No One Left to Fight, Chapter 3

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

He heard Chloe's sharp intake of breath, and then her hands slid into his hair, caressing him, pulling him closer. And then she was kissing him back, her lips parting, her tongue lightly stroking his lips. Need, both physical and emotional, rippled through him, and he responded, touching his tongue to hers and pulling her against him harder.

He'd kissed her before, but he'd never kissed her quite like this. His tongue was deep in her mouth now, and it felt incredibly intimate, hot and wet, almost like sex. Her body molded itself to his, fitting against him like they were meant to be together. She felt yielding and warm against the hard, demanding ache that was his erection.

The kiss went on for a long time, while their bodies moved together in a slight but unmistakable rhythm. His tongue began to thrust into the sweet warmth of her mouth in the same rhythm, and she opened her mouth a little more, surrendering to him.

At last she broke away, gasping, and bent her head, resting it against his shoulder.

"I shouldn't have... we shouldn't..." She spoke in fragmented, broken whispers. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." He tightened his grip on her, afraid that she might try to pull away. "It's nothing to be sorry about."

"I have a boyfriend, Clark. I can't..."

He knew she had a boyfriend. Jimmy Olsen, photographer at the Daily Planet. Nice, geeky, decent. The guy aggravated Clark, for no reason that he could really put his finger on, but even so, he didn't particularly want to hurt him.

"I wish I could tell him about what might happen to me." Her voice was very soft. "But I'm afraid he won't ever be able to look at me the same way. I'm afraid he'll be totally grossed out by me."

He remembered the way she'd been afraid that he was repulsed by her, too, and realized how deeply afraid she was of being left totally alone. He could relate to that. When Chloe had found out his secret, he'd been terrified that she'd think of him as some sort of frightening, scary monster.

But she hadn't. She'd looked at him just like she always had, with friendship and admiration sparkling in her hazel eyes.

But the difference was that although he was an alien, he looked human, whereas Chloe might really turn into a monster, for all he knew. Most meteor-infected people developed strange abilities, which was bad enough, but a few actually changed form. One guy they'd known in high school had mutated into a prehistoric raptor.

The idea of Chloe winding up as something totally inhuman frightened him. It didn't gross him out, but it scared the hell out of him... because right now, she was the most human person he knew.

"You should tell him, Chlo," he said. "You need to tell him. If something, uh, happens to you-- it's possible you could hurt him. And he's with you a lot, so if he knew, he could keep an eye on you and watch for, you know, changes. Anyway... he deserves to know."

"I can't tell him. I can't." She was silent for a long moment, her face pressed into his shirt. "You're the only one I can tell, Clark."

He closed his eyes, feeling a rush of heat at her words, even though he understood her willingness to tell him wasn't purely a matter of trust. It was more that he was the only person in her life who could really understand what she was going through, because in a way, he was a freak too. Not a meteor freak, admittedly.

Just not human.

"Chlo." He didn't really want to say it, but he felt like he had to. "If you really love him, you should tell him. He needs to know."

She was silent for a long moment, while he listened to the raw sound of her breathing. At last she spoke.

"I don't think I really love him, Clark."

He let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding, and relief poured over him. Which was crazy, because he wasn't carrying a torch for Chloe. Yeah, sure, he'd thought about asking her out a while back, and he'd been just a little miffed that she'd started dating Jimmy right about then. But he'd only meant to ask her out in a casual way, so he wasn't very upset about it. Really.

And that whole situation had absolutely no bearing on the fact that he had dark visions of tossing Jimmy out a window every time he saw the guy. It had nothing to do with Chloe, nothing at all. Jimmy just annoyed him.

He was absolutely positive he didn't have any serious sort of romantic interest in Chloe. Okay, sure, she was the most important person in his world, and he couldn't stand the thought of losing her, and he called her whenever he needed to talk about something, and yeah, he did have a massive hard-on from being pressed up against her and kissing her, but...

Hell. He closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair, surrendering to the obvious. Okay. Fine. So maybe he did have just a bit of romantic interest in her, after all.

The problem was that just because she didn't love Jimmy didn't mean she was available. But that knowledge didn't stop him from lowering his head and brushing kisses over her cheek. Evidently he was weak. Very weak.

But maybe she was, too, because she turned her head, and all of a sudden their mouths were melded together in another ferocious liplock.

Distress for her, anguish for everything he'd been through tonight, and a feverish need he'd never felt before all twisted together inside of him. He needed her. He'd never needed anyone this badly. And he needed her now, while things were still normal, while she was still the Chloe Sullivan he'd always known and, on some level, loved.

He didn't want to have to fight her, hurt her, maybe kill her if her unknown powers manifested and she went bad. He didn't ever want to kill again, and he sure as hell didn't want to have to kill her. But he didn't want to stand by helplessly and watch her turn into some sort of monster, either.

He felt his chest heaving as he gasped for breath, and he wasn't quite sure if it was with lust or panic.

All he knew was, for the past few weeks he'd been full of fury and rage, and he'd taken it out on the meteor freaks he'd apprehended, and then on Titan. But now he had no one left to fight, no way of coping with the deluge of emotions that filled him, no way of hiding his sorrow and pain from her.

Something terrible might happen to her, and he had absolutely no way of preventing it. Despite his confident assurance that he'd be her personal bomb squad, he couldn't do a damn thing to stop her from mutating, and they both knew it.

He couldn't protect her, and that was what was driving him crazy. He'd always protected her against the world. But he couldn't protect her from whatever was inside her. There was nothing for him to fight.

All he could do was make sure she knew how much she meant to him. How much she'd always meant to him.

Still kissing her, he tugged her down on the couch and pushed her over, covering her body with his.

Read Chapter 4 here.