Furious Angels
            by Nymph Du Pave
 

            CHAPTER ELEVEN:  The Gift

            ---Arms take your last embrace; and Lips, O you
            The Doors of Breath, seal with a righteous Kiss
            A dateless Bargain to engrossing Death---

                                                        Romeo Mountague
                                                       Romeo & Juliet
                                                       William Shakespeare

            There was nothing.  No light, no dark, no black, no white, no wet, no dry.  There were no effulgent Elysian fields, no steamy pits of Hades.  Where he was was neither hot nor cold- thankfully.  It was arcane, but at the same time eerily unending.  Lex had slipped beyond the welkin and yet Arcadia was not in wait.

            There was something wrong.  Something tugging at him, telling him not to go, not to leave but what was truly bizarre and a little frightening was that he saw no where to leave to.  No where to run.

            Is this what it's like for me?  No heaven after death.  Is this purgatory?  Hell?

            -He felt a tug again.-

            He didn't know where this was, but it felt familiar; the interminable non-existence, the void of forever…  He'd been here before.  He could not maintain a sense of fear when he knew he'd been here and left alright, uninjured.  This wasn't heaven, he knew that much.  No, this wasn't heaven, but it would be okay.

            -Another tug.-

            That's familiar, too.  But what is it?  Why am I here?  Why am I-

            Before him the black portal of his memory of the human life he lived opened to him and swallowed him whole.  Inside he saw a scene already playing, one that he remembered well.  It was relived on many occasions within the prisons of his sleepless nights, only with an alternate ending full of loss and grief- instead of miracles- that tortured the few hours in which his body should have been able to gain rest.

            When he had actually experienced the scene, however, and in all of his dreams it had been from his own point of view.  Now it was from that of an observer.

            The car in the scene was speeding, but not horribly.  He'd done far, far worse.

            He was going somewhere in a town that felt like an exaggerated punishment.  It was still the chance to prove everyone, including his father and himself, that they were all wrong.  Every last one of them.

            Him ducking for the phone.  The barbed wire hitting the road.  Lex seeing this an swerving.  He saw all this from the observer's point of view.  But where was the heavenly farmboy?

            Clark…

            -There was another tug.-

            The car was coming right at him and the next thing he knew, he was flying backward, seeing the clear blue firmament only a few shades lighter than his own Earth-bound hue, then turquoise beneath him.

            A plunge into cold water.

            A frantic search.

            A hand tearing a roof clean from the metal frame.

            A figure in that hand.

            He was pulling himself out of the Porsche.  He was lightly put down on the ground and CPR was commenced.

            The moment his lips met his own there was a moment, a strange bond that didn't seem to make too much sense but it had started the strangest most rewarding relationship in his life.

            What's going on?

            His pale body, more wan than he'd ever seen himself, jerked underneath the hands and lips.

            -Another tug.  He could feel it.  He was getting closer to whatever was pulling him.-

            There was elation as blue eyes opened, not calm but certainly not panicked.

            There was a pounding in a heart that couldn't possibly be his.

            Wait a minute here...

            It was too big, to active, to… healthy.  This wasn't his body.

            The scene flashed to him working in Clark's barn.

            I never…  Oh.

            In the memory he- as Clark apparently- turned to find himself just standing in the open door just watching, lust and pain of not being able to act upon that secret desire evident.  Maddeningly so.  The obvious emotions turned the beautiful but hard face soft and compassionate.

            Beautiful?  Shit.  I'm fucking hideous.  I'm pale and fucking bald and-

            A grin that Lex could never force himself to look at in the mirror, unfolded, eyes soft and warm and he felt the big heart in his/Clark's chest speed up again.  He looked the same as he ever did- except Lex had never seen himself happy- only now he was exotic, regal and incredible sexy.  So adult-like and sophisticated mixed with the teeniest bit of youthful bad-boy rogue.  Then there was the kicked puppy deal, a poor little rich boy so desperately in need of friendship and love.

           Clark's turned on by all that?  He sees that?

            The baldness was beyond a turn on and, as he/Clark watched himself/Lex come closer, hands in his pockets, he felt desire, strong as he once knew for the young Kent.

            Is this how Clark- saw me?

            -Another tug.-

            He could feel the big hands that he always longed to touch, longed to have caress his body, tighten on the pitchfork.  They were itching to do just that.  To grab hold of the thousand dollar suit and pull him/Lex closer.  To lick and chew and laugh and just love.

            He/Clark looked away as the other him/Lex came closer, standing perilously near.  Almost... touching.

            I remember.  This was when I came over to talk about Lana's gift.  Whatever Clark wanted me to do.  Her birthday party.  I was an emotional wreck.  I needed Clark more than ever and-

            Clark had apparently needed him, too.

            Being inside the boy, he felt the agony of a secret, not the one about his harboring feelings for Lex, but another one, more controversial, but just as deep.  He/Clark reeled at the pain of not being able to confide in the slender, pale form across from him.

            Not being able to touch him was bad too.  All he needed was one honest lingering pat or stroke. One smile with more than the normal Luthor trace of suggestion; maybe something more sensual.  One true word, even just a little slip up and he would be there.  He would pounce and take his chances with the perpetually bleak human standing next to him, expensive polyester brushing up against the tanned skin of his bare arm.

            He just needed to know what Lex felt.  No more hiding emotions.  He was so tired of hiding them from this man.

            Man?  I'm more of a child than he is.  I'm more of a child than he probably ever was.  Born with his secrets, I'll bet.

            A raw and muched longed for progression into the most amazing relationship could begin with just the admission of the truth.  All of it.  He wanted Lex, wanted to have him there to talk to, to confide in.  Forget the pretense puppy love for Lana, forget lying to himself and everything else.  This was a friendship farther outside anything he'd never known, and never wanted to.  This was it.

            He loved Lex Luthor.
 
 
 
 
 

            TBC Tomorrow...