Disclaimer - WB/DC own them, yadda yadda. Wow, been a while since I typed that *g*.

Clark/Lex, future fic, angst. Rated PG. Many thanks to nel for all her help *hugs*.

Feedback would be fabulous :)

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"Clark."

It's been years since they've had a private conversation and more than a decade since they've spoken on the phone with each other, but Clark recognises Lex's voice - and he knows, absolutely, that it *is* Lex - the moment he hears it.

There are ways of dealing with Lex, routines Clark employed when he was young (deny. confront. deny. confront), especially when he realised Lex ran the chance of getting closer to him than anyone ever had done (offence. offence. offence).

But it's been so long and Clark's so surprised, all he can do is keep clutching at the phone and say two words:

"Long time."

Lex ignores it. "I'm granting you an exclusive interview, Clark. Just you. Be at LexCorp in thirty minutes."

When the call ends, Clark isn't entirely sure that he didn't hallucinate the whole thing.

********

Of course, he has to go. Perry practically straps a rocket to his ass and shoves him out the window. Lex being interviewed by a paper he doesn't own himself is unheard of. Just the idea threw up all kinds of red flags in Clark's head, but everyone knew where he was going, so if Lex did anything to him...but then Lex hadn't tried anything for a while. In fact, as a whole, LexCorp hadn't been creating much news lately, and it was likely that the interview would explain why.

Lois is pissed, naturally, ranting about picky interview subjects and ordering Clark very succinctly to tell Lex that he has a receding hairline when he sees him. Clark promises, as always, and has no intention of telling Lex anything of the kind. As always.

He makes the journey on foot - it's a nice day, and LexCorp and the Daily Planet really aren't that far apart - and from the moment he introduces himself to someone on reception, he's whisked into an elevator and up to the top floor. A severe, scary-looking woman takes the elevator with him, and Clark thinks she'd probably be able to kick Superman's ass.

Almost before he knows it - which is kind of impressive, considering who he is - he's reached the top floor and is being shown into a large, sprawling office that he knows instantly is Lex's domain.

The door clicks shut behind him, and it's just the two of them.

They've seen each other over the years - press conferences, award dinners, charity functions, Lex trying out his latest weapon on Superman - but now it's just them. Lex and Clark. For the first time in a long, long time.

"You look good," Lex begins, which is quite a difference from the "Die, Superman!" he started with the last time they saw each other.

The comment only throws Clark a little off balance. He's not the teenage kid who used to hang around Lex anymore. He knows he looks good, and sometimes even uses it to his advantage.

Using every skill you have is something he learnt from Lex.

Clark is about to reply with something similar, keep up the polite front for a while, when he takes a really good look at Lex. And frowns. "You...don't."

Chuckling briefly, Lex gestures towards the bar. "Care for a drink?"

"No thanks," Clark replies, still staring and knowing what his first question has to be. "Why now?"

It doesn't surprise him at all, but that doesn't stop it from feeling like a ball of kryptonite has just lodged into his gut.

"I'm dying."

Lex doesn't look sick, doesn't look like it's fatal. He just seems...tired. Run down. Over-worked.

The truth of it is, despite all the times they fought each other Clark had never actually imagined what it would be like if Lex died. Had even, on some level, thought that Lex was incapable of dying.

Clark lowers himself into the seat on the opposite side of Lex's desk. "I think I need that drink now."

Not laughing, Lex simply walks over to the bar - moving easily, no sign of pain - pours a large glass of whisky and hands it to Clark.

As he takes the glass Lex doesn't let go, forcing him to look up and meet his gaze.

"It's the kryptonite," he explains bluntly. "I knew the risks of working with it and took the appropriate precautions...or, at least I thought so." He pauses, smiling wryly. "Now it seems that the very thing that I thought was going to allow me to live forever is killing me. The irony is...rather fitting." Releasing the glass, he moves back to his side of the desk.

Clark swallows the contents in one go, doesn't even feel it, and Lex is *dying*. "How long do you have?"

Making himself comfortable, Lex leans back in his expensive-looking chair. "A year, maybe eighteen months."

"Well...that gives you some time to get your affairs in order, at least." Clark isn't sure there's any kind of good news in this situation.

Lex is *dying*.

