weary is the head;

dr. ryland grace, who starts with music that he liked to listen to when he was younger. he's always been a dolly parton fan for some reason. not only is 9 to 5 at the top of the list, but he'll play it every time he plays music. the kids don't even get sick of it. especially when he dances to it when he thinks they're not looking. (they're definitely looking, but they love him too much to make fun of him)

dr. ryland grace, who focuses on a soft feel for his classroom playlist. lots of soft soul hits, because who doesn't love stevie wonder, or aretha franklin, or otis redding? the kids have to be introduced to incredible music somehow, and he's here to provide. he picks those songs specifically for their tendency to leave you feeling good because he never wants a student to feel bad when they leave his class.

dr. ryland grace, who also adds lots of hozier songs to that playlist even though they're sad sometimes; he's just in it for the soft, beautiful feel of the music. he puts abstract (psychopomp) in the playlist then takes it out when he ends up getting teary eyed in class after the first chorus hits him just a little too hard after a hard day.

dr. ryland grace, who was a bit of a burnout for his undergrad degree in college. he'll bring that secret to his grave before he ever tells his kids that, but he's proud of his music taste because of it. his kids will end up hearing college-burnout-grace in some of the songs he slips into that playlist. champagne supernova by oasis. hey, hey, what can i do by led zeppelin. fade into you by mazzy star. iris by the goo goo dolls. lovefool by the cardigans.

dr. ryland grace, who is still a teacher despite having a pretty good music taste. that leads to a few corny additions to his playlist. songs that only your parents listen to. songs that you'd never want anyone to know you listen to and yet he proudly broadcasts that he loves. can you call it a guilty pleasure if you're happy to put it out there? he ends up getting his kids hooked on old hits like uptown girl, and footloose, and kokomo, and keep it comin' love, and even islands in the stream.

dr. ryland grace, who ends up the star teacher of parent-teacher conference because all of his kids tell their parents about the music their dorky (affectionate) science teacher plays in his class while they're doing their work. he ends up getting a lot of praise for introducing their kids to the jackson 5.

dr. ryland grace, who ends up adding i'm just ken to his playlist as an inside joke for his classes. his kids always tell him he looks like ken. he doesn't see it, but it makes them light up when he plays it for the first time and he somehow knows all the words to it.

dr. ryland grace, who gets teary eyed (again) with pride when his kids suggest new songs that he hasn't played in class, but are definitely in the same vein as his playlist. that means they're going home and listening to more music - but it also means they're doing research, in the very loosest sense of the word.

dr. ryland grace, who gives his kids a link to that playlist at the end of the school year. it's a perfect send off for them as they go off to their next grade. something to remember him by. something to hopefully continue improving their music taste with. something that makes him teary eyed (again) when they get so excited that he's finally shared it. something that reminds him that he really does love his job no matter how hard it can be.

taglist: @clarkscolumn @clarknsun @thceseus @sparklingsin

"I know you could peel this door like foil, baby," you gasped breathlessly, nails clawing into his cape while his thick thigh rides the soak-seam of your suit, sending sparks of pleasure through your clit. "G-get both of us out."

He answered with touch: large fingers capture your wrist with disarming gentleness, his thumb sweeping tenderly along your lifeline until the hefty slipped from your grasp and clinked forgotten between your feet.

Summer blue eyes, dark with storming desire, held your gaze.

"Not until you give it up," he rasped, palm skimming from waist to ass, grinding you harder onto the meat of his thigh.

The other finally drags with your zipper south, exposing the swell of your breasts. Rough fingertips brushed your stiff nipples, pinching lightly and drawing needy whimpers from your throat that ricochet off steel. "No more games, yeah?"

"Try harder, Big Blue," you teased back, arching into his touch with doubled enthusiasm. Your teeth nipped his jaw, tongue soothing the barely-there mark. "Isn’t playing cop to my robber a thrill?"

His groan answered for him, vibrating through your chest. One hand settles on your ass, squeezing, drawing you impossibly flush; fabric sparks against fabric, nipples pebbling as his cock twitches against your stomach. Zippers descended lower, belts clattered, all revealing flashes of tantalizing skin.

You quickly sank to your knees, tongue tracing the sculpted groove of his abs before freeing him with practiced flicks. He’s heavy, jerking when your mouth envelopes the crown. His head thuds back against the door; your name escapes from his throat like prayer while you hollowed your cheeks, stroking the thick length and savoring the shudder rolling down his frame.

"Good God— sweetheart—" The plea broke as you pulled off with a wet pop, licking a slow stripe up the underside.

"P-promise me you’ll behave,” he tried again. "Walk away clean otherwise," he panted hotly against your ear, fingers finally slipping between your slick folds to thrust two thick digits deep inside. "No more thefts."

"No, I can't promise that I won't do that," you moaned, words spilling out shakily as pleasure coiled tighter. "B-but I’ll make it— worth your while if — if you let me keep— playing bad, baby—"

Superman's control snapped once again.

His eager mouth claimed yours in a ruinous kiss, withdrawing his fingers and replacing them with the blunt head of his cock, nudging and pushing into your dripping heat, and finally, finally, filled you.

"Kal—!" You clenched around him, lost in raw surrender.

All the while, the Lunar Tear lies ignored, winking with each crimson flash while you and you and Big Blue burn hotter, brighter than any jewel this vault could ever guard.

.

.

Clark barely had time to sit down before you started.

He dropped onto the couch to pull his boots on, cape shifting behind him, the blue of his suit stretched tight across his thighs—the red of it even tighter and higher. The briefs did nothing to hide him. He was thick and heavy, outlined so clearly, it made the symbol on his chest look insignificant in comparison.

Your eyes dragged over him once.

Then again.

The second his last boot slipped on, your foot slid across his lap.

A slow drag of your heel.

Clark let out a quiet laugh, breath soft, like he already knew where this was going. “C’mon,” he murmured, glancing at you. “I really have to—”

Your heel brushed him again.

The contact made him twitch under it, the fabric pulling tighter as his cock hardened almost instantly, the shape of him growing more obvious by the second.

Clark’s hand came down to catch your ankle, gentle, instinctive. He meant to stop you, you could see it in the way his fingers curled, in the way he opened his mouth—

But then your heel pressed in again.

Right over the head.

A low, broken sound slipped out of him before he could stop it, his head tipping back as his hips shifted up into the pressure without thinking.

“—nngh—”

There it was.

You smiled, slow, dragging your heel back down the length of him, then up again.

“You sure you have to go?” you teased, voice soft as your foot worked him, the motion steady now.

Yes. 

No.

Yes.

The response rose in his throat, but Clark didn’t answer.

His head fell back against the couch, a rough groan spilling from his chest as his hips lifted again, chasing the friction.

Every press of your heel pulled another sound out of him, something frayed around the edges. His grip tightened on your ankle, not stopping you, only holding on as you picked up the pace like you had all the time in the world.

And suddenly—

Maybe he did too.

© anon-188 - est. 2025 | please do not repost, copy, translate, or recreate my work in any form.

• taglist:  @floufli @yeonalie @sullyosully @l0singctrl @animegamerfox @mads3502 @jeanournal @pastelpinkflowerlife @catsdenia @pinksplace @herejustforbuckybarnes @theworstwolvie @nnd-oma @kryptidfiles @thceseus @sparklingsin @clarknsun @tw1sters @icybarness @spookypersondinosaur @coffinlolz @maiamore

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A waiter is there: young and blonde with a face that spelled jadedness earned from countless shifts toiling in this restaurant. He’s clearly walked into worse in his career.

“More water?” he offers, tone deadpan.

“I’m good, thanks,” you smile sweetly in response, “but please get me another bottle of soju.”

“One soju, then,” he repeats, before stepping away from your table.

Meanwhile, Clark sits across you with his face on fire. He manages an apologetic look at the waiter before throwing his gaze up, silently thanking the company for booking you a private room.

A warm pendant light looks back at him.

The Korean barbecue dinner is billable to Planet Publishing for two reasons: your birthday, and the success of your second novel under the house’s wing.

It’s the book you have open in your hands: Owls on a Moonlit Marsh, a gateway drug to fantasy for romance readers, and a steamy page-turner for fantasy readers.

Now Clark didn’t edit that book. He’s just invited to this company-expensed dinner because the two of you were in Gotham for a creative writing event, in which you were one of the panelists.

And you certainly didn’t let his politeness deter you from dragging him along, pushing past his insistence that you should spend Planet Publishing’s money with someone special—maybe a boyfriend.

(Was it rude to feel relief when you told him you didn’t have one?)

So, here he is. With you. Slightly full from an extremely delicious assortment of meats and banchan, listening to you complain about the pain in writing pleasure.

Clark Kent convinces himself that you brought him along because it’s the kind thing to do. The convenient thing, even. For once, you’re in Gotham, and this place has crossed your socials too many times. He just happened to be on a business trip with you.

That dress you are wearing isn’t low-cut to seduce him so much as to make yourself look beautiful. (And God, do you look beautiful.) It’s not flirtation that flashes in your eyes, just everyday mischief. Maybe soju-induced intoxication.

But that smile… The curl of it is so dangerously familiar, he finds his eyes averting from it to not provoke any untoward ideas—because the only ideas he’s getting are rather untoward.

Between the thoughts Clark Kent thinks to avoid heartbreak, there’s no way to misinterpret that smile.

Six months of working with someone is enough time to figure out whether you’re into them. Except Clark—if he were to admit at gunpoint—would say that being ‘into’ you is a massively understated way of expressing the specific feeling he’s dealing with.

You’re under his skin like an influence.

“Now where was I…?” you hum, scanning the page of an open book.

You point at the page. “Oh, right. His shaft.”

Once again, thank God and Perry White for the private room. Otherwise, saying the word ‘shaft’ while you read smut out loud might get you kicked out of this sleek restaurant.

“That scene was good,” Clark coughs. And he doesn’t just say that because he likes you, but in all honesty. “It’s sexy. And vulnerable.”

The main characters have gone through a literal book-load of feelings, which culminated into what has been described by Tumblr users as a “clit-throbbing” smut scene. In working with you for half a year, he deeply understands—the first part about going through a lot of feelings, that is.

The latter part? He can only dream.

“Thanks, Clark. Flattery gets you everywhere,” you beam. “I have a praise kink.”

Gosh, it’s so darn warm in here. (The charcoal’s been dead for a while now.)

“I was being serious.”

“Really? You think it was good?” you reply so earnestly he sits up straighter at the attention. “I was worried we were getting repetitive—M and I could only substitute the word ‘cock’ so many times.”

Clark nearly chokes on his rice wine.

If the publishing house let you loose with your word choices, people will get ID’ed at the counter for wanting to buy your books.

And M? She’s the reason he’s working with you: the editor for your first two novels, now on maternity leave.

M stands for Mary, but only those closest to her would know that her full given name is Mary Magdalene.

Alanis Morissette would like a word.

“I’m sure ‘thrust’ is the same,” Clark murmurs, fixing his glasses.

You give the comment a thought. “Actually, not really.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm,” you nod. The green soju bottle glints in the dim as you swirl it around. “I suppose… it’s the sensation that I find difficult to write.”

Clark tries to school his heartbeat. Be professional. That’s the one thing he vowed when taking up this job: you can’t edit a critically acclaimed romantasy if you don’t take it seriously.

And the two of you haven’t gotten there. Writing the sex, he means, not having sex. There’s nowhere for you and him to go on that part. And he definitely has not thought about it. Not in the slightest.

Professional, Clark scolds himself internally.

“How so?” he asks.

Your gaze shifts away from his. That’s rare.

“Well,” you begin, tone light as a feather, “it’s hard to write about something I haven’t felt before.”

A beat of silence. Then two.

“Sorry, what?” he pipes up, voice comically tiny. “I don’t think I heard you right.”

There’s nothing for him to be nervous about, though, because you’re grinning back at him like that wasn’t a dropped bomb. He’d blame it on the alcohol in your veins, but even while sober, you’re the kind of woman who just… shoots it straight.

God knows he loves it—his heart blooms in secret joy with every flash of honesty.

Like right now.

“I think you did, Clark,” you giggle, “and now you’re getting shy about it.”

“It’s the makgeolli,” he defends, though feebly.

“I’m a virgin,” you announce.

As if it’s the Declaration of Independence.

As if the waiter didn’t just enter and place another bottle of soju on your table.

You throw him a thank you with a pretty smile, to which the young man nodded. He leaves the room without asking if you need anything else.

You have the decency to continue after the door slides shut.

“And I mean that in the PIV sense. Not that the notion of virginity makes any sense, let alone penetrative virginity.”

“No, yes, of course,” Clark stammers in reply, all while his mind asks what have you done, then, and how do I stop picturing you doing it?

Because you did things with someone else. At some point in time, you were doing things with someone else. That makes him jealous.

Clark Kent doesn’t like feeling that green thing.

He’s jolted out of his slightly bitter reverie by a nudge on his calf.

It’s the tip of your high-heeled shoe. He doesn’t need to peek under the table to see, he can picture it just fine: maroon patent leather with a pointed tip brushing short, playful strokes over the fabric of his dress pants.

His heartbeat snags. The pulse floods south.

“But with your experience, Mr. Editor,” you smile coyly, “you’ll ensure my written work is as accurate as possible, yes?”

Call it in vino veritas, or call it Ma and Pa’s education, but Clark Kent can’t lie. Not well, anyway. The truth stumbles out of his lips soon as you stop talking.

He tries to make it sound casual.

“You know, I haven’t done it, either.”

Your eyes widen, gasping out in drunken surprise.

“Really. A catch like you? The world truly is ending.”

There are many graces offered to Clark Kent tonight, and maybe the small kindnesses he did in the past are paid back in this exact moment: the waiter saunters in again to announce that the restaurant is closing soon, giving Clark a second or two to collect himself after your remark.

A catch, you called him, while he catches his breath and gathers your coats from their hangers, while his heart flies away on wings of joy. You think he’s a catch.

Or maybe you’re just being nice.

You stand and turn around. He helps you with your sleeves.

“The meal was fantastic,” you tell the waiter on your way out, appearing completely sober—save for the warm lilt in your voice.

The subject is dropped just like that.

Meanwhile, on the short walk back to the hotel, Clark Kent can only think of how you’ve never.

And how you know he’s never, either.

୨୧

When you reach the hotel, he’s not sure if you’ll even remember anything in the morning, because you’re giggling in the elevator up when the height pops your ears.

He’s not just walking you to your room, but walking himself inside your room—to make sure you’re safe, of course.

The bedroom is a mirrored layout of his just next door. He watches as you cross the threshold, dump your coat on the floor, and kick your heels off before jumping face-first onto the queen bed.

He shakes his head, but everything he does bleeds affection: he hangs up your coat and places your shoes neatly onto the side.

Then you sigh into the cold sheets, as if laying there is the best feeling in the world, and Clark tenses.

You’re safe. He isn’t.

Because that sigh reminds him of another sound.

A moan—airy, short.

Yours.

It happened last night. He could only hear it because the hotel walls aren’t as thick as he thought, or maybe because your beds were pressed up on the same side. It wasn’t loud—just him being really cognizant that your private existence and his are separated by one slab.

A concrete slab, sure, but still.

And his mind got the better of him, as it always does when you’re involved. The little noise was enough to make him think about you touching yourself. The image alone inspired him to do the same in the shower.

He’d spent a long time after feeling guilty for morphing that beautiful sound into something that resembled his name—that’s how inconceivable it is, a person like you being into a person like him.

Still, if he has a character flaw, it would be the endless hope that pours out of him. It’s in the way he tucks you under the covers and fixes a strand of your hair after.

He’s about to leave when you grab his hand.

“Don’t go,” you murmur, eyes half-closed. Even so, he sees them glazed—with both alcohol and a brand of loneliness he can’t bare to subject you to—and he folds easily.

The smile you smile when he slips under the covers is just about worth the torture of holding you in your bed.

You snuggle up into him, face buried in his chest.

But then you go and make things even harder for him. Something you keep doing even while drunk.

“Clark?” you slur.

“Hm?”

“You know I’d give it to you, right?”

“Give me what?”

“My virginity.”

Oh.

How cruel, he thinks to himself. The things people say under the influence.

“Go to sleep,” he says softly, stroking the top of your head. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about, is what he tells himself to keep the feelings at bay.

But his mind recalls the shape of your moan, and how perhaps he didn’t make it sound like his name.

You murmur something unintelligible. He wonders if you can hear the wild bang of his heart. Your prolonged silence and even breaths mean no.

He drifts off soon after.

2

You wake up feeling like a person in a daytime pad commercial who just slept like a person in a nighttime pad commercial.

That is to say: you wake up comfortable because you slept amazing. The only minor complaint would be the lack of bodily warmth on your sheets.

On the other side of the bed are wrinkled sheets, suspiciously Clark-shaped. Flashes of last night play in your head: the Korean barbecue, alcohol burning your throat, the smell of him under your sheets…

…and the things you told him.

Oh.

Well, you said what you said. It certainly isn’t the first time you embarrassed yourself just to make him look your way. The dress last night is another recent example.

Life goes on, and you figure your colleague-slash-friend probably returned to his room right after he woke, most likely flustered even with no one looking.

