As apparently it is posting now:
I am on Lex's side too - poor little guy. I'm sorry to hear that, what is it that you do? *huggles* Anything that I can do to cheer you up?
As apparently it is posting now:
I am on Lex's side too - poor little guy. I'm sorry to hear that, what is it that you do? *huggles* Anything that I can do to cheer you up?
Chapter Eight
“Anything you want to talk about?”
Chloe blinked, her reverie interrupted. She glanced up from her place on the couch to see her room mate looking expectantly at her. She couldn’t blame her, she supposed that she hadn’t been very good company that evening, too preoccupied with her own thoughts to really dedicate herself to the girl’s night in, they were meant to be enjoying.
“Chloe, is there anything that you want to talk to me?” Lana repeated as she sank down onto the settee.
“No, I’m fine”, Chloe said, keeping her eyes trained on the TV in front of them. She hadn’t realised that they had been watching a fashion show. There really was some ugly junk on the market this session. A lot of emaciated girls too.
“Okay”, Lana returned her attention to the screen, bringing a handful of pop corn to her mouth before putting it back. “I need to diet”.
Chloe gave her an odd look and grabbed her own handful of pop corn and scoffed it, allowing the crunching sound in her ears to drown out the inane chatter of the host. She really couldn’t have cared less about who the twiglet was dating.
Lana tried to focus on the program but the smell of the popcorn as distracting, as was Chloe’s refusal to talk. She attempted to remind quiet, and managed it, for about three minutes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes”, always the polite girl, she added a “thank-you”.
“Okay”, Lana drew the word out, about to inquire again when a designer she adored started her show. Silence reigned, for a little while.
As designer took her final bow and left the catwalk for someone else to take centre stage, Lana spoke, “I would hate to think that something that I had said last night might have caused you problems”.
“No, because telling me that Lex is in love/obsessed with you and is only using me to get to you couldn’t possibly have caused me any problems”, Chloe thought, but she only said, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it”.
“Really?” Lana didn’t look entirely convinced.
“Yeah, except I think that I might be unemployed”, she finally said the words which she had been dreading since her fight with Lex. The words which made her stomach feel like it was being ripped in two. She tried to shove some more popcorn into it.
“Oh God Chloe, no”, Lana exclaimed in horror, “I’m so sorry. He can’t fire you for this. He can’t. You must have a contract, you must ...”
Chloe shook her head, “No, I mean, yes”.
Lana stared at her quizzically.
“Yes, we do have a contract. Yes, I could fight it, but I won’t. If he wants me gone then that’s that”, she said feeling sorry for herself and Lex.
“I could talk to him, he would do anything for me”, Lana started, already on her feet and marching towards the apartment’s phone, Chloe hot on her heels protesting, only to both come to a halt as the phone started to ring. They looked at each other.
“It couldn’t be”.
“It is Smallville”.
They both leant forwards cautiously, as if the receiver were about to jump up and attack them both.
“That’s Clark’s number”, Lana recognised it instantly.
Chloe had too, but she couldn’t resist teasing her, “Ooh, recognise it on sight do you”, she hip bumped her friend.
“He has had the same number forever”.
“A likely excuse”, Chloe said in a sing song voice before taking a few steps back, “I think that you should probably be the one to answer it”. With that Chloe made her way back over to the couch so that she wasn’t eavesdropping on Lana’s presumably private conversation with her boyfriend. Well, Chloe wasn’t actually sure that boyfriend was the correct word, she had never got a definitive answer to that question but with Lana and Clark were clearly met for each other. They had both spent years stringing around and pining over each other. It was about time they got together. She had happy for them. Kind of.
Deciding that there was no reason to keep watching this dross if Lana weren’t around to appreciate it, she flipped channels until she found an old British comedy and tried not to think about Lex. He would have made it even funnier, making dry sarcastic comments.
“I am not sure that you were fired”.
“Huh?” Chloe asked intelligently, she hadn’t even heard Lana come back.
“That was Clark”, Lana reminded her, “apparently Lex paid him a little visit this evening”.
“What?!?”
~*~
“So, I hear that you have been combating Luthors?” Chloe had been contemplating the familiar plaid clad back for several minutes, wondering how to alert him to her presence. She had opted for the subtle approach.
“Chloe”, Clark whirled around from where he had been organising his family’s stall. He smiled a little bashfully, surprised that he hadn’t realised that she had been standing behind him. “Hi”.
“Hi”, she couldn't help but smile at him as she walked to his side and helped him arrange the produce, he was good at the heavy lifting but didn’t have much of an eye for decoration.
“Thanks”, he smiled and took the opportunity to go and get another box of items from the truck. He placed the two final boxes on the table in the space Chloe had made for them. “So, I take it that Lana told you about the phone call”.
“Yup”, she nodded. “Do you plan on sharing any detail of that with me?” She did her best to sound casual, she wasn’t sure that she pulled it off. Apparently not, judging by the reassuring smile Clark gave her; he looked about two seconds away from ruffling her hair.
“It wasn’t that bad. See”, he held his arms out, “no bruises or anything. Come here”, he pulled her into a bear hug. “So how are you enjoying your first Saturday since your return to Smallville? Not to mention your first Corn Festival, in how many years?”
“It’s lovely”, she assured him, “great weather, great food, great people. Now, stop trying to change the subject. What happened?”
“Last night?” He checked as he emptied the boxes.
“No, last week, of course last night. Come on Clark, Lex came to your farm after how many years?” Chloe demanded as she took items from her friend’s hands and placed them strategically.
“Four”.
“Right, after four years he shows up”, she stressed her new piece of information. “And it has something to do with me, but, in spite of that fact, you call Lana and then take your phone off the hook. If I had a mode of transport I would have been over there last night beating the information out of you”.
“How kind”, he smiled down at her. It always amused him when she threatened to kick his ass, she was just so little. He could carry her around under one arm and not notice the weight.
“Come on Clark, tell me”, she was coming close to stamping her foot.
“I’m sorry that I made you worry Chlo”, he stroked one hand down her arm, “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t aware that the phone was off the hook and Lana said she would deal with it. She’s better than me with emotions and stuff than I am”.
“You aren’t bad with those things, you are just annoying when you won’t give me a straight answer. What did Luthor want and say?” She didn’t have time for his self pity right then, she had a stroppy billionaire to deal with.
“Right”, Clark gave her his full attention, “basically he came over”.
“Yes, thank-you, we have established that part”, she snapped. “Sorry, that isn’t helping you get everything out”.
“He and Dad had words then he came straight up to me, told me that he thought that I was a hypocrite and a bigot who spent his entire time preaching about honesty, not judging by first impressions and friendship who then turned around and did all of those things. And that my father is even worse. But that he likes Mom”, Clark looked equal parts angry and bewildered as he recounted the events of the previous evening.
Chloe had to try not to laugh at that.
“And that he didn’t trust me as far as he could throw me”.
She had to really work hard at controlling her mirth now. She brought her hand up to cover her mouth, as if she were deeply shocked, hoping that it covered her smile as she asked seriously: “That far?” Lex was in pretty great shape, but Clark was huge.
“Funny Chloe”. Apparently he hadn’t worked and Clark wasn’t amused.
“Sorry, what else?”
“Basically that you had a great importunity working for him and that he didn’t want me mucking it up”, from the expression on his face, Chloe was guessing that Lex hadn’t actually said ‘mucking’ it up. “So I could go to the mansion and pick you up nothing was to impede our relationship, but I wasn’t to interfere with your job or”, he paused, “muck you around”.
Chloe’s eyebrows disappeared into her hair. “What the fuck ... I’m sorry Clark, what the muck does Lex Luthor think that he is doing going around and -”
“Well, I was walking around the yearly corn fair in an attempt to make myself seem like a normal human being who was interested in the good of the town where I live ... Most of the time”, a cool, cultured voice wafted over to them on the gentle breeze. “My publicist seems to think that I am not exerting myself enough on that front”, he add mildly.
Chloe whirled around, guilt already gnawing at the pit of her stomach. Her eyes fell on her possible boss and she noted that as always he was impeccably well dressed with a face as handsome as it was unreadable. She kind of wanted to give him a hug. Or smack him. She wasn’t entirely sure.
