Consequences, Chapter 6

Clark/Chloe
Season 7, MHE for "Fracture"
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Read Chapter 5 here.

It could have been me and you, Chlo. It should have been me and you.

As his lips brushed over hers, he remembered the words he'd whispered while she was dead, and accepted the truth of them. He'd wanted Chloe, but she'd seemed interested in another guy, and he hadn't quite had the guts to fight for her. Eventually, he'd drifted back into a relationship with Lana Lang, simply because Chloe wasn't available, and he'd been lonely.

He'd settled for Lana. He'd never let himself admit that before, but it was true. He'd just been jealous of Chloe and Jimmy, and looking for something to help him forget the fact that she'd chosen another guy instead of him. He wasn't all that into Lana.

He was seriously into Chloe.

She didn't object to being kissed, although he could feel her surprise. He let his mouth press against hers a little harder, and the next thing he knew his tongue was sliding into her mouth, touching hers, and sparks shot through him.

His arms went around her waist, and hers went around his neck, and suddenly they were kissing just like they had in the Daily Planet basement so long ago, sharing deep, intense kisses that said everything they meant to each other.

She isn't dead.

Relief flowed through him despite his exhaustion, and he kissed her harder.

"Mmmmphhh." She managed to pull her mouth away, and blinked up at him. "Clark. What's this all about?"

He looked down at her, thinking of the terrible, long hours he'd spent next to her bed, the memories he'd sifted through, the way he'd found himself composing a speech for her funeral. The terrible despair that had filled him. But he couldn't seem to put words to any of that.

"You were dead," he said simply.

"Huh." She quirked an eyebrow. "Maybe I ought to die more often."

"No." He knew she was joking, but he spoke in a fierce tone anyway. "Don't ever do that to me again, Chlo."

"I'll try," she said, very gently, and he knew she understood at least some of what he was feeling, that she had grasped at least a little of what he'd been through.

He tightened his arms around her and bent to kiss her again, and she let him. In fact, she kissed him back. The kiss got deeper and wetter and more intimate, and neither of them seemed inclined to break away from it.

He could feel his body reacting. He started to ache with need, and without any intention of doing so, he ran his hands down to her waist, just above her hips, and pulled her against him, just a bit.

She pressed into him, and it was so good, so intimate, so perfectly right. He moaned into her mouth, a hungry, carnal sound.

She did it again, and he felt his knees grow weak. God. He could pick up a tractor with one hand, toss a school bus like a baseball, rip apart a steel door-- but when Chloe pressed against him, he lost every bit of his strength.

He knew he couldn't stand up much longer, so he picked her up and turned toward the bed.

The bed where she'd lain for most of a day, dead.

No, he thought, staggering backward, away from the bed, away from his terrible memories. He couldn't make love to her there. He'd keep seeing her still, pale form in his head the whole time. Spinning the other way, he whooshed for the couch.

A second later he was dropping down onto the couch, Chloe on his lap. It was narrow, too narrow for a big guy, but he didn't care all that much. He just needed to be with Chloe, right now. He fell over backward and tugged her down with him, his hands roaming everywhere, up under her shirt and through her hair and over the fabric covering her ass. And all the while he kissed her frantically.

He heard her making little mmmm sounds deep in her throat, and her hands touched him, too. He arched and writhed beneath her, driven almost to madness by the soft caress of her hands. He heard a low growling sound rolling out of his chest, heard himself gasping as if he'd run to Florida and back, felt himself shuddering.

And then he was peeling off her shirt, his fingers fumbling with desperation, and she was tugging off his shirt too, and she fell back on top of him, their bare skin pressing together, nothing but a lacy bra between them. But even the lace was too much. He yanked off her bra, uncertain as to whether he'd managed to unhook it or simply snapped the back, and threw it aside.

Her breasts pressed into his chest, warm and soft, and he totally lost it.

He'd thought he'd been turned on before, but now he was completely and utterly out of control. His hands were everywhere, exploring and discovering and touching her the way he'd always wanted to touch her, but had never quite dared. His mouth was all over her throat, kissing and licking and even nibbling a little. And he heard words falling from his mouth, scrambled and incoherent, half muffled against her skin, but unmistakably desperate.

Oh God Chloe God don't ever make me go through that again I was so scared I can't live without you I can't I can't I just can't...

"Shhhh," she whispered, stroking his hair and kissing his cheek a little more gently, as if trying to calm him down. "It's all right, Clark."

It was all right. But it might not have been, and that was what was driving him crazy-- the knowledge that she could easily have been dead dead. The terrible awareness that she might not have recovered, that he might have had to listen to the sound of dirt falling on her coffin, to utter a speech at her funeral, to see all her bright potential extinguished.

The knowledge that his best friend in the world might have been gone forever.

He buried his face in her throat and breathed in her scent, reminding himself that she was alive. Alive, and in his arms.

Read Chapter 7 here.