Holy shit, I wrote! And it's Constellation!

*fans all of you and holds out smelling salts*

What can I say? I was inspired by rageprufrock's example.

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: If you're clever, you'll recognize a line I lifted from the most recent SV... but no, it's not a spoiler.

Part 1
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There was a fine layer of grime on everything in the hardware section. Lex stretched out a finger to touch it and caught himself writing the word ‘poo’ on a bag of potting soil. He’d clearly been spending too much time with the kid.

“Can I help you?”

Lex lifted his head, casually drawing his fingers over the word to erase it as he did so. The store employee was a tall, hardened-looking young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, about Lex’s own age or a bit younger. He seemed either too old or too young for the retail world, in any case, judging by the way he was staring Lex down with a combination of annoyance and impatience.

“I need wire,” Lex said. “For hanging paintings.”

“You do that?” the man asked, his tone betraying that he knew who Lex was. But before Lex could answer in an equally dismissive manner, the man drew in a quick breath of realization, sucking the air between clenched teeth, then releasing it with a little grunt of comprehension. “It’s for her, right? For Lana?”

Lex paused for a moment, allowing the name to surface in his mind. “You must be Whitney,” he said. The stalker, he added internally.

Whitney reached out and plucked a roll of wire from the grimy display in front of them. “Two dollars,” he announced, shoving it into Lex’s hand. Without pausing for Lex to react, he continued. “Look, I’m not going to kiss your ass and thank you for your business, so if you’re planning to wait around for that, then–”

“Keep the change,” Lex interrupted, palming a five dollar bill into Whitney’s fist, making cold and unflinching eye contact. “Unless that offends your delicate sense of honor.”

Lex had certainly spent enough time in an all-boys boarding school to recognize a guy in need of serious anger management interventions, but then classic conditioning never seemd to take with him. He was unsurprised, if a little annoyed, when he found himself backing into the hardware display rather suddenly, propelled by a flat push to the centre of his chest.

“You should stay the hell away from her,” Whitney snarled, pushing Lex again, more slowly.

“You should mind your own business,” Lex replied evenly. “She’s going to be my wife. I don’t see how that concerns you.”

Whitney’s eyes went flint gray and he backed off almost as abruptly as he’d approached. “You think you can own her, but you’re wrong.”

“Why?” Lex asked, tugging at his coat to restore the evenness of his lapels. “Because she’s a person, not a possession?” he asked, smiling smugly, provoking his opponent yet again, or so he expected.

But Whitney’s gaze dropped and fixed on a point at Lex’s feet. “Because,” Whitney said, quietly, “I had her first.”

***

“God, it still smells the exact same.” Justin hung his head out of the window like a dog. “Like a big pile of shit and a big pile of chemicals are smoking up together.”

Clark grinned, twitching the steering wheel a little as he spied a parking space further up Main Street. “I don’t notice it,” he admitted, flipping his turn signal and glancing back to make sure that Brodie was indeed being quiet and wasn’t actually asleep or dead. But the kid was just paging through a fat cardboard book Lex had bought him, mouthing words to himself and touching the colorful pictures.

“How much I haven’t missed it,” Justin said vehemently, tapping the dashboard now with his slightly paralysed hand.

“We’re just going to grab some lattes at the Beanery,” Clark repeated. “Then we can head back to the farm and you can pretend we’re somewhere else.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Justin muttered as he threw open his door and slid out onto the pavement. Clark shook his head, torn between the amusement Justin was trying to provoke and a deeper sense of worry about how serious Justin really was.

Clark was bent double, half in the truck and half out, unbuckling Brodie from the complex confines of his carseat when Justin elbowed him sharply. “Hey,” Justin said, elbowing harder. “Is that who I think it is?”

Clark tugged Brodie free and plopped him down on the sidewalk, looking with Justin over the top of the truck, across the street to where Lex was just emerging from Fordman’s, looking flushed and weirdly thoughtful. “Lex Luthor,” Clark agreed. “He has a mansion outside of town, remember?”

“Yex,” Brodie cried, catching on. Clark winced. He hadn’t remembered that Brodie would rat him out with regards to his acquaintance – or whatever – with Lex. “Where’s Yex?”

