Harvest, a Smallville story by Glacis. Rated NC17. No infringement intended.

2003

He watched his friend, the one person he'd ever called so and meant it, walk away from him. There was a swagger to him Lex had only seen once before, when Clark had acted like he was possessed by the spirit of James Dean, complete with rebellion and incipient death wish. It had been rather charming in an alarming way, then.

It churned up a cold anger in his gut this time. The mockery of an embrace, ending with himself being thrown halfway across the barn, spiked that anger with disbelief.

"It's good to stand up for yourself, Clark, but be careful you don't cross the line." It was a warning. Clark didn't bother looking at him.

"Is that a threat?"

Foolish child. Lex cared for Clark, was fascinated by and protective of him, but Lex had learned from the cradle that the primary responsibility he carried would always be to himself. For if he did not, his own family would crush him.

Friendship, strong and unusual as it was, would only be pushed so far before it broke. Saving a life did not, in actuality, mean the ownership of it.

A day later, Chloe and Pete were in the hospital recovering from surgery. What appeared to be extraterrestrial parasites were in Cadmus Labs being studied. And Clark Kent was perfectly healthy.

Lex stared into the fire. In his left hand he held a snifter, but instead of soothing as it usually did the brandy tasted like acid on his tongue.

"Why are you so fascinated with that boy?" his new pet linguist had asked. Lex had told what part of the truth the man needed to hear.

"I think he knows a lot more than he's letting on about those caves."

He kept silent on the myriad of other fascinating qualities Clark held. His hero complex. His invulnerability, with occasional flashes of human injury when least expected. His overall submission, to his father, to his love object, to his high school friends, to everyone but Lex ... and his flares of hurtful arrogance, a sign Lex might have been cheered by if it wasn't for the fact that everyone around Clark had an excuse for acting out of character. Except Clark.

The omissions. The outright lies. The fact that Clark had the most innocent eyes Lex had ever seen, and nearly every word out of his mouth was a screen to hide a truth for which Lex couldn't bring himself to stop searching. Lana's tear-stained face showed briefly before his eyes before he blinked it away. She'd been hurt by Clark, too, but when she pushed for the truth, Clark apologized.

When Lex pushed for the truth, Clark attacked.

Perhaps Lex should try an artful tear and a quivering lip. It worked for Lana. The thought made him laugh aloud, albeit bitterly.

The last two years had been educational. He'd put aside twenty one years of survival skills, hard-learned at his father's knee, at the hands of public school classmates who were more than willing to take out their aggressions on the resident freak, on the battlefields of business and love and academics. All for the sake of a boy with secrets who'd saved his life.

For Clark, Lex had changed his tactics in his never-ending fight against destiny. He'd banded together with others; then been betrayed when the weakest of them gave in to Lionel, taking Lex's fledgling company with them. He'd done everything he could to ensure that bystanders weren't hurt in his war with Lionel; then been accused to his face of being responsible for the disaster he'd worked so hard to avoid. He'd nearly lost his own father to those who hated him, not that Lex himself would have their lifelong battle end with an assassin's bullet; then been accused, by the one person he tried to be better for, of committing patricide.

He'd shot a man to death to save a friend, a secret, and a friend's father who'd made it abundantly clear that he despised Lex; then had it thrown in his face when his own father lay, fighting for his life, in a hospital bed.

Lex had tried gifts; tried consideration; tried emotional support; done whatever he could to help Jonathan, Martha and Clark Kent, Lana Lang, Gabe Sullivan and the rest of the workers at the plant. In return he had been shot at by Clark's father, then expected by Clark to believe that Jonathan hadn't shot Lionel, and accused by Clark of shooting his own father. He'd helicoptered Jonathan to Metropolis to be at Martha's side during the hostage crisis, done everything in his power to negotiate a safe ending to the crisis that had nearly been undone by Lionel's own actions, and not once questioned how Clark had arrived at the city before the helicopter had.

Everything he'd done had been met with disdain and sanctimonious judgment from Jonathan Kent. He wondered what guilt it was that drove the man to such lengths, because it surely was not Lex's own. Yet another question he did not pursue, although he reaped the anger and hatred that sprang from it.

