P.L. Nunn's Blog, page 6

obsessions Chapter 16

Hope everyone out there has a warm and tasty Thanksgiving.

Here's part 16 of "Obsessions"



He couldn't stop staring at Clark. At Clark smiling, and talking and generally acting like - - well, like Clark. He'd feared - - he'd truly feared - - that Clark wasn't coming back. Or, slightly less worse case scenario, that if he did, he'd be little more than a shadow of his former self.

To have him here, turned back on like a switch had been flipped somewhere inside his head, was a testament to the alien nature of his physiology. And Lex didn't care.

Six months ago, the need to know the intimate details would have eaten him up. A year ago and he'd just have freaked the hell out. But now, it didn't matter nearly so much what Clark was, as it did that what he was had brought him back. Whole. Mind and body.

Beautiful boy, through and through. And still, when he'd embraced Lex, when his arms had gone around him, there had been this moment of blind panic. This moment where his skin had crawled and his heart had wanted to beat its way out of his chest and he hadn't been able to see anything but a flash of Decker's face.

Three weeks and he still couldn't deal with unexpected touches. Three weeks and it took an effort of will to let himself relax into the arms of someone he trusted. And that was a damn exclusive club, the people Lex felt any degree of safe with. There was Clark and there was surprisingly enough, Clark's mother, and no one else immediately came to mind that he'd let his shields down around.

Martha Kent had been an unexpected and ultimately invaluable bulwark. She'd called him the first few times after he'd retreated to Metropolis, giving him updates on Clark, gently asking how he was and gracefully accepting his refusals to share. She'd come to his father's funeral, an affair Lex barely recalled, so numb from an alcoholic haze that it was all a disjointed jumble of overly formal recollections in his mind. His father's aides had planned it, a chore Lex didn't even recall handing over.

He remembered her sitting next to him, her gently inserting herself between him and the wealth of meaningless well-wishers who thought clasping his hand, or lying a hand on his shoulder offered him some sort of comfort. When all it did was make him scream a little on the inside, jerk and withdraw and want to find a dark corner somewhere and sink into it, escaping them all.

The press circled the affair like vultures circling road kill, eager for another chance at him. The stories that had been circulating through the gossip rags were lurid and repugnant and more than likely hit closer to the truth than any of them knew. Someone at the institution Decker had been kept had leaked some of Decker's more disturbing ramblings about him. The press was having a field day.

After a weeks worth of nightmares, after a weeks worth of feeling like he wanted to crawl into a shell to escape the overwhelming presence of the millions of people crammed into the city surrounding him, he'd broken down and given her a call.

How's Clark?
The same. Are you doing all right?
Oh fine. Same old, same old. I snapped and hit a man for brushing against me coming out of the elevator this morning. And then barricaded myself inside it and shook for twenty minutes until whatever it was passed and I could convince myself to step back out among other human beings. Does that sound off to you?

It sounds like a perfectly normal reaction for someone who's endured what you have, she'd said and silently listened on the other end of the line while he broke down and talked.

It had been her suggestion that he get out of the city, and he'd thought of the house in Martha's Vineyard. The one his father had bought because everyone who was anyone had a summer place on the island and his father liked his prestige. Lionel had also liked the fast pace of the city and hadn't stayed more than a few times at the beach house. Lex had never been there. The appeal of secluded island living, even well to do secluded island living had never sparked an interest in him. Smallville had been hard enough and that was only a two hour drive to the city.

He hated the fact that he needed to escape. Hated the idea that he was so weak - - so fucking weak - - that just snapping back to normal seemed an impossibility. He hated that he woke every night with his throat raw from screaming. He didn't remember half the nightmares, which wasn't that much of a boon, since he recalled the reality that spawned them all too well. And God, it would come upon him sometimes out of the blue, some memory so vivid, so raw that he could practically feel the man's hands on him. Smell the sour stench of his sweat.

They'd cleared him of all charges, deeming Decker's killing an act of self-defense. It was all settled quietly between the DA and Lex's lawyers. After his first few statements, his people kept the authorities away from him. And as it turned out, Lionel hadn't fucked him over in his will after all. It was all his. LuthorCorp, all his father's holdings, everything. A ready-made empire that strangely enough held little interest for him.

LuthorCorp was a challenge he wasn't ready to undertake. Pressure he didn't need. He wasn't even particularly concerned about LexCorp operations. He had people more than willing to step in and take care of day to day business operation. His father had set up a perfectly capable board of directors that had been running LuthorCorp during his recovery. Lex was content to let them keep doing it.

It had been a very long time since he'd done nothing more than sit and stare at the vast expanse of sky. Add in the rolling majesty of the Atlantic and the dark, festering wounds inside started to feel a little less raw. Numb almost. Numb was good. Numb was better than the screaming alternative.

Seeing Clark, sitting there on the barstool, soaking up the last remnants of beef burgundy, between looking at him with big, guileless green eyes, pricked at the edges of it. Made him feel. Guilt not least among the emotions leeching in past the shields. He hadn't seen Clark since that morning he'd left to go the mansion. Three weeks and he'd fled that responsibility. Coward. Weak.

It echoed inside his head, self-recrimination and sometimes he couldn't shake that either. He took a breath, focused on Clark who was looking at him warily.

"What?"

"How long have you been here?" Clark asked, repeated maybe.

Lex shrugged. "Two weeks, round about."

"Just you?"

"There's a local woman who comes in once a week to clean."

He was honestly and seriously gun shy about strangers in his house. He couldn't shake the bone chilling after-the-fact knowledge that Decker had been in the mansion in the guise of a day worker. Repeatedly. Decker had told him of the occasions. Had told him with sadistic pleasure how many chances he'd had at him and chosen not to take.

"Two weeks here. What about before?"

Clark was dogged when he wanted to be. No less so than Lex. More straight forward about it certainly. He also had the curious, and not always advantageous ability to read him when Lex thought he was being inscrutable. He must have seen something on his face, because his mouth thinned and his eyes turned grave.

"I need to know what happened, Lex. Please, don't make me piece it all together."

Lex swirled that last sip of wine in the bottom of his glass and glanced past Clark to the harder stuff on the cupboard across the living area. His consumption had gone up recently and he figured he had a damned legitimate excuse for mid-day drinking. Those first two days back in Metropolis had passed in an alcoholic blur. God knew what he'd said in that follow up police interview. His lawyer claimed he'd been surprisingly coherent, considering.

He'd been trying to ease off. Trying to pull himself back together. Clark wanted things of him that made him want that hard drink very, very badly.

"He took you at the Maplethorpe house. Used you to get to me. I was there for nineteen days before you got me out. He killed my father. I killed him. Don't ask me for more details, because I can't - - Just don't ask me for the details."

"Your dad?" Clark hands were knotted into fists on the countertop. There was a glint in his eyes that if Lex had been his enemy, he might have been very, very wary of.

Lex shrugged. He kept telling himself it was no great loss. That Lionel had used him for all he was worth and tried to tear him down when he'd attempted to make his own path separate from the family legacy. Still, he couldn't shake the guilt and he couldn't shake the hollow feeling of loss. Lionel Luthor had been a narcissistic bastard, but he'd been the only father Lex had had.

"I'm sorry," Clark offered.

"There was a symmetry to it, I suppose," Lex said. "My father knew what this man was and hired him anyway. Used his - - skills - - to further his interests, knew what he was doing on the side and ignored it, until it wasn't convenient. Then he disposed of him haphazardly and it came back to bite us all on the ass. So, Symmetry."

Clark narrowed his eyes, staring hard at him. Then he rose, and it took everything Lex had in him not to back up a step when he walked up to him, lifted a hand and touched his face. He couldn't quite prevent the finch, but maybe, if he were lucky, Clark didn't notice.

He shut his eyes, breathe ragged, and Clark pulled his fingers away.

"You're not all right. You're not even close to all right. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."

"It's not your fault - -"

"It's not yours either." Clark cut him off. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. But don't try and pretend everything's fine when it's not. I know you better. And I'm here if you need me and you can tell me to get lost when you don't."

There was nothing sixteen in Clark's eyes. Nothing teenagerish in the tone of his voice and the resolve of his words. Sometimes Clark threw Lex curveballs that he couldn't keep up with. That made him feel young and vulnerable and so Goddamned hopeful that all the things he'd grown up inundated with just weren't true.

Lex chased him home around eleven, after he got a call from Clark's mom, asking if Clark had made it there all right and subtly hinting how nice it would be if she got a little mom/son time after what for her, had been pretty long time without. And Lex sort of subtly mentioned that the ferry made its last run at eleven and if Clark didn't want to swim back to the mainland, he might want to hustle to make it.

Being stuck here with Lex all night wouldn't have bothered Clark, but he got the feeling Lex wasn't so hyped about the notion. He got the feeling, and it was a strong one, that Lex was struggling not to jerk away every time they accidentally touched. That Lex was struggling with a lot of things.

Which pissed him off. Made him see red around the edges and wish the son of a bitch who'd caused it wasn't dead, because Clark couldn't hurt him if he were dead. And Clark wanted to hurt him.

So he got home not long after midnight. His parents were still up, and the dinner he'd missed was still warm in the oven. They were so glad to see him, they didn't even mention the time. Mom just hugged him tight, while dad stood behind her, with a smile on his face looking like he was trying really hard not to cry.

She started forcing food on him, which he was happy to take, and they all sat around the kitchen table, eating rewarmed chicken and cornbread and potatoes with gravy.

They weren't hesitant about telling him all the things that had gone on since he'd been out of it. Save for the details on what had happened to Lex, they filled him in on just about everything. How the whole town had been flooded with police and federal investigators after Lex had been kidnapped. How his mom had been right there when this Decker guy had shot Lionel and how she'd barely avoided getting shot by him herself, thanks to Lex. The trouble they'd had with the local authorities and social services, which Lex had made disappear for them. How worried his friends had been about him and the excuses they'd had to make up to cover.

He'd have a lot of makeup work at school, his mom warned with a tone in her voice that said she'd tolerate zero complaints about it from him. There were even threats of having to make up classes in summer school if he couldn't catch up. Which was a horrifying thought in and of itself.

Finally around two, when his dad and mom were yawning and looking pretty wasted, they headed up to bed.

"You need to close your eyes and get some sleep, too, son," his dad said. "We're not sure you've slept since you first woke up."

Clark wasn't sure how that was possible, since he felt wired and so up he could barely sit still.

"You're going to school tomorrow," His mom warned, at the door to his room. "And don't you think otherwise."

He gave her a miserable look. As if everyone at school already didn't see him as enough of freak, now he got to go back and face the school after six weeks of everyone thinking he'd been a mentally traumatized head case. He couldn't wait.

"I wanted to see Lex again."

She looked down the hall, maybe to see where his dad was, then stepped into his room, giving him a serious look. "After you catch up on your schoolwork, we can talk about you seeing Lex."

He shook his head, ready to argue that point. Ready to fight over it, but she held up a finger, urging him to hear her out.

"Honey, I know we can't stop you from doing something you're determined to do - - but we're going to have a talk about you and Lex and what you and Lex were doing before all this happened."

"Mom - -" he felt his face reddening.

"Don't 'mom', me. I haven't talked to Lex about it because honestly, I was afraid to jinx any chance I had of you coming back to us by getting ahead of myself. And he was dealing with enough problems of his own. But I will."

"Oh, God."

She sighed, stepped closer and said in a softer tone of voice. "I know what it's like to be young and in love - - and I don't fault you for who you've chosen to love, but you're very young and sometimes when you're young you don't think things through. And I'm not excluding Lex from that statement, because I think when it comes to the heart, he has no more idea what he's doing than you do. Less maybe, because he's known less love. I just need for you to promise me to slow things down."

He looked away from her, cringing at the fact that she was talking to him at all about this - -pre-mortified that she was going to talk to Lex.

"I don't think you need to worry about it much," he muttered. "He's so messed up that he can't even stand it when I stand really close to him, much less - - He wouldn't tell me what happened, but I remember - - I think I remember when I pulled him out of wherever he was - - and can put the pieces together."

She pursed her lips, looking up at him and he could see in her eyes that she knew things she wasn't saying. Finally she patted his arm, smiled consolingly at him, and suggested. "Get some sleep, honey. We've got an early day tomorrow."

His mom went to school with him the next morning - - and he skulked around the office, absolutely humiliated, while she had a talk with the vice principal and the school guidance councilor and they decided the best way to reinsert him back into classes. The school secretary kept giving him looks over the tops of her glasses while he fidgeted, and he heard the two office aides whispering about how he'd been involved in the whole Luthor kidnapping thing. He really wished his hearing would settle - - it kept coming in and out like a badly tuned radio - - because there were some conversations he'd rather not have to hear.

They decided, since his grades were pretty good, and his mom promised he'd crack down on the catch up studying, to stick him back in his regular classes and let his teachers decide what makeup work to dole out. He agreed to it wholeheartedly just to get her out of there. He'd missed first period and the first few minutes of second, so when he walked into biology, attendance was in the midst of being taken, and that got interrupted by Chloe squealing and jumping out of her chair and attacking him. It might have been more embarrassing if Lana hadn't followed suit, and that got everybody who didn't actively despise him sort of excited and chattering and asking questions Pete hovered at the edge of the crowd, sort of grinning stupidly and looking really, really happy. The teacher, who'd been conferring with the vice principal at the door, broke it all up and barked at everybody to get back to their seats.

Playing catch up, Clark figured, would be a breeze. Solid facts were easy for him. He could speed read like nobody's business. Science and math and history were no problem. He could flip through the entire textbook in minutes and retain information. Poetry and literature were a little more interpretative and took more time to wrap his mind around if he were expected to delve into deeper meaning.

Chloe hugged him again at lunch, like she couldn't get over the fact that he was walking and talking and she and Lana and Pete clustered around him at the lunch table, all asking questions and talking at him at once. It was happy confusion and he basked in it.

By the end of the day, he had a book bag full of catch-up assignments and reading. He skipped the bus and ran home to get a head start. There were chores to do around the farm as well. A lot of stuff his dad had gotten way behind on without Clark to help. Even if they'd had the money to hire a little extra help, they wouldn't have dared bring anybody onto the farm that might start asking questions they didn't want asked.

Clark spent an hour really speeding through the 'to do' list on the refrigerator. He took a shower afterwards and sat at the kitchen table while his mom was cooking supper, going over the accumulated make-up assignments.

He had it all worked out. An hour or so of intense studying to make his parent's happy, and then they'd have no reason to object to him going to see Lex. And yes, he'd spent half the day in school not concentrating nearly as much as he should have on what the teachers had been saying as he had thinking about Lex. Worrying about Lex. Fretting about when and if his mom was going to make that call and what she would say. He really, really hoped she'd back off on that threat, knowing that it might literally kill Clark from the sheer embarrassment factor. And she'd just gotten him back, so she ought to have a care.

There was meatloaf for supper, and corn on the cob and the left over mashed potatoes from last night. Dad was in a good mood, with the list of chores slashed by a goodly amount. So Clark dared to broach the subject of his proposed schedule.

"So, I figured I'd get the science and history reading finished tonight, maybe whip through the make-up math assignments, and then run over and see Lex."

They both paused, mid-bite and gave each other looks.

"I'll be back early. I just want to make sure he's okay."

"Lex has been okay without you checking up on him for most of his life," his dad remarked. "I don't think he needs you looking in on him now."

Clark begged to differ. He was about to verbally engage in the argument when his mother cut in.

"Clark, you speed reading your way through text books isn't always the same as really understanding the context. I think you need to take a little more time with these assignments."

"Oh, so its fine if I breeze through them if it means I can catch up on all the work around the farm, but not if I do it so I can go and see Lex?"

"That was uncalled for." His dad gave him the evil eye.

His mom just lifted a brow, not fazed, and suggested. "Why don't you give Lex a call, instead?"

"Because I can't tell if he's covering over the phone. And he's up there all by himself with nothing to do but think - - and I dunno - - that just sort of sets wrong with me. Like if he has too much time alone all that's gonna happen is he's gonna think himself into a corner he can't get out of."

His mom raised an eyebrow, surprised. She opened her mouth, shut it, thinking that through. "That's very introspective of you," she finally said. "And you may have a point."

His dad opened his mouth, like he was just a little disgruntled that she was contemplating switching sides.

But she surprised them both and held firm. "But it doesn't change the fact that you're staying home and studying. Give him a call after supper."

Clark dreamed of barren fields and a dilapidated old house. Woods in the background, thigh high weeds in the front yard. Weathered old outbuildings behind. The front door was tissue paper under his hand, flying in and impacting against the opposite wall. The interior old and cluttered and just a blur in his peripheral vision as he stormed through, focused on the sounds coming from below. The creak of leather, the grunt of a man's exertion, the choked breaths of another in distress. A thick metal door, riddled with locks, and he slammed a palm against it, sent it flying down into a pit of darkness. Too dark. He couldn't find his way through it. Couldn't find his way to that precious something that he'd been following the scent off. And it was fading, fast, pulling him back out of the door, past the barren fields, down the long country road off the longer country route - - and home.

He sat up, gasping, blinking into the grey darkness of pre-dawn. The fading remnants of the dream - -nightmare - - still lingered in his head. He'd been there. Lex had been there. He remembered his dad saying they'd never found the place he'd been kept.

Clark had been there, but he didn't remember the way - - until now. And it was fast fading from his mind.

He jumped out of bed and ran, slammed out of the house in pajama bottoms and t-shirt and bare feet, and chased down the remnants of the dream. Retracing those roads, that country route that he'd run once before. That long, dirt track that wound through wooded lots and sallow fields until he came to a house. An old country farmhouse, with darkened windows and a great gaping space where the front door used to be. He stopped, knee high in weeds and stared.

Walked normal speed up the steps onto the porch and listened for life in the house. There was nothing save for the nighttime skittering of mice. The chirp of crickets out in the field.

He stepped inside, and smelled mildew and food gone bad. The odor of dry rotted paper. Lots of clutter, stacked boxes and furniture, a pigsty of a house. All dark upstairs, but there was a light coming from the hallway. He stepped into it and saw another ragged hole where a doorway used to be. The frame was torn right off the surrounding wall, plaster crumbling, revealing jagged wood planking beneath. The stairs down were ravaged, like something had torn through them. He bypassed them entirely, jumping down onto concrete floors.

Florescent bulbs fizzled quietly, casting the whole of the basement into harsh, cruel light. It was a dungeon. A stark, horrible place filled with stark horrible things. A bed with a stained mattress, chains attached to the head and footboards. Wooden and metal racks and contraptions against the wall with dangling manacles, and hooks and clips. Chains everywhere. Ways to restrain a man, everywhere. Ways to restrain Lex. To hurt him.

Clark was trembling. Vision blurring. He walked up to a dangling chain, lifted his hand and touched twisted broken links. This was where Lex had been. Hanging here, broken and abused. And raped. So many ways to rape a person here. Little wonder he didn't want to be touched. Little wonder he flinched when Clark touched him, because he had to be remembering what Clark had done to him before this man had ever laid a hand to him.

He turned back to the mattress with its myriad stains. Blood, certainly, semen probably. The heat surged in his eyes, building, until he let it loose, exploding the mattress in flames. He swung his gaze around, spreading the wealth, searing the walls and the torturous devices in white-hot inferno. Metal melted, concrete blistered, wood charred. He stood there while it roared around him, not feeling the heat, not caring until his pants started smoking, then he leapt up the broken, burning stairs. All the dry rotted, flammable things ignited like tender. The whole of the house burned, and he stood in the field watching, clenching his fists, wishing the man who'd made that room in the basement were in it.

Then he ran. The burning in his eyes whipped away by the wind, replaced with a burning need to find Lex. He ran so fast it was almost like flying, his feet barely touching the ground. He beat his former time to the east coast by a long shot, was half way across the water to the island before he even realized he was on it. Traveling so fast he was skimming the surface. Almost he floundered, before he put on a burst of speed and continued on his way. Any other time he'd have been elated at the discovery of a new talent. Right now he just needed to see Lex.

The sun was just tipping the vast ocean horizon when he made it to the beach house. He'd never seen the sun rise over the ocean, but he barely spared a glance for it, more intent on the house. He took a second, standing on the walk up, to pin point Lex.

Second floor bedroom with wide French doors and a little mini balcony of its own. Clark jumped up, stood on the balcony outside the doors, still shaking a little. The images of those things in that basement still burning the back of his eyes. And Lex had lived those things. Clark wanted to vomit.

Lex was asleep, on his side under fluffy white comforter and sheets, in a huge sleigh bed made of white washed, artfully weathered wood. The clock on the bedside table read 6:03.

Clark lifted a hand and rapped on a pane of glass. Did it again, and Lex stirred. He blinked, focusing sleepily, not quite aware enough to realize Clark was standing outside the balcony doors.

Almost Clark had second thoughts, because did he really need to wake Lex up for this? Did he need to burden Lex when he was trying to forget, with the fact that Clark had tracked down the place where he'd been held? Did Lex really need to be reminded of that horrible, horrible place just now? Maybe he was being selfish, needing his own reassurances more than Lex needed information that really, when it got down to it, wouldn't do him that much good.

And Lex was asleep and whole and safe, so Clark should probably take a breath and step back and let him indulge in it a little longer.

But he lost his chance for retreat, when Lex stirred, starting in surprise as he noticed Clark's presence outside the balcony doors. He pushed off covers, and swung out of bed, padded across hardwood floor in pajama bottoms and nothing else.

And he was thin. Thinner than Clark remembered. Bones too close to the surface, making him seem fragile - - breakable. His skin was whole though, blemish free. Bruise free. Clark's mind pulled up those images, those nightmarish recollections of Lex in that place, skin striped with welts and bruises. The marks of a man's hands on his body. The marks of a man's careless, twisted abuse. Combined with the things he'd seen in that room, all the varied tools that might be used to deconstruct a person - - he shuddered, feeling a knot in his throat.

"What's wrong?" Lex demanded as soon as he'd flipped the lock and opened the doors, took in Clark's face and Clark's clothing. "God, what happened to your clothes? Was there a fire?"

Clark glanced down, at the singed holes in his pants and t-shirt, at the black soot on his skin.

"I remembered where the place was that I found you," he said quietly.

Lex took a breath, blew it out slow and shaky. Kept staring at him, waiting. The breeze blowing in from off the ocean must have been cool, because his skin pimpled and his nipples got pinched and tight.

Clark swallowed. "I burned it. It's gone. It's all gone."

Lex looked past him, hand tight on the door. "Okay." He nodded and said it again. "Okay. Good."

"I understand," Clark said slowly, working it out in his own head. "If you don't want me coming around. Because what I did to you, wasn't much better than what he did - -"

Lex's gaze snapped back to him, wide and blue and surprised, before it narrowed down in irritation. "Don't!"

He grabbed Clark by the elbow and pulled him inside. "Don't you fucking dare presume to tell me what you think I want. Don't you ever compare anything you've ever done, in or out of your right mind, to that sick son of a bitch. Whatever you saw in that place - - forget it. It's poisonous and sordid and I need you not to - -" he broke off, chest heaving, the fingers on Clark's arms digging in. His nails would have broken skin if Clark's skin were so easily broken.

"I need you not to be stained by it. I need your purity."

Lex was staring at him like he earnestly, desperately believed Clark might be just that, when Clark was pretty sure he was far from it. Illicit, wonderful sex in the back of theaters and abandoned houses did not make for the passing of purity tests.

"I think you've got a sort of skewed idea of what purity is," Clark muttered.

Lex laughed a little frantically. He stepped in, put his fingers on the sides of Clark's face and kissed him. Chaste sort of kiss, just a press of lips and Clark wasn't sure who was trembling more, him or Lex. He was afraid to lift his hands and touch Lex to find out. Then Lex did it again, pressing closer, his bare chest touching Clark's t-shirted one and the kiss got a little deeper, not quite tongue level, but open-mouthed. Clark made a desperate sound, tentatively laid fingertips on Lex's hips, spread them out until his hands were laying flat, palms on Lex's skin. Lex shuddered, breaking the kiss but not pulling away, stood there with his forehead against Clark's shoulder until his skin stopped quivering.

"I need you," Lex said against his shirt. "To just be you."

"Okay."

Lex took another breath, stepped away. He glanced at the clock, then back to Clark with a sardonic twitch of the brow. "Six o'clock? Really?"

His voice shook just a little, like what he'd just done had been really hard for him.

"Uh, sorry. It didn't seem like it could wait."

Lex stared at him for a moment at that, then came up with a reasonable, "Are you parents going to miss you at breakfast?"

Clark grimaced. "Probably." His mom and dad were more than likely just stirring, different time zones or not. "Point taken. I'm coming back after school. If that's okay?"

"I'll probably even be fully awake by then," Lex predicted.

Clark wanted to kiss him again. He contained the urge. What he did instead was blurt, "I love you," before taking off and heading back the way he had come.


Lex stood there, after Clark was gone, staring at the open door, at the ocean beyond. His skin still tingled from the touch of Clark's hands. The first tingle of any sort he'd experienced since Clark had gotten him out.

Lex hadn't had a waking erection since he'd been freed. He'd had no interest in attempting to induce one, quite honestly. It had crossed his mind more than once, the speculation that Decker had broken something inside him. Crossed his mind when he stood in the shower and zoned out, scrubbing until his skin was pink and still not feeling entirely clean, that his occasional talks with Martha Kent might not be enough.

He hadn't wanted Clark to see that place. He hadn't wanted anyone to see it. He'd lack of legitimate lack of knowledge of the location had not been so terrible a thing. It kept the police from flooding into it, recording evidence of what had gone on. Documenting everything. He hadn't wanted them finding it. He hadn't wanted anyone rifling through the evidence, putting together piece by piece all the shameful truths of what had gone on there. God knew that was the sort of information that would have found its way out, sooner or later, into the public realm. There was only so much influence to be had when there were several agencies involved in the investigation.

Clark had burned it. The smell of smoke on Clark's clothing, the scorch marks, the soot, attested to that. Clark had been appalled and Lex regretted that. He hadn't wanted Clark to know. Clark knowing, exposed things Lex had wanted buried. Filthy, festering things.

He'd been drifting for the last few weeks in a fog of self-induced apathy, because feeling nothing was better than feeling everything else. Clark shattered that.

He walked out onto the balcony and stared at a sunrise he hadn't seen since he'd gotten here. Getting up early enough to appreciate it had required an energy he just hadn't had. The ocean wind was chill, summer long past. He shivered, tightened his fists on the wooden rail and refused to cave in to it. There was someone out jogging on the beach in the company of a pair of grey dogs leaving tracks in the dark, water hardened sand as they went. He had no earthly idea who his neighbors were.

