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“Are we slacking or practicing?” your coach – tall, stern, Nigerian – calls from across the net, a sleeve of tennis balls tucked underneath each arm. Her stare is sharp even yards away. “This is why you can barely win sets, eh? You’ll be lucky if you have even three games in you tomorrow. Put that phone away before I make you serve it to me.”

The Blackberry’s shoved back into your duffle before she can make good on that threat.

You skip back to the baseline. “It’s gone, it’s gone.” you wave her off. “Don’t make me get a new phone. Again.”

She doesn’t answer – just motions for you to fall into position. Gestures to squat lower. Only when she’s satisfied with your stance is the ball machine switched back on, primed to launch blurs of fluorescent yellow-green straight into your racket.

Some of your returns hit the net or the line; most of them sail into the service boxes. The text is forgotten before the second ball even makes contact with the clay of the court.

You’re continuing your steady rotation of drills until long after the burn sets in – your feet, your shoulders, your forearms, your thighs – all of it done in the name of placing high enough in this weekend’s tournament, maybe even enough to shake off the ‘wild card’ label you’ve been stuck with. Because two years on the court as a professional and it still grates at you that you’re punching above your weight more often than not.

It’s only when you’re dripping with sweat that you’re unceremoniously dismissed, permitted to return back to your hotel room and your hotel room only. No drinking, no clubbing, no sneaking into other players’ rooms. Boring, as far as tournament weekends go. Necessary, according to your coach.

“Be good tonight.” She asks of you in the parking lot before you part for your respective cars. “No smoking. I don’t want to smell it on you tomorrow.”

“Yes, coach.”

The drive back to the hotel is silent. The walk through the lobby is more or less the same. You key into your room with dead-weight movements and shuffle across the carpet until you’re slumping face-first into the pristine bedspread.

Later, when you’re fed and showered and lounging in bed – Blackberry in hand, ashtray in your lap, chain-smoking – Patrick’s text still goes unanswered.

You try not to think much about it – what is there to think about? It’s a professional tipping his hat to a fellow player, at best; at worst, he’s just trying to psych you out for old times’ sake. Either way, you’re beyond a response.

And besides – busy as you’ll be, you doubt you’ll even cross paths this weekend.

The morning and afternoon pass in a blur of flying skirts, swinging rackets, and pumped-up adrenaline. You do well in the first few rounds of the tournament, managing to sweep a handful of games until a neat set stumbles its way into your possession, and to your surprise (and your coach’s approval), you’ve qualified your way into tomorrow morning’s semi-finals.

You thought that you’d feel better after today’s matches, but you just feel…tired. Wired. Too much excess energy compared to the fatigue that’s been building since you finished your third game. Maybe that’s why you find yourself back at the courts.

It’s evening, now – the twilight phase of the 24-hour cycle. Not too many people are around. An orange-pink sky blends with shades of romantic blue, and it’s a wonderful backdrop as you unzip your duffle, unsheathe your racket, and practice your forehand swing for what feels like an hour and some change. You practice until it burns, and then you practice some more. And for a while, it nearly feels peaceful.

“That grip is nasty as fuck.” A voice calls from the sideline, too masculine to be your coach. It’s irritating, grating. Familiar.

You startle mid-swing, and the tennis ball sails to the right of the service box.

Out.

“I mean, seriously –” Patrick continues, hands in his pockets, smiling with all the bravado of an asshole. “Are you trying to shatter your wrist? Because there are easier ways to do that.”

He’s wearing jeans and a hoodie with some indiscernible logo on it – probably one of his sponsors – and he’s sweaty or maybe freshly showered, a bit of today’s sun turning pink across his nose and cheeks. Unfortunately – or perhaps unsurprisingly – he looks more or less the same as he did the last time you saw him, albeit with more stubble and less visible rage.

You’re not exactly kind as you greet him. “The fuck are you doing here?” you pant, wide-eyed and chest heaving as you lower your racket.

If he’s offended, which you doubt, he doesn’t show it. “I thought you knew that I was playing today,” he grins, flashing white teeth. “And tomorrow. Semi-finals. You didn’t watch my matches?”

Obviously not.

“Who’d you play against?” you ask.

“Ludlow and Dvorak,” he answers. “I’m against Lenmar tomorrow.”

Oh.

“Oh.” you say lamely, earbuds hanging around your neck, iPod Shuffle clipped to the collar of your zip-up. You struggle for a response. “Well, that should be easy enough. He has no net game.”

Patrick smiles like you’ve said something both hilarious and true, and he takes a few meandering steps forward to lean against the pole of the net, showing off the length and line of his body.

“I saw you out here earlier,” he mentions, casual. “You looked good. You’re against Sirtis tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you answer. “You watch her, too?” It comes out haughty.

Secretive like a joke, Patrick smiles.

It almost feels surreal – seeing him, talking to him. The last time you were in close proximity had been on the courts of the Vista Rico Tennis & Racquet Club. You had thrown a racket at him; he had called you a crazy fuckin’ bitch. Your blood had been pumping in a way that rarely ever happened off-game, and you decided then and there that Patrick was a piece of shit, period. No Tashi or Art to defend him back then.

Now, it just feels awkward – at least, you feel awkward. No heat, all nerves. The silence stretches.

He breaks it first, nonchalant. “Did you get my text?”

You sigh, tossing your racket on its duffle as you exchange it for your water bottle. “Yeah, Patrick, I got your text.”

“Huh,” he tongues at his cheek, watching you drink. “You never answered.” That’s rude, his tone implies.

“Oh, come on,” a vein begins to throb at your forehead. Gesturing around you – at the courts, the gear, your sweating figure – you answer with an appropriate amount of exasperation, “I’ve been preoccupied.”

“Uh-huh, too busy for a response. I get it. I use that excuse, too.” he scoffs, bemused and not even close to buying your justification, but not offended. “You demolished your matches today, I’m sure you can afford to take your eyes off the court for a minute. Or is Ojo keeping you on a tight leash?”

He’s referring to your coach, and the fucker grins when you stiffen and glower. “Yeah, I heard she likes to do that with her players. Never thought you’d actually be into it, though.”

You try not to be too obvious in your annoyance when you regard him, but Patrick’s always been an overachiever when it comes to bringing out that side of you.

“Yeah, well,” you start smartly, hand on your hip like a bitch. “There are two different types of players: those like you, who are born with a modicum of talent and don’t have to work at it, and those like me.” You toss the plastic bottle back into your duffle, purposefully turning away from him.

Patrick stares at you for a long, hard moment before his mouth quirks up. “Another piece of fortune-cookie advice from Coach Cunt?” he asks, conversational.

“Fuck off, Pat.”

“Hey, I’m serious –” he shrugs, laughing and grinning. “I’m sure she’s got a lot of insight to share. Perspective. You’ll probably need it if you actually want to, you know…win.”

Your head snaps to him quickly enough that something in your neck cracks, and he’s already looking at you. He’s been looking – waiting for you to turn and address him like he’s a real person who deserves basic respect.

Little prick.

“Oh, so that’s what this is about – this impromptu conversation?” you scowl, because of course that’s what this is about. He can never just let sleeping dogs lie, always needing to poke and prod no matter how inappropriate or discomforting. “You came by to give me a few ‘professional’ pointers, like back in college? Does it look like I need tips from you?”

“Jesus,” he laughs. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Yeah? Fuckin’ ditto.”

You turn your back to him as you pick up your racket and return to the basket of tennis balls, mood significantly soured now as you go through the forceful motions of your drills. Patrick watches for a minute or two before sighing like you’re inconveniencing him, and he scuffs his sneakers against the clay of the court.

“C’mon, don’t be an asshole. I just wanted to talk.”

“I don’t feel like listening to the play-by-play of how my matches could’ve been better.” you grunt, focusing on your backhand, now.

He smiles and leans forward, still trying to tease a bit of banter out of you. “Not everything has to be criticism, does it?”

“What else do we have to talk about?” There’s the sharp snap of your racket, and the next tennis ball barely hits the line.

And that seems to sober him up – he stiffens at the sideline, frowning for a brief second before going intentionally blank-faced. When he scoffs again, it’s with a bit more vitriol. You’d say that he’s pouting but you’re not actually paying enough attention to even tell, too intent on ignoring him. His arms are crossed at his chest as he waits for either a comeback or an additional comment, and when he doesn’t get one, he slumps a bit, almost dejected before he snaps back to his typical posturing. He doesn’t look back as he turns to leave.

“Try not to pitch a fit when you choke tomorrow,” he calls only when he’s a safe distance away, the coward. “They’ll fine your ass for throwing a racket at her.”

The only response he gets is the crack of your racket against another ball – violent this time.

And just like the text, you’re beyond a response. Because assholes don’t deserve responses; to respond is to stoop to his level. You’re above that – maybe not above him, because you like to think that you’re somewhat self-aware of your own faults and flaws, but above the baiting and the irritation.

But more irritating than anything else – more than his attitude or his unwanted conversation or his sheer presence – is knowing that Patrick can still get under your skin and make you seethe.

You’re hot.

You’re so fucking hot.

More than 24-hours later and you’re slumped at what might be your third or fourth location of the evening – starting with a club you could dance at and now aiming to finish at a bar-lounge hybrid not too far away from the hotel. The few passing friends you’ve made on tour have long called it quits, and it’s just you, now – sweat cooling on your skin as you sit on a swivel-stool in a dimly lit corner at the bar.

You’ve had too many cocktails and just enough beers. The bottle you’re currently nursing may be your last of the night as you click passively through your phone, skimming over unread messages and missed call alerts, mostly from Ojo, and you’ll have the sense to feel guilty tomorrow. Probably.

Because it’s not a celebratory night out.

You lost your match, which is a bummer but not entirely a surprise – Sirtis is more or less a beast, and you may have been punching above your weight this tournament. Your coach is kind of pissed, but you’re just grateful for the excuse to get semi-sloppy after such prolonged ‘good behavior.’

And it’s not like you embarrassed yourself out there on the court; it was a fair game, you both played it neat and technical, and Sirtis turned up the better player. It happens in this line of work – and if a player is particularly unlucky (or untalented), it happens more often than not. Thankfully, your win-loss ratio speaks for itself – at least, it does for now.

You’re scrolling through the last of your unanswered texts when you reach Patrick’s from days earlier, and it’s a testament to how much you’ve had to drink that you don’t immediately break into a scowl at the reminder of him. In this bar, under the haze of mood lighting and the disappointment of a loss, you feel almost nostalgic.

For what, you’re not exactly sure. An easier schedule? The lack of pressure? The disregard for something as torturous as dieting? Or maybe just an existing social life beyond what friends you manage to make during tours. It feels like a lifetime, but it wasn’t too long ago that your social circle included Patrick.

Among a few specific others.

You can feel your nostalgia turning into something depressing, and you’re distracted just in time by someone clambering onto the stool next to you. You don’t pay attention to them as you down the remainder of your beer, half-convinced it’s just some asshole who’s been leering at you from across the room, and you search for your wallet to settle your tab.

“Celebratory drinks?” the asshole asks, and the tone is irritating and grating and familiar.

The rat stuck in the glue-trap of your existence. Even when he’s released, he comes back for more.

You’re incredulous as you turn to face Patrick, who’s smug at your side. A glass of something amber rests lazily against his chin, and you briefly wonder how long he’s been here.

Your clouded mind passively takes in peachy-tanned skin and stubble and the peak of chest hair flashing beneath the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, and you find your train of thought instinctively barreling toward something hot and intrigued rather than the typical exasperated disregard you usually hold for him.

And just like a lifetime ago, you ignore the feeling.

“If you watched my match today,” you say instead, “you’d know the answer to that.”

He grins, eyes crinkled as he sips at his drink. “Yeah, I watched. You almost make losing look good. Quality show of sportsmanship or whatever.”

Prick. “Better than being fined for racket abuse.” You’re rolling your eyes, but you find that you’re not exactly displeased at Patrick’s presence – not like yesterday, at least. Alcohol-induced nostalgia can be a powerful thing. “And your match?” you raise a brow, gesturing to the drink in his hand. “Did Lenmar look good when he was losing? Congratulations, by the way.”

Patrick practically preens under the dry praise.

“Nah, not really my type,” he snorts into his glass. “He’s vanilla. Fucking boring. And you know how I like my players – Type-A. Mean. Hungry.”

Specific people come to mind with that description, and you shake away the thought. “Are you projecting again? Because you’re not exactly Type-A.”

“Oh, I’m definitely anal.”

Your laugh is short and loud, like an animal’s bark. Definitely kinda/sorta drunk. Patrick laughs with you in this uncommon moment of amicability, elbows resting against the polished wood of the bar as he swivels back and forth in his stool, and he seems in high spirits as he regards you with shining eyes.

“So, this is how I get a conversation out of you?” he glances pointedly at your empty beer bottle. “Wait until you’re loose enough to shoot the shit with me?” It’s not judgmental, which is the only reason your mood doesn’t sour, but still…

“Oh, come on,” you groan at the topic. “You’re actually surprised by that? It’s not like we’ve ever been buddies.”

“Well, not recently,” he agrees. “But we’ve always had…potential.”

You don’t know what to think about the way he says that – casual with some sort of innuendo. “Your nagging sort of got in the way of that.” you snort, pushing past the unsubtle way he’s eyeing you.

“Nagging?” his brows shoot up to his hairline.

“Yeah, you know…nagging. Bitching about my form, or my stance, or my games. Swinging your big, professional dick around.” It had been more than annoying, and you’d complained to Tashi nearly every time he came to visit.

Patrick scoff-laughs, polishing off the remainder of his drink before defending himself. “Hey, I was giving you pointers – it’s not like Stanford was overflowing with potential pros. You needed the guidance.”

“I had all the guidance I could handle back then.”

“And now?” he asks.

Raising a brow, you turn to him; he’s resting his chin in an open palm, head tilted as he appraises you with something that could be appreciation as he awaits a response, lax and lazy.

You sport a pensive expression as you consider this, and eventually answer, “I think I’ve got my hands full with ‘Coach Cunt.’”

He grins. “I bet. She give you permission to go out tonight?”

“Maybe. Why – you plan on tattling? Or are you gonna start bitching again?”

Hand to heart, Patrick feigns an offended look. “I’m just looking out for my favorite player on the women’s tour.”

“You’re so full of shit.”

“I am,” he agrees readily. “And you are, too. At least my shit wins matches.”

Asshole.

You suck at your teeth, tempering your reaction with a breathy inhale-exhale. He’s just trying to bait you again. “And here comes the nagging – what’re the critiques this time? Too loose? Sloppy footwork? Because I’ve heard it all from Ojo at this point.”

“Nah, nothing like that.” Patrick smiles, indulgent. “I’ve grown up since then. Nothing unsolicited offered here.”

“Really? Nothing?” You’re doubtful of that.

“Well…maybe one or two things.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Hey, I said that I’m looking out for you. And no offense, but Ojo could probably use that mindset to your advantage.” He’s casual but avoids your eye when he says this, opting to signal the bartender for another drink.

You scoff, defensive. “You don’t know her.”

“I don’t have to,” he snorts into his refilled glass.” I just have to watch one of your matches.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” The beginnings of a scowl are starting to develop across your expression, and Patrick sighs in exasperation.

“It means you’re high-strung and pent-up,” he answers straightly, leaning in so you can better hear his lowered tone. “It’s obvious and it’s affecting your game for the worse, but hey – I’m sure coach knows best.”

Shrugging, he doesn’t break eye-contact as he swallows down a hefty mouthful of liquor, daring you to contradict him.

Typical, you rise to the bait. “I’m pretty sure it’s referred to as ‘discipline.’” you wave him off, semi-irritated that he’s able to sense this about you by doing nothing more than watching a few of your matches.

Distantly, you wonder if it’s just him who’s noticed, or if it’s just that obvious.

“Ah, okay.” he nods sagely, a smile curling at the corners of his mouth as he pretends to understand. “I get it, this is self-imposed celibacy. Good for you – it worked for Ali, you know.”

“That’s not what it is, jackass.”

“No?” he raises his brows, feigning confusion. “What is it, then?”

“It’s normal bullshit. You know – no drinking, no smoking, no…fraternizing with other players.”

“What?” Patrick laughs. “Fraternizing?”

“I’m not the one who came up with it, okay?”

“No, you’re just following along.” he hums, obnoxiously pleased by this tidbit of your misery. He thumbs at the rim of his glass as he considers this newfound information, and you don’t doubt that he’s scheming.

Irritated for one reason or another, you flag down the bartender for another drink. Something a bit stronger than beer this time around. It’s only after a few sips and some companionable silence that Patrick speaks again.

“When’s the last time you had sex?” he asks, casually inquisitive. It takes you aback just enough for the mouthful you’re drinking to dribble past your lips, and you cough as you wipe at your chin.

Patrick grins. “What? We’re on the subject. I figured I’d ask.”

“When’s the last time you had sex?” you shoot back, although you’re sure his response will be far less lacking than yours.

“Last week.” he answers. Dickhead. “Why? Do you want to hear the details?” His expression makes it clear how much he would enjoy that.

“You’re a pig.”

“We’re animals, girly. It’s natural. Don’t tell me you’ve turned into a prude under Ojo’s tutelage.”

You’re petulant to be even discussing the topic. “Maybe I’ve always been this way.”

“Yeah, right.” Patrick snorts. “Tashi told me stories, you know.”

And that halts the automatic reply of your banter. You blink.

That’s…huh. Unexpected.

Distantly, something in your chest tightens and aches despite him only bringing her up as a taunt; you push past it with gusto as you return his verbal serve.

“Art was always pretty tight-lipped about you,” you swallow a mouthful of something strong and citrusy as you continue, “I kind of figured he was jealous.”

“What? Of me?” Patrick’s surprised for only a moment before shaking his head. “Eh, maybe. To be honest, I was kind of jealous of him.”

“…Really?” That’s hardly what you expected to hear. Patrick’s never seemed the envious type. “Why?”

He considers this for a minute, fingering the rim of his glass. “A few reasons, I guess.” he eventually shrugs. “He had shit that I didn’t back then.”

“You could’ve gone to Stanford.” you’re not unkind as you remind him of the opportunities he’d rejected. “But hey, it’s not like you’re a total failure.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Pointedly, he stares at you. His gaze remains steadfast even when downing the remainder of his now-empty glass; he sets it on the bar and doesn’t signal for a refill, and that in itself feels like a message that you have yet to translate.

It’s only when one of his legs slides against yours – slow and steady, warm even beneath the fabric – that you understand what he’s talking about with a startling clarity.

Oh.

“Pat –” you begin awkwardly, and it’s your tone alone that leaves him wholly unimpressed.

“What?” he scoffs, leaning back and crossing his arms at his chest. “You’re actually surprised? Jesus, did I not make it obvious enough?”

Your mouth flattens at the ham-fisted attitude. Any unease you may have felt evaporates as you sneer at each other. “Oh, you did. I just figured you were a piece of shit.”

Because what kind of guy would go after his best friend’s girlfriend? Or somehow even worse – what kind of guy would go after his own girlfriend’s best friend?

Something turns sour on your tongue.

…On second thought, maybe Art and Patrick are more alike than you had originally thought; you’ve heard throughout the tour that Donaldson and Duncan have become something of a couple beyond just coaching. It’s something you have yet to fully digest.

But Patrick’s undeterred by your moral judgement. “And I thought you were a prissy fuckin’ bitch – hell, I liked that about you. You’re gonna say you didn’t feel the same?”

A scowl. “I tolerated you, sure.”

“Oh, now who’s full of shit?”

Each growing irritated by the other – you with his unashamed honesty, and him with your tight-lipped bluffing – you both let the chatter of the bar’s crowd overwhelm your now stunted conversation. It’s the last thing you need or want – Patrick’s attention – and you’re of half a mind to call a cab as you finish the remainder of your cocktail. The emptied glass rings as you set it on the counter and you finally manage to take out your wallet, determined to pay your tab this time around.

And again, Patrick interrupts you.

“I still think about you, you know.” he says, probably in a last-ditch effort to keep you around. It’s not so much a confession as it is a verbal acknowledgment of the truth: he thinks of you. Not inherently negative or positive. Nothing more, nothing less.

And for the moment, it works; you stop thumbing through your wallet, stiff atop your stool as you’re once again halted by Patrick Zweig’s big fucking mouth. It’s a routine you should be able to recognize by now, but your time apart has left you forgetting his more bothersome traits.

He’s looking into the bottom of his glass up until he’s suddenly fixed on you, expression showing nothing save for his eyes, and it’s then that you realize – this is something more. He thinks of you, and it’s something more.

Undeterred, he continues, “I thought about you back then, and I think about you now. And you can think I’m an asshole for what I say or how I act, but I’ve only ever liked you.” He repeats his earlier action – sliding his knee against yours, not pressing any further. Just wanting that connection. “I still like you. Probably more than I should, considering you’ve thrown rackets at my head.”

You have the sense to be distantly rueful of your past behavior, and you say, “But you like them mean.”

