I’ve realized I have a particular soft spot for characters with no guile in them. Characters with hearts on their sleeves, with their reactions written on their faces. Sometimes they’re left out of grand plans or restrained to prevent their interference—this tends to happen in those vast, epic stories that put a premium on intrigue and cunning. Other times, though, (and these are particularly dear to my heart), their honesty is not portrayed as a flaw that holds them back but as a core and valued part of who they are that enables them to do what is needed, even though it’s not always without consequence.
Friendly reminder that asking your lycan partner to turn you is incredibly insensitive! Seriously can we retire this trope already? Not only is it just offensive, but no one would ever actually choose this life! Lycanthropy is a curse. Full stop.
🐾 superhowllock69 Follow
Ok user "moon-moon" as if that original meme wasn't created to mock pack nomenclature 🙄
Anyway I'm not gonna touch that internalized lycanphobia with a ten foot pole. Being turned by your partner is something that can be incredibly intimate as long as both parties are consenting and the one being turned is 100% sure they want it. Literally the only downside to transforming once a month is the pain, but midol works just fine. No one with these "lycanthropy bad" takes ever wants to discuss the legitimate positives that come with this "curse" lmao.
🐺 moon-moon4w00 Follow
I'm literally reclaiming moon moon but go off I guess. Anyways turning your partner is absolutely disgusting and morally reprehensible and anyone who does it should be muzzled permanently.
🌜 impawssible Follow
lmao my wife literally saved my life when she turned me but i guess she should be muzzled huh? we run through the woods hunting deer together and can each haul in groceries in one trip now, but nooo she's obviously a danger to society because she cares enough about me to help me when insurance wouldn't cover my medicine
also it was confirmed that the creator of that meme literally makes and sells silver bullets so if you still wanna use moon moon for yourself that certainly is a choice. source: (X)
🦴 pupperoni Follow
I love that instead of naming the more common benefits of lycanthropy, you mentioned that you and your wife can carry all the groceries in one trip. I think that's definitely a positive that gets overlooked far too often and I commend you for speaking your truth, sir
🌜 impawssible Follow
lol thanks but I'm a woman 😅
🦴 pupperoni Follow
🦇 count-fuckula Follow
Plus werewolf blood tastes way better and is as filling as 10 humans 👍
🐺 moon-moon4w00 Follow
Oh my GOD you vampblr freaks will just flock to anything. It clearly says "vamps DNI" in my bio!
🐾 superhowllock Follow
lmaoooo of course you're a vampire exclusionist
🌕 daddy-fenris Follow
wasn't OP the same guy who said fursuits were offensive to lycanthropes and doxxed a werewolf fursuiter?
🐺 moon-moon4w00 Follow
They ARE offensive and harmful to this community and I'm tired of pretending they're not. They perpetuate harmful depictions of what a humanoid wolf is actually like.
🌜 impawssible Follow
me when I dox someone for making candy colored animal costumes that look nothing like what a real werewolf does
hm. dont usually put my own two cents for theories but somethings been kind of annoying me recently so yeah. ralsei thoughts.
i really dont like the idea that ralsei is a specific object. especially not with newer stuff from chapters 3 and 4.
For starters, most people that try to figure out what ralsei is in the real world are basing it off of this appearance
however, I feel like there's plenty of evidence to point to this not being his real form, right? People have already pointed out that his original shadowed form isn't fully consistent. It's possibly the most obvious when you compare his singing animations in both forms. His hat form makes what was later 'revealed' to be his ears look more like hair?,
Ears don't really split the same way that hair does, and theres other examples of hatsei having this kind of spikyness to his 'ears' that hatless ralsei doesnt have.
even the fangamer plush makes his ears spiky!!
its a pretty major part of how hatsei looks, and its certainly been talked about before. And then comes chapter 3+4. And we have plenty of evidence that ralsei is a shapeshifter, and I have seen literally nobody talk about it????? huh?????
Oh, and the hat casting a shadow on him makes no fucking sense because he goes onto wear SEVERAL hats in chapter 3 and he's normal????
also I know its like. A funny bit, but HE TURNS INTO A HORSE
WHY THE FUCK WOULD KRIS'S HEADBAND TURN INTO A HORSE???? WHY WOULD A GREEN CRAYON TURN INTO A HORSE???? WHY CAN HE DO THIS????? THIS ISNT A COSTUME THATS NOT HOW THEY WORK????? WHERE WOULD HIS BODY GO.
not to mention that changing shapes was literally his ability in the legend of tenna game???? he plays it off like 'oh every character has abilities i can turn into a box' but he can also turn into a dog? since ralsei was the only one who read the manual it very well could be an ability given to him since the real Ralsei is also a shapeshifter.
It would also explain why ralsei draws himself in his hat form
thats closer to what his natural form is. Dont have any screenshots on hand right now, but he's got two lines in chapter four (if you leave him lying on the ground for too long, and right before they find the first fountain) about how much longer he can 'keep this body for' that make it very obvious that he's only using a form that looks cuter to appeal to us. Him being a shapeshifter would also explain things like
His face being a deliberately made abstraction would also make this interaction make a lot more sense. Pre chapter three, I assumed Ralsei based his face on Asriel to either try appealing to Kris or as fanservice for the player/red soul, however, now that we've slowly started learning more about Ralsei, it's beginning to seem more like Ralsei just wants to have a face and more distinct appearance, like the lightners do. However, because of how dark worlds work, he can only base it off of what already exists, with that already existing 'model' being Asriel, although with modifications to make himself cuter— pink horns and eyes, and his usual glasses. It's why Kris is always quick to point out differences between them, and why Ralsei is embarrassed at being told that they look similar, he didn't have a choice other than be based off something that already exists.
Alright, so Ralsei is a shapeshifter. He still has to have some equivalent in the Light World though, since that's how Dark Worlds work. He was literally about to tell Susie what he was before getting interrupted, and Toby Fox is deliberately dancing around the topic.
However, I think the answer is actually pretty obvious. Ralsei is a being of 'pure darkness', which is why he can exist in any Dark World, unlike Lancer and Rouxls, who need to be objects that 'belong' in their respective worlds. His form is made up by the original dark fountain, and he describes himself as a 'Prince of the Dark'. Characters in the Dark World know about what happens to and around their real world equivalents, but Ralsei in particular seems to be especially aware of all of Susie and Kris's actions and movements. He doesn't need to be brought in by Kris like Lancer and Rouxls do, and he always appears in the Dark World a few moments after Susie and Kris do, while somehow almost always having pretty intimate knowledge of how the world came to be. Ralsei is also the most adamant on being depended on by Lightners, even more than people like Tenna. He talks about how a Darkners role is to be used by Lightners and to make them happy, and his character development in Chapter 3 especially goes into how he wants to be needed and how he's afraid he's slowly developing his own personality, and why he believes darkners shouldn't do that.
So, taking all of that into account, I feel like the most obvious answer for what Ralsei is is a shadow.
He's a literal prince of the dark. It explains why he can shapeshift, since shadows can be made to look like anything— I'm specifically thinking of things like shadow puppets, and why when he gets knocked out he seems to literally disappear, returning to the shadows. A shadow is also the most dependant on light, shadows literally cannot exist without light, or they'll just be darkness. It even explains his empty room.
His insistence that his only role is to help the Lightners, the way that people can never find anything notable about him (asking swatch for specials his suggestion for Ralsei is based purely on how he dresses and Queen literally forgets to get him a cage), and his ability to be in any dark world (since there's literally nowhere without shadows) all seem to point towards Ralsei being a shadow.
Ralsei being a shadow also means he's literally with you in the dark, could probably straight up not exist if the world was plunged into darkness, and also makes him a weaker version of a titan (explaining the 'prince' title. not quite king, but noble nontheless).
summary: laundry day rolls around, and sam is stuck guarding your clothes. he has too much time on his hands.
word count: 1.3k
tags: gn!reader (be warned: you're not very present here lol); sam's pov; pervert!sam; panty stealing; semi-public masturbation; scent kink.
a/n: daydreamed about this in the middle of a busy work day and couldn’t stop smiling. i know where home is. anyway, here’s part one billion of sam jerking off in different locations because god knows he needs it to calm the hell down!!
Not many know this, but laundry day is one of the busiest days for a hunter — especially for the Winchesters. Living out of a bag isn’t the tidiest of work, especially when the brothers have to account for their many, many costume changes — fake police uniforms, safety vests, fitted suits and priestly attire.
You find the whole thing absolutely hilarious. Compared to other hunters you’ve met, the Winchesters are by far the most committed to their craft.
“Is this… a Buc-ee’s uniform?” You snort whilst sorting the laundry into piles — lights on the left, darks on the right. You’re all in agreement that it’s best to pile everyone’s clothes together — family style — to save on money. You certainly don’t have the funds to complain.
Sam glances at you, huffing out a laugh. The cartoonish, buck-toothed beaver grins maniacally on the chest of the bright red T-shirt. “Yeah. Weird case, that one.”
You grin, holding the shirt against you as if seriously considering whether you should borrow it or not. It wouldn’t be the first time you shared clothes with Sam; he always has to downplay how much he likes the sight. “Did the case involve Buc-ee haunting the gas station, or…?”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” he says with a small smile. He cringes a moment later when he lifts a pair of Dean’s dirty boxers up. He picks it up by the waistband with the very tips of his fingers, tossing it in with the dark pile. “God, this is gross. Dean, come touch your own stuff, man.”
“In a second,” the older brother calls back, punching his thumb into the keypad of the laundromat’s vending machine. Dean returns to his station a moment later with a small bag of peanut M&M’s and a handful of quarters for the machine. He lets them clang against the top of the washer before looking between you two with a smile. “Hey, wanna vote on who gets to stay with the stinky socks?”
Sam glances at his brother, squinting. “And how, exactly, are we gonna decide that?” Nobody wants to be stuck sitting around with the laundry — everybody knows that.
“Easy,” Dean says. He touches his nose, quickly muttering, “Nose goes!”
