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tallihensia2013-11-03 06:58 pm
seagull2eagle.livejournal.com) wrote in tallihensia2013-11-03 06:58 pm
Had a Great Fall (part 3/3)
Had a Great Fall
Link to Part One or AO3.
Part Three of Three
... ... ...
Lex wearily typed a response to the latest thinly-veiled email of rebellion. It wasn't even daily, it was now almost hourly that he had to deal with the support ebbing away. While he had been able to persuade enough board members to be on his side for a buy-out, splitting himself out from the LuthorCorp field and maybe making less competition for them, that was not the same support for him ruling his own company in a position most of them had wanted to be in. Three weeks and some days, and it was still every man for himself, with no consensus in sight.
He was trying his best, working to all hours, being seen by the workers and the members, not making any major changes... not that he was allowed to, without having been confirmed. The initial meeting had been more of a review of the situation, and it had been dominated with the power struggles as each tried to be the new voice of the company. Yet none of them could replace Lionel Luthor, not even his son. Lex had tried. He had really tried. And if he'd had a few more years, perhaps he would have made it. If his father's last move hadn't been to discredit and belittle him. If his father hadn't died while visiting his son.
That email sent, Lex stared at the monitor for a long moment, trying to pick out the next one to respond to. They were all important, all needed answering, and none of them were hopeful.
Abruptly, Lex got up and walked to the windows. The glass went from the ceiling to the floor, showing Metropolis stretching out below. The lights starting to come on as twilight crept over the city in the late setting of the sun that heralded the start of summer. Most workers had long gone home, off to families and friends, or just to their own company with their own entertainment and relaxation. All except for Lex Luthor, up in his crystal tower, fighting tooth and nail to hold onto it. Using his father's lessons to the best of his ability and hating every moment of it.
Somewhere in Smallville, there was a quiet family. One that had brought in the cows and fed the horses and chickens and were sitting down to a delicious home-cooked meal. With talk about the table that would be of their daily doings, the repairs to buildings around town, who was out of the hospital and who was still in it, and possibly, maybe, a curiosity over how Lex was doing. Maybe. Lex couldn't help but want it, even as he knew he didn't belong. Their love, their strength, their devotion to each other... it was all that a family should be; it was nothing that his had been. If they knew what Lex was doing now to try and keep his father's company, they would be disgusted.
Lex leaned his head against the glass, and tried not to let his fear of heights get the better of him. He could control it, he would control it. His father didn't like weaklings and a weakling couldn't run LuthorCorp.
His father was dead. Smushed under concrete and wood, that he himself had set up to fail by allowing the bribes during the construction of the castle. Lex wondered a little at that, but perhaps his father never had any intention of ever staying there. Just for a visit, and what were the odds he would be there just then? Odds were for breaking, for overcoming, for succeeding where people expected one to fail. His father had created LuthorCorp from nothing. He would be so embarrassed to see his son letting it slip through his fingers now.
But Lionel had no more to say about it, buried twelve feet under, in an ornate closed coffin that didn't show how little of Lionel there had been left to bury. Flat as a rail, yet the coffin suggested a complete body, unbent, unbowed, unbroken. Yet still lowered into the ground. Nell had done his dad proud, handling it just the way Lionel would have wanted, yet flexible enough to not destroy Lex in the process. Lex had often wished when he was younger that his dad had married Nell. He wasn't sure, but he thought he might even have asked. But Nell loved Smallville, and she loved her niece, and though she would mingle easily in high society, she chose instead to stay loyal to where she was. Somehow remaining friends with Lionel, though, and not losing that of herself. Lex rather admired Nell for it. He didn't think her niece did, though.
That was one thing he wouldn't miss about Smallville. He'd initially liked the little spunky entrepreneur who had caught Clark's eye. After the opening of the Talon, however, when Lana had gone running around telling everybody that Lex wasn't to be trusted and standing there at the opening party while hearing everything she'd said told over and over to him again with laughter in their voices... Lex was thoroughly tired of her. She wouldn’t even have the Talon if it wasn’t for him, but she seemed to have forgotten that the moment it had opened, or even before. Lex wished Whitney well of his girlfriend and hoped that the erstwhile would-be soldier was back to stay. Clark had told Lex all about Whitney's return -- "I can't go off to fight in another land when my own family at home needs me after the tornados," he'd said, and the military had apparently agreed and delayed the enlistment. Lex had had nothing to do with it. Really, he hadn't. Even if Clark still wanted Lana, Lex wouldn't be helping to promote that match anymore. Whitney could have Lana and his blessings with it. Chloe would be a much better girlfriend for Clark.
