Archive of Our Own

"Did you manage to get a good picture of him?" Lex asks as he studies the muddy footprints, trying to make some sense of them.

It's certainly not uncommon for Lex to find footprints on the balcony outside his bedroom - the location of his penthouse is no deterrent to the people most likely to spy on him - but these are different.

Superheroes don't usually go barefoot.

Mercy makes a noncommittal noise. "This is the clearest image we could get, sir," she says, handing Lex a photograph.

If the image is the best his team could recover from the security footage, Lex really should think about improving his surveillance equipment. His nocturnal visitor is a bulky, featureless shadow, barely discernable against the night sky.

Still, Lex recognises him instantly.

He frowns and clenches his fist, crumpling the photograph against his palm.

"Sir?" Mercy asks, a hint of anxiety souring her voice.

If it were anyone else, Lex would be worried. However, he wouldn't be surprised if Superman had simply been unable to sleep for wondering what nefarious deeds Lex might be performing under the cover of night. "It's okay, Mercy," he says. "I don't think we need to take any further action."

The next night, Lex wakes a little after three, heart hammering against his ribcage, snarled in the tattered remnants of a nightmare. He throws off the sheets that have twisted around his legs, shivering as cool air washes over his sweat-slicked skin, and then leans forward until his elbows rest against his knees, drawing in huge gulps of air that scald his lungs.

When all that remains of the dream is a chaotic blur of colour and a lingering sense of unease, he flicks on his bedside lamp and picks up the glass beside it. He takes a sip, but the water is tepid and stale and does little to soothe the scratchy feeling in his throat.

He sighs and gets out of bed, intending to go to the bathroom, but then freezes as he spots the dark, hulking shape beyond the glass sliding doors that lead to the balcony. His heart rate speeds up again, his mouth as dry as sand. Superman does not move. Even though Lex can't see his face, he can feel the weight of the alien's eyes, watching him impassively.

For a moment, Lex is unable to move, pinned in place by the weight of Superman's silent regard, but then the ridiculousness of the situation strikes him and he laughs, shaking his head. He isn't doing anything wrong - at least, not right now - and there's no reason for him to feel guilty. Allowing Superman to inspire any feelings of guilt is a habit he's trying hard to break, anyway.

He sneers at the lurking superhero and continues on to the bathroom. Superman's still there when he returns.

Lex closes the blinds.

The following evening, Lex sets the penthouse's kryptonite defence systems before he retires to bed. He's lost the habit recently as he and Superman have been in a state of detente for several months. Lex should have known better than to think that their cessation of hostilities - brought about by a number of strategic charitable contributions, a show of false contrition, and the relocation of his more questionable projects on Lex's part, and what he can only presume is a naive belief in Lex's supposed better nature on Superman's - would last.

He's awoken from another nightmare several hours later by a strident klaxon and Hope running into his bedroom, calling his name.

"We've caught him, sir," she screams, grinning at him madly before racing out of the door again.

Lex dresses slowly, partly in order to savour the moment, and partly because his hands are shaking so badly that he can barely button his shirt. He's never managed to capture Superman before, although he's tried to do so for years. He's spent countless hours and millions of dollars on building traps and weapons to try and defeat him, all of which the alien has evaded with sickening ease. Now that Lex has finally achieved his aims, it all feels depressingly anticlimactic.

Hope and Mercy have Superman pinned down in the living room, their guns pointed at his head. Lex's grin of triumph is short-lived, however, and his victory speech - painstakingly rehearsed so that it's word perfect while still sounding spontaneous - dies on his lips when he draws closer to the three figures.

He swallows the curse that is his instinctive response and instead says, "Let him go."

Hope and Mercy share a worried-looking glance. "Sir?" they ask in unison, their tone disbelieving as though questioning his sanity.

He can hardly blame them, but he can't do this. Maybe if Clark had been wearing his Superman costume, Lex could have given the order to shoot. But Clark isn't wearing the suit: he's wearing a pair of worn sweatpants that have slipped down slightly to reveal the jut of his hipbones and a fine line of dark hair that starts just below his navel. His hair is mussed, falling softly over his closed eyes and the red, swollen spot marring his left temple that's the same size and shape as the butt of Hope's gun. The soles of his bare feet are covered in mud.

Lex averts his eyes, shifting his attention to the gleaming rope of Mercy's plait. He clears his throat before repeating, "Let him go," but his voice still sounds a little gruff, roughened with some emotion that he does not care to examine too closely.

Hope and Mercy draw back from Clark, their reluctance evident in the uncharacteristic lethargy of their movements; the slight hesitation before they holster their guns. They're clearly expecting Lex to change his mind and recant his order, but Lex will not. He can't, at least not yet. It's something he's been working on, however.

"Just... take him back to his apartment," Lex says, turning back towards his bedroom. "Quickly, before he regains consciousness."

