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. ^-~