Save A Heart, Ride a Winchester
Title: Save A Heart, Ride A Winchester
Author: barkinmad
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam/Chloe, some Chloe/ Jimmy and Chloe/ Clark
Summary: On (possibly) their final assignment, Clark and Chloe run into a slew of interesting people. Texas is weird, man.
Author's Notes: Written for spn_summerlove. There are some surprise guests and yes, I tried to go for humor. Sorry about the title.
Save A Heart, Ride A Winchester
“I think I’ve found one.”
“Another?”
“Don’t get pissy, Clark,” Chloe said, setting up her laptop in the small Kent kitchen. “We’ve caught a lot of them, but not all.”
“We’ve been doing this for months, Chloe. I’m sick of Zoners.”
“Well, you’re the one who was so gung-ho about it to being with. Remember that whole ‘everything is my fault always wah, wah, wah’ phase?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, where is it?”
“Texas.”
Clark sighed. Chloe knew that Texas was the only state so far Clark hadn’t visited in his search for the Zoners, and he’d been hoping he’d never have to.
“One more trip,” Chloe said consolingly, “this could possibly be the last one.”
“Okay,” Clark said, but he sighed again and looked forlorn as he smeared jelly onto his toast.
Texas was hot. Chloe had known this, but had not truly comprehended it until the sun was bearing down on her and she could practically feel her skin brown. It certainly didn’t help matters that she and Clark were walking down a shade-less dirt path and that it was the middle of July.
“Don’t you have ice breath or something?” Chloe asked, attempting to sacrifice her hand to the sun in order to preserve her face.
“No, it’s superbreath,” Clark said, unperturbed. He hadn’t shown any sign of heat since they had arrived half an hour ago.
During the first months of Mission Zoner (or MZ, as Chloe liked to call it; Clark had taken to calling it M:I), Chloe and Clark had flown to their destinations in planes because it was less conspicuous and because Chloe liked having an excuse to sit uncomfortably close to Clark for hours at a time. However, Clark frequently complained; he hated the air, hated the air pressure, and hated the aircraft. Now Clark insisted on scooping Chloe up in his arms (Chloe never complained about that part) and zooming off to their destination (that she had a bit more trouble with).
Thusly, fifteen minutes after Chloe had arrived in the Kent kitchen with news, they arrived in deserted Texas and had been aimlessly wandering since. True, Chloe had never given Clark a specific city, but she thought he could have done a little bit better than this.
“Do you think you could get us a little bit closer to civilization?” Chloe asked, giving up on Clark’s ice breath. “Somewhere, hopefully, with public transportation?”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where the attacks have been occurring.”
“In public?”
Chloe nodded.
Clark looked puzzled, “But how do they get away with it?”
“Well, apparently, not all Zoners can be seen. This one is…well, it’s really weird. Passengers just start choking. The Zoner started out in New Mexico and has slowly and randomly made its way to Dallas, Texas. I think that’s where it is now, which is bad, because it’ll be infinitely harder to track it down instead of in some rural town.”
“How’d you track it this far?” Clark sounded impressed.
Chloe smiled, “A reporter never tells her secrets.”
“Alright then, let’s get to Dallas,” Clark said, almost enthusiastically, about to pick Chloe up yet another time.
“Uh, isn’t there another way to travel?” Chloe stopped him.
“I can’t think of one.”
“Well, we could always Apparate,” Chloe muttered to herself, but Clark had heard.
“You always make the mistake of believing Harry Potter is real.”
“No Clark, I always make the same joke, and you always make the mistake of falling for it.”
The trolley did nothing to help with the heat, but at least Chloe was off her feet and sometimes she would catch the wind on her face in the crowded car. She wasn’t even aware that Dallas had trolleys.
“I wasn’t even aware that Dallas had trolleys,” she told Clark.
“Neither was I,” Clark said with a shrug.
They had to speak a little louder than usual, but for the most part they were having a normal conversation. They had gotten on the trolley in the hopes of a) having a random encounter with a Zoner and b) finding a hotel. The trip so far had not been fruitful.
“You know,” Chloe said, “maybe we should start choking people ourselves so we gain the Zoner’s confidence. Then we can work closely with him or her as accomplices so we can bring them down from the inside.”
There was a two second pause, and then, “Are you high?”
“Not currently,” Chloe said with ease.
“Currently? Are you telling me that you light up?”
“Look, Clark, I have to deal with dragging your whiny ass all over the world. Plus, I have to go to college, work at the Daily Planet, maintain my friendship with Lana while staying neutral, investigate Lex without Lana finding out, date Jimmy and keep in constant contact with Pete so he doesn’t miss anything. And oh yeah, my dad’s been unemployed for the past three or more years. Can’t a girl take a break?”
Clark dropped the subject.
After finally finding a place to stay (a shabby motel on the outskirts; cheap, but livable) Clark and Chloe decided that the only responsible thing to do was to go to a bar.
Clark didn’t like alcohol, seeing as how it tasted bad and had no effect on him, but Chloe quite enjoyed it and insisted on not going alone.
“If I go alone all the psychos will hit on me.” And there was no arguing with that.
That bar was a bit dingy, but they didn’t get carded; Chloe maintained that she looked at least twenty-three. Clark was in the bathroom and Chloe was bracing herself for the inevitable.
A man sat down on the adjacent stool and almost immediately devoted all his attention to her.
Great, Chloe thought, psycho number one.
Admittedly, it was a cute psycho.
Dark brown tufts of hair rose from his head in a soft coif. Maybe it was the bar light, but his skin emitted an orangey glow that was almost comforting. Chloe couldn’t see his eyes, but she didn’t quite know what she would do if he smiled.
Maybe this is it, Chloe thought. Maybe I’ll finally meet someone and maybe-
“Are you from around here?”
Never. Mind.
Chloe went back to her beer and stared intently at the foam, trying to distinguish each and every molecule with her eyes.
“No, seriously,” he continued when she didn’t respond, “you don’t’ look like you’re from Texas. You’re already burned.”
“And you are?” she gave in. “You don’t even have a southern accent.”
“I’m workin’ on it, hun,” he said, and she couldn’t help noticing that he now had a twang.
“Why don’t you try working on it somewhere else?” Clark said from behind Psycho. Clark’s arms were crossed.
Psycho spun around, and then he grinned. That grin was probably the reason he got away with hitting on strangers in bars. “Take it easy, big guy” he said, patting Clark on the shoulder, “I was just telling your lady-friend that big, burly, overcompensating men make me shake in my boots.” And with that he was gone.
“Creep,” Clark said, filling the empty seat.
“Yeah,” Chloe relished the fact that she no longer had to pretend to be disinterested. “Anyway, we should get to work tomorrow.”
“How?” Clark sighed again, “We don’t know anything.”
“Well, Clark, that’s why you do interviews. I set up one for tomorrow. The girl is young and it’s at her house… which is a bit far away, but we should be fine,” Chloe smiled. “Okay, so we’re both from the Daily Planet now, remember?” Chloe handed him a fake press badge, “Dress like a reporter.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Chloe said as she opened the motel door to see Clark in a pinstriped suit with a pencil behind his ear and small square glasses on. “Are those that glasses you wore when you went blind?”