Clark had seen the room. Clark had burned the room. He kept coming back to that. Kept imaging what Clark had seen and what Clark had made of it. The rack. And the wretched little bed. The corner with the chair and the soiled rug where he'd given in to weakness time and again and willingly humiliated himself. Even though he'd known after the first few times, that the pain wouldn't go away just because he participated. But there'd been varying degrees of it and what Decker had inflicted with cold calculation had been less damaging than what rained down when he was frothing at the mouth mad.

He dropped his head, shutting his eyes, cursing himself softly under his breath for stirring things he'd managed to shuffle to the back of his mind. But it was one of his failings that once he got on track, it was like pulling teeth getting himself off it.

He was glad Clark had gone - - no - -that wasn't right. He wished he'd stayed and to hell with school and parental disapproval. He wondered if he called him again, if he'd hear. He wondered if he'd shoved him down to the floor and pushed up that thin, singed t-shirt, baring the perfect young body beneath, if he'd have been able to get hard enough to do anything about it.

A particularly strong gust of ocean cooled air whipped his pants against his legs, chilled his flesh to the bone and he'd had enough. He retreated inside, locking the doors behind him. Pulled on a shirt and went down stairs for an early morning drink, because what the hell, he was up, he was trembling and he needed the burn a good stiff drink would provide.

He picked up the paperback he'd been reading, because going back to sleep seemed a bad idea after the things Clark had stirred with his declaration of discovery and arson. He hadn't done so much reading since Excelsior, with its cliques and its introduction into social hierarchy, had knocked the book worm out of him. It had been a nice escape back then, and it was an adequate one now, when he could concentrate enough to get into a story.

He settled on the couch, dragged a throw over him, and tried to pick up where he'd left off last night. He was asleep four pages in. It was close to eleven when woke again, at the urging of his bladder. If he'd been plagued by nightmares, he didn't remember them.

He dressed, warmed over the rest of what he'd started last night and hadn't had the appetite to finish, and considered the state of his refrigerator. If Clark was coming over - - if Clark was going to make a habit of coming over - - running over, all the way from Kansas and Lex wasn't sure why he wasn't more amazed at that - - then he needed to do something about the food situation. Clark was always hungry. He always seemed particularly happy when eating, and making Clark happy, made Lex happy.

He thought he'd take a drive into town today and pick up something fresh. He opened the refrigerator door to access the contents.

The phone rang as he was looking. It was Martha Kent.

"Clark told us that he found the house and what happened. And that he'd told you. Are you all right?" She opened with, never a woman who minced words.

"I'm, fine." It was his formulaic answer.

"His father rode out to the house this morning and it's completely leveled. There was a SUV in the barn though. Should we let the police know or let it go?"

He drew a breath, considering. "I don't see what good it would do - - but, someone will discover the fire eventually and find the vehicle and I don't know what he might have left in it."

Blood evidence maybe. Clark had been bleeding when he'd seen him. They didn't need samples of that in some state lab.

"He had Clark in that SUV, and Clark was bleeding - -"

"Oh," she said, breathless.

"Have him go back, torch the vehicle."

"Yes. Yes, we'll do it."

He shut his eyes at the tremor in her voice, sorry he was dragging them even further into this. But then, they were used to lies and cover-ups. It had become a way of life for them. Honest people who had no choice and who did what they had to do to protect what they loved.

"Clark seems - - unfazed."

She laughed, relief chasing away the tension. "He is. He's back to his old self. He's worried about you."

"I'm - -"

"Fine?" she cut him off. "So I've heard you say. Clark claims he can't tell if you're lying about it unless he can see your eyes."

"Does he?"

"He also says he loves you. When did this start, Lex?"

He shut his eyes again, silently mouthing a curse.

"If I were to make a guess," she said when he didn't answer. "I'd say about a week after the incident with the red meteor rock. That's about the time he went from miserable self-loathing to so happy he couldn't contain it. Does that sound about right to you?"

"Martha, I assure you - -"

"Don't 'Martha' me. He's sixteen, Lex and when he loves, he loves wholeheartedly. You remember that."

She knew. She absolutely knew, with that mother's instinct of hers that pierced lies like razor sliced skin. He felt sick, weak kneed at the things she might be able to take from him. Clark, maybe, if they gave Clark an ultimatum to choose between them and Lex. Her support, which had become something invaluable. He let his legs give out, sliding down the island cabinet to the floor, sitting there staring blankly at the open refrigerator.

"I won't hurt him," he said softly. "I'll never hurt him."

She was silent for an endless moment. "We can't stop him from seeing you. I don't want to stop him from seeing you, Lex, because I believe he's good for you. And you just may be good for him, regardless of what his father thinks. But you need to use your head and be the adult. He's sixteen, Lex."

He didn't know what to say, she'd blindsided him so completely. He felt short of breath.

"Are you eating?" She caught him off his guard again. He'd used to be able to change subjects - - vitally important subjects - - at the drop of a dime and not loose a beat. He was floundering now. He blinked at the open refrigerator and the scant contents therein.

"Clark tells me all you have in your refrigerator is Perrier and prepared meals."

"Clark talks too much," he said numbly.

"Clark is concerned. I'm concerned. I'm sending some fresh vegetables with him when he comes to see you." She said it like she hadn't just as much as told him she knew they'd slept together. Well, not so much sleeping. He wasn't entirely sure what he had her blessing for and what he didn't.

He pressed the phone against his forehead after she'd hung up and laughed. Just a little dazed and no small bit astonished that he'd had his first ever discussion with a parental figure - - his own included - - about the usage of common sense and teenage sex.

To be continued . . .

Obsessions Chapter 15

And here's part fifteen of 'Obsessions'.



Chapter fifteen

The police came eventually. Martha must have called them. Lex didn't remember her finding a working phone. Just the pounding of multiple feet and the invasion of an army of local, and eventually state and federal authorities.

Lex sat on the second to the bottom step of the grand staircase with Martha while they stormed the house, marking off evidence of the crimes, clashing with each other over jurisdiction and protocol. Assaulting them with questions that Lex was in no wise capable of answering. His feet were still stained with blood, and the echo of the gunfire still played in his head. The rest of it was muffled confusion around him.

Jonathan Kent came, and they stopped him at the door until he yelled for his wife, voice reverberating through the house, and Martha rose and hurried to the door, squeezing through the front line of police blocking it, to be engulfed in his big arms. If he was here it meant Clark was alone at the farm. He wouldn't have brought him with him in his present state. It worried Lex, the thought of Clark alone, and the worry kicked out some of the blanketing numb.

He started thinking about the things he didn't need them knowing, thinking about how to keep Clark out of it now that the Kent's were firmly entrenched in the sordid mess.

Someone with authority moved them to a room they'd apparently deemed free of crime scene evidence. There were EMTs, who looked at Martha's head, and tried to look at Lex's various hurts, before he shrugged them off, not wanting hands upon him. They wanted both of them at the hospital, for closer examination, but their wants were at odds with the wants of the authorities, which had, it turned out seven bodies on their hands.

They'd found Lionel's assistant, the cook and two of his security in the pantry off the kitchen. Lex's gate guard had been discovered in the bushes beyond the gatehouse. Then there was Decker and Lionel Luthor himself.

Lex was responsible for at least one, if not both of those deaths. He wasn't sure if he could have done anything differently that might have prevented his father's. If he'd have acted sooner. If he'd have moved when Decker told him to move. Had he gotten in that last 'fuck you', in a conscious move to piss Decker off? God knew, he was intimately familiar with the man's hair trigger temper. Maybe he'd done it on purpose. He couldn't remember what he'd been thinking. He couldn't remember much of anything beyond squeezing the trigger that first time.

Martha remembered. He half heard her answers as a different set of detectives questioned her across the room, her husband staunchly by her side. She'd found him on the road on her way to town. That was the story she'd repeated at him while they'd sat on the steps waiting for the arrival of the authorities. She'd come upon him, wondering dazed and confused and brought him home. It was a reasonable explanation, and one that his current state of mind lent perfect credence to.

One that backed the fact that he had no idea where he'd been kept or had a good story for how he'd escaped. He played on the trauma and the shock to avoid giving details until he could figure them out in his own head.

But they were relentless, all of them vying for some upper hand. And he had a father with whom he'd been on questionable terms dead, and the inheritance of a multi-billion dollar corporate monster as a result. They were suspicious of the circumstances, and God knew if some of them were creating scenarios in their heads around the idea that he'd set the whole thing up as a means to an end. The part of his brain that was starting to function again, told him to stop fighting the EMT's efforts to get him to the hospital. That if he had to start defending himself in this - - God, please God, don't make him have to argue the details - - he needed them to have as much physical proof as possible. And he healed fast. Almost twenty-four hours since Clark had pulled him out of Decker's nightmare and bruises were already fading.
So he relented. Let them take him to the hospital, let them record the evidence Decker had left on his body. Went away while they did it to a place very similar to the one he'd used to escape Decker. They took his clothes with their blood spatter, and ones of his own appeared. He could only assume Martha Kent had had the foresight to gather a few of his things before she and her husband had followed Lex to the ER.

Somewhere between the start of the examination and the end, Lex's lawyers arrived. They were in the company of LuthorCorp functionaries. LuthorCorp lawyers, LuthorCorp sycophants, drawn by the smell of death. The smell of corporate upheaval.

And strangely enough, Lex didn't relish the idea that soon enough they'd all be at his beck and call. He'd wanted the power a thriving company offered before this - - broken his back to build something. But now, as he waited while police conferred with lawyers in a battle over whether he would be subjected to more intensive questioning at the headquarters of whoever had won the jurisdiction toss-up, or released on his own recognizance, he thought it had all been ego.

All been some grand effort on his part to prove his father wrong. To prove that he wasn't the aimless dilettante Lionel had accused him of being before he sent him here.

"Mr. Luthor, they've agreed to sit down and talk with you sometime in the next few days for a more in-depth statement. You're free to leave when you like." His lawyer was smugly satisfied.

There was a mob in the lobby. Not entirely unexpected, but startling. His body it seemed had developed tics separate from his mind and he stalled beyond the glass paned doors leading from examination rooms to lobby, staring at the swarm of what had to press, and various members of his father's staff and law team.

"I'm having my car brought around. Lex, I'm having the car brought around."

Lex blinked, focused on the face of his lawyer, the concerned frown. He thought that statement might have been repeated multiple times before the last two that he'd picked up. He took a breath, nodded.

One of the local deputies was standing outside the ER door, keeping the wolves at bay. When the call came that the car was outside, Lex's lawyer asked for his help getting through the press.

The questions rushed in like a flood as soon as he stepped into the lobby. Most of them were just white noise, a few got through. Is it true Donald Decker was obsessed with you for years? Were you sexually assaulted during your captivity? Were you aware he was targeting your enemies? Did you collude with him to murder your father?

There was a clog by the door and he couldn't get through fast enough. People pressed close and his heart was pounding so hard, it threatened to come up his throat. He felt paper thin and light headed.

"Move out of his damned way!" Another body joined the deputy, inserting a shoulder, shoving a blurred faced reporter with a camera roughly aside. Jonathan Kent, who waded in and helped make a path.

Between them, they got him out, into fresh evening air. He saw Martha hovering in the emergency driveway, the Kent Pickup truck in one of the short-term spaces beyond. They were still here - - had been here for hours - - because he had. It was almost surreal that they'd waited,

"Clark?" He circled around the car, while Jonathan and the deputy and the lawyer kept the crowd from following.

"Pete's with him." She said softly. "Lex, where are you going to stay? You can't go back to the mansion?"

Even if it weren't a crime scene, he wasn't sure he could step foot back within it. It had never been anything but uninviting. Cold stone that his father had imported from a land Lex had never set foot on. Other than Clark, Smallville was very much the same. It never had welcomed him. Never had cared one way or the other whether he lived or died. There was nothing keeping him here save Clark, and Clark was more damaged than he was.

"Metropolis." He had the penthouse there.

"Are you sure you want to be alone?" She stared up at him, more concern in her eyes for him personally than he thought anyone had ever evidenced. It was baffling to him that she had so much to go around. That she wasn't stretched so thin worrying over Clark and her own family that there was anything left for anyone else. It had been all his own mother could do to comfort him when he'd needed it on her good days - - and on her bad, there'd been no room for anyone but her. And he'd understood. She'd been sick. She'd had Lionel Luthor for a husband. Sparing concern for other people's problems would have been exhausting for a woman with so many of her own. Lex had understood then.

He wasn't entirely certain he did now.

"Alone is exactly what I need to be." He forced a smile for her. "I'll be okay. You have my number. Call if you need me. Call if Clark - -" he trailed off, not even certain how to finish that sentence. "I'll have my people start immediately clearing up the issue with Child Protective Services."

She sighed. "You have mine, too, Lex. You don't need a reason to call."



Things nipped at the edge of his awareness. Sound like things. Soft clamoring of a hundred little noises - - things that if he concentrated, sounded like everything from water dripping, to cows mooing and munching, the gravel under someone's boots, to the distant hum of conversation. It was disconcerting and he shook his head, trying to block it out.

It felt vaguely like he was wrapped in plastic wrap, seeing the world just fine, but oddly insulated from it.

There was a picture on the desk. Three people. An expanse of lake behind them. Trees beyond that. The girl in the center had a huge grin on her face, pressed in between two guys. Her hair was wet and slicked back on her skull, and lacked its usual perky bounce.

It was Chloe. With Pete on one side of her, and him on the other. He was wet, too. The lake was Crater Lake and he thought maybe Pete's older brother Greg had snapped the shot. They all looked young. It had been the summer before they'd started high school.

He let his gaze drift from the picture to the books on the desk beside it. Biology. American Lit. Advanced Algebra. Early American history. A few dog-eared paperbacks. A journal that somebody had gotten him for a birthday one year - - Lana? - - and he'd never had gotten around to writing in. He wasn't a journal sort of guy.

He moved to the desk, running a finger down the spine of the American Lit book, trying to recall if he'd studied for the Poe test, Mrs. Lanskey had been threatening. He didn't remember what poems it was supposed to encompass. Chloe would know. Chloe would help him make heads and tails out of it, because honestly he had a better head for math than poetry.

The insulation was starting to dissipate, things becoming sharper, clearer. The smell of what could only be frying chicken caught his attention. His stomach made needy sounds. It felt sort of like it was so empty his navel ought to be touching his spine. He looked down, pulled up the hem of his t-shirt just to check, but it looked the same as ever.

He hoped his mom was making cornbread with the chicken. He thought he could eat his weight in it. He headed downstairs to check. It was raining outside, he could smell it in the air, see the gloom through the windows. The quiet patter of it against the tin roof was a comforting symphony. He idly wondered when it had started. He didn't remember waking up to it. He didn't remember waking up at all, come to think of it. Odd.

His mom was in front of the stove, turning a piece of golden fried thigh in a cast iron skillet.

"So's there gonna be cornbread to go with that?" he asked hopefully. And mashed potatoes. He could eat about a pound or two of those easy.

She gasped, the pair of tongs dropping from her hand, spattering hot oil on the stovetop. She faced him, utter shock on her face and his first thought was that she'd been burned by the oil spatter.

"Mom, you oka - -?"

Was about as far as he got before she cried his name and hurled herself at him. She hugged him tight, screaming for his dad loud enough to make him wince, what with his hearing gone all crazy sensitive.

"Mom? What's wrong?" She was hugging him so tight, he heard her bones creak.

"Oh, baby, baby, we weren't sure you were coming back to us."

She was sobbing a little, and his shirt was damp where she had her face pressed against him. He looked up helplessly as his dad banged through the back door, then stopped, eyes widening in as much surprise as his mom had had in hers when she'd seen him.

Like he'd been gone for a long time and had conveniently forgotten. But his dad got over it, and clamped hand on his shoulder, grinning at him.

"Coming back - -?" He stared at his dad in confusion. Considering Smallville and his luck with stumbling into the bizarre and unusual, maybe something had happened.

There were things itching at the back of his mind, vague little recollections creeping back in as if unsure of their welcome.

"Clark - - son - -" His dad swallowed, choked up and that just completely rocked Clark's world, because his dad just didn't choke up.

"What - - what happened?" he was almost afraid to ask. "Did something happen?"

He untangled himself from his mom enough to stand back and stare down at her, there was a newspaper behind her on the kitchen table with a front-page story about the annual Smallville Fall festival fair. He looked closer at the date. Nov 16th.

Last he remembered it had been the end of summer. Long hot days that seemed to last forever. He began to panic. That was a lot of lost time. A month and a half's worth at least.

"Mom, dad - - what happened to me?"

"Calm down, son." His dad's fingers squeezed his shoulder. "What do you remember?"

He opened his mouth. Shut it. It felt like something was clogging his throat, trying to burst free and flood up to fill his mind.

"I - - I don't know."

"You were shot, honey," his mom said. "In the head. It was - - severe."

"By who - -?" he started, then stopped hearing them, when that blockage burst and things started surging in his head. Memories like muggings, hitting him hard and merciless. But leaving things instead of taking. The first kiss that mattered - - the taste of Lex's mouth. Lex telling him no and him not listening, and hating himself afterwards. Lex telling him no again, but this time pulling him in and confusing him with a completely contradictory reinforcement of what he really meant. Lex pushing him back against a wall in a darkened theater, all hands and mouth and sinewy muscle. Lex under him, enveloping him, expanding Clark's horizons like they'd never been expanded before, nails scraping across Clark's back, panting and cursing and saying Clark's name like a prayer. Lex.

Then a different, more lurid recollection hit. The man with the wild eyes, egging him on, driving a green meteor rock blade in to him, repeatedly. Telling him in the moments between consciousness the things he would do to Lex.

Oh - - God.

"Lex," he gasped the name, breath sour in his chest, curdled by the fear. He was at the mansion before the name left his lips, his parents forgotten in his desperation to find Lex.

But the front gates were locked with chains, and the big house was dark and silent. When he burst the lock on the door and skidded to a stop inside, there were sheets over the furniture, just like there had been the very first time he'd come, before Lex had had time to have the house fully opened.

There was nothing alive here. It was heavy and cold without Lex. He stood outside in the drive breathing cool, moist air, letting the rain hit him and tried to get his bearings.

Six weeks. He'd lost six weeks and Lex was gone. Gone. The fist in Clark's chest wouldn't go away.

He ran home, made his parents start at his sudden reappearance, and stood wet and dripping on his mom's floor.

"Lex. Where's Lex? God - - what happened - -?" Images popped into his head. Horrible, horrible images. Lex dead. Lex ripped open by a man with a knife and not having Clark's ability to heal. Lex strung up, tiny trails of blood trickling down his arms, naked and battered and registering dull shock - - that one smacked more of recollection than imagination. He didn't know where he'd pulled it from.

"Honey, breathe." His mom stepped up to him, put her hands on his face. Gave him a stern, calming look, and waited until he took a big gulp of air before she said. "Lex is fine. He just couldn't be here anymore. He had to get away and heal."

"Heal? Is he hurt?"

"Not the way you were, sweetheart."

He needed to find Lex. He needed to see for himself. "Where is he?"

His mom exchanged looks with his dad, who was standing there, a frown threatening. Because his dad didn't like Lex. Didn't approve of Lex. Didn't approve of the things Lex made Clark feel.

He lifted his chin, looked his mom in the eye, then his dad and said. "I love him. Tell me where he is?"

His dad blew out a breath, and Clark didn't even try and figure out what his look meant, but his mom gave him a good long look, before lying a hand on his arm and saying.

"He's in Massachusetts, Clark. He has a beach house on Nantucket Sound, in Martha's Vineyard."


It took Clark longer to actually find the house once he reached the island off the coast of Massachusetts, than it had to run from Kansas to the east coast. He was good with geography on the large scale, it just got a little tricky when he had to pinpoint locations he'd never familiarized himself with.

Forty-five minutes and he was there, which was better time than he'd thought possible. Better by almost half of what he'd been capable of, say just last year. The ferry ride over took almost that long and he fidgeted the whole trip.

It wasn't that big an island and his mom had said it was a beachfront house and given him the address. It was just there were a lot of beachfront houses and he was impatient and impatience made him hasty, and he was afraid he might have rushed and missed something on the first run around the island perimeter. He took it slower the second go round. Found the Nantucket Sound area, where the houses were mostly old and big, and sat on large private lots in front of pristine private beaches. A lot of wealth congregated here. But quietly. Without the sort of fanfare you'd expect in the big city.

Everything was quiet here. Just the sound of the ocean, vast and relentless in its march on the beach, the subtle rustle of evening wind through marsh grasses, the occasional caw of seabirds. And that was it. Smallville was noisier than this place.

He stopped on the beach in front of a big, white washed beach house. It sat back from the beach, beyond the dunes, with a huge deck and a wraparound porch, and an array of floor to ceiling windows lining the ocean-facing portion of the house. It was big, but it was quant, and sort of beach country, but maybe that was because the root architecture of the house itself looked to be really old. It was so not Lex that he almost doubted he had the address right, but he'd spied the lane name on his way down, and the house number was the one his mom had given him.

Almost he was afraid to trek up the path leading from beach to house. He didn't know why, save that when he'd asked his mom about Lex, about what had happened to Lex, she just told him that it was Lex's tale to tell, if he chose. She told him not to push Lex and there had been something in her eyes that hinted that she knew things she wasn't sharing, even with him. A tone in her voice that made him think that somewhere along the line Lex had become a priority with her and one she took seriously. His dad hadn't had a lot to say on the subject.

All of it scared the hell out of him. It was a fear that wasn't going away until he saw Lex and assured himself he was whole. So he took a breath, and tromped through white sand up a winding trail through marsh grass spotted dunes to the house. There was a big yard with lots of green grass and a gnarled beach type trees. There were thicker trees at the edges of the property, shielding it from the neighboring beach houses. The steps leading up to the back deck were wooden and sandy. The deck itself was a sprawling, white washed thing, with lots of built in seating around the edges, and comfortable cushion lined lounges. There was a big fire pit built into the center, but it looked too pristine to have been used anytime recently.

There was a paperback book lying spine up on one of the long deck lounges though, and a pair of sunglasses on the little table next to it.

Then he looked up and saw Lex through the French doors leading into the house. Heading his way, with a glass of something in his hand, a half distracted look on his face, until he got to the doors, looked where he was going and saw Clark on the deck.

He started, badly. Clark saw the clear moment of shock, before he recovered and stood for a breath just staring through the glass at him. Then he opened the door and stepped out. Wary blue eyes took him in, the hand on the glass was white knuckled. He was barefoot and had just a little more color to his skin than he usually did. Or maybe it was just the white shirt, casual and overlarge, unbuttoned and rolled up at the sleeves, with a white t-shirt under it and a pair of thin cotton khakis. Clark had never seen Lex in clothing anything like it before. But then, maybe Lex adopted his wardrobe to his environment, and he did sort of look like a walking add for chic fall beachwear.

"Hey," Clark ventured, since Lex was just staring at him, sort of like he wasn't entirely sure he weren't seeing things. "Um, nice house?"

"God," Lex whispered.

"No, just me," Clark tried for a grin, couldn't hold it and stepped forward instead, wrapping Lex in his arms. It felt so good to feel him, to smell him, to just have him close, that Clark almost didn't notice the flinch, the way Lex tensed up. Something was a little off. A little wrong, and he tried to step back, but Lex clutched Clark's t-shirt with the fingers of the hand not holding the glass and sloshed a little liquid on Clark's back when he tightened the arm that was holding it, and didn't let Clark go.

"You're all there? Whole?"

"I guess." He pressed his cheek against Lex's temple, not really knowing how to answer that question. "I don't really remember not being whole."

Lex pushed back, took enough of a step away from him to study him critically. "You just woke up and everything was - - back on line?"

Clark shrugged again. "Umm. Yeah? Mom was frying chicken and it smelled great - - and - - um, yeah, I guess so."

"How did you get here?"

"Umm - - I ran."

Lex didn't quite lift a brow. He kept staring though, and Clark tried to get details straight in his head. He'd told Lex, but hadn't had the chance to go into detail, and Lex had had a lot of time to mull over the idea that Clark was an alien without Clark there to soften him up to the idea. So maybe that tensing had to do with that. Maybe Lex was all fine and good with a meteor mutant for a - - boyfriend? - - what the heck were they? - - but not with an extraterrestrial. He really should have taken the time to ask his mom a few things before he'd taken off like a bat out of hell to find Lex.

"From Smallville?"

Clark shrugged. "Mom gave me the address."

Lex kept staring. And Clark was starting to vacillate over that secret little thrill he'd always experienced when Lex was giving him that deep blue once-over, and nervousness that he was debating all the reasons he ought not have anything to do with a freakishly fast alien from outer space.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Lex finally asked, apparently moving on from the running across half the country thing. It wasn't a particularly mood lightening change of topic.

Clark tightened his mouth. "That guy. With the meteor rock knife. He wasn't after me, was he? He was after you."

Lex looked away, muscle in his jaw ticking. "Yeah."

Clark clenched his fists. "And he hurt you?"

Lex drew in a pair of deep breathes, eyes fixed somewhere beyond Clark's shoulder on the beach, before he turned them back to Clark.

"What did your mother tell you?" Lex was good at evasion. Always had been.

"She told me you had to leave so you could heal - -she didn't tell me from what. She told me not to push you. What does that mean, Lex? What happened to you?"

Lex rolled his eyes a little, shook his head and walked past Clark to sit the drink down on the little table next to the lounge. He sat down on the edge of it and squinted up at Clark.

"It means your mother is endearingly overprotective. I'm fine. I just needed the time to get my head straight in a place that wasn't Smallville and wasn't Metropolis."

Clark moved a step closer, blocking out evening sun behind him. "I'm missing six weeks. Somebody needs to tell me what happened."

Lex looked down at his hands, the long fingers of one hand absently stroking the wrist of the other. His skin had the healthy glow of beachfront living, but there was something fragile under it. Something tenuous that went beyond the fact that he looked thinner than Clark remembered. And maybe there'd always been something a little tenuous about Lex, a little hint of vulnerability that he tried so hard to pretend wasn't there, and maybe even Clark was the only person he let his shields down enough to see it, but it had never been quite so obvious to him before as it was now.

Lex said he was fine, but Clark was suddenly certain that that was an exaggeration. And somebody had made him that way. Somebody - - that man - - had done things to him to make him brittle. That image of Lex he had, the terrible one of him naked and manacled flashed through his mind.

