puck's fanfic corner

Right, ‘cos, unfortunately, unkindly, Johnny Storm thinks you’re in love. Like, you’re going steady, monogamously, and another woman’s photo might piss you off. 

“I wouldn’t have that kind of stuff,” he says. His cheeks seem to pink with your knowing stare. “Anymore! I don’t need pin-up girls, do I? Got the real deal right here.”

“Shut up.” 

He obeys. 

Johnny pulls you into a sitting position. He’s gentle. You want to hit him (you wouldn’t) (it’s about protecting your best interests, even if you know you couldn’t hit him now, not when he’s only ever touched you nicely). 

“Promise it’s not illicit?” you ask. 

“Baby,” he laughs, which is a whole other thing. Like, who does he think you are. “Just open it.”

You crack open the cases latch and flick the lid. The hinges are tightly sprung, and it stands at three-quarter mast by itself. There, inside two velvet borders, lays a circle rattle in the shape of a duck, and a letter folded into a thick square. 

You realise you’ve stumbled onto something precious, but Johnny stops you before you can close the box. 

“That was mine,” he says, “and my mom’s, before.” 

“It’s carved?”

“It’s wood.”

You hesitate to pick it up. “Can I?”

“Sure you can. I told you to open it.”

You put the box between you and Johnny and bring the rattle closer for inspection. Shaking it gently reveals a sound like dried rice plinking against thin walls. There’s a notch at the bottom where the rice might’ve been poured inside. It’s… so human. So fragile. It’s nothing like you thought Johnny would be. 

Even his room. You’d expected a grand, almost palatial sort of thing full of modern gadgets and, perhaps, a few distasteful posters —Johnny Storm, the single sweetheart of Manhattan, you hadn’t believed it for a second. Thought him rude and boyish, scowled at his infomercials and rolled your eyes whenever his infernal billboards darkened your apartment window. You’d figured him out before you got here. You knew exactly how to make him want you: rich boy wants what he can’t have. He needs intrigue, delight, a fight and a good long chase, and then, before he could lose interest, a kiss. Maybe something rather less chaste, only, Johnny doesn’t let you get him into bed. He kisses ardently and laughs into your mouth whenever your fingers flirt with his belt. Talks about movies and shopping and dates, instead. 

“I should’ve given it to Franklin, I know, but I couldn’t, you know. Couldn’t bear to give it away yet,” he says, starting brave, ending soft. 

“That’s okay,” you say, though you can’t work out why. “You don’t have to give it to him yet, or ever. Franklin has enough. You can keep it safe.”

“It was selfish, though. He should get something from his grandma.”

“Mm, maybe. I don’t know, though, baby. I think Franklin has more than enough. You can share it with him later, when he’s older. When he knows how important it is.”

“Yeah.” 

You squint at his tone. “What?” 

“Nothing, just… can’t trust myself to take it out of the box.”

“Why not?” you ask.

“I’m sort of made of fire. Like, I’m made of fire? You’ve seen me do that, right?”

“Sure, but you control it.”

He shrugs. “And one day I won’t be able to.”

“Shut up. You don’t believe that. Shut up!”

His eyes widen slightly. “It’s not always easy.”

“I didn’t say it was. I figure that’s why you’d never do that. It’s not easy, and Johnny doesn’t do easy.” 

“You know I love it when you talk about me like I’m not here–”

You press your hand to his face, annoyed, worse when he licks at your palm, slightly less when he gives it a nibble. 

You place the rattle back carefully into the box and close it.

“You could’ve read it, you know,” he says, taking your damp hand and pressing it to his neck. 

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you let me?”

He doesn’t look sick, but it’s a shade of nausea. Too much sincerity for the poor guy, you think, turning your hand in enough to stroke the slope of his neck. He relaxes some under the touch. The pit of your stomach gives a sickly twist.

“Don’t let me, Johnny,” you say, rubbing at his jaw with your thumb. 

He snorts, turning his head to bite your thumb. “Quit it,” he says, muffled from behind your skin. You wrinkle your nose at him, not that that matters to him. He just keeps on biting you. “Let you do whatever you want. But me first.” 

The photos of him online don’t do him justice. 

“It’s not bad. I know it hurts, but,” —his hand finds your shoulder, squeezes lightly— “it’s because it’s so high up, alright? They always bleed more. It doesn’t mean this is anything to worry about beyond fixing you up and getting you some pain relief.” 

“You– you’re real help.” 

He holds your gaze. “Yeah?” 

You wonder if he can feel the heat of your blush. It’s all over. He’s lucky your head wound doesn’t start spurting. “Yeah– yeah, I– Superman.” 

His smile is everything. “What?” he asks patiently. 

“I’m a big fan of– of yours.” 

“You are?” 

“You’re so brave,” you breathe out in a rush, though it hurts your head. “So brave. And– and…” 

“Sorry,” he murmurs, putting a little more pressure on your temple. “Thank you for being a fan. All I want is to keep everyone safe.” 

“You’re so gentle with everyone, even the aliens, and– you’re pretty…” 

“Pretty?” he asks, pure surprise in his voice, his hand falling off of your arm. 

You wince. “Yeah. Yes. Handsome. Sorry, you must get told that so much.” 

“It’s okay. I won’t hold you to anything you say. You’re injured, after all.” 

His teasing tone pretty much flies over your head. “No, I’m not lying. I mean it. You’re really lovely, and what you do, it makes you lovelier, it does–” You nearly choke on your enthusiasm. He has to know.

“Don’t get wound up, I’m sorry. I believe you. Let’s try to stay calm.” 

Your head is aching in a new way, now. Less the sting of a wide cut, more beating, like a whirl in your own brain twisting and shaking, dizziness alive behind your eyes and threatening to knock you over. You clutch at Superman’s arm and he knows what you need, slipping his free arm behind your back before you can collapse. 

“I don’t usually get crushes on people,” you inform him. “But it was hard not to get one with you. You’re even nicer than I thought you’d be.” 

“It’s easy to be nice to you. Easy as breathing.” 

Superman hugs you. You swear he does. But when the concussion begins to clear up and your confusion wanes in a hospital bed outside of the battle zone, you realise that he was holding you upright. Superman doesn’t know you, he never will, and you’re okay with it in the grand scheme of things. If you had to meet him, you’re glad it was while he was keeping you safe. He really is a good guy. 

—

A week later, Clark Kent is waiting for you at the doors to the Daily Planet. 

“Are you sure you don’t need more rest?” he asks, forcibly removing your handbag from your shoulder to carry himself.

“I’m sure.”

“It’s okay if you need more time to recover. You’re still wearing a dressing.” 

“It’s a bandaid, Clark, and it’s to hide the scar for now, it’s–”

“It’s still a wound.” 

“It’s fine! You saw it, you know it’s fine.” 

Your overbearing best friend had surprise-visited you the day after your injury despite a text to tell him to stay home. You’re fine. It was a cut and the mildest concussion you could’ve had. You didn’t throw up, or collapse, you’d simply gotten confused and bled all over Metropolis’ finest super hero until his hands were more red than white.

“It looked awful, it still does.” 

“It looks fine. Even the nurse said it was a small cut, in an unfortunate place.”

“Very unfortunate.” 

You follow him to the elevator bank with a frown. “Clark, you don’t have to sulk.” 

“I’m not sulking! I just don’t see what’s wrong with staying in bed for now.” 

“I have stuff to do, babe. I have to work. I have to move forward, it barely hurts anymore.” 

He likes being called babe, simpering accordingly. “Well, you’re sitting down all day. Doctor’s orders.” 

“Show me your oath and I’ll consider it.” 

“Please?” 

He looks like he could cry. Not that he will, but like he could if you keep saying no to him. And despite all your grievances with being treated like you’re fragile now, you decide to take it easy, if only to give Clark the peace of mind. “Okay, sure. You can wait on me all day.” 

“Yes. Thank you.” 

Clark’s your best friend because —no matter how much it might confuse you— he seems to really love you, maybe from the moment he met you. You started at the Daily Planet and he took to you like a duck takes to water. Everything you said made him laugh, every recipe you wrote was one he had to try. And you figured it was something boys tend to do, right? Pretend you‘re interesting until they get what they want from you, but Clark’s never asked for anything else, loving you wholly and expecting nothing in return. 

You let him swing an arm around your shoulders, a mirror of himself those few nights ago where he’d come shaky and sorry to see you. He apologised for not being there when you got hurt, as if he could’ve stopped it. 

“I’m sick of working already,” you say. 

“Then let’s go home.” 

“Clark. I’m being conversational.” 

“Don’t tease me,” he pleads, sounding all sudden and whiney. You squirm out of his arms to poke his side. Gets more solid by the day. Idiot boy. 

“Have you been working out?” 

“Can you stop?” 

“Can I stop? You’re a nightmare.”

Clark threatens to superglue you to your deskchair, but he titters around you hopelessly all day. 

— 

You’re laying on the gravel roof of your apartment on top of a sun lounger, trying to decide if getting some sun is worth all the noise. Beeping, birds, cars, doors, the wind, this high up and occasionally curving through buildings to kiss your skin —noise, noise, noise. Your phone is ringing while you ignore it, desperate to get through the last chapter of your book without interruption. You have thus far been foiled, and figured nobody’d be able to find you up here. 

The quick, awful zip of a high impact sounds somewhere close. You nearly topple from your lounger, a hand pressed to your chest, your heart racing near painfully at the surprise. You whip your head to the horizon looking for smoke, but there’s nothing. For a few minutes, you can’t hear anything at all. 

