Title: Kiss - posted March 7, 2005
Author: Lacey McBain
Series:  Beginnings (Shadows and Stone)
Rating: PG.  Pre-Slash.  Bruce, Lex.
Summary:  "Have you ever kissed anyone?"
Timeframe:  The boys are about 12 in this.  This is really not a sexual story, but if the idea of their age bothers you, I suggest reading something else.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them, but if I did their childhoods would've been a lot sweeter.
***

Beginnings:  Kiss

"Have you ever kissed anyone?"

Bruce looked up from his homework and stared at his roommate.  Well, he stared at Lex's bent legs and the back of their history textbook since that was all he could see.

"What did you say?"  The two of them had shared a room for three years, but Lex still had a way of startling him with personal questions.

"I said, have you ever kissed anyone?"  Lex tossed the book aside and grinned at Bruce across the room.  "I'm bored.  I know everything I'll ever need to know about the Peloponnesian War, and you've been re-checking your science problems for half an hour.  Let's do something that won't leave us brain-dead."  Lex rolled onto his stomach and leaned his chin on his hands.  "So, have you?"

"Why do you want to know?"  Bruce checked the last set of calculations again.  Without looking up, he caught the pencil Lex had aimed at him, and sent it sailing back across the room.  It stuck in the wall beside Lex's head.

"I hate it when you do that."

"Then don't throw things at me."

"Oooh, I get it.  You've avoiding the question, Bruce.  Interesting."

Bruce closed his notebook with a growing sense of dread.  There was no way to win when Lex started one of his crusades to extract information from him.  It didn't matter what he said, he was going to end up in some impossible situation having to talk about his feelings or something equally horrific.

"What's it going to take to get you to stop talking, Lex?"

Lex laughed out loud.  "Wow, you really don't want to talk about this.  That means one of two things."  Bruce just raised an eyebrow and waited.  This was going to be bad.  He knew it.  "Either you've kissed someone and you don't want to name names because it was such a horrible disgusting experience, or--"  Lex paused for apparent dramatic effect.  "Or you haven't kissed anyone.  Ever."

He looked pleased with himself, and Bruce leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the edge of the bed.  "Those are not the only two logical conclusions, Lex."

Maybe if he could distract Lex with logic, Bruce could avoid the subject of kissing.  And girls.  And Bruce really didn't want to be having this conversation with Lex, or anyone else.  Ever.

"So which is it?"  Lex was as persistent as a vengeful Greek god.  More so when he was avoiding his homework.

"Why do you want to know so bad?"

Lex smiled almost shyly, and Bruce was immediately on his guard.  It was never a good sign when Lex backed off.  It usually meant he was rallying for a new form of attack.  Bruce braced himself for the assault.

"I've been thinking about kissing someone," Lex said.

Bruce would've laughed except ... was that a blush?  Was Lex actually blushing?  Bruce watched as Lex played awkwardly with the pencil he'd pulled out of the wall, blue eyes fixating on a  particularly interesting spot in the middle of the ceiling.

"Are you serious?" Bruce asked, although he knew the answer from the expression on Lex's face.  Bruce felt his own face growing hot.  Well, he'd known it was going to happen sooner or later.  They were twelve years old, after all.  Practically grown up, and they'd heard all the talk about girls from the older guys at school.  It was really only a matter of time before they started having stories of their own.  "You met someone?  A girl?"

Leave it to Lex to meet a girl while they were trapped at an all-boys boarding school.

"No, not exactly."  Lex tossed the pencil at the ceiling and caught it when it fell.  "I was just thinking Christmas is coming up, and with all the parties and mistletoe all over the place, well, something might happen.  I just want to be prepared."

Bruce hadn't really thought about it, but Lex had always had a more social life than he had.  He went to parties and public events with his parents when he was home.  Something Bruce just didn't do.  Anymore.

"So you haven't kissed anyone," Bruce concluded.

"Have you?" Lex returned with a hint of challenge, and they were back to the original question.  Somehow Bruce had known he wouldn't be able to avoid answering.  Once Lex started down a particular path it was hard to get him re-focussed.

Bruce hesitated, and that was enough for Lex to pounce.  "You have, haven't you?  Bruce?  You dog, you have totally kissed someone, haven't you?  And you didn't tell me."

"She kissed me," Bruce said defensively.

"Who?"  Lex leaned forward, curious, and Bruce decided there was no point dancing around the topic anymore.  He flopped onto his own bed, and ignored Lex's hurt tone.  He didn't know why he even bothered to try evading Lex's questions.  He always ended up telling Lex whatever he wanted anyway, even if it was only to shut him up.

"You don't know her."

