#okay let's stay calm
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There's absolutely nothing worse than when I get a thousand words into a story and decide that I low key hate it
#i don't really hate it#it's just like. what is the point?#i'm just not super enthusiastic about where it's going and none of the other options for where i could go with it are very interesting#and it's supposed to be about hera. HERA#if i'm writing something about captain hera syndulla the myth the legend herself the greatest pilot in the galaxy etc.#then it's got to be GOOD#hmm. i. might be shelving this fic idea for the time being#in theory it's decent in practice it isn't what i want#so there's that#HECK this is annoying#okay let's stay calm#i'll set this idea aside#work on something else in the time being#and then come back to what i'm writing for hera in spectre week after that#easy. possibly#WHY AM I INCAPABLE OF COMING UP WITH GOOD FIC IDEAS ANYMORE#i swear i've had all my good ideas#which i hate with a fiery passion#i hate the fact that it feels like i'm out of fun ideas#i don't want that to be true! i want to be still capable of coming up with fic concepts!#but the brain is not braining right now#it's super frustrating#*deep deep sigh*#i shall survive#just had to rant a bit
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nammie what was the reason for this?
I’m taking that cross away from you IMMEDIATELY 🤦🏾♀️
Mini nam-gyu says: I was feeling joyful :)
#I LOVE THESE IMAGES#SOOOO MUCH#YOU GUYS#OH MY GOD#sorry let me calm myself#I’ve been going crazy abt these images on my main blog like actually I adore them#he’s soooo ….. 🤤 oh my great heavens#okay sorry sorry sorry. I must stay focused#nam gyu#nam gyu squid game#squid game#mini nam gyu answers
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I don't know if the dates line up for this, but what if in the late sixties, several years after John's death, when Betty's living on her own, she gets pregnant by an alpha who is drafted to the Vietnam war. And she can't cope on her own and is so scared, so she panics and moves back in with her mother (and Mickey who's like 8) whilst pregnant and it either makes or breaks their relationship. For gale this is terrible because at least when he was in his twenties and pregnant out of wedlock, he at least had John by his side for most of it, and lots of people he trusted in the stalag to help. Meanwhile Betty has ignored everything he said and may end up a widow like him, except at least he had nearly two decades with John. Also Betty is still calling him Gale and it's driving him up the wall because it makes Mickey ask "why doesn't Betty call you mom like we do?"
#NOBODY MOVE! EVERYONE REMAIN CALM#anyway . YEAH. YEAH LIKE OKAY YESS I CAN TOTALLY GET ONBOARD WITH THIS#and the timeline makes sense like if it was say 1968 shed be 24#which was only a year younger than gale when he got pregnant#and GODDD BETTY HAVING TO GO THRU ALL THIS ALONE OHHH#im gonna say im gonna tweak it just a little bit and say she and gale havent really talked much recently. a few phone calls here and there#while betty gets her masters/works or something#and gale knows shes seeing a guy but he and betty havent seen each other since christmas#and betty shows up at his door six months pregnant in the middle of the night its pouring rain#and just says ‘’mom…’’ and looks like shes about to burst into tears#and he brings her inside and makes tea or hot chocolate even and just lets her talk. and cry#and doesnt say anything . sometimes you just need to see your mom again#and betty stays with gale and mickey for awhile#ask#cleven egan household
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I just got home and I was gonna be all excited for stuff but now I'm upset so. yay.
#it's just my brother again#he fractured his wrist while riding an electric scooter#he's fine. no pain whatsoever and has some kind of brace thing. but he acts like he can't do anything.#I asked him to sort the dishes so I can do them. I didn't even ask him to do them. I asked him before camp. he had all day plus last night.#did he do it? no. oh but he did do something! fed and watered the dogs. the only thing he does and he doesn't even do it everyday.#then I tell him his dog pooped in the floor. because he did. he never lets that dog out. he started getting mad and saying it was my cat.#my cat poops in the bathroom. but my cat is also let outside whenever he wants.#he takes no responsibility for anything and does absolutely nothing to help. then he just loves to irritate me until I can't help but-#-yell and get mad at him. I don't know why but I always resort to violence. better than biting myself like a used to.#he still makes fun of me for that. he just doesn't understand. he doesn't understand anything.#he has no sympathy for others and only cares about himself and himself first. it makes me so mad when he makes fun of others for no reason.#I'm just so tired of being the bad sister. he doesn't understand. he doesn't help he doesn't do anything. he hates me.#god I'm such a terrible sister. I need to calm down sometimes but it's just so hard. especially when he pushes and pushes for me to explode.#I can't just apologize. then he would think that messing with me is okay. I don't want that. I don't know what to do.#I didn't even ask him to pick it up I just pointed out it was there. I was making a joke about the trash bag and he took it seriously.#my mom's even disappointed. she keeps telling us to stop but it's so hard. I try so hard and he continues to push be to the brink.#he has to take medicine to stay calm but it makes him a zombie. that isn't my brother. but it keeps him so calm it's quiet for once.#I'm so tired. I'm going to eat and then take a shower. but now that I'm close to crying it'll shake a while to actually eat.
