Disclaimer: The creators are right now throwing a party that I have nothing to do with the running of this show.
Feedback: Like the liquor I'm going to pick up as a habit real soon now. In other words, please, yes.

Warnings: Violence, sex, body decoration, darkfic. There's your warning.

Author Notes: Fanfic is not written in a vacuum. At least, mine isn't.

Te, for the pressure to start, the encouragement (ALL THE TIME), the prodding, the lines when I couldn't figure out where to go, and the Damascenes trilogy, which helped me think about Clark when I had to. Also--drug reactions and branding websites. To think I could take classes in this. To think I'm wondering if I want to.

Pricklyelf, for Lex in the Desert thing and discussions on temptation and moral ambiguity, as well as a thorough beta. Hope for the beta as well as commentary and encouragement.

Wendi for daily emails on the subject complete with suggestions, Andy and Beth for reading, remarking, and not scheduling an intervention. Andy most especially for Clark thoughts and a promise, Matthew 4:8-11, and not letting me stop. *hugs*

LaT for clothing advice.

Lex knows how to run.

At the first startling green glow against black leather, he's ready, unplugging the laptop from only ground line as he reaches for the case at his feet, shoving them both into the canvas bag on the table. The alarm is at best an afterthought before the electricity cuts out, but Lex knows the old LexCorp tower like his own hand, even in perfect dark. The lead-lined door pulls open with the lightest touch and closes with a heavy click like the bank vault from some half-repressed childhood memory.

The alley stinks of rotting garbage and backed-up sewer, and Lex leans into a clammy brick wall to catch his breath as sparks dance hazily before his eyes. Exhaustion, nothing exactly new. Sleep is a luxury; Lex doesn't remember the last time six hours were strung together with anything but dull pressure sinking into the bottom of his stomach, swimming lazily until he knows he'll throw up if he so much as breathes.

And someone had asked him--God, Pete? Dominik?--why he was losing weight. Jesus.

Outside, the car's waiting, always is, key in the ignition, and he starts it, growling to himself at the broken sound of the motor turning over. Visions in dark red and silvery-grey slick the skin behind his eyes, and then it's running, thank God; time is something he's never had enough of, not even close. He guns the engine and peals out, an ancient nondescript brown sedan darting into the worn, potholed asphalt of the Metropolitan south central district.

A step down for the kid who got his permit in a Roadster and crashed his first Ferrari before he passed his seventeenth birthday. He wonders if he remembers how to use a manual gear shift anymore.

There's a flare of bright red, brilliant in the night, reflecting off every window in front of him and into the windshield, mirror blinding for long seconds that seem like eternity. His eyes are closed; it's not like he has to worry about traffic these days.

He counts off the names like a litany--he isn't stupid, he knows that it'll never be soon enough, never be fast enough, never time enough. Michaels, Fisher, Sullivan, Winters, Steele, Forbes, Hampton, and God, there were ten this time, he knows there were ten, there *had* been ten, and maybe there will be, if it was enough time, if they knew their drills, if they moved fast enough....

"Don't." He breathes the word into dead air and is surprised how calm his voice sounds.

He says it like it'll work, like saying it will make it all right, will make it true, will make this stop, and he glances up only once at a broken red light (reflex, habit, not necessary anymore) to see the billboard overhead. Peeling yellowed paper cut with lines of charred black, perfect, like someone went up there with a ruler and a blowtorch, old dulled color beneath of some random advertisement, cut across with graffiti from a seriously bitter artist, probably dead in some alley years ago. The flat black on red, white, and blue is clear enough: someone with a spray paint can and a memory to expunge.

Hate, Lex thinks, is so easy for some people. They get the pleasure and the surety without the work, and it's still work, even now--takes everything in him to focus on the rage and the pain and let it burn until he can just *do* it.

It only takes a quick flip of the cell phone and please, God, let them be out, please. Please.

When it's picked up, Lex breathes out. "Now."

The explosion this time is green, and Lex can feel it quiver in his bones, shaking the car, and he almost loses control in a slow spin that just misses an overturned trash can. The car stutters to a stop inches from the crumbling remains of First Metropolitan Bank, fender brushing crumbling brick. He leans into the wheel, breathing through the sharp taste of blood from the lip he bit through--when?

Sometime. Whenever.

Maybe he only imagines he hears the distant screams, but he'll hear them again the next time he closes his eyes. Joins the other faces, the other bodies, the things that don't blur, never will, not for him.

Everything.

And there's this sick, crawling feeling of disappointment that the shockwave doesn't go farther than these three short blocks, even with the crash of wreckage behind him, the shudder of brick against the hood of his car, the dust thickening the air, unbreathable for days.

That, of course, assumes there's someone to breathe it. And it won't be him, not today. Like he told his father fifteen years ago--blood slicking his hands when he pushed coiled guts back beneath shredded skin; breathing like he was going to die right there, right then; wishing he was dead and knowing that would just be the easy way out--he'll damn well go when he's ready.

Lex leans over and picks up the gas mask from the floorboard.

And that's not quite yet.

People don't walk outside anymore.

He knows better than to try it himself if there's another choice. Sidewalks are death traps. The car's been discarded for three hours while he moves under the cover of night--not enough cover, really, but someone would have to know where to look if they wanted to see him. He's been doing this too long not to know invisibility's a trick that anyone can pull off with enough motivation.

The night's cold and clammy, hints of green-grey dust in the air if he concentrates enough to watch, but he doesn't. Puddles of rain in concrete depressions, chunks of asphalt torn up and tossed like a kid who's dissatisfied with his toys, and Lex hates how the damp penetrates even through his coat and sweaters; the vague, sticky feeling of cold wool against bare skin.

Lex ducks between the ruins of tenements, stepping through accumulated garbage without hesitation, though God knows what's underneath and it's better, he thinks, not to know, not even to guess. He ignores a sticky-black trail dribbled over the top of an overturned steel dumpster, trickling off into nothingness on the few inches of bare concrete. Callused fingers slide slow and steady over spongy-wet wood and stone until he finds the edge of a door marked with metal. Slipping his fingers against it, he traces it with his palm. Lead, yes. There's a thin burn line across it, S marks the spot, but the line's not quite clean enough, and he knows it was done by someone with an elevated sense of self-preservation and some excellent artistic skills. It even looks legit to his eyes, but his hands know the feeling of *that* char.

So far so good.

The confined stuffiness of an unaired room is almost welcome; smells of stale air and unwashed bodies, faint light from a few scattered lanterns and one decent light bulb catching on the dull green that hangs near the entrance. Green means safety, and he blinks as he stumbles inside, pushing the door shut behind him. His body wants to relax, even if his mind knows he's not any more welcome here than anywhere else. There's no way to hide who he is, even if he wanted to, and he accepts the shocked silence when he pauses, the gazes that are as blatant as they are terrified.

He tends to bring the nightmares they're trying to escape.

The people move out of his way as if he's diseased, which isn't far from wrong. The word Luthor hisses across the room (Smallville memories) and Lex knots his hands in his coat pockets and pretends not to hear when he crosses between bundles of rags that could be people if he cared enough to look.

But he's really only interested in one person tonight.

She's at the back, curled into a wooden chair like she's hiding. Easy to spot--she's not as thin, her clothes look too new, and she's alone. Three things that mark her anywhere she goes, and he wonders if they've recognized her yet.

Probably not. She'd have been out on the street within seconds.

Too wired, he thinks, when he crouches, finding her shoulder with the tips of the prosthetic fingers he'd had designed in a backstreet lab, last of the really good materials used up for his need. She looks up, but the brown eyes are dull, and he wonders what left in her. If she even thinks it's worth it anymore.

Not that it matters.

"Let's go."

Her right hand's in a makeshift cast, old linen and cheap plaster that wouldn't survive a strong wind, she must have done it herself--he can do better, later, but not here. But she shakes her head, pulling away, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Cancer's already taken her voice--he has to wonder if it's spread again, and there's a part of his mind already wondering if any of his labs are still intact in the city, mapping the locations, how fast he can get there from here. Pretty, airy fantasies he can't manage to really believe, but they're calming, somehow. Focusing. He likes to have clearly defined goals, always has.

She shakes her head, pushing her hair back, and he can see the flowering purple on her throat, a raw scrape beneath the torn sleeve of her loose cotton shirt. Mouth swollen and scabbed--no reading lips quite yet, not in this dark. Briefly, she presses her fingers into her throat, lingering on the green nestled in the hollow, before she slips her good hand into her pocket, pulling out a scrap of paper.

Quick left handed scribbles with a broken pencil, but he's used to her handwriting now.

"No." Though, God, wouldn't it be easier to say yes? Filthy and exhausted, fuck, he doesn't have time, he doesn't have the fucking *energy* to persuade, too. He can't do everything, no one can. Well, no one human, and Lex chokes on a laugh, sliding to his knees, barely remembering to catch himself on the edge of her chair because his reflexes are already shot to hell. The stone floor is so cool, God, feels so good, so solid, he could sink down and never move again. "Get the fuck up."

She shakes her head, dark hair brushing his face. It's not that he can't just walk out right now; it's that this is *it*. Ten lives, one building, and this fucking unnecessary risk--she doesn't *get* a choice. He's on his feet and gets her good wrist, pulling her up, hearing her soft broken moan, feeling the attention of the room. No surprise, eerily familiar, he's Lex Luthor; he's been known on sight since birth.

"Sorry," he says, though he's not; he knows her wrist hurts, but doesn't she *get* it? He spent six weeks locked in a basement with a fever that should have killed him; a year ago, he was vomiting blood in the sewers of New York, and fuck if he copped out, and fuck if she will either. He can drag her, he knows no one would stop him, but--the burn of tears in her eyes makes him stop, breathe, let it out, try to remember what he's dealing with.

What she's just left.

