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seriousficTitle: The Villain Of The Story
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,831
Author’s Note: Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vagrantdream.
Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis, Clark, Lex, Lionel, Whitney
Last Part: Chapter 1
Next Part: Chapter 3
Summary: Clark is Lex’s brother and Davis is Chloe’s best friend. Now if only Davis could stop having those black-outs…
Lionel’s weekly phone call had consistency as its only virtue. How are your grades? (Fine.) How’s Clark? (He’s good.) Gotten into any trouble? (No.) And, of course, “Put Clark on the phone.”
“Clark, it’s your father,” Lex called to his roommate’s side of the dorm.
Clark bounded up from the couch like a Golden Retriever noticing his master’s key in the locks. He didn’t notice the bitterness. He never did.
“I’ll take it in my room.” Clark was years younger than Lex, but his body had already eclipsed his brother’s lanky frame. His shoulders were broad, his smile was dazzling, and he was MVP of the school’s lacrosse team. Girls and boys alike competed for his attention, a chance to be with him and Ollie, golden boys among the sterling silver rich. The most Lex had ever got was to tag along, a half-hearted request to Clark’s friends to stop picking on him.
All he wanted to know was why some people had grand destinies… and he wasn’t one of them.
“Clark, so good to hear your voice again.” Lionel’s voice was a rich purr, warm as a summer day, apple pie, childhood. “How are your classes?”
“Oh, you know how it is. As long as you’re paying attention, it’s as easy as parroting their bilge back to them. No critical thinking required.”
“That’s why our little lessons are so important. While your classmates are studying the Old World, you are shaping the new one.”
“I know, Father. I won’t let you down.”
“That’s my boy.”
“Lex is doing great,” Clark piped up. “His paper on xenobiology got an A+. A couple of scientific journals are fighting over publication rights.”
“Then you’ve been taking good care of him?”
“Yes, of course, but—“
Lionel overrode him. “Lex isn’t like you. He’s not special. Much as it pains me to say, I think the Luthor genius may have skipped a generation.”
Lex very calmly, very deliberately pulled the phone cord from the wall. He had known his father felt that way. His jaw clenched. He had known.
“There’s more to Lex than you’ve seen. You should give him a chance.”
“I gave him a chance and it ended at his mother’s grave.”
***
The first day of high school was weird. He introduced himself as Davis instead of Davey, and at lunch he sat together with Chloe, as always, and Coach Arnold singled him out for the football team as soon as he saw Davis’s shoulders. That was all fine. But in 8th period, just when he was almost home free, he started feeling queasy. Not like a blackout; that darkness was soothing. This hurt. He tried to grit through it. 90 minutes, that was all.
Chloe noticed his teeth gnashing and his fingers turning white around his No. 2 pencil. She passed a note. Are you alright? He crumpled it as a fresh wave of pain washed over him.
“Miss Lang, would you please come to the front and read the Hippocratic Oath?”
Lana demurely decoupled from Whitney’s affections and went to the front. As she passed Davis, he doubled over in agony. Vomit spewed out of his mouth, splattering the tiled floor and Lana’s spaghetti-strap sandals. Lana screamed, hand flying to her green necklace. As the class laughed, Davis spilled out of his chair and staggered for the door, butting into it before his clammy hands locked on the knob. He turned with all his might, finally budging it, and tumbled out into the hall.
Uproarious laughter and Mr. Jensen’s attempts to restore calm followed him all the way to the bathroom. He guzzled water, splashed his face with it, poured it over his close-cropped hair. The pain was gone, but the memory of it was like a brand, flaring up with each breath.
“He has a medical condition, assholes!” he heard Chloe shout from outside, then she stampeded into the men’s room.
“Hey!” Eric Summers shouted.
“Beat it or eat pepper spray.” Chloe dug into her purse.
He beat it.
“Are you alright?” Chloe asked, trying not to note how the muscles stood out on his arms as they leaned on the sink.
“I’m just peachy,” Davis ripped towels from the dispenser until he had enough to wipe his arms and face off.
“Yeah. If you wanted to make a good impression on the prettiest girl in school, eating the chili for lunch was probably a bad idea.”
“I didn’t throw up on you.” Davis scrubbed his tongue with a paper towel.
“Well, I’m… not…”
“How’s Lana?”
“She has Whitney to help her get over the horrifying ordeal. And if you’re making a list of people to run into in dark alleys, leave him off it.”
