Inseparable (4/6)
Dec. 24th, 2007 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bagheera_sanTitle: Inseparable (4/6)
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Clex. Mentions of past Clana and Lexana.
Genre: Action-adventure futurefic with a helping of crack & romance - the usual.
Length: 43845 words
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
plnunn's Doujinshi Challenge. Cover #6 . Many thanks to my beta danceswithgary, who found the time for this even in this busy time of year :)
Summary: Powerless, handcuffed to his evil nemesis and running for his life from mutant Antarctic Indians - worse things have happened to Clark Kent. Maybe.
Previous part HERE
Interlude
"Um, unless Superman has started wearing a miniskirt, that's not him," Jimmy commented, and then broke into a grin. One of these days, Lois was going to tell Kara Kent that her boyfriend had a major hard-on for Supergirl, but not today.
"As long as the miniskirt belongs to a Kryptonian, I'm not picky," she said, crossing her arms impatiently as the figure remained aloft for a moment before descending. Next to them, Mercy's hands were twitching dangerously in the direction of her gun.
Jimmy turned off his signal watch just as Supergirl's red boots touched Lemurian soil. "Wow," he said. "Either that thing has an awesome range, or you have phenomenal ears!"
She gave him a smile, and then turned towards Lois and Mercy, frowning with that eternally pretty and young face. Even a flight across the arctic desert hadn't ruffled the perfect blonde curls. "Where's Clark?" she asked without preamble.
"Clark?" the three of them asked in unison. Lois narrowed her eyes. "You figured that out mighty quickly!"
Supergirl's blue eyes widened. She was beginning to look frantic. "Figured out what? Why isn't he with you? Why did you call me?"
Woah. Was there something going on between Kent and Supergirl? Lois gaped. Mercy Graves, however, didn't care.
"Mr. Kent is missing. And so is Mr. Luthor. We called for Superman. Where is he?" She glared at Jimmy's signal watch as if the thing could be blamed.
Supergirl brushed her hair back behind her ears, and chewed on her lower lip. It made her look like someone's dirty schoolgirl fantasy, and Lois wasn't particularly patient when it came to that. Who the hell wore a miniskirt into combat?
"Oh, no," Supergirl said.
"What do you mean, 'oh, no?'" Lois crossed her arms.
"Superman is… away." Supergirl flashed a nervous smile. "Far, far away...like…on another planet. So he can't come and rescue Clark, but I'm here, so don't worry!"
Lois raised her brows. So did Mercy. Jimmy just smiled like a lovesick puppy.
"Call him back to Earth," Mercy demanded. "We need Superman."
Frowning, Lois turned around to face Mercy. Something had just occurred to her. "What, exactly, do we need Superman for?" she asked menacingly.
"The Lemurians want him dead," Mercy replied, perfectly honest. "If they get him, they'll release Lex. And he will come, won't he? I've studied his modus operandi. The alien wouldn't let a human die."
Before Lois could strangle her, Supergirl had balled her fists and jumped into the air. "I'm going to show them! Who do they think they are?" she yelled, loud enough to make them cover their ears. A shout came from the other end of the airfield, and two Lemurians came hurrying closer. They were brandishing golden spears.
"You think you can threaten me?" Supergirl spat at them, and with a red flash of her eyes, melted the spears to puddles of golden liquid. The Lemurians screamed and threw their hands up in the air, backing away with horrified expressions.
"No, no, no!" one of them kept babbling. "Please, no!"
Mercy cocked her head at the display. "Supergirl," she called.
The Kryptonian turned in the air with a menacing glower. Her cape snapped in the wind like a lash. Mercy opened her suitcase and pulled out a folder, holding it up in the air.
"Maps of Lemuria," she said. "I've marked all the likely places where they could have taken him. Don't let them get close, they have kryptonite."
Four
Why couldn't Clark have been stranded in the wilderness with someone nice? Chloe, or Bart, or Vic – all easy to get along with and totally sexual-tension-free people. Sure, Bart would probably get on his nerves, and Vic would have short-circuited as soon as they fell into the water, and Chloe would squeal every time they saw one of the giant, icky spiders that were everywhere (Lex didn't like them either, Clark could tell, but Luthors didn't squeal, they just gritted their teeth and pretended to be fine) but none of them would be a complete and utter bastard about it.
Even Chloe would have made bathing less awkward. Sure, there probably would have been some embarrassing moments requiring some nervous banter to mask the fact that she was attracted to him, and that he knew, and that she knew that he knew...but then they would have laughed about it afterwards.
Besides, Chloe didn't stare at Clark as if he was up for sale. What the heck was up with Lex? He'd given Clark plenty of stares like that – back when Clark had been fifteen, and Lex had been an open book to read compared to now. Was it the secrets that made Lex so intense, or was it simply Lex's hatred for Superman? Yeah, that was probably it. Being chained to someone who didn't hate Clark's guts would have been easier.
He'd decided not to return to the subject of Superman for the moment, because how was he supposed to make peace with Lex when Lex made every effort to prevent it by being a total jerk? Right now, he was trying to make Clark eat grubs.
"I'm not eating that. It's still moving."
Lex held the squirming grub between thumb and index finger of his unbound hand.
"Never had ikizukuri?" he asked in a mocking drawl. Clark's discomfort seemed to have cheered him up immensely – for Lex's standards of cheer.
"Icky what?" Clark asked suspiciously. He didn't think he wanted to know.
"Some Japanese and Korean restaurants serve their sashimi alive. The octopi are gutted and sliced, then eaten with their heart still beating."
Clark stared, aghast. "You've eaten that?" He drew the line at rare steaks, how could anyone possibly eat something like that? No wonder Lex didn't have much problem with torturing people when it served his purpose.
Lex gave a small, humorless laugh. "Business trip to Japan with my Dad when I was ten, and fresh from the hospital after the meteor shower – he thought I needed toughening up."
Clark grimaced, and felt a little guilty for his false assumptions about Lex's culinary habits. Reminders of Lionel usually worked to make him feel sorry for Lex. It just wasn't easy blaming Lex for anything when you knew what kind of childhood he'd had. And a mention of the meteor shower on top – well, face it, Lex was probably trying to make him feel guilty, and it had worked just perfectly. Clark gave a weary sigh.
He tried to think of something to say. Back when they'd been friends, Clark had usually replied along the lines of "your dad is a bastard, Lex," and Lex would have answered some version of "he only has my best interests in mind," with that bitter twist to his mouth and that tone like he actually half believed what he was saying. But Clark had accused Lex of being worse than his father too many times in the intervening years, so a response like that no longer seemed appropriate.
"My biological father once branded me," Clark burst out, staring at the wiggling insect larva. "So I'd stop resisting him and rule the world like I was meant to."
The instant that Lex's expression froze into a blank mask, Clark knew that his attempt to lighten the mood had gone seriously wrong. Oh, damn it. Of course. Alien invasions were Lex's favorite scare story. Hardly an interview passed in which he didn't accuse Superman of heading one.
"Go on, Clark," Lex prompted, and his hand moved a tiny bit towards his belt, where he still kept the dagger. Clark felt the cut in his palm throb painfully in response. It still was wrapped in the strip of fabric of his shirt, and hadn't healed like all his other bruises -- a painful reminder of what that dagger could do to him.
"Lex, that was when I was sixteen. The same summer you got stranded on the island. I didn't want to do as my biological father insisted, so he branded me. Then I blew up the spaceship and ran away."
Lex seemed to consider that, but it was impossible to tell whether he believed it. "You never related that little anecdote to the press."
Rolling his eyes, Clark answered, "I wonder why. It's not a particularly bright chapter of my teenage years, Lex. You keep pretty quiet about those, too."
"But you don't deny that you were sent to conquer Earth?"
"When have I ever given you the impression that I wanted to rule the world? I was sent to do it, and I could with my powers, but I don't want to. All I want is to help people and live my life in peace. Is that so hard to imagine?"
Lex's eyes were bright with smoldering questions and convictions, and perhaps even a sliver of hope, a dangerous cocktail of doubt. Clark didn't know what more to say, and frankly, he didn't think he was the only one who needed to explain himself and his actions.
It was a lucky coincidence, nothing else, that he looked away from Lex then, unable to hold that stare, and spotted the glint of sunlight on a golden spear. "Down!" Clark yelled and threw himself to the ground behind a broad tree, taking Lex with him.
His hands thudded against the leaf-padded ground and, in the next second, the dirt where they had been standing splashed up into the air as an electric bolt from the spear weapon hit it. Clark risked a glance around the tree, and spotted a tall, teak-skinned woman crouched low and approaching them, her hair tied back in braids and her grin bright-white in a face dark with swirling tattoos. She talked to them in a low, mocking voice, obviously quite confident that they'd be easy prey. Considering the weapon she wielded, that wasn't an unfounded assumption.
"What's she saying?" Clark asked, but Lex shook his head; he didn't know.
They got to their feet, slowly inching around the tree, always keeping it between them and the huntress. Clark winced – they had stepped into an ant trail going from the ground up into the tree, and angry driver ants were biting his ankle viciously. He twitched, dancing a little to the side, grimacing. They were crawling up his pants.
Lex raised his hands, gesturing Clark to stop, and slowly bent low, his hand hovering over the ant-covered ground. The huntress called something, closer now. And then it all went lightning fast. Lex grabbed a handful of dirt and ants, lunged forward, and threw it at her face. She screamed in pain and surprise, clawing at the biting insects and brushing them away frantically, letting go of her spear weapon. Clark went for it, seizing the warm golden metal while Lex tried to wrestle the woman in one-handed combat to the ground – one of his was cuffed to Clark, and one of hers was still fighting the ants biting her face and stinging her eyes with acid.
Clark had the spear and tried to find the mechanism that made it fire the electric bolts - it had to be there somewhere – and found a small indentation among the ornaments, just the size of a thumb. Clark glanced around wildly and up into the foliage above their heads; maybe he could shoot down a branch to knock the Lemurian out or something.
Lex suddenly went still, and looking to see what was going on, Clark recoiled. The huntress had pulled a long knife from a sheath at her thigh and was swinging it backwards in a wide arc, aimed at Lex's jugular.
There was barely a split second to decide. Clark's thumb hit the groove on the spear, and at the same time, he wondered if it was right to kill her, if it was self-defense, if it made him a murderer –
The crackling lightning coiled around her like snakes for a second, racing up her arm and sparking at the wicked blade, and she sagged to the ground in a limp heap, a few last spasms shaking her dead body.
