An Origin Story: 8/23
Author: BlueSuede
Title: An Origin Story
Rating: R/M
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Pairings: Chloe/Oliver
Summary: AU in which Oliver's parents never died
Warnings: minor spoilers for most early seasons
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Prologue
Previous (Chapter 7)
Next (Chapter 9)
Chapter 8:
Far Away Kingdoms Part II: A Gown Fit for a Queen
"What are you wearing?" Lois asked disapprovingly.
"Um, clothes," Chloe rolled her eyes, buttoning her blouse as she looked in the mirror.
"Okay, I was silent when you left for the lunch thing-"
Chloe snorted. Lois had begged her all the way out the door to change.
"-well, I said almost nothing," she dismissed. "That's not the point. You are going to dinner in a classy restaurant with a billionaire and the future surgeon general-"
"He's hardly-"
"Willing to admit that that's his career plan but we both know it is; we're reporters," Lois cut her off, trudging right ahead. "Now, I absolutely refuse to let you go to this dinner looking like that!"
Chloe looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was wearing a capped-sleeved, cream silk, button down blouse with a black pencil skirt and pumps. In her opinion, she looked perfectly fine. "What's wrong with this outfit?" Chloe asked finally, exasperated and knowing she'd end up feeling insecure the entire night if she didn't give up.
"Besides the fact that you look like his secretary? Everything. Tell me, please, oh, please, tell me that you packed a cocktail dress."
Chloe bit her lip. "You think it will be that formal?" When Oliver had told her 'dinner' a few days ago, he hadn't mentioned where the dinner would be. "I'm going to murder him."
"Not before I do," Lois muttered. "Okay. This is an emergency. How much time do you have?"
Chloe checked her watch. She'd gotten ready early so that she could do a draft of an article and work on it until Oliver came to pick her up. "An hour and a half."
Lois groaned. "Well, thank God your hair and makeup is okay. There's a Macy's down the street. We'll call a cab. Plus I have a friend who works there part time who owes me a favor. I'll call her and get her to start pulling things in your size."
Chloe bit her lip, eyeing herself anxiously in the mirror, and Lois raised her eyebrow expectantly.
"Oh fine, let's go," Chloe blurted, grabbing her purse.
"Thank God!"
Chloe smirked as Lois dragged her out the door. "Do I want to know why the woman at Macy's owes you a favor?"
"Nope."
Oliver tapped his pen thoughtfully, scrolling the screen of the computer down. After scanning down a list of all the members of the Metropolis police department, he had started on the list of Daily Planet employees.
He kept going back to Clark Kent's name. He didn't have any real proof that Kent might be the traveller, but he couldn't shake the gut feeling that he might actually be the guy. All the stories Chloe had told him...the fact that the mysterious rescues in the Metropolis area had begun shortly after his arrival there.
He went all the way back to Kent's history in Smallville, and he was shocked by the number of times Kent had ended up on police radar, happened to be at crime scenes, and, more importantly, saved lives.
Of course, there was the matter of his parents...
Oliver glanced at the clock and mentally cursed himself. He was running late.
When he got to Chloe's cousin's apartment, he was expecting Chloe to answer the door for him, instead he got Lois.
"Lois," he greeted smugly.
"Queen," she returned, a hint of disapproval in her tone.
"How are you?"
"Worried about my cousin."
"Oh?" he quirked an eyebrow.
"Yeah. She's been spending all her free time with a strange man she claims she's not dating."
Oliver sighed, noting with impatience that she was still standing in the doorway, blocking his entrance. "Where's Chloe?" he asked, noting that they were already running late.
Lois opened her mouth to respond, no doubt sarcastically, but Chloe's voice prevented her.
"Sorry!" she said, clearly flustered. "You wouldn't believe the time I've had this evening." She shot Lois a significant look, but Lois was too busy smirking to return it.
Oliver's tongue had stuck to the roof of his mouth. Once again he was being forcibly reminded that his best friend was, in fact, female. It was relatively easy to ignore on a daily basis, since neither of them had really thought of each other that way-although he suspected she had never thought of him that way-since the charity ball.
However, at moments like this, it was impossible to think about anything else.
Chloe looked...he struggled in vain to think of a word that was mildly appropriate to describe someone who was only a friend to him. She looked...
Damn sexy, he briefly allowed himself before pushing away the thought.
Clad in a midnight blue halter dress, every curve of her body was thrown into sharp relief. Her back was totally exposed. Her legs were mouthwatering beneath the flowing, half length skirt, not to mention defined by a pair of heels that had to be illegal in most states.
Wow.
"Ollie?" Chloe asked, eyebrows up.
His head snapped back to her face. "Sorry. What?" he asked, throat tight.
"Shouldn't we get going?" she repeated.
"What?" He blinked. "Oh, right, yeah!" He shook himself. Reality. Right. They were late.
...They were late!
