~Just seen 'Tempest' - can I just say 'argh!' For anyone that's read Brave New World II Chapter 12 - does this situation feel familiar? Y'know, the whole 'father in busted back peril' thing?...So, we're gonna have to play the angles here.~
2. Emotional Tyranny
LEX
I watched that fucking chopper come down, and I could hear Wagner, I swear. I almost expect the old bastard to jump out, sweep past me. But instead, we get techno-drones, with their little wires and projectors.
He's got a holographic projector. Another of his proto-types, and we know what the last one did to you, Dad. Horribly convincing, and I'm gaping at the resolution quality, before the sense of the words gets through.
Shit.
In the stinging silence, I can't even find the words to respond. He's not even here for me to deal with. I'm left with an afterimage on my eyelids, and a churning stomach. All I know is, I need to speak to Chloe. Now.
CHLOE
Lex looks nearly as bad as my father. My boyfriend, never usually at a loss for an apposite comment, can't find the words to apologise. It's not his fault - he was so pleased that we'd turned a profit this quarter. We might have known that that -shit- wouldn't let it go.
He won't be taking me to the Spring Formal. Won't be showing his face outside his door until he's salvaged something from all of this. And I understand. Really I do. Though my inner princess kicks up a stink. Nearly bite through my tongue not expressing my feelings, but he looks like someone has hit him.
I don't think it really hit -me- before, how the economy of this town depends on him. And how he just shoulders it, tries to keep doing the right thing, or his version of it.
But we can't deal with each other right now. I need to process the fact that I may have to leave my life here. My home, my friends. For once, I don't have the words either. I need to go talk to normal people, who don't destroy lives as part of a father-son bonding ritual. Head off to my sanctuary.
CLARK
I can't picture Smallville without Chloe. Or Lex.
Even my Dad expressed something like sympathy for him. They had another row about 'the secret', so he hasn't been over in a while. I'll have to go see him.
LEX
Given the choice between incompetence and malice, I think I'll take malice.
I'm a walking hazard. People close to me die, or get hurt.
Clark left, and just afterwards, I heard it. The steady heartbeat of rotors.
Telling my father that he had to stay in hospital was tantamount to shoving him out the door. Contra-suggestible, or just bloody-minded? It doesn't matter. Half the security systems are off-line, so they don't fuck up the medical equipment, and he's squatting in my house like a broken-backed spider. Watching my every move.
I hate feeling helpless. It clouds my judgement.
I can raise the funds for 90% of an employee-led buyout. Trying to convince a group of men with the most fragile reasons to believe me. Even Gabe is dubious. And I can't tell them that I need to win this because I have a secret in the cellar that my father can't find out about. I've been half-expecting a mob with pitchforks to turn up outside the gates. But no-one came. Even the Ledger just ran without a comment. A picture that captured me gaping like an idiot, as my father confirmed every opinion of me that I have spent so long countering.
At least Clark came to see me. That meant a lot.
2. Emotional Tyranny
LEX
I watched that fucking chopper come down, and I could hear Wagner, I swear. I almost expect the old bastard to jump out, sweep past me. But instead, we get techno-drones, with their little wires and projectors.
He's got a holographic projector. Another of his proto-types, and we know what the last one did to you, Dad. Horribly convincing, and I'm gaping at the resolution quality, before the sense of the words gets through.
Shit.
In the stinging silence, I can't even find the words to respond. He's not even here for me to deal with. I'm left with an afterimage on my eyelids, and a churning stomach. All I know is, I need to speak to Chloe. Now.
CHLOE
Lex looks nearly as bad as my father. My boyfriend, never usually at a loss for an apposite comment, can't find the words to apologise. It's not his fault - he was so pleased that we'd turned a profit this quarter. We might have known that that -shit- wouldn't let it go.
He won't be taking me to the Spring Formal. Won't be showing his face outside his door until he's salvaged something from all of this. And I understand. Really I do. Though my inner princess kicks up a stink. Nearly bite through my tongue not expressing my feelings, but he looks like someone has hit him.
I don't think it really hit -me- before, how the economy of this town depends on him. And how he just shoulders it, tries to keep doing the right thing, or his version of it.
But we can't deal with each other right now. I need to process the fact that I may have to leave my life here. My home, my friends. For once, I don't have the words either. I need to go talk to normal people, who don't destroy lives as part of a father-son bonding ritual. Head off to my sanctuary.
CLARK
I can't picture Smallville without Chloe. Or Lex.
Even my Dad expressed something like sympathy for him. They had another row about 'the secret', so he hasn't been over in a while. I'll have to go see him.
LEX
Given the choice between incompetence and malice, I think I'll take malice.
I'm a walking hazard. People close to me die, or get hurt.
Clark left, and just afterwards, I heard it. The steady heartbeat of rotors.
Telling my father that he had to stay in hospital was tantamount to shoving him out the door. Contra-suggestible, or just bloody-minded? It doesn't matter. Half the security systems are off-line, so they don't fuck up the medical equipment, and he's squatting in my house like a broken-backed spider. Watching my every move.
I hate feeling helpless. It clouds my judgement.
I can raise the funds for 90% of an employee-led buyout. Trying to convince a group of men with the most fragile reasons to believe me. Even Gabe is dubious. And I can't tell them that I need to win this because I have a secret in the cellar that my father can't find out about. I've been half-expecting a mob with pitchforks to turn up outside the gates. But no-one came. Even the Ledger just ran without a comment. A picture that captured me gaping like an idiot, as my father confirmed every opinion of me that I have spent so long countering.
At least Clark came to see me. That meant a lot.