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Hideaway, part 1 of 2
When security was confirmed, Clark motioned Lex to follow him out of the captives’ hearing range. “So here’s what I was thinking,” he said and briefly explained his plan.
“You want me to *what*?”
“Build a net?” As he said it again, Clark thought that it might not be a great idea. He didn’t see all that many vines in the trees, so unless Lex’s bungalow had a bunch of rope stored somewhere, that wasn’t going to work so well. “Um, never mind.”
Lex looked dyspeptic.
“How fast can you dig a hole?”
Lex closed his eyes. He probably thought he was doing Clark a favor by refraining from *rolling* his eyes, but he wasn’t. “Deep enough for a person? In this soil, half a day.”
Damn. Superman could have done it in minutes, seconds even.
He wasn’t bad at plans. Really. Sure, Batman might do most of the brainwork for the League, but that was a matter of comparative advantage. Clark had survived *years* before the League, strategizing on his own. It was this self-imposed handicap, the one both of them were too stubborn to disavow, that was interfering with his tactical ability.
“It’ll be getting dark soon,” he said. “When they realize something’s wrong, they’ll probably stick together, maybe even call for reinforcements. I’m thinking we need to scare them off – make them think it’s a ghost island.”
Lex gaped like a goldfish. “Clark,” he said when he’d recovered some composure, “are you seriously suggesting that we adopt a plan that never even worked for the villains on *Scooby Doo*?”
“Who’s in charge of plans here, anyway? Plus,” Clark continued, “there aren’t any pesky kids around.”
So that was how he and Lex ended up on opposite ends of the beach, bracketing the invaders, as the sky darkened to a cobalt blue, like a dark reflection of the pristine turquoise of the water lapping against the beach. Each of them had conch shells to use as noisemakers – Clark was proud of that touch. They also carried weapons hastily constructed from branches, torn-up pillowcases, empty bottles, and gasoline from the bungalow's generator. Over Lex’s silent but nonetheless eloquent objections, they’d buried the guns they’d taken from their two captives in a random patch of sand.
The night was going to be dark. The moon was new and the starlight, even reflected off the quietly chuckling waters, was not enough to allow anyone to see more than a few feet ahead. The men on the beach had two electric lanterns for the four of them, which they turned on as dusk fell. They probably hadn’t anticipated staying this long.
They were nervous, watching the trees and jumping every time a bird left its perch or a lizard rustled through the underbrush. Their hands were tight on their guns, their tones tense as the two in charge squabbled over what to do – build a fire to get better visibility, abandon their two lost sailors or call for more help. Either option was apparently likely to get them in trouble with the man in charge, so they did nothing.
When the stars were out except for a band of fading light at the horizon, Clark raised the conch to his lips and blew. It made a mournful, eerie sound.
They were firing in his direction before Lex answered his call. Clark threw himself to the sand as if he could be hurt, because he didn’t want Lex finding bullet holes in his clothing later and complaining about cheating. In Clark’s opinion, invulnerability wasn’t the kind of power Clark could just not use, but it wasn’t worth the aggravation to dispute. So he ducked and rolled while Lex began his own eldritch noise on the other side of the beach, frightening the men further as they spent their bullets raking the defenseless trees.
Clark liked the waste of ammunition, even if it was rough on the vegetation. Startled birds leapt upwards, their cries mingling with the ululation of the conch – Clark remembered to add his own to the noise – and one of the men called to the others, urging them to leave the stuff and go back. Umberto (whoever that was) would find the stuff on the beach when he came, and that would be fine.
The taller of the two bossmen snapped out a negative. Umberto would kill them.
Better than dying here, a third voice said.
At that point, the first explosion rocked the beach. Clark was sure that Lex could have constructed a chemical fuse for their makeshift bombs, but he’d made do with strips of fabric and twigs. One of the men screamed, and fired at the already-burning area at the edge of the beach. Clark wasn’t worried about the fire spreading; Lex had placed the bombs carefully, and Clark was pretty confident that the vegetation wasn’t dry enough to sustain a fire. He’d use his breath if it came to that.
Lex was moving, the sound of his conch seeming to drift closer as the next few bombs went off, painting the beach in flames in several separate locations, as if they were being shelled.
A bottle shot from Lex’s approximate location like a comet, breaking on the boat and releasing its load of flaming gasoline.
Clark was proud of the Molotov cocktails and catapults. He had remembered how to make them from basic materials, and they didn’t require great aim on Lex’s part.
The guy who’d been afraid of Umberto yelped and dove for cover. Another bottle shot into the sky and splashed a few feet ahead of the one man who’d retained enough composure to fire in Lex’s direction.
Clark lit one of his own stock – with matches, not heat vision – and sent one of his own falling, crossing the trail of Lex’s third as it went so they seemed to be coming from all sides. By luck – okay, by superaim, but like invulnerability that had a ‘hard to turn off’ aspect – he hit one of the lanterns, which obligingly exploded.
Just go! one of the men yelled to the others. Let Umberto send someone else to deal with these savages, screw Macario and Hector, they were dead. This was all the incentive the others needed to start pushing the boat back into the water.
Except –
At the last minute, one of the leader-guys turned and began to swing his automatic towards Lex's position. Even with the darkness and the chaos, Clark could tell that he'd be aimed just right in moments.
Without thinking, he put his last bottle in the sling and sent it hurtling down the beach, where it smacked into the man's forehead and sent him tumbling on his ass. As it happened, he fell into the boat, and his compatriots ignored him as they started the engine and puttered away.
Clark watched them go with a feeling of profound relief. There had always been the possibility that they’d manage to hurt Lex – he would have used his powers to prevent that, but then Lex would have been insufferable.
When the sound of the boat’s engine faded into the noise of the ocean, Clark went to stand in the middle of the beach. He would have collected the broken bottles, but he was on vacation; let Lex clean them up.
After a few minutes, Lex came to join him. "What was *that*?" he asked, sounding aggrieved. "That guy could have killed me, and you went after him with a *slingshot*?"
"Why are you upset?" Clark asked reasonably. "I saved you, didn't I?"
"That's not the point!"
"You're complaining because you didn't like the way I saved you," Clark said, slowly, relishing the words. "Don't you think that's a little ... petty?" He didn't need to remind Lex who it was who insisted on no use of powers; he could tell that Lex knew what Clark was thinking, and that it was irritating the hell out of him.
At last, Lex sighed. "They're gone now, I suppose."
They stood side by side on the sand, which was still warm from the day’s sunlight, and looked out at the stars and the blue-black water.
“Hey, Lex. I guess those guys never saw *Scooby Doo*,” Clark said when he could no longer hold himself back. He was feeling too good to defer to Lex's pride.
Lex plainly tried to decide whether he was being mocked or Clark was being his clueless Kryptonian self. “I guess not,” he said in a voice as dry as sandpaper.
“You did some good shooting,” Clark said. “And by the way, impressive hand-to-hand earlier.”
Lex didn’t look at him. “Mercy is an excellent instructor.”
Yeah, it is, Clark thought.
“What are we going to do with those two leftovers?” Lex asked lightly.
“I was thinking – maybe I could use your satellite phone to call Batman to come pick them up.” It was only Lex who was supposed to refrain from technological communications, after all.
Lex frowned. “I suppose. But I’m coming with you, so that Batman will refuse any attempts to engage in shop talk.”
They stopped for a brief check of their captives’ bindings, during which Lex gave the two men water from a canteen he’d been carrying. It made Clark ponder: Lex had secreted a canteen, matches, and probably other survival gear in his casual beachwear. He must never have gotten over his summer trapped on a desert island. Clark couldn’t say that Lex’s paranoia was unjustified. Witness today’s little adventure.
The prisoners’ knots were holding. Clark made sure to explain to the men that no good would come of an escape attempt, given that their companions had abandoned them. He wasn’t as good with threats as Lex, but he thought he did a decent job.
Batman, who never slept as far as Clark could tell, agreed instantly to come for the two miscreants. Clark could see from the look on Lex’s face that Lex regretted offering the Bat a chance to check out his island up close, but to his credit he didn’t say anything, or even blanch when Clark didn’t need to tell Batman the coordinates.
They went back upstairs and outside to wait. It wasn’t cold, but Lex collected downed branches and made a small fire in the clearing where they’d tied the men. They sat by it in silence, watching sparks fly upwards and lose themselves in the sky. The flames snapped and popped, reminding Clark of the sound stars made on the radio spectrum.
It occurred to him that Lex might actually understand and enjoy the comparison, so he said it out loud. Sure enough, Lex’s face lit up with interest.
“You hear the stars?”
“Only when I try,” he said, modestly.
“When did that start? How do you know it’s the stars? How do you sort out the background noise? What does it sound like when a sun goes nova?”
“Whoa –“ He held up a hand, laughing. “One at a time, okay?” Because he couldn’t see how Lex could use the knowledge against him, he talked, describing his senses as best he could in human terms. He ended up telling Lex about how the stars looked to him, pointing to places in the sky and narrating the amazing colors to be found deeper into the spectrum. Lex followed the path traced by his finger with fascination, his face made young again with wonder.
Clark went on to stories of what it was like out there, the winds on other worlds, the alien cultures and inexplicable technologies he’d encountered. Lex asked a lot of questions, a fair number of which he couldn’t answer, making him wish he’d had Lex along at the time. Even the vicarious explorations were electrifying Lex, making him glow with curiosity and the thrill of the unknown. Clark thought maybe Lex was untimely born. If he’d come of age in a world with continents left to explore, or one where spaceflight was ready to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, Lex would have had goals more suited to his talents. For all his citified ways, Lex was a conqueror at heart, meant to lead an army; he always looked happiest at his LuthorCorp pep rallies, where his army of employees roared for him in unison. *BusinessWeek* called it Japanese-style management, but Clark knew it was about fealty. About belief.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Lex asked too casually as he poked the fire with a stick, stirring up the fuel to keep it burning.
Clark shrugged. "It's just – good to have someone to tell about all this. The League already knows it, and Mom and Dad get so freaked out –"
Lex nodded, though Clark could tell he was still suspicious of Clark's motives. "How are they?"
Clark stared into the ever-changing fire. "They're fine. It's hard for Dad, getting older. Mom isn't as – Dad thinks he's still twenty-five, you know? I wish I could do something to make it easier on him, but I can't exactly take on the aging process in single combat."
Lex made a small noise of agreement. They subsided into silence again, listening to the chatter of the fire and the sounds of their captives shifting uneasily against their bonds. What a weird vaction, Clark thought, then realized that with Clark Kent and Lex Luthor it could never be any other way.
Eventually they heard the sound of a helicopter approaching. By silent agreement, they stayed seated by the fire until Batman found them. Lex glowed like an idol made of white gold, his pale skin warmed only a little by the fire, his hands draped over his linen-clad knees, which were drawn up close to his chest. He wasn't wearing socks, Clark noticed. He had well-turned ankles.
Batman appeared before them with barely a rustle of grass. How he got the cape to stay silent was one of the great mysteries; Clark and Wally West had swapped several theories. Wally insisted the cape was just too scared of him to make any noise.
"Do you *know* what's in those boxes on the beach?" Batman asked, polite as always, as he peered down at them.
"No," Clark said before Lex could bitch, "and we don't want to. But there's this Umberto guy in charge, you might want to find him."
Batman grew impossibly darker and stiffer, a black hole of superhero. "Already taken care of," he said and turned away.
