Title: Facade
Author: Thaissa AKA Miche_Connor@livejournal.com
Summary: Lex waits, and makes Clark talk.
Beta: Thank you to Peach1250! My 'a' key was indeed stuck. Feedback is always wonderful. It makes me very happy.
Quote: "I love you all my life. I know that now. All my life." --Camille, 1937
Rating: PG

~*~*~

                                                                  Facade

~*~*~

It's not what they think, those who serve him, watch him and guard him. What he does is so far from who he is. Dichotomy. A split psyche. Yet . . .

There, the tiny yellow house, and there, the little red barn and the small garden; each is perfect in ceramic and paint and completely redundant. He tells himself that he doesn't need these reminders of a place that was never really home, as he keeps them on his black galaxy granite mantel, dusts them and never looks at them, because that little idyllic grouping is all that he has and all he will ever have of the Kents.

~*~*~

It's not what anyone thinks, and yet he hoped that the one person who knew him, really knew him, would understand. He waits, because that is all that he can do and all that he will do.

Hope and Mercy watch impassively behind him as he stares at his adversary. He doesn't speak. Not because he doesn’t have words, but because it gives him the advantage. Bright blue eyes narrow as he waits. Clark can never let the silence stretch between them for more than a minute.

A faint creaking sound--and he realizes that it's Clark, grinding his teeth together as he returns glare for glare for glare ad infinitum.

It almost makes him laugh, and something . . . changes between them.

"Lex," Clark sighs. He looks worn and tired and at the end of his patience. His hair is in little wind-blown spikes that make faint ripping sounds as he pushes his big hands backward through them.

Hope and Mercy share a glance, wince at the tiny snapping noises of hair being torn, and step back a bit more toward the door.

"Lex, can we please just talk about this?"

Lex considers the request for a long moment, his brilliant eyes narrowed as he mentally ticks off the potential consequences and outcomes of such a request and eliminates them one by one. At last, he motions toward the door and the women exit the room to give its occupants the illusion of privacy, and it is only then that he folds his arms across his chest in sarcastic imitation of the primary-colored icon before him. And waits.

"Oh for gods’ sake--" Clark (and it really is Clark, not that poseur that he sometimes portrays) falls to his knees. "I am--I am beyond sorry."

Silence greets this admission, but maybe there was something in his face that encourages Clark. Whatever it is, he is not going to give it--or that alien--anything more. He is impassive. Inert. And there is NOT a twitch at his lips. He bites them. Hard.

"I was a complete ass. I have been a complete ass. I just--wanted--" Clark's voice strangled and dropped into a whisper; his face, as a matter of course, was flushed. "I am sorry for the labs in Seattle, San Jose, Chicago, Albuquerque, and Houston. I thought you were trying to kill me! You know what Kryptonite does to me--I thought--Hell, it doesn't matter what I thought. I was wrong. Please. You have to understand--" He takes a deep breath and looks like he means to say more, but nothing more emerges from those rose-petal red and bee-stung lips.

Lex waits. He knows he can do this all day. Patience and tenacity were his virtues, and he knows that Clark, because of his innate abilities, has little experience with either. Clark has more, and he was going to wait to hear all of it.

"Lex." Clark rises to his feet and stands awkwardly. Great big hands with great big fingers twitched and Lex knew--knew--that Clark was barely holding back the urge to wrap those hands around him. In hate? Perhaps. But more likely it is a hug he wants.

For some reason, this amuses him greatly and perhaps it shows just a little around his eyes. Lex Luthor takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out.

Clark watches him, rapt.

Lex sniffs. And waits. And recrosses his arms. Lifts a brow.

"And I know, I was a dick about the whole Lana thing. She, god. She knows how to push my buttons and you are a really big button. Oh, that sounds so bad, but you *know* what I mean. I. Lex. Please, talk to me." Clark sounds so tired, so worn.

Lex blinks and deliberately turns around to stand in what remains of the window to look out on the vastness of lights that was Metropolis.

Shuffled clompy steps move closer. "I know you and Oliver and Bruce don't get along. They don't really get along with each other, either, you know. And they're not--could never be--what we--" Clark swallowa roughly, takes those last steps to stand just behind him. "Lex." And this was a breath in his ear. "I know about the Society. I know what you did to weaken them. I know you're not what anyone thinks you are."

Lex sighs softly as he gazes through the huge glassless window frame that reveals the world below him. Surveys his domain. Yes. Looks at the little tiny lights, feels the chill breeze as it blows through the broken shards of thick plate glass. Ignores the man behind him a little longer.

"And I am sorry about this window and the mantel. That was an accident, though. I got distracted." Clark's lips brush at the tender flesh behind his ear. "You distracted me, Lex." Clark's voice deepens, and his name was a prayer.

"Distracted you?" It's a barely vocalized whisper, one that he doesn't quite realize he's said until Clark answers.

"You were sleeping, Lex. You--you were beautiful."

And strong arms wrapped around him, hold him, and he leans into them and vanity allows him a a little smirk. "I wasn't sleeping."

"Love you Lex. All my life. Love you."

"I know." Lex turns his head, presses his lips to the stubble-rough cheek behind him and the bitter ache of Clark's distrust of him blunts and fades slightly. "You might trust me though."

"Lex. . ." A lifetime of apology in that one word.

"I'll let you make it up to me." Lex returns his head forward to look out the window. "Later."

Clark's lips move into a smile that Lex feels above his right ear, pressing into his scalp.

The smashed remains of the tiny house, barn and garden ceramic bits scattered in the rush of wind from the broken window as the twined figures simply stood and watched the lights glinting like jewels below.