Oracle

Title: Oracle
Pairing(s): Clex.
Spoilers: up to Season 5 'Oracle'
Category: episode-related, drama, romance
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A re-write of 'Oracle.' Clark and Lex enjoy some quality time together over the younger man's birthday, until an unexpected visitor sends Lex down a spiral of confusion. Just how far is the young Luthor prepared to go to protect the man he loves?

:: dedicated to greenlady2, who inspired much of the philosophy, many thanks! ::

"Dah-ling! So good to see you again..."

"Tom, caught your speech the other week. Just brilliant, I can't tell you..."

"Barbara, where did you get that dress? It's ravishing..."

"Ah! Just the man I was looking for. I was just telling the others how much I've been admiring your work..."

Clark closed his eyes for a second, stifling a sigh. When he opened them again the elaborate Metropolis conference room was sadly unchanged, as were the groups of state senators, mediocre politicians and journalists clustered inside it. He slipped his hands in his black jacket pockets as he watched and let his shoulders sag downwards, forcing a series of dark, jarring creases across his shirt.

On the surface the party looked wonderful. The women practically floated over the marble tiles, elaborate gowns glittering beneath the chandelier. The men cut dashing figures in their crisp blacks and whites. And the table at the far wall, too, looked absolutely perfect with its three-foot tall ice sculpture at the centre, the elegant curved neck of the swan leaning out over the stacks of champagne glasses around it while the selection of hors d'oeuvres beyond spanned out across the rest of the linen.

Visually stunning.

Unfortunately, Clark wasn't blessed with enhanced visibility, at least not yet, but he did have enhanced hearing. And behind every smile and handshake he found a cutting remark or discrediting comment. He wasn't even trying for it either, there were just so many people in such a small space—overhearing was a given.

The only man who seemed to care about what he was saying was currently standing at the opposite side of the hall, untouched champagne glass held awkwardly in his right hand while the other pulled at the black tie around his neck. A tall, heavily powered woman with a knot of blonde hair sent a sudden, high-pitched jolt of laughter down to him, enough to make even Clark wince, and Jonathan gave a stilted smile back before taking a breath and trying for the third time to bring the conversation back to politics as opposed to gossip.

If Clark had been in a better mood with his father he might have tried to catch his eye, flash an encouraging smile. But as it was he was far too annoyed and turned away with a small 'tut' instead, leaving the Senator to it.

The Kryptonian made his way towards the buffet table, for want of something better to do, and smiled as he looked over the pristine little snacks presented there, all with their own personal lettuce leaf as garnish as well as the assortment of tomato and cucumber surrounding each plate. They were nothing like the sunken but lovingly iced rum cake Lois had given him last night, with 'Happy Birthday Clark' smiling up at him in shaky, red letters over thick blue icing.

Technically, his birthday was today, but Chloe'd insisted a party the night before would be more unexpected, so Clark had returned to a darkened kitchen yesterday evening, groceries in hand, to a loud cry of 'SURPRISE!' and a cascade of multicoloured streamers. To be fair, he couldn't deny the success of that particular venture. It was a small party, just his parents, Lois and Chloe—Lana had work to do apparently, but sent her best wishes—and yet, Clark couldn't help thinking it had been infinitely more enjoyable than the one he was trapped in now.

He'd been so hyped when he'd opened his dad's card and found the Wolverine tickets too, not just because of the baseball, but because of the peace they represented. His dad had been gruff with him for days after learning about Lex and while Clark didn't have a problem opposing his father if he believed he was right, he had disliked the distance it put between them. Next to fishing, watching a baseball game was one of his father's more revered father-son activities and the ideal place to mend the rift. Plus, the Wolverines were an awesome team. It was perfect.

Clark had been so happy, in fact, he'd not even flinched when Jonathan took him aside a little later and explained about the function in Metropolis. 'It's not compulsory for me to go, but a lot of important people will be there and, quite frankly, I need the connections,' he'd said. 'It'll only be a few hours. We'll head to the game right after.' It hadn't seemed unreasonable at the time, back when party equalled fun and friendship, not backstabbing strangers and constricting formalities.

Not his dad's fault, of course, but Clark couldn't help resenting him just a little for drawing them into this, especially after his dad's recent, unreasonable, behaviour. Back in the day, they'd already be at the stadium by now, munching hotdogs and discussing tactics with the other early arrivals. The minuscule pastries in front of him didn't really compare to a chilli dog with extra sauce.

Great way to start a birthday, Clark thought with a frown. Although his face brightened again soon after as he remembered where he'd been in the early hours of the morning. Because this wasn't really the start of his birthday at all...

Clark's birthday 2.32am

Clark was in the barn when he got the text, reading through some old 33.1 files. The others had flicked through them as well by now—Chloe'd even made photocopies—and Clark thought he better brush up on things so he'd know what needed most defence when the inevitable questioning started. Yes, there are military applications, but that was to stop an alien invasion, it's not such a big thing now. No, the members aren't being trained as weapons, we're just trying to utilise their powers. Yes, it's all voluntary. No, Lex isn't trying to make any money out of the project...

Clark had caught a full night's sleep the night before and so felt little need of one now—a growing occurrence these days; mostly he slept only four nights out of seven—so he hadn't even bothered with pyjamas. He was still in his work clothes then—blue and white plaid top and jeans—when his phone started beeping, head pillowed on one thread bare sofa arm while his booted feet stuck out above the other.

He fumbled a little with the folder in his hands, trying to close it without losing his place while he reached for his pocket. He failed, and stuffed the now shut pages behind the nearest cushion instead. There were only two people likely to call him this late and he knew Chloe was camping at Lois' tonight, leaving her otherwise occupied. His eyes flashed with excitement as he opened the cell and he couldn't stop the grin crossing his face.

His head tilted a little as he opened the message and a series of angular symbols filled the display instead of the text he was expecting. But it didn't take long to identify them as Kryptonian and Clark was soon nodding his understanding.

The message was crude and imperfectly formed but the meaning seemed clear enough. It meant literally 'come spinning tower.'

He and Lex had been catching moments alone together like this almost every night for the last five days. Although not usually in Kryptonian and not always this late—they'd met in the evenings too, and for a couple of lunches. Lex, of course, had been the one to start it by texting Clark the day after his discharge from hospital to say he'd be at Bella Italia in Metropolis for twelve, should Clark want to join. And as it turned out, Clark did. After that the older man had got more confident, and cryptic, in his requests—suggesting, for example, Clark find him in a place stacked with leaves of learning and knowledge, ie. Smallville public library.

It was a childish game but Clark loved the clandestineness of it. All they did was meet up, mostly at least—even as friends they'd done that—but the secrecy and the codes made every meeting with Lex seem special now, like a rendezvous, and this made Clark feel so much like he was walking on air he'd had to check more than once that his feet weren't really leaving the ground. Who knew a secret could actually be enjoyed?

Not that he was planning on keeping him and Lex hidden forever. No. Obviously. It was just that... Damn! Keeping quiet about it was too much fun to stop now!

This time though Clark could tell at once the message wasn't one of Lex's usual games. It was too short for one thing—Lex liked to give proper, in depth clues for places he planned to meet in—and it was too demanding. Clark suspected the other man still wasn't convinced of his commitment yet, which was why he always began a request to meet up with 'do you want?' or 'if you like' or 'maybe.'

Something was different about tonight.

Not bad. Just different. The Kryptonian proved that. Lex had forced Clark to start making good on his promise to teach him the language just yesterday and using it now was an obvious boast of his quick learning. If there'd been something wrong Lex would have used English to avoid misunderstandings, or even called outright.

Spinning tower? Clark thought for a moment. Even though Lex hadn't intended to be cryptic this time a lack of proper translation made him so anyway. It took the younger man a few minutes, but he finally figured out what the description referred to.

It was a clear night, giving the circular moon free reign over the sky, so when Clark zipped out of the barn to his destination he had no problem identifying Lex's Porsche parked on the grass of Chandler's field. With the moonlight reflecting off it the silver paintwork seemed to twinkle, making the car almost celestial itself - but like the moon, the vehicle was conspicuously empty.

"Lex?"

Clark looked round, letting the air brush a couple of messy black locks from his forehead to reveal the small crease starting to form there.

"Up here!" a cool, familiar voice called from above.

Clark trailed his eyes up the shining steel ladder and base of the windmill tower beside him.

Hanging off the wooden platform at the top were a pair of elegant legs dressed in creased black slacks and scuffed shoes—shoes Clark had a strong suspicion were Armani.

The younger man couldn't help but grin at the figure Lex cut up there, moonlight sifting through the slowly moving sails behind making the older man a patchy silhouette—surprisingly imperfect, with his black jacket and plum shirt as crumpled as his slacks. No one saw Lex like this—unprepared, guard down—but Clark had a free invitation. It felt incredible.

"So, Kryptonian text messages?" he called up, resting a hand on the ladder.

"There's no point learning an alien language if you're not going to use it!" Lex replied, as if it were obvious.

Clark hummed behind his smile.

"How'd you even get the phones to accept the symbols?" he yelled.

"Sometimes money's a wonderful thing, Clark," Lex shouted. "Now are you planning to make me shout all night or are you going to get up here?"

Clark's smile widened. He had no idea what was going on, but Lex was bossing him about like he knew he could, like he finally understood Clark was his, and there was an air of tense excitement surrounding them only a meeting of two lovers could bring. This, right here, was the stuff of happiness.

He was up beside Lex in a second.

"Technically," he shrugged, hooking booted feet together beside the other man's hanging ones and resting his hands on his lap. "You don't need to shout."

Lex shook his head in mock disapproval.

"Smartass," he muttered.

A small silence followed as Lex licked his lips, eyes narrowing a little, as though he hadn't quite expected events to unfold the way they were and wasn't sure how to continue.

Clark noticed too, how the other man's hands gripped the edge of the platform just a little too tightly, knuckles white through the back hole of Lex's brown leather driving gloves, much like Clark's own had been the first time he'd come up here with Lana. The height of the windmill was a known quantity for Clark now and didn't bother him so much—in fact, the tower felt a lot safer since the rusting metal of the old one had been replaced after the explosion the ill-fated Evan had caused on it the other year—but it wasn't hard to see the height was proving a considerable concern for Lex.

The older man had never mentioned a fear of heights, but then Lex never did mention anything that could possibly be construed as a weakness if he could help it and it wouldn't surprise Clark in the least to learn this was a secret he'd been previously unaware of. His heart did a little flutter about it in fact—one more thing they had in common. The younger man wondered what could have brought his friend to a place where he felt so ill at ease. Some crazy, Luthor idea of testing his limits, perhaps?

Lex wasn't forthcoming on this point and continued his silence.

Clark smiled.

There'd been a lot of changes between them over the past five days, mostly involving Lex imparting much of his six more years of experience when it came to the physical side of things, because god did Clark need help with that. It turned out Lex was a patient teacher though and Clark was a more than willing student, although he got the feeling Lex was holding back rather more than necessary sometimes—from the little Clark had heard, what they were doing seemed pretty tame. Not that he could complain, tame or not everything felt great to Clark, he just worried that as time went on Lex was going to get bored with it all.

He'd been surprised and yet very glad, then, to realise he had ways of helping the older man too. Because while Lex was nothing short of amazing when it came to sex, it turned out there were things he needed Clark for as much as Clark needed him and learning to just be himself seemed to be one of them. Not that he'd been acting with Clark since they started—What? Going out? Dating?—he'd just been a little more restricted, quieter. Clark had no idea what could have given Lex the idea that a romantic relationship was more formal than a friendship—to him romance meant exactly the opposite—but it was clearly an ingrained belief and he'd had to physically push Lex into a game of pool the other day to prove the easiness they'd shared before hadn't been lost.

Lex was trying to lose his formality again now, and he was struggling, but that was okay because this was a time for Clark to step up and he knew just how to do it.

"So what's going on, Lex? What are we doing here?" he asked.

Clark knew it was the 'we' making Lex smile because reference to the two of them these days always did. The younger man sympathised. He knew what it was like to be an 'I' trying to fit in with others and suspected that even through their years of friendship Lex had always considered himself alone, fighting for a place somewhere. Silly, because Clark had been offering him one ever since that last, lingering look on the riverbank. But Clark had come to realise Lex never accepted anything that easily, his resistance of the younger man's first advances proved that, so he'd taken to emphasising their togetherness whenever he could. He figured if he pestered Lex with it enough times in the end the older man would have to believe it.

The tactic worked like a charm this time and Clark thought he could almost see Lex unfolding as pursed lips flicked up and soft, blue eyes turned his way.

"Ever since I came to this, delightful, backwater town," Lex started, partly mocking, partly lecturing. "The people have been extolling the view from up here..." He tilted his head, amending. "Or rather from the old windmill, but I estimate this as the same height and position so... After hearing so much, I thought it was about time I came and saw it for myself."

Clark looked at the other man sideways for a moment. He suspected there was more to it than that, but what did it matter? They were together, they had all night to talk—he was happy to follow this line of conversation and see where it took them.

"Don't you see Metropolis everyday already?" he teased.

Lex relaxed into a grin of his own.

"True," he nodded. "But it's good to see things from every angle."

Clark bobbed his head in acknowledgement.

"Okay," he agreed. "So how does Metropolis look from the delightful, backwater town of Smallville?"

Lex turned to the cluster of twinkling lights on the horizon, oddly wistful.

"It looks beautiful..." he muttered, eyes turning distant. "Most things do from a distance."

Absorbed in the sight, Lex let his hands ease off the wooden boards beneath them just slightly.

Clark didn't think he'd ever seen the other man so thoughtful and it dawned on him he was watching something very private. Scuffed shoes, insecure positioning, no planned speech—Lex had come here to be alone. But instead of being alone, he'd called Clark and that was... well, wow.

"You think it's not so great close up?" the younger man asked, curious. Lex was still an enigma in many ways and Clark was eager now to peel away the layers. To know every part of him.

Lex blinked, slowly, as though in a trance.

"I think it could be," he said, eyes still tracing the skyline. "I've never had somewhere I've really considered 'home.' But lately I can't help thinking of Metropolis as my city. I was born there. LuthorCorp practically owns it, and now I'm running the company... I feel responsible... I feel like it needs me..."

He continued to stare for a few seconds, then seemed to remember Clark was beside him and looked away with a soft, mocking laugh.

"Sorry, Clark. I'm in a strange mood tonight. Ignore me, I'm being ridiculous."

There was so much inner disappointment in his tone Clark's heart couldn't help but go out to him.

"So what if you are?" he shrugged. "Everyone's entitled to be stupid or ridiculous sometimes, even multinational CEOs."

Lex raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed, and Clark employed his trademark grin to its fullest extent. Nine times out of ten these were spontaneous, but Clark wasn't oblivious to their power and could manufacture them when necessary.

Lex's resistance seemed especially low that night because he caved almost at once, face glowing with an answering smile.

"Besides," Clark continued, shifting closer. "It's not so stupid. If anyone could make Metropolis great it'd be you."

Clark relished the responding flash of hope in the other man's eyes—awed and entranced by the idea that he'd put it there, that little old Clark Kent from Smallville had the power to inspire someone like that, to make life that little bit better. Alien abilities just didn't compare...

A heavy shoulder jostled Clark from his ponderings and surprised the Kryptonian enough to leave him tottering above the ice swan and surrounding glasses. He only just managed to balance himself in time and avoid smashing them to pieces.

"Oh, sorry, didn't see you there," an elderly man with a walrus-like moustache muttered over his shoulder.

"That's okay it..." Clark started, but the man had already moved on. "It doesn't matter..." Clark finished with a sigh. As confident as he'd been last night, he was beginning to think even Lex wouldn't be enough to save this city - was beginning to wonder if it even deserved saving.

With his happy reverie broken, Clark searched the table for a further means of distraction. There were plenty of elaborate looking vol-au-vents to choose from, but the array of carefully positioned sprigs of parsley bursting from their centres made them seem more for show than consumption and Clark was loathe to disturb the display. Over to the left though was a glass full of inviting pink things that looked a lot like crabsticks and Clark thought if they were anything like the ones his mum made they might be exactly what he was looking for. He reached a hand out.

"I'd steer clear of the seafood if I were you," a voice muttered in his ear. "I had a bad experience here once with a king prawn..."

Clark pulled back in surprise, blinking at the smiling, bald-headed figure beside him.

"Lex!"

The older man was a hundred times more pristine than he'd been that morning, with shining bright shoes, white shirt and bow tie and he laughed at Clark's violent reaction. The obvious joy on the other man's face made the surprise visit more than worth it.
The younger man, meanwhile, was trying to tone himself down, aware he'd lit up like a Christmas tree and not wanting to draw attention to the fact.

"What are you doing here?" he queried, running a hand through his hair.

"Just passing, I thought I'd stop by," Lex answered, reaching across Clark to grab a glass of champagne.

Clark narrowed his eyes, smile flattening to suspicion.

"You can't just be passing, you've got a meeting in Edge City this morning," he argued.

Lex looked up from his glass.

"No, I don't," he replied, eyes dancing as he took a sip.

Clark bit his lip. Barely thirty seconds and the guy was flirting already. And his dad was just across the hall. This was a bad idea. Except, there was something about Lex... it made him feel daring.

"Yes you do, I read your schedule," Clark responded, equally playful.

Lex spent a little too long licking champagne from his lips before shrugging in defeat.

"Well, I don't any more," he conceded. "I had it moved to this afternoon. It's not often I get to see you in a tux." He gave Clark a quick once over the younger man couldn't help blushing at. It was so intense he was sure other people could see, but a quick look round proved the room oblivious. "You seem to be missing something though," Lex finished, nodding at Clark's empty neck.

Clark grinned.

"Yeah, well, this was the only clean outfit I had and the crazy guy who gave it to me only provided a bow tie," he replied. "Dad and I were stumped."

Lex's mouth flickered upward, apparently of its own accord.

"Maybe you should have asked this crazy guy for help," he suggested. "Or is his insanity too impenetrable?"

"Well, he has just turned up at this party voluntarily," Clark noted. "I'd say that suggests he's pretty far gone."

Lex raised his eyebrows in exaggerated surprise.

"You don't like the party?" he questioned, tone deceptively mild.

Clark knew he was being goaded, but Lex was the first friendly face he'd seen since arriving an hour and a half ago and he badly needed to vent. He looked round again for a second, then bent his head forward.

"Honestly? I'd rather be drinking kryptonite," he whispered. "And I have tried that already, so believe me I know what I'm talking about. I mean, god..." He shook his head. "The things I've been hearing... There's this one guy, right? Who's been going round arguing no less than five different, and opposing, points of view. Practically the same wording each time, he just changes the relevant points for different people." Clark shrugged, eyes blazing disbelief. "And from the looks I'm getting, all the men here seem to hate me. The women keep smiling at me, but lose interest the instant they learn whose son I am and it's just... nothing here seems real. It's like an elaborate costume party. Only way less fun."

Lex shot him a pitying look. He'd always liked immersing Clark in the trappings of luxury—museum visits, limo rides—it gave the Kryptonian the elegance he deserved. But he'd been equally careful to avoid involving Clark in the less than savoury aspects of such things. With Mr. Kent as state Senator now it looked like that time of innocence was over.

"Welcome to my world, Clark," he shrugged, sad and excited together.

As much as he'd wanted to protect Clark from all this, many of their past clashes had been due to Clark's lack of understanding about what it was like on the other side. And vice versa of course. Maybe this was another step forward for both of them.

A dark haired woman dressed in red chose that moment to walk past and Clark's face creased a little at the sight, memories of darker times, and darker accusations re-surfacing. :: I don't want you to tell me anything, I want you to change... there's a whole side of you that I don't know about, Lex, what else don't I know about you? :: Stupid. Of course there was a side he didn't know. He was a farmer. Lex was a CEO. Lifestyles didn't get much more different. Had he bothered to understand that other side though? Looked at it from every angle? No. He'd just condemned it and assumed his opinion was right. A stubbornness partly learned from his father, partly self-cultivated and often unfair.

Well, he was learning differently now, and after an hour an a half here, watching his dad—self-proclaimed paragon of righteousness—sink deeper and deeper in the political web around them, it seemed a wonder Lex had maintained the morals he had, considering he'd been part of this all his life.

"God, Lex, how do you cope?" Clark breathed.

Lex noticed the woman himself just then and frowned, more than aware of her implications.

"Badly," he answered, thoughts of flirtation forgotten. "If history is any indicator..." His face darkened for a moment. Then he cleared it again with a quick shake of his head. "But, if it's taught me anything it's that this is no place to be on your birthday." He placed the half drunk champagne back on the table and gave a small smile. "I thought maybe I could save you for a change."

Clark wished he could shake away past issues so quickly, but despite his best efforts his returning smile was notably subdued.

"How?"

"By providing an escape route," Lex nodded back. Clark lifted an eyebrow. "LuthorCorp does a lot of business deals with this hotel. One of the perks being a free suit on the third floor, available at any time."

"Oh," Clark nodded with interest. Pretty cool perk, but what does that have to do with us...? "Oh!"

Lex's smile grew warmer as Clark ducked his head, blushing again. It was adorable the way innuendo still embarrassed him, regardless of sexual enthusiasm.

"Your call," the older man shrugged, more than confident of the younger man's agreement.

Sex with Clark was proving quite frankly addictive, and was also very very easy to get. Lex just had to smile a certain way and the boy was in his arms. It was intoxicating, better than any high, and, like any drug, equally open to abuse. Which was why Lex had been careful to keep things small so far. Purely vanilla, in fact—the guys he'd known as a kid wouldn't even call it sex. Although he wasn't sure if that was really for Clark's benefit, or his. Because, damn, the simple release and perfect escape from the world he could achieve just from a blowjob was a miracle in itself, Lex was almost reluctant to push further, afraid of becoming reliant. Sex had always been an outlet before, personal gratification, never something so unified, something so... together. Just the two of them. No world, no worries, no LuthorCorp. Just them.

Surely, surely, it couldn't be wrong to grab at that whenever he could? In Lex's experience all good things came to an end far too soon, he needed to make the most of Clark while he still had him.

Clark tried to tone down the burning sensation in his cheeks while he ran through the two options his mind was presenting. They read—'stay at the party' or 'sex with Lex.' It was kind of a no brainer.

Except the memory of the older man's one night stands—thirteen in a year!—was still fresh in his mind and making him uncertain. Not that he thought Lex would ditch him, that fear had been long overcome, but he recalled now how angry he'd been at the other man for doing just this, plucking someone from a party to a hotel room—Wasn't it hypocritical to agree to it now? Wasn't it somehow betraying all those women he'd felt so badly for? Only... now he was here, mind-numbingly bored and desperate for escape, he couldn't help thinking those girls had had a pretty good deal. And it wasn't like Lex had been anything but upfront about his intentions. Fuck. Sometimes, just sometimes, he wondered if it might have been easier to have never told Lex the truth at all and kept them both blissfully ignorant about the complexities of each other's lives.

He lifted his head, old, familiar feelings of disapproval pushing him halfway towards a rejection.

"Lex, I'm not sure about..." he started, then caught sight of his father walking towards them, the simpering blonde from earlier on his arm, and Clark's eyes widened in panic. He grabbed Lex's shoulder and tried to push them both out of sight. "You know what? Forget it, you're my hero," he said, flashing a bemused Lex a desperate, grateful smile. "Let's go..."

But it was too late, Jonathan was already waving and all Clark had managed was to push Lex out of sight behind a group of elderly women piling sandwiches onto blue china plates.

"Clark, there you are," Jonathan nodded once in speaking range. "I was just telling Miss Price here about you, she's Mr. Bennett's assistant, state Senator for Texas..."

He trailed off there, catching sight of Lex, and while Jonathan frowned in surprise, the woman beside him let out a squeal of delight.

"Alex! Darling." She nudged Jonathan's side with her elbow, so sharply that even after years of working the land the hardened farmer couldn't help wincing, and Clark took advantage of the distraction by moving his hand from Lex's arm. "Jonathan, you didn't tell me you knew Alexander Luthor..."

She left his side in a blink and moved before Lex, white teeth practically sparkling beneath her roughed lips as she curved them into a smile.

"I... um... I didn't know he was here..." Jonathan muttered, sounding disgruntled.

He shot Clark a suspicious look and Clark shrugged back in a manner he hoped conveyed an 'I didn't know either and I'm certainly not planning to sleep with the guy later I swear' kind of impression.

Lex, meanwhile, was changing completely—easy stance tensing to high-strung formality; a wide, overly bright smile crossing his face. Clark blinked at the difference when he turned back and watched in curious fascination as Lex took the woman's hand and pressed it to his lips, eyes dull and shaded.

Lex hated this life, Clark realised. He was good at it, but he hated it. How could he have missed that before?

"Cynthia," Lex nodded, releasing her hand. "It's good to see you again."

"Good to see her again, he says," Cynthia scoffed, jingling her gold and emerald earrings. "I'm surprised you even remember me. How long has it been now? Four, five years? And you never come to my parties anymore, even though I always send you invitations."

Lex gave a light shrug in response, suggesting apology without losing dignity.

"I've been busy, Cynthia, you know how it is," he replied. "Especially now I'm running the company."

"Yes, I heard about that. Congratulations," she responded, tapping Lex's cheek with a perfectly manicured hand; long, pink fingernails curving like talons. Clark had an irrational urge to swat the hand away and had to literally fist his own to stop himself. Lex bore the assault with a distant smile. "I knew all that talk about breaking away was just bravado," Cynthia continued, voice high with laughter. "No one walks away from a goldmine like LuthorCorp, whatever daddy issues they might have."

The others missed the flash, but Clark didn't. Two seconds only of utter stillness from Lex, and a dangerous sharpness in his eyes. More than anger—pure, unfettered rage. Then nothing. A breath of laughter and a look down.

Clark swallowed. Not even wanting to imagine the kind of emotions his friend must be feeling at having his life so carelessly dismissed like that.

"Is that why you're here?" Cynthia added, expression turning keen. It reminded Clark of a feral dog he'd once caught eyeing up the cows in the near field. "Searching out new talent? Because I know a couple of girls who would make absolutely divine secretaries..."

"Actually, I'm here completely unofficially," Lex interrupted, cool as ever. "Just came to talk to the hotel manager and thought I'd drop in. Then I bumped into Clark and was just telling him about the exquisite fourteenth century fountain and statuettes in the garden, I wondered if he'd like me to show him around."

This last comment was addressed to Jonathan and Clark turned to his father as well, trying hard to look like this wasn't the first he'd heard of said proposition. He'd always been torn between disapproval and envy at Lex's ability to lie so convincingly, but right now he felt only a heartfelt gratitude for it.

"Is that okay, dad?" he asked, inwardly wincing at the pleading quality of the tone—he was twenty today, damn it, he wasn't some schoolboy needing permission.

Jonathan read the appeal in his son's eyes and sighed. It had been unjust of him dragging Clark into this he supposed, giving the boy some time away was only fair. The thought of that time being spent with Lex Luthor was hardly welcome, but Clark was a man now, like it or not Jonathan had to let him make his own choices, and his own mistakes. It was what his father had done for him after all. And besides, Clark's relationship with Lex was starting to fluctuate almost as much as the boy's one with Lana had, there was little Jonathan felt he could do about it anyway.

"Of course, son, if that's what you want," he conceded. "I'll meet you in the foyer afterwards."

Clark flashed his dad a grateful smile while Lex nodded to the double doors across the hall.

"This way," he stated, stepping neatly passed the ladies and their plates of edibles. Cynthia shook her head as he moved, Clark close behind.

"You and your stuffy antiques, Alex," she berated. "You call me okay?"

"Top of my list," Lex called over his shoulder, before grabbing Clark's arm like a lifeline and navigating them through the crowd.

"Um... old friend?" Clark asked as they walked. Lex gave a humourless laugh.

"Hardly," he muttered, nodding to a doorman who pulled down a pearl handle and opened the ballroom door for them without a word. "She doesn't know me half as well as she makes out," Lex continued as they stepped into the blissful quiet of the expansive hotel foyer. "Or anywhere near as well as she'd like to." He released Clark's arm and made for an elevator on the right, face turning serious as he glanced back. "Cynthia Price is a viper, Clark. She changes her loyalties as often as her hairstyle and you should tell your dad to keep away."

Clark nodded.

"I will, thanks," he replied.

Lex's tension was contagious and Clark felt himself equally knotting as they walked. It was a relief when they reached the elevator and movement stopped.

"Why's she call you Alex?" Clark asked, as Lex pressed the call button.

Lex shrugged, a thoughtful crease marring his brow.

"I don't know," he admitted with half a grin.

Clark breathed out a laugh and Lex relaxed a little with it.

The door opened seconds later with the customary 'ping' but while Lex stepped inside, Clark faltered.

The car was as decorative as the rest of the hotel—gold railing, stainless steel walls, spacious... There was only one elevator Clark had been in that was anywhere near as fancy and that was with Chloe and... A series of bright, confusing visuals flashed through his mind. CCTV footage of Lex pressing a dark haired figure to a similar railing, Chloe pulling himself to the same spot. Lex and the figure spinning round, kissing heavily, Chloe spinning him in the same way only suddenly things were muddled—Chloe and him weren't playacting anymore, Clark was in the TV image, and this time he wasn't being Lex... But, no, damn, it's not like that. The falsity of his and Chloe's re-enactment last year seemed to merge with the shallowness in the room behind him and condense in the elevator, and while Clark had never been claustrophobic, the four-walled square was suddenly the last place he wanted to be.

"Clark? You okay?" Lex asked, eyes flashing concern as he pressed a button, holding the door.

Clark snapped his head up.

"I... um..." He swallowed.

Up until now this had seemed pretty easy, him and Lex, but up until now they'd kept it in Smallville or the Fortress. Just the two of them, quiet and cut off from the world. Now they were in Metropolis, in a five star hotel, reminding Clark this was a man who ran one of the biggest multinational companies in the world, a man who'd had thirteen one night stands in a year and, god, how could he hope to keep this up? He barely even knew what Lex expected, let alone how to give it to him. And what if Lex didn't want what he wanted? What if they'd been talking cross-purposes all this time? It'd all seemed so right just this morning but if there was one thing Clark never went halves on it was doubt—was he really being crazy after all?

Lex tilted his head, questioning, and Clark realised he was waiting for an answer. He suddenly felt very young, and very stupid.

"I saw you, you know," he blurted. Lex blinked. "In the other elevator, with the girl who... I mean... Chloe and I did. Not for anything weird! Just to try and help clear your name. But I just... I saw the two of you, doing... what you were doing and... I thought you should know..."

Clark looked away, shoulders tensing, and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

For a second Lex looked baffled, then it dawned on him what Clark was talking about and he looked down, eyes clouding.

Despite everything, Clark was still painfully, wonderfully innocent in many ways, and small town fears of casual sex were not overcome in five days, no matter how good it was. And the worst thing? What Lex wanted to offer was nothing like that, but the party, the dark-haired woman and, apparently, the elevator made a cruel parallel and Lex was incredibly angry with himself for missing it. Clark had ways of making even the most innocent of past acts seem shameful, it was true, but the older man had to concede the point here—the hotel room did make the two of seem unforgivably cheap. If either of them should be feeling guilty and inadequate right now, Lex was by far the worthier candidate.

"You really have seen me at my worst..." he muttered, stepping out of the car.

Clark shrugged, not quite meeting the other man's eyes, a little afraid of the sudden inner insight telling him that, truthfully, the footage he'd seen of Lex had seemed far from the older man's worst to him. Flushed skin. Smooth, subtle movements. Delicate fingers, gripping and stroking. Clark had been fascinated. Obsessively so. It was that obsession, perhaps, as much as his righteous indignation, that prompted his anger. Such a beautiful touch, but it wasn't on him. Thirteen girls, but never him. He'd felt just as spurned as the murderous Shannon had really.

"You know, I really can take you on a tour," Lex offered. "I wasn't lying about the statues."

He'd come here for sex, it was true. Full stop, end scene. That's what relationships were to Lex. But Clark meant more than that. The plan didn't just seem misguided now, but dishonourable. The fiasco with Shannon Bell the younger man referred to had been one of the worst times of his life as well, he couldn't believe he'd been about to sully what he had with Clark but treating him the same way. Falling back to old patterns his dad would call it. Well screw that, he was done letting that old bastard dictate his actions, conscious or unconscious, and Clark had promised to help him fight destiny that night in the Fortress.

Clark looked up properly this time, taking a breath.

"No," he insisted, shaking his head. "Lex, you just got me a get out of jail free card, I want to spend the time with you, I do." He raised a hand to Lex's upper arm, gripping firmly. "I just..."

He looked to the elevator again, face creasing as he watched the doors start to close, and Lex nodded.

:: We'll be different ::
:: No, Clark. We'll be worse ::

"You want us to be different," Lex finished quietly. Clark turned back, a touch of relief in his eyes. "So do I."

Lex flashed a small smile and Clark relaxed. It kept catching him off-guard just how much the older man understood. He'd disappointed Lana all the time, but Lex was proving unfailingly patient. This really was a whole new relationship and Clark thought he could almost feel his last insecurity dissolving. He nodded.

Lex grabbed his free hand and pulled away, taking Clark with him to a doorway on the right.

"Come on..."

A sign at the top reads 'Stairs' and Clark had to smile. Lex's life rule #1—when it doubt, say it with symbolism. They weren't a fumbling pair of strangers in an elevator waiting to fall; they were a couple, climbing up slowly. They were different. Got it.

The time and distance it took to reach the third floor proved more than enough to remove shared anxieties and they entered Lex's suit happily enough—Clark with his jacket slung over his shoulder and Lex with his bow tie undone, the black fabric hanging loosely from his collar.

Lex moved inside and headed to the left with barely a glance at the room, while Clark stopped to look around, awe-struck, as the door clicked shut behind them. He wasn't unused to luxury by now, he had spent a summer in a personal penthouse while high on RedK after all, but this was just a hotel, he didn't think hotel rooms came this big.

Before him was a low glass table, topped with vase of flowers; a red sofa, with a black jacket on the arm; and a fully stocked bar. All in a room double the size of his living room at home—at least. And that wasn't all. To the left and right were two open doors leading into more rooms, one of which looked like a bathroom because Clark could see pale blue tiles.

"Wow..." he breathed. Lex turned round, brow furrowing as he tried to determine what the fuss was about, and Clark shook his head at the older man's indifference. "Lex, this isn't a hotel room, this is a whole house."

He headed to the right to investigate the bathroom, jacket flung to the sofa on the way, while Lex shrugged.

"It's not a room, it's a suite..."

But a startled 'whoa!' stopped his explanation as Clark stuck his head through the right hand door.

"Do you know there's a Jacuzzi and a shower and a bath in here?" Clark called over his shoulder. "And there's a whole mountain of shampoo and stuff, which I'm guessing you didn't bring, and man, they even supply you with toothpaste..."

Lex's indifference sparkled to amusement and he grinned. Crossing his arms he leant against the left doorway and waited for Clark to re-emerge.

When he did, the younger man was still looking over his shoulder in shock.

"God, are all the suites like this, or is this one just incredible because you're..." He turned his head, blinking at Lex's stance and failing to stop himself admiring the profile. Lex, open collar and loose tie equalled Amazingly Sexy apparently. Clark swallowed, forcing his eyes back to the other man's face. "Um... a Luthor?" he finished. Lex just grinned and Clark gave a flat smile in response, bobbing his head as he moved closer. "I'm just being a dumb, ignorant farmboy again, aren't I?"

Lex laughed.

"No," he insisted. "You're just... being you. I like it. There's so much wonder in the way you see things..." He looked over Clark's smiling face and realised with a sense of wonder himself that he was feeling happy again. Forget the sex, he could spend the next hour just like this and still leave satisfied. Perhaps it was Clark himself who was addictive. Or perhaps addiction really didn't feature in this equation after all. He moved away from the doorway and looked over Clark's shoulder. "It's so easy to get lost in this life, Clark," he explained, waving a hand over the room. "To take it for granted. But you make things fresh again, and that's important. Don't ever lose that. It's one of the things I..." A pause. It was rare for Lex to blush, as Clark well knew, but he'd discovered in the last few days that sometimes, when the older man sucked in his bottom lip and looked away, as he was doing now, it was secretly an alternative display of embarrassment. "I've always admired about you," he finished, looking back and laying a hand on Clark's forearm.

Clark felt oddly breathless as he met the other man's gaze. Had Lex been about to say something else? The L-word had been shadowing him constantly but he still hadn't called up the nerve to say it and the idea that Lex was having the same problem felt undeniably romantic. Better not risk it now, though, Clark thought. Not with the stifling party still beneath them. They needed light-heartedness, not more potential anxiety.

So he just smiled instead, and looked through the doorway. Inside was a simple king-sized bed with dark green duvet and pillows, flanked by a wardrobe and small bedside cabinet. Green wasn't Clark's favourite colour, for obvious reasons, but this was dark enough to not remind him of kryptonite and it looked nice enough.

"So that's the bedroom, huh?" he nodded, stepping past Lex and inside. To the left of the door was a large, mahogany chest of drawers and Clark ran a hand over a corner before moving to the end of the bed. "It's nice..." the younger man concluded, looking over the duvet, a shadow of his former uncertainty crossing his face.

Lex watched for a few seconds, then seemed to make a decision. Despite their newfound ease, Clark was still nervous and needed distraction and as it happened Lex had a very specific one waiting near-by. Moving quickly to the left, he pulled at the brass handle of the top wooden drawer and reached inside.

Hearing the sound Clark turned back and saw Lex pick up a flat, oblong shaped item wrapped in brightly coloured paper. He then shut the drawer with a determined snap and spun round.

"Happy birthday, Clark," he stated, holding the item before him.

Clark flashed a surprised smile.

"Lex you... you didn't have to get me anything," he muttered, taking the offered gift and turning it over in his hands, eyes both curious and pained as he recalled the last present giving holiday the two of them had notably failed to celebrate together—the first Christmas without Lex since the older man had come to town. Clark had had plenty of friends, and a girlfriend, to help him forget, not to mention that mysterious, suicidal Santa, but he realised now the time must have been pretty sucky for Lex. He'd been in hospital hadn't he? A failed mugging or something? God, he didn't even know...

Lex shrugged the protest away.

"You think I'm going to miss one of the few days each year you actually have to accept my gifts?" he said. "Although don't think that's it. You're getting your actual present later, this is just... something else..."

Clark looked up, brow furrowed, and Lex nodded at the unspoken query.

"I know you're going to the Wolverine game after the party," he started by way of explanation. "I hope you don't mind watching from a box."

Clark actually gaped.

"No way!" he responded, face lighting with excitement. "You mean you..." He pulled back, expression sobering. "Wait, you upgraded my dad's tickets? You know he's gonna slaughter you."

"I'm sorta hoping he won't find out," Lex admitted. "According to him he's a hundredth customer who got lucky, so providing you don't tell..."

Clark nodded.

"Got it. My lips are sealed," he grinned. "Wow, Lex..." He shook his head. This birthday gets better by the minute. "But..." He looked at the present in his hands again, confused. "If this isn't really a birthday present, what is it?"

Lex opened his mouth to respond, and faltered, sucking his lips in instead. That was his second hesitation now—damn Clark for getting past his cool like that. Lex suddenly felt very old and very foolish, trying to be spontaneous and failing.

"It's something I thought of after we parted ways this morning," he answered eventually. "Ridiculously over sentimental and not my style at all. I wasn't even sure I was going to give it to you until a few minutes ago." His brow furrowed. "In fact, I'm still not sure, so you better open it quickly before I change my mind."

Clark, whose eyes were quietly laughing at Lex's uncertainty, didn't need telling twice. Grabbing at a loose edge of paper, he ripped the wrapping right down the centre... and paused in delighted surprise.

Beneath the coloured wrapping was a glossy photograph Clark recognised immediately. It was the one of him and Lex he'd found in the barn the other week. Or rather, a different copy of the same one, as this was far clearer and less creased. It sparkled at him behind a polished pane of glass and Clark pulled the remaining paper away to reveal a beautiful wooden frame, unpolished but heavily sanded, making it smooth yet oddly natural to the touch. It was absurdly simple for Lex really, and Clark was just wondering if there was some secret, invisible gold leaf hidden in the wood somewhere when he saw the inscription. It was centred at the bottom of the frame and branded by a neat but not quite professional hand—no guesses for whose. Clark had missed it at first because the casual eye saw it as an interesting pattern, nothing more. It wasn't though. It was Kryptonian. It read 'stuff of legend.'

Clark was glad he didn't need as much oxygen as other people, because he suspected he was going to lose a lot of it in this relationship if it was this easy for Lex to take his breath away.

Lex had never given a gift and been afraid of someone's reaction before. Mostly because his gifts were expensive and impressive enough to wow anyone and so he'd never had to worry about it. But right now the thought of Clark not liking this was creating a new and unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach and Lex was far from happy about it.

"Like I said, ridiculous really," he muttered, fingertips tapping his slacks. "And impractical, it's not like you can put it on display. It just seemed like a good idea at the time..."

Clark gave a pursed lipped grin above the picture, holding back the chuckle threatening to form. If there was one thing he'd never have imagined Lex doing it was babbling. Hearing him now was quite possibly the funniest and most adorable thing ever. Doubly funny considering his own red-faced exclamation outside the elevator just now. So—he got embarrassed by sex, while Lex got embarrassed by sentiment. There was a crazy kind of symmetry in that Clark supposed. It also meant there was a very specific way to respond. Lex had talked him out of his fears, so he needed to do the opposite.

In the next second, Clark had his arms about the older man's neck, paper and picture still in his hands.

Lex blinked and fell silent, hands stilling by his sides.

"It's great, Lex," Clark assured to the other man's ear. "I love it."

He leant away to deposit paper and picture on the chest of drawers by the wall, careful to pull out the stand on the back of the frame and set it up properly.

Lex gave a small sigh, possibly of relief. Life with Clark was a rollarcoaster all right—down one minute, up the next—and while Lex had never been fond of the rides himself—what was the point if you couldn't steer?—he had to admit this one was proving pretty exhilarating. He gripped Clark's waist gently and waited to see where they'd end up next.

Clark moved back at the same time and smiled at the joy on the other man's face. It'd taken a while this time but they were finally on equal footing again. They always did seem to balance in the end, and Clark was a firm believer in waiting for the right moment for these kind of things. Even if that did mean he ended up missing them most of the time... Still, this one was pretty obvious at least.

With his left arm still on the older man's shoulder, Clark cupped his right one around Lex's neck and leant forward.

He'd come to like making the first move over the past few days—not just for the power it suggested, but the submission. Because Lex could take him anytime, anywhere even, and they both knew it, the instant flirtation downstairs pretty much proved that. It was only by the older man's grace, then, Clark was allowed to go first, which meant even when controlling he was still in Lex's power and Clark found that strangely comforting... As well as incredibly arousing. The latter being the stronger pull just then...

The effect of Clark's advance was equally heavy, and instantaneous, for Lex. Almost embarrassingly so. But he consoled himself with the fact that he had been horny and wanting this even before arriving, so his libido wasn't as out of control as it seemed. Really... In any case, the concern seemed irrelevant when Clark's lips met his and Lex closed his eyes, relishing the warmth.

Clark's heart beat faster as his own lids flickered shut and he remembered again just how good this was. Because Lex never just accepted a kiss; he fought his way into it. And Clark loved that. Loved to feel the older man's strength, to know he had a whole other person in his arms, there because they'd chosen to be, because they wanted to be. Not just accepting Clark's touch because it easier, like certain other people Clark never meant to form a comparison with but always managed to anyway simply because Lex was so obviously better... Even now when Clark had the blatant upper hand of height and initial movement there was no sign of passivity from the other man as Lex pushed into him, slipping his tongue along the younger man's own before Clark could even consider moving it. The hands at his sides gripped tighter as well and a thigh slid smoothly between Clark's legs, teasing the hardening cock there perfectly.

Clark moaned a little round Lex's lips and felt them curve, felt the gentle shudder of a chuckle vibrate through the older man's body. Bastard.

Clark pulled back, breathing deep and laboured, and looked up to a cool, barely gasping Lex, eyes full of laughter as much as desire, and it just wasn't fair! Clark didn't even need as much oxygen as he did, Lex should be the flushed one, not him! What was it that made his Kryptonian biology seem to dissolve when he was horny and with Lex?

Clark sucked in one more much needed breath and gave Lex a sly look. He still had one secret weapon left to try and tip the balance of power in his favour and the older man had no defence against that. Lex started a protesting frown but it was too late, Clark was already pouncing.

Two seconds later they were both naked. And in bed.

Lex watched in silence as the green duvet fluttered down over Clark's shoulders, waiting to regain the breath he'd lost from being suddenly de-robed and flipped on his back. Above him, Clark was grinning like crazy, black locks falling across and away from his face in attractive disorder.

"I thought we talked about this..." Lex muttered as soon as he could, trying for a disapproval his breathlessness didn't quite allow.

Clark shrugged.

"You talked about it..." he responded, leaning down to plant several deep, wet kisses on Lex's neck. "I made non-committal noises."

The older man tried to maintain a rigid, open-eyed stance of displeasure but it was a losing battle from the beginning when Clark's cock aligned itself against his own, rubbing just right with each movement the younger man made. All things considered, Lex was far from displeased and couldn't help closing his eyes as Clark mouthed up to his earlobe, biting and sucking like Lex had told him to the other day, with an eagerness that made the older man smile.

"Fine," Lex replied, opening his eyes again, and Clark lifted himself up to look. Lex ran his right hand up Clark's back, making him shiver, and pulled those green eyes into his own. "But you know you do this at your own risk," he continued, keeping Clark drawn in, too curious to notice the foot hooking round the back of his right heel, the left arm shifting upwards. "Because you must have realised by now—I'm always on top in the end."

Clark grinned at the deadpanned certainty in the face below him. Lex never would admit defeat.

"Really?" he queried.

Lex just smiled, moving his left hand to the right one Clark had braced beside his shoulder. He then pushed against it, hard, without warning, sending the younger man off balance, while pulling at Clark's heel with his left foot. Clark wobbled uncontrollably for a second, eyes wide with shock and panic, until a quick shove to his left side sent him sprawling on his back, dark green covers scrunching up beneath him.

The next second found him straddled by a now completely exposed, but highly triumphant, Lex.

"Really," he nodded, hands on Clark's chest, lips curved upwards with too much joy for a smirk.

Clark looked round for a few seconds, gobsmacked. An overpowering like that just didn't seem possible without superspeed. Then he sighed and shook his head in defeat.

"How'd you do that?" he pouted. "I'm, like, ten times stronger, and faster than you are."

"It's all about skill, Clark," Lex grinned, leaning to fold his arms over Clark's collarbone, locking their cocks together. He felt the rush of heat as much as the younger man did, but held back the breath of excitement Clark couldn't. "I've got it, you don't," Lex finished, shoulders lifting in a sharp, concluding shrug.

Clark smiled, eyes glinting. He felt excited and daring again.

"Then it's about time you started teaching me, don't you think?"

Lex paused. It wasn't the first time he'd heard that particular sexual quip, of course, but it was still undeniably surprising to hear it from Clark.

"Clark, I don't..." he started, but the other man cut him off by resting a warm, heavy hand against the side of his face.

"Lex," he stated, shaking his head lightly. "Don't go crazily noble on me now and say I'm not ready. I know I'm a klutz sometimes, but I'm twenty years old today, I'm not the same frightened kid you crashed into with your Porsche and I'm tired of taking things slow."

There was no pleading in Clark's voice, just honest desire, and Lex narrowed his eyes for a second, scanning every line of the other man's expression until he was sure the truth written there was genuine.

"Okay..." he said, feeling the ridges of Clark's fingers rub against his cheek as he nodded. "Close your eyes." And then Lex was moving back, pulling the hand away from him and laying it on the younger man's chest.

Clark tilted his head at the instruction and resisted the urge to shiver as the soft velvet of the pillow brushed against his neck.

"Huh?"

"Close your eyes," Lex repeated, a hint of a smile tugging his mouth. Clark wasn't as sure of things as he made out after all...

"Why?" Clark queried, brow furrowing now. "It's not because of...?"

He waved a hand over his eyes and Lex shook his head, smiling the worry away. Clark had explained the unusual, and highly amusing, trigger for his heat vision several sexual encounters ago and, foolish though it was, Lex was finding the idea of his partner being able to burn him to a crisp during orgasm more of a turn on than a fear. He always had been attracted to danger.

"No," he assured. "I just want you to feel this before you see it."

Clark opened his mouth, intent on questioning said 'this,' before realising surprise was probably the key element here. He closed his lips in silence instead then, giving Lex one last look over before obeying and lowering his eyelids.

Lex watched as the younger man moved his arms to his sides and waited, tense and expectant. A second or two passed, then Lex shook his head, lips quirking again.

"X-ray vision is cheating you know," he muttered.

Clark broke into a grin.

"Okay, fine," he murmured back, eyes still closed. "No peeking, I get it."

Lex waited another second until he was sure Clark wasn't looking anymore, then reached over to the bedside cabinet on the right. Pulling open the drawer at the top revealed two small, white tubes and a pack of condoms. Standard collection for all Luthor accommodation. Prudent but not especially mood inspiring if he thought about it, considering the items were for his father's use as much as his. Lex chose not to think about it.

He grabbed one of the tubes, then hovered for a moment over the condoms. While he'd been significantly promiscuous in the past, he'd always been safe, however inconvenient it might have seemed at the time—he'd never been that self-destructive. But Clark was invulnerable. Invulnerable. You didn't get much safer than that, right...?

"Lex?" Clark pushed, tone rising with growing impatience. He'd heard Lex open the drawer and was insanely curious about what the other man was doing. He had his suspicions of course, but even so the uncertainty was driving him mad. "What are you doing? This isn't another non-birthday present is it?"

Lex chuckled at that.

"If you like..." he replied, closing the drawer with a soft click, condoms still inside.

Moving back again, tube in hand, he pushed Clark into shuffling off the covers still scrunched up beneath him, resting him neatly on the white cotton sheets. He then bent Clark's legs up and eased them apart, unable to stop himself stroking the smooth, perfectly formed thighs as he did so. Clark's body was quite simply the definition of beauty and Lex couldn't help but marvel every time he saw it.

Clark was quiet through the movement, a little awed by the new tingles each touch was sparking up and down him - because whatever Lex was planning, it was new, and different, and decidedly unknown. Unconventional too, according to Kansas at least—that was a given—but Clark was starting to embrace that. Despite his efforts, normality never had worked for him, or Lex, and the concept was seeming more overrated all the time.

