Hello! Do you know how the compulsive need to write fanfic can suddenly just pounce on you and squeeze you to obey even though you really don’t want to write anything? Especially since every episode of SV I’m seeing (am now at s5.8) convinces me more that the show’s actually going to be crap? And that, with more than one and a half season to go, I’m probably missing some really important points that would make this story so AU I’ll probably won’t be able to finish it even if I wanted?
But anyway…: ) This popped up in my head. I have no clue what it’ll be. Lex is in it. Chloe’s in it. Clark will probably be in it. There will be OCs that won’t be Mary Sues. I’m not sure if it will be shippy or completely gen—but on the redeeming side, it will definitely have plot! Yay!
Soo. Let me know what you think. If it stinks, tell me so I can burn it and put some antiseptic on it.
Blockage
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to S. 5, with little snaps from later seasons, depending on what I find preposterous and what usable : )
One: in which Lex saves children
Metropolis was in the grip of a disgusting, weak winter that filled the streets with dirty slush and had people slipping, tripping and falling through occasionally ankle-deep muck. Any virginal snow descending feather-like from the heavens was carefully scheduled in the hours between two and five in the very early morning, so that no one ever saw a fluffy-white blanket with twinkling city lights; around sunrise thaw would set in and by the time it was light enough to see, the white had turned to gray, brown or piss-yellow, and only served to inspire curses that were better left unsaid so close to Christmas time as business people slid and glided over the slippery streets to their jobs.
Lex Luthor abhorred Metropolis in December. Firstly because the closer the year’s last month drew towards its end and the more joyous the city’s buzz became, the more morose he felt, not, never, feeling even the slightest bit of anticipation about celebrating Christmas—not with anyone he was in any way related to, anyway. Christmas with his father and the inevitable throng of guests (Christmas with Lionel as his only companion had actually resulted in a near-suicide attempt and he wasn’t keen on experiencing that again) usually kept him more or less pleasantly occupied, and more often than not he’d wake up in bed next to some pretty woman in the morning, but to say that it was a time of comfort and joy really was an exaggeration.
The second reason why Lex hated Metropolis in December, and even more with this horrible warm winter, was the amount of snot dripping, being wiped and blown into hankies, sprayed and sneezed in his presence. Half of Metropolis was ill with this bug, not even his bodyguards and colleagues had escaped, and while he stood in the elevator to the twenty-third floor of LuthorCare, he gritted his teeth while he listened to the slobbering sound of Miss Decan snorting what sounded like half a liter of mucus into her Kleenex. Where did she keep all that stuff before it came out? Surely you couldn’t keep that much snot anywhere in your head? Perhaps she had been mutated by the Kryptonite they used in this place, and had turned into a snot-freak. Special power: spontaneous nasal cavity growth to store phlegm. A snot monster. He closed his eyes as she stuffed her soggy hanky into the pocket of her lab coat, fished a new one out of the package and continued her honking. To think he had considered asking her out after this visit. He shivered at the thought of kissing her.
“Does it ever stop?” Lex couldn’t help asking when floor 18 up to 22 had past and she was still blowing. Just as the elevator came to a standstill with a modest ‘ping’ she wiped her nose and shot him a watery smile.
“I’m beginning to lose hope.” She looked at him with clear envy, and for friendship’s sake he tried not to smirk.
Lex Luthor did not get colds. Lex Luthor’s face was smooth and pale from shiny pate to hairless jaw; no chapped lips, no raw nose, no swollen eyes or fever-blotched cheeks; he was staring at her down his long nose with a slight smile that held a hint of pity, no compassion at all, and a not unfounded revulsion.
“I’m not even allowed to go with you to visit the kids,” she continued, leading him through the hallways in a cadence of clicking heels. “Too risky with their resistance so far down.” She brought a new Kleenex to her face and sneezed explosively. Lex winced.
“I’m surprised there are any people at all present,” he said, then studied the deserted hallways and asked, “Are there?”
Miss Decan made a strenuous effort at tinkling laughter and produced a sound rather like a hog reaching orgasm. Lex had heard that sound in Smallville, and had not thought he would ever hear it again. He had to bite his lip to keep from laughing in her face.
“Seven on this floor,” she said, rubbing her temple. “They keep to the coffee room and the treatment and bed rooms. I’m going to drop you off there—banished by illness, you see.” Her smile was tremulous and fake. Valerie Decan loved her patients as much as they loved her, and Lex realized that her disappointment at not being able to accompany him did not in the slightest refer to him, but to the fact that she wouldn’t be able to see her kids. “Anyone displaying even a sign of the flu isn’t allowed in. Which reminds me, Lex, you’ll have to don…”
“I know, I know,” he said impatiently. They had reached the cantina. Six people sat sprawled around a table, coffee cups piled up in a tower in the middle of the table. One of them saw them coming through the windows, hastened to his feet and opened the door.
