Warning: potentially disturbing content. This fic is futurefic for SV and AU for the comic. Greg Rucka's current run on Adventures of Superman (especially #629-631) includes a violent war zone story. Otherwise I'm creating my own continuity: Lex is a senator at this point and Clark has been Superman for approximately fifteen years. NC-17.
Enormous thanks to LauraB1 for the gorgeous cover art!!
The pair of portly, middle-aged utilities lobbyists were pole-dancing, the stripper was glad-handing the constituents, and Mercy was provoking the androgynous intern with whipcord lashes of her braid. It was, he thought, just another day in Washington. Except, of course, for the fact that Superman was flying endless figure eights between the Capitol and the Washington Monument (infinity-infinity-infinity-infinity), swooping ever faster in a purplish blur. Lex watched, enrapt, from the bulletproof, reinforced, third-story window, until he felt the floor drop out from beneath his feet.
Lex hadn't changed a bit, really. On TV and at public appearances, he was always carefully powdered and penciled, but in his bed...he looked just like he always had. In sleep, his lips pressed together in a gentle bow. The scar had faded over the years. Tiny crow's feet creased his eyes, and his forehead wrinkled in a frown as his eyes darted back and forth behind closed lids. He was beautiful, as always, and he'd aged well.
He didn't seem weary. It always seemed like Lex should be drained to exhaustion by his schedule and responsibilities. Not to mention the dozen criminal undertakings he continued to mastermind, despite being an elected US senator, or by his ongoing antipathy with the Justice League.
All things considered, he shouldn't be allowed to look so damned relaxed.
He woke with a start, slapping the mattress hard to catch his fall.
There was no fall.
But there was movement.
It took a moment for his eyes to focus in the dim light of the bedroom, but it was definitely Clark floating in the air above his bed, wrapped in moonlight pouring through the penthouse window. Not directly above him and not as Superman, Clark was wearing jeans and a dark, long-sleeved shirt, and was hovering in the air a few feet above Lex's knees. Watching him.
He should've known the silence wouldn't last. Lex was always too sensitive to movement. The slightest stir of wind would wake him. It was a small miracle that Lex hadn't woken when he'd applied the nerve strike to Mercy's jaw. He'd moved so fast that she was down before she knew what hit her, but the risk of using superspeed was that it wasn't particularly quiet.
Lex came awake and was instantly alert. Was staring up at him—not speaking, just staring. The hardness in his eyes was twenty years in a nutshell, but he wasn't saying anything.
It was a little unnerving. He'd half-expected Lex to hit a panic button or try to shoot him with his latest death ray. No such luck. He was only watching, waiting, probably cataloging which of Clark's hairs were out of place and postulating reasons why. They knew each other too well. Far too well.
But then, that was why he was here.
Clark was just floating there, watching, just like he used to. But he hadn't done this in years.
Mercy's absence was telling, although it was most probable that she was merely lying unconscious in the next room. Clark had never done her any significant injury, even when she might've earned it.
As the silence stretched, it drew unto itself a mantle of the old and familiar. It reminded Lex of the days when Clark had three settings: investigative curiosity, righteous indignation, and silence. (The whining and 'woe is me' settings were best left undisturbed.) But for years they'd done companionable silence rather well. Before the moralistic jousting had grown personal.
Floating there, Clark (not Superman, but Clark) was still as beautiful as ever. The dark shirt suited him. It was lovely to see him (Clark) out of both the uniform and the reporter get-up. Mostly it was just lovely to see the real him.
But what the fuck was he doing here now?
Lex had always slept in the nude. Clark had watched him for years, years ago, and not always in secrecy. After they'd begun sleeping together, he'd spent every night he could at Lex's side, wrapped close around his smooth, lean body.
Back before everything he cared about crashed into a billion pieces. Long before their relationship had dwindled to a pair of farcical public feuds.
These days, Superman and Senator Luthor exchanged fresh volleys of asinine rhetoric several times a month on the evening news, while he and Lois won awards for exposing Lex's various legal and ethical transgressions in the Daily Planet. Some of their conservative critics called it the Lois and Clark Vendetta. Lois laughed and called the critics—
Lois.
But he wasn't. He couldn't. He swallowed hard and tried to banish her face from his mind.
