Inductance, by Glacis. Rated NC17, no copyright infringement intended.

It got worse after the hostage situation at the LuthorCorp plant.

Lana would talk to Clark. Clark would try not to glow too obviously. Whitney would glare at him. Class would start. Whitney would get territorial, sitting as close to Lana as possible without crawling into the seat with her, and Clark knew from his own overgrown perspective how much work that took, because those seats were small. Then class would be over, they'd walk through the hall, and Whitney would have his arm so tightly around Lana it was a miracle she could breathe. Lana would get twitchy, give Whitney a stern look, and try to ignore her boyfriend's Neanderthal behavior by talking to Clark.

Starting the unfortunate cycle all over again.

Clark didn't realize how bad it had gotten until Whitney followed him home one evening and cornered him in the field out back of the barn. Mainly because he'd been avoiding Whitney as much as possible while at the same time trying to spend as much time with Lana as he could, a series of maneuvers that would make a fine definition of a Catch-22 if he could use it in English Lit without dying of embarrassment.

Between classes, chores that took time even at super-speed, dodging Whitney and responding to Lana's friendly overtures, Clark was a bundle of stress. He'd dropped in on Lex a few times, but since the situation with Earl at the plant, he'd sort of been avoiding Lex, too. There were questions in his eyes Clark couldn't answer. Lex didn't seem all that eager to see Clark, as well, which hurt more than he expected, but he didn't think about that if he could help it either. All of which put him in a rotten frame of mind when Whitney pushed him up against the side of the barn and got in his face.

"Stay away from Lana, Kent!"

God. Not that again. Clark looked at the furious face three inches from his own and reflected that puce wasn't a good color for Whitney. Didn't go well with the blond hair and smirk. "We're just friends," he said slowly and loudly, as if talking to a toddler with attention deficit disorder.

"Bullshit!" Whitney bellowed.

Clark winced. Whiskey on his breath. Great. Not only was Whitney jealous, he was well on his way to drunk. Just what he didn't need with a storm on the way and the rest of his chores to finish before the rain started.

"We've known each other all our lives," he tried to explain. Whitney grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and would have throttled him if Clark could actually be throttled.

"We've all known each other all our lives, Kent! This is fucking Smallville! We've all known each other for the last ten generations! It doesn't matter -- Lana is mine and you damned well better keep your hands off her!"

Clark stifled a sigh. Can't hit him. It'd probably kill him. Can't hit him, he repeated over and over to himself, waiting for Whitney to stop ranting. What I would give to be normal so I could hit him. He allowed himself to glare at Whitney as hard as he'd like to hit the jerk, but while his eyes could do all sorts of amazing things, stopping a self-important paranoid jealous jock with a single thought in his underdeveloped brain in mid-stream wasn't one of those things. He sighed again, and this time he let it out.

The words choked off and Whitney swung at him. Clark waited until the last second and ducked, unable to stop the grin that spread over his face as Whitney's fist impacted the wood with a solid thunk. He bet that hurt. Good. If he couldn't hit Whitney then at least he could count on Whitney to hit himself. One way or another.

Unfortunately, it didn't slow Whitney down. If anything, it pissed him off even more. Shrugging philosophically, Clark did what he always did when the temptation to reveal his secret became more than he could stand -- and if he didn't hit Whitney soon, he could go insane.

He ran.

Not full speed. Didn't want the poor jock even more confused than he already was. Just fast enough to stay out of reach. Run the quarterback through some break patterns in the corn field, around the apple trees, wear him out, then send him home.

That was the plan, anyway. Mother Nature got in the way. As usual in Smallville, She was a little bit twisted, and Clark got the raw end of the deal.

He felt the storm moments before it hit. It was chock-full of lightning, raising the hair all over his body, making his skin tingle, his palms and the soles of his feet itch. He turned, leading Whitney back out of the field, racing for the relative security of the barn and the lightning rod attached to it.

They didn't make it.

Clark smelled something burning. Combined with a popping sound like grease in a hot skillet, for an instant his mind played tricks on him and he could swear he smelled bacon frying. He stopped in his tracks and Whitney, paying no attention to the changes around them, barreled right into him.

"Back off!" Clark yelled. Vague memories of bad weather lessons his dad taught him came back, and he pushed Whitney gently, trying to get some distance between them without sending him flying. Lessen contact with the ground, stay away from trees, head down, hands on knees, keep your eyes shut --

Whitney obviously hadn't had the same training. He landed on Clark, knocking him over, and raised a fist to pound him unconscious.

"Oh, no," Clark whispered, eyes widening then snapping shut an instant before the first bolt of lightning hit. He could swear it gathered from the ground around them, coursing through them then shooting up, not falling down from the sky as he thought it should. He was vaguely aware that Whitney screamed, or it might have been himself, he couldn't tell with all the noise. The sound choked off and Whitney collapsed atop him, a warm, twitching weight, so it must have come from Whitney. Clark raised his hands, protective instinct strong as always if dazed and distracted by the circumstances.

Then a second, return stroke hit a few feet away, and the rush of power through the air and the earth jolted his body, twisting his muscles and seizing his lungs. A third strike, then another and another and another, none as strong as the first, none felt by Whitney but each one pounding in Clark, until the need to move overrode everything, propelling him to his feet. Gathering Whitney over his shoulder, Clark tried to escape the fire pulling at his feet.

It was closer to a stagger than a run, but it got the job done. Nearly incapacitated by the electricity discharging through him, Clark was barely aware of falling to his knees in a field nearly a mile from the place where they'd been struck. The ground was still tingling, but it was starting to fade, and he could concentrate on other things.

Like the fact that Whitney wasn't breathing.

