(FIC) Lightness of Being
eve_k gave me a prompt foreeeeeveeer ago about Bruce+white hair. See, I started this story and then.. then... nothing happened. But I am decided to clear up my WIPs by finished them and I did finish this one and I like it, so.. ta-daaa!
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Bruce/Clark
Word Count: 2100+
Summary: Bruce throws a tantrum, and Clark defuses it with The Sexy.
ETA: I am super sucky and forgot to say that this was awesomely betaed by the fabulous duo of damos and mithen, who can fix any nonsense I write :)
It didn’t happen very often, but whenever you got a call from Alfred politely asking you to come by the Manor, all you could do was take a break and promptly report yourself to the Wayne household caretaker. Under the kind greetings and the polite request lay a summoning that had previously proved disastrous to ignore, especially once Clark started spending some nights in Bruce’s bedroom.
Clark found himself ringing the bell of the Manor during his lunch break, wondering what Alfred could need of him that he couldn’t talk about in the phone. Knowing the house dynamics, it could be anything from caped business to delicate emotional manipulation -Clark had come to understand that such machinations were business as usual in the Manor, a tug of war between brilliant minds and awkward emotions. He was usually left out of the strife, but Alfred sometimes called him when the matter concerned his lover’s wellbeing, which was just as well, since Clark had no desire to see Bruce hurt.
“Master Clark,” Alfred greeted him at the door. “I’m glad you could come on such short notice. Please, come in.”
Clark walked in, taking off his wool coat and his hat. “Is something wrong, Alfred?”
The butler’s eyebrows furrowed, his jaw setting slightly. To a less trained eye, it would seem like the man was impassive, but Clark was getting good at reading seemingly impassive men. Still, the shift lasted less than a second and the older man schooled his features again. “Nothing wrong, sir. I thought perhaps you could run some interference, though. Master Bruce has gotten a ridiculous idea into his head, and is being rather morbid.”
“What kind of ridiculous idea?” Clark asked, curious. Bruce was prone to brooding, but even that didn’t often require interventions.
“He’s quite sure he’s going to die, sir.” The disapproving tension in his jaw returned, this time refusing to ease away. “He’s been going over his will all morning.”
Clark raised his eyebrows, feeling his concern turn into a cold weight in his stomach. Bruce had been okay that morning, Clark would have noticed if something was wrong with his partner. He crushed the nascent fear with the look of annoyance Alfred sported. The older man wouldn’t dismiss anything dangerous out of hand, so if he thought Bruce’s worries were foolish, it had to be something else.
“He’ll be embarrassed once he comes around. But sometimes coming around takes him a long time, and it’s better to nip this kind of thing in the bud.” Alfred turned to look at him as they stood by the door of Bruce’s studio. “I’m sorry to steal your lunch hour, Master Clark.”
“Thank you, Alfred, and it’s no trouble at all. Besides, anything you come up with for lunch will be better than what I would get in Metropolis,” Clark said with a smile, taking off his glasses. The butler smiled and retreated, his steps barely making any sound over the wooden floors. The man moved like a cat.
Clark opened the door and walked into the studio. Bruce’s gaze lifted from the document in his hands to him, steel blue eyes shifting with some unknown emotion for a second. Bruce was doing some world class brooding, alright, but there was something else. Something that eased the dread Clark had been feeling along with the worry, probably the reason why Alfred was more annoyed than concerned, an unknown factor defusing the tension.
“Hey B,” Clark said, taking a seat in one of the big leather chairs, lifting his feet and resting them on the desk. “Busy morning?”
Bruce glared at his shoes, then shifted his glare at Clark. “Perhaps,” he said, non-committal. “Why aren’t you in Metropolis?”
“I thought I would have lunch with you,” Clark said innocently. “You were in such good spirits this morning, after all.”
And he had been, that was the thing that confused Clark the most. They had shaved side by side and Bruce had been playful and chatty, or at least as chatty as Bruce ever was so early in the morning. Clark had had to leave before Bruce was done getting ready -earlier activities had gotten out of hand, and Clark had been a bit late for work- but everything had been okay before he left.
Bruce didn’t volunteer any information and kept reading the document at hand, but he wasn’t ignoring Clark, not really. He kept glancing at him every couple of seconds, growing wary.
