Codes: C/Lex
Rating: PG-13
Series: Spaces #3
Spoilers: X-Ray, mild for Hothead, Metamorphosis, the Pilot
Summary: Clark ruminates on the nature of things. Lex loses a little control. Rain's involved.
Author Notes: Huh. Rain, leather pants, gloves--am I predictable or what?
Archiving: Yes
Disclaimer: Belongs to DC, Warner Brothers, probably other corps, but not me. If it did, wow, would canon be soo different right about now.

Noli Me Tangere (Don't Touch Me)

by jenn

Coach Arnold's health class left out a lot of stuff, apparently.

So, granted, the class hadn't covered a lot of things like, say, actual sex. Lots of information on the diseases, the treatment, and something that vaguely resembled a speech that may or may not have related to the concept of sex and definitely used the word 'marriage' at some point, but actual intercourse?

Riiight.

You'd think the kids born in Kansas came from storks. And at this point in his life, Clark wasn't dismissing any theory--after all, this *was* Smallville, and in all honesty, a large bird carrying a baby to a new home didn't sound nearly as strange as Bugboy's dining off dear old mom before molting.

It took the usual avenues to understand what was hinted--Hustler magazine in the boy's restroom being a prime example of the media's domination over the youth of America. Go figure. Kids of the information age only needed a keyword and five minutes on the internet to clear up what class hadn't covered and in some seriously interesting detail. Such detail, in fact, had led to one of Clark's more embarrassing nights and the first of the early-morning extended showers.

Class had explained some of the concept of egg fertilization, though no clear explanation of *how* the sperm got to the egg (see Hustler As an Educational Tool for that bit of trivia), and had glossed over some basic concepts of procreation. However, it never covered anything resembling the sudden, hot feeling that ran through him from his first meeting with Lex.

And sure as hell never mentioned anything about making out on top of jaguars with other boys. Definitely didn't cover that.

Sitting in his loft, Clark watched the rain fall softly outside the wide window, telescope long since relocated to a safer area of the barn. It'd been raining for a week--symbolism in that, he supposed, shifting on the cool wooden floor. Or that may be just his adolescent self-pity speaking. He wouldn't bet either way.

"Chloe," he asked suddenly, "what's Metropolis like?"

Stretched out on the sleeping bag he used in the loft in lieu of a couch, Chloe glance up through a veil of blonde hair from the photographs she was sorting into neat piles by interest level. Pete, sitting beside her, frowned slightly over the top of his English book.

"What about it? You've been there before."

Clark pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on one, keeping Chloe only in peripheral vision.

"Been there, yeah. Farmer's market and shopping with Mom and field trips. But you--you lived there. You go there on weekends to spend time with your grandparents. Different feeling. What's it like?"

Chloe's frown was sudden and startling, and he wondered how much she could see on his face. For a moment, something hovered in her eyes that could have been a question but froze in place as her glance took in Pete beside her.

"Big." A long pause, and her head tilted as she pushed her hands into the floor, lifting neatly onto her knees. "I don't know how to explain it, Clark. It's a city, not a town like Smallville--it's like comparing a single ant to an anthill. There's so much going on." She reached for her soda, eyes meeting his briefly before she took a long drink, emptying the can. "Damn. Pete, run get us some sodas from the kitchen real quick, will you? I gotta finish this layout tonight and I seriously need the caffeine."

Pete nodded amiably and got to his feet, ambling off toward the wide doorway. Strange, to see Pete for once not stumbling over his own feet and into the wall or down the stairs, replaced with this more confident almost-stranger. Football was good for him, adding mass and replacing awkwardness with the beginnings of some sort of control of his wayward limbs. A flash of bitterness followed, quickly squelched, and Clark wrapped his arms tighter around his knees, knowing Chloe was only waiting.

At the sound of the barn door downstairs closing, Chloe reached down for a stack of pictures as if at random and skidded one photo across the floor to brush against his bare foot. Slowly, Clark picked it up and felt himself blanch at the black-and-white, showing main street that afternoon. Saw himself lurking outside the bank just as Lex walked out.

Saw the familiar look on his face and his stomach clenched in memory.

"This is about Luthor, isn't it?

Clark's true calling in life was definitely to be a stalker.

