Category: C/Lex UST, Lex/m (Krycek) slash AU
Rating: PG for m/m negotiation.
Disclaimer: My betas, they did tell me / Alphas did tell me too / Girl, that show you've been fooling 'round with / It ain't no good for you / But that's all right / Yeah that's all right / That's all--right, now slashfen / Anyway, it's the WB....
Spoilers: General first season, especially "Tempest."  Basically ignores "Vortex," which makes it a great big AU start to finish.
Notes: For the CLFF challenge.
Challenge: Nixon follows through with his threat to expose Clark with his "auction." (Henry Jones Jr.)
Thanks to: Eliza and Gwendolen for the emergency beta!
Summary: There are still favors Lex can call in.
Part of the ClexFest at http://www.kardasi.com/Lexclusive/ClexFest

Sitting frozen at his new desk, Lex stared at the creased and tattered piece of paper in his hands for long minutes before he crumpled it again and pitched it across the room.  It wasn't his office, so it didn't bounce off the pool table or roll under the couch--it just lay there, white against the dark marble floor, the empty floor in this untouched part of the castle.  From somewhere above, the hammering of the remodeling crew echoed down through the thick stone walls, but he couldn't separate it from the pounding in his skull, the headache that was narrowing his vision with a migraine throb.

Three days since the storm had rolled over the town and knocked it flat, and Lex couldn't remember sleeping for more than a few hours since it all began.  A broken, edgy sleep as he waited by his father's bedside had sustained him this far, but he was fraying at the edges, and it was only going to get worse.  He couldn't sleep, though, even if he wanted to--there was too much he had to do.  Now, while his father was still weak, more medicated than conscious--things like having the castle repaired and transferred to his name and pushing the buy-out of Plant Three through the Board by any means necessary.

And not with the help of anyone in Smallville, either.  He'd asked men to mortgage their homes for the sake of their future, for the sake of his dream, but the storm had changed all that.  They'd be looking to their insurance companies, to rebuilding if they stayed at all, and Lionel owned the bank.  Anyone who backed Lex now would be lucky to get a checking account when Lionel was back on his feet.

So Lex had done it himself.  Drained every resource he had and driven a bargain that made even his father's drones eye him with new respect.  Fertilizer Plant No. 3 was his, free and clear.

Too late or much too soon to help Clark now.

Lex, the note he'd wadded up for the third time began, mockingly confident with the use of his name.  Last time we talked, I believe I mentioned proof.  Out of respect for the friendly working relationship we've always had, I thought I'd give you the chance to bid first on my discovery.  I'm giving you until midnight tomorrow to come to an arrangement.  Call anytime if you want to arrange a viewing--I'm sure you'll find it worth your while.

No signature, but he didn't need one.  He knew exactly who it was from and exactly what Nixon wanted--and he couldn't give it this time.  Not because he didn't want to, but because he didn't have it.  For a Luthor, he was as good as broke--he had the salary he drew as manager and now owner of the plant, the interest and dividends on a few investments he hadn't been able to touch, relics like his mother's art collection and jewelry that he never even thought about.  They were just there, pieces of his life like the face that looked back at him in the mirror every day, but he would have sold them all if he thought he could raise the price Nixon would ask.

Millions.  Tens of millions, hundreds even.  He could have done it if it wasn't for the plant, but there was no way he could back out of the deal now.  The papers were already signed, thousands of people counting on him--an entire town, when he considered how interconnected the economy of this place was, everything revolving around the plant and the yearly crop.  Lives hinging on LuthorCorp and the weather, and Lex didn't know which was the more unpredictable in the long run.  He liked to think he was better than that, better than his father, but it was his fault Roger Nixon was interested in the Kents at all.

There was a glass of scotch sitting untouched on his new, empty desk--empty because insomnia was amazing for productivity.  The plant was taken care of, the town was as close to safe as he could make it, and his father was resting comfortably with the best drugs the doctors would prescribe.  The only one he couldn't account for--the only one he was failing--was Clark.

Picking up his drink, Lex stared into its depths for a long moment before tossing it back and hefting the empty tumbler in his hand.  He wanted to send it sailing after Nixon's crumpled note, the sharp, freeing chime of shattering glass appealing to that part of him his father had tried to crush by sending him here.  Instead, he set it down with meditative gentleness, so carefully it didn't even make a sound against the desktop, and reached for the phone.

It rang four times before it went to voice mail, but he hadn't expected this call to be answered live.  He'd be lucky if this call was answered at all.

...At the sound of the tone, leave your name and number....

