Title: Rum, Sodomy and The Lash
Authors: Kat Reitz & tzigane ^_^
Fandom: Smallville.
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: NC-17
Category: AU, Romance, Hurt/Comfort
Status: Finished
Archive: Battlefields of Slash, wiwp.nu, SSA when we get round to
posting there, CLFF archives
Feedback: If you just feel the mad urge.
Email: --> kreitz at cox dot net and tzigane at eroica dot nu
Author's Web Site: http://rpgplug.co.uk/Asylum/ - http://www.wiwp.nu/ -
http://www.eroica.nu/
Disclaimers: They don't belong to us. If they did, there would be mad
monkey sex.
Spoilers: Mostly for the pilot, possibly for X-Ray and the subsequent
ep involving the same character(s).
Summary: People do a lot of stupid things in college. And sometimes,
they can't seem to *stop*, so a little intervention is needed. Clark's
always liked intervening, particularly when the guy is hot.

Challenge: Hazing

Notes: Omega Sigma Phi *is* a real entity. It's a national professional
organization "dedicated to the promotion of straight chiropracTIC". You
can learn more about it here --
http://www.omegasigmaphibeta.topchiro.com/ -- if you're really curious.
^_^

Fortunately for ALL of us, the Omega Sigma Phi from this fic has
absolutely no connection with the actual OSP. *This* Omega Sigma Phi is
from *Urban* *Legends*, the fraternity that Parker Riley belonged to.
Why? 'cause I like Parker. And Kat lets me indulge myself on occasion
^_~ Consider it a cameo as opposed to a crossover, k? Thanks ^_~

The first night away from home was the worst.

That was what Clark's mother had said, anyway. Of course, that had been two months ago. Quite frankly, he'd come to think that the sixty-third night away from home was just about as bad.

First, there had been the issue of leaving Smallville at all. It had reminded him of one wild summer when he'd done some really stupid things that he didn't *need* to recall. The only good thing about it was that Chloe had gone to NYU, and Lana had been on vacation in France, so neither one of them was around to make faces at him about it.

Second, there was the light. And the noise. And the traffic.

Smallville was exactly that -- small. And after sixty-three nights of *trying* to sleep in Metropolis, he could honestly say something he had never thought he'd even think about saying.

Clark Kent really REALLY missed crickets. And quiet. And darkness.

It was never quiet -- there was always someone rattling around in one of the many rooms that boxed his in, moving or playing music, or just talking loud enough that paper-thin walls couldn't stop the sounds from hitting his ears. And if it wasn't that, it was cars outside, and the odd wail of a siren cutting the air.

Natural darkness was something he couldn't ever get, either. Even with the best blinds he could find, there was still a streetlight glow that crept in from the edges. There was hardly any chance of seeing the stars at night, not past the city's luminescence.

He didn't get a chance to miss mice and rats, though.

Clark really *wished* he could be grateful that the mice and rats didn't worry him, only the pitter-patter tat-tat-tat of their little toes and the sounds of shuffling papers inevitably woke him. That meant that he had to get out of bed, super speed around the room to catch the thing and put the papers away before the next mouse got to them, and put it outside.

Which also meant pausing to pull on a housecoat or something, because he was also suffering through the hell of a coed dorm. At least his parents had agreed that a private room was a necessity in his case, and the extra work he'd done over the summer had helped to fund it.

Not that the girls in the dorm would've minded him parading around in his boxers. And sometimes he did, if sleep was clouding his mind enough. Or lack of sleep. His father had always sworn that he didn't need sleep, but by night sixty three, Clark knew his father's assuring laughed words for the lie they were.

The mice that liked to nibble his notes probably got more restful sleep than he did. The only bright side to it all was that he didn't have a roommate snoring all night or stealing his things on him through the day.

Well.

Okay.

Maybe there was *one* more bright side, and that was really simple to pin down.

Clark wasn't enough of an idiot to go in for frat rushing

There were a lot of reasons for that. He didn't really have the money, for one thing, and he'd never been able to bear watching somebody get bullied. It was okay if somebody did it to him -- God alone knew he had been hazed in high school in a lot of really unpleasant ways -- but seeing it happen to someone else always made his hair stand on end.

Plus, anybody who tried paddling *him* would just break the board on his ass, and then what would he say? 'Oops, sorry, guys. That Buns of Steel video really delivers!'?

His parents wanted him to be inconspicuous in school, under the radar and safe. And it was frankly easier to do there in Metropolis than it had ever been in Smallville. No one really noticed him, other than as the sort of goofy tall guy at the back.

Better to be lonely than in trouble.

There was enough of that going on next door.

Sometimes Clark felt okay about himself. Felt almost like he was like everybody else, just this human guy who had a few weird differences that couldn't be anything new under the sun. And sometimes... Well, sometimes, he felt like he was going to burst out of his skin shedding gray ichor and hissing through alien teeth or something. That was one of the things that made college so *hard*, only sixty-three days into his first semester ever.

The classes were simple. Thanks to a nearly photographic memory, he could easily scribble down a handful of notes in class and never have to study or prepare himself much beyond that. The people, though...

People, Clark had found, were never simple. Apparently college freshmen were even more not-simple than anyone else on earth.

Take the girl who lived at the end of the hall. When she had arrived, he had thought that she looked like a nice enough girl, the kind of girl you'd want to take home to your mother. On the twenty-sixth day, a mandatory convocation had been held entitled 'AIDS, HIV, and You'.

Since she stood up in the middle of the thing and burst into tears because she'd slept with forty-three people since coming to college, and only three of those had used condoms, Clark had been a little twitchy about nigh on *everybody*. After all. He had thought she seemed like such a nice girl, and yet.

He was an alien, sure, but he wanted to be a safe alien. Except for that time he'd stuck his arm in the chipper, he'd never tried to deliberately hurt himself. Or even risk testing things on purpose. And trying that would definitely have to be on purpose.

Except… he wanted to try the big city out, especially that guy who lived next door.

There was the guy, and he was just... Well, not that Clark was going to do anything about it. Not really. He just couldn't help looking sometimes in a wholly different way than that one time he'd looked into the girls' locker room. That was a temptation he could resist. Mostly. This...

Maybe really hot bald guys who walked like they had greased hips just made him want to go into Pon Farr or something.

But the guy next door was the one that made him think about how stupid fraternities were. And how messed up people tended to be in college. Maybe it was part of the college experience. A fuck yourself over for at least a few weeks and get it out of your system for good sort of thing.

