III.

Whitney had been predictably insufferable After, which was how Conner referred to his entire relationship with Terry.

"That…sounds weirdly bad," Terry had said over pizza at Whitney's once.

Whitney had snorted and stolen the pineapple bits off of Conner's slice, muttering, "Hardly.  It's so male it hurts my head, dividing the entire space-time continuum to before sex and after sex."

Conner hadn't started calling it a "relationship" out loud.  It seemed safer to leave it in the comfortable region of simple action; he'd realized years ago sometimes words spoke louder and echoed longer than any action could ever hope, and Terry had a skittish fear in him, Conner knew.  He sensed it in the way that Terry tried not to but managed to still keep his distance at school, the way that he gave Conner rides home but also offered them to Whitney, who only rolled her eyes disapprovingly but got into the car anyway.  

She always said, "I'm not going to be your stupid buffer forever, Terminal." 

And Terry always growled, "Don't think I'm doing this 'cause I like you, you fuckin' pom-pom."   

Their relationship had only gotten more verbally abusive since Whitney had almost outed him, Conner thought affectionately. 

But Conner had been not-dating Terry for exactly two months, four days, sixteen hours and, he thought, glancing at his watch, twelve and a quarter minutes.  He knew it was stupid to keep time, but he couldn't help it.  Whitney promised the "delirious stupidity" part of a new relationship would eventually wear off, but when she'd observed Conner's flushed, giddy expression, she'd muttered, "Maybe you're an exception.  Oh God, I hope you aren't an exception."  

So they were together, incognito, anyway, and if Conner occasionally pricked at the idea of being anybody's dirty secret, Terry's dirty smile more than distracted him from his teenaged angst.  Conner also knew it was stupid to keep track of all the times they had sex in his head, because that was the kind of ridiculous, obsessive thing that having two (2) megalomaniacal fathers tended to do to a teenager.   

And every other week, Geoffrey made a trip down to Smallville, which had the benefits of Conner seeing his best friend and the additional if unintended consequence of driving Terry to such a jealous sulk that Monday afternoons in his car had become a sacred time of total debauchery in Conner's mind.

"So, he sleep over again?" Terry would ask, mouth slick and pink and bruised, hovering over Conner's left hip.

Conner would make some sort of disoriented noise that meant, "Keep doing that.  Oh God."

"Figures," Terry would answer, and go down on him again.

There were fractures, but they were small, and if Terry could ignore George's occasional caustic comments and ignore the fact that he was putting his entire life in Smallville on the line, then Conner could ignore that for the first time in his life he was keeping a huge part of himself away from Geoffrey and that for the first time, somebody was ashamed of him.  He wasn't frightened, didn't get it, not the way that Terry probably felt fear biting into his skin every time somebody asked him how come he and Melanie hadn't gotten back together after all. 

"It's not that I don't want to tell people," Terry would start, and Conner would cut him off, because he hadn't kissed Terry back because he'd wanted Terry to raze himself for whatever they had between them.  All Conner had ever wanted or expected was the chance to be happy, for Terry to be good to him, and mostly, Terry was, even if he was terrible at making waffles and lost his temper more than Conner was totally comfortable with.

Conner had been raised by Lex Luthor, who had made him promise never to be ashamed of himself, and Conner had mostly held himself to it; Conner didn't think it was wrong or strange for anybody to be in love, and he hadn't thought about it much before.  But Smallville did--so much so that the story of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor was still big news in the small town, enough that his grandparents mostly kept to themselves these days, unbending and unwilling to be anything but proud of their son.

"I just don't want them to wreck this, make it hard," Terry said, and it was probably at least in part truth, but Conner could smell a lie, he'd heard them all his life.

In a strange and foreign way, Conner worried that he was doing the only thing Geoffrey had ever asked him not to do, but then it seemed that breaking Geoffrey's heart felt a lot like fixing Conner's own.

Lois sometimes talked about legitimate stuff, and she had said once that love never fixed all the cracks in a relationship.  It wasn't that people stopped loving one another, necessarily, mostly it was just that they couldn't be together anymore.

"Other things come up, Conner," Lois had said, almost solemnly, though she'd always seemed to take her personal tragedies in detached stride, with a gallows humor so vicious sometimes that Conner wondered if feeling everything she was hiding from could possibly hurt as much as the jokes she was making at her own expense.  Conner remembered the day her father had died, the day she'd been mugged, the time some bitch named Anthony had left her for good.   

"You won't get it the first time, and probably not the second time, but you're never going to meet anybody you love more than yourself," Lois had told him, and her dark eyes were feverish and heavy with lashes and she'd been so shockingly beautiful and earthy that Conner forgot her point all over again.  "When you decide to stay, you have to stay for yourself, nobody's good enough to live for only somebody else." 

It was a concept that Conner didn't quite understand, and even with the image of Lois' dark eyes burning into his own, Conner realized he only had to look to the driver's seat to see Terry humming along to the music on the radio, his hair flying in the cold February breeze and his sideways smile when he caught Conner's eyes on him to forget she'd ever said it. 

Conner was sixteen and stupid and maybe a little in love, and the sky was limitless.

---

"Is George okay?" Conner asked urgently. 

Terry rolled his eyes and put another box of Stoufer's lasagna into the shopping cart, saying, "Okay, for the four hundred and sixty-seventh time already: yes, George is fine.  It's a routine EEG.  It's a routine MRI.  Just a precaution."  He shut the freezer door and turned back to Conner, who was wringing his hands near the frozen broccoli.  "It just means that my mom and dad go out with him to Metropolis for the procedure and I get to do some boring household stuff, not the end of the world, Conner."

It was Friday afternoon, four o'clock, and Conner and Terry were wandering around the grocery store.  Despite the constant jokes and uncomfortable fascination with Martha Stewart, Conner realized that he'd be a terrible wife, given that he was far more interested in purchasing as many boxes of Gushers as possible and incapable of remembering to buy milk.  Terry on the other hand, was doing a stand-up job, and Conner tried very hard not to picture him in an apron. 

Terry cocked one eyebrow on his handsome face, pushing forward on the grocery cart, and the tinny sound of the wheels on the floors made Conner's head ache dully.    

"And how come you were never this worried about me when I got hurt?" Terry asked. 

Conner snorted, pain forgotten.  "Firstly, you chose the extracurricular that meant you had to get head injuries all the time--" ticking it off on one finger "--and secondly, you totally deserved it when Whitney punched you." 

"Thanks, Conner, you're such a great girlfriend," Terry said sarcastically. 

And Conner was halfway through a snotty comeback before he realized what Terry had said.  At first bewildered giddiness filled his chest until his brain finished processing and then he felt a roll of nausea, and he leveled a serious gaze at Terry, putting a hand on the grocery cart and stopping it in the aisle.  Terry's eyes, when they met Conner's, were guileless and clear and Conner didn't know how to let Terry know that unspoken was one thing, misrepresented was another, but he wasn't going to be anybody's sublimated lie. 

"That's--what did you call me?" Conner demanded. 

Terry blinked.  "I called--wait.  It was just a joke," he said lightly, frowning.  "What's wrong." 

"That's not funny," Conner said with a scowl. 

"I'm sorry," Terry said, using the same tone of voice Conner had heard forming out apologies to Whitney and Melanie and Mrs. Funt.  "I didn't know you were sensitive about it." 

Conner's eyes narrowed.  "Okay, look, seriously.  Not funny, all right?" 

Terry raised his eyebrows.  "Fine." 

"Fine," Conner said, but still felt queasy. 

Smallville's Kroger was stocked with some forty billion varieties of food and Conner felt suddenly nauseated by all of it--even the coagulated TV dinners that he'd always been weirdly fond of eating, just for the downmarket appeal.  There were too many advertisements and icons and pictures of sports stars on the boxes of cereal and the loudspeakers overhead were listing out that day's specials.  Conner closed his eyes, let go of the grocery cart and started to walk again, silent, and listened to Terry pulling things off the shelves and putting them into the cart, blanching at the tension in the air. 

"It--" Terry started, frustrated.  "It's just something I say, you know?"  He waved in the air, flushing a little.  "People ask me where I go, what's keeping me, and I say, new girlfriend, you know?  It's not--it's not anything." 

"What you tell people?" Conner croaked. 

Conner had always been somebody's secret: his father's, his mother's, Geoffrey's.  But it was a gift and a grievance, because his father kept him jealously, with riveted, all-consuming love, his mother kept him in overprotective worry, and Geoffrey kept him out of heartsick concern, eyes flashing when he remembered Conner's little cracks and tears.  Conner was a secret, always had been, but never out of shame--and Conner liked Terry enough to gloss over the fact but not enough to have it thrown in his face. 

Conner knew that it would be hard, even with parents who understood him and Lois who would enable him and Geoffrey who would probably love Conner no matter what he did--it would still be hard, and he was sort of okay with that, in the nebulous way one is forced to be okay with things like sexuality, death, and natural disaster.  He was braced for impact.  But Terry was a classic example of a total fuck-up, and Conner wondered perversely if through the filter of Terry's mind, he'd become a she and that's how Terry was adjusting to all of this so well. 

He wondered now if that's what Terry was telling people, that he was fucking some cute, girl with auburn-brown hair from the next town over.  "A little skinny," Conner could imagine him saying in the locker room, "but great lips, great skin, and her knees fall apart like she was trained in the best little whorehouse in Kansas."   

Conner felt his stomach turn, thinking about Watson and Deter and the other huge, monosyllabic bruisers who could be hearing about him every day.  And worse--the though of Rydell and Constance, who were funny and smart and who Conner really liked, because they'd surprised him and befriended him like Terry had, hearing this crap.  And it suddenly seemed very important that he and Terry have that particular fight immediately. 

"Check out," Conner said.

Terry blinked.  "What?  I haven't--" 

"Check.  Out," Conner said furiously, quietly. 

Terry frowned. 