Clark ducked his head, about to shush Brodie, but it was too late – before he could do it, he realized that Lex had paused outside his own car and was staring across the street at Clark and Justin. Tentatively, Clark waved, which made Justin blink at him with disbelief.

Lex didn’t wave back, or smile. Instead, he slipped on his sunglasses and headed across the street, shoulders slightly hunched like a celebrity trying to be obviously unobtrusive.

“You know him,” Justin said, grabbing Clark by the jacket and pulling hard, the grin on his face submerging his previous anxiety. Clark tugged himself free more hurriedly than he’d planned to, feeling oddly uncomfortable with the thought that Lex might think he and Justin -- “You know Lex Luthor?” Justin said, regaining his grip and flapping the jacket’s fabric playfully. “I didn’t know you were a –”

“Shut up,” Clark said warningly.

“Big shot –”

“Justin!”

“Tycoon’s –”

“Stop it!” Clark growled, but unfortunately, his struggles to escape probably looked more like playful flirtation than anything, judging by the expression of faint amusement and distaste on Lex’s face.

“Plaything – well, hello Mr. Luthor, sir!” Justin said, still laughing, as Lex drew up to them.

“Clark,” Lex said, inclining his head, all unflappable calm, at least until Brodie launched himself at Lex.

“Hey,” Clark said, watching as Brodie all but ran his way into Lex’s arms. “Shopping at Fordman’s?”

Lex, now juggling Brodie, managed to display a roll of wire. “For Lana’s gallery,” he explained, but was unable to get much farther as Brodie had begun to tell a long and complicated story about someone at daycare having a spectacular accident.

While Brodie talked, Clark glanced between his two adult companions. Justin’s erstwhile amusement had fallen away, and he was watching Lex and Clark’s brother with an expression of patient but persisent disbelief. Lex himself was quickly becoming absorbed in Brodie, losing all his feigned coolness under the thrall of Brodie’s enthusiastic tale-telling. Clark himself became enthralled, just watching as Lex’s reservations faded and his face came to life. It felt like years had passed since Clark had seen Lex this relaxed.

“And it was everywhere,” Brodie concluded with delight. “It was yucky.”

Clark blinked, realizing that he’d been staring at Lex the whole time, and shot a guilty glance in Justin’s direction to see if he’d noticed. But Justin’s own attention had moved – Clark followed the direction of his fixed, almost frightened look, and saw that Whitney Fordman was standing outside his store, arms crossed, watching their little enclave. Though Whitney hardly appeared friendly, Clark couldn’t imagine what was causing the unease Justin was showing. He was about to inquire when Lex interrupted.

“Our boy Fordman has declared war on me,” he said, with an ironic tilt of his head in Whitney’s direction. “Apparently he’s angry that I’m dating his ex-girlfriend from the turn of the century.”

“Whitney’s just protective,” Clark countered uneasily.

“He’s psychotic,” Lex bit back, shoving Brodie into Clark’s arms. “And he’d better stay the hell away from her.” With this, Lex stalked past them and into Lana’s gallery.

Over Brodie’s pathetic protests at Lex’s departure, Clark could hear Justin asking, “What the hell, Clark?”

***

Lex wasn’t used to walking around with regrets, and it annoyed the shit out of him that he was doing just that. All day, all evening, he’d been coming back to the moment when he’d roughly handed Brodie over to Clark, the moment he’d turned and walked away. Brodie deserved better than that, Lex knew, but it wasn’t that which was tormenting him.

“Or we could watch this documentary on polar bear mating. Lex, you have the weirdest DVD collection, and I don’t want to know about it, okay?” Lana was saying, patting barefoot around his entertainment room, strangely girlish and sweet tonight, because that just made everything more difficult.

It was Clark. God, it was always Clark. Clark and that kid, that vaguely familiar kid who must be an old Smallville friend, someone in a photograph from Clark’s loft, maybe, but someone who wasn’t just some cheap trick, judging by the way Clark had been *gauging* them both. Clark cared about this kid, he knew him well, and Lex couldn’t stop thinking about it, about what they might be doing in the loft at that moment.

What he and Clark might have been doing, if Lex had behaved differently.

But was Clark still his, for the asking? Lex couldn’t shake the suspicion that he might have missed his last chance that afternoon on the sidewalk. But what could he have done? It was bad enough that Lex was continuing to see Brodie regularly, if Gabe was right. Publicly showing interest in Clark as well might have triggered serious consequences for both of the Kent boys, or for Lex, and Lex didn’t want his father descending now, not when he hadn’t even begun to grasp this puzzle.

