scifichick774
30th September 2003, 06:51
MODERATOR'S NOTE: Several pages and posts of this thread were compromised or deleted by a hacker's attack, so here's a link to read the full story on a different server
http://www.mediafire.com/view/p5o1gdvvgdl8lck/scifichick774_Used.docx
Title: Used
Author: scifichick774
Rating: R
Category: Dark Angst
Spoilers: Everything through the spoilers for the third season at Kryptonsite is fair game.
Summary: Things rarely go as planned…
Disclaimer: Not mine, no infringement intended, please don’t sue.
Feedback: YES!! REVIEW!! I’m serious. I really need a feedback fix.
Archival: Sure – just let me know where.
Author’s Note: This will not be a long piece, nor is it intended to be. The themes are dark and might be considered sensitive to some readers. That said, enjoy.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The road in front of her disappeared into a dark blur, though she couldn’t say whether it was because of the rain beating against her windshield from the storm she was driving in or the four shots of Irish whiskey she had stolen from the top cabinet where her dad had forgotten he placed it long ago.
Chloe glanced down at the large manila envelope lying on the passenger seat. It was sealed, but had taken some effort to get it that way as the information she found on Clark had been more than she had ever wanted to know. Much more.
She told herself that she could handle his secret, no matter what it was. She could handle him being material for her wall of weird; she could handle the fact that he had treated her so poorly in order to cover it up.
But she hadn’t planned on finding out that he was the source of all of the weirdness – or at least his arrival was.
When she found out, initially she had been overwhelmed with a surprising sense of satisfaction – that there were viable reasons for him acting the way he did, for disregarding her feelings at every turn in the road.
He wasn’t human and he didn’t want to advertise it. He felt threatened by the fact that she was in a position to expose him. She understood that.
Unfortunately, her subsequent reactions were different.
The more she thought about it, the more pained she was that he felt like he couldn’t trust her. Then that turned into the suspicion that he knew that he could trust her and just didn’t want to because she didn’t live up to his image of the ideal woman.
The sad part was that Lana didn’t either, but he always changed the subject when someone pointed that out, even when it was Lana.
Still, Chloe felt certain if Lana showed any sign of being open-minded about aliens existing among them that Clark would tell her his secret in a heartbeat.
That hurt the most.
Chloe had been friends with him since she moved to Smallville in eighth grade - *good* friends.
Lana had been the girl he admired from afar, but they had never even talked beyond saying hello to each other in the hallways before two years ago.
And yet he was perfectly willing to tell *her* everything.
Chloe’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and she pushed her foot down on the gas pedal just a little more.
She had initially agreed to work for Lionel Luthor out of some sense of warped loyalty to Clark; so she could find out what Lionel had on him and try to save him from his own foolish behavior.
Things rarely go as planned.
When she realized she was in too deep and what Lionel really wanted, it was too late for her to back out.
He could threaten her reputation all he wanted, but most of the people in the small town already disliked her simply because she didn’t meet the exacting standards that Lana apparently did, so whatever lies he could come up with would impact her very little.
Chloe didn’t manipulate people’s emotions; she didn’t play the games that Lana excelled at. She was honest and uncalculating.
Or at least she used to be.
Chloe slowly saw her old self slip away, trading a newly regained sense of confidence for an empty feeling in the pit of her soul, a friendship based on lies for the truth and all the suffering that came with it.
She became someone she didn’t want to be and had thought of no way to change it without forcing Lionel’s hand into carrying through on his thinly veiled threats toward her father’s life.
No way until now.
She gunned the car past the unguarded gates to the Luthor estate, the tires squealing to a halt and spinning the car around as she hit the brakes and drenched her car in thick mud brought up from the storm.
Not bothering to grab the umbrella that rested on the back seat of the car, Chloe picked up the manila envelope and slammed the driver’s side door closed, relishing the way the fat drops of ice cold water felt heavy from the sky and drenched her almost immediately.
They wouldn’t wash away her sins, but they served to remind her that she was there with a purpose. Her sins would be taken care of later.
The butler opened the door, frowning down at her small soaked frame.
No words were exchanged between them. None needed to be.
He stepped aside and Chloe moved into the house, not bothering to look back her as she trailed puddles of wetness behind her on the way to the library.
