Touched, Part One (Strange and Beautiful sequel)
Well, I don't know how popular this is going to be, but here is the sequel for Strange and Beautiful. Several commented at the end of that one that I shouldn't leave Clark like that and that I should write a sequel. Well, I'm not one for actually liking to backtrack on ground I've already covered, so a sequel isn't something I'd ever thought I'd write.
However, I did get a pretty good idea of how to handle the rest of the story and get Clark to a happier place, so I've been working on this off and on for a little over a year. Finally was able to finish it on the heels of finishing up Superman for Sale, so I hope people like this ending. This story has far more Bruce in it than I'd originally intended, but I think it makes sense.
This is sort of similar to Abyss in one sense, except it's Clark instead of Chloe and magic instead of Brainiac, but that wasn't intentional. Any similarities were coincidental since I started working on this before Abyss aired.
Title: Touched: A Sequel to ' Strange and Beautiful'
Author: D.M. Wyatt
Pairings/characters: Clark/Lex, Clark/Bruce - mentions of Oliver Queen, John Jones and others
Rating: R, mostly for adult themes
Warnings: Physical and Emotional hurt/comfort, non-graphic sex, non-graphic dub-con, future fic, post rift, songfic
Verses: Smallville/Batman Begins-The Dark Knight cross-over
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 13,487 (total)
Short summary: This takes place about a month after previous events, Lex discovers he hadn't really anticipated all of the consequences of the spell that had made Clark his. He also discovers that Bruce keeps his promises.
Author's Note: Being a sequel, you might want to read " Strange and Beautiful" before reading this. Yet, I think this story does stand on its own well enough that may not be required. Although I consider this a songfic, it probably isn't. While the story was strongly influenced by VAST's "Touched", I listened to it a lot while writing and that song probably did add to the flavor, there is little that directly relates to the lyrics. However, I do include the lyrics and a link to the song at the end if you're not familiar with it.
Thanks to my two lovely betas, who I think helped made this a much better fic than it would have been otherwise, ctbn60 and cycnus39. Thank you.
The wonderful cover is thanks to ctbn60.
~:::~
Lex sipped his drink as he watched Clark on the monitor. Lex had asked Clark to wait for him and waiting he was. He had no reason to ask for Clark to wait for him, he wasn't busy. Lex didn't have anything else to do.
Nothing at all.
Yet he watched Clark, the former Superman, wait. It was somehow strangely satisfying, but also just... strange.
The thought occurred to him, as he watched, to wonder if it had been worth it. The spell the wizard had cast on Clark had made him Lex's, but at what cost?
He took another sip of his drink and watched as Clark again straightened his tie.
A guest was expected and would arrive soon. Clark had said he wanted everything to be perfect. So after Lex had left him alone in the living room with some vague excuse, Clark never needed specifics, not anymore, he had fussed over the minutia in the room. He hadn't needed to, of course. The maids kept everything spotless and in perfect order, but Clark had done it anyway.
He had straightened the pictures on the walls, like he always did. That made sense since Lex had a strange new habit of adjusting them slightly so that they didn't hang straight.
Clark didn't complain about Lex's new habit or even ask why, he would just straighten them.
Lex wasn't sure why he made them crooked. He didn't like to think about why, so he had never bothered to articulate the reasoning behind it, but he always did it anyway.
Maybe he got some sort of perverse pleasure from watching Clark go throughout the penthouse to straighten what he'd set crooked. Or maybe it's just because he wanted to see if Clark wouldn't straighten them, just once.
That was a vain hope, because this new fussiness, this particular brand of obsessive compulsive disorder that Clark had developed, wasn't getting any better. In fact, it was getting worse.
When Clark had first woken up in Lex's bed the month before and had given him that adoring look and spoken his name, Lex had waxed poetic and told Clark how perfect their life would be now that they were together. He had believed it at the time, and with every fiber of his being Clark still did, but Lex recognized now that telling Clark that had been a mistake. He shouldn't have set that unrealistic an expectation. He should have known that happily-ever-afters were never in the cards for a Luthor. There would be no happy ending. Not for him.
He knew that, especially in moments like this when Lex despaired at ever finding true happiness with Clark. When he could look at Clark while he was unaware of his regard, Lex could see why it hadn't been the right thing to say. Too bad he had realized this only well after the fact.
Professing his undying love and devotion to Clark, to Superman, had been pure sappy romantic bullshit. Lex knew that now. He hadn't sounded like himself. He didn't act at all like the Luthor who had planned, carried out, and had gotten away with possibly the most scandalous kidnapping in history. Yet, he'd been sincere at the time. However, now, the problem was that Clark had taken his words too much to heart.
