Collaring All That Rebel Blood

Fandom: Heroes/Smallville x-over
Pairing: Nathan Petrelli/Lex Luthor
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Written for the black_dress_lex challenge. Both Nathan and Lex are slightly AU.
Summary: Nathan and Lex are locked up together.
Spoilers: Minimal
Word Count: 6,100

There's a bunk bed, a toilet, a single wall separating the shower from the rest of the room, a chair, but only one. The walls are cinderblock, covered with enamel paint, smooth and glossy enough that Nathan can see the brush strokes. The brush's bristles were cheap plastic, Nathan knows, because he found one embedded in the paint.

He knows every inch of this room now, from the small piles of lint embedded in each corner, to the creak that the bed's springs make when he turns over. He knows his cellmate less well, and he wants to keep it that way, because who knows how long they will be here, and he needs more to discover and learn. He knows his cellmate is hairless, everywhere except eyelashes and eyebrows, and Nathan wonders if those were somehow grafted on to give him a slightly more human appearance.

Of course, Lex is all human, more human than Nathan. His face was familiar to Nathan when the guards threw him in here, but Nathan had never contemplated spending months with only that face for company. Nathan had seen him as a potential ally, should they ever meet, or an enemy, or more likely both. Now Lex is his world and he is Lex's, and their universe is this ten by ten room.

"Nathan Petrelli," was the first thing Lex said to him, and Nathan just blinked stupidly at him for a moment, so long had it been since he heard his own name. Subject 24 was what they called Nathan when they talked about him and never to him.

Lex sat on the floor where the guards or doctors had thrown him. Nathan only saw a glimpse of long white coats, mouths and heads covered by surgeons' masks when they tossed Lex in here. No feature to hang an identity on, no one upon whom to revenge himself later. That, and so many other things, make him question the legality of this place. But he remembers the speeches too, the invocation of the Patriot Act to justify the disappearance of rich and poor alike. "Terrorists among us," said the politicians. When Nathan spoke up against the proscriptions, he was among the first taken.

Not the last, though. Lex was screaming at the guards to come back, saying he'd make them millionaires if they let him free and hurt them if they didn't. Nathan hadn't yelled, not until he realized how truly alone he was, but he'd said most of the same things.

Nathan helped Lex up. Lex's fingers were wrinkled from a shower or bath or immersion—or perhaps, Nathan thought then, he was hairless because he was actually some kind of amphibious creature. Nathan had seen stranger things in the past year. He looked like a mental patient, with the shaved head, the too-intent stare, the ridiculous, shapeless white garments they had put him in.

"Lex Luthor," said Nathan, his voice catching in a throat unused to talking. He had talked to himself a little in the cell, under his breath, pep talks and musings, but not the way he would speak to another person. "Why are you here?" Nathan asked.

"That's an interesting question," said Lex as he came to his feet. He had the same drawling, insouciant delivery that Nathan remembered from a TV interview he'd seen of Lex some years ago. At the time he found it annoying, but now he experienced a fierce wave of pleasure, and resisted an uncharacteristic urge to throw his arms around Lex, just for the joy of having another person in his line of sight.

Lex's eyes were the first glimpse of sky that Nathan had seen in far too long, and he knew he stared too long, as vision of himself flying out them as he would a window captured his mind for a moment. He was too used to following every thought down every dead end, just to pass a little more time.

"Why are you here?" asked Lex.

Nathan smiled sadly. "I can fly," he said. Peter had said those words to him once.

"I saw," said Lex, and Nathan remembered the footage of himself and Peter streaking across the sky that played on every TV set in every country in the world. "Show me."

Nathan floated up off the floor slowly. He had time to practice his small movements here in the cell—he hoped that his newfound control would help him free himself, if he ever got an opportunity.

Lex watched Nathan with a strange expression on his face and Nathan started to feel self-conscious. "I didn't ask for this," Nathan said diffidently.

"Never question the gifts the gods bestow," said Lex. Nathan frowned at him, but Lex didn't add anything else. The only thing that Lex revealed of himself that day was the naked, pale side of his body as he stripped down for bed.

Nathan couldn't fall asleep with another presence in a room so long empty. He wanted to watch Lex sleep, watch him move, watch him talk, watch his long fingers move over the walls of the room when he paced out its dimensions.