He closed his eyes, wishing he'd poured another glass before he got this far.  Wishing he'd been cold enough, ruthless enough, to leave his office three nights ago without offering his hand or looking back.  From where he sat, he could see at last that his choices had been dwindling down to this moment from the very beginning, and there had never been any way out--he was going to be a killer one way or the other, and only the methods would change.  Somehow, he was the only one who hadn't seen it.

"It's Lex," he said after the beep stopped shrilling in his ear.  "I need a favor, by tomorrow night.  I'm in Smallville...give me a call if you can."

If he would, this...unpredictable dispenser of favors that Lex had never called on before.  Never, though he'd heard enough rumors to suspect he knew others who had.  They weren't how he knew the number.

Before tonight, the reasons he'd called Alex Krycek were never about business.

Too bad all that was going to change.

Fifty hours awake and running non-stop, and he still couldn't sleep.  Pacing the empty rooms of the castle, he drifted past the detritus of reconstruction, scaffolding and masonry and tools discarded as the afternoon edged toward midnight.  The staff were all in bed, like he should have been, and he left all the lights off to keep them from getting up again.  Right now, he wanted privacy, time and room to think about choices and lies.

Some days he didn't know why lying to Clark hurt the way it did.  It wasn't like Clark never lied to him in return--Clark had been lying a lot longer than he had, right from the very beginning if he let himself think about it.  Maybe he could understand it if Clark had been the only mutant in town, the only one the meteor rocks had ever affected, but Clark was nowhere near the worst, and they weren't all bad.  There'd been Cassandra, after all, and though the old woman still gave him nightmares, she hadn't been out to hurt anyone.  Not even him.

Clark, though...Clark just didn't make sense.  Lex had had invisible stalkers in his home, thieves who could walk through walls, the lake outside the castle turned to ice in a moment.  What the meteors did wasn't a secret, not to anyone who spent five minutes in Smallville.  And Clark had saved him so many times...how could Clark think Lex would hold what he was against him?

It wasn't worth worrying about now, though.  The lies he wanted to focus on were Nixon's, because the whole town had been talking about the buyout when he'd gone into the plant that morning, and Nixon had to know Lex couldn't come up with enough money to keep the man quiet.  Nixon was just...playing with him, twisting the knife a little now that Lex couldn't touch him.  Lex almost didn't blame the man, but that didn't mean forgiveness.

Hovering in the doorway of the salle, Lex watched the moonlight spilling in through the tall windows, flickering as wispy clouds drifted low across the sky.  Right beside his head, a neat little hole mocked him from the wall, driven there by the force of a thrown foil the day he met Clark.  He'd been angry that afternoon, angry about losing the match with Heike, for being exiled to this nowhere place, and then...along came Clark, reminding him that once again he should have died and hadn't.  It had to mean something--all those chances, all the possibilities he'd been given.

He hadn't let them fix the hole he'd made.  Sometimes he liked to come down here instead of out to the garage, stroke his fingers over the small irregularity in wood and plaster and remind himself of destiny.  Much more soothing than meditating on the twists and turns of crumpled steel.

"Haunting your own castle, Lex?" a familiar voice rasped behind him, lips practically brushing his ear, but Lex didn't jump.  The castle was quiet and still around them, no bustle of security or discreet alarms to break the silence--but this time, the visitor was not just dangerous but expected.  Welcome.  And probably not happy at all.

"Everyone needs hobbies," he answered with a casual shrug, turning slowly to smile up at his guest.

Alex Krycek was a study in contrasts, even in the dim grey light from the windows.  His face was still too pretty to match the cold watchfulness of his eyes, though his eyes were unabashedly beautiful.  Deep green, framed by lashes as long as a woman's, they were the only thing about him that really fit the man inside the carefully distracting image.  Black leather and gloves, dark hair always a little too long or a little too short, that perfect smoky tenor and the coil of deadly energy that never seemed to relax.  It was an excellent disguise, tailored to suggest 'whore' and 'thug,' not 'killer' and 'spy.'  Lex knew better.  One look, years ago, and he'd known.

Alex smiled back, but it was too dark to tell whether it reached his eyes or not.  "Yours are usually a little more interactive."

Which could be an invitation, unless it was a suggestion that they get down to business.  Lex wouldn't know--he'd always cleaned up his own messes or left it to his father's drones to take care of.  The only thing he was sure of was that he needed a drink.

