Lionel spread his hands in front of himself as if to placate a physical presence. But memory was more persistent and pervasive than any tangible being, slipping into the innermost defense, his mind.
He had been left strictly alone. Food and a change of clothing regularly came through an opening in the door but he saw and spoke to nobody. At first all his thoughts were of his son and the others, of trying to anticipate Kal-El's next moves. But now, images appeared and disappeared in front of his eyes, changing from clear to distorted as swiftly as reflections in water.
Lilian...when the memories of her came to him, they glided into all his senses, the elusive perfume she wore, the sensation of her fingertips brushing against his, throaty murmurs, the shadows of her dark hair against the cream of her throat, changing with each movement, every subtle intoxication of her mouth on his as everything else was forgotten. No, not even forgotten, but relegated to another reality, more corporeal but lost to perception. How she had enmeshed his senses before and how even her memory could do so again...
In those memories, her voice repeated the always-familiar words and he answered her, with voice and touch and the utter worship of the body, as she swirled around him like a veil of smoke and silk.
The problem was that Lionel Luthor belonged underground and his son belonged in a cell in the research labs. There was no reason to keep the old man alive or to keep the medical freak from being of some use. But instead, Kal-El was content to do nothing, to sit and smile at his objections.
He didn't dare countermand any of the orders or even to demand the new files on either prisoner. He'd tried to pull them up on his computer and got a message he had never seen before on any of the new government's systems: Access Forbidden. It was insufferable.
Except that he had to endure it. Kal-El had become ever so slightly restive under his guidance. Less likely to leave things in his hands, more likely to ask questions. It hadn't started out like this when he had first advised the teenager. Then Kal-El was uncertain, in need of reassurance, of somebody to give him direction. But now, Dr. Virgil Swann was contemplating, for the first time, the possibility of an erosion of his influence.
He disliked it.
AN: This is kind of what happened.
Muse: poke poke poke.
Me: I'm showering. Not a good time.
Muse: poke poke poke. Hey, I'm back! poke poke
Me: Still showering.
Muse: Remember me? Hey, I'm back!
Me, suspiciously: Yeah, I remember you. So are you going to tell me anything other than these next snippets?
Muse: Such a sense of humor. Why should I tell you anything about where this is going or anything like that?
Me, scrubbing a big toe: Yeah, why should anything change. Yeesh. You show up out of nowhere after being who knows where and you're not going to tell me anything beyond what you want right now.
Muse: You got it! And I'm being disgustingly cheerful about the whole thing, right in your face.
Me: In case you didn't realize it, I just made a really rude gesture at you with the soap. I'm talking the kind of rude that makes Marines blush.
Muse: La la la la la la la.