Ever since those ill-considered words the former Superman had strived, with everything he did and said, to make Lex's life as perfect as he could. So he fussed and straightened and vacuumed and tidied and constantly cleaned things, including himself. He took several showers a day and never wore clothes more than once before they went, neatly folded, into the laundry pile. If the maids didn't take care of the laundry quickly enough, he worried when the germ ridden garments stayed in the basket for more than a few hours, then he would do the laundry himself. That wasn't the bad part. Worse was that he did the wash naked, unwilling to soil his clothes by allowing them to touch dirty laundry. The maids learned quickly to check the basket quickly, so that they wouldn't run into the naked man sharing Lex's apartment. Lex warned them about doing the work promptly and he went through quite a few maids who weren't up to the task of matching Clark's new and exacting standards on promptness, but Lex didn't really mind.
It was only because Clark did everything he had thought that Lex wanted him to do. Clark was doing it out of love, even if his newly exacting nature was too intense for the women who worked for him. Even Hope and Mercy were a bit creeped out by him and came into the apartment itself as little as possible.
The obsessive nature of Clark's efforts proved that he wasn't the same man he was. What was worse, Lex feared he never would be again.
Yes, the wizard had done what he'd asked, but the results weren't anything like what he'd hoped. The wizard had warned him that the affects of the spells he'd woven over Clark might not have all the desired affects Lex had expected.
Dammit, Lex thought. The man had been right, but this?
Could he live another minute with this man who’d been remade into some abstract version of Clark?
If he was being honest, at this very moment, he wasn’t sure that he could say yes to that.
Lex sighed as he took another sip of his scotch and watched Clark straighten while so smartly dressed. He wore a dark gray suit with a crisp white shirt and silver and black striped silk satin tie. The suit fit Clark perfectly and the colors suited his complexion very well.
The clothes he wore were worth about a month's worth of the salary from Clark's former job the Daily Planet, the cuff links and watch alone were worth about half a year's worth. His closet was filled with more than a million dollars worth of wardrobe and accessories, an amount he probably wouldn't have made in a lifetime working at his former job at The Daily Planet.
Of course it was his former job because Clark wasn't a reporter anymore than he was still Superman.
Clark Kent was Lex's, so of course Clark had to quit both of his jobs when he'd come to live with him. Not that the Man of Steel had complained. Lex had wanted him to complain, had even expected him to, but Clark hadn't.
Lex was annoyed because right now he just wanted Clark to be still and simply sit. He wanted to enjoy seeing what Clark looked like dressed the way Lex's money allowed him to dress, but Clark fussed and straightened. He redid the work the maids got paid way too much money to do, yet Clark didn't seem to want to stop moving as he obsessed about every bit of minutia in the room, making everything as perfect as he could.
It wasn't something Lex figured he could get used to. He sighed as he took another sip of his drink and waited to for the second man to arrive.
The Lex was anxious to watch the interplay between the two men, once the other man finally got there. Of course he was late. He guessed that the second man wouldn't be as patient in waiting for Lex as Clark had proven himself to be.
After the other man was finally shown into the living room by an openly contemptuous Mercy, Lex was soon proved right. The man wasn't at all patient. The man didn't wait long before he started to fumble and say something awkward to Clark.
Of course it was going to be awkward. Given the last time he'd seen Clark it had been when he had been nude while he'd been unconscious under the man's spell, there was probably little doubt any attempts to talk to Clark would be lame and ham-handed.
Lex felt vaguely pleased as he watched him try to draw Clark into a conversation, but the more the man tried the more withdrawn and broody Clark got, and the more confused he became. Lex knew it was a futile effort and let the man deal with the awkward situation alone for far longer than he should have, but it was a pointed exercise.
Lex wanted the man to understand exactly what it was that his spell had wrought.
Clark had given up any pretense at wanting to talk to the other man and ended up only scowling out the window as the wizard poured himself a stiff, a very stiff, drink, all the while looking anxiously at the inhumanly still Kryptonian. Lex finished his own drink, set down the glass and stood. He straightened his tie and cuffs then buttoned his jacket.
Lex resisted the urge to sigh and walked out of his office into the hallway. As he entered the living room, he could feel the tension in room almost like it was something you could touch or feel. In fact, Lex thought he could almost smell the wizard’s fear. The man's fear of him made Lex smile, but Clark didn’t seem to notice or care how disturbed the little man was.