---

In the car, Conner was about to start a totally roaring argument about arbitrarily assigning gender roles and about how even if he didn't say anything out loud he was still prone to fits of insecurity and that this was hard for him, too--but his phone rang. 

It was L'arc en Ciel and READY STEADY GO which was (a) a great song to listen to on repeat if one needed rock motivation to get out of bed and go to Catholic school and (b) the mp3 ringtone Geoffrey had requested when Conner had dropped his old cell in a toilet and gotten a newer, sleeker, sexier Motorola Razor, evolution three. 

So Conner pointed at Terry, who was looking increasingly irate in the driver's seat and said, "You sit there and appear pensive--I will deal with you in a second," and plucked the phone out of his pocket, saying, "Yeah?" 

"You need to come to Metropolis," Geoffrey said immediately.  No prelude.  There was the sound of wind in the background. 

Conner's eyes rounded, and he must have looked scared, because Terry reached over and squeezed his hand.  "What's wrong?  What happened?" Conner croaked.  "Is my dad--?" 

"Breathe," Geoffrey instructed, businesslike.  "Your dad is fine.  He had like, pneumonia or something--" 

"Nobody told me he had pneumonia!" Conner shouted, horrified. 

"--Okay, yes, and that's because you would overreact and steal somebody's car and kill yourself coming back to Metropolis or complain until I came and got you," Geoffrey said easily.  "But the point is, your dad had pneumonia, and he's better, but now I think he's going to kill your mom." 

Conner opened his mouth but Geoffrey cut him off: 

"Clark's been hovering nonstop these last two weeks.  I mean, Mrs. Banner called me to call you and do something.  I really think there's going to be some sort of fatality if you don't come back for the weekend and remind them why they're married to begin with."  There was a pause.  "I sent a helicopter after you--where are you?  I'm just gonna tell the pilot to come get you.  Smallville's flat.  Sort of." 

"I'm at the Kroger," Conner said distantly, and Terry made a confused face. 

"Okay," Geoffrey said, and Conner heard the static buzz of a walkie-talkie in the background and wondered if his life had always been this strange.  After a few months of being mostly-ordinary in Smallville, it struck him as very odd that his best friend was running interference between Conner's gay parents, and had the luxury of sending a helicopter after Conner in order to do it; it wasn't normal, not in the scope of reality; when had his life become a big budget yuppie movie? 

"Juan--" Geoffrey started. 

"How is Juan?" Conner asked suddenly, ignoring the perplexed look on Terry's face.  "I haven't seen him in months." 

"Juan is fine," Geoffrey said soothingly, "and says he'll just go ahead and touch down in the parking lot." 

Conner looked around the deserted parking lot.  What the hell, he thought. 

"Okay," he said strangely.  "ETA?" 

"Probably three to five minutes," Geoffrey answered, and there was that sound again: wind whipping something--plastic sheeting? paper?  Conner couldn’t place it exactly.  "Don't worry about bringing anything with you, I cleaned out my closet and brought over all the stuff you've left over at my place since like the fourth grade." 

Conner frowned, craning his head to look up at the sky through the windshield--no sign of any helicopter, and then turned to Terry and mouthed, FAMILY EMERGENCY.  Terry's eyes widened, and he nodded supportively.  Then, Conner thought, oh, hey, and mouthed, WANT TO COME WITH ME? 

Terry said out loud, "What?" 

Just as Geoffrey said, "So yeah, apparently I own a lot less clothing than I originally thought once I weeded out your stuff.  I was wondering why my closet was so ugly."

"My clothes," Conner said hotly, "are not ugly."  He glanced at Terry again, mouthing again, WANT TO COME WITH ME? 

Terry stared and said, "Is that okay?" 

"Is somebody else there with you?" Geoffrey asked, surprised. 

"Yeah, it's--it's, um, where are you?" Conner asked, face turning bright red, looking away from Terry and out the windshield again, where against the blue sky, a tiny dark speck was forming. 

Geoffrey snorted.  "I'm hiding on the roof.  Your father's locked himself into his office and said that if your mom tries to break in he's lining his underpants with lead, which, thanks for this special moment, Conner, was way more than I ever needed to know about your parents." 

Conner sighed and rubbed at his face.  Of course.  He looked at Terry and smiled wanely, mouthing, YEAH.  COME, and Terry's face shined and brightened and suddenly Conner felt a weight off of his chest, and whatever he'd dragged Terry out to the parking lot to fight about mattered a lot less. 

"I've already told you sorry in perpetuity," Conner said sulkily, and then the sound of helicopter blades filled the air, whipping, loud, and horrifyingly close.  Conner said, "Oh, look, it's one of Juan's classic lawsuit landings," sighed, and added, "Okay.  I'll see you in a bit." 

"Tell Juan to land at your dad's office," Geoffrey warned.  "I am not getting squished for this." 

"You're just a saint, aren't you," Conner muttered, and hung up. 

"What's going on?" Terry asked, and he touched Conner's face as he said it. 

Conner had a blank moment, one where he thought about what Lois said for no good reason at all and one where he thought about Geoffrey because he was the only one who had ever been allowed to do this--and he hadn't, really.  And he felt something in his arms and legs go weak and grateful and stupidly happy all over again before he put a wavering smile on his face and leaned into Terry's touch. 

He grinned wryly, and shouting over the rising sound of the helicopter, and said, "You're really okay with coming with me?  Think fast!" 

"Is there a helicopter coming here?" Terry yelled, half-hysterically. 

"Don't worry, the cops probably won't get here in time to give us a ticket!" Conner yelled back, eyes sparkling.  Okay, yes, his life was weird, and yes, he had his own personal airlift service, but hell, what a thrill, and Terry had a shine in his eyes Conner could get addicted to.  "You coming or not?" 

Terry shook his head, grinning wildly.  "Okay, sure, fine, what the hell, right?" 

Which was the exact moment when an enormous black helicopter with the purple LexCorp symbol on its door touched down in the deserted parking lot.  Three people on the other side of the lot hit the deck, groceries spilling everywhere.  Store employees spilled out onto the asphalt, pointing.  Terry yelled, "Holy fuck!" loud enough to be heard over the propellers, and Conner just laughed and opened the car door, yelling behind him: 

"Hurry up!  This is totally illegal!"

---

The ride from Smallville to Metropolis was always one of Conner's favorite examples of urban evolution, and he pointed out the patchwork squares of green and gray and brown and talked about how they became smaller and smaller until they fragmented into warehouses, factories, industrial complexes satellite to the city center.

"There's Gilead labs!" Conner said excited, pointing down at a very white, geometric series of buildings, and Terry stared in wonder--still trying to shake off altitude-induced deafness.

Terry had looked more than a little uncomfortable from the moment they'd gotten into the helicopter, and it'd taken about ten minutes of coaxing before Conner had gotten him to admit that he'd never flown before--and definitely never like this.  Conner had smiled at him and assured him that it wasn't a big deal, that it was like a really expensive cab, and tried to distract Terry from the part of Conner's life that he had taken for granted was normal when he'd gone to St. Ann's, where practically everybody had a family helicopter or at least time-shared. 

I mean, Conner had thought crazily, Geoffrey was practically the poor kid, and that was really fucked up, since Geoffrey's dad was a Kansas Supreme Court judge.

And it was right around then that Metropolis appeared beneath him, like an outward breath of relief, and Conner stared down at it in wonder.  He hadn't realized how much he'd missed it, how much he'd missed home, when he was a meager three hours down a highway.  He memorized her streets and overpasses all over again, in miniature from a great distance, and he felt the darkness crushing around the edges of the sky as the lights started shining, dotting the cityscape.  There was a huge, stupid smile on his face and he couldn't seem to keep himself from pressing his face to the glass and grinning, huge and bright and hopeful, because he was going home.

Speaking of which.

Conner pulled himself away and cleared his throat.  Terry looked up from where he was staring down and out the window pensively and asked, "Yeah?"

"Um, just a few preliminaries," Conner said diplomatically.  He smiled encouragingly when Terry narrowed his eyes in suspicion.  "Mercy and Hope--uh, I guess you could call them bodyguards--are going to want to put you through a security check."

Terry's face brightened.  "Your bodyguards are girls?"

Conner winced.  "You really, really don't want to go there," he promised Terry.

Juan radioed the cabin and said, "We'll be landing shortly, Conner, Mr. Daniels.  Buckle up.  Miss Mercy and Miss Hope have already radioed up to say that they'll meet us on the helipad on the roof."

Terry stared at Conner, looking vaguely ill.  "You have a helipad on your roof?"

"No, no," Conner soothed, buckling his seatbelt.  "That'd just be ridiculous.  It's on my dad's work building."

"Oh," Terry said sarcastically, "that makes it much less ridiculous."

Conner scowled and was about to say something about how Terry's negative attitude wasn't going to make this any easier but they landed with a jolt and the slowing flat of propellers on the roof, and Conner nearly burst out of his skin waiting for somebody to open the door--

And when Mercy did, it was to Metropolis, glittering and golden and alive, shining just within reach, the penthouse apartment three blocks away with all its windows ablaze, the lights in the observatory glowing against new glass, and Conner felt the city breeze, closed his eyes, and thought, finally. 

When he turned to catch Terry's eyes and give him an encouraging smile, he saw only surprise and shock and a little dumb wonder, and before Conner had an opportunity to say anything at all, Mercy said:

"Welcome home, Mister Luthor.  Your father's waiting." 

---

The helipad was exactly ten minutes away from his building and twelve minutes from the top floor penthouse, where his mother and father and Geoffrey were waiting. 

So Conner had leapt out of the helicopter, dragging Terry toward the service elevator and keying in his passcodes.  He didn't see Terry's face as they dropped with the speed of a bomb toward the ground level, where he hit the lobby attempting to run, tugging on Terry's arm impatiently.  Conner's sneakers squeaked on the marble floors and the receptionists acknowledged him silently, murmuring into their earpieces so that the doormen were smiling tolerantly and holding open the heavy glass doors for him as he practically shoved Terry through them, tossing out a, "Hey, Bob, Lou!" 

