Chapter Text
The stillness of Smallville was like paradise.
Weeks after the dust of Dark Thursday began to settle, the hottest day of the year yet made its way around the globe. Endless hours of bright sunshine pouring down on him. The perfect time to recharge, literally.
Crater Lake was suddenly the turquoise water of Fiji. The wheat fields looked like the hills of Greece. And the quiet–
“Fuck.”
Right. Fuck.
Because Smallville was not paradise. And there was no quiet.
There was only Lois. Complaining, again, in his house even though his mom was out of town until the morning and had given her Chief of Staff the day off. In his living room even though she had a perfectly fine one of her own across town. Lounging lazily on his couch just because it was her ‘lady time’ as his father used to refer to it.
He was sick of it.
He'd grown up around women. He knew what tended to happen every month. He knew what it meant the days his mom had an extra piece of chocolate with dinner. And lunch. And breakfast.
He could read between the lines when Lana didn't want to ride her favorite horse certain weekends in eighth grade because she just didn’t feel like it, Clark, so go away. Not that he’d been able to get that close to begin with, thanks to the green poison that hung around her neck. He’d made the connection all the same.
He got the picture when Chloe avoided her usual three coffees per day and ran the Torch with an extra snap in her endless quips, nearly screaming at his endless are you okay’s in response.
All that to say, he understood what a menstrual cycle was. The mandatory reproduction unit in health class had been informative enough at the time. He knew there was bleeding involved and that it led to discomfort and irritation, even pain, and that those symptoms could manifest outwardly. He’d seen it his whole life.
None of that explained why Lois Lane was the loudest, whiniest, most annoying woman he’d ever seen—and that was before factoring in the PMS.
It hadn’t been this bad when she lived at the farm back in high school, but ever since she started working for his mom, it was like her body was physically rejecting the additional stress, making her period everyone else’s problem. Especially his.
He’d had enough.
Hoping to still salvage some of the promised quiet, peaceful solar rays alone before the day was done, he ran to the library to research how to make symptoms less…well, less Lois.
After scanning both the fiction and non-fiction sections, he sped-read The Period Book: A Girl’s Guide to Growing Up, The Curse, and even Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret just to cover his bases.
He turned to a computer for more concrete solutions, learning from the internet that Lois should stay hydrated, which wasn’t likely, unless sugar with a splash of coffee counted.
Next, he read that all of her comfort foods were probably making her symptoms worse, but he wasn’t gonna be the one to tell her that.
Painkillers. Duh.
Exercise. She already ran more than anyone he knew.
And oh.
Sex. Female pleasure, in particular. An orgasm could reduce cramps and even make the menstrual phase of a cycle shorter.
Well, the more you know. He blushed, quickly clearing the search history on the library’s computer before speeding back home.
When he got back to the farm, Lois was still draped on the couch in her pajamas like she owned the place and wasn’t an uninvited guest.
He rolled his eyes as she groaned and slowly waddled into the kitchen, her helicopter print bottoms the epitome of class and elegance as she grabbed a couple of extra-strength Tylonels and swallowed them dry.
“Can I help you?” she snarked and he fought the urge to roll his eyes again. She probably hadn’t even noticed he’d left.
The smile lines outlining her mouth became more prominent and he wanted to lick into them. Shaking himself out of it, he pushed the sudden, sure, and utterly ridiculous thought aside and chalked the brief break in his sanity up to a severe case of dehydration, impossible as it may be.
“Yeah, you can learn to be less dramatic about this whole thing.”
“And you can learn to be less of a boy about this whole thing.”
“Ya know, I actually did some reading,” he proudly informed her, “and they say you should drink water.”
Her imminent sarcasm was written all over the creases between her eyebrows.
“Wow. I’d never thought about that before. My hero.” She leaned over the surface, grabbing a couple of chips out of the bag he’d just opened for himself.
“Well, you could also go–”
He cut himself off before his furious words jumped out. Being around Lois was unbelievable. Like she was walking red kryptonite, baiting him to give into his most wild and un-mild-mannered urges, such as screaming screw yourself.
Upon realizing how literal the suggestion was, he held back, his polite Kent manners thankfully taking over in time.
He knew he should be nicer to her. That she was probably at the farm instead of her own apartment for a reason. Honestly, the house hadn’t felt like home in a long time, just a place he lived. With Lois around so much, at the very least it felt normal again. Shelby liked it, too, constantly following her around and wagging his tail, much to Lois’ displeasure which actually kind of made the whole ordeal worth it.
“Also go what?”
“Sleep.”
“That’s not what you were gonna say,” she rightly observed.
Clark sighed, resigned to the fact that he was actually about to put this out there. She’d never let it go until he gave her the answer she wanted, he figured he might as well just cut his losses.
“Ya know,” he gestured vaguely to her lower stomach.
Lois raised her eyebrows in confusion.
“No, I don’t know.”
He shut his eyes and prayed for another meteor shower to hit Smallville and interrupt this slow-motion train wreck.
“They say…intercourse can help.”
The look on Lois’ face was exactly why he should’ve just minded his own damn business instead of trying to fix everything. Next month, maybe he’d just run off to the Fortress for a week and avoid having to deal with this at all.
“Intercourse? As in sex?” she stifled a laugh as his face increased in temperature. “And you’re, what, volunteering for the position?”
“No,” he quickly shot down. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind for a delirious, probably psychotic second. Or that he’d never imagined—
She continued with her accusations before his brain could continue down that treacherous path.
“You want to be my white knight through the red flood?”
“I think the heat has gotten to you, Lois, ‘cause–”
“Are you even equipped for that?”
