Surprising to exactly no one, Bruce just stares at him.
It takes him a second longer than he'd like to figure out what's happening, because he's stuck in a bad place in his head (which he does not want to be in for a second, or a second longer, or at all, ever). The things Joker said, the slick-jagged fingers in his brain forcing everything to be real, are too close. He broke free-- he won, he has to hold onto that, he won. But it was days ago. Days that feel unreal and dreamy because they've been days spent here, and at home in the real world, it had been no time at all when he had been sick with that for so long. He'd won his mind back and an hour after that was authorizing his suicide protocol.
And now Clark is ... having some kind of anxiety attack. Bruce stares for another second, willing himself to unscramble it.
"Kal." Snapped. Then again: "Kal. Look at me." It's the voice he uses when he's pulling someone up in the field. Not anywhere near one of his nicer voices by a thousand miles, but it's the one he knows will bring his attention back to the here and now.
When he's sure the other man is listening, he dials it back, but is still serious when he addresses him. "When I say 'not against the wall', you take a step back and say 'okay'. That's it."
The battlefield voice hits him like a green bullet even if he already looked sick, his head turning like a slap to focus on Bruce. He listens to the words, he does, understands them even. When is to specify a time. I is a pronoun. Say is a verb. He's got this. He's got this.
He's Superman.
And looks nothing so much like a guide animal taking commands until the words translate into meaning. God, what did he do? What the fuck did he just do?
You just assaulted your best friend. That's what you did, Kent.
You assaulted your injured, grieving, poisoned, traumatized best friend.
He was just making some quiche and he wants his glasses so badly he's crushing the handle of the knife in his hand, leaving it a misshapen lump with the imprint of his fingers deep in the metal.
"Of course," he says again, because of course. Because can we maybe not and against the wall and of course you step back and you show him how to make dinner like you said you would and then you leave and you never come back because he doesn't need you, he's never needed you like you need him, because he survived a year without you and you could hardly last fifteen minutes when that meteor exploded
When your brother died in your arms
You've never touched another person you love without their express permission in your entire life because how you feel doesn't require them to feel the same way, no matter how much they care. No matter how deep the bond between you goes.
"Stop." Snapping again. Bruce puts one hand on his hip, just something to do instead of-- spontaneously combust from irritation and its sudden concussive impact on his mood. He's still holding Clark's glasses.
"Stop it right now. We're not doing this, you're not beating yourself up over kissing me. If you'd actually lost control I'd have noticed." He would, in fact, have been crushed to death against the aforementioned wall. Quite notably, this did not occur. "That reaction was entirely about me and the shit I have been through, not you. I need you to accept it and not dwell on it, because I don't want to dwell on it."
There's a more raw, honest note to him as he finishes that terse delivery of what are almost orders (it's hard for him to communicate important things in another way). I need you to do this, for me.
Somehow annoyance gets through where everything else failed, or maybe he's just had long enough to process; it's honestly not clear even to him. Then again, he's not exactly running on all cylinders and he has better things to think about.
But he breathes in deep, swallows again, and stands up straight. He considers asking for his glasses, seriously considers it, but if Bruce doesn't get to wear his armor for this, neither does he. He can't make it fair, but he can make it less unfair.
"I--" no "Of--" no "I shouldn't have. You've got enough on your plate. I... I don't even know what possessed me to--" dammit "I had no right."
"Shut up," he says, without any enthusiasm behind it. It's a shut up that you say to your best friend who's being insufferable over a non-issue. Bruce will take sulking alien over collapsing in on myself under the weight of my boyscout honor, or whatever it is that Clark does when he's torturing himself. He's bad at torturing himself, and it's tiring to watch. Bruce isn't sure if he's happy or not that Clark's just never gotten better at it via osmosis, as Bruce is a goddamn professional.
