burdens of lace

Reccing Notes: Watching Bride was akin to watching an execution to me. Straight off of Abyss, a mind-wiped Chloe goes through the motions of being happy and her whole self...right about until the time Doomsday crashes in on the wedding.

At a few points in the episode, (Chloe's conversation with Lois) I actually had to pause because she looked so decidedly UNhappy. So pausing there, right at the wedding, I wondered what would happen if Chloe knew something was wrong. Who would she go to for help?

by vagrantdream at her/my livejournal

1269 words, nc-17, bride

"I’m not right.”

Chloe hedged into the room the wedding guests were just starting to fill. Ahead of her were her best friend, Lois, Jimmy laughing loudly at a dirty joke... As she walked, the garter scratched into her thigh like some primitive claim of ownership. Jimmy’s, who wanted to be the one and only and hadn’t cared enough to call after he’d taken her virginity. She didn’t feel any warm prickle inside her at the thought that he’d be attempting to yank the garter off with his teeth after the reception. This felt like a parody, an inversion of what you heard you were supposed to do with your life. She felt dry, her legs creaking under her. It felt like she was losing the rest of her life, not starting it.

“No.” She whispered, trying the word out. Clark’s eyes zeroed in on her eerily. He looked suspicious and alarmed, though he couldn’t have heard. It seemed all wrong somehow, how invested he was in her marriage, when he had been such a small part of her life. Why was she doing this? Her memories were skewed, like her mother’s had been. It felt like something was taking control of her, something, and that was schizophrenia right there. The panic turned to a knot inside her and she was running from the uproar building behind her. Each of her steps felt lighter.


At her apartment, Chloe upended her private drawers, places Jimmy never thought to look. She drew soft fingers over a pile of computer print outs. Interviews, foster homes records, apartment leases…That was all she’d found on Davis Bloome, the heat of tension flipping dully under her skin. He’d called her three times and then he’d stopped.

It would have been wrong to answer: what kind of bride nursed such a fascination with another man? She had been a reporter who chased around stories that never came to fruition, but it seemed like she’d found it in Davis. They’d never done anything whatsoever, not until that one kiss. She’d rattled around the flower shop afterwards, desperate for his the light, fleeting touch back, wondering if… She couldn’t even remember what she’d been wondering.

Chloe jumped at the quick knock at her door, five minutes before her wedding had been supposed to happen. She recognized the knock and the door was open before she realized she was moving. She stood there, naked at the shoulders, stripped bare. Davis. Her breaths didn’t want to come.

His eyes lingered where the veil had fallen out of her fingers. “I’m sorry.” He said. He was in street clothes, but that didn’t hide the hero he wanted to be or the way his eyes clung to her, hurting. “I didn’t come to stalk you. I almost blacked out, tonight. I saw your car. I thought it might help me make peace…”

“I couldn’t marry him.” She blurted out. “I don’t think that’s who I am.” She giggled, haplessly. “Marrying Jimmy wasn’t right. I’m not right.”

Davis’s dark eyes flickered in relief and worry. “Chloe…”

“Please don’t leave.” She was in his arms, pressed against his chest, and the heat of him trickled over her shoulders and underneath her skin. The door latched behind his fingers, and when she lifted her mouth to brush his he held her to him for the longest time.


Chloe had been losing so much time. Davis wouldn’t be one of those minutes and hours she lost. She needed his memory filling her head, and he was filling her until she thought she could burst of the heat of it. Davis pushed inside her on what could have been her marriage bed; moving with increasing friction inside her, until her knuckles went white and tight over the garter he’d lowered into them. He soothed at the ringed mark it had left on her thigh, but he was so much. She couldn’t remember enough of this. Chloe flinched and bit until she tasted the blood blooming over the inside of her cheek.

She’d panted through Davis’s soft questions and touches, clutched at his fingers like she used to dream she had done. He confessed that his skin shattered knives, a fact that made little sense about her life in context- but it brought together one piece of the scrambled puzzle. She’d always had this feeling she would love him.
Her fingers prickled in nerves but the line of his cheekbone didn’t feel invulnerable. She’d seen it shift and soften. Davis drew her palm over his face, turned soft questing lips into it. He’d loved her through his fears about himself, through her fractured memories, through her flight and near wedding to another man. He was only human and she needed him.

“Nothing in my life makes sense anymore, and I now don’t want anything but you. I don’t know if it’s a connection between us-” Yet the feelings were like a solid, tangible thing that stirred all over her skin.

“I’ll lead you back.” He said, like the multiple times he had taken care of her. Davis’s protectiveness was written on his face, softened behind his lips and her naïve fingers. There was a desire in his eyes that had nothing to do with the fact that she was clinging to him in a dress she’d half wrenched off.