The shape of him descends before your mind can catch up. Then, he’s there in one piece. A touchable dream, Carol Ann Duffy at work and torturing you in passing. You’ve seen a ton of photos of him, hundreds, videos of girls recording to ask him sweet questions, and you’ve never seen him smile so shyly. You shiver violently down your arms, but Superman isn’t here to hurt you. 

“I’ve been looking for you.” 

“You were?” you ask.

“I wanted to make sure you were doing okay.” 

You sit up properly. The book in your lap makes a crunching noise that you happily ignore. “I’m fine. I’m fine, did you– You’re here to see if I’m okay?” 

His smile strengthens. “Is that okay?” 

You stammer, “Of course it’s okay!” A flush rises from your chest to your cheeks as he stays there. He’s not leaving until you answer. Holy fuck. “I’m great, Superman. All healed up.” 

“Are you sure? You still have–” He gestures to your bandaid. 

“It’s to keep it clean in the daytime. I take it off before bed.” 

“Does it hurt?” 

“No, of course not.” 

“Why of course not?” 

Your heart makes a funny pulse. Handsome isn’t the right word for him. There’s something special about it, otherworldly, literally, the cut of his jaw somehow sharp and soft at once, his pert nose, his eyes gone light in the sunshine and framed by dark lashes that beg to be touched. You imagine running a fingertip along them, gently brushing them up for no reason at all, and he narrows his gaze at you in your silence. The shorts you’re wearing have you worrying you’re underdressed in his eyes. They’re pajamas, pink with black polka dots and edgings. You’d had the forethought to wear a short-sleeve rather than a vest lest one of your neighbours find themselves up here with the same quiet idea. Superman’s fully clothed in comparison. 

His boots look formidable next to your puppy dog socks. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” you promise, half-lying and uncaring. Superman saved you. He’s perfect, so your head doesn’t hurt. 

“You seem a little flustered, is all.” 

“Oh. Oh, well, it’s hot out, and I’m not like, super used to being in your company. Or any company, um, like yours.” 

“You’ve never met a metahuman?” 

“No, never.” 

“We’re just like everybody else.” 

You laugh. 

“No, really,” he says, idling toward you, red boots treading the gravel down flat. “I’m just like you, you don’t have to be nervous.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Now what do you have to be sorry for?” 

You laugh again, a giggle you’d never admit to. He’s strangely intimidating; a presence, but not an imposing one.

“What are you reading?” he asks, nodding to your lap. 

“Oh, uh. Uh, it’s called The Ocean?” You straighten up the book to show him the cover. “It’s good, uh, the main character is a young boy who wants to find his father, I think it’s supposed to be a take on The Odyssey,” 

“Why is he looking for his father?” 

“He’s missing after a terrible war. It’s one of those ones that hurts the entire time but the ending has wrapped it up so nicely, it was worth it.”

“Maybe I’ll read it, too. You look like someone who has great taste.” 

“You can borrow my copy.” 

Superman’s gaze narrows again. “You’re finished?” 

“Yeah, I finished it before you got here.” 

He waits in the quiet. You’re sure he’s going to call you out for your lie. It's not as though a Kryptonian truth-radar would be outside of the realm of possibility. 

Superman finally smiles. “I promise to bring it back,” he says simply. 

“Sure. Well, take your time.” 

—

How long can it possibly take a superhero to read one book?

You shouldn't be thinking about it again. Poor Clark is sitting in the corner of the couch with your feet stuck under his thighs, telling you about the grocery store widow who asks him for help to take her groceries out to her car whenever she sees him. She’d spotted him at the produce section today and dibsed him, and Clark doesn’t mind (though she leaves her car at the back of the parking lot no matter the weather). In fact, Clark doesn’t bring it up to complain. He’s sympathising with her, how lonely she must be. 

You try to shake Superman from your head while Clark is talking, but the thoughts of him won’t budge. 

You’d made a fool of yourself on the roof. Superman had taken your book to be polite. He probably won’t come back. 

“Hey.” 

You lift your head. 

Clark’s looking at you. Big blue eyes in a classic face, the line of his glasses dark and heavy against his brow. They trace your expression, searching for the misery you’ve failed to hide, until he finds it in the creases of your eyes. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks. His voice is weak with worry. 

“Nothing.”

“It’s something.”

“It’s really not.” 

“It definitely is. You can tell me about anything, you know. Or you don’t have to tell me, but I’ll be here for you no matter what. Some food for thought.” 

“Food for thought. Eat this, Kent,” you say, jabbing him at the top of the thigh with your heel. 

Clark grabs your foot. “Come on. I know something’s wrong, and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me, but…” He lets your foot smack down into the top of his thigh to grab his tea instead.

“Isn’t that cold?” you ask. 

“It’s tepid,” he allows after a sip.

You laugh, so he laughs. It’s a lovely sound.

“Again. Again, you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but I’d listen if you wanted me to.”

“Don’t try and make out like you’re not keeping secrets.” 

Clark goes slack-jawed. “Sorry?” 

“You don’t tell me everything. I know exactly where you disappear to all the time.” 

“You do?” 

You climb up on your knees and settle in front of him. You’re wearing those pink polka dot shorts like you were on the roof with Superman, in hopes they’ll summon him to you like a talisman. Clark presses his lips together, watching you closely as you take his face into your hands. 

“You’re dating Lois Lane,” you say. 

His fingers dust your elbow. “What?” 

“You’re sweet on her, aren’t you? Plus, you’re busy all the time. You’ve cancelled movie night three times this month, did you know?” 

“I’m sorry–”

“I’m not. I’m happy for you.” 

Clark shakes his head. “But Lois and I… I mean, not for months. We were almost something, I think, but no. Not for a while.” 

You let your hands fall off of his cheeks. “Oh. Sorry, Clark.” 

“Don’t be. I should’ve told you, but it was new and then it was over.” 

“You should’ve told me,” you agree, “but I sort of get why you didn’t. I’m your girl best friend. That’s a thing.”

“You’re my best friend,” he promises, no ‘girl’ prefix necessary. “That’s not why it ended, Lois isn’t like that. It was… we disagreed on so many things. Looking back, I think she was right about most of it.”

“Well, she’s a girl.”

“That she is. You’re all the same, aren’t you? All dazzling.” 

He says it with an earnestness that reminds you of the other half of your friendship-equation. Clark’s your best friend because he loves your work and your jokes and your company, and you’re his best friend because he’s good as gold, inside out, just awfully lovable.

“You’re ’dazzling’ too,” you say. “You are.”

Clark offers you his mug of tea. You take a sip for something to do. 

“Not that cold,” you murmur. 

“I never realised you were such a liar.” 

“I don’t really lie to you, Clark.” 

He leans up to kiss your head, chaste against your purpling scar. “I know.”

—

“So, this book–”

You jump hard enough to send your groceries five different ways, oranges and kiwis for Clark flying up in the air. They never hit the ground —Superman catches them in two hands. 

Your loaf of bread lays cradled in his arm like a baby. 

“Fuck,” you complain. 

“I’m sorry.” Superman laughs at you. Laughs. “Sorry. But this book, is there a sequel?” 

“What?” you ask. Superman tips your groceries into your waiting paper bag. 

“I think I need a sequel.” He pulls The Ocean from a pocket and squeezes it unkindly. “I think it ruined my life.” 

“There’s no sequel. But–” don’t spoil the ending for me, you almost say. “Did you enjoy it at all?” 

“It was good. Do you read a lot, or are you down to the real heart-achers?” 

“Uh, I guess. Well, no, I used to read more, but I didn’t have time for a while ‘n now I’m usually too stirred up to settle down.” 

“You cook.” 

You blink. “You googled me?” 

“No, how could I? But I did see you on the third page of the Daily Planet. You have a little author’s window. You made pumpkin pie.”

“For Thanksgiving weekend, yeah. They only ever put me near the front or on the main page of the website if it’s the holidays.” 

“Is that true?” 

You shake your head. Not to say no, to say, let’s not talk about it. Silly insecurities are unnecessary conversation. At least, they are with him. 

Someone gasps from behind you. With one comes a few. The people near the crosswalk are starting to notice Superman’s tall figure standing in the sun, and though you’d wish he’d managed to hide in the shadows, you admit to yourself that there’s nowhere else he could ever be. He looks right in the sun. 

“Do you want to come with me?” he asks. 

Do you want to go with him? What the fuck does he think? said in your head ecstatically, not a lick of derision against him. Your excitement nearly blinds you. 

“Yeah,” you say, practically mumbling, wanting to come off nonchalant and instead sounding painfully shy, even to your own ears. 

“Yeah?” He offers an arm. “Come here.”

Your charmed little laugh makes him grin. “Alright?” he asks, locking an arm around you vice-tight. 

“Where are we–”

The air leaves your lungs in one fell swoop. There and gone, breathless and weightless in tandem.

The sky is more than blue when you’re in it. 

There’s nothing you can say about it. You’re terrified Superman is going to drop you, you can hardly breathe from the sudden speed at which you’d been taken up with him, but beyond that, there’s nothing to say. Wordless, endless sky. Blue, blue—

“It’s not as scary as you think, right?” he asks, his head angled down to yours. 

“I expected you to have to shout. I don’t know why.” 

“It’s windier in the air, but we’re close. I don’t need to yell.” 

