Clouds Up - Nine (9/15)
Disclaimer: ‘Smallville’ and certain characters belong to Miller-Gough et. al. No profit is gained from this writing. Only, hopefully, enjoyment.
It seemed people always found some reason to have parties. There were ones thrown because of holidays, or birthdays, or anniversaries. If a person achieved something great, there was a party for him. If he were going somewhere for awhile, people gave him gifts and called it a 'Going Away Party.' If someone died, even then, there was a party. People told stories and drank alcohol and they called it a 'Wake.'
People divided each year into celebrations. There was always somewhere they were gathering, talking about, making plans and preparing for and then recovering from. People liked talking to other people, and if they didn't. . . if they'd much rather just stay in one room by themselves, then. . .
Lucas hated parties. People made him nervous. He liked them in the abstract, but up close and surrounding him in a small space they made him sweat and bite his lip and talking to them was just. . .
He took another glass off a passing waiter's tray, replacing it with his empty one. Six. This would be his seventh. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
Lucas just chuckled, and thought that right there made it the best, most original idea in the entire galaxy. This whole night was hysterical. Everything about it, from the room's decorations to the people swarming, was ridiculous. No one else was laughing, though.
Their loss.
He finished that glass, too, setting it down on a random table, and just grinning back when the people sitting there squawked like indignant chickens. He kept moving, wanting nothing more in that instant than to see the night sky. The city liked to pretend nature didn't exist, that It was all there was. People forgot, too. The longer they lived cramped up and bound inside steel and glass, the more ruthless they became. Everything was fast here. Even the name. People said 'Metropolis' like it was just too many syllables and such a tremendous waste of energy.
Lucas thought it beautiful in its own way. And disgusting. Vulgar. Like naming a dog 'Dog.' No personality, no depth.
It was cool outside, still winter. He ran his hand along the balcony edge and focused upward. Stars, above and around them all like air. The thought made him chuckle again. Perhaps he could write, and make his own money instead of always taking Lex's.
A burst of noise made him glance over his shoulder. Someone had gone back inside, and now it was just Lucas out here. He was drunk. Some strange chemicals in his blood now and this is what it felt like.
Perhaps he should get his own blood and quit living off Lin's.
It was windy as well this high up, and it stole away his tears before they could even escape his eyes. Just as well. People were cruel. They'd mock him, and never understand what they were really saying.
No one could really understand all of what they said to someone else. They tried. They sometimes came close. It was never enough, though. People were just too different.
Everyone was too different. From Lucas.
More noise, and he turned to look. A man had just stepped out and was lighting a cigarette. He nodded at Lucas, but moved away.
Perhaps it was time to leave. Lucas was drunk. He'd talked and talked earlier anyway. Lex had said to mingle, be charming, and that's what he had done. One of the women had kissed him on the cheek after the joke about the new British Prime Minister.
He hadn't liked it very much. Her lips on his skin had felt like cheating. Wrong. He was a liar, a thief. Everything he had wasn't his. Nothing was. His face maybe. His voice.
He'd been given everything. Everything. He had books, and bikes, and cars, and a castle that wasn't his, and friends who didn't know him, and money he didn't know how to spend, and a job he wasn't qualified for. His body, this. . . thing of muscle and bone and alien blood, it was disgusting to him. He wasn't human, but he wasn't Lin either. He was some kind of mongrel.
A science project. A guinea pig, rat, mouse, lab experiment. He was fake. Manufactured.
He was Pinocchio. He was a creation. Lucas Carmichael Dunleavy was seven years dead, and now he was living in this body. Hollow, like a shell.
Vulgar. No personality, no depth. Like calling a robot by a human name and pretending it was the same thing.
He stepped back from the railing and turned around. Walking to the nearest door, he saw the man who'd come outside to smoke. He was standing at the corner of the balcony, looking down. Lucas wondered what that man saw looking down that he couldn't find in the stars.
Humanity. Life. Purpose.
Inside was like an oven after standing on the balcony for more than 20 minutes. The number of people had decreased, and he thought it was because of the time. It was past two o'clock in the morning, but music was still playing, and couples were still dancing, and people were still laughing and smiling and eating, so the party didn't seem to be boring or a failure. Why would people leave unless they had to? Because, looking around, no one else seemed to want to. Not like Lucas did, anyway.
He went over to the bar on the other side of the room, and sat down at one end on a barstool. A man in a bowtie and cummerbund came over and Lucas ordered a Scotch whisky. Not even a second glance, and the rules here were different from other places. Here, Lucas could drink all the alcohol he wanted. Up here, how old he was didn't matter in the slightest. What people wanted of him were his ties to Lex, to the parent company. They wanted his word and his opinion and into his good graces.
The bartender set his drink before him on a napkin and then moved away. No eye contact. No personal interaction. All cold and empty and stilted. Distant. Everything about this night was distant.
It was ridiculous. People assigned meaning where there was none. They saw the world how they wanted it to be, instead of how it was.
They went after money. . . and left everything else behind.
Lucas didn't touch the whisky. He took a deep breath and the alcohol was dead inside him. He was no longer drunk, no longer impaired.
He could see what he'd been doing wrong. It wasn't an issue of what he was. It was what he wanted to be that mattered.
He saw things, and they were true. He could see how the world really was, and he could see what it would become. The good, the bad, the beautiful and meaningful, as well as the hideous and insignificant, were all within his reach.
He could change things. Lucas stood up from the bar and looked at the people once more.
He could make the world what it was supposed to be. He could make people better.
He smiled and walked out.
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