Phases
by Suz suzvoy@tesco.net

Disclaimer - DC and WB own them. Yadda yadda.

Fromward-fic! Fic for fromward for Christmas! I really hope you like it :) *big hugs* I'm so glad I've been able to get to know you this year - it's been so much fun.

Many thanks to nel, who had to put up with grumpy!suz!

Knowledge of 'Skinwalker' would be a definite advantage. Rated R. Feedback would rock.

********

On the third day, the fever breaks.

Lex has writhed on the bed for the last seventy-two hours. He has screamed, and he has cried, and he has prayed for death. He knows he called for Clark, sometimes, though he doesn't remember doing so.

Nothing that Toby gave him - painkillers, drugs - had any effect, or made it any easier. Occasionally he'd see the expression on Toby's face, and even through his delirium he'd know that Toby had no fucking clue what was going on, that Toby actually looked *scared*. Quite an achievement considering whatever drugs Toby was on from one moment to the next.

Lex Luthor never does anything small.

The only consolation, as far as Lex is concerned, is that his father doesn't know. The staff had called Toby and Toby had known better than to call Lionel Luthor, who would have viewed this as a weakness even if it wasn't Lex's fault. A hospital would have drawn too much attention, alerted Lionel to what was happening, so Lex has laid on his own bed for three days, yelling the agony that felt like his insides were being ripped apart.

And now, blessed silence.

No more pain, just his body shaking quietly in the aftermath as his sore muscles cry for rest. Toby is placing something cool on his forehead, murmuring quietly and Lex gasps, knowing even despite the sarcastic tone in Toby's voice that this is more love than his father has ever shown him.

When he wakes up nearly two days later, the bite on Lex's hand has healed completely.

********

Had he been in the right mind to comprehend everything, Clark's absence during his sickness would have been noticeable. As it is Lex notices *now*, and thinks that the fact that Clark hasn't checked on him since they last saw each other five days ago really isn't the kind of behaviour he expects from a best friend.

But then Clark is his first best friend, and then Clark is walking into the office and Lex forgets why he was annoyed in the first place.

"Hey, Lex," Clark doesn't sit down much when he comes into the office, preferring to move around. This time he stands by the pool table, letting his left hand run over the edge. He looks...sad.

Oh - of course. Kyla. Lex supposes that's a good enough reason to be ignored, and...all right, perhaps he hasn't *entirely* forgotten why he was annoyed. "Clark."

"Just came to see how you were doing," Clark mumbles, barely looking up as if he can't really be bothered to do this. "Haven't seen you for a while."

Lex understands - Clark doesn't really want to be here, but he knows it's been too long since he made an appearance and he has to show some sign that they're still friends.

That annoys Lex even more. He won't be anyone's pity visit, not even Clark Kent's. "Actually, Clark, I haven't been too well lately." The victory is enjoyable when the words sink in immediately, Clark's head snapping up. "I know you've been understandably distracted of late. You missed all the fun." He's not too bitter about Kyla, not really. It'll only be a few more years until Clark is his, anyway.

"Sick?" Clark asks, eyes wide with concern as he moves away from the pool table. "But you...you don't get sick."

"Yes," Lex says wryly, "imagine my own surprise."

"You're not supposed to get sick," Clark says, almost offended, as he reaches Lex's side of the desk, "that's one thing I didn't have to worry about." Then his hand is reaching out, the back of it pressing against Lex's forehead.

Lex will never, ever admit to anyone that he's enjoying the way Clark is fussing over him.

"How do you feel now?"

"Clark, really, I'm fine," Lex insists only because it's expected, secretly hoping that the hand won't move away. "It wasn't pleasant at the time, but right now I feel better than ever." Which was certainly the truth. Since the meteor shower he's always been healthy, but now he feels even more so.

"You're really warm," Clark says, and Lex inhales and suddenly he knows it - Clark has jerked off recently. He can smell it or sense it, and though he should be trying to understand why he knows, he's more interested in why Clark would do that just before coming over to visit.

Interesting.

"I'm fine," Lex repeats, breathing in again and trying not to shift in his chair. The smell on Clark is...distracting.

"What was it?" Clark asks, resting carefully against the desk.

"We're not entirely sure," Lex confesses when Clark moves his hand away. "I was bitten by an animal not long after I saw you on Friday. The next day..."

"You were bitten by an animal?" Clark looks horrified, standing up and looking over him again. "Did you go to a hospital? Did you get a rabies shot? Animals can carry all kinds of-"

"Clark, relax. My personal doctor was called, and he took care of me."

