Title: Tramp Stamp
Category: Smallville
Genre: Humor/Romance
Ship: Chloe/Oliver
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 2,632
Summary: Chloe did something a little spontaneous... but it might work out better than expected.

Tramp Stamp
-1/1-

Chloe Sullivan was not the kind of girl who got ink on her body. Maybe under the intense fog of tequila, she'd get a butterfly or something decidedly feminine. But initials or a guy's name, uh, no. Which is why Lois was fairly sure she was seeing things. Because there was absolutely no way that her little cousin had letters scrawled along the small of her back.

With very little interest in personal space, Lois crossed the few feet between them, grabbed the hem of Chloe's shirt and yanked up.

"Whoa! Hey there!" Chloe cried, reaching to drag her shirt back into place while staring, brows furrowed, at her cousin. "Is there a reason you're readjusting my clothes? Because you can just tell me there's a problem next time." She cocked a brow, smiling curiously.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Lois lifted her chin stubbornly. "Lemme see your back."

"What? Why?" she wondered incredulously.

"Does it matter?"

"Well, it's not exactly my usual good morning from you. And hi, by the way. I see you found your way over, sans a coffee for me." She rolled her eyes lightly before tucking her hands in her pocket and cocking her head. "What's with the sudden interest in my back?"

"What's with the sudden need not to show me?" Lois argued back.

"Uh, the fact that your request is weird, to say the least."

"If you show me, it'll all be over with and I can explain."

"Or you can explain and then I'll consider showing you."

They stared at each other, eyes narrowed, before Lois cracked. "Just show me your back, Chloe!"

"No!" she exclaimed, crossing her arms atop her chest stubbornly.

Lois gasped. "It's really there, isn't it!"

She shook her head. "What are you even talking about?"

"You-! You-!" She threw her hands up. "You got a tramp stamp!"

"I what?" She laughed shortly. "I feel like I need a Lois-made-dictionary around you sometimes."

"Don't change the subject! You got a tattoo, and on the small of your back of all places! That's like putting a target on you and saying, 'Hey, I'm easy!'"

"Lois!" she blustered. "Lots of people have tattoos there!"

"Yeah, well you didn't. At least not until recently!" Pacing, she shook her head. "And it was letters, Chloe, three very distinct letters."

"You hardly even saw anything! You're jumping to conclusions."

"Tattoos are forever!" She frowned. "Or okay, they are unless you can afford a laser treatment that's entirely too costly. And if it doesn't work out, I hardly think he'll pay to get his name removed from your body! So… Yeah!"

"Are you supposed to be on some kind of medication that you just didn't tell me about?"

"Don't turn this around on me!" Lois sighed, shoulders slumping. "Just tell me the truth… Did you or did you not get Oliver's name tattooed onto your person?"

Chloe stared at her a long moment, took a breath as if to argue and then deflated. "Not… quite…"

Lois blinked, waiting impatiently for an explanation.

"Just his initials…" She bit her lip, wincing. "It was a really spontaneous thing that just sort of, well, happened. And… I mean, it's not ugly. It's a really beautiful cursive and I like the colors and…" She sighed, rolling her eyes. "I know how bad it looks. I mean, a tattoo and we aren't even technically dating, but…"

"Oh please, I call bullshit!" Lois harrumphed. "You two are so far past the 'friends with benefits' line that it's not even funny. Not that I'm supporting the tattoo. That, I really hope doesn't come back to bite you in the ass." Frowning, she rolled her eyes. "Now lemme see it."

Sighing, Chloe turned around, lifting her shirt up her waist until it was bunched high enough that her tattoo could be seen. Standing behind her, Lois stared with a critical eye, lips pursed.

"Well?"

"It's… pretty nice for a colossal mistake."

She snorted. "Gee, thanks."

"Well, maybe it won't turn out bad, right? I mean, you and Ollie, that's like… kind of perfect."

Cocking a brow, Chloe turned back around. "How is something kind of perfect?"

"Well, you'll have your differences. And look at the kind of lives you'll live together. Crime fighting and always trying to stay a step ahead of the bad guy and codenames and tights and—"

"He says they're not tights," she interrupted with a wry grin.

"Oh, please, they're so tights!"

"I know!"

They laughed lightly, shaking their heads.

"So I guess you'll just have to make the best of this right. I mean, it's done, it's not going anywhere…" Lois shrugged.

"Yeah…" She bit her lip. "Now if only I could convince Oliver playtime should only be at night, with the lights off…"

"He doesn't know?" Lois' eyes widened. "How did he not see that?"

"He's easily distracted?" she offered, shrugging.