“Okay, if you’re just going to sit on the couch and stare at your knees, we’re watching Sixteen Candles.” Lana plopped herself down beside him and poked at Lex’s shoulder. “Death by Molly.”

Lex managed a half smile and pretended to look up at the television, only half-aware of the FBI warning on the screen. Because in spite of all reason, in spite of all strategy, Lex *wanted* Clark. He wasn’t satisfied with these brief and uncomfortable encounters, and yet that was all he could have, and in the meantime, Clark was getting serious with someone else. It was one thing to see Clark in a tight t-shirt, Etnies, and a new tousled kind of confidence, and to suspect that he was fucking his way through the gay community of Grandville Community College. It was quite another to see Clark so at ease with someone else, someone else who got to ride in Clark’s truck and tug at his clothes and be with Brodie whenever he wanted.

It wasn’t a choice. There was no choice involved whatsoever, because even if Lex wasn’t attempting to crack open the egg that was Smallville and the Constellation project, there was no space in his life for a barely-legal teen father and his young obnoxious charge. But Lex had never been good at rehab, and he could now admit to himself that this wasn’t a case of two separate addictions; Lex was hooked on the full package deal, farmboy, toddler, overwhelming amounts of plaid, all of it.

“Did Whitney say anything to you when you went in there?” Lana asked, balancing the bowl of popcorn on her crossed legs.

And Lex would *take* it if he could, damn it all. He would go back in time to this afternoon, he would grab Clark by the hand, he would make eye contact and smile and he would telegraph in every possible way – barring public indecency – that he was helpless before this desire to have them in his life.

But he hadn’t.

“Lex?”

***

Justin didn’t say anything until they were up in the loft, past all the necessities – Justin commenting on Clark’s house, Clark getting Brodie fed, the two of them making polite conversation with Jonathan in the kitchen (lying blithely about a class together and a presentation they were doing), and escaping Jonathan’s hearty denial of what must seem painfully obvious between Justin and Clark (while using said denial in order to force Jonathan into watching Brodie.)

Now this silence, with Justin twirling Clark’s telescope and seeming angry and amused all at once.

“So, your Obi-Wan,” Justin said, but didn’t finish the sentence, leaving it hanging in the air between them.

Clark flopped down on his back on the couch. “That guy with the eyebrow ring, with the darker hair, is that Wade?”

“Neil,” Justin corrected automatically.

“Fucked him,” Clark said, kicking the armrest gently.

For a moment, Clark thought he’d closed the subject permanently, but then Justin said it again. “Your Obi-Wan,” he began, toying with a loose string on his hand brace. “I mean, how classic is that?”

“Justin, don’t,” Clark protested wearily. The farmboy and the lecherous town millionaire, christ, Clark couldn’t even imagine how clichéd that looked from Justin’s point of view.

“I’m just impressed, Clark,” Justin said, trying to smile. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Clark opened and closed his mouth, unable to come up with any explanation.

“Banging the quarterback. Or you know, letting him bang you. Christ, all you need is big hair, spandex pants, and bubblegum, and you’re every 80s movie popularity queen.”

Clark blinked. Was ‘quarterback’ a euphemism for – oh. “No, it –” Ah, hell.

“Did he threaten to hurt you if you told anyone?” Justin asked, his tone caught between laughter and tiredness. “Jesus, you’d think that guy had enough repression to last him without adding this into the mix.”

“He’s not like that,” Clark said, deciding it was easier to go with this than have to admit that Lex and not Whitney was the person in question. “Look, Justin, you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Or he’ll mess you up?” Justin asked in a gruff, macho tone.

“Seriously.”

“Whatever, Kent. His big gay secret is safe with me.” Justin pushed the telescope away abruptly in a gesture of dismissal, then strolled over and sat down on Clark’s legs.

“Ow,” Clark said flatly, unsure if this was supposed to hurt or not.

“But, speaking of big gay secrets,” Justin said, “I don’t know how you and Lex Luthor met –”

“He nearly ran me over,” Clark provided quickly, hoping to derail any further inquiries.

“But he so wants your ass. Did you see the way Fordman was glaring?”

