* * *

Fang

* * *

Clark woke suddenly in the middle of the night. There was a warm wetness on his shoulder, cooling slowly in the breeze from the open window.

He touched it and lifted his fingers to his mouth, but he knew what it would be even before he tasted the copper tang of blood.

"It's not yours," said Lex.

Clark turned his head. Lex was a dark huddle at his side, glittering eyes watching him. His mouth was a black smear against the bone-white of his skin. The sight tugged at Clark's hand; he was reaching out before he knew what he was doing.

"Lex, your -- "

"I broke a fang," said Lex conversationally. Clark dropped his hand, because Lex's voice said this was a fight, and it wasn't going to be a short one.

But --

"How?" said Clark. Lex wasn't listening.

"Sometimes I dream about it," he said, voice low and harsh. "The hunt. The kill."

It was probably wrong, Clark thought dazedly, that his body thought "the kill" in Lex's voice was a really, really hot euphemism for sex.

Focus, Kent.

"But you don't -- " He cleared his throat. "You gave it up."

No response. He tried again.

"Dreams don't mean anything. It doesn't matter, Lex."

"I could have killed you," said Lex. It wasn't a statement, but it was nothing so tame as a question. The burn of his eyes on Clark's skin felt like a demand. Tell me.

Clark wanted to. He was so sick of hiding.

He slid down the bed until he was facing Lex in the shadows of the sheets. It helped. Lex looked more approachable closer to, less frightening. Not less human. Just . . . more Lex.

"No, you couldn't," said Clark, though the words tried to stick in his throat. "You can't hurt me, Lex." Which was a lie, but the kind that had more honesty than the truth.

He couldn't read Lex's eyes, shadowed and unfathomable, and he wondered for a horrible moment if Otto was right about the whole thing. Maybe it was a disaster of mythic proportions. Maybe they were making it worse for each other, not better.

But. Lex. Blood on his mouth and desperation in the coiled tension of his body. Clark felt a sharp jagged pain his chest, like fear, like love.

"We should do something about your tooth," he said. The wave of tenderness made his voice raw.

"Fang," said Lex, unflinching.

"It doesn't matter, Lex," said Clark. He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince.

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