꩜ Pomme ꩜

“You have a tattoo,” she noted standing behind you, paying close attention to how you examined the boy in front of you.

You nodded like you weren't trying to listen close down your stethoscope as you asked the boy to breathe in, listening at his back. “I do.”

“That's... really cool,” she said.

You smiled, small. “Thank you.”

Javadi watched your wrist move and arm flex as you put the stethoscope back around your neck, holding onto it either end. She'd called you down for a pedes case but was finding herself distracted by the beauty of the ink on you.

There were hard strokes of black and lighter ones, all drawn around in swirls that came together to make a sun. She thought it looked like the sun from tangled- one of her favourite movies. But you were a grown woman. Maybe you liked the movie as much as she did.

Javadi shook off the idea as you stood, telling the parents what you found. A small crackle in his breathing but as he'd been down with a flu and fever it might not mean anything terrible. Kept for observation and some blood work was ordered before the two of you were slipping away.

“What does it mean?” asked Victoria, hot on your heels as you walked to the nurses station. “The-the sun, I mean? Not crackles in the chest, I-I know that.”

You chuckled, tapping in to chart. Although you worked floors above on the pedes ward, your vintage disney top under the lab coat representing that, you were down enough on emergency and trauma cases to be a familiar and welcome face.

“Oh, you know,” you said, balancing your elbow on the table and checking on the ink. Your lips quirked at looking at it. “Just a little sun, for brightness and stuff.”

Javadi thought it was fitting. You were a sunshine person, hopeful and kind, like a ray of light in the depths of hell she called the ED. She supposed it came with the job, having to be the hope for the sick children.

Everyone down the Pitt could afford to be miserable, with a good enough excuse in working in the emergency department. You were with kids, helping them and their parents through anything minor to the worst days of their lives.

“Kinda, look to the light, kinda thing?” Victoria asked.

You slowly glanced up at her, finding a new perspective. “Yeah. I like that take.”

“Well, well, well,” said a hoarse voice coming closer to the two of you.

Beyond Javadi you looked past her.

Jack Abbot casually strolled over, hands behind his back, arms pulled in tight muscles and freckles in his dark scrubs. “You know, you're down here so often anyone would think you're after a Pedes attending job.”

You rose a brow, challenging him. “Are you offering?”

“Oh yeah, anything to keep sunshine down here.”

You rolled your eyes playfully, leaving Javadi to look between the two of you. She hadn’t realised the two of you knew each other so well.

Sure, you were the first everyone went to for a pedes case but how often was that?

“Sunshine! That’s funny,” said Javadi, standing between the two of you

Jack rose a brow. “It is?”

“Yeah- yeah,” she said with a clear of her throat. “Cause’- she has a sunshine tattoo.”

Jacks lips quirked up to a smirk. “Really?”

You leaned over the counter, chin resting in the palm of your hand. “Yeah. Got it some time ago.”

“Is it somewhere PG-13?” He asked.

“Well to know that you’d have to buy me a drink first.”

“I plan to.”

The two of you shared a smirk.

Suddenly, Victoria thought she was stuck in the middle of something.

It was Whitaker who discovered it next.

He was working with Abbot and Shen on a patient in trauma one, still waiting for the feeling in his feet to return to him after a twelve hour shift. But he wanted to see this patient through first, even if he could have left now the night crawlers had swept in.

He was shooting an x-ray for the guy in a car crash, checking his ribs after being found pressed up against his steering wheel.

Somewhere else you were stitching up his young daughter.

“The car came from nowhere,” fretted the patient, wincing with every breath. “I swear- I swear!”

“Don’t you worry, sir, we’re gonna get you sorted,” assured Jack, peeling off his jacket and replacing it with a vest.

“Is my- is my daughter okay?”

“She just needed a couple stitches,” said Denis.

Jack stretched up, moving the x-ray machine over the patient. “Don’t worry, your daughter is in the best hands. They lumped you with the second best, I’m afraid.”

The patient gave a huff of a laugh that evidently hurt more than anything.

“Okay… shooting!”

Everyone without a vest backed away.

It was at that moment as Jack hovered shooting the x-ray that Whitaker got his first glance at some ink peeking out from his wrist. His watch hid most of what Denis could make out as a tattoo but he thought it strange that Robby should have his own tattoo also typically hidden behind his watch.

Robby and Jack always called themselves brothers, from their years of friendship and shared experiences in the Pitt.

He just hadn’t realised they were that close.

The x ray was quickly done and the machine pushed away as everyone focused on stabilising the man.

A couple broken ribs, a severely bruised chest.

An OR was free to check on any internal bleeding, get the chest sorted.

The doors pushed open and you walked in, a maybe eight years old propped on your hip, little arms hugging around your neck.

Jack’s lips tilted up at once. “Second visit in one day, upstairs must be boring.”

“Well we do like to call this place the circus,” you teased. “This is Mr Peters daughter, she wanted to check in on her daddy.”

Jack tugged off his gloves and Whitaker watched as he approached you and the little girl. “Your daddy is doing fine, he’s strong. I reckon just as strong as you. He’s gonna go upstairs for a closer look but you can go with him, if you like?”

The girl hid her head closer into your shoulder, mumbling something that Whitaker could just about make out.

“Will you come up with me?” She’d asked you.

You bounced her gently. “Course. Upstairs is where all the fun is anyway.”

Jack hummed. “Hm. She has the best candy too.”

Whitaker watched the young girls eyes light up.

As a team from surgery came to drag the father away you followed behind with the daughter in arms, Abbot and Whitaker following out and taking a moment to watch the crowd dissapear.

“Did good in there, Whitaker,” said Abbot, the both of them tearing off their gowns and gloves.

“Thanks,” he said. The both of them went separate ways. Oddly enough, Jack was following in the steps of the team that took up the man and his daughter.

Doctor Robby wondered over, sliding into his seat. If even one of his day shift was left, so was he. It was his own morale code to not go till everyone on day had, Denis was learning.

“Hey,” greeted Denis. “You know I had no idea you and Abbot had matching tattoos.”

“Huh, yeah...” said Robby of absent-mind as he watched the computer. It took him a second to register what he was saying and look up. “Wait, what did you say?”

Suddenly Whitaker felt like he'd said the wrong thing, seeing his attending look over his glasses at him. Maybe nobody was supposed to know? Maybe it was super personal? Or it was a stupid drunk choice they were both trying to forget and he'd just brought it up.

“Oh god, I didn't, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-”

Robby scratched at his beard. “Jack and I do not have matching tattoos.”

“Oh.”

“What made you think that?” he asked. “Did someone... say something?” there was something akin to mischief in his eyes, alight.

“No! No! I just- I saw something that looked like a tattoo under where he keeps his watch, and I know you have one there too. Or- well- don't know but I've- I've seen-”

“Yeah, yeah I've got one there,” said Robby, looking back to the computer bored. “So does Jack. His is a moon. Mine's something to do with my grandmother.”

“A moon? Oh.”

Somewhere beyond Whitaker, past his shoulders, Victoria passed by, catching the conversation.

A moon on one. A sun on another. Interesting.

Samira was only looking for her patient when she found a shirtless Jack Abbot hiding behind the curtain with you standing behind him.

Both your heads shot up when the whirl of the curtain pulled back.

“Oh. I'm sorry,” said Samira. She was only momentarily shocked at Jack shirtless, SWAT gear discarded in the corner and the typical pedes case worker standing behind him, working on a bad obviously over eighteen.

Jack tried to shrug his shoulders but came away wincing. “S'alright.”

“Have you guys seen my patient?” she asked, going on to describe him.

“No, sorry. This room was empty,” you said, rolling a q-tip along Jack's shoulder blade. “Anything you need help with?”

Samira deflated, taking a seat on the chair in the corner of the room. She was feeling sorry for the patient she couldn't get to in time she didn't realise the look you and Jack shared, one of mutual agreement of apprehension.

“What happened to you?” Samira asked.

“He got shot,” you said.

“You were shot?”

Jack made a 'pfft' noise at the two of you. “Shot at. It was nothing. Hardly a graze.”

You scoffed, reaching over for some bandage and applying it to the wound. “I'll be the judge of that.”

“You my doctor now?” asked Jack.

You bit back a smirk. “Someone has to be.”

Samira had worked with Abbot a handful of times, you maybe more on cases with children that required delicate matters. She never realised the two of you were close enough to tease. Close enough that you would be the first person he runs to for help.

Curious, Samira walked around Jack, standing on the other side of his bed as you showed her the wound.

“Oh. Ouch.”

“See?” you said with a raise of your brows.

Jack's freckled arms crossed over his chest in protest.

“You have a chart?” asked Mohan.

“No,” you said. “We're keeping this off the chart.”

Samira nodded, lips quirking. We?

“Don't need the paperwork from the hospital,” said Jack. “Got big plans tonight, can't have paperwork getting in the way.”

“Big plans?” asked Mohan.

Jack hummed in affirmation.

With your careful bandages around his shoulder he stood and reached for his shirt on the side.

It wasn't just a quick glimpse Samira got of where another tattoo lied. It was a long look as Jack made work at pulling over his navy shirt overhead. At the ache in his shoulder you helped pull it over him and he didn't object, he let you help him like it was natural.

But just under his armpit, on the side of his chest there was a clear stroke of black ink in the curves and strikes of a letter. Just one simple there, no bigger than a finger nail next to his heart.

“All good to go solider,” you said, rubbing his un-injured shoulder.

“Thank you, Doc.”

You smirked. “Don't go straining yourself this evening.”

Jack chuckled, low in his throat. “I make no promises.”

It was only when watching the two of you leave that the hole in her heart for her own devoid love life sung with something other that sorrow. With hope and joy. It was only when she noticed Jack's hand linger on the small of your back as he leaned into say something to you that she realised the slope of the letter at his chest matched the very first letter of your name.

A week later and slowly Samira was forgetting the whole thing. Not forgetting the patient that had ran out on her but forgetting the state she found Jack in, forgetting how you helped him and the letter etched into his skin.

She hadn't told anyone either, because what business of others was it.

It wasn't even hers.

Maybe Jack knew someone in the army had the same initial as you. Maybe it was his mothers name. It didn't have to be yours. It was only seeing him shirtless, seeing you with him that had her thinking of you, she was sure.

But a week later she was brought back to that room.

“Woah- what happened to you?” Robby chuckled as you walked through the ED, a mixture of bodily fluids over your scrubs.

“Emergency c-section, twins,” you said. “I had no time for a gown.”

Robby's smile creased as you squelched closer. Your blue scrubs, typically a baby blue, was dyed darker due to blood, amniotic fluids and what he guessed might have been urine. “They didn't call OB?”

“OB was busy, apparently.”

“Apparently?” he asked, tablet in hand as he followed next to you as you walked to the scrub bin. You walked, arms slightly raised to not let them drop. Robby walked close but not close enough to touch the mess of you.

“Someone in OB has it out me.”

“Evil ex?”

“Yeah, one of yours,” you teased.

“Ouch.”

“I'm cranky.”

“I can tell.”

Santos and Samira were on a case together but stopped when they got a look at you. “Woah, what happened? A pile up?”

“Don't ask,” you grumbled.

From behind you Robby mouthed 'twins' and both knew not to say anymore.

“You know we have gowns for such messy procedures,” said Trinity.

You flashed her a grimace. “You're funny, Santos, must get it from this guy,” you said, slapping Robby in the chest as you stood in front of the scrub bins. However, as an official upstairs pedes resident you didn't have authority for more scrubs. “Is Jack around?”

“No,” said Robby, tapping his own ID cared on the pad and getting you an order of scrubs.

“Thanks.”

Samira wondered, briefly why you asked for Jack when it was probably easier to find some woman for your size. Like herself, for instance.

But in seconds you were pulling off your scrub top, leaving you only in a bra. Your scrub pants were next but you had a thin pair of leggings underneath. No one batted an eyes, except maybe Robby who cleared his throat and turned away, hypothetically hiding you behind his back.

“Thanks again, Robby,” you said, gaining his new scrubs.

“No problem,” he said, leaning over to you. “But you can bring this up to Jack,” he added in a mummer that Mohan just caught.

As you reached up, pulling the scrub top over you Samira caught it again. It was a smaller trace, a think line but there with no doubt.

A simple J in black ink in almost the exact spot as Jack had one of his own.

“Is that-” Mohan didn't get the words out before your scrub top was pulled over, swallowing you from Robby's scrub.

Robby and you looked to her as you pulled on the pants. “What?”

They were all looking at her, expectantly.

“No, nothing, it was nothing.”

“Okay, then.”

But now there was a knowing in there. That she didn't believe in coincidences, not when they were etched into skin.

“You look lovely.” Jack crept up behind you, his voice falling upon your ears with his head quick over your shoulder. He was like hot breath on a glass, there and gone the next second.

You understood why. Knew it had been easier to keep it quiet when things were fresh, yet, things had moved on from new and simple a long time ago and neither of you made to say it. Did you get a banner? Make a public announcement? You had no idea how to do it.

Keeping it on the low was all you knew how to do.

And anyhow, it made things far more exciting.

“Thank you,” you said, passing him a quick smile.

Jack hummed, crowding next to you at the station, leaning an arm on the counter and looking you up and down. “You'd look even better in scrubs that were mine.”

Your eyes rolled. “They're Robby's-”

“Robby's-” he scoffed, shaking his head.

“I had a messy C-section and it was this or several bodily fluids.”

“I'd have rather bodily fluids,” he said.

You hummed. “You think that but then you see me and you'd think different.”

“Oh, yeah?”

You turned your attention onto him, knowing he wouldn't give it up till he had it all. It was something about Jack and un-divided attention, he thrived on it. Giving it to you, or taking it from you. He needed it like sustenance. “Think wet. Think baby fluids that should be in a body on me. Think blood. And probably puke on there somewhere too- I don't even know how.”

“And I bet you still looked beautiful,” he said.

“I wouldn't be so sure about that,” you chuckled.

“I would.”

His hand crept up to your ribs, holding there. As if he was anaesthetic himself, his touch was soothing.

He held over where your initial of his name was, just as you did with him where yours was. It still felt fresh though the ink was imbedded into skin for almost a year now.

It was the soft knowledge of carrying each other closer than you already did. Working in the same building wasn't enough, falling asleep next to each and waking up next to each other wasn't enough but the soft initial of each others name might just have been.

Even if it weren't romantical (which it certainly was) the two of you had at least always respected each other in the work setting. It was a bond running deeper than blood, than respect, than love.

Something the people hadn't come up with a word for yet.

Robby passed by the two of them. “I thought you two were being discreet.”

“We are,” you said, you and Jack turning to face Robby as he took his space behind the nurses desk.

“He's all but holding your breast,” said Robby.

“Physical exam,” Jack shrugged. “And I thought I told you to stop making moves on my woman.”

Robby held up his hands in surrender. “I don't want any funny business in my scrubs,” he warned, s sharp look past his glasses at the two of you.

Jack quirked his lips, pretending his innocence. “We'll change into mine.”

You smacked his shoulder.

“Hey,” said Robby, leaning on the counter next to you as if you were all gossiping nurses and not different attendings in your own rights. “You know, Whitaker thinks we have matching tattoos,” he said, nodding to Jack.

You laughed, tilting your head down.

“Oh yeah, I have an R over my heart,” he teased.

Robby scoffed. “Yeah and I got a J on my-”

You looked pointed at them both. “Don't you have jobs to get to?”

Robby surrendered and headed off, making himself busy.

Upstairs would need you soon enough too, there was only so much time you could leave your pedes ward alone. Your hands were gentle on Jacks, squeezing lightly.

Meaning to let go, Jack squeezed and pulled you back.

“Jack? Woah- what- where are we going?”

His thumb worked up and down the back of your hand as he dragged you off. He found an empty room, checking the room before closing the door and pulling the curtains around.

“Jack!”

His hands found their ways up Robby's shirt on your body, pulling at the skin of your waist and drawing you in till he was kissing you, open-mouthed. It was as if he hadn't kissed you that morning, hadn't stole a make out in the car before heading in, hadn't text you in his spare five minutes that he wasn't thinking about you.

He grinned into the kiss, licking into your mouth.

As bad as it was, stealing a kiss in an empty exam room, your hands wound up to his hair, tugging at the strands. Your body curled into his as his hands moved from under your shirt to over, pulling at it.

“Take this off.”

Biting back a smirk you pulled it off you as Jack leant down to kiss at your neck. He bit and sucked, dedicating time to one mark that would be a tattoo on your neck.

Jack was obsessed with marking you, considering you tried you best to be secret.

This wasn't very secret.

“Jack,” you moaned, own hands clawing at his shirt.

He pulled back long enough to toss his off. “When we're done here... when I've made you come on my fingers,” he uttered next to your ear, breath hot. “You're gonna put my scrub top on, you understand?”

Your lips pursed and nodded.

Jack pulled back enough, lips ghosting yours. “Yeah, baby?”

“Yeah,” you whined.

“Yeah.”

His lips crashed into yours again with fire like need. Hie entire body moved over yours, hands steady on your hips to bring you in. You were stumbling around the room, trying to find a wall or bed.

“God,” Jack whined at your lips. “I could eat you.”

He kissed down your neck, over your chest and leant to press a kiss over his initial. He'd been there when you'd gotten it done, as you had when he got his. The two letters in each others hand writing.

Jack came back up and kissed you again before the door sprung open.

“Room three's open why's nobody-”

Jack jumped in front of you like jumping in front of a bullet for you, his arms fell on either side of you, caging you in behind him.

A woman was sat on a gurney, eyes wide at the two of you.

Dana was leading the charge, Mohan, Whitaker and Santos following and eyes falling wide, jaws agape at the sight of you.

Robby walked past, shaking his head and- taking one look at Jack- decided it wasn't a HR nightmare he could deal with.

“We were just...” said Jack, hesitating. “Doing a physical.”

Dana smirked. “I'll say.”

“Sorry, we'll just-” you apologised.

The two of you fumbled with scrub tops but Jack still found enough time in the mess to pass you his own scrub top and take Robby's himself. In sheepish moves the two of you moved by the group, catching only a couple words.

“Did you see those tattoo's?” said Samira.

“Each others inititals, right?”

“How longs this been going on for?”

It started with that dream. The one that's been recurring for about a week, enough that you remember the details down to where the specks of dust will end up as they float through the air. 

The one where you find him sitting at the front of the school bus, saving a seat with that beat-up backpack decorated with Mighty Crabjoys pins and patches. Sun already high up, and it’s balmy inside, the smell of old vinyl upholstery and seat cleaner already soaking your clothes while the driver skips to the next song on his Johnny Cash CD. 

Clark is wearing a bright, dorky grin on his face. Says something over the loud rumble of the engine like: ‘Gosh, we have a test—I know, why on Monday—but you will knock it outta the water. Here comes the sun!’ 

Or, if you’re going by last night: ‘Seize the day!’ 

And last Friday: ‘Strike while the iron’s hot,’ which might’ve come from one of those Shakespeare playbooks on his shelf. Probably the one with the deepest stress lines on the spine, because that’s just how he is. 

Not like you know, though. Shakespeare has always been Clark’s specialty. 

Your heart flutters. 

You laugh and ruffle your hands in his downy black hair, and he doesn't do anything to fix it (even when you aren't looking) and you get off a stop before school so he can break his lunch sandwich in half. 

Then, you spend the last twenty-odd minutes scuffing sneakers against the dusty sidewalks, sun warming your backs, talking about the latest music and baseball games, the who likes who and the I like— 

The bed creaks when you prop yourself up on your elbows. 

Your head spins, still stirring and cottony with the last of deep sleep, and your phone alarm is trilling incessantly on your nightstand. 

It’s weird how these things have been happening more frequently. Especially considering you’re fresh out of a breakup, if being ghosted and then dumping the guy a week later over voicemail could be considered one. 

You thought of it as more of a casual fling, really. A talking stage, as some would call it—a date here and there, just getting to know each other. 

Been seeing might be a misleading way to put it. That implies a certain threshold of intimacy, one you hadn’t passed. 

He’d fallen silent once you started talking about Smallville. About your best friend, who’s six-four and raised on Kansan corn, a gentle giant you followed to the city and kind of planned to keep in your life. 

(He ghosted you the next day. But just to one-up him, you think you might’ve started thinking about canceling the next date when he asked just how important Clark was over anybody else.) 

Eyes dry and bleary, your lips are chapped because you somehow started drooling at midnight. Air conditioning’s still on—you always forget despite the nightly reminder text Clark sends you—and you’re shivering under your blankets, hair a mess and plastered to your forehead. 

Your Queensland Park apartment is dark and blue with the morning haze, save for the tiny sliver of light shining through your bedroom door. It’s from the lamp you leave on in the sitting room. Ma Kent lent it to you—something to have from home, as if you didn't take her overgrown son with you. 

The shade is stained glass, like those ones you find at an old library. Simple and cerulean and rimmed with tarnished brass, and the slightly greenish tinge from the glass color superimposing on the warm lightbulb greets you every day without fail. 

So does Clark, with his good morning motivational texts—exactly at seven-thirty, even on weekends. 

It’s clockwork. Expected. The same exact time those bus doors would open and wash you in a wave of exhaust and vinyl. 

Once, it was ‘Sun’s up, guns out!’ with a photo attachment. 

It was him on the front page, framed in a way you know for a fact that Jimmy Olsen got the photo credit in the byline. 

He was in his suit, all blue like your lampshade and red like the color of the flannels he left in his wardrobe drawers in Smallville, and he was holding a semi-truck over his head. Biceps straining against the seams of his costume, dark hair windswept in the way his Internet fangirls go crazy over. 

You snorted at it. Alright, you...giggled, and maybe you had a pep in your usual morning slouch, but that’s all there was to it. Seriously. 

It’s just so endearing that in the lifetime you’ve spent with him, Clark has never run out of cheesy things to say. 

You reach across your tangled blankets and wrinkled pillows, grasping clumsily for your phone on the nightstand. You swipe up on the screen, shut off your alarm, and immediately pull into the last message he sent you. 

Two minutes ago: ‘Hit a home run like Clark.’  

He’s added that stupid bobblehead of Chicago's eponymous cub mascot you got him as a gag gift one Christmas, way back in grade school. The one with the left ear chipped off and a poorly painted Meteors logo over the red and blue C.  

A small, fond grin blooms on your face, uncontrollable. 

You weren’t aware that he kept it. Hell, you didn’t even know that he brought it to Metropolis. 

But that’s just how Clark is. Thoughtful at his core. Kind and sentimental. Actions speak louder than words and the whole works. 

He’s tucked himself neatly into your breast pocket. The edges of you line up like the stars, and you house every little thing he’s done in the space between your heart and lungs. 

And it’s the steadiness of that which grounds you here. 

When things inevitably go wrong, you call him first. CLARK KENT, branded in big letters on your phone screen. 

He’s down for anything. Picking you up after a bad day at work, killing (sorry, escorting out) the cockroach that mysteriously found itself in your apartment, helping fold your fitted sheets because you can never do it quite like he and his Ma do. 

That’s the kind of man your childhood best friend is, in all his messy-curl, soft-sighed glory. Crooked glasses that he didn’t start wearing until high school, suits by the day and flannel pajamas by night. Blushes if you stare at him for too long, earnest in everything he does. 

Consistent. Cerulean sea glass patiently shaped by the test of time. 

You like his message and swing your legs onto the floor. The hardwood is cold beneath your feet, and you pad over to the thermostat, turning down the AC and wandering into the bathroom while you think up some witty response. 

A pun is too cringy to send. You could just prattle off the date of the next Cubs v. Meteors series, but Clark probably already has a season ticket, so there’s no point. 

Your phone buzzes, twice. 

Daily Planet newsletter | Friday, April 27 

REMINDER: 4th date, Matthew 

You grimace at the second pop-up banner. 

You still haven’t cleared your calendar of pre-planned dates. 

In your sleep-smudged state, you had forgotten. You were lucky enough to score a job that lets you leave early on Fridays, so you just set the afternoon as your go-to day for completing your miscellaneous tasks before the weekend. 

Chores, laundry, dates. 

You worry the inside of your cheek between your molars. 

You decide to blame it on the dream, and the fact that you were immediately greeted by Clark’s text. 

Over-optimistic, typed out in that cheery voice you know he intended to send it with even though you can’t possibly hear it. You can hear it in your head though—how it squeaks slightly, pitches up in the way it does when he’s excited. 

You really haven’t spent much time with Clark recently, you realize. Seeing him doesn't count, because technically, everyone in Metropolis sees him, even if it’s a red blur rocketing around the stone corner of an Art Deco high-rise. 

You’ve just...been busy. With work, and your broken electric kettle (right, you have to fix that before you do something rash at work), and your unlucky streak in relationship business. 

He’s definitely busy with balancing Superman and his articles too, but... 

That’s a silly thing to worry about, isn’t it? 

Making time is practically enshrined in his philosophy, his raison d'être. And if not today, then tomorrow, or some other day. You know Clark Kent well and long enough to understand that he’s superb at making up for things.  

