SV Colin Luthor Verse Fic: En Plein Air - Chapter Four
Disclaimer: Smallville and certain characters belong to Miller-Gough et al. No profit is gained from this writing-only, hopefully, enjoyment.
There is no non-con/dub-con/rape depicted in this story, but there are references to it having occurred in the past. I included the tag just to be safe, as I certainly do not want to trigger anyone.
***
Lin wakes up, and Lex is already gone for the day. It’s not even eight yet on a Sunday morning, but it’s Lex: he works every day.
Lin rolls over and grabs his phone from the nightstand, checking it for anything urgent.
What he has are some texts from his agent Claire, which consist of two links to reviews of ‘Pochade’ and one spreadsheet of bids already in place for the sculptures, along with a couple dozen emails that somehow made it past his spam filter, all asking for soundbites or advice or invasive, insensitive behind the scenes information. And as he’s painstakingly deleting each email after a cursory skim, his phone suddenly vibrates and a reminder pops up from his calendar.
It says: 2 Months till 25!!!
Lin almost crushes his phone.
He’d set reminders for everyone’s birthdays and anniversaries when he got this phone back in February, and now it’s October and Julian’s 25th birthday is exactly two months away.
He should’ve picked up on it last week, and maybe he had and just didn’t want to get into it. Lin tends to do that a lot anymore, put stuff off or push it away. Last week, Tuesday, when Lin was waiting for Lex to finish packing his briefcase so they could leave for the day, Lex had mentioned something while thinking out loud to himself. He’d muttered under his breath, “And then just hold whatever he wants there. Bastion probably, since it’ll be, yeah, there and not here.” He’d shaken his head at himself and then looked up at Lin, clicking the latches on his briefcase and smiling at him. “Ready?” he’d asked.
So Lex is probably already planning some huge party for Julian, and of course he’s going to hold it at one of his own nightclubs.
Lin hasn’t ever seen the appeal of clubbing, but both Lex and Julian still orbit that scene, and Lin’s been kind of dragged along, regardless.
And Bastion in Gotham is at least one of the tamer clubs, more geared toward cutting edge music acts and pushing sales on beer from its sister-brewery next door than promoting any actual kind of club culture. Lex saves that last bit for the clubs he owns here in Metropolis, two of them, and doesn’t that just make a certain kind of overly-protective sense? Keep Vermeil and Sutra as far from Lian as he can and still turn a profit.
That had been a weird conversation years ago. Lin had been sitting on the sofa in Lex’s office, ostensibly reading while Lex met with one of their personal lawyers. The meeting had concluded with some new business Lex had very pointedly kept secret from Lin and had likely hoped to keep a secret.
At the time, Lin had just sighed and made the mistake of rolling his eyes in response. Lex had caught him, though, and he’d glowered at Lin from across the room as he signed the paperwork finalizing the purchase of, at the time, the Atlantis nightclub, which Lex and his team would renovate and eventually rebrand Sutra.
“What?” Lex had demanded after the lawyer left. He’d imitated Lin sighing and asked, “What’s that mean?”
Lin said, “I remember that club. Just think it’s odd, but not surprising really, that you bought it.”
Lex asked, “Remember it from when exactly? Place has been boarded up for more than five years.”
Lin didn’t respond, just kept his eyes on his book and let Lex figure it out himself.
That’s what he’s always liked doing, after all.
And the unspoken rule is, despite numerous therapists over the years advising otherwise to Julian and Lucas and even Lex (but never Lin, as he point-blank refuses to see one), they don’t talk directly about Lionel, none of them, ever. They hint, and they talk around him.
Lin didn’t make the rule, and he doesn’t precisely like it, but it works. It saves them in the short run, and that’s really all Lin can handle. It’s why he sets himself reminders. He can’t keep everything at the forefront of his mind and wouldn’t even if he could.
But Lin can remember Lex staring at him back then. He can remember how Lex sounded when he broke the rule and asked, voice muffled by his hands as he rubbed them over his face, “Did he have you follow me? Everywhere?”
