The Secret Parts of Fortune
Title: The Secret Parts of Fortune
Author: Flying High / latetothpartyhp
Pairing: Chloe/Clark
Rating: Mature Adult / NC-17
Warning: Coarse language and explicit, adulterous sex
Spoilers: For Fortune
Summary: My obligatory missing-Chlark-scene-from-Fortune fic.
Author's Note: Hopefully it's obvious what's mine and what's Shakespeare's in this. I found the timeline for this episode to be a little screwy, so I made a few guesses (in addition to the obvious) about what happened when. Also, this story is a companion piece to The Lens Through Which We Look and one or two lines might be more understandable if you've read that first. However, if you'd rather skip the Chlollie or get straight to the smut, this story can stand on its own.
Wine is a peep-hole on a man.
- Alcaeus
My only regret in life is that I didn't drink enough champagne.
- John Maynard Keynes
The monkey - lemur - whatever - had climbed to his shoulder and Chloe was feeding it chips and the driver was explaining how she doubted he could afford her overtime rates and he was digging in his wallet when his phone beeped that a text had come in, but his hands weren't working right so he dropped the wallet while digging out the phone and the fucking lemur fell off his shoulders and on to the roof of the car and just sat there, staring at him like he was an idiot because he couldn't find his phone - but then he did. He found his phone.
The text, as it turned out, was from Lois, and, of course, seeing that, the foggy feeling, like he was forgetting something, descended. He frowned for a minute and thought about what he he was supposed to remember. Probably where Lois and Oliver had gone, and when they'd be back. If they'd told him he didn't recall, and, for once, he didn't give a damn about it. This fog had been the biggest pain in his ass since … in a long time. Well, screw it. Chloe was leaning against his back now, her arms wrapped over his shoulders and the driver was still talking at him, telling him he was going to have to pay for any damage the lemur did to the car and that's what he thought. Screw. It. He didn't have to remember anything he didn't want to tonight. Chloe wanted to go home and he didn't need the limo just to transport Chloe and a tree rat. Feeling clear-headed for the first time in a long time, he shoved Dr. Lemur into Chloe's arms, scooped her up in one arm and the LuthorCorp sign in the other, and took off at the speed of light.
Chloe's scream lasted less than a second before turning into a fit of giggles as he dumped her on his bed. At what she was laughing, he had no idea, which was kinda funny, because he was giggling too, mostly at how dorky Chloe looked when she giggled, her face all scrunched up under that giant pouffy veil.
“Don't laugh at me,” she told him when she finally saw him, which just made him laugh harder. She started to sit up. “I said don't - whoa.” Chloe slid back on to the bed and twirled her arm around a few times. “What are you doing to the room?”
He snickered again, because obviously he wasn't doing anything to the room, which meant that Chloe must still be really wasted. “I'm not doing anything to the room,” he told her.
“Then why is it turning?” She lifted her arm higher and flung it around for emphasis. “You gotta be doing something.”
Okay, that was the cutest thing he'd ever heard. And the dumbest, which was really, really funny because usually Chloe knew everything, like how to break into secret high-tech labs and people's minds and stuff. “Nope. Not even close.”
She sat up, scowling, which was the cutest thing he'd ever seen, and yanked on his jacket. Yanked hard. Hard enough to pull him on to the bed.
“It is,” she said, and from his position sliding off the mattress he could totally see what she meant. Nothing was moving but everything was in motion. It was so … weird.
“Yeah,” he answered, mystified at how all the laws of physics were being broken in his own bedroom.
“You see?” she demanded, and once again the arm was up and circling, which was not helping him understand the situation at all. In fact, it was kind of making his stomach lurch, since the arm was circling opposite the circling of the room and watching them whirl around in opposite directions couldn't be good for anyone, so he grabbed her arm and pulled it down to his chest, only he pulled a little too hard too and he ended up with most of the rest of her on his chest and both of them a lot more on the floor than they were on the bed, so he pushed them back up on to the bed, which for some reason made the world around them speed up a little and Chloe ended up with most of him on her chest instead of the other way around.