He squatted down, so Lex didn't have to look up at him. "My mom said I was shot in the head. That it was pretty bad. This guy did it?"

"It was. He did. I thought - -" Lex shut his eyes a moment, mouth tight, like he was reliving something horrible. "I was sure you were dead."

"You were there?"

Lex's mouth quirked, he looked down at Clark with a glint of wry self-contempt in his eyes. "It was a huge fucking mess. The whole thing. I wasn't using my head and - - and I paid for it. You paid for it. I'm sorry."

Clark canted his head, confused. "Why? You didn't shoot me in the head, did you?"

Lex opened his mouth, shut it with that sort of half curve of the lips he got when Clark had won some point with him. "No."

"Okay then. The guy who did - - is he - -?"

"Dead."

Clark tossed that over, and that Lex memory, expanded a little, adding in the presence of the man with the hard eyes, and the military buzz cut. Naked too, except for boots, and was that the sort of detail Clark's imagination would come up with on its own, or was it more than imagination? He saw an image of the man flying through the air, but not where he'd landed - - because he'd focused on - - on Lex.

"Did I - -?"

"No."

Clark opened his mouth, wanting details to flesh out his sketchy memory. Needing them. Needing to know what had happened to Lex.

"Are you hungry?" Lex asked before Clark could press.

Which was Lex trying to deflect again. But he had something a little desperate in his eyes and maybe the idea of not pushing him when he was already close to some edge, wasn't a terrible one, even if Clark dearly wanted to.

He shrugged. He hadn't actually eaten any of that chicken that his mom had been frying.

He followed Lex inside. Big airy main room, with a living area and a big kitchen with white washed cabinetry juxtaposed with really modern looking stainless steel appliances. There were stools on the living area side of the kitchen island and Clark sat on one while Lex rummaged in the freezer. He had a lot of containers of pre-prepared food.

"There's a woman who runs a catering company in town," Lex explained. "She's a genius."

He pulled out a wax paper carton and stuck it in the microwave. By the he pulled it out, the smell of beef and vegetables in some sort of wine broth was making Clark's mouth water. It was sort of fantastic.

"It feels like I haven't eaten since - - well, the last time I remember eating." Clark said between mouthfuls.

Lex stood there, sipping on the glass of what Clark assumed was wine, watching Clark eat. "From what I understand, you didn't. You were in a walking vegetative state. You didn't talk, or eat, or do anything for yourself. You only occasionally responded when spoken to. You had a tendency to wander outside and stand in the yard."

Clark swallowed a lump of tender beef down and stared at Lex, wide-eyed.

"We were afraid," Lex said, and took a big swallow of wine. "That the damage done to your brain was permanent. Your body's ability to heal was miraculous enough, the fact that your brain not only repaired itself, but retained all the parts that make you you - - is astounding."

"And - -" Clark had to ask, because not knowing was eating away at him. "And you're okay with it? With me being - - not from around here? Because we really didn't get the chance to talk about it before I sort of got my throat slashed."

Lex's fingers tightened marginally on the stem of his glass. He forced a breath and a wry smile. "That was an inopportune time for an interruption, wasn't it? Your parents told me how they found you. They explained a lot of things."

"Really? Both of them? Willingly?" Clark raised both brows.

Lex's wry smile turned a little more amused. "Your father wasn't happy about it."

"You didn't answer the question, Lex. Are you okay with it? Are you okay with me?" Clark wasn't going to let him get away with avoiding that one. He needed to know.

Lex stared at him, a long liquid moment, things going on behind his blue eyes that Clark could only guess at. But there was nothing speculative, nothing that hinted he was trying to shield, it was just Lex trying to suss out emotions he didn't quite know how to deal with, in his own head.

"You heard me and you dragged me out of hell," Lex finally said. "Word's can't express how okay I am with you."

to be continued . . .

Obsessions Chapter 14-B

And the second half of Chapter 14.





14 -B
Lex drifted out of sleep, slow luxurious process. Warmth, comfort, the smell of fabric softener and Clark filling his senses. Dream like. Almost he thought it was; one of those terrible, wistful dreams that would shatter the moment he opened his eyes to harsh reality. It wasn't until he moved and the full body ache hit him, at odds with soft sheets and comforting smell, that he realized it was real.

For a few moments he lay there, everything swaying, sickeningly adrift, disorientation hitting him so hard that his vision blurred. The room was unfamiliar. Posters on the wall, alcove windows with country print curtains, worn dresser and desk with a stack of what might have been school books stacked at the end. A book bag on a hook over a closet door.

Clark's room. Clark's smell on the pillow. Flashes of Clark appearing like a nightmare or a dream in front of him. He only vaguely recalled details from the rest. Faint recollections of a woman's voice, a woman's soft touch. Martha Kent.

The Kent farm. Clark had brought him home.

Clark had taken him from that place - - that place.

He jerked up, black panic crowding in around the edges, things swarming his head that he couldn't stop or control. His body ached, his shoulders did, everything below the waist throbbed with dull pain. He clutched the sheets, stared at white banding his wrists. White eaten through with tiny spots of dried red. He lifted a hand to his throat, but the collar was gone.

Decker was gone. Please God - - and Lex bent double and breathed. Just breathed and tried to get a grip on the anxiety that wanted to eat him up from the inside out. He'd hit the wall, Lex thought he remembered Clark flinging Decker into a wall. Clark appearing in front of him, materializing like a ghost or an alien with powers beyond human ken, and him fresh from a rage induced bout of torture and rape. Shame. Shame. Huge and ponderous.

He didn't remember much after. Save the niggling awareness that he'd called Clark and Clark had come. Clark had come. He half recalled a million years ago, Clark telling him he loved him - - earnest boy, earnest eyes - - there for him. Half destroyed for him.

He had to pee. Badly. He pushed sheets aside and found he was dressed. A pair of overlarge pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. He had no more memory of donning those than he did of getting his wrists bandaged.

His legs almost buckled when he put weight on them. Not so much the residual aches as simple hunger induced weakness, he suspected. There was a bathroom at the end of the hall. He leaned a hand on the wall over the toilet and winced, urine pink tinged and stinging like acid on the way out.

He shut his eyes, shuddering, flashback image of Decker close behind him, callused hand circling him, not even allowing him the decency of urinating on his own. He clenched his teeth, fighting back a weird empty sort of nausea. There was nothing even close to food on his stomach to come up.

He paused at the mirror, almost didn't recognize himself. He looked like some death camp survivor. Haunted and gaunt. So close to broken there was hardly a distinction. The faint red bruising around his neck made his skin crawl. He lifted fingers to it, tracking the edges where the collar had been. He could almost smell the leather. Almost smell the stink of unwanted sex.

The mirror reflected the claw footed bathtub with its drawn shower curtain behind him. The sudden need to douse himself in hot water was overwhelming. He pulled off the shirt with an effort. His shoulders were stiff, his side protested the raising of his arms. Shucked off the drawstring pants and almost tripped over them in his haste.

The water took a while to heat, but that was okay, he'd gotten used to cold showers - - cold water pumped inside him - -

God. God. He pressed his palms to the wall under the nozzle, quaking, vision black around the edges. The water was warm by the time he recovered enough to fumble for soap and a cloth folded over the rack hanging from the shower faucet. He scrubbed until his skin felt pink and raw, kept at it, until the water ran Luke warm and then cold again. Stood there blindly under the spray until a gentle rapping on the door finally snared his attention.

"Lex? Are you okay?"

He didn't know how long he'd stood there, but his fingers were wrinkly and waterlogged, and the fog on the mirror had had the time to dissipate.

He cut the water, took a breath and assured her he hadn't fallen and cracked his head open. Or slit his wrists and bled out.

He stepped out of the tub, slow moving, like an old man, or a young one only just beginning to appreciate the scope of all his aches. Took his time drying off, and redressing. He wasn't sure what to expect of her. Of her husband. They had reason enough to resent his presence.

But there was nothing but concern on her face when he opened the bathroom door. She had a tray in her hands with a mug of something sending up curls of steam in her hand, a plate and a glass of what might have been apple juice. He luck wasn't good enough for it to be scotch.

He stared at her, feeling as if he'd been caught at something and not knowing what or why.

"I brought you something to eat. I would have woken you earlier, but I think you needed sleep more than food."

He was lost for words and he was never lost for words. He blinked at her, stalled, until she said his name firmly. "Lex. Come sit down and eat something."

She moved into Clark's room and after a frozen second he moved to follow her. She'd sat the tray down on the desk. There was buttered toast on the plate along side the mug of soup. It smelled like heaven. He thought he might cry.

"How long," he asked instead. "Was I - -gone?"

"Twenty-three days."

He shut his eyes, trying to reconcile that in his head with the eternity he thought had passed. Twenty-three days wasn't so bad. He'd thought it months.

She pulled out the chair, and he sat down in it, legs practically giving out under him.

"Clark brought me here?"

"Yes."

"How did he find me?"

She opened her mouth, seeming perplexed. "We don't know. We think maybe he heard something - -"

Lex swallowed, staring at her, but not registering her features, remembering hanging in that basement half out of his mind and calling Clark's name. And Clark had heard.

"Eat, Lex." Martha reminded him what his stomach was already begging.

He picked up the mug, was shaking too badly to hold it one handed, so cradled it between both palms. Chicken soup, with soft, wide noodles and little diced vegetables that melted in the mouth. The finest chefs in the world had nothing on Martha Kent.

"How long have I been here?"

"Sixteen hours." She said, sitting on the end of Clark's bed. "You've been asleep for sixteen hours. We didn't call the authorities, Lex, But I think we need to. Your father at least ought to know you're alive - -"

They hadn't called - -? Ah, he did recall something along those lines. Him pleading with them not to.

"Let him wonder," he said bitterly.

He consumed the toast, drank the water and sat there, staring at Clark's books. Remembering Clark's blank stare. Wanting Clark here now and wondering why he wasn't.

"Clark? What's wrong with Clark?"

He saw the change in her face, the little crumple of exhaustion and worry that she couldn't hide and he felt himself crumple a little along with her. He almost didn't want to hear. He didn't have the strength to deal with one more blow.

"He - - Clark hasn't been himself since you were - - since we found him. He's healed - - physically - - but, mentally - - he's - - it's like he's just not there. He'll get better though. I know he'll get better."

He stared at her, aghast, remembering those holes in Clark's head so vividly it was as if the blood were staining his hands this very moment.

"God," he whispered. There was nothing in him capable of optimism. It had been wrenched, torn and shocked out of him at the hands of a madman.

He gripped the edge of the desk, trying to wrap his mind around it. Around everything. Twenty-three days. And Decker might still be out there. He wanted to crawl into a hole, never face his father, never face the probing questions of the authorities, the worse questions the press would throw at him, but there was no avoiding it. He still needed that story.

He could lie and claim there had been no kidnapping, no three weeks of hell that the press would stretch their imaginations speculating over. Say he'd been on a binge, say anything to avoid the jackals. He'd never cared so much when he'd been younger - - never had face to protect. A business that had probably suffered since his disappearance to maintain. Never had people that mattered to shield.

Priorities warred. Emotions he'd always been so damned good at hiding, surging with tsunami force, trying to cripple him. Fear/shame/guilt/the need to protect what was important to him. The only thing that was important to him.

He didn't give a fuck about the business, but Clark - - to keep Clark from getting dragged into the sordid affair this was sure to devolve into, he'd endure what he had to endure. He'd survived embarrassing press before.

But not in Clark's overlarge clothing. Not anywhere near this farm. He needed distance and he needed his own things to shore him up. He wouldn't face the authorities in shambles. And Lionel could rot in hell for all Lex cared, but he had a sway with the powers that be, and a mind for outmaneuvering tricky situations. He might be an asset, might have enough buried remnants of guilt for his past deeds that he could be persuaded to help a son in desperate need of a calm head and Machiavellian mind.

He looked back up at Martha, who was staring at him with wide, worried eyes.

"I need to go home."

He pushed himself up, legs shaky, a particular ache in his back that outshined the other various pains. Felt almost like a broken rib, and he thought Decker might have hit him high on the side with a fist wrapped in a leather belt after he'd spurred that last rage. Decker's rages had been more frequent during those last indecipherable periods between sleep. Whatever madness was eating at his brain taking firmer hold. He'd whispered promises to Lex of years of captivity, but Lex had the feeling he'd have snapped and killed him long before those dire threats could have been carried out.

"We'll take you home. Do you want to call anyone? The police? Your father to let him know?"

He shook his head. He didn't. He needed just a little more time to gather his calm. He worked his way down the stairs gingerly. The soup hadn't been enough. His stomach rumbled at the teaser, but if he stopped now, sat down and just let himself bask in the comfort of this time worn house, he might not be able to regather momentum anytime soon.

He froze, Martha on his heels, as Jonathan came through the kitchen door - - for a brief moment, having visions of Decker again. He shook it off. Forced himself to straighten when all he wanted to do was take a step backwards. There was a tremulous little flutter in his gut that he couldn't force down, at the man's glower and the heavy impact of his boots as he strode across the kitchen floor. Lex remembered very well this man's threats against him should he impose on his family again, this man's big hands tangled in his shirt when he'd come with the very distressing news of the situation Lex had brought down on their heads.

Funny that he hadn't particularly cared at the time, hadn't felt any particular fear - - but now. It was like anxiety had taken up residence and refused to vacate.

Jonathan looked over his shoulder, to Martha at his back, tightened his jaw. "You had your time, Lex. Have you come up with a way to keep us out of this?"

"Jonathan," Martha said, reprimand in her voice.

"Deflect and deny," Lex said simply. "You're good at that. You never saw me. I wasn't here." He forced himself to walk right up to Jonathan. "The sooner I'm out of here, the sooner we can put it to practice."

Jonathan muttered something under his breath, and Martha said something back, soft and sharp, but Lex wasn't paying attention, having caught sight of Clark through the kitchen window, standing in the middle of the dirt drive between house and barns. He moved around Kent, to the back door, not caring what the fuck the man thought. Clark was there and he needed to see how much of what he thought he remembered and what Martha had said was true.

The screen door swung closed behind him, and he walked out into the yard, barefoot. The sun was summer bright, high in the sky, so much warmer than flickering fluorescents. The yard smelled of cow dung and hay and the scent of whatever was in bloom in Martha Kent's garden. It filled his lungs, made his chest flutter from sheer appreciation. Clark did, standing there, white t-shirt, worn jeans, slope of neck, curve of biceps, strain of cotton across broad young shoulders.

He walked up next to him and Clark made no motion of acknowledgement. Simply stood, face turned to the sun, thick black lashes still on his cheeks. The only movement at all was the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Lex swallowed, aware peripherally of Jonathan and Martha on the porch and said very quietly for Clark and Clark alone. "I thought you were dead. I thought - -"

He broke off, all the things he'd thought, all the nightmares, all those Clark-dreams he'd tried to use as escapes damming up inside him. He pressed his forehead to Clark's shoulder and shuddered.

"You heard me when I called you. You need to hear me now."

The earth was liquid under his feet, the only solid ground Clark's shoulder, hard and unyielding. Like Clark's silence.

Clark was broken. Because of him. And maybe later he'd have it in him to attack the problem of fixing him head on - -if fixing were possible - - bits of brain and skull flashed across his mind's eye, relentless reminder of the scope of the damage - - but not now. He could barely think about it now, when there were so many pieces of himself strewn far and wide. Clark made it worse. Clark made him want to sink down and cry and he couldn't afford the weakness.

"Sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Martha will drive you to the mansion," Jonathan Kent laid a hand on his shoulder and Lex started, flinching back, heart thudding with fight or flight tempo until his vision broadened enough that he could recognize the man for who he was.

Jonathan looked a little surprised at his reaction, opened his mouth, shut it, muscle in his jaw ticking. Lex imagined he wanted him gone, imagined they were reluctant to leave Clark alone in his present state. Thank God they'd elected for Martha to take him, because he wasn't sure he could have dealt being trapped in the cab of a pickup truck with Jonathan. He suspected Jonathan had similar thoughts about him. God knew what else was going through the man's mind, with the way he not so subtly interposed himself between Lex and his motionless son.

Martha was coming down the porch steps, keys in hand, asking if he were ready.

He wasn't, but after a last look at Clark, he headed towards the truck anyway. Sun heated vinyl was uncomfortably hot through the thin material of his borrowed drawstring pants. There were a few cracks in the dash from age and heat. A gun rack with a shotgun on the rear window. The truck started up without a hitch though, when Martha turned the ignition. He didn't look in the rearview at Clark as she pulled down the drive.

"Tell me what's been happening? Who's been looking for me?"

"Everyone," Martha said. "State and local authorities. The FBI. Your father has his own private investigators searching as well, I believe."

So Lionel had pulled out all the stops. Gratifying, notion, if it hadn't been too little, too late. Lex tightened his fingers on the arm rest.

"We told them Clark was in shock. That he wasn't talking because of the trauma. They've been pressuring us to have him hospitalized. Hoping they could break through and get information out of him. They've set Child protective services on us and are trying to get a court order to have him removed for his own protection."

"God," He shut his eyes, a brief wash of vertigo assaulting him. He took a deep breath and chased it off. The last thing any of them needed was Clark in the hands of well-meaning medical professionals.
"Have you contacted a lawyer?"

"No," she said, soft ashamed voice. "We should have, but Jonathan doesn't hold much faith in - - he's been balking. Hoping Clark will snap out of it and it'll be a mute point."

"Your husband's a fool." Lex said bluntly. "I'll have my people take care of it."

"Lex - -"

He lifted a hand, waving off either refusal or thanks.

She drove for a while longer, hands tight on the wheel, then. "I know - - I know you've been through something horrible. If you need to talk - - I'm a good listener, Lex."

He almost laughed. Pinched the bridge of his nose instead, because the thought of having a heart to heart with Clark's mom about the last three weeks of torture and rape, was hysterically, morbidly hilarious.

"You need to talk with someone," she said softly, picking up maybe that he'd sooner slit his wrists than admit those things to her. "And the sooner the better. The longer you bottle these things up, the longer it'll take to heal."

He did laugh then. "An how many semesters of psychology did it take you to reach that conclusion?"

She gave him a look from the corner of her eye. A purse of naturally dark lips. "Four. But twenty- three years of marriage, and raising a child that finds trouble like he's magnetic north has given me a little insight. Nobody is ever so strong that they don't need a little help now and then. If you want to be able to help Clark, you have to help yourself first."

He swallowed at that shrewd observation, stared out at the summer corn flashing by the passenger side window. Leaned his head against the glass and thought as shrinks went, Martha Kent might be better qualified than any of cold-eyed bastards he'd ever been forced into seeing. There'd been a few after the meteor shower, when he'd been deep in his shame-coated shell, that his father had forced on him. None of them had been so much concerned for him, as they had been for kissing ass to Lionel Luthor.

"I won't hurt him," he said softly, breath fogging the glass. "I swear I'll never hurt him."

She sighed, reached out a hand and very gently brushed his forearm. He almost didn't flinch from the touch. "I know, Lex. I know you won't."

The walls along the perimeter of the estate flashed by. She pulled in to the gates, and he drew breath, gathering reserves.

The gates were open and the gate guard absent from the little ivy-covered gatehouse.

"Maybe he was called up the house," Martha suggested. It was possible. There was probably a great deal of traffic to and from the mansion related to the search efforts. But Lex felt a shiver of unease, regardless.

There were a few cars out front when they drove up. One he recognized as his father's assistant's, another domestic sedan with state plates. The tension eased. His nerves were so shot that a stray breeze could make him sweat at this point.

"This is as far as you need to go, Mrs. Kent. If anyone sees you, I'll come up with a story."

"Are you sure - -?" She was concerned. For him. He didn't know quite what to do with it.

Best course of action was to turn his back on her and walk up to the front door. He rather dreaded ringing the bell, but it beat walking around back in the hopes that one of the side doors or the kitchen were unlocked. His hand froze halfway there. The heavy cherry doors were open. One of them gaping about four inches, cool air leaking out from the opening. That shiver of unease came back with a ham handed vengeance.

He turned and she was still there, sitting in the idling truck, waiting for him to get inside. Like an adult waiting to make sure a child in her charge got safely home.

"Is everything okay?" she leaned out her window and asked.

"May I have the gun?"

Her eyes widened. "Lex - -? What - -?"

"Please."

He felt stricken. Pale. He clenched his fists to keep them from shaking. After a breath she cut the ignition and twisted to remove the shotgun from the rack. She opened the door, climbing out with it in her hands.

"Lex what is it?"

"I don't know. The door's open." He took the gun from her, wanting it in his hands. God knew she was probably a better shot with it, his experience with guns beginning and ending with handguns, but he needed it so bad he could taste the acrid flavor of metal on his tongue.

"Get in the truck and leave. Call the sheriff and get him out here."

"No." She shook her head, stubborn.

"It may be nothing. It may just be paranoia at work."

He didn't believe it. The bile at the back of his throat was testament enough of that.

"Then I'm coming in. I didn't feel right dropping you at the curb and running anyway."

God. Stubborn, stubborn woman.

He didn't have the patience to argue with her.

He used the muzzle of the shotgun to push the door open. The entrance way stared back at him, same as it always looked. Persian floor runners, elegant arrangements on 18th century hall tables, gothic mirror, utterly pretentious grandfather clock that had come straight from the halls of some French royal estate.

Silence. But the mansion was always silence. Heavy stone only occasionally groaning under its own weight. The runner felt thick and soft under his feet. It occurred to him that he'd never walked it barefoot before. He walked down it, onto hardwood floors, towards his office.

It was empty. The desk his father had brought it had papers and folders, here and there. The computer was open. The stock tickers rolling relentlessly.

"I'm going to see if Mrs. Chaddick is in the kitchen. She's usually here this time of day, isn't she?" Martha said, heading that way before Lex could stop her.

He went to the wall safe in the bookshelf. Slid aside the camouflaging book spines and keyed in the combination. In amongst his personal documents and papers, lay a gun. A 9mm Gloc, with the clip by its side.

He pulled out the gun, balanced the shotgun in the crook of his arm and slammed the clip into place. He felt marginally better. The feeling didn't last long. When he picked up the phone on his father's desk, there was no dial tone.

He swore softly under his breath. He had an extra cell in his temporary office on the second floor. He headed towards the servant's entrance, not prepared to leave Martha down here alone.

"Mrs. Kent?"

"Lex," her voice drifted up the hall. It sounded strained. He flipped the safety off the Gloc tracked her down. She was standing in the hall not quite to the kitchen, staring down at a streak of red on the floor.

She looked up at him, stricken. "There's no one in the kitchen - - is this blood?"

Of course it was blood. What else could it be.

"We're leaving. Now!" His vision was tunneling, his heart beating frantically at his ribcage. He needed out of the house, because Decker was here. He should have listened to that first bad feeling at the gate and turned tail and fucking run.

He half ran down the hall, lost his stride at a spatter of red on the hall wall. At the perforations in the plaster in the midst of it that could only be bullet holes. There were dark, dried smears on the floor leading to a broom closet directly opposite.

"Oh my God," she cried, seeing what he saw. He backed up a step, and she took one forward. Before he could yell for her to stop, she had the door open, and he was pointing the Gloc at a glassy eyed corpse on the floor. A tangle of limbs stuffed into a too small space. A man in a cheap suit that he'd never seen before.

"Lex, your father. Where's your father?" She was flushed, and terrified but she was thinking more coherently than he was. He could barely hear her over the rushing flood of blood in his ears. All he could focus on was getting out and what would happen if he didn't.

"Mr. Luthor," she cried. "Lionel, are you here?"

If his father were here, Lex doubted he was capable of responding. Not if Decker had been here. Decker had a score to settle, a betrayal to avenge and Lex had been asleep sixteen hours. Sixteen hours for the man to wreck his havoc and make his plans. God. He needed out of this house and its constricting stone walls.

"Martha, we have to go. We can call the authorities from the farm." He wasn't even sure it was safe there. But Clark was there, and another man with a gun and it was the only place he could picture at the moment that he wanted to be. He gave her a push with the hand holding the shotgun. She started moving, then hesitated, as Lex did, when a weak voice called.

"Help. Is someone there? Help."

His father's voice. Coming it sounded like, from the study, which had damn well been empty not more than a few minutes before.

She started that way, foolish woman who didn't know - -who couldn't comprehend the sorts of monsters that could live in a man's head - - the sorts of things those monsters could drive him to do.

Lex knew. All too well.

She got there first. Got through the stained glass doors before he heard her aborted cry, and the thud of what might have been a body.

He skidded to a stop, clutched his pair of guns and pressed his shoulder against the wall, when the ground wanted to fall out from under him.

"Martha?"

"Its cowardly, to send a woman in ahead of you, Lex," a voice rasped at him from inside the study. Decker's voice. "A punishable offense."

Lex rolled his head back, clenching his teeth to hold back the sob that wanted escape.

"Lex? Lex, are you here?" His father's voice, trembly and weak.

He swallowed, gathered his voice and answered, his voice not much more stable than his fathers. "I'm here."

"Come on in, Lex. Make it a family reunion," Decker's voice suggested. "Don't make me have to ask twice. They'll regret it before you do."

He slid the Gloc behind his back, into the waistband of his borrowed pants, adjusted his hold on the shotgun, and pushed himself off the wall.


Walking down that hall to the study door was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. His balls felt like they wanted to curl up into his body, his stomach wanted to toss up everything she'd fed him.

He stopped in the doorway and took in the room. Martha was on the floor, a darkening bruise on the side of her face, a trickle of blood where whatever Decker had hit her with had broken skin. Probably the gun he had to the back of Lionel's head.

His father was in bad shape, heavy bruising about the face, blood matted in his hair and beard. Quite a bit of it staining his white shirt. His glasses were and his eyes were roving sightlessly. Decker didn't look much better. There was a huge hemotoma like bruise from temple to jaw line. His nose was swollen out of shape, badly broken, and one arm had been haphazardly tied to his chest with strips of dirty cloth. The way the man was breathing, harsh and rasping suggested broken ribs. When Clark had thrown him into the wall, there had been no semblance of restraint.

The look in his eyes though, was pure mad determination. The sort of single-minded focus that made Lex wonder if he felt the pain at all.

"Look at you with the gun," Decker grinned at him, well shielded by Lionel's body. "Make you feel safe, boy?"

Lex stared at him, not feeling safe at all, even with Decker battered to hell, and a hidden gun at his back.

"We waited for you to come home, Lex," Decker said. "Waited all night, and you didn't show. Had a good long time to tell your daddy here, all about our time together. Told him how obedient you could be given the right motivation. Told him what a good cocksucker you are. What a tight hole you got. Told him how I can ream you till you bleed and in a day or two, you're back to being snug as a ten year old boy."

