Clark didn't bleed, so it interested him when people did.  Not in a Dracula way, just curious about how it felt to be opened, to see what was inside come out.  Opening up was impossible when you had a spaceship in your cellar. 

He remembered going to his mother, young enough that he could rest his chin on the kitchen table, and telling her he wanted to bleed like Pete.  Even then he knew what bleeding meant: a bandage, hugs and petting like you were a dog for the day.  A stay in the hospital if you were really lucky like Chloe when she broke her arm.  She got cards from their fifth-grade class, balloons, ice cream, and a cast that everyone signed.  

And then there was Lex.  Lex could bleed. Lex, who didn't have a spaceship, only a jerk of a father, who hit him once when Lex was the same age as Clark.  Lex, who told the truth when no one else did, and admitted hard things like he was reading a road map.  Maybe he was.   

Clark kept walking, squinting into the too-bright sun at the path that wandered from the cemetery into the woods.  It was narrow and tree-lined, the ground swelling like the earth was holding its breath.  Cassandra was under there in the graveyard behind them, old, cold and dead, the ground swelling over her too, like she was caught in the earth's throat.  "Why did your dad hit you, Lex?"

"I don't think he knew what else to do." Lex wore all black, with a jacket down to his thighs, like a priest without a collar. "Seems even my father has limits."  "Did it hurt?"  The wrong question, but Clark had always been confused by hurting.  All he knew was the ripping pain from the meteors, which seemed different, or the pain when someone died.  Even that wasn't so bad; Cassandra was old, with skin like a crumpled paper bag and veined hands that saw better than her eyes.   

"Clark, he hit me."  Lex stopped, sending gravel skipping down the path.  A few stones jumped off the side, landing beside the sunflowers waving from the field.  "Hard enough to leave a scar six years later.  What do you think?"  

Clark had no scar and never would.  "Does it still hurt?"  His hand moved, just a little, but Lex noticed.  Lex noticed everything, even after the funeral.   

"You want to touch it."  A rough sound like sandpaper on wood that could've been a laugh.  "Of course you do.  No one ever notices the damn thing, but you want to touch it.  I should've known."

"No."  He couldn't admit it, especially not today, with Lex so strange, quieter than usual, biting harder.  "Are you sorry about Cassandra?"  

"No.  I told you that.  I barely talked to her.  She was just some crazy blind woman, another one of your charity cases."  

"So why did you go to the funeral?"  

"Good PR, Clark.  ‘The caring face of Luthor Corp,' and all that crap."  

"But--"   

"You can touch it, if you want to."  

Clark geared up for another denial, except Lex looked like he did the other night, when they stood around the ruined Porsche talking about the past.  Kind of desperate and angry and alone, like he was the one broken in the middle of a room, exposed by the glare of stadium lights.  "Well, if that's okay.  Just to see what it's like."  

"Go for it.  It's not every day that I offer my scar for exploration." 

The nearest tree was the endless maple that roofed them.  With the leaves starting to fall, the gaping branches let in yellow arcs of light.  When Lex leaned back against the trunk, his face turned pale gold, like he was a statue or something.   This touching felt bigger than he expected, and Clark was almost--not scared, but, okay, nervous to walk over to Lex, who stood with his head tilted back.  

Standing before him, Clark studied the scar.  It ran just off the center of Lex's top lip, so faint it was invisible in some light, leaving only an impression of extra fullness, while the vee in the middle dipped low and a little off.   Clark touched it like he was in church and Lex's mouth was a bible.  When Lex made a sound, Clark pulled away.  "Sorry.  Did that hurt?"  

"No.  I didn't mean to scare you away.  I was just...surprised.  You can keep touching it."  

Not sure he should, but Clark did anyway, just the tip of his index finger stroking that tiny bit of scarred skin.  Only his finger kept slipping, landing in the middle of Lex's bottom lip, pulling his mouth just the tiniest bit open.  Then Lex's tongue came out, circling, and slid over the end of Clark's finger.  Just Lex wetting his lips, a natural reaction, but it felt like something else.  Everything with Lex always felt like something else.  Clark almost pulled away again, but Lex reached for his arm just below the elbow and held him there.   

"It's soft," Clark said.  "It's really soft.  There's just this little bump where it's supposed to be flat. Like the path."  Lex's whole mouth was soft, and his lips were turning darker red, but Clark kept touching and slipping, coming at the scar from each side, from above.  Starting from below was strangest: it meant beginning at Lex's bottom lip and gently pushing up.  Each time he did it, his finger went between Lex's lips, nudging his front teeth.  After a few slips, Lex left his mouth a little open, and Clark slid into this soft wetness before moving up to the scar.  