The guy next door probably wasn't staring at the ceiling, sleepless.

Of course, the guy next door was probably *seriously* fucked up right about now. Sixty-three days into fall semester was a Friday, the Friday before Halloween, actually. Kind of like Homecoming at Smallville always fell on the Friday before Halloween.

The whole thing made Clark shudder violently in memory.

It made some part of Clark want to... step in, or... something. He wasn't sure. Didn't know enough, other than to know that he probably was seriously fucked up, being that it was a Friday before a holiday. Or a Friday at all. He didn't even know if the guy was in his room.

He did know that Halloween brought out the worst in people. Frankly, it made him a little nervous. Okay. It made him a *lot* nervous, and there were tons of very good reasons for that.

Most of the stuff he'd seen so far during the last nine weeks really hadn't been what a guy could call *comforting*. There had been a lot of purely emotional havoc, the kind of stuff that made a guy grimace and wonder how anybody could put up with that.

Being tied to a flagpole in adult diapers, for example. And then there had been that bizarre thing in the cafeteria with all of the condiments. Clark hadn't figured that one out *yet*.

Worst of all was the stuff that most people didn't see. Things he only heard about in an off the cuff, disbelieving way. People thought it was funny, or stupid, or anything other than harmful. 'Oh, look at the poor rushes' sort of thing.

Even in Smallville, Clark wasn't sure that it would've just been shrugged off like that. Well, except for his crucifixion. Yeah, maybe they would've put up with it in Smallville, thinking about it. 'Tradition' had a lot to do with the things a guy could get away with, and if you weren't lucky enough to have parents like his own, you could be left out in the cold. Like that Jeremy guy, the one who had tried to electrocute the better part of the high school during the Homecoming dance.

Thank *God* his dad had gotten him down off of that cross. Clark shuddered to think about what might have happened otherwise. A lot of people would've died, because they thought that tradition was okay and didn't know that the geek they'd decided to make a 'scarecrow' was the only person who could save them from a monster of their own creation.

It made Clark wonder about people. About *humans*, in one of those odd moments where he was okay with not being 'normal' because normal people apparently checked their brains at the doors a lot.

With all of that thought going through his head, Clark knew he was never going to sleep. Not when he was starting to steadily feel more awake, watching the flashes of light crawl over his ceiling as they made it past his blinds.

Maybe he could go on a walk around the campus. Save some stupid person from their own idiocy, or worse, the idiocy of others. He was awake, anyway, and...

A gusty sigh made its way loose from Clark, and he shook his head. Yeah. Might as well get up. Maybe he'd see the guy next door. Maybe he'd get a smile.

Yeah, and maybe Lana would forgive him for *not* telling her all of his secrets and come hurrying to Metropolis to run after him hot to trot like a girl bent on marriage and having fifteen kids.

Clark had never seen a smile from the guy. Not so much as once. Bared teeth, yeah, something that might have passed for a smirk if Clark hadn't recognized the agony at the back of those confederate-blue eyes, but... no smiles. Not ever. Not even when he was alone in his room, which was a rare enough occurrence that Clark wished it would happen more often.

Except that was Clark peeking through walls again, and his parents had admonished him not to do that 'for fun'. It wasn't fun, so much as curiosity, or just looking. He sat up and looked through the thin wall to see absolutely nothing. Again, but of course... what did he expect on the Friday night before Halloween?

Something told him that if he did find the guy next door while he wandered the lively campus that night, he still wouldn't be smiling.

Well.

It wasn't his job to force the guy into enjoying life, that much was certain. Still. Maybe he could at least save him from some kind of humiliation or something, and Clark was up and dressed before he realized that he was going out.

Obviously the whole thought of saving not-smiley guy from himself was a pretty good catalyst. If he *could* do it, maybe he'd at least get the guy's name. Or a 'thank you' which had always been a novel reward in Smallville. The hope that maybe there'd be some moment where he could do more than lurk from afar made Clark put his shoes on just a little faster.

It was a Friday night. It was *only* eleven. What had he been doing in bed anyway?

Oh, yeah.

Moping. Because. Day sixty-three. Well, maybe day sixty-three would get better, and he'd earn a smile. Or a lick. Or something really *really* good that he just couldn't wait to find out about.

"Kent," he said to himself, "you've gotta get over this whole vivid imagination or yours. You probably won't even *see* him."

But if it was his imagination that was the only thing that was going to make his night worthwhile, there wasn't any harm in listening to it. Clark Kent opened his door, and stepped into the hall.

