BALD THUNDER!!
This would have been up sooner, but Lolita was being a little bitch.
Title: Bald Thunder
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Upon entering Excelsior, Lex Luthor struggles with the cruelty of the world around him and his identity issues. As he must find a way to cope and continue, if he cannot thrive. Also, there’s a dildo, a prank, and Bruce Wayne.
Pairing: None because Lex is too young, but there is some occasional Brex friendshipy stuff that can be read either way.
Category: Drama tinged with comedy ^-^
Warning: hints of child abuse
It had all started off innocently enough. Well, as innocently as incessant bullying could start, as nine-year-olds have never been known for their cutting wit. All the same, for an overly bright boy such as Alexander Luthor, their taunts cut deeply. He just didn’t understand how to interact with them and never had. Despite the fact that the boys were all from privileged families, as he was himself, Alexander could tell he was inherently different, even before the meteor shower. There was truth to their treatment of him as an outsider. Something inside, something inherent, was out-of-place, and perhaps, wrong. He tried not to let it bother him. He tried to let the insults wash over him and be beyond such trivial things, as his father would say. He tried to focus on his studies. The books were more interesting than those dull children he had for classmates anyway. There was no depth to them, no understanding of the world, and he could not communicate with them.
The counselors at Excelsior assured his father that a boy as smart as Alexander would adapt easily to his new surroundings, that his inability to bond with his classmates thus far had a lot to do with the fact that they were not his mental peers, that this new school was an ideal place for Alexander to begin to thrive once again. And so, after an utter failure to force him into social activity at his twelfth birthday party, Alexander’s father finalized his decision and skipped Alexander up a grade, and he began high school the next term. The teasing became distinctly more difficult to ignore when he reached high school. Mostly because he didn’t understand it at first.
He was small and bright and bald, and the moment he stepped out of the cab and walked up to castle-like structure that was to be his new school and home, he frankly wanted to run away. He did take a step backward, looking at all of the other boys who were bigger and so normal looking, and bumped into the servant loading up his luggage. Alexander immediately became irritated with himself. It was just a boarding school, like any of the others he’d attended throughout his life. If his father were here, and he would be that evening to meet with the headmaster, he would have been ashamed of Lex’s moment of weakness. (His mother, he thought idly, might press him into her breast and caress his soft-skinned head until his heart stopped its erratic beating and Alexander could breathe and face the world again.) He took a breath, flaring his little nostrils and straightening his posture, and began a resolute march into the courtyard. He was a Luthor. Luthors could handle anything.
He heard a few students laughing, but ignored them, masked his face with an expression of profound disinterest. Halfway down the courtyard, something hit him. He paused for half a step, then continued walking. He’d been hit with paper wads and random school-boyish objects before. The laughing grew louder as a few more of the unidentified objects pelted his back. Alexander turned with an expression of bewilderment and annoyance and one brow raised very high. Several of the boys tried to pretend that they weren’t paying attention. One or two unashamedly laughed even harder. One with curly black hair caught his eye and stopped laughing altogether. He stepped away, behind the others. If nothing else, Alexander knew his appearance could be quite uncanny at times. He got a little stab of pleasure seeing the boy become so unnerved.
Alexander knelt and picked up one of the objects that had been flung at him. He narrowed his eyes in examination. They were all the same, of different colors. A little circle of rolled rubber, wrapped in clear plastic. Was it a balloon? Why would the boys throw balloons at him? Unless they had nothing else to throw, he supposed. He’d never seen a balloon quite like this, though. It was too big and the package said that it was lubricated. Why would anyone need a lubricated balloon? Completely at a loss, he straightened and looked at the boys in askance.
“What are you doing?” He demanded. One had to be direct about this sort of thing. Show no fear and let them see he was not to be trifled with.
“Wrap it up!” One boy with shoulder-length golden hair, pushed jauntily behind his ears, jeered.
“Wrap it up! Put on the jimmy hat, baldie!”
The boys continued to chant: Wrap it up! Wrap it up! Alexander, confused beyond belief, shook his head a little and resumed his path.
“Come back here, you little brat!”
“Did we hurt the ickle baby’s feelings?”
What the hell was a “jimmy hat?” Baldie, he understood all too well. The rest of what had happened was a mystery to him.
That night he kept the incident from his father. Alexander had considered asking him about it while he was unpacking, but certainly didn’t want him thinking he couldn’t cope the very first day. There were so many more important things to worry about right now, business, mom and the new baby on the way... and most importantly, he didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of his father. He resolved to put his anxiety away and try to focus on adapting to the new school. The extensive laboratories available at Excelsior were one of the main selling points, for the Luthors. Alexander was eager to see them and the library.
”I’m not certain what I think of the headmaster here, Lex.” His father sat on his dorm room bed, a double sized affair, which was a bit low to the ground and quite soft. Lionel sunk into the mattress, and his knees rose above hip level, as he calmly watched his son perform the ritual activity of unpacking. Any other man would have looked goofy; Lionel managed somehow to appear a bit regale.
”I don’t think he likes us much.” Lex responded, folding his underwear precisely into the dresser.
”The board members certainly like the idea of you attending here. He could make a nod to the reality that they requested your attendance, rather than going on and on about their policies on special treatment. We bestow a prestige upon them by choosing their school. You can leave that for the servants.” Lionel frowned as his boy continued to play maid in his own room.
”They won’t do it in the proper way.” He avoided his father’s glance. “It doesn’t matter that much, I know, but while I’m here, this is my space and I want it to be right.”
Lionel hid a smile and watched his son fuss with the placement of the box he’d given Lex for his last birthday. “As you wish, son.”
Alexander finished fussing and turned to his father. “How’s mom?”
”Oh, you know. She’s a bit uncomfortable, and she misses you. It can’t be helped. You must go to school.”
Alexander frowned a bit. He wished he could stay with her until the baby was born safely. “Maybe…”
”Yes, Lex?”
He wanted to ask to come home to see her on the weekends. He’d paused long enough already to make his father begin a sigh of impatience. “If she needs to talk… or if she needs anything… I’m sure I can keep up with my studies and… make sure she’s okay too. Tell her so.”
”Don’t burden yourself with such worries. She’s going to be fine.” Lionel stood and placed a firm hand on the back of Lex’s neck. “Women have babies every day, with nothing going awry. I think your mother can manage another one without too much fuss.”
”She…” She seems sad. She seems upset, and I’ve heard you arguing. There’s something you’re not telling me, dad, and I’m scared for her. “It’ll be fine.”
***
The library was in a separate wing from classes and housing. It was glorious, with three stories, separate study rooms and sections well-upholstered sofas and chairs, and picturesque staircases for Alexander to fall down while carrying a large load of books. He was a bit embarrassed that was one of the first things he’d thought of, looking at them, but he figured it was true enough. He wasn’t exactly coordinated or graceful in any sense. He ran a finger over the spines of the selections in the “New Books” section in front of the circulation desk. His father appeared bored and surveyed the few students studying.
”May I see some information on your lending policies?”
The librarian literally jumped when she saw him. She was a chubby-faced woman with lightly curled brownish-red hair and brown eyes that purported to be maternal. “Are you here visiting your big brother before the break ends, sweetie? Are you going to be starting here in a few years?”
”I’m starting here tomorrow.” Alexander replied pithily, taking the offered bookmark with return policies and fines, then turning away from her.