He will probably regret his decision in the morning, but that is pretty much par for the course regarding all of his interactions with Clark.

Lex doesn't want to be taken by surprise again, so as soon as darkness falls the following night, he goes out to stand on the balcony. He doesn't keep track of the time, but his hands and the tips of his ears have started to go numb when Clark finally drifts down from the sky to settle beside him.

One of the first things that Lex notices - after noting, with a small pang of disappointment, that Clark has chosen to wear a T-shirt this time and then berating himself for caring either way - is that Clark's eyes are closed. His head is lolling forward slightly and his breath catches at the back of his throat on every inhale. It almost sounds as though he's snoring.

"Clark," Lex says softly, not wanting to startle the other man. He doesn't particularly want to be on the receiving end of a super-strong fist if Clark lashes out reflexively at the sound of Lex's voice, which is something that Lex has always suspected to be true.

Clark's breath catches again, and then he expels it from his nose in a loud snort. He raises his hands to his face and waves them weakly, as if trying to bat away an annoying, invisible fly.

Lex frowns, and then repeats Clark's name, but his only response is another snort.

In frustration, Lex touches Clark's shoulder as he says his name for the third time. It's little more than a brush of his fingers - feather-light, barely even a touch at all - but Clark's reaction is instantaneous. His head snaps up as his eyes open wide, and one huge hand curls around Lex's wrist before he has the chance to pull his hand away. His grip isn't strong but Lex doesn't make any attempt to break it, knowing that any attempt to struggle will likely break his arm, whether Clark intends it or not.

Clark's eyes dart around the balcony wildly before finally settling on Lex, whereupon they grow even wider, which Lex would have thought impossible.

"What the hell's going on, Luthor?" he asks, voice thin with obvious confusion and a measure of fear. "What are you doing here?"

Lex tries to bite back his laughter, but the attempt isn't entirely successful and a thin sliver of amusement forces its way between his tightly-pressed lips. Clark starts at the sound, a faint line appearing between his eyebrows as they draw together.

"What am I doing here?" Lex asks when he's forced his urge to laugh down deeply enough that he's certain that he can speak without his voice breaking. "This is my home, Clark. I think the more pertinent question is what are you doing here?"

The line between Clark's eyebrows deepens and is joined by several more that crease the smooth skin of his forehead. "Your home?" He shakes his head. "Lex, how could..."

He skitters in to silence when Lex scowls at him, obviously realising that there's no other plausible explanation of how he found himself on the twenty-sixth floor of LexCorp, on a balcony whose only access is through Lex's bedroom, save for flight. This is a game that Lex tired of many years ago, and one he only makes a token effort at playing now, purely to keep Clark guessing and off-balance.

He has no patience for the pretence tonight, however, and Clark's continued belief in Lex's ignorance, however tenuous that belief might be, has always angered him more than it should. "We both know you flew," he snaps. "The real question is why?"

Clark shifts his weight, his eyes narrowing in the tell-tale way that betrays his desperate attempt to invent a lie. "I... I'm keeping an eye on you. I don't believe you've really cleaned up your act. I'm sure you're up to something," he says, his voice gradually becoming more forceful and assured with every word.

Lex raises an eyebrow questioningly. "And you believe this so strongly that you couldn't even afford the time to change out of your pyjamas before you flew over here?"

Clark glances down at his body and his face darkens, clearly blushing. "Vigilance never sleeps," he offers.

"Perhaps," Lex concedes, "but I think it's fairly obvious that you do. You were asleep when you arrived here, and I suspect you were the last three nights as well."

"Three nights," Clark echoes. He touches his temple with his free hand and winces with what can only be remembered pain, given how fast he heals. "You?" he asks.

Lex shakes his head. "Hope, with a little help from my defence systems. You really don't remember?"

"No, I..." Clark drops Lex's wrist and steps back from him hurriedly. "I should go."

He takes to the air without looking back.

Lex's vision is saturated with blood and his nostrils filled with the charnel stink of rotting corpses. A piercing metallic sound rings out above the screams of the dying. It sounds like a bell tolling.

Lex awakes with a bitten-off scream, muffled by his pillow, his hands clenched into fists. Although it should have died with the nightmare, he can still hear the rhythmic clanking. He looks towards the source of the noise, irrationally fearful that some faceless horror has followed him back from his dreamscape, and is, equally irrationally, relieved to see that it's only Clark.

Clark, who for some reason is wearing handcuffs on his left wrist, the empty cuff of which is swinging gently, tapping against the glass of the balcony door.

Lex wrestles free of his sheets and turns on the light before sliding the door open. He squeezes Clark's shoulder gently to wake him and then jumps back, not wanting to get grabbed again.

Clark's eyelids stutter open, and then he slams them shut when he sees Lex. "I guess that didn't work, then," he says with a groan.