Maybe his sixty third night in Metropolis could be a little interesting.

~~~~~

No matter what anybody said, Lex Luthor wasn't a quitter. He wasn't the whiny brat with red hair who'd been picked on in grade school until he'd begged his father to let him change schools, to go anywhere but Excelsior. He wasn't the kid who had asthma attacks in helicopters anymore. He wasn't the boy who thought he could run away from falling meteors. He wasn't the kid who cried because nobody came to his birthday parties.

He couldn't help but wonder if being a quitter hurt quite as much as *not* being one did.

But there was an upside. A huge upside, in suddenly being accepted. He was one of the popular kids, and with a well placed hundred, he could get in anywhere and do anything. As long as he kept putting up with the rush, as long as he really worked to be part of the group.

There was no way he was going to stop rushing Omega Sigma Phi. His *father* had done it, and Lionel had made it clear that getting through rush was the very least that Lex could do to prove himself.

Lex Luthor wasn't a man to fail at the bare minimum. He was better than the person he had been.

Even if he was taking off his clothes.

Even if there was a little furry dog weaving around on the carpet from funneling too much beer.

"Damn," one of the seniors sneered. "That's just freaky as hell every time I see it, Luthor. Somebody ought to make you keep that covered up."

"It's not half as much fun if he does," another laughed raucously.

At least he'd been saved the hassle and pain of full body waxing, like some of the other freshmen. The other guys would've been cowed, but Lex just stepped out of his boxers, head held high. "Hey, the ladies like it this way. Not everyone likes to have sex with a human *bear* like Ricky over there."

That guy had really been in pain with the body waxing.

One of the older guys snorted. Parker, his name was. Kind of cute in a chauvinistic sex fiend sort of way. "Hey. I'm not into the naked guy thing, much. So, whatever torture you've got planned for tonight, me and Hootie are gonna go see what other trouble we can get up to."

Lex wished that he could go out and get into other trouble. He didn't much like the 'naked guys' idea, either. Why was it that a bunch of womanizing guys wanted the freshmen naked? Lex would've looked at Parker, but he would only have been watching the guy leave, and that would've put him that much closer to chickening out.

He'd already gone so far. It was too late to back out when there was only a little left before he'd be fully accepted. Just a little left.

God.

Why did it seem so long?

"Everybody line up!" one guy yelled, a mask over his face making the sound echo faintly. Lex could see gooseflesh dancing over the other pledges, and it made him smirk a little. At least he didn't show his nervousness THAT way.

He kept it all inside. They wouldn't get to revel in his tension, no. He got into the lineup, along with the just seven of them that were left, and waited. There was always waiting, even though he knew that the seniors already had plans for the night. For them.

They were probably pretty unpleasant plans, too, if Parker was abandoning them. It made Lex edgy even as he placed his hands on the cinder block walls.

"Now, then. All of you nancies have held up pretty well so far," the masked guy declared, "compared to the first two thirds. But you know, it's Halloween, and that's a special time for rushing. A special time for showing how much you're gonna love your house." He was moving around behind them, and Lex was pretty sure he heard the youngest remaining pledge squeak in a not-so-good kind of way.

"Man, you already know we love our house," the guy at the other end declared. Lex was glad he wasn't him. What did he think he was doing, talking when the guy in the mask so very clearly had a whole speech prepped to give?

He did shift his fingers on the wall, though, trying to settle himself into something like comfort if they were going to be standing there for a while.

The *crack* of leather on flesh *really* wasn't comforting. Not in the least. It didn't bode well for the rest of the night.

"Well aren't we just Little Miss Eager."

"Damn, man -- that hurt!"

He didn't want to have his ass beaten. There had to be better things to do on Friday nights, like make them all drink a hell of a lot more than was sane. Lex held still, hoping that holding still would keep him from drawing attention to himself. Maybe it'd be a couple of cracks each and then on to actual partying. That wouldn't be so bad.

He really should have known better.

"Well, it's gonna hurt more. And if you're a real man, you won't whine about it."

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

And damn. Lex's turn. The nausea settling in the pit of his belly screamed that belonging to his father's *stupid* goddamn frat wasn't worth this. It wasn't worth the way that leather snapped hard against his bare ass, making him hiss. He wouldn't whine, he wouldn't, it'd just make things worse. Even if it felt like he'd just been lashed with a piece of *fire*, he still wouldn't do more than make that strained exhalation.

Oh, God it hurt.

"Oh-ho, we've got a *brave* guy here."

Not surprised. *Not* surprised, because really, they liked picking on Lex. They'd been working to make him miserable since the beginning, worse than the others, and when the lash came again, it didn't come just once.

Fucking HELL.

"Nngh." Lex swallowed the noise, head rolling between his outstretched bracing arms. Two in a row, right on top of that first. Whoever it was with the belt had a strong arm. Too strong, because he might as well have been kicking Lex with steel-toed boots.

He wasn't going to say anything. Even if they joked you when you were a wuss, and joked you when you weren't. He wasn't doing it for *them*.

"Well, don't you just bruise pretty as a girl," somebody behind him laughed, fingers reaching out and pinching the ever-loving *fuck* out of one of those welts.

"Squeal like a pig, boy," another one snickered.

"Nng." He'd just keep swallowing sounds to keep from crying, from gasping or yelling protest to the pain of having bruised flesh pinched like that. Yeah. Whenever it all ended he was going to make sure those guys got theirs. Somehow, some way. It was the sort of thing his father would approve of, no question about it. Subtle, eventual revenge.

"Why... why should I?"

"Because we want you to, little pledge. Come on, Luthie." Warped, *warped* girlish nickname, and where the hell were the other pledges going, anyway? "You know you wanna play with us a little heavier. We didn't get all the fun of shaving you off, you freak, so we're gonna have a little different fun with you."

He sucked in a sharp breath, and turned his head to either side to see that they'd been gestured back, away from the wall. Apparently one hit had been good enough for the rest of them, but not for him. Fuck. "Why?"

"Why?"

*CRACK*

Oh, Jesus. Jesus, GOD, fucking mercy.

"It's not your place to ask *WHY*, boy. That's not what a girly pledge *does*." And what had he *ever* done except put up with all of their shit, and try so fucking *hard* to take these acts of idiocy in stride because that's what they expected, what his *Dad* expected, and oh, fucking *GOD*.

It was okay that just the once, he slumped forwards a little, forehead against the wall. His legs were shaking from the pain that he was trying to not cry out with. "O... okay..."

Okay.

Okay.

He could take this. He could handle it. He wasn't a baby, and... and...

"Um," one of the other pledges mumbled hesitantly, "he's bleeding."

"Scared of a little blood? This isn't worse than any of those shaving nicks you got on your balls."

Lex didn't think shaving could hurt quite that much, burn like that. His leg shook a little before he locked his knees and just stayed still, leaning into the wall. He *would* take it. He'd be a man about it. He'd…

Oh, wow. Stars.

"Shit, he fell down!"

Fell down. Go boom. Lex would have giggled if his throat could have let anything loose aside from a faint strangled gasp for breath the likes of which he hadn't given since he was nine and searching frantically for his nebulizer.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe, and that hadn't happened to him in forever. It wasn't supposed to happen to him anymore, he'd outgrown it, he... he needed to stay calm. But couldn't, and sucked in another strangled gasp as panic set in.

"Oh, shit." All kinds of chaos around him, and were they just *leaving* him there? No. No, there was still somebody there, but everything was graying out and he couldn't suck in a *breath* and... "We gotta get him outta here. We can't let nobody see this!"

"Shouldn't we call 911? Or something?"

"Jesus, what's going on? I didn't think he was that chickenshit. Someone get him upright or something."

Fuzzing haze, and even the words sounded faint.

Or maybe he was faint.

Or maybe...

~~~~~

Even the darkest nights in Metropolis were brighter than full moon wanderings at home, and Clark hated them. He heaved a sigh that was as weighty as the car he'd pulled out of the ditch half a mile back (drunk student still breathing, thank God, and it hadn't been any trouble to dial 911). No sign of that guy at all.

Maybe he was staying out of trouble. Trouble being a relative term. Metropolis had already taught Clark how to differentiate between *trouble* and 'trouble'. That guy was probably getting into what Clark's parents would've called trouble, partying too hard and having too much fun, which Clark sort of envied.

