Windows to the Soul
By: Lexalot
Summary: We are all made of glass, but some of us are on the outside.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Ownership is in the eye of the beholder... who happens to be DC Comics and Warner Brothers in this case, much to my dismay.
Notes: This is a companion piece to "Heaven and Hell", but can also be read as a stand-alone.
Sources of Additional Inspiration and Reference: Credit and thanks are owed to the following--movies "Catch Me If You Can" and "Random Hearts; music (Heaven and Hell) "Angel" by Concrete Blonde and (Windows to the Soul) "Oiche Chiun (Silent Night)" by Enya.
***
The silvery gray glow of the overcast winter sky was getting brighter outside the dense walls, but inside the master bedroom, light could not penetrate. There were no windows in this room, and it was notably the most attractive and repulsive feature of the room itself. A groan rumbled from the body lying in shambles on the bed. Lex turned his head to determine whether or not Bruce was regaining consciousness, and when the still figure grew more animated, Lex leaned forward in his bedside chair, his fingers interlaced and his elbows resting on his knees. He visually examined the damage again, though he had done so at least a dozen times since he had brought Bruce in here two hours ago, a short while before sunrise.
Lex had set out for Gotham on an inclination that was little more than foolish sentimentality. For reasons he did not know or wouldn't confess to knowing, he craved company--it was Christmas Day, after all--and he required company that he could relate to, that understood him, but most of all, company that was guaranteed not to reject his company. It had been three years since Lex had last visited Bruce under the guise of friendship, and they had parted badly, or more specifically he had parted badly. It had been just as long since Lex had kept company with Clark, but Bruce was the first and obvious choice with clear and good cause. Lex and Bruce were surprisingly alike in certain ways that bound them to each other as kindred souls, and that was the snare.
An odd spirit of reminiscence possessing him, Lex arrived at Wayne Manor only to find that Bruce was missing in action. When morning was looming on the crime-ridden streets and there was no sign of Bruce yet, Lex ventured out to scour the city for him. Following a trail of destruction and police scenes, Lex was able to hunt his former companion down within the space of an hour. Bruce was lying in a heap at the end of a remote alley, donning full costume, beaten to a pulp by one of the more challenging fiends stalking the Gotham underground, and once Batman was no longer an obstacle, whoever it was caused quite a string of chaos, which fortunately for Lex, led him right to the man he was trying to trace.
Once he knew Bruce's whereabouts and a precursory inspection revealed that Bruce would survive this thrashing with minor medical attention, Lex rushed him home and took the necessary steps to assess and nurse his injuries. Bruce had been very lucky this time, as opposed to others when he had been found half-dead, frequent enough in memory that those times reminded Lex of how much he had cared about Bruce then, and he suspected he always would care, whether he liked it or not. Lex never liked caring about people more than he thought they cared about him.
Restlessness morphed into an awakening and suddenly Bruce was staring at Lex like he simply did not belong there--but not because he was unwelcome, only because he was so unexpected. The stunned recognition in Bruce's icy blue eyes was as if he believed he was hallucinating, making no secret of the fact that Lex was the last person he imagined he would see when he roused, especially considering the way in which he had lost consciousness the previous night and the way he and Lex had last separated on unresolved terms.
Lex's face deadpanned and his words rolled out in an ambiguously dulcet tone. "Merry Christmas, Bruce."
Bruce let out a sigh of disbelief, then shook his head with the same air about the gesture. He looked down at his body, stripped of all but the heather gray boxer briefs he had worn--somehow that knowledge quelled the distasteful notion in his head that Lex was here purely in the interest of his libido. What was disturbing, however, was the amount of his flesh that was swollen with contusions and abrasions of all shapes and sizes and kinds. Even with the throbbing sensations pulsing beneath his skin, his nerve was still firmly in tact. The pain was nothing to him, all visible harm negligible. He had been subjected to far worse, and thoroughly the stubborn slave to his hazardous self-imposed lifestyle, he knew he would be back out patrolling the streets tonight.
Arching his back to roll on his side, Bruce grunted from the discomfort inflicted by his movements. As he adjusted to a position that suited him, he listened to Lex stir in his chair then rise from it to approach, and Bruce stilled, not sure what to anticipate from him, since Lex had made such a stranger of himself. Bruce had read all the articles detailing the increased frequency of Lex's investigation for unlawful conduct, then disappointing reports from Clark confirming that Lex was deteriorating from the person they had both known and cared about, but this news was not entirely startling to Bruce. He had fallen from the mantle of sanity in his own way, and now it seemed Lex had fallen from that same mantle in his own way.