Clark was shaking his head. Tears were slipping from the corners of his eyes, but Clark seemed intent on ignoring them. Lex shifted, pushing himself up against the pillows, and kept watching. Waiting him out.
"You didn't have to line everything with lead, you know." When Clark finally spoke, it came out low and rough, and there was no telling what Lex might be reading off his face. He didn't particularly care.
"What is it you need, Clark?" Lex asked him softly, and Clark almost said the word you. It was that voice. It had been so many years since Lex had used that voice with him, on him, and Lex's eyes were...not hard—not gentle, but not cold either.
Maybe this wouldn't have to turn ugly.
"There's a box," Clark replied. "You know the one."
"The one you've tried to steal six dozen times?" There was a subtle glint in Lex's eye along with the perpetual curiosity, but he didn't move from his languid sprawl. He lay propped against the pillows, the purple silk duvet draped low across his belly.
"Like I said, you know the one."
Clark's eyes were wet again, which meant— Lex's brain had already spun a hundred scenarios that would explain this moment, this completely surreal experience of waking up in the middle of the night to argue with one's former lover and current nemesis as he levitated above the bed. It didn't help that said lover/nemesis also happened to be the most powerful non-magical creature presently residing on the planet, or that something had possessed him to break in and demand the secret stash he'd entrusted to Lex over a decade before.
"Tell me, what happens if I say no?"
Clark flashed him a split-second glare. "Let's not find out."
"What happened?" he asked in as calm a voice as he could muster.
"Nothing you need to worry about," he snapped.
"Clark."
"Tell me where it is or I start pulling apart everything in this building that contains lead paneling." Clark was standing in midair now, arms folded across his chest. In his uniform it looked almost noble. In street clothes it looked thuggish and dark. Interesting. "Don't make me start counting."
As if he were a naughty five year old. "Don't patronize me, Clark."
"Five. Four. Three." It wasn't a slow count.
"The library," Lex said with a sigh. "I'll get it. There's no need to break the safe."
Lex slid out of bed, slipped into a robe, and led the way down the hallway to a spacious room lined floor to ceiling with books. A cabinet in the credenza behind the desk revealed a thick metal safe with a series of multi-phase locks. Lex turned dials and pressed keypads until the latch clicked open, and then he removed a gray metal box, set it on the desk, and waited.
"How do you want to do this?" Lex asked. His fingertips rested on the lid. They both knew Lex couldn't stop him if he simply chose to take it and run, but if he did so, there would be repercussions. Once upon a time, there had been a magical oath of binding sworn on this ugly chunk of lead, an oath sealed by the breach of Lex's hard-science philosophy and by the exposure of Clark's other Achilles' heel.
"Lex. Just give it to me."
"Are you invoking terms?"
"Damn it, this—"
"You stay here. You will not leave with the rock. If you leave with the rock, I call Batman, the Themysciran Embassy, the League, Zatanna. Whatever it takes."
"That was never part of the deal."
"It is now. And there are green kryptonite bullets now, too."
Clark glared, a faint reddish glow brightening his eyes.
"You can fry me to a crisp if you like, Clark, but one, they'll hunt you down for murdering a United States senator, and two, your secret identity and the details of our relationship will repeat on every major news channel every fifteen minutes for weeks. You'll never see another day's peace as long as you live."
Clark's eyes were plaintive. "I need it."
"For how long?" Lex asked and cut off Clark's protest. "I won't do it without a timeframe."
"A week."
"You're turning in your cape?"
"I need it."
"How about a day," Lex replied with a smirk, "and then we can renegotiate?"
A bitter laugh. More tears, absently wiped away on the back of his sleeve. Nothing more in the way of explanation.
"Terms," Lex repeated.
"Fine. Twenty-four hours. Then we'll renegotiate."
"Done." Lex opened the box.
The ring no longer fit Clark's third finger. It wouldn't slide over the second knuckle of his pinkie, either. "You've grown," Lex observed dryly. Clark rolled his eyes. Lex opened another lead-lined compartment of the box and removed a bracelet. A thick silver dollar-sized oblong of red stone was set on a shiny metal base and joined by a heavy chain. "It's titanium," Lex said.
Clark stared. "You had that made?"
"A very long time ago. Before I understood the stone's properties. And then it was never the right..." he broke off with a shrug. "It was too late."
Clark extended his wrist.