"Fuck you," Lex said softly, fingers cramping up on the shotgun he was holding it so tightly.

"That all you got to say?" Decker changed the angle of his gun, pressing the muzzle into the hollow of Lionel's cheek. "Don't you want to say anything to your daddy, after going so long without seeing him?"

"Sure. Thanks for hiring the psychopath, dad."

There was a certain numb calm creeping over him. The details were excruciatingly clear. Martha was moaning softly, lashes quivering. There was blood running down the side of Lionel's jaw, mingling with the beard, trickling down his neck to soak the collar of his shirt. The door to the bookshelf safe was still open. He wondered if Decker had noticed it.

Decker's mouth thinned. "Put the gun down, Lex."

He canted his head. "I don't think so."

"Put the gun down or a I put a bullet in his head."

Lex had heard that one before. Seen the results of compliance. There would be blood either way. Lionel's or his.

"You're assuming you've got as much leverage against me with him, as you did with Clark."

"Lex, Lex," Lionel held out a hand in Lex's general direction. "Be reasonable, son. This isn't a man to toy with."

"You think?"

"Lex," Decker said softly. "Every second you make me wait, I will make you scream for. Put the gun down now!"

The last was delivered in that drill sergeants voice Decker liked to use when he was feeling particularly dominant. It made Lex flinch. Made his muscles clench up and his breath stall. The parts of him that this man had damaged made his fingers itch to obey the command; ingrained survival instinct to avoid pain. There would be humiliation and shame and violation that he wouldn't be able to stop.

But then, those things would come regardless of defiance or submission. Decker couldn't help himself.

"Fuck you," he said it again, softly.

"I guess he don't care after all, huh old man?" Decker purred.

And Lionel was saying, "Don't be hasty. We can talk about this. Whatever you want - - I can arrange."

"Whatever I want, huh?"

Decker stared straight at Lex over Lionel's shoulder. "See? He's willing to sell you out again to save his own ass. Guess I'm doing you a favor, huh, Lex?"

"Don't - -" Lex got that first word out, before the dry pop of the gun was ringing in his ears. The bullet shattered something in a cabinet across the room on its exit trajectory. And Lionel was crumpling, eyes wide and shocked and infinitely blinder than they had been a second before.

He hit the floor face first, blood leaking out onto wood tiles and Lex stared a moment too long, caught in the grip of a profound sort of disbelief. Shock.

"One more chance, Lex. I don't like killing women." Decker had the gun pointed at Martha Kent's head. She was trying to push herself up, dazed eyes fixed on Lionel. Whispering things Lex couldn't hear. Prayers maybe.

If there was a God, he'd never answered any prayer of Lex's.

"You will, anyway," he said softly. It felt as if there were cotton in his head, muffling everything. Maybe it even helped, blocking out the things that wanted to rip him apart.

Decker put the muzzle of the gun against Martha's head. "Last chance. Put the gun down."

Lex took a breath. Took his hand off the trigger and held the shotgun out away from him. Leaned it against the table inside the door. Spread his hands after, to emphasize his compliance.

Decker wet his lips, eyes fixed.

"Kill her and you might has well kill me now, too," he said softly, before Decker's demons could make him squeeze the trigger. "I'll fight you every step of the way, goad you until you snap and kill me anyway, and you know you will, and then you won't have anything. Let her live and whatever you want from me, I give. Total submission."

He saw the temptation. Saw the desire creep like some malignant disease into Decker's mad eyes. It made him sick, knowing he was the focus of it.

The gun swung away from Martha Kent. Lowered at Decker's side.

"Come here, Lex."

He moved, meeting Decker's eyes and not flinching, easing a hand behind his back and curling his fingers around the Gloc. No doubt Decker was a faster shot than him. A better one. And if he went down - - that wouldn't be so bad a thing in comparison to what he'd have to look forward to if he failed. The one thing he had going for him was the absolute certainty that when Decker killed him, he'd want to do it hands on. Not with a bullet from across the room.

He pulled the gun, and Decker saw it. Lex saw the moment, Decker realized what he had, saw that flash of indecision that he'd been counting on, and he pulled the trigger.

He heard the sound of a second pop, felt a dull impact in his arm, on the heels of the one his gun had made, but it didn't stop him from squeezing the trigger again. The impact of the second bullet threw Decker's bad shoulder back. The third one tore through his shirt, red blossoming in its wake. He crumpled backwards, feet from Lionel, and Lex kept walking, treading through the pool of his father's blood, squeezing the trigger, putting another bullet in. And another. Decker stopped jerking by the fourth or fifth - -just lay there, as the bullets tore in. And Lex kept squeezing the trigger, until all it did was click impotently against an empty clip.

There were hands on his wrist, trying to get him to stop, and soft, desperate words blurring in his ears, hardly heard through the echoes of gunfire in his head.

"Lex, he's dead. He's dead." Martha Kent, trying to pry the gun out of his hand. His finger was still spasming on the trigger. He stared down at the gun in his hand quizzically. Forced himself with an effort to loosen his grip and she extracted it from his hand, tossed it away like it was poisonous.

"Lex, you're bleeding."

He stared down at the blood on his feet. His father's blood. But she was holding his arm, and he stared numbly at a bloody score in his bicep. The sting was distant and odd.

He took a step backwards, out of the puddle of cooling blood, his hands starting to quake, teetering on the edge of an abyss. His knees gave out, and he went down, staring at the bodies, breath starting to come harsh and fast. His father's dead eyes, staring at him. His father's blood mingling with a madman's. Lex's running warm and steady down his arm.

"It's okay. It'll all be okay, now." Martha was on her knees next to him, none of those pesky strict personal boundary issues his family had always practiced. She had her arms around him and was crooning in the sort of voice you'd expect to hear used to comfort a panicked child. And Decker was lying there, and it was only his imagination that the chest rose and fell - - only his imagination that dredged up images from the last month so vivid they made him flinch and keep flinching.

"You're okay," she crooned. "You're okay. It's all over now."

He buried his face in her shoulder and shook.

To be continued . . .

obsessions Chapter 14-A

This chapter is a little long, so I've split it into two sections.

On to part 14.



Chapter fourteen

Dull pain. Decker slamming into him, dragging him down, fingers digging into hipbones, nails scoring skin in his frenzy. Like he was trying to ram his cock up into Lex's throat, or through the thin barrier of intestine and organs and right through his stomach. Blood trickled, wet warm rivulets down Lex's wrists, skin torn as he dangled, all his weight on his wrists, legs gone useless and numb under him, genitals numb - - thankfully numb- - after Decker had been at them repeatedly with the cattle prod.

"Mine," Decker hissed in his ear. "You belong to me. You call my name - - or I rip out your tongue and you don't say anything at all."

A hand clawed its way to his balls, grasped hold, twisting, ripping and it pierced the numb with excruciating clarity. Lex threw back his head, strangled sounds torn out of him that only sounded half human.

"Or I tear out these. These are no use to me. Your tongue, I enjoy."

No. No. No. He was panting, everything black around the edges, pain red at the center.

"Yeah," Decker said, that tone he had when he was holding conversations with himself. Hard, rough thrust, nails breaking the skin of his scrotum. "Heat up a welding rod, stick it in, burn 'em up from the inside." He laughed, mad wet sound against Lex's ear. "Make you eat 'em after. I promised you that, didn't I?"

God. God. Better he stuck it through his temple, a field lobotomy would benefit him more in the long run, if he wouldn't end it outright.

Something shook the rafters, dust falling from ancient beams. Not Lex's weak struggles, surely. Decker froze, like an animal alerted to sudden danger that Lex had no sense of whatsoever through the overwhelming haze of pain and exhaustion and fear.

The hand moved from his balls, to his mouth, smothering the harsh rasp of his breath.

"Quiet," Decker, hissed, soft against his ear, but the word was barely out when metal screeched and the door at the top of the stairs exploded inward, propelled by such massive impact that it took out part of the ceiling and tore a swath through the wooden stairs, before tumbling end over end to lodge into the cement wall opposite.

Decker swore, jerking out, starting to sprint towards those metal cabinets and all their hidden terrors. Got two steps before something blurred in Lex's swimming vision, like the after image from slow shutter speed photography, and Decker was flying. Smashing into a wall with the sickening crack of bone, sliding down, twisted and limp, beyond Lex's line of vision. A line of vision abruptly filled with broad chest and an impassive stare. Clark's stare. Clark's perfect face, whole and devoid of the gaping holes that plagued Lex's nightmares. A hallucination surely, his mind finally separating with reality. It had been bound to happen, sooner or later.

He hung from the chains, body swaying minutely, feet finding no traction on the floor. Not even trying. It was a trick. A cruel trick of the mind.

"You can't be - - real." The stare made it more surreal. Blank green eyes looking right through him. Expressionless - - void of everything that a Clark dream should have had.

Clark reached up, not a stretch for him, fingers of one hand simply twisting a link of chain above Lex's hands and all his support disappeared. His knees buckled. The only thing that kept him from hitting the floor was Clark's arm around his waist. The solid feel of Clark's body when he got pulled in. The smell of him.

Go with it. Just go with it, he told himself. If it's a hallucination, it's a good one. He'd stay in it forever if he could.

The theory was reinforced as equilibrium upended and senses blurred, everything melting, sight, sound, breath interrupted.

Then the delusion turned bizarre, and plebian. Rooster print wallpaper, ceramic pigs on the wall, the flash of refrigerator, stove, sink as he was swung about, voices raised in alarm, the thud of feet. A weird angle view of what had to be Jonathan Kent, saying Clark's name, words bleeding as Lex grayed.

Came back with Martha Kent's voice in his ear, aware of her presence, of her hands on Clark's arm, knuckles brushing Lex's skin, talking, soothing firm voice.

"Clark. Clark, you need to put him down. We can't help him unless you put him down. Lex, can you hear me?"

Lex blinked at her, trying to fit her into the hallucination theory. Trying to fit her husband, who hovered behind her, mouth tight, lines of anger/tension/worry lining his forehead. The blurred lines sharpened, disorientation shifting into the tentative suspicion that this was real, that his senses weren't collaborating to deceive him. That he was actually in the Kent farmhouse, that he was clutched tight in Clark's arms - - a live Clark - - a warm Clark - - with Clark's parents worriedly trying to get him to move out of the doorway between kitchen and living room. Naked. Bleeding. Cuffed. Collared. The world started reeling again, his breath clogging up in his lungs, his stomach clenching in a sudden, different sort of panic.

"Clark," Martha was urging, tugging on Clark's arm and finally Clark relented, letting her lead him to the couch, and releasing his hold on Lex. Not particularly gracefully. Just a loosening of his arms and Lex tumbled couchward, naked - - naked - - collared - - with Martha Kent crowding in past Clark, and barking at her husband to get a blanket.

Jonathan loomed over the back of the couch, the last person Lex wanted to be caught naked in front of - - no, not the last person, there were worse people - - but the one who'd mortified him the most the last time he'd caught him. With Clark. With Clark, who was alive. Whole.

"How? Clark - - how?" His voice was raw. He wasn't even sure he'd actually asked it.

She tucked the throw Jonathan had brought around him, not answering and he tried to lift hands to help. The cuffs were still clipped together, thick, hateful leather, damp around the edges with blood. There was horror on her face as she took that in. Lex felt it growing in him. Shame. Humiliation. Helplessness.

"Get them off. Get them - -" He wrenched at them, feeling the sting in the abrasions under the leather. Not caring.

"Lex - -Lex, we will." She was on her knees, Clark standing behind her statue still, not even looking down at him, just staring with blind focus out the window across the room. Her hand on his face was soft, the softest thing he'd felt in forever. Jonathan reached over, catching Lex's forearm, drawing his hands up, big fingers trying to work the cuffs loose before he discovered the padlocks. He flinched, everything contracting at the touch of the man's hands - - thoughts closing in on themselves, blind panic.

"I'll get the bolt cutters." Jonathan turned on his heel, practically running for the back door. And when his hands were gone, Lex could breathe again. Martha's weren't so bad.

"Lex are you hurt? Are you hurt?" Martha was asking him and it was hilarious. So utterly ridiculous a question that he laughed. But it sounded like a sob.

He hurt everywhere. He didn't think he'd ever not hurt again. He couldn't gather his thoughts into anything resembling cohesion.

"No. No," his lips formed the words. Automatic. Hide the weakness, even if it marked his body like a roadmap.

"Clark healed?" He stared past her at Clark. She followed his gaze, then looked back down at him, green eyes soft and concerned.

"Clark healed. Clark will be okay."

But not yet. Not okay yet. His fault.

"I'm so sorry." He felt more pieces of him break off, staring at Clark's blank stare.

"Lex." She caught his face between her hands. "It's not your fault. You didn't do this."

He didn't believe her. He heard the thudding of a man's boots. Decker flashed through his mind. Decker having tracked him down. Decker who'd destroy whatever safety he might find to cling to. Decker who didn't make threats he didn't carry out.

The world grayed out and he missed the removal of the cuffs on his wrists. Came back to Jonathan Kent kneeling, using a set of bolt cutters to snap off the padlock on one of the ankle cuffs. Martha was gingerly holding up his arm, looking appalled at the rings of raw, red skin around his wrists.

"Martha, get on the phone to the sheriff," Jonathan was saying. "Make sure they send an ambulance."

"No!" Lex reached for her, grasping her sleeve as she made to rise, stark panic/shame/fear surging up his throat. "God - -please - -no!"

He couldn't face them, yet. The questions, the inevitable press, the impersonal examination as they recorded evidence of the crime. His father. His fucking, conniving, betraying bastard of a father. He wasn't ready to deal with him either.

"Please, just give me a little time to get my head straight - - to come up with a story that doesn't involve Clark. Doesn't involve you."

Even with head spinning and thoughts a chaotic mess of confusion, he could come up with a trigger for these people. Clark. It was all about Clark and hiding Clark's secrets.

They stared at each other, torn. Doubting his sanity and maybe perfectly within their rights to do so. He doubted it himself.

Jonathan Kent rose, put a hand on his shoulder and Lex flinched, jerking away from the contact.

"It's alright. It's alright, Lex," Martha promised, gently laying hands on him, drawing him forward, to let her husband get at the padlock on the collar. Her hair smelled of cheap shampoo and fresh baked bread. Comforting. Quintessential mother smell. He couldn't recall the scent of his own.

He thought he stank of blood and sweat and semen. Decker's acrid semen. Decker's sweat upon his skin. It clashed with her scent and he cringed, bone deep, until the snip of the bolt cutters broke the lock, and Jonathan unbuckled the collar.

It might have been made of lead for the weight that lifted when it slipped away. His head floated with it, dizzy relief.

"You need medical attention, Lex." Martha had her hand on the back of his neck where the collar had been. Calm voice laced with a strength he felt distinctly lacking. Gentle fingers, soft touch. He envied Clark her.

"An hour. Just give me an hour to rest - -"

He pressed his forehead to her shoulder, dizziness spreading, the whole of the world starting to dip and sway as if they were all adrift. For just a little while, he might sleep here unmolested. For all he knew, Decker was dead, killed by Clark's toss across the room. And if he wasn't, the bastard wasn't omnipotent, it would take time to track Lex down. Even with Jonathan Kent looming over, frowning, not wanting him here surely, after the trouble he'd brought them - - this was a safe haven.

Clark was here.


Martha looked up at him, stricken, Lex just gone limp against her. His neck where the collar had been had faint traces of abrasion. Not as bad as his wrists. Jonathan lifted the collar, stiff, thick leather with a plate on the front with a hand etched 'Lex'. Like he was a damned dog. What kind of sick bastard would treat a man so?

He tossed the thing down, not liking the feel of it in his hands, not liking the things those cuffs and that collar he'd cut off of Lex suggested. Hard to deny though, with Clark showing up no more than a few minutes after he'd taken off, with a naked man in his arms. A damned battered, bruised, hollow-eyed naked man.

Three weeks. Near three weeks since Clark had been shot and Lex had gone missing. Three weeks for whoever had taken him to practice perversions Jonathan didn't even want to think about. A Goddamned dog collar on a man. And manacles on his wrists long enough that there was a hard ridge of healing scar tissue under newly abraded skin. And he'd caught glimpses of other things too. Other marks on too pale skin.

Lex Luthor was damned near the top of his list of people he'd rather never set foot on his property again, but he'd never wished this on him.

"We should get him upstairs," Martha said, thinking ahead. If Chloe came by, or God forbid the social services man, or Ethan or the damned feds, the last thing they needed to explain was Lex Luthor unconscious on their couch and the reasons they hadn't seen fit to alert the authorities. And Lex had been right on that account, they didn't need people asking how he'd gotten here until they had a story they could all stick by.

He'd never thought the day would come that he'd be collaborating with Lex on how to cover up Clark's secret.

Maneuvering Clark upstairs when he was dead weight had been a whole world of difficult. It had taken him and Martha both to wrestle a hundred and ninety pounds of six foot four teenager up the stairs and into his room. Clark had twenty-five pounds on Lex on a good day and today wasn't a good day. Hardest part was getting Clark to move so he could get to Lex to get him up.

Martha pulled and scolded with her best stern mom voice, and finally got Clark to step back enough that Jonathan could get in. Lex groaned when he got him up, flinched, and came half awake.

"It's all right, Lex. It's all right," Martha promised, coming up and getting under his other arm.

"I've got him, Martha," Jonathan insisted, embarrassed on behalf of himself and Lex as the throw they'd wrapped around him slipped. It just wasn't right for a man's wife to be dealing with a naked man that wasn't damned close immediate family. Lex didn't seem to be in much state to care.

"Nonsense. You'll throw your back again. Put him in Clark's room."

He clenched his jaw and managed the stairs, tricky with the three of them and Lex not helping much to support his own weight. Into Clark's room, which honestly hadn't seen much in the way of sleep from Clark since he'd woken up, but still, any incarnation of Lex in Clark's bed sat wrong with Jonathan.

She pulled back the quilt and the sheets and he eased Lex down, tried to snatch the covers and shield her view, but she gave him a look tinged with annoyance and ordered. "Go get the first aid kit and stop acting like I've never seen a man's body before. Twenty-three years of marriage and I think I know the essentials."

He gave her a look, mortally offended. She shooed him out. He stomped downstairs, after that med kit under the sink, when he got back with it, she'd pulled the sheet up on her own, and had basin from the bathroom and a rag, and was blotting the dried blood from around Lex's wrists.

Lex was out again. Not much more color than the white pillowcase and sheets he rested upon if you didn't count the multi hued bruises. A lot of them in varying states of fading or blossoming on the exposed skin of his upper body. Looked like maybe a belt had been used by the width of some of the marks. Other marks too, that he didn't want to dwell on.

He'd never thought of Lex as particularly young before, and that was Lex's doing more than anything, the way he dressed and the way he tried to assert himself, tried to play the big man to all the country hicks he found himself among - - but he looked damn near young as Clark now. Fragile and thin, with purple ringing his eyes and skin so translucent that you could practically see the delicate web work of veins under it. Vulnerable, Jonathan thought, as he stood over Martha's shoulder and watched her wrap a wrist with clean white bandages. Just damned vulnerable and that wasn't an image he'd held with Lex before.

"We should call Lionel," Martha said softly. "He deserves to know Lex is all right."

Jonathan tightened his mouth, not so sure Lionel Luthor deserved anything of them. God knew what he did or didn't deserve from his son.

"You think he'll respect Lex's wishes and not have the authorities over here first thing?"

"Are you thinking of Lex's wishes or of Clark's secret?" She laid Lex's hand across his chest, beside the other she'd already wrapped.

He shrugged, knowing she knew damn well where his priorities lay.

"It's getting late - - Let's just ride this out till he wakes up and we can figure out what to do. We don't even know where it was Clark found him, or where the bastard is that had him."

"You don't think he'll come here after him - -?" Martha drew breath, sudden fear in her eyes.

Jonathan felt it himself. He swallowed. "I don't know. We don't know if the son of a bitch is still alive. We don't know what Clark - - might have done."

He didn't want to think of his son capable of killing a man, but Clark wasn't hitting on all cylinders right now. Whatever Clark had done to get Lex away from the man who'd done those things to him that Jonathan didn't want to dwell on, had been done with sheer animal instinct. And with Clark's strength - - well, Clark couldn't be faulted to taking out a predator like the one they were dealing with.

But still, he planned to keep the shotgun loaded and by his side until they figured it out, one way or another.


* * *
to be continued . . .

obsessions Chapter 13

Okay, one more chapter with hard core non-con/violence warnings. If you can struggle though this one, things start to head back uphill from there on out.



On to chapter 13



Decker slapped him awake, grinning down with his mad eyes and his feral smile.

"Got the current all hooked up and she packs a nice little zap. I think you'll like it." Insane. Absolutely stark raving mad.

Lex blinked up, mouth so dry his tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth. There was the feel of something large inside him, that he didn't remember Decker inserting.

"Please - - water." His voice was a raw whisper.

Decker's grin widened. "Sure. Got to keep your strength up for today. Got a lot of kinks to work out on the new toy."

He disappeared, came back with a plastic bottle of water, lifted up Lex's head and slipped the mouth of the bottle between his lips. Tilted it up and let him drink. He had to swallow fast or loose a great deal of the room temperature water flooding his mouth. Decker opened a second bottle, one of the protein shakes, and let him swallow that down as well.

Decker uncuffed him from the bed, recuffed him and led him to the shower. Morning ritual. Lex was getting used to the enemas. Used to the scrubbing. The pain in his penis was muted and when he looked down there were the faintest marks of mostly healed pricks in a uniform band around the base.

The thing in his ass got pulled out. He didn't even see what it was, just felt the burn as it stretched him exiting. He'd felt worse. It made him nervous that nothing replaced it, not even Decker. The man usually got his first rape of the morning in during the shower.

Decker gripped him by the cuffs and pulled him across the room to the waist high contraption that he'd built. There were a couple of car batteries sitting on a little table up by the head of the rack, with jumper cables attached to one metal leg. All it would take to send current through the entirety of the thing would be touching the positive feed to the battery stump.

God. His legs stopped working and Decker looked back with a frown, latching hold of his upper arm and jerking him forward by main force alone.

"Please. Please - - whatever you want - - I'm not fighting you - -just - - no."

"No's not in your new vocabulary, Lex. I thought I made that clear."

It was crudely constructed, Decker's rack. Thick metal pipes wielded together to form dubious support. One near the top, one that would hit him about mid back, and then nothing until the side bars swung out to form the Y-shaped leg sections. There were leather straps there made for securing his legs. Chains with clips resting across the bar near where his shoulders would rest, that draped out across the floor maybe eight feet, looped through an eye bolt secured to the concrete floor and trailed back to a winch with a handle under the rack. It wasn't exactly to medieval specification, but it hit on points here and there that would have made an inquisitor proud.

He fought it, cold stark panic lending an overtaxed body new strength.

"Wait! Wait - - you don't have to do this - -" It was useless babble, because there was no rhyme or reason to any of Decker's actions.

Decker wrapped his arms around him and hauled him bodily up, slammed him down onto it hard enough that the bar around mid-back drove the breath out of him. Decker grabbed an ankle, fastened the cuff to the waiting clip at the end of the Y-section and Lex was fucked. No way to twist free as Decker caught his other leg, forced it into place and secured the ankle cuff.

Lex hissed then, half way to hyperventilating, the damned bar biting into his back, another one at his shoulders, and nothing supporting his lower back but the bars his legs were resting on.

Decker grabbed one of the chains and attached it the outside ring of his right wrist cuff, then unfastened his wrists and clipped the other chain to the left one. He crouched down, and turned the winch and the slack in the chain drew tight. Another couple of turns and Lex felt the strain in his shoulders, felt his body draw taut. The bar across his back was sheer agony, forcing his ribcage up and out.

Satisfied with the tension on the chains, Decker rose plucked a gag from the table with the batteries, a round metal O that he wedged behind Lex's teeth. It prevented him from closing his mouth, keeping it uncomfortably wide and vulnerable. Decker dropped his head after buckling it on, and with no support past his shoulders it left him facing Decker's crotch upside down at mouth level. Decker moved to his legs then, cinching leather straps around his upper thighs and below his knees to keep his legs securely fastened to the Y-sections.

He sprang a latch that Lex heard but couldn't see and the leg supports swung loose, spreading his legs wide. Leaving him utterly vulnerable at both ends. He shut his eyes, feeling the blood rush to his head, every muscle in his body tensile taut.

"No - - no - -" It was hard to form legible words with the O-ring gag forcing his mouth open. He swung his head, staring at the batteries in dread. "What you want - -whatever you want - - I'll do it. Just don't - -" he was begging and he didn't care. He had no stance from which to negotiate. Nothing Decker wanted that he couldn't take by force.

He didn't know what he'd done, who he'd fucked over so badly in his life to warrant this epic bitch slap karma was giving him. Unless he was getting bleed off from his father's bad deeds, which was probable, the real world reveling in the concept of original sin. Ironic really, since he'd been trying to do the right things since he'd been here. Really trying to straighten out his life, to make a difference in this shit hole of a town, even if the impetus to do so had been born from the desire to impress a boy. To ingratiate himself to a fucking fifteen year old with the most beautiful face he'd ever seen on a walking breathing human being.

Clark. Tears were making little streaks down his temples, and he didn't know when he'd started shedding them. Decker ran his hands up his body, fingers splayed wide over the taut skin of his belly. His nails grazed the jut of his ribcage. He leaned down, stuck his tongue in his navel. Thrust it a few times, a parody of fucking. Might as well, he'd violated every other hole in his body.

He came back around to Lex's head, crouched down and caught his face between his hands, covered his open mouth with his and leisurely explored the cavity with his tongue, reached down while he was doing it and gave the wench one more half turn.

Lex choked and spasmed, all he could do when his limbs were stretched so tight. He felt it in his hips and shoulder, spine, wrists and ankles.

"You're beautiful like this." Decker said, rising, moving down his quaking body, trailing a hand over tightly stretched skin. He ran a nail down the center of Lex's chest to his navel. Did it again, staring with glittering, mad eyes, like he was contemplating splitting him open. Circled him once more, just looking, then went to the battery table and casually touched positive feed to positive feed and the rack came alive with current.

Lex screamed, not even able to arch with the shock, the electricity stealing everything for the brief, blinding moment it coursed through his body. Garbled, wet sounds were coming from somewhere. Oh, from him, from his gaping mouth, drool running down the sides of his face mixing with the tears.

