Title: Regrets
Author: me_ya_ri
Email: me_ya_ri@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Challenge: CLFF Wave 37 – Wishful thinking: Prompt # 6 – chains, lying, waiting. Approximately 2400 words
Notes: Many thanks to danceswithgary for her beta work!
Summary: Their relationship bound them together at the same time that it drove them apart. Maybe it was wishful thinking to believe that they could work it out.

+++++

Lex stared out the window. He might as well have been staring at the wall given how little he saw beyond the glass. The history between Clark and him was too strong, too deep, felt like chains wrapped around him and welded to the ground. There was no way that they could ever overcome it.

Lex sighed.

He had to be scrupulously honest, if only in his own mind. There was no matter of 'them' overcoming the past. It was a matter of Lex overcoming his failures to rise above history once again. Lex had given his word and sworn that this time he would keep it. Only a few days later, Lex had broken his sworn word yet again.

It was a minor matter, one that didn't carry any weight in Lex's mind. He'd simply forgotten that he was crossing a line. Truth be told, that line had long since been obliterated by his repeated trampling over it. Clark had every right to be irate. It wasn't the specific infraction that had incensed his lover, likely his former lover. It was the lack of respect for the line that Clark had drawn. Lex deserved Clark's fury.

The glass was frigid under Lex's shoulder but he stayed there, staring into nothingness.

+++++

Clark paced.

He fumed.

The urge to throw things was overwhelming, though he knew better than to actually do it. Every single nerve and sinew in his body was singing with the desire to do something because moving would burn up the rage that had his eyes flashing red and random spots smoking.

How many times did he have to put up with this? How many times had he begged and pleaded with Lex? He'd asked nicely. He'd ignored all the stupid little things that Lex did that caused so much trouble. He'd played games. He'd tried to manage the problems for Lex, so that he wouldn't get so caught up in them. A thousand different attempts to make sure that Lex would change his ways had failed. In the end, Clark had issued an ultimatum that he could accept Lex's failings on every other point, if only he could have this one little thing, this one place where Lex's lying stopped.

Lex didn't even have to stop doing it. He just had to not lie about it.

And he didn't do it.

He couldn't do it.

Lex would never stop lying. He would never stop cheating. Their relationship was going to be an endless series of broken promises and angry sessions of makeup sex that only masked the underlying problems between them. No matter how hard Clark tried, there was no hope of his changing Lex.

"Why do I try?" Clark groaned.

The couch groaned when Clark collapsed on it. He stared up at the ceiling with his heart hurting in his chest. There was no point. While it would be nice to think that Lex could change, it really wasn't very likely. Clark was a teenager. Lex was an adult.

Lex was who he was, and there was no way to change it.

"Why do I try?" Clark whispered.

He shut his eyes against tears that he wouldn't allow to fall. It wasn't right. Clark shouldn't have to force Lex to change. Really, he shouldn't even try to make him change. Lex was a grown man. If he wanted to do all those things, then it was obvious that he would, no matter how much they bothered Clark. None of it was illegal, though some of it was pretty darn questionable.

Clark curled into a ball on his couch, staring out into the darkness as he tried to decide what to do.

+++++

The waiting extended as darkness fell and then on until the morning light revealed a statue of Lex Luthor leaning against the window in place of the human who had set his shoulder against the glass. His whole body felt like it was made of cold, hard stone, transmuted over the long night from flesh into something other, something less than he used to be.

Five chimes rang from the grandfather clock. Lex thought that he had an accurate count of every second since Clark had stormed out the day before. He started when his phone rang, staring at it with eyes gone far too wide. Fumbling fingers nearly dropped the phone. The shaking was so bad that Lex barely managed to hold it to his ear.

"Yes?"

"Lex…"

"Clark?"

"I can't… do this anymore. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, Lex. This, this isn't, it's not, it's not working, not for you, not for me. I'm so sorry but, but I…"

"…I understand."

