The Prince 4/?
Title: The Prince
Author: Sorrel
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Julian, Clark/Lex
Rating: R at most
Spoilers: Exile
Summary: AU. Clark rescues this year’s scarecrow, only to discover that he’s the younger brother of the billionaire he’d slept with the summer before. Things are about to get very complicated for Clark and Lex, and in the middle of the sex and intrigue, is Julian.
Previous parts here.
~Part Four~
He was still thinking about their conversation when Friday rolled around. Was it possible that he really was using Julian as a pawn in whatever game he had going on with Lex?
No. Whatever cat-and-mouse fun he was having with Lex, it didn’t have anything at all to do with Julian. With Lex, it was all about the game, all about winning, or at least getting one up on his opponent. With Julian… Well, with Julian, it was something sweeter. Something like he’d had with Chloe, back at the beginning when the sky had seemed a little brighter when she was next to him.
And if that wasn’t a scary thought, he didn’t know what was. Because with Chloe, they’d eventually mellowed out into just-friends territory, and it was still the most important relationship in his life. But Julian? Somehow, he didn’t see himself being able to be “just friends” with Julian.
Which all led to this. Standing here in front of his closet, trying to figure out which shirt to wear.
This was insane. He’d never worried about his clothes. Before this summer, he’d never really given them a second thought, and during the summer, he’d instinctively known what to wear to show his body to its best advantage. That knowledge didn’t go away just because he was a little less crazy, so why the hell was he so indecisive now? He felt like a thirteen-year-old girl.
For God’s sake, Kent, get a grip on yourself. His mental voice sounded a lot like Chloe, and with good reason. He was pretty sure that if she was here, she’d be laughing her ass off at him. It wouldn’t be the first time.
He felt a momentary flash of guilt, thinking about Chloe. He probably should have told her about Lex. She’d left the perfect opening, and he hadn’t been able to make himself tell her that Lex knew what he could do. Well, some of what he could do, if not exactly what he was. Still, it was enough, and it was a big enough deal that Chloe would be in hysterics if she knew, and with good reason. He should have told her. He never kept anything a secret from her anymore. And yet…
Maybe it came back to what she’d said, about him trampling over people just to score a point. Because he knew that if he told her that Lex knew at least part of his secret, she’d freak out and do something stupid, like possibly go up to the castle and confront Lex herself. And that just wouldn’t do.
He didn’t want her to confront Lex on his behalf. He didn’t want her to protect him. He wanted to play his game of wits with the grand master champion, and he wanted to win. He was determined to win, and he realized, with a little jolt of surprise, that while he wouldn’t ever deliberately hurt Chloe, the only person’s feelings that he really wanted to be careful of in his little war was Julian’s.
Full circle. Julian, closet, shirt, nervous. Date.
Finally, he gave up and just grabbed a t-shirt. It was green and thin and managed to both show off his muscles and highlight his eyes, so it was probably good enough. He was wearing black jeans and boots, and with his black canvass jacket he probably stood out like a sore thumb in Smallville, land of the flannel, but he was used to it, and at least it would give him something in common with Julian. Julian probably understood even better than he did what it felt like to be a spectacle.
He grabbed the jacket off his bed and headed down the steps. His parents were in the kitchen, and he almost made it out the door unnoticed when his mother poked her head out through the door.
“Clark?”
Cursing his luck, he turned and faced her. “Hi, mom.”
“Clark, honey, are you going out?”
She was eyeing his outfit with something like fear, and Clark was briefly tempted to wave his ring-free hands at her, but resisted the urge. It would only hurt her feelings. “Yeah, mom. Just to the Talon.” He figured that telling her he was going on a date with the Luthor kid wouldn’t go too over well.
She visibly relaxed. “Oh, I’m glad for you, honey. I hope you have a good time.”
“Thanks, mom,” he said, and made tracks for the door before his Dad could get involved.
~*~
The Talon was pretty empty, since pretty much everyone was at the game. There were a few freshman misfits scattered around the tables, though, and Lana was behind the counter. She waved to him when he came in, and he waved back before wandering over.
The problem with Lana was that she was prone to giving him these looks, these soulful orphan-eyes that she’d perfected the hard way at age three, whenever he did something that reminded her that he wasn’t the Clark she’d known. But she was still a good friend, and pretty fun once you got her going, and Julian wasn’t here yet, so Clark had some time to kill.
“Hey, Lana,” he said, leaning carefully against the glass counter. “Slow night?”
“Pretty much the usual,” she said, dimpling prettily up at him. “What about you? Shouldn’t you be at the game?”
Not if he could help it. “Nah. I’m meeting someone.”
“Here?” she asked.
No, in Timbuktu. Christ. “Yeah, here,” he said. “You see me standing anywhere else?”
She ignored that, just like he’d known she would. She always had been good at pretending a person’s rough edges didn’t exist, and sarcasm went completely over her head. It was one of the reasons why she and Chloe hadn’t managed to kill each other yet.
