The Bittersweet Ballad of Pete Ross ~Chapter Seven~
Title: The Bittersweet Ballad of Pete Ross
Author: The Satyr Icon
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Set in Icon AU; Freshman Year
Classification: Smallville; Chloe/Clark; Pete Ross; het_fic
Disclaimer: All characters, references, and other things pertaining to 'Smallville' are property of the WB, DC Comics, Tollin-Robins, Al Gough & Miles Millar, and J. Siegal & J. Shuster; I am just writing for fun, and if I owned them, all would be good and clean in the World.
Summary: Pete and Clark go camping, but why is Chloe coming along? and why does that infuriate Pete?
Word Count: 46,164
Written: Start: Plot: December 2004 Actually Writing: July 2006 Finished: August 2007
Chapter Six
http://the-satyr-icon.livejournal.com/77079.html
~The Bittersweet Ballad of Pete Ross~
~CHAPTER SEVEN~
The young teens had dressed alike for the most part, with all three of them in denim jeans (Chloe wore a pair of very snug black Levi's that she had hoped Clark would notice, which he did with every single one of her steps; he was broken-in, chore-stained, faded-blue Levi 501's that he liked to wear when he wasn't in school, and one Chloe liked to see him wear, too, and finally, on Pete, old periwinkle blue Tuff-Skins that he hadn't outgrown since his mother got the pants a few sizes too big when he was ten year old, and wore every single time he went camping) and cotton tee shirts (Chloe was in a red one with a cute yellow appliquéd "S" on the chest; Clark wore a blue tee that was tight, around the chest, shoulders and at his biceps, and Pete was in a yellow shirt that had a side-pocket on the chest).
But the shortest of the group had on his favorite black windbreaker (there was no way Pete would take his Letterman's jacket on a camping trip), and the other two had thick flannels on, complementing flannels no less, to Pete's annoyance; she was in red checkers, and he was in blue stripes. Only he had sneakers on, tinged green from mowing the lawn, while Clark and Chloe were wearing their boots; the perky blond in her usual black leather, size six, steel-toe Doc Martins, and Clark in his work-worn size 14 Wolverines. Chloe and Pete did have something in common: now Chloe had her floppy hat on and Pete had on a Metropolis Knights baseball team cap covering his closely clipped hair. Clark went without anything on his head.
It was good that they had dressed that way since the morning was windy. They didn't mind it too much, having suffered through rain and snow and harsh winds waiting for the school bus at the pick-up/drop-off site, which was at the end of Clark's driveway (really a gravel path). But the sky was a gorgeous azure and so sunny. Like the butterflies that played with Clark and Chloe, all the colors surrounding them as they walked along seemed crisper, more vibrant than usual. The blades of the grass were verdant spears, the clumps of dirt all sorts of shades of brown. Only thing that was dark was Pete's mood. He already told them not to kiss or hug or not call each other 'Honey', 'Lover' or anything like that. They got mad, but Pete said that he couldn't let them. The parents had made him the watchdog, so nothing could scandalous would happen on the trip. They didn't like it, and he said neither did he; he wanted to camp, not keep an eye on these two. And it had annoyed him that he wasn't enjoying the early morning like Chloe and Clark; he walked fast, or as fast as he could with all his camping gear.
"What's the rush, Petey?" Chloe said, voice ragged, beside her friend. She was taking quick strides, and it sucked; she was already feeling tired from carrying her pack. Chloe turned her torso at Clark and scrunched her nose, who tried to shrug his shoulders but it was precarious since he was carrying so much stuff. His strides were normal. "If I knew we were going to run, not hike - -" she started to snark, " - - I would have worn my gym shoes, and not my boots." She grinned, heard Clark chuckle at the remark, but her words had no effect on Pete.
"I just wanna get to the camp site, Chloe," he said back, not looking at her, his brown eyes on the far-away tree-line. "Just wanna set things up." He said. He didn't want to slow down, but he was feeling some burning sensations in his own thighs. The weight he was carrying, sneakers, the soft ground, and worse, the slight incline they were marching on, was making it hard on him. He just hoped it was hard on his friends, too. He huffed, "We lost maybe an hour, with your bathroom break and you two playing in the field."
"Oh," Chloe said, not knowing that she had slowed down the trip that much. She slowed her pace and gave a pout to Clark. "How far is it?"
A wicked grin appeared on Pete's face. "A few miles."
"There's no way I can make it at the rate we're going," Chloe fussed and looked over at Clark. It annoyed her that he didn't look like he was straining with how fast Pete was going. She pressed her lips together, squinted and nodded her head at Pete. She only did it five times before Clark realized that she wanted him to speak up.