On the nightstand is a tall glass of water and Advil. Must be Clark’s doing.

You drink the medicine down despite 1) feeling in perfect health and 2) knowing that the water won’t quench the thirst you have for the man who poured the glass for you.

And boy, does Clark look like a tall glass of water when you see him again in the lobby, seated in one of the plush armchairs. You keep telling yourself it’s the suit, but the hotel receptionist is wearing the same color and cut—yet you’re not salivating at the sight.

“Good morning,” you chirp, wheeling your small suitcase while you walk towards Clark.

He stands. He always does when you enter a room. Those manners and looks in one person would incur panic upon suburban mothers everywhere.

“Thanks for the Advil.”

“It’s no problem.” He smiles back at you. You sense immense politeness—more than usual. “How did you sleep?”

“Really well. You?”

“Yup, out like a light.”

“Must be the alcohol,” you reply.

It would’ve been a decent lie, if not for the whole beat that passed silently before Clark coughs out a response equally weak to yours.

“Yes, it was… really good alcohol.”

You agree that the soju was excellent, but the better the booze, the worse the sleep.

You know you slept well because he was in your bed. You just don’t know if this is his normal display of shyness or if he’d rather die than admit it.

Either way, it’s just who he is: Clark is too kind to turn you down and too professional to ever address what you told him last night.

Lucky for you, there’s plenty of time to lick your wounds.

The two of you drive back to Metropolis. Clark sits behind the wheel of his car. The traffic leading up to the Interstate is egregiously heavy, just like the air inside the vehicle.

Small talk makes it worse—and for the record, the two of you usually converse just fine. His mindless distraction is changing radio stations as if he knows what he wants to listen to. Meanwhile, you pretend to do something productive on your laptop: developments for your third novel, the last of the installment.

Developments. Psh. All you have are bullet points.

ves forced into divine deal with zalrythar god of secrets

she can’t tell anyone including cass

figure out b plot

cass thinks ves is pulling away and confronts her

she obv stonewalls

angst haha

resolve b plot

cass and ves both end up in god-mandated sex

That takes you less than a minute to type out. The car hasn’t moved for the last seven.

You spend the next three staring at his hands on the steering wheel.

୨୧

Even when traffic eases as you reach Metropolis, the tension doesn’t. It thickens the closer he gets to your destination, palpable by the time Clark turns into your street. The GPS lady shuts up at this point, leaving you and him to stew in silence.

Your apartment is just up ahead. He’s slowing the car down and you internally curse yourself.

There’s no way you can take any more of this, the tip-toeing a shared truth like it’s a secret. There’s no way he isn’t aware—he wouldn’t be so quiet otherwise. And you’ve seen him truly oblivious: someone would ask him out to dinner and he’d think it’s because they want to talk business.

If you do this, he’s probably going to think you’re even more shameless than he initially thought.

What he doesn’t know is that you want to be an honest person around him. Just your luck that, in your case, being honest means shamelessly wanting him.

“Clark?” you call out as he tugs at the handbrake. Your voice isn’t fully gathered, underused in the silence of the ride back, and you sound a little less sure than you’re used to.

“Hm?” he hums back, looking over at you. The car hums, too.

You shift your body to face his, seatbelt clicked free, like that’s going to help you breathe in better.

“Something happened yesterday.”

His jaws clench once. Eyes widen a fraction. You aren’t asking a question.

“Yes. We slept toge—I mean, I fell asleep on your bed.”

Clark Kent isn’t a good liar by nature, but you’d be lying, too, if you said you didn’t pay special attention to his voice. The words come out too fast, and there’s a slight pinched quality to his voice that clues you in on his farce. You’ve known him long enough to learn his tells.

“And?” you ask.

He thrums his fingers on the steering wheel.

“You also told me… you’re a virgin.”

You don’t spare a beat, lest he finds a way to escape this situation.

“And so are you.”

He nods. “Yep.” There’s a pop on the ‘p’, heavy with an acceptance of his fate.

Your lip twitches up in amusement—he looks so close to spontaneous combustion, the tapping of his fingers like a ticking time bomb.

“Gosh,” Clark smiles, the shaky, worried kind, “you don’t think that’s funny, do you?”

That catches you off-guard and a little offended. “Why would I? We’re in the same boat.”

“No, yes, of course,” he stammers. “I'm sorry, I just—"

“—thought an erotic novelist can’t possibly be a virgin?"

There’s a pause.

" Yes,” he admits. “I mean, it’s my fault. I assumed. From your books, of course! Not from anything else.”

You laugh a little at his jitteriness, and funnily enough, he seems to relax.

“It’s okay. I was just—” you search for the right word, “tickled. Two virgins writing and editing paperback smut.”

He laughs this time. You take in the dimples of his cheeks, and suddenly the totally silent car ride home fizzles out like a distant memory.

“Not that I think sex is a prerequisite, by the way,” you add, just to make sure you’re not staring at him too much. “You’re a good editor, Clark.”

He seems to be taken aback, eyes locked on yours.

“That’s because you’re a great writer.”

He ends that sentence with your name, spoken it’s holy. Something in you cracks open.

The reality is that writing comes easy because he fuels your dreams. All you do is extend them. You take every little thing he gives you in real life, surgically pluck it out of context, and blow it out of proportion. The lingering brush of his hand after a hug. A touch on your lower back in a crowded room. Him leaning down to hear you better.

He’s the fire that kindles your prose. Inspires your imagination until he’s shaped like a man who wants you.

Writing is the highest form of wishful thinking, after all.

You used to think Clark Kent wanting you is an impossible thing, but now? Maybe it’s not.

Because his face takes on a kind of expression you’ve only written about.

His eyes darken.

“Clark?”

“Yes?” he replies, a microsecond too fast. He’s scared. Or nervous. Or both.

Either way, you are too—because there’s no turning back after this.

“That’s not all I told you, was it?”

You catch his throat bob. When he speaks, his voice is taut, like the air in the car.

“No.”

Your fingers twitch from seeing his jaw clench.

The urge to touch him wins out, and you find yourself moving both hands to cradle his face, thumbing at the tense spot. His breath visibly hitches: you can tell from the rise of his chest when you bridge the gap between your seats.

“I meant what I said, you know,” you murmur, not even looking him in the eye anymore. Your gaze lands lower.

His lips are parted so beautifully… but you make sure to stare straight into him when you nail your own coffin shut.

“I’d give it to you.”

He needs to know you mean it.

As if those words were permission, he leaned down and closed the gap entirely, kissing you.

He’s more sure than you thought he’d be—and God, that’s past tense, because you now know how he kisses: slow, deep, with the rumbly beginning of a groan brewing in his chest. You melt into his body as much as the car will allow, the hand on his face slipping back to card through dark locks.

That’s when he feeds the sound straight into your mouth.

The groan isn’t the only thing that travels. His hands do too. One drags a path up your side to tug you closer. Another snakes to your nape, as if the kiss could get any deeper.

Your tongues dance and you moan at his taste.

“Fuck,” you breathe, lips still on his. You nip at his bottom lip in between words. “You want it? Want me to give it to you?”

His reply is hazy above all yes, like he just woke from a dream or is drifting into one.

“Yes. Please. I want it—want you.”

“Good,” you smile, releasing his lip with a pop, “wanna take yours, too.”

The look on his face is something you wish you could photograph.

He’s red—just from kissing—lips swollen and rosy, a tiny, faint pool of drool out one corner. His glasses are askew.

You fix it with a smile.

“Come upstairs.”

3

Upstairs takes an elevator ride where he stands behind you to hide his boner—just in case someone walks in, he reasons—but you make it through your door soon enough.

Not without you fumbling with your keys and giggling into his mouth.

By the time Clark tumbles into your bed, bringing you down with him, he’s already painfully hard under his slacks.

Everything smells like you.

Your hand on his chest draws a cheeky line down his stomach past his belt, and he sighs in relief. You sit back on your haunches, still straddling him, finally palming the tent that’s formed in his pants.

He gasps at the touch, mouth open, already missing your lips on his.

“So hard already,” you murmur. “Take this belt off.”

He obeys, quiet except for the clink of metal. The belt drops somewhere on the floor with a thunk. Your pretty hands work his zip, tugging just enough to reveal a dark blue pair of boxer-briefs.

Then he feels your weight shift on the bed. Watches you move down until you’re face-to-cock with his still-clothed erection.

“How far have you gone, Clark?” you ask, light as a feather, breath warm against the fibers of his underwear. The sight of you smiling between his legs is so dizzying, he grips the sheets for anchor. “Did you at least get blown?”

“Yea—ah,” he pants, because your hand is on his cock again. Palming. Squeezing.

You hum. Fingertips playfully stroke down his length from over the boxer-briefs, fondling his balls. “When was the last time?”

“Don’t know,” is his immediate, husked-out answer. There’s no past in his mind. Just the present, as unbelievable as it is—your bed, you, your hand, your pretty face… “Don’t care, just, please—”

As if triggered by his begging, you sit back up, leaving his cock completely touch-starved.

He sighs, because you’re thumbing his bottom lip. The touch isn’t kind. As a matter of fact, it’s a little mean: your finger is pushing his lip to the side, teasing the plush of it, pulling it down just a bit before letting it bounce back.

He likes it.

You chuckle when he takes your thumb in his mouth, even before you push it past his lips.

“So eager,” you drone, your other hand stroking his hair. “You want it that bad?”

“Yes,” he says, except it sounds more like mmph with his mouth occupied.

He lets your thumb go, only to kiss at your open palm. One quiet sound after the other, he presses his lips into your hand more—until very soon, he’s literally making out with it. His own hand is gripping yours close to his face, keeping you still.

“What exactly do you want, Clark?” Your words carry more breath than voice, and his blood sings.

“Anything you’d give to me,” he answers.

It’s at that point you choose to wrest your hand away, settling back down between his legs. You lean down to peck on his hard-on—it jumps excitedly under the fabric. You laugh, thumbing at the waistband.

Then you pull his boxer-briefs down, and there he is.

All of his inches, eight or nine, you’re not sure, but the exact measurement doesn’t matter—not when he’s relatively equal to the length of your forearm.

Surprise, surprise. Your big sloppy crush has a big fucking dick.

A dick so pretty you might cry—especially because it’s already crying a pearly bead at the tip. You trace a prominent vein that runs on the underside, lick your lips as he bucks into your hand.

You look at his face and a cruel amusement takes over you: Clark is propped on his elbows, cheeks bathed red, jaw slack like he’s just ran up fifty flights of stairs.

And you haven’t even done anything.

Rising up to your knees, you move to his face. A kiss on his lips, slow and deep. Then ten more light ones all over his cheekbone, jaw, neck, throat, up to his ears, at which point he’s stuttering out the beginnings of your name.

Your hands part his legs wider, letting you situate yourself more comfortably between them. He gulps. You move back down to the center of his expanse. Your head tilts, mouth a dangerous distance from where he’s most sensitive.

“Can I kiss you here?”

Your fingerpad teases the tip. Pre meets your skin, warm and sticky. You smear it on his fat head.

“Yes.”

Christ, was that a whine? Your little smile turns devious, nose nudging his cock. It twitches again, as if autonomous from the rest of him—like it’s developed its own mind and is begging you greedily to give it more.

“You’re so big, Clark. Will you even fit?” you muse, fingers curling around him, pumping once, twice. He throws his head back with a grunt, the movement so sharp you think he might be pulled at with a leash.

Well. You’ll figure out the answer to that later. For now, you should play with your meal.

You slip the tip into his mouth and watch shivers wrack his body. After swirling your tongue on it once, you let go with a pop, purring.

“So sensitive. What am I gonna do with you?”

Meanwhile, Clark is losing his mind.

“Your—f-fuhh—fault,” comes his raspy reply just as you descend one, two, three inches more. Gosh, your mouth is so warm, so tight…

You chuckle, and the vibrations rattle him up to his ribcage. It occurs to him that he might’ve said those things about your mouth out loud. Rather than mortification, he feels elation, because even when you move up and the warmth is gone, you’re teasing his tip with your tongue again, and it feels so good he might cry.

The circles in his vision must be mimicking your wet heat drawing patterns on him.

One of his hand sinks into a pillow, the other cards digits through your hair.

An expletive escapes the moment you hollow your cheeks, far too sudden for him to take back.

“Fuck,” he gasps, the sound tailing off with dumb, repeated attempts of forming your name. Most of his brain is in his hips now as they swivel in hopes to get more of him in your mouth, but your fingers splay beautifully on the rippling muscles of his abdomen.

“Uh-uh. Stay still.”

Following orders is usually a thing he’s good at. Just not today. Not now.

Now, all he can think of is how good it feels—his mouth echoes those thoughts with babbles of “so good, feels so g-good, you’re perfect”—and how if you keep this up, he’ll come in an embarrassing amount of time.

It’s already taking everything in him not to let that happen.

But then he catches you look up at him.

The sun’s still out, bathing the room with enough light to show him exactly what makes him nearly crumble:

Your pretty lips, wrapped around his thick cock, head bobbing up and down to reveal the glisten on him—a mix of precum and spit—your hair messy around his hand.

“Stop,” he groans, holding your skull still so he can gently pull himself out of you. There’s a line of drool that connects your mouth and his cock. “Stop, don’t wanna come—”

The surprised tinge in your reply almost breaks his heart. “You don’t want to?”

He shakes his head, reconstructing his breaths. “Not until I’m inside you.”

For once in his life, you don’t talk back, and he’d be damned to let the opportunity slip.

Clark Kent grew up learning how to take things into his own hands. He puts that into practice with you, grabbing you up by the waist, laying you down on the bed. He takes your clothes off: slowly, because every inch of bare skin is the closest he’s been to heaven, because he wants to savor this, because he thinks you’re beautiful.

Says it too, even if it’s whispered.

He has you in your underwear, teasing the strap of your bra. “Can I take this off, sweetheart?”

You nod instead of giving him mouth. A rarity.

He’ll give you mouth, instead: by kissing you as he unclasps your bra with one hand (still no comment from you). Once it’s off, he drags his lips down your throat, then collarbone, then your heaving chest, where he lets himself stare for once. His warm breath caresses your skin, while heat pours out from his gaze.

He finally leans down, laving at a nipple. Polite first, hungry just two seconds later. His entire mouth is involved: sucking at your chest, a large hand squeezing around your flesh to feed more into him. Your hand digs into his curls when he hums, teeth grazing playfully as you arch for more.

He looks up.

You’re a dream. He’s sure he’s dreamed of this once—except instead of blurred images and hazy glows that tortures him at night, the scene is crystal. He sees everything through his glasses: each strand of lashes on your pretty eyes, the color of your skin against the sheets, how your hair splays on the pillows.

Actually, speaking of pillows—and dreams…

“Here,” he wrests one from under your head and taps the side of your hips, “lift your hips up for me.”

You do it, but it seems you’ve found your voice again. The cheeky retort comes out breathless.

“Really, Clark? You’re gonna use that line on me?”

He adjusts you on the pillow, lips pursed—both from your tease and the sight of you, naked, save for the cute underwear raised up to meet him.

It’s already wet at the gusset. There isn’t much for him left to imagine.

“Just because you’re a writer doesn’t mean you’re immune to it,” he hums, peeling the material off of you. You instantly fall silent.

He groans at the sight of you clenching around nothing, slick threatening to dirty the pillowcase you’re resting on.

Two fingers drag a path down your mound to your wet entrance. Two moans erupt when he circles there—yours higher pitched than his, because he touches like it’s payback for some unseen grudge. Surely you don’t know how long he’s thought of you like this, how long he’s struggled with the guilt of fantasizing about his hot colleague, only to find this.

Your soaked cunt winking at him.

“You’re so wet,” his digits dip, collecting your juices. Your hips buck. “Is this from sucking me off?”

“No, I was thinking about winning the lottery,” you moan, betraying your impatience, “yes, it’s because of you, stupid!”

He laughs. He’s wanted you way too long—you can wait a little longer.

“Need to prep you,” a thumb pushes the hood off your clit, only for him to do nothing but look at it.

You shiver under his gaze, tease audibly lacking the bite. “Is this how you do it—stare?”

His eyes meet yours, blue eyes almost burning. Your throat bobs. That’s what fuels him.

“You tell me,” he murmurs, “you’re the erotic novelist.”

Fingers explore again, barely touching, always circling, and he bites back a moan at the sight of you arched like that, like your hips are hungry for more. His touch doesn’t relent, although it’s taking everything in him not to take every part of you right then and there.

“Clark—”

“You wrote something like this before,” his thumb swipes your clit. His name on your lips breaks, but those eyes on your face never does. “Page 347 of Owls. ‘When his finger sinks inside her, she gasps like she’s never breathed air’…”

Just then, he does as he says. His middle finger stretches you, one knuckle deep at first, then two, then all the way in. You writhe, stuttering a moan at how slow he is, before the sound dies in your throat with a gasp.

The base of his palm presses against your clit.

Clark catalogs your reactions with the precision of a machine. The warmth of his touch is anything but. So is the slight crinkle between his brows: signs that he’s testing his own boundaries by stretching yours so slowly.

“Or is it the next page? ‘The rhythm he sets replaces the beat of her heart—except nothing about the slow scrape of his fingers echoes the relentless thumping in her chest.’”