"I didn't say they were interesting hobbies."  Stepping around Alex, he dared a touch on the other man's arm, the right one, always the right.  He wasn't fool enough to try dragging the other man anywhere--like this was any other night, where such liberties were allowed--but he asked Alex to follow with a brief brush of contact.  Hoping he hadn't fucked this odd almost-friendship beyond remedy.

Alex trailed him without a word, eerily quiet as they wove their way through the halls and the abandoned trappings of reconstruction.  Lex almost let habit steer him up to his bedroom, but he changed course at the last moment, aiming for his new office.  "Sorry," he muttered as he opened the door and stalked towards the bar, turning on the desk lamp as he passed.  For the first time, he felt uncomfortably nervous in Alex's presence, and he wasn't quite sure how to deal with it.  "The fucking storm took out my office and half the living quarters.  I'm not even sure I have a room at the moment, but at least they saved my computer...."

He found two glasses and poured for each of them--vodka this time, out of respect for his visitor--but the bottle clinked against the glasses because his hands were shaking and it was all finally catching up.  The town was a mess, he was a mess, Clark's life was over, and Alex had to be looking at him the way Lex looked at everybody.  Friends didn't call in this kind of favor.  If he lost Clark too, Lex would be all alone.

Light fingers stroked down his neck from the base of his skull to his collar, and he did jump this time, setting the bottle a down little too hard.  It was startling, that touch, but welcome, needed.  He couldn't help it--he dropped his head and breathed, just breathed, asking wordlessly for more.  Another stroking caress followed the first, Alex's hand trailing down over his shoulder as a warm, wet mouth began to explore his nape and...now he was relaxed.  Enough to say this, at least.

"I'm sorry, Alex.  I...didn't mean to ever do this."

"That's all right," Alex murmured against his neck, but Lex was pretty sure it wasn't all right.  It wasn't that Alex disliked what he did--he just disliked the people he did it for.  And it was hard to think with someone pressed tight against his back, hot and hungry, but he couldn't afford distraction now.  That was what had gotten him here in the first place.

"No, it's not.  I--if I could have paid this guy off, I would have, but...Dad was going to close the plant, so I bought it, and...Alex, I can't even pay you right now," he whispered, feeling a shudder race through him as Alex nuzzled his collar aside and licked at his throat, slow and unhurried.

"What does he have on you?" Alex asked, teeth grazing lightly over skin as his arm wound around Lex's chest, fingers circling delicately.

"Not me," Lex breathed, leaning into Alex's warmth and pushing his hips back against the other man's cock.  "A friend.  He's...different.  He can do things.  He saved my life...."

Alex's fingers stilled, and the mouth that had been devouring his neck paused and lifted slowly.  Caught up in sensation, Lex had only the most fleeting impression of being studied and weighed before Alex rubbed his cheek against Lex's with a faint sigh.  "And this man has something on him.  Proof of that...difference?"

"Yeah."  Something had just shifted between them, and Lex didn't dare ask himself what.  It was enough, just now, to relax into Alex's careful embrace, his own hands reaching back to Alex's hips and holding on.  "He's talking about selling it to the highest bidder.  There's videotape, I'm sure...maybe photographs, negatives...I don't know what.  But it's something big."

"You don't know.  You don't even know how different this friend of yours is, do you?"

Lex shook his head, staring into the shadows as he felt his throat go tight.  Ridiculous.  He was just tired, that's all....  "No.  But I can guess.  I told you about the meteors, right?"

Alex chuckled, the vibration traveling through Lex's spine as warm breath puffed against his neck.  "Yes, and I'm glad you did."  Which sounded like...but if Alex had been...changed....

"It's probably just that, but...I don't know.  There've been...rumors."  Rumors of a ship, but that couldn't be it.  Just look at Clark--he was so human, Lex thought it must hurt.

"You're really freaked about this, aren't you?" Alex asked, something almost admiring in his voice.

Lex closed his eyes and swallowed, hard.  "He's my friend."  It was the only thing he could bring himself to say, could bring himself to think, but it was enough.  Alex nodded once against his cheek, arm tightening at last into a real embrace.

"All right.  Do you know where I can find this man, or do you need to set up a meet?"

Alex would do it.  Not that he'd ever quite questioned, not since the moment Alex's voice came purring into his ears, but relief washed over him nonetheless.  "I'll set something up.  This guy's persistent, though.  He'll just keep trying if...."

"I understand."  Of course he did...but there were lips against Lex's throat again, not quite as hungry as before but more real.  Interested, teasing, taking their time, and it was so fucked-up that he could read Alex's mouth better than he could Alex's words, the body more than the face--and they were a long way from Lex's club-hopping days and Alex's increasingly determined attempts to wean himself from some oblivious federal agent, but some things never changed.