"Uh, no… I can safely say when in the throes, Oliver is paying a lot of attention."

Chloe shook her head. "Yeah, sharing details about a mutual lover, not really fun."

"Sorry."

"In any case, he hasn't said anything, so… I just assume he hasn't noticed it yet."

"And you plan to keep it a secret from him for…" Lois shook her head wonderingly. "How long?"

"As long as humanly possible," she suggested hopefully. And then sighed at Lois' disagreeable expression. "Look, it's not easy admitting I did something this completely out of character so early in a non-relationship."

"It's not a non-relationship. We had this discussion. If you two aren't totally in love with each other, my name's not Lois Lane." She rolled her eyes. "And besides, maybe he'll be flattered."

"Of course he will," she agreed. "And then he'll get completely weirded out and think I'm asking for the kind of commitment I was dead set against from the beginning."

Lois stared at her, lips pursed, and then asked simply, "If you were so against it, why are his initials permanently inked onto your skin?"

Chloe sighed. "I plead the fifth… and if that doesn't work… insanity."

Reaching over, Lois squeezed her shoulder. "No worries, cuz… If it doesn't work out, we'll turn it into a flower or something. Much cheaper."

She laughed, smiling. Her cousin was nothing if not supportive.

…

Hours later, Chloe lay panting exhaustedly with her face half-buried in a pillow.

Sprawled next to her, Oliver was grinning. "And you wanted to wait until tonight," he reminded cockily.

She smiled, opening an eye to look at him. "Your powers of persuasion get better each time."

He smirked, rolling onto his side. "I'm starting to think you say no just so I'll put those powers to good use."

She cocked a brow. "And if I do?"

Reaching over, he tucked her hair behind her ear, thumb lingering to caress her cheek. "I'm not complaining."

She chuckled lightly. "After what I just did there, you better not be!"

Grinning, he nodded. "Pretty sure you're getting more talented too."

"Practice makes perfect," she murmured on a sigh, stretching her legs out along the bed.

His hand smoothed across her shoulder and slid slowly down her back, fingers kneading.

"Mmm…" she moaned, relaxing into his touch. "Already?"

He laughed lightly, sidling closer to kiss her shoulder.

As his fingers delved lower on her back, she felt the sheet moving with him and her eyes flew open. Quickly, she began turning herself, stopped halfway by his hand and the pressure at her hip. Sliding his hand lower, he hooked it around her knee, drawing her up against his body and tossing her leg atop his hip. Lying on her side, pressed tight against him, she comforted herself with the fact that as long as his face was near hers, his eyes weren't on her nearly week old tattoo.

Fingers trailing slowly along the back of her thigh, she shivered as he palmed her butt, squeezing appreciatively before gliding his hand up along her back once more. It was as his forefinger drew shapes exactly overtop her tattoo that she tensed. Trying to calm herself, she spread her hands along his chest and dragged them down, enjoying the way the defined muscles felt beneath her palms.

Oliver leaned in, his forehead touching hers and his warm brown eyes gazing into hers. "Sensitive?" he wondered, nose nuzzling hers.

Her brows narrowed in question. His fingers pressed against the small of her back and her hips jerked forward, meeting his. Eyes widened, she stared at him.

His mouth curled at one corner. "You didn't honestly think I hadn't noticed?"

Her mouth opened as if she wanted to reply but closed when she found no words.

"The always practical Chloe Sullivan… inked." He smirked slowly. "And with my name, too."

She pursed her lips stubbornly. "I could be madly in love with… Orville James Quincy, for all you know."

He grinned widely. "Orville, really? That's the best you can do?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Hey! Don't mock my future husband!"

He laughed thickly. "I'm sorry, future Mrs. Chloe Quincy. I had no idea you were so enamored with your lover Orville."

Lips firmed to keep herself from laughing, she rolled her eyes. "So I did something a little less practical and happened to use the initials of your name in a very spontaneous trip to the tattoo parlor." She held up a hand, intent on stopping his likely line of thinking. "It's nothing to read into."

Cocking a brow, he squeezed her hip before tugging her forward until she was sprawled on her stomach once more. Sliding down the bed, he stroked his fingers along her tattoo wonderingly. "It's nice."

She sighed. "Lois suggested getting it turned into a flower."

He frowned. "I thought she was rooting for us?"

"She… is. I guess." Shrugging, she added, "She just said that if it didn't work out, laser therapy was expensive… That and a flower was less trampy. Apparently the small of my back was a bad place to get a tattoo…" She trailed off questioningly.

