, lowered his head, and felt her get on her tiptoes; there was so much work involved, and by the time their lips had met, it was awkward. Not organic, Clark supposed that was the term, at least used in that context. And this closeness, this proximity with Lex seemed so unassuming, something that he'd grown used to, and why hadn't Clark realized before that normal guys didn't do that? Lean into one another when they spoke, circle one another when they bantered, let smiles flirt across their faces and let sly innuendos slip into their voices when they teased one another?

And they definitely did not hold hands.

Why had that all seemed so right with Lex?

And then something passed in Lex's eyes, nervous and warning. He jerked back, pulled away, leaned against the cracked plastic padding of the booth and set his hands on the edge of the table, closing all the windows and doors, locking Clark out. The brief, warm encounter was gone, and Lex was back, all business and careless conversation; there were no consequences with this Lex, and Clark wanted to scream at the transformation.

"Psychology is in everyone's life. Therapy is growing rampant these days, Clark" Lex said. The tone was still affable, friendly, but altered, somehow, so that it wasn't nearly as filling at his earlier words and like he was trying to change the subject.

Clark didn't hide his frown, and the angry teenager in him reared his ugly head. "Yeah? Personal experience, Lex?" he said, feeling as if he'd just been rejected.

Lex froze, gray eyes crystallizing like dirty water. Every muscle tensed, and Clark could feel his heartbeat quicken, rise, hit panic, but Lex himself didn't make a move, just sat there, and didn't breathe.

Clark felt like shit. Total. Shit.

"Oh - God. Lex," he gasped. "I'm sorry. I didn't - "

He fell silent, since Lex hadn't jumped in with a pacifying phrase or forgiving smirk. He'd only tightened his fingers on the table, and stared over Clark's left shoulder.

"It's okay, Clark," Lex said, voice icy. "You didn't know."

There was a long, horrible silence.

"I should get you home," Lex said.

"Clark, you're losing your mind," Chloe said, pity in her voice.

She still cared too much, and Clark could hear it in her tone. It had an odd similarity to the inflection that Lex's words usually held when advising him on one matter of the other, only so much more obvious. Clark's time with Lex had schooled him well in the art of subtlety, and Chloe's crush on him was minor leagues now.

"I'm fine, Chloe," he insisted, irritated.

Clark was fine, which didn't make any sense to him. Logically, it seemed as if the earth should have collapsed into its own core or at least there should have been a tornado or rain of fire or two, because Lex has gone four whole days without talking to Clark.

Chloe gave him a look that had nothing to do with how much she liked him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Clark said firmly.

"Look at your paper," she said, a smirk on her face. Delight overwhelming an almost resigned sadness in her eyes, as if she was too amused to be completely hurt by whatever had - Oh, God, Clark thought.

Dr. Polanski had stepped out of the room for a moment to talk to an administrator, and they'd been told to copy the notes from the overhead while she was gone. Most of the room was chatting quietly, and Clark had simply let himself doodle on the margins of his paper, cursing Psychology in his mind.

And somehow, in his distraction he'd drawn It.

It was a tiny, bald cartoon man in a tiny cartoon car backing over a tiny cartoon Clark.

"Oh, God," Clark muttered, turning the color of his t-shirt.

"Cracked," Chloe said, giggling. "Totally cracked."

Clark flushed even darker and glared at Chloe, since it was better than analyzing the drawing. "Shut up," he hissed. When she didn't, a petulant tone came into his voice, tempered with a great and very real sadness. "It's not funny, Chloe,; he was incredibly pissed at me."

Chloe's giggles died at that. She cocked her head to one side. "What did you say, anyway? Lex never stays mad at you. It's like a universal invariant."

Clark ignored the implication that it was always his fault, but couldn't help the wave of guilt that came over him as he replayed the conversation in Metropolis. Everything had been working out so well: the night had been warm and balmy; Lex had been relaxed, unwound; and they'd been running the most incredible conversation all night. And aside from that, Lex had pried himself open, let Clark see all the scars and bruises.

And Clark had just rubbed salt in all the wounds.

Clark stared at his hands. "I...I made a joke about him."

Chloe raised her brows in surprise, and then narrowed her eyes in suspicion, toointelligent blue flashing with skepticism that Clark had seen too many times in his life. "Lex has been dragged through the muck by every single publication out there, Clark. I hardly believe that you teasing him would leave him nonverbal for four days." She crossed her arms over her chest, and Clark make a valiant effort not to stare down her shirt, because he felt a moral imperative not to gawk if he wasn't going to act on it. "Fess up, Clark. What did you do?"

He sat stubbornly quiet. If he said it out loud, Chloe would think he was a creep.

"Clark!" she said, annoyed.

Then again, he'd already blown her off at the Spring Formal two years ago, ignored her lingering affections to that day, and still turned to her for help like it wasn't just compounding the problem. Chances were that Chloe already thought he was a creep. Maybe, if Clark was lucky, she'd just take this as the final straw, and decide that she didn't like him that way anymore.

Silver linings, Clark realized, were very important for his sanity.

"I made fun of him being in therapy, all right?" he huffed, and waited.

Chloe's eyes got big for a second. Her mouth fell open, and she just stared.

It was half a minute before the disapproval filtered into her gaze, and she murmured, "Oh, Clark, how could you?"

"I didn't know," he protested, realizing that maybe his plan for her not to be attracted to him would go further than simply destroying a schoolgirl crush.

"How could you not?" she demanded, frowning. "Look, Clark, the Inquisitor got a hold of some information a year or so ago, and they did an enormous expose on Lex: school record, childhood stuff, and yeah, years of therapy, Clark."

Clark felt his temper rise. "I don't read rumors about Lex, you know that."

"They aren't just rumors, Clark," Chloe shot back, glaring now. "Look, I know in Clark Kent's universe, you can ignore all the bad stuff around here, paste a big stupid smile to your face and pretend that nothing is going wrong. But this is Smallville, Clark, ground zero for freaks, geeks, and meteor mutants, and oh, yeah, Lex Luthor."

Clark opened his mouth to protest, but Chloe went on.

"You might think that you're doing him a favor in not listening to all the horrible stuff that people say or think about him, and that might be true, but you can't shut your ears to everything, Clark," she insisted. "You're not being fair to yourself or Lex like that. You can just pretend everything's all right, because a lot of times, it isn't. And if you would pay attention, grow up, then you'd know that and you would have known this!"

Clark bit the inside of his mouth to keep from yelling back.

It was not as big a deal as Chloe was making it sound.

"It's just therapy," he said, fighting hard for composure.

"No, Clark, it wasn't," Chloe said, voice solemn, and still angry. "When my mom left, my dad took me to a psychologist, Clark. It was horrible. It still is, don't ask questions, because I don't want to talk about it," she cut him off, seeing him open his mouth. "Lex's dad sent him to a psychiatrist, Clark - and had him given drugs. Lots of them."

Clark just stared, feeling something rise in the back of his throat. He wanted to throw up.

And he could see it: nine year old Lex Luthor, bald from the horrible meteor shower that had been Clark's fault, in the ICU for months before being released, and then shut into a doctor's office, given medicine, told that he had to behave, be good, be perfect. Lex's gray-blue eyes, fluttering fear that he didn't bother to hide that young, and the shudder that remained to that day, before Lex squared his shoulders and walked out into the world, marked by Clark's inauspicious birth, derided by the people he employed, and hurt by those he cared about.

"Oh, God," he murmured, putting his head down on the desk.

He felt Chloe's hand on his shoulder, stroking comfortingly. "Clark, I know... I know you want to be a good friend to him," she started softly, "but you can't do that if you don't really know him, can you?"

And that was becoming more and more readily apparent.

Clark obviously didn't know Lex at all. He didn't, and had never bothered to try, and see beyond the witty, off-beat, brilliant Guy In The Castle that lived four miles down from Kent Farms. He saw Lex the way that Lex wanted to be seen by Clark, and not necessarily as total truth, and he wondered why that was. Maybe it was easier, for all the suspicion, all the horrible fights had simply...stopped one random day a year ago, when Lex got tired of asking, and Clark decided to shut out the rest of the world.

It was easier to be friends if they compartmentalized.

So what did that mean?

That if Clark really knew Lex, he wouldn't like him anymore? That maybe his father had been right about the Luthors the whole time? Or that maybe Clark was afraid that he would like Lex despite everything that he might find, that maybe he was morally ambiguous, too. Maybe that's what he was so afraid of; something had to be cut and dry. Nothing else in his life operated by normal standards; he had to be Good, since Bad was simply Bad, and he wanted Lex in his life too much for Lex to anywhere near Bad.

