Author: MitchPell
Rated: I’m guessing R due to the language. I’d rather be safe than sorry.
Genre: I guess it would have to be Drama.
Summary: This is one possible scenario that could have occurred after Jitters.
Authors Notes: This is my first time writing Lex. I’m sorry if I totally got it wrong. I know and love the character, but writing him is a totally different story. I read that concussions can make you emotional. So, if Lex seems more emotional than usual that is why. I will take any and all ideas!! Let me know what you think!! The staircase at the plant is the one that Lionel ran up when he first gets there. Also, I said that Lex’s jacket was missing because when he went to go into the plant he had it on, but when he came out of the plant he didn’t have it. So, he must have given it to someone to hold for him.
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. That includes Smallville, Lex, Martha, Lionel, the LuthorCorp Plant #3, or anything. Please don’t sue me. I have no money. I just wanted to use the characters and stuff for a little bit of non-profitable fun.
"Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty."-Mother Teresa
He turned and wrapped his arms around me. Wrapped, the word conveyed too much emotion to describe the action. The mock embrace infuriated me. He knew I was an emotional wreck; he had seen it in my tearing eyes. And, now he was using it against me. He knew that I would not pull away, that I so desperately wanted it to be real. I had to fight off the urge to return the embrace. I yearned to grab a hold of him and break down in his arms. To at least be assured that he was relieved that I was alive. But I could not do that. I could not allow him to use me more than he already had. I reminded myself that it was only a ploy, a ploy to avert the media’s attention from their onslaught of questions to an image of a loving father caring for a traumatized son.
Then he did something I hadn’t expected. He rubbed his hand up and down my back. The motion was soothing and reassuring. For a moment, I thought I had found the comfort I so desperately needed. However, I was dragged back to reality when my gaze settled on the Kents. Clark had an arm lovingly draped around each parent, and that ridiculous grin plastered on his face. Martha was saying something about how she had never been so happy to see him. Jonathan lightly punched him in the arm while speaking what could only be words of praise. My moment of peace was crushed beneath the genuine love the Kents expressed towards each other and the façade of my fathers embrace. I could feel the jealousy and anger swell within me. I could not comprehend why I was not worthy of such affection. What had I done to deserve to be discarded, to be thrown out of loves reach?
I could still feel his hand moving up and down on my back. The feeling that had so recently been a small comfort was suddenly making me nauseous. I knew I had to get away. I took a step back, hoping he would let me escape. To my relief and shock, he did. However, he kept one hand firmly clasped to my shoulder, like a cat holding a mouse by the tail only to watch it struggle in vain to run away. He turned back to the cameras and excused himself, and then started to lead me away from the on-hoard of reporters. I followed as he directed me towards some remote area of the ‘control station.’ However, we had only gone a couple of steps when the nausea seemed to magnify one hundred fold. I stopped walking. Not daring to take another step for fear that I would vomit right then and there in front of a million people and video cameras. “I’m going to be sick,” I whispered so only he could hear me.
He shot me a look that was a mixture of amusement and disgust, and then abruptly increased our pace towards what I soon found was the helicopter pad. Every step I took caused a piercing wave of pain to sweep up my back and into my neck and head, where it remained as if in a soon to be overflowing pool. By the time we had almost reached the stairs to the chopper pad, everything had started to spin. I stumbled sidewise into my father. He caught me then promptly, yet discretely, shoved me upright so I was no longer leaning on him. He tightened the grip on my shoulder, digging his fingers into the already tender flesh.
“If you embarrass me, Lex, I promise you will be wishing you had not walked out of that plant.” I found that his tone was unsettlingly calm.
He relaxed his grip on my shoulder, and continued to lead me towards the stairs. I tried to follow, but the vertigo was getting worse. Rather than risk falling down the stairs, I grabbed a hold of the banister and let myself sink to the ground.
“Lex, you are beginning to try my patience. I don’t have time to clean up your mess and play the worried father. Now get up.” His words carried more than a hint of annoyance and irritation, but I really didn’t care.
I had managed to seat myself at the top of the steps, placing my head between my knees. The position eased my queasy stomach and slightly slowed the rate at which the world was spinning before my eyes. I could hear my father speaking, but the words were indiscernible. He was probably lecturing me about how the recent events at the plant were another one of my mistakes that he now had to fix, or about how my current actions were an inexcusable public display of weakness. But, I didn’t care. The effects of the pistol-whip Earl had delivered to the back of my head were barreling down upon me like a flood of agony and nausea. The pain in the back of my neck and head was unbearable, and I soon discovered that I had become incredibly tired.
I saw a hand come down in front of my face, and then I felt it grab a hold of my chin. With one swift motion, he whipped my head up to face him. The sudden movement crumbled the barrier that was preventing me from regurgitating what little I had eaten. I could feel the bile charging up my throat from my stomach. I quickly turned towards the edge of the staircase and vomited over the side. I sat there for a while, clutching the banister above my head for support, trying to catch my breath. The world around me resumed its uncontrollable spinning. I closed my eyes hoping to make it stop, but the sudden darkness only caused me to lose my balance. I tried to force my eyes open, but to no avail. I could feel myself starting to fall. I could not tell which way I was plummeting, for I had lost all sense of direction. I could only hope it was through the railing and off the stairs. I would rather it be over quickly with only one meeting of the concrete before, than have to suffer through the multiple blows the stairwell would deliver.
