Title: Monkey See, Monkey Do

Author: Drake of Dross

Email: drake@dhrelva.endjunk.com

Rating: NC-17

Challenge: #20 - Monkey

Notes: Written for Clexfest #20: Pets. Assume season 6 spoilers but
it breaks into AU territory shortly before `Justice' since that's
where the show was at when I started writing this thing. Also, as far
as this story is concerned, Clark has reapplied to college and is now
taking classes at Met U. Presumably, Martha hired somebody to pick up
the slack around the farm.

Notes 2: Many thanks to Keikokin for the beta.

---

Lex had known it was a mistake to test meteor rocks on primates. Not
because of any ethical concerns – vervets were considered vermin in
most of their native countries and had bounties on them in some – but
because super-powered monkeys were unlikely to buckle under the usual
Luthor methods of persuasion. He wasn't entirely sure what sorts of
goals and desires monkeys aspired to. Somehow, he didn't think a
lifetime supply of bananas would keep such a creature in line.

As it turned out, he was right.

"Coleby, stop it," Lex complained, but there wasn't any power behind
it. The vervet had long ago established that he wasn't going to
listen to anything Lex said. After he had broken down four industrial
steel doors, Lex had decided it would be less destructive and more
cost-effective to just let him do what he wanted. His goal currently
seemed to be following Lex everywhere he went.

The monkey chattered, mimicking Lex's stance and shooing gesture.

With a sigh, Lex gave up the pen he had been trying to write with and
Coleby had been trying to steal for the last twenty minutes. "Fine,
have it." Coleby chattered again, happily this time, and snatched the
pen away. He immediately started to scribble on the pad Lex had just
been taking notes on.

"Fuck," Lex cursed in hopeless resignation. "Coleby, I needed
that."

Colbey just patted Lex's head and chattered in a way that sounded
almost sympathetic.

Lex picked up his phone, but before he could dial, Coleby had lost
interest in the pen and paper and now wanted the phone. This wasn't
going to work. Even if he could get the number dialed and retain
possession of the handset, Coleby would start screaming and Lex
wouldn't be able to stay professional. That hadn't mattered when he
was firing people, but he was now finished with that phase of the
project restructuring process.

He gave Colbey the phone and reached for the pen. Coleby blocked him,
now wanting both of them. He chattered at Lex, holding both items
possessively.

Lex admitted defeat. There was no possible way he was going to get
any more work done when he was sharing an office with a tyrannical and
greedy vervet monkey. "Go on, keep them. I'm going home," he told
Coleby as he stood up and collected his jacket. Colbey abandoned both
pen and phone and followed him to the door, chattering at him.

Lex led him out of the office, spoke briefly with his assistant, which
Coleby didn't like and displayed clearly by hissing and baring his
teeth at her. Lex made it short and headed for the elevator, Coleby
at his heels. "The story is that you're my pet," Lex told him as the
car descended from the upper levels of the LuthorCorp building down to
the underground garage. "I had you shipped in from South Africa. No
talk of secret labs and no knocking walls down, understand? Especially
not around Lana because she's pregnant, okay?"

He could almost swear that Coleby had to understand him because the
insolent creature put a finger in each ear and started blabbing
rudely. It was almost as bad and a lot more blatant than the last
couple of conversations, confrontations really, he'd had with Clark.

"Cole, you're a monkey. You're supposed to be cute and charming. Cut
it out." Coleby was having none of it. If this was some kind of
pre-test for raising a kid, he was beginning to reconsider letting
Lana have it. "Coleby, stop." He made the mistake of trying to grab
the vervet by his wrist.

He succeeded in getting the fingers out of Coleby's ears. He also
succeeded in backward flight and plastic deformation through directed
kinetic energy. He also blacked out for a couple of floors.

When he came to, there was a Lex-sized dent in the side of the
elevator, he was crumpled on the floor, and Coleby was worriedly
patting his face and chittering unhappily. "Yeah, you shouldn't throw
me or anyone else around like that, either," he told the monkey. He
ignored the pounding in his head and tried to stand up.

Coleby wrapped an arm around Lex's neck, the signal that he wanted to
be carried for a while. Lex sighed, "Cole, I was just unconscious."
He was only about eleven pounds, though, so Lex picked him up anyway.
As Lex straightened up, Coleby climbed over his shoulder to get a
look at the back of his head. "Is it bleeding?" Lex asked, reaching
up to check. It wasn't, thankfully, so hopefully nobody would notice
his latest head injury. He still grimaced as Coleby prodded it with
his fingers and chattered sorrowfully.

"I'm fine, Coleby, leave it alone." As the elevator door opened and
he headed for his Ferrari, though, Lex decided that perhaps the wiser
move today was not to go home where his pregnant fiancé was. Putting
Coleby into the passenger's seat, he strapped him in with the seat
belt then did the same thing for himself. "Cole, no," he all but
whined as Coleby easily escaped the restraints. "Coleby, see, I have
one, too," he pulled at his own strap. "It's to keep you safe. You
need to stay in your seat, okay? Stay. Got it?"

Coleby ignored the lap belt but dutifully got back under the shoulder
strap, looking over at Lex repeatedly to make sure he did it just the
same. He beamed happily at Lex and chattered proudly while shaking
his strap demonstratively. "Yes, very good, Coleby," Lex praised in
relief. It was far more cooperation than he could reasonably expect
after the preceding afternoon.

He started the car and shot out of his parking spot and the garage
with his usual lack of regard for any pedestrians or other vehicles in
the way – what was the point of a motor with that many decibels if not
to warn people to dive for cover? It was particularly impressive in
confined spaces like garages. Today, though, the sound of the motor
was drowned out by the sound of a screaming monkey.

Lex slammed on his brakes, nearly causing the car behind him to
back-end him and making Coleby perform an impressive feat of
acrobatics when the seatbelt proved inadequate to the task of holding
his non-standard form. Coleby stood on the dashboard, in the pose
that meant he was scared and dangerous. Horns honked at Lex from all
directions and he realized he was in the middle of an intersection.
Shit. He eased forward and off to the side of the road, pulling into
the parking lot for the Daily Planet employees. Double shit.

The guy at the gate just stared at him. And at the monkey that looked
ready to attack somebody, but Lex got equal billing which he didn't
think was entirely fair. Of course, the parking attendant didn't know
that Coleby could probably kill him with little trouble, so he
supposed it was understandable that he thought Lex Luthor behind the
wheel was equally frightening, especially given his most recent
traffic incident happened only twenty feet away.

"I can either park here and block everybody from getting in or out of
your lot, or you can let me in to park until Coleby calms down." The
attendant apparently decided not to cause further traffic build up and
let him through the gate.

Lex eased slowly inside the Planet parking garage, and took the first
available space before turning the car off and turning to Coleby,
"See, that's why we have seat belts," he said in as calm a voice as he
could pull off. He was really glad that he hadn't been using a
convertible today or Coleby might have gone flying out of the car
entirely.

While that probably wouldn't have hurt the super-powered primate, it
probably would have made him very mad. Lex actually liked
Metropolis. He didn't want to loose a furious Coleby on it.

Coleby bared his teeth and snarled, not getting any calmer now that
the car had stopped. Lex opened his door and stepped out of it, "You
don't like the car? You don't need to be in the car. We'll walk
home, okay?" Except Lionel was staying in the penthouse and it was
far too long a walk to get anywhere else. Coleby was a project Lionel
was kept out of the loop on, and he'd rather not introduce them,
especially now that the project was so spectacularly out of control.

The vervet scrambled out of the vehicle, looking much happier the
moment he was on solid ground, but obviously still wary. Lex squatted
down, trying not to let his knees touch the pavement, and held out an
arm, "Hey, Cole, it's okay. The car's off." Tentatively, Coleby
inched toward him, then looped an arm around his neck. Lex stood,
holding his shaking body and closed the car door. Coleby tensed, but
Lex ran a hand down his spine, "Shh, it's okay. The car's not going
to hurt you."

"Lex?"

Lex tensed as well, and turned slowly toward the voice. "Ms.
Sullivan." Coleby snarled at her and snapped angry chatter in her
direction.

She held up her hand in surrender, "Hey, hey, truce, monkey!"

Lex continued to stroke the fur of his back. "Shh, shh, Cole, easy,
boy."

He quieted but continued to bare his teeth at her. His hand gripped
the back of Lex's neck painfully hard but he tried not to let that
show. "Make it fast, Ms. Sullivan, Coleby is not very friendly." That
was something of an understatement. The two scientists who had
directly overseen his project would probably be in the hospital for a
few days. The official story was that they were attacked by an unknown
assailant when they left the building on their lunch break. Lex still
wasn't sure why Coleby had developed such an attachment to him. He'd
been expecting to be the third victim to the vervet's tantrum.

"Why are you in the Daily Planet parking lot?"

Lex gave her a look like she had just asked the world's stupidest
question. "Because it was the closest turn off after the LuthorCorp
parking lot. Coleby doesn't care for my driving style."

"He's got good sense then," Ms. Sullivan muttered, probably not
intending for Lex to hear it. Coleby snapped his teeth together and
chattered at her again. It was probably only projection that Lex
thought it sounded a lot like the primate was telling her to just go away.

It did seem to convey the sentiment adequately, though, because
Sullivan withdrew a step and gave Coleby a wary look, possibly taking
her cues from Lex that while Coleby might look relatively harmless, he
was anything but. He always had thought she was one of the brighter
minds in Smallville.

"Well, I'll leave you alone with your monkey then," she said. "I
don't know where you came up with him, but he's perfect for you."
He'd also often thought she was one of the more irritating people in
Smallville.

Coleby shrieked at her, squeezing at Lex's neck again as he leaned
toward her. It pinched a nerve and Lex's face contorted in pain as he
hunched forward. "Cole! Let go!" Instinctively, he reached back to
push the hand away. Coleby shouted, unhappy with the attempt to
dislodge him and squeezed harder. Pressure point, Lex identified as
his vision swam and he dropped hard to his knees and one hand. "Cole!
Ow! Cole, let go!" his voice was starting to panic. If a monkey
killed him, his punishment in the afterlife would be listening to his
father berate him for all eternity for putting the original location
of Level 33.1 back into operation.

"Shit!" Ms. Sullivan shouted distantly. "Lex! Clark!"

And Coleby was gone. Lex climbed back to his feet, looking
around wildly even as his hand rubbed the back of his neck. "COLE!"
He shoved passed Kent without acknowledging him or his rescue, "Cole!"

A hand far larger than Coleby's spun him around to look into angry
green eyes, "What was that, Lex?"

Lex shook his arm free, furious. "Where is he!?"

"You just tossed his pet monkey across the parking garage, Clark,"
Sullivan explained the situation.

"You bastard!" Lex snarled at Clark, shoving at him
before looking down the long row of cars. "Coleby!"

"It was killing him," Clark's voice tried to explain,
presumably to Sullivan because Lex certainly didn't care about his
reasoning. If Clark hurt Cole, he'd seriously kill
the hypocritical farmboy.

A scampering sound had Lex straightening and trying to find its
source. The angry screech had him relaxing in relief until a terrible
shattering sound and someone's car alarm going off had him running
toward the noise. "COLE! Stop it!"

He heard two sets of footsteps running after him, so there were going
to be witnesses to, yes, Coleby had smashed up someone's Mustang.
Another car, a Honda, was also in bad shape, probably being the one
Clark damaged by throwing a monkey fifty yards away, but it was the
Mustang that was taking the beating of an angry vervet; possibly
because it was the same color and a closer shape to the Ferrari.

Lex rubbed a hand over his face and closed his eyes. He just wanted
this day to be over. Better, he wanted this day to not yet have
begun. He'd disband the project before the experiment went awry.
Not wrong, precisely, because what they expected to happen happened.
Coleby had just hadn't been as cooperative as originally projected.
The primate behavioral scientists responsible for that oversight were
either newly unemployed or in the hospital. "Coleby. Bad monkey."

Coleby screeched again and shoved at the Mustang, skidding it into the
Ford truck on its other side. Lex knelt down, not caring about his
knees anymore. The pants were already a loss. Holding out an arm, he
called again, "Coleby. C'mere, Cole. No more cars, I promise."