"I didn't know," Clark murmured again.

Chloe sighed. "Get up, Clark. She's coming back in."

So Clark did, watching the door open again, and Dr. Polanski strolling in, saying something about dissociative disorders and superheroes.

He heard the rest of the class laugh, and in Clark's head, all he heard were questions.

"I'm not sure if this is the way to do it, either, Clark," Chloe said.

Clark glared over the stack of old newspapers and computer printouts.

They'd barricaded themselves in the Torch office with what looked to be every news clipping involving the Luthor family in existence. Chloe kept a fairly respectable file herself, much to Clark's disenchantment, and she'd obligingly printed the whole thing out, weeping for her printer cartridge the whole while.

"You said get to know him, Chloe," Clark quipped, "and now I am."

She rolled her eyes and looked at her watch, pursing her lips. "Well, you knock yourself out, I have to get going." She waved goodbye and Clark waved back.

She hesitated at the door, and Clark almost - almost - pretended not to see.

Pay attention. Grow up. Self-awareness. Right. It had to start somewhere.

"Chloe," he said gently, and she flushed dark red - caught. "I still don't - "

She held up a hand, smirking, sadness in her expression nonetheless. "Oh, please, Clark, I don't kid myself." She glanced at her watch again. "I do have to go. Bye."

And she disappeared down the hall.

Clark listened to her lingering footsteps for a long time before he bent his stack to the files and pages and printed photos, a lifetime that he'd never really dared to look into laying splayed underneath his fingers, primed for discovery.

He devoured it, drowned every curiosity he'd ever had in rumors and news clippings and blurbs of information, half-blurred photos of Lex stepping out of board meetings and raves, handcuffed and harangued by reporters and girlfriends and business associates. So many snapshots of a life led dangerously, looking so harmless, all embodied by one confusing young man who held Clark at a careful distance, because intimacy gave weapons to inflict pain, and Clark seemed to be so good at doing just that.

Lex had been a student at a small, private school in Metropolis before his father took him on one errant business trip to Kansas, and the Luthor son lost a year of his life to medical treatment and - God - therapy. It made sense. If it had been Clark, he would have spent the rest of his life hiding under the bed, afraid of the sky, afraid of light, afraid of fire, and it only just started to hit Clark how much Lex had to fight to be in Smallville, every day, the place of his ruin. It was the beginning of a chain reaction that had only been catalyzed by Lex's mother's death, and it ended in an ugly incident at Excelsior before Lex graduated high school two years early, went to Metropolis, blew up a chemistry lab, and transferred to Princeton. Then there were glowing reports, gorgeously candid photographs of Lex walking around campus in t-shirts and jeans or at school events, laughing and looking genuinely happy, none of the earlier, edgier Lex left from his years terrorizing Metropolis.

Then one small change - something, then Smallville.

Not one newspaper, news organization, or even website had any idea about the hows and whys, just that one day, Lex had been in Yale, working on his graduate degree, and the next, he'd been summarily removed, shipped to Smallville.

And in between all of those impersonal facts, there were very personal stories. All in all, five paternity suits, dozens of heartbroken girlfriends, rumored boys in clubs who had indulged or been indulged in, and a constant litany of things that the people of Metropolis liked to know: where Lex had been on Saturday, and with whom. There were photos of Lex through a restaurant window, smiling at a pretty girl across from him. There were pictures of Lex at charity dinners, dressed to the nines, a socialite on his arm. There were images of Lex at baseball games, parties, conferences, and just on the street.

Clark examined them all, took them in carefully, looked at his friend from all angles.

The phone of the Torch office rang, and absentmindedly, he picked it up.

"Hello?" he said.

Lex smiling at something in the distance, wearing a dark gray t-shirt, dressed in jeans. He was standing outside of an old brick building at Yale, two short, Asian girls around him, and he had something complicated-looking in his hands. A physics experiment, the caption said, something on spring constants.

He looked happy.

And Clark wondered what had taken him away from all of that.

"Do you have any idea what time it is, Clark?"

Oh, shit. His eyes darted toward the corner of the computer monitor: 7:45PM.

"Um," he started, frantically grabbing up a stack of files, trying to put away what he couldn't carry at superspeed without ripping the phone cord out of the phone or the jack from the wall. "Sorry, Mom. I lost track of time," he said, hands blurring on the surface of the table.

"What is going on with you recently, Clark?" she asked, voice strange.

He sighs, stuffing one file into his bookbag and pulling it on his shoulder. "Nothing, Mom. Just a little scatterbrained. I'm really sorry." He hung up.

And then he was out the door, the fields and plains of Kansas blurring around him.

Clark waited until Wednesday, because Lex had no excuses on Wednesday.

It would be unexpected, since produce delivery was always on Friday afternoons. It would be unavoidable, since Clark knew Lex had a plant management meeting in his offices until around four thirty, at which point Gabe shooed everyone out, told Lex he was doing a good job, and Lex pried himself from his desk for the promise of cognac. Clark usually had massive amounts of homework on Wednesday (which he did that particular Wednesday, too), so for as many years as he'd been making the castle his second home, he'd never chanced in on a Wednesday.

Clark knocked at five o'clock sharp, Wednesday evening.

And almost fell on his ass when Lex opened the door himself.

They stared at one another for a moment, blinking in surprise, before Lex said, "What a surprise, Clark." His voice was smooth, but wary, defensive like he was ready for anything that Clark might find tumbling out of his mouth that afternoon.

Clark winced, and said, "Yeah, you know me, full of them."

Lex raised an eyebrow, but didn't speak. He took two steps back and shied to the side, giving Clark the universal "come in already" symbol by getting out of the way.

"What brings you out here to desolate Luthor manor today, Clark?" Lex asked.

"I wanted to talk to you," Clark replied, feeling more nervous by the moment.

The strap of his bookbag was digging into his shoulder and his shirt was feeling awfully constrictive. He needed to breathe, and obviously, his latest batch of flannel was in cahoots with Lex's most indecipherable stare, trying for the Make Clark Kent Stroke Out award, presented annually, past winners being Lana Lang, Alien Powers, and what do you know, Lex Luthor's Amazing Flying Car.

Lex frowned at Clark, the expression playing at the corners of his mouth, not so much disapproving as tired, disappointed. As if he'd hoped that they could wipe that conversation and all that it had brought with it from their minds. Pretend like it had never happened, pretend like Clark always pretended and get on with life, because even if that was piling dynamite with lit matches, it was better than confronting the truth.

They made a few more confusing left and right turns before they reached the bottom of a staircase, one Clark had never understood and always hated. There was a certain lack of economy in a jagged staircase, with four landings in all before it twined itself like some misshapen snake up a high end of the castle, bypassed the second, and reached the third floor directly. It all seemed so excessively angular, hard and sharp not for the sake of any purpose other than being imposing, and the designers had erred to the point of overcompensation, so Luthor manor's incongruous staircase was just that:, an anomaly in a sea of ancient Scottish stones.

It hit Clark, four steps behind Lex as they trotted up, what the main problem was:

Lack of fluidity.

Lex moved like a waterfall draped in silk. He whispered and floated and disappeared quietly around corners, stepped up in surprise. The only alert that Lex was there was either the impossibly expensive tap of his shoes or a heavy, tangible presence. As if Clark was in the room with ambition itself, caged by practiced composure, natural grace, God-given dignity beyond what Clark could manage. But the point was that there wasn't one wasted iota of motion, all of it cohesive like some large, circular modern painting, brilliantly, effortlessly flawless. Lex was all curves made from edges and razor-sharp teeth, laced with bright-hot wit, and he moved like he was swimming in a sea of molasses.

Clark frowned. Lex didn't belong in that castle. Like Lex didn't belong in Smallville.

Irrationally, he flashed back to the penthouse, with all of its muted mahogany furniture and gray cloth, the metal gleams of fixtures, the glassy wall of Metropolis, and the smell of Lex, pressed into his shirt. The way that Lex's hands had been wrapped around his midsection, the way that Lex's skin felt against his cheek:, as if Clark was pressing very fine, warm paper to his own rough-hewn cheek.

Lex lacked visible edges.

That doesn't mean, Clark reminded himself carefully, that he doesn't have them.