"I know exactly what possessed you, so come off it," he says in Kryptonese, some of the tension leaving him. "Do you want to keep working on the stale pudding you were making-" - look he doesn't know the Kryptonian word for quiche give him a break - "or do you want me to order Chinese?"
Edited (there is also no krypton word for chinese he just said chinese, yes i am editing simply for the update status line) 2015-12-01 05:59 (UTC)
Honestly, he's pretty sure that if he tries to handle food in the next ten minutes, he's going to puke from pure anxiousness, which would be a new experience because he's never spat out anything but blood before.
The glamorous life of a superhero.
"Call for Chinese."
He is so goddamn tired.
"At this rate, you'll end up with the knife in your ceiling, honestly."
And he knows none of them gave a first month's deposit or anything, but it's the principle of the thing. His nerves are absolutely shot, his muscle control is currently at code yellow to seriously questionable, and he has simultaneous, contradictory urges to kiss Bruce again or lock himself in the bathroom.
"And the word is quiche," he clarifies, providing the Kryptonese for it. Or at least the nearest local substitute to such a thing.
Alright, Clark has passed the correcting his Kryptonese vocabulary test. At least he's not going into shock, and the cutlery is not a sacrifice he feels particularly moved to mourn. "Sit down," he says, shooing him out of the small kitchen towards the apartment's main area. Bruce gets his phone out and calls, leaving it wedged between his ear and shoulder while he cleans the counter off. 'Cleans' may be generous; he just scrapes everything (wrappers and utensils included) into the pan that was going to be used and shoves it in its entirety onto a shelf on the fridge.
Worth noting: at no point does he move into a position where Clark is entirely out of a corner of his field of vision. If he sneaks out of here, he's a dead man, gut-wrenching conversations of weaknesses be damned. Perhaps there is actually a God out there despite Bruce's persistent disbelief, because he does not say So my point is, stop talking about your abilities to people you don't know.
When he's done he sets his phone on the counter, and walks the few feet away into the rest of the flat, looking at Clark impassively. Hopefully he's not curled into a fetal position or something.
Over the time it takes Bruce to phone in the Chinese food, Clark goes from nauseous to terrified and finally to annoyed in return. Because whatever the hell he did, and he's still not sure what he did, it was huge to him. It was... everything. It was stupid. It was... incredibly unwise. It was completely up in the air as to what Bruce actually thought of it or how or if he could handle it, but handling it like Clark piddled in his cave is not helpful.
He should have cleaned up the food. He should have... handled this whole thing. Instead, of course, he'd spiraled and pissed Bruce off and apparently, had acted in such a way that the other man either thinks he's in the midst of temporary insanity or he's resolutely pretending Nothing Happened and he's not sure he can handle either of those things.
He hadn't wanted to do it like that.
He'd had... plans. Frankly ridiculous plans, but plans all the same. Some of them had been silly, some had been more realistic, but all of them had involved waiting. He'd never intended to let Bruce know how he felt while everything was up in the air, while he was still recovering, Jesus, and while Jason was still an unknown quantity out in the city.
So when Bruce finally looks over at him impassively--
Impassively? So we're pretending this never happened.
One eyebrow raises slightly. He crosses his arms. What do you mean what after that, Jesus Christ. For another moment he's quiet, continuing to just look at him. Then:
"You know me very well."
As much as anyone barring Alfred, or maybe Barbara. Bruce stares at him, his expression slowly creeping towards actual emotion. There's a faint line between his eyebrows, like when he's trying to make sense of something. He lets that statement hang there; Clark knows him very well. Even if their timelines are different, what he's demonstrated so far holds true to that, because even if Clark only knows the parts Bruce has let him seen, he's let him see an awful lot.
"There is never going to be a universe where I'm good at this."
It is not a fair concept in terms of overall fairness of the universe, but that doesn't exist. It's a fair concept in terms of Things That Are Wrong With Bruce Wayne. If Clark's being genuine, he can't have imagined a scenario in which Bruce magically transformed into a different person like a prince being untransformed from a frog. If Clark is going to fall apart over a reaction like that, then they are fucked, because as far as bad reactions go, this is one way down on the shallow not-really-that-bad end of the disaster pool.