“You’re lucky I didn’t get many groceries.” 

“You aren’t heavy.” 

You’re delighted. “This is a paper bag, you realise! I’m surprised it didn’t explode the second you got me up here!” 

“I’ll be careful. You’re precious cargo, and you deserve a better experience now than the one you got when you first came up here with me.”

“I don’t remember much of it.” 

“That’s okay. I do.” 

You should feel ridiculous, but strong arms hold you steady. Blue eyes like someone familiar pour over your face, as though they need to see you clearly, with all this perfect light. Your few groceries are squeezed between your chests as you squeeze him by the neck, desperate for the extra security, that he won’t simply let you go, and have you fall. 

“This is amazing,” you breathe, your eyes sweeping down to take in beautiful Metropolis beating away beneath you. The cars look like ants. The buildings cast shadows you’d never noticed from the ground. 

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s something.” 

You glance up to find him still staring at you. 

The girls on SuperClub would never, ever believe you if you tried to tell them what passes between you, then. (Not that you frequent SuperClub. Often. You see it while scrolling, and you tend to scroll past it with a fond eye roll.) They wouldn’t believe that Superman brings his hand to your head to touch your temple, as though your small scar is a personal affront to him. They wouldn’t believe the way that he pauses when you shudder. Wouldn’t believe how he lets his fingertip tumble down your cheek, or the soft incline of his head. The slightest kiss of his eyelashes meeting in the very corners of his eyes as they almost close. 

“Don’t feel guilty, please,” you say. 

“What?” He sounds as though he’s woken up from a nap. 

“About what happened. It wasn’t your fault that I got hurt. I wanted you to know that. You saved me.” 

Superman lets the distance between your two faces grow. “I…”

“If this is what that is, if you feel like you owe me something, well. You don’t… I don’t know you, Superman, but sometimes I think I do. It’s like… someone I've met before? I can see your bleeding heart.” You offer a brash smile. “But I’m just fine. You promised me that I would be, and I am.” 

“You’re not making this any easier for me.” 

You shift in his grasp, his hair tickling you and the little hairs on your arms. 

“I’m not a very easy person,” you say. 

Superman presses his nose to your cheek. 

“I think you’re giving me tachycardia,” you whisper.

He hears it. Doesn’t answer for a while, and when he does, it’s to neither of the things you said before.

“Let me take you somewhere new,” he says.

—

A day later, Clark asks if he can bring you dinner. Like and unlike himself, to care enough to ask but to forgo his usual boisterous lack of respect when it comes to taking care of you. Clark recognises that you like to be cared for aggressively. That you want someone to care so much that they won’t stop at the first hurdle. You want someone to take it at a sprint, and Clark’s a show off loser-dork who likes taking care of you. 

He meets you at the door, where you show him your small picnic basket kitted with two plates, knives, forks, and a hidden dessert. “Too hot in my apartment,” you say. 

“What’s wrong with the AC?” 

“It’s leaking.” 

“I’ll take a look at it. What happened to that fan I got you?” he asks, his fingers at your wrist trying to steal the basket. 

“Oh, Clark, can’t you just leave me alone?” you plead. 

He laughs like a kid. “I love when you do that.”

“What?” 

“I don’t know, is it sarcasm? I don’t think that’s apt. Whatever it is, when you act like that? You’re really convincing. It’s funny.”

“I can be funny.”

“I know, that’s what I’m saying. You’re really funny. Can you do it some more?”

“Now it’s not natural, though.” 

“Please?”

“Leave it alone, Clark. You’re such a beg.” 

He laughs again. It peters off to a quiet you’d like to live in. His takeout bag rustles, your picnic basket rattles, his fingers brushing the back of your arm as he follows you down the street to the wooded path. 

There’s a small park not far from your apartment that’s been divided into two halves. The playground for the neighbourhood kids, and the picnic tables made of strangely shaped wood. They’re all rounded. One table is shaped like an ‘S’. Another like a filled in ‘8’. 

You sit at the one furthest from the playground, coincidentally shaped like a ‘C’. “For Clark,” you say, pleased. 

“Adorable.” 

You set up your plates, dividing up the food squarely. Clark had the wherewithal to bring two cans of soda and a big bottle of water. He asks which one you want, cracking it open accordingly. “Gonna pour it into my mouth, too?” you tease. 

“Do you not want me to be nice to you?” 

And the night slips away. You eat your takeout at the picnic table and linger until your legs are numb. The grass around the park is damp, but you sit, and you shoot the breeze until the sun starts to go down. It must be hours out there together. 

Clark takes his jacket off and spreads it over your shoulders. “This is your only bad trait,” he says happily. “You never tell me when you’re cold.”

“I’m not that cold.”

“Sure you’re not. Look, come here,” —he pulls you bodily into his side, his voice turning silky as angora— “you act like you’re such a plague, like– I don’t know, like I wouldn’t wanna know that you’re cold.”

“I don’t act like that.” 

“You do. You could rely on me for more, you know? I want you to lean on me.” 

You lean on him.

Clark presses his nose to your temple, his glasses digging into your skin.

And you think, I know you. 

But you don’t know why. 

—

Clark can't believe this is happening again. 

He woke up this morning with a scary yet firm plan: he’s going to get himself together, pluck up what he has in the way of courage, and be honest with you about Superman. If only so he can stop lying to you. He should’ve told you months ago that he was Superman. Hell, he might’ve told you from the moment he met you, that’s how sure he was that he’d love you. As a friend —his best friend, half of his life. There’s this ease, like he’s known you for far longer than he truly has, like he could know you for the rest of his life. 

And lately. 

Oh, lately. Clark can’t get a handle on things. He hadn’t realised he was falling in love with you, isn’t even sure that’s the way to describe it; far from a sharp plummet downward into love, this has felt like a slow and steady ascent, but now suddenly he’s at the mountain top and the air is thin, and he’s looking for you, aching for relief, and you’re sitting in the snow with your book and your shy smile, cross-legged, just waiting for him to get there and open his cowardly mouth. 

Or that’s what he’d like to think. 

Fact of the matter is, Clark would like to kiss you. Hold your hand, have your head rest on his shoulder. He’d like to pull you into his lap and squeeze. Clark could die happy if he got just one shot at it, no matter the outcome. 

He knows he won’t lose you, but he’s worried you don’t want what he wants. He’s gotten so close to having you, he’s not sure he can take being any further apart than this. 

Clark takes the tramline to the rich part of the city with the best florist. There are buckets and buckets of flowers; orange tiger lilies and white orchids turned green in the sun; roses as big as his fist, unfurling; sweet peas kissing pinkest camellias all tangled up with baby’s breath. He chooses the sweet peas. They really are sweet, their hemmed edge petals curling in and nearly blue. They’re beautiful. He can see them in a glass on your nightstand by tonight if he’s lucky.

It’s on the walk to your apartment (tramline too busy to risk, lest your flowers get hurt) that the trouble begins. 

The light goes out. 

It doesn’t make logical sense. He’s outdoors. It’s the early morning, the sun should be shining for hours to come. 

He looks up and finds a singular dark rectangle over Earth. 

It blots out everything, disapears the clouds, turns the blue sweetpeas in his hand a tired shade of grey. 

Clark wonders if he should’ve told you how he felt when he had the chance. Then, he leaves his glasses, his jacket, and his sweetpeas in the hedgerow at the park with alphabet picnic tables and throws himself upwards into the sky.

—

What emerges from the spaceship (and it is a spaceship, made of an element humans aren’t want to touch) are creatures shaped like spinning asterisks, wisps of their angel-white bodies bending the shadows they’ve cast down onto Metropolis. It’s like smoke. 

The dark makes it hard to breathe. 

You sit huddled in your bedroom looking out through the window, despite a desperate urge to hide somewhere further inward. Sirens echo throughout otherwise quiet streets, discordant wailing that wavers for long, sharp minutes. There had been screaming and crying and the splintering sounds of glass. It’s not —not unseeable, out there, but anyone with poor vision will find themselves stranded.

You open your phone. Your theory is that the aliens have been able to dampen sound as well as sun, leaving the battlefield dangerously quiet. Clark’s not answering your texts because he never has his phone, but you’re sure he’s out there somewhere. He told you he was coming. The last message he sent this morning blinks at you from the bottom of your screen: Coming by soon if you’re not busy, do you want me to bring breakfast? 

You’d said, just some eggs please if you want eggs 

You’d said, hey, are you safe? What’s with the dark? 

You’d said, clark please text me back right now, I’m freaking out, do you need me to come get you? 

He won’t answer the phone. Outside, up in the sky where it’s darker still and the white shadows have begun to ripple, the occasional red beam of heat slices into whiteness, turning it to shadows again. There are two sets of red if you watch carefully. Green light flickers at the ground. 

And Clark Kent is out there all alone. 

You crawl to your shoes under the bed and put them on, pajamas and all. Clark’s blue hoodie lays on the back of your deskchair. You shrug it on. 

He’s gonna lose his entire mind if you do find him out there. Can friends ground you? Because Clark’s going to ground you. But you’d rather be grounded than all alone. 

—

Superman groans into the floor, his tongue coated in dust. 

He has far better vision than a person feasibly needs. He wore a pair of glasses once that are supposed to approximate what it’s like to have legal blindness, and he’d felt suddenly, achingly sorry for the human race. But then he’d found the glasses stand beside it with all their different prescriptions and shrugged it off. Humans are brilliant. He’s in awe of their persistence, their resilience, and their strength. He knows he can find it in himself to go on because they can, too. 

