So dear I love him that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life. John Milton

PART ONE

I

At five o clock in the afternoon, on an October Monday, a particularly brutal attack on the Metropolis international bank takes place. Hostages are taken, and shot--in front of cameras. They are prodded and bullied and frightened until they are screaming when the bullets smash into their foreheads. One, two--a grandmother, a housewife, a waiter, the manager of the fast food place one block away...dead. The other hostages are frozen in horror and bladder emptying fear. The masked bandits--murderers--are entirely too amused.

Superman is called.

Superman is there in minutes, from the opposite side of the state. He comes ready to help. Do the justice thing.

He's in the air over the bank in another minute, and bursting through the ceiling, flying at the hostage takers, in minute more. He smiles at the gun they train on him, and the lead bullets that explode out of the gun at high velocity strike him harmlessly in the chest. The lead vaporizes on contact. The kryptonite slivers inside the lead casing lodge in the muscle of his chest. The one that kills Superman drills in under his ear as the impact throws his head back, and to the side.

There's a terrible amount of blood, according to the remaining hostages.

"He fell to the ground, he made this terrible noise and--and--died." This the gist of the interview that runs on all channels, all day long, for days. "He bled so much and dropped in front of me, and I could see the...the light--just go out of him, you know? Like he deflated, but not really. He just wasn't in there anymore. So young--you know? He looked so young, not like this big super guy, you know? Almost...a kid..." At that point the bank teller being interviewed rushes off camera, and the sound cuts off. So his face becomes the most recognized face in the world, and it's not forever linked to the sound of him throwing up violently behind the bank manager's desk...

II

Lex Luthor. Businessman. Entrepreneur. Researcher. Killer.

Killer. Well, certainly not by his own hand, not anymore...but if Lex raises an eyebrow and frowns at, say, an obstinate individual, who stands in the way of a goal he wishes to achieve, a meddlesome someone he wishes to be rid of, it's more than likely the wish will be made reality. Lex's people do their level best to make Lex happy. His happiness is the sole business of great many thankful to be on his payroll.

Right now, Lex is not happy. Lex is furious. Lex is nearly speechless with rage. Already men in his employ scour the city, the country--looking for the perpetrator of this deed, this--abomination. The entire underworld knows--Superman belongs to him. Belonged.

He watches the footage playing in an endless, endless loop. The Man of Steel crashing to the ground in a bloody, ungraceful heap--the doughy young man gasping out the story of his death. Lex hates him most of all.

Decides not to kill him.

Instead, he wanders around the luxurious penthouse that he shares with his laptop. He wanders back and forth in front of the glass, floor to ceiling patio doors and thinks. Superman never set foot on that patio, never appeared at the glass doors. Never tried to kill him, not in the way Lex tried to kill Superman. Maybe he should have. Maybe he wouldn't have looked so--defenseless, apparent invulnerability aside...

Time for action was at hand. "The time for talking is over. I want a thorough investigation," he says into a slim black phone pressed against his cheek. "Thorough. You understand the meaning? I want to know how these bastards acquired the kryptonite--only myself and the government have access to kryptonite--and even the government has to come to me."

"Yes, we're starting from the inside, and working outward." the voice responds. "If there's information to be had, you'll have it...but...Lex. There's been no word yet. Not even a rumble."

"Interesting. Well, you have more means of gathering information than the media. And thank you."

"You're welcome, Lex."

Lex lays the phone on the table and thinks. Why? More importantly, how could Superman have succumbed to such a...stupidly simple plan?

He takes a meandering stroll about and ends up back at the little wet bar tucked in a cabinet at the rear of his office. He makes and swallows a drink. Several, while sitting at his desk and thinking--unproductively. Shit. Shit. Lex stands up and slams his glass down, slopping a little liquid over the glass tabletop.

III

/// Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet--a well know and respected reporter for the Daily Planet, has been missing for two weeks. He's presumed dead, along with ten others, caught up in the storm that ripped across the Atlantic seaboard, tore miles of beach away in Atlantic City and capsized the fishing boat bearing the lost. ///

The authorities search for a while, but finally admit that the bodies are unrecoverable There's a plaque on the boardwalk a month later, to commemorate the bravery of those who basically, were stupid enough not to evacuate when told to, or those whose makeup demanded they be there, to offer help to their neighbors any way they could... Human nature.

IV

/// Lex dithered. It was a thorn in his side. It made him--crazy. But still...dither. He drove to the office, and worked on the way there. He worked in the office, pointedly did not look nervously at the phone. He worked. He sowed the seeds of empires. He plowed under those stupid enough not to know that growth always involved discomfort, progress involved a little pain. And he dithered. ///

Lex Luthor strolled through Metropolis Park, enjoying a surprisingly warm breeze for late November. There were a few days left before Thanksgiving, and of course the Christmas ornaments hung like pendulous garish fruit from every possible protrusion. Lex wasn't letting that destroy his mood, however.

His mood had been sour to begin with.

He briefly contemplated stumbling and clutching his chest, just for the amusement value of seeing the all the men blended into the crowd come running to earn their paychecks...but that was beneath him. Lex stopped, and here and there through the park men and women stopped with identical looks of greyhound readiness. He glanced about. People paid no attention whatsoever to their surroundings. The crowd moved on, oblivious to well trained death...except for one young man, probably college aged, who looked startled and nervous. Hmm. Lex made a note. Recruitment can never start too early.

Finally, he took a deep breath, and dialed a number he hated to admit he'd never forgotten. A number he could dial in his sleep, still. The phone rang and rang, and at last a voice came on the line.

"Yes?" Flat, unemotional.

"Martha, I..." Bloody fucking HELL! Why the fuck was he a child again?

"Yes. Lex. Mr. Luthor. Can I help you?"

"Lex, please. I--I--hoped that I could help you in some--"

"Did you do it?" A whip crack of hatred, so bitter, so sharp, Lex flinched involuntarily.

"No! No. I...would not have the unutterable gall to call you, if...I'm sorry. Truly sorry. I know that Clark...Clark helped out so much after his father died. I just wanted to offer...my help."

"Well. Now you have. And I have much to attend to and..." Her voice hitched.

"Martha--I never--"

"Lex, I have to go now. Thank you," she said. "It's a small measure of...comfort... to know my son's former best friend didn't orchestrate his death. No matter what you've become, I know you'd never have called other wise. It's not in you to...gloat."

Lex stared at the silent phone cradled in his palm. It occurred to him that they weren't talking about Clark. He rolled his shoulders and watched the swift passage of gray clouds across the sun. The air smelled like snow, and he was briefly sad, briefly missed his mother.

Well.

Martha knew he knew. How? He strode along briskly, gravely nodding to the people who recognized him. That meant Clark knew. Lex stopped and let one of the bodyguards open the limo door for him, slid inside. He leaned his head back against the warm soft leather of the seat. He sighed.

Clark had known.

V

Lex is flying back to the States from a week long series of meetings in Shanghai that had been exhausting and much less than entertaining. It had, however, been lucrative, and he's in less of a foul mood than usual. The lights in the cabin are dim, the scotch is excellent, and he's just about to slip his shoes off and relax on the seductively beckoning bed when his phone rings.

He doesn't recognize the caller and considers transferring it to his aide but something makes him answer.

"Mr. Luthor?" an electronically altered voice speaks his name, even altered it sounds impatient. Lex forces a tone of amused effrontery. "How did you get this number? I obviously don't know you. Unless this is a prank--

"We have something you may want to buy. Proof of it's worth will be shipped to LexCorp in a few days."

Lex tosses the silent phone to the bed. He hates mystery. Hates it. He especially hates those who insist on being pointlessly mysterious. Pointless drama is a crime.

There's been no result from his investigations. Blood has been spilled, but occasionally results demand a little sacrifice. He knows his employees have worked hard, he knows that they think they've left no stone unturned. But he knows without a doubt this phone call was about that investigation.

There's a distinct possibility that the empty memorial being constructed in Metropolis Square was going to be tenanted after all. Lex shrugs off his jacket, loosens his tie, and lays down on the vast yielding surface of the bed. He lays splayed out, legs wide, arms wide, staring at the ceiling. He remembers lying like this on the rough barn floor, and Clark walking around him, reciting his lesson, laughing down into his face...his eyes were so green and warm then, so full of...well, friendship...friendship. He sighs. Even after all these years...he presses the heel of his hand against the thickening length trapped against his hip. God.

VI

"Lex. Why are you calling here?"

"Martha. Martha...I just. I don't know."

"Let me guess. You feel alone; you looked around and found you have no friends and...guilt is a huge motivator, Lex. Just as big as greed."

"Do you think that's what I am? Greedy?"

"I saw the way you looked at Clark. Back then."

He hung up and methodically, violently, trashed his office.

/// Outside the mahogany office doors, his secretary pensively listened to the sound of crystal smashing, fabric tearing, the punch-rip sound of something sharp being torn through glove soft leather. That she found surprising. He'd never actually destroyed the couch before...she called the designer who'd redecorated his office a few years before. She'd gained a solid reputation as a result of the work she'd done for Lex, and owed Lex for it. Plus, they'd concluded business on very good terms, and she knew Lex had had a brief affair with the woman. She thought he could use some recreation. She was a good secretary. ///

VII

A package arrives on Lex's yacht. The package is unremarkable. It's the usual overnight shipping envelope. The return address is obviously false, but Lex will have his aides check it anyway. He heads to his cabin, and tells his very efficient secretary he wants no interruptions. He opens the box inside it, not certain what he'll find. It's big enough to contain the cremated remains of any person...was it be possible to cremate Superman? Once he died, did it remove the spell that made him magically strong?

In the box is a note.

`There's more. `

There is also an envelope. In the envelope is a folded piece of red fabric. He unfolds it, feeling along its edge, an odd sort of grit against his fingertips. The center of the square holds the world's most recognized logo.

What the hell does `more' mean? Fuck, he hates drama so fucking much. He snarls at the square cut from Superman's cape. It appears he's a victim of some seriously twisted fucking performance art.

Several drinks and a messy blowjob later, he leans over the almost too lean brown body pressed against his, grabs his phone and calls that number. Again. He snorts. He doesn't have a fork handy to stab himself repeatedly in the eye--this will have to do.

"Lex." She sounds irritated. "This has to stop. This borders on harassment, you know."

"Is it that awful to talk to me?"

Silence over the line. Martha was raised old school Society Metropolis: manners, manners, manners. "I...I'm sorry."

Lex takes a moment to smile--that had to hurt. Martha wasn't entirely correct when she said Lex wasn't one to gloat...he's just very private about it.

"I'm sorry, but I still don't understand--what is it that you want from me? I have nothing to give you."

"I just need to hear the voice of someone who...doesn't care what they say to me."

"Lex. Find people--real people."

Lex lays back, the dead phone on his naked chest. Find people? People he could trust--enough to talk to? He sighed. Well, maybe he shouldn't have shut down the cloning project...that at least would have given him someone to talk to, someone who understood, he could trust...Dear Departed Lionel came to mind, and he laughed. Sure. Like he could even trust himself.