Davis wadded the paper into one soggy ball and dumped it in the trash. He stood there, listening to the black garbage bag crinkle. “You ever ask yourself why?”
“Why what?”
“Why God gave me this illness, or took your mother away?”
“God didn’t take my mom away.”
“I know. Hell.” He leaned against the wall. “I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I have two parents who love me and here I go comparing myself to what you’ve been through? I’d spend a year in a blackout if it would bring your mother back.”
“Don’t say that. You barely knew my mother.” And just the thought of Davis alone, trapped inside his own body, made her want to throw her arms around him and not let go.
“I know you.” Davis stood up straight, looming over Chloe like a mighty oak. Chloe shook her head, trying to throw the metaphor. “Anyone who could raise a daughter that turned out like you…”
“Davis…” It was so easy to believe, seeing him standing there in all his strength, that he was invincible, a rock. He wasn’t. “We should go see the school nurse. You might be coming down with something; usually you’re healthy as a horse.”
***
“So how was school?” Martha asked, ladling out the green bean casserole.
Davis thought about it. “I vomited on the head cheerleader’s shoes.”
“It could be worse,” Jonathan reasoned.
“She was wearing sandals.”
“I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have let him eat cafeteria food.”
“Martha, calm down…”
“That food is sold by the lowest bidder!”
Davis stood up. Something was off. Looked wrong, felt wrong, sounded wrong. He went to the front door while Ma and Pa had their spirited discussion on the merits of boxed lunches. Through the window he could see a cloud of dirt, like a car had just rolled by. He went outside. As soon as the door shut behind him, high beams snapped on, pinning him. Davis was surprised to find he wasn’t blinded. He could see perfectly, past the harsh light, to Whitney sitting at the wheel.
Davis stepped forward. Who did this jerk think he was? It wasn’t like he had deliberately gotten sick. Did Whitney think he was better than Davis, just because he was a big tough guy in fifty pounds of safety gear?
The F-150 screamed forward and Davis screamed with it, striding forward like he was going to rip Whitney right out of his truck. Whitney turned at the last minute, the tail of his truck almost hitting Davis as it swerved. Breathing hard, Davis watched it peel off into the night.
Jonathan and Martha ran out to join him. “You could’ve been killed!” Jonathan cursed. “Who was that psycho?”
“Not a clue.”
***
Despite Lionel’s uncertainty, Lex had learned from his father. He bided his time wile his temper cooled. It took a long time. Then he waited until Clark was watching TV with him, an evolutionary throwback to their childhood friendship. The show went to the commercial and they laid where they were on the couch and loveseat, too comfortable to move, just watching the silent movie commercials flash by.
Lex looked over the popped collar of his unbuttoned business shirt at Clark, an Hollister-clad demi-god in repose. “Clark, you’ve my brother and I love you.”
“Uh-huh. You want me to get you a beer?”
“Clark, I’m serious.” Lex rolled up into a sit, his black socks hitting the hardwood floor, his nimble fingers straightening his clothes in the fastidious manner he used when he was feeling important. “There are things I should’ve told you a long time ago. I was waiting for dad to tell you, but… I think you deserve to know.”
Clark took his hands out from under his head. “Know what?”
“That you were adopted.” Lex’s tone was so serious Clark didn’t even think he might be kidding.
“But Dad told me he covered up my birth so that his enemies couldn’t---he took me to mom’s grave.”
“We were in Smallville. It was just after the meteor shower. The town archives had taken a hit. There were a lot of orphans. I suppose he took pity on you.”
“Damnit, Lex!” Clark rose to his feet with such violence that Lex shrank back. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? You think I don’t know you?”
“Nobody knows me.” Lex slumped, reached for Clark’s beer. Clark pushed him away.
“You have no idea how hard it is being your brother!”
“And you have no idea how hard it is being me! Always trying, never being perfect…”
“I’m not the reason your hair fell out!”
Lex stared at him in total surprise. Then he began to laugh. Clark joined in, braying out that deep belly-laugh that always made Lex’s low chuckle seem insincere and snide.
“I always wondered how you could ever be my brother. I guess now I know.”
Lex laughed harder at the dagger twisting.
