But articles ran long, deadlines moved, and sometimes the sound of something breaking three streets away would reach him through the windows before he even realised he was listening for it.

He hated that the world always seemed to need him most when you were waiting so patiently for him. Hated it even more because you never made him feel bad about it.

But the moment he finally walked through the door always made it worth it.

The hum of your voice from the kitchen, something soft playing through your speakers.

You said you liked to cook for him.

He’d offered a hundred times to pick something up on the way, to make up for his punctuality. To make it easier, faster, less work after your own long day, but you always waved him off like the suggestion was ridiculous.

You said it relaxed you. Said you liked knowing he was eating something you made.

Said it like it was the most normal thing in the world to take care of him like that.

He never quite knew what to do with all your kindness. The small things still caught him off guard, made the warmth creep up the back of his neck before he could stop it.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever stop feeling that way.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Tonight, though, the flat was quiet when he opened the door.

Clark let himself in with the spare key you’d pressed into his hand months ago. The lock clicked softly behind him, and he closed the door gently. 

It felt strange, walking into the empty space first. Everything looked the same.

Your books stacked unevenly on the shelf, the plants you swore you remembered to water—even the ones he secretly helped along when you forgot. Your mug from that morning in the sink. 

All the usual things. All the proof that this was your place.

And still, without you in it, the space felt incomplete. 

If this was how it felt when he got home first, he suddenly wished he’d made it home sooner a lot more often.

He shrugged off his suit jacket and folded it neatly over the back of the chair. You’d texted him a few hours earlier, telling him you were running late, promising you’d make it up to him when you got home.

He’d smiled at the message when he read it. You really didn’t have to make anything up to him. You never did. Just coming home was enough.

If anything, this just meant he had time to do something for you for a change.

Clark made his way over to the fridge, pulling the door open and leaning down slightly as he looked through the shelves, taking stock the way he’d seen you do a hundred times before. 

He was careful about it; he didn’t want to use the wrong thing, didn’t want to mess up whatever plan you might’ve had for the week.

He reached for the container of leftovers first, then paused, putting it back exactly where he found it.

Absolutely not.

You’d probably pack that for lunch tomorrow, and he liked the idea of you walking in to the smell of something cooking a lot more than the sound of a microwave. 

He shifted things around instead, scanning the drawers until he spotted what he was looking for—a few stray cloves of garlic tucked down at the back of the vegetable drawer, half a bunch of basil wrapped in a paper towel, a lone chilli pepper rolling slightly when he moved the onions.

That would work. That would work just fine.

You always said the simple ones were your favourite anyway.

He straightened up, already thinking it through. There’d be tomatoes in the cupboard. Pasta too, somewhere on the second shelf, the one you kept meaning to organise but never quite got around to.

Perfect. Simple.

Something warm for you to come home to.

And he knew he could make a darn good pasta.

It was one of the first things his ma had ever taught him, standing beside her in the kitchen back home, listening to her explain that good food didn’t have to be complicated, just made with care. He could still hear her voice sometimes when he cooked, telling him to taste as he went, to trust himself, and to always make enough for everyone at the table.

He liked to think she’d smile if she could see him now, standing in a kitchen that wasn’t hers, cooking for someone who had somehow become just as much home. He was pretty sure she’d tell him he’d done well for himself. Say she was proud he had someone at his table worth making dinner for.

He liked to think she’d say he picked right.

That he’d found someone good.

Someone she’d love too.

He set the garlic down on the counter and reached for the chopping board, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows without thinking. His eyes flicked to the clock on the wall to his left.

Plenty of time.

He let himself smile a little, picking up the knife. Might as well give you something good to come home to.

You always did the same for him.

Clark was stirring the sauce when he heard the front door open. The tomatoes had burst and cooked down just right, the garlic mellow, the basil already starting to sweeten the air. Another five minutes, maybe less, and it would be perfect.

“Clark?” You call out, tired. Soft, but still tired. “You in here?”

Right on time.

“In the kitchen!” he called back, setting the spoon down and stepping away from the stove. He wiped his hands on the dish towel slung over his shoulder, already turning toward the doorway before you even appeared. 

He could hear you coming closer, the shuffle of your steps, the soft thud of your bag hitting the chair in the other room.

Your head peeked around the doorframe, and the second he saw the look on your face—apologetic, tired, a little sheepish, a small smile you wore when you thought you’d disappointed him—his chest tightened.

“Sorry I’m late,” you said, stepping into the kitchen.

He shook his head immediately, already moving toward you without thinking about it; the distance between you needed fixing as fast as possible.

“Hey, no—don’t do that,” he said with a soft smile. One hand coming up automatically to rest on your arms when you got close enough. 

You don’t have to apologise to him. Not for anything out of your control. 

You gave him that look again, like you still weren’t convinced.

“I said I’d be back earlier,” you murmured.

He let out a breath through his nose, shaking his head as he looked down at you, his thumb brushing absent-mindedly against your sleeve.

“Hey,” he said again, waiting until you actually looked up at him. “It’s okay. Really. You’re here now. That’s all I wanted.”

You nodded, then glanced past him toward the stove, nose twitching slightly as the smell hit you, and your eyes widened just a little.

“…Did you cook?”

He felt the back of his neck warm instantly, that bashful heat creeping up before he could stop it. He rubbed the side of his jaw with his thumb.

“Well… yeah,” he admitted. “You said you were gonna be late. Figured I could manage dinner for once.”

It’s the least he could do. 

You stepped past him toward the stove before he could say anything else, leaning over the pot with a small sigh, breathing in the scent like it was the best thing you’d smelled all day.

“That smells amazing,” you groaned, glancing back at him over your shoulder with a grin.

He huffed out a quiet laugh.

“It’s pasta,” he shrugged humbly. “Kinda hard to mess up.”

You turned, still smiling, and before he could stop himself, he was already moving closer, drawn in by your grateful expression. The domesticity of the moment.

He needed to cook more often. 

He closed the distance in two easy steps, one hand finding your waist on instinct, the other brushing down your arm as he leaned in and pressed his lips to yours in a familiar kiss.

You let out a sigh against his mouth, warm and tired and relieved, and it went straight through him. 

It was ridiculous, the way one small sound from you could undo him like that.

Gosh, he missed you today. 

He smiled against your mouth, one arm tightening around your waist as he lifted you, setting you up on the counter beside the stove as he’d done it a hundred times before.

“Careful,” he murmured, still smiling against your lips, one hand lingering a bit longer than it needed to, just to make sure you were steady.

Not that you ever weren’t. He just liked the excuse.

You let out a small giggle, bumping your knee lightly against his side.

“You’re in a good mood.”

How couldn’t he be?

He shrugged, glancing back at the pot before turning the heat down another notch.

“Got home early,” he said with a shrug. “Felt like my turn to do something for you.”

You gazed at him, smiling at his words.

“So you made dinner for me?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, proud but slightly embarrassed at the acknowledgement of his hard work.

He’d had strangers thank him before, whole crowds even, but nothing ever made him feel this awkwardly pleased the way you did when you looked at him like that.

“Well… yeah. Didn’t seem fair you always do it.”

“You’re trying to spoil me.” 

He snorted softly under his breath.

“Pretty sure that’s my job.”

His favourite job.

You laughed at that, and he ducked his head again, turning and stirring the sauce just to give himself something to focus on.

“So,” he added, “What about you, huh? What’d you get up to today?”

You swung your feet lightly against the cabinet, completely relaxed.

Good.

“Nothing exciting,” you said. “Work, mostly. Had lunch with one of the new guys though.”

Clark’s hand paused for just a second.

“Yeah?” he said, keeping his voice easy. “New guy?”

You nodded.

“Yeah, Daniel. He started a few weeks ago. We ended up grabbing lunch together after a meeting.”

Daniel.

The name settling somewhere in the back of his mind, whether he wanted it to or not.

“…Daniel?” he repeated, voice slightly higher. He glanced over his shoulder at you, trying very hard to sound like he was just making conversation.

You tilted your head, thinking.

“I think I mentioned him before? Maybe?”

Your brows pulled together as you tried to remember, then you shrugged.

“We’re the only ones around the same age in the department,” you said with a small chuckle. “Kind of felt natural we got paired up. We’ve been grabbing lunch together the last few days.”

The spoon dragged a little slower through the sauce.

Last few days.

Did you mention that before? 

“Oh yeah?” he said, keeping his tone light.

“Yeah,” you went on, still talking easily. “You’d like him, actually. He’s kind of similar to you.”

He glanced back at you.

“…Similar how?”

You smiled, completely genuine.

“He’s just… nice. You know? Always the one who remembers people’s birthdays, makes sure everyone’s got what they need. Stayed late the other night to help one of the interns finish something.”

Clark looked back at the pot, the corner of his mouth twitching faintly, though it didn’t quite make it into a smile.

“Sounds like a real hero,” he said quietly.

You laughed, missing the way his shoulders had gone just a little stiff.

“No, he’s just… thoughtful,” you said. “He actually hung around after work the other night too, when you got held up. I didn’t even realise how late it was until we were the only ones left in the office.”

The other night.

The night he’d been halfway across the city instead of walking through the door with you.

He swallowed, eyes fixed on dinner, which now felt slightly inadequate as the guilt began to gnaw at him.

“…That so,” he said, voice steady, even if his chest felt a little tighter.

You nodded, still oblivious.

“Yeah, he was waiting on some notes from his boss, I was finishing up my draft, so we just… talked for a bit. He’s easy to talk to.”

Easy to talk to.

Clark let out a quiet hum, forcing himself to place the spoon down before he bent the handle clean in half.

Of course he was.

Normal hours. Normal life.

No disappearing mid-sentence because someone somewhere needed saving.

“Sounds like you two are getting along.” 

“Yeah,” you said, smiling. “He’s been having a bit of a rough time, though.”

He glanced back at you again.

“What happened?”

You frowned slightly.

“His girlfriend broke up with him a couple weeks ago. Knocked his confidence a bit, I think.”

His expression softened automatically. He couldn’t help it. 

“Poor guy,” he murmured.

“I know,” you agreed. “I don’t know all the details, but he seemed really upset about it. We ended up talking about it for ages the other day. He just needed someone to listen, I think.”

Clark nodded slowly. Of course you listened, and that was the thing. 

You made people feel better just by being there.

Made him feel better just by being there.

He reached across to turn the stove on the lowest setting before facing you once more, slotting himself between your knees. His free hand reached out without him thinking, settling lightly against your thigh where you sat on the counter, thumb brushing once.

“That’s good, honey,” he smiles down at you. “I’m glad you’re not stuck over there on your own.”

Without him. 

The words came out quieter than he meant. His tone was small and honest, slipping out before he could stop it.

You didn’t seem to notice anything in his voice, just shuffled a little.

“Yeah. He’s easy to be around,” you said. “And he’s opposite me, you know? Same mornings. We end up hanging out without really planning to.”

He nodded slowly.

Same routine. Same life.

Didn’t have to disappear halfway through dinner. Didn’t have to text apologies from five blocks away. Didn’t have to leave you sitting alone at a table because someone somewhere needed him.

You kept talking.

“He stayed late the other night too. When you got held up? We were the last ones in the office. He didn’t want me walking back to the station on my own.”

It shouldn’t have bothered him. 

Honestly, he was glad someone stayed with you. It was a kind gesture by a coworker that stopped you from being alone that late. 

He was grateful, but there was something else there too. 

His mind immediately pictured you sitting in that office after hours, laughing at something some other guy said, walking out together side by side…

“Clark?” you said, tilting your head a little.

Your voice gently shook him back into the room, blue eyes catching yours as they focused.  He didn’t answer right away. Just stood there for a moment, hands resting on your legs, like he was trying to settle his stomach that wouldn’t quite sit still.

He knew it was stupid.

You hadn’t done anything wrong. You were just talking about your day. But all he could think about was how easy it sounded. How much of your time happened in places he couldn’t always be.

He swallowed, glancing down at the counter while his mind kept circling the same thought.

He couldn’t always be there when you stayed late. Couldn’t always walk you home, couldn’t always make dinner, couldn’t always give you the kind of normal time other people seemed to have without even trying.

His thoughts drifted for a moment.

Dinner suddenly felt almost juvenile compared to what he really wanted to do for you. Sweet, sure—but not enough. Not when you looked this tired.

There had to be something more. Something only he could give you.

He ran through the list in his head without thinking; every little thing he knew made you smile, until one idea settled in and stayed.

Oh.

Oh.

Yeah. That.

That he knew how to do. 

He knew how to make you come undone after a long day without you even realising that was what you needed.

Knew the exact places to touch that made the tension leave your shoulders, the way your breath caught when his hands moved across your bare skin, the way you melted into him like your body already trusted him to take care of the rest.

He knew the sounds you made when he took his time.

Knew how your fingers curled into the sheets when he got it right.

Knew how to make you forget about work, about long days, about anyone else who’d had your attention before you walked through the door.

It’s not much, but it would work for now. 

“You know,” he said quietly, voice low, a little rougher than before,

“I figure I owe you a better evening than just pasta.”

You blinked at him, caught off guard by the look on his face more than the words. He could hear your pulse quicken at his insinuation. 

“Clark, we don’t have to—”

He was already moving before you finished the sentence.

He reached past you without breaking eye contact, turning the stove fully off, the soft click of the burner cutting through the quiet kitchen.  He stepped in close again, coming to stand between your knees where you sat on the counter, his hands settling lightly on either side of you, not touching yet. 

His blue eyes lifted to yours, soft and searching, asking without saying a word.

You looked tired.

He could see it now that he was close enough. The faint tension in your brow, the way your shoulders hadn’t fully relaxed since you walked in.

That he could fix. 

His hand came up slowly, giving you plenty of time to pull away if you wanted to, his fingers brushing along your cheek, thumb tracing just under your eye like he could smooth the tiredness away if he was careful enough.

You let out a breathy sound at the touch, the sound soft and surprised, and the corner of his mouth lifted, the tension in his chest loosening just from hearing it.

There you were.

He leaned in then, slow, giving you time to meet him halfway, his lips finding yours in a soft kiss.

You melted into him almost immediately, arms coming up around his shoulders, and that was all it took for his hand to slide to your waist, pulling you a little closer on the counter without thinking about it.

He deepened the kiss carefully, listening more than leading; he felt your breath change, your fingers tightening slightly at the back of his shirt. He let his mouth drift from your lips to your cheek, then lower, pressing slow kisses along the side of your jaw, down to your neck, unhurried, patient, like he had nowhere else to be for once.

Your breath hitched under his mouth, just barely.

Gotcha.

His eyes closed for a second, forehead brushing your temple as he let out a sigh, one hand sliding around your back, his thumb moving in slow circles like he was trying to work the tension out of you one touch at a time.

“C’mon, sweetheart…” he murmured softly against your skin, almost pleading. “Dinner’s done… missed you all day…”

His lips brushed your neck again, slower this time, listening for every little change in your breathing.

“Can’t I make you feel good for a while?”

Please.

He pulled back to look at you, hands still warm at your sides, waiting. 

Your cheeks were flushed now, eyes a little softer at the edges, heartbeat spiking slightly.

He didn’t move. Didn’t touch you again. Just waited until you gave him the permission he was almost desperate for.

“Yes,” you sighed with a nod, arms sliding around his shoulders again as you leaned into him. “Please…” you murmured against his lips.

Finally. 

His whole face softened and he let out a sigh that almost sounded like a laugh before his arms wrapped around you properly.

“Okay,” he whispered, more to himself than to you.

He lifted you easily from the counter, holding you close against his chest, arms under your legs, careful even now.

Strong arms stayed steady beneath your thighs as he carried you down the short hallway, your legs tightening around his waist as you went, drawing him closer. 

The bedroom door was already half-open; he nudged it wider with his shoulder and didn’t bother with the light switch. The city glow filtering through the curtains was enough—soft gold and silver across your skin.

The way he liked you best. 

He lay you down in the middle of the bed like you were something delicate, straightening just long enough to pull his own shirt over his head in one smooth motion. 

The fabric hit the floor. His eyes never left yours. You looked up at him with soft, half-lidded gaze, and that was all it took to undo him.

Gosh, how did he get so lucky? 

He crawled over you slowly, caging you in with his forearms. One large hand brushed your hair back from your forehead tenderly.

“You gonna let me take care of you?” he murmured, voice low. Asking once again for your consent.

You nodded eagerly, already pawing at his bare shoulders to have his lips meet your own again. He obliged immediately, kissing you slow and deep, revelling in the way you gave yourself to him without hesitation.

When he pulled back, his thumb traced along your bottom lip.

“So pretty,” he whispered, the words impossibly softer than the touch.

You huffed out, slightly flustered by the praise. Your fingers tightened against his wrist as you looked up at him, eyes heavy.

“Please.” You asked from under him, doe eyes almost pleading for him to touch you more. 

Oh, sweetheart.

Who was he not oblige such a sweet request?

His fingers were careful as they moved to your shirt, unfastening each button one at a time, slow enough that you could feel the warmth of his hands long before the fabric gave way. Goosebumps followed every small movement, your skin reacting to the light brush of his knuckles as much as the cool air hit your exposed flesh.

You were always so receptive to him, always so open. Taking everything he offered you and more. It made his mind dizzy. 

Not that he thought he deserved it. 

He shoved the thought to the back of his mind as he continued undressing you, not allowing your pleasure to be sidetracked by his own insecurities. 

Tonight, he wanted you to forget everything else.

He pushed the shirt from your shoulders with such softness. One hand slid behind your back, fingers finding your bra clasp without looking. His hands moved lower next, sliding the rest of your clothes away until nothing was left but warm skin under his palms.

He leaned in again, lips brushing over the newly bared areas, kissing along your collarbone, your shoulder, the centre of your chest, taking his time with each touch like he was memorising you all over again.

“Beautiful.” He breathed against your neck as your face heated. 

It really was the only way to describe you—soft and pliant, bare and so needy for him already. 

He was going to give you everything tonight. Take his time until the only thing left in that sweet head of yours was him. 

It felt like he owed you more than that anyway.

His hands settled on your thighs, spreading them gently. 

“Need to taste you first, honey,” though it sounds more like a plea. “Just lie back for me, can you do that?”

Let him make you feel good. 

Let him make it up to you. 

You nodded eagerly, cheeks already warm, no convincing needed. 

He lowered himself between your legs, pressing a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of your thigh. 

“Missed taking care of you like this,” he said, mainly to himself, fingers already spreading you open before any words could escape you. 

He dipped his head down, mouth closing over your clit, tongue lapping in the rhythm he knew drove you wild. 

A small whine pulled from your chest and he hummed in approval, the sound vibrating against your skin. One broad hand stayed splayed across your lower stomach, holding you down so you couldn’t chase his mouth even if you tried. 

He needed you just like this, exactly where he could take care of you properly.

As he kept going, a gentle cry burst out of your mouth, your hands coming down to tangle in his hair, pulling him without thinking. He could only groan as he felt you tug him closer. 

“Easy, sweetheart,” he soothed, pressing his lips against your thigh. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He truly wasn’t.

He was in heaven between your thighs. Your warmth, the softness of your skin as he pulled more sounds from you. The way you tensed, squeezing his head as he sucked harder. 

He was taking his time, savouring you, stroking his tongue across every fold, every nerve ending, until he was sure you’d be seeing stars. 

He owed you that. 

Your moans got longer, the feeling of your body unwinding around him, letting him know that he was still good at this. Letting him know that it was only him who would make you come undone like this.

He pressed two fingers inside of you, humming in appreciation as you cried out. 

“Ah, Clark—“

He curled his fingers, feeling your walls begin to tighten, throbbing as your sounds grew more desperate, more beautiful. 

He swore his name had never sounded so sweet. 

“That’s it, angel, almost there.”

Your back arched; he pressed you back down with that hand on your stomach, keeping you right where he wanted you.

Let go for him. 

When you came, it was with a sound that made his entire body tingle. He stayed between your legs the whole time, licking you through every aftershock until you were whimpering beneath him. 

Always the prettiest sight he could ask for.

When your shaking subsided, he kissed his way back up your body, careful not to overwhelm you just yet. He pressed his forehead to yours while you caught your breath. 

He saw the blissed-out look in your eyes, the hazy smile, the sheepish look as you giggled at him, like he had just given you the world, and he couldn’t help but smile too. 

Your hands shifted to the top of his slacks, giving them a small playful tug as you met his blue eyes again. 

“Not fair,” you pouted. “Wanna see you too.” 

He let out a small chuckle, but he was elated that you wanted more. Wanted more of him. 

Always so eager. 

“Yeah?” He asks as his nose nudges against your cheek, lips brushing your flushed skin. He smiles when he sees you nod, your face almost desperate. 

He leans back to unbuckle his belt, trousers following quickly after as he pulls them down his hips. He can feel your eyes on him as he undresses, his muscles twisting in the dim light under your gaze. 

He watches the way your eyes glaze over, your breath getting stuck in the back of your throat, the way your thighs rub together at the sight of him bare before you. 

“You’re so handsome, Clark.” 

The words stop him in his tracks. 

Spilling from your mouth without thought. Like it was the simplest truth. It stuttered his movements as he could feel the heat bloom across his face. 

The fact that you still say these things after all this time never fails to make the world tilt ever so slightly. It nearly knocks him off balance. 

Focus. 

He needs to make you feel good tonight, needs to make you feel good every night. 

If making you come over and over was what it took to keep that soft look in your eyes, to keep you reaching for him instead of anyone else, he’d do it as many times as it took.

Gladly.

Every single night.

“Baby…” he breathes, pushing his hair back off his forehead. “You keep talking like that, I’m not gonna last five seconds.”

You glance up at him, a teasing glint in your eye. 

“Then I guess I’d better keep talking, huh?”

You’ll be the death of him. 

“Sweetheart…” he groans softly.  “I’m hanging on by a thread here.”

You take mercy on him and bite your lip as he drops the last of his clothes aside and begins to crawl back over you, allowing his warm, solid body to wrap around you once more. 

He breathes in deeply against the side of your neck, his breath tickling as he leaves soft, open-mouth kisses against your jaw. 

The way he is positioned over you, caging you in, not allowing friction in the one place where you really want him.

“Please—“ you wrap your legs around his hips, trying so hard to get him closer. “Clark—fuck—I need more.”

“Language, baby,” he coos, pressing his lips once again on your flushed skin. “I got you, alright? Need you to relax for me.”

You nod, giving him a gentle peck as your hands slide up his bare back. His muscles flex under your palms, shivering like it’s the first time. 

He was already hard—aching, really—his cock heavy and flushed against your thigh. He’d barely been paying attention to himself tonight.

No—tonight was about you.

Reaching down between you, he guides himself to your entrance slowly, watching your reaction. The blunt head of him nudges against your slick folds. 

So wet, so ready for him. 

He pauses there, eyes locked on yours. 

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he whispers against your lips. “I’ll stop, alright? just say the word.”

Just say, and he’ll stop. 

“I need you, Clark,” you plead, “Please, I need you so bad.”

Every ounce of self-control he had went into holding himself together at the sound of your voice, his sweet girl begging him to make her feel good.

He feels you fluttering around his tip, walls trying to suck him in. His chest rumbles as he slowly pushes forward, rolling his hips gently so he fits with little resistance. 

“God—“ you whine as your head hits the pillow behind you, nails digging into his shoulders. 

“I know, baby—“ he soothes, almost fully inside you. “I know—”

He groans into your collarbone as he bottoms out, allowing himself to look between your bodies. Your arousal is coating the bottom of his shaft. It makes him nearly burst right then. 

“So good for me, angel, so good—“

His praise has you clenching as he thrusts into you once more, mewling gently under him. 

It begins lazily, savouring every twitch of your body. Long, deep strokes that drag against every sensitive spot inside you, his hips rolling again and again as his breaths get heavier. 

Every breath that caught, every time your hands tightened around his shoulders, pulled his focus right back to you, even when his mind kept trying to wander somewhere it shouldn’t. 

Gosh, he’d almost forgotten how you looked falling apart like this. 

Soft under him, lips parted, trusting him completely. 

How long had it been since he pleasured you like this? A week? Two? 

Far too long. 

His jaw tightened slightly as his hips faltered for half a second before he forced himself back. 

“Feel good, honey?” he murmured against your temple, “Tell me I’m doing it right.”

He had to be. 

He had to make this good for you. 

He shifted his angle just slightly, the way he knew made your breath stutter, pressing his lips to your temple as he heard your sweet voice. 

“So good—“ you breathe out. “Always feel so good.”

He really hopes so. 

Superman could keep the whole city safe, sure. That was the easy part. 

But this? This was the part that really mattered. 

It was up to Clark to take care of you. Up to him to make sure you felt wanted, felt seen, felt good. 

“Don’t get enough of you,” he admits, voice cracking slightly. “Not nearly enough—gosh—“

You moaned under him again, letting him know he was hitting your sweet spot when you arched up into him, chest brushing against his own. 

Yes, just like that. 

He needed to see this, to know that he could still do this for you. 

“You’re mine, aren’t you?” he whimpers as he can feel you getting closer. “Say it—please angel—gotta hear you say it.”

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, both of pleasure and pure determination. The kind that made his vision blur just enough that he had to blink them away to focus. 

He couldn’t be done with you yet. 

He kept moving, steady and deep, listening to every single sound you made. When your nails scraped lightly down his back, he slowed even more, letting you feel every thick inch. 

It was then that you looked up at him, concerned eyes completely filled with love. 

“Clark… I love you.” You say slowly as you cup his face. “You don’t even have to ask.”

He lets out a choked sound as his movements still, breath catching in his throat. 

His forehead drops against yours, eyes squeezing shut. One of his hands comes up to cover yours where it rests on his cheek, pressing into your palm.

“Say it again,” he asks softly. Needing to hear it once more.

There is no hesitation in your reply. 

“I love you, Clark,” you say as you squeeze his hand gently. “I’m always yours.”

A soft moan escapes his throat as your words wash over him, the sweetness of your tone spurring him on. 

He pulls back ever so slightly, searching your face for any sign of dishonesty. He finds none. 

“I love you too,” he says, though his voice sounds sadder than he means. “Just… don’t stop saying that, please?”

He doesn’t give you time to question his statement before his lips are back on yours, hips rolling once again in steady movements, reassured somewhat by your gentle words. 

The sweetness starts to fray at the edges as the pleasure builds. His thrusts stay deep but grow a fraction harder, a little more urgent, like the need to prove himself is winding tighter in his chest.

His dark curls begin to drift onto his forehead. His kisses are messier now, almost desperate, tongue sliding against yours as his hips snap forward with a little more force. 

He could feel you getting close again, the way you tightened around him, the way your thighs started to tremble. He didn’t speed up. He just kept that same devastating rhythm, grinding deep on every stroke, one hand sliding between your bodies to circle your clit with two fingers.

“Come on, baby,” he coaxed, voice soft and pleading. “Let go for me, I got you—please—.”

“Clark—” It came out broken, desperate, and he felt it like a punch to the chest.

He groaned, hips stuttering for the first time, but he caught himself immediately, forcing the pace back to that slow, worshipful roll. 

“Again,” he begs through gritted teeth. 

Say his name again. 

Tell him it’s only him.

“Clark… oh god, Clark—”

Your orgasm hit you like a wave—long and rolling and endless. He felt every pulse, every flutter, and he kept moving through it, fucking you gently through every aftershock, drawing it out until you were gasping and shaking beneath him. 

Only then did he let himself chase his own release, but even that was careful. He buried his face in your neck, lips pressed to your pulse point, and came with a quiet, shattered groan of your name, hips pressing deep and still as he filled you.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was your shared breathing, slow and heavy. Clark stayed buried inside you, arms lifting slightly as he held himself up so he wouldn’t crush you. 

His chest rose and fell against yours, warm skin caught the faint city light filtering through the curtains. Dark curls messy, and when he finally lifted his head, his blue eyes were soft and a little glassy, still hazy with pleasure and something deeper.

You looked completely spent beneath him, hair a mess against the pillow, lips still parted from catching your breath.

He gently eased out of you, mindful of how sensitive you were. Then he shifted his weight, rolling to the side and lifting himself off you completely so you could breathe easier. 

Immediately, he leaned back in, peppering the softest kisses all over your face—your forehead, your closed eyelids, the tip of your nose, each cheek, and finally your lips.

“You okay?” he murmured, voice still rough. “Did I—” he hesitated. “Did I do alright?”

You let out a tired laugh, reaching up to push his hair back.

“Clark, you know you did.”

His smile didn’t quite settle.

“Yeah?” he asked quietly, like he needed to hear it again. “You sure?”

You nodded, thumb brushing along his cheek.

“I promise.”

He held your gaze for a second longer, searching your face, checking for any cracks. When he didn’t find any, he leaned down to kiss you once more, softer this time.

“I’m gonna grab a towel,” he murmured against your lips, already starting to shift off the bed.

You let him move for half a second before your hand caught his wrist. fingers wrapping around it gently but firmly.

“Hey,” you said softly.

He paused immediately, turning back to you. 

His kind eyes wide and vulnerable as they met yours, his lips slightly swollen from kissing you, and there was a faint pink still high on his cheeks.

“Yes?” he asked, voice attentive. Always ready to give you whatever you needed.

You sat up a little, the sheet shifting, and reached for him again, fingers brushing along his jaw. 

“Clark…” you say as you hold his gaze. “Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?”

Darn it. He should have hidden it better. 

“Huh?” he says quickly, like he’s been caught off guard. “Nah—no, nothing’s wrong, baby. Honest.”

He tries to smile, tries to make it sound easy, but he can already see the way your brow pulls together, the way you tilt your head just slightly.

“You sure?” you press gently. “I mean… you seemed… I don’t know. Different?”

Different.

He lets out a small huff, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks away.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mutters, voice a little strained despite himself. “Was it… was it not good for you?” 

He couldn’t stop himself from asking.

He could go again, if you needed him to. Could try harder, slower, whatever you wanted. 

Do it better this time.

If you asked him to stay between your legs all night, making you forget, he would. Gladly.

“It was,” you say softly, before glancing down. “I just… I don’t know.”

He swallows, jaw tightening for a second.

He didn’t want this to turn into that kind of night.

Didn’t want you worrying about him or feeling like you had to fix something. He just wanted to give you a good evening. He wanted tonight to be special.

Or at least… as special as he could manage on short notice.

“I just missed you,” he says finally, forcing a small smile as he leans in and presses a gentle kiss to your cheek.

He bends to grab his clothes from the floor, shaking them out before pulling his briefs back on, then his shirt, movements a little quicker than usual, keeping that little bit busy to ignore any further questions.

“Besides, it’s getting late,” he adds with a shrug, dragging the shirt over his head, voice casual. “Figured I should probably—”

“You’re leaving?”

Your voice is quiet.

Oh, sweetheart, no.

It makes him freeze instantly, one arm still half through the sleeve. He turns around so fast he nearly trips over his own foot.

“No—I—” he blurts, eyes wide. “I’m not. I’m not leaving.”

He wouldn’t do that to you immediately after something like this. He didn’t think he could bear it. 

You give him a small smile, already reaching over to the bedside drawer, pulling out one of his oversized t-shirts and slipping it over your head.

“It’s okay if you are,” you say gently, like you don’t want him to feel bad about it. “If you heard something or…”

The only thing he can hear is the tone of your voice. That tiny bit of disappointment you’re trying to hide. It hits him right in the chest.

“No, hey—no,” he says quickly, stepping closer, hands half-raised, not knowing whether to touch you or not. “That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t saying I had to go. I just—”

He stops and exhales hard, running a hand through his hair, cursing the words that don’t come out right. 

“I meant it’s late,” he says, softer now. “Like… I should probably serve dinner. Or something. I mean, we haven’t eaten yet, so…”

You blink at him.

“Oh.”

He gives a sheepish shrug, suddenly feeling very big and very unsure, standing there before he sits down on the bed.

“I mean, it’s the least I can do.”

As the words leave him, your expression softens, understanding gracing your features. Everything suddenly clicked into place, understanding before he even said anything. 

You stay silent as you look at him, vulnerable atop the mattress. He knows what that silence means, that you want him to say more. That you’re waiting for him to find the right words and talk to you, rather than pushing his own feelings down when they’re inconvenient. 

You always make him talk more than he planned to. 

He looks down at the floor, then back at you, then away again.

“I just—” he starts, then stops, shaking his head.

“It’s alright, we can—”

“No, it’s just—,” he tries again, a little too quickly. “I just… I don’t know.”

You don’t say anything.

For someone who writes for a living, he sure does struggle with finding the right words when you’re around. 

You sit there, watching him, patient as ever, hands folded in your lap, waiting for him to get the rest out.

He lets out a quiet breath through his nose.

There’s no getting out of this. 

“…Feels like I haven’t been around much,” he admits finally.

Your face softens even more.

“Clark—”

“I know, I know,” he says, holding up a hand, already rambling. “I know you don’t mind. You always say you don’t mind. You always tell me it’s fine, and I believe you, I do, I just—”

He rubs the back of his neck again, sighing.

“I just keep thinking one day you’re gonna…” he breathes in, not wanting to say the next words. “Maybe you’re gonna get tired of that,” he mutters.

You blink.

“What?”

He stills, not meeting your eyes.

“Waiting. Eating dinner by yourself. Me showing up late, or not at all. Falling asleep before I get back.” He lets out a humourless laugh. “Feels like that’s not exactly… boyfriend of the year material.”

You stare at him, completely melted already, but he keeps going, words spilling out faster now that he’s started.

“I mean, you could have somebody who’s actually around,” he continues. “Anybody, really. Somebody who doesn’t disappear in the middle of the night because the police scanner goes off.”

He finally looks at you, and his expression must be worse than he thought. The way your lips turn slightly downward, face looking that little bit sadder. 

He never should have started. 

This is exactly what he didn’t want. 

“I just… I don’t know. Feels like I’m not doing enough for you lately,” he admits. “And I hate that. I hate feeling like you deserve more.”

Deserve more than him. 

He hears the rustle of the sheets as you sit up on your knees. You go to wrap your arms around him, but he beats you to it, gathering you up on his lap on instinct. Holding you close to him, allowing him to hear your heartbeat soothes him slightly, but he still struggles to look at you after his admission. 

“Clark,” you say softly, drawing him back.

He looks down at you, eyes still a little uncertain.

“You think I don’t know who I’m with?” 

He goes to speak, but you beat him to it, silencing whatever argument he had formulated in his head. 

“You think I’d trade you for someone who just… makes it home on time?”

“Yeah, but that’s not—“

“You’re the most attentive, patient, ridiculous man I’ve ever met,” you go on, thumb brushing over his cheek. “You take care of me better than anyone ever has.”

He still doesn’t seem convinced. It makes sense on paper—yes—but surely you’re just saying that to spare his feelings. Someone as special as you deserves far more than that, not stolen kisses before he has to take off through the open window. 

He shakes his head faintly. 

Surely that’s not true. 

“I’m not always here to do that.”

“Yes, you are.”

He lets out a quiet scoff, looking away.

“Yeah, right.”

You tug his face again until he looks back at you.

“When you’re out there,” you say softly, “saving the world every day… you’re taking care of me.”

He goes still, trying to understand what you’re getting at. 

“You make it safer for me to live here,” you continue, voice warm, smile returning. “For me to walk home. For me to sleep. For me to sit here and wait for you without being scared.”

“You think that doesn’t count?” you whisper.

He swallows hard, not quite knowing what to say, your words settling somewhere in his chest where all the doubts usually lived. He’s waiting for a sign that you’re being dishonest, or being just the right amount of honest to spare his feelings. But there isn’t any.

You just keep looking at him the same way you always do—like none of this is really that complicated at all. Like loving him is the most obvious thing in the world to you.

“…You really mean that?” though it’s more statement than question.

You smile, thumb still brushing along his cheek.

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.”

He huffs out an almost a laugh, shaking his head as his eyes drop for a second.

“Honey…” he mutters, now embarrassed. “You always know the right thing to say, don’t you?”

Always know how to keep him steady. 

You grin.

“Well, someone’s gotta look after the city’s Superman.” 

He snorts softly at that, finally looking back at you, and there it is—that stupid, boyish smile he always gets when you call him that.

“I just…,” he says, rambling now, words coming easier now that he’s started. “Feels like I should be doing more.”

You shake your head immediately.

“I don’t want somebody else,” you say simply. “You’re the one I want. Even when you show up through the window instead of the door.”

That makes him laugh, a real one this time, head tipping forward as he presses his forehead against yours.

“Hey, that only happened twice.” 

“Three,” you correct.

“…Okay, three.”

He sighs, eyes closing. He opens them, about to say something else when—

Your stomach growls.

He feels your heart beat speed up as you groan, immediately hiding your face in his shoulder. 

“Oh my god.”

Clark stares at you, then lets out the softest, most offended little gasp.

“Well we can’t have that,” he says, like this is suddenly the most serious problem in the world.

You laugh into his chest.

“I’m fine.”

“Nope. Not happening.” He shakes his head firmly, already sliding one arm under your knees. “Absolutely not. I just gave you a whole speech about taking care of you, I can’t let you starve five minutes later.”

Before you can protest, he lifts you clean off the bed, settling you against his chest.

You let out a surprised laugh, grabbing his shoulders.

“Hey!”

“What?” he says, grinning, already heading toward the door. “Doctor’s orders. You need food.”

“I’m not a patient!”

“You are when you don’t eat.”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling, arms sliding around his neck as he carries you out of the bedroom.

Halfway down the hall you tilt your head at him.

“…Do I have time for a shower before dinner?”

He stops instantly.

“Of course you do,” he says. “You just say the word, I got all night.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“All night, huh?”

He grins, a little crooked, a little bashful.

You snort, and he laughs under his breath as he pushes the bathroom door open. He sets you down gently on your feet, hands lingering at your waist.

“You alright?” he asks softly.

You nod.

He leans in automatically, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek. Then another to your jaw. Then one to the corner of your mouth.

“Clark,” you laugh, pushing at his chest. “Go. I need to shower.”

“Right, right,” he says, but he’s still smiling. 

He backs toward the door, hands up in surrender.

You point at him.

“Out.”

“Yes ma’am.”

He slips out into the hall, closing the door behind him, staring at the wood like an idiot. 

You really love him.

I mean, he knew that, but the reassurance had eradicated any doubt he held in his chest. He rubs a hand over his face, shaking his head to himself as he walks back toward the kitchen.

He flicked the stove back on, checking the sauce he made earlier, giving it a slow stir.

Still good.

He smiles to himself, leaning one hip against the counter as the warmth fills the room again.

From down the hall, he can hear the shower start. A second later, soft humming.

He turns the tap on, filling a pot with water for the pasta, setting it on the stove, still listening to that faint little tune drifting down the hall.

Tonight was good. Better than good.

And as the water starts to heat, he finds himself smiling at absolutely nothing, already thinking about what else he can do.

Maybe garlic bread. You like the garlic bread. Maybe dessert if he can find something sweet in the cupboard. 

