Immunity, by Glacis. Rated R. No copyright infringement intended. Spoilers for Heat.

It had been a nightmare.

Going back to school was never high on his fun list, but this year he’d kind of been looking forward to it. Chloe’d been gone all summer, and while they weren’t going out (thank God, a little prayer he unconsciously tacked on every time he thought about her letting him off the hook), he missed his buddy.

Lana’d been busy with the Talon and mooning after Whitney, although she kept giving him these sideways looks that made him nervous. Saw too much. Seemed to be measuring him, waiting for something he didn’t think he’d ever be able to give her.

Pete was good company when he was around, but between being super-careful about his so-called gifts, getting the farm back into working order after the twister, and Pete constantly being on the football field with his jock buddies, there wasn’t much time for Clark. Besides, there was a distance there with Pete he hadn’t felt before, ever since he found out how much Pete hated Lex.

Then there was Lex. The only constant of his summer, the evenings he could take a break from reconstruction and hang out with his best friend. When Lex wasn’t running around like a sophisticated, smooth, well-dressed chicken with its head cut off trying to run the plant, manage his dad’s company, and jump every time Lionel barked. Which was often.

There was a weird shadow in Lex’s eyes that hadn’t been there before the twister. Clark didn’t know if it was guilt over his dad being blind, or guilt about hesitating to save Lionel, or feeling bad about having to shoot that reporter. The few times Clark tried to bring it up, to reassure Lex he’d done the right thing, Lex changed the subject so fast Clark practically got whiplash. Even when Clark said it so Lex knew it was a thank you for saving Clark’s dad, not a thank you for killing Nixon.

He wasn’t sure you were supposed to thank somebody for killing somebody else. His mom’s lessons in manners hadn’t covered that. Still, he knew it was okay to thank someone for saving a life. Heck, Lex thanked Clark all the time, even if Clark couldn’t accept most of the stuff Lex tried to give him. It made him unsettled that Lex wouldn’t accept his own thanks, and he wondered if Lex felt that way when Clark brought back the truck.

Still, Lex had been the one real bright spot in the summer. Then he’d left, and when he came back it was like a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Or maybe Stepford Lex.

Oh, Lex looked okay… okay, Lex looked great… tanned and happier than Clark had ever seen him. But he changed his entire life around in under a week. Married the biology teacher who’d turned Clark on so hard he’d developed a whole new power, not that setting things on fire with his eyes was such a great thing, since there wasn’t a lot of call for lighting candles from a distance. But the shadow was gone from Lex’s eyes.

The bad thing was, nothing replaced it. Really nothing. All Clark saw every time he looked in Lex’s eyes was blankness. That disturbed Clark, even more than the heat, or Chloe’s distance, or Lana’s looks, or the obscenely short skirts Desiree wore, or the rampant alien weirdness that shot out his eyes and caught everything on fire every time he thought about sex. Because Lex was never absent. Lex was always thinking. Weighing. Measuring. Strategizing. Until she came along.

Then he wasn't there any more.

The first week of school went from bad to worse. Clark torched the Talon, then the sex-bomb that married his best friend tried to seduce him, then Lex turned on him, then Lex started turning on everyone else, too. Clark got arrested, and his dad went nuts and tried to shoot Lex, and Lex’s black widow mutant of a wife poured alcohol all over Lex and set him on fire.

It was a darned good thing Lex healed fast.

All in all, Clark didn’t have a lot of time to think, other than random thoughts of how his life was a nightmare, until it was all over. Lex came up to the loft and apologized in his own Lexian way, letting Clark know there were no hard feelings that Jonathan had tried to kill Lex, just as there were no hard feelings that Lex had gone temporarily insane and tried to close down the town.

Not to mention turning his back on Clark. Much worse, as far as Clark was concerned, than condemning the Talon.

There was a rightness to Lex being in his loft that Clark had missed. It had only been a month, what with the business trip then the Bitch Bride from Hell, but it felt a lot longer. Lex looked at home standing next to the telescope. Clark felt the weird urge to tie Lex up and keep him there, keep him out of trouble. Until Lex actually complimented Clark on his restraint with Lana, and said he wouldn’t make the mistake of giving in to his passion again.

Wrong, on so many levels, both his assumption that Clark was in control of anything, much less his emotions, and that clamping down on his own emotions was the right thing for Lex.

The intensity of his reaction caught Clark by surprise, and he was distracted as Lex gave him a sideways grin, a little strained at the edges, and turned to leave the barn. Clark shook himself out of his tangle of confusion long enough to call, “See you at the Talon?” down the stairs after him.

After a pause that went on too long, Lex called up, “Sure.” Then he was gone.

Clark stared up at the sky for a very long time, thinking about everything and nothing in particular, until the sun rose. As he did his chores, something Chloe said bounced around in his brain.