He hadn't felt much of anything from the touch of the ring against his pinkie. He was expecting the old shooting fire, but there was only a mild tingle. Maybe Lex saw the devastation in his face. It wasn't fair. It was good that he wasn't as vulnerable to green K as he used to be, but this—he needed this.
The bracelet was gorgeous. Lex was holding it lovingly, obviously remembering even while trying not to remember. 'Too late' had been something like fifteen years ago. The end had tapered and dragged, but it was before he'd gotten serious about Lois. God, Lois. She would kill him for this. Except...she wouldn't. She knew him. She wouldn't blame him at all.
Clark extended his wrist and whispered, "Fasten it."
The rush was instantaneous. The veins of his left arm burned and snaked like caustic ropes. It was through him in moments, and then the haze was on him. In him. Encompassing him.
He'd forgotten. How could he have forgotten?
Lex was watching him closely, because that was what he did. Lex was always watching, and right now he was unabashedly half-hard under his robe. Half-hard and beautiful and never, ever embarrassed of his body. He'd been known to conduct midnight corporate takeovers in the nude, stalking around his office, shouting at the speakerphone and the six people on conference call while his secretary rushed about with stacks of dossiers and earnings reports and Mercy or Hope stood dutifully at hand.
He knew Lex was waiting. Waiting to see what he was going do—if he was going to fuck the terms of the agreement and fly out the window, or take a step forward and fuck Lex through the floor.
Clark closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Books. Furniture polish. Lex. Soap. A hint of musk. It could've been twenty years ago, in the castle by the pool table or the little sitting room upstairs. It could've been—
Lois. Wouldn't blame him. She would even be glad of this. It was something she'd worried about—who would keep him grounded after. She never believed Bruce would be up to the task, and there, she had a point. A guy so unglued by his parents' murder that he dressed up as a bat and turned himself into an urban legend to scare off criminals? It was a joke. A sad, twisted joke.
His mind came back and discovered that his arms were wrapped around Lex, and found that to be vaguely interesting. Sensory discontinuity. Odd, but not bad. The robe was a thick pile of Egyptian cotton on the floor, behind them now because they were flying back to the bedroom. He was flying them, backwards, with Lex's weight pressing against him, more and more intimate.
Lex was bigger, felt different than before. Over the years, he'd put on muscle. A public relations thing, probably, to project the image of a mere mortal who could stand up to Superman. He was still smooth and lean as ever, though. Still perfect. The skin of Lex's neck tasted the same when he licked it. His ear fit between his teeth as well as it ever had, and Lex bucked slightly when he nibbled, just like it was fifteen years ago and none of this nightmare had ever happened.
The kiss, though, was different. Lex's mouth was harder, less giving. Clark cupped the back of his head and pushed deeper, licking against his tongue, tracing his teeth, sucking his resistant lower lip before Lex pulled away.
"Are you even going to ask me?" Lex said, eyes level, logical, watchful.
"Why? You already said yes."
"Ask me."
Clark laughed. "Relax, Senator. I know you're only doing this for the good of the country."
"Am I?"
"Don't piss me off, Lex."
"My mistake."
Clark purred deep in his chest. "Kiss me like you mean it."
Lex smirked and said, "For the good of the American people."
"Fuck you," Clark growled against his lips, and kissed him again. But Lex was with him this time, tongue moving, sliding into his mouth as his body slid up against Clark's own. Then the bed was against Clark's back and Lex's weight pressed down over him.
Lex eased back, straddling Clark's thighs, and unbuttoned first Clark's shirt, and then his jeans. A few seconds later, Clark was naked and pulling him back in for more. Clark's mouth was hot and needy. He hadn't seen Clark so needy since...since he'd come back from the dead and had to deal with four replacement Supermen and save the world, when all the guy wanted was to go home and screw his wife. In hindsight, Lex probably shouldn't have been such an ass about it, but things were different then.
No. No they weren't. This was. This was an aberration, not a reconciliation. This was desperation. Something catastrophic had happened and Clark wasn't talking. Lex had to find out what was going on.
He moved down Clark's body. Perfection. Golden, sun-warm, radiant as ever. He licked down Clark's belly, biting kisses next to his cock without touching it, watching muscles twitch and the heavy pink head bob up and down. Then Lex leaned lower, thoroughly kissing Clark's balls until Clark was shouting, "Suck me, goddammit!" and crying his name.