Moving on instinct, he dragged Whitney over onto his back. Tilted his head back, clearing his airway. Covered his mouth with his own and steadily forced air into the still lungs. A tiny part of his mind informed him that Whitney didn't taste nearly as good as Lex had, but the thought disappeared as quickly as it came. The heart beneath his hands beat steadily, if a little weakly, and the lungs he worked over came back to life with a jolt. Sitting back, watching the color slowly return to Whitney's face, Clark was surprised when he lost his balance and fell over to sprawl in the dirt.

Agony shot through his hand, and he yelped, drawing it back. Vertigo hit suddenly, and he closed his eyes against the dizziness and nausea. When he got his stomach under control, he peered at the dirt, trying to see what it was that had bitten him.

A glassy tube of rock, glowing a deep malevolent emerald, pulsed at him. He stared from the deceptively fragile-looking meteor fragment to his hand, the thin veins beneath the skin solidifying green then ebbing with each heartbeat. Weakness washed through him, and he looked up to see patches of scorched earth and lace-work tubes of dimly-lit rocks surrounding them, stretching back as far as the field where they'd initially been struck.

Great. Escape death by frying by leaping into death by space rocks. A voice sounding remarkably like Mr. DeWitt, the physics teacher, informed him that they were fulgurites, but his own internal voice insisted on calling them rocks of doom. Reaching for Whitney to pick him up again and get the hell away from there, he was startled when the hand he reached for reached back, catching his wrist in an unbreakable hold.

Unbreakable?

Clark gulped. He stared down at his hand, clenched into a fist below Whitney's white-knuckled grip, and saw sickly green tendrils under the skin. The blasted meteorite fragments. No wonder he couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't do a damned thing right. Wrenching his gaze from his fascinating, if highly disturbing, reaction to the rocks, he glanced over at Whitney.

Feverish blue eyes stared back at him. The flush of anger was gone, his face stark and greenish in the cloudy daylight, but he still glared at Clark like he wanted to beat him to a pulp. Clark wriggled his arm. Whitney's fingers tightened.

"Uhm, Whitney? We have to get you to a hospital," Clark said as calmly as he could, considering he felt like a trapped animal. "You weren't breathing. You were hit by lightning."

"I feel fine, Kent," Whitney growled at him. His other hand came up, grabbing Clark by the collar again. This time, the air flow was actually cut off. "Stay away from her." Whitney's voice came from a long way away.

His head hurt, and his mouth tasted awful, and his skin itched. He wanted to throw up. Clark forced his eyes open and saw night sky above his head. Whitney was nowhere in sight. The storm had cleared.

The rocks were still glowing.

For the second time that night, survival instinct kicked in, and Clark tried to get up and get away from the field. He couldn't quite manage a stagger, because he couldn't quite get to his feet, but he could crawl, and he did. Half a mile later his jeans were shredded, his entire body ached, but his vision was clearing. By the time he got past the open fields, he could walk again, albeit shakily. The further he got from the rocks, the stronger he felt, until he was back to normal by the time he got home.

As normal as he ever got, anyway.

"Clark!" His mother sounded horrified.

"What happened?" His dad sounded more interested than concerned, but that was to balance out his mom's reaction. He did it all the time. Clark looked from one to the other and shrugged one shoulder.

"Got hit by lightning," he told them. Twin bemused expressions came over their faces.

"Are you ... all right?" his dad asked hesitantly as his mom came over and started patting him, apparently to reassure herself that he was still in one piece.

"Yeah, I think so. Ran into some more of those rocks, and that was unpleasant," an understatement, but no reason to freak them out more than they already were, "but I feel fine now." He nearly told them about Whitney, but for some reason he couldn't get the words out. After all, Whitney'd said he felt fine. A small, painful part of Clark that he seldom admitted to having much less acted on was spitefully telling him that anything Whitney got, Whitney had coming. Shrugging again, he grinned hopefully down at his mother. "Anything left from supper? I'm starving."

Beef stew and green beans never tasted so good.

Kent fucked everything up.

The thought circled round and round Whitney's brain as he jogged home, breath misting in the cold wet air. It should be straightforward. The gangly geek was getting in his way, trying to make time with his girlfriend, and Lana was falling for the aw-shucks act. Well, Whitney didn't. He knew Kent was a threat when he and the guys strung him up -- and hadn't that been perfect casting, the scarecrow as the Scarecrow, a part Kent looked to perfection, not that Whitney would ever admit to being jealous of the other boy's height -- and look what happened. Kent managed to turn it around, get Lana involved, make himself the martyr. All over a stupid necklace.

Okay, yeah, he rambled to himself, Kent told him where to go to get Lana free from the bug-boy, and wasn't it perfect that Kent would know, anyway. That was the kind of loser he was, knowing stuff like that about such a creep. Then he invites her for a limo ride, thanks to his freaky Luthor buddy, and then the party! Getting her to sneak around behind his back like that! Even then, when he almost gets some quality time -- if ever there was a determined virgin, it was Lana Lang -- in the barn, and Kent's old farm hand has to have a major freak-out in the middle of it.

Then Whitney finally gets a chance to really play the hero, rescuing them all from the psycho in the fertilizer plant, and Clark wimps out -- and Lana sticks up for him. Whitney knew then what Clark's game was. Sneak past her defenses, make her feel sorry for him, then jump her when she's all soft and sympathetic. Jealousy hit him like a fist in the gut.

Not his girl.

Not his Clark.

He tripped over his own feet. Where the hell had that come from? Maybe Kent was right and they had been struck by lightning. There had to be some reason his brain was scrambled enough to fixate on Kent's hands on his chest and Kent's mouth covering his. It made his skin crawl, and it made his fists clench to know that it wasn't crawling in a bad way. It felt like he was covered, inside and out, in static electricity. It was weird. He didn't feel injured.

He felt wired.