He’d been immune to Desiree. He knew it was because he was an alien, and the meteor rocks didn’t affect him the way they did real humans, so her ability to manipulate men didn’t work on him. But he could imagine how it must have looked to anyone who didn’t know his secret. Besides, it hadn't been until she'd actually tried to take his clothes off that he'd seen her for what she was and begun to resist her. Before that, all he could see were her thighs, and her breasts, and her mouth, and the biology classroom going up in flames.

Chloe thought he was so stuck on Lana he couldn’t see any other woman, but he was at least sixteen, even if he felt a lot older than that. The fact that he’d nearly burned down the school thinking about sex made it pretty clear Lana wasn’t the only person who could turn him on.

The best he could do was hope Chloe didn’t bring it up again. That she wouldn't see anything odd in Clark ducking a woman who’d twisted every man she’d come in contact with for twelve years around her finger. Didn’t start putting the pieces together. He didn’t need to be added to her Wall of Weird. He had enough problems already.

He knew, though, that he hoped in vain. It was Chloe, after all. She saw all the oddness. She was always putting things together and coming up with conclusions that were much too close to the truth for his comfort.

His thoughts were still chasing around in circles later that day as he headed to the Talon. Walking through the door, he saw the place was nearly deserted. A few couples sat, drinking coffee and talking quietly. Chloe was at the counter, perched on a stool, snickering as Lex explained how the cappuccino machine worked to Lana, who gave the shiny copper control panel a suspicious look. Clark felt himself relax at the friendly scene.

That was, until he leaned next to Chloe against the bar and grinned at her. She grinned back, showing a lot more teeth than she usually did, which was more than enough. His own grin slipped.

“What?” he asked before he’d even said hello.

“We were just talking about you, Clark,” Chloe told him. Her grin looked more and more like a shark’s the longer he looked at it.

Lex and Lana gave up on examining the levers on the machine to come join Clark and Chloe. Clark gave them a relieved glance, until he noticed Lex’s grin matched Chloe’s. Not a good sign. Then Lana gave him a bright-eyed look.

“So, Clark, how’d you escape?”

Space-pod, he thought, but bit his lip before he could say it. When he could trust himself to talk, he asked, “From what?” He sounded a little strangled.

“From my ex-wife,” Lex said much more smoothly than he should have been able to, so soon after nearly being killed by the bitch.

Clark licked his lips. Tried to find something intelligent to say. Came up blank. Stood there, feeling like the big, stupid, geeky alien he knew he was, and stared back at the three of them.

“Yeah,” Chloe chirped, too darned perkily by far for Clark’s liking. “Every other guy in town fell for her like a ton of bricks, but you held her off. How’d you do that?”

Her eyes didn’t so much as flicker toward Lana, and Clark knew the two girls had been talking about him. He gulped.

“I’d like to know that, too,” Lex added quietly. His eyes were boring into Clark, and Clark could practically feel the heat from them. It was as if Lex could start fires with his eyes, not Clark.

Not a single solitary sensible word came to Clark’s mind. He opened his mouth. Shut it again. Tried a smile. Gave it up as a bad deal when none of them caved. Opened his mouth again and hoped something intelligent would come out.

“She just …” ‘Didn’t do anything for me’ wouldn’t work, since he was a lousy liar no matter how much practice he got, and she’d nearly made him cause the entire school to spontaneously combust.

“It was …” ‘good luck’ didn’t work, either, because his luck was never that good.

“I just …” ‘couldn’t let her use me to hurt you’ made him sound more noble than he was.

“I don’t …” ‘have any idea’ was his standard response when asked about weirdness associated with his being an alien, but it was way too weak for this situation.

“Maybe it was …” ‘a glitch in her mutant abilities to manipulate humans because I’m not human’ was way too close to the truth. “It’s because I’m …”

Alien.

He cut himself off so fast he nearly bit through his tongue, and would have, if he could have.

“Well?” Chloe demanded.

“Gay,” he blurted. Anything was better than the truth.

Lana’s eyes went so round he thought they’d pop out of her head. Chloe squawked like a cat when you step on its tail. Lex’s eyes narrowed, but the heat in them notched up until Clark could’ve sworn there were laser beams shooting out from them.

Okay. Maybe admitting he was an alien would’ve been better. They’d probably buy that before believing that he was suddenly hot for guys. His mouth opened again, but once more his brain shut down, and nothing came out. Not up to looking at Lana still goggling at him, wanting to hide from Lex trying to look right through him, he glanced over at Chloe.

Even as he watched, her mouth, which had been hanging open just like his, snapped shut, and the shocked look in her eyes faded, replaced by the calculating look he knew and feared.

“Since when?” she snapped.