Also, Clark ended up with a mouthful of that pouffy veil, which tasted awful.
Why did women wear them anyway, he wondered. It wasn't like people couldn't see their faces underneath them when they wore them down. Even normal people could. And when they wore them up they were just giant, pouffy pains in the ass. Easing himself off Chloe's chest, he lifted her enough to let the veil swing free and, pulling the comb-thingy out of her hair, blew it across the room. He felt triumphant seeing it flutter away, but the blowing made the room swim, so he lay back down beside the new, veil-free Chloe. She looked way better without it. Less dorky first-communion and more sexy Madonna, which was … hot.
“Well, you look pleased about something,” she said. “What canary did you swallow?”
Immediately images of Dinah and swallowing and Dinah swallowing flooded his head and he giggled. Chloe's brows went up
“'S nothing,” he said. Really, it wasn't. And he could never tell her. He was practically Dinah's boss, which made it. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If he said it enough he'd believe it. Not that other people had to think that way. People like Oliver, for instance. If there was a word for guys that meant “slut”, Oliver would be it. Oliver would be the freakin' dictionary definition of it, so, hopefully, if Dinah really wanted to hit that she knew half the West Coast was hitting it too.
“Clark?” Chloe bent over him, swaying a little as she took his head in her hands. “Clark, your eyes are orange. She peered closer, bending so far down there noses were practically touching. “How do they do that?”
He was feeling warm. Especially his face. He didn't realize he that warm, though. And Chloe knew how it happened; it was just basic biology.
“You know how they do that. It's just basic biology,” he said.
“Well, yeah,” she said, and now she was blushing - which, scratch what he'd thought earlier - was really the cutest thing he'd ever seen. It was like she was fifteen again and all prim. Not that he could ever remember Chloe being prim. But still. Cute.
“I meant,” she continued, “how does the hormone actually cause the pigment to - oof!”
That last part came out as he flipped her on her back. He grinned down. “I told you. It's biology, baby.”
Chloe grinned back, but she was still blushing and her lashes were fluttering, which was really adorable. “You're drunk,” she informed him. “Really, really drunk. Wasted, even. In your cups. Three sheets to the wind.”
“That makes two of us then.”
She rolled her eyes. “You,” she poked at his chest, “have the liver of a newborn babe. You are drunk. I'm just tipsy.”
“Bullshit.”
Chloe giggled, deep from her belly, making him kind of ticklish too. “Whoa-ho! What would Mrs. Kent say if she heard her baby boy talking that way?”
“She'd say: 'Clark, I don't like the influence that Chloe girl is having on you.'”
“Bullshit. She'd say: 'You need to stop spending all of your time in that barn, Clark. Go show Chloe your space ship.'”
“My mom would never say that.”
“Maybe not,” Chloe conceded. “But she would tell you to get off of me.”
“My mother would never say that either.”
Chloe started to giggle again but then stopped, grabbed his shoulder and yelled, “Oh my God! Clark!”
Clark flashed upright, alert. “What?” he yelled. The only thing he noticed was that the room was now turning at a tilt, like Pluto's orbit around the sun. That didn't mean anything though; Chloe could have noticed something. Chloe was always noticing things.
“Clark, it's... it's your nose,” she said with a kind of hiccuping sound. “It's longer. How - “ hiccup “ - is it doing that? Are you develop - ” hiccup “ - ing another power?”
Clark's hand flew to his nose. It didn't feel any different. He didn't spend much time touching his nose though. Maybe -
Chloe giggled again, and he realized his nose didn't feel any different because it wasn't any different.
“Ha-ha.”
“Eloquent as ever. Seriously, though,” she continued, pushing up her hips under him, “get off.”
Seriously, though, the hip bouncing was not having the effect she intended, if in fact she intended to get him off. Of her. Off of her.
