Category: Jonathan Kent, Lex, Clark/Lex implied, angst
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: none explicit
Feedback: I will rain death and destruction on you all if I don't get--oh, hold it, channeling Lex there. Give me a sec. Okay. Liked and gratefully recieved. Thank you.
by jenn
Lex was seated on the edge of the desk, eyes fixed on the door as if he'd been expecting just this occurrence and maybe he had. Business casual, jacket removed, collar unbuttoned. Phone at his hip, fingers just lifting from the reciever.
Some people knew to watch for warnings, listen for them too.
It was an act of unadulterated will that kept Jonathan Kent from crossing the room and throwing the little pervert against the wall.
Through the wall.
Through the window that pooled sunlight around Lex like a yellow spotlight, a bullseye, a target.
"I was curious how long it would take." Easy swing off the desk, kicking a heel against the dense wood with what seemed to be deliberate provocation, and Jonathan took a step forward. "Can I get you something to drink?" Reaching for the crystal decanter near the small couch, and the calm surreality of the moment took Jonathan off guard. Unexpected. For a second, he didn't move, staring at the boy--the *man*- -who had...who had.... Lex poured a glass and the blue gaze touched on Jonathan briefly, then the lips curved in the faintest of smiles. "I suppose not."
"I know." Ground the words between his teeth. Another step closer, half-expecting Lex to back away. "I know what--what you did to my son." With his son. No, *to*. His son.
"I thought as much." Lex cocked his head, taking a sip from the glass before moving back to the desk, expensive shoes hissing over the rug like the whispers of the town in Jonathan's ears, as if it were any other day in their lives. Watching without a trace of fear, and Jonathan's body took a step all unwilling toward him, fingers itching to wrap around that pale throat and just-- "You might want to think about the situation before you react. Sit down, Mr. Kent. Let's discuss this rationally."
Rationally. Jonathan's hands clenched briefly, blunt nails cutting into his palms.
"Whatever you're doing with Clark, it stops now." Whatever it was. What he'd seen in his son's eyes, in the movements of his body, in all those little differences that as a father, he should have damn well known, should have added up. He knew Clark, inside and out. He should have--
--should have *guessed* dammit, but this was just-- He'd never thought--
"Fucking him?"
There was a blank flash, blind red haze, almost welcome, and Jonathan was only conscious again when the blunt edge of the desk hit his thighs. Lex was sitting neatly in his chair on the other side, drink still in hand. Jonathan hadn't even seen him move.
"All right, that was unnecessarily crude of me. My apologies." Blue eyes fixed on him with a kind of watchful patience. No fear at all, and Jonathan wanted to see fear, feel it under his hands, feel this little--this fucking pedophile shake with it. "If you take one more step, however, I'll call security. Sit down." Cool still. Unruffled. Phone at his elbow. Perfectly ready to use it. Butler doubtless just outside the door, waiting for one sound. One signal.
The clear blindness was fading, leaving him a little too aware of reality. Of the office around him, the people outside, the quiet afternoon.
"I'll kill you." A promise, both fists pushed into the hard wood surface of the desk. His knuckles ached. He must have punched it.
"And that would certainly solve all your problems, wouldn't it?" Lex shifted in the chair, voice dry as the wind outside, the straw in Clark's hair. "I'm sure your wife and son would be delighted to attend the trial and watch you sentenced to death for the murder of Lionel Luthor's only son and heir." Lex took another drink, head tilted thoughtfully. "The public humiliation and media circus and the reasons behind it would be quite entertaining. Not to mention the financial disaster that will leave your family penniless and at the mercy of every creditor in the state." Lex paused, meeting his gaze. Jonathan could read nothing in that calm face, not even interest. "That assumes you could kill me in cold blood, Mr. Kent. And you don't seem the type."
Jonathan rather thought Lex was wrong about that. He could feel Lex's blood on his hands and it wasn't unpleasant, warm and tight against his skin.
"Leave my son alone."
Lex fingered the glass briefly, then sat it down on the desk. Leaning forward, he rested both elbows on the surface, fingers laced together lightly. Head tilted up and now there was interest. Intense focus. Studied minutely, like a prospective buyer on a new horse, like Jonathan examined farm equipment.