”I’ll be back momentarily. I have to discuss something with one of your professors.” Lionel told him, briefly before lightly touching his shoulder and leaving. Alexander was slightly relieved. Now he could familiarize himself with the sections of the library he would be most often frequenting.
He had quickly lost track of how long he had been pouring over the texts on biotechnology, when he literally tripped over someone. One moment he was perusing the shelf with great interest; the next, he was flailing on the floor with another set of limbs.
”Wait! Just… hold still!”
Alexander held still. The other boy took Alexander’s forearms and gently maneuvered him to the side, while the boy slid the other way with poise. Alexander scrambled to his feet.
”I’m sorry.”
The other boy’s face did not react. He was dark of hair and eyes, but there was also a darkness and intensity to his expression that Alexander could not quite place. “Why are you apologizing? I was the one sitting in the floor. I just didn’t expect anyone to be here before projects were due.”
”I just got here. I was checking out the selection.”
His hair wasn’t long, or curly, but it was long enough to show a slight wave, and a bit curled over his brows. The boy stood and offered a hand. “I’m Bruce.”
”I’m Alexander.”
Bruce gave him a faint smile that did not reach his eyes. He looked over Alexander from top to bottom, and Alexander tensed, expecting some smart remark about his appearance. “You must like school a lot to hit the library before you have to.”
”I read quite a bit because I want to know everything. I actually don’t like school. Or I never have up until this point. I have no idea what I’m going to find here.” Alexander wondered what he was talking about or if Bruce would care.
Bruce smiled wider in understanding. “Most schools are the same, I think. Don’t expect the students here to be any different from the students at other schools. They’re all a pack of spoiled brats.”
”I’ve had that said about me often enough.”
”Is it true?” Bruce leaned against the bookcase, looking very cool. Until the books slid onto the other side of the case and crashed onto the floor. “Fuck.”
”Um.” Alexander’s eyes widened.
”I’m especially suave today.” Bruce confided with an abashed expression as the librarian came over to oust them from the library.
The boys scuffed their well-polished shoes on the floor of the hallway, as Alexander considered how much longer his father would be. He stole a glace over at Bruce. His hair was hanging in his eyes, and Alexander wanted to reach over and brush it out of his face for him. He acknowledged on a mental level that such an action would be extremely weird. He wondered if he could ask Bruce why the other boys were chucking balloons at him.
”I’m going to go back to my room, since Mrs. Grommitt isn’t likely to let me back in anytime soon.” Bruce hesitated, looking the younger boy over once more. “Do you… I’ll see you around, Alex. Good luck with the brats.”
***
The boys didn’t stop with their senseless teasing at all the first day, and Alexander had yet to discover what it “wrap it up” meant. He supposed he didn’t need to know. He just needed to ignore them. Additionally, several of the boys had taken to, with much theatrics, pretending to be blinded by the glare off of his head whenever he walked down the hall.
Walking into Professor Vandemar’s chemistry class, he heard some hushed laughter. This was nothing new, and he looked around for a free seat close to the front.
“Name?”
“I’m sorry?” Alexander looked up to see a middle-aged, annoyed man who was balding up top and kept the surviving hair in a long, grey-brown ponytail. He lost a bit of respect for him. He might as well have shaved it off.
“What’s your name, boy? You’re new, obviously.”
“Oh. I’m Alexander Luthor.” The man pointed to the last free seat, then returned half-interested to the book he was reading. Alexander craned his head a bit to catch the title of the book, and as it was something he’d already read, went to his seat.
Once there, Alexander thought that he might be at Excelsior to get an education here entirely different from the academic one as planned. There was something in his seat. Something large and oblong and flesh coloured. Something that stood on its own, about twelve inches high. Something like he’d never seen before, but it looked like... Alexander blinked and screwed his eyebrows together. He looked around the room.
“Lookit him! He doesn’t even know what it is!” A hushed voice spurted out.
”Bald little baby!”
“Would you care to take your seat, Mr. Luthor?” The professor looked at him with aggravated disinterest. “Or do you have an opposition to chemistry?”
“Oh, no.” Alexander pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and daintily picked up the... whatever it was, and set it on the floor. “Chemistry’s has always been my favorite subject...” He wiped off the seat a bit, then looked up. “Of course, it’s no calculus.”
He sat down and regarded the teacher evenly. The instructor looked back at him with a frown.
“That last bit was a joke.” Alexander explained pressing his lips together in a half smile. His instructor paused, then made a snorting, snuffling noise, which might have been either laughter or disgust.
”And it was HI-larious, Bald Thunder.” The boy with gorgeous blond hair said. His name, Alexander would soon find out, was Avery Simon Lancaster III, and he already owned a Porsche that his father let him drive around the manor despite being two years too young for his license. He clearly fancied himself as some sort of proto-teen heartthrob. He smirked wickedly.
”… what?”
Most of the class erupted in laughter. The professor quieted them down, unconcerned with whatever nonsense the boys were up to, and began the class.
From that day forward, Alexander Luthor became Bald Thunder. And he had no idea why that was so funny. He left the oblong object in the classroom, but the boys were diligent about placing it near him at inappropriate times. Therefore, after a week, he just picked it up and put it in his bag. It was bald. He was bald. He gave it a place on his dresser.
***
Alexander’s brother was dead. He was dead, and it was his fault. And his mother… She had been sad and strange before. Now he could barely understand why she did anything. Two nights before he had returned to school, she had slipped something into his tea when he was sitting with her. The maid had walked in, horrified to find Lillian Luthor trying to breastfeed her twelve year old son.
He was glad to be away from the house. He was also afraid to be away from her. How could he protect his mother when he was so far away? What if she said something to father? He’d seen him hit her before. The thought of her alone with him, mentally absent and prone, haunted him. And it was becoming harder and harder for him to remember that night, what had really happened. Soon there was the sound of crying and nothing else. He couldn’t sleep anymore. He would always hear him crying.
His mother was a good woman. His mother was a gentle woman. She was the only person who loved him. She was good. He kept telling himself over and over.
One night when Avery Simon Lancaster III decided to tease him for his blanket lullabies, he made the mistake of grabbing the blanket from him. Alexander had reacted quite unfavorably, screaming and hitting him. Asking him what kind of monster would want to hurt a baby. Avery was terrified, pissed his pants, and made a great nuisance of himself in the school infirmary over a couple of bruises from a skinny kid. His roommate spent as much time away from their room as possible and swapped stories about his eccentricities with the other boys. Some of the teasing died off from meeker boys who were already unsettled by Alexander’s strange appearance and intense glances. For the other boys, especially Avery, the teasing became more intense. He’d gone from a mockery to a madman.
”What the hell?”
Alexander sat despondently on his bed, with his chemistry book open. He was entirely uninterested by the childish projects that Professor Vandemar felt would help them understand elementary concepts of molecular reactions. He was bored before. He was painfully distracted now. His extreme unpopularity made it difficult in an uneven numbered class to find a lab partner. Whoever wasn’t fast enough found themselves paired with Alexander “Bald Thunder” Luthor. That meant an automatic A on any work they were assigned to do. (Since Alexander was far too impatient to let them help, he simply completed the project on his own.) However, no one wanted to be in the same room when and if he went off on someone again.
