Little Things
by Suz suzvoy@tesco.net

DC and WB own them, yadda yadda.

Future fic, Clex. Short and very schmoopy. *pats muse* Niiiice muse, gooooooood muse...

Feedback would be lovely :) Rated R for language.

*

There are things that Lex notices.

When Clark comes home from work - he's always home later - he finds Lex wherever he is in the apartment, and kisses him. Sometimes it's angry, hard, and they end up fucking on or against the nearest available surface.

Most of the time, however, it's slow and gentle, Clark smiling as he pulls back, and Lex can never quite believe he feels as happy as he does.

It's then, and only then, that Clark collapses onto the sofa and pulls off his socks and shoes. Wiggles his toes dramatically.

Lex has known that the wiggling has been strictly for his benefit for some time, because Clark has known that his feet have been a source of fascination for Lex for several months now.

He's never asked why.

Throughout the evening, as Clark moves around the apartment - turning on the TV, walking to the bathroom, digging through the fridge - Lex's gaze will inevitably fall to his feet.

There are never any marks on them.

It never matters how long Clark's socks have been on, how strong the cotton or lycra in them are; they never, ever, leave marks around his ankles.

It's the same with other things. Sometimes when Clark falls asleep on the sofa, his face pushing into a cushion or Lex's lap; or when he's in bed, the pillow scrunched up beneath his head.

There are never pressure marks on his skin from where he's been resting at an odd angle. Never those faint red lines on his face that Lex sometimes wakes up with himself.

It's another piece of Clark that Lex locks away inside; labels and categorises, just like the fact that, no matter how little sleep he has, Clark never gets circles under his eyes. Always looks like he's had a good nights' sleep even when he hasn't slept at all.

For Lex, it makes it more real, somehow. Definitely more real than the fact than Clark can withstand nuclear explosions and speeding trains, because normal people don't have to withstand nuclear explosions and speeding trains.

Normal people come home feeling tired, with sock marks around their ankles. They get paper cuts, and sometimes burn themselves when the shower isn't set right. They turn up late for an appointment because the traffic was bad, and get food poisoning when the Chinese they ordered wasn't cooked properly.

Normal people don't taunt Lex about how orderly his clothes are kept, how his shoes are laid out just so. How he has the same routine every morning (apart from those times Clark declares they need to 'shake things up' and fucks him in the shower).

Normal people certainly don't sleepily mumble Lex's name and pull him closer in the middle of the night, when Lex has returned from the bathroom. They don't press a sloppy kiss to his head, neck, cheek - wherever their lips end up making contact.

They don't watch bad movies with him, throwing popcorn at the screen and laughing when the hero does something physically impossible, then look confused when Lex tells him that he of all people shouldn't be pointing out what heroes can and can't do.

They don't pout adorably when they lose that argument - because they always do - and push him back onto the sofa, popcorn falling to the floor, doing their best to lick the butter taste out of Lex's mouth.

And sometimes, when it's quiet, when Lex is looking over spreadsheets and they're reading over their notes, they never say "I love you," before looking back down and smiling.

They've never made sure that, at the end of every day, Lex's last thought is that normal is overrated.

~FINIS

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