Locking Up

by a campbell

Smallville, Clark Kent/Lex Luthor

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9:50 and supper only just finished. Martha placed the last dripping plate in the dish drainer. Normally, she would have drafted Clark to dry, but the boys had been through so much today. Which hadn’t harmed Clark’s appetite for much, but Lex definitely wasn’t hungry. He’d managed a spoonful or two of homemade beef barley soup to be polite and then tried to hide a sigh of exhaustion as he laid down his spoon. “I’d better go,” he said. “There’ll be a lot to take care of at the plant tomorrow.”

He’d looked so forlorn outside the plant after his father had departed again for Metropolis in the chopper, so alone despite the handful of police and reporters still milling about. Martha had to insist he come home with them for supper. He’d tried to refuse, but she was persistent. Not for nothing was Jonathan fond of saying that she’d always had a thing for strays.

“Why don’t you stay over, Lex?” She was worried, herself. He had refused a doctor after the escape that evening, but the bruises on his scalp were darkening, his eyes were ringed with fatigue, and his always-pale face was almost white.

“I can’t, Mrs. Kent. I’d be bad company.” He met Clark’s gaze with a faint smile, and Martha saw Clark’s face flush with disappointment—he always loved it when she allowed him to have friends over for the rare sleepover. Or perhaps it was just concern.

“Don’t worry about that,” Martha scolded with an indulgent shake of her head. “You aren’t here to entertain us. We’re here for you. Don’t you realize what you did for this town today?”

Lex smiled again and got to his feet. “I’ll give you all a call in the morning.”

***

Half an hour later, Martha turned out the kitchen light and went to lock the front door for the night. She peered out onto the porch just to see that everything was peaceful outside. It was dark. There was no moon, and this late in autumn there might even be snow by morning.

She heard a scuff, saw a motion by the swing, heard Clark’s voice, tender, low and urgent.

“I was so scared, Lex. He hit you so hard.”

“Don’t worry about me, Clark. It doesn’t take much for me to mend.”

Martha wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Clark reaching out, drawing Lex in, folding him in his arms, as tightly as he probably could without bruising him further. Lex tightening all his muscles at first, then relaxing, almost melting into Clark’s embrace. Clark bending down, leaning in. It was too dark for Martha to see Lex’s expression, but she could hear the moist sound Clark’s lips made as he kissed him, the small cry Lex gave that trailed off into a moan as he arched up to meet the caress. The wet sound of their mouths as Clark’s arms glided in the shadows down to grasp his hips.

Martha gasped and felt her eyes widen in surprise.

She hadn’t realized.

Clark’s arms glided down to grasp Lex’s hips. He leaned in for one more kiss, letting a hand linger on Lex’s arm as though reluctant to let him go.

“I love you,” he said.

Lex bowed his head. If he said anything in reply, Martha couldn’t hear it.

She stood in the dark for a few minutes, then shook her head with a sigh and a smile. She let the curtain drop, feeling only a little guilty for eavesdropping as she heard the engine of Lex’s car rev to life. Then the squeal of tires on gravel and motor sounds fading off in the distance.

Thank goodness she hadn’t asked Jonathan to do the locking up tonight.

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