Thing was, sadly enough, he was *good* at it, and that really did say a great deal more about his personality than he was comfortable with knowing. Went along with the speed and strength and apparently that wonderful X-Ray vision that still gave him headaches but was certainly worth it during class, since there was a straight view into the girl's locker room from his front row desk.

So his teacher might wonder why he suddenly became so intensely focused on the blackboard during the explanation of quadratic equations. If only he knew....

But, stalker. Right.

So he was good at it. Ten years of following Lana, and he'd learned the art of watching without being noticed, how to follow and slip into the shadows, how to *not* be seen. It really didn't take that much--people, as a rule, weren't exactly observant, and in Smallville, that was true times ten. You couldn't afford to notice your surroundings too closely or you'd be questioning your own sanity in under an hour. Giant spiders, disappearing parents, green meteor showers, boys in cornfields in quasi-crucifixion rituals (and Clark would pay money to find out how *that* tradition began), trucks piled on top of each other--it took a certain amount of self-training and an enlightened sense of self-preservation to learn to ignore the obvious like that.

Otherwise, someone, anyone, would have by now connected the appearance of the orphaned three-four year old Clark to the meteor shower. Not to mention those lines in the cornfield or his unique ability to be somewhere on the fringes of any sort of disturbance these days. Which really was going to get Chloe on his case soon if he wasn't just a little more careful.

Leaning against the side of the bank where he was quite aware Lex was currently doing business, Clark rethought his options. There weren't many, truth be told. He hadn't realized, not really, just how much time he spent around Lex until he'd been cut off entirely. God, even Mom was asking about it, and Dad kept giving him significant looks that surely meant something like 'told you so', but Clark wasn't up to explaining what he didn't understand.

Options, right. Chafing his hands together, Clark shook his head. He could let it go--it would be easy, painfully and wonderfully easy, to turn his back on it altogether. Just let it go--never a moment by the river or a moment in the kitchen and certainly not that moment on the car. All nothing, dismissed back into memory and if not exactly forgotten, simply dismissed. A week of silence was a damn good start.

Or he could do this the hard way.

In which that useful talent for stalking reared its head in interest. He knew the hard way--you didn't pine after a girl for most of your remembered life, a girl who was just about as distant as the moon, and not get a certain pride out of your own sheer dogged determination in the face of hopelessness. Something faintly noble, or faintly sociopathic, in the concept itself. Perseverance against any and all odds.

At this rate, he'd have a restraining order against him before his next birthday. Dear God, he should be more worried about his little habit than he was.

Checking his watch, Clark blinked a few times and got the vision thing working, seeing through stone to watch Lex coming down the stairs two at a time and across the main floor of the bank, emerging outside into the grey-white of a rainy afternoon with that quick stride that Clark had memorized. Dark suit, looking just too damn adult for words and almost--almost as unreachable as Lana had always been. So much tension radiating from Lex that it was a wonder that it wasn't visible anyone who cared to look.

Then the slim body stiffened abruptly as he came to the car and Clark, even knowing Lex couldn't see him, flattened himself against the wall, almost holding his breath. One thing Lex had that Lana most certainly did not was a sophisticated level of paranoia, and Clark had to wonder what had happened in Lex's life to make him that hyperaware of being watched. It never failed--Lex had felt it every time, distance and objects between be damned. For a brief second, Lex scanned the streets with narrowed eyes and Clark tried to keep his vision working, at least until he was sure Lex had dismissed the incident to imagination, as he always did.

He really wasn't quite ready to be caught yet. Or at all, for that matter.

After a few seconds of surveying the almost deserted street, Lex slowly slipped into the silver convertible, and Clark listened to the engine purr softly, before he pulled out and drove away.

"Clark?"

See, this was the thing--Chloe had never fallen for his disappearing act. But then again, she also kept a wall of weird, so she hadn't developed selective perception properly yet. Damn. As she crossed the sidewalk and jogged over to him, Clark caught the sight of her ever-present camera stuffed into the small purse hanging precariously over her shoulder and the notepad tucked messily in beside it.

"Hey, Chloe." Trying to look casual, though he couldn't really think of a reason to be lurking outside the bank and wished he had, because really, couldn't he have guessed that eventually Chloe would catch on? She came to a quick stop beside him, a little breathless and pulling her old trenchcoat close against the wind.

