AFFIRMATION

by Kitty Fisher

Death sucked. Lex Luthor sat on the end of his bed and considered the thought profoundly philosophical.

He stared at the half–empty bottle in his hand, hesitating, swirling the Courvoisier so it spun into a whirlpool, watching it spin, then slow. There was a bottle in his hand. He paused. Then, lifting it up, he put it to his lips and upended it. Swallowing fast. Huge mouthfuls, gulping, yet still drinking too slowly, the liquid trickling from the sides of his mouth, splashing onto his shirt, darkening the fabric, making it cold against his skin as fire hit his gut and the world condensed.

Pain, as sweet and sharp as the scent of lilies. Gasping as he came up for air. His hand dropping between his knees. Licking his lips as the floor began to ripple. He stared at it, curious. After a moment his vision steadied. Carpet, shoes — which had to be his own. On his feet. Blinking slowly as he made the connection, he cursed softly.

Brandy and quaaludes. K because it was there. What was the matter with the drugs these days? He could still focus thought, still remember.

That she'd died too slowly. That he'd watched as her life just trickled away. Wasting; wasted years. All for nothing.

He'd held her hand. Watched her smile as she died. Smiling when she should have been raging. He clenched his hand around the bottle, then hurled it at the wall. Glass breaking, stink of alcohol.

Fucking pathetic.

He rubbed his hands over his face, over his scalp, over his skin that was crawling on the inside. Again, harder, digging his fingers in.

Every time it happened another piece of him was eaten away. Every time? How pathetic could you sound? Twice. It had happened twice. People he loved had died, on two occasions. Though the once had been bad enough. All those years ago when he had felt just like this, like he was being buried alive beneath the weight of everything he had failed to be.

He clawed at his skin. Was Pamela's death enough to justify stupendously huge amounts of self–pity? Probably not. And he hated himself for feeling like this. For feeling at all.

He should have learned. God, his father had certainly made sure a lack of feeling was beaten into him often enough.

And to think he had believed Lionel Luthor's grand explanation. Believed every lying word, accepted it for so long, never once questioning. Betrayal masked as truth. Couldn't he learn anything?

Love was a fantasy. Love was a dream. Love was dead.

He stood up, clutching at a bed–post as the room proved uncooperative. Don't do the drugs, kiddies, they fuck you up, just like your mom and dad.

Fuck poetry too.

He staggered as the room swerved sharply. Jesus. Brandy in his mouth. Heaving. He threw himself at the bathroom, made it to the bowl just in time to empty himself of brandy and wine and half dissolved tabs of something he had once promised himself never to take again. Vomiting. Like his belly was ripping apart from the inside. Acid burn on raw tissue. Emptying until only bile was spilling from his lips. Dark. Blood tainted.

Very still, he knelt. Even breathing hurt. Flickering pain licking at his thoughts as knowledge stained his perception. She really had loved him. Loved. Yes. For fuck's sake what did it take to convince him of Lionel's games. It shouldn't be difficult. Lionel screwed everyone, just for practise, for fun. Why not his own son. Or his wife's best friend who was also, what? His son's surrogate mother? His confidante? Conscience?

Tick as fucking appropriate.

Lionel Luthor, father. Gee thanks, Dad, for everything. Had he ever been innocent enough to be able to say that without irony? Ever been able to say it at all?

He lifted his head, groaning at the pain, at the misery a spinning world could inflict on his system. Breath snagging deep in his chest; hitching, like damp sand falling erratically through the pinch of an hourglass. Count: one, two...

He needed something. Drugs. Please let there be more.

He made it to his feet and stood swaying, one hand clutching the wall, the other wrapped around his belly. Now where—?

"Lex?"

He jerked. Looked around as if hunted; fear–rush shooting adrenaline into his bloodstream, fast enough to make the world shimmer.

"Lex — you okay?"

Suddenly his brain identified the voice. He almost fell. Relief like a blessing. Not Lionel. Though Clark was bad enough. Lex quickly flushed the toilet, then ran water, rinsing his mouth, his face, drying off as he walked, almost steadily, back into his bedroom.

"Clark, what're you doing here?"

