Kaleidoscope
Author: Kira
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Insert witty disclaimer here. I own nothing.
Kaleidoscope
If there was one thing in the world Lex Luthor hated more than business meetings it was the over-dressed, over-paid, middle aged, plump, completely devoid of any personality, monotone, lackey his father sent to run the business meetings. He was sure at one point Mr. Hampton had a mind of his own and like so many other business men it was one of the lost things he missed the most.
He had to resist the urge to just loll his head back, swing his arms limply at his sides and make an 'ughhhhh' noise in the back of his throat until it was over. But Luthor's didn't loll, swing, ughhhhh, or do anything remotely of the sort, and that's just how it was.
After what seemed like an eternity the droning from the head of the table subsided, and Lex had to blink himself back to consciousness.
"Well Mr. Luthor, what do you think of the contracts? They were rewritten exactly as you specified, much to the dismay of your father I might add," the man attempted to smirk at him though it came out looking more like a scowl.
"I'll have my lawyers go over it once more, Mr. Hampton, just to make sure everything is in order." He had already planned to reject the contact, but the longer he stalled the more time he would have to think up what he was going to say to his father when the eldest Luthor got wind of it.
"Thank you for your time Mr. Luthor. It was greatly appreciated," Mr. Hampton got up from the table and came around to shake his hand.
'Yeah it should be greatly appreciated. That's two hours of my life I can never get back dumbass.' "Your Welcome." He released the man's hand and had to resist the urge to wipe it on his pants. 'Why do they all sweat so much? Go to the gym.'
When his meeting room was deserted he plopped back down in his chair and pushed the call button to his secretary.
"Hi, Mr. Luthor what can I do for you," she said in a tone so bright he wanted to ask her what her thoughts were on world peace. 'Why do I always hire former beauty queens?'
"Mandy is it," he asked not waiting for a reply. "I need you to hold all my calls for the next hour or so. I'm going out to lunch. Oh, and order some of that Hand Sanitizer before the next meeting with Mr. Hampton."
"Okay. No calls for an hour, and hand sanitizer," she repeated back to him dumbly. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Yes. You can win the Nobel Peace Prize for continuing effort to bring education and political freedom to the bush people of the African Plains, and put your expensive education to use." Did he just say that out loud?
"Huh?" He could hear her rapid blinking.
"Nevermind. Just hold my calls," he sighed ending the conversation and collecting his jacket.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The winter was one of his favorite times in Metropolis. It made everything a little more mysterious. People pushed past him wrapped up in scarves and jackets, their breaths coming out in little plumes of condensation. Mothers prodded their children to bundle into their jackets farther until only their noses peeked out into the cold wind.
Lex Luthor however thrived in the cold gloominess of the Metropolis afternoon. His bald head stood out, uncovered, against the gray sky attracting stares from passerby's. There were the young twenty-something's who read the society pages. Of all the types of people they were the ones he hated the most. The men, using the term lightly, looked upon him with disdain, hating him for his seemingly lucky draw from the gene pool. What little they knew. The young women would brush up against him with fake plastic smiles on their faces waiting for him to do or say something. He often wondered what they expected him to say.
'Excuse me Miss. Yes you in the Britney Spears Baby Gap T-shirt. I was wondering if perhaps you would like to join me for an evening of attempted conversation in which we find the only thing we have in common is changing oxygen to carbon dioxide. Followed, of course, by a late night of hot sex, which is probably the only thing your good at aside from chewing gum and walking at the same time. When we wake up in the morning I will profess my love for you and ask you to be my bride and share my billions of dollars with me. Does that sound alright with you?'
Instead he always just smiled and brushed past them on his way to bigger and better things.
Today his bigger and better destination was a coffee shop/ underground theatre that was a hot spot among the Metropolis yuppies. The Green Room was known for its eccentric clientele as well as superb coffee, which was exactly what he needed to get through the afternoons impending meeting with his lawyers. They would no doubt tell him all the same things they had been telling him for the past two years. Get Married. Family Image is important. We need to watch the stocks.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts of business that he barely registered the flash of blue before it slammed into his lower leg.
"Hey watch out," he snapped as he steadied himself. He looked down to find the perpetrator and dish out some ass whuppin' only to be met with the huge green eyes of a little boy.
He couldn't have been more than five, dressed in a blue sweater and jeans; his blonde hair stuck straight up in defiance of gravity. He had on one mitten the other, Lex supposed, had been forgotten, or lost to the streets of Metropolis. The most striking feature was his bright ocean green eyes, which were staring, unblinking, up at him. Something tugged at the back of his mind making him think he had seen those eyes before.
"Sorry mister. I didn't see you," he said jamming his uncovered hand into his pocket.