Lex reminded Nathan of the people he missed as much as he missed his own freedom. Lex is knowing where Peter was innocent, opaque where Peter was transparent. But their faces blurred together when Nathan thought of them as he tried to fall asleep: the way both of their mouths dimple in on the sides, the way they both lower their eyes, the shape of their heads—Peter's shaved and scarred, Lex's hairless, but similar all the same.

"How long have you been here?" Lex asked the next morning. He splashed his face with water, and looked at where a mirror would be, as the water droplets ran down his face, but it was only bare wall there.

"I counted the light and dark for a long time," said Nathan. "But it's random. Sometimes the lights will be out for minutes, sometimes for days." He tugged on his hair. "This is the only way I can tell. And by this measure, I've been in here about four months." Nathan smoothed his hair back from his face.

Lex's lips twitched. "I better hope they keep you in here with me, then," he said, nodding his bald head toward Nathan. "Otherwise I'll have no way to know."

In the last few days he's learned how Lex lost his hair (some kind of meteor thing in Kansas), how old he is (a few years older than Peter), that he likes to play chess (but likes Go better), and that the world has gotten no better in the last few months.

"The proscriptions are getting worse," says Lex. "There's a reward and people are turning in everyone with even a hint of . . . strangeness in their past." He walks toward the metal gate that makes up the front wall of their cell. Beyond the bars is an iron wall, pitted and rusted, with a small door set within it, where the food comes in and out. Lex peers to the sides of the door, to look for any crack. There aren't any, Nathan knows from his own explorations.

Nathan nods and frowns. "A witch hunt."

The corners of Lex's mouth turn up, but it's not a smile. "I expected to see some familiar faces here. Smallville had its share of freaks." He points his chin at Nathan. "You'll do, though."

Nathan nods ironically in acknowledgement. "Has anyone else I know been taken?" Nathan asks.

Lex shrugs. "Who do you know?"

"My family," says Nathan.

"Oh. Them. Your daughter Claire is missing, and there's a reward for her capture. I haven't heard any news about your brother, and your mother has fled to Europe. It was all on the news."

"Is Europe still refusing to extradite the . . . freaks?"

"Post-human, I believe is what we're calling it. Yes, and there have been sanctions. Of course, they hurt the U.S. more."

"And you spoke out against them."

Lex smiles. "Very good."

After a week Nathan is still not quite used to sharing the room with Lex. They don't talk that much, and although Nathan wants to ask a million questions, he stops himself. Better to save that for some other time. For now Lex is a puzzle, something to stave off the moment when Nathan will lose his mind from boredom, but there may be some future for Nathan where inside knowledge about a Luthor might come in handy.

***

They wake in the dark and Nathan hears Lex turn over on the bunk beneath him. He turns over and listens to the bedsprings creak.

"Are you awake?" asks Lex.

"Yes," says Nathan.

"Is there surveillance in here?"

"Probably. We're experimental subjects, after all."

Lex laughs mirthlessly. "Speak for yourself," he says.

"No superpowers, Lex?" asks Nathan lightly.

"Unless you consider the inability to grow hair a superpower, I'm afraid not." He doesn't sound sincere, but then again he never has.

When the lights come on again, Nathan lies in bed until he grows too bored to stay there. He climbs down and stretches, splashes some water on his face, drops to the floor and does pushups until his arms give out.

"I guess you have a routine," says Lex from the bed. He lies on his side with his head propped up on his pale fist.

Nathan is acutely aware of Lex's eyes on him. "As much as I can," he says. "I'm open to change, though." Then he considers that sentiment and has to fight down a bubble of hysterical laughter—change is the one thing he craves here, more than anything, more than good coffee or clothes made by someone with a name more famous than his, more than anything except Peter.

***

"Why do you think they put us together?" asks Nathan.

Lex is etching lines into the metal seat of their chair with a twisted filament of metal, but he pauses and looks up at Nathan. "Maybe they're out of space," he says.

"And we're not dangerous together," says Nathan. "All I can do is fly."

"And I can't even do that."

"Maybe they're hoping one of us will get the other one to talk," says Nathan. "What do you know that they want?"

Lex turns back to his task. "How do you know it's not you they want to talk?"

