Summary: What Lex didn't tell Clark about Club Zero.

Warnings: Rated NC-17. m/m

For a good week afterwards, Lex listens to not-Jude sneering at him in his head: You ruin everything you touch. For a good week, he sees Clark's face in everything, everywhere he goes, the half hopeful, half doubting look in his eyes when he asked: Are you telling me the truth?

By Saturday, Lex is ready for Metropolis, ready to forget. Club Zero may be gone, but places like it crop up all the time, a determined flowering of weeds, never any short supply. Lucky for Lex there's always somewhere to find people already so ruined there's nothing even he can do to them.

Inside, the club smells familiar, like heat lightening, the way these places always do, the air heavy and violently alive. It's nearly indistinguishable from the grimy dive where he first met Jude. They collided that night at the bar, orbiting around the same girl, long dark hair that fell in her face and a disenchanted smile. They dueled for her in rounds of drinks and slathered-on charm, to no particular avail. She left with some other man, and the two of them ended up in a stall in the bathroom, furiously fucking. Afterwards, when they'd rearranged their clothes and washed up at the sink, Jude slapped Lex on the ass and said with a grin, "Hey, you were probably a better lay anyway."

Jude could be insolent like that.

Tonight, it's different. Lex has come looking for something else, not insolence, not charm, just something to kill the sound of not-Jude's voice in his head, banish pictures of Clark from behind his eyes. He finds what he needs leaning against the back wall, watching the room with a grudging scowl, beefy and square-jawed and mad at the world that he gets it up for cock instead of pussy.

Nothing makes you forget quite like pain, Lex knows this well.

There are times when he thinks it's too bad he's a Luthor, and his natural pornographic talents go sadly to waste in personal seduction. It doesn't take the Neanderthal long to realize that Lex is dancing for him, his arched back, lunging hips, a challenge and a promise. The man doesn't move but he doesn't look away either, and Lex drifts gradually closer, until there is nothing separating them, slithering and sliding all over the man. Their eyes meet, clash, the split second before the spark meets the fuse, and Lex knows it really could go either way, end in sex or with the Neanderthal's ham-hock fist closed around his throat, choking the life out of him.

One desire finally wins out over the other, and the man peels Lex off, whirls him around, pulls him close again, cock to ass. Lex can feel how big he is, how hard, how desperate. He shivers, mostly in anticipation. The man ruts frantically as if he intends to fuck Lex right through his leather pants, and Lex has never met a fire he didn't want to pour gasoline on. He reaches back, grabs the man's hips, and rubs his ass in tantalizing circles.

"Fucking faggot," the man hisses through his teeth, digging his fingers into Lex's arms, leaving bruises.

Lex had Jude's fingerprints on his skin the night he announced his engagement.

"You remember Amanda. You met at the Children's Museum benefit. She wants a big wedding, so it probably won't happen before June. If I thought you'd behave yourself, I'd ask you to be best man."

Lex was sprawled on Jude's bed, naked, the sheets damp and tangled beneath him, sex still clinging in the air. It took him a moment, but he lifted his head and smiled, said what people say to such news. That he could make it sound convincing--well, that chilled even him.

The Neanderthal grows steadily more demanding, one hand groping at Lex's cock, the other pushing his head sharply to the side to bite down on his neck, teeth sinking in. "You'd better make good on this, bitch, 'cause a tease always gets what's coming."

"I like a man with old-fashioned values," Lex drawls sarcastically.

The Neanderthal squeezes his balls hard enough to make him gasp. "I'm not kidding."

Lex spins around so sharply the man doesn't have a chance to stop him. "Neither am I." He jerks his head in the direction of the exit sign.

Out in the alley, Lex backs him up against the wall, gets down on his knees.

"You damned well better know what you're doing--"

Lex shuts him up with his tongue.

After a few minutes, the man is squirming and mewling like a kitten, the way tough guys always do when mouth meets cock. Lex pulls off with a demonstrative smack of the lips, and the man groans pitifully.

"Don't come, and I just might let you fuck me," Lex tells him, before bending back to his work.

He'd dared Jude the same thing that night when everything started to unravel. It was something he did often, because it was just so damned amusing to watch Jude fail time and again. In fact, Lex still had the taste of come in his mouth when Jude asked him for the favor.