Cole gave him a distrustful look, but stopped attacking the Mustang.
Kent and Sullivan thankfully kept their traps shut.

"Cole, come here," he waved his fingers encouragingly, "You've
defeated the evil Mustang, so come back to me now."

"Lex," Clark warned, breaking the silence that had
been too good to last. Lex ignored him and just patted the ground in
front of him with his other hand and called Cole's name again. Coleby
considered him for a long moment, then appeared to decide he'd rather
be with Lex than a bunch of mutilated cars.

Just before Coleby got to him, though, Clark's hand
grabbed Lex by the shoulder and yanked him away. "That thing's
dangerous," the moron stated, like that wasn't perfectly obvious after
looking at the Mustang and the Ford.

Lex spun around and shoved at Clark. "Don't you
ever touch me or pretend to care, Clark. Just stay
away from me and Cole." He had no idea where the possessive and
protective feelings for the vervet were coming from. Maybe it was
because he'd been spared. Maybe it was from the very long afternoon
spent in each other's company. Maybe it was the few overtures of
friendliness Cole had occasionally made.

Maybe it was because Clark didn't like him.

Whatever the cause, it was with a lot more fondness than he'd ever
felt for Coleby before, that Lex picked him up this time and held him.
Coleby draped his arm all the way around Lex's neck this time, which
Lex was secretly grateful for because that probably meant he wouldn't
get accidentally killed.

He gave the three broken cars a look of annoyance and sighed. "I
suppose I'll go inside and get the Planet legal department in touch
with my lawyers for reimbursement." He had no idea what the insurance
claims people or the car mechanics would make of the damage, but at
least there weren't any dents that were identifiably caused by
Cole-sized hands.

"You're not going anywhere near other people with that monster."

Lex scowled. "Coleby is a vervet monkey, not a monster. He has a
name. Use it when you speak of him." Of course, Clark
probably had a point. Coleby did not take it well when Lex paid other
people more attention than Coleby was getting. He assumed the
quiescence he was experiencing now came from the petting and the fact
that they were actually talking about Coleby. He seemed able to tell
the difference.

Chloe had moved between the Honda and the Mustang as she examined the
damage. "Shit, Lex, I don't want to know what steroids that little
guy's on but you are not bringing him inside a populated building."

That worked out well; Lex didn't want to tell her. Instead, he took
out his phone and tossed it to her as best he could while still
holding onto an armful of monkey. When she caught it and looked at
him in confusion, he nodded toward Coleby. "He starts screaming when
I talk on the phone. So you just volunteered to call up my lawyers
and tell them to contact the Planet. The number is listed under
`Legal' in the address book. Oh, and tell them I had a car incident
out front, too. No damage, but tell them to forward the information
on to the PR department."

As she began to scroll through the list, Lex turned back to Clark.
"I don't suppose you could actually be helpful for once instead of
spouting off insults and leaving? You don't want Coleby destroying
the city, I don't want Coleby destroying the city. Can you think of
anywhere I can get to – on foot – where we won't be a danger until I
can get him trained?"

Chloe was talking softly and she raised her voice before Clark
could come up with an idea. "They want to know whether this is a
personal legal issue or LuthorCorp's."

Lex considered, trying to decide if Coleby still counted as a business
venture. "Personal. And tell them to have somebody come and pick up
the Ferrari."

He listened to Chloe's end as she passed on what Lex had said and also
listed out the three license plate numbers, and to his growing shock,
so did Coleby, without so much as a snarl. A little positive
attention seemed to do him a world of good. That boded well for
training. Clark still seemed to be trying to figure out where to send
them, which was good because Lex had run out of options in the
immediate vicinity.

"They want to know the official story," Chloe said after a bit more
back and forth about the types and relative conditions of the three
vehicles.

Lex grimaced as he regarded the scene, trying to figure out how best
to describe it in a believable fashion. "I got angry. Cars
suffered." He probably wasn't quite strong enough to have pushed the
Mustang hard enough to cause that much damage to the Ford, but who was
going to gainsay him? "Tell them to sign me up for anger management
again to forestall police involvement."

Chloe looked at the damage, looked at Lex, looked at Coleby, looked at
Lex, looked at the damage, then shrugged and repeated the story for
the lawyers. When she hung up, she tossed the phone back to him,
which Coleby caught and wouldn't give back to Lex. He just chattered
into the mouthpiece cheerfully, apparently fully recovered for his
earlier ordeal. Lex let him have it for now, figuring he'd reclaim it
in a few minutes when Coleby lost interest.

"They're not happy," she informed.

"I don't pay them to be happy," Lex dismissed, shifting Cole's weight
in his arms. Coleby just continued to play with the phone.

"You left yourself open to criminal charges," Chloe continued,
sounding surprised.

"Vandalism," Lex agreed. "It won't be the first time I'm convicted of
it, if the owners do press charges. It's a misdemeanor, punishable by
a fine, restitution, and therapy. I'm already voluntarily signing up
for the therapy and offering to pay for all damages, thereby
demonstrating that I know I did wrong and want to make amends, thus
significantly reducing the chances that formal charges will actually
be brought against me."

"But you didn't do it," Clark brought up. "Your
monkey did." It still wasn't Coleby's name, but at least he wasn't
calling him a monster anymore, so Lex let it pass. "And I bet
whatever you did to him wasn't just a misdemeanor."

Lex met his accusing stare evenly. Clark had
correctly identified precisely why he was taking the blame instead of
trying something fancy like getting out of it entirely. There was
precedent for this sort of thing. Lex had a solid record of taking
out his frustrations on cars. Nobody would doubt it, particularly
here in Metropolis where his car history dated back to when he was
sixteen.

"I'm voluntarily taking the blame for his actions, paying restitution
for all harm incurred, and offering to disappear for a few days until
he's more manageable, thus showing I know I did wrong and want to make
amends and thereby significantly reducing the chances of you two
turning me in." He hoped. He didn't let on that he doubted they
would let him go that easily because that would just encourage them to
have him arrested. He knew better than to try bribing or blackmailing
these two without setting up contingencies. It would just make them
move faster in their intent to get law enforcement involved and right
now he didn't have all his bases covered. He wouldn't, so long as
Coleby was still alive.

While possession of a super-powered primate wasn't as explicitly
illegal as, say, possession of heroin, there was a fair possibility
that Coleby might qualify as a weapon of mass destruction, which was
decidedly unlawful. And that was prior to examining where he or his
powers came from.

The government didn't look kindly on smuggling foreign animals into
the country without paperwork or quarantine. The illegal
experimentation violated at least a dozen ethics codes, again mostly
in regards to procedure and paperwork rather than inhumane treatment.
The worst thing Coleby had suffered was confinement and a few
painless injections. Still, it all amounted to a felony, with a
minimum jail time of two or three years. Quite a bit more, if Coleby
actually was deemed a weapon of mass destruction.

A few times that afternoon, it had occurred to him that Coleby may
need to be eliminated. He had decided poison would probably be the
most reliable method. Dose his food. Now, though, holding Coleby as
he continued to chatter into Lex's cell phone, sometimes pretending to
be angry, sometimes just talking in vervet-speak, and intermittently
shooting looks at Lex and adjusting his expression to match whatever
mood Lex was currently displaying, that didn't seem possible.

Clark was scowling fiercely. Coleby kept glancing his
way as well, but he didn't appear to feel threatened. Perhaps that
was because Lex wasn't, or maybe it was because Clark was
now more displeased with Lex than Coleby, but whatever the cause, the
looks he sent Clark's way seemed smugger than anything
else. Lex wasn't going to discard the possibility that Coleby was
simply watching him because Clark had never gotten to
use the cell phone and he didn't want to lose it to an undefended quarter.

"Lex, I don't think you grasp that I don't trust you with a soft,
cuddly rabbit, never mind a demon-possessed monkey with unusual strength."

Lex shook his head, not certain what Clark's concern
was. "Are you afraid of what I'll do to Coleby, what I might make
Coleby do, or what Coleby could do to me?"

Coleby slapped a hand over Lex's mouth, made a very recognizable
shushing sound, glared, waved the phone, and snapped angrily before
calmly going back to chattering into the phone. It was a perfect
mimicry of what Lex had done when Coleby had been making noise when he
was on the phone earlier that afternoon (excepting that Lex hadn't
been brave enough to put his hand that close to Coleby's teeth).

Lex's eyes widened in surprise and his eyes darted to Chloe then back
to Clark, noting that both of them seemed recognize that something
significant had just happened. They probably just thought it was that
Coleby had found a way to shut him up, though. There was something
that vaguely resembled concern mixed into the distrust in Clark's
expression and voice when he answered the question. "All of the above."

Lex just stayed silent, not willing to anger Coleby and risk another
unwanted Clarkian rescue. After a few awkward moments, Coleby signed
off and gave Lex his phone and mouth back. Then he looked superiorly
at Chloe and blatted off something that sounded rude.

With a polite thank-you, Lex took his phone back and put it away.
Looking back at Clark, he demanded, "So what brilliant
plan do you have to keep him from becoming a nuisance? Animal control
won't be able to handle him, I guarantee you that. He at least
sometimes listens to me." When it suits him, Lex didn't add.

"I was thinking of dropping him in the harbor. I've never heard of a
monkey that swims."

Lex wasn't sure either. Vervets were not exclusively arboreal, but he
doubted they did more than wade in water. He stepped back and held
Coleby more defensively. His eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed.
"Coleby is powerful and temperamental, but he is not evil and you have
no right to kill him."

"He nearly killed you, and look what he did to those cars! Tell me
Lex, how many people has he hurt so far?"

He'd tell Clark no such thing. "What he did to
me was an accident. He doesn't know his strength yet. He doesn't
want to hurt me. The cars scared him; he defended himself and
eliminated the threat as best as he was able to understand it. Which
is why, wherever we go, I need to be able to walk there. So, we have
three options. One, we figure out where there is an abandoned
building within six or so blocks of here. Two, you try to take Coleby
away from me and make him very angry – there's a floor in LuthorCorp
that no longer has walls or doors in it because we tried that. They
were strong, steel reinforced doors and walls, too. You've seen Level
33.1. He made a shambles of it. Fortunately, he was the only project
active there. Or, three."

They waited. He said nothing. Finally, Clark prompted, "Or three . . ."

"Three, you pick us up and speed us out to the middle of nowhere
before Coleby has a chance to panic. He'll panic once we get there,
so make sure it really is remote. I wouldn't suggest any place that
has even one other person. Preferably, no manmade buildings either.
Trees would be good, they might comfort him."

For a moment, it looked like Clark was going to deny
he could bring them to any such place at any such speed, but his
options were as limited as Lex had said they were. Either he gave up
his speed secret (which Lex had just proved was not very secret) or he
left Coleby loose in the city. "And you want to vanish with him?"

Lex considered his schedule for the next week (busy), judged the
likelihood of Dad taking back control of Luthor Corp in his absence
(very high), calculated how Lana would take his disappearance (worry,
anxiety, bad for the baby), projected his ability to feed himself and
Coleby in a remote forest (survivable, but the menu was going to
suck), wondered how tempted Clark would be to just leave them there
(seriously tempted), estimated the probability of getting cell phone
reception in case of emergency (zero), determined his chance
of survival if attacked by a bear or something (low, unless Coleby
rescued him, which was possible but in no way guaranteed, bringing the
overall probability to middling), and examined Coleby's possible fates
if he didn't go along with him (invariably unpleasant). "Yes."

"Now?"

He dug out his phone one more time and tossed it to Chloe again.
"Inform my lawyers and Lana that I'm not dead or kidnapped." He
looked at Clark. "Yes, now, before Coleby starts getting
restless again."

"Wait!" Chloe called first. "What do I tell them?"

Details. Keep it simple. "Tell the lawyers I needed a sudden
vacation. Tell Lana that I was called away on an emergency business
trip." It would have been better to have stories that were not
mutually exclusive, but he wasn't doing anything illegal, precisely,
so they were not going to need to stand up to a court inspection. If
anybody felt the need to look into his story, he was already in trouble.