There was the sound of something wet, hands rubbing together, then a couple of slender, oily fingertips slid down his right thigh. Clark shivered, even though he'd been expecting the touch, because expectation was nothing compared to reality. The liquid was cool, refreshing even, and Clark realised for the first time how hot he'd become while lying there. Hot enough to feel it. Inside temperature always had been the only one he could really experience and maybe that was the answer, why Lex effected him so badly—he wasn't just touching Clark on the outside, he was reaching further, making Clark weaken himself.

It was an interesting theory, but the Kryptonian didn't have much time to dwell on it, not when Lex's fingers were moving lower, and lower... tickling the hairs around his balls for a moment before slipping in the crack beneath.

Clark tensed. He couldn't help it. He didn't even want to. But he'd been pre-set with such fixed ideas of normality his body had grown accustom to shutting out anything beyond those parameters without thinking—and this was way way out! Maybe he wasn't so ready after all.

"Lex..." he started, shifting nervously, voice as tight as his body.

Before he could open his eyes though, a cool, firm hand pressed against his chest. 'Firm' in a human sense, that is, the hold had no physical power over Clark whatsoever, but the cold, the commanding pressure and the accompanying stillness from Lex's other hand were enough to keep the younger man still anyway.

"Don't move," Lex insisted, following it up with a more gentle "Don't worry. Trust me."

The older man was glad Clark still had his eyes closed. It meant he missed the quite obvious look of uncertainty matching the words. Lex had coaxed more than one virgin before, easily, and gotten the appropriate kick out of it, but this was making him almost as nervous as Clark was—although unlike the younger man, Lex's body was trained well enough not to show it.

Problem number one—he cared what Clark felt about this. It wasn't just quick preparation for sex, emotionless techniques for loosening muscles. God help him, Lex wanted this to be everything he'd mocked as a reckless teenager, he wanted this to be special.

Problem number two—emotional issues aside, his technique was already faltering. Trust me? He'd never said that before. The key word here was 'relax' not 'trust.' Trust was too much. It was a burden. What was he doing asking for that? Especially when he wasn't even sure he deserved it. The Freudian overtones weren't lost of course—wasn't trust the one thing he'd wanted from Clark all along? No doubt psychoanalysis would imply it was this very situation he'd been seeking from the start and not the truth about Clark at all. For all his talk of sex, Freud really was no fucking help at all when it came to having it.

It was a surprise as much as a pleasure then, when Clark did relax beneath him, opening up like a flower in sunshine. His brow still furrowed lightly above his closed lids but not from anxiety now, just the curiosity of new experience.

Lex stroked his hand across the younger man's chest for a few seconds, watching the small smile flicker over Clark's face with quiet, bright-eyed fascination. The touch was as much for him as it was for the final easing off of tension around his other hand. So this was trust he was holding right now. Asked for and received. Pure and un-manipulated...

Lex wasn't even aware of the smile bursting from him. It didn't matter. It might have taken almost five years to get here but—god—it was worth every painful, heart-wrenching minute. He'd have waited five hundred if he had to. Because in that moment the world stopped, every other problem, past and present, slipped away and there was just Clark and him. Together.

Confident again, Lex slid further down Clark's ass, skimming the small, dark curls of hair he could just see hiding inside.

Clark's breathing turned shallow, but he didn't flinch this time.

Lex would have liked to pull the other man's cheeks apart a bit more, examine him more thoroughly, but he was equally loathe to remove the hand on Clark's chest. He could just about feel the younger man's heart beating through it, faster all the time, and it was delicious, that feeling, touching Clark's power and knowing he was holding it, knowing too that Clark could turn it against him whenever he chose. Control without being controlling. Acceptance. Trust.

So Lex contented himself with feeling, circling Clark carefully and methodically, again and again with the tip of his finger.

And Clark shivered every time. Interest replacing uncertainty. Warmth removing tension. And, oh! oh god... It felt like Lex was already inside him, every touch so new and more intimate than anything before. Except Lex wasn't, and pretty soon those touches weren't enough and Clark was aching for more, opening in ways he hadn't even known he could, cock twitching desperately.

"Oh!"

Lex bit back a chuckle at the whimper.

"I know you're tired of going slow," he muttered. "But some things just can't be rushed..." He trailed off to a whisper and slipped his finger inside, slow and deep.

Clark gasped and tried to arch his back, but the pressure still on his chest suggested he shouldn't so he fought the impulse and stayed down, shaking a little as the new sensation coursed through him. Sharp and strange, but wonderfully fulfilling. The prickly heat building in his eyes subsided to a warmer, more controllable level.

Lex waited a bit to let Clark get used to things before moving, sliding back out and in again, starting a rhythm.

Clark flashed a smile and lifted a hand to the one on his chest, fingers curling over and over as if to grab but never quite letting themselves.

Lex smiled. He was used to Clark's little gestures by now, although they never failed to touch him—his own cock even jumped a little in response. But, despite his delight, Lex wasn't stupid and knew why Clark didn't follow through, recognised the lifelong fear of strength and pain holding the other man back. And it was heart-breaking, really, that Clark who lived so clearly through touch felt such a strong need to fight his own nature. Staying nonplussed so Clark didn't get upset, Lex raised his hand from the younger man's chest and slid it over Clark's still curving fingers, flattening them gently and resting them against the younger man's skin. He then curved his own fingers around them, in respect of Clark's failed attempt.

His rhythm hadn't faltered the whole time and a few seconds later Clark couldn't help but rock himself into it. It felt like his body had been moulded solely for the other man's touch and it wasn't long before Lex was adding another finger, and another.

"You alright?" he asked quietly, concerned by the younger man's acceptance. There should have been a couple of winces by now, at least.

Clark nodded, dark hair pooling round his head like a kind of anti-halo.

"Yeah..." he breathed, lips stretching open for a second as one of Lex's thrusts hit home especially well. "You... you think it should hurt..." he continued, voicing his own expectation as much as Lex's, breath tinted with growing surprise. "But it... it doesn't, Lex. It doesn't hurt at all..."

His eyelids screwed up for a second above a bright, open-mouthed smile, and Lex stared a little open-mouthed himself. Invulnerable. Of course. He'd spent hours marvelling over Clark's powers and their possibilities, but the one thing he hadn't considered yet was the every day reality of them.

Still thrusting, Lex pulled his other hand off Clark's for a second, eyes turning curious. He flexed his fingers over the Kryptonian's chest, then dug his nails deep into the skin and scratched them down.

Clark gasped—long, heavy, delighted. Oh!

"Guess I've got a few things to learn myself," Lex muttered, adding another finger to the now heavily rocking body beneath him.

S&M wasn't new, of course, but this wasn't about pain for pleasure, this wasn't even about pain, this was about touching Clark so he could feel it. Damn, with a body like his the gentle caresses they'd been making so far must have seemed an unbearable tease. But if Clark needed it rough for the feeling to register Lex was happy to oblige, he felt more than a little empathy in fact.

They were on four fingers now, hard enough to hurt with Clark more than open, but when Lex made to pull out he paused. Not uncertain this time, but just the opposite.

Clark made a sound part way between a sigh and a moan at the change and Lex squeezed his hand in apology, kissing the younger man's knee long and hard as he finally did slip his fingers away. A delay perhaps? Preparation? A deeper emotion entirely? Because Lex knew what should happen next, with a certainty above and beyond his control, and it wasn't a usual or easy submission. But it was one he felt compelled to make nonetheless.

Clark was surprised to find Lex pushing his legs back down, but too hazy with heat and pleasure to really mind. He was a little disappointed, he supposed, that Lex wasn't going to have sex with him right then but if further foreplay was as good as his recent experience he guessed he could stand to wait. The tugging on his hand was just confusing though, because it suggested Lex wanted him to sit up and that didn't seem to fit the plan, did it?

Clark opened his eyes as he pulled up and Lex saw a flash of amber inside them. A flash that became a pair of fiery red circles for a moment before Clark blinked them away and Lex couldn't stop a sudden breath and smile of excitement at the sight. Clark was precious in more ways than one and Lex was very likely the only man who'd ever experienced what the two of them were doing. God, that was enough to make him come on its own...

To distract from the thought, Lex reached to the crumpled duvet beside them and retrieved the discarded white tube. Grabbing Clark's right hand, he squeezed a more than ample amount of gel into the bemused man's palm and spread it around.

"Your turn," he nodded when he was done.

"My...?" Clark started, lost, but Lex was shifting forward a little and moving Clark's hand round the back of his bent thighs, guiding wet fingers across the curve at the top and things became blindingly clear again. Lex wants me to...? But I've never... and what if...? Clark face creased in panic. "Lex, wait, I can't—"

"You're going to," Lex shrugged back, commanding, and thoughts of resistance fled as Lex forced Clark inside himself.

Lex closed his eyes with a hiss as he stretched, stopping his guidance and grabbing Clark's wrist while the tremors passed.

Not unusual for him, he preferred it hot and quick this way, but Clark was distressed. His first impulse was to stop at once and pull out, but the grip on his wrist told him to stay so he lay his left hand gently on Lex's waist instead, fingers sliding up and down in soft, nervous strokes. The touch was distracting for Lex, which should have been annoying, but losing himself in the pain wasn't nearly as good as being drawn back to Clark again, so for what felt like the first time ever the older man found himself enjoying being eased back to reality and let himself settle, let himself relax. He sighed, face softening.

"Does it hurt?" Clark asked, still anxious but curious now too—whatever Lex was feeling, it was something he'd never be capable of, and part of Clark yearned to understand that.

Lex pushed his eyes open again, for once eager to meet his partner's, and Clark's glowing green didn't disappoint. The exact shade of kryptonite, Lex thought suddenly, and just as deadly beautiful. Like the stones, this man brought irreversible change—a potential force for evil as much as good. But then a warm hazel dimmed the green—concern, care, maybe even something more Lex dare not think about yet. No. Whatever change this was, it was change for the better. It had to be.

"Yes," he said in answer to Clark's question. "Keep going..."

He loosened his hold on Clark's wrist and brought his hand round to the younger man's shoulder, waiting.

Clark swallowed, awed by the sombreness in the Lex's eyes. This was more than a simple tit for tat, 'I blow you, you blow me' reversal. More than the second part to a lesson. And he didn't feel anywhere near capable of rising to the occasion. But it seemed disrespectful to refuse.

Gripping Lex's side a little tighter for support, Clark started to copy what the older man had done to him, moving his finger out and back in. Lex hissed a bit more and grabbed Clark's left elbow with his free hand, but he also pushed himself back onto Clark with each movement and nodded, telling Clark to continue.

"Am I...?" Clark asked after a while.

"Perfect." Lex nodded again, lips flashing a smile. "Try more..."

Lex's gaze was dark and wanting and a steady throb of excitement built in Clark at the power he'd been given. He slipped a second finger in slowly, but Lex shook his head.

"Faster," he insisted.

Clark smiled at the rawness of the other man's need. Holding off would be easy—and Lex would be squirming! A man of such power and control, pliant as clay. It seemed impossible, tantalising... Clark couldn't though, not now, it was too cruel. So he obeyed instead, thrusting in quickly. But not too hard, holding back was second nature, always had been, and Clark knew how important it was here.

Lex moaned, and rocked repeatedly as Clark grew more confident, resting his flushed cheek against the younger man's equally reddened one, riding Clark's hand like nothing else mattered. Like, if he just got this right, everything else would fall into place. For all Clark knew, it was true. The world beyond had become far less important all of a sudden.

Soon passed needing instructions, Clark's last two fingers slipped through in quick succession. The thrust was burning, despite the gel, but Lex couldn't care less. The heat on its own was incredible, but it was also tempered by Clark's hand on his side, Clark's soft skin on his cheek and the gentle brush of Clark's breath in his ear. Clark was everywhere and everything was Clark, so much more than a touch or a thrust, and Lex didn't want sex any more, he wanted Clark.

"Stop," he breathed quickly, pulling back.

Clark had a fast paced momentum going by now but stopped in seconds, fingers pulling out as though he'd burned them.

"Sorry," he muttered automatically, face clouding, waiting to learn his mistake.

Lex shook his head. Silly, silly boy. He raised his right hand from Clark's elbow and cupped it round the younger man's cheek, running his thumb over Clark's beautiful, glistening, frowning lips. He took his other hand from Clark's shoulder and raised a finger to his own mouth in a brief gesture of silence before using it to grab the white tube again. With just the one hand and dexterity he somehow made natural, he managed to squeeze the last of the gel into his palm before chucking the spent plastic in the vague direction of the bin on the left.

Clark was full of questions again but didn't want to break the mood by talking and in the next second it didn't matter anyway because Lex was gripping his cock, tight and hard, gel gently cushioning the pressure. Clark closed his eyes as Lex started to move, wonderful, conflicting pleasures running up and inside him, cool liquid, hot hand, slick and fast and faster and ooohhh! Too good for words.

Built to the very edge, Clark knew one more touch inside him would take him right over. So when Lex's hand moved away he didn't cry out, just held his breath, eager for release.

He couldn't have been more surprised when Lex moved forward instead of back, pushed Clark down instead of up, and the sudden, tight, encircling heat bearing down on his cock was simply terrifying.

Clark snapped his eyes open and grabbed frantically at the older man's waist.

"Lex!"

Shock and fear lessened his hardness... but not for long. God. Being inside Lex was nothing like being in anyone else. The guy barely let anyone in on his emotions for Christ sake, but here he was, letting Clark touch the innermost part of him, trusting him with it, with himself, when Clark was the last person worthy of such attention after everything he'd done. He couldn't... but Lex felt so right, fit like a jigsaw piece Clark hadn't even known he was missing. Pulled away by the moment, he sought out the older man's gaze, wanting, needing, Lex to bring him back.

But Lex was just as lost, gripping Clark's shoulders, breath fast and ragged, riding his own waves of sensation. When he focused again, his eyes flashed wide and raw, as searching as Clark's with the moment almost conquering him too, which was stupid, because he'd done this before for God's sake. Except, no, not first, not suddenly, not unplanned. This was giving not taking and fuck Clark felt just as wonderful from the inside as he did everywhere else and looked too too beautiful with his brow slightly creased like that; dark, mussed hair sticking out from all sides; eyes a brown and green earthquake of want and fear and earnest, oh so earnest, concern.

Lex felt like he was falling, hard, and in more ways than one, when all this time he thought he'd been jumping. He needed some control back, or a vestige of it at least. So he grabbed Clark's spiked up hair, tightly, and pulled him into a deep, breathless, brutal kiss.

Clark responded gladly, the force of Lex's hold, the bruising pressure of his lips, bringing back much needed clarity for him. The kiss went further though, with Lex still pulling and licking long after Clark had come back to himself and as the older man gripped at Clark's neck with his free hand, tugging him closer still, Clark realised Lex was still lost, still overcome, and the older man needed drawing back as much as he did. Pain wouldn't do though—Lex knew pain too well. Clark might need it, but Lex needed quiet, Lex needed calm. Clark smiled beneath the older man's frantic lips. God, they were perfect.

Clark raised a hand to the one in his hair and loosened it carefully, eyes opening as he lowered it and pulled away. Lex's eyes were wild as he opened them, navy dark and chaotic, and inches from Clark's.

"Hey. You okay?" Clark breathed, holding Lex in his gaze this time.

Lex frowned, then blinked, then swallowed, face clearing as his breathing slowed. Am I okay? Who was teaching who here? He almost felt indignant, but then those eyes were just too sincere, too caring.

It was a simple question, but no one had asked before, not during his first time, not during his twentieth. Helen had sometimes seemed about to, but it'd felt too much like pity so Lex always stopped her, changed their position, put him in control and asking again. Gentlemanly, he'd thought. But it wasn't that. It was because, deep down, he'd wanted to be asked, wanted to be cared for, but not by someone like Helen who couldn't follow through. She'd have cared, but she wasn't strong enough to hold him, lead him, keep him from falling. No, despite his hopes she failed him there. But Clark... Clark wouldn't let him fall.

Lex nodded.

"I'm fine," he replied, lips flicking up. They were doing that roller coaster thing again...

Clark smiled too and bent their foreheads together, letting them both catch their breath, letting them rest.

Part way through sex was not the time to ease off though and after a moment Clark's cock started to shudder, excited and eager for more. Lex felt it and bit back a moan.

"You should move now," he nodded, pulling back.

Untrue. He was on top, he had control, but, for the first time he could remember, Lex didn't want it. He wanted to be taken. Because it was Clark. The only one who'd ever claimed him, body and soul, right from the beginning, and Lex needed that certified, needed Clark to acknowledge it. Risky, in logical terms, he could very possibly die from it. But, paradoxically, he'd never felt safer.

A flash of panic crossed the younger man's face.

"I can't I'll... I'll hurt you," he insisted, irrespectively shaking with need.

Lex raised his fingers from Clark's neck to play with the loose curls above—remarkably dry, despite the younger man's heat—and shook his head.

"Not enough to matter," he assured. Not that he knew. Clark had never done this before, not with his powers intact and unhampered by outside control. But he trusted... And god, he needed some pain again anyway, needed Clark fierce. Make this real for me, Clark. Make me feel it.

Clark faltered, still uncertain, so Lex moved to breathe in his ear, left hand on the other man's shoulder again, right hand on his back.

"Go..." he muttered, silky and quiet, and just when Clark was considering it, Lex scratched five red lines down the younger man's spine. "Go!"

Clark thrust up. He had to. And both men moaned, equal parts pleasure and relief. Lex brushed a lock of hair from Clark's forehead.

"Again," he muttered, gratified face showing just the hint of a smile. "Faster. Harder."

Then, just like that, Clark was moving, thrusting, and Lex was rocking into him. Or maybe Lex was thrusting after all, forcing himself down, while Clark complied. Neither knew or cared anymore. They were simply together and it was fantastic. Not falling, but flying.

At some point Lex grabbed his own cock as well and fucked his hand in time with the rhythm. Clark's hand might have joined him, but then it was also on his back, stroking his face, feeling lightly round his scalp and while Lex knew he couldn't quite trust his senses just then, this was Clark, and he could almost believe the other man really could touch him everywhere at once like that. There was kissing too, and scratching, with Clark crying out now whenever Lex raked his nails over new, unblemished skin. And Clark gave as good as he got, biting Lex's neck, gripping his side tight enough to bruise, and Lex grinned at the thought of being marked tomorrow, felt himself boil at the thought of Clark not being marked at all, no matter what he did to him and...

"Fuck!"

Lex's climax surprised both of them—hitting hard and unawares and sending thick, uncontrollable white stripes all the way to Clark's neck, the movement and closeness leaving Lex just as spattered. God...

Most other men would have fallen by then, too weak to stay upright, but not Clark. Clark was still right there for Lex to hold as the spasms receded, there to cling to as his body relaxed, falling limp and open, and Lex grabbed at Clark gladly, breathing hard and deep against his cheek.

Clark closed his eyes, stopping his caresses to wrap his arms desperately round Lex's back, body shaking as the Kryptonian tried to hold himself in. His body, his cock, his very essence it seemed, was screaming to let go, but his mind repeated over and over can't can't can't can't... He felt like he might break from the tension.

Lex looked him over in wonder - taut and pale face, lips tight together, eyes scrunched up. So much effort, sacrifice, suffered to protect him, Lex almost couldn't stand it. He wanted to hold on and never let go, bask in the safety, hide there forever; he wanted to slap the other man silly, yell at him 'Why! Why are you doing this? Just screw me over, it's what everyone else does!' Either way, they'd come too far to stop now.

"Do it, Clark," he said eventually, voice a steady rock amidst the chaos. "Let go." He bent to the other man's ear again, speaking low. "I want you inside me. I want you part of me. Make me feel it, Clark..." He trailed to a whisper, eyes closing in a desperate plea of his own. "Please..."

That did it. Lex Luthor. Begging. Fuck!

Clark might have yelled but he wasn't sure, all he knew was a sudden, mind numbing realise that shocked through his whole body, hotter than heat vision, wilder than RedK. Nothing, but nothing compared.

It's was obvious Clark was pretty out of it, so Lex felt no shame in laughing quietly in his ear, relief as much as satisfaction washing over him. Because Clark filled him up like any man might—wet and warm and perfectly safe. No destruction, barely any pain even. Just Clark. Inside him. Perfect. So, apparently kryptonite wasn't the boy's only weakness after all. Although, to be fair, not many men were at their strongest during orgasm so it was hardly a surprising, or damning, imperfection.

As collapsed as he was, it didn't take Clark long to regain consciousness, not when there was hot, sticky liquid rapidly cooling on his chest, and he slid his arms slowly back to Lex's waist, pulling them apart. The older man's hands slipped back to Clark's shoulders and they stared for a moment, sharing a smile, eyes full of satisfied triumph. Like they'd just travelled the world. Or conquered it.

"Huh..." Clark muttered, with a sense of 'so that's how it's done,' before falling with a happy sigh onto his back, arms spread out, eyes closing.

Lex grinned. So, that went pretty well then... He eased off Clark carefully, paused, then stretched himself out over the younger man's fallen body, resting his head in the curve of Clark's neck. His skin met a wetness Lex might have thought unpleasant if he'd bothered to care, but he didn't. He was spent, bruised and happy, and this place was for him, he was safe here, he could rest.

Clark's mouth curved upwards as he felt Lex cuddle into him. It probably wasn't cuddling, of course, Lex probably had a long, sophisticated, three syllable word for what it really was, but until he found that out cuddling was good enough for Clark. He wrapped an arm about the older man's shoulder and felt Lex lean into it, quickly and eagerly, like he thought it might be taken away at any moment. Which was more than likely the truth, Clark realised, considering Lionel's ideas about parenting. But even Luthors needed to be held once in a while and after everything he'd been through Clark figured Lex might just need it more than most. Such a simple thing... everything they'd been doing was, really—touching, holding, kissing—so easy after all, but it meant so much. How different things might have been if they'd just done this from the start, how much trouble, how much pain could have been avoided. How perfect things would be now.

With happy thoughts, warmth and endorphins—did his people have endorphins?—flowing through him Clark felt light as a feather, for once in his life not even the slightest bit burdened, not the slightest bit guilty. Life was wonderful. Life was easy. All his problems seemed far far below him—small and insignificant.

Lex shifted slightly, lifting his head, but it wasn't bad, he wasn't leaving, so Clark didn't worry. In fact, Lex leant down again soon after to breathe in his ear, leaving Clark even less concerned.

"Clark..." Lex muttered, fully awake again now which was kind of annoying, Clark wanted to bask a bit longer. "As much as I hate to interrupt your post-coital bliss," Lex continued, making Clark grin. At least the other man recognised his disruption. "I thought you should probably know we're currently... floating... approximately five feet from the bed."

...huh?

Clark opened his eyes with a frown.

"What?" he queried, turning his head.

Lex, face sharp with a familiar, hungry curiosity, nodded downwards, but Clark didn't need the indication—he'd already felt the conspicuous lack of a pillow beneath him. He turned the other way anyhow, just in case, and discovered beyond doubt how right Lex was as the bedside cabinet came into view a good five feet at least lower than expected and the looming empty space between them and the bed became all too obvious.

If Clark had stopped to think about it he might have been impressed by Lex's agility, considering that, even while practically unconscious, he'd managed to hook his legs around Clark's to prevent himself slipping off. As it was, Clark didn't stop to think anything beyond four letters, because he knew what was coming next.

"Whoa!" he yelled as the now familiar sinking sensation began. He had just enough presence of mind to wrap Lex tightly against himself before they both started falling.

They hit the bed with a thump, loud and heavy, but despite an indentation in the mattress it managed to stay surprisingly intact—apparently made of stronger stuff than Clark's one at home.

Clark released Lex at once, fearful of injury, and the older man rolled off him. That seemed to suggest no physical damage, but Clark couldn't be sure.

"God, Lex, I'm so sorry!" he called, patting the other man down carefully and x-raying him all over.

In a confusing turn of events, Lex burst out laughing.

Clark blinked, then frowned at the development. It seemed far from normal—the start of hysterics perhaps?

"Are you okay?" he asked quickly, hoping to bring Lex down to earth.

The older man shook his head, laughter subsiding.

"Okay? I'm fucking ecstatic," he grinned. "I mean, wow, I knew I was good, but I've never literally sent someone to cloud nine before."

He giggled a bit more but managed to hold back enough to convince Clark he wasn't in the throws of a mental breakdown. This calmed Clark down a bit, but did little to ease his conscience.

"I really am sorry," he said again, looking away as thoughts of how very bad that fall could have been ran through his mind. "I thought I'd got that under control now, it's been weeks since last time..."

Lex sat up.

"This happens a lot after sex?" he asked, curious and vaguely incredulous, although whether more from the floating or the sex he couldn't say.

"Yeah," Clark nodded, distracted. "It used to happen all the time when I was younger, I..." He turned then and saw Lex's face, eyebrows high. "No, wait! Not..." He stammered, realising the implication. "I don't mean that I..." Clark blushed. Sleeping around was at least a kind of manly thing to do, what he was about to admit seemed far more embarrassing. He looked away again. "It's never happened with someone else before..." he finished, biting his lip.

Lex broke into a grin, trying not to laugh again. Knowing Mr. Kent, masturbation had probably been cited as the eighth deadly sin. It must have been bad enough for Clark that he was rebelling, let alone having to suffer the crazy, alien accompaniment. But, god, they were talking about floating after sex, you just couldn't take that seriously.

"Right," he nodded, unable to stop the tremor of laughter that flowed with the word.

And when Clark turned back he looked so delightfully serious Lex couldn't help teasing.

"So, floating and heat vision?" he queried. "Maybe your abilities aren't because of the sun after all. Maybe they're actually part of some bizarre, Kryptonian mating ritual."

He raised his eyebrows again, with a mocking smirk this time, and Clark looked away resisting a grin of his own.

"Shut up, this is serious," he muttered.

"You're right, absolutely," Lex nodded, face creasing with exaggerated sobriety. "This is probably a precursor to flying, have you considered that?"

Clark flicked his eyes back again wearily, not quite trusting the other man's newfound cool.

"It had crossed my mind," he admitted.

"Well then, we've clearly solved that problem," Lex nodded, eyes glinting. Clark turned round fully, questioning, trying to stop the curve of his lips as he anticipated the older man's punch line. "It's obvious," Lex continued, serious expression faltering. "Sex must be the trigger. You'll just have to have a lot more of it until you've got the power under control. I'll be happy to oblige..."

Laughter finally won out again and Lex cracked up, Clark following soon after with happy relief. Relaxed and glad of his powers like never before, and while naked too! The whole thing was absurd, and wonderful, and beautifully liberating.

As his own mirth died down Clark watched with a happy smile as Lex continued to double over with laughter, and it was more than shared amusement, it was compensation for years of missed fun, a relishing of joy he barely knew how to feel. After having so many childish pursuits dismissed because of lofty ideals and tyrannical discipline, such simple pleasure must have been as alien to Lex as the man beside him. So unlike Clark, who still felt very much like a fun-loving kid half the time.

And fortunately for that inner child, the bed was stocked with the perfect kind of pillows for the situation...

Lex was just starting to get over his amusement when the fluffed up ball of green fabric battered into him, forcing him onto his back. He blinked up in surprise, still grinning, to see Clark kneeling above him, pillow in hand, shaking his head in faux disapproval.

"You really should take me more seriously," he stated, even resting a hand on his very naked hip just to make the statement more ridiculous.

"I'm sorry," Lex replied, equally mocking. "I promise never to mock your powers again. However blatantly sexual they may be..." He chuckled. "And next time you start floating I absolutely swear I won't push you out a window, however hilarious it might seem!"

Clark laughed.

"Right, that's it!"

He raised his pillow threateningly, but Lex was ready for him and rolled over to grab one of his own, swinging it at Clark's chest before the younger man could finish bringing his down. It did very little to Clark, of course, besides wipe off a sizable amount of the various liquids still staining his stomach, but he knew the rules of pillow fighting and fell down obediently, letting Lex pummel him a few times before grabbing the older man's wrists and flipping their positions round again.

Lex's earlier claim of skill fell down in that moment as he found himself too distracted to properly wrestle and pretty soon Clark had him disarmed and was pressing his own pillow down. Lex raised his hands to ward off the now much depleted fabric.

"Okay, okay, you're right!" he yelled, defeated. "I was callous, I'm sorry! I was just trying to be scientific!"

"Ha!" Clark replied, easing his pillow away. "I knew you only wanted me for science!"

And that set off another bout of laughter, enough to bring Clark down beside Lex, pillow discarded, bare shoulders shaking together.

A more serious quiet descended as they eased off this time because—sex, science, alien powers—between the two of them those were some serious fears right there, laughed off like nothing.

They turned at the same time, eyes showing matching surprise and relief.

Clark could've lain there all day.

Except, damn, baseball...

"I've got to get back to my dad," he shrugged.

Lex nodded.

"I've got to get back to work," he replied.

A double sigh. But it wasn't so terrible, not really. This was a parting, not an ending. In fact, if anything, it felt like a beginning—like this, them, what they had, was finally real, finally solid. A certainty felt by both of them.

They shared a final, lingering look, then Clark brightened again.

"I call first dibs on the Jacuzzi..."

He gave Lex a peck on the cheek and vanished, leaving the older man with the warm, green duvet pulled over him.

Lex stared through the open doorway for a moment, listening to the sound of water starting to run and the accompanying noises of delight from Clark, then he closed his eyes with a deep, satisfied sigh, stretching out like a cat—he even hummed slightly in imitation of a purr. Relaxation rarely felt this good, not since the island, never after sex, but wow, Clark had ways beyond the physical of untying him, ways Lex would never have imagined himself—laughter, fucking pillow fights. His dad would have an aneurysm if he knew the Luthor heir was indulging in such unbecoming behaviour—a thought that only made Lex smirk wider. Bliss.

The young millionaire's greatest worry just then was whether he could actually be bothered to get up and join Clark in the Jacuzzi, or if dozing on the bed was the better option. He tutted to himself—as if there were a choice. Sure, his body might be starting to feel like human-shaped jello, but the image of Clark, naked, with bubbles, was too good to pass up. Plus the covers were decidedly sticky now—a discomfort that was becoming less and less easy to ignore.

Fighting the urge to melt into the mattress then, Lex pulled himself up and blinked back into wakefulness.

And promptly bit back a scream.

Standing right opposite him, just to the left of where Clark had placed the newly framed photograph, was his mother.

She wore a casual purple sweatshirt over a pair of neat, black jeans, much like the outfit she'd been wearing in Lex's Christmas vision—the very picture of his childhood. A simple necklace of pearls hung about her neck and her expression was sombre.

Lex instinctively shuffled back against the pillows, pulling the duvet up his chest to cover the stains, for a moment uncertain what was freaking him more—that his mother was dead, or that she'd just walked in on him after sex.

The former truth hit like a rush of cold-water seconds later and an appalling thought sprang to mind.

"Oh god..." he muttered. "Am I dead? Is this just another dream?" I should have known it was too good to be true...

A look of surprise crossed Lillian's face, but it was gone in a flash and Lex was too tired and distracted to notice.

"No, Alexander," she said quietly, shaking her head. "This is real."

"But... but, how?" Lex stammered, mind too fogged from the sex and the sudden shock to properly assess what was happening. "You're dead. Twice over now, I... I found the kryptonite in your watch after last time. Clark told me, what you did. How you gave up your spirit for him, for me, I... how...?"

Lillian moved to the end of the bed, waving a hand dismissively and Lex stopped. She moved just like he remembered—graceful and commanding—and her mouth set in a firm, compassionate line. The last time he'd seen that expression was the day she'd pressed the gold watch calmly and sanely into his childish hands, eyes bright and lucid as they stared up from the hospital bed. The last time he'd seen her alive.

"I don't understand it any more than you," she replied. "All I know is I had to come back, I couldn't let him just..." She cut off, raising tense fingers to her lips as she looked away. The nails were painted—pale violet, her favourite, Lex recalled. "I had to warn you," she finished tightly beneath her hand.

Lex sat up straighter, all the tension so recently bled from him quickly returning. This was a familiar tune. He might have found it tiresome if he wasn't so afraid.

"Warn me about what?" he asked quickly. "Is it what you said before? Because I've tried to do what you asked, I..." He glanced to the doorway where the sound of running water continued to flow, reminding him Clark was still there, still close. But what if it wasn't enough? What if it was too late? When he turned back a set of heavy creases filled his face. "Mom, there's no opinion I value more than yours, and I listened to what you said last time, I swear. I've tried so hard to be the son you'd want me to be."

Lillian lowered her hand to reveal a tight smile.

"You have," she whispered, tilting her head, eyes shining now with muted joy. "And you are. I'm so proud of you, Alexander... My beautiful boy..."

The emotion was too sudden, too strong and Lex was still too tired to think about it, so when it hit, it hit hard, bursting something inside him—wild and painful. He had to swallow heavily to keep it from surging up his throat.

The need to make Lionel proud had always been overriding, a part of himself he'd never fully understood, but he realised now all the pain, the heartache, the suffering, it had all been for nothing, it was only a substitute. It was his mother's pride he'd been seeking all these years—heart yearning for so long after a word of gratification her death could never allow, forcing him to turn to the nearest available, and yet equally immovable, paternal source instead.

With those few words and the sent of Clark surrounding him, it felt like, finally, Lex had all he'd ever wanted. He couldn't speak.

"And that's why," Lillian continued, nodding. "Why I had to come back. Because you're going to lose it all, everything, if you don't stop him..." She turned away, pacing unhappily. Lex was still too breathless to interrupt. "Everything..." Her eyes fell on the photograph and she ghosted a couple of fingertips over the image, not quite touching. "Everyone you love... He'll take it all."

"Who?" Lex asked.

She turned back to him slowly, eyes dark and icy cold.

"Lionel," she stated, tone hard.

Lex didn't pause for a second, just nodded. Of course. Who else?

"What? What's he doing?" he persisted.

"Something terrible," Lillian replied, face collapsing. "He..." She shook her head, suddenly helpless; traces of former madness touching her eyes.

"You don't have to tell me what," Lex interrupted, old fears and the desire to spare her mind resurfacing, like flotsam dredged up from a shallow seabed grave. "Just tell me how to stop him."

A couple of tears glistened on her cheeks as she looked back.

"I wish I didn't have to ask you this," she muttered, almost imploring. "I wish there was another way, I... I've put you through so much already. Maybe I shouldn't have come, maybe this is wrong..."

She moved to the doorway as if to leave and Lex bent forward, hand raised from the covers in a stilling gesture, leaving the duvet to fall to his lap.

"No! Mom, wait. You're not wrong. You weren't wrong last time either. You were right, I was losing myself, I needed pulling back..."

He sounded desperate. He was. Lex barely even knew what he was saying—did he believe all that? that he was so incapable of controlling his own soul he'd needed Clark to keep it from blackening? Maybe. It was the kind of determinism he'd found more than plausible last night. But then, he was also a practically non-thinking puddle because of the sex and couldn't see anything beyond the mother he'd loved and lost. He wanted to keep her with him for as long as possible this time, and that emotion was just as strong as his sometimes belief in fatalism, if not more.

"Please," he continued, glad to see the older woman pause. "I trust you. Whatever you've come to tell me I'll do it."

Lillian took a heavy breath and stared passed the doorway into the distance. After a moment she nodded, as if confirming something only she could see.

"You have to kill him, Alexander," she said, still looking away. "You have to kill your father."

Lex blanked, hand still raised—a defence mechanism. Not just to hide his fear, but control it. Only it wasn't the demand he was afraid of. He was afraid of his lack of fear about it. Because somewhere, deep inside him, he felt a cold sense of inevitability—as if he'd always known it would come to this, that Lionel had been destined to die at his hand from the beginning. He was already imagining how it might be done. But it was a two edged sword—if doing it would save everything he loved then he would, in a heartbeat, but how could he, and still look unashamed in Clark's eyes afterwards? Wouldn't he lose the other man anyway? The strain of thought was too much; he was still too tired...

His arm lowered as biology took over and a violent breath escaped his lips. The momentum brought his head down and he studied the creased, green surface of the duvet with a frown, too tired to think beyond it just yet.

Unnoticed seconds stretched to minutes.

"You know, Lex, when I said 'Jacuzzi' I was kinda assuming you'd take it as an open invitation, but, you know, your loss..."

Lex snapped his head up.

A wet, smiling Clark stood in the doorway, fluffy white towel about his waist, rivulets of water dripping off his flattened hair. The curve of his lips suggested he'd just finished a shrug and everything about him spoke of happiness. He did not look like a man who'd just walked in on his boyfriend's dead mother.

The older man looked wildly round the room.

Empty.

"Lex?" Clark stepped inside, voice softening. "Everything okay? You look like you've just seen a ghost..."

Lex turned back slowly, inner turmoil carefully condensed to a small crease in his forehead—troubling Clark now was the last thing he wanted, not on his birthday, not when things were so perfect. Besides which, he didn't much want to face the implications of the last five minutes himself either—they all seemed pretty bleak. Either the kryptonite poisoning was finally taking its toll, bringing its predictable madness, or alien sex induced hallucinations... or... he really didn't want to think about that last 'or.' For once, mental instability seemed the better option.

He shook his head in silence.

Chloe leant back in her chair, stifling a yawn, arms stretching wide beneath her black sweater. She cricked her neck against the collar of her dark green blouse, just visible over the woollen fabric, and pulled herself in again to check her watch. Quarter to five. Just fifteen minutes left and she'd been working hard all day, would anyone really care if she clocked off a little early tonight?

The thought dissolved seconds later when she saw Clark bounding through the office door, a Cheshire cat style grin filling his face from ear to ear. A crisp, white baseball cap marked by a badly stitched wolverine was perched on his head, clashing with his usual blue Tee, jeans and red jacket, but more importantly, he held a carton of chow mein and a cup of steaming coffee in his hands. Chloe flashed a wide, white toothed smile of her own as he placed the two items on her desk.

"Freshly made from the best Chinese Michigan has to offer," he explained. "Though they clearly thought I was crazy asking for a coffee as well. Chinese demands more of a herbal tea kind of accompaniment. Anyone ever tell you you're pretty weird?"

"Yes. You. All the time," Chloe grinned back, tucking loose hair behind her ears as she bent forward to undo the still warm cardboard container. "Not that you're one to talk. You do know people are supposed to give you presents on your birthday, right?"

Clark bent his head with a breath of laughter.

"What can I say? I'm a rebel," he shrugged, carefully pushing some papers aside so he could balance on the corner of the desk.

Chloe shook her head above the carton.

"Oh yeah, that hat really screams James Dean," she teased as the cardboard clasp popped open in her hands, sending a rich, spicy aroma up her nose. She sucked it in with a grateful 'Mmmm.' "God, that smells good... Although... technically, I'm still on duty. I probably shouldn't..."

She bit her lip and looked up. Clark didn't miss a beat.

"Oh come on, Chloe, you've got what? Ten minutes left? Who's gonna care?" He waved an arm about the office for confirmation and Chloe nodded at the conspicuous lack of bodies there, noting how the few who'd stayed were already switching off computers and packing away.

"Okay, you're right," she nodded, needing no further encouragement to pull off the chopsticks at the side of the pot and dig in. "You know, I think I like this sudden rebellion," she added appreciatively between mouthfuls. "You want any?"

She raised a bunch of noodles to Clark with an ease that spoke of long practice but in a shocking turn of events Clark shook his head, a look of distaste crossing his features.

"Nah, that's okay," he muttered. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this but—I'm not hungry."

Chloe blinked, eyes growing wide. Clark's eating habits were legendary among his friends and everyone knew leftovers were non-existent at the Kent's. Clark nodded, mouth flattening in an exaggerated 'I know, I know...' type of expression.

"Dad and I kind of OD'd on junk food at the stadium," he admitted, looking sheepish. "It was the first time we actually, you know, had money to spend on merchandise and stuff. We went a little crazy."

"I see," Chloe nodded, eyeing Clark's cap with new understanding. Clark looked up at it himself and blushed. "So, I assume the Wolverines sealed the deal with a suitably impressive victory?"

"Actually we lost," Clark shrugged, not dropping his smile for a second. "But it was a great game. So close. I don't think I've ever cheered harder in my life!"

Chloe frowned against her chopsticks, brow furrowing as she swallowed her latest mouthful.

"So, wait..." she muttered, lowering the sticks. "It's your birthday, you spent over an hour in formal wear this morning and your baseball team didn't even have the decency to win for you... This leaves you in a suspiciously good mood."

Clark beamed back at her. He supposed it did. But since meeting Lex at the hotel he'd found it literally impossible to feel sad.

Chloe's surprise supper wasn't the only benefit either—Clark's relationship with his dad had improved dramatically during the game.

Still bursting with happiness, Clark had found it hard to keep his previous resentment of the older man going and Jonathan had been equally softened by his son's obvious joy. The box had helped too. A lot. Partly because, wow, a whole box, to themselves, for the whole game! So cool. More seriously though, it also meant there were no other people near by to distract them, forcing them to talk together properly and clear the air. Jonathan made it perfectly clear, of course, that he was still far from trusting Lex, and Clark had to concede the point—after the high-strung political battle the two men had just been through it was wishful thinking at best to imagine his dad would be won over by the younger Luthor any time soon. Jonathan did acknowledge, however, that Clark obviously knew his own mind and agreed, albeit reluctantly, to submit to his son's decision and be at least cordial with the latest member of the Kent family secret from now on. Not perfect, but it was a start.

Clark only hoped Lex's day was going as well. The older man had been oddly distracted as they returned to the party—something he'd cited as frustration about the LuthorCorp meeting he was attending that afternoon. Understandable, Clark thought—after the open happiness they'd just shared, the idea of facing a stuffy, formal, probably unfriendly business meeting must have grated. He'd have to drop in on the guy later, see how he was doing. Maybe they could try one of the mansion's spare bedrooms this time... No. Stop that. You're with Chloe right now. Chloe. Just cos you're involved with one of the sexiest guys on the planet it doesn't mean every thought has to be about sex... Maybe every other thought... No. Stop it.

"Can't I just be happy it's my birthday?" Clark tried, hoping to veer them both away from the motives of his cheerfulness.

Chloe tilted her head, eyes warm with affection.

"Only you, Clark, can find happiness without ulterior motive," she responded, turning back to her noodles with an easy smile. "I like that about you. Anyone else, I'd just assume must have got laid today..."

Clark was glad he'd declined Chloe's offer to share or else he might have just spluttered chow main all over her. Instead, his eyes widened in a look of panic and he had to fight hard against the blush creeping up his neck.

"Um... yeah... huh..." he muttered, looking down, face hidden by his cap. Come on Kent, get a grip; this is exactly the kind of behaviour that gives you away! He looked up again, tentatively, only to find Chloe still busy eating and oblivious to his struggle. "So, ah, anyway. I was wondering, when you do finish up here, how about we catch a movie or something? We could call Lana too, make a night of it."

Not a nervous tremor in sight—Clark congratulated himself.

Chloe placed her now almost finished Chinese on the desk and shot Clark a more serious look. Ever since her outburst the other week about Clark's lax attitude towards their friendship the farmboy had been making regular suggestions like this—bowling the other day, a 24 marathon the night before. They all knew it was socialising fuelled by guilt, but it was good socialising nonetheless, and both Chloe and Lana appreciated the atmosphere it inspired—a kind of charged, excitable fellowship that reminded them of easier days hanging out in high school. There were awkward moments sure, especially with Lana who Chloe had caught several times pulling back from embracing her former fiancé, and the young reporter had a strong suspicion Clark was building up to inviting Lex along to one of these occasions, but for now it was just the three of them and they were together again. Which was what mattered really.

"That's a great idea," she nodded, wiping her sticky hands on the paper serviette beneath the coffee. "You call Lana while I finish up here..."

Clark smiled as she turned back to the computer, giving the mouse a quick tug to dispel the screensaver. Loneliness had never felt so distant. Before he could reach for his phone though, Chloe gave a cry of annoyance.

"Damn it!"

Clark frowned, instantly on edge. Should have known things were going too well...

"What?" he asked.

"It's Lex," Chloe muttered, clicking at something onscreen, voice tainted less with anger than a type of frustrated admiration. "I don't know how but he's hacked into my secret e-mail account. I just changed the firewall yesterday too!"

"You... have a secret e-mail account?" Clark asked, surprise and relief soon removing his tension.

Chloe glanced back at him with a shrug.

"Well, yeah, you know, to contact sources with and stuff," she explained as if it should have been obvious. Upon reflection, Clark supposed it should have been—clearly he was not cut out for this reporting thing. "I don't know how Lex tracked it back to me..." Chloe continued, shaking her head. "I'm going to have to go over my security again, I mean, I thought I'd ironed it out to perfection last night, I spent hours, but I guess there's a weak spot I must have missed, maybe I could—"

"Um, Chloe?" Clark interrupted; eager to avoid the technical explanation his friend was gearing up to. "If you're saying Lex sent you an e-mail maybe you should, you know, see what it says?"

He tried to swallow the whine of jealousy tainting the words but didn't quite succeed. Although he had no problem with Lex contacting his other friends in principle, witnessing it in practice was another matter entirely and he couldn't help wondering why the older man would want to. I mean, what does he have to talk to Chloe about he can't discuss with me? Oh god, maybe they're sharing deep, meaningful fears about life with an alien!

"Oh, right, yeah," Chloe nodded, snapping out of her technical musings. "Here."

She pulled up the relevant window and turned the screen round to him. An odd thing to do with private information, Clark thought, slipping off the desk so he could move to Chloe's shoulder and get a better look.

The message proved thankfully free of secret camaraderie, and read as follows:

Miss Sullivan,

Sorry to contact you again in this fashion, particularly when you expressly told me not to, but I thought you'd appreciate the privacy this method entails. Despite my quite blatant hijacking of it, I'm confident this e-mail is secure enough not to be infiltrated by anyone else.

The crux of the matter is, my security guards at the LuthorCorp building are becoming increasing nervous about your frequent visits. While I admire your determination, I can assure you the entrance to 33.1 cannot be found simply by snooping around Staff Only entrances, no matter how good your investigative style may be, and I would hate for you to get into trouble over it.

Neither will you gain anything with your constant hacking of the LuthorCorp system because, just so you know, 33.1 runs on a separate network entirely. You are, however, slowing our servers down to a third of their usual efficiency so I would please ask you to stop.

Thank you,

L.L

Clark turned back to his friend sharply; face a battleground of disapproval and amusement.

"You've been trying to break into 33.1?" he muttered, voice lowered to a scandalised whisper.

For a second Chloe seemed about to blush, then a sudden confidence entered her eyes and she turned a cool face to Clark instead.

"Come on, Clark," she implored. "You're talking to the world's greatest Nancy Drew supporter here, did you really expect any different?"

Clark stuttered for a moment then shook his head in defeat.

In all honesty, he hadn't expected anything, but now he thought about it the secret project must have been like a red flag to Chloe Sullivan, wanna-be investigative reporter since she was five. He didn't want to think what it said about him that all his closest friends seemed in someway criminal—Chloe with her snooping, Pete with his drag racing, Lois with her tendency to assault, Lex with... well, where did you start? Still, they did all try to use their criminal activities for good at least... well, mostly. And he did still have Lana as a welcome exception... didn't he?

His eyes fell back to the e-mail and he sighed. From the phrasing it was clear Lex hadn't been surprised by the turn of events; in fact he almost seemed to welcome the challenge. Another example of the man's cynical upbringing? Or was Clark just being old fashioned? As he pondered, Clark noticed an extra sentence at the bottom of the screen they'd both missed.

"Hey there's a postscript," he pointed.

Chloe turned back.

"P.S. Check your mail," she read, eyebrows folding together as she considered the words. "Well... what's that supposed to mean? Last post was collected hours ago..."

Even as she spoke a youngish, brown haired man in a stiff-collared uniform poked his head through the office door.

"Special delivery for Chloe Sullivan?"

Clark and Chloe looked at each other.

Then Chloe shrugged and waved the guy over, while Clark stepped back with a smile—you had to give Lex kudos for his style.

The young reporter signed the delivery guy's clipboard impatiently and he handed her a small jiffy bag in exchange. Chloe was ripping at it before he'd even let go, leaving Clark to apologise for her briskness and give the man a small smile and wave as a thank you. His view of the world might be shaded significantly greyer these days but if there was one thing Clark remained certain of it was his manners—good ones cost nothing, as his parents would say, and politeness was at least one rule of life he could stick to without fear of complication.

As Chloe tipped the now open bag upside-down, a small, rectangular object fell from it onto the desk. It turned out to be a white plastic card, roughly the size of a credit card, with a black strip on the back and a post it on the front.

Chloe discarded the wrapping and pulled the post it off without looking at it, eager to expose the whole of what it concealed. The front of the card was smooth, glossy and blank. She frowned.

"So this is...?" she muttered, quirking an unimpressed eyebrow at her friend.

But Clark was busy searching his pockets, a look of pure astonishment on his face. After a few seconds he found what he was looking for in the back of his jeans.

"Snap," he stated, holding his hand out—in it was another white card, identical to the one Chloe was holding. Chloe blinked and Clark saved her the obvious question by continuing. "It's a security card for 33.1."

"Wow..." Chloe looked over her own card with more interest, before picking up the post it again. "If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm sure Clark will fill you in about this," she read. "I could have let you use his but what can I say? I'm a sucker for grand gestures. Consider this an open invitation—" She cut off abruptly and spun round in her chair, almost crashing into Clark who'd once again moved to her shoulder. "Okay, this is way too easy, what's going on?" she demanded.

"Um..." Clark stuttered, surprised. Considering the effort Lex had gone to to set up this invitation, 'easy' didn't seem quite the right word, but, whatever. "Why should something be going on? Lex wants you to visit the facility, sounds reasonable to me." Incredibly so, in fact. Clark had hoped to suggest such a visit himself in the coming weeks but assumed Lex would need coaxing first, knowing how touchy the older man could get about people interfering with his things. Chloe looked dubious and Clark hurried to distract her. "Besides, there's a PTO you're ignoring."

He nodded to the paper where a neat, black PTO was indeed resting in the bottom, right-hand corner. Chloe flipped it over obediently and this time it was Clark who voiced the absent man's words.

"Don't think I'm stupid though. If I see so much as a reflection of a camera lens, the item will be confiscated and you'll be removed from the premises immediately. Oh, and this card is only valid for the next hour, so you can't use it to sneak in again later. Lucky your shift's almost over."

The two of them looked up to the clock above the exit. The minute hand was just reaching twelve.

Lex was in the 33.1 office talking to one of his scientists while Clark and Chloe examined the time, white dress shirt from earlier altered to a more sombre black.