Wordlessly, he cut the two prisoners free – his gloves must have had a secret edge, because it seemed as if he just *stared* at the torn-up cloth and it shredded apart. At this point, the men were too shellshocked to react with any extra terror at the sight of the Batman, and they went with him like sheep.
As he escorted them away, doubtless to a debriefing that would be even less fun than being tied to a tree for hours, Batman looked back at Clark and Lex. "Have a nice vacation," he said.
Clark raised a hand in a lame half-wave farewell. He would suggest that Batman take a break of his own, but it didn’t seem likely.
"That," Lex said as the sounds of the men stumbling through the darkness faded, "is one very disturbed individual."
Clark snorted. "And you don't even have to work with him."
"You'd be surprised," Lex said. They exchanged a conspiratorial glance.
Lex stood abruptly and began kicking sand on the fire to put it out. "You must be hungry. We should eat and get some rest. Tomorrow's the halfway point, and you haven't even been swimming."
Clark considered that. Technically, he'd made it to the beach, but he agreed that scaring off strange invaders didn't count as beach activities, even for Superman. And he was hungry as soon as Lex mentioned it. His stomach petitioned for food, growling loudly enough to make Lex smile. He hurried to stamp out the last embers.
After a simple but extensive snack, they parted for the night. Clark fell asleep to the sound of Lex showering.
The next day, he got up early – which at this point meant before noon. Halfway through the vacation, and he hadn't lounged on the beach even a little bit. Clark was determined to change that.
He made himself an omelet with peppers and cheese and ate it standing at the counter, casting glances at the door that led to the bedrooms. But Lex didn't emerge, even when Clark banged the plates around as he cleaned up.
He put on a pair of swim trunks – black, thank you very much, not bright red or blue – and headed to the beach.
It was gorgeous. Pristine, salt-white sand, dampened to ivory by the surf which rushed up to the shore in cheerful wavelets, foam like lace edging at the tops of the larger waves. The water was clear turquoise, shading darker in perfect blue-green hues as the seabed dropped away from the island. He could see shells and bits of coral through the glassy water.
He didn't realize he was running until he splashed in. The water was warm and inviting; he plunged in until he was up to his neck.
In the salt water, he floated easily. He stayed on his back for a while, letting the sun bake his skin as water splashed and beaded on his chest. He turned somersaults in the water, keeping his eyes open all the way around as the world spun, blue to green to sun-blinding bright. He swam from one end of the beach to the other, up to the rocks that swept out and made the beach into a half-moon curve. He could have swum around the island, but that wouldn't have been a human way to enjoy the day. Holding his breath, he could touch the seafloor, letting the sand run through his fingers and watching it reform as if he'd never passed by.
His fingers didn't prune up like a human's would, but eventually he decided to take a break, swimming back until his feet could touch the sand and he could walk out.
Seawater dripped from his sodden hair into his eyes. He shook his head, sending spray all around, as he emerged onto the powdery sand of the beach.
Lex was there, on the very edge, still in the shade. He was holding a book, but he was watching Clark. His eyes had the old intensity. Their pale blue should have been no competition for the deepness of the ocean, but Clark felt that he was in danger of drowning for the first time.
Lex swallowed, breaking the stasis.
Clark stepped forward. Water continued to sluice off him, drying quickly in the sun. The heat on his back was somehow less powerful than the light in Lex's eyes.
"You're up," he said redundantly. "You should come in the water." There, that was better.
Lex looked down at his clothes, a repeat of yesterday's loose cotton shirt and linen trousers. The mandarin collar of the shirt made him look younger and more vulnerable than he did in his usual bespoke suits. "I don't think I'm properly dressed for that."
Clark squelched the impulse to grab him and throw him fully clothed into the water. These days, Lex would take it the wrong way. "You could change – I mean," he hurried before Lex could read more into that statement than was warranted, "you've got a swimsuit up at the house, right? If you can function without a tie, you can function without a shirt."
"I'll burn," Lex said, his tone inviting rebuttal.
"Get sunscreen."
The sun was soaking through him, liquefying his very bones. He was turning molten as he stood talking to Lex, his heart a furnace, his veins made of lava.
Lex blinked rapidly, as if he couldn't bear to look at Clark for more than a second at a time. "Yeah," he breathed. "Okay. I'll – be back."
Clark watched him walk into the cool of the trees, feeling seventeen again. Seventeen and lonely, scared, lost, bitterly disappointed in Lex. Wanting so much to share his alienness with someone – Lex – and afraid of being rejected, despised, scrutinized and put in a glass box like Lex with his Russian manuscript page. Even then, he'd known to fear Lex's intelligence, warped and forged into nothing better than a weapon.
When he'd become Superman, he'd thought Lex didn't know for almost three years, until he'd destroyed Lex's favorite lab and come home to a blood-freezing message on his answering machine. Lex hadn't said anything that would count as evidence to anyone else – he was cautious that way – but Clark had known. He'd been more careful after that, only going after Lex as Clark Kent or with the full backing of the League. Lex had been more careful after that as well, moving his labs overseas where the regulations were less stringent, hiding his financial shenanigans under layers of insulation. Clark figured that, if he wasn't keeping Lex entirely honest, he was at least making it expensive enough for Lex to be dishonest that he was choosing the right path more often purely for accounting reasons.
And now this – Lex, on vacation, like an ordinary person. Last night, Lex had listened to his stories with the pure enjoyment he used to show when lecturing Clark on ancient Greek customs and legends.
It had been easy to tell himself he hated Lex. Too easy, he realized now, because Lex was never uncomplicated. Lex probably hadn't been able to tell his Greek histories to anyone in years; Hope and Mercy were fantastic bodyguards, but Clark was willing to bet they weren't any great shakes as an audience.
Lex might be the one person in Metropolis lonelier than Superman.
A long time ago, Lex had asked Clark not to give up on him. Clark hadn't listened then. It had been too late already, no matter what he'd said. Now he'd seen enough to know that Lex Luthor wasn't the worst thing out there. *Lionel* Luthor wasn’t the worst thing out there, though that was a much closer call. He'd also seen enough to know that change was possible, if difficult – so maybe the comment about Lex's clothes had been more pointed than he'd known.
The sun was so bright and the air so warm that he was almost entirely dry by the time Lex returned from the house. Lex was carrying a large, folded white towel that probably cost as much as Clark's entire wardrobe, perched on top of which was a dark, unlabeled bottle (ditto on the wardrobe comparison, since it had to be a specially formulated sunscreen available only to supermodels and Luthors).
The towel was big enough to block most of Clark's view of Lex's upper body; Lex was carrying it oddly close to his chest, as if he were trying to hide behind it. He was wearing a swimsuit even baggier than Clark's. Clark could see the fine hairs on his forearms, golden in the light, and wondered why the meteors had taken the hair on Lex's head but not the rest.
Lex wasn’t looking at him. "I need to put on the sunscreen."
"Lie down," Clark said without thinking.
"What?"
"Lie down. I'll put it on you."
Lex hesitated. Clark wasn't sure it was a good idea, either. Then Lex handed him the bottle, as quickly as if it were red-hot iron, and turned to shake out the towel, laying it on the sand full in the sun.
He lowered himself down like a man wary of a strafing attack from the sky, propping himself on his elbows and staring out at the ocean. Clark knelt on Lex's left, holding the sunscreen as gingerly as if it were likely to contain Kryptonite.
Lex's back was pale and gorgeous, his shoulder blades sweeping up like wings submerged beneath his skin. He'd gotten bigger with age, broadened shoulders and a narrow waist, muscles rippling as he shifted with impatience. The interruption of the line of his body by the swimsuit was a crime against nature.
Clark popped the top and poured a puddle of sunscreen onto his hand. It was honey-colored and smelled of amber, instantly warm against his skin.
He put down the bottle and rubbed his hands together, spreading the slickness, then reached for Lex before he lost his nerve.
Focused on his own breathing, he almost missed Lex's exhalation as his hands settled on Lex's shoulders. He moved slowly, determined to cover every inch of skin, to keep Lex from complaining about any missed spots. His thumbs brushed the back of Lex's neck and traced a line down Lex's spine.
His mouth was sand-dry. Keeping one hand moving in slow circles on Lex's mid-back, he grabbed the bottle, his slick fingers slipping on the brown glass, fumbling with it until it gave up more liquid.
Up to the shoulders, down the back of Lex's left arm, over the slightly roughened skin of the elbow to the smooth slide of the forearm, his hand covering Lex's for a second before he lost his nerve and pulled away, nearly overbalancing and falling on his ass before he recovered and bent again to his task, leaning over Lex's body to get the other arm. Lex was breathing fast now, his shoulders hunched. Clark finished the arm, returned to Lex's back, his fingers sliding of their own accord a few centimeters below the waist of Lex's suit.
Another pause for more sunscreen, and Clark moved down to Lex's legs, the strong quads jumping against his touch, the backs of his knees soft as secrets, the runner's calves, the Achilles tendon taut under his fingers.
There was no need to put sunscreen on the soles of Lex's feet, not really, but Clark was tempted nonetheless.
He was done. He should pull back now; they would go to the water and swim.
Lex was rigid underneath him, every muscle tensed. His ears were flushed –
Clark wasn’t done. There was one part of Lex he hadn't protected from the sun.
Taking a deep breath, Clark poured one last dollop of sunscreen into his hands. He expected Lex to say something, encouragement, prohibition, anything, but instead Lex just lay there, waiting for him. Lex had always waited for Clark to tell him the important things, which was his biggest mistake of all.
He put his hand on the back of Lex's head. His hands were so big, clumsy and strange compared to a normal person's, but for once he was glad he could span so much, cupping the curve of bare skin, like a globe with the world – or the universe – inside. Lex shivered, but he pressed up, into Clark's touch, letting Clark search out every centimeter of exposed skin, the pliable rind of his ears, the hollows right behind them hidden by the earlobes from ordinary sight, the bump at the top of his spine like a period, announcing that the buck stopped here.
His fingers brushed over the top of Lex's head like a blessing, the tips barely touching Lex's eyebrows, hidden from his sight by their position.
Clark let his hand fall away, no longer touching. Now he had a decision to make. He could play dumb as always, run to the ocean and let Lex follow when he was ready. It would make him a cocktease, but Lex had said much worse about him before; they'd both survive.
Or ....
He bent, putting one hand on each side of Lex, feeling the terry loops of the towel almost rough against his slick-soft hands. Lex's head was hanging down, his forehead almost touching the towel as he waited, braced on his forearms.
Clark bit the back of Lex's neck, just below the bump, one animal telling another to submit. His teeth scraped along Lex's skin, salty and a little sweet from the sunscreen, as Lex jolted like he'd been electrocuted. Clark quickly moved so that he was covering Lex's body entirely, pressing them both down to the towel. He could feel the sand shifting beneath his hands and knees, moving aside to let him settle in.
Lex was shaking in earnest now, breathing like a man in the throes of a panic attack. Clark wanted him naked, but didn't want to move away, then remembered that he had control over his personal gravitational field. He pulled his arms away from the ground, hovering just enough that he could hook his fingers into Lex's shorts and pull them down his hips, past his knees, until Lex took over and kicked them off. Then, unable to resist the siren call of so much skin, he came heavily down on Lex's body, groaning as his chest touched Lex's back, hot with sweat and expensive lotion. He scrabbled at his own annoying swimsuit until his freed cock was pressed against Lex, grinding into Lex's ass.
The sunscreen made it easy to rub against Lex, sliding freely against him, almost frictionless. He brought his hands up to clamp on Lex's shoulders as he swirled open-mouthed kisses on the back of Lex's head, his neck, his upper back. Lex spread his legs, giving Clark a better angle to thrust against him.