He’d kissed her shoulders around the beading of the gown, and scoured tender sucks under her throat. He was paying attention to her pleasure but that wasn’t enough. Being with Davis was falling into an increasingly deep spiral that demanded contact and movement and his hands crumpling her skirt around her waist. She rubbed up into his palm until he began to ease in and out of her body. He gave her a chance to decide what she wanted, and she edged her fingertips to his shoulders and reeled him in. He stopped controlling himself long enough to fall onto her with a series of agonized, electrifying thrusts. They evened out, slicker and deeper, but each time flickered though her face and broke her into a deeper sweat.

Chloe kissed Davis unevenly, softly fumbling for his back. She had never known good. A terrible deep feeling swelled inside her and arched her back wrackingly into the bed. His cock rubbed so thickly inside there was no nudging him where she needed, just feeling him everywhere at once as her muscles stung and burned and clutched at the throbbing slick heat of him. He swayed her neck back to nip. She was pleasure-addled and pliant. Her legs folded underneath her, and he came down on her, jerking.

She couldn’t see enough of Davis. He shook in a torture of exhaled breaths, soaking and burning under her skin. She dragged against him softly, feeling him twitch and wring out inside her, his face twisting in tender ecstasy. She hadn’t expected the passion between them to come this far.
Davis rubbed his nose against her cheek, shakily cuddling her against him. He was heavy and more human than she’d ever seen him. There was a small hard part in her that needed to keep him protected and safe. Chloe wrapped arms around his waist and squeezed. Her eyes met his, sticky and longing and he stumbled over her massive, torn bridal train to lift her free.

full as a tick, shredding ivory

Reccing Notes: Simply the most in-character and thud-worthy conclusion to all the connection and buildup in early season 8. If Bride hadn't been turned into a horror movie- it could have simply been this- two people no longer trying push themselves into the lives they're 'destined' to have. Skipping out of a wedding and significant garment tearing has never been so hot. Things are said that are every shipper's dream.

by nonky at her livejournal

1800 words, nc-17, bride

She had seen Davis like he was a full-colour figure in a black and white photograph.
He wanted her. Chloe knew he wanted her, but Davis was grappling with who he was. He didn’t feel like the guy who broke up a wedding and drove off with the bride edging closer to his lap. He didn’t feel like someone who set out to rip up the cosy and sweet home life that made him envious. He was a healer because he knew what it was like to know there was no one on the way to help. He did good things out of a realistic belief that there were enough bad things already happening.

If he was going to mix in the sea of humanity and put himself in reach of the everyday ugliness of people, Davis was going to make a difference. The best he could say about showing up at Chloe’s wedding was that he’d probably put a damper on some drinking at the reception.

He had gotten as far as pulling her hair out of the sculpted curls. He pinned her to the inside of his apartment door – like they were on the run from a wedding mob that would take her back and make her kiss Jimmy by clinking glasses. He had good timing for a first-time wedding crasher. He got there after her walk down the aisle but before the invitation to ‘speak any reservations’ why the marriage couldn’t happen.

Chloe had been tied up in hellish swings of selfishness and honour, before she recognized it was all garbage. She chose Jimmy, and agreed to marry him. Changing her mind wasn’t something she’d set out to do, but it was an organic, natural progression. She couldn’t keep herself exactly as she was forever. She’d met Davis, changed her mind, and that was it. Jimmy would have sore feelings, and they would both be stuck paying their half of the wedding, anyway. She had made a point to have insurance to cover all but this eventuality – changing her mind wasn’t covered.

There was a pause as the minister leafed through his prayer book, and Chloe’s gaze had drifted away from Jimmy and down the rows of seats. She had seen Davis like he was a full-colour figure in a black and white photograph. He was pale, but he was brighter than the sunshine lighting up her big day. He had smiled, incredibly gentle and hopeful, and she felt her feet drifting from Jimmy. Her fiancé actually reached out to help her, thinking her shoes were giving her trouble. When she drew her hand back, Jimmy got the message. He wasn’t fast enough to talk her out of it.

She didn’t run, but she didn’t stop for the people who climbed uncertainly to their feet. She didn’t answer the yelled questions, or look back to the man deflating under the minister’s encouraging grip. Clark and Lois were stunned, her cousin grinning in that slightly insensitive way that showed Lois’ delight in chaos. Davis stayed stiffly sitting down, his shoulders jerking with tension until she stopped at the end of his row. He shoved along without apologies, knowing how hard those steps back down the aisle must have been. He was determined Chloe wouldn’t be going through anything else alone.

They grabbed at each other, and fled, agreeing without any discussion to go to his place. Chloe didn’t know what would become of her things at the apartment. She was ready to let them go. Any sense of loss was held off by a growing excitement low in her belly. Davis had given her his jacket, but the shivers were shocks of emotion. She had upended every bit of her history. Guilt was a part of it, but the largest part was startled joy. She had thought about her thousands of dollars of debts, her elaborate dress and hairstyle, her expectant groom and guests; then leapt in the opposite direction. She had fooled all of them right up to the last second. She had surprised herself most of all.

“I want you to take me,” she told him, swaying in his arms. Davis winced as her thigh rubbed hard along his erection. Chloe could nearly hear his patience grind. She pushed his jacket off her arms. “You’ve been so good and patient, Davis. I love that you’d wait for me. I – love – everything I know about you, and I’m sure I’ll love the things I don’t know yet.”

