“I want you to stop the wedding.”

Clark squirmed, pinned fast under the razor-sharp claws of the gaze. He wondered, noting the wild mane framing an angular face and eyes that sought out weakness by instinct, why he’d never seen the resemblance before. Sprawled loose-limbed on a long, low couch, one arm slung along the back, Lionel Luthor looked like nothing so much as a well-fed lion idly considering his next meal.

Clark took a shaky breath and willed himself not to panic; he’d know it would be this way, after all. “Please.”

“And why should I do that?” Ice cubes chimed against heavy crystal as Lionel lifted his glass to thin, smiling lips.

“I don’t trust her; she’s not good for him.” Clark looked away, shame heating his body despite the cavernous penthouse’s cool climate. “It’s too soon.”

A gravelly chuckle suggested Lionel had no difficulty in reading between the lines. “Want my son to yourself a little longer, do you? Why don’t you simply tell him so?”

“I– He won’t listen to me.”

“Fallen out of favor, have we?”

Anger sparked under Clark’s already flushed skin; not at Lionel’s words, but at their unwelcome truth. He had tried to talk to Lex, obliquely questioning the wisdom of marrying again so soon, to someone still so much a stranger. To someone Lex had suspected of working against him with his father only weeks ago. Lex’s curt dismissal of Clark’s concerns, the hurt in steel grey eyes and his stiff body language had all made it clear that any more direct opposition of Helen would be the final straw on the already overburdened back of their friendship.

If Lex learned of this meeting, that friendship would be twisted into something else entirely, but that wasn’t something he wanted to think about at all. Clark had – Clark was – something Lionel wanted, and he knew the older man had to realize this was the opportunity he’d been waiting for.

Lionel’s smug smile disappeared when Clark didn’t respond to his baiting. Eyes narrowed and lips pursed thoughtfully before he spoke in his deceptively honeyed voice, “I can see this means a great deal to you, Clark, but why should Lex listen to me? My unruly son and I aren’t on the best of terms currently, as you might have noticed.”

“You gave her that money. Even if she never agreed to work with you,” a possibility Clark now considered to be very slim, “he’d still believe it. You could have a change of heart.”

“And after I do, you’ll be there to offer a comforting shoulder.” Lionel nodded his approval, leaning forward to set his glass on the sculpted chrome and glass coffee table. “Naturally, I’d expect something significant in exchange for denying my son his marital bliss.”

“Naturally,” Clark agreed, lifting his gaze in a steady stare. Now they were getting somewhere. “I could get you stuff. Competitor’s files or prototypes or whatever, but I could get it. Anything you wanted. A one time only deal, and nothing from LexCorp.” He wanted that point understood.

A toxic smile spilled slowly onto Lionel’s face as he rose from the couch and approached the spot where Clark was rooted. That Lionel had personal space issues Clark was already aware of, but it still made him uncomfortable when the man leaned in close. Moist, cloying breath fell across Clark’s ear; a shiver of revulsion skittered down his spine. “I accept your offer, though I have a somewhat different price in mind.”

“You’ll–”

“Serve Lex up to you on a silver platter?” Lionel seemed to retreat inside himself a moment and his laugh suggested its own agenda. ”Consider it already done.”

“And what do you want from me?” Clark asked nervously, but determined to seal their deal. There could be no turning back now, he knew. He’d sold his soul, but he wouldn’t spend any more time in the devil’s company than he had to.

He swallowed hard; Lionel’s musky cologne was making him nauseous.

“Don’t look so apprehensive, Clark. I wouldn’t ask you to commit a felony in the name of ‘true love’.” Lionel lifted a hand to cup Clark’s cheek and it hung in the air when he pulled sharply away. A graying brow arched in challenge. “I only want to touch you, son.”

“What?”

Lionel shrugged. “It’s a small price I ask.”

“To touch me?” Clark was reeling. Lionel wasn’t supposed to want this from him.

“Yes, to begin with.” Lionel’s hand finally dropped and he took a step back. His eyes traveled the length of Clark’s body, and suddenly his t-shirt and jeans seemed wholly inadequate; he was as exposed as he’d ever been, and nothing like invulnerable. The appraising gaze fixed on Clark’s mouth which, realizing it was hanging open, he snapped audibly shut.

“Your mouth interests me,” Lionel continued, as casually as if they were discussing the weather. “And I’ll want to fuck you, of course.”

Numb with shock, Clark just shook his head. “But, I’ve never– Lex…”

“Won’t be your first.” Lionel nodded sagely, sympathetically. “But he can still be yours, Clark. It’s your choice, naturally.”

But it wasn’t a choice. They’d made a deal. Anything, Clark had offered, and he knew Lionel wouldn’t let him renege, however reasonable he was playing at being. A lump of regret grew in his throat and he swallowed it down with burgeoning tears.

Lionel wasn’t supposed to want this.

“Where?”

“Here, I think.” With a nod of his head Lionel indicated the lavish penthouse he’d insisted they meet at when Clark had requested an audience. His hand was back; a calloused thumb rubbed roughly across Clark’s lips, pushing insistently inside and making Clark’s acquiescence a foregone conclusion. Dark eyes dropped, watching as his mouth was forced wider. “I sent the staff away for the afternoon.”

