Survival - NC-17
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: Rating still stands, for obvious reasons in this chapter. This is also the chapter that inspired my new signature.
Chapter 14
Lex imagined the sweat and heat in their bedroom hanging in the air around them, like blurring heat rising off a desert blacktop.
He focused on a single bead of sweat. Quivering on Chloe’s shoulder with every synchronized breath they took, the tiny droplet would start to stretch and nearly roll off the curve of her body before reforming on the same spot. Indrawn breaths caused the tenuous beginning of a fall, exhales resettling it.
He was enervated, caught up and balls and elbows deep in her body. Innumerable tiny bits of moisture danced on his own skin, at turns a sensation that was almost overwhelming or unrecognizable amongst the others. He seemed to be unable to work all his five senses at the same time: If he licked her skin or kissed her mouth he couldn’t savour her hands wrapped over his back. If he concentrated on picking up the scent of her perfume he could no longer hear the delicious moans she let slip out. Looking at her was dizzying, and a fuzzy halo of blurred vision made him blind to everything except Chloe.
He had been discomfited to realize his primary feeling after returning from the cemetery was arousal. It didn’t seem right to go directly from the cemetery to their bedroom to have sex, even loving sex with his wife. Chloe had been quiet, thoughtful, and he had wanted to give her time to wind down from the visit. Lex had been in his study for less than a minute when she entered the room, her quick strides alarming him. He had pushed his chair back to stand, but she had been on his lap and pressing against him too quickly. There was no grief or thought in the posture of her body, and the sexual instinct he was feeling was vindicated by her own.
They had gone upstairs from his study, groping dangerously and clinging to each other on the spiral staircase, hands in places that had forced any servants they passed to turn their faces away. There was no real awareness of circumstance until they were naked on the bed, joined almost abruptly.
Chloe had been almost shocked to feel him hard inside her, her thought process no more concrete than a need to be touching him. She was deeply, profoundly alive and making love to her husband was the only thing real enough to manifest that.
She had thought there was nothing to top the intensity of Lex before, but the entire experience was different. Their eyes had met as he entered her body and that eye contact had lasted, mesmerizing them. Drowning blue eyes met hers and Chloe would later search her mind for words to describe it but find none adequate.
He loved her and she could see it because he was letting her. The reserve he wore for everyone else was gone and it was like staring into the sun. There were so many important things there it was impossible to see them all, certainly impossible to acknowledge them all as they deserved. She felt like isolating every emotion he’d ever felt and cradling each one like a baby, giving it all the attention and care she was certain no one else had.
When his eyes closed on a blink or a reflex, Lex forced them open again. The visceral pull of looking into green depths was too precious to lose a split second. She was all open trust and sincerity, and the layers of meaning in this familiar act intimidated him.
Her golden brown hair fell over the pillows, gleaming up at him in a way that made him wonder why he had ever thought Chloe wasn’t his type of woman. How had she hidden this gloriously sexual nature from everyone else so that he was the first to discover it? What was it about her that gave her certainty when he felt like a babe in the woods?
Her dewy skin slid smoothly along his, her breasts crushing into his chest as they moved together. It was her supple adjustment of legs that urged him to move faster - he found himself strangely indifferent to his own release when Chloe was with him. The desire to have himself wrapped in her for hours overruled primitive physical sensations.
As she approached climax, Chloe closed her eyes and let her nails claw Lex’s back. She lost the view of his eyes but he was speaking now, breathing out her name hoarsely with each drive inside. His lips came down to hers and they kissed briefly, both too short of breath to linger.
Muscles were working overtime, close to exhaustion and threatening the aches and pains they would grin about later. Movements were almost careless while adrenaline buffered them from ill effects. Lex moved his hands from a bracing position on the mattress to curve under her neck, arching it and tangling in her hair.
Seconds to go for both of them, he felt her grip him with every muscle, arms and legs and torso pressing up and around. He watched her stricken expression, holding out on the burning ache in his lungs and his balls.
Her mouth opened on a scream and he lowered his face, nipping her lips, then her chin and finally raking his teeth just under her collarbone. Her scream broke with the pleasure and he let his eyes close finally and felt the encompassing heat cocoon them.