His dad yelled at him when he let himself in the back door, but he waved it off. His mother was out with her church group, and his dad was systematically emptying a bottle of Johnny Walker Red in front of the TV. It was easy to duck up into his bedroom and sit at his desk staring out the window. Over toward Lana's house.

Over toward the Kent farm.

Whatever the hell had happened, it had seriously messed him up. He didn't sleep all night, but he wasn't tired. He felt a little like he had the time he'd been stupid enough to take speed with Eddie Morgan before sophomore homecoming game. Like the world was going by too slow and he was all revved up. Itching for action. He went through both stop signs on the way to school but it was early enough nobody noticed. He ran laps for half an hour before first period, and while it didn't bleed off any of the adrenaline at least it calmed the visible shakes.

He shocked himself on the lockers. On the hand rail. On the door knob. On the metal frame of his chair.

On Lana's hand.

She jumped and looked at him, eyes big. "Are you okay, Whitney?" She had such a soft voice.

Of course not, you stupid bitch ... he bit his lip and stared back at her, shocked at his thoughts. Nodding mutely, he escaped before she could ask again and he said something awful. Clark was hovering there in the corridor, as always, and Whitney brushed against him as he pushed past.

He didn't shock himself on Clark. The opposite, in fact. His muscles stopped twitching, his skin stopped crawling, and he could take a deep breath for the first time in hours. He looked up at Clark's face.

Clark looked like he was going to pass out. He was pale, eyes shut, lips drawn so tight there was a little white line all the way around them. He was trembling. Whitney wanted to lick him.

Whitney got the hell out of there as fast as he could. As soon as he stopped touching Clark, the twitching came back, although Clark looked a lot better. Lana stared after him, confused and concerned. Clark ...

Clark stared at the wall and refused to look at either of them.

The morning crawled by, as Whitney avoided everyone as much as possible and tried not to touch anything metal. By lunch he'd had enough and after fifth period he ducked out the side door, heading nowhere in particular as long as it was away from people. And metal. As he turned down the street heading out of town, he caught a flash of red and blue.

Clark. Sneaking out of school. Wonders never ceased. Intrigued, and impelled by a pull between himself and Clark that he didn't understand at all, he followed. Of course, Clark led him directly to Luthor mansion. Whitney lost sight of his prey early on, but that weird magnetic tug kept him on track. Leaning against a tree, he stared absently at the ridiculous castle. All it needed was a moat. Maybe a dragon. Soon bored, muscles jumping with the need to move , Whitney heaved himself away from the tree and wandered around the grounds.

Electric fences. Gate with state of the art alarm system. High walls with sensors on top, nicely camouflaged by hedges with thorns a good two inches long. Clark must have the combination to the gate, because Whitney tried for two hours and didn't find another way onto the estate. By the time Clark finally wandered back out along the drive, Whitney was ready to kill him.

Or maybe himself. Because as soon as he saw Clark, he knew he didn't want to kill him. He wanted to fuck him. Raw. Instead of appalling him as that thought should, it made him instantly hard. All the electricity that had been circulating through his body all day landed in his cock with a bang, and he bit his lip until he tasted blood to keep from crying out.

He dragged Clark into the trees before he made any conscious decision to move. Clark gave him a shocked look, then just like that morning at school, Whitney started feeling much better and Clark looked like he was going to pass out. He didn't put up much of a fight as Whitney tossed him down on the ground behind a nice big tree, although he did moan and shake his head like it hurt. A surge of lust rocked Whitney, making him almost as dizzy as Clark looked.

Clark's mouth tasted like lemonaide and powdered sugar, and he gasped into Whitney's mouth when Whitney finally let him breathe. His eyes were closed and his skin was pale except for a line of red along his cheeks and down onto his throat. Whitney grabbed Clark's head with both hands, winding his fingers in Clark's hair, bending down and kissing him again. Clark was making noise, might have been protests but Whitney's tongue was in the way of any words he tried to say. The rumble against his chest and the hands pushing weakly at his shoulders made him even hotter.

He smelled good, Whitney thought distractedly, nuzzling and licking what he could reach, hands burrowing under Clark's sweater. Felt good, too. Strong under soft skin, as soft as Lana's, and that strength was seductive. Made him want to push, take him hard, pound into him. Clark squirmed under him, and everywhere they touched Whitney felt little bolts of electricity passing from him into Clark. It calmed him down and turned him on at the same time. Clark, pain-in-the-ass scarecrow, impossibly pretty for a guy, always in his face, now under his hands, like that was the way it should be, always would be. Had to be.

A throat clearing behind them sounded like a rifle shot. Some semblance of sanity returned with a few inches between his body and Clark's, and Whitney realized he was out in broad daylight, on Luthor land, two layers of denim away from raping Lex Luthor's only friend in Smallville.

"Shit!" he yelped. Humiliation didn't begin to cover it. He pulled away from Clark, reluctant as his hands were to leave all that warm soft grounding skin, ducked his head, and ran for his life. He didn't stop running until he got all the way home and into his room, slamming the door shut and collapsing against it, panting for breath. Shaking.

Eventually he made his way to the window, staring blindly out as night fell. He ignored his mother knocking on the door, telling him dinner was ready. Ignored his father telling her to 'leave the boy alone' and the resultant argument. Ignored everything, not even bothering to turn on the light as the room grew dark. He glanced down at his hand against the window pane, and thought he could see lightning moving across the skin. He could swear it was green. Green as the rock in Lana's necklace.

This was all Kent's fault. He didn't know how. But he knew it was.

Clark hadn't said much, which wasn't all that unusual in Lex's experience. But he hadn't smiled much, either, and that wasn't like Clark. Lex eyed him discreetly, giving his young friend every opportunity to talk about it, whatever it was that was bothering him. Lex hadn't had much practice in the role of supportive listener, but for Clark he was willing to try.