Clark tipped his head away, skin crawling under Lionel’s touch, the salt of his skin corrosive on Clark’s tongue. His head spun with disorienting dizziness, thoughts tripping over each other in riot to escape, but all that came out when Clark opened his mouth was, “Let’s get it over with, then.”

There really was nothing else to say.

Lionel laughed appreciatively. “You certainly know how to flatter a man, Clark. No wonder Lex is so taken with you.”

Lex. The name hit like a meteorite hammer between his eyes. He was doing this – this thing – for Lex, and Lex would never, ever forgive him for it. Clark shook his head in denial. He was doing this for Lex; and Lex never needed to know about it.

He met Lionel’s hungry gaze with false bravado. “Look, can we skip the small talk?”

“As you wish,” he agreed in good humor, retreating back to the couch and dipping to retrieve his glass before he sat down. “Get undressed. Slowly.”

“We have a deal, right?” Clark glared. “You do know what I could do to you if you don’t follow through?” It was a pathetic bluff and they both knew it.

“Take off your clothes, Clark.” Lionel’s voice had lost all its humor.

The loose t-shirt he wore hit the floor and Clark began to tremble violently. With jaw tightly clenched against chattering teeth, and cursing himself for showing Lionel such vulnerability, Clark shucked his jeans and boxers, toeing his shoes awkwardly off when everything tangled at his ankles.

A sibilant sigh issued from Lionel and he licked his lips. Fine leather creaked as he shifted on the couch, slouching down and spreading his legs suggestively.

Clark understood what was expected and though tempted to delay the inevitable, doing so would surely mean having Lionel spell it out for him in the most insulting way. His legs threatened to give out under him as he covered the distance to the couch, and it was almost a relief to drop to his knees. Clark’s breath was rapid and shallow, panting from the short trip.

He raised a shaky hand to the closures above Lionel’s obvious bulge. “Is this what you want?” he choked out, praying for a last minute reprieve.

“You have excellent instincts, son. Just follow them and I’m sure you’ll do beautifully.”

Clark closed his eyes as he clumsily freed Lionel from fine woolen pants and silk boxers. Scooting blindly forward until he was pressed against the deep couch he took a deep breath and went down on the hotly swollen flesh. A slight shifting of Lionel’s hips told him he was gripping the base of the cock too tightly and he eased up, sliding his mouth down the length until his lips met his hand. His mouth was stretched uncomfortably wide and his jaw ached around the thick member as he began to bob his head slowly up and down.

And here the musk wasn’t expensive cologne, but unexpectedly familiar Luthor. Enough pure Luthor for Clark to begin to pretend, with his eyes squeezed shut, that it was Lex in his mouth, and that helped. He’d imagined doing exactly this to Lex so many times in recent months that, desperate for an escape, it wasn’t that hard to superimpose those images, to make the quiet sounds of appreciation above him Lex’s sounds. Slipping further into that fantasy, his tongue began to work against the velvety flesh with more enthusiasm. His pumping hand grew wet with his own saliva and he moaned softly when his mouth was washed in a spurt of salty pre-come.

“Helen’s called off the wedding of her own volition. She has a mind of her own, that girl. I like her. Of course, I couldn’t have allowed her to marry him, ultimately. She knows too much.”

“You are working with her.” And it really shouldn’t have been a shock to Clark, especially after what just happened, but it was. It made him sick what Lionel would do to beat his own son.

“Was, Clark,” Lionel explained indulgently. “But not against Lex. Not against LexCorp.”

The malevolent smile was back, and understanding was a shot of adrenaline delivered straight to Clark’s pounding heart as he realized in horror–

“It’s you I’ve been interested in for quite some time. What do you think my scientists will find when they’ve analyzed the semen on this carpet, Clark?”

Clark looked desperately at the mess on the floor, and while he decided which would be more dangerous – leaving the evidence or setting the carpet aflame with his eyes in front of the man – Lionel read his mind. “If you destroy the evidence, there’s still the matter of the blood Dr. Bryce has provided me.”

Bitter bile surged into Clark’s throat as sticky come trailed, dripping down his thighs. “What do you want from me?”

“You already know that, son. ’Stuff’, as you so eloquently put it, and LexCorp will certainly be in play.” Lionel took his glass up from the table and rolled it between his hands. “For you, the alternative is quite unpleasant.”

Clark’s head continued to shake, disbelieving; he couldn’t stop it. He was like a puppet on a string, unconscious, unfeeling. “But, Lex–”

“Yes, Lex.” Lionel nodded sympathetically. “You should go see him now. I’m sure you’ll be a tremendous comfort to him through the tragedy of his failed engagement, and all the tragedies to come.”

And all Clark could think about was that Lionel was letting him go, letting him leave. The rest of it couldn’t be real, not what Lionel had done to him here today or what he would demand of him tomorrow. Because if it was real, Clark would have to wrap his hands around the gaunt throat and squeeze until he made a new reality.

He stumbled numbly towards the door, a tasty treat released from beneath the predator’s heavy paw.

“Oh, Clark,” Lionel called. “If you are going to see Lex, I’d suggest you shower first.”

Clark slammed the door on Lionel’s mocking laughter and began the long walk back to Smallville, back to Lex, in no hurry at all to arrive.

The sunlight was warm on his back, even through his new glass cage.