Title: Of Tattoos and Hand Drawn Hearts
Author: natushka
Summary: She hates being in the field. It leaves her edgy and twitchy like she's on some kind of drug, and with an adrenaline rush that can last up to hours mixed with her personality, it's a freaking nightmare
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
A/N: This was for the chlack Cliche Fic-A-thon and I got,
2. Jack and Chloe get trapped somewhere and end up revealing their feelings for each other
and I really dislike cliche's in fanfic, so this was extremely hard for me to write, and I don't think I like the ending.. lol. Plus it hasn't been beta'ed, so all mistakes are mine... I just ran out of time sigh
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She hates being in the field.
It leaves her edgy and twitchy like she's on some kind of drug, and with an adrenaline rush that can last up to hours mixed with her personality, it's a freaking nightmare. She has a tendency to blurt things out at the best of times. But with the adrenaline rushing through her system, its no holds bar, the control she has to stop blurting out horrible personal things that no one else should hear, is gone, so after being out in the field she tends to try and stay out of sight and literally bits her lip till she can be out of sight.
God, and Jack Bauer being pressed to her side and not leaving, is not helping.
At all.
So yeah, the op got a little messy, and yeah, she got caught in the middle of some kind of crossfire and yeah maybe a bullet nicked her shoulder, but really it doesn't hurt that much because its just a graze and all she can feel is the warmth radiating from Jacks body and her body tingles every time his fingers brush her skin sending goose bumps skimming down her bare arms and Jack must keep taking that as a sign that she's cold because he's already wrapped his jacket around her and now just seems to pull her in closer to him and-
She needs to breathe.
She needs to get away from Jack Bauer before she says something or does something she'll totally regret, but Jack's made it his personal mission to get her back to CTU and hasn't let anyone else touch her (he tended to her wound himself) or left her side since the incident. So she feels a little relieved when they're walking into CTU heading for the elevator to take her to the infirmary.
She moves to the opposite side of the elevator, as Jack moves to press the floor button and she's grateful for the space that separates them.
The doors close and she leans back against the wall closing her eyes, the ache in her arm subsiding as the pain killers Jack had given her on site start to kick in.
Then the elevator jerks and stops. She barely manages to keep on her feet from the jolt, but Jack's at her side instantly his hand on her back, steadying her.
"Fuck" she mutters, because she's never going to get away from him at this rate.
"You ok?"
Jack looks at her, concern etched into his features.
Giving him a tight smile, she nods, and Jack looks like he's about to argue with her, but his cell phone starts ringing and he moves away from her to answer it. She takes that opportunity to sink to the floor. Between the pain killers making her feel slightly numb and the adrenaline rush still buzzing through her system, she can't think straight and it feels like her heart is going to pound through her chest.
In the background she can faintly hear Jack talking to Bill, and she closes her eyes and takes the moment to just calm herself down.
God, she really hates being in the field.
Feeling the vibrations through the floor, she opens her eyes and finds Jack sitting on the ground directly opposite to her.
"Bill said it shouldn't take them long to get us out."
She nods again and the silence makes her uncomfortable, makes her want to speak, but if she speaks she knows she'll blurt out something ridiculous like how she likes him with his two days of stubble instead of being clean shaven, or how incredibly hot he looks in Kevlar or if she wasn't such a control freak how she would have jumped him two years ago, but she won't say it, won't embarrass herself further in front of Jack Bauer, instead she just bites her lip again and lets the silence play out.
"Are you sure you're ok Chloe? Is your arm bothering you?"
And he looks so damn concerned, and maybe a little guilty, and that's just typical Jack Bauer, blaming himself and making it completely personal all the time. It makes her want to slap him sometimes, to just scream at him that there was nothing he could have done and he shouldn't think about it anymore… but of course he won't, its just not him.
She looks at him hard, almost glaring, getting a little frustrated with his mothering.
"Jack I'm fine ok, don't think anymore of it."
"Ok, I'm sorry"
She almost pulls her hair out in frustration, this man and his inability to accept a situation for what it is and move on… but really when she thinks about it, she wouldn't want him any other way, infuriating or not. So maybe if she carries on a conversation, he'll stop thinking about it, stop blaming himself, because that's what she is in this partnership, the supportive one (oh and the irony in that). The one that's next to him every step of the way, and is the one to convince him in the end it was the right thing to do without sounding condescending or like she's just trying to just sympathize with him.
It's an odd sort of partnership, but it works.
"So did it hurt?"
Jack frowns, all kinds of confusion running through his eyes.
"What? You're the one that got shot."
"No…" She rolls her eyes. "You're Tattoo, on your arm. Did it hurt?"
"Oh…" Jack looks down at his forearm, and laughs "No, not really, I've been through worse."
And she believes him, she's seen his medical file, what he's been treated for, she imagines a tattoo would be a walk in the park for him.
"Do you regret it? I mean, you got it at a pretty dark time, and maybe not for yourself, just as a cover, so doesn't it remind you of that. The drugs, Salazar?"
She thinks, maybe she should stop, because she's probably bringing up stuff he doesn't want to talk about, and most likely not comfortable talking about, but if she's asking him questions, she's less likely to admit other things to him and really that's a good thing.
Jack's quite for a moment, eyes fixed on his tattoo.
"I never really thought about it that way. I like to think that it's a reminder that I survived. I can think back, think about all the bad stuff around that time, and I can say well look where I am now. Kicked a drug habit, caught the bad guys, and straightened my life out."