In his heart of hearts, Lex didn't believe that Clark really loved him. Kissed him back, yes. Had kissed him many more times since. Seemed to be delighted with Lex's presence. But without Lex there, it would fade. Clark would find somebody better, more suited to him, more honorable... better.
The intercom buzzed.
Lex jerked off the window, feeling as caught as if his father had just walked in. He walked to the desk, his father's desk now his, and pressed the button. "Yes?"
"Mr. Luthor, sorry to bother you. There's a Clark Kent here who insists that you'll let him in. We don't have an approved list for you set up, and your secretary has gone home. We can have them thrown out if you like."
Lex felt his mouth falling open. The funeral had been two weeks ago. There was no reason for Clark to be here, and he could have emailed or called. What was he doing there?
Just then, his cell phone rang. Lex looked at the caller ID. Clark. With a shake of his head, he answered it. "Clark, what on earth are you doing?"
"Lex, they won't let us up! Did you tell them not to let us in?"
His boyfriend was such a teenager. Lex clicked the intercom and spoke so that both the person on the other end and Clark on the cell phone could hear. "Daniel, please let Clark up, and add him to the list of approved visitors."
Clark's "Thank you!" overlapped with Daniel's "And what about his parents?"
Jonathan and Martha were here too? Lex gulped. He was truly in the fire, wasn't he? "They're also allowed and to be placed on the list."
After he'd hung up with both, Lex hurried to the restroom to check over how he looked. No hair to worry about, but he did smooth out the suit and straighten the sling. Not much he could do about the tired-looking eyes. He splashed a bit of water on his face and called it done and went back out.
And waited.
After about fifteen minutes had gone by, the cell phone rang again.
Lex snatched it up. "Where are you?" He and Clark spoke together, their voices overlaying each other in near unison.
They both paused. Lex spoke again first. "I take it you didn't get lost on the way up to the office?"
"Office?" Clark sounded horrified. "Lex, it's 9pm at night! What are you still doing in the office?!"
Ah. Lex quashed his impulse to run his hand over his head, said hand occupied with holding the phone and the other still immobilized. "You're in the penthouse." The hazards of working and living in the same building; the phrase "let them up" could apply to either. His father would never have made that mistake. His father wouldn't have let them up in the first place. Well, maybe to the office. "Hold on, I'll be right there."
He hung up before Clark could say anything more, and tried not to run to the elevators. There were still security cameras, and even though guards were paid for discretion, Lex would rather not give them something to be discreet about. The Kents coming to visit would be hard enough to explain away.
After he'd moved into the penthouse, he'd had the security cameras there disabled. Too much chance of Clark coming over, though he'd really hoped Clark wouldn't. Security had protested, but they complied. Just as they had at the castle. In this case, though, Lex got the impression that nobody expected him to be there for very long. The penthouse went along with LuthorCorp. Nest of the vulture. Not simply by family name.
The second he'd closed the door, Lex was babbling apologies, which in their turn were drowned out by glad words of greeting and a pile of arms hugging him, passing him from one Kent to the other. He ended up at Mr. Kent, who didn't accept the outstretched hand and instead also drew Lex into one of his strong rough hugs before letting him go and holding him at arm's length to study.
"Burning the midnight oil too much," was the pronouncement, "You look like you need some rest, Lex."
It was better than the more blunt "you look like shit" that he'd been expecting. Even Jonathan apparently modulated his speech around his wife. Lex smiled wanly. "There's a lot to do, Sir."
"It's Jonathan," Clark's dad reminded him yet again, before making way for Clark to come back for second hugs, worming his way in on Lex's good side and snaking an arm around Lex's waist. God help him, Lex melted into that embrace. He literally did, his whole body molding to Clark's and his support changing from his own two feet to Clark's instead. On his own, he could stand alone. When Clark was there...