Before Sam can react, you drop a pair of your own pants to touch the tip of your nose. He sends you a look of absolute betrayal, and you shrug, smiling innocently.
“What? He said nose goes, Sam. I have to respect it.”
Sam’s shoulders sink, and Dean pats his back with a shit-eating grin. “Tough luck, kid.”
Once the three of you have sorted the laundry into piles, Dean hooks an arm around your shoulders, flashing a smile at his little brother.
“We’re gonna play hooky. Call us when the chores are done, Sammy.”
You shoot Sam a pitying look, gently removing yourself from Dean’s side. “See you. Don’t have too much fun.”
The younger brother wears a tight smile, watching you leave with his brother, driving off to who-knows-where. He deflates once he’s alone in the laundromat, leaning against the washing machine with a heavy sigh. He begins to shove the clothing into the washing machine — lights in one, then on to the darks in a second machine. In the middle of tossing piles of clothes into the machine, something drops to the floor. Sam bends down to pick it up, only to stop in his tracks.
Navy blue underwear, clearly yours, lay innocently upon the linoleum floor. Sam’s fingers twitch, still halfway to daintily picking them up and throwing them in with the rest of the load.
Unfortunately, Sam’s cock twitches, too.
He shouldn’t be this invested in a pair of underwear. They’re nothing spectacular — there’s not much time for sexy lingerie or lacy panties on the road — but they look soft. Gently worn and lived in. A vision of you wearing one of his shirts with a comfortable pair of underwear beneath is beamed directly into his brain, and he blinks hard, trying to will the arousing yet domestic image away.
He’s going to pick them up, Sam tells himself, and he’s going to toss them in with the rest of the laundry. Simple as that. He’s not going to be weird about this. He’s certainly not the type to steal them like some creep.
…But he could always borrow them. Just for today — just for a few minutes, really. You’ve borrowed his clothes before, after all. What’s so different about this?
Even Sam knows that explanation is flimsy bullshit, but it’s all he can offer when he suddenly shoves your underwear down his back pocket and sets the washer to run. The next hour and a half or so will surely be a miserable, boring wait anyway — he might as well have some entertainment.
Sam glances around him before scurrying off to the restroom in the back corner. He locks the door behind him, presses his back to the door, and reaches for the underwear in his pocket. The fabric bunches up in his palm, crumpled in his big hand. Just looking at it is making him half-hard already.
Hesitantly, Sam lifts the underwear to his face. He’s terribly curious to know what you smell like — even if pressing the gusset of your panties to his nose makes him blush from the shame of it. Sam inhales deeply, audibly sighing on the exhale. Every fantasy he’s ever had about stuffing his face between your legs is suddenly about to get far more vivid.
Sam audibly moans, parting his lips against the fabric. He breathes against it for a minute, hot air blowing past his lips. Without thinking, he closes his mouth around the cotton gusset, sucking on your underwear. It’s embarrassing how he’s salivating, his spit wetting the navy dye into black.
His jeans are already so fucking tight. Sam stuffs your panties in his mouth, holding them in place between his teeth while he reaches down, hastily pops the button, and parts the zipper’s teeth. The second his fingers curl around his cock, Sam stiffens further, standing at attention. He aggressively pumps his cock with his fist, drooling into your underwear all the while. The heady scent of you has him moaning into the cotton, his head thudding back against the door while he leaks into his palm.
It’s not enough.
Still drooling, Sam pulls the garment from his mouth, draping it around his stiff cock. He closes his damp hand over it, then begins the friction anew. Your panties are dragged up and down his shaft, getting soaked in spit and precum, until the fabric is little more than a damp rag for him to fuck into. Sam can still taste you, the flavor of your used undergarment lingering on his tongue. He groans, lashes fluttering as he gets off, finally cumming on your underwear with a stuttered sigh.
When the post-orgasm clarity hits, Sam slumps against the door, still clutching the soiled panties around his softened cock. The fabric is utterly soaked through with fluids. Sam grimaces at his own handiwork, dragging your underwear over his cock to wipe up the overspill. Now that he’s holding the damp garment in his hand, he’s not sure what to do with it — but the sight of his cum soaking your underwear is truly picture-worthy. With shaking hands, he dares to flip open his phone to snap a photo. Something for later, he tells himself, that isn’t so deplorable.
Sam washes his hands and reluctantly rinses off your underwear. He’s careful to make sure no one’s around — the laundromat is still empty, thankfully — and Sam quickly tosses your underwear in to be cleaned with the rest of the load. It’s out of his system now.
Until he plucks them out of the dryer and stuffs them right back into his pocket, that is. A dirty little secret, a last minute decision that has him blushing. It’s fine, he assures himself. He’ll give them back the next time you have to do the laundry.
You certainly won’t miss a single pair until then, right?
> masterlist. > main.
tag list . . . @ravenhood2792 @fuiabarcelos @bitesizedtales @sammy-simp
When choosing a class and race, I first thought about what the character would be guided by, but, to be honest, some of them turned out to be biased towards how I see them.
As usual, the designs use has a bit of reference, although this time it was quite challenging because many characters only have one outfit at most. But I tried.
Actually, the idea of Cater had been in my head for a long time, but I just never found the time to implement it. I think he's the kind of person who would choose a Bard as a class to use his charm even in-game, plus it suits his ostentatious persona. Tieflings sell well and, let's be honest, are very popular. I have no other explanation for why he would choose this race (other than my observation that depressed people are often drawn to them).
Floyd, a rather unpredictable eel who easily loses interest in everything. I think he'd like a Plasmoid, a race that can change shape, grow extra limbs—and also looks funny. (Plus, I think he likes slimes and other stress relievers, I don't know why.) A perfect choice. I think he'd also be hooked on the random magic mechanic for the sorcerer; it would keep him interested in the game a little longer.
Silver, as much as I love him, is really bad at this kind of thing. He's pretty straightforward, so he'd choose the human race as something that suits him naturally. He knows how to be human, at least. But as for his class, I originally wanted to make him just a fighter—yes, a human fighter, typical—but I think he'd choose paladin as an interesting change from his usual behavior. Granted, the change isn't too dramatic, but it's a good start.
So, the difficulties began. Gidel, a mute character who appeared in a single event, certainly provided a lot of material to work with. But I tried to grasp his train of thought. He seems like a very curious and inventive child, and I think he'd appreciate the variety of possibilities offered by the Artificer class. Will he simply find the Tabaxi cute? Perhaps he'll feel a feline kinship with their natural character and behavior? Anything is possible.
Fellow was more easy in this regard. I mean, at least he has a card. Shrewd and knowledgeable about making money, I think he'd appreciate the Rogue's philosophy. It's not like it's anything new to him, after all. Maybe that's why he's so good at it. Half-elves weren't my first thought, but I believe he'd choose that race for their charisma and the potential for a good backstory.
Rollo… I don't know what forces could have compelled him to sit down at that gaming table, but let's assume. A cleric would have been a natural fit, I think. Perhaps he'd have been a support player who required begging for healing, who knows. It's the same with a human – he'd have chosen something simple and suited to his personality, just because he wasn't particularly interested in learning anything else. It's not that he's far from fun, but such games are clearly not his first choice.
Skully, finally a more or less reasonable player. I think he'd generally enjoy this game. Dress up in costumes, pretend to be someone else, scare others (optional), and eat treats. Sound familiar? Regarding class and race, he chose the most creepy and interesting options for him. Drow living in dark caves under the protection of a spider demon, a warlock making a deal with the dark forces—perfect.
The final piece! I can't believe I actually finished this. A whole month of drawing the same thing is a bit overwhelming, but I'm happy with the result. I'm even a little proud of myself, to be honest. It was fun and I'm glad so many people liked my work!
And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was maroon.
Chapter I. series masterlist.
summary: The bullpen was rosy and festive; scintillating fairy-lights, laurel wreaths, a tacky but endearing Christmas tree glittering with kitsch baubles, the strategically-placed sprig of mistletoe sellotaped above the elevator. Cat Grant and Steve Lombard were holding court at the refreshments table, ruffling a Santa's hat full of wrinkled cash, whispering conspiratorially about the office sweep: will Clark Kent pluck up the courage to ask out the office's resident bitch? The odds weren't exactly stacked in his favour—not when you showed up in a satiny slip the colour of blood, looking like you ate guys like Clark for breakfast. Still, the Planet buzzed with excitement and holiday cheer, and you certainly didn't seem repulsed by Clark's askew tie that matched your dress, or the way he had ditched his blazer and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. What are the holidays for, after all, if not too much champagne, bad decisions, and dragging the guy who's been pining after you for years to the elevator by that godforsaken tie of his? (What was it that Hugh Grant said again...?)
word count: 11.8k (unedited).
chapter warnings: smut, piv, allusions to exhibitionism (they get hot & heavy in the Daily Planet's elevator), reader is tipsy when she initiates things with Clark but she's definitely sobered up by the time they actually have sex, oral (fem!receiving), size kink (I guess?), sub!Clark (kind of)/dom!reader (kind of), Clark's down bad, poor decisions, angst, post-nut clarity, strong language, unintentional baby-making (idk), meddlesome co-workers, reader's nickname is 'Penny' (because she's a journalist), also she's a bit of a bitch and definitely has some issues to work through but we love her anyways.
track i: Maroon by Taylor Swift.
By the intricate workings of Cat Grant’s hands, the Daily Planet bullpen had taken the form of a snowglobe—surely, a health-and-safety violation waiting to happen, with every single one of the mains’ occupied by some plug or other. Fairy-lights twined around filing cabinets and Lois’s precious coffee machine, laurel garlands were draped over cubicle walls, and a fake tree was lopsidedly limped to the left under the weight of the gaudy baubles. Perry was even dressed in half of a Santa costume. But, most obnoxiously of all, Steve Lombard thought it would be funny to slap a bit of Scotch-tape onto a branch of mistle and stick it above the elevators.