Edges like Desiree, and her aftermath. Edges like the years he'd spent doped up at his father's command, screaming awake at night to dreams of fire tearing through the sky. Edges like whatever had taken him away from his graduate work at Yale and dropped him in Smallville. Whatever had...brought him to Clark.

Lex pushed open a door casually, and their footsteps stopped echoing, falling on a thick, rich rug. Clark looked down before he looked up, and realized he was in Lex's personal offices, the one that attempted to mimic the easy grace of the penthouse, but fell just short.

Oddly, Clark got the feeling that that failing by a margin irritated Lex more than failing by a mile, because he imagined Lex was one of those people who could taste victory like sweetness bursting in his mouth.

And it happened more and more often those days, but thinking of Lex's mouth set of a chain reaction that always made Clark's conspicuously uncomfortable.

"I owe you an apology, Clark," Lex said, but his voice was tired, like he was fighting himself to say it out loud.

Clark blinked.

Something rushed his brain, some sort of adrenaline reaction that sent him flaring straight into panic and screamed that if He Didn't Apologize First, Then It Would All Be Ruined, Forever.

"No!" Clark all but shouted, and he noted Lex's surprised expression with an almost smug feeling in the pit of his stomach. "No. I owe you an apology, Lex," he said, more softly this time, watching with awkward expression bloom in Lex's eyes.

"Clark," his friend started, voice strangled, "don't be ridiculous, you weren't the - "

"Lex," Clark said, making a decision. "Sit down." He pointed at a chair.

Lex cocked up one perfect ginger-colored eyebrow and did so, just this side of amused.

Clark knew very clearly that he was being humored, and that if he did a few careful calculations in his head, he had just over five minutes to make his point before Lex lost interest, and the whole purpose of a surprise ambush on Wednesday would be lost.

He cleared his throat.

"Okay, I'm sorry," Clark started.

Lex looked at him expectantly, basking in it now.

Clark frowned. "This was easier in my head."

Lex rolled his eyes, mood elevating with every moment, for reasons that Clark didn't really understand, since "I'm sorry" were such ordinary, mundane words. "It's not that complicated, Clark. You apologized." Clark stared. "And I forgive you," Lex finished.

"Right, but that's not it," Clark said, starting to panic again.

Lex smirked. "I wonder if when I was your age, I overcomplicated everything, too.?"

Clark glared, and genius struck him. "My age!" he said excitedly.

He pulled off his backpack and grabbed for a nearby chair at the same time, making a spectacular amount of noise with a spectacular gracelessness, and Lex just watched with idle amusement, like a cat studying a lesser being. Which, to be honest, Clark often felt was justified being in a room with Lex; he'd never seen anyone move that smoothly before. It took a few more moments of digging and arranging his legs before he was sitting down facing Lex, the file folder of news clippings and internet printouts in his hand, and bookbag discarded on the floor.

"Lex," he said very seriously.

Lex looked like he was trying very hard to gauge the situation. "Yes, Clark.?"

Clark played with the folder in his hands. "Chloe...Chloe said something to me, and I thought it made a lot of sense." Lex opened his mouth to cut in and Clark continued blithely, knowing that if he let Lex talk, he'd learn loads about Alexander the Great and ancient Macedonia, but that he'd never make his point. "She said that I can't just...compartmentalize my friendship with you, that I can't just ignore parts and just pretend that they don't exist."

Lex's eyes got hard. "Did she?" he said dangerously.

Clark got the uncomfortable feeling that Lex had a List of People to Kill, and that thanks to that last statement, Chloe was now somewhere in good company, next to or sandwiched in between Lionel Luthor and Dominic Senatori.

"Yeah," Clark forged on bravely. At least I have his attention, he consoled himself. "I just...you know how I don't read the tabloids?"

Lex frowned. "Yes. And that's not a bad thing, Clark; they're filled with lies."

"Yeah, and I get that," Clark said, "but I don't read anything on you. Like, I make a conscious effort not to know you except when you tell me things."

"Why is that necessarily bad, Clark?" Lex shot back. "Instead of what a reporter says while out to make a buck with a nasty headline, you get it straight from the source." Lex smirked, and it wasn't at all nice or playful. "Don't tell me I'm boring you, Clark."

The tone made him mad, and Clark didn't fight to keep it from his face.

"I'm being serious, Lex," he muttered. "I don't ask you anything, you tell me practically nothing about your past. I just - " he paused, looking for words " - just. Look, that thing in the diner wouldn't have happened if I had known about your childhood, and that's probably the easiest problem to fix between the two of us."

Lex was unreadable. "I don't think so, Clark."

Clark's mouth fell open. "Why not? All you'd have to do is tell me things."

"The same," Lex murmured, "could be said about you."

That was the crux of the situation.

The room was extremely quiet, save for their measured breaths. There was the compensable silence that he shared with Pete, that he used to share with Chloe, and then there were the endorphin-drugged silences that he shared being near Lana, so close to something he liked so dearly.

And then there were silences he shared with Lex, when tension crackled in the air. It bordered on anger, flirted along provocation, and sometimes, without reason, they made Clarks' shirts tight around the collar, hot along the wrists, gave the unreasonable but altogether undeniable need to pull off his jacket or slip into the bathroom for a splash of cold water.

This was one of the uncomfortably angry spaces of quiet.

"You already know, though," Clark said quietly.

Lex sighed, rage breaking into exhausted resignation. "Some of it. Most of it, maybe. But it's different." He chuckled, a quiet, bitter sound echoing in the room. "Like reading it from a tabloid, actually."

Clark winced. "I can't tell you some things."

"Too much to lose, Clark?" Lex said softly, no challenge in the tone.

Clark nodded.

"And what makes you think that my past doesn't hold the same significance?" Lex asked.

Clark looked up, stared into gray-blue eyes that he'd missed for four days, investigated inside and out. The familiar, cool-hot gaze that drove him up the wall, made him question fundamental beliefs, color in more and more areas gray where they had been simple white or unacceptable black:; Lex was the human equalizer, there was no such thing as good or evil or forgiven or forgotten. They were all shades of the same thing, and Clark hadn't ever understood it enough to work it to an acceptable hue.

"I don't want to lose you," Clark finally said.

The words that had burrowed into his brain, made a home in his secrets, hidden just as deeply as the ship in the cellar, and perhaps more fearfully. Because scientists and doctors and the government could be surpassed, hidden from, blamed on someone else, and dirty little secrets had no origin but his own fevered mind.

Lex looked like he'd been slapped, stunned silent, and he just looked at Clark intently.

"And I'm afraid that if we keep doing this, I will," Clark went on.

Lex's face softened, and Clark felt that sunburst of sweet on his tongue. "Clark..."

"I just," Clark started, tight and angry, because this was manipulative.

He was playing on Lex's most vulnerable place, loneliness. And wasn't it tragic that Lex so perfectly fit the profile of the Poor Little Rich Boy? Only he'd pretended so well that he'd forgotten it himself in fits of drug-induced insanity, dancing on catwalks, so brazenly and boldly that the Daily Planet had a veritable cache on his exploits in Metropolis. Wasn't it terrible that Lex had shuffled it and filed it and rationalized it away for so long that he didn't even know that when he said Clark's name like that, leaned in that closely, with his voice like torn silk, that he was opening the contents of his heart?

That Clark wasn't good enough to be gentle with it?

That despite the best of intentions, maybe Clark didn't know how?

He was looking so hard at the ground that he didn't feel it until Lex's hand was already on his cheek, smooth, cool fingers against his cheek, hot with frustration. Clark looked up, and was surprised by how blurred his vision was, by how broken Lex looked through what could possibly be tears.

"Clark," Lex said softly. "Hey, come on, Clark."

He gulped for air, and it became more and more tangible, the reasons for the welling panic, the terror that he struck him so deeply that he'd had to lock it down tight and wrap it in lies before he could make his way over to the mansion that day. All the different variations of what would happen if it went wrong, if it went as badly as it had or could have in the past. If Clark wasn't lucky that day or if Lex was short-tempered and didn't Lex see? See how tenuous this wonderful thing they had was?

"God, don't be so nice to me, Lex," he whispered.

"Why not?" Lex said back, just as soft, crouched before him now. His voice sounded dry, airy. "You're the only one in my whole life I've met who's been worth it."

"That's the point!" Clark protested, eyes darting to corners of the room. "I'm not - "

" - Who I think you are?" Lex laughed.

Clark nodded frantically. He had to make Lex see.

