Guardian Devil

CHAPTER FOUR: POOR ANGEL

Lex tried to keep his mind clean and clear, as Clark pressed against him in a deep embrace, their bodies fitting each other like two puzzle pieces. Clark kept murmuring Lex’s name into his ear. The breath from Clark’s mouth with each expelled word brushed against the bare skin on Lex’s neck and skull like feather light caresses. Lex burrowed his head in between the silk of Clark’s throat and the collar of the borrowed coat. He brushed his lips against the line of Clark’s jaw, hoping the younger man wouldn’t notice … or wouldn’t mind.

'Clark. Is. Mine.' Lex let that thought swim in his blood. It burned him with sulfurous fire, but the burn was sweet and good like hot honey, the scent of his farm boy. 'He really is mine. My own. Finally.'

“You’re sure you want to be my … ward, angel?” Lex asked again, because he wanted to hear Clark say it again.

Clark pulled back, his lovely face flushed with happiness but tempered with concern suddenly, “You aren’t regretting offering, are you?” Clark chewed his lower lip and dropped his eyes from Lex’s, a stillness coming over him. “I mean … it’s a lot … more than anyone should do, really. I don’t expect … didn’t expect you to do this. I understand if you don’t want to be my guardian.”

Panic flooded Lex as he realized his mistake in even bringing up the question. He hadn’t meant to seem like he had doubts, he didn’t. He was so sure of this. More certain than he had ever been of anything in his existence. Clark was his to take care of. Clark was his to protect. Lex stilled the tremor in his hand as he reached to smooth back Clark’s dark curls from his forehead, “I want this more than anything. I would never regret it.”

A shaky smile crossed Clark’s lips. “I feel the same way, Lex. I want to be … yours.” Clark blushed and dropped his head back down against Lex’s shoulder, hiding his expression.

Lex felt his dick twitch at those words. Clark didn’t mean it like it sounded. The boy was traumatized. Couldn’t yet be feeling anything but the need for a safe haven. 'But he was beaten for wanting me. Still … I am the adult … I have to be the responsible one … so why can’t I just be with Clark without sex blurring my thoughts and actions? Because I’m weak and some part of me doesn’t care to be strong.'

“I’m so glad you want to be mine, angel. So glad.” Lex rocked Clark in his arms, loving the way Clark’s muscled back felt under his hands, the hard planes of his body against his own.

He still couldn’t believe the eagerness of Clark’s reaction to become his ward. Lex had been formulating argument after argument to convince the teenager that a home with Lex was the best option, the only option really, especially after he had confirmed the special powers that Clark possessed. The less people who knew, the safer Clark would be. Scrutiny by social service organizations, the police, and the courts would be disastrous. Plus the thought of Clark in the foster system, sent to live in some dingy hovel, or forced into another situation where a man like Jonathan, or worse, could prey on the beautiful boy was intolerable to Lex. The Luther part of his mind couldn’t help adding: 'If anyone is to prey on him better it be me.' Lex thrust the thought away from him, hoping that the hunger he felt with that sentiment didn’t reflect on his face.

That Clark was against him, wearing nothing underneath his coat, was intoxicating enough. Every sound of the coat shifting over Clark’s bare flesh, silk against silk, sent a minor tremor through Lex’s being. 'And the idea that he’ll be in my control … under my roof …eating the food I provide … wearing the clothes I choose for him (no more flannel!) … even checking he’s done his homework every night … is exhilarating.' Lex knew that this was Lionel in him. The desire to control. But it was also the desire to protect. If Lex could only take control over every aspect of Clark’s life then he could ensure the boy’s safety and happiness. He didn’t want to turn Clark into someone else, a perfect automaton like Lionel wanted with him to be, he just wanted to keep Clark safe so that he could be himself.

The boy pulled back out of the embrace reluctantly, Lex noticed, and stilled the smirk that wanted to break out across his face. This isn’t some victory. This boy has suffered for wanting me. I won’t sully his genuine regret at pulling away from me with thoughts of winning or losing.

“What time is it, Lex?”

Lex knew that Clark was thinking of Martha Kent. “About 5.”

“She’ll be home any moment now,” Clark said softly and began the nervous lip chewing again.

“It’ll be all right. I’ll make it all right, Clark.”