“Yeah.” He came in holding a box and tray from Dunkin Donuts and all embarrassments were forgotten.
An hour later Clark was still wearing the ridiculous suit, but Chloe had had a Boston Crème and a chocolate iced donut with rainbow sprinkles, so she was in no position to complain. They were now in Odessa, Texas, and standing outside the Bennet residence.
Chloe confidently knocked on the door; she had done this a hundred times before.Same game; different state, she kept telling herself.
The door opened and a middle-aged man wearing horn-rimmed glasses appeared.
“Hello, Mr. Bennet,” Chloe extended her hand, Mr.Bennet only looked down at it. “Could we please talk to Claire?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, not looking in the least bit remorseful, “she’s busy at the moment. I don’t think she’ll be able to assist you.”
“Um…” Chloe and Clark looked at each other. They hadn’t expected to hit an obstacle this early.
“It’s okay, dad,” said a girl’s voice from the back. She sounded older than she was. “I told them they could interview me.”
“What newspaper are you from?” Mr.Bennet asked quizzically.
“The Daily Planet…sir,” Chloe said, flashing her real badge. Real badge. You’re a reporter, Chloe. Act like one. She turned to Claire, “So, is there any particular place you feel comfortable to talk?”
“The living room’s fine,” Claire said, leading the way.
As the three of them headed toward the room, Chloe thought she heard Mr.Bennet saying something like, “first the Weekly World News and now the Daily Planet…”
Chloe would have taken offense at the comparison, if Claire hadn’t started talking almost immediately after sitting down.
“Look, all I know about this whole thing is that there was an invisible person on that bus. It’s-” Claire lowered her voice, “it’s not that uncommon, to tell you the truth. I mean, I know about the choking guy, but there are others.”
“Others?” Clark spluttered.
“Oh, yeah. I think more and more people are finding out ways to make themselves invisible. I’m not sure the person on my bus was malicious. All he…or she, did was bump into a couple of people and bewilder them. The invisible guy got off before anything happened. I think people just freaked out.”
Claire’s speech had been well-rehearsed, which really worried Chloe.
“Claire,” she asked, “is there any chance you know this invisible man?”
A lamp almost fell off a side table next to where Chloe was sitting.
“It must have been Mr. Muggles,” Claire said almost immediately, but she managed to sneak a glare at an empty space of air above Chloe’s head, “Bad Mr. Muggles.”
A dog whimpered from the kitchen.
Chloe couldn’t help smiling at the dog’s name, she would be sure to use it against Clark later, but presently she was more concerned about the odd interview at hand.
Neither she nor Clark, although Clark really sucked at the whole interrogating thing, could get more information out of Claire about the incident on the bus. Eventually, they had to say thank you and goodbye.
Back that night at the bar, Chloe was alone again. Clark was in the “bathroom”, but by now Chloe had started to see through the excuse. For all she knew, he could be saving Timmy from a well.
In worse news, Psycho was back.
“So you do come here often,” he started.
Chloe went back to her drink, this time it was a martini. She wasn’t quite sure what exactly was in it, but it was doing its job.
“Look, I think I introduced myself badly yesterday. My name is Freddie Mercury.”
“You’re awfully young-lookin’ for being in a band popular in the eighties.”
Psycho’s face fell.
“It was kind of easy,” Chloe consoled, taking another sip.
She could tell that he was just about defeated when Clark showed up. He smelled faintly of Mrs. Kent’s baking. He gave a mean glance at Psycho, but didn’t say anything. He did, however, pointedly sit on the other side of Chloe away from Psycho.
“Well, that whole interview was pretty pointless,” he said, presumably trying to divert attention.
“What can I say? Claire Bennet is a good liar.” At Claire’s name, Psycho jumped.
“How do you know Claire Bennet?” He asked.
“…How do you? I thought you just stalked women in bars.”
“Sam!” he called out to the bar. He made eye contact with a guy who had looked up from a laptop and waved him over. Sam looked confused, but picked up his things and made his way to the counter.
He took in Clark and Chloe. “What’s up?” he asked suspiciously.
“It’s okay,” Dean said, “they’re fine.” Sam relaxed.
“Dude, I thought you were trying to hook me up with the guy or something,” Sam pushed back his floppy brown hair, which fell right back in place over his similarly warm brown eyes.
“Nah, Sparky, next time. No, these people know Claire Bennet,” Psycho explained. Sam immediately took interest.
“What do you know about Claire Bennet?”
“Nice to meet you too.”
“Oh, sorry….I’m Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean.”
“Aw, and I was so excited to be a Queen roadie.”
Although Sam laughed, neither Clark nor Dean seemed amused.
“We don’t know much about Claire, we just interviewed her because she was a source for our story. Why’re you guys interested?”
“Same reason you are, I guess,” Sam explained, “If you’re talking about the stranglings.”
Clark nodded solemnly.
“Are you guys hunters?” Dean asked. Sam nudged him hard in the side while Clark asked “What?”
“Never mind,” Sam covered, “Look, since it seems we’re both covering the same case, why don’t we compare notes? Maybe there’s something we missed.”
“Yeah,” Dean said, “that seems like a pretty good idea.”
Chloe wasn’t as eager. Part of it was the whole it’s-my-story-first deal. The other part was that even though Dean had lost the nickname Psycho (she wasn’t quite sure how lost it actually was), he was still the creep who up till a minute ago was hitting on her.
Then again, his brother, Sam?, seemed to be a lot more genuine and trustworthy. If it was all an act, Chloe couldn’t tell. Plus, she didn’t really want to say goodbye to those nice brown eyes.
Chloe realized that all three guys were silent, and also all staring at her. Apparently Clark had picked her to represent their side.
“Okay,” Chloe agreed, “sure”.
As the boys walked away to find a new table, Chloe couldn’t help noticing that Sam had as much to offer with a view from behind as he did from the front. Therefore she didn’t notice that Clark had leaned in close to her ear until he said, “Chloe, get your mind out of the gutter and let’s finish this damn project.”
The boys didn’t seem to have written down any notes or observations from when they had interviewed Claire. When asked, Dean had just tapped his head and said, “I’ve got a photographic memory,” which Chloe sincerely doubted as the phrase was accompanied with a suggestive eyebrow. No, what was sitting on the round table in front of them was all the information that Chloe had gathered so far.
“How’d you piece all this together?” Sam asked, amazed.
Chloe was about to actually tell him the truth, when she remembered Clark. That would have just been unfair. “A reporter never tells her secrets,” Chloe said, and all Sam did was smile.
“Don’t you think it was unlikely that we both interviewed the same person?”
“Not…really. Are you sure you guys are reporters?” Chloe couldn’t rationale any of this for much longer.
“Yeah,” Dean said, almost immediately, “we’re with the Weekly World News.”
“Uh-huh,” Chloe responded. It would explain a lot of things…but it still didn’t feel right.
Sam looked like he was close to telling the truth, simply because he was sick of lying, but Chloe decided not to push him and went back to the case. “So, Claire’s story is that there is more than one invisible man, right?”
“Yeah,” Clark agreed, “Which means that it’s more work for us.”
“But not all of them are malevolent,” Sam interjected. “Why should we persecute them if they’ve done nothing wrong?”
