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No More Lies
by Pirate Turner
He remembered hearing somewhere in a movie or perhaps one of his Dad's old Western TV shows that sometimes, the person you'd take a bullet for is the one behind the gun, but he'd never thought it would come to be so true for him as it was right now while he stared down a gun held in the hands of his dearest friend. Bullets wouldn't normally stop a Superman, but Clark knew these would for they were no ordinary bullets. Lex had fashioned them himself out of kryptonite, and the thought that Lex really did want to kill him, after all this time and everything they'd been through together, pained Clark to no end.
Still, he had to try to reason with him. He stood between him and the end of their world, his hands stretched out before him in a manner which he wasn't sure was more pleading or reasoning. He honestly didn't care which was more evident for he felt both in this moment of need. Lex's face was full of fury and determination, but Clark still saw the handsomeness therein. He still saw the boy he'd fallen in love with so many years ago on his favorite place in the universe, a Kansas farm. "Lex, please, listen to me." Though he spoke the words, they seemed, to his ears, to come from a thousand miles away. "We can get through this. I promise."
"No more lies," Lex said, squaring the gun's target straight onto his heart, "Clark."
Superman's blue eyes widened, and the last visages of his facade fell away. "You know it's me," he breathed in shock.
"Yes." Lex smirked. "I have for years. No ordinary boy could have lived through a car hitting them and throwing them off that bridge."
"No ordinary boy," Clark countered carefully, taking a step closer, "could have done what we did back then."
"What did we do back then, Clark? Do you even remember?"
"Of course I do! I wanted to be normal, and you were the one yearning to save the world. Whatever happened to that boy, Lex, who was so determined to save the world from the aliens, kryptonite freaks, and all the other dangers?"
"He found out the person he loved was the enemy."
"Am I the enemy, Lex?" He spread his hands further apart, giving Lex a direct shot to his heart. He shook his head slowly and sadly. "It sure didn't feel like it back then."
"Then why'd you stop being my friend?"
"Is that what we were? Just friends?"
Lex's gun hand shook; he used his other hand to resteady his aim. "NO MORE LIES!" he shouted. "NO MORE MIND GAMES! IT ENDS HERE! I'M GOING TO SHOW THE WORLD EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE, CLARK KENT, AND THAT YOU'RE NOT THE SAVIOR THEY THINK!" He pulled the trigger, and Clark moved.
He was a red, white, and blue blur as he zipped around the gun and its shooter. Lex waved the gun around, but Clark managed to dodge every one of the bullets until he could get close enough to knock the gun from Lex's hand. Just as he closed in, however, a green bullet seared into his hand. He screamed before he could stop himself as the pain seared through his flesh and bone.
Lex, suddenly horrified by the sound of Clark's pain-ridden scream, dropped the gun. "Cl-Clark?" he whispered as Clark finally stopped running. Superman knelt before Lex Luthor, but the feeling of sweet success that Lex had anticipated all the years they'd been at war didn't come. Instead, he stood transfixed, watching his enemy in horror and remembering another boy, another time, and another version of his self. The horror welled inside of him, and self-disgust came with it. He blinked sharply against the tears threatening to come into his eyes. What had he done? "Clark?" he whispered again fearfully.
"I'm okay, Lex," Clark managed to say though he was far from it. Lex knew the truth as he found himself staring at the bones in Clark's hand that had suddenly been made delicate. Clark looked up at him. "So? Go ahead and tell the world."
Lex shook his head slowly, only now seeing what he should have seen all these years. "Tell them what? That you're an alien who risks your life on a daily basis to save a world that isn't even yours?" Clark grimaced; Lex wasn't sure if his former lover's expression was due to his pain or his words. "That I went from saving the world to wanting to dominate it because I couldn't have what I wanted and was tired of believing I could have everything I wanted, with the power and money of a Luthor, when I couldn't have what was most important?"
"Lex," Clark breathed, and then he raised his head and looked directly up into his baby blue eyes that were still as beautiful and enchanting as the first day he'd looked into them so many years ago. "It's not over. You can still have what you want. The question is: What do you want?"
Lex shook his head. "What I want doesn't want me."
It was Clark's turn to twist his lips into a wry smirk. "When did that ever stop you?"
"I won't force you to love me." The words escaped before he could stop them, and Lex stood, clothed in armor, gun in hand, an army of tanks and robots behind him, and with his soul completely naked and vulnerable.
"You don't have to," Clark told him, shaking his head and beginning to smile. "I never stopped loving you."
Lex couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But you stopped being my friend -- "
"I couldn't be friends with a man I had to fight to save the world, but I never stopped caring about you, Lex. I remember those days and nights spent loving you when we were young, and I miss them, too. I want them back, but you can't have everything. You forced me to make a choice. I either had to keep loving you as we were and let you dominate the world you wanted so badly to protect or pull away and stand between you and Earth. There are other ways to save the world, Lex, than by controlling it."
"H-How?"
Clark's smiled trembled weakly as he held his aching hand with his good one. "What have I been doing all these years? Do you really think you still need an army of robots to take over the world to protect it when I can keep saving it?"
"You might need help."
"That's where the JLA comes in, but you're getting away from the point, Lex. I love you! Now, what are you going to do about it?"
Lex looked at the detonator beside him for a long moment as all the years they'd been together as first friends and then lovers and all the years that had followed with them battling each other replayed throughout his mind. Clark's gasps riddled his memories and at last pulled him out of his reverie. He emptied the bullets out of the gun, threw them away from them, knelt, and turned off the detonator. Then he walked over and wrapped his arms around the one person in all the world who he'd been wanting to hold ever since they'd met when they were boys.
Lex had thought he was already a grown man then, but Clark had shown him, over the years, just how wrong he had been. Finally, however, he had matured and realized the infantile game he'd been playing, trying to control the world in order to protect it when there were already brave and strong people like his beloved Superman saving it from whatever threats came upon it. Moreover, he'd come to realize just what doing so was keeping him from being able to do, and here in his arms, he held his true dream and the destiny for which, above all others, he had yearned. He nestled his face into Clark's neck, and for the first time since they'd been children, Lex Luthor let himself cry.
Clark could barely think for the pain tearing him apart, but his heart still soared as Lex cried. He had his love back, and if he had died in that moment, he would have died happy! Lex, however, always had a backup plan, and he had had one just in case it might come to pass, as it had, that he would shoot Clark with the kryptonite and regret it. He left him just long enough to get the tools he needed and then hurried back and flushed the kryptonite from his system.
Superman and Lex Luthor both disappeared from the Earth that day. They wouldn't return for months, and when they did, Lex put all the financial backing he'd put into his world domination plans behind the Justice League of America and Kansas farms. When they did and Superman had to face his team mates, the press, and new villains and schemes to take over the world, Clark was still happy. Even in Earth's darkest hours yet to come, he would remain joyous for he, like his beloved Lex, finally had his dream come true. Whatever else might come at them, that would be enough. They would remain happy for they had each other, their love, and, thereby, everything.
The End