Chlark Fanfic: Crisis, Chapter 21
Another Crisis update!
Enjoy. Mind warnings for torture and claustrophobic situations.
Title: Crisis
Author: BabyDee
Pairing: Chlark/Kaloe
Rating: NC-17 (this chapter PG-13)
Warnings: Torture; claustrophobic situations
Timeline: Season 2-3 (Exodus - Exile; Clark’s RedK Summer & beyond)
Disclaimer: All characters belong to the CW & DC comics
Summary: A violent encounter between Chloe and Clark threatens to destroy their friendship forever.
Feedback: …is love. :-)
Read previous chapter here.
Read story from the beginning here.
Chapter 21
The pain seared harshly along his nerves, made worse by the mild jolting of the elevator. Clark clenched his fists and bit back a howl as the agony increased in waves, exacerbated by both his proximity to the kryptonite and the restriction of the radiation to close confines.
He felt like he was going to die. He tried to catch Chloe’s eye, but she stared straight ahead, unblinking.
Despite the intense pain he gritted his teeth, determined to ride it out. There were only sixteen floors left to descend; he could make it to the ground floor without keeling over.
…if his knees didn’t give way first.
Stoically he squeezed his eyes shut and managed to keep from trembling as the car sank lower and lower.
Almost there, he thought with relief as the numbers on the wall counted down. Floor Seven…six …five…four…three…
And then the elevator suddenly shuddered to a screeching halt.
Oh, God.
“What’s going on?” someone asked.
“Uh…it looks like we might be over capacity,” someone pointed out, studying the information panel. “I thought the lift was creaking somethin’ awful. I’ll ring the alarm.”
Everyone groaned, clearly put out by the sudden inconvenience of having to share a tight space. Clark tried to take a deep breath, but his chest felt like it was encased in steel bands.
“So why is the elevator stopping now?” someone questioned as Clark broke into a sweat. “Why didn’t it just not let us go down in the first place?”
“Yeah, some express elevator this turned out to be!” sneered another.
Just then the alarm bells went off, exponentially increasing the throbbing pain throughout his entire body.
“Hey, did anyone watch Final Destination?” someone quipped. Everyone gasped in horror.
“That isn’t funny!”
“Yeah, bite your tongue, Danny! This is bad enough as it is!” another person admonished in dismay.
He wasn’t listening. The pain was getting worse - much worse. He couldn’t stand much more of this.
“Chloe…please…” he whispered weakly. She remained still for a moment, and then fumbled in her pocket whilst she presumably put the rock back in its lead-cased box. The dull green glow from her pocket disappeared, and he waited for agonisingly long seconds for the pain to abate.
But nothing happened.
“Hey, no-one better fart in here, or we’ll never survive!” joked another student.
The pain…it wasn’t stopping.
Panic gripped Clark’s heart like a vice, and he began to hyperventilate frantically. Why wasn’t it stopping?
“Uh…Clark, are you okay?” someone asked. He shook his head and fisted his hands in his hair, moaning in pain.
“Mrs Alice!” called someone in alarm. “There’s something wrong with Clark!”
“Right, I know it’s cramped in here, but try and give him some air,” the teacher instructed. “Clark, take deep breaths and try to relax. We’ll be out of here in no time.”
Everyone tried their hardest to create a bit of space around him, but it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. Waves of kryptonite radiation seeped into his bones and he collapsed to the floor, holding his head and wailing in agony.
“Chloe, he’s your friend; what’s wrong with him?” someone cried.
“I don’t know,” she replied, sounding frantic. “I think he might be claustrophobic. He’ll be fine once we get him outside.”
One person pressed the alarm again, and another banged on the elevator doors to try and attract some attention. With every thump on the door the anguished pain intensified, and he howled out like a wounded animal.
He’s freaking out,” cried a terrified student. “Oh, God, help us!”
“We need to get these doors open, and fast,” Mr Simms said grimly. “Make more room, everyone. Clark? Clark, try and and lie down; you’ll feel better.”
He lay down, but the pain didn’t abate; not that he expected it to. The elevator was basically a lead-lined box, so the kryptonite radiation wasn’t going anywhere. It was concentrated in this tiny room, hurting him…
…killing him.
Objects swam before his eyes as his vision started to fade. Faintly he could hear the voices of his horrified classmates as he started to lose consciousness.
“Hello!” yelled one of the girls as she banged frantically on the door. “You need to open these doors now, someone’s claustrophobic and it looks like he’s about to have a seizure!”