“Dude, it’s not like you see me going around being invisible. It’s like they’re asking for it.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the Witness Protection Program?” Sam asked, exasperated.
“Oh, you don’t think the government is involved in this, do you?” Chloe said. “Don’t you think they’d be a bit more careful if they had this kind of technology going around?”
“I don’t know,” Dean said. “I don’t think this has anything to do with regular people. Let’s just forget about the others and focus on the one that’s actually killing people.”
“Maybe they’re connected,” Clark said, his chin resting on the table, “maybe the malevolent guy is like, infecting the people he chokes.” Chloe hated to admit it, but Clark was a sad drunk. She wasn’t sure if he had even had anything, but you could just hear the conversation die when he spoke up.
After a couple of seconds, Sam started up again, “I feel like we have the same conversation every week, man. You just can’t go around killing innocent bystanders.”
“They’re not innocent bystanders if they get involved in this crap!”
“What crap?” Chloe asked. They seemed to be talking about an entirely different subject.
“Nothing,” they both said. Apparently they had just remembered her presence.
“So, is this why you come to the bar every night, Dean? Because hitting on women is easier than bickering with your brother?” Chloe asked with a smirk.
“Hey, chicks dig me,” Dean said, reaching again for his beer.
“Yeah, chicks with dicks maybe.”
Sam practically choked on the top of his beer neck.
“Hey, don’t make me tell her about the time you showed up to school in your theater costume,” Dean warned.
“You said you didn’t remember that!”
“Man, you have a thing for blondes, don’t you?” Dean said. Apparently, they had again forgotten Chloe and Clark’s company. “I mean, first Jess, and then Meg. I don’t know how Sarah and Madison slipped past you.”
Sam instantly soured, “Don’t mention Madison.”
“Right…sorry.”
Clark seemed a little taken aback, and when Chloe turned to see Dean’s reaction, she thought that maybe she saw a bit of self-flagellation. Chloe decided not to push further on that subject as well.
Outside, at night, the brothers looked different. Away from the filthy and sweaty air of the bar, all three boys took on a different demeanor. Clark wasn’t as slouched; Sam wasn’t as petulant; and Dean, miraculously, wasn’t as skeevy. Chloe had, however, decided to keep the nickname Psycho.
They were walking to the Winchester’s car, seeing as how Clark and Chloe hadn’t brought one and the distance to the motel was quite a trek. Chloe assumed that having Clark take them all there at superspeed wasn’t going to cut it. She had also pointed out to Sam that the fact that they were all staying at the same sleazy motel was unlikely.
When the group approached a black four-door ’67 Chevy Impala and Dean got out the keys, Chloe had to suppress a squeal of joy. It was her father who had taken her to all the car shows in the city when she was younger, and she was sure that he would turn green when she told him about the ride.
“So, what’s the next step?” Clark asked, as soon as he got in the car.
“Hm?” Chloe was still admiring the interior.
“What are we doing tomorrow? How are we going to find the invisible man?”
“Or woman,” came the simultaneous response from Sam and Chloe.
“Whatever,” both Dean and Clark said.
“We didn’t really have anything planned for tomorrow,” Dean said, turning on some music. It was classic rock, which Chloe could guess that Sam didn’t enjoy, but she liked it.
“Yeah, we thought we’d just wing it,” Sam said. And although it was in response to Clark, he was staring almost directly at Chloe. She swore that she could see Dean grinning wildly in the front seat.
“I bet that’s not the only thing you’d like to wing,” Dean said, and Sam practically glared him to death.
“Maybe my trolley theory would work,” Chloe suggested. It had been a joke, but now, with the liquor, it was starting to make more sense.
“What theory?” Dean asked.
“I think we should go undercover and start throttling people so that the attacker will gain our trust.”
“Nah, been there, done that,” Dean said, pulling into the motel. “We’re meeting at O 600 tomorrow, alright?”
“When?” Clark asked.
“6 o’clock,” Sam explained.
“Are you kidding? That early?” Chloe exclaimed. She usually didn’t wake up during the single-digit hours.
“Get used to it, honey,” Dean said, “and get out of my car.”
Chloe muttered on the way back to her room, “Whatever you say, Psycho.”
It had been two days with these guys, and nothing had happened. They’d made no discoveries, hadn’t gathered any evidence, and hadn’t been able to contact any witnesses. Chloe was about to give up when she picked up the newspaper on the third day and saw no sign of an invisible attack.
“Maybe the attacker left already,” she suggested, over coffee (her idea) and donuts (Dean’s).
“High hopes, Chloe,” Clark said, “You know, sometimes I think you just came out here to go on vacation.”
“There’s a little bit of that,” Chloe admitted, looking down at the box of fried bread. She had been eyeing the glazed donut all morning. Sam slid it over to her. “But I’m also on the job,” Chloe took a bite out of her breakfast, giving a grateful look to Sam. She wasn’t exactly sure how she would break Jimmy to him. She wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to.
“Well, the job so far seems to be nothing,” Dean said. He almost seemed separated from the table he was leaning so far back in his chair.
“Maybe we should talk to Claire again,” Sam suggested. Everyone agreed.
The five and a half hour drive to Odessa wasn’t exactly pleasant, seeing as how the temperature reached 101 degrees outside the car. To pass the time, the four of them had taken to playing license plate games, doing crosswords (or at least Chloe and Sam had), and having group sing-a-longs. Comments on pitch and accuracy had been explicitly forbidden.
“So, how did you guys get to Odessa before you had the Winchester Taxi service?” Dean asked.
“What do you mean?” Chloe asked, staring out the window. It had occurred to her that she was usually the one who talked to the Winchesters, while Clark sort of sulked in the background. She kind of felt bad, but she also enjoyed the new company. It was something of a tough call, and it’s not like she hadn’t tried to include Clark, he just didn’t want to be included. And since this had all flashed into her mind at once, she was completely caught off guard by Dean’s piece of logic.
“Well, I saw you at the bar the first night, and you didn’t leave until about one or two.”
“You watched me?”
“Forget about that. The point is that this is a five or six hour drive. How’d you get to Bennet’s house and back to the bar in one day?”
Chloe had almost forgotten that things were usually slower without the Kent Express.
“We...um…rented one. It was a bit too expensive to keep for more than one day…but we needed the transportation, right?” Chloe hoped that she didn’t sound too nervous, but Clark gave her a worried look.
“I guess,” Dean said, and he hit the accelerator a bit.
“It’s the four of you now?” Mr. Bennet asked, “Aren’t you from different newspapers?”
Nice to see you again too, Mr. Bennet.
“Wait, you guys are reporters?” Chloe asked, turning to the Sam and Dean. “I thought we were the only ones covering this story.”
Dean smiled brightly, which meant access to any location imaginable. “I guess we got our dates mixed up. Would your daughter mind a double interview? I’m sure we could both use the same quotes.”
“But my daughter already got interviewed twice!” Mr. Bennet seemed to not have fallen for the Dean Winchester charm. Which was a shame, really, because it just proved that he wasn’t human.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Sam started, “but we just want to double-check our facts. See, our notebooks got lost.” He gestured to himself and Dean in general. “We just don’t want a libel case on our hands.”
Mr. Bennet turned expectantly to Clark and Chloe.
