Lex does these sorts of things occasionally. It's not like he's proud of it.

He gathers up glass fragments in his hand, a sullen, tired look on his face, and all he can think is that he's really, really bad at this. Maybe, Lex isn't cut out for being the Luthor scion; maybe, Lex should have stuck with the original plan, done his graduate work at Yale, and worked in a lab for the rest of his life. Lex has a killer instinct, but it always feels like it's borrowed, channeled from remaindered evil that Lionel carelessly tucked into Lex's DNA.

His staff is not stupid, so when he heard terror-quick footsteps leaving Lex's offices earlier that day, and then the sound of utter and total destruction that was Lex tearing through his office all night, they left. Lex doesn't blame them; he probably would have had them all fired anyway, their daughters raped, villages burned, etc. etc. He's sure that Dominic does those sorts of things.

While it's good that Lex didn't indulge in any spontaneous acts of random cruelty toward his very nice cook and even nicer housekeeper, it's bad because he has to clean up on his own.

It's far too late to call anyone in, and Lex doesn't want the company.

The helicopter ride home was bad enough, with Martha and Jonathan Kent clinging to one another in the full measure of disgustingly functional marital bliss, and Clark smiling like a dog given constant praise. In between all of the affection and petting and family togetherness, Jonathan sent evil glares toward Lex, and Clark gave him pitying looks.

Lex thinks that if the fuckers can't get themselves home from Metropolis, they should damn well have the courtesy to at least leave him the fuck alone on the ride back.

People would get a huge kick out of this, this image of Lex Luthor, playboy extraordinaire and multibillion dollar corporate bastard sitting cross-legged on his floor, picking up bits of glass from the rug. Lex has a dustpan and a broom, and the vacuum is down the hall, waiting until Lex gets all the really big stuff off the ground. His monitor is sitting in fourteen pieces of various size in a box on the curb. He carried it there himself.

Lex knew it when he was nine and saw the fire fall from the sky toward him.

Lex knew it when he was thirteen and he told his mom he'd be just a minute.

Lex knew it when he was twenty-one and the water under the bridge sparkled.

Lex has always known it: the worst part is the after.

He should be more upset about this, because it's almost four in the morning and he spent the night doing menial labor. First helping his father's servants pack up his wing of the house, then making a sandwich, washing his own dishes, and cutting up his arm with the knife. It took him ten minutes of watching pale pink water slide down the drain before he told himself to snap the fuck out of it, and that cutting wasn't trendy anymore. So Lex put away the knife, went down to study, and put all the books back on the shelves.

It's sort of comforting, actually, to be able to sit there in his own house and hear nothing but himself. Sure, it's lonely. Sure, it's the perfect setting for a really spectacularly messy suicide. And sure, Lex is bad at everything, has no real reason to keep living, and doesn't deserve...anything. But.

He's above that. And besides, he's tried dozens of times.

Scars on top of scars. There's a reason he always wears long sleeves.

He overreacted a lot when he was fifteen.

The doctor told him something about a mood disorder. Lex corrected that ambitiously with his own creative mixes of happy-making substances when he was sixteen. By seventeen, he'd been fucked up the ass in the back room of a club one too many times, and after not being able to walk properly for goddamn near a month, Lex shaped the hell up and went to college because Lionel couldn't follow him there.

And he was happy, and harmless with a shark's smile. He made friends in college, met girls and boys in college. He thinks he might have even really liked one of them, but she'd gone and gotten herself killed. Fuck Amanda, anyway.

He drops the handful of glass shards on his desk and sweeps the broom one more time over all the bare floors. It's not like Lex walks around barefoot in his office, but he could, and he's always liked being cautious.

...Which is fucking incomprehensible in relation to what happened today.

He can't process any of it now.

So he plugs in the vacuum, and thinks how quaint it is. The Inquisitor would love this: Luthor Heir Cleans House! There would be a four page spread with pictures of Lex looking exhausted and pushing a hoover around.

Speaking of hoovers - where the fuck is Helen, anyway?

And he didn't just have that thought. Because hell, that was mean as anything Lex ever thought, and Helen didn't deserve that. Granted, she was a pushy bitch who had lied and seemed to think that an emotional drop-kick was the proper reaction to anything, but Lex admitted to himself sometimes that he had a stripe of masochism in himself at least as wide as Clark Kent was tall. Lex was sort of surprised he hadn't died in the pursuit of wonderful, guilty pain yet.

Yeah. Granted.

He is listening to her sleepy voice say, "Hello?" by the time he realizes what he's doing.

"Helen," he says. He is really shocked by how calm he is.

"Oh - God, Lex!" she gasps, and there's the sound of fumbling cloth. "I was watching the news all night - I must have passed out - are you all right? Is everything okay?"

Okay. Not a Hoover. Lex is going to punch himself in the face in penance for that one.

Helen's not Clark, nowhere close. But God, she's still good, and she doesn't deserve him.

"I'm fine, I just - " he starts.

"I called you dozens of times," she says, and her voice is shaking. There's the sound of metal jingling in the background. "I - I couldn't get through. I saw you on TV. Are you okay? Are you sure you're okay?"

He's getting really tired now. Because it's okay to be strong when you have no other options, but Helen is...easy and soft. And that's why he liked her and kept her around to begin with. And after having taken all the time to explain about himself, he thinks that maybe, maybe he can do this - be tired around her. He would really like to.

He'd really like to do a lot of things.

So he thinks a long time, and flashes to images of Clark on warm, sunny days. Clark teaching Lex the ins and outs of small town gossip, giving Lex the inside scoop on who Mrs. Gabble had her claws in which week, and which newest teenaged couple was doomed. Clark sitting silently while Lex ranted and raved and whined about his father in not so many words. Clark smiling at Lex over a too-orange sunset in his barn, listening to Lex say things about legend and destiny and believing him. Clark...bent over him, dripping with water, flushed with relief, thinking that he'd just saved someone worth saving.

But...Clark's not here.

"Lex? I'm coming over, okay? God, are you sure you're okay?"

He feels a wry, resigned grin on his face. "Yeah. I'll tell you about Yale."

He hears a bark of laughter over the line. "Yale? Lex!"

"Come over, Helen," he says, and hangs up.

It's the best he can do.

So he pushes the vacuum to one side and stands over his desk, willing his mind to shut down, to go somewhere warmer and safer and simpler.

And Lex crushes his hand to the surface of the cool glass, feeling all those broken pieces he gathered so carefully break his skin and the hot, metallic tang of blood fill the air.

Lex isn't worried about anything right now.

He's afraid of the after.