“Is it a date?” Her voice held the kind of flirtation that didn’t really mean anything. Christ, but it used to wind him up back in the day.
“Yeah,” he said, unable to stop the smile that spread across his face. Julian. “Yeah, it’s a date.”
“Who’s the lucky girl?”
Clark wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or to cry. Only Lana. He decided on resigned amusement. “Guy, actually,” he said, and had the pleasure of watching with interest as she struggled not to let her shock show.
“Ah, that’s… great, Clark,” she said, her face a little stiff. He had to hand it to her, she got it together quick. Then again, a childhood like hers and she’d have to. “Who’s the lucky guy, then?”
He flashed a charming grin to delay her and give him time to decide whether or not to answer her. On one hand, she was already pretty shocked at him having a date with a guy, and she didn’t have any more love for the Luthor name than the rest of this town. But on the other hand, she was a good friend, and surprisingly open-minded considering the fact that she’d grown up in this little pocket of Kansas past, with all the accompanying attitudes. She might be shocked that he was openly dating guys, but she’d bounce back pretty fast, and it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to recognize Julian anyway.
Before he could tell her, though, the bell on the door jingled. Clark looked up to see Julian saunter in, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and an old, beat-up leather jacket that was about a size and a half too big. One of Lex’s, Clark judged, delighted by his appearance. Probably from big brother’s bad old days.
“Hey,” he called, drawing Julian’s attention to him. The smile that he got in response looked like a mirror of the sappy grin Clark could feel on his own face.
“Heya, Clark,” Julian said, loping over to stand next to him. “Sorry I’m late.”
Behind the counter, Lana made a muffled noise of shock. “You’re not late, I was early,” Clark said, leaning a little into his personal space, ridiculously happy when Julian leaned a little right back. “Big brother give you any trouble?”
“Couple lectures,” Julian said with a grin. “He’s- well, you know how he gets.”
“Seen it a couple times, yeah,” Clark said. He looked up to see Lana staring at him, one eyebrow raised. “Sorry, Lana. Julian, this is Lana Lang. Lana, meet Julian.”
“Pleasure,” Julian said, aiming his sunny smile her way, though Clark could see that it had dimmed half a notch, and there was a cautiously calculating glint in his eye. Knew how to handle people, this one did, Clark thought, and he hadn’t gotten a chance to get Lana’s measure quite yet.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she agreed. “Clark was just telling me about you.”
Now Julian was the one arching an eyebrow at Clark, silently questioning. “Nothing bad, I promise!” Clark said, half-laughing, his hands raised in defense. “I haven’t been here that long, and besides.” He bumped Julian with his shoulder. “I don’t know anything bad.”
“Oh, give me time,” Julian said, rolling his eyes. “Now, don’t you owe me a tour or something?”
“One tour of Smallville, coming right up.” He straightened away from the counter, nodded at Lana. “Hope business picks up a little later.”
“It always does, after the game,” she said. “You two have a good time.” She’d definitely regained her footing. Enough to give him a little smirk when she said it, just like she used to tease him when he was about to take Chloe somewhere special, back in the day.
“Oh, we will,” he said, and slung his arm over Julian’s shoulder before heading out. Not that there was anyone who mattered around to see the show, but Clark liked to make his intentions clear. Anyone who had a problem with it could- well, they probably weren’t going to take it up with him, and they weren’t going to take it out on Julian, either, after his “discussion” with the football team.
“It was nice meeting you,” Julian called out over his shoulder to Lana. He let Clark lead him outside, not making any move to shrug Clark away.
Clark pulled him a little closer, enjoying the heat coming off his body, even though the layers of fabric that separated them, and the smell of him, spicy-sweet skin and apple-scented shampoo. He wanted to get up close and personal with the source of that scent, bury his face in that silky long hair, feel that slender body moving against his own.
Later. Clark could be very patient, when he needed to be, though he didn’t think he would. All the signals were there, and Julian might look like a delicate hothouse flower, but Clark could tell- he was the kind of person who went after what he wanted.
He was Lex’s brother, after all.
“So,” Julian said, once they were outside and feeling the crisp October air. “Where to?”
“Um,” Clark said. And then nothing else.
Laughing, Julian nudged him sharply in the side. “Oh, come on. You’re the one who planned this!”
“Not very well,” Clark admitted, faking a shy grin. “I sort of didn’t think past getting you alone, you know?”
“Like that was a big challenge,” Julian jibed. “Come on. I don’t care if it was a ploy, I was promised a Smallville tour and now I’m gonna get it.”
Clark put on an earnest expression. “Well, I can think of this one place,” he said slowly, as if hesitant. “I mean, I’m not sure that it’ll appeal to a big-city kinda guy like you, but-“
“I’m pretty sure I’ll like… the country,” Julian said, making a big production out of his hesitation and drawing out “like” in the sleaziest manner possible. They both looked at each other and lost it, leaning drunkenly against each other and laughing like idiots in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Okay,” Clark said, once he’d gotten his laughter under control. “I do have a cool spot I’d like to show you, if you want. Or we can skip it and just go to the movie.” He was pretty sure which one Julian would choose, but not one hundred percent, and he had to offer the out, just in case he was reading things wrong.