He blinked a few times before answering.
“If you insist,” he said, grabbing the bouncing hips and rolling to his back. He tossed her just a little way into the air for good measure and caught her hips again and she landed on his. “Is that better?”
“Well at least I … can … breathe...” she answered, falling with a woozy thump to his chest.
“You did insist,” he reminded her.
“I think I'm drunk,” she said.
“No!”
She nodded against his neck. “I think there was something in the wine. I mean, you're drunk, and I'm drunk. I mean, what are the chances of that happening?” Her face popped up to peer at his. “We need to get that bottle analyzed.”
Clark nodded solemnly and brushed her head down again so she could nuzzle into his neck some more. “We'll investigate in the morning.” He was a little afraid she was going to jump up and insist they go now, and he really, really did not want to get up. He didn't trust the room, for one thing - it was almost 17 degrees off kilter at the moment - and for another he liked where he was at. He liked lying down on his bed. He liked the weight of Chloe on him. He liked the softness of her breasts against his chest and her hair against his chin. He especially liked the heat between her legs where she straddled him. He was still dealing with the effects of her hip bouncing, and the heat made it feel a little better at least. Usually when Chloe was with him she was always moving, always working, always typing or filing or running off to do something. He'd finally caught her and all he wanted to do right now was to listen to the beating of her heart while the world spun around them.
Ok, maybe that wasn't the only thing he wanted. He also wanted to run his hand over her bare shoulder and feel her shiver; brush her hair back from her ear and feel her squirm; lift her head back up and feel her shift as her eyes met his. “What are you - “ she started to ask and God, she was always talking, too, she could never just let anything be. She didn't even quiet when he kissed her; as her mouth opened over his she moaned through her nose. Of course, that was the kind of commentary he could stand to hear on a more regular basis. It pulled at the light-headed feeling in his gut, which was a dumb way to put it but the only way he could think of to describe the way his stomach floated off to some happy place just above him as she kissed him.
Then his stomach crashed to the ground as she pulled her lips from his and sat up. “What are we doing?” she asked, because of course Chloe couldn't just let it happen, that would be way too easy, she'd have to tell him she valued his friendship too much or some...
“What about Jimmy?” she asked.
… bullshit like that. God. Jimmy freakin' Olsen. What the hell had she seen in that guy? He - Clark - had gone and saved the planet - The. God. Damn. Planet. - and when he'd survived that and ran back to what he thought would be the loving arms of the girl who'd kissed him as if the world was about to end - WHICH IT WAS - she was mooning over Henry James Olsen because he'd bought her a Snickers or something. Besides -
“You guys broke up,” he told her. “Twice now.” Or was it three times? They all blended together in his mind.
“Oh. Yeah. We did,” she said, frowning as if they all blended together in her mind, too. She plucked a little at her skirt, as if it might give her some answers. “But, I think I got married,” she continued.
He sighed. “You were possessed by Brainiac. It doesn't count. It's like you were drunk - 'Falser than vows made in wine.' You didn't know what you were saying.”
She gaped at him. “Did you just quote Shakespeare?”
“What, I'm not allowed to read?”
She ran a finger under the strap of her dress. “You are. It's just - “
“Unexpected? Jor-El made me memorize it.”
“Oh.” Her mouth and eyes were both really round as she said that and she rocked a little, like someone had pushed her. When she didn't say anything else he laughed. Chloe always had something to say.
“I never thought I'd see the day,” he told her. “Chloe Sullivan, at a loss for words.”
“Did you say 'memorize'?” she asked, ignoring him. “All of Shakespeare? The Passionate Pilgrim and Titus Andronicus and everything?”
“Yep.”
“Wow.” And again, that was all she said, but she was staring at him like he'd just saved a bus-load of school kids.
“I guess there are still a few things about me you don't know.”
“I guess.”
