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

[Impress]

Originally posted by zelda@Dec 23 2004, 10:46 AM
Holy Shit!

yeah that.


You know..this is one of the very few stories where I don't like the MB in all his glory. And to top it off, I'm all for killing him off. Says alot considering I like the MB.

Intense and good so far. More soon.

[crankychick]

An amazing update on almost-Christmas. I'm just floored, really. :worship2: :crygreen: :worship2: :crygreen: :worship2: :crygreen:

[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 Eight



There was no way to describe the sound Lex made, but it shot out of his mouth seemingly independently, a gravely tone. His head tilted all the way back as he ran a palm over his scalp, then tilted all the way forward to direct his eyes to the floor. He looked at small segments of the carpeting, dully wondering how much worst things could become.

He made me his weapon and I didn’t even bother to ask a single question, Lex thought. I didn’t want to give him the upper hand by showing curiousity. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Has he ever . . . touched you?”

Chloe could hear the question hurting him as he asked it and knew he was as disgusted by the idea as she was.

“No, he doesn’t want to give me anything to use against him,” she said quietly.

It was illegal for a 17 year old to have sex with someone older than 24, conveniently Lex’s age. His father couldn’t fuck her yet so he had his son do it, had arranged a scenario that would ensure he was as inconsiderate to Chloe as possible.

Luthor family politics were twisted, but the personal interactions were Freudian to the extreme.

Lex had been his mother’s ally against his father his entire life, had taken on the guilt of his younger brother’s death to preserve the image of his late mother. He still dreamt of her sadly relieved face as she looked from the stilled little body in the crib to her older son and told him he was beyond hope.

She had killed Julian to save him from becoming his father’s son, to prevent him from becoming Lex, then she had died and there was no one standing with him against Lionel. He had done what he needed to do to keep a part of himself, and at the tender age of 11 had made the same choice Chloe had made - it was better to work for Lionel than to openly defy him. Carved out bits of yourself fed to the monster to keep it at bay.

The arrogant billionaire was like a star burning itself out, pulling parts of the world out of existence with him and showing no signs of going quietly. He had been ruined decades ago and he was zealously seeking out others like himself to ruin in turn, building a staff of minor devils for his office in hell.

Lionel never targeted the weak because they were not challenging enough. Instead he found a strong person and weakened them with shallow cuts to their will and their morality. By the time they were of no more use he could deliver the killing blow and discard them.

Dad was a word that tasted like ashes when Lex said it, and mom was a word he didn’t own since the first time someone had innocently said ‘you’re just like your father.’ Lillian Luthor would never want a son like him unless he could change.

It was possible, he hoped. He could save Chloe.

“Why did Lionel send you to me if he wants you?”

The blunt question made her press her legs closer together and he regretted that he had never had a civilizing influence to teach him sensitivity. This brave young woman deserved some form of comfort he was helpless to provide.

“He said . . . deflowerings were tiresome and he’d let you do the . . . “ She choked up and braced herself back into the chair. “ . . . dirty work.”

He would have thrown some furniture, but he was gutted by green eyes filled with tears and didn’t want to frighten her. She glowed with pure suffering and it was beautiful in a way, mesmerizingly real. It was obvious why Lionel had wanted her, and Lex was determined he would never have her.

Chloe sniffled and swallowed back more tears.

“He also said he wanted to see how you would deal with what he called ‘a character-defining quandary,’” she said. “He wanted to have something to hang over your head.”

This little blond high school student was the latest acquisition in the arms race between father and son Luthor. Maybe she would be the one to decide the victory.

“He wanted you to be able to press charges, and for me to be aware of that threat,” Lex said, and she nodded.

“Without the full disclosure I’m providing now, of course. I don’t think it would ever occur to him that I would recognize the possibilities of meeting you or that I would choose to trust you.”

Lex started coughing and Chloe handed the bottle of water to him, watching as he drank deeply and caught his breath.

“You shouldn’t trust me, Chloe, I raped you less than an hour ago,” he said angrily, his free hand closing into a fist.

