Chlark/Chlionel Fic Attack!

[mojotastic]

Man, it's been a crazy amount of time since I've last written any fic. Or anything creative at all really. I've been so burnt out on all my writing classes/journalism work/internships that I've totally neglected creative writing. So maybe that explains why this fic literally BURST OUT of me in two days a few weeks back when I *should* have been doing homework of some kind. But it was fun to write again. I forgot what a great stress reliever it was.

So....without further ado:

Title: Flowers
Author: mojotastic
Rating: PG
Summary: Chloe tries to cope, post-Freak. Chloe-centric. Chlark/Chlionel.
Spoilers: Post- Freak, general season six.
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything except an unhealthy love for Lionel.
Author’s Note: Feedback is my anti-drug.



She hadn’t cried since she found out what she was. Or might be. She took those feelings and put them in a box to deal with later.

Chloe Sullivan was busy and feelings were too messy.

It was easier being someone else’s confidante.
***
The Daily Planet office reeked of flowers. Lilacs and roses spilled riotously out of vases. Flowers popped out of corners and bobbed cheerfully in nooks. A daffodil smacked her in the face when she went to make a copy.

“The assignment editor’s mother died,” another intern whispered to her as they waited for the fax. She nodded mutely.

Her mother’s favorite flowers used to be tulips. It was one of those random facts you know about people that are close to you. She thought it was strange that she remembers such a trivial fact about her.

Chloe sits back at her desk and fields a call from a woman who thinks that her neighbor is an axe murderer.

A currier walks past with a vase of tulips for the assignment editor. Chloe worries that she and her mother might share more than a favorite flower.
***
“I get kidnapped one time and you have to make a big deal out of it.”

A huge bouquet of flowers perches on the edge of her desk. She eyes it warily as Jimmy smiles down at her.

“Just something special for my girl,” he says brightly.

Chloe forces a smile and complements the flowers. This is her fourth or fifth bunch now. Walking in to find fresh flowers on her desk was beginning to become a commonplace occurrence.

Jimmy grins at her like a child proudly showing off macaroni art. He tugs on the strap of his camera and says he has lots of work to do. Leaning down, he gives her a light kiss on the cheek and then walks off.

Chloe stares at the flowers on the edge of her desk. She’s beginning to develop an allergic reaction to the smell of flowers. The ones sitting on her desk smell sickly sweet, and she has to curb the urge to throw them in the trash.

“God, your boyfriend is too cute,” another intern marvels, coming close to smell the flowers.

Chloe doesn’t like the roses. The bright red color is constantly distracting. She can always see them out of the corner of her eyes.

“Yea,” she responds. “He’s great.”

The next day Jimmy complains that the flowers are missing. Chloe sighs heavily and blames the cleaning crew.
***
Lana’s entire wedding seems, at this moment, to be crashing down around her head. Chloe sits in a stiff chair in the florist’s shop, willing herself to care about flower arrangements.

“This? This is going to clash with my dress,” Lana is waving around a poppy like a conductor at a performance. The florist looks like she is being physically abused by this. With every swing of the poppy, she seems to flinch into herself.

“I’m so sorry Ms. Lan-uthor,” the florist quickly remedies.

“Well I’m not Mrs. Luthor yet, and I certainly won’t be if I don’t get my flowers on time for the wedding and then there won’t BE a wedding…” Lana’s still talking but Chloe isn’t listening anymore.

She doesn’t know why she’s there. She selfishly wishes Lana had more friends. Or at least friends with an interest in flowers or center pieces. Or weddings for that matter.

“…Well? Chloe, what do you think?” Chloe is back with a jolt. The florist has at least a dozen different flower arrangements in front of the two girls. Chloe thinks the woman looks like she’s on the verge of tears.

“About the flowers?”

Lana just stares at her.

“They’re…pretty?”

Lana throws up her hands in exasperation just as Lex walks in. Soon the two of them are seriously discussing flower arrangements the way some people discuss politics or third-world poverty.

