Sorry this is a bit late, but I didn't even know if I would manage it at all today, so I'm still pretty happy.  However, I'm so behind on comments, I think I really have to make some sort of choice -- either write at a slower pace and answer comments more regularly, or just give up entirely on replying to comments.  I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on this, particularly other writers.  I like to be polite and reply to everyone -- it just seems like the right thing to do -- and I adore getting comments on my fic as I go -- hence my WiP addiction -- but at this point, I have probably over 250 comments unanswered, backlogged.  What do you guys think?

Rating: NC-17
Characters: Clark, Lex, Jonathan, Whitney, Lana, Gabe Sullivan, plus one.
Summary: The most heroic thing Clark did on a regular basis was to stitch up Taber’s right side whenever he needed it.
A/N: Unbetaed as heck, as per usual with me.  Apologies in advance for likely strange phrasing, word repetition, and general crap.  *g*

Part 1
Part 2:1
Part 2:2
Part 2:3
Part 2:4
Part 2:5


As Clark left the mansion at midnight, hair shower-wet, almost as limber-limbed as Brodie felt slung over his shoulder, Lex handed him his essay.  Clark glanced down at it, surprised and not a little unhappy to be reminded of its existence.

“I marked some things while you were in the bathroom,” Lex said quietly.  “It’s all right – just needs cleaning up.”

Clark now noticed the black-ink scrawls in the margins.  “Nicely stated,” said one.  “Affect = verb, effect=noun,” advised another.

“You’re good at that,” Lex said, nodding at the paper.  “You should keep doing it.”

“This is a full-service kind of place,” Clark said, looking up and grinning.  “I could get used to this.”

Something dark flickered in Lex’s eyes, and Clark immediately sensed that the last sentence had pushed too far.  “Early meeting,” Lex said, then jammed his hands in his pockets, like a closing door.

“Yeah, I have chores in the morning,” Clark said, feeling pushed off-center by Lex’s reaction.  “Um.  Do I say thanks?”

Lex relaxed marginally with a breath of laughter.  “I think a thank-you note is traditional for sex, but I’ll accept that.”

Clark blushed and laughed.  “I meant for the help with the essay, but thanks for the sex, too.”

“My pleasure,” Lex said, hands still in pockets, seeing Clark out and nothing more.

Clark nodded, tucking the essay into Brodie’s knapsack as he reached for the doorknob behind him.  It felt wrong to just leave like this, without any declarations.  Clark wracked his brain for something safe to say.  “Brodie really likes you,” he blurted, one foot already on the threshold.  “I mean… it’s really good for him, coming here.  Having someone else he can count on.”

Lex’s gaze fixed on Brodie’s face.  “I like Brodie, too.”

“So… goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Clark stepped back in just long enough to kiss Lex, intending to make it short and cursory because that seemed to be all Lex was permitting, but Lex felt so warm and real as soon as Clark closed his eyes, he couldn’t help but brush Lex’s lips with his tongue, and then Lex’s mouth opened and his hands must have come out of his pockets because his fingers were back in Clark’s hair.

They broke apart with a final press of lips, and Clark smiled because Lex’s hand was still holding Clark’s head close, too close even to focus on Lex’s face.  “Call me again if you need a babysitter later in the week,” Lex said in a near-whisper.  “I think I like being there for – Brodie.”

“Brodie appreciates that,” Clark said, pulling back as Lex’s hand slipped away.

Lex watched Clark go, standing in the doorway of the mansion as Clark walked down to the truck.

***

“Yes,” Lex said, ostensibly answering Gabe’s question about whether or not he liked swiss cheese, but actually –

Well, actually committing himself to a vast unknown.  He still hadn’t quite convinced himself that this immense conspiracy theory wasn’t all Lionel’s set-up, but Lex was a naturally curious being and he couldn’t resist involving himself in the solving of such a tantalizing puzzle.

“My daughter’s crazy about it,” Gabe answered earnestly.  “When she’s home from college, I have to have it in the fridge or there’s a minor meltdown, you know?”

Lex nodded, pretending to be bored because that was what he would be, were this a real conversation.  “Look, Gabe, I’ve got some e-mail I should be answering, so –”

“Say no more, boss,” Gabe beamed, clearly thrilled with Lex’s professed fondness for swiss cheese.  “Oh, Andrea asked me to bring these in to you.”

A stack of office mail which Lex accepted with as much disinterest as he could muster.  Lex knew that somewhere in that stack was another code detailing their next meeting place and time, and he was getting to enjoy the daily decoding, like others enjoyed crosswords.  “Thanks,” Lex said, indicating dismissal with his tone, not watching Gabe leave the office.