He made a feeble attempt at pleading. No. No. No, came out warped and unintelligible past his spread lips. Decker sighed, stroking himself through his pants.

"It's so good," he squeezed himself harder, knuckles white. "You make me so hard when your skin twitches." He bent down again, licked Lex's face, then pulled out his cock and slid it into his mouth. The head poked the roof his mouth, slid along to the back of his throat. The angle made an easy path for it to slip right down, and Decker's fingers stroked the bulge in his esophagus above the collar while Lex choked.

He thrust a few times, then pulled out without coming.

Lex's head dropped back, he couldn't keep it up, and blood rushed down, making him dizzy, the discomfort was swelling, the bar in his back, the strain on his muscles, his joints. The cuffs were pulled so taught against the swell of his palms that he couldn't quite clench his fists.

Decker was between his legs, hands running the length of his legs, stroking the tendons on the inside of his thighs. He fondled his balls, shifting them in their sack, but there was probably no stimulation on earth that could get him hard in this particular situation.

He tried to lift his head to see what the bastard was up to, but the angle was wrong and the strain on his shoulders and neck too much to keep it up for long.

"When you were a kid, just starting Excelsior, I never thought you'd turn out like this. But by the time you hit sixteen - - you hit your stride. Got confident. Grew into your body and started looking good. " He moved in close, cock rubbing between the cleft of Lex's ass. Just sliding up and down without any effort to penetrate. "Knew it too, didn't you? Fucked everything on two legs, just to piss off your daddy. You think he didn't know what you were up to?"

Decker chuckled, slid a hand up his stomach again, like he couldn't get enough of the feel of Lex stretched taut. He moved out, back around to the battery table and Lex whimpered, waiting for the shock.

It didn't come. He picked up a few things, the clink of metal, and walked back around between Lex's legs. Laid whatever he'd picked up on Lex's belly, then stroked Lex's flaccid cock, but there was no stirring it.

"He knew," Decker went on conversationally. I reported every nameless whore you fucked in the back of a club, or your car or any other place you went to practice your little rebellions. And yeah, you pissed him off, until he figured he might as well make a profit from your bad habits."

He lifted his head again, trying to see the man's face, trying to gauge how much truth was spilling from his lips.

Decker's fingers pinched the head of his penis, and something cold and metal pressed against the slit. He could barely twitch his hips, much less struggle. He made little choking noises as Decker slid it in, impaling his cock on what had to be a urethra sound. It burned like a bitch, an entirely new sort of stretch. And that notion he'd had earlier about every hole he had being violated - - well, it hadn't occurred to him that this one was an issue.

He dropped his head back, gasping, barely heard Decker talking again through the frantic throb of pulse. "Remember that party out at the Kalabash club your daddy made you go to with him, when you were in junior year at Excelsior? The one where the suit with the vintage Rolls chatted you up, slipped you a few drinks when the bartender wouldn't serve you, then took you out to the parking lot and fucked you in the back of that big old car? You remember that, Lex? You know what your daddy got for it? Insider information that made him a bundle. That was a million dollar fuck if ever there was one."

Lex went cold, the pain from the rod in his dick vying for dominance as he absorbed what Decker was saying. That Lionel had known what he was doing was a given. That he knew details was disturbing. That he'd decided to use it to his advantage - - that he'd arranged for a pick up - - sold him for the chance to make a stock market coup - - well, maybe it wasn't quite so shocking a notion after all. Fuck. Just - - Fuck.

Decker tightened his grip around the stalk of Lex's cock and squeezed, compressing his flesh around the intruder. He shut his eyes and panted through the pain.

"Wasn't the only time," Decker slid another something cold and hard over his penis, pushed his nuts through another metal ring and started twisting little screws to tighten them up. Mild constriction at the base of his cock, another ring about half way up, another under the head. Not a problem now, but if he did get an erection it would hurt like a bitch.

"I can count off at least two three other times he arranged for some guy to pick you up - - or let you think you'd done the picking. It wasn't like you were choosey back then, huh? 'Cept for the old man. Remember him? What was he, some big ass banker that your daddy was trying to get a loan from for those towers he was building in Chicago. Fat, wrinkly old geezer he brought home to wine and dine. What was his name? Gletchner?"

Lex vaguely recalled. He'd still been living in the penthouse then - - it had been weeks maybe before he'd talked his way into his own place. His father had brought the man home, introduced him. Insisted Lex sit down and learn a little of how casual business was conducted. There'd been brandy, which Lionel didn't mind him drinking if it was in his company. He'd only had problems with the clubbing and the consumption out on the town where a son of his might be caught illegally partaking and the bad press might fall back on him.

The old banker had been fat and disgusting, and there had been no sex or mention there of. God, no. He must have left soon after, because he honestly didn't recall much more than the initial meeting.

The rustling of Decker's pants snapped him back to the present, the press of his cock against his ass, then the slow push inside. He'd lubed himself up, and it was an easy entry. The man sighed, thrusting a few times, long and deep.

"Your daddy dosed your drink himself," Decker said. "Had that smarmy little manservant he had at the time help get you upstairs and let the fat old perv fuck you in your own room. While he sat down there and drank his brandy and conducted a little business over the phone. Ain't that something? But those towers went up in Chicago, didn't they. Got interest rates on those loans like you wouldn't believe."

Breath that was already constricted stalled in his lungs. Stuttered back with the rhythm of Decker's thrusts. Betrayal. Betrayal on a scale beyond trying to fuck over his attempts to build his own company, beyond sleeping with his lovers, beyond even making a little profit off a liaison that Lex really had thought he'd initiated himself. Drugging and selling him for special consideration on a billion dollar loan. In his own house - - where he was supposed to have been safe, but never really had been.

Tears were flowing again and he couldn't stop them. Everything shattering and slipping away, and God it hurt - - despite everything his father had ever done, every cruel word, every Machiavellian lesson - - he hadn't expected this. The pain in his body was suddenly a very welcome distraction.

"If you weren't such a filthy slut, maybe he wouldn't have done it." Something in the man's voice changed, the conversational tone edged out by a tense sort of rage. Flash flood reversal like a switch had been flipped inside his head. Lex felt a curl of dread. The thrust of his hips became harder, his fingers began biting into the flesh of Lex's thighs. "If you weren't such a dirty whore, I wouldn't have had to track down those cheap lays of yours and slit them open. Wouldn't have had to take out that boy you seemed to like so much. Your fault, Lex. All your fault. I made him scream while we were waiting for you. Want to hear all the places I stuck that knife?"

Oh, God. God. God. Please no. He didn't want to hear. Didn't want to know. Didn't want to live with the guilt that he'd done this to Clark. His fault. Decker was right on that count. His trouble that had sucked Clark in and snuffed him out.

Decker pulled out abruptly. Stalked around the rack mumbling softly to himself, fatigues spread low around his hips, cock hard and bouncing as he walked.

He crouched by Lex's head, unbuckled the gag and gripped his face tight between his hands.

"Tell me what a dirty whore you are."

Lex blinked at him, upside down. Whatever shreds of sanity the man had had in his eyes before were gone now. There was just that fanatic gleam, like he was an apostle on a mission from some twisted god. Maybe he thought he was.

"Say it, Lex!" he roared. "Tell me what you are."

"I'm a dirty whore." He was too exhausted not to. It didn't matter anyway.

"Again."

"I'm a dirty whore."

"And what happens to dirty whores?" Decker's spittle hit him in the face.

"I don't know." Bare whisper.

"They get punished. They get punished and then they burn."

Decker released his head, went for the batteries and current lanced through the rack. Lex screamed until his throat bled, and when unconsciousness wrenched him in its teeth, he preyed he wouldn't wake up.

Even unconscious the current still made Lex's body lurch. But his head was hanging limp and his mouth was slack. The only slack part of him, stretched like a strung bowstring on the rack. It was the only thing that soothed the voices clamoring in Decker's head for him to keep shooting voltage into Lex's body. That urged him to take a sharp knife and score a line down the center of that taut belly so he could see the glistening meat under the skin.

He pushed the voices aside, reminding them, dead was dead. And there was only so long he could enjoy a corpse. And Lex had value. Lex was precious to him, even if he was sullied past the point of redemption. Lex was his, in a way that no other living thing had ever been. His to make suffer and crawl and pay for his willful degradations. To pay for his father's betrayal.

Grind him under his heel and turn him into something barely human, the voices whispered. Shatter his beautiful mind and he'd be more than obedient, he'd be broken. A smooth skinned, groveling fucktoy that Decker could enjoy until the voices got their way and he snuffed out the light behind the eyes. They clamored now, urging it. Needing it, suggesting all the varied ways he could carry it out and make it linger.

Dead was dead, he reminded himself, aware on some level that the voices were getting stronger.

Decker drew in deep, calming lungfuls of air.

He needed to go out. Find some one deserving, and quench his need for blood. Get it out of his system to keep from permanently damaging Lex. Lex's boy had been cathartic. Puncturing his firm flesh and blowing out his skull had appeased the clamoring in Decker's head, but that had been almost three weeks ago, and the pressure was building again. Maybe even Lionel Luthor finally deserved that visit. Finally deserved personal payback for his betrayal. Decker had been waiting, wanting to have Lex for a good long time, let the old man suffer wondering - - but maybe he'd waited long enough. Maybe he'd let the old man know what he'd been doing to his son. Whisper a few details before he took him out.

He yanked on his still hard cock. Stepped over the chains stretching Lex's arms and shoved his dick into his slack mouth. Fucked it ruthlessly, until the grip of his throat made him come. He pulled out not wanting Lex to choke on his come when he wasn't awake to swallow and spilled on his face. Let his head drop and thought that he needed some sort of support for the neck, to hold the head up when he wasn't using the mouth, if he was going to keep him on the rack for hours on end. And he liked the rack. Liked the way Lex's body looked on it. Thought it might be his favorite new piece of equipment.


Things were starting to blur. Vision, thoughts. It took a series of slaps to make him focus and even then it was hard to get past the cloying static clogging his brain.

He swayed, all his weight on his wrists, leather biting into flesh, legs unable to hold him up. He half recalled Decker stringing him up. Had barely been aware of the rape when the man thrust into him. The world was spinning and the pain was distant today.

Decker wasn't happy with his passive reaction, slapped him a few more times, trying to get reaction. Hit him in the soft parts of his body with a closed fist, until he whimpered brokenly and swam in and out of blackness. Welcome void since sleep of late had been elusive and erratic. Filled with lurid nightmares broken only by the constant starts of terror when he thought he heard the step of the man on the stair.

He didn't remember how long Decker had been at him yesterday - - last night? - - a multiple of days?- - perfecting his rack, but Lex thought it might have broken something in him. Something integral. He'd been able to keep his head above water before, even if it had been a struggle. He was drowning now. And it was black and rancid and he couldn't find the strength to fight it any longer.

He'd been a mess when Decker finally pulled him off the rack. Something a little less than human, voice just gone from the screaming, higher mentality ripped away. Spasming uncontrollably on the floor at his tormentor's feet while the man called him names and made him repeat them until he almost believed them himself.

He'd wept. Halfway between miserable awareness and plague filled sleep, he'd wept, a legion of horrors whirling in his head. Not least among them, his father's betrayal and his own culpability in Clark's death. Clark would have been the only one who cared enough about him personally to give a shit if he never came back. God knew Lionel could find a woman and sire another heir if push came to shove. If he weren't already in the process, impatience getting the better of him. Just as well, Lex had always been a disappointment anyway. How long before he stopped looking entirely? Gave Lex up for dead and went on with his life? Had he already? How long had it been? He had no idea.

Clark wouldn't have stopped. Clark wouldn't have given up on him, no matter how much he might have deserved being given up on. Clark always came back. Always forgave him. Always made him forget the questions burning a hole in him, when he looked at him with those big eyes and that brilliant smile.

Clark was dead. Bits of bone and brain spattered across his perfect face. And there was no one coming.

"What's the matter, fun time with the rack spoil you for everything else?" Decker wanted to know. "You like the feel of electricity running through your body?"

Metal touched his skin, soft part of the belly above the hip and Lex only half saw the shape of the prod before the jolt hit him.

He spasmed, rattling the chains and sobbing Clark's name.

It pissed Decker off. His face twisted and he raged. "Stop calling that fucking freak's name."

And maybe he had a little resistance left in him after all, or maybe it was just a perverse need for punishment, but when Decker hit him again with the prod, he threw back his head and screamed Clark's name again, the one sacred thing he'd had in his life more precious than money or power. Decker could strip him of everything else, pride, humanity, make him crawl and beg, but he couldn't take that away.

Clark had taken to standing in the yard. Had wandered out one day and just stood in Martha's flowerbed, face turned up to the sun and stood. Over three weeks and he still wasn't responding to much of anything. Not speaking, not eating, not even sleeping now that he was awake - - if you could call what he was awake - - eyes as distant as a person's eyes could be.

They could get him to move with a little firm pressure on his arms, but that was about all they do with him. It was like his mind had shut down and put his body on autopilot. Catatonic, Martha called it. Jonathan fretted he'd never come out of it.

He'd sit there at night, when they'd gotten Clark inside, watching his boy stare at nothing, and just mourn. Clench his hand around his beer and curse the fate that had done this to them. Curse the man that had.

Until Martha would come and ease the empty long necked bottle out of his hand, and spur him into motion, into doing what needed doing, getting Clark upstairs, washed up and into bed, even though he never closed his eyes. Waste of time, but it made Martha feel like she was accomplishing something. Made her feel like they were making some sort of headway, even though Jonathan feared that they weren't.

Chloe kept coming by, even though they'd asked her not to. She'd heard from God knew what sources at the sheriff's station, about Clark being in shock. About them trying to talk to him and him not responding. She'd brought Lana with her the first time, and they'd thought, well, why not try and see if the presence of the girls, of Lana in particular, might be enough to spur some reaction out of Clark. It wasn't like the sheriff and the federal agent hadn't already seen him and documented his condition. And all the wounds were gone, healed like they'd never been.

So they'd brought them in, let them sit there and talk at Clark while Clark stared through them. Lana had been upset. Visibly upset and shaken. But Chloe had sat there with a frown line between her brows and kept talking. Stubborn and persistent and worried, what with Clark paying her no heed.

Lana didn't come back the next time with her. And Clark had been outside when she'd driven up, standing with his face to the sun like a statue in the back yard.

"I just want to talk to him," she'd argued when Jonathan had asked her to just give them time to deal with Clark on their own. "If I keep talking at him, he'll eventually get annoyed and tell me to stop."

She was desperately concerned about her friend and it broke Jonathan's heart. Still there was nothing normal about this state Clark was in and ingrained habit made them cling to their privacy and secrecy when it had to do with Clark.

Pete came a few times, but Clark's vacant stare spooked the boy into stuttering apologies and cutting visits short.

When child protective services came by in the shamed-faced company of Sheriff Ethan, sicced on them by either the federal authorities or the school system, or hell, even the doctor that had come by at the urging of the authorities early on, Jonathan got pissed. Martha had to take hold of his arm and physically haul him into another room when the holier than though little shit had threatened to get a court order and have Clark removed to a facility better suited to dealing with severe trauma cases. He wouldn't even have put it past Lionel Luthor being behind it, that bastard's own security having been at the farm repeatedly trying to get information out of them about Lex's kidnapping. And wouldn't Lionel Luthor just love having Clark somewhere beyond the protection of his parents, to poke and prod at will.

The social services rep left, promising court proceedings, and they'd sat there afterwards, white faced and desperately trying to figure a way out, short of pulling up roots and running. They wouldn't see Clark in a 'facility' of any sort. The first time they tried to put a needle in him, they'd discover just what a special boy they had in their grasps.

It was not long after that Martha noticed Clark cocking his head to this side, then that, pupils dilating and shrinking, as if he were hearing things they weren't.

"What's he doing?" She asked and Jonathan shook his head, at a loss.

Then Clark turned, sudden focus in his eyes and stared sharply to the west. His lips moved, and they barely heard the whisper.

"Lex."

And then, fast enough to make their clothing whip, he was just gone.

To be continued . . .

obsessions Chapter 12

I've got the next chapter of Obsessions.

And for those of you who've been asking, I finally have the full version of 'Obsessions' available in PDF downloadable format. Its not perfect - - it has funky page breaks - - but its readable on my Nook.

You can get it at the bishonenworks shop.

New chapter here:



Clark's hands were on him. Big and clever, firm around his cock, stroking in time with the unbearable pulse of vibration rocking him from within. He clenched up, thrusting into Clark's hand, moaning as Clark leaned over him, weight pressing him down in the mattress, tongue sliding into mouth. He tasted of beer. His lips were thick, hard, lacking that sweet softness of Clark's mouth. There was the burn of springy body hair scraping a nipple that felt raw.

He swam up, out of the murky grey of drug-induced unconsciousness - - panic rushed in to fill the shadows. He jerked his head away, gasping, that knife-edge horror of not knowing what the bastard had been doing to him while he was out crowding in and making him jerk helplessly against the cuffs holding his hands over his head.

The hand on his cock tightened. Decker pushed himself up on an elbow, gave Lex a warning look, then gathered up cock and balls and cinched a leather band around the base of both, then another around the base of Lex's still erect penis. It bobbed there, angling up towards his belly. Decker slapped it, made it dance, and all the while the unending vibration of whatever he'd stuck up Lex's ass pressed against his prostate, making the whole of his body clench and shiver. And he hated himself, hated that he was weak enough to shudder when the man touched him, reviled himself for feeling sensation, even if it were overwhelmingly colored by revulsion when the man clenched his fist around his cock and pumped.

He couldn't think. However long Decker had put him out this time, hadn't been enough to chase away the exhaustion. It echoed in his skull, made vision blur around the edges. Or maybe he was still groggy from the last vestiges of the drug. Maybe it was all some especially vivid nightmare - - some acid trip from a hit he didn't remember taking.

Decker dipped down again, trying to force his tongue into his mouth. Lex clenched his teeth, refusing. Short of wedging his jaw open, that was one intimacy the man wouldn't get out of him. The things he could force, Lex couldn't stop. The things that needed his cooperation - - well, he'd come to the conclusion some point yesterday - - the day before - - today - - he had no idea exactly when - - that the bastard enjoyed hurting him too much to stop simply because he offered less resistance.

But Decker didn't seem overly offended at the rebuff, happy perhaps that he'd gotten a hard-on out of him. He moved down to suck on a swollen red nipple. Before he'd slapped the chloroform laced rag over Lex's face the last time, there'd been a great deal of time spent exploring the realm of nipple torture.

He hissed through his teeth when the man bit down hard enough to draw blood, then sucked like he was trying to find a hidden wellspring of milk.

"Son of a bitch! Stop! Stop!" Almost he missed the gag, when Decker lifted his head, gave him a look that said he'd taken note and there would be reprisal. He had no innate ability it seemed, to keep his fucking mouth shut.

"Oh, God. No - - I didn't - -" The panic was mortifying. But pride had taken second tier to fear and pain somewhere along the way. Decker placed the tips of his fingers across Lex's mouth.

"You were good yesterday. Not a word out of you."

Sure he'd been good. He'd had a gag filling his mouth or Decker's cock, stifling everything but muffled screams, from the time he'd woken to the time Decker had finished with him and knocked him out. He blinked up, shivering. It was cold down here, too cold for anything but fear sweat. He felt it on his skin now.

Decker unclipped the chain from his cuffs, hauled him up and everything tilted. His knees gave out and Decker pulled him against his side, taking his weight. He'd had water and a bottle of some sort of protein shake since he'd been here. The whole of his body trembled from the lack of anything more solid. The bastard was starving him, and whether it was on purpose or because he was too fucking unhinged to realize food was one of those things essential to continued living, Lex wasn't sure. He'd bring it up next time he felt the need for a thorough beating.

He sobbed a little at that, couldn't do anything to stop it but clench his teeth and try and swallow it. He didn't understand why they hadn't found him yet. He couldn't fathom how all of his father's money hadn't been able to hire a force to sweep the fucking state and hunt him down. What if they thought he were dead? What if they'd given up? But no, it hadn't been that long- - it couldn't have been that long - - and Lionel Luthor had a great deal of influence on the state, if not the federal level. Lionel would want him back. Lionel needed an heir and Lex was all he had.

His knees hit the carpet in front of Decker's chair. He couldn't think fast enough to resist, mind still sluggish, when his cuffs were unclipped from each other and reattached to the rings on the ones around his ankles. Decker liked him in this position when he was forcing his cock down his throat. He bit back another desperate choked sound at the fact that he was actually starting to pick out a pattern in the bastard's preferences.

Decker sat down, naked as Lex was, save for the mat of dark hair on his body. His cock was thick and leaking, veiny and hideous. Lex hated the shape of the flared head. Hated the feel of it in every conceivable way.

Words wanted to bubble out of him. Threats, bitter derision, desperate attempts at rationalization - - he bit them back. Knelt there, the blood trapped behind the cinch of the cock ring keeping him hard enough to hurt, trying not to noticeably shake.

Decker picked up a long rod from the side table. It had a thick black rubber grip at one end, but the majority of it was a long metal shaft with two metal prongs at the far end. A cattle prod. A fucking cattle prod. Lex couldn't take his eyes off it. Decker ran the length of across his big palm.

"Remember the club in Metropolis?" Decker said and idly rubbed the pronged tips of the rod across Lex's cheek. "Remember that little fag whore that you went down on your knees and sucked cock for in the men's urinal?"

Lex shifted his eyes up to Decker, warily. The gritty details of that cocaine and methamphetamine spurred encounter had not been wide spread. Just the cell phone shots of the walk out in handcuffs, and the gossip rag supposition of who had propositioned whom.

"Remember how you worked that little prick? Like you were the pro? Remember that, Lex?"

"Oh - - God," he whispered it. "You were there?"

Decker grinned down at him. "Had to see you on your knees, boy. Had to see your pretty pink mouth wrapped around somebody's cock. Paid him pretty good to fuck you up and get you someplace private. Didn't even see me there, did you?"

God. God. His head was spinning, trying to remember that night. That sordid, fucked up, humiliating night, that he only remembered a fraction of to this day.

"You set me up."

Decker shrugged, ran the prong down his belly and nudged his cock. "Wasn't hard. Not like you wouldn't have found someone to play the slut with. Didn't call the cops, though. They ruined the show. Made sure the little whore wouldn't talk afterwards though. Last thing I did before your daddy turned on me."

Lex swallowed, seeing something come unglued in Decker's gaze as he thought about that betrayal.

"It wasn't me," he said softly, reasonably. "I didn't know."

Decker's mouth tightened. His hand did and a jolt of current shot through Lex's cock strong enough to knock him backwards. He writhed, back arched, screaming pain radiating outwards from the point of the shock. It churned in his gut with reverberating aftershocks. He lay there, panting, splayed out awkwardly, wrists trapped at his ankles. Even the cock ring hadn't been able to maintain his erection. It felt like he'd peed himself a little.

Decker grinned down, eyes gleaming with a sort of anticipatory madness. Touched the prongs to one of his nipples and hit him again. He shrieked, writhing, heart feeling like it had been shocked out of rhythm. He couldn't catch his breath. His chest burned over the shocked nipple, all the muscles contracting. He shuddered on the rug at Decker's feet, until the man hauled him upright.

There was blood in his mouth this time. Salty and thick from where he'd bitten through his cheek.

"Open your mouth," Decker directed, the prongs of the rod gently nudging his lips.

He sobbed. It broke free, and he couldn't stop it. Shook his head, refusing. Decker nodded touched the prod to his belly and hit him again.

He blacked out that time, came back with everything spasming, everything clenched in agony. Decker stood over him, bare feet on either side of his shoulders. The prod held loose in his hands.

"Open your mouth," he asked again and Lex did it, jaw trembling form either aftershock of simple terror.

He felt the hard metal prongs of the cattle prod slide into his mouth, clacking a little on his bottom teeth as Decker slipped it in. He crouched over Lex's chest, sat his bare ass down on his ribs and stripped the breath out of him.

"Suck it," he said, finger caressing the trigger. "Suck like it's the best cock you ever tasted, you fucking slut."

He shut his eyes and did that too, sucked on the ungainly thing as best he could while Decker slid it back and forth in his mouth. The blood was still trickling down the back of his throat. There was wetness at his temples. Absolute humiliation. He didn't know how to stop it.

"Open." Decker finally directed, giving Lex the grace to open his mouth wide and save teeth as Decker pulled the prod out, shiny from Lex's saliva.

He pulled him up to his knees again, kicked them wide and stepped up close, leaking cock against Lex's cheek, the tip of the prod idly running a course down his back.

"You need one more lesson?" Decker asked softly.

Lex was shaking. He couldn't stop shaking. He shook his head. It was just a dick. He could shut his eyes and find someplace dark and safe inside his head and do whatever this man wanted if it saved him debilitating pain. Not to was simply insane.

"No, I think you need one more." Decker touched the prong to the tip of his cock and the world fragmented into red hot waves of pain.



Electric shock meant for a cow's tough hide put Lex out for more than few moments the last time Decker put a surge of current through him. He lay there twitching, limbs bizarrely twisted from the way Decker had him bound. Drool and tears making lines down the sides of his face. It was erotic. The twitching and the way the arch of his back made his ribs press up under fine, thin skin; the patter of pulse in the concave of his belly.

The kid didn't have lot of extra meat on him to begin with, all lean muscle and sleek firm flesh, but another couple of weeks on the diet Decker had him on and he'd be able to count the individual ribs. Be able to run his hands across them and almost feel the bones.

It made him leak a little more thinking about it. The complete control over Lex, inside and out.

He gave him another minute, then bent over and slapped him back into consciousness. Pulled him up onto his knees while he was still reeling, eyes soft and dazed. Pretty.

He sat down, pulled Lex right up close, shoulders tight to the inside of Decker's thick thighs, then slouched back in the chair, planning on drawing this out a good long time. He lifted Lex's chin with the prod, gave him a long look. He could feel the tremors still shaking the kid's body, whether from the last shock or the fear of another one, he didn't know. Didn't care. But he liked the feel of them.

"Open wide,"

The barest moment of hesitation, but not enough to warrant punishment. The mouth opened wide, a big inviting oval.

Decker took a breath, all those clamoring whispers in the back of his head hushed at the sight of him laying the fat head of his cock inside Lex's sweet mouth. Hushed at the sight of the kid leaning there, neck arched out, eyes shut, jaw trembling a little, waiting on Decker's command.

"Suck it."

