TITLE: Airless
AUTHOR: Miss Yvonne Hartman
REVISION: HaveNoMercy
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: Tess/Oliver, Tollie, UST, AU, Romance, Angst
SPOILERS: Season 8, Season 9
SUMMARY: Tess and Oliver get trapped in a closet together.
DISCLAIMERS: I don't own Smallville.
AIRLESS
"Of all the people, I get stuck in a closet with you!" Tess spat angrily, hammering her gloved fist against the inside of the closet door.
"Well look on the bright side," Oliver Queen replied, trying to remove stray strands of fur coat out of his mouth, "I know a great way to kill ten minutes."
She spun around and hit smacked him in the arm. In the half-light he still copped the full force of her glare.
"This is ridiculous. It's my birthday party downstairs and I'm trapped in here!"
Oliver still wasn't entirely sure of how they'd gotten into the closet. He did recall that he'd been trying to wind Mercy up throughout the entire evening and eventually she'd snapped and dragged him out of the ballroom, probably to hurl vases and insults at him in private. Fun times.
With a sigh she leaned against the closet and then sunk down to the floor. "I guess we'll just have to wait until someone finds us."
"Are you going to sulk?"
"No!"
He snickered, then found it wasn't actually that amusing and decided to scope out the place they were stuck in. It was roomy for a closet, a kind of walk in wardrobe, and had a few mothball scented fur coats hanging up. He found the back of the closet and tapped on the wall.
"I highly doubt you'll find Narnia in the back of the wardrobe," Tess said.
"Thanks Mercy."
She was quiet for a while and Oliver grew restless. "Want to play a game?" he asked.
"No."
"Twenty questions?"
"No."
"What did Zod get you for your birthday?" he asked. She shifted her long legs and played with the material of her dress.
"Is everything okay between you two?"
She looked up sharply at his question.
"I find your relationship twisted and sick, Mercy, but it doesn't mean I don't care about you."
"Sick and twisted?" she repeated standing up. "What is this? Because of our history you think you can comment on my relationships and tell me how to live my life? I don't need anything from you, Oliver. Not your approval or your consent –"
"You're just dying to kiss me." His eyes fixed on hers.
She held his gaze firmly, hoping he would give in and break contact first. "You are so predictable," she says attempting to push him away as he closes the space between them. She feels the cool wood of the closet against her back, leaving her with nowhere to go.
"Admit it Mercy, you can't figure out who you're truly in love with. And it's driving you crazy." He smirks, thinking he's finally won, that he's finally figured out the complicated little puzzle she's trapped herself in.
She ducked under his arm. "You must've hit the scotch pretty hard tonight to throw that psychological crap at me." She avoided his Cheshire cat grin. "And I don't need to figure out who I'm in love with. Because I'm not in love. And I never have been."
He stops smiling at that. "Never been in love?" he repeated, looking at her as if he's never seen her before. "What about Zod? Is that just 'showmance'?"
Tess turned away from him, pressing her forehead against the wood. "You're supposed to feel something when you're in love," she said, a tinge of sadness in her voice. "My life is exactly as it was yesterday, my sensibilities unchanged compared to the world I was in before I met him. Zod… I don't know what we are. Brief amusement, someone who plays rough and is fun because it's different. He's a bit of… fun, power games." She shook her head, "Why am I telling you this?" she asked herself rhetorically.
"Does he hurt you?" Oliver asked seriously. "Tess?" he pressed at her silence.
"It's nothing. And I don't need you to fight for me. I'm a big girl."
He watched her spiky little declaration of indignation and pride as she crossed her arms in front of her, broadening the space between the two of them. "Did you ever love me?" he asked.
She looked at him. "Oliver, I think it was… beyond love. I felt too much, too fast. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think straight. It wasn't rational or reasonable. It was idiocy and, and, insanity. It scared me, what I felt for you."
Her chest heaved in ragged breaths, her eyes full of regret at the extent to which she bared her soul to him.
"I didn't know." He said quietly.
"You weren't supposed to." She leaned back against the wall, the color high in her cheeks.