Black helped him think better. It meant shadows and solitude; force, intimidation; and it gave him something to hide behind. With the right swagger he could look decidedly unapproachable in black and being approached was the last thing Lex wanted just then. What he did want just then was work, and lots of it. Business. Distraction. So he'd forget the event, or possible non-event, in the hotel that morning. Letting Clark soften him up was one thing, but having their relationship play tricks on his mind was quite another. Plus he'd been an emotional wreck with his mom—or whatever—and that was beyond unacceptable. He needed to get a hold of himself. So when LuthorCorp work ran dry he'd moved in the facility, checking and re-checking data, getting the lab techs to overhaul equipment, demanding progress reports from all his scientists.

It was during one such overhaul Luthorcorp security had informed him of their fears about Chloe and for once the girl's insatiable curiosity felt like a godsend. Nothing was more distracting than being quizzed by a good reporter, and so Lex arranged a visit at once. Arranged one elaborately in fact. A bit arrogant perhaps, but that was another good thing to hide behind.

Not that he was running away from his problems... exactly... more controlling them. Honing his mind. Re-assessing what was real. So that next time, if there were a next time, he'd know for certain the difference between a hawk and a handsaw.

It was a report on Clara's development the white haired, white-coated man was showing him now. His name was Dr Calum, an ex-molecular biologist whose age denied him good work elsewhere. Coupled with his friendly personality though, it gave him an excellent bedside manner and Lex had quickly identified him as an ideal candidate for what Phoenix had dubbed the facility's 'GP,' ie. General Practitioner. It was Dr Calum who conducted all the inhabitants' check ups and recorded how people were coping with their powers, who needed more drugs, who needed fewer etc.

Clara's chameleon abilities were coming on in leaps and bounds, apparently, and the doctor was in fact proposing to wean her off the kryptonite serum altogether, when Clark and Chloe breezed into the office, Chloe with her cup of coffee—still steaming—in one hand, the white security pass in the other.

Lex blinked at the intrusion and checked his watch. 17:03. The e-mail he'd sent to the Daily Planet was still visible on the computer at his desk.

"That was fast," he noted mildly, closing Calum's file and nodding the man away.

The doctor left quickly and quietly, shooting Clark a polite smile as he passed, and Clark grinned back in greeting. Dr Calum was the scientist who'd overseen much of the early self-imposed training sessions the younger man had implemented and the two of them had developed a strong acquaintance over the weeks.

"I took the express route," Chloe shrugged, sipping her coffee and trying to look nonchalant as she walked up to the desk.

Behind her, Clark brushed down his tousled hair as if in explanation, acknowledged tacky hat left at the Planet, and Lex raised his eyebrows.

Taking the bull by the horns aren't you, Sullivan? He wasn't exactly surprised she'd brought Clark, or that she'd utilised his speed—with only an hour to spare he'd knew she'd go all out to make the most of it, and the other man's presence would act as a useful foil to an orchestrated tour - but he had expected her to be awkward with him when mentioning Clark's powers, like Lana and the Kents. But then, Chloe never had been the dithering type. Lex admired that. Of all Clark's friends, Chloe was the only one he could claim an instant and continuing like for. Of course, she was also the one who pissed him off the most too and even though she'd been here less than a minute he was already starting to feel that - Clark had never supersped him anywhere.

"Didn't catch you off guard did I?" Chloe persisted, looking positively elated at the prospect.

"Of course not," Lex answered smoothly, flashing a patented grin as he stepped round the desk, folder in hand. Perfect Chloe, keep me dancing. This promised to be an all-consuming couple of hours, at least, irritation aside. "Just let me put this away and I'll be right with you."

Chloe nodded, gazing round the office as Lex opened the filling cabinet.

"I've gotta say," she muttered, sipping her coffee again. "The digs outside are impressive but this office seems kinda small for you."

Living with Lionel had given Lex ample experience reading between lines and Chloe's subtext came through loud and clear.

"It's efficient," he responded, slipping the folder into its allocated position. "No point wasting space I could utilise better elsewhere. And I'm quite sure if I were hiding extra information you'd have ferreted out several possible locations for it by now."

He snapped the head-height drawer shut and started a little when he found Clark leaning behind it, forehead creased in concern.

"You all right?" he asked softly. "You look kind of haggard."

I do not! was the older man's immediate response. He was currently in one hundred per cent, full on, crisp, professional, business mode. He looked perfect and he knew it. He felt a little haggard, true, seven straight hours of work without lunch would do that to you, but no one should have been able to sense that. Fucking... alien. The last thing Lex wanted now was Clark's overbearing concern. He wanted action, not comfort! Whatever had happened this morning, he wasn't some child who needed pandering, especially not by someone who'd just recently been a child themselves.

"I'm fine, Clark," he replied. "Just a little tired." While technically true, this didn't seem enough so Lex added backup, and because he was still looking to assert control he chose the most potentially cutting kind he could think of. "Rough morning, you know."

A small raise of eyebrows while eyeing Clark's crotch was enough to get the message across and the younger man looked down, cheeks flushing. Surprisingly though, his eyes shone not just with embarrassment as Lex had predicted, but also a touch of pride. Bless him.

"Yeah?" Chloe queried from the desk, where she was now leaning, coffee deposited haphazardly beside her. "What were you up to? Corrupting another innocent soul for the good of LuthorCorp?"

The response was so wonderfully fitting Lex couldn't help smirking as he turned.

"Something like that," he muttered. "Shall we?"

He raised a hand to the door and Chloe didn't need another invitation.

The two men followed her eager form outside, with Clark shooting the older man a more relaxed and appreciative smile behind the reporter's back as they walked. Without the risk of emotional incursion weighing it down Lex found this much easier to respond to and it boosted his sense of authority no end—not only had he progressed from wanting Clark's secret to knowing it, he'd now catapulted all the way into being it. As positions went, you didn't get much more privileged than that.

Satisfied Lex wasn't suffering from some weird, fatal reaction to alien sex, as the fatigue in the older man's eyes had sent Clark fretting about, the younger man was now content to fade into the background while his friend snapped into business mode. He'd done all he could to assure Chloe of the millionaire's good intentions, the rest was up to Lex now, and Clark had full confidence in his abilities.

This gave Clark's mind time to wander as they moved briskly through the sterile white corridors—Lex was still tired from earlier? He'd made Lex that tired? The idea of leaving such a lasting impression on the other man caused flutters of excitement to erupt in Clark's chest. Oh, this was good. Good and, paradoxically considering their unusual situation, normal. This was a proper relationship, with proper give and take, and proper responses from both parties. God, finally.

Lex and Chloe were only mildly aware of Clark grinning like a loon behind them, having fully absorbed themselves to the matter in hand the second they entered the corridor. Chloe had a little trouble keeping up with the older man's long, purposeful strides, but she didn't once complain or ask to go slower, and managed to match the pace as best she could instead, somehow losing no dignity throughout her efforts, even when she had to scamper slightly to close the distance between them, smart, black heels sounding muted taps against the white plastic tiles. Her eyes darted to the rooms they were passing from time to time, noting the shining equipment and busy scientists inside with interest, but it was obvious Lex had a destination in mind so she didn't move to investigate further. It wasn't long before her innate curiosity found a voice though.

"So, since you did say 'open invitation' I'm assuming you won't mind answering a few questions while we walk?" she queried.

Lex smirked, still looking ahead.

"Not at all," he answered. In fact, I'm banking on it. "Please, ask away."

"Okay, so I've been reading through the files you gave Clark," Chloe started, jumping right in. "And according to them there are over a hundred members of this facility coming and supposedly going as they please..."

Lex nodded.

"An accurate estimation, yes," he confirmed. "Though not all members use this facility specifically, there are also buildings in Edge city and Grandville, though those are significantly smaller. I'm hoping to set up some branches overseas in the not too distant future as well."

Chloe blinked at the unasked for elaboration and Lex bit back a gratified chuckle. Being honest could bring its own power sometimes, especially with this much shock value involved, and if Lex wanted to keep control of this Q and A it was exactly that kind of shock he needed to play on. Pre-emptive volunteering of information gave Chloe the answers she wanted, while simultaneously throwing her off balance.

A small victory in the grand scheme of things however, considering it did little to alter the fact Lex was revealing his second most guarded secret to a rookie reporter just out of high school. But it made him feel better at least. Besides, he'd resigned himself to this eventuality weeks ago, ever since he'd voiced the facility's existence that night in the Kent farmhouse. Because something shared with Clark was inevitably shared with the younger man's posse too... with one, fairly major, exception these days of course. It was immensely satisfying to know that, even after 33.1 had been explored, discussed and analysed, he and Clark still had something exclusively theirs to indulge in.

"Right..." Chloe muttered. Lex could almost see the internal road map she was building, planning how to get from Grandville to Edge city in a day. "But, expansion plans aside, all I've seen so far is a bunch of scientists. Where are all these so called members?"

"There are no tests scheduled for today," Lex replied. "They're probably out. Or in the living quarters."

"Oh yeah, the living quarters, Clark mentioned," Chloe nodded, eyes turning shrewd. "He also said there's a locked door separating here from there, and yet the only way in or out seems to be through this hospital coloured lab..."

She trailed off and Lex stopped his pacing to actually chuckle this time.

"You think 'living quarters' equates to 'prison'?" he clarified, raising his eyebrows as he turned to face his interviewer for the first time. Naïve Chloe. Do you really think Clark would have OK-ed something like that?

"Chloe!" Clark protested, stepping up beside her, as if in support of the older man's thoughts. "Geeze, this isn't Alcatraz. There's a back entrance. I bought you this way cos I knew Lex would be in the office and it's quicker."

"Back entrance where?" Chloe persisted, not missing a beat and remarkably brazen considering she'd just questioned her best friend's integrity. Lex was fascinated—either her opinion of Clark wasn't as idolised as he'd supposed, or her view of him, and his corrupting power, was significantly stronger.

"In the basement," he explained. "Cunningly disguised as a brick wall. You were practically on top of it yesterday evening I believe."

Another small smirk as Chloe looked suitably disgruntled. Successfully pulling the wool over someone was something Lex still gained a cheap thrill out of, despite the number of times he'd done it now, and considering the number of times Chloe had full out lied to him about Clark in the past year he felt little guilt in flaunting his one-upmanship.

He started moving again without another word, leaving Chloe to frown for a beat before hurrying after him.

Clark let out a nervous breath before following. There was no foul play going on, yet, but it was clear his two friends' hackles were rising by the second and he wondered if this was perhaps one of those situations that needed to get worse before it got better.

"Okay, so I'll buy a back entrance, sounds reasonable," Chloe continued, still dubious. "But do really expect me to believe every single person here gets in and out using one of these flimsy white cards?" She waved hers under Lex's nose for emphasis. "Pretty lax security if you ask me. What if one of them got lost? Or stolen? Anyone could break in."

"A ridiculous lapse in security indeed," Lex agreed. "Which is why the members don't have security cards. They get in via a retinal and fingertip-DNA scan, like me."

"Oh, so you're saying you have a record of everyone's DNA," Chloe persisted, slipping the white card in her pocket; tone sharp and smug, as if she'd finally caught the other man out.

Lex was silent for a moment as he took a few more steps forward, coming to a halt outside a heavy-duty, windowless, steel door. He glanced back at Chloe as he rested a hand on the handle, looking oddly satisfied about her question, before opening the door with a flourish.

The room inside was narrow but long and filled with row after row of shelves, all of them stacked with test tubes and jars of varying sizes, neatly covered in white labels. A quiet hum filled the air and Chloe noticed a collection of refrigeration units near the end with still more test tubes showing through their glass-panelled doors.

Lex moved inside and stretched his arms out, spinning round.

"DNA, blood samples, tissue samples, nail clippings..." he listed, cutting a dramatic figure in the centre of the looming hallway stretching out behind. "Yes, I have a record of just about everything."

Chloe inched slowly through the open doorway, eyes wide with shock as she took in the incredible size of the collection. Behind her, Clark leant against the door to keep it open and bit his lip—because he knew what it looked like, he knew what she was thinking, and he couldn't fault her for it. He still felt that way himself from time to time, even though he understood the necessity.

"And you don't think this is in any way a breach of civil liberty?" Chloe breathed, shooting Lex an incredulous look.

"It's a prerequisite for joining the facility," Lex shrugged, lowering his arms. "People are welcome to refuse, but if they want to be part of the project this is what I need. Every member understands that before they sign up."

Chloe frowned, uncertain.

If it was disbelief about his last statement, Lex knew he was lost, that he'd never convince her of the truth behind the project, but it seemed to him she was frowning more about the need for all the samples as opposed to whether members really were informed about having to give them, which gave him a chance.

He didn't know why it mattered to him so suddenly that she understand his intentions—much as he admired her personality, he'd hardly consider it a loss if she failed to accept him—but he suspected it had something to do with the anxious, pleading look Clark had focused on her back. Lex might be quite satisfied with Clark's affection and no one else's, but Clark needed his friends. Yes, with enough persuasion the younger man might be coaxed into breaking away from them, but he'd never be really happy about it and their relationship would suffer in the end. Which meant, in a way, Lex needed Clark's friends too, and the older man... didn't know what he felt about that. Probably best not to know, Lex concluded—make it simply a new challenge, a new distraction.

"It's not just about security," Lex continued, stepping closer to the frowning girl, expression earnest. "I don't know how far you've got with those files, but the fact of the matter is over ninety per cent of the people here are infected by kryptonite as opposed to having natural abilities..." Chloe blinked at the terminology and Lex went with it, throwing in another term he'd heard Clark bandy about to startle her further. "That makes us 'kryptofreaks' to you, doesn't it?"

Chloe made to respond, face flushed, but a well-timed raise of eyebrows from Lex exposed his non-existent hairline and the young blonde closed her mouth again instead with a gratifying snap. On his inner scoreboard, Lex chalked up a point to him. Not that he blamed Chloe for forgetting his personal connection to the members she was currently raising indignation for—he was rich, outwardly healthy, successful and all manner of things the others weren't, making his own infection easy to overlook—but it was satisfying to remind her of it nonetheless. Blaming a doctor for mistreating patients was one thing—blaming a fellow sufferer for working with said patients was rather more difficult.

Behind her, Clark was blushing. Until now he'd never even considered the possible derivativeness of the term Chloe had coined for the kryptonite infected, it'd just been an easy description. As he looked Lex over though he realised he'd never once thought to apply it to him, because 'freak' was the last thing Lex was. How unfair that he'd been quite happy labelling all the other infected as such, especially considering the truth about himself he was hiding. Maybe it was time they got a better name...

"My point is," Lex continued after the unease had settled nicely. "Kryptonite infection isn't standard. There are no universal symptoms. Everyone's affected differently, and on a genetic level. If these people want my help I need this information. All treatment has to be tailored to individual needs and individual specifications, otherwise not only will it not work, it might even be harmful."

"Treatment..." Chloe muttered, eyeing the older man gamely. "You mean like that serum Clark and I were sent to steal from Level Three?" Lex sighed a little through his nose. A fair question, he'd been expecting the issue, but she could have had the decency to bring it up separately. "What happened to that by the way? I went there the day after the kidnapping and found nothing but an empty apartment block."

Lex turned away, annoyed at having his stride broken.

"Level Three was a mistake," he explained over his shoulder. "A sub-division set up less than a year ago where I intended to hold some of the more unstable mutants."

"Hold?" Chloe persisted.

When Lex turned round his eyes were bright and his mouth flat—hiding nothing, but expecting nothing either.

"Hold as in keep, contain and otherwise prevent from leaving," he deadpanned. Chloe nodded, lips pursed and Lex shook his head. "Oh, don't look so righteous. If a certain Sean Kelvin had survived his infection I doubt you'd have been too upset at his incarceration. Or Ian Randall's. Or Greg Arkin's or..."

Chloe clicked her tongue impatiently.

"Alright, you've made your point," she snapped. "Though I don't see why you felt the need to take it upon yourself to develop this supposed benefit to society. And it doesn't explain why you created a power boosting drug for the people you claim to have been containing."

The look they shared was so tangible Clark could almost see the sparks. He was desperate to rush in and pull his friends apart, grab their hands and beg them not to fight, beg them to understand each other, force the goodness he could see in both of them to the light. But he knew it wouldn't help. It was no good telling them what he saw; they had to see each other for themselves. He just hoped Chloe's veiled accusations wouldn't push Lex too far—an angry retort now, while understandable, wouldn't exactly be endearing.

But Lex, while annoyed at yet another display of Smallville distrust—from someone he'd sought to protect in the past even!—wasn't anywhere near angry. He was delighted. Chloe's jibes were, as anticipated, all consuming, and they were making him wonderfully alert.

"You probably won't believe this," he shrugged calmly. "But the drug wasn't intended to enhance a person's power. Merely accelerate it. A lot of problems faced by infected individuals are a result of them being unable to control their new abilities. I thought if I could speed up the development process it might make it easier for them to get a handle on things. Tone down their violence perhaps..." He bit at his bottom lip for second. "As it happened I overlooked the potentially addictive qualities of that particular serum. One of the reasons I eventually shut that side of the project down."

His eyes dulled a little as he thought back over that time—it was bleak. No Clark. More meteors. A black ship hidden away, fuelling paranoia and bringing very real fears about having to turn his hitherto scientific project into a full on, military endeavour—until the near catastrophe of his staged hostage and the impact of Clark's fist against his jaw had finally opened his eyes to exactly how manic his thoughts were becoming.

"After the kidnapping," he continued, rather more quietly. "It also became painfully obvious my... means of containment, were far from adequate. I had a choice. Develop Level Three and put all my efforts into an all out military campaign. Or abandon it and stick to a more scientific approach here instead. I chose the latter."

"With an eye to making weaponry on the side," Chloe added.

Lex tilted his head in acknowledgement.

"It seemed... imprudent, to abandon thoughts of military defence completely," he amended.

"Right... because of that alien invasion you were so afraid of," Chloe nodded. Surprisingly though, her voice was quiet, and far from the mocking tone Lex had expected.

Having been in the loop much longer than him Lex assumed Chloe would scoff at his fears. He knew from experience how foolish a false opinion could seem from the other side. But Chloe's eyes, though narrow and suspicious, weren't sarcastic and she sucked in her lips for a second, considering the motive.

"Okay, say I buy it," she said eventually, tone brisk and curious. "If you were so scared about this, so sure the people here needed attention, why not call in the actual military? Get the government involved?"

Lex gave a tight-lipped smile.

"I tried," he answered.

By the door, Clark started. This was news to him and his brow furrowed as he raised his head.

"Early on I made some hesitant requests for government assistance," Lex continued, leaning carefully against one of the shelves. "I sent them pictures of the caves, samples of meteorite, but the truth is... no one else cares." He folded his arms, lips flicking up in a sardonic half smile. "Tales of the supernatural hold little weight with those in power at the best of times, but in Smallville..." He shook his head. "No one was interested in investing time and money on a tiny, rural town in Kansas, the last thing they want is another Roswell. I was told it was 'not considered important enough' to investigate."

His eyes turned to Clark for a moment, breaking the self-imposed disregard he'd been enforcing—too much focus on Clark threatened to either arouse him or bring back the uncertainty of the morning and neither result was desirable. The younger man's brow softened from concern to surprise and he met the gaze kindly—not condemning the confession, but instead seeming rather impressed by it. Lex felt unreasonably gladdened.

"And Chloe, do you really think making this public would have been the better option anyway?" Clark added. Lex softened his smile at the unasked for support, while Chloe turned round. "I mean, think about it. All the reasons I have for laying low apply just as much to the people here. I'm betting the government would sooner..." A small swallow. "Sooner dissect them than help them."

Chloe scanned her friend's face, brow slightly furrowed as though suspecting a trick, and Clark lifted a shoulder in response, not pleading, just enforcing his opinion.

After a beat, Chloe tilted her head back to Lex, catching him off-guard as he flashed the younger man a smile—deeper than gratitude. Clark grinned back and neither man noticed as Chloe flicked her gaze curiously between them, blonde locks swishing over her collar with each movement. Eventually, her face creased in confusion and she shook her head.

"Okay, you've made your case. Both of you," she muttered, tension dissolving. "And I have..." She checked her watch. "Forty minutes left to explore." She snapped her head up again, eyes bright. "Explanations are all well and good. But if you want real facts, you talk to the people. So take me to the people... we can get back to the science stuff after."

She dismissed the shelves and their contents with a wave of a hand and Lex frowned in a muted expression of outrage at having his favourite topic reduced to 'science stuff.' Clark bit back a chuckle.

"You'll want the games room, it's this way," he butted in before Lex could voice his irritation, pointing down the corridor.

"Lead on," Chloe instructed, waving a hand up and back down again as she stepped to the doorway.

Lex continued to frown for a second, not sure if he approved of the shift in control over to Clark. But then the younger man looked up again, eyes peering through his lashes, smile toning down and flicking to the side in a tantalising mix of excited schoolboy and sexy flirtation and Lex figured too much control was probably bad for him anyway.

Clark waited till Lex had the door, then hurried after Chloe, who was already several paces ahead. She registered his presence with barely a blink and began talking again as though he'd been beside her all the time.

"So, you two have really built a partnership out of this, huh?" she said.

"What?" Clark replied, tone sharp.

"Well, I mean," Chloe shrugged. "It's obvious you care about this place. You must think it's pretty important."

"Err..." Clark paused, thinking.

He enjoyed helping out with the project sure, but a partnership? That seemed a bit elaborate; Lex was the one in charge. And did he think it important? Well...

Clark tended to shy away from the big questions, the ones that meant he had to have an actual, adult, responsible opinion about the world. He felt he had enough to think about already what with what he was and what that had already been responsible for, let alone involving issues of politics and business. And until now that had seemed okay, it had seemed enough, because despite everything he'd still felt pretty much a simple farmer at heart, content with life in obscurity. But now his dad was Senator, his best friend was running a life altering scientific facility, the two of them were fighting an alien computer in an effort to protect the world, and it seemed those issues were getting more and more relevant.

"Yeah," Clark nodded. "Yeah I do," he finished.

"For the record, so do I," Lex added, stepping in sync beside them. "Just to curb the predictable negativity I imagine must be pervading your mind right now."

He shot Chloe a knowing look, which the young reporter returned with a shrug, lips curving in a flat smile as she acknowledged the truth of his suspicion.

"Yeah I know, there are no financial benefits," she stated. "But then, LuthorCorp doesn't really need them, does it? And money isn't the only means of power..."

Clark sighed, eyes rolling, but more from good nature than annoyance. Chloe's point was logical as opposed to malicious and he felt the visit had actually been going pretty well so far. Being this close to Lex again had his skin buzzing in vivid sense memory of the morning too and was chasing away discomfort with startling ease.

"Chloe," he muttered, shaking his head. "You..." He paused, unformed rebuke slipping away as a curious, rhythmic beat caught his ear. He frowned. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Chloe replied, distracted, eyes following Lex with interest as he moved in front of them and pulled a black and white card from his pocket, raising it to the handle of the living quarters door they were approaching.

"Sounds like... music," Clark responded, gaze distant as he tried to make out the sound. It was faint here, but somewhere it was very loud, and it was definitely not normal.

"Music?" Lex queried as he swiped the card down, turning back curiously as he opened the door.

A sudden blast of sound from the now open doorway prevented further questions and all of them jumped.

"...said bye-bye miss American Pie! Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry and..."

Once you overcame the sheer volume, the music was actually pretty good—perfect Don McLean pumped through a clear, state-of-the-art sound system with not a scratch or jump to be heard. The only thing marring the perfection was the quieter—in comparison at least—mumble of untrained but boisterous voices beneath. Everything was coming quite obviously from the games room.

Chloe raised an eyebrow at the two men, while Clark and Lex shared a mutual look of bafflement. Less than a beat later they were hurrying through the doorway together, leaving Chloe to catch up.

After stepping through the games room door, Chloe was forced to shimmy along the wall a few paces to get past the pair of male bodies now stopped dead before her, blocking her view. Having never seen the room herself it was only the pure, open looks of shock on her companions' faces that gave away the fact something was amiss.

The room before her was a throng of bodies, all bopping along to the music beneath a collection of brightly coloured disco lights—inexpertly installed if the trailing wires down the walls were anything to go by. Against said walls were three or four long tables cluttered with drinks and snacks and piles of paper plates, used and fresh. Or at least they looked like tables. As Chloe looked closer she realised they were actually pool tables with heavy wooden boards covering the felt. To the right a couple of wide screen TVs had been hooked up to a dancing game and several people were jumping at varying speeds over the dance mats, faces rapt in concentration.

As the three of them watched in stunned silence, a glowing ball of light came out of nowhere and whizzed up to the ceiling, where it burst into a firework-like cascade. Beneath the falling embers—which seemed to vanish before hitting the ground—a few figures started clapping and a young man in a loose pink shirt took a bow.

"Hey, good one Bobster!" a voice called from the left, and a woman in a long-sleeved yellow top and jeans stepped into view, a tall glass of sparkling black liquid topped by a mini umbrella in her hand; long, dark hair trailing loosely over her shoulders. Chloe noticed just the tips of her fingers were visible through the black woollen gloves she wore. "...and them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye..." the women started singing as she moved towards the crowd, each note just slightly out of sync with the music. "Singing, this'll be the day that I die... this'll be the day that I..."

As she passed the doorway her eyes fell on Lex and Clark and she cut off, tottering slightly as she tried to stop. A flash of panic crossed her face for a second, but it was quickly removed by a bout of drunken laughter.

"You are so not meant to be here today..." she grinned.

"Phoenix—" Lex started, folding his arms, expression hardening. But Chloe—ever ready with a question—cut him off.

"You do this a lot when Lex isn't here?" she queried, raising her voice above the continuing music.

Phoenix blinked at her a few times in surprise; head tilting as she tried to identify the new addition. When she couldn't, she shook her head and turned to Lex.

"Another 'visitor'?" she asked. "What happened the 'secret' part of this project, Lex?"

Lex made to respond, then pulled up short, brow furrowing as he registered the use of his first name. Because Phoenix never used his name. She'd made a point of it when she first arrived. Something about keeping him and the project strictly necessities.

Phoenix seemed to have noticed the lapse too, and she frowned, face reddening.

"Luthor," she amended, lifetimes too late and she knew it. She turned back to Chloe as a distraction. "So wait, don't tell me, you're..." She gazed at the other girl intently for a moment. "Chloe, right?" she finished.

Chloe started in surprise.

"Yeah, how do you...?"

"Clark talks," Phoenix shrugged, flashing the other man a smile as she gulped at her drink. "And I figure you're nowhere near heartbroken enough to be Lana..." She swayed a little while Chloe frowned, then tutted when she noticed how tense Clark had become beside his blonde-haired companion "Damn... sorry... I'm drinking. Leaves me a tad uninhibited..."

Chloe turned to Clark for an explanation and he gave an uneasy shrug in response, avoiding her gaze.

"Phoenix is empathic... um..." He looked down, cheeks flushing.

After a beat Chloe did the same, cottoning on.

Not heartbroken enough implied at least a twinge of heartbreak somewhere and Clark had really thought his friend was past that.

"Phoeniiiiix!" a voice yelled from the crowd. The others looked over in time to see Bobster pushing towards them. "What are you doing way over here? You're supposed to..." Unlike his friend, when Bobster saw Clark and Lex he started to grin, instantly excited. "Clark! Boss! Awesome. You can be, like, the guests of honour. How'd you like my party?"

"You organised all this?" Lex responded, surprised. Clark shared the feeling; he'd assumed it was the empath's fault too.

"Celebration," Bobster explained, proving his own inebriation beyond doubt by slapping Lex companionably on the shoulder. The force knocked the older man's folded arms to his sides and he looked decidedly unimpressed. "For winning the bet, you know?"

"What bet?" Clark asked.

Bobster missed the flash of danger in the other man's eyes as he turned, expression gleeful at the secret he was about to reveal.

"Oh, we've all been betting on—"

"The pools!" Phoenix cut in, propelled by a panic not entirely her own. The others frowned at the British lingo. "Err, soccer. Games. Gambling... We've been betting on soccer games. Bobster won." She nodded heavily, free arm shooting out to Chloe and yanking her forward. "Bobster, this is Chloe."

Her eyes widened and a second of silent communication passed between the two friends, ending with Bobster raising his head, lips forming an 'oh!'

"Chloe Chloe?" he clarified. "Oh, right, wow. Hi."

He gave an exuberant wave and Chloe responded uncertainly, using the movement as an excuse to step out of the other girl's overly tight hold.

"I, uh, didn't know you gambled," Clark shrugged, eyeing Bobster with surprise.

As Bobster looked from him to Lex—face impassive now—a small grin tugged his lips again.

"Oh, just on teams I care about, you know," he replied, catching Lex's eye for a second before turning a goofy grin to Clark.

Lex's blank irritation switched to confusion, thin lines growing between his eyes as he watched the other man. What did he mean, 'care about'?

"So, all this," he waved a hand around the still humming room. "It's just about that?"

Bobster shrugged, sharing an altogether too knowing smile with Phoenix.

"It seemed like a worthy enough cause," he muttered.

"Or excuse, right?" Chloe prodded, lips curving. It was hard to be tense with Bobster. She pointed at the covered pool tables. "Is all this provided?"

Beside her, Phoenix gave a shout of laughter.

"As if!" she replied, taking another large sip from her drink. "Alcohol's not allowed on the premises. It's like, rule two hundred and eleven B..." She bent her head to Chloe's ear and whispered conspiratively—or rather, shouted over the music a little less forcefully. "There are a lot of rules."

"Which obviously need stricter enforcement," Lex noted, finally regaining a touch of his earlier control. "How did you even get all this in here? I do employ staff for a reason."

Phoenix tapped her nose in a gesture of secrecy. A little more times than necessary since the first two attempts didn't hit.

"We have ways..." she nodded.

Lex made to respond, face stern, looking ready to physically extract those ways if necessary, make them thoroughly unusable, and then trample them to nothing.

But before he could, the door opened behind them and a man in a grey uniform stepped through, several thin, square boxes in his hands.

"Okay, so I got the double anchovy for Paul but they were all out of Hawaiian Bobster, sorry."

"Jason."

Lex's voice was deadly soft but this somehow didn't stop its power, despite the blaring music around them.

The guard almost dropped the pizzas as he turned; face a mask of pure horror above his undone shirt collar.

"Sir!" he yelled, voice tight and high-pitched. "You... you said you weren't coming in today..."

"I changed my mind," Lex stated. "And a good thing I did by the looks of it..." Jason gulped visibly. "I've pretty much come to expect insubordination from the inhabitants," Lex continued, staring the other man down, glad to see at least someone acknowledging his authority. "But I expect my staff to show at least a modicum of obedience."

Jason opened and closed his mouth ineffectively for a few seconds and Clark flattened his own in sympathy. The guy really had walked in at the worst possible moment. The younger man was just readying to stick up for the unfortunate guard when Bobster saved him the trouble, walking over with a small 'tut' and piling the pizza boxes into his own arms.

"Ignore him, Jason, he's just angry he didn't get invited," he muttered, brushing the other man's wrist in a blatantly unnecessary fashion as he took the last box. "Oh and Boss?" he added as he passed, heading to a table by the door to deposit his edibles. "You know, when Clark talks about us, he calls us 'friends'..." He looked up briefly, eyes surprisingly sober beneath their drunken glow. "Just an idea..."

The effect of his words couldn't have been more electric if they'd been 'I love you.'

Lex's whole body stiffened in shock. Friends? Friends? What was the guy talking about? They weren't... they didn't... The beaming smile the other man threw over his shoulder as he led Jason and the pizzas away was only more perplexing so Lex turned away, eyes skimming over Chloe's badly concealed look of astonishment and resting on Phoenix. The empath raised her glass in a companionable toast and as Lex glanced behind her a few of the other members caught his eye too and waved at him happily.

The highly trained businessman side of Lex gave an audible groan, while the small, long since buried part of him that had wept at the bullying and exclusion of high school did a few back flips of excitement. Because somewhere along the line, without him even noticing it, these people had become more than associates, somewhere along the line he'd stopped seeing them as underlings or business ventures and he'd starting seeing them as, yes, as friends. He could have kicked himself. How many times had his father drummed into him that you couldn't do business with friends? You chose success or you chose friendship, you couldn't have both.

But as Lex turned his head in annoyance, the derogatory sigh died on his lips when he caught sight of Clark watching quietly beside him. The younger man was stifling a smile, lips curved just halfway up his cheeks, eyes alight with knowing laughter—as though Lex had just discovered something he'd been fully aware of all along.

The flashback to the other night was sudden, and vivid, and wonderful...

Clark's birthday 2.43am

"...if anyone could make Metropolis great it'd be you."

The joy in Clark's face—the pure, honest belief in his eyes—was simply captivating. Lex's whole body seemed to lighten at the sight of it and for the first time in a long, dreary day he felt a flicker of something real spark inside him. A warm, hopeful pride that he was capable of inspiring such faith, that a long time reviled Luthor had the power to reach someone like that. All the money in the world couldn't compare...

The moment was short though, as the best ones often are, and Lex soon felt the heavy weight he'd been plagued with all day re-settling. Apparently sensing the change, Clark spoke again.

"But, I'm guessing you didn't call me out here just to wax philosophical on the city," he smiled; tempering the concern in his gaze with a gentle humour Lex was grateful for. "What's really going on, Lex?"

After so many sharp, even shouted demands from the other man, the softness of this one caught Lex by surprise. The inflection was so slight it hardly seemed a question at all and certainly didn't insist upon an answer.

And yet, despite that, Lex wanted to give one. Wanted a reason, a purpose for their meeting. But the truth was—he had no reason. He hadn't even come here deliberately. There been two hours of aimless driving before he'd even reached the tower and decided, on a whim, to climb up, hoping the height might knock some sense into him, wake him up, shake him out of the ridiculous funk he'd fallen into. It wasn't unusual, this feeling of disconnection—many times he'd even welcomed it—but the timing now! He didn't want to feel like this now. Didn't even know why he should be feeling like this now.

He'd obviously been quiet too long because Clark was starting to frown.

"Is something wrong?" he asked quietly, question obvious this time. "Something at work?"

"No, Clark," Lex shook his head, answering more for the other man's benefit than his own. "Work's fine. Better than fine actually. LuthorCorp shares are up. I closed a particularly impressive deal today, and more people are asking to stay on at 33.1." He gave a single shouldered shrug. "I think I can safely say, for the first time in my existence, there isn't a single part of my life that isn't perfect... well, not a single important part, anyway."

Clark nodded, looking thoughtful.

"So that's... good... right?" he tried.

Lex looked over the other man's caring, confused face with a sigh. What had he expected calling Clark here? That because of the shift in their relationship the other man would just take him in his arms and make everything all right? Please... As if Lex even wanted that... and even if he did, which he didn't, Clark required payment for his comfort—answers, understanding.

"Yes, it's brilliant," Lex answered blandly, shifting away and lifting stiffened hands to his head. In one slick motion he fell neatly onto his back, arms a makeshift cushion, eyes no longer focused on his friend's affectionate, but not understanding, face, but on the stars. Stars were so much brighter in Smallville. "It's wonderful..." Lex continued, seeking out the place Clark had said Krypton used to be. "I should be ecstatic..." Kyla Willowbrook had shown Clark a wolf's head with a missing eye representing the Kryptonian's absent home, but Lex had already spotted Lupus and there was no lost eye in sight.

Clark added another pair of eyes to compound the problem by resting a hand by the other man's shoulder and leaning above him. Lex adjusted his sight from sparkling white to shining green and was surprised by the shrewdness of Clark's expression.

"But you're not," the younger man nodded, not confused now so much as expectant.

A cool wind blew over them; flapping the lapels of Lex's jacket and making him shiver, while Clark's threadbare plaid shirt battered his unflinching neck. The thin, ragged shirt and the starlight behind him gave Clark the conflicting sense of being both vulnerable and godlike, and Lex was taken by the image, by its range.

The older man had tried more than once to explain himself to others, but never quite got through. Not even with his mom, not completely. Not even with Duncan. But Clark... well... Clark would at least listen.

"I'm not dissatisfied, Clark," he insisted. "Believe me, I'm more than pleased with the way things are." That raised a smile, an oddly suggestive one, and Lex knew then why the feeling of distance was hitting so hard. "There are just times when everything that happens to me, everything I'm part of seems... unreal... Like it's someone else's life, and I'm intruding..." And god, what could be more fucking unreal than sex with Clark Kent?

Clark tilted his head at the comment, curious, and Lex felt foolish. These conversations had been much easier when he was younger, and Clark was still a novelty. He remembered excited talks in the Beanery about running the plant, confessing in the Kent barn about his hesitation to save his father. There'd been a kind of thrill in bearing his soul back then—an attempt to re-invent himself, to gain the attention of such an attractive and mysterious stranger. But it had been insubstantial in the end, like confessing to a priest behind a veil—ultimately you walked away and nine out of ten times forgot the whole thing. But he knew Clark now, really knew him. Revealing himself these days had consequences, complications, and Lex never had been good at relationship talk. This was a stupid idea.

He shook his head with a derogatory smile, the base of his skull brushing not unpleasantly against the leather beneath it.

"You're starting to wonder why you bothered to leave the comfort of home, in the middle of the night, just to be with a crazy guy on top of a windmill, I bet," he joked, hoping to leave things there, wrap the night up. Or rather the morning. Midnight was long passed wasn't it? A fact that rang a bell somehow... what...? Lex closed his eyes briefly in a small grimace. "And god, on your birthday too. I'm sorry Clark, I shouldn't have—"

But Clark interrupted, shaking his head.

"No, no, it's fine, don't worry about it, I'd rather be here," he insisted, surprisingly serious. "And I get it, that unreal thing? I know exactly what you mean..." Lex would have dismissed the stream of agreement as politeness if the other man hadn't been so distracted as he spoke, so caught up in inner contemplation. "It's not like you don't care about what's happening. Of course you do. But seeing the people around you react to things, it sets you apart. Because you're different. You can't feel it like they can, you can't share the experience with them and no matter how hard you try you'll never be one of them."

He shrugged, face creasing.

"I mean, I felt like that a lot back at school," he continued. "Especially if there was a big event going on—like a school fete or something. Everyone would be so united, and then there'd be me, trying to be part of it but always thinking in the back of my mind 'I'm not one of these people, not really, this isn't my world.' Even with Pete and Chloe, even with my parents I..." He sighed, a touch of guilt marring his eyes for a moment before being blinked away. A bright, newly focused gaze turned to Lex again. "And that must be even worse at LuthorCorp, right? Cos you've got hundreds of people working together there. People you're in charge of, but always separate from."

Lex just blinked at Clark intensely. Not sure he could respond even if he'd wanted to. If truth be told, he hadn't actually registered much of the younger man's sudden babble and was only now starting to sort through it—Clark seem to delight in rattling off pertinent information without warning these days and Lex wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or delighted about it—but three words stood out of the throng with remarkable clarity and, really, they were more than enough. Three earnest, honest words Lex never thought he'd believe—I get it.

"Not that being different is wrong," Clark added—a line he'd obviously gained from his parents. "It's just that, after going so long with no one to share yourself with, no one who understands anyway, it makes you feel distant sometimes, it makes you feel... um... it makes you feel..."

It was unclear whether Clark intended the word he was struggling with for himself or for Lex, and in the end it didn't matter—because Lex knew just what was needed and realised with a jolt of excitement it was a perfect description of both of them.

"...alienated?" he offered.

Clark paused, mouth still open, and flicked a pair of bright green eyes to the older man's shining blue ones. Lex watched in silence as his own sense of understanding was mirrored back at him and quirked his lips in time with the younger man's smile.
"Yeah..." Clark nodded, repeating the word soon after with greater emphasis. "Yeah."

Still smiling, Lex shook his head, eyes never leaving Clark's.

Over half his life spent at Excelsior with hoards of kids who supposedly shared his lifestyle and where does he find the one guy who understands him? Smallville fucking Kansas, with a farmer. A farmer not even of this planet. It was quite literally a chance in a million, a trillion even. If just one little thing had been different, if his dad had chosen any other far-flung town for his exile, how easily the two of them could have missed each other. Fate had never seemed so potent, or precarious.

"So what do you do, Clark?" Lex asked, eyes frank and curious now. "When you feel like that?"

"I run," Clark answered simply, shrugging the shoulder he wasn't leaning on, thumb hooked through a belt hole in his jeans. Lex narrowed his eyes, confused, and Clark shook his head. "Not the way you think, not away," he clarified. "At least, not anymore..." He paused for a moment to bit his lip and Lex nodded away the reference to RedK, encouraging more. Clark didn't hold back. "When I run it's not like you imagine—with everything a blur and too fast to see. That's how I must look sometimes, but for me it's like... like nothing else is moving. Everything from people to cars to falling rain, it just stops, Lex. It's like I'm the only one alive in the whole world."

Lex released the breath he didn't know he'd been holding in a gentle sigh. The description of Clark's power—in such vivid first person—seemed strangely intimate, like Clark was relating an orgasm or something. Lex was touched as much as intrigued.

"You literally leave the world behind," he summarised, nodding. "I aim for the same," he added by way of reciprocation. "But there's only so far alcohol and... 'coffee' can take you." He tilted his head against his arms, the corner of his mouth flicking up as he recalled the quip Clark had made all those weeks ago.

:: I was a bored teenager, Clark... learning to hack into the school's mainframe was how I passed my time. That and indulging in various recreational substances ::
:: By that I'll assume you mean coffee ::

Clark grinned, accepting the analogy.

"Plus the return journeys are often decidedly unpleasant," Lex continued, memories of morning hangovers returning all too vividly. "These days I just drive." Well, mostly...

Clark's eyes lit up and he turned his head to look past the windmill's edge, where the older man's legs were still hanging.

"That's what you were doing before you called me," he surmised, and Lex realised Clark's gaze must have fallen on the Porsche parked untidily below.

"Yes," he agreed as Clark turned back, eyes somehow soft and questioning at the same time.

"And then you came up here to, what? Get above the world?" he queried, voice kind and gently teasing.

Lex looked away, running his tongue along the inside of a cheek.

"Something like that..." he muttered, not wanting to give away too much of himself. A slight tendency to vertigo was hardly something Clark needed to know about him anyway, let alone the invigorating shock to the system he'd hoped it would provide tonight.

"So... ah..." Clark continued, reverting to his old farmboy uncertainty. "Driving... being here, it's... it's kind of a solitary pursuit isn't it? Why did you call?"

Lex smiled at the insecurity of the question. Clark got like that sometimes, ever since they'd started—What? Fucking? Courting?—he'd treat certain situations like some kind of test; always eager to pass but frightened he'd get the wrong answer. Stupid really, when he was the one uncovering questions Lex didn't even know he had.

The older man turned back slowly, wanting his next words to impact.

"I thought I'd try something different tonight," he stated, locking in Clark's gaze.

He'd intended this to ease the other man's fears, but instead Clark's obvious uncertainty, obvious fear for the future and their part in it, seemed to merge with his—What were they doing? Were they happy? Would it work? Did they really know each other?

"How's that going?" Clark asked, face alight with expectancy, apparently certain the answer to their troubles lay with Lex.

Being a scientist at heart, answers, truths and certainties were the very things Lex built his life around—not having them was temporary state to be suffered through until he gained knowledge sufficient enough to determine them. But in that moment, he realised not only did he have none when it came to him and Clark, but that there might not even be any... And that was okay. Because that's what love was, wasn't it?

"I don't know," he answered, pushing himself up so he was sitting again.

Clark did the same, blinking in surprise and perhaps a little hurt. Until Lex very carefully and very deliberately took the younger man's hand in his own, watching as their fingers interlocked, like a zip.

"But I'm looking forward to finding out," Lex concluded, looking up with a grin Clark didn't hesitate to match.

The two of them shuffled closer, thigh to thigh, palm to palm—two outsiders, building a connection together.

Beneath the thumping lights and music, Lex's hand seemed to tingle in remembrance of the touch and his lips curved back at Clark, reasserting the other night's attachment.

Over the younger man's shoulder, Lex caught Raptor and Paul jumping about in a corner playing a makeshift training game—Raptor swung her tail at random, shifting from high to low, while Paul tried to dodge, honing his cat-like instincts. Lex felt a rush of affection for both of them. When Paul first came to the facility his only thought had been how to overcome his mutation, how to resist his feline tendencies, but now he was embracing them, enjoying them, and not because of science and experiments but because of the bonds he'd developed here, because of the friendship.

As Paul readied for a particularly high jump, Bobster stepped over unexpectedly, waving an open pizza box. Distracted, Paul was hit square on the stomach by Raptor's tail. He crumpled to the floor and burst into hysterical laugher, while the others rushed to help him up, equally grinning.

Bobster caught sight of Lex again as he held the pizza out and while Paul struggled to grip a slice with his overly long nails the young mage raised a free hand and sent a virtual flower floating out of it. It was small and yellow. A buttercup. Bobster winked and Lex remembered the song he'd been humming the other day—"build me up, buttercup, baby..."

As the flower drifted upwards a weight round Lex's heart seemed to lift with it, because suddenly Clark wasn't the only person who cared about him, wasn't the only one who understood, and this wasn't business. This was family. This was home.

The lights changed then, losing their colour, increasing their flicker, until the whole room seemed to move in slow motion beneath a flashing white glare.

It only made the red hair more shocking and the new figure's stillness more vivid.

She stood just to the left of the group—a statue amidst the pulsing bodies—and her green eyes fixed solely on Lex. She didn't look angry or demanding, like the clichés said ghosts often were, just very very sad.

"...this'll be the day that I die... this'll be the day that I die..."

A blink and she was gone again. The lights regained their colour and the music faded to a dance mix Lex didn't recognise. He swallowed. One anomaly was a write off. Two required investigation.

"I've got to go..." he muttered, shaking his head as he stepped back to the door.

Beside him, Clark and Chloe frowned.

"Hey, what about the rest of my tour?" Chloe queried, accusing.

Lex looked up to a pair of clouded expressions—Chloe with suspicion, Clark with concern—and cursed his abruptness. The last thing he needed was his current situation turning public.

"Clark can finish it, right?" he nodded to the other man, searching for a plausible explanation for his sudden departure.

"Well, sure," Clark shrugged, looking confused. "But Lex, why...?"

"Disco was never really my thing," Lex interrupted. "And this way I can't be accused of arranging a false impression, can I?"

He raised his eyebrows with a conviction that surprised even himself and Chloe shrugged a reluctant acquisition. Clark took a little longer but eventually he also nodded his agreement.

Lex gave the party a last once over, face sombre. There was no ghost in sight. Just a lot of laughing, happy, dancing people. :: Everyone you love... He'll take it all :: The warning had seemed frightful enough when it just applied to Clark, now it was terrifying.

Lex turned quickly and made for the exit.

A floating beer bottle above the table on the left made him stop.

"Clara, put that down!" he snapped, growing fear putting a hard edge in his tone.

The bottle slammed back on the table with a disembodied sigh. A second later Clara materialised before it, hand moving to her side, face pouting beneath her long, blonde pigtails.

"You're such a killjoy, Boss," she muttered, crossing her arms and obscuring the image of Scooby and Shaggy on her chest. "I bet you were drinking at my age."

"I did a lot of things I shouldn't have done at your age," Lex answered sternly. "You should be grateful you're not any part of them." Clara looked down, her anger slipping to sorrow at the hard words, and Lex softened. She was just a kid after all and he was looking to protect her, not abrade her. "Now... go make yourself useful and help Clark be a tour guide," he finished more quietly, waving the young girl behind him.

Clara perked up at the word 'tour' and looked over to Chloe with interest.

Lex turned in time to see Clark's sunshine grin, directed at him as much as Clara, and, considering the younger man's way with kids, the approval was particularly uplifting. Yes, this was worth protecting. That, at least, was crystal clear.

For a moment Lex forgot the sombreness of his impending journey and raised a playful finger to the other man.

"And I want this cleaned up by the time I get back tomorrow," he insisted, eyes glinting in mockery of the demand.

Clark nodded, still grinning.

"Yes, sir," he assured.

Lex gave a small, relieved smile before leaving—glad to know Clark would be there to look after the project, whatever happened - and in an unusual show of affection he rubbed a hand over Clara's hair as he passed.

Clark shook his head lightly as the door closed, eyes fond. Letting Chloe explore without supervision sounded a fair idea, but he knew how much Lex hated to relinquish control and saw the reasoning for what it was—a poor excuse to leave. Only Lex could be freaked out by a claim of friendship.

As he watched, Clara bounced up to Chloe.

"Hey, I'm Clara," she announced. "Are you a friend of Clark's?"

Chloe blinked at the enthusiasm and Clark bit back a laugh. Clara really was completely anti-secret-project and he understood his friend's astonishment.

"Um, hey Clara," Chloe smiled. "I... yeah, yeah I am. My name's Chloe."

"Pleased to meet you, Chloe," Clara grinned, holding out a hand. Chloe took it with a bemused smile. "Welcome to 33.1."

Lex had never seen the monument at night. The idea of visiting a grave after dark had always struck him as vaguely ridiculous, verging on melodrama. But now he was here he had to admit it was a magnificent sight.

Hidden lights shone on the six marble pillars leading up to the headstone—a small, turf-covered indentation the only sign of the seventh that had once marked his own - while reeds of grass floated in and out of the beams, making the structures seem almost alive. The focus of the scene, however, was undeniably the stone angel above the grave itself, whose arms stretched out through a powerful up light, as though holding everything else in their embrace. A vision of immortal beauty.

But as breathtaking as it was, Lex wasn't fooled. Considering the money his dad had put into the sculpture it was likely to last as long as that of the famed Ozymandias, if not longer, but Lex knew longevity wasn't all the two statues had in common. As with the past king's sneering visage, by itself the angelic one before him was nothing but an empty, meaningless thing. Because it wasn't the stone and the lights that remembered his mother, but the people who tended them, the people who acknowledged them. When they were gone, as time decreed they invariably would be, his mother would be lost too, regardless of how long the monument stayed standing.

But today was not that day. Not even close. And Lex affirmed the fact by gently tracing the white lettering across the grave's surface. The thick, black stone itself was the only part that wasn't illuminated so it was memory alone that drew his fingers to the correct position, allowing them to physically remember the writing, and the woman referred to—Lillian Luthor, loving wife and mother.

As he finished, Lex lowered his hand with a sigh. What was he doing here? Searching for ghosts? Stupid. They had no reason to be here any more than the hotel or the facility.

No, the answers weren't here.