***

"What have you done to get their attention?" Lex asks, looking up at the ceiling where the presumed cameras are.

"I haven't wanted to give them the satisfaction," says Nathan.

Lex's hand snakes out and grabs Nathan's wrist. He twists Nathan's arm so the underside is up, pushes up the sleeve and runs his thumb across the raised scar there.

"Did they come for you when you did this?"

Nathan swallows. He's not proud of that moment—that act of desperation. He smashed his safety razor and pulled out a blade. He sterilized it as best he could under the hot water and then cut. It barely hurt. When he started to grow dizzy from the blood loss, he bound up the cut. The next day he had a new razor on his food tray, and some erythromycin pills in a little cup. The cut healed cleanly.

"They were watching," says Nathan, "but they knew it wasn't for real."

Lex looks at him considering, and Nathan's not sure if the expression is pity or admiration, or some mixture of both.

"Do you think they'd care if we started fighting?"

Nathan looks him up and down. They're about evenly matched for size. "Maybe. Want to try?"

Lex's only response is a quickly thrown punch. Nathan dodges, spins, grabs Lex's arm and pins it behind his back.

"That was impressive," says Lex. He's breathing hard and every breath pushes his back harder against Nathan's chest. This is the first time he's touched Lex. Lex's body is warmer than Nathan imagined, hot even, like he's fevered.

"Unarmed combat training. Guess I still have it," says Nathan, obscurely gratified that his body's skills haven't left him completely. Lex strains against him. "If you struggle," says Nathan, adjusting his grip on Lex's arm, "you'll just tear your rotator cuff."

"We should make it look more real next time."

"What's not real about this?" asks Nathan. He's kind of enjoying this, having the upper hand for a moment.

Lex twists out of his grasp, smooth and slippery like a fish. "That," he says. He smiles wolfishly.

***

Lex's gift, or curse, is that a few times a day, Nathan forgets that he's locked in, that the freedom of sparring with someone with a mind as sharp as his is not the freedom he needs.

They whisper when they say things of import now. Lex tells him that he suspects his father of putting him in here, that the proscriptions against ‘post-humans' were a convenient excuse. Lex doesn't remember any more of getting here than Nathan does. One moment, he says, he was sleeping in his bed in Metropolis, well-guarded, and the next he was strapped down on a gurney with a needle in his arm.

His captors, like Nathan's, wore masks and barely spoke except to each other in voices too low to hear. Either this is a different operation than Bennet's or they've gotten much more canny since they tried kidnapping Nathan for the first time. But now they're probably government funded.

"I saw your brother," says Lex a few weeks after he joins Nathan.

Nathan punches him in the face with no preamble, and has, the visceral satisfaction of watching blood drip down Lex's pale skin. "You lied to me before. When were you going to tell me?"

"Now, it would appear," says Lex, a little thickly. He licks the blood off his lips. "And I didn't lie. I told you I hadn't heard any news."

Nathan squats down and helps Lex up, then rips off some toilet paper for Lex to use to stop the bleeding. "I wanted to make sure you were . . . ." Lex shrugs. "They have people who can make you see anything."

Nathan makes sure Lex is comfortably seated on the lower bunk, then paces around the room, clenching and unclenching his fists. "When did you see . . . him? Is he here?"

"Yes. They had him in one of the examination rooms. He looked unconscious."

"How did you know it was him? You don't know my brother."

"Ah, but I do," said Lex. Nathan rubs his palms along the sides of his trousers, trying to calm himself. Lex has a prurient way of saying everything, and Nathan doesn't like the way he lingers over the words. "A club in, ah, the City." He pulls the tissues away from his face and looks up at Nathan, not smug this time, just earnest. "I know you're worried about him, Nathan. I know what it is to love a brother."

"How do you know they didn't make you see him?" Nathan takes a few deep breaths to prevent himself from taking Lex by the shoulders and shaking him like a rag doll until he tells Nathan everything. Tells Nathan that Peter is okay.

"I don't," yells Lex. "Maybe they made me see him so I could tell you, and you would reveal something about where he is. Or maybe it really was him. I don't know."

Nathan paces around the room, hating every seam in the cinder block walls, every rust-spot on the bed frame. Hating everything about this place except Lex.

"You've stopped bleeding," says Nathan. "Let me help you clean up."

