#v || to protect mankind from an extinction. (dctv)

[geniuscorp]

@vitalphenomena

there is something to be said for making an entrance. lex steps out of the helicopter, discarding the ear defenders behind him haphazardly (might have hit one of the staffers - a weedy little dork who clings to a bush hat like he's crocodile dun-dickhead and shouts 'mr luthor, you really need to slow down!'), and strides in the direction of a gaggle of onlookers.

"excuse the fuss!" he shouts over the din of whirring chopper blades - whum, whum, whum - and plucks a flute of champagne out of the hand of a slightly stunned waitress. "i would have taken a town car but -- where's the fun in that right? if ya got it, flaunt it!"

[geniuscorp]

— what do you know about protecting this world? you're an alien. i am the only person really looking out for humanity's interest -- and by striking you -- the enemy -- first, i am ensuring our survival. we will prevail. — i'm not your enemy, lex. if you would just listen --

feat. @heroheart

[geniuscorp]

unless it's an emergency, whenever i try to talk to you, you always get pulled away.

this is a love story. that's important to remember. to anyone curious enough to look past the palisades of their parents and the bitter anger only heartbreak can leave behind, if you dug into the dirt of the grave their childhood is buried under, you would see above all else a yearning, deep, detrimental love; some people are not meant to be without another and for lex that another is lena.

it starts the way most love stories do: with introductions. she is four and he is eight and they smile at one another shyly, awkwardly, certain for the first time in both of their young lives that finally a match has been met. this will change over the years. gentle, genuine admiration will slough off as shit slurry might in the rain, revealing the cold and jagged slate beneath, leaving them both breathless with anger and rage, but not yet. not yet.

in their first initial moment, following those tentatively happy smiles at being not alone, it seemed as though lex might be tallying her up, evaluating her somehow and it settled between as a peach stone might. over the years, even though he couldn't see it, he nurtures the stone. waters it with memories. keeps the soil of their connection soft with laughter and curiosity.

and all the while, the roots of the stone snuck around him as tightly as a ship lashing. tighter and tighter, until one day they could hardly breath. he suffocates — both of them. that'll be important in a few years when she testifies against him but for now...

(a warning, dear reader. it's not getting any less strange under the cut.)

the woman's name is jessica (obviously not her real name) and she arrives precisely on time, which he appreciates especially considering the price tag attached to her company. her smile is polite and warm; she lets him take her coat and she comments on how beautiful his place is — a penthouse overlooking metropolis, with floor to ceiling windows that offer the most breathtaking view of the city you could hope to find. she is a slight bit older than he'd expected and a little taller than him and both are forgivable, because with her back turned, a mess of impeccably curled black hair cascades down past her shoulder blades and she is exactly what he's looking for.

the clothes she is wearing are just as he requested. pencil skirt, white blouse, heels. professional, clean, simple. familiar. and she doesn't ask him about much and she answers to the name he calls her and they have dinner. that's all he wanted: a dinner and undivided attention. that's all he wants.

they have not been themselves lately - he has not been himself. everything feels remarkably far away, as if he's underwater and he can see the edge of the water and beach in the distance but no matter how much he flails in the water, he cannot get any closer to the shore. in fact, it feels as though the more he fights the further he drifts. lena is a product of it. she's so far from him now, he can hardly see her anymore.

jessica touches his arm and sees something in his face that gets her to her feet, moving around the table slowly. the perfume is a little heavy but it's perfect, too, and she halts only for a moment before sliding a hand over his shoulder and sitting in his lap. it's too much and repulsive and his immediate urge to launch her away and reel back is so strong that his feet plant, the chair schrrrr as he pushes back, away from the table. but he does not push her off.

lex takes a deep, mildly frantic breath in through his nose. she presses a light kiss to the hinge of his tensed, clamped shut jaw --

BBBBBNNNZZZZZZZ. apologies for the interruption, sir, your sister has arrived. she's on the elevator up.

lex abandons the dinner and the escort and stomps out into the hall right as the doors ding! open and lena stands there in the centre looking as small as he ever has seen her. they haven't spoken in months. not really. she looks like she's been practicing something, like she's been psyching herself up for whatever this moment is supposed to be for hours.

and though they don't realise it, from this moment - when she says unless it's an emergency, whenever i try to talk to you, you always get pulled away - everything will be counted in either Befores or Afters and most of their befores are happier memories: him making such incredible gestures and effort to make her happy, flying halfway across the world just to make sure he didn’t miss her birthday. sending postcards from wherever he was in the world, whether it was for a meeting or a vacation; letting her have his ice cream when they were kids when lillian told her she couldn’t dare. 

the afters are so much more awful. their after will be a sharp look and a sharper, angrier instruction (ever aware of the risk it would be for her to see his dinner guest because she would know, she would fucking know so instantly) to go home. to keep her nose out of his business and do what she's told.

she leaves. he fucks the escort and scrubs his skin in the shower afterwards so badly it bleeds.

