Disclaimer: I do not own the show or characters and make no money writing them.
Spoilers: None, really, it's pretty plotless.
Rating: PG-13, for some suggestive banter
A/N: I've been reworking my files and I found a few short pieces that could be forgiven as short stories. I haven't done much to extend the plot, so they are best taken as light Chlexy tableaus.
Stretching in her best impression of long and catlike, she settled into the rumpled covers next to the figure already in the bed. He opened his eyes knowingly. "Do you want to cuddle in," Lex asked ironically.
"No, thank you, that would disturb my nap," she told him. "And if you think I'll stay awake just because you've already had your lazy time, no luck. I'm going to sleep." She pulled the blankets up and closed her eyes tightly.
He pushed the covers down and sat up enough to drink from a water bottle. Normally, he'd be supremely irritated to be spending the day in bed, fully clothed and likely to stay that way. It was an odd side effect of his medication that he felt mellow about everything. Walking pneumonia, sure, he had that. Signs of fever and dehydration, he most certainly had those. He also had a Chloe.
Lex wasn't sure how he'd managed to get so run-down and sickly during the summer, but at least it was a light month. Chloe had finished school but not yet started her summer internship, so she was free to cater to his whining and boredom.
He had sent her away for a lunch date with her cousin, knowing he was too disgusting to hack and gurgle his way into a restaurant. The sweet young woman had left him a snack, water, and his pills. She even set an alarm so he could sleep until it was time for medication.
"You took your pills," an ostensibly sleeping Chloe asked him.
"Yes."
"And you took a nap?"
"Until I took my pills, then I went back to sleep," he assured her. "I also talked to myself for a while when I lost the remote."
She turned to look at him, squinting with sternness. "Let me see under your tongue."
They only do that for mental patients who won't take their pills," he argued. "I've been good."
He'd complained about chicken soup for meals, even though he acknowledged he wasn't very hungry. He'd taken offence when she excluded him from a shopping expedition. He had also developed a nose whistle that made him fairly self-conscious at times.
But he was behaving himself, for a billionaire fighting a chest infection instead of corporate pork. Chloe nodded without opening her eyes.
"Okay, I will admit you take your pills with no problems. Does this mean you're going to manfully accept the next hot bubble bath I run for you?"
He felt exceptionally stupid lying in water. At least in the bed he was allowed to go to sleep, and resting made him well faster. Soaking might loosen his sore muscles, but it didn't have any real effect. It wasn't even relaxing. "You kept knocking on the door and yelling at me," he said. "It was stressful."
"Drowning would make me look like a terrible nurse," she said primly, turning on her side toward him. "I only yelled when you didn't answer."
He hadn't answered to discourage her from hovering, so both of them had been working on faulty relationship logic. "I'm sorry," Lex told her, "I still don't like baths."
He tried to slouch down more comfortably and had to sit up to cough, instead. Once the rattling ended, he grabbed his water and drank as much as he could. The bland stuff tasted of the yucky after effects of his illness. Chloe waited for him to get his breath, then reached for his hand. He squeezed it gently. “I may never drink Ty Nant again,” he remarked.
She made a sympathetic noise and let go of him to sit up. “Hey, I bought you something! You'll like it. Just a sec.”
Chloe hopped off the bed and bounced away in an example of perfect health. He scowled and lay back with a sigh. He would have to dredge some enthusiasm from deep in the recesses of his rotting lungs. His heavy eyelids closed in a motion that was more like a drawbridge shutting than muscle movement.
“Are your eyes closed,” she called.
He smiled reluctantly. It would be much worse to be alone and bored. When he managed to stay awake for her, Chloe kept him entertained. “They are closed. Did you steal new lungs from a homeless person for me?”
“Nope! Better!”
Better than new lungs was intriguing. Maybe it was lingerie. Not that he was remotely capable of good sex, but he could count on Chloe to fake it just this once.
She padded into the room, circling the bed with something that made a rustling noise. As she sat down beside him, he heard a glass set down on the table. Maybe she brought him the scotch she'd forbidden while he was 'convalescing.' Chloe's fingers pressed on his chin as he smiled.
“Is that scotch I hear?” She laughed under her breath and leaned over his chest. Lex lifted his right arm so her knees could curl around his torso. A cold circle on his chest told him she was using him as a coaster and to prop herself on her arm.
“I used to give my gerbil, Mr. Gerbil, orange soda like this,” Chloe told him. “Open your mouth.”
The potential for romance died without a sound, and Lex obeyed. A drip of fizzing liquid hit his tongue, the flavour hard to place. He opened his eyes to see a straw dangling over his face. She tapped it and another taste fell.
“I don't know how I feel about being fed like Mr. Gerbil,” he muttered.
She shrugged. “Mr. Gerbil had to have a fang pulled from tooth decay, but he never brushed. You should feel honoured. I bought sugar free, so your teeth are safe.” Chloe put the straw back in the glass and leaned down to kiss him.
“Thank you,” he said. “I guess.”
“You're welcome. After this we can watch a movie while I stroke your fevered brow and feed you nourishing gruel.”
She dripped soda on the corner of his mouth and licked it up before he could complain. The fizz stung along his lips and he licked them, letting out a sigh. Chloe scraped her nails gently on his side. She put the glass on the table and settled onto his chest, keeping her weight on her arms. Lex's hands came up to slip through her hair, and he whispered, “Chloe?”
“Mmm.” Her voice was lazy with a hint of humour.
“I'm never eating nourishing gruel, and if you're going to stroke something I don't want it to be my brow,” he sneered, ignoring the wheeze of his lungs.
She sat up with an arch look. “Ooh, terrible sex while you struggle to breathe? That's practically a fetish! My safe word will be phlegm.”
Lex rolled to the other side of the bed, burying his face in the cool pillow. “Mean,” he told her. “When I die of consumption you'll be sorry.”
Chloe helped him push the blankets down and held the cold glass to his neck. She nipped at his earlobe. “I had the chef make lobster bisque for you. No more chicken soup.”
He nodded. “With oyster crackers?”
“With oyster cracker peanut butter sandwiches,” she crowed. “My own invention.”
Lex closed his eyes and hoped she was joking about the peanut butter. If not, he was going to have to get well very soon.
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