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SOFT AND ONLY YOU

pairing. clark kent x fem reader

your childhood best friend is synonymous with ‘the guy you call when something (inevitably) goes sour.’ clark is dependable, steady, safe. and maybe—well, more than maybe—the grass is greener in his bed. or: two times your love life needs a little clark kent tlc. third time’s gotta be the charm, you swear.

wc. 18k+

tags. 18+ explicit nsfw, unprotected piv/mating press, size kink, slightly (?) jealous sex, first time cunnilingus, fingering n squirting, multiple orgasms, edging, creampie, light hair tugging, pathetic clark who whimpers, anecdotes and yearning, talk of past toxic relationships, hurt/comfort if u squint (!!!)

— basically what ciderclark could have been if they werent pussies LMAO. title from the cure's just like heaven aka the most romantic song forever ^u^

Clark lives through every day like the ice cream store’s about to close.

In other words, he’s an avid believer in carpe diem, and he is never too busy.

It’s admirable, really. How he’s always bustling in tandem with Metropolis, zipping in and out of the Daily Planet with a Jitters Coffee in hand and two suits on his shoulders. Flying up and down town to open doors for grandmas, kick lost balls back over the fence, zoom past Stryker’s Island to let Lex Luthor get a real good look before he starts another day in prison.

‘Superman doesn’t have time for selfies’ is bullshit.

He always makes time for one more thing. One last squeeze in his itinerary, whether it be volunteering to take pictures for someone else’s article or being the one in the picture himself—posing straight and strong, beaming that friendly grin before he takes off to seize the day!

Which is why he's the first one you text when you finally dump the guy you've been seeing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your heart flutters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your phone buzzes, twice.

Daily Planet newsletter | Friday, April 27

REMINDER: 4th date, Matthew

You grimace at the second pop-up banner.

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

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

Chores, laundry, dates.

You worry the inside of your cheek between your molars.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe you should take a page out of his book.

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

Delivered with a whoosh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TO: clark kent my boyfriend said so btw

Nice to let him know, right?

(You hope he remembers the joke.)

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

Then they start again, bopping along in consecutive order.

Three buzzes, muted against the cradle of your palms.

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

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

He remembers.

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

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

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

…Oh. You freeze.

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

Oh, no.

—

Your first heartbreak comes during your eighteenth summer in Smallville.

Well, it’s less heartbreak and more embarrassment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No sign of that asshole Nate.

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

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

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

“Your Ma would disagree.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then he taps the glass.

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

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

“What—Clark!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He urges you to a nearby alley—strange.

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

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

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

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

“Dude—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The tips of your noses brush, two compasses crossing.

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

“Helped me, you mean.”

“Yeah…”

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

“You’re mean.”

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

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

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

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

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

It’s okay like this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Automatic, the most natural thing in the world.

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

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

“That’s barely the introduction.”

—

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

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

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

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

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

Wait...)

The temperature doesn’t work, either.

Well, it does. Kind of.

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

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

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

You think back to how you got here.

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

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

Ergo, you did what any best friend would do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ultimatum.

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

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

The first one you had to call.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Thanks, Clark.”

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

You remembered this one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The apartment is eerily still, frozen in a moment.

Everything in this 400 square foot place is raw.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Small miracles.

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

The tide of self-deprecation in you subsides.

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

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

You move on.

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

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

Oh, a box of honeydew cream popsicles!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom Sawyer. Of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Heat breath.”

Perks of being superpowered. “Huh.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fine, Smallville Half and Half."

"But which Half comes first?"

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

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

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

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

You want to hear it forever.

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

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

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

You squint at the screen.

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

You can’t tell them apart like Clark can.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You clench your jaw and duck your head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You mumble, “Apparently not Loretta and Marcie.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The breath in your lungs unravels to the quick.

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

Safe, in the way he’s always been.

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

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

It never made any sense.

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

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

…Would it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ew.”

—

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

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

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

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

This is familiar.

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

Familiar, but not the same.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your stomach somersaults and lands with a pathetic hop.

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

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

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

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

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

But that’s different.

That’s pining and idealistic stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

Or—you dread to think—Smallville.

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

Oh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you okay?”

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

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

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

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

“Seriously?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or not. You could be delusional.

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

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

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

Pitched in a somewhat sheepish tone, “What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

You shrug. Stupidly, “Dunno.”

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

Oh.

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

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

“You’re kidding.”

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

Frowning, “What question?”

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

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

Your jaw clenches, caught. “Maybe...”

He knows you too well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You probably swiped right on him because he resembled Clark.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, he’s jealous.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Right.”

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

“Really?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck. You can’t take it anymore.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Too fast? You avert your eyes in shame.

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

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

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

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

You want, want, want.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You blink up at him, confused. “Huh?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your chest tightens for a breath.

Unconsciously, your thighs squeeze tighter in search of friction.

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

You hope your eyes aren’t bugging out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And his heartbeat jumps.

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

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

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

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

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

Your breath freezes in the same moment as his.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Curse your stupid, big mouth.

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

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

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

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

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

A wave of heavy embarrassment crashes down on you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s like a switch has flipped in you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just Clark.

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

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

Starbursts pop in your vision.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Okay,” he says, quiet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Will you let me have you?”

Not can I. Will you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You don’t remember how you respond to that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

Crabjoys and college shorts. Of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s so gentle. Intimately familiar.

You’ve already loved him for a lifetime.

You wouldn’t mind one more.

— kisses to the lovely wonderful betas dee @kentbot and nini @dancing-inasnowglobe for prereading this crazy fic for me! please let me know if u enjoyed, reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated <33

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