Maybe you should take a page out of his book. 

TO: clark kent  u busy tonight?  we should bring back friday dinner for good lol  but at ur place, mines messy 

Delivered with a whoosh. 

You put your phone face down onto the bathroom counter and wrench the sink on, cupping your hands beneath the rapid stream. Frigid water splashes onto your face. 

Pressing your wet fingers against your eyelids, stars bloom in your vision. Two breaths, in-out. Long inhale, short exhale. 

Like this is just an exercise. Like your heart didn’t stammer for several beats after you punched the send button. 

He’s probably on his way to work right now. Gets up early like he’s still in the heartland. Like he has cows and crops to tend to instead of interviews and articles. 

All things considered though, Mr. Kent wouldn’t be happy if his son was always tardy or MIA to farm work like he is in the city. 

A quiet laugh bubbles in your stomach. You wonder how he even gets in and out of the Planet in that ridiculously bright suit. 

You swipe your hands on the soft fibers of a hand towel and pick your phone up again. 

He’s in the middle of formulating a message, three dots dancing after each other in the text bubble. 

You press the first letter of what you want to say on the keyboard. There’s no going back now. 

TO: clark kent  my boyfriend said so btw 

Nice to let him know, right?  

(You hope he remembers the joke.) 

Clark’s dots disappear for a moment. You imagine him pondering in the way you know so well: cheek sucked in and caught between his teeth, eyes wandering to zone out at the ceiling. 

Then they start again, bopping along in consecutive order. 

Three buzzes, muted against the cradle of your palms. 

FROM: clark kent  Haha, ok.  I’m not flying tho  and I don't have melon pops. 

A snort finds its way out of your nose. You feel warm despite the cold water still beading on your face. 

He remembers. 

Which is sweet on its own, referencing those two times he’s come to your rescue in times of love-life crisis. 

Which goes back to how making time (be there in a jiffy) and giving thoughtful gifts (thought you might like these flowers) and comforting you when you need it most (oh, sunshine, if you wanted someone to dote on you, you could’ve just asked me) practically runs in his blood. 

And he’s right. It’s pretty doting—and dare you suggest—boyfriend-like already. 

…Oh. You freeze. 

It dawns on you then that a sappy, sickly smile that’s strikingly close to a lovesick one has been creeping onto your face. 

Oh, no. 

—

Your first heartbreak comes during your eighteenth summer in Smallville. 

Well, it’s less heartbreak and more embarrassment. 

Turned to face the popcorned wall of the general store, you wait for the line to connect. The retro payphone handset is cold in your hand, just like how it’s cool in here, the barest respite from the hell on earth outside. 

Of all days to fall for something stupid, you chose Senior Ditch morning. You should have just lazed around at the Kents’ like Clark asked you to. 

The fan in the far corner rattles in the way it has since before you were even born, paper streamers dancing on the metal grate. The dial tone finally starts droning—ouurrrrr. 

You worry your bottom lip between your teeth, index finger tangled in the cord. Please don’t be mad. 

He picks up on the first ring—click! Waits in silence for another second before finally addressing the elephant in the cornfield with his usual cheery voice, “So. Nate's a jerk, isn’t he?” 

Sighing, you rub your thumb over your eyelid, press the speaker closer against the shell of your ear. “Yeah. Sorry.” 

“’S fine.” You can see him in your mind, flattening his mouth into that weirdly reassuring upside-down smile. “We all learn some way, right?” 

“Mhm,” you swallow and do a quick check of your surroundings. 

Eddie the clerk is wiping down the counter—milkshakes sold out today—and Mr. Stone is getting ready to set up today’s round of rummy in the back. 

No sign of that asshole Nate. 

No sign of anyone, really. Kind of stupid now that you think about it, setting a ditch day during the peak of a heat wave. 

“Just say it.” You lean your shoulder against the wall and look out the windows. The white backside of the painted GENERAL STORE letters glare back at you. You pitch your voice down, “Told you so, sunshine.” 

Clicking his tongue, “I don’t sound like that.” 

“Your Ma would disagree.” 

“Well, I didn’t tell you so, sunshine,” he sighs. You can hear the small smile bleeding into his voice. “I just said that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.” 

“Right.” You draw out the word, honey-slow on the ‘i’.  

“Right?” Clark laughs, a windchime sound. Your tone has completely passed over his head. “I only meant you might enjoy your day off more if we were polishing off a pint of Neapolitan and binging Star Wars instead of going on a date.” 

You stay silent for a heartbeat. Wheels spin in your head—why the hell are you calling him anyways? 

Clark should be mad. That you brushed off his advice, that you woke up early to walk to town instead of his house. That you ditched him for some boy who couldn’t even care for you like he does. 

But he isn’t. He’s so water-under-the-bridge forgiving and sweet and— 

Fuck, if you aren’t sorry for being stupid. It might be the embarrassment or the sting of slapping yourself mentally or even the heat, but you’re half-desperate when you say: 

“Please pick me up.” You blurt it so fast that you think the words muddled into one. Silence. Static over the line. “Clark? Hey, you know I’m sorry for—” 

You hear a faint jingle over the staticky line, then a far-off yell, “Pa! I’m going out!” 

“Drive safe!” Another beat. “Darn boy left the phone hangin’ again. That you, sunny?” 

You bring your hand up to your mouth and stifle an amused exhale against the back of it. “Yeah, it’s me, Mr. Kent.” 

He clicks his tongue, a mannerism that’s almost identical to the way Clark does it. “Mm, way he was lookin' all concentrated, I knew it had to be you. What’re you doin’ out in this heat anyway?” 

You set your mouth into a flat line. “...Things.” 

The bell to the store rings, and Eddie choruses a ‘hey, Mr. Morris’ without even looking up from the counter. 

Mr. Morris nods to Eddie, waves to you and then tilts his head with a frown. He’s been coming here long enough to know where you take your usual perch with Clark, so it must be strange to see you without the Kents’ awkwardly big son. 

You point to the phone, and his frown relaxes with an oh. 

“Things, you say,” rumbles Mr. Kent. You could probably see his greying beard fluffing up if you squint hard enough. “Does this have something to do with Clark bein’ all mopey this mornin’?” 

“Um,” you stammer, swallowing. You wince. “Maybe. I...well, a guy asked me to meet him.” 

“Oh. See, I’d say if a boy doesn’t show up to take you himself, he in’t worth chasing, but I think you heard enough of that from Clark,” Mr. Kent drawls. Your nose furrows, deepening your grimace. “Well, I hope that works out for you someday. If you need to find me—prob’ly in twenty minutes if my boy is abiding the speed limit—I'll be in the barn.” 

He lets out a hearty laugh. You echo him, albeit weaker and half-awkward. 

“Yeah, Mr. Kent, I—I'll see you ‘round.” 

You hang your head and hook the handset back onto the payphone. 

Main Street is distorted by heat waves. The cracked asphalt wobbles along with the fading white paint dividing the lanes, and you think about Clark. 

Tearing down the roads at a speed of exactly 30 mph, hands tapping at nine and three on the sunwarmed wheel.  Skipping to the next Rascal Flatts song on the CD that never leaves the truck, like it’s just another day. 

Mr. Kent said that Clark was looking all concentrated on the phone. You know that look like the back of your hand: lashes resting against his cheeks, eyes trained down and glasses sliding to the tip of his nose. Tongue caught in the pocket of his cheek, dimple pressing in as he mulls over whatever is playing out in his head. 

And then you wonder when was the last time he cut his hair—it's gotten quite long, enough that when he tugs a cap on, his curls stick out of the back—and if he managed to get the magnitude of his laser vision right this morning because last week, he burned himself shaving. 

You lean your head against the pane, graciously cold on your cheek. 

The heat must be playing tricks, you think, with a superimposition of Clark swimming on the glass. 

(Or it might just be that you kind of, maybe, really miss him and whatever weird thing he’d randomly blurt out if he was here.) 

Smallville Giants cap snug over his head, downy hair curling out of the snapback in the way you imagined it to be. The brim is low over his forehead, shadow making the blue of his eyes shine out in that somewhat off-putting way they do in the dark.  

He grins in that lopsided, downturned way that reminds you of the Kents’ border collie, Shelby, thumping her tail against the ground. A laugh escapes you in a small exhale through your nose, and you brush your fingertips against the window. 

And then he taps the glass. 

Real. Solid. Smile widening to show teeth with a double-exposure in the reflection. 

Your heart leaps into your throat as you spin around. It really is him, arms firmly crossed over a white-shirted chest and charming dimples shining at full force. 

“What—Clark!”  

You must look like a fool right now, limbs all frozen up in surprise and eyes wider than the fine china saucers Mrs. Kent likes to display in her dining room. Eddie laughs from behind you, slapping a rag onto the metal counter. 

“Hi!” Your best friend’s broad hand is a blur as he waves, voice muted by the glass. “I think you ordered a chauffeur?” 

You quickly stride over to the door, pushing it open. The bell rings with a clear, windchime sound; a blast of searing, humid hellfire presses down on you. Sweat begins to bead at your neck. 

“Very funny.” Still, you’re helpless to the fond smile that tugs at your face. Clark strides over, freckled cheeks slightly pinkened, thumb pressing into the palm of his other hand. 

The left side of his mouth quirks up at the same time he shrugs his shoulders. “I came, you called.” 

Letting the door shut, you step out into the Kansan summer and stand under the shade of your abnormally tall friend. You’re earnest, from the bottom of your heart, when you say, “Thank you, Clark.” 

A nervous scoff skips out of his mouth, and he palms the back of his neck. “It’s nothing. Come on.” 

He urges you to a nearby alley—strange. 

You don’t remember hearing the truck, and there’s no sign of it on the street either. Getting from the farm to town in the time between Mr. Kent picking up the phone and you hanging up would be impossible unless he was breaking the sound barrier. 

You let him walk ahead of you, lengthening the gap between your and his strides. 

“Wait,” you start, steps stalling, “how did you...?” 

Clark freezes and slowly pivots to face you, mouth twisted in a way that screams guilty. “Okay, don’t be mad.” 

“Dude—” 

“—I flew here because I didn’t want you getting heatstroke—” 

“—I’ve been waiting for you to fly me since forever.” 

He pauses, mouth mid-word and his index finger in the air, like this is a debate rebuttal and not a page out of your wildest dreams. 

Clark didn’t take the truck. He’s going to fly you back home. 

Like they do in the fucking Titanic, but in the air. Where the birds fly. Where you can look down and see the rippling fields and the cows that look like brown and white clouds in the grass. 

Pinching his lips till they turn white, he wipes his hands on his blue-jean thighs and stares at you in that absent, froggish way. “Sure, I guess that works out.” 

You bound over to him, stomach bubbling with a schoolgirl-giddiness you only remember feeling when he does something so thoughtful and sweet. Which is every day. 

So maybe that’s not normal. You should probably seek medical attention. 

You circle around him and reach to grip his shoulders—they're firm beneath your hands, conditioned by years of helping out on the farm (and also a little bit of alien genetics). 

Clark obliges, almost mindless, bending his knees by a fraction to let you jump onto his back. 

He smells like hay and sunshine and a long day at the lake. Fresh, clean linen, a faint tang of salt next to a braid of sweet corn silk. 

Like the same citrus soap he's used since forever, and the old books at the library. Like a thread of oak wood—same as the tree in his backyard and the walls of his bedroom. 

It’s more comforting than any cologne or Mrs. Kent’s stew. 

You know it now. Clark Kent will always be someone you can run home to. 

You dig your chin into the crook of his neck and shoulder, sighing. “Have I ever told you how much I love you?” 

Clark cranes his head back, trying to get a glimpse because of course he does. He’s always a stickler for eye contact when talking—it's inscribed into his heartland manners. 

The tips of your noses brush, two compasses crossing. 

“Hmm,” he hums, weak, “I don’t know. Maybe last week, when I let you copy my physics homework.” 

“Helped me, you mean.” 

“Yeah…” 

You flick the tip of his ear, already red and warm like someone tried to tear it off. 

“You’re mean.” 

“I love you too, by the way,” he quips, pushing off the floor gently. 

Then he starts floating, legs unfurling as he drifts up. Your laugh is light as you tighten your arms around his neck, him holding you close to his warm back. 

That shouldn’t make you feel the way it does. Like he believes in it, a hundred percent. Like he isn’t just saying it because he loves you like he loves everyone else. 

“C’mon.” You tap his collarbone. He hooks his acquiescing arms under your knees. Squeezes your calves once with his broad palm, reassuring. 

You push down the odd feeling swelling in your chest as the wind starts to comb its fingers through your clothes. 

It’s okay like this. 

Comfortable, steady. Held by your best friend. Soaring above the little town that Clark makes feel like the whole world has been singled to this hundred-thousand-acre plot. 

“Just this once, okay?” Clark says, though the way he says it with a wobbly face makes you think that he wouldn’t mind a round two. “Because we’re already skipping school.” 

“Right,” you nod, grin widening, “and we should totally be back in time to finish up Porter’s final essay.” 

He pinches his mouth. “What do you mean you haven’t finished?” 

“Okay, I only need my thesis.” You press your ear to his shoulder and look down at the quickly shrinking Smallville. “...And everything else after that.” 

The wind, mercifully cooler, whistles around you. Oh, there’s the windmill, and the winding road, and the golden, rippling fields for as far as the eye can see. A soft sigh leaves you. 

You’re going to miss the cornfields and the lightning bugs. The way the air smells slightly heavy when a storm’s approaching. How everyone is so well-knit with each other, how things are easy and unthinking. 

Automatic, the most natural thing in the world. 

“Sunshine, you—” he sputters, breaking you from your spiral. You’ve stopped just beneath the clouds, moisture wetting his curls till they’re pitch dark and plastered to his forehead. 

He cranes his head down to rest his chin on your forearm. Sighs, resigned. 

“That’s barely the introduction.” 

—

By some stroke of luck, you bitterly break up with your first long-term boyfriend at the same time Clark gets his first apartment. 

It’s small in here, still bare and honest. Ceiling popcorned and a little warmer than eggshell white like a small-town general store. The carpet is light brown, and you’re sure there’s a strange stain in some dark corner. 

And if you had to be honest, you think Clark chose this place specifically because it was ugly. He always puts his highest hopes in even the smallest and most shriveled of things. Even in Lex Luthor, that miserable eggshell of a CEO. 

(But it’s all in typical Downtown fashion. At least he isn’t settling in the snazzy, gentrified Upper East Side. 

This is temporary, he said, ‘till I can find a place in Midtown. But that’s for when the rent there miraculously dips, which is likely never unless metahumans start shooting lasers out of their eyes in front of the Daily Planet. 

Wait...) 

The temperature doesn’t work, either. 

Well, it does. Kind of.  

But it’s confined to just a small unit attached to the wall, so you can’t even feel it if you’re more than five feet away. 

His bedframe sits in the corner disassembled, futon rolled out over a full-sized mattress that’s been plopped in the middle of the room. He could’ve fixed that, given his super speed and strength and whatever else he has. Even could’ve done his entire studio in a day, but he didn’t. 

Because he was ‘waiting for you’. For two weeks. To come over to help him set up and have a little housewarming party after, just like the movies. Junk food and sodas and all. 

You think back to how you got here. 

Soaked to the bone. Shivering. Clothes vacuum sealed to your body and umbrella inverted in your clenched hand. 

What a day for your boyfriend to be an asshole and give you an ultimatum: break up, or cut your last root from Smallville. 

Ergo, you did what any best friend would do. 

You chose Clark, because it has always been that way. 

Clark doesn’t give ultimatums. Doesn’t get insanely, obsessively overbearing when you talk to other guys and absolve himself of any wrongdoing if you catch him staring at a girl. 

He’s forgiving. Concerned, yeah, but not authoritative. 

For god’s sake, he exclaimed ‘what in tarnation’ when he cracked open the weathered door and saw you dripping all over the hallway. 

“My boyfriend sent me here,” you told him, gaze downturned in guilt, and his face softened from surprise to wordless understanding. 

That’s how things have always been between you. Wordless. A language of eyes and gestures you’ve been fluent in since your formative years. 

You squelched inside like your feet had cephalopod suction cups on the bottom of them. Clark helped with shucking off your heavy jacket while you mumbled through the long story (not so) short. 

The ultimatum. 

How you realized in the moment that your now-ex was trying to isolate you from your friends.  

How that jerk—you refrained from asshole or motherfucking egotistical dickwad because a certain someone would cough—was so gung-ho about being the guy for you. 

The first one you had to call.  

As in, expected you to overhaul your pre-established laundry list of speed dials. Like he wanted to be the one you called at midnight to hide a body (Lana and Pete) or the one you relied on if you were, god forbid, stranded in Blüdhaven (Clark). 

As if, when you did call him, he actually came to your rescue instead of smacking his lips and saying, ‘Um, sorry babe, I’m a little busy.’ 

And maybe as you kept going on, it started to dawn that you weren’t really bitter about breaking up. 

You were more bitter about being stupid enough to stay with him for so long. For just pushing the little icks to the side, all ‘cause he might’ve been a little pretty and he made you feel okay every three or four days. 

Clark had been sifting through a box while you explained. Rain still pattered outside, racing down the window, but it was lighter than the absolute storm that had slammed into you on the way here. 

He paused, turned a little pink at the ears, and handed over a haphazardly folded towel like he was consciously controlling his actions. 

Which was weird. Because he’s always meticulous about his laundry. 

“Wait, sunshine,” he stuttered before you disappeared into the bathroom. “The plumbing’s opposite. Cold is hot and hot is cold.” 

“Thanks, Clark.” 

And then you unfolded the towel, and there lay a neatly creased pair of your underwear. Clean. Clothesline scented. 

You remembered this one. 

Late night, big calculus test the next morning. Cramming in his dorm, and you brought an extra change of clothes that you ended up using. You probably dumped your stuff into his hamper by mistake. 

You laughed, a little too loud. Clark heard you, and you heard him plead don’t say anything in a low, defeated tone through the thin wall. 

You didn’t push. Didn’t pry. Because Clark’s just like that. 

Sentimental. Plan A to Z. Keeps your stuff in case you need it ten years down the line. 

And besides, you’re here now. That’s better than spiraling into a self-beatdown or throwing darts at a picture of your ex’s face. 

You stop at the doorway of the bathroom with your eyes still itching and red-rimmed, a towel wrapped around your body. 

The apartment is eerily still, frozen in a moment. 

Everything in this 400 square foot place is raw. 

Exposed. Naked. White painted brick on the windowed side, stucco boxing the rest in. 

Like all of Clark’s life has been dwindled down to a couple boxes and furniture bought off Craigslist. A couple white-painted nails sticking out of the wall and a broken outlet, as if that’s fine. 

It is, for a fresh graduate who’s paying rent off savings and an entry-level salary from the Daily Planet. 

(Thank god for that full-ride scholarship he managed to snag four years ago.) 

Plus, you trust that Clark has his priorities straight, because according to the to-do list endearingly taped to the mirror, the fridge is installed and working, and he’s already deep cleaned every surface. 

Dust specks float past you, and there’s a breeze—slightly clammy from the aftermath of a storm—circulating from an open window. 

Widening patches of sky peek out from the clearing clouds. The air smells wet, in that good, after the rain way. A tad salty from the bay, too, with a hint of chill. 

The rays of a New Troy golden hour paint the room in faint, honeyed gold, and the ceiling fan in the main room is spinning in languid circles, droning on with a rusted noise that’s starting to grate on your nerves. 

You can hear the metro rattle by below, the foundation of the complex shivering slightly as it rumbles on the tracks. There’s a tune playing from another door down, jazzy and vague. 

You take two steps out of the bathroom, bare feet padding from old tile to worn carpet fibers. You peek around like some cartoon character, searching for a telltale sign of Clark. 

Empty. His gingham beige-brown curtains, same as the ones from Smallville, flutter with a gentle breeze. 

But laid on top of his futon-mattress combo is one of his old shirts—you stifle a laugh, it’s the Crabjoys one that shrunk in the dryer—and the pair of shorts you left with your underwear. 

Small miracles. 

You pull the shirt over your head. Smells like Clark, all citrus shampoo and line-dried cotton. Comforting, in the way he’s so familiar that he feels like home. 

The tide of self-deprecation in you subsides. 

You dig into the freezer next—because ice cream makes everything better, obviously—kitchen tiles warm against your soles as a geyser of cold air billows up. Not frigid. Just cold, like it’s barely working. 

There’s a pint of Neapolitan, which has maybe a single, pathetic, half-scoop left in it. 

You move on. 

The frozen custard that you vividly remember him buying and sending you a picture of two days ago is in the same state as the pint. And—even worse—there's a frustratingly empty box of ice cream sandwiches. 

Prodding further, pushing aside frozen food and ready-to-microwaves... 

Oh, a box of honeydew cream popsicles! 

And there’s one left. It’s semi-melted in your hand, barely holding onto its shape. 

You get that he’s all corn-fed and trying to bulk, but how much sugar does Clark need to consume in a day? 

A flutter of movement catches your eye just as you’re ripping and crumbling the cold, plastic wrapping into your fist. 

Right. Old building like this—there's a fire escape. 

You find Clark slumped against the raw brick on the rusted landing, bones loose under the tangerine sky and curls ruffled by the evening breeze. Well, less slumped and more crumpled. 

Legs pretzeled at an awkward angle to fit on the escape landing. Shoulders hunched so he can fit. New glasses folded up and tucked into the collar of his pajama shirt—Crabjoys again, this time the right size. 

(You don’t want to know how many of those shirts he has.) 

An open book is flattened against his stomach, browning page corners dog-eared and well loved. 

Tom Sawyer. Of course. 

An old bedtime story turned favorite book. Vaguely, you remember that Mrs. Johnson in third grade chastised him for writing multiple book reports on it, even if they were completely different and lent a new perspective each time. 

(She eventually gave up. Clark Kent continued to write his weekly reports on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer until his Pa caught on and introduced him to Huckleberry Finn.)  

Chipped paint rasps at your bare shins, and your shorts hitch up as you duck out the open window. The grate is hard beneath you when you drop next to him with the iced treat in hand; it's already half-slush, coating your fingers with sticky, melon-flavored cream. 

"Didn't get one for me?" he croaks, rolling his head to face you. The shadow of a passing flock of geese dances over his face; a shift in the wind, and his eyes are clear and soaked in golden hour light. 

"Last one in the freezer, cowboy," you tell him, offering the popsicle. He presses the flat of his tongue against the syrup rivulets on the back of your hand—you wrinkle your nose. "You're gross." 

"And you're the one who's stealing my last melon pop.” 

He sinks his teeth into the soft cream, and you bite after him.  

“How’d you dry the rain off the grate?” you ask, fingers curling around a rough bar. It’s weirdly warm against your skin. 

Doesn’t feel gritty like the fire escape in your apartment does. Your hand comes away without a smudge. 

Wow. He really meant it when he crossed off deep clean on that to-do list. 

“Heat breath.” 

Perks of being superpowered. “Huh.” 

You take turns like this, switching bites until only the wooden stick remains. You leave it between your teeth, leeching the last of the cold into your mouth and letting your sticky hand dry in the wind. 

Below is a street you don’t remember the name of, jam packed with the post-workday rush. Taxis, trucks, and bikes splash through shallow puddles.  

A cat yowls across the street, and the middle-aged guy busking beneath the awning on the corner is ripping a riff on his trumpet. 

The traffic song wraps around you, rhythmed in a syncopated hymn that drowns out the rush of blood that comes to your ears. 

"I've been reading up on the area," Clark starts. "There's this bodega, right down the block. Oh, and the bakery on 38th and Scott, we could try their brownies if we line up at six." 

"Big city plans for a small-town guy," you say, droll, chewing absently on the wooden stick. The back of your head lazes against the auburn rough of the bricks, and a gentle breeze sifts between the buildings. 

Clark scoots closer, shoulder to shoulder with you. He's a furnace like always, skin pinkened and glowing in the way it does when he’s in the sun. 

He puts his chin on your shoulder, looks at you real closely—eyelids at half-mast, mouth pressed into the shape of mischief. You give him a sidelong stare, holding the blue of his pupils. 

In them—cloud swirls, the shadow pattern of the birds above soaring by with a breeze that trails its fingers down your spine. 

You feel a little warm under his stare, blood rushing to your head. "What?" 

"We're gonna have so much fun here," he finally says, smile breaking out on his face. "Smallville One and Two, reporting for duty!" 

You let out a wheezing laugh, looking up at the clouds. There's one shaped like a flying man, puffy marshmallow limbs stretched in a starfish. "And let me guess, you're One, and I'm Two." 

"Fine, Smallville Half and Half." 

"But which Half comes first?" 

"Doesn't matter," Clark grins. Knocks his knee against yours, reassuring in that way you know so well. "They come in pairs. Do not separate." 

You shove his shoulder—doesn’t budge. His deltoid is hot beneath your hand, though you aren’t sure if it’s really him or you that’s warmer.  

“Cheeseball,” you mutter. Eyes rolling, even with the grin tugging incessantly at your mouth. 

