Category: Clark, Clark/Lex, futurefic
Rating: R
Spoilers: everything
Summary: Clark surrenders to the inevitable.
Author Notes: Molly promised me fic for this.
Archiving: Yes
Disclaimer: Belongs to DC, Warner Brothers, probably other corps, but not me. If it did, I wouldn't feel the need to write this.

Sometimes, Clark watches the sun rise from the top of LuthorCorp headquarters.

The view is beautiful, overlooking the edge of the park in downtown Metropolis that Clark takes Lois to during lunch. There's a bench by the lake that's sunken so deep in the trees that he there's nothing but the feel of warm forest silence, and Clark can close his eyes, imagine he's in Smallville and fifteen, falling in love for the first time.

He misses being fifteen.

Clark likes it there, the silence and the stillness and Lois' smiles and sharp mind. He's never brought Lois here, though, even though his keycard still works and no one ever asks him what he's doing when he climbs the steps. It's an unnecessary risk, but he never questions why he walks when he can fly.

Sometimes, he comes up to the roof and watches the sun rise.

But only sometimes.

It was eight years to the day. Funny, that he'd remember that now, and strangely appropriate.

It wasn't eight seconds or eight days or eight years that made the difference, fifteen to twenty-three, innocence to experience; it was progressive knowledge, realization, understanding what he hadn't before, what he'd chosen not to see.

He wasn't good at lying to himself. God knew, he'd practiced selective perception to the point of a fine art, but taking Clark out of Smallville hadn't taken the Smallville out of Clark, and God knew, Lex had tried.

They'd both tried, and in the end, didn't that count for anything?

Apparently not.

Clark listened to Lex breathe as he sat by the fire and shut his eyes, a thousand memories of nights like this playing through his mind.. It was always meant to end like this--somewhere, he could hear his father's voice, telling him--

Thinking, hoping, believing, *wanting*--

Well, who the fuck had decided that for him? When had he asked for that?

"Clark?" Sleepy, low, not quite awake, and Clark stood up, crossing to the bed and looking down at Lex for what seemed like forever. Pale skin, almost translucent against the dark sheets, long fingers relaxed against the pillow, hard lines around his mouth that hadn't been there when they met. Taking a long breath, Clark lowered himself slowly to the edge of the mattress, drawing a finger down the line of his jaw, feeling the relaxation of every muscle as Lex slipped off into deep sleep.

He'd always given Lex peace when few things could. He'd always known that.

"There are things I need to do, Lex," he whispered, stroking the soft skin, letting himself, just this last time, not so great a sin, touch. Just for now, for this second. "You know--you always thought destiny was something you could fight. That if you just worked hard enough, you could outrun it like you did your father. You can't. I *know*, Lex."

Eight years. Eight long, difficult, but not bad years, not on the scorecard at the end, not when he did the math. Adulthood and graduation and two degrees, and this man who could give him almost anything and had, except the one thing--the only thing, it turned out, that even Lex Luthor couldn't buy.

"It was always real, though. I know that. I know you tried, and I know you thought you could do it. I know that."

The one thing Lex couldn't buy, couldn't create, couldn't even understand. His father had burned it out of him years before Clark had even touched foot to this planet.

"Lex?" Rubbing into the shoulder, knowing Lex always woke for that, blue eyes opening as he rolled onto his back, sheet slipping down a bare pale chest, blinking up at him with the little smile he'd never seen Lex give to anyone else. Only his, only for him.

"Hmm?" Shifting slightly, and Clark bit down into his lip, tasting blood briefly. "Still angry?"

Clark licked his lips, trying to keep his face still, knowing Lex could read him better than anyone living.

"I love you," he said softly, and leaned down, taking that perfect mouth, first time and last time, familiar and brand new. A thousand different moments flashing through his mind like this--on the river, in the Mansion, against the side of the loft with Clark's father downstairs and both of them trying so hard to be quiet.

First times.

Rebellion.

Nothing could save Lex from himself. Not even Clark. The proof was spread across Lex's desk downstairs. Not the first betrayal, but the first Clark couldn't ignore, sweep under the carpet, quietly derail before it came to anything.

Eight years, that made the difference between the twenty-one year old heir apparent and the most dangerous man alive. Eight years, to wait and hope and pretend that this was the first time, last time, only time, that the ruthlessness he'd always felt beneath Lex's skin would never be unleashed, that Clark could be the brakes that Lex had never had.

That he could hold a man like Lex, when even Lex's father had admitted defeat. It would have been easier to walk on water.

"Something wrong?"

Lex was too quick, too smart, too suspicious even now, automatically sitting up and a hand against Clark's face, eyes narrowed in thought. Tactile study of the tense muscles, reading him with touch.

