Rebirth

Everything changes.

Lex closes his eyes, opening them again on the walls of his office.

It looks like his office--like he left it only a few weeks ago, like it had been only seconds since he'd last seen it, from the polished wood of the desk to the wide, blinded windows that when open, would look out at the Metropolis skyline. The chair was his, too, soft leather almost melting under him, custom designed to him alone, and even the pen in his fingers is the one he bought only a few weeks ago.

It's his, all of it, and he straightens from the semi-slump, trying to find the dissonance. Every time, there's been something that felt off, but--no. It's his, like the way he knows the back of his own hand. A brief, internal glance shows only the faintest traces of that other Lex--echoes of familiar rage and even more familiar hate, so close to his own that he withdraws quickly, finding the world again with hands on the fine grain of his desk. Reality, solid and strong and perfect and *his*.

"Wow," he hears himself whisper. It could be his office in Metropolis, though cleaned from that temper tantrum he threw before taking off for parts arctic with a modified death wish. Running his hand over the smooth surface of his desk, Lex turns to look at the wide double doors that lead to his secretary.

His home. His *world*. Or so close as to not know the difference. Taking a deep breath, Lex relaxes in his chair, glancing at the open laptop. He doesn't quite recognize the charts, but he recognizes his own code. Kryptonite tolerances on living subjects; he knows the equations, though these are more advanced than he ever remembers achieving. Frowning, he watches the curve on the subject, not sure what the coding seems to be implying.

The low buzz of the intercom snaps his attention away. Lex pushes down the button. "Yes?"

"You said to tell you when it was time, sir." His secretary's voice is the same, sharp consonants, the Tennessee drawl of her childhood replaced from too many years on the east coast and midwest. "Do you want to be present when they finish, sir?"

Glancing at the laptop, Lex nods, then realizes she can't see it. He has to start somewhere, he supposes, wondering what kind of project this is. "Yes."

"I'll tell them to wait for you." She clicks off, the soul of efficiency, and Lex leans back, stroking lightly over the keys. Human subjects? Perhaps. Lex frowns. It's been years since he--since he closed those labs. Something just below ethics, some twitch of himself when he watched what he did. He'd never used any but volunteers or those already affected, dangerous to themselves and others, but--

But, but, but. Locking the laptop, that unbalance comes back when his password is the same. There's no way in hell that so much could mirror so perfectly--but it did, and closing the top, he stands up, straightening his coat from habit, before going to the door.

This should, at least, be interesting.

*****

Lex loves the labs.

Underground, mostly because it amuses him during the periodic Federal raids, the agents get jumpy just going down the elevator, and doubly amused when they come out on the other side. A lifetime of horror movies seem to have been their major source of inspiration for what he keeps down here, imagining body parts hanging in specimen jars, mutated creatures crawling the walls, and mad scientists cackling over living vivisections while the patients screamed.

That's just not Lex's style. Illegal he may be--and really, the line is so blurred--but stupid he is not, and so, their first reaction to the clean, crisp lines of lab tables, neat rows of beakers, and exclusively animal subjects, is always, always worth the hassle of getting his lawyers out again. It's just funny, on so many levels.

The door opens on a perfectly normal room, where a receptionist in a neat suit glances up from behind horn-rimmed glasses with a short, glacial smile. "Sir. Dr. Thompson told me to tell you they're ready when you are."

Lex nods, letting her code open the door, Sylvia on his heels like an extension of his body. Down this hall, another one, passing familiar experiments, familiar rooms, familiar faces he recognizes. They're even doing things he recognizes.

The startling glow of kryptonite green, however, makes him flinch, and he turns his head before Sylvia can see it, moving past the door as quickly as expensively comfortable shoes can go. Sylvia lengthens her stride to keep up. "I think that covers it," she says, and the pad vanishes again. Lex has taken inventory at considerable length of her body, but where she stores her office supplies is still a mystery. "As usual, your schedule has been cleared through tomorrow afternoon."

Cleared? Lex almost asks, but she makes a sharp right, and Lex blinks a little at the new addition. The door is new, too, and the feel of it is all wrong for titanium backed stele. The slow itch beneath his skin only confirms it. That particular mix isn't one he's ever achieved, though he'd burned out more metallurgists than he can count trying. The faint, greasy green sheen reflects his face like a funhouse mirror, distorting his smile into something more appropriate to the Joker.

"Sylvia--"

Standing in front of the door, she keys in something, and Lex watches the retinal scan glaze across her right eye. He follows her for the same, remembering how much he hates these, no matter their use in security, almost feeling the thin trace of red before it's gone, the door clicking open. He follows her in the door, too, fingers fisted to avoid rubbing at his skin. The sensitivity to kryptonite hasn't diminished over the years, and all the recent exposure seems to make it worse. Or maybe it's his memories that are doing that.

"It's been two weeks," Sylvia says, apropos of nothing, consulting a Palm Pilot with a faint trace of a frown marring her otherwise expressionless face. "Tests show there's been significant degradation, but nothing permanent."

"Degradation." The beginnings of a headache settles just behind his eyes, just what he needs.

"No permanent damage," she says, almost too quickly, and he can feel her move a little away. "Dr. Jorgenson assures me that they wouldn't take that kind of risk with it, sir."

Lex nods, reaching up to rub at his temple, wishing desperately that whatever this is, it could wait. "Of course." And maybe he should have been briefed first. "Is this going to take long?"

"No, sir, of course not." The baffled voice cuts off as she opens up another door. "Right in here. Everything should be ready."

The faces he knows, and in this case, he's not comforted. His head helpfully tries to offer up names and places, but everything in him is frozen by the familiar wall of glass, with the same faint distortion of green running through it. How the hell had he done *that*? The dark within reflects the room at them, solid white and steel, usefully insane scientists, and Sylvia, almost bouncing beside him.

"Sir." A faint nod from someone to his left, and Lex watches as the room illuminates, green through the glass, revealing a painfully bare white room, an emaciated body in filthy hospital pajamas curled in the middle of the floor. And like that, Lex is standing, watching himself at Belle Reve, except the man behind the glass isn't him.

It could be a lot of people, Lex tells himself, nausea rising, tamped down almost reflexively, and Lex takes a slow step toward the glass, the rising light outlining painfully thin flesh over sharp-edged bones, something out of a horror movie set in Auschwitz. The people around him are fixed on the scene like it's the latest blockbuster, which makes it that much more unreal.

Lex doesn't realize how far he's come until his finger touch the glass, feeling *current* in it, radioactive, something he can sense with every altered cell in his body. If he can feel it, then the man on the floor--the man curled pitifully on that greasy, glazed green floor--

"Superman." It's barely breathed, Clark's name catching at the back of his throat. Deep inside, something flares in rich satisfaction, arousal so sudden that Lex catches his breath. This--to this Lex, to this man--

"He's been unconscious since the procedure ended," a voice says helpfully to Lex's left. Eager. Excited. "Thank you for the opportunity, sir."

Thank you?

"Is he conscious?" Lex's lips feel numb, and he can see his hand shaking. Different world, he tells himself sharply. Different Lex. Different place. Very different man.

"No, sir." Sylvia, now, tugging at his arm. "Usual procedure, sir?"

Lex licks his lips. The light's so bright it's almost blinding, reflecting off green-tinged skin and green-tinged hair and green eyes that open slowly, as if even that hurts too much to bear. Blackish fluid drips slowly from the corner of his mouth to pool beneath his head. There are--bruises. Bone deep, skin deep. Unhealed--places.

It's someone else entirely who says the word, short and sharp, *eager*, so much his own voice, his own tone, that he barely realizes it's not him. "Yes."

From some half-seen door, two orderlies in pale purple come in, gloved and masked, leaning over to pick up the barely twitching body, pulling him up between them like a drunken frat boy. As they move to the door, Lex's eyes fix on the red-black puddle left behind on the floor.

"Sir?" Sylvia pauses at a door that he hadn't seen when he came in, the same general direction as Clark had been taken in that room. Was he expected to--no. Whatever he does here after--this--won't happen today.

"Have him--brought to the penthouse when he's--awake." Sylvia gives him her closest approximation of confusion, then slowly nods, stepping away from the door. "I'll be--waiting."

Sylvia nods, and Lex turns blindly toward the door, barely seeing the gathered scientists, barely feeling the doorknob beneath his fingers--all thought on *moving*, getting *away*--

"Sir?"

Lex freezes at the door, hands clenching. If he'd been armed, she would be dead. And everyone else here as well. "Yes?"

He can almost hear her thinking. "It should be in the hour, sir."

Lex nods. "Good." Pushing the door open, Lex escapes into the hall. Thousands of feet between him and the nearest bathroom, thousands of feet before--no. He won't think. Not about this. Not now.

From somewhere comes a startled, pained shriek, hoarse babbling that makes every nerve want to crawl out his skin.

Lex doesn't run for the elevator, but it's a very close thing.

*****

There are pieces of kryptonite imbedded beneath his skin.