“Hello Lex, we were just talking about you”, she said. There was hardly any point in trying to lie about it at this point.
“So I heard”, he said dryly.
Clark came up behind Chloe and placed his hand on her shoulder protectively. She noticed the slight twitch in the corner of Lex’s eye, supreme irritation. She couldn't blame him, she didn’t require protection from him, she never had. She was half tempted to smack Clark’s hand away but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings either, she couldn’t help but wonder if men were worth the trouble.
“Before that we were discussing how nice the weather was and celebrating my first Smallville Saturday”, she said, not for any reason than that she suffered from verbal diarrhoea when nervous.
“Something to celebrated indeed”, Lex commented in his off handed, dry way.
Chloe nodded, wishing that she knew what to say.
“So, does it meet your required standards?”
“Very good so far”. Chloe stood there, ridiculously still with Clark’s large hand on her shoulder, feeling so incredibly hot that she thought she might be coming down with a case of sun stroke although the weather man had said that it would be a very mild day.
Lex appeared to be waiting for her to say something else but after several minutes of silence which seemed to stretch on interminably, he gave her a nod and told her, “Well, I’ll see you on Monday morning”, as he turned to leave.
“Monday morning?”
“Yes”, he paused and turned back to her, “Monday morning. In case you have forgotten, you work for me. Nine to five, Monday to Friday. Unless you are ill? Or planning to become so over the course of the next 42 hours?”
“You mean, I’m not fired?” The words came tumbling out of her before she could think of an elegant way of phrasing the question.
He stared at her, a flicker of incomprehension passing over his gaze before it settled into one of disappointment and cold hard fury. “Of course not”, he said, the corner of his lips turning up in a completely mirthless expression, “How would that help me get back into Clark’s good graces?”
Chloe was relieved, she still had her job, but furious with herself for being such a wimp and not asking him directly to start with and more bothered than she liked to admit by the idea of his being hurt. In short, Chloe felt like crap as she watched him leave and nothing Clark or the Smallville population could do made her feel any better. That was how she ended up back at the mansion later that afternoon, working and looking over at door every couple of minutes.
Finally she decided that she had had enough and stormed out of the room and around the ground floor before giving up and heading to the butler’s pantry, Baxter emerging just as he was needed.
“Hello Baxter”.
“Miss Sullivan”.
“Where is his royal sulkiness?”
“Master Lex is in the gym”, he said, with an emotionless mask which would have made any Luthor envious.
“Right, any chance that you could show me where that is?” As much as she would love to wander out the castle for hours on end unchaperoned, now did not seem the time for that.
“Of course Miss”, he inclined his head, “Right this way”.
Chloe followed the elderly butler through the winding halls of the Luthor castle into a part she had never even realised existed before, trying to remember the path that they had taken until he announced, “Right through here Miss”, opening the door ahead of her. She thanked him and slowly entered the room, looking back over her shoulder to say something else only to find that he was gone. “Baxter the ghost butler”, she thought to herself.
She scanned the room, it was a well appointed gym but saw no one although she could hear the heavy breathing and the unmistakable sound of heavy punches.
“Guess it was too much to hope that he might be in a better mood”, Chloe thought to herself as moved further into the room and noticed that there was another area just off the side, she walked to the edge of the corner and called out, “Knock knock”.
“Chloe?” He span around with the reflexes of a fighter.
“Yes”, she swallowed a little nervously, the impropriety of wandering around his house without invitation suddenly dawning upon her, “may I come in”.
“Sure”.
She entered, realising that the space was even bigger than she had realised and Lex was standing right bang smack in the middle of it, next to a punching bag, unstrapping his boxing gloves and tossing them to the side before grabbing a water bottle and draining half its contents in one thirty gulp.
Chloe swallowed. She had never seen him in sport’s clothes before, which was a a shame. His soft grey tank top damp with sweat clung to his muscles which bulged from exercise and she found that her eyes kept being drawn back to his arms, which were extremely impressive. It took a couple of seconds for her gaze to even return to his face, which didn’t make the situation any easier. His eyes were slightly savage from and rather than being afraid, she found herself being even more drawn to him. He was as sexy as Hell.
“Are you all right?” He finally asked, his voice a little less controlled than normal.
“Yeah, I was just coming in to do some work and ...” She started to explain, but it sounded lame even to her own ears. “Yeah, okay, that’s not the truth. Well, okay, it is. I mean I did come in to do some work but that was just an excuse”.
“What do you want Chloe?”
“Before I answer that, I need to know ...”
He raised an eyebrow.
“The punching bag, was that meant to be me or Clark?”
“You know that I would never hit a girl Chloe. Not even in my head”, he wiped his face with another towel and Chloe wasn’t sure if he was just feeling sweaty or trying to hide away from her. Clearly her attempt at lightening the mood had not been unsuccessful.
“I know”, she nodded. “I just wanted to say that I am sorry”.
“For what?”
God, he wasn’t going to make this easier on her, was he? Well, she supposed, there really was no reason why he should. “Most of yesterday and this morning”, she stated simply, “I shouldn’t have asked about your motives or anything else or doubted that you would muck about with my employment just because you were angry”.
“No, you shouldn’t have”, he said with a dead pan expression.
“Right”, she clapped her hands together, “well, I am just going to go and do some work then”.
“Fine”, he nodded, “that’s fine”.
“Okay. Right. Good”. She turned around to leave, thinking “There, that wasn’t too bad. All sorted out, I should just remember to keep my mouth shut from now on”. While she thought that, the rest of her body revolted. She span back around, Lex was now lying down bench pressing and watching her leave.
“Actually Lex, it is not fine”. The last word was pronounced with a strange emphasis which came out sounding far more juvenile than she would have liked, or had indeed intended.
“It isn’t?” He continued to bench press.
“No, and could you please stop doing that and actually pay attention to me?”
He chose to oblige her, replacing the weight slowly and sitting back up.
“This is not fine! You know this is why you don’t have any friends”.
“Care to elaborate?”
“With pleasure. You are a snob. You are an elitist. And sometimes you are not very nice. I know that I was wrong, I admitted it and said that I was sorry but you instead of accepting the apology and trying to get past it would rather sit in your mansion, licking your wounds, feeling sorry for yourself pushing everyone away so you will always be all alone”, her jaw trembled as she spoke.
“Is that everything?” He inquired mildly.
“No, go take a shower you stink”, with that she turned on her heel and left.
“Why did I hire her?” Lex muttered to himself.
“My tact, people skill and excellent hearing!”
Author's question: Why do you think that he did hire her?
great update.loved the comment your royal sulkiness.i also loved chloe answer to lex question about why he hired her.i don't believe those oare the reasons that he hired her but loved her answer.
Loving this soap opera. This is great and I know I had been busy with work, but getting the chance to get caught up with this story is worth it.
Trckyrcky: Yay!Thanks for still reading and I hope that work is going well.
Cbrunberg: Yeah, Chloe's been a little bit snarky. He he. Thanks for reading and reviewing.![]()
Chapter Nine
Lex stood outside Chloe’s office, newly showered, smelling fresh, dressed normally (for him) and with the chocolate bar he had given Chloe the night before, and which had been returned to him via Baxter, wondering what on earth he wad doing there. He didn’t need to apologise to her, he didn’t need her, he should probably have fired her and yet there he was, chocolate bar in hand.
He knocked and smirked as he heard her jump.
“Are you okay?” He called.
“Yes”, her voice came though the heavy door, which he took to mean that he could enter.
“Chloe, you know I have got more security recently you don’t have to have a heart attack every time you hear a noise”, he teased her.
“Well, this is Smallville”, she reminded him, as she began to gather up the documents which, once again, she had thrown up in the air when startled.
“Good point”, he conceded as he got down to help her again. “Come on”, he helped out and pulled her up to her feet. “You know, you really don’t need to work on Saturdays”.
“I know, I just get interested in things and ...”
“Nothing else to do?” He knew that feeling all too well.
“Yeah”, she acknowledged, “and I was feeling guilty”.