There's a dozen things he's trying to think right now but none of them actually come to fruition. They just plummet like a bird falling out of the sky into a small pile of unfortunate, unpoetic, dead animals.
"Are you in a relationship with Bruce Wayne in your universe?" --it comes out harsher than he wants it to, and maybe that shows on his face, with how the slight frown across his eyebrows deepens fractionally. Or maybe it just makes him look angry, he doesn't know. He can't seem to get a read on Clark right now, which is annoying. He really needs him to be present, because Bruce has no idea what he's doing with this.
Don't leave something this fragile in my hands, he wants to say. I'm going to break it. But of course this is how it's going to happen, of course Bruce doesn't get to take a day, an hour off. It's not Clark's fault he's godawful at everything. He steels himself, taking a slow breath.
Clark's good at any number of things, but taking charge in a sensitive situation has never been his strong suit, mostly because he's desperate not to bully anyone. Something like this? That's even worse.
That tone, and that question, make him angry because it implies a certain amount of distrust. It implies--
"Don't you think I would have mentioned it when we were comparing notes? I know you think I'm an idiot but I should hope you'd expect me to realize that something like that would be pertinent."
And like that, that spark of anger just... dies. Because--
"Then again, maybe it's a fair question. 'Relationship'. What the hell else have we ever had, Bruce?"
Clark is the one with the highschool sweetheart and the all-American marriage. Even if his experiences in that other dimension are cracking it - You didn't tell me you were separated from Lois, he hasn't said - he's got infinitely more experience with being stable than Bruce does. Bruce, whose great love was a woman who tortured and fought him as much as loved and held him, who used him in a eugenics experiment for her psychotic father. God, he wishes Selina would just work out, just for a week. It's always frantically trying to make the puzzle pieces fit with her, as though they both know they're supposed to and get so angry when it won't click into place.
"Okay."
Okay, they weren't together that way. Bruce didn't really think so, because he thinks the kicked-dog looks Clark's been giving him every so often would be slightly different if so, but he's trying to work this out.
"I don't know. A friendship, an intense one. Do you understand that my reaction five minutes ago was not revulsion about you kissing me, but something unrelated that I have been through that you had no way of knowing about?"
He turns his head to glance over at Bruce with an intensely skeptical expression.
"Was I psychic where you come from?"
Think about what you just said, Bruce.
But he's never been the type to leave it at that, as much because he likes words, finds comfort in words, in ordering the universe with a few errant letters and a certain turn of phrase. He lets out a sigh, scrubs his face and pushes himself to sit up a little.
"I really didn't mean to kiss you earlier. I just... I was looking at you and you'd said-- and I was thinking about it and I was going to wait, Bruce. I know how much is on your plate right now, even if I don't know about whatever you're talking about."
He sucks in a breath, makes it come slow, and lets himself be tired.
"I was looking at you and I couldn't wait and I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to deal with this right now."
Something flickers over his face, but it's gone before it can be detectable as any particular emotion. Yes, he knows, no one ever means to kiss him. Bruce is who you fuck around with but never anything more, because he's mean and too intense and psychologically unstable. There's a joke that gets rolled out every so often, that every member of every League and every mask in Gotham has been in love with Batman-- temporary insanity, it happens to everyone, you'll get over it, don't worry. It's uncharitable to think that about Clark, and he doesn't really believe that's the case, but it's an old tired sore spot hit by accident. He suppresses it.
"Too late," Bruce says, because he is dealing with it now, so there's no point sulking about it. And then: "I know you're not psychic. That's why I'm telling you. Do you understand?"
"If that's what you're telling me, then that's what I'm going to believe," because it's as simple as that. He doesn't second guess Bruce. That's not how they work.