“My hearing’s not that good?” Clark suggested hopefully.
Chloe hated waiting in the car while Sam and Dean got to talk to Claire again. If only she had Extendable Ears.
“If only I had Extendable Ears,” she sighed at Clark.
“That would be disgusting, Chloe,” Clark said.
“No, I mean, like the kind Fred and George have.”
“Chloe, Harry Potter does not exist!”
“Only in your imagination, Chlo,” Sam said, getting back into the car. He seemed wearier than usual. Dean plopped back into the driver’s seat, and Chloe instantly knew something was wrong.
“What’s up, guys?”
“The whole thing was a sham, that’s what’s up.”
“You mean the whole choking people to death was a prank?”
“I wouldn’t say it was a prank, it just wasn’t what we were looking for,” Sam was going for consoling, but ended up sounding like a five-year-old denied his Happy Meal, “it wasn’t a ghost, or a Zoner, or anything.”
Sam had long since told Chloe the truth. And by long since she meant two days ago, but it had still felt like a long time. Considering the fact that she and Clark basically did the same thing with a different creature, and that she already believed in the supernatural, it wasn’t that hard to digest. She had told Sam about the Zoners, but not about Clark’s abilities. Those secrets were for him to let loose, whenever his heart chose. She assumed that Sam had told Dean about the Zoners, just as it was silently agreed upon that Chloe would tell Clark. It had been a relatively lie-free weekend up until Dean had gotten logistical on her.
“Then what was it?”
“Exactly what Claire said: an invisible man. Two, actually.”
“And they were the ones killing people?”
“It was actually the same person over and over,” Dean explained, revving the engine. Then he realized the confusion he had caused in the back seat and elaborated. “See, apparently there are genetic freaks among us, along with the restless spirits and superstrong aliens from outerspace.”
“Great,” Clark said.
“Yeah, so one of the genetic freaks, Claude was it?” he asked Sam. Sam nodded. “Claude was teaching this Peter guy how to use his ability or whatever.” Dean sort of skimmed over the whole special ability thing. Whenever Dean skimmed, Chloe started to get suspicious, but she let it drop so that she could hear the story. “Claude was choking Peter so that he’d have enough emotional or physical pressure or whatever to perform his thing. That’s what people were seeing, since Claude is pretty much always invisible. They’d move locations hoping that no one would be able to put two-and-two together. The person on the bus who wasn’t hurting anyone? That was Peter once he mastered his ability.”
“And how does Claire know all this?”
“Peter and Claude are living with her.”
Which, you know, explained a lot.
The four of them had decided to forego the bar that night. Not only was alcohol not going to do them any good, but they had to make all the arrangements for their travel the next day. Well, at least the Winchesters did, Clark and Chloe could basically just pick up and go.
They were all in Sam and Dean’s room, trying to find something out of the ordinary for the brothers to go hunt. Clark was pretty much through with Zoners for the rest of the summer, but he seemed pretty excited when he found out that there had been various violent deaths at a supposedly haunted Disney theme park ride. Dean looked ecstatic.
“Hey, where’s Sam?” Chloe asked, digging around her purse for change.
Dean smiled, “He’s in the bathroom. Want me to put a dog collar on him for you?”
“No, that’s alright. If anyone, you’re the person who’d be dragging their ass all over the carpet.”
“Hell yeah, bitch,” Dean said. Chloe wasn’t sure if he was saying that to her or to the Solitaire game on Sam’s computer.
“I’m going to get a Coke.”
“Sure thing,” Clark said from behind the Miami Herald.
Chloe left the boys’ stink to the boys and turned left toward the soda machine. Sam was there trying to get a Mr. Pibbs out of the machine. Dean was most certainly the best brother in the world.
“The machine eat your money?”
“Yeah, like I have any money to give it. No, Dean did this trick once,” Sam measured a spot on the side of door and elbowed it really hard. His elbow bounced back and almost punched Chloe. “I’m so sorry!”
“Careful there, wouldn’t want to break another lig for ten weeks.”
Sam sighed, “I told him to stop telling that story.”
“You got beat by a zombie chick, that’s alright,” Chloe smiled as she pulled a fresh Sprite from the vending machine. “Do you have any scars?”
“Yeah,” Sam smirked, “do you wanna see them?” And he raised his eyebrows as he somewhat seductively pulled his shirt sleeve up inch-by-inch.
“Oooh….that must be soooo rough. Fighting demons and stuff every day,” Chloe swooned, going along with the joke. She was trying to use her Lana voice.
“Do you know what else about me is rough?” Sam stepped closer.
That’s when Chloe broke character. “I’m sorry,” she said, laughing into her Sprite, “I just can’t take the bad acting anymore,” but Sam was laughing too. And then suddenly laughing turned to kissing.
The first thoughts that ran through Chloe’s brain were not how soft and warm Sam’s lips were, although they were extremely inviting. They were not how nice it felt to have Sam’s protective arms around her waist, or the fact that they were now pushed against a pillar in plain view of any resident who dared to look out their window. Not that Chloe really minded, of course. But the first thought that popped into Chloe’s head was Jimmy. Something she absolutely hated, because she really wanted to be thinking about Sam right now. She was sort of sick of Jimmy in a way, and as she realized this she also realized that she was now being slammed against her motel door, and that Sam was reaching for her keys. She was sort of sick of how Jimmy would always show up when she didn’t want him to; that he was almost never there when she did want him. That she had pulled all her pent-up sexual frustration from all those years with Clark and put them into her relationship with Jimmy. Sam was putting the key in the door. That she had never really liked Jimmy in more than a friend way, but that he had always been so sweet to her, and so different from on-and-off Clark, that she had stuck with him for the purpose of not breaking either of their hearts. The door was now open, with the TV on. Sam pulled away from her slightly, something Chloe was not going to permit for more than five seconds at a time, and with a grin turned off the television. And that the relationship with Jimmy was basically completely over now that he had gone off on his first reporting mission. She had barely talked to him in the past two months or so. Sam was diligently guiding her over to the bed. She knew that telling Jimmy she was gone would break him down, and she wished she knew some remedy to cure that, because she knew what a broken heart was. But she also knew that she had possibly just found someone who could mend hers, and she wasn't going to let go.
The morning after had been absolutely joyous until Clark had given her the hardest look ever over breakfast. She just smiled weakly and poured syrup over her waffles.
“What about Jimmy?” he mouthed harshly.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Chloe mouthed back with a smile. Although he had put a damper on her happiness, she wasn’t going to let her completely spoil her mood.
Her head wasn’t completely in the air. She knew that Sam and Dean now had to make their way down to Florida, and that she and Clark had to go back to Kansas. She knew that this thing with Sam wasn’t going to last very much longer, but she was happy that she had made her decision. She was going to go home and break up with Jimmy.
Sam took a sip of orange juice, while Dean looked sour. Apparently all his enthusiasm over his brothers “victory” no longer took precedence over his own.
“Why does Sam always get the fuck?”
Sam practically choked on the lip of his glass.
"What? Are you really upset that I cursed, Sam?"
"No," Sam said, and pointed to a place behind Chloe. As she turned, she caught a figure leaving through the diner door with the swoosh of a black cape and maybe a glint of light reflecting off a red lightning-bolt scar.