“There’s no need”, he promised her, as he ushered her out of the room, “come on. Why aren’t you still at the fête? Quality Chloe/Clark bonding time. I know how much you were looking forward to that”.
She shot him a withering look. She had never told him anything of the sort.
“Come on”, he nudged her, “you can tell me. Or I can go and embarrass you in front of Clark again”, he offered.
She smacked him on the arm lightly, “Lana came”.
“Ah”.
“It was nice”, she tried to convince them both, “everyone together having fun”.
He snorted, “They walked off and ignored you?”
“No”, Clark was far too much of a gentleman to do that, however much she got the feeling that he might have liked to, “we went around as a trio happily, then it got uncomfortable, then they argued then ... Well, I don’t know what happened after that because that is when I left”.
“Makes sense”. He wasn’t perturbed, he knew that she hadn’t apologised just out of boredom, but he still couldn't resist teasing her. “So, basically you came because no one else will watch Whose Line with you?”
“Yeah, pretty much”, she shot him a smile, “plus you have the good chocolate”. She had noticed in his hand as he had been helping her with the papers.
“So you have been converted?” He smiled at her as he handed it over.
“No”, she tore it open and snapped off two pieces, gave one to him and popped the other in her mouth. She moaned. She couldn’t help it. “I’m just a chocoholic”.
“Please, you have been converted. He grinned as he ate his own piece.
“How did you know that no one else likes Whose Line?” She wondered as he allowed Lex to lead her along, having no idea where they were going.
“Just guessing”. It hardly seemed like the kind of thing that they average Smallville inhabitant would enjoy. “Come on”, he placed his hand on her back, “I got them on DVD”.
“Lex, I think that this could be the start beautiful friendship”, she quipped.
He smiled. It seemed to be happening a lot when she was around.
~*~
“God you know that I am blaming you if I get so fat that I can’t fit through the door any more”, Chloe groaned accusingly at her supplier.
“Fine, I’ll just take it away”, Lex tried to remove the chocolate bar from her grip but received a smack for his trouble.
“No”, she pouted.
“And yet you blame me”, he shook his head. They were lying on their stomachs, on the floor of his living room watching Whose Line Is It Anyway?, as Chloe had insisted that that was the only correct way of doing it.
“Yep!” She nodded her head and popped another piece of chocolate in.
“That’s not fair”, he complained, not caring that he sounded childish.
“Neither is the fact that you, Clark and Lana can eat whatever you want like when I look anything more than a lettuce leaf and I get a fat ass”, she groused but did put down the chocolate, she had had enough for now.
“I thought you had lost weight”, Lex scowled as he looked back over his shoulder at her rear end. He hadn’t really paid that much attention to her in years gone by (she had been in High School, after all) but he was fairly certain that there had used to be a bit more in that area.
“I have, that is what stress and instant noodles for a month will do to you”, it was the only good part of the stress which she had been enduringly lately; it had done wonders for her figure.
His eyes snapped to her face.
“Oh, don’t over react”, she rolled her eyes at him and his current obsession with feeding her.
“Hmmmm”.
“Seriously Lex”, she sighed, getting that it really concerned him, “it’s fine. Try some one day, you might like them”. The image of Lex sitting on a little futon couch in her former tiny excuse for an apartment made her smile, it was too ridiculous.
“Fuck no”, he said decidedly.
“Language”, she tisked.
“Disgusting pots of chemicals”, he pointedly ignored the rebuke.
“Touché”, she couldn't really argue with that. They hadn’t been good.
“You could always eat chocolate all day and just marry Pete?” Lex said after a moment and received an odd look for his troubles. She gave him an odd look. “Oh come on, he spent half of high school staring at your ass”.
“Only half?” Pete had enjoyed examining feminine curves, he was the only person she knew who could tell identical twins apart from behind. The female ones at least.
“The other half was spent staring at your chest”, Lex elaborated. He had always felt that it was rather vulgar and had he been the older brother of one of the girls involved, he would have seen to it that the young Pete Ross put an end to such behaviour very quickly.
“You are kidding right?” It had taken her some time but she had eventually become aware that her friend had a slight crush on her but she hadn’t thought that anyone else had been aware of it or that he had checked her out more than any other girl in his immediate vicinity.
“No, his eyes almost popped out of his head like a cartoon character several times”. Seeing that she was staring at him disbelievingly, he thought of an explanation and suggested, “You were probably too busy looking for clues to notice”.
“Possibly”, she conceded, wondering how she had missed something which was right under her nose. “Oh, I love this part! Ho down!”
~*~
“Okay seriously, salad?”
“Yup, you didn’t think that I was going to just keep feeing you junk did you? You forget, you have a company dental”, he had seen to it that she got all of the benefits to which she was entitled.
“So this is just your way of saving money on my dentist’s bills?” Chloe checked.
“Absolutely”, he said as he pulled her chair out for her as he always did.
“Thank-you”, she sat down in front of a healthy grilled turkey breast, whole wheat spelt pasta salad and waited for him to settle down as well. It had become there little ritual and she liked it. Every morning she would go to work at the castle but at five o’clock Lex would come down to her office and insist that she stopped. Then, they would spend the evening together until it was time for her to go home. She hadn’t saved up enough for a new car yet but Lex maintained that he enjoyed driving her home at the end of every evening. She wasn’t sure if he was just being polite but then she decided that if he didn’t want to do it then he needn’t have offered/insisted and could have had one of his chauffeurs drive her, like they did in the morning. Yes, Chloe Sullivan was very happy with her life at that moment. She was even happy with her salad which they finished quickly and returned to the den. Another custom.
“You know, you really should think about my offer”, he said, as he had ever night for the last three weeks - a couple of nights after they had reconciled.
“That’s what you always say”, she informed him as she bashed her bean bag into the right shape for her to lie on.
“Well, maybe I’ll stop once you give it some consideration”, he suggested, but only if it resulted in the answer he wanted to hear. He descended onto his own beanbag without any apparent difficulty.
She rolled onto her back, so that she could see him better, “I have given it concentration Lex”.
“And?”
“It would be convenient. It would be pleasant. It would mean that I didn’t get the fifth degree from Lana every day. I wouldn’t have the problem of not being able to get place as I spend most of my time here anyway”, she started her list.
But?” He knew that there was a but coming. He could sense it.
“However”.
“Smart arse”.
She stuck her tongue out at him before continuing, “However, I can’t rely on you that much”.
“It isn’t relying on me”, he protested, “it’s ...”
“And what happens when you piss me off?” That was another point which had to be considered.
“You slam the door in my face and bitch and moan about me”, he shrugged.
She scowled
“Just like you do now”, he tweaked her nose.
“I can’t in a house that you own”, although she wasn’t entirely sure that that was an accurate description of what she had done to start with.
“Sure you can”, he would have been the first to admit that he wasn’t an expert when it came to relationships but he had no idea how Chloe ever intended to have a long term one, let along get married if she apparently thought that all ties were broken the second that someone got mad. It didn’t matter if the house technically belonged to someone else, you were still entitled to your feelings and the person was hardly going to walk out just because of a door in the face. Feelings couldn’t just evaporate.
Chloe didn’t look convinced.
“Besides, I own the Talon too”, he had only meant it as a joke but he could tell by her expression that it was something that genuinely hadn’t occurred to Chloe before and now bothered her.
“Oh”, she paled. Great. How had that escaped her thoughts when she had been storming away from him because he had been teasing her too much?
“Look Chloe, come over here”, he pulled her over so that they were both lying on their sides and he could run his hand along her arm, “I know that you detest anything you see as charity and I respect that but it is practical, it isn’t going to cost me anything as the guest house is already always fully staffed but never occupied, and it will give you your own space”.
“Lex, it’s just ... I can’t”. It was a tempting offer but what happened when they fell out? What happened when she got used to living there and then had to leave? What happened when he didn’t have time for her and she was stranded out there in the middle of nowhere?
“We could have a contract”, he suggested, “you like contracts”.
“I do but ...”
“And I promise not to burst in on your when you are changing”, he stated, completely deadpan.
“Lex, you know that I don’t think that”.
“I think that maybe you do”, he prodded her, knowing now which buttons to push to get a rise out of her.