“He doesn’t want my ass,” Clark scoffed. “He’s engaged to Lana Lang, remember?”

“He wants your hot, college-student, quarterback-humping, farmboy ass,” Justin persisted. “You should go for it. Maybe you’ll get some sort of scholarship out of it, who knows?”

“Shut up,” Clark returned, but he couldn’t keep a small smile from turning his lips.

Pointless even thinking about it.

Really.

***

Lex waited, headlights off, engine running, until he saw the truck pulling into the driveway with a single passenger. It was nearly one in the morning, and Lex had been awake since four a.m., but he was smiling in spite of himself, because – Clark had come home. Alone.

He didn’t know why he immediately flicked on his headlights and followed the truck, except that he couldn’t do anything else. As he pulled up behind the red truck, he watched Clark blink with surprise in the glare of the Porsche’s headlights, shielding his eyes but not trying to discern who was behind the wheel. Because it couldn’t be anyone else.

Lex rolled down his window and waited for Clark to approach, his heart drumming frantically in his chest. What was he doing? What was he planning to say? This was utter insanity.

But, again, once Clark’s face bent down and leaned towards Lex, painted over with curiosity and suspicion, there was only one thing to do, and Lex did it. He reached up and pinned Clark’s jaw between his leather-gloved palms, drew him closer, and kissed him. Clark tensed with surprise, but it took only an instant of dialogue between Lex’s lips and his before Clark was exactly in the same place as Lex was – which was a place of pure want. They wanted this, it wasn’t too late, Clark still wanted this, Lex could have it, it wasn’t too late. Clark’s lips like soft wet silk, his mouth insistent and urgent, his big hands closing over Lex’s shoulders, trying to somehow wish Lex through the window of the car, and yes, it was just this simple, it wasn’t consquence or forethought, it was *need*, and Lex couldn’t and shouldn’t control that.

Clark was breathing small desperate noises through his nose, and this had to stop, if only because Lex needed to be next to Clark, not separated by anything. Lex gathered his resolve and pulled back, gasping for air. Clark was flushed and wide-eyed, obviously confused as hell but liking it, and what was Lex *doing* anyway? Because Clark was backing up, Clark was walking away, he was –

Headed for the passenger door. Now inside the Porsche, now setting on Lex with a growl, parting his shirt with a single slide of his palm, ordering Lex – words. Words were complex. “Drive,” Clark was saying, when Lex forced himself to understand, but he couldn’t really mean that, because the next moment he was unbuttoning Lex’s pants, touching Lex, and *yeah*, so what if Clark had been practicing on that kid in town, it had only made this impossibly better, Clark’s mouth working on Lex like a sweet hot vise. It was sudden, orgasm striking Lex with physical impact at the base of his spine, shivering out in ripples until his fingers were numb and clenching, Clark swallowing around him, so good and too brief.

Clark sat up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and repeated his single directive. “Drive.”

Lex turned the key in the ignition, cursed at the car’s grind of despair because it was already running, hit the gearshift and the clutch, and backed out of the driveway like any second, this might all go away, and Lex might be back on the couch at the mansion, watching with edgy boredom as Lana slept.

“Where?” Lex asked, ignoring the way Clark was laughing at him, and Christ, how could the kid *laugh* when he was sitting in jeans that tight, jeans that didn’t leave Lex in any doubt that Clark should be in mighty discomfort and in no way *finding this funny*.

“The mansion,” Clark said, but Lex shook his head, still seeing Lana curled up in front of Molly Ringwald. “Where then?”

Lex couldn’t think, couldn’t think, and then his eyes lit on the silver key dangling from his keychain, the one Lana had pressed into his hand with assurances that this was a gesture only and he was not to take advantage of it and really, she just wanted an excuse to demand access to the mansion in return. “I have an idea.”

Clark finally showed some sign of humanity and sighed, pressing the heel of his hand into the straining fly of his jeans. “Hurry up and get there,” he demanded.

It was only as they screeched to a halt in front of Lana’s apartment, which was located over her gallery, that Lex realized he’d driven the whole way with his pants tugged halfway down his thighs. He glared at Clark’s giggles when he tried to pull them up enough to swing his legs out of the car, but really, inside Lex’s head, all was giddy urgency, joyous forgetting.