“He’s barely breathing.”
“Is he slipping into a coma?”
“Omigod, he’s in so much pain, look at him!”
“This is bad. This is really bad.”
“He’s turning green,” someone said grimly. “He’s really sick. We need to get him out of here now.”
He couldn’t keep it in any longer. The anguished groans rose in crescendo until he was screaming at the top of his lungs and clutching his chest in pain.
“Get us out!” yelled a petrified girl and she banged on the door again - causing a white-hot flash of pain to sear through Clark, lancing him all the way through to his bones.
“Amanda Miller, stop panicking!” barked Mrs Alice. “Everyone, I need you to stay calm. I command you to stay calm. They know we’re here, they’re coming for us.”
Not if he died first. Weakly he tried to open his eyes, but even the tiniest movement caused a concentration of pain to course through him, so crippling he thought his head would explode.
It had never been this bad. Never. He was dying. He was going to die here in a elevator in inconceivable pain. And once he’d accepted it, it somehow seemed easier to bear.
But then something happened. Somewhere in the haze of pain and the cacophony of noise, he heard her.
“Clark?” she whispered quietly as he lay still, paralysed by the pain. “Clark hang on, we’re gonna get you outta here, okay? Just…hang on, just a little while longer.”
He didn’t want to hang on. It hurt to hang on. It was killing him to hang on. But hearing her speak to him like that, as she hadn’t done in months, gave him the strength to cling to life just a little longer.
If he was going to die, he might as well go down fighting…
“Hello!” called a megaphone-enhanced voice from beyond the doors. “My name is Jim, I’m the Premises Engineer, and I’m going to get you all out of there!”
“Thank God!” someone sobbed. “Oh, thank God!”
“What’s happened is that the elevator is over capacity, and the excess pressure on the cables forced the mechanism to shut down and the emergency brakes to activate,” explained the engineer. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’re all going to be fine.
There were cheers of victory at the good news.
“Right, we’re going to over-ride the mechanism on the emergency brakes, and bring the elevator to a guided stop on the ground floor,” he explained further. “This will take a few minutes, and then you’ll be back on solid ground again.”
“We’re saved!” someone yelled happily. “Thank goodness we’re saved!”
***
They weren’t saved for another fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes in which Clark’s extremities shut down and the rest of him pretty much went into hibernation.
After what felt like an eternity, the elevator arrived on the ground floor and the doors slid open, letting in fresh air and natural light. Immediately Clark was lifted to his feet and carried out of the elevator, supported on both sides.
He dragged his eyes open and took a deep breath of fresh air, expecting to feel completely better almost immediately as he usually did. But he’d gone from one extreme to another too fast. The light burned his eyes, and the fresh air felt like it was bleaching his lungs. Tentatively he stepped away from the supporting hands and tried to walk, but he wobbled and crashed to the floor, his legs suddenly adopting the consistency of cooked spaghetti. His stomach roiled and heaved and he promptly threw up, his stomach lurching in violent spasms until his gut was completely empty.
Clark took a few more deep breaths, his vision swimming.
He felt raw, battered and bruised.
But he was alive.
And then his eyes drifted shut again, and everything went black.
***
Chloe ran.
She cleared four blocks at top speed, only stopping when she realised her class wouldn’t be able to return to school if one of their party was missing. Quickly she slowed and then stopped in the park opposite City Hall, leaning unsteadily on a tree as she took in deep gulps of air to try and get her breath back.
Try as she might, she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. Chloe blinked and stared at the ground in shock.
Clark had come very close to dying in there. Granted, she hated him for what he’d done to her, but she hadn’t been trying to kill him…
…had she?
Dimly she shook her head. No. She hadn’t. She couldn’t have predicted the elevator malfunction, and she’d put the kryptonite back in her pocket the moment Clark had begged her to. Something had gone wrong, and the effects of the rock hadn’t worn off instantly like it had done in the past. And her little stunt could very easily have killed him.
She sank to the floor and wrapped her hands around her knees, linking her fingers together tightly to stop them from trembling. Seeing him, all pale and sickly like that…
Chloe shook her head and closed her eyes to dispel the memory of seeing Clark in so much protracted pain. She should never have come to Luthorcorp, she thought darkly. Seeing that…that evil man so smug and smarmy while he received adoring applause for his misdeeds had raised her hackles like a magnet raised iron filings.
And then Clark had had the gall to talk to him, all smiles and polite conversation with the very bastard who was ripping the fabric of her life apart.