He wished *he* could do that kind of thing instead of wandering around pulling idiots out of ditches or walking the quad on a Friday night to be sure all the folks who braved it got home safe. He felt too responsible, maybe, but that was just Clark being, well, Clark, and these things didn't change much.

At least he knew his dad would be proud of him, even if his mom had teased Jonathan to no end about telling Clark all about his 'wild' college days. His dad had been on the football team, too, and had strung people up once upon a time -- and wow, had he ever grown up to be a responsible caring adult. People changed, Clark reminded himself. That drunk kid he'd pulled out of the ditch could be the next president. Or just someone whose parents would've missed a hell of a lot if he'd died of exposure or something.

Like the guy about a hundred feet ahead of him would, sleeping on a bench like that at midnight, in jeans and shirtsleeves.

"Hey," Clark said, jogging forward. "Hey. You don't need to sleep there. It's gonna get..."

Cold, he didn't say, his breath strangling in his throat.

It was *him*. It was *the* *guy*, the one who lived next door, and wow, he didn't look so good. "Hey..." Clark reached out and gently shook him.

There was a scrape on his bald head, and he was laying there loosely, sort of awkwardly. Like he'd been put there instead of having laid down himself. The first shake didn't get Clark even a little response, but the second shake did.

He groaned.

Maybe it was okay to use x-ray vision, just to see if he'd broken anything, or if...

Oh.

SHIT.

Wow, the last time Clark remembered seeing soft tissue damage like that, Jodi had been having guy-fat for lunch. Ouch.

"Hey. I'm going to help you up, okay? Maybe take you to the infirmary..."

"Huhn?" He lolled a little, but finally opened his eyes. His eyes looked bleary, unfocused with a confused expression in them. "Hey..."

"Hi," Clark answered gently. "You're looking a little rough there. Why don't you let me take you to get some medical attention? I really think you could use it. It looks like you've been, uh, hit on the head." Which was true. Just like the fact that he'd been hit in lots of other places, too, even if Clark couldn't say that he *knew*.

Whatever had *happened* to the guy, he looked like hell -- no, looked like he'd been *through* hell. It just didn't seem right to Clark, but there were a lot of things that didn't seem right.

"Nuh, I'm..." He sat up slowly, and gave a muffled sound. "Fuck. 'm okay."

"I really don't think you are," Clark argued, but he could see it wasn't going to do any good. "Look. Tell you what. Let me at least take you back to my dorm room and take care of what's wrong with you...?"

"Sure." The guy's eyes focused a little better even as he pulled himself up sitting, face twisted with agony again. "Hey, you're... next door?"

Wow. The guy had *noticed* him. "Yeah," Clark replied. "Clark Kent. That's me. Guy next door. I've got the beds in my room pushed together for better space, so I'll take you there, okay? I don't think you ought to be alone, especially not if you've hit your head..."

"I sort of fell..." He looked around, like he was seeing where he was for the first time, and went quiet for a moment. "While laying down."

Clark knew when people were lying. The guy had a look in his eyes like he had no idea how he'd been there, or that he'd even been outside. He'd bet his last five dollars in pizza money that this was another one of those stupid frat things.

Rumors of beatings had always persisted when it came to frats. Frat paddles, whatever. Just the thought of it made Clark shiver a little, to tell the truth. He'd never really thought any group would carry it so far as to actually *hurt* somebody, or that the injured party would then totally deny everything about it, which was what the guy seemed like he was going to do.

"So. Clark. I'm Lex. Could you give me a hand up?"

"Sure," Clark agreed with a shy smile. "And a shoulder to lean on, too. You don't look so steady. Too much drinking?" he teased a little, knowing that it wasn't true. "Rush must really be something."

"Yeah, it's something all right." Lex sighed as he reached a hand to grab Clark's, ready to half-haul himself up. He was moving stiffly, like all the muscles in his back were fighting him from moving. "A little too much drinking and staying up all night yesterday to study for a test today."

"I'm sure you did okay." Clark could do upbeat and cheerful. Yeah. Never mind the fact that he had watched Lex sleep last night and seen him on the quad that morning and he hadn't been anything like *this*. Definitely never mind the damage he had eyeballed earlier.

Confronting Lex about it wouldn't get Clark far with him, Clark already knew that. People in Smallville hadn't ever liked to look like they needed help, and the people who all but leapt at the opportunity to look weak and helpless probably had a gun in their purse.

"Yeah." Once he got Lex upright, it was pretty clear that he'd need that shoulder to lean on, too. "What's your major?"

"Um. I haven't decided yet." Whoa. Lex's knees were wobbly. "I mean, right now, I'm sort of curious about psychology, and journalism, and biochemistry." Maybe if he tried hard enough in the science field he'd be able to explain... well, HIMSELF.

"I'm in biochem," Lex grinned a little, before a slight misstep, moving painful muscles, wiped it off his face. "And bio engineering. Double major, just like my dad did. Have you taken any classes in it yet?"

"Nothing past organic," Clark admitted, exerting gentle pressure to keep Lex standing, "but the whole thing's just so *neat*. Are you sure that you won't let me take you to the infirmary...?"

"No, I'm... all right. Think I just probably need to crash for the night. I guess I'm lucky you came by, or I'd have been out there all night." And not by his own choice, from the way he'd looked so confused when Clark had shaken him awake.

"You might have frozen," Clark agreed. "I mean, it's October. The weather's cooled off a lot, especially this weekend. At least stay in my room so that I can watch and be sure you're okay? That's a pretty serious bruise on your head..."

"Walls aren't kind," Lex murmured as they walked. "I appreciate it. I have this weird fear of closing my eyes and never waking up, and... it's been a long day. You don't even know me and I'm going on like this. Thanks."

"It's okay." It was easy to promise that, and easier to accompany it with the sweetest smile. "I mean, I *sort* of know you. You're the guy next door," Clark teased. "It's nice not to be the only one. I mean, the only guy next door. I mean... You know what I mean," he finished, cheeks flushing helplessly.

Darn it.

The answering smile, slight and so much more *sophisticated* than anything Clark could dredge up, said that he knew what Clark meant. "Yeah. I'm really surprised that you don't know who I am. Most people on campus do. Most people in this city do. It's refreshing."

"Uh..." The whole city? Well, the guy looked kind of *familiar*, but he was the guy next door, so Clark had always kind of figured that accounted for things. "You'd tell me if I was doing something wrong, right? I mean, like manhandling somebody famous or something? That is, you? I pay attention to the papers, but... Sometimes I miss stuff."

