Chapter Text
It was a slap to the face. Imprisonment.
As if the dog’s ass-kicking wasn’t enough of an embarrassing blow to his confidence. The fact that it was witnessed by his staff and the alien himself makes his blood boil with an ire that could burn through his blood and bones, cremating him on the spot.
It was one thing to fail…but failing on a world stage was a hit to the ego that was beyond unacceptable.
“Bend over and cough,” the guard instructed. Lex leveled a deadly gaze at him and neither of them moved for a syrupy stretched out moment. Then he blinked and swallowed and did as he was told.
“Spread ‘em,” the guard said with a flat affect.
He nearly choked to death on his pride as he swallowed it down.
The first time he put on the jumpsuit, he felt a boulder of dread fall through him. Down and down and down it sank, heavy and sickening until it landed with a dense wet thud in the pit of his soul.
He never slept well to begin with, but he really didn’t sleep well now.
There was some debate on where to send him. He would get the reprieve of a whiff of the ‘real world’ when he was dragged to court, but that was it. He listened as his lawyers fought the notion of his remaining at Belle Reeve.
He’d done everything possible to put himself in a ‘decent prison,’ as if such a thing existed. He bribed a judge. He bribed the guards. Money went a long way in the criminal justice system, beyond just buying himself the best lawyers on the planet.
In the end, he was finally freed from Belle Reeve and sent to a correctional facility that was leagues better than the modern-day sanitorium. Though while the lawyers argued and the wooden wheels of justice turned anciently slow, he had been forced to spend twelve months there.
It was a dreadful twelve months.
It altered him down to his core - a fact that he refused to acknowledge. He simply tied up the new trauma, chained it with logic and distraction and denial, and threw it into the mental pit with the rest of his fucked up past.
The physical effect it had on him though was not easily denied. He’d lost weight. His eyes seemed hollow and bags sat beneath them. He was jumpy and tense and tried his damndest to avoid speaking to anyone and everyone.
During yard time he slunk over to a vacant spot, his back hugging the brick of the building as his gaze stared at men playing basketball but his eyes were unseeing. He wanted to slink down the ground, curl his arms around his knees, but he couldn’t afford to appear any weaker than he already did.
The prisoners wanted to harass him. He was an easy target. Because he was rich he was automatically detested. His bald head was a beacon of his presence. But whenever it looked like someone might approach, he razed them with a foreboding glare that usually turned them away.
Head falling back against the brick, he kept his eyes on the swivel.
A movement in the sky caught his attention though. Dragging his stare upward, he spotted a distant figure.
The alien.
Sometimes over the past year, he would absently wonder if he would see Superman. It felt like an inevitability rather than a possibility. But it wasn’t something he could dwell on.
Once he was transferred to the correctional facility he had to focus on learning the hierarchy of this prison.
And yet…
There he was. Just a blip on the radar. A fluttering thing in the distance.
He swallowed but his mouth was dry. His heart began to speed and something like terror climbed the rungs of his spine until it constricted his throat. The beginnings of a panic attack swirled around him like a dark cloud and just when it felt like he couldn’t catch his breath, the figure darted away.
Slowly. He tried to breathe slowly. Adding in measured counts. Grounding himself in reality, his fingers digging into the brick wall behind him.
Why the hell did the notion of Superman scare him so badly? Was he worried that he could just…fly right over to the prison? Pluck him right out of the yard?
In an Ally McBeal moment of fantasy, he pictured the alien smashing to the ground, cracking hte concrete. He pictured him stalking towards him the way a lion would inch towards a gazelle. He imagined the guys in the yard dropping their basketball and staring with gaping expressions. He could almost feel the alien’s hot hands grabbing his jumpsuit, feeling his feet lift off the ground. He would be picked up like a doll, a plaything. And then what? His mind whispered. His imagination answered…
Then he’d take you up and up, but not too far. No. He’d want the inmates and the guards to watch - to see. He’d take you up and then he’d let you go and in that split second, he’d rain his knuckles down upon your cheek - bash your face in. You’d go plummeting towards the ground, and if you weren't already dead, you’d hit the concrete like a bug hitting a windshield and that would be it. Lights out.
“Luthor…Luthor?”
Through the gauzy haze of imagination, reality beckoned. Lex realized that he was on the ground, on the concrete, his hand at his throat as his esophagus tried to rasp in shuttered breaths.
“What’s going on?” Another guard asked the first.
“Panic attack I think.” He answered, his voice seemingly far away.
It would be so easy for Superman to kill him here. He could open any locked door. Bend any bar. Come waltzing right into his cell whenever he wished. Hell, he wouldn’t even have to bypass security, the prison would just give him a badge. Carte blanche. And if something happened to Luthor in custody? Well…too bad. Oh well.
Lex’s eyes swept the sky and he saw the alien again. He hadn’t gone away, just switched positions.
Tears gathered hot and furiously at the corner of his eyes. He didn't just want to murder Superman, he wanted to humiliate him, strip him bare and dismantle everything he held dear - piece by piece.
“Let’s get him to medical,” the first guard said.
“Seriously? It’s not like it’ll kill him. Just leave him on the ground.”
The first guard considered this but then decided against it. “I’ll take him to medical. Get back to patrolling the yard.”
And with that, there was a strong arm yanking him to his feet but the world beneath him felt unsteady. His hands tingled and the expanse of the yard had collapsed and narrowed around him. Everyone’s eyes were on him. So much for not appearing weak.
Despite his vision blurring at the corners, dancing with black dots, he tried to remain upright.
The guard propped him up and the pair walked towards the door that would lead them back inside.
“Not used to being outside huh?” he said. “I know you’re new here. It can be overwhelming.”
What was this, Dr. Phil? A therapy session?
No. It must just be a guard who happened to be on his payroll.
“We’ll get you to the med bay and get you sorted out,” they walked down a grungy hall built of gray cinderblock and vinyl flooring. The overhead lights were startlingly bright but unnaturally so - not like the sun outside. The air in the building was stale. There were a number of doors to get through to get to the med bay.
He brought him to the doors and then stopped.
The guard - who Lex hadn’t even really been paying attention to before now, put a hand to his face. He actually cupped his fucking face with his hand and Lex’s soul jumped like a scared cat within his skin.
“You’ll be alright sweetheart, don’t you worry,” the guard said in a sickly syrupy tone that made Lex’s stomach churn and his blood run cold.
“What are you doing?” he pulled back as if shocked by electricity.
“What’s wrong?” the curly blonde haired guard asked, his eyes so blue that they didn’t seem to have any true life in them.
Lex’s eyes studied the man intently, trying to figure out his intentions…but deep down he already knew.
“Listen Luthor,” he sidled up to him, his breath a mixture of stale cigarette and cheap mint. “You can either be an inmates bitch, or you can be the guard’s bitch. With that sweet ass, you’re going to be someone’s. I recommend taking this route, that way we can protect you. You know...you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours kinda thing,” his hand was at Lex’s arm, squeezing his bicep, and he pulled it away.
“That’s fine. Hard to get? I like the chase. Don’t you worry sweetie, we’ll take care of you,” he gave him a grin that made him want to vomit and then escorted him inside the med bay.