/// He climbed the stairs to the deck, and watched the waves churn and roll away from the stern of the yacht. The smell of the ocean filled his nostrils, crisp and salt and cleansing. The white robe he wore whipped in the stiff breeze and he leaned his head back and...breathed. Long deep breaths. He was fine. He wasn't alone--there were people here, people in his bed, his office....people who broke their necks trying to do whatever he asked. That woman was wrong. ///

VIII

The next package wasn't long in coming. He received it in his comfortably redecorated office. The messenger was thoroughly examined, both psychically and by the various security devices in the building. Many of them are capable of detecting alien life forms. Those functions have never been used--an alien has never stepped into LexCorpTower.

He found a disc in the package. He sighed peevishly. This type of thing was so tiresome. He'd had no luck tracking the package from three days ago. Really, this sort of grandstanding villainy...he tapped the razor-sharp letter opener against the glass desktop. It was nearly as annoying as being accosted by mimes. If he could find where they came from...he tossed the opener idly and heard the satisfying `thock' when it buried itself in the cork dartboard on the opposite wall. He slid the disc into his laptop, and waited. No doubt, this was going to be even more mysterious. Or monumentally idiotic.

There was a brief flailing, views of ceiling, wall, blank and featureless; no windows...a voice spoke. "We will sell the package to the highest bidder." Lex rolled his eyes. "Given the history between you, we offer you first bid." Lex tried to stifle his exclamation of irritation.

The camera panned inexpertly back, giving a view of a motionless figure on a long steel table, a table with raised sides. The type mortuaries used. The camera jerked and staggered closer, and Lex could make out black hair, a face bruised and crusted with black. Still in the suit, he saw. Streaks of black marred the blue and red.

It was Clark, all right. He was dead, certainly. There was no movement; no breath raised his chest...Lex chewed his lip, unnoticed. If brought to his attention, he'd deny doing it.

"We will deposit the package in the parking garage of LexCorp Tower, if you're interested...the price at the moment is $60 million. Three days from now, it increases." Lex frowned at the screen. This was too odd. The phone rang.

"Have you given it some thought?"

He sneered at the screen. What a surprise..."Why me? You could get more bidding on the open market. There are collectors of...everything."

"You're not interested. Fine--"

"Wait--yes." Damn it. "All right. When?"

"Even exchange. Tomorrow evening."

"That's not enough time; I don't have access to that amount--"

The voice chuckled, a hard, staticy sound. "Yes you do. Tomorrow."

"All right."

Lex threw the phone hard, and knocked the letter opener from the corkboard. They would have to die. Foremost for annoying him. He cursed. He should have stipulated any material concerning the package be part of the bargain...well. He'd just have to send cleaners in after.

The transfer went smoothly--a stainless steel locker was transferred to a trolley, and was whisked to the freight elevator in the blink of an eye. Money smoothly transferred hands, and the unremarkable black van that delivered the goods was on its way out of Metropolis in minutes. Minutes later, of course, it was trailed by the exceptionally well trained and unquestionably loyal security that Lex employed--he'd learned his lesson in Smallville.

On a street in the port district of Metropolis, the van was stopped, searched, cleaned. The occupants were disposed of. The destination of the van was discovered, and also cleaned. A warehouse close to the water burned to the ground as the van was driven back to Metropolis.

IX

"Lex, we tracked all communications out of the warehouse. They had only made the offer to you. There were others in line but they seemed to bank on you buying the package, considering your former interest in it. I'm guessing they seemed to think it was a done deal." Lee swung the chair facing Lex's desk a bit. His black suit disappeared against the high black leather back of the chair, his pale face and white shirt seemed to float. Lex admired how flat and emotionless the man's eyes were, no matter what they discussed.

"We took care of everyone involved. All materials surrounding the box are in the designated lab. The staff is waiting for you to direct them. By the way--it appears the entire impetus for the `robbery' was to take and kill those people. The object was Superman all along." He stood. "I think that they meant to incapacitate him, not kill him. There was a cage, and chains...I'm guessing, though. We won't know more until you have the material examined. Is there any thing else?"

"No, Lee, thank you. Job well done."

"Thanks Lex. I'll recheck the job, but I'm confident that my men performed beyond expectations."

"Be sure you thank them for me." He stood, signaling the end of the meeting. "There'll be bonuses, of course."

Lee nodded, and left the office and Lex leaned his arms on the desk. So. All he had to do was give the word and his package would be unwrapped.

All the secrets he wanted were here, in his house, whenever he wanted. However he wanted.

Why the fuck was he reluctant to move? Damn it. He gripped the edge of his desk, pressing until his knuckles turned white.

He had Martha's son. Had his body. Should he...he shook his head. What the fuck was he thinking?
He stood and stomped out of the office, startling his secretary. "Lex--what do you need?"

"I'm going out. Transfer important calls to me--and by important I mean earth shattering, understand?"

"Of course, Lex. Completely."

/// Sunlight lit the glass walled interior of The Greenroom, a favorite grill of Lex's. Usually, sitting at his private table in the back made him feel...in control. The light flowed over the yellow plastered interior, made the painted walls glow golden, warmed the slate tiled floors...it reminded him of the green house at the castle and that thought was brand new and stunning. He'd never realized it before. The realization... horrified him. He looked around as if seeing the room for first time. For the first time, he realized that the feeling he experienced wasn't control--it was anger and sorrow, iced over and contained.
Lex got up and walked out. ..///

He's crossing Metropolis Park at a fast clip, his people jogging to keep him in sight at all times. He comes to an abrupt stop in front of the nearly completed memorial to Superman. It's very reminiscent of Brancusi's Bird in Flight, and has been criticized for being safe, unoriginal. But Lex likes it. There's a tension, a yearning in the gigantic steel sculpture that maybe Clark never felt but Lex likes to think he did. A yearning to be free, to fly and fly and fly away...Lex sighs.

He's made his decision.
He won't tell Martha.
Not yet.

X

When the signal's given, the material from the site is gone over with a fine tooth comb-- records of communication, the gun--the bullets--the idea turns out to be Lex's own, scribbled on a note pad and forgotten but not by the ex-employee fired for sloppy research. Lex hisses in annoyance. The man is dead, and there's no way he can criticize the team. They carried out his orders to the letter. Lex regrets being hasty.

The box is open, the sides folded down, and the body it contained is placed in a glass...well, coffin. Lex smiles. Snow White. And at the moment, Superman is just that. The skin Lex remembers as being gold, sun burnished, is pale as milk, his hair is midnight black and curls around his face--except where black blood crusts it into clumps and it's pasted against his face. His lips look red as blood against the moon white of his skin. Here and there blood paints black spatters against his forehead, chin, around his ear. He looks closer and sees a black and green hole under his ear.

"That's where the sliver went in. You can see some small punctures in his chest--see here where they penetrated the suit?"

Lex nods. "Any chance he's still alive?" and curses inwardly. Any idiot could see it's simply a corpse--but the degree of preservation is too remarkable. Cla--he really does look like he's asleep.

The scientist smiles a little condescendingly until he feels the prickly ice of Lex's stare. "Ah--he's dead. Even though there are no visible signs of decay, he has no heartbeat. Using human normal standards he's dead as a doornail." The man smiles, risking life and limb, and goes on... "He is an ex-super hero. He is no more." He is about to continue in what he certainly believes to be an amusing vein and Lex lays a single finger on his cuff, says, "If you value your...job..." The swallow, as the finally totally aware man realizes how close he's come to personal disaster, is audible. "Shall I--shall I--"

Lex nods. "Go ahead and start dissecting him."

The first thing they did was try to figure out how to take the suit off. The suit was made in sections, and was actually a sort of thin flexible armor. It couldn't be cut. It couldn't be stretched. There were odd depressions and bumps that seemed to correspond to fingertips and the scientists speculated that they were latches--the original team working on him had also come to that conclusion, but Superman's hand pressed to them did nothing. They also found that blades constructed of kryptonite worked well to shear through the material when they could find no way at all to activate the latches. The grit on the edges of the square of cape already in Lex's possession was from the worn edges of kryptonite shears.

Lex watched as they laid Clark bare. He felt vaguely dirty. Clark's limbs flopped and slapped against the metal table as they cut, yanked and sawed at the suit, and slowly his body came into view and Lex thought as long as he and Clark had...known each other, he'd never seen him naked. No reason why he should of course...he'd seen Clark's broad chest occasionally. He felt ridiculously startled to see whorls of black hair on his chest, his armpits--furring his legs. Clark had been...very young when he'd know him. Been friends with him. He'd been so very young...the hair on his chest trailed down, thinning and tapering until it ran in a black line to the patch at his groin, framing his penis. Clark's.

Lex called a halt to the work for the day. Insisted Clark be covered before they shut work down for the day.

The body lay on the table with no one in attendance, alone except for the unblinking eye of the camera Lex had trained on the still pale form.

His phone rang, startling him; he'd been so deep in thought staring at the corpse. He glanced at the caller id and froze. It took an act of extreme will to answer, and to answer with a cheerful tone of voice. "Martha. This is unexpected--no one to treat like scum out your way?"

"Don't be an idiot, Lex. I have something I want to tell you."

Lex gasped, covered it with a cough. "Excuse me. You want to talk to me? I was under the impression that you wanted me dead and buried, with a band standing by so you could dance on my grave." He was further startled by the chuckle she tried to smother.

"You can be quite as obnoxious as when you were a boy, Lex." Her voice turned serious. "Lex, you assured me you didn't kill him--"

"Martha--"

"Hush. I believe you. Now, I want you to find him. Bring him home."

Lex's chair nearly toppled backwards. He jumped to his feet and paced back and forth, unable to keep speaking calmly without moving, and moving fast. "What? What does that mean--find him?"

"You owe this family that much..."

Owe you? Martha. I hardly think I owe you anything; on the contrary, you owe me--

"Not money, you poor misguided, deluded idiot."

"Martha? I've never been overly fond of being called an idiot..."

"I mean the pain you put my son through. The hurt. You trying to kill him." She laughed bitterly. "He hated what you did. What you'd become. And in some corner of his mind blamed himself. And suffered for it. Every happiness he had was overshadowed with the hatred you held for him and his guilt. He felt he failed you."

"Failed me? Guilt?" Lex laughed. "I'm a success--I have everything I want, and I'll have more. I own half the city--one day I'll own it all and Clark didn't fail me, he motivated me to prove what I could do--to prove that I didn't need anyone--anyone to help me succeed," he hissed. "I got it all on my own."

"Lex. I'm asking you."

"Martha...are you saying...you need me? Need my help? Again?" Lex held his breath, waiting for her to disconnect, to curse him, scream at him, but she simply said, "Yes. I need your help".

He swallowed. It took a moment for him to speak. "Of course, I'm happy to help you. Thank you for finally taking my offer."

"Yes." She hung up and Lex waited for the wave of well being that always overtook him when he' crushed someone, made them sorry that they'd ever tried to beat a Luthor. The Luthor. All he felt was the vague sense of uncleanliness he'd felt when they stripped Clark's body.

He walked out to the patio, and stared up at the evening sky. This was fine--Martha could have what she wanted, and he could have what he wanted. He'd find her son's body--after he'd gotten everything he could from it. He would be doing as she asked. He'd bring her son home all right. He'd bring her everything that was left.