Well, it was Clark’s own fault, she rationalised as she got to her feet and dusted her trousers down. He deserved to be punished for fraternising with the enemy. He should pick his friends better next time.
And she still hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done to her, and he definitely deserved to be punished for that. He’d gone scot-free for a whole month, but with Pete gone, his period of grace was over.
Quicky she made her way back to the Luthorcorp building, hurrying to rejoin the group just as Mrs Alice was doing a headcount and ushering them all into the School Bus.
“Where’s Clark?” she whispered to one of her classmates as she glanced around the vehicle and noticed his absence.
“They put him in an ambulance to the hospital,” the girl answered. “He was in pretty bad shape.”
She swallowed. “How bad?”
“He was conscious, but still looking a little green,” the girl explained. “Weird, huh? He must be seriously claustrophobic.”
Chloe thanked her and sat down, subdued. He’d probably make a full recovery before the ambulance even got to Met Gen, and then she and him would be right back where they’d started; with Clark walking around school without a care in the world while she tried to make sense of the unravelling ball of string that was her life.
She wondered if he would confront her about what had happened today. Probably not; after all, he had a lot more to feel guilty about than she did. She hadn’t meant to expose him to the kryptonite for so long; it had been an accident. Clark, on the other hand, had admitted to raping her because he’d wanted to.
…and yet he seemed so genuinely apologetic that she still wanted to believe otherwise.
Damn it. Chloe clenched her fists in fierce anger.
Her Trust Radar was skewered. She couldn’t decide whether Clark’s remorse was real, or all an elaborate act designed to lull her into a false sense of security, so she could ditch the kryptonite.
And she wanted to trust him again, she really did. But if she dropped her guard and he attacked her again - or anyone else, for that matter - she wouldn’t know whether to feel furious, stupid or suicidal for having shown mercy to a rapist. Probably all three…
A sharp headache began to nag her temples, and Chloe closed her eyes wearily. Clearly she didn’t even know which way was up anymore. She just wanted to go home, go to sleep, wake up and have her old life and her friends back.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Her old life was gone; she never looked forward to tomorrow anymore. All it brought was pain.
With a sigh, she rested her head against the window as the vehicle headed off towards Smallville.
***
Chapter 22 …http://babydee1.livejournal.com/136068.html
Enjoy. Mind warnings for torture and claustrophobic situations.
Title: Crisis
Author: BabyDee
Pairing: Chlark/Kaloe
Rating: NC-17 (this chapter PG-13)
Warnings: Torture; claustrophobic situations
Timeline: Season 2-3 (Exodus - Exile; Clark’s RedK Summer & beyond)
Disclaimer: All characters belong to the CW & DC comics
Summary: A violent encounter between Chloe and Clark threatens to destroy their friendship forever.
Feedback: …is love. :-)
Read previous chapter here.
Read story from the beginning here.
Chapter 21
The pain seared harshly along his nerves, made worse by the mild jolting of the elevator. Clark clenched his fists and bit back a howl as the agony increased in waves, exacerbated by both his proximity to the kryptonite and the restriction of the radiation to close confines.
He felt like he was going to die. He tried to catch Chloe’s eye, but she stared straight ahead, unblinking.
Despite the intense pain he gritted his teeth, determined to ride it out. There were only sixteen floors left to descend; he could make it to the ground floor without keeling over.
…if his knees didn’t give way first.
Stoically he squeezed his eyes shut and managed to keep from trembling as the car sank lower and lower.
Almost there, he thought with relief as the numbers on the wall counted down. Floor Seven…six …five…four…three…
And then the elevator suddenly shuddered to a screeching halt.
Oh, God.
“What’s going on?” someone asked.
“Uh…it looks like we might be over capacity,” someone pointed out, studying the information panel. “I thought the lift was creaking somethin’ awful. I’ll ring the alarm.”
Everyone groaned, clearly put out by the sudden inconvenience of having to share a tight space. Clark tried to take a deep breath, but his chest felt like it was encased in steel bands.
“So why is the elevator stopping now?” someone questioned as Clark broke into a sweat. “Why didn’t it just not let us go down in the first place?”
“Yeah, some express elevator this turned out to be!” sneered another.
Just then the alarm bells went off, exponentially increasing the throbbing pain throughout his entire body.
“Hey, did anyone watch Final Destination?” someone quipped. Everyone gasped in horror.
“That isn’t funny!”
“Yeah, bite your tongue, Danny! This is bad enough as it is!” another person admonished in dismay.