Lex allowed himself to pet Clark’s hair again, letting his hand run from the top of Clark’s head down to the base of his neck. 'I can enjoy his closeness, but I mustn’t act on it. I mustn’t take. I wish I were a better man then this would be easier.' Softer than cashmere, Clark’s hair and skin begged to be touched.

“What do you think she’ll say?” Clark asked, his gaze inward.

“Oh … she’ll lie most probably.”

Clark flinched at Lex’s casual tone and he petted Clark more gently to take the sting out of his assessment of Martha Kent’s future actions.

“Everyone lies, Clark, when they’re found out. It’s just a defense mechanism, not a condemnation necessarily.”

But Lex did condemn Martha Kent, if not for lying, for the acquiescence in her adopted son’s torture and the cover up of it.

Lex’s worldview that human nature was essentially cruel and cutting had been merely confirmed by Jonathan Kent’s violation of his adopted son’s flesh. But it was Martha Kent who made him think that there was simply no hope for the human race whatsoever. Images of deranged domesticity in the Kent household bobbed through Lex’s consciousness: Martha pondering which type of bargain laundry detergent would best get out Clark’s blood from Jonathan’s clothes and whether blueberry or peach pie would keep down better after dinner when Clark was being beaten. Lex snorted in disgust.

“Lex?”

“Sorry, Clark, just … just thinking about when your … when Martha gets here what I’ll say.”

“She … she didn’t hurt me … not like he did.” Clark’s large eyes dipped downwards to study his bare feet.

'Got to get the kid some clothes. A shower. Some food. Got to think like his guardian here. But he doesn’t want to go back to the castle without me and he’s eyeing the farmhouse like it might eat him so no hope for him to go back in there to clean up. So we stay in the barn until Martha gets here. Then while she and Jonathan are being escorted to LexCorp (in chains with whips licking their backs…I wish!) I’ll be able to run Clark to the castle while the paperwork is being drawn up so he can shower and change and then … then we’ll go to the signing together and Clark will be mine in a way I never fantasized about.
Lex sighed, dragging his eyes away from Clark’s full pink lips and fine-boned face. His gaze stuttered a little as it passed over the blood clotting in Clark’s black hair, like rubies only Clark’s blood had greater worth. Lex removed his hands from Clark’s body and smoothed the front of his own plum colored silk shirt over his smooth muscled stomach, and found his voice again, “What Martha did was worse in my opinion.”
Clark’s head jerked up at that: the kicked puppy look surfacing and for the second time that night Lex saw the darker hurt underneath it, old wounds that had never healed, might never heal. Why didn’t I see his pain before? I’m a Luthor, I know all about suffering. I know all about masks. And Clark has been suffering and wearing ‘I’m an innocent farm boy with not a care in the world’ mask for quite some time from the look of things.'

“I wasn’t their real son so … maybe she would have acted differently if I had been … if I was human. I heal so fast maybe she thought it didn’t really hurt me that much.”

Clark’s lower lip actually trembled a little and his eyes filled with tears that he blinked back. Lex felt like someone stabbed him through the heart. He cupped Clark’s face, luxuriating for a moment in the feather soft skin, and forced the beautiful teenager to meet his eyes.

“Don’t ever make excuses for her, Clark. For either of them. There is no justifiable or mitigating circumstance that can absolve them for what they’ve done.”

Clark nodded his head even though it was still cradled in Lex’s hands. The boy reached up and took Lex’s hands off his face and moved them to his lips and kissed them, lightly on the backs. It wasn’t a sexual act. The kisses were more a worshipful act, a loving act. Thank you, thank you, was what it translated to in Lex’s brain, but his body ignited as if Clark had said: take me here on the barn floor.

'I could do it. Ravish him here and now. Thrust into his virgin tightness, make him scream my name at the top of his lungs, feel as he sagged boneless and sated beneath me, that golden skin flushed and streaked with come. He’d let me. Oh, God, he’d let me.'

Lex slowly removed his hands from Clark’s lips and slipped them into his pockets to keep them from reaching out and making his fantasy a reality. The boy blushed and hung his head. Lex knew Clark felt he had done something wrong again. But Lex feared his control was slipping too much to assure the younger man that the kisses had been just fine, perfect, actually. Lex’s right hand brushed against the box that held the meteor pendant in his pocket. It scalded him and the heat in his groin vanished.

