He'll never see another falling star and not remember.
"You motherfucking bastard. Get the hell off of my property!"
He thinks that the dark hides too much, or maybe not enough. Tall and powerful and ridiculous in primary reds and blues. He never sees Clark anymore, not wrapped like a costume designer's acid trip, never thinks of pretty boys and summer fields under dark skies. The habit of distrust shifting to the instinct of hate with no effort at all.
They stare at each other across a space of feet and time and nothing at all, beneath the canopy of a perfect, clear night under a sky full of stars.
On the roof of a rundown building on the outskirts of Metropolis...a burning laboratory in eastern Spain...a field in the middle of fucking nowhere, and his plans were in ruins around him. Superman was like Lionel; he always knew the leverage of hurt, what it took to do the damage. Clark wasn't the first, but he did it the best.
It shouldn't have hurt anymore, but it always, always did.
"I'll kill you if it's the last thing I ever do, you son of a bitch." He forgot how to forgive years ago. Superman takes off into the sky with the first flash of redbluewhite light in the distance, hovering above him in the velvet night. Impossibly dark eyes stare back at him from a solemn face that never changes, nothing changes, especially them.
He watches Superman watch him, as cold and brilliant as a falling star, and for a second, he sees a boy with closed eyes beside him on a scratchy blanket who asked what he would wish for, dark curling hair and a stretch of flannel and golden skin against his side. He sees himself not-touch with one upraised hand, hovering over Clark's cheek, and he remembers what he said.
Lex closed his eyes and made a wish.