The Upper Hand (R) 1/31/10

[purplemoon123]

Excellent chapter.

Well fuck, is that who I think it is??? This just got even more interesting!!

[superag]

A/N - Well, you don't find out who the person is just yet, but you get a little of Lex at work. Thanks again to Cypanache for reading through with me. Now on with the story.

The Billionaire Bus Boy – Chapter 6

Lex looked at the line of the clean dishes he had carefully stacked in the kitchen ready for the doors to open. He was there an hour earlier than he was required. He couldn’t sleep since the dinner he had with Chloe a couple of nights previous. He hadn’t seen her reappear at the Talon since that evening and was afraid that she may have handed all her power over to the courts to handle to avoid him.

Instead, he found himself rearranging the kitchen the way that the cook had asked Mark to allow him to do a week earlier. It was simple really; placement of the utensils and dishes made much more sense now for the cook to reach without strain or wasting time. It was a simple move from the cook’s perspective but Lex saw the bigger picture. Faster service, even by a few seconds, added up to more people moved in and out of the place equaling more profit. Not that he would see any at his hourly wage. The term gave him shivers.

He turned toward the back door opening and watched Mark walk into the office and immediately throw down the bundle in his hand before looking through the glass of the office and eyeing Lex’s strange expression. Walking out of the office, Mark eyed the rearrangement of the kitchen.

“I guess Mario talked to you too. I didn’t see why taking half a morning to rearrange made any difference. You aren’t getting overtime for this.” Mark shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at Lex.

He realized that Lex now was going to at least try to live in decent harmony, more like quiet servitude, for his time in the building. He had been wary when Chloe had first plucked him from his start up restaurant in Chicago after his six months of required therapy with was Isis was complete. He remembered every detail of his incarceration in Lex’s prison camp.

Hours Mark spent doing strange experiments as men bigger and tougher than he was even with his abilities stood over him with tasers and sleep serums. The serums had been the worst; the hangover from them made you hope your head exploded before the next round. He had lost a fourth of his body weight in the hole Luthor had him.

Chloe, though, reassured him that things would be completely different. For one, the physical trainers at the new gym were old bodyguards as well as Bates and several other undercover, unnamed, marksmen placed around the Talon throughout the day. Still he wondered when Lex would turn into the man he had seen from the other side of the glass box he was in.

Lex felt the strange vibe that Mark did as well. He watched Mark carefully walk around the simple kitchen as if he was the top chef in a five star restaurant looking at an inspection. Lex understood from the strained look on his face, though, Mark was deep in thought. He wasn’t the only one.

In the last couple of weeks, Lex had thought about Chloe’s choice for the boss. Mark wanted to be a restaurateur from the time that Lex’s men had taken him. At the time, Lex had chuckled at the man’s ability to erase memories, thinking it would have helped in the business by making critics forget how bad his little place really was.

But Mark had been an asset that Lex never quite counted on. One of the first acquisitions, Lex remembered Mark had been easily persuaded to host a business dinner in his place, obviously still very naïve to the Luthor meaning of business meetings at odd hours.

Watching Mark’s steps now, Mark acted as if every step could be his personal time bomb. Lex wondered if he had been able to rid his own memories of what his task had been, simply touching all those meteor infected before Lex returned them to their homes and families. Still, when Mark was found after the destruction of the Chicago holdings, the experiments were far from over. He only knew that Mark could erase up to a certain point in time and generally it worked better when the person was thinking of that moment at the time.

Now, Lex still wondered if Mark remembered Chloe from his work. He was careful to never speak to both of them as knowing each other before, but knew there had to be a reason for her choosing Mark. True, he had some sense of the restaurant business, but there was more he would hopefully figure out in time. Still, Mark had never been a bad patient and Lex somehow respected the man for not immediately lashing out at him when Chloe disappeared the first day.