But he caught that look. He knows about those jokes and most of them get broken up by Superman walking over and glaring disapprovingly. That usually spawns the jokes about the 'wife' disapproving of people making fun of her 'husband', like he can't hear those either, but he usually leaves that alone. Mostly because he'd rather not be questioned on anything in that realm of discussion.
The events earlier are a good example of why.
"You should know, though. This is... older than anything that happened to me in that other world. Or what's happened here. This is, God... Years old."
Years old. Yeah, that's what it felt like. This explains some things, Bruce had said, and it does. Did. He has a measure of understanding now, and he's not sure if he's glad or not that it matches up with the things he's experienced in his own timeline. He's not sure if he can let himself be glad.
Joker did all those things, to Lois and that world and a child that never had to chance to even try. Joker ... who has been in Bruce's mind, has controlled Bruce's mind. From within. He can still feel it if his attention so much as drifts to the memories; he knows this isn't going to work until he has more distance from it. He knows it may not be possible for it to work at all even if he does get past it, because he's pretty sure if he tells Clark, the other man won't want anything to do with him. As well he shouldn't.
Bruce has never actually felt violated after any kind of incident before and he's had an unfortunate number of them. He's never let himself feel like a victim, because this is the kind of life he chose and all kinds of injury and trauma have befallen him because of it. He still doesn't feel like a victim, but he feels ... wrong.
"Okay," he says again, quieter this time, and some of that wrongness he feels coils into something cold in his chest. Because over the course of this encounter he's realized he probably reciprocates everything. And he can't let it happen.
Clark has never wanted food less than at this moment. The smell might make him sick (it's good food, delicious no doubt--) and the interruption is unwanted and it's just another thing to put between them and if he didn't have such a strong strong mental prohibition against wasting food, he might throw it out the window but given that such an action is practically counter to his DNA, he doesn't. He just watches Bruce with the delivery man, waits till he's gone, and finally pushes himself to his feet.
"'Okay?'"
Because he'd said it too. While in the midst of a panic attack. Bruce was not, at least not to his senses, in any such state, shock and obvious confusion aside.
"What does 'okay' mean?"
There is nothing 'okay' about any part of this experience. Nothing.
Bruce doesn't intend to open anything, but he's going to be hungry later due to only eating cheese sticks, and it was something to do to keep busy for a moment in the initial stages of Clark's shell-shocked reaction. He sets the parcel on the kitchen counter, and leaves it there.
"Can you sick back down," he says, staring at Clark like he's trying very hard to communicate something. And he adds: "Please."
There are half-demons with cursed jewelry that go down faster than Clark does at that request. He didn't actually need the please, but hearing it adds a bit of a wince to it. The wince is pretty obviously not from him sitting, after all.
Bruce sits down next to him, his movements measured. He still has Clark's glasses, clipped at some point in the collar of his sweater, a silent hostage. No verbal answer, not yet. He takes one of Clark's hands and turns it palm up in both of his, holding it, running one thumb over the lines there - superstitious nonsense, lifelines.
"You're right that I'm not ready to deal with this right now. And neither are you, not really." His deep voice is subdued, looking at Clark's hand. Now he looks up, gaze calm. "Can we just sit together, just for now. Just shut up for a little while and be here."
Clark listens to what he has to say and in it's own way, it's the first thing he's really heard. Everything else has been reaction: Bruce needed this or Bruce said that, dominoes fall and set off other dominoes, all of it in prearranged, simple patterns. Familiar. Autopilot. Even the outrage.
He doesn't pull his hand away from Bruce. Instead, he leans in and nods without a word.
Right now, there's a man sitting next to him that in all ways makes his life better. Makes him that much more human. And he gets to be with him. Just be here with him.
There's not even anything to say to that.
He's always loved Bruce. When it turned romantic, he'll never quite be sure, but he's loved him for so long, he doesn't remember how not to.
