Title: So Damn Delicate (1/1)

Author: VividRain

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Sometimes two very different minds think alike.

Category: Established Relationship

Pairing: Clark/Lex

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, I merely borrow them for nefarious purposes.

Feedback: Is absolutely the best thing you can give a writer: tarrotcat@aol.com

Notes: This is not my first fic(I write as Vera in both Buffy and BMB fandoms), but it is my first Smallville fic and I'm not sure I got the characterizations right. Feel free to send some advice.

He fell asleep waiting for me, something I have never ever seen him do before. Fall asleep without meaning too, I mean. I've seen him sleep before. Watched him for a while too, his eyes flickering back and forth underneath pale eyelids.

Now, though, its almost funny. He's sitting in a deep brown leather chair, a finished drink in one hand and some report or another lying in his lap. His head just sort of listed over to one side, resting on the back of the chair.

More often then not, he stays awake for whole nights at a time, popping pills that haven't been sanctioned by the FDA yet and may never be. I can get him to stop, if I come over. Get him to rest for a few hours and its’ a task I am more then willing to take on. Usually I have to wear him out first, not just tuck him in. That's the fun part.

Tonight seems to be the exception to rule and I take a long minute to decide how to go about this. I could just cover him up and leave him here, but I think his back has taken enough punishment over the years. The bedroom isn't all that far. He may not appreciate being carried like a baby while he sleeps.

In the end, I say to hell with his niceties and scoop him up, gently. He doesn't wake or even seem to register any change. It's easy to walk smoothly into his room and lay him out on the bed. Sometime ago, he kicked off shoes and left them in the middle of the floor. Unable to resist, I undress him down to those wonderful purple silk boxers and pull the cover over him.

For a long minute, I just stare. Fascinated by him. He's light in my arms like anyone else would be, but there is a special delicateness to him. I'm always so careful. Have to constantly think. Because he trusts me not to hurt him. Trusts me not to slip up and break a bone or worse to crush his skull between my hands. In the moonlight, he looks even more vulnerable. So damn delicate.

I had fully intended to join him there, but my stomach informed me that it was way to early to retire without at least a modicum of food. The kitchen was one of the few places that didn't intimidate me in the mansion.

I threw together a hasty meal of leftovers that tasted like herbs I couldn't name and ate with relish. Now sleep could start tugging at my eyelids. Satisfied, I wandered back to the bedroom.

"It isn't nice to move people in their sleep."

I guess he's up. Sure enough as I enter the darkness I can make out the sleek form of him against the sheets, sitting up and the white of linen only makes him look paler.

"Didn't want you to get a stiff neck." I offered by way of explanation and started to shuck off my clothes to join him.

"You were late." He continues in that light, not quite accusing voice.

"I told you I didn't know when I could come tonight. I had tons of homework and its Friday. My parents always stay up later on Fridays." Which never really made any sense to me. They still have to get up early to tend the farm. Fields don't much care about what day it is.

I can see his eyes glisten in the fading moonlight and for the billionth time, I wish I knew what he was thinking. I can always feel his mind at work, ticking over possibilities and probabilities. It's a wonder he even needs those illegal pep pills, the sheer activity of his mind could probably keep him awake.

"Kiss me." He demands finally as I slid under the sheets next to him.

"What's the magic word?" I tease.

"Now." He growls, nipping at me with his teeth. Despite myself, I shudder at his touch.

"That's not very polite." I manage to retort.

"Yes, well, Mrs. Manners didn't write a chapter on bedroom etiquette, Clark. Now are you going to make me beg or what?"

"Or what."

The first kiss of the day is almost always the best. Tonight is no exception. He tastes like the three hurried bites of chicken he probably ate for 'dinner', a faint trace of brandy and the slight tang of something that's indefinably him. Long bony fingers lace their way into my hair as my hands map out circles on his back.

When we finally pull away, we're both half way to hard, but before we delve into the good stuff, I have to ask,

"Why did you fall asleep? I didn't think you could if you didn't want too…"

I feel his shrug rather then see it, as my eyes are busy watching his. Reading the face that I used to think masked so much. It's actually riddled with dead giveaways. Like now. Months ago, I would have said his statement was blank, but now I can see just beyond the mask to the slight twitches around his eyes and the brief fluttering of eyelashes that always give him away. Or maybe he's letting down the mask a little for me. Letting me read him. Either way, it means we're getting closer and there's no bad there.

