Disclaimers: They belong to a large number of people that bear
no resemblance to me whatsoever.

Spoilers: Vaguely for the pilot.

Summary: Lex and Clark try to put things in some kind of order.

Ratings Note: R.

Author's Note: Follows directly upon Project IV. The whole series
is up on the Smallville Slash Archive.

Acknowledgments: To my Webrain, with whom I share shameless
lust.

Feedback makes me unstoppable. Heh. teland793@sbcglobal.net

*

There really isn't anything like a good fuck.

Especially one that's showing no signs whatsoever of...
changing his mind. Lex smiles to himself and watches Clark
get dressed from his spot on the bed.

Moving slowly, a little dazedly.

Shooting crooked grins in Lex's direction.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Though Lex has to wonder where, exactly, this is going to go.

Small town boy with limits the exact consistency of tissue
paper, and the kind of hunger Lex isn't used to seeing on
the faces on those he fucks. At least, not like this.

Honest and pure, as though Lex wasn't doing his level best
to... what?

Not break him, not really. There's no need for that, or perhaps
it's already happened on some level Lex can't quite reach.
Train him, maybe. Teach Clark the leash and... keep him.

He makes a lovely pet, not least when he's begging Lex to
fuck him.

Slips out of bed when Clark sits down, oddly far across the
room, to put his shoes on. "How are you doing?"

"Still pretty stunned, Lex." Clark's eyes drifting over his body
for long moments before reaching his eyes. Lingering on his
groin.

Lex scratches his belly idly and smiles. "It's a good look on
you, I think."

"I don't know... I feel like my IQ dropped about thirty points.
Doesn't show any signs of coming back, either."

Cards his fingers in Clark's mussed hair. "Thinking is
overrated."

Earns a curiously serious look, dark and searching. The
impression that Clark's about to say something momentous
and monumentally awkward at once, but he just smiles.
Almost a smirk. "Yeah. I guess it is."

And he stands, hands hanging at his sides for only a moment
before they're back on Lex's body. Large hands, undeniably
male. Seeking and oddly desperate. "Clark?"

"I'm gonna catch hell when I get home."

Ah. Here it comes. Lex wonders how much time he'll have to
put in to not being disappointed. Prayerfully not much, as
Clark is, after all, just a boy. Schools his face to neutrality.
"Oh?"

Clark doesn't seem to notice. "Yeah. Mrs. Jansen -- she runs
the maid service? She probably called my mom to let her know
I was here as soon as she got back to her office."

"I seem to remember bribes going much further in
Metropolis..."

"What?"

"Nothing, Clark." Backs away enough that Clark's hands fall
away. "Don't worry, once you assure your father that you'll
never come here again, it should all work out."

"I *told* you I don't want to lie to my parents, Lex."

Lie? Oh. And if he's going to be making miscalculations like this,
he might as well just admit defeat and go crawling back to
Metropolis.

As if that would help anything.

Clark looking so unimpeachably earnest he ought to be in
sales. Almost impossible to look at the safely buttoned up boy
and see the writhing proto-slut that had made such a
wonderful mess of Lex's sheets.

Almost. "He's not going to want you to spend time with me,
Clark."

"He just doesn't *know* you... I mean. I can make him
understand. I will make him understand. That is... if you think
it's. Um. If you want me to come back."

"You really are full of surprises, aren't you?"

"I'm told it's what makes me special."

Lex snorts. "Right, okay. Is there any way I can make the
inevitable confrontation with your folks any easier?"

"I don't think so, Lex. I'm just going to have to deal with this,
you know? I like being... your friend. It's not as though I have
enough to pick and choose based on who their parents are."

"Somewhere, far away, my father just had an aneurysm. Drat."

Shocked laugh. "Let me guess: you didn't really socialize with
the poorer kids growing up, did you?"

"One *must* keep up appearances, Clark."

