Fic: Head Games(6/6)
Fic: Head Games(6/6)
Summary: Sam and Chloe each have their heads examined for very different reasons
Author: pen37
Beta: Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: G
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Written for the Crossovers100 challenge. Prompt #99 Writer's choice (Mnemosyne). The table is here.
Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6
When he got to Metropolis, the first thing he did was to look for Chloe at the Daily Planet. Her cousin, Lois, told him that she hadn't been in all afternoon and gave him directions to her apartment with a glint of keen interest in her eyes that he tried to ignore. He had the distinct feeling she knew all about him, which might be a good or bad sign. Personally, he was hoping for the former.
The lights were off and the door was locked, but Dean was more concerned with a demonic Invasion of the Body Snatchers than he was with invading Chloe's privacy. But once he had picked the lock and stepped through her door, his natural curiosity overcame his need for discretion.
Chloe was a strange dichotomy of openly secret. And although he felt like he knew her, he knew very little about her. Her apartment presented a rare glimpse into Chloe. One that he didn't feel like he could pass up.
He flipped on the lights and got his first real shock. Her apartment didn't look like she'd ever lived there. It was as if she kept the place simply to have somewhere to put her things.
He moved through winding paths between stacks of dusty, unpacked boxes. Her apartment was one large room with a closet-sized bathroom off to the side. A tiny kitchenette on one side, a scarred dining room table piled high with newspapers, and a futon on the other.
He shook his head and wondered how he hadn't seen it before. Chloe had adapted so well to life on the road with him and Sam. It never really occurred to him that maybe it was because she was already a road warrior like they were.
He flipped back the corners of several boxes, and realized that they were the contents of her original wall of weird. Propping up the right leg of a lopsided coffee table was a thick high school yearbook dated 2005. That was, if he recalled correctly, the year of the second meteor shower.
With a mental shrug, he slid the yearbook out from underneath the table leg, and flipped through it. Smallville's high-school mascot was a crow. He snorted at that. The fighting crows. How incredibly wussy. There were huge sections of the front dedicated to the football team. Apparently they'd been state champions that year.
Dean thought he recognized the name Clark Kent. Wasn't that the guy who married Chloe's cousin? He flipped over to a team photo, and recognized Chloe's neat handwriting defacing the page. Most of the pictures had pirate mustaches and blackened teeth and eyes.
The football coach had an arrow pointing to him, with Chloe's notation that he was crazy and/or evil. Dean looked closer. Jason Teague. Handsome devil, even if he was buckets o' crazy.
At last, he found Chloe's cousin Clark. There were all kinds of hearts drawn around the photo, with the initials CS+CK.
The hell? Dean stared down at the evidence of a schoolgirl crush, and felt a stab of jealousy and a lot of confusion. Chloe had talked about Cousin Clark a lot. They’d been, in her words, best friends in high school. Now, looking at the page, Dean wondered how far that friendship had gone.
Now that he thought about it, Dean realized that he didn’t really know a lot about Chloe’s high school years. She’d told him about a few of the freakier metas she’d encountered - bug boy, the girl shapeshifter --- about being editor of her newspaper, and that she’d been both thrown out of a window and buried alive her freshman year.
Outside of that - she’d been pretty quiet about her academic career.
With a frown, Dean flipped to a new page. There, was Chloe, dressed in a cheerleading uniform.
Hubba.
Chloe was maybe seventeen when that photo was taken, and Dean felt like a dirty old man for admiring the way she looked in it. Although the slightly crazy look that she wore was unsettling. Dean wondered if he would be able to talk her into wearing that cheerleading outfit for him.
There was a two-page section dedicated to the newspaper, The Smallville Torch. Chloe's newspaper staff was a small group of geeky looking kids including Clark again, and, surprisingly, Lois. Wasn't she a little older than Chloe? What was she doing in high school? They stood with Chloe in front of a wall filled with newspaper clippings. Dean figured that wall was the original wall of weird.
The article that accompanied the photo was written - unsurprisingly, by C. Sullivan. It detailed how the Smallville Torch won a bajillion awards from the Kansas High School Press Association.
There was some other high school blah blah blah in there. Stuff about Chloe being a valedictorian, and a memorial list of meteor shower victims. Dean figured that was it - until he found the photo. Chloe Sullivan. Prom Queen.
He paused, jaw hanging open. She was a freakin' prom queen? That totally did not compute with the tough girl reporter/fledgling hunter image he had of her. Not standing there in a that's-going-to-show-up-in-my-fantasies-forever dress and sparkly crown, looking really uncomfortable and kinda sad at the same time.
