Out of the Red

Kal/Chloe
Season 8 (SPOILERS)
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Screencap from Jana.

He'd sworn he'd never use red kryptonite again.

He'd lied.

It's pressing into his skin, burning him. Beneath the skin, the nerves skitter and twitch with hunger, and blood pumps through his veins in a rapid, pounding beat. His body burns for release.

Using the stone wasn't his choice, but there's nothing compelling him to lie here beneath her and let her press it against his skin. He could take the stone from her and throw it away. He could.

But he doesn't want to. He wants it.

He wants her.

He looks up into her face, his body surging with need, and tells her bluntly what he wants.

"Fuck me, Chloe."

*****

"I want to make love to you."

He came to her apartment just to hang out, and now she's saying words he knows aren't true. Words he wants to believe, but just can't. She's getting married to Jimmy Olsen next week. If she was ever interested in pursuing a relationship with Clark, this certainly isn't the time.

He's uncomfortably aware that she isn't quite right, anyway. There's an alien artificial intelligence growing in her head. As much as he likes the words she's saying, he can't take advantage of her when she's clearly mixed up somehow. Something is going on in her brain, something disturbing and a little scary, and he isn't going to take advantage of that.

"Chloe." He shakes his head, pushing away the flicker of desire produced by her suggestive words. Okay, more than a flicker. He's half hard already, and that's just wrong. "We can't-- I mean, you and Jimmy--"

She steps closer to him, and he knows he needs to back away, but he's frozen, just looking at her. She's so pretty. She was always so pretty. And she means so much to him, and he... well, he's weak. He wants her. Deep down, he thinks he's wanted her for a long time.

Can't have her, he tells himself. She's not yours. She was never yours.

And yet he's not moving away.

She lifts her hand to his bicep, pressing her palm against his bare skin, and heat flares through him.

He looks down and sees a red stone in her hand.

*****

"God, yes."

She's stroking him now, her hands on his chest, rubbing in circles. He needs to be touched, so badly. He's dreamed of her touching him like this, for years. Not that Clark would ever admit that to himself. But when he's around red K, he's not Clark. He's Kal. And Kal knows every fantasy Clark has ever had.

And so many of them have been about Chloe.

She shoves up his blue t-shirt, and then her hands are right on his bare skin, exploring and caressing. "God, yes," he whispers again, with even more sincerity. He wants her hands all over him, everywhere. He wants her mouth on him. He wants to be inside her.

The red pebble rests in the center of his chest, heat radiating outward from it. She straddles him, her thighs on either side of his, and lowers herself, so that the front of his jeans are rubbing right against hers.

His hips thrust in an automatic response, and the friction makes heat surge through him.

"Yes," she whispers. "Yes, Clark."

Even under the influence, he has the disturbing feeling that something isn't right here. He's not as tuned in as he should be, but there's something weird about this whole situation. He isn't sure who he's making love to, if it's Chloe... or Brainiac.

Oh, hell. Who is he kidding? He knows. Of course he knows.

"This isn't you, Chloe," he says, his voice strained, his hips rising to meet hers in a steady rhythm. He's dreamed of this so many times, dreamed of her soft body against his, dreamed of straining against her, dreamed of the scent of her skin, the feel of her body beneath his hands...

"It's me." She sounds breathless. "I've always wanted to make love to you, Clark."

"No. You would never use red K on me."

"Maybe I would. If I was desperate enough."

He doesn't believe her. Maybe it's true that Chloe wants him, somewhere deep down. Or maybe Brainiac is just playing him somehow. But either way, he's absolutely certain it's Brainiac who's responsible for the red K, not Chloe. Chloe would never drug him.

Not that he cares. Not now. Right now, he'll take whatever he can get.

True, it's more than a little creepy that Brainiac is mixed up in this somehow. But Brainiac isn't really a male; it's an it, nothing more than a hyperintelligent computer program. And Kal is certain that whatever Brainiac is doing, it has nothing to do with sex. Brainiac doesn't care about sex. It cares about power and leverage and gaining control.

