Lex
See Chapter 1 for headers.
"Mr. Luthor." Lex's intercom called to him. He walked away from the bookshelf he had been absently staring at for...an hour?...planning to entertain some reading, but only staring at the volumes.
"Yes?" he said, turning in the direction of the phone.
"You have 127 messages and there are 3 reporters at the door." She paused. "I would have told you sooner, but you said - "
"I know what I said," Lex snapped. "Tell them to leave the property or be escorted out by some particularly unscrupulous security guards."
"And your messages?"
"They're probably all from the media?"
"Yes," she said. "and one from the dry cleaners."
"I have no comment, and I'm returning no calls." Lex said. The dry cleaners were on their own.
He sauntered over to a pile of periodicals on his desk. This was the case that had college junkets and national press icons alike scrambling for classical mythology primers and writing both the most tired and inspired headlines since the last Olympic games. Oedipus seemed to be the muse of choice, although Lex had seen some creative lines featuring Icarus, Zeus and even Achilles. Despite his personal vow to avoid the droppings of a voracious media, even he had succumb to a curiosity that would forever plague him.
Lex sat on a settee across the room. He could only describe his mood as grief. The losses were obvious, and despite all the hype, he did not take delight in seeing his father incarcerated. Or his...friend that - . He couldn't finish the sentence.
Lex didn't know what he should be feeling. But he knew that for every demon he had laid to rest today, a battalion would ambush him in its wake. He was exhausted at the thought of each and every one of his prospects. The minutest of victories had been tainted. His father was terminally ill. Chloe was endangered in every way. He was a prisoner in his own home. And Clark.
Clark.
It was the coup de gras.
And then Lex suddenly found himself standing at his bar, decanter in hand, pouring, pouring, pouring. Just to cut an edge, slow his thoughts, make himself bearable to be around.
He sipped slowly, the warming liquid cascading down his throat in a stinging flood that made him feel alive.
And then...
His throat was...Lex pulled at his tie and gasped for air...air, breath, life...
And then the overwhelming sensation of suffocation. He clutched his throat in an ironic attempt at freeing the clenching pressure, the claustrophobia of his own trachea.
And he fell in a slow-motion descent, crashing in a brilliant display of glass and crystal.
His eyes dimmed, his skin tightened, his mouth parched, his flesh bled.
His mind raced.
Writhing in a pile of glass, he couldn't help but wonder where Chloe was at that moment.