Clark simply stood and looked out the window across the stunning view of the Metropolis downtown. The sun shone onto his face, sculpting him into the image of a Greek god.
Lex looked at him a moment before he made his presence known. Clark turned and grinned the most gorgeous smile Lex had ever seen. Lex's chest tightened as he looked at the naked emotion, the intense adoration, on Clark's face. It was overwhelming.
As Clark smiled he literally lit up the room, even as the sun streamed into the window casting him in a golden light, the moment stretched and Lex lived in it. Every second was a millennium and every heart beat took an eternity. In the new world he'd created, a world he'd always wished he could be in and never thought he would get, Superman loved him and looked so perfect it was like an artist had created him.
His skin pure and unblemished and his smile was pure joy. He was a living god.
And the god was his and loved only him, thought of only him, wanted to please only him.
The smile and love he could almost feel as a tangible force as it poured out of Clark made everything else worth it.
Lex welcomed Superman into his open arms as Clark kissed him passionately and too deeply. The ardor he showed for Lex was quite inappropriate in front of a third person, too intimate, but propriety didn't seem to concern this new version of Clark that Lex had ended up with. Yet, it was a major turn on, making the wizard watch as Clark kissed Lex intensely, his tongue disappearing into Lex's mouth as strong hands that could crush steel lovingly and tenderly held Lex, but the other man clearly didn't like it.
The man cleared his throat and, interrupting, said tersely, "I don't like being here, Luthor. If you have something to say to me, just say it, and I'll go."
Lex pulled out of the kiss and looked at the man. "Yes, of course, Robert." He looked back up at Clark. "Clark, can you give Mr. Webb here and me a few moments?"
"Of course, Lex..." Clark looked confused for a moment, unsure what to do, he asked in a very un-Supermanly small voice, "Shall I wait for you in the den, or... the bedroom?"
Lex smiled warmly at Clark, "No, it's a nice sunny day. Go out and swim some laps. I'll join you as soon as I'm done talking with Mr. Webb, but I'll keep an eye on you."
"Anything you want, Lex." His voice was low and throaty, like a soft promise given to a lover in private, not in front of a third very uncomfortable man. Given direction, given something specific to do, Clark's beautiful smile returned as he began to undress while he intently watched Lex, the promise of imminent sex smoldering in his eyes and emanating from his very being. What Clark did wasn't obscene or raunchy or even particularly racy, but still it was clear that he undressed for Lex's benefit, no matter who else was in the room. The way he slowly took off his clothes proved it.
The wizard's face flushed bright red and any protest he might have made was strangled as he fought hard to suppress the urge. He turned away and poured himself another drink, filling the tumbler to the brim, uncaring when some of Lex's 100 year old Scotch spilled on the spotless white carpet.
Lex smirked, he knew Clark would clean that later, before the maids had the chance to, but he wouldn't stop to clean it now. Nothing that happened once Clark was given a task turned him from it. Not even the new spots on the carpet made Clark pause.
Undressing in front of Robert was even less appropriate than kissing Lex as passionately as he had, but it didn't bother Clark at all. Lex had told him to go for a swim and swim he would and he was going to do it the way that Lex preferred him to, in the nude. Even as he undressed in such a way to excite Lex, Clark still made sure to fold everything neatly so he caused no wrinkles.
When Clark was finished, he stood so still that not even a single breath disturbed the perfection of his body when clothed only in sunlight. He looked at Lex with the purest look of adoration possible. In the long drawn out moment that followed every time Clark looked at Lex like that, and it happened far more often than Lex could have ever hoped that it would, it was like they were in a world that only comprised of the two of them: Lex and his god-like perfect lover, Clark.
The moment over, the clearly aroused Clark sighed deeply and nodded to the florid-faced wizard and turned and walked out of the living room out onto the patio. He crossed the marble tiled area quickly and dove into the pool in a graceful arc. Clark swam, doing laps as if he were an Olympic swimmer, but while underwater. He didn't come up for air for a very, very long time.
Lex watched him, his form pure poetry. He was beautiful, far more beautiful than any human that had ever lived. Lex doubted that even Helen of Troy could have competed with the living god that shared his bed.
He watched Clark without comment as Robert, the nervous wizard, fidgeted behind him and poured himself another scotch. The man really wasn't patient and had no qualms about showing his displeasure with heavy sighs and pacing. He resisted actually saying anything, letting his employer (Lex still had him on retainer) guide the encounter, until he seemingly couldn't stand the pressure any longer.
