12/12/01
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers for Jitters
Feedback keeps your palms from getting hairy: janestclair15@hotmail.com

Disclaimer: Smallville folk belong to the WB. The story is so mine.

Sex disclaimer: Never ever have I ever done it on the balcony in winter, barely insulated from the snow around us by the single blanket we laid down.

Sex disclaimer 2: Messiness.

Thanks to Te, who teased me through it, and to Spike, who betaed.

Folk who know their James Joyce may take the title as a warning.
 
 

Insects
by Jane St Clair

Lex has bruises. From falling. From being hit. From Clark's grin when he pulled him up. They show far too vividly under his skin.

He didn't get to see them for hours. The plant was having its own kind of trauma, unique to corporate bodies and somehow a lot like a small child having hysterics. And Lionel stayed. For the cameras first, Lex thinks. Later because he was watching.

And at some point he must have waved his pilot off, because the air vibrated hard for the few minutes it took the helicopter to leave, but Lionel was still there, just over his shoulder. Hours after it was dark, Lex had to drive them both home, and still Lionel didn't say anything. Just watched him, very calmly, and shimmered in Lex's peripheral vision every time the air coming over the convertible's windshield whipped his hair.

At the door, at least, Lex could shake the man off.

He strips off his shirt as soon as he shuts one more door behind him, but keeps his dress pants on. Pours himself a drink and collapses into a chair. Sprawled. Shaking where nobody can see him.

He forgot that you don't shut doors against Lionel.

He looks up from where his chin was almost comfortably resting against his chest and his father's there, glaring at him. Fully dressed, huge and shaggy and fierce. Hands in his pockets, the way that Lex knows has nothing to do with being casual. It makes him loom.

One big hand snaps out and catches Lex's wrist, hauls him to his feet. His drink spills. And his knees still aren't strong enough to hold him, quite. He keeps staggering, trying to get his balance. Like when he was a kid and not walking fast enough.

It's not the sort of performance that's likely to make Lionel relent. Not that anything is.

Lex finally has to lay his hand on his father's wrist to steady himself. Pull himself up with both hands. This instant where he's clinging before he can pull away.

Lionel ... throws him. Before Lex is quite loose, so that the arm coming up makes him stagger again. Nothing that actually physically hurts him, but still. He hasn't got a hope of fighting, physically or mentally, as long as he can't find his feet.

He wonders, briefly, if Lionel actually wants him on his knees.

The chair hits Lex at knee-level, and he lets himself slide down into it. Sit in Lionel's presence. Why not? It's the sort of gesture that's guaranteed to piss him off, and it'll give Lex a minute to get his head together.

Except that Lionel's decided, apparently, that down low is as good a place for Lex to be as any. Leaves him to sit, prowls around behind him. Vulnerable back of his neck that he's too aware of, exposed.

"Those are ugly bruises." It's Lionel's business voice. Never quite personally involved in whatever disaster's befallen them. Just ... observing.

Lex nods.

"You do realize that what you did was profoundly stupid." Not a question. Lionel's lessons are always learned before they're explained.

"I would have been fine," Lex says. "If I'd had the information I needed." Doesn't look up. What he really wants to do right now is hold his forehead together with both hands until Lionel's finished, and then drink until the worst burn's gone out of the bruises.

"And without that information, you went in anyway. Which meant that you had no options at all."

Lionel bends over the back of the chair. He's tall enough to be able to do it. His breath hits the bruises on Lex's back.

One finger touches the base of his skull.

"Bang. You're dead."

Lex flinches.

"You're dead for nobody. For a disgruntled janitor and a pack of nothing schoolchildren." Hot breath on his back. Lex can look his father in the eye when they're both standing; Lionel shouldn't be tall enough to be this close to him.

There are things Lex isn't good at. He can't fight, physically, unless he's got an epee in his hand. He can't repair his own car. And he can't snarl at Lionel to his face. But he can't stay like this.

He can move. He's across the room before the pain in his back has time to scream at him. Picks his shirt off the chair he draped it over and resists the urge to hold it to his chest.

Turns in the doorway. Lionel's standing upright, beside the chair rather than behind it, and Lex wonders if that's where he was all the time.

Something about Lionel screaming pure, don't you dare walk away from me.

Lex is good at defiance. Especially when he's out of reach.

He's most of the way down the hall by the time Lionel catches him again.