He shakes his head, chuckling quietly to himself.

He needs to slow down. Step one: feed his girl. 

He glances toward the hallway again when your humming gets a little louder, warmth settling right behind his ribs.

Yeah.

He thinks he can do that.

a/n: first clark fic wooo!

but no, i know im late but i immediately knew i had to write for him after seeing the movie. please let me know what you think, i havent written in months so i still feel im suuuper rusty

A full year without fresh crops, without safety and balance. A few families already left the villages, taking a risk in wandering far away in search of better conditions. If change didn’t come this spring, it would be the end for most of you. 

So you wrapped the worn-out pelt around yourself and shuffled across the frost-covered fields and up the hill. At this time of year it used to be already covered in patches of crocuses and snowdrops. It remained a dark, lifeless peak. 

The basket in your hand wasn’t heavy, since you didn’t have much to give. You didn’t fool yourself thinking that your pitiful begging would be any better than that of the anointed zhrets, but you felt desperate. 

Maybe if the sacrifices and prayers came not only from the delegate of the village, but from every person separately, the number of voices calling out to the gods would catch their attention. 

At the top of the hill a circle of stones, with runes painted on them, wrapped around three vertical slates of stone. 

Pristine white, with a single crack that shimmered gold - for the god of sun and fire. 

A grey one, with strokes of blueish and white - for the god of air and rain. 

Reddish overgrown with moss - for the god of earth and fertility. 

Dark spots still marred the bottom of the stones from where the blood sacrifice was spilled. No other marks of worship were left, though in the past it wasn’t uncommon to find bouquets, sweet buns, or nuts placed at the gods’ altars. 

Especially on the spring equinox.

It was the moment when winter was supposed to recede, so the new life could begin. Celebrated with happiness, food and laughter. But people were too hungry, too angry, to bother with customs. They didn’t even have the plants to make bouquets with. Last of the nuts were saved for the kids to munch on. 

With hands trembling from the cold, you placed the basket on the ground and knelt down. Slowly, you took out your modest offerings. Since your garden was barren, you weaved bouquets of what you could gather. 

Anise stars tied to thin twigs with a thread and clumsily painted yellow to resemble marigolds. All tied together with a red ribbon, which you ripped off the hemline of your best dress. For the god of sun and fire. 

For the god of air and rain: bird feathers stuck in a chipped, glass vial in which, once upon a time, your mother had perfumed water that your father bought from a southern merchant as a gift for giving birth to you.  

Last living sprigs of raspberry bush that grew in your garden and a handful of mistletoe. A drop of your blood sank into the strap of linen with which you tied them, from prickling yourself on the raspberry’s thorn. For the god of earth and fertility. 

Perhaps they looked laughable. Perhaps, as some of the people whispered in bitterness, the gods didn’t care for offerings like that and were laughing at your misery. If they even paid attention to the region they decided to decimate. But it was all you got. Along with your determination to try. 

You placed each bouquet on the ground, holding each for a few seconds in place in case the wind decided to swipe them right away. 

“But wouldn’t that be the sign from the god of air that he finds the offerings disrespectful?” You muttered to yourself as your fingertips sank in the harsh frost coating the ground.

The wind didn’t strengthen. In fact, the air felt warmer and lighter as you knelt there at the altar. Considering it was the top of the hill, with no trees surrounding the clearing to form a shield, the gods had to keep the place in some protection. 

A swipe of warmth enveloped your fingers and for a fleeting moment you considered staying there on your knees, prostrated on the ground, just to soak up the warmth and lack of wind; and less to pray to the gods. 

“Nah, Curtis can be a cold bastard, but he wouldn’t diminish such a cute offering.”

An unexpected voice made your head snap up. It was masculine, low, but somehow light and pleasant. And as your gaze settled on its source you found yourself blinking away what had to surely be a mesmer. 

It was a man. Unlike any you ever saw. Tall and broad. All golden skin that seemed to shine from within. He was bare-chested, his lower half clad in pristine white, linen pants. Across his pectorals, as well trailing down from his navel, thick thatch of dark blonde hair curled in soft temptation. His beard had all shades of gold. His eyes were a sparkling blue, vibrant and enticing like a summer sky. 

Even if you convinced yourself a human male could be as reckless as walking around half-naked when it was freezing cold, the tendrils of flames licking his skin betrayed him as something beyond human. 

Your eyes widened, mouth parting in silent astonishment. 

Were you so starved and cold that your mind created illusions? Was it an edge of death when you witnessed a god take you over to the fields of the underworld?

But wouldn’t that be a god of night and death then, who comes for you? You didn’t think he’d look so radiant and carefree, so much like the sun and fire personified. 

“It’s a genuine offering, I never scoff at those.” Sounded another voice, somewhere from behind you. “It’s the reckless spill of resources that annoys me.” 

Still on your knees, you turned. So fast you lost balance and landed on your butt. Your gaze traveled up from his bare feet, up long legs and thick thighs that strained the dark fabric of his pants, and over the wide chest marred with scars. 

His skin was paler, appearing colder, yet had something refreshing to it that called out to lick and taste if it would provide a fresh sip of a spring rain. His beard was trimmed; dark, with spots of grey. His hair was cropped short, close to the scalp. The blue of his eyes was an ongoing storm - changing from light blue to inky darkness, flashes of lightning cutting the irises. 

Everything in you screamed in terrified recognition. No one ever saw the gods. Not even zhrets who was the direct line to them, though he claimed that sometimes they came to him in his dreams. But with every fiber of your being you felt the crushing power surrounding you, as well fascination stronger than any desire you experienced before, and you knew who they were. 

As quickly as you could, you rolled onto your front and pressed your hands and face to the ground.

“My gods! I apologize for daring to look at you!” You expressed. 

“If we didn’t want you seeing us, we wouldn’t show ourselves to you.” A third voice resounded somewhere to your left. Deep and soft. 

“Sit up and look at us, Swallow.”

Comparing you to a small, nimble bird associated with incoming spring evoked a flash of heated shyness. It was almost sweet. A pet name. No man has ever referred to you using one. 

Gulping nervously, you slowly lifted your upper body. Your gaze traced the ground which was covered in frost when you first stepped onto the hill, but now bared the inner softness of soil readying itself for first seeding. It landed at the feet of the third god, and cautiously moved upward.

He wore pelts, like hunters often did. Sculpted hip lines low on his abdomen disappeared beneath the fabric in a shape of V, arrowing your attention to the bulging curve beneath tight leather. His waist was narrow, especially compared to how wide his shoulders were. Each muscle of his abdomen and biceps appeared carved by a sculptor. He could carry the whole world on his shoulders, you thought. 

He was sitting atop the stone altar in his name, so his face was closer to your line of vision. You noticed speckles of green in the blue of his eyes. His curved eyelashes seemed tipped with green, as well. 

“It’s been a while since anyone gave us thoughtful, sweet offerings.” He smiled at you and something bloomed within your chest; like the joy at the sight of the first flowers in your garden. 

“They’re nothing,” you whispered, feeling embarrassed that the gods themselves looked at the pitiful bouquets you made. 

“Most certainly not.” The god of sun stepped closer to your right. 

Warm fingers curled beneath your chin, turning your face to him. When you looked up at him it felt as if the sun was caressing your cheeks, even though you didn’t have to squint your eyes to stand it. 

Gently, he urged you to stand up. A big hand slid beneath the pelts wrapped around you, resting on your waist. Where he touched you, your skin tingled with sunkissed heat that chased away all the cold you suffered for months. 

If only for that comforting, warm feeling, you were ready to die at the hands of the gods.

“You’re most honest and precious,” he said softly, tracing his fingers up from your chin and over your cheek, “a most valuable offering.” 

“I-” your eyes couldn’t shift away from the brilliant blue of his eyes, even as a gasp ripped from your chest when another set of hands slithered beneath your cloak and pulled it off of you in an unrushed but swift move. 

A tickle of air teased the shell of your ear. Both ears. At the same time. The same ghost of breath evoked goosebumps across your chest. 

“We’ll be good to you, Swallow.” Curtis rumbled softly, his hands squeezing your hips as he pressed his chest to your back. 

When his lips pressed to the hollow where neck curved into shoulder, it felt like a splash of summer drizzle. Slightly cool, but refreshing rather than freezing. Paired with the sunlit warmth wrapping around you, it brought the sense of awakening after a year of hanging in dark limbo.

“We promise, don’t we Ari?” A chuckle tickled your skin, rushing your pulse into a wicked response. 

“So good.” The god of sun and fire - Ari - confirmed with a wicked grin. “Over and over and over again.” 

He dipped his head, lips nearing yours. His body inched closer, too. His heat at your front combined with the excitingly thunderous presence of the other god at your back made your head spin. 

You weren’t naive to not realize what they wanted. They didn’t just imply, they acted on it right away. Honest and direct in their approach. A grip of fear clenched around your heart. Partly of them, because you had no idea if a mortal woman could survive being taken by a god. By three! But also because - just like your material offerings - you weren’t sure if you’d be a satisfying lover. What if you disappointed them and thus angered them further? 

“I just- I have never-” you blurted out, eyes closing at the shiver of pleasure as a warm hand brushed under the swell of your breast.

Ari paused, sunlit sky encapsulated in his eyes staring back at you. Then he bowed his head with a groan, as if in defeat. 

Curtis’ chuckle seeped beneath the collar of your shift. He didn’t pause in his ministrations, working his hands at your sides to release the bindings of your outer layer.  

“I’m sorry. Is it bad that I’m, um, inexperienced?” Regret that you felt had less to do with potential repercussions for the crops and more with the prospect of not being touched by them anymore. 

“No, Swallow.” From the side, the god of earth sounded amused. “Ari’s just disappointed that he has to wait his turn. You’re a virgin. That means your first breaking belongs to me.” 

“Oh!” You turned your head to the side, eyes wide in surprise at the revelation. 

The god of earth and fertility was sitting there calmly, watching you caged between the other gods. He didn’t rush to rip your clothes off and ravage you, to take what was supposedly his by some incomprehensible laws. Yet the hunger in his eyes was prominent. 

A dark glint of a predator that has already picked his prey and knew it wouldn’t stand a chance fleeing from him. 

The swirl of heat low in your abdomen suggested you wouldn’t want to run away from his claim.

A hand gripped your chin, turning you to face the god of sun again. 

“Steve’s a lucky bastard like that, but I get to have the first taste.” Ari grinned. Then surged forward. 

Heat erupted in your veins as his mouth took yours. He didn’t kiss you like a first time lover might their shy partner, but a man who owned you. You had no doubt that was exactly the passion you occasionally dreamed about. Better even. 

There was no particular taste to Ari’s lips, but still it reminded you of ripest strawberries, sunkissed earth, honey, and burning wood. 

Ari licked between your lips, opening your mouth to plunge deeper. One hand on your cheek moved to grip the back of your head, while the other tugged your loosened dress down. Curtis’ hands were helping along, or rather leading the undressing part in which Ari marginally helped. 

Then all of your clothes were gone. Instead of cold biting into your skin, you were surrounded by warmth and the softest breeze. Two pairs of hands moved over your naked body, exploring and memorising. Unfamiliar touch that roused your body, yet made it shiver with thrill of unknown and anticipation. 

A strong hand gripped your thigh and pulled it to the side, making you spread your legs wider. Soft, tickling blow of wind brushed your inner thighs then licked along the juncture of your thighs. A gasp escaped your lips, your hips rocking against the invisible touch. 

At the same time, strokes of heat swiped down your chest and kissed the swell of your breasts. Right after that sensation, Ari’s mouth trailed down your neck and lower, toward one of puckered nipples. 

“Such a pretty, delicious offering.” Steve hummed in appreciation. 

Somehow, the fact he was watching you being ravaged - being prepared for him - made you moan louder. Your core fluttered, wetness pearling between your thighs. 

“You’re going to be so good to us, won’t you?” 

Though hands and mouths were distracting, you still felt the very soft tickling beneath and around your feet. With your eyes half-closed and head thrown back, resting on Curtis’ shoulder, you didn’t see the grass sprouting nor the bloom of tiny flowers around you. A soft cushion on which you were going to be splayed. 

“Yesss,” you gasped as Ari sucked harder on your nipple.

“Good girl.” Steve’s praise washed over you in a ripple that dripped more welcome where Curtis’ fingers were inching closer. 

Suddenly you were falling backwards. Steady hands eased you onto the green carpet of grass these lands haven’t seen for years. Your back barely met the ground when Curtis’ lips were stealing your breath. Your little cry of surprise at the brush of Ari’s breath on your pussy  was swallowed by Curtis. 

Your toes curled, calves tensing, yet your legs eagerly spread wider for the god that settled between them. Your fingers clawed at the fresh grass before you couldn’t stop yourself anymore and reached your arms to touch Curtis. 

His tongue teased yours just as Ari’s made the first lick between your folds. 

It was overwhelming, and scary in a way, and you wanted more more more of it. 

Ari’s fingers were digging into your thighs as he feasted on your pussy, Curtis kept cupping and kneading your breast, all the while kissing your breath away. 

You let out a whimper when Curtis pulled away for a moment. Then the air was truly constricting in your chest, your heart pounding with a new kind of fear, as you saw him undo his pants and take out his cock. 

He knelt beside you, fingers gently combing through your hair but taking a firm grip at the roots. With his other hand, he stroked his dick. It wasn’t his own fist over it, but the sight of your widened eyes and sweet, glistening mouth that made him so hard. 

Then Ari sucked on your clit and thrust a single finger into your tight hole, and your face reflected an even more beautiful ruin. 

Your lips parted wide to let out a cry and Curtis surged forward.

He pushed his cock between your lips, pressing its velvety weight down on your tongue. He groaned in pleasure when your muffled sounds vibrated along his length and your tongue desperately wiggled beneath it. 

“You can take it, Swallow,” he looked down at you. “Breathe through your nose and suck on me. Hollow your cheeks. That’s it, you’re doing so good.”

You tried to follow instinct and Curtis instructions, even if your throat constricted and saliva pooled into your mouth when he pushed forward. He fucked your mouth in a steady, merciful rhythm, watching you the whole time as if it brought him more pleasure than your mouth enveloping his cock. 

But it became harder to focus on that when your body was tensing and shivering from the sensations stirred by Ari’s mouth. He switched from sucking to licking again, then back to sucking. One, thick finger inside of you pumping faster and faster. 

You’ve never- 

The thought didn’t manage to form fully before your brain switched off. 

Eyes rolled to the back of your head, your whole body cinched in pleasure so hard it was almost painful. 

Your moans reverberated along Curtis’ cock, and he pushed in deeper to feel your throat constrict. More wetness spilled out with each spasm of your pussy, coating Ari’s finger and beard as he kept slowly pumping into you. 

“Pull out of her for the next one,” Ari grunted, lifting his head from between your legs, “I want to hear her screams.” 

You didn’t register there was mention of another orgasm, you were too floaty. A state all too soon pierced by intensity as a second finger was added to the one already stretching you and the cock in your mouth forced to the back of your throat.

They sped up; your untried body unable to catch up with the ferociousness. Curtis held your head in place as he fucked your face, drool seeping past the corners of your mouth and trickling down your chin. Ari’s fingers crooked, pressing against a spot that burst the heart of the sun beneath your eyelids. 

Strings of saliva stuck in pearly strings between your chin and Curtis’ balls which hit your chin with each thrust. Then, suddenly, he was pushing deep and stilling with a loud grunt. Salty warmth filled your mouth, your throat barely able to swallow all of it. 

A god has cum down your throat. The thought was so surreal, the taste of him somehow sating and refreshing, that your body ignited into another climax. 

Curtis pulled out, dragging his cock along your sticky chin. Your shiny lips remained open, the tip of your tongue flicking out to chase him. It took a heartbeat for your vocal chords to reclaim their ability, and a string of cries growing in volume followed. 

Ari was mercilessly pressing on that spot, his tongue lashed your sensitive nub and you felt your walls tightening. Then his lips closed around your clit, sucking hard. You gave him the scream he wished to hear. Along with a flood of wetness staining his beard. 

“Just like I thought,” his raspy voice rumbled through the cloudy buzzing in your head, “delicious.” 

“I want a taste.” Curtis grumbled. 

Your body laid boneless, tingling and heavy in the most pleasant way. Not fully controlling your movements, your head rolled to the side and you blinked away the blurry lightness. Steve’s eyes were burning into you, so bright with vibrancy yet dark with primal intent. 

The sight of him got obscured when Ari straddled your chest. His massive thighs bracketed your shoulders, but he kept most of his weight off your ribcage. The girth of his cock right in front of your face made you gulp. Just as he tapped the crown against your wet chin, Curtis’ groan vibrated right against your drippy pussy. 

He was harsher than Ari, but not brutal. The way he mouthed on you made it feel as if he was thirsty for your flavor as the source of his pleasure, rather than turning into a sexual torment for you. Curtis didn’t shy from licking and nibbling all over, chasing every creamy drop - even if it slithered down to your asshole. 

Above you, Ari fisted his cock and tapped it against your lips. He put it between them for a moment then withdrew again. Until your own tongue started peeking out and eagerly chasing his cock. 

“Ask him for it.” Steve’s voice lowered to a growl. And it sounded much nearer than before. 

But you didn’t twist to seek his presence, your focus on the god of sun and the beautiful dick he was keeping away from you.

“Please,” you obeyed instantly. “Please, Ari, feed me your cock. Let me suck it.” 

“Fuck, you beg so prettily.” Ari groaned. “So prettily I don’t even care if it’s because you’re so hungry for my cock, or because you’re such an obedient, good girl for Steve.” 

“Nghh- both!” You whined, stretching your neck to bring your lips closer to Ari’s length.

He chuckled, his gorgeous face turning more radiant and glowy as a grin stretched his mouth. Finally, he eased the tip into your mouth. Eyes fluttering close as you hollowed your cheeks and sucked. His hips rocked forward, helping you swallow more of him where you couldn’t bob your head further. 

He let it slip out when another orgasm shook your body; your wet moans tickling his throbbing cock. Curtis’ tongue drove into your clenching hole, lapping and prolonging the aftershocks in the gentlest way he was capable of. 

Ari wrapped his fingers around his dick. He nudged the head against your bottom lip. You opened wider, tongue out and flat. He stroked himself faster. When he spilled, you tried swallowing without closing your mouth, so he saw it go down your throat. 

“So innocent, yet knows how to please a god,” Ari hummed softly. “You know why you’re so good for us and why your offering lured us?” He touched your cheek tenderly. “Because it’s not about performance but about eagerness and trust.”

When Ari stood up, your gaze fell to Curtis who was kneeling between your spread thighs. He wore the shine of your click on his beard like a warrior might the symbols of victory. 

“He speaks the truth.” Curtis squeezed your thighs. “Despite what your lands went through, you still came here with trust and thoughtful gifts.”

Your chest seemed to expand with exquisite lightness. For the first time since your parents death, you felt seen and appreciated for who you were. 

“Let us reward you, Swallow.” Steve stepped into your line of vision, towering over your splayed form. 

Curtis stood up and moved to the side as the god of earth filled the space between your legs. Holding your gaze, he undressed. It was both a signal for what was about to happen and a show just for you. A god disrobing for a mere human. 

Your pussy was already oversensitive and pulsing from the previous orgasms, yet it clenched in anticipation when Steve’s cock sprung free against his belly. 

When he knelt down between your thighs you wanted to close them out of instinct, but without a single word from Steve you kept yourself open. Heat scorched your face in shyness and embarrassment as his gaze slowly traveled the whole length of your soft body, down to your puffy, glistening folds. 

“So pretty,” he cooed, placing both palms on the junctures of your thighs and spreading your folds with his thumbs. “So wet and ready.”

Your hips bucked up, a tiny moan bubbling on your lips as he circled your clit. 

“So ready for the taking,” Steve chuckled at your body’s eager response. 

He gripped your hips tighter and yanked you toward him. Your legs went over his thighs, your butt resting right against him, and his cock slid between your pussy lips. 

“Do you want to watch, Swallow?” Steve’s voice held an undertone of teasing, but there was undeniable need in it, too. “Do you want to watch your virgin cunt take a cock for the very first time? Want to watch it disappear inside you?” 

Your pupils were blown so wide that black seemed to swallow all the color of your irises. Your breath quickened as you stared at the beautiful god and his dirty words sank into your consciousness. 

“Or-” he used a hand to guide the head of his cock right against your entrance- “do you want to just feel how your pussy stretches around a god’s dick?” 

You couldn’t decide. You couldn’t make a single coherent thought. Your gaze was trapped in those blue eyes, in the green and gold speckles in them. All awareness narrowed down to the burning pleasure that stung as he slowly filled you. 

It was a stretch. Gods, it was a stretch! 

Not hurtful beyond what you could take, but more than the two fingers Ari had inside you. You panted, clawing at the grass, as the arousal grew with every breaching inch. It was too much, yet you didn’t want it to stop. Didn’t want it to pause before you felt full right to your womb. 

Steve’s gaze remained on your face, but yours finally snapped away to stare at where his pelvis pressed between your splayed thighs. Where his big cock was disappearing between your puffy folds. 

“Oh!” Your brain suddenly connected all the sensations, immediately seizing from the overwhelming intensity of it. 

You dropped down, head thrown back as you let out a string of cries at the fulness. It wasn’t pain. You didn’t even think there was any virginal blood some said to appear during the first coupling. It was pleasure and pure insanity. 

“That’s it, Swallow. You’re taking me so well.” Steve praised. “You’re going to take all of it so well.” 

When it felt as if you would burst at the seams, he stilled. Bottomed out. He held you there, rubbing his thumbs up and down the creases where your abdomen met your thigh. When he withdrew a little, you mewled an objection. Only to welcome his surge forward with a lewd moan. 

“Fuck! It’s like she was made to take it.” You weren’t sure which god said that, but you wanted to nod along - yes, yes you were and you wanted more, now, please, more more.

You didn’t voice it out loud, yet it seemed Steve had heard you. Or maybe he read your mind, because a heartbeat later he snapped his hips forward. Wet readiness welcomed each thrust, accompanied by your moans and gasps. 

At some point it stopped being enough for both of you, the deep gentleness and a stretched-out display of conquest. Steve’s grip tightened. He yanked your body harder, fucking into you faster. Rougher. 

When your body arched in a shot of abrupt climax, your walls clenching around him in eager worship, Steve cursed aloud. Then he dropped forward, crushing your body to the ground with his weight. But it felt so good, hot and safe and dominating. He fucked you more savagely now, kissing you as hungrily and groaning his pleasure against your lips. 

You had your legs wrapped tightly around his hips, desperate to keep him inside of you as long as possible. Your sweaty palms mapped the wide span of Steve’s back, ecstatic at every ripple of muscle as he moved above you. 

The constant pleasure was addictive, sating in a way that you didn’t need another spike of climax to feel blissed out. 

But it came. A second after Steve drove into you with a rough thrust and stilled with a deep groan. His cum flooded your belly, bringing with it a new kind of heat. Your toes curled, your core throbbed, and you succumbed to waves of ecstasy. 

“Breathe, Swallow.” Steve’s eyes twinkled as he pushed up a while later. “Can’t have you falling unconscious when we’ve barely begun.” 

He chuckled at you when you just stared back, still panting and a little out of it. His fingers drummed down your body, until settling right atop your tingling clit. Then he pressed, starting slow, tight circles. 

Your pussy clenched in response. A trickle of white cum slipping out and down the curve of your ass. 

“Spring equinox lasts until night takes over. Besides, you take cock and cum so well, it would be rude to not give more of it to you.” He gripped one of your knees when your legs moved to close. “Ari and Curtis await their turn. It’s only fair. And I want you again already, too.” 

It’s not that you didn’t want it. You felt drunk on the new world of sensations they showed you. But it felt too much. You didn’t think you’d be able to take it. 

Soft coos, praises, and seductive coercion kept you compliant. 

With just a little whimper you let Ari rest your calves on his shoulders and push his thick cock into your sore cunt. He folded you almost in half, surging deep with each thrust. 

Curtis rolled you onto your front. Then helped you up onto your hands and knees. When he filled you from behind, your elbows nearly gave out and toppled you face first into the ground. But a hand gripping a fistful of your hair held you up. 

Your mouth was in the perfect position to fill it with cock, an opportunity Steve didn’t miss. 

From then it turned into a dizzying blur of wicked, filthy pleasure. Your body felt exhausted, yet responded to every touch, every kiss, every bite. Your muscles turned into cotton, but the gods didn’t need them functioning to manhandle you into any position they wanted. 

Their cum was dripping out of you. Your thighs were sticky with your own juices and their spend. When one was done filling you, another cock slid inside right after. Your mouth and hands were used in intervals. Sometimes a thumb was pressed into your tightest hole. A shower of praises and dirty words messed with your mind and enchanted your body, keeping your arousal at boiling point. 

They were still taking you when the dusk settled in. Your was voice raspy and choked from all the sounds they ripped from you, but you still made those tiny whimpers as Steve fucked you prone bone, with your cheek pressed to the grass. 

It was the feeling of his cock throbbing inside you, warm cum adding to the mess filling your belly, that your eyes closed and consciousness left you. 

When you stirred from deep sleep your body was sore and tired all over, but a sense of rest and comfort made it into a satisfying kind of exhaustion. You turned and stretched, suddenly freezing as an unusual sense of toasty warmth and softness registered. You blinked your eyes open. 

You were back in your small cottage. But the pillows you rested on weren’t filled with hay. No, they were fluffier, softer. As you groped the one right under your head, you felt the lightness of feathers filling the cotton pillowcase. On top of you, two new layers of pelts provided warmth. Buttery soft and trimmed with fur. 

A crackling sound from the side shifted your attention to the hearth. Where fire was dancing contained, spreading warmth through the house. 

Shock boosted your movements as you sat up right away, throwing away the covers and planting your bare feet on the wooden floor. The boards creaked as you stood up. Your muscles protested, still carrying exhaustion from what clearly wasn’t a fever dream.

It couldn’t be. Not when you still felt them.  

Slight throbbing in your sore core reminded you of the debauchery. A thought that you should look more of a sticky ruin came to you. But your body was clean. Not only void of any remnants of cum, but freshened up in a luxurious way. 

The gods had to clean you, you realized. It stirred warmth and joy in your chest. 

They could’ve just fucked you and leave you there on the hill, not care for what happened with you after they were done. Instead, they cared for you; washed you and brought you home. 

Moreover, they started the fire in the hearth. Well, considering one of them was a god of fire it probably wasn’t a hardship. 

You plopped down on the bed. As you did, your eyes fell onto a stool placed next to your bed. It didn’t stand here before, someone had to move it from the other side of the room. On it was a tin cup filled with fresh water, and a jar in which a bouquet of brightly colored wildflowers bloomed proudly. 

A smile curved your lips, your heart fluttering like a swallow swaying in the sky. It’s been so long since you felt happiness. The gods may have used you, but they gave you back the sense of joy and safety. 

In weeks after the equinox nature returned to the right course. Frost receded, allowing the soil to soften and accept seeds. Plants sprouted buds and flowers bloomed. Rain clouds disappeared from the sky. The sun caressed the earth and people turned their faces toward the sky to soak up the warmth they’ve been deprived of. 

You looked up at it, too. Always with a smile in the corners of your lips. 

That smile was present when you worked in your garden, digging your fingers into the soil and touching the plants. 

If it rained, you would slip outside to let the drops cascade over your face and hands, smiling at the sensation, as well. 

You never spoke of the equinox and your encounter with the three gods to anyone. Not even when people patted the sheets and thanked him for the sacrificial ceremony he performed, which in their eyes bought the gods’ mercy and brought back spring. 

No one knew that the fire in your hearth never died out. You brought logs just to appear you needed it, but the fire simply continued without using up wood. Warmth never ceased. The flowers in the vase remained alive and you doubted it was because you changed water frequently. 

Plants in your garden grew a little faster. When it rained, soil soaked it up, but didn’t form heavy mud in which you’d get stuck and dirty. 

You would never reveal your secret. Not only in fear of people’s reaction. You just wanted to keep it as your private treasure. Your own source of happiness to remember and smile about as you settled into bed in the evening.

But you would have to come up with something. Soon. 

Because your monthly blood has been gone for three cycles now.

Placing your hand on the slight curve of your belly became a habit as you cooked something over the hearth, or looked at the flowers. You tried controlling yourself when you were outside, to not draw the curious attention of a few gossipy hens in the settlement. 

You were stirring soup, thinking up some ridiculous story about a hunter you passed in the woods when looking for nuts, who made you swoon but then left you - that bastard! - when you sensed a particular change in the air.

Somehow, you knew one of the gods was here. 

You licked your lips before slowly turning around. By the open window that looked right onto your thriving garden stood Steve. Relaxed in his posture, he watched you with easy affection. 

“Hi.” You squeaked out.

Your face heated up with embarrassment, but you had no idea how you were supposed to greet a god. A god who took your virginity and participated in a carnal ruin of your body. Who also showed you care and protection. 

“Hello, Swallow.” Steve smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. 

He moved towards you, taking steady, unrushed steps. Nothing changed about him. He was still tall and impressively built. Solid comfort and lively energy pulsed from him, tempting you to simply lean against him and feel like you belonged. 

Steve traced your cheek with the back of his hand, which then slid down your side. When he splayed it over your belly your breath hitched in your chest.

“Hello, tiny chick.” His gaze flicked down for a moment, before returning to your face. 

“How do you know?” You asked.

Steve tilted his head to the side slightly, giving you a pointed look. Right. God of fertility.

“Is it a general godly power, or is it because you’re the god of fertility?” You weren’t certain yet if your nervousness increased because of his presence, or because you feared what he might make of your state. 

“It’s mine.” He replied, moving both of his hands to hold your waist and pull you a little closer to him. 

Heart paused in your chest then restarted with a wild flutter. Your own hands rested on Steve’s chest, and the god made no indication of displeasure at the contact. 

“You mean the power is yours, or-”

“Both.” He said with certainty, pulling you so close that your belly touched his. 

You were about to ask how he could be sure of that - after all, two other gods filled you aplenty that day - but you remembered who Steve was. Though it made you a little curious if he would have to not fuck you at all to give the other gods a chance to breed you.

“Are you going to take away my baby?” Your gaze dropped down as you asked him, fear clutching at your throat. 

While you were anxious how the community would take your pregnancy out of wedlock (out of any relationship), you didn’t even consider not having that baby. Maybe it wasn't the creation of love, but still came from a day full of intimacy and happiness. It wasn’t a regret. 

A frown marred Steve’s forehead, eyes narrowing as he looked at you in confusion. After a moment his face cleared into understanding. Your heart would call it affection, even. 

“No, pretty Swallow.” He smiled. “I’m taking you both home.” 

“What?” You stared up at him, not sure if you heard him right.  

“You’re growing a little god. Even the most supportive community won’t be able to care for you, or help you enough when he grows into his powers.” Steve explained calmly. 

“Besides-” corner of his mouth curved in a cheeky smirk- “I wouldn’t miss the opportunity of watching you grow with my child. Or filling you more.”

Somehow you knew Steve wouldn’t hurt or punish you in any way if you protested, though you weren’t certain he would honor your refusal. He was a god, he got what he wanted at all times. However, his words pulled on a string of longing that stretched from your ribcage ever since you lost your parents. 

Steve said he wanted to take you home. Not to his domain, but a place where you could belong and build a connection with someone who would care for you and for your child. 

The prospect of spending nights in the arms of the god wasn’t repulsive either. 

“Will I survive it?” You asked quietly. 

The question was loaded with layers of worries; from the basic wariness about human carrying a god in her womb, to potential heartbreak if Steve discarded you after a while. 

“No harm, no sadness, no cold will ever reach you again.” He vowed. “You will grow children and gardens. And mercy in gods’ cynical hearts.” 

Tears stung beneath your eyelids. You curled into his embrace, wrapping your arms around him and pressing your face into his chest. A single tear slid down your cheek as you felt Steve press a kiss to the crown of your head. 

A smell of moss and sun-warmed earth filled the air. Beneath you the floorboards creaked and dissolved. On your next blink your surroundings were completely different. No longer the walls of your cottage, no view at the small garden, no sounds of the chickens clucking. 

clark had begun to lean into the slowness of being home, with a baby in his care now. he thinks, there's probably no greater reward than being a father.

but he'd have to admit, he missed being a husband. your husband. he thinks about how you looked earlier this evening, with your baby girl strapped to your chest.

makeup all done, with that pretty, mauve-y flush to your cheeks. work was mostly corporate, and this time you splayed a glittery sheer gloss over your lips — ones he'd very much like to kiss.

clark swallowed all those compliments down, and bid you a good night with a simple exchange. he thinks of you when he puts the baby down in the crib, cheeks rested on the hand-carved wood.

there was no chance for clark's genes to have come through in his little pride and joy's teeny features. in every way that mattered, clark wishes you were next to him now, admiring the child you brought to life.

he wished you were still his to call. but now you lived apart, and he couldn't bear to think of the papers that sat on his study to signify the end of your union together.

"guess mum's all out havin' fun huh?"

the galaxy toys above the bassinet twinkles softly, as he nudges his knuckles to the apples of the baby's cheeks, "look jus' like her…i'll be damned."

clark shifts, expression suddenly all serious as he whispers, "tell her not to replace me, could you? yeah?"

the corner of his lips rise when those little fingers sleepily curl around his knuckles, "mm. you're gonna grow up t'be daddy's girl. yeah you are."

bzzt!

he lifts his head at the noise he picks up from a distance. focusing his eyes to isolate the surroundings before zoning in on his device in the living room.

a call this late in the night? it could've only been you.

lavender curtains were nearly blown off the metal bar at the speed of clark's arrival, barely steadying himself by the couches, the call is picked up in less than a minute of its ring.

"hey. everything okay?" his hearts racing far too quickly, worried and conflicted, when a burst of giggles is heard on the other end.

"ooooohhhhh ya picked up! thas' a….whewwwww."

he frowns instantly at the audible slur to your voice, "of course i would've. are you okay?"

"f'course! very, super fantasticall-ally aaaaalright."

"you don't sound alright. where are you?"

"mmmmm i thinks about twenty steps north-east down korea-town. bubers like forty bucks so i thought WOW walkin's free so i'm walkin' to me apartment." you snort to yourself amused, "buber. haha. i means uber. spuper expensive."

clark takes your name in a stern tone, "listen to me. stay where you are. don't move."

"huh??"

there's nothing but the sound of intense wind, if that even was a sound after his reminder. "the heck! he hungup on me!" you twirl around, staggering right into the arms of a confused bouncer, from the club right next door. "sir, lookit. he hung up on me! what a doochbag. amirite? like sure i'm the ex an' he moved to a freakin' stable out back in buttcrack NOWHERE feeding cows carrots or whatever but still he could at least —…oh heeeeeeeeyyyy!"

"i'm so sorry about this," an extremely breathless clark's quickly prying you off the arms of the stranger, where the shorter man reluctantly hands you over.

"hold up. ma'am, do you know this…person?"

while clark was greatful at the man's sternness and hesitance on doing so, he's suddenly very aware of the fact that all he has on was a milk-stained shirt and fuzzy cartoon animal printed sweats.

"uh, oh gosh, she's my wife, i swear —" you're quick to hook your arms around clark's bicep, then guffaw, "yeeeeeps i'm his husband n' he's me wife."

he stares at the bouncer, tight-lipped when he deadpans, "…i'll take it from here. thank you."

clark doesn't immediately chide you, simply prying you off him to hold you in place, seemingly taking a quick scan of you before exhaling in relief. "need you to put your arms around me, okay? here."

"why??? where we goin'?"

you take his hand with a dazed, dopey expression, letting him scoop you up against his chest, "home. take this."

the circular device is plopped to your abdomen, and even though you register it a little late, you gush loudly at the baby monitor's screen lit up — with your child sleeping sound in her bassinet.

"awwwww she's sleepin'!"

clark hums at your immediate joy, attempting to dodge the excited jabs of the baby monitor to his cheek. "geez, ah — …mhm, she's sleeping. nice an' tight. we gotta get to her, yeah? hold on to me, flying's quicker."

"mmmmkay superman. up, up'nawayyy!"

"…"

the headache that followed you was unforgiving, with it being the very first sensation you felt from the second you'd stirred awake. "nn—urgh…"

it felt as though a weight pressed on top of you, restricting your every breath.

there was no way your one year old baby would've suddenly learned how to scale her crib, right?

"wh —..huh?"

what greeted you, was a larger than life domed ceiling, wooden beams supporting the structure, which was decidedly not the sight your penthouse would've provided.

recognition settles, followed by the decisive tug at your waist when you squirm to free yourself from whatever was on you. the voice that then coats your entire body was distinct, with a tired, gravelly tilt to it.

"mmh — get back t'sleep…please."

your face falls flush back onto the pillows, but this time, it's directly atop a firmer, larger heft of muscle. you lift your cheeks, noting how his arms remained tightly curled at the back of your waist, securing you on top of him.

oh geez, he was warm.

you must've called him earlier, you figured. with no hurry to get yourself off of him. you then rest your face on his shoulders, studying his every feature as you come out of sleep.

from this up close, his jaw was visibly stubbled with brown, a stark contrast to being clean shaven — brows tensed even in his sleep. gently, you run the tips of your fingers down his cheekbones, just as the early morning sunlight kisses his features.

clark begins to visibly relax at your touches, a low guttural hum signifying his slow rousing. "not listenin' even when you're sober." he mumbles, all groggy, blinking awake to see your curious face rested all squished up on his chest.

"how are you feeling?" his words drag, with the long, tired yawn he takes. you purr when his idle touch at the back of your hips turns to slow rubs, "like hell. is —"

"she's asleep," he continues, "…as her mum should be." clark's head tilts, as he props his head up, arm folded beneath.

"s'not like you to be drinking like that."

he doesn't have the heart to scold you, or tell you that you both needed some healthy distance. because even now, he was so in love with you. it's in the way he looks at you intently now, voice laden with concern, and with the way he's gently tucked a lock of your hair behind your ears.

you consider telling him it was a lapse. technically, none of your joys and celebration, especially with your job, was shareable to him.

but then you meet his gaze, earnest, and patient.

"it's not a big deal," you try, hiding the feverish joy in your words. "was given the…promotion at work. they're allowing me to work remotely."

your ex doesn't react the same way. it takes a moment for it to load in his mind, and you feel it first. the equally excited squeeze at your hips. "that is amazing."

like in idiot, your cheeks warm.

none of the words he says afterward, not his gushing of it being deserved and he was proud could erase the bloom in your chest. it overwhelms every emotion and discomfort, every one of your senses focusses on clark's affirmations.

it felt better than trying to drink it all away, this felt better.

you've clocked that he's stopped talking, the same as you, from the second your gaze drops to his mouth.

a peek of pink coats a slick sheen over his bottom lips, the flash of his canines taking a drag over the flesh. he's thinking the exact same thing you are, that much is evident.

you make the first move to nudge yourself upward, with him tugging you all the way to be able to press a chaste kiss onto his lips.

before you think to pull away, his hand threads the back of your head, tilting his to lock his lips with yours. you hum deeply and softly into him, with your hands fisted around the fabric by his hem.

clark turns you over swiftly, hiking you beneath his bigger body. you naturally, and instinctively begin to rub by his ribcage, to his forearms and biceps. muscles tensing everywhere you touch, leaving goose flesh in its wake.

he's practically giddy with the way you're exploring him, like nothing ever changed.