For balance, Clark placed his other hand flat against the tree beside Lex's head.  Sometimes when a bird cried, Lex turned his head and his cheek brushed against Clark's hand.  Lex's cheek was as soft as his mouth and made Clark feel like he was bleeding from the inside.  After awhile, that slippery heat focused, turning him so hard that this had to stop.  Only he couldn't stop, not with Lex now holding onto his shoulders for balance, even with the tree behind him.   

Gravity got complicated, which was maybe why Clark moved his hand from the rough bark to the back of Lex's head, hot under his palm.  Because Lex was real and Cassandra wasn't, not anymore.  He blamed the air for drying out Lex's lips, so that Lex had to suck the tip of Clark's finger before it slid easily.   

The sucking gave him ideas, pictures in his head about what Lex's mouth might do, and he couldn't meet Lex's eyes anymore.   Still, only polite to look sometimes, and Lex's eyes were warm as his mouth.  His eyelashes and eyebrows, the only hair that Lex had anywhere (anywhere?), were the color of the cinnamon Clark's mother used for baking.  When the lashes fell, Clark's breath caught, in case Lex looked up and didn't like this anymore.  But every time it happened Lex just looked warmer; his pale smooth skin even changed color, a faint, glowing pink that might be the sun bleeding behind him.  

"Lex."  He freed his finger for Lex's answer, then, addicted, ran his fingers over Lex's lips, over his cheekbone, along the line of his face, every contour of his face.  No answer, not a word, anyway, only a low sound that ended in a vague question.  "I was just wondering.  Something about the scar."   His hand passed over Lex's mouth, slow enough that Lex licked him, sucked a finger before making that sound again.  "Because I can't really feel much with just my finger."  Under his feet, pine needles mixed with leaves the color of Lex's mouth.   "Not like I could with my..."  He swallowed.  "With my tongue."  

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to scream and run away?"  Lex's smile seemed to come from inside, like he was giving it for the first time.   

"I was sort of hoping you'd stay here."  

"Then this is your lucky day."  

Everything was spiraling like a shell, which explained the rush in his ears and the colors around him, not just the light, but Lex's lips, tongue and skin.   To reach Lex, to test the scar, Clark stepped closer, just one step on the earth's shroud of green needles and dead leaves.  Lex was shorter by a few inches.   Weird, because he loomed in Clark's head like a lighthouse.  This, and the scar, worried him; he wanted Lex safe, alive forever.   

He used his tongue to confirm that Lex was whole, that the little scar on his lip was so tightly closed that Lex's life wouldn't leak out.  To connect with the scar, Clark held Lex's face in his hands.  He'd never before held a face in his hands, and it brought this scary, lightning power, because he had the strongest hands in the world and Lex had a face with a track record for hurting.   His palms were very warm and Lex's cheeks a little cool in the fall air, with the woods dying around them.   

Very carefully, Clark licked up from the fullest part of Lex's upper lip, where the smooth fullness gave way to a thin raised line, like a road.  He followed that line back and forth with his tongue, almost hoping it would split open again.  Not to hurt Lex, only get inside him, tasting the parts that no one ever saw.  The scar didn't open, but Lex's mouth did, just enough that Clark breathed oranges sharpened by what might be vodka.  He hadn't felt Lex's tongue, not yet, but it was there, waiting.  Every part of him knew it was there, waiting.   

Lex moved his hands from Clark's shoulders, a slow slide under Clark's hair and behind his neck.  One went higher, resting palm-flat against Clark's skull, half-buried in his hair.  No pressure, just a solid, warm presence.   Not necessary, because Lex had been there ever since he came to Smallville and died in the river.  Lex, who should be a ghost, and not just because he looked like one, with skin like fog except for his red, red mouth.  Or because he acted like one, always haunting the places that Clark would be, like Clark's ghost or a twin who died but wouldn't leave, so everything they did felt natural, weird in the Shakespeare way, with the three witches and fate.

Each lick soothed the scar, or tried to.  Lex wasn't big on showing things.   Even when he talked about his father, he tossed around handfuls of irony, and Clark only knew because...Well, he just did, even if Lex thought he was blank as an unmarked gravestone.  Only Lex was no gravestone right now: between licks, Clark read him, still holding a face narrow and smart as a fox's.  Faint purple half-moons under Lex's pond-colored eyes, like life had worn the skin down, scraping off a layer.  His eyes stayed mostly open, the eyelashes low but not so low that Lex couldn't watch back.   

