Changes in Attitudes, Chapter 3

Clark/Chloe AU
Season 5, post-"Fanatic"
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please leave this page now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the WB and DC comics, not to me.

Clark looks at her for a moment, then the grin she loves curves his lips.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he says, “but everything else about me is pretty normal.”

“I doubt that,” she answers lightly. “There’s nothing normal about you, Clark.”

She intends it as a compliment, as well as an obvious statement of fact, and is startled when the smile drops away and he turns his back on her. “Yeah,” he says, a little too softly. "I know that."

Chloe takes three steps, slides her arms around him, and presses up against his back, hugging him from behind. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way, Clark. I think all the things you can do are really amazing.”

His back is warm and solid, and when she leans her cheek against him she can hear his heart thudding in a fast, steady rhythm. “I know you think so, Chlo. But the truth is… I’m a freak.”

“Whoa,” she says. “Where is this coming from, Clark?”

“I just…” He heaves a sigh. “I could have set you on fire, Chlo.”

“Oh, please. You were careful. I saw the way you turned your head away.”

“Yeah, but I…” He lifts his hands, flexes them. “I couldn’t even touch you, Chloe. I was too afraid of hurting you.”

“You worry too much,” she says dismissively.

He yanks away, so abruptly that she almost falls, and spins around and faces her. “I worry too much?” he repeats in an incredulous tone. “So tell me, Chloe, when should I start worrying? When I break your arm?”

“Clark—“

“Or when I knock out your front teeth from kissing you too hard?”

“Look, Clark—“

“How about when I snap your spine in two? Huh? Can I start worrying then?”

He’s in her face, his face taut with anger, his voice louder than usual, almost to the point of yelling. But no matter how big he is, and how hard he tries to intimidate her, Chloe knows him too well to be afraid. She stands her ground and looks up at him unflinchingly.

“Look, Clark, I understand how you feel,” she says gently, but he doesn’t let her finish.

“No,” he growls. “You don’t. You can’t understand how hard it is for me to control myself sometimes. And you really don’t understand how strong I am, or you’d be afraid of me.”

“I’ve seen you catch a car, Clark. I know how strong you are.”

He glares at her for a moment longer, then turns and stalks away. She stares at the rigid lines of his back helplessly, wishing she knew how to console him, to make him believe what she’s utterly certain of—that he’ll never hurt her. No matter what.

“I think we should go back to the dorm,” he says at last, his voice muffled. It sounds almost like he’s on the verge of tears, and her heart instantly melts.

“No,” she says, walking toward him, circling around him, standing a foot away from him and looking up into his eyes. “We are not going back to the dorm. I want you to kiss me.”

He looks down at her for a moment, desire and anger warring in his gaze, but then the desire apparently wins out, because he bends over and kisses her.

His lips are hard against hers, forceful, almost violent, and he wraps his arms around her and pulls her to him, a little too hard. She gasps as all the breath is driven from her lungs, but he doesn’t stop kissing her. His tongue drives forcefully into her mouth, and one big hand tangles in her hair, yanking it in a way that hurts a little. She wiggles, trying blindly to get loose, and suddenly he lets her go, giving her a slight shove, so that she stumbles away from him.

She stares at him for a long moment, bewildered by his uncharacteristic behavior, but then she sees the tension in his features, the bleakness in his eyes, and it begins to make sense.

“Trying to scare me, Clark?”

He looks away, swallowing hard. “You should be scared of me, Chloe,” he says softly.

She hates to admit it, but she was scared of him, for just a second, and he obviously realizes it. Her fear was just an instinctive response, because he's so strong, and he could hurt her so easily. But she trusts him, and knows he won't.

“That wasn’t you, Clark. You and I both know you don’t act that way.”

“Neither of us has the slightest idea how I’ll react during sex.”

She explodes in fury. “Well, how will you ever know if you don’t try?” She moves toward him, and now she’s in his face, her voice raised in anger. “You big stupid oaf, do you really think you can spend the rest of your life alone?”

He stares down at her, looking bemused. Suddenly some of the seriousness fades from his face, and a small smile breaks through. “You know,” he says mildly, “when you’re trying to seduce a guy, you’re not supposed to call him a big stupid oaf.”

Some of the anger drains from her at the sight of his smile, and she whacks him on the shoulder, gently. “I call ‘em as I see ‘em, Kent.”

“Yeah. You always do.”

“Look,” she says in a calmer tone. “You have to try this sometime. Why not now?”

He looks embarrassed. “Actually, Chlo, even if I wanted to risk it—to risk you-- I don’t have any… uh.. protection.”

She blinks. “What, did you make Lana buy the condoms last time?”