“What?” Clark asked him after a dozen glances.
“Nothing.” He turned to look out the window, a ferocious glare directed at the peaceful grounds.
Clark decided to go for the frontal attack. “Alfred said you think you’re going to die,” he commented nonchalantly.
Bruce snorted, shaking his head and turning back to the document. “Everyone is going to die eventually, Clark.”
“Well, true. Still, he made it sound like you’re thinking you’re going to die soon.”
“It’s a possibility,” Bruce said pensively.
“Is that why you’re going over your will?”
“It’s important to have such things up to date, especially in our line of work.” Bruce bit his thumb, glancing at Clark again. “He thinks it’s ridiculous.”
“Alfred?” Bruce nodded. “Well, it’s not ridiculous. He just thinks it’s morbid. I think it’s a little uncalled for, though. You’re not going to die soon.”
“’Soon’ is open to interpretation. Time flies. Before you know it…”
“Would you please stop talking like that?” Clark didn’t like the way the conversation was going, and he didn’t think it was going to accomplish anything, other than upset them both. “I like to think I wouldn’t let that happen to you.”
“It’s not up to you, Kal,” Bruce said. “And no one can stop natural decay.”
Clark raised both eyebrows. “Okay, I agree I can’t stop the aging process. But it’s not like you’re a doddering old man, Bruce.”
“Yet,” Bruce said between his teeth. “Not a doddering old man yet. Time creeps on you like… like…” He huffed, and his free floating frustration coalesced in a glare directed at Clark. “If you laugh at me…” he growled, the dangerous gravel going straight to Clark’s groin.
“Never,” he said with a smile. He could feel the situation defuse just as Bruce’s tantrum peaked.
“You didn’t say anything so I hope it was because you didn’t notice and not because you were keeping it from me, but-“ he paused, passing a hand through his hair and twirled a lock in his finger, lowering it to his eyes, “I am thirty three, my father didn’t start going gray until he was thirty eight. These kinds of things are not supposed to happen overnight, Clark! I am getting old and showing it!”
Clark did his best not to laugh, his tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth as he breathed deeply. Bruce looked kind of adorable, all worked up behind the stately desk, leaning forward and alternatively glaring at Clark and at the void, like he was still going on with his tirade on his mind. The steel blue dress shirt he was wearing was exactly the color of his eyes, and his hair was sticking up wildly.
He looked like a deranged genius, Clark thought. A handsome, angry deranged genius. He broke down in chuckles, unable to keep his straight face any longer. “B-“
“I told you not to laugh at me. Don’t you dare laugh at me, Mr. Unchangeable Perfection.” He growled, deep in his throat, glaring at the document in front of him. “With your sculpted musculature and your pouty, ‘I could do no wrong’ lips, and your baby blues. And your hair. Your raven, silky black hair.” Sometime during his reproach -if that was indeed a reproach, Clark wasn’t sure- he had turned to stare at him, his gaze unwavering. Clark could feel the change in the air.
He smiled as he saw Bruce slowly working himself up.
“You think it’s funny, how my body is betraying me. How its showing I’ve been around for a while, doing unspeakable things, staying up late and running around on rooftops and sleeping with insatiable men from the stars.”
“I- Okay, first, I don’t think it’s funny, I think it’s natural. Second, I’m not perfect or unchangeable and third-“
“Impenetrable. Unmovable. A fortress of flesh. A sculpted Adonis. A-“
Clark laughed, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. “Shut up, you’re being ridiculous. I’m not-“
“A perennial paragon of manhood.”
Clark fell into silence. Bruce was pulling his hair. He could smell his arousal, and he could see the glint in his eyes. Not even Batman could say that last line with a straight face. He just had to wait for it.
Wait, wait and…
Bruce snorted and broke down in chuckles, resting his elbows on the desk and hiding his face with his hands. Clark wanted to see him laugh, to see the wrinkles in his eyes as he let it all go -not that he was going to mention the wrinkles right now- but he settled for hearing him, the dark velvet of his voice caressing the back of the most primitive part of his brain, the part where the word ‘mate’ was tightly entwined with survival and happiness.