After all, what better place to leave all that knowledge?
She barely took note of the fact that the walls had started to close in around her, or that she seemed to be spinning as she walked, but she did hear a voice come from behind her, startling her enough to make her stop dead in her tracks.
So why was the room still moving?
“I asked you a question.”
Chloe turned around, meeting Lex’s glare head-on.
“Did you?” she asked, her tone snide though her words were beginning to slur together.
“How did you get in here?”
“I’m not digging for secrets if that’s what you’re worried about – at least not yours.”
A sour chuckle escaped Chloe’s throat at Lex’s almost stunned look and then she shook her head in weak amusement.
She had forgotten that Lex had no memory of who she was, had only been trying to rebuild his recollection from the time that he had run into Clark and crashed over the bridge, which of course, he was still in partial denial about, just as he had been before.
“You know what?” she said, taking a couple of steps to close the space between them. With a flick of her wrist, she smacked the damp envelope against his chest. “Tell your dad I quit.”
She took a step to the side to walk past him back down the hall, leaving a confused Lex to furrow his brow at her retreating form.
It wasn’t every night that a beautiful, wet woman walked into the manor and made no move at all to seduce him for his money, let alone a clearly inebriated one who apparently worked for his father.
Curiosity got the better of him and he flipped up the metal tabs keeping the envelope closed. Sliding the numerous papers and photographs out of it, his eyes grew wide with what he saw.
Clark Kent.
The boy he had formerly suspected of running into that ill-fated night on the bridge and the evidence to prove that what his experts said happened actually happened.
Lex’s eyes shot up from the documentation and he was about to call out to her when he saw her starting to sway, stopping and bracing her back against the wall so she wouldn’t fall down.
A few long, quick strides and he caught up to where she stood, eyes closed as she tried to keep the room from spinning.
He placed one palm flat against the wall, keeping his eyes intently on her eyelids.
“What part of the message did you not understand?” Chloe asked without opening her eyes.
“I understood all of it, but I’ll need your name ---”
Chloe opened her eyes and shot him a pained glare.
“He’ll know.”
Lex frowned and reached up to brush some wet strands of hair behind her ear. Chloe pulled her head away and pushed herself off the wall.
“I have to go,” she said.
“You shouldn’t be driving in your condition.”
“You’re one to talk,” she retorted.
Lex pursed his lips. He had so many questions to ask about the material in the envelope, but she was hardly in any shape to answer them. He had to find a way to convince her to stay, or at least get her name so he could call her and ask her later.
She seemed to be good at witty comebacks even while having alcohol in her system, so he decided to work off of her intelligence.
“If you’re as good of an investigator as the contents of this envelope would imply you are, then you should know that he’s not going to let you just quit like this.”
Chloe nodded absently.
“I figured.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chloe let out a sigh and gave him a look that might have been mistaken for pity had it not been for the all too familiar torment Lex could see eating away at her soul.
“It means that unlike you, when I drive off that bridge tonight, it’ll be intentional,” she said, her words coming out surprisingly clear.
Lex stared at her in disbelief.
“What?”
“I have to go,” Chloe said again, taking a wobbly step only to find Lex’s arm suddenly wrapping around her to prevent her from leaving. “Let me go,” she said, unable to keep her voice from sounding choked as tears started to well up in her eyes.
She just wanted to leave.
It had taken so many hours, so much consideration to make her decision, but she knew if she didn’t go through with it tonight then there was a very real chance that she never would.
“You’re going to let him win? Just like that?”
Chloe shook her head despairingly.
“You don’t understand,” she said.
Lex let out a derisive half-chuckle.
“I’ve known the bastard all my life. I probably understand better than you do,” he said.
Chloe shook her head again, instantly regretting the action when it made her stomach think about pushing up the alcohol she had consumed earlier.
“My father conspired to set me up in a relationship so he could get the inside track on my business dealings,” he said. “And then she tried to kill me on the way to our honeymoon. I think you’ll find that there isn’t a lot I don’t understand about lies and betrayal.”
“Exactly. You’ve only ever been used for your money or because of it. You’ve never had to deal with the pain of someone using you for you, simply because you’re observant and happen to know what the hell is going on.”
Lex frowned. Though he was hesitant to admit it, she was right.