”Since some of you are so immature that you cannot possibly be bothered to work with people other than your friends, I’ve taken the time out of my busy schedule to assign permanent groups for the rest of the term.” Vandemar informed them with extreme exaggeration. It was his prerogative to keep the students aware of how much he did for them. The students tensed up and looked over at Alexander, who was not paying attention in the slightest. He was trying not to think. “And to put you little brats at ease, the first group will be Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne.”
Most of the class breathed a sigh of relief on both accounts.
Bruce walked over to the on the bed to sit with Alexander, after not having received an answer. “Do I want to know why there is a dildo on your dresser?”
Alexander looked up with a frown. “What’s a dildo?”
Bruce regarded the boy to discern whether or not he was speaking seriously. It had always been difficult to tell when the boy was joking. Not that Alex did it much anymore. “That.” Bruce pointed to the object on the dresser. “It’s a dildo. It’s a big one. Why do you have a dildo on your dresser?”
Alexander turned his head and narrowed his eyes in thought. “That big flesh-coloured… thing? I dunno. I mean, the first week I was here, the boys started putting it near me and laughing about it. They also threw balloons at me. I don’t know what it is, but I got tired of it showing up everywhere, so I just decided to give it a place.”
”They… threw balloons at you?” Bruce always knew the other boys were dumb, but this just made no sense.
Alexander made a small square with his fingers. “They were about this size and still in the package. And they were lubricated? I don’t know. They’re always yelling “wrap it up” at me, and calling me Bald Thunder. I don’t understand it, but I don’t care about them much anymore.”
Bruce’s eyes widened. His lip twitched. Alexander sensed that he was about to be laughed at. This was not something he could take from Bruce. He slammed his book shut and got off the bed. “You can go now.”
”What?” He couldn’t contain his smile.
”You’re laughing at me. Everyone laughs at me, and you are laughing at me. I don’t need you. I don’t need any of you, so please go away.”
Bruce immediate felt horrible. In truth, it had been awhile since he’d felt sympathy for another person. Alex almost sounded as though he were about to cry, although he’d never seen him cry before. ”I’m sorry. God, am I sorry. Look, Alex, do you want to know what the hell these kids are laughing at you about?”
Alexander turned around and raised his brows a little bit. His eyes looked uncertain, but completely dry.
”Those balloons? Are condoms. Condoms are…” Bruce searched for some appropriate words. This was an impossible task. “It has to do with sex.”
Alexander relaxed a little and tilted his head. “They want me to have sex with them?”
”Uh, no, I mean. You take the condoms, and you…” Bruce was moving his head from side to side and opening his hands palms forward as though miming would help his explanation. “Guys put them on their… “manhood” to, you know, protect themselves during sex. From uh… disease. And babies. Dildos, well… Bald Thunder is probably a euphemism for a dick or the model name of the dildo they bought. They are sort of a substitute for the real thing? I mean…”
”I get what you mean.” Alexander said sharply. Bruce half-grimaced, half-smiled. “I do not look like a penis. I look nothing like a penis. …It is NOT funny!”
Bruce started. He’d never seen Alex yell before either. ”I didn’t say it was funny!”
”You were laughing!” Bruce noted that Alex looked positively deranged when angry.
”Okay, look. Geez. Calm down, Alex. I’m not like them, but I’m a teenage boy looking at penis paraphernalia. I can’t help but laugh.” Bruce leaned back on his hands. “Stop flaring your nostrils at me and come sit down. Face it. Our classmates are fucking morons. I’ve known that since I got here. They call me Bats.”
”Bats?” Alexander stood still a moment, his face sliding back into the soft, sad expression he’d been wearing since he’d returned to school.
Bruce shrugged. ”Bats frighten me. Also? They think I’m crazy.” Alex sat down next to him, looking confused. Bruce leaned in closer. “They used to throw plastic squeaky bats at me.”
Alexander cracked a smile at that. “Did it bother you?”
”Not that much. I’m not afraid of plastic bats. I’m afraid of real bats. And I kind of doubt any of the boys here are hardcore enough to bring a live bat in here. Although,” Bruce thought about it and to his embarrassment, shivered. “If they ever do, I’m going to beat the living shit out of them.”
Now Alexander was smiling. His eyes remained sad. Bruce felt for a moment that he was looking at himself.
”They think I’m crazy, too. I think they might be right.”
”Yeah, well. I don’t sleep well either. Sometimes I wonder myself.” Alexander sighed and pulled his feet up onto the bed. Bruce gently put a hand on his shoulder. Alexander reached over and pushed some of Bruce’s soft hair out of his eyes.
***
Lex hated how he looked on television. He’d never thought about it before the meteor shower. He hated seeing himself, and now he could turn on the local news any day of the week and see his ugly bald head and ugly expressionless face at his mother’s funeral. The same clip played over and over, in case anyone had managed to miss the fact that Lillian Luthor was unequivocally dead and rotting in her grave.
Alexander had finished out the term researching medical information on heart conditions. He was no doctor, but he felt that maybe somehow he could find something, and if anyone should be able to save her, it should be him. He should be able to protect her. He’d been doing it for a long time, it seemed, although he could no longer remember where this feeling began. Sometimes he would jump at the sight of a poker by the fire in the common room or pull back as someone touched him, and he would almost remember. There were secrets inside him that he couldn’t reach if he wanted to, and he sincerely did not want to.
But as it turned out, Lex Luthor could save no one, and she died, and he was not with her. He returned to school. He had changed again. His classmates had not. The other boys still teased him. Made fun of Lex “Bald Thunder” Luthor for being small and bright and bald. Tripped him. Pushed him around. He drew further away from them and further into himself. His world was so much darker and more complex; he had nothing to say to any of them.
Lex sort of floated through his days. Sometimes he heard things, and sometimes he responded to them, regardless of how the other boys reacted. His new class in microbiology was different from his chemistry class the previous term, in that it was new information and not a waste of his time. He had signed up for additional science and language classes this term and threw himself into his new studies, and whatever else he could learn to divert his mind. He spent more time alone, since few of his professors this year were hung up on group work. His new roommate hated him less than his former one had because he was rarely there.
Mrs. Grommitt became used to his quiet and persistent residence in the study sections of the library. Occasionally he would see Bruce there, studying on his own as well, and unconsciously acknowledge his presence. Once, noticing that Bruce kept looking furtively over at him, he drew a little smiling bat in a circle on his notebook and propped it up on his pile of books. He knew Bruce noticed it when a foil-wrapped condom flicked his ear.
”I love how all the lives of the famous people are so fucked up.” A couple of seniors sat around television the common room. “It’s like, they’ve got everything, and they can’t keep it together. They put the fuck in dysfunction.”
”Yeah, cause you’re so underprivileged, Dan.”
”You know what I mean. Look at them.” Dan pointed at the screen. A few of the other boys crowded around. They were watching one of those scandal shows about the rich and famous. The host was just finishing up a pun about the new heiress who had just failed to murder her beloved rich former playboy husband. The next exposé began with a montage of images taken over the years by nosy paparazzi.
”Oh wow.” Avery Simon Lancaster III practically crowed at the screen. “Look at the redheaded hottie.”
”I’d hit it.” Dan concurred. “But damn. Lillian Looney Luthor. That bitch was a maniac, you could tell. You’d have to put her back in her straight jacket after fucking her.”
”Shut up!” An intense and uneven voice shouted.
The boys started. Lex never spoke to them when he didn’t have to. The funeral footage began to replay on the screen.