He goes over to the sink and wets some more toilet paper. They don't have a mirror so he gently dabs at the dried blood on Lex's lips and chin until it's gone. "Tell me about the club," he asks, trying to sound casual. Lex's eyes flick up toward him suspiciously. "Look, I haven't seen him since we flew together and all hell broke loose. He ran away from me again." Lex looks at him curiously. "Now you tell me he's here, or he was. I just want to know. He looks different now. Are you sure it was him?"

"They told me it was."

"They? Who?"

"Doctors wearing masks. Look, I'm not trying to hide anything from you."

"I hope not."

Lex leans in close enough that Nathan can feel his breath against his cheek. "I don't know what's real and what's not. I don't know why I'm here, or if you're a friend or an enemy," Lex whispers. He leans back and crosses his arms over his chest. "And I don't know who's listening." He looks up at the ceiling.

"No one came," says Nathan. "When I punched you for real."

"I'm glad you decided to test that," says Lex dryly. He touches his nose. It's swollen but doesn't look broken. "What if they're not watching us? What if they've forgotten about us?"

Nathan rolls his eyes. "You've only been here what, a few weeks? It's early to get paranoid."

"It's paranoid to think they're not watching?"

***

A matter of time, perhaps he could have called it. They don't start out sensual with each other at all; in fact for a while no touching seems to be the rule, unless it's violent. The one time Lex laid comforting hands on Nathan's shoulders, he shrugged them off. They edge and shift around each other in the tiny cell, apologizing for the smallest contact. Maybe that just hastens the inevitable.

They make a chess set out of scraps of paper, the ends of their plastic spoons, twisted off and etched with symbols, scraps of blanket. Lex has a great opening game, but once Nathan learns to deal with the all-out assault of the first ten moves or so, his middle and end game are less inspiring. It's instructive. Nathan can't shake the memory of Linderman's prophecy, as wrong as it's turned out so far. He and Lex sit across from each other in this jail, each destined for the White House, each a powerful man brought temporarily low. Will they be allies or enemies when they get out, or was Linderman's prophecy a lie Nathan should forget?

Errant gusts of air ruin their games far too often, and once after Nathan makes a particularly brilliant move, the vent turns on, fluttering pieces all over the room like a very small snowstorm. Nathan tries to hold the pieces down only to put his hands firmly on top of Lex's. It's like an electric shock when they touch, and Lex compounds the intensity of the moment by looking Nathan firmly in the eyes.

There is sex in the air, and both of them are too mature not to acknowledge it, if only by a slight nod. Lex's lips part, and Nathan finds his eyes trapped on them, on the thin line (or is it a scar?) that bisects the top one.

"Where do you think the camera is?" Lex asks, and Nathan feels a frisson of anticipation. Lex has asked that question before, but this time it means something different.

"It doesn't matter," says Nathan. They spend the time until lights out looking at all the holes and pits in the walls and ceilings for fiber optic cameras, tiny microphones. They brush against each other often, and Lex trails his hand along Nathan's stomach as he passes. They fill likely hiding places with bits of wadded up toilet paper. Of course, he and Lex both know that their captors have methods of surveillance beyond anything they can find with their naked eyes and questing fingers, but it makes a good project.

As soon as the lights go off, grabs his arm, and pulls them close together. "Already?" asks Nathan. "You don't want to wait?" He doesn't want to wait either, but this is part of the game. He sees Lex smile in the semi-darkness. "Who knows how long we could be here," says Nathan. "You get bored of fucking, what else is left?"

Lex chuckles. "I don't intend to be here that long."

"How long do you think that would take?"

"I don't know, let's find out."

Nathan curves his hand over Lex's shoulder, tracing the lines of muscle under the too-smooth skin. He imagined the first time going hard and hot, but he's forgotten how touch-starved he is, how this is like the meat and coffee he's been missing, and right now it wouldn't matter who it is. Lex's lips find his, also unexpected—Nathan didn't intend for there to be kissing, this isn't romantic or anything—but that is intoxicating too, another thing he didn't know how much he missed until Lex's lips are hard against his, then opening and yielding.

And the kiss opens the door—yeah, he wants a whole lot more than just hands on backs and chests. He squeezes Lex's ass, because he can, and hauls him in close enough that Lex's cock rubs against his through the trousers he's wearing. "We have all night," says Lex against his lips.