"And your dad? For when he stops by my cubicle because you know he's
going to figure out I was the one laying down your alibi." Right, he
would be the one looking into the story.

Lex grimaced, not wanting to think about his dad. "I don't care; just
tell him I'm on vacation." Picking up on Lex's irritability, Coleby
started chattering nastily at Chloe again and made the signal to get
put down. Lex nodded at Clark and the parking garage was gone.

Coleby had gone tense again, but after a moment's shock and a look
around at the thick forest around them, he appeared to relax. Lex let
him down when he made the signal again. He kept close to Lex and
looked around once more then let out a cry. He appeared to be
listening for a return call, but there were no other vervets around to
answer.

A glance at Clark showed he was also watching Coleby. They both began
to relax when Coleby showed no signs of going psycho after the
transport. In fact, Coleby seemed less freaked by it
than Lex was. He'd known Clark was fast, but actually getting
carried from the Daily Planet parking garage to the middle of a forest
that he wagered wasn't even in Kansas was something else entirely.
"Where are we?" he asked when Coleby climbed up into a tree and made
himself comfortable on one of the lower branches.

"North Dakota," Clark answered, which narrowed it
down a little but not nearly as specifically as he'd need to direct a
rescue party to him. Of course, Chloe still had his phone so it
wasn't like a 911 call was possible even if he could find a place with
reception. He wondered what predators the North Dakota forests
had. He also strongly hoped it wasn't hunting season. When did that
start and end anyway?

"So, how are we doing this? You come back in a week to see how well
we're progressing?"

Clark gave him a look of stubborn determination. "I'm not leaving, Lex."

"What about your classes?" Lex pointed out.

They apparently weren't very important to Clark
because he just waved a hand dismissively. "I can miss a few."

"So you're just going to hang out in the woods with me and Coleby and
ignore all your other responsibilities."

Clark gave him a look of incredulity. "I'm not the one with a
pregnant fiancé, a wedding to plan, and an international
corporation to run." Okay, granted, Clark wasn't
the only hypocrite present. Lex glanced toward Coleby who seemed to
be watching them intently. "And you're dropping all of that for a
psychotic monkey, Lex? Forgive me for being concerned about your
agenda with it."

Yes, put like that, Lex was clearly acting irrationally. His father
really was going to have a field day with this when he found out about
it. He considered asking Clark to bring him back
and just leave Coleby out here to add to the big foot myths, but
Coleby picked that moment to say, "Lee-acks."

Lex turned toward him slowly, eyes wide and incredulous. "Coleby?"

"Lee-acks?"

"Holy shit. Coleby."

He let out a short burst of chatter that may or may not have been
mimicry of `holy shit' then Coleby repeated, "Lee-acks."

Lex stared at Coleby, and then sent a stunned look at Clark who didn't
seem to understand the monumental significance of what just happened.
He opened his mouth in two false starts before he managed to say, "My
name. He said my name. We have mutual name recognition. Clark,
do you have any idea how incredible that is?" He didn't wait for an
answer.

"Coleby," Lex said again, ignoring Clark entirely as
he focused again on the vervet. All thought of going back was
obliterated. There were tests and training to do. He remembered
Clark long enough to ask, "Can you run back for a notebook and a pen
so I can keep a journal? And my cell phone, if Chloe's done with it?"
Not that he'd be able to use it, but it would be nice to have anyway,
if only so the budding reporter didn't have access to all his contact
numbers.

---

Clark stood guard, observing Lex's interactions with
the psycho-monkey, but they both seemed calmer outside of Metropolis.
Lex's pet hadn't attacked either of them since arriving and Lex's
`training' seemed to consist mostly of saying Coleby's name and
getting absurdly happy when Coleby said `Lee-acks' back at him. He'd
also managed to get the monkey to say "Kalark" a time or two after
pointing at Clark and repeatedly saying his name. Somehow this was
enough achievement to fill a page and a half in the notebook Clark had
gone to fetch for Lex.

Clark had no idea what to make of it all. Lex
was genuinely excited, really happy, and openly affectionate toward
the little hell-demon with fur. It reminded him of the early days of
their acquaintance, when they had been friends; when life was simpler
and Lex was more innocent. Not that Clark thought he had ever
been entirely innocent, never mind what he thought back then, but Lex
had at least done a good impression of a decent human being back then.

He knew better now, but looking at Lex in his honest delight at
getting a monkey to do something as simple as say his name, it was
hard to remember that. The sun was going down and Lex shivered a
little in the early evening chill, but Clark hardened his heart
against it. Lex was up to something. He was still trying to figure
out what, but it boded no good, and Lex had no right to be comfortable
while doing it. There was an abandoned summer lodge not too far from
their current position, but Clark wasn't going to offer that
information until Lex was really miserable.

To his surprise, Lex stood up and looked around. "We should find some
berries or something to eat and something resembling shelter before it
gets too dark to see." He mimed eating to Coleby and said, "Food,
Coleby, help me find food." Lex tucked his notebook under his arm and
headed off in a random direction, Coleby close by and looking intently
around him.

Within ten minutes, they had located some blackberries and ate their
fill. Well, he assumed Coleby and Lex did; Clark was still
hungry and less than satisfied with the meal. He didn't complain,
though, because Lex didn't and he wasn't going to be out survivor
skilled by a rich guy. Of course, after the island getaway Helen had
given him for a wedding present, Lex could probably out-Survivor just
about anyone, but Clark wasn't going to acknowledge that. Who knew
how much of that Lex remembered, anyway? Clark just hoped they
weren't going to be eating bugs tomorrow because he really didn't
think he could do it without hurling.

They soon found a thick copse of trees that Coleby seemed to like so
they settled down beneath their canopy. Coleby settled in the trees
themselves. Lex found a spot on the ground. Lex looked up at him for
a moment, looking ready to say something, but then he closed his
mouth, shook his head and curled up on his side in the dirt.

Clark debated for a long moment about what to do
next, but it was late autumn. North Dakota
got even colder than Kansas did and Kansas was cold at
night. Clark lay down beside Lex and wrapped his
body around him. "Clark?" he questioned, going
tense.

"I don't like you or trust you, Lex. That doesn't mean I want you to
die of hypothermia overnight."

"Did it occur to you to run back for a blanket instead?"

No, actually, it hadn't, but Clark wasn't going to
admit that. "That would be cheating."

"Cheating," Lex repeated in disbelief.

"Shhuh," came from above them.

Lex squirmed out of Clark's arms and reached for his
notebook and scribbled something into it. When he finished with that,
he settled back into place and whispered fiercely, "One word of this
to anyone back in Metropolis and I will not be able to keep my mouth
shut about you being an alien."

Clark tensed, which was probably a dead giveaway, but
Lex had taken him by surprise. Lex didn't seem to notice and just
raised the volume of his voice and called up to the monkey, "Good
night, Coleby."

There was some monkey gibberish back that ended with "Lee-acks" which
made Lex laugh softly and settle more comfortably in Clark's
arms. "Night, Clark." Lex fell asleep
quickly, or Clark thought he did. An hour later, Clark
knew he'd been faking it when he actually did drift off. Clark
didn't sleep at all.

How long had Lex known he was an alien?

A few hours before dawn, Lex had curled up as close to Clark
as it was humanly possible to get. His body was racked with shivers
and chills and Clark felt guilty for not getting that
blanket. He was in and out of wakefulness, muttering things like
"fucking cold" and "freezing" when he was at his most aware. This had
probably not been a problem he faced on the island.

Clark used a low intensity of his heat vision to warm
him every now and then, but it never lasted
very long and he was afraid doing it more often would burn him. At
least it kept Lex from getting frostbite or anything.

The monkey slept soundly and seemed to be perfectly comfortable. But
then, the monkey had hair and lots of it and was well adapted to
living out-of-doors.

Eventually, Clark decided it would be less torturous
to leave Lex for twenty seconds, run home, grab a blanket, and come
back. Lex was awake when he returned, sitting up and shivering
uncontrollably. "Y-you left," he whispered.

"Only for a minute," Clark assured, unfolding the
blanket and wrapping it around them both. He was shocked when Lex
began stripping. "Are you insane? What are you doing?"

"Skin on skin, Clark," Lex said shortly.
"Warmer that way. Clothes aren't doing anything but getting in the
way of heat transfer."

It didn't make any sense to Clark that to get warmer
they had to take clothes off, but Lex
sounded like he knew what he was talking about. "Why didn't you
suggest that earlier?"

"Because, we didn't have a blanket genius,
exposing skin to the open air isn't going to improve anything Clark.
Just take your shirt off if the rest makes you uncomfortable."

Lex's tone suggested he was being an idiot and an inhibited, selfish
bastard. To prove him wrong, Clark took off his jeans, too. Somewhat
to his surprise, it seemed to help. Lex fell back asleep and stayed
almost warm to the touch.

By dawn, they had a different problem.

The problem with staying awake all night was that it offered far too
much time to think. The first three hours had been spent circling
around the past six years, trying to find when Lex picked up on the
alien thing in a way that he would remember now. Close consideration
after the fact suggested that since Lex's first response to seeing him
stop a car with his body was `you're not human!' instead of `you're a
mutant!' Perhaps there'd been a good bit of evidence even prior to
Belle Reeve.

Fortunately, Clark had been able to put aside his review
of the past when Lex had begun shivering. Trying to keep him warm
occupied about an hour before he gave up and went for the blanket.
After the blanket and stripping down to bare skin with the sole
exception of Clark's boxers, Clark's mind fixated on the fact that Lex
was naked.

At first, his thoughts were pure, or at least mostly pure. He
did sneak a peek just for comparison purposes and noted smugly that
Lana had traded down. As the night wore on though, Clark
began tracing his hands over Lex's body, making sure he was still warm
to the touch. When he found a cooler spot, he would rub it gently,
sometimes breath on it if it was within easy reach, working the heat
from his own body into Lex's less insulated one.

In his sleep, Lex moved into the touches, making pleased noises.
Clark tried not to notice Lex was getting hard. He was moderately
more successful at that than he was at not noticing that he was
getting hard himself. It didn't stop him from touching. In fact, as
dawn began to break, he skived off his boxers so he wouldn't get them
dirty.

Rearranging their bodies so he was now spooned up behind Lex, he
settled Lex's head on one of his arms and draped the other over his
waist. He took a moment to gather his courage, and then wrapped a
hand around Lex's dick.

He woke on the second stroke. "Mm," he moaned and pushed with his
hips into Clark's hand. Clark squeezed his hand a little and pressed
himself against Lex's backside.

Lex really woke up this time and went tense. "Fuck. Clark.
What are you doing?"

"Giving you a hand job and humping you. Have a problem with
that?"

He seemed to think about it and Clark gave him a
minute because it had taken him nearly an hour to decide that it
didn't have to mean anything. Both of them were perfectly well aware
that they hated each other, but they were hard and Lex was cold, so
who would it hurt besides Lana who probably wouldn't ever know?

When Lex took longer than his allotted minute, Clark
began stroking him again. Many years of practice on himself made him
fairly confident he was good at it. Lex hummed again and pressed his
head back as he moved his hips forward. Clark wasn't
sure if it was intentional or not, but the move exposed his throat.
It was irresistible. He lowered his mouth to it, sucking and biting.

Lex groaned and fucked his hand more earnestly. Clark
rolled them ninety degrees so Lex was under him as he humped his ass
even as his lips, tongue, and teeth continued to work on Lex's neck
and his fingers squeezed, tugged, stroked, and massaged Lex's dick.
Under the onslaught, Lex came first. He cried out, his body spasmed,
and wet heat rushed between Clark's fingers and onto the leaf strewn
ground under them. Clark barely had the presence of mind
to super-speed Lex's only clothes and the blanket out of the way.

As Lex panted and trembled in the aftershocks, Clark
left his neck in favor of biting into the flesh of his collar and
grabbing him by the hips as he continued to grind against him.
Feeling the edge of orgasm begin to crash, he pushed Lex flat and came
all over his back and ass.

For a long moment, they said nothing. Lex was the one who eventually
broke the silence. "Again, not a word about this to anyone."