Clark let the spear slide out of his hand and turned away. The cuffs tugged at his right arm as Lex bent down, quick and efficient as a soldier to search her still-warm corpse.
He had killed before, accidentally, and in defense of innocents. Monsters, but also men and women. And men and women who were monsters, too. It was quite possible that she had been innocent, though.
"Clark, what's the matter?"
"I killed her," Clark breathed, his hands clenched to fists. He couldn't look at Lex – he'd be relieved to see him alive, selfishly glad to have killed for him, and it wasn't fair, or just, or right, that he felt this way.
"The spears merely stun, Clark," Lex said slowly. ".All you did was save my life."
Clark was kneeling next to him in an instant, checking the woman's pulse. It was beating a bit erratically, but she was alive and breathing, her skin warm. He noticed she was dressed similarly to the people in the temple and in Hokiha, although her woven garments were much less ornate and colorful. The knife was old and well-used, the wooden grip looked smooth as plastic.
He sat back, expelling a relieved breath and swallowing down the horror. Oh, thank God.
"I didn't think you'd kill to save my life," Lex said, eying Clark strangely. "She isn't an enemy – just a hunter or a warrior out to secure her people's land, probably."
"Split-second decisions," Clark muttered, throwing the excuse Lex had given for saving Clark's life back at him.
Lex's lips twitched, a mirthless smile. "We all make mistakes. I know."
Clark's hands tightened on the woman's wrist. He stared at her slack fingers. He was glad she was alive. Really glad.
"It wasn't a mistake, Lex."
Lex cocked his head to the side. "A tactical decision? That's unlike you."
Was Lex being obtuse on purpose? "I don't want you to die."
The nod Lex gave him was merely a polite acknowledgement of the fact. Lex seemed to ignore entirely that Clark had just made a major admission. "She seems to have been alone, but we should decide what to do with her before she wakes up."
Clark felt like being obstinate. He wanted to discuss this, this thing between them, or rather; he wanted to yell at Lex for being a lying, bull-shitting… Luthor. But Lex's diversion was a good one. They really couldn't risk discovery. And he didn't like Lex's tone, the one that said: we have to consider all options. Even the ones that cross invisible lines.
"We're not going to hurt her."
Lex picked up the leather bag she had been carrying. "There's food in here and other useful things. We need to take this. And her spear weapon. It increases our survival chances ten-fold. We could take her with us – "
"We're not taking hostages, either."
"If we leave her here, there is a good chance that we'll be followed by her whole tribe in no time. On the other hand, it's possible that if we leave her alive, she'd consider it a debt to us – or a great insult."
"Then we'll just have to risk it. It's bad enough to take her stuff."
"Clark, please do me a favor and remember that you're powerless. You might be able to afford playing by different rules than the rest of us when you're an all-powerful demigod, but right now you're down where the nature of the game is survival."
Clark glared at him. "Is that what you tell yourself, Lex? That it's all about survival?"
Lex seemed unfazed. "Isn't it?" he asked, very seriously.
*
In the end, though, Lex let Clark have his way, and they left the unconscious woman behind, unharmed. It wasn't that Lex had been eager to kill her; he'd merely thought it would have been safer. Clark was surprisingly not very judgmental about Lex's suggestion that they kill her – most likely he was still too shocked from thinking that he had killed her himself. Pure reflex, surely. They took whatever useful things she had on her, and quickly continued their north-bound flight.
They now had a knife and the spear weapon besides the ritual dagger, a leather bag with dried meat, and another that contained a few shells, some dried herbs and salves, and a canteen of fresh water. On Clark's insistence, they'd left a piece of golden jewelry behind as payment.
The dried meat tasted smoky and old, but they both chewed ravenously on it as they walked, badly needing the salt. Lex warned Clark not too eat too much at once on their empty stomachs. As usual, Clark heeded the advice, trusting Lex in anything that hadn't to do with morals. The fight and the food seemed to throw Clark's mind back in gear, and he finally started asking the questions Lex had been waiting for practically since the Lemurians had dragged Clark into the temple.
"Say it's true that you didn't come here to turn the natives into fanatic Superman-haters," Clark began, obviously thinking hard, "then what in the world were you doing here, Lex? I knew you were ambitious, but I didn't know you were interested in godkinghood."
Lex gave him an incredulous look, but couldn't quite help the small laugh that escaped him at Clark's seriously disturbed expression.
"Would you believe me if I said I came here out of healthy curiosity?"
Clark wavered visibly, and then shrugged. "You're curious, yeah, but you usually have an ulterior motive."
There were of course several possible ways to meet those questions. The one Clark deserved was disdain and a bunch of outrageous lies. The problem was that while Clark was a terrible liar, he had a talent for ferreting out dishonesty in others – especially in Lex. That would probably lead to another highly unproductive argument. The second option was to come up with a proper cover-up, something Clark might not see through as long as they were chained together and had to depend on each other. The downside of that solution was that it limited what Lex could tell Clark about their situation without making him suspicious, as well as sharing some information with Clark that might well prove vital.
Lex decided to risk it. "A couple of months ago, I received a visitor who revealed that he was the representative of a heretofore unknown nation located in the Antarctic. He showed me certain geological and botanical samples and ,of course, their technology. That alone would have made me eager to learn more, but they issued an invitation to visit their country. They said that due to climate change and researchers encroaching on their territory, sooner or later dropping their secrecy would become unavoidable."
Clark gave him a suspicious glance. "That's all? It's the same story the U.N. representatives told us when they sent us here."
Lex smiled thinly. "No, you're right, that's not all. They also revealed to me that they had followed my research and claims about Superman – about Kryptonians in general – in the press. That's why they approached me first. You see, Clark, these people, like the Kawatche in Smallville, had contact with your people as far back as several hundred years. Other cultures might have encountered them even before that."
Clark didn't look entirely surprised, instead, his brow knit, and he nodded cautiously. "Neither Supergirl nor the… the crystals could ever tell me the full story behind that, but I know at least my father had been to Earth. And there were the stones of knowledge hidden in China…"
"And in Egypt," Lex nodded. "What did your people want on Earth?"
"I don't know," Clark said defensively.
"Then why are you keeping it from the press? Previous contact with alien civilizations – that's a rather big story."
Clark pushed a leafy branch away savagely, making the foliage swish through the air like a whip. "Because people like you would immediately start hunting for Kryptonian artifacts. The things can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong people."
"And you decide who the wrong people are?"
Clark glowered at him, and then spat, "Yes, I do. Supergirl and I are the last survivors our race, and that means this stuff belongs to us now. It's our responsibility to make sure more people don't get hurt by things like Brainiac."
"That'd be fair enough if you did a better job with it. Personally, I think it never hurts to be prepared to fight for ourselves even when humanity has its own guardian angels."
Clark trudged on in broody silence for a few more minutes, hacking away at the undergrowth with the knife. Finally he brought himself to ask, "So what's up with the Lemurians?"
"Your people seem to have brought kryptonite with them, or maybe another meteor shower happened back then. It's also possible that genetic experiments took place; in any case, they seem to have had a situation similar to Smallville at their hands, with an ever-growing population of mutants. These people probably weren't as powerless as the ordinary humans back then were and not as easy to handle. The Lemurian legends say that their founding fathers were promised a land to live apart from the rest of humanity, and the technology to stay hidden and prosper on their own. Most of the original Lemurians were from the Americas, but a few were from Asia and other sites of contact. But their legends also said that one day a being called Naman would come, and that this would be the end of their exile, which they call the Fourth World."
Clark was looking genuinely puzzled, as if he had difficulty following Lex, which was no wonder. He had condensed several days' worth of longwinded storytelling into just a few sentences. "Wait, so Naman is actually a good guy in their legends, like with the Kawatche? Then why do they want to kill him?"
Lex paused for breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Well, as you can see the Lemurians have made the best of their exile. They're peaceful, they prosper, and they have a working eco-system and society. They're already in paradise, Clark. They don't want a messiah to save them."
The frown on Clark's face deepened even further. "And their founding fathers were all meteor mutants?"
Lex had been just as surprised to learn of it. "Not just their founders, Clark. To this day, almost every Lemurian is a mutant. Apparently, the metagene is passed on from parent to child once it's activated. This means that all the theories about mental instability being tied to the meteor mutation must be wrong – otherwise they could never have survived this long and this peacefully. It seems that the deciding factor in all those mental breakdowns was outside pressure, not a pre-programmed meltdown."
The double irony of him being the one to reveal this to Clark didn't escape Clark – and from the troubled look he gave Lex, he was just as aware of it. Lex wasn't just the person who had driven mutant research further than anyone else, usually with the aim of neutralizing the dangerous individuals, but he was also an undeniably dangerous mutant himself. Clark wasn't the only person who had suggested that the mutation made him unstable occasionally – Lionel had hinted at just the same and, at times, Lex had suspected it himself. It was just something he had to deal with, one more thing to keep under iron control.
"So, did you tell them about Level 33.1?" Clark asked confrontationally.
"They already knew about it," Lex replied. "It doesn't seem to bother them – they consider all outsiders uncivilized barbarians. Besides, they've interpreted their legends to prove that I'm their champion – the only person who can stop the coming of Naman."
"Segeth," Clark breathed. "Lex, this is the second time a prophecy says that we're…"
Lex wasn't willing to listen to Clark giving his own treacherous thoughts a voice. "That we're enemies has nothing to do with some kind of destiny, Clark. I refuse to believe that. If the classic tragedies tell us one thing about prophecies, it's that they tend to be self-fulfilling if you believe in them."
"Then why did you play along with them at the temple?" Clark countered.
"They promised me Superman on a silver platter. Besides, they didn't exactly leave me much choice – once Mercy and I were here, they very politely and firmly made it obvious that I was as much a hostage as a guest."
Clark blinked, and then expelled a tense breath, relaxing a little. Why he looked so relieved was a riddle to Lex – he would have much preferred to be in control of the situation. "So that's why your assistant was so stressed. She was worried about you."
Worried. That was rather perplexing – usually, Lex's employees had an annoying tendency to progress from mortal fear to disdain to badly hidden resentment of all things Luthor. So perplexing, in fact that Lex walked on for several minutes in stunned silence before making a mental note to give Ms. Graves a pay rise, or whatever else would make her happy.