Hope was holding open the door to the black Benz by the time Conner and Terry made it down the ten steps and Terry managed a disoriented "What?" just as Conner grinned, pushed Terry into the car, and said, "Hey, thanks, Hope!" and scooted across the leather seats. 

Barely a minute later they were driving down the street and around the corner and again, into the building where security gave him green lights all through it. 

"Okay, I'm going to be lame and totally honest here and say that your life freaks me the fucking fuck out," Terry managed when they were in the glass elevator, shooting upward to the Luthor family penthouse. 

Conner smiled at Terry fondly.  "It's cool.  It freaks me out, too." 

The elevator came to a soft, easy stop, and there was a low, harmonic charm that made Conner's heartbeat quicken for barely a second before doors came open and Conner came face to face with Geoffrey's very put-out expression. 

"They're doing it again," Geoffrey snapped, in a terrifying mood, the kind that made Conner edge away from him and toward the nearest exit, because while Geoffrey whined a whole bunch about his birthday he was otherwise like a smooth and forgiving ocean.  Conner knew better than to Go There when Geoffrey was quick like a razor. 

So it took him a stumble and half a second to say, "Um--oh God, again?  Are you serious?" 

"I'm unfortunately serious," Geoffrey muttered, and his eyes flicked over to Terry for the barest second, icy cold, before he said, "Oh, and Mrs. Banner wants to talk to you, Terry."

Terry blinked hugely.  "How do you know my name?" he asked.

Geoffrey sighed and put a hand on Terry's arm, steering him toward the kitchen.  "I'll explain how this whole family works in a little bit.  For now, Mrs. Banner has to ask you a few questions." 

Conner got a sudden flash of a cement interrogation room, a metal chair and table, a single, naked bulb overhead and Geoffrey and Mrs. Banner playing Bad Cop, Killed Charlie In The Bush With Her Bare Hand (Emphasis: Singular) And Lived To Cross-Stitch It On Your Pillows, Motherfucker Cop and felt vaguely doomed.  His whole face started to burn in awareness, because of course he couldn't have thought of the possible consequences of bringing Terry home before he'd gotten there could he?  Conner reached out to grab at Geoffrey's shoulder, saying, "Wait!"

At which point Geoffrey swatted Conner's hand away, and firmly dragged Terry off, saying, "The thing about Conner's parents is that they own more spy technology than the CIA--" and with exaggerated carelessness that meant that Geoffrey and Mrs. Banner had probably been screening security reports and Oh God how mortifying was that? "--I mean, I hope you haven't been doing anything that could piss them off."

Terry said, "Um," very shakily.

Conner rubbed his face with his hands, then, he heard his mother's voice and persistent knocking, which reminded him why he was here in the first place, which in turn reminded him that for every one thing that he loved about Metropolis, there were at least two determined to give him a migraine.

---

Conner had been thirteen when he'd found out, during one of those innocuous weekend farm visits when he'd been struck by a sudden and unrelenting case of insomnia and was wandering around in the storm cellar at three in the morning; he'd found pieces of his mother's ship, all shiver-gray and dusty, old files, rotting with age and eaten through by bugs, a metal box with a gun in it, four bullets in the chamber, the letters L.L. engraved into the handle.  There was a yellowing tag on it, with messy writing, marked in a series of numbers and jumbled shorthand Conner would eventually realize was an evidence marker.

Conner had wondered what that meant for months, weeks, thought about it late into the night because the blank space, the absence of it lingered in his mind until he was poking around his father's things weeks later and found Lex's gun, similarly engraved.  It had no bullets in it.

Conner wasn't a stupid child, and all of the Luthor family history was vivisected on the internet, available as pay-for stories on the Daily Planet website or searchable across the internet, on gossip databases and starfucker forums.  But Conner had learned early on that if he didn't want to upset himself and his father by reading up on Lex Luthor's youthful indiscretions and then giving himself nightmares over his father overdosing on designer narcotics, the best thing to do was look away.

But when he was thirteen he was curious, and he'd looked up all the sites, the conspiracy theorist webpages, the backdated articles, and he'd read as much as he could bear about his grandfather's death, just a few days after his own birth, from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.  There were disputes, accusations, implications of something far more sinister than an old man who'd simply bent and broken.  There were convincing coroner's reports about body placement, the dearth of blowback on his hands, the exact angle of entry of the bullet, the way blood had splattered, and Conner had realized with horror about two days into his research that he was reading about a person--a person who was, in no matter how small the measure, a part of his life.

The very next day, three reporters jumped the fence at St. Ann's and cornered Conner for an interview, which he'd tried to handle as well as he could until Geoffrey came back with the cavalry, who'd bodily removed the reporters.  A few nights after that, Conner heard about firings, bankruptcies, lawsuits being filed, lives being destroyed and an entire magazine going under and he'd looked across the dinner table to see his father reading the Financial Times with a scary sort of serenity, peacefulness after a job well done.

And the tickling thought had pushed itself so forcefully to the front that Conner had to step back for a few days, walk away from the possibility, and when he came back it was to seeing Mercy neatly intercept a crowd-rusher at a charity event, two swift motions of her hands and the man was unconscious on the ground. 

And Conner had winced and walked away from the suspicion but he remembered the look on his father's face, Mercy's expressionless eyes and how they'd intersected, like drawing the outline of a chalk body on a sidewalk, and he was beginning to understand.

In one way or another, Conner had always known his father could do great and terrible things--for LexCorp, for Conner, for Clark, for all the things he wanted for himself, but it wasn't until he'd said to Mercy, "My grandfather.  Did he--my dad, did my dad have to--did he have to have it done?" and she'd said, "Yes, there was no other way," that Conner really understood the depth of it, the direction of it.  It was scary, but it was for him, and Conner couldn't be frightened of things his father had done for him. 

With that tear, Conner had started peeling away the veneer, and he'd found with a lot of very careful poking an ocean of other things, extensive files, hazardous materials, a vault which he couldn't open, wasn't on the apartment blueprints, and wasn't accessible even through the panic room (which contained cyanide pills, Conner discovered with shocked stupidity). 

And beyond these things, earlier than that, in the decades before LexCorp's meteoric rise, before Lionel Luthor (was killed) died, before everything, there was his father and a Porsche and a bridge, an accident that Conner had heard about a million times but hadn't understood.  He'd looked up all the old articles, the gossip columns and columnists who had been subsequently ruined, all tiny pieces of evidence of Clark and Lex, dropped like forgotten, green-rusted pennies at the bottom of a fountain.  Conner found old photographs, ran his fingers over the surfaces, saw his father and his mother as whole different people, familiar faces in different light.

He was grateful that he hadn't known these things when he was younger, that his father had always worked so hard to hide that part away, because Conner knew about the luxury of being ordinary, though he'd never really understood at what price it had come.

The thing was, Conner wasn't frightened of his father--maybe frightened for him, for what he was willing to do for Conner, for Clark. 

So after the conversation with Mercy, and after he'd catalogued the many wrongs he'd been able to find on the bare surface, he'd been able to, just as always, smile up at his father, guileless and honest, because Conner loved his father, the same way Clark loved Lex--and it was not pretty or harmless and maybe it wasn't even good, but it was love, and Conner knew it like he'd always known the sun, always known Metropolis.

---

Conner's mother was packing his things loudly in the bedroom, making sure to knock his elbow (gently) against the wall as he dramatically folded and refolded the four shirts that Clark hated anyway, and never wore.  Conner smiled faintly, leaning against the door frame. 

He said, "Déjà vu all over again." 

Clark looked up, and his eyes lit up, all bright green and shining like Conner's own, and Conner felt a moment of shocking familiarity, of belonging, and it made the smile on his face waver for a second before Clark had his arms wrapped around Conner's thin shoulders, pulling him in. 

"It's so good to see you again," Clark said, pulling back, grinning.   

He patted Conner down, feeling Conner's shoulders and arms, his face and his hands, like he was checking that everything was as it should be, and Conner swore he felt a vague shivery sensation when his mother did a bone scan, as if any major injuries could be hidden from a family like this.  For God's sake, his best friend and his housekeeper were in the next room interrogating his boyfriend, probably about how frequently and what kind of sex he and Conner had been having. 

"It's good to see you, too," Conner said, grinning wildly.  "Twenty seconds." 

Clark pursed his mouth.  "I'll give him thirty-five." 

Conner grinned, feeling a little reckless.  "Twenty seconds--at a dollar a second." 

Rolling his eyes, Clark said, "Fine." 

Conner cocked his brow, and started counting.  He was up to eighteen before he felt his father's hand on his shoulder, and heard his father's voice speaking over Conner's head, "I think you owe the boy some money, Clark." 

"I think you guys are in cahoots to ruin me," Clark said, and did not reach for his wallet.  Instead, the scowl that had been on his face when Conner had come into the room tried valiantly to creep back, but mostly failed, because Clark was looking at Lex and Conner in a way that made his whole face shiny and wholesome like a department store catalogue selling blue jeans and 100% cotton t-shirts, bright and comfortable and good. 

Conner craned his head, saw his father's face, still pale and definitely thinner but healthier than the last time Conner had seen him, and he breathed a sigh of relief.  He'd been updated, of course, in careful words by his grandparents, who continued to insist that Conner shouldn't be so fatalistic about the whole thing, that Lex would be fine, but it was better to see it with his own eyes, Conner thought, it was really, really good. 

Lex looked down, and he smiled, all gray-eyed like Athena and playful, and he seemed simultaneously younger and older than Conner remembered, a little more worn from illness but happier than Conner had seen in a while--and he wondered why that was, that they were keeping from him, but he didn't get an opportunity to ask before Lex said: 

"So, should I be looking forward to a fine from Smallville about Juan this time around?" 

Conner snorted.  "You should really just pay for him to go to flight school again." 

"Your dad thinks Juan's flying has real personality," Clark said snippily, but without any venom. 

