Anyone's Game (NC-17 Chloe/Lucas; Chloe/Lex UST/Angst) - 25 Nov 2004
Er - okay - really hesitant to be posting this here, but I was talked into it. If the mod or owners can't stand it because of the Chlex only being angst/ust, then feel free to delete it.
~*~*~*~
Title: Anyone’s Game
Author: scifichick774
Rating: NC-17
Category: Drama/Angst – really twisted any way you look at it
Spoilers: Everything through the spoilers for season 3 at Kryptonsite is fair game.
Summary: Chloe finds out that the hard way that Lionel isn’t the only Luthor not to be trusted. Chloe/Lex established relationship at the beginning and UST/Angst throughout, but it’s really a Chloe/Lucas fic.
Disclaimer: Obviously not mine. I’m just playing with the imaginary characters’ lives for fun and not for profit.
Feedback: Yes please.
Archival: Sure – just let me know where.
Author’s Note: Just know that I’m writing this *knowing* that it’s going to tear my heart into itty bitty pieces. Take that as a warning since very few fics do that to me, and none of them are my own.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Chloe closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. She hated lying to her father about where she was going that night, but she didn’t have a choice. She was sure that the truth of ‘I’m working for Lionel Luthor and he wants to talk about the information I’ve dug up on my best friend’ wouldn’t go over well.
The elevator slowly climbed to the top floor of the building, where the expensive Metropolis restaurant that Lionel chose to dine at for the evening sat. She could practically feel his eyes on her, measuring her inconspicuously through the corner of his gaze so that the elevator operator couldn’t sell the story to the tabloids the next day.
It was uncomfortable, but Chloe took comfort in the fact that she wouldn’t have to put up with it much longer. Lex had promised that she wouldn’t, and despite the fact that most people thought that he was as morally corrupt as his father, she had never known him to break a promise – especially not to her.
She had gathered enough courage to admit her mistake in joining forces with Lionel to Lex and put aside enough of her pride to ask for his help in getting out of it. He had agreed, but told her that it wouldn’t be something that could be accomplished overnight.
Over the next few weeks, he had started to subtly flirt with her, and as the weeks turned into months, he had eventually managed to worm his way into her heart.
Chloe hadn’t believed that it was happening at first. The entire idea that she had actually been able to let someone besides Clark into her heart, let alone the boy’s best friend, was almost surreal. But now, she found that the secret relationship was her only solace, her only place of peace in the entire messed up world that made up her life.
The action of Lionel placing his hand on the small of her back shook her from her thoughts and she began to walk forward, trying to ignore the questioning and accusatory looks that they were getting from the people in the restaurant’s waiting area.
At least she didn’t have to pretend they didn’t exist for long, as dining with the elder Luthor certainly had the benefit of not having to wait anywhere to be shown to a table.
They were shown to a private table near the back. It was next to one of the large windows but shielded from the other tables by a makeshift wall of a one-way mirror.
It was the perfect table as it gave them a view of the city if they were interested in that sort of thing, but more importantly, one that let them see almost anyone else who came into the restaurant without being themselves. And, as she was soon to find out, that had been Lionel’s intention from the very beginning.
“I don’t have anything new on him – or on anyone else,” Chloe started in a hushed tone after the waiter dropped off their menus and went to retrieve the bottle of wine that Lionel ordered without even glancing at the restaurant’s wine selection.
Lionel gave her a tight yet smug smirk, one that clearly projected that he knew something she didn’t; one that made her skin crawl and brought up buried homicidal feelings at the same time.
“You judge me too harshly, Chloe. Did you ever consider that I just wanted the pleasure of your company?” he asked. Chloe shot a small glare at him, but restrained herself from letting out a derisive snort. “Whatever my son has led you to believe, I assure you, I’m not your enemy.”
Chloe’s spine stiffened.
He knew.
‘Of course he knows,’ she mentally chided.
His relationship with Lex was barely better than the one he had with her, and Lex was his son. He probably had bugs covering every square inch of the castle, cameras recording every stolen kiss and passionate embrace.