"Hm." He continued to trace the letters of his name along her back, his finger light and teasing. "And if we do work out? What do you this'll look like in fifty years?"

"Wrinkly?" she suggested, amused.

He grinned, leaned over and pressed a kiss in the center of her tattoo before crawling back up to lay next to her once more. "So why not keep it? Give it a chance; see if you grow into it."

She stared at him a moment, reading between the lines. "No growing needed," she murmured. "Spontaneous or not, I got it for a reason. And I like it… Maybe even love it." She smiled, reaching out to feather her fingers through his mussed hair. "And in fifty years, when it wrinkles, you better have some money put off to the side to smooth it out."

He laughed, grinned at her warmly. "Maybe you'll start a trend." He cocked a brow. "What do you think? I could get 'Belongs to Chloe' right along my ribs… Or Sullivan Property on my forehead?" He smirked teasingly. "Unless you think the small of my back is a good place… Do guys do that?"

Laughing, she shook her head, before reaching over to shove his chest. Catching her hand, he held it pressed atop his heart. "You know you're already a part of me, right?" He stared at her seriously. Fingers falling to twine between hers, he curled his thumb around her wrist to stroke her pulse. "And that will never fade or wrinkle or need plastic surgery in the next fifty years."

She smiled slowly. "Big commitment, Romeo."

"Not as much as a tramp stamp, but it'll have to do," he replied with a grin.

She laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Ollie?"

"Hm?"

"Did you just call me a tramp?"

"Mm, no," he said, turning his eyes up. "That word is definitely not part of my expansive vocabulary."

"Mmhmm." She pursed her lips.

"But… I'm willing to make it up to you, regardless." Leaning her back across the bed, he slid sinuously between her legs. "If you're up for it."

Wrapping her legs around his waist, she quirked a brow. "Always."

…

Fifty Years Later

Chloe was bent over her vegetable garden, cursing the arthritis in her knees for acting up on such a nice day. When she found a stray arrow in her eggplant patch, she rolled her eyes. Oliver must've been teaching the grandkids a few more tricks with their new bows. Did he always have to do it near her garden, though? She smiled to herself, shaking her head.

Sitting back on her legs, she tugged her hands free of her gardening gloves and plucked her hat from her head, using it as a fan while she wiped the sweat from her brow. She was getting too old for this, she was sure. Seventy-four if she was a day and she was many, many days. After all her years in the League and her not-so-usual life before it, sometimes she just couldn't believe she'd actually made it this far. There'd been close calls and entirely too many hospital stays, but here she was, and with only a few aches and pains to complain about.

As a shadow fell across her, she grinned. Tall, wide-shouldered; she knew who that was. Turning, she held her hand above her eyes to block the sun and smiled warmly up at her husband. Grey hair had long replaced the golden blonde he'd had in his youth and wrinkles fanned out from the corners of warm brown eyes. He knelt, passed her a glass of lemonade and quirked a brow. "Nice eggplant," he said, nodding toward it.

"Nice shooting," she replied before taking a long drink from her sweating glass.

"That would be Jamie's fault… Kid likes to shoot with his eyes closed. I told him that's the quickest way to injure someone." He half-smiled. "At least the eggplant can't hit us with a lawsuit."

She snorted, lifting a grey brow. "All these years and still witty."

"Still handsome, too," he boasted lightly.

Chuckling, she handed him back her empty glass. "What're you doing home? I thought you were visiting Robbie today. You guys had League business to discuss, didn't you?"

"He's having some trouble at home." He smirked, amused. "Seems our eldest son is having a few troubles with his eldest daughter… Something about a tattoo she shouldn't have."

Chloe shook her head. "Nicole got a tattoo?"

"Apparently."

"Where?"

He lifted a slow, suggestive brow.

Chloe reached for the small of her own back knowingly and then shook her head. "Maybe she can get it turned into a flower."

"Never know," Oliver sighed. "Could be a great decision on her part."

"Hm." Leaning over, she kissed her husband lingeringly. Fifty years and she didn't regret a moment. "If she's lucky."

Plopping her hat back on her head for her, he rocked back on his feet to stand. "Luck has nothing to do with it… I fell in love with a tramp and she happened to feel the same. Inked or not, I still would have married her."

Laughing, she shook her head. "This tramp is going to make you sleep on the couch if you don't watch it!"

Chuckling, Oliver left her to her gardening and returned to the house. Smiling, Chloe dug through the dirt, and felt a warmth bloom in her chest that never quite faded after all these years. That man had given her all she could ever want or need and she'd returned the favor. If her granddaughter had found the same, she wished her the best. It was a long, crazy ride, but it was worthwhile.