Clex WIP update
Nov. 4th, 2004 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arysteiaI'm shifting this out of the election coverage and into calmer waters, because I'm writing madly, fending off the blues, and there'll be more tonight or tomorrow. Much more. And I don't want to confuse people. Or myself.
Parallel
Lex/Clark, futurefic, mostly R rated. A paean for Denial. "All the ways it could have gone wrong, and one way it didn't."
In four years as a journalist Clark’s never been bundled out of anywhere as fast as he is out of Clairmont’s medical wing. He only manages to leave the room because *Lex* walks away, moving to sit on the bed and stare pointedly at the wall, but the corridors and elevators blur and in a heartbeat they’re back in the main foyer. Gregory himself accompanies them, guards following at a respectful but suitably menacing distance. He rejects out of hand any possibility of an interview, instead threatening to lay a complaint with the Planet’s editorial board if they compromise the safety of any of his patients again.
That stops Clark in his tracks. “Your ‘patient’ is my partner,” he snaps, “and you’re treating him like a prisoner.”
Gregory somehow manages to look down at him, despite being six inches shorter. “Don’t be dramatic,” he sneers. “He’s here voluntarily.”
“Then why is he locked up? Why isn’t he allowed visitors?”
“I have no intention of discussing my methods of treatment with you, Mr Kent. You and your friend posed as journalists to gain access to this facility. Now you claim to be a family member. How am I to know what your real motives are?”
Clark’s horrified by the monstrous inappropriateness of having this conversation outside where anyone could walk past, but then he remembers a joke Lex made once about the inner sanctum, and how you never let anyone in it if you were smart. Or maybe it was if *they* were smart. Either way, he makes a mental note to break into Gregory’s office as soon as opportunity affords. In the meantime there’s no point in further antagonising him.
“We were wrong to do that, I admit it,” he says quietly. “I just wanted to see Lex, I was worried about him, and when they told me I couldn’t I overreacted. I apologise.” It’s shameful how easily the lies trip off his tongue. He really has come a long way since Smallville. “But you must know who I am. Lex must have mentioned me.”
“I do know who you are. And that’s precisely why I left instructions that you were not to have any contact with my patient. The influence you have on him is detrimental in the extreme.”
“What?” Clark’s aghast. “I don’t *influence* him, I... He... He’s my...” How the hell do you explain to someone who doesn’t know you, who doesn’t remotely care, what someone is to you, what you are to them? “You can’t think...”
“For God’s sake!” Lois interrupts, stepping squarely into Gregory’s personal space, simultaneously shielding Clark from the curious looks of the security guards. Her voice is hoarse, but anger radiates off her. “You want to talk about detrimental? You want to talk about motive? I see through you, *Doctor*. And Lionel Luthor too.”
“I don’t know what you’re implying, Ms Lane, but I suggest you think very carefully before you say anything else.”
“Really?” Lois is seething, madder than Clark’s ever seen her. “And what will you do if I don’t? Have me committed? I think you’ll find my father less cooperative than Lionel Luthor. God, I didn’t figure it out till just now, but it’s so obvious. Was there even anything medically wrong with Lex when you started treating him, or did Lionel just enlist your help in modelling the perfect son?”
“How dare you?” Gregory’s composure slips for the first time. “Lex Luthor suffers from one of the worst schizo-affective disorders I’ve ever seen. My therapies have made it possible for him to lead a normal life. A very successful life, in fact.”
“Yes. A very successful life. A very successful, very *public* life. In which there’s never been any indication of any such disorder.”
“You saw him just now, Ms Lane. Did he look well to you?”
“He looked exactly the way I’d expect someone to look if they were locked up in some Frankenstein lab somewhere, with no access to the outside world and no contact with the people that care about them, being constantly drugged and electrocuted. I mean, that’s the basis of your ‘therapy’ isn’t it? Isolation, medication, and ECT? I’ve read your thesis.”
“Lois?” Clark can barely manage a whisper.