"We're still friends, right? I just, I can't do this, not when you do these things and then… and it, it hurts, Lex. You're still my friend. You'll always be my friend. I just can't… I expect things and you can't give them to me and it hurts both of us, way more than either of us should be hurt and I don't want to hurt you, Lex! I don't, I really don't. I want you to be happy and it's obvious that I’m not making you happy what with the expectations and the lies and all the broken promises and damn, the secrets! I don't like keeping secrets, Lex. I really don't, but they, my parents, everyone, they always say that it's important and that I can't trust anyone with them but I do trust you but then you go and do these things and I get afraid and angry and I just can't do this anymore…"

"Clark, it's okay. We're still friends. I understand."

"Oh. Really?"

"Really."

"Um, okay. Good. Um, I… I suppose you won't be free this Friday. There's that big party thing you have to go to in Metropolis."

"Yes."

"Maybe I'll see you after that?"

"Yes."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Good."

Lex listened to Clark breathing on the other side of the line. He could hear little hitches that made him think that Clark might be crying. Crickets or whatever those noisy bugs were that lived outside of the loft were making a racket. Lex could even hear a tractor in the distance, a sound that he would forever associate with Clark, with losing Clark.

"Bye?"

"Goodbye, Clark."

+++++

He'd known at the time that 'staying friends' had been wishful thinking. Even Clark had known better than that. Lex didn't have that capacity. One thing Lionel had done exceedingly well while raising Lex was beat the idea that there was no such thing as a real friend into his mind.

It hadn't been a surprise when Lex hadn't had time for Clark after the party. There had been meetings and projects, just like before, but now the meetings and projects took priority over Clark's presence. He found himself spending less and less time at the manor. After he graduated, Lex was gone, back to Metropolis and then around the world.

Lana. Chloe. Lois. Later he had the League and all of his friends there, including the always difficult, impossible Bruce, who was nearly as demanding as Lex but without the lightning sense of humor that had always delighted Clark. Clark proposed to Lois and then backed out of it. He dated. At times, he pretended that he was too busy to date so that people would stop asking him who he was involved with.

Lex was always there, in his mind, in his life, larger than life.

So many people wanted to call Lex a villain, but he never did become one. Lionel's death was purely Lex's fault, except that Clark had heard the real struggle as he raced to rescue Lex in time. It should have been Lex flying to the street, not Lionel. Self-defense was not murder. Clark wondered sometimes if he could have flown faster if it had been Lex falling instead of Lionel. It wasn't a question he allowed himself to answer, especially on the nights when he overheard Lex's nightmare screams.

Lex was cold. Ruthless. Determined. Iron-fisted and controlling to a degree that made most people cringe.

And he was making the world a better place, one discovery at a time. The experiments that so many decried produced huge increases in medical and food technology. LuthorCorp's advances would feed the next ten generations and keep them in health that no one could have imagined ten, twenty, a hundred years ago.

All Clark did was clean up disasters, one at a time. Sure, he inspired people in his gaudy suit and flapping cape, but he didn't change anything. Lex hadn't changed himself, but he did an incredible job changing the world around him.

"What did we fight about?" Clark whispered many years later. "What was so important that I couldn't accept it?"

He couldn't remember. He literally had no idea what the final incident had been, the one that drove tem apart. Clark certainly had no right to complain about Lex not keeping his promises. Every single relationship Clark had ever attempted had collapsed because he hadn't been able to keep his word. Most of the time, Clark could barely manage to be within an hour of when he agreed to meet someone, much less deal appropriately with the whole secret issue. Clark was as bad or worse than Lex had ever been.

"I miss you, Lex."

+++++

Nine years, seven months, three days, twenty-seven minutes.

The clock in Lex's mind counted the seconds since Clark's call. Sixteen seconds. Seventeen. Eighteen. The litany of numbers never ceased. He had yet to find a distraction that was sufficient to block out the clock in his mind.