He laughs with the odd, boyish charm he’s never really grown out of. It tickles something in your brain, how he starts off with a quick scoff that devolves into full-bodied hiccups. 

You want to hear it forever. 

You want to stay here forever with your legs cramped together side by side on the hard fire escape. Skyscrapers and stone for as far as the eye can see, cut by the grid of streets that beat with the heart of Metropolis. 

“Oh!” Clark straightens like he’s been struck. Reaches into his pocket, draws out his phone. He taps around the screen and then shows you a video. “Look, Pa sent me this.” 

It’s home in the Kents’ backyard. Rippling gold fields and heavy panicles of grain, a soft static that used to lull you right to sleep. Old, metal-wood fences and the cry of cicadas. 

You squint at the screen. 

Cows graze like little brown and white clouds in the sea of green. It might be Linus yonder by the leftmost fence, and Franklin flicking his tail next to Patty. Or is that Shermy and Lucy? 

You can’t tell them apart like Clark can. 

There’s an irregular shape shadowed by Franklin’s back leg. He zooms in for you without asking and oh—it’s a calf. 

Fluttering ears. Big, softhearted eyes. Fluffy brown coat. Reminds you of Clark, in a way. All earnest and new to everything. 

The bottom barrier of their fence is still broken, you notice. It’s just a small tear, probably from the time his powers started developing. 

He had torpedoed—yes, like a missile—out of the back door and banged his head into the base of the fence before the screen door could rattle back into place. 

Guess that crack there serves as a reminder: no flying on the farm.  

“Cute,” you say. “We should go back sometime soon.” 

He smiles in agreement and reaches back to place his phone on the windowsill. His arm flexes in front of your eyes—hard lines and veins rising beneath tan skin—and you suddenly get why the freezer is so empty. 

You clench your jaw and duck your head. 

“Anyways” —he cuts himself off, tucking his lips between his teeth as he thinks. “Uh, I got my suit in the mail, too. Been hiding it in the closet, ‘cause I haven’t set up my bedframe yet.” 

You keep your eyes trained on your knees but let a smile pull at the corners of your mouth. He was waiting for you. “Can I be the first to see?” 

He scoffs in amusement, dimples sinking in easily. It never fails to amaze you, how they’re so ready to just appear even when he’s only talking. 

“Don’t be silly, I know you were peeking when Ma was making it.” 

“Thank you for the astute observation,” you mumble. Unneeded heat gathers in your cheeks. 

“A-S-T-U-T-E.” Clark is unfazed as you stare at him blankly. He shrugs, corners of his mouth pulling down like it’s no big deal. “It was in the crossword this morning.” 

Eyes flicking up, you plant your palm on the side of his face and hold him away. “Okay, third place winner of Smallville Middle’s spelling bee.” 

“Well—! Most sixth graders would stutter on perspicacious too,” he stammers, words smushed by your hand to his cheek. 

You mumble, “Apparently not Loretta and Marcie.” 

“I’ll have you know that I could spell the first-place word.” Swatting your hand off with a flippant wave, Clark plucks Tom Sawyer off his chest and sits up properly, letting it flop onto the grate. “Bouillon: B-O-U-I-double L-O-N. Because Ma always uses it in her stew.” 

You know. You were there, waiting for him by the steps with a rented movie you don’t remember anymore and chips in case he was hungry. So sure he would win. 

And if you still call Marcie ‘Marcie-Farcie’ in your head? Well, Clark doesn’t have to know that.  

Reaching around him (and ignoring how solid and furnace-hot his chest is in your arms), you lean into him with a fake-coy smile. “Hey, could you spell loquacious for me right now?” 

“Lo...?” Clark’s brows furrow with that faint wrinkle between them. You kind of want to smooth it out with your thumb. “Oh, don’t be mean. And—hey is for horses.” 

You blow a short raspberry. “You’re no fun.” 

“I’m very fun,” he stammers, voice pitched high. “I wear trunks on the outside. I—I like Neapolitan ‘cause I get to eat all of my favorite flavors.” 

“Right,” you say, nodding politely. You press your mouth tight, trying not to laugh as Clark returns the hug and holds you tight. “Right.” 

“And I can fit a hundred lollipops in my cape, isn’t that great? Oh—and I can recite all of Romeo and Juliet.” 

He clears his throat. Steadies himself, posture straightening. Slips into that tone he's been practicing, dubbed the Superman Voice. “Two households, both alike in dignity. In fair Verona—” 

A short laugh leaves you, uncontrollable. Joy sloshes around in your chest. “Alright, alright, you’re fun.” 

“I knew it,” Clark says, giving you a pointed look. Eyebrows raised and clear blue eyes shining with something you can’t name. 

The breath in your lungs unravels to the quick.  

You still haven’t pulled away, arms tight around his chest. He’s warm, alive, grounding. 

Safe, in the way he’s always been. 

And on a more bitter note, in the way your ex hated. With a capital H. 

In that what’s so great about him way. In that maybe you should stop seeing him way. 

It never made any sense. 

Clark’s nothing but honest. Soft. A sweet, heartland, golden retriever to the core who names his parents’ cows after Peanuts characters. 

The thought of liking someone while they were in a relationship wouldn’t cross his mind. Hell, the thought of even liking you, single or not, wouldn’t either. 

…Would it? 

Clark coughs, untangling himself with a long inhale. “We—should start. Um, on my furniture. Like I said, we’re gonna have so much fun once we settle in.” 

“Dude, you make it sound like we’re gonna live together.” You ignore how that idea makes your chest feel odd. 

Like your heart’s about to leap out and crack your sternum. Like waking up to the sight of your sleep-soft best friend making breakfast is a perfectly fine thing to think of. 

“I mean…” He shrugs, lips pinching and angling downward as if he’s truly considering it. “You honestly slept at my parents’ house more than your own.” 

Your throat runs dry, caught. “Your—well, your bed’s just comfier.” 

“Yeah, it’s ‘cause Shelby farted on it.” 

“Ew.” 

—

The thing about lightbulbs is: they aren’t the same as before. 

Older lightbulbs take some time to light up. Flip the switch, open the circuit. Gentle buzz, and the filaments catch with a current, every second stretching into the next before the brightness flickers and then peaks. 

Those were the bulbs in Smallville and Clark’s old apartment. 

Newer lightbulbs are instantaneous. Snap of the finger—flick and light, like a Zippo. And that’s you right now, standing in the shadow of a pent-up tsunami of realizations that’s about to hit you full force. 

This is familiar. 

Standing in front of the door to Clark’s apartment, bag heavy on your shoulder and shifting on your feet as you wait for him to answer your knocks. 3-D glares back at you on the golden plate, bright against the dark, polished wood. 

Familiar, but not the same. 

For one, his old apartment was chipped white paint and Downtown charm. This one’s Midtown class, all dark marble and crisp navy blue. 

And for another, you’re nervous beyond reason, and you’re seriously considering just finding a hole to wither in. 

Your heart is stuttering. Knocking around between your lungs, tapping at the underside of your sternum in a way Clark’s super-hearing is sure to pick up on. 

Long inhale, short exhale. This is just dinner, just like the million others you’ve had. 

Except, you’re kind of dolled up—as in, a smidge more makeup than you’d usually wear around him (which is close to none, because he’s seen you in middle school with acne and that terrible haircut). As in, you fixed your sweater for glaring wrinkles in the elevator and made sure your jeans didn’t have lint on them. 

Except, over the course of the very short workday you spent mulling over your bad decisions, it started to wash over you that blaming everything on that dream would technically be blaming your own subconscious. 

“One sec,” you hear, muffled by the door. The latch clicks, and there’s Clark, warm smile on his face, dimples like gentle craters in his cheeks. “Hi.” 

Your stomach somersaults and lands with a pathetic hop. 

Which is bad. You think you need an icepack, or medical attention, or frankly, anything to peel your mind off the sight of Clark in his white button-up, undershirt visible beneath the fabric. First two buttons undone, sleeves rolled up to reveal the veins nestled in the crook of his elbow, glasses half-buried in his combed-down curls and slacks sinfully tailored to his thighs. 

The smell of bagel crumbs floats around him, weirdly. Toasted, fresh, with a hint of…vanilla bean, which isn’t his usual vanilla. Not that you mind; you briefly consider just pulling him in by the lapels of his shirt and—no. 

You think of him agonizing over two bottles—extract or bean syrup—in the grocery store before your mind scrubs itself blanks. Whiteboard clean. Nothing rattling around if you shook your head. 

Like when the tide pulls all the way back from the beach. Like when you’re staring down at the plain of barren, sandy dunes below your feet, look up, and stare into the face of a hundred-foot-wave question of oh, when did he suddenly become attractive to you? 

Sure, you might have realized that what you’ve been missing in other guys has been lurking in your golden retriever of a best friend for eternity. That no other guy would treat you so sweetly like he did. 

But that’s different.  

That’s pining and idealistic stuff.  

This is insane. Mentally. Physically. Hormonally. Gripping the table’s edge-y. 

It’s one thing to want someone emotionally, but physicality is a completely different thing. And now, two seconds deep into a miles-long stare, you’re suddenly aware of just how badly you'd want Clark if he wasn’t your best friend. 

In the same way he was in that picture of him lifting a semi-truck like a fucking paperweight. Damn Jimmy Olsen for always getting Superman’s best angle, so much that you’ve developed a peeve for when the random people in your feed start gushing paragraphs about taking off their pants or whatever. 

(Of course, if someone caught wind of that, they didn’t hear it from you…) 

Or the same way he was in the aftermath of that first real heartbreak of yours. When you dripped all over his welcome mat looking like a sad paper-maché of a freshly broken-up and bitter barely-graduate, and then helped him move into his apartment and totally didn’t stare when he did all the grunt work for the heavy furniture. 

Or—you dread to think—Smallville. 

When he was still sort of skinny and awkward and a fish out of water. Still being fed corn from sunrise to sundown, winning the runner-up to half his contests, and accidentally melting a hole through a lab table in chemistry and giving you that sheepish, smile-wince look of endearing guilty apology. 

Oh. 

The wave crashes over you. Burning cold. Startling. Dreadful. Heart entering freefall. 

You maybe. Might. Probably. Definitely. Have harbored a secret, heavily denied and-or repressed crush on Clark Kent. 

Corn-fed and six foot four Clark Kent. Academic whiz and full-ride merit scholarship recipient Clark Kent. Who unironically finds it beautiful to say things like ‘what the hay’ and ‘oh, sakes alive.’ 

The Clark Kent who waited two weeks for you to help him move in when he could’ve done it himself in two minutes. The same guy who dropped everything to pick you up after you were stupidly pranked. 

Your childhood best friend. Whose name is synonymous with ‘no.1 most dependable and would die for you.’ Whose toddler pictures you’ve had a guest-starring role in. 

You barely register Clark tilting his head, brows furrowing in mild confusion. “Sunshine?” 

“Hi,” you blurt, a little flat. “Clark.” 

You’re sure your mouth is at an awkward, slightly sour angle, because he studies you before slowly stepping back to let you in. You’re half-ready to run to his bathroom and bang your head against the mirror. 

He just. Looks at you. Lips set in that slight pout of consideration and his right-hand dimple shifting. 

You avoid his eyes, feigning interest in his doorframe. Dark wood, solid, and ridiculously small when Clark is filling out the space inside. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” you breathe, shifting on your feet. “Never better.” 

“Okay,” he says. Simple, short. Like he’s not going to think deeper into it—at least you hope he won’t. He flashes a small smile, “I’m making bagels.” 

You shove down the urge to snort at how in character that is for him. 

Here you are, freaking out over the newfound discovery that you were none the wiser to secretly yearning for Clark since high school. And he’s unconcerned, shifting his mouth to and fro in the expressive way you know so well and making fucking bagels for dinner. 

“Seriously?” 

“Yeah.” Clark lets an easy grin rise on his face, and he reaches to grab the strap of your bag, reeling you into his apartment. You echo him, a light laugh escaping as you kick off your shoes and let him take your things. 

He nudges the door shut with his heel and peers into your bag, surprise etching into the line of his brow. 

“Woah.” Reaches in, pulls out a bottle of wine by the neck. It’s ridiculous how your stomach starts simmering with want when you see how big his hand is compared to the glass. “So, I’m guessing you bought this to make up for my lack of ice cream?” 

You blink, twice. Takes a moment for you to eke out a squeaky, “Uh, sure.” 

Too casual to be innocent, you dig your hands into your pockets and stroll into the kitchen with uptight leisure. You exchange stiff pleasantries while you avoid his eyes—how’s work and you won’t believe what the media’s saying about you right now. 

Orange-yellow light spills out from inside the oven. Clark’s bagels, slightly more malformed than the ones you’d find at a coffee shop, have just started baking, still pale and lumpy. 

His apartment has changed slightly since the last time you saw it; the sitting room is still straight ahead, tall glass and blinking city lights; hallway to the right, the faint outline of doorways visible despite the lights being off. 

But there’s frames on the wall now, glass panes glared by the amber light coming from the lamp next to the TV. The couch is different—more sunken in, like it’s seen its fair share of nights crashing onto the cushions in exhaustion. 

And there’s stuff pinned to the fridge door. Mismatched magnets from Jitters Coffee and some touristy store in Gotham (though you didn’t know they even existed), and random sticky notes taped to the metal. 

CALL MA and Crabjoys reunion ticketing: Apr20 are the ones that really get you. Remind you that some things never change. 

You zero in on a photo strip painstakingly centered in a magnetic frame, long sandalwood beams squared around four snapshots of you and Clark. 

Together. Pinching each other’s cheeks with one of those dumb filters from the photobooth in Metropolis Uni’s gift shop. You remember this one. 

Spring semester of junior year, wide smiles full with the relief of surviving midterms week. The booth had been so small that you had to sit in his lap. He was warm when he wrapped his arms around your waist to keep you steady. 

Your core stirs. Unintentionally, of course. But still enough to send a violent wave of rapid-firing neurons into a massive short-circuit. 

It doesn't help that Clark is radiating that same heat when he comes up behind you. Sidles up next to your arm, setting his hand on the blue cabinet above and kneading his cheek between his teeth. 

“Uh,” he starts, quiet like the subtle hum of the oven’s fan, “are you hungry?” 

It’s barely five. You’re still lingering on the photo strip, studying the way Clark’s watching you in that long-ago moment. Eyes soft, smile angled downward in a manner you’d call adoring. Like he’s in love. 

Not that love you usually practice. The one where you kid with each other and battle in footsie under the dinner table. The one you’ve been swimming in since childhood, when he slept with a Meteors poster under his pillow to manifest their next win. When you made eyes at other boys and he had to remind you to pay attention in class. 

But one where he looks like he wants to take you by the collar of your shirt too. Lean into you, full tilt and without hesitation, like he’s yearning to become one under your skin and carve his name into the underside of your ribs. Like he’s got a spark of desire flickering in his chest. 

Or not. You could be delusional. 

You remind yourself to inhale. “No, I—I’m good.” 

“Okay,” he says, voice rumbling low. Your knee twitches—the barest, involuntary spasm of a muscle in reaction to the sparks setting off behind your ribs. “Because I think we need to talk.” 

You go ramrod-stiff so quickly that you swear one of your joints cracks. A thrill runs through your heart—fuck, he definitely caught on. If there’s one thing about his policy of making time, it’s that establishing clear communication is included. 

Pitched in a somewhat sheepish tone, “What?” 

“I mean,” he ducks his head down, shoulders tight as he gestures between the two of you with a finger. Looks back up at you with earnest eyes, blue so clear you can see yourself in the glassy reflection. “You’re acting weird. Did I do something?” 

You shake your head, immediate. Relief courses through you, but it’s quickly replaced with a wave of guilty heartache. Here is a man who only wants to be sweet and care about you, and you’re thinking you might want more. Want him to kiss and touch and say, I’m in— 

“No, it’s not you—I’m just…” you fish for an excuse “…a little stressed.” 

“Well.” Clark does a short, dorky side-to-side, shoulders more relaxed. “Talk to me.” 

Your throat feels full when you swallow. Pulse thundering, you tap the picture with your finger. “You kept it.” 

He looks a little stunned, head listing to the side owlishly. “Why not?” 

You shrug. Stupidly, “Dunno.” 

A smile breaks on his face, tender as a rising sun. Certain, too, like he needs to remind you that duh, “It’s my favorite picture.” 

Oh. 

You didn’t know that. He keeps the most romantic (arguably) picture of you and him on his fridge, where it’s impossible to not pass by on the daily. That’s fine. 

Your stomach clenches in a way that makes you feel stricken and stupidly, ridiculously heartsick. 

“You’re kidding.” 

“Not,” he huffs, shifting to lean against the fridge. He’s almost the same width—god—and you’re a little too distracted with the solid shape of his bicep tightening under his sleeve and the barest dip of muscle before his elbow. “You still haven’t answered the question.” 

Frowning, “What question?” 

“What you’re so stressed about,” Clark says. 

Pinching his mouth to the side, his dimple winks as he studies you. He’s been doing that a lot—new nervous habit, you suppose. “Does it have something to do with your text this morning?” 

Your jaw clenches, caught. “Maybe...” 

He knows you too well. 

Clark does that thing again—tilts his head, going from one side to another. Like he’s trying to gauge you from every angle. You fiddle with a loose string in your sleeve. 

He blurts, “I didn’t like Matthew, by the way.” 

Which—okay. Valid. Clark is honest as always, and he’s entitled to his own opinions, which you agree with, because looking back, Matthew was pretty unlikeable. 

He insisted on splitting the bill—not that you’re salty about needing to pay, for god’s sake, you have a job and a fair amount of disposable income, but because he was just cheap. Like he needed someone to pick up his slack and excused it with, ‘well, everyone’s all about equality these days, right?’ 

And he only wore a faint, sneerish smile as if he was embarrassed to appear more than nonchalant. Chewed cinnamon gum like it was his second job, rolled his eyes at the slightest thing. 

Never laughed, unless it was in derision when a kid tripped over their own feet, or something. And he was addicted to wired headphones. And pretended to be an avid reader—you know he was acting, because he couldn’t tell you who narrated The Great Gatsby despite it being opened to the last chapter in front of him. 

You might’ve overlooked a lot of things about Matthew because he was cute. Baritone and solemn dimples and curly black hair and eyes that curved into crescents at the slightest twitch of his mouth. 

And, alright. Just for the sake of adding it to the pile of late revelations that have dawned upon you during this hour: 

You probably swiped right on him because he resembled Clark. 

Not a little. A lot. In an almost eerie way. 

Like he was his evil twin from Park Ridge or something, but skinnier and vampirish, and lacking freckles and that eclectic, heartland music taste. 

But enough about that. You never told Clark you were shooting your nth shot with another guy and hoping he’d be the one. He shouldn’t know who Matthew is. 

There are probably a hundred thousand Matthews in Delaware, but only one Matthew the Clark Clone. 

(How long has he been listening in on you?) 

You blink at Clark for a few seconds. His ears start flushing pink the longer you stare, you notice. 

“Yeah, I didn’t either,” you mumble through the words, pausing between syllables like it needs some effort to force out. 

“I know it’s not my place to say,” he sighs, looking down at the cool tile beneath your socked feet. “But...maybe you haven’t gone the best way around finding love.” 

“Why, you jealous?” You mean it as a joke. A flippant, throwaway line to tease. 

But Clark looks at you hard. Plucks his glasses off his head and sets them down on the counter, serious.

Faint frown lines surface on his face, eyes suddenly sharp. Then he blinks, and he’s back to normal, pretending the wall is so interesting. “…No.” 

You poke his cheek. It’s warm; a current of sparks runs up your arm and into your heart. “Admit it. You already know you could do better than half the guys I’ve cried to you about.” 

His eyes flick to the ceiling momentarily before meeting yours again. Stammers over his own breath and squeaks as he asks, “Just half?” 

Oh, he’s jealous. 

You can see it, clear as day. Clearer than Clark’s pretty eyes. That maybe you aren’t alone in this. That just like always, you’re on the same page as your best friend. 

“Okay,” you say, leaning closer to him in challenge. “So, what’s your advice, Mr. Kent?” 

He allows himself an inhale—one he doesn’t really need, being superpowered and all—and purses his lips. 

He’s blushing in the way you know so well, the way he does when you look at him for too long. Like some shy bastard. Like he isn’t aware of what’s starting to brew between you. 

The thing about Clark is that he wears his heart on his sleeve. Sometimes literally, like when a kid slapped a heart sticker onto his supersuit. 

But he’s so open about his desires that it’s sometimes hard for him to hide them. Like now—standing with his shoulders bunched up and tense, practically holding his breath as his pretty ocean eyes drift around and eventually land on your lips. 

His lashes flutter. Exhales stutters a little, let out slowly. 

Says under his breath, “Well, sunshine, I think more organic relationships have better benefits in the long run.” 

“Uh-huh.” You’re helpless to the slow, amused grin bubbling onto your face. “Elaborate.” 

Clark keeps on rambling, eyebrows shooting up as he explains, “Like, you hardly know anyone on a dating app, right?” 

“Right.” 

“And—you know, romantic feelings can develop elsewhere.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes!” he exclaims, gesturing wild nonsense with his hands. “For example, Cat’s really into this whole friends to lovers thing, and honestly, I think she’s got a point.” 

You fold your lips inward, holding them between your teeth as you try not to laugh. 

“See, she says that people benefit from already knowing their partner,” Clark says, gaze trailing down without a thought. “That ultimately, friends sometimes feel the most fulfilling love. And it’s easy for them, to communicate their desires” —he finally catches himself, eyes wide and blinking quickly— “and stuff.” 

You open your mouth, running dry from nerves. Quiet and sheepish, still unsure despite seeing all the signs, “Wanna put that to the test?” 

The way his inhale quivers should be illegal. “I—don’t know what you mean.” 

“I mean,” you say slowly, surprising yourself with how steady you feel despite the uproar rioting in your chest, “maybe—you know, Cat’s theory. Maybe I do need someone who knows me.” 

Clark’s eyelids flicker, and then finally squeeze shut. His voice is tight when he murmurs, “Yeah, yeah.” 

You say his name. Soft. Quiet. Like a Friday night in Smallville at the Kents’. Like the aftermath of a dinner get-together, when you used to sit on his bed and cover your face with a comic instead of talking with the neighbors in the living room. 

He makes a small noise of response, a gentle hymn that comes with the smallest up-tilt of his head. A couple curls fall loose over his forehead and without thinking, you brush them to the side with a trembling finger. 

Some things between you don’t need words. Like when you’re hungry and find an orange already peeled. Or when you glance at each other during a movie and find that the other is also trying not to laugh. 

But this needs words. Need the confirmation that yes, Clark Kent can make time, but he can also make a different space in his already big heart for you, too. 

“Sunshine?” His whisper is vulnerable, cracked wide in the middle. “I can hear your heartbeat, y’know? It’s the one where you’re planning something.” 

Fuck. You can’t take it anymore. 

“I like you.” It spills out without a second thought, but you steamroll on, fingers dragging from his hairline and down to cup his cheek. 

You sound like a damn teenager professing her undying love when you say it again. “I like you. Since Nate, when your Pa said you dropped everything to get me. And I just— 

I realized nobody loved me like you,” you choke out. And it feels so free to say that, as if some vice you didn’t know was clenched around your heart has released itself. “And I took that for granted when I should’ve—” 

“Sunshine,” Clark cuts in, breaking your laundry list of guilt. Says it with that heartland twang you’ve been missing from his voice because he changes it slightly to fit in with Metropolis. 

He doesn’t say more. Just leans in. Places a peck to the corner of your mouth. 

And you stare at each other for seconds. Eyes wide. Something you can’t name shooting through your heart and oh. 

Oh, it feels like you’re finally on the right side of heaven to wrinkle his stiff workshirt in your fists and pull him in for a real, dizzying kiss. 

One you know you can’t turn back from. One that makes your body feel so viscerally alive, like livewire has been activated under your skin. 

You’re going to feel this for days, you think. 

Clark moves his lips over yours like he has all the time in the world. Like he’s really going to savor the seven-odd years you spent oblivious to your own feelings. 

Your chest is vibrating with anticipation, core growing warmer and warmer until you realize that there’s a hot wetness growing between your legs. And of course Clark decides that now is the perfect fucking time to wrap his arms around you and lift. 

You think he was made for this. To hold you like you’re made of foam. To be so strong and tender at the same time, cradling you closer like he’s trying to fuse into your skin.  

Wouldn’t mind, a thought smears by in your mind. 

He sets you down on the counter, which is cold and hard beneath you. Breaks away for a split-second to angle his head differently, catching you with your mouth still parted. Sweeps his tongue leisurely along your bottom lip, nips and sucks as he plants a large, burning palm on your knee and shifts it to the side with a light but firm push. 

You swear a star sparks in your skull and starts bouncing around the cavity of your chest. 

