More Than You Know, Chapter 5

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

Somehow Clark's shirt wound up on the floor, although he wasn't quite sure if he'd yanked it off or if she'd done it. He thought maybe it had been a mutual arrangement. But suddenly her lips were caressing his chest, her tongue tracing his collarbone, and the light brush of her mouth on his bare skin felt incredibly intimate.

Equal opportunity, he reminded himself, and tugged at the hem of her shirt.

She didn't object as he stripped her shirt off and threw it aside. Her skin looked opalescent in the flickering light of the fire, her hair gleamed like spun gold and copper, and she was altogether the sexiest thing he'd ever seen, or even dreamed about. But she was wearing a bra, which annoyed him. Not that her breasts didn't look great swelling above satin and lace, because they did. But the fabric obscured his view, preventing him from seeing what he really wanted to see.

Girls just wore too many damn layers of clothing, he thought, and reached around to try to figure out how to unhook the thing.

She immediately lifted her head. "Hey. Hold it."

His mouth had been on her earlobe, but he turned his head and looked into her eyes. "Are you going to complain I'm getting carried away again? Because you know, you didn't object to my shirt coming off."

"Well..." She wiggled on top of him in a way that made him grit his teeth together. "It's not exactly the same thing. You know?"

"Unnnhhhh," he said, and immediately turned red. Totally not what I meant to say. "I mean, yeah, I guess. But if you take my shirt off, I get to take your shirt off. That's fair, don't you think?"

"You already took my shirt off."

"Yeah, but it's not my fault you're wearing this damn... thing."

He spoke irritably, because he couldn't figure out how to unhook her bra, and she laughed and reached around her front, unclasping it. "Front clasp," she informed him.

"Now you tell me." He pushed the bra off her shoulders and admired the abundant display of feminine flesh. He lifted his hands and ran his fingers over her soft, smooth skin, and she quivered, wiggling on top of him again, so that another unnnhhh came out of his mouth.

"Chloe," he whispered, pressing kisses to the fragile skin of her throat. "I want you so much."

She hesitated. "Earlier you told me you thought you might still be in love with Lana."

He thought about his dream, about the way Chloe had come to his rescue, about the way Lana had tried to betray him, over and over again. Deep down, he realized, he knew perfectly which girl he trusted, which girl he couldn't live without.

And it wasn't Lana.

*****

"What's she doing here?"

In the dank darkness of the boarded-up Talon, Chloe glared accusingly at Lana. Lana smiled up at Clark, a gentle, sympathetic smile that made her look more preternaturally lovely than ever.

"I tried to tell you," she said, her voice so soft it was little more than a whisper. "Chloe was in the Fairview Mental Hospital with you."

Clark felt a shock run through him. He loathed that place, and he didn't like the idea of Chloe being locked up there. But as the words sank in, a little frisson of unease ran through him as he wondered if perhaps Chloe was slightly... unhinged. That might explain why she was living in a dark, abandoned movie theater, the walls papered from floor to ceiling with articles, with no light, no heat, and no food that he could see.

He glanced back at Chloe. "You were in that place too?"

She lifted her chin. "They put me in that snake pit to shut me up," she answered defiantly.

"You know she has a family history of mental illness," Lana said, her tone as gentle as ever.

"Don't listen to her." Chloe's voice was clipped and impatient. "She's just trying to confuse you."

"Clark, please, come with me." At Lana's words, he looked back at her, seeing love shining from her eyes. She looked almost literally radiant. "I'll get you the help you need."

He studied Lana for a long minute, trying to figure out if he could trust her, then looked back at Chloe, frowning. She didn't look or sound crazy, but Lana was right-- she did have a family history of mental illness. And she was living in a building that looked like it should have been torn down years ago. So it did seem possible...

Chloe made an impatient sound. "I should have known you wouldn't be able to resist her," she growled, walking past him. "You never could."

He watched her go, feeling numb. She'd just saved him, but he wasn't sure if he could trust her. Maybe he'd be better off going back to the mental hospital with Lana. Maybe Lana was right, and he needed help. Maybe...

Chloe hesitated at the door, then turned back, looked up at him, and said, "If she's here, that means they won't be far behind."

She disappeared onto the landing, and Clark stared at Lana for a second longer. Even though he hadn't trusted her, even though he'd doubted her sanity, Chloe had paused to give him a warning.

Even when he didn't trust her, she still tried to protect him.

His mind made up, he ran past Lana without even looking at her-- and followed Chloe.

*****

Clark looked up at Chloe, seeing the uncertainty in her eyes. "I did say that," he admitted softly. "But I also said you mean more to me than you know." He stared at her for a long moment, looking into her face, a face he'd known for seven years but that he rarely paused to really look at. "I guess you mean more to me than I knew, too."

At his softly spoken words, she hesitated a long moment, looking into his eyes. Then she scooted forward, just a bit, and kissed him.

If their first kiss had been hot, this one was incandescent. Fire rushed through him, straight to his cock, and he realized he desperately needed more pressure there. He reached down again and tugged on her ass just a bit, encouraging her to move. She began to slide against him, and the feel of her body rubbing against his, her breasts brushing his bare chest, her mouth stroking over his throat, made him crazy.

He could hear her soft gasps, the little shuddering moans she made, and he wanted very much to move his hands around to her front, unfasten their jeans, and get them both totally naked. He wanted to be inside her so badly it hurt.