He was willing to try a lot of things for Clark. Most of them would land him in jail on charges of corrupting a minor. Well aware of this, he did everything he could to channel his energy into playing the friend. Clark was a mystery, and Lex loved mysteries.

He loved to crack them.

Two hours passed, during which Lex left openings and Clark sidestepped them. Finally Clark gave him a shadow of his usual sparkling grin. "Guess I should be heading home now."

"Time for school to be out?" Lex asked with a straight face. The grin widened a fraction. "Am I being a bad influence on you?" He injected a hopeful note. It worked. He got the first real grin of the afternoon.

"Nah," Clark reassured him. "Sixth period's independent study, and Chloe and I've already finished our project." The grin slipped. Lex's glance sharpened.

"You want to talk about it?" he finally asked outright. A blush blossomed over Clark's entire face and he looked away, studying the floor as if the Persian carpet was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.

"See you later," Clark non-answered him. Lex opened his mouth to press the point but before he could, Clark shot him a devastatingly grateful look, and his tongue melted in his mouth. "Thanks, Lex," Clark said in a near-whisper, then he was out the door before Lex could get his knees to work again.

Five minutes of concentrating on glaciers later, Lex was able to get up and follow him. He'd offer Clark a ride home. Try one last time to find out what was twisting Clark in knots. Heading down the drive to his Porsche, he heard rustling noises in the trees. Freezing, he glared into the shadows.

Rustling, and moaning, and wet suction that sounded extremely familiar. Lex raised an eyebrow and walked through the trees, curious to see who was ballsy enough to have a sexual tryst fifty feet from his front door. Stepping around a particularly large tree, he froze. In shock, perhaps, although the tightening in his groin he'd barely managed to conquer a few moments before was back in full force, so more probably it was lust.

Clark lay spread on the grass like a virgin sacrifice, head thrown back, eyes screwed shut, mouth open, lips red and wet. His chest heaved as he panted for breath, and his hands clenched into fists against the letter-jacket-clad shoulders of young Lana's quarterback boyfriend. Who was wrapped around Clark like a second skin, licking and sucking him, hands roaming all over him. Lex's brain supplied a caption, "Teen Sex Frenzy in the Wild Woods", and for a split second he wondered where the Candid Camera crew was. Because this couldn't be happening.

Whitney was Lana's.

Clark was Lex's.

Lex blinked, and the vision didn't disappear. Clark looked like he was in pain, writhing under Whitney, and Lex had the strongest urge to cause that kind of pain himself. Torn between wanting to cut off Whitney's hands for touching Clark and wanting to see what Clark looked like when he came, Lex settled for clearing his throat.

Loudly.

The jock reacted like he'd been stung in the ass by a swarm of bees. He bleated a curse and took off for the far hills, leaving Clark sprawled behind, flushed and wanton. Lex nearly threw himself down and took Whitney's place.

Except Clark looked at him. Blushed so hard it was a wonder his skin didn't leak blood. Rolled to his feet, tugged at his jeans and ran off even faster than Whitney.

Oh.

So that was what was bothering Clark. He'd found himself a boyfriend.

And it was the boyfriend of the girl he'd thought he wanted for his girlfriend.

Lex walked slowly back to the mansion. He wouldn't go after Clark. He glanced down at the swelling at his crotch. Not until they'd both had a chance to cool down. He had a lot to think about. Like the fact that Clark was apparently queer.

And apparently wanted Whitney.

Which thought caused Lex to start planning ways to hide the body, until he caught himself before jealousy made him do anything stupid. So Clark liked boys.

Lex wondered what he'd do with a man.

That thought led him to an ice cold shower, a five mile run, two hours of paperwork, and half a bottle of brandy before he fell into bed. Three hours and several fantasies later, he gave up, took two sleeping pills and pulled the pillow over his head. When he woke the next morning, his hand was at his cock and his palm was sticky. Very sticky.

Just another day in Smallville. Being tortured by the locals.

School was hell. It was a good thing football season was over, because there was no way Whitney could have concentrated on running patterns when the only thing he could think about was Clark. Lana stopped asking him what was wrong and started hovering, but he barely noticed. He couldn't tear his eyes away from Clark. Couldn't stop himself from following Clark, brushing against him, closing his eyes in relief as his body calmed when they touched, even as it notched up the need another degree.

Need to touch. All of him.

Spring break gave him his chance. Nell took Lana up to Metropolis, something about a girls' getaway. He silently cheered. His parents bought the story he gave them about hanging out with the guys, when it wasn't guys plural but guy singular that he couldn't stay away from. And that guy was doing his damnedest to hide.

Every time Whitney found Clark, Clark found a way to disappear. Farmers' Market day, and Kents surrounded him, so Whitney couldn't get at him, although he managed to brush Clark's shoulder once, and his hand a couple times. A tease, a hint of what he needed, just enough to keep him from going nuts but not nearly as much as he wanted. The world narrowed to Clark and Whitney, and Whitney was on the hunt. It was only a matter of time.

There was a strange rightness to the fact that when Whitney finally did catch him, it was in Lana's stables. After all, if it hadn't been for her, none of this would've happened.

That's what he told himself, anyway, as he tripped Clark into the straw and ripped his jeans open. Clark yelped, "What are you doing?"

Whitney gave him a disgusted look, pausing long enough to say, "What does it look like?" before pulling Clark's cock out through the pee slit in his boxers, tugging the foreskin back and licking the head. Clark made a noise like a balloon losing air, and Whitney smirked up at him. "I've been playing team sports for the last twelve years, Kent. It's not like you're my first." The wild look in Clark's eyes went straight to his crotch. "Oh, god, but I'm yours. Aren't I?" He didn't wait for confirmation, ducking his head and swallowing down slowly, watching Clark the whole time. The wide, mesmerized green eyes made Clark look like a mouse caught by a snake.