He'd kept Clark's secrets, stepped back from investigating them regardless of how his instincts screamed for him to push forward, and stopped asking questions he desperately wanted answered, because Clark was his friend. In return, he was shot at by Pete Ross, then had to pay off witnesses at a bus accident who swore the boy screamed that Clark was an alien. Instead of the Inquisitor having a field day, Lex cleaned up after Pete's stupidity, and once again Lex didn't ask questions.

His generosity extended beyond the Kents. Lex passed up a money-making opportunity with the Talon, allowing his weakness for Clark to extend to Lana, and supporting her coffee house when it would have been fiscally prudent to close the place down, raze it to the ground and build a parking structure. In return, he had a sixteen year old girl for a business partner, who showed the emotional stability of a five year old orphan and treated Lex as if he was one step below a Nazi. Given that Lex cut his eye teeth on business sharks from four continents, it was ridiculous what he put up with from Lana.

Lex also lost more ground than he'd gained with Lionel. His father bugged Lex's office, stole contracts out from under him, crippled then raided his company, and gave an insane kidnapper carte blanche to kill him. Even when Lex saved his life, the old man found a way to twist it into a burden Lex had laid upon him. As used as Lex was to Lionel's manipulations, they'd never managed to paralyze him the way they had since he'd come to Smallville. Because, before, he hadn't given a rat's ass what other people thought of him. Lex told the truth, worked the situation to keep himself safe and further his own ends, and let the devil, usually his father, take the hindmost.

But not since Clark had come into his life.

As badly as he hated to admit it, perhaps his father had a point. Perhaps his time in Smallville was making him weak.

It certainly wasn't gaining him any respect. From anyone.

Including himself.

He blinked, clearing the after-image of orange flames from his eyes. He didn't make promises lightly, and he'd told Clark that he'd stopped investigating him ... but that didn't mean Lex would continue to leave himself open to betrayal. Not for the sake of a friendship that was only for the convenience of Clark Kent and his friends and family. Gratitude for a second chance only lasted so long, could only take so much abuse, before it gave way to self-protection.

Lurking beneath the survival instinct raising its head was a more personal, perhaps petty, but definitely human hurt. Lex had been blamed for things he hadn't done, punished for others' past mistakes, given no credit for that which he had offered and given no quarter for any mistakes he'd made. He'd swallowed his pride, accepted treatment he would never have believed he would accept just a few years before, and compromised his own need for truth to protect Clark Kent's lies.

And not once had any of the Kents said 'thank you'. For anything.

Even when Lex killed to save their lives.

Throwing the dregs of the brandy into the fire, he watched the sparks disappear and whispered, "Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same." No doubt the good folk of Smallville considered themselves good Christians.

They were wrong. They were hypocrites, bigots and liars. Lex smiled without amusement. All the things they'd so often accused him of being, they personified. He was tired of it. Tired of dealing with it, tired of taking it, and tired of people he thought he could care about treating him like a pariah.

"Lex?"

Clark's voice sounded timid. Lex raised his head but didn't look over his shoulder. "Come in, Clark," he invited with subtly exaggerated good manners. As usual, if Clark recognized the sarcasm he didn't react.

"Uhm, I just wanted to, you know ... apologize."

That sounded like it hurt. Lex glanced up at Clark, now standing at the edge of the leather sofa. His head was down, his eyes on his shoes, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. There was a high flush in his cheeks. Not for the first time Lex wondered what it would be like to toss the boy on his back and fuck him hard. Automatically, he quashed the combination of affection, anger and lust, and responded calmly, "That's okay. I've already told the workers that you have unlimited access to the cave."

Clark's head came up and bright green eyes beamed at him, though the shy expression didn't change. "I didn't mean ... I mean, that's not why I ... anyway, thank you!"

"Wouldn't want you to think I was stabbing you in the back." Lex wanted to recall the words as soon as he said them, in part because of the hurt look in Clark's eyes, but more because the pain in the words gave Clark more power over Lex than Lex wanted him to know he had.

"About that. I didn't mean ... You don't ..."

The fumbling for words was painful. "It's all right, Clark, really," Lex lied soothingly. Clark shook his head, a sigh escaping him.

"No," he insisted stubbornly, "I need to explain. That wasn't about the cave." Clark sank onto the end of the couch, staring at Lex intently, leaning forward, his hands waving slightly in the air as if he didn't know what to do with them. "That ... that was about earlier, when I came to your place and you and I were going to go to Metropolis and instead you went to my Dad."