Bruce stood up, and straightened himself, adjusting his gray tie, then his hair. He took a deep breath and threw his arms up in the air. “I’m old.”
Clark smiled. “You’re not old.”
“The evidence can’t be denied,” he said, but the storm had come and gone. It hadn’t take long since they had started dating for Clark to realize that Bruce had a way of turning his frustrations into sexual tension -that much of the playboy act wasn’t an act, he had found out- and all that was left of the tantrum was a slightly aroused boyfriend.
“Well, if you ask me, I think it’s a good thing,” Clark said nonchalantly.
“Really.”
“Of course. An older man is more experienced; wiser, and more knowledgeable and skilled, too. An expert in his field.”
“Excellent in bed, you mean.”
He lay back on the leather chair, putting his hands behind his neck. “I rest my case.”
Bruce stepped closer to Clark, staring at him from above. Clark felt a tingling on his skin, goose bumps chasing all the way down to his toes. “Well, it's only logical you would be a man of discerning good taste,” Bruce said, standing between Clark’s legs and reaching for his tie, pulling Clark forward as he started to loosen the knot. “Only the best for my paragon of justice,” he said softly, sinking to his knees. Clark’s throat was too dry to protest the title.
“My precious golden sun. My faceted gem of starlight.” He was undoing Clark’s belt, and Clark was smiling, shaking his head, heat pooling in his groin as the ghost of Bruce’s touch teased him through the fabric.
Bruce hung his head, his endearments cut short. Clark could hear his hitched breathing, see his shaking shoulders, but he was too slow to register the laughter until it was too late.
“My- my-“ Bruce couldn’t seem to complete his sentence. “My pinnacle of anthropomorphic beauty,” he said at last, and then he was leaning back, laughing, tumbling down to sit on the floor.
Clark made an disbelieving noise. “That’s terrible.”
But Bruce was laughing too hard to care. It was infectious. Clark seized the moment, letting Bruce’s indomitable energy wash over him, taking him away from the world for a moment, forgetting that they didn’t have forever.
Clark didn’t even want forever. Bruce was a force of nature, ever changing like the tide, and it didn’t make it any less beautiful if one day the waves stopped meeting with the shore.
After all, in time, even the sun would fade.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Bruce/Clark
Word Count: 2100+
Summary: Bruce throws a tantrum, and Clark defuses it with The Sexy.
ETA: I am super sucky and forgot to say that this was awesomely betaed by the fabulous duo of damos and mithen, who can fix any nonsense I write :)
It didn’t happen very often, but whenever you got a call from Alfred politely asking you to come by the Manor, all you could do was take a break and promptly report yourself to the Wayne household caretaker. Under the kind greetings and the polite request lay a summoning that had previously proved disastrous to ignore, especially once Clark started spending some nights in Bruce’s bedroom.
Clark found himself ringing the bell of the Manor during his lunch break, wondering what Alfred could need of him that he couldn’t talk about in the phone. Knowing the house dynamics, it could be anything from caped business to delicate emotional manipulation -Clark had come to understand that such machinations were business as usual in the Manor, a tug of war between brilliant minds and awkward emotions. He was usually left out of the strife, but Alfred sometimes called him when the matter concerned his lover’s wellbeing, which was just as well, since Clark had no desire to see Bruce hurt.
“Master Clark,” Alfred greeted him at the door. “I’m glad you could come on such short notice. Please, come in.”
Clark walked in, taking off his wool coat and his hat. “Is something wrong, Alfred?”
The butler’s eyebrows furrowed, his jaw setting slightly. To a less trained eye, it would seem like the man was impassive, but Clark was getting good at reading seemingly impassive men. Still, the shift lasted less than a second and the older man schooled his features again. “Nothing wrong, sir. I thought perhaps you could run some interference, though. Master Bruce has gotten a ridiculous idea into his head, and is being rather morbid.”
“What kind of ridiculous idea?” Clark asked, curious. Bruce was prone to brooding, but even that didn’t often require interventions.
“He’s quite sure he’s going to die, sir.” The disapproving tension in his jaw returned, this time refusing to ease away. “He’s been going over his will all morning.”
