Otherwise, Part 3
Title: Otherwise
Author: latetothpartyhp
Rating: NC-17
Genre: drama
Pairings: Chloe/Clark; background pairings include Lana/Lionel, mentions of past Chloe/George. Probably others to be added.
Spoilers: UPDATE: through Prototype, although this fic is extremely AU (see summary below)
Warnings: Contains what is probably an very unrealistic depiction of sex work and psychotherapy, and sex that may be considered of dubious consent. There will probably also be some violence and strong language used. I don't at this point plan on killing anyone.
Summary / Author's Note: AU. Chloe Sullivan never lived in Smallville, but she is about to have a close encounter with one of it's residents. Takes place in what would be Season 9 if this fic wasn't so hopelessly non-canonical. Inspired by an article I read years ago in Salon.com (I think) and by the fanon_fridays prompt: If I never knew you / I'd be safe but half as real.
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10 bonus points to anyone who can name the movie in this part! Also, apologies for posting this huge thing without the cut!
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Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3
I am much better employed from every point of view, when I live solely for my own satisfaction, than when I begin to worry about the world. The world frightens me, and a frightened man is no good for anything. ~George Gissing
He was legitimately late for their next appointment; he'd needed extra documentation the client hadn't been able to find, and by the time she did it was time for him to leave. She didn't seem too upset; she'd answered the door with another one of those wide smiles she gave so easily, and kept it while she made herself another coffee and him another cocoa. Smiling like she was actually happy to see him again, like she'd been looking forward to seeing him again. Of course she's smiling at you, asshole; you're her incoming revenue stream, said a voice uncomfortably like Randall's.
Shut up, he told it.
He smiled at clients, too, clients he didn't particularly like, clients who hated him because he piled more work on their desks and pointed out their mistakes, and that didn't make him a bad person. It made him a professional. Like he was sure Kaylee was. A professional. She was a professional. Professionalism was why he was here. Only an idiot, or some jerk-off like Randall, would get on her case for not being emotionally honest. Who wanted that in their ordinary relationships, anyway? Did Randall expect the women he dated to be upfront about what an ass he was?
Obviously not. Nobody did, which is why nobody ever really told anyone else what they were really thinking. Kaylee, for instance, could be thinking anything beneath that smile. That he was an ass. Or that she was cold and wanted to put on something warmer but she had to entertain a client and that meant she had to wear a shirt with no back and a deeper v-neck than before -- which, weirdly, exposed less than the sweater she'd worn last week. How did that work? He sipped his cocoa and watched her pour the espresso for her coffee, pondering the mystery of women's clothes. She had a quick, precise way of moving that reminded him of a robin - head tilted, one eye to the ground, then a brisk bob down and up again with a worm. The shirt, if you could call it that, moved with her. Maybe that was the difference: the sweater had been looser, so it kind of gaped in the front, while this top clung and covered more. She made a fast little tilt away from him, pulling another mug out of the cupboard with a tug, eyes bright, moving just enough to pucker the fabric over her chest.
" -- brought a movie?"
He looked up quickly when he realized where he'd been staring. "Sorry. I was zoning."
"Dr. Foster said you were bringing a movie," she repeated. She was giving him a funny look now, as if to say, "Sure you were." He felt his heart speed up.
"Yeah, I did, I uh... " He fished around in his backpack. "I thought, you know, give it some context." Where was the damn thing? He'd checked twice before he'd left to make sure he'd remembered it and she was standing there, waiting for him, probably thinking he was an idiot now on top of being a perv and a freak and --
There it was. Right where he put it. In the front zipper pocket. For easy access. So he wouldn't look like an dork digging through his bag.
Good thing he'd been thinking ahead like that.
"Like an actual date," he finished. He handed her the DVD case and pushed up his glasses. Great. Now he was sweating. What the hell was his problem? It wasn't like it was a real date, just a practice one. And like Dr. Foster had said in their session, he was there for himself and not his anybody else, and he shouldn't feel encumbered by the way things "should" be, because things were never the way they should be. Except he couldn't help watching her as she read the movie description, looking for some kind of sign: Was she intrigued? Did she think it was lame? He clenched his fists and reminded himself it wasn't a disaster if she didn't like it. He might not even like it. This was not about impressing her. At all.
