Disclaimers: I want some of those.

Spoilers: None.

Summary: Pillow talk.

Ratings Note: NC-17.

Author's Note: Sequel to "Through so many splintered trees."

Acknowledgments: To Jane for audiencing, and to everyone
else coddling me in my state of new fannish love.

Feedback: Yes, please. teland793@sbcglobal.net

*

"It started back in Smallville. I mean... the thing with
me and Lex."

Batman closed his eyes, shivering internally at the feel of
it without the mask. It had been a long time, but Clark
had went for the mask almost immediately, and the
door had been locked, and... Batman sighed. "You don't
have to tell me this."

"No, it's okay. I... want to."

Batman shifted, and considered rephrasing to make it
clear he wasn't doing Clark any favors.

"It's... I kind of think I have to, you know?"

The moment had passed. He could feel Clark looking at
him, something like heat against the side of his face.
"How old were you?"

"I was... God, we were kids. I was fifteen, he was
twenty-one. It seems like it's been a million years."

Batman grunted non-committally and rested his hands
on his belly. Thought about the Lex he knew in prep
school. Skinny but fit, working out in the absent time
that had nothing to do with gym classes or fencing.
Same time Batman was doing his own workouts.
Thought of him cruising through History with heavy-lidded
eyes and waking up all over, like electricity shot through
him, for Chemistry.

"He was... he wasn't the way he is now."

Difficult to credit. "Psychotic?"

Clark snorted, but it didn't sound the least bit amused.
"Angry. I mean... there was always something... he
always looked hungry. Like he could eat the world
and ask for seconds, like he expected to be
disappointed by everyone and everything --"

"It doesn't sound all that different." And, really, didn't
Clark *know* they'd gone to school together? He
knew the Bruce Wayne name, knew where Bruce
lived... Christ, if it were him, he'd have had a dossier
prepared on himself within twenty-four hours. He
*did* have one on Clark. It wasn't that interesting.

"No, I... I guess you're right."

Silence, and Batman thought if he played this right he
could make it out of this bed and into his clothes and
out of this room before this got any deeper. He didn't
want to *know* this, it had no place beyond giving
him more reason not to trust Clark. But he'd known
he'd be hearing something like this from the very
beginning. One kiss and it was all... fated.

"It didn't. He's harder now, Bruce. God. If I'd known
then..."

"You wouldn't have touched him with a ten foot pole."

Clark laughed again, this time with a lot more realism
behind it. "I think you know me better than that,
Bruce."

And there was that. Maybe if he asked questions it
would speed things along. "How long were you lovers?"

"What?" Honest surprise.

He clearly hadn't expected Batman to show anything
like an interest, and something like that made him...
made him want to cause Lex serious internal damage.
Something. "You were lovers..."

"Oh. Yeah. Not for very long, really. We... we flirted a
lot all through high school. I didn't even know we
were flirting for most of it, and then I was seeing...
other people."

That would be Lana Lang. "And then?"

"And then it was like... God, I barely remember it.
Everything was so fast. Mostly, I remember it was like
learning how to be something like as hungry as Lex
was all the time. We couldn't get enough of each
other."

He could picture it. Lex with all the adolescent
roughness burned away and replaced with muscle.
Looking into Clark and seeing an unconquered country,
or maybe just something too clean for a man like him
to stand.

Shift beside him, long naked limbs and heat like he'd
never need a blanket again. "I thought it was love."

"Men like him don't know how to love."

Low chuckle. "Understand that pretty well, Bruce?"

He didn't bother to respond.

"Anyway, I think it kind of was love for him, just not
in any way I could... live with."

Clark could make a man feel like a pedophile.

"I think it was the kind of thing that was twisted and
dark before we ever even touched. I think it was. I
think it was *fucked up* before I knew it was there.
Besides, only love can make you as angry as Lex is."

And then he would make you feel like there was nothing
beside you but age, heavy and endless. "That's pretty
cynical for you, Clark."

"Yeah, well. I learn from the best."

Hand on his chest, heavy and hot, stroking its way
down the center. Lingering on the scars, on the short
hairs below his navel. "I could say something about
your taste in men."

"You just did."

And Batman could feel the smile before it even
touched his mouth. He thought about staying still, about
not responding, but then Clark was up and over him,
straddling his waist and looking down at him like he was
trying to memorize his face.

Batman wondered what he saw in his eyes. What it was
that made him *search* like that. In the end, it wasn't
as important as the feel. Hot silky skin and hard muscle
and the open invitation to... anything at all.

He flipped them with a grunt of effort, and pulled Clark's
arms over his head. Held them against the bed.
Something in the man's eyes made him know that Lex
had done just that, and probably more than once.

Something made him press down on Clark's wrists as
hard as he could and just watch for long moments.
Catalog the feel of everything from the sleek skin
pressing against the insides of his thighs to the wash
of color over Clark's face and body that could be a
flush or a blush.

"I'm not him," he said.

Clark blinked and narrowed his eyes for a moment
before smiling up at him. "I know. I knew you were
fucked up the minute I met you."

