NRFPT Filter: The Survival Game
Jan. 22nd, 2005 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scribblinlenoreI've been wanting to write a Lionel-in-prison story, and today with all the the snow, I had time. And worked on this short piece.
Needless to say, it's about *prison*, and it's on the filter. So reader beware.
***
The Survival Game
By Lenore
Lionel is no stranger to listening for telltale sounds in the night. In fact, it pretty much sums up his childhood, a waiting game, for the lights to go out and the house to fall still and the dreaded floorboard to creak. This is what Lex, with all his grandiose notions of suffering, has never understood, the difference between the father who pushes you too hard because he wants you to succeed in life, and the one who steals into your bed at night and pulls down your pajamas and makes you wish that you were dead.
It wasn't until Lionel was old enough to hit back and occasionally even inflict some damage of his own that he and his father finally came to a truce. No more midnight indignities, no more sweaty fingers on his skin. From then on, Lionel said what and where and how often, and when his father got a taste of his throat, a skill he'd picked up from the whores down on the corner, the old bastard forgot all about trying to make him spread his legs.
It worked then, and it works in prison too--eventually, for the most part.
Of course, he knew what the animals wanted when they came for him, knew what they'd take. He is no stranger to the ways of thugs, and shaving his head was less a fashion statement than a defensive strategy, giving them one less thing to grab onto as they went at him from both ends, more of them than he could count, for longer than he cared to remember.
For a good week afterwards, he walks with a limp. The men laugh when they see him. "Man, that is one worn-out pussy!" they jeer.
They think they've broken him, and Lionel knows exactly how to play that, eyes sliding nervously around every room he walks into, starting at the least sound like he's scared of his own shadow. He saves his best performances for Schultz, a tattooed, thick-necked mountain of a man who lives on his cellblock. When you need an ally, he's found, the trick is to choose someone with a talent for viciousness, but no gift for strategy, someone who needs you as much as you need them.
Edge was his first and best, the only thing like a partner he's ever had. Everyone knew Morgan Edge around the neighborhood, brash and deadly, with a wandering eye for the boys. Uppity little bastard, Lionel's father always used to say, and that made it all the more satisfying to choose him to be the one. Such a beautiful plan, the night Lionel slipped into his room and got into his bed. When Edge came home and found him there, he whistled softly, "What do we have here?" After they'd fucked, Lionel told him.
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
This lummox Schultz is no Morgan Edge, but his weak-mindedness does make him an easy mark. When he corners Lionel in the shower room with the predictable cliche, "hey, pussy, I got an offer for you," Lionel gets on his knees and puts the old talents to work. Schultz grunts the whole time, like he's never had sex before, and after it's over, stands there looking stunned.
"Fuck, yeah!" he says at last. "I always knew you rich guys were a bunch of faggots."
"You enjoyed yourself, I take it. Well, there's certainly more where that came from," Lionel promises, with a lascivious smile.
They make an arrangement, and he puts in for a transfer to the lummox's cell. He plies his trade by night, while the lummox keeps the vultures away by day. Sometimes he finds it a shame, wasting his skill on someone whose only response to his carefully choreographed blowbjobs is, "Suck that fucking dick, suck it good!"
Still, it doesn't escape Lionel's notice that the more feared the lummox is the safer he becomes, and he puts on a good show, pretending to cower whenever they're seen together. Before long, the lummox's stock starts to rise. Lionel hears the whispers around the cellblock, Schultz is the man. He's got Donald Trump over there so scared the bitch goes down on him like his dick is fucking candy.
Occasionally, the lummox buys into his own press too much, and Lionel wakes up in the middle of the night with a weight on his back, familiar pain between his legs, grunting in his ear, "I'm fucking your tight little pussy, so deal with it, bitch." Lionel digs his fingers into the mattress as he waits for it to be over. He promised himself a long time ago that he'd never be in this position again, trapped beneath a filthy, rutting pig, and he promises himself now that someone will pay for it.