Lex left the mail untouched for five minutes before giving into his impulses and shuffling through the stack.  Sure enough, there was an oddly nonsensical memo about office supply usage, and Lex set it aside with a smile.

Underneath the memo, there was – just a plain white envelope with no formal address, merely Lex’s name printed across the front.  The envelope proved to hold an ordinary card, embossed with silver letters spelling ‘Thank You’.  On the inside, Clark’s writing, recognizable from the babysitting to-do list.

Dear Lex – Just a quick note to say thanks for all the sex.  It was really good.  I especially liked the part with your tongue. – Clark

Lex stared at it for a minute.  He was tempted to set the card up on his desk like his employees did, a little display of small-town courtesy, just to see if anyone would pick the card up and read it – but that was probably a bad idea.

He set it up anyway, just to have it there, to smile at whenever it caught his eye.  Martha Kent’s son, all right.  Lionel had teams of public relations professionals whose job it was to make sure LuthorCorp always did the right thing, socially, but as far as Lex knew, Martha was the only person who had ever convinced Lionel to sign thank-you cards himself.

It had taken some careful memory excavation – the period immediately following Julian’s death was not a time Lex’s mind had preserved in great detail – but Lex had managed to recall a few more details about Martha Kent’s involvement with LuthorCorp.  Combined with the contents of Chloe Sullivan’s database, Lex had a pretty good picture.  At some point, Martha must have approached Lionel personally, seeking funding for her campaign to clean up the meteor rocks that contaminated all the land around Smallville.  Lex had done his homework on Martha herself – she was Metropolitan high society, born and bred – and it wasn’t clear whether she had approached Lionel with her maiden name as entitlement, or if she’d actually personally known the old bastard from her youth in Metropolis.  In any case, Lionel had agreed, probably seeing the potential of the rocks and feigning humanitarian interest.  He and Martha had worked closely on the clean-up project for at least three years afterwards.  Lex couldn’t be certain, but he thought he remembered seeing Martha at the penthouse during the summer he had been fifteen. 

She’d certainly been around during Lex’s mother’s final illness and death – Lex remembered it vividly.  Everyone around was doing as Lionel wanted, treating Lex with the terse discomfort reserved for bereaved adults, but Martha – when she saw Lex, some days after the funeral – simply held out her arms and pulled him in.  He’d stiffened in her embrace, afraid of accepting this kindness, but she had held on tight.

“Remember,” she’d said into his ear, “that we love you.  You’re going to be okay, because we love you.”

‘We’ had meant ‘I’, Lex knew, and it had startled him.  He hadn’t believed her, but he’d always remembered the words.  Now, having met Clark and seen how he was with Brodie, Lex was finally beginning to accept that Martha Kent might well have been speaking the truth.

Even Lionel had been – well, Lex doubted he was ever in love, it was too tender a condition to apply to his father.  But he’d cared about Martha – not enough, perhaps, to undeceive her about his real motivation concerning the meteor excavation process, but enough to want her to believe he was a good man.  He was different around her – kinder to Lex, more patient with the staff, quicker to smile, easier to please.  Lionel must have made some move to acquire Martha, but Lex, thinking about it, couldn’t quite imagine that Martha would ever have returned Lionel’s interest.

Or perhaps she had.

Either way, it didn’t bear thinking about.  She was dead, had been for several years, and Lionel was just as mendacious and heartless as ever.  If she had meant to reform him, she hadn’t succeeded.  And if he had wanted to woo her away from her family, the completion of the meteor clean-up, back in 1996, had marked the unsuccessful closure of that endeavour.

Lex wondered if Clark realized that Lex had known his mother, if Martha had ever spoken about him at home on the farm the way she’d always made fond mention of her ‘little boy’ when Lex was with her.  It was so strange to contemplate the way that he and Clark had been like two sides of the coin that was Martha’s existence, never meeting and yet linked inextricably.

Lex blinked, pulling himself out of his thoughts, finding himself still staring across his desk at Clark’s idea of a joke.  From this angle, Lex could just make out a few of the words inside the card – ‘sex’, ‘tongue’, and ‘Clark’, which brought out all sorts of pleasant memories of the previous night.  And if he kept thinking on *that* tangent, he wouldn’t get any more work done this afternoon, Lex thought wryly, forcing himself to study the coded memo.  It was a binary cipher this time, something that made the mathematical part of Lex’s brain purr with contentment.

Ten minutes later, he was staring at another message – not a meeting time and place, but a warning:

‘Your father’s attention must not be drawn to Clark Kent.  Stop seeing him immediately.’