Summary: Lex contemplates his unhappy past and uncertain future when he is taken hostage in an act of revenge against the Luthors.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the lovely characters featured in Smallville—unfortunately!
I also do not own/have not written any of the lyrics or quotes which may appear as credited within this story; intended usage is merely to complement narrative and thematic elements of my original work.
A/N: This takes place somewhere in Season 1 (not very important to the story, just some minor details).
IV: Sorely Mistaken
With the media frenzy dying down a bit, Lex decided to pay Clark a visit. While he still wasn't keen on running into Mr. and Mrs. Kent, a friend's company was exactly what he needed after a week-plus of unadulterated hell. Lex pulled into the Kents' drive and stepped out of his car. The evening was very still; given the pleasant weather of the past few days, it was hard to believe the forecast was actually calling for snow next week. Then again, the exact nature of winter's arrival—whether gradual or sudden—was never predictable. Lex breezed his way into the barn, slowing somewhat as he peered into its dimly lit interior.
"Clark?"
He stopped when no one answered, hearing only the lonely echo of his own voice. Looking up into the hayloft, Lex called out again.
"Clark, are you up there?"
His eyes slowly fell as two figures appeared some distance ahead of him. The one on the left was smaller than Lex and reminded him of the little henchman Roman Polanski played in Chinatown. The one on the right, however, looked about twice as tall and twice as heavy; something silver flashed from within his coat.
The better to shoot you with, Lex thought sardonically. Inwardly, he told himself not to panic. But try as he might, he could not ignore the instinctive dread in the pit of his stomach that told him Lex Luthor, somehow, had just stepped into a trap.
"What is this?" Lex asked coolly.
The two men slowly began walking forward, until there were only yards separating Lex and them.
"This, Mr. Luthor," stated Sherman matter-of-factly, "is a kidnapping."
An unexpected smile crept over Lex's features, belying his racing mind. "Is that so?"
"You got it," said Clayton. "Now you can make it easy on yourself and come with us now, or you can have it the hard way—which I don't advise."
Lex chose to ignore the threat for the time being, focusing instead on the overall situation at hand. He nodded thoughtfully, frowning as if impressed. "It's a good plan, in theory," he allowed. "Unfortunately," he continued, casually rolling his eyes to the ceiling, "it's not quite so airtight in practice."
Turning back to the men, Lex gave a bitter grin. "My father," he explained, "wouldn't pay you a dime."
Sherman considered this. "Sounds like a regular Father Of The Year."
"You have no idea," answered Lex.
"Even so," said Clayton, suddenly circling Lex and stopping behind him, "I think we'll take our chances."
Monkey in the middle, Lex chided himself.
"So what's it gonna be?" asked Sherman. "On your legs? Or off them."
Lex's eyes narrowed slightly, weighing the decision. "Well, if you think I'm going to go skipping off with you of my own accord, I'm afraid you're sorely mistaken," he said flatly.
Now it was the two men whose lips curled into smiles.
"Now, now, Mr. Luthor. Let's be an obedient little shit and come with us."
Lex remained where he stood, staring at an unremarkable spot on the barn floor. He was suddenly very aware of the Kents' presence—distant and in the farmhouse, but nevertheless there. These guys weren't going to shoot him, even to disable him, with the Kents so close within earshot...
Shrewdly interpreting Lex's slightly turned head, Clayton said, "Don't worry, Mr. Luthor, you'll be long gone before the Kents even realize you were here."
Lex consciously swallowed and hoped neither man noticed.
"The moment of truth," Sherman declared. "What's it gonna be."
Rather bewildered by what he was about to do, Lex didn't budge from his frozen, tense position. It was as if something inside of him had gone on autopilot, and he no longer had a say. Might as well go down fighting, he thought somewhat miserably, and with that, Lex broke from his motionless stance like a wound spring. Sherman never knew what hit him as Lex's fist hurled through the air and landed a powerful punch to the face. As the man grabbed his face in shock and pain, Lex spun to elude what he knew would be the wrath of Clayton.
Duck and run, he naïvely told himself in the milliseconds it took to turn towards the door. Waiting for him, regrettably, was Clayton's silver gun, which connected with his jaw. Lex actually saw the flash of metal as his head turned—Oh shit, was his last thought—and Clayton's arm, in a swift but deliberate motion, retracted and propelled forward to deliver a mouthful of metal as he pistol-whipped Lex to the ground in one blow. The brute force sent Lex careening to the barn floor, where he collapsed in a heap.
