Everything In This World

By Viv

*~*~ Part Forty-Four ~*~*

Chloe rushed past Lex into the apartment, yanking her jacket off her in anger and as she headed down a random hallway in Lex's English maze-like apartment. She couldn't really care less which opulently appointed million acre corner of the building she ended up in - she just needed to get as far away from Lex has humanly possible right now.

"Chloe, what's wrong?" He asked, slamming the door behind him.

Chloe ignored him. She knew she was - possibly, maybe and probably - being unreasonable. She didn't even know why she was throwing such an unprecedented hissy fit for no sane person reason at all. She didn't know why Lex wanting to look after her and protect her from over-consumption of alcohol and sleazy men made her want to simultaneously cry and beat the crap out of something - she just knew that it made her crazy, and angry and all the bad adjectives that her tired brain couldn't dredge up at the moment.

She rounded a corner and hastily shoved a pair of heavy wooden doors open, closing them behind her. Chloe leaned against the doors, taking in the layout of the dark room and confused at the jumble of thoughts that skittered and bounced across her mind like crazed bunnies on crack.

It was what evidently pass for a study at Lex's palatial apartment. To Chloe the room didn't remind her as much of a study than a State Library, with shades of medieval armoury thrown in for good measure. The walls were lined with leather bound books that looked like they had been dredged up from some archaeological dig in medieval England, and there were rows and rows of artefacts and weapons of all shapes and sizes - or extremely good, able to actually kill people imitations - that showcased the Luthor fortune and unapologetic aggression towards all facets of life.

The entire night didn't make sense. Chloe was smart, independent and ready for anything. Anything apparently, except for her own innate irrationality and unpredictable emotions.

Maybe that was the problem, she reasoned. Chloe would be the first to acknowledge that the fact that she could run the full spectrum of emotions in a short space of time made her a human being of the sometimes strange and wacky variety. Which was mostly an endearing quality about her, even if she had to say so herself.

But what was the flip side to that whole running the gauntlet of the emotional spectrum thing? As much as she could soar to the highest pinnacles of excitement, she could plummet just as quickly into the depths of depression. For every time her eyes lit up with warmth and friendship, there was also a time when she felt ready to commit murder before an entire stadium crowd of witnesses.

So she was an emotional person. Chloe shrugged her shoulders mentally as she burst past another set of double doors, which apparently led to a more private inner study, slamming them behind her.

She was an emotional person who apparently had no control of her emotions whatsoever. Big deal.

But maybe that was the deal, she realised. She was an emotional person to begin with but now, with Lex added into the equation, she was even more of a live wire than before. So much so that even a slight ripple in her Lex pond was almost enough to send her into a spiral of unmitigated emotion. Like a house of cards but of the particularly shoddy variety.

Chloe ran a frenzied hand through her straying blond hair. It was Lex. She had unwittingly thrown her entire self - heart and insides and all - into her feelings for him, and now it had come around and bit her in the ass big time. Because everything that Lex did now resonated with her at a much more frenzied level, making small irritations morph into problems that dwarfed Mount Everest.

It shook her, more than anything had her shook her in her entire life. She had never known what it was like to feel so much for one person - but now she knew, because that was the way she felt about Lex.

Before she had time to ponder the significance of her epiphany, the doors banged open loudly and Lex suddenly came charging into the room, his eyes afire with dangerous ferocity.

"Okay, what the hell is going on?" He demanded, staring daggers at her. Chloe found herself flinching from his heated gaze but refused to back away.

"I -" She began, floundering when she couldn't seem to construct what she wanted to say. What could she say? How could she enunciate something that she had only just came to the realisation of a few seconds before? "I can't - I don't know." She said, throwing her arms up helplessly.

"You don't know?" Lex seethed, stepping almost menacingly towards her. "You don't know, or you don't want to tell me?"

"I - both." Chloe winced at the way it came out. At the hurt that flickered over Lex's face, she forced herself to elaborate. "I ... I guess that - I'm just overwhelmed. I'm getting too sensitive about things and I think I need to just - stay away for a while."

Lex's anger crumbled from his face, leaving a strangely muted expression. Chloe almost found herself flinching from his gaze, open and weary once more. "You're feeling suffocated?" His voice broke with emotion. "Am I coming on too strong?"

Chloe looked back at him desperately, not wanting to open her mouth and say the inevitable. What could she possibly say that would not render her a huge, giant liar, yet retain a shred of good feeling between her and Lex?