"Bro," Clark said, using the word that he hoped would get to Pete. "She's got a point. I'm carrying a lot of stuff. I'm dying." He let out a fake grown.
Pete turned. "Then how come you're not sweating?"
"He doesn't need to sweat," Chloe said, before she realized it. Her fingers came up to her lips, but the words were already gone.
"He doesn't?" Pete actually stopped.
"Clark...was sweating...I saw it," she said, trying to cover up for Clark's alien physiology; even though he had pores in his skin, he didn't sweat. Clark's body condensed. "It's so breezy now...it's all dried up." She turned to her boyfriend, and she gave him a panicky look.
Pete looked at her suspiciously. "You're sweating, Chloe."
"I'm glistening with a fervor that's making me feel squicky, thank you very much," Chloe zinged back.
"So winded...so very, very winded - - " Clark bellowed, pretended to tire, "- - and legs... so very, very rubbery..." Just then, he let go of the small ice chest, let Chloe's knapsack slide down his arm to the ground by the ice chest, and he dropped to his knees. She winced, worried about her knapsack but understood the ruse; she knew nothing but meteor rocks could hurt her boyfriend.
"Oh no! Poor, poor Clark! You look so tired and have such dry skin," Chloe lied as badly as Clark faked. It was no wonder that one their electives was journalism, being on the high school paper's staff (in Chloe's case, the youngest editor-in-chief ever) and not drama, performing with the "Not Ready For Metropolis This Time Players." She went to him, made sure her back was to Pete so her friend couldn't see, and mouthed 'sorry' to Clark.
His eyes flashed wide, while he mouthed back, 'thanks'. She touched the skin on his forehead; it was dry, soft, and smooth. She dumped her backpack, and sat by him, hating the feel of wetness on her butt from the remnants of morning dew, but she kept quiet; she caused enough trouble.
"Break time, I guess," Pete sighed. He reached for the water bottle in a side pocket of his backpack, and Chloe and Clark did the same thing; he grabbed his bottle from the side of his pack while she grinned mischievously, reached into her knapsack and showed him her bottle. She then showed them the small medical kit that was in the sack, filled with alcohol swabs, first-aid cream,and band-aids in the kit, just in case she or Pete got hurt. She quickly added Clark, too, and showed off her dad's compass, which was just a plastic model he got as a cereal give-away. The boys laughed at it, and she frowned because she didn't notice that it was a novelty when her father handed it to her. They all drank and rested up.
"So," Chloe said after their five minute break, checking the compass's reading (the curly-cue arrow was pointed towards "Chocolate Goodness Land" and she now felt really silly), "where's the map?"
"No need for a map," Clark said, loaded back up, and started to walk. Chloe followed after him.
"We've been going to the same places for years," Pete said, walking slower. "We have the routes almost memorized."
"Almost," Chloe teased.
Pete wasn't in the mood to be teased. "We're still by the house, Chloe...if you don't trust us..."
"I trust you guys! Geeze!" Chloe looked him with her mouth open. "I just thought you guys had a map, that's all. Sheesh!"
"Hey, guys, it's such a a nice day," Clark said, not liking that Pete was picking on his girl. "Lets just have fun, let's enjoy it. "
"I'm all for that," Chloe grunted. 'But getting my head chewed off isn't fun', she thought.
"We'll have fun will be at the camp site," Pete huffed, pumping his knees higher as they all went up a hill. He sort of felt bad for jumping on Chloe like that. "Clark knows the hike is work."
"Okay," Chloe said, making a face at Clark. She thought of the stuff she could have been doing this Satyrday morning: maybe sleeping-in for starters. Then she'd grab her phone, hit the top number on her speed-dial, Clark's number, get invited over for brunch by him and after that, off they would go to hang out at the Talon, catch a matinée movie there, or go to the library (she loved that Clark liked to go, and loved that he would pay her late book fines, too), or just do something, just to be with him. Alone. Maybe go back to her place, go into the den or to his Loft. Make out for a while. A long while. And if Pete kept treating her like he was doing, she wouldn't mind keeping Clark to herself and not share anymore.
After a few more yards of Pete leading the hike, or as Chloe called their group, the Blair Witch Rejects (she thought it was hilarious, Clark laughed, and Pete grinned for posterity), Clark moved to the front of the pack. Chloe walked beside him and he led them over the hill, down into the grassy cow pasture, dodging cow pies and the stinky cow smells, and back up the rise into the forest. Despite all the things he carried, Clark easily moved through the rugged terrain, and, like she said she would, Chloe gamely kept up. She wasn't forcing herself at all. It was more like being compelled to follow him. If Clark could take her advice, she could certainly trek behind him; plus, she grinned, she got a nice view of his butt.
