SV: Chlark Fanfic
As so many on my f-list have pointed out (repeatedly, bless you! *g*), Clark's blind as a stump when it comes to Lana. ITA that he should have dumped her years ago in favor of Chloe. So, in *my* universe, that's exactly what happens--with the help of a very special friend.
Title: Sea Change
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Chlark (hints of Clana in the beginning); Clark-Chloe-Pete friendship
Spoilers: None, really. Early Season 2-ish, but in my AU, “Tempest” and “Vortex” never happened.
Disclaimer: Not mine. This is just for fun.
Summary: An unexpected friend helps Clark look at Chloe in a new way. Sequel of sorts to Margrok’s story Dip. (It’s not necessary to read it first, but it’s pure, Season 1-style fun. Do go read and enjoy!)
As the hot August sun beat down on the Kansas River, Clark Kent, in a pair of bright red swim trunks, stretched out his long frame in the bottom of the old motorboat and happily soaked up the rays. His big feet reached almost to the stern of the little boat, where his two best friends, Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross, stood earnestly discussing strategy.
“How do I get in that thing?” Clark’s eyes were shut, but he smiled at the skepticism in Chloe’s voice.
“I’ll pull it close to the boat, Chlo’. No problem.”
“Maybe no problem for you. You’re not wearing a string bikini. Even if I can manage to hop onto that overgrown floating lifesaver without losing anything vital, how’m I supposed stay aboard when the boat starts moving?”
Pete sighed loudly. “First off, quit calling it a ‘lifesaver,’ doofus. It’s just a big inner tube my dad got out of a truck and tied to the boat for my brothers and me to ride in. I’ve been up and down the river in it dozens of times since I was, like, six years old. It won’t bite, I promise! Dad even put handles on it, so you can hold on as much as you want. You won’t fall off, not with my brother Bill steering the boat.”
Chloe still sounded suspicious. “If it’s so safe, why didn’t you ask Lana to try this too?” As always, Clark’s ears perked at the mention of Lana, who inspired so many of his romantic daydreams. Now he imagined the two of them sharing a small sailboat, laughing together as her long, dark hair whipped in the breeze. . . . He sighed. Why hadn’t Pete asked her along?
“I did,” Pete answered Chloe with a verbal shrug. “She said she needed to study.”
“You mean she chickened out,” came the quick retort. “Bet you five dollars she turns up just as we get back. For crying out loud, classes don’t even start for another two weeks!” Clark wondered why Chloe was being so hard on Lana. After all, Lana had been badly frightened last week, and it was all his fault….
Pete echoed Clark’s thoughts. “Well, she was pretty scared last week by that gigantic black fish in Clark’s swimming hole. Remember? I didn’t see it, exactly, but Lana said it kinda looked like a shark, except uglier.”
“I remember.” Just a hint of sarcasm tinged her voice. “I was there too, Pete. In the water, just as frightened as Lana. But here I am, ready to take the plunge on this tube thing, so to speak. If I can do it, why can’t Lana?”
Clark realized, guiltily, that Chloe was right. Both girls had been terrified when the giant creature everyone in Smallville called “Big Fin” surprised them while they were taking a dip in the Kent swimming hole. The fish turned out to be harmless, but being “attacked” by a six-foot cross between a shark and a catfish couldn’t have been any fun for either one of them. Why did he and Pete assume that Lana would take it harder than Chloe? Odd he hadn’t wondered about that before.
Pete chose to ignore the question. “You’re just stalling,” he accused. “C’mon--All aboard!”
Clark sat up just in time to enjoy a rear view of Chloe’s shapely figure as she leaned out to catch the inner tube. In another minute she was perched unsteadily on top of the tube. “Tell Bill to drive slow, OK?”
“Sure, sure, Chlo’.” Pete said soothingly as he started the boat’s engine. But Clark saw the wicked grin he flashed at his brother, who was sitting at the wheel. Bill’s answering grin mirrored Pete’s.
Uh-oh. “Hey, Pete, don’t do anything foolish, huh?”
“Foolish? Moi?” Pete’s wide-eyed innocence did nothing to reassure Clark. His sense of foreboding deepened when he saw Bill get up and Pete take his place at the helm. The boat jerked forward before Clark could make up his mind to protest. It surged ahead so suddenly that only Clark’s super-fast reflexes kept him from losing his balance. A loud yelp came from the direction of the inner tube.
“You creeeeeeeep…..AAAAAAAHHHH!”
