Nixie

The first night once off the plane is always marked by unforeseen and what should be impossible vitality. With a flight as long as the one you were subjected to, it was enough to leave a saner person on rightful bed-rest for at least the following days. By all means, you should be in recovery until you acclimate to the new waters.

That would be the case, if a saner person you were. But alas, you were not.

So when you finally managed to wrangle down a taxi from where you stood below the 'arrivals' sign at the Dublin Airport and you were asked your destination, the hostel you hadn't even booked, only read about online when you were tying up all your loose ends, that shitty hostel didn't even cross your mind.

"Dealer's choice. Best pub in the city, please," had been your answer instead, with far too much enthusiasm than you ought to have had. But it wasn't the driver's place to judge, especially when you were a paying customer and a foreign one at that. If you noticed the extra euro cents being added to the fare that didn't seem fair with each kilometer and minute in traffic, you didn't mention it.

It went right over your head in your state, to be honest. Too consumed with the newness of it all, you hadn't even shot a glance at the meter until you were pulling up to a crossroads with pubs at every corner. The fare was higher than you anticipated, dipping into amount set aside for the other expenses in your shoddy budget. There goes dinner.

Maybe you could have dipped into your pub fund, but a drink ranked higher on your list of demands. At least, tonight it had.

Vapor unfurled like smoke in the air with each exhale of every intake, dancing around your face as you stood up from the handling of your taxi fare. It wasn't your first time taking a local but it may as well have been, the way you needed to be spoken to soft and slow like a child, ears still not used to the melody of the Irish lilt.

It was all the same to the driver as he took your still crisp, freshly exchanged euros and dropped you off on the side of the street, suitcase and all.

You're grateful for the bite of the soft breeze. A taste of relief for your flushed cheeks. You refused to feed the humiliation, however. The worst your night, only the easier it could get from there.

The moon hung in the sea of black above, making the glow of each neon sign appear hazy. Blurring the edges like something out of a dreamscape. Your hand tightened on the handle of your suitcase, eyes drifting around the junction. You were spoiled for options. But how to choose?

Any and all of them looked both intimidating and exciting in equal measures. Even from where you stood down the sidewalk, the rowdy community promised within spilled out into the street with every swing open of the door.

The Four-Leaf Clover. Old and cheesy. It looked to be just about the safest option for someone as lost and clearly so as you were your first night off the plane.

A fish out of water from a pond across the way. You thought that wearing a flag of red, white, and blue, a star-spangled banner, may have been less obvious than the wideness in your gaze tonight. It was just so different, unlike anything you were used to. That weight in the air was one you couldn't put your finger on. A place too unfamiliar to be known.

To classify something is to have witnessed it, to have studied it long enough to recognize it. The concept that a particle could exist past your immediate comprehension was still one you had yet to grasp. All this newness, evidence of an entire world past your observation, ever revolving; time a linear construct with no real backing.

Our sole proof of its truth is the senses we use to perceive. The paintings of our environment we see, the music we speak. The poetry in our touch. The worship in our taste and the ornamental garnish of scent.

So used to one mode of life, from your first step down off the plane onto Irish soil, you knew you would leave this place changed. Your every cell permanently altered with each breath of that crisp and fresh air.

Still, you yearned, for that knowing to be learned. Soon, you tell yourself. Since you steeled your resolve and packed up the life you would leave behind, you held hope for what this new change could bring.

The reminder made your determination return, the vignette of your embarrassment already ebbing away like the tide, creeping back into the receding sea with the soft rush of cleansing waters. Tomorrow, you would try to see the coast. Tonight, you were going to drink.

The bell above the door gives a melodic ring as you stepped through, signaling your arrival. Immediately, warm flooded your cheeks as the biting cold from the autumn evening’s musty weather was chased away like a sip of smooth, uisce beatha.

You were thankful for the rowdiness. The pub had its regulars, older ladies and gentleman who had been warming a stool since before you were even born. It had its younger crowd too. Lads and cailíní just learning how to sip, others already a few years in with a taste to match. And the occasional American doing a damn good job at living up to the bad name you've been given. It would be easy to remain unseen here.

Weaving through the crowded atmosphere, the thump of your boots and the roll of your stubborn suitcase landed on deaf ears. A rare sighting: an empty seat at the bar. You didn't trust the appeal. It was too inviting, too soon. You would get settled first, yes. Then you'd warm up.

The bartender must have foreseen that coldness, because he doesn't bore you with small talk.

"God be with you. What is it you will be having?" His mere greeting threw you off a bit, and you're sure the older gentleman could tell, because he gave a small, almost knowing smile then. "Here for a drink, are you?"

"Yes. Good evening. A beer, please. Just a… Guinness," You gave him your order, not bothering to hide the accent that stuck to you like a nasty burn, trapped between the empty stool (which was not to be trusted) and one of the regulars caught in what you thought was a heated discussion at first, but the hearty cackle and wheeze that followed a charged pause made you reconsider.

The lack of preference wasn't what the bartender was expecting, but you didn't have the presence to be picky tonight. A part of you wished to simply fade away. Navigate as a spectral floating along, unseen. Unbothered. But there was an itch deeper, one you had yet to understand, much less name.

So the spirit would coexist with the physical tonight.

You slipped away once your pint, nearly overflowing with the perfect pour, was deposited on the bar top, old, worn wood sticky from the accumulation of visitations over the decades since the pub's emergence.

A table in the back suited you best. Doused in a moody gloom with enough shadow spilling over the corner to give you the confidence to sit alone. You could only hope it would stay that way. All the energy you had was reserved for this drink, not for entertaining some locals eager to greet you with a warm welcome and a very good time.

Setting your glass down on the wobbly oak table, it freed your hands to lay your suitcase down on the floor before you promptly shoved it beneath your table with a costly nudge of your foot.

"Jeez…" You slipped down into your seat with a heavy sigh, body sinking into the uncomfortable harshness of the wood. The hours in an economy seat left you spiteful. No matter that it was rest, your body was rejecting being seated. You sit up with a decisive, albeit sore, shift to the edge of your chair.

Even if you didn't particularly care for beer, or alcohol in general, it would be somewhat bad taste to not participate in the country's culture and traditions. So you grasped your pint, lifting it carefully to your lips. And began chugging it down.

Each gulp of the smooth, smoky stout felt suffocating, but maybe that's because you weren't pausing to take a breath. You could feel your throat burn, from the protest of your lungs spreading in an effort to be heard. You ignored it, swallowing down the last of your beer along with your reason.

The pint clunked with the force you set the empty glass down with, creamy froth collecting in the base as it crept down the inside of the cup like sea foam. You leaned forward with a shaky intake of air, practically panting as you fought to catch the breath you had denied yourself.

Wiping your mouth with the back of your sleeve, you ignored the deceptive way the world past you seemed to spin. You focused instead down on the little engraving carved into the edge of the dark wood tabletop.

Per aspera ad astra.

"Fuckin' hell, girl. Someone hurt you, did they?" You heard a voice call out, looking up to see a girl your age staring down at you in astonishment. She looked between you and your empty pint in silent question.

You didn't have to say anything for her to catch on, the unconscious curl of your lip and the suitcase beneath your table painting a story before you could even tell it.

"Oooo, I'll want to hear this one, I'm sure," The young woman didn't wait for your permission, slipping down into the seat across from you. Unknowing, or uncaring, of how you seemed to tense up at the action.

"Can I help you?" You scoffed, not too friendly. But your accent only served to further her interest more. She snorted, a soft, melodic laugh escaping her red-painted lips as they part into a gleeful smile.

"Feisty, I like it. I'm Ciara. You are?" Ciara asked, tilting her head. Her soft, pale blonde tresses shift with the action, framing her face sweetly. She had kind eyes, a gentle shade of olive green, yet so rich and vibrant, they seem enchanting.

"Not very friendly. Just here for a drink," was your response all the same, lips pulling down into a frown. You really couldn't do this, nice as she was.

"Not very friendly. Just here for a drink. With a name that long, certain are you that you aren't Irish?" Ciara snickered, repeating your words with as best of an imitation of your accent that she could manage. It came out more LA valley girl. You could take offense, but you don't. It was funny. It makes you smile. Her face brightened at that.

"Y/N. That's my name. It's… I'm sorry, it is a pleasure. Just prickly. Only just got here. And nope, not Irish. Isn't it obvious?" You sighed, far too resigned for someone who's only just arrived. You hadn't even tried to fit it.

"No, no, it rolls off you, it does. And with that case," Ciara nodded down at the suitcase you've got stored away beneath you. "Fast, one can piece the puzzle of it together, I'm afraid."

"Yeah…" You looked down at your lap, holding your empty pint in your grasp like it's your only anchor. Ciara noticed, her thin, arched brows lifting before she gasped, reaching for it.

"How's about a refill for us I get?" She offered, already pushing back her chair to stand. One glass in tow, and then the other. You hadn't even noticed when she emptied her own.

"Oh, I, uh, I only have, or had, enough cash for just the one," You were saying, and she was ignoring it, shaking her head in refusal as if you had personally offended her.

"Nonsense… it's not with cash you'll pay me back," Ciara told you vaguely with another exaggeration imitation of your accent, before disappearing off to the bar. Cash. You didn't think you sounded so cowboy. Did you?

You sighed, leaning back in your seat. While she's gone, you busied yourself with a look around the pub, which hadn't cleared out but it didn't seem as crowded as it once had been, or as loud. Though maybe that was your buzz making everything so fuzzy around the edges.

Happy hour had passed, and the drifters had resumed their crawl. Replaced instead with more regulars and growing groups of stragglers caught in the same net. Too drunk and happily so to leave, or held back by expectation. There was a sheet of anticipation hanging above, like heat rising.

Your eyes drifted over the flourish of the chalk signage that's posted at the bar, squinting through the haze of your buzz to read what it said. Live music tonight.

"Another Guinness for Mrs. Damsel in Distress," Ciara's return stole your focus and you watched on dumbly as she balanced in her grasp the drinks she purchased on a tray you're almost certain she was not allowed to take. You didn't question it.

"Huh?"

"Nothing. I could not think of another rhyme," She admitted, flashing you a cheeky grin with a hint of mischief in her eyes. If you're buzzed, she was certainly tipsy at this point. Walking that sweet thin line between fun and full-on drunk.

"I thought the Irish were all poets," You hummed, eyes following her hands as they make quick work of arranging the twin pints and trail of shots on the table before you. Christ. The way your eyes bulge at the… tequila? Vodka? Whatever it was, your reaction had her grinning. All knowingly.

Ciara slipped into the seat across from you. The distant warmth of the lights shining low in the pub gleamed off her slightly-crooked but painfully endearing teeth. Her smile was like the sun. Brightening her entire face.

"Trust, one more of these and spinning a sonnet, I will be," Ciara snickered, lifting her pint in mock toast. "That's the secret. Didn't cha know?"

"Alright, Erykah Badu," The mention made Ciara gasp, squealing as if you've completed her night with the mere mention of one of her favs. You chanced a smile, nodding towards the peek of the stage through the collection of patrons lingering between the tables and stools out on the pub floor. "Who's playing?"

"My boyfriend. And his mate. Late, they are. Pissed, the owner will be," Ciara told you, stealing a glance down at her watch. In her haze, she couldn't read the tiny arms as they tick, tick, tick on. She pulled out her phone instead, one of those newer smartphones. Far removed from the brick of a Blackberry in your own pocket. But you refused to succumb to capitalistic pressure (you couldn't afford to). The smartphones were probably only a passing fad anyway. A money-grab before they inevitably proven faulty experimentation and by default, useless. Better to stick with ol' reliable. "By an hour, nearly. Fault of either one of 'em, it could be. So careless, they are. But talented too. That's why the Clover's filled to its brim tonight. The girls are already tripping over themselves for him. Ain't even here."

"For who?" You followed her line of sight. Surely enough, little groups of other girls your age had flooded in, whispering amongst themselves. Practically buzzing with anticipation. "Your boyfriend, or his friend?"

"Don't make me jealous," Ciara groaned, pulling away right before she could take a sip from her pint to chastise you. It made you laugh, hiding behind your own pint. "Andy, his friend. If only they knew."

"Knew what?" You tilted your head. You're not sure where the sudden bite of curiosity had come from. The coolness against your palm drew your eyes down to the glass in your grasp. You were a nosy drunk. You took a hearty sip to wash down the thought.

"What a Pisces he was," Her words made you snort this time, lifting the back of your hand against your mouth as you dissolved into a fit of easy giggles, stout nearly shooting from your lips but you pressed them together just in time to avoid spraying Ciara. Ciara, meanwhile, was beaming. "Stay away, I say."

"A Pisces. A Pisces man, at that," You scoffed, shaking your head in disgust at the mere thought. Stay away was right. "Ugh."

"Oooo, what's your sign?" Her own nosiness renewed, Ciara continued to pry. But you didn't mind it. Not so much with the steady stream of alcohol, not as it settled in your belly with a warmth you couldn't deny. It was easy to speak to her. More than you anticipated.

And she listened, which was more. She didn't owe that to you. Maybe she was just nosy. A drama magnet. You felt heard nonetheless.

So you just kept talking. And talking. And talking. And drinking. And drinking. And drinking.

You told her about the taxi fare, which made her gasp at the injustice in the driver's charge. It's because you're an American!—she would swear.

You told her about the flight. What those first steps off the plane had felt like. Like you were spreading wings you didn't know you had. And now, you're left without a clue how to fly.

You told her about the haste of your departure. Planning so poor, it could rival your bank account. It was enough to make you both laugh at the arrogance of youth. She got a real kick out of your lack of savings. It didn't matter when you were this young. Act first, ask questions later.

You even told her about the months leading up that pushed you to your breaking point. It had all accumulated, failures and defeats tallying up, betrayals and losses of trust that left you more empty than you had ever been before. You were fighting to stay afloat, wading through survival. But not living. You wanted to live.

"I just… when you're done, you're done, right? I couldn't do it anymore. Fake one more goddamn smile. Act like everything was fine and I wasn't drowning… but they knew I was out at sea. They had a life-jacket for me to use, but what if they needed it? While they sit up on a fucking yacht. So selfish…" You whispered, now hunched over the table and resting your cheek on your hand. Ciara wasn't faring any better, slumped over as she listened in with a pained expression. "D'ya know what I mean?"

"Feel that, I do. Easy for them, it is… with their trust-funds and pensions. The Celtic tiger… my Da…" She spoke and you listened too. When the tears came, you both let them fall. Trusting each other enough to let them be seen.

A sober part of you kicked in then, some fail-safe deeply ingrained talking you back from the proverbial ledge with a little whisper. Water.

The next shots you both took were pure water that Ciara not-so-quietly ordered from across the pub to the table. You're thankful you chose the dark, quiet corner. It was dim enough that no one could see you as you sunk into your seat, embarrassed.

"Don't be shy… you're beautiful," Ciara was giggling, in that supportive yet uncalled for way that girls got when they were drunk. You couldn't judge because you were the same. You'd gone on half an hour talking the other up. Creating your own little utopia in the imaginary bubble of your corner.

To others it might have been silly—two grown women falling over themselves in fits of giggles and incensed declarations of the other's sure greatness. But if you hadn't built that rapport, you wouldn't have made the comment. The flap of the butterfly's wings that would spur the cyclone of your rise.

"Since I was a little girl… I've always thought I was meant for more," You said offhandedly, fingers brushing over the engraving in the wood. The longing in your voice was palpable. You let out a soft, infinitely wistful sigh. Ciara tilted her head curiously.

"How do you mean?" She asked, quitting her fidgeting of the empty shot glasses before you.

"Meant for more than fast food or coffee shops or any front desk. I don't know, I think I'm arrogant," You shrugged, set on dropping it. Your face began to burn.

"Nonsense. Explain yourself," Ciara immediately demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. Her lips had pursed, frown more akin to a pout. You smiled despite yourself.

"I liked to sing, when I was little. I would spend hours in front of the TV, the old one we had, y'know those ones with the big, fat back?" Ciara laughed, nodding with a knowing glint of amusement in her eyes. "I'd spend hours every day in front of the TV, watching MTV unplugged, just singing along. When the music videos would come on, I'd stumble through all Britney's little dances. I was awful, but I loved it."

"Drove my parents crazy. God, in the car, my mother would practically break her neck to turn around and tell me to shut it down. Make me stare out of the window for the rest of the drive, in complete silence while the radio was practically mocking me, playing all my favorites," Your voice trailed off, words settling with a heavy air of confession. You looked down at your lap, falling quiet as you played with the stray string hanging off the edge of your skirt. It was that kind of night, you realized. Where each drink settled in with bitterness, not nostalgia. "Can't sing in front of anyone now, I swear."

"Why not?" Ciara asked. You looked up, not expecting the softness in her tone. She was watching you carefully, with a look in her eyes that you couldn't place. Maybe you didn't want to. Because it looked too much like pity.

"It's like I've got her voice in my head. Music comes on, I open my mouth, and it's like I'm five years old again, getting told no one wants to hear," You admitted. It was that kind of night. Where your lips loosened and you grew so honest, it was painful.

"Christ…" Ciara shook her head, expression flashing with a quick flicker of disgust. But it's gone just as abruptly, before you could question it.

"I know… yeah, I know," You sigh, hand moving to brush your hair out of your face. A distraction from the intensity of her gaze. An escape from the serious shift of the exchange. Ciara pursed her lips, her finger tapping against the tabletop.

"Good, are you?" Ciara asked suddenly, once the silence grew too uncomfortable for her not to fill.

"Huh?"

"A good singer, are you?" She asked, leaning over the table with a strange, intense look in her eyes as she lowered her voice. There was a sense of calculation to her demeanor that was throwing you off. You blinked, trying to match her on her wavelength, but failing.

"I don't… I don't know. I don't think so," You laughed, the breathy quality foiling your attempt at nonchalance. She was making you nervous and it was obvious. She eased up. Only a little bit.

"Never even tried karaoke?" Ciara asked, raising a perfectly manicured brow like a detective. You snorted, shaking your head with a crinkle of your nose. You were learning not to anticipate what she'd say, because she'd come out with something so absurd, it would have been impossible to think up. It's a losing game to guess her next move. Her eyes flashed, lips twitching up.

"God, no. No, I can't. I really can't in front of other people," You explained once more, ever so adamant. Her prodding was making you wary. Though you didn't know her well, you could tell she was planning something. "Call it performance anxiety."

"Cowardice, more like," Ciara suddenly leaned back into her seat, turning her cheek with an exaggerated air of nonchalance. You scoffed, jaw dropping at her words.

"Really?"

"Really." Ciara fought to keep a straight face, sucking in her cheeks as she swirled what was left in her glass.

"A coward, am I?" You repeated, narrowing your eyes.

"Yeah. I think so. If you can't embarrass yourself in front a lot of drunks, being pissed yourself, then you're a coward," Ciara claimed, making you gasp. But your reaction was lacking offense. You were amused by her teasing. It was so clearly a play to make you prove her wrong.

"That's not fair," You told her, voice softening with a fondness that was sure only to grow. You had only just met her, but you couldn't deny that you enjoyed her presence. She seemed different than all the other people you'd met. Genuine. No bullshit. A real friend, maybe.

"The boys bailed, they did. There's your stage," Ciara threw an arm out haphazardly at the stage, nearly rocking over in her seat. She caught herself just in time before she could slip. Your reflexes were so fucked, all you gave was a little jolt at the sudden knock on the tabletop. The two of you laughed in unison, eyes twinkling in the dim light.

"Yeah, bitch? You want to bet?" You hummed, leaning forward as you cross your arms. You weren't a competitive person by nature, unless provoked.

"Good for it, are you?" Ciara teased, knowing she was no better off. The life of a struggling, starving artist was one she was intimately familiar with. It was her life and the life of all of those around her.

"I can't believe this," You shook your head in disbelief, smile growing with each poke of the proverbial bear. "Yeah. I am good for it. I think."

There's that arrogance of youth again. Making bets with money you don't have.

"Don't sound too confident, do you?" Ciara fired back, finishing off the last of her water shots. She was ready for the next round, which would be whiskey this time. She was desperate to see how you fared with the true taste of the Irish spirit. "I'll bet that you can't get up there and sing your little heart out, in front of all these drunkards. I'll bet that you can't manage one vibrato."

"That's cold," You snickered, looking off with a shake of your head. A challenge. Wasn't that the point? How could you learn how to fly without learning how to fall?

"A warmer welcome to the island, you were looking for?" Ciara hummed, batting her lashes ever so innocently. She was like a belladonna flower. Beautiful but deadly.

"Ha. Not only am I going to get up there, I'm going to make you eat those words, Ciara," You declared, with a wag of your finger for emphasis. Ciara raised her brows, the narrowing of her enchanting green eyes making it clear she wanted to call bullshit.

"Love it when you say my name, I do," She teased instead, lips parting into a coy smile.

"You're so cute," You countered, mirroring her look.

