Fiction Commentary - Five Ways
Five Ways - The Commentary
Hello again. This is Rain and this is my second author commentary. I was given a writer's choice request by kdsch123 and I chose Five Ways... to comment on.
Title: Five Ways Clark Could Tell Chloe He Loves Her
Author: all_you_wanted
Pairing: Chloe/Clark
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: A 5 Things Challenge
Disclaimer: I own nothing, please don’t sue.
A/N: I got this 5 Things challenge from someone over at K-site and it evolved into this. The song used in way 4 is Sway by The Perishers.
Spoilers: Maybe one for Reunion.
Summary: A story told in 5 parts.
All this started because I was given a challenge in a 5 Things thread over at K-site of "The Five Ways Clark Could Tell Chloe He Loves Her" I had just done a series of short 5 Things that linked together to tell a story in about 15 sentences or so. Quite proud of myself for my accomplishment, I decided to take on the task of telling a story in 5 small scenes, while also purging myself of a few scenes I felt compelled to write or revisit, but didn't have a place in my current stories to do so.
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I wanted each section to have it's own feel and not be just one big angst-fest like I had been writing lately.
One way...After dinner one night out at the Kent Farm
This is the cute and fun section.
A food fight is what started it all.
No, scratch that, it wasn't so much a food fight as it was a food / water / soap fight. Chloe had said something snarky and Clark had snarked her back and the next
thing he knew she had thrown a half eaten dinner roll at his head.
I tend to make my Chloe slightly violent. I might be projecting my own violent tendencies here.
He was standing at the kitchen sink, cleaning up the dishes from the meal his mother had made for her out of fear for Chloe's nutritional habits, and she had just thrown a roll at him. Some gratitude she had.
I wrote this right after Reunion had aired. I loved the fact that Martha is all maternal with Chloe and making her come for dinner. It gives the three of them a nice family feel and I think it mimics Clark's protectiveness of her nicely.
So he did what any guy in his place would do, he turned the sprayer on her.
Chloe was a lot quicker than Clark ever gave her credit for and soon the two of them were covered in water and soap bubbles and wrestling for control of the sprayer.
Very rarely do we get to see physical Chloe. Although she isn't fighting off a freak of the week, I still wanted to show she can move and defend herself.
More like Chloe was trying to get the sprayer and Clark was just laughing at her.
"Hello...super strength."
She blew him a razzberry and moved the sprayer to shoot him in the face.
What she lacks in strength, she makes up for in quick thinking and the ability to play dirty.
"Hello...super dork."
Ah the playful banter, my favorite part of the Chlark writing.
Clark dropped the sprayer from his hands, but before Chloe could rein victorious over him he had her in a fit of giggles as he tickled her mercilessly. She pleaded with him to stop before she peed her pants and he gave into her, like he normally did.
As we saw in "Lexmas", Clark may pout about it, but he always gives into Chloe's bigger, 'cuter' pout.
She was wet and messy. Her normally perfectly coifed hair was down in damp dark blond curls around her face and her eyes were bright with life and joy. The sound of her gentle laughter mixed with her heavy breathing at the excursion met his ears and the sight of her carefree and innocent smile warmed his heart.
Sidenote: Season six Chloe has been luminescent. I don't know if A.M. has finally come into her own as a beauty or if the hair and makeup department at the CW is just that much better, but whatever changes have been made keep it up.
I needed there to just be a moment for Clark to finally see her, not as his friend, but just as a pretty girl who makes him feel happy.
"I love you," he said before he could think it over and push the words to the back of his mind.
Too often Clark (and Chloe) talk themselves out of saying what they are really thinking.
I wanted just once for him to speak before thinking.
Chloe stopped laughing and gulped. She pushed back her hair from his eyes and met his caring pale green ones, with her wide and clear ones.
The 'gulp' is totally a nod to the reunion scene in 'Zod'.
"Thank you," was all she could think to say.