It felt good though, touching the stone, remembering. It was calming, and Lex knelt down on the platform to relish the moment. His mom always had inspired this sense of peace, a centring of self. Even when her own world was crashing around her Lex had always gained a focus from her presence, a perspective, prompted by the warring sensations of comfort at her obvious love and protectiveness towards her fragility he supposed. Lex felt a similar feeling now and as it washed over him, cooling his earlier fear, he realised with sudden clarity his first instinct about this was all wrong. This needn't be a secret. In fact quite the opposite. He needed to share this, needed the help, needed to not be alone. He was too close to this. Involving a second party was the logical step forward.

Lex didn't know how long he stayed there after that—hands pooled in his lap, eyes vacant—just that it was enough to cramp his thighs and leave his knees uncomfortably cold. He shifted himself slightly to remove the feeling and made to stand up.

Time to find Clark.

"Still wasting your time with these pointless vigils, son?" a cold, heavy voice spoke behind him. "I thought you were past this."

Lex tensed, worsening the cramp and making his rise stiff-limbed and awkward.

"What are you doing here, dad?" he asked, face blank as he turned around.

Lionel stood at the bottom of the steps leading up to the dais, just outside the light from the angel and the glass wall surrounding the platform. His silhouette was striking, almost devilish, with his shock of long hair flaring like fire above the cool, pristine suit below. Remembering his mother's warning earlier, Lex couldn't help the sudden drop in his stomach at the sight.

"Your secretary told me you were here," Lionel explained, moving into the light and revealing himself as a mortal, aging, unshaven man once more. Lex breathed an unperceivable sigh of relief. "I never did approval of these persistent visitations," the older man continued, shaking his head with distain. "Such an obvious display of weakness. They're holding you back, Lex."

Lex gave a small, humourless laugh. This wasn't new. This was the same old derision, the same old attempts to wear him down. Well, not today.

"Showing respect to a loving mother is a weakness now?" he scoffed, stepping down slowly, dragging out the greater height for as long as possible. "I thought you wanted me to have stronger family loyalty."

"Yes, to those of us still living," Lionel responded, oddly vehement. "Loyalty to the dead is morbid, Lex, and unhealthy. I loved your mother very dearly—" Lex looked away, disbelieving. "But she's gone. That part of our lives is over. It's time to move on." Lex stopped on the step just above him, only a head above his father now, his expression one of pure indifference. "End this, Lex. End it now."

And what? Pledge my loyalty to you instead? I think not.

"You know dad, challenging upper management often leads to a bout of unemployment," he deadpanned, eyes cold, before moving away down the last marble step and onto the grass path beneath.

"Ah, well, the welfare of your workers is the least of my concerns," Lionel responded coolly, falling in step with his son in one neat, composed motion. "The financial welfare of my company, however, is. I'm concerned about certain expenditures..."

"It's not your company anymore, dad," Lex cut in, smooth as silk. "And if you're concerned, write a report. I really don't have time to discuss business trivialities right now."

"I'd hardly call the amount of exports funded from Honduras in the last few months 'trivial,' son," Lionel replied, voice suspiciously casual, and therefore dangerous.

Lex stopped walking and turned round.

"LuthorCorp does business with lots of countries," he replied. "There's nothing special about Honduras."

Lionel shook his head, apparently disappointed.

"I know you're involved with Milton Fine," he stated. Lex blinked but otherwise didn't react. It wasn't so surprising really, he was bound to find out some time, and so what if his father knew? There was nothing the old man could do about it. "And I know that he's been smuggling some of the deadliest viruses in the world into this country with your help."

Lex smirked.

"Well don't worry dad, we're not going to put them into any Halloween candy."

"You're extremely nonchalant for a man whose micro-organisms could wipe out almost half this country," Lionel noted, with more than a little nonchalance of his own.

"It's under control," Lex shrugged, walking away again. If his dad was pumping for information he sure as hell wasn't going to get it. Lex didn't need a supernatural warning to tell him involving the older Luthor with Fine was a very bad idea.

"And your business partner? How much control do you have over him?" Lionel persisted behind him. "You do know what he is, what he's capable of... Do you really think you can handle that?"

Lex stopped again, pursing his lips. He knew his father was goading him - insulting his intelligence. It was a rise he shouldn't fall for. But he just couldn't help it. Not after the older man's insinuations after the kidnapping. He'd always felt resentful towards Lionel to some extent, but these days it was a feeling barely held in check and it bubbled over now into simple, scathing rage.

"Well I certainly know what he isn't," Lex shot back, spinning round. "A agent of the US government." Lionel just stared back impassively, a lack of response that only made Lex angrier. "Don't you dare come to me with your scorn and your glib remarks when you've been trying ensure my ignorance about this from the beginning."

"Lex, please. I wasn't trying to deceive you, I was trying to protect you."

"Oh, spare me the cloying sentiment, dad," Lex answered coldly. "You gave me false information to keep me out of the loop so you could have Clark and Fine to yourself. God, it must kill you that I ended up with connections to both of them while you have nothing."

"Kill may well be the operative word," Lionel nodded back, still infuriatingly calm. "Though I fear I may not be the most likely candidate."

Lex rolled his eyes.

"What is this, scare tactics? Please. I'm not so easily intimidated." He met his father's gaze, expression unwavering as steel. "You're not muscling in on this one dad, back off."

Lionel shook his head slowly, face clouding as he stepped forward.

"You've got it wrong, Lex," he insisted. "I'm not interested in dealings with Fine." With gentle, tantalisingly care, he raised his hands to the younger man's shoulders. "I'm merely concerned for the welfare of my son."

Lex swallowed as the obvious response stuck in his throat, because—god damn it—despite everything, he wanted this to be true. Thoughts of his mother had brought back memories of childhood, longings for family, and Lex wanted the fatherly expression Lionel was holding to be real for once and not just another ruse, another trick, another battle in the on going war of their relationship.

In the ensuing silence, another faint, whispering cry took up his thoughts, voicing them in his weakness.

"Liar..."

The voice was soft, feminine, and seemed to echo around them, circling their bodies like fading wind.

The effect on Lionel was overwhelming. He dropped his hands instantly and spun round, eyes wild. His breath grew shallow as he scanned the empty monument and dark lines marred his face in what might have been fear.

"Did you... did you hear that?" he breathed, turning back to Lex.

Lex forced himself to stay impassive.

"Hear what, dad?" he shrugged, creasing his brow in just the right show of confusion.

Although he didn't remember it now, two years ago his father had drugged him in a deliberate attempt to make Lex think he was crazy—serve the bastard right to suffer the same anxiety for a bit. And thank god for that distraction—still further proof of his vision. As if his father might actually care for him, what was he thinking? Maybe he really was turning weak.

"Perhaps I'm not the one you should be concerned about," the younger man concluded, calmly raising an eyebrow.

Lionel recovered enough composure to bristle at the insinuation.

"Alright, Lex. Alright," he nodded. "Play your hand alone. But on your head be it."

Lex frowned.

"What does that mean?"

"It means strange bedfellows often make for a rude awakening," Lionel responded. "Don't forget the tale of the frog and the scorpion." He moved forward again to lean in his son's ear. "Take care you don't get stung."

With that, the older man moved away, stalking across the grass as silently as he'd arrived. Lex stared ahead, unseeing. Was that a warning? Or a threat?

Lex tapped his father's password into the older man's laptop with more than adequate force, enjoying the heavy, angry clatter of the depressing keys. It took his mind off the nagging sense of guilt slowly corroding him.

He was still alone.

He hadn't told Clark.

Instead, he'd waited patiently for Lionel to turn in for the night, safe and out of the way in his Metropolis penthouse, and slipped back to the closed up LuthorCorp building, where he was currently sitting in the dark at his father's office desk, hacking into his computer. The glare of the screen and the light from a small desk lamp the only illumination he allowed himself.

He could do this officially of course—he owned the building god's sake. But there was night-time staff to consider—security guards, cleaners, the odd secretary or two working overtime, all of whom he'd carefully by-passed getting in. Normally, he wouldn't worry about them, but, despite extensive precautions, he couldn't know for certain who Lionel might have in his pocket, and if he really was going to start taking his mother's warning seriously he thought he'd better cover all bases. Not that he was taking the warning seriously... not yet... at least, not completely. That's what this reconnaissance was all about. To see if Lionel really did have something destructive in the works—some further information on Milton Fine perhaps that his parting comment earlier might have been referring to.

It was a sensible plan all round really—finding confirmation of his suspicions before voicing them. Understandable. So why did it feel so damned underhand all of a sudden? Like he was letting Clark down somehow? Goddamn it, the other man had kept enough of his own secrets over the years, that Lex should be holding a single, justifiable one was no crime!

Deep down though, he knew his own reasoning was perhaps not quite as justified. That it was more than simple curiosity keeping him in that office. More than a half-hearted belief in his mother's prophesy.

His father's visit to the gravesite had riled Lex in more ways than one, destroying any calm he'd originally gained there, and now part of him wanted to find something tonight, wanted his father incriminated, wanted an excuse to... It wouldn't be the first time Lex had thought about playing a part in his father's demise. Clark had even been privy to one of the earlier times during the tornado strike in his first year in Smallville. But this wasn't about death through inaction, this was about a pre-planned fatality, this was about cold-blooded, first-degree murder. And part of Lex hoped for that, longed for it, relished the very idea, felt practically giddy at the thought of working through the challenge.

Which was, of course, the real reason he hadn't told Clark.

It would be so easy to give in to that feeling. All the pain Lionel had caused in the past, not just to him but so many others, provided ready justification. He could use that, let it fuel the rage and the hurt, let it consume him. Things would be simpler then, cleaner. No need to agonise, he'd be doing what was right. But things never had been that simple for Lex. How many times had Lionel berated him for being too fucking emotional? For failing to cut it as a businessman because he was too concerned with an employee's well being? And if his own guilt wasn't annoying enough, he now had a persistent image of Clark's pouting face to back it up. Swallowing his own qualms might be difficult, but pushing away thoughts of Clark these days was nigh on impossible. Damn it! Sometimes you had to cross lines to do what had to be done. That was life. He knew that. He wasn't going to start doubting that now, he wasn't.

Pages of irrelevant LuthorCorp folders filled the glowing screen and Lex scrolled through them impatiently, blinking away the water the intense, glaring light prompted in his eyes. Stocks and shares... Overseas partners... Possible merger with Gotham's Wayne Enterprises. Interesting, but unlikely, Dad... Files on random businesses; Microsoft, Nintendo, Scorpion Ltd, The Daily Planet... Wait, 'Scorpion'?

Lex scrolled up again, narrowing his eyes as he contemplated the folder labelled 'Scorpion.' It seemed innocuous enough, just another business the older Luthor was hoping to deal with, but the name... He'd never heard of a business called Scorpion and his Dad's parting comment earlier made it worth a look in any case.

He moved the cursor into position and clicked the mouse sharply. A page of gibberish filled the screen. Encrypted.

"Shit!" Lex muttered, curling his free hand into a fist and banging the table.

As he worked on recovering composure, a soft click filtered through the closed double doors—the sound of someone entering the secretarial area outside.

Lex hurriedly switched off the lamp and monitor, a further string of curses floating through his mind as he stood up and positioned himself against the wall beside the entrance. It was probably a cleaner or someone doing a last check on the room and a simple 'just working late' excuse should be more than enough to pacify them, but, again, Lex wasn't taking chances. Ever since the morning, a growing sense of all too familiar paranoia had been taking hold of him and, considering how tense he'd become, Lex couldn't help giving in to it now—it was probably a cleaner... but it might be his dad, or perhaps one of his lackeys, sent to check on the safety of the file Lex had just discovered. It might even be Fine himself, aware Lex was about to expose his double-dealings and come to deal with the problem... Best watch them come in first before deciding what to do. If worst came to the worst he could always slip out unnoticed behind them.

Lex held his breath as the doors slid apart, then frowned as the thin line of a flashlight pierced the darkness with expert precision, moving straight to the computer. An employee wouldn't need a torch; they'd use the main lights. But then Fine or his father wouldn't need the secrecy either. Who...?

The moonlight through the back window was just enough to reveal the features of the young woman following the torch. Furtive manner aside, she looked every inch a model LuthorCorp secretary in her smart black jacket and skirt, short blonde hair tied back severely, thick rimmed, rectangular glasses round her eyes. The deception was simple, but so effective it took Lex almost half a minute before he recognised her.

"Chloe?" he called softly behind her, face creased in surprise.

Chloe made a noise part way between a gasp and a yelp as she spun round, almost dropping the torch in shock. Wild, uncoordinated lines of light criss-crossed round the room. When she finally gained control enough to focus the beam on Lex her expression turned to one of angry suspicion.

"God!" she breathed. "What the hell are you doing here?!"

Lex stepped to the side to remove the glare from his eyes.

"I work here," he shrugged. "I realise you might find that distasteful, but its not officially considered a crime."

Chloe scowled.

"Right. And skulking round in the dark is 'work' now I suppose..." she muttered, still a little breathless. "Besides, last time I checked this was your father's office."

She raised her eyebrows above the presumably fake glasses in challenge, but Lex just smiled. Chloe he could handle.

"Last time I checked your name wasn't... Sadie Blodgett," he answered smoothly, reading from the now visible ID tag on the lapel of Chloe's crisp-cut white blouse. "What are you doing here?"

With the initial shock and anger now fading, Chloe lost her gusto somewhat and looked away uneasily, two small hints of red touching her cheekbones. The look was reminiscent of the one she'd made earlier at 33.1 when Phoenix revealed her feelings about Clark and it gave Lex his answer immediately.

"You're here for Clark..." he muttered, looking her over with no little admiration. "You've already looked into me and 33.1 and now you're checking out my father for potential threats." He smirked, not entirely unkindly. "Should I be flattered or offended that I got top billings for your investigation?"

Chloe sighed as she looked back, lips curved in a humourless, 'oh well' kind of half-smile.

"Neither," she replied, pulling off the now redundant specs and slipping them into her jacket. "Because you weren't." Lex raised an eyebrow. "I've had this break-in planned since I first found out about you and Luthor senior's shared discovery. It just took a while to get the ID and accessories."

She pulled a duplicated LuthorCorp security card from another jacket pocket and waved it about sheepishly. Lex nodded, face sombre again.

Part of him was slightly offended to know even with those who disapproved of him he was still being overshadowed by his father, but it was a petty, irrational response and he knew it, so he chose to focus on the other part of him instead, the part that was insanely curious about this new situation. Because there was just no way Chloe would have told Clark the risk she was taking defying Lionel by coming here, which meant she too was trying to help the guy behind his back, which meant... he wasn't alone in this any more.

In fact, in a sudden rush of empathy, Lex realised he'd never been alone when it came to Clark, because hadn't he and Chloe been in equal positions all this time?—the broken hearted bearers of unrequited love, helping their friend whenever they could and receiving little or no acknowledgement in return? But then, of course, simply by virtue of being a man, Lex had had the respite of being Pete sometimes as well—the platonic best friend Clark could hang with without having to worry about relationship issues. And the more he thought about it, the more Lex realised that, god, he'd had something in common with all Clark's close friends at some time or another, because wasn't he now Lana—the lover who was prepared to do anything to keep their man safe?

Lex couldn't deny he'd been harbouring a none too small resentment towards the others in Clark's life who'd known the truth before him, even after the spontaneous, and surprisingly satisfying, male bonding he'd experienced with Pete during the other man's visit. But in that second, as he looked over Chloe's anxious but determined face, every little bit of it drained away. Because these people had never been his enemies. They'd never even really been his rivals. They had their separate approaches, true, but they were on the same side in the end. And that side was Clark.

"There's not many people who'd risk angering the man who's already tried to kill them twice," Lex stated, eyes flashing undisguised respect as they met Chloe's. "Clark's lucky to have you."

Chloe blinked a little at the older man's intensity before looking away with a shrug.

"Yeah, I'm a real unsung hero," she muttered, voice laced with bitterness. "So unsung Clark thought nothing of ditching me for the guy who I thought was practically an enemy now. I'm obviously really important to him..."

Lex shook his head, face softening. Clark really was a great guy, and he never meant to hurt people, but sometimes he was so damn oblivious he couldn't help it.

"He didn't ditch you, Chloe," he insisted, sympathetic. "You mean the world to Clark, anyone can see that. I've been a dirty little secret these past few weeks, at best." Not that he was planning to explain exactly how dirty of course... "And remember, you were the one he trusted first. He told you the truth long before me, that's got to mean something."

Chloe looked back again, brow furrowed.

"Don't tell me you don't know," she said.

Lex tilted his head, confused, and Chloe stared at him with suspicion for a few seconds longer. Then she sighed, deeply, expression relaxing as a torrent of pent-up frustration found its way out of her.

"Clark never told me anything," she explained, apparently finding an outlet in Lex she'd been lacking before. "I caught him out by accident, lifting a car..." She waved her free hand as though in demonstration, eyes distant. "I didn't say anything at first. I figured if I waited long enough he'd tell me himself." She slipped the hand in her jacket pocket, using the other to aim the torch at a spot on the ground which she eyed despondently. "I was sure if I just gave him some time, some space..." She shook her head. "He probably wouldn't even know I knew now if he hadn't found me in the Arctic after the second meteor shower."

Lex frowned—surprised, sorry and irrationally excited all at once.

"Pete found out by accident too," he added. "He said he... Clark said he found his spaceship..."

Chloe looked up again and their gazes locked, the issue suddenly poignant. Chloe nodded.

"There's only been two people Clark's willingly revealed himself to," she clarified. "For one of them it was part of an apparently misguided proposal. The other..." She looked Lex over, shaking her head. "To be honest, I still don't know why he told you. But it must have fulfilled some crazy, Clark logic because I don't think I've ever seen him happier with himself."

Lex opened his mouth to try and boost Chloe's confidence again—the last thing he wanted was for the young reporter to feel inadequate with her friend because of him—but stopped short as his brain started to mull through her last sentence.

"Really?" he pressed, an odd light-headedness creeping up on him.

He'd been so swept up in his and Clark's current affair, so focused on his own tentative happiness, he'd never even considered the potential benefits to Clark. But here was one of the younger man's best friends telling him Clark was actually happier now with Lex knowing the truth. A truth he'd apparently revealed to Lex above all others, even if it had taken forever—god did he sympathise with Chloe's frustration there. He'd suspected Clark might be satisfied with their new relationship, yes, but the idea that Clark might actually be better off with him? No. Surely not. Lex didn't help people like that. More often than not he destroyed them. But perhaps... maybe...

"Oh come on, you know Clark," Chloe replied. "He's all about the angst. But these past few weeks he hasn't even considered moping. Not once." She gave an elaborate shrug, shuddering the torchlight. "I'm not saying I trust you or anything. But I can't deny you seem to have been good for him."

A small, embarrassed pause settled over the two of them, with Lex a little too stunned to think of ending it. Eventually Chloe broke the silence.

"So, if we're done with the inappropriate Psyche 101, are you going to rat me out or what?" she asked.

Lex blinked back to reality. 'Inappropriate' was right. This was a break-in for god's sake, for one of them at least. Lives could be at stake, well, maybe... In any case, it was no time for romantic speculation, what was he thinking?

"No," he answered crisply, mind alert again and adapting to the altered situation. "In fact, you might be able to help me..." He headed back to the desk, leaning down beside the chair to switch the lamp and monitor back on. The lines of encrypted text blinked back to existence with a soft buzz. "Unlikely as it may seem to you these days, we actually have a shared agenda."

He looked over the screen to see Chloe moving closer, a familiar curiosity lighting her eyes. She switched the torch off as she reached the light of the lamp and rested it face down on the desk, shifting round to Lex's shoulder to better see the text.

"How do I know this isn't just part of the ongoing Luthor war?" she queried. "That could be a list of potential investments and nothing to do with Clark at all. Just another part of your dad's 'taking back the company' campaign."

Lex stood up beside her, nodding. It brought them closer than expected and both of them shifted back from the sudden intimacy.

"Fair question," Lex acknowledged. "But dad doesn't hide investments like this. He likes to leave his business plans just a little bit open for me, and full of decoys." He gave a wry smile. "Have you never seen a cat play with a mouse? There's no game if you don't give your opponent some leeway."

There was no reason she should believe him, of course, but Chloe was smart and, next to Lex, she probably knew Lionel Luthor better than anyone in Smallville. She'd recognise the truth in his statement at least, and if she wanted to help Clark she didn't really have a choice about working with him now anyway. Pure serendipity. Another time Lex might have marvelled, but now it just made the whole sense of chance and fate more oppressive.

After a few seconds, Chloe tilted her head in agreement and slipped passed Lex into the chair. Her pinned back hair stayed oddly in place as she moved and Lex found himself missing the gentle flick it usually had—severe was not a good look on Chloe.

"So, basically what you're saying is, this file can't be about LuthorCorp because it's too impenetrable for you," she stated, hands hovering over the keyboard as she turned back, eyebrows raised.

Lex flattened his mouth in quiet acceptance of the criticism.

"Basically, yes," he admitted.

Chloe's eyes sparkled a little and a smile touched her lips.

"The way you hacked into my e-mail had me almost thinking you were a pro," she muttered, looking back to the screen and carefully tapping a few keys. "What did you do? Employ someone?"

Lex bit back a sigh. Losing part of his carefully established reputation was undignified enough without him visibly complaining about it. And besides, it was for the greater good—knowing she was still the better hacker should restore some of Chloe's famous spark and Lex was all behind that. Because it would improve her relationship with Clark. And therefore his too by default. It wasn't because he disliked seeing the young woman so down. It wasn't. God. He had enough emotional ties as it was; he wasn't going to start inheriting Clark's well.

"No, I didn't employ anyone," he explained. "You just made the mistake of building the programme on your Daily Planet computer."

Chloe frowned for a second, fingers still moving relentlessly. Then her face cleared.

"Which was, like all the Planet's computers, donated by LuthorCorp," she said, rolling her eyes in understanding. "Does your company bug all the computers it gives away?"

"Only in connection to the media," Lex answered. "When it comes to the name Luthor the press have a tendency to misrepresentation."

And dangerous gossip, Lex thought, recalling all the by-lines and throwaway columns about his life in Smallville, and its inhabitants, he'd stopped going to press over the years. Nothing more than habit, really, but he thanked god for it now—the last thing Clark needed was media attention.

Chloe gave a non-committal 'hrumph' before focusing her attention on the file. Whatever she'd been trying on the keyboard seemed to prove ineffective, because after a while she pulled a memory stick from her pocket and began to work simultaneously with the program it pulled up and the encrypted one. Lex knew enough about computers to follow the basics, but at the speed the reporter was working he was sure even an expert would have trouble keeping up. This was not a girl he'd want working against him.

"Got it," Chloe said just a few minutes later, smiling in quiet triumph as the screen cleared and the folder finally opened.

A few JPEG files were listed above a PDF titled 'The Weapon.' Before Chloe could click on them though, a balloon appeared in the bottom right claiming 'the calendar has been updated.'

"Hidden diary entries," she muttered as Lex leaned over beside her, resting a hand on the desk. "Clever."

"Pull them up," Lex nodded, eyeing the screen.

Chloe complied and the two revealed entries popped up as a couple of smaller windows above the balloon. The first read Friday May 05—1pm Dr. Sivana RE: the weapon.

"Sivana?" Lex exclaimed, tone sharp. Chloe blinked at the rise in volume.

"You know him?" she queried.

"He's..." Lex bit back the following 'supposed to be working for me' and continued more calmly. "He's one of Fawcett city's leading scientists. Currently specialising in narcotics and viruses." Like the one I'm developing for Fine for instance, he thought bitterly.

"And 'the weapon'?" Chloe pressed, looking suspicious again, but Lex shook his head.

"I don't know," he answered. "As far as I'm aware the company isn't funding any weaponry at the moment."

A white lie at the most. Fine's 'alien fighting' virus had the appearance and formula of a vaccine as opposed to an offensive compound. It'd been one of his major selling points that night in Honduras—pitched as a concoction 'deadly to them' and 'completely harmless to us humans.' A phrase Lex had found particularly amusing.

The dual nature of the thing certainly had its uses though—it meant Lex could keep quiet about its real purpose. All his workers believed it really was a vaccine they were producing, and that included Sivana. So where had this idea of a weapon come from?

Seemingly inclined to believe him on this point, Chloe turned back to the screen and brought up the next window. It read Thursday May 11—2pm The Pentagon RE: the weapon.

"Well, it seems this mysterious weapon is the hot topic this week," she murmured, bringing back the original folder and opening the JPEGs and PDF.

Lex wasn't surprised to see images of the LuthorCorp lab he'd utilised for Fine, as well as the formula for the virus/vaccine. But what did his Dad mean 'weapon'? Without ulterior knowledge—which only he and Clark had—no one in their right minds could conceive of an offensive use for the formula. Except... Fine knew the potential as well. Maybe he'd told Lionel. Maybe this alien invasion business was just a blind to keep Lex busy while the AI worked out a separate plan with his father. Maybe... maybe Fine had never been lying about the formula's intended use. Maybe it really was meant for Kryptonians, or rather, one Kryptonian in particular...

"Maybe it's not so mysterious..." Lex breathed at Chloe's side, chest suddenly very very tight.

Chloe frowned for a second, confused, then her face went slack in a pure, wide-eyed expression of shock.

"Wait, you think... Clark might be the weapon Lionel's talking about?" she clarified, breath shallow.

Lex gave a troubled sigh.

"It might explain everything," he nodded, eyes distant as he worked through potential motives. "Why he was silent so long. His pursuit of Martha. Attempts at gaining control without showing his hand. Now that's failed he'll be on the look out for a more clinical method..."

Chloe shook her head, appalled.

"But... how?" she persisted, voice tight. She turned back to the formula onscreen, eyes scanning every part of it for another explanation. "Clark's not exactly that easy to control and... there's... there's no kryptonite in this formula... I don't see what..."

"That might not be the finished compound," Lex argued, moving back.

He was impressed Chloe had gone to the trouble of learning kryptonite's chemical formula, but considering her ignorance about Fine her points were irrelevant and Lex didn't want to waste time on them. A finishing touch from the alien AI might be just what the drug needed to push it into mind-control territory. Hadn't he messed with Clark's mind once before after all? With, what did Clark call it, silver kryptonite? God, if his attempt to double-cross Fine had done nothing but prepare a trap for the younger man Lex didn't think he'd ever forgive himself.

"Oh god," Chloe breathed as another thought hit. She turned to Lex sharply. "Lex, if your Dad's meeting with all these people about this you don't think they might... you don't think he told them...?"

The obvious fear emanating from the young reporter broke Lex from his own and he hurried to dispel it—if there was a danger here there was no point in useless anxiety.

"The truth about Clark? No," he said decisively. "Knowledge is power. Dad would never level the playing field."

Chloe relaxed a little.

"Right..." She bit her lip as she glanced back at the screen. "We should—"

A light snapped on in the passage outside and Chloe cut off in panic.

"Crap!" she flustered, body tensing.

Lex moved to the doorway.

"Stay there. Don't panic," he muttered over his shoulder, watching through a crack of clear glass in the door's otherwise opaque design.

A familiar, brown-haired woman in grey came in to view, the bun on her head bobbing slightly as she searched through the drawers of her desk. Lex looked back into the room, bypassing Chloe's nervous face and scanning the files beside her. Most were loose papers, rough notes, but on the corner of the desk a neat, carefully secured folder lay at a jaunty angle.

"Damn..." he whispered, before springing into action.

With a flick of his wrist he switched on the main lights, flooding the room with a glare he and Chloe couldn't help blinking at. He then hurried back to the desk, grabbed the flashlight and slipped it in his jacket pocket.

"Miss Robinson, my Dad's secretary," he explained to the confused Chloe. "She's looking for a file, it's probably that one." He waved a hand towards the one at the corner. "Do you have your press pass?"

"I... what... yes," Chloe stuttered back. "But..."

"Put it on. Those ridiculous glasses too. And get up."

He was by her seat again now and waved his fingers in a rising motion. Affected by the command Chloe obeyed immediately, slipping her glasses back on and exchanging the fake ID on her blouse for her usual Daily Planet tag.

"What...?" she started as Lex slipped in her vacated position, closing all windows onscreen with a flick of his wrist.

"My dad finds out I've been snooping round his office it's no big deal, just business as usual, but if we're both here he'll know we're on to something. We need to make you non-descript," Lex explained curtly, pulling up some kind of graph labelled stocks and shares. "Lean over and make like you've been listening for a while."

Chloe did so just as Miss Robinson slid her security card down the lock of the double doors.

"...so you can't deny the benefits run both ways here, Miss Blodgett," Lex started, pointing at the screen, for all the world as if he'd been lecturing full out for the last ten minutes. "LuthorCorp sales have knock on affects on employment, trade and tourism all over Metropolis. I'd advise your paper to do more research before publishing its so called findings in the future."

As surprised as she was, Chloe was nothing if not a keen improviser and she nodded accordingly, pulling out a small notebook and pen to take down fictional notes.

Miss Robinson stepped inside just as Lex came to a close, started at the light, which she hadn't noticed outside, and frowned at the younger Luthor. Lex looked up, surprised, as though seeing her for the first time.

"Miss Robinson," he nodded. "It's alright, you can come in. We were just finishing up." The secretary stepped over, eyes narrowing, and Lex continued. "Miss Blodgett here works for the Inquisitor. I promised her an interview but you know how it is. One thing leads to another and things get pushed aside." He flashed a fake smile. "Seeing it was so late I just grabbed the nearest room available. Can I help you with anything?"

Miss Robinson spared barely a glance at Chloe after Lex's introduction, focusing her piercing gaze on him instead, eyes growing more and more suspicious with every word.

"I just forgot a file," she replied, tight lipped.

"This one?" Lex queried, lifting up the one on his left obligingly.

Miss Robinson took it with obvious distaste.

"Thank you."

She nodded curtly before stepping away.

As the doors slipped shut behind her, Chloe lowered her notebook and pen and turned to back Lex, face clouding.

"Sadie Blodgett isn't a real person you know," she explained. "If she tells your father and he looks her up he—"

"Relax," Lex interrupted, leaning back in the chair with relief. "She won't remember the name. She probably won't even remember what you look like, just that you had a press badge. As far as she's concerned you're nothing beyond my excuse for being here."
"How can you be so sure?" Chloe persisted.

"Because Miss Robinson's been with the company for years, I know how she works," Lex replied. "She's too narrow-minded to see past an obvious threat and with me usurping the place of her beloved employer there's no greater enemy right now. Anyone else is insignificant in comparison."

"She's that loyal to your father?" Chloe responded, incredulity slowly replacing her panic as she once again removed her glasses. "God, he and her aren't...?" She raised her eyebrows. "You know... Are they?"

Lex caught her eye and lifted his head in understanding as he realised the implication.

"Possibly..." he acknowledged. "But I think her passion's fuelled less by romance than sibling rivalry. Her twin sister works for me."

Chloe blinked in surprise.

"It's a crazy world we live in," she shrugged, face clearing to a 'whatever' expression.

Lex nodded in distracted agreement, tapping a finger to his lips as he contemplated the night's discoveries.

"You're good, you know," Chloe added, making Lex look up again, brow furrowed. "Smooth," she elaborated. "I mean, Clark's a real klutz when it comes to the undercover stuff. It's sorta nice working with someone vaguely professional for once and I... I can't believe I'm complimenting you on this when it formed one of the main reasons I didn't trust you less than a month ago."

She gave a small, derogatory laugh, apparently chastising herself and Lex leant forward, face shrewd.

"Just out of curiosity," he queried, lowering his hand. "What was it, between saving your life and now, that made me fall so low in your esteem?"

His gaze was calm and open, not condemning, but Chloe straightened up defensively anyway.

"You mean besides making environmentally hazardous weapons and sending a group of psychopaths to kidnap my friends?" she shot back with familiar venom. Lex shook his head unphased.

"That was just the icing on the cake, your disapproval started long before any of that," he noted. "What did you do? Wake up one morning and decide I wasn't safe anymore?"

"I... no!" Chloe answered, indignant. "It was a lot of things. I... I don't really know when I started..." She trailed off, uncertain, and Lex didn't know which response was more appropriate, pride or despair—pride at exposing the girl's faulty logic or despair at the fact he was so easily assumed a villain. "When you started going after those stones," Chloe nodded eventually. "That was probably what tipped me off. They were cited as holding great power and you got pretty obsessive about them."

Lex gave a wry smile.

"And you instantly assume, what? I wanted world domination?" He shook his head. "I wanted answers, Chloe. About the meteor shower, the caves, the infection half this town seemed to be suffering from. Is that so wrong?"

"Lex, you physically dragged me to the caves the day of the meteor shower because one of those stones went missing," Chloe argued.

"Because one of those stones was stolen from me," Lex corrected. "God, the world was falling down, my dad was in a coma, as far as I could tell having those stones might have been the only way to stop everything. And there you were. Waltzing in my house, blatantly knowing something about it all and lying to me. Don't you think that would make anyone a little crazy? I..." Lex paused, eyes turning distant as a new though occurred to him. "Wait, I... the vault I put that stone in was packed with kryptonite. How did Clark even get out with it?" Fuck, even when you know the truth there's still so many questions.

"Actually he didn't," Chloe replied; tone flat and hard to read now. "I found him collapsed just inside and pulled him out." She narrowed her eyes. "Another suspicion. Why'd you have all that kryptonite in there anyway?"

Lex gave a sharp, exasperated sigh.

"Valuable artefacts from my expeditions," he explained, looking away wearily. "Beyond the various cases of infection I didn't know then the stuff was harmful. It was no means of defence. Even if I had known Clark was going to try and break in I would never have..."

He looked up again sharply, face deadly serious.

"I would never hurt Clark," he stated, suddenly wanting this point, above all others, to be perfectly clear. "Not if I could help it."

The statement stood between them like a tangible thing, filling the pause that followed.

Chloe backed down first, averting her eyes and shifting back—not conceding defeat exactly, but certainly ending further argument.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Lex muttered, powering down the laptop before standing up.

He handed Chloe back her flashlight as he passed and the silent girl took it without comment. She remained still and lost in thought even as Lex dowsed the lights and only sprung into action again when he opened the doors. Yanking her memory stick from the computer and stuffing it back in her pocket, she hurried after him passed Miss Robinson's desk and into the darkened LuthorCorp corridor. Moonlight and a few small health and safety bulbs lit their way to the elevators.

"I might have exaggerated things a little," she conceded in a rush, struggling against her unusually tight skirt as she moved beside the older man. Lex turned his head curiously as he walked. "To myself as much as anyone. And not just because I liked having something about Clark to myself for once either." From Chloe's sudden blush, Lex gathered that hadn't been her intended opener, but he didn't comment, just kept a respectful silence as she continued. "I mean, when you know about Clark it's not some cutesy Monica and Chandler 'don't let them know we know they know we know' kind of secret. It's serious." She sucked in a quick breath. "Okay, so originally I didn't know just how serious. I thought he was probably, you know, infected. But it was more than enough to get me doubting and I guess... maybe... maybe that was why I started getting suspicious. I figured Clark must've kept quiet for a good reason, that it couldn't just be because he didn't trust his best friend, you know?" They reached the elevators and Chloe stopped, looking pained and oddly pleading. Lex nodded, expression creasing with all too obvious understanding. "So I started thinking, maybe there's people out there, people close to him, who've let him down, who've stopped him trusting others, who've tried to use him and... well... you did investigate him for a bit. And you guys had that major bust-up during Lionel's trial that I never did find out about and..." She trailed off.

Lex felt like he should gloat—this confession was a victory of sorts wasn't it? But all he felt was a deep, heartfelt sympathy for the young girl in front of him—barely out of high school and she'd already faced so much. He turned to the wall to try and lessen the emotion.

"I understand," he nodded, leaning forward to press the call button. "It must have hard, carrying that kind of secret alone."

"Like you've no idea," Chloe breathed, voice full of relief at having finally unburdened herself. "It was amazing and everything too though, of course." She amended. "I mean, it felt special, you know? Being the only one besides the Kents who really knew. And when he actually came clean and I really really knew? Just. Wow." She flashed a grin and Lex couldn't stop a small smile back. "But..." Chloe continued, sombre again. "It was also the most terrifying experience of life, and that's including the times I've almost been killed. I used to get edgy every time he even mentioned telling Lana for god's sake. And I mean, honestly, who's more inoffensive than Lana Lang? So ah... it was... it was actually sorta nice tonight. Being able to share the responsibility for once."

The elevator arrived with an echoing 'ping' and Lex frowned into the opening doors.

"Share, is rather a strong word," he noted uncertainly, stepping inside. "Two solo acts running into each other hardly constitute a team."

"Yes. Exactly! And that's the problem isn't it?" Chloe responded with enthusiasm, hurrying beside the older man through the closing doors. Lex eyed her dubiously as he pushed the 'down' button, confused by the sudden excitement. "See, so far we've none of us been exactly what you'd call team players. You, me, Pete, the Kents—we've all tried to help Clark in some way. But half the time the right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing... or, you know, that there's even a left hand at all..." She eyed him up and down for a second. "We end falling over each other, never really knowing the full picture and, god, it's no wonder we ended up walled in and suspicious."

"So, what are you saying? We should form a secret society?" Lex gave a small, mocking smile, totally oblivious to his sudden inclusion in the 'we' being referring to.

Chloe shrugged, momentarily distracted as she pulled the pins from her hair and removed the constricting ponytail.

"Well..." she muttered, breathing a small sigh of relief as she shook her locks free. "For a start we could at least try talking to each other."

Lex leant against the steel wall as Chloe looked over, her face open and curious. His own expression clouded with thought and eventually he nodded. This... was not a bad idea. Experience showed that when it came to Clark single friendships weren't enough. The guy didn't need a scattering of independent parties, he needed a full-blown support group, and not just for himself either—working together, knowing everyone else's position, would be beneficial to everyone.

"You're right," he stated.

Chloe startled, apparently not expecting such an easy agreement.

"Um... right," she muttered. "So... so that's settled then. Starting tomorrow, we tell Clark, Lana and the Kents everything we know."

The elevator stopped, as though in support of the decision, and Lex lead them both out with another nod. Everything we know... He'd wanted to tell Clark before, why not go all the way and tell everyone? Maybe, just maybe, there'd be a way out for him after all...

As they crossed the lobby, he paused with a small 'tut'.

"The Kents are busy tomorrow, planning a trip. A national education summit in Washington," he remembered aloud, surprised at the severity of his frustration. How do you organise a meeting when a third of your group are potentially unavailable?

"Oh! And god, I can't believe I almost forgot," Chloe added, Lex's exclamation jogging her own memory. "The Planet's got me reporting on a school in the slums tomorrow. It's pretty much gonna take up my whole day... damn..." She bit her lip looking conflicted. "I could blow it off..."

"No, don't do that," Lex insisted, mind running business-like through the problem. "I know how much your job means to you. Listen, I'm meeting Clark for lunch tomorrow. I'll tell him then. You tell Lana." He waved a hand. "We'll meet in the middle sometime for Mr. and Mrs. Kent."

Chloe nodded shortly.

"Okay..."

She headed to the doorway. Stopped. And turned round again quickly, face clouded.

"This is weird, right? You and me and... this."

"Yes," Lex deadpanned. "Completely."

Chloe looked relieved.

With a final, awkward smile she hurried outside.

Lex focused a bemused stare at the door long after she'd moved away, lost in thought. His tally of unexpected associates now read as—one superpowered lover, a facility of unknown friends, and an unlikely, rookie reporter ally. He might have laughed if the threat of becoming a murderer wasn't still hanging over him.

And even more absurd was the fact that, for the first time in his adult life, Lex Luthor realised he had absolutely no idea what to do next.

As lunchtime approached the following day, Lex gave up all pretence at actually working and passed the time instead by doodling geometric shapes in the margins of his notes. The number of sides grew larger each time and he was currently on a dodecagon.

The blinds in the window behind him were pulled to the side, letting the full glare of the midday sun coat the room and dispel some of the signature blue sported by all LuthorCorp surfaces.

Lex liked to consider his office rather less pretentious than his father's, filling it not with cold, elaborate art, ancient and modern, but in a significantly simpler and more homely fashion. A nicely polished chest of drawers stood in the corner, topped by a vase of flowers—fresh each day—and a small decanter of scotch. A tall, practical lamp filled the space in the wall opposite. And beyond his desk to the left lay a long, comfortable sofa. There were also two severe looking metal chairs intended for business meetings, but since he had no appointments that day Lex had moved them to the side against the wall by the entrance.

Despite these attempts at softening the room's aura, Lex himself appeared little more than an extension of the building that morning, cutting a sharp, defined angle at the desk as he sketched, navy shirt and black slacks merging him with the furniture. His jacket and tie were discarded on the coat rack by the doors and his top button pulled undone, but with such precision it seemed to suggest austerity as opposed to relaxation. An outward expression of his mind, perhaps, that was trying to lose itself in work again.

It was almost twelve hours now since his run in with Chloe and Lex still didn't know what he wanted to do. Should he really come clean with Clark and the others about what he'd experienced these past few days? It seemed a good idea in principle, but could the others really handle what his mother had told him? If it came to it, would they be prepared to do what was necessary? Was it even right to burden them like that? Chloe had probably related her side of the story to Lana by now of course, so Lex would have to say something at least, and considering he was meeting Clark in half an hour he was rapidly running out of time.

Lex sighed above his pen. Agonising over a decision was not something he enjoyed. Perhaps he could make a list of pros and cons?

Before he could pull out a clean sheet of paper though, the office doors slid open and a wind-swept looking Clark hurried inside, red jacket flopping untidily against his blue top, as though having faced an unusually strong force. Lex wondered how any of Clark's clothes survived at all considering the stress he put them through on a regular basis. He really needed something more durable, some kind of enhanced suit perhaps.

Miss Robinson hovered uncertainly behind the younger man's shoulder and Lex waved her away.

"Clark, you're early," he noted, moving away from the desk to brush the other man's wrist in greeting. The hand beneath it was tense and clutching a phone.

"Yeah, I know, I... I'm sorry to barge in like this," Clark answered, tilting his head in apology.

Lex smiled. One day he'd really have to give the boy lessons on appropriate uses of the word 'sorry.'

"It's okay. You're one of the few people my door's always open to," he said. "In fact, it's good that you're here. I've been having some... trouble... with a decision and your arrival's just the catalyst I need to finally sort it, one way or the other..."

Lex was so lost in his own thoughts he didn't realise Clark was speaking too, muttering words beyond apologies.

"It's just, I couldn't wait half an hour. I'm too tense. I mean, I don't know if this is important or not, but I couldn't just keep it to myself. See..."

They next spoke in unison.

"There's something I need to tell you."

A pause as the two men blinked at each other.

Then Lex really noticed Clark's expression for the first time. It was one of pure and utter panic—eyes wide, face taut.

"You go first," he said quickly, eyes flooding with concern as he met the younger man's gaze.

"Your dad just called," Clark answered at once, so agitated he was practically vibrating.

"What do you mean 'called,'" Lex queried, completely lost.

"Called, as in, me, on the phone," the younger man elaborated, waving the item in his hand as evidence.

Lex frowned. That he could officially say he had not been expecting. From the way Clark backed away and started pacing it was more than clear the move had him rattled as well.

"He said he wanted to talk to me about... you know," Clark shrugged as he walked, voice fast-paced and breathless as he worked through the last ten minutes for the first time.

The day had been going so well—he'd aced an assignment in class today, Jonathan had joked with him during chores this morning and he was meeting Lex for lunch. Perfect. The call had come completely out of the blue and Clark had yet to consider its possibilities, but he knew they had to be bad.

"He said it was really important," he continued, spinning round in a stop that was almost more dizzying than moving. "Lex, what does that mean? What does he want? Is he going to threaten me? Because I won't let him hurt my family, I won't, I don't care what—"

"Clark, Clark," Lex interrupted, hurrying over and laying a pair of commanding hands on the other man's forearms. "Calm down." The older man's gaze held him steady and Clark felt some of his panic receding. "Think about this for a second. Everything you're afraid of has already been proved invalid. If my dad were going to reveal you he'd have played that card a long time ago, the moment's passed, he's not going to try it now. And as dangerous as he is, he'd never stoop as low as to flat out threaten your family. It's crass and he'd consider it beneath him. Besides which, I think, in his own way, he genuinely cares about your mother too much to try something like that." He tightened his grip on Clark's arms, leaning forward slightly to strengthen his gaze. "By calling like this he's just trying to scare you into not thinking clearly. Don't give him the satisfaction of falling for it."

Clark stayed in the older man's hold a little longer, breathing in calm, until tension gave way to embarrassment. He gave a small, breathy, self-conscious laugh and looked away.

"Yeah, sorry..." he muttered, suddenly feeling every inch the country bumpkin Lois always mocked him as being. "It just, it really threw me..."

"I can see that," Lex smiled, releasing his hold slowly, and reluctantly, as though he thought Clark might collapse without it.

The younger man looked back to him, face sheepish, but relaxed enough to meet Lex's smile.

"So, what exactly did he say?" Lex queried, shoulders sagging at the sudden peace. An anxious Clark was a force to be reckoned with for certain.

Clark took a breath to dispel his residual fear and came at the issue logically.

"He said he had something to tell me about my 'parentage'," he stated, slipping his phone in his jacket and moving to lean against the older man's desk. "He said it was important, and that he knew I'd 'do the sensible thing' and come and see him in his office after work today." Lex nodded encouragingly and stepped over beside him. Clark felt a rush of heat as their shoulders brushed and flashed another small smile. Coming here had definitely been the right decision. "I didn't know what to do, Lex," he continued; finally calm enough to explain. "I was gonna rush right over and tell him where to go. But then I thought, what if there's something bigger going on? Some hidden... card, he's got up his sleeve. I thought rushing in might just make things worse and I... I didn't know who else to turn to. I'm sorry I interrupted your work."

Lex turned away with a silent laugh.

"It's fine, Clark," he muttered, thinking of his unfinished dodecagon. The company would probably survive.

There was also a small glow of pride growing inside him at Clark's words :: rushing in might make things worse :: :: I didn't know who else to turn to :: Two months ago the younger man would almost certainly not have been clear headed enough to work through his emotions like that. He'd given Clark that ability, that logic, and the Kryptonian trusted him enough to come here and ask for help. Maybe Chloe was right; maybe they really were good for each other.

"So do you... do you have any idea why he might have called me like that?" Clark asked tentatively.

Lex pursed his lips, staring straight ahead.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "Direct isn't exactly his style. Neither are phone calls as a matter fact. He likes to make important dealings in person." So he can watch his opponents' expressions as he crushes them, Lex thought but didn't voice. "Calling you up now is... unusual..."

Beside him Clark sighed, apparently in frustration now, and Lex realised this probably wasn't the help he'd come for. Lex was basically telling him 'I don't know' and that was rarely of use to anyone. Ironically though, it was entirely true. Even with what he'd learnt last night and what his mother had told him, the older man had no idea why his dad would be approaching Clark so directly. And sloppily too. Clark had no reason to agree, he could just walk away. It was a demand with no real incentive and smacked of desperation, not careful planning. But... perhaps it would help to tell Clark the full story. The guy had just unburdened himself to him after all; it couldn't hurt to repay the gesture...

"God, I hate this," Clark muttered before Lex could begin, pushing away from the desk with a quick shake of his head. "Every time my life starts to get back on track someone or something turns up to throw it off centre. It's like Jor-El all over again." He turned back to Lex, brow furrowed, eyes bright with an emotion part way between anger and persecution. "Why is everyone always trying to control me?"

Lex had to smile at the simple, petulant pout that followed.

"That's life, Clark," he shrugged. "Everyone's trying to control each other to some extent. Weren't you the one telling me not to put up with that any more?"

Clark softened at the reference, remembering the older man's body against his in the fortress.

"Yeah," he muttered. "It, ah, it seemed easier at the time. It turns out your dad's power is a little less... abstract... than I realised." He flashed a goofy smile. "Still at least he doesn't have an alien mind-zapping abilities, that's something." He looked away with a small laugh.

Lex stilled, smile fading. He could have sworn he saw a flash of red just in the corner of his eye.

"What?" he pressed, swallowing the sudden dryness in his throat.

"What, what?" Clark blinked, reversing their roles completely with a sudden, ridiculous calm in the face of Lex's tension.

"You said something about alien mind-zapping?" he repeated, trying to stay casual.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah," Clark replied, slipping his hands in his pockets. "Jor-El's control has been known to go beyond simple persuasion."

Lex shot him a blank, penetrating look, which Clark read as a demand for more information. There were some alien experiences Clark really didn't care to remember, but Lex was right, he should know these things now and it would probably be good to talk about it anyway. Telling Lex something freaky always made Clark feel better—today being such an example.

"When you were out searching for Kryptonian artefacts in Egypt, Jor-El sort of... kept me... in the back chamber of the caves." He shifted uneasily, remembering the pure terror he'd felt seeing his dad held in that alien lasso. He been just as petrified of what Jor-El might do to him behind the cave wall, but he hadn't had a choice, he couldn't let Jonathan die. Yup, that was way up there as one of the worst moments of his life. "When he let me out I didn't remember who I was, not properly. Just that I was Kal-El and I had to collect the stones. That's it. Clark Kent, my parents, my friends, it all meant nothing to me. Pretty freaky looking back at it now."

Clark expected surprise, vague excitement perhaps, followed by analysis and comfort. But Lex was still and silent in a way he didn't understand. The younger man frowned. Had the whole being an alien thing really, finally, gone too far?

"That's how you flew," Lex nodded eventually, moving his hands to the table behind him to give his tension an outlet. He gripped the side fiercely. "To my plane that time. You said you weren't yourself but I thought maybe you meant it was the stone affecting you or..."

He shook his head. What the hell had he been thinking? Why had he let the whole flying thing stop him from pushing that issue? He been so spellbound by the idea Clark actually could he hadn't thought. He'd just filed the idea away under a 'can fly, not usually' heading.

"Nah," Clark interrupted, lips curving again. He supposed Lex had just been thinking extra hard about this one. It was flying. He got that it might take a little longer to process. "The stones were just really loud." He moved to lean against the desk again, resting an elbow on it and viewing Lex full on. "Like you say, it was Jor-El who made me fly. Or rather, made Kal-El fly. Because Clark Kent? Not so much with that... Random floating aside." He gave Lex a sly grin. "I don't mind or anything. It'd probably be cool, you know, to know how. But I'd rather figure it out myself than have it forced on me."