"So are you…" Ciara giggled, resting her chin on her hand as she leaned her elbow against the table. The pub had settled down for the meantime. Anticipation was dissolving into acceptance. There was no performance to be had, so all must take the change the night brought in stride, or get knocked over by any attempt against the current. This was the river channel Ciara was offering. Would you flow, or would you be swept up instead? "Gonna do it, are you?"

Maybe if you had been any other past version of yourself that night, you wouldn't have. But everything you had left behind had died, as all needs to do when one is born anew.

"Yeah…" You whispered, your decision made. "But I think I need another drink."

"Say no more…"

One more drink became two shots of tequila and it's only half-way through the glass of whiskey she ordered that you feel semi-prepared for the potential bombing you're on the cusp of experiencing.

"Ciara, you know I love you…" You were saying, having abandoned the table in the dark corner of agony and despair (as Ciara so lovingly put it) to accost the patrons at the bar until they gave up stools for the two of you. Somehow Ciara had convinced one of the bartenders to stow away your suitcase behind the bar for safe-keeping, so it was a distant worry in your mind. Threw in talks of a favor owed on the account of them being cousins. Aren't you all cousins? You had teased. Yes. So all these fuckers owe me one… had been her reply. "But isn't it kind of rude to just go up there and start squawking?"

"Only if you're shite," Ciara said with a strange kind of certainty. She must know about this, considering what she said about her boyfriend being a musician. Where were those guys anyhow? "Don't be shite, and you're fine as rain."

"Right as rain," You tried to correct, but your mind was so far away. Dancing through the possibilities of what was to come. And she… Ciara only heard an agreement.

"Right."

"I'm scared…" You whimpered and pressed your forehead against the sticky, old bartop, so far from sobriety, decorum was a lost art.

"Coward." Ciara giggled, hand moving to pinch your cheek sweetly.

"Damn you." You tore away with a pout, glaring down into the amber liquid in your glass. You were more dramatic than you would normally be if you were more coherent. You lifted the cup to your lips, downing the rest of the whiskey in a single swallow. You set the glass down with a sharp exhale, standing from the stool with a fierce kind of resolve. Ciara perked up in delight. "What song?"

"Y/N…" Ciara waved her hand at you. Too many questions, not enough stepping outside of your comfort zone. "Stall away. Fail this bet and owe me, you will."

"I know," You groaned, pressing against the back of her stool to let someone pass. You bit at your lower lip nervously. Each brush of fabric against your skin, each raise of a voice from across the pub, it had you straightening up. Nerves already on edge. "You know Bôa?"

"Marry me," Ciara gasped, turning in her stool with a dreamy look. It made you smile, shaking your head in fond exasperation. God, how did you let her talk you into this? Your expression faded, doubt had begun to creep in where courage had once stood. It's now or never.

"After." You promised, slipping away but not without a desperate squeeze of her outstretched hand.

Ciara hadn't planned on leaving you alone in this, however. You heard her following behind as you made your walk to the gallows, slipping through the crowd to reach the stage.

There was a man seated by a hub of equipment, who you could only assume was in charge of the technicalities of producing the sound. And it ended up being Ciara who persuaded him to talk to the person in charge to let you go on. What would you know? They were cousins.

Conversations grew hushed as a ripple of feedback speared the air. Paddy—as you later learned Ciara's cousin went by—had taken the stage. There were more than quite a few patrons upset at the interruption, which did not help to settle your nerves.

"Sorry, sorry. Running late, they are—the lads who were set to perform. Shed no tears, now." Paddy waved his hand to dismiss the grievances before they could be made. "A little treat we have for ya. We've an American lass with a voice that could charm the birds in the trees." Oh, fuck me.

Paddy looked back, the spotlight beaming down overhead weaved through the red of his ginger hair from behind. You couldn't make out his features in the darkness of the clashing lighting. Ciara gave you a pointed shove. You turned with a wounded look, question in your eyes. She shot a nod up at the stage, motioning for you to get your ass up the stairs, "Go on!"

"I-" She doesn't allow you to finish your whine, her brows raised in reminder. Coward. You huffed, jaw ticking in renewed annoyance.

Each step felt like a walk up to the gallows, but you kept your chin raised. You weren't a coward. You could make a fool out of yourself and survive. With the blood-alcohol concentration you were reading right now, anyone could.

"Welcome her well," Paddy told the crowd, something like amusement in his voice. He was throwing you to the wolves.

The handle of the microphone felt strange in your hand, all your prior expectations chased away by reality. It was like grasping the air, having anticipated a heavier kind of burden. Instead, it was a balanced kind of weight. You looked down, brows furrowing as your adjusted your hold. The handle was smooth and cool to the touch. You avoided touching the grille of the round top.

"Thank- thank you," You lifted the mic up, speaking in a low, shaky voice. You didn't want to burst anyone's eardrums with too loud of a sound. But hearing the echo of your words in the speakers as it dissipated through the crowd eased some of your worry. Maybe it was the alcohol, but you sounded kind of… good? You fought back a snort, pursing your lips with a glint of mirth in your eyes which twinkle in the gleam of the overhead lights. Waving the mic, "It's smaller than I thought it would be. But it always is, isn't it?"

As soon as the words left you, your stomach gave a soft jump of dread. You shifted nervously on your feet, the heels of your boots quietly thumping against the wooden planks of the raised stage. If only you could melt into the floor.

But snickers bounce through the crowd. A whoop and then a whistle. Some drunk offer shouted from the back that has the audience tipping in your favor against him.

"Alrighty, then… I won't keep you waiting any longer. This one's 'Fool' by Bôa. If you're familiar, help me out," You breathed out, voice shuddering with the laugh that escaped you. A group of lads scoffed from near the bar, which had your drunk mind sharpening your voice in annoyance. "Or don't. It's the same to me. Just, uh, don't leave me hanging, yeah?"

"Yeah! Let's fuckin' go!" Ciara cupped her hands and shouted from where she stood at the front of the crowd. You giggled and she began to clap, leading the crowd as your face burned.

"Thank you." You nodded, perhaps more shyly than you ought to have. A distant voice in your mind muttered something about audiences smelling fear, and it had you swallowing harshly with a wary look out on the crowd. But it was a sea of faces, more of an energy to feel than a image to see.

The pub doors swung open with a quiet, melodic ring of the bell above, piercing through the quiet that had momentarily found residence in the anticipation. But the new arrivals went by unnoticed, all focus reserved for your reckoning.

The abrupt strumming of a guitar as the opening of the instrumental played through the speakers had flames licking at your insides, nerves returning with a vengeance. You exhaled sharply through your nose, pressing your eyes shut. Just feel… don't see.

It was a sound you'd heard dozens of times, a pattern recognizable. You focused on the familiar loop of the instruments, waiting for a cue you know won't come. There would be no voice to sing along to. To hide behind. Just you, and the music. All you could do was feel it..

Somehow you knew when to jump in. At the first taste of your voice, the crowd began whooping. You dipped your chin, not yet opening your eyes. It was so easy this way, to pretend you were alone, enjoying the music on your own.

Speaking impartially, There doesn't seem to be a place for me

But when I look inside, I find a place to run, to hide

You floated through the verses, breath coming in intervals when the song allowed you. A line, a breath. A flourish, a sigh. There was a heartbeat in there, lungs expanding and collapsing. Vital signs in the rhythm of the sound. The song had a soul and you were coming alive with it.

Which way should I turn? 'Cause I seem to fall towards burning

But when I look inside, I find the place to cry, to fly, to die…

The bass thrummed, sinking into your every pore. Like vines growing up from the stage floor, it crept up your legs, curling around you as if to interlace with the system of roots that ran through your body.

You and I, born as fools now You and I think, think we rule now

You dared to open your eyes, lashes fluttering as they adjusted to the brightness flooding the stage from above. There was little you could see past it, not even Ciara and you knew she had been at the very front of the throng. You couldn't hear her either. There were too many voices singing along to pin down hers. Singing along…

Through the warm haze, the thought settled in with a flicker of disbelief. You were really doing this. And you weren't getting booed.

Now I see the world As an ancient place, as a smiling face

They were enjoying this.

I can choose to be What I want to be if I choose to be

They were enjoying you.

Speaking impartially If the smile grows cold without me

Your voice shook a little less with each verse.

I know a secret place to cry, to fly, to die, to try

Your voice strengthened, the words hitting too close to home. You'd sung along to them so many times before and yet, only now did they register. And now, the comprehension was bone-deep. A truth so true, it was like your own. It was your own, in that moment.

You know I'm burning in a flame now

"You know…" The words floated in the air, punctuated with a wistful run of your voice. Your eyes fell shut once more, following the strum of the guitar. The beat of the drums. The whisper of the bass.

Now I see the world As an ancient place, as a smiling face

Now I see the world As a place where I can run to hide to

It didn't matter how far away you moved, that voice whispered distantly in your mind. You could never outrun yourself. You hadn't been able to before and this time was no more forgiving.

Something shifted in you then, the look in your eyes growing darker. There was a bite to your voice now, lip curling with a furrow of your brows. It only incensed the crowd.

Which way should I turn? 'Cause I seem to fall towards burning

But when I look inside I find the place To try, to hide, to fly

Unless you made the change, it would go no different. This time, it had to work. And you were the one who would ensure it.

You and I, born as fools now You and I think, think we rule now

You and I, born as fools now You and I think, think we rule now

You dropped your head, hand tensing its grip on the microphone while the other reached for the stand. It was grounding, for that brief moment of reprieve as the song slowed down.

The vocalization was instinctual now. Soft croons rousing something long lost from deep within. Something long buried.

There was a wound, scabbed over but never able to fully heal. It was being tore open now. But it needed the air, you knew it did. So you didn't shy away from the exposure.

So much fear, calcified over years of collection. The only way to heal it was to flow.

Your voice grew with the drums as they began to pick up, each beat pounding through your suit of skin to hit a place where all else had failed to reach. You tore the mic from its stand, croons turning into keening as the girl from moments before was lost to the current, swept under but somehow not drowning. Instead, it was like you had grown gills.

The music was infiltrating your every sense, until all that remained was the sound. Your throat burned, not from any effort to use your voice. From the rawness left behind by shackles once removed.

The crowd watched on, enraptured, as your voice began to run away from you. You moved with the clash of sounds, flickering like a flame; fluid even in the chaos of blaze.

I'm a fool, oh-oh I'm a fool, I'm a fool, I'm a fool

That rawness, the vulnerability in surrender—it was intoxicating. The pub had become a church and the crowd had succumbed like you were their preacher, hanging off your sound.

And I sing atop of the world burning…

As your voice died down and the music crawled to an end, there's a beat of charged silence. Your eyes danced around, chest rising with a shaky intake to catch your breath. You swallowed harshly around the knot in your throat.

That's when the applause began. Followed with whistles and cheers.

The world seemed to narrow down, until it was only the roar of the crowd echoing in your ears. You stood there dumbly, mic still in hand as you looked around in a breathless daze.

You were so caught up in praise, the slamming of the pub door fell on deaf ears.

No one noticed as the seething musician took his leave, guitar still in its case and in his grasp as he disappeared into the chill of the night.

Author’s Note — This is probably trash but fuck it, we ball. If you would like to be added to PAAA taglist I am opening, do not be afraid to ask!

Disclaimer: I understand that this is a real person and I respect his right to privacy. This story is not a reflection of how Hozier is in reality. I wouldn't know how he is. I've never met the man, nor do I know him personally. I am only posting this as an avenue to direct my creativity and release the loop my thoughts have been stuck on.

He walked you home. How he knew which building was yours is beyond you. Maybe you had led with the unconscious path in your mind. Yeah. That’s probably what happened.

And it’s better to allow you to believe that’s what happened. It doesn’t exactly aid Clark’s case if you find out he watches you.

He doesn’t watch you for any sick or perverted reason. It’s not like that. You’re just so… delicate. Clark can see from the way you carry yourself that you wouldn’t harm even a little ladybug.

Which worries him more than he wishes to ever admit. You are so gentle and soft-spoken. He knew that sooner or later, you were bound to end up in a pickle, like tonight. Frozen like the prettiest deer in the headlights.

Clark wanted to be there for you when you did. And thank his powers, he had been. His mind is already spiraling down a rabbit-hole, conjuring images and scenarios of what might have happened if he couldn’t make it there, if he wasn’t able to protect you the way you needed. It's not that you were helpless. It's this world... he's seen the worst of it. So he knows that it's his duty to care.

That’s why he’s lingering. No other reason. To make sure you make it up to your apartment safe. To see if you listen to his instructions and take care of yourself tonight. 

If only he could be there, just to hang up your coat, guide you to the table to get you off your tired feet. 

If only he could make sure you got something nice and warm to eat after such a rough end to your day. A hotdish. Nowhere near as yummy as Ma could make it, but it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it? 

If only he could be there to hold you close and-

Quit it, Kent! Y’thoughts are running away from you, buddy.

Clark takes a seat down on the ledge of the building across from your apartment complex. A sweet place to keep an eye on you. He has a view of the Metropolis skyline from here. The infinite sprawl of the cityscape is quite a sight to behold. With each towering building scraping the sky, which seemed so untouchable despite the proximity.

Back home in Smallville, with the endless stretch of flat, rolling plains, the sky above seemed so low. Close enough that you could reach out and touch it.

But here, in Metropolis, dwarfed by the impressive scale of the city conjured up around you, the sky is millions of miles away. A privilege only he holds, the privilege of its accessibility. 

If only he could hold you close and… take you along with him on one of his flights. Show you the city from a vantage point no one but the sun and the moon alone have. Something to take your mind away from all the gloom that seems to cling to you so venomously when it gets a hold of you. The ink wouldn’t be able to reach you all the way up there, he thinks.

He wonders if you have ever been kept up taking in the sight of the city, too.

The trek up the five flights of stairs you must climb to reach your apartment was a cruel punishment for accepting the temptation of the cheap rent. Of that, you’ve always been sure. 

With how many issues the place seems to pose—the faulty faucet, the lack of a heating unit (which you’re sure will be a bitch come the full blunt force of winter), and the shoddy at-best security measures in the form of three extra locks you had to install on the door yourself, to make up for the threat posed by the unsupervised, lock-less main door to the complex, which lost you your deposit—there was no way you’d pay more than what you do to live in this, with eternal gratitude, dump.

But the flights of stairs only leave you ever more breathless now. They lift you higher into the heavens as you drift up each step. 

Darling. He called you 'darling'. Superman. The thought makes you draw your lip between your teeth to bite away your silly smile. Superman knows your name, and he said it. Nothing has ever sounded so beautiful.

Your keys slip out of your grasp as you attempt to let yourself inside your apartment. You only giggle, with all the drunk glee of a schoolgirl, standing back up with a dreamy sigh once you retrieve them. The chill of the crisp, autumn night bites teasingly at your flushed skin.

The lock turns under your manipulation, giving with a sharp click. You slip inside, lungs expanding with the warm scent of cinnamon radiating from the tart sweetness of the apple cider candle sitting on your second-hand coffee table. The ring-stains are faint from where the past owners would set down their mugs. No matter how hard you scrub, the stains never leave.

Your coat manages to make it onto the hook first-try tonight. The evening can’t get any better. 

Moonlight pours in through the far window of your humble studio, bathing the space in a magical luminescence as it bounces off each reflective surface like the sunlight twinkles off each drop of morning dew. You don’t have the heart to turn on the lights and disturb the sight. Instead, you flutter to the window.

She shines proud in her fullness, a bright burst through the faint gathering of clouds in the darkened dome overhead. Radiating around her is a shifting glare of the softest in-between of blue and white. 

What must she see, up there on her divine pedestal? A goddess of pearl light, smiling down on the waves of emotions she reigns, each night.

You gravitate to the record player resting humbly on the floor by your unmade bed. It had been an impulsive purchase at the thrift. But the gods had been on your side that day, because when you arrived home to test her out with your old Joan Baez record, she had worked.

Joan Baez isn’t who you choose to serenade your quiet. The record you play is infinitely soft all the same, slipping into the track with that familiar warm crackle.

With a tug to slide it up, the window gives easily, cool air immediately flooding in through the open frame. The edge of the brick exterior is cool to the touch, but the chill that creeps down your spine goes unnoticed as you slip out onto the fire escape, sensations muted by the buzz of exhilaration that still flows through your veins. 

The distant lullaby of your record floats out onto the fire escape like a caress from the crisp wind. You dip back inside the apartment to slip the blanket from your bed on like a cardigan over your shoulders. 

She’s so beautiful like this. There’s no shortage of admirers when it comes to a delicate sunrise. But the sight of the moon, in all the glory of her soothing glow, dusted by the stars… nothing comes close in your mind.

You sigh, resting back against cool metal steps of the fire escape, cocooned in the warmth of your blanket. 

In this lonely city, how many others are observing the moon tonight?

A selfish part of you wishes to keep the view all to yourself. Any possession over the luminary is unfounded, unwarranted. She belongs to nothing and to no one and that is a part of her appeal. Whatever happens below her glow, is simply a phase that will come and go with the tides she governs.

If you could be like anything, let it be the moon. Bright, beautiful, and unafraid of the changes that come so naturally with the flow of time. Ever-evolving, and that is the privilege of her suspended existence. 

“Please…” You whisper out into the cool, biting air. Cold rushes to greet the tears collecting at your waterline as they twinkle in the pale glow. “You know… all of it. Everything. So take it away.”

It’s a gentle, timid request. But you mean it with every fiber of your being.

You don’t want to belong to this… this shame anymore. This pain and hurt. Everything you’ve been, it’s only because there was no other way you knew how to be. 

And it’s always been wrong. Like you were born with something innately flawed. Chipped and scuffed. Pre-used but not pre-loved, like the coffee table that sits in your pathetic little studio. With stains that can never be washed away, no matter how hard you scrub.

“Let me be like you… even just a little bit,” You plea. Your eyes press shut with the fall of your tears. Twin streams down your cheeks, no longer flushed with the excitement of your encounter. Instead, with the chill of the night.

What a fool you are, no better than a stupid little girl after someone shows you the slightest bit of attention.

You can’t be like the moon. Not when all you do is chase the sun.

Clark’s appearance in your mind has you sitting up, resting your head in your hands as your cheeks heat up against your will. 

"Stupid…" You shake your head at yourself, standing from your seated position on the steps. You know the true reason your run-in with Superman left you so moonstruck. He reminds you of Clark, in a strange, silly way.

Handsome, with smiles too bright for their own good. A dangerous combination. One that has been eating you alive. You can't seem to forget his smile. The crease of his dimples as they frame it. The boyish manner in which his muscle memory seems to favor one side, giving it a lop-sided appearance.

You lean over the steel railing, features falling as you mess with your hands. Why? Why him?

You know how your mind works, the tendencies you have. Each crush is the same. It begins with a smile, a lingering look, something that sparks your interest. Curiosity at first glance.

There's nothing wrong with taking a liking to someone. It's the way that your feelings spiral, contorting and deforming into something ugly. It starts with a look, but by the end of the interaction, your mind has conjured imaginary probabilities with such an absolute sense of delusion, you border on perverted.

If they knew what you thought about… the kinds of things you think about doing… the things you do while thinking about those things…

With your hands between your legs, imagining someone else's touch instead of your own. Imagining his touch-

'Bordering' is a kindness you don't deserve. You are perverted. He can't ever find out.

You know it's wrong and that's the worst part, that you can't help it. You can't stop. You have no self-contol.

It's simply in your nature to obsess. Every feeling, you feel. So deeply, so intensely, each shift in emotion magnified to the most extreme degree. All-consuming. Any chance at something real is so cruelly sabotaged by your own dependency. A dependency on assurance of a fixed outcome. And if somehow you deviate from the imagined path, utter devastation.

It's all or nothing. But when you're unwilling to give anything, and unwilling to accept nothing but everything, the chances of being fulfilled are so very low.

This need for control… this disgusting desire to dominate each and every little detail… it's a sickness. So it's better you keep it shoved away. And it's better that you stay away from Clark, or anyone else for that matter. You could handle the darkness all on your own.

It's just better that way.

The night, no matter how beautiful, has grown cold. You slip back in through the window.

The record comes to a halt with an ugly scratch. You don't bother to put away the vinyl, leaving it on the platter to collect dust. There was little thought of care in your mind as you sink into the firm discomfort of your twin mattress. Outside clothes on and all.

What does it matter anyway? It's not like you're the host of each weekend hang. Yours is the only soul that's stepped foot in your apartment since its procurement. Your mess is all your own and not for another to see.

You doubt anyone would want to see it either. Even if they did take a chance on someone like you, one look at the pigsty you come home to, and they'd run for the hills.

You've never been the type to collect clutter. You do like your space clean and tidy.

You're just so tired. It's an exhaustion with no end. Even if you sleep through the entire night, it still can't chase away the lead in your bones.

You thought a change in scenery would help ease this suffocation. You've been drowning since you took your first breath, desperately trying to keep yourself above water with nothing to cling on to for rescue.

Maybe that's why the crushes are so intense. You could be better, you think. For someone else.

It's a repeating cycle, without fail. Your curiosity is sparked, you begin to dress better, take more care of yourself, absorb yourself in your presentation—before the inevitable crash back to reality. That humbling fact. The fact of your own plainness. Who were you to think so highly of simple… mediocrity?