That's the first thing, with the biopic and the x-rays, MRIs, CAT scans, other tests he's never heard of. Color pictures of vivisections and internal organs, green-metal retractors holding back living grey-green skin. Words like ants feet trailing over page after page, documenting the details of an alien life like a Discovery Channel documentary. Kryptonite worked into living muscle, killing by slow degrees, living wounds. They change the location to avoid permanent damage. Sometimes.

LexCorp's computers are marvels of fascinating information for the strong of stomach and lax of ethics, and the notes are perfectly organized and dazzlingly informative. It's everything he ever wanted to know about Superman, from the inside out.

Two weeks isn't the longest, Lex reads, finishing off the first bottle and opening the second without looking up from the laptop screen. Two months isn't the longest.

They've learned so much, he thinks numbly, ignoring the glass that broke on the floor halfway through the first bottle.

"Sir?"

Lex knocks the intercom off the desk, stepping on it as he scrolls down chart after chart after chart, technicolor marvels of blue-green-red and flowing lines, graphs and lines and bars. Somewhere outside his office, Sylvia is doubtless still pushing her little button with frantic dignity, but Lex is content to let her do just that for a while. His staff has always known better than to interrupt him when he's working.

Clark's files are the unfortunate tip of the iceburg, though--Lex scrolls through terabytes of data, skimming more information than he would have believed possible. Vague echoes of the Kryptonian equations he'd seen in that first universe of that other Lex. These, too, are his hand, footnotes in a hasty typed scrawl at the bottom of raw reports. Like him, this Lex does a lot of his own dirty work for the sake of science. Page after page after page. Database after database, experiment after experiment, inexhaustibly documented. He changed the face of human genetics. Makes everything he's done in his life--in any of those other lives--look like a kindergarten health class.

That Lex, so far beneath his skin that he can barely feel him--except he does, with every word. He knows the mind that created this, his own amused asides, the way he *thinks*. And this, Lex thinks numbly, line by line blurring by, is what he does.

He does. You do.

Jerking away, Lex slams the cover down, hands shaking. Belatedly, he's aware of the broken bottle at his feet, surrounding his shoes in a puddle of rusty brown. Two stumbling steps backward leave footprints the color of dried blood.

"Sir?" From the other side of the door, her voice is barely audible, but the doors are thick, so she must be on the verge of screaming. Lex blinks at the puddle, then slowly sits back down, pressing the button that allows admittance to the room. After a few long seconds, one door swings open warily, and Sylvia's pretty, expressionless face looks at him from beneath perfectly bobbed hair, eyes scanning the room before resting on him. "He's conscious, sir. Do you want--"

Want *what*? Lex tries to think of something to say to that. For what? Another round underground, where the sun can't touch him? They know so *much*, even more than he did before, the other Lex making every word, every syllable as familiar as his own name. A few days out of sunlight make the kryptonite superfluous. It's just fun to use. It's *useful*. Licking his lips, Lex wonders belatedly what shows on his face. "Where is he?"

She looks confused. "The penthouse, sir."

*****

There are a lot of ways to handle this.

In a different time, a different Lex had dreamed of something like this, and the reality is even sharper, even *better*. The penthouse is just as he left it only weeks ago, and it's not, in this one space, this one room. Occupation by two, not one. Neat rows of suits and casual attire in Clark's size on one side of the closet. Neat rows of shoes on the floor. Neatly welded manacles on the green-tinged bed by the window, bolted onto solid metal posts. Imagination isn't even *necessary*--Lex has had this dream more times than he can count, waking up in cold sweat and so hard his body aches. Jerking off to images of bringing Superman to this place, in this place, serving his every whim, chained to that bed, at Lex's mercy in every sense of the word.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Lex stares at the familiar bathroom door, all senses trained on the man inside. Clark's too-thin, too-tall body, leaning into the tile while he washed off weeks of sweat and blood and whatever else was on him. Clark--the Clark who couldn't even walk out of that room. Clark--

He's at the door before he knows he's moving, turning the knob and entering thick steam and an outline of a near-skeletal body leaning against the back of the shower through frosted glass, shoulders round, head bowed.

"Clark?"

The silhouette straightens instantly, head turning toward the door. The hearing should have told him Lex was there. The--the rocks might be dulling that. Taking a deep breath, Lex shuts the door behind him, waiting for Clark to speak.

"I'm--almost done." The thin thread of his voice makes Lex think of damaged lungs. Like the last Clark on his deathbed, voice barely a whisper.

"Do you need help?" He's not sure what's in his voice now.

"No. I can--" Clark pushes off the wall and almost holds his balance. A second upright, then he's stumbling, groping for purchase on smooth tile, and Lex is across the room, jerking the door open and catching Clark before he falls into the wall. Bones he can feel moving beneath his hands, black circled, bloodshot eyes, yellow skin as fragile as parchment, and that feeling again--that other Lex, who wants to tell him how this is done. We do *this*. We touch him and stroke him and comfort him. We bathe him and dress him and tell him how proud we are of him and then we fuck him. We tell him we love him and he believes it as much as we do.

Jesus Christ. Clark weighs almost nothing, a fragile bag of sharp bones and too-tight skin. Clark's stiff but makes no effort to pull away, like this is nothing new and even if it was, he wouldn't fight it anyway. The shower pounds water hot enough to injure through two layers of clothes into his back. Lex doesn't care.

Slowly, he kneels, bringing Clark with him. "You can't manage this in the--shape you're in."

Clark's head bows slowly. "I--no."

Lex licks his lips, the quick burst of arousal tamped down as quickly as it starts, forcing this foreign body into obedience as he reaches behind him to turn off the shower, an arm around Clark's waist to keep him upright. Slowly, he stands back up, balancing Clark's dead weight against him. "Bath?"

Clark doesn't look up. "Okay."

It's not easy to maneuver six plus feet of alien across the room to the tub, and that's fantastic, because all Lex's concentration is on remaining upright, holding Clark steady, lowering him carefully into the huge, luxurious tub, settling him so he doesn't go under instantly. The big hands lay uselessly on the bottom of the tub as Lex turns on the water, as hot as he can get it, watching the tub slowly fill.

Clark never opens his eyes. Steaming water covers him to the shoulders, and Lex watches him slowly slump down more. It doesn't hide anything--not the marks on his chest like burns, the fading red-blue bracelets on his wrists, the march of visible ribs to the plainly outlined breastbone. The full lips are marked with the imprint of his own teeth, sharp and jagged, barely healing. A fine vivisection line cutting up his chest, other--lines--that Lex recognizes from autopsies he's seen, lines that should never appear on Clark's body. On any body that still lived.

"Do you need anything?" It's a fairly stupid question, but Lex can't help voicing it. Clark's mouth trembles.

"Just, just rest. I'll be okay." Like he has to prove it, Clark brings up one limp hand, reaching for the bottle of shower gel near the lip of the tub. The big hand shakes at the touch, motor control shot to hell as he knocks it off, watching in dull disinterest as it clatters to the floor. "Sorry."

Lex picks it up with hands that don't quite shake. "It's okay. I can do it."

Clark's eyes close again, head turning a little away toward the wall. Slowly, Lex pours out the soap into one hand.

"I--did okay?" Clark's voice is so low Lex can barely hear it. Or he doesn't *want* to, soapy hand pausing a breath from the smooth skin of Clark's shoulder, eyes closing at the rush again--too fast, too hot, too *something*, and God, this makes him *hot*, makes him want to unbutton his pants and jerk them down, wrap his cock in those pretty red lips and rut like an animal. His body knows--it twists, trying to pull him to his feet, hand bypassing shoulder to rest on the back of Clark's neck.

He could do that, can do that, right here, and Clark would let him. Clark would do it. Clark would--Clark can--

His fingers clench on smooth skin, tight over bone and muscle, and Clark turns his head, all slow-motion, plenty of time to know exactly how this goes. Exactly what he does. Exactly what they are.

"Clark."

"I did okay?" Blank face, but heartbreakingly frightened voice. A kid staring at him from Clark's eyes, someone Lex has never met and met a lifetime ago, the boy at fifteen he never, never would have touched, never, never would have broken the fragile trust between them. Never would have, couldn't have, should never, should never, *should never*--

And his other hand is pressed to the front of his pants, fingers working open the button. He can still smell Clark's blood and sweat, beneath the scent of clean water and his soap. He's never been this hard in his life.

Lex jerks away, ass hitting the floor so hard he bites down on his tongue and tastes blood.

"Lex?" With a tremendous effort, Clark tries to lever himself up, eyes huge. His hand slips on the side of the tub, cracking his chin on the edge. "Lex--"

Lex pushes himself backward across the floor, back hitting the shower door with a jolt, putting feet between them he wishes could be miles. Hands pressed to the cold tile floor, Lex closes his eyes.

It's the mind, yes, brushing his, but the body, too, hardwired to this, for this, used to this, wanting this. And it's himself, in every filthy fantasy of half a lifetime's creation. Dreams made flesh stare at him with wide, confused eyes from the side of the tub.

