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Thread: Places We Have Been (NC-17)

  1. #31
    Bruce's Favorite Stalker
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    Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Part I, 4/10/05

    *in the best whine she can manage* JUNE! where are you? I haven't seen you around at all! Please come back and feed my fiction addiction.... please, please, please, please!
    I have had quite a few people PM me over the past few weeks and ask me when the next update of this fic will be, and I just wanted to let anyone and everyone know who is interested that I'm hoping to get one up in the next few days. I have been meaning to post this Authors Note for a while now, but time is a luxury I've been deprived of lately. I have, however, been working on this more than "Missing" and "Everything" the past couple of days, so there will be an update soon.

    This story is close to me in a number of ways, and for those of you who know why-- I thank you for your support and to every one else please be patient and know that I am thankful for each and every one of my readers. Please don't give up on me or this story. There are updates in the very near future, I promise.

    June

  2. #32
    NS Full Member Nadia_'s Avatar
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    Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Part II, 5/27/05

    Again, I can't think of any compliment that gets near of what I think of this fic... It's cruelly real, almost brutal, but beatifully wroten. It's one of the bests pieces of fiction I've ever read. Again you got me crying like a baby, and and feeling helpless because of Chle and what she is going trough.
    Once more all the realtionships were master pieces and at the last line was just...Strong, and totally heart brokening.

    And I can't wait to read the rest.

  3. #33
    Spunky Chick Senior Member hfce's Avatar
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    Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Part II, 5/27/05

    Wow that was confusing. The time really jumped in the begining. Its very sad.
    "Everyone seems normal until you get to know them. "

  4. #34
    storie girl Senior Member starmoon's Avatar
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    Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Part II, 5/27/05

    intense please update soon and make it happy this time.

  5. #35
    Insane Troll logic girl lexchloe's Avatar
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    Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Part II, 5/27/05

    There aren't enough words to describe the sheer excellence of that chapter. Heartbreaking, powerful, beautiful, manificent writing. Well done, can't wait for part 3.
    I tried to drown my sorrows, but the little buggers learned how to swim.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




  6. #36
    Fairy Dust Bitch welshy's Avatar
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    Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Part II, 5/27/05

    This is so beautifull written, I hope you update soon

  7. #37
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    Talking Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Part II, 5/27/05

    It's so sad, depressing and well written. Waiting for the next update.

  8. #38
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    Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Author's Note, 5/26/05

    Quote Originally Posted by June
    She finds the nearest phone, dials the first number that comes to mind. Keeps pushing away tears angrily because they just won’t stop falling.

    Lex doesn’t answer and it’s then, only then, that she finally allows herself to break.
    Lex, answer the freaking phone! What's wrong with you?

    Love it, love it, love it. Wonderful update, I love how you've portrayed Chloe and Lex's relationship.

  9. #39
    Bruce's Favorite Stalker
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    Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Part II, 5/27/05

    Places We Have Been
    NC-17/Angst


    Author's Notes: I took some liberties with Chloe's character here, I'm not Catholic so if someone is and I wrote something wrong let me know. And in case anyone is confused: the first section of this part is the only one set in the past. It probably should have been placed in the last update but it didn't work out that way. Read, enjoy, and let me know what you think. Thank you everyone for you kind reviews, they mean a lot more than you think.






    Part III




    One time Chloe had left Lex.

    It hadn’t been because of a fight, because she was upset or hurt in any way, she just left. The day she took him to his mother’s grave, the day after he’d taken her up against the wall and left bruises that were seared into her skin. Left a mark on her soul that made her break-- silently, slowly, completely unbeknownst to him.

    Chloe never understood why she had done it, why she had lied to him about some assignment that wasn’t suppose to start for weeks-- all she knew was she needed to get out. Needed time and space, and to figure things out because everything in her life was a mess. In a complete disarray and the one person she had counted on to be strong and unyielding had broken and come to her for fixing.