He has better vision, and still he finds himself batted away from the entities like a bothersome fruit fly. 

“Krypto?” he asks into the smog. 

His borrowed dog flies at him with impressive speed, pressing his snout straight into a bruise. 

“Ow!” 

Krypto snuffles and hits at his arms with both paws. 

“Krypto, stop! Jeez, stop. You’re such a pai– Ow! Get off.” 

Krypto nibbles his shoulder. 

Clark forces himself to sit up. At least he hasn’t killed the dog. Kara would probably eviscerate the planet country by country if something happened to her dog, not mentioning the aliens that started this whole thing. And he is good at bringing the suit when Clark needs it. 

He rubs at his eyes and drags himself to his feet, back aching, eyes like sand. Nothing is healing because he can’t feel the sun, but he’s not too hurt. He can take a bad landing. He can take twenty of them. 

“Krypto, stay.” 

Krypto tilts his white blurry head. 

“You’re not helping.” 

Arf! Clark rolls his shoulders and shoots back into the air. 

Krypto stays down, for now. 

Clark takes a lap through the air, searching for signs of life with his ears. The eery quiet is beginning to fill with catastrophe.

“Clark?” 

He stops dead in the sky. 

“Clark?” you call, ten miles below him, shouting all clipped and scared. “Clark Kent! Are you out here? If you can hear me, call back to me!”

He says your name.

“Clark? I’m here!” 

Clark looks up into melted-sugar shadows as they begin to curdle and makes a choice. Damn the aliens, they can have the sky, so long as Clark gets to keep you safe. 

He has to keep you safe. 

—

You’re watching a shadow plummet toward you when the sky opens up into shards of Technicolor. Concentrated around a single point of red and blue and moving so fast it turns puce.

—

There’s a scene in The Ocean where the main character realises his father has been dead before the beginning of the book. Dead for years. He goes searching for him because he’s scared to be alone, brave enough to realise it, and young enough to misunderstand the danger of the world. He treks sandbanks, ferries favour, turns in promises and follows the footsteps of a man long dead across the world. Clark told you once, privately, quietly, in a moment that immediately panicked him, that his parents had adopted him, and that his birth parents had left him with a letter after they both died.

What did it say? you’d asked. 

To be good. 

You find your copy of The Ocean cradled in familiar hands. You recognise its secondhand cover, the bends in the front where a previous owner had tented it for a long period of time. The spine is loose and lax with age. The pages are yellow with time. 

Clark is sleeping quietly in the plastic-wrapped chair beside your bed. He doesn’t have a bruise or cut. He doesn’t look anything like Superman had as he’d flung himself at you, two seconds too late, his body a shield against an explosion that lit your body with fire and colour alike. The whole world had been red, and then yellow, and suitably blue. There was pain. 

Not a darkness as people often say. Just hurting and now this. 

You take a scary breath. Hitching and pained, you search for comfort and find none of it. There’s a needle in the back of your hand secured with a teddy bear wrapping. The sheets have been drawn to your chin and choke you as you try to sit. 

After a moment of struggling, you sink back and try for another breath. Deep, aching breaths. You do it until your lungs burn, these awful, stringing breaths, eyes to the ceiling and fighting the spots of nothingness that cloud your vision. 

“Hey,” a soft voice says, softer hand pressed to the curve of your neck. “Oh, hey, sweet girl, hey… it’s okay. The pain won’t last, they gave you a little more morphine a few minutes ago, it’ll kick in.” 

“Uh–”

Clark makes a sound. “Oh.” 

You let your eyes slide to him. He’s checking his wrist where it’s resting on you. 

“I was sleeping for a long time, I… Honey, I’ll get a nurse.” 

“No,” you breathe. 

“Yeah, honey, I’ll get a nurse,” he repeats, stroking your neck with his thumb. His eyes are their usual calm blue, bearing down into your own with an emotion that’s somehow palpable and implacable. “It’s no good, you being in pain like this. I’ll come right back.” 

“Clark, don’t go,” you whine. 

It’s like the world has been placed heavy on your head. 

Clark offers you relief. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to. Tell me what’s hurting, and I’ll fix it.” 

You shake your head at him. Fuck, nothing hurts. It’s not pain you’re being smothered in. 

“Okay,” he murmurs.

For a while, you don’t talk. Clark stays stooped over you, too tall and careful anyhow to stay out of your light. He holds your cheek, rubbing at skin with his thumb until it’s tickled into numbness, your body begging you to move away from his touch and your brain knowing you can’t. You’ll never duck away from his fingertips ever again. 

Where he’d been unhurt, he isn’t unharried. His hair is in a complete disarray, curls in places pulled straight and greasy behind his ears. His face is pale. His eyes flicker obsessively between you and your monitor, as though he can decipher the information it displays. He must see something there that he trusts, sitting down again in the chair dragged quick and easy to the side of your bed. His hand stays at your face. He’s long. It’s simple work. 

“You read The Ocean,” you whisper. 

“I read all your annotations, too,” he tells you, turning his hand to run it down your cheek, his fingernails especially silky against the line of your jaw. 

You turn your face toward his touch. Your eyes flutter closed as he indulges your deepest fantasy. 

“I didn’t–” Oh, you can’t say it. You hadn’t meant to want him like this. You hadn’t known he was Superman, and isn’t that awful? Something cruel. Your best friend kept a worst secret. 

He doesn’t rush you. 

You’re ready to try again a few minutes later. His fingertips have started to draw a flower into your neck. 

“I’m embarrassed that Clark knows what I said to Superman,” you say plainly. 

“Superman didn’t tell Clark anything,” Clark says. His voice is light in contrast to your hesitancy. 

“But you know it all.” 

“I know you,” he agrees. 

“I’m really… sorry. I’m sorry, I–” You search for his touch and he immediately cups your cheek again. “Clark, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come out looking for you. I didn’t realise you could look after yourself and I made things worse.” 

“Do you even remember?” he asks. 

Mildly. You’d woken once before and found a less fixed Clark covered in blood above you. A part of you had understood that it was Clark, even without his glasses, and a different part knew it was Superman. Then things had blurred, half-replaced by a memory of his hand behind your back in the middle of a meadow halfway across the world, that beautiful quiet valley where the water had been ice and the grass emerald velveteen under your legs. 

In the dream, Superman (and this had been real until it wasn’t), turned to you, and said, with Clark’s dorky intonation, “That’s seriously beautiful, huh?”  

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“But–”

“You don’t. I won’t argue about it with you. You have no apologies to make, you did everything right and nothing wrong, and I lied to you, and I got you hurt, and…” He has the gall to pink in the cheeks, like you’ve taken the skin between your knuckles and pinched. “I wasn’t honest with you about my feelings. I almost kissed you as Superman, and that wasn’t fair.” 

“You really are… him?” you ask weakly. 

“Yeah, I am.” 

Clark sits up as a doctor opens your room’s door. 

“Everything okay?” she asks. When she sees you awake, she smiles broadly. “Hey, you’re up! Can we get you some dinner now?” 

“You skipped breakfast,” Clark tells you. 

“I was awake for breakfast?” 

“Barely. We had you on some pretty gnarly painkillers,” the doctor says. She adjusts her white coat. “I just wanted to check in with your nurses and your lovely partner here that you hadn’t thrown up again.” 

You flush. “I’m fine.” 

Clark simply rubs your chest like a wave of his hand against your heart. 

“I’m worried you haven’t gotten enough sustenance this past day, but we try not to hook you up with too many things,” the doctor explains, “much better for you to settle and then eat. And to drink some water!” 

“I don’t feel very hungry.” 

“The painkillers you’re on can make some people feel quite sick. But try your best, okay? I’ll come back after dinner to see what we can do about those broken fingers.” 

You follow your arm down to your hand. Your pinky and ring finger on the non-dominant hand have been splinted but not casted. 

“Oh.” 

The doctor takes her leave, abandoning Clark to your questions. 

“What’s wrong with me?” you ask. 

“You got concussed again. It made you sick, and your hand is very nearly broken, but they think it’s just your fingers from the look of your x-rays. And you have a long cut.” He puts his hand on your stomach gently. “Here. Almost as long as your arm, but it’s a surface cut. You landed on debris. I’m sorry, my– honey. Sorry.” 

You can’t fight the chills or your bewilderment. “What for?”

“I didn’t get to you fast enough.” 

“Clark.” Your mouth is dry. He’s pretty. Your head goes round and round and aching and then with a dash of clarity, the world snaps back into place. Your hospital room is empty and bright, with a vase filled to bursting with sweetpeas in pride of place on your nightstand. There are voices drifting in from the hallway, and Clark is handsome even as he tears himself apart. The silver lining his bottom lashes doesn’t go unnoticed. “I’m okay, babe.” 

He laughs wetly. 

“I’m fine,” you promise, quieter now. “How couldn’t I be? You’re so gentle.” 

Clark finds your hand, pulling it to his forehead, his body bending forward like a marionette on loosening strings. He shakes his head vehemently, his grip on your wrist tight but far from cruel. 

“You’re gentle,” you promise under your breath, “I told you that before, didn’t I? You’re kind, and brave, and– it’s not your fault I went looking for you.” 

“I should be comforting you. I should be helping you,” he whispers. 

“You won’t catch me crying on your shoulder twice, Superman.” 