Lana’s apartment was a perfect study in narcissism, and if Lex hadn’t been so busy trying to rip Clark’s clothes off, he might have had time to make some comment about that. There were mirrors on almost every vertical surface, antiques and new, bouncing the overhead light around, jangling Lex’s senses until Clark found the switch with the back of one sweeping hand and they stumbled in the darkness towards Lana’s bed, with only the faint seeping of light from across the street to guide them.

Clark had Lex pinned, naked, between his thighs, in mere seconds, faster than seemed likely or healthy or even possible. “Hold still,” he ordered, and Lex wasn’t inclined to argue with the Etnies or the boyfriend in the loft if they did this to Clark, made him dark and harsh and desperate.

“Bedside drawer,” Lex said, struggling against Clark’s hold just to feel how utterly immoveable Clark was. “Everything’s in there.”

Clark leaned across and pulled the drawer out entirely, dumping its contents on the mattress while keeping Lex still with one massive paw encircling both Lex’s wrists. Clark held up Lana’s strap on dildo, raised an eyebrow at Lex, then smirked and tossed it aside. “I can do better than that,” he grinned, casting a meaningful glance down at his own non-latex implement. He paused longer on the silk scarf, trailing it over Lex’s sides to make him squirm, but discarded it as well after a moment’s play. The leather gag got even more consideration, but Lex said a few filthy words and Clark seemed to change his mind. Finally, Clark took up the lube and condoms, letting go of Lex’s hands. “You do it, I’ll get ready,” he said, and Lex had to tear his gaze away from the sight, Clark’s two big fingers wet with lube, slipping under and back and in, Clark’s mouth opening with concentration – Lex’s hands shook as he opened the condom wrapper and slicked himself, trying not to notice the slow rhythmic pressure of Clark’s thighs as Clark worked himself open on his own fingers.

“God, I’ve –” Clark began, pushing down hard and meeting Lex’s eyes. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed this.”

“I do know,” Lex responded, and pulled at Clark’s hand, urging him forward and down until Lex’s cock was pressed up against Clark’s hole.

Clark’s cheeks were filled with a hectic flush, his lips swollen and wet, his shoulders heaving with excitement, but his touch was almost gentle as he drew his hand down the center of Lex’s chest, such a simple touch, so tender and yet nearly chaste, that everything in the room seemed to still abruptly. Lex became himself again, the desperation ebbing. He saw Clark clearly, saw his beauty and his impossible sincerity and this was where, this was *exactly* fucking where Lex was supposed to panic and escape, but instead, he watched in awed silence as Clark slowly and deliberately sank down onto Lex, as though Clark himself was sinking into Lex at the same time, dropping deep inside Lex’s being until he was as filled with Clark as Clark was with him. As Clark slid Lex inside, the pattern of night shadow and faint light from Lana’s window traveled up Clark’s torso, until his face was striped with crazily angled shadows, his eyes green and limitless and utterly fixed on Lex. The heavy lids slowly dropped closed, Clark’s mouth opened, and he groaned quietly, and the spell was over, because Lex’s body was checking in again and Clark was tight and hot and he was moving.

Long thighs and strong arms and, oh yeah, demanding hard cock, and Lex arched his back into it until Clark grunted with frustration and suddenly began to ride Lex hard, fast, his palm wrapping around his cock, pulling at it.

Clark came first, with an almost pained cry, and Lex didn’t stop him when he fell forward, collapsing on top of Lex. Lex waited a moment, waited until Clark was breathing again, and then he rolled them both over, pushing inside Clark and fucking him deep and slow. Clark was all langorous stretch and obliging curl, and Lex had to hide his face in the crook of Clark’s neck because this was too good and too much like telling secrets. But the tenderness, the immediacy, wouldn’t stop, and just as Lex pressed his forehead down on Clark’s shoulder and came, he felt Clark’s lips brush his scalp, containing Lex and keeping him from flying apart entirely.

Darkness striped with light from across the street, Lex fit into Clark’s embrace, still feeling that small kiss on his head, still feeling that gentle stroke down his chest, and that sharp pointy smile of affection when Lex had cursed at his Porsche.

“Stay,” Clark said, even though Lex had made no motion. “We won’t fall asleep.” Big hand, cradling Lex’s lower back, made Lex trust everything for the first time in a very long while.

***