SV fic: because I'm running up that hill
A night in the summer before junior year. Chloe-centric, r, references to Chloe/Clark & Chloe/Kal, 1856 words.
a/n: this is based on a drabble I wrote that I expanded because shop_gal08 asked and all_you_wanted demanded that I do it.
Each day is like the one before, each day and night similar since that night three weeks ago. Her daily events differ, true, but the air remains the same, the nights remain the same. What she feels doesn’t change.
When Chloe is in Smallville, life is quiet, somber, like someone has died, only that isn’t the case. The someone in question merely left, ran away like countless teenagers before. Her dad tiptoes around her and around Lana, unsure of how to speak to either of them. Lana works insane hours, and stays in her bedroom when at home. They’ve perfected the avoidance dance since summer started. Mr. and Mrs. Kent, when seen, are pale and surrounded by sadness. It clings to them, evident even when she sees them from afar.
All because of Clark, all because he ran away.
What no one knows is that she knows where he is, has known for the past three weeks. And in those three weeks nothing has changed.
She found him on a muggy Monday night in early July. Although the word found doesn’t describe the situation accurately. Found implies a search, and she hadn’t been searching for Clark.
Yet she found him all the same, found him in a club in downtown Metropolis.
The night is etched into her memory. She can recall the details without a problem. The memory has yet to become blurred by the passage of time, and given how often she revisits this memory, she wonders if the memory will become like most of her memories, dulled and difficult to grasp, or if it’ll be like the few memories she has that are vivid still. The memory of being buried alive as it got harder to breathe, the memory of the first morning after her mother left, the memory of Clark and Lana kissing in the barn loft: these memories are crystal clear.
Her friends snuck her into Atlantis that night she found Clark, a club at the height of its popularity. The club was crowded, bodies pressed tight on the dance floor, all the tables occupied. The air was humid, stale.
Images form in her mind, behind her closed eyes. She lies on her bed, her back resting on top of her striped duvet. The air is her bedroom is warm, but not humid and stale like in Atlantis. It’s a summer night, warm. She can recall how it smelled in the club, the smell of stale air and alcohol and sweat, a sour smell. Her room smells nothing like that.
Her friends had dragged her out onto the dance floor. People were pressed up against her. Rarely was a body not in contact with other body on that dance floor. The pace was frantic, the mood hypnotic. She felt dazed on the dance floor, not in control of her own body as a male stranger pressed his body tight against hers. She remembers how she danced, how she let herself give into the mood of the club. The spell of the club, she had given into, had wanted to. She had been looking for an escape.
The club, in the end, didn’t provide that. Reality was brought back to her.
It was when she was on the dance floor that Clark entered the club. She remembers how she blinked when she saw him, her body stilling for a moment before she resumed dancing, her dance partner’s hands on her hips encouraging her. Disbelief had rushed through her at the sight of him far from where she had imagined him. Instead of his usual jeans and plaid, he wore all black. His hair was longer, messier. She stayed on the dance floor, but watched him as he made out with a tall brunette dressed in a slinky black dress. She continued watching as the woman hastily walked away. As Clark headed for the exit, she broke away from dance floor.
“I have to go,” she mumbled. She doubted even the man dancing with her or her friends heard her.
Outside the air was still muggy and felt almost heavier than it had earlier in the evening. Her eyes scanned the vicinity, finally finding Clark climbing onto a motorcycle. By a stroke of sheer luck, her car was parked only a block down the street. She rushed to it, climbing in and sticking the key into the ignition. She followed him until he pulled into the parking lot of a swanky downtown apartment complex. The exact price she didn’t know, but she knew these apartments were expensive.
She turned into the parking lot, making a decision even now Chloe isn’t sure whether to regret or not. When she pulled into the parking lot, she discovered Clark had climbed off the motorcycle and was glaring at her as her slowly made its way into the parking lot.
His arms crossed, Clark waited until she cut the engine and clambered out of the car before launching into her. She did think about turning the car around and just leaving, but the way he was looking at her made her stop the car and get out. It was an angry look, a hard look. He didn’t look like the boy she remembered.
“Why did you follow me?” he demanded once she was out in the open air. His eyes flashed in the darkness, a flash of red. She told herself it was a trick of light, the result of the moon ahead and the bright lights of the apartment building.
