Chapter Two

Clark hovered in the air, listening for signs of distress. He'd just handed an attempted rapist over to the police- forcing the man's confession at the same time- stopped two bar fights and, he smirked to himself, helped a little, blue-haired old lady, cross the street.

Tonight was a pretty slow night. There were no major bank robberies, no hideouts to burst into and break up the meetings of criminal minds. He had to be careful. The public liked him, loved him really and though he was never worried about his ego, he was worried about exceeding the laws or breaking the constitution.

With every criminal he'd ever caught, he attended the trials or kept up with them through Clark Kent. He was there to protect the innocent from these people, but he couldn't let things become so black and white. He had to make sure that even the criminals got fair and even treatment. After all, it wasn't him but the people themselves, 'a dozen or so peers', that decided the truth and the punishment.

And that was also something he was trying to protect.

He sighed wishing things were more black and white. More easy to read. More Dick Tracy. The real world was getting harder and harder to take.

Clark stretched out and flew a little higher, not wanting to go too far. His hearing was impeccable but even he couldn't hear Metropolis while in space. He stopped level with the International Headquarters of LexCorp and thought briefly about paying Lex a little invisible visit.

Really he'd stopped those, but tonight he felt especially accomplished and when it was a slow night he often got to thinking. Thinking led to sorrow which led to anger and depression which eventually led to loneliness. He knew the route and decided why not just go ahead and check up on Lex before the emotions had time to set in.

He flew over the LexCorp building and saw that the curtains were, as usual, closed. He avoided the video camera on the side with not as much chagrin as when it had been first placed there.

When he had first discovered Lex was partaking in more than a few criminal endeavors, he'd flown up and watched Lex in his sleep for hours. Days went by and he came back to this spot, leaving whenever needed to perform some heroic feat for justice, but always finding himself back here, wondering what had happened to his best friend. The lithe body would lie, sometimes tossing and turning, sometimes still, but never peaceful. And the familiar face would be a study in tension, bleached white in the pale moonlight.

One night he'd been watching when the bank alarm went off. He'd rushed to the site, found and disposed of the problem- a many time offender who'd just failed to pull off his biggest heist and would now be spending a long time in Metropolis State Penitentiary on and island off the coast- then headed back to the LexCorp penthouse.

He flew up without thinking to check and see if Lex was awake. He'd gotten so use to the habit of seeing him sleep that it hadn't occurred to him that Lex could actually wake up.

Clark, feeling more lonely than ever that night- the other night he'd realized that what Lois felt for Superman was superficial- had rushed back insanely fast, even for him. He wanted to be with Lex, even if he wasn't physically with him. Those naive and heartrending farmboy feelings had never left him, had never gone away. He wasn't sure that anything Lex did could force those feelings away.

So he'd reached LexCorp at the seventeenth floor level and flew up to it's sixty-third, watching the city instead of the building. Sometimes it was so beautiful he just wanted keep flying, until it all went away. But then he'd only find himself immersed in stars. He just couldn't take that beauty.

Not when everything he'd once found beautiful turned against innocents and him.

He'd stopped at Lex's bedroom- windows covering the length of the room- still looking over the city when he heard a soft thud. He whipped around to find Lex standing directly behind him, lights on, phone dropped to the floor, hand still in the position to be holding it.

Lex's mouth was parted in shock and the two of them were frozen in the moment. Clark took in Lex's elegance, the red satin pajamas that fit with the black satin sheets, and the gorgeous face that hadn't seemed to age since he was twenty-one.

His mind shot possibilities at him.

Open the door, Lex. It's Clark. It's me behind the suit. I love you, I've always loved you. Please take me in your room, in your heart, in your arms. Be a good man again, Lex. I'll do anything for that.

He had so many things to ask Lex, things like 'did you once feel the same?' and 'is it all my fault that you're the man you are now?'. He knew that his not telling Lex the truth when they were younger, was affecting them both now.

Then Lex blinked and he was gone. It was his out, his way of escape. It was what he needed.

The next night he was wary to go to Lex's again but figured when he'd come up to the building, he'd been facing the city, not Lex, so the man couldn't possibly know.

But, whether he knew or not, paranoia was any Luthor's true curse. There were curtains and a camera with a motion censor. He'd not known about the motion censor the first time and had set it off. He heard the shrill alarm and took off, not coming back for another week. When he finally did return, he used his laser vision to corrupt the motion censor without breaking it or turning it off. Then he could still watch Lex through the curtains because only a handful of people knew of his X-Ray vision and they were all people he could trust.

He'd lost interest in watching Lex sleep with the curtains in the way. There was something there that reminded him of lost innocence and the symbolism of Lex pulling the curtain over Clark's eyes -- even though Clark knew what was going on -- was too much to take.






To be continued...