All the ways he could blow her mind. His powers. His strength. His history.
She had no idea who was in front of her. That she’d eat her words and it would probably be the most satisfied he’d ever feel in his life, rendering Lois Lane speechless.
He could do that, if he really wanted to. But when had that worked out before?
He looked back at her, her arms crossed and eyes expectant, like she’d finally asked a non-rhetorical question.
“Well, I mean, yeah–”
“Don’t even think about it, Smallville. Besides, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
“So do it,” he heard himself nearly yell. No one else had the power to irritate him like this. Sometimes he wondered if she actually had been infected by a meteor rock at some point and he’d just never noticed this was its effect.
But he didn’t like to see her in this state. Even when he couldn’t stand her, he’d always hated seeing her in pain.
Her eyes widened and he realized far too late what he’d just told her to do.
“You want me to, uh, take care of myself? Where, here? Your bedroom?”
“If it gets you to quit your whining, I’m willing to try anything,” he snarled, wishing away the heat sneaking up his neck. “Just think of it as stress relief. For me.”
“Get out of here.” She snickered at him.
“Gladly.”
*
The repeated thud of his baseball against the barn wall was the only thing keeping him tethered. He couldn’t even enjoy being outside or focus enough to get anything done around the farm, his every thought on what Lois was doing inside.
The most annoying part was that she was probably doing nothing at all but his brain and body refused to accept that, conjuring up image after image that had the front of his pants tightening. He convinced himself that hours had passed and if she was gonna do that in his house, she’d had more than enough time to, well, finish.
Walking back inside, he poured a glass of lemonade from the fridge, thankful to have at least one thing he’d wanted out of the day. Lois wasn’t downstairs and his hopes rose that she’d gone home and he’d missed her timely exit.
“Smallville,” her voice rang from upstairs, instantly making said hopes plummet. She’d definitely heard him come in and he regretted not staying away until dark.
The skin on his face felt hot at the realization that she had in fact gone up to his bedroom.
“Smallville,” she shouted again from upstairs, with the same cadence as when she needed a jar unscrewed or a pipe fixed. He couldn’t imagine what task required that kind of handiwork up there.
He walked up the steps, puzzled upon seeing his door closed.
“Lois?”
After a moment of silence, he lifted his fist to knock, the door swinging open before it could make contact.
“You were serious? About helping me?” Lois asked.
“Uh, yes?”
The arch of her brow was deadly, and he felt the furrow of his own, confused until he spotted the towel on his bed behind her, and looked down to see the only bottoms she had on were a pair of cotton underwear.
He walked into the room before the kind of help she’d meant had time to fully settle in his conscience. Before his brain regained control of itself and he could form a coherent thought.
“I tried what you said, but I didn’t, I mean I couldn’t,” she ran her hands through her hair in frustration. “I think I want…a partner. To help the process.”
“Okay.”
Help. He was there to help her. Fine. Good. Great. He liked to be helpful. That was a thing he could do.
This was a normal, regular occurrence happening in real life. Not a fantasy he’d only let himself indulge in once or twice during his senior year of high school. It almost felt like a dare, like she was baiting him into something just to see how far he’d go if she needed help. If that was the case, she shouldn’t have. He knew they were both stubborn enough to take this all the way.
“Well, what are you just standing around for?” Lois asked from next to his bed. “Strip.”
He turned towards his dresser, removing everything but his boxers. When he turned back, Lois was still in her same state.
“Shouldn’t yours come off, too?”
Her arms were crossed and she looked him over, studying him from head to toe like he was a racehorse, her gaze assessing and determining.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “Guess so.”
Stop, he told himself as he committed every curve and dimple of her skin to memory.
Whatever this was about to be, it was mechanical. Clinical. Basically a medical procedure. That was all.
With her underwear off, she laid on the towel, holding herself up on her elbows and squinting at him until he remembered again that this was reality, and walked towards her, kneeling on the edge of the bed and facing her.
“It doesn’t bite,” she said harshly after a few silent breaths.
“You’re the one with your knees closed.”
Her eyes skirted to the side of the room and she slowly opened them, like the act of exposing herself to him caused actual, physical pain.
And it hit him that perhaps it did.
He was there because she was in pain and she wanted it to stop. He could help make her pain go away.
He placed his hands over her knees, rubbing lightly because it felt like he should at least be touching her somewhere, and she’d left her tank top on, which he took to mean ‘off limits’ for now. She hummed softly and he finally let his gaze drop between her legs, his fingers digging into her thighs as he took her in.
“You need some guidance or you know what you’re doing down there?”
“I know what I’m doing.”
For the most part. Of all the things Clark Kent was known for, getting up close and personal with female anatomy wasn’t one of them. But he was a quick study.
“Well, right now it seems more like–”
“Lois, I’m the one doing you a favor here.”
She scoffed at him.
“Yeah, I can tell how much of a sacrifice this is for you.”
He followed her gaze to his lap and saw his obvious erection tenting his boxers. He shifted uncomfortably as Lois sighed.
“Look,” she said, closing her knees again. “I get it. If you’re too grossed out or whatever, we can just forget the whole thing.”
He parted her legs, enjoying the gasp that left her throat.
“Believe it or not, I have seen blood before.”
“Kinda hard to believe right now ‘cause–, holy shit,” she inhaled, her head falling back when he slid his middle finger inside of her. She was so tight around him, plush and velvety, his cock throbbed at the feeling.
He’d read online at the library that menstrual blood served as a natural lubricant, which could help with comfort and ease of access. Slowly, he pulled his finger out before letting it sink into her again.