When he moves his fingers, the dimples on his cheeks begin to show. He smiles down at you, free from the pretense of professionalism:

He doesn’t commit your lines to memory because he’s a dedicated editor. He does it because he thinks about doing those things with you—so, so often.

“Fuck—Clark—” you whimper, the syllables choked out as his other hand pins your hip.

One finger becomes two, but the pace doesn’t change. Still arduous, still torture. Clark’s eyes are glazed: in watching you lose your mind underneath him, he loses his in trying to erase true words laced with alcohol. Your voice floats in his memory:

And I mean that in the PIV sense.

Does that mean you’ve done this before, with men who aren’t him? Were they any good? Did you like them, or did you let them in your bed just to use them? Doesn’t make a difference, Clark decides, because they still got to be with you. Were they the reason you wrote passion so well, or was it because they were so shit at it you had to take matters into your own hands?

Speaking of taking matters into your own hands, your voice floats in his memory again. Not words this time.

“You touched yourself, didn’t you?” Clark grunts, fingertips kissing your cervix at the word touched, “Two nights ago. In the hotel.”

You don’t answer, but your widened eyes said enough.

He leans down. Presses his forehead against yours.

“Heard you through the wall. Sound so sweet. Wanna hear it again.”

He kisses your lips once before moving down the expanse of you, flat on the bed between your very open legs—thanks to his gentle grip around one ankle, spreading you out for him to see.

But before you can shiver at the loss of his warm shadow, his lips closes around your clit, and you give him what he wants.

An open moan, loud enough to bounce off the walls.

Clark moans, too. The sound vibrates directly onto your cunt, you can’t help but spasm. He doesn’t stop. The flat of his tongue presses entirely on you, never really still: soon, he starts sucking and licking and teasing your poor clit. He tastes you, and a steady stream of muffled groans leak from his mouth—the same way your pussy leaks juices around his thrusting fingers, the squelch squelch squelch growing faster and louder in the room.

“You wrote about this so many times,” he murmurs against your slick, “d’you like it that much?”

Your answer is an unintelligibly keen noise.

“I love it,” Clark is purring now, hazy with your taste, “I’ll help you write lines later, m’kay? Want you to soak my hand, my tongue—”

Your body must’ve mistook that as an order, because the orgasm hits you out of nowhere, hot-white and sparking off your every nerve. You arch, convulse, slurring his name like you can’t speak while your pussy gushes around his fingers as they thrust through your spasms, unrelenting.

He breathes out a blasphemy, the first “oh my God” you’ve ever heard coming out of his mouth. Your senses are only starting to come back, but he replaces his fingers with his tongue, and you can’t hear anything past your own scream.

He fucks you just like that, lapping at your juices like he hasn’t drank in ages.

Something within you unstitches, and you feel your body leaping past overstimulation to overwhelming pleasure. You don’t tell him to stop—how can you, when he’s so clearly drunk on your pussy? He moans words into you like it’s a pet, coos of “You’re so pretty when you come”, “Tastes so good for me” vibrating against your core.

The cool frame of his glasses bumping against your inner thigh only makes everything feel better.

“Clark,” you cry, and he already knows. Already mumbling encouragements into your cunt.

“Want you to come again, honey, c’mon, you can do it, yeah?”

You do. The crest tugs at your spine like a string, and your hips seek his mouth as if looking for a place to give.

He takes it—slurping, licking, kissing.

When your white-edged vision comes back from the dappled blurs, he’s already shirtless and sitting on his heels, looking down at something.

You follow his gaze.

It stops at his cock resting on your stomach—the exact measure of how deep he’ll be.

There’s a smile on Clark’s face. Kind, but not kind enough that he won’t fuck you into the mattress.

“See that, sweetheart?” he leans down, feeding the words straight into your ear. “We’ll make sure you take everything, m’kay?”

When you whimper and close your eyes—because how is that thing going inside you?—he tuts once. Cups your jaw with a broad palm, still sticky with your juices. Another time and place, you’d scold him, but now?

“You need to watch,” he says, “so you can write about it.”

Your eyes blink open, only to find his pupils blown out black.

Now you’re screwed—or just about to be.

The fat head of his cock rubs against your hole, hot, smearing precum on your cunt. You mewl, eyes fluttering shut again, but he tightens his hold on your jaw, whispering “c’mon, honey, look at me” like his voice doesn’t make things worse.

Like he’s not just as wrecked.

Lips slick, parted, and a little swollen, hazy eyes half-lidded, Clark Kent is the picture they put next to the definition of lust.

But you’re the same, because his cock nudges your clit again and you melt, stammering your truest wish into his mouth:

“Please, Clark, please fuck me, need you to fuck me—”

How he isn’t already cumming all over you is beyond his comprehension.

“Oh, attagirl,” he breathes, before finally sinking in.

The stretch isn’t as painful as you thought it’d be, but maybe that’s just how desperate you are for him. Clark doesn’t seem to be holding up so well, though: he’s panting just a breath away from your lips, exhales shaky at the tightness that wraps around him, holding back the need to just slam into your perfect heat.

Inch by excruciating inch, he sinks into you, then stops. You gasp at the feeling: full. How you managed to take him all so easily is a mystery.

You call his name, clenching around him. His answer is strained, brows knitted.

“I’m only halfway in, baby.”

A wave of desire and dread washes over you at the realization. Those blue eyes, though black now from dilated pupils, drift momentarily down, before they lock onto yours again.

He pushes in.

Your jaw falls slack in disbelief, walls stretched by the veiny ridges of him. His girth bullies your cunt to take his shape. He watches as he thrusts the thickest part of him inside you, studying each twitch and blink and stutter, looking out for pain, but finding pleasure above all else.

This time, you know he’s all the way in. Your vision blacks out a little at the heft.

“There we go, good girl, so good for me, you’re perfect…”

Those words come tumbling out, both a reassurance for you and a distraction for Clark—because you’re so warm and tight and wet around him, he might lose himself if he doesn’t focus.

“Breathe for me,” he hums, but he’s not breathing right either.

This is it. His cock is inside of you—the first one to ruin you, if he doesn’t mess this up and ruin himself first.

Meanwhile, you watch Clark pant above you, his forearms flexing as they bracket your head, face red from restraint.

The sight makes you clench and he moans.

“D-Don’t—a—ah,” his chest heaves.

That pulls a grin out of you, weak as it is. You clench again, this time intentionally.

He grits your name out between teeth. “I said, don’t.”

“Why?” you husk, even though you know the answer.

“Gonna make me c-come.”

You stroke his cheek to guise the fact that you’re not doing much better yourself—not with all eight, nine inches of his hard cock pulsing directly against your walls like that.

The thought strikes you then: this is the closest you’ve ever been to someone—quite literally speaking.

And it’s Clark who’s holding you right now. Clark. Endlessly polite and often sweet Clark. Easily ragebaited into a rant Clark. Charming without meaning to, helps with the best of intentions Clark.

It’s precisely because you’re with him that your mouth decides to say something stupid. Call it a defense mechanism—from what, you’re not sure, because he’s already inside you, what the fuck are you defending yourself from?—but the words slither out anyway.

Playful. Teasing. You say it right by his lips, the exact opposite of what you had in mind.

“You can cum, Clark. I’ll just find someone else to help me write my book.”

When in fact you’ll never let anyone else between your legs ever again.

Something in Clark shifts. His throat bobs with it, eyes sharpening past the haze of lust.

Then he’s on his knees, gripping your hips with both hands, before thrusting up without pulling out even an inch—like deeper is possible. You feel him in your lungs. He does it again.

This time, both your eyes and his snap down to the faint bulge near your stomach.

The view doesn’t stay for long. He drags his inches out of you, slowly, all the way to the tip, before plunging deep once more.

“Fuck—!”

You’re busy crying out when he leans back down. His hand gathers your wrists above your head, the other firm on the side of your hip—both anchors to the slow pace he builds.

“‘s this what you need?” he rasps, voice broken between lazy thrusts that ring loud, “Writing—nmm—material?”

“Aah—”

“You gonna write about how,” thrust, “he’s so deep, she can see him in her stomach?”

Your eyes widen, first at the bulge on your lower belly, then at him.

“About how she cries out for him?” Thrust.

“—a-nghh—”

“How she’s clenching around him,” he mouths against your ear, words slurred, “like she doesn’t want him to leave?”

The cant of his hips pick up speed, and soon there are plap plap plaps of his balls slapping your ass under your moans and his. His hand on your wrists becomes a lever from which he thrusts.

The air hangs heavy with sweat and a heady scent. The bed begins to creak.

You’re rutting up into him, the swivel of your hips growing more and more desperate with each murmur of his name—he watches you the entire time, entranced by the roll of your bodies.

“Fuck, look at you,” he whines at the sight, eyes glazed over.

“Wanna touch,” you mumble, drool beginning to pool on one side of your lip. Your fingers claw the air. “Please, let me touch—”

He lets go of your hands. You drag him into a kiss that tangles your moans together, all while his hipbone bumps into yours again and again.

The freedom he gives you damns him: your hands raking down his chest makes him shiver, so do your nails digging into his bicep. The worst part happens when you tug at his hair: a response to one particular slam that hits a spot in you, in turn drawing a garbled moan out of him.

You can’t stop touching him, and he’s all the worse for it.

With each fuse of your hips and his, your walls clutch him like you’re trying to keep him inside. Out to the tip, in to the hilt, splitting you open with each store, coating his cock with you while he bullies that spot that makes you beg so beautifully: “yes, Clark, please!”

It’s clear you’re close. It hasn’t been long since Clark got acquainted with your pretty pussy, but the way she clenches is enough to clue him in.

He’s not doing any better: eyes dark behind glasses that sit askew, swollen lips parted. His only hope now is to pound into that gummy spot in you again and again and again while he spews praise in your ear—make you come before he does, because it’s too good for him not too: he’s so hard and you’re squeezing him so tight, rubbing delicious friction that’s all at once too much and not enough.

You respond with nails raked down his naked back, the mantra of ‘Clark Clark Clark’ shooting ecstasy straight to his head, fueling the piston of his hips.

The sounds of your bodies aren’t helping him hold on: wet slaps betray the mess he’s making out of your pussy. Every thrust makes him yours. Make you his.

He groans at the thought. Depraved as it is, his cock being the first to ruin your pussy does something indescribable to him. At the tail end of that thought is something sweeter:

The same way that he’s your first, you’re his. He doesn’t want any other.

He paraphrases professions of love into everything else but the words he loves working with. Instead he employs a language said by the body: through his hips now ramming deep strokes into you, the way his arms wrap around you until you can’t see anything except him. Your heels drag on his back now—he spares a second to hook one over his shoulder before plunging back into you, deepening the angle.

He glances down. Your nails sink into his arms. They look pretty.

You look pretty: eyes blank, hair a mess, skin misted with sweat as you lay arched underneath him…

“God, you’re perfect,” he breathes.

Meanwhile, you're so full your brain decides to empty itself. Its only care right now is your basest of needs.

“So good,” you whimper, “Clark you feel so good, gonna cum…”

“Yeah? Me too, honey,” he pants, voice reedy, “where do you want me?”

“Inside, p-please, need you inside—”

That answer unspools all restraint in him, and he lets his hips go of their very last bit of restraint: he pistons into you with abandon as he siphons groans into your lips in exchange for your climbing moans, the two of you feeding into each other’s lust until your heat is too much.

“I can’t, honey, I—”

It’s too late: he’s spurting all the way inside you, breathlessly gasping your name.

“Gah—nggh—”

The flooding sensation of his orgasm, hot and sticky, triggers your own. The tension shatters in your body: your legs quiver on his shoulder and around his waist, voice broken as your nerves turn into livewires that burn bright at the edges of your vision, electrifying everything to white.

He’s on you the entire time you come, breath warming your ear. The spurts don’t stop. You’ve never been fuller—until he pulls out of you and you moan, not just from the loss of his cock, but also the messy splatter of him on your stomach and tits.

The thought is faint, but the sensations are real: he’s still fucking cumming.

Now you’re just not quivering, you’re a quivering mess. Even with your senses flashbanged, slowly reconstructing themselves from that orgasm, you register the warmth that drips down your hole and onto the bedsheets.

Then the quiet lands. Your breaths even. He still hovers over you, glasses fully fogged up and crooked. The sight is stupidly hot, but you don’t like that you can’t see him.

You slowly take them off.

Blue eyes look back at you. His pupils aren’t so dilated now, and you see a different emotion in them as they widen.

Concern.

“Gosh—I—are you okay? did I hurt you? ”

He thumbs at your cheek. It’s wet. When did you start crying?

“No, no,” you stammer, “I’m fine. It’s just… that was—”

You stare, wordless. He stares back.

“It’s perfect. You’re perfect, Clark.”

His shoulders drop with heavy relief, warm breath fanning your face as he leans over you again.

“Thank goodness.”

That makes you giggle.

“Don’t laugh. I’ve wanted you for so long, I can’t possibly mess this up.”

A beat. You blink up at him. “You have?”

He doesn’t answer. Just buries his face in your neck, undoubtedly redder than before. His voice is muffled against your skin.

“I just—I like you so much it hurts.”

You huff in amusement, raking your fingers through his hair. A silent plea for him to look up at you.

He obeys. You smile, thumbing the fat of his cheek.

“When I touched myself two nights ago, I was thinking about you.”

His eyes widen, though just a fraction. Maybe it’s not so unbelievable, after all—but he allows himself to expend the last ounce of his surprise.

You raise your brow. “Is it really that unexpected?”

He kisses your fingers. Sweetly this time. “I… It’s an outcome I’ve never considered.”

You lean up. The peck lands on his chin. “Why else would I invite you to an expensive Korean barbecue, silly?”

Clark smiles so earnestly it almost blinds you. Thank God he hides in your neck again.

“So you like me, too?”

“Yep. Like, a lot.”

୨୧

Ten minutes later, you’re in the bathtub, back pressed against his chest.

The sun is setting outside, the drawn blinds creating light serrations that spill across your bathroom tiles. Metropolis is strangely quiet. The only thing you perceive is the lazy drip of the faucet into the water’s surface.

Maybe you’re just preoccupied by the replaying of your memories. Every little detail collects in the forefront like the soap suds Clark massages into your shoulders—before you know it, you’re stringing together words in your head, a momentum you can’t stop even if you wanted to.

Huh. You’re… inspired.

Maybe you should do this more often.

Clark kisses the nape of your neck as you bask in the silence. The sensation grounds you back to reality, and a realization dawns. You sit up straighter in the water.

He notices.

You turn to face him.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“My suitcase,” you say, “it’s still in your car.”

He smiles so warmly you think you might melt and be one with the bath water. The expression looks so sweet and innocent on him… except you feel his cock hardening against your ass.

“Sweetheart, I don’t think you’ll be needing clothes for a while.” 

THREE MONTHS LATER 

“C’mon, write something,” Clark pants playfully, hands on your hips, driving his cock into your weeping cunt as he watches the fat of your ass bounce with each thrust, “You can do it—you’re a smart girl, aren’t you?”

Time doesn’t make any sense, not when he’s rubbing against your walls so good, but you do know you’ve been at this for a while. Your body can’t even hold itself up: chest glued to the damp sheets, ass held up by his hands, arms limp in front of you.

Your hands rest above the keypad of a laptop. On its screen is a word processor, its typing cursor blinking back at you tauntingly. The page’s contents are measly, only about halfway filled—unlike your cunt that’s full with his length.

It’s your fault for planning so many sex scenes. But it’s the final installment of your trilogy, the perfect breeding ground for emotional sex.

You’re guessing that breeding ground is what Clark thinks about you, too, aside from his undying respect for you: because his thrusts are getting messier the way you know he’s about to cum, and sure enough, with his chest against your back and his mouth sputtering “that’s it, take it, gonna fill you up, sweetheart, you’ll let me?” in your ear.

He waits for your pathetic mewl of an okay to spill inside you.

His orgasm pulls a weak one out of you, because God knows how many times he’s made you. You shake underneath him, gasping for air while he does the same.

Then it begins: the delicious replay your mind does after every tangle with him. While the shivers ebb, your memory picks up the details…

Your feeble fingers begin to type. Slowly, as if each key ignites a thing he said not ten minutes ago.

You can hear Clark smile in his voice. He buries his lips in your hair.

“One week till the manuscript deadline,” he husks. “Let’s work hard together, yeah?”

Then his hand drifts down to play with your clit and you lose your train of thought.

Oh, well. Surely Planet Publishing can extend a deadline for their bestselling writer.

BONUS

Herons Under Sycamore Shade — Author Interview with Cat Grant

Q: Speaking of sex, there’s a lot more this time around.

A: Well, it’s the last book. I wanted it to go out with a bang, so to speak.

Q: This is a personal opinion of mine, having read all three, but you should also know that many reviewers thought the quality of erotica was somehow better in this one. To quote the Gotham Gazette: “…breathtakingly real while making you forget about reality.”

A: That’s such high praise. Thank you!

Q: What changed (between the first two installments)?

At this point, the author smiles in a way that I can only describe as coy. Don’t believe me? Ask the photographer.

A: Let’s just say I have good source material.

