Chapter Text
The wind whips harder the higher he rises, cool and crisp with early fall. Stray beams of sunlight break through the cloud cover and brush him with warmth before they’re hidden away again. Clark holds his cargo close to him, half to stop it from being ripped from his hands, half to keep it warm.
Weaving through the steel skeletons of the partially reconstructed skyscrapers is a treat every time he finds occasion to do it. For starters, it’s just plain fun to do. Then he gets to the top, and he looks over all the hard work and resilience this city, his city, has mustered. People picking themselves up, and then helping their neighbors do the same, and all getting right to work putting the pieces back together again. It makes his heart swell with pride. It makes him grateful that he gets to support such wonderful people.
The crane isn’t moving as he approaches, making it all the more easy to fly right up to the cabin hundreds of feet in the air without startling the poor man operating it.
“Would you happen to be Levi?”
He nods, surprised but not starstruck, and Clark hands him the items he was holding: a thermos and lunchbox. “Your wife asked me to drop these off to you.”
“I didn’t even notice I ran out without ‘em. I’d lose my head without that girl. Tell her I said thanks, and thank you, too!”
He’s halfway back to rooftop level when a voice catches his ear over the din of the city.
“Supes! Hey, there!”
He looks, and finds a woman stood out on her balcony, flagging him down.
“Afternoon, miss!”
“Afternoon! Say, is the rain coming this way, or back out?”
Clark gestures for her to hold on, and darts up into the clouds. There’s already a curtain of rain slanting down a few miles off, and judging by the speed and direction of the wind it’ll make it to this part of the city before nightfall. In a flash he’s back beside her balcony.
“Looks like it’s heading this way. Likely sooner than later.”
She thanks him, too, and a while later he sees her again walking down the sidewalk with her raincoat and umbrella. She notices him nearby and again she’s waving him over, but this time she’s holding something out to him. “Stay dry out there, ‘kay?”
It’s a goofy, multicolored umbrella hat that he accepts and wears with pride for the rest of the day.
It’s not much, but little things like this that anyone else might consider trivial are probably his favorite kinds of things to do. Sometimes he thinks that if Metropolis never saw another kaiju or dimensional rift or interstellar threat it would be okay, and he’d spend his days being the helpingest damned hand he could be.
He calls it a night around the time the rain starts. The cape gets so heavy when it’s wet, and the moisture makes the suit a nightmare to peel off. When he checks his phone there’s a few photos sent from Lois. Some pancakes that look divine, a sunset, her smiling in some little hole-in-the-wall rock show. She’s out on location somewhere upstate, covering a corruption trial that’s right up her alley. He missed her before she had even left, but he’s glad she got to go. She deserves it. Never mind that he’ll literally never forgive her–
New Msg - Lois: Call me when you get off rehab duty. I’m dying for an update
Never, ever, ever, as long as he lives, which will likely be a very long time.
New Msg - Lois: ;)
A winky? A standalone winky? Not even he’s that uncultured. Lois is playing in his face, a phrase he recently learned and is just now confident he’s using correctly. She’s off living her career dreams while he’s here–
New Msg - Terrific: Intercepted this data packet. Thought you might want to see it.
Clark opens the file, and the letterhead on the shipping manifest reads LuthorCorp, and he throws his phone over his shoulder. She willingly left him here by himself, knowing that Lex Luthor keeps trying to fuck him. He’s well aware that time behind bars can change a man, but something’s happened to him.
The week of his release from Belle Reve is still vivid all this time later, if only for how differently it went from how he imagined it would. Clark was on high alert, expecting illicit activity in the city to boom. The media coverage following Lex from the prison was red hot, but reporters from the Daily Planet were markedly absent. He didn’t want to risk any of their safety in case he wanted to make things personal right out of the gate. From what they watched crowded around one of the office TV screens, Lex was slipped into a black car and whisked straight home, and that’s where he stayed for a full calendar month. Immediately it seemed to be an alibi, a perfect cover for something, but nothing more nefarious than traffic violations and some litter happened in the whole span of time. He was quiet, and while Clark had a bad feeling about it he also wasn’t about to complain. And then again, he considered that maybe he was being judgmental. Maybe Lex had turned over a new leaf and learned the error of his ways, and was strategizing the best way to move forward on his corrected course. As Lois would say, bullshit. He didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him. Or maybe as far as anyone else could.
It was another month before his suspicions were confirmed. Drones circling the fortress, scanning things and poking around. Not Terrific’s spheres. These were the oblong ones he’d seen Luthor use before, sleek and stealthy, camouflaged but not well enough. All things considered it was harmless in itself, but something about it struck a nerve. Something about what happened the last time he came uninvited. Clark can admit it wasn’t his most emotionally mature moment, but sue him. In seconds he was in the window of the breakfast nook of his forest hill penthouse, moving just slowly enough not to break the sound barrier and give him any kind of heads-up, but fast enough to knock the pane of glass clear out of the frame.
