Disclaimers: Nothing is mine. Not a thing.

Spoilers: Calling/Exodus

Summary: Self image and expression.

Ratings Note: NC-17.

Author's Note: Jenn asked for Lex smut. The Spike
*didn't* ask, but thought it really loud.

Acknowledgments: To Jenn, Devin, and the Spike
for audiencing, and to Ladonna for putting the song
"My Ritual" in my head.

Feedback: Yes, please. leytelj@gmail.com

*

Lex is tired of feeling.

All of it. The pain of a dozen scrapes and bruises, the
headache that doesn't seem to care that he hadn't hit
his head -- or hit it very hard -- the horrible *wrenched*
feeling in his back. That's the worst, he thinks. There's
something terribly permanent about it, like an injury
that's mostly meaningless now, but could lead to a
future of canes. Bad posture.

Lex laughs to himself and presses his head a little
harder against the cheap hospital pillow. Yes, he's
going to be most disappointed if his posture is bad when
he's thirty.

More than anything else, though...

There is Helen. Helen slipping something in his drink --
there was a great deal of Valium in his system,
according to the suspicious doctor and sour-mouthed
nurse -- and... disappearing.

He has an image of her -- very clear -- floating away
and away from him, gorgeous hair spread out on
nothing but air, laughing as she goes.

He hopes the image has more to do with the painkillers
than anything else.

He is twenty-two years old and the veteran of two
brief, horrific marriages. He thinks he should feel
older than he does. More... something like hardened.
Leathery on the surface of his emotions. Jaded and
full of black humor. He has an image of himself:

He would be dressed impeccably, Italian shoes
buffed to a mellow shine, scar smiling more than his
actual mouth. He would have... a glass of something
old and rich and bitter in his hand, more a prop than
anything else. His father would look at him with eyes
faded in a sharp and cynical kind of fundamental
approval.

The woman on his arm would be as lovely and
polished as any trophy should be.

In the image, he is... not happy.

He is satisfied, sated on some level that the Lex he
is now would dearly love to understand.

Has he made some deal? Is Lexcorp making
Luthorcorp nervous?

Has the woman just blown him with her prim, perfect
mouth?

None of it seems like entirely *enough*, but the
image remains.

He's forced to believe that the Lex in his mind is in
some way *older*. More experienced.

Scraped so hard that there's nothing left to... hurt.

And wouldn't that be...

Something.

Clark is sitting at his bedside. Well, more accurately, he's
slumped. Lex is reasonably sure the boy isn't entirely
asleep, but he seems worn in a way that doesn't make
very much sense.

There's a sense of exhaustion about him that doesn't
touch the golden skin of his face, and doesn't do more
than crumple his forehead. He has... oh, he has so
many *things* for this boy. Thoughts, hopes, suspicions,
fears.

Desires.

He thinks Clark has nearly reached a boiling point in
terms of all the things he doesn't say. He hopes Clark
will just open his mouth and *talk*. He suspects and
fears that the boy had more to do with Lex surviving
the plane crash than any sane person could ever
imagine.

And what he desires...

Clark opens his eyes, and makes Lex *aware* of
himself in ways that aren't entirely comfortable.
Whatever is written across his face, the new scars
that probably... won't. It makes Lex want to be
naked, if only to get it over with.

"How are you? I mean... well. But... are you feeling
any... better?"

Lex tries on a smile. "Mm. I suspect I'll feel better
when..." He trails off, even though he doesn't
particularly *want* to make his words seem any
more meaningful than they are. "When I get out of
here," he finishes and wonders if it sounds as lame
as he feels. Christ, *had* he broken anything?

"The doctors... well, they didn't want to say much."
Clark fidgets a little, seeming all knees and elbows
for a horrifically endearing moment. "They say you're
going to be okay, though." Earnest look, queerly...
bright.

"Clark." Lex closes his eyes.

"Yeah? Do you want... do you need anything?"

Just a *few* things. "I'm going to ask you a question."

"Uh... okay?"

Lex smiles, even though it feels a little fake. "Why were
you there? I know I was banged up --"

"I think you must've bounced off every seat on the plane."
Clark sounds almost *amused*. He can go with that.