Licking his lips, Lex forces it back--that other, himself, the pleasure in seeing this, feeling this, the reflexive need to take what's already his.

"Are you okay?"

Never again. He'll never not feel this moment, this second. He'll never close his eyes and not see himself, standing over a broken man and wanting only to break him more. He'll never-- "Why?"

Clark stares at him with blank confusion. "I--"

He can't sit in here and look at Clark--wet, small, broken Clark. He can't stay in here and see this and not want. Not touch. Not take. "Stay. There."

Clark subsides into the water instantly, but the eyes never leave Lex as he forces himself to stand up, walk by Clark to the door. Hand on the doorknob, he turns, fixing his eyes on a spot above Clark's head. "Take as long as you need."

Lex goes out, closing the bathroom door behind him, knees giving out as his mind offers up dizzying memories of fantasies and dreams and the most degrading, debased promises he's ever made.

He doesn't even realize he's shaking until he sees his hands, trembling fists pushing into the floor like he's trying to burrow through. Shakily, he stands up, knees water, getting to the bed by will alone. A slow collapse on the smooth surface of the comforter, this urge to wrap himself in it and go to sleep, never have to wake up and look at this. He doesn't, can't. There are a thousand things to hide from, but he'll never do it from himself again.

An eternity later, Lex hears the bathroom door open and close, the uneven steps toward the bed, stopping short just a few feet away. "Lex?" Lex keeps his eyes closed, wondering what Clark is thinking. If he even bothers. If Lex burned that out of him, too.

"There was--" His voice is hoarse, like he's been drinking for days. Weeks. He only wishes he had been. More than earlier. A universe of alcohol might not be enough. "People used to think mirrors would capture your soul. They covered mirrors in a house where someone died. So the soul couldn't get lost before the hereafter, whatever or wherever it might be."

Clark's silent. Lex imagines them in the castle for a second, telling Clark a story, the way that Lex never learned how to just say something. Couch it in metaphor or imagery, clothe it in the words of other people. He doesn't know how to be that direct. He's not sure at this late date he even can. "Where's the AI?"

Clark takes another slow step forward. "The AI?"

"Yours. The Fortress. What happened to it?"

"The remains make up the LexCorp computer core," Clark says slowly, and maybe he thinks Lex is crazy. Maybe he knows he is. Strange, inane conversation could be par for the course. It should be. No man should be like this and still be sane, be human. This--thing. He doesn't dare look at Clark. He doesn't want to know what else this body does, what it wants, what it knows. "Were you--injured when I was gone?"

Is that what he called it? What Lex called it? "Gone." You create your euphemisms to suit your aesthetics. Dirty words--sex and passion; death and dying; excruciating, *fascinating* experiments. It's a language all its own. Words that strip the power from the act, make it easier to swallow, make it simpler to accept. "Yes, gone. No." Lex stops, feeling Clark come closer. That higher metabolism, the sick twist of kryptonite imbedded in living flesh, just barely in the reach of his senses. A shift of the bed as Clark sits down, pulling Lex toward him by sheer inertia. "Remains?"

A tentative hand touches his ankle. Lex forces himself not to pull away, shift closer. He's not sure which response is the right one. "It was a danger to you--to us," Clark recites flatly. "It could have destroyed us if it wasn't contained. It was dangerous. It wasn't human. It wasn't th--"

"Stop."

Clark breaks off mid word, hand still and warm on his ankle. For a long time, there's nothing but the sound of their breathing, the hum of the ventilators, the shift of the bed beneath them. Lex opens his eyes on the ceiling. There isn't anything he can think to say. "Why?"

He feels Clark shift. "Why what?"

"Why this time?"

Clark shifts again, and the hand on his ankle starts to press, flattening on a slow slide up his calf. Lex wonders where this is going--it can't go where it seems to want to. No one--no one sane… "Clark." A slow, mechanical slide over his hip, and Lex feels Clark's bare knee press into his calf. It's like this.

It's like *this*.

Sitting up, Lex grabs the big hand by the wrist. Clark could shake him off like tissue if he wanted. He doesn't. The green eyes stare at him from a ashen face, exhaustion written into every line. "Why do I do this?"

Clark blinks, thick lashes shadowing his eyes. "I don't--what?"

It's not fair. Clark's hand is warm, limp meat, and nothing looks back at him but confusion. It pisses him off, irrational or not. "You're stronger than I am. Faster. You could *kill* me right now, even with that rock in your back. What the fuck are you doing here?"

The look doesn't change. "I can't go outside."

What the fuck-- "What the hell is he?" He wants to *hurt* Clark--that's got to be the other Lex, who can look at this and enjoy it so much. Want it so much. "You're the strongest man I know. Why are you here?"

Clark's eyebrows dart together--the big hand pulls away, so suddenly Lex almost forgets to let go. "I'm not a man, Lex."

No.

"And I'm not Lex."

For a second, Clark doesn't move, even breathe. "What?"

"What else do I do?" He can't sit still. Movement's more necessary than breathing. Sliding off the bed, Lex puts feet of space and furniture between them. "Run over puppies? Shoot fucking orphans during drive-bys of the local park? Tear the space-time continuum for *fun*?" Did he, would he, could he, is he? "Jesus, Clark, just tell me who the fuck I am!"

Clark shifts onto his knees, wincing at the pull on bony shoulders. He's so thin, it hurts to look at him, fragile the way that Superman could never, never have been. Like Clark never was. There's only resignation left. "I don't--I don't know what answer you want. You're--you're Lex Luthor. You're everything you ever wanted to be."

Two more steps, and Lex stands at the wide windows, blinded against the late afternoon sun. Jerking the cord, they slide open, but the expected golden glow doesn't reach his skin. It takes seconds, minutes, hours to comprehend what he's seeing--longer to accept it. It's Metropolis as it was before Xerxes, and it's nothing like it, bathed in watery green, shimmering in the distance. Looking up, Lex stares at the solid green where there'd once been nothing but blue, uncomprehending.

"Lex?" He can feel Clark's wary approach, even with silent feet on carpeted floor. Cat-soft and scared to death. "Lex?"

"I didn't do this."

Clark's only feet away when he stops. "They forced you to it. They wouldn't accept your plan. They--"

Jesus *Christ*. "Do you do anything but parrot back whatever bullshit he tells you?" Lex can't take his eyes off the city. It's the *same*--there's no difference except the sickly green. "How?"

"Kryptonite fallout." Clark's voice sounds thready. Lex wonders if he's coming closer. He can't bother to turn around and see. "Hydrogen--"

"Bomb," Lex whispers. Several, probably. God alone--or Lex's marvelously awake mind, already drawing equations on the blackboard in his head--know what kind of impact splitting the atom with a kryptonite trigger could do.

"The shields keep the cities safe." Lex shivers at Clark's voice, so close to his ear. Warmth just out of reach. "You keep--"

"How much?"

Clark doesn't pretend to misunderstand. "Sixty five percent of all arable land. You--clean it up."

Lex closes his eyes. Of course. "For a price."

"You're the only one--" Clark stops, staring at him, utterly confused. "What happened? You're--" Crazy. Utterly insane. No one sane would do this. No one sane would *think* of this. "Tell me, Lex." Gentle fingers brush his shoulder--Lex flinches, that other Lex murmuring so close to the surface of his mind that it would be too easy to just give up. Let the AI pull out what's left if it can, or leave him to rot here. It doesn't matter. It won't ever matter. "Lex."

In the reflection from the glass, Lex watches Clark's hand hover, uncertain. There's so much here he can never accept. That he has to, and there may be no time for this, but he has to, has to, *has to*-- "I'm not Lex."

Clark's hand drops uncertainly, one foot stepping back. "I don't--"

It's easier than he thought. "There was an organism. Not long ago. It was--something. We don't know why. I don't care why. It destroyed half the country. It killed everyone I--know. It killed Clark. And the AI sent me here to find out how to beat it."

If he didn't know better, Lex might think Clark stops breathing. Clark's eyes catch his in the glass, a perfect reflection of expressionless shock. The big hands clench into fists.

"So I'm not Lex. This Lex, anyway." He waits for Clark to look away, but Clark doesn't, just stands there, like a complete fucking moron, or a man with no idea what the script's supposed to be.

Finally, the big hand falls on his shoulder. Lex can't pull away, can't even *think*, eyes glazed with green skyscrapers and green streets and so he turns when Clark pulls him, feeling smooth palms cup his face, and the kiss is so soft, so slow, that he can't even try to fight it.

He thinks he's going to pull away. He wraps his hands around bony wrists and thinks he's going to pull away, but it never comes. Soft hair brushes his face, the faintest trace of stubble scraping his lips, and Clark makes it all so *effortless*, and somehow, they're on the bed and he's stretching out on impossibly soft sheets and Clark's fingers are fumbling open the buttons on his shirt, pulling it from his pants--faster at his belt, the softest whisper of leather before it hits the floor.