"What are you doing?" Blonde head tilted up, searching his face as if she expected front page news to materialize in the form of words across his skin.

"Saw an alien?" There was the briefest instant of hesitation and Clark could almost see her fingers twitching for her notebook, before she frowned and leaned back a little, arms crossing tightly over her chest.

"Cute, Kent. What--"

"Just hanging out."

Yeah, that'd fly. He'd have done better to stick with the alien story.

"Here?" She glanced around the alley, then skipped backward a step to glance into the street. "What, Lana in town today?"

And his documented obsession with Lana was actually turning out to be a good thing. With a little grin that he tried to hide, he leaned into the bank's wall.

"Lay off, Chloe." Keep that thought, Chloe. Go with it. "What are you doing anyway?"

Chloe shrugged a little, pushing her camera down in her purse and glancing down the street again.

"Dad had to talk to Mr. Luthor earlier, so I thought I'd get some shots of downtown."

Mr. Luthor. For a second, Clark wondered what Lionel was doing in town, wondering if that had something to do with the tension he could almost feel bleeding off Lex--but no. Lionel Luthor's presence in Smallville would be common knowledge already, just like his last visit. So--process of elimination, Chloe was talking about Lex, and that--Mr. *Luthor*?

"Oh." Just--too weird for words.

"Since Dad's in charge of the night shift for a few days." Chloe sounded vaguely annoyed by that, and Clark tore his attention back down to her. "Mr. Luthor's out for the weekend."

Chloe said more--at least he thought so, but couldn't be really certain, though her lips definitely moved, and there might have been something about Lana in there as well. Staring at the road, he barely noticed that she'd grabbed his arm and pulled him out onto the sidewalk, and in the distance, Clark could see Lex's car making the turn toward the Luthor estate.

Out for the weekend.

"Clark, are you listening to me?"

Did he ever? Blinking, he looked down at her and caught the end of an expression that could have been pity. Probably not though.

"Yeah," he answered.

"Me and Pete'll be over at seven for dinner, okay?"

"Sure." Had this been planned before or dragged out of the clear blue? He wasn't sure, couldn't quite concentrate enough to search his memory, and pulled his arm free, turning away quickly before Chloe saw too much. "I gotta run, Chloe. See you later."

"Clark--" The words stopped, and he felt himself stiffen, but the pause was short. "Gotcha, Kent. See you then."

"Does it matter?"

Sometimes, somehow, Clark forgot that Chloe was a reporter first--finding things out was her avocation and obsession, and more, she was *good* at it.

Chloe regarded him for a second from beneath her bangs, before opening her purse and removing a small, paper-wrapped bundle wound with elastic. Neatly, she skidded it across the floor and Clark picked it up, pulling the elastic aside.

The spill of photographs was enough to stop his breath. Something like righteous indignation tried to surface briefly, but looking up at Chloe, he didn't even try. He sure as hell wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

"Chloe--"

"For a week you've been doing the 'Fatal Attraction' thing *sans* rabbit with Luthor. Playing dumb doesn't work with me, Kent. We've known each other too long."

Maybe they had at that.

"I don't know," he whispered, flipping through the photos at random, wincing at the accuracy of every shot, wondering how on earth he'd missed her presence. Talk about selective perception as a dangerous hobby.... "Just curious."

She didn't answer for a moment, and he had to wonder what was going on in her mind, what exactly she'd seen, what she knew. What she guessed.

"Metropolis is where Lex spent some of his formative years, far as I know. His home." She paused again, obviously thinking hard. "He talk to you about it before--this week?"

"Not really." Hadn't come up in conversation, actually, but it was one of the boundaries that he knew on some instinctive level that Lex had put up the day he'd entered Smallville. Some things should stay in the past and some things should remain secrets. He understood that concept as well as anyone in Smallville.

"Yeah, I guess not." Again, the quiet intensity. "You and he are friends, right?"

Friends? Acquaintances with privileges, friends with sharp limits, and something that Clark had changed with that touch on the car.

"Yeah, I guess so." Lex had sat in their kitchen and eaten Clark's mom's cooking, had offered him Lana on a lead-bound platter. Chloe's gaze now was distant, strangely sad, and he wanted to ask why, but wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer she'd give. He wasn't sure he was up for more secrets, even ones offered freely.