In the mirror over the dresser, Lex caught a glimpse of Mercy's reflection, coiled tight, ready to spring. He gave a tiny shake of his head and said to Clark's writhing body, "It's all right, I've got you." Then he closed his mouth over the head of his cock and slowly, slowly, went down.
When he pulled his nose out of Clark's curls and begun flicking his tongue at his slit, Mercy was gone.
Clark came so hard he floated up off the bed and shot much deeper down Lex's throat than he'd been prepared for. He might be a little hoarse tomorrow. Clark might be a little.... He was already curling up on his side, pulling the duvet up to his neck, crawling inside himself and falling asleep. Maybe it was the bracelet. Or maybe Clark was simply wiped out from whatever he'd been through that brought him here.
Lex watched him for a long moment. He could remove it. But that would be a violation of their terms, and he'd need a sizeable chunk of green kryptonite to disable Clark long enough for the cavalry to arrive. A more sizeable chunk than was immediately available within the confines of his bedroom...although knowing Mercy, a tactical remedy was already on standby.
After he felt confident that Clark's sleep was genuine, Lex found Mercy in his office engaged in a somber telephone conversation. Three cable news channels were on, all muted, offering graphic coverage of the war in Qurac. Footage of troops was interspersed with agitated reports from haggard field journalists, while polished anchors offered grave commentary from their news desks. Things were worse. Lex watched for a moment, and then watched Mercy's face as she listened impassively, making occasional notes, and finally said, "Yes, I understand. Thank you," and hung up.
"He didn't tell me anything, so give me everything you have."
"Lois Lane was confirmed dead a few hours ago." She paused to let that sink in. "It hasn't hit the media yet. The Army is sitting on it while they figure out what she was doing in the combat zone. Apparently she pissed off the CO assigned to the press corps and got herself sent to a supply company fifty miles from the action. And yet, somehow she ended up with a platoon of marines in an urban war zone. She took a large caliber, armor-piercing rifle round to the heart. Bled out almost instantly. Sniper picked off everyone but a Keystone City photojournalist named Beau Wright, who was partnered to her."
Lex shut his eyes and sank into a chair. He should've realized. Nothing less would've brought Clark to him like this.
"Superman was there," Mercy continued, and Lex's eyes snapped open. If he'd been there— "He arrived essentially in time to see her to die. He then left her body with the photographer and used his heat vision to decimate the Umeci insurgents in the area. The entire event occurred within a few seconds. At that point, he apparently realized what he had done and flew away."
Jesus. No wonder. Where else could he go? "What else?"
"Her body is in the morgue at the US Command Center in Qurac. They're keeping it all classified so far. No one wants this to become an international incident."
"They're certain that it was enemy fire that killed her?"
"Yes."
Lex let out a long breath and scrubbed his hands over his scalp. "Ok. Lois was a known friend of Superman's. He flew off the handle. It was a war zone, his 'dear friend' died in his arms—how many people did he roast?"
"About a dozen."
"Any civilians?"
"None reported. The area had been evacced for some time."
"Good." Lex frowned. "Are there witnesses? Is deniability an option?"
Mercy nodded. "Wright and the wounded soldier Lois was trying to rescue were the only survivors, although the soldier was in no shape to give a firsthand account."
"Get a bead on the photographer. Activate an agent and find out if the guy's a talker. If he is, create an accident. This stays classified."
"I'll handle it, sir, but with all due respect, I would suggest that you be with him when he wakes up."
Lex nodded. "Call and leave a sanitized message for the princess that he's safe and in seclusion. Don't let her trace it. Last thing we need is the League knocking down the damned door."
"Yes, sir. Also, while you were occupied, I took the liberty of moving the green box through the panel in the sitting room and into the third bureau drawer, strictly as a security measure. With the shielding, he should remain unaware of its presence."
"Thank you, Mercy. Get Hope to relieve you at dawn and get a nap in. This is going to be a long day."
He dreamed of blood. Gushing blood and long dark hair, stringy with oil, dust, and soot. Her eyes were violet and sad, and tears of blood streamed down her face, joined by wet, red lines from her nose and the corner of her mouth. He was crying, too, and his tears fell onto her lips, leaving muddy streaks in the dust. "I love you. I love you, don't leave me," he cried, clutching her to him. She didn't speak. She only wept more blood tears and died.