And all of a sudden, that moment from the penthouse was reversed, and Lex was gathering Clark into his arms, slim and deceptively strong as they drew Clark in closer to Lex's thin chest.

"You're exactly who I see," Lex said gently.

Clark figured he'd already made a huge ass out of himself in front of Lex enough times that it wasn't an issue any longer, so he clung to Lex and let hot, angry tears squeeze themselves from his eyes. Years of repressed rage and anger and confusion, and endless, endless misunderstandings, over Lana, with Pete, with Chloe, and most importantly and damning, with Lex. So many moments when everything would have been perfectly fine if Clark could just turn to Lex, and wink. Lex would know, and would help Clark manufacture some sort of cover story, and they'd laugh about it later in the mansion, over pool or cards or bad television.

Clark hated himself, hated everything he'd let himself and let Lex become.

And the worst part was that one day, Lex was going to stop listening to all the badly thought-out lies, and something terrible was going to happen. Lex was going to go back to Metropolis and cry himself to sleep every night in that penthouse without Clark there to help him, and he'd probably have dreams about Desiree, about the sun fragmenting and falling to the earth, scorching cornfields, and about farm kids who lied and broke his heart. The worst part was that Lex would never really know.

"I had to tell Pete," he managed. "I had to tell Pete and I didn't want to - "

"Clark, it's all right," Lex said, voice soothing, like he was coaxing a young child to sleep.

"I wanted to tell you. You always look like you're going to leave and - "

"It's okay, Clark," Lex was low, firm, decisive. "I'm not going anywhere."

Clark half-laughed, half-sobbed into Lex's extremely expensive and now-ruined shirt, breathing in the smell of cologne and Lex:, leather, and fresh linen, sophisticated simplicity. "Oh, God, I suck at this," Clark moaned.

Lex pulled away, running one hand through Clark's dark hair, and laughed. "At apologizing?" Clark nodded miserably, wiping at his face angrily with the heels of his hands, muttering dark curses at himself in his head. "Well, no, you're not classically talented at it, Clark, but you get points for originality."

Clark narrowed his eyes.

Clark remembered in some distant part of his mind that this was supposed to be a serious conversation. Serious conversation with serious consequences. Serious.

"I was serious, Lex," he said. "We need to - "

Lex waved him off, pushing himself to his feet, lithe body cutting though the air.

"Yes, yes, we'll talk, Clark. I'll spill all my dirty secrets and we'll act like girls."

Lex started to leave the room, and Clark stumbled to his feet, following closely.

"And you're okay with this?" Clark asked incredulously. "You?"

Lex looked sheepish for a moment, lowered his gaze to the ground, his steps slowing for just a hitch before he turned back to catch Clark's gaze.

"I'm okay with knowing the what, and not the how," he said very carefully.

There was a long, resigned silence.

"I'll tell you," Clark said, "soon."

Lex nodded, and it was not the same angry, grudging acceptance that he had always provided in the past. Rather, it was anticipatory, relaxed, given a lifetime guarantee, since Lex had faith in Clark, and Clark couldn't bear to disappoint him.

They were rounding out a corner when Lex pointed to a bathroom.

"I've got frozen peas in the fridge downstairs," Lex said casually.

Clark gasped. "You - you - "

"You know, for puffiness," Lex drawled.

Clark huffed, glared, and stormed into the bathroom, shutting the door loudly.

It was a long time before he heard, over the sound of rushing water:

"I'm okay with not losing you, Clark."

"I've never liked semicolons, either," Clark said solemnly.

"I agree," Lex said enthusiastically.

"Suspicious little jerks," Clark added.

"Absolutely! They're pointless," Lex concluded. "If you're finishing a thought, then use a period. If it's an incomplete clause, use a comma. Why invent semicolons, anyway? It's for the indecisive, Clark."

Clark bit the inside of his mouth. "You're totally right. I can't believe anyone could be that stupid, Lex. Semicolons are obviously the first sign that Western civilization is going to disintegrate," he said.

Lex scowled. "You wanted to talk."

"About semicolons?" Clark asked.

"You don't take off points for grammar in a lab report!" Lex argued over Clark's laughter, Lex's cheeks flushing hot in embarrassed rage. "It's just not right!"

Clark managed to stem his exceedingly unmanly giggles and Lex settled on a narroweyed expression that conveyed his perfect disgust with Clark's lack of empathy.

Two hours ago, they'd somehow turned Lex's den into the scene of a slumber party. They'd gone to the kitchen, raided it for junk food and sodas, and brought it all upstairs along with loads of fluffy pillows from the guest rooms down the hall. They were camped out on the floor in front of the fireplace, which roared and flickered, crackling very loudly in the background. Lex was sprawled out against his couch, three enormous cushions forming a backrest against the sofa leg and Clark was laying on his stomach, a large throw pillow tucked underneath his chest, his elbows propping him up.

In two hours, Clark had found that Lex could grow sad and animated and laugh as easily as anyone else, and that Lex wasn't some sort of demigod at all. Lex was as fallible and human as anyone Clark had ever met.

Also - Lex didn't understand the concept of a semicolon, apparently.

"Punk," Lex muttered darkly.

Clark just grinned.

They sat in silence for a while before Clark asked, "Why did you leave Yale?"

Lex eyes darkened. "My father sent for me."

"You don't listen to your father," Clark said automatically, since it was true.

Lex smiled ruefully. "True, Clark. But he made sure I had nowhere to go."

Clark looked confused for a moment. "I don't understand."

Lex heaved a sigh and turned toward the fire, eyes distant, as if he could only talk about this if he pretended no one was really listening. This was one of those things, Clark realized, that hurt Lex deeply. It was the look on Lex's face when he talked about his mother, when he talked about Pamela, when he asked Clark for the truth that Clark couldn't give him.

"By the time I was in Yale, I wanted nothing to do with my father," Lex started. "I had forty percent of LuthorCorp's stock, and the trust fund my mother had set up for me kicked in at twenty-one. I was already wealthy beyond your wildest dreams, and I had ambition, had it in great, decadent excess. I wanted a lab; I wanted to make great leaps in science. I wanted to rule the world, and I wanted to do it away from my father."

Lex's voice was lazy, tired, resigned.

"The thing was, I needed a new reputation and a degree before all of it could come to pass. I needed the knowledge that college was giving me, and I respected that, in fact, I was thrilled by it. For the first time in my life, something seemed to make sense. So I worked hard, I cleaned up. I didn't want to be 'Lex Luthor' for the rest of my life. I was going to..." Lex closed his eyes tightly and swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing. "I was going to forge a destiny away from my father's legacy," he whispered.

There was a long silence, and Clark waited.

"Do you know what you get kicked out of college for, Clark?" He didn't wait for an answer before he continued. "Drinking on a dry campus, two or three times, at least at some schools." Lex paused. "Or, for cheating."

Clark's eyes widened.

"It became apparent to my father, after hearing that several of his competitors had already approached me after my freshman year with job packages or offers for capital, that if he let me linger there unattended, that I was going to do something dramatic. Like work for someone else. Or worse yet, myself." Lex chuckled. "He called, he cajoled, he offered me gifts and pretty things: women, cars, flowery promises. He tried to manipulate me, even attempted to drag my mother's memory into it."

Lex smirked.

"There was a terrible scandal, Clark," Lex said, and there was an edge in his voice, "over an organic chemistry exam in Professor Hack's class that year. And by the time that the smoke had cleared and the dust settled, I was fingered for cheating. My reputation was destroyed. Within the week, I was expelled from Yale, and the story was filtered through to every major pharmaceutical or research organization in the Western hemisphere. All the offers that had been made before were withdrawn."

Lex looked at the ground.

"I had nowhere else to go, and no prospects. Independently wealthy or not, I didn't have enough to start on my plans. The added bonus of lacking the extensive education needed for the project was just a perfect twist of the knife. Especially since no university would touch me after that. My father came to console me, of course, and promised to keep it out of the papers if I promised to behave. I was on my way to Smallville in the same week."

Clark felt his jaw drop.

He'd always understood on one level or another that Lionel Luthor would do anything to maintain control over Lex. That much was clear simply from the course of events:, from Lex's arrival in Smallville to when Lionel had attempted to take Lex back to Metropolis to when Lionel had decided to close the plant. Every move, every action Lionel took in relation to Lex seemed to have the same basic intention: to make sure Lex was fully in Lionel's control.

Clark just hadn't realized the extent to which Lionel was willing to go.