He kisses you deeper. Hungrier, like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever held. Corralling you between the wall and himself, hands coming up to graze from your waist around to your back, thumbs caressing in circles over the bare sliver of skin beneath your sweater, which you didn’t know until now had ridden up. 

“Should’ve” —a soft sigh unfurls in you as he peels himself off, only to attach himself to your jaw, taking his time as he blazes a shallow line of kisses to your ear— “done this sooner.” 

“Well,” his voice is rough, mouth forming a simper against the underside of your jaw’s hinge—kisses there, and then closer and closer to your throat. You bare your neck to him, easy and unthinking; the ceiling spins above you. “Better late—” sucks at the sensitive, tender spot just beneath your chin, fuck “—than never.” 

You register that he’s sliding his hand under the back of your sweater, pressing hot skin along your back. Fingers skating over the divots in your spine, he drags himself back up and waits there with his nose beside yours like he’s asking for permission. 

His eyes are closed, the corners of his mouth barely lifted up, a smile about to unfurl. You plant a chaste kiss on his lips, and as you pull away, he lurches forward, as if he’s trying to chase another hit. 

“Wait,” he mumbles, some dreamy look surfacing on his relaxed face—brows floating up slightly, seam of his pink and swollen lips parting. “Come back.” 

“I’m gonna pass out if you keep kissing me like that,” you say, tone whispered.

Even then, you might be understating yourself. You feel like you’re teetering on the knife’s edge of sanity. 

You run your hand down his chest and pinch the fabric just above his belt, untucking it absently and looking down at him through your lashes. You don’t even know why you lament honestly, “And then I can’t take this off. And then we can’t fuck.” 

Clark frowns, opening his eyes to look at you in that upturned, tragically kicked-puppy way that makes you ache. In your chest, at the crux of your thighs. 

Too fast? You avert your eyes in shame. 

“I prefer the term making love.” His lashes flit in a way that would make some of the women at your workplace envious, and he’s holding your eyes in his pretty blue ones. Reminds you of the sky in the countryside, just after the last raincloud has cleared up, the scent of petrichor still heavy in the air. 

You nudge yourself forward and brush your mouth over his upper lip. Salt and sugar blooms on your tongue. “Oh, I forgot that you talk like a geriatric. We should stop before your knees crack.” 

“Ah, we can’t have that,” he hums, genuine concern blooming on his face, just beneath that stupid, bright tipsy-flush on his cheeks that make you feel something weird. 

Slips his hand out from under your shirt, gently takes your chin in his grip and rubs his thumb over your spit-slick bottom lip, all while brushing his mouth over his ministrations. Pouts like he’s the one being subject to the hormonal mutiny that’s making you feel so violently alive.  

You want, want, want. 

Tugging at his shirt, abandoning your restraint to push your hips forward and against his solid stomach and fuck, a sound escapes you that sound suspiciously like please? and he breaks into a breath-stealing smile like a coy cat that just got the cream. 

It’s no surprise that you barely blink before you find yourself lying supine and sinking into his mattress. Smells like that damn vanilla, and sandalwood, and the wind of Smallville. As if he flies back just to dry his laundry on the porch clothesline. 

The blankets are peeled back neatly. Fitted sheet soft to the touch—you curl your fingers in the cotton for something to ground yourself with, because apparently Clark isn’t enough. 

Pillows plush and considerately placed beneath your head, the mattress dips for the weight of Clark settling on his knees between your legs.  

He sort of hangs there for a second as you catch your breath and reel in the uncountable minutes of insanity that have just passed. Scrutinizes you with gentle, earnest eyes, cupping the back of your clothed knees with broad, kind hands. 

He presses his thumb into the outside of your knee, right in the faint divot where the cap sits over bone, tendon, and muscle. You swallow, watching him as he traces his eyes up and down your body—collected, steady. 

Safe in the way he has always been. Clark squeezes the top of your calf once before letting his hands slide up—a line of flinty sparks follows him—to cup your hips.  

“Sunshine,” he rumbles, soft eyes meeting yours. Tilts his head, loose waves of inky hair falling over his forehead. Adam’s apple bobbing, he lets go of your hips and holds your hands instead, all earnest and somewhat guilty. “Do you mean it?” 

You blink up at him, confused. “Huh?” 

“That you like me.” He turns over your hands so he can press his thumbs into your palms. “That you want this.” 

A small, almost disbelieving laugh scuffs out of your mouth. Of course he’s double and triple checking. 

“Silly,” you say, curling your right-hand fingers around his thumb. “I can’t lie to you.” 

“Can you say it again? Just to be sure.” 

“Clark.” You lift his hand toward your face. Kiss the back of it softly, and smile at how comforting the feel of his skin is. You’re all innocuous and doe-eyed when you say, “I want you to fuck me. I want you to fuck me and make me feel it for days.” 

His breath stammers in a way that makes you flush. All barely-held restraint and trembling like you’re doing something to make him weak. 

He gives you a tight, downturned smile once he settles himself, the same one that would flash across his face to reassure you. 

Except, it’s a little different now. Except, there’s something terrifyingly raw swimming in his—you've just noticed—unnaturally dilated pupils, and you’d be wrong not to call him lovesick or fond. 

Maybe he’s always looked at you like that, all benign and wanting, and you didn’t realize until now. The thought of beating yourself up over wasting so, so much time when Clark was right in front of you flickers through your head, but it’s quickly wiped away when he gently lets go of your hands and starts undoing his button-up. 

You’re fixated on the way his fingers work the buttons—nimble, with just the right application of pressure to pop it open. You follow them all the way down to the last, where the hem you untucked earlier hangs over the tent rising in his slacks. 

He’s big, the crotch of his pants tight. The outline of his cock is visible through the dark fabric. Holy shit. 

Your chest tightens for a breath.  

Unconsciously, your thighs squeeze tighter in search of friction. 

Futile. Clark nudges his knees wider to stop you as he shrugs away his shirt and then strips off his undershirt. 

You hope your eyes aren’t bugging out. 

He’s sculpted like a goddamn Greek statue—solid muscle, defined pecs and shoulders—yet soft at the same time. A thin layer of fat hugs his abdomen in true farmer fashion, mellows out his broad frame and you suddenly want to wrap your arms and legs around him and maybe just let him fuck you animalistically like that. 

“C’mere,” he says, syllables muddled together with his eyes all fluttering and mouth loose like that, like he’s drunk off desire. Like he’s also noting how heavy the air has gotten, hazy with lust. Takes your fingers in his again, draws it toward the center of his bare chest. 

His skin is blistering under your palm. A furnace almost; your neck prickles with heat as another wave of arousal tides over you. 

And then you feel it. Pounding hard enough to pulse like it’s right under the first layer of impenetrable skin and not buried beneath layers of fat, muscle, and bone. A strange, not-quite-human thrum that kisses your fingertips. 

Clark takes a steadying breath, pitches himself down to kiss you all while holding your touch firmly over his heart. 

His lips slide over yours—longing, like the short minute that’s passed since he last kissed you was an eternity. 

And his heartbeat jumps. 

Actually. Speeds up to thunder at what seems like a hundred miles an hour, strong and loud and trying to leap into your palm. Stays like that for the honey-slow seconds that your mouths lazily dance, and for another ten after he ducks his flushed face into the right side of your neck. 

He smells like an underlayer of woodsy cologne and flour. Like the faint, diluted scent of corn ripening in the wind. Like home. 

“You make me so nervous,” Clark finally says, voice lilting into borderline self-amusement. “God, sweetheart, you have no idea.” 

His lips press over your jugular, feeling the pulse there. Eyelashes flutter on your skin as he nips your skin, not hard enough to hurt but enough to know that your blood will darken the surface later. 

Somehow, in the smudged haze of craving and teeth, he finds his way to the button of your jeans. Pauses there, forefinger picking at the overlap of denim. 

Your breath freezes in the same moment as his. 

“Please?” he asks so sweetly. You cant your hips up in response. 

His exhale hisses out all at once, almost a gasp. Cheek searing where it lays on your neck, deft touch working the button out of its nest and zipper rasping as he opens it. 

The sound of it is so loud in his otherwise still bedroom. 

Your breath shudders when he slips your jeans down, over the curve of your ass and down your legs. Cold air hits your clothed cunt, cooling the wetness that’s gathered in your panties. 

Your jeans get stuck around your left ankle, to which he giggles boyishly to himself between breaths, and oh, your heart swells so much that you feel too small for the mush of endearing-lovey-sweet churning in your chest. 

You tug at your sweater, pulling your arms out of the sleeves and wrestling the lump of fabric over your head. Takes a minute, because you’re a little shaky and practically bursting at the seams with anticipation. 

Then you’re laying there and letting Clark take you in, all vulnerable with your undergarments mismatched (gosh, maybe you really should have picked underwear that matched your bra) and clothes discarded out of sight. 

And it’s stupid, really. How your inhale hitches. A little stall, if you will, at the dawn of an aching expression on his face, looking at you. Really looking at you. 

Like he wouldn’t have this any other way. Like he’s trying to find the best way to get under your skin, just like how he inspects a chessboard to make his next move. Like he already knows what’s going to make you twitch, or clench, or come so hard that you see the pearly gates. 

Fast and unprepared and in his own bed, fitted sheet already wrinkled while you try not to squirm because you’re a little embarrassed that your bra is black and your panties are white with navy polka dots. 

“Don’t stare,” you whisper, though it comes out as more of a mortified squeak. 

“Why not?” Clark just smiles. Easy. The most natural thing in the world, when he grazes his fingertips over the waistband of your panties. “I'm just admiring the most beautiful woman.” 

You scoff, crossing your arms over your bare stomach. “Yeah. My eyes’re up here, you know.” 

“Really,” he protests. Dips his fingers beneath the elastic of your panties. “Or as Ma would say, I’m happy as a clam.” 

Draws the smallest tension and lets the band snap back against your hip, because he just has to be cheeky and tease. 

“Oh,” he gasps in revelation, heartland twang starting to bleed back into his low, baritone words, “or that’s a sight.” 

Your skin burns, feverish from your soaked cunt to your head. 

Then Clark shifts himself down to nuzzle the damp gusset, applying the barest feather of pressure over your clothed clit. He shudders. Wraps his arms around your thighs so he can hold you closer as he starts laving over the thin fabric. 

A soft sigh spills out of your mouth, helpless. Nakedly sweet and honest in a way you didn’t expect yourself to be. 

Uncontrollable, your fingers thread into his downy hair and tug lightly. 

He groans quietly but doesn’t listen, mouth instead moving back up to your stomach. 

Clark buries his nose just under your navel. Breathes you in, solid biceps tightening slightly around your thighs. Exhales with a muffled, broken sound that echoes your own and your heart flips. 

“Baby, you’re so soft,” he mumbles, head angling down to start blazing a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses back down your stomach, up the delicate inside of your right thigh. Presses himself close to your skin, licks over where your pulse thrums between your legs and sucks. 

You inhale sharply, shifting your hips, now aware of just how empty you are. 

He hums in response, teasing the same spot on the other side of your cunt. You wriggle a little more, trying to get his mouth where you want it. 

Impatience burns behind your ribs. You want it, you want it so fucking bad that the need cuts you open and raw, like barbed wire drawn taut over your sternum. 

“Please,” you breathe. Can’t even recognize your own voice now, all breathy and desperate. Looking down at him through your lashes, you dart your tongue over your bottom lip. Tastes like salt, and him. “Clark, please.” 

Eyes flicking up to yours, he hums in low question. Tilts his head, so his curls tickle your inner thigh. “Patience is a virtue, y’know.” 

You swallow, going still for a fractured moment. You come up blank, like a reel left out so long that all the fish of your thoughts know it’s bait. “I...” 

A gentle smile rises to his face. “’S alright,” he says, all saccharine and forgivingly merciful. Water under the bridge, you think to yourself. “I’ll remind you.” 

Slips his fingers under the elastic of your waistband again, pulls down your panties as a flare of sudden, sharp need rips through you. Curves his smile a little sharper when the gusset sticks to your cunt for a moment, tacky with your arousal. 

The flimsy little piece of fabric lands somewhere out of sight, too, and Clark lets a nearly disbelieving sigh puff out from his mouth as he stares at your naked sex.  

You watch, mesmerized and head floating in a near-dream state, as he lowers himself flat onto the mattress—you don’t miss the subtle way he grinds his hips down—and lays his head against your thigh. 

“Should—should I tell you now that I’ve never done this before?” 

Curse your stupid, big mouth. 

Clark stiffens. Stares at you with eyes unblinking and wide. “What?” 

Your stomach drops in panicked freefall. “No—fuck. Not like that.” 

“I’m gonna need some clarification,” he says, propping himself up on his elbows. 

“I’m not a virgin,” you blurt. “If that’s what you think. I just...” 

He blinks at you, finally. Questions in that earnest, pleading voice, “No, that’s—sunshine, are we going too fast? We can stop right now.” 

A wave of heavy embarrassment crashes down on you. 

Your palms slap onto your face, eyes squeezing shut at the mortifying, humiliating fact that— “I’ve never had a guy go down on me!” 

“And” —you have to fight yourself to be honest about this— “half the time, I don’t come anyway.” 

Clark just sort of twists his mouth, looking at you with those melancholic eyes, dimples shifting as he processes. 

Just zones out a bit. As if he isn’t laying stomach-down on the bed, extremely eager to eat you out two seconds ago. Okay, maybe he is still a little eager, just toned down. 

But you can see it. In the way he blinks, up at your eyes and down to your navel. In the way his hand is still resting on your thigh, ready. 

He wets his bottom lip. Says, in a hoarse, choked voice like he really can’t believe it, “But you’re okay?” 

“Yeah,” you breathe, peeling your fingers off your face, “more than okay. So you better ruin it for everyone else.” 

He smiles, dorky and charming, face all ruddy. You lament—oh, you feel like a fucking travesty with the way his dimples make your heart somersault like that. 

“So,” he starts, pitching his head down to study your sex. Trailing his fingers from your thigh to your folds, he wets himself with the slick arousal already there. “What even happens after you have sex with other guys? When you aren’t satisfied?” 

You try not to worm around as Clark gently strokes the tip of his middle finger up your seam. You shiver, though, when he pauses just below your clit and drags back down. 

“Just…I take care of myself after. Obviously,” you mumble, restraining the urge to lift your hips just so and let his thick fingers fill your aching cunt. But patience is a virtue, and you’ll be damned if you don’t find out what Clark’s whole reminder is about. “Lots of sore wrists and stuff.” 

An easy grin blooms on his face again. Start pumping the tip of his finger into you, slowly working you open. 

“Like this?” he asks, once the second knuckle of his finger has been swallowed by your cunt. Thicker than you thought it would be. Which makes you wonder about and crave the stretch of two. 

“Yeah,” you try to keep your voice from squeaking, but it does anyway. You cover your mouth with the back of your left hand and card the right into his silken, messy waves. “I just—god, you’re thick.” 

“Easy, honey,” he shushes. Kisses the top of your mound, to which you respond with a soft, open sound. Takes his mouth lower, minuscule centimeter by minuscule centimeter, until he’s pulling out his one finger and stretching you out with two, just as he latches his scorching mouth around your clit and sucks.  

You moan. Loud, embarrassing, pitched up at the end. 

The feeling of being so full aches in you. Feels like he’s penetrating your entire body. Like he’s going to live in the cavity of your chest forever, and right now you’re more than willing to keep him warm. 

He laps at you all while rocking his fingers, getting your parted folds all sticky and slick with saliva and arousal. Detached himself with a tacky string of viscous liquid, eyes rolling up before they shut, forehead nuzzling into your stomach. 

“Did you do it like this?” He crooks his fingers, thick and hot in your cunt, presses into a spongy spot that makes you tug at his hair for more. You whine a little. “Or that?” 

Slides impossibly deeper into you, bypassing that first spot and nudging his fingers into a place that shoots white-hot pleasure ripping up your spine, and his tongue swipes searing over your clit and you think you fucking gush a little down to his wrist. 

“God,” you choke out, and Clark just keeps teasing that spot, moaning softly into your cunt and stroking and rocking his touch until your stomach starts to tighten, all raw and urging. “There, there, shit.” 

It’s like a switch has flipped in you. 

You’re fucking ruined for life. Hips rutting up to chase the next thrust of his fingers, the next flick or swipe of his tongue as your neurons go into overdrive. Sobbing: “Oh, Clark—baby, fuck, that’s—good, so good, Clark, please—” 

He rolls his tongue hard over your sensitive clit, upping the intensity at which his digits are fucking into you—a filthy push-pull that you can hear, lewd noises of your cunt spasming in as he bullies that bundle of nerves inside you. 

“C’mon,” he groans, a desperate sound vibrating into you. Kisses your clit again, and you feel another surge of wetness coat your inner thighs when he shoves his fingers in deep to keep stimulating your g-spot. Sounds all wrecked and wanton when he rumbles, open-mouthed over you, “That’s it, honey. Keep doing that. Make you feel better than all those jerks, yeah?” 

You keen, high-pitched. Hips rutting up into his face, unabashed, muscles gradually tightening until you’re all wound up. 

It’s getting to be too much, like you’re being filled to the brim and then some. Like you’re about to spill out of your own skin, all ‘cause of your best friend’s ministrations. His tongue. The way he stuffs a shallow, wanting moan into the crook of your inner thigh and cunt. How he’s shifting his hips into the mattress, how the bedframe is creaking slightly from the movement. 

Your pulse is pounding. Like you’re trying to mimic the way his heart was when he let you feel it, and your head is spinning with it, too. 

And then Clark dips the tip of his tongue low, tasting you from the top of the opening of your sex—fucking gasps with a sound that almost cries and drags the flat of his tongue hot up to your clit. Wraps his plush, sweltering lips around it and starts laving with abandon, grinding his fingertips into your g-spot. 

It’s not the way he’s lapping at you that makes you break. It’s not even his thick, full fingers stretching you out in a way that burns so sweetly in you. 

It’s just Clark. 

He reaches for the hand you have buried in his hair. 

Wraps his warm, gentle palm around your wrist. Squeezes you once, firm enough to ground you by a thread-thin tether. Kneads his thumb over your pulse point and looks up at you through his lashes, eyes out of focus and so honest. 

Starbursts pop in your vision. 

You swear you black out for a second as you come, moans shaky against the back of your hand. 

Your orgasm hits you hard and soft at the same time. Crests and crashes with a tidal wave of wetness that dribbles out of your cunt, soothes over your head as bliss fills your body. Your ears are ringing, hearing smudged and cottony like you’ve been dunked in the pool and someone’s trying to talk to you from above the surface.  

You quiver, helpless as you chase the aftershocks against Clark’s eager mouth. 

There’s a trembling sincerity when he slowly pulls his fingers from you, like he’s reluctant. He’s still guiding you down from the last ripples of ecstasy, tongue undulating over the still-twitching seam of your cunt, whispering pleasant nothings between each lick like he’s found an altar between your thighs. 

But he doesn’t bring you down. Doesn’t let you stray far from that high-up edge, nose now pressed into your clit as he wraps his thick, solid arms under your legs, then over your stomach to lock you in place. 

“Clark,” you sigh, squirming from the stimulation. You can hardly recognize your voice, all tender and soft and pitched. “Clark.” 

His lips make a wet, lewd sound when he reluctantly draws himself away from your cunt. Leaves a web-thin, almost star-spun string of slick connecting you to him, panting so feverishly that he pushes your legs closer to your chest. 

He hums, looking a little dazed. Eyes unfocused, tongue darting out to taste that string of fluid, which breaks and dribbles down his chin in a way that makes your stomach riot with butterflies. 

"Going somewhere?” he rasps, and god, if that doesn’t make your heart leap for the chance to give him another and then some. 

“No,” you mumble, heat prickling under your skin. 

Clark blinks at you, cheek squished to your inner thigh. Lets his eyes roll closed when you stroke your fingers through his hair, exhale balmy on your bare skin. 

“Okay,” he says, quiet. 

This time, he’s slow with it. Takes his time, languid and sensual flicks and laves meant to wriggle between your seams and pick you apart from the inside.  

Tides you through your refractory period, sighs when you start to tighten your thighs around his head again. Lights that spark in you once more, using his drenched, arousal-shiny fingers only to play with your clit while his tongue slips into your throbbing cunt instead. 

You don’t know how much time has passed. You only know this: back arching and hips twitching as Clark guides you toward another orgasm, skillfully fucking you with his tongue like this is his last meal and he needs to savor it. 

You feel a telltale tingle in your core again. Coils up tighter, raw, wrings you dry until you’re rocking your hips and pushing at his head to go deeper, faster, harder. 

Faintly, you register his bedframe creaking. Clark moans—loud, honest, fervent, broken in a way you’ve never heard—right into your folds and— 

Your inhale catches. Stammers as your high starts to crest, and you whine, pliant and helpless, fuck— 

Clark stops. Retracts himself, tongue sweeping over his swollen bottom lip to gather your wetness. Swallows, and your eyes follow the motion of his Adam’s apple. 

He looks more wrecked than you feel. Looks like he’s the one dangling on the precipice of coming, like he’s the one who’s been licked within an inch of his life. 

He sits up, kneeling between your legs and shit, he’s blushing all the way down to his chest. Pink from head to pec, hair plastered to his forehead from what you assume is the humidity between your thighs. 

“Gosh,” he pants. Long inhale, short exhale. He closes his eyes like he’s tasting the last of you lingering on his tongue. “Gosh, I’m so sorry, sunshine.” 

You prop yourself up on your elbows, panic spiking in your chest. “What’s wrong?” 

He groans. Folds himself back down by the waist and buries his burning face into your sternum. Kisses the skin there, and drags his fingers up your spine to dawdle on the clasp of your bra. 

“Not you,” comes his muffled murmur, still pressing sincere, reverent kisses on your chest. “Just—you taste too good.” 

You pause. Process the fact that Clark had to take a second because he was enjoying himself too much. And a laugh spills out of your mouth. 

You comb your hands through his hair, making him shiver when your nails scrape on his scalp. “I was about to come again, you know.” 

He groans, mortified, and presses his forehead harder against your sternum. 

“Gosh,” he stutters, and you’re pretty sure that’s his word of the day, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t take it.” 

“Take what?” You cup your hand to his warm, flushed cheek, tilt his head up to look at him. 

He stares back at you, mouth glistening and parted, eyes flicking down to your lips. He swallows. 

“I think—well, I almost,” he squeezes his eyes shut, “I didn’t want to come yet. And uh, I don’t have a condom.” 

You guess he’s your best friend for a reason. 

Here you are, looking each other up and down and realizing that you’ve both unwittingly edged yourselves. Get a load of this fucking comedy. 

You huff, amused. Squeeze his cheeks in your palms, and your heart flutters when he smiles, bashful. “You’re funny.” 

“Sure, sunshine. I'll make that up to you,” he says, shifting his fingers on your back and undoing your bra. “So just to be sure—” 

“Yes, Clark,” you grumble, tangling your fingers in his curls and tugging. Hard. You swear his eyes roll into his skull a little. “We can fuck without a condom.” 

“You’re so crass,” he chides, and cool air hits your breasts. 

Your bra lands somewhere soft, cushioned, and when you look, you find that he’s thrown it and the rest of your clothes—with terrifying accuracy—into his hamper. 

That cracks something wide open in you. It blooms in your chest, unfurls like the first thaw of spring. 

He’s so sweet. There isn’t another word for how he makes you feel. It’s just a something, somehow, stitched together with a lifetime of bandaids and inside jokes. 

And you mourn. Even though the space between your bodies is so tight that your skin is sticky with humidity, even though his belt is clicking and he’s asking again, because he’s got that devastating habit of being a quintuple-checker: 

“Will you let me have you?” 

Not can I. Will you. 

You snap out of your daze, heart still sighing dreamily as you practically leap to help tear his belt out of the loops. 

“Is that a yes?” he wonders out loud, laying his forehead on yours. He squeezes his eyes tight when you unzip his fly and relieve a little more pressure from his hard cock. Chokes out, “For the record—oh, god—I’m a yes. Please.” 

Clark kisses you with undisguised desire when you palm him over his underwear. He’s scorching in your palm, weighty when you try to grind the heel of your hand on it. 

He whimpers. Honest to god whimpers, a ruined sound that whistles in the miniscule space between your open mouths, and your arm jerks, startled by how sudden and unexpected and hot that is. 

Clark does it again, louder this time. Your core throbs.  

“Baby,” he groans, furrowing his brows in concentration, “as much as I like that—” 

“Yeah,” you breathe, steadier than you expected yourself to be, with your throat running dry and heart pounding in your throat. “Yeah, I want—” 

“I know,” he says. Gently nudges your hand off his clothed erection, crowds you up against the headboard. Then he takes you by the knee, hand blistering up your thigh, and delicately guides you to lay on your back. 

Your head lolls to the side, nose pressing into one of his pillows. Smells like home in a way you can’t really explain beyond the faint scent of sleep and lemon detergent. Smells like him, in the purest sense possible; all wool-soft and mellow, like the kindest comfort during a winter storm in Smallville. 