“God, Smallville,” she laughed a little breathlessly. “So that’s what that feels like.”
“What what feels like?”
She shook her head, her body relaxing onto the mattress.
“Nothing.”
He let it go, continuing the thrusts of his finger as her breaths grew heavy and a sheen of sweat shimmered across her. His brain nearly short circuited when she brought a hand up to cup her breast through her top before sliding it down her stomach, reaching between her legs to rub her–
“Would you just lay back and let me work?” He swatted her hand away.
Lois groaned and he replaced her hand with his thumb, making quick circles on her clit until she was sighing in pleasure again.
“It’s not enough,” she complained.
“What do you want?”
Her skin flushed further as she looked at him, but her voice was steady.
“More of your fingers.”
He slowly eased in a second finger, groaning at the feel of her stretching around him and her muscles relaxing the more he moved them, her hips starting to grind against him after a minute.
“It’s like my skin is on fire.” She ran her hands over her face and down her shirt, her body was still restless and uncomfortable, her breaths shallow as she spoke.
“So take it off.”
“It’s not like that, it’s like I need more, like I need–” Her gaze locked on his crotch and his hand stilled, fingers still inside her.
“You’re sure?” His voice came out more gravelly than he expected.
She nodded, like she was out of options.
“Trying anything, right?”
“Scoot back.” He slid out his fingers and wiped them on the towel, already missing her.
“You’ve got a condom?”
He nodded, leaning over her to reach into the nightstand drawer. The box had been buried in the back for almost a year. He’d optimistically purchased the jumbo-pack, but only three had ever been used. It had a thin layer of dust coating the sides and he was grateful he’d decided to use his body to block her view of it instead of walking around the bed.
He sat back, staring at the foil when Lois spoke again.
“Do you want me to–”
“I have done this before,” he reminded her.
“And I have seen you naked before. There are no first times happening here so no one’s allowed to be nervous.”
She was right, she had, even though he hadn’t been this hard then. It sounded more like she was convincing herself of that last part, and it made him feel better about his own nerves.
“Of course Lois Lane has rules for this,” he quipped, feeling lighter.
“Oh, Lois Lane has rules for everything.”
“Yeah, I bet she does.” He lowered the waistband of his boxers and gave himself a quick stroke. Lois’ eyes turned glossy in a way he’d never seen before, biting her lip hard between her teeth, and it made him gain more confidence than lifting a tractor with his bare hands ever did. She’d never been shy about telling him what she wanted, clearly, so he imagined that if she wanted to be on top, that would’ve been arranged by now.
After rolling on the condom, he moved over her and lined himself up at her entrance, Lois spreading her legs wider for him, moving in sync with him like she was chasing and narrowly escaping something at the same time.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded, but pressed a palm against his chest, drawing his eyes back to her face.
“You don’t need to kiss me, do you? To like, keep it up?”
“If you can shut up on your own, then I won’t have to.” He rolled his eyes.
“Okay, then. Ready.”
He pushed forward slowly, exhaling at the feel of her around him, taking him in inch by inch. All of a sudden, fully inside of her, the world stopped. The static, the constant faint ringing in his ears, the buzz of atoms sliding against each other, were all silent. The entire earth was quiet, save for the sounds of his breath mingling with Lois’, and her body existing in tandem with his.
“You doing okay?” He bracketed his arms beside her, not moving his hips to give her time to adjust.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she whispered, eyes screwed shut. After a few deep breaths, she brought her hands around his back and moved her hips beneath him.
He pulled back before thrusting forward again, Lois’ moan reaching his ears like a blessing.
“How’s that feel?”
She let out a slight laugh and he felt it everywhere.
“Full.”
“Good.” He figured at worst, she meant it neutrally, so he did it again, and again, and again.
“Come on, Kent,” she breathed out. “That all the power you’ve got in the tank?”
He cupped her face, making her look at him.
“What did we say about the talking?”
She reached up and tugged on his hair, which, unfortunately, made him whine and his eyes flutter shut like nothing else.
“If you did your job right, I wouldn’t be able to talk, so maybe you should just–, that. Keep doing that,” her voice strained.
He’d lifted one of her legs, hooking it around his waist and thrusting a bit faster, deeper at the new angle. Her nails dug into his arms and she met his movements, her groans of pain from earlier turning into cries of pleasure before him.
She leaned up, watching them, watching him take her. He thought if she kept her gaze there forever it still might not be long enough.
She scratched all over him again, his shoulders, his back, his arms, and he found himself wishing they could leave a mark. A parting gift to prove he hadn’t been dreaming, that this wasn’t all in his head.
Her hand came up to tug his hair again. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer if she completed her goal, so he grabbed her wrist and held it above her head. He’d been doing that a lot lately, he realized. Reaching for her hand without really thinking about it. Like when he saw her in the hospital after her, thankfully brief, trip to the Fortress, and she’d said it was heaven.
“Fuck,” Lois gasped beneath him. “That’s hot.”
He felt himself smirk and kept pistoning his hips until she was arching against him, convulsing around him with a near sob.
“Lois,” he groaned, following her over the edge, rolling his hips until he’d made it last as long as he could.
He looked over her—a sweaty mess, her eyes half-lidded, her neck and chest completely flushed—and felt more satisfied and accomplished than he had in ages.
After a few moments, he pulled out and lay next to her on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with her and assuming she’d want the silence filled.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she swallowed. “You?”
“Yeah,” he said, a little surprised by how much he meant it. The whole thing had been…nice. Really nice. “Did it work?”
Lois tapped her fingers over her chest.
“Um, not sure just yet.”
“Oh.”
