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Lucas has never had a real family before. He's been taken into people's houses, but being passed from foster home to foster home isn't exactly his idea of having the true 'family experience'. However, in the short time he's spent with his father and half-brother, he's come to the conclusion that he's certainly not going to get that normal 'family experience' with the Luthors. Which is fine with him. Normal families are boring, and this twisted game of one-upsmanship Lex and Lionel are playing? This, he can do. He can play like he's Lex's willing tool against Lionel, while he assesses the situation and works out just how he can most benefit. It's amusing to watch father and son circling in preparation for a battle, with Lucas smack dab in the middle. He's weighing his options, ready to stick out a foot and trip whomever will disadvantage him the most. Right now, he's still deciphering just who that is. Lex and Lionel are nothing if not complicated and intriguing. They're also contradictory. That's the most fitting word Lucas can think of to describe them. Lionel, who's playing blind, isn't at all. And Lex, who thinks he's aware of everything, has every angle covered, is the one who can't see. Lucas isn't quite sure whether Lex's blindness is self-imposed or involuntary; it could very well be a combination of both. Take Clark Kent, for example: the wide-eyed, innocent farmboy whose friendship with Lex seems so incongruous. When Lex took him to see Clark, it seemed like he was looking for Lucas' approval as much as he was looking for Clark's. And if Clark's disposition during their 'friendly' game of one-on-one is any indication, Lucas is pretty sure Lex doesn't have Clark's approval on his account. Clark's friend, Pete, is obviously off-base in his "like brothers" description of Clark and Lex's relationship. From what Lucas has seen, Lex's version of family loyalty includes using his newly discovered half-brother as a weapon against a father he despises and can't help but love at the same time. Somehow, Lucas doesn't think Lex's loyalties to Clark are quite the same. That's why it's so surprising that Lex doesn't seem to realize that Clark's loyalties to him are just as deep. If Lex has ever before witnessed the jealously and fierce protectiveness Clark showed Lucas earlier, he has to be turning a blind eye. Maybe he writes it off as wishful thinking, not allowing himself to hope. That's a feeling Lucas knows; he's spent years trying to stamp out the flicker of hope that he would have a family someday. It never worked, though, and now that he's found out he's a Luthor, of all things, he can let that ridiculous dream die. This isn't quite what he envisioned in those childish dreams and less hopeful adolescent fantasies, but he's glad now that he spent all those years hoping and being let down. It led him to where he is, and without that opportunity to develop into his own person, he can't imagine what kind of person he would be. Would he be like Clark, naive and protective and wearing flannel? Like his father, powerful and deceitful and twisted? Or like Lex, rich and miserable and blind? Lucas is glad for a past that puts him on more even footing with Lionel. He's untrusting, defensive, always looking out for himself since no one else will. And Lex, who prides himself on his mastery of strategy and is so sure he has Lionel figured out, can't see the forest for the trees. He knows how dangerous his father is, how he'll do anything to get what he wants, and yet Lex still doesn't know that Lionel isn't blind. How can he be so oblivious? Lucas can't believe that Lex could have spent his whole life living in Lionel Luthor's shadow without having figured out that his father is more than capable of faking blindness, doing whatever it takes to give himself an advantage. Lucas has only spent a few hours in his father's company, but he can see what it is that Lionel really wants. Lionel's waiting for Lex to come into his own, for Lex to show his worth. He wants Lex to beat him, to best him in some way. It's what he's been training him for his whole life. Later, when Lex warns Lucas against Lionel, telling him that he'll never have his father's love or approval, Lucas wants to shake him. Lucas knows that Lionel will never really love him or even care about him. He knows his father sees him as a means to an end, and Lucas doesn't care about that, because he's looking for neither love nor approval from his father. He can use Lionel in return, with no qualms whatsoever. Lionel's aware of that. But Lex -- sad, self-pitying, fortunate son Lex -- is not aware of it. He also doesn't see that he's loved. He thinks of himself as someone who is selfish, cold, and alone, without realizing that his father loves him for thinking that and for trying to become it. And Clark...Clark loves him for thinking it, for trying to become it. For failing. Lucas doesn't love anyone. And no matter what he does, whether he fails or not, no one is going to love him, either. END
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