Author: barkinmad
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam/Chloe, some Chloe/ Jimmy and Chloe/ Clark
Summary: On (possibly) their final assignment, Clark and Chloe run into a slew of interesting people. Texas is weird, man.
Author's Notes: Written for spn_summerlove. There are some surprise guests and yes, I tried to go for humor. Sorry about the title.
Save A Heart, Ride A Winchester
“I think I’ve found one.”
“Another?”
“Don’t get pissy, Clark,” Chloe said, setting up her laptop in the small Kent kitchen. “We’ve caught a lot of them, but not all.”
“We’ve been doing this for months, Chloe. I’m sick of Zoners.”
“Well, you’re the one who was so gung-ho about it to being with. Remember that whole ‘everything is my fault always wah, wah, wah’ phase?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, where is it?”
“Texas.”
Clark sighed. Chloe knew that Texas was the only state so far Clark hadn’t visited in his search for the Zoners, and he’d been hoping he’d never have to.
“One more trip,” Chloe said consolingly, “this could possibly be the last one.”
“Okay,” Clark said, but he sighed again and looked forlorn as he smeared jelly onto his toast.
Texas was hot. Chloe had known this, but had not truly comprehended it until the sun was bearing down on her and she could practically feel her skin brown. It certainly didn’t help matters that she and Clark were walking down a shade-less dirt path and that it was the middle of July.
“Don’t you have ice breath or something?” Chloe asked, attempting to sacrifice her hand to the sun in order to preserve her face.
“No, it’s superbreath,” Clark said, unperturbed. He hadn’t shown any sign of heat since they had arrived half an hour ago.
During the first months of Mission Zoner (or MZ, as Chloe liked to call it; Clark had taken to calling it M:I), Chloe and Clark had flown to their destinations in planes because it was less conspicuous and because Chloe liked having an excuse to sit uncomfortably close to Clark for hours at a time. However, Clark frequently complained; he hated the air, hated the air pressure, and hated the aircraft. Now Clark insisted on scooping Chloe up in his arms (Chloe never complained about that part) and zooming off to their destination (that she had a bit more trouble with).
Thusly, fifteen minutes after Chloe had arrived in the Kent kitchen with news, they arrived in deserted Texas and had been aimlessly wandering since. True, Chloe had never given Clark a specific city, but she thought he could have done a little bit better than this.
“Do you think you could get us a little bit closer to civilization?” Chloe asked, giving up on Clark’s ice breath. “Somewhere, hopefully, with public transportation?”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where the attacks have been occurring.”
“In public?”
Chloe nodded.
Clark looked puzzled, “But how do they get away with it?”
“Well, apparently, not all Zoners can be seen. This one is…well, it’s really weird. Passengers just start choking. The Zoner started out in New Mexico and has slowly and randomly made its way to Dallas, Texas. I think that’s where it is now, which is bad, because it’ll be infinitely harder to track it down instead of in some rural town.”
“How’d you track it this far?” Clark sounded impressed.
Chloe smiled, “A reporter never tells her secrets.”
“Alright then, let’s get to Dallas,” Clark said, almost enthusiastically, about to pick Chloe up yet another time.
“Uh, isn’t there another way to travel?” Chloe stopped him.
“I can’t think of one.”
“Well, we could always Apparate,” Chloe muttered to herself, but Clark had heard.
“You always make the mistake of believing Harry Potter is real.”
“No Clark, I always make the same joke, and you always make the mistake of falling for it.”
The trolley did nothing to help with the heat, but at least Chloe was off her feet and sometimes she would catch the wind on her face in the crowded car. She wasn’t even aware that Dallas had trolleys.
“I wasn’t even aware that Dallas had trolleys,” she told Clark.
“Neither was I,” Clark said with a shrug.
They had to speak a little louder than usual, but for the most part they were having a normal conversation. They had gotten on the trolley in the hopes of a) having a random encounter with a Zoner and b) finding a hotel. The trip so far had not been fruitful.
“You know,” Chloe said, “maybe we should start choking people ourselves so we gain the Zoner’s confidence. Then we can work closely with him or her as accomplices so we can bring them down from the inside.”
There was a two second pause, and then, “Are you high?”
“Not currently,” Chloe said with ease.
“Currently? Are you telling me that you light up?”
“Look, Clark, I have to deal with dragging your whiny ass all over the world. Plus, I have to go to college, work at the Daily Planet, maintain my friendship with Lana while staying neutral, investigate Lex without Lana finding out, date Jimmy and keep in constant contact with Pete so he doesn’t miss anything. And oh yeah, my dad’s been unemployed for the past three or more years. Can’t a girl take a break?”
Clark dropped the subject.
After finally finding a place to stay (a shabby motel on the outskirts; cheap, but livable) Clark and Chloe decided that the only responsible thing to do was to go to a bar.
Clark didn’t like alcohol, seeing as how it tasted bad and had no effect on him, but Chloe quite enjoyed it and insisted on not going alone.
“If I go alone all the psychos will hit on me.” And there was no arguing with that.
That bar was a bit dingy, but they didn’t get carded; Chloe maintained that she looked at least twenty-three. Clark was in the bathroom and Chloe was bracing herself for the inevitable.
A man sat down on the adjacent stool and almost immediately devoted all his attention to her.
Great, Chloe thought, psycho number one.
Admittedly, it was a cute psycho.
Dark brown tufts of hair rose from his head in a soft coif. Maybe it was the bar light, but his skin emitted an orangey glow that was almost comforting. Chloe couldn’t see his eyes, but she didn’t quite know what she would do if he smiled.
Maybe this is it, Chloe thought. Maybe I’ll finally meet someone and maybe-
“Are you from around here?”
Never. Mind.
Chloe went back to her beer and stared intently at the foam, trying to distinguish each and every molecule with her eyes.
“No, seriously,” he continued when she didn’t respond, “you don’t’ look like you’re from Texas. You’re already burned.”
“And you are?” she gave in. “You don’t even have a southern accent.”
“I’m workin’ on it, hun,” he said, and she couldn’t help noticing that he now had a twang.
“Why don’t you try working on it somewhere else?” Clark said from behind Psycho. Clark’s arms were crossed.
Psycho spun around, and then he grinned. That grin was probably the reason he got away with hitting on strangers in bars. “Take it easy, big guy” he said, patting Clark on the shoulder, “I was just telling your lady-friend that big, burly, overcompensating men make me shake in my boots.” And with that he was gone.
“Creep,” Clark said, filling the empty seat.
“Yeah,” Chloe relished the fact that she no longer had to pretend to be disinterested. “Anyway, we should get to work tomorrow.”
“How?” Clark sighed again, “We don’t know anything.”
“Well, Clark, that’s why you do interviews. I set up one for tomorrow. The girl is young and it’s at her house… which is a bit far away, but we should be fine,” Chloe smiled. “Okay, so we’re both from the Daily Planet now, remember?” Chloe handed him a fake press badge, “Dress like a reporter.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Chloe said as she opened the motel door to see Clark in a pinstriped suit with a pencil behind his ear and small square glasses on. “Are those that glasses you wore when you went blind?”
“Yeah.” He came in holding a box and tray from Dunkin Donuts and all embarrassments were forgotten.
