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 . . .