Summary: For the LJ Icon Challenge.

Warnings: Rated PG. 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.

It is not a bad dream exactly, just stubborn, the same scene night after night. Clark's footfalls are light, carefree on the dock. The sun shines off the water and in his hair. He stops at the edge to look out a moment, then shrugs out of his shirt, flings it playfully onto the grass.

He smiles over his shoulder. "Are you coming?"

Lex always wakes up then.

In the afternoons, in real life, they play pool. Clark leans in to make a shot, thigh pressed against Lex's, the brush of their sleeves as he sends the four ball into the right pocket, too close, not nearly close enough. A quick glance through lowered lashes, a smile that seems to promise something, and then he is once again moving away, just out of reach.

And Lex realizes. How dreams take their cue from life.