So the fight is abandoned, and you retreat back into yourself. More defeated than ever.

You thought moving here, to Metropolis, away from all the darkness that came with Gotham, would make it better. Easier to manage. But what you were running away from, you realize, was something within. Something that couldn't be escaped, no matter how far the distance traveled. Because it will always follow you. You can't run away from yourself.

The thought makes you shrink, curling inward like a dying bug as you shift onto your back on your bed. You stare up at the ceiling solemnly. It doesn't matter where you go. You can never run away from who you are within.

There's an ache in your chest now, or maybe it's always been there, but you feel it in its entirety now. It's so deep and painful, you could crawl out of your own skin to get away from it. You shudder with a labored gasp.

The blanket that had been resting on your shoulders falls away. Your hand moves to your sternum, rubbing at the tightness in your chest for even a hint of relief. You find none.

A shower. A cold one. That will help. A nice, cool reset to your nervous system. You steel yourself before pulling yourself up, stumbling through the maze of clutter.

Your clothes are left in a heap on the tile, chills already creeping up your skin at the nip in the air. No need to wait for winter. The lack of a heating unit is more than enough of a bitch now.

The shower shudders on with a groan of the old pipes, spraying against the backdrop of the glass enclosure. Already, water begins to pool at the joining of the wall tile with the linoleum of the shower floor, running down the seam of the caulking to escape through the edge of the glass door. You shove a discarded towel against the edge of the shower where the water is beginning to collect on the tile floor. It's a shame your landlord is too much of a cuck to even pick up his phone when you complain about all the repairs.

You have to bite your lip to withstand the pelting of the icy stream as you settle beneath it.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," You breathe out a shaky laugh, quickly soaping yourself up to distract from the downpour. Goosebumps pebble down the flesh of your arms, over your stomach, your thighs.

With the rush of the water drowning out your thoughts, you feel lighter. Clean. The bubbles of soap suds collecting over the rusty drain remind you of sea foam. Dipping once more into the icy stream, you wash off the remaining lather before turning the faucet. The shower halts with a squeak.

You slip out of the shower stall with a sharp intake of air, quickly bundling yourself up in your old, faded towel. It's still moist from when you got ready in the morning for work, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

Faint, broken lyrics fall from your lips as you dry off and continue through your routine. Imprints on your subconscious from the record you played earlier.

Eyes meeting in the mirror, your breath hitches. Sometimes you forgot what you looked like. There was an image you had of yourself in your head, and that was the girl you always expected to see looking back at you. But it never was.

You drop your eyes, bending to wash the toothpaste from your mouth. The brush is abandoned in its cup and you leave the bathroom with a flick of the light switch.

God, it's cold. Maybe such a shower wasn't the best idea this late. You plug in the small space heater by your bed. It's got a range of three feet on a good day.

You quickly change into some fluffy socks and a warm pair of pajamas. They are faded and don't quite fit the same anymore.

You make do with what you've got. You have to be grateful you have them at all, right?

Fluffy socks, your favorite movie. And you need a nice, warm meal in that tummy to settle it.

The instructions appear in your mind and you freeze, cheeks heating up in renewed gratitude. Oh, Superman, you really are the best. You save even stupid girls like me…

"Shit…" Stumbling over a forgotten pair of boots in the dimness of the apartment, you catch yourself on the edge of your bed. At least with a space so small to call your own, everything was in reach. You manage to make it to the kitchenette, pulling open the fridge.

Some water, or milk if it makes you feel better. Nice and warmed up. A cozy night. Couch or bed. Go home and rest. Go on…

You've got no milk. The water from the tap isn't to be trusted. You settle for the tiny remainder in your pitcher filter that is good enough at its job to ingest. It gets poured into a mug you borrowed—stole, from your old diner job—and set in the microwave to heat up. You're sure you have a teabag lying around here somewhere…

It was hiding beneath the dishtowel. You take out your mug of hot water once the microwave beeps and slip in the bag.

You don't have the energy to cook something right now, and with the fridge bare… you sigh, making your way back to the bed, settling down on the edge where the space heater has warmed the air.

God! Your fingers are like ice. You settle the mug in your lap and press your fingers against the hot ceramic. Heat crawls down your chest with each sip. You're thankful for the small comfort.

Perhaps it wasn't what Superman had in mind when he told you to take it easy. It's might not be much, but it's something.

Setting the mug down on the floor next to your bed, you settle beneath the covers, drawing the blankets up to your chin. The sheets are cool to the touch, making you shift your feet against them for some friction. Your fluffy socks get lost in the scuffle.

It seems, no matter what you did, there was no chasing the cold away tonight. Well, maybe if you…

You grow still beneath the covers. No, you shouldn't.

But it's cold.

And you want to feel good…

You bite into your bottom lip, weighing the option for a few moments. It's not like anyone would know.

The cool sheets tease your skin as your hand drifts down beneath the blankets, tracing over the buttons of your pajamas.

Fuck it. You slid your hand down, cool fingers finding heat as you run them over your panties- oh, looks like you forgot those. You snort to yourself at the thought. You're such a pervert. But laundry isn't free and it's not like you're expecting anyone.

God… already you can feel your body heating up, but the slight coolness of each frosted finger remains as you slide them through your folds. It feels good. Like someone else. Your eyes press shut.

Strong, thick fingers drift up your inner thighs, urging you to spread your legs. The faint roughness against your softer skin has your breath hitching. You do as you're instructed, parting your legs with a growing flush.

"Fuck…" You take a deep breath, trying to calm the thump of your pounding heart as your fingers continue to tease yourself. You just want to circle your clit and reach your peak as fast as possible, but you know that if you hold back, it will feel even better.

Your fingers smush your lips together in growing desperation, brows drawing in as you battle with your restraint. Palming at your core, you turn your face into your pillow, features scrunching up at the mere crumbs you're allowing yourself.

"Desperate little slut. You need it so bad, huh?" He would taunt you. What man wouldn't, seeing you act so pathetic for him? But that's okay. You'd like it. It would only make you wetter.

Your fingertips graze your clit. You bite your lip to hold back a sound. Your other hand moves down beneath the covers too, dipping under your shirt to play with your nipple. You can't help it anymore. You've never had enough patience. Not even to draw out your own pleasure.

You run the cool pads of your fingertips over your nipple, before rolling the stiff peak between your fingers as you begin to circle your clit.

"Dirty little whore. Look at you. I bet you play with that pussy all the time at the thought of me. Don't you?" You wish he would, play with you. And you wish he'd be mean. Exactly what you deserve.

"Mhm…" Your fingers speed up, circles tightening with the more pressure you add.

Pinching at your sensitive nipple, your core aches at the spike of pain. You always need it like this. Pain in the pleasure. Pleasure in the pain.

Those strong, thick fingers, so deft, would work you closer, all the while, he's taunting you. And you'd take it. It's exactly what he's entitled to, with how you take advantage of his image each night. Defiling him in your mind.

"Please…" Your hips begin to move, shifting and rolling as the tightness in your abdomen pulls, threatening to snap. But just out of your reach. You'd love to just snatch that rope up and tear it clean apart yourself.

"Yeah? You think you deserve to come, with how much of a little whore you've been?" His voice would reverberate through you, so strong and deep. He's so gentle. But he'd be mean to you. All the things he'd never do with others girls, he'd do them with you. To you. Because you deserve it.

Your clit throbs with each pass of your fingers, swollen and begging for stimulation. It's never enough. You need more, more, more.

Pinching and rolling your nipple, circling your clit and rubbing the bundle of nerves needily… it's still not enough.

"I should leave you here. Wanting and needing. You don't deserve to come," His threat would only make you more desperate. You'd beg him. You'd beg on your hands and knees for him. If he'd only let you come. All over his fingers. Then you'd beg for his cock.

Your features frown, eyes squeezing shut as you increase your ministrations, until the friction begins to hurt. You'll be sore in the morning. But you just want to come.

The pressure building up in your stomach is painful now, a searing burn that make you tremble, aching for release.

"Come for me, whore. Show me who owns that perverted little pussy. Come," He'd take mercy on you, even if you didn't deserve it. That's just the kind of man he was. So good. So kind. You're sick.

"Oh, Clark…" You bite into your pillow, unable to help the name that slips past your lips. Your thighs shake, eyes rolling back as the knot finally snaps.

Waves of destructive bliss wrack through your body, making you shudder as you work yourself through your peak. Not giving up until your thighs are squeezing shut, stomach burning from how you're clenching your core.

You force your hand away with a deep sigh, staring up at the shadows painting the ceiling with heavy, half-lidded eyes.

"Fuck…" You breathe out, melting into the firmness of the old mattress below. You slip your hand out of your bottoms, wiping away your essence on the old flannel fabric. Not bothering to clean yourself up. That would require getting up, and your limbs are lifeless, your orgasm having sucked away all your remaining energy.

Turning over onto your side, you pull the blankets back up to your chin. There's a discomfort between your legs, but you ignore it. The waning of your pleasure came with a rush of clarity, and guilt.

You press your eyes shut, lips beginning to pull down into a frown. You are so sick. You hope to everything that Clark never finds out.

He knows he should go. He does. Even if it hadn't been his intention when he stayed to keep an eye on you, lingering now absolutely is an invasion of privacy and an invasion of the most perverted kind.

But he can't move. He swears, he can't. No matter how hard he tries to twitch even a toe, Clark's frozen in place. Gravity's got him grounded. To torture him with the sounds of your bliss.

And golly, do you sound sweet. So soft and breathless. He has to turn his back away from your window with his hands over his eyes to ensure he doesn't steal a glance through the walls separating you. That would be a line once-crossed he could never come back from.

But your sounds… even if he did manage to fly away, there was no escaping those. Not with his kind of senses.

He's in agony. Clark doesn't think he's ever been in so much pain, even from his run-ins with Kryptonite.

He'd do anything to be there with you. He wouldn't even need to touch, just watch. Would that be okay with you? He just wants you to be okay. And right now, he can tell by the quickening of the stimulation your fingers are gifting your clit that you're not. You're desperate and needy and your dainty fingers just aren't cutting it.

God, he'd kiss you from head to toe. Lick over every inch of flesh he could reach. Whatever you tell him to do. He was sent here to help people, wasn't he? And help you, he would. If only he could.

"Oh, Clark…" The softest whisper, muffled by your pillow. The sound of pure heaven.

Clark stiffens, his breath hitching. Clark. His name, falling from your lips. While you…

Clark. Clark. Clark. His name has never sounded so beautiful. Oh, he's doomed. If he wasn't before, he is dead and buried now. How was he ever going to look you in the eyes again? Without falling at your feet, begging you to let him close, let him in.

He doesn't want anything from you. Just the chance to show you what you look like in his eyes. Like a burst of pure moonlight. His idea of an angel. He steals a glance at your apartment, only in observation of the beams of light he can see pouring out of the window frame, shifting, seeking, before smothering out.

Clark sighs, a tired, wistful sound. If only he wasn't such a coward. Then he could be where he wanted to be. Falling asleep next to you.

Previous Chapter — Chapter Four.

Author’s Note — If you would like to be added to SK-MG taglist I am opening, do not be afraid to ask!

I also want to clarify. I am not demonizing degradation. We all have our preferences. I simply am of the belief that some of us with more gentle hearts, who have been belittled before, and grown to anticipate that kind of treatment, would benefit more from softer words and praise. Like MC would. I plan to write Clark as a dominant, with a more softer approach. Like a pleasure dominant. So when that time comes, he will be showing her that she too deserves to feel treasured and special, rather than 'lucky', for being with him.

If only there was a place to run to, to hide away forever. Maybe that place only exists within us. 

The inward retreat would do until you found that faraway place.

Confined, to a world inside. Where every night is spent losing sleep. Meditating on those dreams, of closeness and intimacy.

Is it really as far-fetched as it seems?

If in reach of others, why not me?

If in reach of others, why not me?

If in reach of others, why not me?

The thought plays on a loop in your mind. A broken record with no off-switch. All these distractions; food, work, booze. Each and every vice we use to numb ourselves to the point of catatonia, it’s a placeholder. For the acceptance of that truth hidden in the deep within.

Past the walls brought up in defense of further pain, in the dark recesses where not even you dared to look. That truth. That ugly, jagged thing with its pathetic, needy claws, desperate for a single crumb of acknowledgement.  

You were lonely. You were depressed. You were starved. Your heart was so emaciated, strings pulled so tight and thin—the ones that remained were but fraying threads, fibers somehow clinging on, the body’s nature. Even if your spirit had given up, your body fought on. It was survival.

If anyone had noticed the withdrawal, which you highly doubted, they didn’t mention it. You almost wish they did. 

You wished they cared. 

But they didn’t owe you that, and your emotions were your own to nurture. You could never be so selfish to expect it from another. 

Still, you couldn’t deny that you cared. And perhaps that was your issue. So much of yourself went to caring for others that, when it came time to tend to your own wounds, you were too fatigued. 

Deep down, you understood it wasn’t your fault in truth. It was evolution. Mechanisms that had developed over time to cope with your environment. Solely with living in Gotham, one required a certain level of awareness. Of your surroundings and of yourself. Of the situation you found yourself in on a momentary basis. It was exhausting and it was survival. 

But you weren’t in Gotham anymore. It was difficult to remind yourself of that at times. You still flinched at loud noises in a crowd. Kept your purse slung over your front so you had a firm grip on it at all times. Avoided wearing your nice jewelry especially if you were taking the metro. Sure, you looked a bit paranoid on the outside, but it’s also been a long time since your last mugging, so something must be working.

But you are not in Gotham anymore.

Though it seemed the imprints remained, you knew that your constant state of high-vigilance wasn’t good for you. Metropolis was not the same city. Metropolis did not have gangs or crime families or sadists who torture the people they kill. Metropolis had its share of incidents, but it was not Gotham. 

Maybe that line of thinking is what made you grow sloppy. Because the you-from-a-few-months-ago would have never cut through this dark alley, not this late, not even if you were trying to avoid the extra half-hour walk going around the building would add to your late walk home.

But the you-from-a-few-months-ago had more patience than you did today. You just couldn’t stand another minute with that loop replaying in your mind. You wanted to be home, free to drown out that loop however you pleased. 

Alone. Just like you were used to being. They say familiarity breeds contempt, but long-term exposure to contempt and one builds up a tolerance. That was the only reason you could put up with yourself, you suppose. 

The you-from-a-few-months-ago also knew that safety was never secured. Not when you were a woman walking home late at night in the city. The fact came back to you like a slap in the face when you saw a distant figure lingering in the alley when you were already too far to turn back unseen.

It’s always the worst people who notice you.

Your hand tightens its grip on the handle of your bag, wariness flooding in with a gush of cool, November air. Your limbs feel as if they’re filled with lead with each step you take, but it’s too late now. 

Keeping your head down, you try to slip by without issue. There’s nothing you could offer him anyways. You can feel the way his eyes travel over you, sizing you up.

“Whatcha got in there?” The man asks, far too casually. But you both know what this is. Another pair of footsteps join yours as you continue making your way down the alley. Fuck!

“Hey, I make less than you, and I have an honest job. Cut me some slack,” You call out, quickening your stride. This was so not how you wanted to end your day. You only find light at the end of the alley, a beacon in the dark night taunting you with the promise of safety. 

In this city, if you screamed, no one would care. They’d probably turn their TV up and damn you for interrupting their show.

“I’ll cut you for sure if you don’t give me that bag,” He hisses. His hand finds your arm and the strength in his grip makes you stiffen. Despite the toughness of your exterior, you seem to freeze up at the confrontation. It doesn’t take the man much to tug you back.

“Don’t,” You don’t know what else to say, and you think it would have been less pathetic to have just kept quiet instead of giving your weak refusal. 

“I will. Give it to me,” He gives you a shake, before one hand releases you. You catch the glint of metal in the dim light. A small, unimpressive knife gleams in his grip. It’s pathetic, but you’ve always been a coward. The pepper spray in your bag is burning a hole through the leather but you can’t seem to lift a finger.

“O-Okay. I’m sorry,” You breathe out, eyes like saucers as you slip the strap down your arm. A thief has never had it so easy. You’re so weak, Y/N.

The man snatches it right up, distaste evident in the curl of his lip. He empties it right in front of you. All of your bag’s contents clattering to the damp asphalt as you watch them fall. 

“Glasses, cough-drops, Advil. Jesus, lady. Fuckin’ grandma,” He scoffs, finding your wallet and lugging your purse at the wall with an annoyed growl. The leather crumbles into a pathetic pile by the brick.

Tears bite at your eyes. It’s silly, but he’s so mean. As if it weren’t enough that you were being robbed. He had to hurt your feelings too.

You wish you weren’t so sensitive. Every little thing is a detail to be taken personally, felt to the utmost degree. So often you encounter defeat, you think you’d be used to it by now. But you’re just as defeated each and every time. 

“Empty your pockets,” The man is left unsatisfied by the few dollar bills in your wallet, discarding it with a sniffle. 

“She will do no such thing!” Another voice cuts through the chilly air. Strong as steel and just as resistant. 

There’s no time to turn before your world is spinning, some unseen force knocking you off balance. You only stumble, catching yourself against the brick behind.

The roughness of the brick has you wincing, but it’s not the sting of pain that blossoms from your palms that has your jaw dropping. It’s the looming red and blue, bright primaries striking in the dimness of the alley. 

“That’s no way to treat a lady,” Superman says, tightening his grip on the man’s collar. He’s got the thief pinned to the wall opposite you. You’re frozen stiff, unable to move. “Miss, are you alright?”

It takes a moment to register he’s addressing you. Superman. Addressing you. You can’t even bring yourself to nod. 

Clark’s eyes darken as they travel over you. The rumpling of your cardigan, from where the man had grabbed you. The lost look in your glossy eyes. The streaks in the blush on your cheeks, where a few tears had slipped down and stained the makeup in the fever of it all.

The worst, however, is the bludgeon of your energy. Now that his blinders have been removed, indignation and rage simmering down into a gentle blaze reserved only for the man in his grasp, Clark can feel your energy like a physical thing. Reaching across the alley and grazing his own.

“I’ll treat her-” The man doesn’t get to finish. With a nasty right hook, he’s put right to sleep. He can think about what he did tomorrow, from a jail cell.

“You won’t be treating anything now but that bruise of yours,” Clark huffs, straightening up as he glares down at the man’s crumpled form. Yeah, you get him, Superman.

Clark steps back, letting out a slow, measured breath. He certainly didn’t mean to be so… brutal about it. But when he heard that voice, quiet and shaky, blocks away on his own walk home. He knew that voice, couldn’t forget it. Not with how he savors it.

But the fear in it… he never wants to hear that again. It was all he could do, slip away into the darkness and emerge in the cape. Damn it all if you recognized him. If he couldn’t save you- or people like you, what was being Superman worth at all?

“Miss…?” He calls out tentatively, holding up a gentle hand. You’ve still got that lost look in your eyes, but with a twitch as a chill creeps down your spine, you blink it away. Your eyes meet in the low light.

He really didn’t mean to knock the guy out. Just subdue him. But when he saw you, huddled against the brick in the alley, alone with that man’s hands on you... now he's scared you. 

No. The fear in the air has already begun to dissipate once its source was smothered away. The reach of your tendrils are but scouting vines testing the waters of his own radiance. Powered by this galaxy's yellow sun, his signature possess the same blinding glow. Flickering like beams of light below the water's surface to the beat of his heart.

Your tendrils flinch, smoke unfurling in the air above from where his rays singe away your vines.  

“Here, let me get that. It’s okay,” Clark keeps his voice low and steady, lowering down to pluck up your bag. He slips every fallen item back in with gentle care. With a wary eye remaining on the dance of your energies. “I’m not gonna hurt you. He isn’t either. He’s, frankly, out, miss. Out cold.”

The singed vines continue to burn away into furls of dark smoke, dissipating, disappearing into the coolness of the night like the vapor of your shaky breath. You don't give off the impression of pain.

“I know. Um… thank you,” You stammer, nodding furiously as you press close to the wall. You hadn’t even realized you were trembling, not until you reached out to receive your outstretched purse. “Thanks…”

“Why, it’s no problem, miss. That’s what I do,” Clark tells you, lips twitching into a lop-sided grin. It’s familiar, a strange sense of recognition cutting through your vulnerability in that quiet moment where you’re finally able to catch your breath. 

“What you do… yeah. Still. You didn’t have to,” You breathe out with a soft flutter of your eyes. The recognition is brushed away. You’ve seen that smile before, certainly. In the newsroom. As has every person with a television and eyes to see. But it’s not every day you watch Superman smile in person. 

The bright, blinding beams have cut through each dark weed grown up around your form to reveal the familiar ink-in-water quality to your energy. What's more curious is how the ink is diluting away with the approach of his radiance. 

“But of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?” He tells you, finally standing back up. Though he has this manner of making himself smaller, not so imposing as he looms above you. Still so very careful to not further unsettle your frayed nerves.