I’m not trustworthy, he thought. She’s sitting there with blood drying on her thighs and talking about trusting me. It’s a travesty.

The physicality of the act was Lex’s, but the violation was Lionel’s. She was no child to be blinded to their equal status as his father’s victims.

Chloe’s hand reached out and lay on his, and he looked at it in wonder.

“You didn’t rape me, he did, and it happened the first time he looked down my shirt and told me he could afford to buy and sell my life with his pocket change.”

Lex didn’t know what to say to that, so he stayed absolutely still underneath her hand and tried to understand her forgiveness. Hate was common, lack of it was completely foreign to him. He was shocked and silent when light fingers pulled back and she fidgeted with the towel wrapped around her.

“Hell, I’m sorry, you probably want to get cleaned up.”

Lex glanced toward the bathroom and remembered the heap of bloody towels. He wanted to have the entire building razed to forget the shame he felt when her hand discreetly rubbed over her belly.

She needed to get this deal finished, and Chloe shook her head.

“I’d prefer to finish our discussion.”

The wording was too serious for a girl her age, and Lex wondered how old she felt. He knew he felt ancient.

“Okay. How long until . . . your birthday,” he asked. It was as much tact as he could muster.

“Five weeks.”

He thought about the business trips scheduled in that time and resolved to cancel them all. He wouldn’t be able to protect Chloe from overseas and Lionel usually left most of the traveling up to junior executives, so he would be within reach. Lex didn’t doubt his patience was already being tested, his appetite for the girl whetted by the idea of her innocence and fear.

“If you and I combine our efforts we should be able to gather enough evidence to submit to the FBI,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel.

She shrugged off his reassurance and rubbed her forehead. The painkillers that were soothing her body were irritating her head and stomach, and she retrieved the bottle of water to take a sip. Lex kept talking when it seemed like she didn’t have a reply.

“I’ve been investigating his business practices for the past several years and I have about half of the information. I just need to get the paper trail together.”

“He knows Morgan Edge,” she blurted.

Lex recognized the name of the infamous organized crime lord, but it wasn’t a big surprise. His father knew a lot of unsavoury people, many more than the few decent ones he duped into believing he was an upstanding businessman.

He smiled gently at the girl and tried to break it to her.

“I can’t work with that, there’s no such thing as guilt by association. Edge knows a lot of people and so does Lionel. There are probably hundreds of legitimate reasons why they have contact.”

Chloe looked at him significantly.

“But they knew each other in the Suicide Slums before your grandparents were killed.”

He froze, looked at her with new respect, then steepled his fingers. His mind raced but he reined himself in. There was no point in endless speculation they couldn’t support by evidence.

“Can you document it?”

“I have police records that put them in the same kids’ gang and in the same neighbourhood,” she said. “There was, uh, an insurance policy that paid out a few weeks after the fire, and shortly after that they both moved on and started their current careers.”

He murdered his own parents.

Lex’s head reeled as he realized how long Lionel had been a sociopath. It had started long before his wife and son had died, long before family life had failed him and business had become his priority.

She waited for him to say or do something, then reached out to touch his arm, but Lex flinched away.

“I’m sor-”

“Don’t be sorry for anything.”

His voice was hard and his blue eyes were bright with anger. She gaped at the difference it made. He was suddenly alive.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright . . .

He regretted snapping at her and turned apologetic eyes to hers.

“I’m sorry for all of this, Chloe. If you help me I’ll make this right. He’ll never touch you and yours,” he said. “It goes without saying that what happened tonight never will again.”

Green eyes shut tightly and she shook her head vigorously. Her hand came out again and he let her close it over his forearm, wished she could hurt him with her grip like he had her.

“But I need it to happen again.”

[crankychick]

Luthor family politics were twisted, but the personal interactions were Freudian to the extreme.

I think I'll starting breathing again sometime tomorrow. uke: Oh, Lionel, what a bastard you are. I hope Lex makes you pay

[buddyfozzy]

Originally posted by nonky@Dec 24 2004, 03:44 AM
“But I need it to happen again.”