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Of those who went to Playful Land, Vil came out of it with a surprising aversion to all things puppets. And a constant Urge to scratch at the right side of his face, fearful of feeling wood rooted in there rather than human skin. Even months afterward, he'd still feel a certain ick when dealing with anything related to puppets and will have a blatantly obvious fear response to finding even stray sticks in his hair.
He wasn't really able to stomach having ribbons on his wrists or even wearing harnesses for commercial or modeling gigs he did that year for a bit either. He'd tossed the clothes from Playful Land in the back of the Film club's costume shed, as he didn't want them to go to waste even still. He'd even asked the other's willing to give theirs up to store them in there too. He doesn't think he would be able to use them for anything, though, as just the idea of wearing that ensemble again is Abhorrent to him. Even the mere thought of Epel try one on left him feeling nauseous.
#hc; vil#//Couldn't sleep alone for a bit. Stayed w Rook bc if he woke up in a Panic; Rook would be THE ideal person to calm him & not judge or pry#//Ace and Jack in particular also left with a bad impression of the place; even if grudgingly admitting Some of it was fun#//Not that they'd Ever want to go through all THAT again; they both swore on it & to Never let the other Freshies get such ideas either#//Both also 100% had their fair share of scolding from actually scratching at their faces where the masks were rooted in#hc; ace (twst)#hc; jack (twst)#//Kalim thought it was fun; tho he did feel a familiar numbness over it for weeks after; the same way he usually did after being kidnapped#//Naturally; he didn't tell Jamil or anybody else that; bc to him it was another experience he had to suck up and bear like always#hc; kalim#//Floyd and Jade both were more amused by the peril they experienced; and even told Azul in great detail how they actually fretted over#never seeing him again; had Fellow been successful in turning them all into puppets and selling them off to the highest bidder#//They have no idea why Azul of all people got more stressed about that than they were#hc; jade (twst)#hc; floyd#//Ortho came out of it adding Fellow's personality & motivations to his database and learning to be more conniving out of it; so he's chill#//Though now he Also knows a great deal about experiencing 'fear' than he ever had before. It's just puzzling!#hc; ortho#//Leo; like Vil; ended up utterly unable to think back to his time at Playful Land as fun; considering Everything#//And likewise does also scratch at his face a little on occasion; tends to dig his claws into his skin more though#//As if he's actively feeling for any remnants of wood to be buried deep in there; and to ground himself that there aren't#//For him in particular; he got terrible episodes of sleep paralysis for weeks after; forced back into the feeling of his body stiffening#//He of course fronts everything is okay; but he Hates the feeling that he actually wound up more affected by it than he'd care to admit#//Esp considering Jack was in danger--that's the part that GOT to Leona the most. Even kept a careful eye on the lad more afterward too#hc; leona#//Lils brushed it off like nothing; considering his life experiences. More than anything; he felt guilty in not being able to DO much to#prevent the youngins from being taken or frightened by the experience; since he'd gotten captured so early on#//He did try to check in on everyone after with the subtlety of a freight train; but didn't exactly Pry further when refused#//Not like he has any better coping mechanisms than the others do; he'd take their words of handling things themselves as truth#hc; lilia
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Oh my god I'm so sorry I had a tolerance break and I just got so fucking high oh my god oh no oh no I'm so sorry for this
#ITS A GOOD WEEEEEED#ITS BAD APPLEEEEEE#i LOVE IT I LOVE IT#so good also i have been having a HORRIBLE TIME SLEEPING and this is my like 4/5 day idk anymore now on just#a handful of hours of sleep a night and JUST lastnight i was able to sleep but it was a reverse cycle so i was sleeping during rhe day and#fell asleep at 5 am eo like#im RIGHHT about to have stayed up for another 24 hrs and its just fucking Tough on me rn#and i was having a fucking TOUGH time with it than i have been and i just needed to calm down#may have taken too much#lmaooooo#i kinda??? fucking??? guess??????#like i buy ounces and ill bake it in my air fryer LMAO and ill just#mix with peanut butter ?#and it fucking i am telling you. iam TELLING YOU#its the best way to get high#for me anyaay i love it#so cheap so longlasting so potent#but uh also gotta get better as measuring#like i wanna fucking get one of those scales soooooo bad#so bad#so so bad#lets hope i get it one day but for now i fuckin EYEBALL THAT SHIT#like the professor making those bitches in the pot#i am the bitch in the fucking pot#just pouring more pot into my pot pot#DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND#okay i love you goodbyeimsorry#MARIAHS MOUTHIN OFF
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I need to make more hyperspecific posts about kaihen and what I want to happen in kaihen. I need my monologuing on my blog to be so noticeable that when I yell and scream that something has finally happened people will flood into my inbox saying, "Congratulations, I knew you knew it all along" or "Congratulations, it finally happened". No it can't be something as simple as "There's going to be a revolution". that's easy sauce, it's frankly MORE likely to have a revolution than not considering bm and kks. it HAS to be on the level of the bunsen and beaker reveal. I gotta think about what hill I'm dying on