Lex stared at him, speechless.

"I know you did the right thing, and I appreciate it, really I do! I'm glad you went to my Dad and stopped me from doing anything stupid ... er, more stupid ..." The blush was back full-force. "Anyway, I really wasn't myself in the barn and I said some really dumb things and I didn't mean any of them."

Biting back the juvenile urge to ask Clark why he'd said them, then, Lex instead asked, "Are you okay now? Did you have a problem with the parasite too?" Left unspoken was the question of, if Clark had been bitten, he hadn't had to have surgery. And if he hadn't, why he'd acted as crazily as his friends.

Not to mention how he'd managed to remember what had happened, while Pete and Chloe hadn't. Yet another puzzle in the mystery of Clark Kent. Lex was so damned tired of puzzles.

Clark swallowed. Hesitated. Looked at the fire. Lex dropped a hand on Clark's knee to stop the lie he knew was coming before it could be said.

"Don't worry about it," he said reassuringly. "As long as everyone's okay, it's fine."

For that, Lex got a beaming smile. An evening playing pool, and several more evasions.

He still didn't get a thank you.

2009

It was a setback, but Lex had learned a lot since taking over his father's business, and redundant back-up systems were second nature to him by now. He stared around the debris that had, until the previous day, been the nexus of Cadmus Labs, and narrowed his eyes.

There.

Beneath the burnt-out hulk of a spectrophotometer. A scrap of red fabric.

He walked over to it and stood, staring at it, for a long moment. Then he reached down, ripped it away from the ragged corner on which had been caught, and curled his fist around it.

Clark had told Lex he'd had to meet with a study group last night. Finishing up his last year at Metropolis U, he hadn't had as much time with Lex lately as Lex would have hoped. The charred, ragged cloth bunched against his palm.

He hadn't realized domestic terrorism was part of Clark's curriculum this quarter.

Turning away to deal with the fire captain, and the insurance adjuster, and the EPA rep, Lex pushed the damning scrap deep in his pocket. He refused to think about it until later that afternoon, working in his office at the penthouse, when Clark came roaring in like the wrath of God.

"You told me you'd stopped using those meteor rocks for experiments, Lex!" The accusation in his voice was tripled in his eyes, those burning green eyes that seemed to call Lex everything short of a murderer for his betrayal of Clark's trust. Lex blinked. "How could you lie about that? I thought you were done prying into things that weren't any of your business. Those rocks are dangerous! You had a whole complex working on that stuff, enough to poison God knows how many people if any of it had leaked. What were you thinking? How could you?!"

"I take it you're talking about Cadmus?"

"Yes!" Clark sounded impatient as well as hurt, and Lex was caught between dueling urges to slap the self-righteousness out of him and kiss him senseless. Then Clark opened his mouth again and more of the same poured out, acid-laced words eating at the walls Lex had been building up between himself and Clark for years. He didn't bother to defend himself. Besides the fact that it wasn't worth the effort, Clark never listened, so any argument was moot.

When he finally wound down, Clark ended with a bitter, "What else are you hiding?"

Unable to stop himself Lex said reasonably, "I could ask you the same." He paused long enough for Clark to stare at him, mouth hanging open, those deceptively innocent eyes turning opaque, then continued smoothly, "but I won't, because I promised you seven years ago that I wouldn't ask you any more questions that you couldn't, or wouldn't, answer. Perhaps it's time I asked you for the same consideration in return."

Clark kept staring at him for a long moment, panting lightly, looking everywhere except at Lex, then burst out, "This is stupid!" He turned on his heel and stormed out with the same impetuous anger with which he'd stormed in.

Lex stared at the door, still shaking against the jamb where it had been slammed, and murmured, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

It didn't make him happy that Clark had, once more, confirmed the fact that he was lying to Lex on a regular basis, now deliberately destroying Lex's business property, and still having the gall to accuse Lex of being in the wrong. But then lately it seemed Clark and he couldn't be happy, unless they were in bed.

He didn't bother telling Clark that, since Clark refused to tell him the truth, Lex would no longer ask, and would instead seek that truth elsewhere. Lex had seen too many things that couldn't be explained, including his own physiological reaction to the meteorites, and he wouldn't stop his search for the truth simply because Clark told him to do so. Especially when Clark wouldn't tell him why.