I couldn't have her say I love you back, this early. It would be too easy and end the story four parts too early.
So I borrowed a bit from "The OC".
• • •
This section is the more angsty confrontational part of the story.
Two ways...Late at night, in the Daily Planet basement
I realized that I had written the first part mostly in Clark's POV, so for balance I decided to alternate between the two of them a little more.
"Where did you get that?" she asked, her eyes having fallen on the pink piece of paper in his hands.
I had written in a previous '5 Things' challenge (Five Times Clark Spied on Chloe And Not Got Caught), that Clark eventually got to read the "Fever" letter.
I always wanted to revisit that scene, but this time have him approach her about it.
It was late at night and she was on graveyard shift at the Planet yet again. Clark had shown up about half an hour ago, quiet and sullen. She didn't want to push him, he had been real moody lately, so she just let him drift around the basement. Checking files and looking up things in the systems database. Clark was on his way to becoming a hacker more and more everyday. Chloe was proud of her influence on him.
Arrow showed us that Chloe has apparently been an influence on Clark after all as he hacked into her computer and erased the ring photos. He doesn't have to call Chloe anymore to be his human Google, he does it because he wants too.
Now if only she could get him back into journalism.
Since day one, Chloe has been lobbying for Clark to join her in the search for the truth. It's got to be killing her (as it is me) that he left school to waste away on a farm.
She guessed he had finally gotten up the courage or let go of the temper he was holding on too, to talk to her. That's when she saw the letter.
Her letter.
She didn't need three guesses where he had gotten it from.
"Lana, of course." Chloe rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath. She really needed to have a talk with her old roommate.
I had it in the previous '5 Things' that Lana gave Clark a box of things from their relationship and had slipped the letter inside.
I still don't know if she did it maliciously or matchmakerly.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"What, that I was such a sappy writer?"
Another classic Chloe 'brush off'.
"No, that you felt that way, about me."
She sighed and brought her hand to her forehead. She could already feel the beginning of a tension headache starting. "I did."
"I meant when I was awake."
A throwback to 'Fever' there.
"Clark, I tried to tell you how I felt about you. I tried for 4 years, and every time you either chose to ignore me or brushed me off. Hell I even threw myself at you, half naked in a barn."
"That wasn't you."
And another one for 'Devoted'.
"Ah yes Clark, It was. I might have been a touch off, but it was still me under there. Still my feelings. Bubbling to the surface and out there as plain as day for you too see. I came to you again after all that and you said you didn't feel that way about me. So I did what I had to and I got over you."
'Devoted' and Chloe's tears at the end when she bares her feelings to Clark always kill me. In my mind that's when she started really trying to give up the dream and move on from her crush on him.
"You're..." It was his turn to gulp "...over me?"
The return of the 'gulp'. A well placed 'gulp' can tells a lot.
I had to fight myself so hard to not quote 'Friends' here and finish the line with "When were you ever under me?"
Chloe rolled her eyes back in her head to try and turn off the waterworks that always seemed to fall when ever the subject of her and Clark was ever broached. "Clark..."
Clark makes Chloe cry too much and too often.
"I love you." he said quickly. He had read that letter so many times today the words were burnt in his mind. Words about girls you grow into and girls you grow out of. It had taken her letter for him to see it. Her words. Words she had written to him almost a lifetime ago. At least it felt like a lifetime ago that they were the sweet and innocent kids of 16.
Life changes a lot in three years. 16 and 19 are almost lifetimes away from each other. In one you are a child, and in the other you are on the cusp of adulthood.
Clark's "I love you' here is ploy to try and win her back. Get back the girl of 16 who was willing to wait for him to fly back to her.
I love you. He did love her. She was his best friend and now that he thought about it, the girl... no, the woman... he had grown into. He didn't dream of raven haired small town temptresses anymore. When he dreamed, it was of golden waves, kind eyes, sassy smiles and the sights and sounds of the city.