Lex did, wrapping his lips tight and enveloping the tip of Decker's cock in soft, wet warmth. Decker rested the end of the prod on Lex's shoulder, a constant reminder, and relaxed back into the chair, luxuriating in the feel, giving little commands now and then that Lex followed to a T. He'd always guessed Lex would be good at this. Fantasized about it.

He made him tongue the pee slit, made him suck his balls and lick the loose skin beneath them, made him work his own way down the shaft, until his nose was pressed into Decker's bristly thatch and his throat bulged with the thickness of Decker's tool. When Decker balls tightened and he couldn't take the pleasure anymore, he sat forward, grabbed the kid by the ears and started fucking his face at a harder pace.

The little helpless sounds Lex made pushed him over the edge and he emptied himself down that tight, pulsing throat.

He wiped the tip of his softening cock across Lex's swollen lips when he pulled out, and the kid just sat there, eyes fixed somewhere around his mid-section, like he was someplace else in his head. It bothered Decker, that escape from his reality. He didn't want to start a precedent.

He slapped him, twice. Hard enough to snap his eyes back into focus. Then so he'd know he did good, he rubbed the spot.

"Good boy."

Something very much like horror seeped into Lex's blue eyes. Desperate and appalled. Like he'd realized he'd lost some critical conflict during this exercise. And Decker didn't mind if he knew; if he realized he was breaking piece by piece. Decker had no intention of giving him time to repair the damages.

"You did good. I have a reward for you."

He reached to the table for the collar. Wide black leather, with a padlock to keep it in place. Stainless steel D-ring in the back by the buckle, a hanging O ring at the front, and the finishing touch that he'd made himself - - Lex's name etched out on a little stainless plate.

He held it up, so Lex could get a good long look, the last time he'd see it after it was snug around his neck.

Lex stared at it, some of that dull horror edged out by a quizzical sort of narrowing of his eyes. He dropped his head and his shoulders shook. A desperate sound escaped him.

"You sick, sad bastard." Lex looked back up at him, the faintest trace of wetness in his lashes. It was laughter. Hollow, scornful laughter.

"Is that what you want? A dog? Go the fucking pound."

Decker drew a breath, hand clenching around the collar, black anger rising. The voices in his head that had been appeased by Lex's submission rose up in offense, clamoring vitriolicly for immediate retaliation. He jammed the cattle prod against his base of his throat, hitting him with a jolt of electricity. Lex went backwards, choking, body bowing backwards as it dealt with the current. Decker surged up, the rage taking full hold, kicked him barefooted between his vulnerable spread thighs. Hard enough to shove him a foot off the area rug and onto the concrete.

The scream was choked, ragged, as if he couldn't properly draw the air to fuel it. It wasn't nearly enough. He stalked to the supply cabinet, found a dildo that very few men could match in size, ten inches, as thick as his wrist, big enough to rip the insolent little prick's ass open.

He kicked him onto his side, then jerked him onto his belly, pulled him by the short chain that connected one wrist and ankle fully out onto the cement floor, because blood on the carpet would be hard to clean.

The butt plug came out with a slick plop, his come leaking out of Lex's loosened ass. And the little fuck ought to thank him for filling him up with it, because it was all the lubrication he was going to get. He pressed the huge rubber dickhead against his hole, started to work it in, watched the pink swollen lips stretch thin to take the goddamned big thing.

Lex was fighting it, body clenching, sides heaving with his labored breath. Decker used his own knees to force Lex's thighs wider and twisted until the big flared rubber head was inside. Lex started screaming. It started out curses and threats, because Lex had a problem with retaining simple rules, turned into gasping pleas and apologies, ended up incoherent garbled wails like the thing had rammed right up his throat by the time he had it shoved in deep.

He started fucking him with it, hard at first to get it far enough out to ram back in, but there was a tear in his asshole that was leaking blood and that and Decker's own come started easing the way. He battered him with it, pounding his insides, one long brutal assault that had him sweating and Lex shuddering and mostly quiet, half conscious and drooling on the floor by the time his arm got tired enough to make him stop. He jerked it out, got a sharp little whimper of pain from Lex but not much more.

The kid's hole was puffy and gaping, big as a quarter, the one little split still trickling blood. He considered ramming his fist up there, feeling around Lex's squishy insides. Figured it wouldn't take much effort now, stretched as he was.

He leaned over his back, and asked him. "Ever been fisted, Lex?"

Lex shut his eyes not bothering to answer. The quaking of his body was sporadic and harsh. Like he was trembling on the edge of shock. It would be a Goddamned shame if he were bleeding internally. It was the only thing that kept Decker from carrying through with the fisting idea. He sat for a moment, considering options, some of the black rage fading. He'd gotten carried away with that - - could have killed Lex and killing Lex wasn't his goal. But once the rage was upon him, his control was limited. There were bodies around the world to attest to that. He needed a little away time. He needed to go up stairs and take a break, drink a few beers and jerk off to internet porn. Maybe pick up a few new ideas.

He pushed himself up, got the collar and fastened it around Lex's neck. Snapped the padlock shut and made it permanent. Lex didn't open his eyes throughout the process.

"I warned you. Repeatedly." He snapped a leash onto the ring at the back. Unclipped wrist cuffs from ankles and Lex straightened his legs with a sigh.

Decker stood, wrapped the end of the leash around his fist and pulled. Lex got the idea after a minute, when the collar started choking him, and with a miserable groan pushed himself to his knees, knelt there on all fours, all his limbs shaking like he had palsy, and Decker had a mind to keep him like that, make him crawl like a dog. Later maybe.

He yanked again and with an effort, Lex climbed painfully to his feet, swayed there, gasping, no doubt the pain in his ass eating through him. He looked up, eyes a little hazed with the hurt, met Decker's gaze.

"I got a dog," Decker said, no restraints between them now but the leash in his hand. He willed the kid to make a try at him. Willed him to do anything he could construe as a reason to smack him down again.

Lex flinched. Looked like he was fighting some internal battle, then said very softly. Hoarse like he'd screamed his throat bloody. He probably had. "Go ahead, kill me now. It'll be easier on both of us."

Decker smiled at him. "When I kill you, it won't be easy and it won't be quick and it won't be because you want it. But I'll make you beg for it, if you keep pushing me."

Lex lifted his chin, but kept his hands at his sides. Trying so hard to maintain the shredded remains of his pride, Decker could see it in his eyes. Hurting bad and scared shitless. Decker could see that, too.

He uncoiled the leash from his fist. Let it drop. "Go the shower."

Lex swallowed, eyes darting just a little, edge of panic creeping in. Thinking maybe of making a run for it. Decker wished he would.

"One." Decker held up a finger, and Lex drew a frantic breath, all his control shattered, all his options down to two things. Obey or suffer the consequences.

"Two and if I get to three, you won't like the punishment. That I promise."

Lex lowered his eyes, hiding the blue of his eyes with auburn tipped lashes, Decker saw the moment he tensed, knew the moment the decision had been made to defy him. The kid had guts, he'd give him that.

He even surprised him the way he went about it. Smart-like. Making that first move towards the shower, like he was capitulating, before spinning, quicker than Decker would have given him credit for, clasping both hands together and swinging around to slam Decker in the side of the face with the heavy cuffs. The padlock and buckles bit into his face, splitting skin, staggering him off his balance, while Lex darted past him, fast as the kid could move after having his ass tore up by that big dildo.

Decker took a moment to touch the blood on the side of his face. There was a split on his cheek. The sting was inconsequential. Nothing. He'd suffered gunshots and breaks and soldiered on in the service. He rubbed the blood between his fingers while Lex hit the steps, licked it off, before striding after him.

He heard the kid jerk at the door, discover the series of deadbolts, and start cursing. He put his back to it when Decker started the climb.

"Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch - - I'll see you dead. There's nowhere you can run that I won't have you found you murdering, sick bastard - -" Lex was close to hyperventilating, asthma attack coming on, maybe. As far as Decker knew, he hadn't had one since before he'd lost his hair. It'd be a complication if Decker had to deal with that now. He knew how to perform an emergency tracheotomy if he needed.

"You assume you'll ever be free to give those orders, boy." He kept up the stairs, waiting for the move. Lex had the high ground, but there was nowhere to go. Decker could go back, get the cattle prod and just take him down, but he preferred the more hands on method of blocking the kick Lex sent for his chest, and lunging forward, grabbing the other ankle and jerking it out from beneath him. Lex went down, feet loosing purchase, ass hitting the stair two steps down from the door, crying out from the pain of that, even as Decker scrambled up and over him, drawing back a fist and driving it into his gut. He'd avoid the face if he could, he didn't want broken bones marring Lex's features. He hit him again, then grabbed him by the neck with the other hand, fingers biting into the soft indention that hid the carotid and clamped down.

Lex clawed at his hand, trying to break that grip, but it was too late by then. Less than ten seconds and he was floundering, eyes rolling back, fight going out of him. Decker knelt over him a few moments longer, fingers stroking the fine leather collar, thinking he ought to add a dog tag with a 'property of D. Decker' to the back ring. He grinned at the notion, then pulled Lex up over his shoulder and carried him back downstairs.

Tossed him down on the bed and stood there, deciding what to do with him. He'd promised punishment and he wouldn't start a precedent of not living up to his word. He went to his cabinet and looked at his assortment of 'tools'. The simple ones were often the best, but sometimes it took creativity to get a point across.

He picked up a hook, gleaming chrome and thick around as his thumb with a lemon sized ball at the short end and an 'O' ring at the other. It looked like nothing so much as a Goddamned big fish hook with a blunt knob where the pointy end should be. He picked up a few leather straps and a bit of rope.

He folded Lex's arms behind him, wrist to elbow, lashed them tight, before slapping him awake. He wanted him to see the hook before he put it inside him. He came awake quick, startled, and ready to put up a fight. Decker put him down with a knee pressed into his gut and there was nothing he could do as Decker leaned over but stare up at him with narrow, furious blue eyes. For a smart kid, he seemed to have more spunk than sense. Decker liked it.

He held up the hook and Lex's eyes went from him to it, some of the narrowness rounding out as he took it in.

"Ever seen one of these? Know how it works?"

"I've got a general idea," Lex ground out. Not even close to broken, like his attempt at submission earlier had all been an act to soften Decker up and now that he was found out, he didn't give a shit. He would.

Decker grinned, flipped him back over onto his stomach, his legs half off the bed Decker between his spread thighs. He dug his thumbs into his ass cheeks, pulling firm flesh away from the inflamed hole. Still puffy around the edges, still leaking a little blood, but it was closing up. Lex's body was amazingly elastic.

Lex's fists clenched and he made a hissing sound as Decker prodded the sensitive lips of his anus with a big finger. Then he picked up the hook and pressed the shiny chrome ball against the hole, twisted it a little to get it past the loosened muscle, and Lex's body accepted it with a quiet little suckling sound. He seated it deep, until the curve of the hook was close up against Lex's ass and the straight portion was snug between his cheeks. Lex didn't make much more of a sound after that, just clenched his jaw and lay there waiting to see what Decker would do next.

He tied the rope around the 'o' ring at the top of the hook, then dragged Lex up by his bound arms. Hauled him across the room with one hand on the ring at the back of his collar and the other firm around the hook that protruded about up to the small of his back. He rotated it a little, and heard the kid gasp softly as the ball pressed up against things inside him. He stopped him in the center of the room, smacked him hard enough to make him stagger when he started to bolt, then threaded the rope through a hook dangling from a ceiling beam, then drew it down and fastened it to the back ring of the collar while he was recovering. Pulled it tight so that it drew Lex up to the balls of his feet, the pressure divided between the hook deep in his ass and the collar around his neck. Without his hands to balance him it was a constant balancing act, either cutting off his air or putting tremendous pressure on the thing in his ass.

Decker stood in front of him. On his toes, they were eye level. Lex's were strained with discomfort and fury.

"You like it?" Decker asked.

"Its fucking fantastic," Lex growled, then shut his eyes, catching himself too late. Remembering the cursing rule. Decker shook his head. "That's one to the nuts. You're a slow learner."

"God - - God - -" Lex was panting, sweat beginning to make the thin skin of his skull shine.

Decker fetched a new gag. A special one that matched the hook. All chrome and thick and phallus shaped, designed to stretch the jaw wide and stuff the mouth to overflowing. He caught Lex's head when he tried to jerk away, stood for a second enjoying the cry of pain as he lost his balance and all his weight came down upon the hook. Decker squeezed his jaw open and forced the gag in between his teeth while he was recovering. It nestled cold and hard against his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and he squealed a little around it, complaining. Decker just strapped it into place.

He walked around him, enjoying the view. Ran his hands along the tense line of his shoulders, the shell of his ear. Lex jerked his head away from that. He rubbed a nipple, pink and hard, then rolled it roughly between his fingers. Lex shut his eyes and panted around the gag.

Decker got the cattle prod then. Turned it down to the lowest setting, and started tracing it along certain places on Lex's body. The curve of his ass. The back of his knee. The metal hook protruding from his ass - - and that made his body shake like he was palsied, so Decker did it again. He laid it to the slit of his cock, and watched it twitch and flop. Turned up the juice and hit his balls, punishment for the curse word.

It was hard to scream past the mouth filling gag, but Decker got the gist of the strangled sounds Lex was making. He stopped those about a half hour in, and hung there, not making much of an effort to take his weight off the hook and his collar.

Decker thought he'd give him a reprieve, the time to get his strength back and keep from choking, so he pressed up behind him, dragged his ass cheeks open and squeezed the head of his cock up inside him alongside the hook. It felt amazing, all the gushy warmth of Lex's guts on the one side of him and the unforgiving metal of the hook and its knob on the other. It bruised the tip of his cock every time he rammed in, but it was a good pain. The sort that made him grind his teeth and thrust harder. He reached around, pulling and twisting Lex's nipples as he fucked, scraping a hand down his flat, heaving belly to his limp cock, trapped inside its band of leather. He started jerking, hard and fast and Lex's head rolled back onto his shoulder, lashes fluttering, little trickles of drool running down the corners of his stretched lips. Any fight that had been in him was long gone now. All that was left was exhausted and beaten, and about to be filled with Decker's spunk.

He released with a grunt, straining deep inside, his cock head and the hook knot almost side by side. Lex didn't so much as shudder. Decker stood behind him, hands on his hips for a moment, then leaned forward and suggested. "You better get your feet under you. If you don't, this hooks either gonna rip its way right out of you, or you're gonna choke. Either way, you're hanging here for - - let's start at an hour and see how that goes."

Lex's eyes flickered at him. Dull blue, defeated. Decker smiled and went to get a beer before he sat down and watched Lex writhe.


Jonathan Kent was in the barn struggling to pry a rusted lug nut off the tractor when he heard Martha calling for him.

She was already halfway up the stairs by the time he slammed through the door, panic eating him up inside.

"Is it Clark?" He took the stairs two at a time after her.

She was nodding, trying to get an explanation out past her labored breath. "I came to check on him - -"

Jonathan pushed past her into Clark's room. Saw for himself.

Clark was up and standing by the window, in nothing but the boxer shorts they put him when they'd cleaned him up and brought him up here.

"Clark? Son?" Jonathan's voice cracked.

Clark didn't respond. Didn't move. Just stood there, in the shaft of sunlight coming in past the curtains.

Jonathan moved to his side, put a hand cautiously on his bare arm, trying to shift him around so he could see his eyes. Clark was hard to move when he didn't want to. It took Martha coming up and squeezing in between him and the window, soft talking, her hands on his arms, before he consented to the pressure to turn.

There wasn't much in his eyes when he did. Just an unblinking, blank green stare, like he really wasn't seeing them at all.

"Clark? Can you hear me?"

He took his face between his hands, trying to force eye contact. Clark stared right through him. Literally maybe. God knew what was going on inside his head. He preyed to God something was.

They got him dressed. He was malleable enough, especially in response to Martha's soft prodding, that he sat on the edge of the bed when she pushed him down, and stood when she caught his wrists and urged him to. Nothing other than that though. They had to fasten his jeans, and pull his arms through the arms of his T-shirt.

Almost it was enough to make a man cry. But he didn't, telling himself that a week ago he'd thought his son was dead.

"We need to see if he'll eat." Martha was taking charge, thinking practical thoughts when all a man could do was stand there helplessly and wonder how in hell they were going to deal with this.

They got him downstairs, a damned awkward trip, with her on Clark's arm and Jonathan tugging his wrist. It wasn't from any weakness on Clark's part, just that his legs didn't seem to get the concept of stairs. Or his brain didn't.

They got him to the table, sat him down, but he didn't show any interest in food. Not even Martha's fried chicken, which was the surest sign of any that Clark wasn't up there, because there was nothing the boy liked better than his mother's cooking.

Martha sat for a long time, just talking to him, just chattering, lots of nonsense things that Jonathan barely heard himself. Figuring maybe that just the sound of her voice might trigger something inside him. He tried to a little, but kept getting choked up. She'd reach over and pat his hand, his wife, stronger than he was when it came to things like this.

Finally he had to escape the house and Clark's blank gaze. He went out and worked until dark on the tractor, only half paying attention to what he was doing. When he came back in, she'd gotten Clark to the couch, and was sitting there with him reading out loud one of the books she'd used to read to him when he was younger.

There was something warming in a pot on the stove. He didn't have much of an appetite, but he ladled out a bowl anyway, consumed it standing by the sink, then went in and sat down in his armchair across from them and listened to her voice.

"I don't think he slept," Martha said softly to him, next morning. She'd dozed on the couch, curled up under an afghan next to Clark, while Jonathan had slept in their bed alone.

The sheriff drove up that afternoon, with one of the suited federal agents in the car. There wasn't a lot they could do with Clark sitting on the couch and not easy to move with any speed, but let them in.

"He's in shock," Martha said, when they tried to ask him questions about that night with Lex. "He hasn't spoken to us yet, either."

"Maybe you haven't been pressing hard enough, ma'am." The Federal agent said in a tone of voice that suggested he'd like to get Clark alone in an interrogation room and try and do a little pressing of his own. Jonathan clenched his fists.

The sheriff frowned, mustache twitching. "I think these folks know their son better than we do, Agent Malone. They'll give us a call when he snaps out of it."

Jonathan nodded in grateful agreement. "You can count on it, Ethan."

"Has there been any word on Lex?" Martha asked as Jonathan was ushering them out the door.

"No ma'am. It's like he fell off the face of the earth. No ransom demands, no contact, no anything. It's why we're so hot to talk with your boy. Any clue we can get would be a big help."

"It's been over a week," she said and Sheriff Ethan nodded somberly, knowing probably better than Jonathan did the chances of Lex even still being alive.

He leaned in, like he didn't want the departing fed to hear him sharing details of the case. "It's the lack of demands that has them worried. By all accounts the man that took him is a stone cold killer. Army trained, you know. We've already tracked down a string of murders we can pin on him. Clark's damned lucky, let me tell you. This guy don't usually leave living victims."

She stood there, white faced, while Jonathan shook the sheriff's hand and sent him on his way.

"That poor boy," she whispered, and he put his arm around her, pulled her close. She had a big heart. Big enough to break for another man's son while theirs was sitting on the couch, not much more than a vegetable. It was just one of the reasons he loved her so much.


Lex would have offered Decker everything he had. Signed over his company, emptied his bank accounts, offered any tangible possession he owned if he thought it would have made a difference. But, the only thing Decker seemed to want from him was him, a shuddering, submissive mess at his feet.

He was getting it, more often than not. The sound of his footsteps on the stairs had begun to make Lex shake uncontrollably. Fear like nothing he'd ever known, even in those miserable years after the meteor shower when he'd wanted to hide from the world, took hold and wouldn't let go. He didn't know when the pain was coming or what shape it would take. Sometimes Decker's twisted mind would snap and he'd go into fugue state rages when the violence was brutal and unrelenting. Other's he was meticulous and slow in his games, very much attached to his 'toys' and his devices. The end result was always the same. Lex pushed past the point of resistance, reduced to screams or whimpers or desperate pleas for succor that never came.

Decker hated it when he called Clark's name, and sometimes he did, when his mind was white with pain or exhaustion and Clark images and Clark memories were the only thing that seemed real beneath the grim reality of his new existence.

He'd get beaten then, whipped mercilessly, before Decker fucked him with a vigor born of inarticulate rage. He'd be lucky if all Decker used was his cock to do it.

Lex's body was one huge, throbbing ache. But he healed quickly. The cuts and the tears, the places where teeth or nails or other instruments broke skin, faded fast. Since the meteor shower all his scrapes and bruises tended to heal rapidly. The only scars he had were the ones he'd gotten young, before the rocks fell from the sky. Other things mended with unusual vigor as well. Decker raped him daily, with a variety of tools in a variety of ways. Had a fascination with opening him up and violating him on the inside that was rabid obsession. He should have lost all muscle control at his point, should have been loose and halfway to ruined, but he healed. His muscles sprang back after a few hours respite, usually when Decker was taking his own rest, and he was tight enough to hurt again when the man started back up.

It was no blessing.

Begging for simple substance was the worst. More humiliating than the things Decker forced on his body. More humiliating that the constant feel of the wretched collar around his neck. Water was earned. He'd almost forgotten what solid food tasted like, his diet consisting primarily of protein shakes, the occasional cup of yogurt which he was forced to eat in the most mortifying way. And semen. A great deal of semen. He couldn't get the rancid taste of the man out of his mouth.

He felt dizzy most of the time, stomach aching with the emptiness. Occasionally Decker slipped something in the shakes that made the world would blur and soften and made him less inclined to nausea when Decker stuck his tongue down his throat. Made him hazily content to just lie there under the man when he was in the mood for romance.

Most of the time the man wasn't so gentle.

He took up a project while Lex was hanging, arms drawn up behind him, gagged, a stainless steel vibrating dildo up his ass, that he'd been warned upon pain of a session with the cattle prod, not to let slip out. The constant, varying vibration from the dildo was turning his insides to the sort of jelly that induced spontaneous, helpless erections. Which in turn caused the metal, spiked band around the base of his cock to bit into engorged flesh. The excruciating pain of which deflated the budding erection, until the fucking vibrator convinced his body to start it all up again. It was a nasty cycle that he was helpless to stop.

He spent the better part of a day like that, unbearable pressure on his shoulders and back warring with unbearable sensation of another sort radiating out from his lower regions.

Decker was building a rack. Had lugged a welding machine down the basement steps and was spot welding iron bars onto a Y-shaped frame. Lex's attention to detail was fragmented, but it seemed to be tiltable, with hinges on the two leg sections that allowed them to swing in and out. Nothing about it looked comfortable. But then comfort wasn't Decker's aim.

By the time he'd finished, Lex was too far gone with exhaustion and pain to notice any finishing touches. He barely noticed the man coming up, running hands down the quivering line of his back, down his hip to his presently engorged penis. There was blood running in tickling little trails down his balls where the spikes had pieced sensitive skin. The vibrator was still resolutely churning in his ass.

Decker pulled it out and went to deposit it the sink. He had a care for keeping his toys clean. He came back, and loosed Lex's wrists. The pain surged anew with the pressure off, it always did and Lex pitched forward, vision graying. Decker caught him, one hand kneading his screaming shoulders.

"I'd let you try out the new rack tonight, but I haven't got the current hooked up yet. Tomorrow I'll get a couple of batteries, get the juice flowing and we'll give her a test run." He said it conversationally, like he was suggesting Lex test drive a potential new car.

Lex moaned into the gag, in so much discomfort now, from unending hours bent over with his arms stretched behind him, that he'd almost welcome the change.

Decker slapped the head of his cock and pain throbbed through him. "You need to pee? Come?"

He made an incoherent sound, just wanting the damn the evil ring off him. Decker didn't bother unclipping his ankle cuffs, lifting him off his feet instead and hauling him the twenty feet to the toilet and shower. Sat him on his feet before the toilet, so close behind him Lex could feel the erection against his ass through the fatigues. Decker reached around and started unscrewing the bolt that fastened the thing on.

It took about five seconds after the blood started flowing for the pain to hit. He leaned back against Decker and choked on the scream that wanted to bubble up his throat, the only thing keeping him from collapsing into a curled knot on the floor, Decker's arm around his waist and his hand slowly pumping Lex's burning cock. He had no idea whether it was urine or semen that flowed out of him, the flood of release most likely would have been equally painful in his current state. It was most certainly blood lubricating Decker's hand as he fondled him, pinching the base and rubbing in the hurt.

He half fainted from it. Only marginally aware of Decker taking his weight again, an arm under his shoulders, one under his knees and carting him back to the bed. The dizziness wouldn't stop.

He moaned from it, tossing his head. He was going to die here, like this, in terror and in pain, either from a miscalculation on his captor's part, or a premeditated move, planned and carried out with all the slow, meticulous care that the bastard had promised.
It was inconceivable that this could go on indefinitely otherwise. He'd loose his grip on sanity. And given the choice between gibbering madness and death, death was the more attractive alternative.

To be continued . . .

Obsessions Chapter 11

Here's the next chapter of Obsessions.

More heavy duty Non-con/violence warnings.



Chapter eleven

The lights glared down, the faint buzz of fluorescents the only sound in the basement aside from the harsh hiss of Lex's breath. Fire licked at his shoulders. Insistent, ever increasing, like acid eating away at his joints. It spread up his arms, and into his pecs, seeping into his musculature. His legs were trembling, muscles straining to keep him that fraction of an inch high enough to keep the pressure off his shoulders. Failing when exhaustion overcame him, and the increased strain stained his vision red with agony.

And it didn't end. Constant, keening pain. Time passed like nails down a chalkboard. Slow and excruciating. If he hadn't emptied his stomach off the side of the porch at the Maplethorpe house when Clark had first gone after the fucking psychopath, he might have ended his misery the most undignified way possible, choked on his own vomit.

As it was, when the pain got so bad it induced nausea, the only thing he was able to cough up was bile. It ate at his throat, acid and vile, but he was able to swallow it back down and breathe.

They had to know he was missing by now. The Kent's had to have let someone know - - please God. They had to be looking for him. His father would have brought in the authorities. Would have his own people searching. This wasn't one of those life lesson sort of situations that he might sit back and let Lex work out on his own.

There was a point when exhaustion and pain began to erode thought. When his brain began to conserve, shutting out all the extraneous things, all focus narrowed down to red tinged suffering and the effort to keep from just sagging forward and dragging his arms out of their sockets.