#just thinking thoughts...#real question though do I not want zemu to make it so badly because I'm forever chasing the high of sumiko's character arc#bc if so I should let that go. he could never be sumiko. sumiko was showstopping.#huh wait I said something along these lines right in one of my essays#'At the edge of the world the protagonist begs his loved one to stay...'#I cannot IMAGINE it being anyone else.#OBVIOUSLY SUMIKO WAS NOT INTRODUCED UNTIL A THIRD OF THE WAY INTO THE SERIES#SO WHO FUCKING KNOWS RIGHT.#but genuinely I cannot imagine the 'loved one' being anyone but zemu...#unless? roue? ? ? eyes? ? ? ? ? ? ?#okay NOW my high chasing is getting a bit overwhelming. calm down man. roue is dead she's dead except if she's notttt#dude wait if it's zemu it's going to be so good. like FREED FROM THE SHACKLES of their prior master apprentice bond#they finally stand as equals. type of situation. you know#bc we're full committing on the family abolishing theme#stray kaihen thoughts
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THIS IS THE GOATERISM THEY TALK ABOUT IN THE BIBLE OR WHATEVERRR MATTEO BERRETTINI
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Have I told you guys about the fucked up dreams I've been having recently? I've been having some fucked up dreams lately. yeah <3
#sorry this is mostly about a dream I had yesterday and if I just say it it's gonna sound so creepypasta-y#like I have a lot of creepypasta-y dreams it's just how my dreams have always worked hehe#It wasn't fucked up because it was scary or anything it was fucked up because of how I felt in it#how to describe it...like I was like almost too calm and accepting of my fate#like okay previous dream context (whether this was context from another actual dream or just. lore my brain made up idk)#I got sentenced to execution. It's...really hard to describe the context without it sounding really silly.#like it was a part of some sick game that a person planned out and it all ended in a white maze room#I was told I could either choose to go free from a month and then be collected for execution or be trapped in the room forever but alive#and I chose to be executed. everyone knew. we all even had silly inside jokes about it ehe#like my friends were picking music out for it. it was really silly hehe!#but the person who came to collect me for execution was so striking. she was like. almost literally a doll#A big doll!! Like she was so so tall!! she actually shrank to be more my size as the dream went on. she was strikingly pretty#and kind. she was so kind#we walked around and said goodbye to everyone. she made friendly conversation. she guided me through how everything was going to go#god the tenderness of it all makes me sqee a lil aha. a little fucked up I think#it was self-inflicted you see. Rose bushes over a tall fence. that's why she was so tall. to help me over#I caught on pretty quickly that she was a person who decided to stay in the room instead of being executed#that's what becomes of them. they become subservient to the game master. they're made to collect the ones who chose to leave and die later#she told me that deep down she kinda wished that doing this for him would convince him to make her human again and to let her be free#I told her that it was bullshit and that he'd never do that. and she was like. yeah. but a girl can dream right?#another one of those dreams that have lines that stick out in my head as well...okay one of them was just really funny#'Hey guys' 'I'm being executed today :D' 'oh. okay!'#dhdhdh#'It's scary isn't it?' 'yeah. it is' 'Well. It'll all be over soon'#like gwah. gwahhhh#'There is something wrong inside of you' levels of impact on my psyche I reckon#me and the doll girl kissed a few times. it was weirdly quite natural. nothing intensive#but I think we both had an understanding that we weren't seeing eachother again and we cared about eachother#it was so greatly platonic and nice. yearning for something I will never experience aha ^^;#Idk if I even want to be in any sort of QPR but it was definitely nice in this dream
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So Toru (my shiba inu) is almost like 5 and a half months old at this point and boyyyy has he started to get real stubborn lately. I'm not quite sure whether it's his teething or that he's getting close to his puberty, but he's quite challenging to deal with right now. As a shiba inu, he's quite stubborn to begin with, but now... :D
#not to mention that he hatessss it when i put his harness on#whenever i try to put it on he bares his teeth at me and may try to bite my hand (gently) as a warning#made a breakthrough today though as i just kept talking to him with a calm voice even though he was biting my hand at the same time#told him that its okay and he soon let go of me#as i put the harness on him and petted him he then calmed down and i could pet him more and he completely relaxed and looked really content#proves that even though toru is having a difficult time right now#i just gotta stay patient and gentle yet firm with him#dog talk#personal
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had my first anxiety attack in 5 years yesterday!!!