Clark raised his eyebrows, feeling his concern turn into a cold weight in his stomach. Bruce had been okay that morning, Clark would have noticed if something was wrong with his partner. He crushed the nascent fear with the look of annoyance Alfred sported. The older man wouldn’t dismiss anything dangerous out of hand, so if he thought Bruce’s worries were foolish, it had to be something else.
“He’ll be embarrassed once he comes around. But sometimes coming around takes him a long time, and it’s better to nip this kind of thing in the bud.” Alfred turned to look at him as they stood by the door of Bruce’s studio. “I’m sorry to steal your lunch hour, Master Clark.”
“Thank you, Alfred, and it’s no trouble at all. Besides, anything you come up with for lunch will be better than what I would get in Metropolis,” Clark said with a smile, taking off his glasses. The butler smiled and retreated, his steps barely making any sound over the wooden floors. The man moved like a cat.
Clark opened the door and walked into the studio. Bruce’s gaze lifted from the document in his hands to him, steel blue eyes shifting with some unknown emotion for a second. Bruce was doing some world class brooding, alright, but there was something else. Something that eased the dread Clark had been feeling along with the worry, probably the reason why Alfred was more annoyed than concerned, an unknown factor defusing the tension.
“Hey B,” Clark said, taking a seat in one of the big leather chairs, lifting his feet and resting them on the desk. “Busy morning?”
Bruce glared at his shoes, then shifted his glare at Clark. “Perhaps,” he said, non-committal. “Why aren’t you in Metropolis?”
“I thought I would have lunch with you,” Clark said innocently. “You were in such good spirits this morning, after all.”
And he had been, that was the thing that confused Clark the most. They had shaved side by side and Bruce had been playful and chatty, or at least as chatty as Bruce ever was so early in the morning. Clark had had to leave before Bruce was done getting ready -earlier activities had gotten out of hand, and Clark had been a bit late for work- but everything had been okay before he left.
Bruce didn’t volunteer any information and kept reading the document at hand, but he wasn’t ignoring Clark, not really. He kept glancing at him every couple of seconds, growing wary.
“What?” Clark asked him after a dozen glances.
“Nothing.” He turned to look out the window, a ferocious glare directed at the peaceful grounds.
Clark decided to go for the frontal attack. “Alfred said you think you’re going to die,” he commented nonchalantly.
Bruce snorted, shaking his head and turning back to the document. “Everyone is going to die eventually, Clark.”
“Well, true. Still, he made it sound like you’re thinking you’re going to die soon.”
“It’s a possibility,” Bruce said pensively.
“Is that why you’re going over your will?”
“It’s important to have such things up to date, especially in our line of work.” Bruce bit his thumb, glancing at Clark again. “He thinks it’s ridiculous.”
“Alfred?” Bruce nodded. “Well, it’s not ridiculous. He just thinks it’s morbid. I think it’s a little uncalled for, though. You’re not going to die soon.”
“’Soon’ is open to interpretation. Time flies. Before you know it…”
“Would you please stop talking like that?” Clark didn’t like the way the conversation was going, and he didn’t think it was going to accomplish anything, other than upset them both. “I like to think I wouldn’t let that happen to you.”
“It’s not up to you, Kal,” Bruce said. “And no one can stop natural decay.”
Clark raised both eyebrows. “Okay, I agree I can’t stop the aging process. But it’s not like you’re a doddering old man, Bruce.”
“Yet,” Bruce said between his teeth. “Not a doddering old man yet. Time creeps on you like… like…” He huffed, and his free floating frustration coalesced in a glare directed at Clark. “If you laugh at me…” he growled, the dangerous gravel going straight to Clark’s groin.
“Never,” he said with a smile. He could feel the situation defuse just as Bruce’s tantrum peaked.
“You didn’t say anything so I hope it was because you didn’t notice and not because you were keeping it from me, but-“ he paused, passing a hand through his hair and twirled a lock in his finger, lowering it to his eyes, “I am thirty three, my father didn’t start going gray until he was thirty eight. These kinds of things are not supposed to happen overnight, Clark! I am getting old and showing it!”
