Title: Hollow
Fandom: Smallville and Batman Begins.
Summary: It's all still a victory.
Notes: A short character study ficlet that takes place on New Year's Eve soon after Smallville's Lexmas episode and post-Batman Begins. I went with Smallville's canon that Bruce and Lex went to boarding school in England together. Written from Lex's POV.
Characters: Lex, Lionel, and Bruce Wayne
Disclaimer: I own nothing, it's all a big Smallville and Batman Begins tossed canon salad sprinkled with bastardizing seasoning and well-coated with an artistic license dressing.

Hollow

Imagine our relief, our disappointment,
when someone told us the grenade
we had discovered, the grenade
we took delight in kicking to each other,
was just a clump of night or else some earth
or just a heart or else
some lesser organ.
- Michael Dumanis, We Are Frightened

December 31st, Smallville

You hear things enough times and you start to make it personal. Which is very different from taking it personally. When you first hear anything and your immediate reaction catches you like a caress to the face or a punch to your gut, its taken from you whether anyone wanted it or not. However, when the same sentiment gets played out for hours, or weeks, or years, you promote it with finesse. Or obsession. You imagine every context the words could have, some that waver between obvious fact and unspoken paranoia depending on nothing but yourself. Taking is fast and dominant, but you have to hand it to Making's creativity and persistence.

It doesn't mean taking and making can't have anything in common. For example, they never have to be over anything true. It wouldn't matter.

"Everything all right, sir?"

I blink, noticing the partition between the driver and passenger section had been rolled down. The car is stopped and I can see the manor outside, signifying the trip back from the press conferences is over. I have no idea how long the window has been like that, with the driver watching me. He doesn't sound impatient, but then, he's overpaid to begin with.

He tries again. "Need anything?"

I smile. "No. I don't need 'any-thing'." Nor am identical tu Saul Williams yet. I don't know him, but I'm somehow certain he's equally relieved I'm not like him after that mangling of his writing style for pure internal amusement. "Everything's fine, thank you." I gather my bag and get out, making sure I leave nothing behind before absently adding, "Happy New Year." I hear him reply in kind and say he hopes my interviews had gone well before driving off.

They had. They weren't proving to be the hard part in the Senate run. No part of the actual campaigning so far has been that hard. Exhausting and frustrating, yes, but I went in knowing that'd happen. I was prepared to have my past torn apart and thrown in my face. To having ups and downs with a fickle group I ultimately needed to win over, if not completely, then just enough. When you school yourself to expect everything to go wrong, you develop a knack for inventing ways to fix it all. Mother necessity has nothing on experience-induced paranoia. So far, it's worked. There hasn't been any hurdle I'm completely at a loss with. It takes work, but it's not hard. Hard in this case implies being stumped, or overly worried, or not being certain how you'll manage. Which I'm not.

The day ended well, so that's all that matters.

I'm met with silence inside and outside the mansion. Even though it's New Year's, I'm not surprised. For one thing, the grounds are extensive enough to ensure the manor has no closely situated neighbors. And oh, it's Smallville. People go to their respective Beyonds in various mutilated states all the time, but the country-folk respect for quiet time after dinner is not a line you cross without incurring the wraith of… I don't know. Trained attack cows. With meteor-laced corn weapons. It's the principle of the thing. Or so most everyone here calls down to me repeatedly from their hypocritical pedestals.

What the fuck am I doing here?

I didn't used to have to think to answer that.

Dropping everything onto my desk and chair in the office, my cell rings. I pull it out, already knowing of at least a handful of messages I need to return. The number displayed isn't one I recognize, though the area code I'm familiar with. I stare at it for a moment, and then another, not moving as it's eventually sent to voicemail. I'm not sure why I didn't respond, other than that it's been a long day and I could damn well choose to distance myself from anything I wanted.

Even if it could be important.

Sighing, I lean on the edge of the desk and play back the most recent message. A male voice I haven't heard in almost eight years speaks with a calm placidity that belies the background noise. "I've seen you in the papers and not in a prison jumpsuit. I figured from that it must be safe to say if not Happy New Year than at least Decent New Year." That was it.

I smile, somehow not surprised. Hitting the redial I hear the phone ring, then his voice mail starts to pick up. Quid pro quo. 'You've reached Bruce Wayne. I'm' – he picks up. "You're screening me now?"

"Can't be too careful." The words come easy, wit over awkward time passage. "Rumor had it you were dead."

His reply is swift and deadpanned. "I got better."

"It took you long enough," I counter. "Not to put you on the spot, but I managed to disprove my death after just one summer."

"I know," is his answer. It startles me, though it shouldn't. Bruce could get access to any information he wants. It'd be pointless to ask how he'd gotten my number, let alone the prominent printing and retraction of my demise, however dated. Perhaps it's simply that at least minimal effort on his part had to have gone into it.

He goes on after my pause. "So. Senator?"

"Yes," I answer, which makes him laugh and amend, "That was more a question of why than addressing you by title already."

"I know," I say. "I like it the former way better though, so I ran with it."

"You've run on less." Somehow he manages to make that not sound insulting. "But really, why?"

