The Thing That Goes by Night: The Self That Lazes Sun     The Thing
That Goes by Night: The Self That Lazes Sun

 by Ilexa

 Author's Notes: My first fic ever. Thanks to Caro for the beta. This
one's for you, hunny. 
Feedback: Oh, yes please. 

 

  

 Lex slid quietly from under the sheets, careful not to disturb the boy
sprawled languorously across the bed. As his feet touched the floor, he
glanced back to ensure his companion was still asleep. A breathy moan
followed a quiet snuffle and Lex was certain his movements went
undetected. 

 Moonlight spilled gently through the tall, wide windows that flanked his
bed. He moved to stand in front of the one closest to him. 

 When he was a child, before the meteor shower took away life as he knew
it, night frightened him. He much preferred the sun-filled hours when
shadows were banished and all their secrets revealed. 

 There was too much unknown in the dark of night. 

 And when his fears got to be too much, when the night overwhelmed him
with its secrets and the shadows surrounded him, he would cry out for his
mother. For her to kiss his forehead and banish the fear with her warmth. 

 But Lionel was always the one who would come. 

 Lionel, with his lectures about Luthors and fears. He would stand in the
middle of Lex's room, which was still drenched in shadows. Lionel seemed
to magnify the darkness. Make it worse where his mother would have made it
better. 

 Eventually, Lionel stopped answering his cries completely. 

 Then Pam would come. She would kiss his forehead and banish the darkness
with her warmth. But mother never came. And it was comforting, but never
the same. 

 After he lost his hair, the night became a refuge. The dark would hide
his freakishness like it hid all the other monsters. But Lex wasn't afraid
of monsters anymore. He had faced, and survived, the meteors. They out-did
the bogeyman any day of the week. 

 He loved the moonlight. During one of their final conversations, his
mother made the comparison between him and the lunar orb. 

 'So pale and smooth and serene. But don't be fooled, Alexander. While it
may seem to fade in the sun's light, the moon is just as powerful. It
pulls the tides. Ancient peoples based their calendars and lives upon its
cycles. And occasionally, it has the power to block out the sun.' 

 Even at 13, he heard her carefully worded advice. And he clung to the
idea that someday he would eclipse his father. 

 As he moved deeper into his teenage years, the night offered not just
solace but escape. Escape from his the demands of his father, of his
school, of the press out to exploit the life of the Luthor heir. 

 The night was his Pandora's Box of drinks and drugs and dancing. Bodies
writhing under the club's false sun, music pounding, liquids of all sorts
flowing through his body, bones melting as the warmth slid past through
his veins, making him liquid and languid until he didn't. give. a fuck. 

 By then he should have known the danger that lurked even in a false sun
and false warmth. The days of wine and rose-colored pills that filled high
school and made college a blur only served to earn his banishment. 

 He glanced at the sleeping form on his bed, softly illuminated through
the other window. His lips, usually curved upwards in a smirk or the ghost
of a grin, gave way to true smile. 

 Now the night brought him peace. It brought him Clark. 

 Clark, with his golden skin. Clark, with his sparkling eyes. Clark, with
his bright smile. 

 Clark, who radiated warmth. 

 Far from the prying eyes of the world, cloaked in darkness, they could be
together. From dusk to dawn, they belonged to each other. Until the sun
rose, tossing them from their happy secret world back into a stark reality
where lies were necessary. 

 "Lex?" the whispered question of his name drew him from his thoughts. 

 Lex's smile widened as he moved back to the bed. Clark had sprawled onto
his stomach, across the area Lex had recently abandoned. Clark stretched
out his hand as a grin spread across his face, an answer to the one now
lighting Lex's eyes. 

 Lex slid onto his back under the covers, pulling Clark into his embrace.
The younger boy nestled his face into the crook of Lex's neck and inhaled
deeply. 

 "Is everything okay?" Clark asked, his voice heavy with sleep and muffled
against Lex's skin. 

 He turned his head slightly, until Clark's hair tickled his nose, and he
breathed in his lover's warm scent. 

 "Every thing is fine, Clark. Go back to sleep." 

 And Lex realized he had been following the wrong star. That the sun and
the moon were parts of the same cycle. Each as powerful as the other, but
destructive without the other. 

 And in Clark, he had found his true sun.   
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