Clark Kent's freshman lit class had finished early so he beat Lex to the penthouse, but that was alright because the door opened for him easily enough. Lex had given him the security code almost as soon as he moved out to Metropolis. He was just finishing a ham and cheese sandwich when Lex got home. Clark grinned brightly at him, "Hey, Lex."

Lex's answering smile was a little forced. "Hey, Clark."

Suddenly concerned, Clark dropped the crumb covered plate into the sink, then moved to stand in front of his friend and brushed a thumb along his cheek. "What's wrong, Lex?"

The bald billionare looked away. Not a good sign. Clark caught his chin and turned his face up and brushed a kiss over his lips. Lex responded quickly and enthusiastically. For a moment, Clark almost forgot that he was worried. The niggling concern fought though the white bliss of Lex's kiss, though, Clark broke them apart.

"What's wrong, Lex?" he repeated, a little breathlessly now, but still firm. Doors closed behind Lex's eyes and that was very bad. "Lex," he tried again, a warning note starting to rise in voice.

Lex pulled away and went to the bar. He poured a scotch but didn't drink it. He turned an angry glare on Clark. "Just drop it. If you push, I'll lie. I'm sure you're familiar with the process."

For a moment, residual guilt gripped him, but he'd come clean with his secrets months ago and he thought Lex had as well. "Is this about Lionel?" Anger and protective instincts rose in him, though whether they screamed more strongly for Lex or his sister, he couldn't say. "Did he threaten you and Laura again?"

Lex hunched over his tumbler and gripped it tightly, though he still didn't drink from it. "That's pushing, Clark, and I told you not to do that." The billionare's entire frame was taut with enough tension that he could probably be used to launch arrows.

with a sigh, Clark came up behind him and began to massage the tight muscles of his friend's shoulders. "Fine, Lex. I'll let it go. For now."

Lex relaxed and leaned back into his ministrations. "Thank you."

Clark let his hand move down and lower. Lex hummed. Clark leaned in to suck on the hollow between Lex's collarbone and his neck. Lex groaned and gave him better access. Clark took advantage. "Let's take this to the bedroom," Lex suggested weakly when his knees buckled and only Clark's hands kept him upright.

As this was a suggestion Clark was very happy with, he complied immediately, taking the opportunity to divest them both of their clothing as well. Lex didn't so much as comment on the sudden shift of his reality. Clark wondered if he was finally starting to consider it normal to be standing, fully clothed, in the living room one moment, and lying naked on his stomach in the bedroom the next. Clark straddled him, oil already in hand, and set to giving him a really good massage. Lex needed one.

Despite his best intentions, it didn't stay platonic very long. It went way passed that line when he drizzled some oil into Lex's crack. "God! Clark!" Lex gasped, startled. Clark grinned, and began to massage down that way and then began to massage inside Lex. Prostrate glands need massaging, too.

"Shit, Clark! Fuck!"

"That an invitation?" Clark teased.

"God, yes!" Clark started to ease his fingers out to get a condom, but Lex twisted into what had to be an uncomfortable position and grabbed his wrist. Clark stilled when he saw the bleak look in his eyes. "Forget the condom, Clark. There's no point."

For a moment, Clark stared back, not comprehending what he was being told. Then he looked down at his lover. Looked into his lover. He saw his fingers still inside where he'd forgotten them. He saw the unusual physiology that made up Lex's mutant reproductive system. He didn't see a baby. He looked closer. Then closer still. And he found the tiny little mass of cells that he only recognized as a zygote because Lex said there was one there.

Blinking back to real vision, he looked back into Lex's eyes, feeling scared. "We're pregnant?"

Lex laughed bitterly. "Yeah, if by 'we're preganant' what you really mean is 'Lex is going to carry the kid that makes Clark a father'."

The world changed. Everything . . . Clark had understood the meaning of the phrase 'paradigm shift' before, but now he had experienced one. He hadn't quite realized just how literal the words were. He felt like the entire universe had just moved a few microns to the left or something. Everything looked the same, but nothing seemed like it was exactly where it had been.

Clark was going to be a dad.

He felt a giant smile cracking across his face. Distantly, he recognized the problems inherent in being a father right now, especially with Lex as the mother, but they weren't important at the moment. Right now was for basking in the knowledge that he, Clark Kent, was going to be a dad. A dad.

His fingers slid out of Lex and he turned his paramour over onto his back as Clark bent down and caught him in a deep kiss. His hands traced over Lex's body, urging it to relax, and, slowly, it melted beneath him. Satisfied that Lex - beautiful, perfect Lex who was giving him this great gift - was comfortable, he slid his fingers back into his lover, stretching him gently, making sure he was prepared, not for the fucking that they'd been building toward, but a tender lovemaking to thank him.

They were going to be parents.

When they lay sated on the bed some time later, Lex held within Clark's arms, Lex said quietly, "So I take you want to keep the child?"

Clark was too relaxed to be too concerned over the fact that Lex's track record suggested he wouldn't. "Mmm," he agreed, and nuzzled to back of Lex's neck. "We're gonna be parents, Lex," he said, awed. The body in his arms tensed for a moment, the relaxed again. Clark kissed the back of his head soothingly. "I love you."

Lex said nothing, but Clark didn't take offense. Even if Lex didn't, he knew how the billionare felt about him. He curled around him a little tighter.

"Clark?"

"Mmm?"