This was what had Bruce the faintest on edge, which was not characteristic of his ordinary self around Lex. When Lex sunk one knee into the mattress and laid his hand upon an unsullied span of Bruce's upper arm, Bruce squirmed a bit, attempting to adjust mentally to Lex's sudden proximity, warily preparing to defend himself from an aggressive attack, for anything that might happen. The shifting and minor fidgeting aggravated a few of Bruce's sore spots and his face scrunched up at the tenderness while another groan rippled through his throat.
Lex knelt over Bruce's hulking frame, and met his eyes with a sincere request. "Just let the wounds heal for a little while."
Bruce stared up at Lex with unavoidable skepticism, both about his motives and his meaning. "Which ones?"
"All of them." Something amazingly reassuring existed within that answer, and Bruce indulged Lex's will to be close, easing under his shadow.
The delusion of being able to simply curl up behind Bruce was preying upon Lex's current hospitable psyche. It appeared a lovely idea to lie down behind Bruce and wrap an arm around him while still clothed in his designer suit, something atypically innocent and loving about the act that Lex found himself agreeable to at this moment. In reality, though, that seemed wholly inappropriate, and it wasn't about some warped sense of etiquette, but rather about maintaining the integrity of why he was here today. This day was about setting things right, not messing them up more, even if it was only for twenty-four hours. This was never intended to create a permanent solution to any problem, just to forget for one day as best he could that anything was ever wrong.
Despite Lex's inclinations and the indications he was receiving from Bruce that they both wanted to be close physically, they both also knew they shouldn't be, and thought the better of keeping some distance between them. Bizarre how he and Bruce trusted each other--they had known each other's secrets this long and it was useless to doubt those sanctions between them at this point. All terms silently negotiated between them, it was clear the day would be spent keeping company by knowing that company was there, that someone else was around who lent a familiar presence to an otherwise particularly lonesome day of the year. And somehow that would have to be enough, and it was. Lex withdrew from the bed and the bedroom in favor of exploring Bruce's study, while Bruce drifted back to sleep, recuperating nicely from the ordeal he had been through the previous night, already plotting to catch the culprit at fault later this very evening.
The length of the day was spent in this same separate but together fashion. Lex entertained himself within the confines of Bruce's mansion, and Bruce swayed between resting recovery to waking agony. Every so often, they crossed paths when Bruce emerged from his bedroom in brief intervals or when Lex checked in on Bruce. After so much of the limited interactions and minimum significance policy, it made for a tolerable atmosphere that felt awfully bittersweet.
Eventually, night fell again and Bruce emerged, looking better than he had all day, clad in a pair of black slacks and a half-buttoned white oxford shirt, the suggestion being that he was prepared to leave now and bid his company farewell with a more pleasant parting than was previously possible. Though he was under no illusion that this reunion would heal Lex--it wouldn't do so any more than it would heal Bruce. He approached Lex, who was standing out on a balcony in the frigid temperature, gazing blindly into the horizon.
Lex raised the half-empty champagne glass in his hand so Bruce could see it. "I didn't think you'd mind."
Bruce barely nodded at the notion of Lex dipping into his reserve of finer drinks. "You didn't think I'd mind you just showing up on my doorstep?"
"I don't think either of us really wanted to be alone for the holiday."
The educated opinion was more evasive than insightful, but Bruce could accept that as at least part of Lex's rationale in coming here. It incited in him a more unstable route of thought, however, one that led him to a pointless question. No emotion, no jealousy, no teasing, just morbid curiosity to ascertain how far Lex was taking this trip to temporary reconciliation and back again. "Were you planning on seeing Clark too?"
"Why? Are you fucking him?" Lex scoffed.
Bruce snickered in reply to that joke. "Thanks, Lex. I haven't had a good laugh in years." He still hadn't. Bruce was feigning genuine amusement, but it occurred to him that some deeply hidden, well-guarded part of Lex might be insecure in such a regard. So knowing what Clark meant to him, Bruce graced Lex with an actual answer for once. "Clark and I are civil to one another, but we don't get along. We do our jobs and try not to get in each other's way. End of story." At this, Bruce noticed that Lex was listening intently--it was quite plain that Clark had really been on Lex's mind today.
Bruce let silence stretch a little longer between them, and then he couldn't postpone his departure anymore. His inflection was that same old grave monotone but something subtle in his voice was reluctant. "I have to--"
"I know." Lex interjected, so as not to make Bruce say the words. "I won't be here when you get back." He saw Bruce stiffen somewhat out of the corner of his eye. "Don't take it personally. It's not a threat. Even if you didn't go, I couldn't stay."
Stalling for a second longer, appreciative of Lex's attitude and understanding that their time together was at an end, Bruce parted ways from him.