The pain that came with having his emotions manipulated for monetary gain at least had a scapegoat that he could lame it on – the money. He couldn’t imagine having to deal with that kind of hurt and having nowhere to funnel the gut-wrenching emotion other than back at himself.
“What happened?”
“My best friend, the man I thought I was in love with for the past three years, isn’t from this planet,” Chloe countered. “He never told me, but he told our other best friend and is about to tell the girl that he only has a fantasized version of in his head. And what do you want to bet that he’ll find a way to blame me when she flips out about it and doesn’t accept him?”
Lex was silent for a second as he contemplated her drunken rambling of a story and then he blinked, fixing her with a characteristically emotionless look immediately afterward.
“So, you started working for my dad as a means of revenge.”
“No. I tried to warn Clark that your dad approached me about him, but he wouldn’t listen. I thought…at least if it was me working for your dad, then I could protect him somehow.”
Lex looked down at the papers in his hand.
“You changed your mind apparently.”
Chloe settled back against the wall and closed her eyes again. She was beginning to wonder if Lex was ever going to let her leave. Of course, if she didn’t, the cold stone wall had its benefits.
It was surprisingly soothing and she found herself wanting to slide down to the floor and fall asleep right there.
“I put an identical envelope in Clark’s locker, along with an explanation. He’ll see it on Monday,” she said tiredly, her words now not only slurred but lilting off in inappropriate places.
‘A suicide note – shit. She’s serious,’ Lex thought. “There are better ways to get over being used,” he said, knowing she was already half-asleep and probably wouldn’t take advantage of the subtle offer that she was being given.
“Sometimes,” she replied, not catching Lex’s hidden innuendo. “But not this time.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve tried everything else and nothing worked.”
“So, you’re just going to wallow in self-pity and kill yourself? Yeah, that’ll show them,” Lex said in angry sarcasm.
Chloe laughed, but no real emotion was behind it. No real emotion other than a hollow pain was left within her.
“You’ve got it all wrong,” she said drunkenly. “It’s not pity at all.”
“Then what do you call it?”
“Closure.”
“Closure,” Lex repeated. “How do you figure? They’ll never be able to make amends or ask you why you did it.”
Chloe nodded.
“Exactly,” she said. “I won’t be used anymore.”
TBC…
http://www.mediafire.com/view/p5o1gdvvgdl8lck/scifichick774_Used.docx
Title: Used
Author: scifichick774
Rating: R
Category: Dark Angst
Spoilers: Everything through the spoilers for the third season at Kryptonsite is fair game.
Summary: Things rarely go as planned…
Disclaimer: Not mine, no infringement intended, please don’t sue.
Feedback: YES!! REVIEW!! I’m serious. I really need a feedback fix.
Archival: Sure – just let me know where.
Author’s Note: This will not be a long piece, nor is it intended to be. The themes are dark and might be considered sensitive to some readers. That said, enjoy.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The road in front of her disappeared into a dark blur, though she couldn’t say whether it was because of the rain beating against her windshield from the storm she was driving in or the four shots of Irish whiskey she had stolen from the top cabinet where her dad had forgotten he placed it long ago.
Chloe glanced down at the large manila envelope lying on the passenger seat. It was sealed, but had taken some effort to get it that way as the information she found on Clark had been more than she had ever wanted to know. Much more.
She told herself that she could handle his secret, no matter what it was. She could handle him being material for her wall of weird; she could handle the fact that he had treated her so poorly in order to cover it up.
But she hadn’t planned on finding out that he was the source of all of the weirdness – or at least his arrival was.
When she found out, initially she had been overwhelmed with a surprising sense of satisfaction – that there were viable reasons for him acting the way he did, for disregarding her feelings at every turn in the road.
He wasn’t human and he didn’t want to advertise it. He felt threatened by the fact that she was in a position to expose him. She understood that.
Unfortunately, her subsequent reactions were different.
The more she thought about it, the more pained she was that he felt like he couldn’t trust her. Then that turned into the suspicion that he knew that he could trust her and just didn’t want to because she didn’t live up to his image of the ideal woman.
The sad part was that Lana didn’t either, but he always changed the subject when someone pointed that out, even when it was Lana.
Still, Chloe felt certain if Lana showed any sign of being open-minded about aliens existing among them that Clark would tell her his secret in a heartbeat.