Chloe watches Lex carefully, with no clue what she’s looking for.

When Lana walks into the back room with the florist, awkward silence descends on the two of them. Lex asks her a few perfunctory questions and she gives him a few perfunctory answers.

He never makes eye contact with her. That’s new.
***
Clark is perching on the corner of her desk when she returns with a stack of research on rent increases. He smiles a big, dorky grin when he sees her and holds up a bag of Chinese food takeout.

They chat while they eat. Clark asks how the wedding planning is going. Chloe tries to evade the question but she finally tells him it’s going well. Clark doesn’t look hurt like usual. He steals some of her lo-mien as she tells him about the flower disaster.

He laughs and tells her that when he gets married there will be no flower arrangements or center pieces.

“Where are you planning on getting hitched Clark, your ice fortress?” He laughs.

“Yea, we’ll just get married in some parkas.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence filled with the light tapping of chopsticks.

“Me…and the person I marry, that is. Parkas…because it’s cold,” Clark looks uncomfortable. Chloe thinks these awkward verbal spasms have been happening more often lately.

The two clean up her desk and Chloe repositions her research to get started.

“Oh, by the way,” Clark starts sheepishly. Chloe raises an eyebrow and gives him a knowing look.

Clark pulls a tiny daisy out of his coat pocket and gives it to her as a peace offering. It looks like the kind of flower he might have co-opted from someone’s flower box. Still, the gesture brings a genuine smile to Chloe’s face.

“You don’t have to bribe me for favors,” she teases.

“It’s not a bribe,” Clark works his face into a mask of indignation but it falls a second later. “Ok, fine, it’s kind of a bribe.”

Chloe drops the flower on her research and starts in on the favor. Clark smiles as he leans over her shoulder and watches her computer wizardry.

“What would I do without you?” He beams at her over the hard-copies she just printed. She laughs and smacks him with a folder.

“Learn to use Google?”

“Seriously Chloe, I have no idea what I would do without you,” they smile at each other. Clark salutes her with the papers and she laughs again.
When he turns to leave her smile fades and she twirls the small flower between her fingers, staring at the spot where he disappeared around a corner.

Then she drops the flower on her desk and gets back to work.
***
Lionel Luthor hands her an armful of tulips when she walks into her apartment.

“That’s funny, I don’t remember letting you in here,” it’s insane that she’s not the least bit nonplused by the billionaire waiting for her in her own home.

He was always fond of dramatic gestures.

“I thought I’d let myself in, since Luthorcorp does technically still own this building,” Lionel does a flourish with his hands to encompass the building. “Kudos for your…decorative aesthetic.”

“I didn’t decorate the place, Lois did,” Chloe is getting a vase out of a cabinet and putting the tulips in water. She has no idea what’s wrong with her.

“Ah, that explains the Whitesnake poster.”

She’s still confused at her own actions when, five minutes later, they’re seated on the couch sipping tea.

“So, are you going to tell me why you’re here, or should I just assume you really wanted to have a tea party?” Chloe wonders why she feels more at ease with a man that’s tried to kill her than she does with her own boyfriend. She thinks this might not reflect well on her mental well-being.

“You’ve been looking into my son’s activities lately,” Lionel says, idly stirring his tea.

“You’re son has been kidnapping people and experimenting on them,” the tone of their conversation is casual, as if they were discussing the weather.

“Oh my, that’s a serious charge,” he delivers the lines with no inflection. Chloe laughs and shakes her head. Lionel smiles and puts down his teacup.

“I want to see your research on my son’s…extra-orthodox practices.” Chloe thinks this is an extremely delicate ways of putting it.

She collects their empty tea cups and washes them in the sink. She tries to ignore the feeling that Lionel’s eyes are boring a hole into her back.

“That’s surprising Mr. Luthor,” she washes a cup and saucer adorned with tiny daffodils. “I thought you’d be an intricate part of the operations.”

A silence stretches between the two of them like taffy. She can feel Lionel weighing his options. She finishes washing the teacups and puts them on a rack to dry.

