Disclaimer: They knew this job was dangerous when they took it. Pairing: Clark/Lex WARNINGS: Yellow sap alert. Spoilers: None Thank you to Mark and Carene! Sequel to "Essentials". Started: 8/22/03 Feedback: mog@pacific.net Go to Part I II III IV V VI VII VIII
Essentials II by C.M. Decarnin

"So," murmurred Lex, settling in incremental snuggles closer and closer to all of Clark's curves and angles, "your whole body is invulnerable, right?"

"Mm."

"How do you cut your fingernails?"

From quarter-consciousness, Clark made an effort to respond. "Mm." And when Lex poked him, turned it into a whine. "Nn!"

"Come on, Clark, it's four o'clock in the afternoon. Don't you have super-powers of staying awake after sex? You don't want to waste all our time together sleeping, do you?"

"Mmno..." Clark groaned and stretched parts of his body deliciously. "Mm, but your bed is so..." He moaned in lieu of words for the feel of silk sheets over a down featherbed. Lex's arm around his waist got some of his attention back on track. They were naked, and that too was exotically wonderful. He had nowhere near started cataloguing Lex's body in all its live, smooth, soft, hard, warm miraculousness.

"The question was manicures," Lex pursued.

"I bite my nails."

Lex took his hand and perused it suspiciously. "They look pretty smooth."

"At super-speed it's kind of like a power-saw."

Lex's eyes narrowed. "And your toenails?"

"Well, first I make sure to wash my feet really well --"

"You are totally lying."

"You wound me."

"You lied to science."

Clark's big hand smoothed down Lex's long, sleek side. He nuzzled slightly under Lex's chin and breathed on the side of his neck. "Don't you want to know how I cut my hair?"

"I had wondered," said Lex dryly.

"You don't like my hair?"

"I adore your hair. I worship at the feet of each and every follicle."

"I can't believe there was a time I didn't know you were gay."

"Bi."

Clark blew a sound that with a little more force to it would have been a raspberry. His arm went the rest of the way around Lex. Lex's skin felt sooo goooood.

"Hey."

"Mmf?"

"You're falling a fucking sleep again!"

"Nnn," Clark denied in injured hemiconscious tones.

"I'll experiment on you in your sleep."

Clark cracked one eye. "You think it's dorky-looking."

"I might try for slightly swept to one side across the forehead instead of the straight down. But I've thought about it and, really, I can't think of a better look for you. I don't think you want to risk short and moussed."

"You think about my hair? And claim to be bi?"

"I think about every bit of you." Lex rippled against him convincingly. "Oh! Hey -- I've got it. Your hair and nails don't grow, right? Your nails don't have to because they don't get worn down. Right?"

"Wrong." Clark said it intimately against Lex's neck. He pulled Lex tight against him and started breathing harder.

"Hah." Lex's eyes gleamed. "Tell me or no nooky."

Clark ran his hand down over Lex's butt.

"Tell me or I'll ravage you without mercy," Lex amended.

"Terror," said Clark. He nibbled his lips along Lex's neck.

"Clark!" Lex gasped and arched in against him. 

"It's like dating the Dark Ages," Lex groused as he toweled down Clark's beautiful back with a big fluffy absorbent pale-turquoise towel. "Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it, Clark. Do you know the cause of the hugest loss of knowledge in the existence of humankind?"

"Um, I forget."

Lex dried down his arms. "It was people refusing to answer a simple scientific inquiry about personal grooming." He let the towel hang down from the small of Clark's back and ran his hand down over it, feeling the soul-satisfying curves of Clark's derriere. "God your ass is beautiful."

"So you're saying the fate of civilization is in my hands."

"Exactly."

While Lex dried the backs of his thighs, Clark rummaged in the medicine chest over the sink. When Lex stood up from rubbing the towel around his ankles and feet, Clark handed him a pair of nail scissors. Then, wrist ceremonially limp, he offered Lex one of his hands.

Hesitantly, Lex opened the tiny blades and closed them on the edge of Clark's thumbnail.

It cut almost as easily as his own.