“Mister Luthor,” a man not much older than Lex said, holding out his hand. Lex shook it, feeling relieved when he detected no sign of cold in the man’s pink face. “Valerie.”
“He’s all yours, David,” Miss Decan said. “Mister Luthor, please call me when you’re ready. I’ll come and pick you up again.”
Lex studied her slumped figure. She really looked awful. “Why,” he said, “won’t you just let me let myself out and go home to get some rest? I really doubt you’ll beat your cold hanging around this germ-infested building.” Valerie Decan’s facial expression was hard to read because of her watery eyes and swollen nose; he thought she might be incredulous. He gave her an encouraging smile.
“My work…” she began, but he gently interrupted her with the honest truth: “Won’t go anywhere. You’re sick. Go home and to bed. Take a few days off until you can face your kids again. How long are you contagious again, after the worst’s passed? Two day? Three? I’m sure you’d be better much sooner if you go home now, than when you stay here pushing yourself. Don’t you agree, mister Reese?”
Reese nodded, and after a few mumbled protests, Miss Decan nodded her defeat. Lex waved at her when she looked back on her way to the elevator, and David Reese laughed.
“Congratulations, Mister Luthor. So far no one’s been able to make her go home, even though it’s clear she can’t see the kids in her condition.” He placed a light hand in the small of Lex’s back to usher him in, immediately pulling back the moment Lex started to move. Mister Luthor-call-me-Lex might be Mister Congeniality himself, but he didn’t much like to be touched.
“Well,” drawled Lex, “So far it wasn’t her boss that told her to leave. Being a CEO does have it advantages, occasionally.” He inclined his head at the men and women at the table. “Ladies. Gentlemen.” He took a deep breath. “So let’s get me decontaminated and unhazarded and at the mercy of these kids.”
*
It had all started a little less than a year ago, when the medical world was in upheaval about a recently discovered, frighteningly aggressive form of pancreal cancer that seemed to only hit children below the age of fifteen. Between moment of identification of the cancer and time of death were roughly ten to twenty days, no exceptions. No recovery, no life-lengthening operations, nothing. When this cancer struck, the child died, and no treatment as of yet made any difference.
When Lex found out about the cancer ten months ago, he funded a research, provided the lab, and urged the specialists to erase the words ‘terminal’ and ‘untreatable’ from their dictionary. Cancer still was a bit of an obsession of his (while he was reading that first bleak and dooming report, he had unconsciously dug up his mother’s watch from the drawer he kept it in, and was slightly surprised to find it all but blocking the blood stream to his right hand because he’d fastened it above his Seiko), and whenever there was a new strain of it, Lex felt the compulsive need to battle it like a personal enemy.
He had added another twenty million to his team’s funds after watching a TV program discussing the traumatic effects of this terrible, fatal disease. It featured seven parents crying over their son’s or daughter’s cold corpse/bed/favorite teddy bear/pet—it was cheap, tear-jerking television, a shameless exposure of people’s deepest grief, and the greedy dramatics of the TV presenter made Lex drink too much, too quick, and throw his glass against the wall, but it undoubtedly achieved what it had set out to do: it made people aware. It also made Lex Luthor bawl like a little girl and start serious investigations.
The moment he found out that the cancer was caused by a LuthorCorp-developed (LuthorCorp, not LexCorp, thank god), long since abandoned and destroyed type of crop fertilizer that just happened to have contaminated a few batches of grain that had then been distributed all over the country in the form of granola bars, he had first drunk himself into a stupor and then drawn up a plan and stuck to it.
All links connecting LuthorCorp and the Fertilizer were destroyed. There were very few in the first place, which was why it took him so long to find a trace, but after Lex’s intervention it was impossible to see any connection at all.
All children with the symptoms of the new Cradle Cancer were given the opportunity to get sponsored treatment at LuthorCare. Lex’s spokesman appeared on television seven times to remind America that all local hospitals were qualified to do blood tests, and that, if one’s child seemed uncommonly tired, had lost its appetite, or seemed ill, it was a good idea to just TAKE one of these tests.
All Newspapers were called to publish Lex Luthor’s campaign against cancer speech, in which he mentioned his own experiences with a loved one dying of cancer and said that he saw it his personal duty to conquer the disease.