"I think it's important to foster individuality in employees. The initiative makes them more productive workers and happier," Lex said, half by rote, and added for Conner's benefit, "Besides which, he's still a far better flyer than Clark." 

Conner managed to choke his immediate bark of laughter but Clark didn't bite back his yell of insult, and suddenly it was okay again, the cloud of tension that had blossomed between the three of them like a heavy, unforgiving fog starting to dissipate.  And Conner watched his parents bicker cutely for a bit before he let himself join in, playing devil's advocate against both sides and then professing his total innocence when they wised to his ways and narrowed their eyes.  Eventually, some people said some really heartfelt but short apologies and Conner said, "It's okay--I sort of understand now.  I'm sorry I made it harder," and there was some revoltingly saccharine hugging, which Conner endured because it made his parents feel better, and not because he'd been aching for reassurance or anything like that. 

Finally, Lex said, obscenely bright, a little bloodthirsty, "I noticed you brought a friend." 

There was a running joke in the family that if Conner ever brought anybody home in a romantic context--and it was kind of depressing now in retrospect that everybody had always said "somebody" instead of "her," which basically proved that Conner was the last person in probably all of Metropolis to know his own sexual orientation--that Lex would go instantly insane and try to colonize something.  It had been funny when Conner was twelve and joking about it just to see the color go up in Clark's cheeks and his dad's eyes get narrow--but at sixteen it seemed a little bit more frightening, and he battled a desire to go turn on C-SPAN and see if Lex Luthor had been redrawing any maps. 

"He's just a friend?" Conner tried lying, but he could feel himself raise his voice in questioning at the end of his own sentence, and the razor-sharp glint in his father's eyes basically confirmed that after Mrs. Banner and Geoffrey were through with him, Lex Luthor was in line.  Conner swallowed hard. 

Then Clark said, "If--it's--anyway, you should know you can tell us anything," and turned red. 

Conner moaned miserably.  "You guys," he said pitifully. 

"It's not anything I won't find out anyway," Lex said in what was probably supposed to be a sympathetic way. 

Clark frowned.  "What he means is that we're supportive and you can tell us anything."  He stared at Conner balefully.  "Anything," he emphasized, and then added, "Is there--um." 

"I can think of absolutely no conversation that I want to have less," Conner said grimly.

"Even the--?" Clark started. 

"Yes," Conner interrupted, and Lex smirked, saying: 

"Well, I trust you've taken into account the information I provided--" 

Conner held up his hands in a quelling gesture, gathering up all his inner reserves of strength, dignity, and the ability to fake it in moments of true hysteria, and said with as much measured grace as he could muster, "You guys are clearly double teaming me for fun.  Despite this, thank you for your concern and if we don't stop talking about this right now, I think I might die."  His parents looked at him fondly.  "Now, I have to go save Terry from Geoffrey, who I think might rip off Terry's arm and beat him to death with it or something." 

Lex blinked.  "Why would he do that?" he asked, genuinely curious. 

Clark snorted.  "I'll explain it to you later."

"You know what," Conner said, heading out of the room, "I don't even want to know."

---

Lex liked Terry. 

"Quarterback, huh," Lex said thoughtfully.  "I sponsored your team once, long ago." 

Terry's eyes were bright, he said, "Oh, yeah!  I read all about it!  When I made captain they gave me this huge set of files that went back ten, twenty years."  He grinned.  "Got boring sometimes and I just went through all the old paperwork--really fascinating stuff, Mister Luthor." 

Lex beamed.  "Captain of the football team, too, huh?" 

Conner gaped, his half-peeled orange abandoned in his hands, juice running down his fingers.  It was making his jeans sticky where his wrists were on his knees but seriously, who cared?   

Lex liked Terry.

Geoffrey and Clark on the other hand, were sitting together on the gray loveseat, scowling deeply and casting betrayed glances at Lex, who either didn't notice or didn't care.  Meanwhile, Conner continued to stare, torn between horror and gratitude that there had been no blood shed, and that--unbelievably--Lex liked Terry. 

"Daniels," Lex said, distracted for a second.  "Daniels--oh right!  I think your brother came up to the state senate once to petition for more special education in rural schools--" Terry froze for a second, instantly defensive and squaring his shoulders and Conner--instinctive, knee-jerk at this point, reached out to him, put a sticky, sweet hand on Terry's knee "--he made a really impressive speech, I remember.  The entire senate was talking about it for weeks."  Lex smiled easily and Terry slumped visibly in relief, making Conner beam at his father like the sun. 

"Your brother's a brilliant young man, Terry," Lex continued.  "I've been hearing rumors about this year's secondary division science fair." 

Terry blinked in surprise.  "How did you know about that, sir?" 

Conner rolled his eyes, pulling his hand back, and Terry followed the motion, digging through his left pocket until he produced a crumpled, linty napkin and passed it to Conner.  He took it gratefully and started to wipe off his hand, saying, "Oh, you have no idea.  My dad's the biggest science nerd in the Western Hemisphere.  I swear he starts recruiting out of elementary schools." 

"I think it's great," Terry said, his smile practically incandescent, and he frowned a little at Conner and took the napkin away, wiping down Conner's fingernails and thumb with a disapproving look before scrubbing his own knee with it.  So much for cute, emotional support, Conner thought in mild annoyance as Terry balled up the orange-stained paper and set it on the coffee table next to Conner's abandoned orange. 

When Conner looked up, Lex was beaming at him--at them, and it made Conner more than a little uneasy, especially when coupled with the fact that the scowls on Geoffrey and Clark's faces had only seemed to deepen exponentially since the last time he'd checked. 

"Well, your brother has huge potential.  The computer model he made for the elementary science fair was so many years beyond his age--I don't know anybody who isn't looking forward to his development," Lex added. 

Conner sighed.  "You're such a stalker, Dad." 

Lex looked unashamed, just grinned and said, "Hey, nobody's going to be complaining when I start offering distinguished scholarships." 

"You offer--you'd give George a scholarship?" Terry said, a little amazed.

When Lex smiled this time, it was half-predatory, though Terry clearly didn't recognize it because there was no flinch, no wince, no shiver--which Conner recognized in himself, in Clark, and Geoffrey respectively.  The latter two were still glaring hatefully at Terry, and Conner wondered what Geoffrey had against the guy for a second before he remembered that he hadn't mentioned anything about a boyfriend beforehand.  It just hadn't fit in with all the other pedantic information they'd been exchanging: classes, books, movies--boyfriend and sex in the barn just didn't seem to flow very well anywhere in the emails. 

Still, Conner thought sullenly, it seemed a little meanspirited to hold it against Conner when clearly, Geoffrey and Mrs. Banner knew from security reports that must have been released contingent on Conner's return to Metropolis.  It wasn't like they hadn't had any forward warning at all.  Conner was abundantly certain (and abundantly humiliated) that Mercy had provided an in-depth, comprehensive report, which, for probably the first and last time ever, was more comprehensive and in-depth for Mrs. Banner than Lex--who would have exploded by now if he knew about the thing that Conner totally hadn't done at all because he wasn't that kind of boy in the supply closet at school the other day because Terry was so painfully hot when he was disoriented. 

Then, Conner caught Geoffrey catching Conner staring dumbly, mouth half-open and possibly even drooling.  Conner snapped his jaw shut, flushed briefly, and started to smile in apology but then Geoffrey went and mouthed angrily: He's a moron. 

Conner glared.  He mouthed back: Eve! 

Do not, Geoffrey enunciated, moving his mouth hugely, even go there. 

"…a LexCorp scholarship would be very generous, and we'd love to foster your brother's love for system statistics, in fact, one of my thinktanks is currently--"

Conner narrowed his eyes at Geoffrey and said, "Dad--stop recruiting."  He turned to Terry, and pasted on his very sweetest smile.  "Want to go out to dinner?" 

Terry looked momentarily confused, glancing between Lex's approving, indulgent smile and Conner's semi-desperate expression and finally saying, "Um.  Okay." 

"Good," Conner said, pulling Terry up to his feet as Terry waved awkwardly and said: 

"I--I guess we're going out for the evening."

Lex beamed.  "Have fun," he said, and added pleasantly, "Mercy will be watching your every move."

---

Once upon a time, Conner had thought that the most uncomfortable dinner of his life had been with Donald Trump, whose new wife had been drunk and more made-up than any woman Conner had ever seen.  They'd been in a Kansas City restaurant and she'd been leaning over Conner, with a terrifyingly interested gleam in her eyes and she'd kept commenting on how cute he was, his little button nose, asking him when he got out of school on Wednesdays.  It'd taken three showers and four therapeutic hours of watching really embarrassing anime like Kyou Kara Maou before he'd managed to feel clean again, though Geoffrey claimed that watching anime about getting flushed down toilets and being molested by all of your senior staff completely defeated the point of a cleansing ritual. 

He now knew he was wrong, wrong, wrong, because he was sitting at a table with Terry, waiting for Geoffrey and Eve to show up and trying not to have a panic attack. 

Earlier that evening, when Conner had finally escaped his parents and gone to rescue his sort of boyfriend, he'd seen Terry wobble out of the dining room with Geoffrey and Mrs. Banner hot on his tail.  None of the parties involved looked happy but nobody was dead and Conner couldn't see any visible injuries; also, Terry had all four limbs and Conner counted that as a positive sign.  He'd smiled winningly at Geoffrey only to receive a withering stare in return, and Mrs. Banner had gone all soggy and tearful and excused herself for the weekend, saying she wasn't emotionally prepared to deal with this period of Conner's life and this hadn't been the way she'd planned it at all. 

Then his parents had come out to join the party and in a terrifying twist of fate Lex liked Terry and Clark and Geoffrey seemed to loathe him, which was a 180 from what Conner had been emotionally prepared for but not altogether bad. 

At least not until Geoffrey had said, "If you're going out to dinner, why don't we make it a double?" and Clark had said, "Hey, that's a great idea," with the manic determination of a parent who was going to make you like it, or kill you trying. 