As if destroying his son's life was...was tangential to the grand scheme of things.

"I'm so sorry," he finally whispered, seeing Lex turn to him.

Lex's eyes were a tired gray, but they glimmered with something.

"So am I," Lex admitted softly.

Clark felt sick. He wanted to find Lionel and strangle that bastard.

"But," he started, hopeful, "but there's a silver lining. Sort of."

Lex looked at him expectantly.

"You," Clark started nervously, and felt stupid since in comparison, a lab and Lex's life ambition was so much better than what his perpetual cheerfulness had to offer. "I'm sorry about why you had to come here, Lex," he finally said. "But I'm glad you came. Otherwise, I wouldn't have ever met you, and - and you're the best friend I've ever had," Clark breathed, daring to look up.

Lex's eyes were soft. "That's definitely a silver lining," he murmured.

Clark blushed. "I'm sorry. The lab would have been better."

Lex waved his hand dismissively, smiling at Clark now. "I have a lab. And I have you. The best friend I've ever had."

Clark grinned, and Lex grinned back.

It wasn't all okay. Not yet. But it was getting there, and that much was apparent.

"I wonder," Lex murmured forty minutes later.

"About what?" Clark asked lazily, too intoxicated with the easy company to be alert.

Lex smiled broadly. "Will the talk about you be as revealing?"

Clark felt no jolt of fear, no need to run from or duck the conversation. It was inevitable, he knew now, that he would come completely clean with Lex. It was all a matter of timing, just a matter of scheduling. He was waiting for something significant, and he wasn't sure what yet, but it would happen, and then he and Lex would do this thing again, with pillows and popcorn and Pepsi. They'd sit in front of the big fire.

"Oh, it'll be worth your while," Clark said.

"I'm holding you to that," Lex quipped. "And if all you've got is a secret case of ADHD, we're not going to be friends anymore, you understand."

Clark laughed and stared into the fire.

His mother was waiting for him when he got home.

Clark's footsteps seemed terribly loud in the empty kitchen, and faced with his mother's face, stony and solemn, he felt as if he'd done something wrong, when in fact everything had just been set right again. Or at least on its path there.

He glanced at the clock, which told him it was nearly ten.

His initial instinct to run in terror was immediately shut down when Martha Kent looked up at him with resigned blue eyes and said, "Sit down."

He did, woodenly.

"Your father's still doing the last round of chores," she reported.

Clark nodded eagerly. "I did mine before I left this afternoon. Really, Mom. And I told you where I was going, and that I'd miss dinner."

His mother smiled at him, and reached one hand over to press it over his own comfortingly. His shoulders relaxed and he felt his breathing regulate again. She gave him the half-pitying, half-amused expression she always did when he misinterpreted something horribly.

"Clark, I'm not mad at you, honey," she said reassuringly.

He let out a long, grateful breath. "Oh."

The expression receded though, and Martha Kent leveled him with a stare.

"Clark," she started.

"Yeah, Mom?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"You were at Lex's, I assume?" she asked quietly.

He felt panicked, like he knew something bad was about to happen. But Clark had never had very good intuition anyway, and no sense of self-preservation, so if some vestigial lizard-brain was just kicking into gear, Clark thought it was a little too late for that.

"Yeah, Mom. I told you I was going there. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Clark. Just - " She smiled at him bravely. "You're there a lot, huh?"

It was a stupid question.

Clark shrugged as casually as he could manage, banishing all of his confusing thoughts, the midnights spent and wasted overanalyzing every detail, driving himself mad. "Not as much as I used to be. Lex is a lot busier now than when we just met." He frowned. "Mom, are you sure you're all right?"

His mom chewed on her lower lip, as if debating with herself, and finally just forced herself to look up, forced herself into the conversation she obviously didn't want to have.

"Clark, what is Lex Luthor to you?" she asked, point-blank.

"He's my best friend," Clark said, automatic.

The question was frequent, often worded differently, but always hanging on everyone's mind. Why did Clark Kent, son of organic farmers, hang around with Lex Luthor, scion of the world's largest pesticide producer? Shouldn't they have been bearing arms at one another, hissing and fighting and drawing blood - even just on principle? Pete asked, Chloe asked, Lana asked, even Clark's lab partner in tenth grade had asked. "Why are you two even friends?" Dana had muttered, brown eyes wide and curious, bearing really nasty sort of innuendo that Clark hadn't liked.

His mother studied him. "That so?"

Clark nodded. He felt oddly detached.

"Has Lex," his mom started, hesitating. "Has Lex ever made you uncomfortable, Clark?"

Clark knit his brow. Had Lex ever made him uncomfortable?

Lex made him confused. Lex made him feel like more than just a small town farm kid. Lex made him happy. Lex made him feel vulnerable. Lex made him angry, enraged, so mad and hateful that Clark thought he was going to go blind from frustration or grief. Lex made Clark feel possessed, surrendered, dependent and happily so, like Lex held the keys to all of Clark's more dangerous emotions, and Clark liked being provoked.

Lex made Clark sexually ambiguous.

"Uncomfortable?" he parroted.

She looked at the table. "Has he ever said anything, or done anything that..."

She trailed off.

In her voice, Clark realized, was the same ugly implication he'd heard for three years.

A flare of white-hot anger that coursed through him every time he heard it:, mild condescension, equally weighed with disgust, morbid curiosity.

"Why?" he managed to bite out. He heard the edge of the table crack, the wood splintered. He hadn't even noticed he'd been gripping it, but the sound of audible breaking made his mother jump in her seat.

She was quiet before saying, "Principle Reynolds called a few days ago, Clark. I didn't say anything at first but... He said - he said that Lex had picked you up in front of all your friends and that - "

"And?" Clark asked, his voice ice cold.

He'd always felt protective of Lex.

Mortal, misunderstood Lex, who didn't have one inclination toward self-preservation in his body, who went for the adrenaline high, wanted the rush, and did everything crazy and stupid better than anyone else in the world. Lex, whose sensibility in all things business or private never extended toward himself. Lex, who didn't understand the concept of "laying low." Lex had survived his teens through a combination of dumb luck, medical miracles, and his father's influences. Now, Lex lived day to day under Clark's watchful eye. Smallville had given Lex too many bruises, broken ribs, close calls, and concussions. It was one thing to protect someone from self-destruction, quite another and much more manageable to stop the latest meteor mutant from kidnapping one's best friend and attempting to either kill/blackmail/or mate with him.

All that time, Clark had never felt that he needed to protect Lex from Clark's mother.

His mother's face was panicking, color high on her cheeks, and she looked desperately embarrassed, horrified to be talking about this, and looked as much the part of a distressed betrayer as Clark felt betrayed.

"It just - it looks suspicious, Clark," his mother tried, voice tiny. "He's so much older than you, and his reputation... Look, I was in town today and people were...they were saying some really ugly things, Clark."

His mother sounded as if she was about to cry, like she was torn between the visceral urge to trust him, and the maternal inclination to keep him safe, keep him clean.

And Lex's past was so, so dirty.

It was what was whispered in between cups of bland coffee at the Talon, what Lana probably wondered when she'd said, "You two are close." It was what Chloe probably spent nights questioning, instead of the nature of love. It was the reason that his father hated Lex with such passion; beyond the Luthor name, there was the Luthor debauchery that Lex must have been lathing on Clark's innocent mind. It was the reason that Clark felt that inexplicable and altogether necessary flush on his cheeks every time Lex surprised him from a shadow, emerged from a crowd, smiled with a question behind it.

It was the reason that Clark was always so flustered, terribly confused around Lex.

Was it because Lex was doing something to him? Warping his mind, touching him inappropriately? Feeding him lecherous, sinful lies or showing him bad things?

No -

No, Lex made Clark want them, independently.

Made Clark want to run his tongue against the ridge of Lex's spine, taste the pale skin of his neck, press his mouth to every inch of flesh. Made Clark flash back to the riverbank, press his fingertips to his lips, and try to remember how Lex tasted beneath the dirty river water, beneath the panic and death. Made Clark look at Lana and kiss ambivalently,. Made everything so much more difficult. Made Clark what he really wanted to be all along -

Nakedly honest.

Because while the desire to reveal all had been there his entire life, it had been so suppressed by indoctrination and reflex that it took a car accident and terrified teenaged self-realization to come to terms with the fact that maybe all those too-close moments, brushes and more-than-simply-this smiles were leading to something. Because it took three years before Clark figured out that while every opportunity had been afforded, every chance and even every high (worldly or meteor rock induced) had been given, had helped strip him of his inhibitions, the one thing that stayed constant was his intangible need to make Lex feel something, and not Lana, at all.