A nod. “But I like them mean.” Patrick repeats in agreement.

Loaded, you hold one another’s gaze. The noise of the bar swells and dies down to a murmur as the intimacy of the moment settles over you. He’s closer than he was a minute ago, one elbow resting on the bar, his knuckles brushing against yours, and it’s a seduction rooted in history. Vague dislike, miscommunication, and unspoken history. It’s like you’ve been pushed onto the precipice of something you’ve always been conscious of but never expected to encounter. It’s a hassle because it’s Patrick; it’s thrilling because it’s Patrick.

His pinky curls around yours, and a decision has been made.

Because you’ve thought about him, too.

You kiss him outside of the bar.

It’s not something you’re particularly proud or ashamed of; it’s a spontaneous thing brought on by sheer want. You want to feel good. You want to make Patrick feel good because it’ll make you feel good.

The two of you are walking down the alley connected to the parking lot of the bar, heading for his car because he’s had significantly less to drink, and he looks good underneath the streetlights. He guides you with a warm palm pressed against the small of your back – his pinky slipping underneath the waistband of your jeans and underwear – and you think to yourself, I don’t want to wait.

No one else is around. Cars drive by in colorful blurs that streak across the nighttime horizon, their passengers none the wiser to a couple in an alleyway. You slow to a stop, pulling Patrick with you.

When he looks back, his brows are raised and a smile is quirking on his lips. “You okay?” he asks.

In lieu of a verbal response, you kiss him.

It’s hot and heavy off the bat, slack-mouthed and wet. If Patrick’s surprised, he doesn’t show it; his response is immediate, a leanly muscled arm curling at your waist to angle you closer to him, noses slotting together as he licks into your mouth with a low, vibrating hum. He almost sounds relieved. Tongue hot against yours, he’s quick to get sloppy with it and, for a while, there’s nothing but the hum of the city and the audible sound of your kissing.

The hand cupping your jaw slides down to palm at your breasts; you push him backwards until he’s pressed against the brick exterior of the bar. Each of your legs are slotted between the other’s and it’s a sloppy reacquaintance of spit and heavy petting.

Everything about it feels like a dream, or maybe that’s just your buzz wearing off. He gropes you with big, firm hands. Kneads at your tits and the flesh of your ass-cheeks.

He touches you like he’s thought about it before and now that the opportunity’s here, he’d rather kill himself than allow it to pass him by. He wants your attention on him; he wants your thoughts and your affection. He wants you to want him, too.

Your sex pulses beneath your underwear when he suckles at your tongue, bobbing subtly as if he’s giving head.

“S’different than I thought it’d be…” Patrick eventually mutters, pulling back and sucking in a lungful of air. His eyes are dark with the swell of his pupils, lips shining wetly as he pants against your mouth. The hem of his shirt is rucked up from where you’ve been petting at the dense trail of hair leading below his navel and waistband, and you think you can see the outline of his semi beneath his jeans.

“It’s good,” he hums, pleased and wanting to lick inside of you again. The slope of his nose grazes yours as he dips back in. “It’s real fuckin’ good.”

And for once, you and Patrick are on the same page. No miscommunication. No misunderstandings. He’s right.

It’s real fuckin’ good.

“Ah, fuck. Fuck –” you shudder and hiss a wounded noise, body tense as your pussy pulses, and Patrick groans, burrowing into your neck. “Shit, it’s fuckin’ big.”

Patrick’s hotel room is chaotic – bags tossed here and there, toiletries scattered on every other surface, clothes hanging from the backs of chairs and armrests and even the bedpost.

None of it matters; not even remotely. Because he’s thick and uncut and inside of you, and you feel like you’re losing your goddamn mind.

“Relax, relax,” he shushes you, mouthing at your ear and repeating the word again and again in an unthinking trance while he humps you into the mattress, and the angle is so sweet that it makes your eyes roll up and your body drool from both ends. You can feel it smeared against the inner of your thighs, slick and sticky and mixing with Patrick’s spit from when he had eaten you out earlier.

One of his hands slips from gripping the fistful of bedsheets in favor of forcing itself between the mattress and your groin, fingertips finding smears of wet once he finally reaches the beginning of your slit. It takes little searching before he’s making contact with the pert, aching nub of your clit, and you squirm underneath him.

Your writhing only serves to push him that much deeper into the slickened hole of your cunt and he curses lowly; a muscle in his thigh jumps, sac tightening at the snug contractions around his dick.

“There we go,” Patrick mutters as you start to settle, caressing your back like he’s soothing an animal. “There we fuckin’ go…”

When he drags the flat of his fingers against your clit in a mean back-and-forth, you cry out.

“Shit!” you shout, almost miserable as your ass instinctively backs into him, away from the friction and wanting him to hit that angle, biting into your thumb as he continues to rub firmly at your hardened clit and he shifts his hips just right, and it’s good. It’s so good. Your hips and thighs burn as you swivel and work for it, trying to buck against him underneath his full-bodied weight.

You feel thoughtless, and the sheer relief of it – of how good he’s making you feel – is enough to make you slobber across your knuckles.

He notices. You’re beginning to think that he might notice too much about you.

“You drooling, baby?” Patrick nudges his nose against your cheek, tone pleased as he slows his strokes and kisses at the corner of your slacked mouth. “Feels good, doesn’t it? Bet you’re not thinking about any of that other bullshit now.”

And then he adjusts, emphasizing his point by fucking you like a man paid to do it. Each stroke claps against your ass and forces your spine to arch as he rails you inch-by-inch up the mattress. The pat, pat, pat of his balls taps repeatedly against your clit, stringy drools of wet arousal connecting from your mound to his sac, and you keen.

It's overwhelming. It’s hot.

Sweat glistens across the flexing muscles of your bodies, dripping and smearing onto one another as he bottoms out, thrusting his hips as if he can go any deeper, and it’s like he’s trying to get it – you – out of his system. Calloused hands grip your waist as he drags the wet suction of your cunt back onto him in a repeated in and out, in and out. The sound of it is graphic. Explicit.

You want to squirm out of your skin with the way your pussy clenches and unclenches in tight, sporadic bursts around the thick length of him.

The fat tip of his cock barely kisses your cervix with every other stroke, and you want it so badly that you stop breathing for a few seconds. You just lock up, your sweating spine pressed against his hairy chest, and Patrick must be able to tell that you’re close because he ducks his head against the hinge of your jaw and gets to work.

“Yeah,” he pants, mouthing at the nape of your neck. “Yeah, yeah, yeah – I can feel it, baby. Don’t worry, I’ll get you there.”

He’s not laying strokes now; he’s curling his body over yours, hips rutting in a staccato rhythm and clapping wetly against your ass-cheeks as the length of him is sucked in and dragged back out. His swollen tip nudges against that spot over and over and over again, churning you from the inside-out, and the fresh wave of slick arousal it brings is both immediately heard and felt.

“Jesus Christ,” Patrick huffs and curses something indiscernible; tone low and intimate as he pants against your ear. “This tight fuckin’ pussy…gonna make me fuckin’ come, goddamn.”

He’s not wearing a condom. You don’t know why the reminder of it makes you clench like a vice, but whatever the reason, he can feel it – the sudden, pressured resistance of your cunt as it decides whether it wants to let him in or push him out even though he’s mid-stroke. It’s an eye-crossing feeling, and a broken groan tumbles from his throat as he decides for you and snaps in to the hilt.

There’s no further build-up – your orgasm slams into you. Everything tightens – your muscles, your core – and it almost hurts as you feel yourself trying to milk the girth of him, grinding back onto him in thorough rolls of your hips.

Harsh, panting sounds of exertion fill the room, and it’s strikingly intimate as Patrick frantically pulls out, too overwhelmed by his own orgasm to sustain yours. He fists his dick, knees digging into the springs of the mattress as he pulls back the foreskin so the swollen tip of him is visible.

He’s coated in your come – the sound of it as it slicks him up making him twitchy – and it’s hardly a handful of root-to-tip tugs before he’s shooting ropes across your lower-back and ass, panting out low, rough groans as his balls tighten and flex with each pulse. His ass-cheeks clench while his hips move in reflexive jerks of motion.

It takes a minute, but the heat calms.

You pant into the sex-tinted air, twitching through the aftershocks of it all, and Patrick’s palm caresses appreciatively at your flank as you settle. Neither of you say anything.

The thrum of the air-conditioning is the only sound in the hotel room as you come down from your respective peaks, and Patrick cleans you up with a rumpled shirt that he snags off of the bedpost before tossing it aside. The dim light of the bedside lamp casts shadows across the sheets, and there’s hardly a moment to breathe before he’s collapsing back onto you in a full-bodied slump. He groans something low and relieved and satiated as he goes boneless atop your bare form.

“Give me a minute,” he grouses, and it sounds like he’s half-asleep. “I can go again.”

Fucking nympho freak.

“Shit – I can’t.” you wheeze from underneath him with a grim sort of contentedness, like you’ve just gone through something exhausting and harrowing that can only be rectified by fourteen-hours of sleep. You try to nudge him off, but he just nuzzles his forehead into you like a petulant dog.

It doesn’t matter; your orgasm has sent you into half-consciousness. All of your senses seem to blend beneath today’s events until they become discernible from one another, and any regrets you might have will have to wait to be seen in tomorrow morning’s light.

You’re nearly asleep underneath the weighted blanket that is Patrick when he slurs, “Bet this’ll incentivize you to answer my texts.”

He laughs before abruptly going quiet. A minute later and he’s snoring in your ear; neither of you will remember this come morning.

Two months and another tournament later, and Patrick’s name flashes across your Blackberry’s screen.

This time, you answer.

Clark saw you burst into the bullpen like a whirlwind, cheeks pink from the November chill, hair a little mussed from the wind. You were holding a coffee cup like it was your only lifeline, and your smile was the kind of thing that made the grey morning seem irrelevant.

“Clark,” you said, voice breathless, eyes shining. “Oh my god! Oh my god,”

He looked up from his desk, alarmed, pen still poised above a half-finished article. “Woah- woah! Hey, slow down,”

You knocked into his desk, hip hitting the wood in a way that usually, would elicit a much bigger reaction from you. Nevertheless, he winced, darting a hand out immediately to soothe it.

But something had happened- something crazy, something big, something beautiful, and all you could do was bite down a yelp and look at your bewildered best friend right in the eye.

“I cannot slow down,” you told him, words bordering on a threat. "Do not make me slow down,"

“Golly. Must be serious.” He said, a tiny little smirk playing on his lips.

“Super serious,” you said, slamming the coffee down on his desk and leaning in close. It was only then that he realised it had his name on it, his heart warming at the sight of it. “You will not believe what just happened. Here, I got you a drink,”

He smiled, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he took it from you with a thankful nod. “Knowing you, I’d better sit down for this.”

“You’re already sitting.”

“Then I’m ahead of the curve.”

You tried to glare, but you were too excited. “Okay, fine- listen. Superman was at the bridge this morning. The Metropolis Bridge. I saw him, Clark. I saw him.”

He blinked once, twice, doing his best impression of confusion. He could still feel the breeze against his face, smell the petrol of the cars he had to hold up to refrain from falling into the water.

“Superman? At the bridge? Was there an accident?”

“There was a car hanging off the edge!” you said, waving your hands so wildly he had to rescue a stack of papers from flying off his desk. “Sorry,”

“Gosh, you’re like a hurricane.” He mumbled, moreso to himself, but you were too enamoured by your own story to notice.

“It was terrifying, but he just- he caught it, Clark. One hand. Like he was just holding a bag of groceries or something. And then he looked at the people inside and said, ‘You’re safe now,’ and I swear-“ you grabbed your own chest dramatically, “Oh my god, Clark. I nearly died.”

He laughed under his breath, low and warm. “You… nearly died watching Superman save someone from dying?”

You ignored him, still glowing. “His voice, Clark. It’s like- like someone grabbed hope by the neck and strangled it into sound and shoved it into one, thick, fleshy neck," he winced at your description of his body. "I don’t even know how else to describe it. He’s just..."

You sighed dreamily, “- he’s so good. He just wanted everyone to be safe and you could so tell,”

Clark’s smile didn’t let up but inside, his chest ached.

You had no idea how many times he’d said those same words to himself- make them feel safe. You had no idea that the person you were describing so reverently was the same one who’d offer you half of everything, the same person who'd rubbed the parts of your body that you insisted on clumsily slamming against everything.

Different voice, different clothes, different vibe altogether- but still, the very same man.

“He looked at me, Clark,” you said suddenly, like you couldn’t hold it in. “I swear he did. Just for a second, but I know he did.”

Clark's eyebrows raised, gaze falling to the flush on your cheeks, at the way your fingers fiddled with his coffee cup lid, and he thought- how could he not have looked at you? He was Kryptonian, not blind. You had no idea how magnetic you were, how you could pull every molecule of him toward you without even trying.

He remembered it exactly as you said it; he had looked right at you on the bridge. So much for being discreet. But he couldn’t help it; there was trouble, he had to help, and out of nowhere came the steady sound of a heartbeat he spent years listening to and looking out for.

It wasn’t anything new- Clark listened out for your heart all the time. On the way to the office, on the way back, the times you weren’t okay but pretended like you were. It became second nature to him; like having two beats in the same body.

He shrugged, “Maybe you imagined it.”

You gasped then, mock-offended. “Ugh, drink your latte. I would never imagine something like that. He looked at me. I mean- come on, maybe he was checking to make sure I wasn’t hurt. Or maybe-” you bit your lip, grinning “-maybe he’s in love with me.”

Clark coughed into his coffee. He couldn’t have looked more obvious if he tried, but thankfully, he had the scalding hot drink pressed to his lips to cover that. “In love? With you?”

You nodded sagely. “Yeah. Like—‘who is that beautiful, slightly disheveled civilian over there?’ Love at first sight, that sort of thing.”

He couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped him, soft and adoring. You always did that; you made him laugh at exactly the moment he needed it, even when your words twisted the knife a little deeper.

You dropped into the chair beside his desk and groaned, letting your head fall against the backrest. “I sound ridiculous, huh? I didn’t mean that in love thing, I don't really believe that. But he did look right at me.”

Clark smiled, pretending to focus on his screen. “Not ridiculous.”

“Liar.”

“Okay. Maybe a little ridiculous.”

“Thank you,” you said dramatically, “for your honesty.”

He glanced over, eyes soft. “You’re allowed to be a little ridiculous about someone who saves lives.”

You peeked up at him through your lashes. “You’ve met him, right? Superman?”

Clark hesitated just long enough that you didn’t notice. “For the interviews, yes.”

“Is he mean? Or is he as kind as everyone says? Be honest, Kent.”

“He’s…” he tilted his head to the side, “Yeah. He’s nice, I’d say,”

Your eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding. So, he’s nice and hot?”

He cleared his throat, shifting his glasses. “I, uh- sure. If that’s what you want to call it,” truthfully, he was starting to feel a little weird about talking himself up to you- the one person who didn’t need in the slightest.

Sure, he knew that Superman had a certain... appeal, to the younger female population. He never really used his phone but he couldn't ever truly escape the gossip that floated around the office; people thought Superman was attractive. There was no shame in acknowledging that.

Still, it made him feel like caving in on himself; especially when he sat there in a spinny office chair, in a blazer a size and a half too big and odd socks that hadn't matched in weeks. What's the point, nobody's going to see them anyway, he'd think to himself. Then he'd hear Cat swooning over his other half's biceps and feel like even more of a fraud.

You leaned forward, gripping his sleeve. “What was he like? What did he say? Is it true- the harem thing?”

Clark’s eyes widened in offense, though he could still feel the fondness spilling out of him like light through cracks.

“Harem?!” his voice cracked, “You said you didn’t believe in any of that stuff-“

“I don’t, I don’t! It’s all superhuman controversies,” you waved dismissively, “I still read them, though. It’s interesting! But carry on, please,”

“He’s… humble,” Clark said carefully, slightly struggling to shrug off your previous comment. “Brave. I think he carries a lot, but never complains about it.”

You sighed then, folding your arms with a faraway look in your eyes. “Right. He’s basically perfect, then.”

He looked down at his notes, smiling sadly. “I wouldn’t say perfect. Just… he’s trying, I guess.”

As you watched the busybodies of the bullpen work in front of you, Clark couldn’t stop himself from watching you.

He could still remember the first time he met you- the day you’d arrived at the Planet, arms full of folders, juggling a coffee, a pen, and a bagel all at once. He’d caught the coffee before it spilled, and you’d laughed and said, ‘If you hadn’t done that, I would have gone straight home.’ You’d smiled at him, and that was the moment everything shifted.

Phones still rang, papers still printed. But to Clark, the world felt calmer somehow. Like everything, no matter what it was- evil, narcissistic billionaires or crazy Kryptonian dogs and drunk, flyaway cousins, you name it- would be okay.

From then on, he found you everywhere; in the way the sunlight streaked through his windows and hit the gloss of the kitchen counter just right; the way the wind would blow, gentle and breezy, against his cheek whenever he’d take off. The way the sound of your laugh would echo through the hallways, your heels clicking down the tiles, your warmth filling up every corner of his life.

He’d been there the day your first big story almost fell through and you sat at your desk at midnight, too tired to cry. He’d brought you coffee, left it quietly by your hand, and watched as you smiled when you saw it.

He’d walked you home after late nights, pretending it was for his peace of mind, though really it was so he could memorise the sound of your voice outside of the Planet’s stress.

It was always fuller, calmer, yet a lot louder. Never brazen, but always confident.

You spent a lot of time together; sometimes at your place, often times in his high-rise penthouse. You liked it better there. It was so him; so sensible, so Clark. You’d fall asleep on his couch and wake up in his bed, cracking the bedroom door open slightly to find him peacefully dozing away in the living room.

He’d saved you, too- more times than you’d ever know. Once, when a construction sign snapped loose in the wind, he caught it in midair and flew off before you could even turn around.

Another time- as Clark- when a taxi nearly clipped you at a crosswalk, he’d been there in a flash; steadying you with a sheepish, “Guess I should’ve been watching where I was going.” You’d laughed and called him your “clumsy guardian angel.” He’d smiled, because it wasn’t far from the truth.

Now you were here, telling him about your crush on the part of him you didn’t recognise. The half you weren’t allowed to see.

You stood up suddenly, pacing the floor. “I mean, it’s not like I actually think I have a chance with Superman,” you said, waving your hands. “He probably has… space girlfriends. Or whatever.”

Clark's amusement played on his lips, “Space girlfriends?”

“Yeah, like- women who can fly and don’t trip over their own two fee-,” you said, right before your boot got caught in the crack on the floor; a downright betrayal causing you to slip and crash forward.

He caught you before you could hit the ground, one arm around your waist, steady and sure.

You blinked up at him, laughing. “Damn. What is wrong with me?”

“I can think of a few things.” He said sheepishly, earning one of your infamous, soft yet quick arm slaps.

"Mean!"

"Sorry, sorry."

“I swear, Clark," you shook your head, straightening your posture, "you have insane reflexes. What are you, Spiderman?”

His heart stuttered. Close.

You were joking, of course. You always joked. But he still smiled and said, “Just lucky, I guess.”

You grinned. “Well, thank you, Lucky Kent. You saved me from both injury and humiliation.”

He smiled softly. “Anytime.”

You lingered there a second too long before stepping back, cheeks warm.

It was one thing gushing over a man you had a slight crush on, a world-famous superhero who would probably never find out- it was another to let your feelings for your best friend known, after so many months successfully keeping them hidden.

You'd decided mentally a while back, when Clark was at your apartment making breakfast for dinner, setting off the fire alarm in the process.

He could never be yours.

He was sweet, quiet, hesitant. He didn't need someone like you. Maybe you needed someone like him- but you thought, men like him never typically ended up with girls like you. They often got with the sensible types, the lovely ones, the girls that didn't need to try because everyone loved them anyway.

Fangirling over Superman was fun. Being in love with Clark Kent was pain.

The words came rushing out before you meant for them too, a protective barrier between you and the man before you.

“You’re a really good friend, you know that?”

The word friend landed somewhere in his chest like a soft, inevitable bruise. Clark blinked, tried to swallow back a choke.

"Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”

Later, when you finally left the office, still humming to yourself about Superman, Clark sat there for a long time, staring out the window. The city lights blurred in the glass, glowing gold and soft, and he could see the faint reflection of himself- Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter.

Somewhere out there, the world saw Superman as a symbol. But when he looked at you, he didn’t feel like a symbol.

He felt like a man who loved someone so deeply it ached.

Because the hurtful truth wasn’t that you were in love with Superman. No; Clark picked up on your tone, the joking way you wriggled your eyes and scolded him playfully for acting like you’d never have a chance. An infatuation, sure. Maybe it was limerence, even. Those he could handle.

No, what hurt the most wasn’t that you loved the other side of him. This pain came from somewhere much deeper, a nagging feeling that ate away at the back of his mind.

He was yours. Yet you’d never know, and he’d never tell you, because he’d rather keep it to himself forever if it meant he’d still have you in his life.

He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, watching your shadow disappear into the night below.

