Let Me In, Chapter 2

Clark/Chloe
Season 6, end of "Static"
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.

Chloe felt warm and soft. She felt right in his arms, so right he couldn't imagine ever letting her go. Slowly his anxiety began to shift from an amorphous, unfocused concern for the world, to a more focused fear for her. There was something a lot bigger and badder than he was running around loose, and that meant Chloe was in danger. He held her a little tighter, trying to somehow protect her, and she wiggled uncomfortably.

"Hey," she protested, her voice muffled against his shoulder. "I need those ribs."

"Sorry." He let her go instantly. "Did I hurt you?"

"I'm fine." She looked up, and her eyes seemed to look right into his soul somehow. "You're really upset, Clark."

"I'm okay," he lied.

"Oh, please. Don't start with the macho thing now." She reached out and wrapped her hands around his upper arms again. He could feel the heat of her palms against his skin, and all of a sudden his body reacted. A few moments ago he'd found her embrace comforting, but now something hot, almost violent, lit inside him. He needed to touch her, to be touched by her, with a desperate hunger.

Stress, his mind informed him. He'd had a bad couple of days, and he was just having some sort of weird reaction. But that logical thought didn't make the need any less intense. He put his hands on her waist, curling his fingers gently into her jacket so she couldn't get away, and pulled her against him again.

Her arms slid around his neck in response, and she pressed her face into his shoulder. She fit right under his chin, like she'd been made for him. He wondered vaguely why he hadn't held her like this more often. He really needed to remedy that oversight.

He tugged her against him a little harder, and she responded, pressing into him in a way that felt, well, sexy. He struggled to suppress his automatic physical reaction, and totally failed. But she didn't seem to mind.

"Clark," she whispered against his shoulder, her voice choked. "I was really worried about you."

"I'm sorry I didn't call," he muttered into her hair. "Really. It was stupid."

"Next time you don't let me know what's going on, I'm going to kick your ass."

Despite the horrific images that still flickered at the edges of his mind, he couldn't quite repress a soft chuckle. "I'll bear that in mind."

"You do that." She lifted her head and glared into his eyes, and then her hand lifted and curled into his hair, tugging his head down. He lowered his head and closed his eyes, feeling the light brush of her lips against his.

She was kissing him. Wow.

He ought to forget to call more often.

Her lips felt soft and gentle against his, moving over his in a light caress that was more friendly than sexy. But his body reacted to her as if she was totally naked and sticking her tongue down his throat. He was startled to discover he was seriously hard for her.

He reached up, caught a handful of hair gently in his fist, and pulled her head back a bit, so that her lips parted. His tongue swept over her plump lower lip, then delved gently into her mouth. The tip of her tongue touched his, and a long rush of tingles shot down his spine.

She made a little moaning sound, and he grew harder. After everything he'd been through in the past twenty-four hours, he was a little surprised he could react that way. He would have sworn that sex was the absolute furthest thing from his mind. But there was no doubt that he was really turned on. Fear and anxiety still lapped at the edges of his consciousness, but most of his mind was occupied with the way she felt, the way she tasted, the way her tongue felt against his.

It wasn't easy to pull his mouth away from hers, but he wanted to taste more of her. He ran his lips over her chin, then down along the line of her throat. She leaned back her head still further, giving him access, and he let his tongue slide out and trace the delicate skin there.

Her fingers dug into his hair, and her body arched against his. The brush of her abdomen against his hard-on sent a little explosion of pleasure through him, and he caught her hips and yanked her against him aggressively, rubbing against her hard.

Her hand slipped up beneath his red t-shirt, stroking across his back, tracing muscle and bone. The light pressure of her fingers against his skin made him quiver, and a soft noise of desire rose from his throat. He needed her touch more badly than ever.

He didn't want her to ever stop touching him.

The problem was, he wasn't sure he deserved her. Somewhere at the back of his mind, an unpleasant thought rose up, the idea that he wasn't good enough for her. He'd done everything he could to protect her and the world, and it hadn't been enough. He wasn't the hero she'd always believed him to be. He was just an ordinary guy, and a helpless one at that.

He thought of her dying, of her vibrant, warm body being reduced to a few globs of flesh, and his sexual interest suddenly faded. He drew back with a shudder, dropping his hands away from her.

Her eyelids fluttered open, and she looked up at him. "Clark?" she asked softly. "You all right?"

"Yeah," he said roughly. "I'm fine. Just not..."

Not interested in sex right now. And wasn't that just peachy? Here he was, nineteen years old, and he couldn't keep it up. That was a hell of an embarrassing thing to have to admit, even to himself.

"It's okay," she said softly, stroking her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and sighed, wondering when he'd gone back to finding her touch comforting, instead of wildly exciting.

Damn it.

Despite her reassurances, it wasn't okay. That was the problem. He was a teenaged guy, and once he was interested in a woman, he was supposed to stay that way. And instead he'd just... lost it, like a suddenly deflated balloon. Which was damned embarrassing.

He bent his head and pressed his face into her shoulder again. "Chlo," he said softly, his voice shaking a little. "Maybe you better go."

"No." Her hand caressed his hair, very gently. "I'm not leaving you alone. You're still upset."

Of course he was upset. It was hard to focus on anything beyond globs of flesh and pools of drying blood and spatters of bone marrow. Vivid, nightmarish images still haunted him every time he closed his eyes. He wanted to forget everything he'd seen, to stop thinking about it, but he just couldn't.