He shimmies out of his pants. His cock bobs up, all eight inches and girth standing at attention, the head deeply flushed and pearled with pre. It slaps lightly against his navel, leaving behind a thread of slick that breaks quickly, and you burn white-hot and raw with lust.

Clark slides a plush pillow under your hips. Gazes down at you through his lashes, eyes shining with a light that makes your chest ache. Whispers, almost to himself, “You’re so pretty. My pretty girl.” 

You don’t remember how you respond to that. 

Because Clark is taking his cock in his hand, and that has the audacity to make his size look normal, and he strokes himself slowly as he guides himself toward your soaked cunt. You think you lose your breath. 

He breaches you with a single, slow thrust, with an open-mouthed stammer of breath, and there’s so much of him sliding forward that you don’t even try arching your back to let him go deeper. And he just waits there, to the hilt, girthy and heavy and pulsing in time with your dripping, stretched cunt, and you’re so fucking full of him that you think you won’t be able to get up tomorrow. 

Good thing it’s Friday, is the last thing that runs through your mind before he bends over and takes you with him, folding your legs against your chest like you’re one of those fucking origami cranes he makes in his free time.  

(Yes, you’ve seen the box under his bed. No, not the one with his suit. 

The one with a thousand colorful, paper cranes he folds at his desk when anonymous tips are slow and takes the time between work and alien invaders to painstakingly link them all up onto a thread of fishing line. The one he brings to a thrift shop every time he finishes a string, just so a lucky someone passing by could have a little goodness in their day.) 

And Clark fucks like this means more than the world to him. Slow, sensual, with purpose. Grinds the searing head of his cock into the spot that made you see starbursts on his tongue earlier, cloistering his chest against your shins like he needs—not wants, but needs, desperately, more than air or sun—to live in your skin. 

He moans in time with you, breathes out in a voice that sets you ablaze, “God, you’re so tight—sunshine, you’re perfect.” 

He’s everywhere. Whimpering with his mouth over yours. Slipping his thumb expertly over your twitching clit over and over until you’re trying to arch into him, but you can’t, because he’s fucking you with his entire weight behind each world-stopping thrust and oh— 

You get why he says ‘making love’ like an old-fashioned loverboy. 

Because he is. Because he’s pushing and pulling into your cunt like he’s promising, like he’s revering. Heavy and softhearted and caressing the outside of your hip with a warm, soothing hand, and you understand. 

“I love you,” you gasp. Just feels like the right thing to say, head spinning and mouth wet with his and your spit. Tastes like salt, and yourself. “Clark, please.” 

“I can hear you,” he chokes out in the middle of an aborted whine. Ducks his nose behind your ear, breathes in the scent of your skin, all flushed with heat and thinly veiled with sweat. “Your heartbeat, it’s—so fast.” 

He jerks up into your walls with a calamitous, devastating grind. Makes that same gush of wetness drool out of your spasming cunt, and when he plunges in you again, his pelvis slaps into the fat of your ass with a sound so tacky your ears burn, all shameful and alive. 

“You liked that,” Clark gasps, taking your bottom lip in his mouth and sucking. Lets go after a moment when he’s satisfied with how swollen and pliant you are and rolls that bundle of sparking nerves between your thighs. You clench around him, uncontrollable, legs bucking up to no avail. “Holy—I love you, too. Gosh, I love you so much for so long, you’ve no idea—” 

You can’t recall when your orgasm started cresting. It had just built slowly like one of those soda bottles that used to explode in Clark’s face randomly, creeping up on you like all this. 

The realization that you are deeply, raptly in love with your best friend. That you want with him what all the people in the movies have—being late for your train because you get coffee together in the mornings; finding sweet, handwritten notes on his fridge, right next to your photobooth strip; passing each other in the hallway like two familiar ships, exchanging an earnest kiss before he runs off to fold the laundry and you to take inventory of the groceries. 

And you want him forever. Yours to kiss. Yours to curl up to when the night gets too cold for even his thick, pillowy duvet, for him to hold you close and mumble his thoughts against your cheek. 

A ruined whine rips through your lungs. You’re so close, teetering on the edge of the precipice. 

He starts the hand holding your hip, dragging it up your side, over your ribcage. Traces the space between your bones, splays his hand wide for a moment between your breasts. Pushes down slightly, and you can feel your own heart leaping to try and touch him. 

Oh. This is proving to be too much for you. 

And then he reaches up to take one of your hands still tugging at his hair, threads his fingers between yours. Holds on tight, grounding. 

Clark kisses your cheek. Chaste and sweet compared to the downright filthy way his cock is sparking the live wire under your skin. 

Locks your eyes with his unfocused ones, and all you see in your smudged, pleasure-sick vision is the way he’s looking at you with something between disbelieving awe and endearment. 

You come with his name already in your mouth and sugar-salt on your tongue. 

He works you through the aftermath, rolling his hips with a gentle, powerful grace as you shiver and sigh brokenly against him. Makes love with a trembling, earnest sincerity, until you’re melting and he’s approaching his orgasm. 

Clark doesn’t slow when he lowers your legs. Your thighs are a little sore, and you’re still rushing with your own high when he holds you tight in his solid, secure arms until your breasts are flattening against his chest. 

It isn’t long until his rhythm is stammering like your poor heart, until he’s following you close over the edge, stuffing a low, warm, quivering moan close to your ear and spilling hot ropes deep into you like this has been his life’s mission all along. 

—

You wake with the moon kissing your back and the AC kicking on. 

Mouth dry, because it somehow found itself open, and there’s a spot of drool crusting on your cheek. You’re hungry, and it’s late by the analog display blinking from the top of the nightstand. 

The clock sits just under a lamp. Familiar, like a second home. Blue-glass shade, tarnished brass. 

And then you remember that this isn’t your apartment. You’re waking up in Clark’s bed, soft sheets pooling around your hips, and he’s done the favor of cleaning you up and putting out an old, threadbare shirt and a pair of shorts at the foot of the bed. 

Crabjoys and college shorts. Of course. 

The door creaks, letting a rectangle of golden-warm light stretch across the floor. 

He’s standing there, in pajamas patterned with little brown cows and glasses hanging off the collar of the worn-thin shirt tight on his biceps and chest, and he’s balancing a little plate with a sliced bagel and condiments you can’t see well. 

His curls are egregiously messed up. The back of his hair sticks up at an odd angle, presumably from your incessant tugging in the throes of pleasure (your stomach warms at the reminder), and his ears are bright red in the dim light. 

Your heart swells for a sigh. There he is. Your best friend. 

“Hi,” he breathes, shuffling into the room. He’s wearing tattered bunny slippers that squeak a little. “Good thing I set a timer on the oven. Could’ve burned our breakfast for dinner.” 

“You spoil me,” you say, sitting up to reach for the shirt. You pull it over your head and he’s there before you when you emerge from the worn cotton, pressing a grateful kiss to your temple. 

“That’s because you're the best thing in the world,” Clark rolls his eyes, smoothing his thumbs over your cheeks. 

He’s so gentle. Intimately familiar. 

You’ve already loved him for a lifetime. 

You wouldn’t mind one more. 

Being a parent has made him hyper aware of other people's judgmental looks. He can feel eyes now on the top of his head and Eddie knows it's that cruel looking blonde woman from the cold cuts aisle who'd tried to lecture him on processed ham.

He picks his head up, words already rehearsed in his head. Lady, if you don't leave me alone I swear to fuck I'm gonna feed her nothing but TV dinners for the rest of her life. She's gonna be a junk food baby and you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

Only It's not the lady. It's a girl.

You wither under his fierce scowl and offer the two oranges in your hand to him unsurely.

"Sorry," you say, shifting forward a half step. "They rolled my way."

He accepts the oranges without talking, which is rude, so rude, but his heads already decided the order of things before his mouth can catch up. Shove the groceries in the bag. Put the bag on the floor. Pick up his kid. Help her calm down.

He hikes Roan onto his hip, rubs her back, and says, "God, I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else."

You visibly relax. Eddie's surprised you didn't turn tail and run.

"Yeah? Do I have a doppelganger?" you ask. You smile in this way that's totally your own, Eddie's never seen someone grin like that before. Maybe a little shy and the shyness is making you awkward, teeth peeking out, you're pretty.

He's shocked at the thought. She's pretty.

Years of womanising (with varying success) kicks in.

"No, God no. She wasn't nearly as pretty as you are, sweetheart."

Roan seems to realise that she's not the object of his whole affection and pulls on his hair. Eddie let's his head yank to the side with a hiss and then a rueful smile. The world skews. You follow his head movement with your own.

"Is that so? I guess you'd know all about pretty," you say, head dipped to your shoulder.

Eddie gets super excited thinking he's actually managed to pull this one off (a fucking impossibility).

You hold your hand out hesitantly and wave. He realises you had not been talking about him.

"You- Oh, yeah. She's lovely, isn't she?"

You beam. "'Lovely,'" you quote. "That's a nice word." Your attention slides to Roan. She basks in it. "Hey, baby. You're just something else, aren't you? You know! You know how pretty you are, don't go shy on me."

Roan goes smiley. Chubby cheeks full of colour, she grins and pulls her dark curls in front of her face. Like father, like daughter.

"What's her name?" you ask.

"Roan. I'm Eddie."

You introduce yourself, bent just slightly to talk directly to Roan. You offer your hand.

When Roan takes it, you shake her tiny hand gently and then rub your thumb over her fingers. "Nice to meet you, princess."

"Hi," she says slowly.

You give her hand a small squeeze and then take a step back, arms moving behind you. "God, she's a pretty baby. And she looks so much like you."

"Yeah?" he asks warmly.

You realise what you've said with a look like you've been struck. After a second, you blink and laugh self-consciously. "Well. It's true."

He's out of the game. He's miles away from the game. But if he doesn't ask you for coffee that's gotta be self sabotage, right? Eddie's trying to find the words when you take a strange breath.

"Listen, I've seen you around and- I know this is weird. Sorry, but you really are- God. Sorry, but do you wanna get coffee? Sometime?" you ask, clunky and awkward.

Eddie's enamoured. He forgets to answer because he can't believe his luck and you take it for something different, adding, "Or not coffee? What does the little lady like?"

He must smile wide enough to split his lip. "Chocolate, mostly."

"Like cake and stuff?"

"Loves it."

You nibble at the inside of your lip as you pull your bag around to your thigh and search inside for a pen. You pull out a leaflet, a Save The Children Pamphlet they pass around outside of the mall and wince as you tear a corner.

He watches you write down your number on the hood of his car. You do it quick, pass it to him quicker.

"You can just call me, let me know when you're free."

"I'm free when you are," he says like a loser. It's not even remotely true. Eddie's never free, but for you he's gonna make it happen.

"How about Thursday?"

Eddie nods. Roan slips down his side and looks between you both like she's watching a tennis match.

"Yeah, Thursday is perfect."

You smile. Eddie takes it all in, everything, your smile and your hair and your clothes and the way your fingers pull at one another. He can't believe you're the nervous one right now. His heart spins like a top in his chest.

"I'm sorry to ask you out and jet, but there's somewhere I gotta be," you say. You sound genuinely apologetic.

"No, of course-"

"But I'll see you on Thrusday. Outside of, um, Morgan's Desserts?"

"Sure, but-"

"Yeah?" you ask.

"I can bring Roan?" he asks.

Your expression softens. "Please. If you don't I'm gonna stand you up."

He laughs abruptly, a shock of it like a firecracker in his chest.

You move like you might leave but then pick up his grocery bag and pass it back it to him. "Bye, princess," you pause to say, looking melted by his daughter's puppy dog eyes, if he does say so himself.

"Bye," she says sweetly.

You nod at him. He nods back.

"Thursday," he calls at your retreating figure. You know, to make sure.

You shoot him a smile over your shoulder.

Roan turns in his hold to stare at his face.

"What?" he asks her.

"Chocolate?" she questions.

"Heard that, did you?" he mutters.

-

Still, he couldn't figure out why you were always at their house. Smurf wasn't good company, obviously, though she tolerated you just barely. Mostly because you kept to yourself. She knew you wouldn't blab to anyone about the Cody's jobs or that you never intended on going against her.

You were just there.

And no one complained, because you were like a fresh breath of air. You smiled and within two minutes you'd have J smiling too. You stayed around a lot, but never for too many days. If you went over, you were there for a long time, but the moment you disappeared, you were gone.

There seemed to be no specific reason for it. You seemed to be just overly concerned that you were being too much and bothering people. He knew you were a lonely girl, but he was also aware that your fear of being too much overpowered your grave sense of loneliness that you were never able to hide.

It was a bad habit of yours, always apologizing, even for existing seemingly. Craig had shot you numerous perplexed looks, never having heard this many sorry come from one person ever. But Pope knew he liked it, enjoying the fact that someone saw him as important enough to feel bad for him, that he was worthy enough to receive the sweetest girl's ever apologies.

Pope on the other hand, hated it. He hated the word sorry, and he especially hated it coming from you.

Whenever you apologized, whether it was accidentally brushing his arm while you were in the kitchen, or speaking, what you thought was, for too long, Pope would shut you down. And he'd always do it in a cold tone, knowing that was the most effective way to stop you completely from ever uttering that word around him again.

He knew his voice would startle you, not expecting Pope who was always kind to you, to speak to you that way.

His plan worked, and you started biting your lip hard the moment the word slipped out. You'd look up panicked, and that would usually be enough for him. He'd shot you a dry look, bored even. And you'd shake your head and mumble, 'I take that back.' and he'd drop the look immediately, resorting to his normal soft look that he always wore around you.

The word didn't completely disappear from your vocabulary, but now you uttered it almost never when he was around, and it made Pope feel less worried about being in your presence.

Everyone adored you and sometimes he hated it. It worried him that everyone felt the same adoration he did for you, that somehow you'd never pay attention to him. Given his brothers were much better at being affectionate, it made him feel like he was behind. Like it was a competition to be your favorite brother, and he was last, not even having started the run, because he didn't know how to. That the moment Craig brought you into the house and introduced you, a starter pistol went off, and everyone started running.

It didn't stop him from seeking you out all the time. Whenever the question 'Where's Pope? popped up, the answer was the same. With you. Always with you.

Mostly, because you followed him around. When he'd reject your offers to sit with you on the couch at parties, you'd get up and follow him.

There the two of you would stand somewhere and observe the party together, both with the same repulsed expression. For him, it was the dirt and the carelessness, for you it was the loudness of it all.

When you caught Pope in front of a dark TV, staring at himself in the reflection, you'd tap his shoulder softly. Just two taps, never wanting to overwhelm him. "My car's making weird sounds," you'd say softly, and he'd get up and help you.

Sometimes you'd tell him something was broken in your home, and he'd drive to your place without a word. You'd always try to drag out his stay, offering him cookies (because you were absolutely terrible at cooking) or offering sodas.

Sometimes, he'd catch you looking around the room nervously, looking for new problems he could fix. So he'd grumble out a "Sink sounded weird earlier," and you'd smile so wide, it was like the sun came out from behind the clouds.

Things like this made him doubt everything.

Maybe you didn't dislike him as much as he thought, maybe he did have the potential to be your favorite brother.

But then he'd watch you light up when Deran would tell you he finally figured out how to make your favorite mocktail. (Obviously, you never had to pay a cent. If not for Deran shaking his head as you handed him money, then it was Pope who paid for everything you ate and drank.)

Even Craig offered to teach you how to surf. The shy expression you always wore around Pope would disappear and your smile would be so radiant Pope wouldn't be able to look away, never having gotten the privilege to see such an open expression from you.

Things like these made Pope doubt everything, consider that maybe the shy expression was just your uncomfortable one, that when you needed help at home, it was simply because you needed help and nothing else.

He knew Deran and Craig were absolutely terrible at fixing things, and he feared that, just like everyone else, you too viewed him as a tool, something to use and throw away. That he was just waiting for the throw-away part, and that it was coming sooner or later.

But he couldn't help but have all his worries vanish into thin air, whenever you decided to grace him with your big thankful eyes and an even wider, dazzling smile.

The first time he felt like too much for you, so much he wanted to run away, was when you joined him in the garage.

You softly knocked against the doorway. "Andrew?" you always said his name so sweetly, it made him want to record it and listen to it like a lullaby until he fell asleep, which didn't happen much these days.

He looked up at you. "You're awake." He furrowed his eyebrows in concern. It was pitch dark outside, and he figured you were asleep in the living room.

You shook your head. "Couldn't sleep." you smiled softly, your eyes telling him to please drop it. He did, turning his head back to what he was working on.

You stepped closer, and he could smell the perfume that he loved so much. Before he knew it, you were towering over him, lightly brushing up against his shoulder. "What are you working on?" you titled your head, staring down at whatever it was you were looking at.

"Part of the car. Stopped working last night," he replied in a low voice, not raising his head, even though he really really wanted to see your pretty face.

You glanced around, spotted what you needed and sat down. You pulled the chair closer to him, setting your elbows on the table in the process. "Mind if I watch you?"

Pope glanced at you, and his eyes darted all over your face, trying to gauge what exactly the point here was. You seemed sincere, so he hummed.

You laid your cheek in your palm and watched him. Your big eyes stared at his hands with so much interest, they started to tremble a bit.

The silence between you was filled with the sound of an owl and the ticking of a broken clock somewhere in the garage.

Five minutes must've passed by now and Pope had never understood until now how silence could be nice even with someone else in it. It wasn't like he couldn't feel your presence. No. He knew you were here, but he enjoyed it. More than enjoy, he craved it. He wanted to stay in this little room forever, hearing nothing but your soft breaths and the sound of you tapping your foot restlessly on the floor.

He didn't hate the silence like when he did with Smurf, who sat with him in silence at breakfast and watched him eat.

No, he loved the feeling of your soft eyes watching him work, knowing he was good at what he did, and that you were admiring him.

"You're not tired?" you asked after a while, careful not to be too loud, not wanting to disturb his work.

"No." When Pope looked up, he met your eyes immediately, like you'd been watching his face rather than his eyes, and your lips lifted into a flustered smile.

Embarrassed, like you'd been caught. He wasn't sure what it was, but he almost felt the need to gloat about it. Sweetest girl he knew was caught staring at him.

Stupid.

He looked away again, almost in shame, because how dare he think that you were admiring him. You were sleepy and he was awake. That's it. Had Craig been out here, you probably would've joined him too. He was nothing special.

"S'nice watching you," You brushed a hand over your face, rubbing your eyes tired.

Pope looked up, because surely he'd misheard, but you shot him a sweet smile, soft hair falling over your shoulders as you rubbed your eyes, hard, again.

People couldn't even stand to utter his name, and you were telling him that he was nice to watch. Like his presence was worth acknowledging. Like it was something good, like his presence wasn't to be feared, like he didn't hear the rumors in town about how people feared the thought of him.

Horrible, awful Pope who hit and hurt people, who made a mess of people and things, of everything.

A kind girl like you liked to watch him in the middle of the night doing things that his brothers called weird, made them shake their heads as they looked away in disappointment and shame, wishing they'd had a normal brother, one more like them.

He must've stayed quiet for too long, because you froze. "Sorry, did—did I say something wrong?" nervously, you toyed with your heart necklace.

"No—No you didn't." Pope shook his head quickly, eyes darting back down to his car part. His fingers twitched nervously. "You should try to sleep." And he could sense he'd said the wrong thing, because your eyes widened for a second, and worry overtook your face.

"Oh—right, yeah you're right." Stumbling over your words nervously, you stood up, and Pope regretted it.

He hadn't meant this. He was just trying to tell you that he appreciated your kindness, but surely he wasn't that interesting. "I meant— it's not healthy to stay awake," he managed out, eyes darting back up to your face and back down. "It's not good for you." he managed out nervously.

You looked down at him, and you stood there for a bit, before sitting back down slowly, understanding he didn't want you to go. "Yeah— I know." You toyed with a bolt on the table, rolling it in between fingers before you looked back at Pope who was still watching you. "Craig keeps yelling in his room about his video game, and Smurfs still awake by the Pool." You dropped the bolt. "It's distracting."

"You can sleep in my room," Pope said, and given your reaction, it wasn't exactly something you expected him to say. But it made sense to him. "You can't hear Craig in there."

You stared at him, your eyes wide, making them bigger than they already were. "You want me to sleep in your room?"

Pope wasn't sure what was so confusing. It wasn't like his room was bad. Sure, it was a bit empty, but he took care of it, it was clean. He pushed the car part away, getting up from his chair. "I'll get you new bed sheets," and then he just walked out of the garage. You stood in the empty garage, mouth open, before you scrambled to follow him.

To your luck, Smurf was fast asleep, bottles of alcohol next to her, and you hurried to follow Pope. Inside, he led you to his room, grabbing clean bed sheets out of one of the closets in the hallway, before walking into his room.

You stood in the doorway watching Pope fix the bed for you. Were you dreaming? Was Pope actually fixing his bed for you?

You looked down and pinched your skin. "Ouch." you muttered to yourself. Not a dream, officially and definitely not a dream.

Pope turned his head to you. "You need pajamas?" he asked, but you shook your head.

You never took, unless you were outright suffering and Pope's eyes slowly darted down to the goosebumps across your skin, which were visible even with just two night lights on.

You were wearing a simple white lace tank top and California nights weren't exactly known for their heat. Even Smurf outside, was sleeping with at least two blankets. He turned, opened a drawer and grabbed a hoodie. When he handed it to you, you didn't take it.

"Is that yours?"

Pope nodded, almost worried. "I—You can have one of Deran's if you want."

"Nope, I—I'd like yours." you managed, grabbing the hoodie and letting it swallow you whole. It was warm, and it smelled nice, so very nice. You couldn't help the way your head just lowered a tiny bit, letting yourself smell how nice Pope's scent was.

Pope had already looked away the sight too much, and was now awkwardly staring down at the bed, fingers twitching nervously at his sides. "Okay, have— have a good night."

In all of your years of living, you'd never been this bold before. You weren't even sure what overcame you. Your hand reached out, and you grabbed Pope's bicep lightly before he walked past you.

You felt him freeze up, eyes locked onto your hand around his bicep, and you had to resist the urge to squeeze, to test how really hard and warm his bicep was. "Will—" you bit your lip, already regretting starting the sentence. "Don't you wanna sleep?"

"I have to work." His eyes flickered back down to your soft hands around his bicep.

You had pink polish on with brown polka dots. It was sweet. He'd seen you paint them once, you'd even helped Lena with hers. Lena had been so happy, and hadn't stopped talking about you the entire afternoon after you'd gone home. He had been glad to know that someone else felt about you the way he did.

You dropped your hand, disappointment flickering across your face. Pope's eyes darted around your face, noting how close you were but also how you were still trying to find your words. He waited.

"I'd like you to stay," you phrased it so sweetly, the way you always did, but for the first time you told him what you wanted. There was no if it's okay with you, you don't have to, no it's okay.

No, you straight up wanted something from him and God would he be stupid if he said no to you.

His eyes darted back to the bed and his eyes stayed there for a while, thinking. "I have to turn off the lights in the garage."

"I'll wait here!" You looked like you were about to start bouncing up and down from excitement.

Pope watched you for a second before turning and walking down the hallway, wondering what on earth led him to commit to this.

Meanwhile, you were in disbelief, palm to your mouth, as you muttered. "Oh my god. Oh my god." Oh my god, you were going to die. You glanced at the bed, deciding to get in now, before you were stuck in the awkward moment of having to argue with him about what side to take.

You pushed back Popes clean blue covers, slowly settling down in bed, and god was it was warm and soft. And it smelled nice.

You pulled the hoodie sleeves down over your wrists, nervously squeezing your eyes shut. You couldn't believe he'd agreed to this.

Pope walked back slowly, boots thudding on the floor until he stood in the doorway looking at the top of your head. Not to seem like a creep, he didn't linger, quickly stepping in. He could feel your pretty eyes watching him as he grabbed a set of fresh boxers, shirt and a towel.

"Gonna take a shower, won't take long," he said, barely looking at you. The sight was too much for him to handle.

"Okay," you said softly, eyes following him until he was in his bathroom.

You passed the time by opening every drawer of his, checking out what he had in there. Barely anything. You sighed, Pope wasn't much of a talker, so you'd hoped you'd find out more about him in his room.

He wasn't joking when he said he wouldn't take long, because just as you were checking out his bottom drawer, he showed up. You shut the drawer with the loudest bang! possible before scrambling back into a horizontal position, embarrassed.

Pope's eyes darted down to the drawer before lifting to your embarrassed expression. He was more endeared by anything. Any other person and he would've gotten suspicious, but you were toying with his sheets nervously, avoiding his eyes, and he knew you'd just been curious.

He'd caught you walking around the house, staring at every picture more than once. He was more than aware of your curious nature.

He brushed a hand through his curls as he walked to his side of the bed, and you lifted the sheets for him.

You somehow managed to still surprise him with your small sweet gestures. He'd lived his whole life in Oceanside, and with his reputation, people had stopped granting him kindness, even as simple as receiving a thank you.