”She wasn’t crazy. She was a good woman. Don’t talk about her.” Lex stood up from where he had been studying. Mrs. Grommitt had kicked him out of the library so she could close it.
”Uh, fuck, dude.” Dan raised his hands. “Sorry kid. I forgot you were even here.”
”You aren’t apologizing to Bald Thunder, are you? Hey, baby, do you miss your mommy?” Avery came over and ran his hand over Lex’s head, as though he were mussing his nonexistent hair. “What do you eat, now that she can’t breastfeed you anymore?”
”Shut. Up.”
”Stop, Av. She’s dead.” Another boy hissed. He was slightly afraid of Lex. There was nothing on the program to intimate that she had mental problems, but this was clearly a sore point for the kid.
”Was your mom as crazy as you?”
”My mother was a good woman. She was amazing. You’d be lucky if your mom was half the woman she was!” Lex was three full inches shorter than Avery. At the moment, it didn’t matter. Their faces were so close Avery was sweating. He felt that any moment, the little freak would snap on him, this time in front of a crowd of other students.
So he punched the kid in the stomach. The other boys jumped up and crowded around them. On a good day, beating up a smaller kid would be fine, as long as no body found out. This school had a reputation, after all. Beating on a smaller kid after insulting his freshly dead mother… something was off about that.
”Cool it, kiddies.” Dan grabbed the back of Avery’s uniform and pulled him backward. Avery raised his hands as evidence that he was “cool,” and Dan let him go. Dan shook his head and he and the other seniors left the sophomores to their problems. As Lex watched them go, Avery hit him again across the face.
”Av!”
”Guess what Baby Baldie? You look like a fucking cock with ears. You talk to people who aren’t there and make goo-goo faces over your blanket. You’re a freak, and your mom was a freak, and that’s never gonna change!”
A few of the other boys were unsure of what to do. Lex was sprawled across the couch.
The man being interviewed on the television declared, ”Who doesn’t cry at their mother’s funeral? That kid looks like a bald anti-Christ.”
”Stay out of my face, Bald Thunder.” Avery kicked at him again. He started to leave the common room. “Oh, and don’t forget…”
Several boys picked up the slack: Wrap it up! Wrap it up! Wrap it up!
Lex had lain there, trying not to think, for several hours. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw individuals interviewed on the street, calling him a brat, a freak, and Luthors. They called him Alexander Luthor, and Lex Luthor, and that “little Lionel.” He saw the ugly ugly image of himself on the screen. The boys called him Baldie, Chromo-dome, Mr. Clean. More recently Bald Thunder, Mr. McPenisHead, Baby Warbucks, and a multitude of names questioning his gender and sexuality. All his life, everyone else had gotten to decide what his name was.
When Lex finally got up, he had done quite a bit of thinking and was focused on a plan. There were many more important issues to worry about in his life. In the long-term scheme of things, it did not matter what they did to him, or what they said. These boys, so much bigger than he was, were mentally children. It was hard to think of them as real people, sometimes. If something didn’t happen to change them, they would always have those happy delusions that the world was a stable place. A place where horrible things did not happen to good people and decisions were black and white. A place where everything would be fine. But everything certainly was not fine, had never been fine. It was nothing but lies, to say that everything was fine.
Lex was going to make everything not fine for them. He was going to introduce a little tragedy into their lives.
The next Saturday Avery Simon Lancaster III was sobbing like a baby.
He wasn’t the only one, either. Chaos reigned on the floor where the sophomores roomed. Boys came out of their rooms, fearful and confused, ran into one another, wondered aloud what had happened. They clutched their heads and woke their friends. Lex Luthor was getting it all on camera and laughing like he hadn’t laughed in over four years.
”Hey Av!” He smirked derisively at the sobbing boy, who held his shorn golden locks in one hand and his bald head in the other. “Wrap it up.”
He flicked a handful of condoms at him. Avery looked shell-shocked. Lex Luthor had drugged them and shaved their heads during the night.
”I’m gonna fucking kill you, Luthor.” Avery cried in a shaky voice. Lex never stopped smirking calmly.
”That’s Bald Thunder to you, you pathetic sobbing worm. And you just try it. Come over here and kill me.” Lex set the camera to the side and beckoned him forward with one hand. Avery stepped back.
”HAHAHA!!” Devon was laughing his head off at all the white boys running around with no hair. His hair had been cut so close Lex had barely any work to do at all when he’d gotten to Devon. “Damn, Luthor. You burned us but good.” He draped his arm around the smaller boy. His slight British accent was mocking and cheerful. “Hey, anyone want to take on Bald Thunder? You can take on Black Thunder, too!”
”You may or may not believe that there is in fact a model by that name.” Lex informed Devon. A few of the boys who looked like they might have been ready to tear Lex’s face off dispersed to prank another day.
”Oh, I know.” Devon grinned. “I love pranks and shit like this. Gimme the camera, I want to see who else is crying.”
Lex handed him the camera and looked back for Avery, who had fled back to his room. He slid a hand over his own head and began walking back to his room for a shower. It had been a long night.
On his way, he saw Bruce, with eyes like a raccoon, wavy dark hair bobbing along with him.
”What the hell is happening?”
”I shared the love. Everyone on our floor is bald except for you. Where were you last night?”
”I accidentally got locked in the library.” Bruce replied abashedly.
”I’m not sure I believe you. That it was an accident, I mean. You spend so much time there. You might as well set up your dorm room in one of the private study room.”
”Back atcha, Alex. We could ask Grommitt if we could rent a room together. Now… what did you do to the other boys?” Bruce looked down their hallway at his bald classmates in disbelief.
”I shaved their heads.” Lex said flatly. Bruce looked Alex over as though he’d never seen him before. He noticed the yellowing bruise on Alex’s face and wondered when and how that had happened, and if he should ask.
”Wow.”
”I guess you got lucky. Enjoy your locks. I’ll see you in class. I’m going to go take a shower.”
Bruce raised his brows at that and watched him as he disappeared down the hallway.
***
Lex walked into the mess hall with a straight-backed, broad-strided march. There was laughter, but for the moment at least, it wasn’t directed at him. He considered grabbing a piece of toast and eating it on the way to the library. He could probably get in an hour of reading before class.
”Hey.”
Lex turned and almost squeaked in surprise. “BRUCE??”
Bruce walked up to him and ran a hand over a freshly shaved, and nicked in a few places, head. His ears looked rather large without the glossy dark brown mess of hair, but his eyes seemed all the more intense. “Solidarity, Bald Thunder.”
Lex smiled widely. “Solidarity, Bats.”
For the first time since either boy had come to Excelsior, Lex and Bruce had someone to sit with during mealtime.
Of course, the other boys resumed teasing Lex once the outrage of the soon to be infamous Luthorian Shaving Debacle was over. He’d never been one of them and never would be. Lex had a feeling now that he would always be alone and would never be able to make a connection with normal people. That thought was not comforting to him. He wanted to be with others. He wanted to understand and be understood, but just now, he figured that may never happen for him, and if it didn’t, he would have to be okay with it.
Lex looked over at Bruce. There was no hair for him to fuss with, so he fixed Bruce’s collar. The tips of his mouth turned up a bit. To Lex’s dismay, Bruce flipped his collar back.