“I don’t”, she protested.
“I think that your ego thinks that this is all just part of my master plan to get you into my evil lair and then do unspeakable things to your little virgin body”, he taunted her.
“Please, I do not think that”, she blushed even as she uttered those words.
“Me thinks the lady doth protest to much”, he said, knowing how much she detested that one phrase.
“You think that you can trick me that way?”
“Probably not but it is worth a try”, he smiled at her.
“Fine, but I swear we are getting a contract and I don’t want to hear any grumbling from you”, she poked him in the chest.
“You won’t”. His grin threatened to break his face.
“Whatever”, she had no idea how he always managed to bring her around to his way of thinking, but saw how happy it made him. She was pathetic and couldn t bare to upset him, or let him know that she knew that he was happy about having some company. Poor baby. She was going to talk to Clark about making friends with him again, and by talk she meant threaten him into it.
She turned back over onto her stomach and pressed play as she began to plot ways that she could threaten Clark but got distracted.
“Lex?”
“Chloe?”
“What makes you think that I’m still a virgin?”
“Well, you are, aren’t you?” He didn’t get what the big deal was. He thought that it was nice. She should be a virgin until she found the right guy who would treat her like gold dust.
“No”, she said, sitting up so that she could look now at him as he rolled over.
He frowned. He had thought that she was. She had said that she had had no time for a boyfriend at college and he knew that she hadn’t had a boyfriend in High School.
“Do you think that”, she seemed to be considering how best to phrase her question, “do you think that everyone thinks that I am? I mean, is this something that I am giving off?”
“No”, he shook his head as he sat up, “I just hadn’t heard of any serious relationships. I don’t know, I just thought that you were a virgin”. He felt oddly insulted and possessive that she wasn’t.
“Hmmmm”, she pursed her lips. He did that too. He wasn’t sure if he had got it from her or the other way around.
“I don’t think that Clark would judge you either way”, he took a shot in the dark.
“I wasn’t thinking about Clark, necessarily”, she informed him somewhat coolly, “But men in general are just weird, I mean, if they don’t think that they will get any ...”
“Chloe, you need to get over him”, he came right to the point.
“Sure, right”, she was angry with him for even bringing up the name of her teenaged crush, “I’ll get right on that. Right after you get over Lana”.
“I do not have a crush on Lana Lang”, he protested.
“Sure you don’t”, she rolled her eyes, “don’t tell me that you have never dreamed of having her virginal innocence wrapped around you”.
He chocked on air.
“See, I knew it”, all the men lusted after the paragon that was Lana.
“Where as you I suppose are so experienced”, he pulled the line of enquiry which did not directly involve him and in which he was most interested.
“No”, she agreed, “but I have a great deal of natural talent not to mention stamina”.
Lex choked again.
Chloe patted him on the back, only a little harder than was strictly necessary.
“So who was he?”
“Who?” She wondered as she rubbed his back a little, feeling sorry for him.
“The guy”, he said with exasperation, removing her hand from his back. He wasn’t a baby, he didn’t need his back rubbed. “There was only one guy, right?”
“Oh”, Chloe cottoned on and was more than a little annoyed as his presumption. That was her business but seeing as she didn’t think that Lex would let it drop at that, she decided to tease him, “Who says that it was a guy?”
“Chloe”.
“Oh come on Lex, can’t you imagine me wrapped in the arms of a woman”, she continued to describe the scene, “you never know, Lana and I could have been extremely close as room mates”.
Oh God. He swallowed.
“See, you can imagine it, in fact, you are imagining it”, she pointed to his face.
“Don’t do that to me”, he grabbed her finger.
She giggled.
“Oh, you think that it is funny?”
She nodded as she doubled up with mirth, his stern voice was making it so much worse. She began rolling around on her back, she was laughing so hard. Men were so easy, even billionaires.
“Chloe”, he used the warning tone which normally made her knees go just a little weak - not that it mattered as they were up around her breasts as she was giggling so much. “Right! Fine, I’ll show you funny it is”, he launched a tickle attack on her.
“No, Lex, that’s not fair”,she protested as she tried to retaliate but she was laughing to hard and fingers barely made an impact against the soft fabric of his jumper and hard muscles. Or maybe she wasn’t making any difference at all, he could just be smiling because she was making such a cake of herself.
“On the contrary, I think that it is hilarious”, he got out in between her protests. He finally grabbed both of her wrists and pinned them above her head. He straddled her hips and lowered his face so that it was only a few inches abover hers. He was grinning like a lunatic. “So, what do you have to say for yourself now?”
Did he really think that she would give in that easily? “It was still funny”, she declared with feeling.
“Really?” His hand trailed along her tummy, tickling slightly. A threat of what was to come.
“Okay, okay, it’s not funny!” Honestly, he wasn’t playing fair.
“No, it wasn’t”, he agreed letting her up and settling back onto the carpet. It was odd to be down there, but it was actually quite nice. They had missed most of the last episode so he skipped back to the beginning but barely got a couple of minutes in before he had to know, “So who was it?”
“Drew Carry”.
“No, the guy you were with, not the host of the TV show”, he huffed.
“God Lex, let it go”.
“I thought that friends were supposed to share”, he had no idea why it bothered him so much.
“Fine, you first”, she offered.
“You have to be kidding”.
“No”, she heaved herself up so that she was sitting up cross legged and staring down at him once more, “See, asking about someone’s first time is rude”.
First time? That meant there had only been one time, well that was a relief. He didn't like the idea of someone having taken advantage of her. She had had a hard life, she didn’t need that.
“Fine”.
Chloe nodded thinking that she had won.
“I was a weird looking fourteen year old”, he began his narrative.
Her head snapped around to stare at him, she couldn't believe that he was actually going to share this much. She paused the TV. “What, I’m nosey! You should know that by now!”
He smiled but sat up obligingly. “I was a weird looking fourteen year old who had never so much as held a girl’s hand before, don’t make that awww face”.
“Sorry”, she apologised.
“And one day when I came back home from school my Dad threw a party for something or other and I was hiding in the closet as normal and this gorgeous woman came in. I mean, really stunning like something off the pages of a Victoria’s secret catalogue”, he sounded slightly wistful at the memory. She really had been hot.
“Are you sure that she wasn’t?” She wouldn’t have put it past Lionel to have an entourage of busty models ready to satisfy his every whim.
“No, trust me, at that age I knew them all”.
She rolled her eyes, “Boys”. Apparently they were all the same.
“Oh please, like you weren’t sighing over Angel”. Every girl he had known had suddenly fallen for the bloody vampire.
“Spike actually, but I take your point”.
“Spike?”
“And Riley”.
He scowled.
“Possibly in some sort of combo”, she said, just about keeping a straight face.
“You just like messing with me, don’t you?” He accused her, considering tickling her again, just to get his own back.
“Yep”, she didn’t bother to hide her grin, “now get on with the story”.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t mean details”, she blushed, “just, you know, what happened”.
“She sat down next to me and was very pleasant. She asked me what was wrong, casually placed her hadn on my knee and the started to move it higher”, he repeated the move on Chloe’s leg.
“That was all of the seduction that you took?” It was nice but she would have thought that he would have taken a little more than that.
“I was a bald, perpetually horny lonely teenaged boy cooped up in an all boys school. She could have had me with a lot less. Plus she was hot”, he stated frankly.
“Yeah, you mentioned that before”, Chloe shook her head. “Did you two start going out?”
“No, mid fuck the door opened”, he paused to accommodate her gasp, “and there was one of my Dad’s business rivals, standing there just looking at us”.
“You poor thing”, she stroked his arms, “You must have been so humiliated”.
“I was”, he admitted, staring down at her hand which she quickly withdrew, “I thought that my Dad was going to kill me to boot. After the party I went up to his office to see him, I was so scared I thought that my knees were actually going to start knocking together, and found that she was already sitting in there with him”.
“Was he angry?” Chloe presumed that he must have been if he had called the girl in to see him as well.
“No, he was paying her”, Lex revealed as if, in hindsight, it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Everyone knew that I was a weakling and there were rumours about my sexuality - apparently - so dear old Dad had set it up to make me and him look good”.