Chloe’s stomach tied into a knot. She realized in that moment that she would never be able to get away from the man sitting across from her. If she tried, then he would not only destroy her father’s life, but hers, and probably even Lex’s as well as retribution for her defying him.
No matter what Lex had promised her, it wasn’t going to happen.
“What do you want?” she finally asked quietly, the bitter defeat evident in her voice.
Lionel didn’t react with the smug, victorious gloating that Chloe would have expected, but surprised her by seeming pensive and almost regretful.
“You’re an intelligent young woman, Chloe,” Lionel said. “It’s a shame you let yourself be ruled by your emotions instead of your mind.”
Chloe creased her brow questioningly and Lionel sighed before motioning silently with his head toward a couple who was being seated only a few tables away from the other side of the one-way mirror. Chloe twisted in her seat, her heart constricting painfully at the sight in front of her.
Lex whispered some sweet nothings into the tall, beautiful brunette woman’s ear, causing the female to giggle and kiss him. He smirked and tugged on her tiny waist to bring her closer to him, capturing her mouth in a kiss that was fiery and passionate compared to the peck she had just given him.
Chloe felt like throwing up and very well might have had she had any food on her stomach. Her eyes welled up with unshed tears at witnessing the betrayal, and though Lionel had no desire to cause a scene, he didn’t want Chloe to come up with a lie she could tell herself to explain away what she was seeing either.
“I’ve always been honest with you, Chloe; but I think you’ll agree that there are some things you need to see with your own eyes to believe,” he said. His eyes flit over to his son and his date again. “I don’t know everything he’s told you, but if tonight is any indication of his professed honesty and loyalty to you, then I suggest you reevaluate which side is the right side, *and* which one you’re going to be on.”
Chloe bit the inside of her bottom lip to keep the tears from sliding down her cheeks, looked down to avoid eye contact with Lionel, and pushed her chair away from the table. She grabbed her small clutch purse and turned on her heel to walk out of the restaurant as swiftly as she could without drawing too much attention to herself.
Lionel pursed his lips thoughtfully and waited for the elevator doors to close behind the petite blonde before rising from his seat. Chloe had just learned the truth and now that she was far enough away that Lex couldn’t pursue her, it was time for his son to find out that he could no longer count on Chloe Sullivan to be his unwitting double agent.
“Son,” he cooed as he approached Lex’s table. “What a surprise running into you here.”
Lex squared his jaw and then pushed a fake smile onto his face.
“Dad,” he returned, standing up to shake hands with his father.
The waiter who had been assigned to Lionel’s table started to come back with the bottle of wine that the elder Luthor ordered and two crystal goblets. Lionel waved him over to Lex’s table instead with only a faint motion of his fingers.
Lex arched a questioning eyebrow at him and Lionel grinned.
“Please,” he said, motioning to the wine with his hand. “It seems that Miss Sullivan had to leave early, and I’d hate for such a fine vintage to go to waste.”
Lex paled, but not so it was noticeable to anyone but his father. He pushed his chair away from the table, faking a grin for his dinner companion.
“Would you excuse us for a moment?” he asked, not waiting for a reply.
Lionel repressed the urge to snicker, the memory of Chloe’s pain still etched clearly in his mind. He shared a knowing glance with Lex’s date, but Lex was too wrapped up in his own angry thoughts to notice it as he drew his father aside and out of earshot.
“Hasn’t she been through enough? You didn’t have to do this to her,” he said, his voice hushed but full of venom.
“*I* didn’t do anything to her,” Lionel countered. “I believe you were the one who led her to believe that you were in a monogamous relationship with her when you were dating someone else the entire time; that you cared for her when you only cared about the information she could give you.” He paused for a second and gave his son a pointed look. “I am not the villain in this scenario, Lex – *you* are.”
Lex pulled back and narrowed his eyes at his father.
“You brought her here with the intent of breaking her heart again,” he said. “That hardly leaves you blameless.”
“What is it that they say?” Lionel began with false thoughtfulness. “Don’t shoot the messenger?” Lex’s nostrils flared as he struggled to keep his cool exterior. “Why are you acting so enraged? It’s not as if you had any real feelings for her.” Lionel’s lips curled upward in a smirk. “And now that she knows that as well, we can all get on with our lives.”