"move here."

you think you might've heard him wrong — through the hasty, breathy he takes inbetween. clark leans down to drag the gently curve of his nose by yours, kissing every square inch of your face.

"move to smallville." he repeats, pressing a peck to the corner of your lips, then beneath your jaw.

"wait — huh?"

you find it in you to nudge his shoulders back, blinking at him confusedly, with your cheeks flushed. "but…we're —"

"i know what we are." he interrupts, tongue pressed at the inside of his cheeks, as though that was answer enough to your concerns.

"comet likes it here. you get to have more time to yourself, space, an' stuff…" clark trails off, "think about it?"

a deep exhale drags out of you, and much to clark's pleasure, your hands rested at the base of his neck.

"i'll think about it."

the softness drags its way down to his chest. rested right above his racing heart. "but don't you think it's…gonna be hard?"

a low, mirthless laugh leaves him. 

"think i can handle hard."

Clark was a brother in Alpha Gamma Rho. He was a backwards-hat, cut-off tank kind of guy. The legend of AGR keggers because he never seemed to get drunk. The very same legend who held doors for everyone, even if it made him late. You could see Clark mowing down brothers on the frat lawn in a game of tackle football, or studying with a pair of crooked, taped glasses in the library. Sometimes he was pulling senior pranks, parking cars on roofs or wrapping an office in Christmas paper. Other times he was exercising his secret duty of negotiating with campus police when a party was coming up, bringing them donuts and promising no problems, if they’ll only let it run its course. Needless to say, the farmboy wore many hats– but he had a core that was simple. Warm, thoughtful, passionate love. Intentional care. Remarkable intelligence. Those were just a few things that you loved about Clark. 

And you– well, who could ever figure you out? The girl with no solid shtick. President of the literature club, occasional peer tutor through the university library, who could often be found committing drunken karaoke offenses at the off-campus bar with your friend and roommate Lois. Nobody would be shocked to see you in fishnets and lacy black everything one day, and mary janes and a denim skirt the next. You walked with your head down and iPod blasting on school sidewalks, but you managed robust debates in class. You even put on the bulldog mascot suit and rushed the field during your sophomore-year homecoming game, because your public speaking professor (assistant coach of the MetU team, coincidentally) offered anyone a pass on the final presentation if they had the guts. When your peers would walk by and see you either hiding in a novel or handing out bookmarks for your club, no one batted an eye – because you were just that girl who did anything. Knowing everyone, yet knowing no one. 

It seemed every expectation of you both was subverted by another facet. Multi-dimensional in a one-note world. College isn’t always the place for fully-formed people like that, but perhaps it can be good for finding each other… can’t it?

You and Clark worked from the beginning.

He liked you when he found you standing in the corner of one of his frat parties, cradling a vodka cranberry (heavy on the vodka) with glazed eyes, staring over the sea of bodies like someone had personally offended you. He thought your dopey frown was sweet. You both remembered that night like it was yesterday.

—͙͘͡★—

“What’s the matter?” Clark had cooed, sauntering over with an empty beer bottle and a torturous little smirk on his face. His eyes were green and bright like the light across from Gatsby’s dock. You loved Gatbsy. Your drunken self thought of Gatsby religiously. Something about drinking and prohibition, and then the thought train just…

“My one friend dragged me here, and I think she’s gettin’ her face chewed over there,” you slurred, pouting, as a black-polished nail pointed across the party to another corner near the kitchen. Your good friend Lois, the only friend you had, really, had a guy in a jersey shoved up against the wall like she wore the pants in that makeout. 

Clark snickered and rested his elbow on your shoulder, laughing softer when you tried to wrestle out from under it. “You’re friends with Lane? That can’t be right. Lois is wild– and she’s here all the time. I’ve never seen you before.”

You lifted your buzzing head and rolled your eyes, sipping your drink– nearly missing the straw, and chasing it with your tongue. “Yeah, well, she needed a resume booster and I needed to get out of the house.”

Clark grinned at your soft mushing words, and he jutted his chin out with a curiously furrowed brow. “How many of those have you had, shortie?”

With a disgruntled scoff, you deflected: “M’not short!”

“Right, you’re just tall among hobbits,” Clark said, and he sat against the windowsill beside you.

He took a second to look you over that night. You had on quite the mix: a dainty little silver necklace that would nod to self-discipline, but it was bracketed by a denim jacket filthy with button pins screaming of new wave and half-niches. A little square neck tank that revealed a freckle by your collarbone. Army green cargos that rose low enough to squeeze the chub of your hips and tummy. Your boots had to have a platform at the very least one inch tall, he deduced, because they were serious and you were still short. And to top it off, there was a plum rim around your lips but a soft, neutral center, which meant you had lipstick on at some point, and had drank it all off. 

All of your small contradictions mixed with your very suspicious glances at him made his heart thump, and he knew then and there that he could see you sitting across from him at diners and nuzzling into his neck at theaters. He saw you kissing his cheek, he saw you crying over a test, he saw you waking up with tank top straps slipping from your rounded shoulders and yawning like a cat. He saw you with him, the little romantic…

“Y’know, you don’t look like a frat party kind of girl.”

“I do what I want,” you scrunched your nose, “Nothing means anything anyway.”

“Oh, do I detect a little nihilism, shortie?” Clark teased.

You swatted his shoulder and whined, “I am not short! And do you even know what that word means?”

“What, you think I’m an idiot?”

“Who coined nihilism?” you sneered, leaning down a bit to study his eyes, to see if they shifted. 

Clark tipped his head back and craned up, giving you a knowing grin. “Nietzsche. But that one guy Jacobi was the first guy to bring it up, Nietzsche just made it big. There was that other guy who wrote about it in Fathers and Sons…”

“Turgenev,” you suddenly smiled, the drunken judgement slipping away. “You know your depressing Germans!”

“And Russians,” he hummed, smiling wider. Your eyes were big as the moon, and his heart felt like it could seize at any moment. He had to find a way to keep you. “What’s your name, smartypants?”

By the way you smiled, it was clear you preferred that nickname. 

—͙͘͡★—

It was unusual, following that fateful encounter. Usually in college you get the couple who dances around each other for years, or you get the two horndogs who can’t even wait until the first date. For you and Clark, it just started… shapeless. 

You were too drunk to walk home that night, and so was Lois, so instead of letting you crash with all the other drunkies on the ground floor of the AGR fraternity, Clark personally put you both up in his room. He slept in his buddy Oliver’s room next door, in case he heard any creepers try to catch you or Lois offguard… or if he heard any puking. Then, when he expected to find you embarrassed the following morning, you were simply precious. A perfect, whiny little picture of a hangover– asking him shamelessly for McDonald’s and hogging his mattress until the fog cleared. When he asked Lois if you’re usually so fond of quick friendships, she just raised an eyebrow and said, “Don’t be stupid.”

And you liked him from the start, too. Let’s get that straight. 

You didn’t really want to, because the reputations of frat guys seemed to lean towards accuracy in most cases– but you couldn’t deny that they could be brutally attractive. When he stalked over with a Sharks cap on backwards, pretty little curls of chocolate peeking out at the nape of his neck, flexing those annoyingly toned arms under an AGR short-sleeve, you felt heat creep up the back of your neck. If you weren’t drunk, you might have been a bit more stuttery. But it was when he gazed up at you like a puppy whilst dropping all kinds of specialized knowledge on philosophy, the soft timbre of his tone cutting through the egregious EDM shaking the house, you felt the butterflies making your toes curl in your boots. He was sweet, non-threatening, and he smiled like a wolf. Something in your gut told you that Clark Kent was hiding a whole lot of beautiful behind that brotherhood insignia on his chest. 

It took you two all but a week to fall disgustingly in love, because Clark fell first, and he was a self-starter. 

He found you at the library the day after your drunken romp at his house and brought you a coffee (his brothers felt the urge to adopt you as their pet, by the way, when they found you rummaging like a racoon through the fridge and Clark sitting on the counter behind you, staring with hearts in his eyes… and Lois asleep at his side.) The day after that, he bribed Lois with five bucks to tell him you would be leaving the literature club at four. He walked you to your tutoring shift. The next, he almost breached the creepy line when he used the student directory at the tutoring center to find your dorm number… but you didn’t mind when he showed up with Chinese food and that God-given grin. 

Then the week was up again, and there was another AGR party. You were formally invited that time; he snuck you up to the roof through a series of window-hoppings, and he kissed you when you were in the middle of a rant about women writing under male pseudonyms…

—͙͘͡★—

“And did you know that they didn’t even let George Eliot get buried in Westminster? All that judgement for being a female writer, and then the thing with her husband dying and finding a new lover, and the Church said no, so now she’s buried in Highgate and she’s never been moved! Such bullshit, because she literally redefined–”

Clark couldn’t take it. Your eyes did this special thing when you got angry over book stuff, this little flash– like someone was starting up a lighter, over and over again– and it made his knees weak. He lurched forward as if he had no control over the urge, and he pressed his lips to yours in a manner that didn’t match the preceding; gentle, like he might hurt you if he wasn’t careful. His big palms, a bit rough around the curves, cradled your cheeks, and he smiled when he felt the way you sucked in a little breath, like he made you lose your place in thought. 

You didn’t even pull away, you only let your lips brush his as you asked, "What are you doing?”

“I think I’m in love with you,” he said, like an absolute idiot. But he wasn’t one. If any girl would take that kind of truth bomb well, it would be you. He knew that for sure.

You nearly knocked him on his back with how excitedly you kissed back, lips slotting against his eagerly and unorganized, head tilting from left to right, trying to find the right way, the right pace, the best feeling. He knew within a second of your sloppy mouth that you had probably never kissed anyone before and were dying to figure it out. 

“Easy, easy!” he chuckled, passing his fingers through the strands of hair around your face. “Jeez, Einstein–”

“Shut up,” you giggled, pulling back. Your eyes were on fire in a whole new way. “You love me?”

“Probably,” he hummed. Definitely. 

“I love you,” you countered. 

“Yeah?”

“It’s probably too soon,” you reasoned, eyes drifting to his lips like they were a magnet. 

“Yeah,” he breathed. 

“Maybe we’re moving really fast,”

“Maybe.”

“What would I be?” 

“My girlfriend.”

“And you’d be my boyfriend,”

“Hopefully.”

“And you want that?”

“Sure I do.”

“You don’t think I'm fat?”

“What?” Clark mumbled against your skin, because he couldn’t take it anymore. He could volley your questions with his lips on your neck. “Stupid question… I like how much you weigh, and if you lose a pound I’ll be pissed.”

“I’ve never had a– mmf– a boyfriend before,”

“That’s fine,” a kiss.

“I might get needy,”

“Mm, please do…” a nip.

Your eyes fluttered when his hands slipped into your back pockets, squeezing happily. “I have a lot of h… homework, all the time,”

“So do I.”

“I vote in every election,” 

“Mhm, so do I,” a squeeze.

“I want to write books for a living, even if it means I’m poor,”

“I have a family farm back home… won’t ever have to worry…”

“I- I want to have kids… three kids and two dogs,”

“Farm’s definitely big enough… they better have your eyes, cutie.”

“Mmf–” It got hard to think when his teeth scraped behind your ear. “Are you even listening? You’re talking crazy,”

“Three kids, two dogs, active citizen of democracy, I’ll keep you fed and pretty and– mm, is this new perfume? – n’ you love me?”

“Oh, god… yes.”

“Good. Then we’re both crazy.”

—͙͘͡★—

So, it worked. Nothing you said turned him off or away. He practically knew what you were thinking before you said it. Clark didn’t have to learn to anticipate your every move, he just did. And you seemed to read his mind, although that wasn’t so innate as it was easy– it was all over his gorgeous, gorgeous face. 

It was one of those things where you seemed to just fit like interlocking fingers. Every strength, every weakness, they melded into a trade of wills. Where he couldn’t, you could, and you shared life like a milkshake. One straw and a lot of kissing between sips. 

Your first time was in your shared dorm room with Lois, when you remembered to lock the door but forgot to deadbolt it, and so she had the misfortune of opening it up and finding the two of your startled into fits of laughter, hiding from her grumblings about ‘boys’ and ‘privacy’:

—͙͘͡★—

You really had never felt anything like it before, and whatever bad porn you watched or had seen in artsy movies did not do it justice. Or, maybe it was just Clark.

Clark had you pressed into the mattress under two hundred and twenty pounds of soft, twisting muscle, his hands wrapped around your back and digging into your sides. You weren’t sure you’d ever be small enough to hold, but maybe you just needed a bigger guy all this time. Everything in proportion, right?

And god, he was a whiner. Clark rutted into you in what should’ve been little motions, but he was so genuinely large that any thrust made your legs shake. It was quite a struggle getting the condom on, actually, because he was so anxious to be sweet with you that his hands shook. You had to roll it on for him, and you couldn’t help but laugh at his blushing cheeks. 

“Oh, god, baby,” he whimpered, nibbling at the joint of your neck and shoulder as the plush heat of your walls throbbed around him. “Oh my god, oh my god…”

You were a hot mess, burning up and completely eager. Every grind was met with a buck of your hips, your knees hitched high and your fingernails– purple this time– digging into the meat of his back. For a first timer, you had no reservations. You moaned into the dampening hair behind his ear, “Ho-oly shit, Clark…”

His hands rushed to touch every inch of your back and sides as he lifted himself up a bit and gazed down at you. His chain dangled against your lips and he watched as you took it in your mouth, passing it between tongue and teeth, batting those sinful lashes up at him. He scrunched his face up with a weak desire and tucked a hand under your knee, opening you up that last bit before driving into you with a force that managed to compromise speed and safety. Just as his hands kneaded your tummy, just as your hands twisted the sheets up, just as the two of you were begging and pleading and whining like little vocal twin flames, Lois unlocked the door and froze in the doorway. 

You startled immediately and Clark flopped on top of you, his first concern to cover you from whoever it was. But a poor moment of judgement caused him to keep going, even when Lois burst into a flurry of curses. 

“Jesus Christ, you guys– oh my god, somebody should’ve just told me, I wouldn’t have come home, couldn’t even put a fucking sock on the door like civilized people– oh my god, are you still going? Fuck, guys, ew! Privacy! Privacy in my own dorm room, that's all I ask! Boys in the room, there’ll never be boys in the room she said– oh, Christ, someone text me when it’s over!”

You devolved into helpless, shocked laughter as she babbled herself out and locked the door again, and Clark smiled into your chest as he made you punctuate every giggle with a moan. He couldn’t get enough of the way you sounded– it was breathy, like a whisper, until it hit harder and your pleasure reached a low register, whiny and hungry. He wanted to chase it out of you until you had no sound left. And he did– until your back arched, until the condom simply couldn’t take any more, until your eyes fluttered shut and wouldn’t open again, until your body twitched and slumped and every other word either sounded like “Clarkie” or “Love you.”

—͙͘͡★—

No matter what first came to pass, or whatever college threw at you, Clark didn’t budge. He knew it when he sought you out at that party. He knew you were the stroke of good luck he’d never find again. So, he kept you. Good choice, because he got a free tutor out of it- not that he needed it. The perks were really just making out in the library. 

He met your parents after a couple months, and they gushed over him. The homegrown farmboy had the good sense to bring flowers, and your parents kept them on the sill for weeks until they wilted to nothing. You showed him your childhood room, and he nearly cried at a little list of birthday wishes you had pasted next to your vanity, to which you laughed and accused, “You sap.”

Then it was his turn; he took you home on break to the farm, and his parents nearly gave Martha’s ring over on the spot. You received five pie recipes free of charge. Jonathan Kent gave you a rigorous tour of the farm, and he even let you brush the horses– one of which sneezed on your nice blouse. Clark took you into town for a new one and you got to see all the places he grew up in, and then you nearly cried, and all he could do was kiss you and tell you just how pretty you looked with grass in your hair. 

Clark bought you exactly one second-hand novel a week, and you wrote him little poems on scraps of paper and tucked them in every place possible, so that when he went through life, he’d find it unexpectedly, and remember that wherever he was, you were, too. 

He went to the slam poetry night your club hosted. You were crowned kegger queen to his kegger king at a particularly rowdy party. His brothers threw you a birthday party and got you delightfully drunk, so you could enjoy a childhood birthday wish of stargazing at midnight next to a cute boy. Said cute boy had to usher his friends to bed just so he could consummate the day you were brought into the world properly (and it was better than the first, somehow.) When you woke up the next morning, hungover in his bed, you smiled to yourself. Your tank top strap slid down your arm. He pushed it up. 

It didn’t matter on your shy or outgoing days, or when you felt dark or light. It didn’t matter when he had to put on the ‘brother’ face and do the stupid shit fraternities do. What mattered was that he protected your heart in a little box, and just when it felt like maybe you two wouldn't meet on some small level, you did. It was synchrony. It was easy.

You were propped up on one elbow, straw tucked into the corner of your mouth like a chewstick, one leg folded beneath you in your chair, as always.  You were listening—or pretending to—but your expression had slipped into that quiet rebellion Clark had come to recognize. Your default setting in meetings that went on too long. The calm before the storm of absurdism.

Your face. Gosh, your face, a hilarious, expressive, incredible collection. A silent film reel of emotion.

It started small. A little eyebrow twitch. A slow blink of deliberate agony. Then you grimaced, drawing your brows together so fiercely you looked like you were mourning the end of Hamlet in real time. Your cheeks puffed out like a blowfish, and when Martin uttered the word “interagency,” you gave Clark a full-body eye roll so sharp it looked like it might dislocate something.

He bit down a laugh so hard his molars ached, and turned away to rub his jaw under the guise of stifling a cough. Well-Meaning Martin didn’t deserve to be ignored, but Clark wasn’t just distracted. He was doomed.

You’d been deskmates for three years, and in that time, Clark had become fluent in a language spoken by only one person: you. Or more precisely: your face.

Your poker face was terrible. Your emotions were a slideshow on full display, written across your features in glorious, expressive high definition. And Clark—meticulous, quiet, observant Clark— learned to read them like scripture. He catalogued every shift of your mouth, every crease between your brows, every twitch of your nose like they were classified intel. The anatomy of a visage, your visage, was his secret specialty.

He knew your focused face when you and Lois combined your brain power to meet an impossible deadline. 

He knew your disgusted face when Steve Lombard dropped another locker room joke like it was clever and not a decade past expiration.

He knew your delighted face, but not the practiced newsroom smile, the real one that sparkled. The one that came out when you cracked a pun headline so good Perry barked a laugh and clapped your shoulder like you’d saved the paper.

He knew your gutted face. The way your eyes burned and softened at once. The way your lips wobbled when he returned from another “errand” with healing split knuckles and a bruised jaw, trying to pretend nothing happened. 

And then there were the ones he didn’t have names for.

The one where your lips parted just slightly and your eyes went a little unfocused when he rolled his sleeves up. 

The way your lashes dipped and your brows flicked inward, just for a second, the first time he accidentally called you darlin’ entirely on accident.

The way you smiled, mouth full of donut, sugar clinging to your bottom lip, as if he was sweeter than whatever you were eating.

The way your face went carefully blank when a new intern clutched his bicep for too long and laughed too hard at something he said. Blank, but not unreadable. Not to him

And just yesterday, when his hand brushed yours reaching for the breakroom coffee pot. You’d looked up at him like the air between you had turned to fire.

He didn’t know what it meant. Not for certain. But he hoped—God, he hoped—that you saw him the way he saw you. A story he’d never had the nerve to write, but one he ached to live in.

So he kept filing away your expressions like tabs in the margins of his heart. All of it—the faces, the silences, the almosts. It was a quiet kind of ache, the way he longed for you. An unspoken thing that lived in the space between desks. Between glances, cataloging it all and smiling like a fool behind his monitor.

“Mr. Kent,” Martin barked on the line. “Still with me?”

Clark blinked. “Yep!” he squeaked, too fast, too high. He cleared his throat. “Still here. You got me.”

His ears were hot. His pulse was louder than Martin. His eyes drifted to you again, and you pantomimed blowing your brains out with your neon yellow highlighter, collapsing into a dramatic sprawl across your keyboard like a death scene in a soap opera. 

He smiled into his fist. Bit back a laugh.

Martin, mercifully, started winding down. Something about following up tomorrow. Circling back.

You perked up at that, raising your fists in a silent cheer, grinning wide enough to make his stomach drop. Clark would’ve circled the sun if it meant seeing you smile like that again.

When the line disconnected, he slumped back in his chair with a long breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then something bounced off his shoulder. 

He turned and saw a wadded-up sticky note on the floor. He glanced your way, and you were biting your knuckle to keep from laughing, eyes dancing with mischief as you stared hard at your phone, hair falling in your face.

He picked it up. Smoothed out the note: My will to live: gone. Murder me with your tie.

Clark looked at you, chuckling softly. You glanced up, just a little glance, and smiled wider before flicking back down, and something broke open in him. He rose, folding the note and tucked it into his back pocket, and stepped around his desk to where you sat 

“Hey,” he greeted, palm flat on your desk as he leaned down.

You looked up mid-sentence, mid-scroll, and your whole face shifted like a curtain had been pulled open—brows jumping, mouth parting just slightly, surprise giving way to something amused.

“Oh hiya! Wait—” you squinted dramatically, pointing to the sticky note that rested in his back pocket. “The note’s a joke, Clark. Don’t actually kill me, please.”

He snorted, crouching a little beside your chair. “No promises.”

You laughed, and he felt it bloom in his chest. You tilted your head, mouth quirking like you were already preparing your rebuttal.

Then he beat you to it.

“No, listen,” he said, hands braced on his knees now, suddenly shy. “Are you—um. Are you doing anything tonight?”

Your expression shifted instantly. Clark watched it happen in real time—your brow pinching slightly in mock-thought, nose scrunching, lips pursing like you were considering pulling another one-liner from your arsenal.

But something about his tone must’ve registered.

Your teasing stalled. You blinked. Then softened. “No plans,” you blinked slowly. “Why?”

He reached up, rubbed the back of his neck. “Would you want to get dinner with me?”

Your mouth dropped open just a little. Not theatrically, not with a joke locked and loaded. But quiet. Real stunned. Like your brain had short-circuited.

You looked at him like you didn’t want to mishear the question.

Then slowly, a new smile spread across your face. Not the mischievous one he knew from budget meetings or Friday night drinks shoulder-to-shoulder with Lois and Cat or the way you tried to hide your amusement during press briefings. Not the one you wore when praising him about Superman's latest victory.

This smile was shyer. Earnest.

“I—oh. Oh my gosh, sure,” you bit your lip between a laugh, a little breathless. “Yes, Clark. I’d really like that.”

A beat passed. And then, gentler still: “Love that, actually.”

His ears rang.

He’d spent three years watching you do everything—type furiously, bite back arguments, mouth along to songs, pick the cheese off sandwiches, overshare during lunch breaks, fall asleep during stakeouts, laugh until your eyes crinkled—and somehow this was the one expression that gutted him most.

The glowing, giddy kind of yes you couldn't hide.

Clark swallowed. Hard.

“Great,” he managed, nodding. “Hoped you would.”

.

Dinner wasn’t fancy, at least not tonight. 

You sat shoulder to shoulder in a narrow booth at Camille’s Deli, tucked between a laundromat and a florist that always smelled faintly of wet stems. It was an easy, safe place where you could share fries and stories about the Planet and extracurricular near-misses without worrying about anyone overhearing, where the ketchup came in maroon‑tinted squeeze bottles, and the check was always handwritten, numbers slanted and looping from a server who smelled like cigarettes and a classic perfume.

Nervous laughter, maybe. A stumble through awkward conversation, perhaps. He’d braced himself for pauses that needed filling, for jokes that landed too hard or not at all, for the careful politeness of two people afraid to stomp on something built the past three years.

But instead, it was this. 

A warm pocket of familiarity. The easy hum of something well‑worn and trusted. And beneath it, threaded through every glance and brush of fabric, a quiet, electric sense that this moment had been waiting for them both to stop pretending it wasn’t inevitable.

Though it all, you were radiant. Not in a way that demanded attention, not in a way that tried. Just… open. Unfiltered. You licked salt from your thumb without thinking, laughed so hard at your own terrible joke that you snorted and immediately tried to cover it with a cough, eyes bright with embarrassment and delight all at once.

You teased him about how many phone chargers he’d “mysteriously” destroyed over the years, narrowing your eyes at him like a detective who already knew the culprit.

“You’re a menace to modern technology,” you accused, mouth still full, clearly delighted.

He grinned, heat creeping into his cheeks. “Hey! I personally think I’ve come a long way since then.”

“Oh, sure, sure sure,” you nodded, waving a fry. “Just like how you’re media‑savvy, Mr. Man‑of‑Steel?”

He laughed, ducking his head. “Like I said. I’ve learned.”

He told you about his Ma’s blueberry crumble—how the crust never looked like much, but always tasted like home, how the kitchen smelled like sugar and butter even days after, how he still couldn’t get it right on his own no matter how many voicemails Ma left him walking through each step.

He told you about the toaster incident, too. How he’d nearly shorted the whole house trying to make Pop-Tarts, how his Pa threatened to make it a lifelong ban, how he cried harder over the loss of cinnamon brown sugar than the sparks.

You laughed like you’d heard part of it before but still wanted to hear it again. Like you remembered him telling it in passing years ago, somewhere between print deadlines and vending machine snafus, but this version was softer, slower, closer. Your chin tilted toward him, fingers curled loosely around a napkin, and you leaned in like every single detail mattered.

He noticed, and he noticed he could no longer take his eyes off you. Not after tonight.

You were so close that your thigh pressed warmly against his beneath the booth, your shoulder brushing his with every laugh. Partway through a shared milkshake, your head settled gently onto his shoulder, like it had always known the shape of him. Clark went still, breath catching, every instinct screaming to kiss the top of your head, to close his eyes and pretend this was already something permanent.

His willpower won. Barely.

As always, your face gave away everything.

You sure liked his voice. (He could tell by the way you leaned in when it dropped a little lower, teeth catching on your bottom lip when he spoke quietly.)

You sure liked his hands. (He caught the way your gaze followed them when he took off his glasses to rub at his temple after an exasperating joke.)

You must like him. (He felt it in your smile, in the bloom of color in your cheeks, in the breathless laugh you let out when your fingers curled thoughtlessly into his bicep as you rested your head on his shoulder.)

Later, when the plates were pushed to the side and the night had mellowed to less jokes and more quiet, your voice slipped in like a sigh between topics.

“Hey,” you murmured, tracing lazy circles over the fabric of his sleeve. “What’s your favorite quote again?”

Clark didn't even have to think. “‘The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.’”

You smiled, leaned deeper into his side.

“It's Robin Wall Kimmerer.” He explained. “Reminds me of home.”

“Of Smallville?”

His smile grew warmer, reminiscing. “Of the way wheat sounds when it’s dry. Of thunderstorms over the fields. Of my Ma’s hands in the dirt.”

You exhaled, eyes fluttering shut like you could hear it. Smell it. Feel it.

Then you whispered, teasing and fond: “Sounds like poetry.”

He would’ve told you you were the poem. The cadence, the rhythm, the thing he kept rereading in his head. But his brain short‑circuited faster than any toaster he’d ever broken.

The waiter dropped the check while Clark was still looking at you, like every blink might be a missed stanza, and you reached instinctively for your purse. Clark beat you to it, already taking out his wallet.

“Oh, let me—” you started.

But the waiter, a woman older than both of you, just smiled knowingly and patted your hand with a wink.

“Oh, hun. Let your boyfriend spoil you once in a while.”

You blinked, startled, but didn't flinch. He just chuckled nervously, cheeks tinged rose, and handed over his card without hesitation.

Boyfriend.

He braced for a correction, but it never came. Instead, you smiled down at your water glass, warmth blooming up your neck, your bashful and delighted face clear as day as you eyed him over the rim.

When the waiter returned with the receipt, Clark tipped too generously, too giddy, and stood, helping you with your coat.

When you left the restaurant, the sky had gone heavy and dark, rain threatening but holding back, wind curling at the edges of your jacket. You walked close together beneath a flickering streetlamp, shoulders brushing, steps falling into an unconscious rhythm.

At your building’s stoop, you slowed, fingers lingering at your sides like you weren’t quite ready to let the night end. You looked up at him then, expression softer than it had been all evening, something shy and uncertain threading through your smile.

“This was nice,” you smiled, small, bashful, entirely sincere. “Thank you.”

He nodded, pulse hammering. “No, thank you. I thought it was nice, too.”

A pause stretched between you. Your eyes dropped to his lips.

And Clark—God help him—leaned in the same time you did.

“Is this okay?” he whispered, lips hovering just close enough that he could feel your breath.

Your breath hitched, just a little. And then you met him halfway. 

The kiss was soft. Tentative. Like you were testing something long suspected, long hoped for, long-caged finally speak. 

Clark deepened it slowly, hands coming up to cradle your jaw, thumbs brushing along your cheekbones as if committing the feeling to memory. Your fingers curled into the front of his coat, knuckles pressing in with a little moan.

When you pulled back, your eyes stayed closed for half a second too long, then opened, watching him.

You tilted your head slightly, staring right into blue. “Clark?”

“Y–yeah?”

“I’ve always wondered,” you murmured. “How long have you been watching me?”

He stilled. You weren’t teasing or accusing. More curious. Tender.

“I mean…” You let out a breathy laugh. “I see you, too, you know? When you think I’m not looking. I’m not blind.”

His heart dropped straight to his shoes. He stepped back just slightly, enough to look at you fully. His hand slipped from your cheek to your shoulder.

“Three years,” he confessed, voice quiet. “Since the day you became my deskmate, my friend.”

Your lips parted. Your eyes searched his face like you were trying to read him the way he’d been reading you all along.

“I started noticing first,” he went on, words spilling now that they’d been let loose. “The way you look when you’re focused. Or frustrated. Or trying not to laugh during staff meetings. I don’t think you know how expressive you are.”

Clark exhaled, the truth easing out of his chest like a long‑held breath.

“I’ve cataloged so many of your faces,” he said, voice rough. “The one you make when Steve says something off‑color and you fight the urge to throw a pen at him. The one when you land a perfect headline and Perry praises you in front of everyone.”

You just stared, silent.

“The one when I’ve come back hurt,” he added quietly. “That’s my least favorite. I don’t care for being the reason you look like that. Ever.” He swallowed. “And the one when a new intern flirts with me, and you pretend not to care, but your eyes give you away.”

“Hey!” you protested weakly. “Those girls were not professional—”

“But yesterday,” he cut you off, “you made this particular one when I asked if you wanted the last donut with your coffee. You just smiled. But I swear—” His exhaled. “I’ve never wanted to kiss someone more.”

Your lips wobbled, eyes glassy. He stepped into your space again, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth.

“I wanted to see one more,” he murmured. “The face you’d make if I asked you on a date.”

You didn’t speak. You just looked at him, backlit by the glow of the lobby lights, open and luminous and entirely unguarded.

“Can I—” he cleared his throat, eyes flicking down to your lips again. 

You just nodded, with that same radiant, giddy, yes-filled face.

So he did. Kissed you again. And again. And again.

.

You barely made it through your apartment door with dignity.

The lock clicked shut behind you, coats and work bags sliding from your shoulders and collapsing uselessly onto the floor, because Clark’s mouth was already everywhere, warm, intent, and aching, his hands framing your waist with eagerness that betrayed how long he’d been waiting to touch you like this.

Years, if he was honest.

Your fingers fisted in the front of his dress shirt, tugging him closer, closer still, until there was no space left to close, until impatience took over and you dragged him down by threading your hands into his hair.

Clark’s lips traced your jaw, lingered beneath your ear, moved slowly down the column of your throat. His hands slid under your blouse, thumbs brushing skin already pebbled with goosebumps, and when you shivered, he moaned softly, the sound vibrating against your collarbone.

He had dreamed about this. About you. About this exact moment of what it would feel like to finally stop watching, stop cataloging from afar, and start touching.

But the reality of your warmth, the way you arched into him without thinking, the way your breath went shallow and unsteady when he kissed the hollow at the base of your throat, surpassed anything his imagination had ever been brave enough to conjure.

You tugged his dress shirt loose and flung it somewhere behind you, fabric whispering against the wall as it fell. He undid his belt with clumsy urgency, hands shaking just slightly, while you shimmed out of your dress pants, bare skin revealed inch by inch. He unbuttoned your blouse, fingertips brushing where buttons had been, and when he unclasped your bra, your lips parted in a breathy sound he hadn’t known he was waiting to hear.

He paused, just for a moment, breath mingling with yours, eyes searching your face.

“Is this okay?” he murmured, voice husky, rough, thick with restraint.

You didn’t even have to speak. Your expression gave you away instantly: eyes dark, lips swollen and soft, body leaning into his without hesitation.

He kissed you again, deeper this time, hunger threaded through tenderness. His hands slid under your thighs and lifted you effortlessly, your legs wrapping around his waist on instinct. Clark felt the trust in that movement, the want, the unspoken yes of it, and it nearly undid him.

He kissed down your neck, between your exposed breasts, murmuring something too quiet to catch.

Every new inch of skin was a discovery. A revelation. A memory-in-the-making.

And every time he paused, chest heaving and hands slowed, he asked again, desiring your consent.

“Still okay?”

Yes. God, yes. Your face answered before your mouth did. Your body begged.

“Bedroom,” you barely managed, already breathless, already soaked, already trembling against him.

Clark laughed, a little soft and stunned, because he still couldn’t believe this was real.

“You’re gonna have to remind me where it is, darlin’,” he murmured, kissing the corner of your mouth like it wasn’t the first time he’d teased you, but was the first time he’d gotten to follow it through. “You know I’ve only walked your place a hundred times.”

.

By the time he laid you against your bed, he was certain his heart was going to give out from the sight alone

You looked wrecked already, with hair loose and wild against your sheets, lips swollen and dark from his mouth, skin glowing with heat and want. Your body bore the imprint of his attention, the evidence of how thoroughly he’d touched you.

You were so beautiful like this, Clark thought. Open. Unguarded. His.

“Oh,” you breathed suddenly, the word slipping out before you could stop it, hands lifting to cover your face as the weight of his gaze settled over you.

“That’s… that’s how you’ve always watched me.” A quiet, trembling laugh. “Last three years.”

Clark’s breath caught, tugging your wrists gently, lowering your hands with little resistance, pressing kisses to the backs of your palms before lacing your fingers with his. His voice softened instinctively.

“Hey. Hey,” he soothed, brushing his thumb over your cheek, studying your bashful expression. “Don’t do that.”

“I watch because you don’t hide anything,” he reminded gently. “You feel everything right here.” He tapped lightly between your brows. “And here.” His mouth brushed yours, barely there. “And here.”

His hand dipped then, index finger curling gently over your sternum, over your heart, lingering as if he could feel it racing beneath his touch.

“I can tell how good you’re feeling just by looking at you,” he confessed. “So don’t hide, okay?”

You swallowed, eyes shining. “Okay.”

Clark kissed his way down your body slowly, as if every inch deserved its own moment, its own attention. His mouth lingered, teased, mapped you until he reached between your damp thighs. He parted your folds gently, brushed his nose against your sensitive clit just hard enough to pull a sharp gasp from your throat.

Then flattened his tongue against you. Long. Slow. Precise.

“Jesus, Clark,” you cried out, one hand white-knuckling the sheets, the other tangling desperately in his hair. 

Your moan sent a shiver down his spine. 

His cock throbbed painfully against his thigh as he groaned into you, holding your hips steady while his mouth learned you, tasted you, drank you in like he’d discovered something he hadn’t known he’d been starving for. He slipped two fingers inside you, stretching out your slick cunt, your face fell open in a brand new way.

“Still okay, darlin’?” he murmured as he pulled suddenly, lips brushing the sensitive skin of your inner thigh.

“Yes, baby—makin’ me—feel so good—go—go back—”

‘Baby.’ Hm. That was new. Good new. And that was all he needed.

His fingers worked in time with his mouth, pushing in and out slowly, thoroughly, and your legs shook hard enough he had to brace you with his forearm to keep you from sliding down the bed. He watched you through his lashes, undone by the way your expressions shifted with every new sensation: the crease between your brows, the slack drop of your jaw, the flush spreading down your breasts

Clark praised you without thinking, the words spilling out raw and honest.

“Love watchin’ your face,” he breathed. “Knowing you feel so good. It’s all over. You’re so beautiful when you let go like this.”

Your back arched, cunt clenching around his fingers tighter and tighter until you came with a broken cry. He didn’t rush you through your high. He followed, mouth lapping around your clit slowly until you sagged back into the mattress, trembling and spent. 

Then he kissed back up your body slowly, lips sticky with you until he hovered over your face. You looked dazed. Glowing. Ruined, in the most beautiful way.

“Hey,” he whispered, bashful and earnest.

“Hiya,” you laughed weakly, a little delirious, then tugged him down into a kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue, moaning softly when he sucked on your bottom lip. 

He pulled back just long enough to slide his boxers down, hands shaking now, breath caught somewhere between anticipation and awe. He still couldn’t believe this was really happening, and he might even fall apart before he even got inside you.

Your eyes dropped lower, reaching down, fingers brushing against him, face tender and curious and full of desire. “Hey, let me—”

Clark caught your hand gently, guiding it away. “Hey, no—you—you don’t have to.”

“I know,” you insisted, smiling as you squeezed his hand. “I want to.”

His eyes fluttered closed for a second, jaw tight like he was warring with himself.

“I just—need to be inside you right now,” he confessed. “Need to feel you around me. Been thinking about it for too long.”

Your heart flipped. You let your head fall back against the pillow, exhaling through a grin you couldn’t quite suppress. “Okay, I hear you,” you said, teasing now, the affection unmistakable in your voice. “Next time, then.”

“N-next time?”

“Clark Kent. You can’t possibly think this would be a one-night-stand?” you narrowed your eyes as if challenging, and he shook his head.

“Good! I have plans. I mean, the way you just almost sent me to another dimension with your tongue? I’m never letting you go!”

His head dropped to your shoulder with a helpless, lovestruck laugh, his whole body shaking from how badly he needed you.

Then—

“Are—are you sure?” he asked one last time, voice hoarse, eyes finding yours in the dark like they were tethered there. “About this, too. Everything?”

“Yes, I’ve never been more sure,” you whispered immediately, cupping his face, smoothing worry lines. “I'm on the pill, but I—I haven’t been with anyone in a long time,” you admitted like a secret. “I think… I think I was waiting for you.”

Clark’s chest tightened so hard it almost hurt. He bent forward and kissed you slow, hearing every word you hadn’t said, too.