“Well, I’m sure there’s plenty of other girls who need saving,” You hum, flashing a thin smile. In hope to soften the edge of insecurity that could be heard in your voice. Most usually agree with statements like that, when you put yourself down. So it's second-nature to make them. You're more digestible that way.

“You’re the only one I see,” He tells you very simply. The only damsel in distress around, you’re sure is what he means. “May I walk you home?”

Walk you home? Your eyes grow at the thought. It’s already too much that he’s taken time away from the real bad guys to help you out, of all people. Letting him walk you home? That’s pushing it. You can’t bring yourself to be so selfish tonight.

“Walk me home? No! No… I’m just around the corner. That’s okay. Thank you, for the offer, sir,” You stumble, the excuse falling easily from your lips.

“Sir?” Clark repeats. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kent. Clark smiles at the memory of your acquaintance. You had been so kind and polite. He could tell you were sweet. Beneath all of those layers of timidity. “Superman is just fine, miss…?”

You’re inclined to give him your name. It’s not like he’ll remember it. No one remembers you. Except Clark, but... Clark remembered everyone. That's just the kind of man he is. You swallow down the wave of longing.

Soon, not even Clark would remember you. Much less Superman. Just another face in the crowd of people he’s saved.

“Y/N. That’s a beautiful name. It suits you, sweetheart,” Clark tells you, unable to help but allowing himself this one indulgence. He’d knock out each and every bad guy in the world if he could see you smile for real.

“Why, that’s, I don’t know what to say to that,” You breathe out, so quick to clam up. That’s okay. He’s patient. So very patient. At least, for you, he could be.

A gentle glow from the center of your chest has his head tilting. The calmest twinkle of gentle periwinkle. His beams are curious, finding rays so similar to his own, but more soothing than warm. Fresh air stirring the linens on a cool, summer night. The delicate kiss of an autumn chill on flushed cheeks. Ice-cold fingertips running over heated skin with promise in each graze. His breath hitches.

“You don’t need to say a thing, Doll. Just head on home and take it easy tonight, alright?” Lulled by the smooth rumble of his lowered voice, you don’t notice that he’s guided you away from the gloom of the alley, hand hovering just behind the small of your back, while the other ushers you towards the shine of the streetlight above. But it's nothing compared to your own. “You’ve had a rough evening.”

“I’m okay,” You shake your head quickly, waving off even Superman’s concern. How stubborn you must be. All he can do is smile. He's drunk on your glow. Not even the moon has ever looked so beautiful.

“That man put his hands on you. You need to take it easy, do you understand?” Clark repeats, lowering his voice to that soft, gentle tone once more as he searches your eyes. When he puts it like that, it sounds awful. “Alright, Miss Y/N? Can you take care of yourself for me? Fluffy socks, your favorite movie. And you need a nice, warm meal in that tummy to settle it.”

Superman says ‘tummy’. That’s adorable. Maybe Lois would like to report on that. Steal the scoop from Clark-

“Some water, or milk if it makes you feel better. Nice and warmed up. A cozy night. Couch or bed. Go home and rest. Go on,” You’re at the steps leading up to your apartment building. Like the rest of the world has simply floated past while you spoke with him. You understand the meaning of cloud nine now. You feel like you've danced in the sky with Superman himself.

“O-Okay,” You nod dumbly, remaining at the bottom of the front steps. “Goodnight, Mr. Superman.”

“Goodnight, Miss Y/N.”

He walked you home. How he knew which building was yours is beyond you. Maybe you had led with the unconscious path in your mind. Yeah. That’s probably what happened.

Previous Chapter — Chapter Three

Next Chapter — Chapter Five: Moonstruck (nsfw)

Clark thought often of the new hire. He couldn’t help it. Something was off, in a way he was frightened to admit unsettled him.

From the moment he first saw you, he knew there was something more. An entire world past your eyes. Concealed behind the guise of your seeming simplicity. But he caught it, how much you saw. How much you observed. You noticed what no one else did.

That was reason enough to stay away. Because there was no assurance you wouldn’t see through him, at what lay beneath his press badge and glasses. 

But there was something else too.

The way he saw the world was through the lens of complete transparency. Deeper than what a glance could tell him of a person’s bone structure. It was energy, as was all in this world. And that was what he sensed. What his mind or his vision or whatever he could attribute this ability to, it could manipulate in creation of understanding, comprehension. He saw the in-between. Life where there is nothing feasible before him.

A signature. Imprinting the molecules in the air with a presence he could sense. 

Living things have a kind of glow around them. They’re surrounded in a halo of colors.

He’d invent names for if he weren't the only one who could make them out.

He’s not sure if that halo is a soul or an aura or what. He did know that at the end of the life cycle, it fades pretty quickly, and what's left behind is… hard to look at. Empty in a way that leaves him empty, too.

But when it's there... my God, how it shines.

And for this, he could not help but be wary of what he saw surrounding you. It was not an emptiness—he would have been more comfortable with that, he thinks, than the strange tinge of dark to your glow, which was so very dim.

It was the kind that radiated more from bad guys. Not shy, pretty girls who said good morning, please, and thank you. It was so conflicting.

It didn’t belong to you. On you. It was so strange.

He gave you the benefit of the doubt. How could he not? You were so courteous. And gentle. The way he tried to be, aspired to be. 

He would watch you, trying to make sense of this disparity. Of how your energy failed to match your actions.

You fell right into place in the office as mail clerk, picking your duties right up. More adept than Mr. Curtis had ever been. Clark actually gets his mail now!

Placed at the edge of his desk, perched delicately and avoiding the mess of his organized clutter. Waiting for him each and every morning.

He no longer had to seek it out himself, which he didn’t mind. But he doesn’t mind even more catching the wisp of your presence rolling that trolley away. Watching you push it through the newsroom, deftly avoiding each moving obstacle as reporters flutter around like bees from flower to flower, desk to desk, all while keeping perfect track of your unspoken route. It’s his favorite time of the day.

Clark hears the distant whir of tires as he ascends the elevator, bringing an unconscious smile to his lips at the thought of you today. Would you have already passed his desk? He hasn’t managed to come in early enough to beat you there since you began, too behind in, well, everything every morning. One day maybe. So he could sit there and thank you right in the moment.

Thank you. For treating my mail with so much care. Not even a crease in the envelope. Thank you.

Would you smile? He hasn’t seen one with teeth yet. It’s always the same when he has spoken to you. Polite, but thin. So shy.

Would your eyes light up? Would they crinkle at the edge? He stands there, grinning to himself like an idiot for no real reason. The sight that greets the office as the elevator doors part, having arrived to his floor amid his wandering thoughts.

“Looking awfully cheery today, Kent. Did you pass a pigeon on your way in?” Lois smirks, tilting her head as she crosses her arms over her chest.

“Why, yes. I did, Ms. Lane. She showed me her nest. It was just a few zip ties and a twig or two, right there on the street. That’s why I’m running kind of late actually. I had to relocate her up onto the overhang and get her some real foliage for her nursery. Couldn’t just leave her there, you know?” Clark rambles on, unaware of the incredulousness boiling up in the woman before him. Couldn’t make this shit up.

“Her hero, huh?” She scoffs, but the smile on her lips is genuine now. Lois shakes her head fondly, brushing past him with a tap of the folder in her hand on his shoulder. “Mail girl’s looking for you. Something about a missing stamp or a signature or something.”

Mail girl. Lois means you. Clark straightens up softly.

“She’s got a name, Lois,” Clark sighs as he adjusts his thick glasses further up his nose. An act that proves more difficult than expected as he balances the cluster of coffee orders in one hand and his briefcase in the other. Lois relieves him of one before all are lost, to accompany her on her elevator ride.

“No, Lois is my name, not mail girl’s,” Lois fires back, stepping into the elevator. The doors close before he can get in another word. 

“I know that’s your name,” He whispers to himself under his breath, shaking his head softly. Clark turns, eyes unintentionally seeking you out as he makes the unconscious walk to his desk. The one he’s made more times than he can count. He doesn’t even need to look to know where he’s going.

It’s a strange dance, how your steps mirror each other, yet push you further away from one another with each taken. Circling the bullpen but never meeting as obligation fuels both your paths. Always just narrowly missing each other.

Dark fog seeps from the air surrounding you, a radiance of gloom. Like unfurls of soot-filled smoke steaming from your form before dissipating away into nothingness. Ink in water.

Clark bumps into something, nearly fumbling his grip on the coffee, right over his desk. He hadn’t realized the proximity. Maybe he does need to watch where he’s going. Clark sets down his things before he can make a real mess. 

“Pumpkin spice! My favorite~” Jimmy gushes as the familiar sweetness of the warm and spicy blend of the season. Biting like the fresh sting of Metropolis November air, cinnamon and nutmeg cling to the nostrils, clove softened by brown sugar and a hint of vanilla. Clark's always found it quite intoxicating to his enhanced senses.

Jimmy snatches up his cup eagerly. Like an overly-excited dog, ready to devour as soon as his treat is placed before him. 

Maybe Clark should invest in one of those textured slow-feeding bowls for him, but somehow in cup form. Jimmy might burn his mouth less if he slowed down.

“I’ve got to talk with Y/N. Can you watch these? Or divide them out- you know who they’re for,” Clark stammers, a bit eager himself. He can’t help it. He can tell Jimmy is a bit taken aback by his unexpected withdrawal, looking up from his drink with a line of foam over his lip. “I’m sorry. I’m just already running late, so…”

A half-truth. But also a half-lie. Clark’s shoulders hunch, a flicker of guilt flashing across his softened expression. 

“Don’t worry about it. I get it. But, uh… who’s Y/N?” Jimmy asks, the ignorance dripping from his voice. Innocent in its sincerity. 

Clark’s lips part as if to speak, before he promptly shuts his mouth in astonishment. Why doesn’t anyone know who you are? How is that possible? You come in every day!

Continuing your rounds, your focus waivers, pulled from the task before you to the song playing low in the foam ear-pads of your headphones. That was your favorite part of the new job. You could just lose yourself in your duties and not a soul bothered you. Or even noticed you, for that matter.

A bump here and there, only in the beginning, before you began to anticipate the stream in order to maneuver against it. It has become second nature now.

It was a softer song, if not a bit melancholy. You took a deep breath, releasing it with a gentle sigh. For some reason, the ache comforted you. Perhaps because it was familiar. The people in these songs, they understood it. How you felt. And to know you weren’t alone, at least in that, was more of a comfort than you could ask for.

Setting down your last package of the morning rounds, you gently wheeled the trolley back in the direction of the elevator. It would soon be time for the outgoing summons. Deliver this. Ask so-and-so about this. Follow up at the post office on this. 

They weren’t asking for you, they were asking for your position. Whoever filled it was none of their concern, a trivial detail of no consequence and beyond the realm of their care. All that mattered was that you were there. An unseen presence. 

“Excuse me, sorry, behind you, sorry, excuse me. Hey-” The sound comes muffled, drowned by the quiet thrum in your ears of a tired strum of a guitar, the artist's longing palpable from the indignant yet resigned strain of their voice. Your lips twitch into a frown before you school it away.

Must be another busy day. You wonder what scoop they must have picked up.

A call of your name has you stopping in place, unsure if it were true or a phantom voice messing with you in your head. Just in case, you slip off your headphones. They hang around your neck with a grounding weight. When the curl of vowels is repeated, you straighten up and whirl around.

Clark stands before you, his lopsided grin making your own teeth ache. Like a glass of too-cool water, or a treat far too sweet. Your hair feels too unkempt all of a sudden, your hand reaching up to smooth back imaginary strands.

“Hey. I heard you were looking for me,” He breathes out. The scan of his gaze around your form and over it has you looking down at your outfit with mild bemusement. Was there some kind of stain or…

“Um… yeah, I was. I talked to the guy at the post office. They did receive your package, but they would like you to go down there and sign for it since it’s been held there for more than a month,” You tell him softly, slowly reading off the rehearsed explanation you conjured up in your mind with an immature quality to your voice. It's an effort not to stumble over your words, but the careful and tentative quality in which you recall the terms in negotiation of his hostage package’s release has him biting his lip. The fabric of your cardigan is soft between your fingertips as you mess with the edge of the hem sheepishly. “It came, but I can’t pick it up for you. I’m sorry, Clark.”

“It came…” He whispered in awe, not at all bothered by the unfortunate delay. The way his bright eyes lit up was almost child-like in its innocence. “Oh, man. It came. Krypto is gonna be so excited.”

“Krypto?” The question comes before you can recall your place. He doesn’t need you prying into his personal life.

“Oh, he’s my, uh, cousin’s dog. I’m just looking after him for a while,” Clark tells you, rubbing at the back of his neck. You pick up on the shift immediately. He’s uncomfortable. You made him uncomfortable. The thought makes your throat tighten up.

Fuck. Why can’t you just mind your business?

You nod hurriedly, flashing a polite, but hollow smile. 

“That is… nice. Yeah. Well, if you’ll excuse me. Have a nice day, Clark,” You tell him with a weight to your words. They had been a struggle to force out. It’s never right, the words you speak, how you say them. He’ll never forget this, you’re sure. How badly you fumbled a simple interaction. Fuck.

You give your back to him before he can reply, tugging your headphones back in place. Your eyes sting, the ache in your chest growing with the fierceness of a house in flames. A flurry of searing burn twisting behind your rib cage.

Clark doesn’t move from where you left him. None of what you said mattered. Not as much as what he was seeing. The darkness had grown throughout the conversation. Wisps of diffusing smoke around your form nearly reaching out to touch him now, even as you retreat. 

There was something happening with you, he was sure. But he was also sure it was weighing more heavily on you than any other. He needed to know what. 

He needed to be there to help you.

Previous Chapter — Chapter One

Next Chapter — Chapter Three

You avoid him after that morning. The shame of how you acted was too great to face him, so you rationalized that coming in even earlier each morning to get your morning rounds done before he arrived was the best solution to facing said shame. 

So rude. So disrespectful. You turned your back on him.

Clark didn’t deserve that. You know he didn’t. He also didn’t deserve someone like you prying into his personal life, so it’s probably for the best that you keep your distance. He’s probably relieved that you didn’t need a hint from him to back off.

The only issue was: you were suddenly needed. The Planet’s elite (main) team of reporters were building a case, so to speak. On LuthorCorp and the corruption surrounding Lex Luthor’s business dealings. 

Lois Lane had made contact with the Planet’s first LuthorCorp defector. The first willing to go on record. And that had broken the seal on Luthorgate (patent pending). Since then, testimonials were flying in from ex-employees struck with the sudden safety to speak their truth. Which meant you were on-call. 

When your visits to the post office had once been a single trip on the daily, now they were at a minimum three times. Three times a day. At least you were getting your steps in.

It was nice, though. You had to admit it. To be needed. You actually found yourself looking forward to coming in each day, if only for the familiarity that has grown between you and your colleagues at the Planet. They know your name now and they greet you with it every morning…

“No, because the more pressure you put on the story, then only more people will start speaking out on Luthorgate-” You don’t catch the beginning of the conversation, only the tail-end. Already it has you smiling to yourself.

“Jimmy, I appreciate the sentiment, but for the love of all that is holy, please- stop calling it Luthorgate,” Lois sighs, casting him a weary glance with a shake of her head. “The people need to take this seriously.”

“The hashtag is trending, Lois. It’s too late,” Comes Clark’s voice. It washes over you like a beam of light streaming in through the curtains of your bedroom in the early morning. Soft warmth, a gentle rousing. 

He adjusts his glasses to sit higher up his nose when he looks up from the paper he’s hunched over, grinning over at Lois. Their eyes meet and hers seem to soften.

Your heart lurches in your throat with a jump of its beat. The light grows blinding, and you feel your smile dim in return. You suddenly feel like an intruder, averting your eyes.

“The more you deny Luthorgate, the stronger it grows,” Jimmy smiles wickedly, his words forcing a laugh right out of you unexpectedly. The back of your hand flies to your mouth, heat biting at your cheeks. The group turns, faces lighting up in recognition at the sight of you. 

“Hey, Y/N. Yeah, that is what I said. But I definitely didn’t call it that, Jimmy,” Lois doesn’t even need to search your features. You had been saved in the mental vault. More greetings followed. Why couldn’t you stop smiling?

“Do you need something, Ms. Mail?” Mr. Lombard cuts in, the curt tone of his voice making your eyes snap to him. Steve sat at his desk, brows raised in thin patience. 

It was the way he looked at you that shrunk your posture, shoulders sinking with a weight you had forgotten to carry. Right. You were intruding.

“Just… good morning. Wanted to check in. But I’m headed to the post office now,” You give a nod, avoiding the sets of eyes and how they now made your skin crawl in discomfort. This wasn’t how you wanted to be noticed. They weren’t seeing, they were judging. It was so obvious now. They remembered you, as the annoying girl who delivered their mail but lingered too long.

What you didn’t notice was the set of eyes that were seeing. He hadn’t even felt your approach, because your presence had felt so different when you first joined the group. 

You had a gentle luminance radiating around you. Kissing the air your form touched. A dream of something divine. Like the moon hanging over a lake, glimmers of twinkling light with each gentle stir of the water. He couldn’t form a single thought. Couldn’t even manage a greeting. He just watched it flutter as it haloed you, entranced.  

But then Steve had dismissed you, and it was like ink had been dumped in the lake. Staining all it touched, smothering that light as if it had never existed. 

Clark watches you go, studying the strange change. He felt a wave of something unfamiliar. Long buried. It was the same sting in his chest when someone spoke over his Ma. That feeling of powerlessness. Powerless despite his strength, unable to use it. Unable to help someone when you know you could have. It made him physically ache, how your smile had dropped. The way your shoulders had sunk.

It was frustration. It was regret. It was anger.

“You know, you could be a lot nicer, Steve,” Clark snapped. The sound cut through the office like a whip. Cat even flinched where she stood by the far copy machine. 

“Why should I, Kent? When you’ve got plenty to spare,” Steve snorts, though there’s a certain wariness in his eyes as he steals a glance at Clark. Sizing him up. Clark never spoke like that. And he hadn’t meant to, but he was just… so angry, for you. That someone thought it was okay to treat you like that. That you thought it was the way you deserved to be treated

You were just shining. Now you were… absorbing. Clark straightened up in his seat. Absorbing. As he weighed the thought, the more it made sense. Of course! It couldn’t be you, bearing such darkness. It was what you absorbed from those around you.

And when you were just you, quietly glowing and caressing the air around you with that gentle radiance. The kind one only wants to bottle up and admire forever. Reflecting the echo of the beauty of what shines before you, while a part of you remains always hidden away. Just like the moon… oh, he was done for.

Previous Chapter — Chapter Two

Next Chapter — Chapter Four

The first thing that you noticed when you moved to Metropolis was the buzz. Unlike any you’ve ever known before. Incessant, never resolving. The murmuring of a hive that refused to rest, always working, always producing. And ever evolving.

You could stand in a crowd of dozens, hundreds, and not a single person would stray from their own task of obedience to their inner narrative. Caught in the profundity of their own existence, failing to see the value of another’s. 

Before so many, yet utterly unseen. But you could feel them all.

With unsure eyes, you searched. Not only looking, but dissecting. A man responds a bit too sharply at the shrinking woman by his side as he cuts off her unnecessary apology, before laughing it off with his buddy. He hates her. He hates women. A child tugging at her mother’s skirt, hoping to call her attention while she tended to her son’s endless demands. Picking favorites.

You saw it all. And it stuck. It stung. Always. 

But you can’t move through life with a bleeding heart. So you shut it off. Shoved it down. Every incident, every observation, catalogued away in a far recess of your mind. What’s stepping in worth anyways? You’d likely never see them again.

A city with a population in the millions. This was a lonely city.

It was unnatural, the natural current of self-importance that pushed the souls in this sprawling throng. 

You thought things would improve when you finally left the doom and gloom of Gotham City behind. Working at a diner on the outskirts of the city with one of the highest crime rates in the world didn’t exactly nurture your nervous system.

But Metropolis was an entirely different playing field. In Gotham, you had the security in familiarity. This city possessed a lack of certainty that made it difficult to drop your guard. At least back home, you knew to always expect some, for lack of better terms, fuck-shit. But here in Metropolis, just when you’d begin to settle, to take a pause and stop to smell the roses, some gargantuan creature would appear and rampage the square of central plaza. 

And you’d still have to show up at work as if nothing at all was wrong. Such is the beauty of late-stage capitalism. 

It wasn’t the worst job in the world though. You had been lucky enough to snag a position as a mail clerk for the Daily Planet only days after your move. The pay was no better, equally as abysmal, but that didn’t matter to you. It was simple, quiet. Stable. You couldn’t ask for more.

And yet you did. This ache, this pull, it was relentless. No matter how hard you tried to put an end to it, to strike it down in its tracks whenever that promise of consumption threatened to drag you down with clawing hands, stained with ink of the deepest void, dagger-like nails digging into your crawling skin for securement of your devotion. See me instead, it cried. Acknowledge me, this shadow aspect you’d prefer to maintain cloaked in its darkness.

It was a craving so dark and deep, on a base level. Making it impossible to fully deny. A hunger for reciprocity. 