A pair of hands grabbed my shoulders, ending my descent and shooting stabs of pain through my body. The sudden jolt lifted the weights from my eyelids, and they opened. I found myself once again at the top of the staircase, with my father in front of me.
“What’s the matter with you, Lex? Are you hurt, huh? Is that it? Or is this just another attempt to get my attention?”
I responded by leaning over and placing my head between my knees. I could feel a breeze pass overhead as he sighed. I knew his patience was running short, but I couldn’t force myself to react. All I could do was sit there staring vacantly at my shoes. I tentatively ran a slightly trembling hand over my pounding head. My fingers lightly brushed over the small lump at its base. I gasped as I found the small lump was at least five times its usually size.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re going to start crying.” Another sigh. “Listen, if you’re hurt tell me, and I’ll take you to see one of the paramedics. If not, pull yourself together and fix your mess. Just because the kids are out of the plant, and the gunman is in custody doesn’t mean there isn’t damage control to be done. And I have more important things to do than stand here at this shit factory and baby-sit you.”
He waited for what must have been a grand total of five seconds before turning and storming back to the ‘control center.’ As he passed by he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “you disappoint me, Lex. Just remember you are the one who wanted to play hero, so you are the one who has to deal with the consequences.”
I sat there and listened to him retreat back into the swarms of people, retreat from the one thing he didn’t know how to deal with, his son. His words filled me with a sense of raw hatred. I hated him, him and his fucking shit factory. I hated the fact that I cared. I hated that on some remote level, I cared whether or not my actions were deemed satisfactory in his eyes. I hated that I was letting the bastard affect me at all. I hated that his words didn’t just run off my back like beads of water, but stuck to me like foul tasting sap. My newfound anger enabled me to regain enough of my composure to stand up and make my way towards my car. The crowd surrounding the plant had started to thin out. Most of the parents had fled with their children as soon as they had exited the plant, wanting to get them out of harms way as soon as possible. And the rubber-neckers and gossip-hounds had left once there was nothing left to gawk at. All that remained at the scene were the LuthorCorp employees, authorities, and reporters, who were all busy doing their respective jobs. Therefore, no one seemed to notice as I stumbled to my car.
I had to get out of there, away from the plant, away from the media, away from my father, and all the lies and betrayal. I had my doubts about my driving ability, considering I was so sick to my stomach I could hardly stand. The world was spinning so quickly in front of me that I could not walk in a straight. And my head was pounding so hard that I was seeing spots as I teetered on the verge of passing out. I had serious doubts about whether or not I would make it home in one piece. I would have called, to have someone from the mansion come and pick me up. But my cell phone was in the pocket of my now missing jacket. Therefore, I felt that my car was only possible route of escape. I decided to put my faith in my knowledge of the road between the plant and my house, and hope that my subconscious would get me home safely. It wasn't until I had started the car and was pulling away from the plant that people began to notice that I was still around. The reports and a few others immediately started to mill around the car. But I didn't stop. Anyone who didn't get out of the way risked the possibility of getting hit, because I was not stopping.
As I pulled up the mansion, I thanked the powers that be that I had managed not to wreck on my way home. I resisted the urge to just sleep in the car, and somehow managed to stumble into the house. To my relief, the staff was nowhere to be seen. The last thing I wanted was to be half-convincingly fused over by people who were only doing it in hopes that they would get a raise in their paychecks. I struggled into the kitchen with the hopes of making icepacks, for my pounding head and aching back and shoulders. After searching the kitchen for what seemed an eternity, I could not find anything to put the ice in. Therefore, I merely grabbed the whole ice bin from the freezer and proceeded to head my room.
I let out a fairly audible groan, at the mountain of stairs before me. “Huh, Mt. Stairwell.” I snorted at my pathetic attempt for a joke. If phrase like there were escaping my mouth then I must be in worse shape than I thought. And I thought that I was in pretty bad shape. I started my accent with surprising easy. However, about half way up I felt as if someone had strapped weights to my ankles. One such weight prevented me from making my foot clear the next step. As I tripped on the stair I reached out for the banister, while mentally cursing at myself for not using it in the first place. I fell hard on the stairs, banging my shin on a lower step, and smacking my face on the edge of my ice bin, spilling half of the contents down the stairs. “FUCK!!” I manage to pull myself up with my ice bin in tow. I could feel the blood trickling down the side of my face, from where my eyebrow caught the corner of the bin. The cut wasn’t that deep, but it was bleeding profusely.
After scaling the staircase, I stumbled the short distance to my room and into the adjoining bathroom. I let the cold water run and splashed some on my face. The brisk water was refreshing, but it barely eased the dizziness that had returned after my fall on the stairs. The pounding in my head was unbearable. I opened the cabinet mirror and took out a bottle of pills. After several failed attempts, however, I was unable to remove the cap. “Fucking childproof shit!!” Disgusted, I dropped the offensive bottle of medication on the floor. I reached down to cup some water in my hands and sipped from the little pool. The water hit my stomach like a ton of lead. I quickly lifted the toilet seat regurgitated what I had just drank. The convulsions of my stomach however did not cease, and I continued to wretch stomach acid into the toilet. The spasms of my gut broke down the barrier that was holding back my tears and diminished my breath to short gasps. I hovered over the toilet for a minute trying to catch my breath then settled into a sitting position on the floor. I cursed as I saw my ice bin taunting me from its perch upon my sink. No, longer able to fight off the exhaustion that engulfed me, I lied down of the floor. The cold, hard tile was surprisingly comfortable, and I lay there until the world around me went black.
The End
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