Clark could fight it, could deny it, could scream and rage and break Lex's heart to a thousand slivers, and it would always come back. He would pretend to want things, ask for advice, complain about inane problems, but it came back to the simple fact that Clark would come back.

Clark was a compass, he could be anywhere in the world, and Lex would always be north.

Always be home base. Always the point of destination and inclination.

And that was a realization that Clark couldn't examine in his mother's kitchen.

"You taught me not to believe in rumors," Clark said furiously. "And I know Lex better than anyone who spreads that crap. I don't care what anyone's saying, or what they think that we're - that he's doing to me - "

"Clark, you're too young to know - "

That was just the problem now: he wasn't anymore.

He didn't know what he was doing, just registered the distant sound of a kitchen chair falling to the ground and the slam of a door.

He needed time to think about it, really look at the situation.

So Clark spent the next day and a half avoiding his parents, hiding in the Fortress or wherever available whenever he was able. He couldn't face his mother or father, and a horrible silence had descended all over the Kent farmhouse.

It was Thursday evening by the time that Clark let himself try it.

Just an experiment.

All those years picturing girls, and those dreams that made him come harder than he knew he could put together a pretty clear picture of what was the problem. Why when Lana had been stripped down to lacy red underwear his only reaction had been horrified wonderment and worry. Why he'd really liked that lawyer from the movie. Why Lex was possibly the most fascinating thing in the whole universe.

And, for that matter, why he thought Lex was hot.

So he let his mind drift, unleashed himself.

It was Friday morning by the time he opened his eyes and muttered:

"Oh, God. Just great."

It took a long time for Clark to think about who he'd tell his newest secret, and it shocked him that it seemed to be of greater consequence than his origins. Smallville was meteor central, so the sudden appearance of alien life was probably more acceptable than homosexuality.

Clark looked into the sky and though of the cornfield, remembering being the scarecrow at homecoming that year, meteor rock hanging around his neck, stripped to his boxers and in pain, thinking it was as close to dead as he'd ever be. The football team had been doing it for years, but just a few months before that, some kid had the same thing happen to him, only it had been a hate crime, splashed all over the news. Chloe had done Torch special on it, citing the Crows' yearly ritual as that exact sort of homophobic, hate-filled behavior.

Clark remembered being humiliated, wishing for the death that seemed eventual at that point. And he remembered headlights off in the distance, the rustle of corn leaves and naked skin emerging out of the endless, mocking green. He remembered shocked blue eyes, terror-quick hands saving him.

And he remembered Lex.

Compass points.

"I think I'm gay," he managed.

There was a long breathy silence. "What?"

Clark looked at the clock in the gas station, narrowing his eyes and shifting his head to see past the glare of the glass. The too-bright lighting of the station made his eyes hurt. He wanted dark, and he consoled himself, told himself that as soon as he made this phone call, unloaded on someone, he'd disappear back into the Kansas fields, lay in the blackness and be unseen.

It was three in the morning.

"Gay," Clark repeated, his voice shaking.

It was crunch time. Lex said that he would be okay with it. There was the rustle of sheets, and Clark had to fight his immediate reaction to thinking of Lex in bed.

"Gay?" Lex asked, more asleep than awake.

Clark nodded, though Lex couldn't see it. "Yes, I think so."

"As in, you're sexually and romantically attracted to men. Exclusively," Lex managed.

Clark vowed to himself, in some distant part of his fevered mind, to find out how Lex managed to use big words after having been abruptly woken with really disturbing news at three in the morning. It was part of the mystique of Lex.

"Yes. No. Maybe. Look, I'm all turned around right now," Clark stuttered.

"It's not," Lex started, sounding disoriented. "It's not some exclusive club, Clark. It's not community membership. I'm not going to stop being your friend if you're straight. Just because I like men doesn't mean you have to, you understand this concept, right?"

Clark flushed. "I'm not stupid, Lex."

"I'm just checking." More rustling and long breaths. "Jesus, Clark."

He wound the phone cord around his fingertip and stared off into the dark sky, the faintest edges of moonlight blossoming around the outline of the derelict gas station. It was Old Man Rudy's place, and Jack Rudy had worked it his entire life. Everyone in Smallville got gas there, and Jack sold everyone liquor, whether or not they could even see over the counter. Jack was a dying breed of Confederate, and the locals of Smallville tolerated him out of charity and a desire for cheap gas.

Jack Rudy was also senile and asleep in a puddle of his own spit on the counter.

Which was why Clark figured that declaring his sexuality in the middle of a gas station in the middle of small town USA in the middle of the Bible belt in the middle of a *mental breakdown* would be okay.

"Look," Lex finally said. "You're very confused right now."

At least we agree on that, Clark thought. "Yeah. Lex, I need to talk to someone."

"And we'll talk. I promise," Lex said smoothly. "But it's three in the morning, and you're...where the hell are you? You're not calling from your house, are you?"

Clark laughed. Right. Like he could do this at home.

"I'm at a gas station," he said. "I ran out earlier."

Lex sighed. "Which explains why your dad delivered my produce today. Clark, you - "

"I'm not going home," he interrupted.

Clark couldn't even fathom the thought of returning to his house, the look on his mother's face, the look on his father's. They'd be worried, in that abstract way that all parents were worried despite knowing that there was nothing that could hurt their children wherever they were. They'd be angry he'd run out. Then they'd be supportive, ask him questions, try to talk him through his latest crisis. Was it a new power? Had something happened with Lana? Did he fight with Lex? We're sorry, Clark, how can we make it better?

He didn't even know what was wrong in his own head, and he couldn't do that with his folks, couldn't work through it with his parents in the room. His mom would be devastated, and his father would have a nuclear meltdown.

The Kent's son? Gay? Of course not. Hiram would be spinning in his grave.

"You can't stay at a gas station overnight," Lex lectured in his best Adult Voice. "Go home, Clark. I'll meet you tomorrow and we'll talk, okay? Look, I can pick you up at the Talon, and we'll - "

"I can't," Clark managed. "Look, Lex, this is big for me. I can't go home. I don't want to face them now." He took a deep breath. "Can I come over? Please?"

There was a long silence over the line, and Clark saw a thousand different variations of the future in that instant. It was a Very Important Moment, and he could feel it, more tangibly than anything, heavy like a fog, and Clark was having trouble breathing as he waited for Lex's answer.

Lex breathed, a whoosh of air into the line. "I'm - I'm not sure that's a good idea, Clark."

"Why not?" he asked desperately. "You're my best friend. You have to help me."

Lex laughed, scared and slightly crazy. "Yeah, I know. And I always will be, but Clark, I don't want to - I don't want to ruin things. I just, I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Please," Clark whispered.

He didn't know why his pulse was racing so much, or how it could escalate even further. He was sure that his heart was going to burst its way out of his chest soon.

Didn't Lex get it?

Another long sigh. And it sounded resigned.

"Okay, Clark," Lex finally murmured. "Come over. We'll talk."

What was unspoken, and what Clark heard the most loudly of all: I'll be good. I promise.

Lex opened the door before Clark got a chance to knock.

He looked wild, like if he had hair, it would be sticking up in all directions. He was dressed dove-gray silk pajama bottoms, and a blue shirt that had obviously just been tossed on. His eyes were haunted, and he didn't ask how Clark had gotten from a gas station to Luthor manor in under three minutes.

"It was the porn," he said triumphantly as he steered Clark toward the third floor den.

Clark blinked, seeing shadows across old stone. "What?"

"The porn, Clark," Lex said, sounding manic. They were ascending the ugly staircase, and Clark realized that the difference between the architecture and Lex's movement was more pronounced than ever. "The skinflick that you stumbled on at my apartment, in Metropolis? Don't you remember?"

Of course Clark remembered, but he didn't see what the relevance was, so he told Lex exactly that as he was being forced to sit down in the large leather sofa. Lex paced back and forth in front of him, as if he was the one with a traumatic revelation.

"You're confused," Lex said. "You had a physical reaction to what you saw on the porn, and you're over thinking it, Clark," Lex babbled. "You're thinking about it too much, which I understand since I've been there. All teenagers tend to do it, anyway. But the point is that you had a physical reaction to what you saw and you're trying to give it an emotional origin and Clark, you don't have to, it's perfectly normal to just - "

"It wasn't the porn," Clark protested.