    She didn’t even know how to fix herself, to fix her own problems, tackle her own demons and he wanted her to mend his wounds? Be his shoulder to cry on? Chloe didn’t even know where to begin, how to begin.

    So she left, packed her bags and got on a plane to Seattle. Ate the tasteless airline food, drank a glass of scotch and thought of Lex. Realized somewhere mid flight that she really didn’t have anything to leave. That leaving sort of lost it’s effect when the person you were leaving didn’t know you were leaving them.

    Maybe she was selfish, she was pretty sure she’s screwed up in every which way-- but she didn’t know. Didn’t know about him, how she felt about him, or worse: how he felt about her. They were a web of feelings and emotions that she could never figure out. One minute they were one thing and the next they had become something else. Something less than what they were, something more depending on the day.

    It had hurt her head when she thought about it. Made her feel as helpless as ever, made her cry because she realized that what she felt for him was stronger than what it was suppose to be. Love was never suppose to be in the equation, not for her, not for them. Her and Lex were only suppose to be friends who indulged in their carnal urges every once in a while because it was better with each other than anyone else.

    In college she had been promiscuous, a slut. She used guys because it was fun, and she always got out before the tables were turned. Chloe took and took and took until they didn’t have any more to give and in the end she was always the winner. Chloe played dirty so she would never get hurt, but with Lex, she painfully realized, she was playing it safe.

    Not by being with him of course, because that was as dangerous as it could get, but by not sharing parts of herself with him. By always telling herself don’t give to much, don’t say too much, don’t show him your scars, your secrets. Don’t, Don’t, Don’t, her mind kept telling her when she was with him, and she slowly realized over time that playing it safe did exactly the opposite of what everyone had always told her it was suppose to do-- it hurt her.

    When she took her assignment in Africa-- reporting on the civil war in one of the poorest countries of the world where children, babies, were being taught how to use a gun instead of read, for the first time she looked at other guys. Took interest in a photographer they had sent with her that time, cute and handsome-- a geek-- but to her that just made him irresistible.

    They kissed. They slept together. They held hands and Chloe forgot to call Lex. There were times when she didn’t even think about him. What started off as a three week assignment turns into a month, then two and when she’s done she takes another and decides to request for him to come along with her. Jeff-- that was his name -- held her after she got the call about her father.

    He was sweet and caring and said all the right things. But when he kissed her, touched her, made love to her sweet and slowly-- which was incredible but just not what she needed-- all she saw, all she felt was Lex. And before she knew it she was back in Metropolis, back with him, falling into the same patterns.

    Her footprints were like tracks in the snow that she knew was leading her to this great, big downfall but she traced them anyway. Took the same path she had before. Couldn’t help it.

    Lex weaved this web around her that dragged her back in when she started to escape.

    It was so much easier, she found, to fall back into old patterns than trying to forge new ones.


    * * *


    When she was younger she had attended Sunday School because her parents made her. After her mother left she attended mass with her father and ignored the pitiful looks that were sent their way the “that poor little girl” comments she had heard but didn’t truly understand until much, much later in life. Smallville brought a lot of new changes, and her father had stopped going to church sometime after their move and somewhere along the way Chloe had stopped believing.

    It wasn’t until Gabe had met Joanna that he returned to his faith, and up until the cancer had finally overtaken him every Sunday you could find him at the eight O’clock mass at St. Mary’s Church.

    Chloe walks through the church now, after consolation and condolences and prayer-- things she is surprised she still remembers-- Father Michael talks about arrangements and Chloe nods at the appropriate times but really doesn’t listen. She makes the proper payment plans with the funeral home afterwards-- puts half of it on her credit card and the rest she pays from pocket.

    It has been raining for the past three days and by the time she makes it back to the house, it’s finally began to lighten up, the torrential downpour slowing into a slow drizzle that fell from the blackened skies.

    There is an unfamiliar car in the driveway, and she lights a cigarette as she enters the house, conveniently turns her head as she passes the bare library and makes her way to the back towards the kitchen..