“I thought I was,” he finally says, leaning back on the couch and eyeing her to see what effect his words will have. She tries to keep her face expressionless, but she’s finally shocked. Lionel Luthor never shows his hand.

“It seems lately that my son has gotten more secretive about his dealings,” Lionel muses. “He’s keeping something from me.”

“You’re Luthors; I thought conspiracies and secrets were part of the charm.”

Lionel’s placid smile fades and suddenly she doesn’t like the way he’s looking at her.

“It’s important that I find out his activities. Very important,” he puts an undercurrent of meaning she doesn’t understand on these words. She’s confused and not the least bit worried.

“Well, I’ll take that under advisement Mr. Luthor. But if you don’t mind, I’ve got some business to attend to,” the discomfort she should have felt the entire time overtakes her, and she wants him out of the apartment.

For a second she thinks he might stay planted on the couch. She wonders how she can possibly get him to leave if he doesn’t want to. Finally, after making her wait long enough for her to know who was in control of the situation, Lionel rises. He takes another look around the apartment as she hurries him towards the door.

His eyes rest on the vase of tulips on the kitchen counter top. She follows his gaze uncomfortably.

“Thanks for the flowers,” she opens the door and waves him out like he’s cleared for a landing.

He stares at her and she thinks that he looks worried. As a rule, Chloe feels uneasy when Lionel Luthor looks worried.

On his way out he checks the deadbolt on her door and turns the handle experimentally.

“You might want to change your locks, Ms. Sullivan. Just some friendly advice.”

She does the next day.
***
Jimmy says she’s been looking distant lately. She can’t get her mind off her new freak status. She feels like a ticking time-bomb. Their dates start to feel pointless. The truth is that she’s disconnected from everything, not just Jimmy.

Clark calls with an emergency and she leaves. She sees the hurt and disappointment on Jimmy’s face. He stares down at the floral table cover and traces a tulip with his finger. Her heart hurts but she feels more at ease when she gets out of the restaurant.

She walks to their meeting place instead of getting a cab and watches her breath fog the air.

Later, she tells Clark that Jimmy thinks they’re having an affair. She giggles at the implausibility of the scenario.

Clark doesn’t.
***
The Daily Planet office is dark and empty when Chloe finally cries again. She volunteered to work the night shift because it means she doesn’t have to spend time with Jimmy.

She feels cruel, but already she feels like she can’t live up to the person he sees anymore.

It’s in the process of leafing through some press releases that the tiny daisy Clark gave her falls onto her lap. It’s a little wilted but mostly preserved. It must have been pressed between piles of papers. She had completely forgotten about it.

She has no idea why this makes her cry, but suddenly she is. It’s full out crying, the kind that makes you short of breath. Chloe fans herself with a hand and tries desperately to wipe her eyes.

Chloe is ridiculously glad it’s dark and no one is around.

A sound in the dark brings a sudden halt to her tears. Someone else is in the office. Chloe searches around her desk for something to defend herself, but all she can find is a hole punch.

A dark figure moves towards her and resolves itself into a dark figure in a bright red jacket. She had completely forgotten that she mentioned the night shift to Clark.

“Chloe? Are you ok?” Clark looks concerned.

Chloe puts down the hole punch and smiles wanly. She realizes there’s no way to cover the puffiness of her eyes from crying. She doesn’t want to be asked questions. She can’t even explain to herself why she’s so upset.

He pulls over a chair and sits silently next to her. For a long time they don’t speak. He puts his hand on top of the one she has resting on the desk. It’s huge and covers her hand entirely. After a few seconds she laces her fingers with his and he squeezes.

She finally feels calm.
“Hey,” Clark breaks the silence after an unknown amount of time passes silently. He’s staring at the small, warped daisy on her desk. She smiles up at him.

“You kept my flower.”

END



Feedback me so we can discuss important issues RE: Chlionel= best thing since sliced bread y/n?

~Morgan