XI

/// He's on his knees, hands pressed on the long line of the back bowed in front of him. He pulls back, watching his dick slide back out, sheathed in latex and glossy with lube, red and thick...he pushes slowly back in, to hear the groan, feel the plush lock of hot flesh around him. He shakes...he can't hold back anymore, and pushes harder, faster, breath whistles from his clenched teeth and the guy under him bucks back, "Faster--- harder--you're so good--"

"Hell yeah," Lex grunts. "Hold on..." He pistons in and out, feels orgasm sliding up on him and wants to let go, wants to feel oblivion for a few seconds, he wants to fly...like a switch's been flipped, he comes, the feeling of release he wants-- needs so much--fills him, it's so intense that for one minute he's afraid of it and then he's pulled along helplessly, soaring on a hot wave that flings him panting, sweat covered and leadlimbed onto the bed.

"That was good." He pulls himself upright, heavy muscle sliding and bunching under his smooth skin. He gets some satisfaction from knowing the guy he paid for is nearly licking his lips, watching him move around the room. Lex doesn't bother putting on a robe--he knows he looks good and likes being looked at.

After the `date' is gone, he's on the phone to the lab, checking progress.

"Why haven't you started the dissection yet...did I say I wanted to be present? Oh for...all right. I'll be there shortly." Idiots. He doesn't want to be there, and hates that he doesn't want to see the final humiliation his enemy can endure.

"I won, Clark," he whispers to himself as he dresses. He chooses a dove gray suit, and finds himself going to the rear of his closet. On a lower shelf, he chooses a shirt of a color and cut he hasn't worn for...five, six years at least. Lilac, a narrow cut, sleeves a little longer than is fashionable. It's incredibly soft, when he lays his hand against the front, the material transmits the heat--seems to intensify it. It's like feeling the ghost of a big, too hot hand...he shakes off the odd melancholy and finishes dressing.///

The mood in the lab is annoyingly upbeat, almost celebratory. And why not--the staff were about to delve into a self-proclaimed alien...how many people got to do that and get paid outrageously well for it?

He stood well back of the stainless steel table, Clark's body mostly blocked by the team dressed in dark blue scrubs.

"We'll remove the slivers, first. And then, we'll open the chest. The blades on these knives are composed of a kryptonite annealed metal." The head of the team, Dr. Frame, turned to Lex. "There's more information about them but that's certainly outside my field of expertise," he said with a little chuckle.

Lex nodded, and they began. A set of forceps that looked like needle nosed pliers tipped with green explored the puncture sites. Lex was unpleasantly aware of the sound they made tearing flesh.

One splinter, then another dropped into the stainless tray a nurse held.

Clark's head was tilted to the side and the puncture under his ear exposed. Dr. Frame went on in a drone, describing what he was doing for the recorders. The black smeared area was cleaned, and the puncture explored.

"I think I feel it--yep, that's got it, locked on now," the long sliver of black coated kryptonite was pulled out, and flashed briefly emerald in the light. It dropped with a sound like a chime into the stainless steel tray. "All right, let's have the saw, and there..." the saw whirled through flesh, and began to enter bone and there was a noise.

"Aahhh..."

Lex started. What the fuck? The bone saw whined on, and the sound came again. "Aaah..."

Lex began, "Wait a min--" and the body on the table jerked--the skin on its abdomen twitched like a horse trying to throw off flies.

"Stop!"

Shit...the team trying to dissect Superman scattered, as the dead man's eyes leaked tears, and small sounds of distress leaked from its mouth.

Lex looked on in shock.

Oh my god...Clark

PART TWO

I

Lex was upset.

This was not supposed to be happening. Superman was not supposed to be moaning and bleeding and scaring the life out of his researchers, he wasn't supposed to be breathing....
Fuck. He was alive--how the fuck was that possible? He realized he was somehow outside of the lab. When had he left the room? He was arched against the wall, head leaning back against the cool plaster, gulping air.

He had him. He had Superman. Weak, powerless, broken--but alive--at his mercy.

He ignored the small roll of sick excitement in his gut. He walked back into the lab. "What now? What has he said?"

Doctor Frame was pastier than usual, sweating unattractively. "Nothing--he seems to be in a coma--my god, we cut Superman open! We--we--"

"Shut up," Lex snapped. "Pull yourself together." He stalked over to the man on the steel table, still marble white, still looking like a nightmare version of Snow White. His face was lax, though occasionally he'd moan; a thin whispery sound of pain...Lex put a hesitant hand on the wide, pale chest.

Superman felt warm, normal. Which meant he was under temperature. The feel of his skin was waxy, and it gave a little under the steady pressure of his fingers. When he jabbed, it was suddenly like jamming his fingers against a brick wall. Interesting. There was so much they could learn and... no one knew Superman was alive except the few in this lab. He looked around at the nervous group...they could be quickly disposed of, if need be. On each one of them there was a switch that could be flipped--family, possessions--easy enough to guarantee silence. The whole while, without noticing, he was stroking the broad chest under his hand, slow soothing sweeps of his hand skirting the already shallow line bisecting his flesh. He was not pleased when he realized that. "Everyone--get out."

Every pair of eyes in the room shoot towards him, and then to the door. He takes a step forward and like a room full of Catholic school girls, they break. It amuses him momentarily, the mad dash to the door.

And now, he's left alone, with It.

The not so corpse-like corpse.

Now, Lex thinks, he's got to figure out what to do with It. Dissect it, ignore it, shove the kryptonite back in it and bury it...shit. Lex pretty much feels like a cat balanced on the edge of a fence: one side there's a dog waiting for him on the other, a lake...fuck fuck fuck.

He strolls around the table; his footsteps echo in the tiled room, the only sound save the gentle wheeze of machinery and...Clark's occasional whispered gasp for breath.

God. Clark is...is huge. He's tall. Taller than when they knew each other. Or maybe it's because he's lying down...his feet are giant, and that makes him smile. He remembers a distant spring day, sitting on the farmhouse porch with Clark, watching him re-lace brand new sneakers, and wondering how his parents afforded to keep their giant son in new shoes, clothes. Wishing he could help. Wishing he could touch him. Lex growls, unconsciously pushes the thoughts away with an actual motion of his hands. It brings his hand in contact with Superman again. His hair is so black against the marble white of him; his nipples are red as his lips, they're wide and flat. Perfect. The hair runs down over the swell of muscles, into his navel. Lex is barely aware his finger is following the trail until he bumps up against the base of his thick uncut penis. Lex snatches his hand away like it's on fire, he even shoves it under his armpit as he stumbles back. He hisses through grit teeth as the body's eyes flicker under closed lids, the mouth opens a little and a pained moan seeps out, and Lex's stomach lurches and curdles when he thinks he hears a faint whispery, "help me." Or maybe it's "help, Mom."

Life sucks and bites. He snarls--stomps out of the lab, but carefully locks the door behind him.

Outside the lab, back in his granite and leather lined penthouse cocoon, he smashes his fist into the wall, over and over, until blood flies and his knuckles shred. He stops when the pain is blinding. He calls his minions--"Bring that thing up to the penthouse, have Dr. Frame install it in the guest room. Treat it like...an invalid, you understand?" he cuts off the frantic noises of acquiescence.

II

/// Lex himself cleans the black tarry remains of blood from his skin, washes his hair, and does it all carefully, gently. He remembers how to do this. He remembers doing it for his mother, towards the end, when she could still tolerate being touched. Clark's eyelids quiver as he washes his face. The damp washcloth wipes over his chin, behind the ear and the hole is nearly closed. The black and green gone from the skin, the hole is pink, with a bit of clean dark red at the center. Lex narrows his eyes. He's healing...the holes in his chest are closed, and where the team sewed him back up, the sutures are pulling against pink flesh. Lex lays the cloth down on Clark's pajama clad legs. He looks at his own knuckles--almost healed.

"God, let me get out of here." He leaves the guestroom, alerts the night nurse and wanders around the penthouse.

"Well, here I am, and I don't know where I am. I don't know what I'm doing...I have no one to explain it to me. Martha was right--I am alone. And an idiot." ///

Liberal doses of Lagavulin help. A joint discovered in the wet bar helped to make him feel...heavy. Lethargic if not relaxed. He gulps down the golden liquor, cross-legged on a lounge chair, staring up into the sky. Yeah. Idiot.

Ever since the alien took to the skies, with his white teeth and pink cheeks and bright eyes shining, shedding goodwill and love for everyone--except him--he's hated him. Wanted to destroy him, make him know not everyone bought that altruistic shit. He knew. He'd always sensed the cold menace behind the...Kyrptonian...artifacts that had littered Smallville like takeout cups. These were a people who were dangerous--cold, heartless, ruthless--willing to send children out as vanguards of an invasion force...he breathed in sweet harsh smoke, and held his breath as he counted stars. Somehow...maybe Clark escaped his destiny. Maybe he really did think he was here to affect good, maybe he really was the only one of his species left...Lex released his breath and sucked in cold crisp air. Hell, there was always the possibility Clark actively tried to escape his father's influence.

Lex wrinkled his forehead. Was pretty sure he'd meant to say `his programming'...he stood and sauntered into his study, flipped on the camera feed and watched Clark breathe.
He sat at his desk all night, watching...sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning. At the break of dawn, he called that woman.

"Hello...are you up? Forgive me if I disturbed your sleep..."

"You've been drinking."

"How would--what makes you say that?" Lex leaned back, thrust his legs out straight. One eye on the brightening horizon, the other on the monitor. The still shape slept on.

"Was there something you had to tell me? Did you find information about my--about Clark?"

"Nothing yet," he lied smoothly, and watched Clark's closed eyes shiver. Was...did his finger move? He leaned forward, stared at the screen. "There's nothing to be found yet. I will find him. I promise you. I'll bring him home to you."

"I know you will, Lex. Lex...would you be willing to come out to the farm?"

A thrill of horror ran through him. No, God no "To the...farm? You want me to visit?" He chuckled lightly, and forced himself to relax again. Now was a great time for his buzz to desert him, thanks so fucking much.

"Neither of us really has anyone to talk to about him. I. Well, I'd like to talk to someone who knows him as well as I do. Can you understand that?"

"But. I tried to kill him," he explained patiently. "I hate him. I'm only helping you out of a--a nod to the past. Because you tried to tolerate me."

"You're an idiot. And you're invited to dinner. Come hungry."

She hung up and Lex contemplated shredding the painting hanging over the fireplace-- he hated it anyway. What the fuck just happened? Did he really agree to have dinner with a woman who had every reason to poison him? More reason than his father'd ever had...shit. What could they possibly have to talk about? `Lex. You may have tried your level best to destroy my son and discredit everything he stood for but--hey, have some green beans.' Shit shit. `Lex, I know you're lying to me, I know you have my boy, I know you're going to slice him up like a lab rat...'

Lex fell asleep finally, hunched over his desk, face pressed against the glass top. He was drooling a little, and an empty glass sat between his feet. The fingertips of one hand were pressed against the unchanging image of Clark on the screen; the other hand was locked around the razor sharp letter opener. He was frowning in his sleep.

