Reccing Notes: Woven from spoilers back in the day when the Infamous trailer was as scary as frack. Imagine that the big reveal in Infamous is not quite a completely reset episode. (More on that later.) The format is experimental.
by vagrantdream at her/my livejournal.
third person, chloe focus on the time before the sheltering. Some focus on her relationship with Clark. Then there's Davis...
1325 words, pg, infamous
To them, her story will always be tied to Clark Kent.
Like every sentence ever uttered in journalism, that’s both the truth and a lie.
I.
Chloe Sullivan isn’t a reporter anymore. Not a counselor, not even a copy editor.
The people behind the flashes of camera phones in her face and the voices pressing on her don’t care about that.
To them, her story will always be tied to Clark Kent.
Like every sentence ever uttered in journalism, that’s both the truth and a lie.
i. After Lana Lang left, (this time she’d gone for good, super powered and packed full of the only thing that could hurt him) he’d called her, set her cell ringing in the antiseptic corner of the hospital room, just to talk about it.
She’d felt like his constant.
ii.
It only took two days for her to see that he wasn’t hers.
She’d been spying on Oliver. (Being blackmailed did that to a girl.)
Oliver Queen’s private jet had four security cameras, feeds for every single day she’d been taken over. When she found the feed about her memories it felt like Watergate.
iii.
When she fought Clark on it, he looked hurt and baffled, made her feel guilty for every word she spit out.
He’d taken a piece of her.
“I did it so you could have a normal life.”
“The only way you could have done that is turned back time and kept from hitting Metropolis. You couldn’t have.”
“My secret burdened you. You told me that.”
“It must have been the construct. I don’t remember that.”
“You told me I was right.”
“That’s complete crap. You did it because you were scared.”
“I was scared for you. I couldn’t let you be hurt because of my secret. You needed a normal life.”
She’d been living in a hospital room as husband she didn’t remember marrying clung to life support.
His legacy of normalcy. She didn’t say that, wouldn’t hurt him.
“Those memories were part of me. I asked you…”
She didn’t know what she expected, an apology, for him to see her?
Clark was eternally Clark. The boy who loved Lana (that one girl) with a fearful intensity, the one who grew up on a farm in the middle of a small town, the boy who was sure he could cure the ills of the world.
He couldn’t understand.
iv.
The first week passed as Jimmy recovered, cracked jokes across their dinner table over a sling, got all the variables right. She wanted to make him happy even though things weren’t quite easy.
v.
More than once she found herself reaching for the phone, calling up the last number she’d added to her address book. She’d known him all of a month and he’d somehow ended at the top.
Davis Bloome.
One ring…two rings… three rings…
(She didn’t know if it was because she was desperate to see if he was alright or if she wanted to feel like herself again.)
She only knows that she felt lost and sick when she didn’t get a response.
II.
Then, two weeks after she found Clark had stripped every memory of his powers from her mind, he’d told the world, because the world needed to know.
i.
This moment, he’s everywhere. Lois’s scoop- the face on the first page of the Planet, the Inquisitor, plastered on newspaper headlines across the world.
She distances herself from this ‘Superman’. He is alien to her
“Miss Sullivan, what was it like to know about the man behind the red and blue blur all these years?”
“I didn’t.”
ii.
There are walls, new ones that form as she gets mobbed by reporters, curious about the super man’s very first confidant.
“You should have told me.” Jimmy tells her.
(He wanted to be the first. The one she doted on, the one she told secrets to, the one who never fell behind Clark Kent.)
There are more of Clark’s secrets, things she can’t tell him because they are not hers to give. He knows they are there.
Soon enough there is no point in not acknowledging the rift. He leaves earlier, comes home later, while she fills out applications for jobs that did not fill her qualifications just because she needs to get away.
She speaks to him before he leaves from work; he kisses her stiffly on the cheek before bedtime.
They try.
She thinks that she should let herself be happy
And still isn’t.
iii.
She keeps her memories as her most jealously guarded secret- her own vanishing on her, of clutching onto Davis’s neck tighter than a tourniquet and feeling completely safe, of running away from her husband and her best friend until he brought her back.
He wanted to be the good guy.
She thinks he shouldn’t have, not for this.
iv.
She can’t be the tragic heroine.
The story didn’t end and he didn’t give up on her.
He’d dropped all the noble excuses, told her he couldn’t see her marry the wrong man. She’d been kissing Davis, feeling something squeezing at her gut even as her mind told her she needed to go though with the wedding.
She’d been the first to pull away.
He told her he’d wait.
v.
Maybe he wants to be a good guy, still. She’s gone off and gotten herself married, and it means more than she wants it to.
He’s been raised that way, with guilt and denial in equal parts. She’s out of bounds now because he won’t be that guy.
She wants her friend back.
III.
She’s given up on the anger now, and Clark feels more like a stranger than ever. He’s full of good deeds, unburdening himself on growing up, his newly scrutinised relationship on every tabloid she sees.
Lois and Clark.
It feels to fast, too sudden, he’s still her friend and she’s her cousin and she knows that rebounds always shatter the second party to bits.
(She’d seen Clark heartbroken when he ended up at the pushed into the corner of a girl’s heart. He couldn’t help it himself. “Lois is so… Lois.”)
He was justified.
She finally sees that she’d looked so hard for the man in him that she fancied he was there.
i.
Some days she wishes he hadn’t shaped her, but knows she can’t blame him for what she is now.
She’s been treading a fine line for so long she doesn’t know how to stop.
She would have killed for Clark. It was the mantra, in her head, the construct had been integrated into her, turned her to something steely and cold, made her do things she wouldn’t have done otherwise.
Braniac would have had a practical reason to back up every action. Not emotions, not loyalty.
Those were all her.
ii.
(She still has them buried deep- the emotions, the loyalty. They were for some boy called Clark, her hero. This new Clark is the hero of the world.
Neither of them belong to her. Neither of them has to define her.
She should let herself be happy.
She isn’t.)
iii.
It annoys her, how she remembers nothing about walking down the isle, saying wedding vows, being abducted at her wedding.
The construct always has a reason.
iv.
Finally, the heroine comes out of her tower.
She looks for Davis,
His place at the hospital has been vacated, he has stopped showing up for work since before her wedding. Two other emts have disappeared, too and she knows this is why he sounded so scared.
All her anger at Clark for leaving her alone and she wasn’t there when the only friend she had left needed her.
For once, she feels like the betrayer.
v.
Chloe doesn’t need the super genius IQ to put it all together.
Davis and his blackouts (worse, more frequent), the Kryptonian symbol for Doom she’d drawn on the pad in her desk, her mind telling her she had to get married. His disappearance.
The construct always had a reason.
vi.
She has skills enough to find his address on her own.
(She goes with caution, makes double sure that Clark won’t follow her. She doesn’t want to think of how Clark would help Davis if he could.)
It’s a cathartic moment, but the door is as plain as any other in the little complex. It doesn’t say ‘Here be the Beast.’
She has a reason without logic. She’s been here, she knows this
Davis is behind that door and he needs her.
I.
Chloe Sullivan doesn’t have to be a reporter or a counselor or even a copy editor. She knows enough about being a friend.
Endnotes: continues in Vessel, with what's been going on with Davis.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
tangents
Reccing Notes: xxamlaxx wrote me something. Something I guarantee you will have never seen the like of. Even without the twist.
How would young Davis have fit into SV with Chloe? How do their lives change?When you read, you'll know.
Also watch for the *details*. Of course Davis would notice Moira.
2839 words, r/nc-17, you'll see
by xxamlaxx at her lj
Davis Bloome meets Chloe Sullivan on a Monday.
Davis Bloome meets Chloe Sullivan on a Monday, in line for morning snack, when the air smells like graham crackers and apple juice and his fingers are sticky with cinnamon and sugar.
He sits happily at his table, munching on his cookies until a big boy, Alexander, knocks his cup of juice over on purpose. The golden-brown liquid spills onto the plastic surface, onto his Oreos. Everything is wet and soggy and he starts to cry because the juice has also formed a cold damp spot in the front of his pants. He’s still hungry and everyone but him gets to eat their snack.
“Hey.” A little blonde girl slides into the seat beside him, nudges him with her elbow. “Stop being a baby.” His lower lip is trembling and he stares through tear blurred eyes to see her small hand offering him one of her cookies.
“Thanks.” He sniffles, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He tries to smile but the girl is already getting up to leave, waving to a boy with dark hair and blue eyes.
“You should get new pants. It looks like you peed.”
He watches her walk away as apple juice dries stiff in his lap.
-
Chloe is in his chemistry class freshman year. He nearly trips over his own feet to get to her so he can be her lab partner for the semester. Chloe is reading a book about Bigfoot when he slams his books down on the table loudly, so hard the glass beakers shake and rattle. Chloe turns and looks him up and down, smiling green eyes as she snaps her gum and says
“I almost didn’t recognize you without wet pants.”
-
“Davis!” Chloe calls to him across the cafeteria, beckons to him with long, slender fingers. He swallows the nervousness in his throat and approaches, hot butterflies of anxiety creating a tornado in his stomach. “Can you sit here today? I want to go over our science fair project.” His voice cracks when he tries to answer so he nods instead, feels heat in his cheeks when Pete makes kissy-faces at him and Chloe, snickers quietly with Clark.
He eats lunch with Chloe and decides that he’ll trade the world if Chloe will look at him the way she looks at Clark for just a second.
-
“What are you doing this Saturday Davis?” Chloe whispers to him during the lecture on the substances that increase the rate of chemical reactions.
“Nothing, why?” He asks back, hand drifting up to rub at the bruises along his collarbone, the spots of dark purple in the shape of fingertips.
“Can I come over to your house to start our science fair board?” He thinks of his newest house; broken beer bottles and angry words, angrier fists, the sting of leather between his shoulder blades, the trickle of blood and tears on his skin.
“My parents are cleaning that day, why don’t I come over instead?”
“Okay.”
That night a dinner of frozen peas and canned meat doesn’t taste so awful.
-
“Davis, did you walk here?” Chloe questions while he pants, sweat forming on his skin in beads, causing his shirt to stick to him in uncomfortable places.
“Yeah.” He replies, accepting the glass of water she offers him with a smile. “It’s only nineteen blocks.”
“It’s ninety-five degrees outside.” He shrugs at her and walks into the welcomed relief of an industrial air conditioner. Chloe is wearing a pair of jean shorts and a t-shirt. He watches the golden glow of her calves in the sunlight, the shine of her hair. “I baked cookies, take some if you want.” He stuffs five into his pockets when Chloe looks away, walks off to her bedroom in long, confident strides, barefoot on the soft white carpet. “Blue or black construction paper?”
“Both.” He sits with Chloe on her bed. Her room is redolent of coffee and green apple scented body spray. Pictures of Chloe, Clark, and Pete sit on her nightstand; at the lake, on their first day of school, riding horses. He picks up a picture of Chloe and her father, idly wonders why there isn’t a photo of Chloe’s mother to be seen, wants to know if she even has one.
“Sorry my room looks like a hurricane blew through.” Chloe motions towards the papers scattered in every direction, littering the floor, with lines of text circled or underlined or highlighted in red. “The paper deadline was pushed up.”
“Don’t worry about it, my room is worse.” Cigarette burns in the carpet and beer stains on his sheets. “Are you going to Homecoming next week?” His hands shake with anticipation, with the incipient rejection he can hear forming on Chloe’s tongue.
“I was going to go with Clark, as friends, but Lana asked him yesterday.” Chloe’s smile is weak and miserable.
“We can go together, if you want.” He’s raw and exposed and vulnerable in the silence. Chloe can make his day or break it, go for his throat and sever his jugular with one simple word.
“I’d like that.”
-
He spends his life savings on renting a tux for the evening. His foster-mother smoothes down his hair before she leaves for work, adjusts his collar, pins a flower neatly to his lapel. His foster-father is just sober enough to drive him to the dance, while he sits in the passenger seat in silence, showered in the cold glare of partially inebriated indifference. He gets out and shuts the door without a word, doesn’t move until the truck’s headlights are faint dots of yellow in the distance.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t pick you up.” He apologizes, slipping the corsage around Chloe’s wrist; her skin is soft and warm beneath his fingertips.
“It’s probably best. My dad would have gone into full blown interrogation mode.” He tries his best not to stare at the swell of Chloe’s breasts, the visible line of her cleavage, the red satin emphasizing the slender waist and svelte form.
“You look nice.” He compliments, a modicum of embarrassment spiking his blood and binding with his hemoglobin when Chloe’s cheeks flush red.
“You too.”
Chloe presses close when he musters the courage to ask her to dance. He can smell her soap and shampoo, perfume and deodorant. She smells like happiness and sweetness, apples and strawberries, coffee and newspaper ink. Her arms circle lazily around his neck, elbows resting on his shoulders. He feels her breath misting across his mouth, warm, moist puffs of air. He stands transfixed as the heat increases, and then all he can feel is the hot, silken press of Chloe’s mouth against his, taste cherry lip gloss.
Pete whistles at them and they bump foreheads when they break apart.
He succumbs that night and touches himself in the darkness. He can smell Chloe on his clothes and feel her on his lips while his hand moves awkwardly across his cock. He tries to imagine the smooth expanse of skin beneath her dress but all he sees is denim clad hips and a cotton covered chest and torso, can’t even begin to wonder what she looks like because the glorious fantasy within his mind will pale in comparison with reality.
He comes with a long exhale of breath, but afterwards he’s left with a hollow feeling in his heart and a sticky palm.
-
His life is thrown into disorder once again. He touches the stitches on his cheek and slowly packs his belongings into the familiar plastic garbage bag. Inside he stuffs his clothing, books, and the note Chloe passed him in chemistry class three months before; a doodle of Chloe slumped dead from boredom over their table while their teacher lectures. He allows the social worker to guide him to her car, buckles himself in the back seat and stares out at the city through smudged glass as she tells him all about his new home.
They exit the city limits he doubts Chloe will even miss him.
-
Three years pass in a miasma of solitude and vicissitudes. He goes through three more apartments, one house with a white picket fence and three biological children who stare at him as though he’s an invader from outer space. Living is an arduous, exhausting action, and nights he sleeps like the dead, sprawled out on his mattress, oblivious to the world. His acceptance letter to Metropolis University arrives in the mail three days before he officially ages out of the foster care system.
A full scholarship and his one and only chance to escape from a future of menial labor and low paying jobs.
-
“Davis? Oh my god, it’s been years!” His heart leaps painfully in his chest and he’s enveloped in warm, toned arms, a soft, smooth cheek pressed against his. Chloe is hugging him and she’s pressed against his chest and it’s too wonderful to be veritable. “How are you?” This isn’t the Chloe from his memories, the fifteen year old girl from his youth. This is a young woman with Chloe’s face, prettier and older.
“Better now.”
“Do you want to go out for dinner tonight? Catch up?”
“There’s nothing I’d rather do.”
-
He kisses Chloe on their fourth date, at eleven seventeen, under a streetlamp. Orange light illuminates Chloe’s skin as he pushes her against a cement wall, cups her chin in his palm and tips her face up, strokes along her jaw as their teeth click together. It’s slick and wet and hot, tastes damp of saliva when Chloe thrusts her tongue between his lips and into his mouth without permission, curls a hand around the back of his neck and tugs him forward. Their mouths seal completely and all he knows in that instant is Chloe; probing tongue and the remnant taste of chocolate ice cream.
Exigent hands tug at his shirt as he and Chloe stumble through the doorway of his dorm room. Chloe sucks lightly on his lower lip and his back hits the mattress. Chloe undoes the buttons on his shirt with one quick tug, snaps then loose from the cotton; they tumble and roll onto the floor. His fingers shake and quiver, because he’s never done this before but his inexperience is forgotten when Chloe pulls her blouse over her head, so he has full view of frosty blue lace covering full breasts. He touches every inch of skin, trails his hands along it, memorizes the silken slip of it beneath his flesh. Chloe shoves him flat onto his back, knees on either side of his hips and then he slips between her thighs, into heat and pressure. She rocks and swivels, abdominal muscles tensed and rigid. Afterwards he rests his cheek on the flat expanse of Chloe’s stomach, traces patterns over her breasts.
Chloe runs comforting fingers through his hair and he drifts to sleep in the heat and darkness.
-
He rolls the engagement ring between his fingers. Snatches of sunlight reflect brightly off glittering gold and the one carat diamond. Three years of waiting tables and stacking boxes, two thousand dollars crammed and condensed into a piece of jewelry that symbolizes commitment and domesticity, that sparkles in the light, that isn’t returned even long after a marriage has ended. He drops it into the mug of coffee; it sinks to the bottom with a plunk, splashes burning liquid onto the countertop.
“Davis, I don’t have time to talk right now. My final is tomorrow and I have another sixteen pages of notes to memorize.” Chloe is disheveled, strands stick up and out in every direction.
“I brought you some coffee.” He kisses her temple, smoothes her hair down, sets the mug beside her papers. “I’ll be in the living room.”
Ten minutes later he gets a text message with the word “yes” and another that reads “next time, propose to me after finals”.
-
Chloe wears white on their wedding day, a bright, vibrant white dress, simple and long. Chloe’s father walks her down the aisle, holds her by the arm. Chloe’s face is hidden behind a thick white veil and when he lifts it up her smile is just as white. Her jade eyes shimmer with excitement, radiate love and affection.
The air is literally sucked from his lungs and he can’t remember if Chloe has ever looked as beautiful.
-
Chloe tastes like champagne and cake as he carries her through the hotel lobby, holds her in his arms until they’re inside the hotel room. He drops her playfully on the bed and watches her bounce, stares at the silken skin of her legs as she kicks off her heels, pulls the train of her dress up enough to see her knees.
He moves his mouth along her shoulders, peels the straps of her dress away with his teeth. Chloe lets him, reaches awkwardly to cup the side of his face while he unzips her, removes the wedding dress inch by inch, kissing the velvet expanse of her long, bare back. Chloe wraps a leg around his waist, pulls him down to her, grips his shoulders, breathes and pushes against him when he pulls, moves when he does. Colors flash before his eyes and Chloe murmurs his name into his skin, riding waves of ecstasy.
They come down from their high in degrees, sprawled together in a tangle of warm limbs and sweat heated skin.
-
Sunlight gleams golden on Chloe’s flesh as she slips out of bed early in the morning, when the sun slowly begins to rise on the horizon, casting rays of orange and pink and purple across the sky. His t-shirt covers Chloe to the tops of her thighs, hangs loose and baggy around her.
“Where are you going?” He yawns, rolling lazily onto his side, staring out through exhausted eyes, a double shift and too much coffee heavy in his muscles.
“Bathroom, go back to sleep.” She blows him a kiss, flutters delicate fingers. “Don’t worry; I’ll wake you up if I decide to have my way with you.”
“I’d rather sleep.” He buries his face into Chloe’s pillow, smells her shampoo and soap.
“Can do. You won’t notice a thing.” Chloe winks and leaves him alone in the silence of the empty bedroom.
Chloe shakes him awake sometime later but before he can begin to ask she holds up a small white stick with a large, blue plus sign and his question transforms into kiss.
-
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.” Chloe snarls at him, aggression in her eyes. He can hear the contempt in her voice; see it dripping from her words like invisible venom that forms a puddle of fury on the floor.
“I wanted to take you to dinner, but you blew me off to help Clark with an article for the Planet?” He shouts and Chloe glares at him; daggers of jade. He hates himself and he hates the stupid argument but the accusations are pouring from his lips along with the years of suppressed emotions. Every glance at Clark from their youth was a fresh wound to his skin and now the scabs have broken and he’s fresh and bleeding; exposed and raw and hurting.
“He’s my best friend Davis, you know that.” She looks like she wants to scratch his eyes out and he wants to slam his fist into the wall and watch the plaster crumble; feel broken bones and pain rather than the emotional agony. “Why the hell are you so worried?”
“Because I love you.” His voice is soft, honest. “Can’t you understand why I’d worry? Why anyone would worry about losing you?” He crosses the empty space between them and brushes back her hair, tucks it behind her ears.
“No. You should know that I love you enough to never want Clark that way again.” She puts a hand on the swell of her abdomen, and he wonders if loving each other too much is the biggest foible their relationship will ever weather, if this is how it ends or if this is a sojourn on their quest towards contentment.
He can do little more than close his eyes and pray to God that when he opens them she will still be standing there.
-
“Say hi to daddy.” Chloe holds their daughter’s chubby wrist between her fingers and waves it at him, plants a kiss on a smooth, round cheek. His daughter only gurgles, sucks wetly on her fingers and smiles a wide, toothless smile when he kicks off his shoes and settles on the couch; nineteen hours of driving the ambulance forgotten.
“Hello sweetheart.” He takes the warm little body into his arms, balances her on his lap. She touches his face with hands that are sticky with chocolate, smell sweet and bitter.