"Right, let's go!" he grinned at her, offering an arm. He tossed Lois a charming smile. "Lois," he said by way of farewell.
Lois said nothing, just continued smirking after them triumphantly.
All through dinner, Oliver knew he was behaving abnormally.
Chloe had to notice it, he tried to tell himself. She was bound to ask him about it. What was he going to say when she did?
That he wanted to do very, very bad things to her while she was in that dress, and that she clearly needed to change clothes to solve the matter?
The dress was a problem. It had him doing things he wasn't supposed to be doing. For instance, while it was perfectly normal for his arm to be draped around the back of her chair-a casual, friendly gesture he had executed countless times-it was far from normal for his hand to be resting on her bare back, drawing patterns in her skin with the pad of his thumb.
It was normal for him to zone out while watching her talk. She was such an animated speaker, and tonight she was particularly lively, especially when compared to lunch, and frequently he would get distracted by her facial expressions and lively voice and energetic gestures to the point that he had to ask her to repeat the entire thing. Now, however, while still plenty distracted by the usual things, he also kept watching her lips and the way her eyes were sparkling and her lips and the sound of her laugh and her lips and the way her skin felt beneath his hand and-
"What do you think, Ollie?"
Oliver started. "Beg pardon?"
And so it went. The entire night. He really had to get her out of that dress.
Bad choice of words, he grumbled mentally. I just want her to take the dress off-I mean to not wear it-oh, God, I need help.
It wasn't that he hadn't thought of her that way. Of course he was well aware that she was attractive. That had nothing to do with it. It was just that upon first meeting him, Chloe had been so ready to shoot down even the most innocent of flirtations, he had immediately stopped making those kind of advances toward her in order to make her comfortable. He liked her a lot, and they had fallen into an easy friendship so naturally that it had never occurred to him to return to flirting with her.
Stupid dress. I think it's mocking me.
Dr. and Mrs Garner liked her a lot.
Too much, he thought sourly.
"So when did you two meet?" Mrs. Garner asked at one point, clearly thinking they were in a relationship.
Chloe answered unthinkingly. "I met him outside his father's office flirting with the secretary," she laughed, clearly unaware of the implications of the question.
Mrs. Garner laughed, and the two women exchanged a glance that clearly translated to: Men.
"I bet Laura is just in love with you," she said.
Chloe only blushed. "Well, I certainly think Mrs. Queen is very nice. Both Ollie's parents are wonderful people."
Mrs. Garner nodded approvingly.
"How long have you two been together?" she asked curiously.
At which Chloe looked startled. She giggled at the notion and promptly corrected them, explaining that she and Oliver were only friends, injuring a very small part of Oliver's ego with her total dismissal of the idea.
To which Mrs. Garner looked infinitely surprised, and Dr. Garner threw Oliver a disapproving, What are you waiting for? kind of look. Chloe appeared oblivious.
Oliver thought about explaining that it was all the dress's fault, but he didn't think they'd understand what he was talking about. He settled for attempting to stab the piece of asparagus still lying neglected on his plate.
When they left the restaurant, Oliver automatically took matters into his own hands. "You cold? It's cold. Here."
Before Chloe could say that she wasn't even remotely cold, was actually a bit warm, Oliver had slipped his jacket off and carefully situated it over her shoulders, effectively removing the worst of the dress from his sight. He sighed a deep, inner sigh of relief.
"You all right?" Chloe asked him, an eyebrow raised.
"Me? Fine. What did you think of the Garners?"
She grinned. "I adore them. Definitely the kind of people I would do business with were I the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation," she added jokingly.
"I take it the write up on the good doctor will be a flattering one, then?"
"Definitely." They walked along for a while. Chloe had boycotted taxis sometime around the time she met him for an unknown reason, and she felt awkward having a chauffeur drive them places, so most of the time they walked when they could.
Though how she can walk in those shoes is beyond me, he grimaced, glancing down at her stilettos.
"Ollie? Are you sure you're all right?"
"Why?"
"You were weirdly quiet all during dinner," she noted.
Of course that was what caught her attention. Not the inappropriate staring or even the inappropriate touching she'd been the object of. Just the fact that he hadn't talked much.
He shrugged. "Lot on my mind, I guess." Which was true. Even before the wardrobe fiasco, his mind had been swimming with thoughts of e-mails from his father, the things he had to take care of that weekend, how much he wished he could have brought his Green Arrow gear with him for the weekend without arousing suspicion, and, above all, the traveler and the possibility that he was Chloe's best friend.
Her brow arched when he didn't go into detail, again an unusual action for him, but she didn't press the matter.
"So tomorrow Clark and Lois are taking me to lunch and a movie. Do you want to come?"
His mind reeled. He was encroaching dangerous territory, but he pushed the thought aside. "Yeah, sounds like fun. What are we seeing?"
"There's a new Robin Hood movie with Russel Crowe in it."
Somewhere, I think God is making fun of me, Oliver shook his head.
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Next (Chapter 9)