"We're going to go into the kitchen," Martha announced, reaching out to tug on her husband's arm. "It looks as if you need some dinner, dear." With a few more words of reassurance, she and Jonathan disappeared into the depths of the penthouse. Lex was sure she'd be able to find the kitchen, even though she'd never seen it before.
When they were gone, Lex turned into Clark as Clark turned into him, and the embrace became a full-fronted one, each of them caught up in the other, and mouths reaching to kiss as they hadn't with parents there. Bless Martha Kent.
They merged for a time that was indefinite and infinity and yet too short and not long enough. Just at the moment before it became too heated, Clark moved them that necessary inch back to cool down. Lex had no idea how Clark did it, knew just how much was going to be too much. One would think Lex would be better at it than Clark, having had a lot more experience and being the older one. But Lex had no self control when it came to Clark. It was a good thing they were cities away normally.
They weren't cities away now. "What are you doing here?" Lex whispered, his lips reaching up again for Clark's, even as he questioned it.
The kiss that Clark gave him was a tamer version of the ones they'd been exchanging, lips to skin and just that, yet somehow almost as satisfying. Clark moved the inch away again. "You didn't come."
"What?"
"You were supposed to come home on the weekends. You had to be here for business during the week, we get that, but you didn't come home to us." Clark settled his hands on Lex's waist and squeezed gently, as if to remind him just where he belonged.
How Lex wished it was. He smiled sadly, "Business doesn't stop on Fridays, not when there's a power struggle over something as big as LuthorCorp. Dinners and lunches and meetings... the weekends are business too."
Clark removed his hands from Lex, took a step away, and placed them on his own hips, frowning. "That's not what you told us before. You said you'd be back on the weekends."
Lex shrugged. "I didn't actually say that..."
A low rumbling voice came from the doorway. "If you imply it, and people believe it, then you've said it true, whether the words were there or not, Lex. What did I tell you about that?"
Jonathan came into the room, filling it with almost as much presence as Lex's dad had done, though it was a very different feel.
Even prepared, Lex wasn't entirely sure he'd controlled the flinch at the reminder of his dressing down on the way to the farm. Jonathan hadn't minced words then, and when a sober, awake Lex had later reflected on them, he had to admit that the farmer had a lot of good points. It was things like this that made Lex such a bad person in their eyes. No, he hadn't said it... but he'd known darn well what he was doing. At the time, it was the only way to keep the Kents from following him to Metropolis – to protect them. Lex had been sure once he was here that they would have forgotten about him. Or at least given up on him, eventually.
From the way Jonathan was frowning at him, Lex was pretty sure he knew that. Clark hadn't gotten that far, still thinking Lex was a better person than he was. Jonathan knew better, though, and was shrewd enough to counter it. Lex obviously hadn't been giving the farmer nearly as much credit over the last year as he should have been.
"Come on, boys," Jonathan said gruffly but with affection. "Martha has dinner ready for us."
Lex wondered how long he and Clark had been tied up in each other. It hadn't been that long, surely...
"We brought some with us," Clark murmured to Lex as he grabbed Lex's hand to walk with him. "It just needed warming up."
That was a bit of a relief to know. Lex hadn't completely lost all of his senses, though sometimes it felt like it. He glanced down at his hand in Clark's and thought that he was twenty-one years old, he shouldn't be this giddy. He knew what calf-love was, what crushes were... enough time, and you got over them. Clark shouldn't make him feel like this. Yet he couldn't help the joy just the simple touch was bringing.
He got pulled into his own dining room, formerly his father's, and somehow Martha had made it a home. Lex knew this table, knew these chairs, the walls, the paintings, the austere and regal feel to it where you couldn't be silly or frivolous and could only talk about serious stuff and only ever laugh if you were Lionel or laughing at one of Father's jokes. Despite knowing that... Lex walked into the room and smelled Martha's home-cooked food, saw simple mashed potatoes and breaded chicken on Dad's expensive plates, the glasses of water and milk beside the plates – no wine at all – and saw her welcoming smile that was for him and said that she was glad to see him, and instantly the room became Martha's home, not his dad's past. Such a transformation, so quickly. Something that he'd always wanted, and here... without his parents.
