more lex/methos. very short.
avignon (more)
It turns out that Evan Pierce is brilliant. And not just in the mathematical, scientific fashion that Lex has been searching for in his employees for the past year and a half, but in the true meaning of the word, obscure connections created deep within his brain that turn out to be the only way things could ever be, and obscure facts about past centuries and milleniae offered up casually in conversation as though they are meaningless when they are actually pearls beyond price. The possibilities for dark humor in his t-shirt are realized in his conversation; not so much in his words as in his tone, as though he finds everything they talk about equally amusing, from Greek tragedy to the social repercussions of universal literacy.
Evan is in favor of the latter, and entertained by the former in a way that most people are entertained by Saturday Night Live. Lex, who has grown up in the epicenter of a Greek tragedy down to his very name, is slightly stunned by this nonchalant attitude towards the way of the world. And he still can't figure out how old Evan actually is. One minute he makes Lex feel aged, holding forth with fierce intensity on the need to protect the environment; the next, he is looking across the cafe table with ancient eyes as Lex quotes Alexander, or Julius Caesar, or Napoleon, and the expression on his face is that of unbearable experience.
When he spills his wine, he curses in a language that Lex does not know, and when Lex asks, Evan tells him that it is Sumerian. A half-second later, he looks chagrined, and swallows what's left of his glass in one smooth gesture.
"What are you studying?" Lex asks, because he hasn't before.
"Languages," Pierce says, pouring a fresh glass, "and the shifts in culture in Asia Minor during the first millenia B.C."
"I thought most scholars called it B.C.E.," Lex says idly, and Evan snorts into his wine.
"It's an inaccurate label." Again, the sharp vowels are a dissonance within his cultured speech. "B.C. fits, whether or not you personally believe that Jesus of Nazereth was divine. His birth, life, death, all changed the face of the world beyond recognition; what else can you ask for, as definition, in a world where no one can prove that god exists?" He shakes his head. "Jesus himself may not have created the change, but he was the catalyst."
"It's not enough to be a catalyst," Lex says, speaking from twenty two years of life as a Luthor. "You have to create the change."
"To control it?" Evan drains his glass, reaches for the bottle. "Never happen, Lex. Oh, some aspects of a change like that can be controlled, but for the most part, it's like trying to swim in floodwater. The only chance of survival is to go with the current."