“You didn’t want to, Clark, trust me.” Lois squeezes his arm and turns back to Gregory, scorn dripping from her voice. “‘Deprogramming’? ‘Reconditioning’? Just the sound of it makes me sick. But Lionel Luthor obviously saw a big future in it. It’s not often two sociopaths discover a common goal. Is that what got you your research funding? And what, when Lex started rebelling as a teenager Lionel called on your expertise? How does it work? You make sure he always does what his father wants in the end, and Lionel turns a blind eye while you test your theories? It’s no wonder you don’t want a journalist in here, even in a purely personal capacity.”
Gregory abandons all pretence of civility. “Get her off this property immediately!” he hisses. The guards start manhandling Lois towards her car, and Clark moves to help her, but Gregory catches him by the shoulder. The fake smile is back. “Mr Kent, one last word?”
“What?” Clark can’t tell if they’re still doing good cop bad cop, or even who’s being played here, and it’s only the memory of Lex imploring him to be careful that stops him from reaching out and shaking Gregory like a rag doll, but Lois looks okay so he forces himself to stay calm.
“You seem like a reasonable man, Mr Kent, if an unwise one. If you really care about Lex you’ll leave him alone and let me do my best to help him. I realise my methods may seem extreme, but it’s common practice, I assure you, for patients who’ve attempted suicide to be kept in a secure ward and sedated.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry.” Gregory doesn’t look remotely sorry. “I assumed you knew.”
“I *did* know!” Clark bites out through clenched teeth. Nothing like fury to burn away the last trace of confusion. The thought of discussing something so intensely, so painfully private with this man... He has a sudden flash of Lex the first time they had sex with the lights on, awkward, strangely unwilling for someone ordinarily so confident. The long sleeves he wore year round, even in the brightest sunshine, suddenly explained. They’d never spoken of it. He remembers like it was yesterday, not eight years ago, kissing Lex’s wrists, looking him in the eye, and not asking. “That was a *very* long time ago.”
“It was quite recent, Mr Kent. I’d say not more than a few months ago, from the way the scars are healing.”
It’s like kryptonite straight to the heart, pain lancing out through every nerve in his body. “That’s impossible. Lex would never...” Clark does his best to keep breathing. What you do as a messed up teenager and what you do as an adult are two completely separate things. “I *know* Lex. I know him better than anyone. And he would *never* do that.”
Gregory just shrugs. “I’ve known him a lot longer than you have, Mr Kent. And it seems that you don’t know him half as well as you think you do.”
chapter 8
Parallel
Lex/Clark, futurefic, mostly R rated. A paean for Denial. "All the ways it could have gone wrong, and one way it didn't."
In four years as a journalist Clark’s never been bundled out of anywhere as fast as he is out of Clairmont’s medical wing. He only manages to leave the room because *Lex* walks away, moving to sit on the bed and stare pointedly at the wall, but the corridors and elevators blur and in a heartbeat they’re back in the main foyer. Gregory himself accompanies them, guards following at a respectful but suitably menacing distance. He rejects out of hand any possibility of an interview, instead threatening to lay a complaint with the Planet’s editorial board if they compromise the safety of any of his patients again.
That stops Clark in his tracks. “Your ‘patient’ is my partner,” he snaps, “and you’re treating him like a prisoner.”
Gregory somehow manages to look down at him, despite being six inches shorter. “Don’t be dramatic,” he sneers. “He’s here voluntarily.”
“Then why is he locked up? Why isn’t he allowed visitors?”
“I have no intention of discussing my methods of treatment with you, Mr Kent. You and your friend posed as journalists to gain access to this facility. Now you claim to be a family member. How am I to know what your real motives are?”
Clark’s horrified by the monstrous inappropriateness of having this conversation outside where anyone could walk past, but then he remembers a joke Lex made once about the inner sanctum, and how you never let anyone in it if you were smart. Or maybe it was if *they* were smart. Either way, he makes a mental note to break into Gregory’s office as soon as opportunity affords. In the meantime there’s no point in further antagonising him.
“We were wrong to do that, I admit it,” he says quietly. “I just wanted to see Lex, I was worried about him, and when they told me I couldn’t I overreacted. I apologise.” It’s shameful how easily the lies trip off his tongue. He really has come a long way since Smallville. “But you must know who I am. Lex must have mentioned me.”
“I do know who you are. And that’s precisely why I left instructions that you were not to have any contact with my patient. The influence you have on him is detrimental in the extreme.”