Keeping a firm grip on Clark's thigh, Whitney licked all the way around his cock, nibbling his foreskin, raising and lowering his head to cover the whole shaft. Clark gasped for breath, hands clenching helplessly in the straw. Whitney lowered his other hand to his own straining erection. When his fingers touched his cock, it was like completing a circuit. He could feel energy flowing from his mouth into Clark's cock, down his legs to Whitney, curled around him, through Whitney's hand back into his cock, up his chest to his mouth, and back into Clark.

Oh, yeah. This was what he'd needed. This was going to be good.

Lex Luthor didn't often act on impulse, but Clark seemed to bring it out in him. Clark had been avoiding him for days, and Lex was tired of it. Nell told him before she left that Clark was taking care of Lana's horse for her, and Clark was nothing if not conscientious, so Lex knew where to find the brat. Once he found him he'd go on instinct. Plan A was pseudo-older brother, helping out poor confused teen with his sexuality issues. Plan B was supportive friend, listening without judgment to poor confused teen with sexuality issues. Plan C was to toss the boy on his back and clarify some of those issues.

He was kind of hoping for Plan C, himself, but more than willing to play it whichever way it went. The possibility of jail time was proving to be less of an impediment to lust than it had before Lex got such interesting visuals to fuel his dreams. Some things even brandy and pharmaceuticals couldn't tame.

The horses whickered peacefully in their stalls as he walked into the cool shade of the stable. An abandoned bag of oats spilled by the last stall, and Lex walked softly as he approached the open gate. His mouth quirked up as he heard the unmistakable sounds of an enthusiastic blowjob over the rustling of the straw. What was it with Smallville boys and hay?

Peering around the edge of the wall, he looked down on a delicious sight. Clark lay supine with his head thrown back, as it was in most of Lex's filthier fantasies. His hands were fisted in the straw and his body arched under Whitney's weight. The shaggy blond head moved down and over Clark's groin, and Lex caught flashes of red wet flesh captured by a stretched mouth when the angle of Whitney's head changed. One hand kneaded Clark's thigh, bound in denim from the jeans pushed down away from the white cotton boxers. The other hand disappeared between their bodies, and the rhythmic thrusting of his hips against Clark's shins made it quite obvious what he was doing with it.

So, the jock liked to give head. Liked to give Clark head. Lex inhaled silently, sex and sweat and damp hay making his sinuses hurt and his body tighten. The enthusiasm was completely understandable. Clark was delectable, never more so than when he was half-undressed and out of his mind with pleasure.

At least it looked like pleasure. Maybe pain. It was often hard to tell the two apart. His mouth opened in a silent scream as he came, Whitney slurping and whining and humping all the way through it. Clark's face was a puzzle, no hint of the usual mischief, expression full of confusion and exhaustion. Whitney shuddered against him, then rose shakily to his knees. Grabbing Clark's hair, he pulled Clark's face up to his and kissed him, hard enough to make Lex's teeth ache with a mixture of sympathy and want.

Then, oddly enough, Whitney got up without a word and staggered out of the stall, leaving Clark lying in the straw. Lex barely made it out of the way in time to keep Whitney from running over him, but it wouldn't have mattered. The wide blue eyes were blank, and he didn't seem to see anything as he wandered out of the stable.

Lex looked after him for a moment, then dismissed him as unimportant, turning to concentrate on Clark. Who now had an arm flung over his eyes, and if Lex wasn't mistaken, appeared to be about to cry.

Okay. Not the reaction he'd expect from a climax like that, but then, Clark was always surprising him. Never moreso than when Clark took a deep, shuddering breath, touched his limp, wet cock, and whispered Lex's name.

Lex was through the gate and kneeling in the straw by Clark's side before the sound stopped.

One minute he's feeding Tessie, the next minute he's flat out in the straw with his head swimming and Whitney trying to suck his lungs out through his mouth. Cleaning stables didn't used to be so risky. Clark tried to tell Whitney no, tried to say stop, but it was impossible to talk around a mouthful of another guy's tongue. His head was spinning and it wasn't only lack of oxygen. Weird little jolts of electricity pinned him to the ground, and he was weaker than a newborn calf.

It had to be some kind of residual reaction to the rocks. And the lightning. Somehow. It was important, Clark knew, as the world turned faintly green and his eyes swam. Then Whitney's hand was on Clark's erection, which Clark hadn't realized he had, and he was wondering how Whitney'd gotten his jeans open when Whitney's mouth was on Clark's erection.

Clark stopped thinking.

He was dizzy and weak and a little sick to his stomach, but more than anything he was fixated on the mouth sucking his spine out the end of his cock. If the kiss had been overwhelming, he didn't have words for the rest of it. It shouldn't feel that good. It was Whitney, who'd obviously lost his mind and was zombied out on lightning death rocks, because there was no way on earth otherwise he'd be doing that with his tongue to Clark's balls. Clark moaned in spite of himself.

His hands flailed around until they landed on a handy patch of straw and held on. The stable spun around him and the only anchors in the universe were Whitney's hand on his thigh and Whitney's mouth on his cock and how wrong, how totally wrong that was. He was in love with Lana ... hell, they were both in love with Lana ... and this just couldn't be happening.

Then he was coming, and it wasn't only happening, it had happened. Electricity shot through him from his balls to the tip of his cock up his spine out the top of his head and the ends of his fingers and his toes. He was surprised his boots didn't fly off. He was surprised his hair didn't fly off. He should be bald as Lex from that explosion, and the thought of Lex surprised another moan out of him. Clark was still trying to figure out why when Whitney grabbed him by the scalp and kissed him hard enough to crack his enamel, if his enamel cracked.