"Are you okay?" Clark whispered next to him.
Lex busied himself taking off the sling and air cast, distracting himself from the prickles in his eyes and blinking where they couldn't see.
"Should you be taking that off?" Martha wondered, concern in her voice, and Lex was sure it was concern about more than just the arm.
He shrugged and opened his arms wide, without hitting anybody. "See for yourself," he challenged Clark. "How is my arm?"
"It's... um," Clark blinked in that way that indicated he was switching through his vision. "It's all better. There's something... a scar?... a bit thicker?... where the break was, but I don't see the break itself anymore." He turned a puzzled gaze on Lex.
Lex stretched his right arm and scratched at where the air cast had confined it. "I told you I shouldn't have made it out of the castle." He tried to be matter of fact about it, when really it was something he'd only grown to suspect through that long long night, and then confirmed with his arm. "My white blood count was through the roof several months back. I'm apparently another one of Smallville's oddities."
There was a little silence.
"Well, you'll fit right in, then." Jonathan pulled out the chair across the table from Lex, next to Martha, and sat down.
With a slight scraping of the other chairs, Martha and Clark also took their places and Lex was left scrambling into his own.
He supposed after accepting an alien baby as their own, that a simple mutant wasn't really that much of a stretch. The Luthor name was probably the harder part to get over. That, and Lex's own actions.
Clark grabbed Lex's hand again under the table, and Lex felt the smile appearing on his face and his fears involuntarily receded. Clark had grabbed Lex's right hand to Clark's left, so they could both eat with their regular hands above the table and not let go underneath.
"Did you get the new cow from Emerson all settled in with the others?" Martha calmly passed the green beans around while she asked her husband about normal farm happenings.
Lex was sure they didn't normally eat dinner at 9pm, and they'd had plenty of time to talk on the long drive to Metropolis. They'd done all this for Lex. This, and the conversation too. He gripped Clark's hand, then let go to accept the bowl of beans and serve himself with their love and acceptance.
...
It was the strangest, strangest thing to be reclining on his dad's couch, tucked in Clark's arms, talking comfortably with the Kents. Lex was sure there had been a rabbit hole somewhere that he'd fallen down.
They'd moved from the farm and Smallville at dinner, to the boardroom in the family room.
At dinner, Lex had asked about the town and the people, about the Sullivans and the plant, about Lana and Whitney, and the farm lands recovering from the tornados.
Here, it was Martha and Jonathan drawing out of Lex what had been happening at LuthorCorp, and even Clark putting in a periodic intelligent question to show he'd been following along.
Lex felt the better for talking about it with somebody else, somebody that he trusted, yet at the same time he was almost despairing more as talking it out showed how very hopeless it was. He was not the man his father was. Not yet, and perhaps not ever. He was not so ruthless as his dad, and the cuts from the boardroom wounded him. Jonathan said this was a good thing. Lex wasn't sure, but he didn't know what he could do about it. If he hadn't learned what he needed to learn by this time under his dad's intensive tutelage... It was hard to feel bad about that, though, wrapped in Clark's arms. If he'd been his dad's true son, he could not have been Clark's boyfriend.
"Alright," Jonathan finally said. "Let's take a step back from all this. Forget what's happening right now, and look at the bigger picture."
Lex nodded, thinking of the reach of LuthorCorp and all the various companies under its umbrella. LuthorCorp was a diverse company, not specializing in any one product, but branching out to provide management and ownership in diverse regions. They had fertilizer factories, chip manufacturers, drug compilers, and research laboratories, to think of but a few.
"Yes," Martha agreed with her husband, and leaned a bit forward, out of his arms and towards Lex. "Lex, what do you want to do?"
And just like that, all of Lex's great thoughts were blown away in a puff. "I want my company," Lex said, but the words weren't as decisive as they usually were when he was talking to the board.
"It was your dad's company, and sons don't always have to follow in their parents' footsteps," Jonathan pulled Martha back to him.