His head flinches up, like he’s realising for the first time that you know who he is. 

Whatever he sees in your face helps him to settle down. He curls long, thick fingers around your hand. You can’t help noting how adversely tender they feel while he holds your hand. 

“What did you think of the book?” you ask finally. 

“I didn’t know you liked to read,” he says. 

You shrug. Let your head fall back into a thin pillow, wondering how you might go about getting a better one, and beginning to feel the effects of the painkillers they’d been talking about. “It’s not like it’s the most alarming secret, between us.” 

He lets out a wounded whine. “Why do you hate me?” he asks. 

“You’re due some hazing.” 

“Can’t you take pity on me?” he asks. 

You curl your fingers around his where they’d otherwise been limp. “I’m not really half as cool as I’m trying to act, Clark.” 

He sulks beautifully. “I think you’re lying to make me feel better.” 

Only a little. 

—

Being cool around Clark Kent lasts about as long as the morphine does. The reality is this: Clark Kent —best friend extraordinaire, sweetheart farm boy who’s vetted all your worst ideas, held your hair back in the smallest toilet in Metropolis bar history after a too-happy happy hour, knows all your holey socks and questionable medical queries— is Superman. 

And Superman? 

He’d been courting you. 

The word is antiquated and accurate. Superman had been cautiously courting you with his sparse visits, shy and brave at once, brash but remarkably put together. It is after you know the truth that you realise Clark had been not so secretly courting you simultaneously. 

“Is that why you were bringing me dinner and stuff?” you ask, lured into the conversation by accident, now deeply curious. 

“No. I did that stuff before I wanted you. It was hard to sort the feelings into boxes, like– platonically, I’ve loved you since you came into the office with your miserable laptop and– and romantically, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t realise until I tried to kiss you and you wouldn’t let me.” 

“Sorry?” 

“I tried to kiss you, and you thought it was a pity kiss.” 

You hold him by the shoulder. “That was real?” 

“Do you dream about it?” he asks knowingly. 

“It was really going to be a kiss?” 

He softens. Clark, big on your smaller couch, in his pajamas with his hair finally washed again and your hand in his lap, rests his shoulder into yours with a long-suffering sigh. “Best kiss of your life,” he promises. 

“Prove it.” 

“What?” 

It’s been four days since the hospital and Clark is horrifically chaste. “Do you not want to kiss me?” 

“You know I do.” 

“So kiss me.” 

He pinches your chin. “If you wanted a kiss, you could’ve just taken one,” he tells you, looking you straight in the eyes. 

“From Superman?” you ask with a little scoff. 

He moves his head from left to right. “From me,” he says. 

There has been so much to tell him. So little space to hide from him. Lines of books you’d underlined for him, lines for Superman, for both of them. The guilty way you’d watched Clark Kent take off his shirt at the public pool in summer heat and the loop of Superman under your thumb as you’d fallen asleep scrolling SuperClub. You’ve been more honest with him than you’ve dared to be previously. 

Clark has repaid you in kind. 

Did you know, he’d confessed, when you were still grody from the hospital and he’d demanded you let him stay, that night, that everything I’m good at is because of the sun? I can function without it. I can store up the energy in my cells and I don’t need much to stretch it far, but without the yellow sun, I’m just like you? 

How could I know that? you’d thought. Why are you telling me this? you’d asked instead.

I want you to know. 

Clark loves the sun, you realise now. He turns his face up to it often, soaking it in silently. He gets this look whenever he stops to take it in. Perfect contentment. Trust, that it will make him feel better. 

Clark tilts his chin against yours, nudging your face gently inward, giving you the shortest glimpse of that content stretched across a smile as it presses into yours.

You hyperventilate your way into an open-mouthed, gasping sort of thing, and find Clark a fiercer kisser than you could’ve imagined. All those daydreams about Superman saving you from another day copyediting your own messes, you’d never thought to picture the boy sitting at the desk across from you, how his hand might slide behind your neck like water. How he’d take the breath from your lips and offer his own in a shaky, wanting gasp. 

Superman, breathless under your touch. No one would ever believe you. 

“Did you want me to tell you how it ends?” 

You break away from him, panting, vaguely confused. “Sorry?” 

“The Ocean? You never finished it.”

“Oh. Maybe you can read it to me. You know, afterwards.” 

Clark grins. “After,” he promises, leaning down for another kiss. 

˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚

“Here, sweetheart,” he says. 

You laugh, mostly to see his satisfied smile. “Thank you.” 

“Can I make it for you?” he asks. 

Clark could hang you upside down and shake you for spare change if he wanted. “You know how I like it.” 

Teasing aside, you spend the afternoon sipping at your coffee with Clark a desk away, Lois adjacent, listening to the click of tens of keyboards and the scritch of shuffled paper on the edges of desks. You work on your small cooking column in relative silence. Three recipes a week, minimum. If you do especially well, Perry lets you slide a conversational piece across his desk for reviewing. You’ve had a couple on the third page. Clark has taken the front page again this week —an exclusive interview with Superman about the Jelly-Mecha that attempted to swallow the WGBS building. 

You’re leaning back with a leg over your knee, your eyes dedicated to the little clock in the corner of your monitor, when somebody hooks the empty chair in the desk beside yours and wheels it over. Clark is sitting next to you before you can protest, a dark-sugared donut in his hands. 

“Okay?” he asks. 

“Are you sharing?”  

“Obviously.” He grins, pulling the donut in his hands apart. Sugar crumbles down into his lap, and the smell of it erupts between you. Apple-cinnamon, miraculously warm when he presses it to your fingers. 

“Thank you.”

Your quiet doesn’t perturb him. He matches your tone, “Yeah, don’t mention it.” 

“Where’s this from?” you ask, taking your first bite.

He takes his own, covering his mouth with his hand as he answers. “Beanies.” 

“That explains why it’s still warm.” 

He shrugs. You don’t get what it means but you don’t care to argue, savouring each mouthful of dough and sugar. You lick the crumbs from your fingers and the corners of your mouth. Clark ate his own half fast, ‘cos he’s a giant with an appetite you envy and revile; in your most humble opinion, it is both impressive and audacious to watch Clark house a BLT in half a minute. 

“Was that good?” he asks quietly, his eyes on your shining fingertips. 

You wipe them on the edge of his napkin. An achy heat eats at your stomach. “You’re spoiling my appetite.”

“Do you have big dinner plans?” 

“Huge! I’m testing something new tonight. Snow mountain garlic and pea risotto, for health week. It’s not particularly healthy,” you confess. “But snow mountain garlic has all these supposed special properties. Doesn’t matter if it’s true, though.” 

“Why not?” 

You like his tone. “It has more allicin. That’s what makes it taste good.” 

“Allicin is antibacterial,” he says. 

“Brilliant. Antibacterial risotto.” 

He holds your eyes for a moment, his own big and especially blue behind his straight frames. “I hope it goes well,” he says. 

It’s a measured sentence, like he’s crafted each word carefully as he said it. 

“I’ll bring you some if it does.” 

“I’d like that.” 

You hide how warming it is to be spoken to like that, carrying the feeling home with you to unravel against the stovetop. If you try harder than usual to make a good meal, it is nobody’s business but your own, and Clark’s, who sits waiting and ready at his desk the following morning. 

“Clark Kent on time?” you tease, letting the handles of your handbag fall into your elbow. “Who would’a thought we’d ever see the day?” 

“I can be punctual,” he promises. 

“Can you? Aren’t you on probation?”

“That wasn’t for tardiness, it was for sick days, and no. I’m no longer on probation.” He smiles with white, shy teeth, a peek of them from between his lips. “I’m on the straight and narrow.”

You imagine the hardness of them against your own lips as you lean in for a kiss, for a split second. The clack you’d inevitably make as your teeth knocked into his, as you hooked your arm behind his neck and dragged him down to you for some light force. 

“‘Cos you’re a good boy,” you murmur, mumble, more to yourself than him (though he is definitely meant to hear you). 

Clark’s face is still. His hands less so, a fist curling against his thigh. His smile is remarkably genuine. “Coffee?” 

Calling Clark a good boy might be flirting. Or not! What’s important is the way it softens him for the working day. How quietly awed he sounds as you unveil a Tupperware container full of risotto for him. He tells you it’s good between big bites. You want to nibble on him, taken by the curve of his bicep each time he brings up his fork, and the tip of his tongue darting out to catch a grain of rice. He’s killing you. You’re dying at the Daily Planet. 

Dramatics aside, he compliments your risotto egregiously, returning the Tupperware with a pristine shine. You don’t play short-skirt with him for days. 

When you do, the skirt is a delicate thing that isn’t as short as you’d expect considering the name of the game, but it’s nearly sheer. Standing in the right light, your hip smushed to the pillarway near his desk while Jimmy tells you about a new kind of giant slug they found living in West Africa, you assume you’re displaying what you’d seen in the mirror that morning. Given enough sunlight, the lavender fabric of your skirt goes translucent. Anyone in looking distance can make out the barest hint of your legs, their shape, a shadow of your thighs and the neat little underwear you have on beneath. You aren’t trying to harass him, but, this is Metropolis. It’s not the most conservative place when it comes to fashion. It isn’t much different to wearing a pair of daisy dukes. 

They’re cuter than denim shorts, though. Velveteen paisley overlaying plain panties. 

It’s not entirely a sex thing. It’s to feel sexy, sure, as an arm to feeling beautiful, desired. You want to know that Clark (handsome, kind, beautiful Clark) sees it, that he wants it, even if it’s a fleeting flash of lust and nothing else. 

