The Lesser of Two Evils - NC-17, Chapter 56 (May 27, 2016)

[oropheria]

Please, nonky, can I have some more? :
{waves empty fic bowl and bats urchinesque eyes}

[hollywoude]

More, more, more! :yay: Please?! :worship2:

[emayne]

I found this story just a couple of hours ago and read all the way through the last update. Darkfics are hard to pull off in any fandom and I am amazed at how well this is written! I can't wait to see how things progress.

-Elizabeth

[coxxy]

I just read the whole thing and all I can say is - WOW

you are an amazing writer - every scene is so vivid

cant wait to read more....

[Azabeth]

Please, please, pretty please, come back and write some more of this fantastic story. I'm actually addicted to its darkness and to the great characterization you have displayed so far. I like the time and depth you dedicate to both Lex and Chloe's thoughts and points of view regarding the situation they are stuck in.

So please, great author, feed your loyal readers )

[lilinny]

Will yelling at you help? I want a new chapter dammit!!!!!!!!&#33 ;!!!!!!!!!&#33 ;!!!!!!!! That felt better. Please update this creepy fic. :yay:

[polly]

Umm, hi. :unsure: I'm doing my best to overcome my lurking tendencies so I'm going to ask meekly for another update. Okay, here goes:
Can I please have another update? I really like this fic and want to see the Chlex develop, so can we have more?
Please?

[celticangel]

I love this story!! Please, please update :worship2: :worship2:

[kitten]

The Lesser of Two Evils
NC-17/ Angst

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.

Spoilers: All up to Season 4, except things will be twisted to the tune of Lex having never moved to Cowtown, U.S.A.

A/N: What would Chloe Sullivan have had to do to get from under Lionel Luthor’s thumb if Lex had never moved to Smallville? What would she have had to sacrifice to earn the son’s help against the father?

AU for Season 3 and 4, and strongly rated for a good reason:
THERE WILL BE BORDERLINE NON-CONSENSUAL SEX.

I’m posting in very short chapters so readers can choose when enough is enough for them.


Chapter Sixteen


There was an insecurity to success, one that haunted those men who had to scrape and fight for the privileges they enjoyed. Adjusting the sleeves of his expensive suit and folding his hands at the small of his back, one such man looked out at his expansive country estate and wondered how long it would remain his.

Life felt like a precipice to Lionel Luthor on most days. He was keenly aware of his vulnerability to his enemies, chief among them time.

He had stolen his life from the deaths of his parents, and though he didn’t miss them he did ponder the consequences of his actions. His wealth, all the billions of dollars he had won, lost, spent and saved, were based on his immature treachery. He had been careful to become a well-educated man, an impeccably dressed member of high society, but it was all built on the early years of petty thuggery.

Lionel didn’t feel guilty for what he had done, nor did he feel regret at his early start on a life of crime. If he hadn’t been strong enough to escape he would have many regrets and crimes to think about. His will had been too much for his neglectful parents and he remembered the siblings he had once had. At least two other children had been born into his fetid home, neither of them surviving past infancy. His parents hadn’t been fazed by the losses, so he felt no obligation to grieve the absence of their guidance.

The only thing his parents would have been able to do was raise him to be as much a loser as they were.

The anger remained, as did a hot resentment toward anyone who tried to take away what he had or wanted. He was powerful because he was able to do whatever was necessary, and that included squaring off against his own son. Immutable family loyalty had never struck Lionel as anything other than a conceit.

The LuthorCorp public image was tied up in the hard luck story of his underprivileged youth in the Suicide Slums, with a few minor revisions. He knew people liked to be able to cling to a bit of veracity in the bulk of a lie. It was one of the few instances where the truth was more valuable. The average joe makes good angle had brought in more free publicity over the years than anything else he could have done.

Lionel hated that his past was known, even in a sanitized version that implied his innocent potential at a young age. He wanted to leave it behind forever never hear the questions about how it felt to rise to being a billionaire from being penniless. It was a trap of his own making back when he couldn’t afford to get the right people to talk to him. He’d never been able to shrug it off and it made him feel as unwashed as the teenage boy who had stood outside a burning tenement and resolved to be much better than he was.

He wondered who had decided the winners wrote the history books, because from his perspective he had won only to find everyone else writing his history for him and finding it lacking.

He’d bought a lot of things to rid him of the feelings of inferiority. Cars were first, then motorcycles. Homes that cost more than most people made in their lifetimes and had too many rooms for any single man to ever use. He had bought a lovely, fragile society wife and found out too late that she was even more dainty and easily broken than he had thought.

Lionel knew better than to pay very much for a woman anymore. He preferred to rent them for a few hours and send them away. His grasp of human relationships was slipping more each year he was alone, and he had little ability to mend his ways.