Clark tapped his own fingers against his stomach, thinking about if he should offer to go again or—
“Don’t tell me you’re a cuddler.”
Never mind. He took off the condom and tied it off, closing his fist around it so the rivulets of red didn’t get on anything but him, and using his free hand to tuck himself back into his boxers before getting up.
He quickly gathered the rest of his clothes while Lois watched him curiously, seemingly content to lay there the rest of the day.
“At your earliest convenience, your highness, I’d like my space back,” he snarked.
*
He waited downstairs for Lois to get out of the shower, already left alone with his thoughts for thirty-eight minutes, his leg bouncing as he sat on the couch. When she was finally done, she bolted down the stairs with all of her stuff, not looking his way.
Lois, we should talk about this. The words never left his lips and the door shut behind her.
***
“Doesn’t going for a run usually make you feel better?” his mom asked Lois in the kitchen the following day, quietly, like he wouldn’t be able to hear them from his spot at the table.
Lois scarfed down some pain medicine, opting for a water chaser this time around.
“Don’t know if that does the trick anymore.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. Maybe you just need to find a new form of exercise?”
He sensed Lois’ body stiffening and flicked his eyes to hers. She was already looking his way.
*
“God,” Lois cried as he thrust into her in the bed of his truck.
She tugged on his hair and hooked her legs around his waist, bringing him closer, deeper. He moaned into her ear, feeling completely selfish that he’d thought about nothing else all day but getting right back here, between her thighs, inside of her, all over her, her hands all over him.
“This is helping?” he breathed out.
“It’s distracting.”
That was good enough for him.
He reached for her wrist and pressed it above her head, remembering how much she’d liked it when—
“Ah,” she hissed, eyeing his grip on her arm against the side of the truck.
“What happened? You okay? Did I hurt you?”
Guilt washed over him like a tidal wave. This was the second time they were having sex, but the first time he’d been worried about anything. He hadn’t even thought about his powers or why this was dangerous until now, he was just so focused on making her feel better that nothing else had mattered. None of the usual complications had entered his mind at all.
“Relax, Smallville. Nothing but a battle scar,” she grinned slightly, and he instantly felt more at ease. “Ya know, from a battle that never happened.”
She bucked her hips and he was helpless to argue with anything that came out of her mouth.
“Right, yeah, never happened.”
Except it did. Except it was.
He kept fucking her, not thinking about the bruise already forming on her wrist, marking her with proof of the thing that never happened happening.
Proof that he had been hers.
***
“Anything good up there?” Lois asked as she joined him on the porch. She’d stayed for dinner, again, only to find more enjoyment interrupting his ‘star boy’ time as she called it than getting more work done.
He followed her gaze back out to the stars blanketing Smallville, making an exceptional effort to stop the flow of his blood southward at her proximity alone.
“Just the usual.”
It had been over three weeks since that afternoon in his truck, and in his humble opinion, he deserved an award for how cool he was acting about the whole thing.
Lois had left on a trip with his mom the next day and when they returned, it was back to business as usual. He hadn’t brought it up once because she didn’t, and he was totally fine with it. It didn’t even cross his mind all that often.
Only, like, twice per minute. More when he actually got to indulge in some quality private time at night. Or in the mornings. Or that one time outside of the cattle pen because the warm breeze had made him think of–
No. Nope. That wasn’t a train of thought that got to reach its station.
He’d been doing her a favor. Helping her out. His body just missed the exercise, the endorphins from sex. Residual ghosts of a high, floating through his bloodstream the same way he’d find grains of sand days after hanging out by the lake. The physical reminder was an inconvenience. A nuisance. Nothing more.
“Ya know, if you need any, uh, assistance over the next week or so,” he spoke anyway, shrugging to perform a nonchalance he hoped read as authentic.
He’d been doing additional research—purely for curiosity’s sake—and had found that the days before a period could increase lust. That ovulation caused hormonal changes and urges that were manageable or even nonexistent during the rest of the cycle. He was still available to address such urges, and help relieve the other symptoms. If his calculations were correct, she should start menstruating any—
“That was a one time thing.”
“Two times,” he corrected.
“Then you got a bonus,” she crossed her arms. “It’ll be useful for the foreseeable future. Ya know, all the magical nights between you and your right hand you have to look forward to.”
He chewed the inside of his cheek, his face flushing at her accurate read of how he’d been using the memories.
“You’re a joy to have around.”
“Your mom thinks so.” She smiled, placing a condescending hand on his shoulder like she didn’t just border on the edge of a your mom joke. “Speaking of, why don’t you make yourself actually useful to one woman tonight, and help her with the dishes?”
Clark scoffed and moved away from her before the heat of her skin could seep through his shirt and remind him why he’d ignored his better judgement and brought this up to begin with.
“Fine. In your next hour of need, don’t call me.”
Lois made a frustrated noise and turned away from him.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
***
“Clark,” Lois whispered from the other end of the phone. “I’m calling.”
A man with some willpower would’ve put up a fight. Would’ve reminded her of the claims she’d made a few nights prior just to make her sweat.
He was not that man.
Within ten minutes, he was walking through her door at the Talon, spotting her sitting on her bed in a familiar oversized royal blue t-shirt.
“Where’d you get that?” he asked.
At least she had the decency to act sheepish.
“A friend.”
Lois still looked nervous. Lois never looked nervous.
“Well, look, I’m not an expert in booty calls like you, so if you want to take the lead here–”
Baiting her temper did the trick, getting her to roll her eyes, tell him to shut up, and drag him to sit on the edge of her bed.