It's almost enough to make him open his eyes, but he never wants to do that again. He opens his mouth--God alone knows what he'll say--but Clark's back, warm tongue exploring his mouth while a big hand closes over his cock--oh God….

"Clark--" The sound buries itself in Clark's throat. He thinks there's something he should be saying--something important, something *necessary*--but it's swallowed up by the first slow stroke of his cock. Clark has amazing hands. And he knows how to use them.

He moans when Clark pulls away--his hands are buried in Clark's hair and he hadn't even known it, twisted between his fingers like he won't ever let go. Clark's warm, wet mouth takes a scenic route, licking slowly down his collarbone, stopping to lap tenderly in the hollow of his throat. Gentle, God, almost sweet, almost better than anything, and Lex bends a knee at Clark's urging, feeling the heavy body settle between his legs. Mouthing his nipples hard and aching for the fingers that follow, licking a slow circle around his navel, and he's arching, pushing his cock into Clark's belly, his chest, his--oh God, his *mouth*, those soft lips wrapped all around him and taking him down so fast he can't breathe, like drowning.

"Clark," he hears himself whisper. This is all wrong, except it's not, and he's not sure why it's supposed to be. Thrusting up with careful strokes, making Clark follow his rhythm, and he just *does*, like he knows it, one hand carefully stroking his balls, the other braced on the bed to ride every roll of Lex's hips. It's never been like this. It can't possibly ever have been this good. All that focus, a need to please that makes Lex tighten his fingers, push it harder, fuck that pretty soft mouth, he could--he would--he can--he *is*--

"Clark," he says, and when he opens his eyes, the naked, helpless *fear-hope-need to please-have to please*--just makes it so much better. Press his foot into Clark's back and hold him there, *take*, coming so hard that the entire fucking *world* is an explosion of light so bright he could go blind and not even care.

Clark mouths him down, slow and easy, and Lex, boneless, feels him move, sliding back up to ease down beside him. When he opens his eyes, Clark's looking down at him, lips swollen and red, and it's sexy, it's the *definition* of sex, but the look in his eyes shouldn't be and is, making him hard again, too soon. Lex untangles his fingers slowly, hands spasming from the grip. Clark turns his head to brush a kiss against his palm on the way down, and Lex's hand freezes on one cheek, cheekbone jutting against his fingers.

Have this.

"Jesus." He's got to*stop*. Stop reacting, start thinking, start putting this together. He's here--he's here for-- "I did it, didn't I?"

Carry doesn't lean into the touch so much as accept it as necessary, a pale tongue darting out to lick, and Lex jerks his hand away before he does something else. Something even less a good idea, even less-- "Stop that."

Clark jerks away like he burns, and Lex pushes himself up, tucking himself back in his pants, feeling like he just might be sick. "I'm not your Lex."

Clark doesn't so much as *twitch*.

"You don't believe me."

There can't be a safe answer to that, Lex realizes as Clark's lashes fan down. Maybe there are no safe answers with this Lex. Maybe every answer is the wrong one. You choose your euphemisms to suit your aesthetics. You choose your conversation to suit the madman who locks you up with his scientists when he gets angry. Or bored. Lex scoots farther away, trying to give himself space to think. Stop reacting. Think. Think. Think.

"Interdimensional portal. The body's his, the mind's mine." Clark's eyes flare for a just a second. "You know what I'm talking about."

Clark licks his lips. "You--were on the edge of a breakthrough. On the multiverse. Using the computer's stored data. You said you--that you wished you hadn't burned out the AI before you discovered how--how-" Clark falters, blinking slowly. It's fascinating--Clark draws himself back onto his knees, staring at Lex like a nightmare. "You. Lex."

"Same name, different man." And so much alike, it bends the mind. But Lex isn't going there again--that way leads surreal landscape and blowjobs and God alone knows what else. Straightening, Lex watches Clark.

"You--in your--world?" Clark measures out the words. "You're--not Lex."

"I'm Lex Luthor, not *this* Lex." This could get tedious very fast. Clark draws back more. Lex tries not to take it personally. Too personally.

"You want something. From here."

The calm is too calm. Reminder of the deathly silence before a storm, all still and quiet and then--something. God knows what this Lex has taught Clark. "Yes. An answer."

Clark nods slowly, sitting back on his heels. A long time ago--so long that Lex can't even mark the time and place--Clark would look at him like that, on that edge between necessary doubt and hopeful belief, the way Clark always wanted to believe him and never quite could make that last step. It was, Lex thinks in retrospect, a look he should have known how to interpret a long time ago. "What happened to L--to this Lex?"

"He's here."

"And--and after?"

There's a lot to be said for settling into informative conversation, fast and sharp and completely able to block out everything. "He'll be back. No worse for wear." It would make him wince, but he's beyond the indulgence. "I need help."

Clark stares down at his hands for a few seconds, and Lex can almost see that mind pulling things together. Everyone who thought Clark Kent was a little slow had been fooling themselves, and Lex is included in that group, unfortunately. It'd been years before he could acknowledge, even to just himself, that even beyond the powers, Clark could still have given him a serious run for his money. He thinks fast. And he thinks completely different from anyone else. That's not the alien, either, because Clark isn't an alien in any way that counts. It's just--him.

"How?"

So far, so good. "Let's say where I come from, I didn't--get this far." Ever wanted to. Maybe? No, don't go there, don't think that, don't--do that. It's not *him*, it's someone else. "I don't have a lot of time."

"An organism in your world. What kind?"

So Clark *had* been listening. "Mechanical and organic. Two worlds back, dad called it Xerxes. Seemed appropriate." In so many ways. "Kryptonite power source."

It's like he's seeing a different person entirely from the one who just blew him into a guilt-thickening orgasm. Interesting. "Yes."

Clark nods, sliding off the bed, completely ignoring nudity and still-weak limbs, looking off into the distance. "We had one of those."

Lex breathes out. "Yeah. The AI thought so."

Clark's head whips around at close the speed of light. "The AI--"

"You--kept it. You called it the Fortress--"

"Of Solitude." Almost involuntarily, a corner of his mouth twitches up. "Yeah. I remember."

There are so many questions to ask that Lex is stumped on which one to pick. And none are necessary for his mission. Plan. Thing. It doesn't make it easier not to ask them.

"I need the data."

Clark's head tilts. "You need to know how to defeat it."

It would almost be spooky--it's like a completely different man is here now, and no one changes personalities that fast without a serious psychological condition making the transition easier. "To destroy it."

"You--was I--" And like that, just to fuck with him, that other person slides out, nowhere except behind the green eyes, watching him warily.

"You tried." Lex wonders what's showing on his face. "You--succeeded in stopping it. For a little while."

Clark nods slowly. "I--it wasn't easy." Completely naked, completely at ease--it's almost unreal. Lex watches, trying not to be fascinated. "It was--a long time ago." The dark brows draw together sharply. "I don't remember much about it."

Lex pushes that aside. "Clark--my--the Clark from my world--he couldn't kill it. He was--" Exhausted. Angry. Grieving. Now, he can think it, say it, even mean it. "Everyone we--he knew, died. There wasn't anyone left." And Clark needed that connection, needed it like people needed air. The part of Clark that was always vulnerable and could never stop.

They stare at each other, all full of questions.

"Why are you telling me?"

I think that performance in the bathroom explains *that*. "Because it seemed like a bad idea to try to be--whoever he is." And there's no way Lex can do it and not enjoy it. It's not quite bleedover--he's not sure what it is, but it's there, like this Lex has an access that feels natural. A direct hardwire to his thoughts. Separate, but not quite. Almost--almost-- "And I need help. I've done this four times. And nothing. I need to get it right this time."

Clark's at his unreadable best, like Superman when he was feeling particularly non-judgmental and ready to knock you on your ass when you fucked up. The nostalgia's curdled with the touches of that other--old rage, unhealed and frighteningly close. Like right now, seeing this part of Clark, pisses him off beyond belief, and Lex feels the rise of sharp, deadly words, just to bring back that one that obeyed without question. Lex clenches one hand, nails cutting brutally into his skin. The wave of pain helps. A lot. "I need your help."

"I--don't remember a lot of it. But Lex kept recordings, somewhere." Clark frowns, blinking a little. "He's going to be so pissed when he--when you leave."

Oh yeah. The others will pale in comparison to this one. Power and the will to use it, backed with the kind of blind rage that Lex himself had learned to temper. Maybe getting the world at your feet does corrupt, but in the most simple ways. It makes life a series of no-consequences. Jesus. Would he have been like this, able to strike out just because he could?

You did, you do, and you are. Very simple. "Can you handle that?"

The blank looks is back. "I have, for years. There's nothing he can do to me that can--surprise me. And nothing I can't imagine. I'm--valuable." The slight quirk of one corner of Clark's mouth tells novels. He's right, and right in ways that make Lex twitch in odd places. Lex won't kill him. That would be easy. It would have been easy. Is easy. No Lex in the universe, in all its infinite diversity, would choose a dead Clark over a living one. Or take it easy when it can be hard, and interesting, and useful. Valuable.