All people of Metropolis saw a small piece of Lex Luthor’s soul on television that evening, and whether they liked him or not, they saw the passion in his eyes, heard the emotion in his voice, and knew that smirking serpent or not, Lex Luthor was going to go against Cradle Cancer like Saint George against the Dragon, and he would ultimately triumph or die in the attempt.
The morning after that particular broadcast Lex found 800 letters on his desk (all opened, checked for bombs and BSE powder) from people touched by his speech. There also was a text message from Chloe Sullivan. It only read You know you want to give me another interview! and a smiley, but it made him smile. Not as much, though, as the email he got from Clark. He was sure it was meant to be cold, but somehow the words Lex, if Julius Caesar had been able to orate like you did yesterday, he’d have died in bed instead of bleeding out in front of the senate. You made Lois cry. Congratulations. sounded almost affectionate.
Lois had also sent him a letter, since she did not have his private email address. It threatened to find out whether this whole cancer thing was linked to LuthorCorp in the first place, and if so, she’d have his shining head on a platter, but he only smirked and put it back on the pile with the other letters. He wasn’t afraid of Lois Lane. She might have a nose like a greyhound, but Luthor-covered dirt was very hard to find and even more difficult to dig up—and in this case Lex had been very, very thorough in burying it.
Over the next few days he received another total of 3.541 letters, which was a bit of a record, especially since 98 percent of those letters proclaimed their support and called him a savior, which was quite a difference from the ‘you’re the antichrist!’ mailings he usually got after a broadcast.
And so the normally rather insignificant suffering of others had become his personal crusade. In between business meetings and company takeovers, he visited the labs of LuthorCare, encouraged his specialists to work with green, black, red, yellow, orange and any other color meteorite, which he took care never to call Kryptonite, and donated a total of three liters of his own, meteor-mutated, super healthy blood so that they might see what kind of effect it had.
The first month, twenty-one kids below the age of twelve were shipped off to floor 23 of LuthorCare. Of those twenty-one, four died the first week, and the rest died in the second. Ten new cases came and died within a week. The third week welcomed another fifteen new sick children. Seven died within two weeks, the remaining eight…lived. For another four days. Then two died shortly after one another, another lived for another three days and then died, and the remaining five slipped into a coma. The cancer had been brought to a stop, but their bodies were so weakened by the ravages of illness that it could hardly be considered a success. Four of the five died quietly in their sleep; the parents of the last one transferred him from LuthorCare to another hospital, where he remained unconscious, hooked up to a respirator, until finally he as well died as a result of general organ failure. The treatment Lex’s scientists had come up with was successful, but they simply had no time to test and retest it because the children were dying under their eyes.
All parents who came to drop their children off for treatment were asked to sign a consent form that permitted LuthorCare to expose their children to experimental treatment. Very few parents refused to sign the form. As it was, their kids would die within the next two weeks; even if it was experimental, Lex’s medicines offered them the only chance at survival they were likely to get.
The first child to survive more than one month past her initial and very literal deadline, was a girl called Cory Dean. She was considered a small victory, even though her vitals were so weak she could hardly be called alive. But she was breathing, the cancer cells hadn’t spread, and while she was too weak to lift even a finger she was conscious, and there was all reason to believe that she would survive. Hope shimmered on the horizon, and seventeen more children were admitted to floor 23.
Channel Four made another weepy documentary about Cory Dean and her family, and Lex Luthor was again bombarded with fan mail. This time Chloe called him on his cell phone and begged him for an interview.
“Please,” she pleaded tinnily into his ear, “Just say you’ll do it. If you don’t, they’ll send Clark or Lois, or that horrible twit of a Johansson. Please, Lex, for exploding houses and jail sentences of the past, please, please give me this interview! I’ll even come and see you in Smallville, if you’re there. Just…give me an interview!”
Usually, the press made an appointment with his P.A. Chloe always tried the direct way first. Lex, gazing at the muted documentary looped on his VCR, ran his fingers over the tiny, bald, white girl’s image on his flat screen, tracing a snub nose, the thin, pink shell of an ear, and thought of granola bars.
“Chloe,” he said, voice soft so the roughness in his throat wouldn’t show, “there’s nothing worth an interview.”
Shocked, outraged silence on the other side of the line. Then, “Lex, your program… LuthorCare’s program…it’s saved that little girl’s life! She would’ve been dead if not for your research, your funding, your…adamancy to find all these kids and bring them here. She’s from a poor family, if you hadn’t insisted these children be treated for free, she’d…”
“Chloe.”