*
The further they climbed upward on the gentle mountain slope, the cooler the misty air got, and the shorter and more gnarled the trees became. Toads, frogs, and monkeys with eldritch voices kept up a constant eerie song. They encountered no more humans, only what looked like a group of slender, red-furred rodents slipping away into the undergrowth, and a long, acid-green iguana that examined them with startlingly red eyes.
The forest slowly began to break up into lighter vegetation, the small trees standing further apart, with shrubs and thorn bushes in between. The sky was invisible through the thick veil of fog, but from time to time, they glimpsed a dark mountain ahead of them. It was jarringly silent, the sounds of the forest muted and suddenly distant. The bloody glow of an invisible sunset hung over the misty forest, dimming slowly. They were both exhausted, so they picked a spot where dead brown grass made a half-way comfortable bed to rest and eat.
"How do they make it night?" Clark mused aloud. "And for that matter, how do they keep all the plants from dying in winter?"
"Always the farmer," Lex commented wryly. "I suppose they make it night by switching the cloaking device that keeps Lemuria from being detected by outsiders to another setting – probably they can turn it opaque. And they could circumvent the Antarctic winter by setting up a satellite in orbit that redirects sunlight to Lemuria – like a mirror. The greater miracle is how they keep Earth's climate from going mad with all this manipulation."
"Huh," Clark said. "You think mutant Antarctic Indians are responsible for global warming? People will love that."
They would. Lex laughed, eating another piece of stolen food. It tasted good.
Clark soon looked drowsy, and after chewing some more dried meat, and fetching some water from a small, nearby creek using the water skin, they both settled in for the night, Clark curling up on his side in a fetal position while Lex stayed propped up on his elbows, slowly relaxing as he surveyed their surroundings. They should be alternating their sleep phases, so one of them could always be on watch, he thought, but they both needed their sleep badly. Neither of them was used to this level of physical exertion.
It was hard to deny that Clark hadn't known about the Lemurians. Lex had been mulling over Clark's reaction for hours, but if there was one thing he knew for sure, then it was that Clark Kent was a lousy liar. But what did that mean for the big picture, and Superman's place in it?
Clark's breathing soon evened out, and his face softened in sleep. Lex studied him for a long time. The flushed cheeks and tousled curls were strangely boyish, a sleeping Renaissance cherub grown up to physical perfection. The primary colors were hidden from view, only Clark's smudged white shirt and dark pants showed. He shifted in his sleep from time to time, and with soft, snuffling noises buried his face deeper in the crook of his arm, moving until his cheek nearly rested on his right palm, the silky tickle of his hair only inches away from Lex's cuffed hand.
This was his sworn enemy, this sleeping child, a clawless lion among the lambs.
Lex let his hand creep to the dagger in his belt, watching Clark closely. He made no sound, and Clark did not seem to be at all conscious. At the puff of a warm breath against his finger tips, Lex nearly started, but then his fingers curled around the cool hilt of the dagger and pulled it free.
He raised it, the tip pointing down over Clark, and waited. Clark's breath stayed even, either in sleep or in a perfect imitation of it. Lex's own chest was painfully tight from tension, his stomach bitter with the fruit of knowledge.
The downwards twist of his lips felt like it continued all through his body, a coiling, bent hurt, old as scars. Lex lowered the dagger and laid it down on the grass between them.
One of the most charming things about Clark's friendship had been that he was neither star-struck with Lex nor hostile. Before all the bad blood between them, Lex had believed that Clark approached him with an open mind, ready to let Lex prove himself, ready to admire when admiration was earned and to criticize when he thought Lex was doing badly, ready to laugh and tease when he saw behind Lex's pretences. It had felt… fair. The way the world and people rarely were. Yet Lex had wanted more than just a neutral companionship. He wanted Clark to trust him, implicitly and unconditionally, because that was the first thing Lex felt when he set eyes on Clark, after the wonder and before love: trust. And he needed to justify that unfounded trust somehow, needed it returned to feel safe.
There was no doubt that Clark trusted him now. With his life, although Lex had been on the verge of taking it only a day before. He was powerless, at his most vulnerable, and yet he'd lain down to sleep next to Lex without a second thought. Lex shivered. Night had settled almost completely, the sky blotted out, starless.
His own trust in Clark – not in his words, not in his feelings, but that he would not harm Lex physically – that was something Lex could accept. Whatever Clark's secrets, whatever his agenda, he had always protected Lex's life as dutifully as everybody else's. But Clark's trust in him was unexpected, undeserved, and inexplicable.
With the same hand that had held the dagger a moment before, Lex reached out, let them ghost over Clark's dark head, feeling the tangled silky strands of hair, warm against the tips of his fingers.
This was also the alien creature, Superman, the wolf in sheep's clothing, the golden cuckoo child.
There was a reason he had never wanted to believe they were the same person.
*
It was dark when Clark woke, roused by Lex's restlessness next to him. He was shivering badly, and didn't seem to be asleep. It was genuinely cold now, and Lex didn't have the insulation of Clark's costume, and even Clark was feeling the cold uncomfortably against the unprotected parts of his body.
"Hey," Clark said, swallowing around the sleep-rawness of his voice. "We can't sleep like that."
Lex made a sound, a muttered word, like chasing flies away with the wave of a hand. Clark squirmed a little, and pulled at the buckle of his yellow belt, releasing the mechanism that freed his cape. It was thin, but made to withstand water and fire, so it would do well against the cold.
He shuffled closer to Lex, and threw the red fabric over both of them like a blanket. It was a big cape, but hardly enough for two grown men. Forced by their cuffs to sleep face to face, their backs stuck out on both sides. Lex had opened his eyes. They glittered like a warning in the dark.
"Clark? What are you doing with that cape?"
"Isn't that obvious?" Clark muttered, and prodded Lex under the cape. "Turn around."
Lex didn't budge, only went stiff. "What for?"
Fed up, Clark did it for them, turning Lex on his side and moving their cuffed hands over Lex's head so that his right arm ended up under Lex's neck, Lex with his back to him and his left arm, cuffed to Clark's right, tucked against his chest. Given the choice between having his free arm wedged uncomfortably between them and throwing it loosely over Lex's side, Clark chose the first. He soon changed his mind when he discovered this led to him accidentally groping Lex's ass, which was even less appropriate than this quasi-hug they had going on.
Lex mirrored his thoughts. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked, softly and with a clear threat in his voice.
"Shut up," Clark muttered. "I know I'm not the spooning partner of your choice."
"What a glorious understatement."
"Survival, Lex," Clark reminded him rather smugly. "Sometimes it means you have to share body warmth."
In truth, Clark was glad Lex was protesting against this treatment, because it made it much less awkward. They weren't supposed to be wanting or enjoying this, no matter how much it resembled friendly hugs that had never lasted long enough, no matter how achingly it reminded Clark of those few weeks he had been human and in love and had been able to sleep this close to another human being without fear of crushing them.
"There are other ways to keep warm," Lex went on. Clark could feel him talk, the rumble of his voice and the rise and fall of his chest under Clark's arm. "Cuddling is hardly the most obvious."
"What's the problem?" Clark played along. "Cuddling against the Luthor code?"
"Maybe I'm just not comfortable with how eager you seem."
Obnoxiously, Clark tightened his hug and pulled Lex closer. It was fun to tease Lex, and besides, it was a way that had always worked for them to vent tension and uncomfortable intensity. "You know what they say about protesting too much…"
"Do you seriously expect me to do anything but protest when the alien who has sworn to bring me down is forcing physical proximity on me?"
Clark rolled his eyes. "Save it for someone more stupid than me, Lex. I know you aren't scared by me – or disgusted, for that matter. You just don't know when to can it and swallow down some of that darned Luthor pride. You're rather lose a limb to frostbite." And because he was feeling mischievous and a little mean, he added, "If it helps, I think Lionel wouldn't have had a problem with this."
"Thanks for giving me more material for nightmares," Lex said dryly. "I did not need to know that you were fantasizing about sharing body heat with my father."
Clark huffed indignantly and slapped Lex's bare head. "That's not what I meant! Shut up and go to sleep, Lex."
Amazingly, Lex did shut up, leaving Clark in an oddly wakeful state. He could still feel the slap in his fingers, just a harmless tap, and yet far more casual and intimate than they had ever gotten while they still were friends. Being enemies had torn down many barriers. He had pushed Lex against walls and onto tables, had choked him and punched him, heedless of personal space and dangerous undertones. And now he had Lex in his arms, and it felt safe and good for more reasons than just shared warmth.
Nothing had really changed. Lex knew his secret, okay, big deal. He'd reacted badly and he'd threatened Clark, and that was business as usual. And he was still doing shady stuff back in Metropolis, Clark was sure about that, and he was still a man who had seriously suggested that they kill a helpless woman just because it would have been the best survival strategy.
Lex hadn't changed, but Clark had had a lot of time to look more closely at the man he was during the last two days, and it wasn't all bad. Lex didn't want him dead. Lex didn't hate him, Clark was sure. And Lex had saved his life, repeatedly.
He smiled, wanting to tell Lex so many things, just not now, when they were both warm and comfortable…
*
In the morning, Clark wasn't so comfortable anymore. He'd woken feeling restless and confused, a little sweaty under the red cape, and holding Lex had felt like hugging a furnace close to his chest. He was also pretty sure that Lex had been awake for a while when Clark woke up, lying still in Clark's arms and waiting. In those first few dizzy moments, Clark had almost instinctively nuzzled against Lex's bare neck, breathing in his warm scent, and suddenly realized that he had slept with a human being in his arms. He hadn't done that since those few precious summer weeks with Lana, when he himself had been human, a real boy. Lex was solid, his head heavy on Clark's right arm, and even if Clark had squeezed with all of his might, he couldn't have broken him.
He felt the shackles around his wrists, round and heavy, and knew that he was free. He could do anything, just like a real human being. He could hug, kiss, and play, he could hit, squeeze, and bite, he could scream at the top of his lungs and laugh as loud as he wanted, and nothing would break. The poison trickling into his veins was slowly killing him, but he had never felt so alive.