"It's okay. Forget I said anything." He glanced at Clark again, hobbling along beside him. Even if he wasn't in any state of physical comfort, he seemed to be managing person-to-person type comfort pretty well.

That was something Clark could *definitely* do. "No problem. Forgetting stuff you don't want anybody to know is the name of the game, then. Think you can forget what a wreck my room is later? My mom would have a stroke if she saw it," he confessed, "but it always seems like there's something better to do. Bet you're neat."

They were almost out of the quad, heading for the loggia and the connection to the freshman dorms.

"I can forget a wrecked room," he obliged slyly. "But what makes you say mine must be neat?"

He'd done enough person rescuing for one Friday night, and the quad was clearing out as people settled into parties or went to dorms. A last backward glance proved that there were a couple of guys hanging out on the edge. Sort of creepily watching them. It made Clark scowl, a dark look that would have made a lot of folks at home jump because they were familiar with Kent temper, even if they hadn't gotten a lot of demonstration of it from *Clark*. Those guys, though... They just kept watching.

Weirdoes.

"You just look like the kind of guy who'd be neat. Your shirt's always tucked in when I see you. You could pass for one of those magazine guys, always dressed just right for every occasion." The last part sounded a little like a bad James Earl Jones imitation.

The arm that Lex had over Clark's shoulder squeezed a little. "Thanks. I usually... try to look better than I probably do now."

"Yeah, well, right now you look like shit." The fact that those words drew a little laugh out of the guy (Lex, Clark reminded himself. LEX.) was really good.

"Feel like it, too," he grinned a little as they neared the dorm's doors. Even with the stream of people going in and out, one of them needed to dig up an id to swipe.

"Ah... heck. Hang on a second," Clark muttered, patting vaguely at his pockets for a minute. "I know I've got it here someplace..." Unless he left it in his room, which was always a possibility with Clark. Half the time, he forgot his room key, too, and had to crawl in a window.

"Hold on. I've got my wallet..." If he had his wallet in his pocket. He moved his free arms to dig through his pockets, and actually came back with it. "It's in here."

Whew. What a relief. Clark wasn't sure that the other guy would be so steady if, you know, he had to run up a wall and slide in the window at warp speed. No. Definitely not so steady. "Cool."

"Yeah. Just let me..." Lex worked the card free one-handed, and glanced into the money part with a sigh. "Here. You can swipe."

That sounded a little dirty somehow, but Clark took it all the same. He gave it a quick slide through the reader and heard the door latch disengage. "Here we go. I'll give it back to you inside," he promised, tugging the door open with the hand holding the card.

"Thanks. You know, I had a twenty in here when I left tonight. Now it's gone. But at least I think all my cards are here..." He haphazardly pocketed it, still relying on Clark to keep going. Maybe they could snag the elevator up.

"You know..." Clark cleared his throat as they began to move forward, climbing up one half-set of stairs and heading for the elevators. "Uh, not that it's any of my business or anything? But... this rush thing? It doesn't look like it's been what I'd call *good* for you. You know what I mean?"

Just getting up the stairs had turned Lex's face a light shade of red, his expression looking less happy. "Don't know what you're talking about."

"Tell you what, let's ah... not talk about it in the hall," Clark mumbled, careful to peek around and be sure that nobody was listening to them. He got the feeling that it was probably a good idea.

After all,people had been staring at them when they'd left the quad. And they were already liable to draw attention, the way that Lex had an arm over his shoulders. "Sure." It was making Lex close off to even mention it.

They moved down the hall in silence, Clark's arm delicately assisting Lex in his efforts to remain standing. He was pretty sure that he wasn't pressing any bruises or contusions, but... Well, it made him nervous, anyway. He hadn't studied his injuries for long, except that what there was had looked really... bad. Damage right over his ass, the back of his thighs. He wasn't even sure what could've caused it, except maybe a paddling or something.

"Thanks, again," Lex murmured as they reached almost the end of the hall, and stopped outside of the elevator doors.

"It's okay," Clark demurred, pressing the call button. "I mean, maybe one day something will happen to me and then it can be your turn. Right?"

He almost smiled again as he stood there, hanging off of Clark's shoulders. It justified everything a little, which was maybe what would get Lex to stop thanking Clark. He'd already stopped faking drunkenness. "Yeah. I'll keep an eye out for you."

"Cool." Clark grinned as the bay door dinged open, a flood of girls nearly knocking them over on their way out. "Um. Sorry. Sorry," he apologized sheepishly, getting out of their way, carefully protecting Lex from them.

Whispers caught his ears, making him flush, and one of the girls reached out and placed a hand on the door to keep it from closing on them. "It's okay. Go on in."

Lex flashed one a smile, trying for dazzling and failing. "Thanks." He tried to dazzle a lot of people, usually without effort, but that time it came off as sort of sad and pathetic. Definitely not up to his usual standards, Clark could tell. After all, Clark had been completely overcome at first sight, which made him blush again even as he hit the button for the sixth floor.

At least the girls stopped looking over their shoulders at them when the doors closed. "So, what do you usually do on a Friday night?"

"Order a pizza. Wander around making sure guys like you don't freeze on the quad," Clark teased, gently nudging him. It was a whole lot of truth packed into a little bit of ribbing, so maybe Lex wouldn't question it too closely.

He grinned, and kept leaning into Clark even though they were in an elevator that was full of handrails and places to lean against. It probably wasn't a good idea for Clark to get so happy about that thought, but he still did. Just *maybe*... "Sounds better than my Friday nights."

"A lot of the time, yeah, maybe," Clark laughed. "But, um, usually my Fridays don't involve head injuries. So. Um. I can see where it would be different."

"I guess there's something about a bald head and... injuring it." He hesitated in there, like he'd wanted to say something else while the floor numbers ticked by.

Clark wasn't going to lean over and kiss it better. He wasn't. No, no, he…

Aw, SHIT.

"Sorry," he apologized frantically. "Um. It's just something my mom always does, so it's, I mean, that is... Oh, SHIT."

Lex went a little tense against him. The top of his head tasted like sweat, and maybe a little like beer, which was pretty strange. "Hey, it's okay," he finally said, as if he'd been deciding for himself whether it was or not.

"I'm such a complete dork," Clark groaned. It had been an irresistible impulse, like something driven by red k...

Surreptitiously, he peeked around the elevator. Damn. Not even that for an excuse.

Guys just didn't kiss each other on the top of the head. Not even gay guys did that much. It was just... something his mom would do, like he said. Or something stupid that was entirely *Clark*. "Cool people bore me."