Clark was dizzy with the feelings, the sun beating on his back like a mallet, the light so bright he could see it through his closed eyes, the heat of Lex like molten gold beneath him.
Lex's jagged breaths resolved into words – "Fuck me," he was saying over and over.
What an amazingly awesome plan. Clark pulled back onto his knees, gritting his teeth, and grabbed for the bottle, which promptly broke apart in his hand. With his last shreds of self-control, he put the four big pieces of glass off to one side, grateful that the bottle hadn't shattered into smaller fragments, and let the sunscreen in his hand drip onto Lex's lower back, sliding down to his ass. He put his left hand on Lex's waist to keep him still as he rubbed around the hole, then pushed his finger in to the first joint. Lex convulsed, his hands crumpling the edge of the towel, but Clark had him firmly in control. He was hot, the muscles pressing tight against Clark's invasion as Clark went in further, then added another finger, working them around until Lex threw his head back and screamed.
Clark didn't want to pull away, wanted to keep feeling the shifts and contractions against his fingers, but he had to have his cock inside Lex now. As quickly as he could without switching to superspeed, he removed his fingers and slicked himself with the last of the sunscreen in his palm. He was pressed up against Lex, one thrust away from heaven, when he looked at Lex's bowed head and realized what was wrong.
Forget saving Metropolis from Mothra, he deserved a medal for this, for pulling back when every cell in him screamed to move forward. "Lex," he said, his voice low and barely intelligible in his own ears. "Turn over."
Lex froze, then shook his head. That convinced Clark that he'd been right to stop, and the raging desire ebbed enough to let him wait. "Turn over," he said again, cajoling. "Please, Lex."
"Fuck," Lex cursed, barely loud enough for Clark to hear, and turned over in a sudden savage movement, his knee hitting the outside of Clark's thigh a solid blow in passing, rucking the towel so that they were half on the sand. His eyes were closed tight, his lower lip red and nearly bleeding from where he'd bitten it.
Clark bent to ghost a kiss across that bruised mouth, then pushed Lex's legs up and apart. Lex had turned his head so that Clark could see his profile and the tendons in his neck standing out like wires.
He'd been waiting fifteen years for this, he thought. Maybe he'd been waiting all his life.
Sliding into Lex was like being reborn into fire.
Beneath him, Lex was writhing like the snake in the Garden of Eden, surging up as if he could obliterate the spaces between their atoms and bring them closer together. With his hands stretched above his head, he wrapped his fingers around Clark's wrists, squeezing so hard Clark could practically hear Lex's bones protest as Clark settled into a rhythm that would allow him to keep fucking as long as possible without his heart exploding.
Their bellies slapped against each other, Lex's legs hooked over Clark's upper arms, stray grains of sand prickling against him in the midst of all that slippery skin. Clark knew his arms must be grinding Lex's into the ground to the point of pain, but Lex wasn't protesting and Clark frankly couldn't make himself care.
He couldn't trust himself to bite at Lex's neck the way he wanted to, not right now. He settled for panting into Lex's skin, feeling his own breath bounce back into his face, hotter and wetter for being so near. Lex was making random, broken noises. Clark pried one hand free and moved it down to take Lex's cock in his hand, stroking as it swelled and hardened, the incredible softness of the skin a contrast to the firm flesh beneath. He ran his thumb over the leaking head and wished that he could somehow be sucking Lex at the same time.
When he glanced up, he saw that Lex had put his free hand over his face, like a mask.
"I'm closing my eyes," Clark said, and suited action to words. Maybe Lex didn't want to know that Clark could tell what he needed – but if Lex couldn't say what he wanted, Clark was just going to have to guess.
With his eyes shut, Clark settled more deeply into the other sensations. Lex around him like the tug of a black hole, his labored breaths thunder in Clark's sensitized ears. Each pinprick of sand like the twinkling of stars sparking across their bodies, his mouth against Lex's neck tasting Lex's leather and salt, moving up over the soft curve of his chin and cheek. The world was red and gold, heat and light and Lex, Lex after so long, Lex always.
When he came, his eyes snapped open and he caught Lex's blue-marble gaze, wide as the ocean.
Clark let the aftershocks ripple through him, like being hit with a day's worth of sun at once. He was too sensitized to stay inside Lex – but Lex was still hard. He moved down Lex's body, his knees hitting the sand as he bent to lick Lex's cock, his fingers still wrapped around the base. No longer pinned by Clark's body, Lex thrust up, as deep as Clark could take him. Clark felt Lex's hands clench in his hair as he stroked Lex's balls, teasing the red-brown hairs there, another of Lex's secrets.
One last vicious jerk and Lex was coming, sea-salt in his mouth. Clark kept sucking and licking until Lex made a pained noise and pushed him away. Clark didn't let go fully, though; he moved to paint Lex's belly with his tongue, venturing out to his hips, up to his navel, and down again to his thighs. Lex tasted like clouds, and it was also a way of keeping busy so they didn't have to talk.
By the time he made his way up Lex's chest, stopping to worship at the hollow of his neck and suck raspberry bruises onto his shoulders, Clark was nearly ready for another round. Lex was petting him as if he were a big cat.
This was, Clark thought, the best vacation ever.
He kissed Lex at last, sweet and wet, his eyes closed because it wasn't polite to look at someone during kissing. The sun ladled light on his back, heating him all the way through. The sand was warm and dry where his toes dug into it, gritty as spilled sugar.
Lex let himself be turned around again, moved to his hands and knees. It was a good position, allowing Clark to feel the long lines of Lex's thighs, the amazing curvature of his ass as he went as deep as he could. There was more sand between them now – the next time had better be in the shower, Clark thought – and Lex groaned whenever Clark rubbed a hand down his back, grinding the sand into his lotion-slick skin.
Clark lasted longer this time, long enough that he forgot about anything else, just sliding in and out of Lex, who trembled underneath him like a hummingbird. It was like flying in the sun's corona, lashed by the radiation, caught inside it.
At the end, he collapsed onto his back in the sand, blissed-out and already sliding into sleep.
****
He woke to a mouth on his cock – Lex's mouth, wicked in this as in speech, making his hands close into fists. Sand fused into little glass stalactites against his palms. The sun was deep in the sky, headed towards another rainbow sunset.
When he noticed Clark's return to full consciousness, Lex pulled back, making Clark whimper. "The sun worships you," Lex said, looking up and down Clark's naked body. "And God, who wouldn't?" The last was said softly, almost to himself.
Then Lex's mouth was on him again, harder this time, almost biting. Sand-roughened fingers moved on his thighs, the skin behind his balls, the angles of his hipbones, learning him.
Clark didn’t try to hold back. He yelled – okay, maybe even yelped – as he came, Lex holding on to him as if he'd never let go.
"I want to fuck you," Lex said as soon as Clark's eyes had refocused. He was leaning over Clark, his shadow joining with Clark's off to one side.
Clark nodded.
"But this sand is going to kill me – come inside."
"Lex, there's a whole *ocean* right here."
Lex sighed and sat back. "Fine, but –"
Clark didn't wait for the conditions. He rolled to his feet – yes, he was a bit sandy, coated in it like a chicken ready for the frying pan – and held out his hand for Lex. Lex rose gracefully and, with only the slightest hesitation, let himself be led to the surf.
Whooping with glee, Clark let him go and ran into the water, splashing full-frontal into it as soon as it was up to his thighs. The sea welcomed him, sluicing off the sand, wrapping him in its comforting embrace. He rolled over onto his back and saw that Lex was standing still, up to his waist – Clark spared a moment to be grateful that the water was as clear as blue glass. "Come on," he said, grinning. "Vacation, remember? Fun."
Lex raised his eyebrows at Clark's apparent inability to put coherent sentences together, but then he shrugged and did a half-dive into the water, emerging as wet as Clark was. He shook his head to clear his eyes – only to be drenched by the wave Clark had just created.
Sputtering, Lex charged at Clark, only moderately hindered by the water in his way, tackling him and pushing his head under the water, which Clark allowed with a grin.
They played in the water for a while, wordless as dolphins. Lex relaxed enough to float some, though he was more inclined to dive down and look at the coral and other organic debris on the seafloor, holding his breath until he was forced to hurry for the surface. Clark mostly watched him, gorgeous as he swam through the water, his strong arms churning the currents and moving him forward. Clark floated several feet below the surface, looking up at the sun through the turquoise filter, then hiding under Lex's shadow while Lex floated on his back, until Lex started to look around with concern. Then he rose, catching Lex's waist as Lex thrashed and spit curses that were literally salty.
"That's enough," he said when he'd calmed down. "Inside, now. I can't fuck and swim at the same time."
"You don't need to," Clark pointed out.
Lex shook his head. The water made him sparkle around the edges. "Exotic later. I want to be able to concentrate on you."
Clark had to admit that Lex was persuasive.
Back in the house, they ignored the sand they tracked in, rushing to the shower. The stall was enormous, proof of Lex's desire for luxuriousness even in the middle of nowhere. Clark pushed Lex up against the white tiles, kissing him furiously as Lex groped for the controls. Clark didn't let up even when Lex's first attempt produced only cold water, and sure enough Lex managed to turn it warm after a few more fumbles. He could feel the difference in density in the fresh water, washing the salt from his skin as they kissed and kissed, Clark holding Lex's head still with both hands, his thumbs tracing the line of Lex's jaw.
When Lex pushed inside him for the first time, Clark nearly punched a hole in the wall. His head did crack a few of the tiles when he ducked it a little too quickly, but he thought Lex might not have noticed.
Afterwards, he tucked a towel around his waist and went out onto the wraparound deck, on the side that was getting the most light from the sun. About an hour away from sunset, he thought.
He should have brought a book, but once he was seated on the padded deck chair, he was too comfortable to move. The view was enchanting enough.
Footsteps on the wood of the deck. "Want company? I brought food."
Clark smiled. "In that case, come on out."
Lex had put on pants and a long-sleeved shirt, which didn't much surprise Clark. Lex looked perfectly comfortable naked and perfectly comfortable in five-thousand-dollar suits; he had more trouble with casual, and he probably would have been miserable in shorts and a T-shirt. Even a designer T-shirt. He was holding a large ceramic bowl, blue-and-white striped.
Clark was a bit nonplused when Lex straddled his lap, but he was open to the experience. The bowl was full of fruit – mango, pineapple, raspberries, blueberries. Lex held it with one hand and reached for a cube of mango with the other, bringing it to Clark's lips.
There was some sort of sauce, honey and a little lemon. Clark sucked at Lex's fingers before Lex pulled back.
"Do you know what the French word for 'fruit salad' is, Clark?" Lex asked, feeding him more fruit.
He shook his head slightly. For once he was happy to play the role expected of him, that of wide-eyed listener, like being back in the mansion again.
"It's 'macedoine.' Because Macedonia was such a mix of ethnicities, not a melting pot but a jumble, each with its own traditions and pride, none willing to join with the others. At its best, harmony without sameness; at worst, chaos."
The fruit was delicious, the flavors complementing each other perfectly. Clark looked up at Lex as a drop of sauce fell from one of the berries onto Clark's chest.
Lex didn't pretend to be sorry; he just bent and licked the sticky spot with a broad swipe of his tongue, then fed Clark the berry and reached for more.
"Alexander actually introduced many Asian fruits to Macedonia. Peaches, pistachios, mangoes – though the mangoes never took – a citrus fruit that became the lemon." More drizzle on his chest, leading to another, slower expedition, Lex's hot mouth running over him, punctuated by the scrape of teeth. Clark arched up a little, bringing his hardening cock into contact with Lex's groin through the layers of fabric separating them.
