Part One: Snow Bunnies Melt and Toy Soldiers Break, But Princes and Knights Can Be Brave
Title: Snow Bunnies Melt and Toy Soldiers Break, But Princes and Knights Can Be Brave
Pairings: pre-slash Brex
Summary: Lex Luthor navigates the world of obsession and dominance at Excelsior, when an outsider disrupts their petty games with his lethal breed of play.
Prompt: Write Excelsior!fic in which teen Oliver and his band of merry morons get in over their heads.
Warnings: character death
Word count: 11,614
Many thanks to be gracious and incomparable beta herohunter
Part One
Years from now, the newspapers would refer to his tumultuous past, his alleged multiple expulsions from every private school in Europe, his family tragedy, and his brilliant work in countless scientific fields. Today, they took pictures, but only because Metropolis's nouveau riche royal family had gathered in Centennial Park so that the family patriarch could deliver a speech on the building currently under construction for his new start up corporation that would tie in his older businesses. Investors were nervous about this new company, but word had it that the CEO could sell ice to Eskimos, so the ambitious were placing their bets.
The boy was curled in his nurse's arms, pressing a soft and pliant cheek against her arm as a shock of red hair hung in his eyes, allowing him to hide from the crowds and the cameras. If his father were paying attention, he would demand that the boy stand on his own two feet, that he not shyly hide his face from the throngs of reporters before them.
A few older boys messed about behind them. The chubby-faced blond kid had moved away from the group in the celebration, and he was hoping to throw some snowballs.
At the fringe of the crowd a man stood. Thin. Unshaven. Wide eyes behind thick glasses that didn't seem able to focus. They moved back, forth, up, down, to the CEO, to the boys playing on the side. He licked his lips and bowed his head; his shoulder-length hair obscured those unsteady eyes as he leaned forward, listening to the CEO speak. The people beside him did not seem to notice him. Nor did they see how, when he found something to steady himself, he looked up at the redheaded child. His tongue flickered out again.
His eyes sharpened. His head lifted.
The boy peered out into the crowd with preternaturally intelligent eyes. After a slow blink and a touch from his mother on his soft hair, he laid his head down once again.
Roughly twenty minutes later, the CEO stood in front of the crowd. A tall man with a shock of well-trimmed blond hair and goatee patted the CEO on the back as he waved at the camera. Their wives chatted together, discussing the winter charity functions in Star City.
The nurse set the boy down, keeping his hand in hers and taking him over to look at the rows of decorated trees. Some of the lights flickered on and off, and the glow lit up their faces. The boy pointed to one ornament after the other, explaining the significance of the symbols and what he knew about why it might be on a Christmas tree. His nurse smiled and petted the back of his head proudly. Such a smart boy.
The boy's chattering ended abruptly as a cold, hard snowball hit the back of his head, causing him to fall face first into the snow. His nurse knelt next to him quickly, pulling him out and brushing the front of his long black coat off. They both looked up a their attackers. The chubby blond boy stood in the front, feeling proud of his aim.
"Hey! You boys stop that!" the nurse shouted, pulling the boy close to her breast. "He can't play those rough games!"
The boys laughed, and their leader bent over to pack together another snowball. The nurse pulled the boy around to the side of her to shield him and reached into his pockets to find his inhaler.
"It's okay," she whispered to the small, wheezing child. "You'll be fine, darling."
A barrage of snowballs came at them, as the nurse howled after them to stop and behave themselves.
There was something in the boy, something in the way his small chest heaved and his pale skin. Something in how fragile he was that made the chubby blond child angry. It made him want to pin the boy down, to make him cry. He wanted to press him to the ground and climb on top of him and yank that pretty red hair.
Unfortunately, the nurse stood and came after them angrily. The snowballs didn't stop, so she bent over and picked up a snowball herself, pulled her arm back, and beaned the blond boy clean in the ear.
"Ow!" he cried out angrily. "You can't do that!"
"Oh? It's better to hit a six-year-old from behind, you insufferable little bully?" she asked as she made another snowball. Her small ward behind her huffed on his inhaler and then shoved it in his pocket, bending over to follow her lead.
The blond boy's face quickly ignited, red and angry at the little whelp lobbing snowballs ineffectively at them with only occasional accuracy and his nurse, who was much better at nailing them each in turn.
Sooner than the blond boy would have liked, he gave ground. His friends had deserted him. With a sigh due of his suffering indignity, he ran back to where his parents were and hovered closely.
His mother turned her head and sighed. "Ollie, sweetheart. You're a mess!"
She leaned down to fix his hair. He looked back with sulky eyes. He didn't want anyone to know that a servant and a little brat had bested him. Mostly because his friends were cowards, though.
Back by the trees, the nurse held up her hand to the boy, giving him a little high five.
"We won," he said excitedly and a bit breathlessly.
She took his hand again and walked with him along the row of trees. "We did. You were very brave, Alexander."
He bent over and took some more snow, this time patting it into a ball first, then trying to squeeze the shape into something else. He was bent over his task when they reached his parents.
"Oh, my. Alexander, have you been playing in the snow?" his mother said stiffly, sounding surprised.
"I made you a snow bunny," the boy told her, his gray eyes shining from the excitement. He held up the small clump of snow, which was pressed vaguely into the shape of a rabbit.
"We're going to have to give you a bath as soon as you get home," his mother continued.
When his father approached them, the boy went rigid and tried to hide his bunny. To his surprise, his father laughed softly, appreciating the rare red-cheeked glow that his son was sporting.
"I have another meeting this afternoon," the CEO informed them. "I need to return home quickly. I'm afraid you'll have to leave your pet here, Lex."
The boy looked at the bunny and set it down obediently, although he felt sad to leave it all alone. Maybe some other bunnies would come out of the trees and adopt him.
The group dispersed now that the gathering was over, little by little, until there was no one but the man with the glasses and scruffy face. His eyes followed the redheaded boy as he was guided to the car and began telling his father about his victory in the trenches.
Four Years Later
Excelsior Preparatory School for Exceptionally Gifted Young Men
"Oof!"
Lex fell face first into the mud and snow. The cacophonous laughter behind him pierced through the ringing in his ears, and he felt a swift kick in his ribs. At that he turned and gave the ringleader, a round-faced boy by the name of Ollie Queen a look that would melt paint off a wall, but for some reason Ollie seemed to be invulnerable.
"Don't show me up in class, you bald freak," Ollie warned, his lips twisting into a smug grin.
Lex Luthor didn't understand school. He didn't understand why he had to go, and he didn't understand how the social order worked now that he was there. Granted, he had wanted to go before he got here, so he knew any complaints to his father would have been less than useless.