For another to see you. To not be looked upon with just a blind glance, faceless in another’s memory. But instead, to be felt back. To be heard in return.

But no one ever did.

Metropolis. The loneliest city in the world.

It was an unusually quiet day the first day you began working at the Planet. The kind that made you wonder if there truly was a higher-power, who had finally decided to smile down on you with its favor. No alien invasions or covert villainous conspiracy to reported on. 

But a quiet day at the Daily Planet was still one teeming with a sense of urgency, as you came to find out. 

An overwhelming workload—always subject to change. By the time an article was ready to reach print, public interest had already been lost. The sense of urgency was a necessity, not a consequence. Deadlines, deadlines, lines going dead. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Busy bees. Beautiful, controlled chaos. You could almost see the method to the madness.

“You’ll be responsible for managing incoming and outgoing mail, including sorting, processing, and distributing it within the publication…” The young lady in charge of guiding you through the agonizing task of getting the hang of a new job was doing what might be someone’s best. But not hers.

Her ‘training’ consisted of pointing and describing. All the energy she could spare being directed into condescension she didn’t bother to hide.

“This is the newsroom, where our reporters work. Do not bother them. Do you understand?” You force yourself to nod, almost playing into her projection.

She thinks I’m an idiot. And nothing you could do would change the narrative about you in her mind that she had already assigned you.

You doubted it was envy, because what did she have to envy of you? The thought is absurd, impossible to believe. And you don't entertain it. You can see the distaste playing across her beautiful features now. A souring in her expression as her long, wispy lashes flutter, her plump lips curling down at the edges against her knowing. 

Maybe it was the way you held yourself. Eyes that flitted around, struggling to maintain eye contact. Until they kept it too long, bringing forth discomfort. The smile you didn’t let slip, frozen in perpetual politeness, hoping to ease that same discomfort. It was habit, instinctual at this point.

Maybe it was just that they saw a weakness in those things that attracted their forceful personalities. Because they knew you’d never say a word. They could push, push, push. And you would keep smiling, wondering if you had done something to lose the chance at being friendly.

“For Mr. White, Ms. Lane, Mr. Lombard, Mr. Kent…” She continued to name off those who would be in your rounds for mail division, her voice slowing unnaturally as she pointedly enunciates each name. You absorbed her words, listening intently as to not let them slip from your mind. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” You nod, before taking a deep breath. “Good. Mr. White is waiting for you,” She tells you, her cherry-stained lips lifting into a smirk. Mr- who? White? Where?? You hate to, but you must ask. She doesn’t linger, however. Leaving you standing without a damn clue. Your shoulders drop. Maybe you were as dumb as she thought after all. Your heart sinks. “Excuse me,” A voice cuts through, strong yet… soft. 

You turn, eyes expecting to meet another’s but only finding a chest. A pattern of tiny little brown squirrels are embroidered into the forest green silk backdrop of a loosened tie. You look up through your lashes to meet the man’s eyes behind the thick lenses that veiled them. His dreamy, oceanic eyes. That seem to swim with a strange look that you don’t recognize. Can’t put a name to what it means. It unnerves you. Why are you looking at me like that?

The chaos of the newsroom suddenly wasn’t so loud in your ears, static dulling to an inaudible murmur.

“H-hi, hey. Hello. I haven’t seen you around here before. Are you new here, uh, to the Planet?” He stumbles over his words, but only for a moment. As if he hadn’t planned what he was going to say before he approached you.

“Oh, yes. Today is my first day,” You say with a charged nod. The nerves practically radiate from you until you manually reel it in. Goodness, he’s tall.

You step back instinctively with an unconscious shift on your feet, placing even more space between the two of you. He already stands at a respectful distance. Your averted eyes miss the way he shrinks at the action, hunching his posture further as he senses discomfort.

“First day. Wow! I remember my first day… I spilled my coffee all over my shirt and had to go home and change. Perry really chewed me out for that one. Well then, consider me a part of your welcoming committee! It’s so nice to meet you,” He beams, and his smile is so bright. He smiles like the sun. All you can do is stare up at him as the glare blinds you, like he’s something alien. Not of this planet. Did Earth make anyone so… jolly? “I’m Clark. Clark Kent.”

“Clark. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kent,” You say politely. You tell him your name, and he repeats it under his breath with a determined softness. Determined to commit it to memory. But you know it will probably slip away from him the moment you do.

“Mr. Kent? Oh, just Clark is, uh, a-okay,” Clark shakes his head, dipping his chin in a poor attempt to hide the way his skin heats at the formality. It’s cute in a way he knows he probably shouldn’t like, coming from a nice, respectful girl. But he’s just Clark. “So… need help with anything-? Finding anything, that is.”

“Oh. they said Mr. White was expecting me, and I don’t know where exactly to find him,” You say, taking a deep breath. The way your features shift gives the sense that it almost pains you to ask. But Clark only smiles, and it never faltered once as he leads you right to Perry’s office with all the chivalry of a true gentleman. "And here we are, Ms. Y/N..."

That was when it began. The pull towards him. 

Unavoidable. Utterly inevitable. Because he had been… so kind.

You knew you were worthy of love. You were a human being and that alone was apparently a qualifying factor. Or so said the tarot cards readers on your TikTok feed.

But it was hard to feel. No palpable thing it was, a fruit you could reach out and take a bite of, fill your cup with ultimate fulfillment in the form of some love so unconditional, there’s no room for further yearning. 

They make it sound so easy. But it was not.

So this… thing. This crush. Whatever this thing was with Clark, could not, in no possible future, be pursued. Not encouraged, nor entertained. To completion—whatever that may be. Let it remain as some silly schoolgirl infatuation that passes with time. It’s just a phase.

You shudder to even name it. To classify it means to have studied it, and admitting to yourself that it existed in the first place. 

Nothing. That’s what it was. That’s what you were to him. Nothing. Just the girl who slings mail. He existed in his own world, a star in the center of endless abyss. Sunshine of the Daily Planet, clocking in each day to ever so diligently type up the next front-page hit. Some thoughtful and moving piece, to be sure.

And you existed in your own. Looking right into the sun even when the glare is blinding. Idiot. 

You couldn’t help how your gaze always gravitated towards him. A nervous flicker to that familiar desk from the moment you step on the floor, body tense with a skin-crawling awareness of how wrongly you held yourself. You tried your best to make it look natural, but nothing ever came naturally to you. Except maybe… fading into the background. 

With a pitiful firing of ‘excuse me’s that never fail to go unheard, each lap around the office resembles more a digging-in of the metaphorical knife. Here in Metropolis, people don’t even have the care to dislike, writing you off as a simple waste of space and never batting another eye at you. 

You don’t know which stings more.

So it’s no surprise that you gravitated towards Clark.

Clark was good and Clark was pure and Clark was every little thing that you were not.

And you would not infect him with this virus. This clinging stick that you could not get off no matter how harsh you scrubbed. 

With all the Lois Lane’s and Cat Grant’s of the world, Clark had his fair share of wonderful, accomplished, stunning choices. Choices he deserves. Who were better suited for him then you would ever be.

You, with your blush a bit too intense, a shade too saturated for the tone of your skin perhaps. But that’s what you liked. And maybe your eye shadow wasn’t perfectly blended. You had still tried. You had shown up for yourself, despite it all. 

Maybe you should take better care of the beat-up Mary Janes you wore to work because the leather was already cracking when you first thrifted them, and maybe you should take more care with your surroundings because your thigh was still tender to the touch where you had bruised it days before running into the edge of your bed-frame. But that’s what made you the person you were.

And maybe your idea of bravery was sitting alone in the park by yourself. Because that took a kind of courage most people wouldn’t understand. To get over that voice in your mind that never quieted, constantly spewing exactly what others must be thinking. So to ignore it, that was brave. At least in your book.

You weren’t Lois Lane and you weren’t Cat Grant and that was okay. You were your own kind of person. And that meant you fit into your own kind of world, not theirs.

So keep your head down you will, and fly too close to the sun you will not.

If only he hadn't remembered your stupid name...

Next Chapter — Chapter Two

That had been months ago. Now, there were a spare few crystals in the Kryptonian archive you had not yet studied. It was difficult to access the archive. Only when Kal-El was away and Krypto remained could you do so.

Even still, there was so much you failed to understand. Their ways were old, yet so far ahead. And all lost. Only their echo remained.

You had cried at the discovery of what had happened to Krypton. The carelessness of consumption led to the planet’s destruction. The core of his home-world had exploded and marked Krypton’s end. All of his kind had been erased. Only Kal-El remained as the last son of Krypton.

You understood Kal-El better now. And the mission his parents entrusted him with. Leave us to our own devices, and Earth would meet the same fate. Carry on their legacy. Take as many wives as willing and fit to carry the next generation of Kryptonians, so that his line and his species may not end with him. 

That, you realize, was what you had chosen when you became his. And he had agreed. Which meant he saw the potential in you, and that made you feel something you were averse to admit. 

What would a child with this man look like? Would you have a son, as forthright as his father? Would he have the same dreamy, oceanic eyes? Would a little black curl fall onto his tiny forehead in the same manner as his father’s?

Would you have a little girl, who looked like you?

The thoughts bring a smile to your lips in the dimness of your darkened chambers. All the wives have their own, far underground. Safe. The space is bathed in a serene luminescence of icy blue, lit by glowing crystals that could be adjusted come time for sleep. 

Rest. What you await. Kal-El has returned from his recent conquest; Oceania—now under his rule.

But rarely does he grace your bed. Not when Lois is here. And Lana. Some of the other women hold his lust, but his heart’s compass holds more guidance over his actions. So you lay down at night, always trusting that there would be no need to open your eyes once they closed until the time came to rise again.

The beat of your heart is gentle in your ears, a soothing lullaby that falls further to rest the longer you concentrate on its rhythm. Like a soft, steady metronome, marking the time of your persisting existence in vital song. Thump-thump. I am here. Thump-thump. I am safe.

Surrounded in softness and stillness, drifting in that sweet, cloudy state between consciousness, you play with the smooth expanse of the other side of the mattress. No rumple to the sheets, untouched. The coldness begins to seep up through the linen, icy tendrils wrapping around your fingers to claim you in its frigid embrace despite the transmuted climate of your quarters, adjusted to replace the warmth the Fortress lacked. 

The nights were always cold, because there was no distraction, you realize. The cold, in truth, never leaves. It is only at night that you feel it in its fullness.

Against your will, salt stings at your eyes. The faint glow from the dimmed crystals swims in your vision. You blink it away, drawing in a soft breath through your nose that fills your aching chest with practiced tolerance. You were safe. And that was all that you had asked for.

But you wanted more. Since the thought was first planted in your brain, it had flourished like a stubborn weed. With each day that passed, the 'what if?'s grew into 'why not?'s.

It had always been there, this desire to care. To nurture those around you. But a child was never something you had desired, at least not as strongly as you did now. Perhaps because there had been no opportunity to. In the life before, you had been content on your own, watching those around you fall into the role.

It was a concept simply not to be entertained—an intrusive thought—because never before had there been someone at your side for you to seriously consider the possibility.

And you suppose your union with Kal-El is quite serious, considering you wear a ring on your finger branded with his house's symbol.

Knowing his mission, what his parents asked of him… he would give it to you, wouldn't he? If you asked…

Your hand falls to your stomach, caressing over the soft flesh through the silk of your nightgown. You could imagine it so vividly in your mind, the cradle of your womb. A quiet, gentle place, who wept crimson tears each month for the angel who not yet was. Empty. Anticipation preserved as you kept on, forgotten. It would remain barren as far as you could see. You, alone, could not realize these dreams into the physical. Not without another. Would you dare to ask?

You wouldn't. But your mind loves to wander.

What a gift your little girl would be. You would adore her, you know it. Whoever she turned out to be. There would be no safer place than in your arms, open for her to be held whenever she wished. Not even Kal-El could stop you from what you'd do to protect her, not that you think he would.

Such a lovely teacher he would make, steadfast and intuitive as he was. He would guide his children, teach them his ways. The ways of the home he never knew, and Krypton would live on in them.

Your eyes begin to water once more, and you have to bite into your lip to cease its quivering. You curl into yourself, snuggling into the sheets that radiate with your own warmth. This small comfort you cherished.

Anything you want, I'd give you, baby-girl, you think. All that wasn't mine, you'd have. It's already yours, even now. You just have to ask. One day. Oh, one day...

You couldn't wait for that day. To look upon such pure light and know you had a hand in creating something so beautiful, even when you got so much wrong in this life. Never them.

Anything you were, anything you had done, granted absolution in the form of an angel who knew nothing of any pain, any burden. The very best of you, created to cycle once again, into a new life. One all their own to live. It was so beautiful. And you would be blessed to witness it, to love them. In the most unconditional form one can.

You clutch at your stomach tenderly, drawing in a shaky breath. I love you so much. I don't even know you yet, but I already love every little part of you. I hope I'll get to meet you one day.

You try not to think of the possibility that you never will.

You make out a disturbance in the shadows, the glow of the lamp catching on a shifting figure to impede the light's path. Your heart gives a jump.

You sit upright in the bed, wiping stray tears away with the back of your hand as you peer through the wispy drapery of the spilling canopy. The gauzy veil stirs delicately like a whisper in the still air, only teasing a glimpse through its sheer shroud. A silhouette sits on the lounge opposite your bed. 

“It’s only me,” Kal-El calls out, taking pity on your pounding heart. The sleek seat is dwarfed by the bulk of his form, only further illuminating the solidness of his size.

There’s a measured quality to the manner of his speech, as if each word is carefully weighed. Unnecessary exposure restrained from being observed. He holds close to himself. Not allowing for nearness.

“Kal-El. I hadn’t expected to see you…” You say softly, rubbing the weight of drowsiness and any remaining emotion from your tired eyes. "I apologize. I would have stayed up and received you."

“I did not expect to find you awake,” The words don't set you at ease, though you doubt they were meant to.

"Oh..." Your mind lingers on what unsaid.

He hadn't entered your chambers expecting to find you awake. What did he seek from you in your sleep? Most likely to monitor your vitals. You knew it was something he did with all the wives.

You only find struggle when searching for a proper response. Now that he was there before you, an overwhelm of all you wished you could say rushed through your mind.

All these months, and the two of you still mere strangers. He remains silent behind the sheer partition.

"Would you…" lie down with me? You nearly ask, but the thought could be taken as an insult. It is too tender an ask, especially to make of this man. You know his preferences. "Shall I sit with you, Kal-El?"

"No. I did not come to sit with you," Kal-El sighs. He is so withdrawn tonight. And tense. You can see it in the way he sits, the failed rise and fall of his dark silhouette. As if he's forgotten to breathe.

"Why did you come?" The question appears in your mind before it is chased almost immediately by the sound of your voice uttering it, breaking the frozen energy of uninterrupted air. You dread the answer, what disappointment it could bring.

"It has been long since I last sought you…" He tells you in that deep baritone, steady and guarded. His fingers dig into the rounded arm of the sofa, creating indents in the cobalt fabric.

"The others-" You cut yourself off before he can detect the envy. You don't mean to feel this way. You hadn't asked for his love, solely his protection. But oh, how you wished for more.

You can't deny how your heart squeezes to see him with them. The way his eyes twinkle as he looks down upon his ladies, full lips lifted in a ghost of the smile you know is only reserved for them, and their times alone together, which had become more and more frequent. Until it seemed you were forgotten entirely.

Perhaps that is why his appearance in your chambers is such a surprise. You hadn't expected him to remember even your name.

"The others?" He prompts you to finish, standing then from the lounge. He doesn't approach, instead he retreats. Your heart gives a squeeze, fearing for a moment you've pushed him away. Please, don't go. Not again.

Kal-El moves through the darkened chambers, taking in the space you've made your own. The shadow imprints of a lived-in home. The little ornaments that mark belonging which sit upon your nightstand. How your scent clings to each piece of furniture, dancing in the air like a lure of enticement.

That scent. His jaw clenches painfully as a sharp exhale escapes his nostrils. Even one as powerful as he was helpless to ignore it. Not when his physiology eagerly anticipated these conditions.

“Well, they…” Your voice is quiet, but you know his hearing would catch it. As it does every little sound. The others could offer better company, are your unspoken words. And you're sure he'd prefer that. "Do you not wish to visit them instead, Kal-El?"

He's so still, and you know he's watching you through the folds and wrinkles in the canopy that ripple with the steady circulation of filtered air. Again, you find yourself pinned in place by the intensity. Much like that first meeting. Only now you feel exposed under a different lens. It was not an assessment of threat this time. Now, it was: to mate or not to mate?

"I'm here because you're ready. Do you wish for me to leave?” He says with that air of detachment you've grown to associate him with.

“I’m ready?” You repeat, not understanding at first. Your mind's eyes conjures the image of a calender, dates marking phases. Oh. The words of his parents and their mission for him swim between your ears. Thoughts of that angel that could be creep in. You have to take a deep breath to calm your pounding heart. “How did you know?”

“Because I can smell you,” He tells you simply, offering no further explanation. Of course he could. "Now, shall I go, seek out the others?"

"Whatever pleases you, Kal-El," You tell him, lowering your eyes to your lap. Your heart protests against the diplomatic answer, but it truly seems he is only here out of necessity, in obedience to plans not his own.

And you don't want to put a child on a man who doesn't truly want one. It would only be a disservice to your baby. "Stop that. I asked you a question. It would please me if you answered."

"I want you to stay. But I don't want you to stay if it isn't what you wish for yourself," Still, you try to appeal to him. Your fingers twitch in your lap, eager for just a touch. "Beyond your… mission." Oh, no. You aren't supposed to know about that.

The space grows charged with dread, like static in the air before lightening strikes.

His boots are heavy against the polished tile, each step catching in your throat as the sound reverberates around your quiet chambers.

The thin, rippling curtain of the canopy rips away to expose you. He stands so close, you have to lean back just to meet his eyes. With the light at his back, it is hard to make out his features. But that look in his eyes says all.

Disgust. His gaze drift over your form and you nearly flinch at the way he regards you.

“Where did you get this from?” He asks, a large hand reaching out to play with the elegant pendant at your neck, before he pulls his touch away like your skin burned him.

The necklace had been a gift. For Lois. Who had rejected it. Lois has rejected all his ways. She has rejected him.

His hand forms a fist down at his side, eyes closing for a moment before they reopen with a measured intake of breath. How long could this go on? Lois' coldness was a pain unlike any he had ever known, that not even his invincibility could protect him from. He resigned to giving her the space he knew she wanted, the time he knew she needed to get used to this harsh and abrupt change. But she never has. Will she ever?

“Oh, this… well, Lois gave it to me. She said she had so many, she didn’t know what to do with them,” You tell him softly. True, she had such a collection. But never did she wear them. You always thought it to be such a waste. All those beauties, collecting dust in the far depths of her closet, never to be worn or admired.

Much like you, never to be chosen or cherished.

"She could wear them. Like I intended," Kal-El says, his words making you stiffen. How foolish you are. Of course, it had been a gift.

“It was for her…” You breathe out, understanding fully now. Lois should have mentioned that it had been a gift, even if she did not want it. It wasn’t meant for you. What a slap in the face it must be for him to see it on your body, not on hers. “Would you like me to take it off?”

“Don’t,” Kal-El mutters, his eyes still not yet pulling away from the exquisite gem resting enticingly above the swell of your breasts. How the intricately cut teardrop glimmers in the low light, the infinite facets of its refractions showcasing its caliber.

It would have looked so gorgeous on Lois.

"My mission," He straightens up, repeating your earlier words. "What is it that you think you know?"

"I didn't want to go there. Krypto made me," You say quickly, eyes going a bit wide as the words run away from you. That was half-true. Krypto tricked you into it, but only the first time. And Kal-El was more perceptive than you could comprehend.

"The archive. Did he make you go every time?" Kal-El demands with a knowing edge, seizing your upper arms in his grip. He pulls you close with a frightening ease, though there's a gentleness in his actions.

He had seen the log. He was no fool to believe Krypto had suddenly taken an interest in his home. No. It was one of his wives. And now he knew which. It was you. Learning about his home.

His grip on your arms gentles. But he doesn't let go, not yet. He was annoyed, angry. That you accessed something so personal as if it belonged to you. It was all he had left of his deep within, the world he would never know, the family he would never have. It was his.

"Are you bored here? Do I need to provide you with more ways to waste your time so you'll stay out of my things?" He growls, the roughness in his voice making you flinch. His eyes looked so angry. It was making you nervous. Scared. That you had jeopardized your position here.

"No… I wasn't trying to, I just, that's not why I…" Your breath quickens as you flounder to explain. You just wanted to understand. But he was right. It wasn't yours to go through. You look down with a gentle frown creasing the soft space between your brows.

Kal-El notices your heart rate spiking too high for his liking. He releases you fully, and you fall back onto the soft, pillowy duvet beneath. He rises to stand, "Then why? Nosy thing. You should know better,"

"I wanted to know you—and Kara—better. That's why I wanted to see."

"Then ask," Kal-El sighs.