Pushing down the sudden rush of hurt he felt over what Chloe must be going through, the muscles in Lex’s jaw flexed and he glared at his father evenly. He couldn’t let the man know that even if he didn’t have romantic feelings for Chloe, he had come to value her as more than just a pawn. She had become a trusted friend.
It was too bad he couldn’t say the same about himself.
“Where is she?” Lex asked coolly.
Lionel’s smirk only seemed to grow.
“She has family in town if I remember correctly, but I doubt she’ll see you,” he answered.
Lex’s eyes flit over to his date, who seemed to be bored and irritated that he had left her alone for so long.
‘Shit,’ he thought to himself. He liked Amanda, he really did. He had even been thinking that he might be willing to get married again if she was clean once all the background checks came in.
But Chloe was…Chloe. She was smart, funny, and pretty, though he had never looked at her in that way. At first he thought of her as Clark’s friend, then as someone who might be able to help bring down his father, and finally as a friend on her own merits. And he had lied to her time and again, and now, because of his father’s undoubtedly impeccable timing, he had broken her heart.
If nothing else, he needed to apologize and explain himself before the situation got too far out of hand; before the grudge against him could be built up into something that was much worse than it would be if he took care of it right away.
He strode past his father and gave Amanda an apologetic look.
“You’re not leaving,” she said, folding her arms across her chest in an effort to draw his attention to her bosom and away from whatever it was currently on. “You do this to me almost every time we go out.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Lex pointed out. “And you knew I was a busy man when we first started dating.”
“But we’re not just ‘dating’ anymore, Lex,” she argued. “We’re a couple. Couples spend time together. That’s what they do.”
Lex sighed and rubbed his temple on one side. Amanda was beautiful and smart, but she was also co-dependent and entirely too needy for someone whom he had only been dating for a few months. Then there were times, like now, that she reminded him of Helen. Argumentative, defensive, and altogether bitchy if she didn’t just get her way right away.
It was disconcerting, and a small part of Lex hoped that she *was* working for his dad, just so he would know he wasn’t attracting those kind of women on his own. But, he wouldn’t find out until next week when his private detectives promised they would have a full report.
Lex leaned down and kissed her forehead. He would make his apologies to her later. Right now he had a different woman to say he was sorry to and he had to find her before she did something that one or both of them would end up regretting.
~*~*~*~
Chapter 2
~*~*~*~
Chloe’s hand went up to wipe away the tears that she had been crying for the last hour, immediately thankful that the mascara she wore was waterproof so unless the people passing her by on the street took a good look at her, they wouldn’t be able to tell that she was currently in any emotional torment.
And they never did. As with most big cities, the majority of the people in Metropolis were oblivious to anything going on around their circle of friends unless they were directly confronted with it. Watching the news made the citizens feel that they knew what was going on in the underbelly of their city, but they didn’t see what was right in front of them, and that was the second thing that Chloe was grateful for.
It was enough that the emotional pain of betrayal was reducing her to tears yet again, but she didn’t need someone to call her on it.
Which was exactly the reason that she had steered away from the family and friends that she had in the city. Once she got desperate and resigned herself to confronting Lionel again, she could get a ride home; or at least that’s what she figured the elder Luthor was expecting.
Damned if she was going to be played by anyone else again though, let alone a Luthor. She would just wait until morning and take the train home. The commuting trip was relatively inexpensive and she had more than enough money with her to cover it. The problem now was that she didn’t have anyplace to stay the night.
Not unless she wanted to approach one of her cousins or friends, places where she would not only get the third degree on why she was crying, but also where Lionel or Lex could track her down easily.
She scoffed with a twisted moment of amusement. As if Lex would actually come looking for her. As if Lionel would either.
No.
The entire night had been set up to show her how foolish she had been in giving her heart away yet again; to try and wound her enough to want to be on Lionel’s side to get back at Lex. But if Lionel really thought she was that gullible, then he had another thing coming.