"Now who wants to go slow?" Nathan pulls Lex's shirt off and then his own.

They stand kissing and touching until Nathan's lips are sensitized and swollen. Nathan pulls the narrow mattress off of Lex's bunk and puts it on the floor so they'll have more room. They lie down and kiss some more until Nathan feels like he's about to explode, like he's a teenager again, making out in someone's rec room.

Whose body it is doesn't matter—it's the warmth of another human that counts—and at this moment he wants Lex as much as he ever wanted any of those girls in high school. He reaches into Lex's trousers and wraps his hand around Lex's cock and feels it jump in his hand. He might never have held one besides his own, but he knows what to do here. He wraps his hand around the shaft and slides it up and down, slowly at first, then matching the rhythm of Lex's hips as they thrust against him. They kiss deeper, tongues twining together as Lex grabs Nathan's hand and guides it for the final sharp strokes that bring him to the climax.

"Your turn," says Lex, breathlessly. Nathan wraps Lex in his arms, feeling strangely tender toward him. "What do you want to do?" Lex asks.

There's a right and a wrong answer here; Nathan can hear that in Lex's voice. And Nathan's had fantasies of what this would be like, bending him over and fucking his ass, or having him on his knees in front of Nathan, except the "him" wasn't Lex, not until recently. Well, Lex makes an acceptable substitute, and he's here, which makes him more than acceptable.

"I'm not your first," says Lex, with an irritating certainty.

"Yes you are," says Nathan. Lex spits in his hand and rubs it, too softly, against Nathan's cock. Nathan presses against him, wanting more, but Lex pulls back.

"But who?" asks Lex. "I've checked up on you. You keep your nose . . . and everything else, very clean."

Nathan rolls his eyes, glad Lex can't see him. Lex fancies himself a junior Linderman it would seem, but he's too young and obvious as far as Nathan can tell.

"There were women, of course," Lex continues, wrapping his teasing fingers around Nathan's shaft, tantalizing him. "But you must have been very careful about anything else."

"That's because there wasn't anything else." And here's what else Lex is good for: giving Nathan someone he can lie to.

"You know," says Lex. "Your body gets all tense when you lie."

"I'm tense because you're such a cocktease." The words feel rough and strange to say, but Lex seems to like it.

"Maybe you've never done anything. But there was someone you wanted. A man you wanted to fuck, more than metaphorically."

Nathan waits too long to say "No," for any denial that could be believed.

"You want to turn me over and punish me for being such a brat, don't you?" asks Lex. Nathan's cock jumps in Lex's hand, and Lex nods knowingly. "Then do it," he says.

Lex has some lotion hidden in the bed frame, and he tells Nathan where to find it. Lex is still a smug, cocky bastard, even when telling Nathan to fuck him.

"You have to stretch me open first," he says as he gets on his hands and knees, just as if he is telling Nathan about a chess move, or some story from small town Kansas. "Use your fingers."

Nathan runs his fingers between Lex's ass-cheeks, and then finds his entrance. He rubs around it gently until Lex is pressing back against him. "Come on," he says, and Nathan pushes a finger in. It's tight, but loosens up quickly.

"Come on," says Lex again. "Fuck me, Nathan." Those words are hot no matter who is saying it, and Nathan loses whatever hesitation he has. He fucks Lex with his fingers for a moment longer, then puts some lotion on his cock and presses in. It's tighter and hotter and slicker than any fuck he's had before, and it's all he can do to hang onto Lex's hips and go slowly, savoring the tightness, the pleasure just on the safe side of pain.

Lex is making noises in his throat that Nathan can't identify. "Harder," Lex chokes out, sounding far from his usual urbane self. Nathan obeys, now grabbing onto Lex's hips to pull Lex toward him so he can drive himself deeper in. Lex is stroking himself now, in rhythm with Nathan's thrusts, and Nathan pulls Lex's hips hard against his one last time, before he comes so hard he almost sees stars. He hangs onto Lex as Lex strokes himself to another orgasm, and then he pulls out and collapses next to him.

"Did you like it?" asks Lex. His voice sounds different now—more genuine, less posturing than Nathan's heard before.

"Not bad," says Nathan, sardonically, embarrassed now.