But Lex knew from his research on Isis that Mark had great power that Chloe left him with. Lex would be cautious in putting the pieces together because Mark could easily turn the tables on him. Mark was Chloe’s fallback plan if she had one Lex thought. Now Mark held the reigns for Lex’s finality. Mornings when he was alone with Mark, he waited to see how long it would be before Mark simply lost his cool and took after him with a knife from the kitchen or better yet, touched him. Strangely, Lex wanted it to happen, to see what he would feel.

Realizing that the psycho babble in his brain was causing his loss of immediate focus, Lex watched as Mark passed him carefully in the narrow galley kitchen, eyeing his confusion. “The arrangement now causes less movement on Mario’s part. He can get orders out faster without having to walk around as much,” Lex simply explained hoping it would suffice. He wasn’t in the mood to get reprimanded by one of his old detainees.

“Fine.” Mark slipped his phone out of his pocket and walked out through the double doors as Lex continued to stack the last set of clean dishes and then roll his eyes at the stack of napkins that were kindly left the night before for him to fold this morning. Going green sucked, he thought as he trifolded the first one.

A few minutes later he glanced up and saw Mark break into a small grin. Mark didn’t generally grin in his direction and it made Lex feel odd. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“A favor from me? If you remember correctly, I’m the prisoner here.” Lex tried to make it sound like an insult to Mark to remind him where he came from but it didn’t exactly pan out.

“Jake just called and has mono. Apparently his college girlfriend and never mind,” he trailed as Lex sneered at him. “I need a bus boy hopefully just through Christmas. I know Chloe had said…”

“It’s fine. It’ll be nice to interact with people again.”

Mark looked unsure at Lex’s sideways comment. “You’re going to bus tables, not wait. Look, we open in thirty minutes and obviously you still have a lot to get done. I will be out front setting down the chairs and preparing for opening.” Mark turned and walked out of the kitchen as Lex chuckled slightly. He still had something, just enough to annoy the boss.

The breakfast crowd had been light for a Tuesday. Besides the few high school students that came in for breakfast tacos and the yoga class participants that came for wheat grass tea, the morning had been light. Lex had breathed a sigh of relief that besides a few errant glances and longer stares from high school girls, no one made a big deal of his being there.

The lunch crowd he was more concerned about, but was still on the light side. Lex wondered if the whole gym, yoga, sandwich shop was just a front for his incarceration because after seeing the crowds on the particular Tuesday, he wondered. Monday was always packed, Wednesday was good in the evening for the before youth group church crowd, and the weekends were packed. He had to come up with something for Tuesday.

He moved along to another table, holding the plastic bin on his hip white trying to keep it from touching anything but the apron he found in the kitchen. Slightly amused, he rolled his eyes every time he wondered what people thought of Lex Luthor in an apron.

“Any chance I could get a refill?” he heard from a female voice behind him. Turning around he eyed the brunette who moved to make herself obviously what she thought, more alluring. She waved the glass playfully in the air at him as she smirked.

“I’ll get your waiter,” Lex casually answered and started off before he felt a hand take his. Turning around, he looked down in his hand and pulled from the woman.

“Lex Luthor bussing tables. I know they had said you were working here as part of your, how should I put it, rehab. But certainly thought you would be doing something more along the lines of running the place.”

Lex eyed the woman before starting silently away from her. When she continued to raise her voice, he rolled his eyes. This was what he had been afraid of, what Chloe had been protecting him from. All of this to help out a supposed meteor freak from having to be short handed today. Walking back over in her direction, he put on the trademark smirk and sat down in the chair across from her.

Running his hand along her outstretched hand, he tipped his head slightly. “Six months ago, you could have easily had a story along with a nice pair of earrings. You’re a beautiful woman and obviously quite a vixen for when you need something. Probably very close to my type at one time. However, you can probably guess at my wage now and I’m guessing you’re only hear to catch the few lines for the Inquisitor that Chloe Sullivan has missed for the Daily Planet.”