He couldn’t believe he got to touch her like this again, taking a moment to take her in, still holding onto her hand while she stood between his legs.
“Come here,” he whispered, pulling her gently until she climbed onto his lap.
She let out a soft gasp as he leaned forward, mouthing and kissing between her breasts over her—his—shirt as her fingers threaded through his hair.
“Clark,” she gasped faintly when he pulled her hips down to his, rolling against her center. “What if I bleed on you?”
“I don’t care.” Although the topic of blood did bring him back to reality, to the reason she’d called. “I did some more research.”
“You want a Nobel?” she asked.
He ignored her sarcasm, lightly running a knuckle over her breasts, watching as her nipples hardened beneath the fabric.
“It said it’s a symptom for these to get tender and sore. Do you get that?”
Lois swallowed then nodded, her hazel eyes darkening. She didn’t crack another joke or skirt around the truth. She simply nodded. Answering him. Letting him in.
“Poor thing,” he murmured, kissing over her chest, sucking her nipple into his mouth while his hand massaged her other breast.
She exhaled, her grip on his hair tightening as he switched sides, bringing his hand beneath the t-shirt to the warmth of her bare waist.
“Is this helping?”
“A little,” she said.
“Maybe you have too many clothes on.”
“You definitely have too many clothes on.”
He withdrew his hand from under the fabric.
“You first.”
He’d accidentally seen her completely nude a couple months earlier. He didn't know if it was possible for Kryptonians to actually freeze in shock, but he did, staring at her for who knows how long, having to remind himself to look at her face and tear his gaze away from her figure.
This was different. There was purpose. Intention.
She’d been wearing a top both times they’d done this. It was on her to decide to cross that next line, however out of order it seemed.
“Alright.” Lois stripped off the shirt, revealing another layer of herself to him.
She looked hot in his clothes. She looked like a goddess out of them.
He slipped his hands around her back, into the waistband of her cotton underwear, bending his head down to–
“Uh-uh, Smallville,” she pushed his shoulders back. “A deal’s a deal.”
He pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it to the side and immediately returning his mouth to her chest. Lois ran her hands over him, her nails scratching over his shoulders, his neck, down his chest and back exactly like he remembered, exactly like he’d been craving these past few weeks.
He slid his hands around her waist, feeling the tension in her muscles, confirmed by the slight whimper she let out.
“How’s your back?” he asked.
“You read about that, too?”
The side of his mouth curled upward. “Yeah.”
She decided to let him in again. To see the vulnerability behind the fortress.
“Could be better.”
“Lay down on your stomach,” he told her.
“It’s fine.”
“Just listen,” he urged. “Humor me.”
She did, moving off of him and laying down in the middle of her bed, using her arms as a pillow.
He climbed onto his knees above her and started rubbing her back, beginning at the nape of her neck and working his way down as he felt her body relax.
“You don’t have to do this, ya know,” she said.
“It’s working, isn’t it?”
She breathed deeply beneath him.
“Yeah. It is.”
As the minutes wore on and he continued downward, her breathing became heavier, her hums and sounds more strained. Eventually, he slipped his hands from her lower back down the curve of her ass, making her squirm under his touch.
“Should I stop?” he asked, basking in how much this was turning her on.
“No,” she said stubbornly.
He moved his hands back up her back, tentatively following with his mouth, his kisses more sure as she relaxed into them, as she moved her body to reach for them. He traveled back down her spine, his fingers slipping into the edge of her underwear. He smelled her arousal, along with the blood, and his tongue licked over his lips, wanting to–
No. She’d called him there for a reason. One reason only.
“Clark, please,” she whimpered, tired of putting off that reason.
He crawled over her, groaning when she lifted her hips to brush against his.
“What is it, Lois?” he teased. She huffed in exasperation and he wrapped his fingers around her hip bone, pressing himself further, rutting against her. The friction was like walking through fire. He pulled her hair, the same way she’d so quickly developed a fondness of doing to him, and was met with a moan that made any patience evaporate. “Please, what?”
She turned to face him, eyeing him furiously.
“Please, fuck me.”
The words shot straight through him, so hard it was almost painful.
“Ah,” he said, climbing off of her. “You do know how to ask for things nicely.”
He expected her to tell him to shove it. Instead, she bit her lip, nodding, watching him. It made him feel bolder. Confident. Powerful. He undressed the rest of the way under her gaze, grabbing the condom she’d set out on her nightstand. He got the silent message. One and done.
Lois started to turn over but he stopped her.
“No. Like that.” She listened, staying on her stomach as he walked around the bed again. “You want a towel?”
She shook her head, nodding to the sheets.
“Have to wash ‘em anyway.”
The idea of her ever doing laundry was laughable, but he didn’t push. He knelt on the bed, rolling her underwear down her legs and tearing open the foil.
She hiked up one of her legs and he slid his tip through her folds, exhaling at the feeling.
“Clark, if you don’t just,” Lois complained.
He pressed inside her slowly, giving her a few moments to adjust before rolling his hips with more purpose. Lois met his movements, her hands digging into the mattress as he fucked into her. And just like that, everything felt right in the world again. Peaceful. Singular. Wonderful.
She reached behind her to grab onto his thigh, and he figured he was doing his job right, keeping up his tempo.
It was so easy with Lois, like this. To let himself go. To just be.
Things with Lana were always so complicated, a caged labyrinth of his own making. One he couldn’t find a way out of without hurting someone, no matter how hard he’d tried to.
It wasn’t like that, now. With Lois, even the darkest fog was escapable. Like she was the light at the end of that tunnel and all he had to do was chase it, the same way his body always did the sun. He barrelled towards it—that sweet clarity. That crisp freedom. That breath of fresh air.