It was kind of weird. Newspaper editor and cheerleader and valedictorian and prom queen. It cut across every social boundary he'd ever observed in the many, many high schools he'd attended. And she'd only ever mentioned the newspaper thing. As if it was the only thing that mattered. It just reinforced his belief that Chloe Sullivan was a complicated woman.
He was coming to realize that the secrets, the hero gig, and the reporting were just different layers of one complex person. That to truly know her the way he wanted to, he was going to have to get her to metaphorically strip bare. To show him every layer. And that was going to take work. He doubted that any one person saw every part of her completely. She wasn't the type to trust like that. She just didn't leave herself open and vulnerable in that way.
But with a little bit of patience, or Winchester stubbornness which worked just as well, he might be the one to make her open up.
As he passed her window, he glanced out across her parking lot - and realized that the little foreign jobber that she was driving the night they met was parked out on the street.
His pulse picked up rapidly. He clicked off the lights, rushed out the door and down to the parking lot. His footsteps slowed as he neared the car. Chloe's familiar figure was there - slumped over the steering wheel. As he cautiously approached, he watched as her tiny shoulders were wracked with sobs.
As if sensing him, she looked up through the glass and into his eyes. Her face was twisted in profound grief. The urge to pull her close in comfort welled up inside him. He crossed the intervening distance to her door and opened it.
“Dean . . .” Her breath hitched. “I . . .” Although misery weighted her words down, her eyes showed some spark of relief to see him.
Despite the fact that he really just wanted to pull her into his arms and soothe away whatever was wrong, there was a more pressing matter to attend to. “Are you wearing your amulet?” Dean looked into her eyes, searching for anything off.
“Of course.” She looked at him in confusion as she pulled back her sleeve to show him. “You know I don't take it off.”
With a sigh of relief, he knelt on the ground before her and pulled her down to him from the car so that he could cradle her in his arms.
Her arms went automatically around him, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“Dean . . . what?”
“Shhh . . .” he whispered to her as he stood, and kicked her door shut. He smoothed her hair tenderly with his free hand as he carried her toward her apartment. “I just want to . . . hold you.”
She swallowed back her tears and nodded. “Me too,” she whispered back.
Dean leaned his forehead against hers and allowed himself to relax for just a moment. Tomorrow - they probably had a lot to deal with. But for tonight, none of that mattered. Not while they had this.
Summary: Sam and Chloe each have their heads examined for very different reasons
Author: pen37
Beta: Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: G
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Written for the Crossovers100 challenge. Prompt #99 Writer's choice (Mnemosyne). The table is here.
Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6
When he got to Metropolis, the first thing he did was to look for Chloe at the Daily Planet. Her cousin, Lois, told him that she hadn't been in all afternoon and gave him directions to her apartment with a glint of keen interest in her eyes that he tried to ignore. He had the distinct feeling she knew all about him, which might be a good or bad sign. Personally, he was hoping for the former.
The lights were off and the door was locked, but Dean was more concerned with a demonic Invasion of the Body Snatchers than he was with invading Chloe's privacy. But once he had picked the lock and stepped through her door, his natural curiosity overcame his need for discretion.
Chloe was a strange dichotomy of openly secret. And although he felt like he knew her, he knew very little about her. Her apartment presented a rare glimpse into Chloe. One that he didn't feel like he could pass up.
He flipped on the lights and got his first real shock. Her apartment didn't look like she'd ever lived there. It was as if she kept the place simply to have somewhere to put her things.
He moved through winding paths between stacks of dusty, unpacked boxes. Her apartment was one large room with a closet-sized bathroom off to the side. A tiny kitchenette on one side, a scarred dining room table piled high with newspapers, and a futon on the other.
He shook his head and wondered how he hadn't seen it before. Chloe had adapted so well to life on the road with him and Sam. It never really occurred to him that maybe it was because she was already a road warrior like they were.
He flipped back the corners of several boxes, and realized that they were the contents of her original wall of weird. Propping up the right leg of a lopsided coffee table was a thick high school yearbook dated 2005. That was, if he recalled correctly, the year of the second meteor shower.
With a mental shrug, he slid the yearbook out from underneath the table leg, and flipped through it. Smallville's high-school mascot was a crow. He snorted at that. The fighting crows. How incredibly wussy. There were huge sections of the front dedicated to the football team. Apparently they'd been state champions that year.
Dean thought he recognized the name Clark Kent. Wasn't that the guy who married Chloe's cousin? He flipped over to a team photo, and recognized Chloe's neat handwriting defacing the page. Most of the pictures had pirate mustaches and blackened teeth and eyes.