“I wanted to see if it was you.” She was proud that her voice didn’t warble. She wouldn’t show how much it hurt to hear him speaking in harsh tones to her.
Clark closed the distance between them, his hands grabbing her arms and holding her close to his body. “You’re never to come here again,” he said in a low, dark voice. He shook her to make his point.
She can still remember how tightly he gripped her upper arms. For over a week bruises had littered her skin, forcing her to wear shirts with short and quarter-length sleeves despite the heat. The bruises were purple at first, turning into a mottled green-yellow after a few days.
“Clark-”
He cut her off, not wanting to hear her words. “If you tell anyone where I am, I will go so far from here that no one will find me. Do you understand?”
Numbly she nodded.
He released her, and she stumbled back a few footsteps. “Get lost.”
The undercurrent of a threat in his voice propelled her to leave. She remembers with shame how quickly she left. She hadn’t even tried to talk him into returning to Smallville, although she told herself on the drive home that he would return. As she passed the Welcome To Smallville sign she managed to convince herself that Clark would return without her telling him too.
It’s been three weeks since that night. Three weeks and the memory remains, taunting her each night.
She tells herself to forget about that night, to forget about Clark. Pining over Clark has just caused her misery and she needs to forget and move on.
If only things were that simple.
Despite her vows not to think of him, she does. Each night her memories play, as if her mind is a film projector. The memories play and she remembers. She remembers the past, when Clark was just a simple boy living with his parents on a father. She remembers the night she found him in Metropolis, when he was clad in black and his behavior was miles from what she remembered. In Metropolis that night he hadn’t been the sweet farm boy she had fallen in love with. He had been someone else, someone who wore a leather jacket, who spoke in low, dark tones, who was surrounded by shadows.
Her thoughts drift now from memories to the image of Clark dressed in black, to the way he had kissed the girl she had spotted him with. The evening always progresses like this, and she groans, trying to banish the image of him at Atlantis. It doesn’t work; the image continues to play over and over again in her mind. She can’t escape that image, nor can she escape what she feels, the emotions she has despite her desire not to feel these things.
Sighing softly, Chloe lets her right hand fall down her body. Her legs part, spreading wide as her hand slips beneath her lightweight blue nightgown, beneath her white panties.
Now the fantasy erupts in her mind. Behind her closed eyes she sees the black-clad Clark from Atlantis pull her close in the parking lot of his apartment building. His kisses her as her fingers circle her clit, as her fingers press lightly against that bundle of nerves. She had kissed Clark before, but she doubted the Clark from Atlantis kissed like he used to. In her fantasy his mouth against hers is hard and demanding. As her fingers start to move faster, the fantasy morphs and she’s beneath him and he’s thrusting into her in a non-descript room. In her mind it’s far better than the time she had sex with Jimmy Olsen, her first time, Jimmy’s first time, sex that lasted barely a minute. She hadn’t come.
In her fantasy, Clark isn’t a virgin. The way he had kissed that girl at Atlantis suggested he wasn’t so pure anymore. That has a seductive appeal to her now. She’s far from pure herself. She has her own darkness, and she suspects that is why the image of Clark at Atlantis keeps returning to her, why it appeals to her when bad boys never had before.
In her fantasy she comes, clutching around the hardness buried deep in her. Fantasy collides with reality as she comes on her bed, although she’s alone and it’s her fingers that brought her to the desired orgasm.
She lays sprawled on the bed, breathing deeply. Finally her mind is clear, the images of Clark at the club have stopped, chased away. Her eyes open, taking in her darkened bedroom. It’s long past twilight and she has all the lights turned off. Shadows dance in the corners of the room along with ghosts, reminders of what her life is currently, of who she is now, of the decisions she’s made.
Chloe remembers a time when her life was marginally simpler. A time when she hadn’t made a deal with Lionel Luthor, a time when she wasn’t hiding the truth about Clark’s whereabouts. But she has made her choices, has made her bed, and now she’ll lay in it.
Her eyes fall shut again. Tears of shame, of regret leak from her eyes. She lets them fall, doesn’t wipe them away. In her darkened bedroom she doesn’t need to hide from the harsh painful truth. Here she doesn’t need to lie, here she is honest with herself.
Like each night for the past three weeks she cries herself to sleep.
Sleep consumes her and drags her into the darkness. She welcomes this darkness, this oblivion.