***
The bus stop on FM 290 was pretty much just Davis and Chloe. Davis walked there, while Chloe’s father Gabe dropped her off there on his way to work. He could drive her all the way to school, but she said she liked riding to school with her friends. And she did. She just liked waiting to ride to school with Davis more. Not so much when he was telling her about attempted vehicular manslaughter.
“Davis, you have to call the cops!”
“Yeah, Whitney would just love that. Try to get the star quarterback arrested before a game? He’d skate and I’d be the bad guy who couldn’t take a joke.”
“But you can’t let him get away with that!”
“Turn the other cheek, Chlo. It’s what the good book says.”
A familiar engine growl scratched Davis’s hearing. Whitney’s pick-up rumbled down the far side of the road, skidding to a stop across the lane divider. Facing Davis down, Whitney at the wheel, five letterman-jacketed jocks riding shotgun and in back.
“Good book say anything about that?” Chloe asked, worry behind her sarcasm.
“Have a sling and some rocks ready?”
Whitney stroked the engine a few times. When Davis didn’t budget, he let the F-150 jerk forward like a dog on a leash. Davis didn’t blink. He felt, on some instinctual level, like he knew Whitney, better than if they’d been brothers. They were two predators, alpha wolves, and only one of them could have this territory. So Davis, very calmly, lifted his leg and kicked Whitney’s headlight in.
“Davis!” Chloe shouted, part surprise, part warning.
Whitney had gotten out of the truck.
Davis was so angry his hands wouldn’t stop being fists. He jammed them into his pockets. Whitney stampeded up to him, immediately giving Davis a shove. Davis spilled backward. He felt a prickle scraping at his skin, like something was probing his weak spots from the inside.
Chloe grabbed his arm and shoulder. Davis’s anger cooled like someone had thrown a switch. “Whitney. It was an accident.”
“Doesn’t matter. There are some things you just don’t get away with.”
Davis gently moved Chloe out of the way. She dug into her pocket for her cell phone, 911, but Davis waved her off. That would just get Whitney’s buddies on her.
Whitney came on, right hook. Davis felt his head turn, rock back. He didn’t feel any pain, just surprise at the abrupt motion. Whitney struck him again and it was like he was on a roller coaster. Blows rained down on his stomach, but all he felt was a little shortness of breath.
Davis ran his hand down his face, causing not a twinge. “You done?”
Whitney’s fist moved like it was in slow-motion. Davis watched it until the knuckles brushed his jaw, then he felt his head abruptly fly to the side. He kept jerking back and forth at the end of Whitney’s fist, but he never even got dizzy. Then he heard Chloe cry his name. Davis brought his head down in time to see Whitney shove Chloe to the ground. The thing inside him pressed up against the center of his palm and pushed through…
His fist moved. Without thinking, Davis could feel his body streamlining itself like an Olympian throwing a discus. He realized with a sick lack of caring how much force he was exerting. He saw with a horrifying, arousing clarity how Whitney was spun around by the punch, bones distorting, skin tearing. Whitney hit the ground with four gashes in his cheek. Davis felt a dull pain in his knuckles, but it quickly went away. He saw the jocks back up when he took a step toward them, but he only helped Chloe up.
“Are you okay?”
“Am I okay!?” Chloe felt his face, turning it from side to side. “You don’t have a scratch on you!”
“Guess Whitney’s punches are as weak as his passes.” Davis booted Whitney’s prone body toward the jocks. “Get him out of my sight. When he wakes up, tell him if there’s a next time, I’ll punch him twice.”
***
Once the jocks had driven off, Chloe checked Davis for a concussion with a penlight. Then she unzipped his sweatshirt and put her hands on his chest, fanning out from his heart. “Does that hurt?”
“No.” Davis watched the hand he’d punched Whitney with like it might disobey him. There was blood all over the back of it. He wiped his hand on a cornstalk. The skin over his knuckles was bruised white. He hid it in his pocket. No reason to worry Chloe anymore.
Chloe put her hands on his upper ribs, feeling him breathe. “Does that hurt?”
“No.”
She moved her hands lower, feeling the dark hairs of his stomach through his thin cotton T-shirt. “Now?”
“No.”
Her hands moved sideways, caressing his waist, slipping into his jean’s waistband. His own hands hovered between them, wanting to go to her, but he didn’t want to taint her light clothes with blood.
Chloe’s fingers pressed harder into his flesh. “Does that hurt?”