He still had trouble sleeping. He still struggled with his name. However, from that point forward, the particular name Bald Thunder was never thrown at him in mocking. It belonged to him now.
xposted to brexfic
Title: Bald Thunder
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Upon entering Excelsior, Lex Luthor struggles with the cruelty of the world around him and his identity issues. As he must find a way to cope and continue, if he cannot thrive. Also, there’s a dildo, a prank, and Bruce Wayne.
Pairing: None because Lex is too young, but there is some occasional Brex friendshipy stuff that can be read either way.
Category: Drama tinged with comedy ^-^
Warning: hints of child abuse
It had all started off innocently enough. Well, as innocently as incessant bullying could start, as nine-year-olds have never been known for their cutting wit. All the same, for an overly bright boy such as Alexander Luthor, their taunts cut deeply. He just didn’t understand how to interact with them and never had. Despite the fact that the boys were all from privileged families, as he was himself, Alexander could tell he was inherently different, even before the meteor shower. There was truth to their treatment of him as an outsider. Something inside, something inherent, was out-of-place, and perhaps, wrong. He tried not to let it bother him. He tried to let the insults wash over him and be beyond such trivial things, as his father would say. He tried to focus on his studies. The books were more interesting than those dull children he had for classmates anyway. There was no depth to them, no understanding of the world, and he could not communicate with them.
The counselors at Excelsior assured his father that a boy as smart as Alexander would adapt easily to his new surroundings, that his inability to bond with his classmates thus far had a lot to do with the fact that they were not his mental peers, that this new school was an ideal place for Alexander to begin to thrive once again. And so, after an utter failure to force him into social activity at his twelfth birthday party, Alexander’s father finalized his decision and skipped Alexander up a grade, and he began high school the next term. The teasing became distinctly more difficult to ignore when he reached high school. Mostly because he didn’t understand it at first.
He was small and bright and bald, and the moment he stepped out of the cab and walked up to castle-like structure that was to be his new school and home, he frankly wanted to run away. He did take a step backward, looking at all of the other boys who were bigger and so normal looking, and bumped into the servant loading up his luggage. Alexander immediately became irritated with himself. It was just a boarding school, like any of the others he’d attended throughout his life. If his father were here, and he would be that evening to meet with the headmaster, he would have been ashamed of Lex’s moment of weakness. (His mother, he thought idly, might press him into her breast and caress his soft-skinned head until his heart stopped its erratic beating and Alexander could breathe and face the world again.) He took a breath, flaring his little nostrils and straightening his posture, and began a resolute march into the courtyard. He was a Luthor. Luthors could handle anything.
He heard a few students laughing, but ignored them, masked his face with an expression of profound disinterest. Halfway down the courtyard, something hit him. He paused for half a step, then continued walking. He’d been hit with paper wads and random school-boyish objects before. The laughing grew louder as a few more of the unidentified objects pelted his back. Alexander turned with an expression of bewilderment and annoyance and one brow raised very high. Several of the boys tried to pretend that they weren’t paying attention. One or two unashamedly laughed even harder. One with curly black hair caught his eye and stopped laughing altogether. He stepped away, behind the others. If nothing else, Alexander knew his appearance could be quite uncanny at times. He got a little stab of pleasure seeing the boy become so unnerved.
Alexander knelt and picked up one of the objects that had been flung at him. He narrowed his eyes in examination. They were all the same, of different colors. A little circle of rolled rubber, wrapped in clear plastic. Was it a balloon? Why would the boys throw balloons at him? Unless they had nothing else to throw, he supposed. He’d never seen a balloon quite like this, though. It was too big and the package said that it was lubricated. Why would anyone need a lubricated balloon? Completely at a loss, he straightened and looked at the boys in askance.
“What are you doing?” He demanded. One had to be direct about this sort of thing. Show no fear and let them see he was not to be trifled with.
“Wrap it up!” One boy with shoulder-length golden hair, pushed jauntily behind his ears, jeered.
“Wrap it up! Put on the jimmy hat, baldie!”
The boys continued to chant: Wrap it up! Wrap it up! Alexander, confused beyond belief, shook his head a little and resumed his path.
“Come back here, you little brat!”
“Did we hurt the ickle baby’s feelings?”
What the hell was a “jimmy hat?” Baldie, he understood all too well. The rest of what had happened was a mystery to him.
That night he kept the incident from his father. Alexander had considered asking him about it while he was unpacking, but certainly didn’t want him thinking he couldn’t cope the very first day. There were so many more important things to worry about right now, business, mom and the new baby on the way... and most importantly, he didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of his father. He resolved to put his anxiety away and try to focus on adapting to the new school. The extensive laboratories available at Excelsior were one of the main selling points, for the Luthors. Alexander was eager to see them and the library.
”I’m not certain what I think of the headmaster here, Lex.” His father sat on his dorm room bed, a double sized affair, which was a bit low to the ground and quite soft. Lionel sunk into the mattress, and his knees rose above hip level, as he calmly watched his son perform the ritual activity of unpacking. Any other man would have looked goofy; Lionel managed somehow to appear a bit regale.
”I don’t think he likes us much.” Lex responded, folding his underwear precisely into the dresser.
”The board members certainly like the idea of you attending here. He could make a nod to the reality that they requested your attendance, rather than going on and on about their policies on special treatment. We bestow a prestige upon them by choosing their school. You can leave that for the servants.” Lionel frowned as his boy continued to play maid in his own room.
”They won’t do it in the proper way.” He avoided his father’s glance. “It doesn’t matter that much, I know, but while I’m here, this is my space and I want it to be right.”
Lionel hid a smile and watched his son fuss with the placement of the box he’d given Lex for his last birthday. “As you wish, son.”
Alexander finished fussing and turned to his father. “How’s mom?”
”Oh, you know. She’s a bit uncomfortable, and she misses you. It can’t be helped. You must go to school.”
Alexander frowned a bit. He wished he could stay with her until the baby was born safely. “Maybe…”
”Yes, Lex?”
He wanted to ask to come home to see her on the weekends. He’d paused long enough already to make his father begin a sigh of impatience. “If she needs to talk… or if she needs anything… I’m sure I can keep up with my studies and… make sure she’s okay too. Tell her so.”
”Don’t burden yourself with such worries. She’s going to be fine.” Lionel stood and placed a firm hand on the back of Lex’s neck. “Women have babies every day, with nothing going awry. I think your mother can manage another one without too much fuss.”
”She…” She seems sad. She seems upset, and I’ve heard you arguing. There’s something you’re not telling me, dad, and I’m scared for her. “It’ll be fine.”
***
The library was in a separate wing from classes and housing. It was glorious, with three stories, separate study rooms and sections well-upholstered sofas and chairs, and picturesque staircases for Alexander to fall down while carrying a large load of books. He was a bit embarrassed that was one of the first things he’d thought of, looking at them, but he figured it was true enough. He wasn’t exactly coordinated or graceful in any sense. He ran a finger over the spines of the selections in the “New Books” section in front of the circulation desk. His father appeared bored and surveyed the few students studying.
”May I see some information on your lending policies?”
The librarian literally jumped when she saw him. She was a chubby-faced woman with lightly curled brownish-red hair and brown eyes that purported to be maternal. “Are you here visiting your big brother before the break ends, sweetie? Are you going to be starting here in a few years?”
”I’m starting here tomorrow.” Alexander replied pithily, taking the offered bookmark with return policies and fines, then turning away from her.