The football coach had an arrow pointing to him, with Chloe's notation that he was crazy and/or evil. Dean looked closer. Jason Teague. Handsome devil, even if he was buckets o' crazy.
At last, he found Chloe's cousin Clark. There were all kinds of hearts drawn around the photo, with the initials CS+CK.
The hell? Dean stared down at the evidence of a schoolgirl crush, and felt a stab of jealousy and a lot of confusion. Chloe had talked about Cousin Clark a lot. They’d been, in her words, best friends in high school. Now, looking at the page, Dean wondered how far that friendship had gone.
Now that he thought about it, Dean realized that he didn’t really know a lot about Chloe’s high school years. She’d told him about a few of the freakier metas she’d encountered - bug boy, the girl shapeshifter --- about being editor of her newspaper, and that she’d been both thrown out of a window and buried alive her freshman year.
Outside of that - she’d been pretty quiet about her academic career.
With a frown, Dean flipped to a new page. There, was Chloe, dressed in a cheerleading uniform.
Hubba.
Chloe was maybe seventeen when that photo was taken, and Dean felt like a dirty old man for admiring the way she looked in it. Although the slightly crazy look that she wore was unsettling. Dean wondered if he would be able to talk her into wearing that cheerleading outfit for him.
There was a two-page section dedicated to the newspaper, The Smallville Torch. Chloe's newspaper staff was a small group of geeky looking kids including Clark again, and, surprisingly, Lois. Wasn't she a little older than Chloe? What was she doing in high school? They stood with Chloe in front of a wall filled with newspaper clippings. Dean figured that wall was the original wall of weird.
The article that accompanied the photo was written - unsurprisingly, by C. Sullivan. It detailed how the Smallville Torch won a bajillion awards from the Kansas High School Press Association.
There was some other high school blah blah blah in there. Stuff about Chloe being a valedictorian, and a memorial list of meteor shower victims. Dean figured that was it - until he found the photo. Chloe Sullivan. Prom Queen.
He paused, jaw hanging open. She was a freakin' prom queen? That totally did not compute with the tough girl reporter/fledgling hunter image he had of her. Not standing there in a that's-going-to-show-up-in-my-fantasies-forever dress and sparkly crown, looking really uncomfortable and kinda sad at the same time.
It was kind of weird. Newspaper editor and cheerleader and valedictorian and prom queen. It cut across every social boundary he'd ever observed in the many, many high schools he'd attended. And she'd only ever mentioned the newspaper thing. As if it was the only thing that mattered. It just reinforced his belief that Chloe Sullivan was a complicated woman.
He was coming to realize that the secrets, the hero gig, and the reporting were just different layers of one complex person. That to truly know her the way he wanted to, he was going to have to get her to metaphorically strip bare. To show him every layer. And that was going to take work. He doubted that any one person saw every part of her completely. She wasn't the type to trust like that. She just didn't leave herself open and vulnerable in that way.
But with a little bit of patience, or Winchester stubbornness which worked just as well, he might be the one to make her open up.
As he passed her window, he glanced out across her parking lot - and realized that the little foreign jobber that she was driving the night they met was parked out on the street.
His pulse picked up rapidly. He clicked off the lights, rushed out the door and down to the parking lot. His footsteps slowed as he neared the car. Chloe's familiar figure was there - slumped over the steering wheel. As he cautiously approached, he watched as her tiny shoulders were wracked with sobs.
As if sensing him, she looked up through the glass and into his eyes. Her face was twisted in profound grief. The urge to pull her close in comfort welled up inside him. He crossed the intervening distance to her door and opened it.
“Dean . . .” Her breath hitched. “I . . .” Although misery weighted her words down, her eyes showed some spark of relief to see him.
Despite the fact that he really just wanted to pull her into his arms and soothe away whatever was wrong, there was a more pressing matter to attend to. “Are you wearing your amulet?” Dean looked into her eyes, searching for anything off.
“Of course.” She looked at him in confusion as she pulled back her sleeve to show him. “You know I don't take it off.”
With a sigh of relief, he knelt on the ground before her and pulled her down to him from the car so that he could cradle her in his arms.
Her arms went automatically around him, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“Dean . . . what?”
“Shhh . . .” he whispered to her as he stood, and kicked her door shut. He smoothed her hair tenderly with his free hand as he carried her toward her apartment. “I just want to . . . hold you.”
She swallowed back her tears and nodded. “Me too,” she whispered back.
Dean leaned his forehead against hers and allowed himself to relax for just a moment. Tomorrow - they probably had a lot to deal with. But for tonight, none of that mattered. Not while they had this.