The problem was less that Ollie Queen seemed to hate him for no reason, but that Ollie Queen's friends, who were stupider than the boy himself, were willing to do whatever he said. Which meant that even if Lex had tried to fight back, it wouldn't have made any difference. He was outnumbered.
Lex thinned his lips and waited for the boys to laugh and move on before he tried to stand. He would have to go back to his dorm to change his uniform before his next class. Luckily he kept his clothes very clean. He shook his leg a little and went to retrieve his book bag. As his hand reached out for the bag, his fingers brushed against a larger hand, and he looked up in alarm.
An older boy met Lex's gaze with eyes that were gravely serious. Deeply, darkly blue. They seemed to be reaching into Lex's eye sockets and grasping at his soul. Black hair hung in boy's perfect, solemn face.
"Do you need the nurse," he asked with no inflection.
Lex couldn't help but be unnerved by the boy's lack of expression, but he kept silent on that point.
"No, I don't," he answered. In fact, if he never saw a doctor again, it would be too soon.
He reached for the book bag, but the older boy picked it up and headed to the large, arching doorways without another word. Lex hesitated for a moment, then hurried after him. He needed his books. And Pamela had sent him a letter, which he'd left in there to read when he got back from study group that night.
"Please don't take my things," Lex said as evenly as he could.
The boy stopped abruptly, looked at him with an unreadable expression, and then stepped up to the door to open it for him.
Lex narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. "Um…"
"Thank you," the boy said.
"What?"
"I think those are the customary words," he continued. "Or, perhaps, 'do not hold the door for me. I am not a girl.' Something along those lines."
Lex pursed his lips and snatched his bag from the older boy. "Don't hold the door for me. I'm not a girl."
He stormed inside and moved as quickly as he could down the hallway. The last thing he needed was another upperclassman picking on him.
Truth be told, when he'd taken his entrance exams to go to this school, Lex and his parents had expected him to be behind. Of course he had studied over the past year; he had done almost nothing else ever since he'd been well enough to do anything but lay in a bed and let the doctors do tests on him. What they had found, however, was that Lex was extremely advanced for his ten years, so while there were students his age at the school, they attended in a different building, with the boys their own age.
Meanwhile, Lex was stuck in the high school with some of the meanest, brattiest idiots he'd ever come in contact with. That wasn't saying much. Lex hadn't much experience with other children. Just his family, his nurse Pamela, and whomever his father had forced him to associate with at social functions. Now he was up to his little ears with other children. It was a bit much for him to handle.
As he reached the end of hall, Lex gave a swift look backward. His mouth opened slightly. There was no sign of the dark haired boy. He'd disappeared. Lex swallowed and continued on his way.
***
"These birds creep me out," Avery Simon Lancaster III muttered, leaning against the side of the building. He took a drag on the rolled cigarette he was holding. Whenever the bell tower rang, the birds would fly up in the air, startled, and flock around senselessly for longer than was necessary.
"You think the bald brat will tattle?" Robert took the cigarette for a puff.
"I doubt it," Ollie said. He took the cigarette from Robert. "It won't do him any good. His word against ours. Where do you get this stuff?"
"The nurse," Avery replied. "She digs me."
"Shut up." Ollie took another drag and gave it back to him. "I gotta go study for pre-calc. I don't want that little creature upstaging me again."
"I don't think he thinks about it. I think he's like one of those sciences experiments or something. Some kid they grew up in a lab designed to answer questions," Robert speculated.
"How can you room with him, Avery?" Ollie asked, scrunching up his face.
"He's just really quiet and really clean. He must be autistic or something. He never talks." Avery looked up at the sky. "With that head, you know, I bet he's dying anyway. You won't have to put up with him long. Chemo."
"I can only hope." Ollie shifted his book bag back on and gave Avery and Robert a wave. He'd done his homework already, but he wanted to go over the concepts one more time.
He couldn't quite put his finger on what bothered him about Lex Luthor. He would sit in class, staring at the back of that flawlessly white neck, that awkward bump on the back of his head, smooth as an egg save for that one imperfect spot. He looked undercooked. Unreal. He moved his head with a slow grace that should not exist in a boy that age, and he walked funny, with a little twitch in his hips that made Ollie feel like this kid thought he was really something special.
Sometimes when he was watching Lex, Ollie was surprised to remember that this androgynous creature was a boy. It should have been a forgone conclusion at an all boys' school, but sometimes watching this kid made Ollie wonder if a person couldn't be both at once. Lex's eyes were too sensitive, and his mouth too feminine, with bowed lips that rarely even had the hint of a smile.
Maybe it was because he was too young, or too pretty, or too strange or affected in the way he spoke or moved. Ollie didn't know. But he did know that he wanted Lex on the ground before him. He wanted to bruise that perfectly white flesh, derail that swish in his hips, crack that egg-like head. He wanted Lex broken and writhing underneath him.
Little did the other boys realize how much Ollie held back. He thought about this way too much.
Ollie sat down in the library and opened up his books, rereading the material and reworking the equations in his head. It bugged him that he had to go through this at all. He'd done perfectly fine reading through things just once last year. Now there was this hotshot infant that had come into his class and showed him up in front of all the teachers. Stolen glory that should have belonged to him. Ollie hated that about Lex, too. He didn't seem to be trying.
Then again, Lex didn't seem to have any friends to distract him. Ollie had noticed Lex in his 'study group,' and the members of the group goofed around while Lex had his nose in a history book.
At least he had that much over his rival, Ollie told himself. People liked Ollie Queen.
***
Calloused fingers brushed over the bindings of each book in turn. He had read many of them already, and of course he had completed all of his schoolwork to this point. It was simply a matter of discipline and self-control.
Bruce Wayne often thought that if he had nothing else, he had his self-control.
Each day during study group, he would retire to the gym and work out. Some days were strength training. Some were practice; yoga, karate, any art he could gain information regarding and begin training in.
Today he was having difficulty concentrating. He felt that he should have moved across the courtyard more quickly. He was physically capable, and he should have noticed the four freshmen picking on that ten-year-old, but he had been absorbed in meditation at the time.
What really bothered him was when he saw that ten-year-old sitting in his pre-calculus class as though he were there every day. Bruce admitted to himself that occasionally, he was just in a fog. The kid was hard to miss, though. Bald, small, unconsciously elegant. The kid would occasionally argue with the instructor about the answer in the book.
Bruce stopped in front of the chemistry section and peered through the shelves as the pale, thin boy sat down at a table and pulled a letter out of his bag. Watching as the boy read it, Bruce felt his heart accelerating the longer the boy read the letter. Then the boy bit his lip softly, and his eyes grew wider.
Bruce felt the urge to find out what was in that letter.
Once he was finished reading, the boy put the letter away and opened his Latin book. He wrote with his left hand, in strokes that were messy, but strove very hard to be legible, and twice, Bruce noted, the boy reached up with the fingers of his right hand and felt over his bald head.