The schoolbus crested the nearest hill. Chloe pulled her hands back and Davis zipped up his sweater, realizing flecks of blood had dotted his shirt.
***
Today, the entire bus was strangely silent. Chloe sat with Pete and Davis sat alone across the aisle. He chanced a look at his knuckles to see they were their normal hue. Someone got a cell phone call and it spread up one side of the bus and down the other. He just tried to keep his head down and soldier through, until the cops came for him in 8th period.
He was really getting to hate Intro to Pre-Med.
Deputy Adams and Principle Kwan were there. She searched through his backpack while Mr. Kwan told him how Whitney Fordman had been taken to the hospital.
“Yeah, we got into a brush-up,” Davis admitted, “but I was only defending myself.”
“And how ‘brushed up’ was Whitney Fordman when you last saw him?” Adams asked.
“He had a glass jaw. I punched him once, that’s all!”
“With a set of brass knuckles?”
“What!? No, did he say that, that’s bullshit!”
“He has twenty-one stitches, you don’t have a mark on you. You wanna tell me what sounds like BS?” She dropped the backpack at his feet. “Clean. Turn around, hands on the wall.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Does this look like the face of a kidder?” Her hand dropped to her flashlight. “Anytime you’re ready, Mr. Kent.”
Davis bit the inside of his cheek and let it run through his teeth slowly. He felt like a pot boiling over. Did she think that flashlight would hurt him? He’d spent the morning getting worked over by the star quarterback and now he’d never felt better. What could she do?
Despite Kwan’s attempts to keep order, students were crowding the doors. Davis felt Chloe’s eyes on him, her unspoken wish for him to stay cool. He turned and put his hands on the lockers. As the bell rang and the student body of Smallville High started home, Deputy Adams patted Davis Kent down like a common criminal.
At least he didn’t have a black-out.
Author’s notes: This chapter is still pre-pilot, although only a few months now. Everyone, say hi to Sheriff Adams, currently Deputy Adams. One of the fun parts of writing this fic and rewatching season one to get all the voices right was trying to make every “walk-on role” someone who had appeared on-screen and could conceivably go on to have a starring role in the fic, so if you see a proper noun, it’s probably someone who’s been on camera.
Another slow burn chapter, this. Having set up all the characters and relationships in 1, now they’re all going into motion, breaking down or building up. Here we have the AU explanation for why Lex ends up in Smallville (or at least why Lex thinks he ends up in Smallville) and another layer of resentment/affection between Clark and Lex. I especially wanted to take my time on the normality of the setting, the petty little situations that get lost in the coming storm. Speaking of which, there’s a major plot development hidden in a throwaway line here. See if you can spot it.
I also wanted to take a look at what Davis and Chloe would be like in this AU setting, before all hell broke loose, and how it would differ from either canon!Davis/Chloe or Chlark. Chloe has a lot of the same feelings for Davis that she would have for Clark, she’s very protective of him, only Davis doesn’t have Lana blinders on (these are provided to every visitor to Smallville free of charge). However, he’s also a teenage boy, which is probably more of a damper on relationships than being an alien. Still, those two would probably work it out on their own, if not for… hmmm.
In short, THROBBING BIOLOGICAL URGES.
And, of course, we have Davis feeling very sick at S1!Lana’s presence. What could’ve caused that? Besides the obvious? :)
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,831
Author’s Note: Betaed by
vagrantdream.Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis, Clark, Lex, Lionel, Whitney
Last Part: Chapter 1
Next Part: Chapter 3
Summary: Clark is Lex’s brother and Davis is Chloe’s best friend. Now if only Davis could stop having those black-outs…
Lionel’s weekly phone call had consistency as its only virtue. How are your grades? (Fine.) How’s Clark? (He’s good.) Gotten into any trouble? (No.) And, of course, “Put Clark on the phone.”
“Clark, it’s your father,” Lex called to his roommate’s side of the dorm.
Clark bounded up from the couch like a Golden Retriever noticing his master’s key in the locks. He didn’t notice the bitterness. He never did.
“I’ll take it in my room.” Clark was years younger than Lex, but his body had already eclipsed his brother’s lanky frame. His shoulders were broad, his smile was dazzling, and he was MVP of the school’s lacrosse team. Girls and boys alike competed for his attention, a chance to be with him and Ollie, golden boys among the sterling silver rich. The most Lex had ever got was to tag along, a half-hearted request to Clark’s friends to stop picking on him.
