Fic: The Reason Why
Title: The Reason Why
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clex, Chollie
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Word count: 1269
Summary: Chloe is going to figure this one out (and then really wish she hadn't).
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit
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“That’s not why you do it?” Chloe asks incredulously, turning away from the Watchtower computer to look at Clark. “Because that’s what everybody was assuming.”
“Well, then everybody,” Clark says, voice dripping with disdain, “is wrong.” Clark really has an unreasonable amount of contempt for “everybody” for a superhero, but then if everybody had been convinced that her boyfriend was an amoral megalomaniac even before he, you know, started trying to convince them all that he was an amoral megalomaniac, then Chloe might feel a bit contemptuous too.
“Yes, yes,” Chloe responds flippantly. “All people are sheep with minds easily lead astray, and you only save them out of the goodness of your big alien heart.”
“Damn straight,” Clark agrees, but he can’t hide his grin. “Seriously though, that’s not why we do it.”
Chloe eyes him suspiciously. Clark hasn’t, against all odds, ever really gotten all that much better at lying, and it certainly seems like he’s telling the truth, but… “Wait a second, wasn’t Lex the one who gave you that tip about the smuggling ring last week?”
“I never said we didn’t take advantage,” Clark corrects her. “Do have any idea how easily people open up to Lex about all sorts of crazy illegal things just because they think he’s Superman’s enemy?” Clark rolls his eyes and Chloe thinks it’s a good thing that she and Lois (and Bruce and Oliver) are around to keep his ass in line, because otherwise Clark might not have any respect for normal humans at all. “It’d be stupid of us not to take advantage of that, but that doesn’t mean it’s why we do it.”
Chloe nods, because if anyone can be trusted to reap every last benefit, even the unintended ones, from a situation, it’s Lex.
“So if it’s not that, then why do you guys play at being enemies?” Chloe asks because, and on this she, Lex, and Bruce are in agreement, there’s no such thing as too much information.
“You really don’t want to know,” Clarks says, smirking at her. Chloe is pretty sure that he learned that expression from Lex.
She glowers at him, trying out an expression that she’s stealing from Bruce. It has no effect on Clark’s smirk, but Chloe’s not sure if that’s because she’s doing it wrong, or because Bruce uses it on him so much, he’s immune now. “Come on Clark, tell me.”
“I am telling you,” he retorts. “I’m telling you that you don’t want to know.”
Wheedling will get her nowhere, Chloe knows. Clark can be the Ft. Knox of secrets when he wants to be. On the other hand, Clark is, as previously noted, a horrible liar. So if Chloe can just guess the reason, then she’ll be able to tell if it’s right or not by his expression.
“Is it to protect your secret identity?” she hazards.
“Protect my secret identity?” Clark echoes in confusion. “Oh! You mean because if Clark and Lex are lovers and Superman and Luthor are arch-nemeses, then Clark and Superman can’t be the same person, even though they look exactly the same and are never in the same place at the same time?”
“Exactly,” Chloe says, stifling a giggle at Clark’s rather creative explanation. It’s good to know that he knows his disguise make no sense.
“No that’s not it either, though, knowing Lex, he was probably planning on also taking advantage of that when we started this.” Clark gives her a sad look and says, “Sheep, Chloe, sheep.”
She smiles and gives him a couple of comforting pats on the arm. “I know Clark. It’s okay.” Then she really does giggle, and then Clark starts laughing, and then neither of them are much good for anything for the next couple of minutes.
Really, it’s good that no emergencies came up just then.
“Okay, okay,” Chloe says when she finally starts to calm down. “So that’s not it. Do you do it to help lighten Superman’s load?” Clark looks at her quizzically, and Chloe tries to explain. “You know, everyone knows that Superman is Luthor’s enemy, so all the smaller criminals don’t even bother to try to take you on out of… I don’t know, fear of him?”
“Would that even work?” Clark says doubtfully. Chloe shrugs. It’s not like she understands the inner workings of the minds of criminals and villains.
She really should have taken that Psych class in college.
