damned_institute | Day 36: Waiting Room, Lobby 2

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Day 36: Waiting Room, Lobby 2

Celes had actually relaxed enough, speaking to Naminé during lunch, to allow herself a small smile. It thinned into a line, of course when her nurse materialized from nowhere and swept her off, giggling over her 'surprise.'

"Oh won't it be nice?" she chirped as they walked into the waiting room. "You'll be so happy, I am absolutely sure of it." Celes's small smile thinned itself into a line and she was plunked into a chair to await her visitor. Perhaps I shall be lucky, she thought, looking at some ridiculous motivational poster. It won't be anyone I know, not really. Her nurse wandered away and Celes folded her hands on the table, the picture of impatient waiting.

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Clark just barely kept an automatic "It's Clark" from slipping out as he stood up, towering over his friend. He put on a smile, trying to aim for friendly, hopeful, and willing to settle for anything that didn't scream how freaked out he was.

"I'm doing okay, I guess. Maybe I'll be out soon?" he asked. "It's nice," he added quickly, "but I guess I miss how things were, y'know?"

"That would be nice," Lex said. The cost of his attendance here was truly staggering, and while he wouldn't begrudge the cost for his friend, he did care about the bottom line. Hopefully they were getting results.

Missing how things were, for example, promised to be a good thing. He smiled ever so slightly. "How things were?" he asked.

Clark tried not to flounder, hazarding a guess. "With you," he said with a little smile. "Hanging out and stuff. I mean, the people here are okay, but it's not like being with my friends."

He didn't know if he - or Kal - even had friends aside from Lex. The problem was he didn't know anything about who Kal was aside from what little he read of his patient profile. The thing that stood out was it claimed he'd been addicted to some kind of substance called Red K. And somehow talking about that would probably bring up some warning flags for Lex. Clark wasn't exactly the best with coming up with detailed back stories here. Clark searched for something to do, motioning for Lex to take a seat with him in the waiting room so they could talk.

Lex stared at him for a long time, weighing Clark's reaction. "Well, good then," he said, taking a seat across from his friend. "Has your doctor said anything about a possible release date yet?"

Clark shook his head. "Not yet. This was my first time meeting with her," he added, knowing he had to tell the truth, at least here. "But she seemed to think I was a pretty good case - at least, I think she did."

She'd asked some awkward questions, though, with his relationship with Lex at the top of it. She'd asked how he'd met him and why the first thing Lex did was try to buy him a new car - what should've been an easy question was complicated by the fact he'd been hit by Lex's car and had fished him out of the river, all things that no normal person could do. He wasn't sure if "Kal" had powers like he did - if he did, Lex didn't mention it or seem to suspect anything, instead just looking at him in that seemingly casual way Lex looked at people he liked.

Lex nodded slightly, wondering just what they were getting paid to do. Kal had been here for two weeks now, and this was his first doctor's visit? "Well," he said. "I'll be sure to have a talk with her and see if there's any chance of you getting out soon. How have they been treating you otherwise?"

It wasn't a question of mere goodwill...though he did genuinely want to know how the staff had been treating him since their last visit. The purpose of the question was to keep the topic away from Clark's parents. As promised, he talked to them about visiting him; however, they were far too busy to be bothered as he had suspected, and now he didn't have the convenient excuse of a vacation to keep the subject from being brought up. It was for the best that he keep the focus on other things until their time ran out.

Clark shrugged. He didn't think telling Lex about what happened at night, or that night he'd been badly hurt, would really help his case.

"Okay, I guess. Food's good and the staff are pretty nice," well, when they weren't mutating and losing control of themselves. "Meeting new, interesting people too."

He paused. He'd been waiting a whole week for this and now he had to ask. Fidgeting in his seat, stretching out his long legs - he'd never really felt comfortable in small chairs, not with his height - Clark folded his hands in his lap, as if not sure what to do with them and gazed at Lex hopefully.

"About that phone call? I was hoping I could speak to my parents like you said last time...?"

"You're not talking about the crazies in this place, I hope," Lex said with a very slight grin. It was meant as a joke, but there was some truth there. Associating with people like the ones he saw here wouldn't be good for him.

And very quickly Clark forced the matter to the front. He sighed. "Clark, remember how I said I had to cover what your parents weren't willing to pay?"

Clark's smile faltered a little. "Yeah. But I mean, it's just talking with them on the phone, right? It's not a big deal."

Lex acted like his parents didn't care, acted like they were as loaded as the Luthors. But how would it be so hard to just talk to their son on the phone? Clark looked earnestly at Lex, his face an open book on hopeful.

Lex's smile was gone entirely by now. "I don't know any way to say this nicely, and I was hoping you would have just forgotten about our conversation. They don't want to talk to you, Kal. Not until you're better." He left out that they were sickened that their son was crazy, there was no sense in emphasizing the point.

Clark opened his mouth, but his mind was blank. Instead he closed it and looked down at his hands, trying to think of what to say and unable to believe they were even talking about the same people here. Just because he was in Landels didn't mean they couldn't talk to him.