He woke up sobbing, and Lex was there, pulling him close, holding him tight.
After a while, he nuzzled Lex's face, nibbled down his neck and said, "Fuck me."
He wasn't numb. Not since Lex put the bracelet on him. He was a living nerve now. Everything felt amazing. Lex behind him, pushing in, rubbing against that spot on every thrust, leaning over him and wrapping his arms around his body as he fucked him, jacked him, and reminded him he was real.
That all this was real.
When it was over, Clark collapsed where he was, ignoring the wet spot. Enjoying the wet spot, because it was real. Lex disappeared into the bathroom to clean himself up, but was back in minutes, sprawling next to him, and waiting.
More of his damned waiting.
This wasn't what he wanted. The rock wasn't strong enough. Or maybe it didn't work like it used to (and really, when had it ever worked the same way twice?). Or maybe he was...different, now. When he was a teenager, it stripped his inhibitions and freed him to rebel, freed him to run. In his twenties, it seduced him with the power he had over people, when he'd otherwise felt so enslaved to the public's demands.
Right now he wanted it to be a balm to his grief, his guilt, his devastation. He wanted not to care about anything. He wanted to get lost in the feel of Lex's body against his, in the scent of their sweat, in the taste of their kisses. The world could go fuck itself. It was going to hell anyway. And without Lois....
He needed more. This chunk of rock was a centimeter thick in the center and nearly four centimeters on its long side. Flipping it over to touch his skin directly didn't make any difference. He was high, he was horny, he was inclined to do things with Lex he hadn't done in over a decade. But he'd done this before. He'd run before. He knew better than this. His wife was dead, killed in the line of doing what she loved. And none of this was going to make it better.
Except for one thing. Lex was giving him this. He was slipping his fingers through Clark's—squeezing once and holding on.
They dozed for a while and Lex woke up with Clark's arm draped across his belly and his cock jutting into his hip. Lex kissed him without thinking about it, and then realized Clark was already awake, watching him. "How are you?" he asked, but Clark was shaking his head.
"Don't talk. Just don't."
Lex nodded, lay back, and kicked the covers off. Clark's hand skimmed down his chest, and Lex bent his knees up and spread himself open. Clark's fingers were wet and stretching him before his brain could process the movement, and it was—it was better than good. He rolled into it, fucking himself on Clark's fingers, getting everything he could out of it. He refused to entertain any illusions about the future.
Finally, Clark slicked himself, tilted Lex's hips up, and pushed, not stopping until he was all the way in. It felt just like it used to, like being impaled in the best way possible, and it made part of Lex want to babble out everything he'd missed, everything he'd longed for, everything wrapping his legs around Clark's hips made him remember.
But he didn't. He hissed the word "Yes!" when Clark pulled out, thrust in again, and began fucking him in earnest. Clark grunted, "Don't talk," so Lex bit his tongue and focused on moaning instead.
Lex came bucking, spattering his belly and Clark's chest, and Clark came a moment later, pulsing deep within him. It was exactly like it used to be. And that, that made it too much. It made it hell. Lex closed his eyes and didn't open them again until he heard Clark step into the bathroom and shut the door.
It wasn't cheating if your wife was dead. The thought barreled through his brain as he aimed the stream of urine into the immaculate porcelain bowl and remained on continuous repeat. He stood, staring at himself in the mirror. He looked like something out of one of his nightmares, and that made sense. More sense than cheating on a dead wife. Much more sense than having a dead wife in the first place.
He'd become something out of his nightmares. He was a monster. He'd killed people before he even realized he'd done it. Blind rage. Blinding rage. And the damned bracelet wasn't doing a thing to change what was real or make him stop caring.
He needed more.
His chest ached, and he traced the invisible line of the old scar with his fingers. In his head he heard Jor-El's voice echo, "Haven't you learned better than this by now?" And Lara's gentle counterpoint, "All the days of your life."
The first time he and Lois had had sex, he'd still technically been with Lex. Technically. And technical cheating was still cheating, even in a dead relationship. He'd cheated on his first love with his best love. Now it was the other way around.
He needed a shower. It wasn't cheating if your wife was dead. It couldn't be. He lathered and rinsed in time with the thought.