Which was a total lie.  It had been at a summer pool party at the Luthor home in Metropolis, and Bruce had been staying with Lex for a week.  Bruce had dragged Lex to the Metropolis Museum of Art for the travelling exhibit of Samurai swords, insisted on visiting the Wayne Enterprises holdings in the city, and forced Lex to spend a half-day in the rare books section at the library because Metropolis had a draft of one of Dashiell Hammet's early detective novels.  In exchange, Lex had pushed Bruce in the pool, forced him to try something called Smart Food (which looked exactly like popcorn and didn't make them any smarter), and introduced him to the latest issues of Warrior Angel, in which Devilicus threatened the world with a super-charged ion power ray that Bruce spent an hour explaining was a scientific impossibility.  Then Lex said he was ruining the story and pushed him into the pool.  Again.  They'd had a great time.

"You're such a liar," Lex said.  "You always do that when you're lying your ass off."

"Do what?"

"Well, I'm not going to tell you ‘cause you'd stop doing it, and then I'd never know if you were lying or not."  Bruce couldn't bring himself to argue with Lex's logic, although he really wanted to know what gave it away.  Did he purse his lips?  Did he look up and to the left?  He was going to have to pay closer attention to his body language.

"Stop analyzing your body language, Bruce, and answer the question.  Who was she, and don't tell me I don't know her because unless Alfred's bringing girls by the manor, I know every girl you know and lots more."

Bruce turned over and mumbled his response into his pillow.

"Oh no, you don't," Lex said, and Bruce felt the mattress shift as Lex bounced onto the bed and pushed Bruce onto his back.  "Tell me who she is.  Tell me, or I'll recount Alexander's entire campaign against the Persians.  In glorious detail.  Including the thing with the elephants."

"God, not that again, Lex," Bruce said, shaking his head and laughing as Lex managed to get in a tickle before being shoved off.  "Anything but that!"

"Ve have vays of making you talk," Lex said in his best German accent, which just made Bruce start laughing again.

"You have no ear for languages, you know?"

"Shut up," Lex said, settling on the bed beside his roommate.  "It was Victoria Hardwick, wasn't it?"

"Nope."

"Bridget Davenport?"

"I wish."

"Samantha Grable."

"Ugh, no."  Bruce shook his head.  Samantha was two years older than they were and she'd had braces for as long as Bruce could remember.  He couldn't see her smile without being reminded of the villain "Jaws" from old James Bond movies he'd watched with Alfred.  He was positive kissing Samantha would result in some form of physical injury or bloodshed.

"Just tell me."

Bruce took a breath and leaned back against the wall.  "It was ... Molly McCann.  And I didn't kiss her, she kissed me."

"Really?"  Lex looked at him with new respect.  Molly was pretty and blonde and exactly their age.  "Where was I?"

"Belly flopping off the diving board, if I remember correctly."

"Funny," Lex smirked.  "Molly, huh?"

"One second I was treading water, and the next she was kissing me.  I didn't even have a chance to close my eyes, and then she was splashing away with her friends."

"A swim-by kissing?"

"Something like that."  Bruce sighed.  "It really wasn't much.  I think she did it on a dare, truthfully.  She didn't talk to me for the rest of the party, just giggled whenever I got within ten feet of her."  It had been embarrassing, and Bruce had really just wanted to forget about the whole thing.  Had forgotten about it, in fact, until Lex and his pushy, personal questions.

"Huh," Lex said thoughtfully, and Bruce punched him on the arm.  "Ow!  What was that for?"

"For making me talk about stuff I didn't want to talk about."

"You have to talk about stuff like that," Lex said indignantly.  "Otherwise, I'll never learn anything!"

"Yeah right," Bruce snorted.  "You'll have them lining up to kiss you pretty soon."

"Not Molly McCann, apparently."

"Shut up."

"No, I'm serious," Lex said.  "Even if somebody wanted to kiss me, I wouldn't know what to do."  Bruce looked at him skeptically.  He'd always figured Lex knew how to do everything, or at least he could figure out how to do anything he put his mind to.  He had a hard time imagining Lex worried about something as silly as a kiss.

"I think it's pretty simple, Lex.  You just put your lips together and--"

"No, you moron, I mean a real kiss.  One that lasts longer than half a second."

"I'm sure we'll figure it out."  At least Bruce hoped that was the case.  He hadn't had time to even think when Molly had kissed him.  He had no idea if it had been absolutely terrible or not.  Maybe she'd spent the evening avoiding him and laughing because it had been awful.  It hadn't occurred to him before.  Damn Lex for making him worry about this stuff.  He should've just stuck to his science homework and ignored Lex completely.

"What if we don't?  I mean, maybe it's like anything else.  You have to practice to get good at it."

