Survival
NC-17 Fanfiction
Post-Episode for Covenant (Season 3 Finale)
SPOILER WARNING: Spoilers abound, up to the current episode in U.S./Canadian release. Possible AU, but I won't know how far off-track I'm going until the fall, Season 4 premiere.
Disclaimer: Smallville, the characters therein, and all affiliated copyrighted materials are owned by the WB. This is a work of fanfiction not intended for profit or infringement, only for the pleasure of fans of the series.
A/N: And in this corner, weighing in at 120 pounds, the newest, truest Mrs. Lex Luthor, Chhhhhhlooooooeee Sullllllivan-Luuuuuuthor! Her opponent, and father-in-law, the former heavyweight Magnificent Bastard of the World, Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiionellllll Luuuuuuuuuuthor!
This was a fun chapter to write and I hope I didn’t get too carried away. I think the characterizations of Chloe and Lionel are okay, but judge for yourselves. Lex kind of takes a back seat, but he’ll have more to say next chapter.
Chapter 22
Lionel shook himself out of his surprise and fixed the little blond with his condescending smirk. She might be on the other side of the prison walls, but he certainly hadn’t spent decades building up power just to be cowed by a teenager. Tiger by the tail he might be, but still a tiger, and long overdue for an opportunity to use his teeth.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting my latest daughter-in-law officially,” he said, emphasizing the word ‘latest.’ No woman liked to be reminded she wasn’t special in the grand scheme of things, and aside from Lex’s mother none of them had been.
To add to the insult he looked her up and down, lingering on her lush curves in the red dress she had worn. He supposed it was signaling her strength and her anger, but he found it almost pitiful that she felt the need to be so obvious. Subtlety kept your opponents off-guard and it was your asset.
Lex bristled at his father’s crude treatment of Chloe, but held his tongue. She had plenty to say to the man and she would get ample time to say it. And she wasn’t showing any negative reaction to the deliberate taunt, if anything it seemed to be making her calmer.
“We’ve met more times than I ever needed, Lionel, so cut the menacing tycoon bullshit. You’re all but penniless and looking at life in prison, or at least as long as your rotting liver will hold out. Too bad prisoners aren’t eligible for organ transplants.”
Chloe wound up and let loose with the cold facts of Lionel’s descent into ruin, using every one of the carefully chosen words that were flying through her suddenly crystal-clear mind. This was her moment to show him she was strong enough to protect what was hers. This was her chance to do what no one else had ever done.
Lex was her husband, hers to protect from his father, and she wouldn’t fail.
She was icy cold, heart and lungs and blood frozen until it was time to be human again. Monsters were the only things that could fight monsters. Monsters didn’t bleed or cry. Today she could be what she needed to be.
“Please my dear, call me Dad,” he replied, an amicable smile oozing across his face. He made the word sound filthy, as dirty as his eyes had sometimes felt on her body. All the charm in the world didn’t change the innate wrongness of his sexual overtures to a woman younger than his sons.
“I have a father, Lionel, and he raised me better than this. But since I’m already here, let’s agree that we have a common interest,” she said, looking in Lex’s direction.
The older man’s smile slipped off his face and he nodded, looking at his son, then back to Chloe.
“Lex is my only family,” he said, “I doubt you have the same depth of feeling.”
Her eyes narrowed and she stepped closer to the glass, fists clenched. It was one thing for the holier-than-thou Kents to question her marriage, but Lex’s father was a living joke to do so.
“You’re nothing to be judging me on lack of depth. Your entire life has been about getting what you want with no regard for anyone else. You drove your wife to horrible acts and tried to twist your son into a warped carbon copy of your own supercilious contempt for other people. Your lack of family can only be blamed on your decisions.”
Chloe reached out toward Lex and he took her hand, letting her draw him closer. His hand came to rest on the small of her back and his body curved around hers protectively. His eyes didn’t once stray to his father’s slack face.
She turned and kissed her husband chastely, and smiled gently at him. He brushed a finger over her cheek and rested his forehead on her neck to breathe her in.
“If you got out scot-free tomorrow you’d have already lost everything of value, Lionel. Everything my husband is shines with a purity you were constantly trying to tarnish. Every one of his beautiful, human qualities was a flaw in your eyes, but he fought you to keep them,” she said harshly.
Lionel looked at the man his son was with this young woman, barely more than a girl, and his heart sank. She owned him as Lillian had owned him, with the complete ease of utter trust. The unconditional love he had restrained himself from exchanging with Lex was practically visible. To see his normally aloof child cling, actually cling to her, should have been embarrassing. That kind of behaviour with his other daughters-in-law had always made him cringe. Instead he felt envious of Chloe Sullivan-Luthor.
“Everything about him that is extraordinary is a direct contrast to everything you tried to push him to be,” she said.
He looked pale, upset, but Chloe couldn’t spare the time to sympathize. His loyalties had to be proven before they could move forward. Lex shouldn’t have to wonder about his father any longer than necessary.
Lionel tilted his head up imperiously and sneered slightly. “I was building my empire and leading my son to become a leader after me. I taught him to be a good businessman and a survivor,” he said. “The world is not a soft and peaceful place for those who cannot be ruthless to protect their own interests. I would not raise him to be weak.”
Chloe laughed shortly and bared her teeth in a cold smile. He was trotting out predictable excuses and she needed more than that from him. It should have felt like a low blow to use his terminal illness to gouge at his self-control.