He didn't hear the steps when Decker came back down. Didn't notice the man's presence at all until he unhooked the chain holding his wrists. And the sudden release of tension as his arms dropped down out of their locked position brought on a whole new world of agony. He fell onto his side, shrieking into the gag, shoulders, back, legs all one cohesive whole of spasming muscle. When it eased enough that he could see and think beyond the hurt, and pant into the gag instead of scream, Decker unclasped his ankle cuffs from the thigh bands. Pulled him up and off the bed with an arm under his elbow and God, it hurt, shoulders still burning.

His legs splayed out from under him, cramping from holding the same position for however many hours he'd been there. Decker just hauled him back up and dragged him to a corner where there was a tattered armchair next to an end table. There was a small, threadbare area rug under it, and it was the only thing that saved Lex's knees when Decker threw him down. Decker shoved him forward, against the seat of the chair and Lex leaned there, concentrating on breathing, head spinning with exhaustion. When his hands were uncuffed, he didn't have the strength to fight it. His wrists were recuffed to the outside rings on the straps around his thighs.

Decker pulled him back off the chair, moved around and sat down in it, legs spread, boots on either side of Lex's knees. It wasn't hard to figure out what was coming. He swayed, odd little blank spots in his thinking, brain misfiring from the burning pain of cramped muscles and chronic lack of sleep.

"You look good on your knees, Lex," Decker laid a hand on his skull, and Lex summoned energy he hadn't thought he had and jerked way, glaring. Decker just grinned at him and gripped the back of his head. "Look good naked."

The man looped a finger through the ring on the back of the gag strap and pulled Lex back until he was leaning awkwardly, supported by Decker's hand, because God knew he hadn't the strength in his back at the moment to support himself at this angle. Decker's other hand slid down his stomach, rubbed his hairless pubic mound. "Always ashamed of this, weren't you? Bald all over. That why you never fucked most people more than once? 'Cause once they saw how naked you were under all your pretty clothes, you were ashamed to go back for a second round?"

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Lex thought at him, hating the bastard even more because there might actually have been a grain of truth in there. That this man, hidden in the shadows all those years, watching him, had picked up on.

"Nothing to be ashamed about," Decker told him, still petting him, big fingers grazing his penis, slipping down to knead his aching balls still trapped in the spreader. "I never seen skin so pretty as yours."

He drew Lex back towards, him, reaching up with the other hand to unfasten the buckle at the back of Lex's neck. Then he eased the leather ball gag out from behind Lex's teeth. His jaw was so stiff he could barely close it. He dropped his head, panting and drooling a little. Decker wiped it off with a thumb, tilted his chin up and looked him dead in the eye.

"You're gonna use that pretty mouth and you're going to suck me.

Lex managed the barest curve of a smile. "Sure."

He'd bite the fucker's cock off.

Decker's fingers tightened on his jaw. "I will knock your ass out the moment I feel teeth, and when you wake up, you'll have your balls stuffed in your mouth. You don't need balls to fill my needs, boy. Might make you more manageable without. Do you doubt me?"

Lex tried to jerk his chin away. Failed. Glared back at Decker until the man asked again, slow and serious, the look in his eyes that of a man that never bluffed. "Do you doubt me?"

He remembered the things in the report his father had shown him and didn't doubt at all.

He swallowed, shook his head minutely. "No."

Decker held his gaze a moment more, then nodded, released his jaw and unfastened his pants. Lex hadn't gotten a particularly good look at his cock before, but it bobbed in excruciating detail before his face now. Maybe 7 and a half inches long with a flared mushroom head that was already tight and shiny and purple. The veins were big and dark under ruddy skin. Lots of dark pubic hair that disappeared in a thick trail under his shirt.

"Open up," Decker suggested, fist around the base of his cock, aiming it towards Lex's mouth.

"You know they're out in force looking for me right now, don't you?"

Decker narrowed his eyes, moved his free hand to the back of Lex's neck. The cock head nudged his lips. "If I want you to use your mouth to talk, I'll tell you."

Charming. "They know it's you. My father probably has all those army shrinks who know you inside and out profiling you as we speak."

His reflexes were slow enough he didn't see the blow coming. Not a hard hit, just a solid, openhanded slap across the side of his face. "I told you, the right to talk is earned."

"Fuck y - -" Was as far as he got before he got slapped again. Harder this time, almost enough to knock him over. The sting in his cheek was starting to numb. There were lights dancing at the edges of his vision.

Decker grabbed his jaw, fingers biting into the hinge, forcing his mouth open, jerked him forward with the other hand on the back of his head. The big head of his cock slipped past his lips and his teeth probably did scrape, but he had no control over it, as Decker rammed it down his throat. No complimentary moment to get used to the intrusion, just his nose pressed against Decker's thick pubic hair, his throat chafing as the cock head opened it, shoved halfway down his throat, him gagging and choking, gag reflex going into overdrive.

"That's your problem, Lex," Decker said holding him there, while he suffocated, no air able to pass the obstruction in his esophagus. "You think you're entitled. Think you can do what you want and ignore simple rules."

He pulled out, let Lex draw half a strangled breath, and shoved back in. "You ignore my rules, you suffer for it. You keep suffering until you learn how to obey."

Out again, and Lex gasped, feeling light headed from near asphyxiation. Lecture apparently over, Decker grasped the sides of his face, thumbs still pinching into the hinge of his jaw and proceeded with a thorough skull fuck.

It didn't take him long to come. A dozen thrusts or more and his semen was filling Lex's throat, burning as it went down from the abrasion of an unexpected and particularly rough deep throating.

Decker pulled out, and Lex doubled, stomach heaving, bile and come trying to surge back up his throat. He clenched his teeth, biting back a sob of purest frustration and disgust.

"What the fuck do you expect to gain from this?" he cried, voice as raw as his throat felt. "If you worked for my father, you know he won't give you a dime." Which was as true and lamentable a statement as Lex had ever uttered, because Lionel Luthor didn't deal with extortionists. He might spend a fortune hunting them down, but he wouldn't bend to their demands.

Another slap, and this one did knock him over, and he lay there, cheek pressed to the rug, head spinning until Decker pulled him back up again. "I gave you fair warning, Lex. Told you to keep your damned mouth shut. Now you learn the price of disobedience."

He reached for the gag, and Lex hissed through his teeth, pulling away, trying to deny it.

"No - -no --" Useless protest. Decker forced it back into his mouth, cinched it tight, then hauled him to his feet. He had marginally more strength in his legs, but he still swayed. He wasn't able to quite straighten up, wrists locked around the area of mid-thigh. Decker dragged him along anyway, pushed him face first against a roughly made version of a Saint Andrew's Cross, constructed of 2 x 6's bolted to the cement wall. A homemade bondage scaffold complete with eye rings for securing arms and legs. Fuck. Just fuck.

Decker kicked his ankles apart, secured one, then the other, assuring limited ability to fight it when he loosed Lex's arm and forced it to the apex of the right beam. Lex fought him anyway, mindless panic that got him nothing but a fist in the kidney, driving the air out of him, letting Decker drag his arm up and lock it in place. He followed suit with the other. Which left Lex spread eagle and yanking ineffectually at the cuffs, belly pressed into the intersection of wood, everything else dangling.

How was he supposed to deal with the bastard when he wouldn't let him talk long enough to reason? And he could reason, he could reason very prettily, if he could just get his equilibrium long enough to choke back the rage and the frustration and the burning need to see this man dead. And the fear. The fear wasn't making it any easier to come up with calm rationalizations, even inside his own head.

He heard the slither of leather, like the sound of a belt sliding out of the loops of a pair of pants. Vaguely familiar. Lionel had on occasion, when he'd been deep in his cups and mourning the loss of a wife and the burden of a disappointing heir, had a penchant for employing a similar method of discipline. Never on bare skin though. Never more than a strike or two before he realized what he was about and shut himself down.

Lex shut his eyes and tried to relax his jaw. Tried to find a calm place. A place where he could take this and not disgrace himself. Jerked when he felt Decker's hand between his legs, cupping his genitals, fondling overly sensitized, trapped balls. The smooth, hard feel of leather touched them, Decker stroking him with the looped belt.

God. Oh, God. He began to loose the rhythm of his breath and he hadn't been hit once yet.

"Five lashes for every time you've spoken out of turn." Decker said, moving the edge of the belt up between the crack of his ass, over the flat butt of the plug stretching his insides, trailing it up his back. "One between the legs for each time you've been disrespectful. I won't hear foul language from you."

Oh Fuck. Oh Fuck. Oh - -

He gasped into the gag at the sound of the first strike. It hit him across the swell of his ass. It took a second for the sting to register, and then it hit hot and sharp. The pain from the second one came faster, and he bit into the gag, choking back the scream.

The crack of the leather echoed in his head, always preceding the burn of pain. He tried to calculate how many times he'd spoken, how many tonight that Decker could call him on - -three ?- - and the one aborted 'fuck you'. Fifteen lashes? He tried to count, so he could keep track - - but the shock of each impact shredded his concentration. He thought it had far gone beyond fifteen, so there might be discrepancies between his count and Decker's. He couldn't keep the scream from battering against the gag when the belt caught him across the small of the back and felt like it had torn right through his skin into flesh and bone beneath.

That was nothing compared to the pain that shot through him when the belt lashed up between his legs, snapping against exposed genitals. That pain rushed up, like a fist slamming him in the gut from the inside. Huge and swelling and dulling out the fire in his back.

Again, and he was suffocating from it, not able to get enough air through the gag, heaving and choking and trying to press his body through the wall to get away. A third time - - a fucking third time and he didn't remember saying the words that earned that one - - and it was too much, and everything tilted, a black wall of agony, bile in his mouth, coiling in his throat.

He must have passed out. He was sagging against the cross, when he came to, back on fire. Balls throbbing. Throat burning and raw. His vision was blurry. His face was wet. So much for not disgracing himself. Brilliant plan.

The pressure on his wrists was making his hands numb. He didn't think he could get his legs under him if he tried. Pain and exhaustion were at bitter odds.

Decker moved behind him and he flinched. The man didn't even touch him and he jerked, heart thudding in his throat.

"When I hurt you, it's for your own good." A finger lightly trailed a welt on his back and he sucked in air, recoiling mentally. There was no place physically to escape.

A thick, folded cloth pressed across his nose. One inhalation told him it was more of the chloroform. A second and his head was spinning and the fumes were sucking him down. The last thing he heard was Decker whispering.

"Now you can sleep."

And he did.


Lex was soft. His pain thresholds easy to break. But then, he wasn't a solider. He hadn't been trained to endure torture and deprivation. Physically, he could be broken. Mentally he would be more of a challenge. There were different levels that a man retreated to, when he was trying to escape pain. A smart man would swallow his pride and play at obedience to avoid punishment. But it would be an act and inside his head, he'd be rebelling. Holding onto hope and resentment, plotting retaliation. And though Lex was young and hot headed, he was clever. He'd do what needed doing eventually, to avoid the pain.

Grudging obedience wasn't what Decker wanted from him. Oh, it would do for a start, but what Decker needed, what Lex needed to adapt to this new life Decker was gifting him with, was acceptance of it. Absolute submission. Unblinking welcome of whatever use Decker chose to put him. He'd welcome the pain eventually. Beg for things he couldn't conceive of now, once Decker had utterly destroyed the man he was now.

It would take more than breaking his body for that. There were men he'd worked with during his time in the service that could fuck with a hostile's head without ever touching him. Without ever making him scream. It was effective, but it took time and there were other techniques that let a man get his hands dirty. Head games had never been Decker's preferred method for breaking a man. Getting to the mind through the body was a more satisfying sport. The body and the mind were symbiotic in that the one would eventually shatter if you put enough pressure on the other.

He spread ointment on the worst of the welts once he had Lex down from the cross and back onto the bed. He hadn't been gentle with his use of the belt and there was blood where it had struck the same spot repeatedly. Lex had fine skin. Fragile skin and he marked easily. Decker didn't want scars. He might mark him later, a brand of some sort to remind him who he belonged to. Decker was meticulous with his things, and though his weapons and his gear were worn from hard usage, they were never anything but oiled and honed and spit shined, in perfect condition to do his bidding.

He removed the gag, pulled out the big plug and felt his stomach flutter in excitement as the flared end of it stretched the swollen lips of Lex's asshole wide to accommodate its exodus. The leather ball spreader came off more gingerly, the leather biting into the swollen flesh. He shifted them in his hand, gently. Rolling them a little in their bruised sack. Lex didn't stir through any of it, deep in the grips of the anesthetic.

Decker liked his struggles, loved his body writhing under him, but he liked this too. The sublime feeling of a body limp and lax and completely his to arrange.

He crossed Lex's wrists, clipped the cuffs together and attached them over his head to one of the vertical headboard supports. Laid a hand on the back of his naked skull. Licked the thin skin and tasted the faint salty flavor of sweat. Licked at the fading marks on the back of his neck where the gag strap and buckle had bit into his flesh.

He'd let him sleep a few hours, before waking him. He'd keep him from a regular sleep cycle, keep him exhausted and keep him disoriented enough not to know when rest would next be allowed. The lights would never go out and he'd lose his sense of time. It wouldn't take long. Decker had seen men crumble from that subtle pressure alone.

He'd shower him again when he let him wake. Clean him out again on the inside. Give him water, but no food. A few days without and he'd be more malleable, less able to put up a fight if he tried. And he needed to know Decker was stronger than him, more capable. That Decker could take him with or without restraints if he wanted.

The voices in his head were quiet, somewhat mollified by the infliction of pain. By the punishment. It was a relief almost, not to hear them whispering at the edge of his thoughts. He bit at the sharp jut of one shoulder blade. Left an imprint of teeth next to the welt that diagonally intersected it. Beautiful.

He was hard and there was no reason to deny himself anything when it came to Lex. Not anymore. He slapped a little of the ointment on his cock head and sank in. Almost like fucking a corpse, with the utter lack of response. Better, though, when the cavity he was plowing was warm and throbbing in time with a pulse. He shoved in as deep and as hard as he could, the skin of Lex's ass so hot from the whipping that it likened to burn Decker's balls and his stomach when he pressed tight. He dug his fingers in, leaving white imprints in reddened flesh. Grunted with the exertion of it, until his balls tightened and he came. Emptied himself deep in Lex's guts, and sighed in satisfaction. That was four loads of his Lex had inside him. Three up the ass, one down the throat. It made Decker feel warm, satisfied in a way he hadn't felt in a long time. A feeling of accomplishment that he hadn't truly experienced since he'd been booted out of the military and his missions had become so much less grand in scale.

He spread a little lube on the plug and twisted it back in. He wanted everything trapped inside, wanted it to saturate Lex from the inside and kill everything that freakish boy he'd let fuck him might have stained. And tomorrow after he let the enema stretch Lex's belly until the skin was thin and taut, and he rinsed it all out, he'd start all over and fill him up again.

He thought it was a ritual he might grow to love.


The police were at the farm again. In the company of the FBI this time, asking more questions and pressuring them about Clark.

Lies came out of their mouths that Jonathan cringed at. They'd never used religion to cover any of Clark's secrets, but they used it now, excuse for not allowing them to take him away to the hospital or allow their doctors to come and give him more than a cursory look. Martha had read on the internet about parents able to refuse care on the basis of religious beliefs - - and winning when the authorities tried to force the issue in court.

It made Jonathan sick to his stomach to pretend - - to use his God in that way - - but what choice did they have?

Four days and Clark hadn't woken. The wounds had finally healed. All the little ones had closed up with in the hour. The entrance wounds on his skull had taken a little longer. The big ones where the bullets had ripped out the other side of his skull, where bone was missing in chunks - - those were slower to mend. But they did. Four days and his body was whole, but he showed no signs of waking.

Four days that they'd been fending off authorities desperate to uncover any clue they could about Lex Luthor's whereabouts.

Short of telling them the parts about Clark's powers, they'd told them everything else that had happened. What Lex had told them, what they'd seen on their own. Beyond that, all they could do was sit and watch Clark and hope the damage done inside his skull healed as thoroughly as the rest of his body. Hoped that he was the same boy he'd been before, because growing back brain matter and retaining what had been held within might be two different things.

Four days and he tried to get his work done, drove himself to exhaustion doing things that needed doing and couldn't half finish in a day what they'd been able to accomplish in a morning with Clark's abilities to help out. It kept him from thinking though, from letting him fall into a pit of worry over his boy. He'd drag in at night and have an extra beer or two with supper, and try not and talk about what if's with Martha, who was trying damned hard to hold it together. Martha who'd done her crying and was dry eyed and resolute.

It was Martha that had been on the phone with the school, explaining that Clark was sick and couldn't come in. Martha who'd turned away Chloe and Lana from coming to see him, promising them with a smile that Jonathan had no idea how she'd managed, that she'd have Clark call them when he was feeling better.

Pete they let come in, because Pete knew and Pete might be able to help with the cover story if this dragged on too long. But the boy looked traumatized after seeing Clark, pale with bandages wrapped around his head to hide the healing wounds, and sat down at the kitchen table after with his hands shaking while they tried to explain what had happened. Tried to explain their hopes that Clark would come out of this.

The boy didn't understand as much as he pretended. Pete just saw a friend he'd thought pretty much invulnerable lying there paler than Clark had ever been in his life, quieter than he'd ever been, stiller than it was possible for a body to get and not be dead.

Martha might have quit her crying, but sometimes out in the field, Jonathan felt the hot sting of tears when he thought about it.

He worried about Lex to, in that part of his brain not taken up with concern for his own boy. Never would have thought he'd sit up nights with a care for what a Luthor was going through - - but it had been four days and no sign of him. He figured he was probably dead. Probably buried somewhere out in the Kansas back country, if what the bastard that had taken him had done to Clark was any indication. And Jonathan didn't wish that on him. Despite what he and Clark had been up to - - and he didn't want to think about that and have angry thoughts about a kid that was either dead or wishing he were - - he didn't wish it on him.

Not after he'd traded himself for Clark.

The police had found his phone out beyond the picnic shelter. Found his wallet in the trashcan. The rain had washed away any other evidence and thank god for that, because a lot of Clark's blood had spilled. They didn't need them testing that and figuring out there was a boy here they needed to take a closer look at regardless of his parent's wishes.

They'd been shown pictures of the man who'd done it. A man Jonathan's age for God's sake, that had served his country. They hadn't recognized him, but Pete said that Lana had ID'd him as coming into the Talon a lot over the past months. Said she was shaken pretty badly, knowing she'd been waiting the table of psychopathic killer all those weeks. Said he'd mostly come in when Lex had been there, stalking a kid less than half his age.

It made Jonathan's stomach turn. Made him buy a second shotgun, so he could have one in the truck and one in the house. If word reached this bastard that Clark was still alive, Jonathan didn't know what he might do. Didn't know whether he was the sort of man that wouldn't stand to leave a job unfinished.

One way or another, he'd protect his family best he could.

To be continued . . .

Obsessions Chapter 10

Okay, remember all those warnings I gave when I first started posting this thing? Well, they come into play starting this chapter.

If you've got a problem with non-con and Lex abuse, its time to start skipping the Lex/Decker parts of these next few chapters.

I kid you not, so if you're sensitive and choose to read, no comments about how terrible I am.

For those of you who can handle a little dark angst and physical violence, read on.

Chapter Ten



Decker stood there, longer than he should have, reveling in the feel of Lex limp and heavy against him. Shifted his arm from around his neck to his waist and pressed the chloroform soaked rag a little tighter over his nose and mouth, making him take in as much of the fumes as he could before they had to move. Shivering as much as Decker ever shivered, euphoria swelling and coiling inside like a nest of living things.

Mine. Mine. Mine. It was either the voices chanting in jubilation or just him. He wasn't sure. They were in accordance in this.

He could feel the heat of Lex's skin through wet clothing. Feel the slow, steady throb of his pulse under the hand he splayed across his stomach. Wet silk was an erotic barrier between his palm and the smooth skin of Lex's belly. Culmination. Years of lurid fantasy and he had him in his arms. Helpless. All that power Lex had thought he'd held about to be stripped away. He'd started the lesson tonight, running Lex around, making him accept the fact that the only choices he'd had were Decker's. The only choices he'd ever have again were one's given to him by Decker. Obey or suffer the consequences.

Decker's cock burned in his trousers. Had been hard since he'd made the second call to Lex. But it would wait. Deprivation was an old friend. Soon enough he'd indulge himself.

Decades he'd spent breaking his back, fighting the wars of the master's he'd served. Bloodying his hands, bloodying his mind until all he saw some nights was blood. He was due this. Due his own fucking private paradise, only he didn't need any damned 72 virgins, just Lex.

He shoved the rag in his pocket, got an arm under Lex's knees and swung him up. Tall as he was Lex didn't have a lot of bulk. A lot easier to handle than the boy, who'd been solid with the muscle density of a kid that worked and worked hard.

He took one more glance at the boy on the ground, who was just cooling meat now, with two bullets in his head. He'd needed Lex to see that. Needed Lex to know that all those outside things that mattered to him were gone. Irretrievably gone. And the kid might have miraculously recovered from a slit throat, but there were bits of brain matter and shards of skull, spattered in the blood soaking his dark hair and there wasn't any coming back from that.

The kid's blood had stained the carpet in the back of the SUV, but he didn't figure Lex would mind. He put him in, hesitated, snared by the long curve of neck and shoulder where the half buttoned shirt stretched away, baring skin. Laid a thumb on the big vein and felt hot blood surging through. Traced the length of it down to the juncture of collarbone. Elegant. Not one of Decker's words, but it fit Lex to a T.

He clenched his fist, drawing back, not having the time to waste here, with people on the way to find the kid. He got in the SUV, grim curve on his lips, didn't bother to adjust himself, no matter the discomfort. Pain was a good thing. Made release all the better when it was finally allowed.

He backed down the trail till he could turn, then put the vehicle into 4-wheel drive to traverse the mud, and headed towards the road the back way. It was a long way home.

He pulled the SUV into the dilapidated barn behind the house, filled with its antiquated farming equipment, long gone to rust. He hauled Lex over his shoulder, pulled the rickety barn door shut, hiding the dull gleam of the SUV, and walked to the house. Unlocked the deadbolts on the door, all of them newly installed. All of them the sort that locked from both sides, needing a key to get in or out. The house itself was mostly furnished the way the old man who'd owned it had left it. Threadbare furniture, stacks of newspaper, boxes of accumulated things that most people would have considered trash.

Decker didn't care. It was just a gateway to the sanctum below. The barn was full of trash he'd cleared out from the basement, making the space his needs required. Making a place suitable to keep a man that might have issues at first at being kept. No windows to worry about barring, just a secure metal door at the top of narrow stairs that had replaced a thin wooden one. Cement floor and walls, riddled with stress and age cracks. A bed, sturdy and wrought iron, bolted to the floor. A sink, a toilet, a shower that Decker had installed himself. Other projects he'd spent time constructing out of wood and metal. Locked metal cabinets filled with supplies to fill every need. One's to survive down here indefinitely, if the need arose. One's to teach a young, proud man the meaning of humility.

He pushed the basement door open, and maneuvered down the steps with his burden. Deposited Lex on the bed, went back up and locked the door with the keys he kept around his neck on a thin chain. He came back down, stood at the edge of the bed and stared, savoring the moment. Mission complete and victory at hand.

Sat down finally, on the edge of the hard mattress, ran a thumb over soft, half parted lips. Pressed the bottom one down to reveal the slick pink inside. Lex didn't stir. He let his fingers slide down Lex's neck, used a thumb under the tip of his jaw to tilt his head back and emphasize the arch of his vulnerable throat. He rested his fingers against the throb of pulse, shutting his eyes and letting the feel of it seep into his own veins. If he pressed harder he could interrupt the blood flow to the brain. If he kept pressing the brain would stop altogether, deprived too long of oxygen rich blood. The quiver in his gut started to pound, rhythmic beat of anticipation. He swallowed, opening his eyes and forcing his fingers down. Flicking the only two fastened buttons on Lex's shirt out of their holes.

He peeled damp silk aside. With his arms cuffed behind him, the lines of Lex's chest where taut, the delineation of his ribcage more pronounced. His nipples pink and drawn in the cool basement air.

Decker could do more than watch now. He could touch. He could reach out and catch a little nub between his fingers and tug on pliable flesh. Knead and twist until Lex made a sound, pain drawing him closer to consciousness.

It snapped Decker out of his exploration. Put him back on track.

He rolled Lex onto his side, unlocking the metal police issue handcuffs. Hard metal would bite to the bone when struggles became desperate. He stripped the shirt off, and reached for more suitable restraints. Thick leather cuffs with the added security of tiny padlocks. He fastened them around Lex's wrists. Hissed air out through his teeth, cock throbbing hot and tight in his fatigues as he cinched the leather tight. He stretched Lex's arms above his head and clipped the D rings of the manacles to short lengths of chain welded to the wrought iron spokes of the headboard.

Stripped the pants off him and had to pause and drink in the sight of him, pale and sleek as he'd always imagined, not a hair follicle on his body to mar the utter smoothness of his skin. More naked because of it. Indecent almost - - debauched and decadent, like something you'd find on a leather porn sight - - some shaved slave, bound and stretched out on display, awaiting the pleasure of his master. Only he was like this naturally.

Decker grinned slowly, figuring the rest was true enough. He ran a hand down the long, lean muscle of one calf, and fastened a cuff to the ankle. Stretched it out to the corner of the bed, clipped it to the iron footboard. Did the same with the other leg.

Then he went upstairs, pulled out his painfully hard dick and pissed. Stroked it a few times, just to take the edge off, otherwise he'd shoot his load the moment he had it out of his pants in the vicinity of Lex. Sat down after and opened a can of salvage store army rations and ate. He'd give Lex time to come out of the chloroform haze, give him time to realize his situation. Time to realize just how out of options he was, then Decker would go down and start cracking through the layers of armor he'd built up after twenty two years of living under his daddy's rule.

He had all the time in the world to ferret out the secrets and the weaknesses and use them to break Lex down, to make him malleable and willing to submit to Decker's rule.

Jonathan Kent cursed the Luthor name. Cursed Lex Luthor in particular, the taillights of the Porsche so long out of his sight he thought he'd lost him for good. The old ford engine was struggling at seventy-five. God knew how fast Lex had been sailing down a rain slick two-lane rural route. If it hadn't been for the curb all freshly torn up from somebody making a damned precarious turn on Greendale, he'd have driven right past. As it was, he slowed, rain splattering his arm and the cracked vinyl of the truck door as he peered out the open window at the tracks in the mud.

Not necessarily Porsche tire treads, but it was the only clue he had. So he made the turn, spinning tires on slick asphalt and headed down Greendale, his gut so tight with fear that he was wrong, that he would be too late, that it ached.