"Wait, Clark," Lex persisted, practically springing from the desk to face the other man, appalled at the younger man's indifference to the main topic here. "You're saying Jor-El has this power to, what, brainwash you, and you didn't think it might be a good idea to maybe mention this earlier?" Fuck, and he'd been in that Fortress with the alien simulation countless times now...

Clark shrugged, infuriatingly dismissive.

"Well, it's over now," he replied. "He tried and he failed. Mom snapped me out of it with some black kryptonite and I don't think he could do it again. I mean, if he could he'd have tried already, right?"

Ordinarily Lex liked that Clark was easy going, it brought some relaxation to his otherwise high-strung life. But right now the younger man's ability to shrug off events was grating him like nothing else. Did the boy not see the danger this presented?

"What about someone else?" Lex persisted, grabbing below Clark's shoulders and scanning his face, the existence of yet another coloured kryptonite filed away for another time. There were more important issues at hand. "Another Kryptonian? Could they have the same power? What happened in the cave exactly?"

Clark tilted his head, confused at the sudden anxiety. What part of 'it's over' was the older man missing?

"I don't know," he muttered, allowing the hold even though he didn't understand it—a touch from Lex was a blessing whatever the reason. "It's all kind of fuzzy. I remember..." He remembered being naked, but that didn't seem exactly helpful. "I remember being surrounded by darkness and there was this... this heaviness pulling me down and then... nothing. It's just blank. I remember 'being' Kal-El, but it's... it's like a dream, you know? Where everything you do makes perfect sense at the time, like wearing PJs to school or something, and it's only when you wake up you realise how crazy it all was."

Clark smiled again, with rather less confidence this time as he tried to make light of something Lex realised he was clearly uncomfortable thinking about, but what he'd described sounded a lot like a powerful form of hypnosis and Lex did not like the sound of that at all. He was not ready to back down on this just yet.

"Did Jor-El do anything to you before?" he asked, trying to break the process down. "Touch you with something, or make you ingest anything? Something like a pill or a..." A generic 'liquid' was his intended conclusion but the words faded as he glanced over Clark's shoulder and caught sight of the woman now standing at the end of the desk, green eyes bright and striking above her purple sweater. The world around Lex seemed to mute, colours and light dulling, like an image through misted glass. Only his mother was clear. "...A virus?" he finished, voice heavy and faint.

Lillian nodded, twice, head dipping slowly and elegantly each time.

"Lex, I don't know, okay?" Clark shrugged, pulling out of the hold and taking the other man's hands in his own—intending reassurance. "You're making a lot more out of this than there was. Really." He moved his head in an attempt to break the vacant gaze Lex had adopted. "I'm fine now. You don't have to worry."

It was actually incredibly touching that when Lex freaked out about something alien it was for him now, as opposed to about him and a small, selfish part of Clark wanted to foster that concern. But mostly he wanted to stop the unnecessary distress.

Lex blinked at him, eyes focusing with difficultly.

"Besides, it's not the past you have to worry about," Clark continued, trying for distraction. "We've still got to figure what to do about your father, remember? You think I should maybe blow him off and not turn up tonight?"

"Um..." Lex frowned, fighting the urge to panic and forcing himself to think clearly. Difficult with his dead mother standing so ominously behind his boyfriend. "No. No I think you should go," he said with new decisiveness, moving passed Clark to the end of his desk. Ignoring the phantom, he calmly pulled the intercom around and reached for the handset.

"Really?" Clark responded, surprised.

Lex held his breath as the younger man turned round, but there was nothing. No exclamation, no gasp, no jump of surprise. Nothing. Which meant either Clark couldn't see her or...

Lex glanced casually over his shoulder as he lifted the phone. His mother was gone.

Well that settled it then. This was his burden and no one else's. He'd carry it the way he was supposed to. Alone.

"Yes..." he nodded, mind working through a suitable story. "But not on his terms. I'll call him, right now. Tell him we'll meet him at eight. And not in his office. Somewhere he has less power... the mansion in Smallville."

"We?" Clark queried, stepping over to rest a palm beside the intercom, head tilting towards Lex's.

Lex forced a smile.

"You don't think I'd let you face my father alone?" he responded, unable to keep the passion from his eyes. "I won't let him hurt you, Clark. I promise. After tonight... he'll be out of your life forever. I'll make sure of it."

Clark beamed, face shining with gratitude.

"You know, I don't know how I did this without you," he stated, shooting the older man a gaze so sincere and intense Lex felt sure it was burning right through him, making his skin tingle all over.

It was all he could do not to break down right then, new-found resolve shattered in seconds. With every ounce of strength he had he forced himself to look away.

"Now... if you're hoping flattery will buy you can extra stick of garlic bread at Luigi's..." he muttered, pausing in a way he hoped Clark would find playful and not heart-wrenching agony. From the sudden light in the younger man's eyes it seemed his hope was fulfilled. "You're absolutely right," Lex finished, holding the phone to his chest in a 'soon to be used' manner. "Why don't you go save us a table? I'll meet you in fifteen minutes."

Clark grinned and glanced over the desk, curious as to what could cause so long a delay. He chuckled when he saw sketches covering the older man's notes.

"Work to finish up?" he joked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I was interrupted," Lex shrugged, hoping this wouldn't be a long topic of banter because he really didn't think he could handle it. Fortunately, Clark just shook his head.

"Okay, I'll meet you there," he grinned. "But don't be late."

Lex gave a silent sigh of relief as Clark started heading for the door, only to tense up all over again when the younger man turned round.

"Oh, hey," he called, expression curious. "What was it you wanted to tell me?"

"Oh... just..." Lex stuttered, atypically lost for words. "It doesn't matter, I'll tell you later."

"Sure?" Clark persisted.

Lex nodded tightly and with a small shrug and smile Clark finally, finally, stepped through the doors. Lex made a note to have a suitable revelation fabricated for lunch.

Less than two seconds later he felt another presence at his side. He didn't need to look to see who it was. It was obvious now. Like what he had to do next.

He raised the phone to his ear and pressed a button.

"Miss Robinson?" he greeted, barely listening to the nasal like tones of his secretary's rival. "I need you to get a message to my father. Tell him Clark and I will meet him at seven. In the Kent barn."

He clicked the handset back into place and stared vacantly for a moment, before moving round the desk and back into his chair, unsurprised to find the presence beside him once again absent.

After a couple of breaths he reached to his left and opened a drawer. It was empty save for one item. A slim, silver pistol.

Slowly, Lex moved his fingers on top of it. The metal felt cold.

With a shaky sigh he closed his eyes. Fifteen minutes. Was that really enough time to come to terms with killing someone? With killing your father? Probably not. But it was all he had. Because after that the acting would start—another normal day in the not so normal life of Lex Luthor. Until seven o'clock. When everything changed.

No time for finesse. No time for elaborate planning. His dad was ready for Clark now—that must be why he'd called. Lex just needed to get the job done. What happened after that didn't matter. Clark could hate him if he wanted, but at least he'd be safe. At least he'd be free.

As he sat there, preparing, another soft, familiar, feminine hand seemed to cover his own in encouragement.

Clark jostled his leg impatiently beneath Chloe's desk, trying to keep his mind off the impending confrontation later and on the 16 x 16 grid on the screen in front of him, half filled with grey squares, a quarter filled with numbers. After some thought he clicked on one of the squares and another block of numbers opened up. What if Lionel threatens Lex tonight? He's used that one before. Lex might be in danger coming with me. He clicked another square, distracted, and the smiling face above the grid changed to a frown, two small, black crosses forming lifeless eyes.

Clark sighed. Mine. Apparently Minesweeper really wasn't providing the distraction he wanted. College had been better. He'd had a journalism class that afternoon and they were hard. He'd had no idea just how much effort it took to be a journalist. How much stuff you had to know—laws, marketing techniques, mediums of information—it just went on and on. He'd thought it was just about writing stories. And Chloe always made it look so easy. If he was glad about anything that evening it was that journalism wasn't his major.

Class was long since over now though and with nothing to do but stew until eight Clark went to the one place he was sure he'd find hefty distraction—Chloe. He'd been dismayed to find she wasn't there and the other employees took pity on him and let him use her computer. Despite the young girl's occasional grumbles, Clark knew there was far more to Chloe than her computer though, and, as his recent death proved, the machine was a far from suitable substitute in her absence.

But no better ideas were forthcoming, considering Lex had vetoed all contact until later due to an overload of work, so Clark clicked on the frowning face despondently, re-setting the grid.

"Save yourself the frustration, Clark," a bright voice called in his ear. "You're never gonna beat my top score."

Clark looked up into the face of his newly returned friend and sighed in relief. Chloe had a small, brown satchel slung over her shoulder with a black jacket draped over the top. Her green shirt looked dusty and there was dirt on her collar but despite that her expression was one of triumph.

"Chloe," he smiled. "You have no idea how good it is to see you. Where've you been?"

"On assignment," Chloe grinned, pulling off the bag and running a hand through her loose hair. She giggled slightly. "I've always wanted to say that."

"Assignment?" Clark repeated, curious.

"Yes Clark, assignment," Chloe answered patiently, moving to perch on the desk beside him. "In suicide slums? That piece on the lack of funding for elementary schools I've been bragging about, oh, every day for the past week?"

Clark's brow furrowed for a second, then cleared.

"Oh. Oh yeah, of course," he muttered, trying for an excitement he couldn't quite feel. "How'd it go?"

"It went great! I got so much material. Even some of the kids wanted to talk. I think I could really make something out this, you know? Not that I'm looking for a Pulitzer or anything, but if just one person takes notice that's something right? Maybe..." She trailed off, biting her lip as she noted Clark's vacant expression. "Sorry. Sorry," she muttered, shaking her head. "I just got a bit carried away there... you're probably worried about Lionel, huh?"

That got Clark's attention.

"What?" he started, looking over Chloe's sudden sobriety with a frown. "How'd you know about that?"

Chloe gave him a flat smile, apparently reading the surprise as a result of his distraction.

"Lex and I have known since last night," she stated, eyebrows raised in a 'remember?' gesture. "I was fretting about it well into the morning. Guess your day wasn't as distracting as mine."

"Since last night?" Clark repeated, fully distracted now, but also totally baffled. "Chloe, Lionel only called me this morning. Lex didn't even know until lunch. How could you have known before?" And... why would Lex tell you anyway?

Now it was Chloe's turn to frown.

"What?" she said, tone sharp. "Wait, so... Lionel, called?"

"Yes. This morning," Clark clarified, speaking slow to try and get to the heart of the miscommunication without further trouble. "Lex and I are meeting him tonight at eight o'clock."

Chloe's eyes widened.

"Meeting him?" she repeated, aghast. "But... why would Lex agree to that after everything we found out?"

Clark shook his head. Okay, I'm officially missing something.

"Chloe, I have no idea what you're talking about," he said carefully, pulling his hands from the computer and leaning closer to his friend. "What do you mean 'found out'?"

Chloe just stared at him for a few seconds, before thumping the desk with the ball of her hand in frustration.

"Damn it!" she hissed, looking away. "That... I... I don't know who to be madder at. Him for not telling you, or myself for thinking he would. I can't believe I let myself get tricked by a Luthor, again."

"Chloe, what...?" Clark raised his palms in an unspoken demand, not even knowing what he should be asking for, let alone how.

Chloe sighed, face hardened to an angry sympathy Clark never knew how she managed to pull off.

"Lex and I broke into Lionel's office last night," she explained. Clark jolted forward in surprise. "Not together," Chloe added hurriedly. "We just... ran into each other... But Clark, we found things on his computer. Encrypted files about a lab creating some kind of chemical formula. Diary entries talking about a weapon."

She leant down to him now, voice low, and something cold and heavy settled in Clark's stomach. Because Chloe wasn't lying, why would she? And Lex hadn't told him any of this. But... why...?

"Lex said he thought... he thought the weapon might be..." Chloe licked her lips. "Well, you." Clark held her gaze unhappily, face clouding. "He seemed so... genuine too. I really thought..." She closed her eyes for a second. "God, what an idiot. He was probably making plans to cut himself in on the deal even as he was promising to help me."

"Do you... do you have copies of these files?" Clark asked, swallowing heavily to try and bring some moisture back to his mouth.

"Of course," Chloe nodded, standing up, and the two of them switched positions.

She pulled the memory stick from the other night from her jeans and slipped it into the computer, closing the now redundant Minesweeper and bringing up the new files as soon as they appeared. The PDF of the formula filled the top left hand corner, the images of the lab in the right.

Clark tilted his head in astonishment. Because this wasn't a treat of Lionel's. This was Lex's project. The one he'd set up for Milton Fine. But... it had come from Lionel's computer, which meant... Lionel knew about the project. And there was no way that could be good. Why didn't Lex tell me! Why... no, Clark, think. Lex wouldn't just hold out on you about this, he wouldn't. There must be a reason.

Clark remembered the older man's frantic questions in his office that morning, about his time as Kal-El and what happened in the caves. He hadn't been curious, Clark realised now—he'd been worried. Worried about the power Jor-El had, the control. What did he say? Could someone else...? Clark sucked in a breath. Fine. Was Kryptonian. In essence at least. He'd know what Joe-El did to Clark, even how to replicate it maybe. And he was the one who'd developed the virus. Had Lex set up the project. And Lionel... Lionel knew about Fine. Knew where he was. Maybe, how to contact him? Lex had always dismissed the idea of Lionel working with Fine before because it was Lex's resources he'd utilised, Lex was the one he'd chosen. But Lex wasn't particularly interested in destruction of late. What if Lionel had contacted the AI himself? What if he'd given him a better offer? What if...?

Clark shook his head. None of this was making any sense. What could Lionel offer that Lex couldn't? Not Clark. Clark wasn't Lionel's to give away any more than he was Lex's—to Fine's knowledge at least. And if Lex was afraid of a Lionel-Fine partnership why wouldn't he say something? They'd talked through stuff like this before. No. There was something else. Clark was still missing something.

"Chloe this isn't..." he started, but explaining would take too long. The clock at the bottom of the screen read 19:00. Only an hour till his meeting with Lionel. He needed to see Lex now. "This isn't what it looks like. Lex wouldn't... he's not planning to give me to his father. He wouldn't do that. Even if we weren't... Even if he was as unethical as that he just wouldn't,." Clark pushed away from the desk, heart pounding. "I'm gonna go see him." If he hadn't mentioned the break-in there was a good chance he'd lied about being busy as well.

Chloe caught his arm as he turned away. Looking back found her grabbing at her jacket.

"I'm coming with you," she nodded, eyes flashing 'no arguments.'

Lex sat on the steps to the barn loft; head down, hands in his lap. Not on the main staircase, the one leading up to Clark's not-so-secret den, but the one further along, against the far wall. It was comforting, being close to a place he'd shared so much with the younger man, but he didn't dare enter. Didn't want it tarnished.

The barn was a stupid choice for this really. The docks would've been better, more suited. Even a simple alley way outside LuthorCorp. But it seemed... fitting, somehow, ending it here. With Jonathan Kent in the farmhouse just outside, so near Lex could practically hear him—gruff, loving tones passing his wife and escaping to the night. He'd hear the shot, of course, and it pleased Lex, in an odd sort of way, to know Mr. Kent would be the one turning him in. Because he would be turned in. Lex wasn't his father. He wouldn't live his life an unpunished murderer. No. Tonight, not only would a dangerous man meet the fate he deserved, but the Kents would also prove the victors in the long running, unwritten, Luthor-Kent war. As it should be.

A light footfall to the right and Lex lifted his head.

The light was minimal, just a few florescent rods, but enough to discern his father with as he stepped by, long black duffle coat obscuring his suit. Above the light as he was, Lex sat in shadow, and it took Lionel a couple of glances to make him out.

"Lex?" he muttered, tone rich with suppressed anger. "Where's Clark?"

"He's not here," Lex answered quietly, acceptant now, almost numb with calm. "Did you really think I'd just hand him over?"

Lionel tutted impatiently.

"He's not some, plaything, to bartered, Lex," he responded. "And I don't have time for your games. This is important. Where is he?"

Lex stood up.

"You won't find him, Dad," he insisted, moving down, the hem of his jacket softly brushing the wood with each step. "Not now. It's too late."

Lionel met him at the bottom step, frowning. He scanned his son's impassive face for a second, then swallowed.

"What have you done?" he whispered, tone sharp, almost fearful.

Lex gave a short, almost hysterical, burst of laughter.

"What have I done?" he repeated, incredulous, moving away with a shake of his head. "You know sometimes, dad, your audacity astounds even me."

"Lex, what...?" Lionel started, turning his head, but his son cut him off.

"What did he offer you?" the younger man continued, twisting round again with the air of a cat stalking prey. Face still, eyes narrow. "Half the world if you delivered Clark in one piece?" A couple of dark, unrestrained locks fell across Lionel's forehead as he furrowed his brow - a look of confusion Lex had seen him feign so often he barely noticed it. "Not that half would ever be enough. Not for you," the younger man continued. "You'd want it all, by whatever means necessary." He slipped his hands in his pockets, skin against metal, but... not yet. Confession first. His dad should know why. "Probably doesn't even know you're here, does he? That's why you're so desperate. Calling Clark up. Have to get in quick before he finds you out."

Lionel shook his head as he moved forward.

"Before he... what... who, Lex, who are you talking about?"

Lex stepped back into the light of the main barn; he wasn't going to let the older man fool him with a falsified touch again.

"Milton Fine," he answered sharply, tired of the stuttering evasions. "I saw your file, dad. The one on Scorpion? I know about your meetings with Sivana and the Pentagon. I don't think your partner would be too pleased to know you've been discussing his plans with the military."

"My partner?" Lionel repeated, more annoyed than baffled now. "Lex, you're the one working with Fine, not me. Now come on. Stop these ill-founded accusations and be sensible. I—"

Lex bit his lip with a sigh. He'd hoped to expose the older man without incentive but...

"Stop lying to me, dad," he muttered, looking away for a second, angry, before coolly raising the gun from his pocket. Lionel silenced immediately and Lex was granted a brief expression of shock. "You're right. Clark's not a plaything. And he's not a fucking weapon either. I won't let you make him one!"

"Weapon? I... Lex, I have no intention of making Clark a weapon." Lionel said quickly, body tense with the awareness of real danger. He raised his palms in an attempt to pacify. "I wouldn't even know how."

"You diary suggests otherwise," Lex noted behind the gun, aim unwavering.

Lionel licked his lips, nervous, and Lex felt a primal excitement at the sight. They might both be doomed in the long run, but right now, at least, for the first time in his life, it was Lex and not his father with the greater power.

"My... No. That had nothing to do with Clark," Lionel protested, slowing his voice so his point came across clearly. Lex tutted with impatience. "I was meeting with Sivana, yes. I offered him money to reveal what he was working on for you. When he explained how advanced the formula was I knew you must have taken it from Fine, but I never made any attempt to approach him. The weapon was Sivana's idea. He was dubious about the true intent of your supposed vaccine. He told me, with certain adjustments, and suitable funding, the formula could be adapted into a powerful means of offence." Lionel took a breath, meeting his son's gaze. "I'm a businessman, Lex. I took advantage of a profitable venture. I was hoping the Pentagon might be interested in purchasing my findings. It was a business deal. That's all. Clark was never involved."

Lex slid his thumb along the back of the pistol, eyes clouding. His father was a good liar. A very good liar. But his untruths were always delivered with the utmost confidence and the older man's eyes now were just a little too wide, his breath just a little too fast... And the story made sense. Stealing and twisting research was just the thing Lionel would do, especially if he thought it was valuable, and what could be rarer and more coveted than an alien formula?

Money and power. Those were the ultimate goals. Lex knew his father's opinions on that better than anyone—they'd almost been his own objectives during the senate race even—and he knew Lionel would only be satisfied with both. Having just one of the two made you half a man at best, and wouldn't working with Fine have negated Lionel's power far too much? Things had been happening so quickly today; his mother's presence so insistent, so demanding, Lex hadn't had a chance to stop, to think. Maybe... maybe things weren't so fated after all... The younger man relaxed his aim very slightly.

"Lies, lies, it's always lies," a tortured voice spoke from the shadows by the far entrance. "Worming their way inside you, like maggots. Eating away. Twisting. Until you don't know... don't know yourself anymore."

Lex turned his head a little to listen, eyes still on his father, while Lionel stared over his son's shoulder in open, wide-eyed shock, erratic breathing stopping completely. With halting steps a slender, feminine silhouette moved passed the parked tractor on the right and towards them.

"Don't let them choke you, Alexander. Fight it. Stop him." The figure moved right beside Lex, leaning to breathe in his ear. "It's the only way."

The overhead light sparkled off her auburn hair, pale skin smooth and shining, eclipsing the milky pearls about her neck.

Lex swallowed. Straightened up. And tightened his grip round the gun once again.

Lionel let out a heavy, ragged breath.

"Lillian?" he muttered, stepping back, hands shaking as they fell to his sides.

"What do you mean, he isn't here?" Clark asked, incredulous.

Behind the slim-lined computer on her desk Miss Robinson shrugged, raising a hand to push one of several wisps of hair from her eyes. Like her sister had last night, she also sported a bun, albeit a far less secure one.

"I mean he isn't here, Mr. Kent. He's gone," she repeated patiently.

"But Lex never leaves the office early. Never," he insisted, resting his palms on the desk.

"Clark." Miss Robinson gave a small smile. It softened her face dramatically. "You do know LuthorCorp hours are from nine to six? I'm only here because I'm on overtime. Seven o'clock is hardly early."

Clark appreciated the friendliness of the tone, and any other time he might have stopped to chat—he'd become quite acquainted with Lex's secretary over the past few days after all—but just then he was feeling too desperate. Lex hiding things from him was bad enough, but now the guy was missing? Clark had no idea what it all meant, but he was afraid nonetheless.

"He never usually leaves you doing overtime alone either," he noted with a frown, and the woman's smile faltered.

"He's up to something, isn't he?" Chloe cut in from the end of the desk, eyeing the older woman with all the intimidation her reporting skills could muster. "And you know what."

Miss Robinson looked between her and Clark, expression conflicted.

"I... I can't... LuthorCorp information is classified, I..." she muttered.

"Emily," Clark interrupted, tone more gentle. He even managed a smile of sorts. "I'm hardly gonna arrange a hostile take over. We just want to know where he is."

His eyes grew wider, pleading, and Emily caved with a small nod of agreement.

"He left just over two hours ago," she revealed. "Said he had an important appointment to attend and asked me to hold his calls. I thought it was strange, because there's nothing scheduled. Is... is something wrong?"

Clark seized up at the question, fighting the urge to scream. Because yes, yes! Something was very wrong indeed. He just didn't know what. Chloe filled his silence.

"We don't know. Maybe," she shrugged, shooting her newly tense friend a worried glance. "Did he say where this appointment was?"

"No, I'm sorry, he—"

A loud 'ahem' from the outside corridor cut her off.

"Some employers don't take too kindly to others revealing their personal information."

The voice was identical to the woman just speaking, only colder, harsher. The three of them looked round to see a woman dressed from head to toe exactly like Emily—same grey LuthorCorp blouse, black skirt and stockings. The face too was familiar, and yet eerily different. The tighter bun pulled her hair away with painful intensity, making her face sharper and crueller—a fact only emphasised by her fiercely narrowed eyes. Chloe blushed and looked down.

"Some employers haven't let their immorality destroy their capacity for trust," Emily shot back, expression and tone for a second an exact mirror of her sister's. Then she turned warmly back to Clark and Chloe. "He didn't say where he was going, I'm sorry."

Clark gave a tight nod and pulled back. Dead end, he thought, so where now?

"Hey!" the other Miss Robinson snapped suddenly, stepping towards Chloe.

The younger woman looked up and tried hard to wipe the guilt from her face.

"What?" she said quickly.

"Move."

Chloe blinked at the command, confused, and Miss Robinson pushed her aside with a sigh. Crouching down at the end of the desk she pulled a smart, black handbag from under it and began to rummage through.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Emily cried from her chair.

"Taking the car keys," her sister replied, a small set of keys closed in her fingers as she stood up again.

"No," Emily protested, shaking her head. "We agreed it was my turn to have the car tonight."

"If you got your work done first," the other woman amended, looking over Emily's notes and open computer files with obvious distain. "Clearly you haven't. Don't blame me for your lack of efficiency."

Emily scowled but didn't offer further argument.

Without even a goodbye, her sister turned and headed outside, once again ignoring Chloe completely—an obvious lack of recognition the younger woman couldn't help shaking her head at in disbelief.

Then, just as she was nearing the exit to the corridor Miss Robinson stopped and spun round.

"And you," she spat, pointing at Clark, eyes bright with disapproval. Clark started. "You have some nerve being here, prying into secrets, when you're supposed to be meeting Mr. Luthor right now."

Clark shook his head, more weighed down than ever by yet another confusion.

"But, I'm not meeting Lionel till eight," he protested.

Miss Robinson rolled her eyes.

"Can't even get your own facts straight?" She shook her head. "You had his son call up and demand the meeting be changed to seven. In your barn. I think it's pathetic, messing a respected businessman like Mr. Luthor around like that, letting someone else run your life. What kind of a man are you?"

With a final 'tut' of disgust she turned and marched away.

Clark stared after her in shock. Seven? In the barn? But Lex said... Realisation hit like lightning. Lex had gone to meet Lionel alone. He'd lied. Carefully and deliberately.

The heat of betrayal filled Clark up, hot and sharp, only to be tempered by a following, lingering fear, freezing his blood all over. Because he remembered now how Lex had sat just a little too close at lunch today, held his hand a little too tightly under the table, brushed his lips a little too desperately in the alley outside before leaving. Not the acts of a man about to betray, but those of someone quietly and sadly saying goodbye. Whatever Lex had planned, Clark suspected he didn't intend to come back from it.

"Don't listen to her, Clark," Emily said kindly behind him, mistaking his tension for hurt at her sister's words. "She doesn't know anything. And you're better off without Lionel Luthor in your life anyway."

The words reminded Clark of something—an intensity he'd missed before. :: I won't let him hurt you, Clark. I promise. After tonight... he'll be out of your life forever. I'll make sure of it :: He'd taken the words as encouragement, one of the older man's usual displays of confidence. But maybe... maybe they had a more literal meaning...

"It's okay, Emily," he muttered, heading to the corridor, not even registering the words. "Thank you for your help."

He stepped away without another word, leaving Chloe to give the secretary a brief, grateful nod before hurrying after him.

"Something's wrong, Chloe," he said as his friend caught up with him. "I've gotta get to the barn."

"Clark, wait," Chloe insisted, grabbing his arm. "You can't just rush in, what if they're meeting about you? Making a deal? It could be dangerous."

Clark shook his head impatiently.

"Chloe," he pleaded, pulling his arm away. "You didn't see him this morning, he was... he was afraid for me..." The older man's tension and frantic questions suddenly made sense. Not curiosity, not concern, but fear. And I didn't even see it. Idiot! "I think he might be in trouble. I have to go..."

Even as she sucked in her next breath he was already moving, passing corridors, buildings, roads and city streets without a second glance, until the familiar, red painted wood of the barn came into sight.

He whizzed straight inside without slowing, and stopped with a jolt beside the shining new tractor at what he saw.

Just a few paces from him stood Lex, an auburn haired woman at his side, with a gun pointed calmly at his father. As Clark watched his friend's finger tighten on the trigger, a flash of memory sent him tumbling back to Chandler's field...

Clark's birthday 3.01am

The silence on top of the windmill was absolute, broken only by the occasional rush of wind, and Clark relaxed into it, flexing his fingers happily round the gloved hand inside his own, resting half on his own thigh, half on the man next to him's.

Lex had his eyes closed now, head turned to the moon, soaking up its rays as Clark sometimes did with the sun and with anyone else Clark would have felt restless - lack of action so often left him impatient. But moments with Lex weren't like that, they held him, brought a stillness and rest Clark couldn't find anywhere else. So easy his mind didn't even acknowledge what was happening. The moments just were, and Clark lived through them gladly.

"If I fall, would you catch me?"

The question was soft, wistful, and it took Clark a second to realise Lex had actually asked it; his appearance was so unchanged.

"Of course," Clark replied, voice equally soft, a light smile touching his lips as he looked the other man over. "But don't worry, I won't let you fall."

He tightened his grip round Lex's hand reassuringly, warming the leather surrounding it, touched that the older man felt comfortable enough to reveal an insecurity like that.

Lex gave a flat, indulgent smile beneath his closed lids, as though Clark had somehow missed the point but he appreciated the response anyway.

"You might not have a choice, Clark," he stated back, tone clear and resigned in a way Clark didn't understand.

The younger man's face clouded.

"Lex, what... what do you mean?" he pressed, voice sharpening.

A few more seconds of silence, during which Clark looked between his friend's calm, collected face and the long drop to the ground below. He couldn't mean... could he? Twisting round slightly, Clark leant forward to press his right palm gently and securely over the other man's chest.

Lex opened his eyes at the touch, looking from Clark's hand to his face in confusion. Clark's brown and green flashed back at him, penetrating, and the older man breathed out a laugh.

"Not that," he assured, confidently, lips curving in mockery of Clark's fear. "I'd never be that desperate."

Clark gave a short, unashamed sigh of relief, hand slipping off Lex and into his lap.

"Then, god, Lex, drop the cryptic would you?" he asked, imploring. "Cool as it might be, telepathy is not one of my powers. If something's wrong, just tell me."

Clark tilted his head, encouraging. Because this wasn't an extension of the older man's alienation. No, they'd covered that. This was something else, some other anxiety, and whatever it was, Clark was keen to put it to rest as well.

It seemed to him sometimes that Lex was too complex for his own good, too full of conflicting ideas and unreasonable demands for himself. They knotted him up, leaving him frayed and ready to snap with each new decision. What he needed was someone to ease him apart, soothe all those knots back into line again and discard all the threads he didn't need—threads Clark suspected had mostly come from his father anyway. Opinions and expectations Lex himself didn't share, which was why they'd left him so tangled in the first place.

Clark had never felt capable of helping others like that before, he'd felt too young, barely able to deal with his own issues let alone someone else's. But as the silence and the breeze wrapped round them, like a comforting blanket, and as Lex looked him over with a gentle, hopeful smile, Clark thought maybe this was one responsibility he could handle. He certainly wanted it enough.

"I told you, nothing's wrong," Lex replied, a catch in his voice suggesting he wasn't quite done yet. Clark waited. "Like I said. Life's perfect..." The side of his mouth flicked up in a wry smirk and he looked away, scanning the horizon. "Too perfect... Happiness this intense, I... don't know how to trust it. Because in the end, happiness is just a feeling of euphoria, your brain chemistry going into overdrive. I keep waiting for the honeymoon to end and reality to set in. It feels like any day now everything's going to come crashing down around me and..." He turned to Clark slowly. "I need to know if you'll still be there, Clark, when that happens. If you'll catch me. Or if you'll just get lost like everything else."

Clark's mouth curved into a soft, affectionate smile, eyes dancing. Of all the things to worry about only Lex would pick happiness.

"Lex," he muttered, shaking his head. "For a smart guy you sure are superstitious. The world doesn't end just because you're happy."

"No?" Lex queried, unconvinced. "History suggests otherwise. Every time I get close, something always seems to happen to take it away."

The younger man's eyes dulled at that, hurt at the calm resignation Lex attached to the fact, to the expectation of the future he clearly associated with it. And that made everything clear again. No, this wasn't about alienation; this was a continuation of the worry he'd expressed in the Fortress after the kidnapping—a desperate fear of the power some hidden force of fate held over the older man's life. Clark felt a heavy rush of anger at Lionel for having fostered such a belief in the man he loved. It was a cruel, fear-provoking tactic that had probably been implemented all through Lex's childhood.

"Forget history," Clark answered with certainty. "We're writing our own now. These are our lives, Lex. No one and nothing is gonna tell us how to live them except us. I told you before, we're gonna fight destiny. Together."

The space between Lex's eyes creased for a second, like he was desperately trying to believe Clark's words but couldn't quite convince himself. He looked down with a sigh, eyes tracing their joined hands with something akin to longing.

"You're remarkably glib about destiny, considering what's written in those caves not two miles from here," he muttered.

Clark all but flinched, his hold on Lex turning slack as he looked away. Not angry, more ashamed. He'd forgotten for a minute that he had a 'father' of his own, keen to push an unwanted inheritance. The Kawatche legend was an issue they'd yet to discuss since the revelation and Clark had foolishly thought that meant it didn't matter. As he'd said less than two minutes ago though, Lex was a smart guy, he must have connected the dots between Clark and Naman by now and, as Clark had discovered himself, the link to Sageeth wasn't too hard a leap...

"You know I... I never believed in that..." Clark murmured. "Not really."

Lex looked up, eyebrows raised.

"You're not going to tell me your profound interest in the legend really was for a term paper, are you?" he asked, eyes darkening with an old weariness Clark felt a rush of panic at as soon as he looked back.

"No, no paper," he admitted, relieved to see Lex's gaze soften again. "I just..." He shrugged lightly, letting Lex's hand slip from his and onto the older man's thigh. "It was the first time I'd ever heard anything about... about my people. I got kinda obsessed."

Lex nodded, serious but not cold.

"I noticed..." He looked back to the horizon, face clouded again as though struggling with something. Clark couldn't blame him for being upset, every time they'd discussed the caves before he'd flat out lied to the older man—about his reasons for studying them, the things he knew. Lex should be pissed as hell. Instead all he said was "Understandable... that you should want to know all you could." He took in a breath, sharp and deep, through his nose before turning to the younger man again. "But you never believed any of it? Ever?"

While not condemning, Lex was certainly disbelieving and Clark grimaced in apology.

"I used to worry about it," he confessed, brow furrowed, gaze shifting just over the older man's shoulder. "I mean I never thought for a second I was really the Kawatche tribe's saviour, that's... that's crazy. But there were some things I kept coming back to, prophecies that came true and made me think 'what if'... and I... I did wonder; if there really was a Sageeth—"

"He'd probably be me," Lex cut in, making Clark blink, appalled. He'd been trying to be vague, tactful, hearing Lex voice the assumption so bluntly only made it more damning. "You don't need to dance around the subject, Clark," Lex continued, still strangely calm. "I read the legends too, I know how he's supposed to be identified. That knife... it disintegrated when I touched it—"

"Or when your father did," Clark added quickly. Too quickly. Shifting the mantle like that only emphasised how seriously he'd been taking the prophecy.

Lex looked at him oddly.

"You saw that?" he queried.

Clark paused for a second. He'd forgotten Lex had never seen him watch from afar as he and his father reached for the Kryptonian weapon together. It certainly wasn't going to help Clark's 'never believed it' stance telling Lex now either. Now the older man would know he'd been stewing over the issue all that time. Mind alternating precariously in his darker moments between the two Luthors, asking himself which one? which one will I have to fight? At first he'd hated himself for it, for doubting Lex in that way, then as they'd drawn apart it'd become an easy excuse—it's not my fault I've lost him, he's supposed to be my enemy. Stupid. Just a cowardly way of covering his failure, his neglect.

Clark nodded his head uneasily.

Lex made a small 'hmm' noise in the back of his throat.

"That gives things new perspective," he muttered, sounding curious. "I thought you only suspected, but if you knew... no wonder you were so cautious of me."

"Lex, no, I..." Clark started. Lex was his lover now, damn it! He shouldn't be calmly accepting the fact Clark had suspected him of being his greatest enemy. It was wrong! The suspicion itself was wrong! It couldn't be valid any more, could it? "It wasn't like that," the younger man continued. "I didn't go around watching you thinking 'better keep an eye out in case he betrays me.' I didn't try and believe it, I never wanted to, it was just..."

"The comparisons were rather too strong to ignore," Lex finished as Clark trailed off. The younger man looked back to him sadly, but Lex's eyes were kind. "All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter," he quoted, eyebrows lifting. "I understand, Clark. That's what prophecies do. They give you just enough truth to make you think maybe they'll go all the way, until even trying to avoid them seems fated." A heavy sigh. "You think I haven't been worrying about this? That I haven't been watching my back for an enemy of my own?"

Clark shifted in surprise. No, no he hadn't thought that. That Lex might have felt just as confined by the prophecies as he himself had. It was both a hurt and a comfort to think Lex had suffered the same anguish he'd been through.

From Lex's sad but friendly expression it seemed he felt the same and Clark thought he might understand why the older man wasn't angry with him for his suspicions—they didn't prove a mistrust of Lex so much as the fact Clark too had been painfully tangled in fate.

"At least you have the consolation of knowing you're going to be the hero," Lex finished with a flat smile.

"One interpretation, Lex," Clark insisted, remembering his mother's parting cry as he awoke from his near death experience, telling him there were too many conflicting readings of the paintings to bother with. "You had one that wasn't so flattering for me, I remember."

He tried for a gentle, assuring smile, but Lex just turned away, sucking his bottom lip lightly.

"Wishful thinking, perhaps," he answered. "I was looking for a loophole. A way out for me, I..." He glanced back briefly, but without actually looking at Clark at all. "I didn't think... that he was you. Not at the time. I don't know why. When I got back to the mansion the night you took me to the Fortress I realised the connection was blindingly obvious. Especially considering the role I'd been allocating for myself. But I just... I assumed Naman would have to be someone other, some initial ally I'd yet to meet." He clasped his gloved hands together and Clark could feel the older man's tension where their shoulder and thighs still touched. "Assuming he is you... I'd say my reading verges on inaccuracy."

Clark frowned.

"Why? Because I'm so much better than you?" he asked, incredulous.

Lex's shoulder lifted and fell in a smooth, liquid motion and Clark shook his head.

The older man was usually so good at criticism, at touching other people's flaws; he'd never have thought it was a skill that hid such a deep and pervading self-doubt. But Lex's fears now, combined with the pure pain he'd shown in the Fortress the other day proved this a severely ingrained insecurity and it only emphasised to Clark how equally imperfect he was.

Because here was a man practically crippled with doubt and guilt about a future that hadn't even happened yet, might in fact never happen, while Clark had taken years to feel properly guilty about a lie he'd been living all his life. And Lex knew that! Knew Clark was nowhere near perfection. And yet in the hero-villain pecking order it was still Clark he put at the top?

This was inferiority complex at its height and in the face of it the superior one Clark had been harbouring, unawares, for at least five years now, crumbled away.

"No. Lex," he insisted, moving to wrap both his hands over the older man's clasped ones, fingers resting lightly on skin through the hole in the back of the leather. "Everything you said about Naman, about how dangerous he could be, how he could rule the world. It was all true. That's what I was supposed to do, it's why Jor-El sent me here."

Lex whipped his head back to the younger man, blinking pure astonishment.

"You said there was no invasion, Clark," he recalled sharply. "You said there was just you."

Clark nodded.

"I was supposed to be enough..." He swallowed, remembering the cold shock that had run up his spine when he and his dad opened the ship for the first time. "The exact words in my ship were 'they are a flawed race, rule them with strength my son, that is where your greatness lies'..." Clark looked down, breathing deeply.

Of all his potential destinies, that one—alien conquering and submission—was perhaps his greatest fear. Him and Lex both, although neither had known it before. Clark revealed it now to try and balance things out, show Lex he wasn't the only villain in this story. But, oh god, he thought suddenly, what if it's too much? what if it scares him away? Clark bit the inside of his lip. Too late to stop now.

"I already told you, Lex. I'm no hero," he finished. "I was never meant to be."

A soft, wet sound of Lex swallowing.

"I always thought a dagger was an unusual talisman for a saviour," he muttered, distant now, and thoughtful in an old, curious way that gave Clark hope. "A blade is traditionally a symbol of war, not peace, and it did give Jeremiah Holdsclaw a rather strong tendency to megalomania..."

The older man unclasped his hands carefully beneath Clark's and the Kryptonian thought for a second he was going to pull them away, shift to the metal ladder and get as far from him as possible. But instead Lex removed only one hand, and rested it softly on top Clark's cupping ones.

"Presumably the dagger wouldn't have had that kind of power on you," Lex continued and Clark could feel blue eyes shifting to him even as he kept his own down. "But you never had it to yourself long enough to know so... maybe... maybe its destruction wasn't a signpost. Maybe it was for your protection."

Clark frowned again for a second, then curved his lips upwards.

"Making Sageeth... what? My saviour?" he queried, eyes brightening as he looked up.

Although still tense, Lex met the look with a smile.

"This prophecy's enough to give us both a god complex, huh?" he muttered, a touch of humour lighting his face, and Clark relaxed. If Lex was starting to joke, maybe he was getting through to the older man after all.

"You know what?" Clark asked, rhetorical. "I don't care what it means, Lex. Cos the truth is, it means nothing to me anymore." He shifted their hands so he was grasping both of Lex's. "This is our life now. That's not going to change. And if it means you have to be happy for once..." He shrugged, leaning forward to ghost the older man's lips with his own, brushing their noses. "I'm sorry, but you're just gonna have to live with it."

He didn't wait for a response, just closed the gap between them quickly and quietly, placing a soft, warm kiss on the older man's mouth. Lex was still for a second. Then he gave in, parting his lips in a caress that was equally tender.

The older man's hands slipped from Clark's, brushed up his chest and round to his back. Clark expected a deepening then, greater passions taking over, but instead Lex moved his lips away, kissing along Clark's cheek towards his ear.

Hot breath spiralled into it, followed by a whisper.

"But you'll catch me... right?"

Clark opened his eyes with a soft, accepting smile. He'd just revealed himself as a potential one-alien invasion force, and Lex was still worried about the danger he presented? The villainous destiny he might fall into?

Oh well. Deep-rooted fears weren't lost in a matter of days, Clark supposed. And now he knew what the problem was he could work on it at least. Lex deserved to have someone look out for him after all the crap he'd been through and Clark was damn well going to make himself worthy of being that person from now on.

"Lex," he breathed back in the ear now resting by his own lips, moving his arms about the older man's shoulders. "I won't let you fall. I promise."

Clark's heart pounded as he watched the thin metal trigger pull back beneath Lex's hand, his earlier promise ringing in his ears. Because this was Lex falling, right now, and despite his bravado the other night Clark had no idea how to stop it.

"Lex!" he cried, voice raw.

Please, please come back! You're better than this, I know you are! Don't just give up. I can't be the hero to your villain, I can't! The shuddering vibration of a blade shattered against him seemed to course up Clark's arm, followed by a vision of Lex—wide eyed and angry—walking away from him, swearing eternal opposition. A nightmare from so long ago threatening to forge into a painful, unwanted reality. Don't do this, Lex. Don't make me fight you.

As Clark watched, the older man's hand stilled, stopped in a tense limbo between life and death, choice and destiny.

He scrunched his eyes together in a brief grimace. Not now, Clark... not now...

"Get out of here, Clark," he muttered tersely without turning round, gaze focusing back to his father.

"No, Clark, don't listen to him!" Lionel pleaded, eyes grabbing at Clark over his son's shoulder. "He's out of his mind. This is all some elaborate game, you have to stop him, he'll kill me!"

Clark shook his head at Lionel's words, swatting them away like an irritable buzzing. What the elder Luthor said about Lex, about what was going on, meant nothing at all. He didn't know. He didn't understand the conflict between action and desire because Lionel's acts were always what he wanted. He saw only a man with a gun, a man with a single intent.

Clark saw a man fighting against everything he believed in.

Lex might have wanted his father dead more than once, but it was a passing thought, a speculation—Clark had seen the pain in his friend's eyes when he'd confessed to the desire after the tornado strike; he'd seen the guilt and the horror after he'd shot Nixon to protect Jonathan; he'd seen Lex hold back from killing Paul Hayden after the guy had damn near comatosed his girlfriend. Lex was no murderer...

But he'd become one if he had to, Clark was just as sure of that, even if he hated every minute of it. If he thought it was necessary. If he thought it inevitable.

Just as it was equally clear Clark had to oppose him if he tried.

He couldn't let Lionel die, much as he'd like the man out of his life. But if he did stop Lex now, physically ran in and caught the bullet, it'd be too late, the die would still be cast. Clark would never know if he could trust the older man again, Lex would resent him for preventing a necessity and they'd be caught in a struggle they might never resolve.

Clark was so lost in the complexities of the thing, he barely noticed the woman at first. Until she turned and addressed him directly.

"Clark Kent. This is not your concern. Leave now."

Clark blinked at her, startled, and frowned in confusion. Shining auburn hair. Pure, deep, blue eyes. So like Lex.

"M... Mrs. Luthor?" he stuttered, mind drawing a total blank at the vision of the dead woman. What? So she... didn't die? But what's that got to do with...?

"Don't listen to her, Clark," Lionel cut in breathlessly. "It's a trick, she—"

"Shut up, dad!" Lex yelled, waving the gun. "What's the matter? Afraid to face your past?"

Lionel, sensibly, chose not to comment and Lillian continued.

"Do it now, Alexander," she called, eyes still on Clark. "There's not much time."

Lex swallowed. Angry at his outburst as much as his father. He couldn't even see Clark standing behind him and the other man was already effecting his judgement. Damn it, what was he doing here? Difficult as it made things though he couldn't let Clark's arrival change anything. He couldn't.

Steadying his arm, Lex aimed the gun again.

"No, Lex, wait," Clark pleaded, raising a hand, even though he knew the older man couldn't see. "Tell me what's going on."

The older man pulled back, unable to stop the hesitation, even though he cursed himself for it, while behind him Lillian sensed the pause and shook her head at Clark commandingly.

"Leave him," she stated. "You mustn't interfere, you mustn't. This is for you. Both of you."

"No..." Clark muttered back, mind too focused on stopping his friend to even consider anything else. "No, Lex, I don't know what this is about, but don't... don't do this to yourself. Especially not for me. Please."

Lex could practically hear the younger man's expression—thick, pained lines marring his face to match the pleading tone of his voice. His own brow creased in response, inner conflict filling his eyes, because it would be so easy to accept Clark's help. Let the other man whiz him away to somewhere remote, somewhere safe and free of moral dilemmas. But what would that gain? A temporary respite until Lionel or Fine tracked them down? Until they took Clark away... No. Like his mom said, this was for Clark. He had to do this.

"I don't have a choice, Clark," he answered.

"Yes you do!" Clark shouted back, the ragged breaths that followed making the repetition barely a whisper. "Yes you do..." Because if you don't... then there's no hope for either of us... you're damning me as much as yourself, Lex, don't you see?

Lex flinched at the shout, at the sheer desperation behind it, the raw, burning concern for him it contained. Clark wasn't here to stop a murder, at least not just that, it was Lex he wanted to save, Lex he was bargaining for, Lex he was... trying to catch...? And the older man couldn't help the jolt of hope he felt at that. If Clark believed in him enough to come here, to fight, then maybe, maybe, there was still a chance to find another way, maybe if they worked together...

"No... no..." his mother's voice fell sad and heavy in his ear as she turned back to him, moving slowly to his other side, hands ghosting his shoulders with tantalising warmth. "He is young, free, he doesn't understand. Can't see the darkness. You have to do this. Listen to me, Alexander. I'm your mother. I know what's best for you."

Clark's panic dampened to suspicion as he watched Lillian move, circling round the back of Lex like he remembered Desiree doing all those years ago. His eyes lingered over her sleeve as it brushed against the older man's jacket collar and Clark frowned. Lillian had been practically incorporeal last time they met. If this was a continuation of the kryptonite's power, how could it make her so solid?

Lex shifted the gun slightly in his now sweating palm, the word of his mother proving, perhaps understandably, stronger than that of his recent lover, and Clark saw at once what he'd been missing. Connecting Lionel to Fine, Sageeth to protection, it was significant all right, Lex wouldn't dismiss the points, but they weren't enough to push him this far, they weren't enough to have kept him silent all day.

Lillian was the wild card, the deciding factor, clouding Lex's usually clear judgement.

If it really was her, Clark was more than willing to consider her words—she'd saved Lex's life only recently and that made her opinions valid at least. But as a third party Clark could see the potential for manipulation Lex couldn't and he was far from trusting the woman before him. Not when she was trying to make the man he loved a killer.

"Wait, wait," he said again, more controlled this time, still raised hand grasping the air in a halting gesture.

Lex's finger continued to hover, unmoving, over the trigger and Clark felt emboldened by the fact—whatever else Lex had running through his mind right now Clark still held enough weight to make him listen and that was something.

"Why...? Why is this best?" he started, haltingly, focused on Lillian now. Only vaguely aware of what he planned to say as his mind continued working through ideas. "The... ah... the last time we met you... you told me I should take care of Lex. Why step in and take over again now?"

Lex tilted his head to his right shoulder, enough to catch sight of the younger man in the corner of his eye. Clark had never told him his mom spoke during that final vision and the knowledge sent conflicting butterflies flapping in his stomach, warring between affection and distrust. If his mom had said that, what was she doing here now?

"Things... things changed," Lillian muttered, turning back to Clark impatiently. "It's different now. I had to come back."

Clark narrowed his eyes. There was a telling lack of recognition in the face before him and it boosted his confidence.

"So, what about the other things you said? About needing to let go? To let your son move on with his life?" he fabricated, watching Lillian's expression keenly. "Is all that different now too?"

The woman didn't miss a beat, just shook her head, accepting the lies without question.

"Yes, yes, all different," she agreed. "Now please, we can't afford further delay. Alex-"

"No," Clark interrupted, assured now. "No, Lex, listen to me. I think she's lying. I don't think she's who you think she is."

Something painful stabbed into Lex then—a sudden fear surrounded by pride. Because if this was all a trick, a deception, not only had his mother never been with him these last few days, he was also an incredible fool to have believed in her this long. A loud, desperate voice rose up inside him. No, I won't believe it! I can't lose her again... It hurt too much to think about and Lex found himself immensely angry with Clark for suggesting the idea.

"I think I know my own mother better than you, Clark!" he snapped over his shoulder.

"Do you?" Clark pressed, quiet but still slightly breathless. "Lex think about it—would your mom really want this for you? Cold blooded murder, of your own father?"

Lex gave another bout of near hysterical laughter, berating himself for his anger. Because, no, Clark didn't understand, and there was no point chastising the man for misconceptions.

"Clark, my mother killed my baby brother to protect him from living," he muttered back with a humourless smirk. "I don't think this is much of a step up."

Before him, Lionel's eyes widened, appalled at the Luthor family secret his son was letting slip like water, but Lex didn't care. The remaining Luthors would either be dead or incarcerated by the end of the night, what did secrets matter now?

Behind him, Clark's eyes widened in equal shock, lines of instant pity and disbelief creasing his brow. One look at Lionel was all it took to prove Lex's claim though and a deep, heavy sorrow covered the younger man's heart. He'd always known Lex had a difficult childhood, but he could never have imagined... his own mother? And yet still Lex loved her, with so much passion. Oh Lex...