For a heartbeat, he almost let himself imagine it; a world where you knew, where you didn’t run away screaming. Where disappointment didn’t flood your face and you confessed your feelings back, with a kiss on his lips and your fingers tangled in his hair.

Almost.

But the city was calling again, distant sirens rising like a requiem.

Clark closed his eyes, his dream collapsing to dust in the darkness.

Maybe one day, he’d tell you. Maybe one day, you’d look at him and see.

But not tonight.

The box sits there in the middle of the hallway like a frail, stray dog you're trying to pretend isn't there. It's not that you won't let it in; it's that you can't. You've tried it all: dragging, pushing, tilting, but apparently nothing can defeat the dark powers that are keeping it glued down. So you stare it down from the other side of the open door with a carton of Chinese takeout, eighty pounds (or at least that's what it feels like) of books haphazardly packed in cheap cardboard and even cheaper packing tape, its sides starting to fold out as if it's one breath away from collapsing.

Same thing can be said about you, actually.

Second move in four months? That's saying something, you're just not ready to ask what exactly that is. At least you had learned your lessons: live a life that's pared-down enough to run with; and never fully unpack. It makes things easier.

It's not all bad, you think while munching on cold lo mein. A lot of things went surprisingly well. It didn't rain. Jenna drove the U-Haul while you wrung your shaky hands, and helped you all day up until she had to go home to her online students, about an hour ago. The apartment is great: small, but definitely big enough for you and your scanty belongings; it's new, with floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room and a breathtaking view of Metropolis. Hell, you can even see Hob's Bay from here - not that you want to. Maybe it will serve as a reminder for you to never move in with someone after having known them for only three months ever again.

You glance outside, mustering the courage to go back there and give it another try, another shove, another push. If these were any other books, you'd leave it there and call it a shared library. But these… these ones have to make their way inside, one way or another. It's your travel set, your own version of a capsule wardrobe, except it's heavier, dustier, and infinitely more interesting. One dense cube of paperbacks and hardcovers that have followed you through every move since college - no wonder they've apparently had enough. Some Steinbeck, a stack of worn out Austen, a Nigella cookbook Jenna gave you (bless her, she does try to make you not suck at things), Neruda, Kerouac, a Calvin & Hobbes set that's literally falling apart. Books that got you through each version of yourself, the ones you can't leave behind even when you leave everything else. All others - and there are many, many others - remain in storage, waiting for you to land somewhere worthy of bringing them home.

Might take a while.

You're just really tired now, though. It's been a couple of complicated days - weeks, months, who are we kidding, years, so this small setback is the last thing you need. Maybe you can leave a nice note asking people to stay away from it, right next to where you scribbled BOOKS in your pitiful handwriting? No, that's not going to work. The mere thought of someone grabbing the copy of Persuasion you keep in that box makes your stomach churn.

A soft shuffling noise breaks through your musings and you tense up, getting ready to offer a rambling apology for the box and for your entire existence.

"Hey."

There's a young man standing there: tall, wearing a navy suit that's a little rumpled and a little too big for him, glasses on the tip of his nose, dark, curly hair falling into his eyes.

"Moving in?", he asks, with a quick wave and a genuine smile you weren't expecting to encounter at that time of the night.

You blink, mentally flicking all the sarcastic answers away as you stand up and walk towards the open door.

"Yeah, just this afternoon."

"I'm Clark,"he says, gesturing at the door across from yours. "Right over there."

You state your name, stepping forward to shake his hand. He's warm. Strong grip. You glance at the badge that's hanging from the lanyard around his neck. The Daily Planet, Clark Kent.

"So you're a journalist."

“Yeah, how did you- oh, right, yeah,” he stutters, patting his badge. “I am a journalist, yes. How about you?”

“Librarian. I work at the Metro Public.”

His face lights up. "I love that place."

Anyone who loves your library - well, the library you’ve been working at for the past eight years - is immediately tagged as a good person in your head. You like to think you’d remember him if you had seen him, but then again, so many people come and go, it’s nearly impossible to keep track unless they come by very regularly. 

"Need help with this?", he asks, lightly tapping the box with his shoe.

You briefly consider brushing it off with a joke, but your pride takes a backseat tonight.

"If it’s not too much trouble...”

"You know," he leans down and lifts the box in one smooth, effortless motion, "you could have moved these books a few at a time."

You groan, covering your eyes. "Of course, I could have done that."

"Where do you want it?"

“Just leave it anywhere, thank you. Ugh, I can't believe I didn't think of that.”

He sets the box down by the couch. "Don't beat yourself up. Moving is never easy."

“Tell me about it,” you mutter as he makes his way out, shifting his satchel back on his shoulder. 

“Moving from far away?”

“Hob’s Bay,” you answer, hooking your thumb over your shoulder as if you know exactly in which direction Hob’s Bay is. You do not.

“Actually Hob’s Bay is that way,” he points to his left with a grin. “Bit of an upgrade then.”

You nod, not willing to go into the whole "yeah well I left my ex" explanation. He doesn't push, and you're grateful for it.

“Well, nice meeting you. If you want a rundown of the neighbors, or, I don’t know, you need help moving another unnecessarily heavy box,” he motions his head towards his door, “I’m here. Well, not all the time, I mean, most nights. And weekends, sometimes. Well, I'm generally around, you know what I mean.”

He stammers all the way into his apartment, then disappears inside with a sort of half-salute which is equal parts adorable and dorky. You lean back on the closed door behind you, the maligned box now sitting there by the couch where it will rest, undisturbed.

You exhale. “God, you’re such an idiot."

Living a life that fits in about a dozen boxes makes both moving out, and moving in, that much quicker. It only takes you a few days to settle in and unpack what you need: your fall and winter clothes, a few - but matching - kitchen utensils, a couple of sets of sheets and towels, and that's pretty much it. The box of books is still where Clark left it by the couch, until your new bookshelf arrives. You don't dread coming home at the end of the day as much as you thought you would. You also don't dread being alone as much as you thought you would. It helps that the apartment is really great, much better than you thought you'd be able to get with just a couple of weeks' notice. Watching the trees of Metropolis changing color as you make breakfast is lovely. Watching the city light up and slow down when you get home is incredible.

It also helps a lot that the alternative would be to continue living with an insufferable narcissist.

By the fourth day, you've nailed your commute, which feels like a massive accomplishment. Today, you even managed to wake up and get ready with ten minutes to spare, just enough to try the coffee shop on the corner that you've rushed by every day, promising yourself you'd stop by the next day.

The place is narrow and crowded, with odd decor on white walls, a mix of mismatched chairs and benches and tables, and it smells like roasted beans and caramel. You shuffle into a line, scanning the pastry case. The barista takes your name and your order, and you slide to your right to wait when a cup appears at the end of the counter. No one calls a name; curious, you lean in to take a peek at the name on it, although it couldn't possibly be yours.

Clark.

As if he's been summoned, he barrels through the door, tall, rushed, pushing his glasses up his nose, satchel slipping down his arm.

"Oh hey, neighbor!" he exclaims when he spots you, flashing that same lopsided grin you unfortunately remember too well.

"Morning, Clark. Running late again?"

That makes him pause before getting to the counter, squinting at you. "Again? Wait, how do you-"

"Your coffee is waiting for you, so I'm sensing there's maybe a pattern here?"

His quick laugh brings a faint rush of blood to your cheeks, which is inconvenient. He rubs the back of his neck like he's been caught cheating on a test. "Yeah, I haven't been sleeping much lately. Deadlines, you know. I should…" he gestures towards the door.

"Clark!" the barista calls cheerfully - a little too cheerfully, one might say - and slides his cup forward.

"Thanks, Jen," he says, dropping a couple extra dollars into the tip jar, enough to make her grin widen further, then adds, "Hope your shift isn't too crazy today."

She giggles and you stand there, watching the whole thing unfold like a scene from a movie you're not cast in.

"See you," Clark says over his shoulder as he scoops up his coffee cup and bolts out the door. He was here for maybe a minute or two, but it was enough to make the air shift.

You turn back to find the barista watching him go, still smiling. You can't even blame her. He has this combination that shouldn't work: too tall, too dorky, too earnest, and yet it does. It absolutely, undeniably works, apparently on everyone.

This should be a relief. It means that the night you moved in wasn't anything special. The handshake you keep replaying in your head, the warmth in his voice as he told you to stop beating yourself up, the way he said "I'm here" like he meant it - all of it was just Clark being Clark.

You're not special.

The words come up uninvited, your mother's voice layered over your own thoughts like she's right beside you, whispering into your soul.

Your name is finally called - no bright grins for you, though. You step back into the cold morning, coffee cup warming your hand as you turn the corner and get a copy of The Daily Planet from the newsstand.

say you’ll stay

don’t come and go like you do

sway my way

yeah I need to know all about you

(bic runga)

“Sunflowers are too yellow,” you’re saying to Lois, passionate in your discussion about flowers and which kind is the best to receive. Clark’s been listening in, for research purposes. “And roses are too red.”

Lois laughs, “You can get roses in other colours, you know.”

“I know,” you say defensively, sticking your chin out at her. “But I’ve only ever gotten red. They’re so boring.”

“Well, what flowers do you like?” Lois asks, sounding amused, and Clark perks up.

“Hmm,” you tap your chin thoughtfully. Then, after a moment of thought, “I like lilies. The pink ones are so pretty.”

That’s how Clark ends up late to work the next day, a big bouquet of pink and white lilies clutched in his hand, their stalks strangled in his nervous grip. The cellophane crinkles against his suit as he weaves through bustling colleagues towards his desk. In his other hand is a brown paper bag, still warm, smelling of sugar and almonds.

Clark’s surprised, and a bit alarmed, to find you already standing at his desk, poring over your notebook. His heart suddenly picks up speed, and he considers turning tail and running the other way, but you look up as he approaches. Too late.

“Oh, Clark, you’re here. I just wanted to ask you about—“ You stop short as your gaze lands on the flowers cradled to his chest. You raise a brow, “Who’s the lucky girl?”

Clark feels suddenly really nervous. He wishes he could wipe his sweaty palms on his suit jacket, but his hands are full. He swallows.

“Um,” He starts lamely. His glasses start to slip down his nose and he pushes them back up with the hand holding the flowers. “You?”

You blink at him, looking understandably confused. “Huh?”

Clark flounders for a long moment. This is not going how he’d hoped it would.

“Uh.” He clears his throat and steels his nerves. “They’re… they’re for you, honey.”

He offers the flowers to you. Your features are still screwed up in skepticism, and Clark is immensely grateful when you take them from him, your fingers brushing his as you go.

“Oh.” You gaze down at the flowers, then back up at Clark, blinking rapidly. Clark wonders if you’re as nervous as he feels. He doubts it. “What for?”

Clark’s not really sure himself. He doesn’t know why he got them, he just knows that he likes you, and you like lilies, and maybe the logic got a bit lost in the process, but sue him for thinking you deserve nice things.

He shrugs. “I’m not sure. No reason, really,” he rubs the back of his neck with a warm hand. “I just thought you’d like them. Do you?”

You nod vehemently. “I love them, Clark. They’re so pretty, how’d you know lilies are my favourite?”

Clark hesitates. He’s not about to tell you he’s been listening in on your conversations. One, it’s definitely borderline creepy, and two, Clark Kent isn’t supposed to have super hearing.

He just grins, sheepish. “Dunno,” he says. “Just a lucky guess. I got you this, as well.”

He holds out the paper bag before he can psyche himself out. You put the flowers down on his desk, gentle as ever, and take the bag from him, opening up the top and peeking in.

“An almond croissant?” You say, sounding surprised and pleased at once.

Your shoulders start to creep towards your ears, and you bite the inside of your cheek like you’re trying not to smile too big. Clark knows almond croissants are your favourite. He heard you raving to Jimmy about the ones at the bakery down the street last week.

Before Clark can give you another lame explanation for his conveniently suitable gifts, you surge at him, throwing your arms around his neck with a pleased giggle. Clark, startled, catches you with his hands on your waist. His heartbeat goes suddenly frantic.

“Clark,” you gush, and his name sounds unbelievably sweet in your mouth. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know you skip breakfast most days,” he says, sheepish and a little bit panicked. His face feels like it’s on fire, worse when you pull back and smile at him like he’s hung the sun. “I figured you’d be hungry. I was going past the bakery, anyway. It’s no big deal.”

He’s rambling, but he can’t help it. You’re so close, and your smile is bruising.

You give him an exasperated look. “You’re downplaying it. Almond croissants are my favourite!” You steal your arms back from around his neck and hit him on the chest gently. He doesn’t feel a thing, but it’s cute anyway. “What are you, psychic?”

Worse, Clark thinks. He shrugs. “I told you. Lucky guesses.”

You squint at him, and Clark feels the heat of a million suns on his skin under your gaze. He almost spills his guts right then and there, but before he can, you break into a big smile.

“You’re cute, Kent,” you say decidedly. Before Clark can react, you push up onto your tiptoes, press a hand to his chest, and kiss his check sweetly. “Thank you.”

Clark goes a bit blind. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was steam gushing out of his ears right now. He’s gotta do this more often if you’re gonna react like that.

The hem of your jeans is wet. Your sweater is unraveling at the right sleeve. Your t-shirt is wrinkled and the dorky literary joke makes you feel unprofessional. You can still taste coffee on your lips behind your lipbalm. Your jacket is falling apart, smells of someone else, makes you look like a less impressive Sam Winchester. And most importantly, you forget to breathe, looking at the impressive building that houses the Daily Planet.

Lois, a great friend, but always knee deep in work, had gotten you a chance to publish your stories amongst all the increasingly important articles in the newspaper, and you don’t know what you’ve done to deserve this. Chances like this don’t come twice in life.

She’d slipped you the news in those few moments of reprieve you managed to get in your small apartment, at ungodly hours of the night. You’d been so tired you hadn't believed her at first.

But it was true. So very true.

Lois forgot one very specific thing when she got you a meeting with Perry White though, and that was your less than proficient people skills. According to her, the meeting was routine, and you were sure to get what you wanted, but still, you felt it in you that you were capable of messing this up.

So on this frigid Monday morning, you were standing there like an idiot, gripping a cup of coffee that had long since gone cold, hesitating to go inside. Was it all worth the possible humiliation of tripping over your words in front of the Perry White? If it meant actually getting your work out there, maybe it was. 

Maybe you could actually do this.

Or maybe you were seconds away from passing out.

After almost getting doused in water by a car speeding by, and getting bumped into by four very disgruntled individuals, your numb fingers finally convince you to step into the lobby.

Right on time, as you usually are. Never early, never late.

Lois is waiting for you in the lobby, looking bored and stressed simultaneously, if that was even possible, though honestly that woman made anything feel possible. She’s prodigal in your eyes, the one that had actually made it out of the two of you. She begs to differ obviously, thinks your flimsy excuse for a literary career compares to hers, and though you’re not convinced, you tend to believe her. And you love her to death.

When she spots you, she quickly makes her way across the room, skillfully weaving through the bustling crowd of people that have places to be. You feel like an intruder in this odd ecosystem.

“You made it!”

“Well, obviously… Did you think I’d bail?”

“It’s not below you, honestly.”

“Hey!” You shove her shoulder playfully, not actually offended but playing the part. “You wound me, Lois.”

“Don’t take it personally, but you have the brain of a skittish cat. Honestly, I don’t know how you survive.”

“I do not have the brain of a cat!”

“A very cute skittish cat, if that’s any consolation. The kind of cat you want to hug but it always disappears before you have the chance to.”

“Okay, enough with the terrible cat analogy Lois, we’re getting off track.”

“Right, sorry.” She clears her throat. “Come upstairs, we can have bad coffee and I’ll show you around before the meeting.”

You follow her wordlessly, letting yourself get dragged across the atrium. The elevator ride is quiet, boxed in with a group of strangers, and when the doors open to your floor, you walk out like you haven’t had fresh air in years.

Well. Not quite fresh air, you notice. It smells of printer ink and burnt coffee, and the entire floor seems to be buzzing with nervous energy and the hum of computers.

“Welcome to my realm,” Lois says, “it sucks ass.”

You smile gently, looking around. 

The room is grand, high ceiling and golden details, it fits with the prestige of the institution that has become the Daily Planet. Steps and voices echo and bounce against the walls, nothing remains unseen, everything is out in the open. Desks are spread out evenly around the room, each one made special by its occupant, with trinkets and photographs and badly drawn houses you assume (and hope) were made by children. It’s by no means cozy, all grandeur and messy elegance and you’re reminded once again of why you don’t work in places like this, even if you’d probably live a significantly better life if you did. In the golden summer light, the room would probably be a golden beacon of knowledge and influence, but right now, the meek November sunlight streams in through the window, grey and cold, painting everything dull and tired. Outside, below, the city pulses with life, stretching out as far as the eye can see on such a cloudy day.

Lois barely gives you time to readjust before she leads you deeper into the thrumming heart of the building, people dashing around carrying photographs and rough drafts and so much coffee. You can only imagine that’s how the place is still running.

You still feel out of place, awkward and looking like a lost child amidst all these journalists with a clear purpose. You’re just there because fate (and Lois) decided you deserved an opportunity.

“Sit here.” She gestures at a desk you could only assume is hers, and you sit, dropping your bag beside your feet. “I’ll be right back, I have something to take care of.”

“Hey no-”

“I’ll bring back some coffee!” she calls back, already moving away. You visibly deflate, turning the swivel chair to face the desk. Her computer is off, but the surface of the table is littered with sticky notes and pages ripped out of notebooks. You take the liberty to read a few excerpts, marveling at the biting and precise tone you remember oh so well. She really is made for this job, no wonder she’s so good at it. Taped to the tissue box (of all places) is a picture of the two of you from the previous year, when she’d somehow convinced you to go sledding at 2am, sharing a bottle of wine at the top of the hill, eventually giggling uncontrollably at the stupidest things. It’s a memory you cherish, and you’re glad to see she does too. 

Taped right next to it is a picture of her with her coworkers, you vaguely remember hearing about them a few times but for the life of you, you can’t bring yourself to remember any of their names.

You feel increasingly out of place without Lois by your side, it feels like you have no real reason to be here, even though you know you do. It’s not that you think yourself below the journalists, or above them for that matter, the Daily Planet just doesn’t feel like a place you should be. It’s a sharp, spiky feeling that’s lived in your chest for as long as you can remember, stabbing at your ribs and skin, whispering doubt into your ears, and as much as you’d like to reason yourself, tell yourself it’s going to be okay, the buzzing in your ears gets louder, completely unrelated to the hum of laptops and hushed conversations going on around you. Just as you’re about to stand up and find a way out of here, or just go hide in the bathroom, you hear a soft voice behind you that pulls you straight back to where you’re sitting.

You straighten your back, turning around to find an absolute giant of a man standing in front of you. 

Dear god. This was the last thing you expected, the last thing you wanted. You recognized his face from the photograph on Lois’s desk, somehow all softness despite his size.

He’s tall, so unbelievably tall, and he clearly has the strength to go with it, all broad, wide expanses covered by a struggling white button up and a wool blazer. He’s put together… somewhat, like a bottled mess, anxious and bumbling. His face is calm, dusted pink from the wind outside, hair a contained mess, and both his glasses and tie are askew. His blue eyes look like a summer sky, and a nervous spark shines amidst the azure. His eyebrows are scrunched up in confusion, looking at you like you’d just fallen out of the sky and straight into his coworker’s chair. Which, granted, you kinda have. You speak first:

“I’m sorry um… Lois’ll be right back.”

“Oh. Alright. Can I ask who you are?”

“I’m a friend of hers, she’s um… helping me get on my feet.” You say your name quietly, tentatively. The man smiles, stretching out a hand to shake yours, and you take it. His grasp engulfs your hand, holding it steady.

“I’m Clark Kent, I work-”

“I see you two met!” Lois’s voice cuts through the haze as she walks closer, pushing a cup of something that somewhat resembles coffee into your hands. 

“I’ve been meaning to introduce you two. This is Clark, remember? I’ve told you about him before.”

You nod dumbly, searching through your mind for anything about Clark, but it comes back blank. You feel like an idiot. You completely miss Lois introducing you as some great writer, completely miss Clark’s question.

“Hm?”

“I asked what you like to write,” he repeats, speaking slowly and so softly you almost miss it.

“Oh. All sorts of things really. Sticking to a single format isn’t something I like to do.”

“This one’s a real prodigy, I’m telling you,” Lois says, still singing you praises.

“I’m sure. I can’t wait to read your stuff.” You offer a meek smile as you watch Clark walk away, simultaneously bumping into the corner of his desk and dropping his notepad. Twice.

Lois looks at him fondly, then turns back to you.

“Isn’t he the sweetest?”

“Sure, yeah… I’ll take your word for it.”

She throws you a smile you struggle to decrypt before pulling you to your feet.

“You’re gonna be late, cmon.”