Lex was using handfuls now, letting the juices run down his wrist. Clark's mouth and chin were wet with sweetness; occasionally he chased Lex's hand as it moved away from his lips, seeking out the taste of Lex that was quickly becoming an obsession. Lex moved his mouth across Clark's chest in a pattern that Clark eventually recognized as his Kryptonian 'S,' and the touch burned more than his scar tissue had ever done.
By the time Lex dropped the empty bowl to the deck beside them, Clark's towel was gone, twisted away and ignored, and Lex's shirt was completely unbuttoned, their skin sticking and releasing as they rubbed against each other. "You care about these pants?" Clark asked, his voice unusually thick in his own ears, and then decided not to wait for an answer. Lex made a choked sound as Clark ripped the fabric away, and then he was hot and hard against Clark.
Lex flexed his hips, silken skin better than anything else in the world, and put his fruit-stained hand between them to grasp Clark's cock, jacking it up and down as he ground against Clark's stomach. "What do you want, Clark? Tell me," he ordered.
Clark had to grit his teeth and take deep breaths before he could answer. Lex, impatient, continued to talk. "Tell me what I should do to you."
"Anything," he managed.
"Anything? Like this?" He stroked faster, gripped tighter, and Clark's hands broke both of the deck chair's arms simultaneously. Clark hadn't been this sex-clumsy in years. Of course, he hadn't had much reason.
Lex didn't pause for a second. "You like that?" Clark managed to control himself enough to give Lex an are-you-fucking-*serious*? look, which made Lex grin.
"Or maybe –" Lex lifted up and, kissing Clark like he was about to leave on a dangerous voyage, moved until he was poised over Clark's cock, then *slid* down so quickly that a scream ripped from Clark's throat. So fucking hot and tight and, God, he'd been *ready* for this, he'd *planned* it. There was nothing Clark could do but lie there, nothing to hold on to, his hands spasming in empty air.
"Yeah," Lex grunted, moving himself up and down with his strong thighs, the muscles flexing against Clark's hips. Using Clark like some really expensive sex toy, rocking back, leaning away with his hands braced behind him on Clark's outstretched legs. The sun made him glow, a pale fire against the backdrop of trees and cerulean sky. When Clark tried to touch Lex's cock, his hand was batted away, and so he just had to watch as Lex stroked himself off, come spattering Clark's belly and chest, clenching around him like an earthquake. Lex slumped forward, allowing Clark to set a new rhythm, hard and slow, grinding up until he went nova again.
He was really tired now; his arms flopped out on either side, the knuckles barely touching the deck. Lex was on top of him still.
He slept.
There was more after that, more sex and food and sleep and sun. Though in a pinch he could have done without the last three, it was a vacation and he felt himself entitled to enjoy all four. Lex got kind of sore after a while, he could tell, and even though Lex healed quickly, he tried to incorporate enough variety into what they did that Lex would only feel pain when he wanted to. They didn't talk about it – they didn’t talk about what they were doing at all beyond the dirty words and instructions involved in the sex itself – but Clark thought Lex knew and appreciated his tactics.
It wasn't as if it were any hardship to take a break and talk to Lex about all the places they'd been and things they'd done over the years since Smallville. Lex had a very different view of Japan from Clark, who'd only ever been in the context of tsunamis and similar disasters. Lex liked Russia more than Clark would have expected, but Lex explained that the frontier capitalism made him feel more welcome than in most Western countries. Clark told him about traveling through Asia after his time learning about his heritage in the Fortress, and about how he'd finally understood the appeal of journalism, bringing people together by telling them about their common interests.
The night before they were supposed to go back, conversation was muted. Several times, Clark started to speak, wanting to ask Lex to stay, to be in Metropolis the man he was here on his island, but he couldn't make himself say the words. He didn't want to hear the rejection, the derision that was sure to follow. Several times, Lex started to say something, probably the mirror image of Clark's swallowed words – an invitation to rule together or a plea for forgiveness that could never be granted, not while Lex was still Lex.
In the end, they went to bed ahead of the sunset, and touched and kissed in Clark's room halfway through the night. When Clark drifted off to sleep, Lex was still awake, silent as he lay turned on his side. His eyes were open as if he were the one with X-ray vision, able to see Clark in the darkness.
They didn't say much in the morning, either. Lex didn't bother to pack up even the few things he'd brought with him. Clark presumed that his people would come and clean the place when they'd gone. For his part, Clark repacked his bag and took the suit he'd worn on the fourth day; Lex wouldn't begrudge him that, and he wanted a souvenir.
Clark made them omelets for breakfast, then washed the dishes. Lex watched him from the counter, waiting until Clark had put the last plate in the dish rack. Clark stopped, not wanting to turn around and see Lex's face. He touched the utensils in the jar on the countertop.
"Clark –" Lex said. His voice sounded as if it had been rubbed against a grater, shredded into fragments of what it had been. Clark realized that his hesitation was no kindness – it just forced Lex to be the one to remind them that vacation was over.
"Yeah," he said. They walked outside, where Clark's bag was waiting. The sun was up, already warming the air to perfection.
He moved to take Lex in his arms. "You can come here," Lex said in a rush before Clark had the chance to take off. "Whenever you – need a break. I won't –" He stopped, and when Clark dared a glance down, his eyes were shut tight, his forehead creased with lines that made him look ten years older.
Clark picked him up and flew.
****
"It's the sunset, Smallville, it'll be the same tomorrow. Whereas Congressman Scoville will not, not after we run this story, so let's go."
Clark turned to look at Lois and forced a smile. She'd been on him for his increasing distraction for several days now. She'd told him that he'd never looked better after his vacation, but that she was beginning to think that he'd left his mind wherever it was he'd gone – and then she'd asked where that was, anyway. He'd had to invent an elaborately boring story before she gave up.
"Sorry, Lois." He followed her out, where she did a great job of keeping his attention focused so that no one would kill her.
Lex – he wanted to think that Lex's relative inactivity came from the same wistfulness that kept him staring out windows. But believing that would be dangerous. Too dangerous. He hadn't kept safe all these years by taking risks with Lex.
Yeah, safe, a little voice in his head said. It sounded remarkably like a mixture of Chloe and Lois. So safe you had to work yourself half to death before somebody noticed – and that somebody wasn't just anybody.
It took him over a month to decide. He did his share of the Justice League's business; he wrote four front-page stories and a weekly magazine feature with Lois; he went home every weekend to see his parents and help around the farm.
When Lex came home to his darkened penthouse, he stiffened as soon as he entered, sensing some unknown presence.
"It's me," Clark said hastily, before Lex could call in the cavalry.
Lex turned on the lights, his hand still in his pocket, poised over his panic button.
"Superman –"
Clark took a step forward. "Lex."
Lex's face had never been as controlled as Lex wanted. Clark could tell that he was uncertain, vulnerable, yearning – all of which made him harder to handle, likely to lash out to protect himself. Still, it was good news, better than calm uncaring control.
"I've been thinking – on the island, we were good together."
Lex carefully put his briefcase down and walked past Clark, shucking his jacket and removing his cufflinks as he moved down the hall. "That was half a world away, Clark."
Clark followed him towards his bedroom.
"It doesn't have to be."
Lex made a soft derisive sound as he opened his bedroom door, flicked on the lights – and froze.
Clark had figured that if this didn't work, one more reason for Lex to despise him wouldn't matter much, so he'd gone all out. He'd moved all the rugs out of the room and a fair amount of the furniture. It had taken him a while to bring enough sand into the penthouse to walk on without pushing through to the floor, and the open door had caused a minor landslide into the hallway. In the artificial light, the sand was chalk-white, glittering, harsher than it had seemed on the island.
"Is that – is that a palm tree?" Lex asked, hushed as if he were in a cathedral.
Clark swallowed as he came up to stand just behind Lex's shoulder. "Only a little one."
"You – how -- *Clark*," he said, and turned, grabbing Clark so fiercely that a man who couldn't fly would have been thrown off balance. Kissing, kissing like they'd just been reunited after a long war, kissing with Lex's arm around Clark's shoulder and Clark's hand cupping Lex's jaw. Clark floated them to the bed, plunked down in the sand like something out of a dream.
"Come away with me, Lex," he said against Lex's cheek as they fell onto the soft purple comforter. "Take a permanent vacation."
Lex grabbed him tight and rolled until he was on top, his knees pressing against Clark's hips, his mouth swollen and shiny and his wide eyes like the moons of some distant planet. "Clark," he said. As much as he liked Lex's eloquence, he couldn't have hoped for a better result than to leave Lex speechless. His name meant 'yes,' and 'forever,' and 'you belong to me now.' Just like Lex belonged to him.
"You brought me an island," Lex said wonderingly.
"For the man who has everything," he said, smiling up at Lex, who'd always known what everyone but himself needed.
"I didn't," Lex said, and leaned down to kiss Clark again. "Not until now."
Maybe he'd learned something from Lex about big romantic gestures after all.
End
Notes: Thanks to my beta reader, Celeste, who worked on a very tight schedule and whose running MST3K-style commentary made me laugh out loud. Sample: “Plus,” Clark continued, “there aren’t any pesky kids around.” Celeste: *But look out for that talking Doberman.* Unfortunately, Clark wouldn’t have said a bunch of those things; I’m just glad she did.
When security was confirmed, Clark motioned Lex to follow him out of the captives’ hearing range. “So here’s what I was thinking,” he said and briefly explained his plan.
“You want me to *what*?”
“Build a net?” As he said it again, Clark thought that it might not be a great idea. He didn’t see all that many vines in the trees, so unless Lex’s bungalow had a bunch of rope stored somewhere, that wasn’t going to work so well. “Um, never mind.”
Lex looked dyspeptic.
“How fast can you dig a hole?”
Lex closed his eyes. He probably thought he was doing Clark a favor by refraining from *rolling* his eyes, but he wasn’t. “Deep enough for a person? In this soil, half a day.”
Damn. Superman could have done it in minutes, seconds even.
He wasn’t bad at plans. Really. Sure, Batman might do most of the brainwork for the League, but that was a matter of comparative advantage. Clark had survived *years* before the League, strategizing on his own. It was this self-imposed handicap, the one both of them were too stubborn to disavow, that was interfering with his tactical ability.
“It’ll be getting dark soon,” he said. “When they realize something’s wrong, they’ll probably stick together, maybe even call for reinforcements. I’m thinking we need to scare them off – make them think it’s a ghost island.”
Lex gaped like a goldfish. “Clark,” he said when he’d recovered some composure, “are you seriously suggesting that we adopt a plan that never even worked for the villains on *Scooby Doo*?”
“Who’s in charge of plans here, anyway? Plus,” Clark continued, “there aren’t any pesky kids around.”
So that was how he and Lex ended up on opposite ends of the beach, bracketing the invaders, as the sky darkened to a cobalt blue, like a dark reflection of the pristine turquoise of the water lapping against the beach. Each of them had conch shells to use as noisemakers – Clark was proud of that touch. They also carried weapons hastily constructed from branches, torn-up pillowcases, empty bottles, and gasoline from the bungalow's generator. Over Lex’s silent but nonetheless eloquent objections, they’d buried the guns they’d taken from their two captives in a random patch of sand.
The night was going to be dark. The moon was new and the starlight, even reflected off the quietly chuckling waters, was not enough to allow anyone to see more than a few feet ahead. The men on the beach had two electric lanterns for the four of them, which they turned on as dusk fell. They probably hadn’t anticipated staying this long.
