Stare Decisis
Disclaimer: Not mine. I don't own Smallville or the song lyrics preceding each chapter or any of the literary illusions made or quotes referenced. I don't own them and I'm really not attempting to claim otherwise. Let's leave the law out of this one, shall we?
Rating: R (adult themes, sex, violence, strong language)
Summary: Stare decisis: Latin, to stand by things decided; a reliance on precedent. The past dictates the present, and we are obliged to follow. We play connect-the-dots with humans and history alike and allow memory to shape the outcome. Chloe/Lex. Futurefic. AU.
Author's Note: What's there to say? This idea hit me out of nowhere and I haven't been able to put it to rest since then. So I decided to run with it. The summary isn't as explanatory as the word "summary" would insist upon it being. Pretty much, every time I adopt a fandom I feel obliged to write some sort of "epic." And this is my Chloe/Lex epic, my ambitious, grandiose attempt at telling their story. There is no real sense of time; there will be fifteen chapters, with none of it really going in chronological order. The story? Lex Luthor has been elected president. That is really the only way to summarize what is to come here. This is the story of his term in office, his turn to the darkside, so to speak, and where Chloe fits into any and all of this. It's messy and strangely organized, but I like it, and here's to hoping that you do as well. This first chapter is short; a prologue of sorts, and most chapters from here on out will be much lengthier. Alright, enough of the public service announcement. Please, do read, review, and enjoy. Thanks.
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primusI picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees, asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel, that you can believe in
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I don't know anymore
What it's for
I'm not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand?
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(I know I would apologize if I could see in your eyes
'Cause when you showed me myself I became someone else)
- In the Sun – Joseph Arthur
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2016
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George Washington chopped down his father's cherry tree and later confessed, proffering fictious words of wisdom passed down through wooden teeth since the red, white and blue year of 1776: "I cannot tell a lie." John F. Kennedy pleaded with the nation to not ask what their country can do for them, but rather what they could do for their country, and subsequently botched a coup on Castro and had his brains splattered upon his fashion plate of a wife and the sunny Texas boulevard they rode upon. FDR, from a wheelchair and locked polio braces, let the nation know, that despite Japanese bombers, a Nazi vendetta and the crash of the stock market, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And the nation cheered and the populace thundered their zealous approval year after year after year.
Lex Luthor wonders which phrase and event will follow him through and past the grave and into the pages of seventh grade textbooks and elementary schools' perennial patriotic performances. If he's lucky, or especially good, he might even earn a holiday.
At the same time, Bill Clinton will be best remembered for "not" having sexual relations with that woman and William Howard Taft got stuck in a goddamn bathtub. But he knows, gut feeling and intuition, he's not headed down that path.
How do you know where it all will end if you don't even understand where it began?
The year is 2016. And as expected, Lex Luthor has just won the presidential race for the newly reinvented Republican Party, which, come a year and a day or two's time will possess a terrifyingly ironic ring to its definition.
The flashbulbs pop and the American flag beckons behind him, Lex Luthor on stage, election night, a stretching crowd before him. .
Time stands still for no man. But in the movie of his life, this part plays in slo-mo.
Time stands still for no man. But as the flashes of cameras wink his way, ambiguous shadowed faces, eyes bright, a collage of red, white and blue, his right hand rising up in a wave – it all seems to slow. The sounds echo, the lights are brighter.
A flash of bright lights and with a painted grin and a bright red tie, he wonders how many households are watching him right now.
Red, white and blue balloons descend from the ceiling, confetti, glitter, all intermixing with the thunderous crowd and booming generic soundtrack. He thinks they might be playing "Born in the USA." He's not sure. It's hard to hear above the patriotic hysteria below him.
If he ever had to find a word to capture the moment, 'amplified' would come to mind. The microphone clipped on his suit, just near the flag gracing his lapel, allows his voice to reach decibel levels of falling bombs and roaring trains. The television screen behind him illuminates the arena, his face, his frame, visible to those all the way in the cheap seats, the last row, waving miniature flags he will never see. He thinks George Orwell, but rather than shudder, his smile grows a little more genuine.
This changes everything.
He used to always wonder why John D. Rockefeller never ran for office. He already owned the industry, the land; had the entire fucking country in his back pocket, tucked between a gold money clip and a hundred dollar bill.
And, yes, George Orwell is still echoing through his mind, his ears, and he can hear it, his words, as clearly as he can see them in his mind's eye: He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.
A man might not be able to stop the world from spinning. But with a little sleight of hand and a flick of the wrist, he can send it turning on its axis, whipping past, toward the other way.
Hands clasp his own, blank-faced politicians, shaking on the promise of something little more than ambiguous, something cloudy, something that makes him think of days long past.
He can see it now: Blonde head, lips drawn, inquisitive smirk, bright eyes and it's been – what? – Four years? Three, since he's seen her last? And there had been a time, a time reaching back farther than that, when her life had been about term papers and drunken frat boys with heavy hands and glassy eyes and he had been composed of business acquisitions and cold, drafty boardrooms, fucking various brunettes while keeping the girlfriend, his girlfriend, on the side, safe, in a trophy case next to all the other things he owned for face value and in reality would probably never touch.
A strange smile quirks his lips. He still kept her on his side. The press loved it and she photographed well and there wasn't a speck of dirt anyone could ever dig up on her.
A red balloon pops near his head, and his mind is still on that blonde head, breaching twenty, about to leave Met U. He had run into her randomly, end of the workday, tired, burnt out, and she looked something akin to the same. They had a drink together, which somehow became four and another chapter to file away in the missteps of their lives.
She had asked, breathless and unsure and he had wondered what it could possibly mean that she wasn't trying to hide from him. "Where do we go from here?"
He had answered with one word: "Up."
And now, Lana, his wife, clutching his arm, a nearly manic grin contorting his wife's face, he wonders if Chloe is watching this, watching from her apartment in Georgetown, mouthing obscenities, damning the world. Damning him.
He wonders if this is up, or if there is still higher to climb.
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It is a cold day in November. Biting wind and freezing rain. It is a cold day in Washington DC and as his men escort him to his armored car, flashbulbs still sparking, a blinding blur, like standing close to the sun, staring into it, he wonders for a second if he's gone down rather than up. Just a second of self-doubt, a second of self-doubt he knows would have turned into a sentence had he married the blonde.
The car starts up with a gentle purr and he holds his wife's slender hand within his own, the diamond sparkling from her fourth finger, lights from the car's interior catching it.
It is a cold day in November; it is a cold season in hell.
The year is 2016. And Lex Luthor – former club kid, drug addict, reckless driver, playboy, business exec, whipping boy – is president.
The next day Chloe Sullivan is out of a job.
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