An hour later Clark was still wearing the ridiculous suit, but Chloe had had a Boston Crème and a chocolate iced donut with rainbow sprinkles, so she was in no position to complain. They were now in Odessa, Texas, and standing outside the Bennet residence.
Chloe confidently knocked on the door; she had done this a hundred times before.Same game; different state, she kept telling herself.
The door opened and a middle-aged man wearing horn-rimmed glasses appeared.
“Hello, Mr. Bennet,” Chloe extended her hand, Mr.Bennet only looked down at it. “Could we please talk to Claire?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, not looking in the least bit remorseful, “she’s busy at the moment. I don’t think she’ll be able to assist you.”
“Um…” Chloe and Clark looked at each other. They hadn’t expected to hit an obstacle this early.
“It’s okay, dad,” said a girl’s voice from the back. She sounded older than she was. “I told them they could interview me.”
“What newspaper are you from?” Mr.Bennet asked quizzically.
“The Daily Planet…sir,” Chloe said, flashing her real badge. Real badge. You’re a reporter, Chloe. Act like one. She turned to Claire, “So, is there any particular place you feel comfortable to talk?”
“The living room’s fine,” Claire said, leading the way.
As the three of them headed toward the room, Chloe thought she heard Mr.Bennet saying something like, “first the Weekly World News and now the Daily Planet…”
Chloe would have taken offense at the comparison, if Claire hadn’t started talking almost immediately after sitting down.
“Look, all I know about this whole thing is that there was an invisible person on that bus. It’s-” Claire lowered her voice, “it’s not that uncommon, to tell you the truth. I mean, I know about the choking guy, but there are others.”
“Others?” Clark spluttered.
“Oh, yeah. I think more and more people are finding out ways to make themselves invisible. I’m not sure the person on my bus was malicious. All he…or she, did was bump into a couple of people and bewilder them. The invisible guy got off before anything happened. I think people just freaked out.”
Claire’s speech had been well-rehearsed, which really worried Chloe.
“Claire,” she asked, “is there any chance you know this invisible man?”
A lamp almost fell off a side table next to where Chloe was sitting.
“It must have been Mr. Muggles,” Claire said almost immediately, but she managed to sneak a glare at an empty space of air above Chloe’s head, “Bad Mr. Muggles.”
A dog whimpered from the kitchen.
Chloe couldn’t help smiling at the dog’s name, she would be sure to use it against Clark later, but presently she was more concerned about the odd interview at hand.
Neither she nor Clark, although Clark really sucked at the whole interrogating thing, could get more information out of Claire about the incident on the bus. Eventually, they had to say thank you and goodbye.
Back that night at the bar, Chloe was alone again. Clark was in the “bathroom”, but by now Chloe had started to see through the excuse. For all she knew, he could be saving Timmy from a well.
In worse news, Psycho was back.
“So you do come here often,” he started.
Chloe went back to her drink, this time it was a martini. She wasn’t quite sure what exactly was in it, but it was doing its job.
“Look, I think I introduced myself badly yesterday. My name is Freddie Mercury.”
“You’re awfully young-lookin’ for being in a band popular in the eighties.”
Psycho’s face fell.
“It was kind of easy,” Chloe consoled, taking another sip.
She could tell that he was just about defeated when Clark showed up. He smelled faintly of Mrs. Kent’s baking. He gave a mean glance at Psycho, but didn’t say anything. He did, however, pointedly sit on the other side of Chloe away from Psycho.
“Well, that whole interview was pretty pointless,” he said, presumably trying to divert attention.
“What can I say? Claire Bennet is a good liar.” At Claire’s name, Psycho jumped.
“How do you know Claire Bennet?” He asked.
“…How do you? I thought you just stalked women in bars.”
“Sam!” he called out to the bar. He made eye contact with a guy who had looked up from a laptop and waved him over. Sam looked confused, but picked up his things and made his way to the counter.
He took in Clark and Chloe. “What’s up?” he asked suspiciously.
“It’s okay,” Dean said, “they’re fine.” Sam relaxed.
“Dude, I thought you were trying to hook me up with the guy or something,” Sam pushed back his floppy brown hair, which fell right back in place over his similarly warm brown eyes.
“Nah, Sparky, next time. No, these people know Claire Bennet,” Psycho explained. Sam immediately took interest.
“What do you know about Claire Bennet?”
“Nice to meet you too.”
“Oh, sorry….I’m Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean.”
“Aw, and I was so excited to be a Queen roadie.”
Although Sam laughed, neither Clark nor Dean seemed amused.
“We don’t know much about Claire, we just interviewed her because she was a source for our story. Why’re you guys interested?”
“Same reason you are, I guess,” Sam explained, “If you’re talking about the stranglings.”
Clark nodded solemnly.
“Are you guys hunters?” Dean asked. Sam nudged him hard in the side while Clark asked “What?”
“Never mind,” Sam covered, “Look, since it seems we’re both covering the same case, why don’t we compare notes? Maybe there’s something we missed.”
“Yeah,” Dean said, “that seems like a pretty good idea.”
Chloe wasn’t as eager. Part of it was the whole it’s-my-story-first deal. The other part was that even though Dean had lost the nickname Psycho (she wasn’t quite sure how lost it actually was), he was still the creep who up till a minute ago was hitting on her.
Then again, his brother, Sam?, seemed to be a lot more genuine and trustworthy. If it was all an act, Chloe couldn’t tell. Plus, she didn’t really want to say goodbye to those nice brown eyes.
Chloe realized that all three guys were silent, and also all staring at her. Apparently Clark had picked her to represent their side.
“Okay,” Chloe agreed, “sure”.
As the boys walked away to find a new table, Chloe couldn’t help noticing that Sam had as much to offer with a view from behind as he did from the front. Therefore she didn’t notice that Clark had leaned in close to her ear until he said, “Chloe, get your mind out of the gutter and let’s finish this damn project.”
The boys didn’t seem to have written down any notes or observations from when they had interviewed Claire. When asked, Dean had just tapped his head and said, “I’ve got a photographic memory,” which Chloe sincerely doubted as the phrase was accompanied with a suggestive eyebrow. No, what was sitting on the round table in front of them was all the information that Chloe had gathered so far.
“How’d you piece all this together?” Sam asked, amazed.
Chloe was about to actually tell him the truth, when she remembered Clark. That would have just been unfair. “A reporter never tells her secrets,” Chloe said, and all Sam did was smile.
“Don’t you think it was unlikely that we both interviewed the same person?”
“Not…really. Are you sure you guys are reporters?” Chloe couldn’t rationale any of this for much longer.
“Yeah,” Dean said, almost immediately, “we’re with the Weekly World News.”
“Uh-huh,” Chloe responded. It would explain a lot of things…but it still didn’t feel right.
Sam looked like he was close to telling the truth, simply because he was sick of lying, but Chloe decided not to push him and went back to the case. “So, Claire’s story is that there is more than one invisible man, right?”
“Yeah,” Clark agreed, “Which means that it’s more work for us.”
“But not all of them are malevolent,” Sam interjected. “Why should we persecute them if they’ve done nothing wrong?”