Pete, chuckling, speeded up, then started swinging the boat right and left, which sent the tube bouncing merrily across the boat’s wake. To Clark’s surprise, Chloe’s screams soon turned into shrieks of delight. He watched in happy fascination as she clung to the tube’s handles, face flushed with excitement, short blonde hair whipping in the wind, riding the tube like a pro. Seeing Chloe bounce around like that in a bikini was both disturbing and very, very pleasant. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Bill’s warning shout cut across the wind. “Pete! Watch where you’re going!”
Pete swerved just in time to miss a dark, fin-like shape cutting through the water. The sharp turn jerked the tube and Chloe into the air. Clark blanched as he saw Chloe lose her grip and plunge into the water, her screams drowned out by the screech of the boat’s overtaxed engine.
“Stop! Chloe fell off!” Without waiting to see if Pete heard him, Clark dove in, moving faster than the human eye could see. At exactly the same second, the large black fin floating a few yards away disappeared in a blur.
It only took a split-second for Clark to reach the point where Chloe had fallen in, but, to his surprise, she was nowhere to be seen. A quick scan of the murky green depths turned up only a few surprised trout darting through clumps of algae. Even though the cold river water usually had no effect on him, Clark began to feel a chill creeping through his body.
Fighting back panic, he surfaced near the boat and looked around. On deck, both Pete and his brother stared in wide-eyed wonder, but not at him. Instead, their eyes were riveted on a dark shape splashing through the waves a few yards away. Clark followed their gaze and his mouth dropped open.
A few yards away, a drenched Chloe was riding on top of a huge black fish. “Big Fin!” Clark exclaimed. The creature seemed to be in a playful mood; he jumped from wave to wave like a bucking bronco, while Chloe clung desperately to its dorsal fin with one hand. “Help! Stop! Whoa!” Her other hand clutched the strap of her bikini bra, which was slipping off.
The sun, he decided, must be hotter than he’d thought. Not only had his chill disappeared, but he was beginning to feel very, very warm. “Chloe, don’t panic! It’s just the fish from my swimming hole! He only wants to play. Just let go of him!”
“That’s-ugh-easy-ACK!-for you to say!” she grunted between leaps. “My top’s snagged on his fin!”
“Your what?”
“My-bikini-TOP! Doof!”
Clark wondered how much river water he could swallow before he stopped laughing. “Don’t worry, we won’t look.”
“Speak for yourself!” Pete chimed in from the boat. “Damn, I wish I had a camera.”
“Why are boys so-ugh!-stupid?” Chloe lost her grip on the sharklike fin, which tugged insistently at the unraveling strings on her bra strap. As it finally came loose, she slid into the water so fast that Clark could have sworn she used super-speed. The remains of her top waved like a pennant from the point of the fish’s fin.
“Stay away!” she ordered, when Clark started to swim over to her. “I am not getting out of here without something on!”
Pete and his brother both grinned. “We could be talked into throwing you a towel, I guess,” Pete chuckled. “If you were really nice to us, that is.”
“If that’s what it takes, I will never get out of here,” she fumed. “I just wish that big lummox of a fish would bring back my top.”
“As if,” Pete mocked.
At Chloe’s sudden yelp, Clark shot forward to help. She waved him off. “OK, who nudged me in the back?” she demanded.
Clark knew the answer, but he swam away obediently anyway. “Uh, Chloe, you might not want to find out. Trust me.”
Chloe, still neck deep in the water, twisted around until she was nose to nose with Big Fin himself. His head, which looked like it belonged to an overgrown catfish, was just as ugly as Clark remembered, but it was set with eyes that were, unexpectedly, soft and gentle. Clark, treading water a few feet away, braced himself for her panicked reaction. Surprisingly, though, Chloe remained motionless. The creature turned slightly, maneuvering his fin closer to Chloe until the dangling strings of her bra top were within easy reach. Hesitantly, she pulled it down and refastened it.
Then, to Clark’s amazement, Chloe reached out to stroke Big Fin’s head.
The giant creature turned and nuzzled Chloe’s hand, while its tail flapped back and forth slowly, as if it was wagging. “Good boy,” she cooed gently, scratching his back. “Guess I owe you one.”
* * * * *
Chloe refused to get back into the boat for the short trip back to the Ross family’s dock, choosing instead to hitch a ride with her new friend. Clark was tempted to join them, but reluctantly decided he couldn’t risk revealing his speed. After all, Chloe and Big Fin made a strange enough sight as it was. Fortunately, it was nearing sunset, so there were no boaters left on the river to see it.
Atop Big Fin, Chloe raised one arm and pointed at the dock. “What did I tell you? There’s Lana.” Her cheerful voice drifted upward. “Pete, you owe me five dollars.”