"What didn't work?" Lex asks.

"I..." Clark groans again. "Do you mind if I sit down? I'm feeling a bit" - he makes some sort of arcane gesture towards his head that is presumably meant to give Lex an indication as to his state of mind - "muzzy."

Lex wants to smirk and close the door in Clark's face, but his feet seem to have other ideas, stepping back seeming of their own volition. His arm starts to make a sweeping gesture of welcome, cut short as soon as Lex realises what he's doing. "Come in," he says, unable to stop the irritation creeping into his voice.

Clark doesn't seem to notice, however, and smiles weakly at Lex before inching past him into the bedroom. Three unsteady strides take him to Lex's bed, and he collapses on to it, pressing his right hand against his forehead. He hasn't got handcuffs on his right wrist, but he is wearing leg cuffs, Lex distantly observes before he turns his head aside; the juxtaposition of his bed and a cuffs-wearing Clark making him feel slightly uncomfortable despite himself.

"Now, I realise that I might not want to now the answer to this," Lex says, staring intently at an abstract painting that has never managed to hold his interest before, "but what exactly were you trying to achieve with..." Words fail him, and he can only wave his hand vaguely towards Clark and hope that he understands the intent of the question.

Clark snorts in what seems to be an abortive attempt at laughter. "I was hoping that I wouldn't go flying in my sleep again." He shifts his weight to the accompaniment of the soft groaning of springs and a tinny clatter of chains. "These don't seem to have helped, though."

Lex sets his jaw and tries to ignore the images his mind helpfully conjures up with the information. "You chained yourself to your bed?" he asks, forcing the question through clenched teeth.

"Yeah." Clark chuckles ruefully. "I guess I must have busted through my bed frame."

"But not the chains?"

"They've got kryptonite mixed in with the steel. Just a little, but enough that I haven't the strength to break them while I'm wearing the cuffs. I'm surprised I had the strength to fly in them."

Which explains Clark's apparent weakness. He's probably unaware of the ammunition he's just handed Lex, too disoriented to realise just how dangerous his admission could be. Possibilities flit through Lex's mind, but seem disinclined to settle there. He lets the second best chance he's had to rid himself of Superman slip through his fingers before he's even given himself the opportunity to fully acknowledge it.

He's never as ruthless as he wishes he could be when it comes to Clark, although Clark would probably never believe that.

"Have you any idea why this is happening?" Lex asks. Perhaps if he knows what's causing Clark's esoteric form of somnambulism, he can help prevent it. His nightly visits are proving very disruptive, both to Lex's circadian rhythm and his peace of mind.

Only silence greets his question, and Lex begins to think that Clark didn't hear him ask it. When he opens his mouth to reiterate it, however, Clark interrupts him with: "Solar flares." "Solar flares," Lex says questioningly, feeling as though he and Clark might unwittingly be having two separate conversations.

"My, um, powers come from sunlight. There've been a lot of solar flares recently and apparently I've still got a lot of energy stored up when I go to bed. I guess my body's just trying to get rid of some of it. I've got someone working on a solution."

Clark usually guards his tongue a lot better than this; the kryptonite must be affecting his thought processes quite badly. Lex mentally files the information away as potentially useful and then asks, "Has it happened before?"

Clark makes a strange strangled sound, hovering somewhere between a groan and laughter. "I used to float in my sleep sometimes when I was a kid."

"You did? Did it coincide with solar activity then, as well?" Lex asks, hoping to gain some insight into the exact nature of Clark's problem, and how best to cure it.

Clark seems to almost choke on his next groan of laughter, and his voice cracks as he says, "No, it happened when I dreamt about... things," he finishes unhelpfully.

"What sort of things, Clark," Lex asks, annoyed.

"Lex," Clark says, his voice ascending to a nasal whine that Lex recognises from Clark's teenage years. A pleading tone he would use to distract Lex from asking too many questions or digging too deeply into something that Clark would rather stayed hidden. Clark, Lex realises with a flush of heat, is embarrassed.

"Do you mean sex dreams?" he asks.

He barely hears Clark's whispered, "Yes," before he presses on.

"Why do you always fly here, Clark? Why do you fly to me?" Lex asks, feeling strangely light-headed, his heart racing. He thinks he knows the answer, but he needs to hear it from Clark. He thought he was years past caring what Clark thought of him, years past wishing for this sort of confession, but apparently his body remembers even if his mind chooses not to.

Clark sucks in a deep breath and then releases it in a long, shuddering sigh. "It doesn't mean anything, Lex. I have... that sort of dream about lots of people. You know how it is."

Lex's sleep hasn't been disturbed by anything other than nightmares since his time in Smallville, but he nods nevertheless. It doesn't matter what Clark's dreams mean anyway, as he's never likely to act on them. "I know," he says. "Perhaps you should be getting home."