"I was just closing my eyes for a few minutes. The pages were getting blurry and I wanted to be awake when you came. Guess I just drifted off."

"Mmmmm…" I let him get away with it; fully aware now that he wasn't asleep when I came in. I don't know what he was trying to accomplish with that. It seems that he's always putting everyone through a series of paranoid tests, me included. Maybe me more then anyone else. But I am never sure what is a test and what's just him being….him. I mostly just accept it now and move on.

"Tell me what you did today." He demands in a mock rough tone, trailing fingers down my chest.

Another of our rituals. He seemed to like hearing about what I did everyday. The silly details that no one else in the world cared about, but me. He listens with intensity as if I was telling him all my secrets and some days, I wonder if that's exactly what I'm doing.

He knows more then anyone else, even my parents because with him I can share all the odd details of it that riddle my life. Simple things that my parents can't or won't try to understand. Like buying locks in six packs for my gym locker because I break them weekly and then forgetting the combinations. I wind up writing them on my skin, which in one small mercy does not act like metal in the instance of ink. Or trying to keep up pretenses around my friends.

Or even stupider things, like teachers and grades and being caught up in hormones along with everything else. He listens to all of it, sopping it up. And since tonight is one of those nights when I feel curious, I ask,

"What's so interesting about it? Just my stupid life."

"I'm interested because it *is* your life." He says without missing a beat in that smooth voice. "I like knowing what you do and when you do it. Sometimes, during the day when something really shitty happens, I close my eyes and in my head, I can picture you. See what you're doing and how you're feeling." He flashes me a half-smile. "Corny, right?"

I shake my head.

"No. I like it. I think of you a lot during the day too."

"What? Think of me sitting at a Board of Director's meeting? I promise it's more boring then math class."

Now, I blush. I thought I was really over that whole blushing thing, but apparently there are just some habits that never completely fade and blushing about my day time thoughts of Lex is one of them.

"No."

"No, math is more boring or no, you don't think of me during the day?"

"No, I don't think of you working. I think about us. Like this." I waved my hand at the bed, over his hand which is resting casually now on my thigh, trying to indicate the whole room. The whole conversation.

"You day dream about us doing small talk in bed?"

I recognize suddenly that he's being playful. Trying to get me to confess in full, but not really eager to press me. Warmth spills through my body.

"You day dream about me, Chloe and Pete eating lunch?" I shoot back.

"Well, maybe just Chloe…"

I narrow my eyes at him, biting back a laugh.

"What do she have that I don't?"

"Didn't your mother ever teach you anything? Girls and boys have very different parts. Right now, I prefer your parts." Slim fingers ghost over my stomach, outlining my abs. I try to keep in the conversation, sparring with him.

"Then why are you daydreaming about Chloe?"

"Because I identify with her." He deadpans. "Both of us think about you all the time and neither of us can ever have you."

"Uh….Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you did have me. Practically every night in the past three months, in just about every room of the house."

"But can I ever truly have you?" And suddenly, it's dead serious. He switches like that. So fast it's hard to think. Its how he does things. I don't think he means to throw me like this. Its just his way.

"You have me right now."

"For how long? I can't be your illicit lover forever, Clark. One day, you're going to meet someone better then me..."

"Oh, for the love of all things holy! Is that what this about? I'm here. Now." Forever. I want to add, but he'll call my bluff on it. He'll tell me again that there is no forever, especially not for alien teenagers.

"I'm not a good person…" He starts again.

"Yes, you are." I say firmly, pressing my lips to the soft skin of his forehead. "You are to me."

"Why do you trust me so much?" He asks into my skin, the tip of his tongue darting out between pale lips to lick at my chest.

"Because you trust me."

"I don't tell you things." And there's real pain there. Because I know there are some things that he just can't get past his lips, no matter how much he wants to.

"I don't mean with information. You trust me with the most important thing you have."

"Really?" Genuine interest now. "And what would that be?"

"You."

I turn him over on his back to litter his chest with kisses.

"What are you talking about?" I can feel his intense statement on me like a physical thing. How can he keep his voice so even?