She snuggles up against his chest and he can’t understand how he never realized how much better life can be.
-
Davis is startled from sleep by a deep, rumble of thunder. Cold and cramps sit in his muscles, stiff and sore. He shifts in his seat, shivers against the icy air, stretches the best he can in the front seat of the ambulance. He has four long hours before his shift is over and the streets and radio are silent. He hears the crackle of static and the low hum of car engines.
He rests his forehead against cool glass and drifts back to sleep to the steady sound of rain on the window.
let her know you liked the happy.ish. ^-~
How would young Davis have fit into SV with Chloe? How do their lives change?When you read, you'll know.
Also watch for the *details*. Of course Davis would notice Moira.
2839 words, r/nc-17, you'll see
by xxamlaxx at her lj
Davis Bloome meets Chloe Sullivan on a Monday.
Davis Bloome meets Chloe Sullivan on a Monday, in line for morning snack, when the air smells like graham crackers and apple juice and his fingers are sticky with cinnamon and sugar.
He sits happily at his table, munching on his cookies until a big boy, Alexander, knocks his cup of juice over on purpose. The golden-brown liquid spills onto the plastic surface, onto his Oreos. Everything is wet and soggy and he starts to cry because the juice has also formed a cold damp spot in the front of his pants. He’s still hungry and everyone but him gets to eat their snack.
“Hey.” A little blonde girl slides into the seat beside him, nudges him with her elbow. “Stop being a baby.” His lower lip is trembling and he stares through tear blurred eyes to see her small hand offering him one of her cookies.
“Thanks.” He sniffles, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He tries to smile but the girl is already getting up to leave, waving to a boy with dark hair and blue eyes.
“You should get new pants. It looks like you peed.”
He watches her walk away as apple juice dries stiff in his lap.
-
Chloe is in his chemistry class freshman year. He nearly trips over his own feet to get to her so he can be her lab partner for the semester. Chloe is reading a book about Bigfoot when he slams his books down on the table loudly, so hard the glass beakers shake and rattle. Chloe turns and looks him up and down, smiling green eyes as she snaps her gum and says
“I almost didn’t recognize you without wet pants.”
-
“Davis!” Chloe calls to him across the cafeteria, beckons to him with long, slender fingers. He swallows the nervousness in his throat and approaches, hot butterflies of anxiety creating a tornado in his stomach. “Can you sit here today? I want to go over our science fair project.” His voice cracks when he tries to answer so he nods instead, feels heat in his cheeks when Pete makes kissy-faces at him and Chloe, snickers quietly with Clark.
He eats lunch with Chloe and decides that he’ll trade the world if Chloe will look at him the way she looks at Clark for just a second.
-
“What are you doing this Saturday Davis?” Chloe whispers to him during the lecture on the substances that increase the rate of chemical reactions.
“Nothing, why?” He asks back, hand drifting up to rub at the bruises along his collarbone, the spots of dark purple in the shape of fingertips.
“Can I come over to your house to start our science fair board?” He thinks of his newest house; broken beer bottles and angry words, angrier fists, the sting of leather between his shoulder blades, the trickle of blood and tears on his skin.
“My parents are cleaning that day, why don’t I come over instead?”
“Okay.”
That night a dinner of frozen peas and canned meat doesn’t taste so awful.
-
“Davis, did you walk here?” Chloe questions while he pants, sweat forming on his skin in beads, causing his shirt to stick to him in uncomfortable places.
“Yeah.” He replies, accepting the glass of water she offers him with a smile. “It’s only nineteen blocks.”
“It’s ninety-five degrees outside.” He shrugs at her and walks into the welcomed relief of an industrial air conditioner. Chloe is wearing a pair of jean shorts and a t-shirt. He watches the golden glow of her calves in the sunlight, the shine of her hair. “I baked cookies, take some if you want.” He stuffs five into his pockets when Chloe looks away, walks off to her bedroom in long, confident strides, barefoot on the soft white carpet. “Blue or black construction paper?”
“Both.” He sits with Chloe on her bed. Her room is redolent of coffee and green apple scented body spray. Pictures of Chloe, Clark, and Pete sit on her nightstand; at the lake, on their first day of school, riding horses. He picks up a picture of Chloe and her father, idly wonders why there isn’t a photo of Chloe’s mother to be seen, wants to know if she even has one.
“Sorry my room looks like a hurricane blew through.” Chloe motions towards the papers scattered in every direction, littering the floor, with lines of text circled or underlined or highlighted in red. “The paper deadline was pushed up.”
“Don’t worry about it, my room is worse.” Cigarette burns in the carpet and beer stains on his sheets. “Are you going to Homecoming next week?” His hands shake with anticipation, with the incipient rejection he can hear forming on Chloe’s tongue.
“I was going to go with Clark, as friends, but Lana asked him yesterday.” Chloe’s smile is weak and miserable.
“We can go together, if you want.” He’s raw and exposed and vulnerable in the silence. Chloe can make his day or break it, go for his throat and sever his jugular with one simple word.
“I’d like that.”
-
He spends his life savings on renting a tux for the evening. His foster-mother smoothes down his hair before she leaves for work, adjusts his collar, pins a flower neatly to his lapel. His foster-father is just sober enough to drive him to the dance, while he sits in the passenger seat in silence, showered in the cold glare of partially inebriated indifference. He gets out and shuts the door without a word, doesn’t move until the truck’s headlights are faint dots of yellow in the distance.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t pick you up.” He apologizes, slipping the corsage around Chloe’s wrist; her skin is soft and warm beneath his fingertips.
“It’s probably best. My dad would have gone into full blown interrogation mode.” He tries his best not to stare at the swell of Chloe’s breasts, the visible line of her cleavage, the red satin emphasizing the slender waist and svelte form.
“You look nice.” He compliments, a modicum of embarrassment spiking his blood and binding with his hemoglobin when Chloe’s cheeks flush red.
“You too.”
Chloe presses close when he musters the courage to ask her to dance. He can smell her soap and shampoo, perfume and deodorant. She smells like happiness and sweetness, apples and strawberries, coffee and newspaper ink. Her arms circle lazily around his neck, elbows resting on his shoulders. He feels her breath misting across his mouth, warm, moist puffs of air. He stands transfixed as the heat increases, and then all he can feel is the hot, silken press of Chloe’s mouth against his, taste cherry lip gloss.
Pete whistles at them and they bump foreheads when they break apart.
He succumbs that night and touches himself in the darkness. He can smell Chloe on his clothes and feel her on his lips while his hand moves awkwardly across his cock. He tries to imagine the smooth expanse of skin beneath her dress but all he sees is denim clad hips and a cotton covered chest and torso, can’t even begin to wonder what she looks like because the glorious fantasy within his mind will pale in comparison with reality.
He comes with a long exhale of breath, but afterwards he’s left with a hollow feeling in his heart and a sticky palm.
-
His life is thrown into disorder once again. He touches the stitches on his cheek and slowly packs his belongings into the familiar plastic garbage bag. Inside he stuffs his clothing, books, and the note Chloe passed him in chemistry class three months before; a doodle of Chloe slumped dead from boredom over their table while their teacher lectures. He allows the social worker to guide him to her car, buckles himself in the back seat and stares out at the city through smudged glass as she tells him all about his new home.
They exit the city limits he doubts Chloe will even miss him.
-
Three years pass in a miasma of solitude and vicissitudes. He goes through three more apartments, one house with a white picket fence and three biological children who stare at him as though he’s an invader from outer space. Living is an arduous, exhausting action, and nights he sleeps like the dead, sprawled out on his mattress, oblivious to the world. His acceptance letter to Metropolis University arrives in the mail three days before he officially ages out of the foster care system.
A full scholarship and his one and only chance to escape from a future of menial labor and low paying jobs.
-
“Davis? Oh my god, it’s been years!” His heart leaps painfully in his chest and he’s enveloped in warm, toned arms, a soft, smooth cheek pressed against his. Chloe is hugging him and she’s pressed against his chest and it’s too wonderful to be veritable. “How are you?” This isn’t the Chloe from his memories, the fifteen year old girl from his youth. This is a young woman with Chloe’s face, prettier and older.
“Better now.”
“Do you want to go out for dinner tonight? Catch up?”
“There’s nothing I’d rather do.”
-
He kisses Chloe on their fourth date, at eleven seventeen, under a streetlamp. Orange light illuminates Chloe’s skin as he pushes her against a cement wall, cups her chin in his palm and tips her face up, strokes along her jaw as their teeth click together. It’s slick and wet and hot, tastes damp of saliva when Chloe thrusts her tongue between his lips and into his mouth without permission, curls a hand around the back of his neck and tugs him forward. Their mouths seal completely and all he knows in that instant is Chloe; probing tongue and the remnant taste of chocolate ice cream.
Exigent hands tug at his shirt as he and Chloe stumble through the doorway of his dorm room. Chloe sucks lightly on his lower lip and his back hits the mattress. Chloe undoes the buttons on his shirt with one quick tug, snaps then loose from the cotton; they tumble and roll onto the floor. His fingers shake and quiver, because he’s never done this before but his inexperience is forgotten when Chloe pulls her blouse over her head, so he has full view of frosty blue lace covering full breasts. He touches every inch of skin, trails his hands along it, memorizes the silken slip of it beneath his flesh. Chloe shoves him flat onto his back, knees on either side of his hips and then he slips between her thighs, into heat and pressure. She rocks and swivels, abdominal muscles tensed and rigid. Afterwards he rests his cheek on the flat expanse of Chloe’s stomach, traces patterns over her breasts.
Chloe runs comforting fingers through his hair and he drifts to sleep in the heat and darkness.
-
He rolls the engagement ring between his fingers. Snatches of sunlight reflect brightly off glittering gold and the one carat diamond. Three years of waiting tables and stacking boxes, two thousand dollars crammed and condensed into a piece of jewelry that symbolizes commitment and domesticity, that sparkles in the light, that isn’t returned even long after a marriage has ended. He drops it into the mug of coffee; it sinks to the bottom with a plunk, splashes burning liquid onto the countertop.
“Davis, I don’t have time to talk right now. My final is tomorrow and I have another sixteen pages of notes to memorize.” Chloe is disheveled, strands stick up and out in every direction.
“I brought you some coffee.” He kisses her temple, smoothes her hair down, sets the mug beside her papers. “I’ll be in the living room.”
Ten minutes later he gets a text message with the word “yes” and another that reads “next time, propose to me after finals”.
-
Chloe wears white on their wedding day, a bright, vibrant white dress, simple and long. Chloe’s father walks her down the aisle, holds her by the arm. Chloe’s face is hidden behind a thick white veil and when he lifts it up her smile is just as white. Her jade eyes shimmer with excitement, radiate love and affection.
The air is literally sucked from his lungs and he can’t remember if Chloe has ever looked as beautiful.
-
Chloe tastes like champagne and cake as he carries her through the hotel lobby, holds her in his arms until they’re inside the hotel room. He drops her playfully on the bed and watches her bounce, stares at the silken skin of her legs as she kicks off her heels, pulls the train of her dress up enough to see her knees.
He moves his mouth along her shoulders, peels the straps of her dress away with his teeth. Chloe lets him, reaches awkwardly to cup the side of his face while he unzips her, removes the wedding dress inch by inch, kissing the velvet expanse of her long, bare back. Chloe wraps a leg around his waist, pulls him down to her, grips his shoulders, breathes and pushes against him when he pulls, moves when he does. Colors flash before his eyes and Chloe murmurs his name into his skin, riding waves of ecstasy.
They come down from their high in degrees, sprawled together in a tangle of warm limbs and sweat heated skin.
-
Sunlight gleams golden on Chloe’s flesh as she slips out of bed early in the morning, when the sun slowly begins to rise on the horizon, casting rays of orange and pink and purple across the sky. His t-shirt covers Chloe to the tops of her thighs, hangs loose and baggy around her.
“Where are you going?” He yawns, rolling lazily onto his side, staring out through exhausted eyes, a double shift and too much coffee heavy in his muscles.
“Bathroom, go back to sleep.” She blows him a kiss, flutters delicate fingers. “Don’t worry; I’ll wake you up if I decide to have my way with you.”
“I’d rather sleep.” He buries his face into Chloe’s pillow, smells her shampoo and soap.
“Can do. You won’t notice a thing.” Chloe winks and leaves him alone in the silence of the empty bedroom.
Chloe shakes him awake sometime later but before he can begin to ask she holds up a small white stick with a large, blue plus sign and his question transforms into kiss.
-
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.” Chloe snarls at him, aggression in her eyes. He can hear the contempt in her voice; see it dripping from her words like invisible venom that forms a puddle of fury on the floor.
“I wanted to take you to dinner, but you blew me off to help Clark with an article for the Planet?” He shouts and Chloe glares at him; daggers of jade. He hates himself and he hates the stupid argument but the accusations are pouring from his lips along with the years of suppressed emotions. Every glance at Clark from their youth was a fresh wound to his skin and now the scabs have broken and he’s fresh and bleeding; exposed and raw and hurting.
“He’s my best friend Davis, you know that.” She looks like she wants to scratch his eyes out and he wants to slam his fist into the wall and watch the plaster crumble; feel broken bones and pain rather than the emotional agony. “Why the hell are you so worried?”
“Because I love you.” His voice is soft, honest. “Can’t you understand why I’d worry? Why anyone would worry about losing you?” He crosses the empty space between them and brushes back her hair, tucks it behind her ears.
“No. You should know that I love you enough to never want Clark that way again.” She puts a hand on the swell of her abdomen, and he wonders if loving each other too much is the biggest foible their relationship will ever weather, if this is how it ends or if this is a sojourn on their quest towards contentment.
He can do little more than close his eyes and pray to God that when he opens them she will still be standing there.
-
“Say hi to daddy.” Chloe holds their daughter’s chubby wrist between her fingers and waves it at him, plants a kiss on a smooth, round cheek. His daughter only gurgles, sucks wetly on her fingers and smiles a wide, toothless smile when he kicks off his shoes and settles on the couch; nineteen hours of driving the ambulance forgotten.
“Hello sweetheart.” He takes the warm little body into his arms, balances her on his lap. She touches his face with hands that are sticky with chocolate, smell sweet and bitter.
She snuggles up against his chest and he can’t understand how he never realized how much better life can be.
-
Davis is startled from sleep by a deep, rumble of thunder. Cold and cramps sit in his muscles, stiff and sore. He shifts in his seat, shivers against the icy air, stretches the best he can in the front seat of the ambulance. He has four long hours before his shift is over and the streets and radio are silent. He hears the crackle of static and the low hum of car engines.
He rests his forehead against cool glass and drifts back to sleep to the steady sound of rain on the window.
let her know you liked the happy.ish. ^-~
Monday, March 30, 2009
and now, my rebuttal
Reccing Notes: I can safely say, the very first Chloe/Davis fic that made me howl of laughter. And then made me wish that PS3 had been ingenious enough to go through with it.
davis pov.
1,156 words, pg, bride.
by seriousfic at her lj.
Davis knows it looks bad, but he has an explanation for everything.
Hey, sports fans. Davis Bloom here, coming at you from the Arctic Circle. I know you’ve probably heard a lot about my actions recently, so I’m here to set the record straight.
First off, could we please stop calling me Doomsday? I have a name. How come I have to be Doomsday and Clark gets to be Superman? How about he’s Memory Rapist and I’m… Abraham Lincoln? How about that?
Second, I know it looks bad, me being naked, covered in blood (but not to you goth girls. Thanks for the fan mail by the way). But the thing you don’t know is that I black out when I transform into my alter ego. I get up, covered in spikes, and try to give someone a high-five, or a friendly pat on the back, maybe even a goose to the butt – hey, I never said I was perfect. Next thing I know, they’re eviscerated. But I always do the conscientious thing and clean up after myself. Does Clark bust out the brick and mortar after he throws someone through a wall? Nope.
And then that cop came by. Well, you all saw how I tried to explain myself to him, but next thing I know, he’s pulled a gun out and is shooting me! Unfortunately (or fortunately) my skin is good for more than Gray Hulk cosplay. The bullets bounced right off me and hit him. Not one of my finer moments, but hardly my fault.
No sooner do I get him cleaned up then I remember Chloe’s wedding. I head over there to be the bigger man and wish her good luck on her special day. Now, a lot of you don’t know this, but I get around by getting up a good head of steam and then jumping for miles. Maybe it’s not as stylish as those gas-guzzling F-150 pick-up trucks, Clark, but I green my effing routine.
Unfortunately, on my last jump I noticed that there was a passenger plane in my path. Through sheer force of will, I was able to maneuver past it. Have you seen that James Bond film where Roger Moore gets thrown out of a plane without a parachute and has to steal one? It was one of the ones with Jaws? It was kinda like that. Now, although I did succeed in saving all of the plane passengers, that caused me to overshoot my mark and land right on top of Clark’s farm.
As a sidenote, who in the hell gets married in a barn? Yeah, Jimmy, I’m sure as a little girl, Chloe’s fondest wish was to get married in someplace that smells like hay and cows. Now, me, I would reserve one of those big churches for a wedding the second she put on my ring, because I care. But back to the story.
Now, that farm was clearly structurally unstable, which I can only blame on Clark’s preference for having awkward sexual tension with Miss Lois Lane rather than doing basic home maintenance. I mean, the guy keeps a radioactive isotope in his desk! We’re not dealing with Bob Vila here! Beams are falling everywhere, the place was obviously going to collapse at any minute, and since I doubt turning into a naked EMT would calm them down, I thought on my feet and decided to scare them into running. Well, not even scare, more of a ‘emphatically point toward the exits.’
So then Clark comes up to me. Now, here’s a guy who’s an actual outer space alien. You’d think he wouldn’t judge on appearances. Maybe ask me how my day’s been, what I’m doing there, how my mother’s holding up… but no! He throws a punch!
Well, clearly I can’t have a big superhero throwdown in the middle of a crowded barn. People could get hurt. So I threw him towards the trace radiation I detected from that lead box he keeps around (oh, yeah, I can detect radiation. I bet you thought I was just really strong. I bet you also didn’t know that I have the power… to feel). There, safely irradiated by Kryptonite, he wouldn’t cause any more problems.
Then I took out the camera. What can I say, I didn’t want to end up naked and spiky all over Youtube. I have a right to privacy.
Now, everyone else had run away, but for some reason Jimmy was keeping Chloe there. Maybe it was a deer in the headlights thing. Being a gentleman, I went over to apologize for ruining her special day. And what do you think that little dillweed goes? He grabs a two-by-four and hits me!
Now, maybe this didn’t come across in the editing (they went totally reality TV on everything), but when that didn’t work, he rushed me. Now, as some of you might’ve noticed, I have spikes on my chest. He was going to skewer himself. So I shoved him aside, accidentally lacerating him with the spikes on my hands.
Then there was some crying from Chloe. Of course, that barn was still groaning up a storm. So I picked her up and took her away. The barn collapsed shortly after, which was why you saw so many people in the hospital. So I took Chloe to Brainiac…
(He was an old college friend. That’s another thing you probably didn’t know, but it could win you a million dollars on a quiz show someday.)
Where he graciously put us up while we all chilled. Chloe was so grateful for my thoughtfulness that she personally thanked me. Apparently, she’d had cold feet for a while, she just couldn’t be honest about them due to various memory problems. My wedding crashing (get it?) had given her the perfect excuse to think things over.
Now, I couldn’t stay in monster form and talk to her, so I shrunk down and… well, I was naked, and the only clothes the Fortress had was this gay set of blue and red rights. Underwear on the outside. So one thing led to another and…
Well, I might’ve ruined Chloe’s wedding, but I definitely saved the honeymoon. Brainiac was kind enough to dim the lights and play some Barry White, which was a nice break from the howling Arctic winds.
Thankfully we weren’t interrupted by Clark, since he was busy checking up on Lana in the hospital, checking up on Lois in the hospital, hell, I think he might’ve checked up on Kissinger in the hospital.
So, there you have it. The only thing I’m guilty of is being a good friend.
Of course, I’m sure you’re all going to take Jimmy’s side just because I horribly mutilated him and slept with his wife, but I thought you should know all the facts before you start sending me hate mail. Because I may be invulnerable to bullets, knives, missiles, and low-yield nuclear warheads, but words? Words can still hurt.
Tell her how awesome you found it!
davis pov.
1,156 words, pg, bride.
by seriousfic at her lj.
Davis knows it looks bad, but he has an explanation for everything.
Hey, sports fans. Davis Bloom here, coming at you from the Arctic Circle. I know you’ve probably heard a lot about my actions recently, so I’m here to set the record straight.
First off, could we please stop calling me Doomsday? I have a name. How come I have to be Doomsday and Clark gets to be Superman? How about he’s Memory Rapist and I’m… Abraham Lincoln? How about that?
