Summary: Look at the starts, and sometimes you'll find something you didn't expect.
Warnings: Rated PG-13. m/m
The gravel crunches under Clark's feet. The moon sags in the sky, yellow-heavy. Lex walks the path beside him, just as silent as he's been all night.
Above them, at the top of the hill, the observatory is haloed in the harvest light. Clark casts the occasional backward glance over his shoulder; there's something strangely beautiful about it. It's funny the way things turn out. He hadn't come to college with the notion of studying astronomy. Freshman year, he'd still had ink on his fingers from his days at the Torch, and it seemed a ready-made path, major in journalism, work at a paper some day.
It was his advisor who'd suggested it, "You need a science course to round out your schedule. How do you feel about stargazing?"
The first day of Astronomy 101, Clark had sat in the back, among the bored faces and slumped shoulders, the requirement-meeting ghetto. He pulled out the article he was working on, his audition piece for the MetU Chronicle, in case actual knowledge of the cosmos proved less interesting than the dreamy yearning he used to feel looking through his telescope, staring out from the loft at all the wordless possibilities.
But then, the room went dark, and a field of stars appeared, infinite points of light, twinkling on the cinderblock wall of the lecture hall. The professor said in a hush, "welcome to the universe," and by the end of the ninety minutes, Clark's article was crumpled in his backpack, forgotten along with all his former ambitions.
Fourth year now, and the students in the program all do field work at the university's observatory, in pairs, once a week. Lex Luthor had given just the briefest nod when Professor Dale teamed them up, his reaction impossible to read. Clark couldn't remember a time they'd ever spoken, and this struck him as funny, too. The astronomy department is small, collegial, the faculty huddled in a few dusty offices in a neglected corner of the physics building, the students a tight-knit band, tracing the path to and from their classes in regular groups, studying together at the same table in the Physical Sciences library.
Lex, on the other hand, remains pristinely separate, aggressively well-prepared for every class, with a neat stack of books and photocopied articles, an arsenal of yellow pencils, sharpened and laid out in a row, at the ready for the copious notes he takes, never with a computer, always by hand, head bent as he fills page after page with his small, tidy script, like a scholarly monk from long ago, fervent, solitary. His concentration is so intense at times it's like a physical force, a magnetic field, swallowing him up, keeping intrusion out, unwanted or otherwise.
Clark hadn't known quite what to expect, spending an entire evening with him, nightfall to midnight, left largely on their own. The observatory's monitoring room had the dingy feel of a government office, long wooden table with the evidence of tedious hours gouged into its surface, battered metal office chairs, close-set walls that must have once been bright robin's egg, now a faint-hearted gray.
Lex, by contrast, was violently eye-catching, soft white sweater and black pants with creases as sharp as cleavers, his restless blue-agate gaze taking in the room, fastening on every detail.
"I can imagine doing this work," he said at last.
Clark spoke before he stopped to consider, "Wouldn't it get kind of lonely?"
Lex's expression slammed shut at that, and he stayed quiet through the rest of their shift.
In the distance, an owl calls out like an inquisitive sentry. There's the soft scent of wood smoke in the air that gives Clark a pang of nostalgia for October in Smallville, short days threaded gold by the late autumn sun, nights gently warmed by the cheerful glow of a fireplace.
Beside him, Lex seems lost in his own thoughts, intensely private. Clark shouldn't keep looking over at him, but in the half-dark Lex is more inscrutable than ever, and he just can't help himself. At last, Lex turns to meet his gaze, regarding Clark for several, confounding seconds before veering off, straying from the path, into the shadows at the edge of the woods.
Clark hesitates, calls after him, "Um...is that really a good idea?"
Lex doesn't answer, and Clark doesn't see any choice but to follow. Lex stops beneath a curving tree branch, and at Clark's approach, he turns, hands tangling in Clark's jacket, his lips cold and chapped against Clark's.
Clark's reaction to being kissed has pretty much always been poleaxed stupor, and this time isn't any different. Before he can even consider what he wants, Lex's tongue is in his mouth, Lex's taste, not sweet, but oddly familiar. He gets lost trying to figure out what it reminds him of. Not peaches. Not licorice. More like butterscotch, but not really.
Lex pulls back, breathing harshly. "Take a swing at me if you need to, but I'm not sorry. I've been wanting to do that all night." He says it with the defiant tilt of his chin that Clark recognizes so well from class.
Clark isn't exactly sure what he wants, although he does know that hitting Lex isn't it. Lex goes silent again while he waits for Clark to do something. The stars glimmer anciently above them, and Clark thinks how easy it would be to believe that creation is a wholly new discovery, that it exists only for them.
Kissing Lex again surprises him, almost as much as it does Lex. But then, there are just so many answers that Clark will never have, and this is a question he doesn't have to be afraid to ask. He licks at Lex's lips, thoughtfully. The closest thing he can come up with are the fancy candies his advisor keeps on his desk, made from rum or brandy, smooth beneath the sharpness, and that still is only the palest approximation.
They break apart, but don't move away from each other, don't seem to know what to do next, the rush of their breath nervous with possibilities.
Clark finally nods his head toward the path. "Come on." He smiles. "I've got hot chocolate back in my room. I'll make you some."
He figures it will taste good, too.