***
Virtually Destroyed: Jaxon Xavier
***
They’re smug, and cutesie, and unexpected. He hates things that are unexpected. What’s the point of coming up with a plan, fine-tuning it, honing it, making it perfect, if tiny unexpected things are going to come in and ruin everything? This Clark Kent person as a whole is a wrench in his plans, and he has half a mind not to let Mr. GQ into his private world at all. But no, that would give too much away too soon.
He can adapt. He can be flexible. No mild-mannered reporter with his hands all over Lois will get the better of him. Of X.
An instant later, he immediately wants to change his mind. He offers this pair unlimited access to anywhere in the world and they pick where?
“The mattress store?” Clark Kent asks. He’s smiling down at Lois Lane, and she smiles back at him like he’s a genius instead of an idiot who doesn’t even realize the endless possibilities offered them on a silver platter that he just threw away like garbage.
Disgusting.
Oh. Wait. It’s a joke. A private joke. Well, sure, Jaxon--X--can understand that. He’s got tons of private jokes, loads of teasing quips that make him giggle. Only, he doesn’t have anyone to tell them to. Sure, the computer’s great and all--he designed it himself after all--but it can’t even remember to call him by his proper name. It’s not the same as a real person holding his hand and sharing a smile with him and laughing at his jokes.
Well, Lois Lane had the chance, once before, to be that person for him, and now, because he’s not a terrible guy, he’ll give her another chance. His dad couldn’t be the loving, chummy type, Jaxon--X--knows, but a mother could have. Lois could have. She could have been there for him, listened to him, known him, loved him. She could have.
And she will from now on.
It’ll be a simple enough matter to see to, assuming he can get rid of Mr. Handsy over there. Seriously, the guy didn’t have anything better to do than play tag-along to a place he wasn’t even invited?
He’s big and strong and handsome, and Jaxon--X--hates him. He knows the type, after all, is well-familiar with the casual ease of their lives, their sense of entitlement spilling over into crude bullying tactics. And they never appreciate having someone who loves them because they never have to work for it. Everything’s easy for them. Everything’s simply handed to them.
Not like Jaxon, who’s had to scrabble and invent his way into everything he has now. Who’s been lonely every day of his life so that he has to program his own friend.
Well, no more.
This is why Jaxon created his own world in the first place. Because there, he’s in charge. He gets to make the rules. He can be the one who’s not lonely or forgotten or shoved into a corner anymore.
In there, amid the pixels and the programs, he’ll never be lonely again.
And there aren’t, he sneers, any mattress stores there.
***