His lower stomach felt tighter than a drum and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. His stamina had been better before, but it was a whole new ballgame now that he’d spent weeks knowing exactly what he was missing. Now that he was chasing the very feeling he’d spent so long searching for without even knowing it.
“Fuck,” he groaned after a particularly whiny sigh sounded from her lips, gripping her hips tighter, leaning over her.
She had to finish first. That was the unspoken rule of this. That was his excuse for being here. That he could help her, that he could get her off, that she needed him.
“Think you can come for me?” he whispered into her ear, pulling her hair away from her face.
Lois panted, her rhythm faltering as she spoke. “I don’t know.”
“Come on,” he coaxed, adjusting his angle and sinking impossibly deeper into her, bringing his fingers around to rub her clit in tandem. “I know you can. You’re doing so good.”
“Yeah?” she breathed out, almost desperately.
He clamped his hand over hers on the mattress, kissing away a tear from the corner of her eye as he kept his pace.
“So good, baby.”
“Smallville,” Lois moaned before a high-pitched cry filled his ears and her inner walls tightened around him, spasming.
His own release overtook him as her lungs worked overtime and eventually synchronized with his own.
“That’s my girl,” he breathed out.
When his world returned to its factory settings, a single question torpedoed around his brain—what just happened? He’d never spoken like that before. Ever. He didn’t know his mouth could even form those words, but it had. They just felt right.
After a totally normal and not awkward eternity, Lois cleared her throat beneath him and he pulled out with a quick apology.
“I’m gonna go shower,” she informed him. A gentle reminder that he was still half on top of her. “Do me a favor and don’t be here when I’m done.”
He lifted himself enough for her to slide out from under him.
“Oh, so I have two hours then?”
She turned back to him, biting the corner of her lip as she punched his shoulder.
“Bye, Smallville.”
***
“Thanks for your, uh, service, but it’s probably best we put a pin in this now,” she told him in his kitchen the next day. “Consider yourself off the hook.”
Relief. Happiness. Delight. Once upon a time, that’s what he might have felt at the prospect of less Lois Lane. Now it was like a tug on his ribs, pulling away from where the rest of him had already decided it wanted to be.
He’d spent the last month repeating every excuse in the book to himself. That it was a favor. That this was what he did, he helped people. That his body craved the stress relief, the stillness the act provided, that was all.
But it wasn’t.
Because he didn’t want to be off the hook. He liked the hook. Against all odds and his habitual, serial long-term monogamy, Lois Lane’s avoidant, non-committal hook was exactly where he wanted to be. In fact, it was rather perfect.
He’d never been the casual sex guy, but he’d also never been that great at relationships either. Like this, he’d never hurt Lois the same way he’d hurt others. There were no commitments or promises to break. No disappearing act that required explanations and hidden, partial truths. Just primal, instinctual need and a mutual understanding no one else had to get but them. Sharing sides of themselves no one else saw because no one else had to.
In a way, it was the most honest thing he’d ever experienced. And he had the feeling he wasn’t alone in that, no matter the unbothered facade Lois tried to project.
“And if you ever mention this to anyone–”
“Elmer Fudd night light?” he guessed her usual go-to for blackmailing him.
She smirked. “Polka dot boxers.”
He sighed and gave a slight nod, granting permission to walk away which she readily took.
“Alright, Lane,” he said before she got too far. “Should I start the timer now?”
Lois turned back to him, intrigued, already a little offended, like she could tell where he was going with this.
“For what?”
“For when you call again,” he spoke with certainty.
So did she.
“I won’t.”
***
Clark stood in the living room, his eyes on the photo of him as a child with his parents in front of the old tractor sitting atop the shelf. He always liked that picture. It comforted some deep part of him, reminding him of the feeling of home, warm and glowing and welcoming. It had been a long time since the farm felt like that.
“That’s one of my favorite pictures,” his mom said, coming up behind him.
“Yeah,” he swallowed. “Mom, how did you know dad was…the one?”
Her gaze turned sympathetic in a way he’d hate from anyone else.
“Honey,” she rubbed his arm. “Honestly, there was a time when I didn’t want him to be.”
Clark felt something inside of him loosen.
“Really?”
“He was exciting, in a way that got under my skin. But then, he just never left. When I needed someone, he was who I called. He was always there, as my partner, my best friend. Before you came to us, of course,” she added with a smile. “We were always in it together. And I tried to fight what I felt for him.”
“Because of your family?” he asked, remembering the tense relationship she still had with them, why he’d spent so long never knowing his grandfather.
She nodded.
“And because of me. Because of what I thought my life was supposed to look like. One day, I just realized that it didn’t matter.”
“Why didn’t it?”
“Because he was worth risking everything,” she said, reminding him of something his dad used to say. “Because I couldn’t live in a world where he didn’t love me.”
He looked back to the photo before dropping a kiss to her head.
“He still loves you.”
His mom smiled somberly and gave him a quick hug.
“Lana might not be the one, but that doesn’t mean yours isn’t still out there, Clark,” she told him. “She is, and she’s waiting for you.”
A humorless laugh escaped his throat.
“Think she could wait a little closer to home?”
“Good news from Granville and bad news from Topeka.” He turned in the direction of Lois’ voice as she entered the kitchen. “Which do you want first?”
“Suprise me, Lois,” she said.
He exchanged a look with his mom before she joined her Chief of Staff.
“Never a dull moment,” he muttered.
***
He heard her footsteps ascending towards the loft before she came into view, frustratedly stripping off her tank top before even greeting him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, because he was right and an admission of the obvious was the least she could do.
