Codes: Lex, Bruce, PWP, snippet
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: none
Summary: Playing.
Author Notes: Te, being musey. Which is not to be mistaken for moosey. Completely different pronunciation. The first line game is something we *all* can play.

Find Me

by jenn

Jenn: You know the stupidest thought I had after re-reading your Batman stories?

Te: *grins* What?

Jenn: Lex and Bruce in pajamas, very young, maybe fifteen, playing hide and seek in Luthor mansion.

Jenn: I mean, cutely, not weirdly.

Te: Awwwwwww!

Jenn: But also weirdly, since they are freaky.

Te: Yes. Yes, they are.

Jenn: Like, reading porn on Lex's bed.

Jenn: And then Lex slipping out and Bruce closing his eyes and counting to a hundred and going to find him.

Footie jammies that are way too small. Lex's rebellion against his dad's throwing out his toys after his mom died. Zipper front. He's small for his age still. Always looks fragile to Bruce, who is big and heavy and passes for eighteen on a glance.

Lex can fold himself up in corners so small that even Bruce can't see him. And sometimes, Bruce thinks that may say more about Luthor Mansion than anything else.

Little broken soldiers litter the floor beneath the bed when he ducks his head down to look. Amazingly lifelike faces, dismembered bodies, a child's rendition of the aftermath of war. One has white-out all over its head, a general, upright over a soldier painted in brown magic marker.

That kind of symbolism is hard to ignore.

A slow journey downstairs, past silent rooms and doors shut tight, locking him out of their mysteries. Nothing like home. Too bright, windows permitting the bald white glare of the moon wherever he goes. Pushing the dark into small corners to hide instead of wandering free. A trick of the light, then, that makes him think one door isn't locked, but his hand tests it anyway, fingers wrapped around the knob and pushing it open.

Better here--dark and thick, humid from the night. Immaculate curtains guard the windows, hanging straight to the floor in ruthlessly geometric rigidity, but he pushes them aside anyway to check, because Lex can hide anywhere, even here. Tiny, bundled body of pure adaptive energy, warm red flannel over pale, thin skin. All that color should shine, but Bruce can't find him.

Lex's record at this game is forty-seven minutes, fifteen seconds. Bruce has no intention of letting him beat it.

Slow crawling beneath sharp chandeliers that dangle from the ceiling like ice sculptures from the thinnest line of chain, almost an inevitable feeling that they will fall; squeezing into tiny spaces beneath antique tables and long-legged Louis XIV chairs. Bruce likes to think the trick is in the furniture, that Lex has so many places to hide, but he knows better. Lex could vanish in a bare room and never be seen again if he chose.

Heavy rugs that smell of frequent cleanings and impersonal feet marching over them during business dinners and society luncheons. A whiff of forgotten perfume that makes Bruce catch his breath, touching the slim wooden chair with the tips of his fingers. The smell of a mother.

Turning on his knees, Bruce scans the room. This is where Lex has to be.

He's adjusted to the dark enough to make out the shapes into things--a potted fern by the door; a miniature orange tree perched precariously on a windowseat, left there perhaps by a negligent maid; the soft sway of crystal far above from the air conditioning vents that barely pierce the humid heat of a Metropolitan summer. Sweat's a second skin beneath the silk pajamas, clinging to every part of his body.

Silence, all around, heavy and endless. The sounds of a house at night. Soft, careful breathing to the left.

Bruce crawls on soundless knees and pulls away the edges of expensive linen and grins a little at the sight of Lex, legs drawn tight to his chest, one flawless cheek pressed to his knees. Some really weird feeling of infringement on privacy, some random thoughts of purity, how Lex seems to glow when the blue eyes look into his. All this thought in five seconds before Bruce pushes inside, letting the cloth drop behind them, covering them both in white cloth and shielded by the antique wood of an old table.

Not much space, really, but Lex curls up even smaller, and Bruce can just squeeze inside.

"Good job," Bruce tells Lex, bending his head awkwardly and knocking his chin into his knees. His back aches from the strain of holding this position already, but he never wants to move.

"You found me." Lex has never picked up the pretentious edges of British dialect that other students have. The low, soft voice is Metropolis, all sharp edges and sudden drawl of vowels, honey smooth. Bruce thinks he could listen to Lex talk for hours. "No one usually does." Or looks, maybe. Bruce isn't too sure about that, though.

"I'm better."

Lex grins, resettling his cheek against flannel knees. No sweat, nothing, like thick flannel in one hundred degree heat is nothing at all. "How long this time?"

Bruce estimates in his head. "Twenty?"

"Did you bring the porn?"

God, he wishes. "Forgot."

"Fuck."

Long, slim fingers trace the hardwood floor slowly, and Bruce looks for the pattern. He always looks for patterns--his people reading ability is for shit and they both know it, so it's easier to apply formulas to human behavior and hope he gets it right. Lex is an anomaly to even that, and Bruce knows the chance he takes when he reaches out to touch.

Just a knee. Small, bony, warm with flannel and summer heat. Dark skin strange against Lex's paleness. He pretends it's to brace himself.