Chloe bends her head, her mouth beginning to explore his chest, kissing and licking in circles around the red K, and every concern he has fades out of his mind like smoke dissipated by the wind. He writhes, helpless. The skin near the kryptonite burns with a terrible need.

"Fuck me," he whispers again.

"Soon." Her tongue flickers out, teasing his nipple, and he gasps and twists beneath her, surrendering to her.

*****

"What about Jimmy?"

"What about him?" She's pushing him down onto the bed in her apartment, and he's not arguing, not really. When he's exposed to red K, he's not going to argue about sex.

He finds himself sprawled on the mattress, her slender form leaning over him. He tries to hang onto his thoughts.

"The two of you... engaged..."

The red stone is burning now, not just his skin, but his nerves and his blood and his bones. He burns with need, with desire, with sin. He burns so fiercely hot that he can't seem to articulate his thoughts. But she smiles softly, seeming to understand him without words.

"I've wanted you for so long, Clark. I just wanted to know what it would be like. I just wanted you. Just this once."

He shouldn't do this. The little part of Clark Kent that's still fighting against the red stone knows that. He should take the pebble from her, fling it away, and leave her apartment now, before this goes any further.

But the heat. God, the heat. He needs release from the heat and the tension in his body. He needs release from the fantasies that are spinning wildly in his head. He needs her, so badly he thinks he'll burn up if he doesn't get her.

"Just once," he agrees.

*****

Wet soft tongue, trailing down the center of his chest, down his abdomen. Soft puffs of breath over his skin, teasing the nerves there, raising goosebumps. Gentle hands, stroking over his shoulders and his arms.

His senses are already overwhelmed with her, and then she makes him even crazier by sitting up and stripping off her shirt and bra. He stares at her, sitting on top of him, half naked, her beautiful, full breasts fully exposed to his hungry eyes.

What's left of good, decent Clark Kent packs up and leaves the building.

He's Kal, just Kal, and Kal wants this woman more than he's ever wanted anything. He knows fucking her is going to be a rush like none other. He knows it's going to be the fulfillment of a thousand late-night fantasies.

And he's not waiting for it. He's not waiting for her. She's here, and ready and willing, and he intends to just reach out and take what she's offering.

He captures the little red stone in his fist to make sure he doesn't lose it, then grabs her and flips her over on her back. She giggles, and the bright flash of her smile draws his attention to her mouth.

Her mouth. So full. So pink. So sexy.

Somewhere far, far down in his mind, buried so deeply he's barely aware of the desire, he's always wanted to see her mouth on his cock.

He reaches down with his left hand and unfastens his jeans, pushes his boxers out of the way, and then he rolls over and gets to his feet, standing next to the bed. With the red K still firmly held in one hand, he picks her up and drops her down on her knees in front of him.

"Suck me off," he tells her.

*****

Maybe just once. Maybe five or six times. Maybe ten times a day for the rest of his life.

He imagines himself inside her, sliding into her hot cream, fucking her like an animal, and he can't imagine ever stopping.

It's the red K. He knows it is. And yet deep down he thinks it's something more. He's wanted her for a long time. Kal can admit that, even if Clark can't.

The only problem is, once he fucks her, he doesn't think he'll ever be able to let her go. Kal or Clark, on red K or off, he can't imagine letting her marry Jimmy once he's made love to her.

And maybe that's what she wants. Maybe Chloe wants to be rescued from this stupid marriage to a man she doesn't even love all that much.

If so, he's happy to rescue her.

*****

She stares up at him, her eyes wide, as if she's shocked by his bluntness. But then she's opening her mouth, and her tongue slides out, delicately brushing the head of his cock. A long uuuuhhhhhmmmphhhh sound comes out of him, and he shudders.