In fact, the only way she could see through the hurt that she was in, was to get even with both of them. She wasn’t sure how exactly, but with that singular thought in mind, her feet led her to an address that she had only ever seen on paper when she was snooping through Lex’s things.
The beginning of their working relationship found Chloe filled with apprehension and mistrust and she dug into everything she could find to see if Lex’s offer was indeed genuine or not or if he was actually working for his father’s behalf to see if she could be trusted.
She had come across the address of where his half-brother Lucas was currently staying, and though she had always meant to check it out on her previous visits to Metropolis, she had never had time.
Now she had nothing but time and the empty feeling in the pit of her stomach that thirst for revenge.
Chloe sucked in a shaky breath and then made her way into the apartment building’s lobby. Walking briskly to avoid any sort of confrontation with the security guard on patrol, she went to the entrance to the stairs instead of the elevator doors; reasoning that the combination of the physical exertion it would take to climb them and the additional time it would take would somehow steel her nerves, so she didn’t just break down in front of the young man that she was about to confront with a proposition that she was almost entirely certain he would refuse.
To her surprise, the security guard simply took in her appearance and gave her a sympathetic grin before opening the door to the stairs for her.
Obviously he was new and didn’t know all the tenants in the building yet, and as it seemed that fate was in favor of her bizarre quest for revenge, she took advantage of it.
“Thanks,” she muttered in a choked voice.
The guard nodded once and then the sympathetic grin turned into an expression that Chloe knew only too well, as her dad gave it to her on several occasions. The lecture without being a lecture look. Chloe hated it, but managed to quell down the urge to slap it off his face.
“Sometimes life is hard,” he said. “But it gets better. Always does.”
Not trusting her ability to speak without spewing a curse at the man for not knowing anything about her life and trying to act as her therapist anyway, Chloe simply nodded a couple of times and faked an uneasy upward twitch of the corners of her mouth.
She slipped past him and heard the door close behind her, inwardly groaning when she took in how many stairs she would actually have to climb.
Her heart began to pound in her chest as she ascended floor after floor of stairs, her hand gripping onto the railing with every step to make sure that she didn’t lose her nerve and simply turn around and run out of the building as quickly as she could.
Finally she came to the floor where Lucas’s apartment sat, but she found herself in a moment of hesitation. She had never even met the young man in question and she was about to offer herself to him on a silver platter with the condition that he would officially break things off between her and Lex for her.
Her hand was on the handle that would allow her access to the floor, but her head flopped forward against the heavy door as indecision swept through her.
She had never slept with anyone before and though it seemed like a childishly romantic notion, she had always held out the hope that her first time would be with someone she loved. A sour feeling bit at her with the thought.
Clark had been her first love. He hadn’t loved her back, but there was no denying that what she had felt for him was love. Of course, seeing as how the boy was too prude to even make a move on the girl he liked unless he was doped up on meteor rocks, he wasn’t a possibility in the remotest sense of the word.
Then there was Lex. She hadn’t loved him as she had loved Clark, but she had loved him – or had at least convinced herself that she did. Now she could see that everything with him had been a lie and it hurt more than she ever thought it would.
The flickering moments of passion that never went any further than making out because he said he didn’t think she was emotionally ready for more than that; keeping their relationship secret so she didn’t get hurt when it was really because he was seeing someone else – someone he actually cared about – at the same time.
She mentally berated herself for not sticking with her initial instinct of not trusting him and took a step back so she could swing the door open to pass through it.
‘512…514…516,’ she thought, stopping in front of the last one.
She had to admit, it was a good hiding place from Lionel – for both of them. The elder Luthor would never suspect that Lucas was staying in an apartment building that appeared to cater to the upper middle class, and he would certainly never suspect Chloe of turning to a man that she didn’t even know.
With a renewed sense of vigor, she wiped away any evidence that she had been crying and then pulled back her fist to knock on the door.
~*~*~*~
Lucas rolled his head in a circle and then yawned. His arms reached into the air, stretching out the muscles that he had just worked out and were now tense and sore.
The sound of someone suddenly knocking on his door made him arch a curious eyebrow. Lex wasn’t due to see him until tomorrow afternoon and nobody else besides his neighbors, who were far too busy with their lives to bother him, knew that he lived there.
