Title: Unholy Blue
Author: elanorelle
Disclaimer: Much to my annoyance - not mine.
A/N: I really do not like the ending of this, but I just couldn't seem to make it go anywhere else. I'll put it up anyway, and maybe one day the ending will speak to me and tell me how to improve it. ^_^ I can but hope.
"Eyes of most unholy blue."
- T. Moore, By that Lake
Sometimes Clark wishes that Lex Luthor knew he was Superman.
Wishes it with all his heart, because that look of pure, undiluted hatred which Lex reserves for his nemesis alone is ultimately preferable to the look of contemptuous disdain which is brought out for Clark Kent – investigative reporter.
It's a look of blank eyes and thin lips, a look devoid of any kind of emotion. A look that tells Clark that Lex absolutely doesn't have time for him – that his own life is far more important and the very fact that Clark's the one asking *him* questions at this press conference confirms it. As if Clark's very existence is nothing more than a nuisance which Lex has to put up with.
As if he doesn't even *fucking* matter.
Like he's just one of *them* - another worthless tabloid reporter whom Lex could crush underfoot if he wanted, but simply doesn't have the time or energy to actually bother with.
It makes Clark skin crawl and itch and he longs to just scream out loud for him to *stop* looking at him like that because it JUST ISN'T TRUE. Because he *does* matter – has always mattered. More than anyone else in Lex's life and he knows that's true, no matter what might have happened between them.
Not that you'd think that from the way they act around each other nowadays. Lex of course has a strong distaste for any and all newspaper reporters, but it's common knowledge among the press that he reserves a special dislike for the Daily Planet's golden boy.
Clark knows he doesn't make things any better by being the one who exposes all of LexCorp's underhand dealings in his vitriolic front page exclusives, and wasn't *that* a plan which backfired on him. After the… unpleasantness between them, he'd tried to find a career - *any* career, which he could use to grab Lex's attention, which might result in him moving in some of the same circles as the man who was close to becoming the most powerful in Metropolis. Because he thought that any attention from Lex – any at all, would be better than none.
The first time he caught Lex's stare – his awful, deadened, emotionless look – he knew he had been wrong.
Not long after that, Superman came on the scene.
*God*, Clark hates Superman. Hates the fact that this ridiculous be-caped superhero in primary colours and *tights*, for fuck's sake, inspires a greater reaction in Lex than Clark can ever hope to anymore.
Of course, Lex's original reaction on meeting his soon-to-be nemesis for the first time was to burst out laughing. Not that Clark could blame him (He had mentioned the tights, right?), and anyway, he'd soon stopped laughing when Superman had taken away his "toys" and the next day LexCorp had found itself disgraced and humiliated in the morning edition of the Daily Planet. Lex hadn't fooled about with weapons of mass destruction for a while after that. At least not as obviously.
So the conflict between Lex Luthor and Superman began, and Clark saw over the next few months the initially apprehensive and mocking look in Lex's darkened blue eyes which always greeted his new found enemy change to one of the bitterest loathing and absolute hatred.
At first, Clark had despaired over the fact that it was he who was making Lex so angry – even if the other man didn't actually know it was his former best friend who stood resplendent in spandex before him – but it's been over a year now, and Clark's learnt that any kind of emotion – even hatred, is preferable to the blank, empty Luthor stare which he finds himself fixed with on all other occasions.
Like this one, of course.
Clark's standing up, asking some meaningless question about LexCorp's rumoured connection with a weapons manufacturer in the Middle East. He meets Lex's blank stare with one of his own. He's long given up hoping for any kind of recognition in Lex's eyes. Given up hope for seeing anything there anymore.
Anything which indicates how it used to be.
Anything that could show that for four years of Lex's life, the world had revolved around a Kansas farm boy.