Lin had snapped the book shut, and he’d broken the rule a little too. He’d said, eyes somewhere between the Atlantis, watching Lex snort cocaine and drink himself sick and kiss everyone, and Lex’s office, which used to be Lionel’s: “Only when you weren’t where you should be.”
Lex doesn’t go out to his clubs that often, at least not at night, and he doesn’t offer to take Lin with him.
Lin hasn’t even seen the inside of Vermeil, and he’s only glanced at pictures of Sutra.
But Julian is still young enough at 24, rich enough between his writing and inheritance, and wild enough as a Luthor to be found, more often than not, out on the town and in the papers the next morning.
From what Lin’s overheard, Lian’s almost as infamous as Lex was in certain circles.
Looking at his phone now, in his and Lex’s bed, Colin faces the fact that he’s overheard more about Julian in the last decade than he’s actually heard from Julian.
“Are you and Arkady still together?” Lin had dared to ask Lian just last New Year’s at the ELD Inc. gala. Lin was trying to figure out the boundaries of whatever relationship Lian had going with Rick Jameson’s son. He was trying and failing to be a big brother to Julian, a role Lin’s had to all but give up.
Since Lin and Lex became a thing, Lin and Julian are all but strangers.
Not much room for respect when Julian won’t even look at him.
And that’s just what Lian had done that night at the gala too. He’d kept his head turned the other way and had shrugged. Rather than answer Lin, he pretended to be fascinated by those on the dance floor as he finished off the last of his champagne and then waved at a waiter to bring him another.
And in that rush to drink to excess instead of talk, in the arch of Lian’s arm as he beckoned the help, and the cant of his head as he looked anywhere but at Lin-Julian was in that moment a perfect amalgamation of Lex, Lionel, and Lillian, and Colin had looked away too, never following up or pressing him further.
He has to, though. He’ll go crazy if he tries to hold it all at the same time.
Lin sees in the man Julian’s become the sum of a family that still isn’t entirely Lin’s own but that will always be Julian’s, by blood and birth.
Lex and Julian and even Lucas are brothers.
So at the gala, Lin had dropped the matter entirely. He still doesn’t know what happened between Julian and Arkady Jameson, whether Lian’s active nightlife is his way of medicating a tough breakup or just a Luthor’s natural tendency toward overindulgence. Lin doesn’t know if Julian and Arkady were serious or on and off boyfriends or just good friends because Julian is a stranger.
He talks to Lex apparently, as several times Lin has come into a room, Lex’s office downtown or the one here at the house or the den or even their bedroom, and Lex is on the phone, saying, laughingly, “Well, you can’t say that, Lian,” or, “Sure, but isn’t that kind of lame?” or even, “I honestly have no idea, since I really only technically finished, but you can always just ask, kid. Christ.”
Julian’s forgiven Lex.
Lin remembers when he told Lian more than he told anyone. He remembers not having to tell Lian anything, and still that boy had known almost everything.
Almost everything.
Lin remembers holding Julian as a baby while Lex looked over his shoulder, sniffling and trying not to cry because his mom was gone forever, and Lex has never gotten used to people he loves leaving him.
He remembers pulling Lian close in a hug outside a movie theater, Lian’s forehead knocking against Lin’s ribs, and wishing he could just absorb this boy into himself and bodily protect him, forever hide him away from the games Lionel played and that Lex was slowly attempting to win.
Lin remembers each and every smile Lian smiled for him, and he remembers when they stopped, when he tracked down Julian at a fucking nightclub almost a decade ago, back when the kid was in high school. It was Gotham during the day and not Metropolis at night, but it was that same feeling rushing over Lin when he was face-to-face with Julian sprawled on a stained red couch, surrounded by his friends and sycophants and drugs and alcohol.
That was the beginning of the end, just like it was with Lex, Lin trying to pull him away and Lian staring back at him blearily, his face scrunched up in what’s become a familiar expression to Lin over the years, all downturned mouth and narrow eyes.
It’s disgust. It’s always disgust.