"...Why would you promise me that phone call if you knew that?" Clark asked, looking up to gaze at Lex's face. It was unreadable, like it got back in Smallville sometimes. He felt shut off from his friend, and maybe a little betrayed too. He still wasn't sure if he believed Lex - he only had his word that Mom and Dad didn't want to talk to their own son.

"Kal, I didn't promise you anything," he said. "I told you I'd talk to them when they got back from vacation and see what I could do. Nothing more. And I did." Well, the situation had gotten tense all of a sudden between them, hadn't it? Still, Lex remained firm. He wasn't about to back down from Kal.

"So it's not possible for you to call them up right now and surprise them?" Clark asked doggedly. He wanted to hear his parents voices with his own ears. "Please? I'd really like to talk to them, maybe I can make them listen."

Clark willed himself not to get too angry at Lex. Lex was his friend and thought he was doing the right thing, but sometimes his definition of "right" was a little skewed, in Clark's opinion.

Lex was irresolute. "If I called them right now and said you wanted to talk to them, they'd hang up on me," Lex said. "I didn't want to press the issue, Kal, because you don't want to know the truth. It may not seem like it now, but you'll thank me later, once you're better. For now you need to focus on you, on getting away from the rest of these crazies. Most of them are beyond hope...you're not."

Clark managed to keep from blurting out "then don't give them warning, just put me on" but only just barely. He instead bit his lip, stubbornly wanting to grab Lex and make him see that they had to at least try instead of giving up like this. He wanted to know the truth.

"Part of becoming better is knowing the truth," Clark said quietly. He stared right at Lex. Lex had a way of letting the truth out in bits and pieces and while he knew he wasn't one to talk about white lies, Clark still wanted to know just what it was his friend was hiding. He thought he was protecting him. Clark had thought that too when he hid himself and his abilities, had lied all those times. Now he saw just how flimsy that excuse looked from the outside. It was a wonder his friends even stuck around when they had to know how much he was lying: Pete had been the first to get tired of it and call him out on it. "I want to get better. I really do. But I'm tired of being left in the dark like this. I'm not a kid anymore, Lex, I have to face this stuff head-on."

No matter how unpleasant it was. No matter how much it hurt. He'd pretty much killed that nurse, burned her alive because of his lack of control. Lex also said he'd injured two strangers. Clark didn't remember that, but assuming it happened, he had to face up to what he'd done and take responsibility for it. Either way, he couldn't hide away and try to be ignorant of everything - not when he knew he could hurt people if he wasn't careful all the time.

Lex frowned. "Fine, Kal. You win. Your parents don't want to talk to you at all. They're ashamed of you, of you're being here. You've made them look bad by being here, and they're trying to put as much distance between you and them so that your insanity doesn't become an associated concern for your family. Your father's running for congressman, he can't afford to have attachments to an insane son. People are already asking about you, but they've done a good job of controlling that fire before it gets out of hand."

This wasn't how the conversation was supposed to go. "Your parents have all but disowned you. But I haven't."

Clark wasn't sure what surprised him more - his parents supposedly avoiding him or his dad running for Congress. Since when? His dad was more than happy to remain on the farm and run it - if there was anyone who might run for anything, it might be his Mom, but that was already far-fetched as it was. This seemed even more impossible than him hurting people; with these powers, he knew he could hurt people, but his parents were always supposed to be the same people he knew and loved. Now Lex was saying he couldn't even have that much as "Kal" - if everything like that was true, Clark could see why Kal had gotten addicted to Red K. If it was anything like that time he'd run into red kryptonite, then he knew it was tempting to just let loose and stop caring and do whatever you wanted because it distracted you from everything that bothered you.

"If I get out of Landels, then I can make things right," Clark insisted. He couldn't allow himself to get upset like last time. "Lex, I know you're trying to help and I appreciate that. I just need to get a clean bill of health and everything's okay, right?"

He really wanted to see his parents face to face to see if what Lex told him was true. According to Wally, he'd fallen into some kind of bizarro time warp or alternate dimension, but the only proof he had that that was true was Lex's words and Wally's. He couldn't make sure for himself stuck in Landels with off-kilter powers, however.

Would he really be able to make everything okay? Lex wasn't so sure. Kal had a lot more problems than his own mental instability to worry about. Even if he walked out completely cured, he'd still have to deal with his parents, who in some ways made the Luthors look like angels. But he'd save that for another day.

"It'll be a big step forward," Lex said, not quite willing to lie to his friend but perfectly content to offer half-truths that sounded reasonable enough. "I'll keep visiting as often as I can, Kal. You just keep making progress, alright?"

"Yeah," Clark said. He tried to sound gung-ho about it, but it wasn't very easy and he was pretty sure he wasn't fooling anyone.

He was silent for a bit, trying to think of what to say. He wasn't sure how much he could trust Lex right now - he seemed to think the only way he could help him was for him to go through Landels the "right" way and he wasn't sure what could convince him otherwise. Proof he was different? That he wasn't crazy? The only proof he had there was his powers. But Clark couldn't risk exposing his powers to Lex, especially Lex, and instead he had to keep his mouth shut.

Instead, he said, "Thanks for coming, Lex. It means a lot to me."

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Day 36: Waiting Room, Lobby 2

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