Clark, as he often found himself at office festivities, stood awkwardly on the edge of it all with a plastic cup of custardy eggnog sweating against his too-big palm. It wasn’t a feeling he often felt, but he admittedly was almost hoping for some kind of catastrophic alien-invasion to take place downtown that would tear him away from all of this. He was a sore thumb with a rumpled collar and a crooked tie, foot anxiously tapping along to the haphazard pulse of his heart rather than whatever cheesy Christmas song was blaring from Perry’s crackling, transportable radio.
“She’s so looking at you, dude.”
Clark startled. Jimmy was jabbing him in the ribs—not that Clark had registered his relentless elbow until now—and nursing a bottle of lukewarm beer. He had the kind of glint in his eyes that made Clark reckon that his friend probably should knock the candy-canes he’d been gnawing on the head for the night.
“Who?”
Jimmy slanted him a flat glare. “Who? Penny, obviously.”
Across the bullpen, you were a vision in sateen red. Laughing at something Lois was saying to you, head tipped back, exposing the sinews in the column of your neck, silk slip catching the glow of the fairy-lights as prettily as the kitsch baubles. Cat’s glossy lips ghosted the shell of your other ear, murmuring something to you that made your eyes roll fondly and mouth curve into a smirk that made Clark’s throat swell.
“She’s not,” he denied profusely. “She’s talking to Lois and Cat.”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Well, she was just. Or at least at your arms with this rolled-up sleeves thing you’ve got going on. Nice touch, by the way.”
“It’s just,” Clark shuffled uncomfortably, “hot in here. S’all.”
“Uh-huh. Okay, bud.” Jimmy clapped him on the back hard enough for eggnog to capsize Clark’s cup and slosh onto his fingers, drying tacky and fast against his sweat-slick skin. “Not like it’s snowing or anything outside?” Clark blinked abashedly at the tall windows of the office and outside to where snowfall, indeed, was glimmering in the street-lamps. “Anyway! Tonight’s the night, Clark. As your best friend—”
“Doesn’t feel like it right now,” he muttered bitterly into his eggnog.
“—you’ve been making eyes at her for months. You have to actually talk to her if you ever want to sleep with her.”
“I don’t—that’s—I do talk to her,” said Clark, appalled at both the suggestion that he wanted to sleep with you (he did, but Jimmy made it sound so unromantic) and how his friend was implying he didn’t talk to you.
“About work, sure. But what’s sexy about that?”
Kill him now. Seriously.
“Jimmy, I appreciate your trying to help, but…” Clark stared helplessly at his loafers, willing the marble floor to swallow him whole.
“Oh, c’mon, Clark!” Jimmy’s hand rested heavy on his shoulder, squeezing brotherly. “Last time you spoke to Penny, it was about…what was it again?”
“The new article she’s working on. It’s really interesting, actually. It’s about Gotham’s mayor and the conspiracy that he’s possibly linked to the arrest of Salvatore Maroni—”
Jimmy suddenly made the derisive sound of an incorrect buzzer. “Eeegh! Boring! Clark, our Penny writes about men like Don Mitchell Jr. all the time. Do you seriously think that’s the way to get into her—” he faltered when Clark sent him a droll look of, watch it, “heart?”
“Maybe I’m not trying to get into her heart, Jimmy,” sighed Clark. “Maybe I admire Penny’s work. Maybe I appreciate her as a journalist, and as a colleague, and a—”
“You’re a disappointment to me,” Jimmy said dryly.
Forlornly, Clark frowned and stared deplorably at his leather shoes. They were so squeaky-clean he could see his miserable reflection, staring up at him with all the resemblance of a kicked puppy. Oh, man, he thought wretchedly, I can be such an idiot sometimes.
“Shit—she’s coming over!”
Clark blanched. “What? What do you mean she’s—“
“I mean, she’s coming over!” Jimmy seethed in a frantic whisper, turning his back completely so he and Clark were still stood side-by-side, but only Clark was facing the silhouette of silk maroon that was (as Jimmy Olsen had so subtly declared) approaching them. “Act natural. Compliment her dress—wait, no. Too obvious. Her smile. Her hair. Shit—good luck, buddy!”
And Jimmy was gone.
Clark lingered in some torturous purgatory between two extremes. One, his lungs blueing at the strain of withholding a boyish gasp at how much prettier you were getting with every step closed you took (the tinkering of your heels against marble resounding like a taunting funeral march to Clark’s very own gallows). The second, you seemed to introduce a whole different kind of meaning to air—his ribcage ballooning to accommodate this swelling of oxygen, your pervading perfume, and the sweetened breath of your presence. You’re all tonka bean and rich cocoa—dress as red as a foliage of holly berries.
Back in high school, Clark was in the theatre group’s production of Romeo and Juliet—as the titular male protagonist, of course, embarrassing himself in tights and a frilly ruff as he recited Shakespearean soliloquies. He was pretty sure until this moment that he had forgotten the words to Romeo’s monologue on the balcony, but suddenly he felt like he could start comparing you to the sun. His throat worked threadily around the ache in it, glasses slipping lower on the sweat-beaded bridge of his nose as his palms got clammier around his pathetic cup of too-sweet eggnog.
“Hey, Clark.”
Literally—anything else. Clark would rather be doing anything else. Preventing the second-coming of the Chicxulub impactor. Fighting a sentient army of aliens. Anything.
“Oh, uh,” Clark hated himself, “hi, Penny.”
Clark might be one of the only people at the Daily Planet who remembered why and when they all started calling you ‘Penny.’ It had been Perry White’s doing, of course—back when you were still relatively new at the paper and published your first issue, a merciless and sensational editorial on Amanda Waller’s Task Force X right after her own daughter outed her in a press conference. Perry stormed out of his office with everything about him that suggested belligerence, and you had been terrified, straightening up at your desk, almost preparing yourself for a humiliating sacking and stripping of your lanyard. Instead, Perry waved the still-hot-from-the-press paper around for the whole bullpen to see, glossy and scathing, and sung your praises. A ‘penny dreadful,’ he called it. For whatever reason, it stuck. So did the smell of Perry’s cigar on the blazer you wore that day, after he swept you up in a fatherly hug and called you a bluestocking, and other glowing retorts.
If Clark hadn’t already been hung up on your pretty smile or the lilt of your laugh by then (which, embarrassingly, he was), that might’ve been the moment he fell for you. You truly cared about your work—it hadn’t been a flimsy lie when he defensively told Jimmy that he admired you as a journalist. Clark admired everything about you. The way you wrote, your poorly-hidden caffeine addiction, the seemingly endless collection of funky heels you’d show up to work in—the glow in your skin after Perry congratulated you on such a spectacular debut.
All of that counted to Clark still longing for you now, almost two years later. To him aching to have you near, his head spinning at the smell of your perfume, pupils dilating at the subtle tilt of your head as your own eyes raked over him indiscreetly.
“You clean up nice,” you complimented, fingers cradling the skinny stem of a flute glass. The champagne bubbles in it glittered like stars, and the rim was smeared with your favourite lipstick.
“Oh, hah, it’s just—” Clark blinked at the back of his desk chair nearby, pointing at his blazer slung over it, “just my usual work clothes.”
Your eye twitched the slightest bit. Was he always this oblivious?
Regardless, Clark Kent was stupidly handsome. Sickeningly. In a crisp white shirt, sleek sleeves rolled up to elbows, allowing you to moon over muscles kept modestly hidden under twill blazers and humble charm, top button popped open, exposing another slither of skin (and the slightest tufts of hair peeking from behind his loose, askew tie). The rest of its buttons were straining just enough across his broad chest that you felt dizzy, and couldn’t even chalk it up to the champagne. His onyx curls were damp at the temples, like snowflakes had melted into them on his rush back to the office from…well, wherever it is that Clark disappeared to throughout the workday. Most preciously of all, Clark Kent had this stubborn lock of hair that would curl just over the rim of his dorky glasses. You thought that you found that curl even more attractive than how ridiculously tall he was—tall enough, even, for you to tip your chin to earn that boyish smile of his and the dimples that were sheepishly puncturing his ruddy cheeks.
“Well,” you said, hoping for more of an obvious attempt this time, “they suit you. Especially the whole…rolled-up sleeves thing.”
Clark stiffened, panicking. That was what Jimmy had said. Were you messing with him? Had you rehearsed this with Jimmy, and the others, maybe? Was this a cruel prank—?
“Thanks,” he stammered, then apparently forgot how to talk altogether. Silent words trapped in his throat, Clark just managed to show you his teeth in a gawky grin.
You, meanwhile, found yourself getting a bit impatient. Sure, okay, you found Clark’s bumbling, midwestern charm disgustingly endearing most of the time. And it was pretty clear to everyone in the office, including yourself, that Clark had a thing for you—which you always admittedly found flattering, enough so that you shrugged it off as nothing more than puppy love and excused his sweetness as a reason to never pursue anything more than harmless flirting.
But, God. He couldn’t linger by the refreshments table with his arms looking like that, all vein and sinew and self-effacing strength, without you feeling your self-preservation wither on the other side of the room. It took far too much encouragement from a lovelorn Cat, and a different kind of pragmatism from Lois, to get you to stalk over here for Clark to not pick up on any of the hints you were throwing at him. You took a swig of your champagne, swallowing hollowly, as though you could drown how humiliatingly attracted you were to him in bubbly carbonation and a subtle grapefruit aftertaste.
“So, Smallville,” you said at last, tilting the glass toward him, “tell me.” Clark looked at you eagerly—enough so that you could imagine him panting all doglike and saying, needily, Anything, yes! You felt dizzy. “Are you always this oblivious, or is this just for me?”
His brows pinched earnestly, frowning down at you and even considerately setting his eggnog down at the table beside the two of you, as if to make a demonstration of giving you his full attention.
“Oblivious?” he parroted. “I mean, I must be,” Clark chuckled goodnaturedly, “because I don’t really know what you—”
“Jesus.” You really weren’t trying to be mean or anything, but you found yourself interjecting him with a droll eye-roll and a certain impatience lilting your voice that made his smile falter. “You know, most guys would’ve said something about my dress by now. Or at least come up with a line about mistletoe.”