The was a brief hesitation, then Lex asked, "You know I'm not your wife, right?"

"Of course," Clark agreed, too happy at the moment to be concerned that his words had come too quickly or that they felt like a lie. He was going to be a dad. Lex was going to be a mom. They would be a family. That was the important thing. "Lex?"

"Yeah?"

"Is it a same sex marriage if one partner -"

Lex twisted around put two fingers on his mouth, stopping the question. The look in his eye was dangerous. "Don't finish that question or I'll have to kill you."

Clark breifly considered trying to finish it with 'is an alien?' instead, but decided a kiss was a better way to soothe Lex's wounded masculinity. Honestly though, he couldn't help but wonder, in the safety of his mind, how anyone who wore as much purple as Lex did could still have masculinity issues. And after Halloween, what remained should have been utterly demolished. Lex made a very pretty lady. Even if it was a little disturbing that Lex could wear a dress and heels more convincingly and with fewer complaints than he could wear jeans and cowboy boots. Clark had been very careful not to ask about that.

Clark's arms felt safe around him. That bothered him. If a Luthor could admit to being scared, he might have said it did that, too. This was wrong. It was all wrong. Clark wasn't supposed to be happy about the situation. Clark was supposed to freak - no, he hadn't meant to tell Clark at all. Clark was supposed to freak later. Now, they were supposed to be carrying on like nothing had changed. He had wanted a few weeks of denial before he really got into the spin show. Sure, he'd expected things between him and Clark to be a little tense - it was supposed to make the eventual revelation of his 'affair' more believable. But he couldn't find anyone to have an 'affair' with, and now Clark knew and Clark was happy with it. He didn't need to comfort his single self with the lie that Clark was dumping him because he cheated and not because he was a freak. A pregnant freak.

But he couldn't go public with Clark. Clark was just a college freshman. Clark needed to avoid media attention as much as possible. Bruce, Scott, Michael, whoever - their purpose, first and foremost, had to been to be Clark's decoy. To draw attention away from the CEO's alien paramour when LexCorp announced they were doing research into male pregnancy and he was the first test subject.

That wasn't going to work now.

He'd called too many people trying to get a date to the museum opening. If he didn't come out himself, someone was going to help him come out in the worst possible way. But not with Clark. God. No, no it had to be with Clark. If they were going to 'adopt' a kid together in nine months, they needed to establish the relationship now. Dammit.

"You're thinking too hard," Clark whispered into his ear. "I can smell the burning."

Lex caught a hand that was stroking his hip and brought it to his mouth to kiss. "Be my date to a museum opening this friday."

They were lying close enough together that he could feel Clark's eyelashes against his skull as he blinked. "Your date? Lex, that's in public."

"I know that."

A breif hesitation then, "Okay, but we need to tell Mom and Dad before then."

Shit. He'd forgotten they hadn't known yet. It was so much easier to pretend they weren't a hurdle to the relationship now that Clark lived in the Met U dorms instead of cloistered in the yellow farmhouse. Not that they'd been in a relationship when Jonathan's shotgun had been such a clear and present danger. "Right. Want to tell them to expect you and a guest Thursday for dinner?" He would have suggested inviting them here, but between Jonathan not really liking the city and the need to find a sitter for the girls, it was far easier for Clark and Lex to go to Smallville than for Marth and Jonathan to leave, especially considering how fast Clark could make the trip.

"Yeah, that'll work. We can tell them they're gonna be grandparents at the same time!" He sounded sickeningly excited about that.

"Good idea," Lex agreed, trying not to sound dismal, "that way we get everything your father might want to shoot me for out in the open all at once."

Clark rolled him onto his back and stole a kiss. "Don't worry, Mom'll get us first for having sex without - wait. Lex? How did you get pregnant?"

"Condom broke, o ye of super strength."

Propping himself up on his elbow, Clark frowned down at him in concern and guilt. "You didn't say anything."

Lex pulled him down on top of him. "I wanted to know for sure, first. It might have been nothing. But while we're on the subject, you have nine months to get your fill of topping, because after this we're never going to do it again."

Clark smiled, not believing him. "That's the pregnancy talking."

"You're damn right it's the pregnancy talking. It's saying it never wants to happen again."

Clark granted him another kiss. "Maybe your researchers can proscribe the Pill for you."

Lex snorted. "Yeah, then it'll turn out to be ineffective on mutants and we'll have two kids. Abstinence is the way to go here."

Hands skated down his body and cupped his ass. It had been maybe an hour since their last orgasm but he moaned and arched invitingly despite himself. Fingers slid inside, making their point as they brushed over his prostrate. "God," he gasped, already hard again.

"You think you'll want to give this up, Lex?" Clark whispered, his breath heating his inner ear.

"Fingers don't get me pregnant," he tried to compromise.

More stroking and he arched and bucked beneath Clark's weight. He felt Clark's smile against his ear. "You think we can stop here?"

"Bastard!" Lex gasped as the fingers left him. "Vile seducer, spiteful tease. You just want a whole nest full of little Clarklings."

"You're too coherent," Clark criticized, but then wet warmth surrounded Lex and after that coherency wasn't a problem anymore. He wasn't completely certain, but after his orgasm and Clark filled him for the second time in as many hours, he might have made a vow he really shouldn't have.

Clark probably wouldn't hold him to it. He hoped. He deferred judging on what exactly it was that he was hoping.