“Me too,” he said, voice breaking. “I didn’t want it if it wasn’t you.”

He lined himself up and pushed in slowly, carefully, giving you time, watching your face. You gasped, eyes squeezing shut for a second before opening again, glassy and full of wonder.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

You nodded, breath shaky. “Hm.. m-more than okay.”

He bottomed out with a quiet groan, holding himself still while you gradually adjusted around him, warm and still tight. He almost came right there. 

When you finally nodded and he moved, he watched as you made new expressions.

Every flicker of your lashes. Every soft sound. The way your brows pulled when he hit just right. The way your jaw dropped when his thumb brushed your clit. The way your expression softened when he leaned down to kiss you, whispering praise against your lips.

“You f-feel incredible,” he gasped. “You look—Gosh—you look so open. I can—t-tell how good this feels—for you. Don’t hide anything. I love— it—"

“You’re so, so incredible, Clark,” you whispered frantically, cupping his face.

Your nails dragged down his back, and his thrusts faltered, hips snapping forward harder as your body clenched around every downstroke, desperate and needy. Your faces stayed close, eyes locked, and Clark saw it all there—pleasure, disbelief, joy, and something deeper that made his chest ache, but too afraid to name.

Regardless, he drank it in. Memorized it. Cherished it.

“I-I’ve wanted— this for so—so long,” you choked out, tears slipping free as the pressure coiled tight in your belly, unbearable now, near breaking.

“Me— too, darlin’,” he murmured, kissing you hard as you clenched tighter. “You have —no idea how long—Gosh—you're—c-close?”

You nodded frantically, panting, jaw slack, little whimpers escaping between each broken breath.

“It's okay—let go—,” he said between pants. “Don’t— hold back. I —got you."

You moaned, loud and shameless, as you came with his name breaking from your throat, walls fluttering tight around him, and he buried himself deep and came with a groan, forehead dropping to your shoulder as he held you though each pleasurable wave.

.

Afterward, the world fell quiet in a way that made Clark understand why poets consumed themselves over stillness.

Because loosening his hold on you, even an inch, even just to shift the blankets or ease the throb of overstimulation… it felt like risking everything. Like something as soft and sacred as this might dissolve if he gave it the chance to.

You were still wrapped around him. Heavy-limbed and pliant, skin tacky with sweat, your breath warm and even where your face pressed to the crook of his neck. Your fingers moved in slow, absent-minded loops against his chest, tracing the shape of his collarbone, the slope of his pecs, the place over his heart where his pulse still galloped wild and undone. He felt you smile against his skin, a ghost of a grin at the corner of your mouth that he learned was for him and no one else. 

Clark didn’t want you to stop. Ever.

His arms cradled you close, one hand stroking idly at your hip, fingertips brushing in slow arcs like he couldn’t stop drawing love letters on your skin. The other traced your jaw, the soft hollow beneath your ear, the round of your cheek. Every place he’d kissed. Every place he’d hope to touch again before the night was through.

Your bodies were slick and warm with what had just happened, what had changed, what had always been there and finally cracked open into something neither of you could unsee.

Your breath hitched only once when he shifted, but you didn’t stir much. Just nuzzled closer. Sighed, long and slow. Relaxed into him like there was nowhere else in the world you could possibly be.

Clark could’ve wept for it. Could’ve stayed in that second forever.

"Doing alright?” he asked.

A sleepy nod, your hair brushing his collarbone. “Mhm.”

He tilted just enough to look at you.

And there you were.

Eyes glassy and half-lidded, cheeks still pink, lashes clumped from dried tears, lips swollen and parted from where he’d kissed you too long, too deep. Your hair a wild mess against his skin. Your expression soft. Loose. Glowing.

You blinked up at him, and smiled. Not with amusement or mischief or the sharp-edged wit he’d spent three years trying to keep up with. But something raw. Something he’d never seen before, not like this.

You mumbled a joke then. Something about being broken. Maybe you. Maybe him.

He managed a laugh. Kissed your forehead in reply.

You melted further against him, and that was that. You tucked yourself beneath his chin, arm curled across his chest, eyelids fluttering to sleep.

And Clark stayed awake. Quiet. Contemplative.

He’d known so many of your expressions.

The snarl when your formatting crashed. The warm, genuine grin when the vending machine actually worked. The way your eyes lit when you spotted him scratch-free from an "errand." The little frown of concentration when you red-penned his drafts like they hadn’t already been reworked five times.

The way your face scrunched in confusion when he flirted too subtly. The way it broke open when he flirted not-so-subtly.

He’d catalogued it all. Stored it deep and safe.

But this wasn’t one he’d even dared to imagine.

His pulse stuttered. His breath caught in his throat.

Love?

He didn’t....Couldn't. Not yet. Wouldn’t dare say it. Not without you.

But God, did he hope.

.

By the next morning, everything at the Planet looked the same.

The city blinked through the high-rise windows, phones rang off their hooks, and Clark was back at his desk, half-listening to Martin from Coast City complain about oversight on a project that didn’t, frankly, didn't matter anymore.

He was nodding when needed, murmuring polite filler, but his focus had shifted. Again.

Because across from him, you were propped on one elbow, trying and failing not to smile every time

The look on your face told him everything—told him you’d been waiting, hoping, loving him quietly from the very beginning.

And just like that, he started earning it.

you looked at him. You wore that same expression as last night, and this morning before parting ways. The same softness. The same impossibly open, undeniably fond look that made Clark forget what words were supposed to mean when they weren’t yours.

You watched him like you already knew something he hadn’t had the courage to say, and you were waiting.

And that was more challenging than Martin’s voice droning in his ear, because Clark had no idea how to keep pretending.

The sticky note came flying before he saw your hand move.

It bounced off his shoulder, then his desk. He caught it without thinking. Unfolded it clumsily with one hand.

Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. -Kimmerer

His breath hitched, his mouth went dry, he didn't even recall accidentally ending the call with Martin because he stood—too fast, too obvious—and crossed to your desk and planted a hand next to yours before he could stop himself.

You didn’t say anything at first. Just tipped your head a little, looked up at him with that same face.

"Hiya!"

"Hey.

"Clark, I forgot to ask you something before you left this morning," you started softly. then tapped a finger lightly to your cheek. “You know this expression?”

Clark froze, blinking slow, as the moment expanded between you, the noise of the bullpen fading to static.

So many of your faces lived in his head. The snort-laugh when he brought you bad coffee. The eye roll when he said something earnest and you pretended it didn’t get to you. The gaze that lingered on his mouth just a second too long, that you always tried to pretend was about something else.

His gaze searched yours, suddenly hesitant. “No. I'm not sure I do,” he was almost scared to hear the truth. “Tell me, please?"

You reached for his hand atop your desk, fingertips gliding along his knuckles, soft as a feather, touching him like he might break.

“This one,” you started with a small grin, barely above a breath, “is love. No longer hiding.”

You paused, just long enough to let him feel it settle. Then with a half-shrug like it was already obvious: “It wouldn’t have been a secret much longer anyway.”

Clark’s breath caught.

Love.

This one is love.

Something seismic cracked open in his chest. The thing he’d been afraid to name. The thing that had followed him for years through paper deadlines, city rescues, and the smell of your shampoo drifting across his desk. The thing that had started in friendship and bloomed somewhere in the quiet places you never looked.

He swallowed hard, chest aching so hard it felt unbearable yet welcomed.

"I—” He paused. Breathed. Tried again. “I think… I’ve been wearing that face for years, too,” he admitted quietly, brushing his thumb atop yours like it might help you believe him. “I just didn’t know how to say it.”

You blinked at him, lips trembling a little.

He smiled, the kind that was unbearably honest and dimpled his cheeks.

“So if it was gonna come out anyway…” he leaned down, low and quiet, lips near your temple, words just for you. “…you should know I plan on spending the rest of my life earning that look again.”

The look on your face told him everything.

.

Thank you for reading! Any reblogs, comments, likes are forever appreciated, and keeps me motivated!

You beam, hands clasped behind your back in an attempt to contain your giddy pride. “A surprise for your team for their Monday. You said they’ve been running on fumes and caffeine, so I thought maybe…a little sugar rush? Carbs can work wonders for office morale.”

He eyes the basket like you’ve potentially booby-trapped it. “You baked all this?”

You nod, rocking on your heels. “You know I did! There’s lemon bars, the espresso brownies you like, and—” you tap the gingham napkin tucked around a lumpy loaf “—honey oat bread for the gluten-free intern. I made extra, just in case.”

There’s also a braided bread ring in the middle, surrounded by flaky turnovers, a whole loaf of banana bread (you went heavy on the chocolate chips), and two rows of sugar cookies decorated as conversation hearts. The XOXO one is your favorite.

“But I thought you were just living your best baking life for us. I didn’t know I’dd have to share it.”

You lift one of your shoulders in an exaggerated, playful shrug and smile sweetly at him.

Lloyd squints at the selection, then back at you. “So, you want me to show up to work with this basket and hand out cookies like some kind of—” he gestures vaguely “—PTA mom?”

You wrinkle your nose, a little wounded. “You can just set it on the break room table. You don’t have to announce it or anything. But, I mean, wouldn’t it be nice to have people associate you with something other than terror and passive-aggressive motivational emails?”

Lloyd’s mouth purses like he’s bit into a lemon—not one of the lemon bars—and you watch the internal struggle play out as he weighs your efforts against…whatever bones in his body are rebelling against showing any modicum of niceness to his coworkers. He huffs, resigned, and starts hunting for a travel mug. “Fine. I’ll bring your—” he squints at the basket again “—heart-attack sampler to the office.” He pointedly ignores the smiley cookies, but you see him sneak one as soon as he thinks you’re not looking.

You grin into your coffee. “You’re secretly soft, Lloyd. It’ll be good for you to practice more of it before the baby comes.”

“I’m not soft,” he mutters, then glances at you, still full-frowning. “You’re just, like, a relentless kindness blizzard. Nobody can stand up to that.”

You beam.

.:MONDAY EVENING:.

When Lloyd comes home, it’s with the kind of energy of a man who has spent a full day stomping out metaphorical fires, slamming the door like it’s the front door’s fault. You barely have time to register the sound of his keys being tossed into the bowl in the entryway before he’s in the kitchen and on you, lifting you bodily against the fridge and kissing you with the kind of bruising, insistent hunger that says something inside him has snapped, but in a good way.

You barely get out an “Oh—” before he’s got your pants unzipped and pushing down over your hips, his hands already unceremoniously shoving your underwear aside. He’s still in full office drag, minus the tie, sleeves rolled up to the crook of his elbows. His collar is open, and under the harsh kitchen light his knuckles are pink and raw-looking, as if he’s had to white-knuckle his way through the entire day.

“You made me a goddamn celebrity,” he growls against your mouth, his voice ragged and reverent, his hands absolutely everywhere. “I had to listen to a dozen people tell me how thoughtful and ‘refreshing’ it was, and the fucking intern almost cried.”

You break into helpless laughter, clutching at his shoulders as he props you harder against the refrigerator door. “You’re welcome,” you manage, between giggles and gasps as his mouth finds the sensitive spot just under your ear. “Did they like the cookies?”

“Of course the liked your fucking cookies! They were delicious,” he huffs, carrying you over to the counter. “All day, it was ‘Is this your wife’s recipe?’, ‘Will she teach us her secret?’, ‘You should marry her again these are so good’. I couldn’t get through one email without someone licking brownie off their fingers and their productivity went through the goddamn roof.”

You bite a giggle into his neck; he groans, the vibration transmitting from his throat straight into your chest. His hands are everywhere, kneading into the meat of your ass. “And all I could think about all day? How fucking proud I was to have the best fucking wife on the planet and how I couldn’t wait to devour your sweet pussy the way they were devouring those treats.”

“I was just trying to help,” you say, breathless as he kisses down your jaw, over the place where your pulse beats wild.

“All. Day. Pumpkin,” he repeats. “I didn’t get one single goddamn moment’s peace, couldn’t send an email, all my meetings derailed because HR turned into your personal fangirl squad, so now I’m going to fucking ruin you.”

You don’t have time to bask in the delight of his confession because Lloyd spins you, physically bracing your hands against the counter of the kitchen island. He presses at the small of your back until your lower half is arched provocatively, ass out, just the way he likes. He’s rough, not mean, but so insistent you can’t help but gasp as he yanks your panties all the way down to your knees.

You feel the wet heat of his tongue before his hands dig in and spread you open. The first lap is greedy, almost punishing, as if he’s trying to erase the sugar high with something saltier, dirtier, and entirely his.

He laps at you messily, groaning unselfconsciously. You grip the countertop, knuckles white, hips lifted into the ferocious rhythm of his mouth. He suckles your clit like it’s his own private vendetta and you have no choice but to tremble, to rut back against his slick, talented mouth, and that bonus feature of a mustache.

“You missed a spot,” you joke, voice quavering on the edge of laughter and something more ragged.

Lloyd’s answering snarl is muffled but so fucking pleased. He slaps the inside of one of your thighs, and you yelp. The tip of his nose nudges between your folds. The sloppy noise of spit and arousal is loud and obscene and perfect.

You end up with your forehead pressed to the cool marble, hands scrabbling for the edge as he eats you out with single-minded dedication.

He doesn’t slow—not when you beg, not when you whimper, not even when your thighs begin to shake with the effort of staying upright. You’re trembling so hard your thighs shake, the marble threatening to crack your teeth as you try to bite back the noises you’re making. Lloyd is relentless, alternating between full-tongue swipes and tight, focused circles around your clit, never quite letting you settle into a rhythm before he yanks it away. You choke on a moan, his name splitting into a plaintive mewl.

He pulls off with a wet pop, spit and slick connecting you for a moment. “You gonna come for me, baby?”

You nod, maybe a little violently, vision gone soft around the edges.

“Use your words,” Lloyd demands, licking a shiny stripe up from your entrance then blowing gently, sending goosebumps arcing over your ass and down both legs.

“Please,” you gasp, desperate. “I want it, I need—fuck, Lloyd—”

“Yeah?”

You shove your hips greedily into his face, words dissolving into moans. "Yes, please, I need to come, Lloyd—"

"That's what I want to fucking hear." His tongue is all brute force, no mercy, and your body shudders at the edge before a decisive, hard suck on your clit pushes you over the cliff and pleasure shatters through you.

Lloyd holds you through it, arms tight around your hips, mouth never leaving you, almost as if he plans to keep you in that state forever. When you sag, boneless and trembling, against the countertop, he licks you clean—gentler now, but still greedy—before standing and dragging his mouth up your back, his teeth catching on the ridge of your spine through your rumpled shirt.

He straightens, wiping his chin with the back of his hand, and looms over you. “You’re not going to out-nice me, Pumpkin,” he says, the roughness catching on the softness underneath. “You want to spoil people? This is how I spoil you.”

BAHAHAHAHA I FORGOT HOW MUCH I LOVE THESE TWO!

Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

The Daily Dose

Dear Goddess, I’m moving to a new city for work. Exciting, right? But underneath the brave face, I’m terrified. New job. No friends. And honestly… I’m not sure I like who I am right now. I’ve spent years shrinking myself to fit in, and now that it’s just me and my suitcase… how do I become someone new, someone desirable even? Not just professionally, but emotionally? Sexually? Like… how do you rebuild confidence when you’re starting from scratch? 

Above all, congratulations on this new chapter of your life. It sounds like it’s one where you will truly discover yourself and the answers to everything you’ve ever wanted.

Now onto the advice, you're not starting from scratch. You're writing a sequel, with the foundation already laid. Let me tell you first hand: Desirability isn't built, it's uncovered. You just need to stop hiding it from yourself first. And since you’re stepping into blank territory, here’s your advantage: no one knows who you “used” to be. Which means you get to decide who you want to be from here on out.

You can start by building a new wardrobe that doesn’t feel like the old you, asserting dominance in the face of ignorance (i.e. mansplaining tech bros), buying yourself flowers frequently to celebrate the little accomplishments. You can protect your peace by being very selective on who you spend your time with, especially when you could be spending that time alone. A little word of advice, if it feels heavy instead of thrilling, they’re not the person you need right now.

And as for desirability? My love, that starts with touch. And I don’t mean the physical and intimate kind, but yours in this new life, new home, new you. Don’t get me wrong, it’ll definitely benefit you if you learn your body, and that I do mean intimately. But confidence doesn't always come from success, it comes from believing in your strength, and choosing yourself again and again and again.

There’s no doubt you’ll make mistakes. It will feel lonely until you find your place. But each time you choose authenticity over attention? That’s when the real desire begins, not because others see it but because finally–you do. And when you feel it, those who matter will too.

Welcome home,

Aphrodite

You’re sitting in a large office, your resume that’s not very big as opposed to the examples of your work perched atop the mahogany desk as you spoke to the editor in chief.

“I see you’ve never written for a paper directly, just all freelance work. Why change that now?” The man in front of you, whose name plate read Perry, questioned you. Much like any man his age and stature, it felt instinctual to be a little intimidated. You had a feeling that his employees saw him as a father figure with time, if the framed photos that littered his walls were anything to go off of.

“Just like any other writer, writing for an actual newspaper is a dream. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you, I want more exposure for my pieces. Despite the unconventional topics that are written about, self-help is just as popular a genre as anything your paper currently covers.” You replied, a gentle but knowing smile on your face. You knew your worth, you knew what you would bring to the table and he did too, but the interview was just a formality.

“You do understand that this would be the first of any kind of advice column for the Daily Planet?” He responds quickly, leaning back in his office chair with his hands in his lap.

“Of course, I also know that a majority of your current subscriber base are older people who are not exactly profitable. Versus my audience having a broader age range and are more likely to purchase sponsored products.” It felt strange to toot your own horn but the media world is not what it used to be, and the Daily Planet would ultimately benefit from having you on their team. He ponders your response for a moment, rocking in his office chair with a pen tapping his chin.

“I’m going to give you a chance because I’ve seen what you have to offer your audience, which means I know how important your pieces are. And as you said, you will inevitably bring us entirely different foot traffic than we’ve ever seen before.” He was sure and comforting as he complimented your work thus far. It was rarer than you’d think to find a man in charge who didn’t minimize the type of work you did. He recognized that all journalism is journalism, and you knew that your future working here was bright if this man was your boss.

“Thank you sir.” You nodded your head in gratitude, fighting the giddy and celebratory smile that wanted to make an appearance.

“Now I have another meeting to go to, but feel free to tour the building and pick out an available cubicle before you start on Monday.” He speaks as he stands with a hand lifted to shake your own, which you reciprocate immediately with enthusiasm. 

Gathering your belongings, you bid adieu with another ‘thank you’ and exit his office with your head held high. 

It’s true–your content was not traditional–you knew that going into this. That working alongside journalists who covered breaking news and local events were not going to assimilate easily with a ‘life and sex’ columnist. 

Hearing the buzz of topics and headlines thrown around by the current employees just solidified how out of your wheelhouse you were, but your field of work taught you that feigned confidence can get you through anything. 

As you approached what looked like an unoccupied desk, you spotted a trio of two men and one woman in a conversation, seemingly hovered around a computer screen reading something. The closer you got, the more you recognized the familiar page, it was your blog that they were reading. 

“Who even reads this stuff?” Says the shorter of the two, not knowing you were passing behind him, huddled in his group of two other people. 

“There’s something for everyone.” The taller one replied, rather mousey, as he adjusted his thick rimmed glasses to read the post better.

“Well, I can tell you who wrote it.” You say as you’re directly behind them, snapping their attention away from the screen to face you. 

Their heads snap up as you approach, their surprise obvious. Jimmy is the first to find his words, looking at you with wide eyes. "Woah!" He exclaims. "It's the woman of the hour… I’m Jimmy,” The freckled man spoke with a newfound confidence, and you could tell he was a natural flirt. He introduced his coworkers, Lois and Clark, to you after but in a manner that he hoped wouldn’t take your attention from him.

Clark is next, his eyes meeting yours. There's a hint of a smile on his lips, as though your sudden appearance amused him. 

“So the rumors are true, you’re joining forces with the Daily Planet. I’m surprised, it’s not exactly… what we’re known for.” Lois spoke up, arms crossed over her chest, her tone didn’t imply malice but her words hinted at it. Her expression is the most subdued, her gaze measuring as she looks you over. And for extra measure, like she couldn’t believe it, "You're the new columnist?"

“Guilty as charged. But hey, at least we won’t have to fight over breaking stories.” You paused, acknowledging each member with eye contact and a small nod of your head, “You guys don’t mind if I take that open desk right there?”

"Be our guest," Lois says, arching a brow with that signature smirk—half challenge, half approval. 

The disdain and shock that spread around the office undoubtedly made its way back to the golden trio, about how your column was inappropriate and an embarrassment to the hard work of the current journalists. Before a face was even placed to the name, Clark, with his good-natured temperament, already wanted to defend the writer behind the work. Your stance in the face of mild criticism is what gave him the confidence to back you up. 

Clark pushes his glasses up slightly, clearing his throat. "I think... it's actually helpful. People talk about sex like it’s some big scandal, but really—" He catches himself, ears pinkening. "I mean–it’s normal, factually speaking.” He straightens instantly at the confused expression of his friends and mutters into his coffee: "...I know facts."  

You blink at him slowly, teasing curling in your voice. "Your blushing betrays your words, but you’re very right. It’s a normal human experience. Unfortunately, the things we consider taboo are also the things that people need the most help with." You knew this first hand, it’s what led to you starting the column in the first place.

"As for facts," You say sweetly, dropping into your new chair with a spin. "Did you know that 87% of people fake orgasms because their partners won’t talk about it?” You tilt your head at him as he chokes on said coffee.

“Would that make you a sexpert?” Lois asks, almost unsure of you, but smirking at her own play on words. 

“No, not at all, more like a sex positive motivational speaker. But if you ever need any tips, I’ve got plenty of advice for you.” You reply, because it’s the truth. It unintentionally comes off with a bite, but you were truly meaning to be generous.

Your colleagues stare at you, dumbfounded. Jimmy is the first to recover, a smile spreading across his face. "Holy crap," he says, shaking his head in awe. "She's gonna fit in perfectly." 

Lois seems equally taken aback, but in a good way—you can see it in the lift of her chin and tilt of her head. She’s intrigued, perhaps even impressed by your boldness. Then there's Clark, still coughing as he struggles to regain composure. When he finally does, his cheeks are flushed, his eyes avoiding yours.

“It’s been a pleasure meeting you guys, I’ve got to set up my computer so it’s ready for my first day.” You smile politely before the conversation becomes stale, spinning in your chair toward your new work space. 

A string of niceties fell from their lips as they went back to their own respective work. Clark is the last to pull his eyes away from your form, watching as you settle into your chair with a graceful sway. The way your hair falls atop your shoulders, how the skirt of your dress hugs the curve of your hips, even the little smirk on your lips has his heart rate picking up an embarrassing beat. 

Just what Clark needs, another distraction.

The Daily Dose

Dear Goddess, I love being passionate with my partner. I like to moan, grab him, tell him what I want… loudly. Lately though, he’s been pulling away after sex and saying things like it’s ‘intense’ or questioning everything I say during the act. It makes me feel ashamed for being myself. Did I ruin something good? 

Oh honey. First—breathe. You didn’t ruin anything. Let me say this for the people in the back: Your desire is not a flaw. Your passion is not “too much.” 

Here’s the real issue—you and your partner aren’t on the same page when it comes to intimacy style. And that’s okay! That happens more than you think and it can be really easy to overcome with time.

Some people equate intimacy with softness—quiet moments, gentle touch, a slow burn that never quite catches fire. Others (like you!) express closeness through heat—the roar of sensation, sound as connection, desire as devotion. And despite common logic, these two can still blend harmoniously, as long as you have the dreaded (and I say that lightly, because it can be very fulfilling!) talk.

The problem isn't you. The problem is communication—or rather, its absence. Instead of guessing if he's per se turned off by your passion (or maybe overwhelmed), try this: Have a conversation outside of bed. 

Not during pillow talk or mid-foreplay—but in calm moments where you can truly speak and listen. Something along the lines of: "When we’re intimate… Does my sounds or intensity ever make you uncomfortable? What’s going through your mind when we’re together?"

And give him space to answer without judgment. Maybe he loves it but doesn't know how to keep up verbally or physically! Maybe his past partners were quieter and this is new for him. Or… maybe he just can’t handle a woman who owns her pleasure unapologetically—which says way more about him than it does about you.

Either way—you deserve someone who doesn’t flinch at your fire… someone who stokes it instead. Keep being loud. Keep reaching. And if anyone tells you again that you're "too much"? Sweetheart...  They're simply not enough man to hold all of you.

Yours,

Aphrodite

It had been a month since you started at the Daily Planet, which also meant you hadn't been working out of your living room or a random cafe in the same amount of time. It was an adjustment but having people you got along with was a quiet blessing to this new backdrop of your life.

You had gotten very close to your coworkers, including ‘Shithead Steve’ who always had a dumb euphemism to piggyback off your latest column. Lois took your advice here and there, despite acting like she didn’t need it. Surprisingly, Jimmy was starting to become gently more aware of his treatment toward women, simply by tapping into the mind of your work. But Clark–he was still a mystery–he didn’t talk about dating or ask for advice, he just complimented your pieces first thing every morning in a way that made you think he didn’t actually read them but was just being polite.

Despite the enigma he was, you’d be lying if you said you didn’t look forward to seeing that bumbling giant of a man. His words of affirmations or gentle reminders throughout the day helped you get through the busiest and toughest of work days. Not a lot of people could say they looked forward to work but you were one of the lucky few.

With a latte in one hand and your tech bag in the other, you stepped into the building with a pep in your step. Heading straight to your desk, you thanked your time management skills for ensuring you got to work early. That also meant you beat your coworkers there, as you routinely did.

You were already drafting up a response to a submission when you heard chattering and footsteps come in behind you almost like a stampede.

The first to enter, unsurprisingly, is Lois. She's talking as she struts through the newsroom, her gaze sweeping over everything with a critical eye.

Next is Jimmy, who lets out a low whistle as he sees you already at your desk. "Up and at it early, Aphrodite, way to go." He grins, setting his bag down across from you. The use of your pen name doesn’t slip past you.

Clark is the last to arrive, and the moment you see him, your heart gives a little flutter. He's dressed in his usual button-up, the sleeves rolled up and his tie hanging a little crooked.

“Good morning to you too.” You hum in response, watching Jimmy and Lois walk to the coffee station together as Clark was unpacking his briefcase and stealing glances in your direction.

You’re left with Clark who’s trying to muster the courage to talk to you, how his confidence only extended to his battles was something he could never comprehend.  “Can I ask why you write under a fake name?”

You pause, you’ve never been asked that. But then again, you’ve never worked with other people before. “I didn’t think the blog would take off like it did when I was starting out. I wrote under a pen name in case I wanted to pursue another career but I am really grateful I never gave up on it,”  You reply, taking a sip of your drink as your chair was turned in the direction of his desk.

Clark's eyebrows lift slightly at your reply, and his expression is almost contemplative, a stark contrast to the fumbling mess he'd turned into the first time you'd met. 

"That makes sense," he says, nodding slowly. His eyes move over your face, and there's a hint of curiosity there. "And the name you chose... it's pretty."

The compliment surprises him as much as it does you, and his ears pinken instantly. He clears his throat and busies himself with setting down his bag and coffee, avoiding your gaze.

“The goddess of love is quite fitting for my… line of work, don’t you think?” You respond with a giggle, batting your eyelashes in that flirtatious way that you know has an effect on Clark. Fishing for compliments from your crush was a cheap trick, but you never claimed to be above any of that.

His eyes flick back up to yours, widening just a fraction. He looks flustered again, and that little pink tinge on his ears spreads down his neck. "Y-yeah." Clark clears his throat, trying to regain his composure. "It's just... it suits you."

There's something in his tone when he says it that has your heart skipping a beat. Maybe it's just your imagination, but he sounds almost reverent. The brief but memorable moment is cut off when Jimmy strolls back in, passing a coffee to Clark like it’s second nature. 

In the distance you notice some mail girls watching Jimmy with puppy dog eyes, twirling their hair, and conveying all the signs of attraction. It gives you an idea. Shifting focus away from Clark so he can take a second to cool off, you speak up. “Hey Jimmy, you seem to have a legion of babes. Maybe I can get your opinion on some future pieces?” 

Jimmy grins at your comment, clearly used to the attention. He strolls over to lean on your desk, giving a casual shrug. "Babes, admirers, whatever you wanna call them." He takes a sip of his coffee. "I'm an open book. Lay it on me."

-Clark watches the exchange from his seat beside Jimmy, the slightest crease between his brows.

“So I get this question a lot—but from a woman’s perspective—all I can do is try to boost morale and encourage shooting for the stars. But what do you think—as a man—could these women do to get your attention?” You preemptively have a voice recorder on so you don’t miss any details.  

Jimmy leans back, thinking. "Well, first off, confidence is huge," he says with a laugh. "Like—don’t come at me playing shy games and then disappear when I say hi. If you like someone? Own it."

Clark sips his coffee quietly, but you catch the flicker of interest in his eyes.

Jimmy continues: “But also—not just looks or flirting. Ask me something real, y’know? Make me laugh. Catch me off guard.” He grins. “And please—no pretending to love my obscure alien tech podcast if you’ve never heard it.”

You nod, laughing softly at the adorable dork that Jimmy Olson so naturally was. You tilt your head at Clark then with a smirk. "What about you Mr. Kent? Ever had someone ‘catch you off guard’?" 

He chokes on his coffee and Jimmy snorts into his sleeve. “Oh no,” Jimmy says dramatically. “She’s going there and cannot be stopped.”

Your voice wavers just the tiniest bit, trying to understand what his friend was saying. Clark was very handsome, the glasses and curly hair combo, combined with the undeniably amazing build underneath his suit—it had to attract many women.  Although you knew the answer based on their nonexistence of chemistry, you prodded intentionally to get a relationship status from Clark. “I’m sure there’s something that drew you to Lois right, or am I reading that wrong?”

Clark chokes—again—and Jimmy bursts into laughter. "Whoa now," He says, grinning wildly. "You just stepped in it." His jokes make you roll your eyes, his voice completely background noise as you focus on Clark and his reaction.

He pulls off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose, cheeks burning. "Lois and I are just friends," he says firmly, but there's a quiet softness underneath that makes you wonder. "And no—we never… it’s not like that."

Jimmy leans in with mock seriousness. "They fight like married people though. Spilt coffee? It’s like divorce court in a fishbowl." He winks at you before walking off.

You watch Clark carefully as he avoids your gaze, adjusting papers on his desk with sudden intensity. After a beat, you murmur once your mutual friend is out of hearing distance. "So… no one on your radar?"

He freezes—just for a second—before finally meeting your eyes over the rim of his glasses. "I don’t know that I even have time… for things like that. But I’m not very intuitive to see anything either." He says quietly, almost yearning. "Too busy getting by day-to-day.”

“Well, regardless, feel free to chime in and give me your opinions on any of my pieces. Purely for scientific purposes, of course. You know, with all your knowledge of facts and such.” You hummed to yourself before getting started on your next post. 

Clark watches you for a beat, his expression softening as you turn back to your screen. "Scientific purposes, huh?" He mutters—completely to himself—with the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.  He adjusts his glasses again like a nervous habit that soothes his nerves, then clears his throat and retreats behind the wall of paperwork on his desk like it’s a force field.  

The Daily Dose

Dear Goddess, I’ve got the hots for my coworker. (Don’t worry, workplace relationships are allowed!) My problem is that I don’t try when it comes to work, I show up, get the job done, and do the same thing the next day. I feel like he doesn’t see me because I have no sex appeal, which is definitely the fault of my wardrobe or self care. How can I make him see me without completely changing what makes me comfortable? 

Reader, I totally understand where you’re coming from. 

It’s SO important to not change you at your core when it comes to channeling your divine sexuality, so this is a good attitude to start off. 

You can and absolutely should have the best of both worlds. You can be sexy and comfortable at the same time. This often looks like a mindset change, something super simple but can also be the hardest to hold onto.

Now while I don’t want to overstep, you say at one point that you don’t invest time in you but also that you’re comfortable where you’re at. This feels conflicting, and I will always encourage my readers to indulge in self care. This looks different for everyone, whether it’s beauty routines that you can do on the weekends to feel effortless during the work week, finding the perfect pieces of clothing that make you feel irresistible, or finding the time to move your body and become in tune with yourself, there is something. for. everybody!

To answer your question, start small. This could be lingering glances, subtle but flirty compliments, showing interest in things he likes. The options are limitless.

But until you feel sexy in your body and mind, you will never stop thinking about what you do and don’t attract. Invest in you always, because you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Always yours,

Aphrodite 

Balancing both your cellphone and a coffee cup in your hand, you ran into Clark on the way to the elevators. His typical loosely put together outfit was now prim and proper. 

“Clark, you look great today!” You say as he steps back to let you walk in first. 

“Oh…I-uh, didn’t do anything different today.”

“Sure…” You affirmed with a smirk but you knew that wasn’t true. Your career revolved around confidence, looks, and bettering yourself every day so you would be a hypocrite to not see the obvious change in your coworker. You get lost in the crowd of other elevator passengers, but you catch Clark stealing meek glances in your direction in the corner of your eye as you wait to get to your floor. 

It’s not until you’re at your desk that you see him again. At the sound of your leather briefcase touching your desk, Clark spins in his chair to meet your gaze. As always, he is the enigmatic image of the boy-next-door, but today is slightly more.

“Are you sure you didn’t do something different with your hair today?” You say, even though you know the answer, seeking out the squiggly curl that scraped his forehead which was usually combed back into his gentle mop of waves. He is modest, shying away at the focused attention you are giving him. His hand moves to phantom pat his hair down almost like he’s comforting himself. The notion pulls at your heart strings tenderly because you can tell his appearance isn’t typically something other externally talk about.

“I stand by what I said though, you look great today. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!” The cheesy motivational line made you cringe inwardly, surely you could’ve come up with something better on the fly. Despite your underlying embarrassment at your wording, his ears turn red again, his grin tightening as he tries to shrink himself from visibility.

He did that often, not great at accepting compliments in a way that he was too shy to acknowledge but also too humble to agree. It was endearing but you were starting to wear thin on the seemingly one-sided flirting game. 

It’s not like you were oblivious either, you saw the way he looked at you when he didn’t think you were watching back. Most of your pieces were about getting the other party to reciprocate feelings, or at least show it better than they would before. Getting him to come out of his shell and open up to you would be nearly impossible, but not completely. With time, he will emerge from his cocoon just… maybe not today.

The Daily Dose

Dear Aphrodite, 

I’ve been working with this guy for months. We sit across from each other, talk every day—but there’s never that spark in his eyes when he looks at me. I don’t dress for attractiveness or know how to subtly flirt. I’m shy, plus we’re coworkers—but sometimes I wonder… does he even see me as a woman? Like… Could he ever want me? Or am I just “one of the guys” to him? 

Oh sweet girl. First: He sees you. Whether he admits it—even to himself—is another story.

You're not invisible. You don't have to wear tight skirts or bat your lashes dramatically to be seen as sexy. Attraction isn’t only loud; sometimes it whispers through silence—lingering glances when they think no one’s watching, slight hesitations before speaking, the way their breath catches when you laugh unexpectedly.

But here’s what you’re really asking:  "Can someone who doesn’t look at me like fire still feel the heat?"

And honey… yes. Some men—not all—are wired like malfunctioning smoke detectors, they only respond after everything is already ablaze. They see kindness over sex appeal. Friendship over flirtation. The brain first, then much later the body clicks in too. And that delay? It has nothing to do with your worth or desirability. It has everything to do with emotional availability and how someone was taught—or failed—to connect desire with intimacy.

So if this man is respectful, present, talks easily with you... then chances are good—he already likes being near you more than others—it just hasn't crossed his mind what else that could mean yet.

So instead of trying harder, Try being slightly bolder—in small ways: Wear something that makes you feel soft and sure (not for him—for you)  Lean into playful teasing (“Wait—you think my tone in that email was too much?”)  Let your voice drop an octave when making eye contact.

Don't chase attention. Command it by existing fully where you are—one unapologetic breath at a time. Because some men need permission disguised as subtlety. A doorway left open by confidence—not desperation. And if after all that he still doesn't look? 

Then maybe love lives down another aisle but damn, he’ll spend years wondering why yours burned brightest.

Yours always,

Aphrodite

Clark reads your column. Like clockwork, every morning, although he acts like he doesn’t. Then—like a man possessed by quiet determination—he does nothing dramatic. No grand gestures. No sudden wardrobe overhaul or awkward flirting attempts.

But over the next few days… little things shift. He starts arriving just after you—never before, never late. He walks past your desk with a soft “Morning,” voice lower than usual, like he’s testing out that octave thing you wrote about. His voice is already deep so you don’t catch the shift in tone too easily. He doesn’t stare. But when you look up, his eyes are already on you—then away just as fast, like he didn’t think you would catch his pathetic gazing.

One afternoon, Jimmy makes a joke about your piece from last week—something dumb like “So does this mean I should moan during meetings now?”—and Clark doesn’t laugh. Instead, he says quietly. "She’s not writing for laughs. She’s writing about connection."

And when both of you turn to look at him in surprise? He adjusts his glasses and mutters into his coffee: "...It's important." The air changes after that moment—a hairline crack in the wall between professionalism and possibility. It might be the most emotion towards you you’ve seen from him yet, and it almost reopens the door of chances.

That afternoon you’re alone at your desk again because you’d rather work for free than sit in rush hour traffic. Wrapping up edits on next week's post titled "Why ‘I’m Not Ready’ Is More Powerful Than You Think." while all of your colleagues began to leave the building one by one.

He watched you from afar as you’re deeply engrossed in your work, the surge of determination hitting him like a lightning bolt as he knew what he had to do now.

It’s later that night, he’s sat on his couch, his glasses slightly fogged from the warmth of his laptop. No one is around but Krypto, who watches him like he’s lost his damn mind. He’s already paced his living room upwards of ten times, unsure of what to say or even if this would work.

He was convinced he was being ridiculous, he writes for a living, how could he not just say how he feels? Maybe because he doesn’t write about his emotions, just fake interviews with heroes and local community news.

He opens your submission form on the Daily Mail website and types with shaky fingers. Lately, he’d been good at taking your advice, well, the advice that could apply to him, that is. You were thrilling, not heavy, and he needed to either take this step or never try again.

Username: smallville618  

Question: I work with someone incredible. We're not close—not really—but I notice everything about her: how she hums when she’s thinking, how she tucks her hair behind her ear when focused… even how her laugh cuts through a room like it belongs there. I’ve never felt this way before—like I want to be better just because she exists near me.

But we’re coworkers and I don’t know how to cross that line without ruining what little we have—or worse, making things awkward if she doesn’t feel the same. Is there such a thing as silent attraction that stays silent…. should I act on it?