Millions of seconds, building inexorably into a mountain that would bury Lex under the weight of his regrets if he didn't keep working, keep moving, keep trying to apologize through actions as there was no way for him to apologize directly.

Twenty-eight minutes.

There was no point in apologizing.

Clark had made his choice very clear all those years ago. Every second since then had reinforced the decision. Lex knew that Clark was right, after all. He could never live up to the standards that Clark espoused. He would always put work first. Play was a concept he would never comprehend. Love was such a distant idea that Lex was unsure if it entered into his lexicon.

Twenty-nine minutes.

Yet, there were times when Lex wondered if Clark's decision was as inviolate as it seemed. No matter what venom the press or the other superheroes flung at Lex, Clark defended him against it. Clark Kent's articles were fair and unbiased, unlike most other reporters. When Lex did poorly, Clark called him on it. Where Lex did well, Clark lauded him. It was a grace that few others granted Lex. No others, in truth.

Thirty.

"Lex?"

Lex turned and stared, not at the superhero but the man in his rumpled suit and too-thick glasses. Clark shuffled his feet awkwardly, suddenly every bit the teen that Lex had first met. His heart fluttered a bit when Clark removed his glasses and tucked them into a pocket. How long had it been since anyone had seen Clark without his disguises, either the suit or his geekish glasses?

"Clark."

"I um, know I should have called ahead or something but I kind of wanted to talk to you. It's after hours and I'm done working and it looks like you're done working so I thought, well, maybe we could… talk?"

"Talk."

"Yeah, you know, you get a brandy and offer me one and I blush and shuffle my feet and say that I normally don't drink stuff that strong. And then you smirk and say that you could get me a ginger ale if that would make me more comfortable. And I perk up and grin and take you up on that and we sit on the couch and stare at each other until we both get uncomfortable, and then you stand up or maybe I stand up and say 'I don't know why we're trying this' and then one or the other of us says something cutting and we're hurt and angry again."

"Sounds like fun," Lex said, his lips twitching with amusement at the wry tone in Clark's voice and the sardonic twist of his mouth. "I don't know why I would pass up the chance to go through it."

"Yeah, a laugh a minute, I know. But you know, there's another way it could go."

"Really?"

"Sure."

Lex took a step closer to Clark. The clock in his mind seemed to be counting the seconds backwards, flying through time until he felt like a young man again, one with hope and possibilities. Clark looked younger too and stood straighter, though not as straight as his other self, the one with the bright, unrumpled suit.

"What would that be?"

"I say 'I'm so sorry I was an immature kid'," Clark said, stepping forward so that he could lay his hand, warm and gentle, against Lex's cheek. "And then you smirk and say that I was and you don't know why you hung out with someone who was hopeless as me. And I grin at you and shrug and say that I haven't had all the benefits of culture that you do but I do know when something isn't working. Because this isn't. At all."

"What isn't?" Lex murmured.

Clark's lips were approaching at glacial speed, as if Lex was the one with super speed and Clark were the normal one. Those lips shifted into a grin that blinded Lex to the rest of the world. Eyes that normally looked blue suddenly shifted to the green that Lex had seen when he opened his eyes on the bank of the Loeb River, so many, many years ago.

"Being apart," Clark whispered. His hand felt hot against Lex's cheek, volcanic, melting away the stone that had formed around his heart so long ago. "Being away from you. I don't think I can do it anymore. I know we'll mess it up and get angry and fight again. We can't help it. You're too busy. I'm too busy. We won't have time for each other. We won't remember our anniversaries or birthdays or any of our dates. We'll spend a lot of time wondering what the heck we're doing together when we're never together."

"Better to live angry than be alone and cold," Lex whispered back.

"Forgive me?"

"If you'll forgive me."

"As many times as it takes. From now until eternity. Living without you isn't living."

"Yes!"

Their lips finally touched.

Lex flew.

The End