"I don't--" Want to do that to you, what the hell? He already had this Clark, and he knows himself. That alone--that *alone* would be enough. "You don't have to--" Lex stops himself. He's turning down help? Is he *crazy*?

Clark shrugs, then seems to realize he's naked, a fact that Lex hasn't stopped being aware of for a single second. "I should--" The flush isn't unexpected, but it should be. This Clark probably doesn't do that much. "Just a second, and I'll show you how to access the mainframe. Lex--built a lot of safeties in." Clark turns away. "For the protection of LexCorp projects."

"How to clean kryptonite poisoning." No use in poisoning the land if you can't clean it up afterward. That's suicide, and for Lex, for any Lex, suicide isn't an option.

Clark tosses a glance over his shoulder. "You'd be surprised what you can learn with a captive Kryptonian and a lot of really smart scientists."

Lex nods. There aren't words, and he wouldn't say them if there were. Clark vanishes into the closet, and Lex considers the slant of green on the floor that means the sun must be setting.

When Clark comes back in, Lex is still watching. "Kryptonite shield?"

Clark glances out, casually pulling a t-shirt over his head. "Not exactly. That's what's outside the shield."

What's outside-- "That's reflection from outside?"

Clark's head nods through the t-shirt before it pushes through, tousled dark hair and solemn, tight mouth. Habit, Lex thinks. Clark doesn't look like someone who smiles very much anymore. "More or less. You'd have to ask the physicists to get something clearer than that, but--yeah."

Lex stares up into the bright green ball of sunlight. "No one could live out there."

"A lot do. The shield also keeps them out of the city." Clark absently sits down on the edge of the bed, and Lex watches in fascination as he pulls on socks. "More outside than in the protected cities. They tend to be--unstable."

There are so many ways that disturbs Lex. "Mutants."

Clark's head lifts briefly between socks. "They aren't human anymore. Some aren't even sentient."

Lex digests that. "I did that. He did."

Clark pauses, mid-sock. "Not--on purpose. It was a combination. The Justice League--well. The government sort of forgot how to negotiate without them."

Lex blinks. "With me."

"It's complex." Clark pulls down the edge of his jeans, then stands up, glancing out the window expressionlessly. "Everything went wrong. I don't think Lex ever forgave them for pushing him that hard."

"*Pushing* him?" And if Clark would look even a little appalled, it would be easier, except that's a lie. Nothing could make it easier. "Genocide isn't what I call resistance to being manipulated. It's--"

"They wanted your kryptonite research." Clark sits back down, arms braced behind him. "They wanted a lot of things that you couldn't do, even if you wanted to. They would have broken LexCorp--"

"And this was a solution?"

Clark shrugs. "It wasn't supposed to be this--powerful. Smaller area, more contained, just a threat, an experiment. But Kryptonite--reacts weird. There was this storm or--I don't know how to describe it. And it was a big chain reaction. The prototypes for the shields went up almost immediately, but--" Clark shrugs. "I wasn't--around for a lot of it. Lex explained when I got out."

Got out, from an experiment, from containment, from whatever Lex did to Clark when he was unhappy and needed a target that could always come back for more. "And you believed him?"

Clark stares straight back. "No. But I believe the computers. He kept me under until it was over. He didn't want me killed by the storms."

Lex closes his eyes. "Because you would have tried to help."

"That's what he said, too."

That wasn't reassuring. "I--" Understand.

Clark nods back, like he hears the unspoken, and Lex thinks of the Clark he remembers. He was Superman and Clark, he practically *invented* the multiple personality concept and did it better than Sibyl and a few hundred horror movies combined. But this. He can't quite wrap his mind around it. Staring out the window is more comprehensible, and that's saying something.

"It was--an accident. He was forced to it."

Every muscle clenches when he turns around. "It's a choice."

It's a choice. You get up in the morning, you have breakfast, you pick your clothes, you pick your life. You choose.

"It's not--that simple."

Strangely, it was. "It's always simple. Everything that creates the it is complex, but in the end, it's simple." You do, or you don't. Jesus, he can almost *see* Clark, see Superman, saying just that. Pompous son of a bitch. And he'd said it, and then he'd thought it, loudly, in Lex's general direction every time they met. The helpless resentment that Clark always tried to hide, the disgust he never bothered to. Your choice, he said, and he might as well have said, and look what a fascinating mess you've made of it.

What a truly *spectacular* mess.

"You should have killed me." Lex hears the words, and it may be his voice, but he's not sure he recognizes it. "Him. Me. Whatever pronoun works."

Clark's head tilts, confused. "Why?"

That he can say that-- "You can't see out the fucking *window*?"

Clark's blank face could be an answer in itself. "Then there'll be no one. No one who knows how it started, how to fix it. No one who--" Clark stops again. "You don't understand."

"I have an extremely well-developed sense of self-preservation." And Clark never managed to develop much of that, by the way. This one-- "He's going to kill you. Jesus, he'll kill the whole world if he feels like it." Because you don't go this far without being willing to go all the way.

Clark shakes his head, almost too quickly. "He would never--"

"He would. He did. He will again, next time he gets bored and Jesus, you know this. You have to." No Clark in the universe was that stupid or that optimistic. "You *know*."

Clark's head tilts again. "He has the world to jump when he says to and a living, breathing science experiment. Trust me, he's entertained enough."

"And you're willing to be that?"

The green eyes fix on him with a level gaze. "Yes."

*****

Clark logs him into the mainframe, then leaves the room.

It's--weird.

It's more than weird. All the Clarks are recognizable, but in an infinite universe of infinite variation, there's this one, too, just recognizable enough to hurt, just unfamiliar enough to feel like someone ripping off a scab every time he opens his mouth. It's like chewing on glass, cuts everywhere and bleeding out, but no way to make him stop.

There's an almost uncontrollable urge to follow, and God, it's fucking Smallville all over again, with Lex chasing Clark who chases God knows what. A Clark who doesn't bother pretending and never bothers hiding anything, not even the glimpse of his scarred back, where a Lex implanted kryptonite chips to keep him safely earthbound and an endless source of entertainment.

It's just the right combination of sadistic and practical to be right up Lex's alley. Constant manacles cut down on maneuverability. And there's nothing like using someone's own body to betray them, to give it that special, dehumanizing touch. Psychological warfare never gets boring.

It's just simpler to focus on the information, scrolling by as quickly as Lex can read it.

"You know, it's easier that way."

Lex jerks his head up. The room's still empty, and his cellphone's in the other room.

"Oh please. You've done this for five different worlds now." The amusement's cut with bitter rage, the kind Lex curbed before he finished his twenties. It got him nowhere except the emergency room with broken bones and a truly spectacular series of front page Inquisitor issues. "You know who I am."

"They never manifested vocally, either." Is he talking to himself? He's not sure he wants to know.

"There is that. Auditory hallucinations. Interesting pattern of brain damage. I miss the AI sometimes. It was an interesting experience."

"Destroying it?"

He can feel the smile like he's wearing it himself. "Listening to it beg for Clark's life. I was cutting it to pieces, fragmenting its consciousness, and all it could think to ask for was poor, mistreated Kal." The voice stops, curious. "You want visuals?"

No. "You can't."

"Those are words I don't believe anymore." Another pause. "How are you keeping me--inactive, anyway?"

Lex would like to know how he got this active, but a slide inside to check out the state of his mind seems like a bad idea, all things considered. Last time he'd tried that, he'd ended up shooting his way through LuthorCorp, which, while cathartic, hadn't been on his list of top ten plans. "Establishing dominance is the first step toward satisfactory relations. Didn't Dad teach you anything?"

There's a flicker on the edge of his vision. His head aches suddenly, a pounding migraine striping up the center, like a machete carving up the center of his skull. Eyes wide, Lex grabs for the desk, satiny wood sliding beneath suddenly sweaty hands. "Yes. That's--interesting."

Lex forces his teeth together and bites into his tongue, hard enough for the shock of pain to narrow his focus. "Back the. Fuck. Off. Or I'll make sure by the time I leave this body, there won't be much of it left for you to return to."

And he means it. Suicide isn't a Lex thing, but homicide's right up his alley. The anger again, almost blacking out his vision, then slow recession. Spots dance in front of Lex's eyes. "Calm down, Lex. That sort of spike can be bad for your--sadly weak mind. You've done a lot of damage, you know."

A slimy feeling, of cool fingers trailing through his closest memories, pulling some out for a look, passing over others. There's nothing quite like it. "I don't--this is my imagination."

"Kind of. While you were having some kind of crisis of conscience, I thought I'd explore my newly smaller residence. You're--different." Flavored with the curiosity that's as much a part of him as his eyes. "But not so much."

Very much. "My idea of a good weekend isn't genocide."

