Out of the Darkness, Chapter 2

Clark/Chloe
Season 5, missing scenes from "Vengeance"
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the WB and DC Comics, not to me.
Author's Note: This story is somewhat more explicit than my other stories. If you don't like explicit sexual description, don't read it. No relation to my other Chlark stories.
Inspired by the lyrics to "Out of the Darkness," by Crosby-Nash

His lips are brushing over her ear, down the side of her neck, and then he opens his mouth and scrapes his teeth over the delicate skin of her throat. He’s aware that if he bit down just a little harder he could draw blood. There are so many ways he can hurt humans, and so few ways they can protect themselves against him. He’s never realized so consciously before how powerful he is, and the thought that he could hurt her if he wanted to gives him a strange sort of rush.

He doesn’t sink his teeth into her throat, but his hips are moving hard against hers, in a relentless, almost angry rhythm. He’s not quite sure why he should be angry with Chloe, his best friend, except that he’s angry with the world right now, and all that rage has to go somewhere.

This was her stupid idea, anyway. Her fault, not his. He needed to talk to the vigilante Chloe had dubbed the “Angel of Vengeance,” so he’d come up with the idea of luring her out by staging a purse snatching. He’d donned his ski mask, and they’d gone out into the worst parts of the city together. Every few blocks, he’d dropped back and let Chloe walk on by herself (keeping an eye on her to make sure she didn’t run into any trouble), then jumped out and tried to grab her purse, while Chloe screamed bloody murder. It hadn’t flushed out the Angel, though, and eventually Chloe had sighed.

“This isn’t working, Clark.”

“You’re not screaming loud enough,” he told her.

“Not screaming loud enough? Clark, I’ve freaked out every alley cat from here to Gotham City. What if the Angel just isn’t that worried about purse snatchers? It’s a pretty minor crime compared to a lot of what happens out here.”

He nodded, understanding her point. His mom had been mugged earlier in the evening, and the watch she was wearing had been ripped off her wrist. The Angel hadn’t intervened until the muggers had tried to cut her throat.

“You could be right,” he answered. “So you want me to pretend I’m going to murder you or something?”

“Or something,” she answered with a slight smile, and disappeared into a dark alley.

And now he’s holding her in that same dark alley, her slender form trapped between his body and the hard brick wall, and hoping the Angel doesn’t show up, because he’s going to be seriously pissed if he’s interrupted here. It’s all an act, just like the purse snatching business was, or at least it was supposed to be. And yet the moment he shoved her up against the wall, he totally lost control of himself.

He doesn’t think he can stop touching her, no matter what she wants.

Chloe’s quit fighting him. He’s not sure if she wants him to touch her, or if she’s just realized the futility of struggling with him. He thinks it might be the former, because her head is back against the wall, allowing him access to her throat, and her hips are moving very slightly against his.

“Clark,” she says softly. “You don’t want to do this.”

She’s wrong. He definitely wants to do this. His mind is full of pain and rage, and the pleasure he feels when he touches her helps to numb him a bit, to help him forget everything that’s happened.

He’s had a horrific two weeks. For years he’s been afraid to tell the girl he loves the truth, that he’s an alien from a distant planet. But when he realized he was losing Lana Lang, that she was drifting away from him, he confessed his secret to her and asked her to marry him. He’d been overjoyed when she accepted, but to his horror, she’d died in a bloody car crash twelve hours later.

She’d died because of his secret, and oppressed by guilt, he’d done everything he could to set things right, begging for help from his Kryptonian father Jor-El and going back in time and saving her. But even though she was alive in this timeline, he knew he’d never forget the horror of seeing her smashed and broken against the pavement, of seeing her blood splattered all over his hands.

Jor-El had warned him the universe had to remain in balance, and that night his human father had died instead of Lana, all because of the choice he made. He doesn’t see how he could have done anything differently-- Lana died because of him, after all-- yet Jonathan Kent's death is another heavy burden of guilt on his soul.

The same day his father died, Lana became infuriated because he wouldn’t tell her his secret, and announced she “needed a break” from him, right when he most needed someone to lean on. And then tonight his mother had come home bruised and battered, barely having escaped having her throat cut.

Saving people is what he does, but lately he can’t seem to save anyone, can’t seem to protect anyone he loves, and everything seems to be crashing into ruins around him. He’s angry at the world, angry at himself, angry at anyone who happens to cross his path.

He’s drowning in fury, smothering in self-hatred, and he desperately needs something to take the pain away.

He needs Chloe. Whether she wants him or not.

*****

Clark’s frustrated because he wants to touch her, wants to run his hands all over her body, but he still has her wrists pinned against the wall. His mouth is against her throat, his hips pressing into hers, but she’s wearing a big houndstooth coat, and there’s just too much damn clothing in the way. He has enough sanity left to realize she can’t possibly get away from him even if he lets go of her, so he releases her hands and yanks fiercely at the front of the coat. Buttons scatter everywhere, and it falls open.