You feel tiny in your chair, in Perry White’s imposing office, but the meeting goes swiftly and much to your pleasure, it goes well. He asks short, smart questions, encouraging you to talk despite your reserved attitude, and when you slide a draft of your latest short story across his desk, he takes it without hesitating. He takes your email address too, promising to write as soon as he’d finished reading, and offering to come by the next day with some finished projects. It all feels too good to be true, euphoric bubbles brewing in your belly, and when you walk out of there, dopey grin plastered on your face, Lois doesn’t have to ask.

“I’m getting published!.. Oh my god, I’m getting published.”

“This deserves a celebration,” she offers. You completely ignore her, too wrapped up in your joy.

“Lois, my dearest Lois, I don’t know what favor your boss owes you but ohmygodthankyou…”

As you prattle off about your infinite gratitude, Lois guides you back to her desk, pulling an extra chair up next to hers and forcing you to sit. She sits in front of you, grasps your shoulder, and your voice finally dies down.

“This feels like an intervention, Lois,” you saw, frowning.

“It is. We’re going out tonight, whether you want to or not.”

“You can’t make me.”

“I’m not making you do anything. I’m convincing you with very valid arguments,” she retorts, grinning. “You’re finally getting your work out, I’m not letting you spend tonight alone! You’re one of us now.”

You grimace like she’s just insulted you.

“For your information, I was planning on spending the night with Bridget Jones, but hey, I’m sure spending it with you might be better.”

She laughs loudly, nobody bothers to turn around and look. Your shoulders relax a little.

“I’m taking you out, and you’re meeting the team. Officially.”

“The team?”

“Well, yes smartass. You basically work here now, you deserve to get to know everyone.”

And she looks so convinced of her righteousness that you don’t have the heart to say no. You simply nod, scrawl down the address of the bar on your inner wrist and leave with a kiss pressed to your cheek.

You don’t notice a clear blue gaze following you as you walk out.

You don’t notice a small smile when you relax at the sight of the empty elevator.

You definitely don’t notice a pinkish blush, definitely not cold induced, when Lois tells Clark he should come tonight, that you and him would definitely get along.

You’re positively frozen. Not even in the enjoyable way that smells of impending hot drinks and pine needles, that you know will be chased away when you walk inside. No, you’re chilled to the bone, even though you’re decked out in weather appropriate clothes. A nervous shiver runs down your spine, peels back your skin, lets the frigid air in.

You’re uneasy, shifting your weight repeatedly from one foot to another, staring at the bar across the street where you know Lois is waiting.

You’re late. Not that late, sure, but walking out of the house to come here was a challenge, because you knew sitting in there would be not only Lois, but her friends, people so different from you, so radically distinct from what you were used to.

A bus rushes in front of you and you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the dark glass.

You’re scared. You don’t like admitting it but you’re terrified. New people, new beginnings, new places, same old you. 

Eventually, you work up the guts to cross the street and walk inside, immediately engulfed in noise and stifling heat. You spot Lois immediately, sitting in a booth with a few other people, one of which you recognize as Clark. Your heart does a traitorous backflip when he smiles and waves you over, and the clean, neutral face you had so far managed to keep up threatens to slip. 

You blame the heaters working overtime for the flush on your cheeks and neck, and you walk closer, mentally counting the steps it takes you to reach the table.

They’re all mostly still in their work clothes, though Lois seems to have lost the vest at some point, blouse untucked, and Clark ditched his blazer, shirt sleeves rolled up on his forearms.

You have to remind yourself to breathe.

Lois greets you enthusiastically, meeting you halfway and introducing you to everyone.

“This is Jimmy, Cat, Steve, and of course you met Clark this morning”

You manage a small greeting, going to sit down on the edge of the bench, but Lois grabs your arm and pushes you between her and Jimmy, landing you right in front of Clark.

How are you even supposed to survive this without making a complete fool of yourself?

Though you hadn’t wanted to admit it this morning, or even right now for that matter, Clark has that sort of smile you only see a few times in life, that kind that weakened the foundations of your being and made your chest grow tight. You don’t even know what to name what you’re feeling.

It had been a long time since you’d granted yourself the luxury to indulge in such things, walling them out has become a habit.

For safety, you tell yourself, because fragile things often come to a sharp, crashing end.

Because more often than not, attraction fades when your full portrait comes into view.

So you remain half unknown to the people around you, to spare them, and to spare yourself too.

At least that’s what you like to think.

The evening starts out in a blur, you barely process the conversations going on around you, you focus on finding some kind of faux-tranquility at the bottom of your drink, on answering some of the questions launched your way, on skillfully dodging Clark’s gaze.

You’re doing pretty good so far, though the napkin between your hands has suffered torture it doesn’t deserve.

But yes, ultimately, it’s going okay. Right until Lois excuses herself to the bathroom, Cat tagging along, Steve stands up claiming he needs a stronger drink, and Jimmy is currently occupied by a girl on a barstool across the bar, and suddenly you’re left alone at the table with Clark.

“Lois tells me so much about you, kinda feels like I’m in front of a legend.”

You let out a nervous laugh.

“Yeah well… Not a legend, really, but I do my best,” you answer, almost whispering, inaudible in the surrounding din. He takes that as an excuse to lean closer, bracing his weight on his forearms.

“Honestly, she swears by you. I’m glad you have your place among us now.”

He says it so sincerely that you forget how to function, your brain cells disloyally dispersing and leaking out of your head.

“It’s a nice opportunity.”

He nods, humming softly.

“I’ve never really managed to get my stuff out there, just a few short stories in a collection, a while back. Not very good ones, at that.”

“I’m sure they were great. That what you write is great.”

You look at him oddly, like he’s suddenly grown a second head.

“No, I was young, finding my style… It read like a bad Gautier counterfeit, and the plot was always… dull, sinister. I don’t know, it wasn’t very good.”

“Probably way better than what passes for good literature these days.”

You snort a laugh, coiled shoulders slowly relaxing, finally meeting his gaze for more than a split second without combusting. You mentally congratulate yourself for that.

“I suppose you’ll see when I’m printed.”

“Or before that… If you’re willing to show me something, that is. No pressure.”

Yeah, no pressure. Absolutely no pressure. Clark 200-pounds-of-strength-and-kindness Kent wants to read your silly stories and poems, no pressure.

You nod dumbly, grateful for Lois’s sudden interruption as she slides back onto the bench, beside you.

“What did I miss?”

“Nothing much, I was just telling Clark about my stories.”

The night goes on quickly, interrupted only twice, once when Clark’s knee grazes yours under the table, making you freeze like a baby deer at gunpoint, and again when his hand brushes against yours while handing you a new napkin for you to dismember.

And so, when you all stand up, leaving the near-empty bar and its tired manager to deal with the drunk college students making a racket, the last thing you expect is for Clark to find you on the sidewalk, planting himself in front of you.

“How are you getting home?”

“Oh uh… I’m walking. It’s really not that far.”

He frowns like you’ve personally insulted him.

“Alone?”

“...Yes?”

“Let me walk you home.”

His genuine concern confuses you. You’ve done this a million times before, it’s Metropolis, not Gotham, you’ll be fine… right? Yet some weak part of you is screaming at you to accept his offer. To nod and say yes and let him walk all the way back to your apartment building with you and bask in his presence.

You don’t say anything, but after hugging Lois goodbye, you nod at him to follow you. He does so eagerly, rushing after you like an earnest golden retriever, quickly catching up to you.

In the yellowish light of the streetlamps, the resonant quiet of an empty city at night, everything feels softer. Clark doesn’t talk to you, simply guides you away from oily puddles and safely across the streets with a hand on your lower back. Like you need help.

Like you’re worth protecting, even from the simplest things.

The biting cold fades away in his presence, as if he actually emanates heat. You’re not completely unconvinced that he does. When you stop in front of your building, rummaging through your bag for your keys, you hesitate before unlocking the door. You turn around, find Clark standing there, looking at you like you carry the world on your shoulders. He still towers over you, despite the steps you’re standing on.

He seems to be debating something, and suddenly, he wraps you in a warm, firm embrace.

You fight against yourself to not melt into the solidity of his chest. You reciprocate stiffly, before forcing yourself to pull back, tugging at your coat.

“Tonight was nice,” you finally bring yourself to say. “I’ll see you around Clark.”

“Yeah, see you around… Good night.”

“G’night,” and you walk straight into your building, gently closing the door behind you, like a final sentence, jagged and unforgiving. When you reach your apartment, mechanically locking the door behind you and hanging up your coat, you glance outside, and see Clark still standing in front of your door, a goofy grin on his handsome face, looking up at the stars like he might find your smile among them.

The next day, when you walk into the Daily Planet, Lois at your side, that familiar tight feeling lodges itself at the back of your throat. You’re gripping a neat stack of freshly printed copies of your latest works, praying that everything goes smoothly, or alternatively, that you don’t bump into Clark.

You’re not sure you’d be able to behave normally in front of him after last night.

You’re acting as if you had outrageous sex and then snuck off in the middle of the night.

You didn’t. You didn’t so much as touch, except that short hug in front of your apartment building.

But he seems to have that effect on you, a cloying blanket of wellbeing that would probably bring joy to anyone else, but only brings an uncomfortable stiff feeling in your spine to you.

You know what people expect, and it’s not what you can give them.

Kindness feels contractual, and you don’t always know how to repay.

It wasn’t his fault, it really wasn’t. He was probably the world’s most benevolent hunk of muscles. That was the problem.

It's a bit cliché of you to trip and fall for Clark, the quiet author who feels like a stranger in their skin and the world’s most decent man, and so quickly too, but you couldn’t bring yourself to reason with the feelings. Reasoning was never your strong suit.

So you immediately beeline for Perry White, handing him the pages and mustering a grateful smile when he (somewhat) praises your work. 

“You’re welcome to come by whenever you have something else for us, kid.”

“Thank you sir.”

He sends you off with a slap on the back that knocks the air out of you, and just when you thought your stealth mission was complete, going to step into the elevator with a sigh of relief, you walk right into Clark Kent’s chest, narrowly missing the cups of coffee he was balancing in his hands. He greets you with that boyish smile, and your chest does something funny.

“Hey, I didn’t know you’d be coming by today,” he says, his tone betraying his joy.

“Yeah um… Perry wanted me to bring some of my work over to see what he’d take. I was just leaving though.”

He looks at you like you just told him the world was ending.

“Why aren’t you staying? You should stay.”

“No really I-”

“Here, have some coffee.” He pushes a cup into your hand, and it actually smells pretty enticing. Not like an oil spill cosplaying as coffee. You might let yourself be convinced.

Might.

“The desks here are big enough to share, y’know.”

“No, it’s not my place honestly… What would I even do?”

“Aw c’mon,” he encourages gently. As if you need encouragement. If you were to listen to your feeble heart, you’d spend the whole day at his desk.

“I actually… well, I have some errands to run.” You don’t. “I might come by again later though.” If you don’t combust in the meantime. “I’ll see you then!” you call back as you slip through the closing doors of the elevator.

Clark watches you leave like you just promised him the universe, but you don’t see that, of course you don’t, because you’re too busy staring at your dirty shoes. 

The days slip past you, the sun rising and setting in what feels like minutes, drowning yourself in words and cafe pastries to forget about the fact that every day, like clockwork, Lois would call and ask why you don’t come by the Daily Planet anymore.

You know your reactions are irrational. You’re acting borderline insane. But deep down, you’re scared.

Because a long time ago, you promised to never let yourself feel like this again. So fragile and impressionable. All because of a single person. A man. A sweetheart called Clark Kent, who you barely know.

You hate how you feel so utterly naked when he looks at you in his quiet manner, not like he’s just looking, but like he’s seeing. You don’t like being seen, in all your dark glory, imperfections on display beside hesitating gazes and an erratic heart, because the full picture feels marred with bright red paint, inescapable mistakes. So you hide, behind stories in the third person and pictures that don’t show your face, you hide in the soft light of your apartment, amongst the crowd of Metropolis, preferring the chosen solitude than the shattering pain of unchosen abandon. You know things end, they always do, you’ve embraced that. You just want one last line, something harsh and poetic, that you can throw to their faces before they leave, so maybe, just maybe, the memory of you will stick to their skin like bitter honey.

But Clark? Clark, or what little you know of him, makes you feel like skipping the final monologue and jumping straight into the daunting infinity, hoping that you’ll emerge together on the other side, that the bright light of “forever” won’t shine golden on the things you don’t want him to see.

Except it always does.

So you decide to stay away, hoping that your mind and body will forget if you submerge them in movies and cheap wine and the insulting white light of your laptop. 

Lois comes to visit every other night, more or less, she doesn’t ask questions, just talks and lets you listen, because she knows it’s what you need. She reads the beginning of your stories and watches your movies with you and doesn’t push when you tense at the mention of Clark. And for a few weeks, life feels like it might just go back to normal, that you’ll forget and move on, and maybe write a bad poem about it that you’ll show to no one.

Until a soft knock on your door on Sunday night pulls you out of a third rewatch of Notting Hill, pulling on a sweater as you move from below the blanket to open your front door.

Your tired brain doesn’t recall that Lois said she’d be busy finishing up an article for Perry, tonight, that she wouldn’t be able to come by. You just pad to the door, unlocking it without a second thought and nearly spitting out your heart when you find Clark on the other side, coat pulled tight around him.

“Hey,” he says oh so softly, and you swear you melt a little.

“Clark? What are you doing here?”

It’s true, Clark technically has no business being here, at your door, looking so biteable.

“Oh right, Lois couldn’t come by but she wanted me to give you this,” he informs you as he hands you a battered looking manila folder. “She said Perry wanted you to have it, I think… Or Perry wanted you to see it, at least. I have no idea what it is,” he assures you, rubbing the back of his neck.

You take the folder from his hand, peeking inside, and only seeing line upon line of densely printed text and bright red rectifications, you decide to relay that to future you.

“Well, I’ll go now. You should come by the office more often, it was nice seeing you,” Clark says, a small smile ghosting his lips. He goes to move away, but your lips betray you. You just really (really) don’t want him to go.

“Clark, it’s raining,” you say dumbly.

“It is, yes.”

“I can’t let you go out in the rain. That’s… rude.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” he offers you a bright smile. “I don’t mind the rain.”

“But… You’ll get wet!”

“Yeah, that’s… how rain works.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“You can’t?”

“No,” you say sternly, gesturing for him to come in, moving out of the way. He walks in like he’s going through heaven’s doors, removing his shoes without you having to ask and removing his coat, hanging it up on the old wooden coathanger you keep by the door for aesthetic purposes.

For such a large man, Clark moved with unsettling quiet, trailing behind you across your small apartment.

“It’s a complete mess, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. It’s cozy, I like it.”

You don’t answer, you don’t trust your mind to come up with a reasonable sentence, or your voice not to crack. You feel physically split in half, you don’t know which part to embrace. So you dance, back and forth, undecided, not knowing what to do with the turmoil in your belly.

“Do you want anything? Tea, maybe?” you offer, quietly, hoping he’d stay long enough for the tea to cool, just a few minutes longer.

“If it’s no bother, tea would be nice,” he says, settling on a rickety chair. You cringe as it groans under his weight, and move to the kitchen, putting a very solid wall between you and him, hoping the distance might slow your excitable heart. Spoiler: it doesn’t.

As you wait for the water to heat, leaning on the counter beside the kettle, the candid silence is breeding ground for dangerously soft thoughts, and you catch yourself zoning out, a wistful look on your face.

You never meant to make yourself this sharp, to pierce your skin with long spikes to keep people away, it just happened. And there’s nothing you can really do about it, except maybe (expensive) therapy, as your parents often recommend. What scares you with Clark is that, no matter which way you turn and examine your situation, you find that this big man has frayed his way closer and carved a spot right into your small heart. And you’re sure he didn’t even mean to do that, he just did.

You walk back into the living room with two steaming cups of lavender tea, placing the mug down in front of Clark. He visibly deflates when you move to sit down further away from him.

As usual, you don’t notice that, obviously.

You catch his gaze traveling across the room, dragging along the worn spines of books on shelves, on the messy pile of vinyl records you keep by the record player, on the only really stable table in the apartment, on the quotes you’ve scribbled in dry-erase marker on the window panes, on the TV screen, movie still paused, on the empty takeout boxes on the coffee table, corners of his mouth lifting into a handsome smile. The silence turns thick, and you feel like he’s expecting you to say something. You told him to stay, after all.

“So uh… What’s your origin story? How’d you get into journalism, I mean.”

He huffs a laugh.

“Middleschool newspaper. I wrote one very clumsy critique of the lunchroom pizza and I was immediately hooked. Grew from there.”

You smile, absentmindedly stirring honey into your tea.

“What about you?” You look up, looking startled. “What got you into writing?”

“I fell into a vat of printer ink as a baby,” you deadpan. He laughs loudly, his entire face lighting up when your gazes meet, and you feel yourself growing hot, face betraying your emotions.

“No I uh… well I guess it took me a while to figure it out. I’ve always loved reading, I just never understood that writing books was a whole other level of depth I could deal with. I wrote to pass the time, then I wrote to slow time down. Writing is like bleeding on paper, you do it when there’s nothing about yourself you want to hide. You can’t write a good story without laying yourself flat among the pages.”

Clark follows every single one of your words, nodding slowly, humming in agreement when your voice dies down. You think that’s the most words you’ve ever spoken to him.

“I read your stories, y’know? Whenever there’s one in the paper. They’re really good, absurdly so. It’s a crime that you don’t have your own collection out there.”

Your face flushes pink, and you have to make yourself look away by fear of instantaneously combusting.

“Thank you, Clark.”

“There’s no need to thank me, really.”

“No, but there is.” You take a deep breath, forcing words to align in your head. “Words are hard. People don’t notice it but writing is hard, even if you like it, even if you’re good at it. Things don’t just fall into place, I have to paint a whole image, portraits and landscapes and the emotions in between glances, the love of a mother, the hatred of a daughter, the passion of a kiss, the creeping cold of a lonely night in the arms of someone irrelevant, the… the taste of whiskey when you’ve forgotten what anything else tastes like, the sorrow of looking in the mirror, with black ink and 26 symbols. I don’t want to sound elitist, but not everyone can do that. So thank you, Clark, for telling me that my stories are worth something.”

You realize too late that your monologue sounded like an angry sermon, and Clark’s silence strikes you hard in the gut. Did you sound too pretentious? Maybe you came off as weirdly possessive of your hobby and job. Maybe-

“I might start quoting you.” His soft, deep voice, heady like honey hanging in the air, breaks the whirlpool you were starting to sink in.

“...What?”

“Everything you say is said so… elegantly. Honestly, I don’t know how you do it. I usually only find sentences like that in weird, niche novels, and now I find the living, breathing equivalent of those. So yeah… I might start quoting you.”

Any pretense to protest dies in your throat when Clark stands up, moving with purpose to sit in the chair beside yours.

“You said it’s impossible to write a good story without laying yourself flat in the words.”

“Right, I did say that.”

“So, when I read your stories, or say the poem in Wednesday’s issue, the one that went ‘The sky is on fire, and it's my fault’... Is that as honest as it gets with you, then?”

The words don’t come to you. For someone who writes like it’s a lifeline, you really don’t know what to say.

“By that logic… I guess so, yeah.”

He hums softly, leaning closer to you.

“Are there things you don’t say?”

“When I write… I say everything. After that, what happens to that particular story or poem depends on what can be read between the lines. Some just stay in my drawers until I unearth them a few months later. Those are usually the best ones.”

“The best ones?”

“They’re just so… honest. I don’t hold back, to the point that the ink feels like my blood, because deep down I already know that this is all for my eyes only.”

“What do you think of the ones you publish in the Daily Planet then?”

“I’m proud of them… I really am. They’re… different. A little watered down, I guess, but they’re still good stories. I like them, I’m proud of them,” you repeat, as if to convince yourself. To convince him.

“You should be.” Your heart blooms at the certainty in his voice.

“Thanks.”

When you look outside, the rain has calmed down, sparse droplets falling every few seconds, and when Clark follows your gaze, you’re disappointed to feel him stand up to move away. He leaves his empty mug by the kitchen sink, turns off the lights before walking out. He doesn’t look so out of place among your things, you realize, and your chest tightens when he walks towards the door.

“I won’t bother you any longer,” he murmurs.

“It was no bother at all… You’re easy to talk to,” you concede, hovering by the threshold, watching the muscles of his back flex against his button up as he pulls on his coat.

“You should come by the office tomorrow,” he adds while reaching for his belongings.

“Oh no… I don’t even know what I’d do. Anyway, I’m working for most of tomorrow.”

“You can write at the office, there are always empty desks.”

“Not… writing. Writing doesn’t pay the bills, Clark, not when it isn’t published. I work at a record shop part-time.”

You feel ridiculous admitting this, a sharp bite sneaking its way into your unwavering voice.

Clark and Lois, and all their coworkers for that matter, are people who represent to you something you could’ve become, something everyone encouraged you to do, but you stuck to what felt right, what made you happy, and now what? Do you regret that decision? Not explicitly. Not exactly. But going to the Daily Planet only serves to remind you that the path you took is a one-way road, and that the end is shrouded in darkness and uncertainty. 