The man snapped at Lex from behind; angry, frustrated and obviously drunk. "You bring me all the way in from Chicago to watch your super boy-toy swim naked or did you have something you wanted to talk to me about?"
Lex considered the question and replied without taking his eyes from Clark, who continued to swim laps, now on top of the water. His strokes were inhumanly precise and far faster than any human could possibly swim. "Meeting him now, seeing him disrobe in front of you without comment or complaint, along with watching Clark swim is a good way to demonstrate the primary problem I have been having with your spell, Robert."
"Oh? What's that?"
"One thing you didn't warn me about, Robert, was that he has no internal off switch. He doesn't think for himself anymore." Lex glanced at the man, who stood a few paces behind him. Lex motioned toward the pool, "Since I asked him to swim, he will keep on doing it until I give him something else to do."
He was met only with a confused silence. Lex wasn't sure that the man really understood, so he continued as he looked at the pure physical perfection swimming in his pool. "He was Superman. The man doesn't really need to eat or sleep or even breathe regularly as long as he gets enough sunlight. I am convinced that if I didn't ask him to stop, he'd keep on going as long as there was water in that pool to swim in. He is willing to do whatever I ask, no matter what it is or even how painful it becomes, and he'll keep on doing it until I tell him to stop. He seems to think that doing whatever I want him to do is the only way our life will be perfect." Lex turned his head to look at the man. He had stepped up next to Lex and looked out of the window to watch Clark. For the first time, the man's gaze wasn't shifting around nervously, he simply watched Clark swim. He was taking in all of the ramifications with the solid mind he'd been blessed with.
Yes, the man was smart, the spell he'd weaved that given Clark to him was probably the smartest use of magic he'd ever heard of. The man was a genius when it came to magic.
Most men might have designed a drug, some kind of love potion, to make Clark his, but not this man. He had known that potions tend to taste bad and, like a drug, would have eventually worn off. It would have been hard to maintain an effective level in his system to keep Clark in love with Lex.
It wasn't going to work to force Clark to love him where he didn't. The truth of that would eventually come out and it wouldn't have lasted long. And he couldn't ensnare his senses and give Clark some sort of sex pollen that forced him to seek Lex as his only avenue for erotic gratification. That would make their relationship only about sex and Lex hadn't wanted that.
The man had needed to think of another way to do it. His idea was brilliant, but depended on an assumption he had needed to confirm.
So, before he had started, the wizard had asked Lex hard questions and Lex had to tell him uncomfortable truths, but the end result was that the man had gotten a fairly accurate assessment of Lex's and Clark's history as both friends and enemies. Telling this stranger the truth of his failures as a friend and a potential lover was painful, but it was worth it. It was only through the truths he'd exposed that the man had become certain that his novel approach to Lex's goal would work, getting Clark to fall in love with Lex.
The key, it had turned out, had been that Clark already loved Lex.
Or, at least, part of him did.
That was what the wizard had honed in on with the questions he'd asked. The fact that buried underneath the lies and animosity and murder attempts (Lex's attempts on Clark, not the other way around), there had been still a kernel of love.
Clark, ever the optimist, had never truly lost hope that Lex could again be the friend to him he once was. They'd been like almost brothers once, loved each other as if they'd been anyway, or at least Clark had. (Lex's desires for Clark were never really had been all that brotherly.)
The wizard had explored Clark's emotional history with Lex almost more than any other part of their relationship. He had felt sure that given Superman's inherent optimism and hope meant that he still loved Lex. In fact, he had suspected that Clark's legendary love for all of mankind had probably started out as love for one man: Lex.
So, after Lex had kidnapped Superman with the help of the wizard's sleeping potion, the man had magically waded into Clark's complicated emotional core and discovered that what he'd guessed had been right: that Clark had truly loved Lex once. In the memories he'd unearthed, he'd also discovered that Clark even had once fantasized about them dating, even having masturbated to the idea of being Lex's lover. The man had even thought, had things gone differently, that Clark would have shared his secret with him openly and honestly. However, things had started to go wrong and Lex's own duplicitous scheming that had been intended to bring Clark (and his secrets) closer to him had only pushed him away.
The man had unearthed the love that had been so strong before, but had become so deeply suppressed. As he brought that out, he had instead suppressed everything else that hadn't included that love. Anything that had taken Clark farther and farther away from Lex, his father's death, Lana, Chloe, Lois, college, The Daily Planet, The Justice League, even his lover, The Batman, Bruce Wayne. All that, most of his entire adult life, had to be buried deep.