[geniuscorp]

‘  you are a measly little troll and i don’t like you, and i do not respect you, and i think you’re pathetic.  ’

blah, blah, blah — tell it to the fucking birds, sister, he's heard it all before. and honestly, it just loses it's sting when he knows there is literally nothing she can do about all that rage, all that anger, because she'll be hamstrung by her own ego - her own desperate desire to be an eternal do-gooder. that's what he despises about all the hero types: even the ones with teeth have dulled them on the bone of public perception. "— and yet you're still here. doing the work. following the orders. funny how that happens, huh."

[geniuscorp]

@lgbtcorp

he watches her move around the lab and he watches her work late - working is a generous term for it. certainly, she appears to be doing as she's promised but there seems to be no outward product, no forward motion to any of it. he remains kryptonite-less. to his eternal disappointment, supergirl has made appeals in the form of heavy-handed flybys, sappy and loaded speeches from podiums, blah, blah, et cetera et cetera. he's sick of listening to it, actually, and he is so bored of the johnny-come-lately attitude to his sister's wellbeing: fuck you, you overgrown peter rabbit character, lena doesn't belong to you anymore.

it's close to midnight when he comes back to the lab and he does not arrive empty handed: two glasses, a bottle of scotch and a plastic bag with a dozen vegetable spring rolls and a half portion of mushroom rice. "working hard or hardly working?" he grins, knocking the door shut with a heel. "got time for a little midnight snack?"

[geniuscorp]

that comment makes you seem kind of horrible.

(oh big news flash jo! huge news flash babes! he's the worst man on the fucking planet!!)

he has the good sense to look cowed under her stern gaze. god he fucking hates cow-towing, especially to the middling room-temperature intelligence festering in the corners of these sort of places, these sort of meet-cutes, these sort people. lena has pushed him to be friendly! to be welcoming to her new friends! to be open to change! he fucking despises every single second of their company, even the more tolerable ones which, admittedly, josephine lewis happens to be. but tolerable does not mean endurable.

"does it?" he asks, innocence pictured. "huh. i hadn't realised."

[geniuscorp]

you look like paddington bear. From Luca

"paddington bear is a style icon," he says, completely serious. "michael bond wrote a beloved story of children's books about a bear who travels from peru to england and is adopted by a family who gift him with a blue duffle coat. the same blue duffle coat which came into fashion during the first world war, the trademark blue coming from the royal navy sailors who originally wore them on the decks of ships in poor weather."

"the coat which paddington wore became a british classic picked up by barbour in the sixties and incorporated not just into men's fashion, but women's as well. everybody from winston churchill to liam gallagher have worn the iconic blue duffle coat. and all this is to say nothing of the wellington boots designed by dunlop which sold out in an as-yet unbroken record."

a beat.

"i look incredible."

[geniuscorp]

‘  i am spectacular, but i can’t compete with religious fervor.  ’

"well, lucky for you i know a thing or two about fervour!" he grins, arms out on the rooftop of luthorcorp; that's what he loves about villains, they're always so willing to work together! now that's surely something that can't be said for the bat or those pesky capes who zip around on the wind: they really do hate to admit their weaknesses. "you and i are going to get along real swell — say, i've got a riddle for you. what's the difference between a good lawyer and a great lawyer?"

"a good lawyer knows the law." lex rounds the dormant helicopter and opens the door, letting into full view it stacked floor to ceiling with explosives. "a great lawyer knows the judge."

[geniuscorp]

@blemishez / alice.

the party is winding down but there's a few people still milling around the penthouse; some in the pool, some snorting lines off the outside bar, some passed out in the living room. lex steps over it all and finds himself on the balcony looking out onto the mountains of santa monica. he sips a martini and lights a cigarette and closes an eye, looking out at the hollywood sign. "you know that was meant to be temporary. the sign? it was for a real estate developer."