Second, I know it looks bad, me being naked, covered in blood (but not to you goth girls. Thanks for the fan mail by the way). But the thing you don’t know is that I black out when I transform into my alter ego. I get up, covered in spikes, and try to give someone a high-five, or a friendly pat on the back, maybe even a goose to the butt – hey, I never said I was perfect. Next thing I know, they’re eviscerated. But I always do the conscientious thing and clean up after myself. Does Clark bust out the brick and mortar after he throws someone through a wall? Nope.
And then that cop came by. Well, you all saw how I tried to explain myself to him, but next thing I know, he’s pulled a gun out and is shooting me! Unfortunately (or fortunately) my skin is good for more than Gray Hulk cosplay. The bullets bounced right off me and hit him. Not one of my finer moments, but hardly my fault.
No sooner do I get him cleaned up then I remember Chloe’s wedding. I head over there to be the bigger man and wish her good luck on her special day. Now, a lot of you don’t know this, but I get around by getting up a good head of steam and then jumping for miles. Maybe it’s not as stylish as those gas-guzzling F-150 pick-up trucks, Clark, but I green my effing routine.
Unfortunately, on my last jump I noticed that there was a passenger plane in my path. Through sheer force of will, I was able to maneuver past it. Have you seen that James Bond film where Roger Moore gets thrown out of a plane without a parachute and has to steal one? It was one of the ones with Jaws? It was kinda like that. Now, although I did succeed in saving all of the plane passengers, that caused me to overshoot my mark and land right on top of Clark’s farm.
As a sidenote, who in the hell gets married in a barn? Yeah, Jimmy, I’m sure as a little girl, Chloe’s fondest wish was to get married in someplace that smells like hay and cows. Now, me, I would reserve one of those big churches for a wedding the second she put on my ring, because I care. But back to the story.
Now, that farm was clearly structurally unstable, which I can only blame on Clark’s preference for having awkward sexual tension with Miss Lois Lane rather than doing basic home maintenance. I mean, the guy keeps a radioactive isotope in his desk! We’re not dealing with Bob Vila here! Beams are falling everywhere, the place was obviously going to collapse at any minute, and since I doubt turning into a naked EMT would calm them down, I thought on my feet and decided to scare them into running. Well, not even scare, more of a ‘emphatically point toward the exits.’
So then Clark comes up to me. Now, here’s a guy who’s an actual outer space alien. You’d think he wouldn’t judge on appearances. Maybe ask me how my day’s been, what I’m doing there, how my mother’s holding up… but no! He throws a punch!
Well, clearly I can’t have a big superhero throwdown in the middle of a crowded barn. People could get hurt. So I threw him towards the trace radiation I detected from that lead box he keeps around (oh, yeah, I can detect radiation. I bet you thought I was just really strong. I bet you also didn’t know that I have the power… to feel). There, safely irradiated by Kryptonite, he wouldn’t cause any more problems.
Then I took out the camera. What can I say, I didn’t want to end up naked and spiky all over Youtube. I have a right to privacy.
Now, everyone else had run away, but for some reason Jimmy was keeping Chloe there. Maybe it was a deer in the headlights thing. Being a gentleman, I went over to apologize for ruining her special day. And what do you think that little dillweed goes? He grabs a two-by-four and hits me!
Now, maybe this didn’t come across in the editing (they went totally reality TV on everything), but when that didn’t work, he rushed me. Now, as some of you might’ve noticed, I have spikes on my chest. He was going to skewer himself. So I shoved him aside, accidentally lacerating him with the spikes on my hands.
Then there was some crying from Chloe. Of course, that barn was still groaning up a storm. So I picked her up and took her away. The barn collapsed shortly after, which was why you saw so many people in the hospital. So I took Chloe to Brainiac…
(He was an old college friend. That’s another thing you probably didn’t know, but it could win you a million dollars on a quiz show someday.)
Where he graciously put us up while we all chilled. Chloe was so grateful for my thoughtfulness that she personally thanked me. Apparently, she’d had cold feet for a while, she just couldn’t be honest about them due to various memory problems. My wedding crashing (get it?) had given her the perfect excuse to think things over.
Now, I couldn’t stay in monster form and talk to her, so I shrunk down and… well, I was naked, and the only clothes the Fortress had was this gay set of blue and red rights. Underwear on the outside. So one thing led to another and…
Well, I might’ve ruined Chloe’s wedding, but I definitely saved the honeymoon. Brainiac was kind enough to dim the lights and play some Barry White, which was a nice break from the howling Arctic winds.
Thankfully we weren’t interrupted by Clark, since he was busy checking up on Lana in the hospital, checking up on Lois in the hospital, hell, I think he might’ve checked up on Kissinger in the hospital.
So, there you have it. The only thing I’m guilty of is being a good friend.
Of course, I’m sure you’re all going to take Jimmy’s side just because I horribly mutilated him and slept with his wife, but I thought you should know all the facts before you start sending me hate mail. Because I may be invulnerable to bullets, knives, missiles, and low-yield nuclear warheads, but words? Words can still hurt.
Tell her how awesome you found it!
association
Reccing Notes: Well it's not quite happy. Actually, pretty heartbreaking for both of them(again) and the roles they're in. but it's so worth taking the ride.
by xxamlaxx at her livejournal
565 words. R. abyss.
He needs her to see, to understand, because it seizes control of his body sporadically and he’s terrified that one night his consciousness won’t return, will remain trapped within the invisible void of heated darkness...while his mutated body kills and destroys and consumes.
Chloe won’t return his calls. Her phone rings and rings and finally goes to voicemail; cheerful, bubbly voice bidding him to leave a message. Apologies take up intangible space; proclamations of affections fill the cyber abyss. She never picks up, she never answers, her inbox fills until his throat is sore, his voice hoarse, and his mind is constantly focused on golden hair and jade eyes and a compassionate mien. He’s completely shattered any relationship they once had, shards of broken affection and splintered trust. He feels warm, silken lips on his every moment of the day, tastes bitter coffee and green apple chap stick.
The wedding date grows closer and closer, creeping slowly through time, laden with incipient anguish. He can try to convince her of her true feelings before the wedding but after vows are exchanged his chance is gone. He needs her to see, to understand, because it seizes control of his body sporadically and he’s terrified that one night his consciousness won’t return, will remain trapped within the invisible void of heated darkness, kept away from the world for eternity while his mutated body kills and destroys and consumes.
“Davis, I can’t talk right now.” Green eyes stare at the pavement; she attempts to walk around him.
“Please Chloe; just listen to me for a minute.” I’m sorry and I love you are thick on his tongue, heavy lead-like words he can’t say, dying and sinking in his throat before they can get past his vocal chords.
“I love Jimmy.” The statement doesn’t sound genuine, a well rehearsed, well performed lie.
“Why do you keep denying your feelings for me?” He thinks about Chloe more then he breathes, her face is his brain’s oxygen, necessary and essential to his functioning life.
“Because I don’t have any, not the kind you’re implying.” His heart cracks right up the middle, a seamless line. “We’re friends Davis.”
“But last week…”
“You crossed the boundaries.” She shakes her head, cold, sympathetic emeralds. “I’m getting married tomorrow.” She’s lying and he knows it, there are rules and regulations to life and they’re meant to be circumvented when the incentive is great enough.
“You shouldn’t.” And then, he kisses her again, takes her face in his hands, hot mouths touching, slick sliding as a wet tongue slides between his lips. He kisses so hard their teeth click together, a dull pain and quiet thud, he tastes coffee and cream and Chloe, stronger then before and better then he’s previously imagined. The ambulance is only four yards away and the back doors shut with the clang of metal. Clothing collects in piles on the floor. He just wants her to see what they can be, picture perfect happiness, husband and wife, a big house with a picket fence and three children.
The bed has a new use; he moves in and time slows to a crawl, drawn out minutes, damp skin and harsh, drawn out breathes. He wants the moment to last forever but soon enough Chloe’s name erupts from his mouth and sweat is cooling on his back, the scent of sex, perfume, and cologne hanging in the air. When his endorphin levels approach normality he glances up to see slender fingers hastily buttoning a green blouse and hear the zipper of blue jeans. Shadowed, weary green eyes stare at him, emotionally exhausted blades of grass and the words
“This was a mistake.” Ring loudly in the silence.
by xxamlaxx at her livejournal
565 words. R. abyss.
He needs her to see, to understand, because it seizes control of his body sporadically and he’s terrified that one night his consciousness won’t return, will remain trapped within the invisible void of heated darkness...while his mutated body kills and destroys and consumes.
Chloe won’t return his calls. Her phone rings and rings and finally goes to voicemail; cheerful, bubbly voice bidding him to leave a message. Apologies take up intangible space; proclamations of affections fill the cyber abyss. She never picks up, she never answers, her inbox fills until his throat is sore, his voice hoarse, and his mind is constantly focused on golden hair and jade eyes and a compassionate mien. He’s completely shattered any relationship they once had, shards of broken affection and splintered trust. He feels warm, silken lips on his every moment of the day, tastes bitter coffee and green apple chap stick.
The wedding date grows closer and closer, creeping slowly through time, laden with incipient anguish. He can try to convince her of her true feelings before the wedding but after vows are exchanged his chance is gone. He needs her to see, to understand, because it seizes control of his body sporadically and he’s terrified that one night his consciousness won’t return, will remain trapped within the invisible void of heated darkness, kept away from the world for eternity while his mutated body kills and destroys and consumes.
“Davis, I can’t talk right now.” Green eyes stare at the pavement; she attempts to walk around him.
“Please Chloe; just listen to me for a minute.” I’m sorry and I love you are thick on his tongue, heavy lead-like words he can’t say, dying and sinking in his throat before they can get past his vocal chords.
“I love Jimmy.” The statement doesn’t sound genuine, a well rehearsed, well performed lie.
“Why do you keep denying your feelings for me?” He thinks about Chloe more then he breathes, her face is his brain’s oxygen, necessary and essential to his functioning life.
“Because I don’t have any, not the kind you’re implying.” His heart cracks right up the middle, a seamless line. “We’re friends Davis.”
“But last week…”
“You crossed the boundaries.” She shakes her head, cold, sympathetic emeralds. “I’m getting married tomorrow.” She’s lying and he knows it, there are rules and regulations to life and they’re meant to be circumvented when the incentive is great enough.
“You shouldn’t.” And then, he kisses her again, takes her face in his hands, hot mouths touching, slick sliding as a wet tongue slides between his lips. He kisses so hard their teeth click together, a dull pain and quiet thud, he tastes coffee and cream and Chloe, stronger then before and better then he’s previously imagined. The ambulance is only four yards away and the back doors shut with the clang of metal. Clothing collects in piles on the floor. He just wants her to see what they can be, picture perfect happiness, husband and wife, a big house with a picket fence and three children.
The bed has a new use; he moves in and time slows to a crawl, drawn out minutes, damp skin and harsh, drawn out breathes. He wants the moment to last forever but soon enough Chloe’s name erupts from his mouth and sweat is cooling on his back, the scent of sex, perfume, and cologne hanging in the air. When his endorphin levels approach normality he glances up to see slender fingers hastily buttoning a green blouse and hear the zipper of blue jeans. Shadowed, weary green eyes stare at him, emotionally exhausted blades of grass and the words
“This was a mistake.” Ring loudly in the silence.
sharpening bone
Reccing Notes: Especially amazing considering the place the show is now. The desperation, the feeling that backs it all up. ...all in only 100 words.
pg, 100 words, legion and onwards
by viennawaits at infishbowls
If Chloe had known, she would have told Davis from the start. If Chloe had known, she would have told Davis from the start. “Please, not me.”
Problem: Chance is never on her side.
°
His hands were cool against the small of her back and when he kissed her she fell.
Cue the strings. Begin the coda.
This is how they end.
°
He kisses her and Chloe learns that having and wanting have nothing to do with each other.
“Davis,”
He doesn’t listen, kisses her for a moment to long and leaves a bruise. When her arms reach around him, Davis is shaking.
“Not yet.”
She could give him that.
Endnotes: title comes from a Piers Faccini song of the same name.
Leave her the awe. ^-^
pg, 100 words, legion and onwards
by viennawaits at infishbowls
If Chloe had known, she would have told Davis from the start. If Chloe had known, she would have told Davis from the start. “Please, not me.”
Problem: Chance is never on her side.
°
His hands were cool against the small of her back and when he kissed her she fell.
Cue the strings. Begin the coda.
This is how they end.
°
He kisses her and Chloe learns that having and wanting have nothing to do with each other.
“Davis,”
He doesn’t listen, kisses her for a moment to long and leaves a bruise. When her arms reach around him, Davis is shaking.
“Not yet.”
She could give him that.
Endnotes: title comes from a Piers Faccini song of the same name.
Leave her the awe. ^-^
Sunday, March 29, 2009
amourous
Reccing Note: I asked paraxdisepink to change one detail about the SV universe when she wrote this. So is it Chloe that's different, is it Braniac? You decide.
1303 words, PG-13, post prey
by paraxdisepink at her livejournal.
“And are you sure someone didn’t put something in that?”
They got the call to help another unit carry a 400 pound patient out of a bathroom in a club a couple miles away. Drug overdose. Respiratory distress. ETA six minutes – just inside the eight minute 911 response time.
The scene was typical for a Friday night in a big city. Loud hip hop music, drunk guys watching drunk girls on the dance floor who probably wouldn’t dance that way sober, and of course the dozens of people on other stuff one step away from a trip to the ER themselves. They all stared when he and his partner came in. People always did. Medical emergies were fascinating no matter how out of it you were.
The two of them helped the other crew get the patient out of the stall and onto the floor, but since it wasn’t their call Davis and his partner had nothing to do but stand around until the guy was stabilized and ready for transport. Melanie – the new one – wasn’t too keen on hanging out in the men’s room so Davis followed her out into the hall away from the crowd. She didn’t look like much, five feet tall and in desperate need of a trip to McDonalds, but she could lift as well as anyone and it turned out she’d graduated from Smallville High the same year as Chloe and her friends. So far tonight he’d learned that Chloe had been editor of a paper, the prom queen, and that before Jimmy she’d never had a boyfriend.
The world was a messed up place.
“Well if it isn’t tall, dark, and save-the-day!” a familiar voice called above the music.
Davis turned. A tall woman pushed her way over to him – Lois – her top so tight and low-cut a decent guy didn’t know where to look. He forgot her the second he saw she wasn’t alone. Chloe emerged from behind her, one of those oversized margaritas in hand. Her face was flushed, and he doubted that drink was her first tonight. That surprised him. He’d figured Lois for the club type, but Chloe? And where the hell was Jimmy? In the few weeks Davis had known Chloe he had never seen the two of them together.
She was beaming at him, not the sort of response you usually got from someone who said they didn’t want to see you for a while, but Lois went on before Chloe could say anything. “So, how ‘bout it, Rescue 911? Anything you can tell us about the guy in there? Has this happened in here before? Has the club owner been looking the other way? Will there be an investigation? Give me something that can get me on the front page.”
Davis shook his head. “I don’t think your average addict is newsworthy, sorry.”
“The average addict doesn't weigh four hundred pounds.”
She had a point, but Chloe pushed her out of the way, shoving her drink into Lois’ hand before Davis could answer. “Come on, cousin. There’s more important things at the moment than your pipe dream of becoming a front page reporter.”
Lois made a face. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Davis!”
He blinked. All of a sudden he was important? What happened to helping him didn’t mean anything? “I thought you said . . .” She said they shouldn’t see each other. This didn’t count, of course; he was working, but . . . His thoughts trailed off when she came closer
She didn’t just walk either. She swayed, a little too deliberately for a drunk person. “Come dance with me!” she grabbed his hand, pulling him toward her.
He didn’t move. Britney Spears’ “Break the Ice” wasn’t exactly his type of tune, and he didn’t dance anyway. But he would have, with her. He couldn’t though, not with her half out of her mind like this. “I’m working, Chloe,” he told her, pulling his hand away. The warmth of her fingertips made the separation physical painful.
She tilted her head and put on a hurt expression, clasping her hands behind her back and twisting, “Please . . .” she looked up at him through her lashes.
Davis drew a breath. This wasn’t Chloe. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He looked over at Lois and the oversized margarita in her hand. “And are you sure someone didn’t put something in that?” Ecstasy, Ketamine – either could lead to amorous or aggressive behavior. In that case he’d have to bring her in to Met General. The thought of taking caring of her, even for just a few minutes . . . He swallowed hard.
Chloe laughed, a very bubbly silvery laugh. “I’m fine . . .” Her hands settled on his shoulders and she stretched up on her tip-toes, angling her head just so and leaning very very close. “And if my heart gives out, you can always give me a little mouth-to-mouth.”
If she went into actual cardiac arrest he would leave the CPR to his partner and run and get the paddles, he was going to say. But she pressed her mouth to his and the thought shattered entirely. He tasted salt and lime and incredible heat. His head spun. He could feel her pulse, not racing dangerously but throbbing. For him. The room became suddenly stifling and he got this image of hauling her into a dark corner of the club and . . .
Davis pulled back before she could really kiss him. It wouldn’t count anyway and he wouldn’t take advantage of her like this, with no clue as to what the hell she was doing. She settled for wrapping both arms around him instead, giggling, “Davis” into his shoulder and pressing herself against him like she never meant to let go.
His uniform jacket was thick, but not thick enough. He was painfully aware of every inch of her, more aware than anyone but Jimmy had a right to be. The soft places, the heat, the smell of her under the liquor and tartness of lime . . . He squeezed his eyes shut. His hand came up to her back.
“Dude, are you guys gonna help or what?”
Davis jumped. Guy in the bathroom. Work. Help get him to the hospital.
Right.
He lifted Chloe up and handed her over to Lois. “Just get her some water, okay? Call for help if anything worse happens.”
Lois snickered, not overly concerned with Chloe’s behavior. “Speaking of water . . . looks like someone needs a cold shower.”
Okay. He wasn’t touching that one. He didn’t have time anyway. Davis left Chloe in her cousin’s hold, staring after him with a dazed smile on her face. It was like ripping off skin walking away from her. He still felt the imprint of her, this calling like the two of them belonged fused together. His head threatened to explode if he didn’t give into it.
Melanie, who had been looking on the entire time, took the opportunity to speak up.
“Twenty bucks she’ll claim not to remember a thing tomorrow.”
He looked at her. Was this another of those only a woman can know another woman things, or was this something particular to Chloe?
“Because she’s engaged?”
That surprised her. She hadn’t noticed the ring. Or maybe Chloe wasn’t wearing the ring tonight. Davis hadn’t checked. “Engaged? You mean she got over Clark Kent? She was a lovesick puppy for him all through school.”
That bit of info hit him like a kick to the stomach, but it added up. Once, she had said when he asked about her feelings for him. Chloe and Clark were definitely tight. He felt like choking him, though he never thought of himself as the violent type. The guy didn’t trust him, and apparently his first impression had been right. Clark Kent was likely his real rival for Chloe’s affection.
Drop the love, and/or take a guess.^-^
1303 words, PG-13, post prey
by paraxdisepink at her livejournal.
“And are you sure someone didn’t put something in that?”
They got the call to help another unit carry a 400 pound patient out of a bathroom in a club a couple miles away. Drug overdose. Respiratory distress. ETA six minutes – just inside the eight minute 911 response time.
The scene was typical for a Friday night in a big city. Loud hip hop music, drunk guys watching drunk girls on the dance floor who probably wouldn’t dance that way sober, and of course the dozens of people on other stuff one step away from a trip to the ER themselves. They all stared when he and his partner came in. People always did. Medical emergies were fascinating no matter how out of it you were.
The two of them helped the other crew get the patient out of the stall and onto the floor, but since it wasn’t their call Davis and his partner had nothing to do but stand around until the guy was stabilized and ready for transport. Melanie – the new one – wasn’t too keen on hanging out in the men’s room so Davis followed her out into the hall away from the crowd. She didn’t look like much, five feet tall and in desperate need of a trip to McDonalds, but she could lift as well as anyone and it turned out she’d graduated from Smallville High the same year as Chloe and her friends. So far tonight he’d learned that Chloe had been editor of a paper, the prom queen, and that before Jimmy she’d never had a boyfriend.
The world was a messed up place.
“Well if it isn’t tall, dark, and save-the-day!” a familiar voice called above the music.
Davis turned. A tall woman pushed her way over to him – Lois – her top so tight and low-cut a decent guy didn’t know where to look. He forgot her the second he saw she wasn’t alone. Chloe emerged from behind her, one of those oversized margaritas in hand. Her face was flushed, and he doubted that drink was her first tonight. That surprised him. He’d figured Lois for the club type, but Chloe? And where the hell was Jimmy? In the few weeks Davis had known Chloe he had never seen the two of them together.
She was beaming at him, not the sort of response you usually got from someone who said they didn’t want to see you for a while, but Lois went on before Chloe could say anything. “So, how ‘bout it, Rescue 911? Anything you can tell us about the guy in there? Has this happened in here before? Has the club owner been looking the other way? Will there be an investigation? Give me something that can get me on the front page.”
