Title: An Interlude with Paint (1/1)

Series/Sequel: Occurs a year after Shared Sleep, but can stand alone.

Author:VividRain

Rating:NC-17

Summary: Clark gets his wish.

Disclaimer: They do not belong to me. Don't sue.

Archive: Will eventually be found at oocities.com/spikewannabe. All others inquire within.

Feedback: Adored like chocolate covered strawberries.

Notes: I couldn't get the boys off my mind after posting Shared Sleep last night, so this is to clear my mind for new plotlines.

The very fact of the canvas being present made Clark's stomach roll over. The last time Lex had dragged out the comfortable, but tough spread it had been so they could coat each other entirely in oil and engage in a slippery, but extremely erotic wrestling match. There are spots on the canvas when it was used for less innocent bedroom game, but like many things about Lex, Clark has learned to blithely ignore because if he asks he will get a detailed and truthful answer.

And Clark really doesn't need to know that his lover used to engage in blood play. The very thought of it gives him chills. Then again, just a year ago, the idea of two men having sex had provoked the half-disgusted, half-longing feeling in him, so who knew?

He banished such thoughts, concentrating on the pale blur of Lex, who was pulling things from various corners of the room. No one would have suspected that Lex, King of Simplistic Elegance, was a bit of a paranoid packrat. He had pockets, caches and niches for everything. Some were conventional like hidden safes and others....well at the moment, he was shimming up one tall bed post to grab something off the top of the wine red canopy.

"Got it!" He cried triumphantly. "Catch!"

Clark reached out blindly and was therefore surprised when, instead of throwing down the package, Lex himself leaped the eight foot drop and landed solidly in outstretched hands.

"You gave me a heart attack!" Clark scolded, tossing the chuckling mass onto the bed.

"I knew you would catch me." Lex's look was serious in the sudden way of his moods. "You always do."

Clark shifted uncomfortably.

"Yeah..well...what's in the package?"

"My anniversary present." Lex flowed up into a sitting position, feet dangling off the end of the bed. " I know you didn't want be to get you anything, but I've never had a proper anniversary before."

"You might as well open it then."

The brown paper was not much of a deterrent to long pale fingers and quite soon a blur of colors tumbled from the package, littering the bed.

"Paints?" Clark asked momentarily confused and even a little disappointed, before managing to grasp it. "You want me to actually paint your head?"

" I know it's not conventional, but it's nicely symbolic, right?"

A year ago today, they had slept in this bed after Lex had told Clark about how his mother had made him feel beautiful by painting his bald scalp. It was the beginning of their new emotional contract. The mere fact that Lex would allow Clark to become a part of one his sacred memories is amazing.

"Are there any brushes?" Clark manages to ask, touched as he is almost to tears.

Lex gestured to a bundle of clean new brushes, their black bristles shiny and sharp. Carefully, Clark began to organize his supplies, starting by organizing the colors in a careful rainbow. While he obsessed over where green should go, Lex stripped down to his milk soft skin and spread in a full lounge on his stomach, regarding Clark through half-lidded eyes.

The beautiful temptation of all that skin distracts Clark momentarily, but he fights it and chooses his first color with a shaky hand. He settles on a cerulean blue, darker then Lex's eyes and a largish brush. He's not a very good artist, but he has the feeling that effort will be more rewarded then ability in this case.

The first long cool streak starts on upper right thigh and continues over the muscular haunch and up the slightly recessed spine and ends right in the center of the bare scalp. Goosebumps pop up over the blemishes skin in reaction to the cool slick of the paint. After that first mark destroys the perfect white canvas, Clark feels himself warming to the task. He creates whorls, swirls and crazed leaping patterns. Eventually he abandons the brushes all together, enjoying the cool squishy feeling of the paint in his hands. He blends together new colors on the rapidly filled canvas of Lex's back and rapidly finds himself out of space.

The paint has dried quickly, even as he works and he can see where delicate hairline cracks are appearing. The whole time, they have both been silent, but the silence is light and fun. Lex's eyes stay half-open, his breathing erratic enough that he can't be sleeping and may even be slightly aroused.

"Turn over." Clark commands huskily. "I'm out of room."

Without a word, Lex obligingly shifts and once again confronts Clark with unrivaled white. Only around the edges has paint creeped in, infringing on perfect pale. Lex is still limp, in every sense, but his eyes sparkle from underneath delicate lashes.

Clark decides to start with the toes and work his way up. A small brush run up the underside of the foot earns him a repressed smile and light kick to the knee. Lex vehemently claims that he isn't ticklish and Clark has yet to provoke a decent laugh from him in such an attempt, but he refuses to give up trying.

In a sudden moment of inspiration, he paints every one of the neatly trimmed toenails a slutty red and everyone one of the toes green. The rest of the foot is graced with a pale yellow. For contrast, he runs alternating stripes of pink and purple up the calf. A rosy, smiling sun appears on one knee, a venerable old moon on the other.

Feeling decisively ornery, Clark skips up to the smooth stomach that is always on the verge of being a six pack, but retains a softness. A soft breathy moan informs the teen that his deliberate avoidance has not gone unnoticed. With a wicked smile, he paints brilliant yellow daisy petals around two pale nipples, their stems intertwine into the bellybutton. With deliberate care, he loops elaborate armbands of black that start from the shoulder and end linked to bracelets. The fingernails match the toenails, gleaming red.

He turns his attention to the shoulders and draws an ornate golden swirl from one pointed bone to the other. On the slim neck, he hesitates and finally decides on a tasteful green necklace clasped with a red heart. Knowing that he will loose all control if he so much as touches the thin cruel lips, he returns to the scalp, evening out the crazed swirls and bringing them to a sharp point in the middle of the forehead.