He dreams of Chloe.
I wanted a cute throwback to the letter's line about being "the girl of your dreams".
"I love you." He said it as a statement and as a question.
He's just beginning to realize the importance she holds in his life. His 'I love you's' aren't empty, but they're not strong and filled with conviction either. Clark gets a little bit more of both each time he says it.
He's basically trying to find out if she really has grown out of him.
Chloe sighed deeply and quickly wiped at the tear that escaped down her cheek. "I know you do, Clark. I know you do." But just not like that.
Clark does love Chloe and she knows that, she's just never felt him feel passion for her like he did with Lana. He did a number on her and her self esteem in the Clark department over the years so she's not going to readily jump into his arms at the first chance.
She's become guarded and jaded when it comes to men, especially after so many have tried to date her one minute - kill her the next, over the years. Her hesitancy here is warranted I believe.
• • •
The sexy way to say you love a person.
Three ways...In the apartment above the Talon
Like the moment in the first part, when Clark just spoke before thinking, I wanted there to be another moment where he just acted without thinking it all the way through first.
"Clark I..."
"Shhh." He whispered against her lips. He grabbed the belt around her robe and pulled her closer.
Clark is rarely impulsive and it seems fitting for his first act of rebellion against his 'inner moper' be with Chloe.
They had been investigating something to do with Luthorcorp's toxic waste dumping and had ended up in a very mess and dirty situation. Clark had sped home to shower and change. On coming back to the Talon to pick Chloe up and take her back to Metropolis to write up her notes, he was surprised to find her still in her bathrobe.
Time has passed since the letter at the D.P. I wanted to show that it didn't break them up though. They are still partners in investigative crime. They just did like they always do when one of them blurs the line of friendship, they danced around the awkwardness for a while until to became avoidance and carried on with their lives.
Also I find it easier for Clark to give into his urges if Chloe is already naked.
She was fresh and pink from the hot shower and when she brushed passed him, mumbling under breath something about needing clothing and his 'damn quickness', the smell of spice and fruit rose up to his nose to mix with the already potent smell of coffee beans in the air. He grabbed her wrist as she walked by and stopped her.
"You smell good."
She smiled at him. "It's called shampoo."
"You smell like home." He spoke softly and moved closer to her.
"Home' to me is possessive. Like I said in my "Pretty" commentary . I have serious Possessive Clark kink.
She didn't back away from him, but he could tell she was hesitant, especially after his other hand came to rest on her cheek and softly caress the skin of her cheek. She opened her mouth with a surprised gasp at his touch and he quickly kissed her to stop whatever argument was about to spill from her.
When in doubt, kiss the other person to shut them up.
Every time she had tried to open her mouth and speak he had stopped her. With his fingers, with his lips. It was starting to piss her off and he knew it, but he was afraid of what she might say to him.
Like I said in the "Pretty" commentary. Chloe knows when Clark is trying to pull one over on her because she knows him too well.
She's more pissed because he won't let her talk than because he's kissing her.
When he lifted his head after another heady kiss, he tried to tell her with his eyes what he wanted from her. He wanted her, her body, her love, her silence. Clark was afraid that if they spoke, if they took a moment to talk things through, he would lose his chance. He would lose his nerve.
He would lose her.
It all hangs in the balance. Clark isn't dumb. He knows how fragile it all it, it can all be lost (the passion) very easily.
He just wants to live in the moment. For once.
Please don't speak. His eyes said and Chloe as if she could hear the pleading of his mind and heart nodded her head in agreement.
I've noticed over the past few years that sometimes Chloe and Clark can have a conversation without ever talking.
It's such a couply thing to do.
They undressed and moved to the bed in silence. Hands and lips, arms and legs, moving over each other in a tumble of limbs and emotions. The only noises being made that of their heavy breathing, their moans and groans of pleasure and the sounds of flesh on flesh. Nothing spoken until it's over and Clark, spent against her and still inside her, falls on her, too weak from their coupling to lift more than his head off her shoulder.