And of course, he couldn't help thinking of all the things he could be doing, all the opportunities he should be seizing. Not the first time certain ideas flashed in his mind like cue cards – kiss him. Touch him. Scratch, bite, bruise. Play with the fire that can burn you. What did it matter that Lex wasn't a woman? Clark had always thought himself lucky that he was attracted to humans at all. Not making a distinction between genders was almost certainly less wrong than having very insistent fantasies about your cousin just because she was your own species.
Sucking in another sharp breath, tasting Lex against the roof of his mouth, a hard-on growing in his pants that Lex might just have felt if Clark hadn't rolled onto his back, there was a moment when Clark nearly spoke with his eyes still closed and his thighs splayed wantonly. I know it's too late, but if you still want me - -
But then he opened his eyes, shocked at his own thoughts. It was wrong. Lex didn't even like him. It was something he might have done while on red kryptonite, but not while in his right mind. Just because he could have sex, didn't mean that he was going to jump the first thing on legs.
Lex had gotten up on his knees and was stretching and smoothing himself, as if the wrinkles in his shirt could be forced into submission by sheer willpower. His collar was askew, his shirt unbuttoned and baring a chest both pale and hairless, as well as the taut tendons and defined muscles of his neck. Clark swallowed and glanced away, choking out an awkward, "Good morning," while sitting up in a way that wouldn't make his arousal too obvious.
*
Lex woke at sunrise, the light so bright he couldn't close his eyes to it. Instead, he let it burn into his retinas until every thought and fiber of his body was filled with light. He was wide awake at once, warm, rested and full of deep golden contentment, like a cat sprawling on a hot tin roof.
It took a moment for it all to start hurting, to feel the wrongness and truth of it. Lex never woke that well-rested. He woke wide-eyed and fear-strangled, or with an aftertaste of another night whiled away drinking in his mouth, or he woke with conquest already burning under his skin, driving him up and away. He never woke up in someone's arms, either. Lex couldn't sleep well with another person sharing his bed, even after sex or when intoxicated, he usually sought some quiet, isolated spot to fall asleep. He was a solitary creature at heart, the kind of person who slept with a gun under the pillow, facing the door.
He couldn't recall a time when he had been this fully and completely happy, even for a second.
But he could understand why, of course. He understood as soon as he registered the tickle of soft hair against his scalp, the warm, slow breath against the spot where neck met shoulder, and saw the red cape covering him.
It was no more real than the cold comfort of narcotics, the false elation of chemical dreams - those beautiful, treacherous friends of the lonely and desperate. Lex knew his own habits well enough to know that he was prone to addiction even if his body metabolized most toxins far too quickly for them to take hold. Clark was a highly potent poison.
The knowledge had not deprived Lex of a night's peaceful sleep. Now, awake and aware of whom held him against their broad, warm body, Lex felt no need to escape.
Clark shifted and stirred in his sleep, tightening his embrace, and Lex held his breath for a second, as he had so many other times since he had slowly begun to internalize that Clark wasn't human. Fate had stepped in and Clark's hands couldn't break him for now, so his illusion of safety had some grain of truth in it, Lex thought bitterly.
Clark probably dreamed of another sleeper in his arms, someone far more likable and pleasant than Lex. Compared to Clark's oversized body, Lex was probably easily mistaken for some woman, Lana perhaps, or Lois Lane. No doubt what they'd be doing if they were chained together and lost in the wilderness.
Lex's lips twisted into a grim smile when he thought about depriving Clark of wild, raunchy sex. Maybe he should suggest it to Clark, just to see the shocked, mortified look on his face. However, that would give away too much about his own secret desires, and Lex wasn't going to give away more weaknesses if he could avoid it. It was bad enough that Clark had watched Lex desperately clinging to their friendship for years, loving Clark vicariously through pale substitutes for his radiant presence, feasting on the scraps Clark left behind, diving into the second-hand mysteries of meteor rocks and phantoms. Clark would probably believe he was giving Lex a pity fuck and feel all heroic as a result – if Clark could get over his All-American sensibilities.
Clark seemed mortified enough when he woke just short of humping Lex in his sleep, and he remained silent and withdrawn as they packed their things for another day of marching. Lex watched him try and fail to get the cape back into his belt without his powers. The wrinkle-free red had a strange texture – light as silk, but not shiny, similar to smooth leather to the touch. It seemed tawdry this morning, like a too-revealing dress once the champagne had worn off.
Somewhere along the night, Lex's doubts had collapsed like card-houses. Clark wasn't an invader, or some kind of infiltrator. He was just what he said he was. Last of his kind, adopted child, peaceful alien savior.
The realization should have made Lex happy, because it meant that the Earth was in much less danger, but instead it threw him into a selfish depression. As long as there had been Superman, the enemy, it was easy to forget that Clark had broken him repeatedly, more thoroughly than Lionel had or any of his ex-wives ever could. It was easy to forget what a sentimental idiot Lex was, sparing Clark again and again. Superman had been the perfect distraction, the sinister threat that had made Clark's little lies and betrayals negligible in comparison.
And now it was just that, the cheap remnants of an old friendship. No epic battle waged, with no glory and no tragedy, except the everyday kind that wore you out and made you old.
The air was cool and cutting as they ascended the mountain, laboring on the uncertain ground, always wary of an avalanche of rocks and sandy earth. Thorny thickets scratched at Lex's pant legs and, out of the shade of the forest, he felt the sun beating against his neck. He didn't want to think about what the levels of UV radiation – they had to be directly beneath the ozone hole. He probably didn't have to worry about skin cancer thanks to his mutation, but the island had left him with unpleasant memories of agonizing sunburns. Even Clark's cheeks were a bright red, like some apple-cheeked 1950s advertisement, complete with big, shiny eyes. Lex assumed that his own sunburn looked much less appealing.
By the time they had climbed the first forest-free hill and looked down into the next valley, where fog wafted around dark tree-tops, they were hungry and thirsty as well as sunburnt. The larger mountains, which had seemed so close, were well beyond that valley. They decided to skirt it and stay up on their hill, even if it took them off course. Climbing had been exhausting, but they had managed a much faster pace unhindered by the jungle.
In the distance, they spotted a herd of some kind of animal – mountain goats, or small llamas, leaping away behind an outcropping of rocks. From time to time, the shadow of a circling bird of prey skittered over the rocks and low grass. The longer they walked, the clearer Lex's mind became, filled with just the wide blue sky and the grey mountainside, his brooding thoughts forgotten for the time being. Every sense was engaged, the taste and fresh scent of the clean air filling his lungs, the feeling of the muscles straining in his thighs, the sound of their breaths and the rushing of blood in his ears as he surveyed the landscape before them.
Late in the afternoon, they had reached the furthest end of the valley, where the forest thinned out and faded into shrubbery. A small river carved a narrow gorge, taunting them with fresh, glittering water, but it was a steep climb down.
"We have to risk it," Clark said, sounding none too happy as they descended. The first few feet down, they could still crawl, but then the rocky wall dropped down almost vertically. "One foot after the other," Clark advised needlessly.
Clinging to tiny cracks in the rocks with just their fingers and the tips of their boots, they advanced inch by inch. Sand gritted under Lex's nails, and pads of his fingers soon became raw. One moment he was feeling downwards with his left foot for some nook or cranny to step into and then there was nothing, just smooth rock sliding against his boot. Clark was next to him, with the same problem, sweating and puffing. Lex muscles were shaking and he needed to find some hold for his feet, and fast. Desperate, he risked a glance down.
It was a mistake. There was a whole lot of nothing beneath him, and the horribly distant river bank below, scattered with boulders just waiting for a fragile human body to fall and shatter on them. Frantically, Lex pressed into the rock face, squeezing his eyes shut and catching a ragged breath.
"Fuck," he gasped, and next to him, Clark whimpered, making Lex irrationally angry on top of his panic.
"'fraid of heights," Clark whispered. "We can't make it…"
"You can fly," Lex pressed past his teeth. "You can't be fucking serious!"
"I can't fly now!"
Lex pressed his face against the grimy rock and breathed. In. Out. His shoulders trembled. His feet were slipping. Damn it. "Clark. I'm going to move to the right."
Clark made a feeble noise. Lex gritted his teeth, sucked in a deep breath, and moved his right hand to the right. The rocks scraped against his numb fingers. "Now," he ordered, and moved, both his feet and his left, cuffed hand. If Clark didn’t move now, that was it, they'd both fall and die an ignominious death in the middle of nowhere, and nobody would ever know it.
But Clark moved. Another step to the right, and Lex found better footing below him. With their arms and legs trembling from exhaustion, they finally made it down. Lex's muscles felt like jelly, jittery and weak. They both collapsed on a bed of big, round pebbles that made noises like chalk on a blackboard as they ground against each other. Close by, the water rushed and tinkled merrily.
Clark was breathing shallowly with his head thrown back against a boulder and his face bone-white and sweaty. He was clutching his bandaged hand; there was fresh red seeping through the grimy cloth.
"I thought… we were going to die," he whispered, eyes still wide and blank.
"Don't be ridiculous," Lex replied, and forced himself to sit straight. He pried Clark's fingers off the bandage and unwrapped it. The cut hadn't closed, or healed at all: it had swollen to an angry red welt, and was hot to the touch. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"
Clark blinked confusedly up at him. "I… uh, didn't know you cared?"
Lex prodded the cut needlessly, just to see Clark wince. "You risked both of our lives just now by not telling me," he answered sharply, giving Clark a cold, angry look before putting his hand on Clark's forehead, then feeling the sides of his neck, just under his jaw. "What's your usual temperature? Same as humans?"
"Yeah," Clark answered, taken aback.
"Your lymph nodes are slightly swollen. It could be a reaction to the kryptonite levels in your bloodstream, but I think it's the cut. It's inflamed."
"I don't get why it doesn't heal," Clark whined. "Every other bruise and scrape does."
Lex glanced down at the bag where he'd stowed away the dagger. He was carrying what they had taken from the Lemurian, except for the spear weapon, which Clark had strapped to his back with the harness the Lemurian woman had worn for the same purpose.
"It's the dagger," Lex said, low and certain. "It's supposed to kill you, so something prevents the wounds from healing."
Clark swallowed. "It's just a cut. It'll go away in a few days."
"It'll more likely give you fever and gangrene, and contrary to what you might think, I'm not actually looking forward to cutting off your limbs one by one."
Clark stared unhappily down at his hand, the corners of his lips turned down. He shook his head. "I know you don't, Lex," he said miserably.