Lex makes a noise in his throat one of disbelief. "Not bad? Should I be insulted?" He trails his fingers over Nathan's bare shoulder then rolls on his side to face Nathan, and strokes his palm along Nathan's ass. "My turn next time," he adds, his fingers nudging Nathan's cheeks apart. "Haven't done that, have you?"

"No," says Nathan. "And I don't plan to." Nathan stands up and goes over to their poor excuse for a shower—more of a faucet set into the side of the wall. He soaps and rinses himself off in the tepid water, towels off and climbs into the top bunk. He expects to hear something from Lex, some sarcastic request to cuddle, but Lex doesn't say anything at all.

***

"Awkward next morning when you can't even leave," says Lex when they wake up. The drawl is back, the insinuating tone that means everything and nothing.

Nathan holds his hand up. "Look, I didn't mean . . ."

"No, go ahead, have your little crisis." Lex tilts his head to one side and looks at Nathan. His eyes are too clear and uncompromising, and Nathan can't meet them. "I'm sure we'll both get bored again."

It's not boredom, exactly, nor lust, that makes Nathan push Lex down on the bed and give him an apologetic blow job that night. Lex can't resist giving instructions, though, and by the end Nathan is frustrated, annoyed, and horny enough to want to turn him over and fuck him again.

Nathan does just that and after Lex asks, "Do you ever wonder if it's unhealthy? This need you have to conflate punishment and sex?"

"Do you ever wonder if you talk too much?" asks Nathan dryly. Lex pushes all the wrong buttons, the ones that make Nathan into someone he hates. Peter could do that too, but Lex does it on purpose.

***

Nathan wakes up in a darkness that feels like morning. For a while he thinks that it's still their night and he should go back to sleep, but they did this to him during his first month, and he supposes it's not a surprise they should do it to Lex. Like a punishment from God: a week of darkness. Or maybe not. It hasn't been that long yet, and time always passes slower in the dark. Nathan climbs down off his bunk and goes to the sink, navigating by feel and memory. He splashes some water on his face and brushes his teeth.

"Where are the lights," Lex asks.

"Someone's having fun with us," says Nathan.

"You think they heard us? Or is this punishment for the cameras?"

"Who the hell knows?" Nathan dries off his face with a spare shirt.

"What do we do?"

Nathan drops to the floor and does his customary pushups. It takes longer and longer to reach the point where his arms give out, and this morning (or night), he doesn't have the patience. When is he ever going to get to use this strength? Their captors slide meals into a compartment in the door so that Nathan never even sees the hand of the person who brings them.

"Wait," says Nathan. "What else?"

"I can think of something," says Lex.

"After breakfast."

Lex snorts, but doesn't say anything and Nathan gets the impression he's being humored. Breakfast comes late, by Nathan's inaccurate measure of time. It's probably the same time as always but he's tapping his fingers on his leg as he paces around the room, measuring the distance in the dark, wondering if Einstein has a theory for time and distance stretching out in the dark, the same as if you go too fast.

He can feel Lex smirking in the dark, like the Cheshire cat, gone except the smile.

"Dark inspires confidences," says Lex.

"They could just drug our food with sodium pentothal if they wanted truth," Nathan says, then wishes he hadn't. They could, and they probably will, someday.

He and Lex play guessing games, word games, tell jokes, stories, harmless memories. The food still comes at regular intervals, and they eat slowly in the dark, trying to drag out their few entertainments.

"You sure you don't want to know what it's like on the receiving end?" asks Lex when Nathan pulls Lex toward him after they've exhausted every other way to pass the time.

"Yes."

"It takes a real man to bend over."

"Oh, is that what it takes?" asks Nathan, sarcastically. Lex is sucking on his neck when Nathan gets a chill, like someone walked over his grave, and an image he can't identify flashes across his field of vision.. He pushes Lex away from him by the shoulders. "Did you feel that?" he asks.

"Feel what?" asks Lex, his voice lazy, sex-laden. He runs his hand up between Nathan's legs. "I feel this."

"No, did you feel—it got cold suddenly?"

"No." Nathan heard Lex swallow.

Nathan tries to get the feeling back, the image. He puts his lips close to Lex's ear. "My brother gets premonitions," he says. "Vivid, always accurate. Once, maybe twice—well, all these things run in families. I think I . . ."