He carefully finished cutting across it, and caught the little white arc in his palm. He stared at it, looked at the nail scissors and at Clark. Then he raised his eyes slightly, with a predatory expression.

Clark commandeered the scissors. "Not the hair."

"It's dead tissue."

"I don't care, you're still not cutting it."

"I mean, that's why it's not invulnerable. Nails, hair, beard -- it's no longer living cells."

"Yeah, that's what we figured. At least, so far."

"So far?"

"Things keep changing."

"Huh." Lex marveled over the little clipping. Then he turned and carried it into the bedroom, to the jewel-chest where he kept his cufflinks. He opened one of the little drawers and tipped the clipping onto the red velvet.

"Um..." said Clark, watching over Lex's shoulder.

"It's of scientific value," Lex said.

"In your jewelry-box?"

"It's your first clipping, okay?"

"Okay."

Lex looked over his shoulder, to see Clark smiling at him with tender fondness. "First for me," he mumbled, failing at the tone of entire reasonableness he usually achieved.

"First for us," Clark murmurred against his cheek and a skim of pink heat bloomed over Lex's face, with a helpless smile.

"Okay," he conceded resignedly, turning around into Clark's welcoming arms. "You have the unique alien ability to transform me into a sentimental drip."

"My sentimental drip," Clark cooed.

"All yours." Lex shifted and settled against all the naked invulnerability, slid a firm hand into Clark's damp hair and kissed demandingly onto the warm boyish lips. Clark's muscular arms clamped hard around him, then suddenly released.

"Oh, sorry," Clark exclaimed.

Lex gasped, "Don't be. That was -- good."

"You like to be swept off your feet by your alien stud?" Clark rocked him back and forth a little.

"Who wouldn't?"

Clark smiled uncontrollably, and Lex smiled back. There were still so many little things they were learning about each other, and each one was like a precious gem of knowledge, shining against the dark. Every kiss added to the hoard.

Warm tongue between his lips. He engaged, and feinting and parrying, fought it back inside Clark's mouth. Leaning in on tiptoe, he felt Clark's cock rise up between his thighs.

Touche.

Strong clasp around him again, and one hand under his butt, lifted him off his feet. Drove him even further into the delicious, young, defenseless sweet mouth. I love you I love you, God it was so good... Clark was the most intoxicating lover he had ever had, drew him again and again, to an endless honeymoon. Blissful desire surging into orgasmic climax and replete gratification, ceaseless, profound, as the wash of the waves on the tropic isle it felt like they vacationed on. Clark was his boyfriend and he was the luckiest man on the face of the planet. Beyond anything he had ever dreamed or imagined for himself or his future. And he had the nail-paring to prove it.

Arms tight around Clark's neck, he breathed heavily as Clark set him gently down onto the soles of his feet again.

"I wish I were alien too, so you wouldn't have to be careful of me."

Clark brushed his face against Lex's. "I love being careful of you."

"But don't you ever wish sometimes you could just -- let loose with everything you've got? Have you ever -- I don't know, jerked off at super-speed?"

And Clark burst out laughing. His hold on Lex became more to support himself as he bent forward, laugh-weak. "Yes," he got out.

"What happened?"

But Clark was laughing too hard to tell him. He clung onto Lex and finally had to totter over to the bed and sit down. He wiped a knuckle across his eye. "Oh god."

"I take it it was a memorable sexual experience."

Clark wheezed. "At school. Sometimes I'd get -- um. Woodies?" He looked so self-conscious saying it that it took Lex back to his own fraught prep-school days. He raised his eyebrows encouragingly. "So this one time, I thought I had a solution. I decided I'd go in the boys' bathroom when no one was there, and jerk off really fast, and no one would know, and I'd be done with it."

"So how was it?"

"Fast. Very, very fast." And Clark laughed again. "There's this thing that happens when I run really fast, that everything goes into slow motion? But when just a small part of my body is involved, that doesn't seem to happen. So -- no -- definitely not so memorable. Two seconds and -- bam. Talk about a waste.

"Anyway, when it was over I realized, yeah, no one could have seen it -- but you could smell it. The whole bathroom smelled like cum. So, I had to get out of there without being seen, or everyone would know it was me."