Against his will, Jonathan felt himself begin to draw back, skin crawling. His son--his son was--was with this....
"What will you do if I don't?"
"I'll have you arrested." Finding his footing somehow, staring straight back. "Clark's fifteen years old--"
"According to a forged birth certificate, but that's put that aside for now." Something in Jonathan's stomach dropped, but Lex didn't pause. "Assuming you could prove your allegations--which in this case, would be having Clark admit to sexual relations--you're assuming that the Smallville police department would arrest me."
Michael Summers, who had been Jonathan's best friend in high school. James Brush, best man at his wedding. Alan Stowe. Fred Richards. Jonathan listed the names, marking them off in his mind. Friends, acquaintances, coworkers, drinking buddies down at the bar on eighth. They discussed weather and sports and their kids and the difficulties of farming, the machinations of LuthorCorp.
They wouldn't--
"They'd arrest you."
"How sure are you of that?" Long, serious look, holding Jonathan trapped on the expensive rug. "Supposing the reputation and--wealth--of the Luthor family was something of a byword around Smallville?"
They wouldn't--
"New thought." Lex put down the glass, and the clear blue eyes met Jonathan's. No expression in them. "Let's say they did. The trial wouldn't be here, obviously--I have good enough lawyers to have a change of venue to Metropolis. Do you think you'd get a conviction? You'd need to send your son to a doctor, of course, to get a medical opinion and proof, perhaps look for possible samples--but you know this, right?"
Sick, twisted images rose up in Jonathan's mind, churning in his stomach. Clark. His son. With this--
"But you might not do that, and in any case, assuming you started this little proceeding right now, there'd be no useable evidence anyway. You would, of course, need to find a prosecutor willing to go up against my father. Of which there are several, true. You could sell the story to the media, to sway public opinion. They'd love it. Tell how your fifteen year old son was seduced by a twenty-one year old Luthor. Of course, it might help if Clark would actually speak against me--and what do you think the chances are of that?"
Clark, skipping into the loft to change clothes, grinning over his shoulder, saying he had plans that night. Brilliant smile, nothing behind it at all. That's what Jonathan had seen.
"If it got past a grand jury without Clark's testimony, which I seriously doubt, you'd lose in trial. I have very good lawyers and if it looked bad, I'd pay off the jury. We both know I can and would---after all, I'm Lionel Luthor's son, as you so often remind me. I'm perfectly capable of buying off the entire court system if necessary." Bitter smile, not at all devoid of satisfaction. "It's been done before."
"You little bastard." Breathed.
"Humiliate your son in the papers, and there'd be talk--annoying, sleazy conjecture in every bar and dinner party in the state, possibly the country, and your son's name a household word, and yes, it wouldn't be that great to be me for awhile. But--you know, time." Lex leaned back into the chair, waving the glass in the air. "Cures everything. Except, of course, the records where you labeled your son a homosexual at the age of fifteen in front of the state of Kansas. In three years, the damage to my reputation would be minimal--I'm expected to do this sort of thing. I'm rich enough to ignore it. Your son, however, is not."
The chair was close and Jonathan fell into it. His legs wouldn't hold him.
"There are other options, Mr. Kent."
"Leave my son alone."
"I'm afraid that's not one of them."
Rage was gone--no, not gone, not completely. Shadowed. Somewhere distant inside he couldn't quite reach, remembering Clark in the loft as he got undressed. His son in all but blood, shirt off, wincing from the pull of cotton stuck to sweaty skin, and the smooth line of his back, straw flaking around him from his clothes and hair.
The break in that smooth line, right below the waist. Dark red-brown and he'd recognized the *wrongness* of it, walking up and grabbing his son's shoulder, feeling the muscles tense under his hand. Staring down at the reddish-brown stain--not a stain. Not exactly.
Like a tattoo, two letters, edged just above the waist of his jeans. Jerking down the denim, taking a breath. Labeled like an object. Running his fingers over it in curiosity, ready to ask, and Clark's jerk and wide, guilty eyes, and Martha coming upstairs and asking--asking what was wrong and stopping, breath out and he'd known *she* knew, just from the look on her face.
She'd known, and she'd said nothing.
"He's not--"
"We both know what he is and is not." Lex twirled the glass lightly, fixing his gaze on the liquid briefly. "Human comes to mind."