Dressed in a crisp pink-and-white linen blouse and jeans, dark hair lifting in the summer breeze, Lana was-as usual-a vision of wholesome beauty, or so Clark thought. Only the small pout on her perfect lips spoiled the total effect.
“Clark, you said you’d be back half an hour ago,” she complained softly, widening her dark eyes. “I’ve been waiting here all that time. Weren’t we going to the movies tonight?” Clark, confused but flattered, fought back a blush. “Uh, were we, Lana? Last time we talked, you said you hadn’t decided.”
Before Lana could respond, Chloe spoke up, a little too loudly, from the water below the dock. “Sorry, Lana. We ran into an old friend. Remember this guy?” She slipped off Big Fin’s back and as the fish circled her, she stroked his scales.
Lana gasped and stepped back a pace. Her pretty mouth twisted in disgust. “Eeew! That thing! How can you touch it?”
Clark jumped from the boat and helped Pete and Bill make it fast to the dock. “C’mon, Lana, he’s not that bad. He helped us out today.”
“He’s ugly, and he’s weird. He creeps me out, I can’t help it.”
Big Fin’s huge tail slapped down hard, sending up a spout that showered Lana with muddy water. At her angry shriek, Clark started forward, but she pushed him away. “Why do you keep that mutant monster around, anyway?” She backed further away from Clark, and her small foot slipped on the dock’s wet boards, sending her plunging off the edge into the shallow water. She popped up, spluttering with rage, then shrieked again as Big Fin nudged her. Chloe urged him away quietly.
Clark, meanwhile, made no move to help. Staring at Lana as if he’d never seen her before, he spoke at last, very slowly. “I guess I don’t think of him as a mutant monster.”
He lifted a wet and fuming Lana back up to the dock. “Pete and Bill, could you get Lana some dry towels, and take her home? I’ve got something I need to do.”
“But I thought you and I were going to go….”
“Sorry, Lana,” Clark said firmly. “But I already have a date with a couple of good friends. And somehow, I don’t think you’d fit in.”
With that, he jumped into the water and cocked an eyebrow at Chloe. “Care for an evening dip?”
Read the sequel here: An Alien's Best Friend.
This fic, and every other one in the "Big Fin" series, feature a wonderful character created by the lovely and talented margroks in her fic Dip. Thank you, Marg! *Flips tail happily.* :)
Title: Sea Change
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Chlark (hints of Clana in the beginning); Clark-Chloe-Pete friendship
Spoilers: None, really. Early Season 2-ish, but in my AU, “Tempest” and “Vortex” never happened.
Disclaimer: Not mine. This is just for fun.
Summary: An unexpected friend helps Clark look at Chloe in a new way. Sequel of sorts to Margrok’s story Dip. (It’s not necessary to read it first, but it’s pure, Season 1-style fun. Do go read and enjoy!)
As the hot August sun beat down on the Kansas River, Clark Kent, in a pair of bright red swim trunks, stretched out his long frame in the bottom of the old motorboat and happily soaked up the rays. His big feet reached almost to the stern of the little boat, where his two best friends, Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross, stood earnestly discussing strategy.
“How do I get in that thing?” Clark’s eyes were shut, but he smiled at the skepticism in Chloe’s voice.
“I’ll pull it close to the boat, Chlo’. No problem.”
“Maybe no problem for you. You’re not wearing a string bikini. Even if I can manage to hop onto that overgrown floating lifesaver without losing anything vital, how’m I supposed stay aboard when the boat starts moving?”
Pete sighed loudly. “First off, quit calling it a ‘lifesaver,’ doofus. It’s just a big inner tube my dad got out of a truck and tied to the boat for my brothers and me to ride in. I’ve been up and down the river in it dozens of times since I was, like, six years old. It won’t bite, I promise! Dad even put handles on it, so you can hold on as much as you want. You won’t fall off, not with my brother Bill steering the boat.”
Chloe still sounded suspicious. “If it’s so safe, why didn’t you ask Lana to try this too?” As always, Clark’s ears perked at the mention of Lana, who inspired so many of his romantic daydreams. Now he imagined the two of them sharing a small sailboat, laughing together as her long, dark hair whipped in the breeze. . . . He sighed. Why hadn’t Pete asked her along?
“I did,” Pete answered Chloe with a verbal shrug. “She said she needed to study.”
“You mean she chickened out,” came the quick retort. “Bet you five dollars she turns up just as we get back. For crying out loud, classes don’t even start for another two weeks!” Clark wondered why Chloe was being so hard on Lana. After all, Lana had been badly frightened last week, and it was all his fault….