"I just wanted to see-"

"I did not give you permission to. Who do you think you are?" Those words make you flinch. Your eyes flicker with hurt, the daggers in his glare smothering the light from your eyes, dimming them.

"I… no one. I'm sorry," You look down at your lap once more. No one. That was all you are, and all you would ever be to him. To anyone. You feel your lip quiver and bite down hard to cease the involuntary action. It draws blood. Sharp and metallic on your tongue. It makes you feel nauseous when coupled with the ache in your chest as your heart is forcibly hollowed out by your mind. "I won't go in there ever again. I swear."

"It doesn't matter how upset I am. Do not efface yourself. Enough," Kal-El says your name, a deep sigh. You don't look up, not even at his call. "This… is my fault. It has been too long since I last visited you."

"I could go longer," You whisper. It was childish, and untrue, and you both knew it.

"You earthly women are all the same. You say one thing, but I can listen into your heart and detect the lie," Kal-El scoffs, shaking his head at your petulant display. You weren't one to act this way.

"No. We aren't the same," You don't have to say it to make your meaning clear. You're no Lois and no Lana. It's the first time you've alluded to the disparity, to him. Some of the other women go on about the unfairness of it, but you've always maintained a silence.

In all things. Perhaps that is why he has stayed away. All with you is uncertain in this unfamiliarity.

"No. You are not," He mutters. His eyes trace over you, like a caress. To your lips. Down to your stomach.

"You don't have to be here. I studied the crystals. There's artificial processes for this…" You say. There's a soft wince to your words, a lack of knowledge in the matters leaving you timid to broach the topic. "For conception."

"Oh, yeah?" Kal-El leans down, coming to rest with you blocked in by his arms, the moody glow of the distant light deepening the lines of his toned muscles through his suit. His lips quirk up at the edge, creasing the charming indentations in his cheeks. "Studied the crystals, huh? That nosy?"

You stay pointedly quiet, biting into your lip. More nosy than Lois is. You could be real mean but you decide against it. Never let him say you've never done anything for him.

Kal-El studies you for a moment, before uttering the soft word, “Beautiful."

"Huh?" You think you've misheard him for a moment, looking up at him to meet his gaze with owlish blinks.

"My gift. It looks beautiful on you," His finger grazes the smooth skin between your collarbones, following an imaginary line down to play with the teardrop once more. You shiver at the coolness of his touch.

"T- thank you…" Your heart gives a jump. Beautiful.

He looks so good in this light. The way the shadows dance across the contours of his appeal the light does not paint, drawing your eyes to the gentle impressions of resting dimples that mark his cheeks, the appraising narrow of his own eyes. The swell of his smooth lips. Just a taste. It would feed you for a lifetime. If he'd just kiss you once, you'd cling to its memory for all your days, you swear.

"Turn over. Get into position." His voice cuts through your indulgent thoughts, grounding the cosmic drift of impossible fantasies quickly running away from you. His hands find your hips, though only to guide you onto your stomach when you fail to move. You rest your upper half on your elbows, lifting your ass up into the air as your cheeks begin to burn in humiliation; an unforgiving sear.

Kal-El always took you in this way, the times he's laid with you. Deep into the dimness of night, with him behind. Not a secret, but a dirty relapse he seemed to sooner avoid.

You won't complain. Not when there was a chance… a chance it could take, if only you were so lucky.

There's a shuffle of fabric as he slips out of his suit with ease, leaving it in a heap of rich primaries on the cool limestone floor.

"You'll take my fingers first. It's been too long since you last had my cock. It's no good if I break you." So matter-of-fact. Allowing for little deviation of the unspoken routine. The bed dips under his weight as he kneels behind your bent form.

"Yes, Kal-El," You agree faintly, voice breathy from the boldness of his words. It was stirring that ache to life. Not the one in your chest. The one lower, between your legs.

The quiet smoulder that could not be cooled despite all your attempts to smother it out fully. You knew only he could make it go away, by setting all alight. He was the fuel and he was the flame.

He can feel the heat bubbling up beneath your skin, blood softly simmering. It makes the thirst collecting in his mouth worsen. The first thing he had noticed about you after your scent, how warm you were to the touch, as though you seemed to run hotter than most.

As the rough tips of his cool fingers ghost up the back of your thigh, you give a shiver.

Kal-El reminded you of the snow. So beautiful, yet so cold.

"Relax for me," He whispers, followed by a curl of vowels you don't understand. Though it sounds familiar, as if you've heard it some place before.

Kal-El delicately brushes the skirt of your silky nightgown over your ass and hips, gathering it at your waist. His gaze falls upon the bareness of your sex, exposed to the air's sudden chill. The distant blue radiance crept over your skin, painting the sap of your arousal and making it glimmer. Like ripples over the water's surface. By Rao.

"I'm going to touch you now. Are you ready?" Kal-El rasps, a cutting sharpness in his voice. You can't see how his nostrils flare, senses overwhelmed with the scent of what lied within, waiting. Ovum. His jaw clenches in restraint.

So receptive and sweet, practically reaching out to him, sensing something familiar. An ancient knowing. Cells called to one another in divine union.

This is why he can not bare to lay with you. There is something abnormal in your chemistry. Your hormones are too strong, they cling to all they touch, a heavenly aroma curated to drive him mad. He knows it will take with you, he knows it. And it frightens him. So he delays the inevitability.

But he can no longer. He tried to begin with them, Lois and Lana. Gave them months of chance to be the first to gift the world with eternal evidence of their connection. But they lacked the receptivity. It wouldn't take if any linger of doubt remained in either beings, the Kryptonian race's advanced evolutionary process of natural selection. Only those ready and fit for it could procreate.

"Yes. I'm ready. Please," You bite your lip, the word coming out more desperate than you intended as you struggle to keep still. Can't he see, how you ache for it?

No... it would be impossible for him to see. You've never told him, nor anyone else. How badly you wished to feel that sweet weight cradled in your arms, to press your cheek against the downy softness of theirs, nuzzle your nose against the little tuft of hair at their scalp. To inhale that smell so uniquely their own, of a baby only just welcomed. All my love is yours, sweetheart. All the love I never had…

"Shh. I won't make you beg," He whispers, laying a hand upon the small of your back. He's gentle as he presses down, urging you to rest your chest on the softness beneath. To relax into this receiving.

Your back arches as you follow his silent instruction, an instinctual movement in sync with his own. His large hand smooths across the silky plane to cradle your hip and the outer curve of your ass, forearm resting like a grounding weight over your lower back.

His fingers grasp at the meaty flesh, kneading it with an almost reverent squeeze. It nearly makes you gasp out aloud, biting down more harshly into your lower lip instead, so unused to touch that this morsel of closeness is dizzying in its intensity. A creeping flood that fills your mind with a syrupy warmth, all mental processes coming to a crashing halt as each thought slips away from you.

It's only his touch. And what it's doing to you. It's only you and it's only him.

The hand that had been resting at his side twitches in reminder of possible use. He finally moves from its torturous stagnancy, softly widening the stance of your knees to spread your thighs further apart for him.

It's difficult not to squirm as his fingers draw a tentative ascent up the soft flesh of your inner thigh, as if he's making every effort to soothe you into each alteration of sense. But all it's doing is driving you crazy-

"Mmm…" A soft whimper floats away from you in muffled ears as his fingers reach their apex, carefully coming to rest over your warmth as he palms your aching core. A jolt of heat stirs your womb. With deft ease, he parts the swollen lips with a light caress, spreading your arousal over his fingers.

He uses your natural slickness to delicately swirl the throbbing bud at the crest of your folds. A shuddering breath stumbles out from your bitten lips and you hide your face in the crook of your elbow.

Blood. He scents it in the air, that heady metallic smell that clings to the nostrils. It shoots a bolt of panic through his chest, his ministrations coming to an abrupt pause.

"Why-?" You whine out at the loss but he steadily ignores it. He scans over you fervently through radiographic vision, searching for the source of the smell.

Lips. Using the hand at your hip, he threads his fingers through your hair to gently pull your face up. His deep blue eyes shine ardent and intense, narrowing on the wounded flesh. He doesn't even mention it, only shoves his thumb past your lips before returning to his mission.

Bite down on him instead. It won't hurt one bit.

"Relax. I need to prepare you, remember?" He tells you, keeping his movements slow to get you used to the feel of his fingers on your most intimate place. He draws careful circles over your swollen clit.

"Uhh-huh," You can't really remember, but he doesn't know that. There's no way he could possibly see the lost look in your half-lidded eyes as the side of your face presses into the silken sheets beneath.

A damp heat breaks out over your skin. Your mind is a chalice overfilling with a haze of sweet fog.

He's methodical, each brush of your delicate pearl an artist's stroke. His practiced fingers know exactly how to touch you, tease you, bringing you closer and closer as the dull ache in your lower stomach melts away into a steady lick of flames against your insides.

His fingers dip up, teasing your entrance. You're so wet, he nearly slips one right in. Instead, he presses two against your opening, working you open with a yummy stretch.

To him, this isn't about drawing out your pleasure. It is about efficiently preparing you so that he can streamline your coupling.

At least, that's what he is telling himself, repeating the words over and over again in his mind to drown out the other more dangerous thoughts warring, trying to take hold. So warm. So wet. Smells so good.

He could taste your arousal in the air with each shift of hormones, the distant musk of your cum approaching on the horizon. It is burning him up from the inside out.

"You're close. I can smell it," Kal-El hisses, releasing a sharp exhale through his nose. You flinch with a soft whimper around his thumb. The blazing heat in your cheeks grows feverish in shame.

Despite this pool of humiliation collecting in your core, your hips move against your will for more, more, more. Your tongue swirls the tip of his finger unconsciously, eyes fluttering shut in unalloyed bliss.

"Stay still," He grunts. Kal-El pulls his thumb out of your mouth with a pop, returning his hand to your hip a bit too harshly. You bite into your pillow to quiet the needy moan that escapes you at his unintended slap.

"I'm sorry," You whisper shakily, legs beginning to tremble. He pumps his fingers into you, curling them just right, hitting a spot you weren't aware of until its evocation was all consuming.

"Oh, please, I- I can't-" Now you can't hide your moans, soft cries bubbling up your throat. So, so good. With each inner stroke of his fingers, a wave of heat shoots through your core.

"You can. I need you to do this for me. Let go," Kal-El growls, the rough command in his voice allowing for no other alternative.

You don't fight it. You don't fight him. You just submit, submit, submit. It's making his head spin, the depth of trust you're entrusting him with. And you don't even realize, eager to fall.

Fall you do, right into a sweeping orgasm that crashes into you like a seismic wave. A fragile keening cry swallows the stillness of your quarters, filling the space with the song of your bliss. Your eyes press shut as tears stream down your heated cheeks, prisms of infinite colors, ever-changing, dance in the darkness behind your lids.

It's only you and it's only him. It's only warmth and it's only bliss.

Through the blood rushing in your ears like the low roar of river rapids, you catch his quiet coaxing in distant murmurs.

"Yes, yes, baby. Just like that…" Baby. It nearly makes you sob, your voice giving out into a pathetic whine instead. Though it could just be the unfaltering pace of his fingers working you through your orgasm, stretching the strained, fraying thread of your sanity razor thin.

"Please. Oh, please. It's too much," You whimper through desperate chokes as you fail to catch your breath, each gulp of air just out of reach. Your legs shake with a tremor, mind warring with your body to obey his command despite the acidic sting of spasming muscles begging for reprieve. All strength leaves your core. You can't hold yourself up a moment longer.

"Shh. No begging, remember?" The grounding pressure of his hand on your hip slips away. A caress over your lower stomach, so careful and affected, before he's supporting your weight from underneath you as your hips twitch in his hold. "No wife of mine should ever beg."

Mine. Before you can cherish his words, another climax is pulling you under its current. This time, you are unprepared. He's the only thing that keeps you upright, your form melting into the bed as you shudder in devastating pleasure. He keeps you right in place, not faltering once in his precise strokes of your pulsating inner walls.

Even as his mouth salivates in compensation for his arrant thirst.

"There you go… gonna give you what you need," He whispers a bit gruffly, slowing the pump of his fingers to a lazy, tender pace. Taking mercy on your quivering form, allowing you to come down from your high before he takes you.

"I… I made a mess," You whisper, the words coming out timid. You shift with quiet unsureness. The heat in your cheeks is an obstinate smolder.

The soreness in your shoulders from supporting the weight of your upper half has you wriggling, futilely, for an easing of the discomfort. Your spine aches from the exaggerated arch of your position, petrified stiff by stasis. His arm pulls you by the hips to halt your movement, a seamless seeking of your focus.

"Shh. I need your mess. That's the only way you can take me fully," Kal-El tells you, the hand on your sensitive core slipping away. You can't see what he's doing, but you can hear his harsh swallows. And the heavy release of air that follows.

Kal-El sighs, sucking every last drop of your sweet, tangy nectar from his fingers, his eyes rolling back at the assault of your musk on his senses. It seeps into his pores, crawls under his skin, fills his lungs. He wants to roll around in it, in you. The tension has finally left his features, smoothing them out with each taste of you on his tongue.

"I need it. You," You breathe out, eyes fluttering shut in delicious fatigue as your lashes dance against the soft sheets. So bad. You've needed him for so long. It was never yours to ask for, but you know you would have begged for it eventually. You could only go without for so long. Even if it meant taking him like this. Face shoved down into the bed, ass raised up in the air on display, inhibitions of shame left at the threshold of the Fortress. "Oh, please…"

"I know you do. You don't even have to say it," He murmurs, moving his hand around to your hip as the other reaches down to his throbbing length—hot to the touch and teeming with prickling need—giving himself a languid tug. Spit dribbles onto the velvety skin of his shaft, though it had landed upon his chest first, unintentionally escaping from his lips at the sight of you before him. "It's written all over you, darlin'."

"Thank you, Kal-El," The words are a pitiful prayer, looking over your shoulder in devotion. He must see something in your eyes that stirs him, because his hand finds your chin, his thumb caressing over your soft skin very carefully. You can smell your essence soaked into his skin, clinging with a heady, musky aroma. Your cheeks tingle with renewed heat.

"You… you're doing so good. You gonna take all of me?" He asks huskily, his abdominals creasing as he bends down to gaze into your eyes, which twinkle with the faint gloss of unshed tears. There's no more restraint left within him. If only your pretty eyes could see it, how hungry he is for you.

"Uh-huh. It's… it's big," You whisper shakily, unable to pull your eyes away. He's got you hypnotized, trembling in dulcet anticipation as your mind conjures the phantom sensation of stretching in your silken walls just from remembrance of past encounters endured at his hands, at his cock.

"Easy. I know. I'll go slow. You can take it," His words are accompanied by a calm squeeze of your hip as he resets you back into the position he wants you in. You rest your head down on your arms, melting into the bed with your steady exhale.

"Mhm. I can take it. Please, let me have it," You whisper with a gentle nod. Now it's all fuzzy, a vignette of warmth bordering your vision. You've become so pliant beneath him.

He gives you a tender squeeze, pressing himself against your core, as to not startle you with a sudden intrusion. Kal-El has to bite down on his lip to quiet the filthy groan that threatens to slip out, at the mere feel of his length gliding through the wetness of your folds. "Hush, you will."

"I never get it," You had only meant to think it, but it came out a soft whisper under your breath that he hadn't missed.

Kal-El sighs, and you stiffen as his hand leaves your hip, only to softly caress down your scalp. To… sooth you. "I know. But I'm going to give it to you now, okay?"

You've died in the night. That's the only explanation.

The Fortress' climate failed and you're just a spirit in heaven while your body lies in this very bed, blue as the glacial walls and frozen just as solid.

Or perhaps, the translucent panel of the far wall broke open, flooding your chambers, drowning you in the night. Those two possibilities shone with more truth than the thought that Kal-El is with you now, looking down at you with those eyes of the sky.

Scattered over the atmosphere, colliding with each molecule of water in the air, blue paints the heavens with the sun's presiding light—an overpowering allele.

The beauty of divine phenomenon, all in his eyes.

"Thank you," You whimper, gripping at the rumpled sheets. No one's ever touched you like that. So… kindly. Sweetly.

His hand stills. Kal-El pauses, taking a moment to truly observe you. How you tremble, not in fear. In need, anticipation. How your breath shudders with each graze of his fingers. How your eyes squeeze shut, not chasing away any nightmare. Rather willing the dream not to end.

Kal-El leans back. He doesn't understand you. He's never tried to. But he could. You're receptive in every way.

"Take a deep breath for me," He whispers, notching himself at your entrance. You feel a seeking, not prodding. Your warm walls give, stretching around the girth of his bulbous head, allowing him entry.

He's so big. Inhumanely large. Each inch bleeding into the next, never-ending as he sinks into you.

"Uh-" You clutch at the sheets, and his hips still with a jolt to ease back out. Your hand flies back, finding the side of his thigh, anywhere you could reach. Nails dig into steel skin, a light brush of a feather rather than a harsh sting. Like a butterfly's wings beating against his hands, dancing in one's grasp. Leaving him weak despite the lack of strength to break skin. "Please, don't stop."

"I thought…" He shakes his head, taking a deep breath. "Okay."

Taking your wrist in his grip, he adjusts to lean over you. Pinning the arm down by your head but not letting go. You can't pull your eyes away from how his hand and yours look together.

The lines of your form have never looked so beautiful as they do in this moment, you think. Trembling in his grasp, from the overwhelm of his instigation. The sweetness of the bite in each sting. The clawing of each wave of shocking bliss he rouses. A delicious undoing.

You don't even notice his hips meeting yours as he finally bottoms out. Not as he waits for you to adjust, the heavy weight of him mixing with the pleasant pressure of the stretch.

He waits for a few minutes, so long that you start moving on your own beneath him, unsure if your mind is stretching out the time, or if he's actually keeping so still.

"No, no, you're too tight. You need to adjust," He quietly chastises. He presses you down with a hand gripping your hip. The mattress gives to compensate for your pinned flesh, cool sheets practically liquid as the icy blue silk wrinkles under your manipulation.

"But I want it," It's a whine of pure need, but you can't conjure enough shame within yourself to stop it.

"I know. But I'm going to start slow, get you used to me inside you," He sighs, explaining it to you soft and slow, not allowing himself any deeper. He's not faring better himself. The velvet of your warmth constricting him is a coiling snake, seeming to contort and curl around his length with each pulse of your walls. Practically cutting off his circulation. He can't breathe.

"I don't wanna wait," You try to shift beneath him. His hand leaves your wrist to tug at your scalp. A gentle reminder of who's in charge.

"If you can't be patient, you're getting none of it. Now relax." The deep growl in your ear has you gasping, glossy eyes fluttering in fear of total deprivation. 

"Okay. I'm sorry. Don't take it away. Please. Please," You whimper, forcing yourself to nuzzle into pillow beneath and settle down. He has to bite away a smile, unsure why it appeared.

"Then be good," His hips withdraw, slowly pulling out inch by inch until he's about to slip out, before pressing himself in once more. You whine this time, feeling how your walls must give in order to take him. He's careful, so careful. It's driving you mad. "Take what I give you."

Doesn't he know, that's all you've ever wanted? All you've ever done? Every scrap, you've eagerly devoured. Hunger never sated, only momentarily quieted, savoring each little crumb to tide you over until the next taste.

The strength in his grip, the coolness of his spit on your needy lips as he pulls away. You replay the closeness on the colder nights. Which have become more and more frequent.

And he knows, of course, he knows. If the service robots don't keep him up to speed, the nights he's spent listening to your every little sound—against his will—leave no opportunity for ignorance. You keep him up at night.

Some nights you touch yourself. He can hear through the walls of ice and stone how deep those useless fingers of yours try to reach, not nearly close enough to where he hits to satisfy that need.

"Just like that," His grip tightens on you subconsciously, pads digging into your soft skin to surely leave marks come morning. He'd love to see them. But it's a dangerous thought, the thought of lingering.

His hips roll against yours, grinding against your ass, drawing out breathy sounds from your parted lips. You clench around him like a vice, unwilling to let him go, even now, even in this.

Most nights, you cry. He dreads coming home to it.

This isn't what he wanted, to bring a woman into his life, steal her away from her own, to suffer. He knew that this set-up, the harem—by Rao, how he hates the name—was a delicate, experimental arrangement and very inclined to fail, implode in on itself. But he had held out hope, that somehow, it could work. He could restore glory to a home he had never even known.

"Oh, Kal-El… it's so-" Your voice dies out, broken by a different kind of cry then the ones he's used to hearing from you. Muffled sounds of defeat as you sob into your pillow. Drowning in the loneliness of your solitude.

"I know. Darlin', I know," Kal-El sighs, pants into your ear. The depth of his voice seems to peel back your every layer to reverberate through you like the bass of a rich rhythm. Your form shifts with the allure of a snakes slither as his hand creeps down the line of your spine in heated admiration. "You're squeezing so hard. Open up for me… don't wanna hurt you."

"But it's soo good," You breathe out.

His other hand slips from your hip, traveling over the curve of your waist. Leaving fire in its wake despite the unnatural chill of his touch. The need is burning you alive now.