“What?!?” Chloe exploded, “How dare he do that to you. That is just so terrible, disgusting”, she looked over at Lex. She wanted to hold him but didn’t think that he would appreciate it, “What did you do?”
“Got embarrassed, ran out of the room thought my life was over and then another girl came on to me the next day - having heard about my reputation - and I thought that I would learn to live with it”, and so playboy had been born.
“Slut!”
Lex stared at her strangely, “She was quite nice actually”.
Chloe didn’t look as if she believed him. Nasty piece of work setting Lex up like that, couldn’t she see that he had been a little lost boy who had needed love and understanding not a quick roll in the hay - or on the floor of a cloak room as the case may be.
“Okay, come on now and stop trying to draw me into an argument about nothing and tell me yours”. When she wasn’t immediately forthcoming, he complained, “Fair is fair. I will tickle it out of you”.
“Fine”, she held her hands up.
“At the end of my freshman year, I got an internship at the Daily Planet”. High school, not college then. He was surprised. “There was a guy there and we slept together”, she shrugged.
“Another intern?”
“No”, she shook her head with a laugh, “he was a junior reporter. He had gradated from MetU the year before and got a job at the Daily Planet right off the bat - although he was in the bullpen for the first ten months or so. The day that I started he got promoted and we had desks near each other, he kept teasing me about my rapid climb to the top, I teased him back, then we flirted then he asked me out. We had a nice time”, she shrugged again, “things just sort of happened”.
Lex frowned, he always distrusted it when Chloe shrugged. It just didn’t seem natural on her, like she was playing the part of the cool girl who was just so over anything and everything when in fact she was hurt. “I thought that girls generally wanted something a big more special. The whole prom night thing”.
“Some girls”, she shrugged.
That was the third time. Lex couldn’t believe her. “You didn’t have any Clark based fantasies? Prom night? Flowers? The whole nine yards?”
“Oh of course, I also had some less wholesome fantasies as well but”, she shrugged. This was getting ridiculous, it was as if she had some sort of twitch, “I don’t know. I didn’t feel good. I had only had one date and the guy had tried to kill me, I don’t even count the night with Clark as a date as he left halfway through. So I wasn’t happy”, she summed up, this time, thankfully, without raising her shoulders to her ears. “I was trying to convince myself that I was so over it, that I didn’t care about anything in Smallville as Metropolis was better. Then this older, handsome, talented, worldly ...”
Lex snorted
“Well, semi-worldly”, she corrected herself, “man started to pay attention to me. I was flattered and I liked him. It was nice, we went out a few times, all very romantic, then we had sex in his apartment. I don’t regret it, it was nice, so was he but ...” She finally allowed her eyes to settle on his face and found him staring at her, genuinely interested.
“I didn’t want the whole Prom Night fantasy, honestly, I didn’t. But, I would have liked a little more than that. More than just a physical thing.” She shrugged, and Lex felt the urge to reach out and pull her shoulders back down until she continued, “Pretty pathetic reason to lose your virginity”. Okay, so now he wanted to reach out and hug her until he squeezed out every bad memory.
“Not pathetic, just not ideal”, he assured her as he reached out and rubbed her back.
“Argh, how did we get on this topic?” She shook her head, “Back to Whose Line!”
“Yeah, after all this girl talk I feel like I should be wearing a towel with curlers in my hair”.
Really interesting fic
I'm confused about why she lied about the boy and can't wait for more lol
Malu
can't wait to see what happens next.
A/N: Thanks to the reviewrs as always. I wish I could answer the question but you will find out eventually.
Chapter Ten
“Come on Lex, pump those thighs”, Chloe called back over her shoulder at the billionaire who was dawdling behind. “Don’t you know that the stairs do wonders for your butt?”
“My butt is just fine thank-you”, Lex informed her as he reached the top of the Talon’s winding staircase.
“My what do you know, you’re right. Although I think that it could be a little better”, Chloe said, as she walked around him to check.
“You can only imagine how hurt I am, not to make the Chloe Sullivan best ass list”, Lex replied in a sardonic tone.
“Well, it isn’t really a list”, she smiled at him, “just a vague grouping”.
“Pervert”, he tossed at her.
“Please, like you don’t know who the hottest girls in Smallville are”, she rolled her eyes. Everyone had some sort of list.
“Women Chloe, please”, he tisked.
“Fine, women”, she deigned to say.
“Have you noticed that even though you are the one who is moving, I’m the one carrying all of the boxes?” He wondered as he rested the box on the banister as she started hunting around in her bag for the keys.
“Yes, I had actually. I came to my attention when you took them off me”, she remained him.
“I was raised to be a gentleman”, he shrugged.
She look up from her rifling to raise an eyebrow at him.
“Hey, my nanny was nice”, he looked mildly offended, which was how she knew that he wasn’t really. When he was actually hurt the shutters came down over his eyes.
“Yeah, right sorry”, she always forgot that there were other people in his life, other than his absentee father, or at least, that there had been once.
“Don’t worry about it”, he gave her a wink. “Although why you wouldn't let me hire movers I will never know”.
“That’s just not the way I do things!” She went back to hunting around in her bag. If she didn’t find them soon she was going to have to upend her bag and go through the contents on the floor.
“Masochist?” He teased.
She was just paying enough attention to hmm thoughtfully as she decided that there had been some sort of warp hole in the bottom of her bag.
“Chloe”, he protested.
“No, of course not”, she rolled her eyes, “God, make everything sexual why don’t you? Ah ha!” Finally she had discovered her key chain.
“Have you ever considered cleaning that thing out?” He asked as he lifted the box once more and Chloe straightened up to open the door for him.
“Sure, every damned day”.
“Ever done it?”
“Um ... yeah, about six months ago”, she said, thinking back, “horrifying experience”.
“The woman who I have seen take on ruffians with no thought to her own safety describes the contents of her handbag as being horrifying?” He raised an eyebrow at her as he entered the Talon apartment.
“Oh”, she followed him in, closing the door behind them, “You have no idea how bad it was. It made that mess of your documents look like a walk in the park”.
“Not too bad is it? He suddenly snapped out of the playful teasing tone he had been using only moments before.
“No”, he walked over and placed her hand on his bicep, making sure that he was looking straight at her as she grinned at him. “I love it. It’s not too hard, just right. You know that I adore sleuthing”.
“Incorrigible”, he mocked her.Relieved to hear that she wasn’t being worked too hard. He had feared that she might over exert herself so desperate was she to make a good impression now that she finally had a way to claw herself out of her hole.
“You know it. You love it. Now stop proving how strong and manly you are and put the box down”, she gestured to the nearest available surface which just happened to be the kitchen counter top.
“Strong and manly? I didn’t know that you had noticed”, he teased, which earned him another roll of the eyes.
“You know, if you’re not careful then your face will stick that way”.
She stuck her tongue out at him, before opening the box and began to unpack it.
“Don’t”, he warned.
“Don’t what?” Chloe shot him an innocent look, while trying not to giggle as her fingers came into contact with something distinctly pink.
“I didn’t know that they weren’t yours”, he defended himself.
“I know that you didn’t and I wouldn’t say anything. It was very nice of you to come and help me pack and everything”, she patted him.
“Luthors are never sweet”, he would ignore the pat.
“Fine, cute”, she relented with a grin.
“That is no better”, he groused.
“Adorable?” Her grin widened.
“Fine, I’ll be sweet”. It was the best of a bad bunch and he feared what she might come up with next.
She squeezed his cheek gently in the ‘aren’t you cute way’ old women did to babies.
He swatted her bottom
“Hey, I need that for sitting on”, she protested.
“Then behave yourself”, he advised.
“You really think that this could have been mine?” She held up something that was both pink and extremely fluffy.
“After the fifth hour of packing up your crap I wasn’t thinking clearly. How did you acquire so much?”
“Clutter is like trebles”, she shrugged.
He nodded and smiled, they had already established that she was a Trekie. He liked that.
“I really do appreciate it”, she was probably repeating herself she knew but there were enough people in Lex’s life leeching from him, he didn’t need another one.
“You aren’t going to get all sentimental and mushy on me, are you?” He demanded, trying to cover his own ‘mushy’ reaction.