Cory’s mother was on. She was crying and hugging her limp little daughter. A plain woman, unshapely, with dyed hair that showed gray in the roots. Yet a mother, overjoyed to find her child alive and the child, smiling…god, she was…what? Ten years old? Twelve? She’d been eating granola bars for a few years, and the poison that LuthorCorp had used until someone (his father, some other idiot?) decided was just a little too dangerous had started some kind of chain reaction in her body until…
Now the father joined his wife and daughter. A big man with a tattoo on his arm, unshaved, boorish, the kind of man Lex secretly despised—but laughing, tears rising but blinked away as he caressed his girl’s cheek and wrapped his arm around his wife. Two people sitting on and around a little bald kid’s bed, holding each other, loving each other. Lex hadn’t thought he’d create such a mental roller coaster for himself. He hadn’t thought it would hurt so much, still, after all these years. That the similarity and the gigantic difference would hurt this goddamn badly.
“Chloe,” he repeated, when he realized she’d actually shut up and was now waiting for him to finish his sentence, “when…if…when she’s actually doing better you’ll get your interview. Exclusively, I promise you. But for now…Let’s not cry victory yet, alright?”
She was silent for a moment. When she next spoke her voice had gained that warm tone he’d heard a thousand times, when she and Clark and Lana had been innocent children and the reporter in Chloe was more of an act than a persona. “Are you ok, Lex?”
Concern. He smiled into the blind phone to get his voice right.
“Of course I’m ok, why do you ask?”
“Nothing. I just…heh. I belatedly realized that this might be…you know…painful for you.”
Just like that he knew that she was watching the program as well, and that she had, indeed belatedly for an ace reporter, made the connection. Little bald kid, check. Loving parents…check, but not really. Fatal disease, check. And she didn’t even know about Julian. He made a non-committal sound and sipped from his Scotch.
“No interviews,” the warm tone was still there, but hidden behind her chirpy optimism. “Care for a cup of coffee instead? I mean, not now, obviously, but well, you know. Oh, listen to me dazzle and seduce you with my lingo. Coffee. Whenever you feel like it. Just give me a call.”
“Why, Miss Sullivan, are you asking me out on a date?” Lex asked, deliberately misunderstanding her intentions, and he smiled as he heard her forceful exhale crackle on her cell.
“Yes,” she said sarcastically, “that must be it. I’m asking you out. For coffee.”
Lex watched the credits of the program roll by and turned off the TV.
“I won’t be available for the next few weeks,” he said, and he could swear he could hear her pout.
“When you lived in Smallville you’d ALWAYS make time for us.”
“That’s because I wasn’t trying to take over the world when I lived in Smallville.”
“Or trying to save children with cancer,” Chloe shot right back. “I understand, Lex. That’s why I said you could call me. For coffee, for an interview, hell, for a chat when you’re fed up with the High and Mighty. Just call.”
“I know,” he said, although she hadn’t asked him anything. “Thanks, Chloe.”
“Anytime,” she said briskly. “Well, some of us actually have to work for a living. I’m back to my poor neglected column—which I should probably lengthen with about seven hundred words since you won’t give me an interview…”
“Stop wheedling, Chloe, it doesn’t become you.”
“I could make a fortune taping our conversation…”
“You do that and I’ll make sure you’d come to a swift yet unhappy demise,” Lex promised pleasantly. He wasn’t afraid Chloe would ever do such a thing. Firstly, because he trusted her; despite being a reporter she was good with secrets and confidential information. Secondly, because she knew he would live up to his promise. They were both comfortable with the resulting understanding. Which, Lex pondered at times, was yet another indication at the utter weirdness of the people he considered friends. “Good night, Chloe.”
”Night, Lex.”
He finished the rest of his bottle of Scotch before going to bed, and dreamt fitfully of interviews conducted by bald children.
The following day, Lex visited LuthorCare to see the results of the Kryptonite-based treatment himself, and while he was talking with one of his employees, the woman said, “Why don’t you visit the children yourself?”
That woman was Valerie Decan. She had absolutely nothing to do with science. Instead, she was there as a child councilor, someone the kids could confide in. She was in her mid-thirties, handsome if not beautiful, had brown hair pulled up in a bun, a too-big mouth with an infectious smile, and warm, brown eyes that instantly inspired trust and amity. Lex instantly recognized her as the kind of woman who could effortlessly soothe and comfort scared, sick children, and who could probably just as effortlessly soothe any adult male she thought could benefit of her abilities. Apparently, she thought he would not only benefit from her abilities, but that he was in dire need of them. The moment Miss Decan’s eyes fell on his face, he could actually feel her do some kind of ocular MRI scan, searching for trauma—he could almost hear her findings listed in a tiny little computer voice:
trauma’s found: Social outcast due to lack of hair from the age of nine, due to exorbitant wealth of parents, due to lack of childhood friends; mentally abused by father as a child; witnessed infant brother’s death by the hands of his mother; took blame for death of said brother; lost mother prematurely—to cancer, beep, beep; betrayed own father; betrayed only friend; was betrayed by every lover he ever had; rebellious nature; lonely genius complex; twisted Oedipus complex; outcome: needs love, love, love.