“Nah,” Julian said, waving his hand dismissively. “Screw the movies, anyway. I’d like to see this cool spot of yours.”
Score. He had gotten it right. Clark one, universe zero. “Alright then,” he said, and grabbed Julian’s wrist, letting himself enjoy the feel of the slender bone cradled against his much larger palm. “Let’s go check it out.”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” Julian said, and let Clark lead him to his truck.
~*~
“So what’s it like, anyway?” Julian asked a little while later, walking next to Clark down a gravel road with nothing but moonlight to guide the way. Luckily, the moon was full, since Julian didn’t have Clark’s superior night-vision to fall back on.
“What’s what like?” Clark asked.
“Growing up here, in Smallville. I mean, I’ve had some pretty great experiences and some pretty shitty ones, but it can’t be the norm around here.”
“Actually no, that sums it up pretty well- some great stuff, some not so great. Smallville had more than its fair share of tragedies, and more than its fare share of weirdness. I’m sure Chloe’s told you some of it.”
“She gave me a rundown,” Julian said, his voice so dry that Clark knew Chloe had talked herself hoarse. She did that, sometimes, when she found a willing audience. Clark thought it was kinda cute, though he’d long ago learned to tune her out and still pick up the actual pertinent information. Not everyone would have developed those particular filters.
“Well, it gets weirder, I’m sure. It always gets weirder, here in Smallville. I’ve been here all my life, and I still get surprised by some of the stuff that shows up here.”
“Okay, so Smallville should be renamed Weirdville, check,” Julian said. “But what’s it like to live here, when you’re not the town freak?”
Clark paused. “I wouldn’t really know, anymore,” he said finally. He cast a rueful look at Julian. “Which I’m sure you know. You had to have heard the gossip.”
“Chloe said something about you changing, though she didn’t say why,” Julian said, not mentioning anything that anyone else had said. His open sideways glance held nothing but curiosity, which is why Clark answered the way he did.
“I used to go out of my way to be Mr. Joe Normal, you know? I was the perfect small-town farm boy- polite, hardworking, in love with the girl next door.”
“Lana,” Julian guessed. Well, he’d already known that Julian was observant, and just as canny as his brother, in his own way.
“Lana,” Clark confirmed. “For a while, anyway. Eventually I got hit with a clue-by-four, as Chloe likes to say, and I saw the light where my best friend was concerned. Chloe and I were together for a while, and it was damn good. I didn’t have to worry about being normal, or not-normal, or anything, not when I was with her. She’s just that kind of person.”
“Admittedly, I don’t know her that well,” Julian said, “but from everything I’ve seen? She’s amazing.”
“Yeah,” Clark said. “She is.”
“So what happened?” Julian asked. “I mean, it’s obvious you two aren’t together anymore. Did you fight, was there someone else, or what?”
“Nothing so dramatic,” Clark said with a smile. “We just… drifted. We’re better off as friends, and I, for one, am just grateful that we figured it out before it could get that dramatic. I’d be pretty miserable without her.”
“Which brings us right back to Chloe talking about you changing,” Julian said. “Or is this an off-limits subject?”
Of course it was. His summer in Metropolis wasn’t something that Clark ever wanted to talk about, with anyone. But he found himself opening his mouth and telling the truth anyway. “My mom was pregnant,” he said. “She got into an accident and lost the baby. I don’t know if she blamed me or not, but Dad made it pretty clear that he did, and I sure as hell blamed myself. So I got the hell out of Dodge.”
Clark paused, waiting for Julian to say, “It wasn’t your fault.” Or even to ask why Clark blamed himself. But Julian just said nothing, just nodded encouragingly and waited for Clark to continue.
So he did. “I did… A lot of things. Some pretty messed-up stuff. Partied all night, slept all day, got a little crime in around all that fun.” He shot a sideways glance in Julian’s direction, but he wasn’t recoiling. He’d probably figured out some of this already, but knowing was a lot different than just assuming. “You can probably guess that that’s when I met your brother.”
“Oh, he doesn’t think too well of you, no,” Julian said. “He’s warned me off you at least a hundred times already.”
Clark’s heart beat faster in his chest from the only kind of fear that actually hit his adrenaline anymore. Then again, this was the only kind of problem that he couldn’t control, no matter how much strength and speed he threw at it.
“Oh?” he asked, managing to sound mostly casual. “What sort of warnings, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Julian shot him a look that said he wasn’t fooling anyone. “That you’re bad news. That you’re not as nice and wholesome as you seem.” He paused. “That you’re dangerous.”
Clark swallowed hard. “And?”
“And I told him I never thought you were wholesome,” Julian said, his smile glinting in the moonlight. His words were casual, but Clark got the message anyway. Julian wasn’t heeding Lex’s warnings, but he wasn’t walking into this blind, either.