"It was the porn," Lex retorted. "Either that, or..." he trailed off, and looked away.

"Or what?" Clark asked, deathly quiet.

"Either that or it's me," Lex said finally, in a damning tone. "Either that or I've, I've come on too strong or I've said things or done things or behaved in a way that confused you, put too much stress on you. Clark, you don't - you don't know that you're gay."

Clark was far more interested in the "come on too strong" part of Lex's almost incoherent blather, but he had to at least counter that last sentiment before he got on to the more interesting things.

"Yes, I do," Clark said. "I get off thinking about guys. That's pretty clear."

Lex bit his lip. "Clark."

"You said you'd be okay with it," Clark accused, feeling panic overwhelm.

Lex's eyes widened, and he dropped to a crouch in front of Clark, so that Clark could see down the open collar of his shirt, see the skin beneath that just begged to be stroked, sucked, kissed red and bruised with wanting.

Clark swallowed hard.

That was the other thing.

Clark had spent an entire night fantasizing about movie actors, famous people, and that one cute guy at school. And that had all been fun and stimulating, remarkably effective now that Clark was jerking off to the correct gender for his sexuality. But the darkest dreams, the deepest moments, and the instants that meant more and had the greatest impact were all about Lex. All about familiar half-smiles and slow conversation, about Lex's voice whispering in his ears and Lex's hands. The smell of Lex's skin and imagining how Lex would taste and feel over him, under him, beside him.

All life's lusts, Clark found, were calling for Lex.

But it meant more, was dangerous, because Lex was Clark's best friend. And Clark was realizing with every passing moment that the low, heady vibration he felt in the back of his mind and in the hollows of his heart when Lex was around, or when Lex smiled, wasn't simply brotherly affection or some bizarre offshoot of lust.

It was something of greater consequence.

"I am okay with it, Clark," Lex said hastily. "I'm not - Jesus, Clark - I'm not angry with you or disgusted or anything. But I don't want you rushing into any sort of decision because of a dirty movie or because of something I did or - "

"I'm not rushing into anything," Clark finally said, looking away. "This has been building. For ages. I just...I just finally came out to myself last night."

Lex stared at him and didn't move a muscle.

Clark gulped, and felt his hand move of its own volition, pressing his brown fingers against Lex's cheek. And Lex flushed suddenly at the contact, trembled.

"Clark," he murmured, and it sounded like a sob.

"Can I kiss you?" Clark whispered.

"Oh, God - "

And he didn't wait for permission, because he'd waited for everything else already, and he wanted something to be easy for once. So he just leaned in and pressed his mouth against Lex's, inexperienced lips hard against Lex's oh-so-soft mouth. It was a closemouthed kiss, the type longtime lovers gave one another sweetly, slowly, gently, just enjoying the closeness.

A sudden, violent noise came from Lex's throat, and he shoved himself away, stood up abruptly, gasping for breath. He looked pale, shaken, discomfited.

Clark was dizzy, and he felt hot all over, he felt sexy and sticky.

"Can't do this, Clark," Lex whispered.

Okay, Clark thought. "Okay," he said.

"Do you - do you understand why this can't happen? Do you get why - "

It was starting to sink in. Beyond the taste of Lex's mouth. Beyond the shimmering perfection of those thirty seconds of closeness. Beyond the sweetness in that instant. Beyond Clark's teenaged hormones and lovestruck mind -

He'd been so stupid.

Why would Lex want him? Why would Lex even give him a second glance?

He needed to leave. Desperately. He couldn't go home. He couldn't stay. Clark didn't know what exactly he'd been expecting by going to Lex's and - oh, God - kissing his best friend, but it sure as hell wasn't leading to shredded clothes and sex. Maybe he could go to Chloe's. Chloe would understand. In fact, Chloe would probably feed him chocolate and let him watch old movies with her.

He tried to get up but realized he was paralyzed.

Lex was still standing in front of him, looking like he'd lost his grip on reality.

"I'm sorry," Clark said automatically: habit, reflex, necessity. "I didn't - I'm sorry, Lex."

Lex swallowed hard. "Clark - that's not what I - "

"I - I won't bother you anymore," Clark whispered.

He couldn't see properly. He was having trouble breathing. He wanted to throw up, and cry, and run to his mother. His chest hurt really badly, and he wondered crazily if there was meteor rock in the room, because he didn't think that he could have a heart attack.

He was going to die. Right there. On Lex Luthor's couch.

"Oh for Christ's sake, Clark," Lex snapped, still standing awkwardly in front of him, looking extremely agitated. "I'm in love with you, all right? I have been since you were sixteen years old."

Clark's head rocketed up, his eyes wide like dinner plates as he took in Lex's earnest expression, honesty tempered with a bubbling panic.

"It's just that - God. Do you realize how young you are?" Lex asked.

Clark blinked. "What?"

Lex frowned. "Clark," he said disapprovingly. "You're seventeen."

"So?" Clark asked, mystified.

Lex was in love with him. Which was perfect, since Clark was in love with Lex, too.

Maybe, there would be sex after all.

"So?" Lex said incredulously. "You're - you're jailbait, Clark!" he roared. "If I so much as touch you, I get tossed in prison for about a dozen charges! That's if your father doesn't shoot me first."

Or...not.

Clark stared at Lex, and tried to process everything that had just happened.

"I'm gay," Clark said.

"You think you're gay," Lex countered.

"I'm gay," Clark insisted. "And you're in love with me."

"You think you're gay, and you're a minor. So it doesn't matter," Lex muttered.

"I am gay, you're in love with me, and I love you too," Clark said.

Lex looked like he wanted to say something, but snapped his mouth shut.

Clark added up all the numbers, examined it from several angles, and brightened.

"Can I kiss you again?" he asked.

"No!" Lex yelled. "Clark!"

"Jesus, sorry!" he yelped.

Lex glared at him for a long time before sighing and sitting down across from him in a leather wingback chair. He crossed his arms over his thin chest and brooded.

Clark was feeling lighthearted, remarkably so. He could definitely see the negatives in the situation (perhaps not as lucidly as Lex, though), and he could tell that the road ahead had a few nightmarish hairpin turns. But from his vantage point, two facts were the most important and they overshadowed all the other points of interference: he loved Lex, and Lex loved him back.

"Can we go on a date?" Clark asked.

Lex sighed. "No. Clark, have you actually thought about the consequences of this?"

Clark frowned. He didn't want to think about consequences. Consequences were messy, they complicated things. Besides, wasn't that what being a teenager was all about? Zero consequences? "I don't want to," he admitted.

Lex smiled darkly.

"Picture this, Clark. Me, splashed across the front page of every newspaper and magazine in the country in handcuffs, really interesting names for child molester being used as synonymous with Lex Luthor for various headlines and captions while I'm charged and convicted with statutory rape as well as sodomy and contributing to the delinquency of a minor."

Clark winced. "Lex, stop it."

"Also, think of reporters parked four deep around your farm, taking pictures and harassing you to the point where you can't leave your property; in fact, you can't even leave the house. You're thinking of putting blackout curtains on your windows to keep them from peeking in, too. The local priest drops by to counsel you about having been 'led astray' by the Luthor devil, and your parents cry and talk about how they tried their best to raise you right, by good, old-fashioned, all-American standards."

"Lex, stop," Clark said, his voice rising.

"And the best part, Clark. Remember being the scarecrow at homecoming? That'll seem like nothing compared to what will happen if you actually go through with this - "

"Lex, shut up!"

They looked at one another desperately for a moment.

It was so senseless that Clark wanted to scream. To be so close, to touch but not hold. And Clark knew how fragile and rare love was. Maybe that's what fate had been trying to tell him all along: first with the Hatfield-Berscheid experiments, then with his mother, then the night in Metropolis with Lex. Everything could fall apart in the blink of an eye, and all that sustained was the hope for something better, optimism in emotion.

And Clark was really starting to get it.

He'd have to fight for this, work for every inch of it.

He was ready, he could do it. Lex was worth it. He was worth it.

"So what happens next?" Clark asked, voice shaking.

Lex released a long breath.

"That all depends," Lex started, "on how you handle the consequences."

Epilogue

October was misty, hazy with orange sunlight.

The annual Smallville Harvest Festival was in full swing, with twinkling strings of lights, booths tacked together out of spare wood and bursting with corn husk dolls, games, toys, crafts, and food. More pies and cakes, cookies and ice creams, chilies and strange things than Clark had ever eaten or wanted to eat in his entire life. People rushed around cheerfully, laughing at one another and spending money that they had better things to do with since it was tradition.