On the verge of passing out, from oxygen deprivation this time, Whitney suddenly let go of him. Clark stared up to meet eyes as shocked as he felt, then Whitney dragged himself off Clark and headed for the gate, crashing into the wall on the way. Dimly, Clark registered the stain on the front of Whitney's jeans and if all the blood in his body hadn't already pooled in his groin he would have blushed. Tossing an arm over his eyes, closing out a reality that was freaking him out even more than it usually did, which was saying a lot, Clark tried not to think.

Of course, the only thing he could think about was the one thing he was trying not to think about. "Lex," he whispered, his brain connecting the sensations overloading his nervous system with the one person he shouldn't associate with those kinds of feelings, as his fingers wrapped loosely around his cock, soothing the residual ache. The sex had felt good, other than the dizziness and weakness and upset stomach part of it, and a treacherous impulse whispered through him to see if it wouldn't be even better with a guy he actually cared about.

"Yes," came the whispered reply, right next to his ear, and Clark should have been surprised, but he wasn't. He dragged his arm slowly away from his face and looked directly up at Lex, whose blue eyes swept his body like lasers. Under his hand, his cock jumped.

No weakness, now. A little dizziness, but it had nothing to do with lightning or meteorites and everything to do with Lex Luthor. His stomach clenched, not with sickness but with anticipation. Not giving himself time to think, he reached up, wrapped his free hand around the back of Lex's neck and pulled him down into an open-mouthed kiss.

The enamel on his teeth didn't crack, but something sure broke open, because what Clark began, Lex finished. Clark hadn't been kissed all that often, and they were all amateurs. Lex was a consummate professional, and he turned Clark inside out with his tongue. Clark whimpered, arching into him, fingers tightening around his cock as it got harder, nearly coming from the kiss alone. Until Lex gently tugged Clark's hand away and replaced it with his own.

The whimpers died, strangled by the need to breathe. Whitney had felt good, but Lex sent Clark into the stratosphere, slipping his fingers down between Clark's thighs, tugging at his balls, pressing and pulling in places Clark had never thought to touch, in ways Clark had never imagined. He came before he was ready, crying out with frustration into Lex's mouth, wanting it to last longer, needing more. Lex read his body, if not his mind, and pulled away just far enough to unzip his trousers. Clark reached for him, pushing aside fine wool and damp silk to get at the wet hard warmth behind them.

Lex never broke eye contact as Clark petted him, awkward and desperate with the touch. The intensity in his eyes threatened to burn Clark much worse than any lightning, and he went with it, surging up against Lex, burrowing his free hand under the linen shirt, moaning when he got both hands on Lex's body. One hand slid along the length of his cock, one slid over the thin hot skin of his chest, and always, always Lex's eyes stayed on him. There was a pulse against his palm, echoed in the thump beneath his other hand, and Lex's breath caught. Red traced along his throat, into his cheeks, reflecting the fire in his eyes, and Clark's breath stopped in sympathy as Lex came.

With his eyes still wide open, locked to Clark's.

Unwrapping his fingers reluctantly from the softening cock, Clark brought his hand up to his mouth, curious. The sticky mess tasted a little bitter, a little salty, a little sweet, and instantly addictive. Lex groaned, and his eyes blinked, once, as if the lids were too heavy to hold up. Clark offered his hand to Lex, who leaned forward and licked his fingers, his harsh breathing tickling Clark's skin, making his muscles twitch and the tiny hairs stand up all over his body.

Like a lightning strike.

He felt a grin breaking out all over his face and couldn't do a damned thing about it. Lex looked startled, then smirked back at him, and the expression worked so much better on Lex than it ever had on Whitney.

"You okay?" Lex asked. His voice was hushed, a little raspy. Clark shivered.

"Yeah." Okay. Better than okay. Flying.

"Are you and Whitney together?"

Same exact tone, but this time Clark's shiver was closer to a shudder. Lex started to pull away and Clark reached up, dragging him down until they were pressed tightly together. Clothes and skin and straw and sweat and it was a little disgusting but absolutely perfect.

"No way." He shook his head fiercely, calming when Lex nibbled the side of his neck. Closing his eyes, he gulped air. "I don't want Whitney. I want you."

"Looked like the two of you were getting along pretty well," Lex suggested, biting a little harder. Clark couldn't quite hold back a moan.

"No, he's ... it's hard to explain, but he sort of overpowered me." Lex stiffened against him, and Clark hugged him closer instinctively. "It doesn't matter. He's not important." Clark dared a kiss to Lex's cheek, missing his target and getting an open, willing mouth instead. Sliding his tongue along Lex's lower lip, he shrugged off the whole problem of Whitney, more than willing to get lost in Lex. "You are."

Too soon, Lex pulled away. Clark held on, and Lex choked, so Clark let up on the hold. Wouldn't do to find out how much he really cared for Lex then accidentally squeeze him to death trying to hold on to him. Lex plucked straw from Clark's mop of hair and grinned lopsidedly at him.

"I have a bed, you know. And it won't make you itch."

"And a shower?" Clark teased him, rubbing his finger across the drying mess on his belly. Lex stared at his hand, and at his belly, for so long Clark thought he hadn't heard him. He opened his mouth to repeat the question when Lex tore his eyes away from Clark's body and shook his head hard.

"Twenty three." He untangled himself from Clark, carefully tucking him away in now-filthy boxers before zipping up the jeans.

"Huh?" Clark asked as intelligently as he could, distracted as he was by Lex's hands on him.

"Showers," Lex muttered, still stroking him through his clothes. Clark tried not to make any more embarrassing whimpering noises. It was hard.

In so many ways.

"Full baths, that is. With bedrooms."

Lex was still talking, although he sounded like he was rambling, unusual for him. Clark took Lex's hand and allowed himself to be helped to his feet, although the dizziness was now completely gone. He'd never felt better in his life. He followed Lex out from the stable, footsteps slowing as they reached the silver Porsche.