This told Bruce that the hair loss was still fairly recent, and he was curious as to its origin. The boy was pale, but not sickly looking. Not really. Simply sad, perhaps lonesome. He spent the bulk of his time sitting alone.
Bruce's sharp eyes followed the boy when he stood to sharpen his pencil. They followed him when he went up to the front desk to request a book.
Quite soon, whenever or wherever they could, his eyes would follow him. He learned the next day the name of the boy: Alexander Joseph Luthor. So when was not studying or training, he was watching his Alexander, intently and devoutly.
Why he would do this, he could not say.
***
Lex opened his letter and felt his eyes stinging almost immediately. His mother seldom wrote him, and calls were rare. On the weekends, many of the boys flew home to see their families, but he remained. He hadn't been one of the little ones crying their eyes out on the first day of school, clinging to their parents and begging to be taken home. Nonetheless, inside he felt as though he were no different. He simply wanted to cling to a woman who was not his mother.
Lillian did not permit clinging, or loudness, or any sort of rowdiness. She loved him best when he sat silently next to her as she played the piano, waiting for her to finish and pet his soft, red curls gently.
Mama's good boy, she would whisper.
She didn't touch his curls anymore. They weren't there anymore. And he didn't see much of her. Not anymore. Not since the trip to Smallville.
First came the doctors and the hospitals. Then came school. He'd never been able to go to school before. Too many allergens. Too many germs. It was just him, the help, his mom, and his tutors.
Now he had to wait to go home on the holidays. Thanksgiving had been his first chance in months to see his mother, but it still hadn't been the same. She was still looking at him the way she had that day in the hospital.
Like she didn't recognize him.
Dear Alexander, Pamela wrote. I hope you are doing well at school. Your mother is managing much better. The new medication that the doctors gave her is working better than the old medicine, with fewer side effects. Her mood is also improved.
Lex continued to read, and reread, the letter for some time before he put it away. Pamela always kept him up on what was going on around the manor. She didn't have much to do when he wasn't around, so his mother had put her to work as her personal servant. According to Pamela, she didn't have the heart to fire her, as close as she was to Lex.
He spent the remainder of his time before curfew studying in the library. His roommate thought he was a weirdo. Lex didn't have it in him to disagree.
***
There was something uncanny about that neck, that smooth egg-shaped head bent over a book. Lex bit into his apple and chewed thoughtfully.
Ollie narrowed his eyes and walked over with his hands in his pockets to the boy. He didn't know why Lex was having his lunch out here, alone, and Ollie didn't usually approach the boy by himself, but the way he was sitting there, under the snow-laden tree so small and vulnerable-it just practically begged for harassment.
"Cold out here, isn't it?" Ollie said loudly enough that he felt a wave of anger when Lex didn't look up. He wouldn't be ignored. Ollie closed the distance between the two of them and grabbed Lex's ear. "You think you're too good for us? You think you're better than us?"
"Do you?" Lex asked. His eyes met Ollie's, and he gave him a prideful look worthy of a prince.
"What is it about you, Luthor? Why are you such a freak?"
"Just lucky, I guess," Lex responded quietly.
Ollie had seen this before. Lex could get loud. He could if he wanted. He had, once, but only once. Instead, he was playing dead, staying quiet. Waiting for Ollie to get bored.
Jerking Lex's face close to his own, Ollie breathed on his face slowly. Lex's eyes went to the ground. Ollie could feel his lips brushing against Lex's temple.
Then he dropped the boy, turned, and walked away quickly, his heart pounding wildly.
***
Bruce had been seconds away from coming out of his hiding place and giving Oliver Queen the beating of his life. He didn't know what was wrong with that kid. Then again, he didn't know what was wrong with himself. He hadn't felt this connected-to anything or anyone-in years. Not since…
It truly was a bizarre feeling. He needed to be watching this boy. His Alexander. He needed to know that he was okay, as much as he needed to breathe.
In his room, he had constructed a small collection of Alexander on his bookshelf. Bits and bobs that he had found that belonged to Alexander over the past few weeks. Pictures he had taken. Having the collection comforted him. Gave him a sense of permanence. Whatever happened, his alcove of Alexander would still be there.
Alexander sat beneath the tree, perfectly still for several moments after Queen had left. Then he took his apple out of the snow where it had fallen, looked at it, then looked up, toward the school. He slipped his book back into his bag, and took the apple over to a wastebasket, letting it go with a toss.
Bruce resisted the urge to steal the apple. Even he had his limits.
The flicker outside the gates did not escape Bruce's notice. Someone was out there, watching through the bars. There was a glimpse of fuchsia and blue through the black of the bars, and then it was gone. Bruce emerged from under the table where he'd been watching Alexander and stalked toward the gate suspiciously. It was too late, however. All he saw was a retreating back. He looked up to the top of the gate, wondering if he could climb over it. Perhaps he could flip over it… Alexander probably could have slipped through the bars.
He glowered and looked out through the bars once again. The person was gone.
Bruce looked around anxiously, feeling as though he should do something. But he didn't know what to do or if anyone would listen.
***
Some days, Lex wondered how he was going to survive four years of classes at Excelsior. Undoubtedly, other students felt as though they would never pass algebra or Latin or 19th century poetry class. Lex felt as though he were failing, miserably, at human interaction.
It didn't matter that he'd had no opportunity to practice this before. He thought that people should just instinctively know how to communicate with one another, and more and more it seemed like he couldn't communicate with anyone. Certainly not his father or the other boys at school, and more recently, he couldn't manage to interact with his own mother properly. In short, there was something wrong with him. He didn't know if it was just something inherent in him or if he'd been broken somehow, gone funny inside, from what had happened to him during the meteor shower.
He was a little afraid, though, that it didn't matter. He was just wrong anyway, no matter what the reason. Even jerks like Ollie Queen had friends.
That morning he'd gone out onto the roof, and there he sat, arms crossed over his knees. The wind up there was cold and reddened his cheeks with its harshness. Slowly, closing his eyes, he filled his lungs with the morning air and decided that this was his favorite place to be out of all the grounds of Excelsior.
From here he could see all of campus as well as the little houses beyond the gates. There was a little diner a few blocks away. And the funny thing was that while Excelsior and every student in it was very much upper class, part of the neighborhood just outside of campus was rather dilapidated. The school owned the property, and soon it would likely be torn down to become part of Excelsior proper, but for now they were just uninhabited. Looking around the other way, there were rolling hills surrounded by trees. The campus was gorgeous. The people in it were not.
From here, Lex didn't have to hear anyone talking nastily. He didn't have to feel like he was being stared at all the time. It was weird that he felt most at ease when he was alone here, especially since he was alone most of the time anyway. Except everywhere else he was alone and surrounded by other people.