Clark liked that about him.
They didn’t really say anything more for the next few minutes, just walking in silence until they got to the turn-off Clark was looking for. “This way,” he said, grabbing Julian’s elbow to pull him after Clark. “It’s just a little ways down here.”
“I can’t see a damn thing,” Julian complained good-naturedly, letting Clark guide him down the darkened path. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Hold your horses, you’ll see in just a minute,” Clark said, laughing a little, and then suddenly the path opened up into a moonlit clearing and he grinned down at Julian, letting go of his arms. “Voila.”
Julian stared around the crumbled stones with an expression of unabashed wonder on his face. “What is this place?” he asked. “It’s amazing.”
“There used to be a cottage here, back when Smallville was still a one-horse town, instead of two,” Clark said. “As you can see, it was either torn down or fell down long ago. Almost everyone’s forgotten about it.”
“So how did you find it?” Julian asked, his eyes bright with curiosity and something else that Clark wasn’t sure he could put a name to. It was bad enough that he’d brought Julian here at all. The last person he’d shown this place to had been Chloe, and even Clark wasn’t too dense not to see the parallels there. Not that he hadn’t seen them already, but still.
“I explore,” Clark said, which was the truth but not nearly close to all of it. “I still come here sometimes, if I need to think. It’s got that Secret Garden feel to it, you know?”
“Yeah, I do,” Julian said. He wandered over to the one remaining section of brick foundation, which came up to about his chest. “Hey, gimme a boost, would you?” he asked, and clambered up so agilely when Clark complied that Clark had no doubt in his mind that he’d asked for help just so that Clark could put his hands on him, a plan of which Clark approved wholeheartedly.
Julian tipped his head back to stare at the expanse of stars above his head. “I love Smallville,” he confided to Clark. “Even though it’s weird and has mutants and most of the school hates me. It’s still better than the city.” He smiled up at the night sky again. “You can never see the stars in the city, for one.”
Clark stared at him. In that one moment, Julian looked so damn beautiful that he didn’t even seem real. It was like if Clark touched him, he’d just laugh and disappear in a puff of fairy dust, leaving behind nothing but his slowly fading footprints in the dew.
Julian looked back down at him and frowned at whatever he saw on Clark’s face. “Hey, what’s the matter?” he asked. “You look… weird. Far-away.”
“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” Clark said, his mouth dry. He reached out and cupped Julian’s cheek in his hand, the skin cool against the blood-warm skin of his palm. “Julian…”
Julian made a little noise in the back of his throat and leaned into Clark’s touch, and that was it, that was the end of Clark’s patience. He’d meant to draw this out, to make it perfectly romantic because Julian seemed like the sort of person to appreciate the little things, but Julian was smiling at him while Clark touched him, and there was really no resisting that. He’d managed a secluded location, mysterious ruins, and moonlight: that was about as romantic as he was going to be able to get.
He surged forward and crowded right up against Julian, bracketing him with his larger body. He brought his other hand up until he had Julian’s face framed in his palms, and when he read nothing but eagerness in the tilt of Julian’s smile, he leaned up and brought Julian’s mouth down to his.
It was amazing, stunning, earth-shattering, like lighting and fireworks going off all at once. It was a perfect first kiss by anyone’s standards, chaste and intimate to start, then slowly sliding into deep, hot, and wet, with Julian’s tongue doing something positively obscene to the roof of Clark’s mouth, and finally easing back into slow, linger touches and the press of lips on lips. Finally they were just barely kissing, Clark’s forehead resting against Julian’s as their breath mingled in the scant distance between their mouths.
“Wow,” Julian whispered, causing them both to laugh. Clark realized that his hands had slid under Julian’s jacket and were resting on his hips, his thumbs just brushing against the bare skin on the point of Julian’s hips, where his t-shirt had slid up to expose them. He had no memory of putting them there.
“Wow, indeed,” Clark whispered back. He slid his right hand back, all the way under Julian’s t-shirt until it his palm was flat on the small of Julian’s back, pressing lightly against the sensitive cluster of nerves there. Julian’s breath caught in the back of his throat, and his eyes glinted hotly at Clark.
“This place is amazing,” he said in a more normal voice. “But it’s not really the best place for this sort of thing.”
“I know,” Clark said, slightly rueful. “All I can say is, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Oh, it definitely was,” Julian said. He hopped down off the wall, which left him pressed against Clark since Clark didn’t bother to move back and give him some room. Clark was pretty happy about this state of affairs, and judging by the way Julian’s breath caught in the back of his throat and he pressed closer to Clark, he was too. “It’s just a bit too cold outside to be removing any clothing.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Clark said intently, and Julian’s little laugh died as he stared at Clark’s mouth with blatant hunger.
“See that you do,” he said, and between one second and the next they were kissing again, this time with Clark the one to bend his head, Julian’s smaller body pressed as tightly against his as it could go.
I could fall in love with him, Clark thought to himself, and the most surprising thing about it was that it wasn’t a surprise at all.