For the moment, Lex was forgiven, and Clark's life was still his own.

Lex was just getting off the phone with Clark when Alex returned, hours before Nixon's midnight deadline.  Funny, how inquiries about Lex's dad and casual queries about what the farm might need fit so well with the ache that flared every time Lex shifted in his chair.  It was probably a bad idea, talking to Clark while feeling the after-effects from Alex's idea of 'catching up.'  Clark's voice, coupled with the residual burn Alex had left behind....  His dick was going to get ideas the next time he saw Clark, and explaining that would put all his previous spin attempts to shame.

Alex just gave him a look when he hung up, the other man leaning in the doorway with a small cardboard box resting casually on his hip.  It wasn't quite a grin that twisted Alex's mouth, but it was smug enough to wear the name despite that.  Lex wanted to glare back, but somehow he just couldn't.  Not when he'd just been talking with Clark, and not with Alex standing there practically radiating success.

"Whatever you're about to say, if it involves the words 'cute' or 'domestic,' just save it," Lex grumbled at last, pushing his chair back.  Crossing the still-unfamiliar room, he was struck with a sudden return of last night's embarrassed hesitance, but Alex just swung the door shut and came to meet him, holding out the box.  Taking it gingerly, he stared down with a strange fluttering in his stomach, wondering why he didn't feel more relief than he did.  It should have been a weight off his shoulders, knowing that Clark's secrets were safe and Nixon was out of the picture, but something was pulling him down instead, heavy as despair.  He had blood on his hands now, and never mind that it was Alex who'd actually...done whatever needed doing, but he didn't think that was it.

He had Clark's secrets.  All of them.  Right here in a battered cardboard box, and never mind that he still hadn't given up hope that Clark would break down and tell him one day--he didn't have to wait anymore if he didn't want to.  If he knew what Clark was, at the very least, he could protect his friend better....

"I don't...I don't know what you usually take for--"

"Lex."  Alex's calm, quiet voice interrupted his distracted babble, and Lex looked up with gratitude shining--he just knew it--in his eyes.  Alex definitely got a chuckle out of whatever spectacle he was making of himself, and the other man's voice was unexpectedly kind when he answered.  "You asked for a favor.  One day, I'll ask you for one--maybe a favor from LexCorp, or the President.  I may need a pardon by then," he added, not entirely joking.

Lex just nodded, trying to grin back, but it was strained and terrible, he just knew it.  "Have you looked at it?" he asked instead of answering, not daring to glance down at the box again, but--

Alex's expression...stilled.  It wasn't a look he'd seen very often on the other man's face, but it was distant and masked and intently watchful, the way Alex looked at other people's security when they got too pushy or Lex's so-called friends when they got too...close.  It didn't quite make sense to him, until he realized that Alex had been called here to take care of the last person who'd known Clark's secrets, and fuck, that wasn't what he'd meant at all.

It must have shown in his eyes, the way they opened wide as his hands clenched on the box, because Alex's face was suddenly familiar again, or maybe not entirely, because Alex had never looked at him that gently before.  Like he expected Lex to break right there.  "Would you like me to?" Alex asked carefully, just another favor between friends, but Lex couldn't answer, couldn't make up his mind to save his life.  Someone ought to look...if only to tell Lex whether he really wanted to know and if he wanted to know this way.  And he trusted Alex, but maybe it would be better if this box was never opened, if it was burned just like it was, or--

Alex's hand came up slowly, fingers curving around Lex's nape as he stood wishing for one clear choice in his life, just one, and maybe....  Maybe he was crazy, or stained beyond ever coming clean again, but it didn't seem strange to him at all to lean into the comfort of a killer when he couldn't have the boy he...loved.

"I can stay for a few days.  If you want."

Alex was going to get tired of doing him favors, at this rate, but--  "Please," Lex murmured, suddenly, blessedly tired.  He might finally get some sleep if he was lucky.  If Alex wore him out first.  And there were still decisions to be made, but maybe not right away.  Before Alex left, he could go talk to Clark one more time, ask again for the truth, lay some of his own cards out on the table....

But not this one.  Clark didn't ever have to know that he'd been up for sale like this or what Lex had paid to keep him.  Blood wasn't bad, once you got used to it, and owing a favor to a friend like Alex...that was practically a bargain.  It wasn't going to keep him up nights, at least, and Clark was worth it, and one day....

One day, he might find it an easy bargain to keep.

end