The woman’s face curled up into a sneer as she pulled her hand from Lex’s, noticing now it was not as soft and perfect as she thought it would be. Lex leaned back in the chair and pointed behind his head before continuing. “Now, either you can sample the chicken Caesar salad, which is wonderful and probably all your bird size stomach could handle or as the sign says we can politely refuse to serve you.” Lex got up from where he was seated and pointed over in the direction of a pretty red haired girl. “Now, I’ll go get your server and you can decide.”

The woman sat stunned into silence as Lex Luthor smirked back in her direction and startled the red haired teenager out of her daze by pointing the woman out. The woman got up from her seat, threw down a few bills, and walked out as the little waitress walked up. She rolled her eyes and went back to her place at the bar waiting for someone else to take the seat. Lex walked over and cleaned the table.

Walking back past the teenage waitress, he handed her a five dollar bill that was part of his very unused stipend he was allowed a week. She looked down at the crisply folded note--the exact amount the woman had left her short on the bill--then back up at Lex. Lex just passed her, “it was on the couch,” but the little waitress knew better.

At the end of the day, he watched as Mark ran the totals in the office. Lex stared at the pile of dishes that had accumulated over the day while doing his job and bussing tables. Lowering another pile into the soapy water, he noticed it was what he now considered his free night since no one visited.

“Mark, the numbers today weren’t good?” Lex immediately got to the point of the question.

Mark looked in his direction and then at the pad in his hand. Lex put the small pad he had been secretly documenting what people had bought, what was advertised, and the tip amounts for the each waitress that were assigned that day.

“When did you find time to analyze this?”

“Cleaning tables isn’t exactly hard work, and it gave me time to think. Then during my lunch break, I took the relaxation class. Don’t look at me like that. I started noticing something, and if you’ll let me continue to work the floor someway I can help.”

Mark let out an exasperated sigh and pointed to the chair across the small desk from his. Lex took the pad and made a few more notes. “First, the special for Tuesday does not sell at all, not compared to Monday or Thursday. The vast majority of the clientele on Tuesdays seem to be the men’s lunch crowd that want to eat something for a lack of a better term, manly. They spend half an hour in that men’s relaxation class before they return to the school or work and your special is vegan for the day. That crowd runs on Wednesdays with the spinning group over from the community college in the big gym. Serve meat for men on Tuesday, period.”

Mark stared at Lex and the simple logic. “You were really good at what you did legally.”

Lex wasn’t quite sure if it was a question or a statement. He couldn’t buy it as a compliment either way. Leaving the piece of paper with his scrawled notes on it, he took his pad and disappeared upstairs to finish off Change your Brain, Change your Life. He sighed thinking of the chapter he was avoiding, “The Dark Side.”

*******

Things progressed quickly over the following couple of days. Lex continued staying quiet as more people showed up to quietly gawk at the billionaire that wiped down tables and pushed the broom across the floor during the lunch hour.

Lex actually didn’t mind as much as he thought he would for being put on display. Besides a few errant pictures and what he was sure was a few more videos shot by camera phones for youtube, people didn’t bother him. It was like a warning had been put out by the demeaning Inquisitor princess to not invade the Luthor territory, but he never heard if an article had been written or not.

He looked up from cleaning a table and nearly dropped the plastic bin that he was balancing against his hip. Standing up straight, he eyeballed the man that now met his stare.

“Lex,” he spoke casually as he walked up, trying not to act as if anything had ever been between them. But that was where the pleasantries ended. “I see that Chloe really has made good on her word. So how do you enjoy living like the other half?”

Lex stood up and pushed the plastic bin into the booth reminding himself he had to wipe it again later. “Clark, I would say it’s a pleasure but I would be lying. Are you here to eat or gawk like the other customers?”

Clark shook his head in disbelief that Lex still felt he had the power or audacity to even say something in his position now. Maybe Lex felt he was still above the law in some fashion. The smugness never seemed to waver, in the courtroom and now even in an apron. Leaning into him, Clark seethed, “I don’t know exactly why Chloe is sticking her neck out for you after all the hell you put her through, but if you ever take advantage of your situation or Chloe, the justice system won’t save you.”