#all bc i suck at focusing and my prof made some contradictory errors in our syllabus#i want to hope it'll be okay in the end but i just can't let myself hope i just can't#my graduation is literally riding on this so i just have to try to destress and stay calm somehow#kay rambles#tw anxiety#anxiety tw
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today has been a really long and incredibly stressful day and my dad's okay now, but my mom had to take him to the ER tonight because he's been having some issues and needed to get checked out and he also fell today so they went and did that
as soon as they get back and were trying to get into the house i guess the last of my dad's energy just gave out and he just kinda sunk down to his knees and then slowly slid onto the floor and neither of us could get him up
we tried to help him grab onto his wheelchair and work with him but he just couldn't do it and neither of us were strong enough to lift him without making things worse
our family friend is out of town and my mom tried calling another friend but nobody was able to come so we had EMS come out and thankfully two guys were able to lift him into his chair and help us get him into bed and settled
he's finally resting after a long, long fucking day and my mom's going to take off work tomorrow so she can be with him
i am...beyond exhausted so i am also going to go to sleep and hope to god tomorrow's a better day
#he got a new oxygen machine recently and we're wondering if maybe the level is too high now#she's going to talk to one of his doctors tomorrow and see what he says#but with his condition and everything it's possible that's what's the cause is because ever since we got that thing#it's like he's been going downhill where he had just started to make a turn around#and they did a bunch of lab work and stuff on him tested him for covid and everything and he's not sick#but he's just been acting bizarre lately and then everything today#he also slept a lot yesterday almost like he was in a coma#i kept checking on him and even tried to wake him up a few times#because at that point i was worried he wouldn't sleep through the night and i know that throws him off#but he was dead asleep and normally he's not like that#so i dunno#all i know is i've been scared out of my fucking wits multiple times today#and have cried a shit ton#and just...yeah#oh also when they went to the er i stayed behind to hold down the fort and take care of the pupper#so i thought okay let me go get in the pool for a little bit to decompress and calm down#should be fine it's been sunny all day long#wouldn't ya know it a fucking storm started blowing in right as i got in the water#but that's fine#i got in for a few minutes at least and that helped#and now i'm gonna sleep and that'll help too#and tomorrow's going to be a different fucking day than this one and that's all i can ask for
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𝗜 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄, 𝗜 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄, 𝗜 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄
You confess your affections to an unsuspecting Superman, but your best friend Clark can’t know about your crush, okay? You’d die of embarrassment. (Or, Clark falls in love while Superman does most of the wooing.) fem, 8k
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
You never thought you’d get to talk to Superman. You've never been in that kind of danger, and you never hoped to be. You hadn’t wanted to talk to Superman because you know this is weird. You can’t have a crush on someone you don’t know. It’s idol worship, a celebrity fixation, and Superman is the perfect target. You’re not alone in loving everything about him —it’s easy. You aren’t ever confronted with the bad in his good.
And then he’s standing in front of you with his hands braced on your shoulders, and there’s blood running down your face from your temple and you’re crying, because it hurts, because you’re in the panic of your life and not sure what to do next.
He frowns at you with an unwavering gentleness.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “take a deep breath, ma’am. Deep breath.”
“It’s bl– bleeding.”
“I know.”
You shudder through tears as Superman brings his cape up and rips. It startles you, sending fat tears plinking down your cheek. You hold your breath as he brings his scrap to your face, dabbing the wetness from your cheeks before turning the fabric and holding it to your temple firmly.
You gasp painfully under his touch, desperate for air.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his voice a new shade, “it’s alright, you’re going to be fine, I promise. I’m gonna press this to your head, and we’ll see if we can get this bleeding stopped. As soon as it does, I’ll take you down and we can get you some real help.”
You nod, skittish as a scared deer, eyes as wide as they’ll go to follow his movements. It doesn’t hurt any more than the injury itself as he presses down on your head wound. He sighs in sympathy anyway. A broad hand spreads behind your back, familiar in a way, or maybe it’s the way he’s talking to you now. Like he knows you as you know him.
The photos of him online don’t do him justice.
“It’s not bad. I know it hurts, but,” —his hand finds your shoulder, squeezes lightly— “it’s because it’s so high up, alright? They always bleed more. It doesn’t mean this is anything to worry about beyond fixing you up and getting you some pain relief.”
“You– you’re real help.”
He holds your gaze. “Yeah?”
You wonder if he can feel the heat of your blush. It’s all over. He’s lucky your head wound doesn’t start spurting. “Yeah– yeah, I– Superman.”
His smile is everything. “What?” he asks patiently.
“I’m a big fan of– of yours.”
“You are?”
“You’re so brave,” you breathe out in a rush, though it hurts your head. “So brave. And– and…”
“Sorry,” he murmurs, putting a little more pressure on your temple. “Thank you for being a fan. All I want is to keep everyone safe.”
“You’re so gentle with everyone, even the aliens, and– you’re pretty…”
“Pretty?” he asks, pure surprise in his voice, his hand falling off of your arm.
You wince. “Yeah. Yes. Handsome. Sorry, you must get told that so much.”
“It’s okay. I won’t hold you to anything you say. You’re injured, after all.”
His teasing tone pretty much flies over your head. “No, I’m not lying. I mean it. You’re really lovely, and what you do, it makes you lovelier, it does–” You nearly choke on your enthusiasm. He has to know.
“Don’t get wound up, I’m sorry. I believe you. Let’s try to stay calm.”
Your head is aching in a new way, now. Less the sting of a wide cut, more beating, like a whirl in your own brain twisting and shaking, dizziness alive behind your eyes and threatening to knock you over. You clutch at Superman’s arm and he knows what you need, slipping his free arm behind your back before you can collapse.
“I don’t usually get crushes on people,” you inform him. “But it was hard not to get one with you. You’re even nicer than I thought you’d be.”
“It’s easy to be nice to you. Easy as breathing.”
Superman hugs you. You swear he does. But when the concussion begins to clear up and your confusion wanes in a hospital bed outside of the battle zone, you realise that he was holding you upright. Superman doesn’t know you, he never will, and you’re okay with it in the grand scheme of things. If you had to meet him, you’re glad it was while he was keeping you safe. He really is a good guy.
—
A week later, Clark Kent is waiting for you at the doors to the Daily Planet.
“Are you sure you don’t need more rest?” he asks, forcibly removing your handbag from your shoulder to carry himself.
“I’m sure.”
“It’s okay if you need more time to recover. You’re still wearing a dressing.”