"And the walls, and the ceiling... but that's not the question.
Why were you *there*? I'm not going to ask how you got
there --"

"Motorcycle." A mumble.

"Motor... okay. No, I don't want to know. But... why? Did
you just kind of decide to skip school and catch a plane?
Did you know..."

"Lex, we were nowhere *near* an airport."

Has to open his eyes for that, and Clark is looking at him
with that same awful idiot innocence, but there's... more
there. A glint of something hard and a little cruel behind
his eyes. "Clark --"

"You know, Lex, I'm... tired. And you're hurt. And..." He
rolled his head on his neck like he was stiff, or sore, but
more like he was showing off. "Why don't we cut the
bullshit?"

Lex blinks first. "I'm all ears."

"I found... something good. Something that feels good,
makes me feel... it doesn't matter. We have time for
that later. What I want..." A secret smile, more in his
eyes than anywhere else. "I want to know when you're
going to be ready to get out of here. I look older than
I am, you know? But sooner or later, someone is going
to ask questions."

"Questions."

"Like your father. I'm pretty sure I... overheard that he
was on his way."

Lex feels his mouth twist involuntarily. "Making sure the
heir can still... perform, no doubt."

"Yeah. Yeah, I bet he has all *kinds* of duties lined up
for you. But I want you out of here. I want *us* out of
here."

Lex raises an eyebrow. "And where would we go?"

Up out of the chair and leaning over him, brushing the
IV aside carelessly and staring at Lex like there were
answers inside his skull that Clark had every intention
of battering out. "You tell me, Lex..." Breathed against
his face with the scent of coffee and... mint? "I bet...
I bet you know all kinds of places where people don't
ask questions."

"Clark... are you --"

Clark stares at the hand Lex was about to reach out
for him with and, after a moment's deliberation, presses
it down against the mattress with his own. "I'm fine,
Lex. A little tired, a little... sore. But good."

Lex clenches his hand and only succeeds in twining
his fingers with Clark's own. This is... not entirely new.
"That's... you know, you're reminding me a little of a
certain conversation in my study."

"You betrayed me. Called in the 'rents like I had...
pissed all over your carpet."

Calm. Calm is something very important right now. And
perhaps a little easier to reach than he would expect.
"I was worried about you."

Clark leans in closer, pressing the bed's railing down
with a screaming series of clicks and creaks that don't
sound at all natural. Lex resists the urge to check the
thing and in that moment Clark is up and over him.

Straddling his waist, denim and muscle and pure
impressive *weight* digging at his bruises. Lex feels
a bandage rip free and represses a wince.

"You shouldn't do that," Clark says, and presses a
thumb to the center of Lex's forehead, smoothing out
the lines.

"Worry about you?" He could, he supposes, always
just worry about his spine.

Clark closes his eyes, looking somehow both dreamy
and inwardly focused. Shifts and moves and there's
less weight on Lex and more... pressure. Clark smiles
down at him, and Lex can see it's more like a parody
of his usual sunniness than anything especially... true.
"Seems to me like you should worry more about
yourself."

And that was... a very thinly veiled threat, but with the
way Clark is moving on him... "I heal fast," he says,
and the grin this time is almost, *almost* right. It makes
him... there's a part of him that leaps up and *wants*,
more than the physical, more than the intellectual.

"Yeah. You do, don't you? Never thought I'd meet
anyone that could get married twice in less than a
year." That parodic smile.

"We never did go to Metropolis," he says, when he
can manage it.

"I asked Lana," Clark says, blithe and easy.

"Really."

Another one of those old, sly smiles. "You're
supposed to be... kind of like a big brother, right?"
A shift of the hips.

Lex forces himself to breathe. Think. "Kind of..."

"You should *warn* me about the kind of stupid,
*childish* mistakes a guy can make when he thinks
with his dick." Level look.

Lex blinks and he can see it, Clark pressing Lana up
against a wall, forcing a leg between her own and
kissing away every doubt, every hesitation... he
shakes it off. "Some things we have to learn for
ourselves." Helen and her smiles.

Hands on his chest, pressing down and sliding up and
then peeling the sheet and thin, useless blanket down.
Clark tugs at the papery gown he's wearing and it
doesn't *look* like much effort was expended, but the
thing tears away with a loud, damning noise. "I think...
I think I want a new teacher, Lex."