* * *
Outside, there was nothing but the gentle and light fall of dry snow against the overview of the empty city streets and the clouded midnight sky. Inside, there was darkness too, but the cold only penetrated a shallow field around the inside of the floor-to-ceiling windows and the rest of the office was uncommonly warm. Lex leaned forward in his black leather chair to study the building on the opposite side of the road, eyeing one light with a longing that came from a place in his soul he had condemned what seemed like a lifetime ago. That light was his True North, and with his nostalgic spirit still thriving from his visit to Bruce, he couldn't help but think how he had deviated from that compass and its path.
Almost on a whim, as if driven by a damnable hope born of his weakness, he reached out and pulled the phone and its cradle towards him, then with only the tiniest inkling of hesitation, he picked up the receiver and dialed. He had the number memorized, knew it by heart, but he never used it. The line rang and rang and rang with a discouraging consistency. He drew in a deep and deliberate breath, holding it as his wishful optimism dwindled. What little faith and courage he had mustered bled from his heart when he factored in the hour and the day. Then, suddenly, a click as the answer he had been waiting for finally came.
"Daily Planet." Lex recognized his voice immediately, and something inside him was at an unexpected and profound loss, as if he were completely unprepared for any scenario that granted his desire to speak with him--it was his worst nightmare doubling as a dream come true, and the instantaneous torrential flood of emotion that threatened to drown him was the most wonderful thing he could ever remember feeling that also felt like the most painful.
Lex whispered into the mouthpiece as though anything too loud might frighten the man into hanging up on him. "Clark?"
A brief pause, what Lex sadly predicted would be the first of many. "Yeah. Who is this?" Suspicion--a fraction of his inflection implied that he suspected he knew the caller's identity, but was attempting to rule that possibility out because it wasn't very likely. Those early signs of foreboding nearly deterred Lex from his present course of action, yet following a brief pause of his own, he proceeded.
"It's Lex." The admission was spoken impossibly soft.
A dead moment passed, a stillborn sentiment. Then, Clark flattened his tone and blanked his lighthearted composure. "What do you want?" Suspicion, squared. In the space of a second, Lex had been reduced from a person addressing another person to a villain toying with a superhero. The words skewered him, but he was realistic about what he was doing--there was no way for the conversation to be easy or simple by any means his intelligence could grasp.
Lex made a genuine effort to pull the unraveling pieces of himself back into some semblance of order, trying to exercise a measure of his notorious control. He was desperately trying to conceal the panic that swept and tore through his veins and being, and despite the lack of his defining confidence, he persisted with the illusion of moderate nonchalance. "Merry Christmas." The words sounded so trite and trivial, so mundane, but he meant them, perhaps more so than most things he had ever said. That token seasonal greeting was exactly what he had initiated contact with Clark to say. Lex could hear the knot of bewilderment in Clark's brow deliver a perplexed question mark into the mute air. Lex's impatience simmered at the torturous silence and obvious resistance with which he was being met. Regardless of the tension, he steadied his voice under fretful coaxing, anxious for a response. "You do still celebrate Christmas, don't you?"
And with that, Clark understood. "Of course, I do." This was Christmas night, and Lex was alone, not just in some room, but in the world. Clark had friends and family, which he had apparently chosen to separate from for a little while tonight, but Lex--Clark realized it then with a confusion that was bordering on an unforeseen shift to empathy--Lex was calling Clark because he had no one else to call. "Where are you?"
A sigh releasing the pressure on his chest came when Lex heard Clark's tongue loosen and his tone mellow. "Across the street. At LexCorp." He summoned strength at the soothing lull of this familiar congenial voice, the pretense of a casual air replacing the original awkwardness. "I just got back into town, and I saw the light on in your office window." His words were careful and soft-spoken, hushed by a borrowed and settling calm that eased his distress and misery for the moment. "Are you close to the window?" Lex cast a glance over to the remote, secluded fluorescent glow emanating from the nearby darkened building. He stared hard at it for a fleeting catch in time, as if he could see Clark through the glass barriers between them, but the distance was too great, the gap still an obstacle, so he took his solace from that faint radiance. "Never mind. You're too far away. I would never be able to see you."
The unbearable break in their polite exchange left them unwieldy and buried in silence again. Lex regretted uttering the melancholy words, feeling more than a little exposed in their wake. However, Lex was genuinely distracted from the ambiance of self-pity about him. Since he couldn't actually see him, Lex was picturing Clark, envisioning him at his desk, holding the phone to his ear, light all around him. Suddenly, as part of the illusory image occurred to him, half an amused grin curled one corner of Lex's mouth. "Have I ever told you how ridiculous you look in those glasses?" Clark could not contain a small fit of laughter at that random remark, and his reaction prompted a full smile to emerge on Lex's face, making him greedy for more. "You're not wearing them now, are you?"