You pegged him as the ultimate neighbor since the first day you moved in. As the moment he saw you struggling with your boxes of too much stuff, he immediately offered to help.

Lifting up three heavy objects that were filled with your heavy kitchen appliances and bathroom necessities too easily, you can’t help but stare at those bulging biceps as he moved around. Quickly looking away every time you feel like he’d almost catch you.

And let’s just say your moving-in process was finished in just an hour, rather than the whole afternoon, with his help.

“I’m Clark, by the way,” mentioned the broad and tall man as he brushed his palm against his jeans, with his thick rimmed glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose and his deep dimples and boyish smile that you were sure would make you do a double take if you saw him on the streets.

“I live next door,” he pointed to the unit next to you.

So– you have a good view of the city AND a hot neighbor too? You really felt like you hit the jackpot with this one.

You smiled and offered him your name. “Nice to meet you, neighbor. I hope we could be good friends then.”

He nodded, lips curling up even more. “Just knock if you need anything. I’ll leave you to it?”

Humming, you then lead him out of your boxes-filled apartment, thanking him one last time.

You thought it would stop with him acting like a decent person—just helping a girl out with her things, but it didn’t. Later that night, you heard a knock on the door.

Looking up from your kitchen floor, you fixed up your shirt before padding down the hall. Checking the peephole to see the same new neighbor—Clark—carrying a plate filled with what you presume were freshly baked cookies.

Your eyes widened as you opened the door and saw exactly that. His soft smile, the scent of sweetness and the warmth emanating from the cookies almost made your heartbeat quicken.

“Sorry to bother you,” he fixes up his glasses with his free hand, then offers the plate out.

“Housewarming gift. Freshly made– though please do not mind if it’s not that good.”

You looked down at the plate, taking it, then up at him again. “Clark– wow, you didn’t have to…”

His smile softened immediately. “I wanted to. Hope you enjoy it.”

You breathed out a small thanks before he left you to continue your organizing.

The next day, you knocked on his door. His once-filled plate with cookies was now replaced with chocolate muffins you made all morning.

His surprise was evident, soft red hues creeping up his cheeks to the tips of his ears. “I didn’t make those cookies just so you could bake me something as well,” his brows knitted.

“Well, consider it as a thank you for helping me out yesterday.”

He sighed softly. “Thank you,” with his classic, shy smile.

Then it continued. Always using the “I cooked too much” as a reason.

You’d give him your signature pasta recipe, and he’d return it the next day with a pan of freshly baked pie. He’d give you some homemade chicken dish he told you he learned to make from his Ma, you’d return it with a pint full of ice cream you made (just for him).

Though it went on and didn’t stop with the both of you casually exchanging meals.

Your kitchen pipes weren’t working? He’d be there in seconds with a wrench in his hand after you asked for help. Your eyes zeroed the moment his shirt went damp, making it practically transparent. You gulped as you stared at how his back muscles shifted with every move.

You didn’t know he could hear the way your breath hitched, though. His own body reacting the same as he could feel that you were also being affected by the closeness of the moment.

“Just need it to be tightened up,” he hummed, looking up at you from his knees just before the under-sink cabinet.

“Oh–” you straightened up, his voice breaking the trance you were in. “All fixed then?”

“Yeah…” he murmured as he stood up, his tall figure towering over you.

You felt your neck straining. “Thank you, Clark.”

“No worries. I’m open to help you with whatever, okay?”

Whatever, huh?

You almost choked at your own spit with the thought of him helping you with whatever. Immediately pushing those… thoughts down.

“Okay,” you managed to rasp out.

He smiled again before he continued with his day.

“Fuck…” you muttered to yourself the moment you closed your door, your forehead thudded against the wood.

More happened.

You were cooking, realized you were out of some ingredients, and went to him.

“Hey, sorry to bother you… but I’m cooking something, and I just realized that I’m out of onions. Do you potentially have any spare ones?” you asked him sheepishly.

Clark cursed to himself because he didn’t have any. He wanted to keep being the one you go to with every struggle you have; he wanted to keep being your lifeline and salvation, so what did he do?

“I’m sorry I don’t… though I’m gonna go out,” a lie. “Soap’s running short,” another lie. Clark literally just bought a full bottle yesterday.

“Really? Would you help me get some onions then?” your eyes gleaming with anticipation, but not wanting to burden him.

“Of course,” he smiled. “I’ll go get some for you.”

He returned less than 30 minutes later with a bag of onions and some snacks you mentioned you liked weeks ago.

You flushed, thanked him, and he nodded before leaving.

Week after week, it kept happening. It was like the both of you were trying to make excuses to see each other even more.

Purposefully switching up your mails with each other. When he saw your balcony railing wobbled just below an inch, he’d offer to fix it immediately. He heard you struggling with your shopping bags after a day out? He would take it from your hands, letting you carry nothing in your hands.

The both of you started to get closer. Unprompted movie nights in his unit, baking and cooking together, even doing nothing but enjoying a warm cup of tea as you both sit on the lounge chairs on your balcony, sharing childhood stories and laughing together.

Oh, both of you were falling deep.

The gaze held longer, smile now softer—deeper in a way—nothing like you ever shared with other people. You told him about your day, your stressful work, your family—and he told you about his life.

It was sweet, really. Clark Kent was sweet.

At this point, he knew everything about you. How you take your coffee, how your nose scrunched before you let out his favorite free laugh every time he made one of his stupid jokes, how sweet you smell whenever his touch lingered just on your thighs whenever you whispered a secret to him, how your pulse thrummed so evidently the moment he tucked a stray hair behind your ear.

And you knew everything about him as well. How his eyes would crinkle with amusement when you rolled your eyes and acted all annoyed, how his hand would linger around you as you both worked around the kitchen, how his body would tense, how his breath would hitch every time you told him something about yourself. Every time you draped yourself on his lap while watching one of the romcoms you forced him to see.

You felt it. The palpable tension, so thick you could cut it with a dull knife, through the not-so-innocent touches, the whispered words—He felt it too. The problem was, Clark Kent is too much of a gentleman to break those boundaries first, and there’s no way you’re the one who’d tear the bandaid off.

So the both of you didn’t advance into anything more than his arm around your shoulder as you both relaxed, or your arms around him as you let out your stress through the feeling of his warmth and scent wrapped around you.

Until one day.

You told him you were buying a couch, and even made him help you pick the color and measure your space. So the moment it arrived, he was at his feet instantly. Going down to carry the box filled with the parts.

It should be normal now; he’s helping you make furniture and fixing around your place, though he usually didn’t use this thin, figure-hugging compression shirt that made all of his muscles look swollen.

He made you stay out of it completely, just like always, not wanting you to do the work at all—yet you can’t help but linger.

You can’t help but ogle him—practically sexualizing him inside of your head.

The way his bicep would flex with every twist of the screwdriver, his veins popping under his sleeves through his forearm, making you wonder if those blood vessels would also look this enticing around his cock.

Your thighs clench the moment he lay under the couch as he tightened the bolts there. His shirt was riding up to reveal a patch of his skin, covered with soft hairs leading down to his crotch.

And he knew. He could practically smell the heavy, sweet smell of your arousal. He could hear the soft breaths you didn’t even know you let out every time he shifted, and his shirt went up even more.

His own body starts to heat up, flushing even though all of his blood was going south. He was thankful that he opted to wear his baggy sweats rather than his tight jeans.

Nevertheless, you saw his bulge start to thicken under the grey fabric. Eyes widening, you immediately looked away.

Clearing your throat. “Do you want some water?”

He looked up, noting the way that you were more fidgety than usual. “Yeah. Sure, thanks.”

You gave him a tight-lipped smile before walking through the kitchen.

Clark couldn’t help but fixate his eyes on your form. Your soft curves swaying with every step, ass peeking out of those short shorts that—the fact that it was always shorter than the last made it obvious that you want him to see. But he can’t. He can’t lose his control–

Gods, you were bending over the freezer now.

He shut his eyes, sucking a deep breath and letting it out shakily. He felt it wavering—his self-control thinning with every quiet hum you let out of your lips.

His fingers tightened around the whatever tool he was holding instantly. His cock throbbing inside his boxers, wanting—needing to be freed from the confinement and the pressure.

You knelt beside him, handing him the cold water. “All good?”

He cleared his throat, hand brushing over the couch’s fresh cushion to distract himself. “All good.”

You then helped him, fingers brushing his palm, lingering on his forearms whenever he asked you for a tool, and you’d give it. You also made it more obvious now that you saw him get hard.

You would blatantly eye him up and down, bare thighs brushing against his hands– you were horny.

Clark Kent made you horny, and he was the only one who could fix it.

His fingers would tighten around the wooden foot, and you imagined it was you instead. He’d let out grunts, and you imagined that it was you pulling it out of him, how he would probably praise you instead of dirty talking just because he was so respectful—too respectful.

He gulped as he watched how your breath starts to quicken, mirroring it unconsciously.

Then– Click.

The last bolt—the last piece of the couch was put in place. Dragging you back into reality.

“You’re done?” you asked.

He nodded, and you immediately sank down onto the new couch. Shifting around to feel the soft padding underneath you.

He joins, and your thighs grazed immediately, making you almost jolt—the neediness heightening back up inside you.

“It feels solid…” he murmured.

You finally glance at him, eyes low and half-lidded with lust. “Wanna test it?”

He eyed you, the way your chest heaved, pupils blown out before rushing forward and kissing the life out of you.

You stumbled with your lips, before wrapping your arms around him and pulling him flush on top of you as you sank against the armrest. Lips parting, swiping your tongue along his lower lip before nipping it, making him groan out your name.

His fingers brushed along the hem of your shirt, lips separating from yours so he could kiss down your jaw and neck.

“Ask me to stop and I will, sweetheart,” he whispered against your skin.

You shook your head profusely.

“I need words…” as he pulled away to study your face, the way your eyes glossed with want.

“Please– I need you, Clark, please…” You whined.

“Of course,” giving a soft kiss on your cheek. “Anything for you, sweet girl,” another on your lips. The nicknames and his gentleness burned you inside out, making you fall deeply towards him more and more.

He finally lifted your shirt off gently, kissing every inch of your skin revealed. Unclasping your bra, groaning at the sight of your breasts bare before him.

You squirmed underneath him the moment he wrapped his soft pink lips around your hardened nipple. Back arching as your hands found his shoulder and squeezed it.

“You’re so beautiful…” he murmured, kissing further down till his lips made contact with the waistband of your shorts. “Can I?”

“Yes– Clark, yes…” his hips lifting instantly as he hooked his fingers around it, pulling it and your panties with such softness and gentleness that no other man could give other than him.

He let out a shuddered breath as he spread your thighs open. The delicious scent of you hits all of his senses immediately.

He hummed as he saw how your folds glistened—borderline dripping. “Don’t wanna make a mess on the new couch, don’t we, sweetheart?” he whispered, before hooking your legs over your shoulder and diving right into it. Collecting all of your wetness—dragging his tongue on your hole up to your clit, making you let out a quiet cry.

“Clark–!” fingers snaking through his curls, tugging them as you held yourself back from grinding your hips against his mouth.

He looped his arms around your thighs, mouth expertly working you out—all the while his gaze stayed on you. Watching every bit of your reactions, the way you threw your head back against the armrest, eyes rolled, lower lip stuck between your teeth as you hold back your sounds.

It was a sight he could never forget now. He was sure to etch it into the deepest crook of his brain.

You whined out his name the moment he pulled back, though. “I know… I’m gonna give you something better, okay?”

You nodded reluctantly, too weak, too drunk with pleasure to deny and fight him over it. You kept your eyes as he stripped out of his clothes. Hole fluttering and tightening around nothing the moment he was bare before you.

His cock—full of girth and length, was straining and slapping against his stomach. His tip red, glistening with his pre. “You’re– huge, holy shit…”

He let out a soft chuckle. “I’ll make it fit. Don’t worry,” as his fingers brushed your hair back, grazing along your cheekbones.

You hummed softly, parting your legs even more to accommodate his broad figure.

Clark lets out a moan as he begins to slowly slide his tip against your folds. “So wet… you’ve been wanting this, hm?”

The silent nod in your response made his heart bloom, because he had wanted this too. He imagined this happening too many times before—whether when he was with you or alone in his bedroom whispering your name as he stroked himself to the thoughts of you—and really, the reality was so much better for him.

The moment he finally pushed himself inside you? He broke. Letting out a deep guttural sound to the feeling of your velvet walls wrapped so perfectly around him—it was as if you were made for him, no– he was made for you.

And you felt the burn, the stretch, splitting you open from your inside. Your hands find his arms immediately. Making imprints of your nails as you dug into his skin from the feeling of the pleasurable pain.

“Clark–”

“Shh… open up for me, sweetheart. I know you can.”

He stayed still the moment he was buried deep inside you, fingers softly brushing along your bare skin as you began to relax.

You nodded, eyes looking up at him with adoration the moment the burn dissipates.

“All ready?” he asked softly.

“Yeah…”

The both of you let out choruses of moans as he began moving, slowly at first. He pulled your arms so you could wrap them around his neck, his own snaking around your back just to keep you close to him.

His forehead pressed against yours. “You feel so good…” he whispered, pulling you into a deep kiss filled with passion. He kept his easy pace, but it was like he was holding back.

“More…” you moaned against his lips.

Who was he to deny you, his sweet, sweet girl, from pleasure?

He picked up his pace. Still deep, reaching to every inch of your walls, but it was more punishing now.

The couch starts to squeak underneath you—but you both didn’t care. Too captivated by the feeling of each other’s bodies to even notice the foot of the couch.

“Fuck–!” you moaned the moment he angled your hips. Your fingers now sprawled on the span of his back, raking it. Your walls began to clench around him tightly, making him fuck you deeper and faster.

“More!” you cried. And he served. His thrusts now punishing, both your chests panting. Your gasps and his moans echo around your apartment.

Clark swore that you were like an angel before him. With your body wrapped around a thin sheet of sweat that made it seem like you're glowing, hair messily draped everywhere yet still beautiful, your breasts bouncing like an invitation, and your face… gods, your face. He could die peacefully thinking about it alone.

So utterly beautiful and broken, and he was the one who did it.

His hips are working like an animal now, brutal, feral.

You finally realized that the couch underneath you was shaking, but you didn’t care. All you could think about was him, him, and him.

He noticed the way the couch was groaning in protest with the amount of pressure it was being given, but the way your cunt was tightening around him meant that he couldn’t stop. “Gonna break this–” before your walls gripped his cock even further.

“Gonna come–!” you cried.

“Give it to me, sweetheart. Come on.”

And you obeyed. Letting out a sharp cry of his name as your body jolts—convulsing as the waves after waves of orgasm hit your senses—burning your body with the amount of pleasure.

“Fuck–” he cursed, fucking you deeper as he chased his own climax. At last, with a final and intense thrust–

Craaack.

The foot snapped completely, making you yelp out and scrambling to hold onto him.

Clark didn’t even realize that he had already came and spilled inside you, too stunned, too focused on making sure you’re not hurt.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” his eyes widened, doing a one-overlook look at you to make sure no blood came out of you.

Your arms tightened, before you burst out laughing. “I am–” you wheezed. “The couch though…”

He blinked, then huffing out a small and relieved chuckle. “Guess it’s not strong enough, huh?”

Before pulling you onto his lap, shifting you on the floor carefully—still seethed deep inside you, and tugging you closer into a soft kiss. Fingers cuping your cheeks gently.

“Help me order another one?”

༘⋆ 🏷 clark’s : @pinksplace @tw1sters @kryptidfiles @theworstwolvie @anon-188

So, on the evening of his 28th day being gone, your nerves are fried within your skin. Completely frayed and undone. Completely destroyed. Mirroring your heart, in a way. 

“He will return, dear. Pay no mind to the number of days he’s been gone,” your mother says after she kisses your temple. She’s been sitting next to you on your bed, arm around your shoulders, comforting you through every silent fallen tear and soft mutter about how much you miss him. 

“It has never been this long,” you whisper. She presses her lips into a thin line and tightens her grip on you. When you were a child and you were this upset, she would pull you into her lap and cradle you for as long as you needed the comfort. Sometimes—especially on a night like tonight—you wish you were still small enough for it. 

“I’m starting to fear the worst.” 

There’s a whimpered little cry that accompanies your confession. It’s almost as if that cry was trying to fight that sentence from leaving you, trying to fight an unintended manifestation of your worst nightmare. All your mother does is chuckle at you and give you a soft squeeze. 

“That boy cannot stay away from you. No matter how hard the gods try to keep him at bay, he will return.” 

You push out a weak little laugh. Your hands find their way to your face so you can wipe your tears away. 

“He is almost as stubborn as his Father,” you offhandedly mumble. Your mother hums. 

“Aren’t they all?” 

With another kiss, this time pressed to the top of your head, she pulls away from you and stands up from your bed. She pats your shoulder and says, “Sleep. You’ll fall ill if you keep worrying over him like this.”

You send her a smile. It’s hardly there. A subtle lift of the corners of your lips. When she’s on her way out of your room, you exchange a set of whispered “I love you”s before everything around you falls silent. Your mother has a beautiful way of silencing your worried thoughts. Now that she’s gone, they’ve returned in full swing. 