"We used to have dinner parties here." Lex's hand sweeps out in a low motion, taking in the room with a wriggle of his fingers.

Bruce nods. "Yeah, I sort of guessed."

Lex falls silent, the kind that's full of unspoken words about his mother, and Bruce lets his own silent conversation match it. Mom. Dad. Expensive champagne. Held one night after a nightmare, his mother in crimson silk and letting him sit on her lap while she chatted up a governor. Her hand warm in his hair as he fell asleep against her skirt.

"*They grow up so fast," she murmured, her hand a soft stroke along his cheek. "He already wants to be a doctor like his father.*"

The shiver has nothing to do with cold, and his hold on Lex has less than that to do with balance.

"Bruce?"

It's an effort to turn his head in the confined space, but minimal shifting, and he can, eyes fixing on blue colored to black. Endlessly dark, filled with things Bruce can't ever begin to read. "Yeah?"

Lex picks at the flannel beside his cheek. His hand is very close to Bruce's. "Why'd you come?"

Bruce thinks of Alfred's silent looks as he assisted Bruce in packing. Gotham's a sty in summer, all the children sent away to camp or the countryside, but Bruce can't remember a summer spent away. The decision had taken seconds. The reasoning he's still not sure of.

He shrugs to cover it. "You asked."

Lex grins, unfolding himself like origami, surprisingly long limbs, and in a fair universe, Lex would be awkward, all boys are awkward, but he never is. Fluid movement to slip the linen aside and slip out, and Bruce struggles to catch up, not wanting to lose him again. The heat hits him like a blow, though he thinks he should be used to it, or maybe it's just Lex, standing in a pool of silvery moonlight, drained to bleak grey and solid black and white, grinning over his shoulder at him.

"Storm's coming. You can feel it, can't you?"

He feels a lot of things right now. "Yeah."

A few short steps, and Lex tosses the curtains back, looking into the dark outside like he can see things Bruce can't. "Come on."

"What?" He's taking a step toward him already.

"Open the windows."

Priceless antiques, ancient rugs, a hardwood floor. Lionel's face, the servants, the strangeness. Lex's face, bright and brilliant when he kneels on the windowseat, hip pushing the orange tree aside, and the window opens easily, sending a cool breeze through the room, raising goosebumps along ever inch of exposed, overheated flesh.

Moist air that breathes along his throat and beneath sweat soaked hair. Bruce nods and goes to the next window.

They just make it as the rain erupts.

Nothing subtle here--silence and cool wind in one second, solid wet the next, and Bruce watches Lex's head tilt back as the full force washes over him like a flood. Soaking through flannel, beading on pale skin and running in rivulets into the collar of his top. Bruce steps back just enough to miss the wet but close enough to see every twitch of Lex's body, shivering from cold, perhaps, but Bruce doesn't think so.

He watches as Lex stands up, one hand braced on the windowseat's frame, getting flannel-covered feet beneath him on the slippery wood. The few cushions have been long since blown to the floor, slowly soaking up the water from the puddles being made in every depression of wood. Instinct sends Bruce three steps forward, remembering, remembering....

They're on the second floor.

"Lex?" He can't fall, there's not nearly enough space for any accident known to man to send Lex out of that window, but then again, Lex is inspiration when it comes to bizarre accidents. He watches Lex's balance falter, then regained, and then Lex lets go, standing still, and Bruce takes another slow step, bringing him to the edge. In so many ways.

"Do you ever dream of flying, Bruce?"

The question stops him cold, and Bruce traces his gaze up wet flannel legs, narrow hips, broad shoulders to the bare head that almost seems to gleam. Lex hasn't turned around. Bruce doesn't think for a minute Lex doesn't know exactly where he is.

One hand on the windowseat. "Sometimes. I dream of falling, usually." Something vaguely psychologically oriented in that, maybe Jungian theory or something out of a self-help book he can't remember reading.

Lex nods, but that could be a trick of the dark.

"Maybe you should get down." He doesn't sound like Alfred, but only because his voice is lower. A glance down from Lex, lightning fast, brilliant, tells him the same thing.

"I'm fine."

Maybe. Bruce crawls up on his knees, not looking down. He's not afraid of heights.

"Lex?"

Hands clenched at his side, a tilted head. Water captured on long golden-red lashes. Endlessly dark eyes. Even in a summer storm, nothing can compete with Lex for brilliance. "I'm fine, Bruce."

"I know." And he does, and Lex is too close not to touch. A hand on a wet shoulder, just there, and there's no excuse, Lex won't fall, but then again, falling isn't what scares Bruce.

Just behind him now, Bruce's heels forced off for space, up on his toes, and here, now, he can wrap his arms around Lex. Because Lex is close, Lex is warm, and Lex is letting him.

The wet head leans back against his shoulder, but that's Lex's only concession to his touch. "I'd like to fly."

"Lease a plane."

The little laugh is teenage boy again, and Bruce leans down to catch the expression on his face. Close enough to breath in the scents of rain and ozone. To brush skin with his lips. Coming away with the tingle of his mouth, electric taste of ozone and water and clean, flawless skin.