I wanted sex. Hot steamy sex, but short enough to not take over the whole series. I think I delivered.
"I love you." He says breathlessly, still panting in the afterglow of his orgasm. He's all sweaty now and he knows he's heavy against her, but the ability to move has left him at the moment.
Clark doesn't make love, unless he's in love. He's a giant girl like that.
She lifts her hands and pushes back his long and now damp bangs from his eyes. Leaning up she gives him a kiss that is a mirror to the one he gave her that started this all. Laying her head back down on the pillow, she doesn't say anything out loud, but like him, tries to use her eyes to speak for her.
This wasn't love, this was just sex.
Chloe isn't Clark. She slept with Jimmy on the rebound, heck most of the guys she's dated have been rebounded from Clark's blindness to her attempts at making them more.
I didn't want her to fall in love with him yet (still 2 parts to go). Good sex doesn't make you fall in love with a person. The boy has much wooing to do to wear down the walls he helped build around her heart.
• • •
This is my cute wooing scene. I've wanted to do this scene forever, but never had a place for it.
Four ways...From inside the newly remodeled Met U dorms
"Oh my God! Girlfriend, you have got to see this 80's reject outside."
Chloe didn't hear her new roommate come in. In fact she couldn't hear anything. She was in the writing zone and had her headphones on, blasting Snow Patrol at earsplitting levels.
Lana is out of the picture now that she's living the Luthor life, hence new snappy roommate.
I bit of myself in here, I write all my stories wearing headphones.
Nina shook her and Chloe screamed. 'Ahh!"
And I often scream at people when I'm deep in thought.
"Don't tell me you can't hear that?" Nina jerked her head toward the window and Chloe followed her gaze. Taking the headphones off her head she could hear the faint, yet strong strains of music. They seemed to be coming from outside.
"You've got to see this. Some poor lovelorn romeo is pulling a Lloyd Dobbler.'
Lloyd Dobbler, greatest modern day Romeo ever.
"Huh?"
Chloe followed her roomie to the other side of the room as Nina threw opened the window.
"Chloe, you know not all movies from the 80's were written and directed by John Hughes, right?"
Though John Hughes did produce a majority of the good teen flicks of the 80's.
Can you tell I'm a child of the 80's.
Chloe could hear the music clearer now.
It was you who picked the pieces up, When I was a broken soul.
This song used is "Sway" by "The Perishers". I had used this song in a Chloe/Clark fanmix I posted on premiere day as my 'hopeful song' for Clark coming around.
Nina sighed at Chloe's blank look. "Say Anything. Cameron Crowe." Chloe's blank look continued and Nina sighed again. "John Cusack, standing under the girls window with the boom box..."
And then glued me back together, returned to me what others stole.
"Over his head." Chloe said as realization dawned on her.
Not many people remember what movie it's from, but everyone remembers the guy with the boom box.
It's legendary.
"Yeah, that one." Nina was afraid she was going to have to hurt her new roommate for her lack of pop culture trivia. She knew this was Kansas, but come on. Everyone freakin knows "Say Anything".
I know we already had the sassy hispanic roommate in 'Thirst', but I like the plot device. I didn't put Nina from Kansas, nor did I ever say where exactly she was from. I'm thinking New York maybe.
I don’t wanna hurt you, I don’t wanna make you sway.
Chloe stuck her head out the window to get a look at the love struck co-ed trying to woo his girl back thru the use of cheesy 80's movie moments.
I admit this whole plot is cheesy, but I still love it.
Like I know I’ve done before, I will not do it anymore.
She quickly ducked her head back in.
It couldn't be...
Surely it wasn't...
She popped her head around the edge again and there he was. Her eyes hadn't been deceiving her.