And Clark moves close again, presses his palm flat to Lex's
belly and just. Strokes. "Yeah, well, you're doing a terrible job."

"Am I?"

"Fraternizing with the town screwup won't make you too
popular..."

"Oh, is that what we're doing?" Leans in to nuzzle Clark's
throat. It would be terrible to send the boy home with a suck
mark. Inexcusable, even.

"God, Lex. Wow. I mean... wow." Clark pulling him in, scrape
of serviceable fabric against his skin. Something like
adolescent fantasies about the gardener's assistant from a
new and tempting perspective.

Clark's skin is wonderful against his tongue, salty-clean and
firm. He pulls away. "Am I popular yet, Clark?"

"You want to be Homecoming King?"

"Sashes do nothing for me, I'm afraid... besides, wouldn't a
Queen just get in the way right about now?"

Lex wonders when he'll get tired of Clark's blushes. "Wow.
That calls up some images I'm not sure I'm old enough to be
thinking about."

"Oh, I think you're old enough."

"You do, hunh?" He knows it will be some time before he's
tired of that sly, sexy tone creeping into Clark's voice.

"Oh, yes. Old enough to, say, be left alone should your parents
suddenly find themselves with two tickets to Bermuda. Or
possibly China. Some place beautiful, restful, and very far
away."

"Uh, Lex... I don't think they'd. They wouldn't..."

"Accept it from me, I know. A man can dream. And having you
for a whole night is, at this point, a very lovely dream, indeed."

"Lex, I wanna get home *without* an. Erection." Furious
blush.

Lex bites down once on Clark's throat. Not quite hard enough
to leave a mark and Clark groans. Clutches at him while Lex
licks away the hurt. "I like," lick "the way you taste, Clark."

"I... I... ditto. I mean. I do, too. I mean, remember what I said
about IQ?"

"Remember what I said about not thinking?"

"Is that how you get ahead in the world?"

"No, but it's how I wound up in Smallville... which has its
perqs." Sucks a little, liking the way it makes Clark's hands
roam.

"God, Lex. Can I... come back tomorrow?"

And for a moment, Lex toys with the idea of saying no.
Inventing a meeting that couldn't be handled before Clark
got out of school. Just to see. His cock, however, can't quite
see the point. "Yeah, you can." Runs his hand over Clark's
ass and squeezes. "You definitely can."

Lets go only when Clark leans in to kiss him, and then only to
get his hands in the boy's hair. He really is a natural at this,
all of it. Taking to the sex as though he'd only been waiting for
a decent excuse.

Lex is perfectly willing to be that excuse.

Watches Clark leave from the doorway, and yes, he does
look back and wave again once he's at the end of the drive.

Friendship like something ingrained in the boy, and Lex can't
help but be.

Moved.

Clark shows every sign of taking Lex at face value, friendship
and everything Lex seems to believe should go with it. Willingly
wrapping himself in Lex's life because...

Why?

And that's a hard question. Especially since the only thing Clark
seems to want from Lex *is* the friendship, albeit on the terms
that Lex has set. Remembers watching the boy touch him from
someplace nearly outside of himself, wondering and hungry.

Lex wonders if Clark's *other* friends will get the benefit of
Lex's tutelage and has to laugh. Just picturing that earnest
little boy -- Peter, was it? -- listen to Clark explain how
friendships in Metropolis work is enough to make him cramp
from laughter.

But no, Clark isn't quite *that* innocent, no matter how many
fleeting thoughts and fantasies of corruption run through Lex's
mind over the course of a day.

He's in this with those baby blues open, wanting more,
*learning* more and eager to use all that knowledge on Lex.
Far too easy to imagine Clark pushing him down, holding him
down and...

How far would he go?

How far will he *let* Clark go?

Disturbing and sexy, and Lex doesn't really need to get
dressed yet.

Stretch out naked and wonder how much he'd have to push to
get Clark to take control. Bind Clark to him with need and all
the dirty words and deeds that didn't quite get covered in
middle school health class.