“Like how keen I am.” He rubbed his hips a few times against her for emphasis, but that just sort of threw her balance. Still, it worked in his favor when she fell forward at a very … attractive … angle.
“Hey mister - the face is up here,” she told him, pulling his chin up.
“I told you I was keen.”
“Keen?” she asked, raising a brow.
“Yep. And it'll cost you a groaning to take off my edge.”
“A groaning?”
“A groaning,” he said, raising hips hips up high and arching his back, then flattening himself so fast she fell back on him with a little grunt. “Hamlet, act three, scene two. Your performance needs a little work.”
“I didn't realize it would be audience participation.” She was blinking and clutching at him, dazed from the sudden movement, so he took her head in his hands as an anchor.
“Oh, it is. And we're on in three … two … one … “
He kissed her gently, because she'd looked so dizzy from the fall and because he didn't want her to spook again. When she'd came on to him in the past, she'd come on so strong and then afterward brushed it aside, or told him to brush it aside, like people could actually do that, so he held her face as delicately as he could and teased her lips as lightly as he could, because … definition of insanity … and all … that... God, it was really hard to not stick his tongue in her mouth …
And then it became very easy, because she'd pulled back again. Dammit. But she was smiling. And blushing. She'd rocked back on to her knees but she was smiling and blushing and looking shy and sweet and he reached for her, to pull her back down, but she took his hands in hers instead.
“You're a really good actor,” she said quietly.
“No, I'm not,” he said, and sat up. She was looking down at something, he couldn't tell what, but when he was upright she snuck a quick glance at him and then looked back down. She was spooked again, by something, but he didn't know what and he really wished she would just get over it already so they could get horizontal again. He just felt so much more stable lying down.
“Yes, you are. You were very … believable.”
“Believable?” What did that mean?
Luckily for him, she explained. “I'm pretty sure - I know - you'd rather be with someone else right now, so … “ she trailed off and would have climbed off if his hands hadn't super-sped to her hips. Was hat stupid skirt she was wearing was so thick she couldn't feel his erection trying to poke through it, - - and he really, really doubted that, since his erection at the moment was not, uh, negligible - because why would she -
“Chloe, where are you going?”
“I'm just ...” She waved her arm vaguely around and he released his grip on her hip long enough to bring her hand down to it with his. He was putting a moratorium on hand-waving for the rest of the night. If anything killed the mood - anything other than Chloe pushing him away, again - it would be him puking from all the oppositional hand-waving.
“I'm not acting. Jesus, it was a metaphor. Unless you're acting and you just think that's the way everyone rolls - “
She gave him a troubled look. “Don't twist my words. Why would you think I was acting?”
“Why would you think I was?”
“Because … “ she squirmed a little in her seat, which ... oh, yeah, definite improvement over what she'd been doing before. Which was nothing. “Because this isn't what we do, and usually when you do things you don't normally do it means you're on RedK or we're in a kryptonite-induced hallucination or … you know.”
No, he didn't. Kryptonite-induced hallucinations? She'd had kryptonite-induced hallucinations in which they'd got it on? Where did Lex keep those rocks? They needed to have a good long talk. Tomorrow. “I think,” he said, bending down and brushing his lips over the shell of her ear, “we've established that we are both drunk.”
Chloe shivered a little beneath him. “You're right, you're right, you're - oh!” He'd bit her. Just a little. It made her jump. He'd have to try it again. “But that's the problem,” she continued. “Voice of experience talking here. When the buzz fades we are going to really regret - OH!” He bit a little harder that time. He wasn't going to regret anything. Lana'd run off to Paris - he was pretty sure it was Paris - and she was happy there and he was happy here and he had nothing to feel guilty about. Risking the possibility of future arm-waving, he lifted his hand from hers and pressed his fingers to her lips.
“Chloe, you're wrong. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.” God, it felt good to say that. “When the buzz fades I am really going to regret not doing this. Really.”