Clark nodded, using his hand to wipe Lex relatively
clean. "Trust me; I don't want anyone
to know about this any more than you do."

Lex twisted around and gave him an examining look. After a moment he
nodded, "I don't suppose you do." He smirked, "You liked it too
much. Pushing me down, marking me, and putting your scent all over
me. Very primitive and animalistic, Clark.
You wouldn't want your mother to think -"

Clark had to shut him up, firstly, because he didn't
like Lex talking about his mother, not ever, and especially not right
now. Secondly, because he really didn't want to think that explicitly
about what he'd just done; it was making him hard again. Thirdly,
because Lex was right and he hated it when that happened. So he
shoved his come covered fingers into Lex's open mouth.

Lex's eyes opened wide with surprise. Clark
maneuvered him one-handed until he was laying flat on his back then
straddled him, pushing the fingers deeper into his mouth. "Lick them
clean." Lex stared up at him with disbelief and incredulity. "Do it."

For a moment, he was sure Lex was going to attempt to break his teeth
by biting him instead, but then he began licking. Though, seriously,
this had been a really bad plan if one of Clark's goals had
been to prevent himself from getting hard again. Lex did lick him
clean, but that was really the least of it. His
tongue seemed to be making love to Clark's
fingers. Add in the sound effects and the way his body moved every
time he had to shift for a different angle, and Clark was in
desperate need again.

He took his fingers away and presented Lex with his cock. Lex's eyes
darted up at him briefly, a hidden look Clark couldn't
decipher locked behind his `You have no idea what I'm capable of'
stare. "Do it," he ordered again, and Lex opened his mouth again.
Clark slowly lowered himself into it.

The last time he'd been blown was the summer in Metropolis when he'd
been high on red kryptonite. With Lex flat on his back instead of on
his knees in an alley, this felt more like fucking his face than
getting blown. It was still good, even when Lex choked or let his
teeth scrape Clark's dick. He grabbed one of Lex's wrists from where
Lex was desperately holding onto Clark's hips in a futile effort to
control their pace and directed that hand back toward Lex's cock.
"Jerk yourself off," he told him. He'd do it himself, but he couldn't
easily reach it from this position.

He slowed his own pace; waiting until he
could see Lex's approaching orgasm in his eyes. He began fucking in
earnest and Lex's muffled sounds felt so good. He eased up when Lex
began choking again, letting him catch his breath before driving into
him once more. "Come for me, Lex," he invited, and Lex's eyes closed
and he tried to cry out something but the words were lost to exquisite
vibrations. Clark held out as long as he could until Lex seemed aware
of himself again. "Start swallowing," he advised, and then burst.

Clark pulled out when Lex started gagging. The
last of his ejaculate fell onto the ground and Lex turned over and
coughed some more out, but Clark estimated he had been able to
swallow a good portion of it. He started to get concerned when Lex
kept on coughing. Rubbing Lex's back, Clark asked
worriedly, "You okay, or do you need a hospital?"

Lex shook his head quickly. "Fuck no. Hospital's the last thing I
need," he refused, and then went back to coughing.

"Water?" Clark suggested instead. When Lex
nodded, he ran off, grabbed a Ty Nant from the mansion, and was back
almost before Lex realized he was gone. "Here."

Lex drank three long gulps, before lowering the bottle and clearing
his throat. "Vicky always made that look much easier," he gasped
ruefully.

Clark stared at him. "Please tell me that was
not the first blowjob you ever gave."

The dark scowl sent his way as Lex began to dress himself suggested
that he was going to say no such thing. "Clark, I've
planned to be president for as long as I can remember. There were
some things I never did, even as a teen and fooling around with other
boys was one of them."

"What changed? Why me?"

Lex stood up and looked toward the sunrise. Clark
dressed quickly and moved to stand beside him. Lex sighed and glanced
at him sidelong. "Nothing. You just already have a well established
feud with me, so in something like this your
word is no better than mine. We're already obsessed with each other,
so it won't affect how we act. Nobody will
believe it of either of us without physical or eyewitness evidence, so
nobody will speculate what happened; even if they
knew we were alone together at night. This is the one place on the
planet that I'm sure there are no spies or bugs or inadvertent
security cameras or too-curious civilians watching me. I heal fast,
so the bruises on my neck will be long gone before we go back. All of
that, plus I was cold and sex warms me up."

"You're a bastard, Lex."

"Can you honestly tell me that your motives were pure? Please, Clark.
I know you hate me. There was no sentimentality on either side, so
don't try to pretend there was. You considered the pluses and minuses
as well." He moved to stand directly in front of Clark and looked up
their three inches of height difference to stare him in the eye. "You
can not look me in the eye and tell me that you did not list out all
of the consequences and lack of consequences long before you grabbed
my dick. Tell me, Clark, was breaking me up with Lana one of your hopes?"

Clark stared right back and didn't pull his punches,
"The thought did occur to me. But then I figured you wouldn't tell
her and I wasn't going to tell her, so I assume she'll never know."

"You'll let her marry me knowing I had meaningless sex with somebody
else while we were engaged? Clark, for shame, you claim to be her
friend."

Clark was confused. He couldn't tell if that was supposed to be
sarcasm or not. "Do you want me to tell
her?"

"No," Lex said, jabbing his finger against Clark's
solar plexus, "I'm just driving home the point that I'm not the only
bastard here. I used to think you were so good, so upstanding, but
you're not. Alien origins aside, you're just as humanly fallible as
the rest of us."

"Oh?" Clark asked archly, "So you do count yourself
among the fallible?"

Clark couldn't read his expression. It was
something like disbelief, perhaps mixed with something resembling
consternation, maybe a bit of wonder thrown in on the side, and a lot
of pain topping it all off. "Clark, you were the only
person who ever thought I wasn't. It was cute and inspiring at first,
but nobody can keep up under that kind of pressure. I was twenty-one
and a Luthor, Clark. I tried. I tried so hard to live up to your
impossible expectations." He shook his head, "When I finally did
crash and burn, you threw me away like a month old newspaper. I tried
to make it up to you, and you said you forgave me,
but you didn't. It wasn't the same and you never even tried to trust
me again. I should never have apologized after that room. We'd be
angry at each other, but there still would have been the hope for
reconciliation." He turned and walked toward a mountain stream they'd
crossed last night.

"Lex," Clark stopped him with a hand on his
shoulder. Lex's back went rigid. "There's always hope."
Though yesterday at this time, he wouldn't have said there was. Heck,
two minutes ago, he wouldn't have. But had he really never listened
to Lex's side before?

Lex turned around, eyes flashing dangerously. "No. There
isn't. I tried sincere apology. It didn't work. Now, I don't
think it'll work for you either. You're not the only one who was
betrayed, Clark. Let go of me and let me wash my face."

"Fine," Clark released him because there was no
reasoning with him when he got into a mood like that. "I'll find us
breakfast. Any requests?"

"I suppose coffee is too much to ask for."

Clark imagined that Lex suffering from caffeine
withdrawal would be almost as dangerous as the psycho-monkey around
cars. "I'll see what I can do. While I'm back in civilization, do you
want a bagel or anything, too?"

Lex turned around with a puzzled expression on his face, like Clark
wasn't making any sense. "What happened to `that's cheating, Lex'?"

"I gave up on that around 2:30
this morning when you nearly froze to death."

He nodded slowly then said, "Bagel's fine. Cinnamon with raison if
they have it, anything that doesn't have poppy seeds or onions if they
don't, plain cream cheese."

Clark raised an eyebrow, "Anything specific for your
coffee?"

Lex gave him a Look. "I'm sure you remember my coffee preferences.
They haven't changed. But as long as you're out, could you pick up a
toothbrush, toothpaste, wash cloth, and soap?"

"Anything else?" Clark asked with a sigh.

Wearing an expression halfway between irritated and wryly amused, Lex
shook his head. "Don't look at me like that."

Clark blinked. He wasn't looking at Lex like
anything. "Like what?"

"Like," he closed his eyes and shook his head, "never mind." He
pushed the thought away with an open handed gesture. Looking at Clark
again, he added, "Anyway, a newspaper wouldn't go amiss either."

"A newspaper," Clark repeated in disbelief.

"It's practically a breakfast food, Clark. I
always have one in the morning."

"Right," Clark agreed, humoring him now. "Bagel
with cream cheese – cinnamon and raison if they have it, coffee,
newspaper, toothbrush, toothpaste, wash cloth, soap, that it?"

For a moment, Lex's blue eyes danced with mischief and his mouth
twitched before he schooled his expression to seriousness. "Make sure
the soap is liquid soap. My skin's sensitive and gets itchy if I try
to use bar soap. I prefer ones that are unscented, if you don't mind.
And make sure you get toothpaste that fights plaque and gingivitis as
well as cavities. As for the toothbrush, find one that's got that bend
for better reach, and no primary colors, okay? No pink, orange, or
green, either. Clark, you're giving me that look again."

Clark was pretty sure he knew what look he was
talking about now. It was the one Dad used to give Mom all the time
when he was `going out to get the mail' and ended up doing the week's
grocery shopping by the time she was done with him. "You're doing it
on purpose."

Lex was all guileless innocence, which meant he was totally doing it
on purpose. "Doing what?"

"Being irritating."

He smirked, completely unrepentant and looked up into the branches
overhead, "Hey, Coleby, you up? Clark's taking orders for
breakfast."

"Kalark! Lee-acks!" The leaves rustled as the monkey navigated
the branches above them, and then dropped down onto the ground beside
them.

"Good morning, Coleby," Lex greeted, as he knelt down in front of him.
Looking up at Clark, he added, "He likes fruit best, get
him some apples or pears or something. Bananas, if you have to be
trite."

Coleby sniffed the air, took a few steps closer to Lex and sniffed
again. He tilted his head toward Clark in what
almost looked like human confusion. He backed a step away from Lex,
still warily watching Clark.

"He smells you on me," Lex stated. "He thinks you and I are mates, so
he's a little nervous about getting too close in case you get
possessive or territorial. I don't think he'll fight you for me given
that I'm fairly certain he knows we're not the same species."

Fight over Lex? With a monkey? "You're not even female,
Lex."

"He probably has serious doubts about that right now. I'm not his
species which makes it difficult enough to tell even before factoring
in that I don't look like a normal human. And with the way we cover
up our sexual organs, he can't be sure. I've got your spunk on me and
he can smell it. Add in that we're all very tense right now and it
adds up to a fight over sexual dominance. Clark, I really don't want
to be raped by a mutant monkey while you're gone so will you please
get over here and claim me."

This was ridiculous, but then one of the first mutants Clark
had run across had been Greg who turned into a bug and promptly wanted
to breed with Lana. A mutated monkey with delusions of humanness
might try to take a mate as well. Clark moved in between Lex and the
monkey, crossed his arms in his most intimidating manner and looked
down at the relatively tiny primate. "Lex is mine," he intoned,
feeling stupid. He wondered if that was enough or if he should kick
the monkey just for good measure.

"Give him a minute to decide what to do," Lex murmured softly. "If he
doesn't back down, you should probably touch me and push me away from
him to make your point clearer."

As it turned out, it didn't come to that. Coleby swung up into nearby
tree and called out sadly, "Kalark en Lee-acks. No Kulbee, no
Kulbee."

"Holy fuck!" Lex swore and dove for his pen and notebook. "That's
English."

Anticipating a return to full behavioral scientist mode, Clark
made a vague gesture and said, "I'll go get breakfast."

Lex waved him on, "Yeah. And grab me a coat, too."

---

Coleby felt so stupid. Lex was a female. He'd thought the
bumps on the chest determined who was a female but he must have been
wrong because Clark and Lex were clearly mated.
Maybe the Upright females were the ones without any fur at all. Lex
had been the only one he'd seen like that, but maybe the Uprights
didn't have a lot of females. It would explain why all the haired
Uprights seemed so eager to do everything Lex wanted them to do. That
was why he'd thought Lex was the family group leader.