A wave of guilt and sympathy washed over him but Clark forced it away. If they made it through the next five minutes maybe then they could dwell, talk, but right now this new, life-changing revelation had to be dismissed as a side issue at best.

"Alright... okay..." he muttered, mind still reeling. "So... so maybe what you're doing isn't so crazy, I get it..." He swallowed. The situation had just nose-dived right out of the proverbial frying pan and getting through to the other man again was going to be hard. "I can't stop you doing what you think is right, Lex. That's gotta be your decision." Lionel frowned at this comment but stayed silent, apparently sensing his safety lay with Clark now and that interference would be imprudent. "But just... just do something for me first..." Clark continued. "Prove to me this is your mother..." He hand moved automatically to point, even though he knew it a wasted gesture with Lex's back still to him. "If you do that then, I won't interfere, I..." A breath. "We can do this together."

Utter stillness from Lex as he took in the suggestion, obscuring the wild, erratic beats of his heart. Together...? This? Clark Kent agreeing to kill for him, with him? That was a tack he hadn't expected. Could they...? But no. The partnership came with a price, proof of identity. It was a stipulation Lex knew he couldn't fulfil—how could he prove an emotional connection? The understanding he felt from the presence beside him?

No. Clark knew it was impossible, that was why he'd asked. It was just so he could say he'd tried. A desperate grasp before Lex took the final leap away from him. A leap with no warm, farmboy arms waiting for him as he landed like he'd hoped. Because Clark would pull him back, yes, he'd said as much, but he wouldn't catch him. That would mean jumping after the older man and Clark couldn't do that. Lex didn't really think he wanted him to.

In the end though, the potential for togetherness was too tempting to pass up and Lex turned his head once again.

"How, Clark? How can I prove it?" he queried, half hoping the younger man had an actual plan, a foolproof test to solve this either way.

"You can't, but she can," Clark answered, nodding to the woman still hovering beside Lex's left shoulder. Lillian turned to look at him with narrow eyes. "Tell us something. Something only Lillian Luthor would know. It can't be that hard."

The woman curved her lips in a smile Clark was sure implied mockery.

"What? What could I possibly tell you?" she challenged.

"Anything," Clark responded. "What... what was Lex like as a kid? What's his favourite colour? What did he like to eat?"

Lex shook his head sadly, a small sigh escaping his lips. Nice try, Clark. But not good enough.

Lionel shook his head in a similar dismissal.

"A worthy attempt, Clark," the elder Luthor acknowledged, sounding resigned. "But unlike the Kents, the Luthors were not blessed with a life in obscurity. An impostor could easily discover the information you demand simply by reading through the tabloids. Talking will not remedy this situation."

Lionel raised his eyebrows and Clark got the implication—he could have the older man out of here and safe in seconds. But he was still loathe to do that, to abandon Lex to the dark fate he'd been coerced into accepting.

Lillian's blue eyes sparkled at him in the following silence, hard and cold above her smile. She seemed practically gloating, displaying inner triumph and confirming every one of Clark's fears. He looked away from her angrily. This wasn't Lex's mother. He knew it. Lillian's eyes had been kind when he saw them last, her touch soft and loving. The woman before him now was a stranger, an enemy, and she was playing a cruel and dangerous trick on his friend. He couldn't let Lex succumb to it, he couldn't.

"There must be... there must be something..." he muttered, almost to himself, as he searched the barn for inspiration.

His eyes fell on his father's workbench beside the main stairs to the loft, almost obscured now by the new tractor. A few tarnished parts of the old machine still cluttered the surface—trinkets Jonathan hoped to salvage—beside a battered wireless and a rolled up blanket full of tools. The blanket caught Clark's attention and he tilted his head, lines of a softly spoken song crossing the years and filling his mind, gentle fingers caressing the fabric with less than sane care... :: hush little baby, don't say a word... ::

"What's his favourite lullaby?" he called quickly, head snapping back to the woman's smirk.

His gaze filled with new confidence and he stared her down, forcing a small crease between those cruel, deceiving eyes.

Lex snapped his own head round too, meeting Clark's gaze for the first time since the younger man's arrival. It was a brief, clouded glance, full surprise and confusion. Because, how the hell did Clark know about that? Two seconds at most and then Lex was focused back on his father again, a new hint of uncertainty in his eyes.

"Bet that didn't make the headlines," Clark continued, and the confidence burrowed into Lex, demanding attention. "Luthor's aren't supposed to be weak enough to need help with anything, even sleep." Clark said 'Luthor' as his father often did, like a dirty word. But unlike Jonathan's usage it wasn't a slur on Lex, it was criticism in his favour, condemnation of a painful endurance Lex had wrongly been made to suffer through. "Answer that," the younger man concluded. "Answer that and it'll be enough. Answer that and I'll help you."

Another pause.

Lex pursed his lips, thinking, and Lillian frowned.

"Alexander," she berated, turning back to him. "There isn't time for these games. Kill him now before it's too late."

Clark held his breath as Lex struggled, fingers slipping uneasily around the pistol as his grip started to waver.

"No..." the older man muttered. "No, answer the question first."

He turned his gaze to the woman beside him, careful to keep the gun still firmly aimed at Lionel, and saw her tilt her head in surprise. Lillian's eyes filled with the bitter anguish of betrayal he'd seen too often in her as a boy and a surge of guilt burned through him.

With visible effort he swallowed it down. Because Clark was right. Proof wasn't too much to ask, not for something this important. He'd been careless, denying the younger man that. And it was the perfect question. How Clark had known about the Mockingbird song and what it meant to him Lex had no idea, but it was certainly enough confirm everything, and, god, the younger man's assurance of support was so sincere. This might really bring Clark on his side after all. Yes. This had to be done. His mom would understand that eventually, she would.

"Please, mom... It won't take long and I... I know you know it..." he added, voice cracking in apology. Or possibly fear.

When it became obvious Lex wasn't backing down, Lillian's expression crumpled from hurt to simple distress. She looked away, raising a hand to her now shaking lips.

"I..." A swallow, followed by a pregnant pause. Lex held his breath as the seconds stretched, brow creasing very slightly. "I don't remember..." Lillian muttered eventually beneath her pale purple fingernails. "Things... changed... when I crossed. Memories were lost, I..."

Lex stared at her as she spoke, expression changing from a frown to an open, desperate look of longing and loss. Oh god... Closing his eyes tightly he turned his head away, as though to physically dispel her image.

With a stuttered, uncontrolled sigh he lowered the gun.

The sigh Clark mirrored behind him was of sympathy as much as relief, arms itching to offer comfort, to pull Lex to him. Just then he didn't care about forgiveness or apologies, danger or destiny; he just wanted to make the older man's pain go away.

"No, wait, Alexander..."

Lex flinched at the name now. The name only his mother used. Taken from a conqueror, and yet one that made him feel anything but when she used it. The gentle tone, her quiet inflection—it had made him feel safe and cared for, normal instead of a poor, freakish little rich kid. Hearing it now only doubled the pain and the loss Clark's question had provoked. It made him want to scream, break down in a flurry of tears—a weakness that only made him angrier with himself. God, how could I have been so stupid? And to think it'd taken Clark to snap him out of it, when it was Clark he'd thought he was protecting. Idiot!

"Don't..." he breathed, voice hardening. A movement beside him as the woman masquerading as his mom moved closer. Lex shifted away quickly, head snapping up, expression weary. "Don't call me that..."

His eyes shone with water that he blinked away impatiently. He'd been a fool, yes, carried away by emotion. He certainly wasn't going to let that mistake continue.

'Lillian' frowned at him with an all too familiar look of confusion but Lex steeled himself against it.

"My mom may not have always had the best grasp on her mind," he explained. "She was often confused and she forgot a lot of things. But she never forgot that." His brow furrowed in an angry grimace—the better to hide the lingering sorrow with. "She was still singing to me on her deathbed. Who are you?"

Confusion flattened to a hard, disapproving glare.

"I always knew you'd disappoint me in the end, son," the woman stated, head moving in the briefest of shakes, eyes boring into Lex.

And the words read so much like one of Lex's greatest fears he couldn't help turning away, breath turning shallow as he fought hard against the new layer of tears coating his eyes. It's not her, damn it. It's not her. It's not her...

"Shut up!" Clark cut in, voice hard and sharp and wonderfully distracting. "You've done enough to him. Talk to me."

When Lex glanced over he found the younger man tensed and commanding, eyes looking seconds away from blazing actual fire at the woman before him. He didn't think he'd ever seen the Kryptonian so strong and as pathetic as he knew it was Lex was immensely grateful to have the pressure taken off him for once. As Clark stepped up beside him he relinquished control gladly.

'Lillian' rolled her eyes and turned to Clark irritably.

"What should I say?" she muttered, voice cold. "Congratulations on foiling my plans? Again?"

She let out an angry sigh, gaze turning menacing as she advanced towards he younger man. Clark stood his ground and didn't move an inch, only flicked his eyes over the woman, monitoring her every move. Again? What...?

"You had to turn up, didn't you?" she continued, pausing just inches from Clark to stare him down, before moving to pace before the tractor. "After all the trouble I went to to arrange this..." She looked back to Lex for a second to find him also watching her, Lionel moved to his other side, and after a quick once over of the younger Luthor she turned back to Clark and shook her head. "It's fascinating really. Quite, quite fascinating. Who'd have thought the bond would be so strong? Especially when I put so much effort into breaking it." She rested a hand on the tractor bonnet, eyes glinting at Clark with growing curiosity. "The allegorical lectures. The strategically placed rumours about LuthorCorp." She smirked, wide and unkindly and Lex had to physically stop himself from shuddering—the expression was so unlike anything his mom would have made. "And when I finally pushed you? Oh, it was so easy. And you grew such a wild paranoia. I wasn't even sure I could bring you back."

A touch of pride entered her gaze and Lex frowned. Lectures? Paranoia? Something stirred in his mind, a truth lying just out of reach. If he wasn't wholly distracted by the nigh-on perfect replication of his mom he knew he'd have worked it out already. All the pieces were there!

"And yet, here you are," the replication continued, smirk fading as she waved a hand over Clark with an air of disbelief. "Against all the odds. Looks like I might have underestimated you... Kal-El..."

Clark started at the use of his Kryptonian name, but before anyone could make another move 'Lillian' placed her hands beneath the tractor's front tyre and lifted it with ease, sending the whole thing flying across the barn towards the younger man.

Clark didn't have time to do anything but raise his hands with a cry of surprise before the machine crashed into him, missing Lex and Lionel by inches.

It was over so quickly Lex didn't even react to the sudden rush of wind beside him and could only watch, aghast, as Clark was hit full on. The momentum sent the younger man smashing into the far staircase where he was buried beneath a pile of wood and machinery.

The destruction was so loud and extensive Lex couldn't help the rush of panic tightening his chest. Because despite what logic might dictate, every part of him was screaming that survival from that was impossible. He took a step towards the wreckage uncertainly.

A darkly amused chuckle stopped him in his tracks and Lex spun round, remembering again the threatening wolf in motherly clothing still lurking behind him. The said threat was now eyeing Lionel while the older man backed away.

Lex gripped at the gun still in his hand. Whoever this impostor was, they obviously aimed to kill Lionel one way or another, and Lex knew now he had to stop them. Clark might well have fucking died trying to prove that and Lex was not going to let that go unavenged—to hell with the one-eighty it implied. Despite his best intentions though, the younger Luthor held back from raising the pistol, irrationally reluctant to fire at such a striking resemblance of his mother.

There was a tense silence as the three figures regarded each other. Then a loud scraping sound turned their attention back to where the tractor had fallen.

One of the larger planks of wood flew away and a dusty, but otherwise unharmed, Clark rose up from behind it.

Lex couldn't help but gape—with awe as much as relief. Invulnerability in theory was nothing like witnessing it in action and jesus, there wasn't even a scratch on the man. Clark's skin was as perfectly smooth and beautiful as ever and his expression was livid as he stepped out of the dust—a personification of righteous anger. If ever Lex had imagined what a god might look like, this was it.

"Who are you and what do you want from us?!" Clark yelled as he stepped from the debris, eyes locking on to the auburn haired woman and staying there.

He didn't think he'd ever felt this angry, ever. Just a few inches to the left and Lex could have been killed by that tractor. Tormenting the man wasn't enough for this woman; she had to physically endanger him too? That was two ways he'd nearly lost the man he loved in less than ten minutes! Clark was done being pushed around.

The impostor shrugged, the pinnacle of calm.

"I don't want anything from you," she muttered, creasing her nose as though in distaste. "You've been nothing but a thorn in my side since I got here. If it was up to me you'd be dead already. But you're Jor-El's son. My master will want you alive..."

She turned her gaze back to Lex, eyes glinting with a feral excitement the older man tensed at. The look wasn't his mother's, not by a long shot, but it was so familiar...

"But you..." She smiled slightly, looking him over with relish. "It's been... a pleasure... manipulating you. Difficult. But satisfying. It took me a long time to figure out how to play you. To determine the best means of influence."

She fingered the pearls about her neck and Lex grimaced, trying not to let the reference to his weakness rile him. From his position by the broken stairs, Clark was less controlled and sucked in an angry breath—berating the antagonist as opposed to Lex. The support was almost enough to convince Lex this whole mess wasn't his fault after all. Almost.

"Even now there are so many complexities I've yet to uncover," the woman continued, eyeing Lex with undisguised interest now. "I would love to shrink you down and bottle you up. To study forever."

And just like that everything clicked. Kicking himself didn't seem anywhere near enough of a reprimand for the obvious deception Lex had been missing.

"You'd put me on a mantelpiece, I suppose," he responded, eyes sharp with understanding. "Like a tribal carving."

Clark and Lionel looked to him, questioning, but Lex ignored them, looking over the impostor instead with all the objectiveness he'd been lacking before. His mind whizzed quickly through the possibilities—holographic technology perhaps? or maybe a mental projection?

'Lillian' grinned.

"I knew you'd work it out eventually," she stated, and as she spoke something strange seemed to happen to her voice. It lowered—tone turning deeper, more masculine. "But I planned for it to be after I'd disposed of the oracle." She glanced at Lionel and Clark and Lex frowned. Oracle? "It seems I miscalculated..."

Her face shimmered, melting to liquid silver, which bubbled and shifted, coating her body. In less than a second 'Lillian' was gone, replaced by the figure of a dark-haired man in black. Milton Fine.

Clark blinked, while Lex gave a weary nod. Shapeshifting, oh...

"And I hate to be wrong," the AI continued, turning to Clark.

The younger man tensed, fury turning to fear, and Lex cut in.

"You said your master wants him alive," he repeated quickly, but Fine just hummed with amusement.

"Alive, doesn't need to mean whole," he grinned.

A terrified blink and he was gone. Clark and Lex looked to each other nervously, while Lionel checked over his own shoulder.

Then suddenly, Clark felt a heavy, vice-like grip about his neck. He struggled, but it was useless, the hold was too strong, and that in itself was enough to multiply his already growing fear tenfold, because even with the kryptonite-infected the younger man had never been this well matched. Pointless as it might seem though, Clark didn't stop trying. As vast as his fear was, his anger was still miles above it and he wasn't letting Fine take him without a fight. Not after what he'd done to Lex.

"You think you're so superior, rooting yourself in this planet," Fine hissed in his ear, ignoring the scrapes of Clark's fingernails against his arm. He pulled it tighter around the younger man instead, dragging Clark to the centre of the barn, where he threw him face down on the ground.

Clark just lay there, helpless for a second; pushing himself up with his hands as he gasped for the breath he wasn't used to lacking so much of and for so long.

"You assume allying yourself with humanity gives you some kind of moral high ground," Fine continued with a sneer, staring down at the fallen man. Clark turned his head to face him, breath still heavy, eyes narrow. "You're wrong. This is a weak and dying race, Kal-El. And I'm going to help bring it to its knees."

Clark's eyes blazed, anger more than personal now. How dare this man come here and try and take control, try and slight the people Clark had loved and accepted as his own practically from birth!

The younger man usually shied away from physical confrontation, afraid of the damage he could cause, but just then he had no qualms about hitting the man before him with everything he had. Because Fine wasn't just mocking the man Clark loved, he was mocking the Kryptonian's entire world. And in that moment a profound awareness rose up in Clark, a personal understanding at once frightening and defining.

The other night Lex had called Metropolis his city, not because he held any official claim, but because the place needed someone like him to stand up for it, to hold back the threat of LuthorCorp corruption, to keep employment steady, to give the schools and hospitals necessary funding, to do all those things his family could have done already but hadn't. Because sometimes the government could only go so far.

In much the same way, Clark, no matter how much he wanted to, had no claim on the Earth. And yet it was equally and just as powerfully his all the same. Because it was under siege, endangered by extraterrestrial threats most of the world didn't even know about, and no one could protect against those like he could. The Earth needed him. He might not be a hero, but Jonathan had taught him well enough when to accept responsibility and Clark wasn't backing down now. No. If Lex was willing to give part of his life for a bigger cause the least Clark could do was offer the same. Especially when half these threats were because of him and his people.

Lex felt a tense, fleeting sense of pride as the younger man looked up, fear wiped away by a heavy, angry defiance in the face of Fine's taunts. By all rights the beings before him should be unified, it should be the AI, in fact, bent to Clark's will as a rightful Kryptonian servant. But the younger man had chosen humanity instead, Lex's people, over the god-like race of his own. He'd sacrificed divinity in favour of a more Earthly, imperfect, realm and Lex didn't think he'd ever admired someone quite so much.

Until he remembered what the choice would cost the younger man. Because this was more than simple opposition—the reckless glint in Clark's eyes proved he'd fight to the death for this cause, for a people who weren't even his own, and Lex couldn't stand that thought. Clark might be strong but he was young, untrained, and Fine could overpower him easily. No, Lex couldn't lose Clark to something that wasn't even the Kryptonian's responsibility. Couldn't lose Clark, period. So he opened his mouth to yell, tell the man to stop fighting and get out of there.

But Clark was already burning two lines of fire at the figure above him, trying for an offensive.

Fine was quicker though, and sent a couple of stronger beams back.

The red lines met in the air between them with a blinding flash that forced Lex away, hands before his eyes. Dimly, he heard Lionel totter behind him, similarly afflicted.

When the glare faded enough to see again, Lex looked back to find Clark held up roughly by his red jacket collar. Fine punched him once squarely across the jaw, then backhanded him sharply the other way, fingers turning silver and pointed. Lex was appalled to see seeping red cuts lace the side of Clark's face and brow as they hit.

The sight of Clark's blood had always been sickening, but now Lex knew just how difficult it was to extract he had to physically force down the bile in his throat. And this was just the beginning. He'd read stories of torture, he knew when a man was being played with and Lex shuddered to think what lengths Fine might go to to harm his friend. And it was his fault, all of it, for being so stupidly taken in! For forcing Clark into this confrontation in the first place.

To his credit, Clark didn't let the unfamiliar pain stop his struggles. He raised his right hand in a retaliating punch of his own.

Fine caught the fist mid-throw and squeezed it hard, making Clark yell, and then in one slick motion he released his hold on the younger man's collar and twisted the arm about Clark's back. A heavy push on the shoulder forced the Kryptonian to his knees and Clark yelled again as his arm was twisted tighter, muscles and tendons strained beyond all known endurance.

Fine smirked, apparently satisfied.

"You'll be alive just long enough to watch as everyone you claim to love dies. One by one," he muttered, fingers digging in to the younger man's left shoulder blade.

The threat seemed to hit Clark much stronger than the one of Armageddon had, because his face crumpled in sudden distress.

"No..." he breathed, practically whimpering.

That was the last straw for Lex. He couldn't just stand there - he had to do something!

Having precious little options, he raised the only weapon he had—the silver pistol—and aimed at Fine's head.

A large, commanding hand grabbed his wrist before he could fire.

"What are you doing?" the cold, angry voice of his father hissed in his ear.

"I can't just do nothing!" Lex hissed back, trying in vain to yank his arm away—Lionel could be surprisingly strong when he wanted to be.

"Lex, this is the clash of the titans," the older man persisted, tone laden with infuriating superiority. "That's no more use to us than a peashooter. We have to get out of here."

When it came to the offensive, his dad was dishearteningly correct. Bullets wouldn't even irritate, let alone harm. But Lex couldn't help thinking Lionel's sudden use of the plural subjective had more do with the desire for a shield while escaping as opposed to a genuine concern for his son.

"I'm not running away like a coward," Lex responded, finally breaking his dad's hold with short, violent tug. "Not when this is—" He cut off, recalling too late that admissions of guilt before Lionel never worked in his favour.

"Your fault?" Lionel finished dryly. "Well, yes I suppose it is. I can't believe you could fall for such an obvious ploy." His brow furrowed, eyes flashing daggers, all danger forgotten as he fell into the reprimand. Lex looked away with a short sigh—partly impatience, partly guilt. "After everything I've taught you, son. How could you let—Aaargh!"

For a split-second Lex thought it was Clark screaming and looked up in panic. But the younger man was still and silent now, gritting his teeth as Fine squeezed his arm slowly tighter, all the while muttering something about how interesting it would be to see the Kryptonian break a bone for the first time.

Confused, Lex turned back to his dad and found the older man clutching his head as though in pain, eyes screwed shut.

Lex frowned, half suspecting a trick, but the distress was too genuine.

"Dad?" he muttered, quiet now, eyes both sharpened and softened by panic and concern.

Yes, he'd been more than prepared to see the man die less than ten minutes ago, but he never had convinced himself to want it. The thought that he might lose his father now, after an argument no less, was surprisingly painful. Lowering the gun, he raised his free right arm in an uncertain offer of support.

"No... no..." Lionel hissed between his teeth, every word an angry struggle. "I will... not... submit... AH!"

With a final yell the older man's body snapped up straight as a rake, eyes open and wide. But instead of the colour and pupil they usually held, the balls displayed nothing but pure, milky white—a thick, misty film blocking sight sensors while all energy was devoted to the mind.

Lex stopped dead, lowering his arm again in astonishment. The last time he'd seen his father like this was during the older man's coma—a time when, unknown to him, the man had been processing Kryptonian messages supposedly too vast and complex for the human mind to understand. He'd thought all that was over now though, that the stone Lionel had connected with had imparted all its knowledge. So exactly what, or who, was the other man connecting to at the moment?

A sharp, choked scream penetrated behind him and Lex turned to see Fine struggling with an unseen force, head pulled back oddly, his hold on Clark slackening. For a second he seemed to fight it, then his body spasmed and he dropped the Kryptonian completely, spinning round against his will.

The AI stared passed Lex, eyes tense and red with a fire he seemed unable to project.

A quick glance back proved Lionel's blank gaze equally fixed on the paralysed man and it wasn't difficult to surmise that whatever had possessed the elder Luthor was also the cause of the AI's sudden stress.

A second only was all Lex spared on this new phenomenon though, because Clark was moaning where he'd fallen, legs curled under him, right arm cradled to his chest. His body curved in an approximated foetal position, blood still dripping down the right side of his face, and Lex was running over before he knew it.

He practically skidded to his knees before his injured friend, ignoring the pricking splinters coating the rough floor and grazing his shins. With his right hand he gently cupped Clark's left shoulder and helped prop the younger man up, while his other slipped the useless pistol back in his jacket impatiently and moved straight to Clark's lacerated cheek.

With tender care Lex wiped at the blood with his thumb, staining his fingers and palm crimson as he tried to determine the extent of the damage. But as each stroke brushed a new and terrifying red line away, Lex's touch found only smooth, healthy, golden skin beneath. Healed. Already. Relief was palpable, and Lex breathed it out with relish, closing his eyes to better savour the feeling.

As the pain subsided and Clark blinked back to awareness again, the feel of the other man's hand and the sight of Lex so close brought an equal relief to him. He raised his now ache-free right arm and gripped the hand on his cheek, proving beyond doubt his friend was really here, with him, and not lost after all.

Lex opened his eyes to a gentle smile, Clark's eyes rich with gratitude, as though it was Lex who'd been healed, and the older man swallowed. He'd come here to try and buy Clark his freedom, but as the younger man looked over him, face lighting with joy, it was Lex who felt liberated—freed not just from Fine's deception but from the oppressive sense of destiny he'd been holding on to for so long.

After so many allusions —Lionel's predictions, Cassandra's death, the destruction of the Kryptonian blade—Lex realised he'd just found the idea easier to accept than to fight, that he'd embraced the mantle of Frankenstein's monster already without even knowing it. And it was an odd feeling, letting go of such a deep-rooted belief so suddenly now. It left him open and vulnerable; like discarding a coat he'd been accustomed to wearing, exposing him to cold air. But Clark's hand was warm on his own, his gaze strong and protecting, and Lex knew he'd gained something so much better than he'd lost.

All this happened in less than a second, no longer than Clark's defining moment during the fight, and after a look of shared affection both men turned, curious and weary again, to watch Lionel approach the still paralysed Fine.

As the comatose—or perhaps possessed?—Luthor made his way slowly towards the AI, Fine started to lean back as much as possible, a hint of panic touching his eyes.

"Don't touch me..." he hissed, as Lionel stretched a hand out towards him. "Don't do it. Don't..."

The white-eyed man's fingertips touched Fine's cheek and the AI screamed, straining ineffectively against a glaring white light that seemed to emanate from Lionel's hand. The light gradually covered Fine's whole body until he seemed a living flame. A flame, which, only seconds later, was completely snuffed out. Just a short flare of white, and Fine was gone, as though he'd never been.

Clark and Lex looked to each other in mutual bafflement, hands slipping apart as they readied to stand and investigate.

Then Lionel took a step back, eyes closing. When they opened again they were confused but very much his own, and he stared blankly at his outstretched hand.

"What...?" he breathed, looking round. It took a while for his gaze to fall on the two men still crouched on the floor and when it did he frowned. "What happened?"

The others just stared back at him.

It was nearing eleven when Clark and Lex trailed back to the LuthorCorp building after Lionel, separate emotions forgotten as they focused instead on what the older man wanted to show them. Or rather, what he wanted to show Clark.

It'd taken a while to learn the true purpose of Lionel's call to Clark involved physical evidence—evidence he'd been keeping in his office, hence his initial desire to meet Clark there—mostly because explanations had been severely hampered by the panicked arrival of the Kents.

Not only had the sounds of their tractor being thrown about caused the appropriate level of distress, but it turned out only five minutes earlier they'd received a frantic call from Chloe who wanted to know if Clark was okay.

Martha freaked at the sight of her son's blood and seemed to lose all focus beyond the removal of it—an act Lex was more than happy to provide her with a suitable handkerchief for—while Jonathan was torn between which Luthor to blame the damage on. He raged for a bit at both Lex and Lionel and the younger man had been oddly comforted by the everyday reality of the prejudice, it helped him focus.

Lionel had then made some tentative requests to see Clark alone, hinting at something personal he needed to show him, only to be met with a predictably blunt refusal, from Martha as much as her husband.

It was then that a now clean again Clark had stepped in and quietly insisted that whatever Lionel had to show he needed to see, which had, of course, prompted Lex's involvement. Because as chagrined as he felt over his misguided prevention of the original meeting, letting Clark be taken somewhere—alone—by his father, still sounded in no way sensible.

But Clark had shaken away all protestations by assuring everyone that he wouldn't, in fact, be going alone. Lex would be coming too.

Jonathan pressed the point, insisting he should also be present, but Clark shot him down. Just Lex, he'd repeated, with rock-like calm and equal impenetrability.

And that was that.

"I suspected Milton Fine was Kryptonian, of course," Lionel muttered as he swiped them into his office—the first words they'd exchanged since leaving. The older man had made the journey solo, with Clark and Lex following in the young Luthor's Porsche. "But I didn't realise shapeshifting was one of your miraculous abilities."

"It isn't," Clark answered shortly, brow furrowed as he looked round the darkened office. Nothing unusual in sight—whatever Lionel wanted to show must be hidden away somewhere.

Lionel stopped to look over the younger man, eyes narrow and calculating.

"Then... Fine is not a Kryptonian?" he theorised.

Clark paused.

The bravado he'd developed in the barn was starting to wear off now, and faced with an open question like that he felt confused again. Should he answer? Just ignore it? Would deliberately not talking about alien related subjects be construed as opposition? Did it even matter? Crap, Lionel had barely said anything and he was already lost in mind games.

"What is it you want to show us, dad?" Lex interrupted, stepping up beside the younger man. "And since we're on the topic of Milton Fine, why don't you tell us how you were able to destroy him, just by touching him?"

Lionel frowned at the deflection, but chose not to fight it.

"I don't know," he admitted, practically through gritted teeth. "But perhaps Clark can shed some light on the matter..."

With that he moved to the left hand wall and slid the misted glass panels aside to reveal the door of a heavy, steel vault behind. Clark narrowed his eyes at it, remembering the last time he'd seen it open, and the stacks of kryptonite bars the older man had kept inside.

The thought kept him at a respectful distance as Lionel twisted in the combination but Lex moved closer, stopping at his father's side to eye the door with a shocking level of calm considering the emotional turmoil he'd just been through. Clark was grateful for that, of course, it helped stop him panicking, but he was also rather worried. Lex was bottling up when he needed to vent and it couldn't be healthy.

Clark resisted the urge to flinch as the elder Luthor finally pulled back the steel door and was surprised to find no glowing valuables inside, green or otherwise, but simply stack after stack of paper. The piles were untidily arranged, covering the floor as much as the shelves, and Clark took a short step closer to get a better look.

Lex stepped forward too and reached over to grab a sheet from the nearest pile. As he held it up to the little light afforded by the moon the hastily scrawled symbols on the paper became all too apparent—Kryptonian.

Lex glanced at his father, eyes dark with suspicion, and found the older man standing tensely at the end of the open door, one hand still on the handle. His expression was sour, like a kid forced to share his gameboy and well aware his playmates were about to beat his top score.

"Where did you find all this?" Lex asked.

"I didn't find it," Lionel corrected, turning to Clark. "I wrote it."

Clark and Lex flicked their gaze to each other for a second, sharing a look that read, any idea? none whatsoever, before turning back to the older man.

Lionel pursed his lips.

"Ever since I awoke from my coma," he started to explain. "I've been having... blackouts. Instances of lost time. When I regain my senses, I find these." He gestured into the vault. "The past few weeks these, interruptions, have become increasingly severe. Beyond my capacity to control. I was... hoping... Clark might know of a way to make them stop."

"Ever since your coma?" Clark repeated, looking over the older man with a suspicion equal to that of his son as he stepped forward to take the page from Lex. "Why didn't you say something before?"

He looked the writing over shrewdly while Lionel put on his best LuthorCorp game face—the one guaranteed to persuade any opponent, of anything. Lex could have laughed. They were so far beyond such deception it seemed almost pathetic.

"I do not appreciate being treated like a puppet," the older man stated, with just enough wounded dignity to paint himself a victim. Should the others care to squint hard enough. "This is a personal problem. I've been trying to solve it accordingly."

Lex scoffed at the image of dignity his father was trying to impose.

"Yes, dad," he agreed, mocking. "I'm sure a means of removing these inconvenient channels of information was exactly what you were trying solve." He glanced over Clark's shoulder at the page now in the younger man's hands. "What does it say, Clark? Anything about ultimate power? How to rule the world in five easy steps?"

Lionel shook his head at his son's insinuations, while Clark's eyes flicked from the page before him to the fragments of text on the ones he could see in the vault. His brow furrowed in concentration.

"No. It's just the same thing over and over. A message from Jor-El..." he muttered, scanning every line he could see for differences. He found none.

Lionel gave a short, humourless laugh.

"So I'm reduced to nothing but a messenger boy am I?" he queried, suddenly bitter. "What is this pearl of wisdom your biological father has thought fit to recruit me to impart?"

Clark opened his mouth, translation on the tip of his tongue. Then he blinked, glanced at Lionel again, and shrugged.

"I... err... I don't know," he said, lowering the paper. "It... seems to be encrypted. I'll have to take it to the Fortress..."

Lex stared at his friend, face impassive. For a Clark Kent fabrication, it was remarkably believable.

But not enough to cut it with Lionel, whose forehead lined with impatience.

"Very well," he stated, thumping the safe closed again. "Then we should leave at once."

He turned back with a flourish and Clark faltered.

"Um..."

"You're right, dad, we should," Lex nodded, resting a hand on the younger man's wrist. "Thank you, for bringing this to our attention. Your job's over now, we'll take it from here."

Lex quirked his lips in the smallest of smirks and made to turn, but Lionel grabbed his free shoulder quick as lightening, fingertips bruising flesh. Lex felt Clark tense beneath his hand and smiled fully. Wrong move, dad.

"Lex, I will not be dismissed like this," the older man hissed.

Lex looked up, eyebrows raised.

"What are you going to do? Keep us here by force?" he queried mildly, pausing long enough for his dad to register Clark's tension as well.

Clark might be bad at mind games, but physical threats were something he reacted to wonderfully. And the glare he gave Lionel then was better than anything Lex could have hoped for—just the right mix of fear and anger, emanating danger.

Catching the look, Lionel slipped his hand away, eyes flashing fury loud enough to negate his stony silence.

A tug from Lex later and Clark found himself walking back to the office entrance, paper still clutched in his hand.

"We'll send you a memo," Lex shot over his shoulder as they stepped through the doors, lips still lightly curved at the look of violent, repressed frustration he knew his father must be holding. He'd been victorious in one aspect of tonight, at least.

The two men maintained a tense silence as they worked their way through the building, the LuthorCorp walls suddenly more constricting than ever. It was only after they'd stepped through the lobby and into the crisp night air they felt able to talk again. To breathe.

Lex gestured to the paper in the younger man's hand.

"I don't know enough to read it," he admitted. "But I can tell it's not encrypted."

He stopped to rest a hand on the car roof and raised an eyebrow.

Despite everything Clark looked almost apologetic about the deception.

"I didn't want to tell your dad any more than I had to," he explained. "He seemed so angry. And hearing him talk about Krypton and Jor-El? It was kinda freaking me out."

Lex nodded.

"Good call," he acknowledged, eyes flicking back to the paper. "So, what does it say?"

Clark looked over the page again with a sigh and leant against the car body. If Lex's pause beside the door was anything to go by, it seemed the older man was as loathe as him to get inside and drive away, heading to, well who knew where really. There'd been far too much movement the past few hours and Clark relished the quiet and stillness offered by the city at night. It wasn't anywhere near as calm as a night in Smallville, but the faint sounds of car engines and police sirens reminded him he and Lex weren't alone, and with a homicidal AI on the loose and apparently out to get them, that was a comforting thought.

"It's a warning," he started to explain. "It says, um..."

He looked up to Lex's all too haggard face and trailed off. Okay, so Fine was still at large and Jor-El was sending secret messages through Lionel, but one look in those pained, shaded eyes was more than enough to convince Clark these were not the most important issues right now.

"Lex," he started again. "About earlier—"

Lex cut him off with a sharp turn to the paintwork above the door.

"Forget about it, Clark," he muttered, suddenly expressionless. "It was a... a stupid mistake. I never should have fallen for such an obvious trick," he continued, unaware how much the words mimicked his father's. "I'm sorry you had to get involved."

Clark blinked, confused, then tilted his head in pained understanding. Lex thought this was a reprimand? God, that was the last thing he wanted to give.

"Hey, no, I... I didn't mean..." Clark shook his head at the stutter—words were not going to be his friend here.

He reached over and lay his hand over the one Lex was currently caressing the doorframe with, the paper still between his fingers scrunching up, forgotten.

Lex halted his involuntary petting of the metal and looked over Clark's hand with a small frown. Why couldn't the other man just be angry? He could handle anger. A few short, sharp words and the aftermath of his mistake would be over, they could move on to more important things like the Kryptonian message Clark was nonsensically ignoring. Lex didn't want this lingering softness; didn't want to dwell.

"Lex, it was your mother," Clark continued with a small shrug, dashing the older man's hopes by hitting the very heart of the matter he was trying to avoid, head on. "Anyone would've been fooled... In fact, he got me the same way."

Lex halted his emotional lockdown at that and looked up. The understanding in Clark's tone was surprising, and oddly soothing.

"Not by shapeshifting," Clark amended, eyes kind and, more to the point, entirely free of both mockery and disappointment. "He infected my mom with some kind of Kryptonian disease. Said he could cure it if I helped him. You know, the usual kind of lies..." He flattened his mouth in a short, self-condemning grimace, looking away. "Course, that was back when I thought he was Kryptonian and someone I could trust."

Clark looked down then, ashamed. Lex called his mistake 'stupid' but at least he'd been helping someone he actually knew, someone he thought was family. Clark had given his trust to a complete stranger. Above a man he'd known pretty intimately for going on five years too. Fine was right, he was easy. Easily won over, easily manipulated. And Lex could've taken advantage of that any time too, but he never had. Why hadn't he seen that before?

"Fine really has been playing both of us, right from the beginning. And he did a great job..." the younger man shook his head before looking up again. "But Lex, that's not important now. I wasn't talking about that."

He caught the older man's gaze for a second, eyes sad, and Lex felt the grip on his hand tighten just a little. His own eyes narrowed. What else was there to talk about?

"I meant, what you said about..." Clark sucked his bottom lip.

He'd much rather avoid this subject altogether if he could - it made him uncomfortable just thinking about it, so he could only imagine how much worse it was for Lex. But that was exactly why they needed to talk about it. Clark knew from secrets, and this one was going to eat the other man up if he didn't deal with it soon. It'd almost been enough to push him into murdering his own father, for god's sake, Clark couldn't just ignore that.

"What you said about Julian. And your mom..." he voiced eventually, face clouding.

Lex pulled his hand away and turned around, tensing. Fuck. Fuck. He'd forgotten about the damning secret he'd revealed while, well, under the influence, he supposed. Of course Clark would be freaked out by that. He came from a loving family, a normal family. And normal, loving, family members didn't kill their kids. He'd want an explanation, some kind of heart to heart, and, fuck, that memory was not something Lex wanted to live through again.

"Is it...? I mean, did she really...?" Clark stuttered behind him, thankfully not moving. Right then the older man valued his space.

"It's true, Clark," Lex stated, putting an end to the awkward murmuring.

The resultant silence was oddly satisfying. Clark might have an array of astounding powers, but it seemed there were still ways for mortal, human Lex Luthor to shock as well.

He turned his head a little, but not enough to see the younger man—seeing Clark shocked about him Lex had long learnt to handle, but to see him shocked about his mother... no, that was disapproval he wasn't prepared to accept.

"My family is officially more screwed up than you realised," he finished wryly.

Clark's face lined with sorrow as he looked over the other man's back. He was glad, really, that Lex wasn't looking at him—the older man would hate the pity and Clark knew he was failing abysmally at concealing it.

He knew too that this was the part where he was supposed to say something, get his friend to open up, like his mom always did when he was trying not to think about something. But hell if he knew how to do that...

"You... you said he died. But I... I had no idea..." he started lamely. So obvious even he had to wince.

Lex shrugged.

"Why should you?" he responded, moving to rest his palms on the car bonnet. "It's not exactly an obvious conclusion. You had no reason to know if I didn't tell you."

He hung his head then, gaze falling to the silver space between his splayed hands. Because that was a can of worms in itself, the not telling. Didn't half of his and Clark's relationship revolve around what was and wasn't said—with the focus specifically on the latter? This was just another example and it hit home all the more because, god, he really had wanted to tell the other man so many times. But the cracks in their friendship had already been starting to show when he found out and he couldn't risk exposing himself like that, not then. Was this a second chance, perhaps? An opportunity to bare his soul, like old times? Maybe he should take it.

Clark's silence was loud and expectant and Lex raised his head with a sigh, staring into the distance. He barely had a chance to steel himself before something hidden and irrational was telling his brain that, yes, he really was going to do this so he better get ready. Paraphrasing wouldn't do, of course, the other man needed the whole truth if he was going to understand, and so, much as Lex hated to do it, he looked back to that darkened staircase of fifteen years ago, back to the antique tea tray in his youthful, pre-adolescent hands.

"I'd just turned ten, Julian wasn't even a year old," he explained, while Clark watched. "Mom was sick. Severe postnatal depression I suspect, although dad never acknowledged it. That'd be too much of a weakness for a Luthor." His lips curved briefly in a sneer. "She'd spend days locked in her room, not letting anyone in. Except me, sometimes. That night I was back from Excelsior and taking her dinner. Julian started crying as I crossed the landing..." He'd been talking fast, trying to end the explanation as quickly as possible, but he stopped then, eyes closing instinctively as he remembered the sound. It had haunted him for so long, but it was only now he knew the truth he understood why. "Julian was always crying..."

He paused, suddenly lost. If he'd just paid more attention. Got there first. Stopped his brother himself. Then maybe...

Clark's fingers flexed over the car roof, longing to touch the older man's overly pointed shoulders, ease away the tension. But Clark knew this was no time to distract. Lex needed to finish this, and he needed to hear it. So he waited.

Lex shook his head, trying to focus again.

"Then, very suddenly, he wasn't," he continued, voice sharper. "When I ran in his room I saw her standing there. With a pillow." He smiled. Even in her ragged nightdress, hair flat and greasy, with the damning fabric in her hands, she'd still looked beautiful. "The way she looked at me. Her smile... Like she didn't have a care in the world..." He bit his lip to stop himself being too overcome and felt the age-old scar still marring it. The scar his dad had put there that very same night. With a quick breath he pressed on. "It was obvious she didn't know what she was doing. That she'd forget everything in a matter of minutes." He pushed himself away from the car and stood up straight again. "I knew the truth would devastate her. So I stayed compos mentis just long enough to convince dad it was me. Then I did what any ten year old might have done with a memory like that..." He turned to Clark then—calm and matter-of-fact—and a questioning crease appeared on the other man's already clouded face. "I repressed it."

Lex rested his back against the car with an air of finality. All that had been vaguely cathartic, it was true, but he was still eager to draw a line across that part of his life as soon as possible. Can we end this now, Clark? You have your truth. Be satisfied.

But satisfaction was far from what Clark was feeling. Shock and sorrow, yes, but there was nothing fulfilling about Lex's admission, nothing at all. In fact, it revealed yet another unknown that Clark couldn't help voicing.

"Wait, Lex," he said, sounding distressed. "You mean, all that time, you and your dad thought... thought Julian's death was your fault?"

Lex didn't say anything, just tilted his head in the affirmative.

"God..." Clark breathed, overcome.

To have been blamed, all your life, for something so tragic. To have blamed yourself all your life.... The guilt he felt about the meteors—meteors he'd had no control over—seemed pale in comparison. Nothing but a millstone he'd been needlessly complaining about, while Lex had deliberately, selflessly, taken his burden of guilt to spare his mother. A burden he'd worn so convincingly he'd truly come to believe it...

And that made Clark frown again. There was something he still didn't get. If Lex had believed himself responsible, then...

"How did you...?" he started; only to stop just as quickly as a heavy understanding washed over him. "Doctor Garner..." he muttered, looking away. Lex had recruited the doctor to help him retrieve lost memories; he just hadn't recovered the memories the older man wanted. And Lex had seemed so stubborn about all that too. To think he'd actually been going through something so agonizing and Clark hadn't even known! "Damn it, Lex," he continued, anger with himself making his tone sharp. "Why didn't tell me? If I'd known, things... things would've been different."

Lex's head snapped up at that, the words such an eerie mirror of his father's reaction to the memory, and a hot lick of fire burned through his chest. Why the hell should he always be blamed for other people's faulty assumptions?

"The night I remembered, I'd just found out you and my father had been working together. I wasn't exactly inclined to share," he shot back, eyes sharp.

Clark blinked, surprised at the sudden turn.

"Lex, no, it... it wasn't like that," he stammered. "I was worried about Doctor Garner's procedure. I wanted to help you."

"So instead of just talking to me, you decided to recruit the man responsible for the removing the memories I was searching for in the first place?" Lex persisted, feeling oddly liberated by the accusation, by the other man's uncertainty.

Ironically, it seemed Clark's rescue earlier had done more than free Lex from his crippling self-doubt; it had also stripped away the older man's irrational, yet persistent, indulgence of the young Kryptonian. Clark might be god-like but he was far from perfect and it no longer seemed unwise to confront him about that, to risk the other man's wrath by questioning him on past sins. If the man could face down a murderous alien computer, he could handle a reassessment of his own actions and Lex was done tiptoeing around trying to spare Clark's feelings. If Clark really wanted to be with him, he could damn well step up and accept some blame for once. And if he didn't... well, screw him, maybe he wasn't ready, or right, for this relationship after all.

The younger man frowned, predictably defensive, but Lex didn't back down. Let Clark get angry, fuck if he cared. Even if he didn't come round to the understanding Lex was pushing for, the other man's opposition and the insuring argument would probably be satisfying enough in itself. An illogical thought, probably, no doubt he'd regret it tomorrow, but the day had inspired too much emotion to allow for logic, especially now Clark had dredged it all up again just when he was on the verge of re-suppressing it. All Lex could do now was ride the waves.

"I tried talking to you, but you didn't listen," Clark answered, annoyed. What was Lex doing, turning this on him when all he wanted was to help? "And that memory tank was full of kryptonite. God knows what else it was doing to you. I was panicked, Lex, and I knew Lionel would have a vested interest in stopping the procedure so I... I..." He faltered, eyes shifting from the older man's gaze as he thought over his plan during that time. And realised he'd hadn't had one. "I rushed in without thinking..."

Working with Lex these past few months had shown him just how foolish and unnecessary that kind of thing was. If he'd just stopped to think before running to Lionel and getting swept up in the older man's plans, he'd have realised there were plenty of other options open to him. Talking to Lex again, for instance, and for longer... yes, that... that might have been sensible...

"How did you even know the procedure involved kryptonite?" Lex asked, slipping his hands in his pockets, gaze still unfailingly intense. "It wasn't exactly public knowledge."

Clark sighed.

"I looked in on one of your sessions," he explained. "From the roof of the Summerholt institute." Lex raised an eyebrow and the younger man elaborated. "I looked through the wall..." Lex's mouth flattened in acknowledgement and Clark cut off. "But you wouldn't have known that..." he muttered, as much to himself as the man before him. "That I knew how dangerous it was... You must've thought I was just being stubborn." Like I thought you were. "Or worse." His eyes flicked back to Lex, turning bright and appalled. "God, Lex, it was never about the memories. I wasn't trying to keep you in the dark, I would never deliberately hurt you like that..."

Except, of course, that he had. Everyday for nearly five fucking years. Which was really a light sentence compared to the length of time he'd been keeping his other friends in the dark.

Sparkling emerald dulled to a muddy green and brown at the thought, like bogged down earth during a storm, and Lex couldn't help thinking the contrition looked strangely beautiful.

"Lex I... I swear, I never meant it like that."

Clark's chest felt icy cold and he stared at the older man desperately now. Because, god, Lex was right, he'd had no reason to tell Clark anything; no reason to trust him at all. It suddenly seemed that all he'd ever done was let Lex down and the very idea of helping him now, of being a confidant, seemed absurd, the height of hypocrisy.

The feeling reminded him of the pain he'd felt when he'd taken Lex to the Fortress that first time, his breathless wait for forgiveness or damnation. The older man never had given him an answer to that either way, not directly. In one of Clark's many dreams after he'd broken up with Lana, Lex had voiced the beautiful phrase 'I forgive you' but the younger man hadn't realised till now how badly he wanted to hear it. Hadn't realised how badly he needed it.

The older man's expression started to soften as he looked over Clark's increasingly pained one. There was something about Clark in pain that disarmed him, even when it was vindicated, and Lex could never stand to see it for long. And besides, vindicated or not, this dreary trip down memory lane was getting them nowhere.

"I believe you, Clark," he muttered, anger slowly melting to an unsatisfied puddle at the back of his mind. The boy had ended up hurting himself more than he could have intended to harm Lex, after all, when Lionel double crossed him and trapped him in Dr Garner's experiment. Lex had no doubt Clark's intentions had been one hundred percent pure.

Because that was the problem, wasn't it? When it came to motivation, Clark was pretty much blameless every time. His heart was in the right place. It was just his technique that was lacking. Which made it pretty hard to stay mad at the guy. Lex looked away again with a small sigh.

"I'm sorry I brought it up."

Clark frowned in disappointment. No forgiveness today. Perhaps he didn't deserve it. On the other hand, there was still no damnation either. Lex was mad, but he wasn't pushing him away. This was an opportunity—a chance for Clark to prove himself, and he wasn't going to pass it up.

"Lex, no," he insisted, stuffing Lionel's page carelessly in his jeans' pocket and moving before the other man. He rested his left hand softly on Lex's shoulder and the older man raised his head, looking tired. "You have nothing to be sorry about. Ever since Belle Reve I've been so preoccupied with trying to do right by you I started to miss what was most important. You never needed a protector—you needed a friend. And I wasn't there."

Lex flicked the corner of his mouth up slightly. Even Clark's apologies were presumptuous.

"No one said you had to be, Clark," he muttered, although the words sounded hollow.

When it came to friendship, Lex had never really had anyone else and they both knew it. Whether he'd meant to or not, the older man had implied Clark was responsible for him. An unfair burden, Lex realised now, although the Kryptonian's next words seemed to imply otherwise.

"But I should have been," Clark insisted, hand moving to stroke up the older man's neck. Lex swallowed hard, because the touch was so gentle, and Clark's gaze was so earnest, and with his anger subsided another emotion was starting to push for release instead. "And I am now," the other man continued, soft and confident at the same time in a way Lex had never known him to be. "I'm sorry, Lex. About Julian. About everything."

Lex stared at Clark silently, feeling his eyes start to water as a warm, growing sense of sorrow began leaking out of him. True, it wasn't as sharp or as fast as his earlier anger, but in many ways it was just as welcome a release.

It was almost two years now since he'd learnt the truth about Julian's death and he'd yet to allow himself a reaction. To mourn the relationship with his father the lie had cost him or the painful image of his mother; to accept the relief of knowing his brother's death had never been his fault. God, there was so much! And, as if on cue, all of it was starting to drain slowly, thankfully, finally, out of him because of the young man gently stroking his neck. The man he'd been pissed as hell at less than two minutes ago. Which made no sense. At all. And yet felt so perfectly, wonderfully, right all the same. Never again would Lex accuse Clark of not knowing the appropriate time to say 'sorry.'

And if he had expected too much of Clark in the past, demanding a single, all-encompassing friendship from the boy when he'd had no right to force that kind of responsibility, it didn't matter now. Because now Clark was a man who knew what he wanted, and the pure care and affection in his gaze proved beyond doubt that being here with Lex was exactly that.