It meant essentially doing a reboot of who Clark had become in order to take him back to where he had last loved Lex truly and unconditionally, and had secretly lusted after him. In a way, it had meant taking Clark back to when he was a teen, before he'd gotten control of a majority of his powers (before he could fly anyway) so he didn't use them. He hadn't lost his powers, just forgotten how to use them, because the way he'd learned to use them hadn't directly tied into his love for Lex, so they had to be suppressed along with so many other memories. But the memories the wizard had allowed Clark to keep hadn't only been from his teen years.
His love of Lex had changed as he'd grown, but he still loved him into more recent years, so there were bits and pieces of his adult life that hadn't needed to be suppressed. Anything that included Clark feeling love for Lex, no matter how apparently insignificant or transitory, was retained and the rest was so strongly suppressed Clark didn't remember most of his life after about age 17 or 18. It had meant that most of the previous twelve years of Clark's life were gone in a night.
What was left had centered around Lex so completely that Clark's whole world had narrowed to include only Lex. He knew some of the names of the people he'd known before in his adult life, Lois, Jimmy, Perry, Bruce (and the other members of the Justice League), but the context of how he had known them was gone. The history he'd had with them had essentially been so deeply buried in his mind that it might as well have been erased.
Yet when the man had told him about this particularly clever spell, Lex hadn't counted on the consequences of that. He hadn't guessed, nor had he anticipated, what narrowing another's life down to such a narrow plain of existence would do to the mind.
Along with his Superhero powers that had come in so useful when he would destroy Lex's labs, went his need to help others, but it also took his ability to fight for what he believed in. To stand up for what's right, to protest mistreatment of others, never mind the mistreatment that Lex heaped upon him. He would ignore shots in the dark followed by screams of fright as if nothing had happened and no one needed to be protected from the evil that other men could do.
Along with his curious investigative reporter's mind he'd used to investigate Lex's company went his meddling ways, but those absent memories took with them his ability to question the motives of others, to work out why things happen. His questioning nature was forever gone. He never asked Lex why he was there nor why he couldn't be Superman anymore. He passively accepted his place in Lex's life.
Along with his self-righteous indignation went his propensity to lecture and spout moralistic Jonathan Kent-like platitudes, but it also took his ability to care for anyone else, aside from Lex. He didn't empathize with others. He now would walk by a homeless man shivering in the street on a cold night without a single glance back.
He also had lost his ability to deal with the unknown. Now, if something confused him or scared him, he would push it away in fear. He wouldn't try to understand, he wouldn't try to work it out or try to get past his fear. Lex couldn't even take him out of the apartment, the chaos of the busy Metropolis streets scared him.
No longer the impulsive, bull-headed, and self-righteous Superman, this version of Clark had to be told what to do and when to do it. He needed to have everything explained to him, he took no initiative and allowed Lex to control everything. He never took initiative in bed any more than he took initiative in anything else. He even let Lex be on top. In fact, he wouldn't make love to Lex in any other way.
Clark became agitated whenever he saw any member of the Justice League on TV, it confused and scared him. It had always made him upset, so Lex had instructed Clark that he wasn't allowed to watch the news anymore. He stuck to movies and cartoons, still little better than a teen in his entertainment tastes, and abruptly turned the channel or left the room whenever the news came on.
As the man finally replied, he sounded uncomfortable, but as Lex thought about the spell and how Clark had changed, he kept watching Clark swim. He didn't turn to look at the man when he again spoke.
"I explained what I had to do, what I had to take away from him, to get him to love you like he used to... I was surprised some of his teenaged infatuation with you had lasted through all of his adult life, but I still had to get rid of a lot to get him to remember only loving you." The man drained his drink and looked out to the pool and watched Clark swim. His voice sounded rough and bitter, "What he's become is on your head, not mine."
Lex ignored the fury that built up as the man denied the truth. The man didn't see that what had been done to Clark had really been his own fault, not at all, but it didn't matter.
"Who's to blame for," He waved a hand at Clark, who still swam, "...that isn't important. Fixing it is. I paid you a small fortune for the spells you'd performed so I want you to fix him. You need to make him more like he was."
Lex was annoyed when the man laughed out loud, "Oh, you're a riot."
He sniffed indignantly, "I don't know what you mean."
"I told you when I had figured out what I needed to do to get Superman to love you again that I couldn't change it. His manipulated memories are too fragile. They're like a house of cards, if I go in there and change anything, they'll fall apart. It might take days or weeks or even months, but eventually he'll remember everything you've done and everything that's happened since he woke up here." He looked back at Clark, who was still swimming, "You think Superman would love a man who hired me to do what I did to him?" He took another gulp of his drink, "I can't do a thing. He remembers enough and it'll be over."