But Lin doesn’t ever talk about everything or anything, doesn't talk about Lionel, only around him, around them all, and he can’t quite seem to hold in his mind’s eye both the angry man and the little boy Julian used to be. There’s only so much room.
How does Lucas manage?
See, the truth is that Lin doesn’t like nightclubs because they always mean he’s fucked up again. And they’ve always seemed to be about losing control, and he hates losing control. He’s never had enough control: he sure as hell isn’t giving any of it up.
And, really, the last thing he wants to spend his free time doing is keeping his strength in check around crowds of intoxicated people who, in Lin’s limited experience, are utterly shameless about invading others’ personal space. Lin had gotten groped a few times in clubs back then when he was about 12 or 13, and he doesn’t even want to imagine what it would be like now.
He doesn’t want to knowingly put himself in a situation where he’s resigned to just standing there and taking whatever comes his way.
If he wants to punish himself, he’ll damn well do it in private, not for an audience and not where Lex or Julian can see.
But it maybe wasn’t always going to be like this. Shift events a little, after all, and they’re all different people.
Clark Luthor loved going out, most likely still does wherever he and Tess ended up, and Clark Kent is always as fucking ambivalent about nightclubs as he is about most everything. Lin would hazard a guess most Clark Kents like clubs, as they generally seem to like people. But Clark likes quite a lot of things he feels he shouldn’t and thus hates himself for it.
Lin drops his phone on the bed and climbs out. He walks into the bathroom and takes a piss and starts the shower and tries so hard not to think about or remember things that were never his fault.
He hasn’t killed anyone, and they’re all still alive. Shouldn’t that be enough?
And it’s not like Lin speaks to Lucas any more than he speaks to Lian, but then he doesn’t really want to. He doesn’t need to.
And that’s mutual.
Is he just supposed to demand Lian talk to him? Maybe it’s unrealistic to expect they’d still be close as adults. Maybe it’s too much to expect Julian will be ok with Lin and Lex, after everything.
But he talks to Lex.
Never, growing up, had Lian made him feel like he was- was to blame for Lionel. Lex had. Lex has said some awful things, but Julian. . .
Lin looks up and realizes the water’s cold. He finishes washing and gets out of the shower, dries off, brushes his teeth and puts on deodorant and combs out his hair. He walks out into the bedroom and then sneaks out, sneaks down the hall to his own bedroom-just like he used to in the old house-and Lin goes to his closet and picks out clothes to wear and shoes and a watch, this one a gift from Lucas three years ago for Christmas.
It’s already past noon.
Lin’s lost time again, either while lying in bed or standing in the shower or both or some other moment besides.
And his phone’s still back in the other bedroom, in the bed, along with the clothes he’d been wearing last night, that he’d slipped off before climbing into bed with Lex.
Hours later, down in his studio, Lin can remember realizing he’d missed more than four hours that morning, but he blinks, is blinking, and suddenly he can’t quite recall how he got downstairs afterward.
He’s been painting, only not on canvas.
Lin blinks and catches the sound of the front door opening and Lex’s voice greeting Angie. He looks past the walls here and can see Lex setting down his briefcase and taking off his coat and hanging it up, and he can remember Lillian teasing Lex about how particular he was, how he liked routine but only with the little things, his shoes having to be lined up just right or the same kind of toothpaste or their books organized a certain way.
Lin can remember all that, and he can see and hear everything, but he doesn’t know why he’s painting the walls of his studio with green and black paint, and he can’t remember if he ever went and grabbed his phone or his clothes from the bedroom so the maid wouldn’t find them and wonder.
Lex asks Angie, “Is that a ham I smell?”
Angie laughs and says, “Honey-glazed.”
And Lin tries to ignore them, but he can still pick out the thump of Lex’s heart and the intake of air into Angie’s lungs before she speaks. He closes his eyes, but he can still see them, and he tries to breathe, but his hands are covered in paint because he didn’t use a brush.
Lian is so far away from him now, and Lucas is more Clark Kent than Lin has ever been or ever will be, and Lin can’t forget Lionel, only try to think around him.