How long has he been dead? Did it happen quickly? Did his Father willingly let him walk into death? Had he been prepared for it? Is that why he almost refused to leave you this time, or why he asked you to run away with him? Did he think of you in his final moments? 

Was your name the last thing to grace his tongue before it lost its ability to speak?

Oh, that one is terrible. Selfish and cruel, as a matter of fact. You shake your head and run a hand over your face. With a sniffle and a harsh internal chastising, you scoot back onto your bed and lie down. Your eyes meet the ceiling of your home. The bland, dull white of it is boring enough to put anyone to sleep no matter their mental torment. 

Moments before sleep finally takes you, a gentle breeze brushes over the side of your face and shoots a shiver down your spine. You huff and gently push yourself up onto your elbows. You love your mother more than life itself, but her nasty habit of accidentally leaving your bedroom window open is going to kill you one day. 

When you open your eyes, you see a shape in the corner of your room. A massive, dark shape in the form of a person; your exhausted mind figures it must be some sort of specter. You gasp and lurch forward to run out of your room. The sharp inhale echoes, bouncing off the walls. 

Seconds later, Kal-El’s lunging forward to cover your mouth with one massive hand, attempting to quiet your scream before it can materialize in the first place. 

“Shh! It’s only me!” He laughs quietly to himself and shakes his head. 

“If you want me to stay, I suggest you keep your scream in.” 

You groan against his palm and smack at his broad shoulders with both of your hands. He doesn’t so much as wince, but his smile and the mischievous glint in his eye grows every time a blow lands. When he pulls his hand off of your mouth, you whisper shout, “Are you trying to frighten me to death?!” 

All he does is lean forward and kiss you as a response. You can’t help the fire burning in your cheeks and the smile growing on your lips while he does so. Reuniting with him and all of his infuriating habits always brings you the most joy you’ve ever felt. A kiss so deep, so loving, so filled with his adoration for you usually strikes all of his annoyances away.

When you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him into your bed as you fall back down into it, you both laugh into the kiss. The momentary bliss doesn’t last long, though; he’s too busy pulling away from the kiss and looking down at you. 

“If that happened, I would be the first to venture down to Hades and retrieve you.” 

“Your confidence will be the end of you one day, Kal-El,” you tease. He rolls his eyes. His big, blue, beautiful eyes. They’re just as bright in the moonlight as they are in the sunlight, and yet so much more striking this close up. You allow yourself to drink him in, to reacquaint yourself with his sharp and yet soft, lovely features you could never dream of forgetting. 

“You spend your days complimenting my confidence. I’m convinced it is your job to do so,” he counters while he spreads your legs and settles between them. 

“Confidence may not have been the right word, then. Perhaps I was talking about your stubbornness.” 

That one gets him to scoff at you. 

“Do you really believe I’m as stubborn as my Father?” he asks while kneeling between your legs. It’s an excuse for him to reach up and open your curtains, to let a little more light into your room so he can see you for the first time in a month. You sit up to follow him, interrupting the way his eyes were drinking in your features beneath the blue moonlight. 

“Stop listening to my conversations!” you hiss. “And, anyway, I said you are almost as stubborn as your Father.” 

He huffs. His hands ghost over your arms, slowly dragging up to your shoulders so he can brush your hair off of them. When his warm, calloused palms cradle your cheeks, you soften. Your nerves stitch themselves back together. The aches and pains in your heart dissipate. For the first time in a month, everything feels right. This is where you’re meant to be. This is who you’re meant to be worshipped by. 

You couldn’t possibly be angry with him. Not when he’s returned to you, as he promised he would.

“I missed you.” 

When tears started pooling in your eyes, you’re not sure. But they’re there, and as they slip down your cheeks with those three little words, Kal-El thumbs them away. 

“Words cannot describe how much I missed you. The only thing preventing me from losing my head was knowing each one of my steps brought me closer to you,” he coos in return. He leans down to connect your lips, but only for a moment. When he breaks the kiss again, you fear you’ll go insane. Your hands find their way to his breastplate. Usually, you beg him to rid his body of it. Of any clothing, really. 

But you’re so happy that he’s back here, that he’s finally with you again, that you’d let him keep it on forever if he so pleased. 

“You were away for far too long,” you whine. “I feared you were dead.” 

He chuckles. Shakes his head and pulls back just to look at you, just to drink you in once again. 

“Not even death itself could keep me away from you, my heart.” 

That feeling—that relief—floods your system when, for the first time in five years, he stands in front of you. There’s no smile on his face. No moonlight illuminating his eyes as he glues them to yours. No smile on his lips and no promise that you’ll get to kiss them within only a few seconds. Just a solemn, darkened look in his eyes, and a scowl you’ve never seen before, and a harsh, hardened mask that you’re struggling to read. 

This is still the same Kal-El you grew up with. His face has not changed much. His eyes are still bluer than the sky, and his full lips would probably feel the same on your skin, and his broad shoulders are as commanding as ever. 

And yet he is much different. 

Despite that, your relief and elation persist. They worm their way through your skin, your muscles, your bones. Warm your cheeks and steal your breath from your chest. You’d almost forgotten how to breathe until your body forced you to suck in some of the already electrified air between you two. 

Your voice finds its way back to you when you rasp, “What are you doing here?”

Incredible. The first time you see him in five years, and that’s what your cursed brain and vocal chords spit out. 

Kal-El stays planted in his spot, unflinchingly rigid. Stuck in it, standing just a few steps away from your door, hands twitching at his sides while he continuously balls them into fists and releases them. The rough heave of his chest is visible even in your widened distance. Each rise and fall of it sees the shadows of all the slashes on his worse-for-wear breastplate shifting and growing. 

“Is it too late to receive a prophecy?” he gruffly asks. His voice brings you comfort despite sounding angrier and deeper than it once was. Your head aches, light from your ritualistic fasting and from the dark, low timbre rising from his throat, crossing the distance between you, and floating into your ears. 

You clear your own throat. Swallow once, then twice, just to get the lump out of it enough to reply to him. Steady your knees so that collapsing isn’t an option, so that he won’t be able to run over and save you from cracking your head open on the shaky floor beneath your feet. 

He doesn’t deserve to save you after this long, right?

“The ritual is over, and—and I know you can speak to your Father without my help.” 

He nods. It was more of a bowing of his head. His eyes remain on you. You aren’t sure what he’s about to say, but you know for a fact that you aren’t scared of it. 

Nothing can be worse than the five year silence you’ve endured from him. 

“May I speak to you, then?” 

“Are you not speaking to me now?” you return. A barbed, rough thing that you unintentionally threw his way. It gets his stone-set frown to twitch, the corners of his mouth to tick upward for a split second. Maybe the Kal-El you remember is still in there somewhere. 

“Well played. I missed your quick wit,” he mumbles. He looks down at the floor between you. At the few feet of distance that feel like miles. When he lifts his eyes to meet yours, they shoot a shiver down your spine that only he could conjure. 

He takes one step forward. 

You take one step back. 

“I have a question for you.” 

His voice is still deep, but it’s a little hesitant, now. Not as confident. That backward step of yours must have knocked some of his confidence you love so much away.

“What manner of question?” you inquire. As your chest heaves and your voice trembles, you can’t help but wonder if he’s seeing and hearing that. If he’s sensing your nervousness. If he’s picking up on the adrenaline and exhaustion coursing through your veins. If he still knows you as well as you know him.

“Personal,” he answers. Straightforward and honest. Not as playful as he once was, but still just as curious. 

You press your lips into a thin line. How dare he? 

“You—” you cut yourself off with a scoff and shake your head. After letting out a harsh little pointed laugh, you ball your fists up at your sides and continue. 

“You are out of your mind. You resurface after five years of the darkest, most vindictive silence, and you believe you still have the right to my personal life?”

“I did not believe asking the Oracle a question would cause so much strife. Is it not your life’s calling to answer them?”

“Asking the Oracle a personal question is causing the strife. You should have been here if you were interested in my life.”

He laughs at your venom; venom you feel bad about throwing at him, but venom he’s earned, if you were being honest. You haven’t heard his laugh in what feels like an eternity. It’s a sound that threatens to knock the breath right out of your chest and have you barreling toward him. A sound that might make you throw away all of your hesitations about accepting his apology—if it ever comes. 

“A general question, then?” 

You roll your eyes.

“Very well,” you mumble. Your left hand waves him on while you walk over to your bed. Tries to yank the question out of him just to get it over with. Kal-El shifts on his feet—stumbles just a bit—before he stills and plants himself across your room from you once again. 

He misinterpreted your wave. You weren’t calling him over to your bed, despite the fact that you very much want to. With a gentle clearing of his throat and a soft whisper of your name, he pushes out the question that he mentioned:

“Will you ever trust me again?” 

It hangs in the thick air between you. You answer him first, silently, with a few quick blinks and a rough glare. But your words, angry and hurt, find their way out of your mouth soon after.

“That was your general question?” you viciously quip. “I see that these last five years have turned you into a liar.”

You gnaw on your bottom lip for a moment. Suck in a deep breath before you release it and clench your jaw. You weren’t supposed to get this angry, but how could you have stayed calm? 

“No. I don’t believe I can trust you anymore.” 

His face twitches; a reaction you’ve only seen once before, when you told him what your future held for you and your relationship. He’s taken aback. Shocked. Betrayed. 

How ironic.

He mutters your name once more, a little louder than last time, then says, “I am the same man you once knew.” 

You hold a hand up to silence him when he attempts to continue speaking. It works instantly. He heels like an obedient dog. Despite the fact that your head nearly started spinning from hearing his tongue form your name twice in less than a minute, you push forward.

“You could not possibly be the same man I once knew, because he would not have left me for five years without so much as a single uttered word. My Kal-El would not have done that.” 

You pull your sheets back and sit down on your bed. It’s easier to turn your back to him when you say this, but your head tilts to the left just a bit. Just enough to keep him in your peripheral. 

Your voice returns. Soft. Hesitant. Weak.

“This is the equivalent of a stranger breaking into my bedroom. You may have my Kal-El’s face, but you don’t have his heart.” 

Your head falls at the same time that his does. While you’re too busy looking at the fabric of your dress, fingers picking at the soft weave of it and eyes stinging with bitter, confused tears, you hear him shuffling. Usually steady hands fumbling with something while his footsteps slowly march toward you. What a rare gift it is to hear the footsteps of someone who usually moves in silence. 

What a gift it is to hear him at all. 

When he rounds your bed and enters your view again by standing just in front of you, you can feel his warmth before you see him. Although you refuse to raise your head and meet his eyes, you’re still surrounded by him. Inescapable in body and in mind, apparently. 

But the avoidance of eye contact doesn’t last long, because he reaches down to cradle your jaw and tilt your head up. A shiver runs down your spine, followed by a shockwave through all your nerve endings. The first time he’s touched you in nearly an eternity, and his calloused hands are still as soft in their handling of you as they always were.

His thumb runs over your bottom lip. A soft touch that distracts you from the fact that he’s no longer wearing his breastplate, that his top half is completely bare. That explains all the shuffling you heard behind you. It also explains the heartbeat blooming between your thighs as your eyes not-so-subtly rake over the body you’ve longed for. 

The candlelight you’ve yet to extinguish is falling on him as any light does. Cascading over his skin before seemingly sinking into it. You’d never know he had been through years of battles where he’d almost gotten his life taken from him judging by the innate perfection of his body. No scars. No bruising. No bleeding wounds. 

Simply golden, glowing, and perfect. The pure perfection of a god’s favored child. 

He calls your name again and you force your eyes away from his body. 

“I don’t have his heart?” he softly asks. Then, he kneels in front of you. Now that his face is mere inches from yours, he releases your chin. His eyes flicker from your gaze to your lips. Back and forth. Slow, gentle flits in which his eyelashes are speaking louder than his words. Communicating all of his desires within one simple repetitive motion.

Your breathing hitches in your throat as you feel his fingers slowly, softly curling around your right wrist. His heat is almost unbearable. A once comforting feature of the person you were entangled with now twisted and contorted into a hateful reminder of the past. It radiates off of him and bleeds into your skin, threatening to scorch it beyond repair.

And yet you find yourself leaning into him, almost as though your bodies are magnetic. As if his being is supposed to merge with yours. As if the only way to complete that merge is to press yourself into and against him for all of eternity. 

“You recognize his heart, don’t you?” he questions. He raises one brow as he finally peers directly into your eyes. 

“Would you know it if you felt it?”

When did his face close in on yours enough to feel his breath fanning out over your skin?

You don’t respond with words; just a simple nod of your head. You’re too busy staring into his eyes and trying to control your own breathing, trying to prevent passing out. They’re still bluer than the sky but hiding something deep within them that you can’t place. A secret, probably. He likely has millions of them now.  

He lifts your hand and presses it against his chest, right over the racing heart within his ribcage. The rough, quick, recognizable thump of it makes you whimper. It gets quicker and harder when you whisper his name and shake your head. You want to tear your hand away, want to pull off of his chest and send him away. 

“Is this not the heart you know?” 

A tear slips down your cheek. His other hand immediately rises to your face, cradles it, and thumbs that tear away. Your brain and tongue want to decline him. 

Your heart has other plans.

“Yes,” you admit through a sob. “Yes, it is.” 

He smiles. His heart races beneath your fingers once again. The creases at the corners of his eyes are deeper than you remember, but the brightness within his irises and the beam of his smile are the same. All of it is just as heartbreakingly beautiful as you remember, and although it should feel good, it hurts. 

Just as he’s sliding his hand down from your cheek to your neck and bracing his thumb against your jaw, you shake your head and back away from and push off of him. Skitter backwards and deeper into your bed. 

“You should not be touching me,” you regretfully mumble through the lump in your throat. More regretful words follow a soft hiccup and the frantic wiping away of your tears with the back of your hands. 

“And I should not be touching you. You know as well as I do that this is not permitted.” 

“But—”

“No,” you aggressively cut him off while leaning back on your elbows. Your glare is harsh. Unforgiving, in a way; something you force upon yourself just so that you can make the inevitable of having to turn him away easier on you.

“Why did you come here in the first place?”

He pushes himself up from the floor to kneel on your bed. His knees press into the mattress, tucked between your legs while his hands gently caress them. The feeling of his palms is something you know all too well. All heavy and hot and familiar against your ankles, slowly sliding up your calves before he grips your knees. Before his fingers brush against the bottom hem of your dress. 

Soon enough, his hands fly up to your hips so he can keep you from running any further. 

“Is it not acceptable for me to see you? Is my potential visitation not the reason you chose this very temple to dedicate yourself to?” he aggressively responds. 

You try to push his hands off of you and open your mouth to chastise him for touching you again, but you don’t get far. His grip tightens until it’s almost bruising your hips. You should hate the way it feels. Why don’t you hate the way it feels?

And then someone standing in your still-open doorway speaks, instead. 

The women in the temple fawn over Kal-El unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It almost makes you regret bringing him to the gathering room in the middle of it instead of stowing him away in your bedroom, but you had no choice. The idiot had left your door open and, as a priestess was walking by in the middle of the night, she happened to see him in your room.

It cut the conversation you were having—and his desperate, topless groveling—short just before he could dive into you.

Now, you’re dealing with a group of priestesses being diminished to a bunch of jittery, lovesick school-girls. Feeding him praises, asking him questions, fawning over everything he does and every gift he displays. 

The worst part of it all? Kal-El seems to love it.

“How strong are you, Kal-El? Is there no limit to what you can lift?” 

“May we see another one of your gifts?”

“Can you really dash across the city in the blink of an eye?”

“Have you always been so handsome?”

That last one has you scoffing. Has you crossing your arms over your chest and smirking to yourself as you fall to the back of the crowd of priestesses. That ought to do a lot for his ego. Or, his confidence, as he refers to it. 

They don’t know that it took him years to grow into his ears. That he wasn’t always so muscular, that he once favored a twig instead of the tree trunk that very same twig fell from. That he used to hide his eyes in conversation by gluing them to the floor because he was too scared to speak to others. That he used to be so shy you thought you’d never hear his voice.

That you loved him despite all of that, and that you still love him.

He’s the complete opposite, now. He looks at all of them and speaks to each person directly. He winks at them. He asks them questions to get to know them a little better, and he acts like he’s surprised at everything they show him within the temple. 

The only thing that’s the same is the way he still loves you.

You let them encircle the man you still love, too. They can have their fun. 

Because, no matter how much they demand his attention, you notice him staring at you. Taking any chance he can get to look at you, to ensure you’re still there, that you’re still looking at him. It’s subtle; the only time he’s ever been subtle in his adult life, perhaps. 

“Does your Father speak to you about us?” one of the newer priestesses asks. You roll your eyes. What a stupid question. There’s a decent possibility that his Father doesn’t even exist, at this point. If that’s the case, you have a few questions to ask him about who was sending him on those tasks so many years ago.

“Oh,” Kal-El mutters through what you know as an awkward laugh, but what they’ll think is a charming, relaxed one. “Of course. He is aware of your dedication and incredibly appreciative of it.”

You cock one eyebrow up. Kal-El’s eyes meet yours as he’s scanning through the crowd. It’s almost as if he can see through them. 

“Liar,” you mouth. 

He winks at you, this time. 