Clark Kent was standing under her window, and the windows of 200 other Metropolis University students, holding a boom box over his head and serenading them in what Chloe could only think was a love song.
It might seem out of character for Clark to do this, but that's what makes it endearing (to me at least).
That for Chloe, Clark is willing to make a fool out of himself.
I’ve always been a dreamer. I’ve had my head among the clouds.
Chloe could hear the complaints and support of her fellow dorm mates drifting down from their open windows.
I lived the dorm life. You get all kinds of interesting conversations drifting up to the windows of a dorm.
"Shut up! I'm trying to sleep here!"
"Dude, you're suppose to be playing Peter Gabriel!"
In Say Anything, Lloyd plays Diane In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel. It's what made the song famous.
"If she doesn't take you back honey, come on up to room 410. I'll take you back any day of the week!"
That line was for my friend Shelia, who says stuff like that in regards to T.W. and C.K. all the time.
Well now that I’m coming down, won’t you be my solid ground?
"I LOVE YOU!"
Another thing I'm a big fan of, "The Big Gesture".
Clark is super duper guy. He can do almost anything, but sometimes its not saving the world that makes you fall for a guy, sometimes its the little things, like knowing how you take your coffee or willing to make an ass out of yourself to bring a smile to your face when your sad that makes you fall.
Chloe could hear Clark's cry over all the noise of the music and the yelling from disturbed or entertained student body. She couldn't help the tears that quickly filled her eyes.
The gesture doesn't always have to be big, sometimes its more in just the way you say things.
The last time she had seen Clark they had fought. She told him to stop telling her he loved her because she didn't believe he did. At least not like that. That the words felt empty coming from him. In reality it wasn't that the words felt empty. It was that she was afraid to let him into her heart again. So many times in the past she had, and had gotten it broken.
Maybe he really did love her?
More time has passed since the third part. Clark has been trying to woo her for a while and she's been fighting it. Since I only had 2 parts left I didn't want to waste them on angsty stuff, so it's been glazed over.
It takes a lot a courage to do what Clark is doing. We know Clark is brave in the face of mortal peril and the end of the world, but with the ladies, he's like the cowardly lion.
"What a loser." Nina was standing beside her, still in the window looking down at the crazy guy in the red jacket. "Cute, but still a loser."
Chloe wiped up her tears and sniffled. "I'll have you know, I'm in love with that cute loser."
And like much like Clark in part one, it just rolls off her tongue.
Protective Chloe is cute too. Only she can call her farm boy a 'loser'.
"I HEARD YOU! YOU LOVE ME!"
Chloe smiled. "Damn super hearing." She muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes and trying to hold in the giggle of girlish glee she wanted to let out.
Let me just say getting in the last word with a muttered breath would suck with Clark.
She did love him, and he loved her.
Sometimes you just can't fight it anymore. You just have to let it go (your love) and enjoy it when it comes back to.
"She might love you, but I think you're an asshole!", yelled back one of the students up on the 3rd floor.
That would have been me out my dorm window.
Damn lovebirds shoving all their lovey dovey crap down the throats of the singletons.
At that Chloe did giggle.
• • •
Five ways...In a hospital room at Smallville Medical Center
I was going to try and make this part sound like something else was going on, but since my previous attempt at writing a 'Sixth Sense' like twist ( A Prayer For The Sleeping) wasn't as sneaky as I thought I was, I just decided to screw it.
Plus the header kind of gave it away.
The sounds of grunts and groans filled the air. They had been at this for what felt like hours, days, months and years.
It had actually only been an hour tops.
Bad sex?
Suddenly the piercing wail of a new life filled the air, drowning out all other noise.
Nope, just child birth.
"Here we go. A healthy bouncing baby boy." The doctor proclaimed handing the bawling red infant to the nurse to clean off.
"You did it! You did it, Chloe!" Clark wiped down the brow of his wife, exhausted from the labor of childbirth.
"You bet your ass I did, and for the last time." She glared at him.