So Lex would go his way, and Clark would go his, and they would meet in the middle to take comfort with one another until Clark's lies and Lex's search finally drove them apart. Until then, Lex would take what he could get, but he would never again proscribe his life at the behest of another. Not his father, and not Clark Kent.

He didn't hear from Clark for a few days, but that was all right. He had enough on his hands rerouting information, personnel and experiments in progress among the remaining labs under his control. When Clark stuck his head in the door late Friday night, a bashful smile on his face, Lex was more than ready for a little diversion.

"Hi, Lex, you busy?" he asked, as if no harsh words had ever been spoken between them. As if the fact of his presence was apology enough, that they could ignore the anger lying shimmering between them and it would eventually go away. Clark was an expert at denial. It was a longstanding ritual between them, and while it had gotten old some time ago, it was a pattern they couldn't seem to break. Mainly because Clark didn't want to. Lex pushed the thought away.

"I can take a break. What's up?"

Clark bounced into the room like an overgrown puppy, his backpack falling to the floor just inside the door. "Guess what?" He flopped onto the couch beside Lex's desk and beamed up at him.

"What?" Lex asked dryly, incapable of denying that grin, so rising and joining Clark on the couch.

"I've got a job! A guy named Braun called from the Daily Planet. He's an editor for the city desk. He saw the piece I wrote for the U. paper on the legal battle between the contractor and the tree-sitters out by the Grove industrial complex, and he liked it! He told me I can start in June, as soon as I get my degree. Isn't that cool?"

Lex watched the enthusiasm and excitement wash over Clark's face and couldn't help grinning himself. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Congratulations. That's great news. So, what would you like to do to celebrate?"

Clark slanted him a wicked grin and scooted over until his thigh pressed against Lex's. "I can think of a few things ... but they require a whole lot more privacy and a whole lot less clothes." He reached over and had Lex's shirt halfway unbuttoned before he finished the sentence. Lex let him have his way.

After all, it was what he wanted, too, and Clark, when he was happy, was irresistible. The stray thought hit him that Clark was always happy, if he got his own way and nobody expected any straight answers, but by then Clark was nuzzling the side of his neck and unzipping his trousers, and it was becoming impossible to think.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Lex muttered, tangling his hands in Clark's hair and pulling him closer. Lips and the rasp of tongue and the faintest hint of teeth against his skin, and suddenly 'now' wasn't soon enough.

Clark drowned Lex's senses as he did every time they came together like this. All there was in the world was Clark's body pressing down on his, the scent of sunshine and cinnamon that never seemed to fade no matter how long it had been since Clark had been back to the farm, the sweet wet warmth of his mouth closing around Lex's cock and the steel strength of large hands holding Lex in place, leaving rings of finger-tip bruises in their wake.

This was the only time when the clamor of questions died down in Lex's mind; the only time nothing was important except Clark; the only time there were no lies between them. The lust and the need and the fire were as honest as he and Clark ever got with one another, and Lex couldn't admit even to himself how much he lived for these times. Instead, he gave himself over to the whirlwind of Clark's arousal, sank beneath the surface of his own, and fooled himself into believing, once more, that it was enough.

He needed control, because without it he was vulnerable, and he'd been hurt too often by those he should have been able to trust to ever willingly render himself vulnerable. But when Clark moved against him, moaning around his flesh and holding him as if he might break, Lex ceded control in favor of oblivion. This was the one gift Clark would accept, the one gift Clark would give in return, without condition.

Their friendship had too many strings attached already. Unhappy silence, and deliberate blindness, and unappreciated generosity, and submission taken for granted. They wore at Lex, all the times when Clark wasn't rubbing his naked body against Lex, thrusting his fingers in Lex and sucking his cock with a ravenous hunger Lex had never found in anyone else. When he came, and Clark whimpered along with him, Lex shook, and clutched Clark close, and accepted the bliss that made the pain bearable.

Usually.

And when Clark shifted up against him, and spread Lex's thighs, and replaced his fingers with his cock, and drove into Lex as if he would die without that connection, Lex almost believed him. Almost believed the heat in those bright eyes staring back into his own, almost believed the gentleness in those hands spreading him open and holding him down. Almost believed that the love he thought he saw in Clark's eyes would be enough to hold back the judgment.

Until the next time Clark weighed him and found him wanting. The next time he took everything Lex could give and acted as if it was his due.