Bruce leans back, puts his feet up on the small table wedged between the sofa and the bed. They'd probably be more comfortable on his bed, considering they're both practically giants, but that's too much for right now. Bruce still has his hand, and he gently tugs Clark closer, encouraging him to put his head on his shoulder. Come here, you big moron.
It says something that even if he could hear the narration, he'd probably just smile and go where he's tugged. As it is, he smiles anyway. It's small and warm and content. It's not asking Bruce to smile. It just... is.
Couch is good. His head against Bruce's shoulder is also good.
Bruce closes his eyes and settles there, the side of his face resting against the top of Clark's head. The cold feeling in his chest hasn't gone away entirely, and the regret that blooms there isn't helped by how much he likes this. Part of him had hoped it'd be awkward, that their intense feelings were just that, simple frustrated runoff of their circumstances, that they'd have this moment and realize they were being ridiculous and shake it off. Because he could walk away from that and pretend it never happened, the way he's brushed aside so much in his life. He doesn't know how he's going to be able to manage it, now.
Later. He can sort it out later. Bruce laces his fingers with Clark's and lets his attention drift, doing exactly what he said he wanted to do. Just shut up, and be here.
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no subject
It takes him a second longer than he'd like to figure out what's happening, because he's stuck in a bad place in his head (which he does not want to be in for a second, or a second longer, or at all, ever). The things Joker said, the slick-jagged fingers in his brain forcing everything to be real, are too close. He broke free-- he won, he has to hold onto that, he won. But it was days ago. Days that feel unreal and dreamy because they've been days spent here, and at home in the real world, it had been no time at all when he had been sick with that for so long. He'd won his mind back and an hour after that was authorizing his suicide protocol.
And now Clark is ... having some kind of anxiety attack. Bruce stares for another second, willing himself to unscramble it.
"Kal." Snapped. Then again: "Kal. Look at me." It's the voice he uses when he's pulling someone up in the field. Not anywhere near one of his nicer voices by a thousand miles, but it's the one he knows will bring his attention back to the here and now.
When he's sure the other man is listening, he dials it back, but is still serious when he addresses him. "When I say 'not against the wall', you take a step back and say 'okay'. That's it."
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He's Superman.
And looks nothing so much like a guide animal taking commands until the words translate into meaning. God, what did he do? What the fuck did he just do?
You just assaulted your best friend. That's what you did, Kent.
You assaulted your injured, grieving, poisoned, traumatized best friend.
He was just making some quiche and he wants his glasses so badly he's crushing the handle of the knife in his hand, leaving it a misshapen lump with the imprint of his fingers deep in the metal.
"Of course," he says again, because of course. Because can we maybe not and against the wall and of course you step back and you show him how to make dinner like you said you would and then you leave and you never come back because he doesn't need you, he's never needed you like you need him, because he survived a year without you and you could hardly last fifteen minutes when that meteor exploded
When your brother died in your arms
You've never touched another person you love without their express permission in your entire life because how you feel doesn't require them to feel the same way, no matter how much they care. No matter how deep the bond between you goes.
You take a step back and say
"Okay."
no subject
"Stop it right now. We're not doing this, you're not beating yourself up over kissing me. If you'd actually lost control I'd have noticed." He would, in fact, have been crushed to death against the aforementioned wall. Quite notably, this did not occur. "That reaction was entirely about me and the shit I have been through, not you. I need you to accept it and not dwell on it, because I don't want to dwell on it."
There's a more raw, honest note to him as he finishes that terse delivery of what are almost orders (it's hard for him to communicate important things in another way). I need you to do this, for me.
no subject
But he breathes in deep, swallows again, and stands up straight. He considers asking for his glasses, seriously considers it, but if Bruce doesn't get to wear his armor for this, neither does he. He can't make it fair, but he can make it less unfair.
"I--" no "Of--" no "I shouldn't have. You've got enough on your plate. I... I don't even know what possessed me to--" dammit "I had no right."