“Lex is thousands of times stronger than you are. You are a clod of dirt under his feet. You’ve been so busy looking down on everyone else you’ve left nothing of consequence in the world. Ten years from now, when you’re dead and buried, no one will think of you. No one will look at the empire of LuthorCorp and give you credit for building it. Your legacy was never made of bricks and mortar and money in the bank, and you didn’t see it so you squandered it. Your life will end before you accomplish anything and no one will miss you when you’re gone.”
There was no guilt coiling when even Lex stood back a little from her. Chloe knew this cold cruelty was temporary and it didn’t alarm her to use it. Lionel was no frail old man to crumble under harsh words and she wouldn’t treat him that way simply because he was dying.
“You’re still the nameless petty thug you were in the Suicide Slums, dirty and hopeless and inconsequential,” she said, lining up the winning salvo. “The only difference is that then you didn’t deserve to be treated like shit and now you’ve got decades of evil to pay for.”
She blinked a few times and waited for a response, but there wasn’t one. Lionel was standing with slumped shoulders, silent. His expression was blank.
Lex watched, stunned as he seemed to shrink. The behemoth of disapproval that had ruled his life was fading under his wife’s uncanny ability to strike at the root of his failings as a father and a human being. He was just now seeing that he was taller than his father, that any feeling of his looming shadow was an illusion left over from childhood. This imprisoned man couldn’t hurt him anymore.
Lionel couldn’t find the words to dispute the charges because they were the same self-censuring thoughts that had plagued him since he had been put in this box. He was a bad father and a worst person, but it had always seemed like some kind of secret. To think that his failings as a father were so easily recognized was humiliating.
It was threatening to see the potential of Chloe Sullivan-Luthor turned into the insight that hammered the nails into his coffin. When he discovered her talents and intellect he hadn’t foreseen those gifts turned against him. She had stripped him bare and even Lex seemed to be awed by her accuracy. Clearly the words she was speaking were gleaned from her own mind, not secondhand insults from his son.
“I didn’t kill your father, Chloe,” he said, having nothing else to say in his defense.
She sighed and shook her head.
“I know you didn’t kill my father.”
He looked at her, shock evident on his face. He’d always been unable to see a secondary motivation, especially when it was based in emotions, Chloe thought. He assumed things with feelings he would never assume with facts and figures. Lionel probably thought she was only interested in punishing him for her father’s death.
“There’s plenty of evidence to exonerate you from the explosion that killed him, but you precipitated the situation that led to his death. I’ll never forgive you for that, but I’ll never forgive myself either, so we’re even.”
She let Lex put a comforting hand on her neck, but continued holding Lionel’s eyes.
“What I want to know is simpler than that,” she said. “Looking back on your life, what do you regret?”
Lionel cleared his throat, sighed and turned away to pace in a tight circle. She was right about everything, and his pride was stung that the dressing down of his life was being delivered by a 17 year old. It was bad enough to know Lex valued her partnership enough to side with her, but this defeat was hard to reconcile with his own ideas of power.
But it was clear from his body language that his son was firmly behind every word from his wife’s mouth. He would have to convince her of his desire to help if he wanted Lex to trust him.
“I regret a great many things,” he said slowly, “but it can be summed up in this: I know there are very few people who would go to my funeral, maybe none. Of those who might show up, I doubt any of them would shed a single tear.”
Lionel stood close to the wall, his look entreating his son’s understanding. He hated the mask his son had learned from imitating his own uncaring facade.
“I look at other men with their wives, children, and grandchildren and I wonder what it would be to have that. I wonder how it would feel to have friends instead of business partners,” he said, his voice sadly reminiscent. “These last few years I’ve had to buy everyone around me. I grow weary of being the man no one wants to stand beside. My own son’s defection has taught me that.”
The hard lines of Chloe’s mouth softened and she rested her eyes on her husband. He seemed touched and trying to hide it, so she went back to looking at Lionel.
“I believe you’re sincere in trying to help us, and if that holds up over time there’s no reason why we can’t help you as well,” she said. “But our first order of business needs to be preventing any further murder attempts.”
Lionel grinned in a boyish manner and sketched a few dance steps. It was an outward sign of the happiness he felt, and Chloe smiled. She could feel Lex relaxing as well and she was glad the confrontation with his father was over. Twenty minutes was a long time to face his odd mix of disdainful comments and patronizing silences. Over twenty years of it must have been hell.
“I’ll get some chairs,” Lex said, satisfied Chloe would be fine alone for a moment as he brought them in.
The two remaining Luthors watched him walk out, then looked at each other.
“You seem to make him happy, Miss Sulli-Mrs. Sullivan-Luthor,” Lionel remarked.
She arched an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “I hope so, and you can call me Chloe. Mrs. Sullivan-Luthor gets old pretty quickly.”
“Very well, Chloe. I assume Lex told you about my preference for grandchildren.”
“Two boys and two girls, and no doubt you’ve already thought of horribly derivative L-names,” she said sarcastically.
His lips twitched on a chuckle he was reluctant to let out. She was right on the money yet again and he had already set his heart on having a tiny namesake running around.
“I have a few ideas.”
“You’ll take what you get and be grateful. Since they’re my theoretical stretch marks and labour pains, all L-names will be reserved for middle names only,” Chloe said with a stern look. “And if I decide to name my child after his father, his name will be Alex, not Lex. A kid’s got to have something of his own.”
Lionel’s nod was just the slightest bit mocking, but then again, so was his daughter-in-law.