They were nervous, watching the trees and jumping every time a bird left its perch or a lizard rustled through the underbrush. Their hands were tight on their guns, their tones tense as the two in charge squabbled over what to do – build a fire to get better visibility, abandon their two lost sailors or call for more help. Either option was apparently likely to get them in trouble with the man in charge, so they did nothing.
When the stars were out except for a band of fading light at the horizon, Clark raised the conch to his lips and blew. It made a mournful, eerie sound.
They were firing in his direction before Lex answered his call. Clark threw himself to the sand as if he could be hurt, because he didn’t want Lex finding bullet holes in his clothing later and complaining about cheating. In Clark’s opinion, invulnerability wasn’t the kind of power Clark could just not use, but it wasn’t worth the aggravation to dispute. So he ducked and rolled while Lex began his own eldritch noise on the other side of the beach, frightening the men further as they spent their bullets raking the defenseless trees.
Clark liked the waste of ammunition, even if it was rough on the vegetation. Startled birds leapt upwards, their cries mingling with the ululation of the conch – Clark remembered to add his own to the noise – and one of the men called to the others, urging them to leave the stuff and go back. Umberto (whoever that was) would find the stuff on the beach when he came, and that would be fine.
The taller of the two bossmen snapped out a negative. Umberto would kill them.
Better than dying here, a third voice said.
At that point, the first explosion rocked the beach. Clark was sure that Lex could have constructed a chemical fuse for their makeshift bombs, but he’d made do with strips of fabric and twigs. One of the men screamed, and fired at the already-burning area at the edge of the beach. Clark wasn’t worried about the fire spreading; Lex had placed the bombs carefully, and Clark was pretty confident that the vegetation wasn’t dry enough to sustain a fire. He’d use his breath if it came to that.
Lex was moving, the sound of his conch seeming to drift closer as the next few bombs went off, painting the beach in flames in several separate locations, as if they were being shelled.
A bottle shot from Lex’s approximate location like a comet, breaking on the boat and releasing its load of flaming gasoline.
Clark was proud of the Molotov cocktails and catapults. He had remembered how to make them from basic materials, and they didn’t require great aim on Lex’s part.
The guy who’d been afraid of Umberto yelped and dove for cover. Another bottle shot into the sky and splashed a few feet ahead of the one man who’d retained enough composure to fire in Lex’s direction.
Clark lit one of his own stock – with matches, not heat vision – and sent one of his own falling, crossing the trail of Lex’s third as it went so they seemed to be coming from all sides. By luck – okay, by superaim, but like invulnerability that had a ‘hard to turn off’ aspect – he hit one of the lanterns, which obligingly exploded.
Just go! one of the men yelled to the others. Let Umberto send someone else to deal with these savages, screw Macario and Hector, they were dead. This was all the incentive the others needed to start pushing the boat back into the water.
Except –
At the last minute, one of the leader-guys turned and began to swing his automatic towards Lex's position. Even with the darkness and the chaos, Clark could tell that he'd be aimed just right in moments.
Without thinking, he put his last bottle in the sling and sent it hurtling down the beach, where it smacked into the man's forehead and sent him tumbling on his ass. As it happened, he fell into the boat, and his compatriots ignored him as they started the engine and puttered away.
Clark watched them go with a feeling of profound relief. There had always been the possibility that they’d manage to hurt Lex – he would have used his powers to prevent that, but then Lex would have been insufferable.
When the sound of the boat’s engine faded into the noise of the ocean, Clark went to stand in the middle of the beach. He would have collected the broken bottles, but he was on vacation; let Lex clean them up.
After a few minutes, Lex came to join him. "What was *that*?" he asked, sounding aggrieved. "That guy could have killed me, and you went after him with a *slingshot*?"
"Why are you upset?" Clark asked reasonably. "I saved you, didn't I?"
"That's not the point!"
"You're complaining because you didn't like the way I saved you," Clark said, slowly, relishing the words. "Don't you think that's a little ... petty?" He didn't need to remind Lex who it was who insisted on no use of powers; he could tell that Lex knew what Clark was thinking, and that it was irritating the hell out of him.
At last, Lex sighed. "They're gone now, I suppose."
They stood side by side on the sand, which was still warm from the day’s sunlight, and looked out at the stars and the blue-black water.
“Hey, Lex. I guess those guys never saw *Scooby Doo*,” Clark said when he could no longer hold himself back. He was feeling too good to defer to Lex's pride.
Lex plainly tried to decide whether he was being mocked or Clark was being his clueless Kryptonian self. “I guess not,” he said in a voice as dry as sandpaper.
“You did some good shooting,” Clark said. “And by the way, impressive hand-to-hand earlier.”
Lex didn’t look at him. “Mercy is an excellent instructor.”
Yeah, it is, Clark thought.
“What are we going to do with those two leftovers?” Lex asked lightly.
“I was thinking – maybe I could use your satellite phone to call Batman to come pick them up.” It was only Lex who was supposed to refrain from technological communications, after all.
Lex frowned. “I suppose. But I’m coming with you, so that Batman will refuse any attempts to engage in shop talk.”
They stopped for a brief check of their captives’ bindings, during which Lex gave the two men water from a canteen he’d been carrying. It made Clark ponder: Lex had secreted a canteen, matches, and probably other survival gear in his casual beachwear. He must never have gotten over his summer trapped on a desert island. Clark couldn’t say that Lex’s paranoia was unjustified. Witness today’s little adventure.
The prisoners’ knots were holding. Clark made sure to explain to the men that no good would come of an escape attempt, given that their companions had abandoned them. He wasn’t as good with threats as Lex, but he thought he did a decent job.
Batman, who never slept as far as Clark could tell, agreed instantly to come for the two miscreants. Clark could see from the look on Lex’s face that Lex regretted offering the Bat a chance to check out his island up close, but to his credit he didn’t say anything, or even blanch when Clark didn’t need to tell Batman the coordinates.
They went back upstairs and outside to wait. It wasn’t cold, but Lex collected downed branches and made a small fire in the clearing where they’d tied the men. They sat by it in silence, watching sparks fly upwards and lose themselves in the sky. The flames snapped and popped, reminding Clark of the sound stars made on the radio spectrum.
It occurred to him that Lex might actually understand and enjoy the comparison, so he said it out loud. Sure enough, Lex’s face lit up with interest.
“You hear the stars?”
“Only when I try,” he said, modestly.
“When did that start? How do you know it’s the stars? How do you sort out the background noise? What does it sound like when a sun goes nova?”
“Whoa –“ He held up a hand, laughing. “One at a time, okay?” Because he couldn’t see how Lex could use the knowledge against him, he talked, describing his senses as best he could in human terms. He ended up telling Lex about how the stars looked to him, pointing to places in the sky and narrating the amazing colors to be found deeper into the spectrum. Lex followed the path traced by his finger with fascination, his face made young again with wonder.
Clark went on to stories of what it was like out there, the winds on other worlds, the alien cultures and inexplicable technologies he’d encountered. Lex asked a lot of questions, a fair number of which he couldn’t answer, making him wish he’d had Lex along at the time. Even the vicarious explorations were electrifying Lex, making him glow with curiosity and the thrill of the unknown. Clark thought maybe Lex was untimely born. If he’d come of age in a world with continents left to explore, or one where spaceflight was ready to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, Lex would have had goals more suited to his talents. For all his citified ways, Lex was a conqueror at heart, meant to lead an army; he always looked happiest at his LuthorCorp pep rallies, where his army of employees roared for him in unison. *BusinessWeek* called it Japanese-style management, but Clark knew it was about fealty. About belief.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Lex asked too casually as he poked the fire with a stick, stirring up the fuel to keep it burning.
Clark shrugged. "It's just – good to have someone to tell about all this. The League already knows it, and Mom and Dad get so freaked out –"
Lex nodded, though Clark could tell he was still suspicious of Clark's motives. "How are they?"
Clark stared into the ever-changing fire. "They're fine. It's hard for Dad, getting older. Mom isn't as – Dad thinks he's still twenty-five, you know? I wish I could do something to make it easier on him, but I can't exactly take on the aging process in single combat."
Lex made a small noise of agreement. They subsided into silence again, listening to the chatter of the fire and the sounds of their captives shifting uneasily against their bonds. What a weird vaction, Clark thought, then realized that with Clark Kent and Lex Luthor it could never be any other way.
Eventually they heard the sound of a helicopter approaching. By silent agreement, they stayed seated by the fire until Batman found them. Lex glowed like an idol made of white gold, his pale skin warmed only a little by the fire, his hands draped over his linen-clad knees, which were drawn up close to his chest. He wasn't wearing socks, Clark noticed. He had well-turned ankles.
Batman appeared before them with barely a rustle of grass. How he got the cape to stay silent was one of the great mysteries; Clark and Wally West had swapped several theories. Wally insisted the cape was just too scared of him to make any noise.
"Do you *know* what's in those boxes on the beach?" Batman asked, polite as always, as he peered down at them.
"No," Clark said before Lex could bitch, "and we don't want to. But there's this Umberto guy in charge, you might want to find him."
Batman grew impossibly darker and stiffer, a black hole of superhero. "Already taken care of," he said and turned away.
Wordlessly, he cut the two prisoners free – his gloves must have had a secret edge, because it seemed as if he just *stared* at the torn-up cloth and it shredded apart. At this point, the men were too shellshocked to react with any extra terror at the sight of the Batman, and they went with him like sheep.
As he escorted them away, doubtless to a debriefing that would be even less fun than being tied to a tree for hours, Batman looked back at Clark and Lex. "Have a nice vacation," he said.
Clark raised a hand in a lame half-wave farewell. He would suggest that Batman take a break of his own, but it didn’t seem likely.
"That," Lex said as the sounds of the men stumbling through the darkness faded, "is one very disturbed individual."
Clark snorted. "And you don't even have to work with him."
"You'd be surprised," Lex said. They exchanged a conspiratorial glance.
Lex stood abruptly and began kicking sand on the fire to put it out. "You must be hungry. We should eat and get some rest. Tomorrow's the halfway point, and you haven't even been swimming."
Clark considered that. Technically, he'd made it to the beach, but he agreed that scaring off strange invaders didn't count as beach activities, even for Superman. And he was hungry as soon as Lex mentioned it. His stomach petitioned for food, growling loudly enough to make Lex smile. He hurried to stamp out the last embers.
After a simple but extensive snack, they parted for the night. Clark fell asleep to the sound of Lex showering.
The next day, he got up early – which at this point meant before noon. Halfway through the vacation, and he hadn't lounged on the beach even a little bit. Clark was determined to change that.
He made himself an omelet with peppers and cheese and ate it standing at the counter, casting glances at the door that led to the bedrooms. But Lex didn't emerge, even when Clark banged the plates around as he cleaned up.
He put on a pair of swim trunks – black, thank you very much, not bright red or blue – and headed to the beach.
It was gorgeous. Pristine, salt-white sand, dampened to ivory by the surf which rushed up to the shore in cheerful wavelets, foam like lace edging at the tops of the larger waves. The water was clear turquoise, shading darker in perfect blue-green hues as the seabed dropped away from the island. He could see shells and bits of coral through the glassy water.
He didn't realize he was running until he splashed in. The water was warm and inviting; he plunged in until he was up to his neck.