Lex opened his eyes and decided his time this morning would be better spent out of the roof, instead of in class.
***
It wasn't hard for Bruce to realize he had a problem when his Alexander had missed one class, and Bruce was concerned. Bruce moved down the hallway, insensible to the students who moved instinctively out of his way, and waited by Alexander's next class, arms crossed sternly as he leaned against the wall.
The other students gave him an odd look as they entered the room. When Alexander did not appear, Bruce left his watch and began to search. First the library, then Alexander's dorm room, for which he had a key copied-stolen from and returned to the front desk with the secretary none the wiser.
He entered the room, dark brows furrowed, and shut the door behind him. It appeared that Avery Lancaster III was a bit of a slob. Bruce recognized the designer scarves, not to mention the array of hair care tools that cluttered over the desk.
On the other hand, Alexander's desk was piled high with both textbooks and library books. However, everything was neatly organized. Bruce walked over to the bookcase and looked through the few items that Alexander had. For his age, Bruce would have expected a toy or two, something sweet and soft from home to remind himself of the people there who surely must love him dearly. Their brilliant little darling, who had to go away so that he could flourish and become the man of tomorrow that a boy so bright indisputably would be.
Instead, Bruce saw only a few worn volumes; Greek history and philosophy, The Prince, and a Nietzsche reader. There was a small collection of letters bound with a cream-colored ribbon. Finally, there was a small green rock on the shelf. Bruce picked up the rock and held it in his hand a moment, curious as to why Alexander would have this at all. Perhaps he was interested in geology? Setting it down, Bruce dared to touch the letters, ones that must have, like the others Bruce had watched Alexander read, brought tears to his young eyes that he felt pressed to hide with all of his strength.
Bruce read them all. And through them, he likely learned much more than Alexander would have preferred anyone to know about him. Bruce put them away as he had found them, trying to tie the bow exactly as Alexander had. He didn't want to make the boy uncomfortable.
Obviously Alexander wasn't in his room, so Bruce would continue his search. Before leaving, he felt compelled to take something from Alexander's belongings, or to leave something, in order to prove his existence. He let his eyes scan over the few items in Alexander's Spartan half of the room.
Ultimately, there was little to take. Just as he was about to leave, he spotted a small toy soldier. The sight made him smile. A toy. Finally, a toy for this child. He reached behind the book where it was hiding and picked it up. It was hand-painted, and from the design, the soldier was Greek.
Guilt sprung in Bruce's chest when he realized he was about to take this boy's only toy. He likely had hidden it so that his roommate would not make fun of him. So Bruce tucked it away again and moved to leave the room.
His sharp hearing saved him, and as the door began to open, he flew to the closet, slipping inside silently.
Alexander walked inside, shivering a little, and sat on his bed. Bruce considered announcing himself, but he rather doubted that Alfred would forgive him for getting kicked out of school, so he watched Alexander from the crack between the door and the doorframe. The boy laid his head down, sighing heavily. His cheeks were pink, and he rubbed his head a little, as though he were cold.
Bruce felt something tug inside his chest. He continued watching Alexander snuggling into the warmth of his bed in rapt fascination. He couldn't tear his eyes away.
***
Ollie had started to lose weight once he'd begun competing. That had been his uncle's idea, not his parents'. They had spoiled him ridiculously, and he knew it, sort of. His uncle had been concerned that Ollie wasn't moving on properly after they'd disappeared last year. Ollie had ended up running around the track countless times until muscle began to appear under the fat, and then he'd begun to grow. In a few years' time, he'd no longer be the soft, spoiled kid his classmates called '"Fat Ollie."
He was no Bruce Wayne, Ollie thought. He hadn't had to watch his parents die. They had just gone… and never come back. But they could be out there, somewhere. They could come back. It happened. He believed it would.
Ollie walked out of the gym with a towel around his neck and began stripping on the way to the shower. There was no one in there at the moment, thankfully, and his lips curved as he grabbed the soap and turned on the hot water. It wouldn't be too hard to catch Luthor in the shower, especially after the other boys had finished their extra curriculars. The image of Luthor pressed against the blue tile wall of the shower, it sent a shiver down his spine and he began to soap up. His thoughts kept drifting back to Lex's slender, pliant body, and Ollie breathed heavily. Lex would push his lower lip out defiantly. He would let out soft gasps as the boys pinned him down. His soft flesh bruising. His cheeks turning pink.
With a jerk and a groan, Ollie spilled into the shower drain, flushing with embarrassment and looking over his shoulder.
***
"Where do you go?"
Lex looked up from his dinner with a frown. "What?"
It was the spooky, dark-haired boy once again. He seemed to appear and disappear out of nowhere, and he loomed over Lex, reminding him of a vampire, looking at Lex just as though Lex might be his next meal.
"Where do you go when you disappear? It's happened a few times now. You'll get in trouble for missing classes," the boy informed him.
"I don't care. I'll go where I want," Lex replied a bit petulantly, wondering why the boy didn't just sit down. He pushed the food around on his plate and stared at it instead of at the boy.
"Where do you go?" he asked again.
Lex paused and set his fork down. "Don't tell."
"I won't. I just want to know."
Lex looked up at him. "And don't follow me."
The older boy's lips almost curved at the edges. "I won't."
"I go out on the roof. If you head up through the library, there's access to the attic, and you can climb up from there."
The older boy looked down on him with an unreadable scowl. Lex couldn't tell if he was angry, concerned, or… what.
Lex looked up at him again, then took his plate up to throw the food away and left the dining room. Just outside in the hallway, he heard Ollie Queen's voice, along with the voices of his friends. Hushed whispers as they discussed illicit plans.
"-scored some real good stuff."
"You willing to share?"
"Same place as last year. You'll like it. I'll go out into town to score it, and we can take care of business just off the grounds."
"Hey!"
Lex jumped when he realized they'd spotted him. He turned swiftly and bolted back into the dining room and out through the kitchen. The boys followed him, shouting angrily, but he was small and quick, and didn't feel like getting a beating today. The hallway behind the kitchen led to the servants' quarters, and Lex ran down that way, ducking under the crevice just under the stairs.
The boys ran past him, and Lex breathed a sigh of relief. He waited, crouching into a small ball and wishing he could just disappear.
He looked up as he heard the door to the hallway opening. Short, heavy steps came toward the stairs. Lex held his breath. The steps stopped for a moment and Lex saw large brown shoes and baggy trousers.
"Oh," the man said as he leaned down, his bespectacled face grinning with crooked teeth. "Hello there. I've been looking for you. Do you like toys?"
Lex narrowed his eyes and frowned as he looked at the man's fuchsia and blue striped suit jacket.