She sleeps.
End.
As usual, comments are adored.
a/n: this is based on a drabble I wrote that I expanded because shop_gal08 asked and all_you_wanted demanded that I do it.
Each day is like the one before, each day and night similar since that night three weeks ago. Her daily events differ, true, but the air remains the same, the nights remain the same. What she feels doesn’t change.
When Chloe is in Smallville, life is quiet, somber, like someone has died, only that isn’t the case. The someone in question merely left, ran away like countless teenagers before. Her dad tiptoes around her and around Lana, unsure of how to speak to either of them. Lana works insane hours, and stays in her bedroom when at home. They’ve perfected the avoidance dance since summer started. Mr. and Mrs. Kent, when seen, are pale and surrounded by sadness. It clings to them, evident even when she sees them from afar.
All because of Clark, all because he ran away.
What no one knows is that she knows where he is, has known for the past three weeks. And in those three weeks nothing has changed.
She found him on a muggy Monday night in early July. Although the word found doesn’t describe the situation accurately. Found implies a search, and she hadn’t been searching for Clark.
Yet she found him all the same, found him in a club in downtown Metropolis.
The night is etched into her memory. She can recall the details without a problem. The memory has yet to become blurred by the passage of time, and given how often she revisits this memory, she wonders if the memory will become like most of her memories, dulled and difficult to grasp, or if it’ll be like the few memories she has that are vivid still. The memory of being buried alive as it got harder to breathe, the memory of the first morning after her mother left, the memory of Clark and Lana kissing in the barn loft: these memories are crystal clear.
Her friends snuck her into Atlantis that night she found Clark, a club at the height of its popularity. The club was crowded, bodies pressed tight on the dance floor, all the tables occupied. The air was humid, stale.
Images form in her mind, behind her closed eyes. She lies on her bed, her back resting on top of her striped duvet. The air is her bedroom is warm, but not humid and stale like in Atlantis. It’s a summer night, warm. She can recall how it smelled in the club, the smell of stale air and alcohol and sweat, a sour smell. Her room smells nothing like that.
Her friends had dragged her out onto the dance floor. People were pressed up against her. Rarely was a body not in contact with other body on that dance floor. The pace was frantic, the mood hypnotic. She felt dazed on the dance floor, not in control of her own body as a male stranger pressed his body tight against hers. She remembers how she danced, how she let herself give into the mood of the club. The spell of the club, she had given into, had wanted to. She had been looking for an escape.
The club, in the end, didn’t provide that. Reality was brought back to her.
It was when she was on the dance floor that Clark entered the club. She remembers how she blinked when she saw him, her body stilling for a moment before she resumed dancing, her dance partner’s hands on her hips encouraging her. Disbelief had rushed through her at the sight of him far from where she had imagined him. Instead of his usual jeans and plaid, he wore all black. His hair was longer, messier. She stayed on the dance floor, but watched him as he made out with a tall brunette dressed in a slinky black dress. She continued watching as the woman hastily walked away. As Clark headed for the exit, she broke away from dance floor.
“I have to go,” she mumbled. She doubted even the man dancing with her or her friends heard her.
Outside the air was still muggy and felt almost heavier than it had earlier in the evening. Her eyes scanned the vicinity, finally finding Clark climbing onto a motorcycle. By a stroke of sheer luck, her car was parked only a block down the street. She rushed to it, climbing in and sticking the key into the ignition. She followed him until he pulled into the parking lot of a swanky downtown apartment complex. The exact price she didn’t know, but she knew these apartments were expensive.
She turned into the parking lot, making a decision even now Chloe isn’t sure whether to regret or not. When she pulled into the parking lot, she discovered Clark had climbed off the motorcycle and was glaring at her as her slowly made its way into the parking lot.
His arms crossed, Clark waited until she cut the engine and clambered out of the car before launching into her. She did think about turning the car around and just leaving, but the way he was looking at her made her stop the car and get out. It was an angry look, a hard look. He didn’t look like the boy she remembered.
“Why did you follow me?” he demanded once she was out in the open air. His eyes flashed in the darkness, a flash of red. She told herself it was a trick of light, the result of the moon ahead and the bright lights of the apartment building.
“I wanted to see if it was you.” She was proud that her voice didn’t warble. She wouldn’t show how much it hurt to hear him speaking in harsh tones to her.