Sherman rubbed his cheek, looking down at Lex's prone figure. "That was a bold thing to do," he murmured evenly. "You're gonna pay like hell for it, but I must say, that took balls."
Idly, Lex wondered whether he might luck out and start to die right then and there. But he figured from the strong smell of the floor and the warm blood seeping through his teeth that his senses—and therefore he—were still very much alive.
"Get him up," Sherman ordered. "We gotta get moving here." As Lex was roughly hauled to his feet, Sherman caught his eye, adding with a smile marred by newfound swelling, "And Mr. Luthor has been quite clear in choosing his mode of departure."
Held fast, Lex was suddenly facing Sherman, feeling himself teeter slightly in Clayton's arms.
"What's the matter there, rich boy?" Sherman asked.
Lex didn't care anymore; he seriously felt like he was going to pass out at any minute. "I'm dizzy," he mumbled.
"Aww, he's dizzy," Sherman said, his lips pursed in mock sympathy.
"Yeah, that's too bad," said Clayton, and he mechanically braced Lex in his arms for the walloping punch that his partner viciously ground into Lex's stomach.
Ooomph went the air from Lex's lungs as he doubled over, gasping for breath. Clayton pulled him back by the collar and held him fast.
"Turn him around, let me get his hands," Sherman said.
Finding himself spun around and his arms pinned behind his back, Lex felt his wrists roughly seized and fastened together with duct tape. He grimaced with each bind, desperately trying to remain on his feet while racking his brain over how he could have ended up with such shitty karma. Sure, he was no saint—but who was? Reflecting on his brief albeit turbulent existence thus far, Lex concluded with no small amount of self-pity that nothing he had ever done could warrant this violent and untimely end. The one's sheer size and strength, coupled with the other's obvious penchant for cruelty, seemed to point to the fact that these guys were gonna fuck his world up... and in a most unpleasant way.
Clayton spun Lex around again to face Sherman, who simply stared at Lex with his eerily calm, eerily bruised face.
"Now I know you're not gonna do anything stupid again, like yell for help—not like anybody could hear you anyway," he told Lex, who just returned his gaze in dismay. "But you did choose option #2 if you recall." At this, Sherman loosened the tie around Lex's neck. Using it as a gag, he pulled it up and stuffed part of it into Lex's mouth. "Plus, we don't have to listen to your smart mouth anymore this way. So you can just choke on your own money for a while, OK?"
Lex almost had to give him props for that one. He only regretted that it happened to be his favorite tie.
"I guess you've learned your lesson by now as far as what being a dumbass will get you," Sherman went on. "Even so, we can't risk you trying something once we get you outta here." And with that, Sherman unsheathed a small blade from his pocket. Lex's eyes widened in panic, cursing himself for ever making the parallel to Chinatown. In one smooth moment that seemed like an agonizing eternity, the man squatted and lifted Lex's trouser leg high enough to slash the exposed shin there with the knife.
Lex's immediate reaction from above his gag was more one of genuine shock than of pain; his eyebrows flew upwards as though he'd been merely surprised. The only subtle hints of maleficence were in the slight, barely perceptible waver of his head from side to side and the quick brightness of tears that sprang to his eyes. This show of restraint was short-lived, however, as Sherman proceeded to brush his palm against the dirt floor and rub the soiled hand furiously into Lex's wound. Lex's tie caught the full brunt of his muffled scream, and he began hopping up and down in Clayton's arms like a child throwing a tantrum.
Sherman merely smiled as he rose and said, "Hopefully that will get nice and infected."
The pain, meanwhile, was proving too much for Lex to bear, as he began to experience the overwhelmingly dizzy sensation that precedes fainting. This, however, didn't bother Lex too much; he decided, under the circumstances, that leaving this horrible nightmare—in one way or another—was the best thing that could possibly happen to him. The men were too busy chuckling with each other to notice his eyelids flutter shut, and before they knew it, Lex had already dropped out of sight, his body and side of his face slamming into the unrelenting surface once more.
"Whoa!" exclaimed a rather amused Sherman, jumping back. "He just dropped like dead weight there!"
"Yeah, well he pretty much is dead weight now that we got him," Clayton said.
"So true, my friend, so true."
END 4/11
Keep running, keep running
'Cause you feel your lifeline breaking
And you know there's no mistaking
The footsteps close behind
Heard a "bang bang bang!" and down you go
Oh, no one really cares
'Cause the harder you run, and the harder you fall
I'm coming down hard on you
I'm hoping that my aim is true
I got a name, and I got a number, I got a line on you
I got a name, and I got a number, I'm coming after you
~ genesis, "just a job to do"