His arm locks around your neck, caging you in between his bicep and his forearm as he continues to hit that spot that has stars dancing behind your eyes. You can feel him everywhere. Deeper now. Deeper than you've ever felt him. The air is knocked out of you with each thrust.

"Why don't you… seek me out?" The question could have slipped from your lips, and maybe it should have. But it's from his whence it comes.

"What?" You whisper. It's more of a squeak, but it's all you can manage. You can feel him in your stomach, molding you as his from the inside out.

"You cry yourself to sleep almost every night, when you aren't playing with yourself to feel better," His words, so brutal and cruel in their truth, has your cheeks burning in renewed shame. A sharp, sudden sting blooms as he nips at your flushed skin. As if he could tear through and reach down to the very bone to consume you wholly. "I know you need to be held. Don't you trust me to do it?"

"Why would I?" You gasp, fingers fighting for purchase as they dig into the sheets. His thrusts turn more calculated in their preciseness, mean, jolting you with each kiss of your hips. But with how he's got you pinned, beneath him with his arm around your neck, you're not going anywhere.

"You wouldn't. I know. I know. I should have shown you I was safe. That I'd hold you close," He whispers then, soothing away his bite with a softer nip. His lips brush over your jaw, drawing down the line of your neck with gentle kisses that distract you from the adjustment of your position.

Kal-El shifts you onto your side, with him still behind. His arm pulls you closer as it remains around your neck, fingers delicately wrapping around the curve of your shoulder, the space between you chased away by the melding of your back to his chest. The other hand moves over your hip now, running up your stomach. His touch teases up to admire the underside of your breast before gripping the mound with tender greed.

"Just like this. We're so close now," He's evil, you think. Now that you've had your taste, you're going to grow an appetite. And he's already proven a cheap distributor.

 "Just come," You beg, pressing your eyes shut with an unexpected wave of sorrow. He can feel the sting of salt in the air and suddenly, you're cold. Empty. Wanting once more as he moves you onto your back with a speed you couldn't anticipate.

A hand seizes your cheeks, forcing your eyes to meet as he looms above between your thighs.

"Just come? Excuse me?" He repeats your words, the disbelief clear in his growl. You shrink softly, eyes softening with a sheepish glaze. Your lips part to speak, but you already fumbled that right.

"I-"

"This isn't a chore. I'm sorry I built up that impression. I really am. You have no idea… I was selfish, because I was scared. You… undo me more than you could understand," He tells you, voice dipping low. His hand trembles with the release of your jaw. Undo him? You shiver at the brush of his fingers over your cheek. "But you need to want this. I'd never touch you without your permission, much less without your desire."

"I do want it. I want it so bad," You shake your head in adamant rebuttal of his insinuation, lashes fluttering as you gaze up at him.

"Then stop saying silly things," He stills your movement and brushes his thumb over your lips, admiring the velvety skin.

"Stop touching me like that."

"Like what?" His hands slip away, hovering in the air as he searches you for any signs of discomfort. There's a heavy depth in his heavenly eyes.

"No, it's not that. Just… touch me like before. Not so…" Your voice trails off, words failing you at the sharpening of his strong, handsome features. He shakes his head, knowing exactly what you're getting at. More clinical. Less intimate.

"I was wrong to take you like that. I'm not going to do it again before. So don't ask me to," Kal-El tells you, hand returning to your cheek. It's more care than you're used to, and it should soothe you. But it hurts. You don't think you can survive when he takes this away, this warmth.

"But…"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Y/N. You're not different than the others. Or you are. You don't understand. I can't… I can't control myself when I'm around you. Your smell, your taste, it's-" Even he seems at a loss for words in that moment.

"Addicting?" You finish for him. It's the way you gaze up at him—so unsure, yet hopeful. Almost naively so. It's the way you don't understand what you do to him that tortures him.

"Yes. I can't breathe your air without wanting to devour you. Do you understand how dangerous that is?" Kal-El lowers down, nose brushing over your cheek now.

He could take apart and dissect your every cell to get down to the single trait that causes this chemical reaction between the two of you, destroy it to rid himself of his remaining weakness. But he can't bear the thought of losing this, this torture. The way you make him feel, alive and powerless and human. A slave to his baser instincts, instead of to his elevated inner knowing.

"It is dangerous. I'm bigger than you, stronger. I need to be so careful with you. Or I could hurt you-" He doesn't even believe it himself, that he could.

"I don't think so," You shake your head, drawing your lip between your teeth at the thought.

"That's because you're silly. You don't care, as long as I fill you up, huh?" He huffs, eyes darkening at the action.

"That's not… can I- can I be filled tonight?" You whimper, unable to deny his tease because it's the truth, isn't it? He's kept it all to himself, always pulling out at the last moment despite his mission. You just want a little, not even a lot. Just enough…

“Please?” You ask so softly, he can’t say no. Not when you’re looking up at him like that, pleading for his spent. He could ask a thousand different ways if you're sure, but he knows. He can feel it. And he can't deny himself any longer, much less you.

"Fuck…" Kal-El shakes his head, unable to hold back another second. His lips move to meet yours in sudden union, tongues sliding together in a feeble attempt to quench your debilitating thirst. Anything to douse that heat scorching your insides.

You whine deep in your throat at the taste of him, sucking greedily on his tongue before his hand is at your neck and he takes control of the kiss once more. Kal-El nips at your bottom lip, swallowing down your gasp with a groan of his own. His hands sink up into your hair to keep you close as he claims your mouth, as if there was anywhere for you to go. He doesn't pull back to breathe, drunk on your air.

Hands trail over his back, nails raking down the muscles as they jump and flex beneath your touch. He breaks away with a hiss, a string of saliva connecting you before it breaks off, glimmering on your chin. Kal-El lowers down, licking a stripe up the line of your neck and collecting your mixed spit to share with your waiting mouth.

"I can't wait any longer. I'm going to take you now. Just like you need," He pants, one hand reaching down to guide himself as the other cements to your cheek. His deep, oceanic eyes lock with your own, an imaginary thread of honey connecting you with a stickiness, unable to pull away from the pull of energy. That energy dancing in the air, something charged, unable to be recreated under any other circumstance. "Ready?"

"Ready," You nod slowly, daring to reach up and frame his face in your hands. His beauty was unlike anything you had ever seen. Like a sculpture made from clay of gods long gone from this world.

His eyes don't leave yours as he enters you—with ease now, your body his once more, left with the imprint of his touch. The renewed fullness steals your breath, his brows drawing in at the sight.

"I have you. My wife…" Kal-El leans down, his forehead pressing against your own. He fucks you deep then, deep and slow. Keeping you pinned beneath his form, encompassed by his arms and held ever so close.

"Wife. Uh-huh," You nod dumbly, your panting mingling with his as your breathing grows more shaky with each roll of his hips against your core. 

With each stoke, he builds a fire in your tummy, rousing the whispered promise in mythos primordial.

In here lies creation, in this blooming. It is at the center of all life. The source of all who live. And it begins with a spark. Molecules colliding, reforming into something else entirely. An energy inimitable.

"Shh. You're doing well. Taking me so deep," He praises you softly, eyes squeezing shut as the thread of his restraint threatens to snap. You're so wet and warm and tight and he can't take it anymore, he'll fuck you slow later, he needs to make you come now, feel you melt-

His pelvis grinds against your needy, swollen clit with each thrust as he begins to speed up. Plap. Plap. Plap. The sound is filthy, coupled with the squelch of your plugged, stretched hole, dripping sweetness around his length as he stuffs you full with his size.

And still, it's not enough. Not nearly.

"Please. Please, please, please. I want-" You cry out, eyes beginning to roll back as you claw at his biceps for stability. Mercy comes with the slowing down of his strokes to allow you to wrap your arms around his neck, but mercy goes with the continuance of his deep stirring.

That knot in your stomach returns, an abrupt pressure that makes your breath hitch when you finally take notice of it. Your arms tighten around him, clinging to him with a soft whine. He can tell by the frown beginning to twist your features that the intensity is growing to be overwhelming. "You're okay. You're okay, baby. You want me to stop?" Kal-El pants, slowing his thrusts but tilting his pelvis to provide some more stimulation for that swollen clit of yours, and to hit that spot he knows makes his wives melt. You shake your head, tears stinging your eyes. But the way you shrink into the pillow beneath, beginning to shy away, doesn't convince him. "Use your words, sweetheart."

"N-no…" You gasp, pleading eyes swimming with desperation. You can't bare for him to stop, not now. Not when you're so close…

"Yeah? You want to come? Like a good girl?" Kal-El asks, nosing your cheek as he reaches down to thumb at your clit. You let out a soft whine, hands reaching up to thread into his dark curls. "Like a good wife?"

"Yes, yes! Oh, please…" You cry out, trying to roll your hips beneath him. But he's got your knees pinned to your chest, thighs spread as wide as you can to accommodate him in between.

"Such a good wife. Letting me in so deep, taking me so well. You always have. Like you were made for it. For me. Oh, fuck…" Kal-El nuzzles into your neck, sucking the sensitive skin between his teeth to nip at it drunkenly. Your half-lidded eyes fall shut, too heavy with heat to keep open as the knot in your tummy pulls ever tighter.

You can't breathe. You're going to die. It feels so good-

"Gonna give you everything you need. Anything you want. Just be a good girl. Come for me, wife," He tells you, arms slipping beneath you to hold you even closer as he works you to the edge.

The knot flutters, threads disconnecting and deforming, fibers taking shape to claw at your womb in delicious torment. Dragging down your walls like the crash of ocean waves on the rocky bank before the slow, cleansing return to the water of its origin, to shed you of all that no longer serves. Wash it all away with the pass of the tides. Leaving you bare as you're reborn on the sea shore, risen from the foam. The pure beauty in creation.

"Just like that. Y/N. You're… so beautiful when you let go. Let go for me. Just like that," Kal-El groans against your skin, his features screwing in bliss at the pulsing of your walls. You feel heavenly. He kisses at your cheek in ache at the sound of your soft, shivery breathes. He knows you're at your most vulnerable now. Evident in the way you try and fail to hold on to him, too spent to do anything but take.

"Fuck, inside? You ready?" He breathes, jaw clenching in helpless, waning restraint. He can't hold off any longer. You feel too good. Too real. Too his.

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes…" You nod your head quickly, peering up at him through your tired, blissful haze.

"I'm gonna… I'm gonna give it all to you. You earned it, baby. All of it. It's all yours. Fuck," He presses his lips against yours, for one final taste before he's falling over the edge.

You swear there's tears in his eyes as Kal-El manages one last slow stroke, forehead pressed against yours. His hands dig into your soft, giving flesh for anything to ground him to this earthly plane.

There's a lump in your throat that catches every whine and whimper before it can be uttered, a symptom of your helplessness as you tremble beneath him.

Utterly ruined, feverish and aching, squirming in futile search of something to chase away the crawl of your skin.

He silences your discomfort, swollen lips pressing against your neck, your jaw, your cheeks, kissing away each chill and shudder.

"You're okay. You did so good. It's okay," He gently murmurs, releasing his grip on your waist to grasp your cheeks, running his thumbs over the heated skin.

"That was…" The whimper in your quiet voice has him shifting, easing your knees from your chest down to rest more comfortably at his sides. You feel as though you can't catch your breath, each draw a rough labor. He smooths away your hair, his touch careful not to startle you.

"I know, I know. You don't need to push yourself. Try to focus on your breathing. I've got you, baby," He tells you. Kal-El is gentle with your body as he moves to pull out, dragging out of your sore walls as though he may harm you with his retreat.

The relief is slight, but immediate. You do as guided, focusing on catching your breath. The intensity of the pleasure has left you shaken, as if he had stirred some shift deep, on a physiological level.

"It's intense at first, but your biology will evolve quickly to recognize my essence. If it is too much, there's other ways," Kal-El doesn't abandon you yet, moving off but staying by your side. His hand moves to your stomach, massaging over the softness like he could steal away all your discomfort.

It's the foreignness. Your body's instinct reaction to the alien nature of the coupling. The way he's made you feel in the past… the feelings he's brought on…

It's never been so strong and profound of an elation before, though neither has the degree of intimacy.

"You're not unfit, despite how it feels. Lois couldn't stand up for days without getting dizzy after the first time, and Lana threw up as soon as I helped her to the bath after hers. You're handling it so well," He runs his eyes over you, calculation in his gaze. Monitoring you in soft worry. His reassurance is sweet, but the implication has you melting more. You're handling it better than them. "I should have told you. I'm so sorry. I was so… unlike myself."

"It's okay. I understand. I couldn't even think," You whisper, leaning into his touch. Neither of you had been in the state to resist.

"Tell me what you need. You're shivering. Are you cold?" He asks you, running his hand over your forearm. Back and forth to generate warmth. "I don't want you to be cold. I know with this place, it can be a harsh chill to escape. The automatons are supposed to look after all of you, but they just, well, they just don't understand. How much you need. It's okay to need."

"I… it is cold. But it never goes away," You admit with a whisper, dropping your eyes.

"Do you want to sleep in my room?" Kal-El asks softly, brows drawing in at the vulnerability in your voice. It has him shifting closer. The planes of his muscles are harsh against your softness, but his solidness is grounding.

"No…" That's where Lois sleeps. When she hasn't run off to brood. If not her, then it's Lana warming his bed. He can tell by the way you grow quiet what you're thinking.

"I'd send them away," You shake your head at his offer. He doesn't sigh, only nods in understanding. "What do you need then, baby? If you don't tell me, I won't know how to take care of you, and I want to. I need to…"

"I just… need you," You whisper in your daze, the only fix your mind can conjure. Just him. Here with you. "Please, don't go."

"I'm all yours," He waves away your worry, drawing you close with an ease you're still unused to. His strength no longer feels like a threat, rather a promise, of safety and protection.

"I'm not the only one…" You can't help but cling to the past indignation. The consequence of months on the outside looking in.

"They don't understand, not like you," Kal-El admits, dark lashes fluttering in the dimness. The sight of him, messy curls and flushed cheeks, in the bed you've grown so used to seeing empty, makes your head spin. "You studied all those crystals. Every time I got back, I'd be eager to see which ones were opened, eager to see if the one sneaking in there finally slipped up, so I'd know who she was. Which one was taking so much time, to understand."

"So you're not mad?" You ask, shyly tracing constellations into his skin. His eyes flutter at the touch, any thoughts of upset abandoning him before they can form. He was never angry, never with you.

"You should have asked. But I suppose it's my fault that I made you think I wasn't going to say yes," He tells you, playing with the ends of your hair. It grows quiet for a moment, both your minds drifting in the syrupy aftermath of your bliss. "I realize I don't know much about you."

"Don't try to learn. I might call you nosy for it," You retort, a gentle tease.

To your surprise, he smiles. Even in the dim room, you can see how bright it is. Reflecting the glacial light like a solar flare. Warmth spears through your chest. Warmer than any teardrop you've ever shed.

"Yeah, I've heard that once or twice. My parents, the… the ones who fostered me here on your planet, they used to have to use wrapping paper lined with lead foil to make sure I didn't peek at my Christmas presents."

"Don't you mean Santa did?" You giggle, daring to rest your cheek on his chest. He hums, brushing his touch over your back. The way he adjusts beneath you, to accommodate you into his embrace, it's so natural. Written into his cells.

"Right." Your eyes meet and you grow bashful despite yourself.

"Do you still celebrate it? Or wish to now…" You ask, lowering your gaze to his lips. You admire the deep dip of his cupid's bow, the imprint of dimples framing his lazy smile. As he speaks, in that gentle, low register, you feel yourself begin to slip. Unable to fight the heavy weight of your lids and fend off sleep any longer.

Kal-El allows you to rest, undisturbed, not stirring even as he cleans you up and settles you more comfortably beneath the sheets.

There was only warmth on that night, a honeyed fog of closeness that not even the biting winds outside the walls of the Fortress could penetrate. It was only you, and only him.

The pretty cluster of nacre crystals that sit upon your bedside twinkles with pulses of opalescent luminance, coloring the darkness behind your eyes. A gentle disruption that rouses you softly from your sleep. You shift beneath the sleek silk, a warm band around your waist anchoring you in place to the wall of heat behind you.

Kal-El.

Your eyes flutter open, adjusting to the soft glare of the ambient morning sun. Artificial beams bathe your chambers in a gentle golden glow.

"Good morning," Kal-El whispers, his voice a husky rasp. Roughened with sleep. The deep timbre reverberates through you, making you melt deeper into the softness of the mattress.

"Good morning…" You mutter back, though considerably less at ease. There's a shyness to how you say it, filtering any false pretenses of you having expected him to stay.

"You look very lovely in the morning. All soft and warm. So warm," He pulls you closer, nosing at your neck. He bends to press a kiss to the teardrop resting above your chest. Still, you find this reality hard to believe, a persisting dream. This casual familiarity feels too fulfilling to be true. "Sleep real cozy?"

"Maybe… too cozy. Thank you for cleaning me up. Taking care of me," You whisper, biting your lip as you shrink further into yourself. It's not that he never has. Despite it all, Kal-El always made sure to clean you up after sharing your bed. But it's different this time. He stayed.

He doesn't give your mind the chance to run away from you, turning you in his arms to face him. Guiding you with a hand at your jaw, he greets you into the new day with a soft kiss to your cheek.

"Sweet girl. You don't have to thank me. But I won't lie and say it doesn't make me want to eat you up to hear you do so," You simply melt, long, pretty lashes fluttering against his skin as the softness of your breath tickles his jaw.

He hadn't expected you to surrender so easily to the care, but then again, you're not Lois. He'll need to learn, how you respond. Instead of holding expectations against you stemming from the reactions of others.

Kal-El caresses your cheek, very carefully. There's a caution to his touch always, as if he's still afraid of hurting you. "It's my job. I'll always take care of you. Keep you safe. Give you what you need."

"Thank you," You sigh, but it's a content sound. An exhale that releases the tension in your body, only making you more soft and pliant. Perfect to hold.

"Quit. You're trying to kill me. Is that your master plan? Seductress," He pulls you in close, reveling in the way you mold to him so perfectly. Like he's made to hold you, for his edges to be soothed by your softness.

"I would just get the krypto-needles that the automatons use to operate on you and inject you with something while you're sleeping. Quick and painless," You tell him kindly.

"Aw, you're so sweet. You wouldn't make me suffer?" He coos, smiling like a damn fool. You shake your head, but it only nuzzles your face deeper into the crook of his neck.

The stillness is something you've always loved about the Fortress. City life hadn't been for you, it never was. Too much noise, too much chaos. You needed peace. You liked being at home, surrounded by the sanctuary you made for yourself.

You hadn't uttered a word of protest when Kal-El explained he desired his wives close, in the safety of his base, where no one but him and his blood could enter. Not even when he warned it was deeply remote, in Antarctica.

You had been excited. For the quiet.

This quiet that surrounds the two of you now, a living thing that breathes—fluctuating with each shift in the air. Its breath is gentle now, steady, unbroken as you share warmth with your husband.

"Kal-El?" The quiet is softly stirred by your whisper.

"Hmm?" He smiles lazily, that blinding smile that was never meant to belong to you. And yet, here it is, somehow yours.

“Why hasn’t it taken? With any of them?” You ask, but very softly. You don't want to spoil this moment, but the curiosity has eaten you alive all these months.

"It's… they just," He sighs, running his fingers along your hip. Each explanation he comes up with is worse than the previous, needlessly complicated, or muddled. He shakes his head, choosing the most simple answer. "They just weren't ready, sweetheart."

“Do you think… do you think with me it will take?” You ask, looking up at him with so much hope. It softens him irrevocably.

Your words spark a creeping feeling in his mind, a voice telling him that he already knows the answer. His eyes follow the absentminded caressing over your stomach, images from last night calling to him for review and revision.

Flashes of light, deep in your womb and microscopic, invisible to the naked eye. He thought he had imagined it, this strange phenomenon. He hadn't ever heard of such happening, but then again, he was no scientist. But he knew well that his eyes saw what many couldn't, unless they had some form of advanced assistance.

He had seen it, in the hours after your coupling, when you had already slipped into sleep. A calcium increase. Zinc atoms rapidly released, by the billions, joining itself into molecule probes, exploding with a burst of divine light upon interaction.

His hand presses against your tummy. He exhales shakily, his eyes squeezing shut. He knows. Within his grasp, only for his eyes, a gift. Had his abilities been bestowed upon him for this very moment? To be able to see this, the process of embryonic development already in motion.

Not even a heartbeat yet, but he could sense it. Something ancient, a familiarity. A deep knowing, a soul recognition. Hi, baby.

His breath hitches. Kal-El looks up at you. In the faint radiance streaming in through the gauzy veil of the canopy, you catch the glimmer of tears streaming down his flushed cheeks. Your first instinct is to ask him what's wrong, but before you can sit up and speak the words, a smile breaks through the sweet tears.

“It has," He whispers, his hands moving to your face, cupping it softly. He presses his lips against yours with a careful kind of delicacy, savoring your taste as his elation vibrates between you. "Thank you."