Lex's lids have fallen fully closed now. He is not asleep, but in a curious stage of pre-sleep: not aware of his surroundings, but ready to wake at the smallest sound. Lex was adept at this light semi-semblance. Clark has never needed to accomplish it.

Now, however, it gives him free reign to play in the last unmarked region of his favorite terrain. Thighs that could crush a can (a trick that Lex had figured out in high school and had once shown Clark on a dare) received special reverence. With the same red as the nails, he drew lipstick kisses and dabbed his hand in the extra to dot them with fingerprints.

The grand finale was upon them. Lex's nicely shaped, average length endowment lay nestled on a bed of coarse, dark red hair. It was the only place hair grew on the older man and Clark loved it. Even now, after a year, he could barely restrain himself from nuzzling his nose in the rich aroma.

With quick decision, and the knowledge of the annoyance of cleaning paint out of hair, he left the thatch alone and concentrated on the now stirring penis. Clark had, around the knees, decided what he wanted to do here. Using the white and red, he candy cane striped from root to tip. To finish off, he found the finest brush he could and in black signed his name on the white stripe.

"Done!"

Lex blinked sleepily, fully awake in seconds.

"There's a camera next to the paints. Take a few."

Clark had handled the camera before. All of the negatives and pictures were in one of Lex's many lockboxes. This one hidden under the floorboards under the bed. The film was developed in the castle itself. Lex was handy with chemicals.

Wiping his hands off on the canvas, he removed the shutter and snapped a few pictures of Lex's front from different angles, then had him sit up, so he could get a variety. As he photographed, he shed clothing. He wasn't satisfied until he heard the whir of an ended roll and he stood naked.

"I think this is properly documented. You can start licking it off now."

"Licking?" Clark looked at his lover, incredulously. "Lex! It's paint!"

"Edible paint. I made it."

"Like you made that lube? The stuff that ate through the sheets when it spilled out of the bottle?" The incident had left round burn holes on the linens and an angry red patch on Lex's skin that probably would have been worse if Clark hadn't superseded him into the shower.

"That was different. I took the wrong bottle. Look, it's not like this will kill you."

"Fine." Without finesses, Clark lifted Lex's leg and licked at the moon on his left knee. It tasted a little sugary, but not unpleasant.

"Does it meet your approval, Your Lordship?" Lex asked with bland curiosity.

And the moment snapped together in clarity for Clark, he held one leg in his hands and Lex regarded him steadily, a slight flush in his cheeks and paint lathered over his entire body.

"God, you're beautiful."

There was no response from his bedmate, but Lex turned in his grip so he could lie on top of the younger man. Their bodies pressed together and the paint squished, leaving marks all Clark's once pristine flesh. Lex was better at being on top, whether he was actually topping or not. It went beyond the sheer size difference, Lex seemed to enjoy the feel of another body below his. When they slept together, it was always with Lex's head on his chest, listening to the steady thud of Clark's heart. They kissed, fiercely now, as if it had been years instead of hours since the last time they'd made love.

The paint, it seemed, was a good lubricant too as Lex wiped a hand across his stomach and coated his fingers. He pushed one finger inside of Clark, demanding and harsh. Without question, Clark opened for him and after a moment's thought raised to his knees. Lex responded to this silent cue and shimmied around to the broad back, continuing his ministrations behind, lavishing kisses on the thick cords of Clark's neck.

When he thrust home it was accompanied by that first stretched burn and a wrenched cry. They stilled for a long moment, remembering each other's body before settling into a rhythm they both enjoyed, a slow and steady pounding of flesh. Out of the corner of his eye, Clark could see flickers of Lex's painted scalp and it seemed to him in the fading twilight that Lex's mother had been right. He did seem otherworldly when he was painted like this. Like a Oberon with Clark as his Titannia, or better yet, his Puck.

It was established that Clark would always come first, regardless of any variable. This time was no exception and as his orgasm ripped through him. He remained dimly aware of Lex's hard lean body pounding into him with the last vestiges of control falling behind. A panting, swimming minute later, Lex followed Clark over the brink and together they collapsed back on the rough canvas bed.

In a few rapid, economical movements born of habit, Clark scoots four inches to the left and raises and arm to accommodate for Lex's slim bulk next to him. The paint is sticky between them and it occurs to Clark that his ass is probably covered with red and white stripes both inside and out.

"Happy Anniversary." Lex muttered.

"Love you." Clark mutters as he drifts off, not much expecting to hear an answer.

He doesn't, but sleep claims him before it bothers him much.

When he awakens, a few hours later it seems, it's to the sound of muffled curses and the patter of a shower in progress in the next room. His stomach feels even stickier then usual. A single clap turns on every lamp in the room onto a soft glow, illuminating his skin.

Lex has apparently been busy. In neat block script, each letter a different color was a message written on Clark's stomach.

Love You Always. -Alexander J. Luthor

It took Clark three minutes, before he felt sufficiently collected to join Lex in the shower. He didn't say anything, but he has long ago decided that blow jobs speak louder then words in many situations. Another Luthor lesson that wouldn't ingratiate Lex to his father.

Besides, late at night, when Lex was curled next to him and the moonlight spilled through heavy curtains, Clark just knew. He knew that if their was fate or destiny then this was it. Lex had chosen him, in a decisive neat way that was purely his style. Clark was more then willing to be the constant steady beat of thundering blood under the brilliant pale mind of his slumbering lover.