Continued here.
Author: Sorrel
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Julian, Clark/Lex
Rating: R at most
Spoilers: Exile
Summary: AU. Clark rescues this year’s scarecrow, only to discover that he’s the younger brother of the billionaire he’d slept with the summer before. Things are about to get very complicated for Clark and Lex, and in the middle of the sex and intrigue, is Julian.
Previous parts here.
~Part Four~
He was still thinking about their conversation when Friday rolled around. Was it possible that he really was using Julian as a pawn in whatever game he had going on with Lex?
No. Whatever cat-and-mouse fun he was having with Lex, it didn’t have anything at all to do with Julian. With Lex, it was all about the game, all about winning, or at least getting one up on his opponent. With Julian… Well, with Julian, it was something sweeter. Something like he’d had with Chloe, back at the beginning when the sky had seemed a little brighter when she was next to him.
And if that wasn’t a scary thought, he didn’t know what was. Because with Chloe, they’d eventually mellowed out into just-friends territory, and it was still the most important relationship in his life. But Julian? Somehow, he didn’t see himself being able to be “just friends” with Julian.
Which all led to this. Standing here in front of his closet, trying to figure out which shirt to wear.
This was insane. He’d never worried about his clothes. Before this summer, he’d never really given them a second thought, and during the summer, he’d instinctively known what to wear to show his body to its best advantage. That knowledge didn’t go away just because he was a little less crazy, so why the hell was he so indecisive now? He felt like a thirteen-year-old girl.
For God’s sake, Kent, get a grip on yourself. His mental voice sounded a lot like Chloe, and with good reason. He was pretty sure that if she was here, she’d be laughing her ass off at him. It wouldn’t be the first time.
He felt a momentary flash of guilt, thinking about Chloe. He probably should have told her about Lex. She’d left the perfect opening, and he hadn’t been able to make himself tell her that Lex knew what he could do. Well, some of what he could do, if not exactly what he was. Still, it was enough, and it was a big enough deal that Chloe would be in hysterics if she knew, and with good reason. He should have told her. He never kept anything a secret from her anymore. And yet…
Maybe it came back to what she’d said, about him trampling over people just to score a point. Because he knew that if he told her that Lex knew at least part of his secret, she’d freak out and do something stupid, like possibly go up to the castle and confront Lex herself. And that just wouldn’t do.
He didn’t want her to confront Lex on his behalf. He didn’t want her to protect him. He wanted to play his game of wits with the grand master champion, and he wanted to win. He was determined to win, and he realized, with a little jolt of surprise, that while he wouldn’t ever deliberately hurt Chloe, the only person’s feelings that he really wanted to be careful of in his little war was Julian’s.
Full circle. Julian, closet, shirt, nervous. Date.
Finally, he gave up and just grabbed a t-shirt. It was green and thin and managed to both show off his muscles and highlight his eyes, so it was probably good enough. He was wearing black jeans and boots, and with his black canvass jacket he probably stood out like a sore thumb in Smallville, land of the flannel, but he was used to it, and at least it would give him something in common with Julian. Julian probably understood even better than he did what it felt like to be a spectacle.
He grabbed the jacket off his bed and headed down the steps. His parents were in the kitchen, and he almost made it out the door unnoticed when his mother poked her head out through the door.
“Clark?”
Cursing his luck, he turned and faced her. “Hi, mom.”
“Clark, honey, are you going out?”
She was eyeing his outfit with something like fear, and Clark was briefly tempted to wave his ring-free hands at her, but resisted the urge. It would only hurt her feelings. “Yeah, mom. Just to the Talon.” He figured that telling her he was going on a date with the Luthor kid wouldn’t go too over well.
She visibly relaxed. “Oh, I’m glad for you, honey. I hope you have a good time.”
“Thanks, mom,” he said, and made tracks for the door before his Dad could get involved.
~*~
The Talon was pretty empty, since pretty much everyone was at the game. There were a few freshman misfits scattered around the tables, though, and Lana was behind the counter. She waved to him when he came in, and he waved back before wandering over.
The problem with Lana was that she was prone to giving him these looks, these soulful orphan-eyes that she’d perfected the hard way at age three, whenever he did something that reminded her that he wasn’t the Clark she’d known. But she was still a good friend, and pretty fun once you got her going, and Julian wasn’t here yet, so Clark had some time to kill.
“Hey, Lana,” he said, leaning carefully against the glass counter. “Slow night?”
“Pretty much the usual,” she said, dimpling prettily up at him. “What about you? Shouldn’t you be at the game?”
Not if he could help it. “Nah. I’m meeting someone.”
“Here?” she asked.
No, in Timbuktu. Christ. “Yeah, here,” he said. “You see me standing anywhere else?”
She ignored that, just like he’d known she would. She always had been good at pretending a person’s rough edges didn’t exist, and sarcasm went completely over her head. It was one of the reasons why she and Chloe hadn’t managed to kill each other yet.
