Summary: For the LJ Icon Challenge. Posted to SSA as "Mutual Obsession."

Warnings: Rated NC-17. m/m.

Notes: This is from a challenge that was floating around LJ. People picked one of my icons, and I wrote a short little story about it.

Under no circumstances would Lex admit to being obsessive. At most, he considered himself a curious researcher, an aficionado of all things Clark, a dedicated collector of Clark-facts and Clark-memorabilia, including the occasional left-behind flannel shirt with its delicate bouquet of Tide and teenaged boy that Lex went to great lengths to describe in his journal, trying to get the details exactly right, in the interest of science and posterity, of course.

But this...this was an opportunity unlike any he'd had before. When Lucas had turned him out of the house--his own house and Lucas would pay for that, needless to say--it had seemed only natural to turn to Clark. He knew the Kents would take him in, for a short time at least, and that was all he needed, a place to regroup before launching a devastating counter-offensive. A few days of enjoying Mrs. Kent's home-baked pies and trying to stay on Mr. Kent's good side, and then he'd be back to the real world and the serious business of being a Luthor.

The first evening, when everyone was ready to go to bed, he'd staked his claim to the couch, but Clark wouldn't hear of it. "You take my room. I'll sleep down here."

"I'm fine with the couch, Clark. I don't want to be any bother."

Clark flashed his best argument-ending grin. "You're the guest, and I insist. And that's that."

"I really don't mind--"

"Don't make me sick Mom on you." Another heart-stopping smile, and that, indeed, had been that.

Now here Lex was, ensconced in Clark's room, tucked up in Clark's bed, even wearing a too-big pair of Clark's sweatpants and one of his cast-off T-shirts. It was not an opportunity to waste, and he carefully noted the details of Clark's natural habitat, the pile of textbooks on the desk, cup of pencils the color of school buses, clippings of Clark's Torch articles pinned to a bulletin board, the wholesome accoutrement of the most wholesome teenaged life Lex could possibly imagine.

Surrounded by so much Clarkness, it was almost possible to pretend he actually was Clark. The notion drew an enthusiastic response from his cock, and that opened up a whole new line of inquiry. Exactly what did Clark think about when he lay here in this bed jerking off?

Lex's memories of his own jaded youth gave him little to work with. In the fast-moving crowd he ran with, sex was just something you did, like vacationing in Aspen or wearing Gucci, not anything to get worked up about. But Clark...well, Clark was a different breed entirely. He would have stumbled into sexual awareness with a telltale blush and a sticky sense of wonder. Lex closed his eyes and tried to picture it, tried to feel it, the blood-rushing excitement at the softness of a girl's body, the roundness of her breasts, the dizzying tease of her scent, warm and sweet, when she let you get close.

Lex fumbled with the waistband of the sweatpants. The touch of his own fingers on his cock arced through him with startling power, heat settling low in his belly, rising in his cheeks. He used his right hand to make the strokes less certain, and by the time he came, he was trembling. He fell asleep smiling, hoping for dreams as blameless as Clark's.

The next day he did chores in the morning, trying to win favor with Mr. Kent, and spent the afternoon in true Luthor fashion plotting the downfall of the rest of his family. It was tiring business, and by nine o'clock that evening, he was nodding off in front of the Gunsmoke reruns he was supposed to be watching with Mr. Kent. When Clark gently suggested he turn in, he nodded without argument, although he hadn't gone to bed that early since the third grade.

He fell into a dead sleep as soon as he got into bed, but woke up a few hours later feeling cold. He routinely spent the GDP of a small country heating the mansion and still never really managed to be warm. The Kents, of necessity, were far more frugal. He slipped out of bed and hesitated at the door. Mrs. Kent had shown him where to find extra blankets, but he didn't want to wake the whole house rooting around in the linen closet. He went to check Clark's dresser, certain he'd find something he could put on in there.

It was in the bottom drawer, beneath a stack of carefully folded dress shirts Clark never wore, that Lex found a long-lost cashmere sweater of his own. He wracked his memory and finally remembered the last time he'd seen it, a day he'd come to visit Clark and found him up in the hayloft. The afternoon had grown warm, and he'd thrown off the sweater. He must have left it behind when he'd gone home. And here it was, secreted away in one of Clark's drawers, as if Clark were something of a collector, too.