"Yeah, I am." Clark's jovial mood sharpened, and he nearly forgot who they both were. "Is this why you called? To insult me?"
"It's my Christmas present, calling you." Lex's smile loosened slightly as his eyes began to coat with tears--too much honesty in that statement.
"What's my Christmas present, Lex?" Too much seriousness and sorrow in that question.
Lex's eyes slammed shut and they squeezed closed even tighter as his hand flew to cover his mouth and stifle the rise of sobbing breaths. The onslaught of the internal tempest was crippling. He pressed his palm harder to his lips as the wells in his eyes spilled over his cheeks. There was no doubt in his mind that Clark's heightened sense of hearing picked up the inaudible hints of those tears as Lex sniffed them back.
"Lex?" Clark sounded baffled by the evidence of Lex's lament--Lex shouldn't be crying, and that was what racked Clark with concern.
Stricken in this condition of grief, Lex was convinced the time to end this call had come. He simply could not continue. Gathering the remnants of his willpower, he spoke quickly and flatly as his voice strained to get the syllables past the choking sadness. "Merry Christmas, Clark."
On that abrupt note, he hung up the phone, and the conversation was finished. The connection was severed and lost, and he did not feel a single bit more fulfilled than he had prior to pulling this impulsive stunt. Scars were reopened, and he felt twice as hollow as before, feeling the void as if it were fresh. Yet something seemed different, something unique that touched him this night, something he was fully aware would fade, and in the morning, he would probably wake to feel it mostly gone already.
Those thoughts stuck to his mind as he threw on his overcoat while ringing for the car to get him downstairs and carry him away from this desolate place where the only light came from a window on the other side of a glass wall. Lex gazed at the lit room across the way one last time before exiting the office, and as he closed the door behind him, he saw the light go out. He paused in the doorway, staring in semi-shock at the cold darkness where warmth had just been. Then, he quietly left the office, and boarded the elevator. Nothing to console him, nothing there but the noises of the mechanisms and gears, the doors opening, and his footfalls upon the marble floor of the grand corridor. He passed leisurely through the hall into the barren lobby, his head hanging down a little since his eyes never lifted from the ground. He pushed through the heavy revolving door, and he stopped once he was finally out on the sidewalk without a single upward glance.
Snow still fell in light and sparsely scattered flakes. The wind was calm, the air dry with a crisp chill about it. The night was forsaken by any signs of life, and Lex let himself sink into the feel of being the only person for as far as his eye could see. The peaceful sound of the city asleep possessed his consciousness. Dull realization crept in on him, and he lifted his head to gaze across the street straight in front of him. Lex's broken heart skipped a beat.
There Clark was, dressed in a rather business-casual manner, taking advantage of a deserted working environment, his hair relatively neat, but his deceiving glasses were absent from his face, baring his expression and indeed his soul. Lex's eyes widened, fixed on the figure standing tall and silent a mere few hundred feet away, returning his passive stare. Lex found himself speechless in a virtual daze, consumed by a love long lost and the heartache of knowing how hatred replaced it. With all that had transpired between them, all the water under that proverbial and symbolic bridge, Clark had come to grant Lex's desire to see him, so they both remained motionless, eyes locked. Meanwhile, the space between them held volumes of thoughts and feelings left unspoken because they were unspeakable.
Lex was in awe of him for a moment where time seemed to stop just for them. Clark's features were exactly as Lex recalled, yet encapsulating a mutually physical and spiritual maturity that had not been as developed before. The sight of him was divinely serene and beautiful, and unbelievably heartbreaking, his very presence like a miracle in and of itself. It was probably the only time Lex had ever seen him be everything simultaneously. Clark had never appeared truer to all that he was--the boy Lex knew, the man he didn't, and the hero that the world knew and didn't know.
A set of headlights rounded the corner and Lex fought to stay in the moment, giving Clark a pained look, then slowly turned his head away to watch the limousine pulling up to the curb. When he turned his head back, Clark was gone. Clark's sudden absence tore into him and Lex couldn't smother the tears this time. Thin streams trickled down the sides of his face as he carefully manipulated his breathing, so he wouldn't lose the mask of self-control.
The chauffer opened the door to the back of the stretch limo for Lex, and after a second's hesitation passed, he disappeared inside and the driver then closed the door. The onset of complete privacy allowed Lex to descend into his unabashed despair, and the shedding of tears seemed unending as they flowed relentlessly, and his breaths grew erratic. He was frightened by his behavior, all in reaction to the incident with Clark. He was practically trembling.
Then, somewhere in the darkened distance, a bell tolled midnight--Christmas was over and Lex was on his way home.