“Is it a date?” Her voice held the kind of flirtation that didn’t really mean anything. Christ, but it used to wind him up back in the day.
“Yeah,” he said, unable to stop the smile that spread across his face. Julian. “Yeah, it’s a date.”
“Who’s the lucky girl?”
Clark wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or to cry. Only Lana. He decided on resigned amusement. “Guy, actually,” he said, and had the pleasure of watching with interest as she struggled not to let her shock show.
“Ah, that’s… great, Clark,” she said, her face a little stiff. He had to hand it to her, she got it together quick. Then again, a childhood like hers and she’d have to. “Who’s the lucky guy, then?”
He flashed a charming grin to delay her and give him time to decide whether or not to answer her. On one hand, she was already pretty shocked at him having a date with a guy, and she didn’t have any more love for the Luthor name than the rest of this town. But on the other hand, she was a good friend, and surprisingly open-minded considering the fact that she’d grown up in this little pocket of Kansas past, with all the accompanying attitudes. She might be shocked that he was openly dating guys, but she’d bounce back pretty fast, and it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to recognize Julian anyway.
Before he could tell her, though, the bell on the door jingled. Clark looked up to see Julian saunter in, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and an old, beat-up leather jacket that was about a size and a half too big. One of Lex’s, Clark judged, delighted by his appearance. Probably from big brother’s bad old days.
“Hey,” he called, drawing Julian’s attention to him. The smile that he got in response looked like a mirror of the sappy grin Clark could feel on his own face.
“Heya, Clark,” Julian said, loping over to stand next to him. “Sorry I’m late.”
Behind the counter, Lana made a muffled noise of shock. “You’re not late, I was early,” Clark said, leaning a little into his personal space, ridiculously happy when Julian leaned a little right back. “Big brother give you any trouble?”
“Couple lectures,” Julian said with a grin. “He’s- well, you know how he gets.”
“Seen it a couple times, yeah,” Clark said. He looked up to see Lana staring at him, one eyebrow raised. “Sorry, Lana. Julian, this is Lana Lang. Lana, meet Julian.”
“Pleasure,” Julian said, aiming his sunny smile her way, though Clark could see that it had dimmed half a notch, and there was a cautiously calculating glint in his eye. Knew how to handle people, this one did, Clark thought, and he hadn’t gotten a chance to get Lana’s measure quite yet.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she agreed. “Clark was just telling me about you.”
Now Julian was the one arching an eyebrow at Clark, silently questioning. “Nothing bad, I promise!” Clark said, half-laughing, his hands raised in defense. “I haven’t been here that long, and besides.” He bumped Julian with his shoulder. “I don’t know anything bad.”
“Oh, give me time,” Julian said, rolling his eyes. “Now, don’t you owe me a tour or something?”
“One tour of Smallville, coming right up.” He straightened away from the counter, nodded at Lana. “Hope business picks up a little later.”
“It always does, after the game,” she said. “You two have a good time.” She’d definitely regained her footing. Enough to give him a little smirk when she said it, just like she used to tease him when he was about to take Chloe somewhere special, back in the day.
“Oh, we will,” he said, and slung his arm over Julian’s shoulder before heading out. Not that there was anyone who mattered around to see the show, but Clark liked to make his intentions clear. Anyone who had a problem with it could- well, they probably weren’t going to take it up with him, and they weren’t going to take it out on Julian, either, after his “discussion” with the football team.
“It was nice meeting you,” Julian called out over his shoulder to Lana. He let Clark lead him outside, not making any move to shrug Clark away.
Clark pulled him a little closer, enjoying the heat coming off his body, even though the layers of fabric that separated them, and the smell of him, spicy-sweet skin and apple-scented shampoo. He wanted to get up close and personal with the source of that scent, bury his face in that silky long hair, feel that slender body moving against his own.
Later. Clark could be very patient, when he needed to be, though he didn’t think he would. All the signals were there, and Julian might look like a delicate hothouse flower, but Clark could tell- he was the kind of person who went after what he wanted.
He was Lex’s brother, after all.
“So,” Julian said, once they were outside and feeling the crisp October air. “Where to?”
“Um,” Clark said. And then nothing else.
Laughing, Julian nudged him sharply in the side. “Oh, come on. You’re the one who planned this!”
“Not very well,” Clark admitted, faking a shy grin. “I sort of didn’t think past getting you alone, you know?”
“Like that was a big challenge,” Julian jibed. “Come on. I don’t care if it was a ploy, I was promised a Smallville tour and now I’m gonna get it.”
Clark put on an earnest expression. “Well, I can think of this one place,” he said slowly, as if hesitant. “I mean, I’m not sure that it’ll appeal to a big-city kinda guy like you, but-“
“I’m pretty sure I’ll like… the country,” Julian said, making a big production out of his hesitation and drawing out “like” in the sleaziest manner possible. They both looked at each other and lost it, leaning drunkenly against each other and laughing like idiots in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Okay,” Clark said, once he’d gotten his laughter under control. “I do have a cool spot I’d like to show you, if you want. Or we can skip it and just go to the movie.” He was pretty sure which one Julian would choose, but not one hundred percent, and he had to offer the out, just in case he was reading things wrong.
