"Dad." The word was spoken quietly with a note of question hanging on its end, but only the lack of its usual derision and sarcasm suggested that the speaker was feeling anything less than his normal confidence.

Lionel Luthor turned toward the voice with an obvious look of disgust. "Son." This word, also, lacked its customary faux light tones. Tonight, the word seemed synonomous with something foul that just crept out of the primorial ooze.

Lex closed the LuthorCorp office door with an audible click, giving his blind father the benefit of knowing they wouldn't be disturbed. The Kents were long since gone, and even the police and reporters had left the premises and the immediate area. Only the two Luthors remained at the scene.

A faint smell of burnt paper still hung in the air, and a cart full of charred folders appeared to be the source. Lex didn't understand how the fire had started, given the sequence of events the police eventually accepted, but he dismissed it for the time being. There were more important things at stake right now than some destroyed files. He crossed the room toward the closed vault and inspected it. On a hunch, he gave it a slight tug to see if it was actually locked again or merely shut. It pulled open about a quarter of an inch. A slight smirk danced briefly at the edge of his mouth.

"Why do you bother, Lex? You know what's in there."

Lex froze for a moment, then turned to face the older Luthor, affecting a look of innocence despite the fact that his father wouldn't be able to see it. "How would I know that, Dad?" They both knew he was the 'Mr. Green' who hired today's hostage takers, but that didn't mean he was going to admit it in so many words.

Dark anger crossed Lionel's face and, for a moment, Lex was thankful that the blind man wasn't armed. Lionel surpressed his rage with effort, though it was still visible in the way he held himself. Lex suspected his sunglasses hid further evidence of it as well. Currently, though, he was in control of himself, so Lex turned and pulled the vault door open the rest of the way.

He was impressed by the sheer volume of refined meteorite that his father had managed to collect. Stepping inside, he ran his fingers over the green bars almost reverently. He heard his father's approach but disregarded it until he felt the hand clap over his shoulder. Lionel's voice was pitched low and he could feel the man's long hair against his neck. "You know, Son, there is only one person who would want to buy the contents of this vault away from me."

They stood there for a long moment, before Lex broke the tense silence. "I suppose that makes it easy for you to figure out who did this, doesn't it?"

The older Luthor's fingers dug painfully into his shoulder, but Lex ignored that, recognizing it as a distracting tactic. "Too easy, Lex. I expected better from you."

Lex pressed his lips together, but didn't say anything. If he tried to say that he'd told the team to abort, his father would lecture him about employee control. If he tried to claim ignorance, well, that was a crime, too.

"Where is the octagon." The words took him by surprise, given that they were more command to turn it over than question.

"I don't have it," Lex snapped back.

He was turned and shoved backwards against the refined meteorite bars by his father's surprisingly strong grip. The older man stepped far into his personal space, pressing him hard enough against the meteorites to feel the individual bars through his shirt and jacket. "You must. It's not out there, it's not in here, and the police said it wasn't on any of your men. So where is it, Lex?"

Clark, the name flashed through his mind almost too quickly to grasp, but he wouldn't offer that unsubstantiated guess to his father even if he had proof. "Nowhere you'll find it," he said instead. He wasn't protecting Kent. He was misdirecting his father's search to the one place where he knew it wasn't: his possession.

His father was standing close enough that Lex could see the rage burning in his eyes even through the dark sunglasses. "Your unending mutiny grows irritating, Lex," Lionel all but growled through the fraying edges of his waning patience.

The next moment seemed to last forever as Lex recognized it for the critical juncture it was. His father was acting emotionally, or at least, he was on the verge of acting emotionally. The day must have been for the older man than he had let on. Lex was in control of this battle. His next move would determine whether he pushed him over that ledge or pulled him away from it. Lionel would take his revenge, but if he could goad his father into exerting violent physical control over him now, the elder Luthor would be less inclined to enforce financial control over Lex's company tomorrow. It was a trade-off Lex was willing to make. Short term indignity for long term freedom.