"They're already in order," Lex snorts. "I've known about this for a while, seen every specialist on the face of the planet, and nobody can do anything. I barely have to do anything to hand LexCorp over to someone else."

"But..." Clark doesn't understand. "If you've got at least a year and are still capable of working..." It's well-recorded how much Lex loves his work.

"Clark," Lex says, leaning forward and clasping his hands together on the desk, "I have no intention of letting the public see me deteriorate. It won't do the company - or its shareholders - any good to have a sickly, dying man in charge. It far from instills consumer confidence. Within the next few days I'll hand over ownership and discreetly disappear. Now," obviously done with that subject, he sits back up, "on with the official interview. I presume you have some kind of recording device."

And so it begins. Lex talks and talks and talks. Clark has to change tapes. Hours pass, and someone brings food in. Both of them pick at it, Clark's notorious appetite for once missing.

As Lex talks, nostalgia almost overwhelms Clark. He may no longer be that teenage boy but he remembers being him, remembers the first years of friendship, the ease with which he could talk to Lex about almost any subject except the one he most wanted to.

At some point it stops being an interview, and becomes the two of them just talking. Almost like friends.

"Any regrets?" Clark asks, trying to remind himself to get something he can actually use in a piece for the paper.

"As a whole, no," Lex replies after a few moments. "Things don't always turned out the way you plan, but never trying anything would bring even more regrets." Pausing, he meets Clark's gaze. "You'll want to stop recording."

Clark doesn't hesitate. Leaning forward, he presses stop immediately.

Lex smiles faintly. "You are the one exception."

Somehow he's nervous and excited at the same time. "I'm your big regret?"

Clasping his hands together on the desk again, Lex stares down at them as if he's trying to find the right words to say whatever it is he's about to say. Maybe he is. Maybe he's wondering how Clark will react to it.

Not for the first time, Clark wishes that telepathy was one of his abilities.

"All I ever wanted," Lex begins softly, slowly bringing his gaze up, "was to know you. And when you wouldn't just share it with me, I...took things to the extreme. The way I always do. I'm not offering excuses - I am what I am. I did things I probably shouldn't have, as did you." Pausing, he tips his head. "You haven't asked why I chose you for this."

Clark's throat feels tight, and he's forced to cough. "I was saving that question for last." Quite frankly, he's not sure he wants to face the answer.

Lex doesn't give him much of a choice. "A future of a long, lingering death made me assess things the way my usual close brushes with death don't." He smiles slightly, acknowledging the fact that he's had more close brushes than most. "Like I said, you were my one regret. I had to do something. That, and the fact that my last interview was given to a rival newspaper will cause quite a stir."

Clark laughs then, eyes stinging, and he feels a kinship with Lex he hasn't allowed himself to feel since he was seventeen. "Always looking to cause headlines."

"Old habits," Lex grins. "That was all I had, in my youth. Might as well go out the same way." Sighing, Lex's mood changes as he leans back in his chair, staring at Clark. "You were the ultimate challenge, Clark. The thing I could never conquer."

Clark knows better, now. "You were your own biggest challenge, Lex."

Maybe it's a surprise, maybe it's not, but Lex doesn't deny the truth of it.

********

It's not a surprise when they move to the sofa. The comfort of it seems to help them relax, and now more than ever Clark wishes things had been different. That he'd been brave enough to risk telling Lex the truth, that Lex wasn't quite as obsessive as he was.

But this is the way things are, and there's a kind of poetry to it that Clark finds beautiful. He'd offered the use of the Fortress earlier, but Lex had refused. He had doubts about it being able to heal him at all, and almost seems...accepting of what is happening to him.

They sit there, staring at each other, and Clark feels like he should tell Lex about how he thought about him every day, how none of his relationships after college lasted more than two weeks, how he really, really wishes they'd both been *normal*.

But then he probably never would have loved Lex at all, if they'd ever been normal.

Shifting, Clark lets out a small breath. "Is...this going to happen again? Are we seeing each other, again?"

"No, Clark." Smiling, Lex lifts up a hand and plays with Clark's hair.

He should be worried by that, Clark knows he should be but suddenly he's so, so tired. He acknowledges the fact that it's probably something Lex cooked up - and, therefore, something he has a right to get pissed about later - even as it drags him under.

"No one's ever going to see me again."

********

When he wakes the next morning, Lex is gone.

~FINIS