"You trust me in two ways. One, you let me near you and into your bed." A light kiss on one nipple. " You know what I'm capable of and you have never once hesitated to be with me. You trust me to not hurt you." A lick on his collarbone." Two, you tell me things. Important things and not about the company or anything. You tell me things about you. How you think and what you feel." A chaste touch of lips, a brush. " Things I don't think you've told anyone else, at least not in a long time."

I find myself face to face with him and he nods a little, before I lean in for another kiss this one more needy then the last, deeper and different.

"I haven't, you know." He says when we break apart.

"Haven't what?"

"Told anyone else about some of the things I've said. I guess I do trust you. Maybe more then I've ever trusted anyone."

((((((())))))))))

Its true. I try not to lie to him when I can help it. I do trust him. Not with everything. I don't think I can trust anybody with everything. The business…it's beyond a trust factor, it's a mental health risk. Telling Clark anything more illicit then he already knows about Luthor Corps. practices would not only make me more paranoid then I already feel, but most likely would give me a guilt attack the likes of which I have never experienced before.

I don't want to taint him. Every time he crawls into bed next to me or scolds me for taking drugs or tells me a secret, I feel like I'm violating him. If our situations were reversed, I would never ever have told him even a fraction of what he has confided in me. I wonder sometimes, late when he has already gone from me to sleep in his own bed, if I shouldn't just end it. And I think, I really would to save him from me, but I know that he would not accept it. Would fight to stay with me. And when it comes to him, I would be too weak to reject him a second time.

So rather then put us through that grief, I accept everything he gives me and take him into my bed and my heart, knowing already that I will regret every inroad I allow him to make in my life. I honestly don't know what I would do now without him. Strange that someone I barely knew a year ago is now the only thing that seems to really matter amid the tangled web of my life.

I wasn't joking when I said I thought of him to calm me. Sometimes, when work overwhelms and I feel the strongest desire to find someone, preferably my father and beat them into a bloody pulp, I just stop and try to picture him. Doing something ordinary like writing notes to his friends in class or getting changed for gym or working with his parents on the farm. Its soothing to know that somewhere, someone who has traces my DNA ingrained into their body, is wrestling with normal, everyday things.

"Hey, where'd you go?" He asks suddenly, startling me from my wandering thoughts. His arms are propped up next to me and concerned eyes study my face. I realize, suddenly, that he's right. I trust him not to hurt me. I never even thought about it.

"Sorry. More tired then I thought I guessed."

And then he's all apologizes. Tripping over himself to say he's sorry for keeping me up with talking and do I want to get some sleep?

"Yeah. Sleep is good. Stay."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Set the alarm."

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him twisting the knob of the clock, carefully so as not to break it, to 4 a.m. He lives by alarms, I think, now that he's with me. Sets one at night to wake him up at midnight at home, then sets one here to keep him from oversleeping. Needs to be back at the farm before Papa Kent notices he's gone missing.

"Your parents haven't…." I trailed off. I know they haven't guessed what goes on yet. I would have heard about it already. Or more precise, my dying thought as the bullet entered my skull would be, ‘I guess they figured it out…’

"Nope." And he seems almost proud. I've taught him how to lie to his parents. Go away, guilt. This is a proud moment. "They haven't even noticed me missing yet."

"Good. I get to live another week. When's your sixteenth birthday again?"

"Trust me, if my dad finds out the law probably won't get involved."

"That's a comforting thought."

Clark is a cuddler. Not surprising. The surprising thing is that I enjoy it. And since he is the bigger man of this partnership, he usually ends up wrapping himself around me. Which is what he's doing at the moment. Very nice.

I understand the concept of his strength. I do. But somehow, in moments like this when the moonlight pours itself in uninvited and dapples over his skin, I can't help, but doubt that strength. Because he looks just like a teenage boy, who's heart can be broken with a careless word and fixed again with a kiss. He's strong. Sometimes. And others….so damn fragile. Handle with care. I didn't know I could.

I’ll admit I wasn't sleeping before. I really was just closing my eyes and drifting, but when he came in, I somehow couldn't open them. I wanted to see what he would do. Being carried to bed was strange, but strange in a good way. I know it's not a big effort for him, but he could just have easily left me on the chair or woken me up. But he's Clark Kent All-Around Nice Guy with super powers from out of this world.

And right now he's all mine. Carpe Diem never meant quite this much.