”I’ll be back momentarily. I have to discuss something with one of your professors.” Lionel told him, briefly before lightly touching his shoulder and leaving. Alexander was slightly relieved. Now he could familiarize himself with the sections of the library he would be most often frequenting.
He had quickly lost track of how long he had been pouring over the texts on biotechnology, when he literally tripped over someone. One moment he was perusing the shelf with great interest; the next, he was flailing on the floor with another set of limbs.
”Wait! Just… hold still!”
Alexander held still. The other boy took Alexander’s forearms and gently maneuvered him to the side, while the boy slid the other way with poise. Alexander scrambled to his feet.
”I’m sorry.”
The other boy’s face did not react. He was dark of hair and eyes, but there was also a darkness and intensity to his expression that Alexander could not quite place. “Why are you apologizing? I was the one sitting in the floor. I just didn’t expect anyone to be here before projects were due.”
”I just got here. I was checking out the selection.”
His hair wasn’t long, or curly, but it was long enough to show a slight wave, and a bit curled over his brows. The boy stood and offered a hand. “I’m Bruce.”
”I’m Alexander.”
Bruce gave him a faint smile that did not reach his eyes. He looked over Alexander from top to bottom, and Alexander tensed, expecting some smart remark about his appearance. “You must like school a lot to hit the library before you have to.”
”I read quite a bit because I want to know everything. I actually don’t like school. Or I never have up until this point. I have no idea what I’m going to find here.” Alexander wondered what he was talking about or if Bruce would care.
Bruce smiled wider in understanding. “Most schools are the same, I think. Don’t expect the students here to be any different from the students at other schools. They’re all a pack of spoiled brats.”
”I’ve had that said about me often enough.”
”Is it true?” Bruce leaned against the bookcase, looking very cool. Until the books slid onto the other side of the case and crashed onto the floor. “Fuck.”
”Um.” Alexander’s eyes widened.
”I’m especially suave today.” Bruce confided with an abashed expression as the librarian came over to oust them from the library.
The boys scuffed their well-polished shoes on the floor of the hallway, as Alexander considered how much longer his father would be. He stole a glace over at Bruce. His hair was hanging in his eyes, and Alexander wanted to reach over and brush it out of his face for him. He acknowledged on a mental level that such an action would be extremely weird. He wondered if he could ask Bruce why the other boys were chucking balloons at him.
”I’m going to go back to my room, since Mrs. Grommitt isn’t likely to let me back in anytime soon.” Bruce hesitated, looking the younger boy over once more. “Do you… I’ll see you around, Alex. Good luck with the brats.”
***
The boys didn’t stop with their senseless teasing at all the first day, and Alexander had yet to discover what it “wrap it up” meant. He supposed he didn’t need to know. He just needed to ignore them. Additionally, several of the boys had taken to, with much theatrics, pretending to be blinded by the glare off of his head whenever he walked down the hall.
Walking into Professor Vandemar’s chemistry class, he heard some hushed laughter. This was nothing new, and he looked around for a free seat close to the front.
“Name?”
“I’m sorry?” Alexander looked up to see a middle-aged, annoyed man who was balding up top and kept the surviving hair in a long, grey-brown ponytail. He lost a bit of respect for him. He might as well have shaved it off.
“What’s your name, boy? You’re new, obviously.”
“Oh. I’m Alexander Luthor.” The man pointed to the last free seat, then returned half-interested to the book he was reading. Alexander craned his head a bit to catch the title of the book, and as it was something he’d already read, went to his seat.
Once there, Alexander thought that he might be at Excelsior to get an education here entirely different from the academic one as planned. There was something in his seat. Something large and oblong and flesh coloured. Something that stood on its own, about twelve inches high. Something like he’d never seen before, but it looked like... Alexander blinked and screwed his eyebrows together. He looked around the room.
“Lookit him! He doesn’t even know what it is!” A hushed voice spurted out.
”Bald little baby!”
“Would you care to take your seat, Mr. Luthor?” The professor looked at him with aggravated disinterest. “Or do you have an opposition to chemistry?”
“Oh, no.” Alexander pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and daintily picked up the... whatever it was, and set it on the floor. “Chemistry’s has always been my favorite subject...” He wiped off the seat a bit, then looked up. “Of course, it’s no calculus.”
He sat down and regarded the teacher evenly. The instructor looked back at him with a frown.
“That last bit was a joke.” Alexander explained pressing his lips together in a half smile. His instructor paused, then made a snorting, snuffling noise, which might have been either laughter or disgust.
”And it was HI-larious, Bald Thunder.” The boy with gorgeous blond hair said. His name, Alexander would soon find out, was Avery Simon Lancaster III, and he already owned a Porsche that his father let him drive around the manor despite being two years too young for his license. He clearly fancied himself as some sort of proto-teen heartthrob. He smirked wickedly.
”… what?”
Most of the class erupted in laughter. The professor quieted them down, unconcerned with whatever nonsense the boys were up to, and began the class.
From that day forward, Alexander Luthor became Bald Thunder. And he had no idea why that was so funny. He left the oblong object in the classroom, but the boys were diligent about placing it near him at inappropriate times. Therefore, after a week, he just picked it up and put it in his bag. It was bald. He was bald. He gave it a place on his dresser.
***
Alexander’s brother was dead. He was dead, and it was his fault. And his mother… She had been sad and strange before. Now he could barely understand why she did anything. Two nights before he had returned to school, she had slipped something into his tea when he was sitting with her. The maid had walked in, horrified to find Lillian Luthor trying to breastfeed her twelve year old son.
He was glad to be away from the house. He was also afraid to be away from her. How could he protect his mother when he was so far away? What if she said something to father? He’d seen him hit her before. The thought of her alone with him, mentally absent and prone, haunted him. And it was becoming harder and harder for him to remember that night, what had really happened. Soon there was the sound of crying and nothing else. He couldn’t sleep anymore. He would always hear him crying.
His mother was a good woman. His mother was a gentle woman. She was the only person who loved him. She was good. He kept telling himself over and over.
One night when Avery Simon Lancaster III decided to tease him for his blanket lullabies, he made the mistake of grabbing the blanket from him. Alexander had reacted quite unfavorably, screaming and hitting him. Asking him what kind of monster would want to hurt a baby. Avery was terrified, pissed his pants, and made a great nuisance of himself in the school infirmary over a couple of bruises from a skinny kid. His roommate spent as much time away from their room as possible and swapped stories about his eccentricities with the other boys. Some of the teasing died off from meeker boys who were already unsettled by Alexander’s strange appearance and intense glances. For the other boys, especially Avery, the teasing became more intense. He’d gone from a mockery to a madman.
”What the hell?”
Alexander sat despondently on his bed, with his chemistry book open. He was entirely uninterested by the childish projects that Professor Vandemar felt would help them understand elementary concepts of molecular reactions. He was bored before. He was painfully distracted now. His extreme unpopularity made it difficult in an uneven numbered class to find a lab partner. Whoever wasn’t fast enough found themselves paired with Alexander “Bald Thunder” Luthor. That meant an automatic A on any work they were assigned to do. (Since Alexander was far too impatient to let them help, he simply completed the project on his own.) However, no one wanted to be in the same room when and if he went off on someone again.