“It’s a bandaid, Clark, and it’s to hide the scar for now, it’s–”
“It’s still a wound.”
“It’s fine! You saw it, you know it’s fine.”
Your overbearing best friend had surprise-visited you the day after your injury despite a text to tell him to stay home. You’re fine. It was a cut and the mildest concussion you could’ve had. You didn’t throw up, or collapse, you’d simply gotten confused and bled all over Metropolis’ finest super hero until his hands were more red than white.
“It looked awful, it still does.”
“It looks fine. Even the nurse said it was a small cut, in an unfortunate place.”
“Very unfortunate.”
You follow him to the elevator bank with a frown. “Clark, you don’t have to sulk.”
“I’m not sulking! I just don’t see what’s wrong with staying in bed for now.”
“I have stuff to do, babe. I have to work. I have to move forward, it barely hurts anymore.”
He likes being called babe, simpering accordingly. “Well, you’re sitting down all day. Doctor’s orders.”
“Show me your oath and I’ll consider it.”
“Please?”
He looks like he could cry. Not that he will, but like he could if you keep saying no to him. And despite all your grievances with being treated like you’re fragile now, you decide to take it easy, if only to give Clark the peace of mind. “Okay, sure. You can wait on me all day.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Clark’s your best friend because —no matter how much it might confuse you— he seems to really love you, maybe from the moment he met you. You started at the Daily Planet and he took to you like a duck takes to water. Everything you said made him laugh, every recipe you wrote was one he had to try. And you figured it was something boys tend to do, right? Pretend you‘re interesting until they get what they want from you, but Clark’s never asked for anything else, loving you wholly and expecting nothing in return.
You let him swing an arm around your shoulders, a mirror of himself those few nights ago where he’d come shaky and sorry to see you. He apologised for not being there when you got hurt, as if he could’ve stopped it.
“I’m sick of working already,” you say.
“Then let’s go home.”
“Clark. I’m being conversational.”
“Don’t tease me,” he pleads, sounding all sudden and whiney. You squirm out of his arms to poke his side. Gets more solid by the day. Idiot boy.
“Have you been working out?”
“Can you stop?”
“Can I stop? You’re a nightmare.”
Clark threatens to superglue you to your deskchair, but he titters around you hopelessly all day.
—
You’re laying on the gravel roof of your apartment on top of a sun lounger, trying to decide if getting some sun is worth all the noise. Beeping, birds, cars, doors, the wind, this high up and occasionally curving through buildings to kiss your skin —noise, noise, noise. Your phone is ringing while you ignore it, desperate to get through the last chapter of your book without interruption. You have thus far been foiled, and figured nobody’d be able to find you up here.
The quick, awful zip of a high impact sounds somewhere close. You nearly topple from your lounger, a hand pressed to your chest, your heart racing near painfully at the surprise. You whip your head to the horizon looking for smoke, but there’s nothing. For a few minutes, you can’t hear anything at all.
The shape of him descends before your mind can catch up. Then, he’s there in one piece. A touchable dream, Carol Ann Duffy at work and torturing you in passing. You’ve seen a ton of photos of him, hundreds, videos of girls recording to ask him sweet questions, and you’ve never seen him smile so shyly. You shiver violently down your arms, but Superman isn’t here to hurt you.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“You were?” you ask.
“I wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”
You sit up properly. The book in your lap makes a crunching noise that you happily ignore. “I’m fine. I’m fine, did you– You’re here to see if I’m okay?”
His smile strengthens. “Is that okay?”
You stammer, “Of course it’s okay!” A flush rises from your chest to your cheeks as he stays there. He’s not leaving until you answer. Holy fuck. “I’m great, Superman. All healed up.”
“Are you sure? You still have–” He gestures to your bandaid.
“It’s to keep it clean in the daytime. I take it off before bed.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No, of course not.”
“Why of course not?”
Your heart makes a funny pulse. Handsome isn’t the right word for him. There’s something special about it, otherworldly, literally, the cut of his jaw somehow sharp and soft at once, his pert nose, his eyes gone light in the sunshine and framed by dark lashes that beg to be touched. You imagine running a fingertip along them, gently brushing them up for no reason at all, and he narrows his gaze at you in your silence. The shorts you’re wearing have you worrying you’re underdressed in his eyes. They’re pajamas, pink with black polka dots and edgings. You’d had the forethought to wear a short-sleeve rather than a vest lest one of your neighbours find themselves up here with the same quiet idea. Superman’s fully clothed in comparison.
His boots look formidable next to your puppy dog socks.
“It doesn’t hurt,” you promise, half-lying and uncaring. Superman saved you. He’s perfect, so your head doesn’t hurt.
“You seem a little flustered, is all.”
“Oh. Oh, well, it’s hot out, and I’m not like, super used to being in your company. Or any company, um, like yours.”
“You’ve never met a metahuman?”
“No, never.”
“We’re just like everybody else.”
You laugh.
“No, really,” he says, idling toward you, red boots treading the gravel down flat. “I’m just like you, you don’t have to be nervous.”
“Sorry.”
“Now what do you have to be sorry for?”
You laugh again, a giggle you’d never admit to. He’s strangely intimidating; a presence, but not an imposing one.
“What are you reading?” he asks, nodding to your lap.