Fortunately, she seemed to have taken him for a juvenile or things
could have gone very badly when her mate showed up. As it was, Clark
had thrown Coleby into the maw of an evil eyed beast. Luckily, Coleby
had become very strong and he was able to fight free and take down the
other beast that laid in wait nearby.

By then, Lex had found him again and explained to Clark,
well, something. The Uprights had a very
complex calling system and it was
taking him a very long time to get a handle on it. But even after Lex
straightened out that Coleby wasn't trying to mate with her, Clark
still hadn't liked Coleby and now he finally understood why. Because
Lex was Clark's mate and Coleby was going around
making her carry him places to prove that he was the new family
leader. He felt like such an idiot.

Clark had run off somewhere between one blink and the
next. He was very fast. He was very strong, too. Stronger
even than Coleby, he was pretty sure. That was probably why he had the
only female. Coleby wasn't going to challenge him. He needed to
understand the calling system first. Lex sat on the ground and patted
a spot in front of her, calling Coleby's name, so he went and sat
there. Her duties as female seemed to be teaching juveniles the
calling system, so it was probably a good thing she thought he was
one. It worked out well for him and he wasn't going to correct the
misconception until he had a much better grasp of it.

He still didn't understand the significance of the stick that left
marks behind either, but Lex used it a lot. He didn't try to take it
away from her this time because now he knew she was a female who had a
very scary mate. Before, he'd thought she was just a male who wasn't
as strong as Coleby. As such, if she had something he wanted, she was
supposed to give it up. Clark changed that.

He was so lucky she thought he was just a juvenile or he'd be
Coleby-meat in the belly of an evil-eyed beast. If Clark
hadn't gotten them out of that place when he did, Coleby didn't think
he could have beaten them all if they all woke up at the same time.

Lex had repeated two calls `eat' and `food' about a zillion times and
Coleby was still a little confused about the difference between them
when Clark returned with gifts for his mate. It was so obvious now.
How had he missed it before?

She took out a long black item and wrapped it around her with a new
call to Clark. See, if all of them were that simple, he'd be able to
pick up the strange Upright language faster, but no, no, no, usually
Lex went on for eons before giving Clark a chance to talk forever in
his own turn.

Next out of the bag came a round red fruit that looked delicious. Lex
put it in Coleby's hand and said again, "Food."

He decided to try the call Lex had just used and hoped it wasn't
exclusive between mates. "Thak oo."

Lex lunging for the stick and the white leaves was usually a sign that
he got something right, so he congratulated
himself on a job well done. She jabbered off, excited and happy, at
Clark, and Coleby felt proud that he was the cause of it. To
celebrate, he bit into his `food'. Uprights made such strange sounds.

At first, he thought they just made noise to make noise, and he'd
tried to mimic that until he realized there were certain sounds that
came up much more frequently than others and in very specific places
in the long complicated calls – usually the beginning or the end, or
repeated over and over again when they wanted him to do something.
That was when he figured out "Coleby" meant him.

It took longer to figure out that "Lex" meant the female (though he
hadn't known she was female yet at the time), and once he established
he knew her name, she told him Clark's and made that bit of decryption
easier.

When Lex finished using her stick, she put it aside and took out a
tall brown cylinder from the bag of Clark's gifts that
smelled terrible and was smoking. She wrapped her fingers around the
cylinder and breathed in the smoke like it was ripe fruit and got a
weird look on her face. "Coffee," she called in a tone Coleby didn't
understand. Then she put the cylinder up to her mouth and drank
the rancid, smoke-water stuff.

Coleby wrinkled his nose and retreated up into the trees where he
could smell only leaves and his fruit. Uprights were so strange.

---

When night fell again, Coleby had a vocabulary of about twelve words
or phrases. Lex was focusing all his energy on teaching English to
the monkey and none at all on training him to be non-violent. Clark
figured they could be out in the woods for a while. He thought about
mentioning the lodge, but Lex was laying down his long trench coat on
the ground, and making no complaints about sleeping on the ground again.

Figuring that having a roof over their heads would only drag out the
expedition longer, Clark said nothing. Besides, he
didn't want to invade someone's summer home until he knew the monkey
wasn't going to break it. Lex needed to demonstrate the thing had
some rudimentary control and house-training before Clark
would let them break in and borrow the lodge.

So he lay down on the trench coat with Lex, and pulled the blanket
over them both as he did so. Lex striped quickly and Clark
did the same. Clark spooned up behind Lex and
wrapped his arms around him, maximizing skin on skin contact.

"I wouldn't say no to an air mattress or foam pad if you want to bring
one back with breakfast tomorrow," Lex said dryly. "Also, another
blanket and more socks, gloves, and possibly even a hat might be
appropriate if it keeps getting colder."

"Socks, gloves, and hats while having sex? Kinky."

"Who said anything about sex?" Lex hadn't, actually. By
his tone of voice now, though, it didn't sound like he was going to
say `no' to that any more than he would to the air mattress.

Clark rolled him onto his back and lay on top of
him. Clark held Lex's head between his hands and
said softly, "You are cold, aren't you?"

Lex met his eyes and Clark could feel the other man's
cock swelling against his thigh. "I am," he agreed with a small, coy
smile, making it sound like being cold was
the sexiest thing in the world.

"Then I should warm you up, shouldn't I?"

Reaching up to card his fingers through Clark's hair,
Lex consented with an authoritative nod, "You should."

"Good," Clark said and lowered his head to catch Lex
in a kiss. It wasn't soft or gentle or any adjective that most people
would apply to a kiss they could potentially receive from Clark
Kent. But Lex Luthor wasn't most people, so he didn't
get the same kind of kiss. Lex was an evil bastard who, despite some
headway made in civility in the last day and a half, was still on
Clark's most hated list.

He felt no guilt at all in kissing Lex like Kal had kissed people
during that summer in Metropolis; hard and harsh and with no intention
of letting him breathe until Clark was ready for him to breathe.
Lex resisted at first but Clark held his head, so he couldn't turn
away from it. Clark's lips and tongue were stronger than Lex's
clenched jaw and he forced his way inside until Lex realized the
futility of his resistance and gave in to the kiss. He fought for
dominance, fought to turn Clark over, but Lex's human strength was no
match against Clark's alien super strength.

When Clark broke the kiss, Lex was sweating from his
exertions and panting from lack of oxygen. "God, Clark," he gasped.
"When'd you learn to kiss like that?"

Seeing no point in lying about that now, Clark
shrugged, "That summer you were on your island getaway. I ran away to
Metropolis. It was educational."

"Heard about that," Lex said, still breathing hard. "Wasn't sure what
to believe."

Clark ignored the implied request for more
information and went after Lex's neck instead;
revisiting the fading remains of the bruise he'd left on him last
night. "Shit!" Lex gasped as Clark's left hand started working
Lex's cock at the same time.

"Suck," Clark instructed, giving Lex the first two
fingers of his right hand.

Lex dutifully took them into his mouth. He licked and sucked with
remarkable talent for someone who had given his first blow job just
that morning. Well, girls had fingers, too. Clark supposed
Lex could have practiced on them.

Moving down from Lex's neck, Clark's mouth visited
Lex's left nipple, then traced lower still to tongue-fuck his navel.
He reclaimed his fingers as he sat up and nudged at Lex's inner thighs
to make room to kneel between them. "I'm going to blow you now," he
announced.

"Oh, God," Lex swore, spreading his legs apart eagerly.

Clark hadn't done this in years himself, but it turned out it really
was like riding a bike. Not having a gag reflex helped, too. Lex
bucked under him and cried out, his voice carrying in the night air,
but there was nobody around for miles to hear him. Except, Coleby, of
course, but the monkey already knew what they were up to.

Taking advantage of Lex's distraction, he eased one of his
spit-slicked fingers into Lex's body. Lex's muscles went taut.
"Clark?" he gasped, a thread of nervous fear in the question.

Clark pulled off Lex's cock, breathing on it for a
moment which made Lex shudder. "I'm going to fuck you tonight,
Lex."

"I don't -"

Interrupting, Clark shook his head with a smirk,
"Nu-uh. You do now. You wouldn't want to further confuse Coleby,
would you? I top, you catch. Besides, I'm only doing this because
you're cold. I can stop."

Lex seemed to be considering how likely it was that Clark
really would stop. "Bastard."

"Yes," Clark conceded,
because he really was being a bastard tonight and he only intended to
get worse. This was Lex Luthor. If you gave him an inch, he'd take
the whole state. "I'm the bastard who's going to fuck you."

"Fine," Lex agreed grudgingly, like he was making a concession on a
business contract instead of offering up his virgin ass. "Continue then."

"Lex," Clark cautioned, giving him one more chance to
opt out because, Lex Luthor or not, he was still a virgin, at least in
this. "It's going to hurt."

He scowled, "I used to be straight, not stupid. I can handle the
penetration."

Clark shook his head and stared down at him
seriously. "You don't understand. I'm going to hurt you.
Partly because I'm too strong to have sex safely with a human, which,
incidentally, is why I broke up with Lana in the first place. But,
mostly, I just want to fuck you until you scream for mercy." He was
shocked when Lex's cock jumped instead of wilted.

Unexpected masochistic tendencies aside, Lex asked prudently, "It'll
heal though, right? There'll be nothing permanent, requiring medical
attention or splints?"

"Right, nothing like that." Clark was sure he
could control his strength enough that he wouldn't actually kill or
maim anybody, and Lex was a lot sturdier than Lana had ever seemed.
It was just going to leave some serious bruises.

Lex nodded; a look of challenge in his
eyes. "Bring it on, Kent." He lay back, opening himself up for Clark.
"You have one small problem with your plan, though, Clark."

"What's that?"

"Luthors never scream for mercy." Clark
couldn't wait to wipe that smug grin off his face.

"We'll see about that," Clark told him, then
hesitated one last time before beginning. "The safe word is `mercy',
Lex. I'll stop if you use it."

"Thank you, but I won't need it."

Warnings and safe words had been given and Lex was more eager than
before they'd been issued. There had to be something in his nature
that forced him to act contrary to anything that offered safety or
well-being. It was no longer Clark's concern though. Lex had given
open consent to anything Clark wanted to do to him.

First things first, that look of superior expectation had to go.
Clark moved up and grabbed him by the wrists that Lex had so
conveniently placed in a
good pinning position. Lex's brows raised in a look that asked, Is
that really the best you can do? It wasn't, but Clark
would work up to the more interesting parts. For now, he captured Lex
in another kiss.

Lex didn't resist this time, but he still tried to dominate it. Clark
didn't let him. When they broke apart some time later, Lex was
panting slightly and Clark frowned down at him. "I'm so
much stronger than you are, Lex. It's futile to fight me."

Even in the fading twilight, Lex's eyes seemed to gleam brightly.
"That's why I have to. You know as well as I do that I'm the Segeeth
to your Naman. I told you the second time we met that we had a
destiny together. Granted, this wasn't what I had in mind at the time."

Clark reeled back for a moment, stunned that Lex
knew that and would reference it so casually this long after their
last confrontation over the caves. He'd thought Lex had lost interest
in them.

"Don't even think about denying it, Clark," Lex
warned. "Anyone with any brains and even the smallest understanding
about the powers you possess could figure out you're Naman. The
Kawatche knew it; I could tell by the way they treated you. It
doesn't take a genius, either, to realize that when a powerful stone
knife inexplicably disintegrates when I touch it, it means something."

Clark closed his eyes as he lost the very last shreds
of doubt that it might have been Lionel's touch that did it. He
opened them again and looked down at Lex. "It wasn't your father . .
. ?" he asked anyway, knowing it wasn't.

Lex shook his head. "It was gone before he could touch it at
all." For something that he had assumed for years, it hurt
surprisingly a lot to know for sure that Lex was the prophesized
Segeeth. Lex watched his face avidly, blue eyes darting to catch
every nuance. "I'm right," he said after a moment, "I'm Segeeth." He
said it like it was an accomplishment, something to be pleased about
and proud of.

Closing his eyes again, Clark breathed in deeply,
counted to three, and then opened them once more. He realized that he
was still propped up over Lex's body, holding him down by his wrists.
"This is wrong," Clark said, his voice sounding regretful even
to his own ears. "We're enemies."

