bagheera_san: (Lex hand)
[personal profile] bagheera_san
Remember that snippet I posted a while ago? So here's the first part of the actual story.

It's dedicated to [livejournal.com profile] talitha78 for her incredible generosity.

Title: Devil's Deal
Rating: PG
Length: 1887
Continuity: Smallvile - JLU - DC
Summary: Lex sells his soul to the devil to bring his son back from the dead.

Betaed by the wonderful [livejournal.com profile] averaird :)


It's such a bleak night, the streets below valleys of rain. The perfect time for watching the boy fail once again.

The impulse to do so is purely masochistic, except for that grim sadistic pleasure of knowing that Lex isn't the only one who fails. Seeing his own futile efforts reflected in the boy's desperate quest to bring back his dead friend assuages Lex's frustration.

He should fight Bruce for the boy. Successful cloning of a human-kryptonian hybrid as a college freshman – Lex hasn't seen anything this impressive since meeting a teenage alien, oh so many years ago.

But of course, Lex isn't cut to play father to anyone, even less so than Bruce is.

He had a son, but his son is dead.

The lab is in a cave. There are no bats, but the shadows take their shape. Seeing the boy hover, just at the edge of the aureole the cloning tank casts into the darkness, Lex knows that all attempts to turn him into an ally would be futile, as futile as trying to turn Bruce himself.

The liquid in the tank is green. The colour of sickness for Kryptonians, the colour of eternal health for Lex. No colour at all for the mindless body inside.

The boy is checking the readouts on his consoles. Will he give up attempt number eight, too? Eight looks healthy, very much like the original did, back when Lex stood before his floating body, touching the glass between them like the boy is touching it now.

Lex does of course know the boy's name, and pretty much everything else about him. He has met him, and even had long conversations with him on the internet before the boy found out who he was talking to. For some time, the boy was Lex's window into his son's life, and his preferred way of getting information to his son – like the fact that half of Kon's DNA came from Lex. You could count on the fact that everything you told this boy would eventually find its way to Kon.

The boy is Tim Drake, who took on the identity of Batman's partner Robin, when the last Robin died. Lex will never understand how it is perfectly acceptable for Bruce Wayne to send children into war when Lex was once condemned for much lesser crimes. But then, Lex has suspected for a long time that Clark's morals are anything but consistent.

"Damn it," the boy says between clenched teeth. Lex toasts the screen with his glass of scotch.

"You're alive. Why don't you wake up?"

The boy doesn't know how lucky he is. Lex has seen bizarros. He has made bizarros.

"It doesn't have a soul."

His first, irrational thought is that the speaker must be Bruce. Batman is certainly capable of entering the penthouse unnoticed and he would probably be furious if he knew that Lex was watching his youthful charge. But the voice is wrong. Bruce speaks from the shadows, but this voice is made of shadows.

Lex turns in his office chair. He has gun in his desk, loaded with bullets made of kryptonite and Nth-metal and silver, but the windows are the better bet. They're not soundproof. All Lex has to do is to yell.

His visitor stands in front of the windows that take up one wall of the study, hands clasped behind his back, gazing down at the city. He wears black, or what looks like black in the pale light of the laptop screen, and has a mane of grizzled hair.

Lex breathes in and out very slowly. One look and he is certain. His visitor is not human. His visitor is not even fully there. A blink, a false move, and he will be gone. The entity takes up the whole room, bending space like a black hole.

Lex won't see his face and he can't stop picturing it. It's a familiar one.

"A soul?" Lex inquires calmly.

"There is a multitude of names I might give, but this is the most common one. It lacks a soul. Without it, it will never be the one you are trying to bring back."

The voice is sharp nails and hot breath down the back of Lex's neck.

"Who are you?"

"A business partner."

In any other situation, Lex would not accept that answer, but he has a pretty good idea who he is talking to.

It doesn't mean that he's terribly impressed. In the last twenty years he has faced more than one hell god and heavenly creature. "We'll see about that if you make an offer that interests me."

"It is a simple trade and as old as mankind," the visitor replies with a smile in his voice, still not turning away from the window. "Your soul for his."

He speaks in absolute, unquestionable truths. Lex knows the stories. This one doesn't lie and he always keeps his word.

"It's been said I sold my soul a long time ago."

"Was there a buyer?" the visitor asks, as simply as that. It doesn't require an answer, so Lex replies with a question.

"What are your conditions?"

*

The morning is bright, the skies blank and clean. Lex sits on the Eastern balcony, facing the sunrise. He has sat here since the morning star faded and gave way to dawn. It stopped raining right around then and now the world is fresh and damp like a newborn.

Lex doesn't see where Clark comes from, but there's a moment when he hovers, still as a distant mirage, over the city. The divine apparition is framed by sunlight so radiant that it almost fills the hollow inside Lex.

He notes that he has not lost his capacity for awe, or his appreciation for beauty.

Then Clark is above him, red-booted feet not quite touching the railing of the balcony and crosses his arms. The cape flaps as if on cue.

"You knew."

"Probably," Lex says to annoy him. He feels that he has earned some indulgence.

Clark glowers. Lex wonders when he will take time to be happy. "Conner is back. They brought him back! Did you know what they were trying to do? Did you help them?"