Maybe that's why he always dreams of Lex after Schultz is done with him. Lex as a child and Lex as he is now. Lex under his hands, under his body, under his control, leaving blood and bruises on pristine skin, blue eyes staring up at him, hot with outrage, a look Lionel knows so well. He has never done to Lex the things his father did to him, even though there were times he wanted to, and in his dreams, he finally indulges, all the things he suffered and so much more. In the morning, he wakes up smiling.
It is Lionel's habit to fight his battles on many fronts, and as hard as he schemes to stay alive inside, he plots that much harder to get out again. Progress is slow at first. It's more difficult to get things done without money, although by no means impossible. Lionel is still rich in other people's secrets. Eventually, he finds the right leverage, a scandal that leads all the way back to the governor. When the pardon comes, it cites his "deteriorating health," even though his liver condition mysteriously reversed itself months ago.
Schultz actually congratulates him when he hears the news. Lionel smiles graciously, and after dinner the guards find his former protector in the shower, neck slit, his balls stuffed down his throat. A piece of a necklace discovered in the drain leads them to a rival gang member. He screams as they drag him off to solitary, the sound echoing off the walls, insisting the whole way there that he didn't have anything to do with it.
That night, Lionel settles down to sleep in his cell, for the last time, peacefully alone. In the morning, the guards will take him to the warden's office, and he'll sign the papers, and they'll give him back his clothes, and he'll be on his way. Out in the world again, with promises to keep.
Lex has never understood the difference between a father who just wants the best for his son and one hell-bent on destruction. But he will, very soon.
Needless to say, it's about *prison*, and it's on the filter. So reader beware.
***
The Survival Game
By Lenore
Lionel is no stranger to listening for telltale sounds in the night. In fact, it pretty much sums up his childhood, a waiting game, for the lights to go out and the house to fall still and the dreaded floorboard to creak. This is what Lex, with all his grandiose notions of suffering, has never understood, the difference between the father who pushes you too hard because he wants you to succeed in life, and the one who steals into your bed at night and pulls down your pajamas and makes you wish that you were dead.
It wasn't until Lionel was old enough to hit back and occasionally even inflict some damage of his own that he and his father finally came to a truce. No more midnight indignities, no more sweaty fingers on his skin. From then on, Lionel said what and where and how often, and when his father got a taste of his throat, a skill he'd picked up from the whores down on the corner, the old bastard forgot all about trying to make him spread his legs.
It worked then, and it works in prison too--eventually, for the most part.
Of course, he knew what the animals wanted when they came for him, knew what they'd take. He is no stranger to the ways of thugs, and shaving his head was less a fashion statement than a defensive strategy, giving them one less thing to grab onto as they went at him from both ends, more of them than he could count, for longer than he cared to remember.
For a good week afterwards, he walks with a limp. The men laugh when they see him. "Man, that is one worn-out pussy!" they jeer.
They think they've broken him, and Lionel knows exactly how to play that, eyes sliding nervously around every room he walks into, starting at the least sound like he's scared of his own shadow. He saves his best performances for Schultz, a tattooed, thick-necked mountain of a man who lives on his cellblock. When you need an ally, he's found, the trick is to choose someone with a talent for viciousness, but no gift for strategy, someone who needs you as much as you need them.
Edge was his first and best, the only thing like a partner he's ever had. Everyone knew Morgan Edge around the neighborhood, brash and deadly, with a wandering eye for the boys. Uppity little bastard, Lionel's father always used to say, and that made it all the more satisfying to choose him to be the one. Such a beautiful plan, the night Lionel slipped into his room and got into his bed. When Edge came home and found him there, he whistled softly, "What do we have here?" After they'd fucked, Lionel told him.
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
This lummox Schultz is no Morgan Edge, but his weak-mindedness does make him an easy mark. When he corners Lionel in the shower room with the predictable cliche, "hey, pussy, I got an offer for you," Lionel gets on his knees and puts the old talents to work. Schultz grunts the whole time, like he's never had sex before, and after it's over, stands there looking stunned.