'The meteor is how Jonathan controlled him, but just as powerful a control on Clark was the fact that Jonathan was his father, the man that had taken him in, and so Clark gave him the love and respect he didn’t earn or deserve. The same sort of power is in my hands now, because he’s going to be my ward. I’m going to be his guardian. And that is why I cannot … absolutely cannot … take what I want.'
But the sly voice in his mind, the Luthor slither, said quietly, 'At least not until he comes of age and is emancipated. That gives me two whole years to stoke this boy’s fantasies. Two whole years to bind him to me forever.'

Lex shuddered but not from the cold. He read the concern in Clark’s eyes and saw the boy’s guilty glance down at the coat Lex had given him. He could almost see Clark thinking that he should give back the coat to Lex even if that left him naked. That image sent a shiver of need through Lex’s veins. Got to get out of this barn. That thought drew Lex’s gaze to the now covered ship. 'Can’t leave that here, not for a moment longer, really. '

“Clark, we can’t leave the ship here.” Lex said as much from necessity as to draw his thoughts away from ravaging his ward.

Clark glanced over at it, his expression unreadable. Did he curse the parents that had sent him here? Did he wish he could take off in it and leave this world that had harmed him so badly? Lex realized he needed to know so much more about Clark’s past. 'I’ve got to get the ship into a secure lab where Lionel can’t get to it and take it apart. But how? Calling in a flatbed truck right now with so many untested employees around doesn’t sound terribly brilliant.'

“I can bury it, Lex,” Clark said quietly.

“How? Besides that would take too long.” Lex was imaging the need for forklifts and earthmovers.

Clark gave him a lopsided grin, “Super speed and super strength, remember, Lex? It’ll only take me about a minute and a half.”

Lex tried to quash the look of awe that filled his face, feeling it best not to appear too overwhelmed with Clark’s gifts making Clark feel more like a freak than he already did. “Right, go for it, so long as you don’t take a second more than that.”

Clark laughed and the sound made Lex warmer than 30-year-old scotch. 'Not so broken he can’t laugh. Something to be thankful for.'

“Bury it somewhere that we can get it again, Clark. We need to …” Lex broke off unsure how Clark would take to the idea of it being studied.

“It needs to be examined by scientists, Lex. And I want you to be the one to control all that. Maybe … maybe it can be made to work fully again. Maybe it can help people. Can you imagine if we could actually make it fly?”

Lex felt the thrum of wonder fill his veins. A space ship that could actually fly … different planets … different civilizations … more aliens? The thought of an armada of aliens as gorgeous as Clark coming to conquer Earth filled Lex’s mind with unease and a touch of excitement. Being conquered by an army of Clarks could have its advantages.

“I’ll hide it on your property behind the garage in those unused flower beds. Is that good, Lex?”

Brought back to reality from his thoughts of conquering supermodels by Clark’s question, Lex grinned and said, “Perfect, Clark. Best hurry, Martha will be back any minute.”

Clark nodded then it was as if he and the ship just disappeared, leaving hay bales scattered and the tarp that had covered the ship floating gently down to the floor. 'All that power. All mine.' He squelched the last, wishing he could be deprogrammed, or at least the sinister voice wouldn’t always be so quick to speak. 'I will protect Clark. I will use my Luthor side to do this. It is the one good thing that it can be used for.'
Lex wrapped his arms around his torso and rubbed, trying to get the fall chill out of his skin and bones. 'Hurry back, Clark, I need you to warm me.'

“Lex?” Dominic’s voice came from the front door of the barn.

'Thank God Clark went out the back. Please let him not suddenly appear in front of Dominic, I don’t want to have to shoot the man.'

“What is it, Dominic?” Lex responded as he turned around to face his assistant, one he was sure was in his father’s pocket.

“Mrs. Kent has arrived and she’s … well … upset.”

“Quite.” 'I’ll bet she is and that isn’t going to get any better once I get through with her.'

“Ah … where’s Clark?” Dominic asked as he realized that Lex was alone in the barn.

“Here,” Clark called from the back door of the barn, shutting it behind him. “Just needed … some air,” he explained, which seemed to satisfy Dominic’s curiosity. Luckily he didn’t look closely at Clark’s feet that were covered in dark rich earth.

Lex turned his start at Clark’s voice into a neck stretch. “Clark, why don’t you wait here while I go talk to Martha about the guardianship?”