What does she mean? You can't just leave us hanging, come back! uppyeyes:

I love how they are going to work together to bring Lionel down. :worship2: :worship2: :worship2: :worship2:

[Charmeye]

:worship2:

The emotion in this fanfic is just incredible!! Wow. I've never been so rivited by this aftermath 'talk' that they're having. You have me sitting on the edge of my seat and checking every day for an update. So please, soon...more. Can't wait for the two of them to kick Lionel's pervy butt!!!

Charmeye

:chlexsign3:

[zelda]

“But I need it to happen again.”

WTF? :huh:

Anyway, good update, keep em coming

[autumngold]

I'm so, so happy that Lex is going to help Chloe!! Thank you for the two great updates!! I can't wait for more, especially an explanation of Chloe's last statement!! Post again soon please!! :yay2: :chlexsign4: :yay2:

[tiger04]

Loved the new update. Very Happy that lex is going to help chloe. The whole Lionel thing I was like hmy: but I can see Lionel doing something like that.

“But I need it to happen again.”

Does it have to happen again, so A it's not always a bad feeling when coming to sex or B Lionel is going to "send" chloe to lex again?

Hope you have time to update with more soon. I can hardly wait.

AT

[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 Nine


No one needs what I just did to her on that bed, Lex thought. No one would want that.

“Don’t worry. If he sends you to me again I’ll refuse.”

Chloe let go of Lex’s tensed arm and wrapped hers around her middle. She felt herself start to cry for the third time, or maybe just continue the crying that had only been paused. Her face was damp and the tears made the bite on her lip sting.

But she cleared her throat and looked at him as she spoke. This was more important than her own life.

“He won’t send me again, you’ll have to ask me back. If you don’t he’ll have me right where he wants me.”

She looked more jittery than she had been earlier and Lex grimaced as he tried to run through the possibilities. If Lionel was content to wait another month what could be so urgent?

“I’m going to need specifics,” he said, wishing for a drink to cut some of the insatiable anger.

“About six months ago, Lionel switched me to his personal physician. He said it was to prepare for our upcoming change of relationship. I was given the standard STD tests and put on the birth control pill, except I had an allergic reaction to it and they gave me a birth control implant instead.”

Chloe slid her fingers idly over a patch on her upper arm, over the implant, Lex assumed.

“I had the leftover pills tested and they were just placebos. I think I’m on the implant now so I don’t have any way to find out what I’m really being given,” she said.

Her eyes turned to all sides of the room and settled on the armrest of her chair, a deep sigh raising her chest.

“I think he wants to get me pregnant.”

The statement dropped down on his shoulders like one of Lionel’s occasional insincere hugs. Lex tried to deny it but his mind had been sketching the same conclusion from the first word of her explanation.

His head shook unknowingly, and his face softened as he looked at Chloe. She was holding so much up, the entire little town from the sound of it.

“He’s been talking a lot about you and your childhood,” she said, apologetic that she knew such intimate family secrets. “He keeps saying things about ‘inferior genes’ and ‘unfortunate lapses.’ Talking about feeling sorry that he will have to leave LuthorCorp to you or Lucas.”

“I’ve always been a disappointment to him, he’s made no secret of that.”

Lex took the insults calmly, and Chloe wondered how many times the crude dismissals of his father had fallen on his ears. Wondered how he had survived Lionel so long. She shook her head and made herself keep talking. Once it was started the truth had to be told.

“And Lionel mostly refers to Lucas as being unruly. He’s obsessed with the future of LuthorCorp after his death and he wants someone other than you or Lucas to run it. He wants another son.”

His eyebrow rose up in question and she reached down into the overnight bag, pulling out a file folder.

“I broke into the doctor’s office and copied both his and my files. I’m getting a mixture of fertility drugs and also an experimental drug that should increase my chances of conceiving a male child.”

Lex took the folder and opened it, skimming through the poor handwriting and deciphering the pharmacological jargon. She was right about the implant, and his father was taking hormones as well.

“They’re boosting his sperm production, and they’re treating him for a some unspecified liver disease that might be fatal,” Chloe said.