By: Lexalot
Summary: We are all made of glass, but some of us are on the outside.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Ownership is in the eye of the beholder... who happens to be DC Comics and Warner Brothers in this case, much to my dismay.
Notes: This is a companion piece to "Heaven and Hell", but can also be read as a stand-alone.
Sources of Additional Inspiration and Reference: Credit and thanks are owed to the following--movies "Catch Me If You Can" and "Random Hearts; music (Heaven and Hell) "Angel" by Concrete Blonde and (Windows to the Soul) "Oiche Chiun (Silent Night)" by Enya.
***
The silvery gray glow of the overcast winter sky was getting brighter outside the dense walls, but inside the master bedroom, light could not penetrate. There were no windows in this room, and it was notably the most attractive and repulsive feature of the room itself. A groan rumbled from the body lying in shambles on the bed. Lex turned his head to determine whether or not Bruce was regaining consciousness, and when the still figure grew more animated, Lex leaned forward in his bedside chair, his fingers interlaced and his elbows resting on his knees. He visually examined the damage again, though he had done so at least a dozen times since he had brought Bruce in here two hours ago, a short while before sunrise.
Lex had set out for Gotham on an inclination that was little more than foolish sentimentality. For reasons he did not know or wouldn't confess to knowing, he craved company--it was Christmas Day, after all--and he required company that he could relate to, that understood him, but most of all, company that was guaranteed not to reject his company. It had been three years since Lex had last visited Bruce under the guise of friendship, and they had parted badly, or more specifically he had parted badly. It had been just as long since Lex had kept company with Clark, but Bruce was the first and obvious choice with clear and good cause. Lex and Bruce were surprisingly alike in certain ways that bound them to each other as kindred souls, and that was the snare.
An odd spirit of reminiscence possessing him, Lex arrived at Wayne Manor only to find that Bruce was missing in action. When morning was looming on the crime-ridden streets and there was no sign of Bruce yet, Lex ventured out to scour the city for him. Following a trail of destruction and police scenes, Lex was able to hunt his former companion down within the space of an hour. Bruce was lying in a heap at the end of a remote alley, donning full costume, beaten to a pulp by one of the more challenging fiends stalking the Gotham underground, and once Batman was no longer an obstacle, whoever it was caused quite a string of chaos, which fortunately for Lex, led him right to the man he was trying to trace.
Once he knew Bruce's whereabouts and a precursory inspection revealed that Bruce would survive this thrashing with minor medical attention, Lex rushed him home and took the necessary steps to assess and nurse his injuries. Bruce had been very lucky this time, as opposed to others when he had been found half-dead, frequent enough in memory that those times reminded Lex of how much he had cared about Bruce then, and he suspected he always would care, whether he liked it or not. Lex never liked caring about people more than he thought they cared about him.
Restlessness morphed into an awakening and suddenly Bruce was staring at Lex like he simply did not belong there--but not because he was unwelcome, only because he was so unexpected. The stunned recognition in Bruce's icy blue eyes was as if he believed he was hallucinating, making no secret of the fact that Lex was the last person he imagined he would see when he roused, especially considering the way in which he had lost consciousness the previous night and the way he and Lex had last separated on unresolved terms.
Lex's face deadpanned and his words rolled out in an ambiguously dulcet tone. "Merry Christmas, Bruce."
Bruce let out a sigh of disbelief, then shook his head with the same air about the gesture. He looked down at his body, stripped of all but the heather gray boxer briefs he had worn--somehow that knowledge quelled the distasteful notion in his head that Lex was here purely in the interest of his libido. What was disturbing, however, was the amount of his flesh that was swollen with contusions and abrasions of all shapes and sizes and kinds. Even with the throbbing sensations pulsing beneath his skin, his nerve was still firmly in tact. The pain was nothing to him, all visible harm negligible. He had been subjected to far worse, and thoroughly the stubborn slave to his hazardous self-imposed lifestyle, he knew he would be back out patrolling the streets tonight.
Arching his back to roll on his side, Bruce grunted from the discomfort inflicted by his movements. As he adjusted to a position that suited him, he listened to Lex stir in his chair then rise from it to approach, and Bruce stilled, not sure what to anticipate from him, since Lex had made such a stranger of himself. Bruce had read all the articles detailing the increased frequency of Lex's investigation for unlawful conduct, then disappointing reports from Clark confirming that Lex was deteriorating from the person they had both known and cared about, but this news was not entirely startling to Bruce. He had fallen from the mantle of sanity in his own way, and now it seemed Lex had fallen from that same mantle in his own way.