Clark led them, because...it was now assumed by Chloe and Pete that he would do it. He had had a stature about him that didn't have anything to do with his height. He had a gravitas around him, a presence that naturally radiated from him. He was a leader, certainly the leader of this group, even when Lana Lang and Whitney Fordman, leaders of their own high school cliques (the Jocks and the Preps), were with them. The best part of Clark's leadership skills was that he didn't really know he was doing it. He lead, unconsciously. Chloe followed him without hesitation. And Pete? He couldn't help but follow his friend. It was a paradigm shift; Pete was the unquestioned leader when it was just him and Clark, before 8th grade, before Chloe and Lex came to town. Now...it wasn't the case. Even the talk was strained; he didn't want to really hear about Chloe and Clark hanging at at the Grandville mall, and he didn't want to share that he and Felice were there, too.
Ever mindful of his girlfriend's physical well-being, Clark stopped every 200 yards or so and they all took a water or juice break, but during the breaks, he had a funny anecdotes for Chloe from his and Pete's camping trips. He told her about the time when he was six years old when he thought that the skeleton of an elk were very small dinosaur bones. Chloe loved it. He also gave her some information about some animals that they spotted (some squirrels or raccoons, and to her delight, a baby fawn in a glade, which Chloe immediately named "Bambi") or about the plants around them (Clark told her about poison ivy and showed her what it looked like, but Chloe didn't really pay attention to him since she was picking flowers for her scrapbook). But Pete noticed that none of the stories included him. Clark didn't do it on purpose, even though he did do things with a purpose, more or less. Pete had never known him not to do something not affecting the big picture.
As they walked, Chloe waved her boyfriend over and whispered rebelliously, "Hey, babe, look." She took a few more steps and hunched down. She looked and saw Clark's eyes dart from her thighs up to her eyes. They shared a secret smile, something Pete couldn't complain about. "No way these bear footprints...right?"
Clark went over and checked the impressions in the packed dirt; they was wider, the heels were deeper in the ground than the by the toes, which were clawed. There were a few of them, but they went deeper into the forest, off their path. "Nope. Not a bear. This thing walked upright. I never encountered anything that had...feet that could make these kind of prints."
"They're huge!" Chloe smiled. She was worried that the camping trip would just just that, nothing but tents and walking. The footprints added that "Wall of Weird" element that she sorely missed, even an hour or two into the trip. "Hmm...I'm gunna take a picture." She raised her camera, focused, and clicked. "I need a size reference... put your big boot by it," she ordered, and Clark complied. He made sure not to crumpled the edge of the print or step into it. "Whoa...The print is way bigger than your boot!"
Clark frowned. "I'm a size fourteen, too."
"It's okay, Clark, I still love you." She took a few more pictures, different angles. "You think these belong to Smallville's answer to Bigfoot?"
"It's called The Shaggy Man."
"Yeah," She went to her knees, and Clark did the same, examining the tracks. "We may have proof of Shaggy. Now, where's Scooby prints?"
Pete looked at Chloe and Clark, kneeling close together, looking at animal tracks, one teaching, one learning, both sharing and laughing; they were The Big Picture, and Pete wasn't in it. "Let's get going to the camp site," he snapped, and started off back on the way to the site. "I don't want to get sidetracked following a forest freak." Chloe shrugged, took one last picture with her digital camera and they followed, caught up and passed Pete. Again.
"I can't help if that footprint was freakin' weird, Petey!" Chloe didn't like that she was arguing so much. She started to go into "Excited By Weirdness Chloe" mode and ramble. "I stayed up last night after going to dinner with Clark, and did some research. I did a quick check on my desktop computer about Bigfoot prints and - - "
Pete cut her off. "It's a vacation. Give it a break."
No one, not even her father ever said that to her. Chloe was suddenly light-headed; Clark braced her arm without hesitation. "I thought you'd be happy I looking into it! It could be a huge story if we - -"
"You don't hunt down The Shaggy Man," Pete said, softening his tone, mostly because he saw Clark's glare. "You'll never find it that way. You have to discover it, stumble upon it, not look for it. Chloe, you don't expect the biggest story of your life fall in your lap, do you?"