Aloofly, you gestured for the offending, limp sprig taped above the elevator, garish in Cat’s lights.
Clark’s gaze obediently followed your motion, a hotness gathering at the nape of his neck. “That’s actually not even mistletoe. I did try telling Steve, but, yeah, no—that’s…” he squinted, “that’s holly.”
Before you could stop yourself, a sharp, delighted laugh choked out of you, just as bubbly and bright as your champagne. “Wow, Clark! Only you will correct a girl throwing herself at you about plants.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, ducking his head abashedly, curls following. But then, Clark seemed to actually catch onto what you said—‘a girl throwing herself at you…’—and short-circuited. He glanced up, his pretty blues experiencing some kind of malfunction between widened and a sweet flutter of realisation. Then, emboldened by your laugh and his belated catching-on, Clark let his easiest smile all day grace you and said, earnestly, “For what it’s worth, you don’t need mistletoe.”
What the fuck?
He wasn’t supposed to say that. Not with his voice sinking to a low timbre, smooth like honey-whiskey, not with that hesitant smile carving dimples into his cheeks.
Did he even know how hot he was?
You tipped your glass back again, hoping to hide how flustered you felt. “Careful, Clark. I might think you’re flirting with me.”
The prettiest of blushes crept up his neck. Then, with a small cough to empty his throat, Clark straightened a little, as if he had finally found the confidence to assume that strong, tall build of his and own it. Squared shoulders, unignorably broad and brawny as skin and sinews strained against starched cotton.
“Maybe I am,” he said softly—not the usual softness, though, you mused. Not the polite, almost squirmish, way he usually spoke to you. A steady softness, like he knew he didn’t have to raise his voice or make it unnaturally husky to impress you.
The newfound confidence earned him your undivided attention now, as you returned his earlier gesture of absently placing your glass—still sparkling with at least two more swigs of champagne—on the table next to your hip. All the while, Clark watched you with a respectful attentiveness that was just as steady as his voice had him, Maybe I am. The hum of the bullpen dulled then, finally. No doubt, your friends were somewhere watching this all unfold, Cat thinking about the new pair of heels she’d purchase with her winnings when you and Clark inevitably leave the party together. The fairy-lights that you swore were humming with the dull buzz of crackling electricity and Mariah Carey’s faint warbling through Perry’s radio—all of it, gone.
Suddenly, all you could think about—all you wanted to think about—was Clark Kent, and his forearms, and his shoulders, the oakmoss and cedarwood of his cologne, the steadiness. And you couldn’t help but wonder how else he could prove himself steady—he had the voice, honey and whiskey, wading through sweet molasses, and the gaze that made you feel like something to be consumed. But now you were thinking about his hands…big and bear-like and kind. You were thinking about the way he tripped over his feet last month when you wore a dress to work for the first time since summer—how he acted like you just reintroduced sunshine into his life after months of rainfall and leaves of marmalade orange. Remembering the time he called you ‘honey’ once, when you scalded your hand with piping-hot coffee in a blind, mad rush to finish an article, and he swept over to rush you to the breakroom to keep your blistery hand under cold water.
Clark, Clark, Clark, and Maybe I am.
“Then prove it,” you challenged airily.
You were cursing yourself right away for the desperation in your voice, the breathiness that Clark definitely caught onto (he wouldn’t dare miss a single thing, now). For a long, frightening moment, you thought you fucked it. Maybe Clark’s whole thing of you was suspended in some cliché ache of wanting-what-he-couldn’t-have, the low-hanging forbidden fruit, the office bitch dangled just out of reach in pencil skirts (or, tonight, red silk). Maybe, now, you had given him just enough for him to get you out of his system, massaged his small-town ego, and—And your spiralling stopped there.
Because, in the middle of your catastrophising and your self-flaggelation, Clark moved. Not a lot. Not enough (God, not near enough). He was devouring you with his eyes—the panicky hitch in your breath, the defiant tilt of your chin to stare back at him, the almost imperceptible smudge of lipstick on your cupid’s bow. And he was taking a step closer. Only one. But he was suddenly so close that the heat from his body seemed to seep through the silk fibres of your slip. Close enough to appreciate the brilliant blue of his eyes, breathe in the smell of fresh-snow melted in his curls and the cedar clinging to the sinews of his neck.
“Prove it, how?”
Unspoken, but there—Tell me, and I will.
And you were throwing all sense of integrity, self-restraint, and workplace proprietary to the wind. It didn’t even occur to you that your boss was halfway across the room, gauche in a Santa Claus costume, smoking a cigar and hotheadedly denying Cat’s enthusing that you’re totally into his other star-reporter.
You were snatching Clark’s tie and frogmarching him right toward the elevator, the maroon silk of it—uncannily similar to your dress—hot against your palm. Clark made a small, startled noise in the back of his throat that was almost whimper-like as you yanked him along. If you had more wits about you, you might’ve found it funny how a guy who weighed more than two hundred and thirty pounds, and could probably snap you in half, was letting himself be manhandled like a reprimanded schoolboy. But, alas, you didn’t. All you could think about as the sweet, airy challenge in his voice—Prove it, how?—and how good he looked with his sleeves rolled up.
Everything else: white noise. The elevator dinging. Mechanical doors parting like the Red Sea at your hasty feet. Someone wolf-whistling—Jimmy, maybe. You didn’t care. Pulse rabbitting against your throat, champagne on your tongue, and Clark tracing after you like a lovelorn dog.
He stumbled in after you, gangly limbs, flustered heavy-breathing, and oh, God, this is really happening all over his pretty, rosy face as you shove him against the steel railing that surrounded the small elevator-cab. The door slid shut behind you. The rest of the world dropped dead. Just you, and him, and the hydraulics of the hoistway, and your hand still clenching his tie, keeping him level with you—the long rosary of his spine no doubt aching the slightest bit, but he didn’t show an inch of wanting to be anywhere else.
“You’re—golly—you’re going to have to help me out here,” Clark murmured, rough and whiny all at once. “Because if this means what I think it means—”
You severed his sentence with a sharp tug of his tie, his sternum against yours. “Stop talking, Clark.”
“Yes, ma’am. Okay. Stopping.” A nervous half-smile, dimpled, and shit. Did you fancy Clark Kent?
You kissed him.
No mistletoe/holly—whatever that lame, limp twig was. Just the hot press of your mouth on his, spit-slick and hungry, your lipstick smearing against him, teeth dragging his lower lip to give him something to gasp out, to grant you access to slide your tongue against his. He tasted like eggnog; nutmeg, the richness of brandy, cinnamon. And Clark, Clark groaned. Low and guttural, the kind of noise you’d expect if you were sinking onto him—not from a mere kiss. You enjoyed it all the same. Almost as much as you enjoyed his hands moving, one bracing against the small of your back to haul your smaller body impossibly closer, the other cradling the curve of your jaw, thumb sweeping the entire expanse of your cheek. Lips on yours, hands on your back, your face, but you somehow felt him everywhere.
“Can I—” a sweet plea, broken against our mouth, his still damp curls brushing against your temple, “gosh, can I—”
“Anything,” you breathed into him.
He whined at the permission. And then he was back to kissing you, like he was starving—you’d think that Clark never indulged in sins of the flesh; in anything at all. That you had unlocked something unbridled and debauched in an otherwise innocent man. He stayed bent to your height, chest flush against yours—hot and heavy, breaths exchanged, air shared—but his hands didn’t linger anywhere for too long. His body seemed to engulf you in its largeness, silk slip bunching under his rough, reverent palms as he tried to hold onto too much of you at once. Until he found satisfaction, using one hand to grab a fistful of the excess material that swam against your waist and the other to paw at the now exposed skin of your thigh. And that, apparently, was all Clark needed to lift you up from the floor as if you were featherlight.
You squeaked into his mouth. Clark swallowed it, thanking you for the sweet noise with a gratuitous squeeze to that very thigh. Before you could think, your back hit the elevator wall with a muffled thunk, the mirror behind you rattling enough to return Clark to clarity.
“Sorry—m’sorry, Penny,” he mumbled, pulling back what might’ve only been an inch, but it felt like an amputation—you mourned him like a limb as your hooded eyes raked over his swollen lips and the heaviness in his chest. “I didn’t mean to…”
“Clark.”
His name rolled off your tongue like a chastising ‘tsk,’ only needier, and punctuated with your canines raking gently against his bottom lip. You still had purchase of his tie and you’d keep using that to your advantage until it slackened, even now maintaining eye-contact as he kept you hoisted against the wall with a single hand on your thigh, the knuckles on his other tracing the line of your spine.
Clark shuddered at you saying his name. His forehead touched yours again, penitently. “I, gosh, I don’t wanna hurt you.”
You smirked. “I’m gonna start thinking you don’t know what to do with me.”
“Believe me,” he said hoarsely, undone, thumb trembling as it swept your thigh, “I know exactly what I want to do with you.”
Your ego seeped into something raw and wanting. “Then do it.”
Clark’s grip tightened at the challenge, the long, sturdy line of his thigh pressing against between both of yours, propping you higher against the mirrored wall. You wondered if he could see himself in that reflection—the blown state of his pupils and the ruddiness in his cheeks, how dishevelled his hair was—and if he could finally see just how handsome he was. (Though, of course, Clark had barely registered the mirror’s existence at all since your tailbone rattled against it. All he could see was your glossy lips, the hardening of your nipples against the silk slip, that smirk of yours…)
For your every gasp, Clark seized it like an opportunity with ravenous enthusiasm, tongue sidling against yours until it evoked another whimper, another mewl of his name, more, more, more—and Clark had never felt so hungry. Groaning at every sound, his whole body so tightly wound and unravelling—his tie felt like an extension of himself, undone and in the palm of your hand.
The hand on your spine pressed lower, splaying wide and greedy against the hollow small of your back until spanned the swell of your ass through thin silk. Then, he held you there. He didn’t grope for more. He just held you, and kissed you, and breathed your air, and felt.