This was what had Bruce the faintest on edge, which was not characteristic of his ordinary self around Lex. When Lex sunk one knee into the mattress and laid his hand upon an unsullied span of Bruce's upper arm, Bruce squirmed a bit, attempting to adjust mentally to Lex's sudden proximity, warily preparing to defend himself from an aggressive attack, for anything that might happen. The shifting and minor fidgeting aggravated a few of Bruce's sore spots and his face scrunched up at the tenderness while another groan rippled through his throat.
Lex knelt over Bruce's hulking frame, and met his eyes with a sincere request. "Just let the wounds heal for a little while."
Bruce stared up at Lex with unavoidable skepticism, both about his motives and his meaning. "Which ones?"
"All of them." Something amazingly reassuring existed within that answer, and Bruce indulged Lex's will to be close, easing under his shadow.
The delusion of being able to simply curl up behind Bruce was preying upon Lex's current hospitable psyche. It appeared a lovely idea to lie down behind Bruce and wrap an arm around him while still clothed in his designer suit, something atypically innocent and loving about the act that Lex found himself agreeable to at this moment. In reality, though, that seemed wholly inappropriate, and it wasn't about some warped sense of etiquette, but rather about maintaining the integrity of why he was here today. This day was about setting things right, not messing them up more, even if it was only for twenty-four hours. This was never intended to create a permanent solution to any problem, just to forget for one day as best he could that anything was ever wrong.
Despite Lex's inclinations and the indications he was receiving from Bruce that they both wanted to be close physically, they both also knew they shouldn't be, and thought the better of keeping some distance between them. Bizarre how he and Bruce trusted each other--they had known each other's secrets this long and it was useless to doubt those sanctions between them at this point. All terms silently negotiated between them, it was clear the day would be spent keeping company by knowing that company was there, that someone else was around who lent a familiar presence to an otherwise particularly lonesome day of the year. And somehow that would have to be enough, and it was. Lex withdrew from the bed and the bedroom in favor of exploring Bruce's study, while Bruce drifted back to sleep, recuperating nicely from the ordeal he had been through the previous night, already plotting to catch the culprit at fault later this very evening.
The length of the day was spent in this same separate but together fashion. Lex entertained himself within the confines of Bruce's mansion, and Bruce swayed between resting recovery to waking agony. Every so often, they crossed paths when Bruce emerged from his bedroom in brief intervals or when Lex checked in on Bruce. After so much of the limited interactions and minimum significance policy, it made for a tolerable atmosphere that felt awfully bittersweet.
Eventually, night fell again and Bruce emerged, looking better than he had all day, clad in a pair of black slacks and a half-buttoned white oxford shirt, the suggestion being that he was prepared to leave now and bid his company farewell with a more pleasant parting than was previously possible. Though he was under no illusion that this reunion would heal Lex--it wouldn't do so any more than it would heal Bruce. He approached Lex, who was standing out on a balcony in the frigid temperature, gazing blindly into the horizon.
Lex raised the half-empty champagne glass in his hand so Bruce could see it. "I didn't think you'd mind."
Bruce barely nodded at the notion of Lex dipping into his reserve of finer drinks. "You didn't think I'd mind you just showing up on my doorstep?"
"I don't think either of us really wanted to be alone for the holiday."
The educated opinion was more evasive than insightful, but Bruce could accept that as at least part of Lex's rationale in coming here. It incited in him a more unstable route of thought, however, one that led him to a pointless question. No emotion, no jealousy, no teasing, just morbid curiosity to ascertain how far Lex was taking this trip to temporary reconciliation and back again. "Were you planning on seeing Clark too?"
"Why? Are you fucking him?" Lex scoffed.
Bruce snickered in reply to that joke. "Thanks, Lex. I haven't had a good laugh in years." He still hadn't. Bruce was feigning genuine amusement, but it occurred to him that some deeply hidden, well-guarded part of Lex might be insecure in such a regard. So knowing what Clark meant to him, Bruce graced Lex with an actual answer for once. "Clark and I are civil to one another, but we don't get along. We do our jobs and try not to get in each other's way. End of story." At this, Bruce noticed that Lex was listening intently--it was quite plain that Clark had really been on Lex's mind today.
Bruce let silence stretch a little longer between them, and then he couldn't postpone his departure anymore. His inflection was that same old grave monotone but something subtle in his voice was reluctant. "I have to--"
"I know." Lex interjected, so as not to make Bruce say the words. "I won't be here when you get back." He saw Bruce stiffen somewhat out of the corner of his eye. "Don't take it personally. It's not a threat. Even if you didn't go, I couldn't stay."
Stalling for a second longer, appreciative of Lex's attitude and understanding that their time together was at an end, Bruce parted ways from him.