Lex stared up at him incredulously. "You are fucking kidding me.
We've been enemies for two years. You didn't have any problem with
this a minute ago. I have no illusions that this is anything but a
hard, angry fuck."

He didn't get it. "It's way more than just a fuck, Lex. We do
this, it changes everything."

"It doesn't," Lex insisted. "It doesn't change anything."
He couldn't be more wrong.

"The cave walls say otherwise. Or do you think it's just a
coincidence that Naman and Segeeth are described as `closer than
brothers' and shown joined in one body?"

"That described us before the rift and was drawn that way to symbolize
it," Lex dismissed. "We're already fighting, that's long since
outdated. And for fuck's sake, Clark, either lie down or have sex
with me because you're letting in the cold air."

Clark lowered himself over Lex, but only because he
could see that Lex was breaking out into goosebumps from the draft he
was allowing to flow between them.

Lex closed his eyes as Clark's weight settled over
him. "Look, Clark, I'm sorry I brought it
up. We've gone years without talking about it; I shouldn't have said
anything now. Go back to playing your head games with me. It was
just getting interesting."

"I wasn't playing head games," Clark denied sullenly.

Lex sighed and opened his eyes again. "Clark,
any sex that isn't based in mutual love and respect
is a head game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but neither of us loves or
respects the other right now. At best, we have the bitter ruins of
them, but that just makes it even more of a mindfuck."

Clark frowned, wondering if that was a sideways
confession. "So you admit it is more than just a fuck."

"You're making this way more complicated than it has to be, Clark.
I'm cold. We have sex. We both feel good, we release some
frustration with each other, and I get warm. It's simple."

It wasn't simple though. It was the farthest thing from simple.
"What about Lana? You're engaged, Lex."

He was starting to get visibly irritated. "We already established
that she'll never know."

Clark knew he was being contradictory, but now it felt important
whereas before it hadn't. "You'll know. I'll know. What kind of
precedent does that set if you're cheating on her this early in your
engagement? I can't let you marry her after this."

"You can't stop me," Lex refuted, the tenseness in his muscles
revealing that he was getting close to losing his temper. "It's not
your decision."

"You're right. It's hers," Clark countered,
feeling almost too calm. "But I can make sure she knows what you
almost did."

"She won't believe you," Lex pointed out, which was probably true.
Clark barely believed it and he was directly involved.

Clark narrowed his eyes at him, trying anyway.
"It's a matter of public record that you have a very cavalier attitude
toward sex."

"You're forgetting something, Clark. I'm. Not. Gay."

There was one really easy way to disprove that ludicrous claim beyond
any and all doubt and Clark made his point before realizing
the stupidity of doing so while they were both naked and pressed up
against each other. The fierce two-sided kiss brought their softening
cocks quickly back to hardness before Clark was able to force
Lex down.

Sometime during the struggle to disengage their tongues, Lex had
wrapped his legs around Clark's waist and gripped large handfuls of
Clark's hair. Even with the kiss ended, Lex's arm muscles trembled in
his efforts to lower Clark's mouth back down to his and his lower
body rocked up wantonly.

Clark groaned, fighting his own arousal. "Damn
it, Lex. You can't claim you're not gay one second then act like a
bitch in heat the next."

"Wish I was in heat, Clark. That sounds warm."

For some reason Clark did not want to examine too
closely, that just made him angry. He grabbed Lex by his wrists and
pushed against the pressure points to make him let go of his hair.
Pinning both wrists to the ground easily with one hand despite Lex's
resistance and squirming, Clark also maneuvered their bodies without
sparing Lex the use of bruising strength to curl up his back and line
up his cock against Lex's unprepared hole.

Lex went still and held his breath. His eyes shimmered with something
that Clark was sure Lex would never admit was
fear. "You do not understand what you're toying with, Lex," Clark
warned him. "I have not wanted to fuck somebody until they were
bleeding and broken this badly since I was high on Red K. Do not
tempt me."

Lex's throat worked and his tongue wetted his lips. He wisely said
nothing at all, just watched Clark warily and tried to
breathe evenly. His cock was still rock hard.

"Now, I'm going to ask you one more time and this time you're not
going to be flippant. You do understand this is far more than casual
and extremely stupid, right?"

Lex nodded. "We're already obsessed with each other, Clark.
This can only make it worse. We do this, and it will prove to be
massively poor judgment on both our parts and impossible to live with.
There will be consequences and repercussions that we probably can't
even begin to imagine." He paused for only a moment before asking,
"We're still going to do it, right?"

In answer, Clark let go of Lex's wrists and moved up
to put his cock against Lex's lips. "Slick me up with your saliva."
Lex opened his mouth and bent his neck to engulf the head. His tongue
swirled and his cheeks hollowed as he sucked and produced more spit.

Clark cradled Lex's bald head in Clark's
large hands, forcing it to tilt backward as Clark pushed
into the warm wet heat of Lex's mouth. Lex choked and gagged as he
took too much, too fast, but Clark wasn't overly
concerned. He pulled back a little to give Lex a chance to recover
and breath then pushed back down as he advised, "Swallow me."

Lex swallowed but it was too much for him again and he gagged, his
fingers scrapping uselessly against Clark's hands as they held
Lex's head immobile. Panic and tears appeared in his eyes when Clark
did not immediately pull out. Clark held in place
for another beat then let him breathe again.

When Clark was satisfied with the amount of spit on
the root end of his dick, he gave Lex his skull and mouth back, moving
instead to line up against Lex's asshole. "This is going to hurt -a
lot. Normally, you'd be stretched first so that it would just feel
like a harsh burn instead of complete agony, but unless you really
want me to get you ready beforehand; I'm just going to hurt you."

"Slow, Clark," Lex requested. "Just go very slowly."

Clark nodded, to show he would honor the condition,
and then he began to ease into Lex.

As his body was breached, Lex's eyes closed and his face tightened in
pain. His mouth opened and he began panting in quick, shallow
breaths. After a few moments, his
eyes snapped open as if he'd just realized they were closed and he
didn't want them to be. His gaze fastened onto Clark's face
and they stared at each other as Clark slid, millimeter
by hot, tight, painful millimeter, deeper into Lex's body.

Lex was sweating with effort though what, exactly, he was exerting
himself to do or refrain from doing, Clark couldn't really
tell. The only time Lex's gaze wavered was when he darted his eyes
down to see the progress of their joining. Clark also
took those moments to see his own cock being slowly engulfed inside Lex.

"God, Clark," Lex gasped when they were almost halfway there. "You're
big."

"Hurts?" Clark asked, not exactly sympathetically,
but with something approaching concern. Not that he was going to stop
or anything.

"I'm on fire. I can feel you in my toes. `Hurts' is entirely
inadequate to describe this."

It was perhaps the hardest and most selfless thing he had ever done in
his entire life to ask, "Do you need me to stop?"

Lex glared. "If you stop, I swear on my mother's grave, I will find a
way to kill you."

"Good," Clark didn't try to hide his relief.
All his effort went into keeping to the agonizingly slow pace he'd
already established. After a short time, he groaned, "Shit, Lex. You
feel like a clamp."

For a moment, Lex didn't seem to know how to take that. "Is that
good?"

"Incredible," Clark confirmed.

Lex nodded, as if he hadn't expected anything else. "You feel like a
giant, hot poker stoking the fires in my
blood and making me burn like I was already in Hell."

That didn't sound very pleasant. It also put his simile to
shame. "Is that bad?"

To his surprise, Lex half smiled. "Exquisite," he corrected, sounding
pleased with himself for coming up with a word that held connotations
of both `excruciating' and `perfect' under the present circumstances.
Lex clearly had way too many brain cells still functioning.

Clark was still less than three quarters of the way
in, though, and he needed both hands and all his concentration to keep
himself from speeding up. Lex was going to have to be permitted to
keep his mind until Clark was fully seated inside him. Unless,
of course, making him think about what was happing would succeed where
the actual fact of it fell short.

"God, Lex, you're so tight around my cock I can feel your pulse."
Huh. The aforementioned pulse sped up. Talking about what he was
doing did seem to have an effect. "Look at where we're joined." Lex
did so and Clark also watched the slow motion of their
bodies as Lex took a tiny bit more of him every moment. "I'm most of
the way inside you, Lex." The pulse sped up again. Clark
smiled, "But there's still a whole quarter to go. You're so full
already, aren't you, Lex? Can you imagine what it will feel like to
have all of me?"

"Fuck," Lex breathed. His pulse raced. Sweat broke out
anew on his head and torso and the muscles of his ass briefly
contracted before he forced them to relax again to ease the pain of
his penetration.

"I can finish it off fast," Clark offered, hoping he
would take him up on it but Lex shook his head.

"Steady, Clark. Don't rush it now."

The last quarter passed silently as they both continued to watch. Lex
wrapped an arm around Clark's shoulders and used the
other hand to prop him away from the ground for a better vantage
point. He couldn't be comfortable and the new position made Clark
need to use a little more force to continue pressing inside.

Despite that the blanket was no longer protecting his backside and he
was making no visible exertions, Lex was sweating again as the last of
Clark was swallowed into his body. Clark released his
hips, leaving angry red marks where his fingers had been, and wrapped
his arms around Lex's torso, supporting him in his chosen position.
He continued to stare at where Clark's body was flush against his,
though it was physically impossible for him to actually see his own
filled hole.

Though it was beyond obvious, Clark still vocalized
it. "I'm inside you. You've been fully penetrated now."
Carefully, he shifted Lex's one arm out of the way and lowered him
down onto his back again.

Lex broke his stare to look into Clark's eyes
instead. He quietly allowed his legs to be lifted up and hooked over
Clark's shoulders. He shifted minutely to adjust to the change in
his weight distribution and braced his hands flat on the ground on
either side of his head. They continued to start into each other's
eyes until Lex nodded. "Do it."

"It's not going to last long," Clark warned.
He'd used up reserves of restraint and patience he never knew he had
just to get inside. He felt ready to explode already.

"That's not going to be a problem," Lex assured, sounding a little
short of breath.

Holding Lex by his hips again, Clark pulled out an
inch or two then pushed back in, faster than before, but still slow.
"God, Lex, you're tight. Never felt anything like you."

Lex's heels dug into Clark's back and his stomach and
arm muscles strained as the bald man pushed himself up to meet the
downward thrust. He grunted as they came together with a heavier
impact than Clark had intended. "Clark, just fuck me already," Lex
grated impatiently.

Clark had wanted to do just that, but had been trying to give Lex a
little bit longer to get accustomed to him. Freed from such
obligations, Clark opted to reward him a bit and pulled out enough to
nudge against the prostate that he'd used his x-ray vision to locate.

"Fuck!" Lex cried out, throwing his head back and pushing himself back
onto Clark. That made Clark loose all semblance of restraint or
control and he began to fuck Lex in earnest.

It was fast. Four thrusts were all it took to bring him
off. He gripped Lex's hips hard and drove into him on the fourth as
he came. Lex shouted something unintelligible and his body shuddered
around Clark. Milking the last of his come into Lex's body, Clark
released one hip to trace a finger through the white fluid that coated
Lex's chest and stomach.

Bringing it to his mouth, Clark tasted it. The
bitterness was completely worth it to see Lex's eyes go wide then
close as he fought to control his expression. Lex was right. This
was a mind game. Clark was pretty sure he'd won.
Gently, he lowered Lex's legs back to the ground and carefully pulled
out of him. For all his precaution, Lex still made a pained sound as
they came apart.

Using super speed, Clark fetched Lex's washcloth,
dampened it in the stream, and used heat vision to warm it before
dropping back to normal speed and cleaning the spunk off Lex. Tossing
the cloth aside, Clark turned him to the side, spooned up behind him,
and pulled the blanket tight around them both. "Warm enough?"

"Yeah," Lex agreed drowsily before his eyes drifted closed and fell
asleep in Clark's arms.

Not entirely trusting Lex to let him know if he was hurt, Clark
turned him onto his back and used x-ray vision to check for internal
injuries. Not being any kind of trained medical professional, all he
could determine for sure was that there wasn't any internal bleeding
going on and none of his bones were broken. His heart seemed to be
going fine and he was breathing regularly. Aside from some bruising,
and probably some significant pain in his ass, Lex seemed fine. Clark
wrapped his arms around him again and settled down for another long
night.

