This is a cute little oneshot, a belated birthday pressie for the lovely
carcassi .
The premise is a throwaway line from my first fanfic, Right in Front of You, where Clark remembers when he went shopping with Chloe for ladies personal items, and hilarity ensues. I also managed to tie in why the football team had it in for Chloe in Season 1.
Enjoy. And Happy Birthday, Deb!
Title: Mexican Standoff
Author: BabyDee
Pairing: Pre-Season 1 Chlark, Pete, Whitney
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Timeline: Before Season 1
Disclaimer: All characters belong to the CW & DC comics.
“Okay let’s see…Aisle Three, Row One is this way...”
“Chloe, what am I doing here?” Clark asked for the fiftieth time as he and Chloe made their way through Smallville’s Supermart.
“You’ll see,” she murmured obtusely. “Where are we? Ah, yes. 'Ladies’ Personal Items'.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” he gasped, backing away from the aisle like it was plague-ridden. “I can’t be seen around here!”
“But I need your help,” she wheedled. “What I need is well out of my reach, and…well, you grew a good three inches this summer.”
“How far out of your reach?” he grumbled, looking like he’d rather be hung, drawn and quartered than be spotted in the tampon section of the supermarket.
“Right on the top shelf. Which is a good stretch, even for you,” she pointed out.
He frowned. “Weird place to put them. The only things that should be on top shelves are girlie magazines, and with good reason.” He flushed scarlet as he realised what he’d just said. “Not that I’d know anything about that,” he continued quickly as Chloe snickered.
“Of course not,” she said, a sly grin on her face.
“I mean it!” he insisted.
“Sure you do,” she drawled, with a nudge and a wink. “I won’t tell if you don’t,” she whispered with a smirk.
He scowled. “Are we done here?”
“Not quite. I haven’t gotten what I came here for.” She craned her neck and pointed to a bunch of little pink boxes on the top shelf. “Those ones.”
Clark followed her gaze and shrugged. “What about them?” he asked.
She sighed, exasperated. “Bring them down for me, duh,” she answered.
His eyes widened. “What?”
“You heard.”
He shook his head. “No way, Chloe! I am not touching those things!”
“Oh come on, what’s the big deal? It’s not like they’ve been used already!”
“Ugh! Stop!” he groaned, raising his hands and scrunching his eyes shut.
She laughed. “I promise I’ll stop if you get them down for me,” she hedged.
Clark glared at her, then reached up and gingerly picked one of the pink boxes from the edge of the shelf. “You owe me big for this,” he warned.
Just then, a flash of light went off in his face.
“Say ‘cheese’, Kent!” sneered Whitney Fordman, quarterback of Smallville High’s football team. He waved his phone in Clark‘s face, and to his horror he could make out a picture of himself clutching a pack of Tampax Lites.
To make matters worse, Whitney was wearing Lana’s meteor rock necklace, and Clark could feel the familiar nausea beginning to run through his veins. He swallowed hard and stepped back gingerly.
Chloe, however, had other ideas. “Give me that!” she yelled as she lunged at Whitney in a convincing football tackle. To her credit, she had caught him off guard, and he went tumbling to the floor with a thud. Unfortunately, he was flanked by two of his team mates, and one of them grinned as he picked up the phone and stashed it in his pocket.
“Wait till everyone at school sees this,” Whitney jeered as he retrieved the phone. “You’ll be a bigger loser than you already are. Hey, Chloe, you could write an article for us - headlined “CONFIRMED SIGHTING OF CLARK KENT’S VAGINA!”
Whitney and his cronies laughed as they walked off, clutching their letterman jackets like exclusive, members-only coats. Chloe scrambled to her feet, enraged.
“You won’t get away with this!” she screeched at their retreating backs. She turned back to face him. “Clark I’m so sorry,” she said, putting a hand on his arm.
He shrugged, trying to look indifferent. “It’s no big deal,” he said lightly, patting her hand.
Suddenly, her frown turned to a sly smile, and her eyes shone with excitement. “Clark - does your cell have bluetooth?”
His brow furrowed. “Yeah, why?”
“Give it to me.”
“What?”
“Just trust me,” she said eagerly.
Puzzled, he handed it over.
“Excellent,” she said, smugly. “Now - how fast can you run?”
His face split into a huge grin.
***
Clark shuffled his feet as he stood with Chloe by the supermarket exit.
“Are you sure this is gonna work?” he asked for the umpteenth time.
“Course it will,” she replied confidently. “Just as soon as they…ah, bingo.”
Whitney and his fellow jocks rounded a corner and headed toward the exit.
“Three…” Chloe whispered, lifting her phone to eye level.
The boys joked and laughed as they drew closer.
“Two,” she continued, lifting her forefinger to hover over the phone.
Whitney and friends were two steps away from the exit.
“One,” she finished, and dropped her finger to activate the record button on her phone.
The second Whitney and the jocks walked through the door, the store’s alarms pealed out threateningly. They all stopped and looked at one another accusingly.
“This is gonna be good,” Chloe chuckled, keeping her phone firmly trained on them.