“What brings you to Delphi, Kal-El?” another girl asks. He keeps his eyes on you, although it’s clear that he heard the girl. She’s looking up at him with all the love in the world, and yet all he can do is stare at you. 

“Just visiting an old friend,” he answers without hesitation. It’s annoying how the corners of your lips tick upwards at the sound of it. Some of the girls start barking their questions to him, but they bounce right off of him. 

“An old friend? Are you not visiting for your Father, instead?” you ask above all the voices. He smiles at you. 

“A little of this, a little of that.” His response is nonchalant. Playful. Enough to make your temper from earlier dissipate the tiniest bit. Your brow ticks up in amusement, as do the corners of your lips. 

Another girl steals his attention. 

You turn on your heel and retreat to your room. Sometimes, his light is too much to bear.

When your feet brush over your bedroom’s cold, stony floor, you get rewarded with a shiver shooting up and down your spine. The chill of it is something you never get used to, especially when all you’re accustomed to is warmth. Warmth from the sun. Warmth from Kal-El. 

You sigh as you look down at the altar to Apollo pressed against the foot of your bed.

“Your son will be the death of me and of the girls. Best you collect him now and send him off on a task if you want priestesses here come Spring,” you mutter to a god who isn’t listening. To a god who doesn’t exist, for all you know. 

You round the altar to get to your bed, but the sound of your door opening and shutting makes you punch out an embarrassing little fearful squeak and spin on your heel to see who’s there. You should have known who it’d be. Even though you’d like to delay the inevitable, he barrels into it head first. Of course he does.

Kal-El mutters a soft apology for frightening you, then starts toward your bed. Toward you. When you back away—just like you did earlier—he stops in his tracks.

“Your priestesses seem to like me.”

“They don’t get to meet a half-blood every day. Especially not one descending from their god,” you confess. 

Their god. Not yours.

You don’t want to look up at your god, so you focus on your bed instead. On the feeling of the soft linen beneath your fingertips. The more you look at him, the less likely you’ll be to send him away like you know you must do. 

He hums. Shoots you a smile that you’ve dreamt of seeing for eons. One you can feel even though you’re not looking directly at it. 

“I remember when you once treated me as they do. As though I was exciting to you.” 

You roll your eyes. Couldn’t fight back your own little smirk if you tried, but at least you can keep yourself from looking at him. From falling into him like you desperately want to. 

“Don’t fool yourself. You lost your beautiful, half-blooded luster to me the very first day we met. Do you remember that? When I greeted you and you ran behind your mother?”

“I thought we agreed we would never speak of that!” he tosses back at you. You laugh to yourself.

With a soft clearing of your throat and a few gentle blinks to rid yourself of your suddenly stinging tears, you reply, “Maybe, but…I think of that shy little boy more often than not.”

He says nothing. When you glance at him out of the corner of your eye, you can see the pink dusting over his cheeks, illuminated by the candlelight you’ve yet to snuff out. Kal-El shifts a bit. Shifts as though he’s uncomfortable in his own skin. You choose to continue for him. 

“We agreed on a lot of things that neither of us have upheld, anyway. You have broken your promises, and I have broken mine. That’s just…” 

You pause to let out a sigh. You wave your hand. You finally look at him, and he looks just as broken as you feel. Shoulders slumped. Lips set in a frown. Hands twitching at his sides, balling up then releasing. You’re not happy with the amount of times you’ve seen that in one night.

“I don’t know. Life, perhaps. The horrid whirlwind of life. Of our life.”

Things fall silent for a while as he contemplates his own response—if you can call a maximum of 10 seconds “a while.” He’s always been more of a doer than a thinker. 

“Our life?” 

His voice is quiet, but the look in his eyes is loud. Accusatory. Maybe a little hateful. You’re not accustomed to seeing rage in his eyes—especially not rage being directed at you. But you’ve been here once before. You know what it looks like.

Your face flushes with an unbearable heat. Sharp, prickling, embarrassed tears start welling in the corners of your eyes. Your chest caves in on itself and you let go of your sheets in order to take a single step closer to him.

“No, you misunderstood, I simply meant—”

Your attempt at deflecting falls on deaf ears because he interrupts you. Should have expected that. You said what you said, and his penchant for being headstrong will take it and run with it.

“Do you ever think about what our life would have been like had you not chosen this?” 

You frown, and your rebuttal dies in your throat. The tears that had been pooling in your eyes grow larger and larger until they finally slip down your cheeks. With a trembling bottom lip and a refusal to look at him anymore, you shrug your shoulders.

“No,” you eventually, half-heartedly whisper. A lie that floats over to him and pisses him off. 

“You left me, Kal-El. I stopped thinking about you some time within your five years of silence.” 

That pisses him off more. 

“Your heart has been hammering within your chest from the moment you saw me. Tell me again that you have stopped thinking of me without your heart betraying your tongue,” he seethes. You grumble a few curses beneath your breath. After you ball up your fists at your sides and glare at him, he sends you a glare of his own to match.  

Maybe it’s your subconscious that forces you to close in on him. Some unspoken desire that causes you to storm up to him and give him a rough push on the front of his breastplate. It’s disheartening how all of your strength barely makes him move an inch.

“Perhaps my heart has given me away, but it races when it sees you because I’m reminiscing about the man you once were! The one who never would have left me even though we could not be together!” 

He shakes his head and his face falls. He says nothing, but you can see his jaw ticking over and over again as though he’s chewing on the words he wants to say to you. Why he’s holding them back, you’re not sure—but you don’t give him a chance to expel them, anyway.

“You gave up on us! I made my choice because I still wanted you to be in my life! You ran away like a coward! Like an imposter of your own title!” you shout. 

Every few words are punctuated with rough punches against his chest. Your hands ache, knuckles bruising and breaking open from each repeated impact on his battle-worn breastplate. Hitting him feels like punching a stone wall. 

Worth it.

You pull back once your hands are numb. Your face and knuckles are soaking wet; with tears, with blood, with your steadily bubbling hatred for the man you’ve loved your entire life. As you pace around in front of the altar at the foot of your bed, you berate him more:

“Why do you claim to be a hero? You didn’t save me! You abandoned me when you always promised me you never would! You were the only person I could count on, the only god I believed in, and you left me!”

 It’s as though a dam has broken. You’ve kept these thoughts in for far too long. Lived with them. Let them rot your heart and soul. If he’s here visiting an old friend, doesn’t he deserve an update on how she’s been feeling?

Kal-El punches out a loud, angry groan and closes the distance between you two within the blink of an eye. He covers your mouth with one large palm and wraps his other arm around your waist, something that forcibly stops your frantic movements as you try to wriggle out of his tight, unforgiving hold. 

Any other day, you’d be grateful to have him on you in such a way. But when he’s got you this close, when he’s this angry, and when you can feel the edge of his Father’s altar digging into the back of your thighs and the heat of his body bleeding into yours, you’re not as welcoming to it. 

“I did not abandon you by choice! It was forced upon me!” he booms. 

You still to process his words while you try to rid yourself of the fear of being yelled at by someone stronger than any living being in the world. His palm stays glued to your mouth. Your hands fly up to his exposed biceps. 

He lowers his volume, but he’s still irate when he says, “This abandonment was my attempt at saving you.”

He closes his eyes for a moment. All you can do is blink up at him. To rid yourself of your tears, to clear your line of sight and ensure that this is actually happening. That he’s this close. That you’re not imagining this. That he just said what he said. 

When he reopens his eyes, you have no choice but to look into them. Where else would you look, anyway? Nothing is as appealing as his eyes.

“I know how utterly relentless my Father is to His Oracle,” Kal-El confesses. The low vibration of his voice bleeds through his chest and into yours. Is it wrong that it’s stoking a fire deep in your belly?

“He would have ruined you. These rituals would have driven you mad. He would have used you as a beacon for His voice and torn your body and mind to shreds, and He wanted to tear you apart. He wanted to destroy you.” 

You tense in his arms. Your blood runs cold despite his heat bleeding into you while he holds you like you’ll shatter and disappear if he lets you go. How on Earth are you supposed to go forward with a revelation like that? 

Kal-El smiles at your suddenly widened, worried eyes. It’s weak. A gentle lift of the corners of his lips, one corner going a bit higher than the other like it always does. You see this crooked smile every time you close your eyes. What a blessing it is to see it in person once again.

“You were the only thing that could take me away from Him. Don’t you remember that?”

He sighs, a deep, heavy thing that he expels from his nose. His palm slides off of your mouth so he can cradle your cheek instead. So his thumb can slowly glide back and forth over the soft apple of your cheek and swipe away your tears. As his fingers curl around your jaw and his other hand tightens around your waist again, he mutters, “I obviously couldn’t let Him get His hands on you. He knew I wouldn’t stand for it.” 

“What did you do?” you whisper. A sad—but relieved—little question that you push out from the depths of your chest. At least he stood up for you, right?

“I made a deal with Him,” he answers. His hand falls from your cheek to his own bicep where your hand lies. As your fingers interlock and he gives your hand a squeeze, your heart swells within your chest. This is what your body is made for: Being pressed against and intertwined with Kal-El’s. 

“My silence for His.” 

The confused knitting of your brow makes him laugh to himself. He pauses. Swallows so thickly, so roughly, that you can hear it. 

“He would not acknowledge you as long as I stayed away from you. As long as I continued to do His bidding.”

All of the air leaves your chest in a pathetic, shaky sigh. The truth would have been easier for you to handle if he had simply said he was angry with you for leaving him. The silence, both from Father and son, would have been easier to digest if that was the case.

Instead, you have a man still in love with you and yet barred from being with you, and a god who hates you. 

Poetic.

You finally tear your eyes off of his by leaning forward and pressing your forehead against his left shoulder. It hurts to look at him. It hurts to be close to him, but it hurt even more when he was away. Seems like no matter what happens tonight, you’ll wake up in pain in the morning.

His hand releases yours so he can lift it up to cradle the back of your head, his fingers curling into your hair and gently pulling on it. It’s a soft maneuver; one that earns him a quick glance into your eyes again. You whine. Whether it was from need or exhaustion, you aren’t sure. It might have been both. 

Then, he descends. Presses his forehead against yours, brushes his nose against yours, lets his lips ghost over yours in a way that makes your knees tremble and your nails dig deeper into his biceps. 

“No,” you unconvincingly whisper while you turn your head away. “We can’t. Your Father, He…”

Kal-El ignores your little plea. Ignores his Father, too, when he presses a soft, featherlight line of kisses along your jaw. Before you know it, your body is arching into his; exhibiting a mind of its own, especially when he starts kissing down to your neck.

“He will kill us both,” you quickly mutter. Another whine accompanies your statement as soon as his tongue laves over your pulse point. He hums, ignoring your warning and slipping his hand out of your hair and toward your left hip. His other arm tightens, pulling your hips flush against his. 

“He’ll have, ah—” you cut yourself off with a moan as soon as you feel him suckling on that sensitive spot just below your ear. One he knows well. One he’s spent a lot of time mapping out. 

“Your head! He’ll have your head for defiling His Oracle!” you pathetically squeak out while your hips buck against his. Kal-El shakes that very head that his Father will likely rip off of his body. 

“I think we should let Him watch.” 

His fingers ghost over the hem of your dress where it lays at your mid thighs. He pushes you back further onto the altar belonging to his Father, lays you out on top of it, without caring about the sound of things falling off of it and clattering to the floor.

You’re both going to die. This will certainly seal your fate. 

“Kal-El,” you whisper. He looks up at you as his hands slide further and further up your thighs, fingers curling around the soft flesh of them so he can spread your legs and slot between them. His fingerprints burn into your skin all the same. How you’ve missed that burn.

“We will not survive His wrath if we do this,” you warn him while splaying out on the altar beneath you. The cool stone of it does marvels for your heated skin as it permeates through your thin dress. 

“My wish to spend eternity with you will be fulfilled, then,” Kal-El quips while he pulls back just to rid himself of his clothing. You roll your eyes, but the heat welling in your cheeks and the smile spreading on your lips is unavoidable. That sharp tongue is still the same.

His breastplate being off gives you the ability to touch his body when he returns to you and climbs atop of you on this altar and settles between your legs. You try your best not to focus on his hardened length, on how it’s flush against his stomach because of how big he is, on the way the tip of it is slowly dribbling small, soft white pearls of precum down onto your dress when he’s above you, now.

If you think about it too much, you’ll drool.

As your palms glide up from his abdomen and stomach to his chest, he works on winding your legs around his waist.  

“We can’t do this,” you whimper, nails digging into the soft, fleshy skin of his chest. When you press your hand flat against the left side of it, you find his heart racing beneath your palm.

“Tell me you want me to stop,” he purrs. “Banish me from the temple. From your body.” 

You can’t. You won’t. So you stay silent.

Before you know it, he’s leaning down to press a litany of kisses on your skin. He starts at the corner of your lips, then moves down to your chin and your jaw. Those distracting, sweet little things make it hard for you to notice one of his hands has slipped beneath your dress and is inching up to the soft apex of your inner thigh. 

Your hips raise to his intoxicating touch despite your mouth saying, “This is wrong, Kal-El.” 

He scoffs. When he pulls the thin, wispy excuse of a pair of panties you’ve got on to the side and runs two fingers through your folds, he smiles. Your body jolts but raises again, weak and dizzy and drunk off of him just from this small reuniting of your skin. 

Skin that should have never been separated.

“It seems as though your mouth does not agree with your body,” he coos.

He collects a tiny bit of your seemingly unending wetness before sliding his fingers up to your clit and simply pressing them against the sensitive bud. You squeal and arch your back into him, your clothed chest pressing against his bare one. 

Why on Earth has he not taken this dress off of you?

Maybe he can read your thoughts, because not even a second later, he takes his hand out from beneath your dress and grabs onto the neckline of it where it sits just above your breasts. It’s an illusionary soft touch, though, because within the blink of an eye, he’s ripping that dress in half in only a few rough pulls and exposing your bare upper body to him. 

You gasp in shock, but your cunt flutters around nothing and you push out a moan you didn’t even know you had in you. 

“If you are my Father’s Oracle, and I do His bidding, do I not have a right to defile this body?” he asks, dipping his head down and kissing your neck and chest. His stubble scratches over your skin, roughness that overtakes each tender kiss, and has you bucking your hips up in a desperate attempt to meet his once more. 

Then his wicked fingers return to and start circling your clit; the movement is gentle and slow, lacking any of the force you need to actually finish. You keen and shake your head, wrapping your arms around his neck and tangling your fingers in his thick, curly hair. Those curls are much longer than they was all those years ago when you last clung onto them for dear life while he brought you to the light. 

A rough tug on them has him picking his head up and detaching his lips from your skin. He shoots you a charming little wink. Something to remind you this is the same Kal-El you’re dealing with despite his rougher, more frantic touches. 

“Although,” he lowers his head just a bit, lips brushing over the shell of your ear as he whispers, “I recall you calling me your god.” 

With a smirk on his lips and honey in his deep, tempting voice, he purrs, “So perhaps I’m taking what’s rightfully mine. That would make you my Oracle. My priestess. I’m taking what belongs to me.” 

You couldn’t stop your eyes rolling back into your head if you tried. Oh, how you’ve missed this filthy mouth and these skilled fingers. 

You tug on his hair again and punch out an embarrassingly loud moan, your hips gently chasing each circle he draws on your clit. Kal-El replaces his fingers with the pad of his thumb, continuing the circles as he slowly pushes those two fingers inside of your weeping, messy cunt. 

The sting from the stretch of his fingers forces a yelp from your throat. Your legs twitch around his waist and you attempt to squeeze your thighs together, but to no avail. He’s too broad between your legs. Too big. Too heavy. 

You try to skitter away. Try to pull back yourself back. But he’s got a tight grip on your waist with that other hand; one that keeps you still, one that squeezes your hip and pins you down beneath him.

He kisses your cheek and sets a soft, steady pace when he begins pumping his fingers in and out of you. 

Kal-El pulls back to look you in the eyes. It’s hard to resist him when he’s knuckle-deep in your severely neglected cunt and cooing, “Rest your tired body. It’s been far too long since someone’s taken care of you, hasn’t it?” 

With tears pooling in your eyes and an inability to look away from him, you nod. You cling to him, tightening your arms around his neck so you can pull yourself up and press your lips against his. The kiss is frantic. Hot and heavy. Clicking teeth. Clashing tongues. Five years’ worth of anger, of hatred, of longing and lust—all coming to the surface. 

You moan when he softly bites and tugs on your bottom lip. After it snaps back into place, you giggle and try to kiss him again, but you’re too busy falling back down onto the altar and crying out in pleasure, instead. He’s started to curl his fingers deep inside of you after each soft thrust of them, brushing up against that soft spot that always makes your thighs shake and your head spin. He remembers your body almost better than you already know it.

“That’s it,” he whispers through kiss-swollen lips and a prideful smile as he gazes down at you. “Let me take care of you.” 

“You must stop,” you brokenly whimper, hips squirming and stomach tightening more and more with each swipe of his thumb over your clit and thrust of his fingers into your cunt. It’s not like you want him to stop; not when you’re this close, not when you’ve missed him for this long. But maybe if it seems like you’re protesting this, you won’t be punished as harshly. 