That hurt the most.
Chloe had been friends with him since she moved to Smallville in eighth grade - *good* friends.
Lana had been the girl he admired from afar, but they had never even talked beyond saying hello to each other in the hallways before two years ago.
And yet he was perfectly willing to tell *her* everything.
Chloe’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and she pushed her foot down on the gas pedal just a little more.
She had initially agreed to work for Lionel Luthor out of some sense of warped loyalty to Clark; so she could find out what Lionel had on him and try to save him from his own foolish behavior.
Things rarely go as planned.
When she realized she was in too deep and what Lionel really wanted, it was too late for her to back out.
He could threaten her reputation all he wanted, but most of the people in the small town already disliked her simply because she didn’t meet the exacting standards that Lana apparently did, so whatever lies he could come up with would impact her very little.
Chloe didn’t manipulate people’s emotions; she didn’t play the games that Lana excelled at. She was honest and uncalculating.
Or at least she used to be.
Chloe slowly saw her old self slip away, trading a newly regained sense of confidence for an empty feeling in the pit of her soul, a friendship based on lies for the truth and all the suffering that came with it.
She became someone she didn’t want to be and had thought of no way to change it without forcing Lionel’s hand into carrying through on his thinly veiled threats toward her father’s life.
No way until now.
She gunned the car past the unguarded gates to the Luthor estate, the tires squealing to a halt and spinning the car around as she hit the brakes and drenched her car in thick mud brought up from the storm.
Not bothering to grab the umbrella that rested on the back seat of the car, Chloe picked up the manila envelope and slammed the driver’s side door closed, relishing the way the fat drops of ice cold water felt heavy from the sky and drenched her almost immediately.
They wouldn’t wash away her sins, but they served to remind her that she was there with a purpose. Her sins would be taken care of later.
The butler opened the door, frowning down at her small soaked frame.
No words were exchanged between them. None needed to be.
He stepped aside and Chloe moved into the house, not bothering to look back her as she trailed puddles of wetness behind her on the way to the library.
After all, what better place to leave all that knowledge?
She barely took note of the fact that the walls had started to close in around her, or that she seemed to be spinning as she walked, but she did hear a voice come from behind her, startling her enough to make her stop dead in her tracks.
So why was the room still moving?
“I asked you a question.”
Chloe turned around, meeting Lex’s glare head-on.
“Did you?” she asked, her tone snide though her words were beginning to slur together.
“How did you get in here?”
“I’m not digging for secrets if that’s what you’re worried about – at least not yours.”
A sour chuckle escaped Chloe’s throat at Lex’s almost stunned look and then she shook her head in weak amusement.
She had forgotten that Lex had no memory of who she was, had only been trying to rebuild his recollection from the time that he had run into Clark and crashed over the bridge, which of course, he was still in partial denial about, just as he had been before.
“You know what?” she said, taking a couple of steps to close the space between them. With a flick of her wrist, she smacked the damp envelope against his chest. “Tell your dad I quit.”
She took a step to the side to walk past him back down the hall, leaving a confused Lex to furrow his brow at her retreating form.
It wasn’t every night that a beautiful, wet woman walked into the manor and made no move at all to seduce him for his money, let alone a clearly inebriated one who apparently worked for his father.
Curiosity got the better of him and he flipped up the metal tabs keeping the envelope closed. Sliding the numerous papers and photographs out of it, his eyes grew wide with what he saw.
Clark Kent.
The boy he had formerly suspected of running into that ill-fated night on the bridge and the evidence to prove that what his experts said happened actually happened.
Lex’s eyes shot up from the documentation and he was about to call out to her when he saw her starting to sway, stopping and bracing her back against the wall so she wouldn’t fall down.
A few long, quick strides and he caught up to where she stood, eyes closed as she tried to keep the room from spinning.
He placed one palm flat against the wall, keeping his eyes intently on her eyelids.
“What part of the message did you not understand?” Chloe asked without opening her eyes.
“I understood all of it, but I’ll need your name ---”
Chloe opened her eyes and shot him a pained glare.
“He’ll know.”
Lex frowned and reached up to brush some wet strands of hair behind her ear. Chloe pulled her head away and pushed herself off the wall.
“I have to go,” she said.
“You shouldn’t be driving in your condition.”