But Clark shook his head, “I want to come, Lex. I want to be there … for everything now. I have to see … see this through.”

“As you wish,” Lex said quietly and felt a burst of love for the boy when Clark reached for his hand and squeezed it for a moment. Lex willed some of his strength into Clark. For all of Clark’s super powers he looked fragile suddenly. “It’ll be fine, angel. I promise I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you.”

Clark blushed and a genuine happy smile curled his lips, a smile that made it to his eyes. Lex was tempted to keep holding Clark’s hand as they left the barn, but then thought better of it. With all of Jonathan’s insinuations about Clark’s desire for Lex, it would only inflame things if the two of them acted as anything more than purely heterosexual males in front of Clark’s adoptive parents and holding hands would certainly not qualify in that category. So Lex gave Clark’s hand a gentle squeeze back then reluctantly let it go, but allowed his love to show in his eyes.

Clark took a deep breath and said, “Let’s do this.” And they walked out of the barn together.

“Clark!” Martha cried as two of Lex’s security men blocked her progress from rushing over to her adopted son’s side. She was pinned between the limo and the LexCorp SUV. The Kent’s old truck was sitting idle, still ticking as the engine cooled, farther up the driveway.

Lex cast a quick glance at Clark’s face to check on how Clark was reacting, but he didn’t know if he was encouraged or worried by what he saw. Clark looked … blank. As if he held an invisible shield up in front of him and didn’t feel or hear or see anything even though his eyes clearly tracked his adopted mother’s struggles. Time to take control of the situation.

“Mrs. Kent,” Lex said as he strode towards the woman who until today he had thought a good mother. “You can release her,” Lex instructed the two guards.

She stumbled over to him, but he blocked her from getting to Clark, who now stood a few feet behind him. Dominic was to Clark’s right, his hand moving towards the gun that he had in a holster under his left arm. Lex shook his head slightly to indicate that Dominic shouldn’t draw it. Martha didn’t appear as deranged as her husband, but then again one never knew in Smallville.

“Lex, for God’s sake, what’s going on?” Her eyes traveled from Lex’s face to her son in bare feet with Lex’s coat wrapped around him. It wasn’t completely obvious that the boy had nothing on underneath, but Lex felt that Martha knew instinctively that was so.

“I believe if you put your mind to it, Martha, you’ll figure it out,” Lex said quietly.

Martha stared at him for a long moment, her brow furrowed, her mouth half-open. At that moment, as if on cue, which in fact it was, Jonathan was led out of the Kent’s farmhouse by two more of Lex’s security team. The blood splattered white t-shirt he wore seemed to glow in the fading fall light. One of the security team followed after him carrying the plastic bags of evidence, most prominently displayed was the gore-slicked belt. They made Jonathan stand there flanked by security in Martha’s full line of sight, like an exhibit at a trial. Indeed, Lex intended this to be a trial for the Kents.

“Oh, God,” Martha whispered and her eyes flicked over to Clark again, finally noticing the blood in his hair, the streak of crimson along his jaw line.

“You wouldn’t believe what I found Jonathan doing to Clark in the cellar, Martha. Or maybe you would, considering you’re the one that does the laundry after these little sessions,” Lex’s voice was like chipped ice and Martha flinched at every word. “Clark tells me that you’d leave the house when he was tortured, yes, tortured, don’t look so aghast at that word. Maybe you left so you couldn’t hear the screams he made. Would it be nice and silent and peaceful when you got home? The deed done. Clark punished. Jonathan sated. Only the wash to do and the pies to bake. Isn’t that how it was, Martha?”

“No, I--” Martha’s eyes were wide, her mouth dangling open like a fish trying to breath air.

“Was Jonathan loving to you after those sessions with Clark where he got to glut himself on a beautiful boy?”

“That’s not--” Tears started streaming down her face like twin rivers, her glances at Clark quick and anguished. But Lex wasn’t done by a long shot and blocked her view of Clark.

“Did he fuck you after he beat Clark?” Lex’s voice was still low, like a sibilant hiss, he clenched his jaw after each sentence for fear he might shriek with the agony he felt for his young friend. He was losing control but he didn’t care. Something in side of him had broken when he saw Martha Kent acting as the concerned parent.

“Stop it!” Martha shrieked, covering her mouth with her hands to hold back the sobs.

