Changes in Attitudes, Chapter 4

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

Jesus. Like it’s not bad enough that he has to worry about scorching girls to a cinder, or breaking them in two, now he has to worry about levitating them into the air and dropping them to smash into pieces on the ground, too.

He is such a freak, and he’s never been as keenly aware of it as he is at this moment. He drops his gaze and stares at the grass, wishing he could burrow into the ground in humiliation and hide there for the rest of his life.

It’s not that he wasn’t aware that the flying thing was a possibility. He’s floated in his sleep more than once, he experienced his Kryptonian father’s memory of floating, and he flew as Kal-El. But he, Clark Kent, has never floated while conscious. Until now.

Floating, or flying, or whatever it is, is such a totally alien thing that it frightens him. It’s not just because humans can’t do it—it's that it violates the rules of physics as he understands them, which is more than a little disturbing. And if he was going to suddenly… take off like that, why the hell did he have to do it with Chloe in his arms? He’s unbreakable, but she’s not.

The thought that he could have dropped Chloe while he was… distracted… scares the hell out of him.

He assumes from Chloe’s startled shriek that it scared the hell out of her, too. But when he gets up his nerve to look at her again, she’s smiling.

“Wow,” she says in a soft, reverent voice. “That was so… totally… cool.”

All of a sudden, he remembers the first time he told her his secret, told her he was an alien and demonstrated some of the things he could do. It happened a few years ago, when he was on red K and she had an alien parasite. She doesn’t remember it, but it’s all burned into his memory like it happened yesterday, and he clearly remembers that she said almost exactly the same thing then. His heart lifts a little at the genuineness of her reaction.

Chloe thinks he’s cool.

He’s never told Lana his secret, because something inside him tells him she wouldn’t react well. Yeah, maybe she’d accept him eventually, but he’s pretty sure that deep inside she’d think of him as an alien. No, not just an alien, but as something less than human. Chloe hasn't ever looked at him that way, since the moment she knew his secret, and he's certain she never will.

He looks into Chloe’s eyes and realizes he made the right decision earlier this evening. Chloe is the right girl for him, because Chloe accepts him for who he is.

And Chloe trusts him not to scorch her, break her, or smash her, too. Maybe she’s right, and he can be trusted after all. Maybe it’s time he starts trusting himself a little.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” she says, still grinning from ear to ear. He loves her smile. It’s so bright you could use it as a flashlight.

“I actually didn’t know myself,” he answers, smiling a little. “I mean, I kind of thought… but I haven’t actually…”

She looks surprised. “That’s the first time it’s ever happened?”

“Well, while I was awake, yeah.” His smile widens. “I guess you inspire me.”

“Want to try to do it again?”

The breathless eagerness in her voice makes him laugh. “It was kind of an accident, Chlo. I’m not sure I could do it again if I wanted to.” She looks disappointed, like a child who sees no presents under the Christmas tree, and he relents. “I guess we can try, though.”

He steps toward her, pulls her into his arms, and thinks hard about floating.

Nothing happens.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Clark,” she says, sounding exasperated. “If you want it to happen again, you need to recreate the conditions that caused it to happen in the first place.”

Oh. Okay. He can do that. He lowers his head and kisses her.

Her lips are sweet and soft, and immediately his body remembers exactly what was going on right before they fell. The whole falling thing startled him so badly he momentarily forgot how good Chloe feels in his arms, but he’s instantly hard again, and his eyes are burning like cinders. Her tongue is sliding over his lips, into his mouth, and her hand slides down his abdomen, in a direction that has his wholehearted approval.

Her hand slips down over his jeans, her fingers curl around him, and he makes an inarticulate sound of desperate need against her mouth.

“Wow,” she says thoughtfully, pulling back just far enough that she can speak. “I don’t think they’re usually quite that big.”

He feels himself blush again. “Uh, I don't think I'm anything special.”

“No, I’m pretty sure you are. I mean, I’ve really only looked at one up close…”

“Chloe.” He is mildly annoyed, partly because she’s talking about other guys and their equipment, but mostly just because she’s talking, and his mind is not on talking in the least. Really, does the girl have to talk all the time? “I totally do not want to hear this.”

“...But I’ve looked at lots of them on the Internet.”

“I so totally do not want to hear this.”