“Of course not, that would destroy our budding friendship. Now buck up sailor”, she punched him on the arm.
“Much better”.
They unpacked the box quickly, trying to remember where everything had gone. It was fortunate that Chloe had been involved in every stage of the unpacking process and had noticed that those things didn’t belong to her before Lana started asking questions.
“Looks like we got everything”, Chloe smiled over at her helper after taking one last look around the apartment.
“Thank God for that, only five trips”, he folded the box and tucked it under his arm. Next time they were definitely hiring movers.
“Yup”, she nodded happily, placing her copy of the apartment’s key on the kitchen counter top. “I am officially moved out, now we just have a couple of more hours of reordering to do”.
“Seriously, you came with three suitcases, I know that you haven’t brought anything ... How did it happen?” Lex shook his head as they headed for the door.
“Other than the Clark furniture? I don’t know, must be the meteor rocks”.
“That’s your excuse for everything”, he grumbled. He was a scientist at heart - a mad one as Chloe liked to tease him - he wanted to know exactly how it had happened, not just that it had happened.
She rolled her eyes, “You spent rather a lot of money on my meteor rock theory”.
“I have squandered more than that on a weekend in Hong Kong”, he shrugged it off.
“Good weekend?”
“Not bad”, nothing he had done back then seemed that great now. He had been very bored. And very lonely.
“Besides, it was an extremely good investment”, he defended.
They headed to the door, Chloe about to open it when he stopped her.
“What’s wrong?” She wondered.
“I haven’t forced you into this, have I?”
“What?”
“Moving, if you don’t want to leave Lana ...”
“Lex”, she placed her hand on his shoulder, “one: you are not getting rid of me that easily. Two: you are not scary enough to intimidate me”.
Lex’s face took on that stony expression it always did where emotions were involved but she saw the smile in his eyes. He couldn’t hide from her.
The smile was still there five hours later even though they were both lying on Chloe’s new living room’s floor complaining that they were going to die and that next time she wasn’t going to object to him getting her movers. He wasn’t sure if the smile was ever going to disappear.
~*~
“I don’t know Chloe”
“Did I stutter?”
Clark blinked down at his small blonde friend. They were standing in the middle of the Kent farmhouse’s living room, Martha was in the kitchen pretending that she wasn’t listening in and that she wasn’t trying not to laugh into the pie that she was preparing.
“No, Chloe, you didn’t stutter”, he had super hearing, it wouldn't have mattered if she had.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know Chloe”, he ran a hand through his hair, “I’m just not sure if I can give my support to you moving in with Lex”
“First of all”, she held up on finger in front of his face, just in case he hadn’t got the idea, “I didn’t ask for your consent, I asked if you were coming to my party. And second of all”, she lifted another finger, “I am not ‘moving it with Lex’ that makes it sound like we are f-” the sound of a knife going through a particularly crisp apple reminded Chloe of Mrs Kent’s presence, “far more close than we actually are. I am living in the guest house”.
“I don’t see the difference”, Clark grumbled.
“In that case we need to have a talk about you marrying Lois”.
“What?”
“Well, she did live under the same roof didn’t she?”
“Yes, but ...” It hadn’t been like that. Chloe couldn’t seriously think that something like that had ever crossed his mind where Lois was concerned. Well, there was that one time when he had seen her wearing his shirt and that other time with towel where the barn had mysteriously caught on fire but those didn’t mean anything. It was just a natural biological reaction.
“And you too did spend a lot of time together”, Chloe continued, enjoying herself.
“We lived in the same house”, he protested, “in was unavoidable”.
“Me thinks that Smallville doth protest too much”, she was almost giggling with delight. It felt like ages since she had been able to wind someone up like this, Lex gave just as good as he got so she never truly got the upper hand. This was easy.
Clark stared in exasperation from his friend to the kitchen - where his mother was laughing - and back to the diminutive blonde. “Chlo, I’m just trying to look out for you”
“I realise that, but I am an adult Clark. I can decide who I do and do not want in my life and ...”
“But it’s Lex”, he protested.
“Yes, it’s Lex. So what?” She was beginning to get really irritated with her friend. She had known that he wouldn’t take this well, but he hadn’t thought that he would be this bad. She was really quite disappointed with Clark and it always hurt her far more deeply than it should when he let her down.
“So what? So what?” He repeated.
“Yes, so what?” She placed her hands on her hips, determined to have this out once and for all, “What according to you has he actually done?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I asked. What according to you has he actually done?”
Clark continued to stare blankly at her.
“Okay, I’ll start for you”, she said with a sigh. Had she known that this conversation was going to go on for so long, she would have accepted the glass of water Mrs Kent had offered her when she had first come in. She wondered if it was too late to have it now. “One: he is a Luthor. Hardly his fault. Two: his Dad is evil. Again, hardly something he can be blamed for”, she shot Clark a meaningful look as she was well aware that that was what his father had always done. “Three: he drove too fast over that bridge. Okay, I can’t defend that and I have spoken to him about driving more carefully”.
That conversation had basically consisted of her threatening him with bodily harm if he ever did it again after he had narrowly avoided having an accident the week before. She wasn’t putting in all of this time and effort into making him the perfect friend just to have him kill himself or worse, she knew, injuring someone else and having to live with the guilt.
“He investigated it and then lied about it”, Clark put in, glad to have thought of something she couldn’t defend without having to go into the nitty gritty of what had happened with him and Lana.
“Oh wooped doo”.
“He could have blown my cover”.
“He didn’t know that you had a cover”, she forbore to add ‘you idiot’ for Mrs Kent’s sake, not her son’s. “Do you blame me for the times that you saved me when it could have blown your cover in High School?”
“Of course not, you didn’t mean any harm”.
“Then why can’t you extend the same logic to Lex?”
“Chloe”, he sighed, “it’s just different. You wouldn’t understand”.
“Really? It’s different? No shit Sherlock. Sorry Mrs Kent”.
“That’s okay dear”.
“Thank-you”.
Clark rolled his eyes at the exchange.
“Every situation is going to be different Clark, that doesn’t mean that the same sort of thought processes don’t apply. As for not understanding, in case it escaped your attention I have a higher IQ than you did, I got better test results, I was the head of the newspaper when you were just a journalist, and I went to a f- fiddling Ivy League University. Try me!” She challenged.
He reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders, trying to sooth her. At any other time it might have worked but she was too riled up. He stroked his hands down her arms, “I’m sorry Chloe, you know that I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant, you don’t know what it is like to fear for your life, your family, your friends constantly. What he did, even if unintentionally, could have hurt a lot of people and after I asked him, in the name of our friendship, to stop and he promised to do so ... He continued”.
Chloe nodded. He shouldn’t have lied like that, but she still couldn’t help but feel sad for Lex. She knew that he had been so unhappy for most of his life and it was only natural that certain things would start to obsess him when he went home to the castle with no one to talk to for hours on end. She wanted to hug him. In fact, she would later although he would probably think it a bit strange when she just walked up to him and embraced him for no reason - as far as he knew at least. Still, he was getting used to her doing strange things to him.
“He experimented with meteor rocks”, Clark continued, thinking that he was about to win this argument. A first with Chloe.
“Yeah, he did that too”, she admitted, “but you weren’t honest about it. He didn’t know that they could hurt you”.
“So, it was my fault?”
“Partially, yes”. Clark opened his mouth to complain but she cut him off. “I’m not saying that he hasn’t made mistakes. Of course he has, we all have. But he saved your family home, he has saved us all so many times, he has done so much for your friendship and basically got bugger all for it”. There she had said it, “He had always been there for you”.
“You don’t get it”, he tried again.
“And”, she ignored that comment, “All of this happened ages ago and you forgave him. So, what is the real problem?”
Clark sighed and shook his head, “I just don’t trust him”.
“Why not?” She exploded, she had had enough of this. “I don’t want to hear ‘I don’t know’”, she did a not entirely complimentary impression of him. “It’s because of Lana, isn’t it? Something happened there?”
In true Clark Kent style he said nothing but looked uncomfortable.