Intellectually, he knows there must have been a point
where he could have said, 'yes, things are clearly
getting out of hand,' but that point is as dead and gone
as his hospital johnny, and Clark's hands are. Warm.
Hard. Insistent. This isn't a request. "Clark. I realize that
this may not seem like the time to you, but perhaps we
have a few things to talk about?"

Thumbs on his nipples, flicking them up hard and Lex
doesn't bother to hold in a gasp.

*Let* him see it. Have it. Figure out on his own what he
wants to... do about it. It makes as much sense as
anything else, and...

It makes Clark's eyes flare again, and there's so much
*heat*, here. Sweat prickling just beneath the skin and
Clark breathing him in, staring at him and when Lex
raises a hand again, all he does is force it down to his
cock, hard and hot even through the denim. "Lex..."

"Fuck --"

"Yeah. Exactly."

And before Lex can say another word, before he can
so much as *think* another word, Clark's mouth is on
his, pressing hard and dragging a little and reminding
Lex that he has bruises there, too.

The taste of blood is nothing compared to the tongue in
his mouth, stroking against his own and shoving its way
*in*, unsubtle and wonderful, and *he's* getting hard.
He can feel it building, feel the way his hips want to move,
thrust, and it's the easiest thing in the world to jerk his
free hand hard enough to rip the IV free and drag it up
to Clark's hair.

Old sweat and thick, silky strands between his fingers
and when he gives a half-experimental yank, Clark just
bucks up against his hand and... laughs.

"I knew you wanted this."

"I could have sworn I was circumspect."

"Some things you can just... feel." Clark's hand between
their bodies, sliding down and down and cupping him.
Inexpert and rough and --

"Perfect -- ah --"

"Yeah --" Long, wet lick up the side of his face and Clark
yanks more of the johnny away and wraps his hand
around Lex's cock and *squeezes* --

"Jesus fucking *Christ* --"

"Mm. Yeah, Lex, I'm a little slow sometimes. Not." Stroke.
"Too." Squeeze. "Bright." And the blankets are flying and
Lex lifts up just in time for the rest of the johnny to go
the way of all things and then there's no hope for thought.
No sanity, no intellect, just raw, incoherent *need*.

Get Clark's pants off.

Get his mouth back on his own.

Get *this* --

"Fuck, Lex, *yeah*. Can't believe I tried anything -- oh
harder, do it hard -- had to have this, and you're the only
one --"

"Say my name again."

Pause just long enough for Clark to rear up over him,
wrap that big, hard hand around both of them and lick
his lips and. "Lex."

Fuck the bruises, fuck the marriage, fuck everything
but -- "Again."

Long, slow, *hard* upward stroke, and Clark is grinning
and flushed and happy enough to be legal. "Lex."

Has to get his hand there, make it faster, better, more
control, and he *won't* look away, not for this.
"*Again*."

"Fuck oh fuck *Lex* --"

And that's it, Clark's coming hard and messy and
unrepentant and there's a stab of... *something*. Some
feeling he doesn't want to deal with, and it flares and dies
in the spastic squeeze of his hands, in the stroke and wet
and *slick* --

Clark looks at him, hungry and just a little dark. "Do it,
Lex. Come all over me."

"Oh God *Clark* --" Throws his head back and loses it,
jerking and shivering from the drugs or just the wrong
and he doesn't care doesn't care doesn't --

Collapses back on the bed and pants, half-aware that
he's bleeding and he only has a moment to worry
about that before Clark makes a sound somewhere
between a purr and a growl and slides down to lick a
stripe up over his ribs.

Bloody smile. "I think it's time to go, don't you?"

"Wha --"

And he has a moment to gasp at the sensation of being
lifted, and the feel of *wind*, like flying, like falling, dark
hair spread out on the wind and too-sweet champagne
and. Sunlight.

Clouds, light, air, *day* and the world blurring past like
a nightmare and the sound of Clark's laughter and all
of it pressing him closer, pushing him up tight and
warm and. Inevitable.

And then his vision starts to darken around the edges,
starts to blur as much as everything else, and Lex...
watches the blackness gather and fall.

Wonders if he's going to live through this.

And has to smile, just a little, at the fact that he honestly
doesn't give a shit.

End.