He took a step back from her beam of all-encompassing care, and asked, “What good would that do? Most of them probably don’t even know who I am.”
“Come now, Mister Luthor,” she laughed. “Even if they don’t know you by sight, they’re quite aware that it’s you who’s making their treatment possible.” Her expression sobered. He was standing in her office, two big files in his hands and with no intention to stay any longer than he had to on this floor of death and miracles, when she said, “These children are not only confronted with death every day, Mister Luthor. They are still children, and their predicament makes them quite adjustable. Dying isn’t their greatest fear, or at least not their only fear.”
Lex blinked, unsure where she was going. The longer he was subjected to her sincere gaze, the more he wanted to get out. However, she seemed to expect him to say something, so he queried, “Then what is it they fear—fear more than death, you say?”
“Resentment,” she said.
He raised his eyebrow.
“Resentment? They’re sick children, why would anyone resent them?”
“Look at them, Mister Luthor.” She flipped the blinds of her office window, and twenty seven children turned their face towards the movement. Twenty seven small, pale (apart from the four black children, who also seemed strangely devoid of color), bald children, rendered sexless by their illness and the treatment of that illness. It was as if he saw himself, twenty three times reflected. “They have lost everything. Their health, their hair, their life, their direct future. The newest medicines seem to be working, but the side effects are…” she trailed off, then continued, softly, “Yesterday one of the newcomers died, and they have no certainty whatsoever that they’ll be more lucky than poor Ricky Donahue.”
The children, unable to make anything out behind the blinds, had lost interest and continued with what they’d been doing; playing, reading, or sleeping.
“What I mean to say,” Miss Decan continued, “is that they’ve been turned into freaks. Even if they’ll survive there’s a good chance their hair won’t grow back, and two of the girls have displayed …how to put it…unusual behavior.”
Lex felt a cold shiver pass along his backbone. Don’t cry for me, Smallville freakshow. The truth is, I never left you. “What, exactly,” he asked cautiously, “do you mean with unusual behavior, Miss Decan?”
She gestured to the files in his hand. “You’ll find it all in there. Nothing serious, but…Well, Jessica can predict certain things. Small things. Like cards in a pack. And Lisa no longer needs her glasses, although she had minus 3 on one side, and could hardly see anything with her other eye. But that is not what I’m trying to say. What I do mean is, they consider themselves outcasts because of the way they now look, and the way they are treated by their friends and family—as deadly ill, fragile beings—doesn’t help their sense of security.” She gave him a smile. “You, however, would give them an example that would actually help them.”
“Because I’m bald?” he drawled. “Wow, Miss Decan, you really know how to make a man feel wanted.”
“I think you know perfectly well what I mean,” she said, the warmth of her smile dimming. Lex made a mental note that Yes, she’d catalogued him as flawed and in need o cuddling, but her kids were more important to her than the odd fractured billionaire. He liked that. It made her a little less scary. “You’re young, successful, self-assured,” her smile widened again. “Richer than God. Almost impossibly arrogant. Or shouldn’t I have said that? Perhaps I should have said comfortable with yourself.”
Lex grinned back at her; he simply couldn’t help himself.
“And smooth as a billiard ball. A freak among freaks. I get it, Miss Decan.”
“Please, Mister Luthor, call me Valerie.”
“You just made me state the gleaming obvious, Miss Decan. I don’t think I’m ready to go to first name base yet.”
To her credit, she flustered. “I didn’t mean…I’m sorry if I…” She stopped as she noted his smirk. “It would really help their self-esteem,” she finally muttered. “And it wouldn’t do badly as PR, either.”
Lex rolled his eyes. Why did everyone automatically assumed that he only did unpleasant things, like, for instant, chat with dying little children, because it made him look good to the outer world?
“Miss Decan, if I were to visit these children, no one will know. No one but you, these kids, and me. Do I make myself clear?” He did, obviously, but her confused expression told him she understood none of it. He sighed. “Young, successful and richer than God I might be, but if you think that me hugging cancerous little children will make me look better in the eyes of the public, you are sadly mistaken. They’d see it as false sympathy. I really don’t need any more people proclaiming me…” He stopped and pulled up one corner of his mouth. “Well, I’m sure you’ve read the papers.”