"Oh, well. You're not going to have that problem with me," Clark sighed, shaking his head. "Sorry, man. Just. It was *there*. It's like 'shave and a haircut'..."

Totally irresistible to kiss booboos.

Well. Okay. Clark had never felt like it was irresistible *before*, so maybe it was just Lex-related, but *still*.

When the elevator came to a stop, Lex was still smiling a little. A little uncertainly, too, but he had to have generally decided that Clark was an okay guy. He hadn't told Clark to just drop him off in his own room, yet. That had to count for something, right?

"I'd be in real trouble if I ever polished it."

The image drew half-aborted laughter, a snort that Clark couldn't stop coming out of his nose. "Oh, gosh." Gosh. Polishing it like a bowling ball would be... interesting. Polishing it like...

Wow. Mega-blush. Clark was feeling *really* perverted tonight, obviously.

"I could use one of those shoeshine rags to buff it," Lex went on as they started down the hall, oblivious that he was making Clark think of things like polishing dicks.

Clark had spent *way* too much time lately looking through that wall.

"Yeah, well. It sounds like something an old lady would do in her spare time, Lex," he managed to tease, digging in one pocket and hoping to find his key.

"I don't want any old ladies buffing my head." Lex leaned away a little, craning his head to look at Clark. "You know. Either that light fixture is spinning, or I hit my head really hard."

"Yeah, you..."

Thank God for super speed. Clark had never seen anybody wilt that fast, Lex crumbling against Clark's side despite his support. Well. That made things a *little* easier, because Clark could gently shift him up into his arms and he could just break the lock on his door if he had to.

Which since he didn't have his key on him, he had to. What kind of idiot went out without his ID card *or* his room key? But it was break the lock, or get the RA to open the door for him, which wouldn't have been easy to do on a Friday night -- particularly with Lex needing to be held up.

Okay. He was going to have to just break it and fix it later.

With care, he lifted Lex, gently attempting to miss the bruises and cuts on the back of him. It was easy enough. The hard part was making it *look* difficult, and trying to avoid anybody seeing them. Clark wasn't sure *why* he needed to keep anybody from seeing; he just knew that he *did* need to, so he hurried a little down the hall, and poked the lock out of his door easily, sliding into the room before anyone could see him.

He'd daydreamed a lot about that sort of moment. His dark bedroom, a Friday night, a lot of free time, the Guy Next Door, and his two twin beds. Maybe a condom, and some hand lotion in there. Things never worked out for Clark the way that they should've. He'd wanted the guy to be hip-swiveling, not hanging like a puppet in his arms.

Well.

Now wasn't the time to think about that, he decided, nudging the door shut with his heel. He moved forward and tenderly settled Lex on the bed, rolling him onto his side so that he wouldn't be uncomfortable. Maybe the best thing to do right now was to get some warm water and some antibiotic ointment. Maybe some bandages, not like Clark had any of those things.

He frowned. How long would it take if he super speeded out, got the stuff, and left his five dollars in pizza money on the counter? He could probably afford at least the ointment, and then he could rip up a couple of old t-shirts for bandaging...

It would work pretty good. It wasn't like he couldn't last a couple of weeks without a pizza. They sometimes had it for free in the student center, after all. Yeah, Pizza and sodas on Wednesday nights.

Lex wasn't going anywhere, because he didn't even move when Clark laid him on his side. He almost puddled there, just as still as he'd been when he'd been on the bench. But at least now he wasn't outside in the cold, alone.

That, Clark thought as he gathered his meager change, was a whole lot better than nothing.