Lex startled appropriately, spilling whatever was in his mug and sliding in his silk pajamas–of course he would–off the strange modern chair and onto the floor.
“What the hell are you doing here? How’d you get past the-”
And he’d dropped the handful of wires and cables, and the sensors and cameras that dangled from them. He already admitted he was wrong, no need to dwell.
“Knock it off, Luthor. I mean it. Find something productive to do with your freedom.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, you destructive oaf. Do you have any idea how expensive contractors in this damn city are?”
“The drones. Take them away or I’ll send my specialist to deal with them.”
Only a half bluff. It was hard breaking Krypto out of his expensive taste for metal chew toys but it had to be done before he set his sights on something harder to replace like a satellite. He would hate to start him back up on it, but to prove a point to Luthor, he’d do it.
“If that mutt breathes on even one of them I’ll make Cruella de Vil seem vegan.”
Clark didn’t like that. He disliked it just enough to do something he would later realize he’d never done before. He put his hands on Lex Luthor. He’d balled his fists into the slippery lapels of his shirt and hoisted him up off the floor to eye level, and then up over his head. It’s a wonder he didn’t slide smooth out of the slick black button down. More emotions than he could identify crossed Lex’s face, but he didn’t struggle, didn’t fight.
“Threaten that dog again and believe me, you’ll answer to somebody that won’t care if he breaks both your arms this time.”
Something strange started to happen with his heartbeat then, and he seemed oddly out of breath. Clark, unwilling to have sending the man into some kind of cardiac episode on his conscience, let him go. He was even careful about how he set him down, fairly gently and securely on his feet, but he still fell to the floor in a heap like all the strength was gone from him.
“Do we understand each other?”
He’d glared up at him from the marble floor, or at least it seemed like that’s what he intended. There was something off in his scowl, though, something hazy in his eyes tainted it less angry and more…something else.
“Loud and clear Superman. ” Only he could make his name sound like a slur. “More like Property-Damage Man. Now, if you’ve made your point, I have glass to pick out of my crepes.”
Clark had felt a little guilty for that, but not much. He wouldn’t have had to do it if he had just stuck to minding his own business in the first place. It proved to be a necessary evil; he never saw another drone, and all was quiet once again.
He wishes that was it. By the sun on high he wishes things ended there. They didn’t.
Right when the whole thing was a little less than a distant memory he got a message from Terrific, far too similar to the one he got today. A quiet leak from an inside source exposing the first official project of the now much smaller LexCorp: artificial kryptonite. Now, was it smart for Clark to go confront a man who may or may not have synthesized the one thing that would do him real harm? No, no it wasn’t. But he wasn’t about to ask anyone else to go in for him, not with the real possibility of it being a trap of some kind meant to lure him into something worse by putting his friends in danger. He gave them his location to be safe, even though Terrific seemed to know already. He still hasn’t figured that one out.
He went at night, while the facility was likely empty and a fight would pose the least threat to anyone in the vicinity. It was, except for a lone man sitting in a half darkened lab. Waiting for him. Clark would know that bald dome piece anywhere.
“Rather inconsiderate timing. I don’t make overtime, you know. At least you didn’t break any glass.”
He didn’t have a chance to wonder how Luthor anticipated him, or why he would stick around before something on his hand caught the light. The facet of a crystal, a flicker of green. Seeing it caught his attention Luthor had held his hand up and out to show off the ring set with a violently green stone.
“You like it? I hate to admit it but that Green Lampshade or whatever his name is doesn’t have half bad taste. I thought I’d make one of my own.”
Clark was frozen in place with the memory of his tongue swelling and throat tightening and blood running sluggish and dragging, aching in his veins. The memory, but oddly not the actual sensation yet.
“Still a prototype, still a little,” he clenched a fist, and aimed the ring up toward the ceiling, along with the flickering green beam it emitted. “Unstable. But I’m sure it’s still plenty effective. Shall we find out?”
And he’d pointed it square at Clark.