"Lex?"

Clark at the bedroom door. Clark who looked different, dressed in a dark suit that appeared to be setting a fashion in wrinkles. Concern visibly turning to ill–concealed shock.

Pretend everything was normal. He could do that. Damn, he'd had enough practice. "Hello, Clark." He thought, then guessed the time. Hoped he was right. "You're here late, anything wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing. Lex, er..."

Clark, seeing too much. Lex turned away. Hiding, tossing the towel away and rolling down his sleeves. His head was throbbing, and his skin itched. "Clark, what do you want?"

"I wanted to see you." Faintly defiant note.

Lex ignored it. Just moving past him, careful not to touch, turning left and heading for the stairs. Clark could do what he wanted. Everything was fine at Castle Luthor. No one was fucked up. Read the liner notes and believe what you're told.

But a hand on his arm stopped him. He stiffened, breath fighting in his chest. Don't touch me, Clark. Don't... "Don't."

"Don't what? Worry about you?"

Jerk of his arm and he was free. Lex turned away, too fast, hissing as the world refused to co–operate with his plan and started spinning. Hand out, slow, reflexes shot. Balance just as bad — his instructors would give him hell. At this rate the carpet would win, hands down.

Though he didn't fall. Instead he was kept upright by two unreasonably strong hands on his arms, fingers firm around his biceps. Safe. Clark in rescue mode. Well, he didn't need rescuing.

"I told you not to touch me."

"Yeah, you did."

Clark's hands burning, even through his shirt. The moment stretching. Time turning elastic. He could hear his own breath. Smell the stink of vomit from his own mouth. Jesus. He wiped his hand over his lips. Loathed himself that his hand was unsteady.

Weak, mother's boy.

Pathetic wimp.

Worm. Hairless freak.

Worthless.

Everything he was now, he had become. Bent into this shape, corrected, coerced, honed. Luthor child. Luthor man.

For the first time he wondered if his father had hated his mother. Hated her because she was loving enough to inspire love in return. Love and trust from her delicate, uncertain son. Everyone in fact apart from her husband, who admired her, wanted her, but who hadn't even cared to be there the day she died. Who had smiled at his grief–stricken son and begun his training that very day. Punishment for not meeting standards, with no leeway. Not even on the day of her funeral. Hours in the dark. Alone. Standing up and reciting Machiavelli. Word perfect in a week. Thought perfect in two years, rebelling only when he was old enough to fight back. Old enough to run.

He had hated being a child.

Being a man wasn't working out to be much better.

"Lex."

Fuck. Clark, still there. Still support and concern, and why the fuck wasn't he off mooning over one of his girls? Had he come for more advice? Oh the irony was almost too much to think about. "What?"

"You're..."

"Fucked? Well done."

"Lex! Please, tell me what's the matter."

"I drank too much. It happens. Shit happens. And vomit too, apparently. Life's just so classy sometimes, Clark."

"Lex, please?"

Hands shaking him gently. Which was probably not a good idea. Really. Not if Clark valued his shirt. Lex grinned lopsidedly, swallowing, the humour lost even on himself. "It's been a bitch of a day. Why?"

"For me too. Whitney's dad was buried today."

Bitter urge to say, lucky Whitney. But Clark looked too depressed already. Well, join the party, sweetheart.

When did he get so ridiculously maudlin? The brandy had clearly been a bad idea. It would be so easy to despise himself. Easy as anything really. Easy as swallowing a few more of the pretty tablets that made the world seem so much sweeter. He couldn't say it though. Not with Clark all wide–eyed and here and so close and yet a million trillion miles away on Planet Farmboy. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks. What about you?"

What indeed? How to explain? If it was explicable anyway. Lex sighed. Settled on simple. "I watched someone die."

And he had. He'd seen the life just lift out of her. Alive, then — not. One moment Pamela, the next nothing but shell, one without even a ghost.

"Oh..."

Clark looked like he was thinking. And that wasn't likely to be a good thing. Really. "So I got off my head. And I really do want to get back there, so..."

"Who was it?"

Good question. Though he didn't think Clark had really meant it in an abstract way.