“What do you think?”
She pushed him onto the couch and climbed into his lap, his body immediately reacting like it had been weeks instead of less than forty two hours. She tore open his flannel, muttering something about the absurdity of him wearing it even in the blazing heat of summer.
He cupped her face in his hands, forcing her to look into his eyes.
“You said you wouldn’t call,” he reminded her, reveling in his rare possession of the upper hand.
“I didn’t.”
She licked her lips and he wanted to kiss them—merely to prove a point—but he decided to go easy on her instead, bringing his mouth to her neck and sliding a hand down her stomach.
“Yet here you are,” he whispered.
“Here I am.”
*
“Lois,” he stupidly opened his mouth as she put her shoes back on. “You know I haven’t, uh, been with many people. I guess I just want to know, um, how am I?” It was different, now that he wasn’t human, now that he was himself. It felt dangerous, mostly because it felt more real.
She scoffed and got up from the couch.
“Are you seriously asking for a performance review or just looking for an ego stroke?”
“Lois. Please.”
“Alright,” she sighed. “You’re good. Better than good, okay? But this, you and I, it doesn’t count.”
His forehead tightened despite his pride swelling at her better than good comment.
“Why not?”
She crossed her arms with a huff.
“Because that’s what we agreed. Because that’s the way things are. Because this is just for now and someday, Little Miss Sad Brown Eyes is gonna get her head back on straight, and when she does, it’s better for you if it doesn’t. Believe me.”
He didn’t remember making any agreement but kept quiet, supposing she was right. Still, he wasn’t even sure he wanted that anymore. He’d spent so long telling himself he still loved Lana, he’d never stopped to examine whether or not he actually did.
Clark knew he didn’t want her to be with Lex, that was certain. He had enough first hand experience to know just how dangerous the man was. No one deserved that. He just wanted her to be safe and happy. If that meant not being with him, he supposed he could live with it.
“Besides,” Lois continued, “I have a spotty reputation to uphold. Can’t have you brightening it up.”
He frowned at her.
“How can it just not count?”
“I don’t know, Smallville. The way an extra cookie or one last drink or anything said in the heat of passion doesn’t count. It just doesn’t.”
He sunk into the couch as Lois put her hair back up and headed down the stairs again, her neverending list of rules still hanging in the air.
“What, you don’t want any feedback from me?” he asked.
She looked at him pointedly.
“Do I need it?”
He felt his cheeks flush and the corners of his mouth tip upwards.
“No.”
She smirked, turning before looking at him again.
“Thanks. For being better than good.”
“You too.”
She winked and left the loft.
He grabbed his baseball and played catch with the wall, trying to rid his mind of all images of her beneath him, above him, moaning his name.
It didn’t count. This secret exchange that happened and then never happened was what he’d signed up for. His logical half understood.
For some reason, the rest of him didn’t seem to.
***
Clark thought he finally found one. A zoner. He and Chloe had tracked all the telltale signs and yet all he was met with was another dead end. Another failure.
In the last year, he’d failed his dad. He'd failed Jor-El. He’d failed Lana. He’d failed Lex. Now, he was failing people everyday the longer the phantoms continued to wreak havoc across the world without his intervention.
Some sort of stone felt sturdy against his back and he realized he must’ve run into an alley, his chest heaving more than it should from speeding around.
“Smallville? What’s up?”
“Um,” he stammered, unsure himself. He hadn’t registered reaching for his cellphone or pressing on Lois’ number. “Stuff.”
“Stuff?” she laughed. “Aren’t you a regular Chatty Cathy?”
He let out a helpless chuckle in response.
“Yeah, you know me.”
“I know you’ve got your…stuff,” she spoke, her voice free of the icy tone he was used to where his secret was concerned. “The kind you keep under lock and key so well it makes Fort Knox look like a kiddy toy. But that’s why I got you that journal, remember?”
He did. He kept it in the top drawer of his desk in the loft. The gift was the moment the understanding first washed over him, that she knew him better than anyone. He felt his pulse start to slow at the reminder.
“Yeah,” he breathed out. “That’s a good idea. I’ll, um,” he trailed off, speeding to the barn. Only he hadn’t. When he looked up, he was in the alley behind the Talon. “Lois, I, uh,” he struggled. “I don’t know. I just…I think I need, I can’t–”
She cut off his rambling before more nonsensical verbs dissipated in the air.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” she said softly. Then, after a moment, “Come over.”
“What?” he gulped.
“It’s only fair. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”
“I didn’t,” he stuttered, it felt like a lie getting caught in his throat as he forced it out. “I didn’t call for that.”
Lois laughed from her apartment two stories above him, behind the window the glare from the streetlights blocked from public view.
“Yes, you did.”
He spent the next several minutes pretending he moved at a human pace and that his standard red and blue combo—usually like armor—weren’t constricting and stifling on his back. When he finally walked up to her door, he knocked.
Most of the time, he didn’t bother with the formality, but he needed the plausible deniability it provided. A piece of evidence that it wasn’t his idea, that he wasn’t the one who made the call, and that this door was about to be opened by her. And it was, Lois greeting him in nothing but a matching set of red lacy underwear.
“Too much?” she asked.
He brought his jaw back up to meet the roof of his suddenly extremely dry mouth.
“You look perfect.”
“You look,” she eyed him up and down, “terrible.”
“Thanks,” he chuckled dryly.
She pulled him into the apartment and immediately stripped off his jacket and shirt. Taking them off opened his airways, the touch of her skin on his healing like daylight in the thick of February cold.
Lois pushed him onto her bed, her hands clamping each of his thighs as she looked at him.