Hindsight finds him a little hazy on the specifics. It had been all instinct, all muscle impulse driven by self-preservation. A dodge, a turn, steeling his nerves preparing to move through the pain and grabbing Luthor’s wrist and craning it out and away from either of their bodies. The beam shot and missed, glaring onto the wall beside them. He’d yelped in pain, and Clark had expected to have to do the same but nothing happened, at least not to him. Between the two of them Luthor was in worse shape somehow, flushed and groaning, trying to twist his body to relieve the overextension of his shoulder. Not fighting him, or trying to get away. It gave him a chance to really look at the ring, into the setting and construction of it. The stone was green, sure, but the crystalline structure seemed closer to peridot than kryptonite, and there was something electronic underneath, emitting the beam. A damn laser pointer. A strong one, but just a laser all the same. All this, all of it for Luthor to do what? Play a prank on him? In a moment of frustration overshadowing clarity he’d wrenched his arm just that much harder. It drew an interesting sound out of him, something like pain. But not quite. That’s when he noticed that he still wasn’t fighting him. He could have tried to yank his arm free, tried to fend him off or push him away but he’d done neither. Lex Luthor had allowed Clark to pin him to the table and twist his arm nearly out of socket, and all he’d done about it was breathe heavily, and, as Clark also realized, tremble.
“Is this some kind of joke to you?”
Lex had swiped his tongue over his dry lips, sweat beading over his forehead. “Not at all. Must not be strong enough yet. Back to the-” A huff, a rattled wheeze. “To the drawing board.”
He sounded winded, strained, like he’d run a marathon uphill. Again his heart hammered away, blood pressure climbing steadily. Mindless of the angle or creaking of any of his joints Clark brought the wrist he held up and pulled the ring off his hand. He’d made an ooh, ooh, ouch kind of sound, cooing in pain and drawing his brow down. It was nothing to crush the ring in his fingertips, bits of metal and tiny shards of crystal falling away like dust. He expected anger from Luthor, watching him destroy his hard work so easily. But a rush of air had escaped him instead, and his head had lolled forward against his own chest. It was almost concerning combined with his elevated heartrate.
Again Clark found himself worried for him against all odds. Maybe he was in cardiac distress, in need of medical attention. Lex was a nuisance and not a particularly good person, but the last thing Clark wanted to do was kill him, even accidentally. Considering it less an invasion of privacy and more a kind of preemptive first aid he’d given him a little scan, just a quick one, enough to warn him of any conditions or blood clots he might not have been aware of. He expected to find out if he would need to fly him to a hospital. He found something else.
Concentrated blood flow engorging some very specific locations, enough to drive his heart rate and blood pressure up to what it was. Lex stuttered an inhale, tapping his heel to the floor with the tremors in his thigh.
Ah.
Clark had let his wrist go, and the look it earned him verged on betrayal. He wanted to say something but he didn’t have the slightest idea what that something would be, so he mumbled some suggestion of a better way to pass his time, and left as fast as the building’s structure could tolerate.
What Clark doesn’t know is that after he was gone Lex Luthor had taken his arm, still cracking and painful and worked those engorged locations into a mess right there in his lab. He didn’t massage the ache out of the long-healed fracture, didn’t wait for the twinge in the socket of his shoulder to subside. Every movement, every flick of his wrist and curl of his fingers hurt, and that only brought him off quicker. He’d never considered himself to have a thing for pain, but there he was, whining and shivering, spilling onto the sterile tile over the bruises blooming on him. He couldn’t even blame it on how long it had been last.
Service in Belle Reve was hard to come by, but not impossible. It spared him desperation when he got out, though there were some particular itches he was eager to have scratched again. That went on the backburner, though. He had to pull together what was left of his staff, his company, himself, and get back to what was really important: annihilating that damn alien that had made a fool of him in front of the whole nation. Over time, he’d restored some semblance of normal. Both LexCorp and him individually were on no fewer than eight different watchlists, so his research couldn’t continue at the rate it used to but he was determined to make progress with what he had. He was able to get drone coverage on the secret ice fortress with hopes of pressuring some government somewhere to do something about it. Small beginnings. He got away with it on two separate occasions before he got caught. But once he was, good god was he caught.
Being shoulder-checked across the room was one thing. The way he did this, the way Superman snatched him up, scruffed him like a misbehaving creature was personal. And it was nothing to him. His arms didn’t shake with exertion. His expression never even changed. He manhandled Lex, a man his own height, and he probably could have done it with one hand. It was such a rare display of his perfect control slipping, more visceral of a reaction than Lex had ever gotten from him. Something frayed in him, something crossed and sparked and changed. When his dominatrix came for his scheduled appointment later she absolutely had her work cut out for her. She’d restrained him and hurt him and made him feel absolutely insignificant, and he’d come wailing, tears streaming down his face when she finally let him. But he wasn’t satisfied, not even after another from her, and one on his own long after she was gone. By the end of the night he was sore and raw and drained completely dry but still not done, not really, and he couldn’t figure out why. It took finally falling asleep and waking up hard and weeping for him to understand.
In his dreams Superman, the extraterrestrial bane of his existence bent him back at an unnatural angle and fucked his spinal column loose from his pelvis. His kind, bright, awful blue eyes were set hard and unfeeling, and while he smiled it wasn’t warm and disgusting like usual, it was vicious. He’d forced his mouth open at the jaw and told him to get louder. Hurts, doesn’t it? I know, I know.