"Darn."

Bright blue eyes speared him. He shrugged one shoulder unhappily. Lex raised an eyebrow, looking ridiculously urbane for a guy who'd just been rolling in the hay with Clark's hand down his pants. He must be coated with Teflon. Clark sighed.

"I've got to get home. It's almost supper time, and I don't want Dad to come looking for me."

Lex blinked. "Does he have a shotgun?"

The question threw Clark. "Uhm, yeah."

"Then neither do I," Lex told him, straight-faced. Clark wasn't sure whether to laugh or apologize. Before he could do either, Lex reached over and cupped his chin with one hand. Touched the middle of his lower lip fleetingly with the tip of his index finger. And smiled. "Want a ride home?"

"Nah," Clark said softly. "If I got one I might just ask for a kiss goodbye. Then we'd be in trouble." He froze, wondering if he'd gone too far. Lex stared at him for a second, then finally shook his head.

"Might just be worth it."

He had a feeling Lex was right. Before he could give in to temptation and drag Lex back into the stable, he flashed Lex a bright grin, said, hopefully, "See you later," and headed for home. He barely let the corn close behind him before he took off at full speed.

He was really looking forward to it.

The next day was Friday, and Lex was torn between being glad it was a working day so he had something to occupy his mind and irritated that work got in the way of trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do with Clark.

Well, he knew what he was going to do. He was going to do the same thing they'd already done, and a lot of other things, too. The question wasn't really what he was going to do. It was how he was going to do it and not get caught. He grinned, a somewhat feral expression that alarmed the few employees who were unfortunate enough to get in his way as he stormed through the plant. It was a challenge and Luthors thrived on challenge.

And he'd thought he'd be bored when his father exiled him to Smallville. Little had his father known there would be Clark.

That thought stopped him in his tracks. Throwing the locals off the scent wouldn't be difficult, although admittedly Pa Kent might be tough. Keeping Clark a secret, and having Clark keep them a secret, would be a challenge. Not to mention fun. But that would all be easy compared to deceiving his father. He'd have to be extremely careful. Ingenious. Devious. All for the sake of one hot, sweet, needy boy. That he couldn't keep his hands off. Lex leaned back in his chair and grinned up at the ceiling.

It was worth the risk.

He left work early. He imagined he could hear relieved sighs behind his back. He didn't care. He had more important things on his mind. Like Clark. Small town gossip. Hay dust in his shorts. And how he was going to have one, subvert the other, and avoid the third. By the time he parked the Porsche and headed up the drive toward home, plans were spinning like webs in his mind. Above him the sky darkened as a storm began to blow in.

Half an hour later he was watching the clouds build up from his office window on the second floor when he spotted Clark starting up the long drive. Rumpled hair, white tee shirt, blue jeans, godawful red and blue plaid jacket ... he looked good enough to eat, and Lex looked forward to the feast. Movement on the road behind Clark caught his attention, and he peered through the window, squinting to make out what was happening through the gathering gloom.

It was Whitney. Waylaying Clark. The jock had a hand on Clark's arm, and Clark was staggering, trying to push him off but not succeeding at all. Lex frowned, watching as Clark shook his head in an emphatic negative, so emphatic he lost his balance. Whitney latched onto him and took advantage of the moment of weakness to slam Clark against a tree and start kissing him.

Lex stopped watching and headed for the stairs. Clark had said no. Whitney hadn't listened. That was all the justification Lex needed to kill the snot-nosed little blond punk. He didn't know why Clark couldn't fight off Whitney; he knew firsthand how strong Clark was. But it didn't matter. If Clark couldn't, Lex was more than happy to do it for him.

They were still up against the tree three minutes later when Lex came up on them like the wrath of God unleashed. Clark was moaning, and the sound was definitely 'no', and Whitney wasn't even slowing down. Lex grabbed Whitney by the shoulder of his letter jacket and pulled him off Clark, spinning him around.

Then he dropped the jacket and took a step back. Whitney's skin glowed faintly green, and what looked like electricity danced over his skin. His eyes were unfocused but his erection made it perfectly clear what he wanted. He growled at Lex, breaking through the shock Lex was in at his appearance, then swung a fist wildly at Lex's chin.

Lex ducked back, blocked the blow with his left forearm and decked Whitney with a right cross. Whitney went down with a pained groan, and once on the ground, he stayed there. Lex stepped around him and caught hold of Clark just as Clark started to slide down the tree. He looked like he was about to vomit. Lex stroked his hair back from his forehead and wrapped an arm around his waist, staring up into his face.

"You okay, Clark? You don't look well. Come up to the house?" He glanced up at the lowering clouds. "Or would you prefer to stay out in the rain?"

Clark visibly restrained himself from making a smart-ass comment. Lex was a bit disappointed. He liked it when Clark got sarcastic. It was like getting mauled by a puppy.

"Augh," Clark groaned, grimacing over at Whitney.

Taking that as assent, Lex carefully steered Clark around Whitney and headed back up the drive. By the time they got to the front door, Clark had his strength back. Lex filed that little anomaly away with all the other pieces of the puzzle that was Clark Kent. He'd get to it. He'd get to all of it.

Eventually. At the moment he had more pressing concerns. Settling Clark in the drawing room with a bottle of water and a blanket, Lex pointed sternly at him and told him, "Stay!"

"Yes, Master," Clark snapped back.

Lex nearly swallowed his tongue. Shivering involuntarily, ignoring Clark's confused look, he said, "Save that thought. I'll be right back." Stepping out into the hall, he allowed himself a bare moment to relish the mental image of Clark in nothing but a leather leash and a silver chain, then pulled out his cell phone.