Clark did his best not to laugh, his tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth as he breathed deeply. Bruce looked kind of adorable, all worked up behind the stately desk, leaning forward and alternatively glaring at Clark and at the void, like he was still going on with his tirade on his mind. The steel blue dress shirt he was wearing was exactly the color of his eyes, and his hair was sticking up wildly.
He looked like a deranged genius, Clark thought. A handsome, angry deranged genius. He broke down in chuckles, unable to keep his straight face any longer. “B-“
“I told you not to laugh at me. Don’t you dare laugh at me, Mr. Unchangeable Perfection.” He growled, deep in his throat, glaring at the document in front of him. “With your sculpted musculature and your pouty, ‘I could do no wrong’ lips, and your baby blues. And your hair. Your raven, silky black hair.” Sometime during his reproach -if that was indeed a reproach, Clark wasn’t sure- he had turned to stare at him, his gaze unwavering. Clark could feel the change in the air.
He smiled as he saw Bruce slowly working himself up.
“You think it’s funny, how my body is betraying me. How its showing I’ve been around for a while, doing unspeakable things, staying up late and running around on rooftops and sleeping with insatiable men from the stars.”
“I- Okay, first, I don’t think it’s funny, I think it’s natural. Second, I’m not perfect or unchangeable and third-“
“Impenetrable. Unmovable. A fortress of flesh. A sculpted Adonis. A-“
Clark laughed, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. “Shut up, you’re being ridiculous. I’m not-“
“A perennial paragon of manhood.”
Clark fell into silence. Bruce was pulling his hair. He could smell his arousal, and he could see the glint in his eyes. Not even Batman could say that last line with a straight face. He just had to wait for it.
Wait, wait and…
Bruce snorted and broke down in chuckles, resting his elbows on the desk and hiding his face with his hands. Clark wanted to see him laugh, to see the wrinkles in his eyes as he let it all go -not that he was going to mention the wrinkles right now- but he settled for hearing him, the dark velvet of his voice caressing the back of the most primitive part of his brain, the part where the word ‘mate’ was tightly entwined with survival and happiness.
Bruce stood up, and straightened himself, adjusting his gray tie, then his hair. He took a deep breath and threw his arms up in the air. “I’m old.”
Clark smiled. “You’re not old.”
“The evidence can’t be denied,” he said, but the storm had come and gone. It hadn’t take long since they had started dating for Clark to realize that Bruce had a way of turning his frustrations into sexual tension -that much of the playboy act wasn’t an act, he had found out- and all that was left of the tantrum was a slightly aroused boyfriend.
“Well, if you ask me, I think it’s a good thing,” Clark said nonchalantly.
“Really.”
“Of course. An older man is more experienced; wiser, and more knowledgeable and skilled, too. An expert in his field.”
“Excellent in bed, you mean.”
He lay back on the leather chair, putting his hands behind his neck. “I rest my case.”
Bruce stepped closer to Clark, staring at him from above. Clark felt a tingling on his skin, goose bumps chasing all the way down to his toes. “Well, it's only logical you would be a man of discerning good taste,” Bruce said, standing between Clark’s legs and reaching for his tie, pulling Clark forward as he started to loosen the knot. “Only the best for my paragon of justice,” he said softly, sinking to his knees. Clark’s throat was too dry to protest the title.
“My precious golden sun. My faceted gem of starlight.” He was undoing Clark’s belt, and Clark was smiling, shaking his head, heat pooling in his groin as the ghost of Bruce’s touch teased him through the fabric.
Bruce hung his head, his endearments cut short. Clark could hear his hitched breathing, see his shaking shoulders, but he was too slow to register the laughter until it was too late.
“My- my-“ Bruce couldn’t seem to complete his sentence. “My pinnacle of anthropomorphic beauty,” he said at last, and then he was leaning back, laughing, tumbling down to sit on the floor.
Clark made an disbelieving noise. “That’s terrible.”
But Bruce was laughing too hard to care. It was infectious. Clark seized the moment, letting Bruce’s indomitable energy wash over him, taking him away from the world for a moment, forgetting that they didn’t have forever.
Clark didn’t even want forever. Bruce was a force of nature, ever changing like the tide, and it didn’t make it any less beautiful if one day the waves stopped meeting with the shore.
After all, in time, even the sun would fade.