“Dude, it’s not like you see me going around being invisible. It’s like they’re asking for it.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the Witness Protection Program?” Sam asked, exasperated.
“Oh, you don’t think the government is involved in this, do you?” Chloe said. “Don’t you think they’d be a bit more careful if they had this kind of technology going around?”
“I don’t know,” Dean said. “I don’t think this has anything to do with regular people. Let’s just forget about the others and focus on the one that’s actually killing people.”
“Maybe they’re connected,” Clark said, his chin resting on the table, “maybe the malevolent guy is like, infecting the people he chokes.” Chloe hated to admit it, but Clark was a sad drunk. She wasn’t sure if he had even had anything, but you could just hear the conversation die when he spoke up.
After a couple of seconds, Sam started up again, “I feel like we have the same conversation every week, man. You just can’t go around killing innocent bystanders.”
“They’re not innocent bystanders if they get involved in this crap!”
“What crap?” Chloe asked. They seemed to be talking about an entirely different subject.
“Nothing,” they both said. Apparently they had just remembered her presence.
“So, is this why you come to the bar every night, Dean? Because hitting on women is easier than bickering with your brother?” Chloe asked with a smirk.
“Hey, chicks dig me,” Dean said, reaching again for his beer.
“Yeah, chicks with dicks maybe.”
Sam practically choked on the top of his beer neck.
“Hey, don’t make me tell her about the time you showed up to school in your theater costume,” Dean warned.
“You said you didn’t remember that!”
“Man, you have a thing for blondes, don’t you?” Dean said. Apparently, they had again forgotten Chloe and Clark’s company. “I mean, first Jess, and then Meg. I don’t know how Sarah and Madison slipped past you.”
Sam instantly soured, “Don’t mention Madison.”
“Right…sorry.”
Clark seemed a little taken aback, and when Chloe turned to see Dean’s reaction, she thought that maybe she saw a bit of self-flagellation. Chloe decided not to push further on that subject as well.
Outside, at night, the brothers looked different. Away from the filthy and sweaty air of the bar, all three boys took on a different demeanor. Clark wasn’t as slouched; Sam wasn’t as petulant; and Dean, miraculously, wasn’t as skeevy. Chloe had, however, decided to keep the nickname Psycho.
They were walking to the Winchester’s car, seeing as how Clark and Chloe hadn’t brought one and the distance to the motel was quite a trek. Chloe assumed that having Clark take them all there at superspeed wasn’t going to cut it. She had also pointed out to Sam that the fact that they were all staying at the same sleazy motel was unlikely.
When the group approached a black four-door ’67 Chevy Impala and Dean got out the keys, Chloe had to suppress a squeal of joy. It was her father who had taken her to all the car shows in the city when she was younger, and she was sure that he would turn green when she told him about the ride.
“So, what’s the next step?” Clark asked, as soon as he got in the car.
“Hm?” Chloe was still admiring the interior.
“What are we doing tomorrow? How are we going to find the invisible man?”
“Or woman,” came the simultaneous response from Sam and Chloe.
“Whatever,” both Dean and Clark said.
“We didn’t really have anything planned for tomorrow,” Dean said, turning on some music. It was classic rock, which Chloe could guess that Sam didn’t enjoy, but she liked it.
“Yeah, we thought we’d just wing it,” Sam said. And although it was in response to Clark, he was staring almost directly at Chloe. She swore that she could see Dean grinning wildly in the front seat.
“I bet that’s not the only thing you’d like to wing,” Dean said, and Sam practically glared him to death.
“Maybe my trolley theory would work,” Chloe suggested. It had been a joke, but now, with the liquor, it was starting to make more sense.
“What theory?” Dean asked.
“I think we should go undercover and start throttling people so that the attacker will gain our trust.”
“Nah, been there, done that,” Dean said, pulling into the motel. “We’re meeting at O 600 tomorrow, alright?”
“When?” Clark asked.
“6 o’clock,” Sam explained.
“Are you kidding? That early?” Chloe exclaimed. She usually didn’t wake up during the single-digit hours.
“Get used to it, honey,” Dean said, “and get out of my car.”
Chloe muttered on the way back to her room, “Whatever you say, Psycho.”
It had been two days with these guys, and nothing had happened. They’d made no discoveries, hadn’t gathered any evidence, and hadn’t been able to contact any witnesses. Chloe was about to give up when she picked up the newspaper on the third day and saw no sign of an invisible attack.
“Maybe the attacker left already,” she suggested, over coffee (her idea) and donuts (Dean’s).
“High hopes, Chloe,” Clark said, “You know, sometimes I think you just came out here to go on vacation.”
“There’s a little bit of that,” Chloe admitted, looking down at the box of fried bread. She had been eyeing the glazed donut all morning. Sam slid it over to her. “But I’m also on the job,” Chloe took a bite out of her breakfast, giving a grateful look to Sam. She wasn’t exactly sure how she would break Jimmy to him. She wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to.
“Well, the job so far seems to be nothing,” Dean said. He almost seemed separated from the table he was leaning so far back in his chair.
“Maybe we should talk to Claire again,” Sam suggested. Everyone agreed.
The five and a half hour drive to Odessa wasn’t exactly pleasant, seeing as how the temperature reached 101 degrees outside the car. To pass the time, the four of them had taken to playing license plate games, doing crosswords (or at least Chloe and Sam had), and having group sing-a-longs. Comments on pitch and accuracy had been explicitly forbidden.
“So, how did you guys get to Odessa before you had the Winchester Taxi service?” Dean asked.
“What do you mean?” Chloe asked, staring out the window. It had occurred to her that she was usually the one who talked to the Winchesters, while Clark sort of sulked in the background. She kind of felt bad, but she also enjoyed the new company. It was something of a tough call, and it’s not like she hadn’t tried to include Clark, he just didn’t want to be included. And since this had all flashed into her mind at once, she was completely caught off guard by Dean’s piece of logic.
“Well, I saw you at the bar the first night, and you didn’t leave until about one or two.”
“You watched me?”
“Forget about that. The point is that this is a five or six hour drive. How’d you get to Bennet’s house and back to the bar in one day?”
Chloe had almost forgotten that things were usually slower without the Kent Express.
“We...um…rented one. It was a bit too expensive to keep for more than one day…but we needed the transportation, right?” Chloe hoped that she didn’t sound too nervous, but Clark gave her a worried look.
“I guess,” Dean said, and he hit the accelerator a bit.
“It’s the four of you now?” Mr. Bennet asked, “Aren’t you from different newspapers?”
Nice to see you again too, Mr. Bennet.
“Wait, you guys are reporters?” Chloe asked, turning to the Sam and Dean. “I thought we were the only ones covering this story.”
Dean smiled brightly, which meant access to any location imaginable. “I guess we got our dates mixed up. Would your daughter mind a double interview? I’m sure we could both use the same quotes.”
“But my daughter already got interviewed twice!” Mr. Bennet seemed to not have fallen for the Dean Winchester charm. Which was a shame, really, because it just proved that he wasn’t human.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Sam started, “but we just want to double-check our facts. See, our notebooks got lost.” He gestured to himself and Dean in general. “We just don’t want a libel case on our hands.”
Mr. Bennet turned expectantly to Clark and Chloe.