She took a deep breath, vaguely aware in her confusion over her own feelings of the flimsy line she was about to walk. "I love that you want to protect me. To be honest, I don't think I've ever felt this safe with anyone else before - maybe not even 'I'm a big fat hero' Clark. And it's not you, it's -" She broke off. "I think it's just everything - my head's getting turned around at how much I feel about you and us and I just have no idea how to control it." She turned from him in frustration. "I get mad and I'm annoyed and there's no reason for me to be annoyed and this isn't making any degree of sense at all which is why I want to go away and think about it so that I can actually talk about this like a normal person."

Lex slumped on a nearby recliner, his eyes shining as he looked up at her. "I'm sorry." He said simply, desperation filtering through his pale orbs.

Chloe's eyes widened at his words. "What?" She shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand -"

"I know I'm coming on too strong." He licked his lips, his words dry. "I don't know what's happening here. One minute I'm in control of this and the next it's beyond me."

"Lex - this doesn't - I mean, it's not your fault. It's me, I'm letting myself get in too deep and I ... everything you do matters so much to me. Do you get it? Things you do - it matters too much to me. Everything you do matters too much."

"And I don't know what to do about it Chloe. I always know what to do." He continued his quiet rant, heedless of her explanation. "I can't control the way I feel about you. I want - I need to protect you, because I don't know what I'd do if I lost you. I've already lost so much and I can't afford to lose you. I just can't - not if I can help it." Lex mumbled brokenly, revealing more to her in that one instant than he had ever done before.

And what she saw almost broke her heart.

In a piercing moment of insight, she suddenly understood just what the hell was going on. They were both unprepared over the depth of their feelings toward each other, frightening and confusing them to such a degree that all their natural instinctive defences were obscured. In essence, she and Lex were going through the same thing, their feelings for each other so strong that they were powerless to stop its encroachment of their defences.

"I'm not going anywhere." She whispered softly, kneeling down in front of him so that he was forced to meet her gaze. "Lex, you won't lose me. I'm not going anywhere."

"I couldn't help my mother Chloe." His words tumbled over each other, his usual eloquence lost in the frightening intensity of the moment. "I tried to help her as much as I could but in the end I wasn't even there by her side when she died. I couldn't do anything about her pain. And my brother - did I ever tell you I had a brother?"

She shook her head mutely, wondering whether anyone had ever seen Lex Luthor so uncontrolled, so broke, such a bundle of raw emotional energy.

"I had a brother - Julian. He died on the day of his christening. I -"

"Shhh." Chloe shushed him with a finger on his lips, her eyes looking up into his imploringly. She didn't need to hear anything else from him, because she understood. She understood why he had insisted on protecting her, almost cozening her at times with his intense emotion and desire. "I understand. I'm not going away."

"I'm just sorry."

She kissed him in order to prevent him from saying anything else, with a ferocity that quite frankly would have astonished her if not for the whole being caught in the midst of her passion thing. She tasted the wet tang of salty tears as their tears mingled on their lips, and Chloe found herself trembling at the power he had unwittingly handed to her.

For he had given her the ultimate power over him, and in that desperate moment of understanding Chloe recognised its truth. She had power over Lex just had he had power over her.

Further philosophical reflection was cut short as the heat from inside her body overtook her thoughts, her passion almost overloading her senses. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt as she pressed upwards against him, and felt his grip snake then tighten around her waist, his movements hungry and urgent.

Tongues duelled and teeth clashed and still she was pressing against his hard frame, wanting more of him against her. Wanting and needing to comfort and hold Lex as he no doubt wanted and needed to hold her.

Chloe felt his cool hands slip under her top, running over her breasts before yanking it frenziedly over her shoulders. The cool brush of air against her exposed skin jolted her attention for a moment, but soon she found herself working on the buttons of his shirt, each button undone goading her passion and excitement to as yet unchartered heights.

A part of her still couldn't quite comprehend the depth of her feelings for Lex - someone whom she had known only shallowly two years before, but now meant so much more to her than anyone else had ever meant to her in her life.

"Chloe." He half-moaned, half-mumbled as he broke their kiss, his eyes blazing with indefinable fire. "I love you."

"Right back at you." She replied breathlessly before plunging her mouth into his once more. She worked her hands down to the fly of his leather pants, unzipping them in one smooth motion. Together she and Lex tugged his pants off his taut body and before she knew it he had eased her skirt off her body.

Chloe let herself sink into the fiery heat, intense joy of the moment.

(c) January 2003