“Just a bit longer, my heart,” he coos. You melt immediately. Tears slip down your cheeks as you arch off of the altar pressing into your back. My heart. That affectionate name hasn’t been spoken to you in ages, and yet it still sounds exactly the same. Reverent. Sweet. Caring. You must be dreaming.

Except you very much aren’t. Kal-El’s still moving his fingers and drawing soft circles on your clit with his thumb. He’s still pressing kisses into your skin as though he’s praying into it, his lips brushing against your collarbones, his teeth marking your now exposed skin as he trails down to your breasts and eventually sucks your right nipple into his mouth.

You curse. You dig your nails into his bare shoulders and claw down the broad expanse of his back. You cry out his name. Then you come so hard that there are stars in your vision, that your body is uncontrollable beneath his, and that you’re gushing around his fingers and dripping down onto the altar beneath you. 

Kal-El pulls off of your nipple with a pop, but he continues working your clit to help you ride out your orgasm. He kisses you, then. Slow and sweet with a gentle glide of his tongue against your bottom lip. As he slips his tongue into your mouth, you slide one of your hands down his chest, abdomen, and stomach, fingers brushing against his toned body so you can reorient yourself with him. 

“Tell me who you belong to,” Kal-El whispers against your mouth when he breaks the kiss and pulls his fingers out of you. His hips buck as soon as you wrap your hand around his cock and give it a few gentle, teasing pumps. The breathy little moan he pushes into you is enough to get you to come again. 

“You know it has always been you,” you whisper back. You guide the tip of his cock to your cunt and allow him to glide it through your folds. The fleeting contact on the sensitive little bundle of nerves with each roll of his hips makes you whine and squirm, but he wraps one arm around your waist to still you and continues moving. He shudders. Then whimpers. 

“Say it again. Who do you belong to?” he gruffly commands. It’s always been cute to you when he tries to steel himself as he’s falling apart.

He punctuates that question by pushing the tip of his cock into your dripping cunt, and your breath hitches in your throat. You manage to expel it when he buries himself in you to the hilt with no resistance, but it’s only because his size knocks all of the air out of your lungs. 

“You! I belong to you!” you keen. Your head meets the altar beneath you, fully tossed back and eyes squeezed shut as he nearly splits you in half. He nods despite his face slipping down and being buried in your neck. As he pulls his hips back and slowly pushes them back in to meet yours, you cry out in some sort of mix of pleasure, pain, despair, and happiness. 

Kal-El groans, eyes lidded and chest heaving. The twitch of his cock against your walls tells you he’s already close. He was right when he said it’s been far too long.

You remember this ache, this burn, this stretch all too well. The further Kal-El dives into your cunt, the more convinced you are that he’s in your stomach. That he’s trying to become one with you judging by how deeply he’s buried in you, how his arms are tightly locked around your waist, how every inch of his skin is on yours. If your bodies could meld together, he’d have figured out how to do it by now.

“You’re all mine,” he breathes into your skin between hot, open-mouthed kisses on your neck and each moan that tumbles from his lips. He pushes himself up onto one hand so he can peer down at you. The other hand slips away from your waist so he can grab your chin and force you to look at him. You do as he wants, although it’s through lidded eyes and teary, blurred vision. 

“Denounce my Father on His own altar. Tell Him who your real god is,” Kal-El demands, voice low and deep and hateful—but not towards you. Towards the god you’re supposed to worship. Towards the Father you both have nothing but disdain for. 

What else are you supposed to do? Deny the truth?

“You’re my god,” you confess while you squirm under the intensity of his gaze. High-pitched and breathy and desperate, but it’s the full truth. Always has been. Always will be. 

“That’s right. I’m your god,” he growls, cocky and full of himself and somehow hotter than he’s ever been.

He smiles down at you. Odd to see that big, beautiful, crooked grin when he’s spewing nothing but filth out of his mouth, but that makes him all the more enticing. He rolls his hips against yours a few times. The tip of his length bumps against your cervix and has your body recoiling from the shock, but only seconds later, you belt out your loudest moan of the night.

“I love you,” Kal-El professes just as his thrusts get a little sloppy. As his hand meets your waist and his fingers leave a few dark marks on your left hip from his rough grip. As he desperately tries to hold back a whimper from the tight squeeze of your fluttering walls—and fails.

You work up just enough strength to lift your head and squeak out, “I love you.” 

A gentle repetition of his own words. 

Something that floats up to him, has him flushing a soft pink, and leaning down to press your lips together. 

“May I ask why you returned after so long?” you softly inquire. 

Kal-El shifts beneath you. Stiffens and tightens his hold on your waist before he gently shrugs. He presses a soft kiss on your temple and tugs your blankets up and over your shoulders.

“Something told me you needed me.” 

You huff against his neck and your eyes flutter shut. You brand a smile into his skin the same way that he’s branding his fingerprints into yours.

“I’ve needed you every day for the last five years, Kal-El,” you mumble against the side of his neck. He chuckles. His fingers, much gentler than earlier, glide up and down your back. A soft, repetitive drag that makes it harder and harder for you to stay awake. 

“I saw your father upon my arrival in Delphi, and I took that as a sign.”

You smile again. Your hand slides up to his chest and your palm presses over the left side of it. The thump of his heart is slow and steady. Likely the last bit of comfort you’ll have before sunrise. 

“He warned me you were here. He still does not like you.” 

Kal-El laughs at you. You furrow your brow and sneak a peek up at him. 

“It isn’t a laughing matter.” 

“It is,” he hums against your lips when he leans forward to kiss you. “Because my Father still does not like you. All of the cards are stacked against us.” 

You groan and pull away from him. Your head gently smacks against the bare skin of his chest as you bury your face into it. 

“What will we do?”

He could probably sense the worry in your shaky voice. Because, when he gives you a squeeze, tangles your legs together, and kisses your head for what seems like the thousandth time tonight, he remains calm to combat your fright. 

“Whatever it is, we will do it together, my heart.”

​"And why are we here?" you asked, trying to feign anger still.

​"I don't like it when you're mad at me, sweetheart," he murmured softly. The nickname sounded just slightly different when he was dressed in rich velvet, and sitting in an expensive car.

​You climbed out, the silk of your dress catching the sea breeze, and perched yourself on the sleek, red bonnet of the car. Clark followed immediately, his coat discarded, sliding onto the metal beside you. When you pointedly shuffled a few inches away, he simply closed the gap, his shoulder bumping yours.

​"You're so cute when you're mad," he teased, though his eyes held something that felt anything but playful.

​"Don't belittle me, Clark. You can't just drive me to our spot and expect everything to be okay."

​A cold, salty gust of wind swept over the cliff then, and you couldn't suppress the shiver that ran down your spine. 

​"C’mere," Clark said, his voice soft. Before you could protest, he hooked his hands under your arms and pulled you up and directly into his lap.

​Suddenly, you were encased in him. He was a solid wall of heat, his arms wrapping around your waist to block out the cold. His familiar, clean scent filled your senses. He tucked his chin over your shoulder, pulling you flush against his chest.

​"Better?" he whispered into your ear.

The contrast was jarring. Barely an hour ago, you were surrounded by the suffocating opulence of Lex Luthor’s wedding. Now, there was only the salt spray, the hum of the Ferrari and Clark's warmth.

"We shouldn't have left," you breathed, though you made no move to get away from him. "Lex is going to notice his car is missing. As is his best man.”

"You're forgetting that Lex has a bride to keep him occupied tonight," Clark murmured, his voice a low vibration that seemed to hum through your very marrow. 

You knew that tone in his voice too well, and your breath hitched in response. 

"He won’t miss the car, and he certainly won’t miss his best man."

He shifted, his nose brushing the sensitive skin behind your ear. "Besides, I had to get you out of there."

"Why?" you asked, your voice barely a breath as his lips grazed your pulse.

"Too many men looking at you," he whispered, his voice clouding with something darker. He wasn't even trying to hide it. "Too many people trying to find an excuse to get close to you. It was starting to get to me."

You turned your face slightly towards him in the cradle of his arms. "Oh, so this is a rescue? A selfless act for your own peace of mind?"

"Partly," he answered, a small, sheepish smirk playing on his lips. "Is it so wrong to want my girl to myself?"

He pressed a kiss to the slope of your shoulder, his lips barely grazing the skin, yet the heat of it made your eyes flutter shut. It was dizzying— the freezing chill of the Atlantic breeze a stark contrast against the burning furnace of his body. Looking out at the moonlight dancing over the waves, the anger you’d been nursing all evening began to dissolve, feeling petty and distant.

"Is this how you plan to make it up to me?" you asked, breathless, as his hand drifted to your hair, brushing the strands away to expose the nape of your neck.

"Does it feel like a good start?" he countered, as he pressed his lips to the curve of your throat, his pull a little too sharp, a little too hungry. A flash of heat ignited in your chest, radiating downward.

His hand landed softly on your thigh, his palm a searing weight against your skin. He began to drag his hand up and down, fingers inching dangerously close to the high-cut hem of your slit.

"Clark," you warned, voice already low, stripped of its restraint.

He hummed in response, the sound deep and resonant against your skin, his hands slipping past the silk.

"God," he groaned, the sound raw as his fingers met with your slick, aching heat. He pulled back just enough to look at you, his blue eyes dark with a sudden realization. 

“You haven’t been wearing anything under this all night?"

His fingers started to move with a languid pressure against your folds, gliding and squeezing for a reaction. 

"You sat through dinner like this? Right next to me?"

"Didn't have— hnnmph— anything to go with the gown," you managed to gasp, hands slipping behind you to fist into his hair.

​"Love punishing me, don't you?" he murmured, his voice a low rasp against your ear. 

A response died on your tongue as Clark slid his fingers inside you, filling you completely. He knew exactly how much pressure to apply—damn him— wrenching a moan from your throat.

"You looked so beautiful tonight," he cooed, biting your ear, as he continued to scissor his index and middle finger into you, curling it and beckoning your peak closer.

"Look even prettier like this."

He watched you— watched the way your eyelashes fluttered, the way your lips parted for air, the way they cried his name— drinking in the sight of you coming undone in his arms. The press of his fingers in all the right places sent you hurtling to your peak in no time. The orgasm tore through you, a white-hot wave that left your muscles trembling.

"Hate making my girl upset."

​Before you could even float down from the high, Clark’s hands were spinning you around. In one fluid motion, your back hit the bonnet of the Ferrari. Clark pressed himself flush against you instantly, his heavy frame pinning you to the car as his mouth devoured the column of your throat. Between his dark gaze and the warm-from-before bonnet, you felt like you were on fire.

​His fingers hooked into the delicate straps of your dress, dragging them down until the silk gave way, exposing your breasts to the biting air. The sudden chill made your nipples peak and the pulse in your core jump. Clark’s half-lidded eyes darkened to an almost black as he took in the sight before him— your messy hair, your heaving chest and your spread-eagled limbs.

All so open. Waiting. For him.

​Ducking his head, Clark latched onto your right breast, mouth warm and wet against your skin. He hitched one of your legs over his hip, his hard length grinding against your core through his thin trousers. The friction was maddening— a steady rhythm that made you hiss into the air. You were gone, lost in a haze of salt and the searing heat of his skin as he moved to the other breast, his tongue swirling against your pebbled nipple until you were sobbing his name into the dark.

​"I've been waiting to do this all night," he groaned, his voice vibrating against your skin. You could only whine in response.

Without breaking eye contact, he sank to his knees between your legs, bunching up your dress as he went. His hands slid behind your thighs, dragging you to the very edge of the bonnet, and then his mouth was there— cupping your leaking cunt with a hunger that made your toes curl in your heels and back arch right into his perfect nose. The pressure of it all; the feeling of his face buried into your pussy made your eyes roll into the back of your head.

​The first sweep of his tongue was broad and firm, tasting you, before settling into a relentless pace that threatened to send you right back to your peak. He lapped you up, flicking at and sucking the small bundle of nerves; the darkening in his eyes, as he gazed up at you from between your legs, pushing you over the edge once more.

Clark crept back up to you, claiming your mouth in his; the taste of yourself on his lips maddening. He nipped and sucked at your lips until the coppery tang of blood bloomed between you. The sting only fueled the fire; it made your head swim with a delicious lightheadedness while heat crashed through your core. 

​"Fu-uckk. I need you baby," you moaned against his mouth, hands framing his face. You’d been dying to tear through his shirt all evening, despite the anger.

Or rather, because of it.

And so you did, pulling and scratching at the shirt till the buttons popped and his heaving chest loomed into view.

​Clark didn't need to be told twice. He pulled back just enough to fumble with his belt, the sharp screech of the zipper echoing in the silence. He looked beautiful under the peeking moonlight in the alcove, the light glinting off of the sheen of sweat and your cum covering his face and chest. 

When he finally freed himself, his length was thick and leaking, a heavy heat that made you feel heady with want. Teasing, he let his cock brush against your aching folds, gathering your arousal on him, before pushing in slowly.

​He let out a low, animalistic growl just as he seated himself deep within you, your eyes fluttering shut at the sensation. He grasped your hips, his fingers sinking into your skin, bruising, and began to move gently. You lifted yourself just ever so slightly, back arching into him for the proper angle.

“I'm sorry, my darling,” he whispered, as your walls clenched around him, struggling to accommodate his sheer size. 

Was he sorry for splitting you open like this? Or for the fight from last night? You didn't really care at the moment. Couldn't. Because Clark picked up the pace then, every thrust sending a jolt of lightning through your spine.

​"Clark... please," you begged, your head lolling back against the car. The alcove had long disappeared. The world had narrowed to Clark, you and the erotic sound of slick friction between you as he dragged himself in and out of you.

It was tantalizing— the slow burn of his thick cock against your heated self. You'd been so mad last night, so irritated, that you'd slept on the couch and hated every bit of it, hated not waking up to his arms around you, or his morning wood pressed up against your back.

And now, you couldn't even remember what the fight had been for.

​Clark leaned over you, his palms slamming down onto the bonnet on either side of your head to anchor himself as he began to move faster. He moved with unchecked power, jaw tight, his breath coming in hitches against your neck. Your fingers clawed at his shoulders, nails digging crescents into the hard muscle, as a desperate whimper was ripped from your throat with every dragging slide of his length. Everytime he buried himself into you to the hilt, the friction against your aching clit sent you into overdrive. 

"God, my love," Clark whispered into the crook of your neck. "You're taking me so good."

You were coiled tight soon, gliding along the edge of a crescendo, as Clark filled your senses. You loved when sex with him felt like this; rough, earnest and raw— like nothing else mattered.

Suddenly, there was a whining creak, and a growl from Clark as he shot up into you. You happened to glance down, and immediately felt your face heat up. His release mixed with your own wetness, had formed a thick ring of white around his shaft as he continued slid in and out. He was still hard— you could all but keep yourself from moaning at the sight— and he kept pumping into you, driving his thrusts even deeper and deeper.

You were not in control anymore. Clark was simply using you, moving your hips up and down, drilling his cock into you, dragging you across the metal bonnet of the car like a ragdoll, sure to leave burns all across your back and ass.

Not that you cared. You were far too gone, floating in the limbo of subspace, feeling the sheer force of him, his strength, as he drove you toward a peak so intense, it felt like the earth was shifting beneath you. Moan after moan tumbled out of your lips, as he bought both of you to the very edge again.

​Then, the world seemed to actually sink under you with a violent, bellowing noise.

​Just as the climax rocked through both of you, Clark let out a moan, his body locking as he poured himself completely into you. In that same instant, a loud crrrr-eak of protest screamed through the air. The Ferrari hissed, a cloud of steam erupting, as the radiator shattered and the front completely buckled under you.

​Your eyes flew open, chest heaving, to absolute carnage around you.

Clark had completely flattened the bonnet; the heavy Italian machinery crushed beneath his force. The tires had blown out with the pressure, hissing as they deflated.

And, worst of all, where his hands had been bracing his weight, two deep handprints were pressed clean through the reinforced metal. 

Clark stayed over you for a long beat, his forehead resting against yours, panting, the heat still rolling off him in waves. He glanced at the wreckage— a shadow of a smile pulling at his mouth as he looked back at you.

​"Clark," you breathed, half-laughing and half-horrified, voice wrecked from him. "Lex is going to kill you.”

"Lex—", Clark kissed you hard, "will be fine," he rasped, his voice still tantalisingly low. He reached down, his thumb tracing the bruised edge of your lip before withdrawing. The car groaned again, settling deeper into the sand as his weight shifted. 

He stepped out of the wreckage and reached for you, his hands wrapping around your waist to lift you effortlessly from the ruined metal. Instead of setting you on the ground, he held you against his chest, your heels dangling, keeping you encased in his arms.

"How the hell are you going to explain this to him?" you asked, feeling completely spent suddenly.

"I’ll tell him I hit a patch of ice," he said, his voice smooth and entirely unbothered. He nuzzled against your side, pressing another chaste kiss to your bruised lip.

"In Metropolis? In the middle of spring?"

“I’ll crush it more, make it unrecognizable. Tell him the car totaled while we were getting gas.”

You shook your head at him, a small, sluggish smile playing on your lips. He set you down then, his fingers lingering on your hips as he looked down into your eyes.