Lex put his hand to his eyes and shook his head; he wouldn't relive his teen years, not even for sole control of LuthorCorp.

"It seemed simple, I'd superspeed out too fast for anyone to see me leaving the bathroom. That worked fine -- except there were kids in the hall. Classes were changing. So I couldn't stop. I had to find a place where no one was around, so I could reappear without anyone seeing it." Clark sighed. "Do you realize how few places there are in a school with no people? We aren't allowed to leave the building between classes, so I couldn't go out and be seen walking back in. I kept buzzing around from floor to floor and classroom to classroom, one end of the school to another, and I couldn't stop. Everywhere was swarming with kids, teachers, janitors. I felt like the guy on the M.T.A." Clark spurted a few fragmentary giggles. "Finally everyone went into their next class and I zipped into a different bathroom, and stopped. I mentioned about the slow motion thing? It felt like I'd been trapped running around the school for an hour. And then I was on the wrong floor and I was late for class." He heaved another wavering sigh.

"So you never tried it again?"

"Speed-sex? A few times -- just to see. But not in public, ever again. And it was never worth it." He smiled at Lex. "I think sex is designed to go at human speed."

Lex smiled back at him. "Makes sense."

Clark reached out and pulled him over to the bed, toppling slowly backward, and tugged Lex down on top of him. Lex looked thoughtful, and rolled off and took Clark's cock in his hand. He bent over it as if to peer down into it.

"I wonder," he said.

"What?"

"I wonder if there are little tiny super-sperm in there. Lashing their tails at super-speed. Maybe able to penetrate the strongest condom. Invulnerable to spermicide."

Clark got hold of his wrist, and hauled him hand over hand back up where he could look at him.

"The thought has crossed my mind. There's a reason I was a virgin till I met you."

"Oh uh-huh. Nothing to do with you being too shy to even kiss."

"They're connected," Clark said patiently.

Lex's eyes softened. "Of course they are." His fingers trailed through Clark's black hair. He kissed his cheek. "Sweet," he whispered.

Clark kissed Lex's. "Sweeter."

"Sweetest," and Lex delicately plundered his lover's lips like a hummingbird going for the nectar. Clark nuzzled and suckled at his tongue-tip.

"We're nauseating," he murmurred finally.

"Icky," Lex concurred.

"Weren't we supposed to be getting dressed for something?"

"Mm."

"Your Dad."

Lex whimpered a single note.

"Our lives are pretty weird."

"Thank god I found you."

"Yeah," Clark said. "Sickening is much better than weird and all alone."

"No comparison."

"Promise me we'll always be disgusting."

"Always. We'll grow old and completely unbearable together."

"Wuv you."

"Though we do need to discuss limits."

"Because I have powers of barf induction beyond those of mortal men."

"Race you to the closet. One, two, three!"

Clark blurred off the bed and looked back out of the open closet door to see Lex burrowing into the pale-lilac silk sheets, chuckling evilly.

Clark stalked back.

"I can get you out of there." A low laugh came from under the silk. "If I have to have dinner alone with your Dad, I probably won't be able to think of a thing to talk about. Probably the only subject I'll be able to come up with will be your favorite sex positions."

"They're your favorite positions too," said a muffled voice.

Sighing, Clark whoofed the bottom of the sheet high into the air, and crawled in beside Lex as the silky canopy settled back over them. "Let's just stay in here and hide," he concluded.

"Yes. He'll never find us here." Then, thoughtfully, "I'm actually kind of surprised you don't bite your nails."

"Can't. Overbite."

Lex moved folds and wads of sheet out of the way tunneling to Clark's face, and lifted Clark's upper lip with his thumbs. "Huh."

"The vetter to eat you wif," Clark growled. Lex let go of his lip.

"I hate my Dad."

Clark folded his warm arms around Lex, protectingly. "I know." Lex fitted himself closer, and Clark held him close and safe, and they lay bound together, amid all the things they already knew, and the whole unknown that they had yet to learn. 

End

8/26/03