Two minutes later young Whitney's fate was sealed.

Closing the phone with a satisfied smirk, Lex walked back into the room and straight over to Clark. Pulling him to his feet, he kissed him thoroughly, alert for any indication that Clark wasn't as ready for this as he was. Lex had the sinking feeling he could get in over his head all too easily for Clark Kent. He already found himself making concessions for Clark he'd never make for anyone else. Taking insane risks he'd never take for anyone else. He couldn't seem to stop himself.

When Clark picked him up bodily, dumped him on the couch and climbed on top of him, Lex decided he would take that as a 'yes'. Heat built up between them and he found himself grinning like a madman at the ceiling again as Clark's hands worked under his clothes. He was either a fast learner or a natural talent, or maybe a bit of both. Lex had a lot to learn about Clark, and he looked forward to every minute of it.

Yes, Clark was a mystery. And Lex loved mysteries. Loved to crack them.

If he didn't crack first.

The last thing Whitney remembered was kissing Clark. The jitters stopped as he rubbed against Clark's body, wrapping himself around Clark. Then somebody got in the way, yanked them apart, and he lashed out.

Next thing he knew, his jaw exploded and everything went black. He woke to find himself suspended between two very large, very ugly, very scary-looking guys in plain brown overalls. They looked like trash men. And they were carting him toward a trash truck.

His gut yelled at him to get out of there, and he tried, hard, but for all the notice they gave his struggles he might as well have stayed unconscious. He opened his mouth to scream for help, but before he could make a sound he felt it.

Energy. Electricity. Building up all around them, in the ground beneath them, the sky above them. The tingling in his skin intensified until it felt like his skin would crawl right off his body and his scalp itched like crazy. There was a popping sound, and he closed his eyes.

He was going to die. He knew it.

The flash lit up the whole world, shaking the ground, causing the men to drop him and curl up in balls, screaming. Whitney stood there, head bowed, eyes clenched shut, as the earth was pounded by bolts of lightning and discharged energy in return. Weirdly enough, it didn't hurt. Didn't knock him out, didn't stop his heart. If anything, it felt like the storm was drawing the electricity out of him, not sending it through him. Grounding him.

Minutes passed, as the rain poured down on him. Eventually he lifted his head, dazed and deafened and more than a little surprised to still be standing. The two men lay on the road, unmoving, and he backed away from them, not knowing if they were alive or dead and not caring. They weren't threatening him any more, and that was all that mattered.

Trudging home through the rain, Whitney stuffed his shaking hands in his pockets and tried to think. The last week or so was fuzzy, but became clearer as he walked. It was almost as if he'd been living in some strange alternate reality. His memories were tinted green, and jerked up and down like his own personal Blair Witch project, all shaky camera movements and weird-ass shadows.

Six blocks from his house he stopped dead on the sidewalk and nearly fainted as particular memories came through with extreme clarity. He'd kissed Clark Kent. Several times. Jumped him every chance he got, in fact. Blown him in Lana's stable one stall down from her champion jumper. Came just from the taste of Clark in his mouth. Instead of making him sick, as he expected it should, he was horrified to find himself getting hard at the memory of that afternoon.

Okay. So he had a few adjustments to make. It shouldn't take much. A lot of denial, several heavy make-out sessions with Lana. Years of therapy.

Complete avoidance of Clark Kent.

Well, complete avoidance after one last meeting.

Monday morning outside Kent's home room, Whitney cornered him, making sure not to get too close to him. He didn't know if touching Clark would still feel as good as it had, and he was afraid to find out. Glaring the best he could up into Kent's wide green eyes, he snarled, "It didn't happen!"

He refused to admit he was disappointed that the only reaction he got from Kent was relief. The next time Lana stopped to talk to Kent in the hall, Whitney just kept walking.

"I'm impressed," she told him when she caught up with him. He gave her a questioning look, carefully not looking as Kent passed by on his way to third period. "No jealousy, no warning looks. No acting like a tom cat who has to mark his territory every time Clark says hi to me. What happened?"

Whitney shrugged and changed the subject. He wasn't about to tell her he didn't know which of them to be jealous over. But he made damned sure he was never alone with Kent after that.

And he never followed another guy into a field during a storm after that. Ever.

Clark was staring at the constellations through his telescope, Lana's house having lost its appeal, when he heard light footsteps coming up to the loft. He grinned as Lex stepped over to join him at the window.

"Star gazing?" Behind him, where no one could see, Clark felt Lex's hand slide over his waist, down the curve of his ass. He shivered.

"Just enjoying the solitude," he murmured, paying much more attention to the wandering fingers than to what he was saying. He gave a wordless protest when the hand was abruptly removed.

"Shall I be going then? I'd hate to intrude."

Moving faster than he knew he should, though not nearly as fast as he could, Clark pressed Lex up against the far wall in the deep shadows and kissed him. He tasted better than chocolate, better than ice cream, better than the sweetest apple pie his mom had ever made. "Don't you dare leave," he whispered against Lex's mouth.

"You're playing with fire, you know," Lex whispered back, biting Clark's lower lip gently before releasing it.

"Do you burn?" Clark asked absently, nuzzling across Lex's cheek to lick just under his ear. Lex shook against him.

"Only if you ask nicely," was the breathless reply.

"Please?" he mouthed into the side of Lex's neck.

"Any time," Lex told him, then kissed him until neither one of them could think. "Your dad still have that shotgun?" he eventually asked. Clark grinned at him.

"They're in Metropolis. And the door has a cross-bolt on it. Close your eyes. I'll be right back." It was the work of a moment to lock them in. When he got back, Lex was watching him. And he was right.

They both burned.

Inductance : the property of an electric circuit by which a varying current in it produces a varying magnetic field that induces voltages in the same circuit or in a nearby circuit. Symbol : L.