"This looks like a Christmas movie," she said.
"Is that a problem?" A sudden thought occurred to him. "Are you Jewish? Crap. I didn't even think -- "
"No, I'm not anything, really. It's fine. And Thanksgiving's only ... six weeks away. 'Tis the season almost right now. You want popcorn?"
Under normal circumstances he could chew and digest "D" batteries without a problem, not that he ever did, but there was no way his stomach was going to accept popcorn from him right now. She however seemed determined to make it, so he wandered over to the huge CRT t.v. that had been piled on the breakfast table. The table being the only flat surface in the place and the back of the sofa butting right against it, she'd faced the screen toward the bed. Which was cool. He squinted, adjusting his vision. Looked like the mattress had a pillow-top. That looked comfortable. And it was big. Plenty of room to stretch out. Or, you know. Whatever.
"Ready?" He flinched. She was somehow right beside him, holding up his cocoa.
"Yeah, sure," he answered, taking the mug. Pressing "Menu" did nothing. Neither did "Play". Were the batteries dead?
"Here." She handed him another remote, one that had been hiding on the other side of the box. "You need to press 'Game'."
"Huh?"
"On the t.v. remote. You have to press the 'Game' button."
He hit it. The movie menu appeared. She patted the bed beside her. "Have a seat."
He shuffled over. He totally would have had that figured out. Eventually. If she'd just given him a minute figure out the system.
"So is this an old favorite?" she asked. Something ... wiggled ... beneath him just as he sat, an odd, rippling sensation that made his gut tighten. What --? Oh God. Her hand.
"Would you mind -- "
"No! Sorry! I'm so sorry. I -- " His slight sense of irritation dissolved into a slight sense of horror.
"It's ok!" she interrupted. "See: everything works!" She held up her hand and rolled her fingers the way she had under him. He relaxed. A little.
"You sure?"
"Please. I've slammed my hand in my desk drawer harder than that." She arched a brow at him. "This isn't your way of avoiding my question, is it? You don't have a secret collection of Christmas-themed romantic comedies, do you?"
He stared at her a second before realizing she was teasing him. He pushed his glasses up. He should think of something to say. He was still sort of reeling from the accident he might have caused though.
"No. It's more, uh, winter-themed," he tried. "And dramas, actually. Dr. Zhivago. Stuff like that."
"Really? Dr. Zhivago?" Her smile was half doubtful, half intrigued.
"Sure," he said. If only because his mother had sobbed her heart out to it at least once a year since he was little. So he had seen it, but the weight of the lie in his joke -- it was only a joke -- was pressing on him. If she asked him any more questions he wouldn't have any answers. "I actually don't know too much about movies," he confessed. "I found this on a website of 50 best date movies." Plus, it had been in the video cabinet on the farm. He'd wanted something he could trust, since the whole situation made him twitchy. The movie had been Dr. Foster's suggestion; she'd liked the idea of trying to create realistic scenarios, but she'd thought that something that got him into closer contact than the game had would be better. "Just try it out, see how you feel," she'd said.
So far, between his backpack and the remotes, he'd felt like the planet idiot. And he could have hurt her. He hadn't been paying attention when he sat down. He needed to be especially aware here, needed to know exactly when his body was on the verge of...
Her hand -- the one he'd trapped -- curled over his. From the speakers, some narrator with a British accent began talking about Heathrow airport and how love was everywhere.
"Is this ok?"
He nodded. She squeezed his hand lightly and turned back to the movie. He turned to the screen too, but all his attention was on the little hand in his, the bare arm curled over his, the denim-clad thigh next to his. He'd sat like this before next to women. Never knowing he had to -- He didn't have to do anything, he told himself. She wasn't going to be disappointed or cry or ask what was wrong with him anyway or tell him she needed him to treat her like a woman. He could sit here the whole night if he wanted to, just listening to her heart under the dialogue of the movie, smelling the lavender coming off her clothes and some musky orange scent from behind her ears. He didn't have to do anything except lean back and feel her body breathe against his arm, calm and steady. It was as if some golden haze had settled over him, both electric and soothing.