Usually Lex couldn't stay still, couldn't stop talking, moving, reacting.  Now the only movement was the slow rubbing of Clark's skull, the occasional drop of his lashes, the faint rhythm of his breathing.  Sometimes a shift happened, a catch like an old engine, like when Clark's tongue skid down the scarred line and slipped in, just the tip inside Lex's hot mouth.  The scar really was a line, and Clark was crossing it.   There was licking your friend's face to feel his cool scar, and French-kissing him, and Clark knew that slipping his tongue into Lex's mouth, not just the tip anymore, rubbing it against Lex's, was pretty much officially necking.   

That should've stopped him, this kiss with another guy, with Lex, who was older and on a "Wanted" poster in his father's head.  Besides, Clark's hands snapped guitar strings, and bones weren't very different, thin and breakable.  Lex had so many, barely hidden by skin, different sizes and shapes.  Clark could do way worse than a tiny scar on Lex's lip by squeezing a fraction too hard, only he wouldn't.  Not hurting was about knowing shapes, where things started and where they ended, and if he learned every line of Lex's body, it would be all right.  

So he touched Lex everywhere, pulling up the black shirt to trace his spine, thin slices of bone.  Was that how Cassandra knew the future?  When she touched hands, did the bones talk?  Clark kept his face close to Lex's, still holding him everywhere, and asked, "Did Cassandra ever touch you?"   

Lex tensed under his hands.  "No. I never needed her to tell me my future.  I'll do great things, Clark. That's all I need to know.  That's all anyone needs to know."  

"But I heard the nurses talking, and it sounded like--"  

"I'm like you, Clark.  I never lie."  

Clark wanted a tree at his back as Lex opened him with his tongue.  Then the tree was there, and he leaned against it while Lex devoured him.  He got the strange sense that this should hurt, that Lex wanted it to hurt and would keep up the pressure until Clark broke, bled or cried.  He kissed back, both arms around Lex's neck, one hand still flat against the hot skin of his head.  Not just that, but rubbed, too, ground his hips into Lex's so there was no doubt what this was doing to him.   

The kissing didn't stop or even slow down.   Lex just pushed his tongue even deeper, licking everywhere, and reached under Clark's sweater, his cold hands sliding over ribs until they reached his nipples.  Then he twisted and pinched, only Clark wasn't wired for pain so it felt good, too good, and he heard himself, muffled by Lex's mouth, almost crying.  He didn't cry for Cassandra, and Lex didn't, either.  Even Lana just stood quietly beside her aunt.  Only the nurse did, the one with the strong wrists and hair like dusty hay. No one else came.   Cassandra's husband was ashes, and the daughter was too scared of her mother's hands, even dead.   

Lex had given up on his own hands, just using one to hold Clark's sweater bunched under his chin so he could lick and bite Clark's nipples.  Clark almost wished it hurt, so maybe Lex could get whatever he wanted, but Lex's mouth was like swimming in summer, his teeth like a cold current . Watching was as good as feeling, seeing the top of Lex's head or his tongue as it circled then covered each nipple right before the teeth sank in.   

"I like when you bite," he told Lex, who looked up at him, dazed, like he'd forgotten Clark. 

"You ever cry, Clark?"  

"I almost did when she showed me the future, and everyone was dead."  

"That's what she saw? Everyone dead, but you?"  

"Not everyone."  

"I was still alive?"  

"There were a lot of graves, Lex."  

"But you didn't see mine?"  

That was why Clark didn't cry, but it was too complicated to explain why Lex, alive, kept it bearable.  When Lex returned to his nipples, taking the skin between his teeth and tugging, he didn't have to.  For some reason this made Clark want to cry as much as the vision did. Instead, he pulled Lex up and kissed him again, doing what Lex had done to him, feeling Lex hard against his thigh.   

Then Lex reached down, rubbing his hand over Clark, who was just as hard.   "You'd let me do anything I want right now."  

"Yes."  

"Would you tell me anything I want?"   

A pause, a small slice of quiet.  

Lex laughed.  He didn't sound happy, but his tongue was in Clark's mouth again, and he pulled at Clark's belt, tugging open his jeans.  His hand closed around Clark's cock, and it was, God, so much better than his own hand or Lex's hand in the fantasies.  Hot and solid and real, the way Lex was and no one else.  Because Lex was honest when no one else was, not even his parents, who said they wanted to protect him but were just scared he'd hurt someone.  