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Clex. Mentions of past Clana and Lexana.
Genre: Action-adventure futurefic with a helping of crack & romance - the usual.
Length: 43845 words
Notes: Written for
plnunn's Doujinshi Challenge. Cover #6 . Many thanks to my beta danceswithgary, who found the time for this even in this busy time of year :)Summary: Powerless, handcuffed to his evil nemesis and running for his life from mutant Antarctic Indians - worse things have happened to Clark Kent. Maybe.
Previous part HERE
Interlude
"Um, unless Superman has started wearing a miniskirt, that's not him," Jimmy commented, and then broke into a grin. One of these days, Lois was going to tell Kara Kent that her boyfriend had a major hard-on for Supergirl, but not today.
"As long as the miniskirt belongs to a Kryptonian, I'm not picky," she said, crossing her arms impatiently as the figure remained aloft for a moment before descending. Next to them, Mercy's hands were twitching dangerously in the direction of her gun.
Jimmy turned off his signal watch just as Supergirl's red boots touched Lemurian soil. "Wow," he said. "Either that thing has an awesome range, or you have phenomenal ears!"
She gave him a smile, and then turned towards Lois and Mercy, frowning with that eternally pretty and young face. Even a flight across the arctic desert hadn't ruffled the perfect blonde curls. "Where's Clark?" she asked without preamble.
"Clark?" the three of them asked in unison. Lois narrowed her eyes. "You figured that out mighty quickly!"
Supergirl's blue eyes widened. She was beginning to look frantic. "Figured out what? Why isn't he with you? Why did you call me?"
Woah. Was there something going on between Kent and Supergirl? Lois gaped. Mercy Graves, however, didn't care.
"Mr. Kent is missing. And so is Mr. Luthor. We called for Superman. Where is he?" She glared at Jimmy's signal watch as if the thing could be blamed.
Supergirl brushed her hair back behind her ears, and chewed on her lower lip. It made her look like someone's dirty schoolgirl fantasy, and Lois wasn't particularly patient when it came to that. Who the hell wore a miniskirt into combat?
"Oh, no," Supergirl said.
"What do you mean, 'oh, no?'" Lois crossed her arms.
"Superman is… away." Supergirl flashed a nervous smile. "Far, far away...like…on another planet. So he can't come and rescue Clark, but I'm here, so don't worry!"
Lois raised her brows. So did Mercy. Jimmy just smiled like a lovesick puppy.
"Call him back to Earth," Mercy demanded. "We need Superman."
Frowning, Lois turned around to face Mercy. Something had just occurred to her. "What, exactly, do we need Superman for?" she asked menacingly.
"The Lemurians want him dead," Mercy replied, perfectly honest. "If they get him, they'll release Lex. And he will come, won't he? I've studied his modus operandi. The alien wouldn't let a human die."
Before Lois could strangle her, Supergirl had balled her fists and jumped into the air. "I'm going to show them! Who do they think they are?" she yelled, loud enough to make them cover their ears. A shout came from the other end of the airfield, and two Lemurians came hurrying closer. They were brandishing golden spears.
"You think you can threaten me?" Supergirl spat at them, and with a red flash of her eyes, melted the spears to puddles of golden liquid. The Lemurians screamed and threw their hands up in the air, backing away with horrified expressions.
"No, no, no!" one of them kept babbling. "Please, no!"
Mercy cocked her head at the display. "Supergirl," she called.
The Kryptonian turned in the air with a menacing glower. Her cape snapped in the wind like a lash. Mercy opened her suitcase and pulled out a folder, holding it up in the air.
"Maps of Lemuria," she said. "I've marked all the likely places where they could have taken him. Don't let them get close, they have kryptonite."
Four
Why couldn't Clark have been stranded in the wilderness with someone nice? Chloe, or Bart, or Vic – all easy to get along with and totally sexual-tension-free people. Sure, Bart would probably get on his nerves, and Vic would have short-circuited as soon as they fell into the water, and Chloe would squeal every time they saw one of the giant, icky spiders that were everywhere (Lex didn't like them either, Clark could tell, but Luthors didn't squeal, they just gritted their teeth and pretended to be fine) but none of them would be a complete and utter bastard about it.
Even Chloe would have made bathing less awkward. Sure, there probably would have been some embarrassing moments requiring some nervous banter to mask the fact that she was attracted to him, and that he knew, and that she knew that he knew...but then they would have laughed about it afterwards.
Besides, Chloe didn't stare at Clark as if he was up for sale. What the heck was up with Lex? He'd given Clark plenty of stares like that – back when Clark had been fifteen, and Lex had been an open book to read compared to now. Was it the secrets that made Lex so intense, or was it simply Lex's hatred for Superman? Yeah, that was probably it. Being chained to someone who didn't hate Clark's guts would have been easier.
He'd decided not to return to the subject of Superman for the moment, because how was he supposed to make peace with Lex when Lex made every effort to prevent it by being a total jerk? Right now, he was trying to make Clark eat grubs.
"I'm not eating that. It's still moving."
Lex held the squirming grub between thumb and index finger of his unbound hand.
"Never had ikizukuri?" he asked in a mocking drawl. Clark's discomfort seemed to have cheered him up immensely – for Lex's standards of cheer.
"Icky what?" Clark asked suspiciously. He didn't think he wanted to know.
"Some Japanese and Korean restaurants serve their sashimi alive. The octopi are gutted and sliced, then eaten with their heart still beating."
Clark stared, aghast. "You've eaten that?" He drew the line at rare steaks, how could anyone possibly eat something like that? No wonder Lex didn't have much problem with torturing people when it served his purpose.
Lex gave a small, humorless laugh. "Business trip to Japan with my Dad when I was ten, and fresh from the hospital after the meteor shower – he thought I needed toughening up."
Clark grimaced, and felt a little guilty for his false assumptions about Lex's culinary habits. Reminders of Lionel usually worked to make him feel sorry for Lex. It just wasn't easy blaming Lex for anything when you knew what kind of childhood he'd had. And a mention of the meteor shower on top – well, face it, Lex was probably trying to make him feel guilty, and it had worked just perfectly. Clark gave a weary sigh.
He tried to think of something to say. Back when they'd been friends, Clark had usually replied along the lines of "your dad is a bastard, Lex," and Lex would have answered some version of "he only has my best interests in mind," with that bitter twist to his mouth and that tone like he actually half believed what he was saying. But Clark had accused Lex of being worse than his father too many times in the intervening years, so a response like that no longer seemed appropriate.
"My biological father once branded me," Clark burst out, staring at the wiggling insect larva. "So I'd stop resisting him and rule the world like I was meant to."
The instant that Lex's expression froze into a blank mask, Clark knew that his attempt to lighten the mood had gone seriously wrong. Oh, damn it. Of course. Alien invasions were Lex's favorite scare story. Hardly an interview passed in which he didn't accuse Superman of heading one.
"Go on, Clark," Lex prompted, and his hand moved a tiny bit towards his belt, where he still kept the dagger. Clark felt the cut in his palm throb painfully in response. It still was wrapped in the strip of fabric of his shirt, and hadn't healed like all his other bruises -- a painful reminder of what that dagger could do to him.
"Lex, that was when I was sixteen. The same summer you got stranded on the island. I didn't want to do as my biological father insisted, so he branded me. Then I blew up the spaceship and ran away."
Lex seemed to consider that, but it was impossible to tell whether he believed it. "You never related that little anecdote to the press."
Rolling his eyes, Clark answered, "I wonder why. It's not a particularly bright chapter of my teenage years, Lex. You keep pretty quiet about those, too."
"But you don't deny that you were sent to conquer Earth?"
"When have I ever given you the impression that I wanted to rule the world? I was sent to do it, and I could with my powers, but I don't want to. All I want is to help people and live my life in peace. Is that so hard to imagine?"
Lex's eyes were bright with smoldering questions and convictions, and perhaps even a sliver of hope, a dangerous cocktail of doubt. Clark didn't know what more to say, and frankly, he didn't think he was the only one who needed to explain himself and his actions.
It was a lucky coincidence, nothing else, that he looked away from Lex then, unable to hold that stare, and spotted the glint of sunlight on a golden spear. "Down!" Clark yelled and threw himself to the ground behind a broad tree, taking Lex with him.
His hands thudded against the leaf-padded ground and, in the next second, the dirt where they had been standing splashed up into the air as an electric bolt from the spear weapon hit it. Clark risked a glance around the tree, and spotted a tall, teak-skinned woman crouched low and approaching them, her hair tied back in braids and her grin bright-white in a face dark with swirling tattoos. She talked to them in a low, mocking voice, obviously quite confident that they'd be easy prey. Considering the weapon she wielded, that wasn't an unfounded assumption.
"What's she saying?" Clark asked, but Lex shook his head; he didn't know.
They got to their feet, slowly inching around the tree, always keeping it between them and the huntress. Clark winced – they had stepped into an ant trail going from the ground up into the tree, and angry driver ants were biting his ankle viciously. He twitched, dancing a little to the side, grimacing. They were crawling up his pants.
Lex raised his hands, gesturing Clark to stop, and slowly bent low, his hand hovering over the ant-covered ground. The huntress called something, closer now. And then it all went lightning fast. Lex grabbed a handful of dirt and ants, lunged forward, and threw it at her face. She screamed in pain and surprise, clawing at the biting insects and brushing them away frantically, letting go of her spear weapon. Clark went for it, seizing the warm golden metal while Lex tried to wrestle the woman in one-handed combat to the ground – one of his was cuffed to Clark, and one of hers was still fighting the ants biting her face and stinging her eyes with acid.
Clark had the spear and tried to find the mechanism that made it fire the electric bolts - it had to be there somewhere – and found a small indentation among the ornaments, just the size of a thumb. Clark glanced around wildly and up into the foliage above their heads; maybe he could shoot down a branch to knock the Lemurian out or something.
Lex suddenly went still, and looking to see what was going on, Clark recoiled. The huntress had pulled a long knife from a sheath at her thigh and was swinging it backwards in a wide arc, aimed at Lex's jugular.
There was barely a split second to decide. Clark's thumb hit the groove on the spear, and at the same time, he wondered if it was right to kill her, if it was self-defense, if it made him a murderer –
The crackling lightning coiled around her like snakes for a second, racing up her arm and sparking at the wicked blade, and she sagged to the ground in a limp heap, a few last spasms shaking her dead body.
