Fic: His Girl Friday (8/9)
Fic: His Girl Friday (8/9)
A/N: I didn't realize this, but I had an extra chapter tacked on to the end of this fic labeled, and both it and chapter 8 were labeled 8. So there will be another chapter tomorrow.
Summary: He had to figure out where they stood. Otherwise, they couldn't go forward
Author: pen37
Beta: Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural/DCU
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean, Jo
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: G
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Written for the Crossovers100 challenge. Prompt #58 Dinner. The table is here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9a, Part 9b
As promised, the date started with a tour of the Newsroom. Chloe showed him around the building, making sure to point out the tiffany lamps and windows, which department was situated where, and introduce him to most of the staff. Then, she took him up to the roof so that he could see the spinning globe, and the rest of Metropolis. From their vantage point, they could see the harbor stretching out in the distance.
Next, she took him down to the basement, where a three-story printing press was spitting out hundreds of copies of tomorrows issue by the second.
“This is my favorite part,” she shouted in his ear above the rumble of the paper. “You can’t feel the press rumble up in the newsroom, because it’s so far up. But back when I was a cub reporter working the tip line, Big Bertha would shake the whole room whenever they turned her on.”
She led him past the barrier that kept gawkers back and safely protected. Dean kind of liked seeing the press - it was like looking into the combustion engine of the Impala. He was looking at the heart of the beast. Like the Impala, it was a greasy, dirty, oil-slicked mess of machinery. But it was a beauty to behold. One more aspect of the Daily Planet that was whispering a siren call of seduction in his ear.
He glanced at Chloe, and saw by the way her eyes lit up, that this was exciting to her too. Maybe - okay definitely even more so.
“Once the newspaper is sent down here to the printer - we call it putting the paper to bed. Once it’s put to bed, we can’t go back and fix anything. It’s expensive. You shut down Bertha for any reason, and it costs the paper millions of dollars.”
She pointed to a button on the wall. “That’s one of the emergency shut off buttons - in case anyone gets stuck in the machinery or something. I got to come down here and shut Bertha down once, though.” She gave him a geeky grin.
“That was back when they were going to execute Syl Thomlinson for the murder of his whole family. Lois and I were working together and we found the evidence that he was innocent. Superman took it straight to the governor - secured a full pardon.
“Perry called up Mr. Wayne himself to get permission to stop the press. And when he got it, I was down here standing by. I got to run in here - screaming stop the press. Just like in the old movies.”
“You are such a newspaper fangirl,” Dean shook his head.
“Most people who work here are,” Chloe grinned. “It helps to be a little crazy.”
She led him back out to the lobby, and over to a large display case where all the awards were arranged next to the articles and photos that had won them. He picked out her story and looked at the Pulitzer next to it.
“That’s it?” He stared at the little gold medal.
“Told you,” Chloe said.
With a shake of his head, he stood and offered her his arm. “Man, what a letdown.”
“I was just happy to win.” Chloe said as she let him steer her out the front of the building, and down the street to the Impala. “That was one of those things I’d been dreaming about since I was a kid.”
“What do you dream about now?”
“The same things I dreamed about then: making the world a better place. You don’t set out to win things like that. They happen while you’re trying to do more noble things. One day you’re trying to tell the world that the guy who can breathe underwater is actually a pacifist vegan super hero - the next, they’re giving you a Pulitzer for it.”
“Maybe they should give you a Nobel prize.”
“I don’t think that’s why they call it that.” She stopped abruptly as they came in sight of the Impala.
“What?” Dean looked at her in confusion.
“Wow! You did shine her up!” She looked flattered.
“Of course,” Dean nodded as if it only made sense. He escorted her up to the passenger side, and opened the door for her. Chloe gave him a bemused grin before climbing in.
Dean rounded the corner of the car, and sat behind the wheel with a grin at Chloe. “By the way - Look in the glove box.”
Chloe gave him an unsure look, before tentatively opening the glove box. She reached in, pulled out his cigar-box of fake IDs and gave him a curious look.
“Open it,” he said.
She opened the box, and flipped through his ids until her fingers encountered the hidden present that he’d left for her. She pulled it out, and judging by her expression, Dean knew he had done well with the little black fountain pen.
He’d found it Salvation Army thrift store after his conversation with Sam earlier. Looking in old junk stores was a habit he’d picked up from years of hunting with Dad. You could always find old silver there - mismatched forks, picture frames, and wedding goblets and stuff like that. Things that you could melt down for bullets. And you could always argue about the price.
Plus, the mindless browsing gave him something to do while he thought about Sam’s words: Get her flowers. Take her somewhere nice. Avoid making suggestive comments.
He had no idea how he was going to do any of that. Money had been tight lately. Between being injured, and the hurry to get first to Lawrence and now to Smallville, he hadn’t exactly had the chance to case out a bar and hustle up some quick cash. And he was reluctant to use the credit cards too often. It was almost time to score a few new ones. At this point, he needed to use the ones he had sparingly - so that he didn’t send up any red flags.
With a sigh, he realized that he’d probably not thought this date thing out very well. Then his eyes fell on the pen. It was elegant - in an old fashioned way. Black, with little golden flowers printed on it. And he could probably get it for pocket change.
Now, judging by Chloe’s reaction - he’d probably practically stolen it.
Chloe examined it with eyes -widened in genuine appreciation. “Where did you -“
“Sam said to get you flowers,” he said in order to avoid even mentioning that he cruised junk shops in his spare time. “I thought - you might like this more.”
She uncapped the pen and tested the nib on one of her notebooks experimentally.
“This is - amazing,” Chloe said.
Dean was about to comment that he thought she was amazing, when her phone rang.
She looked from the phone to Dean with the unspoken question on her face.
“Better get that,” Dean said with a sigh.
“You sure?”
“If it’s a saving-the-world-thing, they better not expect you to leave me behind,” Dean said.
“Promise,” Chloe smiled at him. She flipped open the phone, and held it up to her ear. “Yeah? Mrs. Kent? . . . What’s wrong? . . . Where’s Clark? . . . Hang on.”
She held the phone away from her ear and looked over at Dean apologetically. “I hate to even suggest this, but do you want to take a rain check on dinner and go see Smallville instead? The tenants on the Kent farm have been complaining about some kind of mutated bear out in the woods. Clark is on assignment in Europe right now --”
“And so she calls you?”
“Clark and I have been dealing with meteor-weirdness for a while now.” Chloe shrugged. “We’ve gotten pretty good at it. When we're done, we could stop by the Talon for coffee and pie.”
Dean weighed his options. Spend the night in a stuffy restaurant eating weird food with unpronounceable names, or go hunt something with a hot chick and get a pie in the bargain? The gods of rock were obviously smiling on him tonight.
“I suppose we could take a rain check,” Dean sighed.
“Right.” Chloe drew the word out to show that she didn’t believe his crocodile tears.
“We’ll need some of the lead bullets from the trunk,” he changed the subject ungracefully, “and a change of clothes.”
“I always keep a spare set with me,” Chloe’s good humor was still there.
“Me too,” Dean said. He was glad to be doing something fun with her instead.