"No one you knew. No one that mattered anymore."

"Then why are you such a mess?"

Damn, another good question. "Maybe I just felt like it."

"Oh, yeah. As if."

How Clark saw him. Twisted vision. How he wanted Clark to see him, granted. The world too. Oh, the abyss that would open right by his feet if he let go. Let anyone see. Except the bottle of course. And the drugs. They saw everything. Even the nightmare tunnels in his brain that he ran through night after night when he couldn't sleep, couldn't do anything but think.

"Please, Clark, go away. I want to be fucked off my head right now, and as you're not likely to oblige then I'm heading for the chemical equivalent."

Clark looked as if he'd been poleaxed.

Which meant he'd said it aloud.

Brilliant.

Clark's hands just letting him go. The wall was fine. He clung to it. Breathing. Kind of.

"Lex."

Ah, yes. Now go away. Lex leant his head back on the wall and closed his eyes. "Yeah, I know. Now leave me alone."

"No."

"What?"

"I'm not leaving."

"You feeling masochistic?"

"You going to hurt me?"

"I might."

"Do you need to?"

"Fuck. No. I don't... didn't mean..."

"Lex..."

Spinning. Hands catching him as he fell. Easing him down to sit with his back against the wall. Clark, warm and giving and...

Oh sweet heaven, he couldn't have fallen in love with someone else, could he? Someone older, maybe. Someone less perfectly unsuitable. Someone else.

Such a wild impossibility. Like searching for heaven, or looking for time.

Pain, too intangible. He needed something real, needed to hurt here and now. To know he existed. No thought. A shift of muscle and he just slammed his head back into the wall. Again. Almost a third time but hands stopped him; hands around his head, holding him, large warm hands. Eyes too close, bleeding concern. Compassion; something like love. But not near enough.

"Do you want me?"

Lex blinked through the pain. The question was so leading he wondered if there were lawyers present. "Want?"

"Love then." Shrug as if the words meant almost the same. "Do you love me, Lex?"

Lex considered. Wondered for a second if he was hallucinating. Definitely misinterpreting. Of course. Drink and drugs and too much emotion. He should know better. Lionel would tell him if he was here. He'd put him back on the straight and narrow.

And Clark? Clark wouldn't really be close enough to touch. Would he? Oh, in a different world maybe so. In that same other world where he was asking about love.

Not in this one though. Surely?

Counting breaths. Counting the bright specks that floated before his eyes. Counting life as it dripped past, grain by grain. Power was about all that lasted. Rule the world by the time he was thirty. Every boy needed a hobby. He looked up. Shivered. Because Clark was smiling a funny little smile; part misery, part understanding. As if he had half an idea what was going on. Which was madness all of itself.

"Lex, I've been thinking a lot. About us."

Us? Since when had Clark thought of 'us' in that tone of voice? "Wh..."

"About how good I am at not seeing what's under my nose."

Beautiful face bending forward, droplets of water on his skin, wet hair curling into tendrils, the smell of damp wool rising from his rumpled suit. Lex frowned, diverted. "Why are you soaking wet?"

"It's raining."

Oh. Simple.

A kiss so there; so impossibly possible.

He couldn't. Felt himself backing away, shaking his head as he slid along the wall. "You can't love me."

A hand stroking his cheek, sliding around to cup his head, holding him still. Fingers spread wide and warm on his scalp, tender on the new bruises.

"Why? Because you don't love me back?"

"No!"

"See. I knew it."

"Clark..." Oh. Suddenly hysteria was tight in his throat. He stared at Clark and shook his head. "You can't..."

"Why not? I'm pretty dense, Lex, but I catch up eventually. Please, can I kiss you?"

"I threw up."

Clark laughed. The sound so unexpected Lex stared at him.

"Lex..."

Deep breath. One thing at a time. "Maybe. Let me brush my teeth."

"Okay." Smile again.

How could Clark be so shy and gawky and at the same time be so certain? Mystery of youth. Lex pushed himself up from the floor, feeling ancient. Aided and abetted, Clark being just there. Big and somehow slightly clumsy and unsure, but so clearly just determined as hell.