Lex trailed his left hand up Clark's lowered arm for a second, haltingly, as though unsure what to do. Then, very quickly, he pulled the other man to him in a tight, decisive embrace, threading his fingers gladly through Clark's hair. The dust and wood still coating it was unexpected, bringing a sharp, reviving scent of musty pine, and Lex relished the flavour.

If Clark was surprised he hid it well and adapted quickly, wrapping one arm tightly about the older man's shoulders, the other round his waist.

Lex smiled at the touch—providing just the right mix of strength and support—and they stayed that way for a very long time. Lex breathing out heavy emotion just below the other man's ear, taking the comfort he'd been longing for ever since that final manifestation of memory in the barn. While Clark just held on, the hand round Lex's waist rubbing small, delicate lines into the older man's lower back—offering with his body everything he'd failed to give the other man before.

"I'll always be here for you, Lex," Clark whispered. "From now on. I swear. You don't have to be alone."

Lex could've cried. He'd been preparing all day to lose Clark completely, to lose everything, but instead the other man was closer than ever. Enough to still be here with him after an argument, for god's sake, which had never happened before. And in a way he hadn't even lost his mom, because Clark was here at her request, projecting her support along with his own. It was... it was all just fucking perfect. Lex had never known anything like it. He'd been through hell today, but somehow ended up in paradise.
And anyone else might have wept on that beautiful, aptly placed shoulder. But Lex wasn't just anyone. It was enough that Clark should offer, enough to know he was there. So while it was something of a relief to feel his eyes welling up, Lex didn't need to stain his face to appreciate the moment.

Clark smiled at the sound of the older man's heavy blinking, at the soft, fleeting kiss he brushed against the side of Clark's ear—acceptance of the younger man's promise. Belief in it, and in him.

Neither was he at all surprised to find the older man dry and collected when he pulled away. It made sense that with Lex even emotional change would be taken calmly. The guy valued his control and the last thing Clark wanted was to take that away. He'd be there for Lex, any time, but that didn't mean the older man couldn't look after himself too. Clark was offering support, not domination.

They held each other a moment longer, eyes meeting.

Then Lex gave a gentle smile, squeezed Clark's shoulder and moved away.

"How'd you find me anyway?" he queried, finally opening the car door. Cool tone and movement moving them both on. Well, almost.

Clark blinked, not understanding for a second.

Lex had just accepted his support and not shut him out, even after exposing the dubious nature of his past conduct and the younger man was still quietly reeling over that. He'd gone from looking to help, to throwing himself on Lex's mercy, only to come full circle right back to helping again—and from the new, calm, relaxed manner in which Lex slipped his hand under the handle and pulled back the door, it seemed Clark had succeeded this time.

This was officially a whole new level relationship-wise, and while Lex with his infallible cool seemed to have processed that already, Clark needed a little more time.

"Um..." he muttered, trying to subdue the childish voice in his head grinning woo over and over at the fact he'd finally found a relationship strong enough to survive an argument without first resorting to hiatus. Lex had asked a question, a practical, non-emotional question, what...? "It was Chloe," he nodded, resting a hand on top of the open door as Lex slipped round the other side and made to get in the front seat. "She came clean about your Drew and Hardy partnership and we figured out the rest from there."

Lex had to smile at the unlikely comparison between himself and a Hardy Boy and paused with his hand on the leather headrest to glance up at Clark's rapidly forming grin.

The joke didn't last long though, because, god, Chloe. That was someone he hadn't given a second thought to since this morning and thinking about her potential reaction to the day's not-so-fun and games was unpleasant in a surprisingly strong way.

Lex's face clouded.

"Bet she relished the chance to discredit my actions," he shrugged, lips quirking back up again humourlessly in an effort to imply disinterest.

Clark's grin sobered and he folded his arms above the window.

"Actually, she seemed pretty upset about the whole thing," he confessed. "I don't think she wants to villainize you as much as she makes out."

Lex looked over the other man thoughtfully, noting his earnestness with interest. Clark might have lousy personal insight, but he could usually be counted on to tell the truth about others at least. And then there was the pair of yearning, hopeful eyes Lex remembered staring back at him across the elevator last night...

He nodded.

"She did say she appreciated being part of a team..." he muttered.

And suddenly everything he'd felt at his mother's grave came rushing back to him—the clarity, the sense of pointless loneliness. All of it mirrored in the youthful, gutsy reporter he'd been sharing so much with without knowing it. Including a half-baked plan for the future—that he'd wrongfully discarded.

The eyes he flicked back to Clark were steady and focused.

"Clark, that message from Jor-El—" he started, only to be cut off as Clark stepped back hurriedly, patting his pockets.

"Yeah, of course," he muttered, pulling the page from his jeans. "It says..."

"Don't tell me," Lex interrupted.

Clark frowned at him over the car door.

"What?"

"Find Chloe and Lana first," Lex explained, leaning over to slot his car keys in the ignition. "I'll meet you at the farm."

"Lex, it's after midnight," Clark shrugged. "I don't think they'll appreciate the wake up call."

Lex glanced back up with a small, affectionate smile. You really don't know your own worth, do you farmboy?

"You were with Chloe before you dashed over to me. She'll have gone to Lana with the whole story. Trust me, they'll already be awake," he insisted. "In fact, they'll probably be less appreciative if you don't go."

"Okay..." Clark relented, looking baffled. "But still, why the sudden urge for a group meeting?"

"Because whether we like it or not, we are a group, Clark," the older man answered, expression an odd mix of resignation and excitement. "It's time we pooled our resources."

An hour or so later and Lex had to admit the plan had seemed a lot more appealing in theory, without the reality of Jonathan Kent channelling his son and trying to shoot fire at him across the Kent house coffee table.

The farmer-come-Senator was standing just to the side of his usual armchair—currently occupied by Martha—while Lex stood at the far edge of the sofa. The redhead sported a peach coloured shirt and red throw over her jeans, while Jonathan wore a loose plaid top and black slacks. The same as earlier. Apparently change and sleep had been the last thing on the couple's minds the past last few hours.

A fact that did little to relieve Lex's anxiety—a tense and sleepless Mr. Kent was less likely to see reason than ever.

Perched uneasily on the sofa itself, away from the homely comfort of its cushions, were Chloe and Lana—the blonde still in her dusty green blouse, hair brushing her shoulders, while Lana looked a lot smarter in comparison in a low cut black jacket and navy pants, hair neatly brushed and clipped back.

Unless the girl had a kryptonite power she'd been keeping quiet about, Lex knew there was no way she could've been that spruced up at this hour, and he suspected Clark's visit as the catalyst for her vanity. Not that he could judge her for it. He understood only too well the need to gain the younger man's attention, and he couldn't help admiring Lana for knowing how to play her strengths.

Unfortunately, they were lost on the Kryptonian at that moment—if, indeed, they'd ever had a hold on him at all—as he watched his father from beside the fireplace, expression weary. In his hands the older man held a slim, plastic folder—all the information Lex had on his collaboration with Fine—and it was this adding the extra sharpness to his gaze as he eyed the young Luthor. Clark wanted very much to step up beside his friend and offer support, but equally didn't want to offend anyone by seeming to take sides. Leaving him stranded in an awkward, middle position he didn't quite know what to do with.

"So..." Jonathan began, slapping the folder down on the table. "You're telling us that not only have you been conducting illegal experiments on those affected the m... by kryptonite, but that you've also been working with an alien psychopath, who's already tried to kill both my wife and my son?"

Lex considered protesting the older man's description of 33.1, but the fire in Jonathan's eyes quickly told him not to bother. At this stage it was a moot point anyway.

"Yes," he deadpanned instead—an admission that threw the elder Kent completely, leaving him speechless.

Clark used the sudden pause as a chance to cut in.

So far, Lex had explained nothing beyond the deal with Fine—a precursor to the events in the barn and the notes made by Lionel, Clark suspected—and so hadn't mentioned the younger man's involvement. Clark was eager to stop the others thinking Lex had been working alone.

"But dad, it wasn't like that, I—"

But while Jonathon was struck dumb, Chloe was definitely not.

"So, not only did you break your promise from the other night, you were also lying to me the entire time," she shot at Lex, eyes cold, before turning to shake her head over the coffee table. Pulling the folder open towards her she started to flick through the images inside, last seen on Lionel's computer.

Lex pursed his lips in a brief show of contrition, eyes flicking down. For once, Chloe's anger towards him really was justified - he had failed to do as he promised yesterday and tell Clark the truth and the reprimand seemed appropriate penance.

Her claim that he'd lied to her, however, bordered on slander and he wasn't prepared to accept that—tonight was supposed to be, god help them all, about the truth, and that included setting right certain long-held and mostly unfounded misconceptions.

"I didn't lie. Technically, I never told you the project wasn't mine," he responded, back straightening, hands slipped behind his back in an automatic stance of defiance. The fabric of his black jacket rippled slightly with the movement.

"Right," Chloe answered, lips curving in a humourless grin. "I suppose in the Luthor world lies of omission are acceptable."

Lex couldn't stop the breath of laughter at that—the hypocrisy was so blatant and yet just as unnoticed.

"I don't think anyone in this room has the right to lecture me about what is and isn't acceptable about lying," he snapped back, too tired to establish his usual censorship and too uninhibited just then to even care.

The comment doubled the level of tension in less than a second and Jonathan sucked in a breath, ready to find his voice again. Surprisingly though, Martha got there first.

"Lex, I understand how it might seem," she stated, her own voice soft and calm despite the surrounding agitation. "But keeping Clark's secret was different."

When Lex met her gaze he didn't see opposition, just simple, honest belief, and it kept him silent. Anyone else he could have argued with, but it was painfully clear everything Martha had done and condoned was motivated purely by a mother's love for her son. And Lex couldn't blame her for that. Not when he'd let that same maternal bond guide, and ultimately mislead, himself just recently.

"Is it?" a quiet voice beside him muttered in the silence.

Everyone turned in wonder to the dark haired girl on the sofa and Lana flattened her hands between her knees, shoulders tensing.

"I mean, I know Fine is dangerous," she continued, flicking her eyes round the group. "To all of us. But, no offence Martha, Jonathan, but so is Clark. And you never tried to tell us about him."

Lex blinked. The last thing he'd expected tonight was secondary support, from the woman still in love with his current partner no less. But then, Lana had been mistreated and mislead as much as anyone when it came to Clark and for a brief while she too had been part of the investigation into Fine's ship. Like Lex, she'd lived both sides and could see the fear and paranoia the Kent's well-meaning deceptions could provoke, while equally understanding the secrecy. Making Lex's secrets less damning, perhaps?

But still, understanding and speaking out loud were two very different things and Lex couldn't help narrowing his eyes at the young girl in surprise.

And he wasn't the only one. Chloe was eyeing her friend with ill concealed shock, while Jonathan and Martha shared a look of wide-eyed concern.

No one noticed Clark's guilty, accepting shuffle by the mantelpiece.

"Lana that's... it's not the same," Jonathan stuttered. "Clark... he might be erratic sometimes, but he would never intentionally hurt anyone. If we'd ever considered him a danger we wouldn't have hidden the truth like we did."

"Oh thanks," Clark muttered, looking up again, nose crinkling with distaste. "You know, I am right here..."

But the others ignored him.

After years of dodging and crunching eggshells, the chance of an actual confrontation about the issues they'd been so strenuously avoiding was proving intoxicating. The potential for release, buried feelings and anxieties finally unearthing themselves, crackled round the room like so many electric currents.

"Fine, however," Jonathan continued, turning back to Lex. "Clearly has no scruples about murder, much like many of the people you've so graciously provided for with your facility. Keeping quiet about them was irresponsible, and leading Fine to the farm down right reckless!"

"Mr. Kent, you haven't even met most of the members at 33.1, I hardly think you're in a position to judge them," Lex responded, voice cool and crisp, hands clenching tightly behind his back. He might have suggested this talk with a specific purpose in mind, but he was rapidly becoming as lost in its power as anyone. "And as to being irresponsible, with all respect, I wasn't the one who kept a spaceship hidden away in an easily accessible storm cellar for over ten years."

Clark flinched. This 'meeting' hadn't exactly been great so far, not that he'd ever expected it to be, but the all too familiar shade of red flooding his dad's cheeks, coupled with the significantly paler shine of Lex's, suggested a rapidly approaching disaster, and the younger man started to steel himself accordingly.

While Jonathan powered up, Chloe jumped in again.

"Okay," she nodded to Lex. "You wanna talk about 33.1? Because I know a few members. Molly Griggs for instance. And Mikhail."

Lex clicked his tongue. He'd known the others would kick off about this eventually, but the timing now was inconvenient.

"Oh yeah, I finished reading your files," Chloe continued, vaguely smug as she mistook Lex's gesture for guilt. "I notice you kept those two out of sight during your little potted tour."

"Unintentional," Lex shrugged. "They'd just left for a date before you arrived. Nothing to do with me."

The young reporter forced out a gasp in response, more of astonishment than disbelief.

"They're dating?" she queried, incredulous.

"Wait, Molly Griggs?" Lana repeated with a frown. "The girl who hypnotised us to try and kill you?"

She shot Lex a brief, narrowed eyed look—previous uncertainty replaced by a more concentrated suspicion—and Lex mentally waved goodbye to her allegiance.

"Oh, and you know who else is there?" Chloe continued, latching onto Lana with all the enthusiasm of preacher whose flock had just seen the light. "Sasha Woodman. You know. The girl who tried to re-populate the Talon with bees? She actually came and said hello."

Lana looked suitably appalled and Lex sighed, moving his hands to his pockets as he switched defiance to resignation. It looked like there'd be no altered opinions tonight.

"Actually her ability isn't confined to bees," he elaborated. "They were just what she related to best back in high school. As far as we can tell, the kryptonite gave her some kind of telepathic ability she can use to communicate with any animal."

"Oh, good job. Give a maniac more ammunition. That's really gonna help society," Chloe muttered and Lex tilted his head, eyes sharpening.

"Maniac? You like labelling people, don't you Chloe?" he shot back. "I'm sure you'll go far at the Planet with objectivity like that."

"Hey!" the reporter protested. "Sasha killed people, Lex. And so did Molly."

"They were sick," Lex responded, blue eyes boiling. "In case you hadn't noticed, kryptonite has a tendency to warp the mind. Especially with those under particular stress. Perhaps an incident with a certain truth telling gas might jog your memory?"

He raised an eyebrow and Chloe looked away, annoyance masking her shame. In truth it was hard to forget the kryptonite-laced Levitas gas Lex referred to that had once infected the young reporter, giving her power to force the truth out of others. It was the accompanying aggressiveness that had perhaps been the most frightening part of the ordeal though, leading Chloe to pursue those truths far beyond her usual drive. Which was, as the older man's comment hinted at, something not entirely dissimilar to the effect the alien substance had had on the other 'kryptofreaks' over the years.

Lex continued before the sting of his comment could wear off.

"If you bothered to actually talk to half the 'freaks' you've already written off," he accused. "You'd know that Sasha and Molly feel nothing but regret about their past actions."

"So, you're saying they've changed?" Lana queried, the lines about her eyes softening a little as she looked up to the older man.

"People do," Lex answered, and Chloe scoffed.

"Oh, don't try and win us over with the rehabilitation line," she countered. "Yes, some people can turn their lives around, but that's not what your project's about. Mikhail never showed an ounce of remorse about trying to kill me, and half the people you're 'helping' have had criminal records suspiciously wiped clean. If anyone there does find some kind of redemption, well, good for them, but don't act like you intend it. We all know you care about the powers, and not the people."

"That's not true," Lex snapped back. Only to blink and look away seconds later, surprised by his own venom.

By the fireplace, Clark's face was creased in similar indignation, but no one heard his matching reply made in time with his friend.

And before he could rally to Lex's side, Martha was yelling commandingly at the arguing pair.

"Stop it! Stop!" she ordered.

Although still fuming, Chloe and Lex obeyed, and turned to her expectantly.

"This isn't helping," the older woman continued; face sombre. "We can discuss the rights and wrongs of Lex's project later. Right now Milton Fine is our greatest concern. If we're really planning to talk as a group, it should be about him."

"Yes," Jonathan agreed, eyeing Lex again. "And you can start by telling us why in God's name you brought him back to our farm."

Lex shook his head, trying to clear the embers from his mind and focus on the matter in hand. Martha was right, Fine should be the focus here, it was why he'd suggested this for god's sake.

"I didn't bring him here, Mr. Kent," he insisted. "Believe me, the last thing I want is to put your family in danger."

"Whether we can believe you is precisely what we're trying to determine," Jonathan stated, deadly calm all of a sudden.

Lex bit his lip against the torrent of abuse threatening to consume him. Now was not the time to lose it. The older man's jibes were irrational, yes, but understandable. This evening, Jonathan had seen his usually invulnerable son bleeding—at least half his anger was fuelled by fear. And to be honest Lex sympathised.

So, as easy as it would have been to rip the other man's ineloquent beliefs to shreds, he resisted, because they couldn't afford to let their emotions push them apart any more. They really were on the same side now, and they were going to establish some kind of compromise, no matter what. Clark's safety might depend on it.

"I was meeting with my father tonight, about what Chloe and I discovered on his computer," the younger man explained, clearly at least, if not entirely calm. This part of the story had been passed from Chloe to the Kents via telephone while Clark and Lex were with Lionel, and so, thankfully, required no further detail. "I had no idea Fine would be there."

"Meeting to discuss how to make Clark a weapon, perhaps?" Chloe asked, voice still dripping with ice.

Lex frowned at her. A degree of suspicion was natural, but the girl's opposition was rather exceeding expectations. The presence of Jonathan Kent was guaranteed to double the disapproval of a Luthor automatically, of course, but this went beyond that. It seemed Chloe was taking Lex's betrayal deeper to heart than the older man could have anticipated.

"No," he answered. "The meeting was intended to..." The memory of the pistol, cold and heavy in his pocket, flashed back to him and he faltered. Only to immediately curse himself for it. That was where indulging in anger got him. "Dissuade him... of any such intention."

Lana tilted her head at him, a curious glint touching her eyes.

"And despite what we agreed, you decided to confront him alone, because...?" Chloe pressed.

Lex paused. If tonight was about the truth, should he tell them? The fact he was a would-be murderer didn't seem likely to help with proceedings... and neither was it something he especially wanted to confront again just yet... but...

"I..." he tried, coughing lightly as the moisture in his throat started to evaporate. During the motion, his natural instinct to hide won out. "He's my father. I thought I stood a better chance of uncovering the truth alone."

"Huh," Chloe muttered, unimpressed. "So much for team playing."

"I'm here now aren't I?" Lex countered, slightly more pleading than the apology he was going for.

Chloe softened just a little and leant back into the couch.

"Okay but... why the barn?" she shrugged; more baffled this time than angry. "What were you planning to do? Hit him on the head with a pitchfork if he didn't come clean?"

Lex looked away. No, actually I was planning to use a gun...

"Chloe..." Clark tried, aware of the other man's discomfort and wanting to spare Lex as much as possible. Once again though, he didn't get the chance to finish.

"It doesn't matter where they met," Lana interrupted, turning to Lex. "What matters is what you found out. Are he and Fine trying to use Clark as some kind of weapon?"

"No," Lex answered, certain again. "Dad was after the serum, and his plans didn't involve Fine or Clark at all. That was... my mistake."

"No, making the deal with Fine in the first place was your mistake," Jonathan argued. "Because of you my son was almost killed today!"

"No, wait, Dad, Fine wasn't..."

"Please, Mr. Kent, if you'll let me explain..."

"That's a good point, why did you make the deal with Hal9000 anyway?"

"I was never planning to give him the virus!"

"Then what were you trying to do, Lex?"

"And why are you telling us now? What's the angle? You order us here in the middle of the goddamn night..."

"Jonathan, please! Yelling won't get us anywhere and it's not good for your heart..."

"Hey, can we all just please..."

Clark sighed and closed his eyes against the babble. He'd been in a tornado before and this felt much much worse. These were his friends and family, people he loved, spiralling out of control, all because of him. And he felt helpless in the face of it, carried away by the momentum.

Except... wait. Things were different now. He wasn't lost in the same rush of wind and fear and whirling emotions he'd experienced while trying to save Lana that time. He wasn't being pulled along, unwilling, by new and strange powers he didn't understand. He'd floated with Lex the other day, held him close and kept him safe, body and mind a perfect balance.

He wasn't blindly chasing whirlwinds anymore—he was the centre of one.

And he could control it.

Eyes snapping open, Clark stepped away from the mantelpiece.

"Hey!" he yelled, low, authoritative tone ending the noise at once.

The others turned to him in surprise and Clark folded his arms as he looked them over, claiming the silence.

Lana and Chloe looked vaguely abashed, ducking their heads and clasping their hands; Martha and Jonathan frowned on instinct, only to find parental disapproval changed to reluctant respect, while Lex...

Lex gave Clark's positioning a once over—eyes scanning the younger man's assertive expression, the taught muscles of his upper arms, slightly spread legs—and had to look away, suddenly breathless. That... that was perfection right there. The absurdly simple primary colours doing nothing to hide the younger man's charisma - the kind everyone in power would die for. Clark could command armies with that stance, capture hearts, win over nations, Lex knew it.

And it would have been heartbreaking, to know that despite all his knowledge, all his power, and Clark's obvious lack of politics, the younger man would always be able to surpass him as a leader. It would have been. If Lex hadn't been filled with an overwhelming desire to fuck the other man senseless because of it.

"God," Clark continued, shaking his head. "I used to be afraid of how you'd react to me if you knew the truth. I had no idea I'd have to protect you from each other." Apologetic silence. "Considering this is essentially my life you're arguing about, though, can I maybe get a look in now?"

Clark nodded through the following pause, accepting an unspoken agreement.

"Okay. So, first off, Lex didn't slink away to make the deal with Fine on the sly." He raised his eyebrows at Chloe and his father. "I knew about it from the beginning."

"What?"

"Clark..."

But Clark slipped his arms apart and cut off protestations with a wave of his palms.

"Just wait, alright?" he stated, as opposed to requested. "It wasn't exactly Lex's idea, either. Fine tricked him into it. Leaving a trail for Lex to follow. Which means, whatever Fine's planning, he needed Lex's help. And we figured the best way to stop him would be to play along for a while, until we learnt exactly what he was up to."

Another small silence as the others took this in.

Then Jonathan slipped a hand in his pocket with a short 'hmm,' gaze moving, rather more calmly, between his son and Lex.

"And you decided this together, did you?" he queried, voice gruff.

Clark flicked his eyes over to Lex, questioning, and the older man raised a shoulder, lips pursing briefly. The look read 'your call, it's your show now,' and Clark flicked his mouth up at the corner, flattered by the trust.

"Yeah," he nodded, moving his gaze from Lex. When he looked back to Jonathan he didn't think he'd ever felt as confident in himself about facing his father. "Yeah, we did."

Jonathan opened his mouth, reprimand practically clawing out of it, only to pause part way through. The lines on his tanned, faintly wrinkled face softened to a single, curious cluster between his eyes, almost hidden by dusty blonde hair, and he looked Clark up and down. Eventually he shut his mouth again in silence, leaning back in a gesture of submission, brown eyes warming with something like pride.

From the sofa, Lana was gazing at the younger man with equal intent, but her eyes were shining, a pyramid of lines forming under her hairline.

"Why didn't you tell us?" she asked, voice soft.

Clark looked over with a sigh, confidence fading. If there was one thing he'd come to understand about his ex-fiancée over the past few weeks it was that no one did guilt trips like Lana.

He slipped his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunching in a more familiar image of uncertainty.

"Because I was stupid. And I'm sorry," he answered, face clouding.

He held Lana's gaze as long as he could, wanting to give weight to the apology, but after a few seconds he had to look down. His stomach felt queasy, much like it had when he'd been pining for the girl, and he wondered how much of his mistaken feeling for her had been a result of this—an amplified 'damsel in distress' look that made him either a failure, or a white knight. For a girl who spent so much time stressing her independence and desire to escape Time magazine's 'lost little girl' image, it was remarkable how often she played up to it.

It was Martha who stepped in to break the awkwardness—keen, motherly instincts informing her of the need for distraction.

"Well... I suppose that does explain a few things," she nodded, and Clark looked up at her in gratitude. "But..." Martha's gentle look widened to Lex for a moment. "Why do you boys think it's your job to fight this man... creature? He's clearly far more powerful, than either of you." She shot Clark a pointed look. "Why should you have to put yourselves in danger like that?"

Her voice altered pitch towards the end, turning high and beseeching, and Lex gave a small smile. Touched at being defined, albeit fleetingly, as one of her 'boys.'

"Who else will, Mrs. Kent?" he asked, eyes frank. "If you want I can have the military involved and up to speed in seconds. But I doubt that's a path any of us would care to go down."

He glanced at Clark for a moment, the care he so often tried to hide for once fully visible in the dulling of his eyes, and the others followed suit. Clark smiled a vague apology at the gaze and flicked his own one down. Nothing like the threat of containment and dissection to bring things into perspective.

"And besides," Clark shrugged, forcing his eyes from his shoes and back to his mom. "Fine was made on Krypton and I'm... well, I'm the only survivor now. He's my responsibility."

Martha tilted her head, face creasing in a look as old as time itself—the pain of a child leaving the safety of its nest. She looked up to Jonathan, sharp and desperate, but her husband only placed a heavy, sympathy-filled hand on her shoulder, his own steady gaze and thin lips in their own way reflecting her sorrow.

Seeming to pick up on the import of the moment, Chloe and Lana stayed quiet.

Then, after a while the usually gutsy blonde looked down at her hands, face sombre.

"So... did you find out what he was planning?" she muttered, thumb circling distractedly around her top, right-hand knuckle. "Fine, I mean."

Lex pulled his hands from his pockets and smoothed down his jacket, so he could easier perch on the arm of the sofa.

"No," he breathed, shoulders and head sagging at the sudden lack of tension. "All we know is, he wants the virus pretty badly. But for what..." He shook his head. "I've had my people go over it with a fine toothed, microscopic comb. It's not harmful to us. From what I can tell, it can't hurt Clark... I don't know what he plans do with it."

A sudden rustle of paper made everyone turn back to the fireplace, where Clark was pulling the now very crumpled piece of paper from Lionel's office out of his jeans.

"I don't know the 'how,'" he stated, bending over to flatten the page out on the table. "But I think I have a pretty good idea about the 'what.'"

He stepped back so the others could see, and the Kryptonian symbols stood out black and sharp under the soft, yellow light from the shaded bulb above.

"What is that?" Lana asked, voice a whisper, almost awe.

"We got it from Lionel," Clark explained, taking a small sidestep over to Lex.

Jonathan frowned, gripping Martha tighter as he leaned over to look, but he didn't say anything. The others just looked at Clark and Lex quizzically.

The younger man gave Lex a sideways glance, uncertain how much to explain about the older Luthor with the man's son in the room.

Lex caught the look and nodded, accepting the torch.

"When Fine was with us in the barn, something happened to my father," he explained, cutting silence like the proverbial knife. "He went into some kind of trance-like state, like he was in during much of his coma. It seemed to give him a power over Fine. When dad touched him, Fine disappeared."

"Weird," Chloe muttered, perking up, eyes glinting with new curiosity. "Kinda like the Exorcist in reverse? Evil soul, possessed by benevolent power?"

Lex glanced down at her with a half smirk. From anyone else it would have been an insult, another slur on the Luthor name. But the older man read the separation Chloe was implying between himself and his father and took the comment for the subtle apology it was.

"The benevolence in this equation remains to be seen," he quipped back. "Dad says he's been going into trances like that for months now. That they're getting longer and more trying, and whenever he's in one, he writes these." He waved a hand at the paper on the table. "There must have been over a hundred pages back at his office."

Martha reached over and gingerly ran a hand down the paper, angling it towards her.

"What does it say?" she asked, not even needing to look at Clark this time. Like everyone else, she knew he was the only one who could answer.

Lex was the only one who actually did turn to the younger man. He'd seen the symbols on the page long enough for them to hold little interest any more, and unlike the others he'd been waiting for Clark's translation for over two hours. He didn't want to miss a beat now.

"It says, son beware," Clark answered, ignoring Lex for the moment as he looked over the symbols again. Making sure he was right. "Zod is coming."

Lex crinkled his brow. Zod? Sounded like nonsense to him and made for a hefty anticlimax. He almost felt disappointed.

Looking down revealed a similar bafflement in Lana, who gave a light shrug before leaning back against the cushions.

Chloe and the Kents though, jolted like lightening. Looking first back to Clark and then to each other.

"Zod?" Chloe repeated, a tremor in her voice. "You mean the guy Fine was trying to free before? The one he described as a tyrant and a dictator, ruling Krypton with an iron fist, and who the Kryptonian Bonnie and Clyde claimed to be disciples of? That Zod?"

"I kinda doubt there's more than one," Clark muttered back.

"Krypton had a dictator?" Lex queried. With more interest than the occasion called for apparently, if the odd looks from the others were anything to go by, making him shrink back a little. He couldn't help it if the study of tyrannical leaders was the one part of his father's forced extra-curriculars he'd actually enjoyed.

"Of course it did," Chloe shrugged, eyebrows lifting wryly. "Have you seen the kind of people who come from there?"

Clark gave a quiet cough, tilting his head at the blonde, and Chloe grimaced.

"No offence," she added.

The Kryptonian gave a half grin back, accepting both the apology and truth of Chloe's implication with a raise of his shoulder, and surprisingly everyone seemed to relax. Despite the serious focus the conversation seemed to have hit an important turn, finally breaking through the all-consuming and constricting 'Clark is an alien' bubble and leaving them free and unrestrained on the other side.

"But, if Zod's Kryptonian, how can Fine be trying to free him?" Lex persisted, brow furrowing again. "Surely he died with everyone else?"

Clark shook his head, lips thinning as he thought.

"I don't know exactly," he admitted. "But when I was in the Fortress with him before, he made me open some kind of portal..."

"Portal?" Lana repeated. "To where?"

Clark shrugged.

"To wherever Zod is, I guess..." he answered.

"Could that be where the other Kryptonians came from?" Martha suggested, leaning forward in her chair, eyes sharp. "I always wondered why they didn't come down with you, Clark."

"Yeah," Chloe nodded, sliding to the edge of her own chair with new enthusiam, body tense with the excitement of unfolding a story. "They did arrive the same time Clark joined those crystals and made the Fortress. Maybe that triggered an opening somehow..."

Clark scrunched his face up, uncertain.

"I dunno... the meteor shower started before I'd collected all the crystals," he countered. "And Jor-El said it was caused because I didn't bring them together in time... but then he also said it was triggered because one of them was tainted with human blood and that doesn't seem to fit anything. How could that be a trigger for freeing a spaceship?"

While Chloe, Martha and Jonathan shared baffled looks, Lana looked down, hands rubbing together harshly and unconsciously.

Only Lex noticed her tension and he looked away soon after out of respect for her privacy. Of everyone in the room, only the two of them knew how that one stone had been 'tainted' with blood. Genevieve Teague's blood. From Countess Isobel's last possession of her ancestor, when she'd used Lana's body to kill the remaining survivor of the family who persecuted her years before.

Many had died in the second meteor shower and resultant non-invasion and Lex could only imagine the guilt the young woman must be feeling at the thought of being, indirectly at least, the catalyst for that.

Comfort from him when it came to Lana still reeked of hypocrisy though, so he chose to provide distraction instead.

"Actually, it might make perfect sense," he stated, turning eyes back to him and breaking Lana's anguished motions. "Blood symbolises conflict. It might have been intended to signal the start of an invasion and act as a call for secondary forces."

Clark's eyes dulled.

"That I was suppose to lead..." he muttered, slipping his hands in his pockets, face turning pale. God, was there anything about his people that wasn't connected to war?

"Maybe," Lex conceded. "Maybe not." Clark turned his head and the corner of Lex's mouth flicked up at him. "Your people put those stones here hundreds of years ago. Presumably, long before Krypton was destroyed. Whatever their original intentions were, you could hardly have been singled out to fulfil them. And I suspect the destruction of the planet did a lot to hamper the original plan anyway."

"Maybe... they were supposed to send a force to protect us," Lana added softly, eyes brightening as she looked up.

Lex gave her a flat smile. He recognised that look. It was the same one he'd held for years in the back corner of the school library as he'd poured over Warrior Angel comics with Duncan. Pure and naïve idealism. It hadn't taken long for life to knock that narrow outlook away. It was the fault of a small town he supposed, that even after so much exposure to the grittier sides of life, the persistent sense of there still being more to see left people here with that blinkered hope still in place.

"I guess we'll never know what was supposed to happen," he responded; oddly loathe to dash the woman's dreams.

"Hey, wait though," Clark added, raising a hand as a new memory resurfaced. "The others from the black ship made the same kind of portal as Fine did, only in the mansion. They were trying to trap me inside, but they got sucked in instead."

Lex's eyes flashed with interest for a second. So that's what happened to them... But the matter was soon dismissed. There were more important wonders and mysteries to dwell on now.

"Hmmm..." he muttered, eyes turning vacant as he ran a hand over his lips. "They could control it themselves then... I wonder where it does go? To another part of space maybe...? But with ships like the one they landed in they'd hardly need a portal for that... A different dimension then? Perhaps it was suppose to be a shelter..." His musings stopped then and he focused back to Clark with a frown, hand falling back to his lap. Totally oblivious to the now curious glances focused his way. "But why go through the process of tricking you? If the others could open it themselves why doesn't Fine make a portal of his own?"

"I don't think it's that simple," Clark answered, forgetting the others in the room for a moment as he lost himself in the analysis. Discussing things with them was never useless, of course, especially not with Chloe, but Lex made him think about things and work them out himself in a way his parents' and friends' tendency to overprotect and avoid issues didn't always allow. "Whatever control the others had, I don't think it went beyond sending people through. Getting them back again seems to be harder. I mean, if it wasn't, I'm guessing the others would have been back themselves by now."

Lex tutted; annoyed he'd missed that point himself.

"I think the key to getting people out again might have something to do with the Fortress," the younger man continued. "Fine had me start a self-destruct sequence before he even tried to open anything."

Lex blinked at that, rational thought flying away as a sudden dismay took over.

"You tried to destroy the Fortress?" he asked, eyes. "God, Clark. Wasn't obliterating your spaceship destruction enough?"

It still cut him up sometimes to know Clark's ship, Clark's working and accessible ship, had been within his reach for almost two years and he'd never got the chance to see it. The idea of never being able to examine the glorious, intricate and beautifully alien structure of the Fortress was just appalling.

"Hey, after all the trouble he's caused, I'll jump at any chance to get Jor-El out of my life," Clark argued.

"But, Clark—" Lex protested, tone breathless with exasperation, one hand slightly raised.

"Wait, wait a second..." Jonathan muttered, cutting him off. Lex looked over in surprise, although more from the quiet, respectful quality of the older man's tone as opposed to the interruption itself. Jonathan tapped a finger against his mouth as he thought. "We're talking about a doorway that lets you in, but doesn't let you out, right?"

He raised his eyes for confirmation and the others nodded the affirmative.

"Well, that's not a shelter, or a barrack for an army," he continued, lowering his hand and gazing at the others sombrely. "That's a prison."

A pause.

Then Lex looked away with a small nod, breathing out a humourless smile, while Clark furrowed his brow.

"So... what?" Lana pressed, doe eyes clouding as they looked up at the older man. "You think all the other surviving Kryptonians are... criminals?"

Lex chuckled. A whole civilisation wiped out. Except for its basest elements. God, his dad would love that.

"And Clark's the son of the jailer," he added, looking over the younger man with amusement. Clark frowned at him and Lex shrugged. "It's not the Fortress Fine wanted destroyed. It was Jor-El."

"Huh," Clark muttered. Fine had told him the Fortress was the key to Jor-El's power...

On the sofa, Chloe raised her eyebrows at the deduction.

"Well, that'd certainly explain the guy's control issues," she conceded.

"And he did call the Kryptonians in the ship a 'dark force'..." Clark continued; staring past the room and back to the cylindrical blue hologram Jor-El had suspended him in the first time he'd entered the Fortress. He'd charged his son with saving the world back then—a heritage Clark had hardly believed, considering the pressure for world domination the guy had implied via the spaceship. But perhaps... perhaps the guy wasn't as evil as they'd been led to understand. Perhaps he just didn't see the difference between control and protection. "If he knew they were criminals, that would make sense... Maybe that's why he's been pushing me so hard all this time. Forcing me to find the stones. So he could stop the others from escaping."

The look of disbelief Lex had given Lana earlier now turned to Clark and the older man breathed a small sigh through his nose, mouth flattening. Before he'd thought up a tactful way to breach the younger man's perpetual search for primary colour definable 'good' though, Jonathan had already stepped in, opting for a franker approach.

"This changes nothing, Clark," he stated, eyes hard as he raised a firm fingertip to the younger man. "Jor-El has caused this family nothing but trouble. He's threatened and manipulated us and essentially he almost killed you when he took you into that cave. Just because his actions may have been motivated by some kind of desire for justice, it doesn't make them right, and it doesn't mean we can trust him."

Lex leant back slightly so he could look the older man over better, lips curving, eyes warm.

It was exactly this kind of no-nonsense attitude and focus on family protection that he'd admired in Mr. Kent from the beginning. No games. No uncertainties. Just a good man looking out for the people he loved. It was unfortunate that such a decent soul could be so easily corrupted by old, and often irrational prejudices, but Lex couldn't help thinking that, unlike with him, Jonathan had hit the nail right on the head with Jor-El. The reasoning was sound and the conclusion mature. The disembodied alien might not be evil, but neither was he especially desirable.

It was a little sad that his and the older man's first, real, agreement should be met by disappointment from Clark, who lowered his head, hope visibly deflating.

"Yeah, yeah, you're right," he muttered, shoulders sagging.

He looked over the Kryptonian message again with a frown. It shouldn't matter, that Jor-El was, basically, a jerk. But somehow, knowing he'd lived for a good cause and still wasn't exactly a nice guy seemed worse than thinking he was a tyrant. Perhaps it was an ego thing. At least having a dad who was a decent villain held some glamour. A dad who was a bitchy, controlling prison warden sounded kinda lame.

On the other hand, it did help make the message a little clearer.

"I guess, if Jor-El was in charge of the remaining Kryptonians, it does mean we can take this message as pretty honest, at least," he continued, resting a hand on the page for emphasis as he looked up again. "It's obviously Jor-El who wrote it, and I'm guessing he knew this Zod pretty well. If he's telling us to watch out for the guy, it proves Lex and I were right to have been trying to stop Fine all this time."

A collection of nods and shrugs of agreement suggested the night was reaching a harmony of sorts.

"What I still don't understand," Martha started, pulling the page from her son and running her fingers over the writing. "Is how Lionel developed this connection with Jor-El. He's never been to the Fortress, and he never saw the ship."

She looked up at the others, pale green eyes open and searching, and Lex chewed his lip as he applied himself to the problem. Shrewd as Martha could be, it was safe to say she wasn't very scientifically minded, and the hopeful glint in her eyes suggested issues like these had been plaguing her for a long time. Having them cleared up would be a significant relief, and Lex was keen to provide that if he could.

"I can only assume Jor-El forged the link via the stones somehow," he tried. "He was clearly able to transfer his consciousness from the caves to the Fortress with them, perhaps he's able to reach anyone who handled them in the same way."

He tapped the side of his thigh in muted irritation, unsatisfied with the conclusion, while beside him Lana looked up in alarm.

"Wait," she insisted, face tensing. "A lot of us touched those stones. Does that mean we could also be possessed?"

"No," Clark cut in quickly. But Lana was far from reassured.

"Clark, how can you know?" she asked.

"Because I..." Clark started, shifting his shoulders. "I think this connection only applies to Lionel. I think Jor-El... chose him. Specifically."

Lex raised his eyes to the younger man, curious.

"Why do you say that?"

Clark looked away, suddenly uncomfortable, and tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid all other ten pairs of eyes in the room at once.

"Because... this isn't the first time Jor-El's used Lionel to speak to me," he admitted.

Not such an awful confession in itself, but the last time Jor-El used Lionel was months ago, back before Lex, back when he was still chasing Lana... it felt like a lifetime. And coming clean after so long made his silence on the matter rather conspicuous. God, he really had to stop doing this—holding back the truth until the last minute. It only made it harder to face. Like picking a band-aid off slowly instead of ripping it, he supposed. Perhaps if he'd been more susceptible to injury while growing up he'd have learnt the lesson sooner.

While the others looked at him in baffled exasperation though, Lex raised an eyebrow invitingly, and Clark's shame lifted a little.

"When Jor-El brought me back to life, Lionel was there," he explained.

And with that, Lex felt truly initiated into the Clark Kent clan for the first time, blinking out his shock right along with the others. He wasn't naïve, he'd known there'd be some things the younger man still wouldn't have told him, but he hadn't been prepared for the jolting 'what the hell?' response.

And neither had Lana, if the lingering dismay on her face was anything to go by.

Chloe and the Kents seemed rather more hardened, however, shrugging off confusion like a dog shaking water, and replacing it with quizzical, narrow-eyed looks.

"Well not, there there," Clark amended. "He was still, you know, comatose, but Jor-El was... speaking through him, or... whatever... He said Lionel was his vessel."

The Kryptonian sniffed in distaste. Just the memory of the encounter made his skin crawl—'Lionel' staring vacantly, yet still obviously addressing him, greeting with an intimacy Clark wouldn't have associated with either of the men in question, let alone both of them together.

"Son," Jonathan started in concern. "Why didn't you say anything about this before?"

"I... cos... Lionel didn't say anything when he woke up. I assumed he didn't remember, that it was maybe a one off... I..."

Clark ended his babble with effort, biting his cheek to physically stop the excuses. Because while Jonathan and Martha shared an understanding look, Lex was eyeing him with quiet, but still fairly obvious disappointment, and that was worse than any kind of embarrassment.

"Okay, so I didn't tell you because I was freaked out, alright!" he blurted, lifting his arms in a gesture-explosion. "I'd just died. And if that wasn't enough to not want to think about, Lionel kept... he kept calling me 'son'... it was creepy."

Two, quick spots of red blotched his cheeks and Clark looked down, inwardly berating the childishness. Closing your eyes against something like that in the hope it would go away was a trick for pre-school kids, and the worst thing was, Clark suspected this wasn't the first time he'd been guilty of the act.

Chloe and Lana shared a smile, eyes crinkling at the corners in the universal, feminine response to 'cute,' as if Clark were a puppy chasing its tail.

But Lex gave a slight, imperceptible nod—not seeing aimless confusion, but the focused whimpering of a dog meeting its reflection. And there were levels there, of course. There were levels in everything he and Clark had been through recently—all of them moving up it seemed. But when it came down to it, a puppy was still a puppy, and while Lex leaned more towards cats himself, even he couldn't deny how adorable the younger man looked.

He looked down to hide a smile of his own.

"Yeah," he muttered, blue eyes glinting like raindrops in sunlight. "That freaks me out too."

Clark looked up again and caught the humour on the older man's face.

It made his own expression soften, anxiety melting with relief as flashes of pillow fights and laughter crossed his mind.

"So, your father in my father, huh?" Lex continued, catching Clark's eye with smirk too gentle to be serious. That alien life would be wondrous and confusing, he'd expected, but the way it also bordered on absurdity kept catching him off guard. "What does that make us?" Incestuous? "Half-brothers?"

The implication should have been disturbing. But Clark found himself biting his lip to prevent laughing at it instead. Because - his disembodied father possessing the father of the man he was sleeping with? It was ridiculous as much as messed up, and Clark got the feeling he'd been taking himself far too seriously for far too long anyway.

"Hey, at least it's not your father possessing me this time," he countered, raising his eyebrows in challenge.

Lex wanted to groan. Express his disgust and amusement together.

Because he remembered only to well how high his desire for the younger man had risen when 'Lionel' sauntered into the mansion office during his and Clark's body swap the other year, all black silk and Armani. Desire that'd plummeted to deep, dark, unexplored depths as soon as the other man started talking and revealed his true identity, of course, but considering what he and Clark had been up to recently, just the thought of something like that happening again forced the older man to look away, least he gag, or run off screaming—neither of which was a particularly sensible response if he wanted to keep his and the younger man's new intimacies a secret.

Clark gave a small smirk of his own, oddly satisfied with his 'win' of the impromptu game of chicken. Until he caught the girls' frowns.

"Wait a minute," Chloe started, blue eyes almost as piercing as Lex's for a second. "Lionel possessed you?"

Clark blinked in surprise.

"Yeah. You know, back when..." He paused for a second, eyes turning vacant. When he came online again, his brow lined in contrition. "God, did I... did I never update you on that one?" he stammered. "I'm sorry. It was ages ago now. Back when Lionel was still in prison."

"So, you told Lex but not us?" Lana queried, voice soft. Dangerously so. Although Clark failed to notice.

"No, Lex figured it out at the time," he explained hurriedly, wanting a fast reassurance. But with Chloe and Lana looking just as confused and hostile as they'd done in the aftermath of that particular event, Clark couldn't help dwelling for a second, recalling the trusting, thankful embrace Lex had given him that same afternoon. Such a welcome acceptance after the girls' misunderstandings. "Actually, Lex was the only one who figured it out..." he added, more to himself than anything, eyes flicking with unbidden wonder to the man on the edge of the couch. Because you knew me, even then. Even without the truth.

Lex lifted the corner of his mouth in response, eyes lighting with pride.

Both men missed the short, sharp flick beneath Lana's eyelashes as she looked between them, and the loss of expression that followed.

"Okay, whatever. So it's old news now, we get it," Chloe shrugged, dismissing the issue with a wave of her hand. "The question now is—why would Jor-El choose Lionel as his oracle?"

"Maybe he thought Jonathan's heart had suffered enough," Martha suggested, gripping the hand on her shoulder and turning anxiously back to her husband.

Lex's eyes piqued with interest as he looked over again. Mr. Kent had also been possessed? That was news. No wonder he'd had a heart attack not so long ago, that kind of strain on a weak heart must have been... Oh. Jonathan had lived all his life on a busy farm and never showed any sign of heart failure. Lex had always wondered what could have caused the older man's sudden degradation. It seemed now he had an answer.... And that cleared up Clark's silence on that matter pretty easily...

Jonathan scoffed at his wife's suggestion.

"Or maybe he felt more of a kinship with Lionel than he ever did with me," he muttered.

Clark glanced at Lex uncomfortably at that, although whether he thought the comment more damaging to Lionel or Jor-El the older man couldn't say.

For his part, Lex felt little offence at Jonathan's words. They were almost complimentary, in fact, considering how the older man stopped at Lionel instead of implying Lex too might be recruited by the alien.

"Fuck," Lex whispered as the thought prompted new deduction.

The younger members of the group merely blinked at the exclamation, but Jonathan and Martha frowned in disapproval and Lex felt instantly abashed. This was their house, and he'd been brought up with better manners than that.

"Sorry," he added quickly. "But I think I know why he chose my dad." The gazes on him turned expectant and Lex continued. "Jor-El clearly has some kind of power over Fine, right? Which is why he disappeared when my father touched him. If we assume Fine was a criminal element as much as the others in Jor-El's control, it means Jor-El probably knows the guy's MO, which means he'd know how to utilise his power over Fine in the best way available to stop him."

"So, you're saying possessing Lionel was the best way to stop Fine?" Chloe summarised, eyebrows pointing down sceptically. "Why?"

"Because the one thing we know Fine really needs is this virus," Lex replied, waving a hand over the file still on the table as a reminder. "And if you think about it, my father was a much better candidate for its creation than I was. Fine had to play me to get me onside. Fabricate a story of alien invasion to convince me to help. All of which took time and, clearly, wasn't foolproof as a plan. All he'd have needed to show my father was a predicted profit. It would've been easier, faster, and over before any of us even knew about it... Maybe Jor-El realised that."

Clark raised his head in understanding.

"So he possessed Lionel to make him off limits..." he muttered, eyes turning dark. "Forcing Fine onto you instead."

Lex nodded.

"Which would explain why Fine tried to make me—" A quick pause and swallow. "Why Fine was trying to kill my father today. He knew that as long as Jor-El could control him, he was a threat."

Clark gave a soft, troubled sigh, eyes catching Lex's in a look of sympathy. Jor-El probably hadn't intended to put Lex in danger with his actions, but Clark was too tired to really think about that. They'd covered a lot of emotional ground in the past few hours. So this possessing of Lionel, leaving Fine to manipulate Lex, felt like yet another example of his alien father bringing threats to the people he cared about, and Clark had reached his limit of patience for that way back when they'd found the key to the ship and opened Pandora's box for the first time.

"When you say Fine disappeared?" Lana pressed, a lift of hope in her tone as she looked between the two men. "Could it be for good? Could..." She struggled a little with the still unfamiliar name. "Jor-El... have killed him?"

Clark shook his head.

"I doubt it," he answered sadly. "If I didn't kill him in the Fortress before, it's unlikely he's dead now."

"Yeah," Chloe nodded, eyes bright with thought beneath her despondency. "I think he might have some kind of telepathic connection to the ship, letting him regenerate from it. When I broke into Lex's warehouse that time, I saw part of the ship break off and morph into something. I figure now that must be how Fine gets in and out."

"You broke into my warehouse?" Lex repeated, voice surprisingly light, too tired to be anything beyond curious.

Chloe nodded rather proudly.

"Lois helped. But it wasn't that hard," she admitted. "Your security really sucks."

Lex tilted his head in a gesture of acceptance. Too true, he thought.

"Good theory," he acknowledged. "But your information's lacking. I've had men out keeping tabs on Fine ever since we made the deal and received back at least ten different reports of the guy's whereabouts, in at least ten different countries. At the same time." He nodded to Clark. "Even with your speed, you can't physically be two places at once. I think Fine might be self-replicating. In fact, I think the black ship might even be his actual form."

Chloe bobbed her head back, suitably impressed.

"You think a lot, huh?" she responded, looking the older man over with something akin to respect.

Lex just shrugged at the compliment.

"This town provides ample inspiration," he quipped back.

"And have you thought about what you're going to do next?" Jonathan asked, gazing at the younger man with more curiosity than suspicion, tone flat and practical now. "Presumably, after what happened in the barn your partnership with Fine has been thoroughly dissolved."

Lex nodded, mouth forming a hard line. Oh yes, he'd thought about the future. He'd done little else on the journey down, in fact—the flickering glare of orange streetlights, and the sparse, after midnight traffic acting the perfect backdrop for morbid thoughts.