You do not want their pity, you do not want their offerings, you just want to make a name for yourself.

Yet now, standing here, you feel like a child who’s failed at a simple job, praying that Clark doesn’t take you for some poor writer struggling to keep their life from falling apart.

“It’s not my place, anyway.”

You unlock and open the door, holding it open with tight hands.

“Thanks for coming by, Clark,” you mumble, but your voice is rigid and broken, you don’t feel sincere. If only he’d stayed away. If only. Now, you can feel yourself getting ripped at the seams by your emotions, unsure of what to do.

“Goodnight,” he says back, and you look away in hopes of forgetting the soul-melting hurt that you see in his eyes, wondering what you’ve done to deserve to be like this.

You don’t answer him, simply follow him with your gaze as he walks out of your apartment, wishing you could be a different person. When you close the door, trembling hands locking it, you wish you could disappear. Vanish. Forget and be forgotten.

Maybe it’d all be easier that way.

You sink back into your couch, chasing the taste of soft lavender and Clark’s words out of your mouth with a sip of stale, lukewarm wine, but when you press play on the movie you were watching, your head refuses to follow the plot. Refuses to concentrate.

Outside, the stars are hidden by heavy storm clouds, and you know tomorrow is going to be a grey, wet day that’ll only serve to feed the taunt uneasiness that you’re fostering.

Clark’s blue eyes and well-meaning words haunt you for the rest of the night, a dagger buried deep in your soul to remind you of your harsh tone and avoidant words.

You feel silly, stupid for reacting how you did, but you know that if you were to do it again, you’d probably do it the exact same way. It’s irrational, angry, powered by a festering wound harbored deep in the tissue of your being, a wound that never heals, only swallows what little you manage to build for yourself.

When you drift into sleep, head heavy and empty, despair echoing in your chest, you hope that tomorrow will bring respite. That tomorrow you’ll wake up with your heart stuck back together, and your skin stitched back up in the places where confusion ripped it open.

The folder that Clark brought you sits on the kitchen counter, forgotten.

The words that Clark said slip out the window, carried far, far away from you.

Life seems to escape you after that night, days and nights rushing by, and suddenly it’s December, and you haven’t seen a friendly face in weeks, and the festive decorations you see everywhere around you feel like barbed wire and bear traps. 

Everything you write is too angry, sharp and bitter, and you result in sending Perry old projects that fit better with the general mood of Metropolis, old words typed into new documents, moved around and revamped because everything that spills out of your pen is white-hot with fury and loneliness.

You have a somewhat steady life, theoretically speaking, because in practice, you’re falling deeper and deeper into the eye of a storm you thought you’d long since banished.

The record shop is a nonstop flow of confused customers buying an ungodly amount of Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey, you start picking up more shifts to keep yourself outside of the hole you’ve made of your apartment, but you tell yourself it’s for the extra money, because Christmas is coming up and you deserve to be able to afford treating yourself.

Truth is, you just don’t want to be found. So you stay out of your apartment as late as you can muster, sitting in cafes and bars and amongst the fluorescent, bright aisles of stores, only to tiredly stumble home when the streets are empty and the moon has stopped protecting her children.

You stop answering phone calls from Lois, or anyone else really, feigning busyness or illness or exhaustion to have an excuse to stay far away. In everything you do, ghosts of people haunt you. You sit in silence because every song reminds you of someone, someone you should probably call, someone you’d better forget. On a frigid morning, you threw away your package of lavender tea on your way to work, because every sip of the floral drink beckoned back thoughts of the night where you inadvertently flipped over your hopes and barricaded yourself deeper into your flesh, the night you hurt the only person you’ve ever wanted to stay around. You stare at the pictures you’ve tacked up on the wall, you barely recognize yourself. 

Nothing feels like it could pull you out of this pit you’ve dug for yourself, this mountain you’ve trudged up and forgot how to walk away from. But as per usual, things sometimes fall into place around you.

Christmas eve rolls around, and you plan to spend it watching Christmas classics with a decent dinner you’ve managed to make for yourself. You sit crosslegged on the floor, a full plate balanced on your knees, when a soft knock comes crashing through your apartment. You freeze, convinced the noise was made up by your tired and already tipsy mind, but it comes again, louder, and you can make out voices coming from the hallway.

You consider ignoring it, pretending you’re not home when:

“We know you’re in there!”

Lois’s voice cuts through your walls, and despite everything, faced with her like this, you don’t have it in you to pretend.

You weave a passage to the door and slowly, hesitantly, open it. You’re faced with a worried looking Lois and Jimmy, each carrying bagfulls of boxes and Lois is holding a plate of still-warm cookies.

“You look like shit,” is the first thing she tells you.

“Merry Christmas to you too, Lois.”

She frays her way past you and into your apartment, and you give a sheepish smile as a greeting to Jimmy as he follows her in.

You lock the door behind you and walk inside, nearly bumping into your friend, who’d stayed frozen at the entrance of the living room. Shame invades you as you realise how ugly this must look: motivation to take care of yourself and your apartment seems to evade you these days, everything around you is a mess, takeout boxes lying around everywhere, sink piled with dishes, stray papers, clothes, pencils litter every flat surface including the floor, it smells of smoke and sweat and wax and you wish you could disappear beneath the floorboards when Lois turns to look at you, concern etched on her face.

“Oh sweetheart…” she says as she wraps you in a warm hug, and you melt into her, wishing you didn’t look so pathetic. You missed her, terribly so, you missed everyone, but the crevice you were living in was not something easily escapable without help. But now, help has shown up. You’re wiping tears out of the corner of your eyes when she pulls back, and she smiles softly.

“The Daily Planet is hosting a Christmas party and we want you to come… We’ll help you clean yourself and everything up and we’ll go, okay? I can’t leave you here on Christmas of all days.”

You nod slowly.

“Thank you.” Your voice cracks halfway through the simple word, betraying your gratitude.

They work efficiently, and you help them where you can. At some point, Lois puts on a vinyl and Chris Isaak’s soft voice invades your apartment as you start cleaning. You take a long overdue shower as Lois takes care of the dishes, you scrub the sweat and despair off your skin and walk out, hair detangled, dripping water on your shoulder and smelling of steam and something softly floral: lavender. 

Something dark still boils between your ribs, but you’ve placed a lid on it with your friend’s help, willing it away for tonight, chasing it away with soft Christmas lights that don’t feel so menacing anymore.

Lois helps you get dressed, something simple and comfortable but overall very presentable, a soft put-togetherness. You sit on your bed, sheets tangled beneath you, basking in the silence in between songs, in between moments. Lois appears in the doorway.

“Thank you,” you repeat.

“Of course, you don’t need to thank me.”

“I… I’m sorry, Lois. I didn’t mean to cut you out… to cut anyone out.”

“You don’t need to apologize for something you can’t control.”

You hum softly, grateful for her understanding.

“Everyone’s been asking about you, y’know?”

You huff a laugh.

“Everyone?”

She understands what you don’t dare to ask.

“Everyone. He’s worried.”

You look up at her, lips pressing together.

“You’d think he hates me.”

“He doesn’t. Trust me, I don’t think he has it in him to hate anyone, let alone you.”

“He has every right to. I didn’t treat him well.”

“Forget about that, okay? He’s looking forward to seeing you, everyone’s looking forward to seeing you,” she says as she pulls you to your feet.

You walk back to the living room, finding it much cleaner than it had been in weeks, and Jimmy on the couch, half a cookie is his mouth, looking at Lois guiltily. She glares at him but says nothing, herding you both to the door to leave.

The cold air hits your skin violently, sobering you up, but for once, your heart stays warm as you make your way to the Daily Planet with Jimmy and Lois by your side, through the streets bustling with last minute shoppers and excitement. The lights paint your skin rainbow and golden, and nothing feels so scary anymore, not when you pass by a group of carolers, not when the air smells of winter and mulled wine, not when you’re not alone anymore.

The Daily Planet is decked out in Christmas lights, a large tree decorated golden and red sits proudly in the center of the room, people milling around with glasses of wine and champagne, talking and laughing. The room feels less intimidating than it did when you first visited, the faces seem friendlier. Perry greets you with a firm handshake and congratulations on your last story, something sappy about a reimagined Orpheus that doesn’t end so badly. You stay by Lois’s side, eyes scanning the crowd, looking for a very tall someone you owe an apology to. He finds you before you do.

“Hey.” His soft voice has you whipping around, and you can’t help a small smile when you spot the reindeer antlers someone placed on his head.

“Hi… Merry Christmas,” you add, hand gripping your glass so tight you fear it might break.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“It has… listen, I’m sorry… I was awful to you when I knew you didn’t mean any harm, I just… Well, I don’t know how to explain it because it isn’t rational but-”

“You don’t have to explain anything, okay? Sometimes things happen within us that we can’t understand.”

You feel like a loading symbol is very visible on your forehead as all the words you know fly straight out of your head.

“You don’t hate me?” is all you manage.

“Hate you?” His eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Why would I hate you?”

“I was mean to you! I basically kicked you out of my apartment and then ignored your existence for the next few weeks.”

“That doesn’t mean I hate you.”

“It should.”

“Well, it doesn’t.”

The sincerity in his eyes startles you.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat, slower this time, you say it like it’s a full sentence. “I’d like to say it won’t happen again but… I don’t trust myself.”

“You don’t need to apologize… I’ll try to make sure I don’t give you reason for it to happen again.”

Your chest constricts and your heart melts at his words, and your smile softens.

“You’re too good for this world, Clark.”

He shrugs, smiling sheepishly.

“I do what I can.”

Life suddenly stops feeling like a blur, conversations develop, stick and linger, you smile, you laugh, you steadily grow enjoyably tipsy while Steve dances on a table, already blackout drunk. Clark follows you around like a shadow, a solid presence behind you, his hand brushing your back and shoulder now and then. Outside, the stars shine brightly, Mother Moon shines her silver light through the large windows, the city is miles away.

Eventually, you retreat to a quiet corner to catch your breath, curled up on the floor, head leaning against a window, breath fogging on the cold glass. Clark appears beside you, quiet as ever, holding two small boxes in his strong hands. He sits next to you, long legs stretched out in front of him, and hands you the impeccably wrapped boxes.

“What’s this?” you ask, taking the small parcels and turning them around in your hands.

“Saw them and thought of you.”

You feel your cheeks go warm as you look away, hiding a giddy smile.

“After I treated you like I did, you still brought me gifts?”

“‘Course. No one deserves an empty stocking on Christmas… Except maybe Lex Luthor.”

You laugh, leaning your head back and turning to face him, meeting Clark’s clear gaze for all of five seconds, a new personal record.

“Well, are you gonna open them?”

You look down at the boxes and pick the smallest one, carefully peeling back the golden wrapping paper.

“You shouldn’t have, Clark.”

“I wanted to.”

His words silence you, and you open the small cardboard box to find a silver pendant hanging from a black cord. You pull it out of the box, lifting it up from the cord and letting the pendant dangle in front of your eyes. A small, perfectly crafted, silver anatomical heart catches the light, and your own heart does something dangerous.

“Y’know because… feelings over reason. That’s how it feels to read your poems.”

You turn to meet his gaze.

“Clark, it's beautiful… I… I don’t know what to say, thank you so much.”

“You don’t have to say anything… I’m glad you like it.”

You catch the blush creeping up his neck and it makes you grin like an idiot. You immediately clasp the necklace around your neck, placing it neatly overtop your clothes, on display. It shines silver like a beacon, and your fingers find it, rubbing it, already seeking comfort from the feeling.

“What’s the other one then? I don’t think it can beat this.”

“Open it and tell me yourself.”

The paper on the second parcel comes off quickly, and your heart drops out of your chest when you see what it is.

“Clark, where did you find this?”

You hold the old book in your hands, delicately, like you’re scared it’s about to fall apart. Honestly, it could. You run your fingers over the embossed title: Récits fantastiques, Théophile Gautier. You open it carefully, looking for a publication date, and your blood rushes when you read 1850.

“When we first met… really met, at the bar, with everyone else, you told me your first stories read like bad Gautier imitations… I don’t know, I saw it in a bookstore and thought of you. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

“I’m forever in your debt.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s a gift. I… I’m glad you like it.”

“I really do,” you say as you wrap the book back in the paper and carefully store it in your bag. “Thank you.”

“... You’re welcome, even though you don-”

“I don’t have to thank you, I know… I want to. Thanks, Clark.”

He nods, smiling, offering you a hand up. You stand, stretching your arms above your head, and as you walk back to the increasingly rowdy crowd, stopping to listen to Jimmy talk about something you forget to act interested in, you find yourself gently leaning against Clark’s solid frame. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react, but you feel him inch closer, offering stability. Neither of you see Lois smile like she’s won the lottery, exceedingly proud of herself.

The night inches forward, and soon enough, everyone is leaving, Jimmy struggling beneath the weight of a basically asleep Steve, Lois cleaning up the last of the mess, gathering her things, and you’re wrapping yourself in your scarf, waiting for Clark to ask the inevitable question.

“Can I walk you home?” There it is. You don’t hesitate, this time, just nod, and he places himself beside you, latching onto your personal space. You can’t complain.

Lois says goodbye with a tight hug, Jimmy manages a wave while keeping Steve upright, Perry sends you off with a lethal slap on the back, which you barely have time to steel yourself against.

In the empty street, your ears ring from the sudden quiet. It feels off, seeing Metropolis so empty, vacant of life that’s hiding behind walls, in the warmth of friends and family, for the night.

“Tonight was nice,” you hear yourself say, desperate to strike up a conversation.

“It was, yeah… I was worried about you. I really was, you literally fell off the face of the Earth.”

When your eyes meet, the azure is full of turmoil.

“I didn’t mean… I… I wasn’t doing great, I’m sorry if I worried you.”

“Don’t apologize. I just wanted to make sure you’re doing okay, I don’t want you to feel guilty.”

He reads into your emotions with scary precision, as you could already feel unwavering guilt building up in your guts.

“Does it happen often? That… switch.”

“It… It’s happened before, yeah… But I always recover, it’s alright. I’m alright, Clark, I promise.”

He senses you’re not keen to talk about it and bites back his concern. The silence is comfortable, full of things neither of you feel capable of saying. He doesn’t see you admire how the yellow streetlights paint his skin and hair golden, you don’t notice him looking at the stars reflected in your eyes when you look at the sky.

Your apartment building comes into view too quickly, and you don’t feel like stepping away from him, from his warmth. Keys in hand, you step towards the door, before turning to face him.

“Would you like to come upstairs?”

His face lights up, like you’d just offered him the world in the palm of your hand.

“I’d love to.”

Your apartment is still a mess when you walk inside, significantly better than it had been during the last few weeks though. You crack open a window, letting the cool wind wash away the stale air, as Clark settles on the couch, body substantially more relaxed than the last time he was here.

You settle beside him on the couch, curling your legs in front of you, leaning against the armrest to face him completely.

Neither of you say anything, you’re just looking at each other, trying to figure out if what you’re feeling is purely imagined, or maybe, just maybe, something real and tangible between you. You don’t have time to reach a conclusion before Clark grabs your ankle and gently pulls you closer. You oblige, moving so your legs are pressed against each other.

“Clark?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

The nickname goes straight to your gut, butterflies taking flight beneath your skin.

“What’s on your mind?”

He doesn't answer, just presses his lips against yours sweetly, and you can taste cinnamon and bubbles from the champagne on his skin. He moves away first, cheeks dusted pink, tips of his ears going red.

“Was that okay?” he asks, barely above a whisper. You nod.

“Better than okay.”

He kisses you again, lips moving slowly against yours, urging you to let him in. You do. He’s heady like honey and wine in your mouth, strong, persistent. He moves you easily, grabbing your waist and pulling you towards him, impossibly closer, placing you atop his strong thighs. When you pull back, breathless and flushed, lips glistening with spit, pupils blown wide, he’s looking at you like you’re worth more than gold. His glasses are crooked, you remove them and place them carefully on the coffee table, tie loose, and he looks so absolutely inviting. Lips against lips, chest against chest, soft noises escaping from your throat under his skillful hands, it doesn’t take long for your hips to start moving against his, in slow, purposeful movements, feeling him slowly grow stiff beneath you. You whine softly when he pulls away, looking down in embarrassment at your eagerness.

“Bedroom?” he asks.

“Please.”

He picks you up effortlessly, large hands gripping your thighs, and carries you the short way to your bedroom, your head tucked in the crook of his neck. He lays you down gently, making quick work of your shirt and bra. There’s a moment of steady silence where he just stands above you, admiring, and you have the irrational urge to cover yourself up. You don’t.

You grab his tie, pull him lower, undoing the knot and unbuttoning his shirt with trembling hands, pushing it over his broad shoulders and away, forgotten, and you try, really try, not to stare. You fail miserably.

Everything about him is strong, solid, bulging with strength. He’s on top of you again, bracing his weight on his hands on either side of your head, kissing you harder, stronger, like he has something to prove. Your hands find his belt buckle, hesitate for a split-second before giving way to your need, unbuckling his belt and fumbling with the button of his trousers.

You’re called back to reality by the lack of his lips on yours, immediately replaced by lightning shooting down your spine when his warm mouth closes around your right nipple and something too desperate flies out of your mouth.

You barely register Clark pulling down your bottoms and underwear in one easy movement, and you tense when you feel his hand creeping across your thigh. He immediately pulls back, worry in his eyes.

“Is this okay?.. We can stop if-”

“N-No! Please no, I don’t wanna stop.”

“You sure?”

“Don’t you dare stop.” He nods, resuming his careful ministrations, and you feel your hips move up to meet his hands halfway. He smiles against your skin and you throw an arm over your eyes, bashful.

“Hey, no… I want you to look at me… please.”

The quiet desperation in his voice convinces you to pull your arm away, and you gasp when his fingers meet your slick core, eyes widening when they meet his. He’s slow, tentative, it feels like he’s mapping you out, learning where to touch to make you feel good. Anything feels good, you wish you could tell him.

His lips meet yours again as the pad of his thumb presses gently against your clit, making you moan languidly into his mouth, sounds coaxed forward by skillful fingers.

Shamefully, it’s been so long since anything has happened for you, since you’ve even felt the need to take care of yourself, that you already feel pleasure building up in your belly, tightly wound and white hot. When his middle finger slowly pushes into you, you whine desperately, grabbing his wrist. He pulls back, confusion etched on his face. When he sees your already blissed expression, his face grows red.

“What is it sweetheart, what do you want?”

“Your mouth… please Clark… need it,” you mumble, words tumbling out of your mouth, shame long since forgotten in the face of such pleasure.

He hums, creeping lower, pressing soft kisses on your stomach and thighs on his way down. At the first lick, you’re gone. Your back arches off the bed and Clark takes the opportunity to throw your legs over his broad shoulders, offering no escape. Not that you’d want to escape.

He’s on you like a man eating his last meal, lapping up everything you have to offer, and you swear you’re already seeing stars.

“C-Clark… Oh god…”

He gently pushes two fingers in, sucking on your clit, moaning into you like you taste like ambrosia. When he curls his fingers, slowly moving them back and forth, the moan you let out is pornographic, embarrassment flooding you. But that only seems to spur Clark on, and his mouth and fingers work in tandem, tightening the coil under your skin, bringing you dangerously close to the edge, so quickly.

Your hips push upwards, his nose bumping against you, only adding to the numbing pleasure you’re losing yourself in.

“G-God… Fuck, I’m close Clark… please… don’t stop..” you admit shamefully, but when you look down, Clark is looking up at you, starstruck.

“You’re so beautiful… So perfect,” he mumbles against you, vibrations sending electricity flying beneath your skin.

The sight is burned into your retinas: Clark, kneeling in front of you, thighs wrapped around his head, face half-buried between your legs, fingers deep inside you, touching spots you didn’t know existed, and his other hand palming himself roughly through his trousers.

That alone is enough to make your body jerk, and with one last lick to your clit, you’re sent flying off the edge, body tensing up, moans and profanities and pleas for more flying out of your swollen lips. He eats up everything, overstimulating you to the point that your vision goes blank, completely engulfed by the feeling of his lips against your neglected body.

You have to card your fingers through his hair and pull him upwards for him to relent, instead pushing his lips against yours, hungry, and you can taste yourself on his tongue. He grabs your tits, kneading them gently, and your fingers trace along his tense abs, lower, lower to the line of his boxers.

His hips tug forward, pressing against your fingers dancing along his waistline, and you indulge, pushing lower, underneath his soaked boxers, finding his throbbing length, ignored and hot to the touch. You push his boxers down, pull away from his lips, ignoring his sad whine to watch his cock spring free, and all the air in your lungs is knocked out at the sheer size of him.

“Holy shit, Clark…”

He grows pink under your impressed gaze, hands gripping your waist tightly. He notices your trembling arm from where you’re holding yourself up and takes initiative, manhandling you into a more comfortable position, flipping you over so you're sitting atop him while he leans against the headboard.