“Did you enjoy it? Look forward to those nights after Jonathan was done with Clark? Did you wait with baited breath for them, you fucking bitch?”

Lex felt Clark’s restraining hand on his elbow. Lex had been unconsciously leaning towards Martha, looming over her as she sank down to the ground, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He wanted to beat her, wanted to break her, wanted to see her in a fraction of the pain that he imagined Clark had to endure. Lex realized he was breathing in deep harsh gasps as if his asthma were coming back.

“Lex,” Clark’s voice was barely above a whisper, but his warm grip on Lex’s arm was like a lifeline to the older boy, bringing him back from the torrent of rage that threatened to drowned him.

Lex managed to speak again, “I have pictures, Martha, of the cellar and the blood. I have the belt and the cudgel and the ropes that bound Clark to the ceiling joist. And I have a videotaped confession from Jonathan telling in explicit, gory detail his abuse of your adopted son. I have everything to ruin you both.”

Martha wept, her whole body shuddering from wracking sobs on the ground, but Lex felt no sympathy. What good were tears? What good were regrets? Perhaps she only cried because she was found out. Perhaps she wept because her dirty secret would be aired or that her good nights with her husband after Clark’s beatings would end. He didn’t know, but he suspected the worst.

“I have a proposal for you, Martha. A simple thing really, well, maybe not for you, because it’s a decent thing I ask of you. One decent thing for you to do for Clark.”

Her breath hitching with continued sobs, she raised her head to look up at Lex’s face, “What?”

“Sign over your parental rights to me,” Lex said simply and tried to banish the urge to backhand the woman that sat there looking dumbly at him.

Her eyes slid over to Clark who was now standing beside Lex instead of hiding behind him. Clark still hadn’t let Lex’s arm go. It seemed to be a lifeline for Clark as much as it was for Lex. Martha sat there for long moments, studying Clark’s face. Maybe she was realizing there were no options really. Lex hoped she wasn’t so stupid to think she could get out of this with anything less than a full release of Clark.

“Do … do you … want this, Clark?” Her eyes were bloodshot from tears and marked with pain.

For just a moment, Lex was afraid that Clark would say ‘no’ and Lex would be destroyed. But that was just fear talking and not Clark.

“Mom … I want you to do whatever Lex says. I want Lex to be my guardian. Please, please do this … one thing for me,” Clark’s voice grew stronger as he spoke.

Martha nodded. “Yes, Clark. I’ll do it.”

Lex left out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. It surprised him, although it shouldn’t have knowing Clark’s goodness, when Clark offered Martha a hand up off the ground. She took it gratefully, her eyes scanning Clark’s face. He offered her a half-smile, a ghost of a smile, and Lex couldn’t help but think that Martha and Jonathan Kent should burn in hell. If only I were the devil or at least the devil’s son I would make sure there was a place reserved for them post haste.

“Take them both to LexCorp. The lawyers should be arriving there shortly,” Lex ordered his men. “We’ll meet you there after we stop off at the castle. Are some of Clark’s clothes in the limo?” He addressed the last to Dominic who nodded.

Martha had to be drawn away sharply from Clark’s side towards the SUV. She had been possessively clutching Clark’s hand and staring into his eyes. Perhaps she was hoping to look wretched enough that Clark would forgive her or at least wouldn’t tell what she and Jonathan had done to anyone else. She and her husband were brought together at the passenger side door when Jonathan spoke for the first time since exiting the house.

“You agreed it had to be done, Martha. Don’t let the devil convince you otherwise. You agreed to it,” Jonathan rumbled into her ear as they were both shoved into the vehicle.

Lex heard Clark gasp and grip his arm hard enough to ache. Lex quickly turned to look at his friend.

Clark’s face was ashen, his eyes wide and tortured. Clark met Lex’s gaze, his body beginning to shake again, while he said, “I … I didn’t know she … agreed. I thought … thought that … I didn’t know.”
Lex wrapped Clark’s at first stiff body in an embrace. Lex’s warmth finally made it through the ice that enclosed the younger boy and Clark melted down into him, his shoulders shaking as sobs burst out of him in torrent that seemed like it would never stop.

'Oh, God, he’d clung to the hope that Martha at least disapproved of what Jonathan was doing even if she did nothing to stop it. You expected so little of her and she didn’t even give you that. My poor angel.'