So Conner and Terry were now in a booth at Walden's, a very small, very quiet, very subtly upscale restaurant with no dress code and no reservations but seemed to have, no matter when Conner and Geoffrey arrived, with or without their famous families, a table for exactly the number in their party in the most discreet of booth locations.  Terry stared at the heavy damask tablecloths.  He stared at the settings.  He stared at the votives and flowers on their table.  He stared at the celebrities, all dressed down, sitting around them, and then he stared at Conner for a little bit and reached under the table to squeeze Conner's hand. 

Conner squeezed back apologetically, and rubbed his palm against Terry's knee.  He hadn't picked the restaurant, and he hadn't wanted to eat here, because in his time in Smallville he'd realized that his life, no matter how ordinary from his own frame of reference, was intimidating.  He hadn't liked the way Whitney and Terry had reacted to the idea of press, to Conner's publicist who'd stopped in one afternoon for a routine session, to the high technology and lack of everyday concerns--he'd made himself normal and now he missed it.  He missed getting pizza delivered via tractor and bitching about the bus and using double coupons at the Kroger.   

He missed being Conner instead of Lex Luthor's son, Conner Clark Luthor. 

He smiled at Terry in what he hoped was an encouraging way, and leaned in to whisper, "Don't worry: just eat outside to inside with the utensils, and save the horizontals on top for last." 

Terry managed a weak smile.  "I feel like I should make a Pretty Woman joke." 

"But you won't," Conner said, "and that's why I love you."

The moment it was out of his mouth he regretted it, went all white and all red at the same time, which made him all splotchy.  His jaw was still agape and he tried to pull his hand away from Terry's because Conner had promised himself he wouldn't make this a big thing.

Conner was about to start apologizing when Terry put his palm on Conner's face and forced him to look up-- 

To see the most brilliant, beautiful smile on Terry's face.  It was wide and honest and simple and so happy it made something in Conner's chest shout, run in circles, want to cheer, because he hadn't known he could do that--make another human being that happy, and it was amazing, intoxicating, as joyful as Terry's expression.

"You've been holding out on me, Metropolis," Terry said softly. 

Conner flushed.  "I didn't want to make it a thing." 

Which was when the second amazing thing happened, and Terry broke his perfect smile with a laugh that made Conner smile in response.  And Terry leaned in so he could say against Conner's lips, "Conner--it's always been a thing," before he kissed him, so sweet and slow and good that Conner swore he forgot he was in the restaurant.

---

At least until Eve said: 

"Shouldn't you two be past the stupid couple phase already?" 

Terry and Conner broke apart guiltily in time to see Eve smirking hugely and Geoffrey wearing a dark, venomous scowl.  Conner wiped at his mouth self-consciously. 

"Hi," he said lamely. 

"Um," Terry repeated faintly. 

"I hope you know your father's watching," Geoffrey snapped. 

"I hope you know he thinks it's cool I bagged Terry," Conner hissed, and then turned to his side to apologize, at which point Terry cut him off with a shake of his head, grinning and agreeing: 

"No, no, you're absolutely right.  I was totally bagged." 

Conner wondered when absolutely anything that came out of Terry's mouth started sounding incredibly sweet and wonderful, and figured it was some sort of hormonal problem associated with adolescence.  Otherwise, he'd be forced to confront the depressing fact that he really was part of a stupid couple, and he'd seen enough of those at Smallville High to know that he wanted no party in that sort of thing. 

"Bagged is such a strong word," Conner prevaricated, turning colors of red he didn't know existed in the spectrum of visible light and watched Geoffrey's face go from threatening to pure malevolence.  Conner ignored him. 

Terry grinned, and it was a huge, shit-eating expression.  He stretched his arm out across the back of the booth and stroked a few fingers along the nape of Conner's neck, and Conner squeaked while Terry said, "He's just being modest.  It was bagging.  He gave me a poker chip and I totally caved." 

Conner couldn't help but stare, because while he'd always known that Terry was funny and smart and good, Terry had never been this funny and smart and good.  Beyond that, he was loose all over, arms and legs lengthening, knee touching Conner's, their arms close together, and the hand on Conner's neck hadn't disappeared in an afterthought--it was like something in Terry's chest had unwound.   

Conner had noticed the precise moment of change when they'd stepped out onto the street about an hour ago and Conner had said, "Oh, don't worry.  My father has full coverage--the press won't get near us as long as we're in the city."  It was like the promised anonymity of it had unlocked something, and Conner found it surprising and alternately crushing, because it was eight thirty at night and Conner felt, for the first time, like he had a boyfriend, and he knew that once the clock struck Sunday it was all over, all over again. 

"You guys should sit down," he said, swallowing around the lump in his throat. 

Geoffrey snorted.  Eve beamed, and then she sat--unassisted, Conner noted with some interest.  While he'd been in Metropolis, Geoffrey had always pulled out chairs for her, waved her into her spot at the booth, and now they seemed just to work around one another with a comfortable forgetfulness that made it that much more horrible see them together--though Conner figured that since he had his own boyfriend, he really ought to shut the hell up and let that go. 

"Somebody's easy," Geoffrey snapped. 

Conner glared.  "Yeah, somebody sure is." 

Geoffrey glared back.  "You're so petty," he hissed.   

Terry flashed the two of them an expression that meant he really, really didn't want to know. 

Eve tossed her hair and batted her lashes.  She smiled with her curvy, sweet mouth.  She stroked a finger over the back of her hand.  She smiled at Conner and smiled at Terry and Conner thought for a minute that maybe she wasn't all that bad, because she said, "I was just teasing.  Anyway, Conner, congratulations.  Terry, it's good to meet you."

She sounded like she meant it, and Terry responded to genuine affection with the helpless gratitude of a drowning man.  He shook her hand and then he put his huge palm on Conner's knee again, his smile less awkward now, if flushed.

"It's good to meet you, too…" Terry trailed off and Conner broke in.

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that," Conner said, distracted.  "Terry, this is Eve, Geoffrey's girlfriend."  Then, he glared at Geoffrey.  "You've already met Geoffrey--" and pausing, he added in a dramatic stage whisper "--he's an artist, so you'll have to pardon the temper tantrums."

"Conner likes tentacle porn," Geoffrey snapped back, spreading his napkin over his lap.

A waiter that had been approaching them took a sharp, obvious turn left and scurried as quickly away as possible.

Terry and Eve ignored them.  She extended her hand, palm down, and Terry took it in a fumbling, gentlemanly way, shaking it delicately, and she laughed at him, pulling back her fingers and saying, "So what do you think of Metropolis so far?"

"It's a little different when you're seeing it from the Luthor penthouse," Terry admitted ruefully.  "But you know," he said, and glanced over at Conner, "the view's incredible."

Conner smiled at him, and he knew he looked dopey and stupid and almost as bad as the condescending, touched expression on Eve's face.  Her lips were pursed at them and she looked as if she was barely resisting the urge to reach out and ruffle Conner's hair.

"Oh my God--I'm going to go into diabetic coma any minute now," Geoffrey complained.

Terry winced.  Eve glared.  Conner narrowed his eyes and put his hands on the table, palms down, and then pushed himself to a standing position.

"Geoffrey," he said, voice measured and calm.

"Yes, Conner?" Geoffrey said, with an exaggerated, placid voice.

"Can I see you in the restroom for a moment?" Conner asked, still painfully polite.

Geoffrey raised his eyebrows, and his eyes were very, very blue.  "Is it important?"

"Yes," Conner hissed in as civil a manner as possible, and the waiter who had started to venture over again detoured again.  "Yes, it is."

"Well, I suppose," Geoffrey finally said, and stood.

Conner threw his napkin down on the table and started stalking toward the men's room, Geoffrey's footsteps just behind him--and over his shoulder he heard Terry ask:

"Are they always like this?"

And Eve answer, "Oh, you have no idea.  Geoff and Conner are like twelve year old girls who both think they're going to marry Tom Cruise when they grow up."

---

When Conner and Geoffrey were eleven they had a slap-fight in Aubrey's Diner that had been so hugely and unendingly embarrassing that Mona the career waitress still talked about their wicked little hair-pulling sessions.

Things had not, apparently, improved with age.

Because the moment the bathroom door shut behind them, Geoffrey grabbed Conner by the shoulder and shoved him against a wall.  The tile was cold beneath his shoulders and the impact knocked the breath out of him, made Conner's eyes go wide with mute shock and then narrow in fury before Conner shoved back, sent Geoffrey skidding until he was against the other side of the narrow entry to the bathroom, hands almost shaking.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Conner demanded.

He and Geoffrey had never thrown a punch.  They didn't scuffle when they were kids.  They shoved, sometimes, but mostly if they made each other cry it was by saying stuff out loud that hurt more than a fist ever could.  Conner wondered if this wasn't going to be another one of their many firsts: first girlfriend, first boyfriend, first separation, first fight, first broken nose.

"You don't get the moral high ground here, asshole," Geoffrey snapped, and his eyes were bright.

"What," Conner hissed, "because I'm gay?  Because I'm a fag?"

Geoffrey's face went slack and horrible and lost for a second and Conner forgot that despite all the horrible things he sometimes thought, most people were never as bad as Conner liked to think.  And Geoffrey had never put up with the sharp words and slurs the way that Conner had been trained to accept, and Conner realized with a sickening sense of guilt that there was a very good chance that Geoffrey had never even heard anybody say things like that.

"I--" Conner started, and he had no idea why, because an apology would be so completely incongruous they'd lose all their momentum--and what the fuck did he want to fight about, anyway?

Geoffrey seemed to shake himself out of it, and when he did, he yelled, "You didn't tell me, you asshole!  I was in Smallville how many times and you never said a word!" 

Geoffrey grabbed Conner by the shoulder and jerked at the collar of his shirt harshly, a mean, violating move that made Conner flare up a little: cold fear and still surprise and heat, undeniable heat, as Geoffrey's palm made contact with the white skin on his collarbone.

"What are you--?"