Big hands clamp on his shoulders, push him into the wall. Not even a jostle about it. Just pure, concentrated force driving him forward, holding him in place with his face hard against the panelling.

No breath to it. No warmth. Lionel's got him effectively at arm's length, and immobilized.

What Lionel wants is a reaction. Lex can make sure he doesn't get it, at least. All he has to do is shut down. Close his eyes, breathe, slide into the ache he's got going all over. One of the few things that he knows about horses, that they've got the ability to shut their minds down if a predator's ripping into them before they're dead.

He doesn't have to respond. Not while he's crushed against the wood and not when Lionel takes him by the naked scruff of the neck and drags him down the hall. Throws him, casually, through a door and onto the hand-knotted Iranian carpet. Onto his knees.

Back against more heavy wood. There's another blow to the back of his skull. One more and his eyes won't focus for a week. They almost won't focus now. He has to force them open, and even then, he can't see much except Lionel's pant legs.

Heavy, dark furniture, dark wood, open curtains. This is Lex's bedroom, to the extent that it's anyone's. It's as impersonal as a very expensive hotel room, and less fun than the one he stayed in the last time he was in Las Vegas. The bed's behind him, the frame of it digging into his naked back.

He could just stay here. Especially if it turns out he does have a concussion. Just crouch until he falls asleep, sleep until he falls into a coma. Lie in a coma until Lionel manages to feel guilty about it. Which might take, oh, several decades, but possibly on his deathbed, a little regret for the son. Ultimate triumph of passive aggression over Type A, Alpha Male directness.

Lionel's fingers clamp onto his skull. No fumbling, no random abuse. Just holding his head. Hauling him up by it, until he's standing on his knees, eye to belt with the man in front of him.

He could win this. All he has to do is be more Lionel than Lionel.

Not quite perfect. His focus is a bit off, and he fumbles once before he catches the hidden zipper in front of him. The fingers on the back of his head tighten.

Even Lionel wouldn't do this.

Can't bluff, then.

He's not hard. Lex doesn't think he'd be able to do this if Lionel was. But he's. Interested. Adrenaline high, or the power rush, maybe just the energy he gets out of a good fight.

Breathe for a second before he reaches in, finds the flesh he's looking for and closes his fingers around it. Rough hair that he can almost feel the grey in. Warm, unreasonably soft skin, edge of the circumcision scar under his fingertips. Still moment with his hand thrust into the silk mouth of Lionel's -- god, his father's -- underwear, with Lionel clamped to him and growling softly above him. And then draws it out. Rising slightly from the touch, up toward Lex's face.

Just open his mouth.

It's. Well, it's sick. And possibly to his credit, Lex knows that. But he gets this shudder out of Lionel. Some kind of admission that whatever the man expected him to do, it wasn't this.

In his mouth. Male flesh, and that alone isn't new. Boarding school is all kinds of an interesting education, and probably a major reason that his kind will be first against the wall when the revolution comes. But the smell's just this side of familiar, something not quite like himself, and a bit too much like the few times when he was really small and he came barrelling into his parents room at dawn and leapt into their bed between them.

Unhealthy thoughts.

Just sucks. Lionel's pants just barely open, Lex's hands down by his sides. Eyes firmly closed.

And Lionel groans.

Perfect fingernails gouge Lex's scalp for one perfect instant. It's enough to make him suck harder, pay more attention. Make sure Lionel doesn't get control back. Tongues his way across the underside, tilts his head enough to take it farther in. Swallows.

Lionel grunts. Stills for a second.

Lex swallows again. And Lionel clamps a hand around the back of Lex's skull, holds him in place, and fucks him. Down his throat, convulsively, maybe six times. Nails deep in his skin. Hisses, "Jesus Christ," and comes.

One of those moments when he has to be up fast. Lex jerks his head away and rolls to his feet as gracefully as he can. Wipes his mouth once he's upright and eye to eye with Lionel.

Manages to stay there until Lionel steps back. Just far enough to get a clear view of Lex's face, but still. He's given up ground. And he's pale. Just about white under his beard, enough that Lex can see who he got his skin tone from.

All he has to do is smile.

Snake his tongue out and clean his lips.

Hold his ground. Lionel isn't going to touch him again tonight.

Lex doesn't even sway while Lionel zips his pants. He manages to meet the glare he gets without letting his smile crack.

Just stands there until Lionel pulls himself together and walks out. Furious and masculine and in full retreat.