"I would imagine not, you were going pretty fast." The boy smiled proudly at the fact, showing his little white baby teeth.
Lex scanned the lunch time crowd around him seeing if anyone panicked when they realized their son wasn't next to them. No one did.
"Who do you belong to?"
The boy narrowed his eyes and stuck out his lower lip. "Myself. Who do you belong to?"
Independent little thing. "Myself as well. Where is your mom?"
The little boy shrugged and flipped his mitten-clad hand in the air. "Off. But I'm not supposed to talk about anything with strangers," he stated as if just remembering the cardinal rule for anyone under ten.
" Well then I guess we shouldn't be strangers anymore. Alexander Joseph Luthor," he stated pushing his gloved hand out toward the boy. "My friends call me Lex. Actually," he amended "everyone calls me Lex."
The boy took his hand and shook it hard and jarring. "Joseph Maxwell Carter," he said proudly still shaking his hand. "We have the same name. Well middle name. Well yours is different than mine. That's kinda neat. Oh, my friends call me Joey."
"Well Joey how old are you," he asked silently wondering why the kids' parents weren't flipping out and yelling by now. 'They must've read 'Parenting: An Art in Ignoring' by Lionel Luthor.'
"Four. Five in the Summer. How old are you?"
'God. For a four-year-old he sure does ask a lot of questions.' Lex ignored how good it felt to be spoken to directly and not feared; to be looked at straight in the eye was not something that happened to him a lot. Most people said exactly what they thought he wanted to hear and refused to look him in the eye. "Twenty seven."
Joey's strikingly familiar eyes widened as he took in the great number. "Wow. That's old."
Before Lex could open his mouth to snide back at him a dark bundle launched itself at Joey and proceeded to squeeze the life out of him.
"Don't you ever do that to me again, young man. I swear to God I thought they had taken you. Were you trying to give me a heart attack? Lord I said stand here for two seconds so I could drop the mail into the slot I turn around and you're gone. I was so scared." The woman finally ended her rant and set about checking Joey for injuries.
Lex just watched, partly amused while the woman talked, and partly amazed that she could say it all in one breath.
He cleared his throat and said, "I don't think any harm has come to him in the past three minutes unless you consider good conversation a harm."
"You arrogant, bast. son of a. man," she stated whirling to face him. Suddenly the memory of where he'd seen those eyes before came smashing into him.
"Chloe?"
Kaleidoscope
If there was one thing in the world Lex Luthor hated more than business meetings it was the over-dressed, over-paid, middle aged, plump, completely devoid of any personality, monotone, lackey his father sent to run the business meetings. He was sure at one point Mr. Hampton had a mind of his own and like so many other business men it was one of the lost things he missed the most.
He had to resist the urge to just loll his head back, swing his arms limply at his sides and make an 'ughhhhh' noise in the back of his throat until it was over. But Luthor's didn't loll, swing, ughhhhh, or do anything remotely of the sort, and that's just how it was.
After what seemed like an eternity the droning from the head of the table subsided, and Lex had to blink himself back to consciousness.
"Well Mr. Luthor, what do you think of the contracts? They were rewritten exactly as you specified, much to the dismay of your father I might add," the man attempted to smirk at him though it came out looking more like a scowl.
"I'll have my lawyers go over it once more, Mr. Hampton, just to make sure everything is in order." He had already planned to reject the contact, but the longer he stalled the more time he would have to think up what he was going to say to his father when the eldest Luthor got wind of it.
"Thank you for your time Mr. Luthor. It was greatly appreciated," Mr. Hampton got up from the table and came around to shake his hand.
'Yeah it should be greatly appreciated. That's two hours of my life I can never get back dumbass.' "Your Welcome." He released the man's hand and had to resist the urge to wipe it on his pants. 'Why do they all sweat so much? Go to the gym.'
When his meeting room was deserted he plopped back down in his chair and pushed the call button to his secretary.
"Hi, Mr. Luthor what can I do for you," she said in a tone so bright he wanted to ask her what her thoughts were on world peace. 'Why do I always hire former beauty queens?'
"Mandy is it," he asked not waiting for a reply. "I need you to hold all my calls for the next hour or so. I'm going out to lunch. Oh, and order some of that Hand Sanitizer before the next meeting with Mr. Hampton."
"Okay. No calls for an hour, and hand sanitizer," she repeated back to him dumbly. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Yes. You can win the Nobel Peace Prize for continuing effort to bring education and political freedom to the bush people of the African Plains, and put your expensive education to use." Did he just say that out loud?
"Huh?" He could hear her rapid blinking.