"Lex, come in," Martha said, and he had a flash of Christopher Lee gnashing his teeth at Peter Cushing....she walked him into the living room and they went right through to the kitchen, because small town people brought friends into their kitchen. For a horrible moment, he felt a burn in his throat and in his eyes. He swallowed and grimaced, blinked rapidly until he was Lex God damn Luthor again. He was shocked at how little things had changed. He glanced over at the coat rack at the back door, and it only held a sweater--hers. No creased ball cap, no dingy brown barn coat. Strange to think that Jonathan wasn't going to walk in the door and sneer, and frown at him. Try to stuff him with platitudes and disdain...

"I made chicken stew. You like that, am I right? I thought I remembered that you did..." her voice trailed off as she concentrated on the pot of good smells. He complemented her abilities and she smiled.

"I made a pie too. You and Clark used to finish off a pie by yourselves. Thought I suspect it was more Clark than you." Lex nodded and felt distinctly uncomfortable. Why share memories of some fairytale past? Why bring up days that no longer had meaning?

"Lex, would you mind bringing the milk out--unless you'd prefer...well, I'm sure you'd prefer something else to drink. I'm sorry. I have no idea where my head is these days." He assured her milk would be fine, just fine, and he took the plastic container out of the refrigerator. The logo on the jug was unfamiliar. She caught his eye as he tilted it--"We -I lease the land out. We don't own the herds or farm anymore." She smiled sadly. "It hasn't been Kent Farms for a long time now. Clark and I decided it was too much for me to maintain, and Clark couldn't divide his time anymore."

She covered a small sigh and Lex felt a surge of fury burning up his spine. Was that what this was about-- was she after money? Was that the reason for this--this pathetic display? He expressed his opinion that if Clark had wanted to, he could have helped her keep the farm.

"Oh. Oh no, you misunderstand." She turned off the heat under the stew, and ladled some into a tureen that had to have been hers...a family heirloom, perhaps. She put it on the table, and placed a basket of fresh bread next to it. "Neither Clark nor I regretted the decision. Jonathan loved the land, the farm--I loved Jonathan. Very much. So did Clark. But neither of us..." she hesitated before laughing lightly. "Neither of us had a Kent's love of the land. We keep the farmhouse, but let the land out to others." she smiled. "It's working out well."

Lex nodded, and commented how nice that it wasn't financial help she sought with this visit. He opened the big, bright blue napkin next to his plate and put it on his lap. Smiled.

She froze for a second, and said, "Your mother would be disappointed with you, I think." She shook the bright blue napkin open and smoothed it over her lap without further comment. Lex grit his teeth and said nothing. His spoon dipped towards the stew, he put it down. "Sorry. That was rude."

"Eat you stew before it gets cold," she said but smiled a little.

After dinner, Lex asked if he could go up to the loft. Martha hesitated a moment before saying yes. "It's terribly dusty and cobwebby," I doubt Clark's been," her breath caught for a moment, "had been up there in years."

The stairs creak with his weight, but the banister is strong. Dust motes dance in the sunlight leaking in all over the barn. Tarps cover machinery, the air is stale. The smell of machine oil, hay and animals are non-existent. It's quiet, it's clean. It's odd. Disconcerting. Memories can be cruel, and comparing reality to time-gilded moments...he shakes his head. It can be painful.

He wanders around the loft and listens to echoes from the past--conversation, laughter. Occasional touches, the brush of a hand against his. Simple friendship...his ache at wishing for more, and eventually, hating himself for wanting. He sighs deeply and brushes at long dusty strands of webs draping the desk, the couch. There's an old textbook on the desk, and a little metal miniature of a tractor, beginning to rust. He moves it and the disintegrating rubber tires leave a black streak across the pine planks of the desk. Fuck all, he thinks, this is damn depressing. He takes his phone out, and calls up the office camera. Clark...Clark is still. He gets an update. No change, no movement, but he's still breathing. Lex sits on the old couch, disregarding the dirt, and the musty, slightly mildewed smell. On the trunk in front of the couch sits a cardboard box, covered in an antique map print. Of course, he opens it, and inside there are pictures. Naturally, he picks them up. Pictures of--what, he thinks: girlfriends, cars, cows?

There are pictures of his mom and dad, and the girls that had been the cornerstone of his life. Lana...Chloe...his best friend, Pete. And Lex. Clark's old friend Lex.

There is one picture of him, smiling. Laughing. So...thin, he thinks. Almost skinny. He rolls his shoulders, feeling the dark gray sweater he wears pull tight across his chest. He's almost as wide as Clark, now. His neck is thicker, muscles bunch and swell in his arms as he flexes unconsciously. Yeah. He could take Clark now, he thinks. Well, his muscle and a set of kryptonite laced brass knuckles...the thought makes him laugh, it's the certainty that Clark--Superman would laugh too, that makes him chuckle. There is another picture of him, standing in Martha's garden. He doesn't remember it, doesn't remember ever being in her garden but there he is, and he looks...young. Like a believer. Clark is standing next to him. The expression on his face is so pure, so full of something...happiness, something else, and his hand is extended but the Lex in the picture doesn't see it. He's looking away. Lex snorts at the obvious symbolism. `Please.' He stops at a third picture of himself he really doesn't remember. And this one is a little newer, maybe...four, five years ago--there's the Spyder he owned briefly. Hunh. They weren't even talking then.

The fourth picture--shit--it's him in Brazil, carnival--he remembers that one, the dress he's wearing is pushed all the way up his ass and he even remembers that huge guy with his hand under the thong he's wearing. No one had known who he was--he was wearing tons of make up--he remembered that god-awful expensive wig. He'd been all over and no one knew him--except Clark. The thought that maybe Clark's mother has seen this picture makes blood stain his cheeks. Fuck, he'd been so drunk. He couldn't even get it up that night, he'd been so drunk...not that he can remember much about that night. The pictures are--interesting. There are several of them, all focused on him, none of them particularly flattering. Why the hell--no, how the hell did Clark have this picture? They're a couple of years newer than the Spyder picture...there are a few other pictures of himself from different years, but all of them taken after Clark and he became enemies, all at social functions... He flings the stack to the table, sees there are notes on the backs of some of them. Locations, times--there are numbers--fuck! His cell number, land line---no one knows those numbers but the people who absolutely have to...he feels his face burning with rage. Superman's been spying on him. The fucker's been invading his private life for years.

This was different than investigating criminal activities, that's something he expects. But this--this is--spying, violating. He never investigated Clark's personal life. Never. He has no idea who Clark was fucking, who he dated, what he did for fun, and he doesn't give a shit. He knows about the affair with Lois lane--that was public knowledge. He knows something happened with the little blonde, the one that was such a troublemaker. Chloe. And there were always pictures of Clark in the papers, magazines, always with some pretty little china doll of a bitch. What the hell, newscasters are news too, when they're as well known as Clark Kent. He snorts.

He pulls the photos of the giant (and incredibly sexy, if memory served him right) Brazilian, jams them in his pocket and sees that there's a scrap of cardboard loose in the bottom of the box, there's a picture, trapped under the loose cardboard and. And...

Oh. My. God. Does a straight man take a picture like that? Keep a picture like that? More importantly, can you get fucked like that and not remember it? And the thought occurs--maybe someone had recognized him--these are blackmail pictures, these things, or something like it. Maybe Clark didn't take them--maybe he'd bought them. To protect Lex?

He crams them deep in his overcoat pocket and prays, like he rarely ever does, that the thick dust on the box means Martha never came up here--that she never looked at these. He grabs the garden picture too.

III

/// An alarm went off in his office, which meant one was going off in the penthouse too. His phone rang and transferred to his secretary--he was in a meeting. She bounced it back and he frowned. Excuse me, and shut the phone off. He knew what it meant but this meeting was too important--had taken too long to set up and was vitally important to Lexcorp's expansion. His lawyers and officers turned to him and he smiled confidently across the table. We're looking forward to stepping into the future with you, he assured the latest object of acquisition.

The meeting was rocky. He's leaning back in the limo, eyes trained on the ceiling and heart slamming in his chest. He has no more patience. The moment he feared would come hoped would never come waited for was here.

Superman was awake. ///

He strode past the nurses bustling around in the guestroom. Dr. Frame was there, taking notes, checking his team.

"Lex, he's awake."

Lex gestured to the still form. The eyes were still closed.

Dr. Frame shook his head. "He's awake, he is aware. And he seems to be...okay."

"Lucky for you," Lex smirks. "I don't know how you'd explain to him that you cut his chest open while he was sleeping."

Frame stared back with a look of open mouthed horror before he realized Lex was having fun at his expense.

"You can get out now."

He was alone with him. He edged up to the table, slowly, almost afraid to see the change...he leaned over the side and Clark...opened his eyes. Smiled, and reached his hand up, shaky and slow, and touched Lex's cheek. The smile was so sweet, it made Lex shiver. The touch was hesitant, affectionate, and he ached with a full body memory.... "Clark?" He pushed the hand away.

The wide green eyes blinked, slowly. The smile wavered a bit, and the chin wrinkled. Tears began to run. "Where's my dad? Do you know my mommy?" the big hand curled in around the quivering mouth, and Lex cursed, cursed, cursed.

God Damn It....

There was no reason for the memory loss that could be found. There was, as far as could be determined, no physical damage to the brain. Perhaps the kryptonite splinter affected the brain in some way. Perhaps some sort of trauma that couldn't be detected with the equipment or technology available to them. Perhaps it was a normal kryptonian reaction to severe damage...no one knew.

Lex had a theory. He postulated that the alien was doing it on purpose, to drive him insane. With sufficient incentive, he could be made to reveal his insidious plan, incentive in the form of a kryptonite bat, perhaps, or kryptonite cleats...

When Lex calmed down, he caught sight of extremely frightened green eyes, round as saucers, and a trembly chin... that chin...

"I'm sorry, I don't mean it." It shredded him inside to apologize. The solemn expression never changed as Clark nodded, obviously not believing him for a second. "No really. I am sorry." And that might have been more believable if he hadn't nearly shouted it--and there went the tears. Damn it.

Tears spilled over Clark's cheeks and dripped from his chin, and for a moment, Lex really felt like he was dealing with the child Clark seemed to think he was instead of a grown man.

He called for the nurse, and left the room. Let someone else deal with the insanity.

Days passed before Lex was able to force himself back into the guest room, when he did, he was greeted with a trill of...happiness.

"I thought you would never come back! I thought I'd made you too mad," the ... `boy' finished, his tone noticeably sadder, softer.

"Clark--never mind. Can you tell me what you remember? About...anything?"

Clark nodded. "Yes. I remember lots-- the corn falling down...and I remember...Mrs. Hannigan giving us crayons. I can write my name," he said proudly. "Clark Jerome Kent... I have to be extra extra careful not to break mine." Clark screwed up his face and thought very hard. "I remember...some body giving me hug. Someone who said they would be my friend always. Was that you?"

Lex chewed on his lip. Okay, obviously Clark's life experiences were jumbled, but he seemed to remember parts of his life, maybe he would remember more as he healed. "Do you remember your mother--father? Smallville?" He sat on the edge of the bed, and Clark let out a little creak of satisfaction, and leaned against Lex.

"No. Is that bad? Do I have a mom and dad?" He pet Lex's arm. "I'm really hungry but these people won't let me eat. Can you make them let me eat?"

Lex felt himself relax into Clark's warmth--and stiffened. Clark, amnesiac or not, was still Superman, his enemy. "Yes, that much I can do." Clark seemed unaware of his reserve, and he left him happy with the promise of food, went to his study and locked himself in.