“You’re one to talk,” she retorted.
Lex pursed his lips. He had so many questions to ask about the material in the envelope, but she was hardly in any shape to answer them. He had to find a way to convince her to stay, or at least get her name so he could call her and ask her later.
She seemed to be good at witty comebacks even while having alcohol in her system, so he decided to work off of her intelligence.
“If you’re as good of an investigator as the contents of this envelope would imply you are, then you should know that he’s not going to let you just quit like this.”
Chloe nodded absently.
“I figured.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chloe let out a sigh and gave him a look that might have been mistaken for pity had it not been for the all too familiar torment Lex could see eating away at her soul.
“It means that unlike you, when I drive off that bridge tonight, it’ll be intentional,” she said, her words coming out surprisingly clear.
Lex stared at her in disbelief.
“What?”
“I have to go,” Chloe said again, taking a wobbly step only to find Lex’s arm suddenly wrapping around her to prevent her from leaving. “Let me go,” she said, unable to keep her voice from sounding choked as tears started to well up in her eyes.
She just wanted to leave.
It had taken so many hours, so much consideration to make her decision, but she knew if she didn’t go through with it tonight then there was a very real chance that she never would.
“You’re going to let him win? Just like that?”
Chloe shook her head despairingly.
“You don’t understand,” she said.
Lex let out a derisive half-chuckle.
“I’ve known the bastard all my life. I probably understand better than you do,” he said.
Chloe shook her head again, instantly regretting the action when it made her stomach think about pushing up the alcohol she had consumed earlier.
“My father conspired to set me up in a relationship so he could get the inside track on my business dealings,” he said. “And then she tried to kill me on the way to our honeymoon. I think you’ll find that there isn’t a lot I don’t understand about lies and betrayal.”
“Exactly. You’ve only ever been used for your money or because of it. You’ve never had to deal with the pain of someone using you for you, simply because you’re observant and happen to know what the hell is going on.”
Lex frowned. Though he was hesitant to admit it, she was right.
The pain that came with having his emotions manipulated for monetary gain at least had a scapegoat that he could lame it on – the money. He couldn’t imagine having to deal with that kind of hurt and having nowhere to funnel the gut-wrenching emotion other than back at himself.
“What happened?”
“My best friend, the man I thought I was in love with for the past three years, isn’t from this planet,” Chloe countered. “He never told me, but he told our other best friend and is about to tell the girl that he only has a fantasized version of in his head. And what do you want to bet that he’ll find a way to blame me when she flips out about it and doesn’t accept him?”
Lex was silent for a second as he contemplated her drunken rambling of a story and then he blinked, fixing her with a characteristically emotionless look immediately afterward.
“So, you started working for my dad as a means of revenge.”
“No. I tried to warn Clark that your dad approached me about him, but he wouldn’t listen. I thought…at least if it was me working for your dad, then I could protect him somehow.”
Lex looked down at the papers in his hand.
“You changed your mind apparently.”
Chloe settled back against the wall and closed her eyes again. She was beginning to wonder if Lex was ever going to let her leave. Of course, if she didn’t, the cold stone wall had its benefits.
It was surprisingly soothing and she found herself wanting to slide down to the floor and fall asleep right there.
“I put an identical envelope in Clark’s locker, along with an explanation. He’ll see it on Monday,” she said tiredly, her words now not only slurred but lilting off in inappropriate places.
‘A suicide note – shit. She’s serious,’ Lex thought. “There are better ways to get over being used,” he said, knowing she was already half-asleep and probably wouldn’t take advantage of the subtle offer that she was being given.
“Sometimes,” she replied, not catching Lex’s hidden innuendo. “But not this time.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve tried everything else and nothing worked.”
“So, you’re just going to wallow in self-pity and kill yourself? Yeah, that’ll show them,” Lex said in angry sarcasm.
Chloe laughed, but no real emotion was behind it. No real emotion other than a hollow pain was left within her.
“You’ve got it all wrong,” she said drunkenly. “It’s not pity at all.”
“Then what do you call it?”
“Closure.”
“Closure,” Lex repeated. “How do you figure? They’ll never be able to make amends or ask you why you did it.”
Chloe nodded.
“Exactly,” she said. “I won’t be used anymore.”
TBC…