    “Anna?” she calls, her voice harsh, raspy,--from crying and trying not to cry and all the smoking she’s been doing the past few months. It’s horrible, what she’s doing to herself, but she stopped caring months ago.

    Chloe’s stance immediately straightens, her senses on immediate alert as she enters the kitchen. The cigarette gives her an excuse not to say anything, and she watches him stand-- cool and impersonal in his business suit and muddy shoes as he turns to her.

    “Hi,” is all he says, and she looks for that spark he always had when he saw her-- that gleam in his eye. Chloe looks for certainty from him too and looks away when she doesn’t find it.

    “Thanks for coming,” she says automatically, impersonally, the same way she’s said it to every single other person who has stopped by in the past three days. “Have you been waiting long?”

    Chloe is angry with Lex for not calling, for not answering his phone three nights ago. For breaking that promise he’d made months ago-- because he hadn’t been there, not at the beginning or even at the end, and when he was it was only by way of phone calls and in-between business meetings and sometimes during his lunch hour making her feel like a nuisance than what she was-- or was supposed to be.

    But he is here now, and somewhere inside of her Chloe knows that means something.

    Anna makes a quick exit and Chloe stubs out her cigarette because she knows he hates it. Lex steps closer to her, unsure, nervous almost and as he reaches out to grab her hand, his fingers curling around her slender wrist and pulling her close, and she feels a warmth she hadn’t felt for ages. She feels strength she had needed all along, and she burrows closer to him, hugs him tightly.

    Better late than never.

    “Thank you,” she whispers against his neck again, “for coming,” she says and means it this time.

    Food is delivered over the next few days--tons and tons of it, pasta, cake, pie, peach cobbler that would never be eaten because no one likes it but no one also had the heart to tell the sweet woman who made it that. On the day of the funeral it is still raining, pouring actually, and she can hear the crackle of the morning thunderstorm as she slides into the cold wooden bench in-between Nick and Lex. It echoes off the marble walls and floor, the stained glass windows.

    Lex’s hand slides easily into hers, and she turns into him but still looks forward. Chloe realizes then why her father had loved this pace so much. It's peaceful and haunting with a nice mix of innocence.

    She wonders pitifully as the Priest begins the services if she had been a better Catholic, if she had believed just a little bit more would it have made a difference? Would her father still be alive? Joanna? Selfishly she believes if she had all that would be true, selfishly all she can think about is why this is happening to her. Why now? Why now when she still needed him so much?

    She was raised Catholic and she knows what goes where, when to kneel, when to cross herself-- even when she isn’t paying attention. When she’s thinking about Sunday morning mass with her parents, then with her dad, and then not going at all. When she’s thinking about how she didn’t even know where the nearest church was in Metropolis, how her father used to tell her to sit up straight, not to chew the communion wafer until she got back to her seat.

    “Amen” echoes throughout the large church, and Chloe says it a beat after everyone else-- her face stoic and unreadable as she goes through the motions without thinking.

    Afterwards, the reception is held at the house, hundreds of people crammed into the living rooms, the kitchen, the dinning room and Chloe makes her rounds. Shakes hands of cousins she doesn’t remember, Aunts she hadn’t seen in ages. Lois is there, off to the side and as far away as possible from Clark. Pete and Lana too, and Lex is somewhere in the midst of it all, caught between this relative or that friend.

    Chloe looks for him but can’t place him, but she knows he’s there, she can feel him.


    * * *


    “So,” Chloe draws the syllable out as she collapses onto the bed, exhausted and tired and desperate for sleep that she knew wouldn’t claim her. Not tonight. “How are you?” It feels good, she thinks, to be the one asking instead of the one being asked.

    Lois taps the pack of cigarettes against the plam of her hand, obviously contemplating taking one. She quit years before, but Chloe knew that quitting never really worked-- most of the time you just ended up going back to the habit when things got rough. Lois’s own situation warrents it, but she still sets the pack ot the side.

    “I’m alright,” her voice drops and Lois slides deeper into the chair. “I asked him for a divorce.”