Chloe felt the pain in her lungs as they emptied, watched the sparks on the back of her eyelids and noticed they were the same colour blue as Lex’s eyes when he was really happy. Her body suspended itself with an almost impossible arch as his came down hard enough to make her breasts tingle with pressure. She could hear blood rushing through her veins and the roar of his release.
The end of massive sensations brought warm numbness and the return of tiny ones. The marks from her nails started to sting with sweat and the imprint of his hasty bites became tender. Their collapsed bodies started to slump toward sleep, grabbing oxygen as quickly as possible through open mouths.
They gazed at each other, too emotionally drained to speak.
Chloe twitched her torso underneath him and Lex held some of his weight up on his arms. She winced then froze, gasping. Her chest, everything in her body was in agony and her fists clenched.
“Lex, I can’t breathe,” she said, before the coughing spasms forced him to let her go.
He staggered off the bed and dialed the security team, barking orders at the first man to pick up and dropping the receiver. Terrified, he clutched her hands and tried not to show the panic and the despair as her lips turned blue.
“Hold on, just hold on Chloe.” He coaxed her to stay with him as the paramedics arrived and as they loaded her onto the helicopter, pushing his way in when most of the bodyguards were trying to pull him back. He whispered it to her unconscious form during the flight, putting all his will behind it. She would live because she had to.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++
Lionel Luthor smirked and placed his book down, eyeing his employee with derision.
“You’re a day early, Layton,” he said, not bothering to walk closer to the glass. “I don’t have any use for you.”
The man stiffened with the insult, but his expression stayed neutral. Lionel granted him a small reprieve and his attention. A good poker face is an underrated skill.
Kyle pushed down his irritation with the man and tried to school his features. He wasn’t pleased to be there, only two days after the last report, but it would be his hide if he didn’t deliver the latest news immediately.
“Sir, there’s been a development. Chloe Sullivan-Luthor is in Metropolis General Hospital in critical condition.”
Shock made only a brief appearance on Lionel’s face before it was replaced with anger.
“Tell me.”
She was rushed to the hospital on Saturday morning, less than a day after the press conference, showing symptoms of anaphylactic shock and barely breathing. She was currently being ventilated with the hope that the incident had been caused by an acute allergic reaction. The team of doctors dedicated to her care didn’t know what had caused the emergency, but the mansion was being turned upside down and they were scouring her medical records. She had also received blood.
“What about my son?” His face showed a hint of concern at the question. Somewhere inside him the older man still loved his son, Kyle marveled.
The lawyer placed a newspaper page against the glass. It depicted Lex in a hallway surrounded by reporters, looking enraged and untidy. There were dark circles under his eyes and hollows in his cheeks, and the shirt he was wearing was beyond rumpled.
“He has been in the hospital with her since she arrived. He seems genuinely upset and has asked that the press be confined to the lobby of the hospital. They are holding a virtual siege and he was denied permission to bring in more of his security people. It is safe to assume they’re at risk.”
Kyle returned the newspaper page to his briefcase. Lionel was silent and tense.
“Sir, I’ve consulted a medical expert to analyze what we’ve found out. She said that if Mrs. Sullivan-Luthor is pregnant she can’t be further along than ten weeks, and has likely suffered a miscarriage. It could explain the need for blood transfusions.”
The man nodded and scrubbed a hand across his shorn scalp, visibly uncomfortable. He seemed to have forgotten he was being watched, a truly rare event.
“Deploy whatever security I can spare to the hospital. Guard them,” Lionel said, before turning away.
It was a clear dismissal and Kyle took it gratefully. He kept his eyes on his employer, backing off cautiously.
Lionel waited until he was alone, save the omnipresent camera surveillance, and allowed himself to slouch onto the cot. His hands pressed down on his closed eyelids, trying to banish the memories that were rising.
His moment of rest over, he stood and paced. He recalled what he knew, which wasn’t nearly an acceptable amount to work with. Whatever was wrong with his daughter-in-law wasn’t his doing, so he knew nothing. If she had been pregnant it was likely his grandchild was dead. Lex looked like death and he was showing absolutely no good sense when it came to security.
He pondered the facts and the sequence of events, but nothing jumped out as a starting point. The Luthor family had many enemies, too many for him to properly track.
Blasted hopeless, he thought. How am I supposed to protect my family when I’m forced to spy on them like a petty criminal?