Her eyes met Clark's own, the colors of the irises the same shade of green, his a bit brighter, hers a bit softer. That wasn't the only coincidence; Clark told Chloe that he was an alien being, not meteor freak like she privately thought, a few months earlier, when they were on a date. Clark didn't plan on telling her right then, but that day, Destiny and Fate decided that the time was right, however: While Chloe drove her car, one of the front wheels dug into a rut, and her father's car flipped. But just for a few seconds: Clark used his amazing quickness to jump out the window and, with his phenomenal strength, caught the vehicle in mid-air. After that display of power and ability, he couldn't help but tell her everything, what he knew of his origin, of his arrival to Smallville during the meteors shower. He loved her so much but was scared, scared that she'd reject him now, or write about him. Chloe said she'd protect him, that she loved him, consoled him, with his head on her thighs. By coincidence, sometimes the biggest story of of your life DOES fall in your lap, she thought. But she said, "Err...No, I don't."
"So give it a break, Chloe," Pete said simply. "Twenty-four hours, no investigating."
"I can't." It was hard for Chloe Sullivan to admit that; investigative reporting was her life-blood. "That's a long time."
"Take a break from the twenty-four hour monitor duty." Pete smiled. "I know you have the willpower."
"I might get the shakes," She lamented, and gave her boyfriend a pout. She had been tracking down leads since she could remember.
"I'll help you through your withdrawals," Clark said tenderly, and gently squeezed her hand. He heard her heart flutter then race. He sniffed the air and her body spray was mixing with a tinge of sweat; she still was the sweetest thing that he had ever breathed in.
They leaned in to kiss, but Pete reminded them, "None of that."
"Dang!" Chloe kicked a rock as she pulled away from her boyfriend. "It would have been a quick kiss...just a few minutes," she giggled. Clark blushed. "Okay...I'll give it a try. You two can never say I don't try anything new."
Pete laughed. "You need a hobby."
"I have hobbies," Chloe smiled, and winked at Clark. His skin flushed even more to her delight.
"Clark doesn't count," Pete quipped.
"Oh, you shush!" She laughed and it felt like old times again. They left the area, having missed out on seeing The Shaggy Man leave the foot prints by less than forty minutes. Another mile into the forest, they went up one more tree-filled rise and there was an opening in the tree trunks. Chloe stood at the edge and marveled at seeing the small valley, sliced with a stream. It was a landmark for the boys. They set down their backpacks and grabbed their drinks, and ate some trail mix. "That's so pretty," she gushed and took pictures with her digital camera.
"It's a great view," Pete admitted, and took the pair of binoculars out their case. "I think that's a hawk," he shouted and followed the bird.
"I wanna see!" Chloe tugged at his windbreaker. "C'mon Petey! Share!"
"Okay, okay! Here," he said to her, "check that bird out." Chloe quickly took the binoculars. "Don't get fingerprints all over....ohh man.."
"Sorry." Chloe cleaned off the lenses with her flannel, and followed the hawk with the binoculars, watched it soar on wind current, then dive, and it snagged a field mouse near the stream.
"Oh man," She gasped. "Mickey's toast."
"There's another one!" Pete yelped. He followed it as best he could. He looked up and saw his taller friend squinting up in the sunny sky. "Don't hog them, Chloe. Let Clark use them."
"Ha! Like he needs them with his vision." Chloe kept the binoculars, and found the new bird of prey in the blue skies. "He can see all those feathers from here." Clark coughed, spittle rained from his mouth. She winced and looked at Pete. "I mean..err..."
"I know Clark has 20-20 vision, but he couldn't be able to see the hawk's feathers...what are talking about, Chloe?" Pete looked at her, then at Clark. His friend wiped the spit from his chin and shrugged.
"That's what I meant, Petey" Chloe smiled and jammed the binoculars at Clark. She closed her eyes when he said thanks sharply. "He has 20-20 vision. He has such good eyesight he probably could see all the feathers...ha ha...ha" The last 'ha' was quiet, lifeless, and she plopped down on the dirt. She watched Clark and Pete scan the skies for more hawks, and realized that it if was hard for her to keep quiet about his powers and abilities, maybe that was reason he hadn't told Pete about them yet; it was too easy to mess up and expose him. She felt bad again for nearly blowing Clark's ruse. She needed to change the topic. "Why don't we walk along the stream?"
Pete answered, now looking through the binoculars. He let Chloe handle them all the time but he was still annoyed she was careless with them this one time. "Too many bees and the ground is too muddy."
"Plus, it makes me sick," Clark said, turning and giving her a smile, one that forgave her. Then he mouthed to her, 'I love you', and turned back to Pete. She gasped at the sheer romance of it. Neither boy noticed her flop back onto the dirt and hug herself with a big, gleeful smile.
Chapter Links
Prologue ~ One ~ Two ~ Three ~ Four ~ Five ~ Six ~ Seven ~ Eight ~ Nine ~ Ten ~ Eleven ~ Twelve ~ Thirteen ~ Fourteen ~ Fifteen ~ Sixteen ~ Epilogue
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