* * *
Outside, there was nothing but the gentle and light fall of dry snow against the overview of the empty city streets and the clouded midnight sky. Inside, there was darkness too, but the cold only penetrated a shallow field around the inside of the floor-to-ceiling windows and the rest of the office was uncommonly warm. Lex leaned forward in his black leather chair to study the building on the opposite side of the road, eyeing one light with a longing that came from a place in his soul he had condemned what seemed like a lifetime ago. That light was his True North, and with his nostalgic spirit still thriving from his visit to Bruce, he couldn't help but think how he had deviated from that compass and its path.
Almost on a whim, as if driven by a damnable hope born of his weakness, he reached out and pulled the phone and its cradle towards him, then with only the tiniest inkling of hesitation, he picked up the receiver and dialed. He had the number memorized, knew it by heart, but he never used it. The line rang and rang and rang with a discouraging consistency. He drew in a deep and deliberate breath, holding it as his wishful optimism dwindled. What little faith and courage he had mustered bled from his heart when he factored in the hour and the day. Then, suddenly, a click as the answer he had been waiting for finally came.
"Daily Planet." Lex recognized his voice immediately, and something inside him was at an unexpected and profound loss, as if he were completely unprepared for any scenario that granted his desire to speak with him--it was his worst nightmare doubling as a dream come true, and the instantaneous torrential flood of emotion that threatened to drown him was the most wonderful thing he could ever remember feeling that also felt like the most painful.
Lex whispered into the mouthpiece as though anything too loud might frighten the man into hanging up on him. "Clark?"
A brief pause, what Lex sadly predicted would be the first of many. "Yeah. Who is this?" Suspicion--a fraction of his inflection implied that he suspected he knew the caller's identity, but was attempting to rule that possibility out because it wasn't very likely. Those early signs of foreboding nearly deterred Lex from his present course of action, yet following a brief pause of his own, he proceeded.
"It's Lex." The admission was spoken impossibly soft.
A dead moment passed, a stillborn sentiment. Then, Clark flattened his tone and blanked his lighthearted composure. "What do you want?" Suspicion, squared. In the space of a second, Lex had been reduced from a person addressing another person to a villain toying with a superhero. The words skewered him, but he was realistic about what he was doing--there was no way for the conversation to be easy or simple by any means his intelligence could grasp.
Lex made a genuine effort to pull the unraveling pieces of himself back into some semblance of order, trying to exercise a measure of his notorious control. He was desperately trying to conceal the panic that swept and tore through his veins and being, and despite the lack of his defining confidence, he persisted with the illusion of moderate nonchalance. "Merry Christmas." The words sounded so trite and trivial, so mundane, but he meant them, perhaps more so than most things he had ever said. That token seasonal greeting was exactly what he had initiated contact with Clark to say. Lex could hear the knot of bewilderment in Clark's brow deliver a perplexed question mark into the mute air. Lex's impatience simmered at the torturous silence and obvious resistance with which he was being met. Regardless of the tension, he steadied his voice under fretful coaxing, anxious for a response. "You do still celebrate Christmas, don't you?"
And with that, Clark understood. "Of course, I do." This was Christmas night, and Lex was alone, not just in some room, but in the world. Clark had friends and family, which he had apparently chosen to separate from for a little while tonight, but Lex--Clark realized it then with a confusion that was bordering on an unforeseen shift to empathy--Lex was calling Clark because he had no one else to call. "Where are you?"
A sigh releasing the pressure on his chest came when Lex heard Clark's tongue loosen and his tone mellow. "Across the street. At LexCorp." He summoned strength at the soothing lull of this familiar congenial voice, the pretense of a casual air replacing the original awkwardness. "I just got back into town, and I saw the light on in your office window." His words were careful and soft-spoken, hushed by a borrowed and settling calm that eased his distress and misery for the moment. "Are you close to the window?" Lex cast a glance over to the remote, secluded fluorescent glow emanating from the nearby darkened building. He stared hard at it for a fleeting catch in time, as if he could see Clark through the glass barriers between them, but the distance was too great, the gap still an obstacle, so he took his solace from that faint radiance. "Never mind. You're too far away. I would never be able to see you."
The unbearable break in their polite exchange left them unwieldy and buried in silence again. Lex regretted uttering the melancholy words, feeling more than a little exposed in their wake. However, Lex was genuinely distracted from the ambiance of self-pity about him. Since he couldn't actually see him, Lex was picturing Clark, envisioning him at his desk, holding the phone to his ear, light all around him. Suddenly, as part of the illusory image occurred to him, half an amused grin curled one corner of Lex's mouth. "Have I ever told you how ridiculous you look in those glasses?" Clark could not contain a small fit of laughter at that random remark, and his reaction prompted a full smile to emerge on Lex's face, making him greedy for more. "You're not wearing them now, are you?"