"I doubt he ever really trusted me anyway, so the fact he knows I was intending to betray him is hardly a great loss to either side," he stated, leaning forward, head angled down. "In any case, it doesn't matter what we think of each other anymore," he continued, shoulders tensing with resignation. "He'll still need me again eventually, if he wants to complete his plan."

Jonathan flattened his own mouth in understanding.

"Because you have the virus," he nodded.

When Lex looked up again, his eyes met the older man's with almost magnetic attraction, a heavy understanding passing between them. Acknowledgement of a danger neither of them even considered avoiding.

On Lex's side, this was a purely emotional decision, much as his one to don a bullet-proof vest and confront Earl Jenkins had been—Fine was a threat, and as long as there was something he could do to stop him, he'd sure as hell do it. The look from Jonathan though, made Lex's decision here feel more like initiation—proof of how far he was willing to go for Clark. And perhaps it was the late hour, perhaps it was the unconditional—and so unfamiliar—love the older man had been showing Clark since they'd started this, or the red-haired, motherly aura—so tantalisingly like Lillian's—Martha was projecting, or perhaps it was his usual, irrationally strong feelings for Clark coming into play, but Lex couldn't help thinking that, in this case, his life was a more than reasonable demand for the older man to make.

Clark frowned at the sudden, oppressive charge and glanced from his father to Lex in confusion.

"But you've got a whole load of LuthorCorp labs working on that virus," he shrugged. "Couldn't Fine just take what he wants from one of those?"

Lex broke away from Jonathan with surprising difficulty.

"I had a lot of labs working on the virus, yes," he confirmed to Clark. "And the anti-serum is being mass produced in all of them. But as soon as the virus itself was finalised I had it moved a little closer to home."

He raised an eyebrow at Clark and it didn't take the younger man long to guess he meant the lab in the mansion. The realisation made him frown.

"Huh," Chloe muttered, head bobbing in appreciation. "A counter measure in case he tried to betray you first. Unless he wants to go through the whole process of creating the virus all over again, he has to come back to you... Clever."

"No, it's not clever," Clark insisted sharply, eyes flashing as he looked Lex over. "Lex, Fine could kill you if you meet him again. Maybe you should give me the virus..."

But Lex shook his head.

"It won't work," he insisted. "How's he going to know you have it? He could be anywhere on the planet by now and you can't exactly give him a call." Clark opened his mouth to protest but Lex raised a hand. "And before you suggest it, I already checked the e-mail and phone number he's been using to contact me. They've been deleted, and his camp in Honduras vanished without a trace over an hour ago. If, or when, he comes back, I will be his first and only point of call, there's nothing we can do about that."

Clark just stared at the other man in astonishment. They were talking about a murderous, alien computer here, and Lex was as calm and collected as if they'd been debating the weather! It's almost like he planned it this way all along... Idiot.

"Then I'll just have to follow you everywhere from now on until that happens," Clark stated, folding his arms again.

The hint of desperation in his eyes made this stance significantly less intimidating than his last attempt and Lex met it with confidence.

"And then what?" he challenged. "Jump in and get beat up like you did before?"

"I... I wasn't ready then..." Clark tried.

But Lex shook his head impatiently, irritation quickly masking his fear. The image Fine's fingers slicing the younger man's face all too vivid.

"Clark, if Fine shows up again, you're as powerless as any of us against him," the older man insisted. "Maybe even more, since he seems to have developed a kind of vendetta against you now."

"Well, what do you think you can do that I can't, Lex?" Clark shot back, equally rattled, arms snapping apart.

"Unlike you, I have something he wants," Lex answered. "I could try and bargain with him—"

"God, does he look like the kind of guy you can bargain with? No, just, no!" Clark protested, black locks flicking sharply about his face as he shook his head. He'd known whatever they decided to do about Fine would be dangerous, but this was putting Lex in direct line of fire and all Clark's irrational mind would let him think about that was Not Lex! Anyone but Lex! "I will not let you risk your life for me like that!"

Provoked by the interruption and preferential treatment and with fatigue still impeding control, Lex's emotions took the rare opportunity of taking over and the older man jumped up from the couch, rest of the room forgotten as he stared the other man down.

"Clark, everyone else here has! Don't you think it's only fair I get a turn?" he yelled.

The statement stood for a second, red and raw like a flame. Until Lex snuffed it out, appalled with himself, mouth and eyes closing with a snap. He wanted acceptance here, yes, more than he cared to admit, but that was practically begging. He sounded like a petulant child.

Clark stopped too, struck speechless by the outburst, and his cheeks started to flush again as the mention of 'everyone else' reminded him there were actually witnesses to this rather personal argument.

He glanced over to the sofa for a second, where Lana and Chloe quickly averted their eyes from their all too obvious staring, while over at the armchair, Martha and Jonathan watched on in surprisingly calm silence.

As Clark's eyes fell on each in turn he realised the painful truth of Lex's words. Because, yes, everyone else had risked their lives for him in some way or another. Lana with her reckless driving, Chloe... well, god, there was a lot there already; risking prison by breaking into Level 3, teleporting to the Fortress to save him from Fine, provoking the man who almost killed her by hacking into his computer... and she hadn't even known his secret a year yet. And his parents... his parents had risked their lives just by raising him for god's sake! His dad had sacrificed his health to bring Clark home from his RedK spree; his mom had selflessly confronted Kal-El with a handful of black kryptonite, willingly facing down a monster with nothing but love and hope... Even Pete had suffered his share before leaving town, defying Hamilton's torture and accepting a beating from the FBI to stop Clark being found out.

Clark swallowed and looked away, jaw hardening against the rush of guilt and sorrow welling up his throat. He tried so hard to protect people, but the heart-breaking paradox was that, just by existing, he was putting others in danger. That was the price of being close to Clark Kent.

When he was younger he'd honestly thought he'd been helping people by pushing them away, keeping them distant, keeping them safe. But he realised now, hiding the truth had never been for their sake. Everyone he'd ever tried to have a relationship with had already been in danger just by knowing him. No, he'd kept up the deception for himself. A way of kidding himself that he really was doing the right thing, that he could have friends safely, that the only way to truly protect them wasn't to leave, to live his life alone... Because being alone, that was his worst nightmare. Clark needed people, needed contact, needed companionship. And the thought that giving in to that need was putting the very people he cared about at risk had just been too much.

But it was true. Clark was a danger to everyone in this room. Possibly to everyone he'd ever come in contact with... And he was just going to have to accept that. Because he understood now, with a shaming self-awareness, that he was far too weak to change it.

"Lex, this isn't a game," he said quietly, bringing the older man's eyes open again. Lex stared at the grandfather clock in the corner. "You don't get points for the level of risks you take. You don't have to do this."

Lex turned back to Clark slowly, expression flat, eyes shockingly bright.

"I know," he answered.

And there was so much hidden emotion in the two words Clark wanted to grab him right there; smother him with kisses and thank yous. Thanking him for staying, for understanding, for accepting the danger Clark was too selfish to take away.

Lex had to physically root his feet to the ground to stop himself responding to the younger man's desire. Clark might have been lost in the two of them again, but Lex was all too aware of their audience now, of eyes pricking holes in his skin, curious and judging. He hadn't felt this aware of people staring since those first weeks after the meteor shower, and he didn't like it one bit. This was getting far too personal, far too emotional, and he had to bring some focus back to the proceedings.

"And anyway," he continued, rather too thickly than he would have liked but it would have to do. "You're not the only one Fine's a threat to. If this Zod is anything like his 'disciples', this whole town, even the world, could be in danger. If there's anything I can do to prevent that, I will... with or without you."

Clark blinked at the sincerity of the statement, the coldness, and his brow furrowed for a moment. But as he looked, he saw a pale spark of melting ice in the older man's gaze - a look of hope, a plea. And he realised that Lex, too, lived in a tug of war sometimes, pushing others away even while craving their closeness. The only difference was, if it came down to it, Lex really would go all the way and cut himself off, Clark was sure of it. It'd be torture, but he'd do it.

You'd need a painful, awful kind of strength to be able to do that, and Clark didn't know whether to be awed or afraid of his lover for holding it.

What he did know was that he never wanted to see the older man in that kind of position, and he conveyed that with a tight smile and nod, eyes flashing I'm with you, Lex. I'm with you.

A gentle cough from the sofa brought the others into play again.

"So... ah... what can we do?" Lana asked, voice soft, eyes raised to Lex expectantly.

Chloe looked up too, leaning back slightly to imply a nonchalant curiosity the intenseness of her eyes didn't quite allow, while the figures at the armchair also looked over, silently enquiring.

If Lex noticed the way he'd somehow become the commander of the group he didn't show it.

"Nothing," he answered, turning to Lana. Beside her, Chloe scrunched her face up in protest, but Lex continued before she could say anything. "No, honestly, the best thing you can do, the best thing any of us can do, is just act as normal. Stick to a normal routine, don't do anything out of the ordinary. We don't want to tip Fine off that we have plans for him. Especially since we don't actually have any plans. He might retaliate." He glanced at Clark. "Or worse, he might disappear completely. Manipulate someone else into making the virus after all. >From all I've seen of him, he seems patient enough." He looked round the room with a sigh. "Unfortunately, he's the one holding all the cards here. We'll have to wait for him to make a move before we can do anything."

A collective sigh followed, and then Jonathan did perhaps the most surprising thing of the entire night. He nodded, and in a short, clear tone he said,

"I agree."

And between them, younger Luthor and elder Kent had what everyone else unanimously accepted as the last word on the matter.

After a second, Chloe puffed her cheeks out with a sigh, shoulders sagging.

"So. First, official group meeting and our big decision is 'wait and do nothing,'" she stated. "Feels kinda disappointing... We could've at least thought up a catchy name for ourselves."

She raised her head gamely; clearly still shaky from the emotional mountain they'd been clawing up, but eager to end the night on lighter, friendlier terms.

Clark gave her a tentative smile.

"Um... the Secret Six?" he suggested, expression so perfectly earnest the others couldn't help smiling back.

"It's a little public school British, don't you think?" Lex argued.

Chloe chuckled. The sound had an awkward, unreal quality in the breaking tension.

"I was gonna say 'lame,' but yeah," she nodded, not quite meeting the other man's eyes with the joke, as though she wasn't sure how to include him.

"How about, the Krypton Crusaders?" Lana added, voice and smile equally as uncomfortable and determined as the girl next to her.

While Clark and Lex pretended to consider this, Jonathan shook his head lightly, lips curving with bemusement. A veteran out of touch with the next generation. Beside him, Martha's eyes grew warmer and she looked the others over with an affectionate, motherly smile. A hen whose roost hadn't left yet after all.

In the softening silence, the grandfather clock in the corner started to chime. Quarter past three.

"Oh my," Martha exclaimed, amusingly distressed considering the life-threatening issues she'd been facing so calmly up till then. "I had no idea it was so late."

"Wow, yeah," Chloe responded, glancing at the clock in surprise, before turning to Lana. "I guess, ah, we better be heading back to Metropolis."

Lana blinked at her for a moment, uncomprehending, as if a world beyond the Kent walls was unthinkable. Then her face cleared.

"Right. Yes," she nodded, pushing herself up. "I guess we should be."

Chloe stood up beside her and the two girls hovered awkwardly by the sofa, unsure how end things.

Their confusion reminded Jonathan whose household this was and he sprung quickly into action, moving from the armchair to the opposite side of the coffee table.

"Don't be ridiculous, it's far too late for you to be driving," he insisted. "You can stay here tonight. We have a perfectly good spare bedroom, and one of you can take Clark's. He's no stranger to the couch."

Chloe and Lana smiled, but over in the armchair Martha was following her son's gaze to the one body the sleeping arrangements didn't account for and she frowned.

"Ah..." she started, nodding Jonathan over to Lex with only the slightest flick of her eyelashes.

The elder Kent was, fairly unsurprisingly, not as subtle, and he turned to frown at Lex himself.

The younger man curved his lips in a flat smile in response. He'd pushed these people enough tonight.

"I'll head back to the mansion," he nodded, leaning down to collect the scattered file from the table. "It makes sense. It's only down the road," he added as he slipped the pages back in their plastic home, as though the issue here really was one of practicality and not principle.

Clark turned to his father, lips already parting in opposition, but Martha got there first.

"No, Lex. We'll think of something," she insisted, leaning forward to catch the other man's eye as he straightened up.

Lex felt transfixed by the gaze, by its care, and he paused, still bent over the mahogany, to hold it. There were few things in his life he'd found indispensable, but affection from Clark Kent and his family ranked at the top.

"I can sleep in the barn," Clark offered quickly, and Martha broke away to beam at her son in agreement, radiating pride at his hospitality.

Lex doubted she'd still be as proud if she knew Clark had a potential ulterior motive for having the older man under the same roof, but it didn't stop him accepting the offer.

"Thank you," he said, straightening up properly.

"Okay," Martha nodded, stepping up herself. "I'll go get some blankets. Jonathan."

She shot her husband a commanding look as she stepped past the sofa, inner hostess taking over, and Jonathan started to follow her obediently.

"Oh, we can help with that," Lana said, slipping past the table and Lex after the retreating figures, Chloe pulled behind her.

Lex stepped back to let them pass and subtly sidestepped over to Clark.

"In the barn?" he whispered, eyes focused and unseeing on the folder in his hands.

Clark nodded, eyes following the others as they headed upstairs.

"You can help me set up..." he suggested quietly. "If you want..."

The side of the older man's mouth quirked up just a little. Oh, he wanted. As tired as he was, with the threat of Fine still out there and Clark's friends and parents quietly judging him in the rooms above his allocated 'bed,' sleep promised to be slow at best. And he'd hate to spend the last, dark-filled hours of the night alone.

A soft, feathered touch at his elbow surprised him and Lex lifted his head.

Beside him, Clark's eyes were squinting at the far edge of the ceiling even as his arm reached out and Lex realised the Kryptonian was checking the others' progress on the landing. Apparently they were thoroughly occupied because after a second the younger man turned to him and held Lex's upper arm properly.

Clark's eyes were dark green and full of worry, but he didn't say anything, only curved his lips up very softly.

Lex copied the gesture.

There was nothing to say now anyway. Whatever happened tomorrow would happen; they couldn't predict it and they couldn't control it. But the touch they shared now, the look, the connection; that was constant, that was certain. And there was comfort in that for both of them.

Above them, the sound of blankets being shuffled out of an airing cupboard floated down the stairs, followed by a sleepy, yet enthusiastic exclamation from Chloe.

"Hey, what about The Scooby Gang...?"

Lex sighed at the stack of paperwork he'd had carted to the Smallville mansion the next evening. With Fine's re-appearance now an ever-constant threat, he'd wanted to make sure his business was in order in case of any... unintended delays in attending to it in the next few weeks.

He'd spent much of the day going over all LuthorCorp's holdings with this in mind—and discovered, and corrected, several interesting bookkeeping anomalies in the process—but arranging for 33.1 was rather more complex. As a secret project, all staff contracts and payments had to be arranged via various falsified accounts, that then had to be verified with the actual company of course, and in turn with the sea of government bureaucracy that seemed to be constantly splashing forms at him for no reason other than to make his already complicated life even harder. So he'd decided to bring all the literature on the facility home, where he could focus on it better and without fear of discovery.

As he acknowledged the actual size of the work for the first time though, noting with despondency how the pages had successfully overpowered the laptop on his desk, he wondered if it might be safe to leave it till tomorrow.

He pulled at the top buttons of his navy, silk shirt as he thought, ending the constriction there that had been plaguing him all day, and flopped into the high-backed, supple leather swivel chair. A day of hard work had done little to alleviate the fatigue of last night and he'd hardly got any sleep at all that morning, between his time with Clark in the barn and the five o'clock stealthy trip back to the Kent house sofa.

And it wasn't like they'd even done anything, either. They'd both been far too preoccupied.

Instead they'd camped out on the battered brown sponge Clark called a couch and whiled away the remaining hours of the night talking about nothing in particular. The films Clark had seen with Chloe and Lana recently, the books Lex had read as a child, the impossibly droning voice of Clark's journalist tutor and the eccentric 'inventors' Lex had turned down funding for.

It should've felt pointless, all that triviality. Lex had never been one for small talk. But at the time, the older man had never felt more grateful for it. Listening to Clark's warm, rustic tones rumble on about who cared what? It was soothing. Every mundane note putting him more and more at ease about Julian, about his mother... It might not have given his body the sleep it needed, but it eased his mind perfectly, and since that seemed to be the one part of himself he couldn't heal, that was probably a very good thing indeed. Clark had seemed just as relieved by the contact too, his cold, tense body slowly relaxing against Lex's shoulder with each word. The older man could still feel the strands of thick, satiny hair slipping through his fingers.

It'd been the lull before a battle. Every gentle word and touch weighted by the knowledge of imminent attack. Imminent, unpredictable, attack.

At one point Lex had given the elephant's trunk a tentative pull for a second and suggested destroying the virus, as a way of lessening the AI's current power. But that achieved nothing except an unwelcome break to the established serenity when Clark pulled away with a loud, fiery protest. No way, Lex! No. Way. That virus is your only bargaining chip. Fine finds out you don't even have it and he won't hesitate to kill you!

Lex raised a hand to the bridge of his nose, eyes closing as he fought off a wave of exhaustion. Even when he was onside, the younger man still found ways to yell at him. And, dear god, Lex was starting to like that. Was starting to think part of him always had...

Complicated? The Cretan labyrinth was less complicated than his life at the moment. So, yes, he'd finish work tomorrow. The probability of Fine turning up again this soon was pretty low anyway; surely the AI wouldn't risk a second confrontation with Jor-El without first surveying the land?

When the office door opened, then, Lex dismissed the sound, assuming a servant with a household enquiry.

"Good evening, Mr. Luthor."

Lex's distraction was so absorbing he was hard pressed to place the sleek, cultured tone at first, and when he looked up all he could do was stare, uncomprehending, at the dark-haired man before the desk. He wore a brown corduroy jacket with elbow patches over a black cotton shirt and slacks—channelling his earlier college-professor look, it seemed—and would have appeared entirely unremarkable if Lex hadn't known about the double set of guards and re-vamped, state-of-the-art alarm system he'd by-passed to get in the room. Not to mention the fact he'd seen the very same man obliterated not twelve hours ago.

"May I?" Fine continued, nodding at the drinks table on the left.

"Please, help yourself," Lex answered, body still and almost trance-like with shock. "Everyone else does..." he added to himself, as Fine stepped over to take the scotch decanter in his pale, tapered fingers.

The soft clink as the cap was removed crashed liked thunder in Lex's mind and for the first time in a long time he decided to go straight with his gut instinct—he couldn't risk any more games, not after yesterday, it was time to cry 'mercy.' As he sucked in a breath to call reinforcements, though, a cool, crisp tone interrupted.

"I could kill you before you finish your next breath," Fine stated, eyes on the stream of amber liquid as it poured into one of the gold-rimmed glass tumblers on the counter. "So do the sensible thing, and don't call for Kal-El. You'd be no use to anyone dead."

With the glass three-quarters full, Fine recapped and replaced the decanter and turned to the other man, eyes smug.

Lex shut his mouth with a scowl, own eyes icy hard as he met the other 'man's' gaze, pride rising up to strengthen him and deny Fine the satisfaction of fear.

"His name's Clark," he responded, slow and cold.

Fine's eyes danced as he raised the glass to his lips, flashing like LEDs.

"That's how you justify it, is it?" the AI queried as he sipped. "Assimilation?" He gave a hollow chuckle. "Changing his name doesn't make him one of you. He's not human. He'll never be one of you." He narrowed his eyes at Lex over the glass, as a headmaster might an unruly student. "You can't tame him."

Lex smirked and leant back in his chair, left arm resting casually over the desk.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he answered. If Fine wanted to unnerve him, dwelling on Clark was entirely the wrong way to go about it. "Clark is what he is, and I wouldn't change him for the world." And he wouldn't. Clark made his fair share of mistakes, but that didn't make him any less priceless. Lex was more than willing to suffer the backlash of an occasional stumble if it meant he could share the young man's journey. "He might not be 'one of us,' but he's certainly not one of you or your psychotic associates, and that's more than enough for me."

Adrenaline was kicking in now, giving his previously exhausted body a spark of fire, and Fine tilted his head at the change.

Licking his lips in a frighteningly predatory manner, he moved back to the front of the desk.

"The man lied to you. For years," he stated, pretence at humanity dissolving as he fixed Lex with an unnaturally sharp stare. "He took you for granted, dropped your friendship like nothing, and did a pretty decent job of villainizing you even before my involvement. And yet still you defend him..." The AI slipped neatly into the opposite chair. "Why?"

Feeling strangely bold, in the way near and present danger often prompted, Lex didn't answer straight away. Instead, he risked a violent repercussion by taking time to look over the other figure, noting the tautness in Fine's neck as he angled his head; the stiff, almost rehearsed, way he held the glass just above the desk, without needing to rest his elbow on the surface. Trifles in the bigger picture of course. Lex knew from acting, and this was a show at its finest, but... the keen, insatiable curiosity in the AI's face suggested he was lacking more than technique.

"Despite this... façade," Lex said, lifting his hand from the desk to wave it at Fine in demonstration. "You really are just a machine, aren't you?" And what would a machine know about love? He shifted in the chair, bringing his other arm to the desk and folding it across the first so he could lean forward, meeting Fine's gaze. "You wouldn't understand."

For a second, Fine looked blank. Then he hummed a low, patronising laugh through his nose. Placing the still full glass carelessly on the scattered pages, he leant forward to meet the other man, steepling his hands before his face.

"You think I'm merely... an aesthetically pleasing toaster now? Incapable of quantitative experience?" he responded, shaking his head. "I'm more advanced than any of this planet's so called 'technology.' Given enough time and study, I could predict, with over ninety percent accuracy, the reactions of any life form, in any given situation." His lips formed a slow smirk. "Like I did with you and Kal-El. I know what you feel better than you do."

Lex pulled back a little. It was hard not to be intimidated with Fine so close, and so very solid before him. But he'd be damned if he didn't give as got as he got.

"I've no doubt," he agreed. "I've seen how you break us down, identify our emotions enough to manipulate. Your knowledge of the human condition isn't in question, and nor is your ability to emulate it." He quirked an eyebrow. "Your anger and arrogance are particularly impressive, by the way..." Fine nodded his head briefly, as though in appreciation. "But the motivation, the reason why we feel what we do... you don't know that. And you never will. Because real emotion is, by it's very nature, unknowable."

Fine rested his fingers against his lips with a frown, apparently unsatisfied by the claim, while Lex leant back in his chair again with a smile, eyes flashing triumph. He felt oddly relieved to have finally admitted a limitation he'd been coming to understand for a while now—an acknowledgement of what Clark had often tried to tell him, albeit mostly under false pretences. The fact that some mysteries were miracles without intended solutions, and should be celebrated as such.

"That's rather an irrational statement, coming from a man who considers himself a follower of science," Fine stated after a short pause.

Lex kept smiling.

"Yes it is," he answered brightly.

"Where's the virus?"

The query was low and sudden, but Lex didn't miss a beat.

"What do you want it for?" he snapped back, lips stilling to match the AI's sober expression.

Fine gave another humming laugh.

"Bravado now?" he stated, raising an eyebrow. "Well done. You'd never guess you were afraid... but I know you are..." The side of his mouth curved with something like pride. "You really do have such a wonderful propensity for deception. And in Honduras too. A whole night you spent with me and I never once suspected you were anything but taken in... I confess, I wanted your father. His depravation is far more advanced and his physical appearance... more fitting. But you... you've been a much more interesting subject to work with. I think he'll approve."

Lex frowned - something he tried to keep as puzzlement and not a display of the fear Fine was sensing. He had few advantages here, and concealing his true emotions was one of them. If there was even the smallest chance that might throw Fine off balance, he'd keep it up. Besides, the AI's quip about Lionel's physical appearance really was curious.

"Who'd approve?" he asked. "Zod?"

If Fine was surprised by Lex's knowledge, it didn't show on his face.

"Your Kryptonian pet's been name dropping, has he?" he answered with a shrug. "No matter. It won't stop me."

Lex took a breath. Time to put his shaky plan into action, then.

"But I can," he stated. Fine tilted his head, humouring. "I have what you want," Lex continued, tone turning sharper. "And unless you tell me what I want to know, you're not going to get it from me."

Fine shook his head; eyes looking the other man up and down with something like wonder.

"You honestly think you can bargain?" he asked, breathless and disbelieving. When his gaze fell back to Lex's it was hard and unyielding. "Your games are admirable, but pointless. Give me the virus."

Lex flattened his lips in mock disappointment and rested both hands on the desk to push himself up.

"No," he said simply, circling the desk and heading for the doorway.

From his chair, Fine sighed in irritation, as you might if a roadway were closed, forcing you to take a longer, more taxing diversion.

In the next second Lex felt a sharp, unresisting pressure on his neck, pushing him back against the corrugated wooden pillar at the end of his bookcase.

Twisting his head carefully so as not to worsen the sudden, stabbing pain, Lex saw Fine had barely moved. Just turned slightly in his chair and raised a hand. A hand which was now a long, thick, silvery sword, pinning Lex in place.

The younger man tried to shout, but an increase in pressure left him choking.

"Where's the virus?" the AI repeated, sounding bored.

Lex stood tensely beside the open doorway as Fine examined the lab. He'd thought about running now, finally screaming Clark's name as his heart had been longing to since the AI's first appearance. But it was no good. Even though he wasn't looking it would take only seconds for Fine to catch up, make another silvery point out of his once again human-shaped hand to stab in the young Luthor's chest. Or maybe he'd use his strength to snap Lex's neck instead, or make it last by cutting his limbs off one at a time. Lex shuddered. No, now Fine knew where to find the virus there were too many unpleasant means of death available to him, and Lex didn't want to risk any of them just yet.

Besides, seeing Fine blithely walking about, casually touching equipment and lilac coloured surfaces Lex had spent a lot of time and effort arranging and using, left him fighting back a strange sense of violation. Lex didn't want to leave Fine alone in this place, his place, if he could help it.

"Impressive," the AI nodded, pausing at the end of the nearest workbench to raise a pair of cool, almost appreciative, eyes at the other man. The faint purple glow from the lights above made his skin abnormally pale. "The equipment here is even more specialised than what you use in your LuthorCorp labs."

Lex narrowed his eyes, a tight knot forming in his chest.

"How do you know what equipment I use in my labs?" he asked, unable to keep the apprehension from his voice.

Fine smiled, wide and sharp, and Lex's blood ran cold at the sight.

"I really must applaud you on your discovery of an antidote where even I didn't realise one existed," he answered. "To have sought to counter act something apparently harmless shows an insatiable amount of distrust, not to mention an intelligence I'd obviously underestimated... It's too bad we'll never know how it might have worked..."

Lex was finding it hard to breathe. He'd had seven separate laboratories working on producing that antidote, all with at least twenty members of staff. He'd even checked in on them this morning, they were fine. And he hadn't heard a word from them since... Not a single word.

"Oh, I'm sure your people would have informed you of my sabotage," Fine continued, sensing the other man's thoughts. "If they'd survived... remarkable how accident prone these high-tech labs can be, isn't it?"

Lex was speechless. Literally couldn't think beyond this revelation. One hundred and forty men and women. Dead? Just like that? He'd always known he was in danger, but that the people who worked for him might be... he just hadn't thought... and his thoughtlessness had just cost one hundred and forty people their lives. Oh god...

"That's where you're hiding it, I suppose," Fine queried, nodding to a metal safe built into the wall by the door, just at Lex's shoulder.

Lex gave a dull nod in response, gasping slightly as his body reacquainted itself with oxygen. 'Accident' Fine said... if he'd made it look like an accident, maybe there was still a chance, maybe some people got out...

While Lex thought, Fine nonchalantly stepped up to the safe, made a small, pointed dagger out of his hand, and slipped it through the steel, lead-lined lock like it was butter. There was a heavy click, and the door started to open. Fine removed and reassembled his hand with a smirk.

Inside, the safe had four separate shelves. The top two filled with pages and folders of neatly made notes; the bottom ones with various sized samples of kryptonite and a single phial of clear liquid, propped up in a test tube rack.

Fine nodded at the phial in satisfaction, before running his hands idly over the different coloured stones. With the coveted item in sight he seemed to feel there was no need to rush.

His hand fell on one of the smaller, less refined samples of green kryptonite and he held it up to the light, eyeing the bumps in the surface intently.

"To think, a race that considers itself so advanced can be incapacitated by something so small..." he mused, breaking Lex from his own dark ponderings and making him turn. "In many ways, I've surpassed them."

Lex looked the AI over with a desperate kind of interest. He could focus on the dead later, right now he had his own survival to consider.

"Then why keep serving them?" Lex asked. "Why not rebel?"

Fine narrowed his eyes for a second and gripped the stone a little tighter.

"I can't," he muttered, voice brittle and bitter. "The General added a fail safe to my programming..."

"General?" Lex breathed before he could stop himself. General Zod? "So this is an invasion..."

The AI flicked his eyes back to him, resentfulness dissolving with another curve of his lips.

"Oh, you have no idea," he responded, flicking the stone back in the safe and slickly pulling the phial from its base. Still in no hurry, he looked round the lab again before attending to it. "This place... is very professionally arranged," he noted. "The purple light is a nice touch. Intended to enhance mental capacity no doubt. Leonardo Da Vinci picked up on that, one of your more intelligent inventors. I find it interesting that you advocate such discoveries." He tilted his head at Lex for a moment, before pushing the safe door shut and heading to the workbenches again. "I was concerned that the non-profit venture I asked of you would be unappealing to a businessman. But there is something of a scientist in you, it seems... that will also be an asset..."

Asset? Lex thought with a frown, as Fine began rifling through the various pieces of equipment littering the work surfaces. What did his personality have to do with anything? And what was the AI looking for now?

"Do you bring Kal-El here?" Fine asked after a moment, looking up with the same intensity he'd fixed Lex with upstairs.

Lex blinked.

"Why should it matter?" he answered back.

"You have then," Fine nodded, eyes turning distant. "Intriguing. That he would follow you even here—a place that must hold nothing but terror for an alien in exile. Fascinating..."

"I can't help thinking your interest in my relationship with Clark is verging on obsessive," Lex stated, more than a little unnerved by the attention. Having the AI explore his personal lab was one thing, but having him analyse his connection to Clark was taking the violation to a whole other level.

"You're one to talk of obsession," Fine answered, flashing another infuriating smirk, as he turned back to searching the workbench. "And besides, you don't appreciate the irony of the situation... ah!"

His hands grabbed at a sleek looking, automatic syringe, shaped like a gun with a needle on the end and a neat hole in the top for phials of medicine. Lex kept it out for emergencies, in case an accident should expose him to something overly hazardous. With it, he could inject an antidote quickly and efficiently, without the fuss of a usual hypodermic. He didn't like the satisfaction Fine was eyeing the item with one bit.

"Perfect..." the AI nodded, while reaching in a jacket pocket to remove a smaller syringe of his own, a quarter full of a rich, black liquid Lex noted as ominously similar to the colour of the Kryptonian ship.

Fine raised the needle to his face and flicked a finger against it; the virus still held securely in his other three curved ones. He looked up at Lex as a couple of drops dripped out of the end, pushing any air bubbles away.

"What I mean is, it's surprising Kal-El was capable of bonding with you at all. On Krypton, a relationship between two males was considered highly controversial."

Lex swallowed lightly as he looked between Fine and the syringe. The alien certainly cut an menacing figure with the needle dripping before him like it was. But whatever his intentions were, he didn't seem about to jump into them, and playing for time was the only card Lex had left.

"Well... people aren't exactly doing back-flips about it here, either," he muttered.

"You don't understand," Fine answered, lowering the syringe and slipping it into the end of the phial. "The very inclination of a male towards another was rare enough to be almost mythical. As such, some Kryptonians even worshipped the concept as the highest form of love." As he spoke, his thumb pressed down smoothly on the thin, plastic plunger, sending billows of liquid smoke into the clear-coloured virus. When the syringe was spent, he pulled it out and discarded it on the bench, looking up in accomplishment. "Your ancient Greeks believed something similar, I understand."

Lex nodded, curious in spite of himself. The very inclination was rare among Kryptonians? So... Clark was special, even with his own people? The thought made Lex strangely proud. Perhaps the two of them were legendary.

"His number of male lovers was one of the things the god Apollo was most revered for," he added, hoping to keep Fine distracted. "But... if the relationship was regarded so highly on Krypton, why would it be controversial?"

"I said some Kryptonians considered it that way," Fine corrected, placing the now altered virus into the syringe gun. "The majority considered the rarity of the thing as a sign of abnormality. In some regions, the relationships were even punishable by death."

He raised his eyebrows at Lex, apparently waiting for further response, and Lex furrowed his brow. As interesting as the impromptu Kryptonian history lesson was, he was at a lost as to why Fine was continuing it. With the virus doctored and clearly ready to use now the AI had no reason to stay, much less to lecture. Unless... he'd mentioned something about irony... some fact relating to him and Clark he wanted to lord over Lex about perhaps...

"What was Jor-El's opinion?" Lex asked, prompting a congratulatory grin.

"Oh, Jor-El was unbeliever," Fine nodded. "One of the most fervent. And to think he sent his son to escape death, only to have him suffer a fate he'd consider worse..."

Lex didn't give the AI the satisfaction of a response. Didn't, in fact, have one to give. So Jor-El would disapprove of Clark's sexuality. Big deal. If Fine had been expecting shock, he'd be disappointed. Despite his powers, it seemed the AI still had a lot to learn about the concept of humour.

"And the irony is, of course," Fine continued, inexplicably to Lex who thought the irony had already been exposed. "Because of your connection to his son, as much as Jor-El wants to stop me now, in the end, he probably approves of what I'm doing. Who knows? Perhaps he even orchestrated it."

Lex took an automatic step back as Fine advanced on him; mind a jumble of rapidly connecting thoughts. Fine hadn't wanted to use Lex. Jor-El didn't want Lex either. He disapproved of his connection to Clark. A connection that was punishable by death. And Jor-El was a law enforcer. He'd forced Fine onto Lex, knowing Fine's plan and Fine... the virus... it was for him, the virus was meant for him!

In the time it took for Lex to finally register the danger, Fine had a hand about his wrist and was yanking him back into the room, forcing his arm upwards. Even knowing it was useless, Lex struggled against the hold, more from confusion than any real expectation of escape. Me? But why? What good will infecting me do?

"All this, just to kill me?" he muttered, clenching his fist against Fine's grip, mind listing all the potential poisons the AI could've injected in the serum to alter it. "Why?"

"Kill you?" Fine repeated, raising the syringe. "Oh, you're far too important for that."

The movement of the needle seemed to take forever, with Lex feeling its point long before Fine touched it to his skin. Then;

"Let him go." The authority was irresistible, and Fine was already stopping, even without the following ultimatum. "Or I'll melt that syringe right out of your hands."

Both men turned in shock to the impossibly calm figure in blue jacket and red and white checked plaid by the doorway.

Clark's eyes were fixed on the syringe in Fine's hand, already glowing red around the edges in support of his threat, and Lex couldn't stop the rush of joy at the sight. He knew Clark was taking a foolish risk just being there, but appearing as he had, on the very cusp of danger, he seemed the guardian angel Lex had so often taken him for when they were younger and for a brief moment the irrational belief that everything would be okay now coursed through him.

The surprise on Fine's face was almost comical; jaw dropping as he looked from Clark to Lex and back again.

"Surely your bond hasn't developed telepathy?" he scoffed, only partly joking.

With a tense flick Clark turned his eyes to the other man, making sure to keep the syringe firmly in sight. Every atom in his body seemed to be sparking with fear and nervous energy at the sight of Lex in such a precarious position, but despite that, a new sense of composure was filling his mind in a way he'd never experienced facing danger before. It was like he could sense everything about the situation—every peril, every obstacle—and he knew he could overcome them, that he would overcome them. Because he had to.

"Confusion's a good look on you," he quipped back. "But it was nothing so complicated. I've been patrolling the area since nine thirty this morning, and I've been watching you ever since you slipped passed the guards twenty minutes ago."

While Fine hummed in either admiration or annoyance, Lex frowned in a disapproval his fear-coated mind was too distracted to note as out of place. Since nine thirty...?

"But, I dropped you off at class this morning. In Metropolis," he muttered.

Clark sucked his bottom lip slightly and gazed back at the syringe—a means of resisting the urge to look down in embarrassment.

He'd doubled straight back from Metropolis, of course, missing class and reaching the mansion long before Lex got back there. The older man might have vetoed Clark's plan to follow him around, but he'd said nothing about guarding the virus itself, and Clark had figured if anything did happen to Lex, Fine was guaranteed to bring him back to the virus alive at least. So he'd made camp on one of the benches not far from the fountain outside, ducking for cover behind the bushes whenever anyone approached. Despite how sensible the plan had proved though, it still involved going behind Lex's back, and Clark felt bad about that.

As Lex's higher brain functions started to kick in again, however, his lips quirked into a grin, eyes glowing with admiration and gratitude. Because Clark had been watching since Fine first arrived. And he'd waited—carefully and patiently—as Fine talked and threatened and finally brought Lex here, and it was then, and only then, that Clark had zipped in, just at the right moment. A perfectly executed ambush. Maybe they had a chance at bargaining with the AI after all.

"All right, Kal-El," Fine nodded slowly. "It seems we have a stalemate. What do you propose?"

"I propose," Clark started. "That you let Lex go, right now. Put the virus down. And we talk."

Fine pursed his lips for a second as though considering, then very deliberately released his hold on Lex and raised his hands, syringe still in the left.

"Very well," he stated.

Before him, Clark breathed a small sigh of relief.

Lex looked Fine over as he quickly sidestepped away, suspecting a trick and well aware Clark's impossible tendency to trust at inappropriate times would prevent the younger man checking for one. By the time Lex discovered it though, there was nothing he could do, Fine was already shooting fire at the lead-lined safe now directly behind Clark's head.

"Clark!" Lex warned, waving a hand just seconds too late as a neat hole melted through to the bottom two shelves and the force of Fine's beams shattered one of the kryptonite samples inside.

The resultant explosion threw out almost all of the others in a shower of rock and rubble, harmless to anyone else but deadly to Clark, and the Kryptonian collapsed beneath it with a yell.

Fine didn't hesitate. He was by Lex again in less than a second, and this time the needle went straight through, embedding in the other man's wrist before Lex could even cry out. All he felt then, all he knew, was a sudden, enveloping heat, and a heavy, rhythmic, weightlessness.

From the floor, Clark watched in horror as Fine pulled the needle back out, leaving Lex dazed and unsteady. He tried to call Lex's name, but managed only a whimper. Kryptonite seemed to be everywhere. In his hair and his collar, brushing his fingertips... the pain was shocking, stabbing from every direction... but it wasn't the worst he'd ever felt, and god, Lex needed him now. So, with effort, he pushed at the rocks in front of him, trying to scatter them far enough away to zip free. As he did so, his fingers brushed a sparkle of red that had fallen, unseen, amongst the others, and as his eyes flashed equally crimson Clark found the energy he'd been lacking.

In a sudden red and blue blur, he was up and holding Fine by the neck, both hands continuing to clench the impossibly hard skin even as the RedK wore off, leaving an anger and strength entirely Clark's own.

Fine just smirked up at him, unperturbed.

"What will you choose, Kal-El?" he queried, voice clear and showing no signs of distress, despite the grip on what should have been the man's vocal chords. "Stop me, or save the human?"

Clark pulled his head back. Lex!

The man in question was swaying beside them, blinking heavily, and as Clark watched, Lex started to fall, eyes rolling up to show only white.

Clark gave Fine one last, angered glance, but it was a worthless one. He'd already made his decision.

With a dismissive shove, Clark pushed the AI away and caught Lex neatly in his arms before the older man could hit the ground.

A gentle touch to the cheek was all Clark needed to learn that yes, Lex was still warm with life and yes, there was still a strong heartbeat pumping his blood. Anything else could be checked by a doctor.

When the Kryptonian looked up a second later, Fine was gone.

"I'm not sure what to tell you, Mr. Luthor," the private, smartly suited physician declared twenty minutes later, as Lex buttoned up a fresh, black shirt over his thoroughly examined body. "Whatever you were injected with, it doesn't appear to have had any effect." He grabbed his doctor's bag from the leather armchair with a shrug. "In fact, you've never been healthier."

Clark listened to the assessment with a frown and sighed as he leant against the office's now happily roaring fireplace. The doctor glanced at him oddly, confused by the unusual response to his good news, and Lex shot the younger man a warning look.

"Well, thank you, doctor," the older man concluded, holding out a hand. The suited man shook it warmly before letting Lex lead him to the door.

Clark shook his head as they left. Never been healthier? After everything Lex had been through, the diagnosis seemed more of a concern than relief.

Less than half an hour ago Lex had been unconscious with an erratic pulse and shallow breathing. You didn't just snap out of that like nothing was wrong.

Clark had been on the verge of zipping him to hospital. Until he considered that someone more private, and discrete, might be a better option for a potentially alien illness. He'd wanted to call Toby, remembering how well the unofficial medic had attended to Kyle Tippet that time, but couldn't find the number, and since he had no idea how badly Lex might need medical attention he'd given up trying after less than a minute and just rung the first available doctor he'd found on Lex's cell. To the guy's credit, he'd been remarkably efficient. As soon as Clark finished mumbling the name 'Luthor' he'd responded with a crisp 'I'll be right there' and arrived in a chopper ten minutes later. Presumably he was well paid for such responses.

By that time, Lex was actually starting to come round and push himself up from the reclining position Clark had arranged him in on the sofa, the words 'where's Fine?' the first on his lips. Clark barely managed to explain the AI's escape before the suited man was escorted into the room demanding explanations and to know what he was needed for.

Lex had then shocked Clark no end by snapping instantly and easily into action and fabricating a brief tale of a break in and burglar's injection, before sending a servant away to contact the seven labs working on the virus, and bring a change of clothes. After which, he'd devoted all his attention to the doctor's medical exam and been almost obsessive with his co-operation.

It was a tactic quite clearly designed to avoid Clark as much as possible, and coupled with the notably curt tone whenever he spoke, it didn't take the younger man long to identify his friend's disapproval. He'd faced it from Lex more times than he cared to remember over the past year, making it hard to mistake now, and just like it had so often done in the past, the sight of it made Clark's heart and body tense. If Lex was going to criticise, he wasn't going to take it lying down, damn it! Not when he knew he'd done the right thing.

"You should've gone after him," Lex stated seconds later, face a disheartening blank as he turned round, clicking the double doors securely into place behind him.

"Lex, you could've died," Clark objected, tone sharp to hide his fear.

"Unlikely," Lex dismissed, too quickly. A couple of paces took him away from the door, but he paused in the middle of the room and turned his head with a sigh. Too restless to know where to move next. "If you were listening, you heard what Fine said. The virus wasn't meant to kill me."

"So it could've done something worse!" Clark shot back, pushing himself sharply from the fireplace, one hand raised in protestation. "What did you expect me to do? Just leave you lying there unconscious? God knows what that stuff's done to you..."

"Apparently, nothing," Lex answered, voice also rising. "The doctor says I'm fine. I feel fine."

And the shocking thing was—he did. Not only had the virus done nothing untoward, his earlier aliments seemed to have vanished as well. The exhaustion he'd been labouring under just this morning, for instance, was completely gone, leaving him fresh, rested and strong. Every part of him was practically tingling with good health. He felt amazing.

"And you think that's good?!" Clark responded, eyes blazing as he waved his hand in disbelief. "You were injected with an alien serum. Even if it wasn't meant to kill you, it should've done something. Fine is the last thing you should be feeling!"

Clark's use of the a-word here, something Lex noticed he often shied away from, was especially striking, and only enforced the truth behind his statement. It implied Lex's newfound euphoria might not be a blessing, but something rather more ominous, and it was a fact Lex hadn't been entirely blind to himself. But since it was a truth he was also steadfastly trying to ignore for the moment, he latched onto his growing anger at the situation instead, letting his disappointment and frustration at Fine's all too easy success, at the innocent people he'd endangered, probably even killed, spark a rush of fire inside him, obscuring everything else.

"Well, perhaps my enhanced immune system counter acted the serum," he argued, voice twisting to something like condescension.

"Lex, you were double-crossed, from a double-cross!" Clark yelled back, only fuelled by the tone. And it felt good, the yelling, and the hot, sharp heat it was visibly filling him with. It stopped him having to actually think about what the two of them were saying, about the danger Lex, and others, could be in. It took him out of himself, leaving him blissfully lost. "And Fine's a computer, probably ten times more intelligent than either of us. I think he would have compensated for something like that!"

"Clark, you're—" Fucking right, goddamn it! Lex clicked his tongue impatiently. "You're missing the point! What happened to me isn't the issue here. This was our last chance to corner Fine and we blew it, he's gone!"

"And you're blaming me?" Clark answered, eyes wide. "You didn't even want me there. What happened to your oh so amazing bargaining skills?"

"I was working on it," Lex tried, prompting a heavy eye roll from the younger man.

"Fine had you trapped from the word go," he countered scathingly. "If I hadn't turned up you'd be waking up in that lab alone right now. I knew this was a bad idea..."

"Oh, because you were coming up with so many better ones," Lex muttered back.

Clark raised both his hands for a moment, nostrils flaring as he sucked in a breath, so close his fingertips seemed to head for Lex's neck. And the fire the older man had been fostering moved instantly to somewhere much lower.

"Lex... god..." the younger man hissed, oblivious to the other man's arousal. "I don't even know why we're arguing about this..."

To hide, maybe, Lex thought. To escape our incredibly messed up selves for a little while. The older man could think of plenty of reasons. Because, while Clark still got lost in his emotions, Lex's few extra years were enough to show him exactly what was happening here.

As he looked over the younger man's bright, reddened face, though—lips slightly parted, revealing a glistening pink tongue and a row of smooth, pearly, extremely lickable teeth—Lex realised there was a much, much better way for them to play this.

So when Clark took in a breath for another round, Lex darted forward and kissed deeply into his—now fully open—mouth, instead. Hands grabbing Clark's face for support.

Too stunned to object, and with Lex's tongue making such wild, urgent motions over his own, all Clark could do for the next few seconds was kiss back.

Then a touch of sense took over and Clark batted the other man's hands away, pulling Lex from him by the shoulders and holding him there.

"Wha-? You can't just... that's..." he stammered, the dilated, smouldering gaze of Lex's pupils and the sharp, enticing way he was licking his lips making it difficult to hold a thought.

In the next second, Clark was spinning Lex round without even realising it, slamming him into the darkly polished doorframe and pressing his lips back against the older man's. Hard.

Lex grunted an exclamation down the other man's throat as a raw slap of pain erupted between his shoulder blades, but quickly turned it to a moan as Clark's large, warm hands moved to caress round his neck. Pain, frustration and warm, wet heat all merging together in one glorious, orgasmic combination. He gripped Clark's hair as he answered the kiss, twisting it in knots in an effort to hold the man for longer, oxygen be damned.

But Clark was stronger, and all too soon he was pulling back, one hand sliding to the older man's chest in a stilling gesture.

"This isn't over," he gasped between breaths, eyes dark.

"God, I hope not," Lex muttered back, lifting the hands Clark's move had forced away to the collar of the younger man's plaid shirt, where they frantically started unbuttoning.

To stop him, Clark gripped the black silk in his own hand with surprising force, and neither man was especially upset to hear the fabric tear.

"I'm still mad as hell at you!" Clark persisted; green eyes sparkling with confusion as much as anger now as he felt a tell-tale tightening in his groin signal his own growing arousal. This was an argument, this was a fight. He couldn't be turned on by this. Could he?

"Good," Lex answered, deadly serious. "You're gorgeous when you're angry."

And the buttons were forgotten as the older man slipped his hands over Clark's broad shoulders instead, knuckles brushing the rough cotton of Clark's jacket as Lex pushed against the now slackening hold on his chest and fixed his lips on the younger man's neck.

Clark pulled apart a lot more of the other man's shirt before he thought to uncurl his fingers from the collar, both his own arms sliding round Lex's back as his body, if not his mind, began to embrace the turn of events.

Each subsequent lick and scrape of teeth up to his chin brought with it a string of unintended 'oh's, forcing Clark to admit he was beyond turned on and fully hard now, and in response to that, a quick tug had Lex's body flush against him. Primal instincts taking over, Clark slipped a thigh between the older man's legs, releasing a sigh of gratification at the pressure he found there.

Lex closed his eyes for a second at the move, moaning into the soft, warm flesh beneath Clark's ear.

"God..." he breathed, fingernails scraping sharply and uselessly over the other man's back. "You have..." Kiss. "No idea..." Lick. "How much sexual frustration you put me through..." He bit down on Clark's earlobe and the younger man ran a hand further up his back in response, pulling Lex even closer and turning his head to breathe hot, honey scented air on the older man's cheek. "Every time you burst in here. With your arrogant..." A thrust with his hips. "Egotistical..." A hand slipped out of the jacket and back in Clark's hair. "Overbearing..." A vicious tug that Clark barely flinched at. "Righteous indignation." He pulled his head round to Clark's face, excited by the sharp, narrowed eyed gaze he found there. And suddenly there was more to this than physical release. There was meaning to the words escaping him—echoes from the past rushing to fill the void of the present Lex was desperately trying to create. "God, it's unbelievable, the way I let you barge in, at any goddamn hour of the day you pleased. Often uninvited, I might add, although somehow it was always me who ended up feeling like I needed to apologise! And I'd listen to you! Raging and shouting and complaining. When all I really wanted was throw you down and fuck you right on this floor."

Clark tilted his head at the admission, part of him curious. But most of him was far too fogged to be thinking anything coherent now.

"Then why didn't you?" he countered, voice low and critical, still partly on edge from Lex's past accusations, making him inclined to insult.

Lex gritted his teeth, all the unsatisfied anger from yesterday merging with his current frustration, and with a short, concentrated breath, he moved his hands back to Clark's shoulders and pushed with all his might. Clark could've resisted, but surprise alone was enough to send him tottering back.

"Because you never fucking trusted me!" Lex yelled, relishing every second of the raw, burning truth. Glad to be free of it, to finally be able to get angry at Clark about it, instead of bottling it up to ferment out of fear he'd lose the other man if he said anything. He sure as hell didn't need to worry about that now, not for the next twenty minutes or so anyway. The guy was too goddamn hard for him.