On the screen the woman from that period movie his mom liked was telling the guy from Schindler's List nobody was ever going to want to shag him if he was crying all the time. From within the haze he felt her hand slipping out of his and then her thumb and forefinger squeezing the pad of flesh between his thumb and forefinger.
"How about this?"
She whispered under the dialogue.
"Yeah," he whispered back. She rolled the muscle there in her grip, and as she worked it the haze deepened. He should warn her not to press too hard, he thought vaguely. She could hurt herself. But he didn't want her to stop. And his eyelids were so heavy. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like this. Not since leaving Miami. It had been so easy to forget everything in the sun down there, in the hum of energy and peace it gave him. His eyes drifted completely closed, just for a second he thought, and then he was out.
A giggle startled him awake.
He lifted his bleary eyes to the screen, where some blond girl -- there seemed to be an awful lot of blond girls in this movie -- was kneeling, naked, rocking back and forth and smiling up at the camera while the guy from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, also naked, stood over her.
"Oh shit." He fumbled for the remote. "I am so sorry -- I didn't know this was like that -- I got it off my mom's shelf. I mean, why would she be watching -- " He broke off when she began coughing, her body practically convulsing with the effort. "Oh, God. Can I get -- do you need some water?"
She nodded, and he ran to the sink, feeling slow and clumsy and too big for everything. She had stopped coughing by the time he brought the water back to her, but she was still shaking and her face was crumpled as she tried to breathe normally.
"Here," he said, offering the glass. She nodded and took it, tossing her head back as she gulped the water down, the muscles in her neck contracting rhythmically as she swallowed.
"Thanks," she said. "Sorry about that."
"Are you alright?"
"I will be." She made another odd face, almost as if she were fighting off a smile. "You look as if you drifted off there."
"I guess. That thing you were doing, that was pretty relaxing."
Her face cleared. "Do you want me to keep doing that?"
"Sure. But, the movie..." He didn't think he'd be able to relax like that if he were watching naked people. Especially if one of them was the old guy who played the rock star.
"It's not a porn," she said, as if reading his mind. "I think you just woke up at a bad time. The joke is that the actors are playing stand-ins for a porn, and they're both really shy, so it's kind of awkward for them."
"Yeah. Awkward for them. Wow. I just ... I didn't want you to think that was why I chose this movie."
"Well, far be it from me to judge the taste of 50bestdatemovies.com. Or your mom." She made that odd face again, the one that looked like she was trying not to smile and -- had she been laughing at him? Before he could think too hard about that she leaned forward, pushing the V of her top apart just a bit. "May I ask you a question?"
He looked up. Her face was calm now, and gentle. His paranoia must have gone into over-drive, he decided.
"Sure."
"You don't have what they -- the couple in the movie -- were pretending to do on your list."
He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering the scene. No. That had not been on his list.
"Charles?"
"No. No, it's not," he said, opening his eyes. "I wanted to concentrate on things I could with you, or her rather, the person I'll be dating, that I wouldn't have to worry about as much."
"Worrying about losing control?"
He didn't want to talk about this. He would have to in a few days with Dr. Foster, he was sure; it was pretty redundant to have to talk about it with her, too. He wanted to just be for a few hours. He should be able to do that. He was paying through the nose for all this, he should be able to --
She was kissing him.
Her eyes were closed, her body was twisting over his, and her lips were pressing up against his, soft little caresses that were completely paralyzing.
Something like lightning shot through him. He clamped his lids down, hard. After the shock passed he realized he was kissing her back. Her mouth was hot from the coffee and tasted like it too, which was a little gross, but the part of him that didn't care what he thought went right on not caring. After a few seconds he decided he didn't really care about it that much anyway. She felt so good, and he hadn't kissed anyone since Lori, and that was three years ago now and --
He blinked.
She'd stopped. She'd stopped kissing him, and was instead staring at him with a little smile.
"You've been wanting to do that all night," she said. "Well, that and see down my shirt, but now we're over that first hurdle, we can ... move on. To other stuff on your list, or, you know. Whatever."
He hadn't, actually, because it hadn't even occurred to him to venture it. But now that she had, it seemed completely pointless to stop doing it just so they could talk.
That wasn't going to get them anywhere.