He felt so endlessly grateful that one person on this earth was able to be kind to him, that maybe he wasn't as evil as he thought, that there was a chance for him. That if someone like you looked at someone like him and thought he was worth it, worth spending your time and sweetness on, he might actually have a chance in life.

He slipped under the sheets, and you dropped them, making the warmth hit him all at once. He liked to sleep on his side looking at the wall, but it felt almost insane to miss out on seeing your pretty face all night, so he stayed on his back, view narrowing to the ceiling.

You, on the other hand, turned to your side, palm under your cheek. "Your bed's soft." You whispered, and he turned his head to you, eyes darting away shyly when he noticed your intense stare. He figured his bed was nice enough, almost relieved it was up to your standards. He'd been worried in the shower that you'd make some excuse, and he'd come out, looking like a wet puppy, to an empty bed.

"What?" he asked after he felt you stare for a little more.

"Your curls are nice," you whispered. "Always wanted to tell you that, but was too scared."

"Of me?" It just slipped out of Pope's mouth. He didn't want to know the answer to that question.

"What? No." Confusion was written all over your face, your lips curling into a frown. "I'm just— it's a weird thing to say. That's all."

Pope stared at you. Not scared of him. You weren't scared of him. ’S'not weird." He held your stare for a while until his nervousness overtook his entire body, leading him to glance away again, eyes focusing back on the white canvas above him.

"Thanks for dinner tonight."

Smurf hadn't been up for it for some reason and Deran or Craig didn't care, so Pope had made food just for you. You hadn't even told asked, and maybe that's why he made it, because he knew you never would.

He turned his head, happy you were giving him an excuse to look at you. "D'you like it?"

"Loved it." you smiled softly. "You could be a professional cook."

Pope's mouth almost lifted into a smile at that, but then you scooted closer, and he froze up. His arm, which had been resting on the side of the bed, almost touching your stomach now. You were so close, he could see how pretty your eyes were up close.

They had always been his favorite part about you. When Craig had first introduced you, Pope knew his brother had warned you about him, told you he was crazy and weird. His brothers did that with everyone they brought to the house, and their friends would always eye him weirdly, and he'd never be given the chance to show them that he was capable of kindness. That he could be as normal as they wanted him to be.

But you, you, had smiled, lifted your hand in a wave and looked at him in a way that no one had looked at him in years. Soft, kind, and open-minded.

He stared at you, and you stared back, and then you slowly lifted your hand.

"Can I—?" you whispered softly, and he was startled by the fact that you asked, so he nodded.

People never asked before they touched him. The only touches he received were involuntary ones from Smurf, or punches from his brothers and strangers. Never ones from sweet girls that asked before they settled their hand softly at his temple, toying with one of his curls.

The bottom half of your hand touched his cheekbones, and you brushed over his hair, thumb catching in a curl. He watched you, eyes big, before finally turning to his side, deciding that he'd make it easier for you.

He saw the smile you suppressed, absolutely delighted that he was so open to you touching him.

He took a second to absorb and analyze the expression. His hazel eyes darting all over your face, looking for any lie, that this was just a game to you. That maybe you'll look at him in the morning with pity in your eyes. But your eyes were glowing, and even with his insecurities choking him when he was with you, he could tell that no lie was in your eyes.

"They're wet," he provided you with the most unnecessary information, already wanting to smack himself for pointing out such an obvious thing.

You just hummed, too distracted to be touching his hair to focus on his awkwardness. You looped a curl around a finger, thumb brushing right above his eyebrow.

Your eyebrows were furrowed like you were studying his hair, but he knew you weren't as relaxed as you seemed. Your breath was going quicker, he could feel it against his face. He could smell your perfume, something floral and vanilla and felt the need to press his face into your hair and just stay there.

Your eyes traveled back to his face, and you observed him, before your hands went back down to his bicep. "You can relax," you whispered. "I won't do anything you don't want me to."

Pope stared at you, hazel eyes wide, never once leaving your face. "You have to sleep too."

"I will." Your hand already back in his curls. He let the feeling of your warm hands overtake every other feeling. Every sense of fear, insecurity and worry.

As much as he knew you wanted him to, he couldn't sleep. Whether it was because of his nightmares or because of you being here, he wasn't sure. His eyes continued to track your face, and it didn't take you long before you let your hand drift from his hair to his cheek, brushing your thumb lightly over his cheekbone one first and last time, before dropping it back in between you.

Your eyelashes fluttered lightly like a good night to him before you closed your eyes. Pope let himself watch you, let himself feel the phantom feeling of your hands. Your perfume continued to linger, and he wished his room would absorb it forever, that every time he walked in, he'd smell your perfume. He knew his bed would smell like you for at least the next couple of days now, and he hoped so desperately that the next time you came over to the house, you'd sleep in his bed.

If he wasn’t saving lives in the ER, he was risking his own. It doesn’t matter that you’ve knelt in front of him, the hardwood cool and unforgiving, as you pleaded for him to take a day off. Just one. 

There is always something. A colleague who has children and needs that day to take them to Disneyland. Or a patient who only trusts him. A shift he just has to cover.  

You’ve heard nearly every excuse possible and smiled like it didn’t matter, like you didn’t matter, because maybe you didn’t. 

When you and Jack first started dating, he warned you that surgeons are the worst kinds of doctors to date because of their pretentiousness. He seemed to have forgotten to mention that ER doctors came in second on that list. 

It wasn’t the desire for fame or hubris that made Jack so careless about your feelings. It was his devotion to everyone but you. 

Sure, he’d kiss you and make you feel special—on a day when he could afford it. When he wasn’t chasing the high of being needed by strangers who’d maybe not even remember his name once he had saved them. 

You know the placement of every freckle on his body, and still, it doesn’t change anything. 

The third glass of wine doesn’t taste as bitter as the first. You don’t particularly like this brand or year or anything about it—you just know that Jack had bought it for today, back when he was still telling himself that he’d be home to celebrate with you. 

As the cap of the bottle dances between your fingers, the metal now warm from your body heat, you glance at the clock. 

Three hours and twelve minutes.

God, you’re a fucking loser. 

Maybe it would be a different story if you were married. Maybe you could forgive yourself for your desperation, your constant attempts to convince yourself you mattered to him as much as he mattered to you. If there were a little bit of proof of his commitment, you’d be able to look into the mirror without feeling sick with shame. 

But there is no ring on your finger or the promise that one will come one day. Jack doesn’t want to get married again. He says you two don’t need that. 

Three hours, thirteen minutes. 

You slosh the wine in your mouth while the darkest of thoughts creep in. It’s just a little fantasy you’ve curated and perfected over the years, and it’s an insane one, but you love to lose yourself in it every now and then. 

Jack comes home. The house is quiet. Too quiet. Goosebumps creep up his arms and neck as he calls out your name. When no answer comes, he runs up the stairs and finds the bathroom door ajar. Light seeps out under it, along with a small pool of water tainted light pink. 

Fine. You’re a little melodramatic. Maybe Jack’s neglect has driven you to regress into your teenage self who also fantasized about this whenever her dad yelled at her. 

Once the fourth hour starts, the wine bottle is empty, and you’re so drunk it feels like time has stopped. The tears certainly have. They’ve been replaced by this hollow laugh that echoes through the house while you watch the trashiest TV show you could find. 

While the alcohol courses through your veins, your eyes zero in on the women’s lip and cheek fillers. It stands out to you like black ink on white paper. 

You wish Jack would’ve been a plastic surgeon instead. You wouldn’t care that he sees women’s naked breasts and gives BBLs on a daily basis if that meant that he was home in time for dinner. 

Once you stand up to get a new bottle, you feel all the blood rushing to your head. Your legs are unsteady, and your forehead and nose feel so heavy, like they’re pulling you forward. 

You find out just how firm the fridge is when you knock against it. 

It’s not like you feel it anyway. 

The next bottle of wine is closed with a cork stopper. You’ve seen Jack open this kind of bottle with that metal apparatus that looks like you could find it in a gynecologist’s office. You have no idea how to use it. So you take a knife and start hacking away. You only miss your fingers by pure, dumb luck. 

That luck runs out when you try to pop out the cork stopper by hitting the bottom of the wine against the kitchen counter. 

What used to be the bottle is now a bunch of shards and a cold, wet feeling seeping through your socks. 

You laugh hysterically and drop to your knees, not half as careful as you should be. Something pierces your big toe, but you don’t care. 

The front door opens. Jack steps inside. And his eyes widen. If anything, Jack has always had one hell of a timing.

You’re a fucking mess. 

“Jackie,” you slur. 

You try to get up, but your muscles protest. 

“Jesus, what the fuck?” he hisses. 

He is by your side in an instant, stepping over the glass carefully. It crunches underneath his boots when he picks you up by your underarms and puts you down on the counter. 

“Baby, what the fuck happened?”

You giggle. You fucking love it when he calls you baby. 

“Oopsie,” you whisper. 

Jack stares at you with disbelief. His fingers catch your chin, forcing your eyes to meet his.  For a second, his mouth opens, and you await the lecture that never comes. Instead, his eyes dart over your face, taking it all in—the smeared makeup, the heat radiating from your cheeks, the glassy, far-away look. 

“Are you drunk?” he asks, his voice trembling slightly. 

You try to bite back a smile as you reply, “As a skunk.”

He lets go of your chin and takes a step back, running a hand through his hair.  You let yourself slide off the counter, trying to close the distance again. 

“Stop,” Jack yells.  His arm snaps forward, pushing you back. For a moment, you stumble. Your back hits the counter, and you look up at Jack with a hurt expression. Then your eyes follow his, and you realize that you almost stepped into the glass. A stupid smile spreads over your face.

Jack’s expression falls. 

“Hey,” he says sharply. “What the fuck is wrong with you? What are you doing, huh?”

He grabs you by your biceps and pulls you away from the sharp mess on the floor. You only feel the closeness as his fingers dig into your skin. 

“I missed you today,” you murmur dreamily.  Even to you, your own voice sounds far away. Or maybe only to you? You can’t tell. 

Jack stares at you, his eyes searching for something. Anything. 

“Talk to me,” he demands. “What is going on? Why are you wasted on a fucking Thursday?”

Oh, that one blows.  On a Thursday. Yes, a random Thursday.

You giggle so hard your throat hurts. 

“You’re never gonna believe this, but—” As you pause dramatically, Jack’s eyebrow twitches, “—it’s kinda an important Thursday. Like… really important.”

It’s almost visible how the wheels in Jack’s head start turning. They spark, creak, and squeak as he searches for the answer that’s written all over your face in the runny mascara and that look bordering on insanity. 

 His face falls when the wheels come to a stop.

“Fuck,” he whispers. 

As his eyes dart to the calendar pinned to the fridge, you feel your stomach turning. 

“Yeah,” you say.  Your mouth feels dry now, and nothing’s quite as funny anymore.

Jack looks at you, but you don’t meet his eyes. 

“I’m sorry.” You believe him. That’s the worst part. But it doesn’t matter how sorry he is, because you’re sorrier. To the little girl you once were who thought she’d be happier than her parents ever got to be.

You shift your weight and wince softly. 

Jack’s eyes widen.

“Are you hurt?” he asks.  His voice comes out rough. 

“No,” you murmur. 

Jack pats you down anyway, his hands searching alongside his eyes as he inspects your legs. At the end, he finds a small shard of glass stuck in your big toe.  You're holding onto Jack’s head as he looks at your foot. His ears have grown red. 

“You are hurt,” he mumbles. “I—Lemme…”

Torn between another apology and his worry, Jack picks you up. His arms slide under your back and your knees. The room tilts dangerously—you had almost forgotten that the contents of an entire wine bottle were coursing through your veins. 

“Rollercoaster,” you whisper.

He shushes you as he carries you to the upstairs bathroom where you keep the first aid kit.  The bright, white light flickers to life and hurts your eyes, making you groan. Jack only glances at you with more concern before he sets you down on the bathroom counter. 

“Hold still,” he instructs.  His arms keep you in place for a few seconds, like he is trying to show your body how to keep balance. “Don’t fall, please,” he adds, a little gentler. 

Then he crouches down, grunting a little as his knee pops. Somewhere through the haze of the wine, you remember that he just worked for sixteen hours. But then again, it’s your anniversary, and your empathy for his exhaustion is outweighed by your own misery. By far.

 He finds the first aid kit and takes a pair of tweezers before he catches your foot with his other hand. 

“It’s not too deep,” he says quietly. “Maybe that’s why you didn’t feel it until you moved.”

Yeah, you think to yourself, that’s definitely why. 

“Spoken like the doctor you are,” you answer. 

Jack looks up at you for a second, his lips pressed together. He murmurs something you don’t quite catch and then pulls out the shard.

You gasp as the pain shoots from your toe to your knee and pulls up high into your hip. 

“Ow, what the—?” you hiss. 

Jack keeps your leg still and rubs your shin slightly.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. 

“Not for that.”

The air in the room grows cold.  Jack straightens up, and his knee pops again. 

“I’m sorry for today, too,” he begins.  He doesn’t get very far because you immediately hold up your hand. 

“No,” you bite out sharply.

For a few seconds, you just sit on the counter, your legs swinging slightly. Jack watches, fumbling with his fingers as he searches your face. 

“Can I clean your cut, please?” he asks.  You shake your head vehemently. 

“It could get infected if I don’t,” he retorts.

You open your mouth to argue, but the words don’t come out. Instead, a wave of nausea hits you. 

“’m gonna be sick,” you mumble. 

Jack’s eyes widen before his hands land on your waist.  He half-carries, half-drags you to the toilet and makes it just in time as the wine comes back up, tasting ten times as bad as it did when it went down. 

“Shit, baby,” Jack curses. He gathers as much of your hair as he can save and rubs your back as you throw up once, then twice. 

It’s all liquid, too, because you haven’t eaten in a few hours—you were planning on having a big dinner with your boyfriend after all, as one does on their anniversary.  As your stomach cramps, you think about the muffins that you ordered, lemon batter and raspberry icing. 

The third time your tummy revolts, it’s just dry-heaving. 

Spit dribbles down your chin, and your hands tremble. You’re somehow sweating and shaking simultaneously. Jack whispers and shushes, but you don’t want his comfort. You want to keep drinking until you pass out. 

“Leave me alone,” you murmur, your hands flailing weakly. 

“And let you knock yourself unconscious? No, thank you,” he replies. “You’re so fucking drunk, you’re lucky you haven’t given yourself alcohol poisoning.” It’s clear he’s aiming for dry and sarcastic, but you hear the fear in his voice. 

“Get out,” you rasp. Your throat might as well be on fire.

“No,” he snaps. 

“You don’t care if I crack my head open,” you accuse. 

His grip on your arm tightens. “Hey,” he says sharply, “That’s not true. I care very much.”

You groan and rest your chin on the toilet seat as your head begins to spin again. 

“Then why are you never here?”

The silence that follows is only broken by your renewed retching. 

Once you’ve emptied your stomach, Jack leaves you by yourself on the bathroom tiles for a few seconds. His eyes keep flickering back to you as he turns on the shower, testing its warmth with the tips of his fingers. 

He returns to your side and flushes the toilet for you. 

“Can you stand?” he asks.  You’re surprised at just how soft his voice is. 

You shake your head. He doesn’t sigh. 

Instead, he nods quietly and maneuvers you against the wall. 

“Put your arms up, baby,” he instructs quietly. 

Piece by piece, he removes your clothes. You feel how his fingers tremble as he unhooks the clasps of your new bra, all black lace and clearly bought for today.  Once you’re down to nothing, he starts undressing, too. He leans his prosthetic against the wall and then manages to get both of you in the shower. 

The tiles are cold underneath you, but the warm spray from above keeps you quiet. Jack doesn’t say anything as he sits next to you, his grey curls slowly growing darker as the water hits. He doesn’t reach for you either, but his knee presses against yours. 

“You love me?” you whisper. 

Jack braces next to you. You feel the tension travel up from where his leg touches yours. 

“I do,” he murmurs. 

You swallow hard. “Then why do you never choose me?”

“Uhm.” You pause halfway to putting on your second sock, trying to blink through the brain fog and connect with your stomach, which quickly sours in response- “Neither, I think. Maybe some water.”

Eddie’s rings click against the wood of the doorframe as he taps in acknowledgement. When he turns to leave for the kitchen, you catch a glimpse of bare torso, grey sweatpants slung around bony, boxer-less hips.

Slut, you think, fondly, pulling on your soft sock the rest of the way and padding out into the living room.

The record player in the corner is calling your name, so you kneel to flip through the milk carton stuffed full of yours and Eddie’s combined collection.

“Nothing maudlin,” Eddie calls from the attached kitchen, cabinets banging shut in punctuation. “We have a strict No Wallowing After Bad Sex rule in this house and we’re goddamn sticking to it.”

“Apartment,” you amend, ignoring his instruction and pulling Blue from its sheath. “And wallowing can be therapeutic, y’know.”

With the drop of a needle, Joni Mitchell starts crooning about traveling a lonely road, and Eddie sighs, long and deep, a mirror of yours from earlier.

There’s a clinking of porcelain on glass, and you turn to watch as Eddie sets out bowls of snacks and tall glasses of water- one of them iced the way you like- onto the coffee table.

“Eat up. The midday meal of champs- or losers, depending on your preference.” He collapses with a dramatic huff against the couch, then leans over to dig around in the bowl of Bugles.

I wanna be strong, I wanna laugh along, I wanna belong to the living…

You crawl the short distance it takes to settle your back against the couch, side pressed into Eddie’s leg. There’s an acidic taste at the back of your throat, a mixture of Adam’s release and your own sickened stomach in a nauseating combination; you sip at the cold water, attempting to wash the taste away.

“Here. Doctor’s orders.” Eddie’s hand comes into view- each finger topped with a curved chip.

A giggle works its way out as you tilt your head to pull a Bugle off his finger with your teeth, crunching into the familiar corn flavor- it certainly works to get the lingering taste of shame out of your mouth.

“Don’t get used to seeing Margaret around, by the way- sounds like she’s gonna patch things up with her boyfriend.” Eddie’s hand draws back, a subsequent crunching noise before he speaks around a mouthful of chips- “I know you’ll miss all those scintillating hallway conversations.”

You snort, unsure if he’s referring to the fact that you’ve snooped via ear-pressed-to-door whenever they used to argue, or the handful of times that you and Margaret have politely and coolly interacted due to the one-bathroom setup.

“Well, good for her.” Unable to keep the irritation out of your voice (on Eddie’s behalf, since you’re such good friends and it’s hard to see him treated this way, not because you’re jealous), you dig into the snack bowl, fishing for an Oreo. “Hope Margaret and her weirdo on-and-off again boyfriend with that pedo mustache are very happy together.”

Eddie laughs, a melodic, genuine one that has him doubling over to bump playfully into your side. “Goddammit. That Ed Rooney-looking motherfucker…”

The bite of Oreo goes down smooth and sweet; you lick at the crumbs left behind on your thumb before saying, “And, lucky for our bathroom usage, Adam won’t be around anymore either.”

Eddie groans. “I think that guy uses more hair product than me and Harrington combined, and that’s saying something.”

He seems pleased when you chuckle, taking the warmth of his body previously pressed into your side away as he settles back into the couch. “What was wrong with this one, couldn’t get your rocks off with Ol’ Mister Hairspray?”

“Got my rocks off just fine, thank you very much,” you say, faux-primly, focusing your attention on the glass of water in front of you.

Condensation slips down the side. Your voice gains a gravelly tone that feels dangerously close to preceding tears when you say,  “I just… every time we hook up, I end up feeling lonelier than ever afterwards. And I’m kinda sick of it.”

Do you see, do you see, do you see how you hurt me, baby? So I hurt you too, then we both get so blue…

Eddie’s warm palm (not the one covered in Bugle crumbs) comes to rest on your shoulder, thumb digging gently but firm into the tense muscle at the nape of your neck. A hum purrs from your throat, eyes shutting involuntarily as he manages to zero in on the spot that needs the most care.

 “C’mere,” Eddie says, softly, hand sliding off and away as you unfold your limbs to stand. Once you’re sharing the couch cushion, he goes to pull you in closer but stops when he sees you bite back a smile- “What?”

“Your hair is… insane. In the back. If you haven’t noticed- wait!”

Eddie’s hand freezes halfway to his head with your alert, and you knock it out of the air, chastising- “Gonna have a head full of Bugle crumbs. Let me.”

“Bugle Head. New band name, I call it.” Eddie’s eyes are half-lidded, reminiscent of a cat getting groomed as you smooth down the out-of-place strands, hands cradling the back of his skull briefly before you pull away.

“Didn’t even bother looking in the mirror after going at it like rabbits with your not-girlfriend?” You accentuate your tease with a solid finger-poke to his bare ribs.

Eddie’s hands drop to your waist, pinch just-shy of mean against your hips. “Watch it, pot. And this kettle’s not fucking like a rabbit… more like a semi-interested turtle. With a semi-”

He gets shoved, for that comment, but drops down flat on the couch a bit too easily, pulling you with him.

With your ear pressed to Eddie’s chest, you can hear the whooshing of his blood, the steady thump of it against your cheek. He slips an arm around your lower back while yours encircle his torso, his sweatpantsed-legs twining with your bare ones.

“Why do we keep sleeping with such losers?” you muse aloud, breath unconsciously stalling to match Eddie’s much slower rhythm.

“Dunno.” His hand strokes down the length of your back, likely covering you in snack crumbs, but you find you don’t really mind right now. “Glad I have you to commiserate with, though. They say not all who wander are lost…”

You frown against the smooth skin below your cheek, sensing a trap. “…is that a Tolkein reference?”

“Nope. Shakespeare. Hamlet, if I recall correctly.”

He lets you laugh into his chest, squeezing gently at the soft flesh of your upper arm, like he’s trying to hold on to you and the moment at the same time.

You settle, again, breaths joining again. Joni croons on.

Wanna write you a love letter, I wanna make you feel better, I wanna make you feel free…

___

He feels the burn up the sides of his neck to his ears as he stammers, clamoring to put his bag down and straighten out his suit. You look nice today, he notes. You look nice every day, even as you stand before him, scowling. All he can think about is how pretty you look and how mesmerizing the red of your lipstick is.

“Y-yeah, sorry,” he finally apologizes, snapping to as he realizes you were waiting for him to respond. “The fight with Superman this morning ended up shutting down the A-Line, so I had to walk.”

You don’t even try to disguise the way your eyes roll at his excuse. “Superman, of course,” you mutter under your breath before raising the manila folder you were holding. “Here are the edits for the article you gave me yesterday, and remember, you still owe me the draft for the Crane case.”

“Geez, let the guy breathe for a second before jumping down his throat as soon as he gets in,” Jimmy Olsen comments with a grin as he saunters over, grabbing another cup from the holder on Clark’s desk. He pats Clark on the shoulder with a faint ‘thanks, man’ all the while pretending you’re not glaring daggers at him as he falls into his chair, sipping happily on his coffee.

You point the folder at Clark, who stands there awkwardly as you turn your fury to Jimmy. “He wouldn’t need a chance to breathe if he got here on time like the rest of us,” you fume. Jimmy holds his hands up in surrender, sending a sympathetic smile to Clark before ducking his head and turning back around to face his monitor. As much as Jimmy loves Clark, he was not going to put himself in front of your wrath for him.

When you turn back to Clark, he at least has the decency to look apologetic, hunched in a way to make himself appear smaller, and the corners of his lips pulled into a remorseful smile. You curse his dimples silently in your mind. “I was hoping getting you a coffee might soften the blow of me being late… again.”

You look down at the two remaining cups and see your name written in Clark’s chicken scratch handwriting with a wobbly smiley face drawn next to it. The sticker with the order on it displaying that he’d gotten you your favorite from the shop down the road that you loved to go to whenever you managed to pull yourself away from your desk for longer than ten minutes. That is to say that it is a luxury around here.

Your eyes narrow and lips purse for just a moment before you shove the folder into his chest, and he scrambles to catch it before it hits the ground. “I’m serious, you better have it to me by six P.M., Perry has been on my ass about it,” you assert before plucking your coffee from his desk and turning to walk back to the editor block, the click of your heels like a siren song that has his eyes following after you trailing up your form before settling on your plush backside before he realizes what he’s doing and looks away quickly, suddenly very interested in the broken ceiling tile above his desk.

He hears a snort of laughter and glances back over at Jimmy, who is not even attempting to hide his shit-eating grin. “What?” Clark asks.

Jimmy shakes his head in disbelief. “Dude, you have it so bad.” Clark dares to look confused as to what Jimmy is referring to. He motions to you and Clark can’t help but to sneak another peek at you as you’re stopped in the middle of the bullpen talking to one of the summer interns, the stern brow you’d had with him has softened as you’re inevitably explaining something you have already gone over at least twice with her before with far more patience than you ever afforded Clark.

Clark doesn’t even realize the dopey smile that works its way onto his face as he stares until Jimmy snaps his fingers. “Yeah, see! That!” He points at Clark’s face, which has now settled into what could only be described as a pout.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clark insists.