"Martha, we're pursuing some promising leads. I'll get in touch soon," he told the Kent's answering machine. He spent the rest of that night staring at the skyline from his study window, watching the sun rise over the horizon.

IV

Clark followed Lex everywhere. He followed him whenever he went out to the patio, and nothing ruined his enjoyment of the view quite like Clark struggling not to cry in fear every time Lex walked close to the very safe, sufficiently high wall around the rooftop garden. He did recall that at some point in their early acquaintance Clark had mentioned that he was afraid of heights. And, as Lex quickly found out, the dark, loud noises, and spiders, which fear Clark demonstrated by breaking his hand when he grabbed it on sight of a small black spider, a very small spider. Too small to harm him, as Lex tried to point out. Lex was forced to try and hide the tears of pain that sprang to his eyes when Clark squeezed the broken bones of his hand. He tried to hide his pain because exactly what he feared would happen happened. Clark became nearly hysterical with guilt, and a six foot four, virtually unstoppable man having a hysterical fit was not in the least funny--it was fearsome, and extremely destructive, terrifically dangerous. It was frightening, enough that he had to work to hide his fear--and to do a better job than he'd done hiding his pain.

/// He shifted in his chair at the memory, disgusted with himself, with his lack of emotional control. In a way he could barely understand, it was easy now to forgive, put aside the lies and betrayals, the anger and hatred. This...child... hadn't learned to lie yet. The sky was still magically blue to him; there was still a man in the moon for him. Lex leaned his head against his hands. He was horribly afraid he was falling under that spell all over again. He prayed instead that he was simply going insane. ///

His days were spent as usual, running the machine that was Lexcorp. His evenings took a turn into...he had no way to describe it. He'd taken a step through the looking glass. His evenings were a world in which Clark waited for him with all the excitement a preschooler could muster, eager to share his day, vibrating with excitement when he had a memory to tell him, or a well executed drawing. Lex looked into his wide green eyes every evening and swore that the next day, he'd call Martha, tell her....

Days turned to weeks, and there'd been no change for Clark. He was still a child, and the memories he retrieved were vague, unattached to any significant fact of his life. He was happy, that much was sure. Lex found himself wondering if this was the child Jonathan and Martha had known--if so, it was no wonder they'd been so devoted to him, so desperate to protect him and rightly so, from men like himself. It was a...revelation. Clark had seemed good when he'd known him because at this age, he had been. Clark looked up to him, and it was remarkable how similar the look was to that of the young teenager long gone. Lex tried his best to ignore that.

V

It's a bright day, the weather perfect and seductive, calling out to be enjoyed. Lex heeds the siren call--informs his subordinates that he has business elsewhere and they'll be working late this day. He breezes out of the office with a smile, swimming through their venom like it's mother's milk. Amateurs....

A day so perfect calls for a change in routine, so he takes his...ward...to the park. A walk, perhaps a visit to the museum...it will be a break for both of them. His current push for acquisition is proving to be a headache. There's unanticipated resistance to the merger, and his head is full of figures and plans, and he's strangely reluctant to employ his usual means of persuasion...

Clark is walking along next to him, head back, the sun dancing across the black hair lifting in the slight breeze. His eyes are closed and he's smiling like a fool--his fingers are clutched in the sleeve of Lex's coat. Lex refuses to see it as anything but terribly silly.

Clark is narrating his blind excursion. "I hear birds, and people, I hear a dog, a lot of dogs--and a truck...here come's a bicycle," and a full minute later a bike whizzes by, and Clark crows, `told you so,' as if Lex had expressed skepticism. He has to smile. Only a heart of crystal could resist such joy, such beauty.

Clark drags him to a play area--swings, merry-go-round, sliding board--and runs ahead to wait his turn on the swings. He's smiling, cheeks pink with anticipation, bouncing on his feet...

"What are you doing?" a little girl asks him, staring suspiciously.

"Waiting to swing."

Another boy says, "You can't, this is not for grown-ups."

Clark frowns, "I can so."

The girl shakes her head. "You can't, you're too big." She says it with an air of finality, and Clark starts to look worried, confused. Lex hurries up, takes him by the arm. Clark can't be budged. He looks over the playground; at mothers and their children, fathers pushing swings, picking up their little ones, and dusting off sand and kissing bruises...

There's a sound of something small dying. Lex turns to him and he's forced to watch as the knowledge fills Clark. Tears are threatening as he says, "I'm different. I'm not like them, not little. What's wrong with me?" Lex stands trembling on the edge of ordering mass murder and dying at the loss of innocence once again.

Clark smiles, a brave smile, and pats him on the arm, "it's okay, don't cry. I knew there was something...can we go home now, I'm really tired."

Lex wipes his eyes--he's certainly not crying--these brats are kicking up so much dust....

/// Lex decides that he needs to get out. Clark is ruining his life, running his life-- everything revolves around the kid--man--alien, whatever. He stands under the pounding jets of his state of the art shower, the main shower head is set to rainforest, and the side jets to pulsate. He lets the force of the water and the heat drive out unpleasant memories of the day. Clark had been...difficult. Lex felt a huge pang of sympathy for Martha and Jonathan Kent. They'd had...a lot to deal with. A lot.

Clark had decided in no uncertain terms he was not going to bathe that evening. And what a fight that had been. He'd have to have the plasterer and the plumber in tomorrow, and have someone come in to redo the tile in the guestroom bathroom. He frowned, calculating the cost.
And then, slipping into his mind like soap through his hands...the memory of Clark, huge muscular, angry and extremely naked, running down the hall, yelling no at the top of his lungs...Lex tries hard to suppress the giggles that lock in his throat, his shoulders shake and before he knows it he's leaning against the wall, laughing so hard tears fill his eyes. His ribs ache when he finally manages to control himself--and then the memory of the night nurse's scandalized face rises up, and folds him over again. Clark, Clark...god damn it.

It really had been cute, in an aggravating way. ///

Lex was seized with the horrible and irrational desire to call Martha and ask her to tell him about Clark as a baby...he wanted to share stories like a...like a...fuck.

He shut off the shower, wrapped himself in the towel heating on the bar. He seriously, really needed to get laid. Get real. He stomped through the bedroom. And this time, he wasn't paying for it.

VI

"Hey!" It was shouted into his ear, and Lex grimaced. The owner of the mouth that was pressed against his cheek was attractive, and obviously sure of himself. No one else had tried to plaster themselves on the billionaire body of Metropolis' most eligible bachelor. Not to mention, Metropolis' most securitied up bachelor--Lex could see one of his guards about to step in, but he made a tiny negative shake of his head. The limpet on his side was one of his set--one of his old set, he should say. He hadn't seen Michael since they were kids, but he saw him from time to time in the `pages' and heard of him in passing. He kept an idle sort of track of the coming and goings of the rich and famous.

"Lee--eex. It's been way too long, too long." The mouth against his ear was wet and warm, and Lex actually felt a little lick of lust. He'd never done anyone in his crowd--he kept his sexuality to himself, once he'd left Excelsior and that car crash of a crush he'd had on his room mate at the time.

Michael was high, but still...Michael shoved a hand up under his shirt, and rubbed his fingertips across his belly. "I always wondered what gets you going, Lex...you're such an iceman. Nothing turns you on. I always wanted to see..." his fingertips rode under the waistband of his trousers, and Lex grabbed his hand, hard.

"Oh, I don't think you really want to know what turns me on," Lex said and gave Michael a wolfish smile. One part of his brain was running down Michael's assets and connections--his dad owned a major design house that had fallen on less lustrous times--they were currently in talks to license the name to a superstore conglomerate-- that was a death knell, Lex thought--Michael's mother had a successful perfume line and...the other part of his brain concentrated on the fact that Michael had always had the best shit and once upon a time he was rumored to be a decent enough fuck....

Michael staggered and leaned against him. "Kinky. I like kinky. You can do anything, I don't care. Especially right now," he grinned blearily.

Lex had a flash--green eyes, skin forever--and groaned. "In that case, how about the Amsterdam?" Lex kept a room there still, a holdover from his partying days.

"The Amsterdam?" Michael frowned, and Lex realized that the hotel was no longer considered the place to stay--"Do you want to fuck, or critique my taste?" Lex snapped and Michael shook his head quickly.

"Do you have a car," Lex asked, and at Michael's affirmative nod, he spoke into his phone quickly. "Follow, not too close, I'll be over night at the Amsterdam." Yes sir, he heard, and ushered the idiot with him out the door.

There was something about an imbalance of power that was just terribly arousing, Lex mused. Michael was facing the headboard, his hands tied to it, blindfolded...it made him much prettier. He probably should have gagged him too. Lex had to admit, he liked the way his ass quivered every time he stroked his back. Nice. Lex reached under and pinched his nipple. Hard. Twisted a little, and Michael groaned. "That hurts."

Lex might have stopped, but every time he twisted, Michael's dick leaked, and bounced. Lex pinched the flesh right under his navel, dug his nails in as he twisted and Michael reared back. His nipples were bright red from being mauled, swollen, like his mouth, red and wet and every time Lex performed some little indignity on him, he licked his lips and moaned. All along his thighs, thick clear fluid was smeared. Ran his finger along the foreskin, pulled it back. Lex rolled the palm of his hand over the deep red swollen tip. He was fascinated. Beside Clark's, he'd never touched an uncut penis. He rolled the skin between his fingertips and Michael jerked and groaned. "Please, come on," he gasped. "Do--do something."

"Shh, be patient." He leaned over and ran the tip of his tongue along the rim, slid it between the head and the hood surrounding it. Lex sucked the tip in and chased precome with his tongue, polishing the skin, drinking him down. He pressed fingers into him; bit his hip when he jerked too hard. "Keep still." He bit him again, sucking up bruises, hard--they were purple when he pulled back, snagged a condom from the folds of the comforter.

He rolled the lubricated condom down, stroking himself lightly as he did. He lined his dick up with the whorl of muscle, and pushed...he slid in, popped in, and groaned. Michael shivered from head to toes, and moaned, bent forward a little, but Lex just pushed the tip in and back a little, not pulling out, not pushing in, and did it until Michael practically yelled, "Put it in, you fucker--"

Lex chucked deep in his chest. "Okay, okay..." he shoved in, hard, fast, and bit down on Michael's shoulder at the same time, and just as he figured, the intensity of the two sensations crossed wires for him and made him jerk--his dick smacked his belly with a liquid noise. Lex laughed and groaned at the same time. "Yeah, yeah, shit."

Michael was good at this, he squeezed and fucked back on Lex, all Lex had to do was hold him, maul his neck and shoulders, and each bite brought a fresh yelp, and wiggle. Lex's dick was buried in the guy as far as it would go, he felt it building, boiling, tightening his skin, muscles, he was panting and Michael was drooling all over the palm he had pressed against his mouth just for fun....

"What are you doing?"

"Jesus!" Lex's eyes shot open--what the fuck "--Clark! How the hell--why?"

"I got lonely so I came looking for you...what are you doing?"

Lex bit the inside of his cheek hard, so hard, he tasted blood--but Michael was tightening on him, he was convulsing around him, his dick was spurting and Lex could feel it coat his hand and shit--he was coming, tears came to his eyes because it was so good, so hard, and he was biting down, gritting his teeth and desperate not to make a sound.