"Toby?" Clark accuses.

"Yes, Toby." He knows Clark doesn't like him, doesn't agree with his methods. Of course, they're precisely the reason why Lex likes him. "He may be unusual, but he's a good doctor. See?" He spreads his hands. "I'm all better."

"You should have called me."

Lex had decided a long time ago that Clark was definitely not cute when he looked grumpy, and he reaffirms himself of that belief right now. "I wasn't in much of a state to call anyone."

"Then let your staff know," Clark says stubbornly, "if this ever happens again the first person they call is me."

This is making up for all *kinds* of annoyances. Lex is really glad he told him. "Very well, Clark. But only because you're insisting." Making it sound like a sacrifice is definitely satisfying when Clark looks grumpy again.

Eventually reassured, Clark nods. "So what were you bitten by?"

"A wolf," Lex shrugs, and Clark's expression closes up so fast that Lex knows it has something to do with his secret.

After Clark leaves, Lex stands up and walks around the castle. Now that he's more aware of the smell of Clark, he's curious to see if it's the same with anything else. It doesn't take long. As he moves into the less used parts of the castle, he can smell the dust, the dead skin.

He should probably find this disturbing but instead tries to comprehend, and all evidence falls to the wolf bite. As ridiculous as it seems, this is Smallville after all; maybe the wolf has somehow given him enhanced smell. Truth be told, Lex isn't entirely sure what benefits this heightened sense will have, but then he smells something cooking in the kitchen on the other side of the castle and suddenly realises that he's starving.

********

With each day that passes Lex becomes more and more restless. Clark visits but Lex barely has time for him, for anyone, moving around the castle in sudden, jittery steps. Clark keeps asking if he's all right and Lex snaps at him, shouting.

Clark sticks out his chin and deliberately stays for another hour. Lex hates him.

Lex notices other things, like how he doesn't need the lamp on his bedside table to read anymore, or how his sudden predilection for nothing but meat at every meal is confusing the cook. At night he stands in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror, and during the day he drowsily types into spreadsheets and ignores the phone. His father has left twenty-seven messages and Lex hasn't replied to any of them.

Although he has to admit, it's hardly the first time that's happened.

It's the third night after he woke up that it happens. He's in the office, stirring the fire with a poker, when he just - knows. He has to be outside. Now.

He remembers his car keys but leaves without pulling on a jacket, and as he stands outside in the darkness he feels like he could do anything. Even run. Forever.

What's left of the rational part of his brain snorts, and Lex finds the car that the keys belong to. He drives and he drives, but it's wrong somehow, he shouldn't be confined, yet not being confined is a bad idea too, and he's not surprised at all when he pulls up outside the Kent farm.

The woman - Martha - is at the door, but no, "Clark," and then Clark's there, holding him up, holding on.

"Lex?"

Lex slips from that firm, unmoveable grasp, sinking to his hands and knees and he shouldn't have come to Clark shouldn't have come to Clark he's going to kill Clark and he can't even cry because he's not sure if he even has tear ducts anymore.

Arms are around him as the pain starts and as strong as Clark is - as strong as Lex knows he is - he can barely hold Lex down.

Panting, staring at the ground, Lex watches his hands as his skin starts tearing apart and he knows that this is something that no human should ever have to see.

And that's when it finally sinks it, when he finally admits and knows it. He tries to laugh, and he'd tell Clark what was so funny if he still had vocal chords. As it is, he just howls.

He's not human anymore.

********

Lex realises he's not in much of a position to be picky, but he really would have preferred it if he hadn't woken up on a muddy, dusty floor. Of course then he realises he's actually on the ground, so the muddy thing really isn't optional.

Muttering profanities, he starts pushing himself up when he realises he's not alone.

Oh.

And also naked.

"Lex?"

Of *course* it's Clark. "Did I..." He falters. "Did I hurt anyone?" He closes his eyes, hating the weakness, but he hopes, he prays-

"No."

Relief urges him to sit up further. Clark is approaching.

"We...I brought you down here. It seemed a good idea to...get you away from people."

It's too good an opening. "So I wouldn't eat them?"

Clark glares, expression clear even in the dank light of...wherever the hell they are. "Where are we?" Lex asks, looking up.

"Our storm cellar. We locked you down here, and then when the sun came up I came down to check and..." He looks away. "I thought I probably shouldn't wake you."