Clark brushed by Lex and headed into the backroom, which led to another way into Mark’s office. Lex watched as his complete enemy said less to him in that one conversation than any others as of late, but still made his point. The conversation that Clark had with Lex only a few months earlier seem to hit him again. “There’s nothing that’s lost that can’t be found again.” Maybe everyone had given up on him; Clark was the last one to jump ship.

Lex let his shoulders drop slightly, picking up the bin and wiping the seat down, again hearing a camera phone click at the sight. The carnival act was the one thing he had problems living down every night, especially when he couldn’t see the results of the shots. He watched Clark again walk past him, glancing at him slightly before he left the building. There was something awkward about the moment he couldn’t put his finger on.

******

“Dammit,” he scowled at the porcelain bowl and sat back, knowing that the pants he wore would be deemed ruined if he had anything to say about it. He stared at the crystal white bowl in front of him and wanted to scream. He had rarely found something so frustrating in his life, much less while under the state’s care. He tried to imagine whether this was Chloe’s doing to have these tasks assigned to him or Mark’s just getting back at him.

Still, he was not going to give up on the task until it was finished. He looked at the parts that Mark had handed him in a bag as he explained the repairman was busy for two more days but the ladies room had to be fixed. Shaking his head, he wondered why the man had to throw out the directions if there had been any.

He heard the main door to the restroom open and groaned silently, “We’re closed.”

“I can see why, although I was thinking that most of the lights would be off, but see there’s a reason for this one to be on.” Chloe squatted unceremoniously next to the other side of the stall and leaned her head over. Even frustrated, Lex hampered a pseudo grin in her direction seeing her face all contorted. “Need help?”

“Are you offering because I look desperate or because you need the ladies room to work by tomorrow?”

“I would say the second one, but at this point, the look on your face says the first one. And no, we’re going to have to do this together. I haven’t the first clue.” Chloe stood back up as Lex stood up and pushed the stall door open.

“You should have installed the industrial toilets in here with the renovations,” he quipped wondering what kind of reaction he would get. His first run in with Chloe in what seemed like a week’s time, he didn’t want her to take off again.

Chloe eyed the thoughts that quietly went across his face. She had gotten better at reading the distinguishable. As if he had blatantly told her, Chloe shook her head. “He’s out of town today; some photo assignment with another reporter.”

“Ahh,” Lex casually dropped and let the uneasy unvocalized moment pass. Handing her the pieces that he was still confused about on the floor, he handed her the pieces he had managed to get out of the toilet to begin with.

The two leaned against the outside wall of the ladies restroom and assembled the ball and cock mechanism the same as the one that he had removed. Lex screwed the last piece in and turned on the water to a flood of spray followed by genuine laughter. “Here, I think we need to screw the bottom piece to the tank a little better,” she continued to giggle as Lex dried his face off on one of the towels that Chloe handed him.

“You think?” He shot her a dirty look as he continued tightening the grip on the undertank screw. Turning the water on once again, he felt for any leaks and nodded his head. “Finished.”

“Yes, you are,” Chloe responded. She leaned against the wall in the ladies room and stared at Lex as he walked over and looked in the mirror. “Don’t cry. It’s only water. Besides, don’t you feel accomplished that you’ll never have to call a plumber to do that again.”

“Great, I’ve saved $75.” Lex stopped from drying his face off and thought about the remark. Between learning to cook his own meals and fixing up the Talon, it felt strange becoming practical and in a manner of speaking self-sufficient. Glancing at Chloe from the mirror’s perspective, she simply stood with her arms across her chest in almost a smug pose. “I guess it could come in handy once I get out of here.”

It wasn’t quite what she had been fishing for from the experiment but he was getting closer. She reached for her bag that sat in the little powder room and pulled out a folder. “Here, it’s not good news but I think it’s better than what you could have been offered. I talked to your attorney and he pleaded with the judge. I told them I would bring them to you to look over. The trial date is set for February.

