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It's dark when Clark opens his eyes, night compounded and abetted by the heavy curtains drawn close around Lex's bed. Dark, but not completely so; he can see Lex, curled on his side, one arm draped over Clark's chest, Clark's own arm trapped under his gracile head. The rest of him is lost in shadows and bedsheets, but there is just enough light touching Lex's sleep-softened face for Clark to trace his features with his eyes. The sight of Lex limned in the pale glow, familiar yet otherworldly — and he can't help but shiver at that, as much as from the way he's always cold, nowadays — reminds him of their first time.
The light had come from a glow-stick then, a silly relic of childhood that had looked absurd in Lex Luthor's hands as he came back to the stadium seats Clark had insisted on, laden with popcorn and hot dogs and programs and a rainbow handful of glow-sticks. Lex had grinned down at him, and he'd responded with a smile of his own, startled but delighted, standing to relieve Lex of the programs (which had gone onto their seats, immediately forgotten) and the food (which he'd immediately started munching).
Then Lex had reached out, still grinning, and fastened one of the glow-sticks around Clark's neck. Green, like a foreshadowing, or a promise. At the time, though, it had been just... intimate. Too intimate, for a stadium packed with thousands of sports fans loaded up on carbs and beer and anticipation, but the moment had stretched: Lex's hands almost touching him, Clark's breath catching, Lex's eyes meeting and holding his, the grins on their faces sliding into something else. Clark's free hand had fallen to his side, popcorn dropping unheeded to the floor.
There had been other moments like that, when their friendship had found its way to the brink of something else, but they'd always backed off from that precipice. Lex snapped the plastic ring closed and lowered his arms, hands almost steady. That would have been it; in another eyeblink the moment would've passed again. But Clark had taken hold of Lex's elbow before he could put space between them again, physical or otherwise. Leaning in, close enough not to be overheard, as close as he could without breaking eye contact, he'd asked, "The owner's box?"
It hadn't really been a question. Lex had swallowed, then nodded. Turned, headed back into the aisle, and he had glided up the steps with that liquid grace Clark loved to watch at any other time but he'd stayed close, not letting go of Lex's elbow, afraid that the moment would slip away again and determined that this time things would be different. He has no recollection of negotiating security, of passing the other skyboxes, just watching the muscles of Lex's back shift under the designer pullover that was Lex's idea of dressed down. They'd reached the suite, and Lex must have used his keycard, but Clark only remembers turning Lex, the door closing as he pushed him against it, and wiping the half-formed shape of his name from Lex's lips with his own.
Lex's eyes had stayed open for a long time, like he'd been afraid Clark wouldn't still be there kissing him if he'd blinked, staring until Clark moved, licking and sucking at Lex's jaw and throat and the curve of shoulder bared by the sweater's generous neckline until those pale eyelids had fluttered shut and Lex had groaned.
They never did turn on the lights in the suite, so the only light had come from the massive window overlooking the stadium, the scatter of neon stripes on the floor, and the one green curve around Clark's neck, throwing odd highlights onto Lex's pleased, pleasured face.
It wasn't until much later that he'd learned glow-sticks had figured in Lex's younger years, too: at the raves he'd used to frequent, they'd been bandied about like throws at Mardi Gras, traded for a flash of flesh or... more. Sometimes he wonders if anything Lex ever did was truly innocent. And sometimes he wonders whether knowing the answer to that question would've changed anything at all.