Lex forced himself to walk. Three steps, unaided. Turning to look at Clark suspiciously. Smiled at in return.

He made it to the bathroom. Stood himself in front of the mirror. He looked scarcely there, pale, waxy skin, grey–toned. Rubbing his hands over his face again. Closing his eyes and rubbing, close to being certain that he'd conjured Clark on a drug–fuelled wave of wish–fulfilment. Maybe his subconscious thought he needed a treat. If imagining Clark saying all the things he'd dreamed about was treat. It could just as easily be trick. Show the candy in one hand, then make it vanish with the other.

Fuck, he was in a worse state than he'd thought.

He still needed to brush his teeth though.

Surreal as hell. Scrubbing the taste of vomit from his mouth. Watching the spiralling water wash it away. Straightening. To find Clark there. Just behind him. Reflected perfectly in the glass.

Lex shook his head slowly. "Didn't I dream you?"

"No."

Lex thought. Leaning on the basin's rim he met his mirror companion eye to eye. He wondered how this would have played if he'd been totally sober, totally wired to reality instead of half looking for the moment when snakes would come crawling from out of the panelling. "Why now?"

"Because at the funeral I got to thinking. Then I kinda walked around a lot."

"In the rain."

"Mm. And I ended up here."

"Your father would kill me for this."

"He doesn't have to know." A statement, a question.

"Clark..." Lex tried to explain. Gave up with an empty shrug. "I'm sorry about Whitney's dad. Lana must be out of reach for you. At least for a while."

"Lana's out of the picture. So's Chloe. You see, I think I majorly screwed things up with both of them for a reason. You know, as soon as I thought about it, it made such sense." Clark moved closer, and Lex found himself turned. Gazed at so earnestly. "You mean a lot to me, Lex."

Blink. Third choice. Hey, at least he was on the list. "Thanks."

"I've been so wrapped up in my own stuff that I didn't even know someone you cared about was dying. And all the time I should have been here. Not just waiting around like an idiot for Lana to notice me, or wanting Chloe just because someone else wanted her."

"Busy week then."

"Yeah." Smile. Almost back to teasing Clark smile. "I finished that book too, the 'Men Are From Mars' one. And there wasn't a section on what to do if you really, really liked your best friend. So, tonight I sat in the graveyard, and thought. About what I'm expected to do — which is adore Lana and maybe marry Chloe, just because she's nice and we're friends, and that's what happens in places like Smallville. Then I thought about you, and what I really want. And how I feel, here. With you. Which made me finally get around to thinking about us."

"Us?" Maybe, possibly, he wasn't imagining or hallucinating. Maybe he wasn't third choice. Even if it mattered if he was.

Clark started to unbutton Lex's shirt. "It made such sense."

Cotton parting. Well, this was real enough. Too real. "What're you doing?"

"Taking your shirt off."

"Oh." Lex watched. Large hands, neatly unfastening button after button. Fingers skimming his skin. Clark touching him. Better than any dream. So much better. "Why?"

"It isn't too clean." Clark glanced up, almost shyly. "We could shower together."

Fantasy land. Wet Clark, offering... whatever he was offering. "I'll need coffee."

"Before or after?"

Dreamlike sense of being outside of reality. Time happening somewhere else. Somewhere Clark wasn't teasing. About sex. At least that's what Lex thought Clark was doing. For all he knew in the real world he might have choked on his own vomit and be dead. Though he didn't think he'd have a headache then. Or be quite as unsure. Unless this was Hell and Clark was about to turn into a toad, or a devil. Or something really evil, like his father.

Which was an avenue of thought he destructed on inception.

Back to now. Real or not. "Before or after what, Clark?"

"Before or after we— " Heartbeat's pause for a slight shrug. "—go to bed, of course."

Oh, God. Maybe he was dead. "For... sex?"

"I was kinda hoping you'd be ahead of me in the game, but, hey, if you're not, I'm sure we can muddle along together."

Wide, hopeful grin. Lex took a long breath and smiled back. His headache felt a little better. The world had stopped spinning too. Clark Kent propositioning him. Damn, that was a fine idea.