“You know what Clark that’s just fine. I am having a house warming party starting at 1 o’clock. You may come if you want to but only if you man up and come with the right attitude. Otherwise”, she sighed, “I guess that I will just see you around”.
“What, you’re kidding right? You would really chose him over me?”
“I’m not choosing anyone over anyone else but I’m not going to turn my back on one friend just to satisfy a different one”, she shook her head sadly, “Goodbye Clark”.
She walked out of the room, waving a hand at Mrs Kent as she went. She strode over to the car that she had borrowed, allowing the chauffeur to have the day off. Her car would be arriving the following week so soon she would not have to rely on Lex for that. She had saved up a bit and Lex’s mechanic had been looking around for good quality second hand cars for her. She was going to have a little red Volvo, she was looking forwards to that level of independence.
She was just about to get into the Lexus - the least expensive of Lex’s cars, she sometimes wondered if he had just got it because of the name -, when she heard her name being called. She turned around to see Clark walking out of the house.“Do you need a hand setting up?”
She grinned. “Not really, but I’ll accept anyway”.
He nodded with a smile and walked over to his car to follow her back to her new home.
~*~
“Nice place”, Clark commented as they entered the guest house, it was one of the few parts of the Luthor property he hadn’t explored before.
“Yeah, but you know less ‘off with their heads’ than the castle”, she hadn’t admitted to anyone that she had never really felt at home in the castle.
Clark just smiled.
“So, are you really uncomfortable?” She asked, coming right to the point.
“I’ll get over it”, he shrugged, “you’re right, it isn’t as if he has killed anyone and well, you chose to trust me even when you knew that I was lying to you, I can take a leap of faith based on your word”.
“Good”, she beamed and ran back a couple of steps to hug him. It felt like a hug moment.
He wrapped his arms around her and she sank into him. She didn’t know how he managed it - maybe it was the whole alien thing - but the second that she was in his arms she instantly felt safe and warm and protected. It was like an invisible cocoon of loveliness had been constructed around her. Even after all this time, he was always there when she truly needed him. For several minutes they just stood there in the hallway of the house, the front door still open, embracing each other. It felt wonderful.
She could have stayed like that forever, had there not been a meaning full cough at that precise moment. Hazily Chloe lifted her head from Clark’s warm strong chest and looked over to see Lex Luthor standing in the still open doorway.“I hope that I’m not interrupting anything”.
Chloe blushed as she pulled away, finding it hard to make eye contact with the brooding billionaire in her doorway.
“I was just congratulating Chloe on her new accommodation”, Clark said, not exactly coolly but not with any great deal of warmth.
“So I see”, Lex observed, as he continued to stand there.
“Oh, sorry”, Chloe muttered, not entirely sure why she was apologising when she hadn’t actually being doing anything wrong, she just felt awkward hugging Clark like that in front of Lex. Finally looked up, knowing that her cheeks were probably deepening in shade with every passing second, to see him still politely waiting in the entrance. “Come in Lex”.
With no change in facial expression he entered the house and pointed at the door, “Should I?”
“Please”, she said and gave a smile of thanks as he closed it after himself.
Clark looked between the two of them in confusion. Lex had to ask before he entered his own guest house?
All three of them stood there, awkwardly, looking from one to the other. Never one for uncomfortable silences Chloe announced, “This is really awkward, isn’t it?”
“I have no reason to feel out of place”, Lex said, looking straight at Clark.
“Neither do I”, Clark replied.
Lex raised an eyebrow at that.
“Chloe invited me to her party, I’m here to help setting up”, there that should put Lex in his place, he wasn’t going to dictate to Chloe.
“I’m here for the same reason”.
“Would you two like to be left alone to work this out?” Chloe inquired.
Both men looked suitably abashed.
“Good, if you do feel the need to have a tinkling contest at least do it outside”, she said with a clap of the hands.
Lex smirked at that, “But not near the roses I presume”
“I should think not”, she continued but then realising that they were leaving Clark out, she added, “there is this really beautiful rose garden outside”.
“I’d gathered as much”, he said stiffly.
“Fine”, she answered, obviously a little miffed, “I was just trying to include you”.
“I appreciate that”, he reached out to caress her arm in apology and Chloe felt her irritation beginning to melt away until she realised that now she was leaving Lex out. Having two male friends was hard work.
“Want to see who can blow up the most balloons?” Clark stared at her in confusion while Lex smirked and inquired, “You thought that we could do less damage with balloons?”
“I’m not letting either of you near the piñata”. At least not until they had calmed down a bit. They would smash the poor little thing to smithereens.
“You have a piñata?” Clark asked.
“Yeah, it is a party after all”.
~*~
“I don’t know why you are the one in a bad mood”.
“No, I’m sure that you don’t. Although I never said that I was in a bad mood”, Lex replied as he continued to affix the multicoloured balloons around the room. It was the first time that Chloe had left them alone so far - she had received a phone call she couldn’t ignore and had warned them both to get along or else.
“You are the one who came to my house and essentially threatened me”, Clark shot back.
“Believe me Clark, when I want to threaten you, you will know about it”, Lex tied another bunch of balloons together.
Clark swallowed. What would he do? “I don’t want to see Chloe get hurt”.
Lex turned and placed the decorations on the floor. “I could say the same thing”.
Clark scowled, “I would never hurt her”.
“Correct me if I am wrong”, he said purely for rhetorical purposes; he was never wrong, “but she has never ended up in tears over me. I never invited her to a dance and then left her humiliated in front of everyone running out of said dance without so much as telling her why or that I was going. I didn’t go to her only when I needed something and then ignore her. I didn’t betray her with her room mate of all things. I have never treated her with anything but respect”.
Clark’s jaw clenched. None of that was true, there had been circumstances that Lex didn’t understand. Chloe knew what had happened. She had never cried. He had never treated her like that. He knew that Lex was wrong and yet head himself asking, “How did you know?” He had to be making this up. But, there was just enough information there to make him believe that Lex did know something. “Chloe talked to you? About the dance?” He couldn't believe that, and yet, what other explanation was there?
“Of course not, she is far too proud for that but she didn’t have to”.
Clark looked confused, it was fast becoming his habitual expression.
“Everyone knew. The whole of Smallville”.
“No, no one cares about freshman”, Clark protested. That couldn’t be true.
“Believe me, a girl going around looking for her date gets out and I promise you that it was absolutely the main thing on Gabe’s mind for weeks afterwards. Months in fact”, Lex informed him blandly. He remembered one particular day when he had been trying to convince him that shoving Clark head first down the manure compactor wasn’t the best idea he had ever had. It would have put the plant back weeks.
Clark blinked.
“The day after the hurricane Gabe came in a nervous wreck, it wasn’t bad enough that he had been afraid for his daughter all night long and unable to get to her when she came home she was in floods of tears for no apparent reason. When he came into work he heard people talking about that girl who had been stood up. You know Clark, when most people take a girl out the stay for the entire date and take her home as well”, he informed him.
Clark swallowed, there had been a reason. “Your track record isn’t exactly stellar”.
“Touché, but I’m not dating Chloe. She doesn’t like me that way. I don’t have the power to hurt her and even if I did, I wouldn’t. I appreciate her. You should either do the same or fuck off”, there, that was far more touchy feely than he ever cared to be but it was worth it if it prevented Chloe from further heartbreak.
“I’m not going anywhere and I’m not going to hurt her”, Clark puffed out his chest.
“Then we understand each other”, Lex fixed him with a steely gaze, unimpressed by the young man’s few extra inches.
“Boys if you have left a puddle on my carpet you are both in trouble”, Chloe warned as she walked in the room.
Clark smiled over at her and walked up to give her another hug, it seemed odd seeing at there was no reason for it but she wasn’t going to complain. “We were just talking about you”, he knew that she wouldn’t believe him if he told her that they had been discussing the football scores or something like that.
“And?” She wondered, not sure if she should be flattered or annoyed.
“And as long as he doesn’t hurt you I won’t have to break his legs”, Clark smiled cheerfully.
“And as long as he doesn’t hurt you I won’t have to destroy his entire family”, Lex said, in a perfect imitation of Clark. They both stared at him. “What? He threatened me first”. He knew that he probably sounded like a two year old but it really wasn’t fair the way that people always turned on him.