Jimmy groans as he spins in his chair. “Just ask her out already, the worst thing she could say is ‘no’.”

Clark’s brows furrow. “Actually, the worst thing she could say is ‘you’ll be hearing from HR’.”

Lois rolls out from behind her desk, looking a bit more chipper than five minutes prior, cup of coffee still securely in her hand. “Fired for sexual misconduct would look really bad with future employers,” she teases.

Clark gives her an exasperated look, and Jimmy waves his hand at both of them dismissively. “I’m telling you, there’s no way she’d say no or report you to HR.”

“Jimmy, I hate to break it to you, but she cannot stand Clark,” Lois informs.

“Yeah, she can’t—” He whirls around to look at Lois, a distraught look on his face. “What do you mean she can’t stand me?”

“Clark, you’re always submitting drafts to her late —” “Yeah, because I get really nervous and end up re-writing it like five times before I give it to her.” “— You’re also always showing up late for work—” “I can’t help if the city is attacked and an entire subway line gets shut down!”

Lois gives him a sharp look, and he swallows, something unspoken between them that Jimmy at least doesn’t pick up on.

“Listen, some women just aren’t impressed with the whole… naïve farm boy vibe you got going on,” Lois finishes with a shrug. “Don’t take it so personally.”

Clark looks to Jimmy for some backup, and luckily, the redhead takes pity on poor Clark, coming to his friend’s rescue. “Lois, I respect your opinion on this matter as a woman, but trust me, she may seem like she’s not impressed, but—”

“Oh, don’t even give me that she’s playing hard to get spiel,” Lois rolls her eyes with a disbelieving smile on her face.

“—But, I think she’s playing hard to get.”

“Oh my god, you’re both HR violations waiting to happen,” she chides before taking another sip of her coffee.

“Aw, c’mon, look, you made him sad.” Jimmy gestures to a very downtrodden Clark, who is simply staring in the general direction where you had disappeared back into the editor block with a visible frown on his face.

Guilt creeps up Lois’s spine, and she sighs. “Listen, if you really like her, then just ask her out already and spare us having to endure the puppy dog looks.”

“There ya have it,” Jimmy nods. “Lois Lane approved office romance.”

Lois lets out a bark of laughter as she and Jimmy dive into their own conversation, leaving Clark to his thoughts. He drops into his seat, starting to look over the edits you’d handed him. The amount of markups on the page doesn’t even surprise him. Bright blue ink scratches out entire segments of sentences, circling others, neat handwriting tucked into the margins explaining each cut and need for clarification.

The first article you edited for him had been even worse. There was more blue penned onto the page than black printed ink. You had torn his article into shreds, the one he had shyly placed into the tray on your desk after he had tried to email it to you, only to be told you only accepted printed copies of drafts, something none of the other editors requested.

(Lois would later tell him that you preferred having something physical in your hands when you edited, and she’d made the same mistake in her first week)

He had been so proud of that article when he’d handed it over. Less so when you’d given the folder back to him with nothing more than a raised eyebrow before walking back to your desk, it took all of five minutes before he’d shown up in front of you, the marked-up draft crinkled nervously between his hands, clearly upset by the sheer amount of edits.

You had stared at him, unblinking, as he stammered all over himself, waiting until he talked himself into an awkward silence before saying anything. Dealing with uppity journalists who took personal offense to edits was nothing new to you. “If you don’t make the edits, then I won’t approve it and it won’t go to print,” you’d said simply. “Unless you’d like to make an argument for the run-on sentences?”

There wasn’t any malice in your voice, and that was the moment Clark realized it wasn’t personal, it was just your job, and you were not just good, but great at your job. He must have been as red as a tomato by the time he turned and fled back to his desk with his tail tucked between his legs.

He made the edits, and when Perry walked by his desk the next day, he was complimented on the pacing and tone of the piece. It didn’t make the front page… not even second or third, but it was his first article in the Daily Planet.

You had even smiled at him and congratulated him on his first article when you were making your rounds that morning.

That was where this inconceivably tiny, bite-sized crush started.

Because even when you shredded his article into pieces, his heart sang at the tiny compliments left in the margins.

‘Good pacing here.’

‘This passage really shines.’

‘Beautiful.’

And of course, it doesn’t help that you are pretty. Walking around the office with your face done up and hair perfectly styled in outfits he doesn’t think he has seen a repeat of since starting here almost three years ago. He always feels like a mess in front of you, especially when he comes in late (which is often) and sees you standing there, arms crossed, looking like you want to go up one side of him and down the other (which you have before).

There is also the fact that you hate Superman.

Well, maybe hate isn’t the right word.

Strongly disapprove of?

He remembers the first time a clip of Superman played while you all had gathered in the newsroom. When everyone else was oohing and ahhing at Superman’s heroics (which Clark may or may not have been preening a bit at), you stood there, sipping at your overly expensive coffee with such an unimpressed look.

“Just what we need, another jackass in tights wandering around.”

Clark deflated at that.

While you never explicitly said you disliked his caped alter ego, you definitely never had anything kind to say either. The articles he submitted to you about Superman? If he had gotten those edits when he was a freshman in high school writing for the Smallville High newspaper, he would’ve never written another article again.

Entire paragraphs marked for deletion or simply ‘TONE’ in all caps next to specific passages. The worst had been when you crossed out a sentence and just put ‘No’ next to it in the margins.

“It’s a feature, not an op-ed, Kent.”

It was brutal. Even Lois couldn’t help the grimace whenever she happened to catch sight of those drafts, her and Jimmy saluting Clark when they knew he was walking over to the editor block to submit a Superman article to you.

Despite that, he looked forward to seeing you every day. You had become the person he looks for the moment he enters a room, without him even realizing it.

So much about you and the way you move through the world has been noted and categorized by Clark.

He loved the moments when he caught you while editing, two or three pens stuck in your up-do because you kept forgetting you’d placed them there and grabbed a new one each time, chewing on your bottom lip as you carefully marked up whatever draft you were working on.

He loved how you took care of the people around you in your own, sometimes standoffish, way.

“Have you eaten?” You’d asked him one day, his second year of working at the Planet. It was late, and it was just you two and a handful of others in the office working towards deadlines that were creeping far too close for comfort. He’d been having the hardest time with the beat Perry had assigned him and had worked through his lunch and any subsequent breaks.

“O-oh, I don’t really have money to order out right now,” he said, almost embarrassed. He’d just paid rent, which meant he would be living off of cup noodles and breakroom coffee until next week when his next paycheck hit.

You glanced up at him from your phone that you were tapping on. “I didn’t ask if you had money, I asked if you’d eaten,” you replied pointedly before returning your attention to your phone. “Beef and broccoli, yeah?” You confirmed, and he was a bit stunned but managed to nod in response. Warmth rolling through his chest that you remembered his food order. “I’ll get those eggrolls you like, too.”

“I can pay you back next week,” Clark offered, and you just waved your hand at him, not looking up from your phone.

“I’m not worried about it, Kent.” You walked off, calling out to the others in the office that you were ordering food, leaving Clark’s heart to simmer in your wake.

He loved how unafraid you were. How confident you were in your convictions. There weren’t many people at the Planet who would go to bat against Perry, but you did constantly. So many times, he’d walk into the newsroom to see you two having a screaming match about whether or not an article should go to print.

“We are not printing this!”

“Oh, come off it, Perry, if you want to play it safe, go work for Newstime Magazine!”

The article almost always went to print. Not without a lot of griping from Perry, and you never were smug about it. Satisfied, yes. But it was about journalistic integrity. It was about publishing articles that no other company would touch with a ten-foot pole due to the fear of backlash because no one else would do it. There were many other employees at the Planet who shared the sentiment, but you were consistently the one who fought for it, loudly.

So yeah, Clark Kent had a crush on you because why wouldn’t he? And maybe Jimmy was right, and he should ask you out.

(Or maybe he was wrong and Clark would be looking for a new job by Friday)

By the end of the day, he decides he will ask you out to dinner. Hyping himself up in the moment as he starts to finish the article that he has already rewritten twice now.

Except he doesn’t end up asking you out at all. Instead, it is five P.M., and he stands in front of your desk, freshly printed draft clutched in his hands as he watches you type away at something on your monitor.

You don’t even look up at him, and he knows that you know he is standing there.

Time stretches on for what he could only imagine to be an eternity, and he can feel his heartbeat in his throat as he waits until, finally, you push back from your desk, turning to face him. “Is there something you need, Clark?” The eye contact you make sends his heart sputtering, but the way his name rolls off your lips has his knees so weak he almost falls against your desk in a heap. Your gaze flickers down to the papers in his hand. “Is that the Crane case draft?”

“O-oh! Yeah!” He says dumbly, and when he doesn’t do anything but continue to stand there, you blink, briefly wondering if he’d suffered some head injury in the last few hours.

“Can I… have it?” you question, brows furrowed in confusion as you stare up at him.

You watch a flush creep up his cheeks, and he practically slams the folder onto your desk. “Y-yeah, of course! I’m sorry it took so long to get to you, I was having some trouble with one of the sources and…”

“I’ll have the edits to you tomorrow morning,” you confirm. “Try to get here on time, Perry wants this to run for the evening issue.”

He nods, pushing up his glasses as they slide down his nose, and pretends not to notice as you follow the movement. “Don’t worry, I’ll be on time, I promise.” You stare at him for a pause before turning back to your computer, muttering something akin to ‘I’ve heard that one before,’ and Clark is struck by the way the setting sun backlights you, wisps of gold brushing against your profile. His heart his hammering in his chest as he tries to will himself to say something, anything else to you.

“Okay, bye.”

Not that.

“Have a good night,” you call out, not looking up from the screen.

Clark shuffles away, already mentally beating himself up as Jimmy appears behind him, bag swung over his shoulder. “That was rough to watch, buddy.”

“Shut up,” Clark groans as he grabs his things from his desk. “I don’t know why there’s such a disconnect between my brain and my mouth when I’m around her.”

“Hey, I get it, man,” Jimmy nods. “She is scary, but in a really hot way—” Clark’s head snaps up, and he gives Jimmy a sharp look because he knows Jimmy’s reputation. “Relax, relax. She’s all yours, I can assure you. I think she’d eat me alive.”

As Clark follows Jimmy to the elevator, he glances back over his shoulder, seeing you still sitting at your desk as everyone else has begun to pack up for the night. You give a smile and bid another editor goodnight as she tells you not to stay too late.

He knows you will anyway.

As they step into the elevator with a handful of their coworkers, all conversing about their plans for the rest of the night, Clark decides that tomorrow he will definitely ask you out.

He does not end up asking you out tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after, as a matter of fact. Every single time he resolved himself to doing so, he felt the words turn to mush in his mouth the moment he saw you.

Once, because you had been standing with Lois in the breakroom, laughing in a way he’d never seen before, the snort of laughter so uncharacteristic and unexpected, he had walked straight into the mail cart, sending envelopes and parcels flying all over the place.

The second time, he had gone into the archives to grab some old records to reference for a story he’d been working on, and turned the corner to see you up on a stool, half bent as you tried to wrestle with a box buried on the shelf. Clark could only focus on the swell of your backside in the tight slacks you were wearing and didn’t even register that you had turned to him.

“Clark? Help, please?”

Whatever words that came out of his mouth were unintelligible as his body went into autopilot, grabbing the box you’d been battling with ease, nodding like an idiot as you thanked him before turning on his heel and walking out, completely forgetting about the entire reason he’d gone in there to begin with.

The third and final time, you weren’t even doing anything special, just sitting at your desk, humming along to the desk radio you had quietly going, sorting through papers. Clark was determined this time. He’d spent the entirety of last night rehearsing what he was going to say, all the while fighting an interdimensional creature that was terrorizing downtown.

He had approached you with confidence, and then you’d turn to face him, lips wrapped around a cherry lollipop that one of the secretaries had given out as extras from her daughter’s birthday party over the weekend.

Whatever confidence he had rapidly warped into panic as words fell out of his mouth in a jumble. Indiscernible and certainly not a sentence asking you to go to dinner with him. He stood there as you stared up at him, and he could see the stain of the lollipop on your lips and tongue.

“Clark, what?”

And then he made some sort of noise and, with haste, fled the vicinity, leaving you there blinking, wondering what just happened.

It is that afternoon that he hears you in a quiet conversation with Lois as he is once again unjamming Printer 4. You perch on her desk, leaning close to whisper to her, completely unaware that Clark can hear every single word you say.

“I think Clark has a concussion,” you inform with a solemn look on your face.

Lois almost laughs at that, but keeps her face trained in faux concern. “Why do you think that?”

“I don’t think that man has said a coherent sentence to me this entire week,” you explain. “He’s basically resorted to communicating with me in grunts like a caveman.”

That has Lois snorting with laughter, trying to hide the smile with her coffee cup as she takes a sip of the lukewarm liquid that’s been sitting on her desk for the better part of the morning. “I can assure you he does not have a concussion.”

You give her a pursed look, clearly not believing her. “Then what is his deal?”

It is at this moment that Lois makes eye contact with Clark from across the newsroom. He feels the dread build up in him as a smirk tilts its way onto Lois’s face, and he can almost see the exact moment the thought formulates in her head.

And then the building shakes, lights flickering as a deafening ‘boom’ echoes from somewhere outside. Silence settles in place of panic, as everyone listens with bated breath, hoping it was nothing to be concerned about, perhaps just some construction down the road. Until the second explosion rocks the building, and then chaos erupts.

People are scrambling all over. Clark sees you grab Lois and push her towards the stairwell, yelling at the gaggle of people who are trying to file into the elevator. “Are you idiots? Use the stairs!” That gets them moving, and Clark is moving with everyone else.

As you all get to the ground floor, you can see the source of the explosions, Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, and Hawkgirl are fighting some idiot on a hoverboard who keeps tossing explosives around like he’s giving out candy on Halloween. Another one detonates, and a building down the street crumbles from the explosion. Debris and dust are scattering through the streets as people run from the epicenter of the fight. Cops are trying to divert traffic away, and the wail of ambulances approaches.

It’s pandemonium.

“C’mon, Kent, move it!” There’s a hand on his arm, and he looks down to find you pulling him along. The crowd around you is a shifting sea, but you’re firm and steady beside him despite the chaos. He realizes he’s going away from where he needs to be, but he lets you pull him anyway.

And then an explosion hits from somewhere above, and suddenly the air is filled with dirt and smoke, and the crowds push forward even as people sputter and try to regain their bearings. You lose your grip on Clark after getting knocked around by the surge of people, and that’s when panic sets in for you as you stop amidst the mass of people, shouting for him. “Clark?” You don’t see his massive form in the crowd of people, and your throat constricts. “Clark?!”

Someone behind you pushes, and you keep moving because it’s either that or be crushed by the swath of people. There’s a barricade another block down, and by the time you make it there, the crowd has begun to disperse, and there’s still no sign of Clark Kent. You feel nauseous as you think of the plethora of things that could’ve happened to him, though the thought of him lying dead in the street with people rushing over him is at the forefront of your mind.

You ask people as they rush by you.

“Excuse me, have you seen a guy, about this tall?”

“A man, curly hair, and glasses?”

A sonic boom cuts through the chaos, and people cheer as Superman flies onto the scene. You don’t, though. Your phone is in your hand as you search for Clark’s number, which has been unused until now in your contact list. It rings once, twice, all the way until the voicemail picks up.

“Hey, you’ve reached Clark. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

You hang up and try again, ignoring the tightness in your throat when it goes to voicemail once more.

“Hey, you’ve reached Clark. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I’ll get—”

You feel your lip wobble. And again.

“Hey, you’ve reached Clark. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message—”

With Superman coming to their aid, the heroes make quick work of the lone villain. You barely notice that the crowd has waned as the heroics come to an end. Instead, you’re pacing under the awning of a building, being met with Clark Kent’s voicemail message again and again each time you call him.

You had already called Jimmy and Lois, both of whom hadn’t seen their friend, though Lois tried to convince you that he was fine. You couldn’t help the worry that nagged at you.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” Someone asks from behind you.

You whirl around, pulling the phone from your ear, and you can’t even help the wide-eyed look that appears on your face. Superman himself stands before you, bathed in the light of the setting sun that creeps through the skyline of Metropolis behind him. He’s bigger in person, you realize. Broader than you thought he’d be.

“Ma’am?” There’s concern on his face when you don’t answer.

“Yes,” you reply quickly. “Yes, I’m sorry, I’m fine.”

“Hey, you’ve reached Clark. I can’t come to the phone right now, but—.”

You look back down at your phone and press the ‘end call’ button, biting your lip.

“I’m looking for Clark,” you tell him. “Clark Kent. You know him, he’s interviewed you before. He was beside me, and then an explosion hit above us, and I lost him in the chaos, and I can’t find him, and he’s not answering his phone—” Your voice cracks, and you don’t even notice the way Superman’s face crumples with it.

“Hey,” he calls out softly as he steps closer. You feel a warm hand on your shoulder, and you look up, your eyes meeting an earthshattering shade of blue. “It’s alright,” he assures. “I’ll find him. Why don’t you go home and rest? I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

You shake your head. “No, if something happened to him, I—”

“Nothing happened to him,” he promises. “I’ll find him, and when I do, I’ll make sure he calls you, how about that?”

You want to be stubborn. You want to tell Superman to shove off. But you’re tired, and there’s a burn in your lungs from all of the dust and smoke. Gripping your phone harder, you shove the edge of it into his chest, and he looks a bit surprised, if not a little amused by the action. “You make sure he calls me,” you order, and there’s a fragility in your voice that Clark doesn’t think he’s heard before, despite the way your jaw is set. You’re putting on a brave face.

A soft smile spreads on Superman’s face. “Yes, ma’am.”

An hour and a half later, just as you fit your key into the deadbolt of your door, your phone rings. The name ‘Clark Kent’ flashes across the screen, and pure relief floods you as you pick up on the second ring. “Clark?”

“H-hey,” his soft voice comes through the other end, and you never thought you would be so happy to hear that Kansan accent. “I’m so sorry, I left my phone at the office and I finally just went back to get it.”

“Are you okay?” you ask as you close your door behind you.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay,” he replies.

There’s a pregnant pause between you two. You think you should say ‘okay’ and hang up, not draw out the conversation any longer than it needs to be. But you don’t. The bizarre want to hear his voice some more, tugging at you in a way you’ve never experienced before. “Don’t think you get to be late to work tomorrow just because a couple of buildings on our street exploded,” you tease, breaking through the tension of the quiet.

He laughs, and even though you’re silent, he can tell you’re smiling too. “Wouldn't dream of it,” he says.

“Goodnight, Clark.”

“Yeah, goodnight.”

Clark surprises you the next morning by not only arriving on time, but arriving early. He’s so early that it is just you two in the newsroom. The shock is written on your face as you spot him walking from the elevator while standing at the copier, eyes wide and mouth agape.

He gives a shy wave, cheeks dimpling as he smiles at you. “Good morning,” he calls out.

What he does not expect is for you to grab the stack of papers off the copier and march towards him, smacking him repeatedly with the pile of papers. “You can’t just disappear like that during a crisis!” He doesn’t flinch as he is hit. You don’t even notice how gently he’s looking down at you, too busy giving him a piece of your mind like you always do. “Like, what the hell, Clark? I thought something happened to you!”

You run out of steam surprisingly quickly and meet his gaze.  “I really am sorry,” he whispers, and you take a moment to study his face and the blue of his eyes, and you’re struck by a thought that leaves your mouth dry.

Clark is handsome.

“Don’t do it again,” you warn, giving him one final half-hearted swat to the chest that has him giving you a laugh that leaves you lightheaded. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

He smiles and nods, and when you go to leave, he can feel the end of the moment between you two rapidly approaching. He doesn’t want it to end. “Would you wanna go out to dinner with me?” he asks before he can even think long enough to get nervous about it.

You blink once, then twice as though you’re not quite sure you heard him correctly. “Dinner?”

He nods, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Is this a date?”

He nods again and can feel his palms begin to sweat.

“Yes,” you say after a beat. He grins, dimples and all, and warmth spreads through your chest, a feeling you’re hesitant to embrace.

“Friday? Seven P.M.?” He asks.

“Gino’s?” You suggest, a lilt to your voice that isn’t normally there, and he’s mesmerized by the look in your eye as you do, by the way you’re trying to disguise the smile that itches at your face. He nods, leaning in a bit. The papers in your hand are a shield between you two, and you step back. “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t be.” He wouldn’t be.

Gino’s Italian Restaurant, Metropolis - 7:43 PM

He was late.

You didn’t miss the sympathetic looks the hostess and waiters sent you every time they passed by your table for two, which was occupied by one. Your glass of wine was nearly empty, and the bread basket was alarmingly full despite the hunger that gnawed at your insides.

You had been trying not to glance down at your phone for the last half hour, knowing that if you had gotten a text, the screen would light up. However, it had remained dark since you sent Clark your last message, asking where he was.

With one final swig, you empty the glass, catching the eye of the waiter, waving him over. “Can I have the check, please?” you ask.

After paying for your singular glass of wine, once you were out in the cool breeze of the summer night, you finally recheck your phone. The absence of any new message sent a trill of fury through you, only amplified by the news report notification about Superman fighting some gigantic monster in midtown.

“Great,” you grumble. “Let’s hope they don’t knock out the T-Line this time.”

The trek home takes far too long with people getting diverted away from the kaiju battle, and the pleasant buzz you had from the glass of wine had long since worn off as you shove through your apartment door, flinging it closed behind you as you kick off your pumps, breathing in the relief for your aching feet.

You’re desperate to get out of the dress you’d squeezed into (after spending far too long debating what dress Clark would like better on you), but the desire to get absolutely shitfaced after being stood up by your coworker was overwhelming. And that’s how you found yourself lounging on your balcony, watching Big Blue himself battle an enormous alien creature from across the city with nothing but a bottle of chardonnay to keep you company.

You stay there until long after the light show ends, just taking sips from the bottle every so often, sitting in your sorrow. Honestly, you don’t even know why you’re so upset. It’s not as though you even liked Clark all that much; you were just looking forward to a free meal.

Like, yes, he was objectively good-looking, and yes, he always remembered your coffee order. And, yes, maybe you prodded him just a little more than you did others because you liked watching him get flustered.

But you didn’t like him.

(You could have, though)

A loud knock at your door startles you from your thoughts. Your bare feet pad against the floor of your apartment as you softly step to your door, peeking through the peephole, finding none other than Clark Kent himself standing outside of your apartment.

If you were any other person, you might have just ignored the knocking, letting him stew in the silence, but you were not any other person, and with half a bottle of chardonnay in your system, you want nothing more than to give him a piece of your mind.

When you rip the door open, Clark looks at you wide-eyed and sputtering. “I’m so—”

“Oh, absolutely not,” you interrupt, shoving your finger into his (startlingly firm) chest. “You have a lot of nerve, Clark Kent.”

“I know, I know, please just let me—”

“Let you what? Explain? Explain how you left me waiting at Gino’s for forty-five minutes for you? Explain how now at—” You lean back to glance at the microwave clock in your kitchen. “—9:57 PM, nearly 3 hours after we were supposed to meet for our date, you show up at my door expecting to grovel at my feet for me to what? To forgive you?”

“No, that’s not it, please just let me explain,” he begs.

You don’t, though. “You made me look like an idiot.” Your voice is soft, and there’s vulnerability, the bite you had seconds prior, leaving your body rapidly. You can feel the way your throat tightens, and the pit in your stomach feels like it could swallow you whole. You hate feeling like this, feeling this small. Clark looks at your eyes and realizes they’re tinged red and clouded with unshed tears. He wants to throw up. “You made me feel like an idiot.”

“I’m really sorry.” His voice cracks, and it looks like he wants to reach out to touch you, but he doesn’t.

“Me too,” you say back, tone empty and despondent.

“I got you these.” He holds out a lightly crumpled bouquet that’s been hanging limply at his side this entire time. You stare at it. It wasn’t one of those grocery store bouquets, no, this one is full of your favorite flowers, clearly and explicitly curated for you.

You blink back tears and grab the bouquet, holding it close to your chest. “Thank you.”

“You look really pretty.”

“I know,” you whisper. “Goodnight, Clark.”

He doesn’t say anything as you shut the door, your gaze catching your reflection in the hallway mirror. It’s almost pathetic, you all dolled up with a bouquet of all your favorite flowers, looking like you were a moment away from the dam breaking.

And then there’s a burn at the back of your throat that you can’t ignore, and you can’t help as the tears finally fall from your eyes, you suck in a deep breath on instinct, feeling the sob try to wretch out from you. You don’t know that Clark is standing on the other side, jaw clenched, nostrils flaring as he blinks away his own tears.

The weekend passes by horridly fast. As much as you had wanted to waste away and lament about the date that never was (that you would definitely not admit you had gotten your hopes up for), you would not let being stood up consume your entire weekend; they were a precious commodity after all.