All he wanted to know was why some people had grand destinies… and he wasn’t one of them.
“Clark, so good to hear your voice again.” Lionel’s voice was a rich purr, warm as a summer day, apple pie, childhood. “How are your classes?”
“Oh, you know how it is. As long as you’re paying attention, it’s as easy as parroting their bilge back to them. No critical thinking required.”
“That’s why our little lessons are so important. While your classmates are studying the Old World, you are shaping the new one.”
“I know, Father. I won’t let you down.”
“That’s my boy.”
“Lex is doing great,” Clark piped up. “His paper on xenobiology got an A+. A couple of scientific journals are fighting over publication rights.”
“Then you’ve been taking good care of him?”
“Yes, of course, but—“
Lionel overrode him. “Lex isn’t like you. He’s not special. Much as it pains me to say, I think the Luthor genius may have skipped a generation.”
Lex very calmly, very deliberately pulled the phone cord from the wall. He had known his father felt that way. His jaw clenched. He had known.
“There’s more to Lex than you’ve seen. You should give him a chance.”
“I gave him a chance and it ended at his mother’s grave.”
***
The first day of high school was weird. He introduced himself as Davis instead of Davey, and at lunch he sat together with Chloe, as always, and Coach Arnold singled him out for the football team as soon as he saw Davis’s shoulders. That was all fine. But in 8th period, just when he was almost home free, he started feeling queasy. Not like a blackout; that darkness was soothing. This hurt. He tried to grit through it. 90 minutes, that was all.
Chloe noticed his teeth gnashing and his fingers turning white around his No. 2 pencil. She passed a note. Are you alright? He crumpled it as a fresh wave of pain washed over him.
“Miss Lang, would you please come to the front and read the Hippocratic Oath?”
Lana demurely decoupled from Whitney’s affections and went to the front. As she passed Davis, he doubled over in agony. Vomit spewed out of his mouth, splattering the tiled floor and Lana’s spaghetti-strap sandals. Lana screamed, hand flying to her green necklace. As the class laughed, Davis spilled out of his chair and staggered for the door, butting into it before his clammy hands locked on the knob. He turned with all his might, finally budging it, and tumbled out into the hall.
Uproarious laughter and Mr. Jensen’s attempts to restore calm followed him all the way to the bathroom. He guzzled water, splashed his face with it, poured it over his close-cropped hair. The pain was gone, but the memory of it was like a brand, flaring up with each breath.
“He has a medical condition, assholes!” he heard Chloe shout from outside, then she stampeded into the men’s room.
“Hey!” Eric Summers shouted.
“Beat it or eat pepper spray.” Chloe dug into her purse.
He beat it.
“Are you alright?” Chloe asked, trying not to note how the muscles stood out on his arms as they leaned on the sink.
“I’m just peachy,” Davis ripped towels from the dispenser until he had enough to wipe his arms and face off.
“Yeah. If you wanted to make a good impression on the prettiest girl in school, eating the chili for lunch was probably a bad idea.”
“I didn’t throw up on you.” Davis scrubbed his tongue with a paper towel.
“Well, I’m… not…”
“How’s Lana?”
“She has Whitney to help her get over the horrifying ordeal. And if you’re making a list of people to run into in dark alleys, leave him off it.”
Davis wadded the paper into one soggy ball and dumped it in the trash. He stood there, listening to the black garbage bag crinkle. “You ever ask yourself why?”
“Why what?”
“Why God gave me this illness, or took your mother away?”
“God didn’t take my mom away.”
“I know. Hell.” He leaned against the wall. “I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I have two parents who love me and here I go comparing myself to what you’ve been through? I’d spend a year in a blackout if it would bring your mother back.”
“Don’t say that. You barely knew my mother.” And just the thought of Davis alone, trapped inside his own body, made her want to throw her arms around him and not let go.
“I know you.” Davis stood up straight, looming over Chloe like a mighty oak. Chloe shook her head, trying to throw the metaphor. “Anyone who could raise a daughter that turned out like you…”
“Davis…” It was so easy to believe, seeing him standing there in all his strength, that he was invincible, a rock. He wasn’t. “We should go see the school nurse. You might be coming down with something; usually you’re healthy as a horse.”
***
“So how was school?” Martha asked, ladling out the green bean casserole.