“Nah,” Julian said, waving his hand dismissively. “Screw the movies, anyway. I’d like to see this cool spot of yours.”
Score. He had gotten it right. Clark one, universe zero. “Alright then,” he said, and grabbed Julian’s wrist, letting himself enjoy the feel of the slender bone cradled against his much larger palm. “Let’s go check it out.”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” Julian said, and let Clark lead him to his truck.
~*~
“So what’s it like, anyway?” Julian asked a little while later, walking next to Clark down a gravel road with nothing but moonlight to guide the way. Luckily, the moon was full, since Julian didn’t have Clark’s superior night-vision to fall back on.
“What’s what like?” Clark asked.
“Growing up here, in Smallville. I mean, I’ve had some pretty great experiences and some pretty shitty ones, but it can’t be the norm around here.”
“Actually no, that sums it up pretty well- some great stuff, some not so great. Smallville had more than its fair share of tragedies, and more than its fare share of weirdness. I’m sure Chloe’s told you some of it.”
“She gave me a rundown,” Julian said, his voice so dry that Clark knew Chloe had talked herself hoarse. She did that, sometimes, when she found a willing audience. Clark thought it was kinda cute, though he’d long ago learned to tune her out and still pick up the actual pertinent information. Not everyone would have developed those particular filters.
“Well, it gets weirder, I’m sure. It always gets weirder, here in Smallville. I’ve been here all my life, and I still get surprised by some of the stuff that shows up here.”
“Okay, so Smallville should be renamed Weirdville, check,” Julian said. “But what’s it like to live here, when you’re not the town freak?”
Clark paused. “I wouldn’t really know, anymore,” he said finally. He cast a rueful look at Julian. “Which I’m sure you know. You had to have heard the gossip.”
“Chloe said something about you changing, though she didn’t say why,” Julian said, not mentioning anything that anyone else had said. His open sideways glance held nothing but curiosity, which is why Clark answered the way he did.
“I used to go out of my way to be Mr. Joe Normal, you know? I was the perfect small-town farm boy- polite, hardworking, in love with the girl next door.”
“Lana,” Julian guessed. Well, he’d already known that Julian was observant, and just as canny as his brother, in his own way.
“Lana,” Clark confirmed. “For a while, anyway. Eventually I got hit with a clue-by-four, as Chloe likes to say, and I saw the light where my best friend was concerned. Chloe and I were together for a while, and it was damn good. I didn’t have to worry about being normal, or not-normal, or anything, not when I was with her. She’s just that kind of person.”
“Admittedly, I don’t know her that well,” Julian said, “but from everything I’ve seen? She’s amazing.”
“Yeah,” Clark said. “She is.”
“So what happened?” Julian asked. “I mean, it’s obvious you two aren’t together anymore. Did you fight, was there someone else, or what?”
“Nothing so dramatic,” Clark said with a smile. “We just… drifted. We’re better off as friends, and I, for one, am just grateful that we figured it out before it could get that dramatic. I’d be pretty miserable without her.”
“Which brings us right back to Chloe talking about you changing,” Julian said. “Or is this an off-limits subject?”
Of course it was. His summer in Metropolis wasn’t something that Clark ever wanted to talk about, with anyone. But he found himself opening his mouth and telling the truth anyway. “My mom was pregnant,” he said. “She got into an accident and lost the baby. I don’t know if she blamed me or not, but Dad made it pretty clear that he did, and I sure as hell blamed myself. So I got the hell out of Dodge.”
Clark paused, waiting for Julian to say, “It wasn’t your fault.” Or even to ask why Clark blamed himself. But Julian just said nothing, just nodded encouragingly and waited for Clark to continue.
So he did. “I did… A lot of things. Some pretty messed-up stuff. Partied all night, slept all day, got a little crime in around all that fun.” He shot a sideways glance in Julian’s direction, but he wasn’t recoiling. He’d probably figured out some of this already, but knowing was a lot different than just assuming. “You can probably guess that that’s when I met your brother.”
“Oh, he doesn’t think too well of you, no,” Julian said. “He’s warned me off you at least a hundred times already.”
Clark’s heart beat faster in his chest from the only kind of fear that actually hit his adrenaline anymore. Then again, this was the only kind of problem that he couldn’t control, no matter how much strength and speed he threw at it.
“Oh?” he asked, managing to sound mostly casual. “What sort of warnings, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Julian shot him a look that said he wasn’t fooling anyone. “That you’re bad news. That you’re not as nice and wholesome as you seem.” He paused. “That you’re dangerous.”
Clark swallowed hard. “And?”
“And I told him I never thought you were wholesome,” Julian said, his smile glinting in the moonlight. His words were casual, but Clark got the message anyway. Julian wasn’t heeding Lex’s warnings, but he wasn’t walking into this blind, either.
