Furious Angels
            by Nymph Du Pave
 

            CHAPTER SIXTEEN:  Trust?  Again?

            Clark turned and looked back.

            Shit. He's looking in the direction of the woods.  In the direction of the lake.

            "Clark?"

            The boy turned around looking frantic.  "You said it sounded like ice."

            He nodded warily.  "Ice breaking."

            "Shit."

            He let his hand slip from Clark's neck to his hand as the boy made to get up.  "What is it?"

            "I'll be right back.  Stay here."

            He kept his grip firm.  "No, Clark, I-"

            Clark kissed him on the mouth, shutting him up, and pulled back.  "Trust me."  He backed away.

            "Damn you, Kent," Lex groused but didn't move.  At least until Clark was completely hidden by the foliage.  As soon as Clark was out of sight, he tried to stand up.  He right leg, still sore, buckled beneath him and he cried out in surprise and pain.  There was a blur, wind and suddenly Clark was by his side, catching him before he could fall and holding him close.  Clark look frantically all around.

            "Where is he?  Where'd you see him?"

            Lex knew there were things about Clark that the farmboy kept hidden, and this struck Lex as a particularly painful subject.  The one person that he trusted with his what little there was left of his heart and soul, with everything he had inside and everything that his knowledge contained, did not trust him as fully.  Lex only wanted to know things about his friend and wanted Clark to tell him.

            Yes, he knew as a scientific fact that he had hit the young farmboy with his Porsche, going sixty.  He knew that, somehow, Clark had ripped the roof off.  And he'd be damned to hell and back if it was just adrenaline or miracle strength given to a mortal in a moment of panic.  He knew for a fact that there was something about Clark, something that made him odd, a little different.

            Certainly nothing that made him stick out in a town like Smallville.

            It hurt, though, that Kent didn't feel that Lex was honorable enough to confide in and he knew that it wasn't just his name or his past record.  It couldn't have been.  Clark didn't seem to care about that.  So what was it that made him so unworthy in Clark's eyes of complete and utter trust.

            I'd never lift a finger against him.  If he said that he knew for a fact that the world spun vertically and that the grass was really the hair of a large giant, I'd believe him.

            Clark finally looked down, confused at the lack of an answer and the blue, killer teen.  "What happened?"

            Lex took a deep breath and tried to think up a next action.  He had to address the trust issue.  Clark had just surpassed normal human velocity and Lex wasn't about to let his friend-

           Lover?  God, I hope so.

           -get away with it.

            "Lex, are you okay?"

            "How did you do that?" he asked calmly.

            Clark shut his eyes, tense.  "Did you see Shawn?"

            "That was an impressive display of speed there, Clark."

            Clark continued to ignore him.  "You got up, didn't you?"  The boy was trying to brush off Lex's choice of conversational topics as insignificant.

            Fuck that.

            "Is that how I didn't hit you with my car?" he asked, unable to keep bitterness and sarcasm from his voice.  Clark's wince at his tone didn't escape his notice, but right then he didn't give a damn.  He was tired of the secrets.  He'd tell Clark the deepest truths; he'd open the cavity of the worst moments of his life and give Kent a goddamn flashlight and map to find his fucking way.  Why wasn't this a shared conviction?  "Is it?"

            "I asked you to stay here, Lex."

            "You ran really fast-"

            "Lex."

            "-to get away from a Porsche going sixty."

            "Please."

            He shrugged Clark's hands off him, more willing to fall then to be held by someone how was trying to pave over the obvious; someone who was ignoring the pain in a supposed loved one's voice.

            You're doing the same, a little voice interrupted. You're ignoring the pain etched into those gorgeous features.

            He disregarded the voice letting his self-pity take over.  "I bet you could outrun any of my fucking cars, huh?"

            Clark's silence made him both sad and angry.

            "Wanna try, Kent?  Wanna race?"

            "No," the voice was a tired whisper.

            "I tell you what," he started, his own voice cracking.  "I'll bet you everything I have."

            Clark rubbed his temples.

            "Everything.  Everything against one thing from you.  The truth."

            "No."

            "Why not?!" he yelled.  "I'll give you anything you want!"

            Clark's forefinger pressed against his lips.  "Lex, please... just drop it."

            He slapped the hand away, hating himself for causing the pain in Clark's eyes, but this was something that had to be said.  "No.  I want to know.  I want to know everything about you.  I love you.  Can't you see that?"

