Author: Jules
Author Email: iwan2kno@ufl.edu
Author Webpage: http://livejournal.com/users/gjstruthseeker
Category: Angst, Drama
Spoilers For:
Rating: R
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Summary: Lex musings. For Livia's Ray Bradbury title challenge
Feedback is part of a complete breakfast. iwan2kno@ufl.edu
Long After Midnight
by Jules
Long after he's gone and that side of the bed had cooled again, Lex stirs. Roused by an errant breeze from the thrown windows, he opens his eyes to the first hints of dawn playing across his bared chest.
Lex hasn't slept well in weeks.
The plant belonged to him and Smallville now, inextricably bound. Endless paperwork, eighteen-hour days and more than enough shady funneling of capital for his father to either flay him alive or congratulate his resourcefulness. But business has been in Lex's blood even before Princeton or Yale, and the state maps printed this coming year would recognize that.
Then there was Clark.
Ironically, he now constituted Lex's anchor to reality. A too-hot night turning simmer up that precarious notch to boiling over and he'd just done it. Reached across the perpetually electric space between them, Kansas humidity making it snap-crackle and kissed Lex. Breathed life into him as surely as he had on that riverbank seemingly a world away.
That first night still shimmered through Lex vividly when he conjured it. Nearly begging Clark off his knees in the field, tables turning once Lex got them upstairs and introduced to the more exotic contents of his nightstand drawer. The slow, thorough exploration of skin and sense nothing Lex could previously recall, the languid fuck equally novel to both of them.
Clark told him secrets in the afterglow, but Lex had long learned better than to ask questions. Listened because Clark seemed to need for him to know, had stroked his silky raven hair through tearful confessions and believed without the proof he would help bury.
There's been a beauty to Clark's subsequent eagerness, a perverse little thrill from reveling in the petals of innocence they took turns peeling away. More and rawer each time and Clark never hesitated. Cuffs, leather, everything Lex wanted and anything he improvised. Always willing. Trusting.
Never in the light though.
During the sun's merciless reign over the world's affairs they were manager and dutiful son, working to keep nosy parents at bay and living by the eleventh hour.
The irony there doesn't escape him either.
Lex stretches, nearly reaching the footboard and squints against the intruding rays.
Clark always got back to the manor first. Sometimes running bubble baths in the jacuzzi, others waiting with some formality seduction food, maybe strawberries or just the chocolate sauce. Vice? Guilty pleasure? What are we going to do tonight, Lex?
So fucking *trusting.*
He might well love Clark more than his post-coital declarations let on.
Probably sleep better, too.
It's always darkest at the event horizon. And really, what's a black hole when you've defied death?
Lex rolls over and buries his face in the ebbed tide of sheets and pillows. The fine stitching only preserves his scent, their mingled sweat and musk.
Lex loves to tread the water of their memories. Lives for the hours long after midnight, when nothing exists save them and time itself bows graciously to allow their brief, hard-won peace.
### The End ###