Clark liked that about him.
They didn’t really say anything more for the next few minutes, just walking in silence until they got to the turn-off Clark was looking for. “This way,” he said, grabbing Julian’s elbow to pull him after Clark. “It’s just a little ways down here.”
“I can’t see a damn thing,” Julian complained good-naturedly, letting Clark guide him down the darkened path. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Hold your horses, you’ll see in just a minute,” Clark said, laughing a little, and then suddenly the path opened up into a moonlit clearing and he grinned down at Julian, letting go of his arms. “Voila.”
Julian stared around the crumbled stones with an expression of unabashed wonder on his face. “What is this place?” he asked. “It’s amazing.”
“There used to be a cottage here, back when Smallville was still a one-horse town, instead of two,” Clark said. “As you can see, it was either torn down or fell down long ago. Almost everyone’s forgotten about it.”
“So how did you find it?” Julian asked, his eyes bright with curiosity and something else that Clark wasn’t sure he could put a name to. It was bad enough that he’d brought Julian here at all. The last person he’d shown this place to had been Chloe, and even Clark wasn’t too dense not to see the parallels there. Not that he hadn’t seen them already, but still.
“I explore,” Clark said, which was the truth but not nearly close to all of it. “I still come here sometimes, if I need to think. It’s got that Secret Garden feel to it, you know?”
“Yeah, I do,” Julian said. He wandered over to the one remaining section of brick foundation, which came up to about his chest. “Hey, gimme a boost, would you?” he asked, and clambered up so agilely when Clark complied that Clark had no doubt in his mind that he’d asked for help just so that Clark could put his hands on him, a plan of which Clark approved wholeheartedly.
Julian tipped his head back to stare at the expanse of stars above his head. “I love Smallville,” he confided to Clark. “Even though it’s weird and has mutants and most of the school hates me. It’s still better than the city.” He smiled up at the night sky again. “You can never see the stars in the city, for one.”
Clark stared at him. In that one moment, Julian looked so damn beautiful that he didn’t even seem real. It was like if Clark touched him, he’d just laugh and disappear in a puff of fairy dust, leaving behind nothing but his slowly fading footprints in the dew.
Julian looked back down at him and frowned at whatever he saw on Clark’s face. “Hey, what’s the matter?” he asked. “You look… weird. Far-away.”
“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” Clark said, his mouth dry. He reached out and cupped Julian’s cheek in his hand, the skin cool against the blood-warm skin of his palm. “Julian…”
Julian made a little noise in the back of his throat and leaned into Clark’s touch, and that was it, that was the end of Clark’s patience. He’d meant to draw this out, to make it perfectly romantic because Julian seemed like the sort of person to appreciate the little things, but Julian was smiling at him while Clark touched him, and there was really no resisting that. He’d managed a secluded location, mysterious ruins, and moonlight: that was about as romantic as he was going to be able to get.
He surged forward and crowded right up against Julian, bracketing him with his larger body. He brought his other hand up until he had Julian’s face framed in his palms, and when he read nothing but eagerness in the tilt of Julian’s smile, he leaned up and brought Julian’s mouth down to his.
It was amazing, stunning, earth-shattering, like lighting and fireworks going off all at once. It was a perfect first kiss by anyone’s standards, chaste and intimate to start, then slowly sliding into deep, hot, and wet, with Julian’s tongue doing something positively obscene to the roof of Clark’s mouth, and finally easing back into slow, linger touches and the press of lips on lips. Finally they were just barely kissing, Clark’s forehead resting against Julian’s as their breath mingled in the scant distance between their mouths.
“Wow,” Julian whispered, causing them both to laugh. Clark realized that his hands had slid under Julian’s jacket and were resting on his hips, his thumbs just brushing against the bare skin on the point of Julian’s hips, where his t-shirt had slid up to expose them. He had no memory of putting them there.
“Wow, indeed,” Clark whispered back. He slid his right hand back, all the way under Julian’s t-shirt until it his palm was flat on the small of Julian’s back, pressing lightly against the sensitive cluster of nerves there. Julian’s breath caught in the back of his throat, and his eyes glinted hotly at Clark.
“This place is amazing,” he said in a more normal voice. “But it’s not really the best place for this sort of thing.”
“I know,” Clark said, slightly rueful. “All I can say is, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Oh, it definitely was,” Julian said. He hopped down off the wall, which left him pressed against Clark since Clark didn’t bother to move back and give him some room. Clark was pretty happy about this state of affairs, and judging by the way Julian’s breath caught in the back of his throat and he pressed closer to Clark, he was too. “It’s just a bit too cold outside to be removing any clothing.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Clark said intently, and Julian’s little laugh died as he stared at Clark’s mouth with blatant hunger.
“See that you do,” he said, and between one second and the next they were kissing again, this time with Clark the one to bend his head, Julian’s smaller body pressed as tightly against his as it could go.
I could fall in love with him, Clark thought to himself, and the most surprising thing about it was that it wasn’t a surprise at all.
Continued here.