He nods, and she can see his blush even in the starlight.

“Well,” she says thoughtfully. “It’s not like we’re the same species. I don’t see how you could get me pregnant.”

“I don’t know, Chlo. For all I know my, uh, cells might make yours mutate or something.”

Amusement curves her mouth. “So you think you might have supersperm?”

His blush grows more obvious, to the point where his cheeks are practically glowing in the dark. “I can shoot fire from my eyes,” he points out. “I can run fast enough to break the speed of sound. I can benchpress a truck. Do you really think supersperm is beyond the realm of possibility?”

“I guess not,” she admits. It seems unlikely, but so do a lot of things she’s seen over the past five years.

“I could run over to a drugstore, but I, uh…”

He trails off, looking more self-conscious than ever, and she glances down. Yeah, she can see why he wouldn’t want to go into a drugstore sporting a hardon. She’s not a guy, but she can imagine that might be a little embarrassing.

“It’s okay,” she says softly. “I really think maybe it’s a little early for that, anyway. I mean, we have some… unresolved issues.”

Lana. The fact that he’s dating Lana hangs between them like a heavy weight.

“I plan on resolving those issues later tonight,” he answers, and she can’t miss the calm, steady look he gives her. She understands what he’s telling her, that he’s made his decision, and the weight lifts away from her. She smiles, steps toward him, and puts her arms around his neck.

This time his kiss is gentle, and his hands move over her carefully. Her body melts at his touch, and when his hands slide up beneath her shirt, stroking down her spine, she shivers.

“Chloe,” he murmurs against her mouth, and she loves the sound of her name on his lips.

She can feel the tension in his body, can feel that he’s still hard despite what happened earlier. She can feel his heat even through the denim, and she moves against him instinctively. She doesn’t have a lot of sexual experience—in fact, she’s only been with one guy, and that was so long ago she can’t even really remember his face—but her hips have a will of their own, and they move against his in a steady, urgent rhythm.

But it’s not quite right, because his erection is pressing against her stomach, and that’s definitely not where she wants it.

His hand slides around to her front, cups her breast and squeezes the nipple gently, and even through her bra it feels unbelievably good. She gives a small noise that’s embarrassingly close to a squeak and lifts one of her legs, trying to get closer to him.

Suddenly he picks her up, as if she doesn’t weigh anything at all, and positions her better, so that she can feel the hard length of him sliding against her most sensitive flesh. She wraps her legs around his hips and clings to him. There are two layers of denim between them, but it still feels so good she moans against his mouth. His fingers dig into her ass, and he urges her still closer.

They move together for a long time, as smoothly and naturally as if they've been together many, many times before. At first their rhythm is slow and deliberate, but it grows faster and faster. Clark kisses her over and over again, on her lips, her face, her throat, gentle, passionate kisses that convey such a deep affection that it makes her throat tight and her eyes sting.

They're both still wearing all their clothes, but she can't imagine she could feel any closer to him than she does at this moment. She feels heat building in her body, feels herself shivering as she climbs toward a climax. She can feel Clark shuddering too, can feel him throbbing against her, and she bites her lip to stop herself from crying out. Her hands are underneath his shirt, on the warm, smooth skin of his back, and she can feel dampness as he starts to sweat a little.

She wonders if the heat vision thing will happen again, and if it does, what it might feel like for him, coupled with orgasm. She remembers the way he cried out, the sound of his deep voice, hoarse with pleasure, and she wants to make him feel that way again. Maybe she can even make him feel better. The thought steals her breath away.

The sensation of his big body moving against hers is just incredible. It’s an amazing feeling, just like floating, like flying, and she’s so close, so very close…

She knows he's close, too, and she wants to watch his face as he comes, to see his mouth drop open and his eyes go wide with shock and pleasure. She wants to see the stunned look of ecstasy on his face that she saw there when his heat vision activated.

Her eyes drift open… and she suddenly shrieks.

“Clark!”

His eyes snap open, too, and then all of a sudden they’re both falling, plummeting like rocks. Chloe has just enough time to realize that they were actually floating in the air, maybe fifteen or twenty feet above the grass, but before she can do more than clutch at him, they’ve hit the ground.

If she’d fallen from that height, she would have been badly injured, but Clark lands lightly on his feet, like a cat, his knees bending to absorb the shock of the fall, and his arms still locked around her tightly.

He drops her unceremoniously onto the ground, pushes her away, and stumbles back. He's staring at her in shock, obviously horrified.

“Oh, my God,” he says, looking totally freaked out. His words tumble over each other on the way out of his mouth. “Oh, my God. Chloe. OhmyGodI’msosorry.”

Read Chapter 4 here.