“You’re so pretty,” he slurred, so drunkenly that you’d think he had spent the night drinking something other than the same cup of eggnog. “Don’t think I’ve ever actually told you…” His mouth, messy and sloppy, smeared against yours in a lazy kiss then traced languidly against the line of your jaw, as if granting you a moment to breathe, “... ‘Thought it. So many times…” An open-mouthed kiss to the sensitive spot under your ear, somehow finding it first-try, as if it was put there for him, “I think you’re so darn pretty, honey.”
Honey.
Fuck. Was this seriously the same Clark who just abashedly corrected you on the difference between holly and mistletoe upstairs? The very same Clark Kent who fumbled his pen caps and once forgot to take his lunch-break because he promised to proofread your assignment? The sugared, ‘aw-shucks,’ Kansan farmboy who always seemed like he didn’t fit in his own body—now pressing it up against you like it was the most natural thing in the world?
Because this Clark—the one burying his curls into the crook of your neck, mouthing slovenly at your throat, voice soaked in want and reverence, hands touching you in all the right place—this one had to be some kind of symbiotic parasite that had attached itself to the neediness part of him. It surely must be feeding off his desires and deficiencies, pervading the sweet marrow of him, sinking into the sweet marrow of you. He wasn’t fumbling now. He was unshakeably steady—even as he kissed you like he wanted to invert you, or himself; to butcher his own ribs and bury you in them.
Honey. Suddenly, he had your hipbones against the granite countertop of the breakroom again, his long fingers wrapped around your wrist as he held your hand unflinchingly under the smooth, cold stream of the faucet. Saying, that’s it, honey, in the lowest and prettiest of voices as you grimaced at the feeling of freezing water against your blistered skin and swore to yourself you’d never dabble with too-hot coffee again—thinking honey burned worse.
“Want you,” you panted then, tilting your head back against the mirror to allow him access to the column of your throat. He mapped it insatiably. “I want you so bad, Clark.”
“Yeah?” He pressed his fingertips into the flesh of your thigh. “Aw, shucks…” At least your-Clark still lingered under all of this salaciousness and appetite, “I think I’m dreaming. Did Jimmy put something in the eggnog?”
“If he did,” you said, the hand that wasn’t still gripping his tie moving to yank at the curls on the nape of his neck, “I owe him.”
Ding!
The elevator tinkered. Doors sputtered open. The jaws to the world opened wide and almost as hungry as the two of you. The Daily Planet’s foyer twinkled into life just over Clark’s shoulder as you peered miserably at it—all marble and columns, the snowfall just outside of the revolving doors.
When you blinked back to Clark, reality returning to you like a haemorrhage, he was watching you with a raw, careful look—an almost wounded pinch to it, as if he feared that this sudden glimpse of clarity might flood you with regret. Maybe you’d shove him away, disgusted with him, appalled by your bad judgement, and hasten off into the snow.
Clark slowly set you back down on the floor, and you felt unfamiliarly fawnlike on your heels, almost swaying. His hands rested imperceptibly light on your hips, bunching the silk of your dress in his fists, but not daring to grip at the meat of you again—not yet.
“We can stop,” he croaked, an uneven tenderness to him that made you melt, “if you want.”
“I don’t want to stop,” you whispered heatedly.
Clark’s eyes softened, those precious dimples of his returning as his thumb brushed along your hip. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” you said, tugging on his tie again for good measure.
You hoped that the slight pressure to his neck might convince him.
He nodded, as if committing something to memory—the taste of you, maybe; the heady desire in your eyes; even the holiness of you telling him you want him, too. Then, he was stepping back, hands falling from you for a mere breath before he was offering one out for you to take, to hold, to lead you out to the foyer of your workplace. You stepped out under the glittering chandelier together and stared in similar awe at the thickening snowfall, blotting out streetlights into a soft, golden blur. The floodlights of cars winked through the crystallised flakes and it all felt too-real.
Then, Clark was looking back down at you, admiring you as if you were prettier than the snow and the lights and everything. “I’ll hail us a cab…Your place or mine?”
࿐ྂ
“Do you want this?” Clark either had the worst-hidden praise kink of all time or was sorely lacking in his ability to read signals, because he found himself asking for reassurance again before cursing himself—willing his teeth to just sink into his tongue and tear it out. ‘Cause, dagnabbit, that was such an unsexy thing to say when he had the girl of his dreams sprawled out on your kitchen table, your thighs dangling around his waist like he was worthy of this.
It definitely killed the mood because your eyes were suddenly readjusting to the glowing overhead lights of your kitsch kitchen—that was so you and rosy and candlelit that it hurt—blinking up at him all dewy and fawn-like and pretty, breaths coming out in soft puffs of air through your kiss-swollen lips. Then, you pushed yourself up onto your elbows (Clark, gentlemanly, ignored the dull ache in his slacks as the action jostled your tits together so perfectly through the skimpy, askew material of that gosh-darn dress), and tilted your head to the side so innocently that his fingers pressed inadvertently deeper into the plush flesh of your thighs.
“Are you being serious?” you said finally. Your ankles hooked tighter around his waist, the bones of them digging into the two hollow dips at the small of his spine that had him stumbling just slightly into the edge of the farmhouse table until the mahogany jutted his groin. “Do I want this, Kent?” Do you want this? You had just spent the last twenty minutes in the back of some poor guy’s cab, engaged in the filthiest make-out session of your life with Clark Kent, his hand supporting the back of your head so you didn’t throw it back against the condensation-slick window—pawing at his chest like a hormonal teenager. “Do I fucking—”
Then, you did something fucking spectacular (if you were to ask Clark, anyway). You snatched his wrist, all mean and desperate, blunt-bitten nails biting against skin, and yanked it between your legs. Clumsily, his knuckles grazed the cheap lace of your panties—a matching maroon to your dress, to his tie, to the blood rushed into his cheeks. He muttered something akin to Holy moly, almost flinched, because this felt like some kind of dream he didn’t belong in—someone else’s fantasy that he needed to wake up from, one he was surely a sick voyeur to. But you’re so wet, and warm, and as soon as the pad of his thumb lingered over where he was now sure your clit was, you were whimpering and careening into him like he wasn’t some kind of bumbling, perverted loser you work with who’d been having wet dreams about you for months and yearning after you for longer.
“Yeah, Clark,” you get out barely, all breathy and a bit cruel, “I fucking want it.”
Okay, yeah.
Clark took it back.
Thanks to you, and all your prettiness, that desperation, all your natural, oozing charm, it might’ve been the sexiest possible thing he could’ve said.
Well done, me! He thought wryly as he let his thumb press just a tiny bit harder against that spot that made you tremble. You whined again, but this time you sank your canines into the crook of his neck and Clark seethed out your name—your real name, not Penny, not honey, but something so surprisingly intimate you almost sob.
“Shucks, honey—” there it was, “you’re…” He was laughing to himself, gaze all hooded and lustful as it stared at where your dress was bunched up at your hips and the damp patch on your panties was growing, “you’re really something, aren’t you?”
You melted back into the mahogany of your table, almost gracelessly, but golly, if Clark didn’t love it. Next, you were sinking your heels back into those dimples in his back like they belonged there. Your hands, blindly, scrambled for purchase on his tie again and the sudden jolt would’ve startled him if he hadn’t been so engrossed in the gentle ghosting of his knuckles over her slick, lace-covered folds.
“Clark,” you managed, pitchy and threaded. “Please?”
“Gosh, aren’t you the politest thing in Metropolis?” Clark almost giggled.
Pissed, you snapped your legs viciously shut around his wrist, clamping it there, shocking him the slightest bit. But, if Clark wanted his hand stuck anywhere, it was between your thighs, and after a quick recovery of a muttered jeez and a breathy laugh, he was using this as leverage to tuck your panties to the side just a slither, finally touching soft hairs and wet skin.
“Shit, shit, shit,” you panted, arching your back off the kitchen table that you don’t think you’ll ever be able to eat at again.
“What do you want?” Clark sounded gutted; hoarse and splintery. He traced a single digit through the wetness gathering between your sensitive folds, placed his other hand keenly on your hip, his thumb and forefinger kneading at the flesh there when you tried to thrash. “Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you. Anything, just tell me—”
“How many times do I have to say it, Clark?” you almost wept, trying to grind your heat down to seek more friction. The featherlight ghosting of his finger through your arousal was sweet, was good—was so impossibly Clark you were trembling—but it wasn’t enough. “I want you.”
The way he looked at you, then, would’ve terrified you if you weren’t so desperate for him. Still, even in your lust, you didn’t miss it. How could you, when Clark’s eyes were sweeping over you with all the devotion of a dog dangling from a leash of belonging and longing? This wasn’t how this was supposed to go—you didn’t know what you expected…you knew he was into you, you knew he had these feelings…Had you thought that giving parts of yourself over to him would lessen that? Were your really so naïve to think that this—once, and fragile, your flesh, your hands, telling him you want him—would be enough for Clark?
There wasn’t much more time to think about it, because Clark was on his knees. You weren’t really sure when it happened; mid-existential-crisis, maybe? Whatever. Clark Kent was on his knees, and still somehow wonderfully tall, and beautiful, and that devotion was still there—as was his finger, expertly massaging your tender, sensitive clit. Within the worship in his eyes was this quiet sort of concentration as his gaze narrowed in between your thighs, like he was trying to figure out what to do with you, how best to undo you. This should’ve scared you more than the more-than-religious way he was staring at you. But, as you were quickly learning, Clark didn’t really allow much room for space.
Not much room for anything, really—thanks to the largeness of his frame, his heart twice the size. He was suddenly withdrawing the touch from your bundle of nerves, soothing your forlorn whimper with a soft squeeze to the meat on your hips.
“It’s okay, honey,” he murmured, but with the way his eyes never once left your heat, you’d think he was talking to that, instead of you.