"You're this hard up for entertainment?" I crack, not really desiring to go into anything. It seems a futile battle when speaking with someone who has known you for any long period of time, but it's still preferable to giving in.

"You know what they say about people who have everything." His voice then fades and I realize he's speaking to someone else on his end. I move to make myself a drink and sit on the couch, noting that the background noise on his end seems to lessen when he speaks to me again. "Besides, when someone you know pops up in headlines as running for office and shortly thereafter saying they've been shot, the regular society page articles seem to pale."

"I'm fine," I automatically reply, then double back lightly. "I can't say I've kept such tabs on you. Save for the business section. Looks like things are going well. Congrats."

I can almost see the smile on his face. "It's going well. Your father said much the same thing." Sounding much less cheered but without any audible concern he added, "We ran into each other at some function or another."

"I'm not surprised. Nothing like seeing the privileged make sure they stay there to make Lionel Luthor tell Virginia not only is there a Santa Claus but that LuthorCorps now has a patent on his flying sleigh." I knock back my drink.

Bruce is quiet for a long moment before responding. "If I was Virginia, I'd sue him for emotional damage."

"I wouldn't recommend it. He'd just prove you were already unstable or lying and eventually be the one to get you off of the charges he instigated to begin with ensuring you were indebted to him forever." I rise and go to pour another drink, only then noting my father standing calmly in the doorway. Without pausing, I continue to the bar while talking. "Or until you were useless."

I hear Lionel chuckle and Bruce impressively picking up on it. "Must concur there. And from both ends it sounds like I should go."

I nod even though he can't see it. "Almost midnight. Time to impressively count backwards and then kiss something nameless but disease-free."

The background noise picks up again but Bruce seems just as focused as he ends with, "Have a Decent New Year, Lex. I hope things go well."

Before he hangs up I get in a last word. "You, too. Thanks. Hopefully we'll catch up sometime, more or less sober." I mean it lightly, but expressing any sentiment around my father makes me uncomfortable so I finish with, "Have a past, will relive it and all." Hanging up I look at Lionel levelly, trying to force out the inevitable internal monologue saying unless you fuck it up.

That sentiment is synonymous with my father's visits. An expected, sure thing. It leapt right from new to annoying without ever residing as comforting.

He walks up beside me. He's taller, so I easily lean against the bar rather than stretching to my full height and wait for him to inevitably begin to speak. It doesn't take long. "You know, when I think on great people who have run for political office, I can't help but wonder how many of them seemed to find more pleasure in petulantly ridiculing their parents rather than working on their platform promises."

"I don't know, dad," I answer. "Maybe you should barge into their houses all the time too and see."

He hands me a drink and clinks the glass with his. "Is it all right for you to drink again yet? From any pain medication for this?" He gestures vaguely at my chest, where another bullet wound resides.

I smile. Or sneer. "Probably would depend on whether this was poison or not." I hold up the glass.

He scoffs. "Oh, please Lex. Do you really need to be antagonistic all the time?"

"Fine," I answer, setting the drink down. "I'll just be curious. Why are you here?"

"Well, I thought it obvious. I figured you'd be here." He smiles. "And see? I was right."

"You're many things, dad," I answer. And no, I don't know entirely what I mean. But it sounds right. "And I'd hate to take up your busy time, so if there's nothing else…"

He waves me off, this time with a hand. "Much as you like to demonize me and as great as our differences, I am still concerned about you. Even if you do talk like you did about me on the phone." He takes a drink. "Can I have the pleasure of knowing the other party in your New Year's cathartic ranting?"

I hate when he does this. When he weaves concern with condescension, plays hurt when hunting. It's magnificent. It's exhausting. It takes a moment before I can make myself smile. "An old school friend. Bruce Wayne."

"Ah," he answers, studying my face before proceeding. "Yes, well, I wondered if you two would get in touch. I ran into him not long ago."

"So he said." I took my drink and walked back to my desk, not turning my head as I threw behind me, "He didn't sound impressed."

"He hasn't studied my offer then," was the confident reply.

And fuck it, it does make my back stiffen slightly, though I'll be damned if I let it show. "You and Wayne Enterprises. Seems kind of an odd mix."

"I'd say you know how I like to branch out in my interests, but even I know you're not that simple-minded so the glib retort is accepted as such." He comes up behind me. "After all, it looks like I caught you by surprise."

I turn and face him. "No. You can't surprise me anymore."

A moment of silence ensues. To his credit, he betrays nothing during it, but a pause is taken nonetheless before he smiles. "If that's true, then I'm proud. I've done my job."

Yes. All failures are mine. All victories are his.

But the Senate isn't. Certain people and choices aren't. I'm not, or I won't be. I'm not certain Bruce will have anything to do with him, but more importantly I know I won't be waiting to react to whatever my father throws. I've come to realize this fact. I'll make myself to be more than him and take everything.

Especially that goddamn smile off his face.

"Yeah. You're a real success." I salute him with my drink.

"Not a bad thing to hear to usher in the New Year," he answers. Turning, he picks up his coat, eyes glancing across my desk before meeting my face again. "Believe it or not, I do care what happens to this family, Lex."

I silently watch him as he goes. It really doesn't matter enough to say anything.