Lex kneads Nathan's shoulder with his fingers. "You think you saw something."

Nathan purses his lips. He can accept the flying, now, now that he's locked up for it, but this is too far beyond that. He would ignore it if he could, but he has to cling to any shred of hope here. He nods, forgetting it's too dark for Lex to see him. "Maybe," he says.

"What was it?"

"I don't know, but . . . something is going to change here. Soon I think. If you get out of here . . ."

"I'll find a way to get everyone here out."

"Same," says Nathan.

He doesn't feel much like sex after that, but he and Lex still cling to each other in the dark, and sleep with their bodies pressed together.

***

Nathan is nervous as a cat when the lights come on again, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The same instinct that helped him the D.A.'s office, told him when a witness was lying, is in full alarm mode now, telling him that something is going to happen. He paces around the room all day. Lex seems unperturbed, and plays a game of Go against himself with dried peas and beans from meals past, but finally, a few hours after lunch, he snaps at Nathan. "What?"

"It's going to happen soon," says Nathan, and he can't help but roll his eyes at himself, putting this much value in hunches and superstitions.

Nathan sits down next to Lex on the lower bunk, close enough that they can whisper. "Why are you really in here, Lex?" he asks.

"I know one of them," says Lex. He looks at Nathan with his eyes wide, and Nathan knows now, finally, he's learning the truth.

"One of the ‘post-humans'?"

"Yeah," says Lex. "No, he's not human at all. I had some of his DNA tested, and it bears no resemblance to any Earth DNA. I—I started this. I researched him"

Nathan frowns. "That's nothing like us."

"I know," says Lex. "But he's the reason I wanted to protect all of you. The reason I came under suspicion."

"Who is it?"

Lex looks at him searchingly. He wants to tell, Nathan can taste it. "No," says Lex. "It's the one promise I've kept."

"I can't help him then."

Lex looks down, sadly. "Maybe neither of us can."

"Why did you tell me then?"

"Maybe I think you deserve a little bit of truth. Maybe I want your help protecting him, if it comes to that."

Nathan looks at him and frowns. Lex's face is as smooth as glass, and as unrevealing.

***

Nathan wakes up with a pin prick in his arm and an empty cell.

The days pass slowly after that. He misses Lex painfully, and wonders if it's time to get his captor's attention in a more violent way, to call their bluff instead of letting them call his.

One day the door opens, and white clad guards cuff his hands in front of him, and walk him out of the cell. This is it, he thinks. They walk him up a stairwell with a skylight at the top, and Nathan doesn't hesitate. He flies into the air, and kicks open the skylight.

Outside it's drizzling and the water droplets sting as he flies through them, but the air tastes like freedom, and Nathan can't help the giant grin plastered to his face. A thousand feet up, he hears the sound of a helicopter, and sees Lex wave slightly from the passenger seat. Lex motions for him to follow, and they land a few miles away.

"How did you get out?" Nathan asks. Lex is dressed in a black suit, a lilac shirt and a dark purple tie. His hands are covered by black gloves, and now Nathan can't imagine him ever being as powerless as he'd seemed in the cell.

"Money, Mr. Petrelli, works wonders. You'll have to hide for a while. I can help with that."

"What about Peter?"

"The news says he is still at large. I must have seen an illusion." The corner of Lex's mouth turns up slightly, as if he is glad to be able to deliver that bit of good news.

In the helicopter, a doctor checks Nathan's vital signs and wraps him in a blanket. After giving Lex a thumbs up, the doctor gives Nathan a thermos of coffee. Nathan sips it as they fly over the Rocky Mountains.

In Denver, Lex gives Nathan a passport, a wad of cash, and a few phone numbers and account numbers on the back of a card. "You can join your mother in Europe for now," says Lex. "There should be enough here to help you find her."

Nathan looks at him sharply. "I won't be in anyone's pocket again," he says, picturing lurid headlines: "Politicians' Prison Love Nest." Or worse.

Lex smiles. "Mutually assured destruction," he says. "So we are both safe. But there is such a thing as allies. Hide for now, Nathan. When the time comes, I promise you, we'll take that place down brick by brick." He extends a gloved hand and Nathan shakes it.


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