In the salt water, he floated easily. He stayed on his back for a while, letting the sun bake his skin as water splashed and beaded on his chest. He turned somersaults in the water, keeping his eyes open all the way around as the world spun, blue to green to sun-blinding bright. He swam from one end of the beach to the other, up to the rocks that swept out and made the beach into a half-moon curve. He could have swum around the island, but that wouldn't have been a human way to enjoy the day. Holding his breath, he could touch the seafloor, letting the sand run through his fingers and watching it reform as if he'd never passed by.
His fingers didn't prune up like a human's would, but eventually he decided to take a break, swimming back until his feet could touch the sand and he could walk out.
Seawater dripped from his sodden hair into his eyes. He shook his head, sending spray all around, as he emerged onto the powdery sand of the beach.
Lex was there, on the very edge, still in the shade. He was holding a book, but he was watching Clark. His eyes had the old intensity. Their pale blue should have been no competition for the deepness of the ocean, but Clark felt that he was in danger of drowning for the first time.
Lex swallowed, breaking the stasis.
Clark stepped forward. Water continued to sluice off him, drying quickly in the sun. The heat on his back was somehow less powerful than the light in Lex's eyes.
"You're up," he said redundantly. "You should come in the water." There, that was better.
Lex looked down at his clothes, a repeat of yesterday's loose cotton shirt and linen trousers. The mandarin collar of the shirt made him look younger and more vulnerable than he did in his usual bespoke suits. "I don't think I'm properly dressed for that."
Clark squelched the impulse to grab him and throw him fully clothed into the water. These days, Lex would take it the wrong way. "You could change – I mean," he hurried before Lex could read more into that statement than was warranted, "you've got a swimsuit up at the house, right? If you can function without a tie, you can function without a shirt."
"I'll burn," Lex said, his tone inviting rebuttal.
"Get sunscreen."
The sun was soaking through him, liquefying his very bones. He was turning molten as he stood talking to Lex, his heart a furnace, his veins made of lava.
Lex blinked rapidly, as if he couldn't bear to look at Clark for more than a second at a time. "Yeah," he breathed. "Okay. I'll – be back."
Clark watched him walk into the cool of the trees, feeling seventeen again. Seventeen and lonely, scared, lost, bitterly disappointed in Lex. Wanting so much to share his alienness with someone – Lex – and afraid of being rejected, despised, scrutinized and put in a glass box like Lex with his Russian manuscript page. Even then, he'd known to fear Lex's intelligence, warped and forged into nothing better than a weapon.
When he'd become Superman, he'd thought Lex didn't know for almost three years, until he'd destroyed Lex's favorite lab and come home to a blood-freezing message on his answering machine. Lex hadn't said anything that would count as evidence to anyone else – he was cautious that way – but Clark had known. He'd been more careful after that, only going after Lex as Clark Kent or with the full backing of the League. Lex had been more careful after that as well, moving his labs overseas where the regulations were less stringent, hiding his financial shenanigans under layers of insulation. Clark figured that, if he wasn't keeping Lex entirely honest, he was at least making it expensive enough for Lex to be dishonest that he was choosing the right path more often purely for accounting reasons.
And now this – Lex, on vacation, like an ordinary person. Last night, Lex had listened to his stories with the pure enjoyment he used to show when lecturing Clark on ancient Greek customs and legends.
It had been easy to tell himself he hated Lex. Too easy, he realized now, because Lex was never uncomplicated. Lex probably hadn't been able to tell his Greek histories to anyone in years; Hope and Mercy were fantastic bodyguards, but Clark was willing to bet they weren't any great shakes as an audience.
Lex might be the one person in Metropolis lonelier than Superman.
A long time ago, Lex had asked Clark not to give up on him. Clark hadn't listened then. It had been too late already, no matter what he'd said. Now he'd seen enough to know that Lex Luthor wasn't the worst thing out there. *Lionel* Luthor wasn’t the worst thing out there, though that was a much closer call. He'd also seen enough to know that change was possible, if difficult – so maybe the comment about Lex's clothes had been more pointed than he'd known.
The sun was so bright and the air so warm that he was almost entirely dry by the time Lex returned from the house. Lex was carrying a large, folded white towel that probably cost as much as Clark's entire wardrobe, perched on top of which was a dark, unlabeled bottle (ditto on the wardrobe comparison, since it had to be a specially formulated sunscreen available only to supermodels and Luthors).
The towel was big enough to block most of Clark's view of Lex's upper body; Lex was carrying it oddly close to his chest, as if he were trying to hide behind it. He was wearing a swimsuit even baggier than Clark's. Clark could see the fine hairs on his forearms, golden in the light, and wondered why the meteors had taken the hair on Lex's head but not the rest.
Lex wasn’t looking at him. "I need to put on the sunscreen."
"Lie down," Clark said without thinking.
"What?"
"Lie down. I'll put it on you."
Lex hesitated. Clark wasn't sure it was a good idea, either. Then Lex handed him the bottle, as quickly as if it were red-hot iron, and turned to shake out the towel, laying it on the sand full in the sun.
He lowered himself down like a man wary of a strafing attack from the sky, propping himself on his elbows and staring out at the ocean. Clark knelt on Lex's left, holding the sunscreen as gingerly as if it were likely to contain Kryptonite.
Lex's back was pale and gorgeous, his shoulder blades sweeping up like wings submerged beneath his skin. He'd gotten bigger with age, broadened shoulders and a narrow waist, muscles rippling as he shifted with impatience. The interruption of the line of his body by the swimsuit was a crime against nature.
Clark popped the top and poured a puddle of sunscreen onto his hand. It was honey-colored and smelled of amber, instantly warm against his skin.
He put down the bottle and rubbed his hands together, spreading the slickness, then reached for Lex before he lost his nerve.
Focused on his own breathing, he almost missed Lex's exhalation as his hands settled on Lex's shoulders. He moved slowly, determined to cover every inch of skin, to keep Lex from complaining about any missed spots. His thumbs brushed the back of Lex's neck and traced a line down Lex's spine.
His mouth was sand-dry. Keeping one hand moving in slow circles on Lex's mid-back, he grabbed the bottle, his slick fingers slipping on the brown glass, fumbling with it until it gave up more liquid.
Up to the shoulders, down the back of Lex's left arm, over the slightly roughened skin of the elbow to the smooth slide of the forearm, his hand covering Lex's for a second before he lost his nerve and pulled away, nearly overbalancing and falling on his ass before he recovered and bent again to his task, leaning over Lex's body to get the other arm. Lex was breathing fast now, his shoulders hunched. Clark finished the arm, returned to Lex's back, his fingers sliding of their own accord a few centimeters below the waist of Lex's suit.
Another pause for more sunscreen, and Clark moved down to Lex's legs, the strong quads jumping against his touch, the backs of his knees soft as secrets, the runner's calves, the Achilles tendon taut under his fingers.
There was no need to put sunscreen on the soles of Lex's feet, not really, but Clark was tempted nonetheless.
He was done. He should pull back now; they would go to the water and swim.
Lex was rigid underneath him, every muscle tensed. His ears were flushed –
Clark wasn’t done. There was one part of Lex he hadn't protected from the sun.
Taking a deep breath, Clark poured one last dollop of sunscreen into his hands. He expected Lex to say something, encouragement, prohibition, anything, but instead Lex just lay there, waiting for him. Lex had always waited for Clark to tell him the important things, which was his biggest mistake of all.
He put his hand on the back of Lex's head. His hands were so big, clumsy and strange compared to a normal person's, but for once he was glad he could span so much, cupping the curve of bare skin, like a globe with the world – or the universe – inside. Lex shivered, but he pressed up, into Clark's touch, letting Clark search out every centimeter of exposed skin, the pliable rind of his ears, the hollows right behind them hidden by the earlobes from ordinary sight, the bump at the top of his spine like a period, announcing that the buck stopped here.
His fingers brushed over the top of Lex's head like a blessing, the tips barely touching Lex's eyebrows, hidden from his sight by their position.
Clark let his hand fall away, no longer touching. Now he had a decision to make. He could play dumb as always, run to the ocean and let Lex follow when he was ready. It would make him a cocktease, but Lex had said much worse about him before; they'd both survive.
Or ....
He bent, putting one hand on each side of Lex, feeling the terry loops of the towel almost rough against his slick-soft hands. Lex's head was hanging down, his forehead almost touching the towel as he waited, braced on his forearms.
Clark bit the back of Lex's neck, just below the bump, one animal telling another to submit. His teeth scraped along Lex's skin, salty and a little sweet from the sunscreen, as Lex jolted like he'd been electrocuted. Clark quickly moved so that he was covering Lex's body entirely, pressing them both down to the towel. He could feel the sand shifting beneath his hands and knees, moving aside to let him settle in.
Lex was shaking in earnest now, breathing like a man in the throes of a panic attack. Clark wanted him naked, but didn't want to move away, then remembered that he had control over his personal gravitational field. He pulled his arms away from the ground, hovering just enough that he could hook his fingers into Lex's shorts and pull them down his hips, past his knees, until Lex took over and kicked them off. Then, unable to resist the siren call of so much skin, he came heavily down on Lex's body, groaning as his chest touched Lex's back, hot with sweat and expensive lotion. He scrabbled at his own annoying swimsuit until his freed cock was pressed against Lex, grinding into Lex's ass.
The sunscreen made it easy to rub against Lex, sliding freely against him, almost frictionless. He brought his hands up to clamp on Lex's shoulders as he swirled open-mouthed kisses on the back of Lex's head, his neck, his upper back. Lex spread his legs, giving Clark a better angle to thrust against him.
Clark was dizzy with the feelings, the sun beating on his back like a mallet, the light so bright he could see it through his closed eyes, the heat of Lex like molten gold beneath him.
Lex's jagged breaths resolved into words – "Fuck me," he was saying over and over.
What an amazingly awesome plan. Clark pulled back onto his knees, gritting his teeth, and grabbed for the bottle, which promptly broke apart in his hand. With his last shreds of self-control, he put the four big pieces of glass off to one side, grateful that the bottle hadn't shattered into smaller fragments, and let the sunscreen in his hand drip onto Lex's lower back, sliding down to his ass. He put his left hand on Lex's waist to keep him still as he rubbed around the hole, then pushed his finger in to the first joint. Lex convulsed, his hands crumpling the edge of the towel, but Clark had him firmly in control. He was hot, the muscles pressing tight against Clark's invasion as Clark went in further, then added another finger, working them around until Lex threw his head back and screamed.
Clark didn't want to pull away, wanted to keep feeling the shifts and contractions against his fingers, but he had to have his cock inside Lex now. As quickly as he could without switching to superspeed, he removed his fingers and slicked himself with the last of the sunscreen in his palm. He was pressed up against Lex, one thrust away from heaven, when he looked at Lex's bowed head and realized what was wrong.
Forget saving Metropolis from Mothra, he deserved a medal for this, for pulling back when every cell in him screamed to move forward. "Lex," he said, his voice low and barely intelligible in his own ears. "Turn over."
Lex froze, then shook his head. That convinced Clark that he'd been right to stop, and the raging desire ebbed enough to let him wait. "Turn over," he said again, cajoling. "Please, Lex."
"Fuck," Lex cursed, barely loud enough for Clark to hear, and turned over in a sudden savage movement, his knee hitting the outside of Clark's thigh a solid blow in passing, rucking the towel so that they were half on the sand. His eyes were closed tight, his lower lip red and nearly bleeding from where he'd bitten it.
Clark bent to ghost a kiss across that bruised mouth, then pushed Lex's legs up and apart. Lex had turned his head so that Clark could see his profile and the tendons in his neck standing out like wires.