"My dad works with him," Chloe said after what seemed like an eternity. "Dad likes him okay--reasonable on quotas, doesn't bitch out the plant supervisors when something goes wrong, didn't do the pink slip routine. He's sorta liked, you know? Respected. More than his Dad anyway, though God knows that's not hard. He's worked to separate himself from his father's management practices, which included frequent firings and pay docks. Reserved judgement and all that, no matter his age or his family reputation."

"You're not really telling me anything that Smallville gossip hasn't."

"Yeah, I know," Chloe answered meditatively, and blonde hair hid his view of her face as she tilted her head down in thought. "That's the thing--I don't know more than Smallville gossip would know. He's good at keeping to himself. He's very good at hiding what he doesn't want seen. And he's very, very good at getting something he wants."

Clark remembered the feel of Lex's hand against his jaw, that searching look again.

"You think he's hiding something?"

"I think he's hiding everything," Chloe said, then shrugged a little. "Everyone has secrets, Clark. Even you. Everyone has weak spots they don't want touched and everyone's got places in them that they don't like to look at very hard." She paused briefly, then tapped the stack of pictures nearest her, head tilting in curiosity laced with something he couldn't define. "What happened?"

Clark shook his head briefly and felt rather than saw Chloe's little antenna go up, instantly sensing what he wasn't even sure he knew how to frame.

"Something happened the other night," Clark said slowly, and he knew Chloe was mentally reaching for her pencil, eyes focusing on him with instant interview-intensity. Scary stuff. Chloe could really be a pitt bull under the right circumstances. "It wasn't--I felt like I walked in at the end of a conversation Lex was having with himself."

"Lex." She sounded out the name on her tongue like trying out a foreign word and Clark had to smile a little. "Sorry. Keep going before Pete gets back. I get the feeling that you don't want him to hear this."

Clark blinked, then pushed his knees down, trying to find the words.

"He--" Clark stumbled a little. "There's this thing that he said." The words slithered through Clark's head again. "What I wanted from him. What things cost. I don't get it. I didn't--I don't want anything. And he--he's been avoiding me all this week since."

"Price of being a Luthor," Chloe said softly, and when he lifted his head, her face was a little sad.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Good question, but I have a better one--why does he think that you want something?"

Oh. Clark blinked, trying to take in Chloe's direction but not quite getting it.

"His father's one of the richest men in the world, Clark. How do you *think* he's learned to handle stuff? He expected you to take that truck as payment for services rendered, you know? So you didn't, you handed it back. Given that, he's probably trying to figure out what it is you *do* want."

Lana. He knew that. Unbidden, the words almost burst out, but Clark pushed them back down. Chloe seemed to sense it, leaning forward a little, but he shook his head.

"So he thinks--what, I'm around him because I want something else?"

"Don't know. You might try asking him instead of me."

"I can't." Clark pulled his knees back up, resting his chin against them as he heard Pete push the barn door open. "I don't know the right questions to ask and he's not around to hear them anyway."

"You've got it bad, Kent."

Eyes wide, he jerked up and only caught the top of her bent blonde head as she straightened a stack of photos that had toppled.

"What do you mean?"

"When you figure it out, you'll know the right questions to ask." Then her gaze was fixed on the doorway and a grin suffused her face, but maybe, just maybe, that smile didn't reach her eyes. "Hey Pete. Hand it over--I have a newspaper to organize here. Get going already."

"--you."

Clark woke with a start, staring into the recesses of the ceiling, the shadows angling between bare beams in a way that seemed faintly ominous. A soft owl hoot greeted him, and Clark rolled onto his side, feeling the loft large and strangely empty around him, the air heavy and humid with the rain outside. Chloe and Pete had left hours before.

His bedroom was just across the yard, but for some reason, it hadn't called him tonight, even the promise of warm blankets and peace.

"You're too trusting, you know that?"

Clark sat up straight, eyes unerringly finding the figure seated cross-legged just past the foot of the sleeping bag.