The strange thing was how it didn't surprise him to feel both raw and numb at the same time.
Lex used the guest bathroom to clean himself up, and then went down the hall to his office. Hope was at the desk now, poring over a stack of faxed documents with a large TOP SECRET stamped across the top. The news networks were still muted and the talking heads were interviewing their usual cadre of historians and retired generals.
"Good morning, sir," Hope said, beginning her briefing. "Tonight they're going to list Ms. Lane as a casualty, pending their ability to contact next of kin. Everything else remains classified, but there's no word yet from our man in the field." She paused and gestured to a clear plastic box on the corner of the desk. "I took the liberty of collecting a few items from Mr. Kent's apartment, including his sat phone. It may expedite the process."
"You unbelievable bitch!" Clark yelled from the doorway. "You broke into my home!"
"Mr. Kent, I brought you a change of clothes and some essentials," Hope answered in a voice of perfect calm. "I apologize for the intrusion and I'm also very sorry for your—"
"Don't," Clark snarled. "Don't say another word."
"Clark—" Lex began in that placating voice that drove him nuts.
"You hated her! You've always hated her!" Clark shouted, wheeling on him. "There is no way in hell I'm going to let you pretend otherwise."
"She made a career out of trying to ruin my life, Clark."
"Don't make excuses."
"I don't have to. She made it personal. You both did."
Clark glared in silence, clenching his enormous fists in an effort to maintain control, until his eyes fell back on the box. He dug through it, shooting angry looks at each of them in turn. "You don't get to rifle through our things!"
Lex replied in almost a whisper. "We had to get your phone, Clark."
"No." It came out in a strangled sob.
Lex put his arms around Clark's waist and held him. "Come on," he said a few minutes later, putting the box in Clark's hands and guiding him back to the bedroom.
The fucking rock didn't work anymore. All it did was make him raw. Raw and angry and unsettled and the only thing that felt right was Lex's body against him. Lex's arms holding him. Lex's lips kissing his tears away. Lex's hands smoothing back his hair and rubbing his back through the sobs.
He was hard again and he didn't want to be. He was horny as hell again and he didn't want to be. He wanted to fuck Lex through the wall, except for how he didn't. He couldn't go home. He couldn't go to the Watchtower. The last thing he wanted was a load of cloying sympathy. And J'onn would know he'd killed those men. The rebel soldiers. And facing Ma and Pa...no. It wasn't an option yet. Not yet.
Maybe the rock worked fine. Maybe it was what was keeping him here...in the arms of his nemesis. Maybe Lex would do them both a favor.
"When did you find out?" Clark asked quietly. They were back in bed, and he had Lex pulled over him like a blanket.
"After the first time you dozed off."
"How much do you know?"
"All of it, but it's classified and no one can corroborate the photojournalist's account of what he saw, so you're safe."
"I'm a murderer." Clark's voice was hollow.
"I'd call it manslaughter, at worst. They were terrorists. They hate you, they hate everything America stands for, and they killed your wife. No one would blame you for anything if they knew, and they're not going to know."
Clark didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. "Remember when you tried to hire me all those years ago? You were a real asshole."
"Sorry," he answered, not even trying to sound convincing.
"I hate them."
"I know."
"It feels good."
"I know."
"Suck me off again."
"All right," Lex said, moving down and swallowing him in.
Sometime later, after he'd fucked Clark a second time and they'd demolished breakfast, just like they'd done years ago, Lex laid Clark's phone on the table between them and said, "Please."
"I'm not ready to deal with this yet."
"You don't have to. Just answer the notification call, hear them out, and I'll take care of the rest."
"The rest?"
"The initial press release, the private service, the public memorial, no doubt the Planet will do something, as well..."
"God, I can't face Perry right now." Clark was weeping again, and as before, seemed unaware of it.
"You're in seclusion. You can stay in seclusion until the funeral and for as long as you want afterwards."
Clark looked up at him, blinking. It was an odd look, as if he'd just realized something. A moment later, he turned on the phone, and after a few seconds it began to ring. "Kent," he answered. "Yes. No, I've been traveling. Yes. Yes. How? I see." His voice broke. "I understand. At this number. Yes, thank you."