"Fuck, yeah!" he says at last. "I always knew you rich guys were a bunch of faggots."
"You enjoyed yourself, I take it. Well, there's certainly more where that came from," Lionel promises, with a lascivious smile.
They make an arrangement, and he puts in for a transfer to the lummox's cell. He plies his trade by night, while the lummox keeps the vultures away by day. Sometimes he finds it a shame, wasting his skill on someone whose only response to his carefully choreographed blowbjobs is, "Suck that fucking dick, suck it good!"
Still, it doesn't escape Lionel's notice that the more feared the lummox is the safer he becomes, and he puts on a good show, pretending to cower whenever they're seen together. Before long, the lummox's stock starts to rise. Lionel hears the whispers around the cellblock, Schultz is the man. He's got Donald Trump over there so scared the bitch goes down on him like his dick is fucking candy.
Occasionally, the lummox buys into his own press too much, and Lionel wakes up in the middle of the night with a weight on his back, familiar pain between his legs, grunting in his ear, "I'm fucking your tight little pussy, so deal with it, bitch." Lionel digs his fingers into the mattress as he waits for it to be over. He promised himself a long time ago that he'd never be in this position again, trapped beneath a filthy, rutting pig, and he promises himself now that someone will pay for it.
Maybe that's why he always dreams of Lex after Schultz is done with him. Lex as a child and Lex as he is now. Lex under his hands, under his body, under his control, leaving blood and bruises on pristine skin, blue eyes staring up at him, hot with outrage, a look Lionel knows so well. He has never done to Lex the things his father did to him, even though there were times he wanted to, and in his dreams, he finally indulges, all the things he suffered and so much more. In the morning, he wakes up smiling.
It is Lionel's habit to fight his battles on many fronts, and as hard as he schemes to stay alive inside, he plots that much harder to get out again. Progress is slow at first. It's more difficult to get things done without money, although by no means impossible. Lionel is still rich in other people's secrets. Eventually, he finds the right leverage, a scandal that leads all the way back to the governor. When the pardon comes, it cites his "deteriorating health," even though his liver condition mysteriously reversed itself months ago.
Schultz actually congratulates him when he hears the news. Lionel smiles graciously, and after dinner the guards find his former protector in the shower, neck slit, his balls stuffed down his throat. A piece of a necklace discovered in the drain leads them to a rival gang member. He screams as they drag him off to solitary, the sound echoing off the walls, insisting the whole way there that he didn't have anything to do with it.
That night, Lionel settles down to sleep in his cell, for the last time, peacefully alone. In the morning, the guards will take him to the warden's office, and he'll sign the papers, and they'll give him back his clothes, and he'll be on his way. Out in the world again, with promises to keep.
Lex has never understood the difference between a father who just wants the best for his son and one hell-bent on destruction. But he will, very soon.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-01-23 06:01 am (UTC)He has never done to Lex the things his father did to him, even though there were times he wanted to, and in his dreams, he finally indulges, all the things he suffered and so much more. In the morning, he wakes up smiling.
This is just chilling.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-23 06:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 01:20 am (UTC)Thanks for going to the dark place with me on this one!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-23 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 01:25 am (UTC)He would be good at blow jobs, wouldn't he? It's more powerful, but seems submissive.
That's so true! He would definitely be working it for all it was worth. *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-23 03:08 pm (UTC)It had never occurred to me before that Lionel's parents might have just gotten what was coming to them. I'm not sure why. Maybe because JG plays him as such a total bastard?
I had clicked the cut-tag thinking nothing that happens to Lionel could bother me, regardless of how much non-con can usually angst me out. But for a brief moment, that opening paragraph had me feeling sympathy for Lionel, for what I knew had to be coming.