Once he's gone, Lex can let his knees give and fall back onto the bed. Lie there for a second with his breath coming in bursts that're almost laughter before he gets up and pads to the bathroom. Rinses his mouth out, throws aftershave onto his throat and chest, hisses where it hits broken skin.

Still looking in the mirror at the blood pooling under his skin. He bends down absently and licks at one of the marks on his arm. Alcohol and salt.

And because it's part of the night's ritual, he goes downstairs to check the locks. He's enjoying the absence of servants. He has someone in often enough that he's not living in his own squalor, yet, and maybe that's enough. He doesn't need that constant human presence.

Lionel's coat is gone, and Lex's jaguar keys are missing. There's no note. He'll get the keys back in a day or two, held out by some anonymous driver. Someone will have re-detailed the car for him.

He locks the door. Lex is, if nothing else, master of the house, keeper of keys and locks and other disturbingly Freudian imagery.

Halfway up the stairs when the door knocks. Of its own accord, without car engine to announce its noise or appropriate lights or sirens.

Lex doesn't really consider being out. Part of him's screaming for company, even if it's the midnight journalists.

Though of course it isn't. It's Clark. His hand's still half-raised for the next knock when Lex opens the door. The way he's mussed suggests that he's spent the last several hours being very thoroughly loved by his parents.

Lex lets him in, giving him the same smile he gave Lionel, if only to compare reactions. Clark smiles back, nervously, like he wonders what, exactly, Lex is grinning at.

"Lex, how ... I. Can I come in?"

Lex lets the grin slide into something closer to a real one. "Always."

He doesn't really move out of the way, though, and Clark has to actually touch him to slide past. Lex wonders how much Clark can smell on him. Clark's staying close, in spite of the sheer size of the foyer, and he keeps almost reaching out.

"You look awful."

Lex winces, tries not to laugh. "Comments like that are why you never get the girl."

Clark blushes. "Sorry."

"No, it's true." Hard to miss the bruises that he doesn't seem to be able to get a shirt over, and the tiny crescent marks on his head are the sort of thing that make him understand the usefulness of hair, other than as a brain warmer.

"I just ..." big-shouldered shrug "wanted to see if you were okay."

Lex holds out his arms. Voila. It isn't really any kind of an answer, but Clark apparently takes it as some kind of arcane invitation. Suddenly in Lex's personal space, looking him over. Then grinning from really close up. "You look awful."

"You said that already."

"It's still true."

Flash of heavy, dark eyelashes while Clark works on his perfect, farm boy blush. Little smile that comes out of it, and a half-step closer. He looks at Lex from too close up. A minute or so passes in which Lex actually believes that Clark would have the nerve to kiss him before the space between them widens by a couple of inches and Clark reaches across it.

Hand on his cheek. Big, obviously male. At least a glove size bigger than his own, and rougher than any Luthor's hand has ever been. And yet. Something.

Lex flinches. Just the smallest bit, barely enough to shake Clark off.

Clark drops his hand like Lex burned it. "Sorry."

"Don't be."

"I'll go."

Sigh. "Clark."

"I just."

"I'm fine. It was a bad day, but neither of us is dead." It's not even that hard to stretch a hand out and lay it on Clark's shoulder. Pull him in and hug him hard. Clark feeds on human contact; he's fairly sure of that. He was the kid everybody cuddled.

He hangs onto Lex now like he's a comfortable animal. Something that Clark might haul off to bed with him, to lie just under the covers and be touched occasionally in the night.

Clark's fingers spread out on Lex's scalp. Just this kind of faint massage, reaching up from behind where both Clark's arms are around his neck. Nose behind his ear, and one long, deep breath before Clark pulls back. And even then he's still close. Still holding onto Lex, still looking very seriously at him.

Faint brush of a kiss against his cheek.

And Clark goes. Smiles shyly over his shoulder while he walks out, shuts the door behind him like a boy whose parents took the time to teach him good manners.

Afterwards, Lex can still smell him. Warm, adolescent body, whatever he scrubbed down with in the shower, and faint sweat. It's not on any of Lex's clothes, but it's on his skin. It's there through the fresh drink Lex pours for himself. Just barely lingering by the time he strips the rest of the way down and goes to bed, but still detectable if he concentrates.

Just about able to taste him in the bruise Lex mouths at during the night.
 
 

 
 

jane
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