His brown eyes were hypnotic, sweet and melting with a spark of slow burning heat. He would send her flowers and do this right, but Chloe didn’t need the trappings. She felt the rightness, warm and wet between her legs and pounding in her heart. She dug her fingers into the fine silk of her dress, wrenching at it uselessly. They needed to be naked on each other.

“You’ve just made a really big decision,” he said softly. His hand kneaded in her hair as if he believed she must have a headache to soothe. “You know I love you –“

“Yes, I do know. We’ve done the talking and it got us here, but I’m flying in my head,” Chloe told him. “I’m feverish and crazy and the only thing to do is rip me out of this dress and get on top of me. Please.”

Davis blinked hard, his mouth parted while they breathed closely. His hands drew out from her hair and brushed down her arms. He took her hands and held them, but his body pushed nearer in a telling move. He was pouring out heat. Want was never the question.

“You might regret me, once you hear it all,” he told her seriously, slowly massaging her fingers in his own. There was an engagement ring on one that needed to be sent back to Jimmy, but he wasn’t going to collapse in guilt over it. The timing was wrong for their meeting, but finding Chloe had been right.

“Don’t wuss out on me, Davis,” she teased. “I can guarantee you will regret me on a regular basis. You will look to the sky and pray to whatever will listen to stop me from being who I am in the particular way that’s bugging you. If it didn’t bother you sometimes, we’ll have mistaken our feelings. If we can’t be brave today – on my busted up wedding day – we need to rethink.”

He couldn’t think, wouldn’t allow anything to be wrong about having Chloe in his apartment and halfway to his bed. Inside his fantasies, this had gone on a million ways and not one of them had involved sitting her down for a serious talk about a new five-year plan. He wanted to be a good guy, not a saint.

“That dress had to be expensive,” Davis said. “I don’t even know how to get you out of there.”

He prided himself on not leering as her breasts rose in the low neckline, swelling against the ornate fabric. The soft press of curves to his chest was going to the top of his list of favourite memories, though. Chloe stepped up, tilted on heels that must be killing her.

“Rip it up,” she said, lips held in a wavering smile. “It’s a part of a bigger lie, tying me up. I don’t want to be trapped anymore. I want you to tear it away and fuck me in the shreds of the stupid thing I nearly did with myself.”

His hands ran up her shoulders, around the back. Davis pinched the two sides of the dress and yanked. The zipper gave with a metallic scream; the rest of the fussy structure was falling on itself. Beads and crystals were dropping in a glittery mess to his rug, and he paused at the lingerie lovingly cupping Chloe’s luscious breasts. She poked his side and pushed the fabric down, sighing as it caught on the end of the ruined zipper. Davis gave up on the top and worked his way through the layers of skirt, tearing slits up as far as he could. The decorated middle of the dress was resisting, and he jostled her body as he fisted both hands in the sharp sequins.

Chloe laughed, deep and throaty as more of her body was bared. He kept ripping through the pretty purple silk underneath. Giving up on complete nudity, he yanked the fabric off her pussy and spread her with his fingers. Davis was down on his knees, pulling her thighs forward to him as he tasted warm moisture. He stood up so fast she wobbled, but he was catching her under her ass. He seemed to have more than two hands – too fast to be human hands, at least. She was aloft, long scraps of white rustling, then she was down.

Davis got them to the bed, just barely. He even talked himself out of the single massive thrust that his cock was aching to do. He eased in, sensing acceptance and a little bit of discomfort. He had known Jimmy couldn’t be as big. Psychology alone would have prevented it.

Somehow her nervous breathing told him as much as moans and screams. Chloe told him when his light, steady, polite thrusts were too soft. She grabbed the back of his neck to keep his weight down hard on her body. She pushed bits of skirt out of his way and tore the top of her teddy down until he could lap and nip at her breasts.

“Yes, Davis, good-hard, fuck,” she mumbled, lips blurring in words so low he couldn’t pick out their meaning. “Knew it-“

He wanted to understand what she was telling him – it had to be important to gasp it out with his pushes emptying her lungs forcibly. Chloe’s fingers were pinching and goading, her inner muscles riding him in a pattern he couldn’t map with his sanity. There was the break, coming for both of them. When they both lost all semblance of rational thought, he would comprehend all of it.

She cried out his name as her pussy milked him of any uncertainty, and Chloe proved stronger than he’d imagined. As he jerked and hissed, she steadied him. She watched his face and could tell just from that what he needed to keep himself from collapsing.

“Knew what,” Davis asked a little later. He still had to peel her out of the ruined wedding dress, and had a feeling his work with accident victims would come in handy. In a pinch, he was quick and careful with a pair of shears.

“Knew you,” she mumbled happily. “I looked at you and I knew who you were before you said your name. Something changed inside me, and it was permanent.”

His hand moved from cupping her breast to tracing softly over her heart. “That makes the two of us,” he whispered.