Lex doesn't stiffen, only turns more, and this time, Bruce gets his mouth.

Lips as soft as a girl's, candy-pink in daylight, smooth and wet with water. The warmth of his mouth, contrasted to cool skin. Wet and ready. Eager. Sucking when he pulls back, awkward angle to try this but it's all he's got. A hand in his hair to keep him in place, fingers twisting in too-long strands. Bruce is glad he didn't get the haircut Alfred suggested before he left.

It should be too difficult to keep this up, wind and rain and balance, but Bruce can't imagine moving, breaking this tenuous touch for any reason short of imminent accident. Lex leans back, shaping himself against Bruce's body like clay, instantly soaking through thin silk. A Metropolitan summer has nothing on the pure heat of Lex's skin.

He has to touch, more than he's already doing. He has to get his hands on all that sleek, hot skin, and he can feel himself start to shake with it.

His fingers are picking at the zipper before he's even finished the thought.

Lex bends his head backward at some impossible angle, and Bruce's tongue feels miles long, slipping so deep he thinks he feels himself in Lex's throat. The low moan ripples through them both, and Bruce isn't sure which one of them does it, cares less when the zipper pulls down and his fingertips find skin. Warm-cool, wet-dry, every inch an adventure, but all smooth, even when it shouldn't be.

Amazing. The way Lex seems to cling to his fingertips, his body, his tongue. Winding around him and somehow pushing through him, ass against his cock and he's so hard he's shivering with it. Young enough to come just from thinking about this, but he wants it to last. Pull Lex down on his lap, get a hand inside those pajamas, touch everything that Lex lets him.

Compromises by leaning a shoulder into the wall for balance and pushing the zipper down farther. Using his tongue to reach into Lex's body while his hands explore skin that should be as cool as the water streaming over it and isn't.

Breathing this thing he only does when he has to, gasped in and pushed out. Lex's mouth is its own addiction.

Hands fasten themselves to his thighs, and Lex presses back into him, deliberate, tiny shimmy that makes him bite, Lex groaning softly into his mouth. Hand down, he has to lean farther to do it, but Lex is wrapped around him like a scarf, boneless and fluid, and Bruce gets the zipper lower and pushes a hand into wet flannel, finding hard and sticky and not cold at all.

Shaping his hand to a hard cock, flannel brushing the back of his hand with every movement. He feels Lex's hiss like a prayer.

Awkwardness forgotten when he can do this, a slow, uneven jack, thumb pressing over the wet head, circling like he does to himself. Lex's hips move like water, pressing in, away, giving him pressure, removing it, and Bruce adapts to his rhythm and hates himself when he has to pull away, let Lex breathe out in shocky gasps. Buries his head in the curve of neck and shoulder, sucking all the skin in reach.

He doesn't know how long it goes on, doesn't even care--not when the wind stops and the water slows, heat closing back around them like a blanket, and Lex sweats for him, then. Moans when Bruce lowers them to the windowseat, seated in puddles of water, swollen lips and wide-open eyes. Lex's legs pushed open, bringing them together, only the thinnest barrier of wet silk between their cocks. Bruce feels Lex jerk it away, maybe tear it, but he can't hear anything but Lex's sharp gasp when he takes them in hand, a slow jerk that Bruce joins, hand over Lex's. Buries the sounds he wants to make in Lex's mouth, arching up and letting Lex ride each thrust.

Imagines spreading Lex out on the bed, dark sheets and all that pale skin. Surrounded by magazine porn and chemistry notes. He could write equations on Lex's body with his tongue.

Nothing, nothing but silence and wet sounds, sex sounds, Lex's shivering in his arms, fingers tangled in his hair, tongue between his lips. Stokes to match the ones on their cocks, fumbled buttons freed so Lex can duck his head, lick a line up his chest. Hum against each nipple. Playful licks that bite when Bruce squeezes. Halfway naked, halfway dressed, halfway to orgasm, and nothing anywhere near control. So easy to roll Lex on his back, settle between wide spread legs, and grind until they both come.

Better like this, though, with one hand riding the small of Lex's back and the other between them. Shivering that has nothing to do with cold. Heat better than anything any summer in history has ever produced.

Lex comes with a throaty gasp, eyes huge and wide, dilated to naked black. Convulsive jerk of his hair, an open-mouthed kiss as good as a scream, and Lex is pliant, warm flesh in his arms, gathered close and warm, ground up against until Bruce feels the first shock of it pulsing over a sticky hand, buries his moan in Lex's mouth and comes hard enough to see galaxies die.

Slumped sideways into the wall to catch his breath and Lex is liquid. A blanket Bruce wants to wrap around himself and hide in forever.

Then the warmth is gone. Bruce opens his eyes to see Lex, standing still and feet away, swollen lips and reddened throat. Eyes sparkling.

So much skin, the zipper forgotten. A grin that lights up the room.

"Find me."

He disappears into the shadows like he was never there at all.

Bruce stands up to give chase.

the end