"What're these?" Geoffrey said, voice all dark and mean and all the things Conner knew Geoffrey could be--but never to Conner, at least never before.  Geoffrey pressed his thumb into a bruise on the nape of Conner's neck, and Conner hissed.

Conner had been looking at it in the mirror earlier.  It looked like a purpling flower, and the indistinct edges had already started to melt away into his clear skin.  It made him flush all over in memory.  The hazy memory of Terry's face, the sweaty, regal line of his nose, his mouth wet and slick from kisses, dark with the taste of the two of them in his mouth.  The more vivid thoughts of Terry's hands, calloused and broad and clumsy on Conner's thin frame, his hoarse voice and Conner's murmured assurances, promises, encouragement.  The way Terry had bitten down on Conner's shoulder and come, the way he'd sighed into Conner's skin, breathed outward, the way it felt laying together afterward.

Conner felt Geoffrey's hand, painful on the mark Terry had left on him and thought for the first time he didn't really like Geoffrey very much.

So Conner looked away, at the gleaming row of sinks and said, "It's none of your business."

"What--so he can bite all over you and--"

"No," Conner said gently, and he looked at Geoffrey again to find that lost expression back on his best friend's face.  He smiled a little bit, and it was lopsided and imperfect--a little off.  "I mean it's--it's not bad."

Geoffrey stared at him.  "Okay," Geoffrey said softly.

"It's not bad," Conner promised him, and the smile got a little crazier, a little wider.

He knew, he just knew he was baiting Geoffrey, because if Geoffrey had ever had a dangerous streak, it was in the way he was fierce about the people he cared about and Conner knew better.  If Conner traced their shared history--and so much of it was shared--he'd find black pockets, dark corners, where Geoffrey had been angry or miserable or a scary combination of both.  They happened so rarely that they always stuck out in Conner's mind, like the raised skin at the heart of a scar, soft and foreign against fingertips.

"It's really not bad," Conner insisted.

Geoffrey's eyes got dark and luminous, shining for a second and Conner held his breath, waited for it, because something was coming, he knew it.  He'd always known Geoffrey with the intimate understanding of a cartographer and a raised map, felt the hills and punishing edges of mountains of Geoffrey's moods.  Conner almost smiled, because after everything, after all of it, something was finally coming and he'd be gracious about it, he'd be good about it, he'd work out the ugly details later, but first, something was coming--

And Geoffrey let go, like he was letting go of everything, and something in Conner's chest lurched in sudden, shocking nausea.

"Okay," Geoffrey said lightly.

"Okay?" Conner asked.

Then Geoffrey smiled and Conner thought: I was wrong.  I was wrong.  We weren't fighting the way I thought we were fighting.

"Okay," Geoffrey said and how could Conner had been so stupid--how did he forget that Geoffrey loved him and was good to him?

"Geoffrey--"

"Let's go back out," Geoffrey suggested, and he was grinning.  "Sorry I was freaking out."

Conner thought he was going to throw up.  "It's fine," he said.

Then Geoffrey touched Conner's shoulder and it was somehow entirely different than any other time Geoffrey had ever touched Conner at all and they walked back into the restaurant, a sudden ocean of noise drowning everything Conner was thinking until they got close enough to their table to see Eve and Terry talking in low, conspiratorial tones, their guileless laughter--

And the way that Terry turned and caught Conner's eye, how his whole face brightened, and how like magic Conner felt better and worse at the same time.

"You always go to the bathroom in pairs?" Terry asked later.

"Like Eve said.  Twelve year old girls. Mrs. Tom Cruise," Conner mumbled.

Eve laughed, and Geoffrey said, "I totally win though, we decided this ages ago."

Conner moaned.  "Please don't say it," he begged.

Eve shrieked laughing.  "That's right!  You did decide this!"

Terry put his hand on the back of Conner's neck and Conner leaned into his side, because apparently he'd still been in the process of breaking up with Geoffrey and now it was official.  He felt like shit and like there was a weight off his chest and he wondered strangely if this thing between Terry and him was going to be less sizzling since Conner wasn't cheating on anybody anymore.  But then Terry rubbed his thumb in a circle on the side of Conner's neck and that thought went right out the window.

"GeoffTom, or Tomfry," Geoffrey said, smug, "both of which sound completely stupid--"

"Wow, service sure is slow tonight," Conner said, unnaturally loud, but Terry wasn't so much listening as ignoring him so he could laugh with stupid Eve and stupid Conner's sort-of-ex-boyfriend, that asshole.

"--but are still better than ConTom, which, if you will notice, sounds basically like--"

"Oh my God," Conner wailed, "where's our food?  Why isn't it here?"

If anybody heard him, it wasn't apparent from the way they were laughing themselves sick, and the waiter, carrying a platter with all their orders on it, took one look at the table, sighed in frustrated resignation, and turned away again.

---

Terry begged out of staying the night, and Conner wasn't sure if it was because of the looks that Clark was giving Terry or the looks that Lex was giving Terry. 

"You didn't have to scare him away," Conner said accusingly.

Lex had sent Terry off with Mercy, since she was less scathingly hostile to him than Hope, and he was being helicoptered back to Smallville.  Conner had managed a quick squeeze of his hand before Terry left, and though his father had looked a little bit like a starry-eyed mother on prom night, Conner had enough dignity not to let emotion overwhelm him and kiss Terry where his dad would have ready photographic evidence--and Clark was easily within killing range.

"He's on the football team," Clark said desperately, taking the Coke Geoffrey passed over.

Conner rolled his eyes and glared at his dad, who was doing something that looked worrisomely like beaming.  "And you!  You didn't have to scare him away either!"

"I approve of him, Conner," Lex said charitably.  "I was simply expressing that approval."

"Not by making him think you were going to force us to get married if he stayed you shouldn't," Conner complained.

Geoffrey, who was being no help and raiding the refrigerator made a noise that sounded like he was strangling off a laugh, and Conner thought not for the first time that Geoffrey was basically all the worst parts of both of Conner's parents in very nice packaging. 

"Stuff it," Conner snapped.  "Don't even get me started on your behavior tonight."

Geoffrey pulled the most angelically innocent expression Conner had ever seen and then Clark and Lex laughed and excused themselves to bed.  Lex pressed a kiss to Conner's temple and Clark ran a paternal hand over the crown of Conner's head and gave a lingering smile for Geoffrey--kind and strangely sad.

And then the house was dim and sweetly quiet, with Metropolis a million miles beneath their feet, the city lights glittering outside of the wide glass windows and Geoffrey close and familiar--and just like before, the boy who knew everything about Conner and forgave him for all of it.

Geoffrey was putting the last cups into the dishwasher and wiping his hands on his jeans, sliding his palms against the seams and Conner thought with a sudden shock of sadness how tragic and bad it was that Geoffrey wasn't his anymore.  That, after all these years between them, they'd reached a fork in the road and they'd taken somebody else's hand to navigate the path. 

Conner thought that he'd never get over the fact that he knew the way Geoffrey dried his hands on his pants--the exact way he slid his fingers over denim--and not be with him.  It seemed wrong and unnatural, different than the way Conner had always planned it, but everything had turned out differently than expected, Conner thought bitterly.

And then Geoffrey was looking around the kitchen, like he was taking in the sights one last night before he left, and it made something in Conner's throat tight and something in his chest hurt.

"Hey, long time no see," Geoffrey finally said, his voice soft and quiet, breaking the stillness.

When Conner smiled in answer, he saw Geoffrey's eyes and they were blue, like Conner had always known they were blue and that hurt, too, for no good reason at all.  "Hey," he said hoarsely.  "And--yeah.  Something like that."

Then Geoffrey ran a hand over the countertop, smiling privately down at the surface, and glanced up, lashes throwing deep, dark shadows on his face in the vaguely orange light of the room--shadowed by sienna and brown against the walls and hallways, the single light over the sink struggling against the overwhelming night in the room.

"Are you okay?" Conner asked, because he genuinely wanted to know.

Geoffrey laughed, and shook his head, said, "Yeah--look, sorry I've been--" he waved his hand in the air, long, pale fingers blurring in the dark "--weird about this.  It was a surprise."

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything," Conner murmured, looking at his feet.

"It's fine," Geoffrey said, in a way that let Conner know exactly how much that peace had cost.

Conner fisted his hands in the hem of his shirt, and felt small and like a shit and didn't know what to do for probably the millionth time since the beginning of the year and was so tired he just wanted to go to sleep, to wake up in the morning and feel Geoffrey's breath on his neck--for it to be the before before the after.  Because it'd been easier then, easier and safe and comfortable and there was no risk.

"It's late," Geoffrey finally said, and it sounded like the words were pulled out of him despite the smooth tones, the flawless timbre.  "Wanna walk me to the door?"

Conner blinked, and opened his mouth twice before he could say, "You're such a girl, Archer," and took a step toward the foyer, felt his feet cold against the floor, heard Geoffrey's sneakers pad across the wood, so familiar with the walk he could do it in the dark, by sense alone.

"Whatever, Luthor," Geoffrey said, with a ghost of a smile around the corners of his mouth as they stood in front of the elevator, Geoffrey's hand smoothing the metal above the button.  "I think we both know who's the princess between the two of us."

Conner flushed.  "Fuck off," he muttered.

Geoffrey only grinned, small and sweet and reached out one arm, hand hanging midair for a moment before he stroked his knuckles over Conner's check--in a move both shockingly new and intimately familiar and old like a heartbeat Conner had memorized.

"Geoffrey--" Conner started.

"I just never thought it'd happen this way," Geoffrey admitted, interrupting him, and that smile was still on his face.  It was incandescently sad and Conner didn't understand, and it was making something in his chest sink.  He thought he'd already done this, in the restaurant bathroom, been as sad as he knew how to be over Geoffrey but maybe he'd been wrong, because he could hear something in the space between them that sounded like an apology for something neither of them had known was wrong.