Davis shook his head. “I don’t think your average addict is newsworthy, sorry.”
“The average addict doesn't weigh four hundred pounds.”
She had a point, but Chloe pushed her out of the way, shoving her drink into Lois’ hand before Davis could answer. “Come on, cousin. There’s more important things at the moment than your pipe dream of becoming a front page reporter.”
Lois made a face. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Davis!”
He blinked. All of a sudden he was important? What happened to helping him didn’t mean anything? “I thought you said . . .” She said they shouldn’t see each other. This didn’t count, of course; he was working, but . . . His thoughts trailed off when she came closer
She didn’t just walk either. She swayed, a little too deliberately for a drunk person. “Come dance with me!” she grabbed his hand, pulling him toward her.
He didn’t move. Britney Spears’ “Break the Ice” wasn’t exactly his type of tune, and he didn’t dance anyway. But he would have, with her. He couldn’t though, not with her half out of her mind like this. “I’m working, Chloe,” he told her, pulling his hand away. The warmth of her fingertips made the separation physical painful.
She tilted her head and put on a hurt expression, clasping her hands behind her back and twisting, “Please . . .” she looked up at him through her lashes.
Davis drew a breath. This wasn’t Chloe. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He looked over at Lois and the oversized margarita in her hand. “And are you sure someone didn’t put something in that?” Ecstasy, Ketamine – either could lead to amorous or aggressive behavior. In that case he’d have to bring her in to Met General. The thought of taking caring of her, even for just a few minutes . . . He swallowed hard.
Chloe laughed, a very bubbly silvery laugh. “I’m fine . . .” Her hands settled on his shoulders and she stretched up on her tip-toes, angling her head just so and leaning very very close. “And if my heart gives out, you can always give me a little mouth-to-mouth.”
If she went into actual cardiac arrest he would leave the CPR to his partner and run and get the paddles, he was going to say. But she pressed her mouth to his and the thought shattered entirely. He tasted salt and lime and incredible heat. His head spun. He could feel her pulse, not racing dangerously but throbbing. For him. The room became suddenly stifling and he got this image of hauling her into a dark corner of the club and . . .
Davis pulled back before she could really kiss him. It wouldn’t count anyway and he wouldn’t take advantage of her like this, with no clue as to what the hell she was doing. She settled for wrapping both arms around him instead, giggling, “Davis” into his shoulder and pressing herself against him like she never meant to let go.
His uniform jacket was thick, but not thick enough. He was painfully aware of every inch of her, more aware than anyone but Jimmy had a right to be. The soft places, the heat, the smell of her under the liquor and tartness of lime . . . He squeezed his eyes shut. His hand came up to her back.
“Dude, are you guys gonna help or what?”
Davis jumped. Guy in the bathroom. Work. Help get him to the hospital.
Right.
He lifted Chloe up and handed her over to Lois. “Just get her some water, okay? Call for help if anything worse happens.”
Lois snickered, not overly concerned with Chloe’s behavior. “Speaking of water . . . looks like someone needs a cold shower.”
Okay. He wasn’t touching that one. He didn’t have time anyway. Davis left Chloe in her cousin’s hold, staring after him with a dazed smile on her face. It was like ripping off skin walking away from her. He still felt the imprint of her, this calling like the two of them belonged fused together. His head threatened to explode if he didn’t give into it.
Melanie, who had been looking on the entire time, took the opportunity to speak up.
“Twenty bucks she’ll claim not to remember a thing tomorrow.”
He looked at her. Was this another of those only a woman can know another woman things, or was this something particular to Chloe?
“Because she’s engaged?”
That surprised her. She hadn’t noticed the ring. Or maybe Chloe wasn’t wearing the ring tonight. Davis hadn’t checked. “Engaged? You mean she got over Clark Kent? She was a lovesick puppy for him all through school.”
That bit of info hit him like a kick to the stomach, but it added up. Once, she had said when he asked about her feelings for him. Chloe and Clark were definitely tight. He felt like choking him, though he never thought of himself as the violent type. The guy didn’t trust him, and apparently his first impression had been right. Clark Kent was likely his real rival for Chloe’s affection.
Drop the love, and/or take a guess.^-^
Saturday, March 28, 2009
two. one.
Reccers Notes: The voice is so very Davis. Also, the fic hits you like a punch in the gut.
654 words, pg, after bride
by wings4 music at wings_for_craft
The countdown warrants a climax and finally explosions. Fireworks don’t set off. She steps back, says “I have to go” and she’s gone before the lights go off in their skies.
He’s probably fooling himself, but he’s nearly certain that she’s settling for Jimmy. Meaning she’s fooling herself.
His world has never been in equilibrium, but she’s rocked at a core within him, he thought to be numb.
Sympathy, pity, and voids he witnessed, knew, felt all too well. Chloe Sullivan has chased those things to their infinity and replaced with a finite longing…for her.
Five…four…“three…”
There’s a countdown and then there isn’t.
Maybe she promised herself a moment. This moment. To forget yesterday and tomorrow. To not pretend, but rather encompass a woman who’s intensely drawn to a man who, for once, feels those exact instincts and hears something through her thick walls even she cannot distinguish.
She doesn’t come through.
“Two,” he whispers after her “three”, having understood her verbalization of the number.
But one never leaves nor escapes her mouth.
Their eyes lock. Lips wait to touch. Breaths come unevenly from both parties - impatiently lingering on each other.
A countdown warrants a climax and finally explosions. Fireworks don’t set off. She steps back, says “I have to go” and she’s gone before the lights go off in their skies.
As she walks away from him, back turned, he wants to ask about the number of romantic films in which someone speaks that very line.
Of those she’s watched and that have said that, she’s probably made fun of or screamed at half of them. Her cousin Lois did them the favor the other half of the time. The two probably roll their eyes, call the line-speaker an idiot, and laugh off the ‘oh so cliché’ incident.
But he knows the two are romantics at heart, and they only criticize because someone has run away from a love ‘so obviously there.’ He also knows that women like Chloe and Lois, they have a disdain for people like that, and hence never have wanted to be the speakers of such lines. Nor have they ever wanted to be “those girls.” And even though each probably had prior experiences of being “those girls” who pacify feelings so strong, neither ever categorized themselves as such because they were more discreet about their pacifications, feelings and ensured that they never uttered such cliché lines like “I have to go”.
Thus, Davis Bloome knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it pained Chloe to have to utter “I have to go”. And to him of all people. It was in her eyes for the flicker of a second. Her tone was stoic, hands steady, and even if that ache hadn’t crossed the light of her eyes for a millisecond, he still would know. Beyond a shadow…of a doubt.
As she walks away from him, back turned, he wants to grab her wrist and pull her to him. But he’s not that guy.
“I’m not that guy,” he murmurs, trying to convince himself. He’s left unconvinced. He’s more than on the verge of becoming “that guy” as he and Chloe have already (even if for just a second) tested a boundary. That guy who takes another’s girl, pulls her against himself, and kisses her senseless. Leaves her aching for more. Forcing her to choose when choices are no longer an option because she’s married. Married.
But Chloe isn’t a girl, much less anyone’s girl. Only she could have said “one” and closed the space between without him completely devolving into “that guy”.
[But because she didn’t, because she’s good at heart, and he’s nearly certain he’s not, he is nearly certain that he’s beyond recognition at this point. Who he could have been lies in some inexplicable mass destruction of lives both lived and unlived, and what little control he’ll have left when he feels his core not entirely ruptured, he’ll take immediate control of just so can have control of something. And because she was supposed to be his salvation (his damnation, rather, something in the far back of his mind screams at times), it’ll be she that he will have to grasp onto.]
654 words, pg, after bride
by wings4 music at wings_for_craft
The countdown warrants a climax and finally explosions. Fireworks don’t set off. She steps back, says “I have to go” and she’s gone before the lights go off in their skies.
He’s probably fooling himself, but he’s nearly certain that she’s settling for Jimmy. Meaning she’s fooling herself.
His world has never been in equilibrium, but she’s rocked at a core within him, he thought to be numb.
Sympathy, pity, and voids he witnessed, knew, felt all too well. Chloe Sullivan has chased those things to their infinity and replaced with a finite longing…for her.
Five…four…“three…”
There’s a countdown and then there isn’t.
Maybe she promised herself a moment. This moment. To forget yesterday and tomorrow. To not pretend, but rather encompass a woman who’s intensely drawn to a man who, for once, feels those exact instincts and hears something through her thick walls even she cannot distinguish.
She doesn’t come through.
“Two,” he whispers after her “three”, having understood her verbalization of the number.
But one never leaves nor escapes her mouth.
Their eyes lock. Lips wait to touch. Breaths come unevenly from both parties - impatiently lingering on each other.
A countdown warrants a climax and finally explosions. Fireworks don’t set off. She steps back, says “I have to go” and she’s gone before the lights go off in their skies.
As she walks away from him, back turned, he wants to ask about the number of romantic films in which someone speaks that very line.
Of those she’s watched and that have said that, she’s probably made fun of or screamed at half of them. Her cousin Lois did them the favor the other half of the time. The two probably roll their eyes, call the line-speaker an idiot, and laugh off the ‘oh so cliché’ incident.
But he knows the two are romantics at heart, and they only criticize because someone has run away from a love ‘so obviously there.’ He also knows that women like Chloe and Lois, they have a disdain for people like that, and hence never have wanted to be the speakers of such lines. Nor have they ever wanted to be “those girls.” And even though each probably had prior experiences of being “those girls” who pacify feelings so strong, neither ever categorized themselves as such because they were more discreet about their pacifications, feelings and ensured that they never uttered such cliché lines like “I have to go”.
Thus, Davis Bloome knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it pained Chloe to have to utter “I have to go”. And to him of all people. It was in her eyes for the flicker of a second. Her tone was stoic, hands steady, and even if that ache hadn’t crossed the light of her eyes for a millisecond, he still would know. Beyond a shadow…of a doubt.
As she walks away from him, back turned, he wants to grab her wrist and pull her to him. But he’s not that guy.
“I’m not that guy,” he murmurs, trying to convince himself. He’s left unconvinced. He’s more than on the verge of becoming “that guy” as he and Chloe have already (even if for just a second) tested a boundary. That guy who takes another’s girl, pulls her against himself, and kisses her senseless. Leaves her aching for more. Forcing her to choose when choices are no longer an option because she’s married. Married.
But Chloe isn’t a girl, much less anyone’s girl. Only she could have said “one” and closed the space between without him completely devolving into “that guy”.
[But because she didn’t, because she’s good at heart, and he’s nearly certain he’s not, he is nearly certain that he’s beyond recognition at this point. Who he could have been lies in some inexplicable mass destruction of lives both lived and unlived, and what little control he’ll have left when he feels his core not entirely ruptured, he’ll take immediate control of just so can have control of something. And because she was supposed to be his salvation (his damnation, rather, something in the far back of his mind screams at times), it’ll be she that he will have to grasp onto.]
the choices we don't make
Reccing Note: So I asked for something from fonapola too. Not only is she one of the very best Chloe/Dean crossover writers in fandom, she can tackle anything.
For example, this was the first time I have seen an outline format like this work so splendidly. Change one thing, change everything. 5 different directions Chloe and Davis could have taken.
751 words, pg, prey and abyss
by fonapola at her livejournal.
They needed to talk— no she needed to talk and he needed to listen.
I.
“Besides, everything with you is so…”
“…so easy.”
Chloe pushed the door open with a stiff arm, her mind set on one thing: finding Davis. They needed to talk— no she needed to talk and he needed to listen.
“Chloe?”
She turned and found Davis standing in the doorway of the exam room, staring at her in curiously. “What are you doing here?” he asked, obviously remembering her earlier statement. I think it’s best if I don’t see you for a while.
“You can’t ask me things like that,” she declared, crossing her arms as he walked into the room.
“What? Why not? It’s my exam room, I have the ri— ”
“No,” she cut in. “Before. You can’t ask me about my feelings. I’m engaged. I’m happy. I have nothing to prove to you.”
Davis moved so he was standing in front of her. “If you have nothing to prove then why are you here?”
His words caught her off guard and she struggled for a response. She played with her hands, attempting a glare and knowing it was failing. She had responses. She had a whole list of things to declare and argue, but they left as soon as he moved closer.
She couldn’t think with him standing in front of her, looking like everything she never had, but secretly hoped for. She suddenly remembered why she’d decided to keep her distance, and knew showing up at the hospital had been a mistake.
“Davis…” she started, but hesitated when she felt something fall into her hands. She looked down and realized she’d pulled her engagement ring from her finger.
“Did you help me because of some personal code of ethics, or was there more to it than that?” Davis asked, repeating his earlier question— the one that had put them in the current mess.
Chloe shook her head and closed her hand around her loose ring, knowing that her answer was about to change.
II.
She swallowed, looking anywhere but her friend’s face. She’d promised her trust. She’d promised loyalty.
And now she was going to break those promises.
“Chloe. What is it?” Clark asked, bending a little to catch her eyes.
“It’s Davis,” she whispered. “I think he’s a murderer.”
III.
“I understand, but I am not ready to let you go. I will wait for as long as it takes. You know where to find me.”
Chloe hesitated, part of her urging her to continue down the alley and away from Davis and his declaration. She didn’t need this. She was getting married soon to a great man. She didn’t need him messing with her head.
But she wanted to know.
“Why?” she asked, without turning around to face him. “Why me?”
“I said it before,” Davis started. “Everything with you is easy. There’s a connection between us that I know you don’t feel with anyone else.” She heard him move closer, but didn’t turn.
“Davis, I’m engaged.”
“I know.”
She swallowed. “I’m not normal.”
By then, Davis was standing behind her. He let out a breathy laugh and settled at hand on her shoulder. “Good, because I’m not, either.”
She turned then and looked up at him, searching for another reason. “There’s a connection,” she said, instead.
“Yeah,” he agreed. He cupped her face, like he had moments before. And this time, when his lips met hers, she didn’t hesitate or back away.
She just accepted.
IV.
“It’s me, Chloe,” Davis pleaded.
Chloe shook her head, stepping back from the man that had once been her friend. “No. Davis Bloome died the day he started killing.” She continued backwards until she felt the comforting protection of Clark’s chest at her back. “I’m not even sure Davis ever existed.”
Davis frowned, his eyes flashing. “Wrong choice,” he growled.
Doomsday suddenly stood before them, and Chloe knew he was wrong. She had made the right choice.
She’d chosen Good. She’d chosen the hero over the villain.
V.
She made her choice.
He wasn’t the boy from the beginning, or the boy who’d promised forever, but he was more than enough. He was the man who’d found her first, who’d looked at her and never looked at anyone else.
He was the man who’d chosen her before she even knew she had a choice.
It was easy with him, easier than it had been with anyone else. They fit without trying. He saw her, made her smile, protected her. And she did everything she could to repay him.
He smiled at her and she let herself move on from all the horrors she’d endured in the last month. Her memories were all back. Her wedding was nonexistent. And she was with the man who’d seen her through.
She’d made her choice.
She’d chosen Davis.
If you liked this, let her know. Maybe she'll write more. ^-^
For example, this was the first time I have seen an outline format like this work so splendidly. Change one thing, change everything. 5 different directions Chloe and Davis could have taken.
751 words, pg, prey and abyss
by fonapola at her livejournal.
They needed to talk— no she needed to talk and he needed to listen.
I.
“Besides, everything with you is so…”
“…so easy.”
Chloe pushed the door open with a stiff arm, her mind set on one thing: finding Davis. They needed to talk— no she needed to talk and he needed to listen.
“Chloe?”
She turned and found Davis standing in the doorway of the exam room, staring at her in curiously. “What are you doing here?” he asked, obviously remembering her earlier statement. I think it’s best if I don’t see you for a while.
“You can’t ask me things like that,” she declared, crossing her arms as he walked into the room.
“What? Why not? It’s my exam room, I have the ri— ”
“No,” she cut in. “Before. You can’t ask me about my feelings. I’m engaged. I’m happy. I have nothing to prove to you.”
Davis moved so he was standing in front of her. “If you have nothing to prove then why are you here?”
His words caught her off guard and she struggled for a response. She played with her hands, attempting a glare and knowing it was failing. She had responses. She had a whole list of things to declare and argue, but they left as soon as he moved closer.
She couldn’t think with him standing in front of her, looking like everything she never had, but secretly hoped for. She suddenly remembered why she’d decided to keep her distance, and knew showing up at the hospital had been a mistake.
“Davis…” she started, but hesitated when she felt something fall into her hands. She looked down and realized she’d pulled her engagement ring from her finger.
“Did you help me because of some personal code of ethics, or was there more to it than that?” Davis asked, repeating his earlier question— the one that had put them in the current mess.
Chloe shook her head and closed her hand around her loose ring, knowing that her answer was about to change.
II.
She swallowed, looking anywhere but her friend’s face. She’d promised her trust. She’d promised loyalty.
And now she was going to break those promises.
“Chloe. What is it?” Clark asked, bending a little to catch her eyes.
“It’s Davis,” she whispered. “I think he’s a murderer.”
III.
“I understand, but I am not ready to let you go. I will wait for as long as it takes. You know where to find me.”
Chloe hesitated, part of her urging her to continue down the alley and away from Davis and his declaration. She didn’t need this. She was getting married soon to a great man. She didn’t need him messing with her head.
But she wanted to know.
“Why?” she asked, without turning around to face him. “Why me?”
“I said it before,” Davis started. “Everything with you is easy. There’s a connection between us that I know you don’t feel with anyone else.” She heard him move closer, but didn’t turn.
“Davis, I’m engaged.”
“I know.”
She swallowed. “I’m not normal.”
By then, Davis was standing behind her. He let out a breathy laugh and settled at hand on her shoulder. “Good, because I’m not, either.”
She turned then and looked up at him, searching for another reason. “There’s a connection,” she said, instead.
“Yeah,” he agreed. He cupped her face, like he had moments before. And this time, when his lips met hers, she didn’t hesitate or back away.
She just accepted.
IV.
“It’s me, Chloe,” Davis pleaded.
Chloe shook her head, stepping back from the man that had once been her friend. “No. Davis Bloome died the day he started killing.” She continued backwards until she felt the comforting protection of Clark’s chest at her back. “I’m not even sure Davis ever existed.”
Davis frowned, his eyes flashing. “Wrong choice,” he growled.
Doomsday suddenly stood before them, and Chloe knew he was wrong. She had made the right choice.
She’d chosen Good. She’d chosen the hero over the villain.
V.
She made her choice.
He wasn’t the boy from the beginning, or the boy who’d promised forever, but he was more than enough. He was the man who’d found her first, who’d looked at her and never looked at anyone else.
He was the man who’d chosen her before she even knew she had a choice.
It was easy with him, easier than it had been with anyone else. They fit without trying. He saw her, made her smile, protected her. And she did everything she could to repay him.
He smiled at her and she let herself move on from all the horrors she’d endured in the last month. Her memories were all back. Her wedding was nonexistent. And she was with the man who’d seen her through.
She’d made her choice.
She’d chosen Davis.
If you liked this, let her know. Maybe she'll write more. ^-^
watching it all fade away
Reccer's Notes: So this is an angst-filled chloe character perspective that shows the loneliness that could have been her life after bride very well... Also, realistic and *ahem*. *fans self* but it will still break your heart a little.
1026 words, R/NC-17, bride
by simplytoopretty at her livejournal
“You keep saying that. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
She wakes with lines on her body. Pale pink lines that disappear once she showers, fading away, like so much of life.
Jimmy’s gone already, no surprise there. He comes home late, leaves early. It’s only a matter of time, maybe weeks, maybe days. Every tale has an end. Jimmy is fading from her tale, a ghostly figure at best these days.
There’s no note, no words on paper telling her when he’ll be home. He’s just gone, at the Daily Planet most likely. But there’s nothing to tell her this, nothing at all. She sighs and drinks her coffee, already dressed for work in grey slacks and a purple blouse. She doesn’t like to hang around the empty apartment, doesn’t linger.
Work is slow, dull. At times she wonders if she should just give up, surrender to what she feels. She made a commitment, told herself she would explore other avenues, is exploring other avenues.
Around one the door opens, creaking softly. Chloe rises from her desk, moving towards the door.
“Hey,” Davis says.
She falters with words, his arrival a surprise. Eventually she settles and says, “Hey. Long time no see.”
He nods, confirms her words.
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you. I’ve missed you. I just…I wasn’t sure I’d be welcomed.”
“Davis…I’m married,” she says slowly, the words less confident than she would like. She’s married, but the marriage is empty. The motions she goes through, nothing more than that, no feelings.
Davis smiles, looking pained as he does. “We can still be friends.”
“That’s not what you want.”
“No, it’s not.” He steps forward, hesitant. “I miss you.”