And there was... he could get used to Clark making
cracks about him. It made him real in a way nothing
else did, not even this... thing between them. This
thing that could have been simple buddy sex, but
really just wasn't. He stared a little longer and then
leaned in.

Licked his way into Clark's mouth until they were
kissing, but Clark didn't close his eyes at all.

"What is it?"

"You can't control the way your eyes change when
you're getting turned on, Bruce. I like to watch."

"Pervert."

"Takes one."

Another kiss, and another, and Batman felt his spine
settle into the position, something like a Muslim
praying, arms outstretched and head down.
Something just this side of obscene, both of them
naked. Both of them stinking of what had come before.

If he had any sense, he'd pull back and walk out. But
sense felt distressingly far away, and there was such
a thing as barn doors and horses.

On the floor of his room. Against a wall in an alley.
Clark's bed, his own.

They were starting to forget to fight first, and Clark
brushed every nasty thing he could think to say
aside like none of it was of any importance at all.

And anger didn't feel nearly as good as... this.

Cock to cock and mouth to mouth and sooner or later,
they were going to fuck. Clark would spread his legs
just that slightest bit wider, Batman would lose just
that little bit more of his mind...

He could picture it easily. What it would be like to be
buried to the hilt, the way Clark's face would get
even softer. The way Clark would look at him
afterwards, as if it had all meant something far deeper
and more dangerous than anything Batman would
willingly imagine.

It was like drowning in syrup. Sooner or later, the
sweetness would kill him if the lack of air didn't.

Clark sucked his tongue and pushed against his hands,
struggling with a complete lack of heart. He didn't want
to go anywhere.

Batman liked him where he was. Squeezed the man's
wrists once more before letting them go, settling his
hands on his face and tilting him up into a better angle
for the kiss. Watching Clark squeeze his own hands
into fists that wouldn't hurt anything but, perhaps, the
headboard.

"Tell me what you want."

"Fuck, Bruce --"

"Tell me."

But Clark just searched his face like there was something
there he needed to see and kissed him again. Harder,
deeper, clutching Batman with his knees and radiating
heat like fever. Like sickness and the last flaring beauty
before certain death.

Batman rocked his hips and Clark held him tighter,
grinding up for more contact, and it wouldn't be the first
time they ended it like this, and it probably wouldn't be
the last.

And Batman wanted... more.

Pulled out of the kiss and dragged his mouth over Clark's
broad, tanned chest. Wet and soft as he could make it
and Clark jerked and shivered and arched up against him.
Offering, begging. It almost didn't matter which.

He slid his mouth over the head of Clark's cock and looked
up just in time to watch Clark's eyelids flutter and close.
Watch the muscles in the man's arms flex as he tried not
to reach down and touch.

Did he want to hold him down? Guide his head for the
best possible advantage?

The question was almost interesting enough to make
him want to tell Clark he could move.

Almost.

He sucked hard, letting his cheeks hollow. Wrapped a
fist around the base of Clark's cock and started jerking
him off in time to the thrusts.

"Bruce, God *Bruce* --"

And that was wrong, so wrong, and it wasn't that he
didn't expect it -- he didn't expect anything *else*, but
just for once it would be *nice* to be called by his
right name in moments like these.

He let the drag of his teeth tell the story of his
frustration, but Clark just moaned and bucked under
him. Begging for the pain right along with everything
else, though Batman wasn't sure he would even feel
such a trifle as teeth on his dick as pain.

Still, it made him wonder. Made him want to believe
that Clark was always *just* this screwed up, and that
it didn't have a thing to do with the billionaire in
Stryker's.

But really, he'd spent enough time with criminals and
madmen not to even bother trying to *hope* that it
didn't.

God, they were all such fuckups.

He jerked faster and sucked harder and listened for
the desperate, strangled keening that he knew meant
the man was going to come.

Listened and wanted.

"Bruce," he said again, and then there was a hand on
his hair, but not doing anything as sane as grabbing for
his ears or holding his head in place. Just... stroking his
hair. Gentle and shaking a little with the effort of being
so.

He would fuck Clark soon, he knew.

For now... for now it was enough to swallow him down
and listen to every desperate, open cry.

To wait until he looked at him before licking his lips.

To drive his hips against Clark's own, head of his cock
catching on the man's abdominals, while Clark braced
those huge, hard hands on his hips and urged him on,
urged him faster, harder and the look on Clark's face
was...

It was like staring into the sun on a dare. Painfully bright
and honest and it was too much to ask for Batman to
look away.

Some things had to be done.

"Come on me. Make me feel it oh God --"

"Clark," he said, and bit his lip hard enough to taste
iron, shook his head against the desire to say more,
*be* more, and came so hard it was painful.

Of course.

Held himself up on shaking arms, up and away, but
didn't bother trying to fight when Clark pulled him
close. Right into the mess, hot and sticky and
claustrophobically close.

He wasn't afraid.

"Bruce..." Whispered into his hair. Kissed onto his
forehead.

Batman closed his eyes and waited for Clark's hold
on him to loosen enough for him to get away.

Thought about Luthor, alone in his ugly little cell.

Wondered which of them was better off.

End.