"Lex--"

The tone was worried, almost afraid and Lex refused to look at him--God. "Go--Clark-- I--shit. Why are you here?" he panted. "Get out! Go home--this instant, right now, you hear? Right now."

Clark let out a sob, and ran back to the open window, and was out--gone--flying. Lex dropped to Michael's wet back. Well, looked like Clark fully recovered his powers, if not his memory. Jesus, he probably traumatized the kid...he pulled out and staggered to the bathroom. Oh well, that's what therapists were for. He sat on the edge of the tub and felt faintly sick, and guilty. Damn it. He should be

"Are you going to untie me, Lex.? Lex? Lex? Hello?"

Lex really thought about leaving him tied up. It was a delicious thought. He grinned.

PART THREE

I

Clark glared at him over the breakfast table. "I hate oatmeal. I won't eat it."

Lex shook his napkin open, stared at it, and tossed it next to his plate. "Yesterday Clark, you loved oatmeal."

"I hate it, and I hate you!"

Lex looked up sharply, but Clark's eyes were full, tears threatening to spill over. "You hate me--you never let me do anything. And you like your friends better than you like me."

Lex felt, with a shiver of horror, blood flow to his face. "Clark. You're very important to me--you have to know that--"

Clark leapt up, and the table rocked. "Oh!" He grabbed the table, steadied it, and with a venomous look at Lex, rushed from the room, and Lex was grateful he remembered not to speed. He put his head into his hands and sighed. For the last week, Clark had been difficult. To be precise--he was a brat. He could hear the sound of airborne items coming from Clark's room, and he sighed heavily. The cook brought him a cup of fresh coffee and sympathy. It was a measure of his exhaustion that he didn't make a mental note to have her fired; in fact the thought never crossed his mind.

He opened the briefcase he'd stowed under his chair, sent a brief message to his office--he'd work from home today. With half of his attention directed to the part of the apartment that rang with the sound of Clark's tantrum, and half of his attention directed on what he read, it was a taxing morning. Eventually there was silence from the boy's room, and he could finally really concentrate. And what he was reading displeased him. There were advantages to the disposal system proposed for factories they'd just purchased in the mid-west--but the drawbacks were significant. Studies showed a slow build-up of pollutants in the soil and nearby water sources surrounding the holding tanks the system proposed...he tossed the sheets onto the table and sipped at his re-warmed coffee. Made a face. This proposal was unacceptable. True, the problems wouldn't really surface until the next generation--but that no longer seemed an option to him. The thought that the children of the children living today might suffer because of his desire for immediate gain...all he could see was Clark's face, Clark in pain, and his mouth twisted. Shit.

Lex stood and felt--adrift. Some horrible change was taking place...something was tearing him apart, slowly painfully. It centered in his chest, and hurt, worse when he thought of the surviving Kents. The troublesome irritating irrationality the family caused.

Martha. Fuck. He had to call her...tell her something. He drifted around his study, and his steps took him to the door, and he ended up leaning against the door of the teenage wasteland currently being built sullen brick by sullen brick behind Clark's door--the guestroom door, god damn it. He could hear music playing and not the music that was current during Clark's actual adolescent years--it was new...how did they find this stuff? He'd done his best to educate Clark--the right music, art, the right fashions, everything he'd always wanted to give Clark--and instead, he listened to some crap that made ears bleed, played video games, and watched the worst garbage on TV--Lex laughed, and knocked his head against the door. 'I'm a fucking old person, I'm...'

He knocked his head hard against the door. 'I'm not his father, he's not a child. Because it would be sick beyond all degrees of sickness to think about him the way I do....' He pulled himself away from the door, and it opened a fraction.

"Lex...?"

"Clark. I'm sorry. Whatever I did, I'm sorry."

Clark peered at him. "Can you come inside please? You haven't been in my room since--for a long time."

"Well, thank you for inviting me in." Clark stood to the side and grinned as he walked past. Lex looked at him. "What?"

"I'm waiting for you to make a comment about the children of the night."

Lex stopped, eyes wide and a grin lifting one side of his mouth. "I though you slept through that particular movie," he said, and flushed a little. Clark had fallen asleep--he thought--with his head in his lap, and he'd indulged himself, running his fingers through and though his silky warm hair, only the glow from the screen lighting his features....he hoped Clark didn't recall that.

Clark blushed hard. "I--I was awake. I heard, and remembered."

Lex sighed. There was that hope exploded.

Clark dashed past him and leapt onto his bed. Lex looked around at the expensively papered walls, hung over with mysterious posters, bizarre bands, cars, and--his heart squeezed--star charts, on the ceiling, over his bed, just like Clark's childhood bedroom...a thought intruded on his nostalgia. He asked sharply "Who got you all these--where did they come from?"

"The housekeeper. She has a son my age. I--I mean..." he looked down and swallowed. "I know I'm not a kid, but...I feel like one. I know that there are big chunks of my life I don't remember, and you keep telling me to give it time, but...I want to know! I want to know things now!"

"You're impatient. You were impatient before, and you're still impatient." Lex snapped, unleashing a touch of his own impatience, and silently curses. He truly had meant to be sympathetic. Naturally, contrary as always--instead of looking chastised, Clark grinned and Lex went blind, and deaf, and waited for sense to return. "You're not listening, Clark."

"Yes, I am. Lex." Clark leaned forward, and beckoned Lex closer. He reached out his hand, and Lex took it, so used to the gesture from young Clark, used to being patted by him and hugged by him, and his cheek smeared with sticky damp kisses and it tore him that he missed it so much. He was becoming used to living a schizophrenic life. Again.

"Lex," Clark went on, "are you...are you my father? Is it because of...whatever is wrong with me, that you don't want to tell me you're my father?"

Lex stared, horrified. "God, no. You're not my son."

Clark jerked back, a look of devastation on his face. "You're glad. I get it." His face closed down, emotion fled and he looked blank faced at the wall. Lex shivered--it was chilling to see his expression on Clark's face. "I would be glad, too. I'm a freak. I do all this weird stuff...like that night I followed your heart beat to the hotel..." a tear rolled down his cheek.

"You're not my son--it's better--I'm your best friend in all the world--we're like brothers. You can think of me as-as your big brother." Lex heard himself blather like an idiot, and grit his teeth, willing himself to stop.

Clark flung himself back to gaze at Lex, joy lighting his features. "Really? A big brother? That means that you love me, right?" without waiting for conformation, he threw his arms around Lex and hugged him, buried his face in his neck.

"Oh God... yes." Lex instantly wished to be struck mute.

Clark smiled and closed his eyes. "We are the best friends in the world, and you love me so much you call me brother," he said, in the tone of a boy repeating an age old story.

Lex spent the next half hour helplessly patting Clark's back as he napped.

Lex--of course--is terribly surprised and disappointed when Clark--of course--flies into a tantrum over lunch the next day. He's accused again of hating him and not wanting him to have friends, and why can't he go with the housekeeper's son to the mall? Two hours, that's all he wants--and Lex is such a jerk and a control freak and a jerk.

Lex is a little shaken by the vehemence of Clark's shouted statements. He is unreservedly grateful that Clark is not really a teen, that he can get rid of him any time he wants. He's under no obligation to protect or provide for this creature, he's here, alive, only because Lex allows it. He scowls at Clark, his lips pressed in a thin line--the boy is ridiculously upset, his eyes are flashing, he's cheeks are burning red and he's...too beautiful.

Lex has also seen the housekeeper's son--he doesn't give a flying fuck if the kid is only sixteen. He was not about to trust Clark to that shark.

There.
There it is again.

Lex is angry, with Clark, and most of all himself. He forgets, again and again, that Clark is not human, not his..... He needs to stop treating him like a child.

"Stop treating me like a child!" Clark yells and slams his bedroom door shut. Lex gapes at the door. His eyes narrow. Okay. There was loss of control, and there was acting out. Never once did Clark loose it sufficiently to ruin anything. He's been rather careful. One might say selective of what he ruined. He suspects that this is active punishment perhaps--disguised as teen angst. Clark and he needed to talk--to negotiate. Lex smiles. On one hand, he's very proud of Clark, it's quite a good ploy; on the other hand, he was a past master of this kind of manipulation. He had nothing to loose.

Clark is granted an hour and a half at the mall with the housekeeper's boy. The housekeeper seems so prepared to open a vein in a bid for forgiveness that Lex's heart thaws somewhat. Days later, the boy is the recipient of a full ride to a prestigious school upstate...a boarding school. The housekeeper swallows and smiles and thanks Lex repeatedly for the wonderful opportunity given her son.

It satisfies Lex's need for punishment.

Clark looks at him, silent, glacially cold all the time now. He walks past him, and throws him a sneer and he knows Clark never sneered at anyone in his life--before...he eats dinner quietly, looking, looking right into him...

One day Clark asked for permission to enter Lex's study, surprised, Lex granted it. Clark had never asked before, he came running in, or walked in like he had a right to-- but now he stood at the door, and knocked politely. He came in to stand by the desk, and after a quick glance, sat quietly next to him. After a few minutes--right before Lex felt moved to fill the silence--he spoke. He said softly, "What you did sucked. That was just--just shit."

"Clark--"

"You're going to tell me to watch my mouth after you broke that woman's heart? You tore her world apart and she's afraid to quit, or take her son out of that school because she's not sure what you'll do? And what was t he crime? Her kid thinking I was a nice guy? How fucked is that?" He stood and stared at Lex. Said quietly, and sincerely, "I hate you. I really do."

Lex stared at his desk for long, long minutes after Clark walked out. Finally, he called the housekeeper into the study.

PART FOUR

I

"Martha. I...have news for you."

"Oh my God, Lex--I'd given up hope--what have you found?"

"I may have a lead. I'm going to tell you something--but bear in mind that these things often don't pan out...he might be alive." His stomach burned acid as he listened to her startled exclamation of joy, hope... "Remember, it may not be true. My people are tearing apart the city--the country--looking for confirmation of this."

"Lex, Lex...thank you. You've been a good friend to me. Thank you."

He managed to get her off the phone as politely as possible. He sighed, and rubbed his face, shoulders heavy and aching with the weight of the world. Worlds. It was already getting dark--the air was colder now than when he'd first sat down in the study. A click of the remote turned on the fireplace, and the gas flames tried to light the room, shadows still hung in all the corners. He sneered at himself. How very symbolic of his life--shadows over hung everything and he may have thought he was changing but at every turn, he proved himself wrong. Like long dead Jonathan Kent said, in that tedious clich-rich way he had--the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. This particular tree had rotten roots and twisted limbs, and the fruit it bore was poison.

Part of the dark shifted, and Clark stood there, looking at him in that way that he'd grown entirely familiar with. Barely concealed anger, sadness, disappointment...fuck. So little difference in those eyes--it was like revisiting the past, soon...soon disappointment and sadness would be replace with hatred and disgust.

"The woman you were speaking to was my mother, wasn't it?" He strode forward, into the light.
Lex leaned back, arms resting on the chair and his head tilted back a little so that he could see Clark's face.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Lex shrugged. "There are a dozen reasons."

"Are any of them the truth?"

