Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.
Passion
Lex knows what is coming. The pattern is familiar by now: his plans frustrated, the evidence destroyed, himself staring at his computer screen just waiting for Clark to come storming through the French doors and cast blame and aspersions in his direction.
The boy hates him. Of that he is sure. He may have loved Lex once, in his own naïve and honest way; but that thing they called a friendship is now quite dead, and even heated words and near-blows cannot quicken it.
But if he won't love him, isn't hate the next best thing? At least it's passion of a sort.
Lex isn't entirely sure how to qualify his own feelings. It's quite obvious that Clark causes him endless consternation. He costs him obscene amounts of money in buy-offs and cover-ups; he costs him even more in wasted time. The singlemindedness with which he ferrets out and destroys all of Lex's experiments and inquiries is inexpressibly annoying.
But being in the same room with Clark still makes Lex's blood rise. He still notices even the smallest details, from the sinews in his tightly-balled fists to the lack of scratches on his bronzy skin. Even disdain cannot detract from the striking cut of his jaw, the enticing and reined-in power of his broad shoulders.
Lex sometimes argues with himself as to whether Clark is more beautiful in anger than he ever was in camaraderie.
Often he still thinks about kissing him. If nothing else it would stop his obnoxious sermonizing. There is no hope the gap between them will ever be bridged; these words cannot and will not accomplish anything. So while Clark is busy pacing the oriental carpet before the fire, ranting and accusing, Lex lets the noise of childish moralizing fade away and just focuses on that impudent, beautiful mouth.
He wonders if Clark would struggle, take a swing – or surrender, and let it all finally fall into place. What he has been searching for, what Clark has been fighting against ... it may well be one and the same. Perhaps hatred and anger would translate well into intensity and ardor.
One might argue these things are more interesting than tenderness. They would certainly be more interesting than yet another argument with Clark about which of them is more dishonest.
Lex mulls over these things even as he hears the familiar footsteps coming down the hall. He turns them over as he arranges his expression, steeples his fingers and half-turns his chair towards the stained-glass windows. He contemplates them even as he decides what he will say when Clark slams through the doors, composing his first sentences as carefully as a line of music.
He has still not made up his mind. But if this is to be the first act of their passion-play, he wants it to be perfect.