Lex had only been in Clark's bedroom once or twice before, waiting patiently as Clark ran around, grabbing something or getting ready to go. Before tonight, the total time Lex had spent here couldn't have surpassed ten minutes.

They were too busy earlier in the evening, obviously, for Lex to have either the inclination or the opportunity to look over the room in any sort of detail; it was only upon waking several hours later in Clark's rather cramped and uncomfortable bed that he had felt the urge to examine more closely.

He pulled himself away from Clark carefully. It was midsummer, a hot night, and they were slick and sticky where sweat had glued them together. Clark mumbled something faintly in his sleep and threw his arm over the space Lex had just vacated.

Clark's room was very clearly still a *boy's* room, and as he stood by the desk, Lex could see Clark living here at ten, twelve, fourteen, with this room very nearly the same. Only the most obvious trappings of childhood seemed to have been put away. Pennants on the wall, football posters and articles torn out of magazines and newspapers. Quite a few of the books on the bookshelves were old and well used enough for Lex to suspect that they'd been passed on from father to son: large stacks of action and adventure and rollicking good fun. There was a small and completely eclectic pile of comic books, too, in such bad condition that Lex was tempted to give Clark a lecture later about proper maintenance and treatment.

It was the pictures, though, sprinkled liberally throughout the room, that were most compelling. Dozens of them, and a smiling Clark was in each, growing from small child to not-quite-adult as Lex watched. Clark and his parents, Clark and Pete, Clark and Pete and Chloe. Clark by himself in a series of school portraits, surprisingly homely with their evidence of missing teeth and unfortunate hair.

All the signs of a happy, well-adjusted, normal teenage boy, but only peripherally the Clark Lex knew. Lex knew better; Clark was so much more than that.

It was the framed photograph over Clark's desk that Lex found himself lingering over. Not a particularly good picture from any sort of a technical standpoint -- it was a cheap snapshot, and obviously not taken by any one with an eye for art or design -- but not any less interesting for that. Martha Kent stood, young and laughing; Clark was in her arms, slightly blurry from movement, projecting the sort of innocent joyfulness never seen past a certain early age.

What struck Lex the most was how tiny Clark was: he was just a kid, and he looked almost fragile. As if he could be broken, or damaged.

The bed squeaked behind him as Clark got up, and Lex was still and fixed as he listened to Clark approach.

"Lex?" Clark's hand on his arm was somewhere between tentative and possessive.

Lex turned his head. Clark's hair was messy and tousled, sticking out from his head in all directions, and he had pulled on his boxers, though whether out of comfort or late-blooming modesty Lex wasn't sure.

He nodded towards the wall. "Nice picture."

"That was the day my adoption was finalized," Clark said. He leaned into Lex, resting his head on his shoulder, and wrapped his arms lightly around Lex's torso. "I was too little to remember it at all, but it was a really good day."

Somewhere, hidden away in one of the endless drawers of the castle, was the only picture Lex saved from his childhood and adolescence. In it, he was still young and skinny and awkward, and he sat between his mother and Pamela on his mother's bed, propped up against a mountain of pillows, with his brother in his arms.

As Clark's mouth grazed his temple, Lex thought that it would be a good idea to get a picture of the two of them soon.

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