A sinking feeling hit his gut that his father finally found out where he was and he grabbed a sword off of its pedestal before making his way to look out the peephole. Not the most modest of weapons, but if anyone did visit his home, they would reason that it was purely decorative, giving him the distinct advantage.
Holding the sword to his side, he pressed his face against the door to peer through the peephole, his curiosity only growing when he saw the blonde woman on the other side.
The view that the glass gave was distorted at best, but he could still make out that she was beautiful and curvy, making him all the more suspicious about why she would be knocking on his door.
She raised her knuckles to rap against the door again, but stopped when she heard Lucas unlocking the deadbolt that sealed the door closed.
He opened the door and leaned against the frame, his eyes grazing over her body unabashedly. Normally it might have been something that bothered her, but as it was, Lucas was much better looking that the video surveillance cameras at Lex’s house suggested, and it was nice to know that someone looked at her as a woman.
They stood there in silence, summing each other up for a good couple of minutes before either one of them made a move to speak.
Lucas kept a keen eye on the young woman in front of him. She didn’t seem to be armed or pose any direct threat to him, but appearances could be deceiving.
Chloe drew in a breath and then looked off to her side.
“This was a bad idea,” she murmured.
“I love bad ideas,” Lucas retorted in a light tone, the smirk evident in his voice. He gave Chloe an upward nod of his head when she turned to face him again. “Do I know you?”
“Seeing as how you have a photographic memory, it kind of seems like you should know the answer to that already,” Chloe said wryly.
A lopsided smile spread across Lucas’s lips and he relaxed the arm with the sword in it. The only person he had told the lie about having a photographic memory to was Lex, which meant that the blonde in front of him probably wasn’t there to kill him. At least he hoped she wasn’t.
“You know Lex,” he observed. “Did he send you?”
“Not in the way you think,” Chloe replied.
“What’s your name?”
“Chloe.”
“Chloe,” Lucas repeated, rolling the name off of his tongue and then smirking suggestively at her. “I like it. So, what can I do for you, Chloe?” ‘Or *to* you,’ he thought. ‘Either way.’
“I have a proposition for you.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow at her; a gesture that reminded Chloe only too much of Lex and almost made her eyes well up with tears again. She pushed the feeling down, forcing it to mix with the pain she felt so she could concentrate on her anger rather than on her heartbreak.
“So?” she asked expectantly when Lucas said nothing.
Lucas rested his tongue in the pocket of his cheek and then nodded once; stepping aside and pulling the door open a little wider as an unspoken invitation for Chloe to enter the apartment.
‘This ought to be good.’
~*~*~*~
“Look, I already told you, I haven’t heard from her. I have no idea where she is.”
Lex ran a hand over his face in frustration. He let out a sigh and then responded to the person on the other end of the phone.
“Right. Thank you anyway.”
He pressed the button to disconnect the call, and then, after a moment’s thought, turned the power off of his cell phone altogether.
He had called every relative and friend of Chloe’s in Metropolis that he knew about and nobody had heard from her. Either that or they were lying to him, and if that was the case, then he was shit out of luck.
Lex growled and kicked a parking meter. He could practically see his father smirking victoriously at him. Unfortunately, the image quickly transformed into a disappointed look – the same one that Lionel had actually given him for a millisecond back at the restaurant.
He was used to his father being disappointed in him, but not being disappointed in himself.
Most likely, Chloe would have agreed to be a double agent for him without him having to engage her in a false romantic relationship, but he had wanted to make certain of where her loyalties laid and felt that making her fall for him was the best way possible.
He should have known better and he cursed himself for now not only hurting and losing a friend, but for doing it almost knowingly.
Chloe had forgiven Clark and they were mending their broken friendship, but Lex sincerely doubted that the same could ever be said in the future about his own relationship with Chloe.
She wouldn’t forgive him.
She had no reason to.
And that not only made Lex sad, but it made him worried. If Chloe was able to turn her grief into anger like she had with Clark, then she could be very dangerous.
Shit.
Why hadn’t he thought of that before he seduced her into liking him?
