You trust him.

He doesn't know this, and wouldn't believe you if you told him. But this trust is real, and in a life littered with lies and subterfuge it's one of the only honest things you have left.

It isn't absolute though, and that, you think, is what trips him up. He's always been an all or nothing kind of person. But this isn't an all or nothing proposition, because you can't trust him with the truth. Not to tell him your truth or him to tell you his. You'll both just lie to each other, knowing that's what you're doing, and if it's not trust, then at least it's understanding.

You don't like his methods and you never have (a lie, but sometimes you don't even trust yourself with the truth). Sometimes he just pisses you off with the things he does and you just want to… do a lot of things, things that you wouldn't ever do, not really. But nothing so much as to just grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he sees sense. Still, no matter how mad you get, you know that at the root of it all, he's just trying to protect and help people in his own way. And no matter how much you want to, you can't begrudge him that. Can't, because you know that if and when the fate of the world falls on his shoulders, then he can, and has, born the burden well.

You trust him with your life, which sounds corny and cliché, but it doesn't mean any less for all that. He could kill you, he could kill you in an instant if he really wished you dead. But despite evidence to the contrary, you know that's not what he wants. And if your life was ever in danger, you know he wouldn't stop until he found a way to save you.

But more than that, more than anything, you trust him with yourself. Trust that if you ever come up right to the edge he'll be there to stop you, to pull you back. And if you ever do fall headlong into the abyss, then you know that he'll do what needs to be done; trusting someone with your life goes both ways after all. And really, that's what all this, the enmity and the fighting and the threats, is. It's his way of letting you know he's watching, ready to be your insurance if he needs to.

And your dirty little secret is, that's exactly what you're doing for him. Because, and he doesn't know you know this, and might not even know it himself, he trusts you too.

A/N: You may be wondering, is this Clark or Lex POV? The answer is yes.