But he didn't want her to leave, either. Because then he'd be alone with his thoughts. The idea of sitting up here all alone, while horrible memories ran through his head in an endless loop, made him want to retch.

He lifted his head and looked down at her, and she read his conflicted emotions with the ease of long familiarity. "Come here," she said gently, and pulled him toward the couch.

He settled onto the couch next to her, and she put an arm around his shoulders. He leaned into her, feeling the warm comfort of her body against his, and some of the tension left him.

"So you saw the bodies in bags," she said softly. "What then?"

He didn't really want to talk about it. And yet, somehow, talking helped him cope with everything he'd seen. At her question, memories came back in a rush-- the coppery smell of blood and death, the knowledge that each of those little bags had held the remains of what had once been a human-- and he swallowed hard.

"I tried to find him," he said gruffly, his face pressed into her hair. "The Zoner, I mean. I walked around the docks looking for him. It wasn't hard to find him. He left..." Remains. "Traces."

He remembered seeing the gruesome mass of flesh on the docks, and his stomach tried to rebel. He forced the nausea back with a grim effort.

Her hand continued to stroke his hair. "So you found him."

"Yeah." He didn't want to tell her what had happened next, but he found the words spilling out of him. "He was huge, Chlo. Really tall, and really muscular."

"Bigger than you?"

"Definitely." The guy had been enormous, making him feel like a child in comparison. Since he was pretty tall, and heavily muscled, it wasn't a sensation he experienced too often, and he hadn't liked it in the least.

"Was he as fast as you?"

"I'm not sure. I didn't get the chance to find out. I kind of... rushed him. Same as I always do."

"You're used to being stronger than anyone else," she said gently. "But with the Zoners, you may want to rethink that. I don't know if they're all stronger than you, but some of them seem to be."

"This one definitely was. He just grabbed me and... threw me. A long way."

"What then?"

"I shook it off and tried to use my heat vision on him." He sighed. "It didn't work."

"So the guy was superstrong and fireproof. That's not good."

"No kidding." He was silent for a moment, remembering the awful smell of the guy, the way he'd reeked of blood and death. "I charged him again, and he just picked me up and swung me around like I didn't weigh anything. I think he would have ripped out my spine, but... something... stopped him. Killed him."

"This something was the other guy? The one who's stronger than you?"

"Yeah. He saved me, and then... he flew away, Chlo."

She lifted her head and stared at him. "He flew?"

He nodded, keeping his eyes averted. He'd felt helpless against the big Zoner, but in the face of an entity who could fly, he'd felt worse than helpless. He'd felt... inferior.

"You can fly, too," she said softly, apparently reading his emotions in his face again. "You know you can, Clark."

"No." A shudder went through him at her words. Yeah, he could jump pretty high, and he'd floated a couple of times in his sleep... but floating wasn't the same thing as flying. This guy had just leaped up into the air and sailed away. He couldn't do that. "I don't know how to fly."

"Because you won't try." She frowned at him. "You can do it, Clark. I've seen you jump. You told me you've floated. All you have to do is combine the two."

"I don't know how to float. I've only done it when I was sleeping."

"So learn."

He leaned back and lifted an eyebrow. "How? Should I think lightweight thoughts or something?"

"That won't work," she said perkily. "You do that all the time."

He growled, and she laughed softly. "So was this guy a Kryptonian?"

"I don't think so. His eyes kind of glowed."

"No kidding." She looked fascinated, and he sighed.

"Look, Chlo, I know you're intrigued by this, but trust me, it isn't a good thing. We have a guy walking around who can kick my ass, who I can't follow, who can just attack people and fly away."

"But he didn't attack you," she pointed out. "He saved you."

"True. But what if he starts killing people?"

"And what if he starts saving them?" She rubbed his arm reassuringly. "Look, Clark, I know the Zoner freaked you out in a big way. But maybe you're not the only good guy out there. Did you ever think of that?"

"The problem is, I don't know what that..." He didn't want to say thing. He hated it when people called him a thing, just because he wasn't human. "That entity might do."

"I'll keep an eye out for news," she assured him. "Same as I always do. If we find out he's doing anything bad, you can cope with it then. Until then... well, like your dad always used to say, don't borrow trouble."

The sound of those familiar words coming out of her mouth made his lips curve in an involuntary smile. "Okay," he said. "I'll try not to worry too much."

She patted his shoulder. "That's my boy."

The carelessly spoken words warmed him. He knew he wasn't Chloe's boy. She had a boyfriend, a geeky guy named Jimmy Olsen. But even though Chloe and Jimmy had been dating for a couple of months now, he liked to think he meant a bit more to her than Jimmy did. They'd been close friends for years, after all.

Besides, just a couple of minutes ago she'd had her tongue in his mouth. Which tended to suggest she hadn't been thinking about Jimmy.

The thought of her tongue in his mouth sent fire through him, and suddenly all the sexual need he'd felt a few moments before came roaring back. He lifted his hand and brushed his fingers over her cheek.

"Hey," she said softly, lifting her hand and wrapping her fingers around his. "It's getting late, and I was thinking maybe I should get going."

"Don't go," he whispered.

She looked into his eyes for a long moment.

"Okay," she agreed at last. "I'll stay."

Read Chapter 3 here.