Lex had heard a little bit about how Martha's father had been furious when she didn't become a lawyer like him. As her dad's only child, her father had groomed her regardless of her gender. On the other side, Jonathan maintained the family farm himself, yet he didn't expect Clark to. In fact, fully thought that Clark would leave when he was of age. Lex had never thought about not being his father's son. Even if it hadn't been true in his youth, it was what he'd focused on for the last few years, after he'd done inadvertently proving there wasn't anything he could do to make his dad leave him alone from disgust at the drugs and partying.
"I am a Luthor," he said softly. Testing the words more than declaring them.
"You can make what you want to of being a Luthor," Martha said firmly. "Your father's father was a different man, and so was his."
Lex knew almost nothing about his grandparents or his ancestry before them. His dad had brought the castle over yet had made much about being a self-made man. Lex had often suspected the history was nothing to be proud of. "My father built the company. He wanted me to have it."
"Funny way he had of showin--- ow." Jonathan's words were broken off, presumably by an elbow to the ribs.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Honey!" Martha instantly reached to look. "I forgot about your bruise."
Lex grinned at Jonathan's words. He actually liked the farmer's blunt way of speaking and didn't mind the irreverence towards his father. He had enough of the ones who thought that the great Lionel could do no wrong and the world loved him dear. Except for those whom Lionel had fired or screwed over. His dad had mostly had flunkies do that, though, so his great charisma wouldn't be dimmed in the eyes of those who had only superficially met him. Smallville tended to be an exception to the rule.
"He was training me," Lex replied with a shrug. He'd always known where his dad had gone with the lessons, even if they were lessons that had hurt him to the bone. Sealing Lex in a factory with a madman had been purely practical with the plant about to blow. Sending Lex into a factory primed with lies to the madman had been teaching Lex that the best way to keep a secret was to not let others know about it, no matter what. The lies had hurt worse than the gun to the head. But Lex had learned from it. He knew he would have learned from the shutdown of the Smallville plant as well. If Lex had succeeded in the buy-out, his dad would have grinned that shark's grin of his and conceded a move and then retreated to plan the next. It would have been war, but it would have also always been training. Lex believed that.
"Lex, dear," Martha pulled Lex back to the current world with her voice and gentle acceptance, "what do you want to do?"
This time, Lex didn't give back the obvious answer. He relaxed into Clark's arms and thought about how they felt around him and how much he wanted this. Simply this. Clark. His family. The love they had that he'd never before been offered yet somehow seemed to be on the offering table now. Could he have it? Lex didn't believe it. Not for real. Clark would grow up and leave him, and then he wouldn't have the Kents either. But it was a very nice dream.
"I'd like..." Lex said slowly, feeling it out, "to do research. There's a lot we don't know, particularly about the meteorites and their effects."
The Kents stirred, and Clark's arm around him tightened, but none of them said anything.
Heartened, Lex went on. "Sometimes the effects are good, sometimes horrible... we should find out what the difference is, and how we can help those hurt by them, like Earl and Jodi. We need to protect Clark while we do it and divorce him from the meteors so there's no connection, anywhere, in anybody's mind, ever. We need to find a way to neutralize what they do to Clark." Still no protests, and even a firm nod from Jonathan at the last. Greatly daring, Lex advanced his wildest ideas, "Where did Clark come from? Does he have siblings who also made it to Earth? Where did they go, if they are here? Who are they with?"
Martha sat bolt upright, tearing herself out of Jonathan's arms. "There was only one spaceship! We poked around, carefully, asked where we could without giving anything away."
"We looked through the whole range of where the meteors came down," Jonathan rumbled, sitting up himself. "There wasn't another ship, and Clark's pod only had room for him and no more." He reached out and drew Martha back to him. "We did think about that."
"I never did," Clark said in a wondering voice behind Lex's ear.
Jonathan rolled his eyes. "You didn't know you were an alien until Lex ran into you. You had a few other things on your mind."
Lex winced. Having his theories of what had happened on that day confirmed hadn't been quite as satisfying as he'd always thought they'd be. Instead, it just made him feel more and more guilty every time he remembered the impact. If Clark hadn't been an alien coming into his powers.... Lex shivered.