Lex opened his mouth, closed it. Shrugged again. "What do you want me to say, Clark?" He blinked and Clark wasn't standing by the fire any longer. He was at Lex's knees, he was bent, each of his hands griped Lex's knees. He looked intensely at Lex and Lex knew Clark could easily kill him--he wasn't raised by Jonathan this time--he was raised by the poisonous branch of a deadly tree.

Clark closed his eyes. "Tell me why and tell me the truth."

Lex sighed. "The minute you opened your eyes, and I looked into them, I couldn't give you up."

Clark nodded. "The woman on the phone, I see her face, but I don't know her." He looked at Lex. "I don't want to leave...please. I don't know her."

Lex nodded. "I understand. But you'll want to, more than likely very soon. You're remembering more and more every day." He looked into Clark's eyes. "You might not tell me, but it's there in your eyes. You know me."

Clark stared back steadily. "I'm not a child, I never was. Make love to me."

Lex coughed, Clark's request crashed though his brain and rendered him speechless, stupid with shock. He managed to stammer out, "No--no..." He was trying to push away from the desk, but Clark loomed over him, trapping him at the desk. Images he'd managed to keep suppressed, barely, broke free--he can almost feel them shattering inside....

Clark cradled his face, pulled him closer and pressed hot lips to his smooth brow. "Make love to me, please."

Lex pushed him away, and Clark was back in the shadows. "Do you want me to tell you about a dream I had...a dream about you?"

Lex shook his head--no, no.

"It was...frightening. And good. You held me, and touched me, and I shook all over, when I woke, I was shivering, my pajamas were...wet...but by the time I stopped shivering..."

Lex stood, "I don't want to hear this. I don't want to know." He tried to move past Clark, but he stopped him, massive hand wrapped around his bicep, not tight but the touch made him freeze.

"By that time I knew. I remembered having sex, and the feeling of being lost, and alone, and I remembered one other thing...I remembered you."

Lex turned his face to him slowly, lifted his chin and smiled. "Did you? And how did you find the experience?"

"Confusing," Clark confessed. "Because you hate me. The look in your eyes in my memory is nothing like the look in your eyes now."

Lex continued to smile, "You're going to remember the other side of the coin soon, you're going to remember just how much you hate me." He said. He stroked Clark's cheek. "I do want to make love to you. But I can't." He walked out and Clark followed him.

He followed Lex to his room, and Lex sat on the edge of his bed. "Clark. I'll lose you if we do this. I know it. And I've wanted to do this since the moment I first saw you."

Clark stepped up to the bed, reached out and unbuttoned Lex's shirt, pulled it free from his body. His thumbs traced Lex's collarbones. "I know. I remembered that. The way you'd look at me...I used to leave your place and think of it all the way home--I'd jerk off at night, thinking of the way you looked at me...your mouth..."

Lex closed his eyes and the tiniest broken sound escaped him. Clark leaned down and kissed him. "I want everything, but I don't feel like I have time--please." He unbuttoned Lex's pants, pulled the zipper and slid his pants off. He put his warm hand over the bulge in his boxers. "Lex, it's like I dreamed. So hot under the silk and so smooth..." He squeezed slightly. "Lex..." He slid to his knees and kissed the straining shape trapped in the silk.

Lex dropped his head back. "Oh...Clark...oh god, Clark..." He pulled him away from his dick. "Clark, he said, his voice loud and frantic, "Listen to me." He grabbed Clark's head, his hands tight on either side of his face. "I loved you then, I love you now, and I never stopped. You're a good man, and I wanted you to save me, but I didn't know how to ask--I wanted you--but the one good thing I did was not take you."' His eyes were locked on Clark's searching, hoping... "Please remember..."

"Lex, how can I forget this? No matter what else I remember, how could I forget all of this?"

Lex closed his eyes against the rush of tears, and Clark kissed him, wet, hard, and he groaned, and Lex realized that this was Clark's first kiss...again. This was what was important. Not coming on each other, in him...this trust. This love. He let himself fall again.
Clark was pressed against him, hard and hot and whispered in his ear, "I love you, no matter what, I love you..."

II

Lex waited, but it wasn't the next morning, the next morning Clark kept him in bed, and found every spot on his body that made him weak and aroused, Clark touched him until he was helpless with desire Or the morning after that--that morning Clark made him breakfast and brought it to bed, read his paper and ate his toast and read him the best bits from the gossip columns, until Lex was helpless with laughter....and the morning after that, he greeted Lex with a smile, and a kiss, and told him that he was glad for everything because it brought them close together. He held Lex and begged him to tell him the same, that he'd never give Clark up, and Lex listened and realized just how deep and meaningful, so all consuming and so everlasting a teen's first love is, and he went cold. He'd fallen, all right. He'd taken the wrong path; he'd done things the Luthor way--again. He reached out as desperately as Clark reached out to him. He pet Clark, and kissed him, and swore that Clark belonged to him forever and justified it, it really wasn't a lie and this wasn't wrong...he wasn't really a child...it really would last forever....

Early morning, and Lex is sitting at the breakfast table, alone. It's been a very long time since he's eaten alone. He's grown used to lively, sometimes confusing conversation, from alphabets to cars, and odd and interesting gifts that have grown from macaroni landscapes to handwritten illuminated copies of remarkably bad poetry, which he treasures. He smiles around the rim of his cup and thumbs through the Planet, bypassing the business section....

There's a noise at the end of the hall, he waits for his lover to join him, and Clark comes out of their--the bedroom. His eyes are cold, and all he asks for is the phone.

Lex puts the paper down and says, "Certainly. Do you plan to tell her I lied all these months?" He relaxes in his chair...he's stopped falling.

"No, it would hurt her too much. I don't want you to call her anymore."

"Of course," he mutters with a small smile. Clark turns away and Lex says in a light, mocking tone, "I suppose last night was the last time we'll have sex..." His hand closed over the knife at his plate, and he believes for a moment, deeply and completely that he can drive it into his own chest. Should drive it into his chest. The moment passes and he draws on the lessons learned at his father's knee. "Pity, you were just starting to get good at it."

Clark whirls back to face him, anger making his eyes stormy. "You took advantage of me--"

Lex laughs out loud now. "Yes, yes I did. Why do you seem surprised?"

"I suppose I'm lucky you didn't take the opportunity to cut me into bits, though I'm sure that was coming--after you got bored with this--this..." He stops and glares, no doubt hoping to convey the depths of his moral outrage and disgust by brain waves. Lex waves that off--anyone was an amateur compared to dear departed dad.

"Cut you into bits?" He smiles, a small sardonic curl. "You make a solid argument for it now."

Clark takes a furious step forward, his invincible hands curling into fists--he looks angry, eager....

"I feel I should warn you about the kryptonite gas I have ready to steam out of the vents." He watches Clark. He looks horrified for a moment, even...hurt, but it flickers across his face so quickly Lex isn't sure he imagined it, and then he's narrowing his eyes at Lex, and that's an expression he's too, too familiar with.

"You're lying."

"I prefer to call it teasing."

Clark a week or so ago, would have cursed, this person just...stomps off.

"Still having tantrums," Lex whispers into his cup and hears the door slam to Clark's room.

When he's certain Clark is distracted, he goes out to the patio, and gives in to sorrow. Just for a moment. He turns his face to the sun and mourns the loss of a life he'd grown accustomed to.

Clark is standing in the living room when he comes back in, wearing the simplest of what Lex has provided for him.

"Luthor--I have no proof you engineered this situation, but I warn you, if you try to use any of it to your advantage, I'll make sure that every waking moment is a living, breathing, nightmare for you." Lex lifts an eyebrow. That was different. Not quite...Superman.
"If, if you didn't have anything to do with it, than I suppose I should thank you...if you hadn't intervened I might still be comatose--perhaps dead. Fortunate that we had an instance in which our interests coincided." He looks down his nose at Lex, and Lex can only smile at the way Clark expressed himself. Whether he knows it or not--Lex seems to have had some influence.

"I'll be watching you, Luthor."

"Yes, yes," Lex rolls his eyes and turns away before Clark finishes speaking, wanders over to the bar. By the time he's carefully dropped a cube of ice into his glass and turns back, the room is empty. He raises the glass to his lips, takes a slow precise sip, and watches the curtain swell in the breeze let in by the open patio doors.

Lex wanders around in an apartment that seems too big. He's assaulted several times a day with full body memories of the first and the last night he and Clark spent together-- it never fails to make him ragingly hard, but never angry. There's been something killed inside of him--burned out, and he was ashes inside. Even so, he wasn't exactly empty, not exactly sad. He found as days passed, he really had no regrets. He would do it again, and he would do it the same way.

Of course, there was the need for revenge. That went without saying. Revenge was the corner stone of his life after all. And he found the perfect revenge was to give Clark none, and tore his empire into shreds, and rebuilt it in a new image.

No threat in the world make him reveal how much of what he did was spurred on by the look in the eyes of the young boy who'd lived with him for not long enough....

III

One morning, he wakes with a cry--he dreamed he was dying, drowning in blood, and reaching out for Clark who won't come to him, but stands on the edge of the lake of blood Lex is sinking into, crying....
That afternoon, he has a limousine prepared to take him to Smallville. He has dozens of white tulips in the car, and he's dressed severely, all in black--armored. He's nervous, more nervous than he can ever remember. He's prepared for every eventuality, even death by shotgun blast. Prepared for everything except possibly...

"Lex, Lex..." Martha runs to him, enfolds him in her arms, and he finds himself holding back the way he hasn't in months gone by. He inhales...her familiar scent surrounds him--Chanel, cinnamon, and most of all, cotton and sunlight, just like Clark--it tortures and accuses him.

"Come in, it's been so lonely without you. You stopped calling." She looks at him accusingly. "You stopped taking my calls."

Hope flares, and he thinks that maybe, maybe Clark spared him this. "Well...you son returned to you, I rather assumed that..."

She looks at him with exasperated affection, "That I'd have no use for you anymore? Idiot."

"Martha..." he says, and smiles. "Yes. Idiot."

Martha leads him into the kitchen, a place that's become as comfortable to him as his own--more so. He feels...empty, thirsty...he yearns for this comfort with every cell...Martha pours him coffee, and makes him eat homemade pastries full of sugar and fat and empty calories and they make him feel wonderfully full. They talk idly and after a long while, the talk turns to Clark.

"He's back," she says, "but he's...different. I can't explain how. Of course, he's been through a lot, but..."

Lex is afraid. What has Clark told her, that she's able to sit with him, talk to him, feed him? He's especially sharp, on edge as she continues to speak.

She says, "Clark told me that you found him right after you found the rumors to be true that he was alive, he said he was in bad shape, but you helped to bring him out of the coma he was in, he said he lost his memory for a few days--that you helped him to recover them. It was a moving story and a testimonial to the fact that he still cares for you."

Lex can't keep a bitter laugh from breaking free. It slices him to pieces as it pierces the air.

"No, it's true...he really does care for you. Because if he didn't he wouldn't have told me such a load of bullshit."

Lex stares at her, shocked speechless. He's a man who not so long ago dealt with the most heinous criminals imaginable as a matter of course--a man who's ordered the death of so many and once took lives with his own hand and this woman saying bullshit stunned him almost as much as...finding out there was no Santa.