And Clark —he doesn’t notice. Doesn’t say a word about it, doesn’t clench his fist or take in a sharp breath. 

You decide you like that just as much and return to your desk, happily ashamed. 

—

The pasta you made yesterday is far better today. The mushroom sauce has soaked into the fusilli. With a scratching of fresh cheese, you lay it over a fresh bowl of rocket and watercress, coat the entire thing in lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and flaky salt, and eat it enthusiastically behind your computer. 

“That smells amazing.” 

You lighten at his dulcet tone. “It’s pretty good. D’you want some?” 

“I’m trying to keep you fed, sweetheart,” Clark says, placing down your ‘sweetheart’ mug and a small plate, “not the other way around. Thank you.” 

His thank you is diligently gentle. He must work at it, to sound so docile. It has to be practised. 

The small plate homes two cupcakes. One has golden cake with a great dollop of fresh cream and cut raspberries atop it, and the other looks like a darker flavour. Ginger? The buttercream is thick and caramelised, with cookie crumbs between its peaks. 

“What have I done to deserve all this?” you ask. 

“You don’t have to do anything at all. It’s your afters. Your dessert.” 

“I haven’t done anything?” you ask. 

He shakes his head kindly. “It’s inherently deserved.” 

If he’s charming or teasing, you can’t tell. 

His eyes fall from your face. You get distracted by his details, the clean hills of his cheeks, his dark brows, sweet mouth and a sweeter nose broad enough to take a kiss or two, and you almost miss the stroke of his gaze lingering on your collar. His fingers twitch. “Can I?” he asks. 

You follow his finger. One of your straps has fallen down, leaving the simple pale elastic of your bra alone. You couldn’t have faked it better. “Sure,” you say under your breath. 

Clark hears it regardless, slipping a fingertip up your arm, a backwards tumble that threatens to send tattle-tale goosebumps over your skin. He hooks the strap under his fingers and brings it over your shoulder, pulling at it enough to make your eyes widen. Then his touch is gone, leaving a strange sensation in its place. 

“You’re dressed really pretty, today,” he says. 

You smile at the joke before you’ve said it. “As opposed to every other day,” you say. 

“This is beautiful. You look beautiful.” 

You duck your head. Sincerity in the face of your sarcasm inspires an amazingly dizzy feeling in the stem of your neck. You have to force back a smile. 

“Thank you, Clark. I’m… glad you think so,” you say eventually. There’s emphasis there for him to take or leave. 

You can see his hesitation, then, a palpable pause while he makes a decision. 

“It’s a nice skirt,” he says quietly. 

There’s nothing imposing in his tone, but there doesn’t need to be. He isn’t tall, dark, and handsome, he’s incredibly, scarily brilliant. He’s smiling at you like you’ve given him a compliment. 

“It’s a little brave,” you say. 

“Bravery suits you. Anyways,” —he touches your arm briefly— “don’t let me keep you. Eat your lunch. Hopefully your coffee won’t be too cold to enjoy when you’re finished.” 

You wish he’d press you up against a wall. He did notice the skirt. He has the self control to leave it alone, or at least to wait for you to bring it. And… yeah, that’s working for you, actually. Really working. You stood in the sunshine to give him an explicit view of your legs and he brought you cupcakes to say thank you. 

—

Apparently, there are limits to Clark Kent’s self control. 

You’re lavishing in Centennial Park under a gorgeous sun. It’s barely seventy two degrees, a tame heat for July in Metropolis, and yet the sun is hitting you just right, kissing at your skin, leaving you sated and heavy under its weight. Clark has rolled up his sleeves (a contributing factor, perhaps, to the contentness you’re carrying) and loosened his tie, sitting where you’re laying down, a sweet hand held to your knee. Today’s skirt is a bias-cut midi dress made of a dark sage green. There are bell-sleeves like petals and a neckline you aren’t worried about, not when he’s guarding you like this. You shift on your back to better feel the sun on your face, and he pulls the skirt along the inside of your thigh. Keeping it in place to protect your modesty, setting every nerve-ending you have aflame with pleasure. 

“Tell me if you feel too warm,” he says. 

“I’m not worried about the sun.” 

“What are you worried about?” 

“Oh, the usual. That some weird space creature is gonna break the atmosphere and kill us,” you croon. 

He delights in your tone, his thumb sweeping a line into your leg. “I won’t let anything kill you.” 

You’d kissed his cheek in the elevator because the line of his nose had looked rather unkissed, and his cheek had been the politer option. You hadn’t expected the quick turn of his head, or the complete lack of nonchalance about him as he’d smiled and laughed and pressed that same cheek to your temple as he’d hugged you with one arm. 

So now you’re here in the park because you hadn’t wanted him to stop touching you. The summer dress wasn’t part of your seductions but it seems to be working all the same. You’re hoping you’ll get a kiss of your own to settle the score before the sun goes down. With where his hands are resting, you aren’t sure where you want one most. One hand on your thigh, one on your knee, his body turned to you like it’s the natural thing to do. He could be generous and give you a kiss beneath both palms. You think you’d quite like that. 

“Do you worry about that a lot?” 

“Hm?” 

“The aliens… The space creatures, do you worry you’ll get hurt?” 

“Not really. We have a great protection detail, don’t we?” you ask. 

He’s quiet for a bit. “What do you think about him?”

You don’t ask, Superman? Of course he’s talking about him. “He’s extremely handsome.”

Clark laughs boisterously and shakes you by the leg. “Alright. Knock it off.” 

“Or what?” 

“Or nothing. Just knock it off.” 

He makes everything sound so satiny. 

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” he adds. 

“Promise?” 

Half a joke. Clark pushes his glasses up onto his nose and finally leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your elbow where your arms are crossed over your chest. “Yeah. I promise.” 

You let him walk you home. That night, one of the star-shaped superaliens appears in the air near your apartment and then there’s a breathless Clark on the line asking if you need some company. You tell him no, ask if you can see him tomorrow when the dust settles, and he promises you that his Saturday was all yours. He actually says it, says, “I think you could ask me for anything after today and I’d try to do it for you.” He’s laughing to diffuse the weight of it, but you take it to heart. 

A Saturday turns to Sunday. A week turns to two. You and Clark trade careful kisses anywhere but the mouth and he doesn’t mention your little skirts. You keep wearing them, especially the velveteen lavender one too sheer for summer, layered over a short silk underskirt to protect your own wits. You’ve seduced him (have you?) but now you’d really like to keep him. 

It’s a Tuesday morning with little to give. The air is already warm, the tram platforms are full. You commute to the Daily Planet for another day of dedicated journalism. 

Jimmy begins the morning with praise. “I made your honeycomb macarons. I actually made them.” 

“And?” 

“And? They were amazing! You’re such a goddamn genius,” he says. 

He gives you a macaron from a tin shaped like Yoda. The cookie is sweet with that perfect, delicate crunch, and the honeycomb ganache is better than your own. You take another one from his tin, giving him a congratulatory pat on the elbow. “They’re amazing!” you say, shells and honeycomb pieces thick in your mouth. 

“What’s amazing?” 

You remember where you are urgently. 

“I made macarons,” Jimmy says. 

Clark doesn’t make fun of his pride. “Really? That’s awesome, man. Can I try one?” 

You swallow the lump in your mouth, washing it down with a quick swig of coffee. 

“Morning,” Clark says. 

“Hi. Good morning.” 

“Hi,” he says, fond. “How has your day been so far?” 

You lick your lips without thinking, sweetness lingering in the stick of your lipgloss. “It was good, yeah. The tram was hot.” 

“You look good.” 

Jimmy wrinkles his nose. “Guys, we talked about this.” 

“‘Bout what?” Clark asks, finishing his macaron in one bite. 

Jimmy is kind enough to roll his eyes and leave it alone, wandering off with his tin clutched to his chest. Clark rolls his eyes too, a secret gesture that has you laughing through your nose. 

“You do look good,” he says again. 

You look down in mild bewilderment. “It’s laundry day.” 

You’re in a pair of black slacks that threaten to slip off your hips at any moment and a button up that should be tight to the waist but unfortunately isn’t. You’d saved the outfit with a necklace and a handful of jewelled rings, but it’s nothing like the stuff you’ve been wearing as of late. Of course he’d notice. 

“This…” He raises a hand to your hip but doesn’t touch.

“What?” 

His thumb presses to a slip of skin so small you hadn’t noticed it was visible. His brow creases like he’s been burned, yet his hand remains where it is. After a heavy second, he squeezes, and he says something too quiet to hear to himself. 

“Clark?” you ask tentatively. “You okay?”

“You have no clue… no clue what you do to me.” 

His eyes are all on you. Deep, indigo-blue. 

Heat leeches up your neck. Your heart capers suddenly. “What do I do to you?” you ask, your tentativeness turned to silk.  

“Don’t.” 

“What do I do, honey?” you ask, nearly whispering now. “I don’t have a clue, right? So tell me, then, what I do to you?”

“What am I supposed to do?” His fingers adjust against your hip. “Why would you do this here?” Clark’s voice breaks with a put-upon heartache. He’s still smiling. “What am I supposed to do, here?” 

“Take me somewhere else.” 

His hand falls away from your hip. You can feel where his fingers had shaped your skin for minutes afterward, following him with a poorly faked casualness to the elevator. 