Her mouth opens, closes, no sounds escaping. His words mirror her thoughts to an extent. Not completely, though, a part of her fears what she feels.
He bridges the distance between them. A sliver of space is between them, their bodies close, not touching. “I…I need to know something. Do you feel anything for me?”
“I…”
“Chloe, I need to know.”
His hands rise, coming to frame her face. The texture is rougher than Jimmy’s hands, calloused. Fingertips stroke skin, imprinting her with his invisible claim.
“I’m married…I can’t…you should leave.”
“You don’t mean that,” he says. His voice is low, husky, longing embodied in that tone.
Chloe shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, “I’m married. We can’t have anything. You want more.”
“What do you want?”
She swallows harshly, unable to respond. Unable to say what she wants: the truth is too threatening, too revealing.
He leans down, the gap closing. His lips touch hers, sliding carefully, tentatively. For a moment she’s stiff, non-responsive. Then he nips at her lips and her resolve dissolves, abandoning her. Her mouth yields beneath his.
The kiss breaks. His mouth is near hers, their breath mingling. “Tell me,” he says.
“I want you,” she says, an admission, words wrenched from her. Her hands grip his shoulders, fingers clutched around cotton fabric.
Davis smiles, a true smile. He kisses her again, mouth opening immediately. It’s hungry, carnal, steeped with passion she hasn’t felt in months. Her fingers grip his shirt tighter as his hands trail down her body, undoing the buttons of her blouse. He pushes the blouse off her shoulders, the fabric falling to the ground with a soft shushing sound.
Her feet move, leading him from the center of the room to the couch in her office. Clothing falls away in the process, littering the floor. Fingers explore, learn. At the couch she sits, pushed down gently. She leans back against the couch, the fabric pricking her bare skin. He settles over her, settles in between her spread legs.
“I love you,” he says as he enters her.
She bites her lower lip, not responding in kind. Then, instead of speaking, she kisses him, wonders if that’s enough while knowing it’s wrong. They’re colliding in a moment where they should be going on their separate ways.
He thrusts into her, his thrusts hard and unrelenting. A moan escapes her, swallowed by his mouth. Her fingers lock around his sweat-dampened shoulders, clinging to him as he pushes her closer to the edge. The pleasure builds; her worries fading from prominence, the dull pressure of him inside her making her thoughts scatter and dissipate. She feels fragmented, reckless.
“I love you,” he murmurs, breaking his lips from her. Their eyes lock in this instant, exposure.
She seals her mouth back to his, their gaze shattering as she does. She feels safer this way, too exposed before. He doesn’t try to speak again, just thrusts into her until finally they’ve both pushed over the edge.
After, she disentangles herself from him. Davis protests, says, “Stay with me.”
She shakes her head, smiling sadly. “You should leave. This,” she says, gesturing between her and the couch where he still lays, “was a mistake. We shouldn’t have…I’m married.”
“You keep saying that. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
The retort stings, as truth does. She stands her ground, though, resolve finally sticking with her. Everything fades, this is no different, this situation, what has happened, what she feels. Everything fades, in the end. There’s heartbreak, but even that pain fades, hearts being repaired in a way Humpty Dumpty never could be.
“You should get dressed and leave.”
He rises and dresses. Before he leaves, he pulls her into his arms, kissing her. “I’m not giving up,” he says after releasing her.
“Please…” she says, not sure what she’s pleading for. Perhaps it doesn’t matter what the plea is for.
“I love you. I do and I’m not letting you go. I’m going to fight for you.”
With that, he turns and leaves. She watches him leave, thinks how much she’s screwed things up. Despite the distance between her and Jimmy, they’re still married. She said her vows, promised things, but she went back on her word.
Chloe squeezes her eyes shut, wishing everything away. When she opens her eyes, everything is the same as it was before.
It’ll fade, the pain, the feeling of loss. All will fade.
She blinks away the tears.
1026 words, R/NC-17, bride
by simplytoopretty at her livejournal
“You keep saying that. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
She wakes with lines on her body. Pale pink lines that disappear once she showers, fading away, like so much of life.
Jimmy’s gone already, no surprise there. He comes home late, leaves early. It’s only a matter of time, maybe weeks, maybe days. Every tale has an end. Jimmy is fading from her tale, a ghostly figure at best these days.
There’s no note, no words on paper telling her when he’ll be home. He’s just gone, at the Daily Planet most likely. But there’s nothing to tell her this, nothing at all. She sighs and drinks her coffee, already dressed for work in grey slacks and a purple blouse. She doesn’t like to hang around the empty apartment, doesn’t linger.
Work is slow, dull. At times she wonders if she should just give up, surrender to what she feels. She made a commitment, told herself she would explore other avenues, is exploring other avenues.
Around one the door opens, creaking softly. Chloe rises from her desk, moving towards the door.
“Hey,” Davis says.
She falters with words, his arrival a surprise. Eventually she settles and says, “Hey. Long time no see.”
He nods, confirms her words.
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you. I’ve missed you. I just…I wasn’t sure I’d be welcomed.”
“Davis…I’m married,” she says slowly, the words less confident than she would like. She’s married, but the marriage is empty. The motions she goes through, nothing more than that, no feelings.
Davis smiles, looking pained as he does. “We can still be friends.”
“That’s not what you want.”
“No, it’s not.” He steps forward, hesitant. “I miss you.”
Her mouth opens, closes, no sounds escaping. His words mirror her thoughts to an extent. Not completely, though, a part of her fears what she feels.
He bridges the distance between them. A sliver of space is between them, their bodies close, not touching. “I…I need to know something. Do you feel anything for me?”
“I…”
“Chloe, I need to know.”
His hands rise, coming to frame her face. The texture is rougher than Jimmy’s hands, calloused. Fingertips stroke skin, imprinting her with his invisible claim.
“I’m married…I can’t…you should leave.”
“You don’t mean that,” he says. His voice is low, husky, longing embodied in that tone.
Chloe shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, “I’m married. We can’t have anything. You want more.”
“What do you want?”
She swallows harshly, unable to respond. Unable to say what she wants: the truth is too threatening, too revealing.
He leans down, the gap closing. His lips touch hers, sliding carefully, tentatively. For a moment she’s stiff, non-responsive. Then he nips at her lips and her resolve dissolves, abandoning her. Her mouth yields beneath his.
The kiss breaks. His mouth is near hers, their breath mingling. “Tell me,” he says.
“I want you,” she says, an admission, words wrenched from her. Her hands grip his shoulders, fingers clutched around cotton fabric.
Davis smiles, a true smile. He kisses her again, mouth opening immediately. It’s hungry, carnal, steeped with passion she hasn’t felt in months. Her fingers grip his shirt tighter as his hands trail down her body, undoing the buttons of her blouse. He pushes the blouse off her shoulders, the fabric falling to the ground with a soft shushing sound.
Her feet move, leading him from the center of the room to the couch in her office. Clothing falls away in the process, littering the floor. Fingers explore, learn. At the couch she sits, pushed down gently. She leans back against the couch, the fabric pricking her bare skin. He settles over her, settles in between her spread legs.
“I love you,” he says as he enters her.
She bites her lower lip, not responding in kind. Then, instead of speaking, she kisses him, wonders if that’s enough while knowing it’s wrong. They’re colliding in a moment where they should be going on their separate ways.
He thrusts into her, his thrusts hard and unrelenting. A moan escapes her, swallowed by his mouth. Her fingers lock around his sweat-dampened shoulders, clinging to him as he pushes her closer to the edge. The pleasure builds; her worries fading from prominence, the dull pressure of him inside her making her thoughts scatter and dissipate. She feels fragmented, reckless.
“I love you,” he murmurs, breaking his lips from her. Their eyes lock in this instant, exposure.
She seals her mouth back to his, their gaze shattering as she does. She feels safer this way, too exposed before. He doesn’t try to speak again, just thrusts into her until finally they’ve both pushed over the edge.
After, she disentangles herself from him. Davis protests, says, “Stay with me.”
She shakes her head, smiling sadly. “You should leave. This,” she says, gesturing between her and the couch where he still lays, “was a mistake. We shouldn’t have…I’m married.”
“You keep saying that. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
The retort stings, as truth does. She stands her ground, though, resolve finally sticking with her. Everything fades, this is no different, this situation, what has happened, what she feels. Everything fades, in the end. There’s heartbreak, but even that pain fades, hearts being repaired in a way Humpty Dumpty never could be.
“You should get dressed and leave.”
He rises and dresses. Before he leaves, he pulls her into his arms, kissing her. “I’m not giving up,” he says after releasing her.
“Please…” she says, not sure what she’s pleading for. Perhaps it doesn’t matter what the plea is for.
“I love you. I do and I’m not letting you go. I’m going to fight for you.”
With that, he turns and leaves. She watches him leave, thinks how much she’s screwed things up. Despite the distance between her and Jimmy, they’re still married. She said her vows, promised things, but she went back on her word.
Chloe squeezes her eyes shut, wishing everything away. When she opens her eyes, everything is the same as it was before.
It’ll fade, the pain, the feeling of loss. All will fade.
She blinks away the tears.
penance
Reccing Note: Something happy you say? This is the continuation to the very amazing leap. I asked for this, too. I'm shameless. If its possible for the relationship between Chloe and Davis to have grown more since leap, it happens. And its so very beautiful.
davis pov.
3617 words. PG/PG-13. post-leap.
by paraxdisepink at her lj.
“You know,” Chloe paused in her vigorous potato peeling, “Clark used to do that for me at superspeed.”.
Painting had to be one of the suckier tasks on the planet. Heavy lifting he could do, the yearly physical for his job – pick a hundred-and-fifty pounds off the floor and carry a two-hundred pound dummy up a flight of stairs – but standing on a ladder edging with a tiny brush trying not to get Cranberry Zing on Chloe’s Swiss Coffee ceiling? That was tiring, and he hadn’t gotten to the roller yet.
Of all the colors in those millions of swatches, Chloe had to pick the richest, trendiest red, and damn the stuff went on bright. One little mistake, one crooked piece of taping or slip of the brush and Mediterranean flare would end up looking more like a crime scene. Thank God he didn’t have to attempt any DYI faux-finishing.
It was only one wall, the backdrop behind her dining room table, but so far the prep and edgework had taken two hours and they were running out of time.
Chloe didn’t seem too concerned with the ticking clock, or whether or not the place smelled like paint even with every window wide open in the place. She kept smiling at him from the other side of the kitchen counter, pleased with the sight of him reaching up with a paintbrush in a dirty, shrunken white t-shirt. Whatever made her happy, he shook his head, as long as he didn’t have to stand up here naked with a tool belt.
“You know,” Chloe paused in her vigorous potato peeling, “Clark used to do that for me at superspeed.”
Clark. Davis turned away so she couldn’t see the face he made. Considering what that guy had done to her he didn’t get why she would let him set foot in her apartment later tonight. Her cousin Lois, he could understand. Family was family. But Clark? Then again Lois and Clark were a two-for-one deal these days, apparently.
Chloe was only teasing him though, and maybe it was good she could joke about Clark now. In the month they’d been together Davis had seen her cry over him, seethe, listen to his phone messages that she never answered with an empty look in her eyes, and no wonder seeing as how he’d planned to leave her an empty shell of herself. It’d taken a lot for her to invite Lois over for dinner, to let someone from her old life into this new one where she’d created stability and control, and he doubted the fact Lois and Clark were together made it any easier.
Any hurt on that account didn’t bother him. Over the past few weeks, he’d gotten the run-down on her former life in bits and pieces. Chloe had loved Clark for a long time. She would never stop caring about him. But somewhere along the line she’d realized it would never work – probably after watching him go for every woman in his life but her. Being the back-pocket girl got tiring. That was something else Davis didn’t get. Who had someone like Chloe and went looking elsewhere? The guy didn’t know what he had.
Davis smiled at her over his shoulder, her blond hair glowing under the recessed light. Chloe wasn’t much for cooking – her staple diet consisted of coffee and muffins unless you fixed her something green and leafy – but she’d got it into her head that everything had to be right tonight. Thus the painting, the elaborate meal, his presence . . .
“There’s something to be said for a guy who takes his time,” he muttered, dipping the brush into the bucket.
Chloe giggled. Her happy giggle. She was oddly serene about tonight, considering. He felt bad; a small, selfish part of him wished no one was coming over and there was no wall to paint or dinner to cook so he could pick her up, set her down somewhere halfway comfortable, and . . . It wasn’t like he wanted all her attention and had to be the only thing in her life. It wasn’t like that at all. Sometimes though, he missed that feeling of completeness when he wasn’t warm and wrapped up in her, lost in the best of ways. Sometimes he felt like something was tearing him in half when he took his arms from around her and got up to get ready for work in the morning. Then he’d think about what he’d been, and it fit. It was less than he deserved.
He got down from the ladder and broke out the roller, poured paint into the pan, and went for it on the wall. The color had darkened to what she wanted where he’d already worked, but the new stuff, the splashes of bright red on stark white . . . He squeezed his eyes shut. The room got hotter and they came back, the images. Blood all over the ambulance, all over him. The body, or what was left it.
Davis threw the roller onto the drop cloth. He couldn’t breathe.
“Hey . . .” Chloe came up behind him. He hadn’t realized he’d sunk to the floor. She put her hands on his shoulders and studied the patches of red on white. She knew what was wrong. “We could paint that a different color,” she offered, her voice soft and full of hurt to see him like this.
He could barely handle that. He shook his head and pried her hands from him. Gently. Now he’d gone from blackouts to panic attacks. It wasn’t the first time, and he was starting to wonder if he needed Xanax or something to make them stop. But Xanax did nasty stuff, and it wasn’t right to pop a pill and block out what that thing had done whenever living with himself got too hard. The people its victims had left behind didn’t get that luxury. He’d thought about asking Chloe to help him track down some names, but in the end it all felt useless.
Chloe was staring at him, her green eyes round with worry. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and snapped himself out of it.
“No.” He got up. “No, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just . . .”
Chloe liked red, and it was her apartment. He didn’t expect her to give up anything for him. It wasn’t her fault he was messed up.
He retrieved the roller, and went back at the wall with a little more force than necessary.
**
He’d showered, changed, and sautéed eight chicken breasts by the time Clark’s red truck pulled into the parking lot out front. Davis glanced toward the bathroom, where Chloe was doing something fairly time-consuming with her hair that involved a spray-in product and a flat iron – which was odd because it came out in short, great big curls. At the moment, Davis didn’t care if she was dying it purple; he didn’t want to be the one to answer the door.
“Chloe . . . “ he called out when Lois stepped out of the car, rummaging in the drawer for the salad tongs. Clark followed on the driver’s side, holding the door open for someone else to slide out after him. Another guy – red hair, slender, about six feet tall. Davis turned away from the kitchen window.
Oh shit.
“Chloe!”
She came out putting her earring on, and took a look outside for herself when she read the anxiety in his face. “Oh my god!” She pushed her hair behind her hair, turning her back to the window in the same way he had done, practically radiating guilt and panic.
Davis looked down at her where she stood against his shoulder. “You didn’t tell them about us.” Why else would they bring Jimmy? Knowing Lois, she’d cooked up a scheme to bring him tonight in the hopes of getting the two of them back together.
Chloe flailed inwardly, stuck her lip out, and put a hand on his arm when she got a grip on herself. “Davis, I don’t need anyone’s approval or permission to be with you,” she insisted a little more defensively than she had to. “You’re a part of my life now and they have to accept it.”
He didn’t ask if his presence was some kind of carefully orchestrated payback for Lois dating the guy she’d loved. He knew better than to go down the ugly road of wondering whether he was the rebound guy, so he nodded and handed her the salad tongs.
“I didn’t think they’d bring Jimmy,” she went on. “I mean . . .”
She didn’t have to finish. Davis knew how she must feel, cooking dinner with the guy who’d put her husband in the hospital. Losing the girl you loved was hard enough without throwing salt on the wound and he’d gotten the impression Jimmy hadn’t taken her leaving well. Davis opened his mouth to say he could hide under the bed if that made tonight easier for her, but the door bell rang before he got the chance.
“Okay,” Chloe steeled herself with a deep breath and straightened her hair again. “Everyone’s just going to have to be an adult.”
Davis knew he should try to comfort her, reassure her, or at the very least agree, but he walked with her to her front door with what felt like lead in the pit of his stomach, and when the door opened he didn’t see a friend, and ex, and Chloe’s cousin; he saw three people that would probably emphatically agree he was better off dead.
Clark’s mouth was the first to fall open, his blue-green eyes shooting past Chloe and fixing on Davis, hard. “Davis,” he said with the expected contempt. “What are you doing here?”
He swallowed. He wanted to grab Chloe in case Clark got it into his head she needed another memory reboot for her own good. But he kept his hands at his sides. Lois and Jimmy likely didn’t know about Clark’s little executive decision, and coming off like a possessive jerk wouldn’t help Davis’ case any.
Chloe drew herself up, something she did surprisingly well considering how everyone else in the room towered over her. “Davis and I have been . . . seeing each other,” she announced with very little faltering.
Pretty mild way of putting it. He stayed over most nights and paid for the groceries. Clark caught on, and his expression went from too-pretty farm boy to a hard mask. “How long has this been going on?”
Chloe made to answer, but Lois glared at him before she could. “Oh chill out, Smallville, it’s just Davis. It’s not like Chloe’s shacking up with a serial killer.” She grinned triumphantly when Clark looked ready to swallow his tongue and turned back to the two of them. “So what’cha been doing these days, Dimples – besides my cousin?”
Davis stared at her in disbelief. Not the classiest thing to say in front of Jimmy. In fact, it was worse than that time she’d stabbed him. In her own way, the woman was just as scary normal as when she’d been possessed by his mother.
Chloe, face red, cleared her throat. “Why don’t you guys come in and sit down,” she offered more steadily than he could have managed at the moment.
All this time Jimmy didn’t say a word.
They ate at her new square table once the bread finished baking, Chloe at the head and Davis at her right, facing Lois and Clark who sat side-by-side. Jimmy sat at the foot, that deep red wall behind him. He showed no sign of his injuries, no sign he was on anything, none of that stoned out of his mind watch the ceiling fan spin for an hour vicodin look. Chest wounds were a bitch to heal. It was a wonder he didn’t get hooked on the stuff. But that rich red color . . . Davis closed his eyes. He had no memory of tearing him open, but he could imagine it, the blood leaking out, the pain, Chloe terrified . . . And Jimmy had no idea he was sitting across from the guy who’d done it, passing him the salad bowl like nothing.
He opened his eyes when he felt Chloe’s hand on his arm. Lois and Clark were staring at him.
“You okay there, Dimples?”
Davis blinked. Lois looked genuinely concerned, but . . . He wondered if he’d ever get comfortable around her. He made himself nod. “Yeah. Yeah I’m –“
“The paint smell,” Chloe broke in for him. “It gives him a headache.”
Clark rolled his eyes, unconvinced, but he seemed determined not to piss off my Chloe by pressing. In fact, he turned the conversation to asking about her job and her new life with special warmth, a guy who wanted real bad for a woman not to be angry with him anymore.
Chloe answered him, but with something short of her usual enthusiasm when talking about articles and investigations. Lois chimed in, babbling about strange events in Metropolis and a mystery hero. Davis couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know about Clark. How did you have a relationship with someone you couldn’t tell the truth to? How did you even have a conversation? He looked at Jimmy across the table, against that backdrop of deep red. Chloe had lived her life like that, so had he to some extent. It was a wonder they hadn’t all lost their minds.
He turned on the basketball game for Clark and Jimmy when dinner was done, when Lois and Chloe went off to investigate every new thing in her closet, talking in low voices. Clark didn’t drink, but Jimmy took a beer, and not knowing what else to do Davis sucked it up and sat on the couch with him.
Jimmy didn’t look up from the game until Clark went to the bathroom.
“So you ran off with my girl. After you brought her home that time I didn’t think you were that kind of guy.”
Okay. He deserved that – He deserved a lot from Jimmy – but Chloe didn’t. And “his girl” had a name. “Look, she’s not a possession.” That didn’t help. Jimmy didn’t look any less wounded or accusing. Davis sighed and tried again. “I doubt Chloe’s leaving had anything to do with me. Honestly, I think she thought she was doing the right thing by you, and from what I can see she did.”
He couldn’t say anymore without touching on all that had happened to Chloe over the past few months, the mounds of secrets she kept. Jimmy wouldn’t believe him anyway; he blew him off with a “yeah right” and took Clark’s place now that the bathroom was free.
Clark took his turn while he was scraping dirty plates into the garbage disposal, setting his on top of the stack Davis had made, as good excuse as any to get in his space.
“So you’ve got Chloe convinced you’re a good guy now.” He looked him over with eyes that had gotten a lot harder since they’d first met. He didn’t see a person, just the disguise that thing had left behind, like a snakeskin, something hollow that had no life of its own. Davis swallowed. He felt that way more often than not, but Chloe always pointed out that a mask didn’t feel guilt or pain, and God help him he lived and breathed both.