In his waking horror, he realized as he ruined the very pajamas still crumpled from his grip, he wanted to be dominated by Superman. The very thought made him sick to his stomach, repulsed by his own subconscious and so thoroughly turned on it made his back arch involuntarily. So much power wasted on stomach-churning kindness, the capabilities of a god borne to a man that dressed in primary colors with his underwear on the outside of his leotard. Despite having more strength in the stray curl that lived draped over his forehead than Lex likely did in his whole body, that’s not what set them truly apart as two different men. Heat ray and x-ray vision, flight and freezing breath, even intellect were meaningless. When it came down to it, neither brain nor brawn made their difference. Superman was everything Lex was not, and the disparity laid in the clumsy rambling of waking up too early after going to bed too late. The wash of relief in finding something that was lost. Waving at a baby across the aisle in the supermarket. Tiptoeing apologetically over a freshly mopped floor. The squeeze at the end of a good hug. The distance between them was a million miles in single steps, each a tiny moment. A human experience.
He could spit venom and vitriol until it took his tongue but only because he knew better. The alien, as he was always so apt to call him, knew more about what it meant to be human than he ever likely would. To be human was to be flawed, and once discovered no flaw was abidable, not to Lex. Perfect posture, walking gait trained and honed. Mannerisms reigned in and subdued. His perfectly tailored suits adjusted in the measurements to hide as much of his neck as possible, to hide the shame that was the blush that crept up his chest and shoulders and throat and betrayed his emotions even when he hid them otherwise perfectly. His own voice, his speech perfected and manufactured. What slight relatability he hadn’t practiced away his money took from him. Anything lost was replaced, no matter the value or sentiment attached. It had been years since he set foot in a public venue of any kind. Much longer since anyone had hugged him. Imagine that. A son of Earth, peerless in his own homeland. Isolated and lonely by his own design. Alienated. A son of Krypton, truly alone and far from a home that was never his. No other being like him left. Held warm in the lap of the human family. Known. Three years behind those bars and the only real prison that held him was his mind. But leave it to his psyche to turn a complicated emotion into a kink of eye-watering intensity.
From that day, all the hunger he escaped his time in prison without lodged right under his diaphragm. Three long years’ worth, all demanding attention at once. Nothing was enough. Nothing wet enough, tight enough, nothing cruel enough on his swollen prostate, nothing stretching him out enough. Nobody could tie him tightly enough, pin him hard enough. He tried so hard, so tirelessly to lie convincingly enough to himself that he could make it work. A close call with a vice grip and another frustrated night going to sleep hard and he let go. Lex damned the situation, damned himself for the hypocrisy of it all, and drafted the first schematic for the ring that same night on his bedside table.
Leaking his own fake memo and waiting for the alien to show up was the easy part. Goading him into restraining him, all fine. The torture was sitting there, holding himself together when he wanted to do things, make sounds he’d never admit to if his life were at stake. The pain was exquisite, the absolute hold he had on him, intoxicating. And that look in his eye, the glimpses of frustration he let slip. Something very, very sick in him wanted to earn that look full-bodied and genuine, and suffer the consequences. The punishment. Then it was over, and Superman was gone, and Lex was alone with his hand down his pants contaminating his lab. He’d have to work harder to get more from him, but he’d never been afraid of doing what was necessary to get what he wanted, even if it meant playing the long game.
Months of incidents. Excuses to get close, be pinned or shoved or even once stiff-armed. And to the sticky, molten delight in the pit of Lex’s stomach it started to work.
There’s something in Clark’s stomach too, rattling as he putters about, in and out of the shower, deciding what clothes to put on. A few months ago he called this rattling thing uncertainty. Between then and now he’s been able to make a real impact, effect real change where he once wasn’t able to. He puts on a top, long sleeved, stretchy athletic material. LexCorp hasn’t closed a single arms deal this quarter, hasn’t escalated any geopolitical conflict whatsoever. Hell, they were even sponsors in the city charity march not long ago, though how much of it was for public image repair Clark can’t say. Sweatpants, gray, the ones Lois swears are going to get him in trouble someday. He locks his door behind him and starts toward the warehouse listed in the manifest. Slowly, on foot. He doesn’t fly, doesn’t go any faster than anyone else out shuffling through the rain. Let him wait. For making Clark come out in this weather he’s going to make this year’s holiday season spectacular. What’s rattling in him is not uncertainty. This late in the game, he fears it just might be anticipation.