"Listen to me," he whispers, getting close enough to catch the scent of filthy skin and the tack of fresh blood, a combination that's too familiar by far. "There isn't a choice. Everything will be okay, I swear, but I. Don't. Have. The. Fucking. Time. To fucking babysit."

She's shaking, fresh tears, and he hurts for her, but--not now. Later--later, he can comfort her, find someone to hold her, drug her into peace if that's what she wants, but not here, not now; it's known he's in the city, and they don't have the time.

Gently, he pulls her behind him--the eyes are on them both, they're *looking* at her now, they're seeing her, but that's okay. Her legs are shaking, but she's moving at least, and Lex thinks he can probably carry her if he has to.

The unmistakable sound of a phone connection cuts through the silence and Lex turns, feeling everything drop in his stomach. He can't move fast enough if that connects. No way in hell.

"No." And there's a gun in his hand without conscious thought, and he feels a strange, almost-peace at the thought of raising it to his own head. Beautiful. "Don't you fucking dare."

But he does understand--these people's lives are forfeit if this gets out, he does *get* it, he's not stupid. He knows that every house he enters is marked, everyone's in danger, and he knows they'd buy their safety with his life. In their place, he'd sell himself out in less time than it took to draw a breath.

He can't even really blame them for that, but that doesn't stop his aim or the echoing flick of the safety. And in fifteen years, he's never missed.

And they know that, too.

Breaths catch and there's a little silence, before the phone hits the floor, and Lex lets himself relax. Almost regret, but not quite, and she's crying soundlessly against his shoulder.

"Shh," he says absently, stroking the small of her back, and the room is watching them. Fear like something that can be tasted, touched, taking up more space than these bodies ever could. "Give us five minutes."

They won't, but really, he only needs three. Out the door into a pinkish-grey day, and he gets her to move, fast steps through garbage-strewn alleys, doesn't have a choice, hopes to God she can keep up because they can't stop.

That phone's ringing in his head like it's ringing inside that room, and he knows that their lives are measurable in minutes.

It's later.

She coils half-asleep on the tiny couch after he resets her wrist. It says something, that she barely flinches with the new break, and that Lex can wrap it in under forty-five seconds.

Air filters circulate the rotting smells of the sewers through the room; easy to tune out after the first gut-wrenching minutes that had Lana on her knees by the cheap metal toilet in the corner. Not a bad place to stay, he thinks, remembering the other bunkers he's designed over the years. This was the first, though, has that sentimental edge to it that makes him want to blow it up when he leaves this time.

After all, he's become quite the expert with demolitions. Habit makes him carry the basics wherever he goes.

She gave him everything she was carrying--sixteen rocks, God knew how she got them or what she'd had to do to get them, and he won't ask, just like she won't tell. Size of his thumbnail down to a bag of dust she must have scraped out of the floors with her bare fingers. He repacks them in soft cloth and locks them in lead. The room's lined with lead, too, which would make it a target if they were anywhere above ground, but thank God, the underground's riddled with lead pipes that he breathes thanks over every time he enters the city.

"Do you need anything else?" he asks, as if he has something to give her other than the shot of garage-quality Demerol to take the edge off. She smiles a little, and he can see echoes of the girl he'd met years ago in the lines of her face. Still pretty, he thinks, tilting his head, and he wonders if she'd be happier if she wasn't.

She shakes her head slowly and mouths the words. He's learned to read lips, too, and the swelling has gone down enough that she can move her mouth again.

He knows the litany on that one. He watches her fastens the cord around her upper arm with slow, langurous movements, checking for a viable vein. Older track marks are fading yellow in her skin, and she traces one vein with the flat of her finger briefly before unsealing the needle and sliding it into the plastic bottle. Quick, easy dose, she can do this half-awake, in the dark, probably in the middle of a bombing. Her eyes drift closed when she pushes, a little smile curling up one corner of her mouth. Mainlining has always been his preferred method, too.

He repacks everything into its cases when she's done, looking up into her face.

"Sixteen's good," he says, and she nods, smiling more, though it doesn't come close to reaching into the blank just behind her eyes when she opens them. "This is--good." He wishes he had something better, but there's nothing else he can say that he hasn't said before.

He'd somehow known she'd ask that question. She understands risk. And she knows the worth of those stones.

"I don't know."

She simply nods and closes her eyes, slumping into the cheap vinyl in something like relief. Lex unfastens his glove, checking the prosthetic automatically. Fast and dirty education in basic robotics let him know it wasn't damaged, but it'll need a professional's eye soon to be sure. The dull green ring on the his finger reminds him why he lost the original.

Not that it was that much to lose, compared to everything else, but he can still feel the first cut of the saw through bone and living flesh, body-memory of the sharp bite of iron in his mouth when he bit his own tongue, Pete's hands on his shoulders, holding him down. They hadn't had access to his labs or even the raw materials for decent painkillers. It hadn't been that bad after the first shots of whiskey.

The room's tiny and dank, the bare stone of the floor cold, and Lex gets to his feet, pushing the table against the wall. He wants to pace and wants to sit, but five more seconds will see him sleeping and that's a death sentence for them both. Or at least for her--he knows the worth of his life a little too well to be sure he'll be killed on sight.

He's never exactly had that kind of luck.

His phone goes off, vibrating against his hip, and he reaches for it, twitching the glove into place. The number is one he knows, and he takes a slow breath, fixing his eyes on Lana before he hits the button, holding it against his ear.

"It's not too late, Lex." Smooth voice, lower than Lex remembers, but it's been years since he heard it in person, so maybe he's simply imagining it. Clear reception, that means he's somewhere close, and Lex flicks his watch up and on, counting the seconds. Traces are easy to avoid, and this phone was built for these occasions. He's got time. "It's not, Lex. Listen to me."

The terrifying thing is, he knows that's true. It's always there, in the back of his mind, every fucking second of every *fucking* day, and it would be so easy. God, so easy, just to stop, and he's--God, so tired.

So fucking tired.

"Yeah, it is. Get to the point, Clark." He tries for boredom, tightening his grip on the phone, trying to sound more like the image Clark must have of the person he is--he wonders sometimes who Clark sees when they talk, what reality it reflects. Certainly not the too-thin, too-tired, too-fucking-strung-out man leaning on a wooden table in a cell smaller than the closets of the house he grew up in.

"Come home, Lex. Please." The longing is unmistakable, thick and warm, flowing over him like honey, through him, reminding him of--other things. Clothes that fit and heaters, clean water, imported cheese, silk sheets, and--rest. God, of all things, just to sleep one night straight through, comfortable and safe and warm and it's--

--Lana, rolling over on the couch and vivid purple against fragile brown skin of her throat, the scars from the inexpert tumor removal etched in pale yellow beneath, and he sucks in a slow breath.

"No." His bed, his home, soft air, filtered smells, he can have this so easily, all of it. One word and he'll sleep again.

"Lex--" Edges of anger building, Lex knows it, feels it through the air that separates them. Has to wonder how close he is, how far above the ground. This zone should be safe enough, but--he can't be sure of anything, too much to do and too little time to do it, there's so fucking much to *remember*. Who could blame him for not being sure? "Why do you make this so damn hard?"

"I--I'm making it easy." His voice is shaking--he can *see* Clark, just like the last time, edges of Atlanta. Chloe's body soaking fresh blood into his shirt and he couldn't get her out, all Clark's friends were marked like some stigmata, poisoning everyone they touched. His wonderful, beautiful Clark, all pretty fragile-seeming bones and smooth skin surrounded with death and destruction, and God, so hard to walk away, impossible, no one could have asked that of him, and he didn't remember who dragged him off the field---Pete? Dominik?

He can't stop being thankful for that. Or ever forgive. He's glad he doesn't know.

"Remember what I said about a Messiah complex, Clark?" he says, and he sounds--well, a little better, the phantom ache of the scar pulling on his ribs, reminding him of the kidney he'd lost in a shack in backwoods Georgia, impromptu surgery on a cheap metal folding table by fucking candlelight, the price he paid to get out of Atlanta a free man. "Just--stop, Clark."

Pretty Clark, shining and so bright, surrounded with all those bodies like a prince stumbling through a slum--people dropped to their knees when they saw him. Lex takes two steps, dropping onto the floor beside the couch. Shutting his eyes and leaning his forehead into Lana's hip, he wonders if this is what Cassandra saw.

There's no hell deep enough if it is.

"What do you want, Lex?" And so gentle, so soft, like this was their bedroom in the warm darkness of a Kansas spring, and he can feel Clark's hands, smooth and dry, ghosting over his skin beneath his clothes. Memories of a long, warm, tan body, the way Clark could smile and make him do almost anything. Anything at all. "Tell me what it'll take, and I'll do it."

Lex shuts his eyes and Lana stirs, soft and gentle, but she's not real enough, not for this moment.

"I want to see dusk again. I want to go fuck in a club and get so high I don't remember anything. I want to see the ocean. I want something to eat that I can actually enjoy and you know what I really want, Clark? What would make me happy?" Sleep, rest, Chloe, Dad, air that didn't stink of pollutants and death, no more bodies, his blue Porsche, his bed with clean sheets, some caviar on toast, coffee at the Beanery or even, shit, he'd take Starbucks at this point, and--"Let me go."

Clark's sigh is patient, and it scares Lex, but he's used to it, lets the adrenaline rush straighten his spine. It's all about discipline, isn't it? Right?

"I'm sorry, Lex. I can't."

Lex flicks the phone off completely, spinning it across the room, inertia dragging it until it hits the stone with a muted thump. Eyes closed, breathing Lana in, needing it. It hurts, he knows, it would be so easy, right here and right now, stand up and walk outside, just let it the *fuck* happen. No more bad nights, no more running, no more hiding, no more anything but something that could be peace, consciences are so expensive and he's paid enough, hasn't he?

God, even Jonah got to sleep in a whale for awhile, and he's. Going. Crazy.