He didn’t back up. It was just instinct, something picked up real fast from living on the street. When another guy got in your face you didn’t back up. You didn’t play games either.
“Look, Clark, I know you don’t trust me, and that’s fine. But I gotta tell you I’m not exactly thrilled Chloe’s giving you the time of day either.”
That threw him off balance. He actually looked hurt – that someone would throw what he’d done in his face or that Chloe had confided in another guy Davis didn’t know. It didn’t matter; it only lasted a moment. “I did what I had to protect her,” he shot back, then turned the conversation around again. “If you ever hurt her . . .”
“You’ll what?” Kill him? Again? Could he blame him? In his own clueless way Clark cared for Chloe too. He scraped Clark’s plate off and nodded. “Please do.”
By the time dessert rolled around Chloe and Lois were the only ones talking.
**
“That went well, don’t you think?” Chloe said a little too cheerfully once everyone had gone.
Davis shook his head, loading dirty plates into the dishwasher. “Yeah,” he said dryly, “Clark and I didn’t kill each other, Lois didn’t stab me, and for an added bonus I didn’t put Jimmy in the hospital. It’s a start.”
“Davis . . . “ She wanted to laugh. He knew she did, but she couldn’t let herself because none of it was funny, and he got it; his gloominess frustrated her at times.
He put the last fork in the dishwasher and pushed the thing shut, exhausted after working twelve hours yesterday and getting up at eight in the morning to spackle, paint, and help cook. He wasn’t complaining. It felt good to be tired from honest work. It felt clean, human, better than walking around like a zombie after forcing himself to stay awake all week so he didn’t blackout and kill anyone.
Chloe followed him into the living room, settling onto the couch and slipping off the torture devices women called shoes. But she hadn’t come to sit down and rest after standing all day, not with that determined look on her face. She had something to say.
“You know, Davis,” she began with her hands folded in her lap. “I know you could have worked tonight. It would have been okay. Don’t get me wrong,” she rushed to add, laying a hand on his arm. “I’m really, really glad you’re here, but . . . I would have understand if you didn’t want to put yourself through this.”
He put his hand over hers without thinking about it, just a reflex. “I’m not like that, Chloe,” he shook his head. “Leave you by yourself so I don’t have to face people and feel guilty, pretend the past never happened.” He knew she felt just as guilty as he, about Jimmy anyway, and she was better than sinking to Clark’s level, lying and keeping whole chunks of her life from people she called friends. Davis didn’t say the last part though.
Chloe wet her lips. “I know. It’s just . . .” She glanced over her shoulder at the dining room behind them, too observant to miss him staring at her red wall all night, the one he’d refused to paint over. “You don’t have to punish yourself every five minutes. I see you do it, and . . .”
Davis looked away. Maybe she was right. But he didn’t know how to explain; the happier she made him the more paranoid he got about not letting himself off the hook, because honestly he could have easily forgotten what he’d been two seconds after she’d touched her mouth to his for the first time. He didn’t dare tell her that, not yet. It’d probably scare her off.
Having spoken her piece, she got up to finish rinsing pans in the kitchen, but he caught her around the waist before she could get very far. She was pretty content to let him pull her down beside him and put his arms around her, curling against his chest and smiling. He put his feet up on the coffee table, and after a few moments of peaceful silence prompted, “So . . .? Seeing Clark and Jimmy again . . .?” She couldn’t just sum up the evening in one light-hearted little comment and not say another word. That was exactly what she’d do if he let her.
Chloe bit her lip, thoughtfully, and didn’t look especially tormented. “I used to watch him with Lana and feel like I was missing a part of myself, like if he’d just turn around and realized he felt that way about me instead I’d be complete.” She frowned, then smiled at him. “Funny how that changes when you take a step back.”
He grinned and nodded. She didn’t need Clark, or any guy who didn’t know what he had. She was amazing all by herself. But Chloe wasn’t done.
“That reminds me,” she went on in a quieter voice. “There’s something I never told you. It’s kind of . . .” She stared down at the couch, and he braced himself. Between mass-murdering, coming back from the dead, and having dinner with an alien, he never knew what would come next. But Chloe was blushing when she looked up, and he got that this wasn’t the paranormal kind of something. “This is kind of awkward but, and it wasn’t Jimmy’s fault, it’s just . . .” She smoothed her hair and took a deep breath. “I once told Lana my first time with Jimmy wasn’t special – it wasn’t anything he did or didn’t do, just . . . Well it was – is. With you. You know?”
That caught him off guard. A normal person would melt to hear a thing like that from the girl he loved, but he felt like he could crack to pieces. He smiled at her – one of his few real smiles – and if he hugged her any closer he’d probably bruise her.
“Yeah,” he nodded hard, his voice a little rough. “Yeah I do, Chloe. Of course I do.”
She made a contented sound and twisted so she fit perfectly against him, resting a hand on his chest. Maybe she thought he was punishing himself again not taking this any further, but he didn’t know how to say that sitting like this, with her close and warm beside him was the most indulgent thing he’d ever allowed himself to do.
~ the end
Leave her the love!
davis pov.
3617 words. PG/PG-13. post-leap.
by paraxdisepink at her lj.
“You know,” Chloe paused in her vigorous potato peeling, “Clark used to do that for me at superspeed.”.
Painting had to be one of the suckier tasks on the planet. Heavy lifting he could do, the yearly physical for his job – pick a hundred-and-fifty pounds off the floor and carry a two-hundred pound dummy up a flight of stairs – but standing on a ladder edging with a tiny brush trying not to get Cranberry Zing on Chloe’s Swiss Coffee ceiling? That was tiring, and he hadn’t gotten to the roller yet.
Of all the colors in those millions of swatches, Chloe had to pick the richest, trendiest red, and damn the stuff went on bright. One little mistake, one crooked piece of taping or slip of the brush and Mediterranean flare would end up looking more like a crime scene. Thank God he didn’t have to attempt any DYI faux-finishing.
It was only one wall, the backdrop behind her dining room table, but so far the prep and edgework had taken two hours and they were running out of time.
Chloe didn’t seem too concerned with the ticking clock, or whether or not the place smelled like paint even with every window wide open in the place. She kept smiling at him from the other side of the kitchen counter, pleased with the sight of him reaching up with a paintbrush in a dirty, shrunken white t-shirt. Whatever made her happy, he shook his head, as long as he didn’t have to stand up here naked with a tool belt.
“You know,” Chloe paused in her vigorous potato peeling, “Clark used to do that for me at superspeed.”
Clark. Davis turned away so she couldn’t see the face he made. Considering what that guy had done to her he didn’t get why she would let him set foot in her apartment later tonight. Her cousin Lois, he could understand. Family was family. But Clark? Then again Lois and Clark were a two-for-one deal these days, apparently.
Chloe was only teasing him though, and maybe it was good she could joke about Clark now. In the month they’d been together Davis had seen her cry over him, seethe, listen to his phone messages that she never answered with an empty look in her eyes, and no wonder seeing as how he’d planned to leave her an empty shell of herself. It’d taken a lot for her to invite Lois over for dinner, to let someone from her old life into this new one where she’d created stability and control, and he doubted the fact Lois and Clark were together made it any easier.
Any hurt on that account didn’t bother him. Over the past few weeks, he’d gotten the run-down on her former life in bits and pieces. Chloe had loved Clark for a long time. She would never stop caring about him. But somewhere along the line she’d realized it would never work – probably after watching him go for every woman in his life but her. Being the back-pocket girl got tiring. That was something else Davis didn’t get. Who had someone like Chloe and went looking elsewhere? The guy didn’t know what he had.
Davis smiled at her over his shoulder, her blond hair glowing under the recessed light. Chloe wasn’t much for cooking – her staple diet consisted of coffee and muffins unless you fixed her something green and leafy – but she’d got it into her head that everything had to be right tonight. Thus the painting, the elaborate meal, his presence . . .
“There’s something to be said for a guy who takes his time,” he muttered, dipping the brush into the bucket.
Chloe giggled. Her happy giggle. She was oddly serene about tonight, considering. He felt bad; a small, selfish part of him wished no one was coming over and there was no wall to paint or dinner to cook so he could pick her up, set her down somewhere halfway comfortable, and . . . It wasn’t like he wanted all her attention and had to be the only thing in her life. It wasn’t like that at all. Sometimes though, he missed that feeling of completeness when he wasn’t warm and wrapped up in her, lost in the best of ways. Sometimes he felt like something was tearing him in half when he took his arms from around her and got up to get ready for work in the morning. Then he’d think about what he’d been, and it fit. It was less than he deserved.
He got down from the ladder and broke out the roller, poured paint into the pan, and went for it on the wall. The color had darkened to what she wanted where he’d already worked, but the new stuff, the splashes of bright red on stark white . . . He squeezed his eyes shut. The room got hotter and they came back, the images. Blood all over the ambulance, all over him. The body, or what was left it.
Davis threw the roller onto the drop cloth. He couldn’t breathe.
“Hey . . .” Chloe came up behind him. He hadn’t realized he’d sunk to the floor. She put her hands on his shoulders and studied the patches of red on white. She knew what was wrong. “We could paint that a different color,” she offered, her voice soft and full of hurt to see him like this.
He could barely handle that. He shook his head and pried her hands from him. Gently. Now he’d gone from blackouts to panic attacks. It wasn’t the first time, and he was starting to wonder if he needed Xanax or something to make them stop. But Xanax did nasty stuff, and it wasn’t right to pop a pill and block out what that thing had done whenever living with himself got too hard. The people its victims had left behind didn’t get that luxury. He’d thought about asking Chloe to help him track down some names, but in the end it all felt useless.
Chloe was staring at him, her green eyes round with worry. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and snapped himself out of it.
“No.” He got up. “No, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just . . .”
Chloe liked red, and it was her apartment. He didn’t expect her to give up anything for him. It wasn’t her fault he was messed up.
He retrieved the roller, and went back at the wall with a little more force than necessary.
**
He’d showered, changed, and sautéed eight chicken breasts by the time Clark’s red truck pulled into the parking lot out front. Davis glanced toward the bathroom, where Chloe was doing something fairly time-consuming with her hair that involved a spray-in product and a flat iron – which was odd because it came out in short, great big curls. At the moment, Davis didn’t care if she was dying it purple; he didn’t want to be the one to answer the door.
“Chloe . . . “ he called out when Lois stepped out of the car, rummaging in the drawer for the salad tongs. Clark followed on the driver’s side, holding the door open for someone else to slide out after him. Another guy – red hair, slender, about six feet tall. Davis turned away from the kitchen window.
Oh shit.
“Chloe!”
She came out putting her earring on, and took a look outside for herself when she read the anxiety in his face. “Oh my god!” She pushed her hair behind her hair, turning her back to the window in the same way he had done, practically radiating guilt and panic.
Davis looked down at her where she stood against his shoulder. “You didn’t tell them about us.” Why else would they bring Jimmy? Knowing Lois, she’d cooked up a scheme to bring him tonight in the hopes of getting the two of them back together.
Chloe flailed inwardly, stuck her lip out, and put a hand on his arm when she got a grip on herself. “Davis, I don’t need anyone’s approval or permission to be with you,” she insisted a little more defensively than she had to. “You’re a part of my life now and they have to accept it.”
He didn’t ask if his presence was some kind of carefully orchestrated payback for Lois dating the guy she’d loved. He knew better than to go down the ugly road of wondering whether he was the rebound guy, so he nodded and handed her the salad tongs.
“I didn’t think they’d bring Jimmy,” she went on. “I mean . . .”
She didn’t have to finish. Davis knew how she must feel, cooking dinner with the guy who’d put her husband in the hospital. Losing the girl you loved was hard enough without throwing salt on the wound and he’d gotten the impression Jimmy hadn’t taken her leaving well. Davis opened his mouth to say he could hide under the bed if that made tonight easier for her, but the door bell rang before he got the chance.
“Okay,” Chloe steeled herself with a deep breath and straightened her hair again. “Everyone’s just going to have to be an adult.”
Davis knew he should try to comfort her, reassure her, or at the very least agree, but he walked with her to her front door with what felt like lead in the pit of his stomach, and when the door opened he didn’t see a friend, and ex, and Chloe’s cousin; he saw three people that would probably emphatically agree he was better off dead.
Clark’s mouth was the first to fall open, his blue-green eyes shooting past Chloe and fixing on Davis, hard. “Davis,” he said with the expected contempt. “What are you doing here?”
He swallowed. He wanted to grab Chloe in case Clark got it into his head she needed another memory reboot for her own good. But he kept his hands at his sides. Lois and Jimmy likely didn’t know about Clark’s little executive decision, and coming off like a possessive jerk wouldn’t help Davis’ case any.
Chloe drew herself up, something she did surprisingly well considering how everyone else in the room towered over her. “Davis and I have been . . . seeing each other,” she announced with very little faltering.
Pretty mild way of putting it. He stayed over most nights and paid for the groceries. Clark caught on, and his expression went from too-pretty farm boy to a hard mask. “How long has this been going on?”
Chloe made to answer, but Lois glared at him before she could. “Oh chill out, Smallville, it’s just Davis. It’s not like Chloe’s shacking up with a serial killer.” She grinned triumphantly when Clark looked ready to swallow his tongue and turned back to the two of them. “So what’cha been doing these days, Dimples – besides my cousin?”
Davis stared at her in disbelief. Not the classiest thing to say in front of Jimmy. In fact, it was worse than that time she’d stabbed him. In her own way, the woman was just as scary normal as when she’d been possessed by his mother.
Chloe, face red, cleared her throat. “Why don’t you guys come in and sit down,” she offered more steadily than he could have managed at the moment.
All this time Jimmy didn’t say a word.
They ate at her new square table once the bread finished baking, Chloe at the head and Davis at her right, facing Lois and Clark who sat side-by-side. Jimmy sat at the foot, that deep red wall behind him. He showed no sign of his injuries, no sign he was on anything, none of that stoned out of his mind watch the ceiling fan spin for an hour vicodin look. Chest wounds were a bitch to heal. It was a wonder he didn’t get hooked on the stuff. But that rich red color . . . Davis closed his eyes. He had no memory of tearing him open, but he could imagine it, the blood leaking out, the pain, Chloe terrified . . . And Jimmy had no idea he was sitting across from the guy who’d done it, passing him the salad bowl like nothing.
He opened his eyes when he felt Chloe’s hand on his arm. Lois and Clark were staring at him.
“You okay there, Dimples?”
Davis blinked. Lois looked genuinely concerned, but . . . He wondered if he’d ever get comfortable around her. He made himself nod. “Yeah. Yeah I’m –“
“The paint smell,” Chloe broke in for him. “It gives him a headache.”
Clark rolled his eyes, unconvinced, but he seemed determined not to piss off my Chloe by pressing. In fact, he turned the conversation to asking about her job and her new life with special warmth, a guy who wanted real bad for a woman not to be angry with him anymore.
Chloe answered him, but with something short of her usual enthusiasm when talking about articles and investigations. Lois chimed in, babbling about strange events in Metropolis and a mystery hero. Davis couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know about Clark. How did you have a relationship with someone you couldn’t tell the truth to? How did you even have a conversation? He looked at Jimmy across the table, against that backdrop of deep red. Chloe had lived her life like that, so had he to some extent. It was a wonder they hadn’t all lost their minds.
He turned on the basketball game for Clark and Jimmy when dinner was done, when Lois and Chloe went off to investigate every new thing in her closet, talking in low voices. Clark didn’t drink, but Jimmy took a beer, and not knowing what else to do Davis sucked it up and sat on the couch with him.
Jimmy didn’t look up from the game until Clark went to the bathroom.
“So you ran off with my girl. After you brought her home that time I didn’t think you were that kind of guy.”
Okay. He deserved that – He deserved a lot from Jimmy – but Chloe didn’t. And “his girl” had a name. “Look, she’s not a possession.” That didn’t help. Jimmy didn’t look any less wounded or accusing. Davis sighed and tried again. “I doubt Chloe’s leaving had anything to do with me. Honestly, I think she thought she was doing the right thing by you, and from what I can see she did.”
He couldn’t say anymore without touching on all that had happened to Chloe over the past few months, the mounds of secrets she kept. Jimmy wouldn’t believe him anyway; he blew him off with a “yeah right” and took Clark’s place now that the bathroom was free.
Clark took his turn while he was scraping dirty plates into the garbage disposal, setting his on top of the stack Davis had made, as good excuse as any to get in his space.
“So you’ve got Chloe convinced you’re a good guy now.” He looked him over with eyes that had gotten a lot harder since they’d first met. He didn’t see a person, just the disguise that thing had left behind, like a snakeskin, something hollow that had no life of its own. Davis swallowed. He felt that way more often than not, but Chloe always pointed out that a mask didn’t feel guilt or pain, and God help him he lived and breathed both.
He didn’t back up. It was just instinct, something picked up real fast from living on the street. When another guy got in your face you didn’t back up. You didn’t play games either.
“Look, Clark, I know you don’t trust me, and that’s fine. But I gotta tell you I’m not exactly thrilled Chloe’s giving you the time of day either.”
That threw him off balance. He actually looked hurt – that someone would throw what he’d done in his face or that Chloe had confided in another guy Davis didn’t know. It didn’t matter; it only lasted a moment. “I did what I had to protect her,” he shot back, then turned the conversation around again. “If you ever hurt her . . .”
“You’ll what?” Kill him? Again? Could he blame him? In his own clueless way Clark cared for Chloe too. He scraped Clark’s plate off and nodded. “Please do.”
By the time dessert rolled around Chloe and Lois were the only ones talking.
**
“That went well, don’t you think?” Chloe said a little too cheerfully once everyone had gone.
Davis shook his head, loading dirty plates into the dishwasher. “Yeah,” he said dryly, “Clark and I didn’t kill each other, Lois didn’t stab me, and for an added bonus I didn’t put Jimmy in the hospital. It’s a start.”
“Davis . . . “ She wanted to laugh. He knew she did, but she couldn’t let herself because none of it was funny, and he got it; his gloominess frustrated her at times.
He put the last fork in the dishwasher and pushed the thing shut, exhausted after working twelve hours yesterday and getting up at eight in the morning to spackle, paint, and help cook. He wasn’t complaining. It felt good to be tired from honest work. It felt clean, human, better than walking around like a zombie after forcing himself to stay awake all week so he didn’t blackout and kill anyone.
Chloe followed him into the living room, settling onto the couch and slipping off the torture devices women called shoes. But she hadn’t come to sit down and rest after standing all day, not with that determined look on her face. She had something to say.
“You know, Davis,” she began with her hands folded in her lap. “I know you could have worked tonight. It would have been okay. Don’t get me wrong,” she rushed to add, laying a hand on his arm. “I’m really, really glad you’re here, but . . . I would have understand if you didn’t want to put yourself through this.”
He put his hand over hers without thinking about it, just a reflex. “I’m not like that, Chloe,” he shook his head. “Leave you by yourself so I don’t have to face people and feel guilty, pretend the past never happened.” He knew she felt just as guilty as he, about Jimmy anyway, and she was better than sinking to Clark’s level, lying and keeping whole chunks of her life from people she called friends. Davis didn’t say the last part though.
Chloe wet her lips. “I know. It’s just . . .” She glanced over her shoulder at the dining room behind them, too observant to miss him staring at her red wall all night, the one he’d refused to paint over. “You don’t have to punish yourself every five minutes. I see you do it, and . . .”
Davis looked away. Maybe she was right. But he didn’t know how to explain; the happier she made him the more paranoid he got about not letting himself off the hook, because honestly he could have easily forgotten what he’d been two seconds after she’d touched her mouth to his for the first time. He didn’t dare tell her that, not yet. It’d probably scare her off.
Having spoken her piece, she got up to finish rinsing pans in the kitchen, but he caught her around the waist before she could get very far. She was pretty content to let him pull her down beside him and put his arms around her, curling against his chest and smiling. He put his feet up on the coffee table, and after a few moments of peaceful silence prompted, “So . . .? Seeing Clark and Jimmy again . . .?” She couldn’t just sum up the evening in one light-hearted little comment and not say another word. That was exactly what she’d do if he let her.
Chloe bit her lip, thoughtfully, and didn’t look especially tormented. “I used to watch him with Lana and feel like I was missing a part of myself, like if he’d just turn around and realized he felt that way about me instead I’d be complete.” She frowned, then smiled at him. “Funny how that changes when you take a step back.”
He grinned and nodded. She didn’t need Clark, or any guy who didn’t know what he had. She was amazing all by herself. But Chloe wasn’t done.