Lex has been trying to fuck him since he got out last spring. He hasn’t quite succeeded, but he’s managed to get what he wants. Not for free, though. Lex has desires, and so does Clark. They’re strictly quid pro quo, transaction, purchase and payout. Clark’s been heroing long enough to know that very few situations are all-win scenarios, but somehow this one is. What Lex wants isn’t all that strange. It’s not even foreign to him, despite what the people in his life think him capable of. Blushing? Sure. Virgin? Please. Their arrangement isn’t half bad, either. Lex bluffs a threat, he gives him what he wants, and then he gives Clark his, and the whole city is better for it. Lex is effectively neutralized, the same people who likely would have been his victims become benefactors, and Clark? He’s not sure if he should feel guilty over just how little guilt he feels.
It feels like cheating. Not on Lois, she thinks it’s hilarious, and the first dibs on covering LexCorp’s new humanitarian efforts don’t hurt either. It’s like he found some loophole in the hero/nemesis ecosystem. Can’t beat the bad guy? Edge him until he blacks out. It’s almost definitely not ethical, even if it is consensual. Ugh, he wishes Lois were here. Her unfailing levelheadedness is a great sounding board, the perfect wall to throw his feelings against and have them bounced back until they’re something he can understand.
If he’s being honest with himself, it’s amusing watching Lex carry on the way he does. Swearing he hates him, calling him names. The initiation to their encounters, his pretending to be up to something is just what he feels he needs to do to preserve his dignity. He could just call. He has Clark’s number. Seeing it all slip away, the anger in him melting to brainless pleading and begging is a kick every time. Clark will do something they both know will bruise deep and dark, and Lex will moan for it only to call him a brute after, knowing he’ll press his thumb into the mark later and squeeze his thighs together, and demand Clark replace it when it’s gone.
Their nights start with Clark’s conditions, and Lex complaining, how much? No way, no way in hell. Why would I give a damn about whether the library is funded? You’re not even that good, don’t count on it, and end with Clark tending to him as he comes down, and Lex drafting an email to his secretary to arrange the necessary donations. All his evil and conniving, so readily abandoned should he do as much as put a hand on his throat.
There’s something else that keeps him coming back, though. More than just the novel amusement of it. There’s someone in there, a real person somewhere in Lex that he won’t let breathe except in glimpses when his guard is down and he doesn’t have the mind to hide. That’s who Clark really considers his appointments with. The man Lex Luthor is afraid to be. A man that likes the back of his neck rubbed when he dozes off and prefers the burned chips in the bottom of the bag to the normal ones. He’s been working hard for any sight of him he can get, and it’s been paying off in bits and pieces. If he keeps on the way he is, maybe both him and Lex will get to meet him someday.
The warehouse is small, near the docks. The smell of the ocean is thick, and the air is cool and humid. It’s dim with the light of only a couple bare bulbs and empty except for a few big crates. He didn’t even bother to make it seem like-
“Don’t you have better things to do than follow me around? Really, it’s getting w-”
Clark normally lets him finish. He usually plays along until Lex is able to delude himself out of what he really came here for. Tonight he does not. He closes his fingers around his neck until his middle finger brushes his thumb–not a difficult thing, not for him–and lifts Lex Luthor until just the toes of his silly dress shoes touch the floor. His words die, choked in his grip. He’s clutching at Clark, grabbing at his forearm and bicep but he’s not trying to get away. In fact, Clark knows that if he puts him down now he’ll never hear the end of it. Instead he’s smoothing his hands over the tight fabric of the shirt, kneading at the muscle beneath his fingers. Enjoying himself. His face gets red, and then somehow redder, and when his eyes start to roll Clark puts him down.
“You’re going to sponsor Thanksgiving dinners for every food pantry and community center in the city this year.”
Even coughing, sputtering and gasping and pitching a full tent he manages to act indignant.
“Are you, hah, out of your mind? Thanksgiving isn’t even a real holiday. Not a chance.”
Clark puts his hand up, just up, and Lex very nearly leans bodily into it before he forces himself to stop. “I think you will.”
Fortunately the crates are heavy even if they are just decorative. The one Clark slams Lex into by the back of his neck doesn’t budge an inch. Immediately he’s squirming against it, seeking any friction he can find.
“Stop that.”
“Or what?”
Clark huffs. “Or you’ll regret it.”
The shiver is faint, but he feels it. Lex doesn’t stop. If anything, his hips pump harder. Clark gives his best impression of an irritated sigh, and yanks Lex away from the crate.
“You’re not going to behave, are you?”
“Why would I? You really think you get to tell me what to do just because-”
A little kick to the backs of legs and his knees are cracking down to the concrete.
“I just got here and already you’re being such a brat.”
Lex laughs, breathless.
“You idiot, I’m in charge. You’re here for me. I say jump, you say-”
It’s okay. Clark reminds himself it’s okay the whole time he pulls back, when the slap connects and again when Lex’s head snaps to the side. It’s more push than impact, but still probably more than a little painful. He inhales, deep and slow, eyes wide and unfocused. The cheek, the whole side of his face is already reddening.