Davis thought about it. “I vomited on the head cheerleader’s shoes.”
“It could be worse,” Jonathan reasoned.
“She was wearing sandals.”
“I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have let him eat cafeteria food.”
“Martha, calm down…”
“That food is sold by the lowest bidder!”
Davis stood up. Something was off. Looked wrong, felt wrong, sounded wrong. He went to the front door while Ma and Pa had their spirited discussion on the merits of boxed lunches. Through the window he could see a cloud of dirt, like a car had just rolled by. He went outside. As soon as the door shut behind him, high beams snapped on, pinning him. Davis was surprised to find he wasn’t blinded. He could see perfectly, past the harsh light, to Whitney sitting at the wheel.
Davis stepped forward. Who did this jerk think he was? It wasn’t like he had deliberately gotten sick. Did Whitney think he was better than Davis, just because he was a big tough guy in fifty pounds of safety gear?
The F-150 screamed forward and Davis screamed with it, striding forward like he was going to rip Whitney right out of his truck. Whitney turned at the last minute, the tail of his truck almost hitting Davis as it swerved. Breathing hard, Davis watched it peel off into the night.
Jonathan and Martha ran out to join him. “You could’ve been killed!” Jonathan cursed. “Who was that psycho?”
“Not a clue.”
***
Despite Lionel’s uncertainty, Lex had learned from his father. He bided his time wile his temper cooled. It took a long time. Then he waited until Clark was watching TV with him, an evolutionary throwback to their childhood friendship. The show went to the commercial and they laid where they were on the couch and loveseat, too comfortable to move, just watching the silent movie commercials flash by.
Lex looked over the popped collar of his unbuttoned business shirt at Clark, an Hollister-clad demi-god in repose. “Clark, you’ve my brother and I love you.”
“Uh-huh. You want me to get you a beer?”
“Clark, I’m serious.” Lex rolled up into a sit, his black socks hitting the hardwood floor, his nimble fingers straightening his clothes in the fastidious manner he used when he was feeling important. “There are things I should’ve told you a long time ago. I was waiting for dad to tell you, but… I think you deserve to know.”
Clark took his hands out from under his head. “Know what?”
“That you were adopted.” Lex’s tone was so serious Clark didn’t even think he might be kidding.
“But Dad told me he covered up my birth so that his enemies couldn’t---he took me to mom’s grave.”
“We were in Smallville. It was just after the meteor shower. The town archives had taken a hit. There were a lot of orphans. I suppose he took pity on you.”
“Damnit, Lex!” Clark rose to his feet with such violence that Lex shrank back. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? You think I don’t know you?”
“Nobody knows me.” Lex slumped, reached for Clark’s beer. Clark pushed him away.
“You have no idea how hard it is being your brother!”
“And you have no idea how hard it is being me! Always trying, never being perfect…”
“I’m not the reason your hair fell out!”
Lex stared at him in total surprise. Then he began to laugh. Clark joined in, braying out that deep belly-laugh that always made Lex’s low chuckle seem insincere and snide.
“I always wondered how you could ever be my brother. I guess now I know.”
Lex laughed harder at the dagger twisting.
***
The bus stop on FM 290 was pretty much just Davis and Chloe. Davis walked there, while Chloe’s father Gabe dropped her off there on his way to work. He could drive her all the way to school, but she said she liked riding to school with her friends. And she did. She just liked waiting to ride to school with Davis more. Not so much when he was telling her about attempted vehicular manslaughter.
“Davis, you have to call the cops!”
“Yeah, Whitney would just love that. Try to get the star quarterback arrested before a game? He’d skate and I’d be the bad guy who couldn’t take a joke.”
“But you can’t let him get away with that!”
“Turn the other cheek, Chlo. It’s what the good book says.”
A familiar engine growl scratched Davis’s hearing. Whitney’s pick-up rumbled down the far side of the road, skidding to a stop across the lane divider. Facing Davis down, Whitney at the wheel, five letterman-jacketed jocks riding shotgun and in back.
“Good book say anything about that?” Chloe asked, worry behind her sarcasm.
“Have a sling and some rocks ready?”
Whitney stroked the engine a few times. When Davis didn’t budget, he let the F-150 jerk forward like a dog on a leash. Davis didn’t blink. He felt, on some instinctual level, like he knew Whitney, better than if they’d been brothers. They were two predators, alpha wolves, and only one of them could have this territory. So Davis, very calmly, lifted his leg and kicked Whitney’s headlight in.