Bruce nodded.  That made sense.  Only a few years ago he hadn't even been able to do a handstand, and now he could easily hold it for two minutes.  Kissing was just like tai chi or karate or any other physical movement.  It took patience and discipline and attention to technique.  Bruce smiled.  Maybe learning how to kiss wouldn't be that much different from learning a martial art.  And there would almost certainly be less bruises involved.

"Lex, I'm sure we'll have a chance to practice when the time comes."

"But I don't want to look stupid the first time, you know?  I--" Lex was playing with his tie.  That was never a good sign.  It usually meant he was about to come out with something insane that was going to get them both in trouble.  "I think it would help if I could practice."

"So practice," Bruce said.  "You've got a pillow.  Knock yourself out."

"That won't help.  I need to try it with a real person.  Who kisses back."  Lex turned to glance at Bruce with big blue eyes.  There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Bruce's stomach, and his mouth suddenly felt dry.  Oh shit.

"No way, Lex!  Absolutely not!"  Bruce leaned further back into the corner of the bed.  "Are you out of your mind?"

"Fine, don't help me," Lex said, turning away and pulling his knees into his chest.  "Some best friend you are.  When I get rejected because I'm the worst kisser in the world, it will be all your fault."

Lex's voice quivered slightly and Bruce felt a surge of anger.  Oh, this was classic Lex.  Ask him to do something insane and then make him feel guilty for refusing.  That's what had gotten them a week in detention after they'd just managed to avoid an electrical fire when Lex had insisted on "improving" their robotics assignment for science.  Just a little extra voltage, Bruce.  A little more copper wiring.  It won't affect the power cell, I'm positive.  And Lex had been right.  The power cell had worked perfectly.  It was all the fuses on the third floor that had burned out instantaneously.

"Lex, I'm not going to be your practice dummy.  No way.  Find somebody else," Bruce said with more determination than he felt.  Jeez, how did Lex come up with these things?  He was really lucky Bruce wasn't the type to hit first and apologize later because he was pretty sure anybody else would've hauled off and slugged Lex by now.

"Fine.  So not only am I stuck with being a bald freak nobody will ever want to kiss, when somebody does kiss me I'll be so sucktastic that it will never happen again.  Thanks a lot, Bruce.  Because of you I'm going to be old and alone and a terrible kisser."

Bruce couldn't even begin to find words for what was happening.  He really wondered how Lex managed to function sometimes.  His imagination could leap decades in a single bound, and didn't seem to even slow down for the occasional speed-bumps of logic Bruce tried to throw his way.  And Lex was playing the bald freak card, and that was so not fair because Bruce had always, always been there for him and never laughed at him for being different.  Never.  (Well maybe sometimes, but sometimes it was allowed when you were friends.)

"Why do you think I know anything at all about this?" Bruce asked, trying to interrupt Lex's self-pitying tirade.  "Molly kissed me.  I didn't even do anything.  I'm probably just as bad at it as you are."

"So we'll figure it out together," Lex said, suddenly enthusiastic, and Bruce flushed as he realized he'd given Lex reason to believe he might just agree to this insane idea.  Bruce really wasn't sure when he'd crossed the line from thinking Lex was nuts to being willing to do this if he'd just shut up about his miserable, doomed future.

"If you ever tell anyone about this," Bruce threatened, and Lex was grinning and nodding.  Bruce suddenly understood that story they'd studied in English class--the one about selling your soul to the devil--on a whole new level.

"Swear to God," Lex said and waved his fingers over his chest in a vaguely cross-like pattern, although Bruce had a pretty good idea that Lex wasn't Catholic and didn't actually believe in God, so he wasn't sure it meant a whole lot.  Still, the likelihood of Lex telling anyone was pretty slim because no matter how you looked at it, kissing your best friend for practice seemed like a really lame thing to be doing, even if it meant avoiding homework and future embarrassment.

"So," Bruce started, as if they did this all the time.  "What do we do first?"

Lex furrowed his brow and thought for a moment before turning to face Bruce cross-legged on the bed.  Bruce mirrored his position.  Lex leaned forward, and Bruce couldn't help but pull back slightly.  It was just so weird to have Lex looming towards him when he wasn't about to tickle him or whack him with a pillow or something.

"I don't think this is going to work," Lex said.

Bruce let out a sigh of relief.  "I told you--"

"I think we should be on our knees," Lex continued, shifting his position.  "We have to be able to get closer."

Lex's hands were on Bruce's shoulders, and it's not as if Lex hadn't touched him hundreds of times over the past few years, but suddenly everything seemed different.  Bruce wondered if things were going to get really weird between them after this.  They'd always been able to talk about stuff, joke and fool around.  He didn't want that to change.

"You look serious, Bruce.  We don't have to do this."  Lex settled back on his heels and let go.  Bruce stared into familiar eyes and shook his head.

"It's not that.  I just don't want things to be weird between us."