"Lex?" Could be a dream. Probably wasn't. His dreams rarely included a sleeping bag heavy with the dampness from the rain or the cold reality of the floor beneath him, soaking into his skin and bones. Funny--invulnerability had never covered temperature changes. Also, in his dreams, Lex would be far less dressed and in a better mood. "What--"

The questions died as he met the cool gaze--and disappeared when he took what Lex was wearing. No business suits, scarily adult, or even the casual jeans or slacks Lex indulged in off-hours. Exotic was the word. Sleeveless indigo shirt, some iridescent material that shimmered even in the darkness, black leather pants, black boots, ignoring the wet cold of the night with flair, no-belonging in the dark slum of a country loft. A trace of something silvery across the corner of his jaw, glitter sprinkled like dust over his shoulders. Not-Lex-like at all, not least in the expression on his face.

Lex didn't comment as Clark stared, his mouth going dry as Lex drew a leg casually to his chest and tilted his head just a little. Watching him.

"I--I thought you were in Metropolis this weekend."

"How would you know that?"

"Chloe said something about it." Easy answer. Non-stalkery answer. Public information, pure and simple.

"Hm."

Nothing else, and Clark tried to gather his thoughts, flushing as he remembered how he'd awakened.

"Wha--what are you doing here?" Grasping for conversation. For something.

The slightest hint of a shrug as Lex shifted a little, one hand idly scratching at his knee.

"I've been asking myself that same question for the last hour," Lex answered thoughtfully. "It's been a long night."

Faintly disturbing, that Lex had been here for an hour, watching him sleep. Clark shifted under the covers, wishing he had something to do with his hands, wondering if he should offer Lex something to drink. Or not--he wasn't quite sure of the etiquette involved in people dropping by in the middle of the night. Even less sure when they'd been sitting around watching you for a length of time.

"What time is it?" Clark asked to break the stretching silence, and Lex lazily lifted a bare arm, checking his watch idly.

"Two thirty." Back to almost perfect stillness, watching him again, and this would be creepy if it wasn't Lex. Frankly, it was creepy even *with* it being Lex, and Clark pushed the blanket to his feet, flushing as Lex's gaze took him in with a single slow and deliberate gaze that started at his eyes and worked its way down his body. Goosebumps followed the track of Lex's eyes, heat burning into his skin.

"Lex...."

"Let me tell you about my night," Lex said, resting an elbow on his upturned knee. "I left this afternoon to visit some--acquaintances. Strangely enough, despite repeated offers and some distracting--activities, I stayed not only sober but drove back to Smallville halfway through what would possibly have been one of the more interesting parties I've attended in the last year."

Clark nodded slowly, not sure what else to do, feeling the edges of anger on every clipped word.

"So here is what I do know--I came back to Smallville and ended up here. Dead sober, in full use of my facilities, and I'm not sure why."

Lex had never struck him as someone who was uncertain about anything--Clark shifted a little under the intense gaze, feeling the cold diminishing slowly under the heat of that stare that seemed to reach below his clothes and map the skin beneath inch by inch.

"Lex--"

Lex waved a hand negligently and Clark let the words die in his throat as Lex shifted easily onto his knees, sliding both hands onto the edge of the sleeping bag. Barely breathing, he watched Lex approach in a slow, almost predatory crawl across the surface of the blanket, until the leather-covered legs rested on either side of his hips and Lex straightened, looking down into Clark's eyes with an unmistakable expression.

"Pretty boy," Lex murmured, and long fingers slid across his cheek, thumb tracing his lower lip. "I know better than this."

Clark took a quick breath, feeling the thumb slide between his lips, and ran his tongue lightly over the tip, tasting salty skin and the leather of the gloves Lex wore when he drove, hearing Lex's softly indrawn breath. Eyes still fixed on Lex's, he drew his thumb between his teeth, biting down lightly, feeling the tension in Lex's body, before Lex pulled away.

Lowering himself slowly into Clark's lap, the fingers traced over his face and Clark closed his eyes, feeling himself harden at the weight of Lex on top of him. Touched like Lex was trying to build a tactile memory, skimming over forehead, cheeks, down his nose, chin, along the line of his jaw. Then Clark's head was tilted up, and there was the lightest brush of lips over his, soft and almost--almost sweet.

"Lex, I don't--"

"Shh." Warm breath against his lips, smelling of something minty and vaguely alcoholic, before Lex's hands slid on either side of his head, running through his hair gently. Clark felt himself lean into the touch. "Not now."