“Besides, I’m not really sure Superman should need his boyfriend to protect him,” Clark continues “That sounds backwards.” That might be true, but Clark and Lex are already ten kinds of backwards anyways, so it’s not like Chloe was going to begrudge them one more.
“Not that either, then?” Chloe asks, just to be sure, and Clark nods.
“You’re not going to be able to guess,” Clark tells her. “And, like I said before, you really don’t want to know.”
“Hush Clark, I’m having fun,” Chloe retorts, and Clark makes a show of zipping his lips. “Is it… because it lets Lex have a way to productively channel his inner evil?”
“Chloe!” Clark exclaims, and she feels immediately chastened.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Sometimes my husband’s stupidity rubs off on me,” she tries to explain.
Clark looks at her with wounded puppy-eyes. Chloe gives him her biggest “I’m sorry” pout. It’s a very good thing there’s no one else in the room right now, because they both probably look like idiots.
Clark breaks first. “Fine, I forgive you. I’m telling Oliver off later though.” Chloe grins at him. It’s not quite as blinding as one of Clark’s grins, but it’s still pretty good, she thinks, even if her teeth are kind of small.
Clark phone beeps and he glances as it. “Crap, I need to go.”
“You’re leaving?” Chloe says. She’s whining a bit, but Clark deserves it. He had promised he would keep her company while she pulled Watchtower duty.
“Yeah, I forgot that the weather machine thing with Lex was today. I’ll talk to you tomorrow though.”
“Tomorrow?” she objects. “I’m still here for another five hours. There’s no way the weather machine thing is going to take that long.”
“That part of it isn’t,” Clark agrees, grinning at her wolfishly. Sharkishly? Ravenously? One of those, anyway.
“See you tomorrow,” he says, and just like that he’s gone.
Chloe is still thinking that smile over. She recognizes it, of course. She’s seen it on Oliver too many times not too, though even Clark’s “I’m so going to get laid” grin has something of a puppy in it. The boy is cursed. Or gifted. Or something.
The real question is why Clark would be grinning like that right before going to do one of his little “we’re enemies” games with Lex…
Oh. Oh.
Clark had been right; she really didn’t want to know. It’s not that Chloe is a prude or anything, it’s just that she quite happy with her own sex life, and doesn’t need to think about her friends’, especially Clark and Lex’s. She doesn’t have a problem with the gay thing, but the fact that it’s technically interspecies mating does still squick her out if she thinks about it too much.
So Chloe is going to completely forget this conversation. She’s going to forget that the fake enemies thing is not about Lex having an ear to the criminal underground. She’s going to forget that Clark and Lex are apparently really kinky.
And when she gets home she’s going to run the idea of staging a couple of fake bank robberies by Oliver.
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AN: And a little addendum, because josephina_x just won't stop saying things.
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Chloe gives the fabric one last tug, and then steps back to give Oliver’s whole outfit a critical look-over. She’s not, in general, extremely fashion conscious, but she does know superhero and supervillain costumes backwards and forwards by now.
The clothing is snug, and quite delectably displays all of her husband’s muscles, including, she notes as she circles him, his ass. The facial cover is good too, so that no one who isn’t as intimately familiar with Oliver’s body as she is will be able to recognize him. And most importantly, it’s completely black.
“I still don’t understand why I have to be the villain,” Oliver mutters unhappily.
“Because this was my idea,” Chloe retorts.
“Exactly, it was your idea, so you should have to be the villain,” he says, and Chloe thinks that if he keeps pouting like that it won’t matter anyway, because they won’t make it out of the house.
“Look at it this way,” she tells him, “do you want me running around in skintight black leather?”
“Yes,” Oliver responds immediately, leering a bit at the images she has apparently just evoked.
Chloe sighs and tries to remember a time when she had planned on marrying someone who wasn’t completely hopeless. “Let me rephrase that, do you want me running around in skintight black leather where other people can see me?”
Horror dawns. “Absolutely not.”
“Good,” Chloe replies smugly. “Then you’ll be the villain.”