He hits the button for the basement as you step in. 

“I think they’re still printing,” you say. The mock-up copies get made in the basement, and it’s an all day affair. “It’ll be as busy there as it is–”

No sooner has the elevator started moving than Clark is hitting the emergency stop. 

“Clark!” you say. 

“Can I kiss you?” 

He doesn’t laugh. You lean away from him to take in his long body, his grey suit and red tie and the wetted run of his bottom lip. He has honeycomb in the very corner of his mouth. 

You raise your hand to wipe it away. 

“Yeah, okay,” you say, tilting your chin up slowly. 

Clark grabs two great, heaping, greedy handfuls of your back, long fingers spread out and guiding you in for a kiss you aren’t expecting. There’s genuine hunger there, your teeth clicking as you’d always imagined, a voracious sort of meeting that quickly gentles. He lets out a sigh against your lips and melts against you like a stick of butter over a flame, lax, a hand traversing upward and over and– and his mouth, his kisses are these open, warm mouthings you meet with a stammering heart. This isn’t the slip of control you’d imagined it to be. 

Clark’s kissing you without an ending in mind. You can feel it in the tenderness of his open palm, seemingly laid to sleep at the small of your back. 

“How long does that work?” you ask in a murmur, your lips happily stung. 

“I don’t know. I’ve never done that before.” 

“Really?” 

“When would I have had reason to try?” Clark asks, cupping your cheek in his hand. “You’re so pretty.” He steals another quick kiss. “Do you know that?” 

“I can’t believe this is what got you to crack,” you laugh. 

His eyebrows pinch. “What?” 

“This,” you gesture to your clothes. “Of all the things I’ve worn.” 

“I don’t understand.” Though it’s dawning on his face quickly. “Oh. You– The… Oh.” 

His neck goes all shades of rose. 

“Sorry,” you whisper. 

He tips your head back nicely. “For what? I would’ve cracked anyway. You could’ve worn anything, but… The little purple skirt, that was for me?” 

You press your flushed face to his chest, arms crossing lazily behind a strong neck. “Clark…” you mumble. 

He digs his face into your neck to kiss the softness beneath your ear. You’re surprised he doesn’t whine your name back to you, what with the mood he’s in, but Clark’s got a propensity for sweetness that won’t quit. 

“On purpose,” he whispers, vindicated. “I knew it.” 

The elevator chugs back to life. 

—

You are delightfully, blissfully human. There comes a time when you need saving, and it just so happens that Metropolis brags its very own (and very only) Krypton superbeing. One minute you’re being squeezed in the fist of a raspberry-furred mega fox thing, and the next you’ve been freed and grabbed and propelled through the air in arms that feel oddly familiar. 

“Miss, are you okay? Miss? Miss, are you alright?” 

You look down at the ants of your city and nearly puke up your dinner. “Oh my fuck,” you squeeze out. 

“I’m sorry! I’m taking you back down. There’s a girl, breathe in for me. Deep breaths.” 

You can hardly breathe at all, but your shallow breaths earn you a thank you and a proud pat on the back. Your legs are shaking so hard at touchdown that Superman has to physically arrange them beneath you, his arm glued to the small of your back when you list unsteadily. 

“You’re okay,” Superman assures you. 

His little curl is ever so darling. “Like Clark’s,” you say unthinkingly, wrapping the short strands of hair around your finger. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, generously ignoring your moment of delusion. 

“I thought I was gonna die.” You blanche, glancing back over your shoulder for signs of the megafox. “Fuck.” 

“Everything’s fine, now. I promise you.” 

You take a deep breath. Superman holds you by both shoulders, forcing you to copy a second, deeper breath, then a third. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs. 

Too much like Clark. “My boyfriend, he was–”

“Everyone’s safe.” 

You let out a shaky breath. The last of your panic ebbs from your shoulders. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Yeah, thank you. For saving me. Thank you so much.” 

“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” he says. His voice goes bendy and weak. 

“I really do. If I died in this skirt, my boyfriend would never forgive me.” 

Superman gives you an appraisal, up and down. Heat flares in your stomach and refuses to cool as he smiles. “Wouldn’t wanna ruin a skirt like that,” he says knowingly. 

You shake your head, not without fondness.

All boys are the same. 

˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚

“That’s not true. I couldn’t help you move.” 

You wave a hand at his wincing. You hadn’t asked him to, and you hadn’t minded when he cancelled at the last minute. “I’m just happy your ma was okay.” 

“I’d still like to make it up to you.” 

“How?”

His smile is crazy. Magnetic and tempting and sickening, too, nausea a pit in your stomach that blooms the longer you stare at him. Sometimes, sometimes, Clark smiles at you in this quasi-specific way and you think —you. I know you. 

And then a headache comes like a knife between your eyes. 

Clark startles at your hard flinch. “Migraine again?” 

“Not a migraine.” 

“Then what would you call it?” 

“A shooting pain? They don’t last long enough to qualify. Jimmy says so.” 

“What does Jimmy know about headaches?” Clark asks, voice taking on a silky quality that threatens to send shivers down your back. He hesitates in front of you, taller and taller as the moment stretches, before he bends at the waist to touch your forehead. “Sorry, can I just– is this okay?” 

“Sure, but, what are you–”

His hands are warm. “You don’t feel hot. What did the doctor say?” 

“I didn’t go.” 

“You didn’t go?” His softness turns stiff. “Why wouldn’t you go? Sharp pains like this aren’t normal. Why wouldn’t you go and get that looked at? You already made the appointment.” 

You shift away from his hand. It would be easy to meet him where he is right now. You could tell him that it isn’t his problem nor his business. That you didn’t wanna get looked at and ignored, again. You woke up this morning and couldn’t hack it. 

“I didn’t feel like it,” you say, not without care. 

“You didn’t feel like it.” His eyebrows rise. His thumb strokes over the curve of your eyebrow as he pulls his hand away to straighten his glasses. 

“That’s what I said, yeah.” You laugh at his parroting. “I’m fine. It’s not so bad when I’m at home. I figure maybe it’s the computer screen.” You let him stare at you in his sternness until you start to feel too much like a bug under a magnifying glass. “If I send you this bit on one-pan carbonara, could you just– read it for clarity? And cross out whatever sounds ridiculous?” 

“I doubt anything sounds ridiculous, but I’m happy to read it.”

“Thank you, Clark.”

“You’re welcome.” 

He takes a seat at his desk across the way, forcing you to turn your chair away from your computer to see him. You pretend to watch the TV, eyes flicking carefully to his back, waiting for a sign that he’s found a mistake in your article that needs changing. You’re caught on the dark curl of hair kissing his jacket when he tips his head back to meet your eyes, like he’d known you were staring the whole time. “This is great,” he says. “It’s nice, I love the anecdote at the end, you aren’t overwhelming the reader but there’s a clear set of directions and you explain it well.”

“Oh. Thank you. It’s not like there’s much to explain, really.” 

“Sure,” he says, always sure, so easy for him. “But for somebody who’s never cooked alone before, I think this is a nice starting point. I might try it.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, you can judge me on it. We can put your instructions to the test.” 

You laugh through a smile. “You can’t make carbonara?” 

“That tone you’re using wasn’t one I picked up on in the article.” 

At the end of the workday, when you’ve exhausted yourself mapping out your next week of online columns and the sun has turned Metropolis into a baking puddle, Clark catches you on the way out and walks with you to the end of the block. “So,” he says, knocking his glasses up his nose with a rushed hand, “are you free tonight?” 

“Why?” 

“To help me with this carbonara.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes, please. I could use your guidance. I don’t think I even know what to put in a carbonara.” 

“You do. You’re lying.”

He smiles. “Yeah, I’m lying. Come help me anyways?” 

Grocery shopping with Clark is weirdly nice. He makes you laugh; he smells amazing when you stand beside him picking out fresh herbs, a cologne that lingers but you can’t place; he carries both bags from the store to his apartment, and makes it look like easy work. 

—

“Okay?” 

Things with Clark are so new they’re barely anything at all, but there’s an exclusive sort of sweetness to him as he slides a coffee onto your desk. You raise your chin to meet his eyes, dark behind darker glasses. Blue eyes, you know, but less piercing than you’d imagine them to be. 

“I’m okay.” 

“How’s your head?” 

It actually really hurts, now he’s mentioned it. “Fine.”

“Well, it’s decaf.”

“Spoilsport.” 

“But it’s just the way you like it, otherwise.” 

You raise your brows and take a showy sip, visibly judging his performance. The flavour hits the back of your throat, but after a rough swallow, you realise it’s probably the nicest cup of joe you’ve ever had. “That’s perfect,” you tell him, voice all scratched up and awed as he peers down at you. 

He really looks like someone else, sometimes. The more you think about it, the worse your head hurts, so you push the thought from your mind. “Thank you, Clark. This is really good. Do you– is this, like, a hobby?” 

“What, making coffee?” He deliberates with a shrug. “Not really.” 

“You’re just naturally good at everything, then.” 

“Of course not, I’m… I practised. I wanted to make it how you like it.” 

You lift your shoulder before his hand comes down to squeeze it. He handles you so easily, and so kindly, that a little brashness like this makes all the difference. His thumb works into the bone of your shoulder and it nearly-not-quite aches as it brushes its way up to the side of your neck.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks quietly. 