Clark opened his mouth to try again, wanting to get it out, God, just make him understand--but Lex's mouth was against his, tongue tracing his lips, before the sudden dart between, over his teeth, exploring inside as if he wanted to taste every inch. Clark couldn't help it--he reached for the warm body, trying to draw Lex closer, let himself be pushed onto his back on the barely-cushioned wood of the floor. The indigo silk was slippery beneath his hands and he reached down, pulling it free of the leather, needing to find skin as Lex's tongue slid around his, encouraging him, showing him that this was what a kiss was supposed to be.

"Lex--" he whispered when Lex shifted his attention, drawing fine lines with his tongue across Clark's jaw, down to the side of his throat. "I--"

The hand in his hair tightened, jerking his head to the side, and he sucked in a breath as Lex's mouth found that sensitive spot just below his ear, raking his teeth over it lightly, sending a crawling sensation up Clark's back. Jerking a little, he tried to breathe through the haze of new sensation.

Clark dug his fingers into the strong back above him, trying to be careful, shivering as Lex's tongue skated along his jugular, mouth settling into his shoulder. With clumsy fingers, Clark pushed the shirt farther up, and Lex sat up abruptly, pulling it over his head, giving Clark only a quick vision of the naked pale skin of Lex's chest before Lex kissed him again, nipping his lip and choking a gasp out of him.

"Lex, please--"

Fingers were unbuttoning the flannel shirt he'd fallen asleep in, skimming his chest, pulling sharply to free it from his jeans, and Lex's mouth was sliding down his jaw, teeth dragging across his shoulder. Through denim and leather, Clark could feel Lex's erection against his thigh, warm and hard. Prying a hand from Lex's back, he got a hand between them, running curious fingers over the warmth, hearing Lex groan and teeth sink into his chest just above his nipple.

"Shit, Clark--"

*What* was he doing? Clark tried to catch his breath, pull his thoughts together, but not with Lex's tongue doing such fascinating things to his skin, circling the nipple before a quick, painful-good bite that pushed everything but *now* into the recesses of his mind, not when he had so much of Lex's skin to touch and test, running his fingers over it, digging in with every movement of Lex's mouth, knowing he was leaving bruises and barely caring except to hope he didn't break anything important. Unable to quite help the slow rock of his hips into Lex's, hearing his own breathing, saying something that might have been words or simply random sounds.

"Clark--" Lex lifting his head, the fingers in his hair turning Clark's head, so their eyes met. "This--this what you want?"

God, yes, this was what he wanted--exactly, made-to-order fantasy material, Lex on top of him and touching him and Lex's hand hard and warm against his waist beneath the flannel, fingers skimming the edge of his jeans.

No, health class had *definitely* not covered any of this, not even close.

"Yes--" Then stopped, because the blue-grey eyes weren't warm or hazy with lust or anything but watchful, waiting. Something splintered inside Clark, heat dissipating suddenly and completely into icy cold, even with the warm body against him. "Not like--Lex, no, that's not--"

"Not what?"

He hadn't asked the right questions, Chloe said. And it wasn't until now he understood what he should have asked.

"Lex--it's not about that, about--about owing me anything." God, though, would even Lex pay him with sex? Was it that cheap to him, did he think Clark was that--was like that? And so tempting, to just let it happen, reason it out later, feel those hands on his body, Lex touching him, Lex *letting* Clark touch him. Breathing out, he pushed at the body over him and instantly, Lex moved, dropping neatly onto the blanket beside him with perfect poise, watching him again.

The difference that Chloe had tried to tell him, between Smallville and Metropolis, between a Kent and a Luthor.

"I'm not like that," he finished, unable to meet those cool eyes. "I don't--"

"Everyone is, Clark." Somehow, Lex found his shirt, pulling it on over his head, and standing up, crossing off the blankets as if nothing more interesting had happened than conversation between them, when Clark could still feel the burn on his skin from Lex's touch.

"You don't believe me."

That got him the briefest, most bitter smile, before Lex reached down, fishing a jacket up from somewhere--leather, matching the smooth lines of the pants.

"I know better. Tell me when your conscience can handle it."

And Clark watched Lex disappear silently down the stairs, leaving Clark to stare at the darkened doorway. Touching his mouth, still tasting Lex on his tongue, feeling Lex on his body.

Leaving the right questions unasked.

The End