Clark had brought him down here. Clark had physically brought him down here. By himself. "I should have hurt you." He looks at his - normal - hands, remembering the claws he'd seen there before everything went black. He doesn't know if he should be grateful or not that he doesn't remember anything. His - normal - hands move up to touch his face; there would have been huge, slicing teeth there. He would have attacked Clark. "You should be hurt. Or like me." Because that was how it worked, didn't it? You get scratched or bitten, and he couldn't believe he was actually trying to understand being a werewolf - there, he could think it - from the mostly terrible movies he'd seen.

Stumbling back he bumps against something. He half-turns to see a tarp thrown over an object and instantly dismisses it, turning back to Clark. Who proves to have the worst timing in the universe. Ever.

"I'm an alien."

*This* moment? Clark has to pick *this* moment for the great revelation? For the sharing of the secret Lex has been desperate to know, to understand, since almost the first moment they met?

Clark finally, finally tells the truth, only when Lex is in the midst of trying to cope with the fact that he's a fucking *werewolf*?

It's official. He's in love with an imbecile.

"So what is this?" Lex asks, quite possibly going insane. He's naked, he's a werewolf, and he's in love with an alien. God, his life is weird. "A tit for tat thing? I show you mine, you show me yours? Although," chuckling, he looks down at himself, "I'm sure you've seen more of mine that you ever wanted to."

"No," Clark argues, and Lex isn't sure what he's arguing about at first, "I'm not just telling you because of what happened to you. I..." Blushing. He's seen Lex naked for who knows how long and now he's blushing. "I've wanted to tell you for a long time, but Mom and Dad were so worried...but now we're here, and the ship is right *there*, and it just seemed like the right time."

Clark really has to get his priorities-wait a minute! "Ship?"

Clark points to the thing beneath the tarp hopefully. "It's shiny."

So. There was an actual ship. Clark couldn't have saved his sanity by claiming it was some kind of farming tool, or an art project for school, could he? That would have been far too easy. This was one of those rare times where Lex was quite willing to be happily ignorant about the blindingly obvious.

But there was a ship. And Clark said it was shiny. So Lex fell to his knees and pulled the tarp away.

Without hesitation, his hands ran over every surface they could find. He tried to place the feel of the metal, the touch of it, but it was from a fucking alien planet, and he was grinning and - okay. Maybe he was getting hard from this.

"That's from the werewolf part of me," Lex offers.

Clark eyes his erection dubiously. "Uh huh."

A fucking *alien*!

********

Clark tells him about Kyla, about the skinwalkers and wonders if Lex has been bitten by one of her people. Lex just wants to learn how to *deal* with this, so that's what he does.

It's not so bad. One night a month he has to be locked up - he swears, Mr Kent wears a perverse grin every time Lex sees him - and for a few days beforehand he's really cranky, which amuses Martha no end.

Ironically, his transformation has brought him closer to the Kents in a way he had hoped for but had never actually thought possible. True, he suspects it's probably because they know he wouldn't dare reveal Clark's secret when they have something over him, but it's nice not being treated like a leper every time he visits.

Although there is that whole naked and locked inside a cellar thing...

Speaking of which, he will have to do something about the accommodations ASAP. Nice as it is of the Kents to provide him with somewhere, waking up cold on a muddy floor isn't really his idea of a good night. He could get a specially built room in the castle, perhaps, or convert an old one. His room of Clark would be a nicely ironic touch, he thinks.

Lex reconsiders the entire idea the day he wakes up in the storm cellar with Clark lying next to him.

He doesn't even have to ask.

"I..." Clark starts, "I...you...were mumbling in your sleep. Wanted to make sure you were okay."

By lying next to him. Of course.

Lex suddenly realises what a wonderful biological progression the enhanced smell is after all - he can smell Clark's arousal, his sex. Clark is hard for *him*. Maybe he won't have to wait a few more years for Clark to be his.

There's enough of the wolf left in him that he growls, grabbing Clark until they're both turning, rolling, over and over until they hit something that stops them. Lex is on top, leaning down to gnaw uselessly at Clark's neck.

Clark sighs, stutters, "Oh, G-God," and whimpers as Lex gnaws and bites and slowly humps against him.

Broad hands spread across Lex's naked ass, pushing them closer together, and Lex can smell everything - dirt, dust, him, Clark, oil in the corner, WD-40, the grass outside, breakfast in the farmhouse, as they move and move and move. Feeling the dirt between his toes, the heat of Clark's body; hands tightening, Clark bucking up, howling. When Lex laughs, he comes; thinking that Clark might make a good werewolf.

~FINIS