|
Late-night Coffee
by immo
Deadlines, deadlines, coffee, sleep-deprivation, story on page one...
Chloe rubbed her eyes.
"Focus, damn you irises!" Chloe mummbled to herself. Pete and Clark had left long
time ago. The two boys had ran off home, while Chloe put the finishing touches on her paper.
There. Ready for printing!
"Not that those damned juvenile pranksters appreciate it," Chloe muttered, and took a
sip from her cold coffee. She had to cringe. Cold coffee. Yuck.
Nothing but herself, cold coffee, and the warm glow from her computer. Macintosh,
none of that Microsoft bullshit. Damn Bill Gates to hell!
"Hey, I see we're burning the midnight oil." Lana came in, all smiles and flowing
brown hair, the scent of coffee clung to her like--
"Coffee?" Chloe spread out her arms to Lana.
"Yes, and food, Chloe Sullivan. You need your nutrition."
"Nutrition? Bah." Chloe took the cup of joe (black, just the way she liked it), and
took a gulp, resisting the urge to spit the scalding hot liquid out again.
"Take your time." Lana held out a napkin to Chloe. Chloe nodded her gratitude and
accepted the napkin.
"Here, I made you a BLT."
Chloe took that too, and turned back to her work, scanning over it. For chris'sake,
you would think Pete would know by now to turn spellcheck on! She had a sneaking suspicion
that he typed words wrong on purpose just to get a rise out of her, and by the way, this
sandwich tastes really good, I didn't know Lana knew how to--
Lana?
Chloe turned to the ex-cheerleader, staring blankly at the girl as if she had just
seen her there for the first time.
"Lana Lang? What are you doing here?" Chloe didn't mean to sound rude, but late
nights at the Torch played havoc on her sense of time and... well, everything that had
nothing to do with the Torch. And Lana Lang definitely had nothing to do with the Torch.
Except that she was sort of a reporter... the tabs on the Torch's staff was pretty casual.
People came and went, didn't stay long. Except for Clark and Pete. And herself.
"I'm the intern." Lana supplied, as if reading Chloe's thoughts on the categorization
of the pretty brunette. Again, those pearly white teeth flashed in a beautificial blahber
bahgafga... god, sleep-deprivation. Beautificial wasn't even a word. And blahberbahgafga was
definitely not in the Webster's New Edition for the 21st century.
"Course, course." Chloe nodded, and reached out to pat Lana on the head, something
she would never do if she was her fully aware and cynical, stereotype-hater self. "Good girl.
Now go fetch me some ink, I think my printer ran out."
The next half-an-hour was spent organizing everything and printing everything out.
When the machine was happily spitting out copies of tommorrow's Torch, Chloe slid to the
floor, ready to die of exhaustion. Uninvited, Lana sat down right beside Chloe too, with her
legs drawn up to her chest.
Chloe, for the second time, realized that Lana was existing in her office.
"Lana?" Chloe blinked.
Lana Lang chuckled, shaking her head. "Chloe, I don't know how you do this every
week. I admire you, you know that?"
"Admire me?" The words were going into the audio-receptive devices located on the
sides of the blonde's head, but had yet to reach the main computer to decipher the message.
"Admire? Me?" Chloe laughed, finally getting it. "Miss Pom-Pom, beauty queen and
princess of small town Smallville, admire... me? Chloe? Weird girl that stays overnight in
the Torch office?"
"The rumours that you have no home and sleep in the Torch office? I don't believe--"
"Nonono, I insist! All true!" Chloe squirmed so her back was facing Lana, then kicked
the cabinet she was now facing. The top drawer fell open, and a pillow and a blanket fell
out.
"The truth is out there!" Chloe said sleepily, pulling the blanket up. She wasn't
able to reach the pillow, so she just shrugged, and fell backwards into Lana.
"Chloe?"
"I'm gonna take a five. You call me up if anything's wrong, alright?"
The girl was out like a light.
Lana was about to protest, but bit down on the words before they could come up past
her throat. The bags under Chloe's eyes were evident, and it was either little naps like
these, or Chloe take up cigarettes. Nasty habit. Happens to many-a good newshound. The cancer
stick addiction.
'No wonder she has an alarm clock on her desk.' Lana mused. She looked down at the
sleeping girl, the sound of the printer in the background as it spat out pages of Chloe's
Torch. Blonde wispy hair, framed a face, hardened with fatique. Lana trailed a finger along
Chloe's jawline, earning her a swat from the still-comatose Ms Sullivan.
"Leemealone," The editor mummbled.
There was a sudden loud beeping sound, and Chloe sprung awake, action-girl all over
again, the general of the front lines. With her spellcheck and press pass, she was God of
this domain.
"God, no, no paper jam, please baby...." Chloe pleaded with the printer, threatened,
and her second-last resort, started kicking the machinery.
"Work. Damn. You. Work." Each word punctuated with a hard kick to the printer. When
that didn't work, Chloe opened up the machine.