This discovery presented an entirely different set of possibilities for what Clark thought about during his nighttime forays into self-love, and Lex abandoned his search for a sweatshirt in favor of going back to bed. Imagining Clark imagining him might have been a new achievement in narcissism, but it was so much better than thinking about Clark thinking about girls. He came harder than he could remember in a long, long time and settled back down to sleep with a satisfied sigh. He didn't have another thought about being cold the rest of the night.

In the morning, he hit the barn before any of the Kents were stirring. The pre-dawn hours had always been surprisingly hectic in his life, filled with emergencies down at the plant, overseas conference calls, reports to wade through before early morning meetings at the office. Here, everything was peaceful. He could pitch hay and tote bales and get an erotic charge out of pretending he was Clark without anyone interrupting him.

He was already halfway through his chores when Clark made his appearance.

"You don't have to do this, you know." He frowned, clearly not pleased his father had put Lex to work. "You're our guest."

"I want to prove to your father I can do my fair share."

"Lex, that's really not necessary."

He stopped for a breather, leaning on the pitchfork. "But it is, Clark. It is."

"You're not even dressed for it."

Lex looked down at his already half-ruined sweater and slacks and shrugged.

"Here," Clark said, skimming out of his top layer of flannel. "At least put this on to keep some of the dirt off."

Dreams and life were in too much confluence, and Lex balked. "No, Clark, I can't-- I don't need--"

"Oh, come on. If you insist on mucking out the barn, let's at least salvage the Armani."

Clark could be damned persistent when he wanted to be, and Lex soon found himself swaddled in plaid.

"There." Clark grinned. "It's almost like you're me."

The soft caress of flannel and his stickiest fantasy coming to life and Clark right there, and there was never any hope he wasn't going to get hard. He could only pray that Clark wouldn't notice.

"Well, I 'd better get back to work," he said weakly, hoping Clark would head on back to the house.

But Clark just stared, his eyes going wide as he apparently put two and two together.

Lex felt a flare of heat in his cheeks. "It's not-- I wouldn't--" he stuttered pathetically, as if he hadn't talked his way out of far more incriminating situations in his life.

Clark turned abruptly on his heel, and Lex stared down at the floor, a clench in his chest. "Shit!" He had exactly one friend in the world, and he'd just managed to fuck it up.

So it was startling, to say the least, when Clark came back only a few minutes later, not flanked by his father waving a shotgun, but dressed in the slacks he wore only on special occasions and Lex's purloined sweater, fresh from its hiding place in the dresser. It was snug on him, and that served to emphasize the broadness of his chest, the rippling strength of his arms. Lex hoped, rather futilely, that his mouth wasn't actually hanging open.

"How's my favorite farmboy?" Clark asked.

Now it was Lex's turn to stare.

"I was just on my way to Metropolis for some very important meetings, but I thought I'd stop by here first--" Clark moved closer, very close in fact, too close if he'd been anyone else. "--and say hello." His voice dropped into the gravelly range and his eyes moved over Lex's body as inquisitively as hands. Lex had to wonder if this was how he sounded to Clark, if this was the way Clark felt when Lex looked at him like that.

"What do you want?" It came out surprisingly halting and Clark-like, when what he'd really meant to demand was do you have any idea what you're playing at?

Clark leaned in, and his breath was hot against Lex's ear. "What do you think I want?" He ran a finger boldly down the fly of Lex's pants.

"God!" His cock leaped to attention at just that little bit of pressure.

His reaction unleashed something in Clark, because suddenly he was wrapped around Lex, aggressively kissing, hands fisted in Lex's borrowed flannel.

All the reasonable considerations that should have made Lex put a stop to it--the danger of discovery and the ingratitude of repaying the Kents' hospitality by pawing at their teenaged son and the possibility that someone had replaced the real Clark with a horny, role-playing stand-in--melted away at the feverish touch of lips against skin. Clark pushed him down into the hay, and Lex had to wonder if hell was at that very moment freezing over, because it was the only way he could explain all his favorite barn fantasies coming true.