"Yes," she repeats, emphatically. "Bullshit--So." She places her cup on the table just so, and pats her lips with a decorative paper napkin. "You can finally tell me the truth."

Lex struggles to speak a time or two until he manages, with a weak smile, "Martha-- please, I--let me finish my coffee first, you make an excellent cup and I will miss it." And then he proceeds to tell her every bit of the truth, every hard fact, and leaving nothing out and softening nothing...it feels like throwing himself off a very high place....

IV

The sun had set, and the kitchen was plunged into darkness before Martha finally stood to turn on a light. She came back to the table and faced Lex. "Lex...you couldn't escape it, could you? Your father's legacy followed you like a black dog, it ate up everything that was good in you and left nothing behind." She stood, and he stood too. "Sit." She leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, hugging herself, her eyes closed. "You pretended to be a friend for months. Watched me cry..." her eyes flew open. "Cried with me."

He dropped his head--looking into her face was like looking into the sun. His hands spread against the warm oak table top and he barely whispered. "...please."

She came back to sit opposite him again. "You're not that person anymore, Lex. It may have been a game to you at the start but it's different now. Maybe we were all called to suffer to bring us together. I don't know, but I believe there's a reason for everything. I believe that you always wanted to be here," she spread her hands and looked around the kitchen, back to Lex. "I believe...that you were meant to be here. With him. And that it would have been different if you were. If you'd been given that chance."

Lex couldn't look up. He couldn't. He'd leave now, before...before it got too bad.

"Don't think you don't have a chance. And one more thing...he never forgot how much your friendship meant back then, when you were both boys."

Lex drove back to the city; Martha's parting words in his ear. Love was complicated when it wasn't balanced with personal gain. He used to think it made no sense, that it had no basis in reality. It only took the loss of everything to discover the truth

Pain and all, yes, the journey had been worth it. With everything behind him in ashes and flames, he had only one direction left to him, and that was forward.

PART FIVE

I

Lex stepped around a large puddle of thick slush, nearly stepped into it as a stiff gust of wind blew, pushing him sideways. His scarf flung itself even tighter around his neck, and he cursed quietly to himself. No one noticed him, no one stopped to look. He was just another business man rushing home, another one of the faceless, in off-the-rack wool coats, serviceable shoes...he sighed. He did miss custom made boots...very much so. He grimaced as icy sludge oozed through unsealed stitching.

The faster moving crowd parted around him constantly, intent on Christmas shopping, intent on getting home, on celebrating Superman's return to Metropolis, to life. Lex was just as fiercely intent on ignoring them--the season--the man.

It was a year past and another Christmas upon them, since the `death' of Superman. It had taken nearly a month from the time he'd abandoned Lex to reappear in the skies, and Lex wondered where he had been...Martha had never told him where Clark was. And Clark Kent never did make a return. His memory still floated at the bottom of the Atlantic and the last time Lex and Martha spoke, she told him she was finally selling the farm, moving to Metropolis. She sounded happy, excited, and he'd promised to be her escort any time she needed. With the sale of the farm, the last important tie to Smallville would be gone, another part of his past dead and gone, like Jonathan Kent, who he'd so wanted to be like, who he'd wanted so much, to like him--or at least accept him.

Like Clark Kent, gone forever.

Cal Ellison, on the other hand, was alive and doing quite well--Galaxy Broadcasting's dashing anchorman. Lex laughed. It was strange how the world worked. Lex was nothing now like the man who'd bargained for Superman's body what seemed like a lifetime ago, nothing like the boy who'd almost died in Smallville. And nothing like the man Lionel Luthor had groomed to assume his mantle. Lex smirked, felt satisfied that's he'd leveled that tree, ripped out every root and sucker.

As for the new Superman... well. He had no idea what kind of man he was. He'd only known Clark Kent.

He pulled up the collar of his coat, headed for a car parked in a public garage, a late model Mercedes--the lone survivor of the fleet of cars he'd once had at his disposal. The wind swirled down the ramp after him, blowing dry flakes of snow, and bits and scraps of garbage. It swirled around his ankles, tugged at his coat until it wrapped around his legs like a hungry cat, and suddenly blew straight up his back.

"How does it feel to be poor?"

Lex stopped. He smiled, laughed softly, and walked on without a backward look.

The voice at his back continued. "When I woke up, I remembered everything...what you did--what I did, and I wanted to hate you. No one should see another person reduced to so vulnerable a position, so helpless...I thought...I thought you might use it. Mostly I was afraid. My old life and my new life were jumbled in my head and I didn't know what was real so I chose the old, the familiar."

Lex nodded. Logical. He would have done the same.

"My memories are like stop motion film--huge frames are missing from the movie of my life." Lex heard a small chuckle, smiled in automatic response. The voice behind him seemed closer now, and went on. "Mostly I remember...I remember now, loving you. A lot."

Lex felt warmth at his back, his car chirped as he pressed the key.

"Well, I can understand that you don't want to talk to or look at me. I'd hate me too. I have hated me..."

Lex opened his car door, slid in and locked it. He sat still for a moment. Once, Lex Luthor would have thrown the olive branch to the ground. But time stops for no one, not even for a Luthor. "My windows are open at night," he said into the interior of the car, and drove away.

Midnight, and he heard movement outside his bedroom door and made room in the bed. A tall shape stood in the doorway, hesitated until Lex lifted his hand. There was a sound, the snap of fabric whipped in a wind, a breeze and then...velvet warmth against him.

"What do I call you?" Lex arched into the warm arms wrapped around him, smooth skin slid against his own, lips pressed to his throat.

"Call me Kal..." Kal looked into his eyes. "...the name I was born with."

Lex felt curiosity lurch alive in his chest. It was a struggle for a moment, the habits of a lifetime were difficult to erase entirely. He willed himself to relax, and he let it go, and only then did he feel how tense Clark--Kal was. The arms around his chest loosened, their hold became a caress again. Lex laughed to himself. If Kal had killed him...it would have been just the kind of perversely humorous justice the universe seemed to enjoy doling out to him. He reached up and pulled Kal down to him, asked, "Do you miss your life, Kal?"

"Sometimes. But...I gained as much as I lost. Do you miss yours?" He moved against Lex, and Lex groaned at the feel of his dick sliding against Kal's, hot and so alive. Kal grinned, and flexed.

Lex tried to answer him. "No, not--not much, not often..." he moaned and gasped as Kal kept moving. "It's--oh god--it's been a while," he said, with what would have been an apologetic shrug, if he hadn't been pinned to the mattress.

Kal raised an eyebrow and a slow, hot smile curved his lips. "Saving yourself for me." Not a question, a statement, punctuated with his hand wrapped around Lex's dick. "I learned from you, took your example and simplified my life--I don't waste as much time worrying about what I can't fix, I just do what I can to fix what's possible."

Hearing words that could have been his coming from Kal's mouth sent a cold chill down his spine. He'd had no idea he'd been such an effective teacher--but considering what his life was now, Clark had been an effective teacher also--he held tighter to Kal. It was a balance.

"I help them, because they can't help themselves...but I don't blame myself for their failures..." Kal went on, licked a broad stripe down Lex's neck, mouthed along his collarbone. He whispered against Lex's damp skin. "Thank you for that..."

He sucked a path across Lex's chest, stopping to play with his nipples, teasing until Lex cried out in frustration, and pre-come made their slide together easier. Kal chuckled softly and pushed fingers into Lex's mouth, sliding them slowly back and forth, gently...they were dripping wet as he pulled them slowly out of Lex's mouth, and he turned Lex to his belly. Lex groaned. "I don't...Kal, don't, you'll kill me."

Kal laughed. "I promise, I'll bring you back to life," and as he played, Kal told him how much he loved him and something special would happen now that they were one and Lex let the feeling take him, let the belief fill him, and knew he was being distracted from something important. It didn't matter the minute Kal eased his fingers into him, rubbing the tight ring, coaxing it open, letting it get used to the invasion, slid down his body and with gentle movement in and out Kal opened him, with fingers and kisses and wet, wet tongue, made him receptive... He rode back up the length of Lex's lean body, stopping to nip and taste along the way.

Fingers still lazily moving in him, Kal straddled him, kissed the base of Lex's skull and bore down inside him. Lex gasped as lightening tingled along his nerves, surged through him, made him wish to come, "Fuck me, fuck me, Clark."

"Kal."

Firm, a reprimand--his hand splayed in the middle of Lex's back, he held him down and without warning shoved inside--a shattering plunge into pain for Lex--so unexpected and overwhelming that breathing was impossible for what seemed like an eternity before his lungs finally responded to his demand for air, now, lots of it. "Shit--hurts," Lex gasped, and sweat rolled down his face, into his eyes, his mouth. His breath blew against the sheets, the scent of linen filled his nose, he tasted it as he sucked fabric up against his open mouth in his struggle to breathe and it occurred to him that perhaps Clark--Kal--hadn't forgiven a damn thing--perhaps he'd finally become a much, much better liar....

Kal turned Lex's head and kissed his cheek. "You're afraid, don't be afraid. Breathe, Lex, breathe..." swept his hand over Lex's dick, tightening and releasing again and again until Lex was moaning, hard, and all the while, fucked him with shallow strokes until Lex felt the need for him to fuck faster, deeper. Waves of pleasure radiated out from the ring of muscle straining to grip Kal's dick, he felt his whole body ride the crest of pleasure Kal gave him sliding in deep, relished the pull that tugged his whole body, made him throb when he slid out...he quivered and gasped and begged for more, and it never seemed enough--

Kal groaned, "Feel it, feel it...we make something...wonderful together," he moaned and tensed, and came. Lex held back, reluctant to lose the barest second of Kal's orgasm, until he couldn't hold any longer, his eyes closed and Kal held him, harsh whisper filling his ear, "Now, now, come now," and Lex spilled hard and hot ,and slid in the come that filled Kal's hand....

Afterward, they lay in each other's arms, tangled together and inseparable. "There's no going back, you know that. I think we're stuck with each other--" Lex smiled.

Kal shook his head. "We're so much less when we're apart, we're missing something...but together--" he kissed Lex's mouth, "--we're whole."

II

Kal slept heavily, taking up most of the surface of the bed, covers flung away from him and dipping to the floor in a rumpled mess. From his seat on the deep windowsill facing the bed, Lex watched Kal breathe. He leaned against the chilly window panes behind him, and sank deep in thought, wandered through a labyrinth of emotion, memories, regrets and hope for the future. Kal slipped in and out of shadow as sleepy movement brought him into and out of the faint light the moon shed...Lex marveled that in sleep, his face was again innocent as a boy's. Still the hero of the people, still the protector of the innocent...just not the open wound he'd been before crashing against Lex.

Lex smiled down at him. Whether Cal Ellison realized it or not, he was nowhere near as damaged as he seemed to think he was. He thought about what Kal had said before sleeping, recalled a quote he'd always thought was rather fantastic--impossible to feel that way about another person, or so he'd always believed...."So dear I love him that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life," Lex muttered, and Kal sighed and turned in his sleep.

Ridiculous, Lex thought, and rose from the seat. He pulled the rumpled sheet up and covered Kal, and with his thumb lightly traced his cheekbone.

Absolutely ridiculous.

12-06-2006