See, the truth is that Lin loves Lex, but he’s falling again, deeper and deeper into his own head, and he thinks he’s forgotten to remember how to fly.
There is no non-con/dub-con/rape depicted in this story, but there are references to it having occurred in the past. I included the tag just to be safe, as I certainly do not want to trigger anyone.
***
Lin wakes up, and Lex is already gone for the day. It’s not even eight yet on a Sunday morning, but it’s Lex: he works every day.
Lin rolls over and grabs his phone from the nightstand, checking it for anything urgent.
What he has are some texts from his agent Claire, which consist of two links to reviews of ‘Pochade’ and one spreadsheet of bids already in place for the sculptures, along with a couple dozen emails that somehow made it past his spam filter, all asking for soundbites or advice or invasive, insensitive behind the scenes information. And as he’s painstakingly deleting each email after a cursory skim, his phone suddenly vibrates and a reminder pops up from his calendar.
It says: 2 Months till 25!!!
Lin almost crushes his phone.
He’d set reminders for everyone’s birthdays and anniversaries when he got this phone back in February, and now it’s October and Julian’s 25th birthday is exactly two months away.
He should’ve picked up on it last week, and maybe he had and just didn’t want to get into it. Lin tends to do that a lot anymore, put stuff off or push it away. Last week, Tuesday, when Lin was waiting for Lex to finish packing his briefcase so they could leave for the day, Lex had mentioned something while thinking out loud to himself. He’d muttered under his breath, “And then just hold whatever he wants there. Bastion probably, since it’ll be, yeah, there and not here.” He’d shaken his head at himself and then looked up at Lin, clicking the latches on his briefcase and smiling at him. “Ready?” he’d asked.
So Lex is probably already planning some huge party for Julian, and of course he’s going to hold it at one of his own nightclubs.
Lin hasn’t ever seen the appeal of clubbing, but both Lex and Julian still orbit that scene, and Lin’s been kind of dragged along, regardless.
And Bastion in Gotham is at least one of the tamer clubs, more geared toward cutting edge music acts and pushing sales on beer from its sister-brewery next door than promoting any actual kind of club culture. Lex saves that last bit for the clubs he owns here in Metropolis, two of them, and doesn’t that just make a certain kind of overly-protective sense? Keep Vermeil and Sutra as far from Lian as he can and still turn a profit.
That had been a weird conversation years ago. Lin had been sitting on the sofa in Lex’s office, ostensibly reading while Lex met with one of their personal lawyers. The meeting had concluded with some new business Lex had very pointedly kept secret from Lin and had likely hoped to keep a secret.
At the time, Lin had just sighed and made the mistake of rolling his eyes in response. Lex had caught him, though, and he’d glowered at Lin from across the room as he signed the paperwork finalizing the purchase of, at the time, the Atlantis nightclub, which Lex and his team would renovate and eventually rebrand Sutra.
“What?” Lex had demanded after the lawyer left. He’d imitated Lin sighing and asked, “What’s that mean?”
Lin said, “I remember that club. Just think it’s odd, but not surprising really, that you bought it.”
Lex asked, “Remember it from when exactly? Place has been boarded up for more than five years.”
Lin didn’t respond, just kept his eyes on his book and let Lex figure it out himself.
That’s what he’s always liked doing, after all.
And the unspoken rule is, despite numerous therapists over the years advising otherwise to Julian and Lucas and even Lex (but never Lin, as he point-blank refuses to see one), they don’t talk directly about Lionel, none of them, ever. They hint, and they talk around him.
Lin didn’t make the rule, and he doesn’t precisely like it, but it works. It saves them in the short run, and that’s really all Lin can handle. It’s why he sets himself reminders. He can’t keep everything at the forefront of his mind and wouldn’t even if he could.
But Lin can remember Lex staring at him back then. He can remember how Lex sounded when he broke the rule and asked, voice muffled by his hands as he rubbed them over his face, “Did he have you follow me? Everywhere?”