He'd been waiting fifteen years for this, he thought. Maybe he'd been waiting all his life.
Sliding into Lex was like being reborn into fire.
Beneath him, Lex was writhing like the snake in the Garden of Eden, surging up as if he could obliterate the spaces between their atoms and bring them closer together. With his hands stretched above his head, he wrapped his fingers around Clark's wrists, squeezing so hard Clark could practically hear Lex's bones protest as Clark settled into a rhythm that would allow him to keep fucking as long as possible without his heart exploding.
Their bellies slapped against each other, Lex's legs hooked over Clark's upper arms, stray grains of sand prickling against him in the midst of all that slippery skin. Clark knew his arms must be grinding Lex's into the ground to the point of pain, but Lex wasn't protesting and Clark frankly couldn't make himself care.
He couldn't trust himself to bite at Lex's neck the way he wanted to, not right now. He settled for panting into Lex's skin, feeling his own breath bounce back into his face, hotter and wetter for being so near. Lex was making random, broken noises. Clark pried one hand free and moved it down to take Lex's cock in his hand, stroking as it swelled and hardened, the incredible softness of the skin a contrast to the firm flesh beneath. He ran his thumb over the leaking head and wished that he could somehow be sucking Lex at the same time.
When he glanced up, he saw that Lex had put his free hand over his face, like a mask.
"I'm closing my eyes," Clark said, and suited action to words. Maybe Lex didn't want to know that Clark could tell what he needed – but if Lex couldn't say what he wanted, Clark was just going to have to guess.
With his eyes shut, Clark settled more deeply into the other sensations. Lex around him like the tug of a black hole, his labored breaths thunder in Clark's sensitized ears. Each pinprick of sand like the twinkling of stars sparking across their bodies, his mouth against Lex's neck tasting Lex's leather and salt, moving up over the soft curve of his chin and cheek. The world was red and gold, heat and light and Lex, Lex after so long, Lex always.
When he came, his eyes snapped open and he caught Lex's blue-marble gaze, wide as the ocean.
Clark let the aftershocks ripple through him, like being hit with a day's worth of sun at once. He was too sensitized to stay inside Lex – but Lex was still hard. He moved down Lex's body, his knees hitting the sand as he bent to lick Lex's cock, his fingers still wrapped around the base. No longer pinned by Clark's body, Lex thrust up, as deep as Clark could take him. Clark felt Lex's hands clench in his hair as he stroked Lex's balls, teasing the red-brown hairs there, another of Lex's secrets.
One last vicious jerk and Lex was coming, sea-salt in his mouth. Clark kept sucking and licking until Lex made a pained noise and pushed him away. Clark didn't let go fully, though; he moved to paint Lex's belly with his tongue, venturing out to his hips, up to his navel, and down again to his thighs. Lex tasted like clouds, and it was also a way of keeping busy so they didn't have to talk.
By the time he made his way up Lex's chest, stopping to worship at the hollow of his neck and suck raspberry bruises onto his shoulders, Clark was nearly ready for another round. Lex was petting him as if he were a big cat.
This was, Clark thought, the best vacation ever.
He kissed Lex at last, sweet and wet, his eyes closed because it wasn't polite to look at someone during kissing. The sun ladled light on his back, heating him all the way through. The sand was warm and dry where his toes dug into it, gritty as spilled sugar.
Lex let himself be turned around again, moved to his hands and knees. It was a good position, allowing Clark to feel the long lines of Lex's thighs, the amazing curvature of his ass as he went as deep as he could. There was more sand between them now – the next time had better be in the shower, Clark thought – and Lex groaned whenever Clark rubbed a hand down his back, grinding the sand into his lotion-slick skin.
Clark lasted longer this time, long enough that he forgot about anything else, just sliding in and out of Lex, who trembled underneath him like a hummingbird. It was like flying in the sun's corona, lashed by the radiation, caught inside it.
At the end, he collapsed onto his back in the sand, blissed-out and already sliding into sleep.
****
He woke to a mouth on his cock – Lex's mouth, wicked in this as in speech, making his hands close into fists. Sand fused into little glass stalactites against his palms. The sun was deep in the sky, headed towards another rainbow sunset.
When he noticed Clark's return to full consciousness, Lex pulled back, making Clark whimper. "The sun worships you," Lex said, looking up and down Clark's naked body. "And God, who wouldn't?" The last was said softly, almost to himself.
Then Lex's mouth was on him again, harder this time, almost biting. Sand-roughened fingers moved on his thighs, the skin behind his balls, the angles of his hipbones, learning him.
Clark didn’t try to hold back. He yelled – okay, maybe even yelped – as he came, Lex holding on to him as if he'd never let go.
"I want to fuck you," Lex said as soon as Clark's eyes had refocused. He was leaning over Clark, his shadow joining with Clark's off to one side.
Clark nodded.
"But this sand is going to kill me – come inside."
"Lex, there's a whole *ocean* right here."
Lex sighed and sat back. "Fine, but –"
Clark didn't wait for the conditions. He rolled to his feet – yes, he was a bit sandy, coated in it like a chicken ready for the frying pan – and held out his hand for Lex. Lex rose gracefully and, with only the slightest hesitation, let himself be led to the surf.
Whooping with glee, Clark let him go and ran into the water, splashing full-frontal into it as soon as it was up to his thighs. The sea welcomed him, sluicing off the sand, wrapping him in its comforting embrace. He rolled over onto his back and saw that Lex was standing still, up to his waist – Clark spared a moment to be grateful that the water was as clear as blue glass. "Come on," he said, grinning. "Vacation, remember? Fun."
Lex raised his eyebrows at Clark's apparent inability to put coherent sentences together, but then he shrugged and did a half-dive into the water, emerging as wet as Clark was. He shook his head to clear his eyes – only to be drenched by the wave Clark had just created.
Sputtering, Lex charged at Clark, only moderately hindered by the water in his way, tackling him and pushing his head under the water, which Clark allowed with a grin.
They played in the water for a while, wordless as dolphins. Lex relaxed enough to float some, though he was more inclined to dive down and look at the coral and other organic debris on the seafloor, holding his breath until he was forced to hurry for the surface. Clark mostly watched him, gorgeous as he swam through the water, his strong arms churning the currents and moving him forward. Clark floated several feet below the surface, looking up at the sun through the turquoise filter, then hiding under Lex's shadow while Lex floated on his back, until Lex started to look around with concern. Then he rose, catching Lex's waist as Lex thrashed and spit curses that were literally salty.
"That's enough," he said when he'd calmed down. "Inside, now. I can't fuck and swim at the same time."
"You don't need to," Clark pointed out.
Lex shook his head. The water made him sparkle around the edges. "Exotic later. I want to be able to concentrate on you."
Clark had to admit that Lex was persuasive.
Back in the house, they ignored the sand they tracked in, rushing to the shower. The stall was enormous, proof of Lex's desire for luxuriousness even in the middle of nowhere. Clark pushed Lex up against the white tiles, kissing him furiously as Lex groped for the controls. Clark didn't let up even when Lex's first attempt produced only cold water, and sure enough Lex managed to turn it warm after a few more fumbles. He could feel the difference in density in the fresh water, washing the salt from his skin as they kissed and kissed, Clark holding Lex's head still with both hands, his thumbs tracing the line of Lex's jaw.
When Lex pushed inside him for the first time, Clark nearly punched a hole in the wall. His head did crack a few of the tiles when he ducked it a little too quickly, but he thought Lex might not have noticed.
Afterwards, he tucked a towel around his waist and went out onto the wraparound deck, on the side that was getting the most light from the sun. About an hour away from sunset, he thought.
He should have brought a book, but once he was seated on the padded deck chair, he was too comfortable to move. The view was enchanting enough.
Footsteps on the wood of the deck. "Want company? I brought food."
Clark smiled. "In that case, come on out."
Lex had put on pants and a long-sleeved shirt, which didn't much surprise Clark. Lex looked perfectly comfortable naked and perfectly comfortable in five-thousand-dollar suits; he had more trouble with casual, and he probably would have been miserable in shorts and a T-shirt. Even a designer T-shirt. He was holding a large ceramic bowl, blue-and-white striped.
Clark was a bit nonplused when Lex straddled his lap, but he was open to the experience. The bowl was full of fruit – mango, pineapple, raspberries, blueberries. Lex held it with one hand and reached for a cube of mango with the other, bringing it to Clark's lips.
There was some sort of sauce, honey and a little lemon. Clark sucked at Lex's fingers before Lex pulled back.
"Do you know what the French word for 'fruit salad' is, Clark?" Lex asked, feeding him more fruit.
He shook his head slightly. For once he was happy to play the role expected of him, that of wide-eyed listener, like being back in the mansion again.
"It's 'macedoine.' Because Macedonia was such a mix of ethnicities, not a melting pot but a jumble, each with its own traditions and pride, none willing to join with the others. At its best, harmony without sameness; at worst, chaos."
The fruit was delicious, the flavors complementing each other perfectly. Clark looked up at Lex as a drop of sauce fell from one of the berries onto Clark's chest.
Lex didn't pretend to be sorry; he just bent and licked the sticky spot with a broad swipe of his tongue, then fed Clark the berry and reached for more.
"Alexander actually introduced many Asian fruits to Macedonia. Peaches, pistachios, mangoes – though the mangoes never took – a citrus fruit that became the lemon." More drizzle on his chest, leading to another, slower expedition, Lex's hot mouth running over him, punctuated by the scrape of teeth. Clark arched up a little, bringing his hardening cock into contact with Lex's groin through the layers of fabric separating them.
Lex was using handfuls now, letting the juices run down his wrist. Clark's mouth and chin were wet with sweetness; occasionally he chased Lex's hand as it moved away from his lips, seeking out the taste of Lex that was quickly becoming an obsession. Lex moved his mouth across Clark's chest in a pattern that Clark eventually recognized as his Kryptonian 'S,' and the touch burned more than his scar tissue had ever done.
By the time Lex dropped the empty bowl to the deck beside them, Clark's towel was gone, twisted away and ignored, and Lex's shirt was completely unbuttoned, their skin sticking and releasing as they rubbed against each other. "You care about these pants?" Clark asked, his voice unusually thick in his own ears, and then decided not to wait for an answer. Lex made a choked sound as Clark ripped the fabric away, and then he was hot and hard against Clark.
Lex flexed his hips, silken skin better than anything else in the world, and put his fruit-stained hand between them to grasp Clark's cock, jacking it up and down as he ground against Clark's stomach. "What do you want, Clark? Tell me," he ordered.
Clark had to grit his teeth and take deep breaths before he could answer. Lex, impatient, continued to talk. "Tell me what I should do to you."
"Anything," he managed.
"Anything? Like this?" He stroked faster, gripped tighter, and Clark's hands broke both of the deck chair's arms simultaneously. Clark hadn't been this sex-clumsy in years. Of course, he hadn't had much reason.
Lex didn't pause for a second. "You like that?" Clark managed to control himself enough to give Lex an are-you-fucking-*serious*? look, which made Lex grin.
"Or maybe –" Lex lifted up and, kissing Clark like he was about to leave on a dangerous voyage, moved until he was poised over Clark's cock, then *slid* down so quickly that a scream ripped from Clark's throat. So fucking hot and tight and, God, he'd been *ready* for this, he'd *planned* it. There was nothing Clark could do but lie there, nothing to hold on to, his hands spasming in empty air.