"Lex."  The truth was ready to come out, so Lex would know, even though he had to know already.  But Clark took too long, and Lex was on his knees, his mouth level with Clark's cock.  When he licked the head, Clark forgot all about cellar secrets and blind prophets.  He forgot about everything except Lex's scarred mouth as it moved over him.  Clark didn't fit easily into Lex's mouth, and the scar was stretched white, a thin pale line like a ghost lived in Lex's mouth.  It was the most beautiful thing that Clark had ever seen, and all he could say was, "Lex."   

Only Lex looked up when he did and watched him, waiting.  Didn't stop sucking, just held Clark's cock at the base, then stroked him, his hand moving in time with his mouth.  Clark's blood moved with it, then flowed faster, out of control.  He'd never been out of control, never been this hot, which scared the hell out of him.  He'd been scared ever since Lex flew over the bridge, because Lex had this ability to open him up, like a box or a car underwater.  Like skin torn for the first time.  

This time it wasn't going to stop until everything was out, every dark, dirty, freaky secret.  Lex would rip them right out of him, swallow them all, and--  

Clark wasn't sure what would happen next.  This had gone way farther than anything before, and Lex was sucking so hard that anything rational had curled up in a corner.  Clark heard these sounds, these animal noises, and it was him, Lex doing it to him, blowing him, licking and sucking his cock. His thighs quivered, and the tree started to shake, and Lex had to know what this meant.

Only Lex didn't seem to care about shaking trees as he held Clark's balls, pulling a little while he sucked and stroked.  Sweat ran down Clark's face, down his chest, and he put his hands on Lex's head because no matter how strong he was, he'd never, ever hurt Lex.  Even if he died now, and he might, he might if Lex didn't stop sucking and looking, he'd never, ever hurt Lex.  So he kept his hands light and gentle on Lex, fragile bone in his hand, watching as hard as he could, wishing that Lex could scar him.  

Clark came, and it really almost did hurt.  He saw the shift across Lex's face, the tasting and swallowing, and kept coming in long, drawn-out bursts.  His breaths were short and quick, like a runner's, and Lex had pulled back a little, his tongue out to catch the last of Clark's come.  Clark wanted to say, "Let me do it to you," even though he didn't know how, and Lex had obviously been with a lot of people to be this good.  And Clark hoped those people never needed saving, because he couldn't trust his hands with them, people who'd touched Lex the way he wanted to.

"I'm sorry."  He said it without thinking, not even sure what he meant.  

"Don't worry about it."  Lex stood, wiping a hand across his mouth, brushing off the knees of his pants.  "Unless there's something else you're sorry for, Clark?"  

Clark's bones were still disconnected, but he adjusted his jeans, his cock still dripping from Lex's mouth, and wondered if he'd forced this, asking Lex if he could touch his scar.  Scars were sensitive places, no matter what anyone said.  "I guess I'm not sorry."  

"Maybe you should be."   

"You're not making any sense.  Sometimes it doesn't feel like you're even talking to me, Lex.  I don't even know what you're talking about."  

"No, of course you don't."  

"Don't be mad."   

"Why should I be mad?  You don't have to trust me.  No one else does."  

"Everyone has secrets, Lex."  He felt something new and awful, like Lex had scissors and snipped off a piece of him every time he opened his mouth.  He breathed and focused.  This could be fixed if he could just figure out what to say or do.  Only he concentrated too hard and literally saw through Lex, past red ropes of muscle to the bone underneath.  "What do you want, Lex? Tell me what you want."  He put his face right up to Lex's, smelled himself, and got this urge to kiss Lex, but didn't.  

"I want you to be someone else."  Lex didn't blink, just said it straight and hard and fast, then lets out a deep breath, shook his head like he'd been sleeping.  Then he didn't seem angry anymore, just tired.  "This was a mistake.  That's all.  We'll just go on like nothing happened."  

"So it won't happen again?"   

"No. You go after Lana--she's right for you, Clark."  

"And what about you?  Are you going to go after someone?"  Lex nodded, but looked kind of sick.  "Everything will go back to normal."  

"Normal."  

"Things haven't been normal lately."  

"Because of me?"  

Lex started to walk.  "It's getting late, and I've got a lot of work to do."  

Clark fell in step beside him.  "It's okay," he said, more for himself than Lex.  "I've got a lot of homework."  He had none, but it seemed safe. Nothing sharp in homework, and not talking would keep away the tears.  Cassandra was dead, and now it felt like Lex was, too.  "My math teacher's some kind of sadist."  And they walked along the swelling path, talking about nothing. 

If Clark could scar, he'd have one just like Lex, on his mouth from secrets pressing up under his skin, never getting free.