Clark closed the distance between them, his hands grabbing her arms and holding her close to his body. “You’re never to come here again,” he said in a low, dark voice. He shook her to make his point.
She can still remember how tightly he gripped her upper arms. For over a week bruises had littered her skin, forcing her to wear shirts with short and quarter-length sleeves despite the heat. The bruises were purple at first, turning into a mottled green-yellow after a few days.
“Clark-”
He cut her off, not wanting to hear her words. “If you tell anyone where I am, I will go so far from here that no one will find me. Do you understand?”
Numbly she nodded.
He released her, and she stumbled back a few footsteps. “Get lost.”
The undercurrent of a threat in his voice propelled her to leave. She remembers with shame how quickly she left. She hadn’t even tried to talk him into returning to Smallville, although she told herself on the drive home that he would return. As she passed the Welcome To Smallville sign she managed to convince herself that Clark would return without her telling him too.
It’s been three weeks since that night. Three weeks and the memory remains, taunting her each night.
She tells herself to forget about that night, to forget about Clark. Pining over Clark has just caused her misery and she needs to forget and move on.
If only things were that simple.
Despite her vows not to think of him, she does. Each night her memories play, as if her mind is a film projector. The memories play and she remembers. She remembers the past, when Clark was just a simple boy living with his parents on a father. She remembers the night she found him in Metropolis, when he was clad in black and his behavior was miles from what she remembered. In Metropolis that night he hadn’t been the sweet farm boy she had fallen in love with. He had been someone else, someone who wore a leather jacket, who spoke in low, dark tones, who was surrounded by shadows.
Her thoughts drift now from memories to the image of Clark dressed in black, to the way he had kissed the girl she had spotted him with. The evening always progresses like this, and she groans, trying to banish the image of him at Atlantis. It doesn’t work; the image continues to play over and over again in her mind. She can’t escape that image, nor can she escape what she feels, the emotions she has despite her desire not to feel these things.
Sighing softly, Chloe lets her right hand fall down her body. Her legs part, spreading wide as her hand slips beneath her lightweight blue nightgown, beneath her white panties.
Now the fantasy erupts in her mind. Behind her closed eyes she sees the black-clad Clark from Atlantis pull her close in the parking lot of his apartment building. His kisses her as her fingers circle her clit, as her fingers press lightly against that bundle of nerves. She had kissed Clark before, but she doubted the Clark from Atlantis kissed like he used to. In her fantasy his mouth against hers is hard and demanding. As her fingers start to move faster, the fantasy morphs and she’s beneath him and he’s thrusting into her in a non-descript room. In her mind it’s far better than the time she had sex with Jimmy Olsen, her first time, Jimmy’s first time, sex that lasted barely a minute. She hadn’t come.
In her fantasy, Clark isn’t a virgin. The way he had kissed that girl at Atlantis suggested he wasn’t so pure anymore. That has a seductive appeal to her now. She’s far from pure herself. She has her own darkness, and she suspects that is why the image of Clark at Atlantis keeps returning to her, why it appeals to her when bad boys never had before.
In her fantasy she comes, clutching around the hardness buried deep in her. Fantasy collides with reality as she comes on her bed, although she’s alone and it’s her fingers that brought her to the desired orgasm.
She lays sprawled on the bed, breathing deeply. Finally her mind is clear, the images of Clark at the club have stopped, chased away. Her eyes open, taking in her darkened bedroom. It’s long past twilight and she has all the lights turned off. Shadows dance in the corners of the room along with ghosts, reminders of what her life is currently, of who she is now, of the decisions she’s made.
Chloe remembers a time when her life was marginally simpler. A time when she hadn’t made a deal with Lionel Luthor, a time when she wasn’t hiding the truth about Clark’s whereabouts. But she has made her choices, has made her bed, and now she’ll lay in it.
Her eyes fall shut again. Tears of shame, of regret leak from her eyes. She lets them fall, doesn’t wipe them away. In her darkened bedroom she doesn’t need to hide from the harsh painful truth. Here she doesn’t need to lie, here she is honest with herself.
Like each night for the past three weeks she cries herself to sleep.
Sleep consumes her and drags her into the darkness. She welcomes this darkness, this oblivion.
She sleeps.
End.
As usual, comments are adored.