Pete echoed Clark’s thoughts. “Well, she was pretty scared last week by that gigantic black fish in Clark’s swimming hole. Remember? I didn’t see it, exactly, but Lana said it kinda looked like a shark, except uglier.”
“I remember.” Just a hint of sarcasm tinged her voice. “I was there too, Pete. In the water, just as frightened as Lana. But here I am, ready to take the plunge on this tube thing, so to speak. If I can do it, why can’t Lana?”
Clark realized, guiltily, that Chloe was right. Both girls had been terrified when the giant creature everyone in Smallville called “Big Fin” surprised them while they were taking a dip in the Kent swimming hole. The fish turned out to be harmless, but being “attacked” by a six-foot cross between a shark and a catfish couldn’t have been any fun for either one of them. Why did he and Pete assume that Lana would take it harder than Chloe? Odd he hadn’t wondered about that before.
Pete chose to ignore the question. “You’re just stalling,” he accused. “C’mon--All aboard!”
Clark sat up just in time to enjoy a rear view of Chloe’s shapely figure as she leaned out to catch the inner tube. In another minute she was perched unsteadily on top of the tube. “Tell Bill to drive slow, OK?”
“Sure, sure, Chlo’.” Pete said soothingly as he started the boat’s engine. But Clark saw the wicked grin he flashed at his brother, who was sitting at the wheel. Bill’s answering grin mirrored Pete’s.
Uh-oh. “Hey, Pete, don’t do anything foolish, huh?”
“Foolish? Moi?” Pete’s wide-eyed innocence did nothing to reassure Clark. His sense of foreboding deepened when he saw Bill get up and Pete take his place at the helm. The boat jerked forward before Clark could make up his mind to protest. It surged ahead so suddenly that only Clark’s super-fast reflexes kept him from losing his balance. A loud yelp came from the direction of the inner tube.
“You creeeeeeeep…..AAAAAAAHHHH!”
Pete, chuckling, speeded up, then started swinging the boat right and left, which sent the tube bouncing merrily across the boat’s wake. To Clark’s surprise, Chloe’s screams soon turned into shrieks of delight. He watched in happy fascination as she clung to the tube’s handles, face flushed with excitement, short blonde hair whipping in the wind, riding the tube like a pro. Seeing Chloe bounce around like that in a bikini was both disturbing and very, very pleasant. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Bill’s warning shout cut across the wind. “Pete! Watch where you’re going!”
Pete swerved just in time to miss a dark, fin-like shape cutting through the water. The sharp turn jerked the tube and Chloe into the air. Clark blanched as he saw Chloe lose her grip and plunge into the water, her screams drowned out by the screech of the boat’s overtaxed engine.
“Stop! Chloe fell off!” Without waiting to see if Pete heard him, Clark dove in, moving faster than the human eye could see. At exactly the same second, the large black fin floating a few yards away disappeared in a blur.
It only took a split-second for Clark to reach the point where Chloe had fallen in, but, to his surprise, she was nowhere to be seen. A quick scan of the murky green depths turned up only a few surprised trout darting through clumps of algae. Even though the cold river water usually had no effect on him, Clark began to feel a chill creeping through his body.
Fighting back panic, he surfaced near the boat and looked around. On deck, both Pete and his brother stared in wide-eyed wonder, but not at him. Instead, their eyes were riveted on a dark shape splashing through the waves a few yards away. Clark followed their gaze and his mouth dropped open.
A few yards away, a drenched Chloe was riding on top of a huge black fish. “Big Fin!” Clark exclaimed. The creature seemed to be in a playful mood; he jumped from wave to wave like a bucking bronco, while Chloe clung desperately to its dorsal fin with one hand. “Help! Stop! Whoa!” Her other hand clutched the strap of her bikini bra, which was slipping off.
The sun, he decided, must be hotter than he’d thought. Not only had his chill disappeared, but he was beginning to feel very, very warm. “Chloe, don’t panic! It’s just the fish from my swimming hole! He only wants to play. Just let go of him!”
“That’s-ugh-easy-ACK!-for you to say!” she grunted between leaps. “My top’s snagged on his fin!”
“Your what?”
“My-bikini-TOP! Doof!”
Clark wondered how much river water he could swallow before he stopped laughing. “Don’t worry, we won’t look.”
“Speak for yourself!” Pete chimed in from the boat. “Damn, I wish I had a camera.”