"Just for a week while I'm out of town. I need someone to keep the vultures away."

"I thought you were only going to be gone five days."

Jude had smiled in that insufferable, winning way of his. "A week. That's all I'm asking." He caught Lex by the shoulders and gave him a kiss filthy with promises. "I'll make it up to you. You know I will."

Through most of the engagement, Lex had neatly managed to avoid Amanda. He and Jude met in places where good girls like her never ventured, wound themselves around each other in the pale hours when she'd long since gone home to bed. In Lex's mental catalog, she was "the puritan," or sometimes "the nun," but after spending actual time with her, simple reductionism wasn't an option anymore. She liked to talk politics and had a bedrock tenacity when she thought she was right about something. Her eyes turned a warmer shade of brown when she smiled, but she had a surprisingly dirty laugh. By their sixth day together, when Lex invited her to join him at Club Zero, it was easy to convince himself he was doing it for her.

Above him, the Neanderthal grunts and strains, ramming his cock past Lex's lips, fingers gouging at the bricks of the wall, pulling loose chunks of mortar in his effort not to come, not yet. You always have to ratchet everything up as high as it'll go, don't you? Jude once said to him. Lex squeezes his throat and runs a finger along the soft skin behind the man's balls.

"Fuck!" He just manages to shove Lex away before he goes off. "Fucking little prick tease."

Lex smiles up at him. "That hardly seems fair when I've just had your cock in my throat."

He knows it's coming, but that doesn't diminish the delicious shock of it, back of the hand cracking down against his cheek. The man grabs him by the arm, pulls him up, pushes him roughly against the wall, yanks down his pants.

For a while after Jude died, this was the only thing that made it bearable. He didn't care where or who, how many or how rough. All he cared was that it left him feeling empty, like nothing, the only kind of comfort he understood.

The man unzips and pulls out his cock. "I'm going to make you cry, faggot. I'm going to tear you apart."

The humiliation of it burns, pants tangled around his ankles, ass bared, offered up to someone who would happily spit on him, but it's a cleansing fire, searing away memory and guilt.

Lex glances back over his shoulder and smiles, stoking the flames, "If you think you're man enough."

He's always been insolent like that.

The man jams Lex's face into the bricks, and Lex can already anticipate the exquisite hurt.

"Get off him!"

This, on the other hand, comes as a complete surprise.

"Find your own piece of ass, kid," the man snaps at Clark, who is steadily advancing down the alley, much to Lex's dismay.

The man forces Lex's legs further apart, pins him more tightly against the wall, making a big show of his ownership.

"Just walk away now," Clark tells him in a voice preternaturally calm given the situation. "I don't want any trouble here."

The man snorts. "You think you have a chance against me, pretty boy?"

Clark nods rather gravely. "But I'd prefer it didn't come to that."

The man lets Lex go, turns to face Clark. "Bring it on then."

Lex gathers whatever dignity he has left and says, "Please just leave, Clark. I can handle this."

Clark gives him a skeptical look, maybe a little worried too, but he doesn't answer. The Neanderthal lunges, and Clark just stands there, but somehow it's the Neanderthal who ends up sprawled on the ground.

"Get out of here." There's enough stony authority in the words that the man scrambles to his feet and disappears.

"Come on, Lex. Let's go," Clark says, careful to keep his eyes averted.

Lex's pants are dragging the ground, his cock is still hard, and he can taste blood in his mouth from where the Neanderthal hit him. It makes him want to laugh. All this time, he's needed so badly, tried so hard, to hide the ugly parts of himself from Clark. He should have known it would be futile--it always is--and the realization makes him bitter.

"Aren't you even going to look at me, Clark? I mean, you did want the truth." He spreads his arms out wide. "Here it is. Don't you like what you see?"

"Don't do this," Clark says quietly.

"Don't do what? Be honest? I thought that's what you demanded, Clark. Full disclosure." He laughs, and it rattles off the close-set walls, an ugly sound. "I don't think you can get any more disclosed than this, do you?"

Clark does meet his eye then, his expression baffled and helpless, silently begging Lex to stop. But there's a certain momentum to self-immolation, and not even a Luthor can fight the laws of physics.