No, he told himself firmly. Intellectually, he knew he was reacting to everything he'd been through tonight, and he couldn't be quite certain what his feelings were. And besides, Chloe still had a boyfriend. Well, technically, anyway. Neither of them was ready for real intimacy yet.

Although this felt pretty damn intimate. Holding Chloe in his arms in front of a crackling fire was undeniably romantic, and their bodies moved together as if their movements had been choreographed somehow. If this wasn't intimacy, he wasn't sure what was.

He could feel his self-control slipping away. His three remaining brain cells thought what they were doing might be a little over the line, a little more than two friends who weren't sure about their feelings should be doing together, but her body was warm and soft against his, and she felt so good that he couldn't think of stopping.

She made a little gasping sound, and suddenly he remembered the way she'd gasped when she died. He remembered holding her as she died in his arms, remembered the way her eyes had looked at him accusingly. Some of the sensual haze fogging his brain lifted, and he froze up, opening his eyes and looking at her.

She must have felt his abrupt change in mood, because she lifted her head and gazed back at him. Her eyes were soft, filled with affection, maybe even devotion, and the memory of her accusing stare faded away.

I'll always save you, he promised her wordlessly. I'm never going to let you die again.

He reminded himself that everything he'd experienced earlier was a dream, and only a dream. But this was real. She was real. He began to move under her again, gazing into her eyes, somehow utterly unable to look away.

She responded to his movements, rubbing against him harder, and a little sound came out of her throat, a high-pitched, wavering sound of pleasure. He put a hand on her cheek, cupping her face lovingly, and stared into her eyes, watching the kaleidoscope of her emotions reflected there. And then her body shuddered violently in his arms, and she gave a long cry.

He tried to hold back, but couldn't. Ecstasy flowed through him like an electrical current, so hot and intense it was almost painful. His hips jerked in a frantic rhythm, slamming against her over and over again, and his cock spasmed violently as heat rushed through him. He pulled her head down and kissed her hard, groaning into her mouth, his fingers digging into her hips.

It felt impossibly good, but at last he fell back against the couch, all his muscles relaxing. She dropped her head against his shoulder, and he put his arms around her and held her. For long moments, there was silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire.

"I didn't mean for that to happen," she whispered at last.

"Neither of us meant for it to happen," he answered. "But I'm not complaining."

"Listen, Clark. I know you're upset about what you saw in your dream. But..."

He was entertaining thoughts of drifting off to sleep with her in his arms, but at her uncertain tone, he dragged his eyelids open and stared at her. In the flickering firelight, it was hard to read her expression, but he thought she looked guilty.

Well, duh, Sherlock, he thought. She's got a boyfriend.

Now that his desperate need had been assuaged, he started to feel guilty, too. He'd always been aware he had some more-than-friendly feelings for Chloe, deep down, but ever since she'd started dating Jimmy Olsen, he'd been careful to avoid thinking of her as anything but a friend. He'd thought he'd been successful, and had managed to convince himself that he didn't think of her in any way other than platonically.

But apparently his feelings for Chloe hadn't gone away, because the moment he'd kissed her, they'd reemerged with a vengeance.

He dropped his eyes and shifted a little beneath her, suddenly realizing that his jeans were uncomfortably wet. "I guess I need to get changed," he said.

Her eyes studied him, so honest and appraising that he fidgeted in embarrassment. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

She paused a moment longer, then shook her head. "No, you're not. What's wrong?"

"I just..." He sighed. "I didn't mean to screw up your life, Chlo."

"You didn't." She looked into his eyes. "How do you feel about me, Clark?"

"Uh..." He floundered. Everything was all tangled up inside his head right now. He knew he trusted Chloe more than anyone on the planet, but he also knew trust wasn't the same thing as love. At least not quite. "Uh. I'm not quite sure."

"I'm not quite sure how I feel about you, either." Her voice fell almost to a whisper. "But I do know you mean more to me that Jimmy does."

He stared at her for a long moment. "And you mean more to me than Lana does," he answered at last, realizing the truth of the words as he said them.

"Well, okay, then. That's a starting place, I guess. You know, we don't have to figure everything out tonight, Clark."

He realized she was right. There was no rush, after all. They'd been friends for seven years now, and they weren't going to straighten out their feelings overnight. What mattered was that they'd both realized the depth of their feelings. They weren't running from their emotions any more, or trying to hide them.

He put his arms around her waist and held her. "Can you stay the night?" he asked against her hair. After everything he'd experienced tonight, both real and imaginary, he didn't want to let her out of his sight.

"Sure." He heard the smile in her voice. "I'd love to."

He supersped upstairs to change, while she pulled her shirt back on. He zoomed back to the living room, sat beside her on the sofa, and shyly slid an arm around her. She didn't seem to mind. Before long, they were talking, just as they always did. Their conversation was much the same as always, revolving around her articles at the Daily Planet and his work on the farm.

They'd always been friends, and they'd always be friends, and they always had a lot to say to one another. And he discovered he liked talking to her even more with his arms wrapped around her and her head pillowed on his shoulder.

He'd finally realized how much Chloe meant to him. And no, he wasn't ready to call it love. Not yet. But it sure as hell was a lot more than friendship.

She meant more to him than he'd ever known.

-The End-