”Since some of you are so immature that you cannot possibly be bothered to work with people other than your friends, I’ve taken the time out of my busy schedule to assign permanent groups for the rest of the term.” Vandemar informed them with extreme exaggeration. It was his prerogative to keep the students aware of how much he did for them. The students tensed up and looked over at Alexander, who was not paying attention in the slightest. He was trying not to think. “And to put you little brats at ease, the first group will be Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne.”
Most of the class breathed a sigh of relief on both accounts.
Bruce walked over to the on the bed to sit with Alexander, after not having received an answer. “Do I want to know why there is a dildo on your dresser?”
Alexander looked up with a frown. “What’s a dildo?”
Bruce regarded the boy to discern whether or not he was speaking seriously. It had always been difficult to tell when the boy was joking. Not that Alex did it much anymore. “That.” Bruce pointed to the object on the dresser. “It’s a dildo. It’s a big one. Why do you have a dildo on your dresser?”
Alexander turned his head and narrowed his eyes in thought. “That big flesh-coloured… thing? I dunno. I mean, the first week I was here, the boys started putting it near me and laughing about it. They also threw balloons at me. I don’t know what it is, but I got tired of it showing up everywhere, so I just decided to give it a place.”
”They… threw balloons at you?” Bruce always knew the other boys were dumb, but this just made no sense.
Alexander made a small square with his fingers. “They were about this size and still in the package. And they were lubricated? I don’t know. They’re always yelling “wrap it up” at me, and calling me Bald Thunder. I don’t understand it, but I don’t care about them much anymore.”
Bruce’s eyes widened. His lip twitched. Alexander sensed that he was about to be laughed at. This was not something he could take from Bruce. He slammed his book shut and got off the bed. “You can go now.”
”What?” He couldn’t contain his smile.
”You’re laughing at me. Everyone laughs at me, and you are laughing at me. I don’t need you. I don’t need any of you, so please go away.”
Bruce immediate felt horrible. In truth, it had been awhile since he’d felt sympathy for another person. Alex almost sounded as though he were about to cry, although he’d never seen him cry before. ”I’m sorry. God, am I sorry. Look, Alex, do you want to know what the hell these kids are laughing at you about?”
Alexander turned around and raised his brows a little bit. His eyes looked uncertain, but completely dry.
”Those balloons? Are condoms. Condoms are…” Bruce searched for some appropriate words. This was an impossible task. “It has to do with sex.”
Alexander relaxed a little and tilted his head. “They want me to have sex with them?”
”Uh, no, I mean. You take the condoms, and you…” Bruce was moving his head from side to side and opening his hands palms forward as though miming would help his explanation. “Guys put them on their… “manhood” to, you know, protect themselves during sex. From uh… disease. And babies. Dildos, well… Bald Thunder is probably a euphemism for a dick or the model name of the dildo they bought. They are sort of a substitute for the real thing? I mean…”
”I get what you mean.” Alexander said sharply. Bruce half-grimaced, half-smiled. “I do not look like a penis. I look nothing like a penis. …It is NOT funny!”
Bruce started. He’d never seen Alex yell before either. ”I didn’t say it was funny!”
”You were laughing!” Bruce noted that Alex looked positively deranged when angry.
”Okay, look. Geez. Calm down, Alex. I’m not like them, but I’m a teenage boy looking at penis paraphernalia. I can’t help but laugh.” Bruce leaned back on his hands. “Stop flaring your nostrils at me and come sit down. Face it. Our classmates are fucking morons. I’ve known that since I got here. They call me Bats.”
”Bats?” Alexander stood still a moment, his face sliding back into the soft, sad expression he’d been wearing since he’d returned to school.
Bruce shrugged. ”Bats frighten me. Also? They think I’m crazy.” Alex sat down next to him, looking confused. Bruce leaned in closer. “They used to throw plastic squeaky bats at me.”
Alexander cracked a smile at that. “Did it bother you?”
”Not that much. I’m not afraid of plastic bats. I’m afraid of real bats. And I kind of doubt any of the boys here are hardcore enough to bring a live bat in here. Although,” Bruce thought about it and to his embarrassment, shivered. “If they ever do, I’m going to beat the living shit out of them.”
Now Alexander was smiling. His eyes remained sad. Bruce felt for a moment that he was looking at himself.
”They think I’m crazy, too. I think they might be right.”
”Yeah, well. I don’t sleep well either. Sometimes I wonder myself.” Alexander sighed and pulled his feet up onto the bed. Bruce gently put a hand on his shoulder. Alexander reached over and pushed some of Bruce’s soft hair out of his eyes.
***
Lex hated how he looked on television. He’d never thought about it before the meteor shower. He hated seeing himself, and now he could turn on the local news any day of the week and see his ugly bald head and ugly expressionless face at his mother’s funeral. The same clip played over and over, in case anyone had managed to miss the fact that Lillian Luthor was unequivocally dead and rotting in her grave.
Alexander had finished out the term researching medical information on heart conditions. He was no doctor, but he felt that maybe somehow he could find something, and if anyone should be able to save her, it should be him. He should be able to protect her. He’d been doing it for a long time, it seemed, although he could no longer remember where this feeling began. Sometimes he would jump at the sight of a poker by the fire in the common room or pull back as someone touched him, and he would almost remember. There were secrets inside him that he couldn’t reach if he wanted to, and he sincerely did not want to.
But as it turned out, Lex Luthor could save no one, and she died, and he was not with her. He returned to school. He had changed again. His classmates had not. The other boys still teased him. Made fun of Lex “Bald Thunder” Luthor for being small and bright and bald. Tripped him. Pushed him around. He drew further away from them and further into himself. His world was so much darker and more complex; he had nothing to say to any of them.
Lex sort of floated through his days. Sometimes he heard things, and sometimes he responded to them, regardless of how the other boys reacted. His new class in microbiology was different from his chemistry class the previous term, in that it was new information and not a waste of his time. He had signed up for additional science and language classes this term and threw himself into his new studies, and whatever else he could learn to divert his mind. He spent more time alone, since few of his professors this year were hung up on group work. His new roommate hated him less than his former one had because he was rarely there.
Mrs. Grommitt became used to his quiet and persistent residence in the study sections of the library. Occasionally he would see Bruce there, studying on his own as well, and unconsciously acknowledge his presence. Once, noticing that Bruce kept looking furtively over at him, he drew a little smiling bat in a circle on his notebook and propped it up on his pile of books. He knew Bruce noticed it when a foil-wrapped condom flicked his ear.
”I love how all the lives of the famous people are so fucked up.” A couple of seniors sat around television the common room. “It’s like, they’ve got everything, and they can’t keep it together. They put the fuck in dysfunction.”
”Yeah, cause you’re so underprivileged, Dan.”
”You know what I mean. Look at them.” Dan pointed at the screen. A few of the other boys crowded around. They were watching one of those scandal shows about the rich and famous. The host was just finishing up a pun about the new heiress who had just failed to murder her beloved rich former playboy husband. The next exposé began with a montage of images taken over the years by nosy paparazzi.
”Oh wow.” Avery Simon Lancaster III practically crowed at the screen. “Look at the redheaded hottie.”
”I’d hit it.” Dan concurred. “But damn. Lillian Looney Luthor. That bitch was a maniac, you could tell. You’d have to put her back in her straight jacket after fucking her.”
”Shut up!” An intense and uneven voice shouted.
The boys started. Lex never spoke to them when he didn’t have to. The funeral footage began to replay on the screen.