So, after spending Friday night ugly crying into your pillow, you pulled yourself together by Saturday morning. You went out to a boozy brunch with some of your college friends, took yourself on a walk around the park to enjoy the sunshine, and spent some time in your favorite bookstore buying books that you promised yourself you would read and not let sit untouched on your bookshelf like the entire neglected pile of others.

By Sunday, you were feeling better. That is, until you were getting ready for bed Sunday night and the dread hit you.

You spent the night tossing and turning, feeling like you wanted to crawl out of your skin at just the thought of having to see Clark again. By morning, it took a generous application of concealer to hide the bags under your eyes and a heavy pep talk in the mirror to even think about stepping out your door.

As with most Monday mornings, as soon as you walked into the bullpen, it was a cacophony of chaos, but at least it was chaos you were familiar with. You make your way to your desk, offering halfhearted greetings, and feel slight relief as you settle into your seat, hoping that work will keep your brain busy enough not to let the anxiety ruin your day.

Then your gaze fixes on the paper coffee cup placed in front of your keyboard. Your name is written in a familiar chicken scratch handwriting. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you swivel in your seat, looking back at the writer block to see that Clark Kent is already sitting at his desk. Hunched and fidgeting with a stack of Post-it notes as he catches your eye. His mouth tilts up into an uncertain smile.

You purse your lips, a scowl forming on your face as you grab the coffee cup, maintaining unblinking eye contact as you proceed to drop it directly into the garbage can next to your desk, and then you spin back around.

Clark grimaces. “Yeah, I deserve that,” he mutters as he looks back at the blank Word document that’s been taunting him since he got in this morning.

It wasn’t any surprise how quickly word got around about Clark’s spectacular failure. Steve had walked by his desk after the morning meeting, giving a ‘womp womp’ that made Clark nearly snap the pencil he was writing with.

“So, let me get this straight,” Jimmy slides over, munching on some yogurt and granola. “You finally ask out the woman you’ve been pining after for who knows how long, then proceed to miss the date entirely without texting her that you wouldn’t be able to make it, and then show up at her apartment with flowers, thinking that would make up for the complete lack of communication?”

Clark sighs. “Yeah, that about covers it.” His voice is muffled as he buries his face in his hands.

“Buddy,” Jimmy starts. “You really fucked up.”

Clark groans, leaning back in his seat. “Yeah, Jimmy, I know.”

He didn’t even want to look over at Lois because all she kept doing was sending him looks of disappointment the whole morning. She had stopped by your desk this morning with a grin on her face that quickly morphed into a look of horror as you recounted Friday night’s events.

Even Cat, who was usually all honeyed words with Clark, had been giving him the stink eye.

Honestly, though, no one else could make Clark feel as bad as he made himself feel about the whole thing. He had spent the weekend agonizing over how badly he had messed up with you. The sound of you crying on the other side of the door replaying in his head like his own personal version of hell.

He even called his parents.

“Oh, Clark, honey,” Martha soothed. “You wounded that woman’s pride, you just gotta give her some time to cool off.”

“I don’t know, Ma, I think I really messed this one up,” he said, pinching at the bridge of his nose as he felt the telltale pressure of tears building up.

“Now, Clark, no problem worth fixin’ is ever easy.” He couldn’t see them, but he knew Pa was nodding along. “If this girl is everything you’ve made her out to be, she’ll come around.”

The week passes by, and you coming around is nowhere in sight. Every cup of coffee he left on your desk went directly into the trash, the bouquets of your favorite flowers were pawned off to the secretaries, and the lunches were donated to the breakroom on a first-come, first-served basis.

When he went to drop off drafts for you to edit, you pointedly ignored him. To your credit, the edits you made were not as harsh as he’d thought they’d be in light of everything, though there was an apparent lack of any compliments in the margins that he always found himself looking forward to reading (and re-reading).

“Why don’t you come out tonight?” Lois asks on Friday morning. You give her a look, knowing the standing invite for Friday night drinks includes everyone in the office. “C’mon, he won’t be there, he never shows up.”

You pause, chewing at the inside of your lip, internally hemming and hawing. “I’ll think about it,” you finally concede, which is enough to get Lois to grin, a little pep in her step as she makes her way back to the writer block.

Friday afternoon, Jimmy comes sauntering over to you like a cat that got into the cream. He plants himself on your desk, ignoring your look of indignation when he crumples a few drafts you were working on with his ass. “Check out these photos I just finished developing,” he says as he spreads a handful of photos of Superman in front of you. They’re remarkably clear, some of the best pictures you have ever seen of Big Blue. “I was testing out that new lens I just got.” They were from a fight earlier this week in uptown.

Despite your frequently voiced objections to Metropolis’s favorite hero, you give Jimmy a hum of approval, picking one up to closer inspect it. “These are pretty good, how’d you get such a good shot of him in the air?” you ask.

“Climbed up a light pole,” he informs nonchalantly, grabbing some M&Ms from the candy bowl on your desk.

Your neck snaps to look at him. “James!”

“What?” He shrugs his shoulders. “Gotta do what it takes to get the shot.”

You let out a huff. “Unbelievable, you’re gonna break your neck one of these days.” You continue to sort through the photos, setting aside the ones you know Perry will submit for the front page.

“Haven’t yet,” he says, cheekily popping a few M&Ms in his mouth with a wink.

The final photo is a zoomed-in shot of Superman’s face. He’s smiling down at a few children who have gathered around him in the aftermath of the battle, a familiar softness to his face. You straighten up a bit, holding the photo closer to examine it.

“What’s up?” Jimmy asks when he sees your shift in posture.

You feel like you’ve seen it before, the blue of his eyes, the gentle tilt of his lips hinting at dimples, but the rest of the face is… wrong.

Maybe you’re losing it.

“Nothing,” you reply. “Really great work, Jimmy. Perry is definitely going to run this on the front page.”

Jimmy gives a grin.

You end up at the bar, thinking it might be good for you to let your hair down, literally and figuratively, for the night. Lois lights up when she sees you making your way through the Friday night crowd, and Jimmy has a drink in your hand before you even get a chance to sit down.

You’re listening to Cat go on and on about the guy she’s seeing, and given the debacle of the last week, it should annoy you to hear someone gush about their dating life, but the giddiness on Cat’s face is infectious so instead you sit there resting your chin on your hand with a smile on your face as you nod along asking all the appropriate questions.

It’s loud in the bar between all the people and the music playing, so you barely register the bell above the door ringing. You do, however, clock Jimmy turning to Lois and saying, “He never comes out.”

Instinctively, you turn in your seat, immediately locking eyes with Clark. He looks like he just left the office, suit coat slung over his arm and tie loosened. He’s moving through the crowd towards you, not breaking eye contact as though he’s scared you’ll disappear if you do, only to be intercepted by Lois. “Hey, Clark,” she greets, a tight fake smile plastered on her face. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Uh, yeah, well, not a lot going on tonight, so I figured I’d come… socialize,” he says lamely. You don’t see the flat look that Lois gives him.

Both of them look back at you. You catch Lois’s eyes and give her a little nod of your head, calling off your (very effective) guard dog. However, she narrows her eyes at Clark in a silent warning before returning to her conversation with Jimmy, who had been watching the entire exchange while taking a very long sip of his fruity cocktail.

Clark takes the empty seat next to you. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asks, fidgeting with his tie.

You stare at him as you play with the straw of your nearly empty cup, unabashedly tracing the slopes and contours of his face. He shifts nervously under your gaze, and you can’t tell if the flush creeping up his neck is due to you or the stuffiness of the bar. You still don’t say anything as you lean forward, and he’s too stunned to move away as your hand reaches out, fingers pressing through the curls hanging on his forehead, brushing them back into a tidier position, spending maybe a bit too long smoothing back the sides. The caress of your nails against his scalp sends a tingle down his spine, and his breath gets caught in his throat.

You don’t say anything for too long, just maintaining eye contact with him, like you’re searching his eyes for something.

“Vodka cran,” you say, resting back into your seat, and Clark wonders if you found what you were looking for.

His ears are red, and he quickly turns to the bartender to wave them down and grab you another drink, getting a soda for himself. Conversation flows between the two of you in a surprisingly easy manner, given the events of the past week. Work-related mostly. Clark is doing a better job of not stumbling all over himself, something he’s silently patting himself on the back for.

“You’ve been on time all week,” you note. Clark tries not to focus on how your lips wrap around the straw or how your gloss has stained the plastic.

“Yes, ma’am,” he confirms, the gentle lilt of his Kansan accent slipping through.

You fall silent for a moment, looking at him with such clarity in your eyes that it’s almost startling, and Clark can’t help but feel like he ground your entire conversation to a halt with just two words. “I’m gonna head out.” And then you’re grabbing your purse, tossing a few crinkled bills onto the bar as a tip before standing up.

“O-oh, okay,” Clark stammers, disappointment creeping up in him.

You’re about to step away until you glance back over your shoulder at him. “Are you going to walk me home?” You ask as though that had been the plan all along and he had just forgotten.

He blinks owlishly at your question like he’s not sure he quite heard you right. “Y-yeah!” He scrambles up, nearly knocking over his barstool, and you both head out after bidding your coworkers a goodnight. Lois cocks an eyebrow at you, but you just wiggle your fingers in goodbye.

Jimmy is giving Clark some waggling eyebrows with an enormous grin on his face that Clark is pointedly trying to ignore.

The walk home is quiet. The cool summer air is refreshing on your skin after sitting in the humidity of the bar, and the couple of drinks you had have left you a little light in the head, though it’s not an unwelcome feeling; you figure you’re going to need some liquid courage tonight anyway.

When you arrive at your apartment building, Clark walks you up to your apartment. You still don’t say anything as you take out your keys to unlock your door, and Clark swallows the lump in his throat, already preparing to say goodbye. “You coming in?” You question as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, as you step into your apartment, leaving room for him to follow in after you.

“I—” He looks like a deer in the headlights. “You sure?”

You give a nod, and he steps in, albeit hesitantly, closing the door behind him. As soon as it clicks shut, you’re on him, hand pulling at the tie loosely around his neck, jerking him forward despite the other hand firmly on his chest pushing him back until he hits the door with a thud.

He looks shocked, face flushed and pupils blown wide as he doesn’t know what to do with his hands that hover at your waist but do not touch. You’re leaning up and he’s leaning down, gaze darting back and forth between your eyes and your lips. He thinks the strawberry smell is your lip gloss, and his heart won’t stop beating symphonies into his ribcage.

He doesn’t cross it, though, the invisible boundary that’s between you, even when he feels your breath fan against his lips. “I’m giving you the chance to be honest with me,” you whisper like it’s a warning, your voice husky in a way that has his insides twisting and turning.

“Okay,” he says softly.

You don’t move away as though you’re afraid he might try to run if you do. He can hear your own heart hammering in your chest. You’re nervous, he realizes. “You’re Superman.” Your tone doesn’t suggest it’s a question. It’s a statement. You know he’s Superman, and you’re allowing him the opportunity to be honest with you about it.

“Yes.”

Your heart rate speeds up. “That’s why you missed our date.”

“Yes,” he breathes like it’s painful to remember.

You finally blink, breaking eye contact to look down, lashes fluttering against your cheeks. “You really like me?” This one is a question. This one you’re unsure about.

Clark’s hands finally find purchase at your waist. The boundary between the two of you is barely hanging on by a thread. “Immensely.” Your grip on his tie loosens, and both hands are pressed gently against his chest. It wouldn’t take much; he would just have to lean down another inch or two to bring the whole thing crumbling down, but he doesn’t. “How’d you figure it out?” he asks.

“Your eyes,” you murmur like it was an evident thing, “—and your little… Midwestern-isms.”

He can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. Oh, he was in so deep. “My Midwestern-isms?”

“’Yes, ma’am,’” you mock with a bad accent, not at all what he sounds like, and you bite your lip to hide your grin. “How does it work? Your face is… different than Superman’s.”

“The glasses,” he informs, tilting his head. “They’re hypno-glasses, make me look a little bit different, just enough.”

Your hands surge upward before you even know what they’re doing, stopping just shy as you look to Clark for permission, and he nods. As you take off the glasses, it’s like his face comes into focus when you never even realized it had been blurry before. Edges sharpen and define, his nose a little straighter, lips a little fuller, jaw a little squarer.

Moreover, he stands differently when the glasses come off. His shoulders rearrange, and he’s taller now, more confident… broader.

Superman.

“You know everything is starting to make sense,” you ponder as you set the glasses on your entrance table, fingers playing with the collar of his shirt. You’re still standing close, his hands on your hips, not allowing you to wander too far from his orbit.

“Yeah?” Even his voice seems crisper, deeper now.

“Mhm,” you hum, “—you’re constantly being late, disappearing whenever some crisis pops up…” You laugh a bit. “I’m actually kind of mad at myself for not realizing it sooner.”

“I thought you might’ve thrown a shoe at me or something,” he admits.

You pull back, giving him an incredulous look. “What?”

“With you not liking Superman and all,” he elaborates. “Figured you would read me the riot act, at least.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes. “It’s not that I don’t like Superman.”

“Oh?” Eyebrows raise on his forehead. “First time I’m hearing this.”

You shove him, lightly, though he doesn’t move, solid under your touch. “It’s this… dependency we have on him—you,” you correct. “Superman—you—you’re not our savior, and we shouldn’t rely on you to fix every problem or to always show up. We should be able to stand on our own two feet.”

“But I want to help,” he insists, and you see it in his eyes, the earnestness in them. It’s so… Clark. “When things get hard and the world needs someone to lean on, I can carry that weight.”

“And what happens when you need someone to lean on? You may have super strength and can fly and shoot lasers out of your eyes, but you’re still—”

Human.

He doesn’t pretend the implication doesn’t crash around him like tidal waves.

You pull away a bit, not out of reach, not with his hands still wrapped around your waist. “Who’s going to carry the weight for you?” There’s sincerity in your question, and he doesn’t know how to respond because he doesn’t have an answer.

“I—”

You bite your lip as if you’re uncertain whether you should say the next part aloud, nervous to speak those feelings into the universe. “I can,” you say softly.

“I couldn’t ask that of you.”

“But I want to help.” You throw his words back at him, and he’s at a loss for what to say. “You don’t have to carry it alone.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out, and he’s looking at you like you hung the moon. He wants to kiss you so bad, but he’s afraid of being the one to cross that line.

“Clark.”

He doesn’t know if there’s a sweeter sound than his name on your lips.

“Just kiss me already.”

Except maybe that.

He’s surging forward in the next moment, mouth hot against yours. The barrier is dust between you. He tastes like the remnants of the sugary soda he’d ordered at the bar, and a quick swipe of his tongue against your lips confirms that your lip gloss is strawberry flavored.

You walk backwards, unsteady but confident, hands firmly tugging him along by his shirt, all the while not breaking the kiss that has your brain in a dizzy fog. You can’t help the giggle that escapes as you bump into your destination, the couch, causing your teeth to clatter together.

Clark smiles against your lips as his hands lower, gripping at your thighs as he lifts you off the ground so effortlessly that it has you letting out a quiet ‘oh’. His deep laugh goes straight to your core, and he settles onto the couch with you on top of him, your hands running through his hair, gripping it in a way that has him giving a low groan.

“Is this okay?” he asks in between kisses as though you’re not actively grinding down onto him.

A whimper escapes you as his hard-on catches the seam of your pants just right. “I will actually kill you if you stop.” The normal bite of your tone has given way to desperation. Clark’s entire body warms at that.

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmurs into your mouth, hands wandering to your ass, pressing you harder down onto him while bucking up into you. He leans back for a moment, placing another peck on your lips as his fingers start making work of the buttons on your blouse. When your cleavage comes into view, accentuated by your bra, something plain and practical, you hear Clark let out a shaky breath followed by an ‘oh, golly’ that has you a giggling mess on top of him. He grins, grabbing hold of the side of your neck as he pulls you back into a kiss. “You’re so pretty.”

You nip at his bottom lip. “I could tell by the ‘oh, golly,’” you tease, though your smugness doesn’t last for long as Clark has you on your back against the couch pillows a second later.

You watch reverently as he unbuttons his shirt, shrugging it off before pulling off his undershirt. He’s like a peacock, the way he fluffs up as your mouth goes slack, seeing what he was hiding underneath oversized button-ups and baggy suits for the last three years.

“Jesus Christ,” you breathe. “What the fuck were they feeding you in Kansas?”

He shakes with laughter as he leans back down, slotting himself in between your legs so he can reconnect your mouths, hand sliding up your side to palm your breast, not waiting long to slide underneath the cup of your bra. You arch up into him as his thumb brushes against your nipple, moaning quietly into his mouth, a sound he eagerly swallows down.

He trails kisses to your cheek, down your neck, spending a bit more time nipping and biting there when you give a shaky gasp. He continues down, pressing kisses to the top of your breasts, before trailing down to your ribs to your stomach until settling right above the waist of your pants.

You barely register him unbuttoning your pants until he drags them and your underwear down in one fell swoop. You cant your hips, letting him take them the rest of the way off, trying not to giggle as he throws the heap across your living room. A problem for tomorrow you.

Self-consciousness pricks at your brain as he spreads your legs, fingertips biting into your thighs, and in the glow of the moonlight streaming in through your apartment windows, you watch him lick his lips as he stares down at you, suddenly, any self-doubt fizzles away. One hand trails up your inner thigh to your core, spreading you so he can take in more of the sight. “You’re so wet,” he murmurs before he bends down.

A breathy moan escapes you as he licks a stripe up your center. “Fuck, Clark.” That eggs him on, and he swirls his tongue around your clit in a way that has you reaching down and gripping his hair. There’s a finger prodding at your entrance and then two that are curling into you at just the right spot.

Your chest heaves as you sink further into the couch, eyes fluttering to the back of your head as your apartment is filled with the obscene noises of Clark eating you out, groaning as he mutters about how good you taste. The feeling of his spit mixed with your own liquids trailing down your ass is overwhelming, and then he sucks at your clit in a way that has your toes curling.

“Clark, please,” you beg. You can feel the band at your core tightening with each swipe of his tongue and thrust of his fingers.

He pulls back slightly, now three fingers deep, hitting a spot inside you that has you seeing stars. “C’mon, sweetheart,” he coaches. “Cum on my fingers.”

Your breath hitches at mild-mannered Clark Kent telling you to cum on his fingers. He dives back in with enthusiasm, which is all it takes as your hips buck up into his face, and he gladly lets you grind against his mouth, especially with the sounds you’re making as you tighten around his fingers. His fingers continue pumping in and out of you as you ride out your orgasm, his name on your lips like a prayer as his lips greedily drink up all you give him.

He leans back, cheek resting against your inner thigh as he watches you catch your breath and give a little whine when his fingers don’t relent, tugging on his hair. A grin works its way onto his face, and he takes pity on your overstimulated self, pulling his fingers out as he presses a kiss to your thigh before crawling back up to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his tongue as he licks at your bottom lip.

Your hands find purchase on his shoulders, drawing him deeper into the kiss, and you can feel the heavy weight of him against your thigh.

“Good?” he asks as he draws back from you, breathless.

“I think I blacked out at one point,” you respond, still feeling a little lightheaded, which is only exacerbated when he grinds his hips against yours and nips at your neck. “Now take your pants off.” You order as you push him back, propping yourself up on your elbows.

“Bossy,” he teases as he stands, unbuttoning his slacks, letting them drop to the floor. You don’t even have time to register anything else when he pulls down his briefs, and you can only stare with your mouth wide open and brows raised high on your forehead at the size of him. Clark looks a bit uncertain. “Is this okay?”

You surge to your feet and pull him down into a kiss. “It’s always the quiet ones,” you murmur more to yourself as you push him back onto the couch with no resistance and climb up onto his lap. He practically whimpers when you grind onto him. “Seriously, what the fuck were they feeding you?” You question against his lips as you slot yourself against his cock. Naked against him, you really take in how large Clark is in every capacity.

His hands have settled on the globes of your ass, letting you take the reins as you move your hips against his, the wet friction has him moaning into your mouth. “You feel so good,” he breathes. “Thought about this so much.”

“Yeah?” You ask. “Thought about me on top of you a lot, huh?” He nods and tilts his head back as you jut your hips against just at the right spot. You kiss down his jawline, whispering into his ear. “What else have you thought about? Stuffing me full of your cock?”

He stammers a bit, his brain short-circuiting at your dirty talk, and heat spreads up to his ears. “Y-yeah, thought about how good you’d look with me inside you,” he admits.

You reach down between you, grabbing hold of him, and his hips stutter up against your hand, moaning at the feel of your soft skin against his cock. The next thing he knows, you’re sinking onto him and he’s committing the hot, wet heat of your pussy to memory. The burn is expected given his size, and you whine with each inch of him you take.

Clark is a whimpering mess beneath you, brows furrowed in concentration as he tries not to move, letting you set your own pace, though the iron grip he has on your waist is going to leave bruises tomorrow. “So good, so good,” he repeats as he presses kisses into your shoulder. “Gosh, you’re so tight.”

You let the ‘gosh’ slide, given how full of him you are right now. It’s almost overwhelming the size of him, and just when you’re sure you’ve taken him all, you feel yourself slide down another inch. “Christ, you’re so big,” you whine, and you can feel his cock twitch inside of you at that.

“You can’t just say that,” he practically begs, voice cracking slightly, and he’s so tense, you can feel how taut all of his muscles are beneath you.

It’s sweet relief when you feel him bottom out in you and you stay there for a moment, letting yourself adjust, the stinging pain of the stretch not unpleasant, and when you feel more confident you’ve adjusted, you give an experimental thrust of your hips that has you both gasping.

You give another, and you can practically hear Clark grinding his teeth together, and then you raise yourself up, thighs shaking, before slamming back down. Your hands find purchase on his shoulders as you set a rhythm, a little sloppy at first as you lean forward to mash your mouths together, Clark whispering praises against your lips.

Every now and then, he leans back to take in the sight of you bouncing on his cock, completely hypnotized by the sight of your pussy swallowing him and the noises you make each time he bottoms out in you.

The rubber band begins to pull tight in your belly, and your thighs wobble, the rhythm faltering. “Clark.” It comes out as a plea. “Fuck me.”

Whatever restraint Clark has snaps at your words. One hand reaches up, grabbing hold of you by the back of your neck as the other digs into your waist, and then he’s forcing you up and down on his cock, hips jutting up to meet yours halfway, setting a bruising pace that has you keening, “Fuck—” you gasp out. “Oh god, I’m gonna—”

Your orgasm rips through you before you can even finish your sentence, and you feel like you’re drowning in the sensation as the world turns to white noise around you. “That’s it, sweetheart, you’re so good for me.”

Clark doesn’t even give you time to come down from your high as he manhandles you off of his lap, the sudden emptiness is jarring, but it doesn’t stay that way long as he bends you over the couch, hefting your ass into the air and sliding back in.

“Such a good girl,” he groans as he resumes the hard thrusts that have you gripping the back of your couch for dear life. The only thing you can focus on is the delicious slide of his cock into you, and you think you feel tears gathering at the corners of your eyes.

You’re whining, overstimulated as all hell, already feeling another orgasm beginning to bubble to the surface. “Clark, oh God, fuck—” You’re arching your back, and he hits it just right. “Ohmygod.”

A loud ‘smack’ echoes through the apartment, and you barely even register the sting on your ass cheek. “Gonna give me another one, baby?”

“Mhm,” you whine pathetically into the couch cushion. Body shaking, just trying to keep yourself up, though Clark is doing most of the heavy lifting. He reaches down, fingers circling your clit once, twice, and that’s all it takes as you buck back into him, a long, breathy moan escaping you as you cum again. It feels like every nerve in your body is on fire, and you think you’ve forgotten how to breathe.

You barely register him asking, “Where do you want it?”

Your mouth automatically babbling out, “Inside—fuck—cum inside me.”

That has his hips stuttering before he buries himself to the hilt, groaning lowly, and you can feel the warmth spread inside you. You’re both frozen like that, breathing heavily, and then Clark pulls out with a low hiss, gathering you up in his arms before collapsing back onto the couch, you cradled on top of him, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.

“Jesus Christ, farm boy,” you finally breathe after a moment of silence, and you can feel his chest shake with laughter. You tilt your head up to look at him, and he captures your lips with his before pulling away, reaching up to caress the side of your face, tracing the contours of your cheekbones with his thumb.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes, and you feel your heart stutter in your chest—a feeling you welcome with open arms.

“So, if I agree to let you take me out to dinner again, think you’ll show up this time?”

He grins. “Yes.”

The weekend passes in a blur of tangled limbs and soft confessions. You tease Clark about all it took was you on top of him to get him to talk to you in full sentences, finally. He stammers and blames you for being so pretty.

On Monday, when Clark comes in late, he does so with a cup of your favorite coffee, and you give him a hard time, despite the smile on your face, with no real bite to your words. Clark is on the receiving end of some light teasing from Lois and Jimmy, who, quite frankly, are relieved they won’t have to deal with a pining Clark any longer.

(They quickly realize, though, that even being together, he still stares after you as you flit about the newsroom, possibly looking even more lovestruck)