“Why are boys so-ugh!-stupid?” Chloe lost her grip on the sharklike fin, which tugged insistently at the unraveling strings on her bra strap. As it finally came loose, she slid into the water so fast that Clark could have sworn she used super-speed. The remains of her top waved like a pennant from the point of the fish’s fin.
“Stay away!” she ordered, when Clark started to swim over to her. “I am not getting out of here without something on!”
Pete and his brother both grinned. “We could be talked into throwing you a towel, I guess,” Pete chuckled. “If you were really nice to us, that is.”
“If that’s what it takes, I will never get out of here,” she fumed. “I just wish that big lummox of a fish would bring back my top.”
“As if,” Pete mocked.
At Chloe’s sudden yelp, Clark shot forward to help. She waved him off. “OK, who nudged me in the back?” she demanded.
Clark knew the answer, but he swam away obediently anyway. “Uh, Chloe, you might not want to find out. Trust me.”
Chloe, still neck deep in the water, twisted around until she was nose to nose with Big Fin himself. His head, which looked like it belonged to an overgrown catfish, was just as ugly as Clark remembered, but it was set with eyes that were, unexpectedly, soft and gentle. Clark, treading water a few feet away, braced himself for her panicked reaction. Surprisingly, though, Chloe remained motionless. The creature turned slightly, maneuvering his fin closer to Chloe until the dangling strings of her bra top were within easy reach. Hesitantly, she pulled it down and refastened it.
Then, to Clark’s amazement, Chloe reached out to stroke Big Fin’s head.
The giant creature turned and nuzzled Chloe’s hand, while its tail flapped back and forth slowly, as if it was wagging. “Good boy,” she cooed gently, scratching his back. “Guess I owe you one.”
* * * * *
Chloe refused to get back into the boat for the short trip back to the Ross family’s dock, choosing instead to hitch a ride with her new friend. Clark was tempted to join them, but reluctantly decided he couldn’t risk revealing his speed. After all, Chloe and Big Fin made a strange enough sight as it was. Fortunately, it was nearing sunset, so there were no boaters left on the river to see it.
Atop Big Fin, Chloe raised one arm and pointed at the dock. “What did I tell you? There’s Lana.” Her cheerful voice drifted upward. “Pete, you owe me five dollars.”
Dressed in a crisp pink-and-white linen blouse and jeans, dark hair lifting in the summer breeze, Lana was-as usual-a vision of wholesome beauty, or so Clark thought. Only the small pout on her perfect lips spoiled the total effect.
“Clark, you said you’d be back half an hour ago,” she complained softly, widening her dark eyes. “I’ve been waiting here all that time. Weren’t we going to the movies tonight?” Clark, confused but flattered, fought back a blush. “Uh, were we, Lana? Last time we talked, you said you hadn’t decided.”
Before Lana could respond, Chloe spoke up, a little too loudly, from the water below the dock. “Sorry, Lana. We ran into an old friend. Remember this guy?” She slipped off Big Fin’s back and as the fish circled her, she stroked his scales.
Lana gasped and stepped back a pace. Her pretty mouth twisted in disgust. “Eeew! That thing! How can you touch it?”
Clark jumped from the boat and helped Pete and Bill make it fast to the dock. “C’mon, Lana, he’s not that bad. He helped us out today.”
“He’s ugly, and he’s weird. He creeps me out, I can’t help it.”
Big Fin’s huge tail slapped down hard, sending up a spout that showered Lana with muddy water. At her angry shriek, Clark started forward, but she pushed him away. “Why do you keep that mutant monster around, anyway?” She backed further away from Clark, and her small foot slipped on the dock’s wet boards, sending her plunging off the edge into the shallow water. She popped up, spluttering with rage, then shrieked again as Big Fin nudged her. Chloe urged him away quietly.
Clark, meanwhile, made no move to help. Staring at Lana as if he’d never seen her before, he spoke at last, very slowly. “I guess I don’t think of him as a mutant monster.”
He lifted a wet and fuming Lana back up to the dock. “Pete and Bill, could you get Lana some dry towels, and take her home? I’ve got something I need to do.”
“But I thought you and I were going to go….”
“Sorry, Lana,” Clark said firmly. “But I already have a date with a couple of good friends. And somehow, I don’t think you’d fit in.”
With that, he jumped into the water and cocked an eyebrow at Chloe. “Care for an evening dip?”
Read the sequel here: An Alien's Best Friend.
This fic, and every other one in the "Big Fin" series, feature a wonderful character created by the lovely and talented margroks in her fic Dip. Thank you, Marg! *Flips tail happily.* :)