”She wasn’t crazy. She was a good woman. Don’t talk about her.” Lex stood up from where he had been studying. Mrs. Grommitt had kicked him out of the library so she could close it.
”Uh, fuck, dude.” Dan raised his hands. “Sorry kid. I forgot you were even here.”
”You aren’t apologizing to Bald Thunder, are you? Hey, baby, do you miss your mommy?” Avery came over and ran his hand over Lex’s head, as though he were mussing his nonexistent hair. “What do you eat, now that she can’t breastfeed you anymore?”
”Shut. Up.”
”Stop, Av. She’s dead.” Another boy hissed. He was slightly afraid of Lex. There was nothing on the program to intimate that she had mental problems, but this was clearly a sore point for the kid.
”Was your mom as crazy as you?”
”My mother was a good woman. She was amazing. You’d be lucky if your mom was half the woman she was!” Lex was three full inches shorter than Avery. At the moment, it didn’t matter. Their faces were so close Avery was sweating. He felt that any moment, the little freak would snap on him, this time in front of a crowd of other students.
So he punched the kid in the stomach. The other boys jumped up and crowded around them. On a good day, beating up a smaller kid would be fine, as long as no body found out. This school had a reputation, after all. Beating on a smaller kid after insulting his freshly dead mother… something was off about that.
”Cool it, kiddies.” Dan grabbed the back of Avery’s uniform and pulled him backward. Avery raised his hands as evidence that he was “cool,” and Dan let him go. Dan shook his head and he and the other seniors left the sophomores to their problems. As Lex watched them go, Avery hit him again across the face.
”Av!”
”Guess what Baby Baldie? You look like a fucking cock with ears. You talk to people who aren’t there and make goo-goo faces over your blanket. You’re a freak, and your mom was a freak, and that’s never gonna change!”
A few of the other boys were unsure of what to do. Lex was sprawled across the couch.
The man being interviewed on the television declared, ”Who doesn’t cry at their mother’s funeral? That kid looks like a bald anti-Christ.”
”Stay out of my face, Bald Thunder.” Avery kicked at him again. He started to leave the common room. “Oh, and don’t forget…”
Several boys picked up the slack: Wrap it up! Wrap it up! Wrap it up!
Lex had lain there, trying not to think, for several hours. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw individuals interviewed on the street, calling him a brat, a freak, and Luthors. They called him Alexander Luthor, and Lex Luthor, and that “little Lionel.” He saw the ugly ugly image of himself on the screen. The boys called him Baldie, Chromo-dome, Mr. Clean. More recently Bald Thunder, Mr. McPenisHead, Baby Warbucks, and a multitude of names questioning his gender and sexuality. All his life, everyone else had gotten to decide what his name was.
When Lex finally got up, he had done quite a bit of thinking and was focused on a plan. There were many more important issues to worry about in his life. In the long-term scheme of things, it did not matter what they did to him, or what they said. These boys, so much bigger than he was, were mentally children. It was hard to think of them as real people, sometimes. If something didn’t happen to change them, they would always have those happy delusions that the world was a stable place. A place where horrible things did not happen to good people and decisions were black and white. A place where everything would be fine. But everything certainly was not fine, had never been fine. It was nothing but lies, to say that everything was fine.
Lex was going to make everything not fine for them. He was going to introduce a little tragedy into their lives.
The next Saturday Avery Simon Lancaster III was sobbing like a baby.
He wasn’t the only one, either. Chaos reigned on the floor where the sophomores roomed. Boys came out of their rooms, fearful and confused, ran into one another, wondered aloud what had happened. They clutched their heads and woke their friends. Lex Luthor was getting it all on camera and laughing like he hadn’t laughed in over four years.
”Hey Av!” He smirked derisively at the sobbing boy, who held his shorn golden locks in one hand and his bald head in the other. “Wrap it up.”
He flicked a handful of condoms at him. Avery looked shell-shocked. Lex Luthor had drugged them and shaved their heads during the night.
”I’m gonna fucking kill you, Luthor.” Avery cried in a shaky voice. Lex never stopped smirking calmly.
”That’s Bald Thunder to you, you pathetic sobbing worm. And you just try it. Come over here and kill me.” Lex set the camera to the side and beckoned him forward with one hand. Avery stepped back.
”HAHAHA!!” Devon was laughing his head off at all the white boys running around with no hair. His hair had been cut so close Lex had barely any work to do at all when he’d gotten to Devon. “Damn, Luthor. You burned us but good.” He draped his arm around the smaller boy. His slight British accent was mocking and cheerful. “Hey, anyone want to take on Bald Thunder? You can take on Black Thunder, too!”
”You may or may not believe that there is in fact a model by that name.” Lex informed Devon. A few of the boys who looked like they might have been ready to tear Lex’s face off dispersed to prank another day.
”Oh, I know.” Devon grinned. “I love pranks and shit like this. Gimme the camera, I want to see who else is crying.”
Lex handed him the camera and looked back for Avery, who had fled back to his room. He slid a hand over his own head and began walking back to his room for a shower. It had been a long night.
On his way, he saw Bruce, with eyes like a raccoon, wavy dark hair bobbing along with him.
”What the hell is happening?”
”I shared the love. Everyone on our floor is bald except for you. Where were you last night?”
”I accidentally got locked in the library.” Bruce replied abashedly.
”I’m not sure I believe you. That it was an accident, I mean. You spend so much time there. You might as well set up your dorm room in one of the private study room.”
”Back atcha, Alex. We could ask Grommitt if we could rent a room together. Now… what did you do to the other boys?” Bruce looked down their hallway at his bald classmates in disbelief.
”I shaved their heads.” Lex said flatly. Bruce looked Alex over as though he’d never seen him before. He noticed the yellowing bruise on Alex’s face and wondered when and how that had happened, and if he should ask.
”Wow.”
”I guess you got lucky. Enjoy your locks. I’ll see you in class. I’m going to go take a shower.”
Bruce raised his brows at that and watched him as he disappeared down the hallway.
***
Lex walked into the mess hall with a straight-backed, broad-strided march. There was laughter, but for the moment at least, it wasn’t directed at him. He considered grabbing a piece of toast and eating it on the way to the library. He could probably get in an hour of reading before class.
”Hey.”
Lex turned and almost squeaked in surprise. “BRUCE??”
Bruce walked up to him and ran a hand over a freshly shaved, and nicked in a few places, head. His ears looked rather large without the glossy dark brown mess of hair, but his eyes seemed all the more intense. “Solidarity, Bald Thunder.”
Lex smiled widely. “Solidarity, Bats.”
For the first time since either boy had come to Excelsior, Lex and Bruce had someone to sit with during mealtime.
Of course, the other boys resumed teasing Lex once the outrage of the soon to be infamous Luthorian Shaving Debacle was over. He’d never been one of them and never would be. Lex had a feeling now that he would always be alone and would never be able to make a connection with normal people. That thought was not comforting to him. He wanted to be with others. He wanted to understand and be understood, but just now, he figured that may never happen for him, and if it didn’t, he would have to be okay with it.
Lex looked over at Bruce. There was no hair for him to fuss with, so he fixed Bruce’s collar. The tips of his mouth turned up a bit. To Lex’s dismay, Bruce flipped his collar back.
He still had trouble sleeping. He still struggled with his name. However, from that point forward, the particular name Bald Thunder was never thrown at him in mocking. It belonged to him now.
xposted to brexfic