Christ, it's Kansas. Lex is surprised Clark knows as much as
he *does*.

An active imagination in the place of cable television, perhaps.

He could, of course, just *ask* Clark to fuck him, beg for it,
watch those eyes go wide and hungry... the idea has its merits.
But there's something lovely in the natural progression of
things.

Something addictive in Clark's growing addiction.

Some part of him wishing he had a spy at the high school,
someone to sidle up to Clark and pick his brains for information.
Just how *is* the boy taking all this?

How smoothly is Lex fitting into his... life?

Memory of Clark beneath him. Struggling, but not to get
away. Giving himself up to Lex with something very much like
relief, accepting his body's new desires as though nothing his
body did could quite surprise him anymore.

Which is, he supposes, *one* way to handle puberty.

And a wonderful way to approach sex.

He'd been ready to put the cuffs away, chase away the
tension with a joke... somewhat ready, at least, and yet Clark
had only wanted to be tied *tighter*.

Wanted to be helpless in a way that clearly went beyond
their... friendship.

Reason enough, he supposes, for him to *want* Clark to
lose control. That certain streak of perversity he's learned to
accept in himself, ever present, often useful.

Still, though, there's something not quite satisfying in the
thought. Something not entirely honest or complete. He
doesn't like the idea that he's lying to himself, in however
benign a way.

There's something in *Clark* that Lex wants, that some
instinct is telling him he *needs*, but he can't reach it.

Back in his bedroom and a creaking sound alerts him that
he's been... stroking one of the bedposts.

Which appears to be loose.

Which, in point of fact, breaks off with a startling crack when
Lex gives it a slightly stronger nudge.

The dreamlike image of ramming his car into Clark at high
speed, which could not, could *not* have actually happened.

The torn sheets, mattress pad, and mattress *itself*.

And. This.

The lesson being... what?

Farmboys lead to property damage?

Shakes his head. Strange, strange little town.

Stranger boy.

His boy.

Fascinatingly resilient, independent and wanting. Strong
enough, perhaps, to take everything Lex wants to give him.

He's going to have to find a way to keep him for a while.

*

Clark steps into the kitchen with a smile. He'd been able to
smell his mother's stew cooking from outside. Still one of his
absolute favorites, no matter how many times she shushed
him about how easy it was.

Clark can just about manage to fry eggs without bits of shell,
and, as far as he's concerned, his mom is something close to
God when it comes to the kitchen.

Makes a beeline for the pot on the stove and shoves his face
into the steam. His brain's still not firing on all levels, but if his
parents ask he could always blame hunger.

Twinge at that, the little lie like a worm in an apple, but it's
not as though he's been doing anything...

It's not as though he's been out stealing, or hurting people.

Just with Lex.

Just getting tied to a bed and... and *fucked* by Lex.

Dad's always told him that words like that don't do anything
but show how ignorant you are, but... what other word is
there? Clark can still feel him down there.

Not pain so much as an absence, and he wonders just how
warped his sex drive is going to wind up.

Not that he thinks Lex is a pervert. Or maybe...

It's just that perverts were supposed to be all drooling and
dirty and pathetic, and Lex is. Not.

Though he'd probably call himself a pervert as easily as he
calls himself a freak.

And it's not like Clark could ever...

Traitorous mind throws him an image of Lana on her knees,
Lana tied down and -- "Gah!"

Jerks away from the pot and nearly stumbles, whirls around
only to find both his parents watching him and looking...
bemused.

"Well, Clark, I was wondering when you were gonna notice
that steam is hot." His mother.

"Wha...? Oh, I. Um. Smells good, Mom." Smiles sheepishly.

Hadn't he had a plan? One that involved taking a long,
thorough shower before coming anywhere *near* his
parents? One that involved not thinking about anything
remotely related to sex until his parents were well past
unconscious and he was alone and he could maybe work some
of this *out*?