The next time he broke off a piece of Lex's heart and left it, covered in scorn and anger, on the ground behind him as he walked away.

Clark surged against him, whispering Lex's name like a mantra, and Lex wrapped his arms and legs around Clark's trembling body and held him close. Lex was still holding Clark when they fell asleep.

In the morning, as always, Clark was gone when Lex woke up. He rolled over, wincing at the pull in his butt, and stretched. He had a full day ahead of him, but first he had a call to make. Getting out of bed with one last glance at the indentation in the pillow beside his, he pulled his cell from his jacket pocket and dialed a number from memory.

"Daily Planet, city desk," a chipper female voice answered.

"Mike Braun, please." Five minutes later, business concluded and payment made on the beginning of Clark's future, Lex smiled. Put away his cell phone, took a long hot shower to ease away the strained muscles from the previous night's rigorous lovemaking, and dressed to meet his day.

2018

"You've turned into your father. Only worse. Lionel at least knew his limitations."

Lex glared at the comic book nightmare hovering in the air fifteen feet outside the balcony of his eightieth floor penthouse suite, and sighed. It was a fight he'd had, on and off, since he'd won the election to the Kansas State Senate. Clark hadn't approved of some of his methods. Clark's alter-ego had made it his business to throw a road block in front of Lex's ambitions. Then another, and another.

Clark still believed, somehow, that Lex didn't know he and the Alien Wonder were one and the same. Lex hadn't asked. He got a faceful of self-righteous fury with every breath he took as it was; he didn't need to invite more bald-faced lies.

"I disagree," he said mildly.

Superman set his granite jaw and made an abortive little movement as if he really wanted to fly in the window, grab Lex, and shake him until his head fell off. Or until they fell into bed, but that hadn't happened with Clark for years, and it never would with the alien freak in the tacky tights.

One one-sided argument too many, and Lex had simply stopped trying. Clark had stormed away in high dudgeon one too many times, and Lex had changed the locks. When Clark broke the door down, Lex had enough, and moved to a new building. One with meteorite embedded in the walls.

He may have stopped asking Clark questions, but he'd never stopped searching for the truth. Some of the side alleys that quest had led him into had proved quite fruitful. Which was why, at this moment, Superman could wish with all his might to come in, but if he tried, he'd be a green glowing huddle of pain in the middle of the floor.

"You can stifle the press only so long, Luthor. The truth will come out."

It sounded like a pronouncement from God, and the wording was so fucking ironic Lex would have laughed if he wasn't so fed up with the same old argument.

"Lois Lane and her pet bulldog can write anything they want ... if they have the evidence to back up their claims. Since they don't, it won't get published anywhere other than the op/ed page, or I'll have White and the Planet for libel. That's not stifling, Superman," he sneered the name, "that's the law in this country."

"You bend and break the law with impunity, and it won't continue!"

"Prove it," Lex responded flatly.

"Just like your father," Superman growled.

Enough. "If I am, whose fault is that?" Lex snapped back, his voice more strident than he would have liked. "Do you honestly think it's some kind of weakness within myself, or is it actually a self-fulfilling prophecy brought to full fruition by the blind prejudice of the people around me?"

He bit his lip to keep from saying more. The hurt he'd clamped down on until he thought he'd eradicated it was seeping through, and he'd be damned if he'd give Superman that sort of power over him.

Of course, this being Superman, he was completely oblivious to the pain Lex felt.

"I thought I knew you once," he sighed, all spurious sympathy and hard eyes. Yet again, as always, Lex found himself weighed and found wanting. "I thought I loved you.

Lex knew he'd paled, but he kept his expression impassive. "You never allowed me to know you at all; you knew me better than you will ever realize. You never loved me."

Superman didn't bother to reply. He simply shook his head, once, with finality, then turned and flew away. Lex watched until the bright red cape was a speck in the sky before he whispered, " For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up." He pushed the window closed, and continued speaking to the empty room. "If I'm a barren clone of my father before me, then look in the mirror, Clark. You're a cartoon version of yours."

The editorial in the Daily Planet the next morning was exceptionally scathing. It had no impact on the opinion polls. Three days later, Lex Luthor won the popular and electoral votes by a landslide to become the President of the United States.

Superman did not attend the inauguration. Clark Kent did, and the ensuing article was intensely critical, setting the tone for the next four years. Lex ignored them both. He didn't have the time to deal with them.