"Toys?"
Cut into two parts because LJ can't handle my awesome prolificness. Part two coming momentarily.
Pairings: pre-slash Brex
Summary: Lex Luthor navigates the world of obsession and dominance at Excelsior, when an outsider disrupts their petty games with his lethal breed of play.
Prompt: Write Excelsior!fic in which teen Oliver and his band of merry morons get in over their heads.
Warnings: character death
Word count: 11,614
Many thanks to be gracious and incomparable beta herohunter
Part One
Years from now, the newspapers would refer to his tumultuous past, his alleged multiple expulsions from every private school in Europe, his family tragedy, and his brilliant work in countless scientific fields. Today, they took pictures, but only because Metropolis's nouveau riche royal family had gathered in Centennial Park so that the family patriarch could deliver a speech on the building currently under construction for his new start up corporation that would tie in his older businesses. Investors were nervous about this new company, but word had it that the CEO could sell ice to Eskimos, so the ambitious were placing their bets.
The boy was curled in his nurse's arms, pressing a soft and pliant cheek against her arm as a shock of red hair hung in his eyes, allowing him to hide from the crowds and the cameras. If his father were paying attention, he would demand that the boy stand on his own two feet, that he not shyly hide his face from the throngs of reporters before them.
A few older boys messed about behind them. The chubby-faced blond kid had moved away from the group in the celebration, and he was hoping to throw some snowballs.
At the fringe of the crowd a man stood. Thin. Unshaven. Wide eyes behind thick glasses that didn't seem able to focus. They moved back, forth, up, down, to the CEO, to the boys playing on the side. He licked his lips and bowed his head; his shoulder-length hair obscured those unsteady eyes as he leaned forward, listening to the CEO speak. The people beside him did not seem to notice him. Nor did they see how, when he found something to steady himself, he looked up at the redheaded child. His tongue flickered out again.
His eyes sharpened. His head lifted.
The boy peered out into the crowd with preternaturally intelligent eyes. After a slow blink and a touch from his mother on his soft hair, he laid his head down once again.
Roughly twenty minutes later, the CEO stood in front of the crowd. A tall man with a shock of well-trimmed blond hair and goatee patted the CEO on the back as he waved at the camera. Their wives chatted together, discussing the winter charity functions in Star City.
The nurse set the boy down, keeping his hand in hers and taking him over to look at the rows of decorated trees. Some of the lights flickered on and off, and the glow lit up their faces. The boy pointed to one ornament after the other, explaining the significance of the symbols and what he knew about why it might be on a Christmas tree. His nurse smiled and petted the back of his head proudly. Such a smart boy.
The boy's chattering ended abruptly as a cold, hard snowball hit the back of his head, causing him to fall face first into the snow. His nurse knelt next to him quickly, pulling him out and brushing the front of his long black coat off. They both looked up a their attackers. The chubby blond boy stood in the front, feeling proud of his aim.
"Hey! You boys stop that!" the nurse shouted, pulling the boy close to her breast. "He can't play those rough games!"
The boys laughed, and their leader bent over to pack together another snowball. The nurse pulled the boy around to the side of her to shield him and reached into his pockets to find his inhaler.
"It's okay," she whispered to the small, wheezing child. "You'll be fine, darling."
A barrage of snowballs came at them, as the nurse howled after them to stop and behave themselves.
There was something in the boy, something in the way his small chest heaved and his pale skin. Something in how fragile he was that made the chubby blond child angry. It made him want to pin the boy down, to make him cry. He wanted to press him to the ground and climb on top of him and yank that pretty red hair.
Unfortunately, the nurse stood and came after them angrily. The snowballs didn't stop, so she bent over and picked up a snowball herself, pulled her arm back, and beaned the blond boy clean in the ear.
"Ow!" he cried out angrily. "You can't do that!"
"Oh? It's better to hit a six-year-old from behind, you insufferable little bully?" she asked as she made another snowball. Her small ward behind her huffed on his inhaler and then shoved it in his pocket, bending over to follow her lead.
The blond boy's face quickly ignited, red and angry at the little whelp lobbing snowballs ineffectively at them with only occasional accuracy and his nurse, who was much better at nailing them each in turn.
Sooner than the blond boy would have liked, he gave ground. His friends had deserted him. With a sigh due of his suffering indignity, he ran back to where his parents were and hovered closely.
His mother turned her head and sighed. "Ollie, sweetheart. You're a mess!"
She leaned down to fix his hair. He looked back with sulky eyes. He didn't want anyone to know that a servant and a little brat had bested him. Mostly because his friends were cowards, though.
Back by the trees, the nurse held up her hand to the boy, giving him a little high five.
"We won," he said excitedly and a bit breathlessly.
She took his hand again and walked with him along the row of trees. "We did. You were very brave, Alexander."
He bent over and took some more snow, this time patting it into a ball first, then trying to squeeze the shape into something else. He was bent over his task when they reached his parents.
"Oh, my. Alexander, have you been playing in the snow?" his mother said stiffly, sounding surprised.
"I made you a snow bunny," the boy told her, his gray eyes shining from the excitement. He held up the small clump of snow, which was pressed vaguely into the shape of a rabbit.
"We're going to have to give you a bath as soon as you get home," his mother continued.
When his father approached them, the boy went rigid and tried to hide his bunny. To his surprise, his father laughed softly, appreciating the rare red-cheeked glow that his son was sporting.
"I have another meeting this afternoon," the CEO informed them. "I need to return home quickly. I'm afraid you'll have to leave your pet here, Lex."
The boy looked at the bunny and set it down obediently, although he felt sad to leave it all alone. Maybe some other bunnies would come out of the trees and adopt him.
The group dispersed now that the gathering was over, little by little, until there was no one but the man with the glasses and scruffy face. His eyes followed the redheaded boy as he was guided to the car and began telling his father about his victory in the trenches.
Four Years Later
Excelsior Preparatory School for Exceptionally Gifted Young Men
"Oof!"
Lex fell face first into the mud and snow. The cacophonous laughter behind him pierced through the ringing in his ears, and he felt a swift kick in his ribs. At that he turned and gave the ringleader, a round-faced boy by the name of Ollie Queen a look that would melt paint off a wall, but for some reason Ollie seemed to be invulnerable.
"Don't show me up in class, you bald freak," Ollie warned, his lips twisting into a smug grin.
Lex Luthor didn't understand school. He didn't understand why he had to go, and he didn't understand how the social order worked now that he was there. Granted, he had wanted to go before he got here, so he knew any complaints to his father would have been less than useless.
The problem was less that Ollie Queen seemed to hate him for no reason, but that Ollie Queen's friends, who were stupider than the boy himself, were willing to do whatever he said. Which meant that even if Lex had tried to fight back, it wouldn't have made any difference. He was outnumbered.