“Yes, but Clark is a big softie. You know he could never do it”, Chloe explained.
“Making threats you aren’t prepared to carry out it just stupid”, Lex shrugged and scowled.
“I know”, she released herself from Clark’s arms. “So”, she looked around, “we just need to put a few more balloons up and we will be done”.
“You aren’t serving food?” Clark wondered.
“Of course, but I brought sandwiches etc from the market this morning”, Chloe explained, “they are all ready-made in the fridge in the kitchen”.
“Right, so what are we going to do until then?” It was almost two hours until the rest of the guests were due to arrive.
“Get in the party mood by playing a game?” Chloe asked hopefully. She had always loved games.
“For Pete’s sake not truth or dare”, Lex groaned.
“I second that”, Clark said quickly. Well, that was a start. At least they were getting along a little bit.
“Spoil sports”, she groused, “but I was thinking of the old school kind. We found loads in the cupboard yesterday, didn’t we Lex?”
“We did”, he confirmed.
Chloe went over to the games cupboard. “Okay, let’s see what we have. Boggle?” She looked over at them. No they were far too competitive for that. “Twister brings back bad memories”, she discounted that one, not realising that she had spoken out-loud.
“What happened?”
“My Dad came home just as Pete, Clark and I were halfway through a game”, Chloe explained as Clark blushed. “Apparently my Dad has a dirty mind and the phrase, ‘A little more to the left Pete’, then him saying, ‘see this isn’t so hard, is it?’ etc didn’t go down well”.
“But surely he had seen that you were only playing a game”, Lex thought aloud.
“Of course, but Pete never felt welcome again”, she found it funny now, but hadn’t at the time.
Lex smiled.
Clark felt bad for his old friend. Gabe had looked about ready to murder the teenaged boy.
“Okay, Twister is out. We wouldn’t like to bring back bad memories for Chloe”, Lex snickered.
“Snakes and Ladders?” Was the next box in the stack but Lex declined that on the basis that it required “no ability”. “I suppose that you would prefer Monopoly then?”
“No, again, no ability”, Lex complained.
“Unless you cheat”, Clark put in, shooting Chloe a conspiratorial look. She was the master of that game as he had found out to his cost.
Chloe cast her eyes over the rest of the games, aware again that they were excluding Lex, “What did you play as a boy?”
Play? Play? Play? He hadn’t really played much, “I had Meccano and Lego”, his eyes lit up. He loved building stuff, “Historical castles and science kits”, he had pretended to be a mad scientist.
“Boring”, Chloe complained. “Can you come up with anything Clark?”
He shrugged, “I was mostly playing outside or doing chores”.
She huffed.
“What were you doing other than causing problems and getting into scrapes reporting?” Lex challenged.
“Lots”, she shrugged, “I played loads of games with Dad”.
“Yes, we have all heard of the destroyed frustration set”, he teased.
“It was just so”, she gesticulated, “frustrating”.
“Based on the name, I am guessing that that was the point”, he suggested gently.
“Meh. That was a one time occurrence”. Who hadn’t destroyed a frustration set at one point during their childhood? Clark had destroyed an entire barn, although that had been accidental. He had only been trying to close the door.
“Of course it was a one time event. Who in their right minds would let you near a frustration game again after that? It wasn’t the only time you broke a game though”, he pointed out.
“What do you know Luthor?” She demanded, hands on hips.
“Among other things that you trying to give equal amounts to the hungry hippos and then started feeding them grapes thereby breaking the game because you were afraid that they might still be hungry”. He had found that rather sweet.
“Well, hunger is a serious problem”, she defended herself.
“True, but I also heard about you hustling people at connect four”, Lex grinned at her.
“They were being condescending, thinking that they could beat me at that game”, she rolled her eyes, she ruled that game and as it happened they did have a set but that wouldn’t work with three people.
“Then they certainly deserved it. What about the people your Dad worked with who you hustled at cards?” Lex continued to tease her.
“They deserved it too”, honestly couldn't anything that happened at the company picnic stay a secret? What was happening to the world?
“I’m sure that they did”, Lex said in a conciliating tone. He was just playing with her.
“Yes!” She exclaimed, no longer paying any attention to either of the men in the room.
“What is it?” Lex reached her elbow to see what it was that she had discovered.
“My favourite, this is what we are playing”. She didn’t care what anyone else wanted, she had decided.
“What is it?” He wondered.
“Cluedo!”
The boys traded looks, “I guess that we should have seen that one coming”.
~*~
“It says from ages 8 and up!”
“You are over 8 Lex”, Chloe informed him, “I know that baby head is confusing but honestly you are”.
“Baby head?”
“Yeah, you know, the whole no hair thing. Makes you look like a baby in the right light”, she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world as she made her way into the centre of the room and started to set the game up.
Before Lex could protest this Chloe started pulling things out of the box, “And our victim Dr Boddy”.
“Isn’t it supposed to be Dr Black?” Lex wondered, he had heard of the game rather than played it but his freakishly good memory seemed to recall Black.
“Oh this must be the English version”, Chloe shrugged it off, “fancy”.
“Only the best here”, he sat down beside her and started taking things out of the box. Clark did the same.
“Yep, since I’ve been here”.
“That’s what I like about you Sullivan, your modesty”, he nudged her to let her know that he was only joking.
“I am modest, I’m just that awesome”,
“That’s what I said, do these things work?” He reached out and gently tugged her ear.
“What?”
“I said ...” He cut himself off.
“I can’t believe that you fell for that”, Chloe teased him.
“Almost fell for that”, he corrected her, “And me neither”.
“We’ve all been there”, Clark assured him. “So, are you going to explain the rules Chloe?”
She started to read from the box.
“No, I meant the actual rules”.
Lex raised an eyebrow at him.
“Clearly you have never played this with her before”.
“No, I haven’t had that honour”.
“Right, well make sure that when you get given the paper you use it, you take proper notes which are in order, written clearly etc”, he started.
“Doesn’t that give me us an advantage of winning the game?” Lex couldn’t understand why she would insist on other people giving themselves an advantage, surely she would benefit if they were being stupid.
“Yes, but Chloe won’t put up with a messy list”, Clark shot his former sidekick a warm smile.
“Are you even supposed to be looking at other people’s lists Chloe?” Lex inquired, noticing that she wasn’t denying it.
“How could I not, you didn’t see their lists they were terrible”, she complained. They had been utterly dreadful.
“Also watch out for the mind games”, Clark warned him.
Chloe schooled her features into a suitable innocent expression. Unfortunately both men knew her far too well to fall for it.
“Ah, I see what you mean about the mind games”, Lex smirked, “I’m not believing that face”.
“Me neither”, Clark joined in, “did ever hear of the story of the seaweed and cotton candy?”
“No”, Lex stared at him in fascination as Clark digressed into the tale.
“That is hilarious”, Lex guffawed.
“Oh, what about the time that she blackmailed the mayor?” Clark was on a roll now.
“What!” Lex wasn’t surprised that it had happened, just that he hadn’t heard about it until now. That sounded like a great Chloe adventure.
“Are we going to play the game or are you two going to gang up on me and tell embarrassing stories?” Chloe demanded.
They looked at each other. They weren’t best friends. They never would be. Too much had happened but at least they both trusted that the other wouldn’t intentionally hurt Chloe and that was a start.
“What do you think Clark?” Lex inquired in a friendly manner.
“Well, I do have an awful lot of stories about Chloe. Did you hear the one where she got possessed by a witch?”
“Vaguely”, Lex had sort of been friends with Clark at the time and had been privy to some of the details.
“Know about the birthmark?”
“What birthmark?” His ears pricked up, he hadn’t noticed any birthmarks.
“Right, that’s it you’re going down Kent” She pounced on him, wresting him to the ground, which he let her do. He could have lifted her with one pinkie with energy to spare.
Lex laughed but did lean over to pull her off - just in case it had an effect on Clark, it would have had one on him. He was just standing over her when the door opened.
“Fun, where do I sign up?”
A/N: So, what do you think?
lol
really great
I'm loving their friendship
Malu
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