No one has ever done this for him before, but God knows he's imagined it enough times. She's fulfilling one of his darkest fantasies, and he has the disturbing thought that she knows it, that she's doing this for him not because she wants to, but rather because it's something so dark, so deeply buried inside him that exposing it to the light makes him vulnerable to her... or to the other entity in her brain.

She traces him with her tongue again, and again, licking at the fragile skin the way she licked at his nipple earlier. He closes his eyes, letting his spine arch, giving into her completely. So good, God, so good...

The ache of longing and need is worse than ever, the heat is flaming hotter than ever inside his veins, and he needs release more desperately than he ever has. The red K scorches his palm like a brand as he clutches it.

He wants to drop onto the edge of the bed, yank her into his lap, and thrust into her, taking her as his, but he also wants this. Wants it a hell of a lot. Wants her tongue on his flesh and all that heat and moisture and the suction of her lips closing around him...

*****

"Chloe, be honest with me. What's going on here? What do you want?"

She smiles at him, and lowers her head, brushing her lips over his. The red K burns against his arm, so hot that he thinks he might have a fever.

"I want you," she tells him.

He knows that he ought to ask more questions, to try to make sure that she's in her right mind, to press her for details. But the red K is making his blood boil with need... and she wants him.

That's good enough for him.

*****

Her tongue is moving on him faster now, swirling around the head, and his erection is starting to quiver and jerk. He can't take much more of this teasing. He needs more.

"Go ahead," he mutters, his voice dark with need. "Go on."

He looks down, watching her lips part, watching her take the head into her mouth. He looks too big for her, but she manages it, and seeing her mouth actually close around him, watching as he thrusts eagerly and she takes even more of him... well, it's the sexiest damn thing he can imagine.

Pleasure and heat overwhelm him. The red K in his hand, scalding his skin, is nothing compared to the sexual burning that consumes him. He throws back his head, moving harder, thrusting, pulling out, and thrusting again, pushing deeper each time, fucking her mouth. Some tiny remnant of Clark Kent hopes he's not hurting her, but he can't stop the instictive motion of his hips.

Her hands dig into his ass, urging him on, compelling him to move harder and faster. And God, she's taken so much of him into her mouth now, he has no idea how, she's obviously more of an expert than he would have realized, and that thought ought to anger him, but it's just so hot so wet so fucking powerful...

He hears himself crying out, with need with lust with pleasure with heat with ecstasy. So deep into her, so much a part of her, so desperate a need, and maybe she's Chloe and maybe she's something else but right now he doesn't care, doesn't care about anything but the pleasure swelling inside him, pressing against his skin from the inside out until he thinks he might explode. God yes yes yes...

She releases him just before he comes, pulling back at the last possible moment, and he can hardly stop himself from screaming with rage and thwarted need.

"Chlo," he says instead, gasping frantically. "Don't stop now."

"You want to come." She's still kneeling at his feet, looking up at him. Her voice is low and husky, so sexual he could come just listening to her.

"Yes." He can barely restrain himself from reaching down and jerking off, but he knows that isn't what he really wants. "Come on, Chlo, don't tease me, give it to me..."

She lowers her head and licks him again, a soft, delicate brush of tongue against wildly sensitive flesh, and he gives a strangled roar. Some of the rage escapes him. "Just do it, damn you!"

"Not yet." She licks him again, and again. "Tell me how you feel about me."

Typical female move, he thinks, not without bitterness. Trying to use sex to get a guy to confess love.

But no... this isn't Chloe. Chloe would never tease him this way. If she really wanted him, she'd be his entirely. She would never in a million years make sex into a power play.

Anyway, he doesn't love her, damn it. He doesn't. He's wanted her for a long time, but that doesn't mean he loves her. Maybe Clark does, but Kal's just trying to get off. Kal doesn't care what Clark thinks, and he doesn't care about Chloe. He doesn't care about anyone but himself.

"I think you've got a hot mouth," he snarls. "Now give it to me."