Clark let the spear slide out of his hand and turned away. The cuffs tugged at his right arm as Lex bent down, quick and efficient as a soldier to search her still-warm corpse.
He had killed before, accidentally, and in defense of innocents. Monsters, but also men and women. And men and women who were monsters, too. It was quite possible that she had been innocent, though.
"Clark, what's the matter?"
"I killed her," Clark breathed, his hands clenched to fists. He couldn't look at Lex – he'd be relieved to see him alive, selfishly glad to have killed for him, and it wasn't fair, or just, or right, that he felt this way.
"The spears merely stun, Clark," Lex said slowly. ".All you did was save my life."
Clark was kneeling next to him in an instant, checking the woman's pulse. It was beating a bit erratically, but she was alive and breathing, her skin warm. He noticed she was dressed similarly to the people in the temple and in Hokiha, although her woven garments were much less ornate and colorful. The knife was old and well-used, the wooden grip looked smooth as plastic.
He sat back, expelling a relieved breath and swallowing down the horror. Oh, thank God.
"I didn't think you'd kill to save my life," Lex said, eying Clark strangely. "She isn't an enemy – just a hunter or a warrior out to secure her people's land, probably."
"Split-second decisions," Clark muttered, throwing the excuse Lex had given for saving Clark's life back at him.
Lex's lips twitched, a mirthless smile. "We all make mistakes. I know."
Clark's hands tightened on the woman's wrist. He stared at her slack fingers. He was glad she was alive. Really glad.
"It wasn't a mistake, Lex."
Lex cocked his head to the side. "A tactical decision? That's unlike you."
Was Lex being obtuse on purpose? "I don't want you to die."
The nod Lex gave him was merely a polite acknowledgement of the fact. Lex seemed to ignore entirely that Clark had just made a major admission. "She seems to have been alone, but we should decide what to do with her before she wakes up."
Clark felt like being obstinate. He wanted to discuss this, this thing between them, or rather; he wanted to yell at Lex for being a lying, bull-shitting… Luthor. But Lex's diversion was a good one. They really couldn't risk discovery. And he didn't like Lex's tone, the one that said: we have to consider all options. Even the ones that cross invisible lines.
"We're not going to hurt her."
Lex picked up the leather bag she had been carrying. "There's food in here and other useful things. We need to take this. And her spear weapon. It increases our survival chances ten-fold. We could take her with us – "
"We're not taking hostages, either."
"If we leave her here, there is a good chance that we'll be followed by her whole tribe in no time. On the other hand, it's possible that if we leave her alive, she'd consider it a debt to us – or a great insult."
"Then we'll just have to risk it. It's bad enough to take her stuff."
"Clark, please do me a favor and remember that you're powerless. You might be able to afford playing by different rules than the rest of us when you're an all-powerful demigod, but right now you're down where the nature of the game is survival."
Clark glared at him. "Is that what you tell yourself, Lex? That it's all about survival?"
Lex seemed unfazed. "Isn't it?" he asked, very seriously.
*
In the end, though, Lex let Clark have his way, and they left the unconscious woman behind, unharmed. It wasn't that Lex had been eager to kill her; he'd merely thought it would have been safer. Clark was surprisingly not very judgmental about Lex's suggestion that they kill her – most likely he was still too shocked from thinking that he had killed her himself. Pure reflex, surely. They took whatever useful things she had on her, and quickly continued their north-bound flight.
They now had a knife and the spear weapon besides the ritual dagger, a leather bag with dried meat, and another that contained a few shells, some dried herbs and salves, and a canteen of fresh water. On Clark's insistence, they'd left a piece of golden jewelry behind as payment.
The dried meat tasted smoky and old, but they both chewed ravenously on it as they walked, badly needing the salt. Lex warned Clark not too eat too much at once on their empty stomachs. As usual, Clark heeded the advice, trusting Lex in anything that hadn't to do with morals. The fight and the food seemed to throw Clark's mind back in gear, and he finally started asking the questions Lex had been waiting for practically since the Lemurians had dragged Clark into the temple.
"Say it's true that you didn't come here to turn the natives into fanatic Superman-haters," Clark began, obviously thinking hard, "then what in the world were you doing here, Lex? I knew you were ambitious, but I didn't know you were interested in godkinghood."
Lex gave him an incredulous look, but couldn't quite help the small laugh that escaped him at Clark's seriously disturbed expression.
"Would you believe me if I said I came here out of healthy curiosity?"
Clark wavered visibly, and then shrugged. "You're curious, yeah, but you usually have an ulterior motive."
There were of course several possible ways to meet those questions. The one Clark deserved was disdain and a bunch of outrageous lies. The problem was that while Clark was a terrible liar, he had a talent for ferreting out dishonesty in others – especially in Lex. That would probably lead to another highly unproductive argument. The second option was to come up with a proper cover-up, something Clark might not see through as long as they were chained together and had to depend on each other. The downside of that solution was that it limited what Lex could tell Clark about their situation without making him suspicious, as well as sharing some information with Clark that might well prove vital.
Lex decided to risk it. "A couple of months ago, I received a visitor who revealed that he was the representative of a heretofore unknown nation located in the Antarctic. He showed me certain geological and botanical samples and ,of course, their technology. That alone would have made me eager to learn more, but they issued an invitation to visit their country. They said that due to climate change and researchers encroaching on their territory, sooner or later dropping their secrecy would become unavoidable."
Clark gave him a suspicious glance. "That's all? It's the same story the U.N. representatives told us when they sent us here."
Lex smiled thinly. "No, you're right, that's not all. They also revealed to me that they had followed my research and claims about Superman – about Kryptonians in general – in the press. That's why they approached me first. You see, Clark, these people, like the Kawatche in Smallville, had contact with your people as far back as several hundred years. Other cultures might have encountered them even before that."
Clark didn't look entirely surprised, instead, his brow knit, and he nodded cautiously. "Neither Supergirl nor the… the crystals could ever tell me the full story behind that, but I know at least my father had been to Earth. And there were the stones of knowledge hidden in China…"
"And in Egypt," Lex nodded. "What did your people want on Earth?"
"I don't know," Clark said defensively.
"Then why are you keeping it from the press? Previous contact with alien civilizations – that's a rather big story."
Clark pushed a leafy branch away savagely, making the foliage swish through the air like a whip. "Because people like you would immediately start hunting for Kryptonian artifacts. The things can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong people."
"And you decide who the wrong people are?"
Clark glowered at him, and then spat, "Yes, I do. Supergirl and I are the last survivors our race, and that means this stuff belongs to us now. It's our responsibility to make sure more people don't get hurt by things like Brainiac."
"That'd be fair enough if you did a better job with it. Personally, I think it never hurts to be prepared to fight for ourselves even when humanity has its own guardian angels."
Clark trudged on in broody silence for a few more minutes, hacking away at the undergrowth with the knife. Finally he brought himself to ask, "So what's up with the Lemurians?"
"Your people seem to have brought kryptonite with them, or maybe another meteor shower happened back then. It's also possible that genetic experiments took place; in any case, they seem to have had a situation similar to Smallville at their hands, with an ever-growing population of mutants. These people probably weren't as powerless as the ordinary humans back then were and not as easy to handle. The Lemurian legends say that their founding fathers were promised a land to live apart from the rest of humanity, and the technology to stay hidden and prosper on their own. Most of the original Lemurians were from the Americas, but a few were from Asia and other sites of contact. But their legends also said that one day a being called Naman would come, and that this would be the end of their exile, which they call the Fourth World."
Clark was looking genuinely puzzled, as if he had difficulty following Lex, which was no wonder. He had condensed several days' worth of longwinded storytelling into just a few sentences. "Wait, so Naman is actually a good guy in their legends, like with the Kawatche? Then why do they want to kill him?"
Lex paused for breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Well, as you can see the Lemurians have made the best of their exile. They're peaceful, they prosper, and they have a working eco-system and society. They're already in paradise, Clark. They don't want a messiah to save them."
The frown on Clark's face deepened even further. "And their founding fathers were all meteor mutants?"
Lex had been just as surprised to learn of it. "Not just their founders, Clark. To this day, almost every Lemurian is a mutant. Apparently, the metagene is passed on from parent to child once it's activated. This means that all the theories about mental instability being tied to the meteor mutation must be wrong – otherwise they could never have survived this long and this peacefully. It seems that the deciding factor in all those mental breakdowns was outside pressure, not a pre-programmed meltdown."
The double irony of him being the one to reveal this to Clark didn't escape Clark – and from the troubled look he gave Lex, he was just as aware of it. Lex wasn't just the person who had driven mutant research further than anyone else, usually with the aim of neutralizing the dangerous individuals, but he was also an undeniably dangerous mutant himself. Clark wasn't the only person who had suggested that the mutation made him unstable occasionally – Lionel had hinted at just the same and, at times, Lex had suspected it himself. It was just something he had to deal with, one more thing to keep under iron control.
"So, did you tell them about Level 33.1?" Clark asked confrontationally.
"They already knew about it," Lex replied. "It doesn't seem to bother them – they consider all outsiders uncivilized barbarians. Besides, they've interpreted their legends to prove that I'm their champion – the only person who can stop the coming of Naman."
"Segeth," Clark breathed. "Lex, this is the second time a prophecy says that we're…"
Lex wasn't willing to listen to Clark giving his own treacherous thoughts a voice. "That we're enemies has nothing to do with some kind of destiny, Clark. I refuse to believe that. If the classic tragedies tell us one thing about prophecies, it's that they tend to be self-fulfilling if you believe in them."
"Then why did you play along with them at the temple?" Clark countered.
"They promised me Superman on a silver platter. Besides, they didn't exactly leave me much choice – once Mercy and I were here, they very politely and firmly made it obvious that I was as much a hostage as a guest."
Clark blinked, and then expelled a tense breath, relaxing a little. Why he looked so relieved was a riddle to Lex – he would have much preferred to be in control of the situation. "So that's why your assistant was so stressed. She was worried about you."
Worried. That was rather perplexing – usually, Lex's employees had an annoying tendency to progress from mortal fear to disdain to badly hidden resentment of all things Luthor. So perplexing, in fact that Lex walked on for several minutes in stunned silence before making a mental note to give Ms. Graves a pay rise, or whatever else would make her happy.