Clark hugged him again, and rested his head on top of Lex's. Lex wouldn't say he'd never been with a larger man... but it was rare. The times he had, he'd reveled in being dominated and owned. Clark's ownership, though, was a very different thing, tempered with his gentleness, youth, and the parental permission all around them. Though no sex yet. Lex didn't know if there would ever be sex. Clark was more careful about that than he was, the few times they'd gotten together before the funeral. And Lex shouldn't even be thinking such things in the presence of his boyfriend's parents.
Firmly, he forced his thoughts back. "There could have been other showers in other areas. I haven't heard of any, but I can check and find out. If I had a company that was interested in space research and exploration... what better cover? It would be the natural thing to check on, and we could gather up the rocks without anybody knowing otherwise." Lex was honestly surprised that somebody hadn't pounced on Smallville sooner, notwithstanding the unusual properties of the meteorites. It was like there was a giant mind-blur around the town that made people outside of it ignore it and people inside indifferent, with a few rare exceptions like his father and Dr. Hamilton and Nixon. "Or maybe it would be better to leave it alone. Not draw anybody's attention to it." Curiosity in and of itself wasn't a good thing. Lex learned, really he did. And he wasn't going to risk Clark for anything.
"I think..." Martha said hesitantly, "it would be good. In small moves. The search for other children. Finding out if we can help those harmed. That would be good, if..." she didn't say the rest. They all knew it. If they could do it without risking Clark.
"Does LuthorCorp have any companies like that now?" Jonathan asked, turning it back to the present.
"A few..." Lex shuddered. He'd been accessing his father's hidden records, spending his nights ferreting out the codes and access, following clues in vaults and hints in records. His dad had been very cagy about it, and Lex now knew why in more detail than he wanted to. There had been a few times he'd had to run to the bathroom to throw up, thinking of what would have happened if his father had ever gotten ahold of Clark. Surely it was wrong to be glad your own father was dead. Surely it was.
"Can you take control of those companies? Those alone, plus a couple others for cover, form a smaller company, and then let go of the rest?"
"Let go..." Lex squirmed his way out of Clark's arms and resettled on the other side of the couch. "What are you saying?" His voice turned hard, and he didn't try and modulate it.
Jonathan promptly lowered his eyes and turned very slightly away, his body language shifting to something that wouldn't provoke an enraged bull or maddened horse.
Lex had to twitch his lips at the thought of himself pawing at the ground. But he had to admit, it was almost as effective a technique, disarming Lex before he'd finished gearing up for battle. "What do you mean?" he asked more softly.
"Bite off what you can chew," Martha said carefully, treading so gently Lex could almost see the strokes. "Don't try and do so much that it all crashes down."
"Hold what you can manage, let others take care of what you cannot," Jonathan said, still with the non-confrontational attitude.
Lex snorted, "Oh, you mean like you have?"
After he saw Martha's eyes widen and heard Clark's gasp, Lex realized what he'd said. He felt his ears burn and wished the couch would open up and let him sink through.
Jonathan's startled gaze lifted to met Lex's and there was a pause in the air. Then Jonathan laughed. "Okay, I deserve that one. Yeah." His gaze went inward and he sighed heavily. "Yeah. It's hard. None know it better than I, that's for sure. I may not have a heap of companies, but I'm sure trying to hold more than I can keep right now, and nobody's dared to tell me otherwise."
"Yes, they have," Martha murmured at his side.
Jonathan rolled his eyes. "I haven't listened. I'll admit that straight up. I haven't listened and my family has suffered for it, and our problems haven't kept Clark any safer for it – may have even brought more attention to it, the way I use him without thinking about it."
"I've never minded, Dad," Clark put in. "I like working on the farm and helping you out!"
"And being exposed where anybody can see you." Jonathan shook his head. "I shouldn't have done it. It was freedom for you while you were growing and learning your powers, but it became too easy, and even despite all you do, we're still always in danger of losing the farm. A second mortgage isn't an easy thing to pay with the first still out there." He sighed. "Lex is right. I'll have to do my own retrenching. Can't ask him to, if I'm not willing to do the same."
That was unexpected. And took the fight right out of it. If Mr. Kent was considering it....