His were still dark, and twinkling.

Oh, no. Oh, yes.

"Besides," he added with a wicked drawl that made your knees weak all over again. "By the time he sees the car, we’ll be back at the farm, and you’ll be in my bed.”

You quirked an eyebrow at him. “In your bed, huh?”

“The priests have arrived.” 

“Come closer, dear,” you gently command. “I need assistance with my veil.” 

The quiet, shy thing crosses the cold stone floor of your room in order to follow your orders. When her fingers are nimbly hooking your veil into your hair, you act as though it was because you couldn’t see the top of your head to avoid the ugly truth. 

That your arms were too heavy and your body was too weak to lift them.

She helps you lay the purple veil over your face. The fabric is beautiful. Softer than silk and perfectly weaved together, as if Lady Athena herself had crafted it. It blurs your eyesight and casts your room in a deep, royal purple color. The blurring softens the harsh edges of the room. Softens it enough to make it seem like an enjoyable place instead of a self-inflicted prison cell. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. The girl interlocks her arm with yours. Gives it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. Her eyes are impossible to not feel as they burrow into the side of your head. 

“The Radiant One will shine on you today. He will heal you as soon as the ritual is over.” 

What a lie, you want to tell her. He’s never even spoken to me, much less healed me.

“His allowing me to be His prophet is healing enough,” is what you actually tell her. If He has any mercy on you, if He makes this day easier for you, you’ll be surprised. There’s a decent chance that He’s forgotten you. Lost in the shuffle. Not important enough to care for. Abandoned, perhaps. 

Like Father, like son. 

But you don’t have time to think of Kal-El. Not before a ritual is supposed to begin. Not when he hasn’t shown up in the entire five years you’ve been here. Not when you’ve been thinking about him all day already. So you shake him out of your head and avoid the stinging in your eyes.

Your quickened steps, somewhat forced by the priestess next to you, are heavier than you wish they’d be. This is the ninth month. The most tiring one. The final ritual of the year, when all of the most important people come to you begging for a prophecy from a god who refuses to speak to you. To speak through you. 

She’s excited because she knows nothing about it. She’s walking you as quickly as possible because she thinks she’s about to hear from Apollo. If only she knew that you’ve been Apollo all along. 

The two priests are waiting for you at the end of the hallway that leads to your room, like she said they’d be. When the minor priestess hands you off to them, she quietly whispers, “Good luck, my lady. He will care for you and ensure your safety.” 

He will not. He does not care about me at all.

That’s what you want to say, but you give her a soft, grateful nod instead. An act. Something that says you enjoy doing this, that you love destroying your body and making up prophecies for people who you’ve never met in your life. It’s as though you’re a player in the theatre. And He should be happy about that, shouldn’t He? He’s the patron of the arts.

Your eyes track her for as long as possible, but you eventually lose sight of the girl when she passes you off to the priests. You still don’t remember her name, and that makes you ache with grief. With guilt. She’s been so kind to you. Cared for you and checked on you. And yet, like your god and like His favorite son does to you, you’ve neglected her. 

You don’t remember these priests’ names, either. It’s hard to commit people to memory when you don’t particularly care for them. Besides, it’s not like they care about you. They just care about what you do, and anyone could do this. It could have been any unfortunate girl. Of course, it was you. You aren’t the first. You won’t be the last. 

You’re just another cow in their herd. 

Everything that ensues when you’re handed off is a blur. The priests walk you through the front of the temple. They chant their chants to kick everything off. You put on a brave face behind your veil as they lead you toward the Castalian Spring. Stoic. Unflinching. 

When you shed your clothing at the foot of the Castalian, they divert their eyes by turning around. Another part of the ritual. It gives you some privacy.

Privacy. How ridiculous. It’s broad daylight right now. There are no clouds in the sky today. The light from the sun is illuminating every part of your body as you step into the water, bouncing off of it and making you glow.

Apollo, if He’s there, can see all of you. He’s supposed to be watching you, anyway; illuminating the spring and supporting you as though you’re His wife. His light is falling on your skin. His light is claiming you. 

His way of marking His territory is much different from His favorite son’s. Kal-El would hide you from the sunlight. He would take you in the moonlight, instead, so his Father couldn’t see and couldn’t take you from him. He would mark you as his with a series of soft bites and gentle suckles all over your body, with soft, slow thrusts that turned the two of you into one. With whispered praises about how much he loved you and how he wanted you all to himself. With promises that he'd never let you get taken away.

The sunlight can never nip at your skin like his teeth could. It can’t warm you up like his body could. It can’t love you like he could. That much is true to you, and it always rings truest on a ritual day.

You glance over your shoulder and back at the priests. Their backs are still turned to you, giving you the illusion that you’re completely alone here. Apollo isn’t watching. He doesn’t care. The priests aren’t allowed to watch. Kal-El hasn’t shown his face here for the entire five years you’ve been the oracle. 

Perhaps you are utterly alone in this moment.

You wade a little deeper into the water. When you cup some of it and bring it up to your face, relief is brought to your exhausted body and soul. As each lingering droplet slowly slides down your face and back toward the spring, you can pretend it’s simply the water and that you’re not crying. 

Upon your arrival at the temple so many years ago, the priests and priestesses made you aware of one simple fact: 

“You will know The Radiant One has arrived when there is a sweetness suspended in the air around you.”

It was uncanny, really, how so many of them told you that. What isn’t uncanny is how you’ve never picked up on the sweetness that He supposedly brings in the air of this temple—but you’ve tasted the soft sweetness of the Cassotis every time you’ve done this ritual. You hesitate to give Him the credit for that despite everyone wanting to. 

That sacred water was named after the nymph He chased and tailed like a rabid dog. If anything, it should be sweet because of Her. That’s something you’ve always given Her. At least one person in this temple isn’t afraid of the truth. 

That sweetness within the second spring you visit during each ritual day reminds you that, clearly, someone is watching over you. It’s just never the god—or, rather, the son of said god—you want it to be. 

Now, as you perch yourself on this godsforsaken ritualistic tripod, you taste none of that sweetness. The mist rising up through the cracks of the temple floor brings nothing saccharine; just a foggy cloud that makes it harder to see the people in front of you. 

Which means that Apollo, like you figured, isn’t here. You’re on your own again despite it all. 

Despite the sweetness of the Cassotis that brings you a sense of false hope every time you sip from it, despite the successfully sacrificed goat to appease Hestia and Chios and the self-proclaimed Radiant One, despite the drawn lots securing the order of men and women you’ll be seeing today, despite the signs that everything will go well and you will be successful, you’re on your own. 

Success isn’t something you’ve cared much for. Not when no one is here for you to share it with. 

Your mind drifts to Kal-El even with the threat hanging over your head of your first visitor entering the temple’s adyton. 

Who is celebrating his successes with him, now? Who is there to praise him for being Delphi’s protector? Who is listening to his tales of his adventures with awe? Who is walking through the city with him as people throw themselves at his feet to express gratitude for him and for his Father for bearing him?

Who is he inviting into his bed? Who is he warming with his soft, flawless, golden skin? Who is he sheltering from the sunlight and taking in the moonlight? Who has he proposed to, and who has he had the children he wanted with?

The thoughts make your mouth run dry. Make your head ache and your heart hammer within your chest. That should be you doing all of those things with him, and yet, here you are. Perched on an uncomfortable tripod that dozens before you have perched upon. Performing a ritual that dozens before you have performed. Seeing a handful of desperate people who mirror the desperate people that dozens before you have seen. 

The difference? They wanted to do it. Considered it an honor instead of a curse. 

You sigh to yourself. Take a quick glance to the left and the right. No one is in here, so you slowly bring the dish of Cassotis spring water in your left hand up to your mouth and take a sip from it to quench your thirst. The sweetness lingering in the water coats your tongue. Reminds you that maybe you’re not entirely alone—so you silently thank Her and lower the bowl back down. 

Perfect timing. The first guest is announced and descends into your playing grounds. An unknowing extra in your play. 

He crosses the floor—your stage—and you recognize him immediately. The tired eyes, the weary soul. The damaged and war-torn body of someone who can’t handle another battle. A general from a city-state you know nothing about, other than the fact that they’re losing the war they’ve waged against Athens. Why anyone would fight against Lady Athena’s patron city is beyond you. 

Being an oracle with no god to lead you has taught you two important things. The first, to increase your storytelling abilities. The second, to stay updated with all of the news within Greece. So when that general asks, “Have the tides shifted? Will we win this war?” in that gruff, exhausted voice you remember from the last three rituals, you already know what you’ll say. 

But you clutch the laurel wreath in your right hand a little harder, and you gaze into the Cassotis spring waters anyway.

“The tides remain unflinchingly still. Leave war strategy to Athens’s protector. Turn your back on Athens and your hubris if you wish to preserve your people and their memory.”

He leaves in a fury from your direct “prophecy.” Not the first time that’s happened. Each negative interaction with these people merely bounces off of your skin now. 

The next person is a woman. Rare, but it happens. She’s got tears rimming her reddened eyes and a slightly quivering bottom lip. She keeps wringing her hands in front of her swollen belly and picking at her already torn apart nails. There’s a darkness in her eyes that you recognize all too well. You’ll see that darkness if you look too closely at the spring water in your left hand. 

She takes a shaky breath. You didn’t need to hear that in order to tell this one will be heartbreaking. That you’ll go easy on her. When you gnaw at the inside of your cheek, you hope she doesn’t see it. 

“Will my baby survive this time?”

This time. What a horrible addition to that already terrible question.

Every once in a while, you’re reminded that you still have a heart. That, maybe, he didn’t take it away from you completely when he left you. 

Another tightening of your grip on the laurel wreath. Another glance into the spring waters. When you finally swallow the lump forming in your throat, you work up the courage to look her in the eyes and give her a response.

“The baby will remain with you forever.”

That non-answer gets her to stop crying, at the very least. Gets her to give you a weak smile and reverent head bow. Breaks your heart even more when she walks out of this prison thinking that the gods have shined on her pregnancy. 

At least if it goes poorly, she’ll blame them.

The rest of the ritual goes off without a hitch. A person comes, you give them a cryptic message, and they leave. Some laugh. Some cry. None of them thank you. By the end of everything, after you were forced to come up with a countless number of predictions, your spine is screaming for relief from this uncomfortable tripod and your arms ache. The weight of the laurel wreath is exhausting your right. The constant lifting and gazing into the Cassotis spring waters is exhausting your left. 

It all feels particularly useless. All of these prophecies are your own. Random guesses that will be left to the Fates. A set of stupid lines within a stupid play that you somehow got the leading role for. 

“Was that the last of them?” you ask while the final person was on their way out of the adyton. The priest who led them in seems particularly shocked that you spoke to him. He whips around, his robes sloshing around his feet and threatening to make you laugh. They caught at his heel and made him stumble a bit. It might be mean, but you’d wished he would have fallen. 

“Yes, my lady. There are no more visitors in the temple.” 

“Thank you,” you mutter. “Close the entrance, then. You may go.” 

He scuttles away in a flurry of quick, embarrassed footsteps. Again, you’re left alone in this prison; the thoughts from earlier, though, don’t return. You’re too exhausted to think. Almost too exhausted to move. The only thing moving your legs and helping you slip off of the tripod you’ve become more than acquainted with is your desire to sleep in your own bed. 

As you’re in the process of regaining feeling in your tired limbs, in putting the Cassotis spring water down  on the tripod and setting the laurel wreath down on the floor, you hear shuffling outside of the adyton. A little bit of a scuffle. Probably a last minute person trying to get access to the temple. To you. Or, really, to Apollo. 

They don’t care about you. 

“You must come back another day, sir! She has seen her last visitor, and the ritual has concluded!” 

You laugh to yourself, then sigh. Of course this would happen to you. That pathetic priest will never stop someone so aggressive that he has to yell at them. Seems like you’ll be getting another guest. Another patron. Someone desperately trying to talk to a god and only getting a woman. Someone who’s about to be sorely disappointed. 

So you pick up the laurel wreath again. You pick up the Cassotis spring waters again. You sit on this damned tripod again and hope, for once, that you’re wrong. That the priest will manage to scare off that person, and that you’ll be able to retire to bed. 

But you never get what you want. Not since you’ve come here. 

“My lady,” that same pathetic, now shaken-up priest says when he pops back into the adyton. “We do have one final guest. He said he wishes to see you.” 

You pause. That was an odd way to put it. No one ever comes here for you aside from your family, of whom the priests are familiar with. 

“Me?” you quietly ask. Hesitantly. After a tiny scoff and a set of confused blinking, you murmur, “He wishes…to see me? Do you not mean he wishes to receive guidance from the Radiant One?”

“No, ma’am. He wishes to see you.” 

What a bold thing it is to come to Apollo’s temple and ignore him in place of his head priestess. He would be quite angry about that if he was ever here and listening to its happenings. Your hands weaken around the laurel wreath and the Cassotis spring waters. You set the dish down in your lap and let the wreath hang off of your wrist. 

Your brain knows it’s not who you think it is. Your heart wants it to be, though. The abandonment can be forgiven if he apologizes for it. If he tells you he still loves you. If he tells you he was swept away on an adventure for five years, and all he could do was think of returning to you in his absence. 

You clear your throat and nod. 

“I…very well, then. Send him in if he is so persistent.” 

The priest bows his head then walks away to fetch the new final person you’ll have to see before your night’s over. While you wait, your heart hammers against your ribcage. You had no idea it even had the capability to beat this way anymore. Kal-El had taken it with him when he left you all those years ago, or at least that was what you believed. 

Perhaps he’s always had it and is returning it now. 

Footsteps ring out to your left and you hesitate to turn your head. How you’ll ever meet his eyes again is beyond you. You feel too much anger. Too much embarrassment. Too much grief and longing. Being in the same room with him again may kill you. 

The person slowly closes in on you. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the frame of someone you know. A frame that you’ve seen hundreds of times before, one that you’d lean on when you needed support and one that you’d come to hate over the last five years. 

Relief is seemingly not in your cards.

“What are you doing here?” you mumble. Disappointedly so. Your shoulders slump and your heart continues to erratically beat in your chest, but it’s not from anticipation. 

“Is a father not allowed to see his daughter?” is the gruff question you get in return. 

“Not after the ritual has concluded. Get out,” is the angry answer you shoot back at him. Your father doesn’t visit as much as your mother. You could count on one hand the amount of times you’ve seen him since you’ve taken this position. 

“I simply wanted to speak with you. This was the only time I could do so.” 

You roll your eyes and shove the Cassotis spring water dish in his hands. While you’re in the process of dropping the laurel wreath and sliding off of the tripod to storm away from him, you furiously ask, “You can visit me on any day of the week, and you choose now? For what reason?”

“Because I have news for you. I know you hate me, but listen to me. Please.” 

Your father never put forward any sort of gratitude for you. Begging for you to speak to him, or to listen to him, is odd. It’s intriguing enough to stop you from leaving him alone in the adyton. Not intriguing enough to get you to turn around and look at him, though. 

“Quickly, then,” is what you punch out. Why tell him you don’t hate him? Why lie? 

“Your Kal-El has returned to Delphi. He is looking for you.”

“He was never mine to begin with. You made sure of that.” 

That’s the only response you gave your father before you abandoned him in the adyton. He didn’t even fight to keep you there with him. He simply watched you storm out without so much as saying one word of rebuttal.

As you pace around your room in the dead of night, all you can think about is what he told you. Kal-El’s come home. Your Kal-El. 

“My Kal-El,” you whisper to yourself, “is looking for me.” 

The ache in your body from today’s ritual is long gone, now replaced with a fire in your soul you’ve not felt for years. It’s as though you’ve been struck by lightning. Like you’ve been hit directly in the chest with it. Like it’s jolted your heart back to life.

The ringing in your ears is the only thing louder than your restless footsteps, but it’s not louder than your thoughts. 

How long has he been gone? Was it for the last five years? Is that why he hasn’t shown his face to you? Although…why didn’t he send a letter, or someone else to talk to you? Has he been that angry with you? Is he still angry with you and looking to tell you off?

You shake your head and bury your face in your hands. No time to spiral, now. Your body will never recover from the ritual if you don’t sleep, but with the fire running through your veins, you’re not sure you’ll ever rest. You may never sleep again. 

But you slowly pad toward the small altar for Apollo at the foot of your bed, anyway. You kneel in front of it and bow your head, anyway. You recite your prayers to the open air, to no one, anyway. Perhaps He’s actually listening this time, and He’ll grant you your wish of His son actually returning to see you. 

As you push yourself up from the altar and take a deep breath, you feel a little lighter. The rituals will not return for three months, and your Kal-El is looking for you. Looking to speak with you. Looking to take you away from here, if you’re lucky. 

A shiver runs down your spine due to a sudden breeze in your room. One of your aides must have left a window open. 

You can’t help but wonder about how your mother is doing.

Your breath remains in your chest while you spin on a heel to check on that breeze. It leaves you almost immediately, though. Gets stolen straight out of you from fright and surprise when you realize someone else is in this room with you, now, standing just in front of the doorway and waiting for you to turn around. Your gaze falls on another pair of eyes. A pair that you could recognize in any crowd. 

A pair that you would remember even after you haven’t seen them for five years.