Two burly store security guards approached the boys and apprehended them.
“Turn out your pockets, boys,” one of them said with an air of authority.
Whitney glared up at the older man. “We haven’t done anything, dumbass!” he spat.
The security guards glanced at each other, and in a flash had grabbed Whitney and the boys by their collars and dragged them back into the store.
“Then you won’t mind turning out your pockets to prove it, ‘dumbass’!” he smirked as a third security official came to assist in the search.
By now, several shoppers had gathered round the rowdy trio, and Clark and Chloe moved closer to get front row footage of the action. One by one, their pockets were emptied, and shoppers and staff alike erupted in laughter as pilfered items were unearthed and identified.
“Well, what have we here?” one of the officers joked. “Haemorrhoid cream?”
Whitney turned scarlet. “That’s not mine!” he yelled.
“”De-lousing Powder for hard-to-reach areas…”
“Someone planted that on me!” he shrieked, shrinking into his jacket in a pathetic attempt to hide his face.
“Vagisil…”
“Oh, come on!” Whitney roared.
“And…what’s this? TruFlow Extra Absorbent Maxi Pads?” the store security officer shook his head, perplexed, while shoppers held their sides in laughter. “What kind of crooks are you, anyway?” he asked. “If you have to shoplift, at least go for the good stuff!”
“This is all a set up!” Whitney yelled as he and his fellow jocks were dragged to the store manager’s office.
“Say ‘cheese’, Fordman!” yelled Clark as he and Chloe followed them to the door, filming all the way. As soon as the boys were in the office and the door closed, Chloe pressed the stop button and turned to Clark with a smile.
“I don’t know how you managed it, but this turned out way better than I could have ever imagined,” she declared.
Clark laughed. “It was your idea. Quick thinking, Sullivan,” he said, holding out his hand for her to hi-five, which she duly hit. “What do we do now?”
She grinned. “We wait.”
***
Clark leaned on a car and looked out across the parking lot, watching the two blondes from a distance.
They stood facing each other. One male, one female; one tall & wide, one tiny & flippy-haired; each one holding a mobile phone. Hey saw them both slowly count to three and then swap phones, punch buttons furiously and then hand the phones back. They glared at each other for a short while, and then turned on their respective heels and strode in opposite directions.
Clark straightened as Chloe jogged in his direction, slowing to a walk as she approached him. “Well?” he asked hesitantly.
She held out her hands. “Tampax!Clark is no more,” she announced triumphantly.
Clark let out a sigh of relief and pulled Chloe towards him in a huge hug. “Thanks for that,” he breathed, “although I’d never have been in that fix in the first place if you hadn’t dragged me out lady-shopping.” He pulled back and grimaced. “Why didn’t you bring Pete?”
She laughed. “Ha! Pete’s barely taller than me. Talk about a moot point!”
“True,” he admitted. He linked his arm through hers. “I’m just glad this whole thing is all over,” he continued as they made their way out of the parking lot. “Though it is a shame that you had to trade your hilarious video footage to get me out of a jam. It would have been great to watch that again and share it with Pete.”
Chloe grinned, and he could see a glint in here eye. “You still can,” she said airily.
He stopped walking. A smile began to curve his lips. “Chloe…” he said tentatively.
She reached into her pocket and tossed him his cellphone. “Technology is a wonderful thing,” she said wisely.
He blinked. “How did you-?”
“Bluetooth is your friend, Clark,” she said smugly.
Clark regarded her for a long moment. Then in one swift moment he picked her up and whirled her round and round while she squealed with delight.
“As are you, Chloe Sullivan, as are you,” he said joyfully, setting her down.
“Anytime,” she chuckled.
“Wait a minute,” Clark said suddenly as they walked along. “What if they kept a copy of the Tampax picture?”
Chloe pondered that for a minute. Then she shook her head. “Nah. Fordman’s not that smart, and those two boneheads are even dumber. They thought they had you cornered with that shot, so they wouldn’t have thought to make copies.”
“True.” He smiled down at her, pulling on her hand to make her stop walking. “Thanks for helping me, Chloe.”
She smiled back. “Thanks for helping me, Clark. There’s no one else I’d rather go lady-shopping with.”
They stared at each other, holding hands, and their smiles gradually faded, and Clark suddenly felt…strange. He leaned forward and lowered his head toward Chloe’s, and like a polar opposite magnet, she raised her head toward his.
“Hey guys!” yelled Pete Ross, bounding across the supermarket parking lot. “Got your call. What did I miss?”
Clark yanked his head away from Chloe as she did the same, and they both smiled brightly at Pete as he approached. Too brightly.
Clark held up his phone. “You’ll never guess what Chloe did,” he grinned, linking his arm in Chloe’s.
Pete grinned back as he linked his arm in Chloe’s other one. “Chloe, huh?” he said, as they all walked away. “That means we need loft, and we need pie, and we need them now.”
“Seconded,” Chloe chirped.
Clark sighed happily. “My place it is, then,” he chuckled as they made their way to the Kent Farm.