Lex slept fitfully for six hours. He just shifted restlessly, making
occasional pained sounds as he moved. Clark
stroked his skin, and tried to soothe him, but if it had any effect,
it was difficult to judge.

It was still early, well before the sun was ready to rise, when Lex
woke again. "Clark?" he asked after a moment of tense
stillness while he presumably reoriented himself.

"I'm right here," Clark told him.

He drew in a sharp, sudden breath between his teeth, and closed his
eyes against the pain that showed in them. Clark
brushed a hand over his arm and wondered if it was his place to offer
reassurance or sympathy. "Clark," Lex repeated his
name, his voice tight, "Something's not right. It shouldn't hurt this
much."

Though he didn't want to bring Lex for medical attention with his
alien DNA still inside him, Clark knew Lex wouldn't say anything
unless the situation was dire. "Do you need a hospital?"

"God, no," Lex denied, perhaps even more appalled by the idea than
Clark was. "Just, I don't know, get me some Advil or something."
Another hiss of an indrawn breath stopped Clark from getting up
to fetch the requested medicine. "Fuck, if it was my ass that hurt, I
wouldn't be too concerned, but it's not."

Starting to become genuinely worried himself, Clark
asked, "What does hurt?"

"Stomach," Lex answered shortly. "Sharp, jabbing cramps. Do you
think I've got an ulcer?"

Clark's eyes narrowed as he switched into X-ray
vision again. He located the organ that most resembled the stomach in
his biology text books, and checked it for ulcers. He shook his head,
"No, your stomach lining is fine," he said with too much certainty
before he remembered that Lex didn't know about – or at least he
wasn't supposed to know about – his X-ray vision.

Lex stared at him with avid interest. "You can see my stomach
lining?" He looked like he was suppressing a deep need to reach for
the notebook and pen that he kept for his notes on Coleby. His left
hand twitched.

"Um," Clark began, trying to figure out what excuse
might work this time.

Shaking his head, Lex interrupted the attempt, irritation obvious in
his voice, "Forget it, Clark. I withdraw the
question. Just say if you know what's wrong with me."

Clark looked again, but he shook his head after a
fruitless examination of Lex's insides. "I didn't do so great in
human physiology. I can't even name some of your organs, much less
tell if there's anything wrong with them."

Lex sighed and frowned, but settled back against Clark's
body. Clark wrapped his arms around him.
They lay quietly together for a long moment and Clark
thought Lex was going to go back to sleep. After a few minutes
though, Lex twisted around so that his back was to Clark, then
pulled Clark's arms lower to drape around his waist
instead of his upper body.

Beneath Clark's fingers, Lex's stomach did feel oddly
warm to the touch. They stayed in the new position for another couple
of minutes before Lex snaked his right hand out from beneath the
blanket and held it, closed in a fist, in front of his face before
slowly opening it.

Clark couldn't restrain his surprised gasp as the
dark lines of the El House symbol were boldly revealed against Lex's
pale skin, even in the dim starlight. "Can I assume this design means
something to you?" Lex asked quietly, though the resigned quality to
his voice suggested he didn't really expect Clark to reveal anything.

Clark debated how to answer, not trusting him enough
to tell the whole truth but feeling like Lex might almost have the
right to know this time, since it was now branded into the palm of his
hand. "How did you get that?" he asked instead.

Lex said nothing for a long moment, and then he closed his hand around
the symbol and lowered it back under the blanket. "You were right,"
he acknowledged, the words sounding reluctant and like
they physically pained him.

"About what?" Clark asked before understanding
dawned. "Oh, that. Yeah. I know. It was incredibly stupid.
Why did we do it?"

Lex shrugged, "I'm emotional and reckless, what's your excuse?"

"I react and don't think," Clark answered with the
standard complaint people, specifically Chloe and sometimes his
mother, had about him.

They lay quietly together for a long moment before Lex called him on
his excuse. "You were thinking. You tried to stop us. You tried
to warn me. Why did you let me manipulate and convince you to
continue?"

Clark snorted. He had delusions of being a
hero, not a saint. "I haven't had sex in two years and you were being
a slut. Work it out. You're engaged and you obviously haven't been
abstaining, so why did you need it so bad?"

Lex deflected his question, "You were still dating Lana two years ago.
I know for a fact you two had sex."

Letting him get away with it for now, Clark shook his
head. "I'd lost my powers around the time of the second meteor
shower, which is why I dared have sex with her at all. After I got
them back, I was afraid to have sex with her anymore because I thought
I'd hurt her. I didn't tell her that was why we stopped being
intimate, of course, and she blew it totally out of proportion and
that's a large part of the reason why we broke up."

Lex turned around to stare at him for a long moment before he shook
his head. "You are an idiot, Clark. I begin to understand why all my
plots to get you and her hooked up during high school failed. Did it
ever occur to you to just suck it up and tell her the truth, or some
modified version thereof?"

Though he had considered it, and even done it in one alternate reality
where his father had lived, Clark shook his head. "You
know Lana and her opinion of both aliens and mutants. How do you
think she would have responded?"

"Doesn't that suggest to you that you're maybe dating the wrong girl?
Let her go, she's not the one for you."

Clark's eyes narrowed. "She's not the one for
you, either. You're only dating her because she was mine first."
All of a sudden, he flashed on an alternate reason besides
vengefulness that Lex might have done that. He wrapped the
conversation back to his question, "Tell me, Lex, why did you want to
have sex with me that badly?"

Lex's eyes widened, like he was shocked Clark would
link the two ideas, and then they widened again, like he was shocked
by a self-realization. "Are you suggesting that I'm engaged to Lana
so I can have sex-once-removed with you?"

Put like that, it did sound extreme, but Clark held
his ground. "Yes."

"I am not that pathetic."

"You are that obsessed."

Lex opened his mouth, and closed it. He twisted around so that his
back was pressed against Clark again. "Fuck you."

"No thanks, I'd rather fuck you." Which was cheeky and rude and
he totally wouldn't have said it to anybody but Lex.

Lex just laughed shortly. "Maybe later. Right now, I'm going to
try going back to sleep. I heal faster when I'm unconscious."

"Lex?" Clark asked, seriously, unwilling to ignore
the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach for however long Lex
intended to doze. "You never loved me, right?"

There was a brief, almost non-existent, pause before Lex shook his
head and denied it. They had been friends for a long time though.
Close. Closer than brothers, if you wanted to steal the Kawatche
description. Clark had a sudden understanding of
what it must have felt like every time Lex had listened to him say
something blatantly untrue and needed to pretend he believed it.

Of course not, Clark. Don't be
ridiculous. The scoffing dismissal repeated endlessly in his mind,
each time sounding more and more off, more and more wrong, despite
Clark's desperate need to find truth in the words. There wasn't any,
though. Lex thought he was such a great liar, but he wasn't, and
Clark wished, just this once, that he could have been fooled.

Why'd he have to go and lie anyway? A simple `yes, Clark, but then I
saw what a jerk you were and got over it' would have been cruel and
cutting and very much in the Luthor style. Or maybe, `We were
friends, Clark. What do you think?' which would have neatly avoided
the question altogether but left the impression at platonic caring.
But no, he went and lied, which meant he was feeling threatened, which
meant he could still be hurt by the subject. Damn it.

And fuck, if Lex had loved him, really loved him, Clark
could have saved him, stopped him from becoming this, this Luthor.
Worse, Clark began to wonder if the break up of their
friendship was in response to his declining morals, or if his
declining morals were in response to their declining friendship; evil
actions done just to spite Clark, or even get his attention as part of
some fucked up cry for help.

"Lex," he said, softer, quieter.

The body went tense in his arms. "What?" he asked irritably, "Don't
you sleep?"

Clark ignored the question. "I'll trade.
Information about the mark on your hand for what you're doing with
level 33.1."

"There is no level 33.1. It's all a delusion by-"

"Fine, good night, then," Clark interrupted. "Sleep."

For a long time, Clark thought that he had. It was
almost twenty minutes later when Lex said, "I'm making an army of
mutants."

Clark felt his stomach drop and he felt almost
physically queasy. "Why?" he forced himself to ask instead of doing
something lethal.

"The Earth needs someone to defend her in the event of an alien
invasion. You can't deny there are people out there in the cosmos;
people with incredible abilities, both in the physical capabilities
and in what they can do with technology. We can't just ignore a
threat of that magnitude. We need some kind of line of defense, some
people of our own with abilities that are just as extraordinary."

"And you don't care about such minor concerns as ethics?" Clark
challenged.

Lex sighed. "They're all naturally occurring mutants, Clark. Any
that were laboratory induced to be that way are left over from my
father's era. And they're all dangerous, so I can't just let them out."

"So you never took anybody that was normal and made them super-powered
and dangerous?" Clark rephrased, sounding doubtful.

"Right," Lex agreed, nodding.

Clark had him trapped now, but there wasn't any
victory in his voice as he asked, "What about Coleby?"

For a moment, Lex said nothing, then sighed and admitted, "Coleby
qualifies as animal testing. At least, he did until he mutated and
began speaking rudimentary English. Even you can't tell me that he's
being held against his will, though."

No, he couldn't, but that wasn't the only objection he had. "Don't
even try to tell me that the government approves his project."

Lex shrugged indifferently. "I feel no inclination to tell them about
Coleby's project, especially now that it has been disbanded. I
believe I've answered all your questions about 33.1. What does the
brand mean?"

Clark sighed. Lex had disclosed the requisite
information. Just because Clark didn't like the
answers was not a good enough reason to go back on his deal. There
was a remote chance a similar exchange might be made in the future if
he kept up his side of the bargain. "It's the symbol of my biological
father's House, the House of El. It's sort of like a family crest."

Lex nodded thoughtfully. "So I'm wearing your name."

That was one way of putting it. "Yes."

"Did you know this would happen?"

Clark shook his head even though Lex was facing away
from him. "No."

Lex brought his hand up and looked at it again. Using his left
pointer finger, he poked at it before bringing it right up to his face
for a closer inspection. "It looks and feels like it was physically
imprinted, like I pressed my hand against something very hot with this
design on it. I don't think semen being introduced into my body, no
matter how alien, could create such a mark. Do you have any idea how
it could have been made?"

Racking his brain turned up one possible explanation, but not a
complete one. "When you were Zod, I pressed a piece of metal that
looked just like that into your hand. It's what sent him into the
phantom zone and made him leave your body."

"My right hand?" Lex questioned, "Right where the mark is?"

Clark thought about it, trying to remember exactly
where the El signet had touched Lex. "Exactly right where the mark
is," he confirmed with absolute surety.

"That can't be good." For once in his life, Clark
agreed completely with Lex. "But it still doesn't explain why I
didn't have a mark then, but I do now."

Shaking his head, all Clark could do was admit to his
ignorance, "I don't know, Lex. Alien-freaky doesn't come with an
instruction book. Professor Fine altered you so you could host Zod,
right? Maybe it's got something to do with that. Or maybe it's got
something to do with being Segeeth that somehow made the palac knife
disintegrate."

Lex rubbed at his temples then slipped his hands back under the
blanket. "It's too early in the morning to think about this. I
really am going back to sleep now."

---

When Lex awoke some hours later, the sun was up. His stomach seemed to
have recovered from whatever was bothering it. Coleby was munching
happily on a pear, and Clark was eating some kind of bagel sandwich
that smelt of bacon. The sweet fragrance of coffee was nearby and Lex
found the Starbucks cup waiting just out of reach of where he lay. He
shifted just enough to grab it, and then reclaimed his warmed-up spot
on his trench coat, already sipping greedily at the hot liquid.

"Morning," Clark greeted. "There's an egg
sandwich in the bag for you if you want it." The bag in question was
next to Clark, so Lex decided to wait for it. His
immediate concern was staying under the blankets.