He hits submit and sits back in his chair with an audible groan, almost slamming the device shut like it would guard him from his feelings. He stares at the ceiling like he just confessed to a crime when he could’ve gotten away with it. Krypto barks once—as if judging him—and Clark mutters: “Dogs have it so easy.”  

By Monday morning, you're sipping your holiday latte while scrolling through submissions, and one comes in from the weekend that you completely missed before clocking out on the last work day.

Your breath hitches as you notice it’s written by a man, the liquid in your cup rippling from the sudden intake of air. It wasn’t the first submission from a male writer, but they were far from common for you to respond to. After all, who would ask a girl for advice on guy matters?

Something about the username feels familiar—the rhythm of his words, so formal yet deeply tender. It hits you like a truck, your gaze moving to his desk to see the small picture of his high school football days with his parents, the jersey print showing the town’s name over his chest. Your eyes linger a little too long at his cheesy smile and his arms wrapped on the shoulders of his parents who oddly have none of his striking features.

You glance across the room at Clark—who is very pointedly reading an article about agricultural subsidies in his hometown. Your lips curl into a slow knowing smile. And without looking up from your screen—you whisper for only yourself to hear: “I’ll cross that line if you’re too scared to.”

But then you glance across the bullpen again and find Clark watching you this time. He’s not subtle. His eyes lock onto yours across the room like two beams of sunlight and you can practically see thoughts churning behind his glasses.

It feels like time slows as you hold his gaze. You wonder: Does he know you know? Did he think you wouldn’t figure out it was him? Was his submission a test of some kind?-

You didn’t spend hours of your day writing to your readers to be confident, take control, and make decisions, just to shy away from what was in front of you. The day was coming to an end and very few people remained in the office aside from you and Clark. But you could be in a room full of people and still look for that quiet farm boy.

Quickly gathering your things, you looked around and spotted him waiting for an elevator that dinged for your floor. “Wait!” You called out to him in hopes he would, before you lost your nerve. 

The moment you call to him, his shoulders straighten instantly, and he spins. His gaze lands on you, a subtle surprise on his face. But he holds the elevator door open, and you catch that flicker of hopefulness under his surprise as he watches you approach. “You’re leaving early today?”

That soft reminder that he knows your schedule like the back of your hand was a boost in motivation. So you step in front of him as the elevator doors close with you two, alone. For the first time ever without desks or paperwork or coworkers to hide behind.

He clears his throat in a futile bid for composure, but the jagged rhythm of his breathing gives him away. Through the distorted reflection of the elevator’s polished metal, you trace his every line, watching him from every angle. The air grows heavy and thin, charged by a heat that seems to intensify with every passing second.

“This attraction… is anything but silent.” You whisper before wrapping your arms around his neck, moving to your toes to press a gentle but passionate kiss to his unexpecting lips. It’s immediate with how he reacts, hands wrapped around your waist as he pulls your body closer to his, closer than you’ve ever been before. And it’s like everything you’ve ever written and read about, but so much more because it was authentic and it was with him.

“How did you know it was me?” He says as he reluctantly pulls away from you with disbelieving eyes. His brows are furrowed as he regains his breath without taking his hands off of your body.

“Mr. Kent, I read every piece you write. I could pick your writing out of a lineup.” Your lips curve into a slow, knowing smile as his hands linger on the rounded skin of your hips—like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go. “And Smallville?” You whisper against his parted lips, breathless. “You think I wouldn’t recognize your beloved hometown? Or that careful way you chose every word… like it matters more than life?”

His eyelids fluttered shut for a heartbeat—a raw collision of shame, desire, and utter ruin. It ravaged him to realize you had seen through every layer, mirroring the way he had always cataloged you.

“And only you,” you whispered, your fingertip tracing the rough grain of his jaw, “would write about the struggle to be better… when you’re already better than everyone else.”

When his eyes finally opened, they were a turbulent, storm-swept blue. “I didn't think you would ever see that message,” he murmured.

“You did.” You flattened your palms against the startling, solid heat of his chest. “You wouldn’t have sent it if a part of you didn't want to be caught.”

A heavy silence hung between you until he let out a irregular, breathless laugh against your neck. “I’ve wanted this since the first time I saw you walk out of Perry’s office.”

You gave a playful roll of your eyes, a grin tugging at your lips. “Took you long enough, Smallville.”

You tipped your head back against the cushion and blew a breath up at your damp hairline.

“This is ridiculous,” you groaned dramatically to the empty room. “If I die of heatstroke in the middle of winter, I am haunting him.”

The heater rattled in the hallway like it was laughing at you.  

You flicked through channels on the tiny TV with one hand, the other wrapped around a sweating glass of lemonade and vokda. The back door was propped open to coax in some of the crisp air from outside, but it barely took the edge off. The house had soaked up the warmth like a sponge and was refusing to let go.

At least you had the day off… Well until your shift at the bar.

Another bead of sweat rolled between your shoulder blades. You grimaced, lifting the hem of your tank and fanning it uselessly.

Naturally, that was the exact moment someone thumped on the front door.

Three quick, familiar knocks. Cheerful. Off-beat.

Your heart did a stupid little skip.

"Door’s open!" you called, not bothering to move right away.

The knob turned, hinges squeaking a protest before the door swung inward. A blast of cold air rushed in first, followed by Jake Jensen.

He wedged his shoulder against the door to push it shut behind him, a toolbox balanced easily in one hand. Beanie pulled down, glasses already fogging a little from the temperature change, cheeks pink from the cold. He wore a graphic tee under an open flannel, tool belt slung low on his hips, jeans clinging just right.

"Holy sauna, Batman," he announced, squinting around like the heat itself offended him. "Rogers wasn’t exaggerating. Thought he was just being dramatic to get me out here."

You smirked from your sprawl on the couch, lifting your glass in greeting.

"Welcome to my hell," you replied. "If I burst into flames, make sure they write ‘killed by overenthusiastic ducted heating’ on my tombstone."

Jake’s gaze finally landed on you and lingered. His eyebrows climbed over the top rim of his fogged glasses.

"Well," he drawled, grin spreading slow and bright, "if this is what heatstroke looks like, I see why Steve’s in a panic."

You rolled your eyes, but your mouth tugged at the corners.

"I'm melting away, death is coming," you complained. "I’ve already planned my funeral twice."

He set the toolbox down, shaking off the last of the cold as he padded further inside. The floorboards creaked under his boots.

"I am exactly on time," he countered. pulling off his beanie "You just started dying dramatically early."

"Well, what did you expect from bar staff?" you conceded. "We’re taught to suffer for tips."

"That why you’re dressed like that?" he asked, eyes very obviously doing another slow sweep from your bare legs to the strap of your tank top slipping off one shoulder.

You snorted. "I am dressed like this because the stupid heater is trying to cook me alive. And because my roommates aren’t home. And because-"

"Because I’ve seen you in less," he finished, entirely too pleased with himself

You flicked a cushion at him without getting up. He caught it one-handed, laughing.

“I did not know Steve would send you, now shut up and fix my house, Jensen."

"Yes, ma’am," he drawled, with a mock salute before pulling off his beanie. "Per orders of your glorious landlord, I am here to audit your heating, check your smoke alarms, test your carbon monoxide detector, and change out your pest traps."

You narrowed your eyes. "He actually said all that?"

"More or less," Jake admitted, shrugging. "Got a whole lecture about duty of care and not letting Jax's barstaff quietly die in their sleep. I told him if you did die, I call dibs on your coffee mug collection."

"Wow," you muttered. "Good to know I’m loved for my assets."

He flashed you a grin that softened at the edges, something quick and fond in it.

"Trust me," he called large vent in the living space, "your assets are already booked under a different column."

Your stomach did a little flip at that. You looked away, sipping your self made cocktail  to hide it.

Friends with benefits, that’s what you’d called it. Casual. Easy. No strings.

Didn’t mean your chest didn’t warm a little every time he said things like that.

Jake knelt by the wall vent, popping the cover off with a practiced flick. His shirt rode up as he bent, exposing a sliver of skin above his waistband. You were absolutely not staring. Not even a little.

"So," he went on, peering into the ductwork. "On a scale of one to ten, how much do you regret moving into Rogers’ Discount Sauna Palace?"

"Depends," you answered. "Today? Nine. If you compare it to the time the pipes burst when I was living at the Barton place. Solid four."

He snorted, reaching into the vent, arm muscles flexing under the flannel.

"Gonna have to recalibrate the thermostat," he muttered, pulling out something electronic to much about with something inside the vent  "This thing’s blasting like it owes somebody money."

"Is that the technical term?" you asked, sliding off the couch at last. The floor felt warm under your bare feet as you crossed to lean nearbaby, glass dangling from your fingers leaning on a nearby doorframe.

"Yep," he replied. "Tech term number two is ‘what the actual hell, who spilt water on this?’"

He wiggled something inside the vent, a metallic thunk echoing through the ductwork. The heater rattled in response, then dropped a notch. The air coming out cooled from ‘surface of the sun’ to ‘uncomfortable tropical.’

You sighed in relief.

"Already better," you breathed. "I can almost remember what oxygen feels like."

"Gimme twenty and you might even need socks again," he promised. "Don’t get used to walking around like you’re in a summer ad, though. You’re giving the safety inspector ideas."

You arched a brow. "Oh?"

He glanced back over his shoulder at you, glasses slipping halfway down his nose. "Yeah. Like maybe we need to institute a ‘clothing optional when Jensen’s on call’ policy."

You snorted, heat creeping higher in your cheeks despite yourself.

"You literally fixed the heater to stop that from being an option."

"Yeah, well," he said, turning back to the vent, sticking his head fully inside "I can always break it again on my way out."

You shook your head, biting back a smile.

The thing about Jake was; he never shut up. Ever. Half of what came out of his mouth was nonsense, the other half gossip, all of it wrapped in a golden-retriever enthusiasm that made it impossible to take offense. He should have been exhausting. Somehow, he wasn’t. Not to you.

You watched the line of his shoulders under the flannel, the easy way he moved through your space like he’d been born in it. This wasn’t the first time Steve had sent him to ‘just pop by’ with tools and excuses. Change a light blub. Leak check. Fence post assessment. You suspected at least half the work could’ve waited, but you weren’t about to complain.

"So," Jake said after a moment, voice echoing faintly from inside the vent. "You hear about Ted’s niece?"

You nudged the frame with your shoulder. "The new vet?"

He pulled his arm back out, flexing his fingers before reaching for a screwdriver.

"Yep. She's apparently a bit of a 'Livestock whisperer'," he said. "She’s been doing the rounds, shaking hands, patting calves, promising not to judge anyone’s coffee if offered."

You huffed a laugh. "You boys smitten already?"

"I mean," Jake started tilting his head like he was considering it, "Turner won’t shut up about her. But...Ari clearly made the play there" 

You grinned. "Of course he has."

"Man owns the diner and a ridiculous face; hospitality is in his blood," Jake continued. "Anyway, rumor is she’s some kind of breeding expert," he went on. "Ted’s over the moon he’s finally going to have the help. Says she might actually be able to build the practice up a bit instead of him just patching everyone up in between foalings."

You traced the rim of your glass with your fingertip, that pricking a little sharper than generic vet talk. Breeding expertise was the sort of thing that made ranchers either nervous or greedy, depending on how they treated their stock.

"Good," you murmured. "He’s needed that for a while. And if she’s got breeding experience… well, at least that’s something to talk to her about when I finally meet her."

Jake huffed a laugh.

"Yeah, people been saying how she was some big deal back in Colorado," he added.

"Huh," you breathed, interest sparking a little brighter. "Okay. Definitely talking to her, then."

"Of course you are," Jake replied, amused. "You horse girls always find each other. Next thing I know, you’ll all be out back, conspiring over bloodlines and pretending the rest of us don’t exist."

He tightened something with a quick twist, then slapped the vent cover back on, testing it with a firm push. Satisfied, he stood, the movement smooth, and turned to face you fully.

Up close, you could see the way his glasses had slid almost comically crooked, one ear of the frame caught higher than the other. His hair stuck up in soft, ridiculous tufts. There was a smudge of dust on his cheek.

God, he was cute. Stupidly, unfairly cute.

"Heater’s behaving for the moment," he reported, dusting his hands on his jeans. "Now we do the grand tour of smoke alarms and death detectors."

"Such a romantic," you teased. "You sure know how to show a girl a good time."

"Babe, you kidding?" he said. "Nothing says ‘I care’ like making sure your carbon monoxide detector has fresh batteries."

You laughed, unable to help it. The sound bounced off the low ceiling and filled the cosy little hallway. He watched you for a second, a softer look flickering over his face before he covered it with another grin.

"C’mon," he jerked his chin toward the rest of the house. "Walk with me while I do the alarms. And tell me all the dirt you’ve collected since last week."

"You hear more than I do," you pointed out "You’re the one who does the rounds."

"Yeah," he agreed, following close behind, the heat of him brushing your bare shoulder as you passed each other in the narrow space. "But you’re the one they loosen up around when they’ve had two beers and you smile at ‘em. Big difference."

The little house felt even smaller with Jake moving through it.

He didn’t take up space in the way some men did; no looming, no puffed-up chest, But he had a way of slotting into every room like he’d always belonged there.

“Where’s that ladder you girls use for the top cupboards?” he asked, peering toward the back of the house.

“Laundry,” you answered. “Behind the door.”

He padded down the hall, disappeared for a moment, then came back with your little metal step ladder folded under one arm. In the narrow hallway it made him look even broader as he snapped it open under the alarm.

“Okay,” he said, climbing up a couple of steps and reaching for the beige plastic unit near the ceiling. “We’re gonna test this sucker, so get ready for your neighbours to hate me.”

“Pretty sure this ridge’s seen worse than a noise test,” you remarked. “Last month the Vasquezes tried to deep-fry a turkey in the garage and almost took the roof off.”

Jake winced. “Ah, yes. The Great Turkey Boom of ’26.”

“You heard about that?”

He gave you a look over his shoulder. “Sweetheart, I know everything that happens on this ridge.”

He pressed the test button. The alarm shrieked to life, high and piercing. You clapped your hands over your ears, scrunching your nose as the sound knifed through your skull.

“Okay, okay, she works,” Jake said quickly, jabbing the button again until blessed silence fell. “See? Odds of you dying in your sleep just went down by at least twelve percent.”

“Comforting,” you muttered.

He stepped down

“Anyway,” he went on, picking up the ladder “I did get some interesting real estate gossip...Someone’s looking at the Walker place.”

You blinked. “The Walker place? Someone’s actually taking that?”

He nodded, moving down the hall to the next one “That’s the word. Apparently someone’s coming to look at it. Said they’re serious about making it a working property again.”

Your brows rose.

“After all this time?” you mused. “Place has just been sitting there collecting dust and raccoons.”

“Yeah, well. Bet you'll hear about it at work…This is brand new goss, towns just hearing it” he remarked moving the ladder down and climbed up two steps with easy balance, reaching for the second smoke alarm mounted closer to the ceiling.

“Half of ‘em think it’s gonna be some city slicker who lasts exactly one winter,” he added as he twisted the casing off. “Other half think it’s gonna be somebody like Hal.”

“God help us if it’s another Hal,” you muttered shaking your head.

Jake grinned down at you. “Relax. If the rumours are right, Hal’s about to be officially off the market anyway. Which is tragic, I can’t handle the pressure of being the only charmer in town.”

You snorted. “Please. Your ego would love that.”

“Hey, I have a delicate ecosystem of flirtation to maintain,” he protested lightly, popping the old battery free and slotting a fresh one in. “If Hal settles down, it'll fall to me to ensure Silver Ridge doesnt fall into a total charm drought.”

“That’s not how that works,” you said, but a smile tugged at your mouth. “And it's hardly 'offical' that Hal is off the market..”

Jake’s brows rose behind his skewed glasses. “Yeah?” Jake working out that you already knew what he was talking about “Is that what you heard at the bar?”

“Yeah... I mean sure. He's been... 'jumping the fence'  a lot,” you replied. “But it's not like anyone's seen them out together or anything yet...”

He huffed a pleased little sound, clicking the alarm casing back into place and giving the test button a quick tap. A short beep chirped overhead before the hallway settled into a quieter hum of heater and soft winter wind outside.

“One of his boys came into General store the other day,” Jake added. “Was bragging that Hal had practically moved in... He's having dinner almost every night.” He flicked you a glance. 

You felt a small, unexpected warmth spark in your chest at that.

“Good,” you shrugged happy to be proven wrong “She deserves that.”

“She deserves a hell of a lot more than that,” Jake said quietly, almost to himself, then cleared his throat and brightened. “Anyway. My point is: if Walker’s place ends up half as lively what's going down near the river, this side of town’s gonna get real interesting.”

“You say that like it’s not already a soap opera.”

He laughed, sitting back on his heels.

“Fair. Speaking of soap operas…”

You groaned. “Oh no.” He had that look.

Jake’s grin went sly.

“So Ari and the new vet,”

You perked up despite yourself. You were both terrible.

“What about them?”

“Well,” Jake was already drawing the word out, “Ok, so I was told she didn’t even make it up to her uncle’s before Ari got her settled. Word is she rolled in late, parked her truck out front of the dinner, and he had her tucked into that corner booth for hours. Whole place was empty except for Lee doing his grumpy sheriff coffee thing, and those two looked real comfortable.”

Your eyes widened. “No way...” This was the stuff you lived for

Jake’s mouth twitched. “Yeah, talk about 'warm welcomes' huh.. you’re up here in Steve’s bunkhouse missing all the good drama.”

You groaned again, tipping your head back against the wall. “I knew moving up here was going to wreck my gossip game.”

“You chose to live with the cowgirls,” he reminded you. “The diner is where the real cinema happens.”

You huffed, picturing it anyway; Ari leaning against the counter, big and solid and smug.

“Please tell me someone got pictures,” you said, Silver Ridge was a fun place to live but sometimes people were a little sneakier then others let out.

“Oh, you know Yelena tried,” Jake said giving you that face.  “She was passing by, phone out, pressed to the window like a wildlife photographer. Melina confiscated it after the second flash and told her to stop terrorising paying customers.”

You grinned, shaking your head. “Those two are gonna corrupt that poor woman so fast.”

“Better them than Kemp,” Jake tone, made you pull back. Kemp gave you bade vibes. You don’t got what people liked about him sometimes.

You pulled a face. “Ugh, he still comes into the bar every Thursday. Like clockwork. Same drink, same seat, same smug look. You’d swear the way he act, it’s like poker night didn’t end with him and Melina shouting at each other in three languages.”

Jake huffed a laugh. The memory of that taking the edge off “Sounds about right.”

You laughed, the sound bubbling up easier than it had all week. Poker night two months ago had been a shit show at the bar, sure let the town blow off steam. It’ll be fun Jax had said.. it was been chaos.

“Oh my god, I thought Alexei was going to explode,” you leaned back against the doorframe. “Curtis and Lee practically had to drag them apart.”

“And Bucky sitting there like a raccoon with a shiny object, just pulling chips into his pile while everyone else fought,” Jake added, you’d forgotten that detail. Barnes.. just waiting everyone out like he had all the time in the world.

“Jax is out of his mind if he thinks he’s gonna run another poker night after that,” you shook your head rubbing your neck.

Jake shot you a look over his shoulder, eyes bright behind his skewed glasses.

“Funny you should say that,” he started, the tone telling you everything “Because your boss is absolutely planning another poker night.”

You groaned, letting your head thump gently back against the wall.

“Of course he is.”

“He asked me to fix the wiring on the ceiling fan before then,” Jake went on, you quietly banging your head into the wall. “Apparently last time it got a little… excited.”

“It was swinging like a drunk ceiling octopus,” you corrected. “If it comes down on my head mid-shift, I’m haunting all of you.”

“Duly noted,” Jake clicked his tongue gfvbbb“Though personally, if anything around you is gonna start acting like a drunk octopus, I’m filing a complaint if it’s not me.”

You huffed out a laugh despite yourself. “Pretty sure Steve sent you to fix his property, not hit on his tenants.”

Jake climbed down off the ladder, dusting his hands off on his jeans as he stepped closer.

“Good news,” he replied easily. “I can do both.” Jake closed the last of the distance between you, close enough now that you could see the faint smudge of dust along his jaw, the way his lashes cast little shadows on his cheeks when he blinked.

“Pretty sure there’s nothing in your lease about letting the odd job guy ogle you in your pyjamas,” he said softly. “And yet… here we are.”

Heat crawled up the back of your neck.

Jake’s mouth tipped at the corner

“Got one more to do in the kitchen,” he said lightly. “Ceiling above the stove. Going to come? Make sure I don’t steal your mugs.”

You rolled your eyes.

“Lets go..”

He folded the ladder and carried it ahead of you, while you trailed after him into the small kitchen. The linoleum was cool under your bare feet, the overhead light a little too bright after the softer hallway.

He set the ladder up by the stove, climbing the first couple of steps with easy balance as he reached for the detector above. From your spot by the counter, you could see the line of his calves, the flex of muscle under worn denim, the familiar way he fit into your space like he’d always been there.

“See?” he called down, fingers working at the plastic casing. “Totally professional. No tenant‑ogling happening in here at all.”

You snorted, lifting your mug to hide your smile.

“Sure, Jake,” you said. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

By the time Jake finished fussing with the last smoke detector, the little house felt like it was holding its breath.

You yanked the fridge door open. Cold air kissed your bare legs, a brief mercy against the thick warmth in the room. You grabbed a can from the back, cracked it open with a hiss and took a slow sip before nudging the door shut with your hip.

“Supervision break,” you muttered, boosting yourself up onto the counter beside the stove. The laminate was cool under your thighs, the edge biting a little into the backs of your legs as you settled in to watch.

Jake stood on the little step ladder by the stove, one hand braced against the ceiling while the other snapped the smoke detector casing back into place. His T‑shirt stretched across his back as he reached, the hem riding up to expose a strip of warm, tan skin and the faint curve of a tattoo curling over his hip. At some point between the hallway and here he’d shrugged off his flannel and left it slung over a chair, leaving just soft cotton and worn denim and the easy line of muscle beneath.

“Okay,” he announced, giving the alarm a firm tap before thumbing the test button. It beeped once, loud and bright, then fell silent. “Kitchen’s officially less likely to try and murder you in your sleep. House is safe, smoke detectors are happy, carbon monoxide can go haunt someone else.”

He climbed down, folding the ladder with one hand and carrying it to lean against the opposite wall. When he turned back, he wiped his palms on a rag he’d hooked into his belt and leaned his hip against the counter across from you.

Glasses slightly crooked. Hair mussed from his own hands.

You took another sip just to give yourself something to do with your mouth and realised, belatedly, that you were staring.

Not subtle, either. Just… looking. At the way his forearms flexed when he twisted the rag. At the tendons in his throat, working around a swallow. At the way his T‑shirt clung a little to his chest with the heat.

Jake noticed.

Of course he did.

His mouth curled, slow and wicked.

“Careful, princess,” he drawled. “You keep looking at me like that and I might start making jokes about seeing to your pipes.”

You groaned, tipping your head back against the cupboard with a hollow thunk.

“Oh my god,” you rolled your eyes “That line is awful. Even for you.”

Jake let out a delighted laugh pushing off the counter to close the distance by a step.

“Are you kidding? That’s gold,” he insisted. “I’ve been saving since I got here.”

“You’re a menace,” you said, but the words came out softer than you meant.

“Accurate,” he agreed easily shrugging. “Besides, you’re the one swanning around in tiny shorts while I’m over here doing honest labour.”

You snorted, lifting your can again. “You are not working right now.”

Jake pressed a hand to his chest in mock offence. “Wow. Objectified in my own workplace. Tragic.”

“You’re in my kitchen,” you pointed out. 

He hummed, stepping in closer again, thumbs hooking into his belt loops.

“Then I’m just appreciating the view my boss is giving me,” he said.

You meant to roll your eyes again  But the way he was standing now; hip almost brushing your knee, head tipped to look up at you, smile doing that crooked thing that made your stomach swoop.

“Jake,” you warned, though there wasn’t much heat in it.

“What?” he asked, mock-innocent. “I fixed your heater. Checked your detectors. Pretty sure I’m allowed a five‑minute ogle break.”

You huffed a laugh, tension loosening just enough around the edges to make room for something else.

He slipped between your knees before you could overthink it, hands finding the edge of the counter on either side of your hips. The move knocked your legs a little wider. Your shorts rode up another fraction, the mood clearly shifting as you looked up at him.

“Hey,” you murmured.

“Hey,” he echoed, gaze flicking from your mouth back up to your eyes.

You could smell him from here that the faint hint of whatever coffee he’d nursed on the way over. His fingers flexed against the counter, like he was holding himself in place by force.

“You do realise,” he started quietly, “that you’re not exactly innocent in this scenario, right? Tiny shorts. Little shirt. Sitting up here like a temptation..I’ve seen these kinda movies.”

You snorted, but your pulse was thudding hard enough that you could feel it in your throat.

“I didn’t dress for you,” you protested.

“Didn’t say you did,” he replied. His mouth twitched. “Doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying the perks of the job.”

His hands slid off the counter to your thighs, thumbs brushing over warm skin. The contact sent goosebumps racing up your legs. You didn’t pull away. Your knees nudged around his hips instead, like your body had already made a decision your brain was still catching up to.

The air seemed to thicken.

“You’ve got some time before you need to be at the bar, right?” he asked, voice dipping lower.

You swallowed. “Yeah.”

“And the girls aren’t back till late.”

“Probably not,” you admitted.

He nodded once, as if confirming some internal checklist, palms smoothing along the outside of your thighs in slow, easy strokes that did nothing to calm the flutter going on under your skin.

“Pretty sure I can have you back on your feet and pouring beers in plenty of time,” he murmured. “If that’s what you want. Cos you’re doing that thing with your face..”

Your breath hitched.

“Jake…”

He squeezed lightly, grounding, not pushing.

“Hey, question a question” he cut you off. “Do you wanna have some fun or am I actually going home like a good boy?”

You let out a half‑choked laugh at that. “You have never been a good boy in your life.”

“Rude,” he scoffed, but his eyes were searching yours, something steady underneath the tease. “I need you to say it. Yes or no.”

You stared at him for a moment, taking in the whole picture; crooked glasses, mussed hair, Jake started to unclip the tool belt still clipped from his hip putting it to one side. The familiar warmth of him wrapped around a thread of want that felt a lot less casual than either of you usually pretended.

“I like it when you’re here,” you heard yourself admit. Your voice came out small and honest. “I like… this.” Your fingers lifted, almost on their own, to brush a smudge from his jaw. “I don’t really want you to go home yet.”

Jake’s expression softened so quickly it made your chest ache.

“Yeah?” he asked.

You nodded.

“Yeah.”

He blew out a tiny breath, like he’d been holding it, his mouth curved into a slow, reverent smile that you didn’t see on him often.

“Okay,” he said. His hands slid a little higher on your thighs, thumbs tracing the hem of your shorts. “Then I’m staying.”

He leaned in, slow enough that you could have stopped him, giving you every chance to change your mind. You didn’t. Your fingers curled in the soft cotton at his shoulder instead, tugging him closer.

His lips met yours warm and sure, no hesitation in the way he kissed you. Not tentative, not testing. Just deep from the start, he already knew the way you tasted and had been craving it for longer than he’d dare admit out loud.

Heat flared, sharp and bright. Your free hand flew up to his jaw, thumb brushing the rough edge of stubble as you angled your mouth to chase more. Jake made a low sound in his chest, something pleased and a little wrecked and stepped in until his hips were pressed flush to the counter, caging you in.

His fingers tightened on your thighs, urging your knees wider around him. You went willingly, hooking your ankles at the backs of his legs to drag him closer still. The hard line of his body slotted perfectly against yours, the faint grind of his hips sending a spark of sensation straight through you.

The kiss turned hungry fast.

He licked into your mouth like he owned it, tongue sliding against yours, stealing the air from your lungs in the best way. You met him there, matching the pressure, chasing the little catches in his breath every time you sucked lightly on his lower lip.

One of his hands left your thigh to cup the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair, holding you in place as if he was afraid you might vanish. The other stayed where it was, thumb drawing idle circles into your skin that contradicted the insistence of his mouth.

You broke away on a gasp, forehead falling against his as you tried to remember how breathing worked.

Jake laughed quietly, the sound warm against your lips.

“Yeah,” he murmured, chest rising and falling against yours. “Definitely not going home yet.”

You huffed out a shaky breath that might have been a laugh.

“Good,” you whispered, tugging him back towards you

Jake’s mouth crashed back onto yours and any pretend line between flirting and more dissolved like sugar on your tongue.

The kiss went into wildfire in a heartbeat. One second you were just… enjoying him, the next you were making a small, greedy sound into his mouth as his hands slid under the hem of your tank, palms branding your waist.

His fingers were hot against your skin, thumbs stroking the soft dip at either side, calluses dragging over nerves that had no business being that awake. You shivered, the contrast between the overheated air and the heat of him sending a thrill through you.

“Jake,” you breathed against his lips, not really a protest.

“Uh‑huh,” he hummed, lips ghosting along your jaw as his hands travelled higher, pushing your top up a few inches. “Knew this was a dangerous callout...”

You huffed a breathy laugh, fingers finding the hem of his T‑shirt in retaliation. The cotton was soft and warm from his body, stretched tight over his stomach.

“Take this off,” you muttered.

He pulled back just enough to smirk at you. “Bossy.”

You rolled your eyes and tugged his shirt up yourself. He helped, arms lifting, and you stripped it over his head in one swift movement. His hair went wild, sticking up in tousled spikes around his skewed glasses.

You laughed outright at the sight.

He blinked at you, breathless and half‑naked. “What?”

“Your face,” you snorted, reaching up. “Come here.”

You plucked his glasses off before he could protest, folding them neatly and setting them on the counter beside you near the tool belt.

“Hey,” he complained, blinking at you. “Debuff.”

“Consider it levelling the playing field,” you shot back. “Also, if your glasses go flying I’m not paying for the replacement.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it again, conceding the point with a grin.

“Okay, fair. Still hot, though,” he added, hands skating back under your top. “Up.”

You lifted your arms and he peeled the tank off you in one smooth motion, tossing it somewhere vaguely in the direction of the kitchen table. Cool air kissed your bare skin, pebbled your nipples through your bra then Jake’s gaze dropped and any hint of cocky banter melted for a beat.

“Jesus,” he muttered, voice gone rough.

Heat crawled up your chest, but before you could overthink it he leaned in and pressed an open‑mouthed kiss to the top of one breast, tongue flicking the edge of lace. His fingers slid around your back, finding the clasp with infuriating ease. A second later the band snapped loose, straps falling down your shoulders as he eased the bra away and tossed it blindly toward a chair.

“Yeah, that’s about the reaction I was aiming for,” he rasped, palms returning to cup bare skin this time before his hands slid down to the waistband of your sleep shorts. “These come off now.”

“Now who's bossy?” you managed.

He chuckled, the sound buzzing against your skin.

“Wanna argue?” he said, fingers hooking into the elastic.

He tugged the shorts down over your hips, dragging your underwear with them. You lifted off the counter just enough to help, the laminate biting into your palms as you braced. The fabric bunched around your thighs, then slid to your knees and fell, puddling somewhere near his boots.

The air hit you, cool and shocking, a shiver running up your spine. Jake stepped in, slotting himself between your bare thighs, and the sensation of his jeans against your skin; rough, warm, him.

His hand cupped your ass, big palm covering one cheek easily as he hauled you closer to the edge of the counter. His other arm braced near your head, caging you in without ever feeling like a trap.

“Better,” he murmured, eyes dark as they flicked down, taking you in.

“Stop looking and do something,” you said, a little breathless now.

“Oh, I am absolutely doing something,” he promised nodding.

He leaned in, kissing you again,this time there was no slow build. His tongue slid against yours, hungry and sure, stealing the air from your lungs as his hips rolled forward.

You felt him then…Hard, demanding, trapped behind his fly, grinding up against the slick seam of you. The pressure made your thighs tighten instinctively around his hips, a low whine catching in your throat.

“Fuck,” he groaned into your mouth. 

You laughed, the sound breaking on another gasp as he rocked up again, the blunt press of him catching right where you were throbbing.

“Jake,” you choked out. “If you don’t get your pants off, I am going to hit you with a kitchen utensil.”

“God, marry me,” he muttered, fumbling one‑handed with his belt.

You swatted his shoulder. “Focus.”

He huffed a laugh and stepped back half a pace, just enough to pop the button and drag the zip down. His jeans slid lower on his hips, revealing the waistband of his briefs and a whole lot of toned stomach you absolutely did not need to be staring at right now.

You stared anyway.

“I can feel you staring,” he pointed out, shoving denim and cotton down far enough to free himself.

“You took off your shirt first,” you argued. “That’s on you.”

“Zero regrets,” he said, and then your brain stopped short because he was lining himself up, hand wrapped around the thick length of him, knuckles brushing your inner thigh.

He paused, eyes flicking up to yours again.

“Still good?”

You nodded, pulse thundering. “Yeah. Come on, Jensen.”

His mouth curved.

“You got it, cowgirl.”

He dragged the head of his cock through your slick, teasing you with a slow slide that had you biting back a curse. Then, in one steady, careful push, he started to sink into you.

The stretch burned in the best way, a drawn‑out sting that melted quickly into hot, aching fullness. You clutched at his shoulders, nails digging into warm muscle as your breath sawed in and out.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he groaned, voice gone wrecked. “Every damn time.”

“Don’t… talk like that when you’re only halfway in,” you gasped. “..it’s..fuck distracting...”

He laughed, the sound fraying at the edges while your own breathing got hard.

“Pretty sure that’s in the tenant agreement,” he panted. “Clause twenty‑three: Jensen gets to be obnoxious during routine inspections.”

“Jake,” you warned, voice breaking on the word. "Shut up.." 

“Right, right, less talking.”

He gripped your hips and pulled you forward as he pushed in the rest of the way, seating himself fully. The sudden, deep fullness punched a sharp noise from you, head falling back against the cupboard.

“Jesus,” you breathed.

“Close,” he managed, forehead dropping briefly to your shoulder. “Gimme a sec.”

You felt him fight for control; the tiny tremors in his thighs, the way his fingers flexed hard enough on your hips you knew you’d have bruises tomorrow. The thought made heat pool low in your belly.

“You good?” you asked, voice softer now, your own hand petting at him.

He exhaled slowly, steadying.

“Yeah,” he nodded a little too hard “Just… you know. Adjusting to the ‘hottest person I’ve ever slept with squeezing me like a vice’ portion of the job.”

You snorted, even as pride bloomed bright under your skin. “Shut up and move, Jensen.”

“Right...”

His first thrust was slow, experimental. He pulled back a couple of inches, then pushed in again, watching your face. The friction made your breath catch, a broken sound slipping out.

“Good?” he asked.

“Do that again,” you gripped onto hard, the feeling a little wild now.

His grin turned downright sinful.

“Copy that.”

He set a rhythm then, rolling his hips up into you in steady, driving strokes. The edge of the counter dug into your skin, anchoring you as he fucked you up off it, every thrust punching another soft sound from your chest.

One hand cupped your ass, kneading as he pulled you down to meet him. The other braced on the cupboard near your head, muscles shifting under your palms where you clung to his shoulders.

“You have no idea…” he groaned, “what you look like right now.”

“What, sweaty in my kitchen?” you panted.

“Uh, partial credit,” his breathless laugh breaking on a curse as you clenched around him. “Mostly it’s the whole ‘falling apart on my cock’ angle. Very inspiring. Ten out of ten, would rebook the callout.”

“You’re impossible,” you gasped the feel of him moving inside you dizzying.

“And yet,” he panted, thrusts starting to punch a little harder now, “you keep letting me in the door.”

You tightened your legs around his waist in answer, ankles hooking behind him, dragging him as close as he could get until his hips were flush. The new angle made him slam in deeper, thick and hot, the head of his cock grinding over a spot inside that sent a sharp, electric jolt straight up your spine and ripped a guttural sound out of him, you both feeling your wall clutching wet heat around him.

“Fuck-Jake,” you cried.

“Yeah?” he rasped. “That it? Right there?”

“Yes,” you managed. “God, yes, don’t-don’t stop-”

“Wasn’t planning to,” he muttered, then abruptly shifted, pressing in deep and holding. “But if we keep going like this, I am one hundred percent going to embarrass myself on your kitchen floor and I really wanted to at least pretend I’m a gentleman today.”

You clung to him, breathing hard, that tight, hot coil in your belly demanding more.

“Then what?” you demanded. “You can’t just stop now.”

He’d just wound you up tight, every nerve sparking, and the idea of him pulling out and stepping away felt like being yanked back from a ledge you were more than ready to jump off. Your fingers dug into his shoulders on instinct, half ready to argue, half desperate enough to beg.

He kissed you again, quick and fierce, before easing you back an inch.

“Bedroom,” he offered, not quiet a question. “Less hard surfaces. Better bounce. And I really want to see you on top.”

It took a second for your pleasure‑fogged brain to translate that, he wasn’t bailing, he was upgrading.

Heat flashed through you at that, vivid and instant, curling tight low in your belly.

“Oh,” you heard yourself say.

“Yeah. Oh,” he echoed, grin flashing.

He didn’t pull out, not entirely. He slid an arm under your thighs and another around your back, hauling you off the counter with ridiculous ease, keeping you snug around him. You yelped, arms flying around his neck.

“Jake!”

“Shh,” he said, laughing as he started toward your room, careful of his footing. “You’re fine. I’ve got you. Consider this… safe manual handling practice.”

“You are not allowed to make OHS jokes while balls deep,” you spluttered, clinging tighter as the movement jostled him inside you.

“Watch me,” he shot back. “Door?”

“I left it open...,” you gasped. “And if you bang me into the frame-”

“Pretty sure I already am,” he said, hips giving an involuntary little jerk that had you choking on a whine.

“Asshole,” you half‑laughed, half‑moaned.

Jake smirked taking in your face “You know I don’t normally offer that as an option unless you’ve been into the tequila.”

He stumbled the last couple of steps to your bed and dropped, taking you with him.

You landed on top in a tangle of limbs and blankets, his back hitting the mattress with enough force to knock a grunt out of him and drive him deeper into you.

Your vision flashed white for a second.

“Holy shit,” you gasped, bracing your hands on his chest as the aftershocks rippled through you, muscles clamping down around him in a hard, involuntary squeeze.

Beneath you, Jake swore, the word punching out of him on a rough, broken breath. His fingers dug into your hips like he was hanging on for dear life, thighs going taut under you. For a heartbeat he couldn’t do anything but feel, the hot, wet vice of you gripping him deeper, the way your whole body shuddered around his cock sending a dizzy rush straight up his spine until his brain just… fuzzed out.

“Right?” he wheezed. “Gold! Stuck the dismount.”

“You’re such an idiot,” you said, but it came out sounding a lot like adoration.

“Yeah,” he agreed, eyes dropping to where you were still joined. “But I’m your idiot, for the moment.”

Your cheeks flamed. You shifted experimentally, rolling your hips.