He flipped through the heavy sheaf of papers and found the last page. The doctor’s prognosis was that Lionel could have as little as a year, or another forty. It wasn’t clear, but they were suggesting he err on the side of caution and submit to regular monitoring of his health.

They also suggested that he make any attempts to have another child as soon as possible.

“That goddamned bastard,” he whispered. He didn’t know much about his parents’ marriage before he was born, but there was at least some evidence that Lionel had bothered to romance his mother instead of terrorizing her.

They tell him that he might be dying and he goes out to trap a teenage girl into his bed to use her as a brood mare.

“Yes, he really is. But he won’t touch me if he thinks I might already be pregnant by you; his pride wouldn’t allow it. He wants to know definitively that I would be carrying his child,” Chloe said. “Which is why I have to come back here regularly.”

Lex hated to break it to her, but that wouldn’t be a workable lie.

“I’m sure you know that my father has spies everywhere watching everything I do. He knows my sexual habits and that I never fail to use a condom. I’m sorry, Chloe, but he wouldn’t buy it.”

She disagreed and leaned forward in the chair to emphasize her point.

”He told you I would be a different experience, and that I was a gift, right?”

He nodded uncomfortably, reluctant to recount the other words Lionel had used. His polished veneer of class wore thin when he was talking to his sons, especially about women.

“Well, he told me to do whatever you asked. What if whatever you asked was to take advantage of my inexperience to go without protection for a change?”

Her green eyes sparkled with intellect and desperation, and Lex wished he could tell which was prevalent. She seemed to know Lionel at least as well as he did, and was certainly quite bright to have formed the strategies she was using. His father would admire those talents and was apparently choosing her to pass them on to his fourth son.

Unless her ruse worked.

“Wouldn’t it be sufficient for you to meet me here, stay for a few hours and let him assume we had sex?”

She sneered and rolled her neck.

“No, because I have a standing appointment every week with the doctor, and he has been instructed to do a pelvic exam each time,” she said. “They will know the difference between the appearance of sex and actual penetration. They’ll also be able to tell Lionel if I’ve conceived in the five previous days. He’ll be convinced because I’m supposed to believe I can’t get pregnant, and he always thinks he’s fooled me.”

Lex managed a laugh at her last smug comment. Clearly Lionel was labouring under quite a few misapprehensions with Chloe. It might just be enough.

He stood up to pace and marveled at how similar her methods against his father were to his own. It had taken him years to get to a balance of confrontation, acceptance and looking the other way.

“Chloe,” he said, turning to meet her eyes. “It doesn’t have to be me you’re sleeping with. After tonight I can’t imagine that would be your choice.”

Her chin lifted proudly and she frowned.

“It was my choice tonight. I never said no.”

He wanted to argue that, but he couldn’t get into a fight with her after everything else.

“I just meant if you had someone you cared about . . . “

He realized the cruelty as he said it. If Chloe did have someone she wanted for a lover it would be different for her now. Tainted by him. Her mouth was pressed tightly closed and she was looking down sadly, but her voice came out clearly.

“You’re the only man I can touch who won’t be in danger from him if he thinks you’ve made me pregnant, Lex. There’s no one else unless I just sneak off and get laid with a complete stranger once every couple of days.”

She ached to say Clark’s name, to go to him and have his arms wipe all of this strife away. He always made it better somehow, even though he didn’t consider her anything but a friend. But he was the reason she needed to do this, the absurd reason she had to sleep with another man while convincing a third she would sleep with him as well.

Lex walked over to the bed and sat at the foot. He wondered if Chloe would survive even if he got her out of his father’s clutches. His fingers brushed a bit of loose fabric and he looked down to see her crumpled stockings. Picking them up, he noticed they were ripped.

“This is surreal.”

Chloe had said it, but he felt it as well. It bounced around in his head and echoed off the cacophony of thoughts that would keep him up for days.

“These are ruined,” he said, tossing the stockings into the trash.

A lot of things are, she thought.

They retired to other bedrooms to shower, and Chloe left the penthouse before 11 p.m. She was invited back.