She didn't say anything for a moment, which probably had something to do with the hand on her mouth, and something to do with whatever she was thinking behind her heavy-lidded eyes. Finally she peeled his fingers up and whispered “Why not?”
“Because... “ He leaned forward and blew a small breath over her ear. It was playing dirty, but he wasn't thirteen anymore and she didn't get to call all the shots about them. “Because,” he said, moving past her ear to her neck:
“Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason
But rising at thy name doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize; proud of this pride
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her 'love' for whose dear love I rise and fall.”
He was cheating, of course. He whispered the lines right over her sensitive skin, nipped at her neck at every comma, and, to punctuate completely, made sure she knew at the end exactly what was rising and falling when she gasped and moaned and trembled in his arms, and when he was done she was so melty she was almost liquid and he wasn't sure anymore if it was the vertigo or the kissing or the way she was moving that made him clutch her so hard to him. When she turned to trail kisses down his jaw and under his ear he opened his eyes to watch the roll of her hips over his, over and over, and it reminded him of another time they'd both been wasted, that day at the Talon when they'd both gone crazy and made out in front of God and everyone. That had been a good day. It was always a good day when Chloe decided to get over whatever her hang-up was and crawl into his lap and squirm around. Of course, Chloe never did things like this unless she got high, which was sort of depressing if he thought about it, but it also offered a solution.
He would just have to get Chloe high a lot more often.
He smiled to himself at that thought, and then almost simultaneously frowned. Lana had never done anything like this when she'd gotten high. She'd pushed him into the pool and stolen Lex's car and he thought she'd beaten up some people too, which was bizarre because she weighed about 90 pounds, and also 'cuz he'd never understood how messed up she'd been. Like really, really messed up.
Then Chloe's hands reminded him he was wasting time. They were running all over and under his jacket and he was going to have to get busy to keep up. If he got to second base he was pretty sure she wouldn't freak out again. He'd gotten to second base in the back of Pete's car that day and she'd been rarin' to go once they hit the Talon. Running his hands down her back, he slid them back up her belly and over her tits and it must have been cold because her nipples were pointy and hard. He ran his hands over them again and she sucked on his lower lip; a third time and she started bouncing on him like he was a trampoline, and really, the only thing that could have made that better was if she were bouncing naked. She did owe him a round of strip fake-poker, he reminded himself, especially since he'd totally let her win the last time.
He leaned back and pulled out an imaginary deck of cards and dealt.
She managed to look curious and disgruntled at the same time. “What are we playing?” she asked as she took her “cards”.
“Five-card stud. But it looks like all you got is a pair.”
Her smile was wicked. “And I suppose you have a straight flush?”
“Damn straight I do.”
She threw her “cards” away and leaned toward him. “So what did I lose?”
“This.” He pulled on the strap of her top.
She raised a brow and for a moment he was sure she was on the verge of another freak-out, but then, oh, God, she twisted her arms behind her back, yanked the zipper down and pushed the straps off her shoulders with a flourish. Beneath the top she was bare, and her breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue / a pair of maiden worlds unconquered slipped out and he closed his eyes reflexively as the familiar burn flared up behind them. The suck of his life knew no end, he decided. He finally had a half-naked Chloe in his lap and he couldn't open -
His inner whine was cut off when he felt her lips skittered softly over his and her arms wrapped around his neck. Yeah, he was kidding himself if he'd thought the looking would have lasted more than a second. She was so soft, so silky. There were no hard edges to her, except the ones at the tips of her breasts and where the bracelets she was wearing dug into his neck. He resumed his attention to said tips, rolling one between his thumb and forefinger. Chloe, for her part, tightened her teeth over his neck before she caught herself and screamed through her nose instead. Her hips were rocking against him like she meant it now; not frantically, like before, but slowly. Deliberately. Each push forward was a tiny bit of amazing and every pull back made him grunt in frustration. This was killing him. She was killing him. He grabbed her hips to stop her, keep her right when his cock would have been thrusting up inside her if it weren't for all the stupid clothes they were still wearing, and realized they were still wearing all those stupid clothes.