The angle changed, his cock dragging along a new stretch of slick, sensitive heat inside you as your clit ground against the soft give of his lower belly and the coarse trail of hair there. A hot, electric buzz lit you up from the inside out, pleasure shivering up your spine as you rocked on him again, slower this time just to feel it; how thick and solid he felt, how every tiny grind sent another spark through you.

Jake’s head tipped back, a guttural sound tearing from his throat, fingers biting into your thighs like he was holding on for dear life.

“Oh, fuck me,” he groaned.

“That is literally the plan,” you pointed out, a slow smile spreading across your face as you found your balance over his hips.

You planted your knees either side of him, toes digging into the sheets for leverage. His hands flew to your thighs automatically, fingers splaying wide like he couldn’t decide whether to hold you still or urge you on.

His hands slid up, settling on your hips.

“Giddy up pretty girl... your turn to ride..”

You did.

You started slow, rolling your hips in lazy circles, getting used to the new angle, testing how far you could sink down before the stretch turned from sweet to too much. From here, you could control everything; the depth, the pace, the way his cock speared up into you and then slid back, dragging along every slick, sensitive inch of your walls.

“Look at you,” he rasped.

“Shut up,” you panted, though your pulse kicked at the praise.

“Can’t,” he said. “Brain’s offline. All systems rerouted to ‘holy shit, she’s perfect’.””

Jake watched like a man possessed, eyes dark and blown, mouth parted in an awed half‑smile that kept collapsing into a curse whenever you rolled just right, his chest heaving under your palms as if the sight of you using him like that knocked the breath out of him.

Each rise and fall made you feel the full length of him, the steady push and pull, the wet drag that left his lower belly damp where your clit caught on the faint line of hair there. Every time you drove down just right, the head of his cock nudged that spot inside that made your thighs tremble, a low, helpless sound catching in your throat as your body chased the exact pattern that lit you up.

He groaned, fingers tightening on your hips like he was anchoring himself to keep from just thrusting up and flipping you both over.

“Okay, that’s-yep-that’s gonna do it,” he babbled, voice climbing a little. “Jesus, I love your bed. And your thighs. And your whole general existence.”

As if to prove the point, he shifted his footing, planting both boots more firmly on the mattress so he could drive his hips up to meet you. You felt one denim‑clad thigh slide in closer behind you, the change in angle spearing him even deeper, making your breath hitch in a sharp, shocked gasp.

“Boots,” you panted suddenly.

He blinked. “What?”

“Boots. Off my bed, Jensen.”

He glanced down, like he’d genuinely forgotten he was still wearing them.

“Are you seriously-” he started, then cut himself off with a strangled noise as you rolled your hips just right. “Okay, tactical retreat.”

He somehow managed to toe his boots off without dislodging you, one thunking to the floor, then the other. The slight shift in balance sent a new flare of sensation through you.

“Happy now?” he demanded, breathless.

“Ecstatic,” you said sweetly, grinding down harder.

He swore, head thumping back against the pillow.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he groaned. “You know that, right?”

“Occupational hazard,” you shot back, pace picking up as the heat in your belly coiled tighter, your walls fluttering greedily around him every time you sank down. Your head tipped back as a louder, needier sound spilled out of you with each repeat of the motion, the noises you made growing more wrecked the more you chased that drag of him.

He felt it, of course he did. He always did. His grip changed, thumbs digging into the soft flesh of your hips as he started to thrust up to meet you, syncing with your rhythm instead of fighting it.

“C’mon,” he coaxed. “There you go. That’s it. Fucking use me.”

You chased the drag of him, the way he filled you perfectly, the slick, wet slide of your bodies meeting. Every roll of your hips sent sparks shooting up your spine, the pressure at the base of your stomach building and building.

When your breath started to stutter, he slid one hand from your hip, down between your bodies.

“Jake-”

“Relax,” he murmured. “Just me.”

His thumb found your clit with embarrassing ease, circling with exactly the right pressure. Not too light, not too sharp; just right, tuned to you in a way that only came from practice.

You bucked, a choked sound tearing out of you.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “There she is. C’mon, baby. Come on me. You know you want to.”

“Stop-talking,” you managed, even as your body betrayed you, grinding down harder on his cock, chasing the friction of his thumb.

“Can’t,” he said, voice cracking a little. “It’s part of my charm. You love it. You-shit-”

Your rhythm faltered as the wave crested, muscles clenching tight.

“Jake,” you gasped. “I’m-oh-”

He groaned, thumb moving faster.

“Fuck Yeah, you are,” he panted. “Come on pretty girl, do you thing." 

The coil snapped.

You came the sound ragged and high as your whole body locked, then shook. Pleasure crashed through you in hot, rolling waves, your thighs trembling around his hips, every nerve going twisting hot as you clamped down on him. Your walls spasmed in tight, greedy pulses around his cock, holding Jensen deep it felt like your body was trying to drag him even further in.

Jake swore loudly, the word ripped out of him, hands gripping you almost desperately as he kept his thumb working you through it, helping to milk every last tremor. He watched your face like he couldn’t look away, jaw slack, eyes blown wide as he felt every flutter and squeeze around him.

“Fuck, that’s it-Fuck-”

You collapsed forward, catching yourself on your arms just in time, forehead nearly bumping his. Your breath came in sharp, shocked pulls, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat and heat.

Under you, his thrusts went messy, rhythm falling apart as your aftershocks squeezed him in uneven, clutching waves, dragging broken sounds out of his throat.

“Okay, yeah, I’m-yep, I’m right there with you,” he babbled, words tumbling over each other. “You gotta-fuck, don’t-don’t clench like that, I’m gonna-”

You clenched on purpose, exhausted smirk pulling on your face. 

He choked on a shout.

“Jesus,” he groaned, hips driving up in a few hard, helpless thrusts. “Okay, you win-”

He buried himself deep, cock twitching as he came with a low, broken moan, forehead dropping to your shoulder. You felt him pulse inside you, warmth flooding, his whole body shuddering under yours.

For a few long seconds, the world narrowed to the sound of your breathing, the pound of your heart, and the slow roll of aftershocks easing into something softer.

You slumped down fully, chest to chest, sweat cooling in the too‑warm air of the bedroom. Jake’s hands slid up your back, palms broad and soothing, fingers drawing aimless shapes between your shoulder blades.

“You good?” he murmured hoarsely, turning his head just enough to brush his lips against your temple.

You nodded against his neck, still catching your breath. “Yeah. You?”

“Currently questioning every life choice that keep me from being naked with you,” he admitted.

You huffed a sleepy laugh.

“You’re such a sap.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” he mumbled. “Got a reputation to uphold.”

You stayed like that for a minute, heavy and lazy but perfectly content. Eventually, your thighs started to complain and the lingering sensitivity made you shift.

“Okay,” you groaned. “We should probably…”

“Yeah,” he agreed reluctantly. “Before we fuse.”

He eased his hands to your hips, helping you lift off him gently. You winced at the oversensitive drag and he murmured a soft apology, kissing your shoulder until the sharp edge faded.

You flopped onto your back beside him with a sigh. He rolled onto his side, propping his head up on his hand to look at you, hair a disaster, smile smug and soft all at once.

“What,” you demanded.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just appreciating the view again.”

You threw a pillow at him. He caught it easily, laughing.

“Rude,” he scolded. “I gotta go check your traps and then you gotta get ready for work.”

You groaned. “Don’t remind me, leave the traps, they're fine...”

He leaned over and kissed you once more, quick but sweet, before rolling off the bed. His briefs and jeans were yanked up with considerably less finesse than they’d been taken off and he hopped on one foot to get his socks back up, nearly falling over.

You laughed into your arm.

“Graceful,” you observed.

“Shut up,” He shook his head at you cheerfully. “I’m still lightheaded. After of being railed by a goddess.”

“That is not what happened,” you objected weakly before your got up and started for the shower.

~#~#~#~#~

By the time you stepped out of the shower, the house had cooled down enough that your skin pebbled in the draft, but your legs had mostly stopped shaking.

Jake had pulled his shirt back on and was in full pretend‑professional mode again, toolbox open on the table. He was swapping out a couple of batteries from the pile he’d collected, muttering numbers under his breath like he was logging it all in some invisible report.

You padded past him to the fridge, now dressed for your shift at the bar, Anarchy Sons branding stretched across your T-shirt and jeans, skin humming in all the places he’d put his hands. Your hair was damp around the edges from the fastest shower known to man, and you could feel the faint, pleasant ache settling into your muscles.

You grabbed a bottle of water, took a long drink, then glanced at the clock.

“Shit,” you muttered. “I need to leave in twenty.”

Jake looked up, pushing his glasses back up his nose with the back of his wrist. They were a little smudged, like he’d forgotten about them while he’d been busy wrecking you.

“You can make it,” he said. “You’re like… freakishly efficient when there’s beer money on the line.”

You flipped him off half‑heartedly and headed for your room, scooping your work boots up from beside the chair as you passed. By the time you tugged them on, tying your hair up into a quick, messy knot and grabbing your Anarchy Sons hoodie to match the shirt, the worst of the post-orgasm floatiness had given way to something steadier.

You checked your reflection in the tiny mirror by the dresser. Flushed cheeks, kiss‑swollen mouth.

Like anyone at the bar didn’t already know exactly what you and Jake got up to when the timing lined up.

He was by the front door when you came out, boots on again. The only real evidence of what you’d just done; besides the way your legs still felt a little wobbly, was thelazy satisfaction in his eyes when he looked at you.

“Hey there, productive member of society,” Jake put down his took box “Ready to go serve the masses?”

“Ready to go fake a smile, playing therapist and pour beer for farmers who think ‘love’ is a dirty word,” you replied, reaching for your jacket but Jake took it off his peg before you could, holding it open for you like some kind of gentleman.

You arched a brow. “Look at you, playing escort.”

“Don’t get used to it,” he teased even as he waited for you to slip your arms in. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

You snorted, but the way he settled the jacket over your shoulders, fingers lingering for a second at the nape of your neck, thumb brushing that sensitive spot just under your hairline, made something soft twist in your chest.

“Want a lift?” he asked, voice a touch more serious as he bent to pick up his tool box  “I was gonna head back through town anyway. Can drop you out front.”

You hesitated.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before. Half the time you ended up timing things that way, him finishing up a job nearby, you needing to be at work. It made sense. Practical.

It also felt like a line, sometimes. A tiny, stupid domestic line you weren’t supposed to think about too hard in a setup like this.

“You don’t have to,” you shook your head fiddling with your sleeve.

“I know ” Jake shrugged  “Do you want a lift? Stop dodging. You’re gonna be on your feet for six hours. Let me at least save you the trek there.”

The way he said it, no pressure, just simple, practical care. It knocked down the last of your resistance.

“Yeah,” you conceded knotting your hoodie around your waist “Okay. A lift would be good.”

He flashed you a quick, pleased grin.

“Good,” He nodded, that smile coming back “I was gonna follow you out there anyway and lurk in the car park like a creep until you got inside. This way I can claim the gas." That was Jake always the joke..

“Romantic,” you deadpanned as you opened the door.

“Truly,” he agreed. “My love language is fuel economy and making sure you don’t have to walk home alone after midnight.”

You rolled your eyes, but the words landed somewhere low and warm. "I didn't say you'd be driving me home." 

“Hey,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “I could be...”

You tilted your head. “You planning on being up that late?”

He shrugged. “I am now.”

“Jake…”

“I know, I know,” he said, holding up his free hand. “You don’t need it. You’ll be fine. But sometimes it’s nice to have someone waiting when you clock out. I can nurse a beer and annoy Jax for an hour if it means you don’t have wait for one of girl. I wont even talk to you if you don't want.”

The image of him leaning on the bar, trading insults with your boss while you slung drinks, was… not an unpleasant one.

“Maybe,” you said, unable to keep the little smile off your face. “We’ll see how busy it gets. If we’re slammed, you’ll get bored.”

He scoffed. “Unlikely. Watching you work is my second‑favourite hobby.”

You opened your mouth, closed it, then decided you did not want to know what ranked first.

“Come on,” you said instead, giving his arm a light shove. “If I’m late, Jax will make me restock the cool room as punishment.”

“I’ll have a word with him,” Jake said confidently.

“You absolutely will not,” you shot back.

He just grinned and stepped out onto the front porch of the bunkhouse, whole you locked up the door.

The late afternoon chill curling around ears. He fell into step beside you as you crossed the yard to his truck, toolbox swinging easily in his hand.

At the passenger door, he didn’t move to open it for you, didn’t make a fuss. He just waited while you climbed in, then rounded the bonnet to slide behind the wheel, putting his toolbox into space behind the seats.

He started the engine, glanced over at you, smiling.

“Seatbelt,” he reminded you.

You snapped it into place, flipping him off again for good measure. He laughed, the sound bright and easy, and pulled out onto the road.

For a few minutes, the drive was quiet in that comfortable way you’d learned to treasure; no pressure to fill the silence, just the low rumble of the engine and the soft rattle of his tools in the back.

“Hey,” he said as the town limits sign flashed past. “Quick thing.”

You glanced over. “Yeah?”

“If any asshole at the bar gives you grief tonight,” His tone might have been casual, eyes on the road, but you got the feeling it wasn’t not fully “you tell Jax I said I’ll rewire his sound system to play nothing but polka if he doesn’t back you up.”

You snorted. “You’re gonna weaponise polka for me?”

“For you?” His hand left the wheel and patted your leg for a second before going back. “Absolutely.”

The warmth that bloomed in your chest at that had nothing to do with the truck’s heater.

“You’re ridiculous,” you said softly.

He shrugged one shoulder. “You like me that way.”

You didn’t argue.

Outside, the bar’s neon sign came into view, flickering faintly in the gathering dusk. Jake pulled up out front, easing the truck into a spot near the door.

He put it in park but didn’t kill the engine, drumming his fingers lightly on the steering wheel.

“Alright,” He turned, sounding a little deflated “Go be a menace in there.”

You unbuckled, hand already on the door handle, then paused.

“Hey, Jake?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks,” you flet your cheeks get a little pink “For… you know. The professional services.”

His mouth twitched. “Which part? The smoke alarms, or the part where I made you forget your own name for a solid thirty seconds?”

You flushed properly now “All of the above, you asshole.”

He huffed a pleased laugh. “Anytime, Cowgirl.”

You leaned across the bench seat on impulse, fingers curling in the front of his shirt as you tugged him in for one more kiss.

It wasn’t like the ones in your kitchen. Not hungry, not frantic. Just a press of lips, warm and sure and… sweet. His hand came up automatically to cradle the side of your neck, thumb stroking once under your jaw like he’d done it a thousand times.

When you pulled back, his eyes were softer than you wanted to think about, those blue pools that made you think of the sea.

“Go on,” he cleared his throat. “Before I change my mind and kidnap you from your shift.”

You smiled, a little breathless.

“See you later?” you asked.

He nodded once. “Yeah. You will.”

You slipped out of the truck and into the cool evening, the familiar murmur of bar noise spilling out as you opened the door. Behind you, Jake waited until you’d stepped inside before pulling away, the low rumble of his engine fading into the hum of small‑town Friday night.

He’s been surprisingly attentive – you don’t know if that’s normal for modern Alphas, but if your friends’ stories were anything to go off of, it’s not common. On your first day back at work you looked at yourself in the mirror and determined to lock up the emotions that had bubbled to the surface over the weekend, reminding yourself not to expect much more than the usual: polite smiles, coffee, small talk. Sure, he’d massaged your sore thighs and cooked filling meals and never once denied you an orgasm, fitting his broad frame between your legs every time your eyes went hazy with need, but that was just him being decent. Doing a favour for an omega in need. The last thing you want is to let yourself believe that your insane crush on him might be reciprocated.

But there’s nothing usual about Clark’s behaviour towards you after that weekend. He learns your bagel order and makes sure to have it on your desk before you get in, even on the days where he’s hours late, somehow. He gives you a pointed look if you even consider skipping out on your lunch break. He shoots you a mid-day Slack message asking how you’re feeling. He hovers. And his smile isn’t just polite anymore, it’s… warm. Beaming. Genuine, even if it’s in response to one of your dumb jokes. You hang out sometimes. A shared lunch here and there, snacks and crappy television at your place.

You don’t know what to do with all that. You try to maintain the slightest bit of normalcy in your relationship, try to subtly tell him it’s okay, he doesn’t have to keep going with this protective act, you’ll give him an out and pretend it never happened and your friendship – coworkership, really – can remain the same, but he never takes it.

“Hey!” Clark calls out as you speedwalk away from the Planet Tower, jogging to catch up. “It’s late, you- you were gonna walk home alone?”

It is late. 1am. The gubernatorial election results have just been announced, which means you get to go home, finally. Election nights are not for the weak, and you’re starting to get a bit loopy from the exhaustion. Clark seems to be faring just fine, in contrast. He’s not even panting from his jog, the way you certainly would be.

“I’m not walking, I’m gonna take the red line,” You say, dumbly, because-

“The red line runs express late at night.” He reminds you, and of course he remembers your stop is one of the local ones. He remembers everything. “You’d have to take-”

“The green line.” You let out a deep sigh, the freezing air turning your breath to fog as you exhale. The closest green line stop is a much further walk.

“It’s okay, I’ll walk you-”

“You don’t have to do that.” You remind him, embarrassed to be asking another favour of him, imposing another inconvenience after he’d done so much for you.

“I want to.” He insists, already turning to walk in the direction of the train stop, gently nudging your arm to follow him.

And you do, after a moment of hesitation, crossing the empty street with him, your steps in tandem. “Not sick of having me around quite yet?”

You’d both been at the office since 7am, and yet he shakes his head with a crooked smile. “Never.”

You walk and talk, making comfortable conversation about work, the holidays, annoying tourists, over the sound of an occasional car passing and the chattering of your teeth. You’d stupidly only worn a sweater, a thick one, but you didn’t anticipate the windchill that would pick up in the evening, freezing you even through the tightly-knit fibers of wool.

Clark notices – of course he does – and immediately removes his trench coat to drape it around you.

“Oh, no, it’s okay-” You protest immediately, even though the whiff of him that you get just from him whipping off his coat is intoxicating, just as warm and comforting as you remember it being.

“You’re freezing.” He emphasises as he ignores your objections, guiding your arms through the sleeves.

“You’ll be cold, too.” All he’s wearing is his work suit, but he just shakes his head.

“Don’t worry,” He smiles, like there’s a joke he’s telling that you’re not quite privy to. “I run warm.”

And well, his jacket is warming you up. It’s a nice one, double-breasted and cashmere and lined with some sort of satin, clearly tailored to fit him perfectly, which means you absolutely drown in it. His scent emits from every fiber, comforting you instinctually, that dumb, primal part of your brain remembering this is the first Alpha that helped you through a heat. You reluctantly settle into it, tugging it tighter around your shivering body, once you see that Clark really does seem totally unaffected by the cold.

You’ll blame your exhaustion for the way you lean your head on his shoulder during the train ride, nearly lulled to sleep by the hum of the engine, completely safe in Clark’s presence.

“So, when did Clark start courting you?”

Lois asks so casually you almost miss how outrageous her question is. You do a double take, eyes widening as she remains completely calm, still utterly focused on her desktop.

“He’s not!” You say, a little too defensively, judging by the raise of her eyebrow.

“No? Why’s he leaving you courting gifts, then?” She nods towards the tupperware full of homemade cookies sitting on your desk, dropped there with the excuse that he must’ve overestimated the ingredient adjustments.

“That’s not- that’s just him giving me leftovers.” She gives you a look, like she knows that’s not the only thing he’s given you, but you think, for a moment, that she might just drop the subject.

“Then why does he keep following you around like a lost pup?” She questions further, because if Lois ever drops a topic after one question, hell has frozen ever. “And didn’t he walk you home after election night? You don’t live that close.”

“He does not- Lois! He’s just a frien- just a friendly guy. You know him way better than I do.” You stutter out, unconvincingly, you’re sure, but you don’t want Lois to misconstrue Clark’s friendliness in a way that might make him uncomfortable. You turn back to your computer, trying to look and sound as unaffected as possible. “I don’t know him that well, really, there’s no way- there’s nothing going on. He’s just my coworker.”

Lois turns back to her monitor, muttering out a “whatever you say, girl” under her breath and changing the subject to the latest episode of the show you’ve been watching together, some sci-fi melodrama on a streaming website she lends you her password for.

When you think she’s not looking, you spare a glance across the bullpen towards Clark’s desk, checking to see if he’d somehow heard your lowered voices discussing him, but he’s turned towards his own computer, his shoulders tensed in concentration, utterly unaware of how badly you wish he would court you.

Whatever article Clark was caught up in that day was lengthier than you must’ve realized, because every time you see him after that, he’s locked into his desktop screen, only glancing away to give you a tight-lipped smile before continuing to type.

The way you start to obsessively scan the paper for his byline — and the Planet’s website, for good measure — is because you’re excited, obviously, to read his work, but nothing particularly hard-hitting pops up with his name on it. It’s fluff pieces, mostly; an article on interior decor, a pros and cons listicle of feeding your dog fresh food, an interview with a nutritionist on how potatoes are “actually healthy!” Not even a new interview with Superman. And yet, he stops inviting you to lunch, stops casually running into you at the printer or in the break room, stops coming over or offering to walk you to the train.

And maybe your hunger for his attention work is why, when Perry mentions at the weekly staff meeting that Jimmy was going on a vacation, you volunteer to fill in during his time away. Clark would need a photojournalist to work with, and at this point, you were desperate enough to take double duty if it meant you’d get a chance to speak to him outside of exchanging pleasantries.

But he’s tight-lipped after the meeting, avoiding eye contact with you even as he suggests regular meet ups at a cafe a few blocks away from the Planet to bring you in on his latest article, a piece on the discourse surrounding Superman’s propensity for property destruction. The draft is painfully one-sided, but you’re not the writer on this one, and more importantly, you’re not his friend. Not like Lois is, at least. So you refrain from suggesting he might be a bit too close to Superman to properly criticise him.

Every meet-up between you is similarly cold-shouldered, mostly comprised of you proposing photos you could take to accompany his articles – a shot of the rubble that’s become a permanent sight at Centennial Park from how many extra terrestrial attacks have taken place there, the reconstruction of the elevated orange line where Superman saved hundreds of citizens from a train crashing straight into the street below – and him nodding, adding a “sounds great” and not much else. It’s a maddening routine you develop. You meet, usually finding him already sitting at a table with both your coffee orders in front of him, talk briefly about his progress on the piece, then co-work for a few hours (Lord knows you need the time to work on your other articles) while he avoids the pleading glances you give him over the edge of your laptop screen. This goes on until you’re both tired of staring at the screen, and then part with nothing more than a polite goodbye.

“What’s Superman like up close?” You ask, two weeks in, frustrated at the sound of his indifference, both of you typing away on your laptops for hours like he wasn’t inside you a month ago.

He looks up, eyes wide, flustered. “What?”

“Superman. You know him pretty well, right? Exclusive interviews and all that?”

“Oh, right.” He shakes off the shock. “Great guy. Lois interviewed him too, that one time.”

“Yeah, I forgot about that. Wonder if he’d give me a quote to go along with some of these photos, do you think you could ask him?” You push further, not letting his curtness end the conversation.

“I already got some quotes for the article, so- uh, I don’t know. Wouldn’t want to bother him.” What? Since when?

You try not to let the sting of dismissal show on your face, but ultimately end up finding an excuse to leave not long after, trying not to think too hard about why his sudden distance is bothering you so.

You wait for the warmest day of the week – a blustery 43°, even with the sun high in the sky – to make a trip to Centennial Park for your photos, meandering past families and journalers on their own strolls through the green center of Metropolis to capture the pieces of various buildings and infrastructure that have ended up littering the space, too much debris to not be harmful to the surrounding ecosystem.

If Clark had asked for your two cents (and you’re sure he asks for Jimmy’s when they work together), you’d tell him conservation of the flora and fauna of Metropolis’s limited greenery deserves more than just a paragraph’s mention. You’re sure if he bothered to reach out to local ecologists about the effects of constant conflict in the middle of the city they’d have more to add, but you doubt he made the effort to ask for comment. Honestly, you have no idea why this wasn’t reassigned to Lois; her interrogation of Superman on his interference in international conflicts was the highlight of the Daily Planet’s year, and she has the awards on her desk to prove it.

You try to remain clearheaded as you point your lens at another pile of rubble, nestled between a thicket of trees on the outskirts of the park. It’s getting harder to pretend your every thought isn’t occupied by Clark, that what you hoped would help you get over your very silly crush on your coworker is in fact, making it worse. Shutting one eye and pressing your camera’s viewfinder to the other forces calm into your mind, becoming singularly focused on the composition of your shot.

And you’d bet money the shot would have been perfect, if the ground had not started to shake underneath you just as your camera shuttered. You move quickly, not even thinking to look away from your viewfinder, instead swinging your lens around to find the source of the disturbance: A blue and red blur, smashing something- someone into the pavement, carving a path of rubble through the street. Superman.

You press down on the shutter button wildly, instinctually, but when you look down at the screen display, none of the photos you tried to snap of the fight are remotely usable. The motion blur is too much, you can barely discern one object from another, and it doesn’t help that you nearly fell over in all the commotion.

You’re vaguely aware of the screams filling the air, car alarms going off, people around you running in the opposite direction, away from the fight, to safety. But as Superman switches gears, dragging his opponent upward to avoid hitting anymore buildings or people on the ground, you realise this will likely be your only chance to get a clear photo of him for the article. Maybe even a statement to go with it.

Damn it. Damn it, you’re going after him.

You dash out of the bounds of the park, running straight into the road — thankfully, all traffic on it has halted on account of the massive dent in the pavement — and toward the flying conflict.

Against the backdrop of a clear sky, without all the debris in your view, you can see Superman’s grip on the other person clearly. His enemy doesn’t look alien, clad in the familiar yellow patient uniform from Metropolis General, except- he’s glowing. From his fists, as they collide wildly with Superman’s body, trying to brute force his way out of a steel grip, and his eyes glow the same orange right before they shoot beams of destruction. With his back to you, you can see the LuthorCorp logo blazened across his shirt.

You chase them for what feels like several miles, judging from the burn in your tired legs, but when you check what street you’re on, you’ve only gone a few blocks east, edging closer to the lake that borders Metropolis. It’s here that you get your opportunity for a clear picture of your subject, as Superman pins the villain against the roof of a tall building, trapping him between two immovable objects.

Your muscle memory serves you well even in your panic, your arms moving unconsciously, pointing and shooting, and when you check your camera’s display- an actual squeal comes out of your mouth. It’s better than you could’ve ever hoped for: the cracks in the brick, the unnatural glow of the villain’s eyes, the composition of blue sky against a building stressed under superhuman weight, the slightest blur of motion on Superman’s fist adding just the right amount of tension to the photo without creating an unfocused look. It’s exactly what you needed, a perfect cover image for the article.

Just fuckin’ wait till Clark sees this.

You’re so elated, you don’t see the way the villain’s eyes snap towards you, finding just the right distraction to get Superman off him. You don’t notice the glow in his eyes intensifying, all you see is the radiation beam hitting the spot on the sidewalk where you stood just a second ago; because now you’re airborne, flying up and away, pulled along by two strong, blue spandex-covered arms.

All you can do is clutch your camera to your chest and try not to scream, screwing your eyes shut so you don’t vomit from the sudden movement or the sight of the ground getting further and further away

You keep them shut, even when you’re placed down on solid ground a mile away, taking deep breaths and feeling around your camera to make sure nothing’s broken and the lens didn’t crack. You count to ten Mississippi and wait till you stop swaying on your feet, the momentum of running for your life – well, your photo – and then suddenly flying away finally starting to catch up to you. When your eyes flutter open, Superman steps into your space before you can even get a close look at your camera. It forces you to look up at him, the man- alien- alpha, judging by his scent, who just saved your life, and he looks… angrier than you thought he would be.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asks, fuming, brows furrowed as he looks down on you.

“Getting a photo for my article!” You explain, easily, like it’s obvious. “I’m with the Daily Pl-”

“The Planet? Don’t they teach you not to get caught in the crosshairs of a fight for the sake of a dang article over there?!” He raises his voice, as if using his alpha privilege on you is gonna make you any less indignant, especially after the fucking month you’ve had.

“Maybe if you didn’t insist on colluding to stage exclusive interviews for one journalist and literally no one else, I wouldn’t have to chase you down for a damn photo!” You shout, taking him aback, but he presses forward.

“I do not collu- it doesn’t- I-I do that to keep reporters out of danger, instead of risking their lives like you just did!” He’s gesticulating wildly, a bit comically, gesturing to emphasise his point, that he thinks you’re some stupid, underqualified, helpless omega.

“My hero,” You spit out, sarcastically. “Thanks a lot, for that. I was just trying to do my job. Good to know Clark also fabricates how nice you are.”

You turn around and walk off, towards the roof access door so you can get off this damn building and go home, edit the nice photo you got, and try not to think about the fact that you were almost Superman’s first human casualty today. You half-expect him to follow you, continuing your argument – he’s never been one to back down from a fight – but you hear the unmistakable sound of that escaped LuthorCorp experiment coming after him, and he’s forced to fly away, leaving you be.

You spent your entire evening, and the morning after, wondering how you’re going to explain what happened to Clark when you’re still in disbelief that you argued with Superman. Honestly, you think it might be better to leave that part out of the story, considering his apparent fondness for Big Blue (and his unwillingness to let you even ask for a quote).

You brace yourself to walk into the bullpen.

But Clark never shows.

For a few hours, you think he might just be fashionably late, but then Perry calls you into his office and cuts to the chase before you can even settle into your chair: “Kent won’t be in for another week. He took emergency time-off, so you’ll have to finish up the article yourself. You were almost done, right?”

“Oh, yeah- um, is Clark sick?” `

“It’d be a HIPAA violation if I told you.” He replies, in that matter-of-fact way he always does, that leaves no room for argument. “Your name will get added to the byline as a contributor. Congratulations, kid.”

“Thanks.” Your voice comes out flat. You should feel relieved, you’ve been spared another day of Clark’s cagey behaviour, but you’re not. You wanted another chance to speak to him, and- you feel insane for feeling that way, because he’s not your boyfriend, your Alpha, your anything, just a coworker you have a very silly crush on, who did you a favor once.

Perry snaps you out of your brief spiral, pulling a cigar from the wooden desk on his box, his way of signaling that the official part of the meeting was over. “Lane tells me you got a great photo of that fight yesterday, with the LuthorCorp experiment? How’d you manage that?”

You can’t help the grin that takes over your face. If nothing else, “You’re not gonna believe this.”

Perry’s instructions were clear: finish the piece on your own with the notes you and Clark shared.

It felt bad enough, adding to someone else’s article, in a voice that wasn’t your own, but trying to write transparently while maintaining Clark’s overly-favorable tone towards Superman was basically pulling teeth. Honestly, how did Perry approve the previous draft with so few notes? If it weren’t for the deadline drawing dangerously close, you’d beg your editor to let you go after a few additional sources for more perspectives, more context.

But you’re not a reporter, and Clark has an unspoken seniority over you, even though he’s never acted like anything but an equal towards you. To alter his article drastically would be crossing a line, and even though you would honestly take the argument it would spur over the silent treatment you’ve gotten from him lately, you still don’t want to hurt him.

So before you turn it in to Perry, you resolve to go to Clark’s apartment, just to let him look over the final version and avoid any further rifts between you.

You wanted your relationship to go back to the way it was. Before this article, before you were even sure he knew your name or what you did, before you knew what it was like to have his hands on you, caring for you. You wish you could erase the memory of his lips tracing every inch of your skin, the white-hot burn of taking his knot inside you. You fell for him in the comfort of his periphery, knowing he would never reciprocate, and you would never have to face the devastation of being rejected by someone you stupidly decided to develop feelings for.

You miss that comfort more than ever when you’re standing in front of his apartment door, staring down at his infuriatingly cute “There’s No Place Like Home!” doormat. It takes you too long to work up the courage to ring his doorbell, your heartbeat shamefully quickening as you wait to hear the sound of his footsteps approaching.

But it doesn’t come.

You wonder, after a minute of waiting, if his doorbell even works. You didn’t hear a ring inside the apartment when you pressed down on the button — a building this fancy, and the doorbell doesn’t even work? You hope he’s not getting ripped off, living in one of those overpriced new builds with a million Smart appliances and zero functionality.

When you raise your fist, rapping it against the door, that’s when you finally realise the door is open. Your heart drops into your stomach, in fear at first, but then the aroma hits you, fast and sharp in your lungs. An Alpha, in rut.

For one, clearheaded moment, it makes sense that Perry wouldn’t tell you the reason Clark wasn’t at work. He’s always been self-possessed, the definition of a beta, avoiding the topic of secondary genders when he can. When you came back from the time off he granted you for your sudden-onset heat, he gave you a nod of acknowledgement and asked if you were still on target to make your end-of-week deadline; no pretenses, no pretexts, just work.

You should’ve known.

But you didn’t, and now you’re stumbling into Clark’s apartment, towards the source of the scent like a magnet pulling you along. It’s heady and intense, all crisp, burnt edges where there's usually a soft warmth. He’s in pain. Unsatisfied, you can tell, it’s just him in the apartment.

You follow the scent to his bedroom door, pushing it open, then blanking at the sight of him on his bed, no glasses in sight, half-covered by scraps of a ripped Superman suit.

For a moment, your brain doesn’t cooperate with the evidence in front of you, refusing to coalesce Clark Kent and Superman into one being. Clark, your coworker with a devastating case of butterfingers, whose hand-eye coordination levels are in hell, who wears thick-rimmed glasses and comes in at least thirty minutes late, who disappears for hours on his lunch break-

Who never looks out of breath, even after climbing ten flights of stairs when the elevator’s out, who lifted an entire filing cabinet for you after you dropped a photo print under it, who runs warm and bruises your thighs unintentionally and whose scent makes you dizzy- how did you not recognise his scent?

Clark’s eyes, unobstructed by his glasses, find you then, standing in his doorway, eyes wide with your thighs instinctually pressed together. The snarl he lets out comes from somewhere deep in his chest, uncontrollable, even when he’s in a lull between waves. He’s conscious enough to ask you, through gritted teeth, “What are you doing here, omega?”

You feel blood rush to your face, suddenly humiliated, showing up at his door like this, desperate for his approval after he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with you.

You hold up the printed draft of the article up pathetically, trying to look anywhere but at his exposed body.

“I-I was gonna get your final sign-off on, um, the piece- I had to finish it without you- I’m sorry-” You stumble backwards, tears stinging in your eyes as you make to leave him in peace. “I’ll go-”

“No.” He growls out, using that voice on you, the one he knows will force you to root in place and obey.

You have no choice but to stand there as he makes his way towards you, your eyes glued to the ground because if you look up, you know you’ll stare. He’s completely bare, broad shoulders and tapered waist on full display. Despite the weeks you’ve spent trying to deny the ache in your chest and between your legs when you catch sight of him, he’s still what you imagine every night, when it’s just you and the suction vibrator you keep in the bedside drawer.

Having him in front of you like this is hard enough. Your breath sticks like molasses in your chest as you try not to lose yourself to his scent, willing your body not to drip slick into your panties. You exhale shakily when his hand comes up to cup your jaw, chuffing at you, urging. Look at me.

His eyes, usually a clear blue, are blown wide, dark and hungry.

“I’m sorry, Clark,” Your voice is thick with the tears that threaten to escape your eyes. “I really didn’t mean to- I can leave- oh!”

His head dips as he tilts your chin up, interrupting your attempt to apologise with the feeling of his nose on your neck, scenting you. Your hands land instinctually on his shoulders, steadying yourself as you practically bend backwards to accommodate the sheer mass of him leaning over you.

“Alpha,” You breathe out, despite yourself. “I can go- ahhh- let me call someone for you, to h-help you.”

“Don’t want anyone else,” He whines, tongue darting out to taste the scent of arousal that was undoubtedly pouring out of your scent glands. A purr hums in his throat as his hands drift down to your hips, pulling you closer against him, his hardened length brushing up against your belly. You feel the front of your sweater dampen obscenely, precum dribbling onto you, creating a wet spot on your front already. “Need you.”

You whimper at the admission, digging your fingers into his skin. One of your hand drifts up the expanse of his neck and tangles itself into his hair, pulling him closer, his purring intensifying at the tug. “Okay. I’ll stay with you.”

Clark doesn’t waste another second, gripping the backs of your thighs and hoisting you up effortlessly, wrapping your legs around his middle, leaving his hardness pressed between your legs, his lips glued to the source of your scent.

“Good omega. Stay.” His voice drips with desire, deep and growly, and you know he’s slipping back into a haze. You shift your hips against him, granting you both the friction you’re craving, your shameless moans filling the air as he carries you back to his bed.

Despite his tight grip on you, he sets you down on his sheets slowly, carefully, climbing over you to capture your lips, finally. You’ve spent so much time denying yourself the privilege of craving the taste of him, blocking out the sweet pleasure of his tongue against yours, and now you’re dizzy from the contact high. He surrounds you, his body covering yours completely, his scent drowning out anything else. When his lips leave yours, you lean up, chasing, whimpering softly.

“Why did you run from me?” He asks.

You shrink away, your cheeks heating again at the sight of his frustrated expression.

“I-I thought you didn’t want me, you-” You say, confused. “I didn’t want to force you to be with me just because… of what happened.”

He chuckles, but it’s humourless, disbelieving. “I was trying to court you.”

“I didn’t want your obligation, Clark-”

“I told you I like you, too, omega.” He reminds you, leaning close again, nudging his nose against yours. “Did you forget that part?”

His hand slides up beneath your sweater, leaving a trail of heat on your skin, stopping just beneath your chest. You know now that he can hear your heart skipping a beat whenever he touches you. “Did I distract you too much?”

You arch up into his touch, your head lolling back against the mattress, urging him to keep going. He noses at your jaw, back down your neck, teasing. “Clark, please-”

His teeth nip at you, correcting, drawing a gasp from you. “Alpha!”

Clark groans, pushing your sweater up and over your head, and you cooperate eagerly, desperate to get closer to the heat of him.

“Don’t run from me again, omega.” He says, firm, his hand finding your jaw again so he can be sure you’re looking at him when he says it. You prop yourself up on your elbows, meeting his eyes again, no longer shying away.

“I won’t.” Promising.

The sound of fabric ripping, buttons hitting the floor as they pop off your blouse, is barely audible over his pleased growl. He shuffles down your body, throwing your legs over his shoulders, not even bothering with the rest of your clothes. He pulls the drenched fabric of your panties aside and licks, just to taste, gathering your slick on his tongue and moaning like it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever had.

He forces your legs to spread wider, holding you open for him while his lips close around your clit, his tongue moving against you like his life depends on the way your hips roll into his face, your hands gripping his hair. You’re reduced to pleading mewls like this, powerless under him, leaking down his chin. You can feel him smile against you, pleased at how quickly he can make you dumb with it, his hips bunching against the mattress, chasing your pleasure along with his.