"Yeah, I am." Clark's jovial mood sharpened, and he nearly forgot who they both were. "Is this why you called? To insult me?"
"It's my Christmas present, calling you." Lex's smile loosened slightly as his eyes began to coat with tears--too much honesty in that statement.
"What's my Christmas present, Lex?" Too much seriousness and sorrow in that question.
Lex's eyes slammed shut and they squeezed closed even tighter as his hand flew to cover his mouth and stifle the rise of sobbing breaths. The onslaught of the internal tempest was crippling. He pressed his palm harder to his lips as the wells in his eyes spilled over his cheeks. There was no doubt in his mind that Clark's heightened sense of hearing picked up the inaudible hints of those tears as Lex sniffed them back.
"Lex?" Clark sounded baffled by the evidence of Lex's lament--Lex shouldn't be crying, and that was what racked Clark with concern.
Stricken in this condition of grief, Lex was convinced the time to end this call had come. He simply could not continue. Gathering the remnants of his willpower, he spoke quickly and flatly as his voice strained to get the syllables past the choking sadness. "Merry Christmas, Clark."
On that abrupt note, he hung up the phone, and the conversation was finished. The connection was severed and lost, and he did not feel a single bit more fulfilled than he had prior to pulling this impulsive stunt. Scars were reopened, and he felt twice as hollow as before, feeling the void as if it were fresh. Yet something seemed different, something unique that touched him this night, something he was fully aware would fade, and in the morning, he would probably wake to feel it mostly gone already.
Those thoughts stuck to his mind as he threw on his overcoat while ringing for the car to get him downstairs and carry him away from this desolate place where the only light came from a window on the other side of a glass wall. Lex gazed at the lit room across the way one last time before exiting the office, and as he closed the door behind him, he saw the light go out. He paused in the doorway, staring in semi-shock at the cold darkness where warmth had just been. Then, he quietly left the office, and boarded the elevator. Nothing to console him, nothing there but the noises of the mechanisms and gears, the doors opening, and his footfalls upon the marble floor of the grand corridor. He passed leisurely through the hall into the barren lobby, his head hanging down a little since his eyes never lifted from the ground. He pushed through the heavy revolving door, and he stopped once he was finally out on the sidewalk without a single upward glance.
Snow still fell in light and sparsely scattered flakes. The wind was calm, the air dry with a crisp chill about it. The night was forsaken by any signs of life, and Lex let himself sink into the feel of being the only person for as far as his eye could see. The peaceful sound of the city asleep possessed his consciousness. Dull realization crept in on him, and he lifted his head to gaze across the street straight in front of him. Lex's broken heart skipped a beat.
There Clark was, dressed in a rather business-casual manner, taking advantage of a deserted working environment, his hair relatively neat, but his deceiving glasses were absent from his face, baring his expression and indeed his soul. Lex's eyes widened, fixed on the figure standing tall and silent a mere few hundred feet away, returning his passive stare. Lex found himself speechless in a virtual daze, consumed by a love long lost and the heartache of knowing how hatred replaced it. With all that had transpired between them, all the water under that proverbial and symbolic bridge, Clark had come to grant Lex's desire to see him, so they both remained motionless, eyes locked. Meanwhile, the space between them held volumes of thoughts and feelings left unspoken because they were unspeakable.
Lex was in awe of him for a moment where time seemed to stop just for them. Clark's features were exactly as Lex recalled, yet encapsulating a mutually physical and spiritual maturity that had not been as developed before. The sight of him was divinely serene and beautiful, and unbelievably heartbreaking, his very presence like a miracle in and of itself. It was probably the only time Lex had ever seen him be everything simultaneously. Clark had never appeared truer to all that he was--the boy Lex knew, the man he didn't, and the hero that the world knew and didn't know.
A set of headlights rounded the corner and Lex fought to stay in the moment, giving Clark a pained look, then slowly turned his head away to watch the limousine pulling up to the curb. When he turned his head back, Clark was gone. Clark's sudden absence tore into him and Lex couldn't smother the tears this time. Thin streams trickled down the sides of his face as he carefully manipulated his breathing, so he wouldn't lose the mask of self-control.
The chauffer opened the door to the back of the stretch limo for Lex, and after a second's hesitation passed, he disappeared inside and the driver then closed the door. The onset of complete privacy allowed Lex to descend into his unabashed despair, and the shedding of tears seemed unending as they flowed relentlessly, and his breaths grew erratic. He was frightened by his behavior, all in reaction to the incident with Clark. He was practically trembling.
Then, somewhere in the darkened distance, a bell tolled midnight--Christmas was over and Lex was on his way home.