“What?” Clark’s aghast. “I don’t *influence* him, I... He... He’s my...” How the hell do you explain to someone who doesn’t know you, who doesn’t remotely care, what someone is to you, what you are to them? “You can’t think...”
“For God’s sake!” Lois interrupts, stepping squarely into Gregory’s personal space, simultaneously shielding Clark from the curious looks of the security guards. Her voice is hoarse, but anger radiates off her. “You want to talk about detrimental? You want to talk about motive? I see through you, *Doctor*. And Lionel Luthor too.”
“I don’t know what you’re implying, Ms Lane, but I suggest you think very carefully before you say anything else.”
“Really?” Lois is seething, madder than Clark’s ever seen her. “And what will you do if I don’t? Have me committed? I think you’ll find my father less cooperative than Lionel Luthor. God, I didn’t figure it out till just now, but it’s so obvious. Was there even anything medically wrong with Lex when you started treating him, or did Lionel just enlist your help in modelling the perfect son?”
“How dare you?” Gregory’s composure slips for the first time. “Lex Luthor suffers from one of the worst schizo-affective disorders I’ve ever seen. My therapies have made it possible for him to lead a normal life. A very successful life, in fact.”
“Yes. A very successful life. A very successful, very *public* life. In which there’s never been any indication of any such disorder.”
“You saw him just now, Ms Lane. Did he look well to you?”
“He looked exactly the way I’d expect someone to look if they were locked up in some Frankenstein lab somewhere, with no access to the outside world and no contact with the people that care about them, being constantly drugged and electrocuted. I mean, that’s the basis of your ‘therapy’ isn’t it? Isolation, medication, and ECT? I’ve read your thesis.”
“Lois?” Clark can barely manage a whisper.
“You didn’t want to, Clark, trust me.” Lois squeezes his arm and turns back to Gregory, scorn dripping from her voice. “‘Deprogramming’? ‘Reconditioning’? Just the sound of it makes me sick. But Lionel Luthor obviously saw a big future in it. It’s not often two sociopaths discover a common goal. Is that what got you your research funding? And what, when Lex started rebelling as a teenager Lionel called on your expertise? How does it work? You make sure he always does what his father wants in the end, and Lionel turns a blind eye while you test your theories? It’s no wonder you don’t want a journalist in here, even in a purely personal capacity.”
Gregory abandons all pretence of civility. “Get her off this property immediately!” he hisses. The guards start manhandling Lois towards her car, and Clark moves to help her, but Gregory catches him by the shoulder. The fake smile is back. “Mr Kent, one last word?”
“What?” Clark can’t tell if they’re still doing good cop bad cop, or even who’s being played here, and it’s only the memory of Lex imploring him to be careful that stops him from reaching out and shaking Gregory like a rag doll, but Lois looks okay so he forces himself to stay calm.
“You seem like a reasonable man, Mr Kent, if an unwise one. If you really care about Lex you’ll leave him alone and let me do my best to help him. I realise my methods may seem extreme, but it’s common practice, I assure you, for patients who’ve attempted suicide to be kept in a secure ward and sedated.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry.” Gregory doesn’t look remotely sorry. “I assumed you knew.”
“I *did* know!” Clark bites out through clenched teeth. Nothing like fury to burn away the last trace of confusion. The thought of discussing something so intensely, so painfully private with this man... He has a sudden flash of Lex the first time they had sex with the lights on, awkward, strangely unwilling for someone ordinarily so confident. The long sleeves he wore year round, even in the brightest sunshine, suddenly explained. They’d never spoken of it. He remembers like it was yesterday, not eight years ago, kissing Lex’s wrists, looking him in the eye, and not asking. “That was a *very* long time ago.”
“It was quite recent, Mr Kent. I’d say not more than a few months ago, from the way the scars are healing.”
It’s like kryptonite straight to the heart, pain lancing out through every nerve in his body. “That’s impossible. Lex would never...” Clark does his best to keep breathing. What you do as a messed up teenager and what you do as an adult are two completely separate things. “I *know* Lex. I know him better than anyone. And he would *never* do that.”
Gregory just shrugs. “I’ve known him a lot longer than you have, Mr Kent. And it seems that you don’t know him half as well as you think you do.”
chapter 8