Like in the previous sections, time has passed and this isn't the first child they've had.
Her glares didn't scare him anymore. Ok they didn't scare him that much anymore. He gave her one of those smiles that said "yeah, right" and dared to kiss her.
Clark just doesn't learn lessons. Don't kiss Chloe as a way to avoid confrontation.
She's on to you man.
"I mean it Clark. Four is enough."
This is their fourth child. Mmm...
"I love you."
"After that, you better."
Chloe's always had a response, weather its verbal or implied to his "I love you's"
This is her snarky response.
The nurse brought their son over to them and placed him in Clark's arms. So small. He was so small and tiny, yet he could yell. Just like his momma. Clark decided it was probably a good idea to keep that observation to himself for the time being.
Ok, so maybe Clark has learned some lessons over the years.
Crying out, he struggled and fought for freedom from his binding of his blanket. Another Kent family fighter.
"Hey there. Calm down now. It's alright. Daddy's here. I've got you...son." Clark choked up at the word 'son'. It was what his father had called him, sometimes more than his own name.
The birth of Clark's son will be very profound for him and make him feel very reflective back on his father I believe.
A cough cleared the air and Clark turned to look at Chloe laying in the hospital bed. With her arms outstretched.
"Don't be a baby hog. I wanna meet the little guy who's been using my bladder for a punching bag for the last 2 months."
The 'bladder' line was used frequently by my friend during her pregnancy.
Clark passed the wiggling baby to his wife. He immediately calmed down and quieted. Listening to the voice he has heard up close and personal for the past 9 months.
Clark was in awe and a little jealous of her power over their children.
In a recent ficlet ( Landslide) I had Lana jealous of Chloe's ability to calm her song. It's a theme I like to repeat.
"So you're the one who kept getting their foot caught in my ribs, huh? You don't seem so tough to me."
A favorite phrase of my mother in regards to her pregnancy with me.
The baby let out a yawn.
Chloe gushed over him. "Oh, big boy yawn. I sure hope you don't snore like your father."
Sometime tells me it's not Clark, but Chloe who actually snores like she's trying to wake the dead.
"We need to take him down to the nursery and get his paper work together. We'll bring him back after that for his first feeding. Do you have a name picked out yet?" The nurse asked Clark.
Clark started to speak, but Chloe interrupted him from the bed.
"John Cameron. Johnathan Cameron Kent. Isn't that right? J.C. That's your name."
I knew Clark's first son would be named Johnathan. It's just a given. The "Cameron" comes from the surname I gave Chloe's paternal grandmother in another story (How We Grieve).
And on the subject of three names, I'm a fan of names. They can tell a story just as much as the character they are attached to. Here he have the 'formal name', the 'get your butt in here buster, you're in big big trouble' name and the family nickname.
They hadn't picked a name yet actually. There had been a list three pages long they had been debating over for the past few weeks, but no decisions made yet. Clark took one look at his wife, pressing kisses into the fair hair of their boy and telling him how much she loved him.
J.C. is gonna be a blondie. Like is momma.
Clark knew she was right. That was his name.
Another lesson Clark has learned, you can't fight a determined Chloe.
Clark nodded his head in agreement and the nurse took the baby from them and left the room. He crossed the room and sat next to his wife and placed a kiss in her hair much like the one she had imparted on J.C. right before the nurse took him.
Head kisses make me sigh.
"I love you." He told her.
I hadn't had Chloe repeat "I love you" back to him yet in the series. I wanted it to come at a place where it didn't seem forced or for the first time, but still held power.
This is her way to tell him she loves him. By giving him children and a family. A future.
Chloe sighed, "I love you too." She tilted her head back to allow him to give her a proper kiss. A kiss that left her with a little less breath after than before.
"Ok, maybe one more."
Sometimes Clark's kissing this tactic does work.
• • •
Well I hope you all enjoyed my commentary.