"Nevermind. Just hold my calls," he sighed ending the conversation and collecting his jacket.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The winter was one of his favorite times in Metropolis. It made everything a little more mysterious. People pushed past him wrapped up in scarves and jackets, their breaths coming out in little plumes of condensation. Mothers prodded their children to bundle into their jackets farther until only their noses peeked out into the cold wind.
Lex Luthor however thrived in the cold gloominess of the Metropolis afternoon. His bald head stood out, uncovered, against the gray sky attracting stares from passerby's. There were the young twenty-something's who read the society pages. Of all the types of people they were the ones he hated the most. The men, using the term lightly, looked upon him with disdain, hating him for his seemingly lucky draw from the gene pool. What little they knew. The young women would brush up against him with fake plastic smiles on their faces waiting for him to do or say something. He often wondered what they expected him to say.
'Excuse me Miss. Yes you in the Britney Spears Baby Gap T-shirt. I was wondering if perhaps you would like to join me for an evening of attempted conversation in which we find the only thing we have in common is changing oxygen to carbon dioxide. Followed, of course, by a late night of hot sex, which is probably the only thing your good at aside from chewing gum and walking at the same time. When we wake up in the morning I will profess my love for you and ask you to be my bride and share my billions of dollars with me. Does that sound alright with you?'
Instead he always just smiled and brushed past them on his way to bigger and better things.
Today his bigger and better destination was a coffee shop/ underground theatre that was a hot spot among the Metropolis yuppies. The Green Room was known for its eccentric clientele as well as superb coffee, which was exactly what he needed to get through the afternoons impending meeting with his lawyers. They would no doubt tell him all the same things they had been telling him for the past two years. Get Married. Family Image is important. We need to watch the stocks.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts of business that he barely registered the flash of blue before it slammed into his lower leg.
"Hey watch out," he snapped as he steadied himself. He looked down to find the perpetrator and dish out some ass whuppin' only to be met with the huge green eyes of a little boy.
He couldn't have been more than five, dressed in a blue sweater and jeans; his blonde hair stuck straight up in defiance of gravity. He had on one mitten the other, Lex supposed, had been forgotten, or lost to the streets of Metropolis. The most striking feature was his bright ocean green eyes, which were staring, unblinking, up at him. Something tugged at the back of his mind making him think he had seen those eyes before.
"Sorry mister. I didn't see you," he said jamming his uncovered hand into his pocket.
"I would imagine not, you were going pretty fast." The boy smiled proudly at the fact, showing his little white baby teeth.
Lex scanned the lunch time crowd around him seeing if anyone panicked when they realized their son wasn't next to them. No one did.
"Who do you belong to?"
The boy narrowed his eyes and stuck out his lower lip. "Myself. Who do you belong to?"
Independent little thing. "Myself as well. Where is your mom?"
The little boy shrugged and flipped his mitten-clad hand in the air. "Off. But I'm not supposed to talk about anything with strangers," he stated as if just remembering the cardinal rule for anyone under ten.
" Well then I guess we shouldn't be strangers anymore. Alexander Joseph Luthor," he stated pushing his gloved hand out toward the boy. "My friends call me Lex. Actually," he amended "everyone calls me Lex."
The boy took his hand and shook it hard and jarring. "Joseph Maxwell Carter," he said proudly still shaking his hand. "We have the same name. Well middle name. Well yours is different than mine. That's kinda neat. Oh, my friends call me Joey."
"Well Joey how old are you," he asked silently wondering why the kids' parents weren't flipping out and yelling by now. 'They must've read 'Parenting: An Art in Ignoring' by Lionel Luthor.'
"Four. Five in the Summer. How old are you?"
'God. For a four-year-old he sure does ask a lot of questions.' Lex ignored how good it felt to be spoken to directly and not feared; to be looked at straight in the eye was not something that happened to him a lot. Most people said exactly what they thought he wanted to hear and refused to look him in the eye. "Twenty seven."
Joey's strikingly familiar eyes widened as he took in the great number. "Wow. That's old."
Before Lex could open his mouth to snide back at him a dark bundle launched itself at Joey and proceeded to squeeze the life out of him.
"Don't you ever do that to me again, young man. I swear to God I thought they had taken you. Were you trying to give me a heart attack? Lord I said stand here for two seconds so I could drop the mail into the slot I turn around and you're gone. I was so scared." The woman finally ended her rant and set about checking Joey for injuries.
Lex just watched, partly amused while the woman talked, and partly amazed that she could say it all in one breath.
He cleared his throat and said, "I don't think any harm has come to him in the past three minutes unless you consider good conversation a harm."
"You arrogant, bast. son of a. man," she stated whirling to face him. Suddenly the memory of where he'd seen those eyes before came smashing into him.
"Chloe?"