"Does it disgust you, Clark?" he finds himself asking. "That I was going to let that man fuck me. That I wanted it."

"Shut up, Lex," Clark warns him.

Lex tilts his head and taunts, "What? Have I offended your apple-pie sensibilities? Or maybe you think I made friends with you under false pretenses? Let you get close to me, close to a faggot, without fair warning."

"Shut up," Clark says through clenched teeth, the blood rising in his cheeks, truly angry now.

Maybe it's more fitting this way, Lex thinks, that Clark should be the one to give him what he deserves.

He smiles bleakly. "You know, Clark, if you really want me to shut up, you're going to have to make me."

Clark glares at him a moment, then yanks him hard by the arm. Lex can guess what's coming next, but all his old tortured hopes twist painfully in his chest anyway. Clark pushes him roughly back against the wall, and Lex is so intent on pain it's almost a disappointment when Clark cups his head in his hand to keep his skull from cracking on the bricks. The touch of Clark mouth makes him gasp like he's been hit. Clark doesn't pull away at the sound. He holds on fiercely and kisses in big gulps.

"Whatever happened back at Club Zero," he whispers, face pressed hotly against Lex's neck, "you don't deserve to be used and hurt."

"You don't know," Lex tries to tell him.

You don't know me, he wants to say, but he's desperate and he can feel Clark's cock prodding his belly and there's a part of him that would dearly love to believe he can still be absolved.

That's his excuse, as flimsy as it is, why he lets himself careen out of control, kissing frantically, opening Clark's pants, half clambering onto him like he's trying to crawl inside his skin.

"Lex, we can't--"

"Please. Just fuck me, Clark. Fuck me."

He can feel the hitch in Clark's breath, the rush of heat, and that's enough. He uses the wall for leverage, pushes back hard, inching up a few, strategic inches. Clark instinctively supports his weight, and Lex winds his legs around his waist and sinks down onto his cock.

It's Lex who cries out in shock, although he's done this so many times. It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that it's Clark who can tear him apart, in ways that aren't even physical. Clark tightens his hold on Lex's hips and shifts his weight, and that forces Lex even farther down onto his cock, making him cry out again, "Oh, fuck!"

Several moments pass before he can take a breath, and then Clark's expression makes his heart seize. It's desperate and so very young and a little terrified.

Lex strokes a hand over his hair, covers his face with kisses. "It's all right, Clark. It's going to be all right."

Clark gets a better grip on him and begins to kiss again, and after a little while, starts to move. Lex's back scrapes against the rough bricks, his cock rubs against Clark's belly, in perfect degrees of pain and pleasure.

Clark doesn't say a word, doesn't make a sound, not even when he comes, while Lex is almost embarrassingly vocal as he makes a mess all over the front of Clark's shirt.

They stay frozen a moment afterwards, Clark's back still heaving, Lex with his eyes closed. Then Clark carefully lets him down, and they both straighten their clothes, all the while regret wings furiously through Lex's head. The many, many reasons why he really shouldn't have done this are neatly summed up in: It's Clark.

Finally, he clears his throat. "Come on. You can stay at my apartment tonight, and I'll drive you home tomorrow." He hesitates, not wanting to assume anything right now. "Or you can call your parents to come get you. Whatever you're comfortable with."

Lex starts down the alley and Clark falls in beside him, but he still says nothing, keeps his eyes on the ground.

Lex has learned a lot from his father about damage control, the right words, strings to pull, the fine art of applying pressure and supplying cash. But he doesn't know a damned thing about what to do about this.

"I'm sorry, Clark. I'll make it up to you," he says in a panicky rush. "Somehow. I'll do anything."

They reach the street, and Lex heads to the right, toward the lot where he left his car.

Clark reaches out and grabs his arm. "I just want it to mean something. Can you do that for me?"

It's a passionate request, and Lex searches his face, finds what he's hoped for, what he's terrified of. He wants to tell Clark that this isn't smart, that things go the most wrong when he actually cares.

But there are some things even a Luthor can't fight.

He lets himself be pulled into Clark's arms, into Clark's kisses, and as his arms close fiercely around the future, he whispers, "I'll do my best."