"They won't be."  Lex always sounded so confident.  "It's just practice, right?  It's not like it's for real or anything."

Bruce nodded.  Of course it wasn't like it was going to be a real kiss.  They were both guys.  They were best friends.  All they were doing was helping each other out.  Like a coach training a swimmer how to do a stroke properly.  Bruce felt his face grow hot and he closed his eyes.  He felt his legs quivering, and decided he'd better add another set of push-ups to his routine.  Obviously his muscles weren't as developed as they could be.  He was cataloguing exactly how many tai chi forms would enhance his balance and muscle control when he felt Lex's fingers tighten on his shoulders.

There was the tentative brush of lips against his, and Bruce stiffened at the strangeness of it.  It was different from Molly's hard, fast peck that had come and gone like a jolt of cold water.  This was something softer, smoother, and he tilted his head automatically when he felt Lex's nose bump against his.  Bruce wondered if Lex had closed his eyes too, but he was afraid to check.  The last thing he needed was a pair of electric blue eyes staring directly into his.

The hands on his shoulders tightened again and he felt Lex pull back slightly.  Bruce waited.  Was Lex going to kiss him again?  Was he expected to kiss Lex?  They really hadn't discussed the parameters of this training session before they'd started, and it was too late now.  Bruce wasn't sure he remembered how to form words with his lips.  He was concentrating too hard on not doing anything wrong, not screwing up, not dooming Lex to a lifetime of bad kissing.

Bruce took a breath and licked his dry lips with his tongue.  He didn't know if it was bad luck or fate (or a pair of open blue eyes) that made Lex choose that exact moment to kiss him again, but Bruce let out a squeak of surprise as Lex's lips caught his, harder this time, more sure of themselves, and Bruce was too startled to do anything but lean into Lex, reaching for his shoulders to steady himself and their lips slid against each other with ease.  Bruce felt a tingling sensation that seemed to start at his lips and travel all the way down his spine, and Lex continued kissing his lips steadily, varying the pressure, shifting the angle, until Bruce felt as if he was being studied and learned.

He could feel the edge of Lex's scar on his upper lip when he slid his lips there, the way Lex's lips turned into a smile when Bruce grabbed his shoulders and held on, the soft breathy sound that Bruce was going to pretend was nothing like a moan.  And he was absolutely, positively, under no circumstances going to acknowledge what the rest of his body was doing as Lex kissed him, his mouth growing more confident with every second.

As it was, Bruce had to fight to keep his tongue in his own mouth, and he suspected there was something wrong with the impulse to French kiss his best friend, but there was definitely something to this practising.  Bruce could feel both of them relaxing, lips softening, mouths moving more firmly against one another, falling into a rhythm, occasionally smushing their noses together, but mostly feeling warm and tingly and pleasantly surprised.

A wet tongue brushed over Bruce's lips and his eyes flashed open in shock, a wave of tingling sensation running through his spine like the charge that had shorted out the fuses on the third floor.  As he'd suspected there were bright blue eyes in front of him, wild and round, pupils large as dimes.

"Sorry," Lex said quickly, pulling away.  He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.  "Sorry.  I slipped."

"It's okay."  Bruce shifted his position, hunched down in the corner again, and fought back the bizarre urge to wrap his arms around Lex and hold on.  It wasn't as if he'd never hugged him, or even held him.  They both had nightmares.  There were unspoken agreements about what the touch of a hand or a hug or a warm body could do to keep away the demons.

But this was different.  This was something else entirely, and Bruce didn't haven't any more idea what to do about it than he'd had when Molly had kissed him in the pool.

Lex hit the light switch as he tumbled onto his own bed.  "Guess we'd better call it a night, huh?"  There was something slightly off in his voice, the sound muffled as if he had his fingers on his lips.

"Sure," Bruce said.  "You can use the bathroom first, if you want."  It sounded stupid to be talking about ordinary stuff when they'd just kissed.  But it wasn't a real kiss, he reminded himself.  It was just practice.

"Can I use your toothpaste?  I think I'm out."  Lex shuffled around grabbing his pajamas and headed for the bathroom.  Bruce waited until Lex was almost at the bathroom door.

"You don't have anything to worry about, you know," Bruce said softly.  He heard Lex pause.

"You either."  Bruce could feel his cheeks turning red.  It suddenly occurred to him that Lex had never really said why he thought he might need to practice.

"Lex, you said there was a girl you were thinking about kissing.  Who is she?"  Bruce knew Lex kind of liked Victoria, but she could be really mean sometimes.  He secretly hoped that wasn't who Lex was interested in.

The light from the bathroom snapped on, and Bruce blinked in the sudden brightness.

"I never said it was a girl," Lex said, and Bruce caught the edges of a grin before Lex closed the door behind him, leaving Bruce in total darkness.

THE END

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