"I would," Clark says quietly, "but I don't think I can even walk in these chains. I really have no idea how I managed to get over here in the first place."

"Why don't you take them off, then?" Lex asks irritably. Clark's continued proximity is serving only to disturb Lex's hard-won equilibrium, which is precarious at the best of times, and he just wants him gone before he does or says something unforgivably stupid.

"The key's back at my apartment," Clark says, sounding a little sheepish, "and I can't concentrate on using my heat vision. My head feels like it's about to split in two."

"No doubt Mercy has something that can be used to cut through handcuffs," Lex says, backing towards the door. "I'll ask her if -"

"Thank you," Clark says, cutting off the rest of Lex's words and halting him with one hand curled around the door handle. "For helping me, I mean. I didn't think you would, I thought... I thought you hated me, Lex."

Lex's feelings towards Clark are a jumbled mess of emotions - envy, regret, anger, and yes, even dim traces of love - that he calls only hate for simplicity's sake. He reserves his hate for Superman and, in his weaker moments, himself.

"I won't be long," he tells Clark as he steps into the darkened corridor beyond his bedroom.

As Lex stirs from sleep, a heavy weight presses against his chest, holding him still. It takes him a moment to realise that the weight is a hand, that the solid presence at his back a body radiating impossible heat that chases away the residual chill of yet another half-recalled night terror.

He tries to wriggle out of the circle out of Clark's arm, but Clark only holds him closer, so tightly that Lex probably wouldn't be able to break free without cracking several ribs. He could call for Hope and Mercy. He could reach out and try to grab the ring box sitting on his night stand. Instead, he forces his body to relax, his back softening against Clark's broad chest.

Clark runs a gentle finger along the line of Lex's collarbone and presses a kiss to the top of Lex's head. He mumbles something that might have been Lex's name, if Lex was delusional enough to allow himself to hope.

Lex doesn't allow himself to question the sanity of his decision to leave the balcony doors open as he drifts back to sleep, lulled by the steady beating of Clark's heart. In the morning, Clark will doubtless make him feel every ounce of the regret he's been avoiding since this all started, anyway.

For once, Lex manages to sleep through the rest of the night undisturbed.

Lex wakes alone and continues to do so for the rest of the week, although the sheets on the other side of the bed are always imprinted with the last vestiges of Clark's heat and a tantalising hint of his scent.

He spends every day on edge, awaiting an angry visit from Superman, but it never comes. Clark obviously doesn't want to acknowledge where he's been spending his nights, but his lack of action seems to suggest that it also doesn't worry him as much as Lex had thought it would. A more optimistic man might have considered this a hopeful sign.

Lex's habitual pessimism is simply reaffirmed once again, however, when Clark does not visit at all during the following week. It was a good thing, he reminds himself, that he had never believed that the situation was anything more than what it appeared to be on its surface. It was something outside Clark's control, beyond the control of his conscious mind, and not some betrayal of hidden feelings.

It is a shock, therefore, when Lex returns home from the theatre one night, to find Clark standing out on the balcony once again.

He glares at Clark as he opens the doors, and Clark blushes, ducking his head.

"What are you doing here?" Lex asks sharply, fixing his glare on Clark's right shoulder so he doesn't have to watch his face as he stumbles his way through yet another round of lies and evasions.

Clark's blush deepens. "The AI managed to fix that whole sleep-flying thing," he says.

The honest statement startles Lex, but he covers his surprise by saying, "I had noticed. There was no need for the house call."

"It didn't fix everything." Clark shuffles his feet, his broad shoulders hunching. "I still... I still dream about you, Lex."

Lex groans, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He was afraid of this; afraid that Clark would feel as though he owed Lex somehow after everything that had happened recently. "You said it yourself, Clark, it doesn't mean anything. Let's just forget about it."

"I don't want to forget about it," Clark says, his voice suddenly forceful. "Maybe it does mean something. Maybe -"

"Maybe what, Clark?" Lex asks, fighting to keep his own voice level. "What do you want?"

"I thought we could..." Clark shakes his head, obviously frustrated, and his shoulders hitch upwards again. "I don't know exactly, Lex, but don't you want to be more than we are now? I know I do. I've wanted that for a long time."

Lex allows his eyes to drift back to Clark's face, and then allows himself to remember what it felt like to love him. It's surprisingly easy: the memories are much closer to the surface than he'd ever imagined.

He also thinks it might be easy to make his recent pretence at good behaviour real. He knows it would be easy to stop trying to hate Clark.

It's been almost a decade since he last had a dream that didn't turn into a nightmare, but he thinks it might be possible to change that, too. The nights he's shared his bed with Clark have been the most peaceful of his life. Lex has been schooled to expect disappointment, to scorn miracles, but in an infinite universe, everything is possible. His luck might change.

This time, his welcoming gesture is intentional.