Your hand barely wraps around him as you start running your hands back and forth, from the base to the tip, at a slow, languorous pace, and his abs are tensing, struggling to stay still. He buries his face in the juncture of your neck and shoulder, biting and pressing soft kisses to soothe the sweet pain, and you have to coax his face upwards to kiss him again, swallowing his whines as you continue to slowly bring him to the edge.

You didn’t give him the chance to warn you, lips pressed together, your tongue in his mouth, but you feel his abs flexing beneath your soft touch, and oh so suddenly, he’s cumming all over your belly, decorating your skin with himself.

He pulls back, apologizing profusely.

“Golly, I’m sorry… Oh god sorry..”

“‘S alright… Don’t be sorry.” The look you send his way has him melting into your touch, his blissed out eyes doing something to you, want brewing in your belly again, but you tamp it down. Instead, you collapse against his chest, arms snaking around his neck, and his strong arms wrap around your torso, holding you close.

You stay like that for a while, his fingers dancing along your back, before he makes a go to move away. You whine pathetically, too tired to actually protest.

“Where are you going?”

“Gotta get you cleaned up sweetheart.”

You smile giddily at the softness in his voice, and shift to move off of him, rolling onto your back on the bed. He stands up, pulling on his boxers as he walks to your bathroom.

This man is magic is all you can think of as he reappears beside you, cleaning your skin with a wet rag, delicately, like he’s restoring a piece of art. You let him, moving to give him easier access, and it’s quick work. He’s laying down beside you soon enough, gathering you against his chest, and the casual intimacy, the easiness with which he moves around and towards you, strikes something deep within you.

Tired, spent out, both of you still tipsy from the bad champagne from the party, you both fall asleep quickly, breathing in tandem, and your last thought before the sweet darkness swallows you is that maybe trusting Clark hadn’t been such a bad idea. You’re gladd he didn’t stay away.

When you wake up, dull sunlight streaming in through a gap in your curtains, the apartment smells like coffee. Good coffee you don’t remember owning. You stumble out of bed, grabbing a tshirt and underwear on your way to the bathroom, and you stop to stare at yourself in the mirror.

Rosy cheeks, wide eyes, lips still slightly swollen, hair mussed up… You look better than you have in weeks. Sex really is magical. Or maybe that’s just the Clark Kent effect.

You wash your face, brush your teeth, make yourself more presentable before walking to the living room, where you find Clark at the small table, steaming cup of coffee in hand, nose buried in a book he stole from one of the precarious piles that litter your apartment.

“Hi.”

He looks up.

“Good morning.”

You sit in front of him, taking the cup he offers you and greedily drinking the burning coffee.

The silence is easy, nothing needs to be said. His hand finds yours over the table, fingers interlacing.

So far, remaining unknown was your curse and your defence mechanism. Clark had seen that. He’d seen it all. He’d seen the ugly part, been victim of the things you can’t control, and yet, he stays. He’s here, this morning, looking at you like the sun only shines when you’re there, and that’s enough to convince you that maybe, just maybe, you don’t mind letting Clark know you better.

You don’t mind letting him in.

He left the jacket on the coat rack, took off his glasses knowing that he didn't really need them inside his house and the murmur of his super sense confirmed that the super dog was in the living room: Motionless, almost calm with a very lively heart rate, almost naughty or playful.

"What did you do now?" Clark asked softly, with a tired smile. The dog's antics certainly frustrated him as much as they entertained him. How could a dog be so clever when it came to ways to destroy his house?

And then he saw it: a piece of cream-colored lace hanging from the dog's mouth.

Clark froze.

A couple of seconds later, he recognized what it was and almost choked on his own breath. The air of Smallville, his upbringing, his impeccable manners toward ladies—none of that had prepared him for the sight of Krypto nibbling on panties that clearly weren't Clark's.

His face flushed: That morning, even with your scent still on his neck and images of everything they had done together, Clark had found your panties forgotten in a corner. You hadn't worn them when you left his apartment in the morning because they were dirty, and he had insisted that you wear some of his boxers until you got home.

Noticing that you had forgotten them, he left them in the laundry basket before leaving for work, not counting on your panties turning out to be the newest and most entertaining toy for his dog.

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no.”

He lunged forward at the speed of nothing less than an alien, trying not to use his powers ridiculously in a situation that shouldn't exist in the first place.

"Put that down!" Krypto, convinced it was a game, ran into the kitchen, ears pricked and tail wagging. The lace flapped like a victory flag in his snout.

The worst part wasn't that Krypto had decided to turn someone else's underwear into his favorite toy. The worst part was that the panties were yours, and maybe giving them back to you was his key to asking you out and turning things into something more than just the guy from the office you once slept with.

The night before, the first and last time you had been at his house, the evening had turned into perhaps the best night of Clark's life in years. He remembered your lips, your sighs, every curve and every sound. He had tried to memorize every detail, from every mole on your body to the scent of your perfume, the brand of which he asked you about the next morning.

He felt especially protective of you: protective when he heard you whisper his name in a way he longed for you to do only for him, protective when he saw you standing in his kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of his boxers and his shirt. There was something so seductive about you that made him feel entangled, something he hoped you wouldn't see as a one-time feeling.

Clark's heart fluttered uncomfortably at the thought. He would never dare mention it or pressure you into anything like that; he was too much of a gentleman for that. But now, with Krypto shaking the lace as if suddenly playing tag with Clark, he found himself in a situation that, the night before, falling asleep in your arms, he could not have imagined.

“Krypto, please,” Clark tried to negotiate, because the word “beg” when referring to his dog was not an anecdote that made him look very good.

The dog looked at him with that indecipherable innocence, tongue hanging out, and with one more tug, the panties gave way and tore into pieces.

Clark closed his eyes and sighed.

Silence. Again. The dog, happy with his feat, dropped the irreparable piece of fabric in front of him. The superman bent down to pick it up, holding it with the delicacy of someone handling a radioactive artifact. He bit his lip, the heat still in his cheeks. Understanding the expression on the man's face and realizing that Clark was not as happy as he was, Krypto calmed down again, this time with his ears down and seeking Clark's hand with his snout.

Clark sighed and tried to smile at the dog. “It's okay, Champ,” he said, trying to comfort the dog before comforting himself, his expression growing more serious as he inspected the panties.

“We just need to find a way to... fix this.” And Krypto let out a bark, almost as if to show what Clark wanted to believe was support.

On an ordinary Thursday afternoon, the strongest, tallest, and luckiest journalist, who had secured all the exclusive interviews with Superman, found himself in a place he hadn't really planned to visit: a women's lingerie boutique. Of course, Jimmy had sent him the address with the promise that he wouldn't make fun of him, so here he was.

The store was crowded.

He had entered without any discretion, observing the clothes on the mannequins with almost amusement. Most men get bored within seconds of having to wait for their girlfriends to choose the perfect pair of stockings and bra, but Clark Kent was there of his own free will, distracted and unaware that some girls were watching him.

Clark thought it was simple: he had an idea, it was just a pair of plain cream-colored panties that he thought he would find quickly. His mistake was that, without realizing it, he suddenly found himself in an aisle that looked more like a maze of lace and ribbons. It made him think too much about you, as well as Krypto and the accident a few hours ago. A young saleswoman, who had already noticed Clark since he was the only man in the store, approached him with a smile and her tablet in her hands.

“Looking for something in particular, sir?” Clark, who was trying to find the difference between beige and bone-colored panties, raised his eyebrows when he felt the saleswoman's presence.

“Oh, yes.” He put the panties behind his back with a smile, as if he had been caught doing something wrong. “I'm looking for a gift for a... for a girl I'm seeing.” Using the term girlfriend without your permission didn't feel right, no matter how much he wanted to.

The girl nodded, as if she had been in this situation more times than one would think. “Perfect. What size does she wear?”

Clark blinked and licked his lower lip. Size.

The concept hit him like a meteorite. How could he not have thought to check the size of the torn panties? He hadn't really paid attention to that, and he was sure he wasn't going to ask her in a message.

“Uh...” Clark tried to think quickly, raising his hands. “Something like this...” He drew a vague gesture with his palms, trying to form the silhouette of your butt in a gesture he stopped doing a little regretfully when the saleswoman stifled a laugh.

“I think we have something like that,” the girl said before going to find clothes with the characteristics Clark was looking for. By the end of the day, Clark left the boutique with the soft murmurs of women who didn't know about the superman's super hearing, which of course only made Clark smile as he carried his pink paper bag.

By Friday, the same pink bag was on his desk at the office, except that the contents were slightly jumbled with black wrapping paper.

“I'm sure it's not your birthday.” Lois glanced at the bag and then at you, biting her lip, as if afraid she had forgotten some special date.

You shook your head, smiling because you had already checked the contents of the bag and hadn't been able to stop smiling since. Clark sat at his desk drinking coffee and typing away on his computer, except for those moments when he glanced at you using his x-ray vision, just to see how your heart beat a little faster than usual every time you looked at the gift.

A set of panties matching what Clark remembered was your favorite color, along with a note that you took the time to read without the curious shadow of Lois or Jimmy over you.

"I know they're not the originals I promised to give you, but considering Krypto ruined things for me a little, I thought it wouldn't be bad to have something new, nice, and especially very you. I liked them, and it wouldn't hurt to mention that I'd like even more to see you wearing them.

Call me (Please) - Yours C.K."

You’d been stuck on this crossword since you’d started it. It was Friday, and the Daily Planet’s puzzles grew more difficult each day of the week.

When Clark came in a good 25 minutes late, instead of leaving it at your usual exchange of “hello” and “how are you,” you stopped him.

“Hey, Clark?”

He’d already been a few steps away, heading toward his desk, but he stopped when you spoke. Turned around with bright eyes. If he was a dog, his ears would have been perked, you think.

“Yeah?”

He was back in front of your desk before you could speak, glasses slipping down his nose slightly where he looked at you seated in your rolling chair.

“Whirlybird, nine letters. Have anything?”

Clark glanced down at the crossword sitting on your desk, a little smile flashing over his face. “Did you try ‘eggbeater’?”

You looked back to your paper, pencil held in preparation, and of course — of course — it worked.

“Oh, you’re good, Kent.”

He smiled, crooked and somehow proud and bashful at once.

At first, you really were stuck on that prompt and were prepared to ask whoever walked in next, but you were glad it was Clark.

Because, like a lot of people in the office, you have a bit of a crush on him. You’d never spoken enough for it to be anything more, but you have two working eyes and you’ve witnessed him be sweet to literally everyone.

He’s gorgeous, obviously. Curls framing his face, glasses sitting on his nose, a sharp jaw, dimples that are on his face more often than not because he seems to be smiling constantly. His shirt tight over his shoulders and biceps, his pants a little short at the ankles because he’s so damn tall.

You could keep going on, but even more than his appearance, he is undeniably kind.

An intern drops a tray of coffees, Clark is there with paper towels. Someone needs a last minute edit of their article, Clark is the first to offer. Hell, one time, the newsroom was such a mess, he stayed behind to help the janitor clean up. You could go on about things like that, too.

So yeah, you like him. It’s almost impossible not to.

That day, you needed help, but you also saw an opportunity, and you knew (still know, even now) that Clark just couldn’t say no to lending a helping hand. You banked on it even, because just as he was about to turn away, you stopped him again.

“You know, I could use a partner on this one. Friday crosswords always get me.” You tapped your pencil against your cheek. “If you have time, I mean.”

He didn’t. He shouldn’t have time, but he’s Clark so he agreed.

Unbeknownst to you, Clark had been trying to get himself to say more than five words to you every morning. He thinks you’re beautiful and sweet and fun, and even though a lot of people underestimate you, he has a feeling things would be about ten times more chaotic at the Daily Planet if it weren’t for you.

He set his briefcase down and leaned against your desk. He didn’t leave until the crossword was finished, effectively making him fall even further behind on work.

Since then, he’s been doing the crossword with you almost every single morning. You can count on one hand the times he’s missed it.

It started slowly. You would ask him prompts every couple of days when he came in, luring him into joining you until you didn’t even have to ask anymore, he’d just take his place by your desk and lean over to see the puzzle for himself.

Simply reading the prompts together and filling it out turned into learning how smart he is, how quick. It turned into sharing little stories about your crappy apartment or his Ma and Pa back home between questions. It turned into something like friendship.

And, occasionally, it turned into flirting via prompts. You tested the waters that way, toed a line. You ask Clark questions like ‘ways in which to show affection, ex: physical touch‘ just to hear him say the words love language.

Once, he’d stayed behind at the office so late that he got his hands on the next morning’s crossword and he took the liberty of leaving it on your desk with his guesses marked in pencil next to the prompts. He knows you like to be the one to write in the boxes.

He wasn’t at work the next day, but when you walked in, that crossword sat on your desk with a neon yellow sticky note on top from Clark, signed with a stupid smiley face.

You still have the note.

Today, Clark leans on your desk the same as always, two hands splayed on the wood to hold him up, his head bent at an awkward angle to read the puzzle.

“Why don’t you just pull up a chair?” you ask. “Won’t your neck get sore like that?”

“I have to be prepared to run in case Perry sees. An extra chair next to you is pretty incriminating.”

“But Perry loves me.”

“Yes, and he tolerates me.”

“Aww, Clark. I don’t think it’s possible to only tolerate you, you’re too charming.”

“I don’t think charming is the right word here.”

“Well, I do.”

Clark shakes his head and tries to pretend to be normal about that. He’s probably failing, because his face feels warm already and he can’t stop looking at your eyes and how they shine whenever you tease him like that.

Charming. Sure.

A minute later you almost laugh to yourself at one of the prompts. Too perfect not to voice it.

“Flirt,” you say.

His eyes whip up from the page and to your face. “I- what?”

“Flirt, five letters,” you point at the paper. “Get your head in the game, Kent.”

“Oh!” He scratches at the back of his neck, pushes his glasses up, then, with a tinge of pink to his cheeks says: “Vixen, tempt. Tease.”

Now you’re the one feeling warm. Yes, it’s your own doing (you’d wanted to hear him recite the words) but you don’t think you’ll ever unhear that. The way his voice went quieter, lower.

The way his arms are perched right in your eyeline, sleeves rolled up, hands tensing against your desk.

Vixen, tempt. Tease.

The words play in your mind every time you tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear. Every time Clark pushes his sleeve up further or laughs or smiles at you or solves a tougher clue like it’s obvious.

Vixen, when you bite the end of the pencil while you think, Clark’s eyes tracking the movement. Tempt, when he stays with you far too long that morning; Perry’s in a meeting, and it’s almost lunch when you finish the crossword and Clark tears himself away.

Tease, when you watch him walk to his desk. When you catch him turning around to look at you one more time.

-

You’re half asleep when Clark comes in a few days later, elbow resting on the smooth surface of your desk, chin perched in your hand. You’ve been staring at this month’s calendar for fifteen minutes now, your blinking growing heavier and heavier.

You jolt when a coffee is placed in front of you, right next to the paper open to the crossword you’ve yet to start. Clark is on the other end of that coffee, smiling kindly and maybe a little teasingly.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.”

“Only-” you stifle a yawn, checking the time on your monitor “-seventeen minutes late today. Is that a new record?”

“I greet you with coffee and you’re on my case already. Wow.”

He goes to take the cup back, you smack his hand away, and he winces and clutches it to his chest like it hurts. You know it doesn’t. You’d never actually smack Clark, and you’re too tired to muster up the energy, anyway.

“No take-backs, Kent. I need this.”

“I can tell,” he says, not malicious or judgemental, just honest, genuinely concerned, “you okay?”

You take a sip of your coffee, “Fine, yeah. Couldn’t really sleep last night. Superman vs. alien was happening down the block.”

“Don’t tell Lois, she’ll want every detail out of you.”

“Too late. She knows where I live, so..” you shrug, “I don’t mind. Finally I’ll get my own name in the paper.”

Clark had no idea you’d been close to the action last night, and he’s glad that you’re okay. If anything, it’s probably best he didn’t know at the time. Superman can’t do his job properly if he’s worrying about you mid-battle.

“I’m surprised you weren’t there after to get an interview,” you say.

“No, I was in bed. Sleeping. Obviously.”

You raise your eyebrows at him.

“I don’t interview him every time something happens. Just when he’s.. willing.” He clears his throat when you squint at him. “Read me a clue.”

You want to say something else, something about how his subject change was not subtle, but then he’s dipping down and leaning into his elbows rather than his hands.

Suddenly he’s closer, and you can smell his cologne and see the dimension in his eyes. Yeah, impossible to say no to him.

You look away from his face and onto the page. You can feel the weight of his gaze on you as you skim the words, and you fight a laugh when you get to the one you decide to read aloud.

“Oh! Speaking of… Superman’s weakness, ten letters.”

“Kryptonite.”

Clark realizes his mistake as soon as he speaks. It isn’t that he’s wrong (obviously) it’s that he nearly cut you off with the speed of his reply. And, according to the pleased smirk on your face, you noticed.

He straightens, because you’re reading him a little too closely, and because (if he wasn’t.. who he is) his back would be hurting from leaning the way he had been.

“Maybe I should time you on this next one,” you tease. “Power often used by Superman, six letters.”

“It’s flight,” he answers easily. When you give him another look, he adds: “These are commonly known facts!”

“Maybe by you, mister Superman expert.”

You’re teasing him, clearly. Because yeah these are facts that most people know, especially if they work at the Daily Planet where someone is talking about him pretty much all the time.

The property damage vs. lives saved debate. Once, it was: are the trunks really necessary?

“Yeah, well I do- uh, interview him a lot. So I know the guy.”

Clark tends to defend Superman, you’ve noticed. Most of the office has. He writes about him favorably in his pieces, after all.

You agree with him, but it’s fun to rile him up, to hear him get a little defensive, his voice higher, a hand running through his hair and leaving a curl sticking up.

“I thought it was just when he was willing.”

“He is often willing.”

“Yes, I know. It’s often on the front page.”

Clark is biting back a smile, you can tell because of his dimples. Always giving him away. You laugh as he grabs the paper from your desk, pushing up his glasses and holding it up as if he’s reading straight from the page.

He isn’t, because he says, “Oh, look, you’re in this one! Daily Planet receptionist who thinks she’s hilarious.”

You gasp, feigning offense. “What happened to Clark Kent the sweetheart?”

And Clark knows you’re just joking around, but you calling him sweetheart in any form is enough to have his cheeks warm, the tips of his ears going pink.

“Still here,” he says, setting the paper back down in front of you. He leans down slightly to do it. You poke his dimple.

“Yeah, he is.”

Then you’re back to the crossword.

Both of you should be doing actual work. You answer the phone when it rings, but still. Clark surely has writing or editing to do, and while you don’t have a specific to-do list, something always comes up.

But it’s so easy to get lost in this, to pretend like maybe you’re at your kitchen island in the morning instead of at your desk in an office full of people. To imagine a room bathed in the warmth of sunrise rather than the harsh overhead lighting of the office. One that smells like breakfast and home and not stale coffee and printer sheets.

The world slows. It’s just you and Clark and paper and a pencil.

Twenty minutes and a completed crossword later, Clark heads over to his desk. He loves his job, and he likes being around Lois and Jimmy and everyone, he only wishes that your desk wasn’t so far away.

The mornings are all he gets with you, and by the time he finishes work, you’re already gone. If he was better at this sort of thing, he’d have asked you on a date that first day, but he isn’t, and he didn’t.

Clark’s chair creaks when he sits, his briefcase set onto his desk. He doesn’t even have time to turn his computer on before Lois and Jimmy are on him.

“Kent’s here!” Jimmy cheers. “How’s your girlfriend doing today?”

“She’s not my-” Clark looks between Lois (who takes a sip of coffee and gives him a pointed look over her mug) and Jimmy and quickly realizes he’s not winning that battle.

-

It’s a wonder that you and Clark have yet to get in any actual trouble for hanging out on company time. Save the teasing from your coworkers and Perry’s shouted admonishments, of course.

Clark is only twenty minutes late today. He walks in with his usual flustered trying-not-to-look-flustered look and his hands full. Briefcase in one hand, but this time, it isn’t a coffee in the other.

It’s a small bouquet of flowers.

“Who are you trying to butter up with those?” you ask him, nodding to the blooms clutched gently in his fist.

“I’m not,” he tells you. Not lightly, either. It’s not unkind — Clark never is — but it’s firm. “They’re for you, actually.”

You instantly feel sort of like a jerk. “I’m sorry, Clark, I didn’t-”

“You don’t need to be sorry. Just take them. Please.”

You do just that, his fingers brushing yours when he hands them over. There’s a half-drank glass of water on your desk. You plop the bouquet into it.

“They’re lovely. Thank you,” you trace the edge of a petal. “What for?”

“Does there have to be an occasion?”

He looks nervous, which isn’t unusual for Clark, but it’s sweet all the same.

Despite your feelings, you’d never really bought into the idea that there would be anything more with Clark. You believed that you would flirt with him forever and that would be enough.