Soft fingers on his head make Lex looks up into the glazed brown eyes. He could--if he walked out, she'd go free. Clark would let her take the stones, probably wouldn't even give a shit, if he even knew she had them. If he stopped, if it just happened like this....

*It won't change him.* Lana's lips barely move--Demerol is a wonderful thing. He wishes he could shoot some up right now. She can read him like a book sometimes--not like Chloe, she's never been that, but it's achingly close. *It won't change anything.*

"You don't think I know that?" he answers, and her eyes fill--she's so fragile, even as stoned as she is. Gently, he touches her face, tracing the line of her jaw. She doesn't flinch, doesn't bother to.

He stares at her for a long moment--there are lines around her eyes he didn't notice before, a slight weakness to the left side of her face, making her lip curve down at one corner. The dark hair has its first traces of silver feathering through. And she's asking him if he's tempted.

"Every second."

She nods, slow and understanding--there's no one else he would admit it to--not Dominik and not Sullivan and not Pete, God no, not Pete, never could, they needed him too badly. They saw--something else, when they looked at him. Someone else. Whatever the fuck it was that made them trust him when he told them to blow up buildings and hide in airtight basements and in sewage lines, and maybe they'd all gone crazy. They had to be. Years and years of this, and they put lives in his hands like it was *nothing*, and he can't ever forgive that, not *ever*.

This--this is *life*, and he sinks into the floor, cold and hard, his body remembering plush carpets and mattresses and God, decent shoes and this--this is his *life*, and that's--

--that's a long fucking time to run. It's been too long already, but to be honest, Lex hadn't known he was this strong. Or this weak. Or for that matter, that he would survive this long.

Her hand on his chin tilts it up, tracks the lines of tears he would swear appeared out of nowhere with gentle fingers.

Lex shakes his head. She means it, sincerity oozing off her like cheap perfume, and he wants to just drop, right here, right now. She doesn't get it, none of them do, could, and that might be a good thing, because....

...they'd never really understand. He doesn't understand either.

"No, I'm not. If I were brave, I wouldn't have left." If he'd been stronger, braver, if he'd been anything close to the man he'd wanted to be at twenty-one, he never would have left. There never would have been a reason to. Or, God, if he'd been the man he'd been afraid to be, the man his father was--

--well, then this discussion wouldn't be happening. This is no time to start laughing, Lex, it's not allowed, it's not right, and it's for later, later, always fucking *later*. But he wants to. Biggest joke in creation, he's underground in a fucking *sewer* and he doesn't have to be.

*Are you okay?* Soft little hand on his face, and he flinches, can't help it, can't stop it. Wants to pace again or just walk outside and hope something falls on him before Clark can find him. Faith shines out of her like the dawn he hasn't seen in longer than he can remember, and it's almost the worst thing of all.

He's a good liar, though. Thank you, Dad. Jonathan. Chloe. Pete. *Clark*.

"Yeah." He covers her hand with his and wonders if killing them both would be so wrong. He has enough Demerol to make it fast and easy, a painless slide into deep and beautiful sleep that will last forever, and God knows, she deserves it so much. More than he does, probably. "Get some rest."

He's noticed in the last few years that the dreams are getting more vivid.

Probably something to do with sleep deprivation and his diet, maybe more to do with the nightmares of the real world. He misses the ghost of his brother asking him why he died, his mother's long death, his father's mocking voice. Misses cold sweat from those dreams of impromptu swims in the river with his car and images of dangling from a catwalk that woke him with his heart beating too fast and his skin slick, of guns pressed to his head, of a thousand different moments he'd been sure then that he would never survive. Except he had, because he's Lex, and nothing, *nothing*, kills him.

He even misses the graphic imagery of days spent running, the bodies he's seen and carried and the people he's killed himself--the way his fingers feel wrapped around the grip of a gun, the sounds of the necks he's snapped and the disposals he's carried out, the rough shake of his explosives. He *wants* to dream of that--and of the people who follow Clark blindly, burning his symbol into their skin; he remembers watching it once, a long time ago, when he still made himself believe that there was a way out. The smell of burning flesh and their *faces*, God, like they were witnessing the Resurrection itself, and he remembers how he threw up and how Pete had had to keep him upright, couldn't give away their position, their observation, he shouldn't have gone but he had to *see*.

Had to know in some stupid, fucked-up part of his mind if Clark ever made the connection between his farm upbringing and the branding of people like cattle. The way they just--stood there for it, the way his own flesh cringed, the way the metal turned white hot and they looked like they were getting the best fuck of their lives, and the way his body moved toward them, wanting it in that same part that wanted home.

Wanted it so badly he'd tasted blood, and Pete had dragged him out, God, he would have been up there with them, up there *wanting* that and....

Clark.

But he doesn't dream of that.

He takes uppers like they're candy, cocaine and speed when he can find it, make it, ephedrine when he can't. Because when he sleeps, he's never alone.

Clark, long golden body wrapped all the way around him, tongue in his mouth, hands pressing him into the bed. Slow, easy fuck on a warm mattress, sun spilling brilliant yellow around him, around them, on his hands and knees, the only way to have this, his drug of choice if he was ever given one. He can feel Clark tracing the burn with his tongue, the one he would have gotten, the one he can almost feel night and day. Clark, telling him how important he is, how loved he is, how safe he is, always protect, always be there, never alone, can have everything, Lex, everything you want, anything you want, and when Lex wakes up, it's this--this *hell* of realization that he's here, and he's.

Alone.

He never sleeps in Metropolis, ever. He'd walk outside and let it all go if he did.

Lana's still sleeping and it'll be hours before they can leave, hours before Clark stops looking, stops pacing the city with body and vision, before something distracts him long enough for them to slip out. Out of the room, out of Metropolis, out somewhere else, Nevada maybe, with lead-lined walls and the largest hidden cache of the meteorite. Where there's a bed and there's people he knows, and there's no blood and the processed air almost feels real.

Lex breathes out and pushes himself up, fumbling through his pockets to find the pills he'd made before he left. He's got forty-eight hours left in him at most before the crash; he's tested his tolerance to the limit. Lana and the stones have to get out; there's enough in there to protect another bunker, another hiding place. He counts victories by the bodies that still breathe free. That still want to.

It's--nothing like hope, he thinks, sitting down at the table. Hope's something Pete still has, something Martha still has, though they never say it. It only shines in their eyes when they look at him, the plans he makes that he knows aren't anything but delaying tactics at very best.

He's beginning to think they're really not looking at the situation realistically. There's the slightest chance he isn't either, because he's almost sure he and Lana are going to get out of the city alive.

He leaves the phone turned on and tells himself it's for the call that will let them leave, when Pete will tell him Superman's gone somewhere else, far enough to give them that hour or less they'll need. Taking the pills, he washes them down with the flat water stored in the metal container by the wall, faint sweet-sickly taste of something rotted that lingers on the back of his tongue, the bitter edge of moss. He's used to the sudden spike of nausea--Hamilton helped him design this, upped it as much as their resources allowed. Condensed and on an empty stomach, there's a vivid period of fascinating thickness to everything, and if the room had colors, he thinks he could taste them. Like the very edge of an acid trip, first hour in, everything too big and too bright and his mind's just clearing up now, sharpening again.

He can almost feel Clark.

It's the drugs, working their way into his system, the lack of food, the bad water, the exhaustion under it all, but it's--almost real. Clark, flying the skies of Metropolis, eyes narrowed, looking for them. Lead protection is thin here; they can't afford to be guessed out by the amount.

Clark, waiting for him with that endless patience. One of them has always been waiting. though. Waiting to grow up, waiting to be legal, waiting for graduation, for recall to Metropolis, for that first slow fuck in high summer, for everything to stop changing so fast, for things to move faster.

The first time Lex woke up and watched Clark washing the blood off in the shower, the way the stains had sunk into the floor and Lex had locked their door to keep the help out, cleaned it up himself. The uniforms with their non-random splatters and Clark's questioning gaze when Lex asked what had happened in his steadiest voice.

He could trace it back farther, though, if he wants. Perfect memory, gratis meteorites, clear, vivid, sharp, he can feel Clark beside him, his voice in his ear. Smooth, slick words, could have been his own in another life.

The theory's so believable--almost uncanny, and it was Clark, looking at him with wide, serious eyes, telling him that this was the way it had to be. That he didn't understand. And maybe--maybe he didn't. Not when he watched the bloodstains spread, until he could smell it on his own skin at work, at home, in bed, on Clark when they fucked. He can remember tasting it on Clark's skin, beneath the soap and water, over the sweat, sweet and brittle and almost addictive, almost normal until one day he realized he'd stopped seeing it, feeling it, tasting it.

Now--with everything so bright, everything so real, so close--he almost misses the exhaustion, never realized how *soft* it makes everything. Makes him remember--things.

Great things, he tells himself with a grin and another drink of water. Great things, big things, not good things. His hands are as bloody as Clark's.

The phone's ring snaps him back into the room--tiny, claustrophobically close, but that'll pass, it always does. Shaking hands pick up it up, and he doesn't even check to see who it is.

"Lex here."

The silence is short and hard, too clear to be anything but from inside Metropolis, and he wonders when he became a junkie for this voice. Probably when they met.

"Lex, your choice. Easy or hard."

Cold sweat breaks out on his palm. "Clark, just stop."

"Forty meters west of the original LuthorCorp building, seventy meters down." Clark's voice is more resigned than anything, like their arguments near the end. He's just--waiting. So fucking sure, he'd picked that up from Lex, all his worst habits, all shiny and new and clean in Clark's mind. He doesn't *see*. It's been years since Lex has tried to make him look.

And he's right on the money. *Fuck*.

"Zone's contaminated," Lex whispers, staring up at the roof. There's no way in hell. No *fucking* way.