Lex couldn't sit still. He got up and walked around the room. He drew back the curtain and looked out at the city lights. Once, he'd considered it his heritage. Not just LuthorCorp, but the whole of the city. It would have been his. All he had to do was reach out to gather it up as pieces in the game.
Clark got up from the couch and followed him over. He didn't touch him, but stood near, also looking out. "Don't let them bully you," he said quietly.
That was so completely opposite what Lex was expecting, he turned to look at Clark. "What?"
Clark grimaced. "I know the signs, they talked this out ahead of time, but they didn't tell me. Do what you want to do, but I won't let them treat you like a kid. I trust you, no matter what."
Trust. Lex looked back outside at the city. His dad had never trusted him. Ever.
After a moment longer, Clark touched Lex's shoulder, then quietly left.
It wasn't quite a direct choice between LuthorCorp and Clark... but it was close. If Lex chose LuthorCorp, he would be constantly fighting and struggling, using his father's lessons to win for that was how one survived. He would be doing public interviews and living a public life with reporters surrounding him and always trying to get a story. Clark could not be risked in that life of Lex's, not ever. Roger Nixon had been bad enough, and he was a small-time bit player. Now dead by Lex's hand. Lex shivered, remembering the way the man had fallen. He didn't ever want to have to kill anybody ever again. Though he knew he would if he had to. As Jonathan had said earlier, though, the trick was not doing things that put you in a situation where things came back on you. Came back on those you loved.
If Lex made this smaller company and let the bigger one go... he'd be a failure. A failure from what his father wanted for him, and a failure in the world's eyes. Reporters didn't follow after failures.
Lex let the curtain drop and went back to the couch, settling in next to Clark and feeling Clark's arms wrap around him.
Jonathan and Martha looked at him, curled in their own embrace, easy and trusting. Trusting in Lex, expecting him to do the right thing. Not the business thing, not the thing that would make the most money, but the right thing.
Lex would rather have Clark, no matter what. Clark and his family. Lex might have lost his own family, and he might be giving up his original hopes and dreams... but it was to a richer gain than any he could have dreamed of before, and greater hopes. He didn’t know how long he’d have Clark for, but however long, it would be long enough.
"Let’s plan." Lex had been shattered from his great fall, everything around him in pieces and everything falling apart no matter how hard he'd tried to put it back together again. All the king's men and all the king's horses may not have even been enough to put him back together again. But perhaps the love of an amazing alien and his family could.
[Poll #1941793]
Story Notes
- For the early parts, this story floats in and out of the 'Tempest' and 'Vortex' episodes. Bits of the dialog are either directly or adapted from the show transcript. This use was intended to enhance the fan's enjoyment of the deviation of the rest of the story by showing how it could have gone differently. The order in which things happened after the castle fell were deliberately changed from canon. Every change follows upon another, and eventually, it's a different world altogether.
- When Lex is trapped underneath: "I'm not dead yet" – Monty Python; "only mostly dead" – Princess Bride.
- The church basement where Jonathan and Nixon were trapped... honestly, in the show, having a trailer blown on top of it was just beyond ridiculous and stupid script writing. Why not just have trees thrown around by the storm down? Makes a heck of a lot more sense. I don't know how many readers will even notice it... but I changed that part. Just because I thought the trailer was so stupid. I tried to stay fairly true to the rest of it.
- I had to put the bit about Whitney in there. Perhaps a minor fix in the midst of everything else in there, but… had to. It was ridiculous that he *wouldn't* come back after hearing what had happened.
- No, there's not going to be a sequel. ;p
- Link to Fruitbat's LJ page with all the art compiled.
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Loved the final discussion with the Kents about letting go - and yay to getting Jonathan to agree to the same. The best moment though was Clark's advice at the end: 'Don't let them bully you.' So great to see that moment of trust.
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Clark's still young himself, but he's attached himself to Lex now and won't let Lex get away. Jonathan and Martha are still the ones who have the experience to see what Lex is going through the most, though. I was going to do more about Jonathan and the farm, but this was really the end piece to the Clark and Lex in the story so they needed to be there more.
Glad you liked it! :)
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