"He's already remembering. He has terrible nightmares."
The man nodded toward Clark, who had just made another turn to go another lap. "He doesn't remember enough. That's not a man who knows who he is."
"You're right, that's a crazy man. He's paranoid and so nervous that he's scared of the dark. Can you imagine? Superman, a man who can see through walls, is scared of the dark. He's so scared of everything I can't even take him out of the apartment. He also has to be told what to do, exactly what to do, or he does nothing. Or he does these little rituals, washes his hands hundreds of times a day, takes countless showers, and straightens everything even if it's already straight. A man who never gets sick is now an obsessive-compulsive germaphobe. As bad as it is now, it's getting worse as each day passes. He's going insane."
The man shook his head sadly, "You knew the risks, I explained this might happen, and you wanted me to do it anyway. You have no one to blame except yourself."
Furious, Lex interrupted. "His friends came in a few days ago, the Batman, Martian Manhunter, and Green Arrow..."
Lex thought of the day, the green skinned Martian along with masked Bruce and Oliver confronting him and scaring Clark. It had been a mistake for them to meet Clark as masked vigilantes, the Martian in his alien guise, and it hadn't taken them long to realize it either. Clark had bravely stood up to them out of fear for Lex's safety, he'd told them that he loved Lex and wanted to stay, but had fallen apart as soon as they'd left.
"They wanted to confront me, assure themselves that Clark wanted to be here. After they left, he sobbed like a child and huddled in the corner. He completely broke down." Lex waved a hand vaguely in Clark's direction; he still swam laps in the pool and the Wizard apparently couldn't keep his eyes off him. "That man isn't the man I loved for a dozen years. He's a shell of who he was..."
The Wizard turned to him. "Maybe, but for you he's perfect."
"How can anyone think that he's perfect?"
"He's perfect for you. You get to sleep with Superman. It's a wonderful joke. Who the hell would think Lex Luthor would love Superman? Who the hell would believe mild mannered Clark Kent had harbored secret desires for the man he publicly vowed to take down? No one." He looked steadily into Lex's eyes. "You've got exactly what you wanted and..." He nodded in the direction of the still swimming Clark, "That is exactly what you deserve. It's perfect."
"Perfect? He's crazy."
The man took a step closer and got so close that Lex could smell his cloying, cheap cologne on his skin and the 100 year old scotch on his breath. "It's perfect, Mr. Luthor, because now you understand that you can't play God with other men's lives without consequence."
"You need to do something. If you won't do it willingly I know there are some skeletons in your closet that you don't want to be revealed. Remember that assistant of yours who disappeared? I know what you did. I could ruin you, Robert."
The man flushed, aware of the danger, but he didn't back down. "I told you. I can't. Not if you want to keep him here with you... Do whatever you want to me, but know that it won't matter. There's no point in hurting me. If I change anything Clark Kent will eventually remember he's Superman and leave you."
Frustrated, Lex turned back to watching Clark swim. He spoke in a low voice, deep with anger and loathing, "Fine. I'm terminating your contract."
The man didn't get the hint to leave quick enough, he had wanted him to leave immediately, so Lex turned back to him and fumed, "Get out." He wished with every fiber of his being that he could kill the man with a glance and the wizard knew it.
The man looked shaken at Lex's murderous glare, and he visibly paled. The wizard put down his glass and hurriedly left without another word.
Lex took a deep breath, trying to center himself. Better not to let Clark see how upset he was, so he made sure he was calm before he slowly started to undress and left his clothes lying over the back of the chair just like Clark had done. Only once he was naked and calm, did Lex walk out to the patio and Clark stopped swimming and greeted him with the biggest and most beautiful grin, Lex's heart melted and his desire flared.
He beckoned Clark to join him in the Jacuzzi. Clark's ability to hold his breath for hours came in very handy for getting blown while Lex sat in the hot water, the jets making his skin sing even as he came and came and came, Clark swallowing every drop.
That night, tired from the long day and the distressing interview with the wizard, Lex was mildly annoyed when Clark again woke him in the night with a blood curdling scream. Lex didn't ask what had scared him, Clark's nightmares happened almost nightly and he never confided to Lex what he dreamt about.
To be honest, he didn't want to know. So, Lex held Clark as he trembled and gently rubbed his back as his breath slowed and deepened back into sleep.
~:::~
A few days later Lex had been in his office and had gotten an unexpected call from Bruce Wayne.