That had to stop.
Opening his eyes, he slid his hands under her ass and stood. Then he sat down again. Actually he sort of fell down; the room had sped up since the last time he stood. Chloe was trying to climb on him again but he pushed her off. “Short-term pain, long-term gain,” he mumbled, and, carefully, rose to his feet. This time he was steadier and was able to catch himself on the bedpost and remain mostly upright after yanking down her skirt and tossing her back on to the bed. Of course, having accomplished all that, he had to clap his eyes shut almost immediately - and goddammit, why was that such a problem tonight? He'd spent countless hours - days, if you added it all up - with Pete's brothers' Playboy collection learning how to get off without burning the house down. He could do this. Granted, he'd never had an actual woman wearing nothing but a load of bling and stockings and a pair of panties the size and texture of a Kleenex in his bed, but … he peeled his eyes open for a second.
And a second later slammed them shut again. Her hands had wandered up to her breasts and she was sorta .. stroking … them … This was so wrong. Right now, on his bed, Chloe was feeling herself up, and he wasn't watching it. He had to watch that. It was the dirtiest, porniest thing he'd ever seen. Watching that was a … a moral imperative. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed his cock through his pants, directing the fuel to a different burner so to speak, and opened his eyes again. And oh, Christ, she was so gorgeous and decadent sprawled out like that. Her lips were glossy and parted and she was kneading and squeezing her tits and squirming in some crazy, hypnotic rhythm and automatically his hand just started squeezing himself in that same rhythm, over and over and harder and harder, especially after one of her hands left her breast and slid down between her legs, under the tissue-thin panties and into her pussy, which sounded very, very wet based on the tiny sucking noises it made every time she plunged her fingers in and drew them out again and she was moaning something, it sounded like -
“Claaaaark.”
- his name. She was moaning his name. He shut his eyes again.
“Huuuuuury,” she moaned again. “Want you … gonna come...”
No. No no no no no. That could not happen. Not without him. Faster than even he believed was possible his pants were open and he was crawling on to the bed, Chloe reaching for him, her little hand closing around him like a tiny nuclear explosion. Her hips were pushed up greedily to meet him, and after a few seconds - an eternity - of fumbling at and finally just tearing her underpants she managed to guide him inside of her.
For a moment he could only gasp as her body slammed against his, engulfing him. Movement and thought were gone; all the remained was the pressure and heat of her, all around him, squeezing and igniting him. He knew, without being able to say, what the coal in his hands felt like when it was turning into diamond. He knew now when he did that the coal was screaming, because that's what he was doing now, every part of him burning and harder than it had ever been. When his lungs emptied of air and he had to breathe again he knew, and could tell himself he knew, that he should shut his eyes, take his hands off her ass, stop thrusting into her like a machine because if he didn't someone was gonna get hurt because he was really out of control this time, just like his dad had always worried about, but he couldn't. He couldn't. It wasn't up to him. It was her choice, her call, her command. He pumped into her in time to her chant of his name, her orders to domefuckmeharder. She wanted this, and he couldn't stop because he had always done everything she'd ever wanted; he'd become a reporter for her and a hero for her and stayed just friends with her for so long and what a stupid fucking idea that had been in the first pl--
The heat in him burst, an enormous nuclear explosion this time, pouring out of him, burning through him, stopping time, turning everything to negative and back again, sucking out all the oxygen in him as it flared … and then died. Panting, he collapsed on to Chloe, who was lying limp and still, having apparently melted into the mattress. Her eyes fluttered open as he landed, then shut, then popped open again, and the weird thing was they looked orange, as if the heat coming out of him had somehow filled her.
“Clark?”
“Hmpfft?”
She lifted her head, puzzled. He frowned. Puzzled was bad. Puzzled made him tense and tight when all he wanted was to be boneless and spoon.