Yet.

2024

After delivering the keynote speech and networking over chilled herbed chicken and crunchy asparagus, Lex left the benefit dinner for the Jimmy Carter World in Partnership Foundation, dedicated to eradicating world hunger. As he smiled charmingly at yet another society matron, he heard the muted beep of his phone. Waiting to answer until he was in the privacy of his sound-proofed Maybach, a classic fuel-hybrid but one of his favorites, he settled against the leather seat and pressed the receiver to his ear.

"Connect," he ordered as he pulled away from the curb. The onboard audio command system brought up an identity number he recognized immediately. "What do you have for me, Arnel?"

"The rural property in which you expressed interest has become available, through a fortuitous default on the mortgage. Do you wish me to proceed?"

Lex smiled into the night. Revenge was petty, but then, the target had always been quite petty in his own right, and in this case the vengeance suited the victim. "Yes." He took a deep breath and said, "Disconnect." Arnel didn't need any further instruction.

The papers were waiting for him in his secured safe when he came into the office the next morning. It was ten minute's work to send out the order to have the house and outbuildings razed and construction begun on a multilevel, state of the art research facility.

Four months later Jonathan Kent died of a sudden, massive heart attack. He never found out who'd bought his farm out from under him. Martha settled in Metropolis and Lex never heard from her. Clark had his suspicions, but when he threw them in Lex's face, Lex turned his back on Clark and walked away without saying a word.

When Superman tried to confront him on it, Lex had his security guards deploy a new defensive weapon: a laser ray lined with filaments of Kryptonian meteorite, which gave the white light a green cast and knocked Superman out of the sky. Lex watched the alien stagger away, still glaring over his shoulder. Then he went back his work.

After all, there were a lot of hungry people out there, and someone had to feed them.

Still, the laser's success was promising. He picked up the encrypted landline and pressed three numbers. When the woman answered on the other end Lex said simply, "Do it."

Eight months later the Daily Planet ran a special edition, with a black border edging the masthead. Lois Lane had the byline, because her longtime reporting partner was nowhere to be found. Lex made sure he had his assistant buy a souvenir copy for him. The world mourned.

Lex went back to Smallville.

2026

The trials were going very well. If the current rate of progress continued the Carter/Luthor International Foundation would be shipping genetically enhanced sunflower seeds to the Ukraine within the month. Before the severe climatic shifts ten years previously the Russian farms had been the second largest sunflower exporters in the world; in the past several years, their output had been dismal. The new, sturdier seed, with its accelerated growth cycle, could be the answer to their prayers.

For Lex, it was a testing ground. If this crop proved as bountiful as test results indicated, the eradication of world hunger would be achieved in his lifetime. Due in large part to his efforts. It was gratifying.

Not, perhaps, the most gratifying thing in his life, but still exceptionally satisfying. Signing off on the last of the yield reports from the greenhouses, he directed his advisors to contact their counterparts in the Russian Agricultural Bureau and ready the exchange. Then he went into his private office.

Once there he sealed the door and turned off his phone. He entered the concealed elevator no one else knew was there, since it didn't appear on any of the plans and he'd taken care of the architect personally. It sped him to the top-secret lab several stories below the earth.

No one entered this lab except Lex. No one even knew it existed.

He paused, as he always did, to admire the inset frame holding the front page of the Daily Planet special edition. He smiled, as he always did, at the large black letters splashed across the page: "World Mourns as Superman Dies!" Then he continued into the central cell at the heart of the lab.

Clark was beautiful, as he'd always been, only now Lex didn't have to listen to his lies. Or his accusations. Clark didn't argue any more.

It was better that way.

He lay curled on his side, sweat sliding gently down the planes of his muscles, his skin a creamy white offset with the faintest green tracing of veins beneath it. He writhed gently, a barely perceptible tremor moving his limbs. There were titanium cuffs at his wrists and ankles, and a collar around his neck; no challenge when Clark was at full strength, they were now impossible to defeat, forged as they were with meteorite dust in the alloy.

Lex crossed the floor, aware of feverish green eyes staring at him. At various times in the past twenty months they'd held threat, anger, humiliation, desperation, and disbelief, all of which had long since fled. Now they held only pain and, when Lex willed it, relief.