“Davis!” Chloe shouted, part surprise, part warning.
Whitney had gotten out of the truck.
Davis was so angry his hands wouldn’t stop being fists. He jammed them into his pockets. Whitney stampeded up to him, immediately giving Davis a shove. Davis spilled backward. He felt a prickle scraping at his skin, like something was probing his weak spots from the inside.
Chloe grabbed his arm and shoulder. Davis’s anger cooled like someone had thrown a switch. “Whitney. It was an accident.”
“Doesn’t matter. There are some things you just don’t get away with.”
Davis gently moved Chloe out of the way. She dug into her pocket for her cell phone, 911, but Davis waved her off. That would just get Whitney’s buddies on her.
Whitney came on, right hook. Davis felt his head turn, rock back. He didn’t feel any pain, just surprise at the abrupt motion. Whitney struck him again and it was like he was on a roller coaster. Blows rained down on his stomach, but all he felt was a little shortness of breath.
Davis ran his hand down his face, causing not a twinge. “You done?”
Whitney’s fist moved like it was in slow-motion. Davis watched it until the knuckles brushed his jaw, then he felt his head abruptly fly to the side. He kept jerking back and forth at the end of Whitney’s fist, but he never even got dizzy. Then he heard Chloe cry his name. Davis brought his head down in time to see Whitney shove Chloe to the ground. The thing inside him pressed up against the center of his palm and pushed through…
His fist moved. Without thinking, Davis could feel his body streamlining itself like an Olympian throwing a discus. He realized with a sick lack of caring how much force he was exerting. He saw with a horrifying, arousing clarity how Whitney was spun around by the punch, bones distorting, skin tearing. Whitney hit the ground with four gashes in his cheek. Davis felt a dull pain in his knuckles, but it quickly went away. He saw the jocks back up when he took a step toward them, but he only helped Chloe up.
“Are you okay?”
“Am I okay!?” Chloe felt his face, turning it from side to side. “You don’t have a scratch on you!”
“Guess Whitney’s punches are as weak as his passes.” Davis booted Whitney’s prone body toward the jocks. “Get him out of my sight. When he wakes up, tell him if there’s a next time, I’ll punch him twice.”
***
Once the jocks had driven off, Chloe checked Davis for a concussion with a penlight. Then she unzipped his sweatshirt and put her hands on his chest, fanning out from his heart. “Does that hurt?”
“No.” Davis watched the hand he’d punched Whitney with like it might disobey him. There was blood all over the back of it. He wiped his hand on a cornstalk. The skin over his knuckles was bruised white. He hid it in his pocket. No reason to worry Chloe anymore.
Chloe put her hands on his upper ribs, feeling him breathe. “Does that hurt?”
“No.”
She moved her hands lower, feeling the dark hairs of his stomach through his thin cotton T-shirt. “Now?”
“No.”
Her hands moved sideways, caressing his waist, slipping into his jean’s waistband. His own hands hovered between them, wanting to go to her, but he didn’t want to taint her light clothes with blood.
Chloe’s fingers pressed harder into his flesh. “Does that hurt?”
The schoolbus crested the nearest hill. Chloe pulled her hands back and Davis zipped up his sweater, realizing flecks of blood had dotted his shirt.
***
Today, the entire bus was strangely silent. Chloe sat with Pete and Davis sat alone across the aisle. He chanced a look at his knuckles to see they were their normal hue. Someone got a cell phone call and it spread up one side of the bus and down the other. He just tried to keep his head down and soldier through, until the cops came for him in 8th period.
He was really getting to hate Intro to Pre-Med.
Deputy Adams and Principle Kwan were there. She searched through his backpack while Mr. Kwan told him how Whitney Fordman had been taken to the hospital.
“Yeah, we got into a brush-up,” Davis admitted, “but I was only defending myself.”
“And how ‘brushed up’ was Whitney Fordman when you last saw him?” Adams asked.
“He had a glass jaw. I punched him once, that’s all!”
“With a set of brass knuckles?”
“What!? No, did he say that, that’s bullshit!”
“He has twenty-one stitches, you don’t have a mark on you. You wanna tell me what sounds like BS?” She dropped the backpack at his feet. “Clean. Turn around, hands on the wall.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Does this look like the face of a kidder?” Her hand dropped to her flashlight. “Anytime you’re ready, Mr. Kent.”