Dear God.
"I haven't told anyone, in case you're worried about that. I don't want him--taken--any more than you do." Lex leaned forward, resting his glass on the desk. "I don't have any intention of breaking off anything with your son, and if you have some odd idea of raising Smallville against me with accusations that you can't possibly provide evidence to substantiate, I can leave. Under threat for my life, I can certainly find somewhere else to live for awhile." A long pause, and he felt Lex's gaze crawl over him with almost painful slowness. Studying, searching for weakness--finding it. Knowing it was there. Very Luthor. Just like he'd thought.
Nothing like he'd expected, any of this.
"If I leave, however, I can almost guarantee your son will go with me."
Jonathan shook his head numbly.
"He wouldn't--he can't--"
"Money can buy anything. It can buy silence and people and identities, and in certain countries, it doesn't even matter. With certain surnames and a bottomless trust fund, no one would give a damn. A year or two abroad won't make any difference to me. And after such--exposure--your son couldn't possibly stay in Smallville. Not after his own father outed him as gay. Small town life and small town prejudice." Lex shrugged. "You know as well as I do what would happen to him. Invulnerable or not, how far do you want to test his resilience? Emotional well-being? Physical well-being, since I'm sure with so much attention on him, his secret would very quickly be discovered, as well as his curious antipathy toward the pretty green stones so popular around Smallville."
"You--" Nothing to say to that, not to Lex's coolly dispassionate voice, the cold reasoning that made rage meaningless.
"Mr. Kent, I don't have any intention of harming your son." A pause, and Lex shook his head a little. "I'm not my father."
No, he wasn't. Lionel Luthor was a lot of things, but none of them came close to the enigma sitting across the desk from Jonathan Kent at that moment. A flash of sharp, almost painful memory of the man he hated, wondering if Lionel was even aware of what he'd raised, of the nature of his only child.
Wondered, with a sick sort of sympathy, if Lionel would even find out before it was too late.
Looking up, he saw the blue eyes fixed on him again. Watchful interest, the look of a scientist observing his subjects during a particularly interesting experiment.
"Clark--" Couldn't find the words. His son was gay. He could have accepted that, given time. But this--
"He's happy, isn't he?"
Hellishly painful thought, and Jonathan clenched his teeth to choke back every possible denial. They would all have been lies.
"His grades are up--did you know I'm tutoring him in chemistry? He has a future in the hard sciences with his mind." Lex leaned back in the chair. "He still wanders around rescuing the idiotic mutant residents of this godforsaken town. He still does his chores, like a good boy, and goes to school and does his homework. Fucking with the current status quo won't achieve anything but a drop in all of that, and we both know it."
No answer to that, even as Jonathan searched his mind for something--anything--to refute the dispassionate facts.
"You can ground him and forbid him, and watch real teen rebellion in action. I've lived it and done it, Mr. Kent. Trust me, you don't want a superhuman son who gets pushed too hard. He hasn't had a real reason to test his limits yet, has he?"
"You think you're that important?"
Clark, flushed and shivering on the cot, afternoon sunlight pouring onto the floor over his back. Rebellion already there in the stiff line of his shoulders, the defiance replacing embarrassment in hazel eyes.
"I know I am." They both knew. "You might wonder if I'll retaliate if you choose to do that. I don't need to. I won't need to do anything. He's fifteen, and I'm going to be here for awhile--I can certainly wait you out. You can't lock him in his room for the next three years. All you can really do is alienate him beyond your ability to ever repair, and I don't think you want that." Pause. "I know for a fact your wife doesn't."
Martha's silence, Clark's flush, and that quiet loft with the straw in the air around him as he breathed, accepted what neither would say.
"Luthor--"
"Don't." Quick movement of one hand. "We didn't have this conversation. Denial is a Luthor family trait--perhaps you'd like to practice it a little? Let it go." Jonathan was somehow stunned to hear the soft sound of Lex lightly kicking the desk with absent energy. Looking at Jonathan like there was actually a choice to be made, a decision that wasn't already out of reach. "It's easier not to see, Mr. Kent."
Close your eyes.
Jonathan stood up and walked out, barely noticing the people he passed, emerging from cool grey into the sunny late afternoon, his truck incongruous and shabby on the finely tended lawn.