Smallville: Light and Dark

Smallville
Light and Dark: Kent and Luthor

Yin and yang.

Light and darkness.

Good and evil.

The romantic notion is that your perfect match is the 'yin to your yang'; as Lex had overheard the - mostly female - students at Smallville High saying to one another when speaking of prospective boyfriends or girlfriends as he waited outside the school to offer Clark a ride home in his early days in Smallville.

Due to the lectures from his father while growing up he knew that yin and yang were all about the possibility of both in one person. It was true, however, that some people tended to be dominant in one more than the other, and as they say, 'opposites attract'. People of the 'dark' often sought out people of the 'light'. Some to tarnish them; others to take advantage or better themselves through them. At the same time people of the light reached out to those of the dark, offering nothing more than help, compassion and friendship.

In a way he and Clark were yin and yang, though he had long forgotten which was supposed to be which. Clark was light; bright sunlight that warmed the people it touched with a smile to match and such kindness and compassion that Lex had never seen, never believed that it existed before. It unfortunately led people like Whitney to come down upon him, trying to put out that light -but Clark was resilient and always came back as bright as ever, like the sun rose every morning.

Attracted to the light was Lex, a person of the dark. It grew constantly in him; a lie here, a cheat there. Anything to get ahead. To survive.

'Survival of the fittest,' as Lionel Luthor was so fond of quoting from Darwin.

The darkness burned in Lex like a cold fire, threatening to devour him. He feared it though - no, loathed it. A Luthor doesn't fear something as trivial as the dark. He wanted to uproot himself from the dark shadow of the Luthor name and live in the light like the Kents; with Clark.

There had been many times where Lex had strayed into true darkness. Deeds so horrible it would give other people nightmares, but he always tried to come back to the light. Back to Clark.

Lex believed wholeheartedly that as long as he had Clark by his side that the darkness could never truly win him. That Clark would always pull him back from the brink and smile at him with his radiant light and his belief that Lex was a good person, ignoring all the warnings from Jonathan Kent that a Luthor could not be trusted.

"We are yin and yang; you and I," Lex told Clark as they lounged around the mansion playing pool together.

Clark, straightening his back from being bent over the pool table, looked at Lex, and then his hand as if making a comparison.

"That's that thing about light and darkness right?"

Lex nodded.

"So," Clark began, eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed slightly. "You'd be light and I'd be dark, right?"

For a moment Lex stared until he realized that Clark was suggesting to his tan line and Lex's pasty skin.

It was one of the few times the Luthor castle echoed with laughter.