He had his secretary put it through as Mercy, who sat in the chair opposite his desk, looked at him with an elegantly arched eyebrow.
Lex scowled as he picked up the handset, deliberately not using the speaker phone, although he would have loved to. Having Bruce on speaker would have annoyed him and Lex loved the thought of it, but he couldn't have Mercy overhear both ends of the conversation.
"Bruce, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I want to see him. Tonight."
"You saw him last week with Oliver and John, what purpose would seeing him again serve? He doesn't want to leave me, he told you himself."
"No, Lex. I want to see him as me, Bruce."
"I won't allow it."
"Why not?"
"He got very upset after he saw you last week; he doesn't like to be reminded of his past."
"You mean he doesn't like to be reminded of what you somehow forced him to forget."
"He chose to stay with me, like Clark told you. You can't stand the fact he's turned away from you, that he's happy--"
Bruce interrupted, "The man I saw last week wasn't happy, Luthor. Worse, you know he's not. I could see it in your eyes."
"You just can't stand it that you lost, that he's chosen me over you."
The other man barely suppressed the hurt and, worse, the doubt that had crept into his voice, "That's not true. Clark would never want to shut himself away the world, being Superman, being a reporter, meant too much to him. I meant too much. You did something..."
Lex laughed, "You're pathetic, Bruce. Accept the fact that he loves me and not you. He won't see you again."
He could almost see the man on the other end of the phone grit his teeth in his finest Batman angry face, "I'll figure out what you did and find a way to undo it. I won't let you get away with this, Luthor. I promise you that."
He simply hung up on Bruce. He spoke to Mercy without looking up from the file on his desk and ordered that any further communications from Bruce Wayne were to be ignored.
~:::~
A couple of nights later, Lex and Clark made love on the couch after they watched Titanic. Not that Lex liked Titanic much, he loathed it in fact, but Clark loved it. He always felt so romantic after watching yet another tragic love affair somehow manage to have a happy Hollywood ending.
They always made love afterwards, which was always perfect. His perfect god making perfect love to him, even though he had to be coaxed to taking a more active role in their love-making.
Later, they lay on the couch together as Clark flipped channels. He happened upon a news story about Batman and he quietly watched for several minutes. Lex normally would say something, remind Clark how upset he gets and ask him to change the channel, but this time he couldn't bring himself to it. Clark had such a mournful look on his face, like he'd lost his best friend.
Lex supposed that was probably true, to an extent. Instead he gently caressed the dark curls that lay against his shoulder. The touch meant to comfort did something to Clark, he snapped out of his reverie and went back to flipping channels. Clark, clearly not sleepy despite his exertions, ended up on a cartoon and was laughing as though nothing had just happened.
Eventually, Lex fell asleep with the heavy weight of Clark on top of him. For the moment, his life felt like something steadier than it was.
~:::~
The next night, Lex awoke to Mercy and Hope shaking him. He felt dizzy, his head pounding, felt sick to his stomach and he shivered in the cold. He tried to marshal his mind, get it back on track, but he was slow in understanding what was happening; why would his bodyguards wake him in the middle of the night, "What's going on?" He realized with a shock that he was in an empty bed, "Where's Clark?"
"He's gone, sir... They took him."
Panicked, Lex looked around and took in the scene.
The reason he felt cold was because he wore only his thin silk satin pajamas and the sliding windows that let out to the terrace had been shattered, a steady breeze billowed the drapes like one of Clark's capes. Splintered glass littered the carpet and a smear of blood was on the rumpled sheets. Darker than human, Lex knew it was Clark's.
There was a dart on the carpet near the bed. The tip glinted with a sickly emerald green hue that Lex knew would have glowed had Clark been near.
He sat up too quickly and his head swam. Resolved to discover what he could, he shook that off and pushed past his bodyguards, furious. "Show me the security footage..."
~:::~
He looked at the video again, he wasn't sure how many times he'd viewed it, but he couldn't get his mind around it. The video wasn't the best, it was grainy and slightly out of focus, silent, but it left no doubt that Bruce had kept his promise.
He had avoided looking at the part of the video that would have shown him fucking Clark. The night before he had worn his kryptonite ring so Clark would really feel it (like he sometimes did) and the former Superman's painful looks back over his shoulder tugged at him in more ways than one. He didn't want to have his bodyguards see that any more than they had already, so he backed the video back to just after that. The ring put away, free from pain, Clark slept while, perhaps inexplicably, affectionately wrapped around Lex.
Motion-activated, the camera stopped recording until about 3am. It was then that a thin sedative mist drifted in front of the camera, tripping the sensor.