Unable to stop himself, Clark looked back at Lex.

“Well, it would explain a lot,” Lana said, sounding a whole lot more reasonable than Clark would have expected.

“I don’t believe it,” Lex told him flat out.

Since Lana’d said what Clark expected Lex to say, and Lex said what Clark had expected Lana to say, Clark didn’t know WHAT to say. He looked from one to the other, bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball, and wondered how on earth he was going to get out of this one.

“You have a point, Lana,” Chloe said slowly.

Clark’s head whipped around and he stared at her.

“Unless it’s something else, and Clark’s trying to baffle us with bullshit,” she added.

“That, I’d believe,” Lex said, sounding like he was trying not to laugh.

For some reason, that royally pissed Clark off. Yeah, he was lousy at lying, preferred to avoid the truth rather than make up a story to cover himself, but this time, he’d come up with a good one. He lied all the time, and nobody ever really questioned him. Well, nobody but Lex, and even Lex backed off eventually.

And why wouldn’t they believe him? He’d broken up with Chloe after one kiss, he dodged every attempt Lana made to get close to him, he’d been the only guy in town to turn Desiree down … After all, they didn’t know he was an alien, and what better excuse could there be?

With the abrupt anger came temporary insanity. Not thinking, just reacting, Clark reached over the counter, grabbed the front of Lex’s sweater with one fist, hauled himself halfway over the counter until they were face to face, and planted a kiss on Lex’s mouth.

Ha! That would show them. He felt vaguely triumphant, and exceptionally stupid, sprawled over the counter at the Talon kissing his best friend.

Then Lex’s mouth opened. A tongue brushed against his lower lip, then wiggled until it brushed against the back of his front teeth, soft pressure against his own tongue. Clark didn’t feel triumphant any more.

He felt dizzy.

When had somebody brought in a meteor rock?

Only, usually, meteor rocks made him feel sick, and suffocating, and cold. He couldn’t breathe now, but he didn’t really miss it, and he’d never felt less cold in his life. He certainly didn’t feel sick. Felt a little like he was floating, in fact, and only the panic that hit him at the thought he might actually BE floating brought him back to the real world long enough to break the kiss.

Lex’s eyes were wider than Lana’s. Lana gasped for air like she was having an asthma attack. Beside Clark, Chloe made funny little noises like air escaping from a balloon. Clark couldn’t care less.

He didn’t remember jumping the rest of the way over the counter. He knew he hadn’t used his speed to do it, because nobody screamed. Beyond that he paid no attention. He had a mission. Pin Lex to the floor. Kiss him again. Keep kissing him as long as humanly, or inhumanly, possible.

Maybe there was something to the gay thing, after all.

Chloe was still choking, and Lana was hyperventilating, and Clark couldn’t care less, because Lex was cooperating. Enthusiastically. They continued kissing, the rest of the world not impinging on their, er, enthusiasm, until a sudden deluge of water and ice landed on top of them.

Not that Clark cared, but Lex jumped like a startled rabbit. Then he started to shiver. Then he burrowed closer to Clark.

Not a problem. At all.

Vaguely aware that Chloe was rambling on about hoses working on dogs, and Lana’s wheezing had turned into hysterical giggles, Clark went back to ignoring the world and tried to kiss Lex.

Lex ducked.

Clark stopped long enough to actually LOOK at Lex, and had to grin. Lavender silk clung to his chest, turning dark purple where the water soaked him. His black pants were sopping from waistband to mid-thigh, nicely outlining his erection, and once Clark noticed that, it was too late for anything to stop him.

Happily, Chloe had a back-up plan.

As Clark made short work of Lex's zipper, darting up for more kisses every time Lex opened his mouth to protest, Chloe went to work. Lana's gasping got further away. Chloe's voice rang out, something about having to close early due to a power surge, then the vague chatter in the background ended with the solid thump of the door closing. The lights went out.

Given that Lex had stopped fighting and started cooperating, that Clark had his hand around Lex's dick and Lex had both hands around Clark, the sudden silent solitude couldn't have come at a better time. Because Lex was coming, then Clark was coming, and it wasn't silent at all.

Trying to catch his breath, feeling ridiculously happy and like he'd been struck by lightning again, Clark stared down at Lex. Who, even with his shirt soaked, his pants open, with Clark's fingers wrapped around his dick and rubbing gently, come all over his wool slacks, still looked completely composed.

It would have been funny if it wasn't so darned sexy.

"So, Clark," Lex asked, only a little breathless, his voice low and rumbly, making a shiver go down Clark's spine. "I have thirty bedrooms up in the castle. Want to take this someplace a little more comfortable?"

Maybe if Clark kissed him all the way out of town, Lex wouldn't notice the super-speed.

END