He wasn’t listening. The pain was getting worse - much worse. He couldn’t stand much more of this.
“Chloe…please…” he whispered weakly. She remained still for a moment, and then fumbled in her pocket whilst she presumably put the rock back in its lead-cased box. The dull green glow from her pocket disappeared, and he waited for agonisingly long seconds for the pain to abate.
But nothing happened.
“Hey, no-one better fart in here, or we’ll never survive!” joked another student.
The pain…it wasn’t stopping.
Panic gripped Clark’s heart like a vice, and he began to hyperventilate frantically. Why wasn’t it stopping?
“Uh…Clark, are you okay?” someone asked. He shook his head and fisted his hands in his hair, moaning in pain.
“Mrs Alice!” called someone in alarm. “There’s something wrong with Clark!”
“Right, I know it’s cramped in here, but try and give him some air,” the teacher instructed. “Clark, take deep breaths and try to relax. We’ll be out of here in no time.”
Everyone tried their hardest to create a bit of space around him, but it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. Waves of kryptonite radiation seeped into his bones and he collapsed to the floor, holding his head and wailing in agony.
“Chloe, he’s your friend; what’s wrong with him?” someone cried.
“I don’t know,” she replied, sounding frantic. “I think he might be claustrophobic. He’ll be fine once we get him outside.”
One person pressed the alarm again, and another banged on the elevator doors to try and attract some attention. With every thump on the door the anguished pain intensified, and he howled out like a wounded animal.
He’s freaking out,” cried a terrified student. “Oh, God, help us!”
“We need to get these doors open, and fast,” Mr Simms said grimly. “Make more room, everyone. Clark? Clark, try and and lie down; you’ll feel better.”
He lay down, but the pain didn’t abate; not that he expected it to. The elevator was basically a lead-lined box, so the kryptonite radiation wasn’t going anywhere. It was concentrated in this tiny room, hurting him…
…killing him.
Objects swam before his eyes as his vision started to fade. Faintly he could hear the voices of his horrified classmates as he started to lose consciousness.
“Hello!” yelled one of the girls as she banged frantically on the door. “You need to open these doors now, someone’s claustrophobic and it looks like he’s about to have a seizure!”
“He’s barely breathing.”
“Is he slipping into a coma?”
“Omigod, he’s in so much pain, look at him!”
“This is bad. This is really bad.”
“He’s turning green,” someone said grimly. “He’s really sick. We need to get him out of here now.”
He couldn’t keep it in any longer. The anguished groans rose in crescendo until he was screaming at the top of his lungs and clutching his chest in pain.
“Get us out!” yelled a petrified girl and she banged on the door again - causing a white-hot flash of pain to sear through Clark, lancing him all the way through to his bones.
“Amanda Miller, stop panicking!” barked Mrs Alice. “Everyone, I need you to stay calm. I command you to stay calm. They know we’re here, they’re coming for us.”
Not if he died first. Weakly he tried to open his eyes, but even the tiniest movement caused a concentration of pain to course through him, so crippling he thought his head would explode.
It had never been this bad. Never. He was dying. He was going to die here in a elevator in inconceivable pain. And once he’d accepted it, it somehow seemed easier to bear.
But then something happened. Somewhere in the haze of pain and the cacophony of noise, he heard her.
“Clark?” she whispered quietly as he lay still, paralysed by the pain. “Clark hang on, we’re gonna get you outta here, okay? Just…hang on, just a little while longer.”
He didn’t want to hang on. It hurt to hang on. It was killing him to hang on. But hearing her speak to him like that, as she hadn’t done in months, gave him the strength to cling to life just a little longer.
If he was going to die, he might as well go down fighting…
“Hello!” called a megaphone-enhanced voice from beyond the doors. “My name is Jim, I’m the Premises Engineer, and I’m going to get you all out of there!”
“Thank God!” someone sobbed. “Oh, thank God!”
“What’s happened is that the elevator is over capacity, and the excess pressure on the cables forced the mechanism to shut down and the emergency brakes to activate,” explained the engineer. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’re all going to be fine.
There were cheers of victory at the good news.
“Right, we’re going to over-ride the mechanism on the emergency brakes, and bring the elevator to a guided stop on the ground floor,” he explained further. “This will take a few minutes, and then you’ll be back on solid ground again.”
“We’re saved!” someone yelled happily. “Thank goodness we’re saved!”
***
They weren’t saved for another fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes in which Clark’s extremities shut down and the rest of him pretty much went into hibernation.