"You'd be surprised what I can get done when I have sufficient motivation." And Lex in Metropolis is motivation, all right. He should have listened to Pete. He shouldn't have come, left this to someone else. "I don't have to come and get you, Lex. You'll come out when you're ready. And--Lex?" His voice softens, a hint of something like relief swimming beneath. "I've missed you."

"Jesus." He slams the phone down, turning it off. The room's so fucking *tiny*, boxed close and cold around him and Lana's shivering on the couch. Crossing the floor, Lex brushes his fingers over her face. Clammy skin and breaks of something like a rash red and angry across her chest. Lex leans over, checking her breathing--too slow, too thick, like she's pulling in solid air, and he knows the effects of an opiate reaction when he sees it.

He drops on the floor, chilly and hard under his knees, barely feels the pain as he pulls Lana upright, shaking her. Eyes open, please, God, Lana, don't. And it's seconds before he realizes he's talking out loud. Shifting her body, he pulls her close, her heartbeat under his fingers sluggishly slow.

She took too much.

This--isn't happening. It can't be.

"Lana." Something rises in the back of his throat, sickly-sweet--it's too soon since the dose, he shouldn't move so much, he doesn't have enough in his stomach to make vomiting anything more than sour-acid bile, and he'll lose what's left of the capsules in his stomach. Hands squeezed into her shoulders, he shakes her, watching her head snap listlessly to one side like a broken doll on a fragile, so breakable neck. "Lana! Wake up!"

There's a dozen ways to help opiate overdoses, and the remedies run through his head like a bad litany. He *knows*. Six years as a club kid, he's seen everything, learned the fast and dirty methods practiced in biker clinics and the backrooms of clubs. Shot of norepinephrine, he's done that, he's *good* with needles, but it's not like he's got a fucking pharmacy with him; there's one dose left of his own mix but he's never going to get her to swallow like this, she's got to be *awake*, or at least conscious, just a little.

"You're not doing this," he hears himself say in a voice he doesn't recognize. *That* voice, his father's voice, the one that's always command and is always obeyed, but Lana's never been terribly impressed with Luthors, and right now, God, right here, he needs her to be. "Wake up. Lana, get up."

Quick, sharp slap, not too hard, he's not trying to *hurt* her, he just wants her awake, that's all. She could die like this, she's got to understand, and the second slap is natural, blossoming color into her face. Her body jerks, but too slow, no reflexes to speak of, and he pushes her into the back of the couch, straddling her lap.

"Lana." Quick, sharp shake, his fingers sinking into her shoulders, and her head tilts back. He can feel her breath when he leans forward, light and thick, but just barely, and the pulse in her throat's fluttering against his fingers.

She misjudged the dose, she's never done that, never, never, *never*. Should have paid attention, she should have noticed, she knew her limits, dammit, did she think he had *time* for this?

"I don't have time to babysit," he murmurs into her hair, faint flutter of her breath like a tease on his skin, whispering that she has her way out, she's getting what she wanted in that fucking room, and no one has given *him* that option, have they? He copes. He's woken up so many times he should have been dead, saved by someone, something, for God knows what, and right this minute, this second, he hates them all. "Lana, get the fuck up."

He leans back, another slap across her face, that's too hard, Lex, too hard. It's not her fault, even if it is, remember where she's been, dammit. And he wants to hate himself for what he's doing, for the next sharp slap across her cheek that sprinkles blood across his knuckles, her lip drooling blood down her chin, but he doesn't, because the brown eyes slit slowly open.

Tiny pink tongue squeezes out and licks at the blood, and the dull eyes don't see him at all. Leaning forward, he presses his forehead to hers and focuses on her eyes. Hands cupping her face, feverishly hot skin.

No one has ever let him die. Fuck if he'll let her. "Stay awake."

It takes eternal seconds to get to the table, pour a glass of water with shaking hands, spilling some across the cuff of his shirt, body warm and feeling too much like blood. She's listing downward into the vinyl and he sits on her legs, jerking her head up with one hand at the base of her throat, and sits the glass between their legs, fumbling in his pocket for the pill.

Hard to break, it ends up crumbling, but the dust will be easier on her anyway. Work faster in her system, maybe, wake her up. Sprinkling half of the crumbled white on her tongue, he pushes the water to her lips, watching with clinical detachment as it spills on her chin, dripping red onto her shirt. She chokes, soft, so soft, and he tilts her head back farther. Another choke, a cough, but she's swallowing, finally, she's taking it, and he's breathing again.

In and out, she's alive, she's here, and so is he. Alive.

"Breathe. Stay with me, Lana." He can be gentle now, stroking back her hair, the sweat standing up cold on her forehead as her eyes flicker half-open. Staring back at him and he could swear he reads betrayal there. Good. Fucking *great*. "You're not allowed, got it? This. Won't. Happen."

Her lips part a little, forming words that he doesn't want to translate. Closing his eyes, Lex leans into her shoulder and draws in a deep breath.

"We're getting out."

She's got to know he's lying, but even to himself, it sounds like the truth. It sounds--oh God, it sounds like his father at board meetings, and it sounds like the day he was exiled to Smallville, and it sounds like it should be written in stone somewhere on a mountain for people to read and believe, and he wonders when he learned to do that. If it was something that came with the Luthor blood or just from years of ruthless conditioning.

Her lips move against his skin and Lex lifts his head, looking down into her eyes. He focuses on her mouth when it moves, slow and sluggish, blood scabbing the corners, drying into her chin. With the edge of his sleeve, he wipes it away and her mouth moves, slowly. Carefully. Making sure he understands.

*Let me go.* She'd known it was a bad dose. Bitch.

"I can't," he whispers, and he feels her begin to shake. "We're going to get out of here. I promise, Lana. I'll get you out."

It's an easy promise to make, easier to lie than tell the truth, always has been. God knows how many feet above the meteorite-tainted air of this part of the city, Clark's watching them, just waiting. Patient, so fucking patient, all the time.

Lex glances at the floor and reaches down, picking up the phone, flipping it on with a press of his thumb. Carefully, he shifts, letting his weight off Lana and onto the couch beside her, accepting the weight of her body against his side. Demerol and coke fighting a war in her body. No call since Clark on the screen when he flicks into the history, and her eyes find it, he knows it by the stiffening of her body before he can think to change the screen.

"Nothing," he says slowly. "Everything. Don't ask. I'm getting us out."

It's an hour of silence--Lana shifts every so often as if to remind him that she's still alive, and he thinks he can feel every fragile bone in her body. Silky soft skin that he doesn't mind touching--living skin, proof, they're alive, they're here, and it's not--not good, but it's something. Grounding, maybe.

And it's so quiet. The room's thick, insulated with more than lead. He'd thought about this design for a long time, he remembers that, his laptop on his lap, a simple design program loaded and ready, and Pete leaning over his shoulder. This had been the first they'd tried, and back then, it'd been so easy to get enough lead. It wasn't watched, people didn't notice what you ordered, but it had been--a joke? No, even then, he'd felt it was coming, even if Pete had thought he was crazy for jumping to conclusions so fast, but that was--well, before.

Before he thought to start putting things together, before hope became an expense he couldn't afford, faith a punchline to a bad joke, and it'd been too late by then.

Lana shifts her head against his shoulder and he looks down. There's a pink-lavender stain on her cheek in the shape of his palm--he wonders if she'll remember him hitting her.

God knows why. It's a distant feeling, and Lex is--tired. So tired, so fucking tired, even wired as he is, his skin about to crawl off his body. Wants to *move* dammit, and the room's getting smaller and closer by the second, the air thicker, though his logical mind's telling him that the compressors are just *fine*. And it's backed-up, of course--in fact, they could stay in here for weeks if they had to. Water in decent supply, there's rations here somewhere, because he always knew that it would come to this--

No, the fuck he did.

"He's waiting for a clear signal," Lex tells her and shudders at the slow, stuttering stretch of thin muscles against his. "Just relax. The--you might get twitchy in a while." But she's really--not. Ethereal warmth of her body, but more languorous, and he knows that what he takes could so easily kill normal people. Even with the Demerol blocking the punch, even at a half-dose, he can't be sure, not with her weight and not with her injuries that he hasn't asked about since there's no way in hell he can fix any of them here. "It'll be soon, Lana." Please God, Pete, get the fuck to the phone.

Lana shifts again, turning her head further to look up at him for a heart-stopping moment. It'd been years before Lex really understood what drew Clark to her--years and years and time and patience and not a little stress, but there's something desperately appealing about someone who can make you feel like you're the only person in the world they can rely on. Whitney was as much a junkie for it as Clark; Pete still is; Lex can't say he's completely immune. Years of exposure wearing him down, he supposes in the corner of his mind that's still functioning with something like rationality. Carefully, he threads his fingers through her hair, feeling her move involuntarily into the caress.

He wonders how Pete does this--sends people out. Lets Lana go, when she's the poster child for vulnerable victimization like it's an art form. He knows she's stronger than she looks; intellectually, it's not even a question. But--it's hard for Lex to do it, he doesn't get it, doesn't really *understand* how the decision's made. He's never stopped counting the cost of every life he loses, and there are nine bodies in a building in south-central Metropolis to add to the list. Maybe less. Hopefully less. Please God.

"What happened this time?" he asks softly, and she turns her head away sharply, thick hair brushing his face. It's easy to turn her chin, she's too weak to fight him very hard. The lead case only feet away tells him what she paid for, but he wants to know how she did it. "Tell me."

He doesn't really *want* to know, and the rational part of his mind is screaming now, asking what the fuck he's thinking, why he's pushing for something that won't do anything at all for either of them. Just another method of masochism; he's an expert.