“Heavy-handed brute,” he insults, but his tongue is sluggish around the words, head already starting to swim. “Again.”
Clark is surprised, but glad to hear him ask. He rewards him for it and slaps him again, just as hard on the other cheek. His head whips to the other side with a low hummed whine. He glances up at Clark, absolutely gone, eyelids fluttering, chest heaving.
“See what you get when you use your words? Open.”
He obeys but doesn’t open his jaw more than an inch or so, refusing to look him in the eye. It’s alright. His tune will change. It always does. One of Clark’s fingers is the width and thickness of two of Lex’s, so he takes three of them and pushes them past his lips, over his tongue and down his throat until he gags on them. Out to the middle knuckle, then ramming back down. A panicked moan slips out around his hand, and Lex is scrambling for something to hold on to. He settles on the fabric of the sweats near Clark’s knees, and then he’s bobbing his head in a steady rhythm. Laser focused, swirling his tongue into the divots between his fingers then pulling off completely to pepper them in sloppy kisses before diving back down. His face is blissed, cut with the occasional dirty look for posterity. He’s been begging to suck him in earnest, not that he’ll ever admit to it after the fact. That’s exactly why Clark won’t give it to him. If he could ask for it while he’s coherent, maybe he’d get it. The odds of that are low but who knows? He’s getting braver every time.
One particularly deep stroke Clark pushes into his throat and holds there, feeling him flutter and struggle to breathe around him. It’s a little mean how he takes advantage of his distraction and tips his foot forward until it nudges between his legs, and then a little further until he pins the hard length trapped there to his thigh. But Lex asked for mean, once when they negotiated as much as he was willing to, and again now between his keening and panting as he withdraws his fingers.
“Fuck!” he hisses. “Harder.”
Clark goes harder, until he feels the resistance start to push back onto his foot. Lex shakes in what’s got to be agony, and his head falls back to bare his whole neck. When his wail crests, full-chested and straining the muscle in his neck with the volume of it, laced with the ruined babble just let me suck- Clark takes hold of his head, laying each finger carefully until his whole skull fits in his grasp and forces his his head back down onto his fingers. His scalp is smooth and radiator hot. Clark’s always secretly wanted to give it a little rub, a light massage. It seems like it would be soothing, and if it’s one thing Lex always seems to need it’s soothing.
Lex’s noises go muffled with his choking. He tries to use it as an excuse, stifling his noises with gagging.
“No,” Clark chides, in the very same voice he’d use to chastise Krypto for trying to chew Gary or one of the other Superman Robots. “You know better. Do it right or you don’t get to do it at all.”
Lex glares for the thinnest of split seconds, until Clark tries to pull his fingers out of his throat and then he’s all too eager to cooperate. He lets him get a full breath before he’s guiding his head down and back up again. Like he was instructed Lex does his best, puts noticeable effort into making sure every moan, every whine he makes is clear and articulated, echoing off the sheet steel walls of the warehouse. It’s a matter of moments before it does what it always does to him. The shame of hearing himself so loud, begging words he’ll only say because he thinks his mouth is too full to be understood clearly sets him on fire. It’s not very long before he’s looking up at him, tears in his eyes. The muscles in his stomach are tensing, the breaths he can manage are coming short and fast. He’s close, just from this.
Clark takes his hands away and steps back, taking all the pressure his foot offered but staying close enough for him to steady himself on. Lex gasps, hacking and coughing until his breathing steadies and he’s able to pull his head up to look at him, eyes glassy and bloodshot. Maybe he’s had enough, maybe he wants more. It’s hard to tell with him sometimes.
“You okay?”
“Oh, please. Clearly I’m fine. You didn’t wring my neck,” he deadpans, so breathless and needy that it’s completely toothless. “Now just get me off and we can wrap this up. I have to be in Milan in eight hours.” It’s a funny way of asking for someone so hoarse and fuck-drunk.
Clark can’t help but laugh. “There’s no way you deserve that.”
The look on Lex’s face is more distraught than he’s ever seen him. “And why the hell not?”
“Are you serious? Thanksgiving isn’t a real holiday? You’re lucky I even let you choke after that.”
He rolls his eyes but he’s clearly invested. “Whatever. Whatever! Thank-you dinners for the poors and all their little loved ones or whatever it is, I don’t care. They can appreciate each other into a tryptophan stupor. Now put your–”
“No, no, it’s too late now. You’re gonna have to offer if you want anything else.”
And Lex groans like he’s being run over but he throws his hands up.
“I’ll fund the stupid public health clinics through the rest of the year.”
Clark’s genuinely surprised. “Wow, Lex, that’s a really good one! Good job!”