“Oh, uh. Uh, it’s called The Ocean?” You straighten up the book to show him the cover. “It’s good, uh, the main character is a young boy who wants to find his father, I think it’s supposed to be a take on The Odyssey,”
“Why is he looking for his father?”
“He’s missing after a terrible war. It’s one of those ones that hurts the entire time but the ending has wrapped it up so nicely, it was worth it.”
“Maybe I’ll read it, too. You look like someone who has great taste.”
“You can borrow my copy.”
Superman’s gaze narrows again. “You’re finished?”
“Yeah, I finished it before you got here.”
He waits in the quiet. You’re sure he’s going to call you out for your lie. It's not as though a Kryptonian truth-radar would be outside of the realm of possibility.
Superman finally smiles. “I promise to bring it back,” he says simply.
“Sure. Well, take your time.”
—
How long can it possibly take a superhero to read one book?
You shouldn't be thinking about it again. Poor Clark is sitting in the corner of the couch with your feet stuck under his thighs, telling you about the grocery store widow who asks him for help to take her groceries out to her car whenever she sees him. She’d spotted him at the produce section today and dibsed him, and Clark doesn’t mind (though she leaves her car at the back of the parking lot no matter the weather). In fact, Clark doesn’t bring it up to complain. He’s sympathising with her, how lonely she must be.
You try to shake Superman from your head while Clark is talking, but the thoughts of him won’t budge.
You’d made a fool of yourself on the roof. Superman had taken your book to be polite. He probably won’t come back.
“Hey.”
You lift your head.
Clark’s looking at you. Big blue eyes in a classic face, the line of his glasses dark and heavy against his brow. They trace your expression, searching for the misery you’ve failed to hide, until he finds it in the creases of your eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. His voice is weak with worry.
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.”
“It’s really not.”
“It definitely is. You can tell me about anything, you know. Or you don’t have to tell me, but I’ll be here for you no matter what. Some food for thought.”
“Food for thought. Eat this, Kent,” you say, jabbing him at the top of the thigh with your heel.
Clark grabs your foot. “Come on. I know something’s wrong, and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me, but…” He lets your foot smack down into the top of his thigh to grab his tea instead.
“Isn’t that cold?” you ask.
“It’s tepid,” he allows after a sip.
You laugh, so he laughs. It’s a lovely sound.
“Again. Again, you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but I’d listen if you wanted me to.”
“Don’t try and make out like you’re not keeping secrets.”
Clark goes slack-jawed. “Sorry?”
“You don’t tell me everything. I know exactly where you disappear to all the time.”
“You do?”
You climb up on your knees and settle in front of him. You’re wearing those pink polka dot shorts like you were on the roof with Superman, in hopes they’ll summon him to you like a talisman. Clark presses his lips together, watching you closely as you take his face into your hands.
“You’re dating Lois Lane,” you say.
His fingers dust your elbow. “What?”
“You’re sweet on her, aren’t you? Plus, you’re busy all the time. You’ve cancelled movie night three times this month, did you know?”
“I’m sorry–”
“I’m not. I’m happy for you.”
Clark shakes his head. “But Lois and I… I mean, not for months. We were almost something, I think, but no. Not for a while.”
You let your hands fall off of his cheeks. “Oh. Sorry, Clark.”
“Don’t be. I should’ve told you, but it was new and then it was over.”
“You should’ve told me,” you agree, “but I sort of get why you didn’t. I’m your girl best friend. That’s a thing.”
“You’re my best friend,” he promises, no ‘girl’ prefix necessary. “That’s not why it ended, Lois isn’t like that. It was… we disagreed on so many things. Looking back, I think she was right about most of it.”
“Well, she’s a girl.”
“That she is. You’re all the same, aren’t you? All dazzling.”
He says it with an earnestness that reminds you of the other half of your friendship-equation. Clark’s your best friend because he loves your work and your jokes and your company, and you’re his best friend because he’s good as gold, inside out, just awfully lovable.
“You’re ’dazzling’ too,” you say. “You are.”
Clark offers you his mug of tea. You take a sip for something to do.
“Not that cold,” you murmur.
“I never realised you were such a liar.”
“I don’t really lie to you, Clark.”
He leans up to kiss your head, chaste against your purpling scar. “I know.”
—
“So, this book–”
You jump hard enough to send your groceries five different ways, oranges and kiwis for Clark flying up in the air. They never hit the ground —Superman catches them in two hands.
Your loaf of bread lays cradled in his arm like a baby.
“Fuck,” you complain.
“I’m sorry.” Superman laughs at you. Laughs. “Sorry. But this book, is there a sequel?”
“What?” you ask. Superman tips your groceries into your waiting paper bag.
“I think I need a sequel.” He pulls The Ocean from a pocket and squeezes it unkindly. “I think it ruined my life.”
“There’s no sequel. But–” don’t spoil the ending for me, you almost say. “Did you enjoy it at all?”
“It was good. Do you read a lot, or are you down to the real heart-achers?”
“Uh, I guess. Well, no, I used to read more, but I didn’t have time for a while ‘n now I’m usually too stirred up to settle down.”
“You cook.”
You blink. “You googled me?”
“No, how could I? But I did see you on the third page of the Daily Planet. You have a little author’s window. You made pumpkin pie.”