*Nothing important.* Her lips slur the words and Lex tightens his grip on her jaw, pushing into bone. Delayed-reaction wince, but her eyes look a little brighter now, her body's not this thick, deadened weight. Good, good. She's snapping out a little. *I--did what I had to.*

"Lana--" he breaks it off. There's the lightest drift to his thoughts now--another normal side effect, the euphoria that kicks in and he pretty much *lives* for this. The light blur of real life and fantasy, where there's something that's close to hope coloring everything. He's the man who can comfort her now, and it's easy to cradle her close, wipe away the tears that are leaking from her eyes. "This is the last time," he tells her, and maybe, just maybe, that's true. It sounds true, which is half the battle.

Grinning, Lex relaxes into the vinyl and watches the ceiling. Cool, clean lines of concrete, so smooth you'd think someone went up there with a sander and a ruler, sharp geometry and clean, straight lines. So--rational.

He remembers being here with Pete--that was so long ago, before the water stains marked the far left corner and when the air scrubbers could still filter out the smells of the shit rotting all around them. One week underground with no phone contact, before Lex found someone to design boosters for the phones, before he got someone to design a way for sound to travel through solid lead.

They'd been close to killing each other.

"Did Pete tell you about that?" he asks her, and her head turns, puzzlement written into the lines of her face. Right, right, she can't read his mind, good thing, very good thing that, and he hears his own laugh, low and a little edged. "When we were down here. God--years ago. You were still in Boston."

She seems to hesitate, something like distress flickering through her eyes before she slowly shakes her head.

"It was before the new phone system was initialized--my second trip to Metropolis." Lex feels himself slipping a little deeper into the soft vinyl and the shift of Lana's body into his lap is natural. His hands slide up her back, over the edges of soft, worn cotton, breathing her in. "It was--you had to be there, I guess. Neither of us thought the other would get out alive, you know. Four hundred eighty-two games of poker. He didn't even know I was cheating."

He feels rather than sees her smile.

"It was--" A long time ago. There'd been cars he liked and his accounts had been in his own name--Lex has vague memories of having money at his fingertips, more money than he could ever possibly use, taken for granted. Everything he owns now is in dummy offshore accounts, mostly thanks to Chloe and her hacking, mostly thanks to moving so fast, before his name became a liability, then a curse. More than a curse. A mark just as powerful, just as terrifying as the ones burned into the bodies that walked free outside.

And he's not altogether here, not really, because--strange, strange--it seems to be forever before he feels her wince when his hand slides over her shoulder. Thicker, layers of something beneath the thin cotton shirt, and he runs over it again, snapping back into the room.

She sits up, jerking away, and Lex stares at her for long seconds that stretch into something that could be hours or days or no time at all. Jerking her around, the cotton shirt's loose and easy to pull up, and the clean white (soft) linen is vivid against her skin.

He--hadn't. Even. Guessed.

"God." And--maybe *this* is insanity, maybe this second, this moment when he knows why she let the Demerol flicker in her bloodstream, when he reaches up and jerks it away. Shiny, vivid pink of barely healed skin, stylized, pretty, pressed deep and held long and he can hear her scream if he tries even a little. If he doesn't try at all. The roll of nausea's a good thing, but the instant arousal isn't. It's-- "No."

She makes tiny, whimpering noises he can just hear over the sharp, thudding pound of his heart, the hiss of his breath, the sick rush of pure envy that crowds out everything else briefly before he shuts it down and locks it away.

"Lana." There's--nothing else that applies. He *has* to touch it, trace it with his fingers--shiny-smooth, rough, clean and thick, heavy, different texture. She shivers with the touch, goosebumps jumping up everywhere he can see, across the unscarred lines of her back, her shoulder, the arm pressed against his leg.

Her head twists around to look at him. Nothing in her eyes but understanding, frustration, edges of grief, shame so powerful it makes everything else almost bland in comparison, but that moment's there, when his fingers slide over the scar, it's *there*. She did it. She liked it. She *knows*.

"When?" His voice is hoarse.

She's lying.

"No, it wasn't." It couldn't be, this isn't inevitable, he's never believed in that destiny crap, fuck Cassandra and her fucking prophecies that killed her right in front of him. No. Not here, not now, not in this room, not Lana. "It wasn't." But he can't help touching it, tracing the lines. So--different than he expected, though he's not sure what he expected at all. "Did it hurt?"

That's--not the question he was going to ask.

The brown eyes grow distant and Lex feels--yes, it's back, that edge of euphoria, kicking through his system. He hasn't eaten anything for hours, days, no surprise, mood swings are normal, but nothing justifies the way he's touching her, touching *that*, remembering the watching, remembering the ghost-pain of what he can't, can't, can't admit he wants. He's high and he's hard and he's *here* and she is too--and so is Clark, written into her flesh.

*Oh God yes. Every day.* Her lips curve up briefly and Lex slides an arm around her waist, pulling her back. Feels her head rest against his shoulder, bare turn that grazes his lips against her face and he can watch her mouth move. *I told them--to be sure. Make sure. Until I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. It still hurts. Every day.*

The huge eyes are filling with wonder and shame and she twists into him, head sliding farther back. Soft, panted breaths she's trying to control are warm on his skin. So different, the feeling of her skin now he can't quite get over that--silky soft all around; raw, smooth, shiny just there. If he closes his eyes, he can trace it all by touch. Her back arches a little and Lex breathes out, feels her move against him on an indrawn breath like a gasp.

"Lana--"

She's not crying, not doing anything but staring back at him, wide dry eyes and parted lips.

Lex shuts his eyes when her head tilts down. Her fingers trace his mouth and he bites, quick and sharp, wondering if he can taste blood when he licks her skin or if that's his imagination. Press of the pad of her fingers and she's painting his tongue with it. She doesn't pull away and when he opens his eyes, she's watching him.

Pete is somewhere--distant from this room, in more than body. He never did understand, not when they watched that day, never *got* it, never really would. There's something in Pete's that made of--not steel, not exactly, but something that can never bend. Never be marked. She's right, Pete would have died first. He would have killed Lana first, killed Lex, killed himself. Pete gets the symbolism but not the why. He doesn't understand why people do it, why they walk up there, and he'll never understand.

He slides his fingers through hers, gently pulling them free of his mouth. "It's okay." It's not okay, it's miles from okay, it's fucking *light years* from okay. Okay was what he hasn't been in--years. "It's--okay."

Fuck it, he does.

"Did--was Clark there?" There's an almost certainty how she'll answer. It's not even a possibility that her head will shake no, and that pause is enough. There are tears now, but they--don't matter, not really. Clark was there, he knows, he has to know. There's no way out of this room now, not for either of them.

Taking a breath, Lex pushes her up, shifting her weight until she's pressed against his cock, and she moans softly. The scar's beneath his fingers and he presses his mouth to it. Sharp, tangy taste--sweat and something indefinably different from unblemished skin, like acid, or maybe that's how pain tastes when it's good.

She makes a low, strangled sound, but that's okay, she's not moving away, pushing down against him. The slow, sinuous rub of her body on his sends a shudder through him like the edge of orgasm. He sucks at the burn and can imagine the moment, the metal they used, white hot and flaring. Her hands braced on the wall or maybe a chair, God knows, he'll let his imagination tell him. Head tilted forward, spill of dark hair around her face, and that first blinding, gorgeous moment of contact--*here*. He traces the edges with the tip of his tongue, and her good hand closes over his on her waist, digging into his fingers when her back arches. He wonders if Cassandra saw *this* part, because it sure as fuck would explain dying there in front of him.

"Lana, it's okay." And he uses that voice to make her believe him, because--it *will* be okay. It will be, he can do this. He can do just about anything now, he's learned that. It's been years and he *knows* what he's capable of, maybe he always has. And she's so soft, so smooth, and she tastes--so good. Another slow lick and he can feel her moan echo through them both. "Everything's going to be okay," he whispers into her skin. "I'll get you out of this. I promise."

And it's not a lie.

She turns her head to look at him over her shoulder--and the *relief*, it's physical. The way she relaxes against him, and the way she smiles, and there aren't any tears.

It's easy to reach up, take her chin in his hand, his palm flat over the mark on her shoulder, shiny-smooth skin, so *different*. Can't get enough of it, of any of it, and then he looks into her eyes and smiles, and jerks, fast and hard.

The sharp snap of her neck is loud in the room. Pete would thank him for making it fast.

The phone rings ten times before Lex picks it up. Euphoria wore off; now all he wants to do is move, just do something, *anything*. Energy's flickering like electricity through him without a grounder, and he can't quite make himself stop twitching.

It's almost like overload, but he's been a junkie too long not to know how to control himself. This will pass too, hopefully before he starts tearing through the walls with his bare hands. He heals, always has, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.

"Clark." Phone's in his hand and he doesn't *quite* remember moving to pick it up, but that's--well, irrelevant, isn't it? Probably, probably, and he notices for the first time that Lana's blood has dried into his knuckles, across the skin of his fingers. "Fancy hearing from you."

"Are you okay?" And if the boy--man--doesn't sound genuinely worried. Lex would laugh, but that's--not quite right, for some reason.

"She's dead." He doesn't bother with pretending Clark doesn't get it. Sliding down, Lex stretches full length on the couch and smiles up into the ceiling. Clark is just a few hundred meters up there with a cell phone; how fucking surreal is this, anyway? Flying above a cloud of green-tinted dust that would kill him in seconds with any kind of rational luck, fall from the sky and crash into the ground, and Lex could finally find out *just* how human Clark looks on the inside.

And to think, there was a time that might have been something he would have wanted to do himself.

The silence stretches more--Lex is used to them. Likes them, learned at his father's knee how much silence tells. Sometimes more than words ever could--you could learn a lot by the shift of another person's body, the flickers of their fingers with their pens. The questions that cause the pauses, the answers that stumble out like a coda to the real thing. Clark's never quite learned how to fix that little deficiency, and Lex is glad, so glad, that this is one thing he managed to keep to himself.

He can read Clark like a book, out there for anyone to see if they have even a clue what the fuck they're looking for.