The sound apparently had caused Clark to stir from where he had lain still for so many hours. He looked up, clearly confused, and didn't realize what was going on. It scared him, as so many things did now, and he called out in fear. Unconscious, Lex couldn't reply like Clark had expected him to.
He turned to Lex and shook him gently, Lex could tell by the shapes his lips formed that Clark had called his name, but thanks to the tranquilizers in the haze that Clark was immune to, Lex still didn't wake. Clark paused and looked over his shoulder, like he'd heard something and whatever he heard caused him more worry. He shook Lex harder and again called out his name, real fear showing on his face.
He seemed about to do something else, maybe get up or try and take Lex away, but stopped when the sliding glass door out to the balcony exploded inward. (Mercy had confirmed what Lex had suspected was true: the Batman had used one of his bat-themed gadgets to blow out the glass.) Bravely, Clark threw himself across Lex, trying to protect him from the flying glass and the angry men and women in spandex, leather and silk that had poured into the room.
A man, The Batman, his visage extra frightening because of the dark shadows he was shrouded in, had then stepped forward. If he'd said anything, Lex couldn't tell because of the gas mask that covered his face (which was ridiculously shaped in the form of a bat). He could tell when Bruce motioned for Clark to get off the bed and come to him.
Clark yelled as his only reply, trying to hide his fear and anguish, as he moved into a more protective posture over Lex's unconscious form.
All Lex could think was how stupid Clark was. Didn't he see that Lex wasn't the target, and that he was? Why didn't Clark run away, save himself, when he had the chance?
As he watched, The Batman sadly raised his arm and pointed an oddly shaped pistol at Clark, its barrel thicker and longer than a normal handgun's would have been. Clark was brave and stood his ground refusing to move, not even the fear of getting shot made him stop protecting Lex.
Bruce grimly shook his head and pulled the trigger and the dart hit Clark in the chest, the green glow of the kryptonite apparent even in the dim, grainy video. Clark's face screwed up as he cried out in pain, fear and confusion. He quickly pulled out the dart, but it had already been too late to change what was going to happen. The dart landed on the carpet at Batman's feet, a dark stain spreading where he'd been shot, his blood's clotting factors probably inhibited by the kryptonite in the dart and sedative. (Lex thought to himself that he should have the blood traces left on the dart and carpet tested for changes caused by kryptonite, to see if that was the case.)
It hurt Lex to watch the video, it was his own fault, but he felt he had to see it all. And it was engrossing how like a well-oiled machine the Justice League members acted. As Batman confronted Clark, the others had spread out behind him, their capes fluttering in the breeze coming in the smashed window, and protected his back. They had been prepared to act in case Clark did something unpredictable.
Of course, Clark hadn't. He couldn't.
If Lex had anticipated the attack, then he might have been able to prepare Clark, have him exit upon the first sign of trouble, maybe tried to help Clark to relearn how to fly, but it was too late now. Lex could only watch as Clark suffered alone, in pain, confused and scared.
Lex watched, furious at the masked intruders, especially incensed with Bruce (who should have known better), as they stood back and looked on as Clark became more and more scared. The kryptonite had weakened Clark very quickly. Soon he was unable to move and became woozy from the tranquilizers in the dart. All he could do was look back at his kidnappers with confused, glassy eyes and ask why.
Lex could see Clark mouth that word over and over again as he started to sway back and forth. Bruce came forward to support Clark, his arms held out so lovingly. Clark tried to push the Batman away as he continued to mouth the same word over and over again, clearly perplexed and petrified of the man in the mask.
As he pushed at Bruce, the last of Clark's strength gave out and he fell over and rolled off the bed. He ended up in a crumpled heap on the floor under Batman's feet. On his way down to the carpet, Clark's dark blood smeared across the pristine white silk satin sheets. His body landed next to the dart, another source of pain. In agony, he laid on his side facing the camera.
As he watched Clark's pain- and confusion-filled eyes finally close, the fury almost literally made Lex see red. He wanted to kill Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen, John Jones and the rest of them.
He stopped the video before he could again see Bruce lovingly roll Clark onto his back. He didn't want to again see Batman touch Clark's face so gently, so affectionately, while what was visible of Bruce's normally hard face noticeably softened...
It seemed so similar to what he'd done to Clark a little more than a month before in that dive bar in Metropolis, it was just too painful to see. He finally shut the monitor off and barked orders at Mercy and Hope about cleaning up the mess that the Justice League had left behind.
~:::~
Continued here...