    When Chloe had first heard about the troubles in their marriage she had laughed it off. Waved her hand and said “Clark and Lois can beat this, they beat everything.” Now, almost six months later, she is starting to realize there were so many things she had been wrong about.

    “I love him, Chloe, I still do.”

    “I know you do, Lo.”

    “I mean,” she laughs ruefully, “I’ve loved him since the minute I stepped foot in Smallville I think, and now, after all these years I still love him… but it is so hard. It has always been just so hard.”

    “Clark isn’t an easy person to love,” Chloe says easily as she taps her foot against the foot of the bed, “You are stronger than most for even trying.”

    “He think it’s because of who he is.. Because he’s,” she pauses and looks at Chloe expectantly for a moment, “you know. But it’s not, it has never been about that.”

    “You know what I keep thinking about,” Chloe laughs as a memory filters through her mind, “Do you remember when we were younger and we would play around in your father’s study and we ended up breaking that thousand dollar antique vase?”

    Lois laughs too, her sad, remorseful fase transforming into a beautiful smile as she does so, “And we tried to glue it back together with Lucy’s craft glue and your dad found us and took the blame so I wouldn’t get in trouble.”

    Chloe can remember every word of his tanget, every look on his face. The memory plays in her mind over and over and it makes her happy and sad at the same time. A smile comes to her own face but it’s bittersweet. She misses him, she wants him back.

    “We can’t depend on our parents to fix our mistakes any more.”

    Lois seems to understand what she’s saying, the underlying meaning in it all and the smile falls from her face immediately. “I don’t want to walk a way,” she says somewhat defensivly, “You know I hate giving up, hate failing at anything. I just… It’s hard Chloe. It’s always been so, so hard and it’s like climbing a mountain only the top never gets closer and at the end of the day he’s farther and farther away.”

    Chloe does know, boy, does she know. She loved Clark Kent for four years-- longer if she really thinks about it-- and in the end she realized, pitifully a little to late, that all it ever did was bring her pain. Chloe doesn’t hate Clark the way Pete thinks she does, she doesn’t resent him in some way for breaking her heart. She resents him for lying, for not trusting her. Pete was right-- he was her best friend before she ever realized he was a boy and she resents him the most for not seeing that specific aspect of their relationship the same way she did.

    “Maybe you guys should give it time, try to work it out.”

    “I‘ve given it time,” Lois says, sitting up straighter in the chair and reaching for the pack of cigarettes again. “Maybe we just aren’t suppose to work out. Maybe this was just in the cards for us and I was foolish to think otherwise.”

    “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, Lo, you’ll be fine. You’ve surived without Clark Kent before.”

    Lois smiles sadly, twirls a cigarette between her fingers. “I just wish we could be more like you and Lex.”

    Chloe laughs heartily, tries to imagine any other time when those words would have passed through Lois’s lips. When she would have meant it. “Lex and I aren’t anything. We just keep waking up in the morning...”

    “You’ve been living with him for what? Five years? And he’s here, that’s gotta mean something is working.”

    It’s funny because she can remember every year she’d ever lived without him, every morning she’d woken and he wasn’t next to her. She has to count backwards on her fingers to realize she hasn’t been living with him forever, that she hasn’t been with him for just as long. Years seem to mesh together and Chloe finds her life is divided into two parts: Life before Lex and Life now, with him.

    There would be a time when she would have to classify life without him too, she knows, and she hates thinking about it.

    Lois leaves late into the night, hugs Chloe close like she never wants to let go.

    “If there is anything, anything, I can do,” she begins the moment the embrace breaks. “Please let me know.”

    “I’ve got it covered.”

    Lois frowns, “you always were an awful liar.”

    She’s gone before anything else can be said, and Chloe is immediately grateful as she lays back down on the bed that she never said “I’m sorry.” It’s what everyone says, the same two words over and over and she’s tired of hearing them. Tired of people being sorry-- she’s sorry enough for everyone. She never wants to hear it again.