He shivers at the praise, but tries to play it off as disgust. “Don’t flatter yourself, it’s more for my own benefit than anything. I get tested there once a month ‘cause it’s anonymous and free and I have better things to spend my money on.”
“Yes, of course. Whatever you say.” Let him justify it however he likes. A deal is a deal.
Clark absolutely doesn’t have to scruff and drag him over to the shortest of the crates, but he does, and Lex is panting by the time they make it there. He sits and makes Lex stand the whole time he’s taking hold of his leather belt and the fastening of his Armani slacks, now stained and dirty. He rips them both with the same effort as tearing open an envelope. The Gucci boxers can barely contain him, the way he’s straining against them. He tears them, too, bunching and ripping like a bag of chips.
The first clothes of his Clark ruined Lex had acted like he’d spit on the Mona Lisa. Now he just breathes damn, and stares back and forth between the torn edges and Clark’s hands. He eases them down just halfway down his thighs, leaving his legs trapped bunched in the fabric. The tie, already loosened, goes next, then he rakes a hand so casually down the front of the dress shirt and sends the buttons ricocheting off somewhere. Off his fiery red shoulders, down his arms, twisting and tying it around his wrists to keep his hands behind his back. Maybe for amusement, maybe in the interest of taking every endeavor seriously, maybe for a few extra thousand for the humane society Clark spends the time to mark all the bared torso before him with something, starting at his hips and working upward. Burning welts in the wake of his nails, rings of the imprints of his teeth. He’ll hide them under his expensive suits and vests, and let the drag of the fabric irritate the tender spots until they heal. It looks like it has to be uncomfortably painful, feels like it by the way he trembles, but Lex is all pleasure above him. Slow panting and sighing, little noises slipping out with his breath. When he makes it to his ribs he starts to fidget.
“My hands,” he whimpers. “The shirt.”
Clark’s working it off before he’s even done speaking. Maybe he tied it too tightly and it’s hurting him. Maybe he’s just not feeling being restrained today. He’s about to apologize when Lex stuns him into silence. He settles his hands on Clark’s shoulders and pulls him in, just holding onto him. He’s not usually very touchy but as he keeps going, sucking hickies across his ribs it’s like he can’t keep his hands off him. Running them up his neck and into his hair, across his shoulders. Finally he closes his mouth around his nipple. Lex makes the softest moan he’s ever heard him make and tugs a fistful of his hair. Something is different tonight. Clark won’t pretend he doesn’t enjoy these visits in his own way but it’s normally just about Lex. He handles things on his own when he gets home if he needs to, or Lois does if she feels inclined. This doesn’t feel like those other times. The hand in his hair, how Lex is humming and pulling him close. It’s all running hot in a way he’s not sure if it has before. Then he’s teasing at his earlobes with his thumbs, and regardless of if he knew if it would it sets Clark off. He’s shoving the destroyed slacks down to his ankles and pulling him onto his lap before he really even knows he’s doing it. They both freeze, and look at each other for a beat.
“Two million,” Lex blurts. “Women’s shelter.”
It was the last thing on Clark’s mind but he won’t turn him down on it, so he nods too hard and holds him by the hips to grind up against him while his mouth goes back to work. Something unspoken’s at play now. It emboldens Lex, getting more adventurous with his hands. Groping at his arms and chest, scratching at his stomach through the shirt. He’s leaking all over Clark, so hard it can’t be comfortable, but he makes no move to touch himself. Instead he reaches down to rub at him through his clothes. It’s hardly any contact at all but it makes Clark see stars. He puts one hand around the small of his back to hold him steady, and returns the friction with the other, and they hit territory neither of them know what to do with. Lex digs his nails into his back where he’s snaked his hand down into his shirt.
“F-four. Rent– ngh, assistance.” And he’s tugging the waistband of Clark’s sweats down and taking him into his hand. Startled, he bites down over the nipple in his mouth a bit harder than he would have meant to. The coppery taste of blood is thick over his tongue. Lex all but screams.
“Sorry! Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry!” Clark pleads, but he doesn’t hear him. He’s buried his face into the crook of his neck, shaking. Coming. Clark holds him until he’s done spilling over his fist, still murmuring apologies until he finally peels his face off his shoulder and looks at him. He looks positively fucked.
“Blank check,” he breathes, words slurring together, imperfect and unrefined. “Whatever you say. Name it.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“Kiss me.”