Lin had snapped the book shut, and he’d broken the rule a little too. He’d said, eyes somewhere between the Atlantis, watching Lex snort cocaine and drink himself sick and kiss everyone, and Lex’s office, which used to be Lionel’s: “Only when you weren’t where you should be.”
Lex doesn’t go out to his clubs that often, at least not at night, and he doesn’t offer to take Lin with him.
Lin hasn’t even seen the inside of Vermeil, and he’s only glanced at pictures of Sutra.
But Julian is still young enough at 24, rich enough between his writing and inheritance, and wild enough as a Luthor to be found, more often than not, out on the town and in the papers the next morning.
From what Lin’s overheard, Lian’s almost as infamous as Lex was in certain circles.
Looking at his phone now, in his and Lex’s bed, Colin faces the fact that he’s overheard more about Julian in the last decade than he’s actually heard from Julian.
“Are you and Arkady still together?” Lin had dared to ask Lian just last New Year’s at the ELD Inc. gala. Lin was trying to figure out the boundaries of whatever relationship Lian had going with Rick Jameson’s son. He was trying and failing to be a big brother to Julian, a role Lin’s had to all but give up.
Since Lin and Lex became a thing, Lin and Julian are all but strangers.
Not much room for respect when Julian won’t even look at him.
And that’s just what Lian had done that night at the gala too. He’d kept his head turned the other way and had shrugged. Rather than answer Lin, he pretended to be fascinated by those on the dance floor as he finished off the last of his champagne and then waved at a waiter to bring him another.
And in that rush to drink to excess instead of talk, in the arch of Lian’s arm as he beckoned the help, and the cant of his head as he looked anywhere but at Lin-Julian was in that moment a perfect amalgamation of Lex, Lionel, and Lillian, and Colin had looked away too, never following up or pressing him further.
He has to, though. He’ll go crazy if he tries to hold it all at the same time.
Lin sees in the man Julian’s become the sum of a family that still isn’t entirely Lin’s own but that will always be Julian’s, by blood and birth.
Lex and Julian and even Lucas are brothers.
So at the gala, Lin had dropped the matter entirely. He still doesn’t know what happened between Julian and Arkady Jameson, whether Lian’s active nightlife is his way of medicating a tough breakup or just a Luthor’s natural tendency toward overindulgence. Lin doesn’t know if Julian and Arkady were serious or on and off boyfriends or just good friends because Julian is a stranger.
He talks to Lex apparently, as several times Lin has come into a room, Lex’s office downtown or the one here at the house or the den or even their bedroom, and Lex is on the phone, saying, laughingly, “Well, you can’t say that, Lian,” or, “Sure, but isn’t that kind of lame?” or even, “I honestly have no idea, since I really only technically finished, but you can always just ask, kid. Christ.”
Julian’s forgiven Lex.
Lin remembers when he told Lian more than he told anyone. He remembers not having to tell Lian anything, and still that boy had known almost everything.
Almost everything.
Lin remembers holding Julian as a baby while Lex looked over his shoulder, sniffling and trying not to cry because his mom was gone forever, and Lex has never gotten used to people he loves leaving him.
He remembers pulling Lian close in a hug outside a movie theater, Lian’s forehead knocking against Lin’s ribs, and wishing he could just absorb this boy into himself and bodily protect him, forever hide him away from the games Lionel played and that Lex was slowly attempting to win.
Lin remembers each and every smile Lian smiled for him, and he remembers when they stopped, when he tracked down Julian at a fucking nightclub almost a decade ago, back when the kid was in high school. It was Gotham during the day and not Metropolis at night, but it was that same feeling rushing over Lin when he was face-to-face with Julian sprawled on a stained red couch, surrounded by his friends and sycophants and drugs and alcohol.
That was the beginning of the end, just like it was with Lex, Lin trying to pull him away and Lian staring back at him blearily, his face scrunched up in what’s become a familiar expression to Lin over the years, all downturned mouth and narrow eyes.
It’s disgust. It’s always disgust.
But Lin doesn’t ever talk about everything or anything, doesn't talk about Lionel, only around him, around them all, and he can’t quite seem to hold in his mind’s eye both the angry man and the little boy Julian used to be. There’s only so much room.