    Lex makes his way into the room some time later, looking tired and worn as he pulled at his tie and slipped it over his head. He’s dealt with realtives and friends and Clark for her and she smiles sadly towards him as he slips out of his shoes and places them right next to hers. To the left like always.

    It’s familiar and foreign to her at once and she wonders how that could be. How he could be standing just a few feet away from her, how she can know him so well, hold him so dear in her heart and yet she still feels alone. Empty.

    “We were in New York,” she says without thought as he unbuttons his top button and tugs at the collar of his shirt, “In Manhatten.”

    “When?”

    “When your father had his stroke,” she watches out of the corner of her eye as he sits on the foot of the bed, somewhere near her feet. “We went to that small church in the middle of nowhere and we sat and prayed,” she clears her throat when he still didn’t look at her. “Well I did anyway,” she says as an afterthought and Chloe sits up and draws her knees to her chest, the black dress-- half of a suit combo she bought years before-- slides up in the process.

    They haven’t talked much since he arrived, haven’t really done much at all, and most nights they will lay in silence and ignore each other and everything else around them. He’s there, she thinks as Lois’s words echo in her mind, and it is almost enough. Only it’s not and she knows it.

    “Lois is depressed,” she remarks for no reason at all and only because it easier to talk about this-- about other people’s problems-- than their own.

    “I would suspect she is.” Lex doesn’t know them half as well as she does, wrote them off years before and had the strength not to look back, but he wait’s a beat before continuing. “They shouldn’t have gotten married.”

    “That’s easy for us to say, but then again what do we know?”

    Lex raises an eyebrow at that, his eyes meeting hers head on. He’s sad, tired and she can see in his eyes what must be in hers too. He had told her once, such a long time ago, that when she hurt he hurt. That they were connected somehow. It went both ways she knows now, but what he was feeling then couldn’t possibly be close to what consumed her daily.

    “I can stay as long as you need me too.”

    He had come to Joanna’s funeral years before, in-between meetings and mergers and stayed a total of three days in the spare bedroom down the hall because her father had said so. He can afford to take off as much time as he wants but he won’t -- he’s much to responsible, too much of a Luthor and Chloe knows “as long as you need me too” translates to three or four days so please don’t ask for longer.

    It surprises her as she picks at the soft lace of the blanket on the bed how well she knows him. And it clicks into place then-- the aches and the longing, the job offers that were always coming and would always be there just in case. She knows him so well and yet there are days when she feels he doesn’t even know her at all.

    “There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be done here,” she says quietly and avoids eye contact. “We have to do personal effects and I may… I might have to stay here for a while.”

    “I can leave Saturday,” he traces a line from her ankle bone up her calf and then back down, “or Sunday if it’s easier for you.”

    “I don’t know, Lex,” she rests her cheek on her bare knees, moves her ankle out of his grasp. “I can’t just leave. I have to stay and I don’t know for how long.”

    “What do you want, Chloe?” He says it earnestly, honestly, and his voice holds patience and love and she hates him for it.

    Hates him for being patient with her, for understanding. She’s a jumbled mess of feelings and emotions and she doesn’t know what she wants. She wants to touch him and yell at him, she wants to fuck him so badly she can already feel his skin underneath her fingertips. She doesn’t want to need him.

    “I want to be left alone,” she says instead and it gets caught in her throat and she has to swallow painfully to get rid of it.

    Lex doesn’t ask and Chloe doesn’t explain.

    Silence fills the room and it’s eerie and calming at once. Chloe moves herself to the other side of the bed and lays down, her arms at her sides and ankles crossed. She watches Lex finish undressing for a few moments, closes her eyes and waits for the bed to dip, for him to slide in next to her. He doesn’t reach out for her nor she for him and sleep takes her by surprise, like a hunter pouncing on it’s prey and aiming right for the jugular.