“For Thanksgiving weekend, yeah. They only ever put me near the front or on the main page of the website if it’s the holidays.”
“Is that true?”
You shake your head. Not to say no, to say, let’s not talk about it. Silly insecurities are unnecessary conversation. At least, they are with him.
Someone gasps from behind you. With one comes a few. The people near the crosswalk are starting to notice Superman’s tall figure standing in the sun, and though you’d wish he’d managed to hide in the shadows, you admit to yourself that there’s nowhere else he could ever be. He looks right in the sun.
“Do you want to come with me?” he asks.
Do you want to go with him? What the fuck does he think? said in your head ecstatically, not a lick of derision against him. Your excitement nearly blinds you.
“Yeah,” you say, practically mumbling, wanting to come off nonchalant and instead sounding painfully shy, even to your own ears.
“Yeah?” He offers an arm. “Come here.”
Your charmed little laugh makes him grin. “Alright?” he asks, locking an arm around you vice-tight.
“Where are we–”
The air leaves your lungs in one fell swoop. There and gone, breathless and weightless in tandem.
The sky is more than blue when you’re in it.
There’s nothing you can say about it. You’re terrified Superman is going to drop you, you can hardly breathe from the sudden speed at which you’d been taken up with him, but beyond that, there’s nothing to say. Wordless, endless sky. Blue, blue—
“It’s not as scary as you think, right?” he asks, his head angled down to yours.
“I expected you to have to shout. I don’t know why.”
“It’s windier in the air, but we’re close. I don’t need to yell.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t get many groceries.”
“You aren’t heavy.”
You’re delighted. “This is a paper bag, you realise! I’m surprised it didn’t explode the second you got me up here!”
“I’ll be careful. You’re precious cargo, and you deserve a better experience now than the one you got when you first came up here with me.”
“I don’t remember much of it.”
“That’s okay. I do.”
You should feel ridiculous, but strong arms hold you steady. Blue eyes like someone familiar pour over your face, as though they need to see you clearly, with all this perfect light. Your few groceries are squeezed between your chests as you squeeze him by the neck, desperate for the extra security, that he won’t simply let you go, and have you fall.
“This is amazing,” you breathe, your eyes sweeping down to take in beautiful Metropolis beating away beneath you. The cars look like ants. The buildings cast shadows you’d never noticed from the ground.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s something.”
You glance up to find him still staring at you.
The girls on SuperClub would never, ever believe you if you tried to tell them what passes between you, then. (Not that you frequent SuperClub. Often. You see it while scrolling, and you tend to scroll past it with a fond eye roll.) They wouldn’t believe that Superman brings his hand to your head to touch your temple, as though your small scar is a personal affront to him. They wouldn’t believe the way that he pauses when you shudder. Wouldn’t believe how he lets his fingertip tumble down your cheek, or the soft incline of his head. The slightest kiss of his eyelashes meeting in the very corners of his eyes as they almost close.
“Don’t feel guilty, please,” you say.
“What?” He sounds as though he’s woken up from a nap.
“About what happened. It wasn’t your fault that I got hurt. I wanted you to know that. You saved me.”
Superman lets the distance between your two faces grow. “I…”
“If this is what that is, if you feel like you owe me something, well. You don’t… I don’t know you, Superman, but sometimes I think I do. It’s like… someone I've met before? I can see your bleeding heart.” You offer a brash smile. “But I’m just fine. You promised me that I would be, and I am.”
“You’re not making this any easier for me.”
You shift in his grasp, his hair tickling you and the little hairs on your arms.
“I’m not a very easy person,” you say.
Superman presses his nose to your cheek.
“I think you’re giving me tachycardia,” you whisper.
He hears it. Doesn’t answer for a while, and when he does, it’s to neither of the things you said before.
“Let me take you somewhere new,” he says.
—
A day later, Clark asks if he can bring you dinner. Like and unlike himself, to care enough to ask but to forgo his usual boisterous lack of respect when it comes to taking care of you. Clark recognises that you like to be cared for aggressively. That you want someone to care so much that they won’t stop at the first hurdle. You want someone to take it at a sprint, and Clark’s a show off loser-dork who likes taking care of you.
He meets you at the door, where you show him your small picnic basket kitted with two plates, knives, forks, and a hidden dessert. “Too hot in my apartment,” you say.
“What’s wrong with the AC?”
“It’s leaking.”
“I’ll take a look at it. What happened to that fan I got you?” he asks, his fingers at your wrist trying to steal the basket.
“Oh, Clark, can’t you just leave me alone?” you plead.
He laughs like a kid. “I love when you do that.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, is it sarcasm? I don’t think that’s apt. Whatever it is, when you act like that? You’re really convincing. It’s funny.”
“I can be funny.”
“I know, that’s what I’m saying. You’re really funny. Can you do it some more?”
“Now it’s not natural, though.”
“Please?”
“Leave it alone, Clark. You’re such a beg.”
He laughs again. It peters off to a quiet you’d like to live in. His takeout bag rustles, your picnic basket rattles, his fingers brushing the back of your arm as he follows you down the street to the wooded path.
There’s a small park not far from your apartment that’s been divided into two halves. The playground for the neighbourhood kids, and the picnic tables made of strangely shaped wood. They’re all rounded. One table is shaped like an ‘S’. Another like a filled in ‘8’.