“My hearing’s not that good?” Clark suggested hopefully.
Chloe hated waiting in the car while Sam and Dean got to talk to Claire again. If only she had Extendable Ears.
“If only I had Extendable Ears,” she sighed at Clark.
“That would be disgusting, Chloe,” Clark said.
“No, I mean, like the kind Fred and George have.”
“Chloe, Harry Potter does not exist!”
“Only in your imagination, Chlo,” Sam said, getting back into the car. He seemed wearier than usual. Dean plopped back into the driver’s seat, and Chloe instantly knew something was wrong.
“What’s up, guys?”
“The whole thing was a sham, that’s what’s up.”
“You mean the whole choking people to death was a prank?”
“I wouldn’t say it was a prank, it just wasn’t what we were looking for,” Sam was going for consoling, but ended up sounding like a five-year-old denied his Happy Meal, “it wasn’t a ghost, or a Zoner, or anything.”
Sam had long since told Chloe the truth. And by long since she meant two days ago, but it had still felt like a long time. Considering the fact that she and Clark basically did the same thing with a different creature, and that she already believed in the supernatural, it wasn’t that hard to digest. She had told Sam about the Zoners, but not about Clark’s abilities. Those secrets were for him to let loose, whenever his heart chose. She assumed that Sam had told Dean about the Zoners, just as it was silently agreed upon that Chloe would tell Clark. It had been a relatively lie-free weekend up until Dean had gotten logistical on her.
“Then what was it?”
“Exactly what Claire said: an invisible man. Two, actually.”
“And they were the ones killing people?”
“It was actually the same person over and over,” Dean explained, revving the engine. Then he realized the confusion he had caused in the back seat and elaborated. “See, apparently there are genetic freaks among us, along with the restless spirits and superstrong aliens from outerspace.”
“Great,” Clark said.
“Yeah, so one of the genetic freaks, Claude was it?” he asked Sam. Sam nodded. “Claude was teaching this Peter guy how to use his ability or whatever.” Dean sort of skimmed over the whole special ability thing. Whenever Dean skimmed, Chloe started to get suspicious, but she let it drop so that she could hear the story. “Claude was choking Peter so that he’d have enough emotional or physical pressure or whatever to perform his thing. That’s what people were seeing, since Claude is pretty much always invisible. They’d move locations hoping that no one would be able to put two-and-two together. The person on the bus who wasn’t hurting anyone? That was Peter once he mastered his ability.”
“And how does Claire know all this?”
“Peter and Claude are living with her.”
Which, you know, explained a lot.
The four of them had decided to forego the bar that night. Not only was alcohol not going to do them any good, but they had to make all the arrangements for their travel the next day. Well, at least the Winchesters did, Clark and Chloe could basically just pick up and go.
They were all in Sam and Dean’s room, trying to find something out of the ordinary for the brothers to go hunt. Clark was pretty much through with Zoners for the rest of the summer, but he seemed pretty excited when he found out that there had been various violent deaths at a supposedly haunted Disney theme park ride. Dean looked ecstatic.
“Hey, where’s Sam?” Chloe asked, digging around her purse for change.
Dean smiled, “He’s in the bathroom. Want me to put a dog collar on him for you?”
“No, that’s alright. If anyone, you’re the person who’d be dragging their ass all over the carpet.”
“Hell yeah, bitch,” Dean said. Chloe wasn’t sure if he was saying that to her or to the Solitaire game on Sam’s computer.
“I’m going to get a Coke.”
“Sure thing,” Clark said from behind the Miami Herald.
Chloe left the boys’ stink to the boys and turned left toward the soda machine. Sam was there trying to get a Mr. Pibbs out of the machine. Dean was most certainly the best brother in the world.
“The machine eat your money?”
“Yeah, like I have any money to give it. No, Dean did this trick once,” Sam measured a spot on the side of door and elbowed it really hard. His elbow bounced back and almost punched Chloe. “I’m so sorry!”
“Careful there, wouldn’t want to break another lig for ten weeks.”
Sam sighed, “I told him to stop telling that story.”
“You got beat by a zombie chick, that’s alright,” Chloe smiled as she pulled a fresh Sprite from the vending machine. “Do you have any scars?”
“Yeah,” Sam smirked, “do you wanna see them?” And he raised his eyebrows as he somewhat seductively pulled his shirt sleeve up inch-by-inch.
“Oooh….that must be soooo rough. Fighting demons and stuff every day,” Chloe swooned, going along with the joke. She was trying to use her Lana voice.
“Do you know what else about me is rough?” Sam stepped closer.
That’s when Chloe broke character. “I’m sorry,” she said, laughing into her Sprite, “I just can’t take the bad acting anymore,” but Sam was laughing too. And then suddenly laughing turned to kissing.
The first thoughts that ran through Chloe’s brain were not how soft and warm Sam’s lips were, although they were extremely inviting. They were not how nice it felt to have Sam’s protective arms around her waist, or the fact that they were now pushed against a pillar in plain view of any resident who dared to look out their window. Not that Chloe really minded, of course. But the first thought that popped into Chloe’s head was Jimmy. Something she absolutely hated, because she really wanted to be thinking about Sam right now. She was sort of sick of Jimmy in a way, and as she realized this she also realized that she was now being slammed against her motel door, and that Sam was reaching for her keys. She was sort of sick of how Jimmy would always show up when she didn’t want him to; that he was almost never there when she did want him. That she had pulled all her pent-up sexual frustration from all those years with Clark and put them into her relationship with Jimmy. Sam was putting the key in the door. That she had never really liked Jimmy in more than a friend way, but that he had always been so sweet to her, and so different from on-and-off Clark, that she had stuck with him for the purpose of not breaking either of their hearts. The door was now open, with the TV on. Sam pulled away from her slightly, something Chloe was not going to permit for more than five seconds at a time, and with a grin turned off the television. And that the relationship with Jimmy was basically completely over now that he had gone off on his first reporting mission. She had barely talked to him in the past two months or so. Sam was diligently guiding her over to the bed. She knew that telling Jimmy she was gone would break him down, and she wished she knew some remedy to cure that, because she knew what a broken heart was. But she also knew that she had possibly just found someone who could mend hers, and she wasn't going to let go.
The morning after had been absolutely joyous until Clark had given her the hardest look ever over breakfast. She just smiled weakly and poured syrup over her waffles.
“What about Jimmy?” he mouthed harshly.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Chloe mouthed back with a smile. Although he had put a damper on her happiness, she wasn’t going to let her completely spoil her mood.
Her head wasn’t completely in the air. She knew that Sam and Dean now had to make their way down to Florida, and that she and Clark had to go back to Kansas. She knew that this thing with Sam wasn’t going to last very much longer, but she was happy that she had made her decision. She was going to go home and break up with Jimmy.
Sam took a sip of orange juice, while Dean looked sour. Apparently all his enthusiasm over his brothers “victory” no longer took precedence over his own.
“Why does Sam always get the fuck?”
Sam practically choked on the lip of his glass.
"What? Are you really upset that I cursed, Sam?"
"No," Sam said, and pointed to a place behind Chloe. As she turned, she caught a figure leaving through the diner door with the swoosh of a black cape and maybe a glint of light reflecting off a red lightning-bolt scar.