“That reminds me,” she went on in a quieter voice. “There’s something I never told you. It’s kind of . . .” She stared down at the couch, and he braced himself. Between mass-murdering, coming back from the dead, and having dinner with an alien, he never knew what would come next. But Chloe was blushing when she looked up, and he got that this wasn’t the paranormal kind of something. “This is kind of awkward but, and it wasn’t Jimmy’s fault, it’s just . . .” She smoothed her hair and took a deep breath. “I once told Lana my first time with Jimmy wasn’t special – it wasn’t anything he did or didn’t do, just . . . Well it was – is. With you. You know?”
That caught him off guard. A normal person would melt to hear a thing like that from the girl he loved, but he felt like he could crack to pieces. He smiled at her – one of his few real smiles – and if he hugged her any closer he’d probably bruise her.
“Yeah,” he nodded hard, his voice a little rough. “Yeah I do, Chloe. Of course I do.”
She made a contented sound and twisted so she fit perfectly against him, resting a hand on his chest. Maybe she thought he was punishing himself again not taking this any further, but he didn’t know how to say that sitting like this, with her close and warm beside him was the most indulgent thing he’d ever allowed himself to do.
~ the end
Leave her the love!
crossing over
Reccing Note: Turbulence, with Eternal Spoilers. Because they demanded some emotional resolution, dammit.
4231 words. r/nc-17. turbulence.
by vagrantdream at her/my livejournal.
The solid, sturdy little walls around her fracture in a hundred places at once.
(The whole river
is melting. )
The nurse handed her a bottle of pills which Jimmy snatched from her hand. There were more than a handful of explanations he should’ve heard out. That he was on drugs. That he had been about to brain someone she cared about with a metal pipe.
“First Clark and now Davis.” Clark. Davis. Davis. Clark.
She knew what that was.
“You just don’t trust me,” he’d said, in a way that told her that wasn’t all he meant.
“Why the hell did you even marry me?”
Her mouth felt stiff, and the answer that flew to her head is the last one he’d want to hear. She didn’t remember the wedding, the whys or the whats.
I would’ve given my life to you, she wanted to say. I tried. Didn’t that mean something?
He didn't hear.
It was just her in the middle of the lobby, with the few scattered nurses and orderlies milling around to hear the soap opera unfold.
There were more than one or two tears, she’d swallowed bitter in her throat, as he’d gone in the car (nowhere with her), and she’d caught a bus to the empty apartment.
---
It rains big heavy droplets on the thin window panes; so maybe, just maybe it doesn’t look like she’s crying.
A monster burst into her wedding, she’s slept in the hospital for the past few weeks, she doesn’t have a job, she’s alone and tired. She can’t imagine any other world than this.
Jimmy will come back.
Some things are easy and others are not; and she pretends that she doesn’t feel relief at the quiet absence of him needing to be the center of her little world.
She leans her head on the window and breathes in the night air because she can.
She sees a dark shape on the pavement, blinks and it’s gone. Her imagination works well enough when she wants to believe she’s not alone.
She pulls the blankets from the bed to the couch, and tries to sleep.
(We skim along in great peril)
She has more space to move, to breathe. Slowly but surely the silence is eating her up.
Call somebody. She thinks to herself.
She has only one cell phone that hasn’t been broken out gallivanting on by-gone adventures. No new messages. She can expect Clark to call at ten and no earlier. He’s probably off scoobying with Lois.
She thinks of calling Davis, to say what, she doesn’t know. Maybe she’d spill out an apology that her husband tried to kill him, anything at all, maybe nothing. Three rings and no answer. He’s probably working late. He didn’t get hours off because someone accused him of murder.
---
Maybe Jimmy will come back, maybe he won't.
The second night it rains, she gets the urge to get under the downpour, feel the water soak past her skin. She remembers doing this on the farm when she’d needed to. This is downtown Metropolis, not Smallville; and she feels reckless.
This must be the acceptance stage, the sign that that the obligatory mourning period is over. She dresses and doesn’t bother to comb her hair because it will all stick together soon enough.
The droplets of water are heavy and hard, much less comforting than she remembers and she’s not alone on the dark street.
He’s just standing there soaked to the bottom of his very dark jeans, not shivering half as much as she.
“Davis.”
It looks absurdly like mourning. He doesn’t see her, just gazes up at nothing, because that can’t be her window.
She reminds herself that he is her friend and she isn’t supposed to notice the way the raindrops adhere to his skin.
She tugs at his sleeve and he startles a little. “You in there?”
A shade of something passes over his face. “Chloe?”
“What brings you to this little corner of Metropolis?”
“I heard Jimmy was discharged early. I was just passing by just to see how you were getting along. How’s…”
“He left.” Maybe not the wisest thing to say, considering the state of the both of them; the fact that he’d kissed her that no ‘moving ons’ could obscure. A little more explanation might have been good, something like ‘Oh! It’s not…just, post-wedding jitters.’
It’s important to keep the line in place; because she won’t be Clark.
“I’m sorry.” It’s not like he’s just saying it. Like he actually sees, like he is when he has no reason besides her.
It makes her feel exposed.
She asks instead. “How long have you been doing this?”
---
Zatanna teaches her a lesson. Chloe’s shifted into something different, a little odd. Her dream life, her cousin’s life-- isn’t what she wants anymore.
So, she get’s her job with Oliver back, functioning as a receptionist on the 1-800 Superhero party line. It drives any hint of quiet from her brain. Only that isn’t it, either.
The day after her twenty second birthday she realizes she wants something of her own.
(having to move faster than ice goes under)
There’s neither hide nor hair of Jimmy. When the druggist knows more than she does, she accepts he’s not coming back.
She puts his things in boxes in the closet, and the apartment looks stripped. Soon her research papers fill what used to be his nightstand. She still sleeps on the couch.
The marriage was the biggest mistake of his life. Maybe Jimmy will send annulment papers and the process will be complete, so she can wave the banner of failed wife over her head, not bitterly, not proudly.
Maybe she hadn’t trusted him, and the whole marriage had been her trying to prove to him that she did. Her mistake, too.
----
There are precious few constants in her life, but Davis becomes one.
It’s a strange relationship they have now.
He’s said he’s moved on and she’s at that part of her life just succeeding ‘lacrima’ and preceding ‘le gay divorcee’, the part where she talks a lot. The one where she exorcises old demons, or old husbands. If Davis doesn’t like Jimmy, he doesn’t say it. He listens to her talk about little nuances and things she misses, things that hurt.
He makes her honest.
“I’m not sure he and I ever told each other just the truth, you know?” she tells him.
And this time, more than any other, he’s there. She keeps coming back. It isn’t knowing that she can fall apart in front of him; but that somehow, she can feel herself knotting together, inch by inch.
She sends conventional work applications during the day to places he suggests, closer to the hospital more often than not. She finds him outside, around the apartment, in the little coffee shop around the corner.
Davis is different and the same. Some days, he’ll look almost normal except for an unnatural sheen to his face, like an illness or addiction. Some days, it’s gone completely, and he’s the assured paramedic she met at the start. When she first asks him, he says ‘late shift from hell’. It’s not just that. The blackouts could have had a tie-in to illness. When she tries to look up his old files she finds nothing at all. She keeps searching because she won’t lose him too.
---
Maybe it’s because of neediness, but simple friendly touch becomes easier, slight brushes of their shoulders and his hand under the small of her back as they walk or talk about anything at all. Just relaxed, prolonging contact, as if either or both of them need it.
This is a veneer, of course; and in the words of Gregory House, it has the potential to become charged. She tells herself she can manage this, to be Joan of Arc, the Virgin Queen. That they can need each other without needing everything.
The line remains drawn.
When he walks her to her door she doesn’t ask him in. It shouldn’t feel dangerous, this thing that they have. But it does.
Whatever it is, it is her own.
---
She dreams in puzzles of red, black, and steel gray.
Of him telling her that she saved him, with that exact tone. His voice begging her to run, but not just because he knew those streets at night.
She dreams of an avalanche pushing him under until she can’t see his face or hear his voice.
She never remembers her nightmares.
---
(and still find foothold in the soft floe.)
The first time he kisses her it looks like he’s going to die. It’s not one of those tortured lover’s analogies, but quite literal. The records wing of the Daily Planet catches on fire, he goes in to treat patients, and she’s his emergency contact.
.She finds him in the smoke, writhing on the ground as far from anyone else as he can manage. She can’t see his face, but knows him well enough; knows his touch even under frenzy and fear. His lips against hers aren’t tentative or lustful, just there as if he’s drinking her in, pulling the breath right out of her throat. The solid, sturdy little walls around her fracture in a hundred places at once.
He shoves himself back, apologizes profusely.
She could’ve repeated the old line. “You kissed me.”
She lets it slide.
----
The first night he comes into the apartment he carries a stack of her old Isis files back for her research. She’s not eager to hear the ticking of the clock again, so she gets him to eat something that could be ramen noodles while sitting on the couch with a near half-foot of space between their bodies.
The silence, for once, feels odd and misplaced between them and she’s acutely aware of wanting something painfully.
“You were right before I got married, about, this.” She says. She doesn’t know where it’s Jimmy or the wedding or this thing that’s always been there. This has to be the moment, just when she spills some wild and rambling epiphany about herself, and needing to control things.
“For a while I was a mess and now, not so much.”
She watches his eyes and his face for any sign of recognition that this is the moment where warning bells clang loudly in their respective minds, that maybe the line will be smeared.
“The second day I stopped feeling that. I don’t feel lonely, now, with you.”
“I’ll be here as long as you need me.”
“I don’t mean that way. I mean in the less broad, more personal sense.” It’s a friendly request. Lines only mean something until you cross them.
“So I’m asking you to stay.” He’s supposed to do something besides swallowing quietly in the dark as like she’s choking him.
“I don’t think I should.” She likes to fancy she’s good at reading people, and she can read him like a book.
“Why not?”
“I can’t do this to you. There are things about me…”
“I know you’re a good liar; that moving on thing really knocked it out of the park.” This is going to consume one or the other of them, eventually, she thinks, so it’s better just to head right into it. Firewalk and you don’t get burnt.
Somewhere she read that trust was laying your palm open on someone else’s. He reaches out, or she does. Her palm turns over in his grip.
“I need to tell you something.” He says.
---
(Here all we have is love, a great undulating
raft, melting steadily. We go out on it.)
When he tells her, she can’t speak. This is the one scenario she never even considered. Jimmy hadn’t been experiencing delusions. Davis had lied like a pro, was at the center of it all, the force that sent every carefully constructed brick of her universe whirling into chaos.
The worst part is she can’t bring herself to feel much different.
‘I’m sorry’ he says, over and over, and she thinks he feels more pain at this very moment than she does.
She never asked to be the key to this.
She shies away from him. She needs this distance, needs to be rational, needs to feel cold. He doesn’t try to touch her again.
She wishes she could deal with rage, or with tears, or with forgetting. But she can’t, not when he’s gone and told her, thrown everything on the line because he didn’t want to hurt her. Because he just did.
Because he’s given her means to destroy him, and no villain does that. She can’t do it, no matter how strongly her Clark conscience tells her that he has been cast as the villain.
Her mind skims over the question of what he else he could have done lightly, because there is no answer. He had no choice, until now, and then it had been truth.
“I need to think.” She says. “Please.”
---
Time. Time.
It takes her a day to sort it out.
She has no trouble finding her way to the Daily Planet in her own body this time.
Her throat constricts just a little but she knows she has to do this.
She needs to tell Clark.
Tell him what, tell him what?
She hesitates in front of the desk, thinks of leaving before he will appear; 6’4 in his tailored suit. But apprehension nails her feet to the ground, and she thinks that they’ll find a way to help Davis. They always do.
Clark’s desk is still messy, typical and male, with a few unfinished articles about to hit the press. “Local Paramedic’s Fiery demise” makes the second page.
“I’m sorry.” Clark says.
(We are one another’s floe. Each displaces the weight
of his own need.)
It’s just not physically possible. Davis can’t die. Can’t. Not in the middle of some road in the countryside, not anywhere.
She thinks this until she finds out about the bomb, embedded unnaturally with green rock.
---
When she eats breakfast the next day, it’s at the counter.
The crate of files he’d brought over from Isis remains on the table until it catches dust.
---
There’s nothing but her job.
Watchtower almost destroys the JLA. Or rather, the thing-pretending-to-be-her does. The meteor mutant has an exact copy of her face, a voice that mimics her own. It plays on every bit of her darkness, all of Oliver's fear. The mutual secret society crumbles and Clark knows all about Sebastian and all about Lex. It leaves Oliver with a sore jaw, the operation in shambles, and Chloe more isolated than ever.
It takes on another face, lives free to continue its mission, whatever it is.
The weird has suddenly mushroomed to epic proportions and she’s too empty to care.
---
“Chloe.”
The illusion is just as perfect as it was the first time. She sees Davis at her door, half dressed and smelling of dried blood. There’s a limp, a perfectly human stiffness to his movements. The creature wears his face, and the worst part is she needs it to be his.
“I’m sorry. Don’t run.”
She runs, tosses a chair in its way and keeps going. She doesn’t understand why her again, like this. Torture, perhaps.
But it runs too fast for her too get the key in the lock, get out.
She has to turn back to make sure she has time. There’s none, and it has reached her.
It would be a perfect replica. Almost.
Except for the unnatural sheen of sweat on its face that she knows as his. There’s the straining that she had seen before, half hidden by the dark. The darkness is spreading to his temples and he’s biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, as if he could bleed.
“…touch me. Please.”
She cups her hand under a cheekbone and feels it too sharply. Darkness ebbs away to tanned skin flaked with maroon.
Her fingers come away almost clean.
(hold me up. I won’t hurt you. Though I bay,
I would swim with you on my back until the cold
seeped into my heart)
“Tell me what happened.” She wants to know, needs him to distract her because she hasn’t exactly got training for dealing with Kryptonite flesh wounds. He’s the paramedic; but he can’t be treating himself with the mess that is his shoulder.
“After… after what happened Tess Mercer found me. She told me things; showed me a cage where I didn’t change.”
"The Luthorcorp experiments.”
“I was one of the very first experiments they had. Somehow she knew all about me. I was fine for a while in there. And then she forced me out of it and it got worse. She said the only way to stop it was if I killed the other Kryptonian."
”Clark.”
“I think I threw her across the room and I ran. The car was rigged and when I got out I kept changing faster.”
“That’s what she wanted.”
His skin looks battered, for a lack of a better word. There are red puckered marks around the wound up to his bicep, tiny burns that won’t heal until she finds a pair of tweezers the right size to pull out the little green pellets.
“She sent someone after me. He was just doing his job. I…”
She drops her other hand over his sternum to keep her hand steady. “Keep talking.”
“I found you.” He hisses between his teeth. It’s a big one.
The marks start to shrink on themselves before her eyes, leaving only smooth skin that distracts her unduly.
“If it doesn’t hurt now, I can get you one of the shirts from the closet.” She brushes a hand over his arm just to be sure.
He makes a noise in the back of his throat. The skin could be sensitized, yet.
“Maybe we’d better leave it for now.” If he’s like Clark he won’t get cold without a shirt. She’ll be the one with the problems, all in the name of caretaking.
Caretaking indeed. She’s sitting backwards on his lap checking him. For injuries.
“Anywhere else? You can have the shower.”
This is what she’s going to do, pat him reassuringly on the arm and go get a few towels. Until he makes the noise again, and it’s not like his wrist is sensitized too.
His voice is thick. “I’m fine.”
“”The Kryptonite must have done a number on you. Maybe you should...”
He holds onto her waist firmly, awkwardly. “Don’t go again.” Maybe he needs this right now. She could be his insurance against changing into that thing that scares him. Or something else, she doesn’t know anymore than the look in his eyes.
He’s alive.
Her head fits under his chin, and it’s funny that he does have a heartbeat. Wild and erratic though it may be.
She squeezes her eyes closed and doesn’t understand why she feels scared just this moment.
He means too much.
She could pull back, but that would never put a halt to the spinning in her head. He’s always slipped past her defenses.
He’s scared too; it’s in the way his lips hover inches before invading her space and making everything disappear. Maybe he’s not the only one who’s sensitized. She can feel it in her scalp as his hands slide carefully through her hair, the slight hair on his arms tickling her bare skin.
It’s like this for a while, slow and easy and only pushes the aching farther.
He could make it stop.
She works her position for more leverage and lets herself feel, concentrate on just one sensation and forget the rest. He throws himself into this one act like he is starving and it pulls her under.
The slight wetness of kissing gives way to something else. His tongue slips into her mouth and it’s different, more intense, drives all rationality from her mind. It’s as if they are trying to dive into each other when the act is physically impossible.
He nudges her knees apart to fit closer, keeps one hand carefully bracing the curve of her back against empty air. It’s gentlemanly, almost an oxymoron. They’re on even ground, really doing this all the way; at this very moment his hands could go anywhere. Anywhere at all.
(We are committed.
We are going across this river willy nilly.)
She might as well say it like it is. She pulls back carefully, pushes down the irregularity of her breath the urge to keep moving.
“What do you say we move this?” She couldn’t have declared her intent more firmly had she waved a sign over her head that said ‘I want to have your babies and live in a house with a white picket fence.’
He looks at her, really looks at her with his face full of so much she can’t describe, realizing. It would have meant something wherever it happened, but this…
He reaches her, cradles her like a child, kicks the door open with his foot.
(Where is something solid? Only you and me.)
She’s looking at him now and it’s almost too much to take. He wants her, she knows this. Wanting is simple and primal, if he just wanted her he would not look at her as if he saw her.
It’s dangerous to be exposed, her mind tells her; but this is what she’s always needed. He is.
Where did it all come from?
She feels like one of those cars that has only been driven once, one way. She doesn’t know what to be prepared for; the fear mixes in her gut with the sudden soft feelings. This is the point.
She tosses her plain red shirt into a corner.
It’s not impersonal even when the kissing stops. His mouth slides over her skin as if he’s learning from memory; makes her realize she has feeling in places she’s forgot about, makes her crazy. The sounds that come out of her throat are disturbingly like mewling.
“Davis. Please.”
He reaches the clasp of her bra about the same time she’s ready and then it’s his skin against hers. He’s going to move gently again, she knows, drag it out. She cheats, pushes him under her.
He reacts more strongly the more of him she touches, the slower she does it. It doesn’t matter as much as she wants to feel the warm friction of skin on skin, she doesn’t stop, just letting them brush lightly until he leans into her and she draws back. The reaction is more than instantaneous, his body is tight against hers, and his eyes darken.
“Just so you know that’s what it feels like.” Sorry, he says, and he’s not. Then it’s not slow again.
Her head hits the mattress and he begins to move. Even with two layers between them the sensation is frighteningly strong. Maybe, maybe something will explode. She can’t take it much longer.
It’s easy enough for her to wiggle her way out of the pencil skirt. He is a different case all together. “Of course you’d wear your uniform with a belt.” She tries to help, but only ends up arresting his progress when their fingers tangle together.
She waits for him, feels her stomach do a cartwheel. The mattress is rough, and there haven’t been any sheets on the bed since the first day she came back.
“Protection.” She’s not thinking. She always thinks. He finds the condom in the drawer to the left, Jimmy’s side. Before the wedding Jimmy had bought about ten sealed boxes and waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her. No pain at the thought, this time. This means something.
Davis breaks open the packaging; unkempt, his hair an inch longer than usual; like a boy. Then he reaches her, kisses her slowly, as if they are just kissing and she hadn’t been seducing him quite successfully seconds ago. He always gives her an out.
She pulls him toward her.
At first it’s a little like pain, getting used to something where there was emptiness. It’s been a while, and never, never like this. Her body moves and shifts, accommodates him, this need.
The warmth unfurls slowly, his arms holding her tight, his palm warm at the base of her neck drawing her close. Then it changes and she needs it, needs more, needs everything.
He pushes into her, relentless, catches her mouth again.
The movements are almost unsteady, the bedsprings groan and the sounds he makes are as loud as hers. She strains and manages to hook her ankles around his waist, hears the crash of glass.
Not thought, not sound, eyes drifting in and out of focus. Her breath hitches and he doesn’t stop, pushes her to the edge of a chasm where every muscle of her tightens and strains for release. This is it, she thinks. She’s going to die.
Then he goes completely still within her. Her eyes snap open, find his face. He says her name like he’s wanted to say it for a very long time; kisses her like that first time.
She’s had few orgasms in her life. Maybe one. From what she’s read of them you were supposed to see God, a mountaintop, or strange constellations.
She sees him. Just him.
(anyhow. I love you, I love this fool’s walk.
Afterwards, he pulls her carefully to his chest. She feels boneless and suddenly brave.
They curl together and their skin sticks without the sheets between them. They're okay. Not empty, alone, or getting lost. She knows the world isn't as simple as this moment, but she wants to stay like this.
His smile is warm and his eyes look as if he's going to tell her 'You saved me', again. The thing is saving each other; right here, right now.
"I thought I would never change back. I had to find you."
She still hasn't gotten used to this, this strange new power she seems to have. "I don't know how this works exactly. I used to have the power to heal. But this doesn't hurt me."