So Lex shifted his position very slightly. At their proximity, Lionel could surely feel Lex's jump in heart rate, but that tell would work in his favour since it would falsely suggest that Lex was at a disadvantage. He made an attempt to free himself of his father's grasp, but intentionally only managed to force the older man to move closer and hold him tighter. He wriggled more, brushing against his father's groin in a way that would seem accidental.

Then, abruptly, he stopped, as if changing tactics. It wouldn't do to get his father suspicious that this wasn't his idea. "Mutiny, Dad? Doesn't that imply you had some control over me in the first place? You don't. You can't touch me." Metaphorically, of course. The literal statement was almost laughably false.

Lionel did laugh mockingly, and Lex knew his father was going to respond literally because that was the response that would offer Lionel the greatest position of power. The older man should be able to feel, or at least smell, the sweat break out on Lex's body. His heart rate, too, continued to escalate, hopefully suggesting fear. If his father suspected fear, he'd be uncontrollable, like a shark scenting blood. That was what Lex was looking for this time. Ironically, his father did have enough respect for him that if he sounded nervous, it would give the game away.

"Touch you? Lex, I'm sure you've noticed, you can't escape me." Lex prayed that was false both literally and figuratively, then closed his eyes as Lionel moved in and rested his forehead against Lex's. Regulating his heart and breathing rate, because his father would expect him to try, however belatedly, to hide them, he shifted beneath his father's weight again, conspicuously shying away from intimate contact.

"Dad, don't do this," he whispered, turning his head away even as he congradulated himself for reaching the homestretch. That would be seen as weakness, and weakness had to be purged from all things Luthor.

A leg positioned itself between Lex's and he fought to get free. He told himself that if he had really wanted to, he could have, but his father was stronger than Lex would have guessed and he knew how to use the advantage that their relative positions afforded him. Next time he pushed his father into this sort of thing, he was not going to do it perched at an awkward angle against an uncomfortable pile of meteorite bars. His arms were pinned and his smooth soled shoes couldn't find much purchase against the solid floor.

"Consider this a lesson, Lex."

"A lesson in what? Getting screwed over?"

Lionel smiled the way a shark would. "In a manner of speaking. You need to learn that there are some battles that you cannot win. Taking me on is one of them."

He closed the distance between their groins, and Lex was surprised to find the older man was already hard. "Oh, fuck."

Lionel chuckled, starting a slow but unmistakable rhythm through four layers of fabric. "That's the idea, Lex. It's been a while. I should thank you."

"What, no one wants to sleep with you now that you're blind?"

The pace increased with his anger. "On the contrary. I have had an increase in offers. Unfortunately, I know most of them are ugly."

"Glad to know you're not shallow." As he let his body start to respond to the friction, his father's grip on his arms loosened, and one hand slid under his shirt while the other began to unbuckle his belt. "Dad," he breathed, letting his voice sound torn between censure and need.

"Shh, let it happen, Lex."

He closed his eyes and let it happen.

He opened them again when he was breached. He stared over his father's shoulder to a slagged lump of electronics that started life as a security camera. It occurred to him that, if it was functioning, he'd have been able to get excellent blackmail material. Pity. He'd have really liked to have something this good on his father, some kind of proof that this had happened. Then it occurred to him that his father hadn't moved since taking up residence inside him. "God, Dad, do something," he gasped, and that was all the encouragement he needed.

As Lionel began thrusting in earnest, Lex felt the sharp corners of meteorite bars dig into his backside. They rubbed his skin raw, and he suspected he was bleeding in at least one place. He focused on the dead security camera to block out the pain and what his body was doing (or, more accurately, who). Evidence. He'd kill for evidence. Yes, it was his fault this was happening, but to get two positives out of it instead of just one would be a real coup.

It was in that moment that Something Very Bad happened. He wasn't entirely sure what exactly that Something was, but he saw a sudden bright flash of green and felt something inside him . . . shift. And it wasn't his father.