Velvet traces over him, finding the most sensitive spots and lingering. He's harder than he's ever been in his life, dripping precome, so hard and desperate...

"That's not enough," she whispers. "Tell me the truth, Clark."

The truth scares the hell out of him. It's the one thing he can't say. He just can't. He isn't going to say he loves her, damn it. Kal doesn't love anyone, and Clark-- Clark can't make himself vulnerable that way, not when she's getting married next week. She wants too much, damn it. Or Brainiac does.

He isn't quite sure what's going on here, or who he's talking to.

All he knows is, he wants release.

She's still licking him, teasing him, and he can't stand it any more. He reaches down and wraps a hand around the aching, swollen shaft of his cock. If she won't take care of it, then he's going to, goddamnit.

"Go ahead," she whispers. "But you know it won't be as good."

He does know that. Even so, he thrusts hungrily into his own hand, his palm sliding easily along the thick, wet shaft. She licks at the head again, and pleasure throbs through him, so good he all but convulses.

"Just tell me how you feel about me, and I'll give you what you want," she whispers.

"Fuck you." He's pissed off, and his hand is beginning to move in a nice steady rhythm now, easing the ache. Yes. That's a relief, kind of. Thank God.

But then her tongue teases him, licking at the slit, and he hears himself sob. Suddenly he aches worse than before.

"You don't mean that." She's speaking between little flickers of her tongue. "You love me, Clark."

He squeezes his eyes shut, and thrusts harder into his clenched fist. A knot of desperate need twists inside him. "Stop it," he growls. "Just stop it."

"You know you love me." Her tongue is flickering against him faster, giving him so much pleasure he can hardly bear it. "Tell me."

"I--" He doesn't want to say it. No matter how much Kal wants to deny it, deep down Clark is still inside him... and Clark is afraid. Afraid of making himself vulnerable. Not just to Chloe, but of whatever is inside Chloe, making him jump through hoops for her.

Kal-- Clark-- knows this isn't just Chloe, not exactly. It is, and yet it isn't. It's his best friend and his worst enemy entwined, maybe permanently, and that makes him feel all tangled up and confused inside. He can't say he loves her. He can't.

"Tell me," she whispers, and gives him a long, thorough stroke with her tongue.

He sobs, jerking himself off harder. He wants to come, needs to come, so badly, but he can't seem to... he just can't quite...

Her hand slides around and begins to play with his balls, while her tongue trails over his swollen cock, and he feels himself shaking with need.

"Tell me," she murmurs again.

"God." His hand moves fiercely as he jacks himself like crazy, and her tongue slides over him in smooth, long strokes, and suddenly he can't stop the words from falling from him in a frantic rush. "I love you, Chlo, I love you, I love you so much, I've always loved you..."

Her mouth opens, and suddenly she's taking him inside again, and he sobs in relief and ecstasy, thrusting into her hot, wet mouth, giving into her completely, letting her transport him to a place he's never been before.

He's come before, of course, but never like this. Ecstasy sweeps over him in long, pulsing waves, and he hears his own voice raised, hears himself sobbing that he loves her, over and over again, while his come gushes into her mouth in hot, thick bursts.

The ferocity of his climax shakes him right down to his core. Afterward he collapses back onto the bed, the red K still clutched in his hand.

What the hell just happened? he wonders fuzzily.

He never expected to feel this vulnerable. Kal doesn't do vulnerable. Kal is callous and untouchable and hard as nails.

And yet he feels like she just ripped his soul out of his body.

He's suddenly very afraid she's going to tear it into little tiny pieces and wipe her feet on the shreds.

Exhausted, he nevertheless forces his eyes open... and sees a stranger staring back at him.

She looks like Chloe Sullivan, but Chloe's never looked at him so dismissively, so scornfully, as if he were a cockroach scuttling across her kitchen floor. He knows who's looking at him, out of Chloe's hazel eyes, and a cold shiver skitters down his spine.