Lex followed Chloe out of the bathroom into the dark main floor of the sandwich shop and sat at one of the tables. Flipping through the documents, he continued to nodded and huff it seemed at every charge that continued to plague him. “Any idea on the punishment if these stand up?”

Chloe sat across from him as he flipped through the rest of the file. “No, like I said the trial is for another couple of months. Your attorney is trying the hasn’t he suffered enough plea but I don’t think it’s going to work.”

Lex silently bit his lip as one eyebrow quickly quirked. He knew that plea was dead in the water. “Thanks. Can I…”

“They’re yours. If you think of any notes you want to make, let me know.” Chloe looked at her watch and smiled. “I..”

“Yeah, it’s late. I have workcamp tomorrow morning. Tell me something, why if you had a say in my incarceration did you not fight the whole weekend warrior digging trenches on the side of the road plan?”

Chloe stood up and threw her coat on before grabbing her keys from inside her purse. She turned back and looked at Lex who simply stood and stayed standing when she stood. She tried not to giggle at the strange mental image that made her feel dirty and warm all at the same time. “I thought the people, women in particular, would enjoy seeing you sweat. At least I used to.”

Chloe walked out of the front door and locked it, not making eye contact with Lex after the comment. He tried to force the small grin down off his face remembering what she was talking about. Those years ago, in her and her father’s own hiding place, she and Lex would try to outdo each other, her on the elliptical trainer and he on the treadmill. Running his hand along his chin, Lex went upstairs quickly and changed before disappearing into the small gym that he never noticed before was set up just like he had done for her years ago.

TBC

[toryjhay]

I loved the alliteration, Billionaire bus boy, hee! Look at Lex, all productive. He seems to be coping pretty well, if I were in his place, well it would have been a tad humiliating. Loved how he took care of that woman, go Lex! And still business savy, that Lex. At least the Mark guy seems open to his ideas, I would be too if the person giving it is particularly adept at business. Sparse as it was, the Chlex interaction was just awesome! Can't wait for more!!!

[hfce]

That was god. Lex seems to pick up things quickly. Good for him in handling that girl and the toilet. I can't wait to see how things go in the next round.

[glista]

love the story,can't wait for next chapter

[purplemoon123]

Love business savvy Lex!!!

“I thought the people, women in particular, would enjoy seeing you sweat. At least I used to.”

Well, Chloe is right. A sweating Lex, especially if he's shirtless is an awesome sight to see!!

[dagney]

I like how you haven't changed or sugar coated the awful things Lex did. I'm enjoying this story as it is showing Lex that he possibly might have redemption. I liked the scene with Clark and the CHLEX moment of course. Dagney

[lexie]

Wonderful update. I particularly enjoyed the way Lex handled the yellow-press reporter and the fixing of the toilet.

I wonder what Mark´ll say or do if he ends up following Lex´s advice.

I´m looking forward to your next update and hope you´re still working on Heeding the Call.

My fics:


COMPLETE FICS
Second Chances
Payback Time
The Love of Two Men
Hope and Happiness
The Countdown
Shadows from the Past
Finding the Way Back
The Real Thing
The Christmas Gift
Addicted
The Naked Truth
Crossing Paths and its sequel
Rebuilding

[Kit Merlot]

A lovely update!

I really like that you are having Lex still thinking of the best way to run the business, even if it is a trenfy sandwich shop

Lex is taking the public gawking at him with remarkable ease, but once again, Clark has to stick his big nose in and make a scene. I still can't believe that he is working at The Daily Planet as a reporter with Chloe--you just now that she writes rings around him

And good for Chloe for teasing Lex and reminding him of their old joke--there's hope for Lex winning Chloe back yet

Keep up the fabulous work on this fic.

[lilinny]

A Fantastic chapter!

Can't wait for more.