Lex thinned his lips and waited for the boys to laugh and move on before he tried to stand. He would have to go back to his dorm to change his uniform before his next class. Luckily he kept his clothes very clean. He shook his leg a little and went to retrieve his book bag. As his hand reached out for the bag, his fingers brushed against a larger hand, and he looked up in alarm.
An older boy met Lex's gaze with eyes that were gravely serious. Deeply, darkly blue. They seemed to be reaching into Lex's eye sockets and grasping at his soul. Black hair hung in boy's perfect, solemn face.
"Do you need the nurse," he asked with no inflection.
Lex couldn't help but be unnerved by the boy's lack of expression, but he kept silent on that point.
"No, I don't," he answered. In fact, if he never saw a doctor again, it would be too soon.
He reached for the book bag, but the older boy picked it up and headed to the large, arching doorways without another word. Lex hesitated for a moment, then hurried after him. He needed his books. And Pamela had sent him a letter, which he'd left in there to read when he got back from study group that night.
"Please don't take my things," Lex said as evenly as he could.
The boy stopped abruptly, looked at him with an unreadable expression, and then stepped up to the door to open it for him.
Lex narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. "Um…"
"Thank you," the boy said.
"What?"
"I think those are the customary words," he continued. "Or, perhaps, 'do not hold the door for me. I am not a girl.' Something along those lines."
Lex pursed his lips and snatched his bag from the older boy. "Don't hold the door for me. I'm not a girl."
He stormed inside and moved as quickly as he could down the hallway. The last thing he needed was another upperclassman picking on him.
Truth be told, when he'd taken his entrance exams to go to this school, Lex and his parents had expected him to be behind. Of course he had studied over the past year; he had done almost nothing else ever since he'd been well enough to do anything but lay in a bed and let the doctors do tests on him. What they had found, however, was that Lex was extremely advanced for his ten years, so while there were students his age at the school, they attended in a different building, with the boys their own age.
Meanwhile, Lex was stuck in the high school with some of the meanest, brattiest idiots he'd ever come in contact with. That wasn't saying much. Lex hadn't much experience with other children. Just his family, his nurse Pamela, and whomever his father had forced him to associate with at social functions. Now he was up to his little ears with other children. It was a bit much for him to handle.
As he reached the end of hall, Lex gave a swift look backward. His mouth opened slightly. There was no sign of the dark haired boy. He'd disappeared. Lex swallowed and continued on his way.
***
"These birds creep me out," Avery Simon Lancaster III muttered, leaning against the side of the building. He took a drag on the rolled cigarette he was holding. Whenever the bell tower rang, the birds would fly up in the air, startled, and flock around senselessly for longer than was necessary.
"You think the bald brat will tattle?" Robert took the cigarette for a puff.
"I doubt it," Ollie said. He took the cigarette from Robert. "It won't do him any good. His word against ours. Where do you get this stuff?"
"The nurse," Avery replied. "She digs me."
"Shut up." Ollie took another drag and gave it back to him. "I gotta go study for pre-calc. I don't want that little creature upstaging me again."
"I don't think he thinks about it. I think he's like one of those sciences experiments or something. Some kid they grew up in a lab designed to answer questions," Robert speculated.
"How can you room with him, Avery?" Ollie asked, scrunching up his face.
"He's just really quiet and really clean. He must be autistic or something. He never talks." Avery looked up at the sky. "With that head, you know, I bet he's dying anyway. You won't have to put up with him long. Chemo."
"I can only hope." Ollie shifted his book bag back on and gave Avery and Robert a wave. He'd done his homework already, but he wanted to go over the concepts one more time.
He couldn't quite put his finger on what bothered him about Lex Luthor. He would sit in class, staring at the back of that flawlessly white neck, that awkward bump on the back of his head, smooth as an egg save for that one imperfect spot. He looked undercooked. Unreal. He moved his head with a slow grace that should not exist in a boy that age, and he walked funny, with a little twitch in his hips that made Ollie feel like this kid thought he was really something special.
Sometimes when he was watching Lex, Ollie was surprised to remember that this androgynous creature was a boy. It should have been a forgone conclusion at an all boys' school, but sometimes watching this kid made Ollie wonder if a person couldn't be both at once. Lex's eyes were too sensitive, and his mouth too feminine, with bowed lips that rarely even had the hint of a smile.
Maybe it was because he was too young, or too pretty, or too strange or affected in the way he spoke or moved. Ollie didn't know. But he did know that he wanted Lex on the ground before him. He wanted to bruise that perfectly white flesh, derail that swish in his hips, crack that egg-like head. He wanted Lex broken and writhing underneath him.
Little did the other boys realize how much Ollie held back. He thought about this way too much.
Ollie sat down in the library and opened up his books, rereading the material and reworking the equations in his head. It bugged him that he had to go through this at all. He'd done perfectly fine reading through things just once last year. Now there was this hotshot infant that had come into his class and showed him up in front of all the teachers. Stolen glory that should have belonged to him. Ollie hated that about Lex, too. He didn't seem to be trying.
Then again, Lex didn't seem to have any friends to distract him. Ollie had noticed Lex in his 'study group,' and the members of the group goofed around while Lex had his nose in a history book.
At least he had that much over his rival, Ollie told himself. People liked Ollie Queen.
***
Calloused fingers brushed over the bindings of each book in turn. He had read many of them already, and of course he had completed all of his schoolwork to this point. It was simply a matter of discipline and self-control.
Bruce Wayne often thought that if he had nothing else, he had his self-control.
Each day during study group, he would retire to the gym and work out. Some days were strength training. Some were practice; yoga, karate, any art he could gain information regarding and begin training in.
Today he was having difficulty concentrating. He felt that he should have moved across the courtyard more quickly. He was physically capable, and he should have noticed the four freshmen picking on that ten-year-old, but he had been absorbed in meditation at the time.
What really bothered him was when he saw that ten-year-old sitting in his pre-calculus class as though he were there every day. Bruce admitted to himself that occasionally, he was just in a fog. The kid was hard to miss, though. Bald, small, unconsciously elegant. The kid would occasionally argue with the instructor about the answer in the book.
Bruce stopped in front of the chemistry section and peered through the shelves as the pale, thin boy sat down at a table and pulled a letter out of his bag. Watching as the boy read it, Bruce felt his heart accelerating the longer the boy read the letter. Then the boy bit his lip softly, and his eyes grew wider.
Bruce felt the urge to find out what was in that letter.
Once he was finished reading, the boy put the letter away and opened his Latin book. He wrote with his left hand, in strokes that were messy, but strove very hard to be legible, and twice, Bruce noted, the boy reached up with the fingers of his right hand and felt over his bald head.