"You love this woman, Kal-El," she says, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her voice is different, with a cool, detached quality that isn't at all like her normal warm, sweet tones. "You would do almost anything for her."

"Fuck off," he says, but without a lot of conviction.

"She doesn't love you, you know." The voice is edged with sardonic amusement. "She really wants to marry this Olsen."

"Fuck off."

"She would never have sought you out this way. She had no sexual interest in you, none whatsoever. It was all my doing."

Anguish slices through him despite the warm buzz of the red K. "Shut. Up."

"And now you've had a taste of what you can never have, Kal-El. Just a little present, from me to you."

Kal closes his eyes. Inside him, a primitive rage is roaring like an out-of-control forest fire. He wants to kill Brainiac, to rescue his woman, to fix this somehow.

But even his irrational, temperamental Kal side knows he can't kill Brainiac without killing Chloe in the process. He's lost her.

And if Brainiac's right, he never had her to begin with. She loves Jimmy, not him. He loves her, more than he's ever loved anyone... but she doesn't love him back.

He wishes he could take back his confession of love, but it's too late for that. It's too late to protect himself. He hadn't told her he loved her just because he'd wanted a climax, and they both knew it. Those words had spilled from the deepest part of him, a clear, pure truth beyond any other truth in his life.

Well played, he thinks bitterly. Brainiac used Chloe to fulfill his darkest fantasy, compelled him to expose his true emotions... and then ripped it all away from him.

Even with the red K to ease the pain, he aches with loss.

She reaches down and takes the red K out of his hand, then stands up and backs away. At the loss of the anesthesizing stone, grief pours over him, and he feels tears prickling at his eyelids.

"You'd better get going," she says. Her voice is even and calm, and he can't tell if it's Chloe or Brainiac. Both, he thinks. They're intertwined now, to the point where he's not sure he can ever get her back. He's really lost her.

No. He never had her. Never.

He wants to roll over and bury his face in the pillow, to breathe in her fragrance and sob with the pain of his loss, but he can't. Not in front of the artificial intelligence that's inside of her. He's already made himself vulnerable enough.

Still weak from the physical pleasure she brought him, he struggles to his feet, fastens his jeans, and turns and heads for the door. He doesn't utter another word, because he's afraid of what he might say, afraid that he might drop to his knees and beg her to come back to him, beg her to love him.

He closes the door behind him and heads down the stairs, shaking with anger and pain... and guilt. Without the red K to numb his feelings, he has guilt on top of everything else. He suddenly realizes he took advantage of Chloe, when someone else was in charge of her body. He hates the thought that she was forced into performing oral sex on him.

Intellectually, he knows that he was out of control, too, that the "someone else" had manipulated him just as much as Chloe. And yet he can't help but feel that if he hadn't wanted Chloe so much, maybe he could have resisted.

But he had wanted her that much. He'd wanted her more than he'd ever realized. And that, he thinks bitterly, was the whole point. Brainiac had made him face everything he felt for Chloe, made him realize how much he loved her... and then ripped her away from him.

It feels like he's had one of his arms ripped off.

He goes down the stairs blindly, passes through the light late-night crowd in the Talon, and wanders out onto the Main Street of Smallville. Somehow, he thinks, he has to fix this. His best friend has been taken over by a soulless, evil, amoral machine.

And he loves his best friend. He never knew how much he loved her until tonight.

Brainiac, he thinks, engineered this encounter to demoralize Clark, to crush his spirit. But Brainiac doesn't understand people. Never has. He remembers Chloe's snarky observation, a few years ago: Robo-professor knows as much about human nature as R2D2.

And it's true. Because Clark is beginning to think that Brainiac has made a mistake. Rather than demoralizing Clark, his realization of how much he loves Chloe has just made him that much more determined to fight for her.

Somehow, he's going to save her. He's not sure how, not yet. But somehow, some way, he'll save her.

He has to.

Because for the first time, he realizes he can't live without her.

-The End-