But right now, with his smile both bright and unsure, you feel like maybe, just maybe, you could have been wrong about that. That maybe one day he’ll see you outside of your office clothes and out from behind your desk. That you could hold his hand and he could lead you through crowded sidewalks.

And maybe, if you’re lucky, you really could be doing crosswords in his kitchen in your underwear and one of his shirts.

Clark Kent the sweetheart. You smile to yourself.

“No,” you almost whisper. “No occasion necessary.”

Clark’s smile is instant and gorgeous. Like you’ve just told him the best news ever, like he’s won something.

He’d been nervous coming in, but when he walked past the vendor on the sidewalk and saw the flowers he thought of you and bought them without really thinking about it. Clark’s palm was sweating against the stems. It’s worth it, though, for the reaction he got, for this moment that feels like a declaration.

The first bouquet of many, he hopes.

Then your phone is ringing and the bubble pops, the noises of the office come back into focus where they’d been muffled before. Printers and keyboards and chair wheels and mice. You pick up the phone, say a quick hello, and transfer the call to the right person.

“That one was for Perry,” you say after hanging up. “He sounded mad. Let’s get this crossword done before he comes out asking me why I give him calls he doesn’t wanna sit through.”

(Always joking, you know that. But to a lot of people Perry’s jokes just sound like Perry being serious.)

So you start the crossword, an easier one today. Clark answers obscure, niche questions with ease and you’re reminded of how nerdy (and adorable) he is. He reads you the easy ones and makes you feel like a genius for getting them right.

With only four words left to go, Perry comes out of his office. You take one look at his face and know the call didn’t go well, and that you probably shouldn’t take your chances with getting caught today.

You’d be fine, probably. But Clark would get a lecture about already being late enough as is, surely.

“Clark, hide,” you mutter.

“What?”

“Frustrated Perry incoming. Hide.”

Instead of running out the door or something, Clark literally vaults himself over your desk and stuffs himself underneath it, thankful for the panel in the front that hides your legs, and Clark, from view.

The fabric of his shirt brushes against your bare leg, and you’re suddenly reminded that you’re wearing a skirt today. You breathe in sharply and cross your legs, your foot knocking against Clark’s bent knee. You tuck the pencil behind your ear and start clicking around on your computer, making yourself look busy.

Beneath your desk, Clark is trying not to burst. He can smell the lotion you use on your legs and can feel your ankle through his clothes whenever you shift. There’s a tiny scar on your knee he wants to ask you about.

He resists the urge to trace it, to run a fingertip down the length of your calf.

What has he done?

You look up when Perry approaches, smiling innocently. “Hey, boss.”

“I thought I told you not to give me any angry business men on the phone until I’ve had lunch.”

He shakes a finger at you. You try not to laugh.

“I can’t control their tempers, Perry.”

“Maybe you should talk to ‘em longer. Calm ‘em down before you send them to me.”

“You can’t fool me, I know you like to argue. You’re secretly grateful for that call. Got your blood pumping.”

Perry rolls his eyes at you. It’s fond, you think.

He rolls up his sleeve and checks his watch. “Did Kent come in yet?”

You shake your head, “Haven’t seen him, sorry.”

“Damn kid’s gonna give me an aneurysm.”

“Too bad you kinda need him for all those Superman exclusives, huh?”

Clark pinches your ankle beneath the table, you kick him gently in return.

Later, you’ll think of that small touch, the gentleness and playfulness of it, and you’ll replay it over and over. You’ll feel that same warmth spread up your leg, blooming from where he’d touched you. You’ll place your fingers exactly where his had been and squeeze.

Right now, you’re a little busy trying to get Perry away.

Your boss grumbles something at your comment. Louder, he says, “Well when you see him tell him I want to talk to him.”

“Will do, boss.”

You salute, Perry makes a sour face then walks off.

Once he’s safely out of view, you push your chair back and duck down so you can see Clark. He’s completely squished under your desk, crouching on his knees, his neck bent awkwardly.

You stifle a laugh at the sight. “The coast is clear.”

He nods and shuffles out from under the desk, you move your chair back more to give him some room. Of course, Clark manages to bump his head on his way up, rustling every single thing on your desk.

“Clark!” You cover your mouth, but still, a giggle bursts out of you. “Real discreet.”

“I’m sorry that my head trauma might draw some attention,” he mumbles.

“Aww, let me see,” you reach for him, and he’s still kneeling so you don’t have to reach very far. You run your fingers over his hairline, right where he’d bumped his head, pushing his hair away and tracing the spot. “No bump, no scratch.”

You’re a little surprised. If he’d hit his head with enough force to move things, you’d expect there to be some physical evidence of it besides the bit of water that escaped your glass-turned-vase.

Later, much like you’ll think about his hand on your ankle, Clark will think of yours in his hair.

“Maybe just to my ego,” he says, standing up fully. As if he even has a big one. Clark dusts off his knees, pushes his glasses up. “Gosh, that was close.”

“You know, you could have just run around the desk instead of jumping over the thing.”

“Yes, I probably could have,” he nods, hands on his hips as if he’s assessing the situation. “I also probably would have tripped and fallen if I tried. These floors are quite slippery.”

“Quite,” you nod.

Today, Clark finishes the crossword on the same side of the desk as you. You even let him write the last word, watching his tongue poke out in focus.

You spend much of the rest of the day looking at the flowers he brought you, pinching a stem between your fingers to make sure this morning was real.

-

Clark has yet to show up today. If it was twenty minutes, an hour, maybe even two, you wouldn’t have questioned it. That’s normal for him. However, it’s been three.

Sure, he’s been away before. Sick or had a day off like anyone else. You hadn’t been close enough to him to worry then. Now, after spending nearly every single morning with him, it’s strange for him not to be around. You feel his absence like a cloud looming over your desk.

The paper is open to the crossword page, your pencil sitting over it. You haven’t touched it yet. It feels wrong to do one without Clark.

The TV further in the office is turned up, Superman flying around and saving people and breaking things fills the room. Many reporters are gathered in front of the screen, Lois in front of the bunch.

You, on the other hand, are looking up Clark’s listed phone number in the system.

You’re glad that pretty much everyone else has something to distract them as you pick up your office phone and dial his number. It rings and rings and rings until you’re greeted with his voicemail. You’re not exactly surprised he didn’t pick up, but you’d hoped he would.

Still, the sound of his voice and the way he trips over his words once or twice makes you smile softly, twisting the phone cord around your finger. You hesitate when the beep sounds, momentarily worried that you’re doing a little too much, that you shouldn’t have called at all, but you care and you want him to know that.

“Hi, Clark,” you start. “It’s me, I mean, you know that, obviously. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay, so let me know. I’ll be here, crossword at the ready. Um. Bye.”

You hang up and drop your face into your hands. A big part of your job is quite literally making phone calls, and that was probably the most awkward voicemail you’ve ever left in your life.

A tiny groan escapes you before you straighten. Clark Kent has you completely twisted up. You miss him and you saw him yesterday.

A small group of Daily Planet reporters and staff seem to be leaving to head towards the action, Jimmy and Lois included. You stop them right before they head out the door.

“Do you guys know where Clark is?” you ask, trying to sound unbothered, just curious. Judging by the look they share, you fail.

“No idea,” Jimmy says, “but it’s Clark. He always shows up eventually.”

“Right,” you nod.

“Don’t worry,” Lois adds. “He’ll turn up looking like a puppy and all will be right in the world.”

You smile at them and watch them go. The office is a little quieter once they do, that steady buzz still present, just smaller. You turn back to your computer and answer emails until Jimmy and Lois come back, rushing towards their desks to work on the latest Superman news, surely.

Still no sign of Clark.

Actually, he doesn’t show up until most of the office has left, until you’re standing up and packing your bag. Half of the lights are off, the space significantly quieter than usual. And just as you’re slinging your bag onto your shoulder, Clark Kent bursts through the door, skittering to a stop in front of your desk.

His hair is a windswept mess, his glasses are hanging on the tip of his nose; he pushes them up just as you think it. He’s not wearing a tie or a jacket, just a dress shirt that you think might be buttoned wrong. It isn’t even tucked in.

“Kent, you’re late,” you grumble in your best Perry impression. It’s terrible but Clark still laughs.

“I’m sorry, I was-” his hand waves around loosely. “I couldn’t get here until now.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Clark. I’m not actually your boss.”

“I’m not sorry I missed work,” he says. He takes a few steps closer, until his shoes touch the front of your desk and it’s the only thing in between you. “I’m sorry that I missed this morning.”

“Oh.”

You’ve imagined a moment like this so many times. Thought about what you might say to him, how you’d tell him that you cherish those mornings and want to have evenings and afternoons and everything that feels just like them. Better, even. Now, you don’t have the words. Can’t find them.

Just your purse slipping down your shoulder and onto your desk with a dull thump. Just your eyes focused on Clark’s, so kind and open and hopeful.

“I was never a morning person when I was younger, my Ma would tell you the same, but you make it easier to wake up. You’ve converted me. Mornings are my favorite time of day now.”

Clark is practically panting, his palms sticky and his eyes searching your face.

When he got home from Superman duties, and he’d seen a missed call from the office, he hesitated at first. Didn’t want to deal with work just then, but something in him urged him to listen to the voicemail. He’s eternally glad he did.

Because he heard you, all sweet and concerned. You being the one stumbling, for once. You caring about him enough to call.

He knew then and there that he had to do something. That he couldn’t let this thing between you go unspoken anymore. He’s tired of not saying what he means, even if it scares him.

“Clark, I.. I really like mornings, too.” And you. Even more so, I like you.

He smiles, huffs softly like he can’t believe this is happening. You can’t, either.

Clark hands you a small box you hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying. You open it and find a cupcake, some icing smudged on the lid and the sides from his rushing. Your favorite flavor, and you don’t even remember ever telling him what it was.

At your distraction, Clark twists the crossword on your desk towards himself and picks up the pencil. He pauses briefly at finding it completely empty still. The smallest thing, the absence of action, really, but it warms him. It says enough.

He writes in a few of the boxes, then spins it back to face you.

You set the cupcake box aside gently and lean down to see what he’s written. The words are jumbled and they certainly don’t match up with the clues. “Clark, these are wrong-”

“Just read what it says. Trust me.”

So you do, the words coming together to form a phrase that makes your stomach flip. Will you go on a date with me?

You climb onto the desk and sit on the edge in front of him. It isn’t the most graceful thing, but you suddenly feel the urge to be much closer to him, and Clark watches you move like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

He’s standing between your legs, his hands coming down to rest atop the desk beside your thighs. Framing each other in. Two pieces clicking into place.

“So, will you?”

“Three letters, affirmative agreement.” You straighten his collar for him. “Need me to solve that one for you?”

“Mm, just to be sure.” His thumbs skim the side seams of your pants.

“Yes, Clark. Of course.”

He smiles again, and you can’t help but mirror it with your own. His nose brushes yours, his hands shifting to hold your hips.

There’s nobody left inside but the two of you, but even if there were people around, you don’t think you’d care. All you see is Clark, all you feel.

The tip of his nose slides against yours again, like a question. “You gonna kiss me or what, Kent?”

“Before the first date?” he asks.

“I think we’re long past that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, and then his lips are on yours.

Your hands tighten on his shoulders, his fingers dig gently into your thighs. It’s soft and delicate but it’s also hungry, in a way. In how he tugs you closer, how he pulls back briefly to smile before diving in again.

If you’ve noticed any oddities surrounding him and Superman lately, they’re forgotten at the moment. You aren’t too concerned, anyway. That’s a puzzle for another day.

For now, it’s you and him and nothing else. It’s seven letters, no flaws, best possible outcome.

It’s perfect.

✐ᝰ.ᐟ

You smile, without really meaning to. Your words are breathy, “Oh, no, no, I’m— I’m okay, I’m almost there.” Your neighbor glances away and his brows furrow. Expecting him to finally get on his way, you start to collect the loops of the bags in your already red fingers. But suddenly he’s beside you, already straightening up with all the bags in his large hands. You open your mouth to insist that it really is okay, but then his fingers brush your palm as he takes the two you grabbed, and you’re caught up trying to recount the scratchy feeling of his callouses.

“Still another floor,” he grunts, nodding his head curtly in explanation, and turning to climb the next flight. There’s barely even a flex to his shoulders at the haul. You hurry to walk next to him; the least you can do is give him company, right? Even though a guy like him doesn’t seem to need it much.

Or maybe he just makes like he doesn’t. Because once you get talking, he seems fine to keep it going. Gruffly, not much of a social butterfly, but with the easiness of a man that maybe once upon a time, really was talkative. “God, you’re a lifesaver.” You sigh, looking at your feet and smiling down at them in reply to your neighbors indifferent sound.

“Couldn’t let a lady carry all this up the stairs.” He shrugs your compliment off. Old school. You kind of liked it.

“So.. not because you saw I’m like, crazy out of shape?”

He laughs. More of a low, brief chuckle, you guess, but it’s not forced. You return it when he tilts his head side to side, humming dubiously and squinting up at the landing above, “Nah, well.. just uh, looked like y’needed a hand.”

“Well, my ego says thanks.” You sigh, pulling the heavy door onto your level open. Theres just a ghost of a smile on your neighbor’s lips, the corners tugging upward underneath his facial hair. But it’s there. “Y’know, and uhm. Me too. I say— uh, just thank you.”

He shakes his head in what you guess is as close to a ‘you’re welcome’ you’ll receive. You expect him to leave your groceries by the door and retire to his own across the hall, so you rub some warmth into your knit sweater clad arms and wait for him to drop the bags. But moments go by, and he’s standing at your apartment door, eventually squinting and cocking a brow at you. “Oh!” You let out, immediately turning pink from embarrassment. At least that warms up your freezing cheeks a little.

Turning the key, you step in and gesture to your kitchen counter, mumbling another thank you and quickly realizing he had a clear look into your living room, entryway, obviously kitchen— your entire life, practically. The thought pops into your head that it might be a mess or god forbid you left something embarrassing lying over the couch. You’re snapped out of it before you can busy around your apartment cleaning everything like a psycho, because suddenly your neighbor is standing right in front of you, and just as suddenly, he appears double as broad. And he smells fucking amazing, too. Like cologne and a lived-in musk that isn’t overpowering, isn’t nasty. It’s manlier than any of the men you’ve ever gone out with who brag about how much they bench, in a quiet yet very clear way.

“Uhm, thank—“

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” he cuts you off, shaking his head and reminding you with a lift of his brows that you’ve said that a million times. You smile at your feet, embarrassed all over again.

Maybe it’s because of that embarrassment that the words slip out without you meaning them to, maybe it’s that meek part of your brain that desperately wants to leave a good impression on practically everyone ever. But you find yourself saying, “Do you want some coffee?”

He hesitates. You see it in the way he averts and squints his eyes, lips just barely parted. Just when you’re about to backtrack and say that it’s okay, he doesn’t need to say yes, you’re just trying to thank him— he nods. “Sure. If it’s no bother.”

You nod right back and let a smile overtake your face. “It’s not!” You slip past him in the small entryway, heading to the coffee maker. Looking over your shoulder, your neighbor is leaning against the opposite countertop and looking around the place. You hope not to judge it; because it’s definitely privy to some critique. Small, kind of shitty, but you have to pat yourself on the back that it’s pretty neat. And you don’t have the worst decorative eye, either.

“I’m uh, I’m Pete.” He grunts while your Keurig grumbles to life. You reach for another pod for yourself, catch his dark chocolate eyes in the meantime. Weirdly, you hadn’t even realized that you didn’t know his name at all. Pete.. didn’t really suit him. But who says that out loud? You tell him your own and he nods, his jaw feathering under his beard. You think you catch his lips moving silently, like he’s testing out the syllables of your name on his tongue.

“Kinda weird,” you laugh lightly, handing him your nicest looking mug, baby blue with navy paisleys around the rim. “I’ve lived here, what, nine months? And I never knew your name.”

Pete grunts, a faint smile tugging at one of his lips. You predicted right; he drinks the coffee black, doesn’t ask for any sugar. You dump a generous amount in yours, though. “Yeah, well. Ain’t good at the whole neighbor thing.”

You nod your chin to the pile of groceries on the counter behind him, grinning at his handsome side profile as he averts his eyes. “I happen to think you’re pretty good at it.” He hums. Squints a little and presses his lips after a greedy sip of coffee. You curl your fingers around your cup, sighing softly at the heat of it. The air was absolutely frigid in the apartment, you were surprised that your shower water didn’t freeze the moment it left the faucet. “I’m sorry about, uhm.. how cold it is. Heaters broken, and y’know how the landlady is.”

That seems to grab Pete’s attention. His brows draw, and you take the chance to really look at him. He was undeniably handsome, dark hair, a bulky nose and puppy-dog eyes even despite the clear hard shell he wore. He wore solely dark colors, a black hoodie under a black jacket, dark, nearly black jeans. Like he was going to a funeral, or mourning, you thought. Definitely the brooding type. But he had this weird charm, cool and without any effort to have it, it simply rolled off him in easy droves. The set of his shoulders and the heaviness of his steps; calm, but not off-guard. He nods thoughtfully, and you’re noticing his little mannerisms. He tilts his chin and averts his eyes around the room as he speaks, punctuating each word with a nod or a shake of his head.

“How long’s it been broken?” He sets down a quarter-full mug beside him on the countertop, brow tight. You shrug, fisting your hands in the sleeves of your sweater to warm your fingers.

“Maybe.. a month?” He nods almost gravely. It’s not much longer before he thanks you for the coffee, waves off your own thanks for the help, and returns to his door across the hall. You spent the rest of the afternoon and the sacred time between laying your head on the pillow and drifting off thinking about him, endlessly. Trying to recall that distinct smell that lingered on his neck, every gravelly word he uttered. Putting the pieces together as they came back to you while you brushed your teeth or slipped on fuzzy socks. The interaction coupled with the blessed knowledge that tomorrow was a Sunday, you sleep like a baby.

—

You intend to spend the next morning lazy. You wake up just before noon, eating cereal on your couch and rewatching episodes of House MD you already know the plot twist of. Fresh morning light that nearly smells like linen filtering in through your window, and just as you’re settling into your couch, decked in a cotton Victorias Secret set and with hair in a protective braid, there’s a knock at your door. You sigh, setting down your steaming cup of coffee and getting ready to let a solicitor disrupt your ‘me-time’-morning. But when you open the door it’s none other than your neighbor. Whose eyes look even better right in front of you than they do in the back of your eyelids.

“Hey.” It’s all he says, grunted low, his expression almost shy. Crazy for a macho, rough-road man who looks like he could crush your femur in his palm. Strangely, you don’t even think of that. Instead you focus on his perfectly fitting gray sweater over dark blue jeans— simple and handsome. Your eyes catch on the toolbox he’s holding. “You uh, mentioned your heater. Figured..” his eyes leave yours for an instant, he squints. “S’too cold t’be waitin’ for the landlady to send somebody. You’ll uh.. you’ll freeze, y’know.”

You nod, a little stunned, a little delighted as you step aside to let him in. In a sigh, you say, “You’re absolutely my favorite neighbor.”

That gets a chuckle out of the guy. You’re starting to learn him, like a little girl figuring out how to balance her weight on a bicycle. Without any worded instructions. You just.. Find it out. He doesn’t laugh, not outright, not with his chest. He huffs through his nostrils, he barks a rough sound, his cheeks push up into his eyes just barely enough for you to decipher that he’s smiling. He brushes past you and makes his way to the radiator, silently looking over it like he’s sizing up his workload.

“You’re really, really too kind, Pete.” Something about the square of his shoulders stiffens when you say his name, but you keep on. “How much will I owe you?”

Pete shakes his head firmly, not even looking at you where you lean against the kitchen island. His mouth yawns open like he’s about to speak, but you cut him off. “Oh, come on. I need to pay you, you can’t work for free. Especially not on your day off.” He makes a noncommittal sound, scratching his beard as he shakes his head yet again. You huff like he’s ridiculous. “Please. I don’t like having debt.”

Maybe that gets him. Finally, he grumbles over his shoulder, “Y’can make me some coffee.” As if that comes close to settling the matter, but it’s something, and you’ll take it. Your freezing apartment is one less thing you have to worry about, so it’s onto the next; your closet is a total wreck. So, you leave your bedroom door wide open a few feet deeper into the apartment than the radiator, and try to give him as much company as you can with a wall between you. You figured he wouldn’t like you hovering over him while he worked anyway. And you’re right.

You don’t talk his ear off. But when you do talk, about the dog you’d been eyeing online and trying to work out the logistics of hiding from the landlady, or about your older coworker— well, you can’t see it, but there’s a smile tugging at his lips. A smile that’s careful, hesitant like he doesn’t quite remember how, like he’s trying to retrace his steps.

When you’re finished with your closet, and you wander into the living room sighing, “I feel lighter! And this heater, too, thank god I can finally stop calling Ms. Jiandinski for it.. I can’t thank you enough, Pete,” he feels something he doesn’t need to find his way back to. The guilt, it’s familiar, clenches at his chest as naturally as the filling of his lungs when he breathes. Something is just slightly off-kilter, though, he’s terribly aware of it as he chews the inside of his cheek and cranks the wrench taut. It’s guilt, yes, but the source is.. falsity. He’s a fraud. A liar, in a way. And though he does it every day, lives that lie— it feels wrong to let it touch you.