"So, coffee?"

"After, I think."

"Then can I kiss you now?"

Jerk of something close to arousal. Lex shivered. From despair to... this. If Pamela was the conscience he hadn't been allowed, what was Clark? His soul? Sometimes he really believed he needed one. One to replace the childish one his father had destroyed the year his mother died.

Was this hope?

Lex looked into Clark's intent eyes and wondered. Such possibilities. Here. Right here.

"Yes." He watched Clark step close. Tall, worried under the certainty, beautiful mouth slightly parted. Unsure because... First kiss? Not likely. First man? For sure. "It's just the same."

Startled look. Sheepish grin. "Am I that transparent?"

"Guess so."

"For that I get to undress you."

Punishment indeed. Lex watched. Eating up the intensity of care, of precision. Shirt, pants, shorts. He kicked his own shoes away. Socks last. Clark kneeling to unpeel them. A kiss on his thigh while he was there, lips warm on his skin. Teasing smile too.

The shower turned on full. Heat and steam filling the room.

The kiss at last, as Clark finished shedding his own damp clothing. Naked and unconcerned. Golden skin, perfect sculpture. Lex let Clark hold him, slowly bringing his own hands around Clark's back. Touching. Belly to belly, thigh to thigh. Clark hard and ready, Lex almost there. The drugs still swimming him the wrong way, against the tide. Against time. Slow, slow arousal all he was capable of. Slow belief that worked its way into his being and warmed him. Right through.

Clark bending as Lex tilted his head. Mouth, sweet and clean and wide. Kissing like it was a natural skill. Hands so gentle, treating him like something precious. Something damaged that might just fall apart if used too hard. Lex kissed back, offering the same sense of delight. Of pleasure. Soft lips, harder than a woman's yet still pliant, giving. A soft moan as Lex licked once, and slid his tongue just inside Clark's lips. Kissing the mirage, making it real.

Clark jerked, whole body spasm, in Lex's arms. Gasping as Lex stroked a hand down to Clark's ass. Cupping the curve. Pulling him close. The kiss speeding up, greedy mouths, needy.

"Shower." Gasped word, breathy, lips speaking around Lex. Pulling away, leading them both under the running water. Multi–headed shower unit, conspicuous consumption as its own reward.

Heat and wet and Clark. Aching, Lex leant into Clark's body and simply stood there. Sighing as Clark held him, hugged him close. Hands stroking down Lex's back, the feeling close to bliss. Water cascading over his shoulders, droplets covering Clark's hair, lashes, smile. Kissing the smile because he could. Because he had wanted to for as long as he could remember. Kissing again. Open–mouthed, languorous. Like a dream of the best kind, where he felt safe and everything was going to turn out just fine.

A rare thing.

Like Clark, here. Moaning softly.

Lex slid his tongue from Clark's mouth and sucked his way along the strong neck, smiling as little noises met each suck, each bite. Against every expectation he was hard too. Cock pressed to a solid thigh, the crisp softness of wet curls, the heat and delicious readiness of Clark.

"Clark, something gentle, for now."

Clark nodding. Eyes half–closed. Trusting. "Yes..."

"We can fuck each other's brains out next time." Cock jerking against his belly. Clark happy there was a next time. Lex was too. "Hold my ass and pull me against you."

Sweet compliance. Immediate understanding. Cock sliding on skin. Water dragging flesh on flesh. Lex bent and kissed a nipple. Sucked it. Swallowing water as Clark groaned and arched up onto tip–toe. Sweet. Licking, swirling his tongue. Not even considering teasing. They both needed this. This affirmation.

Hips sliding together, fingers digging into his ass as he was pulled, relaxed, pulled... and Clark suddenly jerked hard. Coming so fast he was shaking his head in denial even as his cock pulsed hungrily against Lex's skin. The heat of his seed momentarily plastering them belly to belly before it was washed away in the shower water. Again and again. Ecstasy written on his back–tilted face as he came, and Lex watched and the sheer simplicity of it, the perfect reality, made him groan, orgasm heady and sudden, spinning the room as he gasped, and Clark held him up, held him tight. Safe.

END