You tell him you are. The workday goes like any other, you send him what you’re working on, Clark sends you back a sweet comment. He asks you if you’re busy on the way out, and you agree to go grocery shopping with him so he can attempt your recipe for honey-roasted peanuts under the watchful eye of a professional. 

“It’s not complicated, Clark, you just blanche your peanuts–”

“Raw ones?” 

“Yeah, well. You can use the pre-cooked ones, but they’re not as nice. Then you make your glaze, honey and butter and a little bit of sugar, you read the recipe–”

“Yeah, I read it, I just know you can make it better than I can, and I need the excuse to spend time with you. Which you know,” he says, holding the door for you as you go. 

It’s sitting on his kitchen counter with the smell of honey-sugar thick in the air that Clark kisses you for the first time. You’re wondering if this is real, if the handsomest man you’ve ever met genuinely wants you, and he’s sliding a hand up your thigh with a gentleness that tickles. “Hey,” he says simply. 

“Hey.” 

“Thank you.” 

“For what?” 

“For helping. For not laughing when I burned the butter.” His hand coasts to your hip, opening and then pressing into softness unabashedly. “For… letting me be a coward, for this long.” 

There’s a headache brewing square between your brows that you fight to ignore. They’re awful lately, shooting pains that don’t end unless you close your eyes. 

“This isn’t cowardice,” you say, because it’s unbelievable that he wants this, and if he doesn’t kiss you soon your heart’s gonna fall into your stomach. “Just the run up.” 

“Yeah.” He grins. “I like that. The run up to a good kiss?” he asks. His voice has gone small and weak. You don’t mistake it for nerves. This is something else entirely.

You close your eyes. It’s all the answer he needs. Your mouth falls open slowly against his as he tilts his head, as his body tries uselessly to slot between your thighs. You sigh a half-protest and he murmurs sorry into your open mouth. 

You don’t get another headache for days. 

They come back to bite you, though. Superman spent the morning playing on TV, fighting a water monster that threatened to drown an elementary school with gelatinous gloop. Clark texted you an apology of all things a few hours ago when he realised the water monster had flooded 110th street, stranding him in a bakery. Your pastries are dry! he’d promised. 

He rolls into work halfway through the day, when Superman and the Justice Gang have successfully boiled the water monster off in another shocking display of heroism. They’d blocked him into a glowing green box with Superman and a triangulation of Mister Terrific’s flying robots, amplifying his heat division and filling the box with boiling steam. Superman had been unaffected, as usual. 

Clark looks red in the face, ridiculously sorry as he presses a kiss to your cheek and a brown paper bag against your chest from behind. “Hi,” he says, “how are you?” 

You preen into his kiss. His nose lingers against your cheek. “I’m fine.” 

He smells weirder than he usually does. You sniff him curiously, promoting a warm huff of a laugh and another kiss to your cheek. “What’s up?” 

“You smell different.” 

“I do?” 

“You’re not wearing any cologne.” 

“I guess I’m not. I was in a rush. Did you eat?” 

“Yeah, we had sandwiches.” 

“Did Jimmy pay again?” 

“He did not. He offered.” 

He pulls you back to his chest. “He did.” 

“You’re not actually jealous.” 

“It’s polite of him,” he says, falling into that little voice that makes you wanna ask him to take you home. What is his problem? He’s 6’4, he’s wide, he has no business baby-voicing you and you’re eating it up ‘cos you know it isn’t put on. He gets sweet when he’s comfortable. You make him happy. 

“You’re smiling,” he accuses. 

“Nope.” 

The headaches persist. Clark is this shining bright spot of goodness in your life, even if he kisses you rather impolitely when the office clears at hometime, even when he disappears at strange times. He always texts, so. There’s a hundred different reasons as to why he’s late for work, or cancelling a date last minute, and he makes it up with flowers and apologies out of the ears. 

Superman gets busy on the news. You feel a bridge there, something about something about Clark Kent. A migraine hits before you can figure it out. 

It’s a few weeks after your first kiss, and you spend the morning flicking through photos of you and Clark. He likes taking them, holding your phone out in front of you both. “Smile!” he says, kissing you fondly when you oblige. You’re thinking about getting a couple of them printed for your photo album, though that might doom the whole thing, really, an early jinx, so for now you settle for thumbing through them with a big smile. Your head’s been hurting some since you woke up. You blame Clark for surprising you with a too-early FaceTime, sheets pulled up to your nose. 

To make up for waking you, he promises to bring groceries. You’d written a recipe for creamy mushroom eggs a few days ago that he swears he can make so long as you’re watching. 

You struggle out of bed when you hear him knocking. He’s grinning at the door, three paper bags hoisted in arms that have no business being as shapely as they are, his hair wet with rain and curling against his forehead. 

“Oh, no, it’s raining?” 

He leans in to peck you, paper bags crinkling sadly between your chests. “Not much.” 

His obvious lie makes you laugh, which has him stealing another kiss from the apple of your cheek. 

“You okay? How’s the head, today?” 

“It’s fine.” It’s protesting, actually, angered by your movement. 

“Why don’t we go sit you down, huh?”

“I don’t know why…” 

Clark guides you to the kitchen, shelving the paper bags on your small table and shepherding you into a chair at the head of it. “Why what?” 

You chew your lip. 

“What?” he asks patiently. 

“It’s like they get worse when you ask me about them. Maybe it’s psychosomatic? I’m sorry, I don’t mean– you don’t make them worse, Clark–”

But doesn’t he? He’s looking down at you and your headache is blistering, that single black curl against his forehead as his glasses slip down a damp nose. He’s wearing a blue hoodie and light wash jeans and it’s stirring and it hurts your head. 

“Oh,” he says quietly. 

“It’s not you, Clark.” 

“It might be.” 

“What?” 

He bends slightly to see you. Your eyes throb in their sockets as he watches you, clearly thinking, the cogs behind pretty eyes turning slow. 

Clark brings his fingertips to your cheek. “You’ve always been very observant.” 

“Have I?” 

“Of course. You’re so smart, you have an eye for detail, the small things, all the most important parts. That’s why you’re good at what you do, right?”

“I don’t follow, Clark.” 

“Your headaches are the worst at work, right?” 

“Yeah.”

“And since we’ve been dating, they follow you home, too.” You’re worrying that this is the breakup when he raises both hands to his glasses. “It’s my fault. Or, it’s down to these.”

You stare at him wordlessly. 

“It’s– Four. Made me these, they all did, to obscure my identity. So I could have a normal life.” 

You’re feeling pretty nauseous, as things go. Maybe you’re having a stroke? That’s how these happen, sudden, strange feelings in your hands and garbled speech. Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be speaking in riddles? 

Clark strokes your cheek again quickly, fingers going back to the arms of his glasses before you can savour the touch, and he works the black body of them down his nose and off. 

You squint at your almost-boyfriend. He looks different without the glasses. Paler. 

Then he straightens up and the pieces click firmly into place. 

Your lips part. He folds his glasses into the front of his hoodie, crossing his arms over his chest to follow. 

“I know it’s a lot to take in.” 

“How are you… Your glasses– and they– the headaches?” 

“I don’t know. They never told me there’d be side effects.” 

“Who’s they?” 

He smiles rather boyishly, considering. “The bots, at the Fortress of Solitude. Four never mentioned that it could hurt you. I’m sorry about that.” 

Superman is looking down at you with big blue eyes and Clark Kent’s pretty mouth. That you’ve kissed. You’ve kissed superman. 

“Can you stop frowning? You have a nicer smile,” you say finally. 

He wants to do as you’ve asked, but his expression stutters. “You’re not mad?” 

“About what?” 

“About– about what? About my secret.” 

You’re not sure you can say ‘Superman’ out loud. “Either I’m having an aneurysm, or you have, like, the world's biggest burden on your shoulders. How could I be mad about that?” 

“What is wrong with you?” he asks. Clark-man (wow!) grins sudden and sweet as he loses his straight-backed posture, bending down again, looking for your hands where they live waiting at the ends of your arms for his touch. “I’m a metahuman. Hell, I’m not even human. I’m from space. You’re being unbelievably cool about this.” 

You settle into your chair with a tired smile. “My headache’s gone for the first time in months.” 

He pulls your hand to his chest. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah, completely. Who knew it was you the whole time? Should’ve stayed away. Just, I couldn’t manage it.” 

He kneels at your feet. “Is it really all better?” he asks.

The relief is nothing you’ve felt before. The first absence of pain after weeks of pinching agony. 

Clark pulls the glasses off of his hoodie and throws them over his shoulder. They land with a crack in the kitchen sink. 

“Don’t you need those?” you ask. 

He takes your face into a big, big hand, smiley and shy as he pulls you down to meet his mouth. “Not for this,” he promises, breath warm on your lips and your tongue as he takes the lead. The kiss goes hot and heavy as honey under summer sun, blistering, and searchingly slow. He kisses better without his glasses. You shuttle the thought away for a later date and let yourself sink into the heat of his chest. 

—

“I thought Superman didn’t have time for selfies?” you croon sometime later, sated and steady with a warm body behind your back. 

Clark hums into your hair tiredly. “Huh?” 

“You always make us take photos together.” 

“Well, that’s different. With you, I’m usually Clark.” 

“Usually?” 

He kisses the top of your ear. “Yeah. Guy you just met? That was Superman. But otherwise, I’m just Clark.” 

You groan as he laughs, giving it your best attempt at wiggling out of his reach to punish him for the cheesy line. Strong forearms cross over your stomach to pull you right back in. 

˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