This told Bruce that the hair loss was still fairly recent, and he was curious as to its origin. The boy was pale, but not sickly looking. Not really. Simply sad, perhaps lonesome. He spent the bulk of his time sitting alone.
Bruce's sharp eyes followed the boy when he stood to sharpen his pencil. They followed him when he went up to the front desk to request a book.
Quite soon, whenever or wherever they could, his eyes would follow him. He learned the next day the name of the boy: Alexander Joseph Luthor. So when was not studying or training, he was watching his Alexander, intently and devoutly.
Why he would do this, he could not say.
***
Lex opened his letter and felt his eyes stinging almost immediately. His mother seldom wrote him, and calls were rare. On the weekends, many of the boys flew home to see their families, but he remained. He hadn't been one of the little ones crying their eyes out on the first day of school, clinging to their parents and begging to be taken home. Nonetheless, inside he felt as though he were no different. He simply wanted to cling to a woman who was not his mother.
Lillian did not permit clinging, or loudness, or any sort of rowdiness. She loved him best when he sat silently next to her as she played the piano, waiting for her to finish and pet his soft, red curls gently.
Mama's good boy, she would whisper.
She didn't touch his curls anymore. They weren't there anymore. And he didn't see much of her. Not anymore. Not since the trip to Smallville.
First came the doctors and the hospitals. Then came school. He'd never been able to go to school before. Too many allergens. Too many germs. It was just him, the help, his mom, and his tutors.
Now he had to wait to go home on the holidays. Thanksgiving had been his first chance in months to see his mother, but it still hadn't been the same. She was still looking at him the way she had that day in the hospital.
Like she didn't recognize him.
Dear Alexander, Pamela wrote. I hope you are doing well at school. Your mother is managing much better. The new medication that the doctors gave her is working better than the old medicine, with fewer side effects. Her mood is also improved.
Lex continued to read, and reread, the letter for some time before he put it away. Pamela always kept him up on what was going on around the manor. She didn't have much to do when he wasn't around, so his mother had put her to work as her personal servant. According to Pamela, she didn't have the heart to fire her, as close as she was to Lex.
He spent the remainder of his time before curfew studying in the library. His roommate thought he was a weirdo. Lex didn't have it in him to disagree.
***
There was something uncanny about that neck, that smooth egg-shaped head bent over a book. Lex bit into his apple and chewed thoughtfully.
Ollie narrowed his eyes and walked over with his hands in his pockets to the boy. He didn't know why Lex was having his lunch out here, alone, and Ollie didn't usually approach the boy by himself, but the way he was sitting there, under the snow-laden tree so small and vulnerable-it just practically begged for harassment.
"Cold out here, isn't it?" Ollie said loudly enough that he felt a wave of anger when Lex didn't look up. He wouldn't be ignored. Ollie closed the distance between the two of them and grabbed Lex's ear. "You think you're too good for us? You think you're better than us?"
"Do you?" Lex asked. His eyes met Ollie's, and he gave him a prideful look worthy of a prince.
"What is it about you, Luthor? Why are you such a freak?"
"Just lucky, I guess," Lex responded quietly.
Ollie had seen this before. Lex could get loud. He could if he wanted. He had, once, but only once. Instead, he was playing dead, staying quiet. Waiting for Ollie to get bored.
Jerking Lex's face close to his own, Ollie breathed on his face slowly. Lex's eyes went to the ground. Ollie could feel his lips brushing against Lex's temple.
Then he dropped the boy, turned, and walked away quickly, his heart pounding wildly.
***
Bruce had been seconds away from coming out of his hiding place and giving Oliver Queen the beating of his life. He didn't know what was wrong with that kid. Then again, he didn't know what was wrong with himself. He hadn't felt this connected-to anything or anyone-in years. Not since…
It truly was a bizarre feeling. He needed to be watching this boy. His Alexander. He needed to know that he was okay, as much as he needed to breathe.
In his room, he had constructed a small collection of Alexander on his bookshelf. Bits and bobs that he had found that belonged to Alexander over the past few weeks. Pictures he had taken. Having the collection comforted him. Gave him a sense of permanence. Whatever happened, his alcove of Alexander would still be there.
Alexander sat beneath the tree, perfectly still for several moments after Queen had left. Then he took his apple out of the snow where it had fallen, looked at it, then looked up, toward the school. He slipped his book back into his bag, and took the apple over to a wastebasket, letting it go with a toss.
Bruce resisted the urge to steal the apple. Even he had his limits.
The flicker outside the gates did not escape Bruce's notice. Someone was out there, watching through the bars. There was a glimpse of fuchsia and blue through the black of the bars, and then it was gone. Bruce emerged from under the table where he'd been watching Alexander and stalked toward the gate suspiciously. It was too late, however. All he saw was a retreating back. He looked up to the top of the gate, wondering if he could climb over it. Perhaps he could flip over it… Alexander probably could have slipped through the bars.
He glowered and looked out through the bars once again. The person was gone.
Bruce looked around anxiously, feeling as though he should do something. But he didn't know what to do or if anyone would listen.
***
Some days, Lex wondered how he was going to survive four years of classes at Excelsior. Undoubtedly, other students felt as though they would never pass algebra or Latin or 19th century poetry class. Lex felt as though he were failing, miserably, at human interaction.
It didn't matter that he'd had no opportunity to practice this before. He thought that people should just instinctively know how to communicate with one another, and more and more it seemed like he couldn't communicate with anyone. Certainly not his father or the other boys at school, and more recently, he couldn't manage to interact with his own mother properly. In short, there was something wrong with him. He didn't know if it was just something inherent in him or if he'd been broken somehow, gone funny inside, from what had happened to him during the meteor shower.
He was a little afraid, though, that it didn't matter. He was just wrong anyway, no matter what the reason. Even jerks like Ollie Queen had friends.
That morning he'd gone out onto the roof, and there he sat, arms crossed over his knees. The wind up there was cold and reddened his cheeks with its harshness. Slowly, closing his eyes, he filled his lungs with the morning air and decided that this was his favorite place to be out of all the grounds of Excelsior.
From here he could see all of campus as well as the little houses beyond the gates. There was a little diner a few blocks away. And the funny thing was that while Excelsior and every student in it was very much upper class, part of the neighborhood just outside of campus was rather dilapidated. The school owned the property, and soon it would likely be torn down to become part of Excelsior proper, but for now they were just uninhabited. Looking around the other way, there were rolling hills surrounded by trees. The campus was gorgeous. The people in it were not.
From here, Lex didn't have to hear anyone talking nastily. He didn't have to feel like he was being stared at all the time. It was weird that he felt most at ease when he was alone here, especially since he was alone most of the time anyway. Except everywhere else he was alone and surrounded by other people.