He had a son who barely spoke to him, another son who took his money but regarded him with suspicion, and two lonely graves to visit when he drank enough to become maudlin. His family was all but nonexistent, and he was dying.

Despair licked at his heels and he resisted the urge to physically kick it away. He was strong, stronger than anyone he’d ever known. The soft life of privilege wasn’t necessary and he could build it all again if he had to.

If he had time.

The doctor had tried to give him a sallow pep talk before delivering the news, but he wouldn’t have it. Pity wasn’t something a Luthor would accept from anyone.

“Mr. Luthor, I’m sorry to inform you that our test results have shown advancing tissue damage in your liver. Our best estimate is that you have no more than six months.”

The man might have seemed more sympathetic if Lionel hadn’t been blackmailing him to impregnate a teenage girl, but he still showed remarkable restraint in the telling. Many people wouldn’t have been able to withhold laughter at the idea of the Lionel Luthor they knew laid low by his habitual glass of high-priced liquor.

What the world didn’t know about him was that he’d been an alcoholic since before his voice had changed. Over the decades his choice of liquid mistress was so cheap it was homemade, then the most expensive, now it was a neat scotch in private like a trusted friend.

“What about a transplant,” he had asked, voice gruff with the shock of mortality catching up to him.

He would fight because it was all he knew. There were always options available to a man with money. He would live through this as he had through numerous attempts on his life.

“Your body would be too weak to sustain a new organ,” the doctor had said, “I’m sorry.”

Whichever medical school had trained him should get a massive endowment, Lionel thought. He can almost convince me that it won’t be a relief to see me dead.

“You’re apologized twice in the past thirty seconds. There is little consolation in it unless you can keep me alive. It is why I hired you, after all,” he said.

The blanching of the man’s face was obvious and he put down the test results to make a futile soothing gesture.

“I’m sor - Mr. Luthor, at this point all I can do is manage your pain.”

Lionel tapped his foot on the cheap tile floor and ignored the other man. Platitudes weren’t going to get them anywhere.

He had six months on the outside to settle his legacy. Half a year to create an heir and ensure that the boy would become a child he could be proud of. Half a year to force compliance from a young woman whose spine was the consistency of solid steel.

He had stood up quickly and walked out on whatever the doctor was prattling on about. It didn’t matter. Medicine had failed him in one way, but he had to make arrangements to get his heir and see him raised properly.

Looking over the lawn that had once hosted the only Luthor family picnic to include Lillian, Lex, Julian and himself, Lionel nodded sadly. Everyone in his life was lost to him, but he could have hope in his fourth son.

His hand wrapped comfortably around the tumbler of scotch and he allowed himself an ironic smile at his ruin and his salvation.

Such a small thing to do so much damage, but all great men started as small infants squalling in their mothers’ arms. He hoped the baby born of his union with Chloe Sullivan would be cut from the same cloth. He hoped many things for his little boy because it was all he could do for him.

He wouldn’t live to see the child born.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


“Hello.”

“Come in.”

Lex stepped back from the double doors to let Chloe pass and she noticed that he was careful to keep the distance precise; Far enough away that she wouldn’t have to brush his body, but close enough to touch if one of them reached out.

She wasn’t inclined to reach out, but she wasn’t feeling nearly as anxious as her previous two visits. There was nothing to fear if she just kept things under control. It seemed that Lex would follow her lead, and her emotions were under wraps for the time being. Avoiding Lionel for a few days was a small victory, but it was enough to get her in something approaching a good mood.

He waited until she was walking into the living room before looking her up and down. The outfit tonight was a sweater and designer jeans, both in a shade of indigo. Her boots were plain, but they set off the rest of the clothes, and long tweed jacket was hanging over her arm. She looked good and she seemed steady, which was encouraging for the next step.

“Can I take your coat,” he asked, and she nodded absently while looking out the windows. Lex moved up gradually until he was at her side and Chloe let him take the coat and drape it over his own arm.

He carried it back out to the entryway and hung it in the closet before walking to the bar. The drink he poured was only water, but the ritual was the most important part. Deep breaths were drawn in through his nose and allowed to drift back out through his lips, controlled and neutral.

Chloe was still facing away when Lex stepped toward her and spoke.

“How long do you have before someone misses you?”

And she realized she had done such a good job distancing herself from everyone that they might not miss her for days.

[Krysia]

I guess that after all these years of people seeing him as the devil and him acting like one Lionel forgot that he is mortal after all. I find it very interesting to see him strugling to, in a way, get a second chance. He strikes me as someone who is sure that if he has enough strenght and determination there is nothing [ even his own mortality ] to stop him from achieving what he desires. Mind over matter. He frightens me.
Wonderfull chapter :worship2: