Codes: Lionel, Lex, Lex/Clark
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Eh. Victoria arc, Leech, very lightly
Summary: Lionel goes to the hospital.
Author Notes: Te and Victoria and Andy and Beth said it worked. I'm going on faith here. Thank you
Archiving: SSA
Disclaimer: I don't own them. I accept this with very little equanimity and much pulling of the hair and grinding of the teeth. Metaphorically speaking.

Feedback: Send it. Please.

Spin

by jenn

Spin theory--anything can be explained away with the right words, covered with the right actions. Lex was past master of the art, Lionel thought, and he knew every unspoken lie and clever not-truth his son could build, found the layers impenetrable when Lex was at the top of his game. And it'd been awhile since he wasn't.

Puberty, come to think of it.

Take the latest incident.

Call at five am, and it was the one he'd waited for every night since Lex's fifteenth birthday, since that first time that should have been a blur of memory by now but didn't fade even for the brandy bottles downstairs. The one he'd gotten ten times in six years, and he remembered every one so vividly that the dreams took his sleep more than any business disaster ever could. The one--the only one--that meant anything, really, and it was always a woman's impersonal voice and it was always a bad connection and it was always, always, enough to stop his heart.

"Is this Lionel Luthor?"

And there was always the temptation, and it was juvenile and impossible and beneath him, to say no--say no and if he didn't hear, didn't listen, hung up and went back to sleep, it would go away. Too much like Lex, who rolled his bodies under the ground to bury fast and forget faster, as if what no one sees, no one hears, no one knows, can't be true.

As if reality was only a clever spin job.

"Yes." If his voice shook, it could be blamed on the hour.

"Your son was just admitted to Metropolis Hospital, Mr. Luthor. I--"

It was over, like that. Phone down with the words still hanging in his ear and echoing in his head and it was three years since the last time, since Lex figured out how to get under the radar, until the spin job was done behind his back. Since the one fuck-up that even a Luthor couldn't survive intact, not in any court in the country.

Lionel dressed fast and moved faster, thinking surface thoughts of calls to Dominik or Dorothy or his lawyer who knew more about the sins of the youngest Luthor than Lionel did himself, but he was going, out the door and *away*. Cell phone in his hand and the BMW closed around him, driving like the world was ending because--

It'd been three years since he'd gotten this call and the spinning had been so good he'd thought he might never get another.

All dull blank not-thoughts until the wide glass doors opened in front of him.

Hospital in bright white and chrome and the bodies of too many people in the ER like maggots clinging to a wound. He wanted to leave and he wanted to stay and he wanted to smoke, then he wanted a drink and fuck that he'd forgotten to keep something in the car. A nurse at the front who saw him and knew him motioned him over and reporters, might be here, could be here, what the fuck did Lex do this time and could they hide it?

Didn't ask the question. Is he alive? Lionel made the assumption, ran with the instinct that said don't ask, don't tell, don't wonder, because otherwise--if he asked, he might *not* be.

"He's over here, sir."

Respectful, at least, and she led him past the people crying and the people bitching and the kid in the corner shaking like a junkie without his fix, down a private corridor where the room was quiet and the curtain was jerked back by Lionel's steady hand.

Lex was sitting up with his clothes in a pile beside him. Dressing with the methodical care he'd learned from school and the undeniable style he'd inherited from his mother. Fashion plate special except for the dark circles under his eyes and the careful removal of the IV from the tape on his left arm. Four bruises on his shoulder before the lavender linen slipped on like armor. Crisp movements that reflected how high his son's tolerance was for narcotics that didn't come under the name China White and weren't sold by the ounce down in the warehouse district.

Relief like ice in summer. Cold, hard, and so good. So, so good.

"Mr. Luthor, you shouldn't be up--" The nurse's fear was superfluous, fluttering around him like an injured fly. They both ignored her.

"I'm fine." Low, breathless voice, and it could have been anything. Drugs or liquor or inconvenient wounds or God knew what, Lex rewrote the book on recreational injuries, but the blue eyes saw him and sharpened, shutting down. The spin job was in progress before the first words left his son's lips.

"Victoria boring you, Dad?"

Fucking prick of a kid, sitting on the bed like they were at home and nothing, nothing shamed his son, not anymore. Fuck the family name, smear the reputation, they were public record now in the hate they played out like a cheap Hamlet sideshow for the amusement of the city. Gritted teeth and fisted hands hid the relief and Lex would only see the anger.

Lionel could spin, too.

"I was concerned that you'd managed to get yourself into another situation, son." No father should have to deal with this. "Anything I should worry about?"

"I'm touched by your concern for my well-being. There is no situation. Little accident, that's all." He winced when he slid off the bed, hand on his side brief and telling. The other hand was hidden, but Lionel could see the bandages, white and stark even on that pale skin. Broken wrist, perhaps. "Company is safe, scandal nonexistent, and you must have better things to occupy your time. I certainly do."

"Sir, you're not in any condition to leave." The nurse was frowning, twisting thin fingers in her smock. "Three of your ribs are broken. Broken wrist and a concussion, and sir, we need to admit you for observation for the night."

"Watch hell freeze first," Lex answered charmingly and found his coat by touch. Good thing he was left handed. "I'm fine, and I'll see my doctor tomorrow. If you'll please send me the bill--you have the correct address. I'll be going." Lionel wouldn't admit it, never admit it, that the thought of broken ribs moving beneath that pale skin and all the soft tissue it could damage....

"You should stay."

Bright, hard eyes, quick smile that drew blood in lesser men. Six years made it nothing more than a flesh wound, but the sting was there.