And then there was nothing but wind, and wet, and cold, and Lex alone. But he'd be back.

~~~~~

Everything hurt a lot more than it had the last time he'd surfaced to consciousness. It was a dull ache that seemed to have spread through all of his backside, and crept down his neck from the knot on his skull. The last time he'd woken up, the pain had felt pretty fresh and sharp, and pinpointed.

At least it seemed that he was laying on a decently comfortable mattress. The guy next door apparently was as decent as he seemed to be. Lex just wasn't sure if he wanted to open his eyes yet.

He could hear rustling, the faint sounds of pages flipping over, maybe, and there was some slight pressure on the bed. Maybe he had a companion. Who could say for sure? Still. His skin felt tight, and he ached, and maybe it was a bad idea to even *try* to wake up...

"Hey." It was a whisper. "Are you awake? I've got some Tylenol for you..."

It was, he assured himself hazily, still the guy from next door. Clark. For a second there, he'd been wondering if Clark had gone off to find more people, except no one else in the house had been beaten up as badly as he'd been. Just a few smacks for them, and for him... Even slitting his eyes open hurt, more than it had before the throb in his skull had finished descending.

"'m... awake."

"Oh. Good." Still a whisper, and the faint shivering of the bed that came made Lex grunt. "Sorry. Just, there's not a lot of room in here. Hang on, and I'll get you some water and some Tylenol. I'm sorry I don't have anything stronger. I, uh, undressed you. And, um. Fixed you up. I hope you aren't mad."

"I'm naked?" It was probably a stupid question, but he shifted one leg a little to check. No underwear shift, though there was something. It probably explained why he felt the material of the bed sheets as well as he did.

Hopefully that hit he'd taken to the head hadn't lowered his IQ any, if he had to concentrate to notice things like nakedness. It would *really* give Lionel something to be disappointed about.

"Um, yeah. Sorry?" Clark asked it more than said it, and the way he seemed so sweetly sheepish made Lex want to smile, a little. "I was worried about you. I mean, you passed out, and it seemed like a concussion, but..."

"How did concussion..." Lex lifted his head slowly, still looking at Clark and his sweet sheepish smile as he moved a hand so he could groggily push himself upright. Even if it wasn't upright and onto his apparently bandaged ass. "How did..."

"The hit. On your head?" Green eyes, and how had Lex not noticed him before? He was model gorgeous. Girls probably drooled all over themselves at the first opportunity to sit by him. "I thought I'd make you comfortable, but there was dried blood on your shirt, so I thought... I'd better check. You know. Lex..." Very serious expression, that was. "This rush thing, if that's what it is..? It's not worth getting hurt like that."

"You don't understand," Lex murmured. He couldn't take his eyes off of Clark, which was good because to look elsewhere he would've had to move more. Green eyes, *and* ruffled black hair that looked a little wild and wavy. Maybe it was the fluorescent light that Clark had on in the corner, but then again... no one ever looked that good under fluorescent lighting.

Except this guy. Obviously.

"Yeah," Clark agreed slowly, turning the tap of the small sink in the corner and filling a glass with water. "I don't. I mean, back home... there was some stuff like that. I mean, hazing, you know? And mostly, I put up with it. But I never *volunteered*, Lex," he announced gently, moving back to the side of the bed, glass in hand. He reached out to a small night stand and lifted a bottle. "For you."

"Thanks." Lex reached to take the bottle, knowing he could trust his hands to at least work with him on defeating the childproof cap. "I have to get into the frat, Clark. It... means a lot to my dad."

The boy heaved a weighty sigh. "Okay. Yeah, I can get that. I'd do a lot to make my dad happy." He gave Lex a tiny smile. "Including putting up with the stuff I got off of the football team. Dad's always been more inclined to make sure I don't do things that draw a lot of attention to me. I'm adopted, and they like keeping me 'safe'."

After two tries, the foul-child-proofed cap came open for Lex, and he shook out four extra strength Tylenol. The throbbing in his head receded a little as long as he didn't turn much, so he could hold a somewhat coherent conversation while he shook off sleepiness. "There isn't anything wrong with that. I wish sometimes that I could just lay low like that."

"You know, if your dad knew you were getting hurt, he probably wouldn't want you to keep on doing this," Clark told him. "My dad wouldn't." He wasn't watching Lex anymore. Instead, he was working on some cotton rags, tying them together or something so that they looked more like bandages. For Lex?

It was nice. It was... thoughtful. Like Clark's dad, adopted or not, had to have been. "Yeah, well... my dad isn't most people." He couldn't explain it without telling Clark who he *was*, and if the novelty of not being known was only going to last a couple of days anyway, then he didn't want to destroy it himself.

"Yeah, well," Clark tossed the phrase back at him, "I think if he saw you like *this*, he'd change his mind, Lex. Letting somebody wallop on you to prove you're good enough for them just means they're not good enough for *you*."

A quiet grunt, and Lex threw the Tylenol into his mouth and then reached for that glass of water. Lex could've swallowed them dry, but it didn't appeal to him just then. He needed the water anyway. "Everyone... everyone else was just fine with it. I... couldn't breathe. I freaked, gave myself an asthma attack. Guess I hit my head then, too." He didn't need to add that everyone else had gotten their couple of hits and been done. No. Because he didn't want to *think* about that.

Or the twenty they'd taken. Well, someone had taken.

A low sigh sounded. "Okay. Well, it's your business, I just... you know, just figured I'd offer some advice." He could see a tiny smile on that serious face. "I think you should stay here for the rest of the weekend and rest, though. If you've got something you need, I'll go get it. Like a nebulizer or something."

The edge of Lex's mouth twitched a little before he finished off the glass. "If you're going to hold me hostage, in your bed, will you at least let me help you study whatever you're flipping through?" He needed... Toby. There was no telling what Clark would think of *him*, but the guy was the best doctor Lex had ever had.

"Sure. If you'll tell me what I can get you," Clark agreed with a secretive little smile. It made Lex wonder what he'd been studying, made his eyes seek out the book....

"There's a guy. A doctor I know. Can I use your phone to call him?" Lex asked as he craned his head a little to peer at the cover. There was a guy in a shiny silver space-suit with his hand on his crotch.

Good God.

Spaceman porn.

"Sure," Clark chirped. "He makes house calls and everything? Wow. Dad said nobody outside of Smallville did that anymore, and old Doc Gay is the only one who still does, even at home."

Smallville.

Brr.

That was almost enough to distract him from the spaceman porn.

"He makes house-calls at three a.m." In fact, that was when Toby got most of his work done. The wee hours for things that no one wanted treated in a real hospital where they demanded answers to their questions. Stabbings and shootings and drugs, and... belt whippings. "So... you're from Smallville?" he asked, setting the glass of water down even as he reached a hand out so Clark could pass him a phone.

"All my life," Clark said, handing the phone to him. "Well, since I was five or six or so, anyway. That was when my parents adopted me, after this huge meteor shower that came down right around then."

Lex went a little still, even as he took the phone from Clark's hand. What a coincidence. What a small, fucked up world it was. "Yeah. I remember the meteor shower."

"Huh. Most folks haven't even heard of it. *I* don't remember a lot about it. I mean, I don't remember anything from before, anyway. Just my parents, afterwards." Clark went quiet while Lex dialed.

He fist tried Toby's house number, and then his cellular number. The cell phone was picked up on the second ring, and Lex felt relieved. At least he wouldn't have to talk about Smallville anymore. For the moment. "Toby?"

~"Dude. Lex. Haven't heard from you in a while."~

Damn. Toby wasn't high, was he? It was a very good possibility.

"Yeah. I had a rough night. I need some bandages... some really good painkillers. And I guess a new inhaler." Just. In. Case. He glanced at Clark while he talked.