Clark’s fingers hooked into the hem of your lacy underwear, sensually dragging them your legs—mouthing at the inside of your thigh, kissing the tender skin under your left knee, and sweetly pecking your anklebone as he let your panties fling unceremoniously onto the tiled floor of your kitchen. Next thing you knew, he was lifting your legs over his broad shoulders, palms back on your hips, and he was nestling himself snug between your thighs, eye-level with your cunt.
“Hi,” Clark said boyishly with an almost innocent smile of twin dimples and adoration.
Too turned on to even overthink about his tenderness, you rested your weight onto your elbows, propping yourself up lazily to send him a slovenly smile.
“Are you talking to me, or her?” you giggled.
Clark softened at the sound of your laugh. “Can I say both?”
“Hm…I don’t know. Feels like cheating, to me,” you teased.
In all your life, you don’t think you’d ever felt so comfortable in this kind of position—bare and exposed for Clark waist-down, the silk of your slip bunched in a pool of blood-like maroon around your hips, his hands just underneath. You should feel vulnerable—the tiniest bit insecure and self-conscious, at the least…but you didn’t. How could you, with Clark Kent smiling at you like you were the prettiest thing he’d ever seen?
“Well,” he said easily, “we can’t have that, can we, ma’am?”
You laughed, a bit apprehensive. “What do you mean by—oh, fuck!”
Clark was on you. His mouth. His hands. That prayer-like reverence translated not through parables, but his lips attaching themselves to your clit, suckling, through the quick, tasting flick of his tongue against it. A deepening, next—an unravelling of you, as he laved at your wetness from the fluttering of your entrance and back up to the delicate bundle of nerves he seemed rather intent on attacking.
Ritualistic, almost. That was how you’d describe the fashion in how Clark Kent ate you out—if you had the words. Certainly, you didn’t then, elbows slipping and your body flattening out onto the table. And, shit, if there wasn’t something laughably metaphorical there—you splayed out, all pretty in red, like a piece of bleeding meat, Clark lapping at you carnivorously with all the ravenousness of a starved, carnal man. The sounds were lewd, and his hands continued to knead you just right at your hips, and his tongue was nothing short of fucking masterful. You felt almost jealous about the women that came before you, because surely this was an art Clark was well-versed at, to unravel you so quickly, to have you writhing on your own kitchen table and almost crying.
Since your legs couldn’t thrash against the sensitivity—his hands wouldn’t let you; Clark had you exactly where he needed you—your arms moved feverishly instead. One hand flung down to seize his curls (a brilliant decision on your part, you thought, as Clark groaned into you at the gentle tug to his roots—the noise creating the sweetest of vibrations against your skin). The other touched over your tits, neglected and moving heavily with your heaving breaths, fingers teasing yourself through the silk as Clark seemingly made it his singular goal to have you finishing quicker than you ever had in your life.
“Can you take m’fingers, honey?” he asked you charmingly, mouth still on you, glossy and swollen.
Your head spun. “Can I…?”
Clark smiled at you, not cruelly, not with an ounce of patronising mocking at your empty-headedness. He couldn’t. One of his hands slipped out from under your slip, caressing at your thighs—giving a hedonistic squeeze to the fat there—and then one of his fingers was teasing at your fluttering entrance, testing.
“Gonna have to ask that you say it, Penny,” he told you, not unkindly.
It was all so intimate…the way he touched you, his mouth on you, the pet-names, those eyes of his, his constant seeking for consent and reassurance…it made you dizzy.
“Yes,” you croaked, almost sobbing, “please, Clark. I can. Please, I—”
“I know, baby. Gosh, you’re so—” His index finger sunk into you, thick and long, only to the first knuckle at first, but enough to earn a moan from you, “you’re so beautiful. The smartest woman I know, and…” Did you mention his mouth was still on you? Sloppy kisses to your folds, messily making-out with your clit, laving at the warmth—a trail of tickling, delicious vibrations as he babbled against you. “...And so talented, and good, and—I really liked that article you did last month, Penny.” A second finger breached you, and they were both curling to find that sweet-spot inside of you that made you choke on his name, all threadily and desperate. “You know the one? About the corruption of the Boravian government, and—”
“Clark,” you wheezed, “you’re two-fingers-deep in me. Do you really wanna talk about an apartheid right now?”
He blinked up at you from between your thighs, fingers stilling inside of you, mouth finally letting-up from your tenderness. “Oh…” The sullen tinge of guilt in his voice shouldn’t have turned you on as much as it did, but you felt yourself clench around his fingers anyway at it—and at the soft little pout on his dewy lips, glistening with you, “...you’re right. Sorry, Penny.”
Your heart ached. You let go of your firm-grip on his curls to instead card your fingers through it comfortingly, even raking your nails against his scalp. He nuzzled into the touch, ruddy-cheeked and grinning.
“That’s okay, Clark,” you purred in what you hoped was your sultriest voice. His lips, wet with you, peppered the inside of your palms with precious kisses. You kind of hated him. “Make me come? So I can return the favour?”
Clark faltered, and it was only then you noticed the fogginess in his glasses, and how dangerously close they were to slipping off his nose entirely.
“Oh, erm…You don’t have to—this isn’t, like…transactional—you really—”
You fancied him. You fancied him a lot now, actually. He was ridiculously attractive, and apparently an oral god. But Clark was really starting to test your patience.
“Clark.”
“I’m gonna make you come,” he said adamantly, and that was that.
He worked at you with a kind of singlemindedness that made the experience all the more overwhelming. He was mouth returned, like a belonging, like home. You couldn’t believe this was your first time being with him—he seemed to know your body better than you did. Instinct, maybe? Whatever it was, Clark was coaxing the most vulgar sounds of you—your mouth, your cunt—fingers stimulating at a part of you that felt so deep, and so intense, and so good. And not once, not for a single second of wanting weakness, did his other hand let-up on his strict hold on your waist to take care of himself.
A third finger. A subtle sting that didn’t exist for long, not with the way he quickly massaged at that swelling pleasure inside of you—the soft coo of your name when you let out a quiet hiss at the fullness. He was nursing the building orgasm reverently, mouth tasting you, kissing your clit, sucking it to get another sob out of you, rewarding each needy sound with ensuing, tender licks—the way a dog might lap their rough tongue against a wound. It was too much. Too good. Too Clark. He was everywhere.
“That’s it, isn’t it?”
God, his voice. Elongating his vowels, a tilt of honeyed tease to his voice this time—still not rude; it was almost…loving?
You couldn’t believe this was your coworker—the one so absentminded to his own stature and good-looks, the one who almost walked into the corner of your desk when he accidentally caught a glimpse of your bra as he dropped off your morning coffee.
“C’mon, honey,” he coaxed, “let me have it. Let me see you. ‘Wanted this for so long. ‘Wanted you.” Clark’s tongue swirled your clit delicately and you shuddered under him. “Please, honey.”
And, apparently, all you needed was that. That please.
He worked you through it with the most gentle of kisses and sweetest of nothings. A blinding, unrelenting worship of his fingers and lips, your body trembling with the aftershocks of it. Clark’s mouth, drenched in his own saliva and your finish, moved—sloppy and messy as it kissed at your hipbone, your thighs, until he lolled his cheek lazily against it, satisfied.
It took almost a minute for you to get your wits about you enough to sit up against your elbows, feeling so dishevelled and undone. You blinked at Clark and he smiled back at you, prettily, almost drunken on you. Again, you scratched at his scalp, almost rewardingly. It made him nestle further into your thigh, curls tickling at you; the puckered corner of his mouth pecked at the sweat-slick skin there.
“Was that…” Clark’s tongue peeked out the taste at his lips, at your sweetness, “okay? For you?”
Yeah, you hated him.
“My couch.”
Clark’s brows furrowed, lost. “Huh?”
“The couch—go sit on it.” You jutted your chin towards your candlelit living room, through the open doorway.
Clark hesitated in his confusion, both of his hands lingering flightily on your knees. He looked adorably disconcerted by your order.
“Well?”
“Right.” Sweetly obedient, Clark was on his feet. Briefly, the hard tent in his slacks was directly eye-level with you, and you swallowed thickly in anticipation—it looked big, and impressive, like every other part of Clark. It was difficult to get caught up in the promise of it though, because he was scurrying to the next room with the mindless obedience of a dog and you lost sight of him.
You sat there for a beat, processing, regaining composure. You were slowly feeling yourself lose grasp of the situation—too embroiled in the charms of Clark Kent, in the talent of his mouth, in the piety of his touches. You couldn’t let that happen. You knew what this was going to be the very moment you made the decision to cross that bullpen and approach him in this dress.
Clark liked you. You knew that. He probably liked you a lot, mistakenly. But, as you kept rationalising yourself—tonight, and many sleepless nights leading up to now—he didn’t know you. Not really. He knew your writing, he knew that he liked how you looked in pencil skirts, he knew your coffee order. He couldn’t like you meaningfully. And this couldn’t happen again, else he might know you. This was supposed to be a one-time-thing—a matter of getting him out of your system, getting you out of his; biting the bullet of curiosity (admittedly, you had thought about him with your hands between your thighs a few times).
In order to ensure that this went to plan, you needed to reassert some kind of dominance on the situation—needed to be clear in your desires (and, most importantly, your deficiencies). You couldn’t be a girlfriend. Especially not to Clark. Maybe to some simple-minded sleaze who didn’t really understand the role of a girlfriend—someone who wouldn’t treat you sweetly, wouldn’t call you sweet things—maybe you could stomach that. You couldn’t stomach Clark.
You needed control. You needed him, too. Despite the afterglow of your orgasm still simmering low in your belly, it was tangled up with something far more morbid—insatiability. If you had unlocked something debauched in Clark, he had done the same to you. A ouroboros of hunger, maybe.
“Fuck it,” you muttered, slipping down off the kitchen table.
You didn’t glance back at it—couldn’t face your shame, the inevitable mess you’d left. Rather, you haphazardly tugged at your slip until it settled lopsidedly over the swell of your thighs, and stared pathetically at the trembled weakness in your knees. You felt him, still. You felt yourself, wet and almost uncomfortable. You were aching for him, even in this state—spent and messy.