“Research,” she informs him loftily. “A good reporter always does her research. But I think most of the pictures on the Internet are photoshopped or something.” She gives him a good squeeze, and he shuts his eyes and moans again. “You feel pretty big even compared to the pictures on the Internet, but you’re not photoshopped, are you, Clark?”

“Chloe. You’re killing me.”

And she is. Her fingers are sliding up and down, caressing him, checking out every single inch of him, and it’s driving him crazy. He’s never been so hard in his life, and his eyes feel like they’re about to burn holes right through his eyelids.

He grits his teeth together, uttering an expletive he doesn’t often use, and Chloe giggles.

“Clark. If your mom was here, she’d wash out your mouth with soap.”

He has to laugh, although it sounds a little breathless. “Yeah, but if my mom was here, I really don’t think you’d be touching me that way.”

Her fingers continue to stroke him, and at last he catches her hand and moves it away before he totally loses control of himself. Then he grabs her hips and lifts her again, pulling her against him so his erection is cradled between her thighs, loving the way they fit together, like they were made for one another.

She feels warm and soft against him, despite the denim barrier, and he thinks longingly about stripping all her clothes off and fitting into her in another, more intimate way.

But that’s a dangerous thought, and not something they’re ready for. Yet.

Her legs are curled around his hips and her arms are wrapped around his neck, and his hands are full of the two gorgeous cheeks of her ass, and the two of them are moving together like they never stopped, in a graceful, urgent rhythm that’s almost like dancing. He’s gasping into her hair, and she’s making those little mewling sounds against his throat, and he never ever wants to stop touching her.

And then suddenly her body’s arching and he hears her sobbing as she comes in his arms, and the sounds she makes knock him right over the edge of a cliff. He barely has the presence of mind to relax his hands a little so as not to hurt her, and to turn his head to the side so he won’t catch her hair on fire.

But it’s not only his eyes this time. He’s on fire everywhere, and it’s so violent, so powerful, that he can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but cry out her name, over and over again. It’s better than the heat vision by itself was, better than anything he can imagine, and he thinks maybe he really is going to die of it, but he doesn’t much care.

At last the pleasure ebbs, and he drops his face into her hair, breathing in her vanilla fragrance. He’ll never smell vanilla again without thinking of this moment, the two of them under the stars in the crisp fall air.

He's so totally drained he almost falls asleep standing up, but finally he manages to drag his eyes open, and realizes he's not standing at all. They’re floating in midair, level with the top of a big oak tree. He gives a startled jolt.

“Relax,” she says, her hand squeezing his shoulder reassuringly. “We’ve been up here for the last five minutes.”

Great. He’s been defying gravity for five minutes and he hasn’t even noticed. How bizarre is that? “Geez, Chlo. What if someone sees us?”

“Well, right now we’re kind of stuck here,” she says. “Do you have any clue how to get us down?”

“Uh… not really.”

“Try,” she says. “But whatever you do, don’t take us down like last time, okay?”

He concentrates really hard, and they slowly drift down to the ground.

He notices he set a tree on fire—damn it, he really needs to stop doing that, but it feels so good he’s not sure he could give it up even if he wanted to—and he lets go of her and zips over to jump up and put out the fire.

He walks back to her more slowly. There’s a wet patch on the front of his jeans, which makes him more self-conscious than the fire, and he knows he’s going to have to dash back to Smallville to get changed before he talks to Lana. And he doesn’t even want to think about that. Lana’s not going to be happy, either with him or Chloe, and this isn’t going to be pretty.

He’s sorry he’s made such a mess of things, but to keep stringing Lana along would be worse. He’s finally figured out what he should have known from the very start, that he and Chloe belong together. He knows what he has to do to set things right, and he fully intends to do it.

Chloe’s looking up at him, and there’s a happy glow in her eyes that makes him forget about Lana and the upcoming confrontation for a while longer. He suspects his own eyes look just as happy. In fact, he can feel himself grinning like a dork.

Fortunately for him, Chloe seems to like dorks.

He puts an arm around her shoulders, and she wraps an arm around his waist and leans against him, pressing her face into his chest. They stand that way a long, long time. Somehow his whole world has shifted, and nothing is the same now as it was an hour ago. Things will never be the same, but that's okay... because things are so much better this way.

Eventually she starts kissing him again, and his feet leave the ground, but he's really too occupied to notice.

-The End-

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