“Would it be that?” she asked. “False sympathy?” Her voice was curious rather than accusing—such a lovely change from Lana and Clark. Lex shrugged.
“If you weren’t trained to do so, would you feel comfortable addressing two dozen sick ten-year-olds” who all remind you of yourself when you were at your most vulnerable, with the added bonus of emitting the same smell as your mother just a few weeks before she died, “whose only correlation to you is that they have no hair? I might as well ask you to host a meeting for the CEOs of Shell, Marcus&Marcus and Wayne Industries.”
“I see,” they said, crossing her legs as she leant against her desk. “That might be pretty daunting. They don’t bite, though.”
“Neither do the CEOs of Shell, Marcus&Marcus and Wayne Industries,” countered Lex. He held out the files to her; she took them and stashed them behind her. “Still, I’d much rather face them than those children. Much more in common.” He broadened his shoulders, straightened his spine and asked, “Is there anything I shouldn’t say? Any topic I should skirt about?”
“Not talking about dying would probably be a good idea,” Miss Decan said. Her smile now shone so brightly Lex could feel freckles pop up on his nose. “For the rest…they’re children, Mister Luthor. I’m quite sure they’ll come up with some subjects. Just…don’t loose your patience.”
“I’m actually quite good with children,” Lex reassured her. Apart from when they’re psychic. Then they say I’m evil and warn their friends about me. He resisted the urge to straighten his tie, certain the children couldn’t care less.
“I’m sure you are, Mister Luthor,” she laughed, and led him to the door.
“Call me Lex,” he said, opened the door and faced the crowd.
Valerie Decan followed him inside, but kept at the door, leaving Lex to make his way through the hallway of beds. There were a total of thirty beds in the room, all with a meter’s space in between, and with curtains on a rail that could be pulled around the bed, shielding it completely from view. At the moment all curtains were pulled back, and the three empty beds were covered in toys. At the far end of the room, near the window, was some sort of play corner holding a climbing rack with a plastic slide and a miniature log cabin, a small swing, and a huge number of plastic toy cars, stuffed animals, dolls and other play things. Most of the children swarmed around the slide and the cabin, while some lay in bed, either sleeping or reading. Whatever they were doing, they all stopped when Lex entered the room and regarded him with curious faces, silent and alert like a pack of hounds.
Oh, for the CEOs of a few world-leading companies…
Then, one of the older children murmured, “Lex Luthor!”, and his name rippled through the room as if it meant something to them. “Lex Luthor! It’s Mister Luthor!”
“Uh, yeah,” he said with a lopsided smile. “Hey.”
“Go on,” whispered Miss Decan from the doorstep. “They won’t bite.”
Lex kept this in mind as a tiny boy (unless girls now also wore pjs with Transformers on them) came running up to him and stared up at him as if he were a mountain.
“Are you really Mr Luthor?” he asked with a little hoarse-shouted voice. Lex smirked.
“Well, my father’s usually addressed as Mr Luthor,” he said. “I’d rather you just called me Lex.”
“My daddy says you’re the scum of the earth and should be shot down with a saw-off,” the boy informed him. “D’you want to see my electric train? It’s really cool. I’ve made a track all around my bed, see? If I had another one I could make a loop and make them crash into each other. D’you want to see it?”
Lex, still reeling from the boy’s casual remark about the saw-off, felt himself being taken by the hand and dragged over to a bed. Between its legs a small red train rattled round and round; a twelve-pack of AAA batteries functioned as a hillock as well as a power source.
“Look!” the boy cried, pressed a button and listened in rapture as a mechanical howling issued from the train’s locomotive. “It whistles!”
“Awesome,” said Lex, trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice. The boy beamed up at him, and it occurred to Lex that he probably had no idea what a saw-off was. He relaxed a little. How old was this kid anyway? Four? Five? Far too young to have any idea about who Lex was, and what he stood for. As for the other kids…Like moths drawn to a flame, they had begun to drift towards the train-boy’s bed, circling Lex as he squatted on the floor, settling down on the beds near the train tracks or plopping down on the floor. Lex wasn’t sure he liked being surrounded like this, but he forced his body to remain relaxed and gazed at them with amiable interest. Again, it was as if he were looking in an age-distorting mirror and saw himself just after his mother had died: too big, empty eyes in a pale face—but not all the kids were like that. On the contrary, most of them gazed back at him with fighting spirit fairly sparking from their eyes, their bald heads raised proudly, faces daring him to comment on their appearance. That, as well, reminded Lex of himself.
“So,” a girl of about twelve, thirteen began. “You’re like us.”
“Not completely,” he said. “I was never sick. But yes, I’m pretty much like you.” He ran a hand over his head. “No hair at all.”