But then you managed to turn it right back around. Lionel's still a guy who grew up being raped by his father. He's still a guy who's largely physically helpless, being raped in prison. But somehow, he's -- not exactly in control, but not a helpless victim either.
And the final paragraph! Lionel has finally made that last turn around the bend.
I'm not really scared for Lex though. Lionel may very briefly get the upper hand, but a lot of his control over Lex has been because he still maintains the illusion that he cares about Lex. Now that Lionel no longer believes that, Lex will realize that Lionel doesn't give a shit about him. And the fight will be even.
I really think this story deserves to be in primetime, not just on the special locked list.
The only small change I might suggest is to the sentence: The lummox actually shakes hands with him when he hears the news.
I assume you're referring to Schultz, since you've already referred to him as a lummox. But the idea of him shaking hands with Lex is so surprising that it very briefly confused me into wondering if 'lummox' was referring to the governor somehow. Maybe you should refer to Schultz by name in that sentence, and find another noun to refer to him in the next sentence.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 02:20 am (UTC)Also, I took your suggestion about that paragraph that was unclear and reworded it. When I read it again, it was confusing. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 02:51 am (UTC)I always had the idea that he'd invented the whole Billionaire Lionel Luthor thing. But I guess I never really put any thought into what his life was like before. My imagination always got hung up on how he managed to snag Lillian (who I assume was Society.)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-23 05:35 pm (UTC)This is what Lex, with all his grandiose notions of suffering, has never understood, the difference between the father who pushes you too hard because he wants you to succeed in life, and the one who steals into your bed at night and pulls down your pajamas and makes you wish that you were dead.
That's an excellent line. So very Lionel. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Lionel's father was even more abusive than he is, and that's part of Lionel's dismissiveness of Lex's complaints. Good insight.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-23 07:06 pm (UTC)And the last two lines had me going "ooooooooooohhh, oooooohhhhhh" outloud in an empty room. You've got me talking to my computer. heh.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-24 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-24 05:27 am (UTC)Also, you could not have picked a more disturbing icon for this. Meep.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 03:12 am (UTC)And, yes, in retrospect that may not have been the best choice of icon. *shudders* Poor Lex!
Thank you!
Date: 2005-01-24 10:30 am (UTC)I enjoyed Lionel's POV on things, father abuse (his dreams, gah), prison life, why he shaved his head, the way he thinks, revenge Lionel smiles graciously, and after dinner the guards find his former protector in the shower, neck slit, his balls stuffed down his throat. A piece of a necklace discovered in the drain leads them to a rival gang member. He screams as they drag him off to solitary, the sound echoing off the walls, insisting the whole way there that he didn't have anything to do with it. *wipes drool* and of course the very last part.
Adds another dimension to SV eppies with Lionel in prison!
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2005-01-28 03:14 am (UTC)And I'm glad it didn't put you off your morning tea! *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-24 08:00 pm (UTC)I hope Lex is ready for this. Because Lionel isn't going to be playing checkers, *or* chess when he comes for Lex.
I love this filter. It offers up such gems. *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 03:17 am (UTC)I would love to have seen more on the show about Lionel and Morgan Edge's past together. I'm so fascinated by Lionel's origins.
I'm glad you liked this, doll! Thanks so much for the feedback!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-25 02:31 am (UTC)This part took my breath away:
Lex under his hands, under his body, under his control, leaving blood and bruises on pristine skin, blue eyes staring up at him, hot with outrage
no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 03:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 03:47 pm (UTC)perfect.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-28 03:19 am (UTC)Glad you enjoyed it!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-29 02:17 pm (UTC)All is right with the world when Lionel is being bad. I'm actually more traumatized at the thought that he may ever be reformed than at the thought that he's redrawn his battle with Lex. The last paragraph, by the way, is fantastic!! I love Lionel's messed up mind!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-29 10:21 pm (UTC)The last paragraph, by the way, is fantastic!! I love Lionel's messed up mind!
I'm glad you liked it!