“You breathing?” she asked, modeling a normal intake of air for him to copy because evidently he wasn’t. He didn’t really need to breathe, but the exercise calmed him anyway. “There you go, big guy. You okay?”
He swallowed, the feeling of her hands on him grounding and the view of her cleavage as she leaned in front of him the best distraction he’d had all day.
“I’m good,” he said, meaning it, that constant ringing in his ears slowly quieting the longer he spent in her presence. Somehow, his body had known what he needed even when his mind hadn’t caught up yet. He’d just needed her. “Could be much better.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” She pushed him to lay flat on her mattress and kissed his chest.
He hissed as she teased his nipples, moving lower over his abs and rubbing the crotch of his pants as his cock hardened further.
“Lois,” he groaned as she kissed and nipped around his navel, lowering the zipper of his jeans.
“Relax, baby,” she said. “Just lay back and let me work.”
He did as he was told, the term of endearment zipping through his veins. He’d never been interested in pet names before, but he liked the sound of it from her lips.
He sighed in relief when her tongue moved over his head, her hand stroking him as she took him more fully into her mouth. She swallowed around him, making his mind go completely blank save for the feel of her—her hands, her mouth, her touch, everything her overtaking his senses.
“Lois, I’m gonna,” he trailed off as he felt his orgasm rapidly approaching, but she stayed put, humming around him, stroking him and bobbing her head until he finished, with flashes of white and yellow exploding behind his eyes.
She licked him clean and flopped onto the bed beside him, eyeing over him with accomplishment as he tucked himself back into his pants.
“Wow, that was,” he searched for the right word. “Wow.”
Lois bit the corner of her lip, giving him a glimpse of her sharp canine.
“Good. I’ve kind of been thinking about that for awhile,” she flushed.
“Yeah?”
They were so close like this. He smelled himself on her mouth and knew if he leaned forward, if he finally gave in to that urge to feel her lips against his own, he’d taste himself, too. But there was something he wanted to taste more.
Moving down the bed, he kissed her breasts over the lace of her bra, paying extra attention to her nipples as she gasped and arched against him.
He was already hard again but it didn’t matter, he was on a mission. He continued down the slope of her stomach, over her–
“Are these from me?” He noticed reddish-purple marks across her hips and placed his fingertips over them to confirm what he already knew.
Lois leaned forward and sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, nodding. He hadn’t realized how hard he’d been holding onto her a few days ago. He kissed each bruise as an apology, like it would heal them.
Like it would stop the part of his brain that liked them. The part that said good. The part that said mine.
He slid to his knees in front of the bed and kissed along her thighs, pulling them over his shoulders, tracing the goosebumps along her skin.
He inhaled, his nose brushing over her underwear, his cock twitching at how damp the fabric was.
“Smallville, you don’t have to just because I—“
“I’m not.”
She raised her eyebrows in skepticism, and something in his chest tightened. The thought of someone in the past treating her pleasure like a chore or an obligation made him angrier than it probably should.
“Please,” he begged, licking his lips. “Haven’t I earned this?”
Lois’ mouth fell open, shaking her head in what he prayed was amusement.
“Have at it, soldier.”
He wasted no more time, stripping off her underwear before returning to her center, immediately running his tongue through her folds and tightening his grip on her thighs.
She panted above him, bringing a hand to his hair to hold him closer, to use him. Mere weeks ago, he’d rather have swallowed kryptonite than admit he wanted to be used by her exactly like this. Maybe he still would, but at least now he knew her taste—just how he’d always imagined heaven to be like. Honey and peaches and stardust. It was devastating, the instant and thorough understanding that nothing else would ever measure up.
His fingers already knew the map to her clit and it took only seconds for his tongue to learn it, too.
“Clark,” she moaned, making his cock strain against the zipper of his jeans, her grasp on his hair tightening.
He flicked his eyes open to watch her writhe against the mattress, bringing his hand to her breast and being rewarded with another whimper as her own hand clasped over his, squeezing tighter.
He groaned against her, lapping between her clit and entrance, teasing his tongue inside of her before dragging it back to her clit and starting the journey again.
Lois shook against him, her climax more enrapturing every time he saw it. Every time he caused it.
After her trembling had subsided and his hunger was momentarily satisfied, he laid next to her on the bed, admiring the blissed out look in her eyes.
“Fuck, you’re good at that.” Lois rested her arm above her head.
“Just good?”
Her eyes hit the ceiling before landing on him again.
“Better than good.”
“That was actually my first attempt,” he admitted.
“Really?” For the first time since he met her, she looked at him like he was an alien, the look quickly giving way to impressed. “Not too shabby, Smallville. Must be beginner's luck.”
He knocked her shoulder with his before relaxing into a comfortable silence.
“Do you get panic attacks often?” she asked.
“What?”
“I just mean you–”
His head shot towards the door when he heard footsteps climbing the stairs.
“Chloe’s coming.”
“What? Shit,” Lois scrambled out of bed, finding her underwear. “You need to leave.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, just get out,” she hissed as she tossed his shirt to him.
Clark rolled his eyes and put it back on, just in time for Lois to physically push him into the kitchen.
“What’s the big deal? I’m here all the time.”
“Not when I’m dressed like this.”
She gestured to her attire, or lack thereof, and he took the chance to ogle her all over again. Much too soon, she shoved his jacket into his chest.
“And so what if she saw? If she found out?” he asked before he could stop himself.
Lois’ eyes widened at him.
“Window. Go.”
He took one last peak right as she greeted Chloe at the door. With a sigh, he jumped outside and sped away.