He brings you to orgasm easily, effortlessly, twice before you’re squirming futilely against his hold, even though you know now, better than ever, that you couldn’t run away from him if you tried. He lifts his mouth from you only for a second, just to subdue you again. “Be good for me, omega.”

You lose track of time under his tongue, barely conscious of your sticky inner thighs, the damp sheets underneath you, or how you’re surely gripping his hair too tight, tugging at it insistently, uncontrollably.

Your face is wet with tears by the time he grants you any sort of reprieve, your legs limp when he lets go of them, kissing back up your figure till he finds your lips again, relieving you of your clothing as he goes.

You find yourself unable to care that his lips are still covered in your slick when he kisses you, moaning into it, pliant and open-mouthed. His scent is overwhelming, smouldering, like burnt sugar, and you know he’s tipped over the edge, out of his mind with the need to root himself deep inside you. There’s a near-constant growl rumbling in his chest, and you don’t resist when he flips you over, placing a pillow under your hips so they’re tilted up, towards him, presenting.

You brace yourself, expecting to feel him push in quickly, desperately, but Clark stays back, panting with desire. You peak back at him, after a minute, and find him staring, dazed and flushed at the sight of you, open for him. He thumbs gently at your slit, splitting you open, both of you gasping as you feel yourself clench.

“So beautiful,” He mutters, so quiet you think he must not even intend for you to hear it. “All mine.”

He lowers himself over you, covering you, brushing your hair away from your face so he can plant a few quick, sweet kisses on your lips. You feel the blunt tip of him at your entrance, drawing a sigh of relief from you, finally right where you wanted to be.

“Say it,” He whispers. “Tell me you’re-”

“Yours. ‘M yours, Clark, please-” You gasp as he breaches you. “Oh, yes.”

The stretch burns, deliciously familiar, stopping your breath in your throat as you try to adjust. Your hand flies up to grip his bicep, digging your nails in. “Yes, alpha, please, I can take it.”

“Know you can, baby,” He gasps out, grinding into you, just feeling your walls squeezing down around him. It’s you who has to urge him on, beg him to fuck you in earnest, till your skin stings from slapping against his. You didn’t wait this long to not have him grinding against that spot inside you, his tip brushing against your cervix in a vulgar kiss, the insistent press of his inflating knot against entrance driving your eyes to roll back into your head.

It doesn’t take long. Each one of his movements is accompanied by a desperate, wrecked noise falling from his lips, and both of you have been deprived of each other for so long, it’s so easy for Clark to get lost in it. As soon as he feels the familiar spasm of your climax around him, his thrusts go sloppy, uneven, rutting until he feels his knot take root inside you, crying out.

He’s quick to bring his hand to his mouth, digging his incisors into his own palm, just to sate the ache in his jaw,

You go limp at the pulsing hot fill of him inside you, relieved, elated. There’s a dazed smile on your face, a quiet purr emanating from your chest as Clark laps at your neck, mindlessly, grooming you like a pup. His hips are still bucking against you sporadically in the aftershocks of his climax, his cock still spurting inside you — hard to believe that in an hour’s time, he’ll have more to give you.

You shift, playfully tugging against his knot, as if there’d be any way to separate him from you now. He grunts, pinning you down with just his body weight, an airy laugh falling from you. He’s too easy to tease.

“No more running, baby, remember?” His tone is earnest, almost pleading, making your heart ache for him.

You hum in agreement.

“No more.”

Which is stupid in itself, because if he really wanted to, Kal would track your heartbeat and fly to your exact location. But he doesn't. He could send you a text, leave a missed call, grovel and beg and plead for you to let him explain- but he doesn't do that, either.

And you don't stop.

You run until you can't bear the weight of it anymore; until the exhaustion fills the grooves of your brain and the pain is nothing but an aching throb. Mentally. Your body feels like it's going to collapse.

It's takes a while for you to get home, and the stumble through your front door is fuelled by both relief and hurt.

You want to scream.

You want to kick something, grab something and throw it at something else- but you just flop onto the sofa instead, tear-stained cheeks smushed hard against the cushions. Sobs rack through you- unhurried and pained- trembling arms wrapping themselves around your shaking torso.

How could you be so stupid?

The signs were there. The exclusive interviews, the way Kal would never pick up the phone on the first ring. Every time Clark blushed over a compliment on his article, a mention of his most recent interview with himself- it was all finally making sense.

He lied to you. Looked you dead in the face and said it was just him; Kal-El, all the time, no disguise to tide him over in between missions. You believed him. Everything he said, you believed, because you loved him and cared for him and wanted nothing more than to be someone he could turn to.

Little did you know, Kal already had people he could turn to. A lot of them. Jimmy with the Caramel Macchiato, that pretty woman called Lois that came into the café every now and then. He had this whole other life that you'd never been privy to; had never even had the privilege of being a part of.

It was like some sick, twisted joke that had been unfolding for months- one you didn't realise you were a part of until the very end.

Sleep comes pained. And your eyes flutter open at precisely 11:03am the next day.

Outside your window, Metropolis thrives. The copper tang of exhaustion fills your mouth and you grimace at the taste.

If this was any other day, you'd already be at work; listening to Lorna's ideas for the weekend and watching Claire's distaste for them all. You'd hold a ceramic mug close, half full of an oat flat white, eyes glancing every now and then towards the clock. Just waiting, watching- for none other than Clark Kent to walk through the doors.

Your phone lies abandoned on the floor next to the coffee table. You fumble for it, fingers hitting a contact number you've only ever used for dumb questions and questions on missing stock.

Michael's grumble sounds over the speaker. Immediately, you can tell he's not in a good mood.

Great.

"You're late, kid."

You rub your temples, willing the dull pain to disappear completely. He doesn't sound too happy, but can you blame him? You were supposed to start two hours ago.

"Two hours late." he repeats.

"Sorry, Michael," you croak, surprise filling your features at how broken your voice sounds. "I... won't be able to make it in today."

You murmur an apology, sincere and low-spirited; so unlike you that you can hear him sitting up in his seat. An excuse falls from your lips that you neither rehearsed nor planned, and all you can do is hope that it's enough for him.

Michael pauses. So do you. Slowly, he asks you if you're okay, and even slower, you say, "Y-yeah. I'm fine, I just- worst headache in the world. Didn't get much sleep last night."

"You got advil?" you say yes. "Take a couple and rest up."

"I will," you exhale slowly, "Thanks, Michael. I'm sorry again,"

"If you're sick, you're sick," you can envision him shrugging, petulance still in his tone but softer somehow. "Can't be helping that. Just let me know, alright? I'll move your shifts around."

"Thank you, Michael." you can't control them, but tears prick at your eyes already.

"Feel better soon. And look- if advil ain't cutting it, stay in a dark room. Get that Cal to run and get you some forehead patches. Works a treat for my girls."

You nod, moreso to yourself, the slight mention of Kal-El threatening to spill the tears over. You also make a mental note to text Lorna that miserable, old, inked-up Michael is a girl dad.

For the third time already, you thank him. He mutters a don't mention it back, and the line goes dead.

You stare at your ceiling for what feels like hours afterward.

When you eventually move, it's slow. Your coffee machine drips lazily, and you don't even bother to reach for your favourite mug. You chug the bitter contents straight from a diabolical ceramic you once received in a gift set, willing the caffeine to do it's job sooner rather than later.

Memories threaten to trap you in a spiral. The first time you met Kal, the first time you met Clark- the first time he'd spoken about himself like he was a completely different person, even. Every thought holds your brain hostage, forces you to think back to simpler times.

Did he think it was funny? Did he get home every night in the suit, smirk at the glasses on his bedside table, and convince himself you'd find it funny too when you finally found out? Every night you complained about being single and not having a chance with his reporter counterpart- did he hold back a smug grin, then?

The thought fills you with anger. Currently, you hate them both.

Because having a crush on Clark was one thing. But realising you’d been falling for the one man you’d decided- long before it even began- you could never have, after months of forcing him into the friend zone in your own mind, only to discover it had all been for nothing… well, that felt unforgivable.

The coffee runs out quick. Your usual morning routine takes place slowly; you shower, brush your teeth, and put on something comfy that you can both run away from a collapsing building and lounge in.

You have no plans to leave the apartment, willing the world to spin without you for just one day. The TV flickers on after an absentminded tap of the remote, and your eyes flicker towards it before you can stop them.

"Superman seen charging into intergalactic threat!"

Your eyes begin to roll. But just before you can switch it off, a close-up shot of Kal fills the screen.

And deep within your chest, begging to be acknowledged, your heart clenches at the sight of him.

"He... doesn't seem to be dealing with this very well. If you are located anywhere near the upper west side, we instruct you to calmly evacuate in line with city procedure. The Justice Gang have been notified, and we hope..."

The reporter's voice fizzles into the background. You lean in closer, eyes narrowed, as the remote clatters to the floor.

He's sloppy. Distracted. Throwing punches with force instead of focusing on where they land. His curls are unkempt on his head, looking so like Clark you begin to worry for his surprising alter-ego, and his jaw is perpetually clenched.

You can't stop watching him. The whole world is probably watching him, but you just can't tear your eyes away. It's not a Kaiju, but it's something similar; smaller in size and stealthier. It grabs Kal, throws him harshly against a glass building.

Usually, he'd compose himself. Think of a better way to deal with the situation; plan the safest way out for everybody, creature included. But right now, every barrel towards it is ill-timed, every rescue rushed.

He's not thinking straight. You've never seen him like this before. The worst he'd ever been was when Krypto got taken by some bald headed billionaire months ago- he's broken down doors and screamed offices down- but this was different.

The reporter states some figures, a wince on her otherwise deadpan face. You're glued to the couch, even when the Justice Gang arrive to the scene, and Kal exchanges some words with a man you met and hated once- Guy. You don't even move when he gives them a curt nod; focused, chiselled face pointing upwards to the sky as he takes off fast enough that a sonic boom echoes through the clouds.

You- along with the entirety of Metropolis- expect him to return. Maybe with a bigger, better weapon to beat this thing with.

But he doesn't. The others clean up the mess tastelessly, violently; so different to how Superman would have done it, but now they have no choice.

Time passes as the news coverage on the scene fizzles out. Guy is congratulated, Mr Terrific is praised and Hawkgirl shoves a restless reporter's camera out of her face, scowl at the ready, arms folded at the nuance.

Everything's done. You switch the TV off and silence fills the apartment.

For a second, your eyes threaten to leak again. Betrayal is the word for it, you've come to realise- but the comprehension doesn't make it hurt any less. There's a pain buried deep in the chasm of your chest, a dull ache that no amount of advil or rest will ever be able to get rid of.

You think of Clark.

Your mind is cruel, and it taunts you; you think of the attraction you had for him, the way you could never fully look away when his eyes met yours, no matter how odd you looked and how disinterested he sometimes seemed.

You thought of everything you knew about him; his childhood in Smallville, how he called his parents every day- twice if something particularly exciting had happened in his life since they last spoke. How sweet his existence is, how unassuming and charming Clark can really be in that slightly jarring, fumbled way of his.

Then, you think of Kal.

Of everything you know about him and still don't- how Clark Kent fills that void completely. All those emotions you'd fallen asleep with last night come rushing back and quietly, you let the tears fall. Again.

You tuck your knees up to your chest, forehead resting gently against the caps. It catches every shudder that rakes through your body, provides a makeshift cushion for the wet that drips down your cheeks.

That's when you hear it.

Tap, tap, tap.

It's faint at first, and your staggered breathing drowns it out. But then, it turns unmistakable; three gentle taps, three familiar taps, right on the glass of your fire escape window.

Tap, tap, tap.

No effort is made to move. Not for a while.

You just clench your eyes shut, teeth gritted, as your window eventually slowly slides open. The instinct to grab yourself takes over, and you're soon locked in an imprisoned embrace of your own doing.

You don't look up. You don't even move.

First, it's his boots. Soft and worn, steps slow and moderate. His cape trails in after, the thick material usually catching on your windowsill but now, gliding through with ease.

It's effortless, how Kal lets himself into your apartment. It's an exercise born from months of friendship and several sleepless nights needing company, ultimately calling him away from patrol.

You used to tell him not to knock, to walk in like it was his home, too. "Friendships are built on inconveniencing each other," you'd said as-a-matter-of-factly, after scolding him for refusing to let himself into your apartment. You'd come home from work to find him sat right outside; legs dangling over the fire escape, eyes squinting into the horizon.

He'd been like that for two hours. Just sitting, waiting, for you to come home- all because he didn't have a key and didn't know that when you sang mi casa, su casa all those weeks ago, you actually meant it.

Kal had just tilted his head, confused by your words. "But... you've never inconvenienced me."

You laughed, "I can think of many ways I have in this week alone."

He paused, looking off into the distance. When he came back to you, his face remained blank. "...Nope. Never."

"Sounds like a challenge, Superman."

A smile stretched across his lips. Your heart skipped- right before you grabbed it with an imaginary fist and shook it back to it's original beat. "Sure. Never faced down from a challenge before."

It replays in your mind like a bittersweet reel. When you lift your head, a sharp pain nudges against your temple, travelling all the way down to your neck. But that's not what truly hurts.

Opposite you, standing a far enough distance away, stands Kal-El.

Or, Clark.

And now that you've seen both sides of the man, he looks more Clark than ever.

His shoulders are hunched, icy blue eyes burning metaphorical holes in the floor. You tell yourself not to stare, not to complicate what you currently feel by softening the edges.

His jaw is gritted in that tense way of his, bordering on either an argument or an apology that you'll have to deal with one way or another. Truthfully, you have no idea which one you'd prefer.

Because fifteen minutes ago, he was out; hurtling towards space creatures, attempting to save the world with reckless abandon. But right now, he stands with his head ducked like a scorned child in your living room.

You don't speak. Silently, you wonder if he will.

"I..." almost as if reading your mind, Kal opens his mouth. He licks his lips, nervous.

Your arms tighten around yourself, eyes staring him down in a way foreign to you.

"...I am so, so sor-"

"I can't do this right now, Kal." you say bluntly, voice edging on rude. But the anger inside of you is white-hot and blinding, and when you look at him, you don't just see him. You see months and months of being left in the dark, while Superman ran circles around you in black frames and a blazer two sizes too big.

It was cruel. He was cruel. The entire charade of Clark Kent was cruel.

But even while knowing that, the look on his face threatens to unravel you completely.

His shoulders sag, defeated. "I never meant to hurt you."

"You pretended to be someone else."

He says your name, tone pleading now that it's obvious how you feel.

Maybe he'd been hoping it wouldn't be too bad; maybe, he thought, the stars would align and you'd just freak out momentarily- too focused on your own questions about a life he could now share with you without ever feeling the urge to hide.

"I wasn't someone else," Kal mumbles, fingers fiddling with each other. "I was me."

You meet his eyes despite the hammering of your heart telling you not to.

"I was just trying to protect you."

"By lying to me?"

"I needed you safe," he tells you sincerely, "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to you... just because you know this," he gestures to the emblem on his chest; the cape trailing along the floor. He winces. "Just because you know me."

"So instead, you showed up at my work like Hannah Montana and prayed I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference," your tone is mocking, so harsh that it stuns even you.

Internally, you scold yourself to dial it down.

"Right. Well, it worked." you mutter then, shame pricking the nape of your neck at both your tone and the fact that you fell for it all.

His face burns red-hot. When he takes a hesitant step forward, he pauses; before slowly nodding to the empty spot on the sofa next to you.

"May I?" he asks.

Your nod is reluctant but you scoot over regardless, maximising the space between you both.

When he takes a seat, you catch a whiff of that cologne you know all too well- the same one that Clark wears and Kal always has a faint hint of. Smoke and ink and rain with a tiny undertone of eucalyptus. It's addictive, it's different, and it's so him that the mental scold in your mind becomes louder and louder.

How could you not have figured it out? You're no reporter for sure, had never been one to have an investigative mind. But even with the glasses and the styled hair and the change in posture- were you really just so blind?

You're lost in thought again as Kal faces you. His body swamps the sofa, broad shoulders taking up 70% of the space you left for him.

"I want you to know," he swallows. Your heart does that thing again. "That I never meant to keep it a secret from you. Not for this long, at least."

"That makes everything better." you deadpan.

He shoots you a pained look, "Can I speak, please?"

"As Clark Kent or as Kal-El? Or is there another identity you haven't told me about?"

This time, you do mean for it to come out sharp. But when you catch a small glimpse of Kal's face, it's obvious that the original intent's been missed entirely.

Because his lips are at a curve, eyes softer now. You focus on his mouth, the amusement that lies there, just waiting for you to let him speak.

A smile.

Small, one that could definitely go undetected if you were still too busy scowling at the floor. You half expect to feel anger again, tenfold as usual- but it never comes.

Even so, you fold your arms, glaring at him.

"Don't smile."

"I'm sorry." he grits his teeth in an attempt to hide the slight mirth in his tone.

Your gaze is vicious, or as vicious as it can be towards someone so adamant on soothing it.

"I'm going to hit you." you caution.

"I probably deserve it," he says gently, and the smile's even more obvious now than before.

"Probably's an understatement."

"Please can I apologise, now?"

"No. Because I don't want it." you say shortly, your legs falling from their initial cramped position. His eyes dart to yours, hurried and slightly panicked at your words.

"Wha-"

"An apology isn't going to do anything, Kal." you say, clipped.

He begins to shake his head again, the security in the playfulness quick to fizzle away. "You don't understand-"

"You kept it from me. You didn't even just keep it from me- that, I could probably take. No, you showed up as him and pretended to like me. Do you have any idea how humiliating that is?"

"Pretended?" he echoes, as you snap your head towards him in exasperation.

"Don't." you warn him, "Don't say it like that."

"Like what?"

"Like it was real."

Kal says your name again. Softly. Kindly. You hold a finger up in yet another wordless warning.

"I mean it, Kal. I'm already mad at you. Don't make me sad, too."

"I don't want to make you sad," he says, slowly, standing up from the seat to come towards you. "All I've ever done- all I've ever wanted to do, was make you happy,"

"You pretended to be-"

"I didn't pretend to be anything," he shakes his head again, coming to stand in front of you with a certain desperation to his actions. "Everything I told you, everything you saw- that was me. That was all me. And I'm sorry,"

His inhale is slow, words fighting to come out. The restraint on his face breaks you, just a little, but your stubbornness takes lead.

"I am Clark." Kal says, voice cracking slightly. "I grew up on a farm. I love cereal and I really do only drink black coffee, that's true. I'm a reporter at the planet. I love it. I call Ma and Pa too much... I get the front page if I lose sleep for it, and I always end up knocking something over when I walk past,"

You start to roll your eyes, but his gaze is so focused on you that you refrain.

"But I'm Kal-El, too," he says, assertively. That makes you pause. "I love helping people. I do too much sometimes, like you always say I do. I have to delete that stupid bird app every time I do something I probably shouldn't and cameras get it. My cape gets caught, and I'm not the best at saying things when I should. Sometimes, I leave them too late,"

He's looking at you like he's praying you understand.

But too much is going on in your mind, too many thoughts are racing and fighting against each other. You can barely maintain eye contact.

"But no matter who I am," he swallows, jaw flexing in a way that always looks like he's chewing on his emotions. Something catches in your throat- a breath, an inhale, whatever it is, you can't control it.

"Clark, Kal, Superman, the biggest jerk on this planet..." his eyes ficker from your eyes to your lips, before going back again swiftly. "I'm yours."

There's something to be said about the way that he looks at you.

Speaks to you. Listens to you, like you're the most important thing in the room. How to him, you're never a burden; never an inconvenience. Sometimes, you even feel like you exist simply to help him feel human, even if it's just for a little bit.

And right now, he is both the most human, yet most other-wordly, man you have ever seen.

Your eyes flutter upwards, but he's already looking at you.

"And I'm sorry if I haven't shown it," he whispers. You're torn between bursting out crying and attempting once again to push him away. So, you don't make a single move.

"I'm sorry I let it go on for so long. I'm sorry I upset you," his hand moves up, brushing a stray strand of hair from your face. "And I'm sorry– above everything... that it wasn't Clark Kent who met you first."

There was once a time where you thought you were falling in love with Kal-El.

Not the man in the suit, not the symbol of Hope and the last surviving son of Krypton. No, it happened on a lazy Sunday when the light through the curtains hit him just right; every ridge and curve of his face reflecting the rays like a chrome statue. You were in the middle of a well-needed kitchen deep clean, and he'd been so adamant to do most of the work that 85% of it was spent perched on a kitchen stool while Superman himself scrubbed your dishes and wiped the edges.

He was humming a song you had no idea he knew, the slicked back curls on his head slowly unravelling. A dish towel draped lazily over his shoulder as he came towards you, one arm on either side, large palms pressed against the counter.

He grinned. Asked you if you were okay, and if anything else needed doing. At the time, you just stuttered a reply; resisting the urge to jump into his arms and confess that you were, stupidly, starting to see him as much more than a friend.

Fear took you over. Hesitance became your downfall. And Kal-El pushed himself off, gently; whistling a different tune, casual, none the wiser.

Now, however, you refuse to make the same mistake.

It happens before you have the chance to talk yourself out of it.

Kal is already there- too close, his presence pressing into yours like gravity, like something inevitable. His body tilts toward you, instinctive, as if all he’s waiting for is permission.

Your breath stutters. You don’t step back.

You move closer a fraction at a time, breath caught, the space between you tightening until it feels unbearable.

His gaze drops to your mouth. Yours drops to his.

And then you’re there- barely at first, your lips brushing his in a question more than a kiss.

But then, you press in- stronger this time, more certain, the kind of weight that carries every moment you once held back. Every word you never said is answered by Kal just as carefully, just as deeply, like he’s been waiting for this exact second all along as his lips slowly start to move against yours.

A soft breath leaves him into your mouth, warm and unguarded, and you feel his lips curve faintly against yours like he can’t quite believe this is real. The kiss grows fuller, deeper, not rushed but brimming with everything he’s been holding back.

Kal's hand slides to your waist, firm and careful and frantic all at once, like he’s grounding himself in you with the looming threat of you disappearing. He's Clark in the way he holds you; Kal in the kisses and grip. Careful and scared and passionate and sure.

He's everything you wanted and were, once, far too afraid to have.

“I love you,” he mumbles into you, the words half-lost to the way your mouths are still moving together. The soft sound of it fills the space between you. You breathe out against him, almost trying to make a joke- a last, weak attempt to drag something ordinary into a moment that’s anything but.

But nothing is normal now. Clark Kent has just told you he loves you.

And even better...

You actually believe him.

So when you stammer back, "I love you... too." you mean it.

He doesn’t pull away when he could. Instead, he stays, lips lingering against yours, as if afraid that even a heartbeat of distance might make this disappear.

For a while, you just stand there like that, wrapped in each other, the world held at arm’s length.

Somewhere outside, sirens begin to wail, faint at first, then louder- urgent, insistent, calling for someone who usually always comes. You feel yourself tense automatically, already starting to pull back, already preparing to let him go do what he always does.

But he doesn’t move.

Kal tightens his hold instead, drawing you closer, your cheek pressing to his chest. His voice is low when he speaks, steady and certain.

"They’ve got it." Out of the corner of your eye, a familiar green fist flashes across the sky, pulsing bright against the dark. "They can do without Superman for a bit," he murmurs. "Right now, you've got me. And I'm not leaving you."

Your breath catches, and a soft smile curves against him as you let your forehead fall to his chest, right over his heart.

Tomorrow, you’ll have a conversation. A real one. A proper one. And it may not go very well, and you'll probably have enough questions for him to want to shut you up with yet another long, earth-shattering kiss. And you may cry again and it may feel like the world's ending and Clark may start to wonder what the hell he's gotten himself into...

But for now, it’s just the two of you.

You, the woman who fell in love with two very different sides of the same man, and the man who never wanted to be anything other than yours.

In the end, it never really mattered which one he was.

i hope you guys enjoyed! so sorry it's not my best work AT ALL i struggled a lil bit with the ending but this isn't the last of kal's bff ! reader!

 Fuck. Fuck. 

“Ow! Shit!” you yell out, dropping the knife and pressing your fingers on the wound on your left hand. “Fuck!” 

“Dude suck it up,” someone behind you says. You don’t bother to turn around and check who.

“I’m trying, but shit,” you grimace at the free-flowing blood, “this shit hurts. It won’t stop bleeding!”

Whoever it is behind you pokes a head over your shoulder.

“Looks bad.”

“It feels bad,” you add.

“Take five, I’ll cover for you.”

“You won’t manage,” you protest, reaching for the knife again.

“You’re getting blood everywhere, get out. No one wants vegetable julienne with line cook blood dressing.”

“Fine, fine! I’m going!”

You take a step back, trying to contain the blood in your hand, rushing out of the kitchen, dodging your coworkers and yelling ‘behind’ haphazardly. You step out of the cloying heat and the cold air hits you like a wall. The silence is immediate and oppressive, it echoes in your ears as you crumble on an overturned crate in the back alley.

“Ow, ow, fuuuuuck,” you mumble, hunching over your wounded hand. The cut is clean, straight down your palm, like you meant to slice open your skin. You’ve hurt yourself a thousand times before, cut and burn scars litter your arms and hands.  But never this deep, you think. Never this bad. Never did the pain pulsate, hot and unignorable, up your arm and to the tips of your fingers.

“Need help?”

You nearly jump out of your skin at the all too familiar voice behind you. Too kind. Too soft.

“No, Clark, I’m fine,” you say slowly, talking around the pain, jaw creaking.

“You don’t look fine,” he reiterates.

“I’m fine!” you snap.

“Alright,” he relents, sitting on a ledge in front of you, pulling his coat tighter around him, “aren’t you cold though?”

“I’m fine,” you repeat.

“Are those the only words you know tonight?”

“Shut up,” you snap back. He ignores you.

“That looks really bad,” he says, gesturing at your bleeding hand, “can I take a look at it?”

“It’s okay, I just need to bandage it,” you mumble, “and I have to go back in there anyway.”

“You can’t go back in this state,” he objects.

“I have to, Kent, I don’t have a choice. As soon as the bleeding stops, I’m going back.”

“You can’t—”

“I don’t have a choice,” you mumble, pressing the edge of your apron to the wounds, cringing at the burning sensation.

“You’ll get it infected,” Clark says unhelpfully, and you look up to glare at him.

“Are you a journalist or a doctor?” you snap, but he doesn’t react. If anything, his eyes twinkle at finally meeting your gaze.

“Just looking out for you,” he muses, and his dark hair dances in the wind. He tries to take your wounded hand, but you brutally stand up, wiping the blood on your clothes.

“Why are you even here?” you ask, feeling somewhat foolish in your questions.

“I wanted to see you,” he states. Like it’s simple. Like it’s self explanatory.

“Why would you want to see me? I’m working anyway,” you grumble, frowning. He shrugs. You hate how simple he makes it all feel, because it’s anything but. It’s a scorched mess.

You look down at your bleeding hand.

“I should go back inside… wash it off. I’ll see you around,” you say, bidding goodbye so quietly, like you can’t bear to be so soft too loud. You feel his gaze heavy on your back as you make your way back inside.

“Better?” someone asks.

“Need to wash it off,” you inform, rushing to a sink and spraying cold water on your bleeding hand. You watch the pink water run off your skin and down the drain.

“We’re behind, get your ass back in here!” someone yells.

“I’m coming, dipshit, just trying to stop the bleeding!” you call back, wrapping your hand crudely in rough toilet paper and rushing back to your station, the handle of the knife already lodged in the crook of your hand, back in the machine of the routine.

You don’t notice Clark peaking at you through the crack of the door, cheeks flushed pink, not entirely from the whipping wind. Making sure you’re doing fine. As per usual.

“Heard you talking outside,” someone says, and you grunt noncommittally, “did the walls grow ears or did Kent come and visit you again?”

“Why do you care, Jerry?” you mutter, finally identifying your persecutor for the night.

“Why don’t you give the poor man what he wants?”

“And what d’you suppose that is?”

“A date, smartass. The guy’s here grovelling at your feet every other night because he likes you,” your coworker, Bella, says from the other side, though you barely hear her as she leans towards an oven.

“A date? Why would he even want that? The man barely knows me,” you contest, busying yourself with your work.

“He comes to see you whenever he can, I don’t think he cares about that.”

“He should,” you grumble, and it’s final. Everyone shuts up and goes back to working, and you try to shove Clark’s kind face at the back of your mind. You fail miserably.

When your shift ends, you feel beaten to a pulp: your legs are giving out beneath you, your lower back is tense and twisted, you smell of grease and fire and sweat, and the deep cut on your hand still hurts like a bitch, sending shockwaves of pain up your arm at regular intervals. When you step out into the cold air, hair messily pulled back, eyes drooping and muttering to yourself, you’re not exactly shocked to see Clark standing there. 

“Still here?” you muse as he moves closer, falling into step beside you when you start walking, dodging oily puddles and upturned boxes.

You’ve come to get used to Clark’s nearly constant, quiet presence. You still remember the first time he’d stumbled into the darkened alley, while you were on your break, cigarette dying, untouched between your fingers. His hair was messy and his shirt was buttoned crookedly, but he’d smiled oh so kindly and you’d turned around to walk back into the kitchen.

Unwilling to talk. You’d thought nothing of it, until he showed up again the next day. You bumped into him when you stepped outside after a quiet dinner shift.

He was smiling, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling under the yellow streetlamps.

He was holding a box from the good bakery down the street, the one you always told yourself you’d go to, but never took the time to actually go.

“I’m Clark,” he’d said, “Clark Kent. Sorry about yesterday… If I offended you, or anything… I brought you this,” he’d explained, handing you the box.

“I’m sorry… Do I know you?” you’d asked, eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

“Well… yesterday? You were sitting over there,” he’d informed, pointing to a very specific orange crate in the darkest corner, “and I kinda… rushed in here without looking and disturbed your peace.”

The quiet stare you’d sent his way had made him smile nervously, turning a very specific shade of pink that you’d rather not remember.

“Right,” you’d simply huffed out, moving to walk away. You were too tired to deal with this. He’d followed you, pushing the box into your hands. It still felt warm, through the thin cardboard.

“Take it. I got it for you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“No… but I’d like to,” he’d admitted, eyes downturned.

“You don’t know my name,” you’d countered.

“That’s an easy problem to solve,” he’d joked, looking at you with hope in his big blue eyes. You’d relented, spitting out your name like you weren’t used to this. Used to meeting new people. Kind people.

You’d taken the box from his hands, fingers brushing against his, and left without a word of goodbye. You hadn’t wanted him to see the flicker of something oddly warm in your eyes.

You’d eaten the cherry pie he’d given you straight from the box, syrupy sweetness running down your chin as you recalled the curved-in broadness of his shoulder, his strong hands, the gentleness in his eyes, the softness of his hair. Fantasy, that was all it was.

Since then, he’d showed up every day until he’d learned your exact schedule.

And you let him, without ever indulging in more than a few short, curt sentences. You pretend, to yourself, and to others, that you tolerate his presence, that the slight bite in your tone is due to your proneness to staying closed up on yourself. What you refused to admit was that it was a means of protection. Because that first night, under the moonlight, autumn breeze waltzing with your scarf, you’d felt something oddly warm in your chest, when his eyes glittered in your direction.

Tonight, though, you’re in no mood to joke around. Your wounded hand is tucked deep in your pocket, pressed up against your abdomen as if to stifle the pain.

“Clark, why are you still here?” you huff, voice tired and unusually soft.

“I was waiting for you,” he simply says, like that answers anything.

“Why do you always wait for me?” He shrugs, and you look down, concentrating on your dirty sneakers on the ground.

“I just want to see you. Make sure you’re okay.”

You don’t answer, not immediately. He doesn’t break the silence, but he guides you away from a stream of drops falling from a balcony that you hadn’t seen.

You move away from his warm grasp.

“Yeah, but why?” you ask.

“Why what?”

“Why do you always want to see me?” you mutter, unwilling to speak louder.

“I… I dunno, I guess I do. You’re not exactly a ray of sunshine, but… I dunno,” he repeats.

“If you’re so unsure, maybe you should take a while to think about it. Maybe you’re just wasting your time,” you state, voice hard as you force the unwanted quivering to the recesses of your throat. You bury your face in the collar of your coat, it smells of sweat and caramel. You don’t look his way when he pauses on the sidewalk, you don’t stop.

You keep walking.

You keep walking all the way home, trying to forget the harshness of your words. As per usual, you fail miserably. You fall asleep remembering the hurt in his eyes.

Grey sunlight streams in and hits the palm of your hand that lays open on the table. The wound is stark red against the skin. Somehow, it’s still bleeding, small drops of ruby-red blood beading up along the straight line of pain. You stare at it unflinchingly, as if willing the flesh to close up.

It’s still early, you’re only working the dinner service today, but your day stretches out in front of you like an endless field of nothingness. Your apartment has become a depressing state, things piling up, dust coating shelves, the fridge basically empty, your love for cooking slowly evaporating as the restaurant drains you little by little.

You don’t have many options, you realize, you could wallow in bed or on the couch until it’s time to drag yourself to the restaurant, or, you could actually do something. Maybe go to the market and get some fresh… well, everything for your fridge.

The sunlight steadily grows brighter, taunting your skin, warming up your clammy skin, and despite your exhaustion you can’t resist the urge to go outside, to hopefully get your hands on some fresh oranges. They are in season, after all.

The air outside is cold, but not unbearable, the small crowd of people moving around you and the sun’s smile is enough to warm you up, both inside and out. A weight is lifted from your shoulder, if only temporarily, and the strap of your canvas bag, loaded heavily with fresh parsley, lettuce, cheese, potatoes still covered in dirt and a jar of honey digs into the flesh of your shoulder in a tethering way.

Your steps are firm and precise in your quest for oranges. The taste of strawberries lingers on your lips and something akin to a smile flits around your face. You’ve made the right choice, you think, to take some time for yourself in the environment you know so well. Your steps falter when you come across your bounty.

A big basket of oranges, the sour smell already dancing around your nose as you run your fingers along the bright, waxy skin. The vendor, an elderly man, looks at you kindly as he places a few in a paper bag, but your gaze lingers on the stall in front of you, all vivid, colours, vivid smells, a vivid will to live. Up until you feel a presence knock into you from behind.

You turn around, the paper bag clutched tight in your hands, only for your gaze to meet two bright blue eyes that you know a little too well.

They haunt your dreams.

He says your name quietly, you barely hear him in the surrounding din. He’s dressed more casually than you’ve ever seen him, a soft burgundy sweater under a coat, white undershirt peeking out from below, jeans distressed by work and not for style, glasses perpetually crooked on his nose. It looks good on him, you admit to yourself.

“Hey Clark,” you mutter, already turning back to pay the vendor, whose eyes are dancing between you and Clark with growing curiosity.

“Hey,” he says softly, “nice seeing you.”

You don’t answer immediately, entranced by the sunshine-yellow lemons sitting in front of you.

“Nice seeing you too,” you finally mumble, half-distracted. Clark stays quiet for a moment, breath bated. Waiting, or maybe gauging.

“You’re doing better than last night,” he states.

“You’re perceptive,” you say, a small smile finally gracing your tight lips. You turn around to face him completely, carefully placing the bag of oranges inside your canvas shopping bag.

“How’s your hand?” he asks, eyes drifting lower, to your bulkily bandaged hand.

“Better,” you lie, suddenly very aware of the sharp pain. Somehow, you’re sure he can tell that you’re hiding the truth from him.

He doesn’t say anything, just peers into your bag.

“Oranges?” he says, eyebrows scrunching.

“Yep… they’re in season,” you remark, “and I like the acidity of the early fruit,” you add. He nods.

You can’t quite explain why you do what you do next. You reach into your bag, fingers grazing the shiny skin, and you only hesitate a second before pulling a single fruit out and into your unsure grasp.

“Wanna share one?” you ask Clark, and his eyes brighten, shoulders straightening as he regains a sense of… something. You’re not too sure what.

“Sure,” he says quietly. He watches your hand tense pitifully around the fruit, wounded appendage basically useless, and he doesn’t say anything as he coaxes the fruit out of your grasp.

“Clark, I can manage-” you protest.

“I know you can, it’ll just be easier like this,” he counters, already skillfully peeling the orange, “I just want to help”, he says so quietly that you almost miss it.

You start walking again, side by side, as the skin of the fruit comes off easily in one long, curled ribbon. You can smell the citrus oil clinging to his skin.

“What are you doing here?” you ask, and the question sounds pathetically shallow on your tongue.

“Just shopping,” he mumbles, still concentrating on the orange, “I like coming to the market,” he informs you in an earnest, almost childlike manner, eyes glittering, lips seemingly constantly smiling.

“What about you?” he asks.

“My fridge was empty”, you reply dumbly, “and… well, I like the market too.”

Clark gazes up from the orange, eyes boring into yours, and you feel something twist in your guts. Why, why did he have such an effect on you? Hadn’t you matured from frivolous dreams such as this one?

“I like the smells,” you add, “and the colours, and talking to the vendors,” you list, waving around with your healthy hand, “it gives me ideas.”

“Ideas?”

“For… things to make. I don’t have much inspiration these days,” you confess.

“That restaurant must drain your energy,” he expresses, and your steps stutter for a second.

“Again with the perceptiveness,” you joke, though it falls flat, your tone laces with acrid bitterness.

“Yeah… jobs do that to you. I should know.”

Clark splits the orange in even halves and hands one to you. His fingers are warm against yours as he makes sure your hand is wrapped around it securely, he doesn’t let go when he should. Neither do you.

“What do you do?” you finally bring yourself to ask him, when you finally let go of his hand and cup the orange like a child’s treasure. He stays quiet for a second, his jaw tenses. You take the ribbon of peel from his hands, winding it delicately and placing it in your bag.

“Journalist. I work at the Daily Planet.”

“Oh!”

You bring an orange segment to your lips and bite into the sweet sourness.

“Journalism,” you muse, “must be interesting.”

“It is. It can be stressful, though.”

“I’m sure… everything can be stressful,” you say as you weave your way through the crowd, Clark’s bulky body easily cutting a path through the mass. You take another bite of orange, letting the flavours melt on your tongue, as the tension ebbs out of your back, little by little: as your ribcage slowly splits open to grant access to someone you’d rather keep at arm’s length.

“It shouldn’t be that way, though,” you faintly hear Clark say, and you’re jerked back to reality.

“Hm?”

“I said it shouldn’t be that way. I mean… you love to cook, clearly, but… work drains you. It takes away your love.”

You don’t answer, you busy your mouth with another segment of fruit, relishing in the soft burn in the pit of your stomach.

“... right?” he asks, as if looking for reassurance. He looks at you hopefully.

“Yeah… I guess so. I don’t like thinking about it,” you answer, gritting out the last part like it pains you to even consider the idea. He hums in answer, chewing slowly, shivering at the sourness. You smile faintly, turning back to face the path that’s clearing itself of people as you slowly walk out of the market. Silence wraps itself around you, but you can’t tell if it's comfortable or laden with tension. It’s cloying on your shoulder.