The snort's like a breath on the back of his neck. "Please. You're just pissed it didn't occur to you first. If it's any consolation, you couldn't do it--I had Clark two years before I figured out to make it all work together."

The images that follow are sharp and slick, like expensive photography, glossy and brilliant. Time is nothing in your own head, so it's an eternity of things he's never seen--Clark in the labs, Clark on long, cold-white tables under brilliant lights, and vivisection was just the warm-up exercise, so much blood that anyone human, even superhuman, should have, could have, must have died. And to look at him--and Lex has, that long, perfect body--the only scars are the new ones.

Lex's stomach turns over, but it's worse, somehow, when he can't--quite--make himself stop watching. These aren't new, they aren't strange, they're the natural outcome of a thousand threats and promises. They're *real*, and he can fool himself about everything but that.

"It was fun." And that does it, that feels true, that feels like something he'd think.

"I watched him die."

"So have I. And I brought him back."

You can't strangle a disembodied voice. He could try, and that would prove once and for all that every thing his father ever said about his mental stability was absolutely true. But then, everything he's said has turned out true. Ruled by his emotions. Unstable. And dangerously short-sighted.

Very dangerously short-sighted.

"You think I couldn't put a knife in your chest?" Lex says, and the other slinks by, smug satisfaction, as bright and cold as starlight, slipping through his thoughts. "Right here and right now."

Hesitation, like a crack in ice. Lex feels the shimmering of doubt. "You wouldn't."

Lex grins, feeling a heady rush of satisfaction, like a car going off a bridge, or threatening a man who has everything to lose. "I'd tear up LexCorp while I did it. I could email some *fascinating* information out too." Lex lets his certainty bleed through his thoughts. "It's not my world, after all. I don't have a damn thing to lose."

For a second, the other Lex pauses--and that's all Lex needs, slamming down against the foreign, chilly thoughts, pushing them under, and he's not even sure *how* he's doing it, but he does. When his eyes open, the room is empty and tinted in dark green from the setting sun, and Clark is standing at the doorway, as blank as a new sheet of paper.

When Lex looks down, he sees a mangled pen in one hand, ink staining three fingers, spreading black across the keyboard of the laptop. He unclenches his hand, stretching his fingers.

Uncertainty. Lex could like this, if it wasn't so very close to absolutely crazy. "Is everything--" Clark stops short, eyebrows drawn sharply together. "You were--talking."

Lex drops back in the chair, eyeing the laptop. "You have all his passwords?"

Clark blinks. "Yes."

"And you never thought to use them?"

That second. Just one. Clark looks back at him and it's obvious, no, he didn't. Not once. Not ever. It's unbelievable. "Why not?" Like a brick wall, or a clean slate. Lex doesn't fuck around when he destroys someone--he does it all the way. And every memory is *there*, everything that Lex had shown him, and seeing the progression doesn't make it any easier, just a fuck of a lot more comprehensible. "I never knew I could."

"Stop." Clark looks just plain tired now, and it could be, oh, the fact he just got out of the last of Lex's little laboratory adventures, which is almost enough to shut Lex down like a closed door.

"I just--"

"What?" If he can get an honest emotional reaction out of Clark, something involving his windpipe and superstrong fists--he can say he'll be thrilled, and in so many ways is this second the funniest of his life. "Jesus, Clark--"

"You're here for two days, Lex. You can't--can't--you don't understand it." Clark comes in the room, but slowly, and his eyes flick to the blinds left open, pouring progressively darker green onto the floor. Masochism--the new black. "You just--God. Did you do better?"

"Yes."

Lex stops, breath catching in his throat. It's an amazing concept, unfolding like an origami crane, showing everything, and under Clark's wide eyes, he *knows* it. "Yes, I did do better."

Clark looks away first.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

Lex gives the ink stained laptop a long look. "Yes." And with Lex's memories, it tells him more. "You killed Xerxes."

Clark blinks, frowning a little. "I don't--"

"It took a while." It took a long time, as long as it took Clark to die. But he didn't, because he was stronger, because the JL had still been alive to help with the thousand other crises generated by Xerxes, and because that day, there'd been no one to protect.

No one for Clark to protect, and no one to protect the JL or Superman, either. Watching Clark's face, he thinks of all the things that have happened, one thing that came out right. It shows all over in the honest confusion in Clark's face. Clark doesn't remember how his friends died.

"You were weakened after Xerxes," Lex says instead. "Kryptonite poisoning."

Clark nods slowly. "I woke up--a long time after. In the lab." Clark pauses. "I never expected to wake up at all."

That's in the memories, too. Lex pushes them away, wondering if it's so wrong to think about giving up.

"Did you find out--" Clark's voice is far away, even though he's closer. Lex reaches for the shutdown, closing the laptop, watching the dark outside that makes Metropolis something he can deal with. For a little while.

"No." And maybe he never will. All these strange, different lives, these different worlds, and when he goes back, it's back to the medical lab and back to his room and then back to that chair to try again, and again, and *again*, no matter what the AI says, because while this isn't much hope, they don't have anything else. Brain damage, he thinks, looking down at his own hands, still on the edge of the desk. Not coming all the way back. Not coming back at all. "I'll have to do it again." And again. And again, until he doesn't remember who he is, when all the other Lexes in his head overwhelm the native resident, and Christ, that's what the AI was trying to tell him about these worlds, these lives, and he didn't understand, not until now.

Clark's at the edge of the desk. "How many times have you--done this?"

Lex closes his eyes, the lids painted kryptonite green. "This is the fifth." And maybe there's only time for one or two more jumps before Xerxes is awake and Lex is out there, because who else can stop it? Who else can even try?

"Tell me about it," Clark says, slowly, and Lex looks up. "Xerxes. What happened. I--it's the last time. That I did anything. I--I always wanted--" He stops, mouth compressed to a flat line, and Lex wants to reach for him. The green eyes flare with something incandescent. "The last time I did something right."

It's. Like that. Lex licks his lips. "The JL found it early. They tracked it, kept it distracted. It--gets its power from the sun. Like you do." Lex pulls in the other memories--what difference does it make, really? Even if he went back right now, there might not be enough time. Even if they had a plan. Synching them with his own, Lex pulls it together. "It wasn't--as strong as it could have been. The JL set up a perimeter and you went to fight it. The last resort was transporting it into space. It might not kill it, but it would go dormant." God, how easy that would be, but the power they would need, power they don't have. "You--fought it. Until it burned out all its store of energy." And your own, too. Not counting the cost. "After--after you melted it down into its component parts. The--" Lex stops, mouth going dry. "You were burned out."

From across the desk, Lex can feel Clark's steady gaze.

"And. And after?"

Lex came climbing out of his bunker and made a plan. And the exhausted JL, almost unconscious Superman, they were all the threat of toilet paper. Put them on the run, took them out, did it all the way, because he knew that if he failed, he wouldn't survive, no matter the JL's position on human life. When Clark woke up, his world was circumscribed by a five by five foot white block cell, and in some ways, Lex never let him leave it again. Not completely.

"I don't know." Lex lets his hands slide off the desk. "It's not--easy to access his memories." It wouldn't be, but this Lex is perfectly happy to share, the images flashing by at the speed of light, burned into Lex to keep for good, even after he's gone. The exhibitionist in them both, wanting to show off what they've done, how smart they are, how fucking brilliant. Reaching up, Lex rubs his nose, twitching at a tickle. When he touches, his fingers come away wet.

That, the other Lex says, suddenly wary, is new.

No shit. Lex pulls away and stares at the blood. There are, he's sure, laws of physics that he's breaking doing this.

Instantly, Clark is kneeling in front of him, and the tickle is stronger, and Lex licks his lips, tasting blood. "Lex." Something against his nose, soft and smelling of copper and detergent, then Clark is tipping his head forward, trying to stop the bleeding.

Rupture, he offers up. It never occurred to me before now that just maybe, this sort of thing could be as hard on the body I'm borrowing as on mine. The other Lex isn't amused. Lex doesn't mind.

A few long seconds pass in a blur. Lex's head is tipped back. The taste is on his tongue, coating his throat. If he were anyone else, he'd be nauseous, but this is all par for the course for him.

"How do you feel?" Clark says, what feels like hours later. Lex let his head back up, wondering if he cares enough to go to the bathroom and wash up. All systems report no interest in moving. That works.

"Okay, I think." Maybe he should sleep. This body doesn't feel unrested, but he spent a lot of his late twenties taking speed when he didn't feel like sleep was required for sanity. Not to mention his teens. He's not sure what a normal body is supposed to feel like.

"Has this--has it happened before?"

"My body, yes." Though this is new and probably disturbing. Lex rubs, feeling the blood begin to flake off, half-dried, clinging. "Not so much in the host."

Clark is staring at him. "Did your--AI explain about complications? Interdimensional travel, even if it's not the body--" Clark stops short, taking a breath. "I--remember what the AI taught me. A little. It's fragmenting you."

That's the word. Like a click. "Yes."

"How long do you have here?"