Clark had begged off duty at his mother's pie booth, since business was really taking care of itself. His father had given him a long, considering look, and turned away.

It was still bad. It could be worse, was what Chloe told him to think.

Dusk was gorgeous, Clark reflected, sitting on the platform, carefully avoiding loops of wire and three speakers already up on the stage. In just two hours, Smallville's finest bands and dancers would line up and perform up there, shaming the entire idea of entertainment, but up to the challenge because it was Smallville, and what else was there to do for fun around there, anyway?

"Happy birthday, Clark."

He turned around, smile beaming. "Lex!"

A long, lithe body settled next to him on the platform, faint smile playing at the corners of lips that Clark had longed for months to kiss, months to taste again. Their thighs pressed together, and Clark let the heat melt into his body, warm him from the core. Lex leaned back casually, holding himself up on two arms and looking out into the bustling activity of Smallville with a tolerant amusement.

"I registered to vote today," Clark told him, eyes twinkling.

Lex turned to him and stared, mouth open for half a beat before laughing loudly.

"Clark!" Lex finally managed. "I was joking."

"I know that," Clark complained.

And he did, intellectually. That hadn't, however, stopped him from being the first person in line at the DMV that morning for voter registration.

Six months had passed, miserably slowly, and Clark had spent most of that time easing his friends into the truth about his sexuality, and convincing his father to stop hating him. He'd given up trying to ignore that flash of disappointment that he caught in his mother's eyes every time, just before she put on her brave face. He didn't try to sway his parents that Lex was a good friend at the dinner table anymore, since it would only start arguments about how Lex had been the cause of it all.

For once, Clark didn't have a counter; it was true.

But he had the feeling that if Lex hadn't appeared in his life, he'd be living it as a lie.

Six months of Lana avoiding him. Six months of Chloe warming up to him, since if he was gay, then obviously, she wasn't his type and it wasn't anybody's fault or anything. Six months of Pete pulling away, ever so slowly but ever so clearly. Six months of being sad and terrified and nauseated and so confused, like his world was shattering and he was having to piece it back together.

Lex had told him that night at the castle, afraid and exhausted, that if Clark could stand it, if he could really do this, then he would have to wait. He'd have to see if he could deal with Smallville's reaction, his parents' reaction, his friends' reactions. And if Clark still wanted it after everything - then...

Well, Lex had made all sorts of promises with his eyes.

Which Clark fully intended to collect on, since he'd learned over those same six months that what his parents thought of him, what Smallville thought of him, what his friends thought of him didn't change how he thought of Lex one bit.

Smallville wasn't forever, he knew very clearly, but Lex was.

And today was his birthday. Countdown over.

"I want to write my name on you," Clark said suddenly.

Lex blinked twice. "Excuse me?"

"I want everyone to know," Clark continued, flushing darkly, "that you're..."

Lex let a smile come across his features. "That I'm what?"

"You're mine," Clark said, with a feverish blush. He paused. "Right?"

Lex had made his feelings pretty clear six months ago. But still, six months was twentyfour weeks, which was a very large number of days and hours and minutes and seconds, the exact figures of which Clark had counted up once in a fit of miserable not-legal-ness, and promptly forgotten the next day.

"I'm the world's, Clark," Lex said dramatically. "But large portions of me are yours."

Clark rolled his eyes, but couldn't keep the smile from his face. Just like Lex. Just like his Lex, or the parts of Lex that were his, anyway.

It was going to be hell, Clark knew, until he could get out of that town. It was going to be terrible every day to see his father's grieved expression and his mother's barely-veiled anger. It was going to be a fight to go to school every day after everyone knew, which they were bound to, since he had decided he wasn't going to hide himself any longer.

It was going to be bad, but it was also going to get better.

Because eventually, Clark would be in somewhere far away, where people didn't treat homosexuality like psychology did in the 1960s. Eventually, his father was going to learn to deal with it like he'd dealt with all of Clark's powers. Eventually, his mother would see all the beautiful, wonderful, brilliant things in Lex that Clark loved so much about him and love Lex, too. Eventually, she'd stop being angry. And eventually, Clark would stop going to Smallville High School, and he wouldn't have to tell himself to be brave before stepping out to face the day.

"So," Lex started casually, his left arm moving until his fingers covered Clark's. "How does it feel to be eighteen?" he asked.

Clark smiled at the feeling of Lex's palm over his hand.

He pretended to be thoughtful. "Well, I feel legal. And surprisingly unmolested."

Lex laughed, free and easy and bright.

"Well," Lex said, low and throaty, "we can't have that."

Clark's breath caught in his throat. "No. Terrible shame. We should do something about that." He gasped as he felt Lex rub his thigh purposefully and slowly against his own, in front of everyone, sitting on a stage. "Like, right now," he managed to choke out.

Lex smiled enigmatically, staring at the Harvest Fair. "I don't know, Clark. This is Smallville tradition, and you're always telling me to be more social with my employees. Why, I see dozens of them wandering around this place right now."

"You can be social later," Clark said frantically. "Employee Christmas party. Lots of drinks. A fake Santa. It'll be great. Right now, we should go and - "

Dear God, did Lex know they were in public? Because the way that those slender, smooth fingers were running up and down along Clark's arm bespoke of intimacy that just wasn't afforded by sitting on a stage.

Clark focused. "And molest me."

Lex laughed and eyed Clark. "One time around the fair first, Clark."

Clark moaned. "Six months, Lex. Come on. I wasn't even allowed to hang out with you!" Clark was sure he was the only person in the world whose boyfriend told him he loved him and then put him on probation and gave him clear instructions to stay the hell away all in the same twenty minutes.

Most of Smallville had taken to believing that the inevitable falling out between Clark Kent and Lex Luthor had finally occurred. Some of them consoled him, saying that Lex was bad news anyway, and that Clark deserved better friends. Clark usually just grit his teeth, nodded, and distracted himself with images of Lex down on his knees between Clark's legs, or of Lex's mouth...everywhere. For six months, the internet had been Clark's best friend.

Lex raised his eyebrows. "You had to be sure."

"And I am," Clark retorted.

If Clark was any more sure, his pants were going to be ruined, and wouldn't that be fun to explain to his mother? Gosh, Mom, you see, it was an accident. Lex and I were just sitting on that platform, at the Harvest Fair? (Yes, Dad, in front of everyone, breathe, you'll kill yourself that way.) And he was rubbing his thigh along mine and his hands were just - Mom? Mom?

"After the fair," Lex said easily. Because he was a sick, sadistic man, Clark knew.

Clark pouted. Lex smiled. The difference between eighteen and twenty-three seemed enormous then, the distance between total inability to function when turned on, and gleeful torment of those who were having trouble walking.

"We have all the time in the world, Clark," Lex said softly.

Clark hesitated at it and smiled slowly. Lex was right.

In the months and years thereafter, when Lex asked what had gone through his head that night before he'd called and gone to the castle, or during those six months in between, Clark always dismissed the questions with the same smile, same words. "It was all just psychobabble, Lex. In the end, everything came together just the way it should."

That day, the sky was a brilliant shade of red, and blue was seeping into the edges as night crawled in. Farmhouses dotted the skyline and the windmill and Baker's field were all visible. The Luthor castle's turrets drew made dramatic lines against the sunset and Clark saw it all with a graceless appreciation for beauty in its rawest form. He didn't have Lex's words or eloquence, and he lacked Chloe's energy. He didn't "do" normal, and he couldn't be artful. But he could see it, recognize it, touch and taste and feel it like sweetness on his tongue or Lex on his mouth.

The October sky was perfect in a perfectly flawed way.

And hand in hand, about to make the biggest and best mistake of their lives, so were they.

Clark had no doubt about it.

Many thanks to:

...All the wonderful people who read this story and provided words of kindness.

...My extremely brave beta readers, who tore through this story with great speed and thoroughness, making it comply with standards of readability before I exposed it to the SSA: Madam D (who, honest to God, scared the crap out of me with how quickly she edited), Snails Pace (who bravely edited even without dashes or apostrophes), and Caro (who did an incredible last-minute beta out of love).

...And finally, Dr. Peck, who taught me not to overanalyze and that Hatfield and Berscheid were probably full of crap.

Love - Pru

(1/16/2003 - 3/15/2003)