"I'm sorry."

"You knew what she'd do." Though there's this part of Lex that suspects that, just maybe, Clark doesn't quite get it. Not really, not all the way down to the core. It's not even a human thing, Lex thinks a little vaguely while he watches the water stain and calculates how many years it will be before this room is completely uninhabitable. Longer than he'll be alive, he hopes. It's a Clark thing. Something picked up during that wholesome upbringing, possibly, the part that lets Clark *do* the things he does and never really notice the dichotomy.

"I didn't, Lex. I thought--" His voice breaks, and Lex remembers seeing Clark that last time. Chloe--Chloe bleeding out between them, thirty meters away, and his hands had been so wet, so slick, there was no purchase on her body. The shock and grief had been real enough. Clark hadn't wanted anyone dead. Never had, and that's the part that makes Lex sometimes just stop. They're so--different. In all these huge ways that end up the same fucking thing.

"You--where are you anyway?" He's asking--he wants the visual, somehow. Just to see it in his own head.

"Overhead. Ten meters above the edge of the dust cloud, west side. You--did a good job. It took awhile to figure out your pattern, you know."

Lex smiles and raises his knuckles to his lips, licking the taste of blood away. Lana's blood, grounding. Another grave for Clark's collection, and Lex wishes he was able to tell Pete himself. He shouldn't find out by proxy. He owes Pete that much, at least.

"I'm very good at what I do." Should be. Years and years of practice, a biochem degree turned into expertise in the kind of terrorism he's become infamous for. It'll be in the history books, if there's any history ever written again. "Very good."

He's too high to talk now, he knows it. The kicks of energy are rushes now, and he jerks himself to his feet. Tiny room, not enough to pace like he wants to, but he tries anyway, pushing off the wall to try and work it out so he can *think*. It'll be forty-eight hours before he crashes, and Clark can send someone in to fetch him then. If they want him alive, at any rate.

There's still the gun, but Lex keeps wondering why he took out the magazines. Or *when*, for that matter. Neat pile on the table, so he has *lots* of time to reconsider, and the needle for the remaining Demerol's packed away.

"Lex." Clark's voice is gentle, so gentle. "Don't make this so hard. Just come out now."

"You think everything will end just because of me?" And he's genuinely curious--Clark's got to know how strong Pete is. Strong in ways that just defy description--Pete will let the planet burn before he gives up. There's been too many times they've come too close, and Lex sometimes thinks he should thank God that Pete has never run across those planet-splitting nukes. Clark, or someone, had the good sense to secure those early on, and it's not like they have a lot of access to nuclear scientists these days to build their own.

Not that he can guarantee that Pete won't take it into his head to give himself an impromptu education in nuclear science. There just hasn't been enough time yet.

"Lex." And Clark sighs. Honest to God sighs, and Lex leans into the wall, feeling the shock-race of his heart. Normal people would have died with his habit--heart attack or stroke, breakdown, gibbering in some random psych ward or small padded room, something hopeful. Not him. He can survive just about anything--and God knows he's tested the theory.

Maybe that's why the gun just looks so--hopeless, sitting over there. He can't be sure, ever, that he won't wake up after. Brain damaged perhaps, mobility impaired, but alive, just like every fucking time before.

"Lex," Clark says again, and Lex flattens his hand against the wall before the shaking punches it in--that'll hurt, oh God, this is just--not working. At all. "It's not about that at all."

"Is Pete even alive?" It's brutal--he knows that, knows it'll cut right through this connection and it'll make Clark wince. Maybe fly badly into a convenient cloud of bright green, but his luck just doesn't turn out like that.

"I have no idea." Hurt, definitely. He can see Clark pout and he's struck again by the sheer *imagery*--Clark, up in the air, flying about carrying a phone like some demented comic book hero he never would have believed in even for a second. "I'm not a murderer, Lex."

He doesn't have to be, and--it's the wording, Lex thinks, turning his face against the wall. Such cool stone, smooth and flooring and just a little addictive. It's the semantics, these little things, little differentiations that Clark can make, the strange world of black and white he lives in that Lex can't completely understand. Killer, maybe, but murderer? Never. Lex does his own dirty work, always has, and never bothers with the labels.

"Lex, just--come out. Okay? It's--don't you think it's been long enough?" His voice is so--so soft, like velvet that you could fall into and never climb out of, never want to. Lex remembers the first time he heard that voice, sometimes thinks he's the only one who ever has. It's not as if it matters, on any level, he's--God, he needs to fucking *move*. "It's--I know it's bad for you right now, I know, but--just come out and talk to me. Just talk. If--I think you'll understand if you try."

Pace by the table, almost knocking against the couch. He's breathing too fast and he knows this is going to take a long fucking time to even out. He's never tried four days running on these. Hamilton didn't exactly get a lot of time to work on the design, and Lex wonders if he should start to worry. He's always been an experiment of some kind: Lionel's Borgia parenting methods, Clark's first try at homosexuality--only, for that matter--endless tests in the labs and hospitals after the meteorite, and the unapproved anti-psychotic drugs the doctors ordered for schizophrenia catatonia. Lex wonders, to this day, if his dad ever bothered to tell them *why* his son wasn't responding to the outside world anymore.

"Leave me alone, Clark." He shuts the connection closed and tosses it on the couch. Without it, the room's even *smaller* if that's possible. Ten feet by ten feet square, he's right, he's had closets bigger than this, what *was* he thinking? Right, right, too much lead, too much notice, look at all the good *that's* done him.

There's a good chance he's just going to finish going insane and why does that sound like relief?

The door is against his back before he's even completely aware he's moved, and the phone is lying *there* on the couch. He--wants the call. Maybe even needs it. First steps, Clark's always known his habits, how easy it is to addict him.

Shutting his eyes, Lex just breathes, sweat slicking his forehead and the palm he presses to the floor. In and out, he can do this, there's a way out, there always is if you know where to look. If you think clearly, if you know your strengths, he's been saying that for years, ground it into doctrine, and God, so many believe it now, so many. Those people in that room he took Lana from, they believe, or they wouldn't be there at all.

Just think, Lex. Think.

He thinks of Metropolis, where it actually *happened*. The moment he got it, really understood, the flash of comprehension that changed everything. Two inch shift of the universe, or something like it. When Lex Luthor realized that choice was something as flexible and intangible as the time it took between two breaths, the one that sent him into the elevator with nothing but his wallet and a loaded gun.

And there's a part of him that's pretty sure that the line he crossed he didn't really have to. It had never been in his nature. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing. He proves that every damn day.

Lex really doesn't think about it often, though--there's a lot of spaces in his mind that he avoids on instinct. Some of his childhood and half his adolescence falls into that category, and he can count on one hand the number of times he's gone exploring to see what's really there. A lot of it is stuff he can't quite bring himself to look at too long or too hard. The rest...

Well. It's better, in the long run, not to know for sure, but--Metropolis. His city, really, not Superman's, not Clark's. He's proven that, it's the reason he comes here at all. It's *his*. Not the traditional Luthor demesne, but Lex's, and it doesn't matter he's not free to walk the streets, that he's trapped like an animal in this tiny room that's too small and too fucking bright or dark or God, something. It's--home. And no matter how long Clark's been here, no matter how strong he is, it's not Clark's, not the way Lex owns it.

He wishes he could explain it better to himself.

No, he doesn't.

The ring of the phone's startlingly loud, and Lex fights the instinct to lunge for it. All Pavlovian, All the Time--his psych teacher might call conditioning theory. Fuck. Hamilton's going to pay with a finger if there's something in this mix that's making him start random reminiscing about his first year of college.

The rings are so *loud*--side effect, Lex, sensitivity to light and sound. Good thing the room's just about as bright as the average prison cell at night. He's got to wonder a little why he didn't think to install fluorescent lighting--there had to have been a good reason, just that bare yellow bulb that seems to be hanging far too low, like he could run straight into it if he isn't careful.

Just above him, but below Clark, undoubtedly wondering if Lex has shattered his phone or maybe just decided to try out those bullets after all...where was he going with this thought? Right, right, above him is the remains of LuthorCorp, LexCorp, whatever people remember, but he tends to think it'll be Lex, in the end. Sorry, Dad, you just didn't really get how much of an overachiever I really am. Terrorist, mass murderer, the one blocking the coming of the--what the fuck were they calling it these days anyway? He could swear he'd heard them muttering Renaissance, but even his sense of humor won't take that very easily, though he'd laughed himself sick when he first heard it. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men, do what a few million years of human civilization couldn't, not to mention a few dozen prophets, saints and wise men of all flavors--Clark thinks he's *doing* it, exactly what he'd dreamed of when they'd both been kids.

Lex is going to go out on a limb and bet that the fifteen year old in the corn field probably hadn't had this in mind. Different world, different time, different place, he's going to be reciting poetry any minute now and his has always sucked. Like he needs to commit to blank verse the wonders of a fucking hick town Kansas summer.

A hysterical laugh is coughed out before Lex can stop himself.

He sinks into the floor, letting the chill work its way through his pants, into his skin, and he can't remember the last time he was warm. Really, honest to God warm and comfortable and not wired to run at the slightest hint of anything going wrong.

The rings continue, endless sound that's beginning to scrape the edges of Lex's nerves like sandpaper. Pressing his palms to the floor, the leather of his glove makes a softly scraping sound. It still fascinates him--he imagines sometimes he can still *feel* with it, like now, like the cold is slowly shifting through the leather and his palms--both his palms--are like ice.

He knows it's his imagination, but it doesn't make it any less--what's the word? Real. Reality is this edged, slightly interpretable set of circumstances, after all. To some people, he's the one destroying Superman's vision; to Pete, he's some kind of quasi-hero that's determined on freeing them all. And then there's his own view of the events in question, no one's ever asked *him*, and....