He advanced slowly, stepping close, slow and intimate, so she wouldn't be threatened. She stood slowly, matching his height in her heels.
"Do I still take the breath from your lungs?"
He takes everything from her, always has. He strips her back and leaves her a hundred different things at once, empty and renewed, shattered and full of light. Under his spell she breaks and reassembles, is confused, victorious, powerful and at his mercy. She is a beautiful dichotomy, a walking oxymoron, uncertain and shining.
His mouth is close to hers, she can feel his hot breath, and she wants to kiss him, fall into him, feel something.
"Yes."
"What do you feel?" he asks, not quite kissing her, his lips brushing oh so slightly, trailing up the side of her face, being held in place by his hands so she's powerless to move.
She is uncertain of her body, of what she really feels, sensations blurring together and getting confused in the long spinning tangents of her airless thoughts. Her heart pounds against her ribs like the beating wings of a bird, her head spins. Then she is calm, she hasn't turned to jelly, not filling up with butterflies or fireworks or music.
"I don't know," she whispers. "Everything and nothing, and a hundred in between."
"Do you feel this?"
He kisses her, the anticipation making sparks jump over her mouth as he pushes her back against the wall, his tongue sliding against hers. His kiss is brutal and beautiful, leaving her lips bruised and swollen, leaving her torn asunder, reeling in the force of the scorching kiss.
"Oliver." She breathes his name, her feet ragged and unsteady. She pushes him back to the opposite wall, and he snatches a quick breath before her hot mouth was kissing his again, her hands manipulating the tilt of his head.
He gathers up her dress enough to grip her leg, slide her close and rise his hand up along her silky thigh. Her hand caught his wrist, breaking their kiss at the same time. Her eyes were full of odd and blurred emotions and messages, so he wasn't sure what he was reading in the green.
"Not in a closet. Not like this."
He let her skirt fall back to the floor, "Okay."
She blinked, surprised, "That's it? No cheap innuendo? No convincing? No pushing me up against the wall anyway?"
He wonders if that's how she's become accustomed to Zod treating her, her end comment not going unnoticed. "No, Mercy, I… respect you too much. If you're saying no it's for a reason. You're worth far too much for a brief, cheap rendezvous in a closet."
Tess closed her eyes and stood on tip toe to kiss him. "You're full of surprises, Oliver Queen," she smiled.
"Happy Birthday, Tess." He curled a lock of her hair behind her ear. With a slight smirk he leaned against the door, manipulating it upward in its frame until something clicked and it swung open, flooding their retinas with sudden bright light.
Tess gaped at him, "...The whole time? You knew how to get out of here the whole time?" She exhaled a laugh and rolled her eyes, realizing she actually wasn't that surprised. She playfully punched him in the arm. "God, I hate you," she mused as she stepped out into the corridor.
"But you love me." He swung her around, catching her in his arms.
She looked up at him, uncertain again, "Oliver…" she pressed her palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart beat underneath. "Zod forgot my birthday. This is a Luthorcorp function organized by my PA. I didn't choose this dress, or these shoes. My life is constantly being dictated, I'm being pushed and pulled in every direction." Her green eyes scanned his face. "Nothing is real, and I think I'm falling apart."
"Mercy…"
"I don't want you to be fake. I want us to be real, to be something beautiful and untainted by this messed up web of lies I've gotten myself into."
He protested, "But remember everything you just said, we're beyond love. If you're falling apart, let me keep you together. I love you."
"You love the idea of me. The memory of me. But I'm not that same girl anymore." She reached up to kiss him. "And I won't destroy that beautiful memory you have of me with who I've become today. I want you to keep it with you, because in a way, I'll always be that starry-eyed girl who was so taken with you."
She kissed him gently before turning away.
"I won't let you go, Tess!" he yelled after her as she walked away from him.
Her dress whipped around the corner, leaving Oliver with his heart pounding and his lips burning. He draws a breath in the airless corridor.
"I'll fight for you."
It was a promise.
~
Fin.