He was waiting for you on the couch, as you told him to. Prettily. A vision on the maroon velvet of your couch—and this night would forever ruin the colour for you. You might pitch every single red item of clothing out of your bedroom window tomorrow morning out onto the street, leave them rot and unravel in the gutter. Tonight, though, you walked into the soft glow of candlelight, under Clark’s heavy, admiring gaze. He dwarfed your couch, really—a perfectly suitable bit of furniture you had been really proud of when you first moved in, but now looking ridiculous with him in the middle of it; thick thighs smushed against the plushness of it, shoulders crowding the cushions, hands patiently wringing in his lap. He was smiling at you warmly, even in his nervousness. The apprehension in his body was so obvious, but that smile—it was almost endearing.
You hated him, you hated him, you—
You lifted the hem of your slip and removed it as easily as if the silk were liquid. It pooled on the floor as obscene as a massacre—bloody and sinful. Stood between his manspreading thighs, naked, hoping to assume some kind of control, despite the obvious imbalance of being entirely bare as he sat in front of you, still completely clothed.
“You…” Clark’s hands twitched, like he meant to reach out and touch you. His pupils were so big, it was hard to believe there was ever any blue there at all. “You’re…”
“Take off your trousers, Clark.”
Clark blinked, startled. “Right. Yes.” He fumbled with the bottom of his slacks, far clumsier with himself than he had been with you. “Sorry, I—”
You watched, absently tonguing your cheek, as Clark angled his hips from the couch enough to drag his trousers off them and down his legs. It might’ve been an easier task for him if he would stop glancing at you every half-second, as if he was double-checking that he hadn’t imagined you. You don’t even let him tug the material off his ankles. Instead, you knelt one leg onto the couch next to the left of him, swinging the next over to the right, straddling him and letting your heat linger just over his clothed bulge. If the candlelight was a bit brighter, you might’ve seen the damp spot against the cotton of his snug boxers.
“M’sorry,” he said again, lamely, hands hovering over your bare hips but not touching—just as your core didn’t touch him, “I’ve never…” Clark’s cheeks were kissed by the prettiest, embarrassed flush of blood, “Never done this before.”
You singled a brow at him. “Had sex?”
“No,” Clark almost giggled, your taunt giving him enough confidence to let his thumb stroke your hipbone. “I’ve had sex. I mean…I don’t know…”
You thought you did. But you didn’t say it.
Didn’t give it a name.
There was that boyishness again, that impossible innocence, the shallow ducking of his chin to his chest, and how angelically his curls tousled onto his forehead. Enough to make the sinews of your heart yank.
“I want you to fuck me, Clark,” you told him bluntly. His breath hitched. “Is that okay?”
“More than—” his voice broke, catching threadily. He looked miserable, humiliated. Recovering, he let his lips tug into a self-effacing smile, “More than okay.”
Against your better judgement, a smile of your own found its place on your face. Fond. To counter it, you grinded yourself against his bulge, almost as a punishment to the both of you—to Clark, for being so fucking cute, and to you, for falling for it.
He whimpered, grabbing at both of your hips now. Hard. “O-oh.”
As if testing the sensation, he rocked you down a little more, closer. The delicious grind made you lean down, shakily, and bury your face into the crook of his neck—cedarwood, still; musky, and warm, and Clark. It was just the right amount of pressure to make you drape your arms around his shoulders, delicately splaying your fingers on the nape of his neck as you rolled your hips, too.
“Golly,” laughed Clark airily, “this is…thank you…”
Did he seriously just—thank you? For humping against his clothed dick?
“Just—” you pressed your face closer into his neck, kissing his jugular, “put it in me, Clark. Fuck me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He didn’t pull his underwear down any further than his mid-thigh. The material bit uncomfortably into his skin, but he didn’t care. He needed you, just as much as you needed him—if not more.
At least, you thought so. But, then, for a long, agonising moment, he didn’t move at all. The dull ache in your core made you reluctantly draw away from the crook of his shoulder, blinking deplorably at him. Clark’s expression was drawn, maybe even a little concerned.
“What’s wrong?” you asked him, twirling one of his curls around your finger. “Why’d you stop—oh?”
You hadn’t even meant to glance down, but fuck. Of course, you expected him to be big. Look at him. Everything about him was. But—fuck. It felt unfair, wrong almost, to try and put a measurement to it, so you didn’t even bother. You just stared at it, blankly, salivating, Pavlovian. It was heavy against his stomach and thick.
Have you mentioned you hate this guy?
“It’s a little, uh—”
“Nothing about that is little, Clark,” you snapped.
He blushed. “I, oh, jeez. I’m sorry. I should’ve said, I don’t…” He nibbled at his bottom lip. “Do you still want to…?”
“Yes.” What the fuck were you doing? Were you seriously going to let this ridiculously hung, ridiculously beautiful, ridiculously into-you man fuck you with that thing? “Just—” you finally looked away from his dick, up to him, to Clark’s soft eyes, “slow. At first,” you added hastily. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Clark nodded enthusiastically. “Anything you want.” He raised you the slightest bit, the tip of him grazing your sensitive folds, clumsily slipping through the wetness. You yelped. “Sorry, I, give me…” Uncut, pinkish, and leaking pre-cum, it caught at your entrance, and even she seemed terrified. Clark wrenched his eyes shut. “Talk to me.”
“Talk to you?” you squawked.
“Yes,” he panted, sinking in an inch. Even that was a stretch. Slick and stinging and sweet. You mewled as Clark moaned, and he sounded too good, you had to kiss him—your hand searing against the nape of his neck you stroked your tongue into his mouth in tandem to him bracing deeper into you. The kiss was wet and filthy, until Clark babbled against you, “Talk to me, please.”
Was this some weird, pseudo-romantic kink of his? Did he get off on well-meaning conversation during sex? Was that why he tried talking to you about Boravia mid-eating-you-out?
“About what?” You decided to entertain him, anyway, pressing your cheeks together as you cradled his head against yours.
“Anything,” he begged, hips jerking underneath you.
Fucked out, you languidly looked down. He was barely halfway in, and you felt full.
“Please, I don’t want to…” Cheeks hot and red, Clark looked almost dejected as he kept his eyes squeezed, hands squeezing at your hips still. Suddenly, you understood him—he wanted you to talk to him to distract him. He didn’t want to finish too-soon.
In retrospect, you probably should’ve just slammed right down onto him, taking all of him. Buried yourself to the hilt on his dick, torturing him, and riding yourself to an inch of both of your lives. Maybe if he came embarrassingly quick inside of you, that would’ve been the best thing—you would’ve deflated in disappointment, slid off him, and sat hollowly with that aching emptiness for the rest of the night. But it would’ve been over and you would’ve at least had an excuse to never mention this night ever again—premature ejaculation surely was a reason to never bring up a hook-up with a coworker, right?
Regardless. You didn’t do that. You couldn’t think that responsibly with the brutal stretch of him inside you, with the way he was shaking under you.
No, you indulged the motherfucker.
“Cat’s gonna have a field day when she finds out,” you moaned, lips hot and heavy against his cheekbone.
Another inch. He choked on a groan.
“Yeah?” Clark managed, eyes still unseeing, glasses endearingly low on his sweat-beaded nose. You wished it was appropriate to take a photo of him like this—something to remember him by, you thought morbidly. “Why’s…” Deeper; this time you couldn’t help but clench around him, and the sounds the two of you made were nothing short of broken, “why’s that, honey?”
“C’mon. Don’t act like you don’t know,” you chastised, quivering. “About the sweep. The bet. They’ve all been talking about this for m-months.”
Clark’s fingers were massaging your clit again and the overstimulation made you jolt so hard that it thrust him up into you, accidentally bottoming out. Seething, your lips needily captured him in a filthier kiss than before, open-mouthed, breathing in him. Clark drank up your wanton moan like it was holy water, letting it consecrate him, but he didn’t move. Neither of you moved. Your knees chafed against the velvet of your couch as you stayed there, full of him. You swore that you felt him in your guts. You wondered, satirically, if he could fuck his way into your heart.
“Jimmy was…” Clark let himself sit for a breath, just feeling you—your warmth, your slickness, the tightness of you around him, your bare chest flush against his shirt. He had been dreaming about this, dreaming of you. “Before you come over—hnn…golly—Jimmy, he…he was giving me crud for how I am with you.”
You whined, lifting yourself a few inches off him, before sinking back down with an airy, shameless sigh of contentment. “How are you with me, Clark?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Clark laughed weakly, repeating your previous words to him—though, in your opinion, with way more charm.
All the while, he kept circling the most careful of caresses around your clit—measuredly, like he knew just the right amount of pressure as not to overwhelm you, but to keep you relaxed and pleasured.
“Open your eyes, Clark,” you pleaded then against his mouth, forgetting all of your objectives.
He stubbornly shook his head, using his leverage on your hips to rock you again, the tip of him so snug and dangerous against the treacherous part of you that threatened to wreck all of this—wreck you.
“Can’t.”
You clenched around him in protest, almost whining out, “Why?”
“Don’t wanna—I’ll…”
He didn’t finish his sentence, fucking up into you shallowly and slowly, a sensuality that was so unfair and good. Still, the implication was enough for you. Was he suggesting that if he looked at you, he’d unravel?
“Please, Clark.” Your twitch fingers touched the frames of his glasses, nudging them desperately up his nose. “I wanna see you. Don’t you wanna see me?”
The neediness in your voice made Clark’s nails bite into your hips.
“I always wanna see you,” he said breathlessly.
Fuck. You were losing it.
“Then open your eyes, Clark.”
He did. Eyelashes fluttering. Pupils blown—you mourned the startling blue, but you remember reading once that pupils dilate when you look at someone you’re attracted to, and the memory of that was enough to coax the petulant yearning for his pretty blues away. You could even swear there was a sparkle in his eyes; one put there by you, even. They raked over you frantically, like they wanted to look at everything at once but couldn’t, and it pained him.
“You’re so beautiful,” Clark told you tenderly, gently lifting you up-and-down on his cock, never all the way out, but always returning to that spot, that ache.