"Geo--"

And then just like it had never happened before, Geoffrey was smiling against his mouth--lips soft and sweet and tasting like orange juice against Conner's own.  But what Conner almost felt more was Geoffrey's hand, still very gentle on his cheek, and the other on Conner's hip, soft and possessive, like this, at least, was his, and Conner wanted Geoffrey to have it, wanted to give him everything, and in a desperate, furious panic he knotted one hand in Geoffrey's hair and licked his way into Geoffrey's mouth.

Geoffrey kissed like he painted, smooth and skilled and with a surprising recklessness, biting at Conner's mouth and running his tongue over Conner's teeth and Conner wanted it so much and so badly and had been gone so long--he scraped his teeth over Geoffrey's lower lip, sucked at the bow of his upper lip, wrapped his other hand around Geoffrey's bicep, tight enough--Conner hoped--to leave bruises.  So they'd remember.  So they'd remember something--so they'd remember this.

And then they needed to breathe and Conner tried to put it off as long as possible because this wouldn't end the way it always had with them, but Geoffrey--

Geoffrey was kissing his lower lip now, sweet and closed-mouthed, and then the corners of Conner's mouth, so gently it made Conner feel naked.

"Okay," Geoffrey gasped, forehead pressed against Conner's, and his eyes were closed as they panted at one another, too close for friends and now too far apart. "Okay," Geoffrey said again, and this time he looked up and looked at Conner, his mouth all swollen and red and bitten and wearing all of Conner's bruises and said:

"I just never thought that--" and he took a step back, knees shaky like Conner was feeling and stared at the space just over Conner's left shoulder, hands fumbling with the elevator button before finally managing to light it up "--never thought that if I kissed you it would go like this."

And then the elevator door opened and Geoffrey smiled at Conner again like it was all forgiven, like he'd finished this chapter of his book and that was fine because there were dozens more to go and said, "Okay--goodnight," and left, disappearing behind the elevator doors as Conner felt his knees give out and he slid to the floor, watching light arc off of the metal.

Conner spent the night in the observatory.  By sunrise he couldn't feel his face and his hands or his legs or his chest but he couldn't feel Geoffrey's mouth on his either--and that had been kind of the point.

When Mrs. Banner found him out there, she helped him up and wrapped him in a blanket, poured him into bed and bought him tea and brushed his hair out of his face and said, "I know, baby.  I know."

---

Conner and Geoffrey silently avoidance was the better part of valor on Sunday, and Conner spent Sunday at home with Clark watching Lifetime, because he figured there really wasn't much lower that he could go.  At least, that was what he thought until he pulled the tub of strawberry ice cream out of the freezer and started hacking at it with a spoon in front of the television, at which point Lex had come out of the study, looked extremely disturbed, and turned right back around without saying a word.

"Did something…" Clark tried.

"I'm watching Lifetime," Conner snapped, and stuffed another spoonful of ice cream in his mouth.

"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" Clark said primly. 

"I fucking hate this movie," Conner muttered around the spoon, but did not reach for the remote control, instead channeling all of his hate at the television screen.

The problem with being emotionally unstable on top of having telekinetic powers was that Conner tended to forget said telekinetic powers until things like televisions exploded--at which point Clark started shrieking about Conner using his powers for good instead of evil and Lex rushed out, first to point out how incredibly cool that was and then make a feeble attempt at scolding Conner under Clark's death glare.

"I'm very, very, very sorry," Conner said.

"You really, really aren't," Clark scowled, and checked Conner over for injury.  It was amazing how far Sony shrapnel could air.

"But I really, really want you to think I am," Conner said.

"Don't even start that with me, buster," Clark said, managing to hold his frown for a whole five seconds before he rolled his eyes, sighed and threw up his hands.  "I guess it was an accident."

Conner snorted and hopped off the kitchen stool.  In the background, his father had a Geiger counter over the sparking remains of the television, bearing a disappointed expression when the clicks remained even and unexcited.

"Whatever, Grandma's outed you like crazy," Conner said meanly, and Clark winced at that.

"Right," Clark agreed, and said, "All right, fine.  Go pack your stuff, the helicopter will be here any minute."

Which was exactly when they heard the flap of chopper blades, and Mrs. Banner's shriek--audible even in the living room--telling Juan not to land in the pool again.

---

"You have to come, Conner.  It's the biggest event of the year, Conner.  It'll be like slap in the face for Melanie, Conner.  I'm the head cheerleader, Conner.  I'll protect you, Conner."

Whitney glared.  "I have protected you, haven't I?" she demanded, shoving a Dixie cup of spiked punch into Conner's hand.

He took one sip and gagged.  "What the hell is in this?" he choked out.  He rubbed his tongue with his hand feverishly, trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

Whitney took a sip and winced.  "Kool-Aid and--" she ran her tongue over her mouth "--Aristocrat vodka, I think."

"This is the most disgusting thing I've ever had in my mouth," Conner said, between licking the sleeve of his shirt. 

"Frankly, I think Terminal would be the most disgusting thing you'd have had in your mouth, Conner," Whitney snorted, and as Conner was choking on the punch and his shirtsleeve, she waved across the orange-lit patio of Melanie's house as a few of the school's social elite wandered past, already slightly-drunk and embarrassingly loud.

Even in Metropolis, Conner had never seen the attraction of rubbing elbows with the social elite.  Partially, it was because he'd been forced to do it since he was very young, spent more time in and out of tuxedos and charity balls than was healthy for a kid--and to take a page out of his father's book, he'd spent a lot of time in the coatroom with his portable Playstation playing Final Fantasy XXIII because even losing repeatedly to a girl-man-squid thing was less traumatic than having to smile at rich people who wanted your father to run for Senate.

Smallville's social echelons were different though--it had nothing to do with good breeding and who you were related to.  Instead, the people who mingled and laughed together, got drunk off of cheap liquor were all bound by Smallville High School's bizarre social strata: varsity sports, cheering, and student government.  All the popular kids wore the right kinds of jeans and t-shirts with tiny polo players sewn over the left breast and looked so pressed and powdered Conner was a little bit horrified, though honestly, since he'd had a publicist since he was three, he didn't have a right to mock them for commercializing themselves.

"Why did I have to be here again?" Conner asked, indiscreetly pouring the rest of the Dixie cup into the ugliest bush within reaching distance.

Whitney shrugged and sipped at the toxic punch some more.  "To see how the other half lives."

"Please," Conner snapped.  "If you're trying to show me discrimination and people being assholes, I was kind of raised among the gems of this practice."

"And it so shows," Whitney said affectionately, crinkling her eyes at him.  "What with your snooty vocabulary of words like 'phooey' and 'blargh!' and your wearing t-shirts that look like they were abandoned by the Salvation Army."

Conner put a hand on his chest.  "Hey," he said feelingly.

"Chill, Conner, I just wanted you to lighten up, I thought watching the zoo of Smallville would be kind of anthropologically hilarious," she said with a real smile, and rubbed her shoulder against his affectionately.  "You've been kind of wound up tight recently," she added carefully.

Conner stared at his hands.  'Wound up tight' was the understatement of the century. 

In a little over a week and a half since he'd come back from Metropolis, he'd picked three fights with Terry, who seemed equal parts bewildered, hurt, and frustrated, and Conner felt worse every time he did it.  But there was nobody else he could snap at and Lois was MIA--doing an in-depth story about the disappearance of small farmers in the American Midwest, according to Clark. 

Conner wanted to scream at the top of his lungs and tear at his hair and had spent a large portion of Monday afternoon, after fight the first--which had ended with Terry storming out of the barn loft, yelling, "Get the fuck over yourself, Metropolis!"--throwing stuff around the room with his mind until he gave himself a screaming migraine and drugged himself to sleep with NyQuil.

To add insult to injury, Terry had all but blown him off when Conner had finally shored up all his decency and apologized Tuesday afternoon, saying, "Whatever," and driving a little too fast on the turn into Conner's grandparents' driveway--which of course had led to fight the second which had concluded with Conner throwing his bookbag into Terry's face and calling him a fucking cunt and really not improving matters.

They'd called a tentative truce on Wednesday after Conner had literally been on the verge of frustrated tears, furious with himself and Terry and wanting nothing more than to go back to Metropolis and punch Geoffrey in the fucking face.

"Hey--look, can we please stop fighting?" Terry had asked, and his voice had been sweet and low and kind, which had been enough to break the dam and send Conner tumbling into his arms, muttering apologies for being a dick before he'd tackled Terry to the couch and apologized in the most sincerest way he knew how.

Now, four days later, Conner was still all knotted up inside and even if Geoffrey had kissed him goodbye, it had felt like being kissed good morning. 

If it was one conversation he never, never, never wanted to have with Terry, it was the "So my best friend toward whom I have been making vaguely and confusedly homoerotic overtures, possibly my entire life, kissed me hard enough to suck an orgasm out of my face--and I'm feeling kind of conflicted."  Conner knew himself well enough to know that he'd add, "Uh--not that I don't love you and stuff," to the end of that confession and just make it all the worse.

He moaned and let his chin fall to his chest, and Whitney made soothing noises and rubbed the space between his shoulder blades, saying, "Aw, honey."

"I'm just so bad at life," Conner whined.

"But it's okay!" Whitney said.  "Because we're young!  And Terminal will forgive you."

Conner cast a jaundiced expression in her direction.  "Yeah?"

Whitney's expression went maternal and she stroked one hand over Conner's tousled head, saying, "Conner, don't be stupid, all right?  He's crazy about you.  I've never seen him this happy."

"Not even with Melanie?" Conner asked snottily, though he couldn't keep the smile off his face.

Whitney made a face.  "She really is a vampire, Conner."

"Yeah, only it wasn't his neck she was sucking on," Conner snorted.

And Whitney's mouth was open and grinning to say something when it suddenly snapped shut and her eyes went hard and dark, and Conner turned his head to see what was going on just in time to see--

"Oh hell no," Whitney said.