She thinks about that, thinks about when she first started with CTU, thinks about Jack back then. He is right though, he's not that person anymore. The drugs messed him up, made him relive the guilt of Terri's death all over again; everyone believes that he was chasing the numbness the drugs brought, that subdued his inner demons. Sometimes she believes that maybe it's true, but sometimes when she thinks about it, she thinks he did it to remember. But she'll never tell him that.
Then she smirks, because she remembers clearly, being the newbie at CTU and still being the only one that was brave enough to face him.
God, and it all feels like a lifetime ago, how many disastrous days have they been through together.
Her eyes drift to his tattoo again, she's quite fascinated by it, though she'll never admit that to him either, she loves the intricate pattern that stains his skin, loves the placement of it too. He has nice forearms, well defined, from all these years of holding a gun, she really wants to trace the ink with her fingers, and laces her fingers together to stop herself.
"So… Do you have any tattoo's Chloe?"
Her eyes widen a little bit, and the way his eyes are scanning her body head to toe, makes a heat rise on her cheeks.
"Yes"
His eyes narrow and she swears she can almost hear her blood pounding through her veins and she's pretty sure he's figured out by now that her tattoo is covered by clothing; she can almost see the words forming in his head before he says them.
"Show me"
His eyes sparkle with an inviting playfulness that she rarely sees, makes her want to have more painfully awkward conversations with him just to see him like this and maybe even risk the chance of embarrassing herself in front of him, just to spend more time with him.
She makes a show of huffing, and rolling her eyes like she's completely annoyed by the question, pushes Jack's jacket off her shoulders then shuffles closer to him keeping her arm tucked into her side safely out of the way. When she's next to him she turns away from him and with her good arm she reaches back and pulls her tank top across to reveal her shoulder blade and the ink that stains her skin.
She can hear Jack shift closer then, "It's a skull."
"D'uh Jack."
"Why do you have a skull?"
He seems genuinely confused, which she supposes he does have a right to be, because it isn't really her and was just a whole part of her rebellion phase as a teenager.
"My parents didn't want me to get it. So I did." She shrugs lightly, like it's the most obvious thing.
He actually laughs, deep within his throat, but not so loud that it makes her think he's laughing at her, it's a soft private laugh that lets her know he finds the story amusing and then she can feel his fingers on her skin and she knows that he is tracing the design.
"You rebel" he murmurs softly as his fingers drag lightly down her arm from her shoulder.
She lets go of her shirt, letting it slip back into place and turns to face him. He hasn't gone back to his leaning place against the wall and they're so much closer now, and she knows she should move back because there are all kinds of alarm bells going off in her head, but her skin still tingles from where his fingers were before and she just can't bring herself to move back.
Instead she looks down and in a complete lapse in judgement (and if it blows up in her face she'll blame it on her arm and the drugs and the adrenaline) she gives in to her impulse and reaches out to touch the warm inked skin on his forearm.
Her fingers start to outline the elaborate markings, like she's always wanted to do, and when she looks back up at Jack he's watching her fingers intently. Then he blinks and he's looking at her with this expression on his face that she doesn't think she's seen before and her mind instantly goes analytical trying to work out what this means, and what the hell they're doing and because the silence and the staring seems to drag on forever she feels compelled to speak again, so she does.
"Have you thought about getting another one?"
The expression disappears and he smiles softly at her.
"I haven't really thought about it. Maybe."
"I think you should. Tattoos look good on you."
It blurts out before she can even stop it, and this is why she shouldn't be sitting so close to him, touching him like this and sharing intimate knowledge about tattoos and meanings.
And then he laughs again, that deep rumbling in his chest.
"Maybe I will then."
Then his expression turns serious again, and he opens his hand up letting his fingers stroke the soft skin on her forearm as she moves her fingers over his and this is really not how she expected this day to turn out, she never thought she'd be stuck in an elevator having some kind of moment with Jack Bauer.
"Maybe you can come with me, to help me pick something."
Her breath catches in her throat and she doesn't really know if they're talking about tattoos anymore or something else entirely. But for the first time in a long time she doesn't want to go all analytical, she doesn't want to think about what this means because at the moment, she's just content to sit and be still with Jack by her side and she really doesn't want to ruin the moment.
She feels his fingertips sliding on her skin and she looks down as he tangles his fingers with hers and the gesture is so god damn tender and gentle and all these things she's only seen come out in him around the women he's been involved with that she can't help but be caught up in it.
Her other hand moves on its own accord, and her shoulder stings with the movement but she can't help it. Her fingers make contact with the hard edge of his jaw and she traces a line down to his chin, then she rotates her wrist running her knuckle over the bone.
"You know I love you right?"
She blinks and looks at him like he might have lost his mind; she's pleasantly shocked and deep down completely unsurprised by his omission all at the same time. Because she had to have known, the way she knows and understands most of the things he does, because she loves him in exactly the same way.
God and she thought the day she admitted she was in love with Jack Bauer would be the day they were literally in front of a firing squad and death was imminent in seconds, not sitting on the floor in an elevator at CTU.
And the thing that gets her, and makes her stomach do this weird, hopeful, nervous thing, is that he doesn't even bat an eyelid, he just sits and looks at her, patiently letting her process everything, because he knows her, and he knows how she operates, and because he knows she loves him too and it was never a question of did she.
She smiles then, moves her hand into his hair tugging him closer.
"Yeah, I kinda love you too."
He's smiling when their lips meet.