He pressed a recessed button on the wall and watched a tiny door open. Reaching into the cavity he removed a smooth leather band, embedded with green and red crystals, shaped and shined until it looked like a holiday trinket.

Clark whimpered.

Lex turned to him and smiled. Maintaining eye contact, Lex stripped his clothes off, leaving them in a neat pile atop his shoes in the corner of the room. Once nude, he walked to the table. Lex took his time petting Clark, running his fingertips over the soft skin and tensed muscles, not fooling himself that it was anything like the time when they'd been lovers.

That had been a time of lies. This was all about the truth.

Pushing Clark's legs apart, Lex fastened the leather band around Clark's cock and balls. The combination of debilitating green and liberating red meteorite ripped a scream from Clark's chest, while at the same time hardening his cock and causing it to leak. It had taken Lex a great deal of experimentation to come up with precisely the correct balance of green and red crystals to get a predictable and reproducible reaction. He'd enjoyed it.

Eventually, so had Clark, no matter how badly he wished he didn't.

Leaning down, Lex caught Clark's mouth in a deep kiss, tongue forcing his jaws open, as hungry now as he'd ever been. Clark kissed him back, habit and subjugation commingled. When Lex drew back and licked his lips, he saw, as always, Clark staring up at him.

It was only at moments like this that Clark allowed his heart to show. Mute, glazed, he begged with his eyes for a surcease to his suffering. Much the same way Lex had begged, with his heart, with his generosity, with his devotion, for years. Lex gave Clark the same consideration Clark had given Lex.

He pulled Clark's body around until his legs hung from the table, slicked his cock minimally and fucked him hard.

Draping his body over Clark's, Lex lost himself in the heat beneath and surrounding him. Clark was always tight, no matter how often Lex took him, his sweat oddly sweet to the tongue, the uncontrollable shifts of his hips incredibly erotic. When they were together like this Lex knew he truly owned Clark, in a way he'd never wanted, that could so easily have been avoided if only Clark had met him halfway.

Instead, they had this. Lex pushed in hard, as deep as he could go, and reached around to pump Clark's cock, each stroke pushing a gout of ejaculate out the end to slide down over his knuckles. He wrapped his other arm around Clark's neck and drew him up until Lex could kiss his ear without straining to reach. "Thrust in thy sickle, and reap," he whispered, "for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe."

So many plans coming to fruition, and to think, they'd all begun the first time he'd been saved by Clark Kent. The first time he'd been lied to; the first time he'd been despised by Jonathan; the first time he'd thought he could be someone greater than his destiny.

Clark sobbed beneath him, climax striking him hard, his muscles clenching around Lex, milking him. Lex resisted the need to come and held still, letting Clark work around him, and kissed the back of Clark's neck.

The first time Lex had actually believed in love. Before time, and the good folk of Smallville, had shown him the futility of that particular dream.

With a final shudder, Clark collapsed, and Lex took that as his cue to move. Arching his back, he pounded into Clark, one fist still clenched around Clark's softening cock, the other now caught in sweaty, tangled hair. Clark grunted under the pounding, and Lex made no attempt to hold back.

After all, Clark had proven time and again he couldn't be broken. Not physically, at least.

A shiver ran through Lex and he pressed forward again, coming in a few short, sharp bursts. When he was finished, he nuzzled the back of Clark's head for a moment before unwinding his fingers from Clark's scalp and releasing the cock, now beginning to stiffen again under the influence of the red meteorite. Stroking it gently, Lex ran his fingers down the length from still-weeping head to sensitive balls, and unsnapped the band. He draped it across his palm and held it beneath Clark's face.

Well-trained, hard-won though it had been, Clark leaned down the requisite inch and kissed the sweat- and semen-soaked leather, hissing as his lip came in contact with a green meteorite. Lex kept it there until Clark swallowed, and said very quietly, "Thank you."

Lex pulled Clark's chin around until he could see the exhausted face. Then he pushed the hair back from those dulled green eyes, kissed Clark gently and murmured, "You're welcome."

With no further parody of affection, he pulled away from Clark, went to the wall to put the cockring away, and got dressed. Behind him, he could hear Clark struggle back up onto the table. He could feel Clark's stare.

He walked out the door without looking back.

END

Notes: All quotes taken from the King James version of the Bible.

Job 4:8 Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.

Hosea 8:7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Revelation 14:15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.