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"I know exactly what possessed you, so come off it," he says in Kryptonese, some of the tension leaving him. "Do you want to keep working on the stale pudding you were making-" - look he doesn't know the Kryptonian word for quiche give him a break - "or do you want me to order Chinese?"
no subject
The glamorous life of a superhero.
"Call for Chinese."
He is so goddamn tired.
"At this rate, you'll end up with the knife in your ceiling, honestly."
And he knows none of them gave a first month's deposit or anything, but it's the principle of the thing. His nerves are absolutely shot, his muscle control is currently at code yellow to seriously questionable, and he has simultaneous, contradictory urges to kiss Bruce again or lock himself in the bathroom.
"And the word is quiche," he clarifies, providing the Kryptonese for it. Or at least the nearest local substitute to such a thing.
no subject
Worth noting: at no point does he move into a position where Clark is entirely out of a corner of his field of vision. If he sneaks out of here, he's a dead man, gut-wrenching conversations of weaknesses be damned. Perhaps there is actually a God out there despite Bruce's persistent disbelief, because he does not say So my point is, stop talking about your abilities to people you don't know.
When he's done he sets his phone on the counter, and walks the few feet away into the rest of the flat, looking at Clark impassively. Hopefully he's not curled into a fetal position or something.
no subject
He should have cleaned up the food. He should have... handled this whole thing. Instead, of course, he'd spiraled and pissed Bruce off and apparently, had acted in such a way that the other man either thinks he's in the midst of temporary insanity or he's resolutely pretending Nothing Happened and he's not sure he can handle either of those things.
He hadn't wanted to do it like that.
He'd had... plans. Frankly ridiculous plans, but plans all the same. Some of them had been silly, some had been more realistic, but all of them had involved waiting. He'd never intended to let Bruce know how he felt while everything was up in the air, while he was still recovering, Jesus, and while Jason was still an unknown quantity out in the city.
So when Bruce finally looks over at him impassively--
Impassively? So we're pretending this never happened.
"What?"
no subject
"You know me very well."
As much as anyone barring Alfred, or maybe Barbara. Bruce stares at him, his expression slowly creeping towards actual emotion. There's a faint line between his eyebrows, like when he's trying to make sense of something. He lets that statement hang there; Clark knows him very well. Even if their timelines are different, what he's demonstrated so far holds true to that, because even if Clark only knows the parts Bruce has let him seen, he's let him see an awful lot.
"There is never going to be a universe where I'm good at this."
It is not a fair concept in terms of overall fairness of the universe, but that doesn't exist. It's a fair concept in terms of Things That Are Wrong With Bruce Wayne. If Clark's being genuine, he can't have imagined a scenario in which Bruce magically transformed into a different person like a prince being untransformed from a frog. If Clark is going to fall apart over a reaction like that, then they are fucked, because as far as bad reactions go, this is one way down on the shallow not-really-that-bad end of the disaster pool.
no subject
"I don't even know what you think 'this' is."
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Don't leave something this fragile in my hands, he wants to say. I'm going to break it. But of course this is how it's going to happen, of course Bruce doesn't get to take a day, an hour off. It's not Clark's fault he's godawful at everything. He steels himself, taking a slow breath.
no subject
That tone, and that question, make him angry because it implies a certain amount of distrust. It implies--
"Don't you think I would have mentioned it when we were comparing notes? I know you think I'm an idiot but I should hope you'd expect me to realize that something like that would be pertinent."
And like that, that spark of anger just... dies. Because--
"Then again, maybe it's a fair question. 'Relationship'. What the hell else have we ever had, Bruce?"
no subject
"Okay."
Okay, they weren't together that way. Bruce didn't really think so, because he thinks the kicked-dog looks Clark's been giving him every so often would be slightly different if so, but he's trying to work this out.