She's always suspected, up to a point, that maybe it was him all along. A half whispered "You make me human." is all it takes for her to know. She turns his face toward her own, aware that the light is draining out around them and tries to say it without words.
The time for solutions, figuring out exactly how they fit, how to hold on, comes later.
Right here, right now. She thinks.
(The thing we have to learn is how to walk light.)
Endnotes: named For William Meredith's Poem 'Crossing Over', which I shuffled and generally made a mess of.
Drop the love if you wanna.
4231 words. r/nc-17. turbulence.
by vagrantdream at her/my livejournal.
The solid, sturdy little walls around her fracture in a hundred places at once.
(The whole river
is melting. )
The nurse handed her a bottle of pills which Jimmy snatched from her hand. There were more than a handful of explanations he should’ve heard out. That he was on drugs. That he had been about to brain someone she cared about with a metal pipe.
“First Clark and now Davis.” Clark. Davis. Davis. Clark.
She knew what that was.
“You just don’t trust me,” he’d said, in a way that told her that wasn’t all he meant.
“Why the hell did you even marry me?”
Her mouth felt stiff, and the answer that flew to her head is the last one he’d want to hear. She didn’t remember the wedding, the whys or the whats.
I would’ve given my life to you, she wanted to say. I tried. Didn’t that mean something?
He didn't hear.
It was just her in the middle of the lobby, with the few scattered nurses and orderlies milling around to hear the soap opera unfold.
There were more than one or two tears, she’d swallowed bitter in her throat, as he’d gone in the car (nowhere with her), and she’d caught a bus to the empty apartment.
---
It rains big heavy droplets on the thin window panes; so maybe, just maybe it doesn’t look like she’s crying.
A monster burst into her wedding, she’s slept in the hospital for the past few weeks, she doesn’t have a job, she’s alone and tired. She can’t imagine any other world than this.
Jimmy will come back.
Some things are easy and others are not; and she pretends that she doesn’t feel relief at the quiet absence of him needing to be the center of her little world.
She leans her head on the window and breathes in the night air because she can.
She sees a dark shape on the pavement, blinks and it’s gone. Her imagination works well enough when she wants to believe she’s not alone.
She pulls the blankets from the bed to the couch, and tries to sleep.
(We skim along in great peril)
She has more space to move, to breathe. Slowly but surely the silence is eating her up.
Call somebody. She thinks to herself.
She has only one cell phone that hasn’t been broken out gallivanting on by-gone adventures. No new messages. She can expect Clark to call at ten and no earlier. He’s probably off scoobying with Lois.
She thinks of calling Davis, to say what, she doesn’t know. Maybe she’d spill out an apology that her husband tried to kill him, anything at all, maybe nothing. Three rings and no answer. He’s probably working late. He didn’t get hours off because someone accused him of murder.
---
Maybe Jimmy will come back, maybe he won't.
The second night it rains, she gets the urge to get under the downpour, feel the water soak past her skin. She remembers doing this on the farm when she’d needed to. This is downtown Metropolis, not Smallville; and she feels reckless.
This must be the acceptance stage, the sign that that the obligatory mourning period is over. She dresses and doesn’t bother to comb her hair because it will all stick together soon enough.
The droplets of water are heavy and hard, much less comforting than she remembers and she’s not alone on the dark street.
He’s just standing there soaked to the bottom of his very dark jeans, not shivering half as much as she.
“Davis.”
It looks absurdly like mourning. He doesn’t see her, just gazes up at nothing, because that can’t be her window.
She reminds herself that he is her friend and she isn’t supposed to notice the way the raindrops adhere to his skin.
She tugs at his sleeve and he startles a little. “You in there?”
A shade of something passes over his face. “Chloe?”
“What brings you to this little corner of Metropolis?”
“I heard Jimmy was discharged early. I was just passing by just to see how you were getting along. How’s…”
“He left.” Maybe not the wisest thing to say, considering the state of the both of them; the fact that he’d kissed her that no ‘moving ons’ could obscure. A little more explanation might have been good, something like ‘Oh! It’s not…just, post-wedding jitters.’
It’s important to keep the line in place; because she won’t be Clark.
“I’m sorry.” It’s not like he’s just saying it. Like he actually sees, like he is when he has no reason besides her.
It makes her feel exposed.
She asks instead. “How long have you been doing this?”
---
Zatanna teaches her a lesson. Chloe’s shifted into something different, a little odd. Her dream life, her cousin’s life-- isn’t what she wants anymore.
So, she get’s her job with Oliver back, functioning as a receptionist on the 1-800 Superhero party line. It drives any hint of quiet from her brain. Only that isn’t it, either.
The day after her twenty second birthday she realizes she wants something of her own.
(having to move faster than ice goes under)
There’s neither hide nor hair of Jimmy. When the druggist knows more than she does, she accepts he’s not coming back.
She puts his things in boxes in the closet, and the apartment looks stripped. Soon her research papers fill what used to be his nightstand. She still sleeps on the couch.
The marriage was the biggest mistake of his life. Maybe Jimmy will send annulment papers and the process will be complete, so she can wave the banner of failed wife over her head, not bitterly, not proudly.
Maybe she hadn’t trusted him, and the whole marriage had been her trying to prove to him that she did. Her mistake, too.
----
There are precious few constants in her life, but Davis becomes one.
It’s a strange relationship they have now.
He’s said he’s moved on and she’s at that part of her life just succeeding ‘lacrima’ and preceding ‘le gay divorcee’, the part where she talks a lot. The one where she exorcises old demons, or old husbands. If Davis doesn’t like Jimmy, he doesn’t say it. He listens to her talk about little nuances and things she misses, things that hurt.
He makes her honest.
“I’m not sure he and I ever told each other just the truth, you know?” she tells him.
And this time, more than any other, he’s there. She keeps coming back. It isn’t knowing that she can fall apart in front of him; but that somehow, she can feel herself knotting together, inch by inch.
She sends conventional work applications during the day to places he suggests, closer to the hospital more often than not. She finds him outside, around the apartment, in the little coffee shop around the corner.
Davis is different and the same. Some days, he’ll look almost normal except for an unnatural sheen to his face, like an illness or addiction. Some days, it’s gone completely, and he’s the assured paramedic she met at the start. When she first asks him, he says ‘late shift from hell’. It’s not just that. The blackouts could have had a tie-in to illness. When she tries to look up his old files she finds nothing at all. She keeps searching because she won’t lose him too.
---
Maybe it’s because of neediness, but simple friendly touch becomes easier, slight brushes of their shoulders and his hand under the small of her back as they walk or talk about anything at all. Just relaxed, prolonging contact, as if either or both of them need it.
This is a veneer, of course; and in the words of Gregory House, it has the potential to become charged. She tells herself she can manage this, to be Joan of Arc, the Virgin Queen. That they can need each other without needing everything.
The line remains drawn.
When he walks her to her door she doesn’t ask him in. It shouldn’t feel dangerous, this thing that they have. But it does.
Whatever it is, it is her own.
---
She dreams in puzzles of red, black, and steel gray.
Of him telling her that she saved him, with that exact tone. His voice begging her to run, but not just because he knew those streets at night.
She dreams of an avalanche pushing him under until she can’t see his face or hear his voice.
She never remembers her nightmares.
---
(and still find foothold in the soft floe.)
The first time he kisses her it looks like he’s going to die. It’s not one of those tortured lover’s analogies, but quite literal. The records wing of the Daily Planet catches on fire, he goes in to treat patients, and she’s his emergency contact.
.She finds him in the smoke, writhing on the ground as far from anyone else as he can manage. She can’t see his face, but knows him well enough; knows his touch even under frenzy and fear. His lips against hers aren’t tentative or lustful, just there as if he’s drinking her in, pulling the breath right out of her throat. The solid, sturdy little walls around her fracture in a hundred places at once.
He shoves himself back, apologizes profusely.
She could’ve repeated the old line. “You kissed me.”
She lets it slide.
----
The first night he comes into the apartment he carries a stack of her old Isis files back for her research. She’s not eager to hear the ticking of the clock again, so she gets him to eat something that could be ramen noodles while sitting on the couch with a near half-foot of space between their bodies.
The silence, for once, feels odd and misplaced between them and she’s acutely aware of wanting something painfully.
“You were right before I got married, about, this.” She says. She doesn’t know where it’s Jimmy or the wedding or this thing that’s always been there. This has to be the moment, just when she spills some wild and rambling epiphany about herself, and needing to control things.
“For a while I was a mess and now, not so much.”
She watches his eyes and his face for any sign of recognition that this is the moment where warning bells clang loudly in their respective minds, that maybe the line will be smeared.
“The second day I stopped feeling that. I don’t feel lonely, now, with you.”
“I’ll be here as long as you need me.”
“I don’t mean that way. I mean in the less broad, more personal sense.” It’s a friendly request. Lines only mean something until you cross them.
“So I’m asking you to stay.” He’s supposed to do something besides swallowing quietly in the dark as like she’s choking him.
“I don’t think I should.” She likes to fancy she’s good at reading people, and she can read him like a book.
“Why not?”
“I can’t do this to you. There are things about me…”
“I know you’re a good liar; that moving on thing really knocked it out of the park.” This is going to consume one or the other of them, eventually, she thinks, so it’s better just to head right into it. Firewalk and you don’t get burnt.
Somewhere she read that trust was laying your palm open on someone else’s. He reaches out, or she does. Her palm turns over in his grip.
“I need to tell you something.” He says.
---
(Here all we have is love, a great undulating
raft, melting steadily. We go out on it.)
When he tells her, she can’t speak. This is the one scenario she never even considered. Jimmy hadn’t been experiencing delusions. Davis had lied like a pro, was at the center of it all, the force that sent every carefully constructed brick of her universe whirling into chaos.
The worst part is she can’t bring herself to feel much different.
‘I’m sorry’ he says, over and over, and she thinks he feels more pain at this very moment than she does.
She never asked to be the key to this.
She shies away from him. She needs this distance, needs to be rational, needs to feel cold. He doesn’t try to touch her again.
She wishes she could deal with rage, or with tears, or with forgetting. But she can’t, not when he’s gone and told her, thrown everything on the line because he didn’t want to hurt her. Because he just did.
Because he’s given her means to destroy him, and no villain does that. She can’t do it, no matter how strongly her Clark conscience tells her that he has been cast as the villain.
Her mind skims over the question of what he else he could have done lightly, because there is no answer. He had no choice, until now, and then it had been truth.
“I need to think.” She says. “Please.”
---
Time. Time.
It takes her a day to sort it out.
She has no trouble finding her way to the Daily Planet in her own body this time.
Her throat constricts just a little but she knows she has to do this.
She needs to tell Clark.
Tell him what, tell him what?
She hesitates in front of the desk, thinks of leaving before he will appear; 6’4 in his tailored suit. But apprehension nails her feet to the ground, and she thinks that they’ll find a way to help Davis. They always do.
Clark’s desk is still messy, typical and male, with a few unfinished articles about to hit the press. “Local Paramedic’s Fiery demise” makes the second page.
“I’m sorry.” Clark says.
(We are one another’s floe. Each displaces the weight
of his own need.)
It’s just not physically possible. Davis can’t die. Can’t. Not in the middle of some road in the countryside, not anywhere.
She thinks this until she finds out about the bomb, embedded unnaturally with green rock.
---
When she eats breakfast the next day, it’s at the counter.
The crate of files he’d brought over from Isis remains on the table until it catches dust.
---
There’s nothing but her job.
Watchtower almost destroys the JLA. Or rather, the thing-pretending-to-be-her does. The meteor mutant has an exact copy of her face, a voice that mimics her own. It plays on every bit of her darkness, all of Oliver's fear. The mutual secret society crumbles and Clark knows all about Sebastian and all about Lex. It leaves Oliver with a sore jaw, the operation in shambles, and Chloe more isolated than ever.
It takes on another face, lives free to continue its mission, whatever it is.
The weird has suddenly mushroomed to epic proportions and she’s too empty to care.
---
“Chloe.”
The illusion is just as perfect as it was the first time. She sees Davis at her door, half dressed and smelling of dried blood. There’s a limp, a perfectly human stiffness to his movements. The creature wears his face, and the worst part is she needs it to be his.
“I’m sorry. Don’t run.”
She runs, tosses a chair in its way and keeps going. She doesn’t understand why her again, like this. Torture, perhaps.
But it runs too fast for her too get the key in the lock, get out.
She has to turn back to make sure she has time. There’s none, and it has reached her.
It would be a perfect replica. Almost.
Except for the unnatural sheen of sweat on its face that she knows as his. There’s the straining that she had seen before, half hidden by the dark. The darkness is spreading to his temples and he’s biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, as if he could bleed.
“…touch me. Please.”
She cups her hand under a cheekbone and feels it too sharply. Darkness ebbs away to tanned skin flaked with maroon.
Her fingers come away almost clean.
(hold me up. I won’t hurt you. Though I bay,
I would swim with you on my back until the cold
seeped into my heart)
“Tell me what happened.” She wants to know, needs him to distract her because she hasn’t exactly got training for dealing with Kryptonite flesh wounds. He’s the paramedic; but he can’t be treating himself with the mess that is his shoulder.
“After… after what happened Tess Mercer found me. She told me things; showed me a cage where I didn’t change.”
"The Luthorcorp experiments.”
“I was one of the very first experiments they had. Somehow she knew all about me. I was fine for a while in there. And then she forced me out of it and it got worse. She said the only way to stop it was if I killed the other Kryptonian."
”Clark.”
“I think I threw her across the room and I ran. The car was rigged and when I got out I kept changing faster.”
“That’s what she wanted.”
His skin looks battered, for a lack of a better word. There are red puckered marks around the wound up to his bicep, tiny burns that won’t heal until she finds a pair of tweezers the right size to pull out the little green pellets.
“She sent someone after me. He was just doing his job. I…”
She drops her other hand over his sternum to keep her hand steady. “Keep talking.”
“I found you.” He hisses between his teeth. It’s a big one.
The marks start to shrink on themselves before her eyes, leaving only smooth skin that distracts her unduly.
“If it doesn’t hurt now, I can get you one of the shirts from the closet.” She brushes a hand over his arm just to be sure.
He makes a noise in the back of his throat. The skin could be sensitized, yet.
“Maybe we’d better leave it for now.” If he’s like Clark he won’t get cold without a shirt. She’ll be the one with the problems, all in the name of caretaking.
Caretaking indeed. She’s sitting backwards on his lap checking him. For injuries.
“Anywhere else? You can have the shower.”
This is what she’s going to do, pat him reassuringly on the arm and go get a few towels. Until he makes the noise again, and it’s not like his wrist is sensitized too.
His voice is thick. “I’m fine.”
“”The Kryptonite must have done a number on you. Maybe you should...”
He holds onto her waist firmly, awkwardly. “Don’t go again.” Maybe he needs this right now. She could be his insurance against changing into that thing that scares him. Or something else, she doesn’t know anymore than the look in his eyes.
He’s alive.
Her head fits under his chin, and it’s funny that he does have a heartbeat. Wild and erratic though it may be.
She squeezes her eyes closed and doesn’t understand why she feels scared just this moment.
He means too much.
She could pull back, but that would never put a halt to the spinning in her head. He’s always slipped past her defenses.
He’s scared too; it’s in the way his lips hover inches before invading her space and making everything disappear. Maybe he’s not the only one who’s sensitized. She can feel it in her scalp as his hands slide carefully through her hair, the slight hair on his arms tickling her bare skin.
It’s like this for a while, slow and easy and only pushes the aching farther.
He could make it stop.
She works her position for more leverage and lets herself feel, concentrate on just one sensation and forget the rest. He throws himself into this one act like he is starving and it pulls her under.
The slight wetness of kissing gives way to something else. His tongue slips into her mouth and it’s different, more intense, drives all rationality from her mind. It’s as if they are trying to dive into each other when the act is physically impossible.
He nudges her knees apart to fit closer, keeps one hand carefully bracing the curve of her back against empty air. It’s gentlemanly, almost an oxymoron. They’re on even ground, really doing this all the way; at this very moment his hands could go anywhere. Anywhere at all.
(We are committed.
We are going across this river willy nilly.)
She might as well say it like it is. She pulls back carefully, pushes down the irregularity of her breath the urge to keep moving.
“What do you say we move this?” She couldn’t have declared her intent more firmly had she waved a sign over her head that said ‘I want to have your babies and live in a house with a white picket fence.’
He looks at her, really looks at her with his face full of so much she can’t describe, realizing. It would have meant something wherever it happened, but this…
He reaches her, cradles her like a child, kicks the door open with his foot.
(Where is something solid? Only you and me.)
She’s looking at him now and it’s almost too much to take. He wants her, she knows this. Wanting is simple and primal, if he just wanted her he would not look at her as if he saw her.
It’s dangerous to be exposed, her mind tells her; but this is what she’s always needed. He is.
Where did it all come from?
She feels like one of those cars that has only been driven once, one way. She doesn’t know what to be prepared for; the fear mixes in her gut with the sudden soft feelings. This is the point.
She tosses her plain red shirt into a corner.
It’s not impersonal even when the kissing stops. His mouth slides over her skin as if he’s learning from memory; makes her realize she has feeling in places she’s forgot about, makes her crazy. The sounds that come out of her throat are disturbingly like mewling.
“Davis. Please.”
He reaches the clasp of her bra about the same time she’s ready and then it’s his skin against hers. He’s going to move gently again, she knows, drag it out. She cheats, pushes him under her.
He reacts more strongly the more of him she touches, the slower she does it. It doesn’t matter as much as she wants to feel the warm friction of skin on skin, she doesn’t stop, just letting them brush lightly until he leans into her and she draws back. The reaction is more than instantaneous, his body is tight against hers, and his eyes darken.
“Just so you know that’s what it feels like.” Sorry, he says, and he’s not. Then it’s not slow again.
Her head hits the mattress and he begins to move. Even with two layers between them the sensation is frighteningly strong. Maybe, maybe something will explode. She can’t take it much longer.
It’s easy enough for her to wiggle her way out of the pencil skirt. He is a different case all together. “Of course you’d wear your uniform with a belt.” She tries to help, but only ends up arresting his progress when their fingers tangle together.
She waits for him, feels her stomach do a cartwheel. The mattress is rough, and there haven’t been any sheets on the bed since the first day she came back.
“Protection.” She’s not thinking. She always thinks. He finds the condom in the drawer to the left, Jimmy’s side. Before the wedding Jimmy had bought about ten sealed boxes and waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her. No pain at the thought, this time. This means something.
Davis breaks open the packaging; unkempt, his hair an inch longer than usual; like a boy. Then he reaches her, kisses her slowly, as if they are just kissing and she hadn’t been seducing him quite successfully seconds ago. He always gives her an out.
She pulls him toward her.
At first it’s a little like pain, getting used to something where there was emptiness. It’s been a while, and never, never like this. Her body moves and shifts, accommodates him, this need.
The warmth unfurls slowly, his arms holding her tight, his palm warm at the base of her neck drawing her close. Then it changes and she needs it, needs more, needs everything.
He pushes into her, relentless, catches her mouth again.
The movements are almost unsteady, the bedsprings groan and the sounds he makes are as loud as hers. She strains and manages to hook her ankles around his waist, hears the crash of glass.
Not thought, not sound, eyes drifting in and out of focus. Her breath hitches and he doesn’t stop, pushes her to the edge of a chasm where every muscle of her tightens and strains for release. This is it, she thinks. She’s going to die.
Then he goes completely still within her. Her eyes snap open, find his face. He says her name like he’s wanted to say it for a very long time; kisses her like that first time.
She’s had few orgasms in her life. Maybe one. From what she’s read of them you were supposed to see God, a mountaintop, or strange constellations.
She sees him. Just him.
(anyhow. I love you, I love this fool’s walk.
Afterwards, he pulls her carefully to his chest. She feels boneless and suddenly brave.
They curl together and their skin sticks without the sheets between them. They're okay. Not empty, alone, or getting lost. She knows the world isn't as simple as this moment, but she wants to stay like this.
His smile is warm and his eyes look as if he's going to tell her 'You saved me', again. The thing is saving each other; right here, right now.
"I thought I would never change back. I had to find you."
She still hasn't gotten used to this, this strange new power she seems to have. "I don't know how this works exactly. I used to have the power to heal. But this doesn't hurt me."
She's always suspected, up to a point, that maybe it was him all along. A half whispered "You make me human." is all it takes for her to know. She turns his face toward her own, aware that the light is draining out around them and tries to say it without words.
The time for solutions, figuring out exactly how they fit, how to hold on, comes later.
Right here, right now. She thinks.
(The thing we have to learn is how to walk light.)
Endnotes: named For William Meredith's Poem 'Crossing Over', which I shuffled and generally made a mess of.
Drop the love if you wanna.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
