With a Bang Quinn Relationships, the ones that scar you in places no one but you can see, always start with a bang. You knew this the day you drove off a Smallville bridge taking an unsuspecting farm boy with you, knew it since the day you broke into the world with a scream bearing the Luthor name. The boy had no idea. He thought all the really great relationships started with the girl next door, or the boy who shared his chocolate chip cookies with him on the first day of school. Relationships, he thought, took time and patience. Years of lies and blood-stained hands have taught him the truth. You have always known the truth. Respected it for the deity it was, is. Late at night, when you reach for the switch on the lamp next to your bed, you look at your hands and see pure ivory skin. You think of all the times you caught your beautiful boy scrubbing furiously under scalding hot water, eyes squeezed shut, tears rolling down his face. You often wonder how a man who can’t feel the burn of the water could feel the sting of blood and tears. No - not a man - a boy. A beautiful boy who would carry the blood of those he couldn’t save for eternity. You know no such luxury. Destiny is what you tell yourself you believe in when you break apart from the inside. Fate is what happens to those who get in your way. Love is an emotion Luthors do not have time for. It’s conflicted, time consuming, and imprisoning. You have never been a very good Luthor. You have always been an exceptional lover. Your beautiful boy is neither. He could never be a Luthor, not because he loves so purely, but because he lies so easily. Luthors work at lying, take years to cultivate it, embrace it, imbed it under their skin until it becomes a part of who they are. Lying to your boy is like breathing, necessary and reflexive, but not to a Luthor. Luthors know better. For that which you take for granted and do not respect will be your downfall. That is how you know your boy will be yours. Times like these you wished Luthors felt pain. Invulnerable as he may be, your boy feels pain with every fiber of his being. A cruel irony if you’ve ever seen one. He who cannot feel physical pain feels the emotional one more acutely than any human on the planet. You take this as proof of a lack of higher power. For what kind of god would allow such a thing? It makes you sick to your stomach. Hypocrisy always did. For you have prayed to that god on more than one occasion, even after you knew what he was capable of. Your boy always did bring out the worst emotions in you, ones no Luthor would ever admit to having, let alone feeling. Sometimes pain is all you have left. Faith is what you tell yourself you believe in when all else fails. Souls are sold to the weak, for the strong of heart have no need for their own. Lying in bed, lights out, faint glow of moonlight from an open window and you know what you have to do. Your boy will never forgive you, will hate you long past your last breath, and his. But you are no stranger to sacrifice. You sold your own soul for that of your mother’s, will do it again for him. He thinks you sold it to save yourself. You wish you could tell him the truth. Even if you did, he wouldn’t be able to see it for what it was, your soul lying at his feet. For he knows no truth but the one he creates and no sacrifice is greater than his own. The world thrives on right and wrong, the illusion of black and white. He is the hero. You are the pragmatist. They will never see that you and your boy are both. Savior and executioner rolled into one. For as many times as your boy has saved you, there is a memory far more surreal of all the times he did not. And you, who know all his strengths and weaknesses, refuse to think of a world where he does not exist. For you would sacrifice yourself to save him knowing that he would never do the same. Somewhere along the way, you and your boy have become a Greek tragedy, pathos and eros and everything else in between. You will both be legends in your own right. He heralds from the stars. You survived fire and brimstone. But no constellations will ever bear your names. Contentment is the brief interlude between want and have. Need is a disease for which there is no cure. There was a time when you would’ve done anything for a taste of your boy. He gave it to you on a rain soaked street two minutes before dawn on his twentieth birthday. His hair was a mess, rain streaked down his face, and he breathed as of he was coming undone. You were soaked to the bone, a gash across your right cheek, and a darkening bruise above your left eye. He told you he was scared, that he loved you, and couldn’t lose you. You held his face in your hands, swore he wouldn’t, and kissed him hard enough to bruise. He didn’t. Your boy bruises for no one. You threw a brick at his head once after he saved you from yet another brush with death. You saw it hit the back of his head, break in two, and fall to the ground with a thud. You begged and pleaded for him to tell you the truth. He reminded you that Luthors never beg nor plead. You reminded him that Kents never lie. It was the day you put a face to anguish. The goodbye is as silent as the hello was loud. Feather light steps on lush carpet, a zipper closed painstakingly slow, a brush of fingertip across cheekbone. You pretend to be asleep. Think it will be easier that way. You convince yourself the moisture on your pillow is from the flash thunderstorm that caught you off guard three hours ago. You have always been a better liar than your boy. Not tonight. Rain trickles down your window pane. You stare into darkness. See his face, the face of despair. You reach out to him even though you know he is not truly there. He never was. Misery is what you feel from sunrise to sunset. Despair is the time in between. Near-death experiences happen to you on a daily basis. You’re not sure why. Karma, last name, bad luck, it’s a toss up most days. You wish just once your knight in red and blue spandex would let it play out. Let the final scene unfold in all its cinematic glory. Most people think dying is easy, that living is hard. They don’t know your boy. You long to know if you really are meant to cheat death or if the thought of a world without you in it makes his chest constrict the same way yours does. He could break you in two. You could lure him into a room that would surely kill him. He handles you like fine china. You take the ring off whenever your life is in danger. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, there is no greater hate then the one between Lex Luthor and Superman. The world does not understand you and your boy. Night is your time. You take off the Luthor mask, fall into arms stronger than steel, and revel in ignorance. You refuse to think about the symbol emblazoned on his chest. He never speaks of the cloning experiments or gun smugglers. Your body refuses to lie and his can’t tell the truth, but both find what they need in the other. He memorizes you with fingertips. You tattoo him with your tongue. One of these nights, stripped bare and exposed, a jarring will happen, something unexpected, explosive, and scarring. Much like your friendship, love, and time honored feud. Only one of you will survive. You hope it’s your boy. He prays it’s you. Blood, pain, sacrifice, anguish, and death – sounds like a marriage all right. <<