            Clark sighed.  "Yes.  And I love you, too, Lex.  More than you could ever understand."

            "Then explain it to me.  Explain how you could love me so much and still lie to me."

            "There are things about me that even I don't know."

            He sighed.  This had always been a soft spot to maneuver around.  "You were adopted, I know, so-"

            "It's more than that."

            Lex's tone softened.  "Then tell me."

            Clark looked around, worry coming back to taint his face.  "I can't.  But especially not right now."

            Lex felt like he had come within reaching point of the gold at the end of the rainbow just as the fucking arch disappeared.  They were going around in circles.  "Why?  Why don't you trust me?"

            He wants to.  He wishes he could.  Remember the dream.

            He shrugged to himself, running a frustrated hand over his chilly smooth scalp.  "You want to know everything about me?  You want to know about every person I've ever fucked over?  About every life that I or my father have ruined together and separately?  You'll love me less, but I'll tell you.  If that's what you want, Clark, I'll tell you it all.  Whatever it takes to get you to trust me."

            Clark reached out, taking Lex's ripped sweater and undershirt, pulling them closed in an effort to warm the young Luthor.  It took him a moment to realize why Clark felt this action necessary: he was trembling from the expose to the biting temperature.

            He looked down at the ground, unwilling to look Clark in the eye.  The action was too sweet.

            Clark took a deep and audible breath.  "I do trust you, Lex.  The past is the past and I could never love you less for anything you might have done then.  I could hate your father more, but never feel less of you."

            "You don't know what I've done."

            "And I don't care.  You're trying to better yourself in your own eyes, and that's what matters.  I don't want to know what you don't want to tell me."

            Lex was becoming a little tired, but pleased that this was finally getting somewhere.  "Then what do you want?"

            "The same from you."

            He shook his head.  "I don't know that-"

            "I'm not saying that I won't ever tell you the things you want to know.  I'm just saying that now, especially right this minute... it's not the most convenient time."  He stepped closer and cupped Lex's face with both his hands, letting the clothes part again.  Somehow the warmth from Clark's hands was enough.  "I want it to be just right, when I give you everything I am.  When I hand over my soul, Lex, I want it to be on both of our terms.  Not with you angry and hurt and feeling betrayed by me."

            Lex took a shuddery breath in.

            "I want it to be perfect and I want you to trust me to know when the time is right."

            "How can I argue with that?" he growled.  "Damn it."

            "You'll be patient for me?"

            "I'll wait until you feel ready to tell me.  I don't know that I'll be patient about it, but I really have no choice in the whole waiting deal."

            Clark smiled.  "I guess not."

            Clark's smile was contagious.  Lex felt his lips turning upward moments before they were captured.  An involuntary moan escaped his throat, revealing to Clark and himself how much he truly needed a moment of physical solace.

            Clark responded to the moan by tugging at his lips and, after a stubborn moment, he parted his lips.  He was taken aback by the hunger with which Clark ravaged his mouth.

            So warm and wet.  Ohgod...

            Hands grasped at his waist, holding him steady as the mouth traveled down his throat, tongue and lips threatening to knock him on his ass.

            "Clark," he whispered.  Heat was pouring off of them both and Lex felt his slacks tighten.  He'd wanted this, needed it, for what felt like far too long.  He'd never had to wait for anything and, in just the few months he'd known Clark, he'd learned both the virtue of patience and the annoyance of it.

            Lex put one hand on Clark's forearm, letting his fingers graze the hair sprinkled there and traced the other over Clark's defined abs, sending it to travel up the boy's chest to feel the heartbeat there.  It was just as speedy and reckless as his own.

            "You taste like heaven, Lex."  Clark's tongue moved in swirls up Lex's neck before finding his ear.  Clark teased him, running the tip of his tongue around the edges and crevices.  Shivers ran down Lex's body as he let out small pants of pleasure and desire.  He wanted that tongue to stop teasing and just deliver.

            Clark's fingers suddenly grasped his waist tighter and his tongue pressed hard into Lex's ear.

            "Oh, Clark!" he gasped.

            "Oh, Clark," a voice mocked, high-pitched, whiny and unmistakably menacing.  "Now, that's fucking gross."
 
 
 
 
 

            TBC Tomorrow...