He did. Or there was one.

And he has no idea what his Dad is saying.

"... Pete's house?"

"What?"

"Clark, are you... son, I wanted to know if you were over at
Chloe or Pete's."

And it's tempting, disturbingly so, to say yes. Worse when he
sees how oddly his parents are looking at him.

Almost as though they were waiting to catch him in a lie. "No,
I went over to Lex's," and Clark hopes he looks innocent and
wonders why it's so important.

Knows why and doesn't want to think about it.

"Clark..."

"Dad, I know you don't like his father, but --"

"It's a lot deeper than not liking him, son."

"Clark, your father is just... wondering why a twenty-one year
old can't seem to find any other friends but -- oh, God, I didn't
mean that the way it sounded."

And Clark's blushing hard but he's angry, too. Everything his
mother can't know and everything his father doesn't care to.
"Well, it's not like he's gotten much of a welcome from anyone
else around here."

"Clark!"

"No, Dad, I mean it. Lex is... just a nice guy, and he actually
treats me like someone with half a brain, unlike the rest of this
town --" Bites off everything else before he can say it. Words
like bile at the back of his throat and he can feel himself
simultaneously hunching in on himself and wanting to run right
 back out into the night.

His Dad looking just as angry as he feels, and weirdly
frustrated. "The Luthors have never meant anything good for
this town, Clark. Now I know you think Lex is different, but --"

"He's never done anything to you, Dad. Whatever happened
to not judging people before you get to know them? Isn't that
what you always told me?"

His father scrubs a hand through his hair and it's something
like. Victory. Only it doesn't really feel that way at all. Suddenly
he's keeping secrets from everyone he knows, including his
parents.

But it's not like he can bring Lex home, bring him into this
house and what?

Announce to his parents they're dating? No, be honest, fucking?

Something small and hysterical is laughing itself sick in
Clark's belly.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what I taught you, son. I suppose I
should be glad it sunk in so well, hunh?"

His father reaching up to ruffle his hair and Clark wants, so
badly, to have someone, somewhere, he doesn't have to lie to.

Doesn't have to pretend with.

"Look, Clark... be careful *anyway*, all right? And don't forget
your old friends because you're too busy with your... new
one. Chloe wants you to call her back when you can, but I think
that can wait until after dinner, don't you?"

"Exactly," his mother says, "but don't forget. Chloe really is a
very nice girl. A little on the hyper side, maybe, but pretty."

"Wha? Oh. Uh. Yeah. She's nice."

And that's that. Clark doesn't think he has that much of an
appetite, but Mom's stew is Mom's stew. As usual, he has to
be scolded to leave enough so there'll be leftovers for
everyone tomorrow.

It feels nice. Normal. Like sliding into place, like he still *can*
slide into place if only he does... something.

Go back to being the town's Designated Loser, maybe,
leading Pete and Chloe to their eventual future in Gambler's
Anonymous solely by being himself. He wonders which of them
is winning this week.

Wonders what school will be like tomorrow, and if Lana's
missing her necklace yet.

Brief, wonderful fantasy of returning it to her with some story
of finding it out in a cornfield... though he'd probably wind up
passing out at her feet instead of actually saying anything.

Still, she'd be grateful.

Happy, maybe.

Clark imagines a world with no bits of sickening green meteorite
around, a world where he could kiss Lana the way Lex kissed
him, confident and sure...

It fades quickly, though, and he's left with the dirty dishes to
wash. No meteorite meant no *him*, after all, and Lana
wouldn't need anyone to make her happy at all.

The odd position of being the knight *and* the dragon,
uncomfortable and utterly inescapable.

No fairy tales for him.

Except, of course, for the man in the castle.

Which would make him Beauty.

Clark snickers at the thought of himself in flowing gowns and
scrubs at the pot.

Lex wouldn't be nearly as... attractive with a pelt, anyway.

End.