Clark doesn’t tell him he’ll give him that one for free. He just leans in and slots his mouth against his own, and marvels as he learns that Lex Luthor is the gentlest kisser he’s ever seen. They’re hungry, greedy but still somehow so delicate as he bats Clark’s hand off him and lines both of them up in his own hands. There’s no more negotiation. The transaction is over. This is something else now. Clark can feel the lust playing over his own features as he breaks away only to lean back onto an elbow, only for Lex to arch and follow him down. The hand at his tailbone that steadied him pulls him in now, guiding the back and forth drag of his hips against Clark’s. It’s slow and hot and wet, Lex is panting into his mouth and biting his jaw and working pure sin with his fingers. He’s hurt the man in a variety of ways by now, all at his own request, all to his delight, but he’s never been as worked up as he is now, making out and grinding slow and messy, not in much pain at all.
Ah.
Clark grins, smug, wicked, Cheshire.
“Lex,” he admonishes, too pleased to keep the gloat out of his voice. He shudders hearing his name but goes still hearing what follows. “You like it like this, don’t you?”
“You’re talking too much.”
A nip to his jugular takes all the fight out of him.
“You could have just told me,” Clark breathes against his neck before nipping again. “If this is what you really wanted.”
“I really want you to shut up,” he growls, voice breaking.
He doesn’t. Clark does not shut up. He keeps whispering in his ear, husky with pleasure about all the things he’d be willing to do if he’d just ask nicely. No more donations needed, not tonight. Clark got what he came for: two more little puzzle pieces about the man who secretly likes attention lavished on him slow and gentle, but doesn’t feel he can ask for it, no matter what he offers in return. Tonight, though, he can have whatever he wants, and all he has to do is ask.
“I wanna come,” he whimpers, so softly it sounds like someone else entirely. “Make me come.”
Clark nods, leaving-
“Please.”
Incredible. He wants to praise him for it but he looks so embarrassed already, so ashamed he doesn’t think he could handle it if he did. The next best thing he can do is oblige, covering his hand with his own and squeezing so tightly the bones in his fingers creak. The pressure, the wet glide is delicious. Clark won’t last much longer himself. Lex keens low and drops his head to his chest, right on the edge.
Clark kisses him again, this time on the forehead, right between his eyebrows.
“Come on, sweetheart. Take it from me.”
Immediately Lex suffers the most violent orgasm his body is capable of. It’s like he’s being electrocuted for a full ninety seconds. In that time Clark’s comes and goes, much shorter but no less satisfying. When it’s done he holds Lex, melted and pliable, for as long as he’ll let him.
“Feel alright? That seemed like a lot.”
He rolls his eyes but doesn’t reject it when Clark offers a hand to help him stand. He’s quiet the whole time he dresses in fresh clothes from a duffel that he didn’t notice until now. He doesn’t throw the torn clothes out. They go in a bag and into the duffel, slung over his shoulder. Clark can only imagine what he’s going to keep them for.
Normally around this time he says something like, I guess that was adequate or not the worst I’ve ever had but still subpar. Tonight he turns bodily away from him, refusing to even look him in the eye.
“All the wires should clear by the end of the week. Expect communication when I get back into the country. I suppose you’ll insist on another conversation. ” He spits it like it’s a dirty word.
“About?”
He shifts back and forth on his feet, seemingly unsure for the first time as long as Clark’s known him.
“I want you to fuck me.”
It’s close to two in the morning, and Clark’s laying facedown in bed. He can’t suffocate himself, no matter how hard he tries. Damn.
“I mean, it makes sense,” Lois’ voice offers through speakerphone. “Gentleness is a display of strength if you think about it.”
“I’m trying not to.”
He doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do now. How to feel.
“Do you want to?” Lois asks, somehow on the same page as his internal spiral.
“No? Maybe? I don’t know, Lois. I mean, it’s not all that different from what he’s wanted so far but it is. It feels like a line.”
“Okay, so tell him no.”
“I can’t tell him no. Well, no, that’s not what I mean. I mean I don’t…I don’t want to tell him no. I just don’t know if I can go through with telling him yes.”
“Because you don’t want to do it?”
He remembers how Lex clutched at him. How vulnerable and open he was. For a while his thirst for power didn’t matter, wasn’t a threat to anyone or himself. For just a little while Lex was himself and nobody more, and Clark thinks if he spent more time as that person it would do him good. And clearly, he’s the only person he thinks is strong enough to handle that person with care.
“I think I do. I just don’t want to disrespect us. It’s not the same, I know it’s not but-”
“I don’t feel disrespected at all, Clark. Never once have I doubted my place in that big farmboy heart. Besides, I’m the real winner here. I haven’t been short of LexCorp news to cover since you two started.”
“You’re sure that’s the only reason? Nothing to do with how I come home late and put you up on the bathroom counter and-”
“Alright, Smallville, that’s all you get for a nickel. Some of us still have work to do tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow after the trial.”
“Fine, fine. Killjoy. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
He feels better, but no less nervous. This is almost definitely putting him out of his depth but if he can handle intergalactic threats before brunch he can do this.
New Msg - Terrific: What was up at that warehouse?
How does he keep doing that?