After what felt like an eternity, the elevator arrived on the ground floor and the doors slid open, letting in fresh air and natural light. Immediately Clark was lifted to his feet and carried out of the elevator, supported on both sides.
He dragged his eyes open and took a deep breath of fresh air, expecting to feel completely better almost immediately as he usually did. But he’d gone from one extreme to another too fast. The light burned his eyes, and the fresh air felt like it was bleaching his lungs. Tentatively he stepped away from the supporting hands and tried to walk, but he wobbled and crashed to the floor, his legs suddenly adopting the consistency of cooked spaghetti. His stomach roiled and heaved and he promptly threw up, his stomach lurching in violent spasms until his gut was completely empty.
Clark took a few more deep breaths, his vision swimming.
He felt raw, battered and bruised.
But he was alive.
And then his eyes drifted shut again, and everything went black.
***
Chloe ran.
She cleared four blocks at top speed, only stopping when she realised her class wouldn’t be able to return to school if one of their party was missing. Quickly she slowed and then stopped in the park opposite City Hall, leaning unsteadily on a tree as she took in deep gulps of air to try and get her breath back.
Try as she might, she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. Chloe blinked and stared at the ground in shock.
Clark had come very close to dying in there. Granted, she hated him for what he’d done to her, but she hadn’t been trying to kill him…
…had she?
Dimly she shook her head. No. She hadn’t. She couldn’t have predicted the elevator malfunction, and she’d put the kryptonite back in her pocket the moment Clark had begged her to. Something had gone wrong, and the effects of the rock hadn’t worn off instantly like it had done in the past. And her little stunt could very easily have killed him.
She sank to the floor and wrapped her hands around her knees, linking her fingers together tightly to stop them from trembling. Seeing him, all pale and sickly like that…
Chloe shook her head and closed her eyes to dispel the memory of seeing Clark in so much protracted pain. She should never have come to Luthorcorp, she thought darkly. Seeing that…that evil man so smug and smarmy while he received adoring applause for his misdeeds had raised her hackles like a magnet raised iron filings.
And then Clark had had the gall to talk to him, all smiles and polite conversation with the very bastard who was ripping the fabric of her life apart.
Well, it was Clark’s own fault, she rationalised as she got to her feet and dusted her trousers down. He deserved to be punished for fraternising with the enemy. He should pick his friends better next time.
And she still hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done to her, and he definitely deserved to be punished for that. He’d gone scot-free for a whole month, but with Pete gone, his period of grace was over.
Quicky she made her way back to the Luthorcorp building, hurrying to rejoin the group just as Mrs Alice was doing a headcount and ushering them all into the School Bus.
“Where’s Clark?” she whispered to one of her classmates as she glanced around the vehicle and noticed his absence.
“They put him in an ambulance to the hospital,” the girl answered. “He was in pretty bad shape.”
She swallowed. “How bad?”
“He was conscious, but still looking a little green,” the girl explained. “Weird, huh? He must be seriously claustrophobic.”
Chloe thanked her and sat down, subdued. He’d probably make a full recovery before the ambulance even got to Met Gen, and then she and him would be right back where they’d started; with Clark walking around school without a care in the world while she tried to make sense of the unravelling ball of string that was her life.
She wondered if he would confront her about what had happened today. Probably not; after all, he had a lot more to feel guilty about than she did. She hadn’t meant to expose him to the kryptonite for so long; it had been an accident. Clark, on the other hand, had admitted to raping her because he’d wanted to.
…and yet he seemed so genuinely apologetic that she still wanted to believe otherwise.
Damn it. Chloe clenched her fists in fierce anger.
Her Trust Radar was skewered. She couldn’t decide whether Clark’s remorse was real, or all an elaborate act designed to lull her into a false sense of security, so she could ditch the kryptonite.
And she wanted to trust him again, she really did. But if she dropped her guard and he attacked her again - or anyone else, for that matter - she wouldn’t know whether to feel furious, stupid or suicidal for having shown mercy to a rapist. Probably all three…
A sharp headache began to nag her temples, and Chloe closed her eyes wearily. Clearly she didn’t even know which way was up anymore. She just wanted to go home, go to sleep, wake up and have her old life and her friends back.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Her old life was gone; she never looked forward to tomorrow anymore. All it brought was pain.
With a sigh, she rested her head against the window as the vehicle headed off towards Smallville.
***
Chapter 22 …http://babydee1.livejournal.com/136068.html