Lex sat, watching and feeling helpless. Then Clark put the phone down. "Put this back in the box," he said, placing the bracelet in Lex's hand. "Please."
"You're sure?" Lex bit down hard on his disappointment. Foolish to let himself feel. Foolish.
Tears were flowing openly, and now Clark seemed very aware of them. "Could you do it now? I'll wait."
"You'll wait."
"Yes."
Lex returned the bracelet to the lead-lined box in the lead-lined safe behind the lead-lined panel in the cherry credenza. When he returned to the kitchen, he found Clark waiting, dressed in the fresh slacks and pullover Hope had brought for him.
"I'm sorry," Clark said. His eyes were puffy and his voice thick.
"You don't have to leave," Lex blurted.
"What you said...you would take care of everything for me. And I appreciate that, but this is mine to do. I have to bring her home. I have to bury my wife."
"I know."
"Thank you."
He was about to get up from the table when Lex's hand touched his wrist, stopping him. Clark could see the worry in Lex's eyes, the years of repressed heartache. And it was almost the voice again. The only difference was the off-note of hesitation as Lex said, "Clark, why did you come to me?"
Answering that could take years. "The Fortress wouldn't unlock the samples for me. There's a failsafe if the AI thinks I'm too distressed."
"Whereas in my case...." It was too much to hope that Lex would drop it. The look in his eyes, though. That was—it was complete, naked honesty for once, and it deserved the same in return.
Clark took a deep breath and said, "In your case, you're a failsafe if I'm too distressed. You always have been," he added softly, "except when you're trying to kill me."
Lex nodded, pursed his lips, folded his hands on the table, and said, "For the record, I didn't hate her. Just her devotion to her job. And to you."
Clark swallowed and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came forth.
"And I was jealous," Lex murmured. "Probably insanely so."
He wondered what it had cost Lex to admit that. And yet, in so many ways, if he had made a clean break in the first place instead of— "I'm sorry I hurt you. I know it's ancient history, but...."
"Sometimes it seems like only yesterday." The tone of the whisper belied Lex's self-mocking smirk.
"I'm sorry," Clark repeated, swallowing around the lump in his throat.
Lex nodded. "I am, too."
They sat for a long moment before Clark finally got to his feet. "I need to go. There are preparations—"
"Anything you need," Lex said, rising. "Anything at all. My staff. Legal counsel. Privacy—"
"Thanks—"
"A place to stay—"
"Lex, I have to bury my wife now." Clark stopped and put his arms around him, and then said in a nervous mumble, "I don't know if I can do this without the rock."
"Do what?"
Clark leaned in and kissed him, slow and deep. Lex tasted like coffee and ancient history and water under the bridge. And that—it tore at him that this interruption of fifteen years of rage and anguish was a result of Lois' death. It wasn't right, and it was probably untrue, but that was something he would have to figure out when he wasn't standing grief-stricken in Senator Luthor's kitchen, making out with the radiant, naked, first love of his life. "Thank you," Clark whispered against Lex's ear. "For last night, for all of it. A huge part of me wants to do it all again. I want to suck you. I want to do everything we used to, but I can't. I can't—"
Lex felt himself getting hard again, felt his dick rubbing against the soft twill of Clark's slacks. And before it was one thing, but now it was singularly inappropriate. He took a step back. He should probably get dressed.
"I'm sorry," Clark said again. "I shouldn't have used you. I have to take responsibility for my mistakes."
No, Clark wasn't getting away with this. "Last night wasn't a mistake."
"That isn't what I meant." His expression was clouded.
Lex frowned. "What exactly are you saying, then?"
"I committed an atrocity—" Clark began.
"You are not turning yourself in for war crimes!" Lex was instantly livid. It was so like Clark to let his guilt drive him into endangering the entire balance of the global political system.
"I killed those men."
"Clark, let me lay it out for you." Clothing or no, Lex was fully back in senator-mode. "One, you know what the penalty is for revealing classified information. Two, consider the harm to the world at large if you take yourself out of commission. How many people will die? It would be even worse now than it was after you died."
Lex stopped and aimed him a pointed stare. "Three, the League is sanctioned by the UN. So is the war. Ergo, you're essentially a military power unto yourself, and from a legal point of view, your actions were those of a UN-sanctioned reinforcement coming to the aid of civilians assigned to follow US troops."