She’s wearing one of her low cut business suits, and all her gorgeous cleavage is on display. He bends his head and brushes his lips over the top of one of her plump breasts. He expects her to struggle, to try to run away. But instead of trying to get away from him, she slides her arms around his neck.

“Clark,” she says, her voice gentle. “Take it easy.”

He doesn’t want to take it easy. Taking it easy is the furthest thing from his mind. But she gently drags on his ski mask, pulling him away from her breast. She couldn’t force him to move if he didn’t allow it, but somewhere deep inside him must be his old self, the part of him that wouldn’t manhandle a woman this way, because he lets her pull his head up.

He stands there for a long moment, breathing hard. Her arms are around his neck, his head is resting on her shoulder, and some of the awful fury drains out of him as she holds him. She doesn’t get mad, doesn’t yell at him, just wraps her arms around him and offers silent reassurance.

Moments slide by. The unreasoning rage and the darkness that threatened to consume him subside. After the way he's behaved, she would be perfectly justified in yelling at him, or turning her back on him forever, but instead she's trying to comfort him. Her unconditional affection and acceptance makes his throat tighten. At last he draws in a deep, shuddering breath and relaxes against her.

“Chloe,” he whispers. “God. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says into his ear.

“No. It’s not okay. Jesus. I was totally freaking out on you. I mean, I was practically—“

“You wouldn’t have hurt me,” she says firmly. “I know that.”

He isn’t quite as certain of that as she is. He’s still trembling from the shock of realizing what the hell he was doing, and he isn’t sure he would have stopped if she hadn’t hugged him that way, reminding him of what she means to him.

She’s his best friend in the whole world, the only person he can depend on, and he’s just… assaulted her, taking out his rage at life on her. More pain and guilt drop onto his shoulders, so heavy he can barely stand against the weight of it. His overwhelming arousal fades, and he leans into her, putting his arms around her waist and holding her tightly against his chest.

“I’m so… sorry…” he says brokenly.

“Everything is all right,” she tells him firmly. “I understand, Clark. Really. Everything’s been out of your control for the last few weeks. I can see why you’d want to control me. You haven’t been able to control anything else.”

Some of his pain fades beneath annoyance. “For Christ’s sake, quit psychoanalyzing me, Chlo. And quit trying to let me off the hook. I was behaving like an asshole.”

“True,” she agrees. “You were.”

“Yeah, I was. I know it. I just… I don’t know, Chloe. Everything’s been horrible lately.”

“I know,” she says. “And you’re angry. You’ve never really dealt well with anger, Clark.”

“You’re psychoanalyzing me again, damn it. If I want psychoanalysis, I’ll go see a shrink.”

“Might not be a bad idea, actually.”

“Yeah, except for the whole I’m-an-alien-from-another-planet thing. I’m not sure how I could explain the fact that I went back in time without being labeled psychotic, you know? I don’t want to wind up in Belle Reve. I need to work through this stuff on my own, Chlo.”

“You don’t have to work through it totally on your own,” she says softly. “You have me.”

The thought lifts his spirits a bit. He hasn't totally fucked up here, thank God. Chloe is willing to forgive him his trespasses. But then again, she always has.

He raises his head from her shoulder and looks at her, and she smiles up at him.

“How about we take this off now?” She pulls the ski mask off, then laughs softly. “God, your hair. What a mess.”

Reaching up, she begins to stroke his hair into some semblance of order. He stands there, feeling her fingers running softly through his hair, and his body starts to react again, despite his best efforts to make it behave. His cock twitches against her lower body, and she freezes, then meets his gaze. Her eyes are wide with surprise, but he doesn’t see fear there this time. Even so, he’s afraid he might scare her, and he doesn’t want to frighten her again.

“I’m sorry,” he says humbly, ignoring his body's needs. He isn't going to let himself get out of control again. “I guess we should just forget about… about everything and go on home.”

“I don’t know,” she answers, her voice low. “I’m not sure we’re finished here.”

He blinks at her, sure he must be misunderstanding her. They’re standing in a cold, dark alley in the worst section of Metropolis. Even if he were inclined to make love to her, surely this wouldn’t be any woman’s choice of location. A romantic getaway this is not.

Besides, he isn’t in love with her. He’s still madly in love with Lana Lang, and if he had sex with Chloe, he’d just be... using her. He doesn’t want to use his best friend that way, no matter how distraught he is, no matter how desperately he wants consolation.

“I think we’re through,” he says firmly, ignoring the part of his body that thinks staying in the alley and finishing what he started earlier is a good idea. That part of him is stupid, anyway.

“Are you sure?”

She stands up on tiptoe and brushes her lips over his, and suddenly he’s not sure.

Not at all.

Read Chapter 3 here.