“If you weren’t sick,” a black boy with Scooby Doo on his t-shirt said, “why’d you loose your hair?”
“I was in a meteor shower. The stuff we use in your medicines was also in the meteors.”
“What’s a meteor?” a truly tiny child asked, but before Lex could open his mouth, another child had already explained in a hurried whisper. “So that meteor shower cut off all your hair?” the child concluded.
Lex nodded.
“How old were you then?” yet another girl asked. She wore a thin yellow cotton hat with plastic flowers around the rim.
“I was nine,” said Lex.
“I’m nine too!” the girl exclaimed. “My name’s Emmy!” A flood of names then passed over Lex’s head. He tried to remember them all, forgot most of them straight away, but connected a few to the faces that stood out to him. The boy with the train was called Ronny, there were two Michaels, a girl called Lexie (which made both of them smirk), Jessica (he remembered her because Miss Decan had mentioned her, and Lisa for the same reason), Scooby-boy was Jack, and his twin-sister was Tina. Jack and Tina. Both son and daughter had been fond of granola bars.
Now they’d all introduced each other, the kids obviously decided that the time for reserve had passed.
“Where was this meteor shower?” they asked. “Was it scary? Did he get a rock on his head? Did they make him sick?—no, idiot, he just said he wasn’t sick, did he? Oh yeah, that’s right, he was never sick. Was that right?”
Lex nodded. “Whatever that meteor did to me, it only made me healthier. I’m hoping the same will happen to you.”
“But my hair!” Emmy wailed, rubbing her fingers over her hat. “Won’t it ever grow back? I don’t want to be bald for the rest of my life!”
“That’s because you’re a stupid bitch,” one of the boys said caustically.
“Now, now,” said Lex, but Emmy didn’t seem much insulted. She was a very pretty girl, with large blue eyes and golden hoops in her ears that stood out strangely without the frame of hair.
“Anyway, the acerbic boy continued, “your mom’ll give you a nice wig and you won’t see a thing. Her mom comes by all the time,” he said to Lex. “with wigs and hats and all that stuff. She can’t bear to see Emmy—or any of us!—looking all bald like babies. She makes us wear baseball caps when she visits. She sucks!” he added forcefully, and several of the other children nodded sagely. Emmy flushed, but she pulled her hat further over her ears and remained silent.
Lex felt horrible for her. When he first heard that his bloodwork would be used to cure the kids, and later, when the treatment actually worked, all he’d felt was pride and contentment. Now, he wondered if they should have searched in another direction. He knew how hard it was to be ten and bare as a frog—and he had been a boy. How much worse would it be to be a bald girl? Then again, he had survived, even at Excelsior, which very likely was a far harsher surroundings than the schools these kids went to. He had more than survived. He had flourished because of who he was, and how he looked. And when the children began to ask how he’d dealt with those issues, he found he answered them without even having to think about it, nor did he hold back on the truth. He owed them as much.
“Did your friends tease you at school?”
“My real friends didn’t.” Not that he’d had many. “But yes, I was often called names or even beaten up.”
“And what did you do then?”
“Well,” said Lex, “My father knew this Marine…”
“Did the Marine shoot them?” Ronny asked eagerly, making Lex choke on his words.
“No! No, he didn’t shoot them! He taught me how to fight.”
“So you beat up all the bullies?”
“No, he taught me how to defend myself, so I wouldn’t be beaten up anymore.” Although he had practiced his newfound skills on a few of those bullies, in fact. One of them spent six weeks with a cast on his wrist because Lex broke his arm. That, however, he decided not to divulge. “I found out at a very early age that it’s much easier to beat those bullies with words, rather than violence. After all, they hurt you because they think you’re weaker than they are, right? So if you’re able to defend yourself with words, find their weaknesses and exploit them, they’ll leave you alone after a while.”
“Do you mean blackmail?” Jessica asked. Lex didn’t know whether he should be delighted or appalled with these kids’ penchant for the criminal.
“N-no,” he said, trying to hide a grin. “I just mean to take away your own weakness and reflect it back to them.”
Questioning looks all around him.
“Okay,” Lex began, searching for an illustrative example. “Say, you’re bald. And this group of boys or girls,” with a nod at Emmy and Tina, “is following you at the school yards and calling you…”
“Baldy!” the tiny child screamed. Lex smirked.
“Bullies are usually a little more inventive and more hurtful,” he said. “Baldy’s just a statement, there’s no real insult, although I agree it’s less than pleasant to be addressed as such. Come on, give me something I can work with.”
There was a moment of silence. Then a boy called Zeke tentatively provided, “Eight ball.”