"I'm not sanctioned for acts of war, Lex, and we both know this had absolutely nothing to do with politics. Someone killed Lois, so I killed the first people I saw."
"Stop and think about the implications," he retorted. "Leaking classified information pertaining to military action during wartime is an act of treason. No meta-containment facility on Earth will hold you. A confession will neither bring back Lois nor the people who may have killed her, nor will it do anything to assuage your guilt or grief. Moreover, if you turn yourself in, you will destroy not only your reputation, but you'll bring down Lois and destroy the public trust in every cape-wearing do-gooder by association—and while this time yesterday I might have supported that idea, circumstances have clearly changed."
Lex paused for breath and watched Clark struggle to hold himself together. "This is where Lois would tell you to get over yourself and get to work on the larger problem...isn't it?"
Clark slumped back against the counter and scowled at the kitchen floor. "She would say that my best plan now would be to work toward making peace in Qurac a reality."
"That sounds like a worthy testament to her memory."
It was politician-speak, but on the other hand, Lex had no reason to say anything nice about her at all. After a long moment, Clark swallowed hard and nodded. "I hate this."
Lex closed the distance, leaning on the counter next to him. "It won't be easy, but I'll do everything in my power to help you."
"Thanks," Clark whispered, and then bent to kiss him again, sliding his hands down Lex's bare back to his ass and back up to his shoulders. He knew he shouldn't, but Lex's skin felt so good under his hands.
That didn't make it right, though. And in that, it was just like the beginning with Lois, all those years ago.
Lex held him tightly. "Anything you need. Anytime. Anywhere."
A worried look crept across Clark's face, and it was a long moment before he replied. "We'll see."
"Smallville, you're being an idiot." Lois sat in the deep rectangular window seat across from the couch painting her toenails. She cut him off before he could voice his protest. "Don't give me that. I'm sick of hearing about your guilt. You were upset, they were attacking, I was dead, for pete's sake. There's a point when you have to forgive yourself."
"When there's peace in Qurac."
"There's never going to be peace in Qurac, Clark. Not until the entire global economy changes. It's time for you to get on the fast track to getting past this."
"Sorry," he mumbled.
"Stop being sorry. Isn't that what Lex keeps saying?"
He groaned. "Yeah..."
She finished her other foot and capped the bottle of polish. It was an odd, opalescent silver. She looked at him, eyes level. "It's been more than a year now."
He shook his head. "It still seems like—"
"You never stopped loving him, even when he was trying to kill us all."
And what if he hadn't? What if he couldn't help it? "You and he are the two biggest influences on my life."
"You're missing the point," she said, getting up and crossing the room.
"No. I used him."
"You were blind with grief and you needed to be held by someone who really knew you. He never blamed you."
Clark shut his eyes. It wasn't that simple. Nothing with Lex was ever that simple.
"It is that simple. He's working for the good guys now. He's waiting for you to be ready. I know you've forgiven him. You're always good for second chances."
"Forgiven, pretty much. I haven't forgotten, though."
"It's not about forgetting. You have to forgive yourself. If you can forgive him, you can forgive you." She was sitting on his lap now, kissing his lips softly. "You have to get past this."
"I miss you so much," he said against her hair, and breathed in the lingering scent of her favorite shampoo.
"I know, I get it. But it's not supposed to stop you from living your life."
"But—"
"No buts. Invite him to lunch. Tell him you want to try again. Let him make you happy. He wants you to. I want you to. And call it a miracle, but this is something he and I actually agree on."
"But—"
"I said no buts. I can't stand to see you let your life pass you by like this. When you see him, tell him I said thanks for the endowment to the journalism school. What I'd like even better is for him to push through the Lois Lane Memorial Freedom of the Press Act."
"The Lane Act?" Clark smirked up at her, which earned him a prompt jab in the ribs.
"I deserve a last by-line. So, tell him. At lunch. Today."
"The League is going to throw a fit."
"The League can take a pill. Let yourself be happy, Clark. I mean it."
"Lois—"
"I love you and I always will, but you can't keep living in the past like this. Now get ready to wake up," she said, floating to her feet. "You're going to be late for work."
"Lois, wait—"
Her fingers traced a cool path down his cheek. "Let yourself love again, Smallville. It's time."
And then the alarm clock cut through the end of the dream, and Clark awoke.