"Two days."

Clark's hand on his jaw tilts his head down. Lex pushes the cloth against his nose, but no more bleeding. "Can it tell when you're going into distress?"

Lex wonders where this is going. "Constant monitoring of my body, yeah."

"No, here. This body."

That--Lex isn't sure of. "Maybe. I don't--it never came up." And in retrospect, after all this time, maybe he should have asked about that.

"It should have." Clark pushes up, hand slipping from his cheek. Lex almost leans into the fading touch, catching himself at the last minute. "I--this thing you're doing? It's been done before."

Lex blinks slowly. w"I--"

"It's been done before, and it isn't done often, because it's complicated. Moving a body is hard enough, but moving a mind--" Clark stops, frowning. "All those--four others? You bring them into every mind. It's--the human brain doesn't have that kind of capacity. Not for the lives of five people."

Lex almost smiles. "I'm not human."

"When you go back, there'll be six. And even I couldn't handle that."

Lex stops, staring. The implications aren't pretty. "I was--fine last time." He thinks. Maybe. "Some rest. Some relaxation."

"Some psychosis." Clark's breath catches. "It's cumulative. Your world--it's really dying, isn't it?"

Lex stares into the green eyes and doesn't flinch. "If this doesn't work, yes. It's already--" Bad. Nightmarish. And no end for anyone, not unless it's death. "It's--disassembled right now. It's pulling itself back together. There's no one left who can fight it and win."

Clark's mouth works for a second, then he looks away.

"How do you know so much?"

Clark's eyes stay down. "Before--before the AI was destroyed, it--called to me. We--it did this thing. I didn't get it all, but I got most of it." His head comes back up, and Lex feels a flare of other Lex's shock and hate and rage, and if it's like that, buried so far under Lex's consciousness, then Lex doesn't even *want* to know what it feels like up close and personal. Clark must see something of it on Lex's face. "Yeah, he didn't know about that."

Didn't know--and everything Clark says to him, this Lex knows too. Jesus. "Then why the hell are you telling me?"

Without a word, Clark kneels in front of him, and for a horrified moment, Lex thinks that this is all going to go south again, literally and metaphorically, but Clark just takes the cloth from his hand, flipping it to a clean side, and reaches up.

When he pulls it away from Lex, it's clotted in dark blood. "Because this jump, you're not going to survive."

*****

If his secretary looks confused, that's okay. Absolute obedience and unquestioning fear have so many excellent uses, and one of them is avoiding questions. "Where are we--how do you even *know*?"

Clark follows him to the elevator, murmuring the secondary passwords, and Jesus, he's not sure what's going on and isn't even sure he cares all that much. There's a fresh handful of tissue in his pocket and he's sniffing every time his nose tickles. He can't smell anything but blood.

"I know," Clark says, once the elevator starts going, "because I know what the AI knows. And it didn't send you into this without either really, really wanting you to die in a very obscure way or wanting you to succeed and be back in time for it to fix the damage."

Lex stares at the LED. "We're being recorded."

"You're the only one with access," Clark says. That almost makes sense. "Tell me--" Clark frowns, hands fisting. "I only know--it's been fixing you between?"

"Yes." Lex thinks of the third jump, shuddering a little. "I had neural damage after the third time. I was--treated." This last time, just some time in the lab, asleep, and hours to do nothing but sit and wait. "There weren't any--this last time, I came out fine." Give or take a bad dream, but who the hell *wouldn't*?

"Maybe." Clark stares at the falling numbers on the blinking screen like he's willing more speed. "I--there should be a--trigger. What pulls you out. Two days is the maximum before the brain starts breaking down under the pressure. Don't ask why. I don't know that much. But the core programming might."

Lex stares at the falling numbers, then sniffs back something liquid. Pulling out a tissue, he holds it up, wondering if he's going to be sick. It's like bathing in blood--the smell coats everything. 'The AI was destroyed." Lex imagines the AI in the arctic and shivers a little. Murder, the word fits.

"But we kept core functions." Clark leans forward, entering another code, and Lex freezes at the retinal scan.

"That's new." There definitely hadn't been one of these in the elevator to the labs.

It hits Clark, too, and the door seems a little indecisive before sliding open. "No one comes down here but you and your pet programmers." Coming out, Lex take a glance around the single large room, then freezes at the massive structure at the center of the room.

A weird, and unaesthetic, blend of human and alien technology, but Lex supposes that when yo'rue trying to make something work, you don't care much for how it looks. And huge, yes, a column of gunmetal and silver and blinking lights right in the middle, reaching up four stories. Christ. Makes LexCorp's computers looks really, really crappy. Workstations stationed on every level around it.

Circling it, Lex takes in the keyboard, English, and the Kryptonian one behind. "He knows Kryptonian?"

"No. Lock out access."

Lex turns, blinking. Clark's still standing at the elevator, looking at him like he's an idiot.

"What?"

"Lock out all other personnel, unless you want to be interrupted. It's kind of a twenty-four seven to keep this thing going--it does all the work for the air and water purification Lex is doing, and holds all the data." Clark frowns at the doors. "The rotation is once every fifteen minutes, maintenance every night. Someone's gonna come down here."

Shit. No, no interruptions. Lex walks back, staring at the keypad, a mix of numbers, letters, and symbols. "Do you know the code?"

Clark shakes his head. And fuck. Also, fuck. "Right." And he has no fucking clue. Lifting a hand, Lex studies it a few seconds, a glance inside checking the inner--

--and no. No. Lex drops his hand. "The only way I can do it is if I ask him, and trust me, I can't--invite him back up."

Far beneath, Lex can almost sense disappointment. Sorry, you sociopathic bastard, Lex thinks, with a little mental wave that is so much more petty than it feels. Just stay the fuck away or I'll start entertaining myself, and I'll start with your feet and work my way up.

"Can you take it out?" Lex says slowly, and beside him, he feels Clark twitch. Even from here, Lex can sense the kryptonite. Tiny. Just enough to keep him weak. Not enough to lead to--anything else.

"Maybe. But--" Clark stops, staring at the door for a second. "This is the only way down." You won't be able to get back out, he doesn't say. Clark with his almost-invulnerability, yes. Lex, not so much.

"That's okay," Lex says, taking a step back, then another. It all comes together, the most beautiful plan in creation. He's always been good with plans. "I don't plan to leave."

*****

It's enough like the AI for Lex to be disoriented--and some part of him keeps searching for the AI's voice, the instant communication that's forever missing. It hurts, and he didn't expect it, and every touch of his fingers on the keyboard reminds him more.

Clark, cross-legged on the floor, drones out access instructions, but his eyes keep flickering to Lex on the completely wrong keyboard. "Do you know Kryptonian?"

"You could say that." Lex flicks along the keys by memory, pulling up pages of data on the recovery effort, scrolling by, closing. "I've had a lot of time with the AI. What am I looking for?" So much fucking *data*. The AI's capacity was enough to hold an entire culture. This Lex had kept the capacity, and even with all of that, there was still room to spare to control the cleaning of an entire planet.

Clark pauses. "Access to the databases. We'll want the specs on the device the AI is using to send you through."

Not the hardest thing ever. Lex skims past things that, in another life--hell, in *his* other life--he'd be memorizing. Energy theory. Particle physics. Wormholes. Jesus. Fucking *space exploration*, on the galactic scale. The Kryptonians had beat the speed of light. This fucking *close* to folding space.

Lex forces himself by it. "What do we need to know?"

"How to send a signal back to activate the pull out. The AI is probably handling it through a set of calculations--in your time, how long? Are you here?"

Lex frowns. "Ten minutes? Fifteen?"

Clark nods, like this all makes sense. Lex turns to watch the green eyes go distant. "Good enough. Okay. Found it?"

Lex scrolls faster, pushing a tissue against his nose at the next tickle. It's not as much as before, and he drops it in his lap. "There's not a lot here."

"It adapted from something." Suddenly, Clark is leaning over his shoulder, and the smells of shower gel and clean skin is almost overwhelming, even with the copper taint. Lex draws in a breath, pushing down completely inappropriate reactions, and forces himself to concentrate. "It's dangerous, so they didn't use it often." Clark's hand catches his. "Try from here."

All those fucking equations again. Lex lets them roll by. They make as much sense as the first time--vague recognition of something huge and physics-shaking that Earth science hasn't even come close to. "I remember seeing this."

"It built something to interface with you." Clark leans closer, and soft hair brushes Lex's cheek. "How long did it take?"

"A--a day." This is so the wrong time for this body to pull *any* shit like that. "Maybe more, but not much. I--" Don't remember.

Clark's hands push his out of the way, and Lex closes his eyes. "You--um, stupid question at this point. Childhood Kryptonite exposure?"

Lex almost smiles. "Yeah."

"Just double checking." Clark does something loud, computer making a weird noise. "Okay. Now--just have to--" Clark stops, and Lex opens his eyes on a nonsensical screen of random symbols. "It's going to take a while for it to--find you. Your--place." Abruptly, Clark leans back. "Not too long, I think."