    When she wakes a few hours later she’s still in the same position-- arms at her side, ankles crossed and still wearing her black dress from the funeral. Lex wakes seconds later, turning over from his side and on to his back as he blinked away sleep and exhaustion. He stares at her-- fixes her with that same stare he used to look at Clark with-- like he was trying to figure her out, trying to learn all the secrets she keeps from him.

    Lex stares at her like she used to stare at a sentence that wasn’t formed correctly, that confused her, and Chloe doesn’t apologize. Just moves closer and reaches out for him, and surprisingly he lets her.

    The next morning he packs his things and does not say a word. They hug goodbye and he kisses her briefly on the lips, his arms around her wasit tightening, bringing her closer as he does so. He hasn’t asked her to come back with him, and she’s not sure what he’s discussed with Anna and Nick but she figures, as his eyes bore into hers somewhat coldly, that whatever it was it was enough for him to know they would let her go with him in a heartbeat.

    “I got a job offer in San Fransico,” she tells him quietly, her tone conversational as the wind blew around them promising more rain to come. “I think I’m going to take it.”

    Lex just stares straight at her, balancing his overnight bag on his shoulder, his eyes cold and lifeless-- pale blue-grey like her fathers and it takes her breath away. Chloe stares at her feet-- her dirty sneakers that need replacing, her jeans that had holes in the knees and were fraying every which way possible.

    She looks like a little girl when standing next to him. He is all elegance and sophositacation and unleashed anger that was simmering below the surface. And yet he continues to say nothing, just stares at her-- eyes cold and unfeeling behind that deliberately placed Luthor mask.

    Another moment and he walks away.

    Chloe watches him from behind the closed front door. Watches him slide into the rental car and not look back. She slowly makes her way back upstairs, back to a room that had become hers over the past few months, crawls back on to the bed. On to the side of the bed he had occupied for the past three nights.

    She breathes in his scent and closes her eyes. She does not wish for things so impossible. She does not sleep.


    * * *


    Left behind are papers, letters, pictures she refuses to look at. Old clothing and furniture that would probably never be used again. Nothing was left that didn’t have value besides sentimental. They weren’t rich people by any means-- but what is left behind is used to pay doctor bills and to pay off debt. The house is in all of their names, Joanna and Gabe having wanted to keep it in the family, but none of them want it. It’s suffocating and holds memories they want to forget.

    Like everything else it was only a matter of time before that was gone too.

    The house smells of carnations and flowers that could only bloom in the fall. Floral patterns that were hideous and filled with too much baby’s breath and not enough roses. Days go by and she writes thank you notes to people who have sent food that will never be eaten and flowers that never get watered. The sympathy cards-- piles and piles of them-- get stored away and it gets to the point where she stops opening them. She just pushes them off to the side, forgotten.

    Time passes by when she’s not watching it-- when she’s dusting or vacuuming or scrubbing the floors. It ticks slowly at night when the wind blows and the harsh coldness of early winter sets in. She sleeps weird hours, most times not even at all, and drinks coffee and soda and eats fast food and take out because it’s easy and she is so, so tired.

    She goes through her father’s belongings bit by bit each day. Sorts clothes for the salvation army, boxes up books and files and personal items-- some of which she keeps for herself as reminders, tokens of certain memories from the past she wants to remember. One day she comes across page long letters, postcards bundled up and bound by a rubber band in one of his drawers. They are the one’s Chloe sent home during college and she reads every single one and tries not to think about how much time has changed her.

    Lois calls every once in a while, their phone calls are long and they talk about everything and Chloe is relieved when she finds out her and Clark are building towards a reconciliation. Neither of them are sure if it will work out-- sometimes things are never suppose to be mended and she knows this too well. When Lois asks her what she thinks will happen Chloe says nothing. She doesn’t gamble too much on the future anymore.

    “Nick’s going to bring the kids by next week,” Anna says on day in early December as they sip bitter day old coffee. Neither one caring, neither one really noticing. “They want to see you.”

    “That’s good,” she says with a sigh, her nails that were bitten to stubs drumming against the table top restlessly.