Coleby waved his half-eaten pear in the air and smiled with absolute
happiness. "Eat foo!" It was remotely possible that Lex had simply
chosen the wrong fruit to bribe the vervet with back at Luthor Corp.
He smiled back genuinely, though, because he was fairly certain that
most of Coleby's cheerfulness came from the success of correctly
stringing a noun and a verb together.

It was a contagious sort of victory, and Lex was just as proud of him
as Coleby was of himself. "Very good, Coleby," he praised. He took
another reverent sip of the Starbucks, which he noted made Coleby
wrinkle his nose and run off into the treetops, but not before raiding
the bag and taking another pear with him. Lex suppressed the urge to
roll his eyes.

Looking around as he continued to nurse his coffee, he noted there
were two foam pads rolled up off to one side, two pillows with flannel
covers, and two more folded blankets. Abandoning the coffee
momentarily, Lex dressed quickly and tried not to think about the fact
that he was wearing the same suit for the third day in a row.

He pulled the trench coat on overtop his clothes and hoped there
wasn't too much semen on it. Both the coat and the suit would need to
be burned when he got home. "Lex," Clark called as Lex pulled on
his thin brown socks, which were made with looks in mind, not living
outdoors in late autumn. He looked up and caught a soft white fabric
ball that Clark threw to him. "Warmer socks," he said.

They were hideous tube socks, but they were thick and with a far
greater insulation capacity than his brown ones, so he put them on
without bothering to take the other ones off. Two pairs of socks were
warmer than one regardless of how useless the one pair was by itself.
His shoes didn't fit right with the tube socks on, of course, being
customized to fit him perfectly when he was wearing the thin,
formal socks. But the shoes were going by way of the same fire his
coat and suit were, so it didn't matter if they got a
little stretched.

"I got you a hat and gloves, too," Clark told him as
he finished tying the laces. "Mom made them for me a few years ago,
but I don't really need them." The items being offered were bright
blue, but at least there weren't any pompoms or anything to make them
look childish.

Lex took them and looked around at the trees and utter lack of
civilization before putting them on. "Not one word," he warned with a
full blown Luthor glower of imminent death, "to anybody, ever." He
could only hope the Kent-made hat and gloves didn't diminish the
impact of the glower.

Clark did not appear affected. In fact, he was
smirking a bit. Lex wasn't sure if that was because of the glare's
reduced effectiveness or simply because Clark wouldn't have been
affected anyway. Clark had always been irritating
in that way. "I seriously can't decide whether you'd be angrier if I
leaked that you wore a home-made hat and gloves or if I told about us
having sex."

Lex glared, but did not dignify the statement with a response. The
answer should have been perfectly obvious. He could survive being
publicly outed. The hat would be impossible to explain.
"Clearly, I should swear off getting cold. It puts me into all kinds
of untenable positions." He moved over to give a brief examination to
the blankets, pads, and pillows. They looked serviceable, though by
the hay fragrance that hung around them, they were probably kept
stored in the Kent's barn loft.

Satisfied that he was going to have some padding between him and roots
and stones that littered the ground where they slept, he moved over to
Clark's side and liberated his egg sandwich from the paper bag. "We
might want to get some kind of waterproof awning or tent before we get
rained or snowed on. Also, I could do with a change of clothes.
Frankly, I'm not dressed for the climate or habitat."

"Do you even own camping gear?" Clark asked doubtfully.

"If by `camping gear' you mean denim and flannel, no."

"How about `warm and sturdy'?" Clark suggested, still
sounding like he didn't think Lex had anything to fit the description.

He did have a few sweaters that fit the warm category, but they were
cashmere and he didn't want to get leaves or dirt in them. "No
comment."

Clark laughed. "Didn't think so. How much
cash do you have on you?"

Lex hadn't needed to take out his wallet since before Coleby started
following him around. "Two or three hundred, I think."

"More than enough to buy what you need at the nearest Walmart, then,"
Clark decided.

Lex just stared at him. "I am not going into a Walmart, Clark."

Clark frowned thoughtfully. "Sears?"

"I don't buy retail."

"Lex," Clark sighed, "You need some warm
clothes. Either I bring you to Sears and you try on stuff that you
can remotely tolerate, or I'll dress you in my old clothes and hope a
belt will be a good enough adjustment."

"Never mind, Clark. I'll be fine like
this. Forget I said anything." Lex finished the last of his
sandwich and washed it down with the last off his coffee. Moving over
to the mats, he unrolled them and laid them out side by side, finding
the fastenings to latch them together.

"Lex," Clark said, watching him as he placed the two
pillows at one end and spread the three blankets over top, effectively
making their bed. He tucked in the blankets for good measure. "We
can get you warm thermal pajamas. We don't need to sleep together."

Lex forced himself not to display any emotion as he turned back to
Clark. "Is that what you want? You had my ass and that's all you were
after? Why bother making all that fuss about it not being casual,
then?" He didn't ask if that had been part of the head game because
that would be admitting he was affected.

Clark neither flinched nor blushed, which said as
well as anything how much they had both changed and gotten harder in
the last few years. He just continued to regard Lex. It was a little
disturbing. It reminded him of the way he used to look at Clark.
Like he was trying to figure him out, like he wanted to take him apart
to see how he fit together. He began to wonder if maybe he had
possibly deserved some of Clark's hostility and distrust.

Clark advanced into his personal space, and Lex stood
up to meet him. Clark's hand cupped his face and
Lex fought to keep anything but resolute challenge from showing in his
eyes or expression. He did not allow himself to flinch or step away.
He tried not to get hard from Clark's proximity, either,
but he knew better than to waste resources on a hopeless cause.

"What I want isn't the issue," Clark stated.
"You're the best fuck I've had and I would love to bury myself in you
every night for as long as we're out here."

Damn it, what the hell was wrong with him? He was not Clark's
bitch. Why was it so hard to keep his expression unaffected by those
words? Why was he so hard? Despite what he'd said to Clark
in his efforts to get his own way, he was done with his obsession.
Clark meant nothing to him now. Why the fuck did it fill him with
gleeful pride that Clark liked sex with him better than he had liked
it with Lana? What kind of sick fuck was he that it even mattered how
he and his fiancé compared in relation to Clark's enjoyment of them?

It was just a fuck, right? He didn't even like Clark anymore.

A thumb brushed over his cheek. They were close enough that Lex could
see Clark hadn't shaved yet this morning. The
fingers holding his jaw must have told Clark by now that
Lex didn't ever need to. "You're the one that needs to make a
decision." Lex blinked, not understanding. Clark
must have read that in his face because he expanded, "Me or Lana, Lex.
You can't have both."

Lex pulled away and Clark let him. He had no
illusions that he could have done so without Clark's
permission. "It's not a difficult choice, Clark."
Lex said dismissively, turning his back on him. "I'm engaged to Lana,
she's having my child."

"You don't love her," Clark stated.

Lex turned enough to scowl at him. "I don't need to. And I sure
as hell don't love you."

Clark closed his eyes and sighed deeply, sounding sad
and regretful. "You did."

"Too late," Lex snapped before his mind was able to intervene and tell
him the wiser course of action would have been to deny it.

"I'm sorry," Clark said, and Lex was almost positive
he meant it. Not that it mattered. It wasn't nearly enough.
Lex turned away and started searching the branches for Coleby. It was
about time to start the day's lessons. "Lex, can we fix us?"

No. He wanted to say it. Luthors didn't forgive and to
fix them he would need to. It would require sacrifice and he hated
sacrifice. He would need to compromise and he liked getting his own
way about everything. It was a bad deal and an unnecessary one. Even
trying would be reckless, stupid, and dangerous. He had this
obsession closed; there was no reason to open it again. He didn't
need Clark. "I don't know. Can you trust me?"

Clark hesitated, proving the idiocy of even
considering this course of action. "Can you?" he asked instead of
answering with a lie. It was a start. If he'd said `yes,' Lex would
have had to kill him.

"No," Lex answered honestly. Another impressive start.

"Can you learn how to?" Clark asked, proving more
diligent than Lex had expected.

He honestly didn't know. "Can you?"

A shrug. "Maybe." Not the most hopeful of answers, but it was
probably honest. "It depends on how well you learn."

Lex studied him for a long moment, because that was precisely why he
didn't know as well. He laughed shortly. "Catch-22. I can't trust
you unless you trust me, and you can't trust me until I trust you."

"We should each make an act of faith," Clark
suggested. "For yours, you break up with Lana. Now you tell me what
you want from me."

An act of faith. Something he could ask of Clark
that was comparable to asking him to break off his engagement. "The
secret in the caves." That had been a large part of what broke their
trust in each other the first time. "I want to know everything about
the caves." He needed to understand why some writing on a wall meant
more to Clark than the friendship they had once had.

Clark looked at him distrustfully for a moment, but
Lex didn't let it pierce his armor. Clark hadn't
trusted him for a long time, if he ever had. He was used to Clark's
distrust. He still hated it. "That's bigger than Lana," Clark
said.

"Act of faith," Lex reminded, not backing down. "And you're asking me
to give up my child, too. She's pregnant, remember?"

Clark took a deep breath, but nodded. "Okay,
but if she lets you have custody, I get another concession."

It was like contract negotiation. "Define your secondary
concession."

He nodded his head toward the bed made of foam pads and blankets. "We
sleep together. You exclusively bottom unless and until I decide
you're ready to switch."

Interesting. He'd been under the impression Clark
simply did not bottom. "What conditions merit that decision?"

"When I'm convinced you love me unconditionally and you won't try to
use it to your advantage in any way."

Lex blinked. That was harsh. It also meant that Clark
may as well have said he would never bottom. "But you're not averse
to using the perceived power differential against me." It was exactly
that kind of hypocrisy that infuriated Lex to the point of hatred in
the first place.

Clark didn't appear at all ashamed. "Different
rules apply to you. They always have."

For the first time, Lex did not hold back his opinion on that. "You
are a hypocrite. You always were. You always held me to a far
higher standard than you held for yourself or your other friends. Why
am I different?"

"Because you're too powerful."

That was rich. "And you're not?"

"I have different rules, too."

While that was no doubt true, it didn't help make anything any
clearer. "So why can you top but I can't?"

Clark looked at him seriously. "Because you are
the one who was trained to use sex as a weapon.
Because Lionel is traditional enough to foster the belief in you that
topping means dominance and I can't allow you to think you have
anything of the sort over me."

Lex could almost understand where he was coming from. He was even
partially right about the views Lionel had installed in his psyche.
Topping the most powerful being on the planet would induce an
incredible feeling of invincibility. It would probably be dangerous
for all involved. "But I'm permitted to think you have dominance over
me?" The knife cut both ways.

"That's your choice. You can think that, you can refuse to have a
sexual relationship, or you can move into the next century and just
enjoy the good sex." Clark looked at him seriously. "I
don't need or want your brand of power. Do you honestly believe last
night was about anything other than you personally? I don't care
about your money or your business, I never have. Right now, my issue
with you is your lack of ethics. If I can use your stereotypes
against you to get you to back on the right path, I'm not above that."

He wasn't lying. Clark's complete disinterest
in the money and business had been the initial draw that got Lex
involved in this mess in the first place. He let Clark's
motives pass unchallenged. "Your secondary concession is having a
sexual relationship, which takes your second option away."

Clark's eyes met his and he raised an eyebrow.
"Can you honestly tell me you don't want one, even with the
restriction? I was being generous with my second concession since it
was something I was going to expect anyway."

"But it's only binding if I get custody. In the likely event that I
don't, what happens then?"

"Let's say it is binding so long as you wish to have a sexual
relationship, but no additional sanctions will be placed on you if you
decline or you are granted custody."

Lex debated, factoring in that by agreeing, he was accepting harsher
terms for the more likely event, versus how well he could mobilize his
legal team to take custody from the biological mother of his child,
versus the fact that the new terms would likely be imposed whether he
agreed to the condition or not. He nodded. "Deal."

He took off his right hand glove just long enough for him and Clark to
shake on it. The El brand warmed between their clasped hands as they
did so. As their hands fell back to their sides, Lex asked, "Did you
feel that?"

Clark looked baffled. "Feel what?"

Lex shook his head, hoping he had just imagined it, and