Clark tumbled into the hay and rolled on top of him. All the observations Lex had made, the notes he'd taken, and he'd never guessed, never had the slightest inkling, that Clark felt anything like this. But it didn't really matter, because Clark did feel it and Lex soon got lost in the heat and the frenzy, the weight of Clark's body on his, the way his fingers dug in under Lex's clothes seeking skin, the insistent press of Clark's erection against his thigh.

There were things that Clark could have said to him, things that Lex himself had imagined saying to Clark in any number of masturbatory daydreams--Has anybody ever sucked your cock? or I want to be the first one to fuck you--and Lex would have come right then, just from that. But Clark seemed to have abandoned the role-reversal, groping greedily at Lex just like the teenager he was, and that, ultimately, was a far greater test of Lex's self-control.

It was only when Clark pulled down his zipper and Lex felt the rush of cool air on sensitive skin that he regained any semblance of reason.

"Clark. We can't. Your father--"

"Shhh." Clark pressed a finger to his lips. "You have no idea how many times I've looked at you and thought about this and wanted it. And I'm not going to stop now." Clark kissed a path down Lex's belly, and then there really was nothing left to say and no breath in Lex's lungs anyway, even if he had wanted to carry on a conversation.

Clark was eager and clumsy giving head, the way only the truly inexperienced could be, and that tilted the world back onto its rightful axis, reassuring Lex that this was in fact Clark and not some cock-hungry clone cooked up in one of his father's labs. He clutched at Clark's cashmere-covered shoulders and babbled dirty nonsense and fought back the urge to shove his cock wildly into Clark's throat.

He'd fantasized about coming in Clark's gift-bow mouth--fantasized about it a lot--but imagining it was one thing and finally getting to do it quite another. Clark's eyes went large when Lex climaxed, the expression in them gravely serious as he concentrated on swallowing, and Lex would never forget that look, not if he lived for a thousand years.

"Was it okay?" Clark asked afterwards, almost nervously, and Lex couldn't have that. Couldn't have Clark questioning. Doubting.

He flipped them both over and lay heavily on Clark, pressing him back into the hay, making him moan. He needed to be everywhere at once, wanted to give Clark everything he had--hands, mouth, body--pulling at clothing, licking a nipple, tracing the line of hair, slowly, so slowly, down to Clark's cock. He'd thought so much about doing this, envisioned it in minute detail. But there was picturing a thing and then there was doing it, and at this rate, Clark was going to make Lex give up on his imagination altogether, because the real thing was always so much better.

Clark thrashed beneath Lex, and begged until he was practically sobbing, and shook like he was going to fly apart when he finally came.

"So much better than okay," Lex whispered in Clark's ear afterwards, holding and petting and kissing him until he finally stopped trembling.

They lay there as long as they dared, reluctant to let go of each other, but Clark's father would come out to the barn eventually and nothing killed the afterglow quite like homicide. They got to their feet and straightened their clothes, and Lex carefully brushed the hay from Clark's hair.

"I wondered what it would take for this to finally happen," Clark said.

Lex made a wry face. "And I thought I was being so cagey."

Clark kissed him and smiled. "About most things you're downright Machiavellian. But after a good half dozen of my shirts disappeared, I kind of caught on, you know?"

Lex felt decidedly sheepish. "I suppose you would, wouldn't you?"

"Do you think I could have my Nikes back, though? I kind of need them for gym."

Lex cleared his throat, refusing to blush. "Of course. I don't suppose you know what happened to my Princeton T-shirt, do you? I like to wear it when I box."

It was Clark's turn for embarrassment. "Um. Well-- Yeah. I'll get it for you."

"No, no, that's okay. You can keep it if you want."

"I do," Clark said quickly and then turned red. "I mean-- I'd like to keep it. If that's okay."

Lex smiled. "As long as you're using it for some purpose I'd approve of." Clark's blush deepened, and Lex laughed. "I'll take that as a yes."

"I guess we're both kind of insanely obsessed, huh?" Clark said.

Lex gathered Clark's face in his hands and kissed him with all the enthusiasm of an aficionado who has finally come out of the closet. "I prefer the term 'crazy about each other'."