~"Cool, man. You at MSU, yeah? Yeah. I read you started there. You're gonna hafta let me in. Which floor, man?"~

"Sixth. I'm with a friend who can let you in." Lex was still looking at Clark, and trying to not look at the crotch-groping spaceman on the cover.

Clark gave a quick nod, serious demeanor announcing that he definitely would. Anything Lex asked. "No problem," he whispered.

~"Yeah, well, tell 'im to meet me down there in half an hour. What's the room number, in case I need to ring up?"~

"Six fifteen," Lex guessed, since he was six thirteen and that was how the room numbers went. "Thanks Toby. I'll let you get over here." He shifted the phone away from his ear, ready to hang up. The faint dial tone buzzing said that Toby had beat him to it.

"So, he's coming? I mean, those look pretty bad, Lex," Clark said earnestly, "and I really think Tylenol and Neosporin's not good enough to help you much."

"He's on his way," Lex tried to smile a little as he turned the phone off, and leaned forwards to hand it to Clark. Then he slumped down onto his elbow, content to just be very very still. "Half an hour. He might not *seem* professional, but... Toby's one of the best."

"In other words, I should be prepared for somebody unconventional," Clark decided, laying the phone in its cradle. "That's what my mom said about half of Metropolis when I came to school… 'Now, Clark, don't worry. People here are just a little unconventional sometimes'," he quoted.

It sounded like something that came from the depths of Smallville. "So how many unconventional people have you met?" He probably counted among them, and Lex wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Then again, spaceman porn couldn't have been too conventional.

"Um... let me think... Oh, I thought I SAW one *conventional* girl. But it was just one. And then she turned around and she had 'hell froze' shaved in the back of her head, so I'm pretty sure it was just a bad first impression," Clark teased. "Hey, you should lay down a little more. Get comfortable. You're in pretty rough shape."

"I'm in rough shape, but I'm also trying to figure out what I offered to help you study." Lex gestured a little vaguely, even as he did lay down. He halfway wanted to shift to lay on his stomach, but he was naked. And he wasn't sure how Clark felt about another guy's dick rubbing into his bedding.

Then again, if the spaceman was any guess, it might be okay.

Wow.

Lex didn't know anybody could blush like that.

"Oh, um, it's uh... It's... I'm not STUDYING it, exactly, except I sort of.. uh. Am." It was a silly explanation, and Clark obviously realized it. "It's a class on pornography. Sort of. And how it's changed through the years. Um. Yeah."

"Why did no one tell me that this class existed?" Lex mused as he shifted onto his stomach. It hurt to move, but it felt so much better when he wasn't laying on anything that had been beaten. "So what else have you read for it?"

"Lots of stuff! Um, let's see... we started with Victorians, you know, _The Yellow Room_, _The Lustful Turk_, that kind of thing. Did you know that they used to make boys wear girdles at night? To keep them from... you know?" Clark's eyes were huge. It almost made Lex giggle.

"How would a girdle keep you from masturbating?" Lex lazily propped himself up on his elbows, grinning at the huge eyes and the sort of attractive blush. It was nice to know that someone somewhere in the world had modesty.

"Apparently, it was pretty hard to get their hands in there. There were iron bands. You know. So that they couldn't. And sometimes? Handcuffs attached to the waist." A little shudder ran down Clark's spine. "Just creepy."

"Huh." It sounded like it could've been damn erotic, except that Lex was sure that wasn't the purpose. "I should pick that class up. Just for the opportunity to take a test on porn."

"And that's just the *start*. The professor's let us skip forward to the spaceman porn." Clark waved his book at Lex and shifted uncomfortably. "Um. Well, anyway. It's fun. It's not even like *real* work, so..."

So why not? If he didn't know better, Clark was really flirting with him, in a nice way. "Are you sure that's not extracurricular reading? You're not reading ahead, are you? You're not one of those people who get all their work done right away, are you?"

Ohhh. Another one of those blushes. "Well, she SAID we could read forward if we, um, wanted to be prepared. And I've always sort of enjoyed science fiction, so I thought... but you know, I just... I'm having trouble holding with the whole mystical third testicle part. I mean, there's sci-fi and then there are mystical third testicles."

"Gives the 'third eye' a whole new meaning," Lex mumbled into his arms as he lowered his head down. "So it's religious gay spaceman porn?"

"Well...." Clark seemed to think about it seriously. "More or less, yeah. I think that sums it up pretty well." The shy smile was back again, Lex could see it over the crease of his elbow when he peeked Clark's way. "You could borrow it. If you wanted. I mean..." He paused. "Uh. How did you know it was gay?"

"Uh." Lex pressed his mouth against his arm for a moment to keep himself from making any other useless noises. "A wild guess? Just..." If he said 'you seem the type to go for that', he knew he'd deserve a glare or worse. "The cover art. He's holding his crotch."

"Oh." Clark laughed a little, shaking his head. "Um. Well, yeah. A lot of the newer stuff seems to have a homosexual theme. It's a cycle. The Victorians wrote a lot of BDSM stuff, the stuff from around the world wars tend to have women dressed as men going to fight and ending up doing... other stuff, and the current porn industry has a *lot* of gay stuff."

"Third testicles instead of spurting boobs?" Lex laid his head back down, grinning. Smooth aversion of a complete disaster. "I'm glad there's more variety now."

"The Victorians had a lot of female, um. Ah, ejaculation." Blush firmly back in place. Damn, for feeling so bad, Lex was having a hell of a good time. "Disgusting to read about. Um. Hey, should I go down and get that doctor...?"

Too bad that Clark was looking for an escape, and that it was a legitimate one Lex couldn't call him on. "Probably. He'll look very unconventional," Lex reminded. "Sort of like that guy from the Grateful Dead."

"If I didn't think you'd give me the dirty eyeball, I'd say 'who's that?'." Clark grinned. "As it is, I'll be expecting Jerry Garcia. Um. Can I get you anything while I'm out? A coke or... I think I've got a couple of quarters around here someplace..."

"Nah, I'm good. It's kinda late for a coke." It was kind of late to be laying naked in another man's bed, having a platonic sort of conversation, too. "I'm going to treat you to dinner when I'm no longer behind forced to rest."

Clark laughed at that. "I'll settle for coffee and help with biochemistry so long as you promise to get better." Too sweet. God. *Smallville*. "I'll be back as soon as I can, okay? Close your eyes and rest a little."

"Thanks." It was easy to do, too. Little bursts of the need to laugh and energy apparently gave way to exhaustion pretty easily when he was hurt or sick. It wasn't something Lex had been either of for a long time. Maybe his body was mustering up spurts of denial over his being hurt at all.

Maybe it was really all the kind of bad idea Clark was trying to convince him it was.

Or maybe...

Maybe he had drifted off, because the next thing he remembered was Clark with him again and Toby saying something behind him.

"Lex?"

"...don't gotta wake him up, man. He's tough. I sewed him up in the back of a Porsche one night. Blood's hell on leather seats, dude."

"Don't tell him that." It ended up a muzzy mumble, as Lex jerked his head a little. "'ll scare him off."

"Hey, it's okay." Clark was being gentle, gentle. Lex could tell it was him. Toby was never so easy or tender with anything. "I'm from Smallville. That makes me pretty hard to scare."

"Yeah. Know." Lex laid his head back down, letting consciousness come back to him slowly. Or maybe slip off sideways, depending on how fickle it was being. His ass was colder, which mean that he was blanketless and Toby was probably ready to start work. That was fine as long as Toby didn't decide to toss in any more 'war stories'.

"I'll hold your hand," Clark promised.

Sweet. God. So sweet.

"Damn, Lex. Were you on *crack* when this happened? I'm assuming that it's not this guy's responsibility..."

Trust Toby to lighten any situation. Lex shook his head into his arms, and mumbled, "Frat. Clark found me..." The guy next door, who Lex had only known as the guy next door so far and now suddenly knew a lot. First name, where he was from, what he was studying. And that he blushed like hell over cute things.

At least it gave Lex *something* to smile about.