"I don't know. A friendship, an intense one. Do you understand that my reaction five minutes ago was not revulsion about you kissing me, but something unrelated that I have been through that you had no way of knowing about?"
no subject
"Was I psychic where you come from?"
Think about what you just said, Bruce.
But he's never been the type to leave it at that, as much because he likes words, finds comfort in words, in ordering the universe with a few errant letters and a certain turn of phrase. He lets out a sigh, scrubs his face and pushes himself to sit up a little.
"I really didn't mean to kiss you earlier. I just... I was looking at you and you'd said-- and I was thinking about it and I was going to wait, Bruce. I know how much is on your plate right now, even if I don't know about whatever you're talking about."
He sucks in a breath, makes it come slow, and lets himself be tired.
"I was looking at you and I couldn't wait and I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to deal with this right now."
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"Too late," Bruce says, because he is dealing with it now, so there's no point sulking about it. And then: "I know you're not psychic. That's why I'm telling you. Do you understand?"
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But he caught that look. He knows about those jokes and most of them get broken up by Superman walking over and glaring disapprovingly. That usually spawns the jokes about the 'wife' disapproving of people making fun of her 'husband', like he can't hear those either, but he usually leaves that alone. Mostly because he'd rather not be questioned on anything in that realm of discussion.
The events earlier are a good example of why.
"You should know, though. This is... older than anything that happened to me in that other world. Or what's happened here. This is, God... Years old."
Many years old.
no subject
Joker did all those things, to Lois and that world and a child that never had to chance to even try. Joker ... who has been in Bruce's mind, has controlled Bruce's mind. From within. He can still feel it if his attention so much as drifts to the memories; he knows this isn't going to work until he has more distance from it. He knows it may not be possible for it to work at all even if he does get past it, because he's pretty sure if he tells Clark, the other man won't want anything to do with him. As well he shouldn't.
Bruce has never actually felt violated after any kind of incident before and he's had an unfortunate number of them. He's never let himself feel like a victim, because this is the kind of life he chose and all kinds of injury and trauma have befallen him because of it. He still doesn't feel like a victim, but he feels ... wrong.
"Okay," he says again, quieter this time, and some of that wrongness he feels coils into something cold in his chest. Because over the course of this encounter he's realized he probably reciprocates everything. And he can't let it happen.
Chinese food arrives. Saved by the bell.
no subject
"'Okay?'"
Because he'd said it too. While in the midst of a panic attack. Bruce was not, at least not to his senses, in any such state, shock and obvious confusion aside.
"What does 'okay' mean?"
There is nothing 'okay' about any part of this experience. Nothing.
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"Can you sick back down," he says, staring at Clark like he's trying very hard to communicate something. And he adds: "Please."
Must be serious if he's using the p-word.
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"Bruce?"
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"You're right that I'm not ready to deal with this right now. And neither are you, not really." His deep voice is subdued, looking at Clark's hand. Now he looks up, gaze calm. "Can we just sit together, just for now. Just shut up for a little while and be here."
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He doesn't pull his hand away from Bruce. Instead, he leans in and nods without a word.
Right now, there's a man sitting next to him that in all ways makes his life better. Makes him that much more human. And he gets to be with him. Just be here with him.
There's not even anything to say to that.
He's always loved Bruce. When it turned romantic, he'll never quite be sure, but he's loved him for so long, he doesn't remember how not to.
He can wait. The one thing he can do is wait.
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Bruce leans back, puts his feet up on the small table wedged between the sofa and the bed. They'd probably be more comfortable on his bed, considering they're both practically giants, but that's too much for right now. Bruce still has his hand, and he gently tugs Clark closer, encouraging him to put his head on his shoulder. Come here, you big moron.
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Couch is good. His head against Bruce's shoulder is also good.
His hand in Bruce's hands is perfect.
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Later. He can sort it out later. Bruce laces his fingers with Clark's and lets his attention drift, doing exactly what he said he wanted to do. Just shut up, and be here.