Title: Come Back and Stay
Author: Manda
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Smallville
A/N: Dedicated to lj user"aisling12" , who gave me the niftiest Samhain present. I just woke up and Chloe, Lex and Clark were in my mailbox looking so ultimately pretty, we all agreed she needed a present in return.
She stumbled out of the bed with the original thought being that she desperately needed a glass of water, but then realized, bereft of bed warmth that the house was freezing. What was it about any place he ever owned it seemed frigid? Was he trying to make sure he was cold even under all the layers of his suits? Grabbing the shirt left rumpled on a chair by the wall she pulled it around her and hurried out of the room.
Her mouth was the Sahara desert and she was only mostly awake, so it amused her to stick her tongue to the dry part of her mouth and open her mouth as she walked to the kitchen. She got a cup, filled it with water, and left the kitchen, such a normal routine that she never worried about the needing the lights anymore.
Perhaps mostly awake was only her way of not being utterly realistic though. Because anytime she was here she was more awake and more real than anywhere and anytime else. It was as if every nerve and cell in her body came to full awareness. Even when she still felt sleepy and heeded the call of the warm, cozy bed she'd left.
And what a bed it truly was, she marveled having returned through the bedroom door. So beautiful that it had her heart in her throat and her stomach in a knot just staring. A little apprehensive and a lot amazed even now.
One lay half strewn across the right side of the bed with an arm hanging off of it, covers partly over his chest, with tan skin and dark, messy hair, while the other was curled on his side facing the opposite direction somehow having managed to keep his duvet cocooned over his shoulder and around him, with the palest of skin making him almost look fragile as he slept.
She fingered the flannel of the shirt that she'd stolen to throw around her against the evil cold. Long enough that it came a few inches short of her knees. Some moments she still couldn't believe she was here. She'd pinch herself and wake up, but it wasn't like this was the first time. It was even the fifth or sixth. The sex was hot. It was always hot. But in just the same way so was dinner or whatever events they all attended before. Teasing, smoldering, inquisitive and amazing.
Laying her head against a dark, thick bedpost she glanced toward the window and the sky that was just beginning to be touched by light before looking back to them. She was always the first to wake up, it was simply habit. Her body like clock work needed water and then she was usually up for the day. But what a beautiful day to begin it this way.
Next the blanket hog would wake up, because he was meticulous about time and would need to work. He was a bit of a deep sleeper, but had a habit of nightmares and suddenly startling awake only to attach himself to someone till he calmed back to sleep. Though once he was up and to the world he was all serious and official, unlike this man before her, serene and peaceful.
Then the farm boy who was the only one among them who understood the goodness of sleeping in. He was a light sleeper for as long as she'd known him, but he slept like a log around them. He said it must've meant he trusted them completely and didn't need to worry about it ever. He'd sleep forever. Till the shadows were forming again and he was pouting because he woke to an empty bed.
"Where'd you-" the sleepy mumbling started from the middle of the bed as he groped through the open side of the bed opposite from the one filled.
"Over here," she said softly. "I had to get-"
"I forgot to move it," he said sleepily, rubbing his eyes and then his baldpate, before his arm swung out in a direction unchecked. "I had a glass on the desk for you."
She was smiling before her eyes even looked to the table. True to his word there was a glass of water sitting on the desk, untouched and full. A blush rose in her cheeks and her smile couldn't even find a way to fade partly.
"Come back and stay in bed this time," he mumbled wrestling the covers around him till he had them open for her to get back into bed.
She walked toward the side of the bed, enjoying the fuzzy feeling in her stomach of being thought of before the fact. Before dinner and after dinner bedroom treats he, or even they, had thought about her and a way to make her stay for the night more comfortable. She set down the water she had down on the bed table and said teasingly, "You'll be up again shortly for work."
Striving through the air he finally found her hand and tugged her in to the bed, pulling her close as though she were some sort of live teddy bear. "You fell asleep too fast last night. I canceled all my meetings and appointments."
A kiss on the back of her neck, followed the slow and sleepy trail of the words that told her Lex was now falling back asleep, comforted in the fact she had returned and everyone was accounted for again. A few minutes later the bed shook as Clark readjusted again, curling up against Lex, his hand going between his front and her back, then moving again to rest lax on her side.
And Chloe, just as she slipped off to sleep again, thought for this kind of heaven she'd stay forever.