'They' are named Tim Drake, but Clark either can't accept that a teenager could achieve something like that, or thinks he has to hide it from Lex, which is downright silly considering that he has just accused Lex of being an accomplice.

"You might say I supplied the last, crucial ingredient," Lex concedes.

For a long time, Clark looks down on him, stony and disapproving. "How could you let them do that? What if they had created a monster that looked like Kon?"

"Have you seen him?" Lex asks. He's interested. He hasn't had the energy to go and get a look at his son yet.

It's all it takes to soften Clark, to make him look down. The unearthly glow subsides to a slight blush. "Yeah. He's alright, just a bit shaken. He's been gone for more than a year." Clark doesn't say 'You know how it is', but it's implicit in his tone. They've both been gone a couple of times each. "But it's really him, we had people confirm it."

"Who?" Clark knows a lot of people Lex thinks very little of.

"Dr Fate."

Lex nods. Dr Fate is a competent man, even though he is a wizard and affiliated with the Justice League. He gave Lex a quiet room and a whiteboard when Lex returned from the Source, when his mind was still afire and just recently deprived of omniscience. That was more than twelve years ago, but he and Dr Fate still meet sometimes for a game of chess.

"It's Conner's soul," Clark adds, as if he knows what that means. "It's really him."

"Then why aren't you with him?" Lex asks, because he is getting tired of this conversation. Or maybe just tired in general. It's been a hard night's work. Soul-selling is a demanding business.

Clark frowns, but it's that uncomfortable, vaguely guilty frown that Lex knows so well. Predictably, it makes him reply with an accusation of his own. "I thought Kon might need some time with his friends. You still shouldn't have helped Robin to bring him back. It could have gone horribly wrong."

It went horribly wrong a couple of times, but Robin destroyed all failed attempts before they could gain consciousness. Lex doesn't think Clark needs to know that. "I didn't," he says, and gets up. The conversation is over. They haven't bothered with politeness in more than twenty-five years, so Lex just goes inside and Clark flies away. Off into the sunrise, Lex imagines.

Twenty-five years, that's roughly how long they have been enemies. It's hard to say. They weren't friends since Clark's senior year of highschool, and what they are now is hardly what most people would call enemies. The only clear date is the day Clark put on the costume and went public and that was twenty-five summers ago, when Clark was twenty-one.

Outside observers might think that their enmity started there because Lex hated Superman on sight, but really it is quite the opposite. Lex felt glad the night he first saw Clark in the suit. The suit was a message that Lex had been waiting for. It said, "I'm strong. I'm ready to play this game. I'm a man now."

It was like a written invitation for Lex to stop holding back. And what was more: Clark's first act as Superman was an interview, broadcast by all TV stations within minutes of taking place.

"My name is Kal-El. I'm the last survivor of the planet Krypton. I'm here to save you." Just three sentences, but they were all Lex needed. They were the truth.

He was still watching the interview in an endless loop, the ghostly reflections of the screen fluttering over his face when Clark came to him. The media had already dubbed him Superman, mistaking the Kryptonian symbol on his chest for an "S", but Lex knew better. Clark was wearing the cape, a glorious red even in the moonlight as it fluttered behind him. He flew outside Lex's opened windows, just like he had been hovering right now, arms crossed over his chest, expression stern and confident.

Lex got up from his desk, turned off the TV and walked over to the window, taking it all in.

"Join me," he offered. "Together we can do anything."

It was a strange moment. They both knew that he would make that offer, and they both knew that Clark would refuse. And still Lex felt chilled to the bone by Clark's grim, "I will never join you."

Chilled, and then a moment later, burning with anger. The slow simmering rage that he had felt for years finally turned into a full-out flame. He hated Superman with a passion. The first passion he had felt in a long time, a passion that carried him all through the following years, forward, forward, always powerful.

These days the old passion is long gone. Things have become a lot more complex.

It's getting time for work, but Lex cancels all his appointments. He undresses, lies down in his bed and remains in dreamless sleep until evening.

TBC


Annotations
(Yes, annotations ;P)

Continuity: In case you know all this stuff, imagine the following to have happened: 0) Smallville, all seasons 1) the entire run of JLU, esp. "Destroyer", 2)"Death of Superman" "Reign of the Supermen", Kon was created by Lex after Clark was killed by Doomsday, 3)Young Justice and Teen Titans v.3 (Lex was President of the US at one point) 4)Infinite Crisis and related events, such as "Villains United" and possibly 5) elements of "52". The "now" of this story is set at the time of DC's "One Year Later" (-->Tim trying to clone Kon.)

If all this confuses you, just ignore it and imagine that it is 25 years after SV and lots and lots of stuff has happened to both Lex and Clark.

"The Source": JLU continuity. In the final episode of JLU, Lex saved the day by retrieving the 'Anti-Life equation' from a place called 'The Source' that roughly seems to equal God or a life-force of the universe. Doing so may or may not have turned him omniscient. Said equation was used to destroy the villain Darkseid, for whose return Lex had been responsible. Lex either died or vanished in the attempt, but even in the episode, other characters said that it probably wouldn't take, i.e. that Luthor would be back.

Dr Fate: Also JLU continuity. Dr Fate is a magician, but he usually serves as some sort of super-hero shrink for the JL or as a consultant in occult matters.

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