Damn Lex for bringing this on them. Damn him for taking an honest boy - - a good boy - - and tempting him with things that would never have crossed his mind, if not for Lex. They'd had enough damned craziness in their lives, without the Luthor's bringing their own brand of it to town.

All he'd ever wanted was for Clark to grow up safe and happy and as normal as Clark, being Clark, could hope to be. He'd always thought, in that place where he allowed himself modest dreams, that Clark would want the farm, would continue working it with a good woman and a family of his own after Jonathan was in the ground, just as he'd worked it after his father had passed.

But after the things Clark had said, the things he'd done when he'd had that damned red rock on his finger, Jonathan wasn't so sure anymore. Wasn't sure the farm would be enough for him. Wasn't sure a woman who'd give him a family to carry on the name would be enough.

He'd never admit it to a living being, but he wished it had been Lana he'd caught Clark naked and - - and fornicating with. Wished with a shame that made his soul shrink, that it had been her he'd felt the need to force into sex. God help him for wishing rape on an innocent girl, but the alternative of his son preferring a man shook him to the core.

A car passed him on the road. Leisurely pace, low broad headlights of an early model sedan. Not Lex. Damn him for driving like a bat out of hell, for racing out of the house with barely an explanation and expecting them to know what in the hell they were supposed to do.

It had been miles now. Miles of dark, rainy road and he'd passed plenty of turn offs that Lex could have taken and without slowing down and inspecting each one for signs of tire marks - - If Lex had actually had the presence of mind to make the first set on purpose - - he was lost. He clenched his jaw, an unbidden quaking starting in his chest, fear for Clark rising up like bile in his throat.

He could drive till he hit Metropolis and not catch up to that fancy car of Lex's. Best maybe to turn around and start looking for sign of where he might have turned. Lex was clever, Jonathan would give him that, and he'd wanted Jonathan to follow. So maybe he'd gone out of his way to leave breadcrumbs. Jonathan just hadn't seen them in the dark.

So he turned around, headed back the way he'd come, headlights on high beam, peering through the rain spattered windshield looking for something. Anything. There were headlights approaching. A truck. It took it slowing, the horn blaring at him for him to realize it was his own damned truck. The '72 ford that he used to haul hay and feed out to the far pastures. Expired tags, bald tires and rusted out body that had no business being out on a public road.

Martha rolled down the window, white faced and frantic eyed and cried at him. " Lex called. Clark's at the picnic stop on Greendale, Jonathan."

Damn, he'd passed that a mile back, a narrow little dirt track he hadn't thought to give much heed to. He started to open his mouth, to tell her not to get too far ahead of him, but she was already heading down the road by the time he could turn around. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor trying to catch up with her, not knowing what was waiting out there.

By the time he got there, she was standing in the rain, screaming Clark's name. He grabbed the shotgun off the seat and joined her. It was damned dark out here, no lights save the twin beams of their headlights. There was a trail leading into the woods, a walking path that local kids used more often than anyone else, to find secluded make-out spots. He'd used it himself a lifetime ago, before he'd met Martha.

He caught her arm before she could plunge down it before him, checking the load in the shotgun, before preceding her. He'd never shot a man in his life. To protect her, to protect his son, he would.

It wasn't that far before they reached the churned mud of an off road trail. They almost didn't see Clark, dirt and rain-darkened clothing blending him in with the mud. Martha saw him first, Jonathan busy scouring the dark brush looking for threats. She cried out, a happy little squawk that turned into something else entirely as she skidded to her knees in the mud next to him.

Martha wasn't the sort of woman that screamed, not the sort that let fear get the best of her. But the wail that ripped out of her throat was like somebody had torn out her heart. It sat his own to racing, palpitating in his chest. He dropped down, shotgun forgotten in the mud, and tried to get past her to see the damage.

It was horrific. A gaping hole ripped through Clark's temple, blood and bone and brain matter spattered on the surrounding skin. Another behind his ear, and Jonathan could just see the exit wound of this one, a hole the size of a woman's fist where his skull had just been blow away. Nothing any mother should ever have to see.

He latched onto her, his own shoulders quaking, holding onto her tight while she keened, Clark's ruined head clutched against her breast. Pressed his face against her wet hair and sobbed.

"We have to get him home," he croaked. "Martha, we have to get him home."

She leaned over Clark a moment more, then lifted her head, her face lined with agony, and nodded. What else could they do? Report it to the sheriff? Have them take his body and autopsy it and discover he wasn't human? Then they'd peel him open and take him apart, piece-by-piece to appease their curiosity and damned if Jonathan would allow it. She knew it, too.

Somebody had bound his hands and feet with wire, wrapped it around his knees. In the dark, Jonathan couldn't get a good enough grip to twist the knot free. He cursed, his own fingers bleeding from the effort and Martha put her hands on his wrists, looked up at him with infinite understanding of his frustration. He swallowed back tears that tasted like blood and got his arms under Clark's shoulders while she struggled with his feet and they got him by degrees to the pickups. Dragged him into the bed of Jonathan's, and he unrolled the old blue tarp and laid it over him, not so much to hide him, as to keep the rain out of his face. As if it mattered.

"Leave it here," he told her, when she went to get into the farm truck. They'd come back and pick it up later, but right now, he didn't want her driving it on that long wet road home.

He put the gun on the rack behind him. She climbed in and sat, hollow eyed and mud spattered next to him.

Silence on the way home, neither one of them able to speak past the pain.

Fumes of adrenalin allowed them to get Clark into house. They laid him out on the dining room table, neither one having the strength to attempt to get him upstairs. He stood there afterwards holding her while she cried softly into his chest.

He clipped the wire off Clark, while she cleaned him up as best she could. Stripped the mud caked clothing off him, washed the dirt and the blood and the other things off his body. There were wounds other than the bullet holes. Puncture wounds the width of a hunting knife. His shoulder. The hollows above both hips, the meaty part of his thighs, a few other places, as if someone had taken time and effort to hurt him.

They sat there, on either side of the table of him, her hands on his cold arms, her head bowed, while Jonathan stared blankly over them both, thinking thoughts he'd never thought he'd think. Thoughts about killing a man slow and painful.

"Lex."

He looked up at her voice. She was staring at him, wide eyed.

Jonathan blinked her back into focus. "What?"

There was a wrinkle between her brows, a dawning spark of new horror in her green eyes. "Oh my God, Jonathan - - where's Lex?"

"The hell should I know? Half way to Metropolis after leaving us to - - " To deal with Clark. He couldn't stop staring at the damage the bullets had done to Clark's head.

"Jonathan!" She pushed herself up. "He went there to try and save Clark. And he's gone. He wouldn't have left if he'd had a choice. You know that!"

"I know he didn't save him!" he cried at her. "I know Clark wouldn't be lying here now - - like this - - if it weren't for him."

"It wasn't his fault!" She stared at him, eyes so red from all the crying that they fairly glowed in her face. "He didn't ask for this. You can't blame him for the actions of a madman. Clark wouldn't blame him for this. Don't you dare."

He gaped at her, at the vehemence in her voice and he remembered the look in Lex's eyes when he'd run past them on the way out of the house. The desperation. The fear for Clark that sent him out to meet a kidnapper that he'd known had been aiming for him, alone in the dark with nothing for backup but a Goddamned farmer in a truck too old to match the speeds of a hundred thousand dollar car.

"We need to go and tell Lionel," she said.

Lionel Luthor was the last man Jonathan wanted to go and tell anything, but that was old grudges talking. A man had the right to know if his son had gone missing.

He nodded, pushing himself up from the table while she went to look for a blanket to cover up Clark. There was a wound on his leg, just below the knee that Jonathan hadn't noticed before. A nasty looking puncture that was inflamed and blistered. There looked to be something protruding. A sliver of wood. He went for the needle nose pliers, dug into the wound with a wince and caught hold of the piece, pulled it out, a long sliver of wood and on the tip of it, bound with thin wire, a long shard of bloody green rock. He held it up under the dining room light. Looked past it at Martha who'd come back with the blanket in her hands. This was the culprit. The reason Clark had fallen prey to bullets and blades.

"How in hell did he know about the meteor rock?" He didn't expect her to have an answer.

He looked down, then narrowed his eyes and peered closer. The veiny red in the inflammation around the puncture wound was slowly receding. Slower by far than Clark usually healed when he'd been nicked by meteor rock, but healing all the same.

Dead men didn't heal. Even dead alien ones.

"Martha," he was afraid if he said her name above a whisper the spell would shatter and he'd blink and realize he'd been seeing things. She came around the table, looked where he was looking, and after a moment, sobbed. Clutched his arm and sobbed, but this time it was tinged with something that might have been a distant cousin to relief.

Lex came awake by degrees. Lazy awareness of cool air brushing his skin, of the faint dank smell of mold, of the ball of his foot touching cold metal. He tried to shift it, and couldn't. He drew in air, a huge lungful of it and the oxygen chased away the fog. He tried to move his arms, but they were locked above his head. He twisted his head in blossoming panic, jerking against the restraints. Thick leather cuffs snug around his wrists, attached to iron rings welded to the vertical bars of a wrought iron bed.

He was naked, his legs spread wide and secured to the legs of the iron footboard. He cursed, that blossoming panic swelling to full-fledged terror. Desperately jerked at the restraints, chain clanking, leather squeaking, but the bed not giving an inch, solid and implacable and holding him fast. All he managed was to bruise his wrists and twist his shoulder a little in his efforts. He lay afterwards, panting and sweating, staring with spots of light edging his vision at the room he was in.

His vantage was limited, but what he could see was rough cement walls, spotted with age and mildew. A ceiling lined with thick beams, two sets of fluorescent shop lights and a disturbing collection of hooks and eyelets and pulleys, some draped with coiled rope and chain. There were things against the wall that looked like they'd been ripped from the pages of some hardcore eastern European porn site. Things that made him catch his breath and choke back an involuntary sob. To wrench his arms half out of their sockets in a renewed effort to free himself.

And then it hit him, while he was lying there, exhausted from futile effort, that Clark was dead. That the son of a bitch had put two bullets in his skull while he'd lain there, helpless in the mud. That Lex had misjudged everything - - had mishandled everything - - fucked everything up and Clark was dead dead dead because of it.

"Mother Fucker," he screamed, his rage and pain echoing off cold walls. Sobbed with it, clenching fists that already felt as if they were losing circulation. "You lying piece of shit."

Silence answered him. Silence and the cold, moist air of a room that was surrounded by earth. His genitals shrank from it, his skin pimpled.

A hundred images of Clark flashed across his mind's eye, a hundred instances. Those big earnest eyes, that blinding smile. The way his hands felt, big and strong and fumbling when he tried so hard to be gentle. The look of comical horror on his face when he tore a condom, the look of complete ecstasy when he sank inside him, like he'd just discovered new religion.

He pressed his face into his arm and choked on pain he hadn't felt since his mother died. That all consuming blow of loss. Utter, complete, hollowing out his insides and filling him with grief.

For a long time he lay there, shuddering, clenching teeth that wanted to chatter, under mercilessly bland florescent light. Tried his bonds periodically, but they were stubbornly unyielding.

Froze at the echoing click of a key in a lock, the creak of a heavy door opening, and the sound of heavy boots on stairs. He twisted his head, trying to see, but the bed was turned away from wherever the stairs were. It wasn't until he walked around to stand staring down at him that Lex saw Donald Decker.

"You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch! You fucking, murdering son of a bitch!" The first words started out a clench jawed whisper. The last ones ended up a scream. He arched off the bed as much as the restrains would allow, wanting this man dead, willing it so hard his temples throbbed.

Decker just looked down implacably, then walked away, out of Lex's line of vision, while he cursed him. Came back with leather in his hands. Lex hissed and cursed more when he saw what it was. A damned big black leather ball gag, attached to inch wide leather straps by shiny D-rings.

"No. No! Fucking - - No - -!!" Lex tried to twist his head, but Decker caught him by the chin, fingers biting into the hinge of his jaw, forced the thing in behind his teeth, jerked the straps tight, buckling it in place. He gagged on it, tongue trying to shove it out, slick leather this huge, unwelcome mass in his mouth.

Decker sat on the edge of the bed, weight making it dip, grasped his jaw again, and ran his thumb over Lex's lips, stretched around the girth of the gag. "Talking's a privilege you haven't earned."

Lex screamed at him, but it was eaten up by the gag.

Decker met his eyes, fingers biting into his jaw so hard they'd probably leave bruises. Lex glared back, unflinching, hating this bastard more than he'd hated anything in his life.

"What you will learn, boy," Decker's fingers loosened, moved down his neck to his chest, thumb brushing a nipple. "Is the meaning of respect."

He trapped the nipple between thumb and the knuckle of his forefinger and squeezed hard. Lex bit down on the gag.

"What you will learn, is that any power you ever had is gone." He tugged the nipple one more time, twisting it away from Lex's chest, then released it, moving his hand, palm flat, fingers spread, down his chest, to his belly. "That there are no choices left for you to make, because they're all mine. Down to when you eat, when you piss, when you sleep - - my choices." He leaned down close, lips moist against the side of Lex's mouth, tongue flicking out and tracing the line of his lips around the gag.

He turned his head, involuntary sound of distress escaping him. That burning fury in his gut beginning to be extinguished by the cold grip of fear.

Decker squeezed his cock and it felt as if it were trying to shrink up inside him. The fingers slid lower, between his legs, a fingertip prodding his hole. Decker withdrew the hand, frowning, rubbing between his fingers a little bit of dried semen. Clark's. Lex never had gotten the chance to rinse it off.

Decker leaned down, hand on the mattress next to Lex's head, lips pulled back in a snarl of rage. "You let the freak come inside you? Fucking slut. You think I'm gonna dirty my cock with that freak's spunk?"

He drew back a fist and Lex braced himself for a blow. But Decker snarled, knuckles popping from strain, before relaxing the fist, turning instead and unclipping the chain from Lex's right ankle. He unclipped the other one and as soon as it was free, Lex jerked it out of his grasp, aiming a kick for his head. Decker took a glancing blow, didn't seem fazed, leaned his weight across Lex's knees and put an end to the effort. He hooked the rings of the ankle cuffs together, hobbling him, then shifted up to do the same with his wrists.

Lex fought it with everything he had. The man wasn't Clark, he didn't have superhuman strength, but he had leverage and a lot of weight and muscle mass on Lex. The gag muffled his scream of frustration as his wrists were clipped together.

Decker dragged him off the bed with a grip on figure 8 shaped clip connecting the cuffs. He hit the floor and couldn't get his feet under him. Decker heaved him up, back to Decker's front, hauled him off his feet with a grunt and manhandled him towards what looked to be an open front shower. Just a crude little area blocked off by shoulder high cinderblocks on one side, a showerhead high on the opposite wall and a drain in the middle. There was a hook in the ceiling above the drain. Recessed hooks in the floor. And God, he knew what they were for and he bucked in Decker's grip, white panic lapping at the edges of his reason.

It didn't matter. Decker had the reach and the strength to force his wrists up and over the hook with its tongue clip. He stepped back then, letting Lex hang there, laboring to breathe when his mouth was stuffed full of leather, almost able to stand flat-footed on the floor. Until Decker unclipped his ankles and kicked his legs apart, fastening a short length of chain to the outside ring of each ankle cuff and clipping them to the recessed hooks in the floor. Then he could barely balance on the balls of his feet, his feet about two feet apart, the rest of him painfully vulnerable.

He made a strangled sound, chest heaving, muscles flinching involuntarily, trying to turn and failing, to see what the bastard was doing. A hand touched his flank. He tried to shy away, failed. It ran up his side, tracing the line of his ribs. Slipped back around to his ass and he felt thumbs parting the cheeks. Felt the cold touch of a thick liquid dribble down his crack.

He clenched his teeth around the gag, shutting his eyes, tightening up reflexively as Decker pushed something smooth and round against his asshole. Worked it a little, forcing some of the lubricant or soap or what the fuck ever Decker had poured on him, inside, then with a twist and an application of force, pushed it in. He choked on a gasp, at the sudden stretch and burn, as his body accepted it. But it wasn't the biggest thing he'd had up his ass in the past twelve hours or so, and the pain faded his body adjusting to the intrusion. Part of it was still dangling out, what felt like a rubber tube hanging between his legs.

There was the sound of running water, Decker at the sink behind him, and Lex began to get a sick feeling what the bastard was up to. When Decker came back, he had big, clear rubber bag full of water. There was a drip clip attached to the bottom, a reinforced hole at the top from which to suspend it.

Fuck.

"We'll wash him away," Decker growled in his ear. "Inside and out."

Then he hung the bag from a hook by Lex's wrists, attached the tube to the one protruding from Lex's ass and let the water flow. It wasn't even warm. Cold. And shocking and flooding his insides as Decker opened the valve wide.

Lex threw back his head, fingers clawing at air, legs jerking ineffectually at the chains holding them spread. He was cramping up from it, the rush of it stretching his bowels. He wanted to bend double, to curl up and sob. It was too much. It was going to rupture him and Decker just moved around him, watching him wrench against the restraints, until the bag was empty, and Lex felt like he was dying from the pain. Then he clamped off the tube, trapping it all inside.

Lex screamed into the gag, trying to tell him. Willing to plead now, to beg prettily if that's what it took to get it to stop. Decker moved in close behind him, he'd shed his shirt somewhere while Lex's insides had been flooding. Pressed against him, chest hair bristly and harsh against Lex's over sensitized skin. He reached around and patted Lex's belly. It sounded liquid and sloshy and when he looked down, horrified, it was distended.

"Good boy," Decker bit his earlobe. "You took five quarts. Filled you up nice and tight, didn't it? Feel the burn, stretching out your intestines? Hurts bad, doesn't it? It'll get worse longer I make you hold it."

His limbs were quaking, everything quaking. He rolled his head forward away from Decker's hot breath. Screamed, muffled and wet and shocked, when Decker's palm slapped his stomach hard. Groaned after, because the pain wasn't going away, it was growing, a hard swollen sea of it sloshing inside him.

The water came on, luke warm, hit him in the face and chest as the showerhead came to life. There was a retractable nozzle and Decker used it to wet him down. Squirted liquid soap in his hands and started sliding them across Lex's body, leisurely, like he was going to take his time at it, while Lex was about to burst. He made a keening sound, foreign in his own ears, like someone else was making it, cramping, shuddering, twitching as unwelcome hands traveled the length and breadth of him. Spent a great deal of time around his genitals, between his legs, around the protruding enema tube.

"Ready to let loose?" Decker was back at his ear, tongue worming its way inside the shell. Lex nodded, desperate assent, humiliation overridden by pain.

When Decker pulled the plug, and his body expelled the water, the reprieve was almost orgasmic.

Lex dropped his head, exhausted, gasping, muffled sobs of relief. Decker sprayed him off with the showerhead nozzle and the discharge swirled down the drain between his feet. He moved around to stand before him, lifting his chin so he had to look him in the eye.

"You're still dirty. One more time."

He sobbed, straining against restraints and Decker started the process all over again. He hung there writhing and cramping, while Decker stood a foot in front of him, consuming his pain, idly squeezing himself through wet fatigues.

It went on for eternity - - or ten minutes or so, before Decker gave him relief. Rinsed him off again, while Lex sagged, legs trembling so bad they couldn't hold his weight.

There was the sound of a zipper. The rustle of wet cloth. The heat of Decker close behind him. He stared forward, at the wet cement under the shower head and told himself he wouldn't make a sound. Wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction. Not from this.

When Decker shoved inside him, it was fast and shocking, soap easing the way only marginally. Lex bit down on the gag, swallowing the cry, swallowing the burn. Decker felt big, but not as big as Clark.

Clark. Clark. Clark. Clark thoughts shattered his defenses. The mental anguish opening the floodgates and letting the physical rush in. He felt Decker inside him, hard and hot and unrelenting. Fingers digging into his hips, slamming into him like he was waging war. Scraping him raw it felt like, each time he pulled almost out and rammed back in. Bitterly unwelcome invasion.

With Clark, the stretch of pain had been something to relish - - now it was ripping him to shreds. He wanted to vomit, held it back with the desperate fear that Decker wouldn't notice and he'd choke on it, trapped behind the gag.

Decker was talking dirty to him, a litany of panting words that Lex only half heard beyond the slap of flesh and the overwhelming thud of his own blood in his ears. He'd heard more creative.

"So hot. So tight. You like that? Like my big tool? Take it. Take it all, boy."

Decker's hand slid around and gripped Lex's cock. It was soft and not even the graze of Decker's swollen glans against his prostate caused more than a twinge in his belly and surge of unwelcome sensation in his balls.

Decker twisted, hard, and Lex arched, sucking in air harshly through his nose, nowhere to escape. "What? You could get hard for that freak, but not for a real man? What's wrong with you?"

Another wrenching squeeze and Lex couldn't hold back the cry. Decker cried out after him, clenching his hand around Lex's cock and balls while he strained inside him, balls flush against him as he came.

When he was done, softening inside him, Decker curled an arm below his ribs, hugged tight enough to force air out of his lungs, said softly in his ear. "I'll let you hold on to my spunk. I'll feed it to you, both ends, morning, noon and night, until it's in your blood, boy."

Lex bit down hard on the gag, knuckles popping as he clenched his fists.

There was no strength left to fight when Decker took him down. He almost crumpled when his weight hit his legs. Decker caught him, an arm around his waist and half carried him back to the bed. Pushed him face down, kept him that way with a knee to his back while he stretched his arms and secured each wrist to the bedposts.

Sat at the edge then, and began unlacing his boots. Sat them aside. Stripped off damp socks, army green, then stood up and kicked off wet pants. Laid them across the end of the bed, army neat in the way he folded them. A precise man. A man that had routine drilled into him. He walked naked, beyond Lex's limited scope of vision. There was the sound of metal doors opening the sound of things being shifted about.

Lex squeezed his fists, fighting against the utter gibbering panic. If he lost all control of the fear it would eat him up. Turn him into something he didn't want to be. Didn't want to give this man the satisfaction of seeing. He'd been that thing - - that fear riddled child, after the meteor shower - - when the nightmares kept him from sleeping, when his father's bitter scorn had convinced him he was irreparably damaged. And he'd curl in safe shadowed places and hide from the world. Mortified, terrified, weak.

Decker came back, things in his hands. Leather things. Lex couldn't see the pertinent details. Decker shoved his thighs apart and settled on the mattress between his legs. Ran a hand over his ass, up the small of his back, the back of his head, down again, tracing muscle and bone, all over his body until Lex was flinching and sweating, stomach curling in repulsion each time Decker's hands moved to a new place.

Finally he separated a strap from his little pile of goodies. Two inches thick with a buckle and a D ring. He slid it around Lex's upper thigh, fastened it tight. Did the same with the other thigh, then folded his legs back, connecting ankle cuffs to the bands on his thighs with a short lengths of chain.

He couldn't straighten his legs, couldn't do anything but lay there on his belly, panting, blinking faint traces of wetness of his lashes.

"You're flexible," Decker said approvingly. "Pliable. It'll make things easier on you."

Right. Because the bastard was all about making his life easier. He choked back a helpless laugh. Pressed his face into the mattress when he felt the man reach under him and draw out his genitals. Big, rough padded fingers stroked his balls, then tugged them down, and fastened something hard and leather around the base of his scrotum, stretching them painfully away from his body, then another strap up the underside of them, separating them into two tight little balls of pressure and discomfort. He had to turn his cheek to the mattress to breathe, spots of pain dancing behind his closed lids.

He hated the feeling of Decker leaning down, and sucking one into his mouth more than he did the pain of the constriction. Decker moved to the head of his cock, half chewing on the soft head. And somebody needed to fucking tell him teeth and penis were not the sort of combination utilized if you were trying to spur an erection, if that's what he was even aiming for. It hurt like hell and Lex made a distressed sound in his throat, and tried to squirm away. Decker pulled back and slapped him sharply on the ass. Again, hard enough that the sound echoed off the walls.

"Disobedient little prick," Decker growled at him. And the only thing Lex could figure was that he was pissed that he hadn't gotten him hard. As if that lack were some great surprise.

"Just so you know, the lube is for my comfort, not yours." Decker said, before spreading his cheeks and smearing a drop of gel on his hole.

He speared it inside with a poke of his finger that made Lex tighten his fists. Then he felt the smooth head of Decker's cock press against him, before the man leaned his weight forward and shoved it in. Loose as he was from the last fucking, there wasn't that much resistance. Just another burning stretch that made him fight to hold back a groan, then Decker was inside him, bearing down, hands gripping his ankles, pressing his calves flush to his thighs as he fucked.

It went on longer this time, the man having shot his first enthusiastic load in the shower and having more control of his stamina now. The bed didn't rock, too securely bolted into place for that, but the box springs squeaked with each thrust, and Lex's body kept getting inched forward, until Decker would tighten his grip and drag him back down.

Decker came again, with a grunt, more of the man's sickening warmth spilling inside him. When he pulled out, Lex laid there, wetness that wasn't sweat wetting the sheets under his cheek. Hating himself for the weakness.

Something cold and hard nudged against his burning hole. Small at the tip, flaring larger than anything he'd taken so far at the base and he choked and cried out as Decker twisted it in. When it was in all the way, he felt the cool tapered seat of a butt plug pressed tight against his cheeks.

Decker patted his ass like he was a dog who'd performed to par.

"So you won't lose a drop. Been a long day. A good day." Decker said. "Time for me to sleep." He leaned over Lex and unclipped one wrist, then the other, drawing them behind him and fastening the cuffs together. Pulled him up till he was on his knees in the center of the bed, wrapped an arm around his neck and pressed himself close against his back. "Not you though. You haven't earned sleep yet."

He stood up on the bed, reached overhead and unfurled one of the chains hanging from a hook and pulley system on the ceiling.

Brought it down and hooked it to the clip between Lex's cuffs, pulled at the other end, drawing the chain through the pulley and wrenching Lex's arms up behind his back. He choked on a scream, bent forward, unable to rise and relieve the pressure on his shoulders by the straps locking his ankles to his thighs. The angle he was leaning made the plug inside him press uncomfortably against the walls of his rectum.

"Too high?" Decker asked conversationally, securing the other end of the chain to a hook on the headboard. "Pains good. It'll keep you alert."

Lex moaned into the gag, shoulders already screaming in discomfort. It was a struggle to find that exact position that the bonds would allow him that offered the barest hint of relief.

Decker leaned down, jerked his head back by the ring on the back of the gag strap, and looked him in the eye. "Tonight was just you and me getting acquainted. Tomorrow the real lessons begin."

To be continued . . .