The phone is on and in his hand. He stares across the room at Lana's body and sucks in a choked breath when he clicks the connection back on.

"Lex, are you okay?"

God, so worried, he remembers the times he came back home and Clark was there--usually after the bad nights with his dad, the long meetings with employees or contacts or potential customers. The way Clark would look at him for those searching moments and ask if it was worth it. If LexCorp was worth it, if his pride was worth it, if it was that damned important to be better than his father.

And it wasn't, but that wasn't the point, and maybe this is where he should have figured something was going to go really wrong.

He'd said, "It's my destiny, Clark."

Not--true.

"It's me, Clark," Lex says into the phone, shutting his eyes. Leaning his head back against the door so the cold will penetrate there, too.

"Lex?"

"You asked me. What was important. Why everything I did for LexCorp was so important. Why I put up with my father's shit. I didn't answer you. It wasn't that. It wasn't destiny. It was me."

The connection hums briefly, and Lex wonders what that means.

"Lex--"

"Shut up. It's not about you. It's not about the war and it's not about us at all. You didn't get it then. It wasn't LexCorp. It was me. I had to see--I had to know who I was. I had to test it, I had to be sure. It's identity, Clark. When I look in the mirror, I have to know who I'm seeing. I couldn't live with being in my father's shadow. I couldn't live with being--"

"In mine?"

How true is that? Lex shifts into the floor, slow and easy--his body wants movement, but this is a part of it. The Lex he's created over the years before Clark, during Clark, after Clark. This person who can't quite die and who said he'd decide when he wanted to. Who told destiny to fuck itself so often that it should be seriously knocked up, and God, he's laughing into the wall.

"No. It wasn't about you." And it's true. "I couldn't live without seeing what I could be."

Clark's quiet for a long moment.

"You're hallucinating, Lex. What did you take?" There's edges of desperation in his voice. Lex can almost see Clark circling, worried frown in place--and it'd be easy for Clark to start calling in people to come down here, and they'd do it, no question. Lex has two magazines, but sheer number would win out. This could be forced. If Clark wants it that way, but he's getting the crawling feeling that it's--not.

He's getting the feeling that Clark--

"I'm fine." Slow, casual kick into the floor with the worn heel of his boot. It's edged in some cheap metal, nice ringing sound, and he's in here and the door is right there. "I'm fine. Everything is--fine. Great."

Fine, great. Hamilton will die by inches. This isn't normal. This can't be.

"You're not. Lex, please, come out now. You're just--this is so fucking *stupid*. We don't need to do this anymore. I'm not your enemy. We can talk--"

"We did talk." Didn't they? Can't be too clear on that one, though--or he can, but that's one of the memories he doesn't want. He'll recall his own amputation chaser of whiskey shots first. There was--

"You didn't let me explain. You never--God, you never listen. You walked out. You didn't even ask--"

"Ask what?" Lex whispered, staring into the ceiling. "What part of that speech didn't I get? Just fuck off, Clark. I'm down here with a dead body and some seriously fucked up coke. Just--stop. Stop calling, let me rot here in peace and go save someone else from themselves. Anyone, Clark. Just. Not. Me."

"You don't understand."

"Don't fucking tell me what I do and don't understand."

The hum seems to increase, and Lex tries to figure out what that is on the connection. The logical, rational part of his mind, that is, the part that right now is having to do serious battle with the claustrophobia that wants to get out, the addict that wants to *move*, and it's always been like this, always this war in his head. His father's son, Clark's lover, Pete's fucking hero, and Lana's--

"I snapped her neck."

There's a breathless pause and Lex shuts his eyes. Plain painted black behind them, he can see her face against it, the knowledge, the shame.

"God, Lex--"

"I couldn't forgive her for doing it. After everything. And she wanted to die, Clark. I--" The *relief* on her face, the knowledge that he would do it, give her what he couldn't manage to give himself. It's called--did he call it coping, really? What *was* the truth on that one?

"I'm sorry, Lex." Honest grief is wrapping around him like a blanket. A cushion against the stark reality of the room. Why'd you snap her neck, Lex? Pete wouldn't ask, because he'd think he knew. Some would think it was the betrayal of their cause. Some might even think it was for *her*, but he's really fucking high, flying as high as Clark now, and there's not enough space in this room for lies, it being only ten feet by ten feet by six *fucking* feet what the *hell* was he thinking with something like this?

"She--" In his arms, the taste, the smell, she walked up there and she gave *in*. And God, she did it and he wants it too, right here, right now. "I'm not, Clark. I'm not."

He's on his feet and the door's open at his first touch. And there's something like relief when he picks up the gun from the table, loading the magazine in and enjoying the weight he shouldn't be able to feel in that artificial hand. The lead box is in the bag and this is--freeing, somehow.

"Fuck you, Clark. You want me, get me yourself."

It's the movement that shuts down his body's constant screams for action, his claustrophobia vanishing with the opening of the door and the path to the ladders. The part of him that's rational, the part of him that's kept him alive and free for fifteen very, very long years. Turn here, left there, he knows the way by heart, every filth-laden inch of it, and he barely notices how his boots sink into piles of shit and refuse and maybe, very possibly rotting bodies, but it's *dark* down here. And he. Doesn't. Really. Want. To know.

There are two ways out. One will come out right in the center of the dust cloud he created--and no, it's not a good idea for a normal human to breathe meteor dust, but he's about as far from normal as someone who can still claim human DNA can get.

It's a mistake to leave, he knows that, but the lead piping down here will block him a little. Even Clark can't look constantly everywhere all at once through all that meteor dust and catch more than residuals of his movement. He could go either way.

Michaels, Fisher, Sullivan, Winters, Steele, Forbes, Hampton--Reeves, and Christian. And himself. He can remember now--Reeves was the one he picked up in Denver that last time, whose wife turned him out and made him run. Christian was one of those people that was practically *born* to be told what to do. He could have ended up anywhere. Just Lex's luck that he found him first.

"Lex, what are you doing?"

It's a shock to realize that he's *still holding the fucking phone*, and so much for dramatic last words. It's--appropriate to laugh, and Lex leans into the slick wall to catch unneeded breath and laughs until his ribs ache.

Gallows sense of humor, and that's *another* thing Clark never learned. He doesn't laugh at himself, never has, and that--well, doesn't that explain a *lot*? Fuck Jonathan Kent and his training his kid for a destiny, he missed that. The most important thing, maybe, the one thing that it took Lex years to learn, so maybe it's not that much of a surprise that things are like they are.

"Lex--" the words are blurring again and Lex tries to figure out what that means. He's out of range of the boosters in that room, true enough, so maybe the signal's going out. Clark's up there, he's down here, and it's like this huge ass metaphor for their lives, together and apart. "Lex, talk to me. Don't--"

Clark had said, "Lex, we need to talk."

He remembers now.

"I know why I left, Clark."

That night, in their room. When the carpet had those flickers of something reddish-brown and dried, and he wasn't even--God, had he been paying attention at all? When the fuck had it come to the point where his lover was washing out fucking *bloodstains* and talking about a new way of life?

No, he didn't put it that way. It was..."There's got to be a better way, Lex." That's what he'd said. Right then. "There's got to be. I can't--I can't keep doing this."

And he'd thought that meant no more Superman, no more godawful costumes, and no more--no more blood. He hadn't been paying fucking *attention*. He'd been thinking about LuthorCorp stock and his father and thinking of going back to school and finishing his degree. He'd been thinking, thank God, Clark finally understood. You couldn't save everyone, there wasn't a way to do that. People didn't *want* to be saved, you couldn't force it. Ten thousand something years of recorded civilization and Clark was trying to figure it out with that alien mind of his. Human nature was human nature.

And he'd looked up, Clark sitting by the window, watching the sky with that strangely blank expression. Turning around and looking at him, wide clear eyes, never learned how to hide a fucking thing. It was written there, clear as day, clear as the blood on their carpet, but he still hadn't quite--seen it.

Believed it would be closer to true, though.

He'd sat down beside him, pulling off his tie. Reached out and touched that perfect face, tried to find the right words. And under it all---what had been there? Satisfaction, relief, maybe even the triumph of winning this, winning Clark. No more sharing with the entire fucking universe of idiots out there, no more long nights alone with Clark roaming the skies, and it would be--he had to have been happy, right then.

Right that second. Perfect, heady, clear happiness, he'd won. Nothing got him as high as victory. Not sex, not drugs, nothing came close to competing. Not with that moment.

"Lex? Are you still there?" Clark's voice in his ear's jarring, jerking Lex into movement again. Left up here, there's the ladder to the surface. Center of the dust cloud, he'll emerge sixteen steps from what used to be the doors of the LuthorCorp main building. Directly in that crap, Clark would have a hard time spotting him directly.

"I'm fine, Clark."

And--something else in between. Five minutes between sitting down and walking out, ten minutes into the elevator, he'd--felt Clark's hand on his. Slow, deliberate strokes. This strange glow to his face, the way his eyes were lit up. "People need a symbol, Lex. Someone to--believe in. To follow. Someone to show them the way."

Lex tucks the phone in his pocket, not bothering to kill the connection--by now, Pete's been getting a busy signal if he's tried to call at all. Worried, probably, but Lex always lands on his feet. Always.

And Clark had said..."They need hope, Lex."

And he'd said, "What do you mean?"

And Clark had told him.

"You're not a god," Lex says, and he jerks up the first rung of the ladder. Disgustingly familiar, wet and slimy, slick under his hands, but he's used to these conditions. Not like escape's ever simple. Not like there's always a helicopter or someone to blow up a building for a distraction. This isn't the movies, this isn't the halcyon days of Smallville, this is real life, where he's climbed dead bodies and seen rain fall blood-warm and wet from the sky and evaporate over fires so hot water can only feed them.

