Authors Note: This is the Smallville companion to my other 'Musings' works about Spiderman®'s characters. I think it is pretty good. If you love it, me, or anything else on this planet you will be kind and review. It only takes a second, and it would make my week. Thanks.
He paced the corridors of Luthor mansion, footsteps echoing in the empty halls. He was alone. With the exception, of course, of the serving staff, but they were well nigh invisible.
"The loneliness of power," his father called it. Lex had been isolated his entire life, due in part to the intentional maneuverings of his father, and in part to circumstances beyond his control. Whatever the reason, the result was the same: his life was filled with emptiness.
Swirling the brandy in his glass, Lex descended into deeper contemplation. With all the wealth that paved the way through every situation in his life, there were very few challenges left to him any more. That was likely the reason he enjoyed, even looked forward to, the verbal chess games he played with his father, and the Machiavellian maneuverings and power struggles that went on between the two of them.
Lex considered himself an intellectual, and the pursuit of knowledge had always been a favorite pastime of his. Now though, this, too, was not as much of a challenge as it used to be. He had read all the great philosophers, poets, historians, and everyone else of any import, his father had made sure of that. However, there were two mysteries that remained as elusive as ever: the cave walls and Clark Kent.
Relics and the feats of ancient man had fascinated Lex for a long time. He had been to Lascaux, Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc, Cueva de las Monedas, La Marche, but had never seen anything that came even close to resembling the symbols found in the Kawatche caves in Smallville. Then recently, those same symbols started appearing in a myriad of unexpected places: ancient statues unearthed from tomb walls, old manuscripts, an odd octagonal disk dug up in a field, burned into crop fields and the side of a barn, and all over Clark's homework.
Which led him to the mystery he puzzled over most often: who or what exactly was Clark Kent? Clark obviously knew far more than he was letting on about the caves, and incredible, fantastic things happened around him all the time. And how was it that in the hour of your greatest need, whenever it looked like all hope was lost, Clark appeared? Lex owed his life to Clark many times over, as did most other people in Smallville.
Thinking of Clark brought on pangs of jealousy and envy, feeling Lex never experienced around anyone else. Clark, although poor, and utterly without connections or influence, had what Lex had fervently wished for as long as he could remember. Clark had a family. A family that loved him. A father that loved him. A father that deemed him worthy of his affections, that protected him from the world's cruelty.
Lex had done everything he could to try to win his own father's favor, but ever since the baby… Julian… Julian… No! No! even before… Julian… his father hadn't loved him. He never had, and he never would. Which made it hurt all the more Clark's father rejected him, too, because the perfect family didn't want him, either. Tarred with the same brush that blackened the family name, nobody wanted a Luthor.
Could he ever escape the all-consuming shadow of his father? Could he find someone who didn't care about his name? Would he ever be able to prove himself to Clark and his family? Questions, questions. But now was not the time. Tomorrow he would begin his search for answers. Now was the time for another glass of brandy, before descending into his tortured, lonely dreams.