"You're still upset about it, aren't you?" Practical. "He's a threat, Clark. It's business. You know that. I have to."

Have to. No choice. This time. Never again. Lex never lied, not really. It was never the same thing twice.

Clark drew in a breath. Eight years between fifteen and twenty-three did mean something after all; eight years with Lex and eight years hiding so much. He pulled out a grin, and pushed Lex into the bed.

"I know."

Kissing him, pinning him down into the mattress, curling himself warm around flawless bare skin. Lex's arms around him and the warm mouth and the utter *give* of his body, turning it over to Clark without hesitation, without thought, without question. Clark closed his eyes...

First times.

It was ironic to think it was Lex that had given him that lesson, finally, made him believe it. Made this moment inevitable.

Sometimes, he wished Lex had broken him, like he'd broken so many others so carelessly, so casually. He could have--at fifteen, Clark had been fragile and changeable and *breakable*. But Lex Luthor in love was a different man entirely than the one that stood in the boardroom at LuthorCorp. Clark was his luck, his free pass, his talisman; he'd sooner destroy himself.

He would. Clark knew that in every bone of his body, had always known. Somehow, on the scale, Clark knew he'd never be capable of loving anyone, anywhere, the way Lex loved him.

"It's always been you, you know that." Whispered against warm lips, Lex's hands restless in his hair, over his back, digging invisible lines into his skin, all the marks internal, all the scars only written in his mind and soul.

Now.

He could do this. Remembered Cassandra and her vision, how it felt to feel them from her mind, but this time--

--this time, *taking*.

Away.

...a beginning....

...a friendship....

...everything....

Pulling back, shutting his eyes, and Lex was asleep, boneless and twenty-one again in Clark's mind, untouched. Come morning, Lex won't remember.

Anything.

Sometimes, he thinks about the first time he came up here, wide-eyed and startled by the hugeness of Metropolis, and Lex laughing at him when he walked to the very edge to stare down at people like ants so far below. Lex, who climbed up on the lip of the building to look around the city, studying the world he was waiting to own. Arms around Clark's waist and lips against his ear, making promises he'd never be able to keep.

Pulling his knees closer, Clark adjusts his glasses and waits for the black to give way to grey, to long orange fingers spreading over the city, heat and light against his skin. It's a indulgence he rarely allows himself--feeling the wind rushing over him as if it wants to take him with it and sometimes it does--hearing the sounds of the city awakening with the blast of horns so far below they'd be indistinct to anyone without his hearing--the smell of the landfills and asphalt and tar and millions of people.

Far distant, there's a silver-blue Porsche that's breaking every law in the book. It hurts. Clark wonders when Lex bought it.

Maybe he'd always known, which was why it was so easy. So little written history, first because Clark was a minor, then a student, public reporter, and Lex, the visible son of a multi-billionaire and then owner of the largest corporation in America.

They'd been discreet, but maybe for themselves as well. Clark had never been able to share, any more than Lex.

Eight minutes to ponder, and fewer to finish, removing physical memories one by one, and in his tiny apartment on the other side of the city, he curled into the shower and cleaned Lex's scent from his body, hands pressed to heated tiles, head down beneath the spray, and--and--

He broke down in the shower and hated himself because this was exactly what he was supposed to do.

So easy. Lex had made it easy. He could rewrite their history in the time it took for the morning to break.

He watched Lex at sunrise from the sidewalk and the blue eyes never saw him at all.

Yellow-gold in the sky, he goes back down the stairs, emerges onto the street as the Porsche pulls haphazardly into the no-parking zone and a drone appears from the building as Lex Luthor gets out, pulling off a driving glove and looking around at his city with the cool possession of a living emperor. Ruler of all he surveys, no brakes at all.

Everything he said he'd never be, everything he always was.

Their eyes meet only briefly and sometimes, Clark sees....

Almost recognition, startlement, the heat that had been between them on the muddy edge of a river bank and that first touch that had changed them both. Staring at each other in that frozen moment of time for the memories Lex no longer has and Clark can't bear to ever forget.

Just a moment, and Clark, every time, hopes/thinks/prays/believes that he made one mistake, that he didn't do it completely, that the space between them will be crossed and Lex's hand will be on his shoulder and he'll just look and *know*--

Lex, who loved him. Even for this, Lex would forgive him. Lex would forgive him anything.

"Sir?"

Dominik, who touches Lex's arm and the blue eyes look away, and Clark moves now, turns away, walks down the bright morning street as the city awakens. Glancing back, seeing Lex disappear into the building, moment dismissed as fantasy, already forgotten.

Sometimes, Clark wants to, too.

But only sometimes.

The End