[geniuscorp]

@cowlled

lex meets the entourage in the foyer -- and truth be told, he really was expecting a little more pomp and circumstance. "bruce wayne. man of the hour. welcome to metropolis! how was the flight? not too bumpy, i hope, you know we've really been working on our jetstreams and LuthAir means luxury--"

[geniuscorp]

@ruinaa

lex raises his glass in toast to the man of the hour and tries very, very hard not to roll his eyes. this party is so fucking mind-numbingly boring, the people are all the same and the music is all the same and yesterday feels like today and lex is so exhausted by groundhog day. at this point, he might prefer prison.

he isn't sure who the woman next to him is, but he leans in a little to the side and talks out the corner of his mouth, "you know i heard he made an air hostess cry last week over being served unsalted peanuts."

[geniuscorp]

I’m not here.

"is that what you're telling blue bird and the gang?" he says, deadpan serious, moving his knight to e-seven. he waits for her to make a face at the move or to roll her eyes in the obvious bluff but nothing comes and lex settles back into his chair, glum.

(his mouth is red, ruddy, lips cracked from the skin bitten raw; bloody spit collects at the corners of his mouth. it's all very eau-de-unhinged.)

"or do you think they aren't tracking you anyway? because i'm willing to bet my bottom dollar that superbutch and the rest of the yellow brick road crew are just itching to know your every move. i bet they've got your phone tapped, your place watched, twenty-four seven." a beat. "are you sleeping with her? that'd be a tactic i'd use. get close, y'know, build trust."

[geniuscorp]

you really pulled out all the stops, huh? - @obsidiantech

he grins and shrugs, an aw shucks ya caught me! gesture that rings about as true as the rest of him. "well, what's a little light surveillance and wire tapping between old friends, right? you and i have known each other long enough now for you to expect nothing less when it comes to my family -- when it comes to lena in particular. i love my sister but she has god fucking awful taste in partners."

[geniuscorp]

this whole time, i've not been seeing what was right in front of my eyes.

"that's became you're not seeing the big picture, lena!" spit collects at the corners of his mouth and the white of it dyes pink as the blood from his too-bitten lips dribbles into the edges too. she just doesn't get it -- she never does when it's important! when the vital chips are down, she always bets low and sticks with the same fucking odds no matter how hard the winds of luck are blowing; he tries to help. he tries to make her understand.

"you're so focused on the obvious that you can't even fathom to lean back and take in what everyone else is so wilfully ignoring! they think they're gods, they're so fucking arrogant to assume they're the only ones who get to live on this planet without risk -- they're terrified! of being seen for their true selves. well, i will not be duped. i will not be led to the slaughterhouse, a stupid and docile innocent lamb, i will not! be made a fool!"

(and he's so caught up in his own little diatribe, he doesn't see the horror in her eyes or the cogs turning in her brain, he doesn't know he's writing his own prison sentence with every hateful word dripping out of his mouth.)

[geniuscorp]

sometimes detective work requires a personal touch. - @obsidiantech

"you know something, andrea, this is what i've always appreciated about you."

there was a time not so long ago he had wanted to immolate only-fans-corporate barbie; nobody screws a luthor and gets away with it, metaphorical or otherwise, there are consequences to taking advantage of this particular gene pool. lena had been so... cut up about it all and as much as lex had told her to re-evaulate her taste in women (the same as their father: utterly useless at picking someone worthy; sorry mom) would she listen? of course not.

but when it comes to the hard choice, andrea really is your go-to gal! there is something to be said for ruthless pragmatism and this she has in spades. if nothing else: he respects a hustle. (what he will not forget is a woman who so easily betrays his sister. say what you want about him - and plenty of you do have ever so much to say - but there is only one person on this planet lex luthor values more than himself. and andrea is towing the line of tossing that person away like she's worthless.)

"you really do commit to the bit." he grins, manic and pleased beyond measure, tapping the flashdrive she'd given over. the latest in lena's designs. "i do love a woman willing to get her hands dirty."

[geniuscorp]

you really pulled out all the stops, huh?

god what is that incessant fucking whining? it's like an entire hive of bees just swarming overheard, nipping at every exposed bit of skin (the neck of his collar and the stretched skin of his face and the tunnel of his ear and the backs of his hands nip nip nip, sting sting sting) and it feels endless and too-warm, the suffocating kind of holding your head under a too-thick blanket. you can't quite breathe under the weight of it.

lex grins at her through it all. if there's anything to show for the distraction, it's little more than the vein in his forehead getting more and more pronounced as his frustration grows. you really pulled out all the stops, huh?

"well, you know what they say. fail to prepare and you're preparing to fail."