Lex opened his eyes and decided his time this morning would be better spent out of the roof, instead of in class.
***
It wasn't hard for Bruce to realize he had a problem when his Alexander had missed one class, and Bruce was concerned. Bruce moved down the hallway, insensible to the students who moved instinctively out of his way, and waited by Alexander's next class, arms crossed sternly as he leaned against the wall.
The other students gave him an odd look as they entered the room. When Alexander did not appear, Bruce left his watch and began to search. First the library, then Alexander's dorm room, for which he had a key copied-stolen from and returned to the front desk with the secretary none the wiser.
He entered the room, dark brows furrowed, and shut the door behind him. It appeared that Avery Lancaster III was a bit of a slob. Bruce recognized the designer scarves, not to mention the array of hair care tools that cluttered over the desk.
On the other hand, Alexander's desk was piled high with both textbooks and library books. However, everything was neatly organized. Bruce walked over to the bookcase and looked through the few items that Alexander had. For his age, Bruce would have expected a toy or two, something sweet and soft from home to remind himself of the people there who surely must love him dearly. Their brilliant little darling, who had to go away so that he could flourish and become the man of tomorrow that a boy so bright indisputably would be.
Instead, Bruce saw only a few worn volumes; Greek history and philosophy, The Prince, and a Nietzsche reader. There was a small collection of letters bound with a cream-colored ribbon. Finally, there was a small green rock on the shelf. Bruce picked up the rock and held it in his hand a moment, curious as to why Alexander would have this at all. Perhaps he was interested in geology? Setting it down, Bruce dared to touch the letters, ones that must have, like the others Bruce had watched Alexander read, brought tears to his young eyes that he felt pressed to hide with all of his strength.
Bruce read them all. And through them, he likely learned much more than Alexander would have preferred anyone to know about him. Bruce put them away as he had found them, trying to tie the bow exactly as Alexander had. He didn't want to make the boy uncomfortable.
Obviously Alexander wasn't in his room, so Bruce would continue his search. Before leaving, he felt compelled to take something from Alexander's belongings, or to leave something, in order to prove his existence. He let his eyes scan over the few items in Alexander's Spartan half of the room.
Ultimately, there was little to take. Just as he was about to leave, he spotted a small toy soldier. The sight made him smile. A toy. Finally, a toy for this child. He reached behind the book where it was hiding and picked it up. It was hand-painted, and from the design, the soldier was Greek.
Guilt sprung in Bruce's chest when he realized he was about to take this boy's only toy. He likely had hidden it so that his roommate would not make fun of him. So Bruce tucked it away again and moved to leave the room.
His sharp hearing saved him, and as the door began to open, he flew to the closet, slipping inside silently.
Alexander walked inside, shivering a little, and sat on his bed. Bruce considered announcing himself, but he rather doubted that Alfred would forgive him for getting kicked out of school, so he watched Alexander from the crack between the door and the doorframe. The boy laid his head down, sighing heavily. His cheeks were pink, and he rubbed his head a little, as though he were cold.
Bruce felt something tug inside his chest. He continued watching Alexander snuggling into the warmth of his bed in rapt fascination. He couldn't tear his eyes away.
***
Ollie had started to lose weight once he'd begun competing. That had been his uncle's idea, not his parents'. They had spoiled him ridiculously, and he knew it, sort of. His uncle had been concerned that Ollie wasn't moving on properly after they'd disappeared last year. Ollie had ended up running around the track countless times until muscle began to appear under the fat, and then he'd begun to grow. In a few years' time, he'd no longer be the soft, spoiled kid his classmates called '"Fat Ollie."
He was no Bruce Wayne, Ollie thought. He hadn't had to watch his parents die. They had just gone… and never come back. But they could be out there, somewhere. They could come back. It happened. He believed it would.
Ollie walked out of the gym with a towel around his neck and began stripping on the way to the shower. There was no one in there at the moment, thankfully, and his lips curved as he grabbed the soap and turned on the hot water. It wouldn't be too hard to catch Luthor in the shower, especially after the other boys had finished their extra curriculars. The image of Luthor pressed against the blue tile wall of the shower, it sent a shiver down his spine and he began to soap up. His thoughts kept drifting back to Lex's slender, pliant body, and Ollie breathed heavily. Lex would push his lower lip out defiantly. He would let out soft gasps as the boys pinned him down. His soft flesh bruising. His cheeks turning pink.
With a jerk and a groan, Ollie spilled into the shower drain, flushing with embarrassment and looking over his shoulder.
***
"Where do you go?"
Lex looked up from his dinner with a frown. "What?"
It was the spooky, dark-haired boy once again. He seemed to appear and disappear out of nowhere, and he loomed over Lex, reminding him of a vampire, looking at Lex just as though Lex might be his next meal.
"Where do you go when you disappear? It's happened a few times now. You'll get in trouble for missing classes," the boy informed him.
"I don't care. I'll go where I want," Lex replied a bit petulantly, wondering why the boy didn't just sit down. He pushed the food around on his plate and stared at it instead of at the boy.
"Where do you go?" he asked again.
Lex paused and set his fork down. "Don't tell."
"I won't. I just want to know."
Lex looked up at him. "And don't follow me."
The older boy's lips almost curved at the edges. "I won't."
"I go out on the roof. If you head up through the library, there's access to the attic, and you can climb up from there."
The older boy looked down on him with an unreadable scowl. Lex couldn't tell if he was angry, concerned, or… what.
Lex looked up at him again, then took his plate up to throw the food away and left the dining room. Just outside in the hallway, he heard Ollie Queen's voice, along with the voices of his friends. Hushed whispers as they discussed illicit plans.
"-scored some real good stuff."
"You willing to share?"
"Same place as last year. You'll like it. I'll go out into town to score it, and we can take care of business just off the grounds."
"Hey!"
Lex jumped when he realized they'd spotted him. He turned swiftly and bolted back into the dining room and out through the kitchen. The boys followed him, shouting angrily, but he was small and quick, and didn't feel like getting a beating today. The hallway behind the kitchen led to the servants' quarters, and Lex ran down that way, ducking under the crevice just under the stairs.
The boys ran past him, and Lex breathed a sigh of relief. He waited, crouching into a small ball and wishing he could just disappear.
He looked up as he heard the door to the hallway opening. Short, heavy steps came toward the stairs. Lex held his breath. The steps stopped for a moment and Lex saw large brown shoes and baggy trousers.
"Oh," the man said as he leaned down, his bespectacled face grinning with crooked teeth. "Hello there. I've been looking for you. Do you like toys?"
Lex narrowed his eyes and frowned as he looked at the man's fuchsia and blue striped suit jacket.
"Toys?"
Cut into two parts because LJ can't handle my awesome prolificness. Part two coming momentarily.