"Yeah," Lex grunted, moving himself up and down with his strong thighs, the muscles flexing against Clark's hips. Using Clark like some really expensive sex toy, rocking back, leaning away with his hands braced behind him on Clark's outstretched legs. The sun made him glow, a pale fire against the backdrop of trees and cerulean sky. When Clark tried to touch Lex's cock, his hand was batted away, and so he just had to watch as Lex stroked himself off, come spattering Clark's belly and chest, clenching around him like an earthquake. Lex slumped forward, allowing Clark to set a new rhythm, hard and slow, grinding up until he went nova again.
He was really tired now; his arms flopped out on either side, the knuckles barely touching the deck. Lex was on top of him still.
He slept.
There was more after that, more sex and food and sleep and sun. Though in a pinch he could have done without the last three, it was a vacation and he felt himself entitled to enjoy all four. Lex got kind of sore after a while, he could tell, and even though Lex healed quickly, he tried to incorporate enough variety into what they did that Lex would only feel pain when he wanted to. They didn't talk about it – they didn’t talk about what they were doing at all beyond the dirty words and instructions involved in the sex itself – but Clark thought Lex knew and appreciated his tactics.
It wasn't as if it were any hardship to take a break and talk to Lex about all the places they'd been and things they'd done over the years since Smallville. Lex had a very different view of Japan from Clark, who'd only ever been in the context of tsunamis and similar disasters. Lex liked Russia more than Clark would have expected, but Lex explained that the frontier capitalism made him feel more welcome than in most Western countries. Clark told him about traveling through Asia after his time learning about his heritage in the Fortress, and about how he'd finally understood the appeal of journalism, bringing people together by telling them about their common interests.
The night before they were supposed to go back, conversation was muted. Several times, Clark started to speak, wanting to ask Lex to stay, to be in Metropolis the man he was here on his island, but he couldn't make himself say the words. He didn't want to hear the rejection, the derision that was sure to follow. Several times, Lex started to say something, probably the mirror image of Clark's swallowed words – an invitation to rule together or a plea for forgiveness that could never be granted, not while Lex was still Lex.
In the end, they went to bed ahead of the sunset, and touched and kissed in Clark's room halfway through the night. When Clark drifted off to sleep, Lex was still awake, silent as he lay turned on his side. His eyes were open as if he were the one with X-ray vision, able to see Clark in the darkness.
They didn't say much in the morning, either. Lex didn't bother to pack up even the few things he'd brought with him. Clark presumed that his people would come and clean the place when they'd gone. For his part, Clark repacked his bag and took the suit he'd worn on the fourth day; Lex wouldn't begrudge him that, and he wanted a souvenir.
Clark made them omelets for breakfast, then washed the dishes. Lex watched him from the counter, waiting until Clark had put the last plate in the dish rack. Clark stopped, not wanting to turn around and see Lex's face. He touched the utensils in the jar on the countertop.
"Clark –" Lex said. His voice sounded as if it had been rubbed against a grater, shredded into fragments of what it had been. Clark realized that his hesitation was no kindness – it just forced Lex to be the one to remind them that vacation was over.
"Yeah," he said. They walked outside, where Clark's bag was waiting. The sun was up, already warming the air to perfection.
He moved to take Lex in his arms. "You can come here," Lex said in a rush before Clark had the chance to take off. "Whenever you – need a break. I won't –" He stopped, and when Clark dared a glance down, his eyes were shut tight, his forehead creased with lines that made him look ten years older.
Clark picked him up and flew.
****
"It's the sunset, Smallville, it'll be the same tomorrow. Whereas Congressman Scoville will not, not after we run this story, so let's go."
Clark turned to look at Lois and forced a smile. She'd been on him for his increasing distraction for several days now. She'd told him that he'd never looked better after his vacation, but that she was beginning to think that he'd left his mind wherever it was he'd gone – and then she'd asked where that was, anyway. He'd had to invent an elaborately boring story before she gave up.
"Sorry, Lois." He followed her out, where she did a great job of keeping his attention focused so that no one would kill her.
Lex – he wanted to think that Lex's relative inactivity came from the same wistfulness that kept him staring out windows. But believing that would be dangerous. Too dangerous. He hadn't kept safe all these years by taking risks with Lex.
Yeah, safe, a little voice in his head said. It sounded remarkably like a mixture of Chloe and Lois. So safe you had to work yourself half to death before somebody noticed – and that somebody wasn't just anybody.
It took him over a month to decide. He did his share of the Justice League's business; he wrote four front-page stories and a weekly magazine feature with Lois; he went home every weekend to see his parents and help around the farm.
When Lex came home to his darkened penthouse, he stiffened as soon as he entered, sensing some unknown presence.
"It's me," Clark said hastily, before Lex could call in the cavalry.
Lex turned on the lights, his hand still in his pocket, poised over his panic button.
"Superman –"
Clark took a step forward. "Lex."
Lex's face had never been as controlled as Lex wanted. Clark could tell that he was uncertain, vulnerable, yearning – all of which made him harder to handle, likely to lash out to protect himself. Still, it was good news, better than calm uncaring control.
"I've been thinking – on the island, we were good together."
Lex carefully put his briefcase down and walked past Clark, shucking his jacket and removing his cufflinks as he moved down the hall. "That was half a world away, Clark."
Clark followed him towards his bedroom.
"It doesn't have to be."
Lex made a soft derisive sound as he opened his bedroom door, flicked on the lights – and froze.
Clark had figured that if this didn't work, one more reason for Lex to despise him wouldn't matter much, so he'd gone all out. He'd moved all the rugs out of the room and a fair amount of the furniture. It had taken him a while to bring enough sand into the penthouse to walk on without pushing through to the floor, and the open door had caused a minor landslide into the hallway. In the artificial light, the sand was chalk-white, glittering, harsher than it had seemed on the island.
"Is that – is that a palm tree?" Lex asked, hushed as if he were in a cathedral.
Clark swallowed as he came up to stand just behind Lex's shoulder. "Only a little one."
"You – how -- *Clark*," he said, and turned, grabbing Clark so fiercely that a man who couldn't fly would have been thrown off balance. Kissing, kissing like they'd just been reunited after a long war, kissing with Lex's arm around Clark's shoulder and Clark's hand cupping Lex's jaw. Clark floated them to the bed, plunked down in the sand like something out of a dream.
"Come away with me, Lex," he said against Lex's cheek as they fell onto the soft purple comforter. "Take a permanent vacation."
Lex grabbed him tight and rolled until he was on top, his knees pressing against Clark's hips, his mouth swollen and shiny and his wide eyes like the moons of some distant planet. "Clark," he said. As much as he liked Lex's eloquence, he couldn't have hoped for a better result than to leave Lex speechless. His name meant 'yes,' and 'forever,' and 'you belong to me now.' Just like Lex belonged to him.
"You brought me an island," Lex said wonderingly.
"For the man who has everything," he said, smiling up at Lex, who'd always known what everyone but himself needed.
"I didn't," Lex said, and leaned down to kiss Clark again. "Not until now."
Maybe he'd learned something from Lex about big romantic gestures after all.
End
Notes: Thanks to my beta reader, Celeste, who worked on a very tight schedule and whose running MST3K-style commentary made me laugh out loud. Sample: “Plus,” Clark continued, “there aren’t any pesky kids around.” Celeste: *But look out for that talking Doberman.* Unfortunately, Clark wouldn’t have said a bunch of those things; I’m just glad she did.
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Lex gaped like a goldfish. “Clark,” he said when he'd recovered some composure, “are you seriously suggesting that we adopt a plan that never even worked for the villains on *Scooby Doo*?”
The way you made it clear that they'd missed each other was wonderful. I loved Clark's romantic gesture. This entire story was simply excellent!
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thank you ever so much for sharing it!
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Laugh-out-loud funny in several spots, and the sex? So hot. Guh.
Thank you thank you!
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Wow
Thank You.
CyberWitch
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You: Superman yelling at a little girl until she cried.
Me: Sloppy Joes for dinner.
You: Lex with graphs with Justice League fonts.
Me: Migraine for the last week.
You: Lex in white linen.
Me: Hopelessly tangled hair and no conditioner.
You: Scoobie plot
Me: Nothing on TV in the middle of the night when you really need it.
You: Sex on the beach.
Me: Grumpiness of Doom.
You: Big Romantic Gesture.
Me: Dies happy. I win! Mwahahaha!
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I think *everybody* wins in this one.
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*happy place now*
And it only got better after that. I laughed, I GUH-ed - repeatedly - and then I cried, for real.
By the time Clark brought the island to Lex's bedroom at the end, I can assure you that they were happy tears. I don't think I've been more satisfied with a reconciliation of the Rift fic in a long, long, lonnnnng time.
Thank you, sweetheart.
This was beautiful and you are an angel for thinking of and posting this for the challenge.
{{huggles}}
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Re: *happy place now*
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Thank you. Enjoyed it very much.
Very happy camper.
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I love your dialogue; it's everything I adore about these characters. Every time I think the fandom has exhausted every possible variation on the rift-reconciliation theme, somebody comes along and turns my insides to happy, satisfied mush.
(This time it's you. In case that wasn't clear.)
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When he glanced up, he saw that Lex had put his free hand over his face, like a mask.
"I'm closing my eyes," Clark said, and suited action to words. Maybe Lex didn't want to know that Clark could tell what he needed – but if Lex couldn't say what he wanted, Clark was just going to have to guess.
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great story! thanks for sharing!!!
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And your icon? Still creepy.
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I am amused how well the font went over. ;) I think it's because we all want one.
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This line was a favorite: It was like taking turns in checkers.
And this one is so perfectly, awkwardly Clark: He babbled out an excuse about a neighbor's pet fish and hurried away.
I had a beautiful picture of the island, its sand, the blue water around it, and despite being in Clark pov, I had a very clear picture of Clark, too. He was totally working his sexy self on the beach. It was obvious why Lex was staring at him.
The ending was perfect. Sweet and ridiculous and fitting. Thanks so much for sharing this with us.
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I know the ending was sappy, but I figured I was entitled, what with the cliche basis and the whole "contrast with the darker story" thing. And as much as I love to hurt Lex & Clark, I like to watch them cuddle together at the end (probably hiding from me!) too.
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I am awed.
This puts all other future fics to shame.
Is BEAUTIFUL.
:-)
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Absolutely gorgeous and the descriptions were so vivid, this played like a mini-movie in my mind. I almost felt like I was on your beautiful sun-drenched island with the boys (what a lovely thought...) and considering how dreich and cold it is outside at the moment, that's no mean feat.
Thanks for this great story!
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Loved the lightness of this story. An excellent antidote to the angst and violence (which I love) in No Darker Than Yours. Romance, Lex and Clark working together as regular humans, hot, hot sex and hot sun and sand on the beach. Beautiful setting. What more can a gal ask.
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Thanks for commenting!
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Well, damn. You made me cry. *sniff*
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Lex's fascination and eager questions when Clark told him he could hear the stars made me smile. That was such a great moment.
The interruption of the line of his body by the swimsuit was a crime against nature.
This line gave me such a wonderful visual. Just GUH! The whole sunscreen scene was incredibly hot, as was their playing with fruit. And I loved the lightness in between of them messing around in the ocean.
My heart just ached, though, when they had to leave the island, particularly with Lex telling Clark he could come there whenever he needs a break. *sniff*
And the ending was just perfect. I loved Lex's awe at the palm tree. An absolutely beautiful wrap-up to the story.
This was a fantastic, well-written story that was a blast to read. Thanks for sharing it.
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And the end? One of the most romantic things I've ever read. Thanks for making my day with this!