"Paper jam?" Lana looked into the dark recesses of the ancient machine.
"Paper jam." Chloe nodded her head grimly. Her eyes lighted on the problem, years of
training telling her exactly what to do.
She reached in and yanked the piece of paper out that was caught between two
thingies. She'd done this millions of times before. She still didn't know what the two
thingies were called. Oh well.
"God damn it--" Chloe pulled her hand, a line of blood along the pad of her thumb.
"Here," Lana took her hand in her own. Warm softness, and a gooey melty feeling that
flowed deep in the center.
'Ooo... squidgy.' Chloe felt her heart flutter, as Lana raised the wounded hand to
her lips, pressing against the wound, a nimble tongue flicked out to lap at the cut, a twinge
of pain/pleasure, and the fluttery feeling over-flowed.
"Chloe," Lana looked up at Chloe, eyes half-lidded with something... lust n strong
sexual desire; any strong desire. v have passionate desire (for).
Chloe took a gulp of air, as she realized the lips had moved up to kiss her forearm.
Then up, to kiss the blonde's bicep, made it twitch involuntarily at the warm contact. Then
on her shoulder. Oooo... bliss. She had to slap her brain around mentally to stop it from
quoting from the dictionary again.
"Chloe?"
Chloe was now taking air in in short gasps. She hadn't realized Lana had backed her
up against the wall.
"Chloe..." Lana dipped her head down, lips against the soft skin of the editor's
neck, coaxing the blonde to say it, to say something...
"Lana," That whispered name, and Lana looked up. They were tantalizingly close.
Tantalize. Derived from the Tantalus, a greek myth. Tantalus was the son of Zeus--
"Kiss me," Lana begged, pretty eyes on Chloe, one hand reached up to touch Chloe's
face, and the blonde caught that hand with one of hers. Chloe's other hand, she used to press
the brunette's body against her own. Then she kissed her. Just a kiss that lasted maybe a
half-second longer then a peck on the lips. Then she broke the kiss. Lana looked at her, a
cute bewildered expression on her face, before Chloe dipped down again.
This time, Lana took the initiative, and Chloe felt Lana's tongue between her lips,
just for a moment, sliding against her own.
Fingers tangled in long auburn hair, taste of something cappucino... a french vanilla
chocolate, all sweet and dark and light like Lana.
'Good morning, Chloe Sullivan.' Chloe thought to herself. They broke apart for air
again, then came together, lips against lips, and this time, the kiss lasted and lasted...
Again, that insistent beeping sound from the broken printer, and Chloe flung herself
away from Lana.
"I might take a while. Go home, Nell must be worried about you."
Lana shook her head smiling brightly. "I'll wait for you--"
"Go home, Pom-Pom." Chloe said wearily, wiping her lips, trying to get rip of the
taste that clung to her lips and tongue stubbornly.
A small gasp. A small sound of hurt. Then footsteps hurrying away. And Chloe was
alone. She looked at the broken printer, then kicked it, frustrated. Now frustrated with
herself. Confused. Lana. Lang. Lana Lang.
Chloe picked up a discarded Torch from the floor. Ingrates! All of them! She stood
opposite Lana's locker. There. The goddess appears. God, how corny did that sound? She nursed
a cup of coffee, sipping at the cup nervously, styrofoam take-out Beanery cup, bitten at the
edges. She could feel her heart tighten, saw Whitney brush a kiss across Lana's cheek, glad
that Lana had turned her head so Whitney couldn't touch those lips, pale pink, sweet-tasting
lips that had so wanted her last night.
The blonde watched as the brunette spun the combination lock, opening the locker, and
gasped. Pleasure? Distaste? Lana turned around, searching for a second before she caught
sight of Chloe. Taking her books out, and closing the locker, she approached the blonde.
"Newspaper roses?" Lana smiled brightly, blindingly. Chloe was pleased that the
brunette was pleased. It had taken her forever to fold those oragami roses. "Very creative,
Chloe Sullivan."
"My way of saying sorry." Chloe smiled goofily. God, she wanted to slap herself. She
was smiling goofily? What the hell was she doing?
"You're forgiven." Lana smiled. Lana was always smiling. Happiness, love, and peachy
goodness floated around Lana, and that song 'Close To You' started playing in Chloe's head.
'Why do birds suddenly appear, everytime, you are near? Just like me, lalalala, Lana
Lannng....' Chloe resisted the urge to bop her head to the beat of the music playing in her
head. The brunette was doing havoc to her sanity.
"So," Chloe stuffed one hand in her pocket, a newspaper under her arm, cup of coffee
in hand, trying to hide the nervous quaver in her voice. "I might need help again this week.
Want to volunteer?"
Lana took the cup of coffee out of Chloe's hand, taking a small sip. "Wouldn't miss
it for the world."
And Chloe watched the brunette leave, taking the editor's coffee along.
Never mind that. Chloe didn't need coffee to wake her up anymore.
|