“The ceiling … “ She was trying to lift an arm but he pushed it down. He'd said no more arm-waving and he'd meant it. He did turn to look at the ceiling though, since she obviously wanted him to, and saw there, flickering cheerfully, the House of El family crest burning into the drywall.
Oh. Shit.
Jumping up, he blew hard enough to keep the flames from spreading but the damage was done. There was no way he'd even be able to scrub that off; he'd have to rip out that part of the ceiling and patch it with new plaster and get paint made to match and there was no way he was gonna be able to keep his mom out until the stores opened much less until the paint dried.
“I am in so much trouble.”
“Youkin fix it,” she said.
“No, I can't. Not in time. My mom's gonna kill me.” And then she'd gonna give him a big lecture about the responsibility and marriage, and there was no way she was ever gonna let Chloe stay the night again, not to mention she'd tell her dad all about it, which meant he was never gonna see her again because he'd ship her off to some boarding school in Metropolis and -
“No,” she shook her head. “No, you can just take me home now and - “
Experimentally, he rolled off the bed and lurched to his knees as the floor, for no good reason, abruptly changed the direction of its tilt. “I don't think that's a good idea.”
“Oh.” She thought about that for a moment. “You're right. Friends don't let friends, ex-cetera. Ok. You'll just hide me until you think you can walk again and we'll sneak out then.”
That wasn't a bad idea. He could super-speed her straight to her bedroom. No one would ever know. “But what about the … thing?” he whispered.
She stared at it for a moment. “Wet dream?” she suggested. Then she giggled. “That's sorta the wrong term for you, isn't it?”
“I am not - “ he stopped when he realized he was almost shouting. “I am not telling my mother I had a wet dream,” he whispered.
“Ok.” She patted him on the shoulder. “You think of something while I go hide. You might want to check your fly.” She eased herself up and he decided to pro-actively shut his eyes. It made it more difficult to arrange himself, but one mark on the ceiling he could explain. Marks on the ceiling and the walls and the bookcase and the closet door as he could not. There was a large thud as Chloe slid off the bed - “I'm ok, I'm ok” - and a smaller one that sounded like she hit the bedpost. Then the sound of a zipper and the closet door opening and shutting and opening again.
“I forgot something.”
“You're making a ton of noise.”
“Pot, kettle. Don't let me rot in here too long. That flannel might be contagious.” She closed the closet door again, but he could still hear her, the slight wheeze of her breath through her nose, the scratch of her nails against her scalp, the exhale of her yawn. He knew he was the only person in the house who could hear those things - the only person in the world - but at times like these it was hard to believe. He was sure, as he scrambled back on to the bed, that everyone in Lowell County could hear her, just as he was pretty sure they could all hear his heart super-pumping in his chest. Hearing her yawn again, he yawned himself. They wouldn't hear her, but if they did …
He didn't want to let her go again. Everything without her was was empty and lonely. He was lonely now, staring up at the stupid burn. He wanted her yawning and scratching and wheezing beside him, where he could wrap himself around her softness and fall asleep with hands full of her boobs. He tried to remember if they'd ever fallen asleep together, just him and Chloe, and he couldn't. It wasn't because of the foggy feeling, either; after a few minutes straining to recall he decided it hadn't happened. He yawned a second time. He wanted to wake up beside her once. He thought about getting up and pulling her out of the closet, but no, the risk was too great. And the closet had been her idea to begin with. He just had to get her home undetected, he thought, yawning, and they could spend the night together, for real, sometime. Sometime when he had a plan and wasn't so wasted. And tired. He yawned again.
They would do it. He would make sure they would.
--------------------
The conversational double entendres are, as noted, from Hamlet. The quote used to discount Chloe's marriage is from As You Like It, while the description of Chloe's breasts is from The Rape of Lucrece. The poem Clark recites is Sonnet 151.