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roxy ([personal profile] roxy) wrote2004-09-09 11:13 am
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X-iled:Fun With Dick And Bruce

I wanted to post this bit last night, but apparently I didn't exist as far as LJ was concerned. Thusly, I'm flinging this up quickly on my way out the door!

Previous parts are huddled together here, yearning to be free:Exiled




Lex’s days went by in a blur of barely suppressed rage and—sorrow. He felt like he’d lost his best friend, as if there no longer a …center. Just a gaping hole in the middle of his life. He ached all the *time*, and every time he thought of the look Bruce gave him before going on to steal Clark from under his nose, his eyes burned.

He felt lonely and depressed, depressed enough to want to call his father, test this new found ‘paternal love’ the man professed to feel. That thought alone let him know how bad his mental state was. When had he ever turned to his father? Never. It was always Bruce, who listened and made things better, and ---and…fuck. Bruce, the devoted friend he’d tortured on a nearly daily basis at school. Bruce, who protected him from all the stupid stunts and god-awful situations he got himself into. Bruce, who cleaned him up after getting falling –down drunk, getting high and god help him, after getting fucked. Who loved him, Lex knew, with everything he had. Or used to.

Lex felt dizzy for a moment as he thought of Bruce and Clark together. Neither of them had said too much about the relationship, beyond Bruce explaining in a dry and completely emotionless way that he’d felt drawn to Clark, and acted on it. As if stripping the telling of it of all emotion would feel less like a spear piercing his heart. Fuck him, though, fuck him. He didn’t let anything show on his face, revealed not slightest indication that his hands had cramped with the urge to strangle him, to beat the unfaithfulness out of him.
Screw the contradictions he thought. That’s what it had always been with Bruce and him. A tangled mass of contradictions and anger and—love. That was mixed in there too, he had to admit.

And then as if he hadn’t quite suffered enough pain, there was Clark, bouncing about like a puppy with a bone and just so thrilled about the whole thing and nearly bursting with the desire to share with, as he put it, ‘ his very best friend’.

Lex was not about to be the one. He wouldn’t-- *couldn’t* do it. He couldn’t let Clark tell him how happy he obviously was with Bruce.

It hurt over and over to see an intimacy there that wasn’t before, they were comfortable in each other’s spaces and Clark practically incandesced every time he saw Bruce, and everyday he was there to go swimming or play pool with the ‘both’ of them—but Clark only had eyes for Bruce. Oh, he still spent a lot of time with him—watching movies, playing games and talking about comics, or rather Lex lecturing him on comics while he sat there and smiled and having that smile directed at him was heaven, heaven…
Clark still hugged him and almost sat on top of him when they watched TV together, and stole popcorn from under his hand when they watched movies, but every time Bruce crooked an eyebrow at him, he was gone—and Lex had no one
.
So he did what he could to survive, and struggled to keep from hurting either Bruce or Clark, by word or action. It was an act of will on his part that he doubted he could repeat. And if it wasn’t a perfect act of control, well, he never claimed to be perfect. And he was forever grateful to Bruce for never saying a word about the crew that came in the day after Lex had had to listen to his confession, never mentioning that for the entire night the place had been filled with the sound of glass shattering and wood splintering, or the singular sound that drywall makes when it’s kicked and pummeled till it gives. For never ever speaking about Lex standing in his bedroom doorway, covered with plaster dust and glittering shards, silent except for the harsh breaths escaping through his tightly clenched teeth, a feral light in his eyes—
Lex always wondered what expression was on his face that night because he’d never seen Bruce go that pale before.

Lex vowed not to dwell on their betrayal and his shameful lack of control and threw himself heart and soul into learning how the factory worked; he grew to be very concerned not only with the business, but the people who made it possible. He made sure that he was visible, accessible, and that Bruce kept in the shadows. Bruce was leaving at summer’s end, but he’d be staying. He was staying right here and hoping to salvage some kind of actual life from the mess that he’d created.


TBC--I dance the dance of having inspiration!