*
The further they climbed upward on the gentle mountain slope, the cooler the misty air got, and the shorter and more gnarled the trees became. Toads, frogs, and monkeys with eldritch voices kept up a constant eerie song. They encountered no more humans, only what looked like a group of slender, red-furred rodents slipping away into the undergrowth, and a long, acid-green iguana that examined them with startlingly red eyes.
The forest slowly began to break up into lighter vegetation, the small trees standing further apart, with shrubs and thorn bushes in between. The sky was invisible through the thick veil of fog, but from time to time, they glimpsed a dark mountain ahead of them. It was jarringly silent, the sounds of the forest muted and suddenly distant. The bloody glow of an invisible sunset hung over the misty forest, dimming slowly. They were both exhausted, so they picked a spot where dead brown grass made a half-way comfortable bed to rest and eat.
"How do they make it night?" Clark mused aloud. "And for that matter, how do they keep all the plants from dying in winter?"
"Always the farmer," Lex commented wryly. "I suppose they make it night by switching the cloaking device that keeps Lemuria from being detected by outsiders to another setting – probably they can turn it opaque. And they could circumvent the Antarctic winter by setting up a satellite in orbit that redirects sunlight to Lemuria – like a mirror. The greater miracle is how they keep Earth's climate from going mad with all this manipulation."
"Huh," Clark said. "You think mutant Antarctic Indians are responsible for global warming? People will love that."
They would. Lex laughed, eating another piece of stolen food. It tasted good.
Clark soon looked drowsy, and after chewing some more dried meat, and fetching some water from a small, nearby creek using the water skin, they both settled in for the night, Clark curling up on his side in a fetal position while Lex stayed propped up on his elbows, slowly relaxing as he surveyed their surroundings. They should be alternating their sleep phases, so one of them could always be on watch, he thought, but they both needed their sleep badly. Neither of them was used to this level of physical exertion.
It was hard to deny that Clark hadn't known about the Lemurians. Lex had been mulling over Clark's reaction for hours, but if there was one thing he knew for sure, then it was that Clark Kent was a lousy liar. But what did that mean for the big picture, and Superman's place in it?
Clark's breathing soon evened out, and his face softened in sleep. Lex studied him for a long time. The flushed cheeks and tousled curls were strangely boyish, a sleeping Renaissance cherub grown up to physical perfection. The primary colors were hidden from view, only Clark's smudged white shirt and dark pants showed. He shifted in his sleep from time to time, and with soft, snuffling noises buried his face deeper in the crook of his arm, moving until his cheek nearly rested on his right palm, the silky tickle of his hair only inches away from Lex's cuffed hand.
This was his sworn enemy, this sleeping child, a clawless lion among the lambs.
Lex let his hand creep to the dagger in his belt, watching Clark closely. He made no sound, and Clark did not seem to be at all conscious. At the puff of a warm breath against his finger tips, Lex nearly started, but then his fingers curled around the cool hilt of the dagger and pulled it free.
He raised it, the tip pointing down over Clark, and waited. Clark's breath stayed even, either in sleep or in a perfect imitation of it. Lex's own chest was painfully tight from tension, his stomach bitter with the fruit of knowledge.
The downwards twist of his lips felt like it continued all through his body, a coiling, bent hurt, old as scars. Lex lowered the dagger and laid it down on the grass between them.
One of the most charming things about Clark's friendship had been that he was neither star-struck with Lex nor hostile. Before all the bad blood between them, Lex had believed that Clark approached him with an open mind, ready to let Lex prove himself, ready to admire when admiration was earned and to criticize when he thought Lex was doing badly, ready to laugh and tease when he saw behind Lex's pretences. It had felt… fair. The way the world and people rarely were. Yet Lex had wanted more than just a neutral companionship. He wanted Clark to trust him, implicitly and unconditionally, because that was the first thing Lex felt when he set eyes on Clark, after the wonder and before love: trust. And he needed to justify that unfounded trust somehow, needed it returned to feel safe.
There was no doubt that Clark trusted him now. With his life, although Lex had been on the verge of taking it only a day before. He was powerless, at his most vulnerable, and yet he'd lain down to sleep next to Lex without a second thought. Lex shivered. Night had settled almost completely, the sky blotted out, starless.
His own trust in Clark – not in his words, not in his feelings, but that he would not harm Lex physically – that was something Lex could accept. Whatever Clark's secrets, whatever his agenda, he had always protected Lex's life as dutifully as everybody else's. But Clark's trust in him was unexpected, undeserved, and inexplicable.
With the same hand that had held the dagger a moment before, Lex reached out, let them ghost over Clark's dark head, feeling the tangled silky strands of hair, warm against the tips of his fingers.
This was also the alien creature, Superman, the wolf in sheep's clothing, the golden cuckoo child.
There was a reason he had never wanted to believe they were the same person.
*
It was dark when Clark woke, roused by Lex's restlessness next to him. He was shivering badly, and didn't seem to be asleep. It was genuinely cold now, and Lex didn't have the insulation of Clark's costume, and even Clark was feeling the cold uncomfortably against the unprotected parts of his body.
"Hey," Clark said, swallowing around the sleep-rawness of his voice. "We can't sleep like that."
Lex made a sound, a muttered word, like chasing flies away with the wave of a hand. Clark squirmed a little, and pulled at the buckle of his yellow belt, releasing the mechanism that freed his cape. It was thin, but made to withstand water and fire, so it would do well against the cold.
He shuffled closer to Lex, and threw the red fabric over both of them like a blanket. It was a big cape, but hardly enough for two grown men. Forced by their cuffs to sleep face to face, their backs stuck out on both sides. Lex had opened his eyes. They glittered like a warning in the dark.
"Clark? What are you doing with that cape?"
"Isn't that obvious?" Clark muttered, and prodded Lex under the cape. "Turn around."
Lex didn't budge, only went stiff. "What for?"
Fed up, Clark did it for them, turning Lex on his side and moving their cuffed hands over Lex's head so that his right arm ended up under Lex's neck, Lex with his back to him and his left arm, cuffed to Clark's right, tucked against his chest. Given the choice between having his free arm wedged uncomfortably between them and throwing it loosely over Lex's side, Clark chose the first. He soon changed his mind when he discovered this led to him accidentally groping Lex's ass, which was even less appropriate than this quasi-hug they had going on.
Lex mirrored his thoughts. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked, softly and with a clear threat in his voice.
"Shut up," Clark muttered. "I know I'm not the spooning partner of your choice."
"What a glorious understatement."
"Survival, Lex," Clark reminded him rather smugly. "Sometimes it means you have to share body warmth."
In truth, Clark was glad Lex was protesting against this treatment, because it made it much less awkward. They weren't supposed to be wanting or enjoying this, no matter how much it resembled friendly hugs that had never lasted long enough, no matter how achingly it reminded Clark of those few weeks he had been human and in love and had been able to sleep this close to another human being without fear of crushing them.
"There are other ways to keep warm," Lex went on. Clark could feel him talk, the rumble of his voice and the rise and fall of his chest under Clark's arm. "Cuddling is hardly the most obvious."
"What's the problem?" Clark played along. "Cuddling against the Luthor code?"
"Maybe I'm just not comfortable with how eager you seem."
Obnoxiously, Clark tightened his hug and pulled Lex closer. It was fun to tease Lex, and besides, it was a way that had always worked for them to vent tension and uncomfortable intensity. "You know what they say about protesting too much…"
"Do you seriously expect me to do anything but protest when the alien who has sworn to bring me down is forcing physical proximity on me?"
Clark rolled his eyes. "Save it for someone more stupid than me, Lex. I know you aren't scared by me – or disgusted, for that matter. You just don't know when to can it and swallow down some of that darned Luthor pride. You're rather lose a limb to frostbite." And because he was feeling mischievous and a little mean, he added, "If it helps, I think Lionel wouldn't have had a problem with this."
"Thanks for giving me more material for nightmares," Lex said dryly. "I did not need to know that you were fantasizing about sharing body heat with my father."
Clark huffed indignantly and slapped Lex's bare head. "That's not what I meant! Shut up and go to sleep, Lex."
Amazingly, Lex did shut up, leaving Clark in an oddly wakeful state. He could still feel the slap in his fingers, just a harmless tap, and yet far more casual and intimate than they had ever gotten while they still were friends. Being enemies had torn down many barriers. He had pushed Lex against walls and onto tables, had choked him and punched him, heedless of personal space and dangerous undertones. And now he had Lex in his arms, and it felt safe and good for more reasons than just shared warmth.
Nothing had really changed. Lex knew his secret, okay, big deal. He'd reacted badly and he'd threatened Clark, and that was business as usual. And he was still doing shady stuff back in Metropolis, Clark was sure about that, and he was still a man who had seriously suggested that they kill a helpless woman just because it would have been the best survival strategy.
Lex hadn't changed, but Clark had had a lot of time to look more closely at the man he was during the last two days, and it wasn't all bad. Lex didn't want him dead. Lex didn't hate him, Clark was sure. And Lex had saved his life, repeatedly.
He smiled, wanting to tell Lex so many things, just not now, when they were both warm and comfortable…
*
In the morning, Clark wasn't so comfortable anymore. He'd woken feeling restless and confused, a little sweaty under the red cape, and holding Lex had felt like hugging a furnace close to his chest. He was also pretty sure that Lex had been awake for a while when Clark woke up, lying still in Clark's arms and waiting. In those first few dizzy moments, Clark had almost instinctively nuzzled against Lex's bare neck, breathing in his warm scent, and suddenly realized that he had slept with a human being in his arms. He hadn't done that since those few precious summer weeks with Lana, when he himself had been human, a real boy. Lex was solid, his head heavy on Clark's right arm, and even if Clark had squeezed with all of his might, he couldn't have broken him.
He felt the shackles around his wrists, round and heavy, and knew that he was free. He could do anything, just like a real human being. He could hug, kiss, and play, he could hit, squeeze, and bite, he could scream at the top of his lungs and laugh as loud as he wanted, and nothing would break. The poison trickling into his veins was slowly killing him, but he had never felt so alive.