Davis bit the inside of his cheek and let it run through his teeth slowly. He felt like a pot boiling over. Did she think that flashlight would hurt him? He’d spent the morning getting worked over by the star quarterback and now he’d never felt better. What could she do?
Despite Kwan’s attempts to keep order, students were crowding the doors. Davis felt Chloe’s eyes on him, her unspoken wish for him to stay cool. He turned and put his hands on the lockers. As the bell rang and the student body of Smallville High started home, Deputy Adams patted Davis Kent down like a common criminal.
At least he didn’t have a black-out.
Author’s notes: This chapter is still pre-pilot, although only a few months now. Everyone, say hi to Sheriff Adams, currently Deputy Adams. One of the fun parts of writing this fic and rewatching season one to get all the voices right was trying to make every “walk-on role” someone who had appeared on-screen and could conceivably go on to have a starring role in the fic, so if you see a proper noun, it’s probably someone who’s been on camera.
Another slow burn chapter, this. Having set up all the characters and relationships in 1, now they’re all going into motion, breaking down or building up. Here we have the AU explanation for why Lex ends up in Smallville (or at least why Lex thinks he ends up in Smallville) and another layer of resentment/affection between Clark and Lex. I especially wanted to take my time on the normality of the setting, the petty little situations that get lost in the coming storm. Speaking of which, there’s a major plot development hidden in a throwaway line here. See if you can spot it.
I also wanted to take a look at what Davis and Chloe would be like in this AU setting, before all hell broke loose, and how it would differ from either canon!Davis/Chloe or Chlark. Chloe has a lot of the same feelings for Davis that she would have for Clark, she’s very protective of him, only Davis doesn’t have Lana blinders on (these are provided to every visitor to Smallville free of charge). However, he’s also a teenage boy, which is probably more of a damper on relationships than being an alien. Still, those two would probably work it out on their own, if not for… hmmm.
In short, THROBBING BIOLOGICAL URGES.
And, of course, we have Davis feeling very sick at S1!Lana’s presence. What could’ve caused that? Besides the obvious? :)
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-05 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-05 05:58 pm (UTC)The scene of Davis throwing up on Lana's shoes, that was priceless, so funny.
And Chloe's surprises when Davis said Lana wasn't the prettiest girl of school, she was!! I could totally piture Chloe's faceat that moment.
I can't wait to read more. Thanks for the update!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-05 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-05 07:18 pm (UTC)I like that in this iteration of Chloe/Kent son, she's the one who seems kind of clueless so far. Although happily not so clueless that she doesn't note the gun show when he's leaning on the sink. She'd pretty much have to be dead not to notice that.
Kicking in Whitney's headlight? OMFG HOT. As was the MUST PROTECT TINY BLONDE and getting arrested for it. (Pushes all sorts of buttons we're not supposed to admit to having these days, but I have no shame.)
Martha blaming herself for letting Davis eat cafeteria food? Very her.
Love your rightfully bitter Lex. Love to hate your perfect golden boy Clark.
THROBBING BIOLOGICAL URGES
Not all of them of the alien kill kill kill! variety, I hope.
great fic!
Date: 2009-07-05 08:24 pm (UTC)freya
no subject
Date: 2009-07-05 09:46 pm (UTC)I love Lex and Clark's dysfuntional relationship. I love the sweet, yet innately darker Davis, and the bossy, quirky Chloe. And Sheriff Adams!!! We've missed her :)
All the characters are very believeble as their canon selves in different circumstances, at the same this also reads like an original story, so that balance is cool.
This is really very very good.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-06 05:51 am (UTC)Wow the way Clark and Lex interact is just soo...*sighs*
It makes me want to hug Lex.
I'm glad that Pete is in this fic and how close Davis and Chloe are oh and that little slip in the bathroom with Davis implying that Chloe was the most pretty girl in school was great.
Can't wait for more =]
no subject
Date: 2009-07-06 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-06 10:52 pm (UTC)Also, Chloe rocks in this.
Can't wait for the next chapter. ^^
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 10:36 pm (UTC)I REALLY LOVE THIS FF... davis puking on lana, thinks that chloe is the prettiest girl are just 2 of my absolute favorite parts... can't wait to read the upcoming chs. :)