"I'll be fine. If you'll both excuse me, I have sleeping to do." Lex dismissed his father from his attention--a little trick he'd picked up from Victoria, if recent experience was anything to go by. The nurse drew back at his son's full attention. "I assume you can find someone to prescribe painkillers or would that be too difficult?"

"You can't drive back to Smallville like this." Lionel already knew he could--Lex did will like other people did sleep.

"That's the most interesting thing you've told me in years," Lex answered, glancing down briefly at his state of dress before reaching for his coat, pulling it on with winces that were all beneath the surface, read only in the narrowing of blue eyes and the stiff line of his back. "And the first thing I can agree with. I won't be driving, I'm not going back to Smallville, and you can make me very happy by getting the hell out." Tilted head and the bruise on the bare pale head was vivid, and fuck, what the *hell* did Lex do? "All's well, Dad. Feel free to fuck off."

He left, not because Lex told him to, but because he had a doctor to harass and a report to look at, because broken bones weren't common, even for Lex. Drug overdoses, knife wounds, bullet to the thigh, lacerated back--that's what he was used to seeing. Luthor luck kept him alive by the skin of his teeth, and it wasn't suicidal tendencies, or so fifteen thousand dollars worth of psychologists had told him in monotone voices while waiting for him to sign the checks. God alone knew, perhaps, but Lionel didn't, and he was beginning to think Lex didn't either and cared even less.

Report was succinct and told him less than Lex's body. Three ribs neatly snapped, compound wrist fracture and a concussion, bruises that didn't match any accident known to man and no explanation. Of course. If you can't spin it, you cover it. Easy lesson he'd taught Lex before he could speak.

Came back to see the junkie kid in the room, and it would figure, with Lex. Big and staring and shaking in the visitor's chair, head down so nothing but a mess of dark hair was visible. Lex was standing and holding his wrist behind him. Casually.

Hiding it like a bad spin job and there was nothing in his face but patience. And that, for one, was very new.

"Stop it. You're worrying for no reason." Slow, easy crouch, taking his time and making it look effortless, but Lionel knew his son's body down to the cells that made it. Nothing was easy in that. Long fingers of his left hand sliding in and finding skin, tilting the pale, wet face up "I'm fine."

"You're not." So low it was almost inaudible, and the junkie stopped shaking with hands clasped in his lap like he was trying to force bones to meet despite the petty barriers of flesh. Young, Lionel noticed, really young, even for Lex's eclectic choices of companions, and the clothes screamed lower middle class rural in flannel, no slick suburban wannabe playing at poverty for kicks. Pretty, though, like a magazine cover without the hard gloss, even in the old jeans and dirty boots. His son had his mother's taste in men as well. "God, Lex, I'm sorry. I didn't--. God--"

"Shh." Lex's fingers slid up, over the mouth, and there was intimacy there that cut. Rhythmic brush of his thumb and the kid was like putty when Lex flicked on that smile. Most people were. "We can talk about it later. Preferably while eating something and in a relatively supine position. It was an accident. I've gotten worse on a bad night at a club. Nothing serious."

"You're kidding me." Blank, shocked eyes, and Lionel kept still, kept his mouth shut.

"Clark." Lex dropped his head briefly, maybe for words, maybe for breath from lungs that were doing their damndest to avoid puncture. "I don't care."

"I do." Head floating down like a magnet going north and Lex was holding him up by sheer will.

"And flattering as it is, this isn't the time. Look at me. Now." Kid's eyes flickered up. Wanted to believe so badly it was written there in neon for anyone to see. "It's not serious and I heal very fast, gratis meteorite intervention." Smoothing along high cheekbones that looked like they could cut air. Lower voice, and this was meant for no one but the kid. "It's not your fault."

Those eyes stared back, impossibly hopeful. Nodded like a dream was in progress and Lex's smile was slow and careful and utterly sincere.

Beautiful work. Lex was a politician's wet dream of deceit. Lie with the truth in front of you bandaged and still high on morphine drip, IV track hidden by the shirt, lost among all the others. Kid believed like it was written in stone. Just beautiful.

Clark?-- was pale, but he nodded and took the hand from his mouth, quick, near-invisible brush of his lips over the knuckles and all was explained, or at least, some of it, and Lex straightened with that same easy grace that had everything to do with control and the fact Luthors never let pain show. Ever.

"Can I interrupt?" He put himself in the room and there was nothing else to think about that he wanted to know. Sixteen only if God willed it so. And that barely, if at all. In Kansas. Taking bets for Smallville. Dear God.

Boy dropped the hand, wide eyes and ashen again, but Lex just looked annoyed. Tired, annoyed, and so still it was like movement only not. He didn't care enough to hide anything and his hand on the kid's shoulder was evidence Lionel didn't need. He'd prefer the spin.

"No. Doctor wrote me 'scripts, there's a pharmacy on the way home that'll do them now, and I'm getting some sleep. You want to talk about it, it'll have to be later. Say hi to Victoria. And keep in mind she fucks the same way she does business--badly." Glance down, smile for the boy that reached his eyes. "Let's go."

The kid was on his feet, head down, slumping as if he could disappear if he just tried hard enough, and Lionel Luthor didn't move, didn't breathe. But there was nothing to be gained by standing here, making a battle in public what should be private. Stepping back and watching them walk, and if his son was moving more slowly, it had to be his ribs. Flash of keys the boy took from his pocket, a hand hovering near his son's body to catch him if he fell, which he wouldn't, because Luthors didn't do that.

But Lex had been rewriting the book on Luthors since he taken his name, so who the hell knew? Lionel watched them leave with narrowed eyes and wondered, just a little, and the big fingers of that kid would make a very clear match to the purple on that pale skin.

Out the door into the cold of the night and there were no questions answered except for one. And it was the only one that mattered.

His son was alive.

The End