He can hear the vague sound of the connection fizzling when he reaches the top, and it's an easy push to get the lid open, emerging into a pink-grey world of rubble where there was once a living city. Hard asphalt under his boots, the remains of a street, and Lex wonders if he can breathe this stuff and if asphyxiation is *really* the way he wants to go. Theory sounded pretty good, but the practice--

"Not until I'm ready."

Clark had *told* him. It was so frighteningly simple that he hadn't believe it, not at first. Hadn't even really *thought* in those terms, and he was raised by a man who got off on history lessons involving Alexander the Great, a mother who gave gifts laden with symbolism. Simple and dazzlingly easy, for Clark, for Lex, and that moment, when he'd felt that pull, the way Clark could just *do* that, make you believe everything. That Clark really could save everyone, just like he'd always wanted.

The building's fifty feet to the left, the only one that has even the possibility of breathable air. It's also toward the outskirts of the cloud--Lex knows his payload, knows the extent of the damage, even with the wind factor in mind. Clark can't touch anything in this zone, not for weeks. And humans can't get in here and do much more than die--asphyxiation's the fast way, future cancer the slow one.

And Clark had said, "I need to do this."

Fuck. *Fuck*. Not the time, not the place, not now, he doesn't *need* to be thinking of this now. He can get out. There's hope right here, he can get out of the city and he's never coming back. Not *ever*. Tell Pete that Lana died here, never tell why. Never tell how. Pete needs hope like he needs air, and Lana would break him.

Maybe this time, when he's out, he'll start building Pete his nukes, and maybe this time, he'll have the will to let Pete use them.

The building's walls are thick--Lex gives a quick look around. Secondary reaction to the blast, third building down from ground zero. It should be okay; from here he can plan a way out. Clark can't find him, not in this, not until he's out and maybe, just maybe, he can make it. Just far enough.

Please, just one last time. Please.

Spots are dancing in front of his eyes and he's getting the edges of lightheadedness. But there's a door and he knows the building--interior room, air, temporary measure, safe enough. Jerks at the unresponsive handle, and he's got a gun, right? Gun, fire, no fucking way to close the door *after*, and he wants to start laughing again but that would be the easy way out, and he's not taking anything easy. Never has.

Fuck it, Lex, don't lose it now. You can *do* this. Luthors. Don't. Fail.

The door opens with a squeal of hinges and the sharp tear of a muscle in Lex's shoulder, and he barely cracks it before sliding inside. Full weight of his body to push it shut and he draws in a strangled breath, hoping he was right. Bits of dust, but--yes. Yes. Secure room, good for hiding from tornadoes and Supermen and other uniquely-Kansas natural disasters. Good for any and all occasions, people should *think* of these thing when they build their skyscrapers.

Slumping into the floor, Lex pulls out the phone, dropping the bag to the floor beside him, concentrating on air--stale and lightly dusted, but still. Air. Still a little ragged, but he can take a little time, recover. Let Clark meander all around that fucking cloud if he wants. Search the edges and try to scan inside, but it'll be. Okay.

"It's going to be okay," he whispers, and God, he's talking to himself.

And he'd told Clark, "It's going to be okay. You're--it's been a long night, Clark. You should--"

And Clark had said, "It's the only way. I've thought about this. I can--this is the reason I was brought here, don't you see it?"

Brought, yes, that's a word for it. Landed is another very clean way to put it. Fucking *crashed* is accurate. Semantics again. Clark just--sees things differently. Something to do with destiny, maybe, or hell, for all Lex's knows, it'd been percolating in that pretty head for a long time--maybe long nights alone on the streets, seeing things that brought him home with that haunted look that always made Lex's gut clench. Everything, all the worst of human nature that Clark dealt with every *fucking* night, and it hadn't been, *hadn't* been completely selfish joy at the thought of Clark stopping. There'd been--all that relief. Too young and too idealistic, his pretty Kansas farmboy who grew up in that black and white wholesome Smallville, a world that had nothing at all to do with the grey shades of daily life of Metropolis, of the cities. Of the real world.

He hadn't wanted Clark to lose that---that innocence. That belief. Faith. Whatever the fuck it was. And he never had, and isn't that just the kicker? It's all there, like fucking lights in the sky. All Clark's belief, all that fucking faith, and it's everywhere now. Carved into the rubble of cities and into the overstuffed cemeteries and into the rot of backstreet alleys and into living flesh.

His fingers do it all on their own, checking and yes, there's still a connection. Clark's there, he knows it, listening. Maybe using superhearing now to catch the sound of Lex's breathing and Lex really doesn't know how well Clark can *hear* through meteordust. That isn't exactly something he could have checked in the lab.

Carefully, he lifts the phone to his ear. Quiet crackle, slow burn of a bad connection, but still, he's talked over worse lines.

"I'm here, Clark."

He can hear the faint sounds of Clark's breathing--too fast, worried, maybe.

"Lex. You're--" A short pause. "Where are you?"

Lex can't help laughing, if only to himself. "I'm not making it that easy, Clark. I always wondered--is your hearing affected by the cloud?"

"Not really." Of course not. That's not how Lex's luck runs. Gritting his teeth, he picks up the bag and pushes himself off the floor. Next. Another building. Bolthole to bolthole, Clark can't guess the direction and he can hide. It's Metropolis. It's his fucking city and he knows every street, every back alley, every place Clark's eyes can't see through. He. Can. Get. Away. It's terrifyingly possible he'll survive. "Lex--you're not leaving this city until we talk. You're ill and shit, Lex, what are you burning out on? More of Hamilton's experiments?"

Clark really did know him far too well. Bracing a hand on the wall, Lex pushes himself up, finding his feet. Adrenaline rush, quick and bright, the uppers are only ten hours old in his blood and he's--he's got time. Clark--well, he *doesn't*.

Taking a deep breath, Lex thrusts the phone back in his pocket.

"I can do this."

He told himself that, when he stood up. When he saw everything that Clark was saying--Clark believed. He thought--oh God, he thought this was a *good* idea--no. He thought it was the *best* idea, the only idea, and the Luthor in Lex was very much awake and staring out his eyes and it made him ask, "Clark, why?"

And the response had been--unexpected. Little frown lines on his forehead and maybe it was that second that Clark had read him wrong--even after all their years together, Clark still made mistakes. Still didn't read Lex as well as Lex could read him. Still--didn't quite understand.

He'd said, "Why not?"

Lex had walked out. Thirty steps, stopping for his wallet and the gun he'd taken to carrying after the first of the assassination attempts on his father. Tucked in his jacket pocket, and Clark hadn't really--hadn't even gotten up to follow him. And it was this rational trip to the door and then he'd--walked out. In the elevator, down sixty floors, to his car, the pretty blue Porsche that he'd taken straight into Smallville and left moving when he got out, watching it crash over the side of the bridge that he should have fucking *died* on.

Because. This. Is. What. Had. Happened.

And Pete had stared at him with wide, shocked eyes, and that flare was there, too. Disbelief and denial and knowledge. Fear like something solid you could choke on. And that--

--that's when Lex had started running for real.

Outside, he takes a second, then chooses his direction. That way, over this, broken concrete, asphalt, exposed steel beams and yes, bodies, he could walk Metropolis blind and never lose his way. Easy not to see the blood under his feet, the flakes drifting in the air brownish-black, he's been doing that for years. And he can see--from here--the place where he sat in his car twenty-eight hours ago and gave the order, slides by it and breathes a little, less concentrated and it's not like that crap can hurt him very much, not anymore. It's done all the damage it deserves to get out of him.

Thinning cloud and Lex keeps walking, breathes lightly, and there's this sick sense of heady excitement, maybe the stims are giving him another euphoric rush, he's close to another place to hide and he's getting the fuck out and never coming back....

And--he stops. An inch from the fucking ground, no physics on earth is going to allow for that, life swirls in grey-green and sudden, clear air that has none of the rock in it, and Lex--

--remembers Atlanta. Burning. Chloe. Jonathan. Dad. Lana.

It's--achingly familiar. Strong arms around him, pulling him off his feet, damn Clark for being those inches taller that makes him tower, it's a killing psychological edge for most people. So warm, so close, his body's asking why he's trying to get away, asking it *really* loudly, because, because--

--this is right, wanted, needed, and God, so warm, like home, it's *everything*.

Peripheral vision tells him there are people watching, and they don't look like they're Clark's. Or anybody's, for that matter. Ragged clothes and desperate looks, fear and something that borders on--what the fuck *is* that, and this has to be another dream, he fell asleep in the room, he's dead, this is all some fucked-up hallucination and Hamilton's balls are gonna be fucking *spooned* out, please, please....

...please, God, please let it be a dream.

They aren't Clark's, these people, they're not anyone's, and they're look at him with *hope*.

Everyone needs a symbol, right, Lex?

"Go on, struggle." Tighter clasp, and the tip of Clark's finger slides beneath the edge of his jacket, under his shirt, finding skin, and it's like electricity. "It'll give them something to believe in. Or... don't. It's okay..." Clark's voice is soft against his ear, warm, wet breath. Tireless patience and understanding, and yes, say it, Lex, love, the kind that you can't ever escape no matter how far you run, no matter where you hide. Cities had burned for moments like this. Have burned. Are burning. "It's about hope, Lex. Hope for the future, and they don't see it yet. They need you for this. To make the transition easier. Fight me, Lex, if you want to. It's okay."

"You fucking bastard--" Pushes the words out, and those clear dark eyes are beautiful--Clark's never tried to hide, to lie, never needed to. His crimes are accepted, his sins are exalted, and God, Dad would be *so* impressed, so amazed, *this* was how it's done.

"It's okay." Gentle, tender touch to his cheek, and there's blinding joy in those eyes. "It's hope, Lex. They need this. You need this. I understand."

The sharp blow to the back of his head's familiar, too, and Lex knows it won't kill him. And being *happy* to know he won't die right here, right now, is probably the worst thing of all.

a handful of dust part 2