And of course, he couldn't help thinking of all the things he could be doing, all the opportunities he should be seizing. Not the first time certain ideas flashed in his mind like cue cards – kiss him. Touch him. Scratch, bite, bruise. Play with the fire that can burn you. What did it matter that Lex wasn't a woman? Clark had always thought himself lucky that he was attracted to humans at all. Not making a distinction between genders was almost certainly less wrong than having very insistent fantasies about your cousin just because she was your own species.
Sucking in another sharp breath, tasting Lex against the roof of his mouth, a hard-on growing in his pants that Lex might just have felt if Clark hadn't rolled onto his back, there was a moment when Clark nearly spoke with his eyes still closed and his thighs splayed wantonly. I know it's too late, but if you still want me - -
But then he opened his eyes, shocked at his own thoughts. It was wrong. Lex didn't even like him. It was something he might have done while on red kryptonite, but not while in his right mind. Just because he could have sex, didn't mean that he was going to jump the first thing on legs.
Lex had gotten up on his knees and was stretching and smoothing himself, as if the wrinkles in his shirt could be forced into submission by sheer willpower. His collar was askew, his shirt unbuttoned and baring a chest both pale and hairless, as well as the taut tendons and defined muscles of his neck. Clark swallowed and glanced away, choking out an awkward, "Good morning," while sitting up in a way that wouldn't make his arousal too obvious.
*
Lex woke at sunrise, the light so bright he couldn't close his eyes to it. Instead, he let it burn into his retinas until every thought and fiber of his body was filled with light. He was wide awake at once, warm, rested and full of deep golden contentment, like a cat sprawling on a hot tin roof.
It took a moment for it all to start hurting, to feel the wrongness and truth of it. Lex never woke that well-rested. He woke wide-eyed and fear-strangled, or with an aftertaste of another night whiled away drinking in his mouth, or he woke with conquest already burning under his skin, driving him up and away. He never woke up in someone's arms, either. Lex couldn't sleep well with another person sharing his bed, even after sex or when intoxicated, he usually sought some quiet, isolated spot to fall asleep. He was a solitary creature at heart, the kind of person who slept with a gun under the pillow, facing the door.
He couldn't recall a time when he had been this fully and completely happy, even for a second.
But he could understand why, of course. He understood as soon as he registered the tickle of soft hair against his scalp, the warm, slow breath against the spot where neck met shoulder, and saw the red cape covering him.
It was no more real than the cold comfort of narcotics, the false elation of chemical dreams - those beautiful, treacherous friends of the lonely and desperate. Lex knew his own habits well enough to know that he was prone to addiction even if his body metabolized most toxins far too quickly for them to take hold. Clark was a highly potent poison.
The knowledge had not deprived Lex of a night's peaceful sleep. Now, awake and aware of whom held him against their broad, warm body, Lex felt no need to escape.
Clark shifted and stirred in his sleep, tightening his embrace, and Lex held his breath for a second, as he had so many other times since he had slowly begun to internalize that Clark wasn't human. Fate had stepped in and Clark's hands couldn't break him for now, so his illusion of safety had some grain of truth in it, Lex thought bitterly.
Clark probably dreamed of another sleeper in his arms, someone far more likable and pleasant than Lex. Compared to Clark's oversized body, Lex was probably easily mistaken for some woman, Lana perhaps, or Lois Lane. No doubt what they'd be doing if they were chained together and lost in the wilderness.
Lex's lips twisted into a grim smile when he thought about depriving Clark of wild, raunchy sex. Maybe he should suggest it to Clark, just to see the shocked, mortified look on his face. However, that would give away too much about his own secret desires, and Lex wasn't going to give away more weaknesses if he could avoid it. It was bad enough that Clark had watched Lex desperately clinging to their friendship for years, loving Clark vicariously through pale substitutes for his radiant presence, feasting on the scraps Clark left behind, diving into the second-hand mysteries of meteor rocks and phantoms. Clark would probably believe he was giving Lex a pity fuck and feel all heroic as a result – if Clark could get over his All-American sensibilities.
Clark seemed mortified enough when he woke just short of humping Lex in his sleep, and he remained silent and withdrawn as they packed their things for another day of marching. Lex watched him try and fail to get the cape back into his belt without his powers. The wrinkle-free red had a strange texture – light as silk, but not shiny, similar to smooth leather to the touch. It seemed tawdry this morning, like a too-revealing dress once the champagne had worn off.
Somewhere along the night, Lex's doubts had collapsed like card-houses. Clark wasn't an invader, or some kind of infiltrator. He was just what he said he was. Last of his kind, adopted child, peaceful alien savior.
The realization should have made Lex happy, because it meant that the Earth was in much less danger, but instead it threw him into a selfish depression. As long as there had been Superman, the enemy, it was easy to forget that Clark had broken him repeatedly, more thoroughly than Lionel had or any of his ex-wives ever could. It was easy to forget what a sentimental idiot Lex was, sparing Clark again and again. Superman had been the perfect distraction, the sinister threat that had made Clark's little lies and betrayals negligible in comparison.
And now it was just that, the cheap remnants of an old friendship. No epic battle waged, with no glory and no tragedy, except the everyday kind that wore you out and made you old.
The air was cool and cutting as they ascended the mountain, laboring on the uncertain ground, always wary of an avalanche of rocks and sandy earth. Thorny thickets scratched at Lex's pant legs and, out of the shade of the forest, he felt the sun beating against his neck. He didn't want to think about what the levels of UV radiation – they had to be directly beneath the ozone hole. He probably didn't have to worry about skin cancer thanks to his mutation, but the island had left him with unpleasant memories of agonizing sunburns. Even Clark's cheeks were a bright red, like some apple-cheeked 1950s advertisement, complete with big, shiny eyes. Lex assumed that his own sunburn looked much less appealing.
By the time they had climbed the first forest-free hill and looked down into the next valley, where fog wafted around dark tree-tops, they were hungry and thirsty as well as sunburnt. The larger mountains, which had seemed so close, were well beyond that valley. They decided to skirt it and stay up on their hill, even if it took them off course. Climbing had been exhausting, but they had managed a much faster pace unhindered by the jungle.
In the distance, they spotted a herd of some kind of animal – mountain goats, or small llamas, leaping away behind an outcropping of rocks. From time to time, the shadow of a circling bird of prey skittered over the rocks and low grass. The longer they walked, the clearer Lex's mind became, filled with just the wide blue sky and the grey mountainside, his brooding thoughts forgotten for the time being. Every sense was engaged, the taste and fresh scent of the clean air filling his lungs, the feeling of the muscles straining in his thighs, the sound of their breaths and the rushing of blood in his ears as he surveyed the landscape before them.
Late in the afternoon, they had reached the furthest end of the valley, where the forest thinned out and faded into shrubbery. A small river carved a narrow gorge, taunting them with fresh, glittering water, but it was a steep climb down.
"We have to risk it," Clark said, sounding none too happy as they descended. The first few feet down, they could still crawl, but then the rocky wall dropped down almost vertically. "One foot after the other," Clark advised needlessly.
Clinging to tiny cracks in the rocks with just their fingers and the tips of their boots, they advanced inch by inch. Sand gritted under Lex's nails, and pads of his fingers soon became raw. One moment he was feeling downwards with his left foot for some nook or cranny to step into and then there was nothing, just smooth rock sliding against his boot. Clark was next to him, with the same problem, sweating and puffing. Lex muscles were shaking and he needed to find some hold for his feet, and fast. Desperate, he risked a glance down.
It was a mistake. There was a whole lot of nothing beneath him, and the horribly distant river bank below, scattered with boulders just waiting for a fragile human body to fall and shatter on them. Frantically, Lex pressed into the rock face, squeezing his eyes shut and catching a ragged breath.
"Fuck," he gasped, and next to him, Clark whimpered, making Lex irrationally angry on top of his panic.
"'fraid of heights," Clark whispered. "We can't make it…"
"You can fly," Lex pressed past his teeth. "You can't be fucking serious!"
"I can't fly now!"
Lex pressed his face against the grimy rock and breathed. In. Out. His shoulders trembled. His feet were slipping. Damn it. "Clark. I'm going to move to the right."
Clark made a feeble noise. Lex gritted his teeth, sucked in a deep breath, and moved his right hand to the right. The rocks scraped against his numb fingers. "Now," he ordered, and moved, both his feet and his left, cuffed hand. If Clark didn’t move now, that was it, they'd both fall and die an ignominious death in the middle of nowhere, and nobody would ever know it.
But Clark moved. Another step to the right, and Lex found better footing below him. With their arms and legs trembling from exhaustion, they finally made it down. Lex's muscles felt like jelly, jittery and weak. They both collapsed on a bed of big, round pebbles that made noises like chalk on a blackboard as they ground against each other. Close by, the water rushed and tinkled merrily.
Clark was breathing shallowly with his head thrown back against a boulder and his face bone-white and sweaty. He was clutching his bandaged hand; there was fresh red seeping through the grimy cloth.
"I thought… we were going to die," he whispered, eyes still wide and blank.
"Don't be ridiculous," Lex replied, and forced himself to sit straight. He pried Clark's fingers off the bandage and unwrapped it. The cut hadn't closed, or healed at all: it had swollen to an angry red welt, and was hot to the touch. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"
Clark blinked confusedly up at him. "I… uh, didn't know you cared?"
Lex prodded the cut needlessly, just to see Clark wince. "You risked both of our lives just now by not telling me," he answered sharply, giving Clark a cold, angry look before putting his hand on Clark's forehead, then feeling the sides of his neck, just under his jaw. "What's your usual temperature? Same as humans?"
"Yeah," Clark answered, taken aback.
"Your lymph nodes are slightly swollen. It could be a reaction to the kryptonite levels in your bloodstream, but I think it's the cut. It's inflamed."
"I don't get why it doesn't heal," Clark whined. "Every other bruise and scrape does."
Lex glanced down at the bag where he'd stowed away the dagger. He was carrying what they had taken from the Lemurian, except for the spear weapon, which Clark had strapped to his back with the harness the Lemurian woman had worn for the same purpose.
"It's the dagger," Lex said, low and certain. "It's supposed to kill you, so something prevents the wounds from healing."
Clark swallowed. "It's just a cut. It'll go away in a few days."
"It'll more likely give you fever and gangrene, and contrary to what you might think, I'm not actually looking forward to cutting off your limbs one by one."
Clark stared unhappily down at his hand, the corners of his lips turned down. He shook his head. "I know you don't, Lex," he said miserably.