“Common,” said Lex, “but certainly not bad.”
“Frog face!” squealed Ronny.
“Fish head!” cried another boy.
“Slippery serpent!”
“Naked garden slug!”
“Marble-head!”
“I’ve heard worse,” Lex deadpanned.
“This is stupid,” one of the older girls muttered, but when Lex raised his eyebrow at her she said, “Bald sea cucumber,” with a certain relish.
They went on for another few minutes until their imagination had run dry and they sat panting, grinning and red, and Lex said, “You should remember this. All these words that you’ve just invented? If someone ever calls you one of those, they’re completely unoriginal. You’ve already heard them before, and they can’t hurt you. And if the guys who’re bullying you happen to be fat, or ugly, or have drunk parents or mothers who cheat on their fathers well, then you know what to do, right?”
There was a guffaw of laughter from the door to Miss Decan’s office. Lex, having forgot her completely, started, and looked back with a guilty expression. Valerie walked up to the throng, hugging the children that welcomed her with smiles and excitable chatter.
“I take it that wasn’t very pedagogical of me, huh?” Lex said innocently.
“No,” she giggled, “it wasn’t. But I’ve decided to forgive you.
‘Okay kids, Mister Luthor just got a call from David, so he’s got to go.”
“Noooo!” chorused the children. Lex marveled at the loyalty he had inspired in such a short time. He couldn’t keep the blush and the grin off his face if someone had held a gun to his head.
“So,” Valerie continued, ignoring the protests with professional ease, “say your goodbyes. And if you’re very good, perhaps Mister Luthor might be persuaded to visit you again…?”
Clever woman. How could he refuse with all those little hands plucking at his lapels and all those voices clamoring for another visit.
“You can count on it,” he said, and the children cheered. He had never, ever, felt so unconditionally adored in his life. It made him want to stay. It made him want to protect these kids from whatever would ever hurt them. It made him want to pay for every single cost they might run into. It made his eyes and throat burn, and when he walked away from them it was a little like an escape. He was painfully aware of the fact that his own father could never have felt about him this way. If Lionel had, he wouldn’t have tortured Lex the way he had. He’d never have Lucas live a life so far away from him. God forbid, Lex thought, accepting the files from Miss Decan, I ever have a son. How could I ever get anywhere in the world when I have a child to support, look after, and protect?
He looked up to find Miss Decan still chuckling.
“It’s nice to know that, pedagogically lacking though I am, I’m still good for a laugh or two,” he drawled, trying to find his usual equilibrium. Valerie grinned.
“Yes, that was priceless. Very, very wrong, but highly amusing.”
“Did David really call or were you just saving the precious souls of your kids?”
“No, he really called. He’s finished the report you requested, the one with the additional side effects of heating sodium lithium boron silicate to 3000 degrees. Really, Mister Luthor, you shouldn’t look at me like that. I may know nothing whatsoever about the meteor rocks, I’m still able to pronounce the scientific terms.”
Lex unflexed his eyebrow. Suddenly, he would be more than happy to leave. He needed to think, and he very badly wanted a drink.
“Where is Reese? Twenty-sixth floor, as usual?”
“He should be here any moment,” Miss Decan said. “Can I get you anything? A cup of coffee, perhaps?”
Lex declined, but let her lead him to the cafeteria nevertheless. During his talk with the children he’d completely forgotten to ask about the special powers some of them had developed. Even if he didn’t want to come back simply to boost their spirits, which he did, he had to find out more about those powers. See how far they went. It wouldn’t do to create another army of uncontrollable meteor freaks. Especially not children. Adults were hard enough to manage, but children, pre-adolescent, pre- or mid-puber children with hormones raging and bodies going out of control…well, he’d seen what happened in Smallville. It wouldn’t do.
“Mister Luthor?”
“I’m sorry, were you saying anything?”
“I was just wondering…Will you come back for the children? They really enjoyed your little,” she smiled, “heads-up.”
Lex nodded. “Sure. Whenever I have the time, I’ll come by and say hello. Ah, is that Reese?”
That had been two weeks ago. The end of November had come and gone, and now Santa loomed on the corner of every street like a fat mugger. Two of the children Lex had seen had died in the meantime, and three had been added to the program. Christmas carols and wet coughing sounded in the streets and Valerie Decan’s beam was only at half-light. Lex donned his plastic coat with a strange sense of foreboding and smirked at the cap Reese offered him.
“Thank you, David, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”
David tossed the cap back with a blush and a wry grin.
“Sorry.”
“No harm done.”
He put on the mandatory plastic foil-gloves, and entered the children’s room.
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Originally Posted by hfce
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