How does Lucas manage?
See, the truth is that Lin doesn’t like nightclubs because they always mean he’s fucked up again. And they’ve always seemed to be about losing control, and he hates losing control. He’s never had enough control: he sure as hell isn’t giving any of it up.
And, really, the last thing he wants to spend his free time doing is keeping his strength in check around crowds of intoxicated people who, in Lin’s limited experience, are utterly shameless about invading others’ personal space. Lin had gotten groped a few times in clubs back then when he was about 12 or 13, and he doesn’t even want to imagine what it would be like now.
He doesn’t want to knowingly put himself in a situation where he’s resigned to just standing there and taking whatever comes his way.
If he wants to punish himself, he’ll damn well do it in private, not for an audience and not where Lex or Julian can see.
But it maybe wasn’t always going to be like this. Shift events a little, after all, and they’re all different people.
Clark Luthor loved going out, most likely still does wherever he and Tess ended up, and Clark Kent is always as fucking ambivalent about nightclubs as he is about most everything. Lin would hazard a guess most Clark Kents like clubs, as they generally seem to like people. But Clark likes quite a lot of things he feels he shouldn’t and thus hates himself for it.
Lin drops his phone on the bed and climbs out. He walks into the bathroom and takes a piss and starts the shower and tries so hard not to think about or remember things that were never his fault.
He hasn’t killed anyone, and they’re all still alive. Shouldn’t that be enough?
And it’s not like Lin speaks to Lucas any more than he speaks to Lian, but then he doesn’t really want to. He doesn’t need to.
And that’s mutual.
Is he just supposed to demand Lian talk to him? Maybe it’s unrealistic to expect they’d still be close as adults. Maybe it’s too much to expect Julian will be ok with Lin and Lex, after everything.
But he talks to Lex.
Never, growing up, had Lian made him feel like he was- was to blame for Lionel. Lex had. Lex has said some awful things, but Julian. . .
Lin looks up and realizes the water’s cold. He finishes washing and gets out of the shower, dries off, brushes his teeth and puts on deodorant and combs out his hair. He walks out into the bedroom and then sneaks out, sneaks down the hall to his own bedroom-just like he used to in the old house-and Lin goes to his closet and picks out clothes to wear and shoes and a watch, this one a gift from Lucas three years ago for Christmas.
It’s already past noon.
Lin’s lost time again, either while lying in bed or standing in the shower or both or some other moment besides.
And his phone’s still back in the other bedroom, in the bed, along with the clothes he’d been wearing last night, that he’d slipped off before climbing into bed with Lex.
Hours later, down in his studio, Lin can remember realizing he’d missed more than four hours that morning, but he blinks, is blinking, and suddenly he can’t quite recall how he got downstairs afterward.
He’s been painting, only not on canvas.
Lin blinks and catches the sound of the front door opening and Lex’s voice greeting Angie. He looks past the walls here and can see Lex setting down his briefcase and taking off his coat and hanging it up, and he can remember Lillian teasing Lex about how particular he was, how he liked routine but only with the little things, his shoes having to be lined up just right or the same kind of toothpaste or their books organized a certain way.
Lin can remember all that, and he can see and hear everything, but he doesn’t know why he’s painting the walls of his studio with green and black paint, and he can’t remember if he ever went and grabbed his phone or his clothes from the bedroom so the maid wouldn’t find them and wonder.
Lex asks Angie, “Is that a ham I smell?”
Angie laughs and says, “Honey-glazed.”
And Lin tries to ignore them, but he can still pick out the thump of Lex’s heart and the intake of air into Angie’s lungs before she speaks. He closes his eyes, but he can still see them, and he tries to breathe, but his hands are covered in paint because he didn’t use a brush.
Lian is so far away from him now, and Lucas is more Clark Kent than Lin has ever been or ever will be, and Lin can’t forget Lionel, only try to think around him.
See, the truth is that Lin loves Lex, but he’s falling again, deeper and deeper into his own head, and he thinks he’s forgotten to remember how to fly.