Even without a further explanation, the implication is clear. It's already taken root, this seed he planted with gentle hands, a life you'll both tenderly coax to bloom.

There's so much you don't comprehend of this world and this life, but there's no limit on what your brain is capable of learning, if you only take the time to understand.

Perhaps that is why it had to be you. You—who knew not Clark, the man he tried to be, but instead, Kal-El, the man he was always meant to be. You were the only one who sat with his silence. Not as a thing to endure, but to study on your own terms, in your own time.

This, he's taught you. You needed only ask, and he would give. You needed only be receptive, and it would take.

And it has.

Previous Chapters — Chapter One: Safe, Chapter Two: Echoes

Author’s Note — THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! Still can't believe I finished this. If y'all are interested in expansion on this concept, let me know.

The Fortress was a cold place. Despite its alterations made when Kal-El took his wives, the frigidity surpassed the atmospheric conditions of Antarctica. It was a cold place, because all warmth was a fleeting resource, an unspoken privilege. A precious commodity, if only it could be bottled and bought.

It was a place of echos. Each room cavernous, ice and rock broken by the formation of stalactites above that shine like chandeliers of dripping ice frozen in time, glowing blue with the solar-charged energy harnessed within each sunstone vein.

Striated, overgrown blades of recrystallized snow sculpt the exoskeleton of this creation of brilliance. Grand, imposing columns of glacial stalagmites act as supportive beams through the structure. 

There was a certain sophistication in its design despite its natural materials, and you knew its technology far surpassed anything you knew. 

More than the Fortress echoed. Those residing within were mere echoes of their former selves. For better or for worse.

We are the ones who wait. We are the ones who stay.

Lois and Lana. Those were his favorites. It was known because it was not hidden. He favored them, the ladies of his past. Love born of true affection. A high-school sweetheart, and a once-friend, now a lover. What can compare to that?

There were only a couple of others besides you. For now. You knew, like all, it was subject to change. His parents had urged him to take as many wives as he could. 

He didn’t know that you knew that.

You hadn’t meant to find it out. It had been purely accidental, stumbling upon the knowledge against your will, by fault of Supergirl’s poorly behaved super-dog. 

With both Kal-El and Kara away in continuance of the reformation effort, the dog was left in the care of the robot aids who maintain the Fortress and assist Kal-El as needed. Automatons who lacked the authority in their programming to override their passive nature and discipline Krypto for his naughty ways.

The alien canine knew better than to rough-house with Kal-El’s women. Your human physiology was too fragile, unlike Kal-El and Kara. Krypto sought out the wives only when he wanted scratches and belly rubs.

Or to get someone in trouble, as you had discovered.

Krypto was impossible to keep up with. Past his powers, he was so damn restless. And with no need to ever stop and catch his breath, he just kept going. And going and going and going.

“Slow down!” You urge softly as he leads you down a wing of the Fortress you don’t recognize. 

Krypto weaves through the hall, his paws padding against stone. The sound carries through the corridor. 

You don’t know exactly where he’s going, but when he gave you those soft puppy-dog eyes and whined for your attention, it was impossible to ignore his little pleas.

Maybe you should have.

You know exactly what’s coming now as he pauses, sniffing the air. He’s being too quiet, too still. His ears are pinning back, as far as the left one that sticks straight up like a salute can. Oh, no. To run is futile. He’ll catch you.

Krypto takes off towards you, his tail tucked between his legs, tiny cape waving in the wind of his speed.

“Krypto, no! Calm down,” You yelp softly, bracing for an impact you know will send you flying back as it does Kara. And you don’t have the same invulnerability to handle it. 

Only for him to cross in front of you at the last second, just narrowing avoiding running into your legs. He bounces off the wall to twirl in the air above you.

“Krypto! Gosh…” You shake your head with a trembling breath, smiling despite yourself. He was crazy. But so cute.

He really needed to learn some manners.

You move to continue walking, only for him to tug at the hem of your dress with his teeth. Far too harshly, because it has you stumbling back and nearly tripping over him.

“Krypto… what is it, boy?” You sigh, already at your limit with his antics. He always does this. It’s bullying, because you’re sure he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Cut it out.”

Trying to shoo him away proves useless, so you have no choice but to hear him out. He looks up, and you follow his eyes. Before you is an opening in the hall, giant prismatic crystals growing out from around the large threshold.

It reminds you of a library, an entry gives way to an open space, shelves in the rock lining the walls. Sharp crystalline shards grow up from the slats in the stone, glowing a glacial blue in their displays. So many. Thousands.

In the center of the space was a dashboard composed of the same growth of crystals, but these had no glow. Nor were they solid formations. They were hollow tubes. For the shards to be inserted into.

“Uh, Krypto… I think we should head back,” You stammer nervously. He doesn’t listen, tugging at the delicate fabric that falls around your heels. So damn strong! He’s going to leave bite marks in the silk. You stumble in.

“Good evening. Voice activation required to access the Kryptonian archive. Please state your name,” A voice announces from an unseen source. It makes you flinch, getting caught in something you shouldn’t be doing. But Kal-El’s not here…

The Kryptonian archive? The words register, and you look around curiously. So this is a library. An archive, as stated. Of knowledge Kryptonian.

You look down at Krypto, studying him closely. Why did he bring you here? He tilts his head, his white scruff of an ear flopping at the movement. 

He watches you too, this clever creature. It sinks into you then, how intelligent he must also be. Another of a species of race far superior to Earth’s own. He may look like a sweet puppy, but now you realized you had no true idea of what he was capable of.

“Voice activation required. State your name,” The keeper of the archive repeats. You hesitate. It’s unlikely you’d be authorized. Kal-El had never mentioned this place to you, meaning he never found any reason you should be in it. What if the system alerts him?

Krypto lets out a frustrated growl, his teeth bared. He barks up at you then, a loud, thunderous sound that ping-pongs around the archive. Your breath catches, feeling a sudden, unfamiliar spark of fear, directed at him.

But the dashboard flickers, a thrum of white light before returning to its previous state. You can hear the whir of energy working through the instrument now. Dormant. Waiting. 

“Voice activation successful. Welcome: Krypto,” The keeper calls. Krypto pads ahead, before taking off into the air to travel the shelves. He would retrieve a shard for you, to be inserted into the tubular ports, and you would play it.

The story of Krypton: Gift of the Sun-Thrivers.

Book of Rao: God of Light and Life.

The Phantom Zone: Mercy and its Inception.

‘The Day the Sun Shines Upon None.' by Jor-El.

It was incredible. Unbelievable. An entire planet’s lost history and culture and customs available to you at a moment’s notice. All you need do was insert a crystal of your choosing to begin a lesson.

The days had flown by once you discovered the archive. None of the other wives questioned where you disappeared off to each day, for hours on end. And Kal-El… he was away, concerned with his own affairs. The trivialities of what you entertained yourself with in his absence were beyond his realm of care. He had a world to conquer.

And you had so much to learn.

Previous Chapter — Chapter One: Safe

Next Chapter — Chapter Three: Ready

The world had stopped turning the day Kal-El arrived. Though he had lived the predominant part of his life on Earth, the man he had tried to be, the human, was nothing more than a facade.

And Clark Kent’s life had come to an end. His death was captured in real time, through Kal-El’s emergence. 

The broadcast of his execution had been televised. Played across every channel, every screen. A declaration more solemn than vaunting, as if Kal-El himself was in opposition of what he must do. 

Greetings citizens of planet Earth. You may recognize me, by the ‘S’ on my chest, or by the red cape flowing down my back, as Superman. But this ‘S’ does not stand for the title you have bestowed upon me, for none of your kind know me truly. Only what you have decided for me.

I am Kal-El. That is the name my parents gave me. I hail from Planet Krypton. A civilization far distant and far advanced from your own.

I was fostered here on this planet, taken in as a boy, where I learned your ways. I tried to live among you, as Clark Kent. Not as a foe, but as a friend. 

Idle observation soon proved intolerable. I could sit by no longer and watch as your kind suffered. And for that, I became a symbol of justice. Representing truth and the ‘American’ way. Superman.

But I see now that there may be no true triumph of good over evil. Not until evil is purged from your kind. Before you destroy yourselves beyond saving.

Through your grave transgressions, you have forfeited your rights to govern yourselves. As the superior being, it is my duty to assume the role of rule.

Do not try to resist. I deplore you. Heed my warning. You will not succeed.

Strong men and women of Earth, I encourage your acceptance. Allow me to establish order here on your planet without your resistance.

I shall accept only willing servicemen.

I shall take only willing wives. 

Those lit by my emittance shall grow to heights unimaginable yet in your human minds. Those who deny my aid will find themselves hit with another kind of light, a deadly emission.

Do not resist me. You will fall.

You will die.

Obey. And I will elevate your civilization. Beginning with true justice.

They had resisted, of course. Humans were a stubborn, yet indomitable kind. 

But after Kal-El flew the last stash of raw Kryptonite off the planet to be hurled into this galaxy’s sun, there was no more defense to be made against him. Possession of any remaining Kryptonite, no matter the quantity or form, was punishable by death.

Nothing more could be done against him. That trip had nearly cost him his life, but had secured his immortality in the face of those who stood in defiance.

When he had finally recovered, the opposed did not stand a chance. Just as he had warned.

Superman had brought down empires that took centuries to build. Rome had fallen once more.

The day he recuperated, oceans of fire drowned millions. The sky fell as he removed the hand with which he had kept it aloft, joined forces with former enemies as he allowed villains of his past once-defeated to again carry out their despicable plans, this time to completion. So long as the submitting class was kept away from the carnage. And still, he wasn’t done.

He was reforming the world. But structures must collapse before they may be rebuilt again, this time upon a stable foundation. 

The Americas resist on, where Europe has already bent their remaining knee.

They should have listened. All you could do was obey.

And thank the stars that you had. You had listened. 

Superman had delivered his sermon, a prophecy of the future of your race. There were words between the lines. We were unfit. We were destroying one another, over nothing. We couldn’t be trusted.

And you understood, when so many hadn’t.

A man who stood for justice could not flip the script overnight. What he was doing, he was doing out of a genuine sense of duty. This culling, separating the open from the closed minds, was wrought from steel of true reason. A level of reason humans could not yet see.

To your race, it was primitive, the barbaric lack of mercy. But ancient civilizations of Earth’s past were labeled primitive too before their genius was proven advanced. 

And Krypton, this far planet from which he hailed, had been eons ahead of the human race. 

If a mind was not open enough to obey a simple command, it would not be open enough to enter the new age under his rule. The reasoning was base, and yet many couldn’t see it. But you could. The simplicity behind such a charged decision. 

It was his instinct that governed, so secure in his inner knowing that he could see without lens of guilt what needed to be done. This man of steel…

Infinitely more powerful than any human could ever be. With capabilities one could only dream of having. And the world still doubted his commitment to his word.

The major cities were the first to meet his truth. State capitals, the political watering holes. Lobbying for leaders to spread his advisory. Making examples out of them when they did not.

Already decomposing remains of doubt left you the moment he passed through your city. He had been just a blur of red and blue, zipping through the sky like a glitch in the air. Blink and you miss him.

You would have shrugged it off as a trick of the imagination. A trickle of your subconscious bleeding into your reality. If it hadn’t been for the sirens. 

Deafening whines boomed through the streets, crashing into the sky above and echoing back down as if bouncing off an imaginary dome over the populace. It had been so loud, it was frightening. No matter what you prayed for and to who, they wouldn’t hear, you had thought. Not through this cacophony of dark song. The sky is falling.

No shelter felt safe, but stumbling into the city hall where there were elected officials obligated to keep civilians safe had felt like the best option. 

Only to meet a brick wall. You stumble back before promptly tripping over your feet, catching yourself on your hip against the floor. The impact of your form on the marble sends a shot of pain right up your side. 

Sharp air passes through your lips as you breathe through the stinging discomfort, throbs of ache blossoming under your skin like waves of burn desperate to crawl out of the prison of your epidermis.

You can feel ash beneath your hands as you raise yourself up weakly to sit. What had burned?

“You. Come here,” A deep voice commands. The smooth baritone possesses an innate firmness that sends a shiver down your spine. He stands above you, blocking out the light with his hulking form. Now you realize it hadn’t been a brick wall at all. It had been the man of steel. 

You flinch away, only managing to fall back on your elbows before his shifting expression has you frozen in place. Obey. The remembrance weakens your instinct to flee. Obey or burn. If you obey, it will be okay.

“Me?” You whisper. It’s the most meek you’ve ever heard yourself sound. 

Your eyes flutter, trying to blink away this nightmare in your vision, recalling each and every image of the man before you that had been playing on a loop across every news channel in the country. Rather, images of what was left in the wake of his sentencing. The nightmare doesn’t leave, no matter how much you blink.

“Yes. Come here,” When you don’t move fast enough, he closes in on you. A storm cloud in blue and red. He pulls you up by the arm with the same ease in which one plucks up a leaf. The maneuvering sends your nervous system into a panic. How easily he could destroy you…

“Please, I-” He steadily ignores your words, leaving you before the gathering of soldiers and officials, disinterest in the shrug of his release. By his side as he takes his place back in the center of the hall. 

“I am Kal-El of Krypton. Do you accept my rule?” His voice enters each cell of your body, demanding an answer. This stand-off you had intruded on was but a fool’s display. These men, with their uniforms and their guns, donning their helmets like a jester’s hat as they wave their mock scepters. The motley of their garb one of camouflage rather than patchwork diamonds. What chance did it stand against the man at your side?

“Oh… well, yes,” You nod quickly, and speak without hesitation. 

“A sensible one. You all could have stood to learn from her. She is spared. You all,” He swipes a large hand through the air with a sullen wave of dismissal. The lights flicker, surging with energy before going out. The blindness heightens your other senses. You feel it before it happens, a bolt of adrenaline in anticipation of what comes next. No! “are not.”

His eyes follow the path his hand made, red light bursting forth from each iris in the dark of the hall. The static crackle of energy makes you flinch before you gasp out in horror, turning your body away from the grisly scene with a soft cry you smother against your hand. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump…

Your hands fly to your ears. Their heads… oh, you heard them fall. Like melons dropping to the floor. Oh, god. 

No… no, a god could not exist here. And if there was one, it would be him.

A moment passes where the air is still. You can feel yourself breathing, shakily, with some difficulty as fear still streaks through your chest, but can’t hear past the muffling of your hands. The silence is grounding. 

A few seconds pass, or maybe a few minutes. You gather the courage to open your eyes. The light has returned, quivering weakly in his presence. You dare not let your eyes fall upon what you know greets your back. Superman still stands before you. Watching you. You hold out your hands in peace. His gaze moves to the tremble of your fingers.

“You are spared,” He tells you simply in reminder. Then he’s spinning on his heel in a blur of red as his cape billows out behind his withdrawing form. The red flag waving in the wind. When it flies over, all should take its warning of danger.

“You…” Comes your whisper. A mutter you hadn’t meant to release. And yet, he heard it. Of course he did. 

Superman whirls around. The line of his jaw is tense, as if he were clenching down with his teeth. But his voice is carefully measured, level and firm. “What?”

His eyes are so blue. And his glare was penetrating, leveling you in place. The intensity of his stare unnerves you, but you feel a strange sense of bravery, as foolish as it may be, as your eyes lower. Lingering on that emblem that grazes his chest. That ‘S’.

Hope. Truth. Justice. The American way.

“What will happen to the city?” You ask, meeting his gaze. Residual energy from his lethal glare warms the air between you as your eyes lock. “I’m not the only receptive one. They didn’t…” You gesture back at the bodies behind, refusing to look. “They didn’t speak for all of us. You must know that.”

“I do know that. I will call for an evacuation of its residents. Those who wish to fight, may stay. But once that time comes, none who remain will make it out alive. The choice is theirs,” He finds his words to be enough, and once more attempts to take his leave. You don’t know why you’re doing this, but now it’s too late to reel it in. Not when you know that it’s your duty to care.

“And those who can't?" You whisper. Though your voice trembles, you speak up nonetheless. It is when your voice shakes, you show the most courage. That thought comforts you. “What of them? The sick… the old…”

“I do not strike hospitals. Nor nursing homes. Those who raise a weapon to me are my enemies,” He tells you sharply. Insulted by the insinuation. He, who has leveled cities. He, who has decimated the human population.

“Is there not another way?” Your words make him breathe in deeply, chasing away the irritation that had festered inside of him since before you had walked into City Hall. His posture shifts. 

Another replaces the one before you now. He tilts his head, studying you for a moment. His eyes glimmer in the dim, flickering light. Like the moon’s caress over the shifting sea waves.

“For you, there is. Go to the evacuation point at the quarry and you will be given options to choose from as a citizen of the new world,” Superman tells you steadily. 

It’s reminiscent of a different time. Remnants of a figure from before, who always seemed to appear at exactly the right time, when he was needed. Be it for a cat burglar, or a cat stuck in a tree. 

“What options?” You ask, voice lowering as a wave of sorrow threatens to drown you with its sudden intensity. For your race, of course. But also, more unexpectedly… for him. 

How could this have happened? What forced this change in the hero we all looked up to?

What did we do?

But deep down you know the answer.

“That you may find out at the quarry. Run along,” When you don’t move, he sighs. “Student. Worker. Breeder. Those are the options.”

“Wife?” You blurt. The skin of your cheeks begins to burn as blood rushes to the surface in humiliation. You hadn’t meant to say such a thing. Neither did he expect to hear such a thing.

“What?” He hisses. His eyes narrow. The flutter of your heartbeat in his ears reminds him of a hummingbird.

“Nothing-”

“Speak.” He takes a step closer to you. The proximity only illuminates the height he has on you. He has to hunch his shoulders to hold your gaze.

“It’s… I was watching, that day your broadcast aired. You said you would only take willing servicemen. And…” He remembers now. It had been a necessary statement, to implant the idea into the populace. So that when the time came, a woman could rightfully choose if she desired to enter the workforce or explore other avenues of contribution and free will. “That you would only take willing wives.”

“Student. Worker. Breeder. Those are the options,” He repeats, avoiding your words. “There will be institutions of education in my planet’s teachings. Factories to work in select trades. A center of proliferation, where you may find a biological match to repopulate the new world. You have options. Go to the quarry.” 

“But not wife?” You almost sound disappointed. It gives him pause. For certain, he misunderstands. Surely you wouldn’t be disappointed over this?

He’s so close now. His eyes drift over you, scanning you. Analyzing your features, your expression. The line of your nose. The swell of your lips. The curve of your form. What lay underneath. And the organ cherished in its swaddle by the inherent cushion of the lower abdomen. Calculating a diagnosis. 

“Is that what you want?” He sighs, his eyes shuddering at your continued insistence. Though his voice has softened. 

“I want… to be safe.” You say it, and you realize how true the words resonate within your heart, especially as the world grows more uncertain by the moment. And nothing felt so secure, then to be under his protection. “Will you keep me safe?”

That had convinced him enough of your willingness. Not your words, but how you had said them. What you had asked. And what it had stirred.

The shock had been big, when Superman was revealed to the Daily Planet to be none other than their own Clark Kent. The gentle giant who couldn’t go a day without spilling coffee over something, or someone.

It had been a shock to all but Lois Lane. Who had suspected before she had known. Who had accepted it as truth before he had ever told her. Who had loved him, as Clark. And had respected him, as Superman. 

But the shock was more to all, including her, when he renounced his earthly titles, revealing himself as Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, and planet Earth’s new ruler. 

Clark hadn’t opened her up to this. Eased her into the idea. Gave her notice before he was plastered across every screen in the newsroom, putting an end to life as it was once known. Her colleagues had asked her a question and demanded of her an answer she wasn’t fit to give. What more could she do, but sit there and dread in her futility against this reckoning along with the rest of them?

Whoever this was wearing her man’s face and speaking in his voice, she didn’t recognize. Kal-El.

Yes. It was Kal-El. An alien, even to her. 

But she could see traces of Clark still, if not just in his eyes, in his embrace, and that was enough to cling to. Lois, still unable to accept the man she had loved had been ripped from her so cruelly and completely, agreed to stay. To be his wife. One of them.

The harem meant nothing to her, not when her mind was stuck trying to understand. Not when each day brought a new irrevocable change she must grow into in order to stay sane. Kal-El came and he went and she knew with each departure, blood would be spilled, at his hands.

There is a darkness to him. One I have yet to fully grasp.

When he was away, she mourned. She mourned Clark. She mourned Superman. She didn’t try to get to know Kal-El. Not when she was grieving a man that she knew would never fully return to her again. She hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye. He just disappeared.

For Kal-El, his love had gone nowhere. Lois remained in his heart. He needed her now, more than ever, because she was the one attachment he could not stand to lose. 

Lois knew he had no desire to hurt her, but he already had. She could tell that he tried with her, to help her understand. But she just couldn’t see past that simple fact of the pretense of his humanity. Who had Clark been, if Kal-El is the truth? Maybe she never knew him at all.

All she could do was withdraw. Inside. Huddled in the deep recesses of her mind where no one could reach. Not even him.

Next Chapter — Chapter Two: Echoes