So he doesn't look up from the heater he’s busting his ass over (and the effort’s pretty visible in the noticeable bulge of his biceps under his rolled-up sweater sleeves, you try to not stare,) when he grunts, “Frank.”

Your brows draw as you take a sip of your now-cold coffee you forgot on the counter. “What?”

Frank stops, looking over his shoulder at you with a feathering jaw and a grave look in his eyes. They hold your gaze for a lingering moment, enough time for something warm in your chest to stir, before he looks away and nods tightly. “My name. It’s Frank.”

“…Not Pete.” You’re thoroughly confused, now, but something about his tone with the admission makes you feel as though it’s more than what most people get out of him. He nods again, silent. So you mirror him, tilt your chin curt and firm. “Frank suits you better.”

His lips turn upward almost imperceptibly, and he looks back to the heater. Clicking the funneled paneling back into place, and twisting a bolt first with his calloused fingers and then with the wrench, Frank mutters, “I’m, uh. All done here.”

As he stands, you smile toothy and cross your arms. “Okay, seriously now. I owe you more than a cup of coffee.”

“Nah, you don’t.” Frank shakes his head adamantly, squinting at the window and then you. You huff indignantly. What a stubborn ass. Well, stubborn ass that has now done you two favors and won’t let you do more for him in return than click a button on your Keurig. You tilt your head and lift your eyebrows, trying to bully him into it. But he doesn’t seem the pushover type.

You pout. Luckily you aren’t looking at his grip on his toolbox, because otherwise you would see the flex of his fingers when you make that damn face. He doesn’t make any moves to leave, just turns his cheek. “C’mon.”

“C’mon nothing,” he mocks in a huffed chuckle, like you’re ridiculous but he doesn’t have the heart to be completely annoyed. He even punctuates his point with your name, firm and no-nonsense. He really was a stubborn ass.

You shift your weight, chew on the inside of your cheek. Nodding slow, you narrow your eyes at him. He mirrors you, like he sees the gleam in your eye. You’re up to something. But you nod, quicker, like you’re sealing off the deal. “Okay. Well.. Thank you, Frank. I’d say I owe you, but..” You shoot him a grin, cheeky as anything as he makes his way to the door, pivoting on his heel to look back at you.

That’s the first time Frank really does smile back at you. Teeth and all. It’s weird, the feeling it stirs in you. Like you want to chase it, over and over, keep this rugged, solitary man across the hall smiling constantly, with his shoulders too broad and heavy to not have some old weight. And the busted nose, the perpetually furrowed brow, the..

Richie’s ears rang and pounded, he heard his heartbeat between breaths, almost forgot how to breathe for a quick minute until he heard you storm out of the morgue, sobbing. If two messes made a stockpile of garbage, you and Richie were it. Between his constant string of curses and your ragged breathing between your sobs. 

Did you know? The weeks leading up to the funeral, that’s all you were asked. By Donna, distant cousins, random aunts, everyone who didn’t deserve to know how and why, asked. Then it became the not-so-silent whispers of gossip: “How could she not know?”, “If my husband was going through some shit I’d smell it from a mile away, she’s probably the reason”, and your favorite, “Was she pregnant? Did he just not want to deal with her?”.

“Do we really gotta go?” Mikey groaned as you rolled out of bed, it was 6 am Christmas morning and you promised Natalie you’d be there before she was so she can at least have a sense of solace. 

“Baby you never miss a Christmas” you kissed his cheeks, trying to coax him out of bed. “Maybe tonight Santa won’t be the only one coming” you obscenely joked. If one thing could get Mikey out of bed, it’d be the insinuation or act of sex. “Plus I promised Nat we’d save her from your mother”. 

“We?”.

“More like I will save her from your mom, you from Lee, Carmy from both you and your mom- I swear you would think your mom would love me by now” you interjected, “2 years together, engagement ring and all, hell maybe we should give her a grandkid”.

“Wanna try again?” Mikey looked over at your naked silhouette standing, last night's escapades made him hungry for more. 

“Let’s get over this, then we can think about adding a third” you responded honestly, “You gonna go to N.A.?” you asked, looking into his brown irises. He knew you wouldn’t judge if he said yes or no, knew his addiction wasn’t fully spiraling but you were worried nonetheless that it would. The lack of response led you to tilt your head, “One meeting please? That’s all I ask babe”. 

One meeting was a start, if you were being honest, it was mainly from the weight of the burden. You were worried you weren’t equipped mentally to handle the erratic personality of your fiancé, an erratic personality that was heightened when he was high off painkillers. 

By 8:30, you were in Donna’s home as she cooked tirelessly and chaotically. You stood with Donna in the kitchen, Mikey stood with Carmy and Richie doing whatever the fuck guys do during Christmas Day. Silently you hoped Lee would just avoid them all. 

“Did you notice any signs?” a calm voice emerged from your earshot as you drifted off into distant memories that were misconstrued into blacked out memories. “Any changes of behavior? Breaking habits, going into them? Destructive behaviors are more commonly remembered but any rapid lifestyle change can be a stress indicator”.

The sterile office with dimmed lighting began to tear you apart from your memory of his voice, his smile. The gruff of his voice, his annoying and infectious personality. 

“He would scarf down opiates and shoot heroin” you nonchalantly confessed, “He always did it when I wasn’t there— I caught him once but, Mikey was smart, he knew where to hide, when to act and lie, say the right things” you furrowed your eyebrows, “He went to therapy before we met, his therapist prescribed serotonin inhibitors— went into withdrawal when his mom went on a pill binge”.

“You mentioned he didn’t have the most supportive of familial structures growing up, do you think that in turn caused him to resort to drugs to self medicate or if he did it as a replacement for therapy?”.

It took you months to come to understand that Mikey wasn’t a horrible person. That him leaving wasn’t a betrayal to you, the people who loved him. That his action wasn’t selfish. When you broke, you were doing laundry in your shared apartment that was not stripped bare from you wanting no trace or sign of Mikey. 

You had put your dirties in the washer, not caring for color, shade, or texture, “Put the shit on cold and it all comes out the same” was what Mikey would say during wash days. Your lack of acknowledgement led you to wash Mikey’s sweater that smelt uncannily like him, like his skin, not the cologne he would put on and you would shamelessly spray on your pillow every night just to lull yourself to sleep. 

After putting your clothes into the dryer and seeing the dark navy sweater look near black from the soak of water, the once sandalwood musk was now a sterile soap.  

That night you freaked the fuck out of Natalie, out of Richie. You had locked yourself in the bathroom with a bottle of red wine and everything you hid that was Mikey’s, refusing to touch his clothes in the closet. You screamed at both of them as they got you up on your feet, knees begging you to just give up. 

“He’s gone Nat!” you croaked, Richie resting your head on his lap as he rocked you back and forth as if you were a child. You hadn’t eaten enough for you to be functioning fully, you weren’t sleeping, you were just as much a ghost as Mikey. You were breaking both of them down as they were grieving the dead and the living. 

“He resorted to drugs because it became messy— quick— it became shitty over and over again, and the pills and injections would make it bearable” you told your therapist. “He thought that the drugs would get him back from losing himself and when he felt better, he could just stop”.

“Do you think he realized that wasn’t the case?” she queried, her voice remaining calm and observant. 

“Mhm” you licked your lips, nodding as well. 

“When?”.

The Seven Fishes. 

“Jesus fucking Christ Y/n, you pregnant or something?” Donna cursed as she put the seven fishes in the oven, nursing her wine. 

You shook your head in response, wondering why the question was asked, “Then pull out a fucking glass and drink with your mother in law”. 

“Christ ma, we haven’t even made it down the aisle!” Mikey’s voice emerged, placing a kiss to your temple before whispering in your ear, “Wanna go smoke?”.

You nodded before leaning into him, “I’ll be back Don” you told Donna just as you both walked outside.

You wouldn’t let him use, but cigarettes were your mutual vice. Walking outside to the cold stricken Chicago air, seeing Natalie two steps ahead, inhaling the nicotine as if it were a saving grace.

“Everything alright Nat?” you asked, taking your own pack out as Mikey lit both of yours.

“I thought you were pregnant” Natalie avoided the question, a singular eyebrow raised. 

“You know I'm starting to think I wore the wrong dress,” you joked. 

“Suits your ass nicely babe” Mikey commented.

“Some of the nonnas were talking about a baby dream they had” Natalie gossiped, “All signs point to bear being with child”. 

“You’re going to beat me Nat” you replied, “No kids til we’re both ready. You and Pete however?”. 

“Oh hell no, way too early” she shook her head as Carmy came out of the house, automatically getting teased amongst the both of them. 

After a slight bit of tension, all four of you reentered the home, hoping this Christmas would be better than the one before, and before that, and even more before that one.  

“Now what about you? You think Stevie is gay?” Riche asked as you held your wine in the palm of your hand, Mikey’s around draped over your shoulders as you leaned into him. 

“I think he loves Michelle” you chuckled, “How’s Tiff?”.

“Nauseated as fuck but she’s resting up in D’s room” Riche answered, “Something to look forward to?”.

You rolled your eyes at the comment, tapping on Mikey’s hand to excuse yourself and help Donna clear the oven. 

“You know I never like the girls these fuckers bring but you are my favorite one yet” Donna drunkenly joked, the kitchen was scorching and musty. Dirty and chaotic but also simple and in-character. It was the complete Berzatto.

An hour passed in the kitchen which only felt like a few minutes the way Donna worked, sweat beading on your head as Natalie and Donna clashed— needing a moment to breathe, Natalie took the front, you took the bathroom. The indistinct pleas at the table as you heard the front door open and close, the sniffles of Donna as she wandered off. Mikey was causing a ruckus and from the way your body was shutting off, you didn’t want to begin to deal with it. 

“He had plans for the future—“ you cut yourself off, in trouble with your mind and thinking, “He just…” you licked your lips, tasting the salty tears you weren’t aware of, “That was 2018, he had just started the spiral down into heroin and it was a rough year for everyone”. 

“What was rough for you?”.

“I miscarried— twice. Once in January the other in August” you shrugged, “My fiancé was becoming an addict right before me, I was working insane hours to cover the bills, Mikey’s bills, his own fucking addiction at that point and, I miscarried”. 

“Did that put a strain on your relationship?”.

It put more than a strain, it put a fucking fault sized tear between you two. In retrospect, you shut him out, almost completely until one night, whilst breaking one of Donna’s crystal cups that she gave you, you gave in.

It was a cold fall night in Chicago, two days before Halloween and rest assured, the wind and city howled like no other when you made your way down to the restaurant where you knew you’d find Mikey. He never locked up until he was out of the restaurant, pleading the case that he was strong enough to defend himself if worse came to worst. Nevertheless, the bed was cold, you hated it, so you bit your pride.

“We’re closed!” Mikey’s voice shouted through the area, voice somewhat dry. 

“Knew you’d be here” you spoke up as Mikey rounded into the corner, just shy of shoulder-checking the wall. “The bed was cold so…” licking your lips and avoiding his eyes. 

“I was just about to head home baby” he softened, getting out of the kitchen area and into the dining, taking your head in his hands- warm and calloused hands that worked tirelessly just to avoid his own demons- and kissing your forehead. “Wanna see what we got back there or wanna go home?”.

“Eh I made the walk down here might as well” you shrugged.

“You walked? Baby, what did I tell you about-“.

“Thought it’d clear my mind” you shook your head, resting your hands onto his arms, “I was safe” you assured him, voice never above a whisper. Your arms investigated for any signs of tracks, your heart aching from the need of having to question the man you loved. 

There were fading bruises, old collapsed veins that never fully healed from the puncture and frequency. With enough pressure, it’d hurt him, and you could feel the rope-like texture of the tissue.

You noted the look of his eyes, his pupils weren’t blown or not responding light, they were reactive and alert, not constricted as they would be when he was on heroin, or blown as they would be when he was on opiates. With that, your heart and mind were at ease. 

He took you out back, into his office, therein sketches of plans laid on the surfaces and walls. Checks and tills, yellow legal pads that you wondered where they went months ago, scribbled notes. The inner machinations of your fiancé lay bare in front of you. 

“It’s a mess but it’s a start you know?” He breathed out as you took it in, “I really need to work on organizing my shit” he took one hand to run through his hair only for your own to beat him to it. 

“It’s an organized mess” you encouraged, if scribbles and notes would get him off drugs and fixate him elsewhere, you’d take the chance any time. “Like us”. 

“Like us” he chuckled in agreement, kissing the palm of your free hand. The silence that struck you two wasn’t strange or unnerving, it was comfortable and gentle, “We’ll get through this”. 

“It did what any miscarriage would do to a woman who wanted a child and her partner” you shrugged, “Brought us closer, tore us apart individually”. 

“You said you found a note, besides the one given to his brother, would you like to talk about it?”.

The note struck a nerve in you, a wild and agonizing nerve. Sending electric waves to your neurons and putting your body on overdrive.

“It wasn’t meant for me, it was meant for his mom” you shook your head, “I gave her it at the funeral and she ripped it immediately, I refused to read it because it could’ve been something personal that I would rather honor than violate”. 

“Did it anger you? Not receiving a note from the man you shared a life with intimately?”.

You thought back at your past self, you were glad almost that he didn’t, knowing it’d break you. “He didn’t need to write me a note, he knew I’d hurt regardless if there were instructions to cope. When he left that night he kissed me, told me he was going out and that was it”. 

“To you that was a fulfilling goodbye?”.

“No. There is no such thing” you deadpanned immediately. “35 or 53, 80 or 99, it still wouldn’t be a fulfilling goodbye, I want him here with me” you shook your head, “You can prepare all you want for death of the love of your life and it still wouldn’t be enough to mend the pain”.

“Was he the love of your life? Would you give that absolute to him?”.

“Everyday”. 

“Everyday?”.

“Everyday”.

“Oh Jesus Christ! Mike, get your ass in here now!” Donna yelled out into the house as she cooked Thanksgiving dinner. It was your first holiday with the Berzatto’s and in honor of wanting to make the best first impression to any midwestern Italian mother, you gave in and made homemade Cannolis only for Donna to give the Italy versus Sicily distinction. 

“She’s normally not like this— she’s usually well, worse” Natalie stumbled on her words lightly, afraid her mother might hear her timid voice no matter how far away she was. “But she does love cannolis don’t be alarmed, just doesn’t like outsiders, it took her months to remember Pete’s name”. 

It was Lee’s second holiday, your first, Pete’s third. 

“Hey sorry I’m late” Pete came in through the door, immediately hugging Natalie, “Well if it isn’t the D.A. we keep hearing about, I’m Pete- Nat’s boyfriend” he smiled at you. 

“Hi, I’m Y/n” you smiled back. Michael had told you all about Natalie’s boyfriend who was a lawyer for some bank company in Downtown Chicago. Always kept an open mouth just to make a snide comment towards him but you insisted Pete was and is a good guy. 

“Sug’ who’s picking Carmy up from the airport?” Michael’s voice rang through the halls, oven mitts in hand.

“I thought you were!” Natalie exclaimed in confusion. 

Sensing the tension, you reached into your jeans pocket for the keys to Michael’s car, “Baby let’s just go” you eased, looking at how frantic Natalie got. 

The drive to O’Hare wasn’t far but the traffic made it enough for Mikey to cuss out any car that cut him off. His hand rested on your upper thigh, squeezing every few minutes, waiting to spot and hail his little brother. 

“Pete seems like a cool guy” you made conversation, “Lee is a dickhead though, I don’t see what your mom sees in him”.

“Probably his dick” he shrugged, “Pete is ‘ight, whatever makes Sug’ happy”.

“More than ‘ight’, he’s smart, loves your sister, might wanna loosen up on the criticism” you defended, “My parents weren’t too welcoming of you for the unfortunately right reasons but I still love you, they don’t smack you upside the head any chance they got”.

All he did was look at you, the cold air of Chicago frosting the windows, “You make it hard to not just fuck you right here” he groaned. 

“Sex-crazed idiot I swear” you joked, pecking his lips that were overwhelmingly close and hot against your skin, “Tonight— if you manage not to cause chaos, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me”. 

“Really? Even the handcuffs?”.

“Even the handcuffs” you assured.

“What about that little Hibachi wand I got ya’?”.

“It’s Hitachi. Yes, even that” you corrected, breathing against his lips. 

Just in time for Carmy to rush into the car. “Sorry Mikey, the fucking baggage claim was a bitch, three people almost got their shit stolen” he breathed as he placed the luggage and carry on next to him in the backseat, “You must be the public defender!” Carmy mistook.

“District Attorney— well, assistant” you jokingly correctly, “Heard a lot about you Carmen”. 

“At the funeral, you had a talk with his mother, how do you feel about that?”.

You could only scoff at the memory, very few memories you had that were positive with Donna— so very few that you could count on one hand. The funeral was not one of them.

“My son blows his head off and everyone flocks to the one person who could stop him” Donna muttered under her breath as you both stepped outside.

You scoffed in disbelief and anger, “I tried Donna. I fucking tried, I urged him to get sober but that is something he had to want and do” you seethed between your teeth, “He was sick Don’, fucking sick and no one knew— I didn’t know-“.

“Bull-fucking-shit!” she spoke up, lighting another cigarette to chainsmoke, “Not my son! Whatever you think he was you are completely fucking mistaken sweetheart”.

“Really?” you urged, raising your voice.

“Really”.

“You think you’re fucking all high and mighty because your kids stay in the fucking picture even though if they truly cared for themselves other than their psycothic and unstable fucking mom they’d be out of this goddamn place” you argued, “He shot himself! On the fucking bridge Donna! He was sick, he needed help and no one fucking did. Not you, not me, not Richie, your fucking punk ass loser boyfriend”.

“Thank god you didn’t become a fucking mother, it’d make two of them” she finally seethed before returning back inside. The sentence broke you, the final blow to the already unstable relationship. 

“I felt exposed and humiliated” you confided, “Mikey’s ex-girlfriends were there, all sobbing over the casket, one gave speech”.

“Do you think they deserved that time?”.

“Selfishly I’d say no” you shrugged, “Only ones who deserved to speak were Richie and Nat— Carmy if he made it”.

“And what about you?”.

“Made him a promise, no speech. ‘Save it for the deathbed or gravesite alone’ he’d tell me whenever the idea came up” you answered.

“Do you think that was a hint?”.

“No” you shook your head, “The closest to a hint I got was a month before”. 

It was 3 am and Mikey was gone, gone from your shared apartment, Donna’s house, Richie’s place, no one has seen him or bothered to check on Donna’s behalf. You and him spent the night watching movies with the heater on full blast. 

“This fucker better be so close to dead so I won’t beat the shit out of him” Richie cursed as you unlocked the back entrance to the Beef. Your heart was pounding beneath your chest, you could hear it in your eardrum.

Michael wasn’t high, not on a trip. But he was severely broken down. That night, you saw the worst of it. The anger, the inadequacy and pain. “Baby?” you shouted as you scoured the kitchen only to find him locked in his office, head in hands to his knees, eyes bloodshot.

“Baby what’s wrong?” you asked concerningly, searching for any sign of injury, “You’re okay baby- it’s okay” you assured, kissing his forehead whilst crouched beside him.

“Yo Mik-“ Richie shouted before being greeted by the scene, “I’ll just… stay in the car I fucking guess”. 

When left alone, it’s not that Mikey didn’t want to tell the two people who meant the world to him, it was predominantly the feeling of not having the words.

“There’s syringes in the drawer” he whispered to you, gripping your hand, “I almost relapsed baby, I almost—“

“Shh, it’s okay” you whispered back, afraid even the slightest bit high would lead to this whole thing blowing out of proportion. Reaching into the drawer to grab the syringes and the baggy of painkillers, his hand stopped you by your wrist. 

“Leave the pills”. 

“No honey—“.

“Baby please” he cried out, “Please, I promise I’ll stop— I just need a little something to-“.

“You won’t get better if this is still here” you sternly said, grabbing the baggy yet again, knowing he wouldn’t fight you on it.

That is when you knew, he was giving up. 

“Do you think it was always leading up to end this way?”.

“Short answer or long answer?” you seemingly joked, really you were conflicted. This was the most you talked about it— about him.

“Humor me with both”.

“Short answer, yes. Long answer is that I think we weren’t doomed, even if this would always happen in every instance. I think people stigmatize suicidal people as they wouldn’t of done if XY-and-Z happened, that there was some greater reason. He abused drugs, never sought out formal therapy or counseling despite his best efforts, he was at war with himself at the end of the day, he was sick. Yet people want a dramatic story that’s different and less severe than the fact that he shot himself” you ranted, “I loved him, with everything I had and didn’t have. If I was him, it probably would end the same. That’s not doom or fate, it’s not seeking help, not being validated in seeking help or supported”. “That concludes our session for the evening”.