“Listen, I uh,” you finally bring yourself to say, “I should go. I have stuff to do before going to work.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Clark relinquishes, steps slowing down, “I can imagine.”

You miss his presence immediately, against your will.

“I’ll see you around,” you call back.

“See you tonight,” he says, a teasing spark dancing around his face. You allow yourself to smile when you look away from him, gaze fixed on the ground and mind dancing wistfully, the last segment of orange seemingly glowing between your fingers.

Back in the safety of your apartment, you let yourself think. A pot of stock simmers fragrantly on your stovetop, oven preheated, soft music in the background.

The ribbon of orange peel you’d taken from Clark’s hands sits in front of you, on your table, curling in on itself. You stare at it for too long. 

You’d originally taken it to put in tea, or stock, the fragrant skin being one of your favorite aromas. But you can’t make yourself discard it. It feels special. Symbolic somehow.

Beside it sits the messy pile of orange skin scraps you’d peeled yourself, painstakingly, every bend of your hand making the pain worse. The contrast between the elegant ribbon and the messy patches makes you nervous, you’re not sure why. You stand up, grabbing the scraps, and dump them in the simmering pot. The ribbon stays on the table throughout the afternoon, as you cook, as you eat, and when you reluctantly leave your refuge to go to work.

The shift is quiet, as it tends to be on Monday nights. A few tables at a time, largely spaced out orders, and a lot of time to taste test Jerry’s new desserts.

You’re sitting on a high stool, gazing out at the empty dining room, when Jerry hands you a plate.

“What is it this time?” you ask, wiping your hands on your apron.

“You know those trompe l’oeil desserts that look like fruits but aren’t?”

“Yeah?..”

“Okay. See? It looks like an apple, but it’s not. It’s a white chocolate and sugar shell with apple cinnamon cream and apple compote inside. Served with some puff pastry and vanilla cardamom ice cream.”

“You really got creative with this one,” you mumble, carefully examining the fake fruit, “it looks really good.”

He hands you a spoon, basically vibrating with excitement as you hit the shell to crack it open. It splits easily, falling in nearly perfect quarters and revealing creamy, white innards. You scoop a spoonful and bring it to your mouth, humming softly in pleasure.

“Jerry, this is really good.”

“It is, right? Try a bite with everything.”

It takes you a moment to scoop up a bite with compote, cream, a shard of the shell, some puff pastry and some ice cream, but you positively melt when it meets your tongue.

“Sometimes I wonder how you do it,” you joke, “this is delicious… though, I’d add more cardamom in the mix next time. You can’t quite taste it.”

He nods vigorously, jotting down your advice messily before starting to move away. He stops after a step, turning around.

“What’s got you so soft?” he asks, a grin molding itself on his face.

“What?”

“You’re… gentle, tonight? What’s up with that?” 

“It’s a quiet service, that’s it,” you mumble, shoving another bite of the dessert in your mouth.

“Yeah, but… I’ve never seen you like this.” You shrug.

“I’m not sure what you mean, but okay.”

Jerry throws a suspicious glance your way, but doesn’t say anything else. You finish your plate greedily, not leaving a single crumb, borderline licking the plate, only moving from your stool to prepare the last meal of the night.

Your back is stiff, your legs hurt from staying bent uncomfortably for too long, and you move through the preparation like a creaky machine, muttering curses under your breath when your wounded hand meets painful pressure.

The atmosphere is lethargic as you finish cleaning up your station alongside everybody else, prepping a few things for the next day, for whoever was working the shift tomorrow. An idea has been stewing in your head for the past few hours, it tastes of oranges and something warmer.

You thank the stars that tomorrow is your day off as you change out of your apron and wrap yourself tightly into your coat. You press onto your wound through the dirty bandage wrapped around your hand, gazing around the empty kitchen. The silence is deafening. You’re scared to step outside, to face the person you need to face. You linger by the closed door, double-check everything, turn off all the lights before finally pulling open the creaky door, setting foot in the dark alley.

It’s empty.

Why is it empty?

You look around the twilight, into the depths of hidden corners, yet you don’t find the person you, oddly and against all your habits, desperately want to see.

“Clark?” you call out pitifully. It’s no use. He isn’t there.

But hadn’t he said, this morning, ‘See you tonight’?

Hadn’t he been here every night you work the dinner shift since he’d stumbled into your life by accident?

Why wasn’t he here?

You force yourself to make the walk home across a sad Metropolis, everything casting deep shadows that engulf your body and mind. You ruminate your distress lest it slip out, following the golden light of street-lamps like it might save you from whatever gaped within you.

Somehow, here, in the emptiness of the streets, you can still feel the warmth of his hand against yours, the brush of his fingers, the smell of pine soap and oranges mixing with the complexity of the market aromas.

It haunts you, somehow, because it feels like your own fabrication.

Clark hasn’t done anything wrong. He probably got busy, got distracted… but you wanted to see him, to talk to him, for once.

To cave.

To let yourself bend and be asked on a date.

But he hadn’t come, the one time you wanted him to.

You don’t notice the lone figure sitting at the very top of a building, wind-mussed hair, ‘S’ branded on his chest, impenetrable sadness in his eyes at the sight of your drooping shoulders.

You don’t notice him quietly following you home. Making sure you’re okay.

Even as your hands shake with exhaustion when you unlock the door and step into your apartment building.

Night unfurls slowly, lonely and full of the hum of your TV blurting out sappy dialogue from some movie or other as you move around the kitchen. Baking isn’t your specialty, but the bright screen of your laptop gives you the information you need. Your kitchen smells of oranges and spun sugar, and it’s meant to be a distraction, because sleep is eluding you, but somehow the warmth makes you feel significantly worse.

Clark’s kindness had scared you, at first, it was cloying and overwhelming, so different from what you were used to. But now, somehow, it felt less daunting. Less like ripping out a piece of yourself and more like leaving a door cracked open, inviting him in. But he wasn’t there. You’d opened the door to an emptiness that felt like betrayal, even though it technically wasn’t.

The orange cake is still warm when you cut yourself a slice, sitting by the window in your living room, counting the barely visible stars. Everything feels so far away, even as the flavours melt in your mouth. Why did you have to be like this? You can still recall his kind smile, his soft words, his persistence, despite your enduring coldness.

You fall asleep with bitterness on your lips, salt creeping down your face, thinking, despite your hardest efforts, that you miss him.

Days flit by, blending together, as you bury yourself in things to do. A moment of weakness is what you label Monday night. Something that wouldn’t repeat itself. Ever. Not for any pair of beautiful blue eyes.

You haven’t seen Clark in a few days, and you stopped wondering where he was two days in. He probably has better things to do than loiter in the back alley of a restaurant waiting for a grumpy line cook that doesn’t seem to want to talk to him.

Routine and survival kicks in, you circulate through things like they don’t exactly matter. Your only tether is the still-gaping wound on the palm of your hand, it refuses to heal due to your constant state of action, your hand working, tensing and bending continuously.

The oranges you bought sit in a wooden bowl in the corner of your kitchen, you refuse to even look in their direction, but the long ribbon of orange peel that Clark had gracefully crafted hands from a cabinet handle, slowly drying up, the sharp smell wafting up your nostrils every time you walk past it.

You cook less for yourself, sticking to simple recipes, things you can assemble mindlessly before slumping into your couch to drown out your thoughts with bad movies. Charming, right?

It all comes to a crashing halt on a frigid, grey, Saturday night. Saturday nights are particularly brutal, the entirety of Metropolis seems to parade through the dining room of the restaurant, and you’re left fighting for survival in the kitchen amidst the steam and choking smells. Your forearm is branded with a fresh burn, the front of your apron is decorated with a waterfall of brown stock that’s starting to smell foul, and your brain is ready to melt and leak out of your ears.

You don’t think much before borderline stumbling out of the kitchen, bag clutched in your wounded hands, coat half zipped, scarf hanging limply from your shoulders, mumbling goodbyes to your coworkers. You walk straight into a broad back and almost fall backwards, utterly thrown off balance. But he catches you.

Clark catches you, whipping around and grabbing your wrist. You hiss as the skin around the fresh burn pulls painfully. He immediately lets go, and you fix your stance. You look up at him, face tense, lips sealed. You don’t say anything. Neither does he.

You side-step Clark and start walking out of the alley, head bowed down. 

You hear his steps follow you, he calls out your name pathetically, voice cracking. You keep walking. He calls out again, his shoes drag against the pavement as he rushes behind you. He stops you with a strong hand on your shoulder, handling you to turn your body around.

“Will you listen to me?”

Your lips stay sealed.

“Fine, I’ll talk anyway. I’m sorry… We had this routine, okay? But then something came up and… I missed one night, and that night felt very important for some reason… too important to miss. And I missed it. And then one day I saw you from far away, and I meant to come talk to you,” he spews out, tweaking the truth, “but you looked so disgusted by everything, I got scared. I thought… Maybe I should give you some time. To deal with whatever you were dealing with.”

“I was dealing with your absence,” you finally say, “which might be foolish of me, because nothing binds us, right? You’re just there every night by choice, because you want to, and who am I to judge if this one specific night you’re not there? It’s your choice. But that night… fuck, Clark, it meant something. You felt it too, right? I just… I was gonna let myself be there, to stop holding you so far, and you took a step further away! Which is stupid, because you don’t owe me anything—” you ramble, words falling brutally from your lips, and you feel infinitely silly. Childish. Clinging onto a fantasy that lasted the time it took to eat an orange. Clark interrupts you.

“You’re right. I came to apologize.”

Your words falter. You look up at him.

“To apologize?”

“Yeah… I should've been there.”

“You should’ve.”

“Something came up.”

“I’m sure,” you counter, and you turn around to walk away. He doesn’t stop you, this time. But he follows you, you can feel him on your back; it sends shivers down your spine.

Neither of you say anything else, neither of you say goodbye, when you split ways in front of your building, the building that Clark can’t admit he knows.

He stays there, eyes locked on the closed door, for too long. Until he can’t feel his nose and his fingers are stiff. Until the wind makes his eyes water. He walks away with something too close to distress in his heart. Because despite what you said, you were bound together, at least to him, and now he’d gone and snapped the thread.

“Why are you here?”

Those are the first words you utter in the morning, stunned to near silence when you opened the building door to find Clark standing there, clutching a bouquet of lilies, deep in thought.

“Hey! I uh… I was waiting for you?” he tries. 

“Why?” you ask, keys almost falling from your hands.

“I wanted to see you.”

He says it so simply, when it’s anything but simple to you. It’s a mangled tangle of contradictions. He hands you the bouquet, and the weight on your wounded hand makes you grimace. You shift to grip it with your right hand.

“Thanks,” you utter, “they’re… nice.”

“You’re always talking about smells and aromas, and well… my ma used to say nothing smells sweeter than lilies so…”

“Your ma?” you ask, a small smile dancing on your reluctant lips. He grows pink under your inquisitive gaze.

“Forget I said that,” he says.

“I will not,” you joke, walking down the steps to join him on the pavement. “I’m going to the market,” you inform. It’s not quite an invitation.

“I’ll come with you,” he says, and it’s not quite a question.

You walk the first few blocks in silence, eyes fixed on the floor.

“How’s your hand?” he finally asks, breaching the bubble of quiet.

“It’s… fine.”

Not quite the truth. Not exactly a lie.

“Do you keep the wound clean?” he queries, face scrunching in concern.

“Yes, Clark, I keep it clean. This isn’t the first time, y’know?”

“Just asking,” he mumbles, looking away. “And how are you?” he adds.

“How am I?”

“Mhm.”

“Well… the usual. Nothing special, not good, not bad… just kinda neutral.” He nods along. “And you?”

“Same. Nothing special.”

“You look tired,” you say before you can help yourself.

“I’m okay… sleeping pretty rough,” he admits, keeping the whole truth to himself. He can’t tell you, not yet.

“Sorry about yesterday,” you mumble.

“I should be the one apologizing,” he protests, “I left you hanging.”

“Still… I'm sorry for snapping. I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad to be here,” he says with a small smile.

The soft morning light seems to make the thorns melt away, your heart and guts slowly thawing despite the cool wind, and you let things flow through you.

“Hey Clark?”

“Yeah?”

“I uh… would you um… would you like to have dinner with me next Tuesday?” you finally grit out, like it’s painful to say, like it’s a confession to weakness. He turns to face you, steps faltering. You keep walking though, and he catches up to you in a few strides.

“Are you serious?”

“No, I’m joking,” you deadpan, “listen… don’t make a bigger deal of this than it is. Just tell me, yes or no?”

“It’s a huge deal!”

“It’s not! Just answer the question.”

“Yes… yes, of course I’d like to have dinner with you.”

“Okay… cool. Cool. 6pm at my place… clearly, you know how to get there.”

“I’ll be there,” he says, nodding vigorously.

And you part ways without words, but the silence is void of the sharpness that it basked in last night, it’s grown soft again, and you let it run its soft feathers along your face as you walk to the market, mind already wandering and imagining as to what will unfold.

Tuesday can’t possibly come any slower, but when the sun starts to set and the time you’ve waited for with bated breath comes closer, you struggle to stop your hands from shaking, to calm the butterflies growing wild in the cavity of your ribs.

You busy yourself in the kitchen, humming along to the music playing in the background, trying (and failing) to not think of the man you’re about to officially let into your apartment. Into your life. You’ve gone through many phases, considered cancelling, considered running away, considered everything, but, ultimately, you need this to happen.

To tell yourself that you did it.

When the doorbell rings, you freeze like an animal held at gunpoint. You wait for a few seconds, fix your clothes, glance at a mirror when you pass in front of it. You try to wipe the fear from your eyes, to replace it with the cold stone you’re used to. The results are passable.

When you open the door, Clark looks like he’s about to combust. He’s dressed in a clean white button-up, a navy blazer that struggles to accommodate the width of his shoulders, a trenchcoat hang from his arm, another bouquet of flowers in his hand.

“Hey…” you breathe out, a little dumb-struck. You’d forgotten he was off-puttingly handsome.

“You look beautiful,” he says, and you move aside, to let him in but also to hide the heat of your face, the small smile on your lips.

He steps inside, removes his shoes and hangs his coat like he belongs here, and you watch him like you’re discovering a missing puzzle piece. When he hands you the flowers, you almost forget to take them.

“Thank you, they’re gorgeous.”

“Nothing compared to you,” he says, smiling widely, and you have to resist the urge to run away.

“Stop with the flattery.”

“I’m being honest!” he protests, following you as you lead him into your apartment, which you’ve meticulously cleaned in preparation.

The kitchen is warm, but not stiflingly so, an open window lets the cold winter air in to brush against the walls and clean the atmosphere.

“It smells incredible,” Clark says, and you can’t help but agree. The air is laden with spices and the cozy smell of the recipe of stew you’ve perfected over the years. 

“Do you want anything to drink?” you ask, already opening a bottle of wine.

“I’ll have whatever you’ve having,” he answers as he settles at the dinner table. “Do you need help with anything?”

“Oh no, don’t worry. I just have to set the table,” you reassure him, handing him a glass of wine.

“Let me. Just tell me where everything is.”

“Clark, it’s fine—”

“You cooked an entire dinner, let me set the table,” he insists, and you’re stunned into silence.

“Uh… plates and cutlery are in the drawer by the oven,” you explain, moving to check on the pot simmering in the stove, “... thanks.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” he replies, throwing a big, kind smile your way. Your heart does something stupid. You ignore it.

He sets the table expertly and with astounding efficiency, and soon enough, he’s standing beside you by the stove, gaze inquisitive.

“Boeuf bourguignon,” you say, guessing his question, “my mother’s recipe, with my own tweaks.”

“I’ve never had that.”

“It’s a french recipe… beef, braised then stewed with vegetables in red wine.”

You catch a faint grimace and laugh.

“It sounds intimidating, but I promise, it’s delicious,” you say, and he blushes faintly.

“Sorry, I… well, I’m from Kansas, even though the food is delicious, it’s not very outlandish.”

“I get it. We don’t serve this at the restaurant, people like to see what they recognize, even though truly,” you pause to taste the base of the stew, “it’s not that outlandish, just… french.”

“That scares people.” You laugh, setting the wooden spoon down.

“Unfortunately.”

When you settle at the dining table, a bowl of fresh salad between you, it feels odd. It feels… too close to normal, for something that you’re doing for the first time. You don’t mind it.

You share stories about the restaurant and the newspaper between bites of salad, until you empty your plates and switch out the empty bowl and dirty plates with two impeccably presented plates of the french meal.

“I hope you like it,” you remark quietly, spoon paused in midair.

“I’m sure I will,” Clark reassures you, but you still wait, frozen in place, as he takes his first spoonful.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone melt but what Clark does is about as close as it gets. His shoulders slump and his eyes flutter closed, jaw growing slack. His free hand moves to run through his already mussed up hair.

“This is,” he enunciates around the mouthful, “so good. Oh gosh, this is incredible—” he rambles on.

“I’m glad you like it,” you confess, shoveling a spoonful into your own mouth. You have to admit, you outdid yourself. You hide the pleasure from your face.

“Where did you learn to cool like this?” he asks, already halfway through his plate somehow.

“My mother, at first, then culinary school. It’s a lot of personal work though, just going to school isn’t enough. It takes experience.”

He nods along, barely talking as you tell him about the chaos of your time at culinary school, the failed recipes, that one time you obsessed over a recipe of lemon pie so much, you made so many attempts that you had to give some away to your neighbours. All the time, he watches your hands move around, zeroing in on the thin wound on your hand.

“It’s getting better,” he notices, and you pause to look at your hand.

“I… guess it is. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much,” you admit, flexing your hand to test your theory. “It doesn’t,” you confirm, and he smiles.

“I’m glad.”

“I’m used to it anyway. Accidents happen a lot.”

“I bet… sucks that you have to work through them.”

You shrug.

“It’s not that bad, I’ve seen someone accidentally dump a vat of hot oil over their arm. Third degree burns. We all felt terrible.” 

Clark grimaces.

“This industry is torture,” he jokes.

“Well, someone’s gotta do it. Otherwise who would serve fine cuisine to our millionaires.”

“I much prefer you when you cook for yourself, y’know? I bet the food tastes better.”

Your movements stutter for a second, jaw stilling.

“When you’re not stressed, or tired, or anything… you’re just doing it for your own pleasure,” Clark explains.

“And yours,” you remind him.

“And mine,” he concedes, smiling, “I quite like this version of you.”

“I… like this version of me too.”

“We should do this more often,” he offers, and though your heart is beating a million kilometers a minute, you nod slowly.

“We should.”

After dinner, Clark helps you clean up. Well, actually, he cleans up, forcing you to sit on a stool and keep him company.

“It’s only fair,” he says, “you cook, I clean.”

“I can’t ask you that.”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering.”

You shut your mouth, amused, and settle on a barstool as Clark cleans the dishes. It’s quick work anyway, and he talks to you about his work at the Daily Planet while he does it. You pretend that you’re not looking at the muscles of his forearms peeking below his rolled up sleeves, at the shirt straining against the bulk of his biceps, his blazer long abandoned on the back of a chair.

 You turn on a few small lamps to ward off the darkness, and when you catch your reflection in a mirror, the golden light draws your features softer than they have ever been.

“Clark?” you say, quickly looking away.

“Yeah?”

“There’s something in the oven, would you mind taking it out? I’m just going to grab something.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” he calls back, and you’re grateful he can’t see the lovesick expression on your face. Your legs feel a little shaky when you walk down the hall to your bedroom.

You lied. You don’t have to grab anything, you just need a second to yourself. To process. You glance at your figure in the floorlength mirror in the corner. You don’t find yourself particularly appealing, you aimed for comfort since you knew you’d have to move around the kitchen.

Suddenly, you wished you’d done things differently. But hey, too late now. You straighten your shirt and move back towards the kitchen.

“Everything okay?” Clark asks, looking your way.

“Yep, everything’s fine,” you mutter, already moving towards the cake that he pulled out of the oven.

“What did you make us?” he asks, following you around the kitchen like a lost puppy.

“Sicilian orange cake,” you say, “pretty self explanatory.”

“Mhm… d’you need help with anything?”

“No… sit down, I got this,” you protest when he moves to help you. You cut two generous slices and place them in the porcelain plates you keep for these occasions, the ones that never come.

“Do… would you want to watch a movie?” you ask, moving towards the couch in the living room.

“Sure, yeah, why not,” he answers, still following you. You feel his warm presence against your back just before his hands brush your waist, gently manoeuvring you to sit beside him, legs slug across his lap.

“This is nice,” he says coyly, mischief twinkling in his eyes. You don’t answer but bite back a traitorous smile.

“Any preferences?” you ask as you turn on the TV, scrolling through options.

“Whatever you want, I’m not picky.”

You settle on Pride and Prejudice, because it’s comfortable, familiar, and soft in a way you’re scared to be yourself.

The movie starts as you already know where it’s going, and you’re utterly captivated by the man beside you. Clark is massaging your calf gently, fingers running up and down your leg, and you can’t find it in yourself to focus on anything else. It doesn’t take long for him to notice, he doesn’t seem very concentrated on the movie either.

He says your name so quietly that you almost miss it.

“Yeah?”

“You have lovely eyes,” he says, pulling you closer, on top of him. You plant one knee on either side of his hips, trying to keep somewhat of a straight face as everything within you goes wild.

“You think?”

“I know,” he mumbles, and you’re transfixed by the slow movement of his lips.

“Can I kiss you?”

He doesn’t answer, just presses his lips against yours, humming softly as he tastes the sugar and orange that lingers there. Your lips are breached by his prodding tongue, and the sweet kiss quickly unravels. Your hands find his shoulder, as his find your hips, gently rubbing up and down through the fabric of your shirt, rubbing against your heated skin.

You pull back breathless, smiling against your will.

“Was that good?” he asks earnestly.

“Clark… where did you learn to kiss like that?”

He shrugs and kisses you again, this time not shying away from slipping his hand beneath your shirt, fingers wandering around your back.

And you can’t help yourself, you really can’t, when you roll your hips against his. He stills for a second, and you’re scared you’ve gone too far.

That he didn’t want this.

“Honey?”

“Yeah?” you answer to the pet name like it’s second nature.

“Where’s the bedroom?”

“Uh… down the hall?”

You yelp when he picks you up effortlessly, hands snug beneath your thighs, and you wrap your arms around his neck.

“Clark!”

“What? Is everything okay? Is this okay?” he blurts out, suddenly worried.

“It’s fine, you just scared me,” you comfort him, and his steps resume.

He lays you down on the bed like you’re made of clouds, like you might evaporate if he breathes too hard. You sit up, and you both stare in silence for a few seconds.

And then.

And then you lose your wits when Clark drops to his knees in front of you, head resting against your thigh. All your blood rushes downwards, where you can feel yourself growing wet. You run your fingers through his soft hair and his pupils dilate a concerning amount.

“Clark?”

“Hm?”

“You look gorgeous like this,” you breathe out, and he melts against you. You feel his hands creep up, higher, until they’re tugging at the edge of your bottoms. You watch him carefully unfasten them, pulling lower, lower until your bottom half is exposed to the air and his hungry gaze.

He starts slow, a kiss at your ankle. He moves higher, planting a soft kiss every so often, and you can feel the heat linger. It feels like worship, like you’re angelic and he’s simply a mortal there to make you feel… whatever you were feeling. Intolerable pleasure.

Your thighs are spread as he moves higher, kisses growing insistent and sloppy, nose nudging at your sex through the fabric of your underwear. You bite back a whine, and Clark takes that as a sign to pull at your undergarments. You lift your hips to allow him to take them off.

His movements stutter when he sees you bare for the first time, eyes lidded, lips parted like he’s looking at the gateway to heaven. He doesn’t waste time. With a single hand, he pushes your torso down, encouraging you to lay down, as his tongue makes a clear stripe up your sex. You can’t help it, you mewl, already desperate.

“Clark, don’t tease—” you’re interrupted by a low moan as he finally, finally, presses himself against you, a soft kiss on your clit and lavish mouthing along your folds.

Your back arches off the bed, eyes shutting in premature ecstasy, and you feel yourself floating up when two fingers drag themselves up, up, and gently push into you.

It’s perfect, so perfect you can’t hold back a wanton moan that rumbles in your chest, that Clark takes as encouragement to curl his fingers, hitting a spot you didn’t even know existed.

“Oh fuck… Clark, oh my god—”

He moans into you, vibrations overstimulating in the best way, and through the haze, when you allow yourself to look down at him, you almost cum on the spot.

He’s looking at you with those huge blue eyes, face buried into you, shoulders braced in effort, he looks like he’s seconds away from dying of pure pleasure.

“Clark please… Fuck, please, come here. Need you now,” you manage to say, and there’s an urgency in your voice he can't ignore.

“Yes ma’am,” he mumbles, pulling himself away from you and moving upwards, and though you whine at the sudden loss of contact, the feel of his hips against yours, cock straining against the fabric of his trousers, is enough to remind you of what’s to come.

You remove your own shirt, clip off your bra as Clark watches with bated breath.

Your hands go for his belt immediately, tugging his trousers down immediately as he undoes the buttons of his shirt, discarding it over the edge of your bed. 

You palm him through his briefs and watch with fascination his face contort in beatitude. You can feel the size of him. Holy shit. You run your hands down his chest, his abs, you feel him twitch slightly.

“You’re beautiful”, you murmur, and he whines. You grin.

You don’t understand how fast he gets rid of what’s left of his clothes, but he does, his bare form suddenly between your bent legs, cock pressing up against your core. Shit, you think as you feel him, he really is huge.

“P-Please, please,” he begs, “wanna be inside you.”

And who are you to say no? Especially to those pleading eyes. You hum in agreement, lifting your hips as his tip nudges against you.

“Gotta go slow, okay?” you mumble as he starts to move, and you lose all countenance. He slowly pushes into you, whining softly with each slow thrust.

“Oh gosh,” he mewls, “you’re so perfect, how’d I find such a perfect, pretty girl—” he continues, and you interrupt his rambling with a kiss to his lips just as he bottoms out.

You don’t think you’ve ever felt this full. You can feel him everywhere, pressing against the skin of your belly. You shiver when one of his hands comes up to grope your tits, massaging gently, mouthing along the heated skin desperately.

“Oh god Clark, you’re fucking,” you whine when he twitches inside of you, “you’re huge, fuck.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” he says apologetically, voice cracking, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you’re so perfect…”

The first shallow thrust he gives is your undoing. The feeling of him is overwhelming, you can’t form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence, so you coax him on with the depraved sounds spewing from your lips.

“Ah… shit mhm… So good, you’re so good for me,” you manage to cry out between moans, and his whines like you’ve just made his life worth living.

“Close…” he mutters, “I’m close… are you?—”

“Mhm,” you mewl, “me too— fuck please…”

It only takes a few more thrusts to send you both toppling over the edge, whines and moans interlaced and moffled as he kisses you harshly, hungrily, desperately. He lowers himself on top of you, mindful of his bulk, and you hum in pleasure at the sensation. 

You push his hair away from his sweaty forehead and he gazes up at you, eyes still pathetic.

“Didn’t know you had it in you, newsboy,” you tease, and he blushes prettily.

“You’re so perfect, how did I find you?” he mumbles, words slurred. He grunts softly as he rolls you both over so you’re laying atop him, his cock still buried inside you, and you yelp in surprise.

“You have to stop taking me by surprise like that,” you utter, eyelids drooping.

“Sorry,” Clark says, sleepily.

“We should sleep,” you mumble.

“Need to clean you up,” he says absentmindedly, and suddenly you’re being heaved off of him and placed delicately on the bed. He disappears for a few seconds and comes back with a wet rag that he uses to clean the space between your thighs. It only takes a few minutes, but you’re asleep by the time he’s done, and he can’t resist the urge to curl up beside you, pressing his chest against your back and holding you tightly, even in the deepest of slumbers.

Sunlight streams in golden and cheerful when Clark wakes up. The space beside him is empty, and it takes him a second to remember that he did, in fact, fall asleep with someone beside him.

He stumbles out of bed, puts on what clothes of his that he manages to find, washes his face, and follows the smell of food out to the kitchen, where he finds you half dressed in front of the stove. He walks up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist, and hums happily.

“Morning, newsboy.”

“I could stay here all day, sweetheart,” he mumbles into the skin of your neck.

“Are you hungry?”

“If you made it, I’m always hungry,” he says, and you bite back a giddy smile.

“Go sit,” you order, and he complies.

Breakfast unravels in a haze of small jokes and remarks, promises to do this more often, mutual thoughts about your respective jobs. You watch him peel an orange, quietly, just as expertly as the first time, and you think.

You think that maybe letting Clark in wasn’t so bad, if he kept peeling oranges for you, if you could thread the fair-scented ribbons throughout your life.

You were suspended halfway between upright and total catastrophe by Clark’s hands gripping your upper arms with a steadiness that didn’t match the panic in your chest. Your legs were still unsteady, slippery from the water, which only added onto the confusion regarding how Clark’s fingers felt unslipping.

The shower was still running, soaking both of you. You blinked up at him, feeling water dripping down the side of your cheek. Clark stood halfway into the shower, getting his work shirt soaked from the spray, and his hair plastering to his forehead. Your heart hammered, not just from the slip, but from the way he was looking at you. God, he looked terrified. 

“Are… you…okay?” he asked, each word carefully spaced, like he was fighting the urge to check your pulse, your limbs and just about every inch. His gaze on you unfocused slightly, looking over you like a doctor would’ve. “Good news is, nothing’s broken–well, at least it doesn’t look like it. Do you feel dizzy at all? Should I–”

“Clark,” you cut in, dazed. “What are you doing in here?” He froze. 

A full on deer-in-headlights type of freeze. Clark hoped you couldn’t see the eight different lie options cross his brain. He blinked. Twice.

“You… yelled,” he finally admitted. “Loud. Really loud. I thought you were hurt.” He gestured vaguely towards the door with his chin. “It wasn’t locked.”

You slowly processed that.

It was locked. You distinctly remembered clicking the little button. 

But Clark was panicked, dripping wet, and still supporting your weight like gravity was an option today. So maybe you misremembered. Maybe he was right. Maybe you were concussed or overdramatic or—

“Oh my god,” you blurted, and Clark froze.

For a terrifying half-second, he thought you might actually be hurt. His hands tightened ever so slightly around your arms, eyes scanning your face, your body, like some internal alarm had gone off. That ‘oh my god’ hadn’t sounded like panic or embarrassment, it sounded like pain.

“Hey, what is it?” he asked, voice abnormally confident from the typical Clark Kent you know. Maybe he should’ve gone into saving people, like a first responder. A firefighter uniform would look pretty good on him… “Does anything hurt anywhere?” You blinked at him, dumbfounded. “Clark. I am butt naked,” you finally said, louder, more pointed, hoping it would snap him out of whatever mother-hen induced worry loop he was in. 

Reality hit him like a bucket of ice water, not at all like the warm stream trickling down his body. Nothing else could’ve snapped him back to reality faster. His eyes went huge, comically huge, and his mouth opened and closed twice like he was buffering. His whole posture flinched, the confident shoulders exchanging for a more Clark-like slouch. 

“Right. You’re… uh–here!” he blurted, voice jumping an octave as he practically thrust a towel toward you, both hands out like he was handing over a bomb with the safety pin already pulled. 

You didn't even have time to react before the fluffy cotton was draped over your chest. Clark immediately pivoted a half-step back, angling his face away from you until you were able to get yourself situated and standing. 

He stared so hard at the opposite wall you swore he was going to ignite a laser-beam hole straight through it with his eyes alone. 

Meanwhile, the shower kept pouring over both of you, soaking Clark’s shirt until it clung to him, outlining the kind of strength no flannel ever hinted at. The towel he handed you was already damp and heavy from the spray, but you still pulled it around yourself, securing the fabric with shaky fingers.

“...Clark?” “Yes!” his answer came instantly, paired with his head whipping back to face you again.

“You’re still half in the shower,” you say gently.

Clark froze. Then looked down. Then slowly, painfully slowly, stepped backward out of the spray, blinking the water out of his eyelashes. 

“You’re right. I’m so sorry.” He pushed his soaked glasses up the bridge of his nose, wincing as the steam of the bathroom fogged them up. His voice dipped soft. “You’re okay?”

You nodded, still holding the towel tight around yourself,mostly for warmth because at this point, what dignity did you have left?

“I’m okay,” you said. “Just… embarrassed. And wet. Very, very wet.”

Clark huffed a laugh, some of his panic dwindling with it. His eyes swept over you again, careful and clinical, not inappropriate in the slightest. He was looking for swelling. Bruises. Anything out of place. And with every inch he confirmed was uninjured, the tension in his shoulders eased, like he was slowly letting himself breathe again. 

He’s saved strangers with the calm certainty of someone who’s done it a thousand times. But with you… he feels like he’s back in Kansas saving his very first life—heart pounding and terrified of getting even one thing wrong. 

“Good,” he murmured, voice low with leftover adrenaline. “Good. That’s all that matters.” You tightened the towel around yourself, suddenly hyper-aware of the droplets running down your spine, and the way Clark was standing just a little too close because he still wasn’t ready to fully step away.

His gaze flicked your face again, searching. “You’re sure you're not hurt? Nothing feels off? Dizzy? Sore? Because falls like that can–” 

“Clark. I’m really okay.”

He swallowed, nodding. You offered a small smile. 

“Thank you. For catching me.” The tips of his ears went pink. “Of course,” he said, like it wasn’t some miracle that he had gotten to you in time. Like he hadn’t moved fast enough to make your head spin. “I should– I’ll let you finish up. And uh… maybe put a towel down. Or a sign. Or a cone. Something.”

He ran a hand through his soaked hair, then gave you a crooked, helpless kind of grin, “Just– shout if you need me.” 

You raised an eyebrow. “Shout? That seems to work a little too well.” You both giggle. Clark backed toward the door, still dripping everywhere, and still looking at you like he wasn’t fully convinced you wouldn't topple over the second he left. 

Before he slipped out the door, he hesitated. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

He swears it’s just superstition. Not the locker room rituals, not the way he tapes his hands in the exact same order every time, not even the quiet prayer he mutters under his breath before stepping into the ring. It’s you.

You’re perched on the edge of the little gym office desk, legs swinging, the air thick with chalk dust and adrenaline. Outside, the crowd is already starting to rumble. He can hear it, feel it, the way he always does before a fight. But his eyes are on you. “You ready?” you ask softly, trying not to smile.

Clark exhales, rolling his shoulders, massive frame filling the room. Sweat darkens the collar of his shirt, curls damp and unruly. He steps closer, crowd noise fading into nothing. “I don’t go in without you,” he says, low. Certain. Like it’s a fact carved into bone.

His hands settle on your hips, thumbs brushing slow, familiar circles. It’s not rushed. Never is. This part matters too much. His forehead dips to yours, breath warm, steadying. “You know you’re my lucky charm, right baby?” he murmurs.

You laugh under your breath. “You won plenty before me.”

“Not like this.” His mouth curves, teasing, affectionate. “Not undefeated.”

His fingers slip beneath the hem of your shorts, just enough to make your breath catch. He feels the way your body responds instantly to him, always has, and his smile turns softer, in a way that makes your knees weak. “There you go,” he murmurs, almost fond. “Always so responsive.”

You flush, hands fisting in his shirt, tugging him closer. “Clark…”

“I know,” he says gently, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “I’ve got you.” He lifts you onto the desk like it’s nothing, grounding himself between your knees. The room feels smaller now, hotter. His touch is unhurried, confident, like he’s memorizing you all over again. Like this is part of the extensive training.

“You take care of me,” he whispers against your skin. “Every time. Least I can do is return the favor.” Your head tips back as he leans in, mouth brushing your ear, his voice dropping into that intimate register only you ever hear. Outside, the crowd roars louder. Someone knocks on the door. "Fifteen minutes."

Clark stills, just for a second, like he’s locking the moment away.

He doesn’t waste another second. His hands slide up your thighs, pushing your shorts and panties aside with practiced ease. You gasp as the cool air hits you, but then his mouth is there, hot, insistent, dropping to his knees between your spread legs like he’s worshiping at an altar. The desk creaks under your weight as you lean back on your elbows, watching him through half-lidded eyes.

Clark looks up at you, those dark eyes burning with focus and hunger, his big hands gripping your hips to hold you steady. “Gonna taste you first,” he murmurs, voice rough. “Need you dripping for me.”

His tongue drags slow and deliberate over your folds, parting you with a low groan that vibrates straight through your core. You bite your lip to stifle a moan, fingers threading into his damp curls as he licks into you like he’s starving.

He’s relentless — sucking gently on your clit, circling it with the flat of his tongue, then dipping lower to thrust inside you. Your thighs tremble around his shoulders, the sounds wet and obscene in the small room, mingling with the distant roar of the crowd.

“Clark—fuck—” you whimper, head falling back as he hums against you, one hand sliding up to tease your entrance with two thick fingers. He pushes them in slowly, curling just right, and your back arches off the desk.

“That’s it, baby,” he growls between licks, voice muffled against your skin. “Let me hear you. Give me everything.”

He works you higher, faster, until you’re grinding against his face, chasing the edge. When you come, it crashes over you hard, your body clenching around his fingers, a sharp cry escaping as he laps you through it, not stopping until you’re shaking and boneless.

Only then does he rise, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes wild and focused. He shoves his shorts down just enough, freeing his dick —hard and heavy, already leaking for you. With one smooth motion, he pulls your hips to the edge of the desk and lines himself up, thrusting in deep.

You both groan at the stretch, the perfect fit. He doesn’t hold back now. Fucking you hard and steady, the desk rattling beneath you with every snap of his hips. His hands grip your thighs, spreading you wider, angling deeper as he leans over you, mouth claiming yours in a messy, desperate kiss that tastes like you.

“Feel so fucking good,” he pants against your lips, pace relentless. “My girl. My luck.” You wrap your legs around him, nails digging into his back, urging him on. The pressure builds again, coiling tight, and he knows, he always knows.

“Close,” you gasp, and he nods, forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping.

“Me too. Gotta cum inside you,” he rasps, voice breaking with need. “That’s what locks in the win, baby. Gotta fill you up, mark you as mine. Then I’m untouchable out there.”

You clench around him at the words, and that’s all it takes. He buries himself deep with a guttural moan, spilling hot inside you, hips jerking as he rides it out. The feeling pushes you over again, your second orgasm milking him dry as you cling to him, breathless and shattered.

He kisses you once more, slow and promising, then pulls back with a breathless laugh. “Yeah,” he says, eyes dark, focused, unbeatable. “I’m winning tonight.” You straighten your clothes, heart racing, watching him grab his robe and wrap his hands. At the door, he pauses, glancing back.

“Same after?” he asks.

You grin. “Same after.”

Clark nods, satisfied, and heads for the ring.