    “They miss you,” Anna presses on a she sets the coffee aside.

    Anna left weeks before, back to her job, back to her life, and Chloe is the only one left now. Left in a now spotless and dust free house that smells like Pine Sol and Glade air fresheners. Besides Lois no one calls anymore, and even though she’s here now, Anna’s visits are few and far between. Chloe can’t decide if she likes it, but she knows it’s better than the alternative. Silence was better than coughing and counting breaths that weren’t hers.

    She blindly reaches for her pack of cigarettes and easily lights one. Anna makes a face of concern, then disgust, but still reaches for the ash tray and places it in front of her.

    Her perfect forehead creases, “That stuff kills you, Chloe.”

    The blonde’s smile is bland, cold, and dangerous, “That’s the basis of it’s appeal,” she says without emotion and her throat after all these months is still scratchy and sore.

    Anna’s brown eyes narrow, her arms crossing over her chest as she stared at Chloe carefully. Regarded her oddly. As if she were a puzzle and Anna couldn’t find the last piece to put her back together.

    “What are you doing here, Chlo?”

    Chloe blows out a stream of heavy smoke, twirls the lighter between her thumb and forefinger before setting it back down with a loud clang that echoes throughout the kitchen.

    “I honestly don’t know,” Chloe says and even she is surprised by her answer.

    That night she flips back and forth between late night talk shows restlessly. Does not sleep. Does not dream. Reaches for a book beside the bed but can’t concentrate on the words. She slides out of bed and makes her way towards the bathroom-- the wooden floor then the linoleum cold underneath the soft pads of her feet.

    One cigarette is consumed before she even starts the shower and then another as she waits for the water to heat up. The house is old-- too old-- and the water heater takes forever to start working. Chloe doesn’t mind the coldness of it though, lets it wash over her, cleanse her. It’s refreshing and scalding at once, and it alerts her senses. The shower takes longer than it normally would, and as she rubs brand new soap over her skin that smells like African Violets, Chloe is surprised to be reminded that not everything in life smells like stale cigarettes and Dial soap.

    Skin is wrinkled and raw from scrubbing when she emerges from the shower, she wraps a light blue towel around herself and wipes the steam off the mirror with her bare hand. She steps back so she can see as much of herself in the mirror as possible and ignores the way the blue towel makes her skin look paler than usual, almost translucent. Chloe stares dispassionate and resolute into the reflection of her own lifeless, green eyes.

    She looks like hell. Maybe even worse.

    Bags are black and noticeable under her eyes, collarbone and cheekbones are more prominent than ever before, and her skin is dull and loose. She reminds herself of a ghost and as she takes in a deep breath she can imagine the way her ribs poke out, become even more noticeable with the movement. Bony fingers trail up and she repeats the process, and Chloe isn’t surprised when she can count her ribs through the bland blue towel.

    Chloe looks aged, tired, and worn. Used. And as her eyes meet her own in the mirror once more she realizes she barely recognizes herself. Barely knows the lifeless green eyes staring back at her.

    Chloe stands in the bathroom with nothing but herself and her own reflection and she feels tired. Beyond exhausted. Her bones, her muscles, her mind. She’s exhausted, and her reserves are exhausted and as she washes the remains of her smoked cigarettes and discarded ashes down the sink she is suddenly very tired of feeling alone. Of being alone.

    “What are you doing here, Chlo?”

    She takes her pack of cigarettes and tosses them into the trash.

    And she honestly does not know.







    End Part III.

  10. #40
    Insane Troll logic girl lexchloe's Avatar
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    Re: Places We Have Been (NC-17) Part III, 5/29/05

    Damn you're good. I'm running out of adjectives to describe how awesome this story is. I'm afraid to quote the best parts cos I think I'd end up re-posting the entire chapter. Chloe is breaking my heart in this fic. Why is she closing herself off and pushing Lex away??? Completely excellent update.
    I tried to drown my sorrows, but the little buggers learned how to swim.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




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