Lex turns in the chair. Clark, standing only a few feet away, is watching him again, and this time, Lex knows the look. "It's hard to look at me." And see that other Lex still, no matter who inhabits the skin.

Clark smiles, and it's so sudden, so blinding, Lex's breath catches. It's like they just met. "No. It's just--it's you." The green eyes flick away, and Lex watches Clark pace away, banked energy in every jerky movement. "I thought--I thought this must have always been there, for him to--do this. That I was--that I was wrong."

Lex stiffens. That, he hadn't expected. "It was."

Clark shakes his head, smile fading from everywhere but his eyes. "No. You don't get it. I thought this was all there was. That that was all he could be. That'd I'd been wrong about him all that time."

Christ. "You weren't." Really weren't, and Lex's tongue tries to form the words, stop the hope he can feel like the sun. "Clark, it's not--I'm not--" That much better. Any better at all, really, but even Lex can't believe that. "In my world, we weren't friends."

"In your world, you didn't burn out the sky." Clark's stare is almost challenging. "He can be--he could--"

Oh God, no. No. "You can't--Clark, you can't help him. You can get the fuck *away* from him. You can kill him. You can sow the fucking ground he walked on with salt, but you can't *save* him."

Clark shakes his head. "You--"

"There's better, and there's worse than me. This man? You can't help. You can't change."

"Why the fuck *not*?"

This isn't Smallville. He won't let Clark hope that, let himself remember when he thought the same thing. "Clark, you're--while I'm in this body, you can *leave*. You can't stay because you think he'll change--"

"He's better than this! You--"

"I wasn't better!"

Clark stares at him, chest heaving, marshalling a thousand arguments, filling his eyes like heat. They'll sound reasonable and sure, because this is Clark, and Clark is absolutely like no one ever born. He believes things. Incredibly stupid things. But he believes them.

"We were enemies." Lex takes a deep breath. "We hated each other. We tried to kill each other. When I get back--when I get back, I don't have any enemies left. Superman's *dead*. And I'll be able to--" Lex feels his voice catch. "If I want it, the world is mine."

"Do you want it?"

Do I?

Yes. It would be easy to say the word, but it's not true, not the way it should be, not the way it's supposed to be--the culmination of a lifetime and he's. Not. Sure. "I don't know."

Like this. This easy. No.

The green eyes hold his. "What's the difference?"

That's the hell of it. "I don't know."

Clark stares at him, like he just might try to argue the point, and Lex searches for every argument he can think of. There aren't any. The Clark of his world had known, in the end, and hadn't at all. He'd died for it. This one--won't. "He has to want to, Clark."

Wanting so desperately to believe in something better. "Lex--"

"I *know*. What he is. Who he is. And you do too. This is--" Lex motions around the room, trying to ignore the chill bite of the air. A computer built on the remains of a murdered AI. A world built on a single, burning vision of winning at all costs, any cost. "You don't go this far if you ever plan to come back. You never go this far when you think you might want to. There's nothing *here*."

Clark turns away, and Lex slumps down, rubbing his temples. The low-grade pain makes him nervous now--aneurysm, blood clot, maybe some kind of strange neural damage. His body can heal anything, given enough time. Rubbing his nose, his fingers come away clean.

"Let me see." A rough hand tilts up his chin. Lex doesn't bother pulling away, closing his eyes as Clark's hand tightens, turning his head. "Okay, so far so good."

"The third time--" Lex stops, opening his eyes to see Clark crouching in front of him. "There was--"

"Combination?"

Lex nods.

"Fourth time?"

"No as much."

Clark nods, like it makes some kind of sense. "The AI is--I think it can fix most of the damage. It's just--" Clark shakes his head. "Even with your mutation, it's dangerous."

"Apocalypse is an amazing motivator." Straightening, Lex pulls away from the now gentle hand, glancing at the screen. Still sheets of numbers, flowing by like water. A world's entire culture, everything it was or would ever be, here. And in Clark.

Clark, and Lex now knew what was in his head, and how he'd hidden it. Lex leans over, pulling up a screen. A few flicks of the keys, and a different kind of information rolls by, more comprehensible than Kryptonian, but not by much.

"Lex?"

"Is this hooked up to the LexCorp network?" Copying every file he can get.

"Yeah."

"This has all the core commands and functions?"

"Heavily encrypted." Clark stops short. "What are you doing?"

"When this is over, you have to kill him." Lex leans down, pulling up the edge of his pant leg, feeling the ankle holster beneath. Some things will always remain the same. Unfastening the flap, Lex pulls out the gun, still watching the screen, then holds it out, hilt first. "Two shots to the back of the head. If you wipe out higher brain function, the body won't be able to access enough neurons to complete regeneration." Even if it can, the regenerated body won't be anything more than a vegetable. Lex can live with that.

Beside him, Clark is very still. "I--can't."

"This is where you don't say that." There's no way he can send the entirety of a database like this over the network, but he can send enough for others to break in and take it. Backdoors, codes, and everything in between. Kryptonian algorithms make him wish, a little wistfully, that he had time to learn. Amazing. "This is where you say, yes."

When Lex looks at him, Clark is staring at the gun with wide, disbelieving eyes, and the hands fisted at his side are shaking. "Lex--"

His Clark could never kill in cold blood. This one-- "You know what he is."

"That doesn't mean--"

Lex lets his hand drop. "You said you wanted to remember the last time you did something good. This? Is good."

"Murder is never--"

"It's not murder. It's--" Putting down a rabid dog. In the back of his mind, the other Lex simmers, that slow angry boil that never cools, never calms, never rests. He could be this, so easily. So fucking easily. "Clark--"

"I can't kill him."

And it's like *that*, like stone, like writing on the wall, and Lex stares at the gun for a second. Far below, he can feel the restlessness rise up, nipping at the edge of his mind with sharp, broken teeth. So angry. And so fucking *stupid*, too dangerously smart, too ruthless, to be safe in a locked room, a locked cage, anywhere he can breathe. I *know*, Lex had told Clark, and it's true. This man can't leave this room alive. "He can't be free, Clark. Not now." Not ever.

"I can--"

"You can't. Not with him. Not ever."

He'll die if he does, murmurs the other Lex, so low that it could be his own thought. Where else will he go? What will he do? What do you think we left of him that can do anything at all?

Holding the green eyes, Lex takes a breath. The gun is warm in his hand. His palm isn't even sweating. "I can do it myself."

Clark startles like a deer, eyes widening. "No."

"I can do it when I feel the pull of the AI, before he gets control back." There's a weird kind of freedom in it--almost a trade. His head's aching, and he can't smell anything but his own blood. He might not make it back sane. He might not make it back at all. A trade. The universe that Clark died to save will die, but this one won't. Clark's always been resiliant. He'll get through this. He can get the world through this. "He can't--Clark."

Clark just stands there, disbelieving and not understanding. His Clark had never understood sacrifice either, not really. "I don't believe that."

"I do. I know. There's nothing left to save. There hasn't been in longer than--" Maybe the length of Clark's life. Lex isn't sure. The other Lex is shifting with every drop of blood, and Lex wipes it away with a sleeve, licking his upper lip. Copper-bright, somehow reassuring. Maybe the gun won't even be necessary. But overkill's never a bad idea.

Maybe--

The sudden spurt of blood surprises him--Clark moves almost too fast to see, pressing soaked tissues over and over, the other Lex surfacing in the far back of his mind, pressing hard fingers into his temples like guns, pushing toward the surface of this thoughts--

--don't let him--

--and in the far off distance, Lex feels it start.

"Not yet," he whispers. He can feel Clark urging him to the floor, on his hands and knees, blood soaking a shirt now, and when he looks up, he sees Clark, pale and terrified through red-glazed eyes. The other Lex pushes, pushes *hard*, reaching out--

--that gun has kryptonite bullets.

"Christ," he whispers, fighting the AI, fighting Lex. Not yet. Not like this. Not when he's not done. "Clark, I can feel--it's--"

Clark's hand is gentle against his face. "You have to go back. I can--"

"You can't," and the other Lex echoes it, amused and enraged and too strong. He won't kill Clark. He'd never kill Clark. He hates him too much to ever give him that kind of peace. "Kill him, Clark." The gun is--somewhere, Lex thinks vaguely, reaching out a groping hand. One shot and he can do this to himself, he still has enough control for that. He can just--reach out. Push it against his chin. Pull the trigger.

"No, Lex." Hands cup his face, green eyes staring into his. "That's not who I am."

No. "And he's not what you think he can be," Lex whispers, the floor dissolving beneath him. "You can't save him."

Clark's thumb touches his lips, achingly sweet, painfully slow, the middle of a dying world, a field in Virginia. Christ. He can't do this, he can't live with this, he shouldn't *have* to. And for the life of him, Lex isn't sure he means Clark or himself. "But I can save you."

The last thing he sees is Clark's smile and then there's nothing.

ending