“You mentioned,” you laughed weakly, faces mere centimetres apart.
Warmth and breath intermingling between you—the smell of sex and waxy candles, your perfume tangled with his cologne.
“Not enough,” he swore feverishly, shaking his head.
“I’d say that—”
“Never enough.” Clark rested his forehead against yours. “You’re beautiful,” he called by your real name again—intimacy strangling you. “I want you to know that.”
You blinked at him, eyes feeling hooded. He was so gorgeous. It felt bizarre that he kept revelling you in these compliments, rocking up into you, pleasuring you, when he might’ve been the most attractive person you’d ever met. Even more so that he was underneath you, here, and seemingly besotted—as Cat had exaggerated one afternoon to you.
“Harder.”
“What?”
“Fuck me harder, Clark.”
He wavered. “Are you…” his fingers stalled against your clit, cock heavy inside of you, unsure, “are you sure? I don’t want to—”
“I want it.”
“All right, then.” Clark started to fuck you—unbridled, hard, not faster (you didn’t ask for faster, you asked for harder, and it made you dizzy that he listened so attentively, that he didn’t mistake one for the other). He had you practically bouncing on his cock, tits moving violently against him. He hoped he’d have another chance with you, that he’d get to give them more love next time, give you more love. “Whatever you want, honey. Tell me and I’ll give it ya’.”
Fuck him. Screw Clark Kent. Fucking bastard.
Your couch creaked under the weight of you both. It felt like Clark was rearranging your guts. His fingers made obscene, wet sounds as they moved against your clit. And it was there again—white-hot, throbbing, visceral. In your skin. Clark was in your fucking bones.
You kissed him viciously, swearing against him—corrupting him again with your own dirty mouth. If he wouldn’t swear, you’d give him yours. You’d make him swallow your guilt and your cruelty. You bit his lip, hard enough to bleed—but you didn’t taste blood, didn’t even hear hurt. Just a pretty whimper against you as he kissed you back, just as enthusiastically, but absent of the meanness.
“This…” you panted against him, riding him filthy, matching his thrusts with shallow, hard bounces of your own, “this can’t happen again, Clark.”
He moaned so lovely against you that he couldn’t have possibly heard your ragged promise. Maybe the other sounds—the slickness of your combined arousal, the slapping of skin, the threadiness in your voice. He was so fucked-out, your words were lost on him. The belligerent intent of your canines against his bottom lip, too.
You could feel every twitch of him inside of you and it made you grind down crueller.
“Did you hear me, Clark?” You licked into his mouth. “We can’t…This is it.”
Clark looked like he was struggling to keep his open—like you had asked of him—never mind listen to your heartlessness. Instead of replying, or even registering you, he just stared at you with hazy, wet eyes, and let your name roll off his tongue, onto yours.
Fine, you thought bitterly—you’d twist the knife later.
“Are you gonna come, Clark?”
That clicked with him. He nodded, eager and desperate, his cock nestled against the sweetest part of you, mouth hot against the nastiest as he kissed you so innocently.
“Are you?” he asked softly, pressing down the tiniest bit more onto your clit.
You nodded then smiled for him, because God knows when you were next going to be able to without it being forced and awkward, a polite gesture slanted across the bullpen. You hoped it was pretty for him. Real enough.
Clark seemed to think so, eyes crinkling at it, returning the gesture with dimples and pearly teeth and devotion. He kissed it—your smile—murmuring something against you incoherently, but it was for the better. You didn’t want to know whatever rosy, lovely shit Clark Kent babbled when he finished.
You rode him through it instead. He had stopped fucking into you almost a minute ago, leaving you to do all the work with this blissed-out, drunken glaze to his eyes that massaged the tired ache in your thighs. His hips jerked underneath you—his release so much, and heavy, and maybe you should’ve expected this. He filled you up, all over again. Twitching and whispering sweet nothings against you as his arms came to wrap around your back, cradling your smaller body to his.
Fortunately, you weren’t far behind. More intense than your last, jittery and consuming—you blame it on him still being inside you, his cum trickling out of you, onto your laps. But it felt hungrier. A weep wracked its way through you viciously, and you folded into him, arms snaking around his shoulders again as you tucked yourself into his shoulder, grinding slowly to keep the tip of him against the delicate inside of you for as long as you could before this all unravelled.
Quiet.
It was all quiet.
He was still inside of you. Still deep. A faint, lingering twitch against your walls. You weakly clenched against the sensation and felt his heart stutter against yours. Ribs melting together. Clark reached up, fingers gently carding a few sweaty strands of your hair behind your ear, pecking the opposite temple.
It was everything. It was perfect.
Clark’s hands traced the rosary of your spine sacredly. “That was…”
Now.
“So stupid, right?” you laughed weakly.
“Wha…?”
Using your knees as leverage, you swung your other leg over him, slowly rising off his softening length. You ignored the mournful absence between your legs, the mess you left on him, and most of all, the forlorn frown that downturned his lips, and gathered the thick comforter you kept thrown over the back of your couch. You bundled your naked form in it, but it did little to protect yourself from the soft confusion Clark turned to you with, the wounded expression that did the nastiest thing to your heart.
You swallowed it down and tucked yourself into the corner of the sofa, bringing your legs up against your sternum underneath the blanket, and busied yourself by fiddling with a threadbare strand of wool.
“Erm.” Clark stared wretchedly at his lap, at his cock that was now limp and drenched against his thigh, then at you. And when you didn’t meet his eyes (when Clark realised you wouldn’t again for the rest of the night), he shamefully tugged his boxers back up, tucking himself away. “I…”
He stammered, doleful. He kept glancing at you, half-expecting you to unfurl, to break, to gather him up in your arms and shower him with kisses. Maybe even take him back to your bed—and it was probably settling in now for him the significance of you telling him to go to your couch and not your bedroom; a level of intimacy he didn’t deserve, maybe. Clark’s bottom lip wobbled and he sunk his teeth into it. You thought he might cry.
“The others are probably all at Rosie’s,” you said lightheartedly, trying to act casual. Clark stared at you, destroyed. You continued, mulish, “There’s no way Jimmy let the night end early. He probably grabbed your blazer for you, too. You forgot it, right?”
Clark blinked once, twice, and it gutted you—because he looked so upset and out of sorts, like you had pulled the rug out from underneath him. The blue had returned to his eyes.
“Penny,” he rasped, tentative.
You defensively pulled the blanket tighter around yourself. “Don’t, Clark.”
His hands flexed pathetically against his bent knees. “Don’t, what? Don’t talk to you? I…I don’t understand. I thought—”
“You thought wrong, then.”
Clark snapped his head forward, away from you. He did it so fast you worried it stung his neck. Not that you would be able to distinguish between that ache and the one you’d scarred into his features, anyway. His face seemed to be experiencing some kind of terrible fracture, unspooling all sorts of earnest warmth into your living room—an unflinching, raw hurt.
“Penny, I…”
You laughed, hollow and mean. “Oh, come on, Kent. Don’t do this.”
He looked at you, ravaged. “Do what?”
“I mean. It was good. I had a nice time, but…” The words were tumbling fast, too-defensive, senseless, “I mean, c’mon? I know you think that you’ve got this thing for me, but that’s all it is. You know, it’s a workplace crush. Close proximity. I show up in tight skirts sometimes. And now…now we’ve had sex, but—”
“Is that really what you think of me?” Clark flinched as if you’d struck him. “That…that I like you because you wear tight skirts? That this was all because of close proximity, because we work together, and—”
“Clark, let’s not—”
“You probably think I’m so stupid,” he laughed humourlessly, wet and sad. He stood up then, and you tore your eyes away, allowing him his dignity to hastily pull up his slacks. You felt all apart, but you couldn’t imagine how Clark felt.
In the swelling silence of your living room, all there was to keep the moment startlingly real was the rustle of fabric and the clink of his belt. Finally, you chanced a regretful glance, lungs hurting. Clark wasn’t looking at you. You worried, awfully, that he never would again after this. His throat was working against the thick gathering of tears.
“Why?” he asked roughly, to cover up the pitchiness in his voice, maybe, the desperation. “Why…this, if you don’t…”
The blanket suddenly felt scratchy against your naked skin.
“Don’t make me say it, Clark.”
“Say what? That you used me? That you know how I feel but still—” he smeared the glossiness on his kiss-swollen mouth against his shaking hand. “Gosh, I knew you could be mean sometimes, but I didn’t know you could be cruel. Do you even know what you’re doing to me right now?”
Your brittle nails plucked at a worn seam. “It was just a thing, Clark. I don’t know what to tell you, I'm sorry.”
Clark stood there in the middle of your living room, candlelight softening the contours of his devastation, arms limp and helpless at his sides. You hated yourself for this. What were you thinking, initiating it? You weren’t thinking, that was it—you weren’t thinking at all. You just saw Clark there in the bullpen, his sleeves rolled up, hair in those messy ringlets of his, tie all endearingly crooked, and he kept looking at you. All you knew was that you had to have him, at least once—to put the nagging in your head, in the office, to bed. You thought, maybe, it might uncomplicate things. How fucking stupid that was. Now, you sat in your blanket, almost embryonic with part of Clark still inside of you, cursing yourself.
“You should go,” you mumbled.
Clark swallowed loud enough for you to hear it. He didn’t come here with anything—nothing but himself and a bone-deep yearning he thought he was nursing with soft kisses and softer touches—but he felt emptier than when he arrived. Hollowed. At least before, from that safe, measured distance he kept, he could quietly tell himself that it was for the better that you were at an arm’s length—sweeter, that way. Now, it was all mangled and unruly. He couldn’t even blame you. Not really. In typical Clark Kent fashion, he was already spiralling in self-flagellation and deprecation, kicking himself for even thinking that he could have this—have you.
“Okay,” he said softly, to his feet, to the room. To you. “Merry Christmas, Penny.”
The click of your door was lethal.
You buried your head between your knees, against the scratchiness of your blanket.