"What the fuck," Conner snapped, and in the grass went the Dixie cup and his feet started walking him over to where Terry had Melanie pinned to a wall, his mouth covering hers in one of those disgusting open-mouthed kisses that Conner was unaware that Terry was engaging in with people other than himself.

Whitney may have yelled something like, "Wait!  Stop!" and reached for his arm, but what Conner lacked in coordination and athletic ability and coolness he made up for in speed, and suddenly he was jerking Terry away from Melanie by the back of his shirt.

"What the fuck," Conner repeated, and he looked at Terry's bruised-red mouth, the way his t-shirt was slightly rucked up, the smooth stretch of skin Conner could see under the cotton cloth and the glazed look in Terry's eyes.

Terry smiled dopily at him.  "Hey, Metropolis."

"Hey, asshole," Conner hissed and he was about to rip Terry a new one when Melanie slammed him into the brick wall behind them, her face dangerous and beautiful and flushed and Conner noted for not the first time how scarily pretty she was, all painted lips and kohl-rimmed blue eyes.  She was a porcelain and sharp and preternatural and a fucking vampire.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, you little shit?" she barked.

"Stopping him from doing something he'll regret," Conner snapped and shoved her hand off of his shoulder, and glanced over at Terry, who had stumbled into a wall, leaning against it heavily, eyes misty and looking off into the dark treeline, mouth hanging open, still obscenely wet from Melanie and her vampire kiss. 

"Hey, jackass," Conner said in Terry's general direction, which only managed to get Terry's attention for maybe two seconds, which was when Conner realized that there was something seriously wrong.

Conner furrowed his brow as Whitney jogged over, shoving Terry against a wall and narrowing her eyes at his foggy expression, peering into his face.  "Hey, Terminal!  Terrence!" she yelled, and turned to Whitney, eyes huge and scary, shouting:

"What the fuck did you give him, Melanie!"

Which made Conner worried enough that he shoved past Melanie over to Terry, who just grinned stupidly at both of them and bobbed his head up and down, laughing threadily, face flushed and sweat beading in a way that made Conner flash suddenly to the six hour lecture he'd gotten on his twelfth birthday about party drugs and it made Conner's mouth go dry.

"Terry," Conner said.  'Terry!"

Behind them, Melanie laughed, and said, "Christ, guys.  Lighten up.  It's just a little E--"

Which was when several things happened at once:

Whitney yelled, "Fuck!" and ran off into the house.

Melanie's eyes went huge and scared and she took off after Whitney, saying, "Shit!  Ross!  Calm the fuck down!  It's nothing--!" before her voice faded in a clatter of footsteps over linoleum.

Conner held Terry against the wall, staring at him and promising himself that nothing would happen, that it'd be fine, that Whitney would get the car and they'd drive Terry home and they'd never talk about it again and Terry wouldn't die in some horrible drug-related accident because that shit didn't happen in real life, they only said it to scare stupid teenagers.

And Terry, who was still smiling, loose and huge and happy, put his big hands on Conner's cheeks and said, "Hey--I was looking for you.  I wanted to give you something."  And before Conner could ask what, Terry was kissing him, hard and a little mean and sloppy, turning them so that Conner was the one up against the wall and Terry's familiar breadth was holding him here, all warm chest and broad shoulders and thigh between his knees--brick behind Conner's shoulders.

It was hard to kiss back, Conner realized, when you were terrified and furious and worried, so he was pushing Terry away when he saw people standing behind them and thought, "Oh. No."

---

Conner remembered Walden from the hallway outside of the Chemistry classroom, when Walden had called him a faggot and Conner had thrown him across the hallway and Terry had smiled at him, drowsy and amused and intrigued.  It seemed very far away from where Conner was watching--horrified and frozen--as Walden's monstrous fist was pulling Terry away from Conner and slamming Terry into the dust with a bone-shattering punch. 

And then Walden's eyes went to Conner and Conner barely had time to register Melanie saying, "I fucking knew it," before his head was slammed into the brick wall and it all went black.

---

Conner woke up ready to beat the living hell out of Terry, because, you know, sexual eagerness was hot and rough fucking was definitely a turn on but could he stop ripping at Conner's fucking pants?  It was just so crass and it wasn't like Conner was going to spontaneously develop a headache on him if they didn't have sex right fucking away-- 

So he was about to open his mouth and punch his boyfriend in the hip but then he realized he couldn't open his mouth which was when he woke the fuck up real fast and moaned, low and bruised, through the duct tape over his mouth. 

The hands jerking at his pants were still jerking at his pants and Conner was having a hard time forcing himself to breathe around the panic that had swelled up in his throat.  When he managed to blink his eyes open it was to the double-image of sneakered feet in front of his face, to the feel of cold dirt and rocks digging into his arms and to the distant sight of his KEEP METROPOLIS WEIRD t-shirt, ripped into two pieces near his head, and the blurry sound of voices over his head. 

"I think he's up," somebody said, and it sounded like the voices were filtered through water. 

A rough scrape of nails shocked Conner out of his dizzy stillness and it was like a tsunami of sensory perceptions crashed down on his head all at once: the frigid air that prickled his skin and made his fingers and bare toes ache, the smell of loamy, dead wintry earth beneath his face, the jagged edges of all the rocks in the dust, the dead brown stalks in front of his face--cornfield, Conner thought, I'm in a cornfield--and the fiber brush of them on his legs; how his head ached, like it was overfull and cracking, and God, it was freezing, he couldn't feel his eyes opening and closing. 

And then his hips were coming off the ground and his jeans were coming off his hips and sheer panic hit him like a ton of bricks, and Conner flailed until he realized his hands were taped together, so he kicked blindly until three guys--where the fuck had they come from? he thought, panicked and high-pitched in his head and oh God, he was going to die in that field, they were going to kill him and do God knows what before they killed him and he was going to die--growled and held him down and Conner kind of recognized them through the haze of pain and fog of panic and their expressions were familiar and so were their huge shoulders and oh fuck these were the varsity football players and Conner was going to die. 

"Fucking--hold the fuck still!" somebody yelled and Conner gave a vicious kick just for stupidity. 

"Ow!" the voice yelled and then Conner got backhanded, which apparently was even more not-fun than Conner had always imagined it to be, and he tasted blood in his mouth and felt nauseated, swallowing it and trying to breathe through his nose, head swiveling around and wincing as the hands on his hips started tugging at his--oh fuck no--boxers, jerking them down his legs as the three guys all but sat on him, holding him down into the dirt. 

"Little faggot has leg strength," somebody said grudgingly and Conner saw numbly that somebody had dropped his boxers in front of his face, the blue cloth with oranges on it near enough to see the green leaves and he flushed all over in humiliation, felt himself try to curl in on himself in spite of the weight on his chest and he couldn't move--he couldn't move and he'd never been so scared in his life. 

Which was when it all blurred out of focus, because Conner couldn't breathe and he couldn't move and he was freezing and naked and somebody--he was going to throw up, he was going to throw up and it'd be that much worse--was sliding one hand down his back, over his goosebumped skin and over his hips in a revoltingly intimate way and the only person who'd ever touched him like that was Terry and the murmur of voices over his head turned interested and holy fuck Conner was going to be raped to death in a fucking cornfield-- 

And like the tick of a clock, everything narrowed to a very dark and small place in Conner's head. 

He closed his eyes because he didn't need to see to do this and suddenly it wasn't him doing it anymore--it was so huge and hugely out of his control that all he could do was feel the ripple outward as he forced his eyes open to see the wind rise, to hear the beginnings of an inhuman shriek and the hand disappear from his skin, the bodies lessening their weight on his chest, to the sight of the sky overhead gathering violently purple--unnaturally deep and crushing and poisonous, clouds scattering. 

Conner blinked, his vision clearing and the sounds around him crystallizing with a sudden, intense sharpness in time for him to think, Yes. 

And the tornado slammed down around them, Conner in the center, curling into himself and feeling the wind whip at the deadened cornstalks around him, heard the terrible noise like a screaming train and the fractured sounds of people shouting around the storm so Conner thought, More. 

So this time when he opened his eyes, it was flat, flat earth, with the sound of the train still drowning out any other noise.  The sound was so huge that Conner winced at the sheer enormity of the silence in his head, like it had tipped over into nothingness, like the universe was too small to contain it and Conner's head was emptied out, like all the fear and horror and revulsion and anger had melted into the air around him, whipped it into a frenzy, into a storm-- 

And the corn was flattened, so Conner could see for miles around, see the huddled figures of people scattered, the overturned shadow of a truck in the distance, see houses and trees far away and he hoped they wouldn't be consumed, too, but it was out of his hands, really and it was very, very quiet in his head. 

Quiet enough to sleep but then Conner saw something at the edge of the field--far too close for it to be safe, he thought distantly--and saw that it was Whitney, her hair flying and her body struggling against the outliers of the wind and grasping posts in the field to make progress and Conner realized what he was doing with a sudden, riotous panic that made the wind flare more, blow up a wall of dust from the ground that blinded him. 

Which was when the panic got really undignified because oh God, Whitney could be dying.  Whitney could be like those bodies in the fields and all broken in two like the corn stalks and Jesus fucking Christ Conner couldn't stop the wind--it had all spun out of his control and he didn't know what to do and it was so huge he couldn't find the edges of whatever he'd thought to make it start, couldn't find the beginning and wouldn't find the end. 

So he did the only thing he could do and thought black, black, black and deep, went deep inside and started to turn things off, like walking through a house and turning off the lights--a jolt there, a dimming there, vision started to blur again, but that was okay, because his breathing was slowing and his heartbeat was thunderous and rolling in his chest, slowing. 

And it was working, he knew it was working even as his vision butterflied black at the edges because he heard Whitney screaming his name and the thud of her knees hitting the ground, felt the way she dragged him into her lap, wrapped her arms around him, how she leaned them against a post behind her back--where Conner saw, the last thing before it all went dark again, Whitney's face, red and covered in tears and dirt and the shape of a scarecrow, forgotten in the fields, behind her wild hair.

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