You sit at the one furthest from the playground, coincidentally shaped like a ‘C’. “For Clark,” you say, pleased.
“Adorable.”
You set up your plates, dividing up the food squarely. Clark had the wherewithal to bring two cans of soda and a big bottle of water. He asks which one you want, cracking it open accordingly. “Gonna pour it into my mouth, too?” you tease.
“Do you not want me to be nice to you?”
And the night slips away. You eat your takeout at the picnic table and linger until your legs are numb. The grass around the park is damp, but you sit, and you shoot the breeze until the sun starts to go down. It must be hours out there together.
Clark takes his jacket off and spreads it over your shoulders. “This is your only bad trait,” he says happily. “You never tell me when you’re cold.”
“I’m not that cold.”
“Sure you’re not. Look, come here,” —he pulls you bodily into his side, his voice turning silky as angora— “you act like you’re such a plague, like– I don’t know, like I wouldn’t wanna know that you’re cold.”
“I don’t act like that.”
“You do. You could rely on me for more, you know? I want you to lean on me.”
You lean on him.
Clark presses his nose to your temple, his glasses digging into your skin.
And you think, I know you.
But you don’t know why.
—
Clark can't believe this is happening again.
He woke up this morning with a scary yet firm plan: he’s going to get himself together, pluck up what he has in the way of courage, and be honest with you about Superman. If only so he can stop lying to you. He should’ve told you months ago that he was Superman. Hell, he might’ve told you from the moment he met you, that’s how sure he was that he’d love you. As a friend —his best friend, half of his life. There’s this ease, like he’s known you for far longer than he truly has, like he could know you for the rest of his life.
And lately.
Oh, lately. Clark can’t get a handle on things. He hadn’t realised he was falling in love with you, isn’t even sure that’s the way to describe it; far from a sharp plummet downward into love, this has felt like a slow and steady ascent, but now suddenly he’s at the mountain top and the air is thin, and he’s looking for you, aching for relief, and you’re sitting in the snow with your book and your shy smile, cross-legged, just waiting for him to get there and open his cowardly mouth.
Or that’s what he’d like to think.
Fact of the matter is, Clark would like to kiss you. Hold your hand, have your head rest on his shoulder. He’d like to pull you into his lap and squeeze. Clark could die happy if he got just one shot at it, no matter the outcome.
He knows he won’t lose you, but he’s worried you don’t want what he wants. He’s gotten so close to having you, he’s not sure he can take being any further apart than this.
Clark takes the tramline to the rich part of the city with the best florist. There are buckets and buckets of flowers; orange tiger lilies and white orchids turned green in the sun; roses as big as his fist, unfurling; sweet peas kissing pinkest camellias all tangled up with baby’s breath. He chooses the sweet peas. They really are sweet, their hemmed edge petals curling in and nearly blue. They’re beautiful. He can see them in a glass on your nightstand by tonight if he’s lucky.
It’s on the walk to your apartment (tramline too busy to risk, lest your flowers get hurt) that the trouble begins.
The light goes out.
It doesn’t make logical sense. He’s outdoors. It’s the early morning, the sun should be shining for hours to come.
He looks up and finds a singular dark rectangle over Earth.
It blots out everything, disapears the clouds, turns the blue sweetpeas in his hand a tired shade of grey.
Clark wonders if he should’ve told you how he felt when he had the chance. Then, he leaves his glasses, his jacket, and his sweetpeas in the hedgerow at the park with alphabet picnic tables and throws himself upwards into the sky.
—
What emerges from the spaceship (and it is a spaceship, made of an element humans aren’t want to touch) are creatures shaped like spinning asterisks, wisps of their angel-white bodies bending the shadows they’ve cast down onto Metropolis. It’s like smoke.
The dark makes it hard to breathe.
You sit huddled in your bedroom looking out through the window, despite a desperate urge to hide somewhere further inward. Sirens echo throughout otherwise quiet streets, discordant wailing that wavers for long, sharp minutes. There had been screaming and crying and the splintering sounds of glass. It’s not —not unseeable, out there, but anyone with poor vision will find themselves stranded.
You open your phone. Your theory is that the aliens have been able to dampen sound as well as sun, leaving the battlefield dangerously quiet. Clark’s not answering your texts because he never has his phone, but you’re sure he’s out there somewhere. He told you he was coming. The last message he sent this morning blinks at you from the bottom of your screen: Coming by soon if you’re not busy, do you want me to bring breakfast?
You’d said, just some eggs please if you want eggs
You’d said, hey, are you safe? What’s with the dark?
You’d said, clark please text me back right now, I’m freaking out, do you need me to come get you?
He won’t answer the phone. Outside, up in the sky where it’s darker still and the white shadows have begun to ripple, the occasional red beam of heat slices into whiteness, turning it to shadows again. There are two sets of red if you watch carefully. Green light flickers at the ground.
And Clark Kent is out there all alone.
You crawl to your shoes under the bed and put them on, pajamas and all. Clark’s blue hoodie lays on the back of your deskchair. You shrug it on.
He’s gonna lose his entire mind if you do find him out there. Can friends ground you? Because Clark’s going to ground you. But you’d rather be grounded than all alone.
—
Superman groans into the floor, his tongue coated in dust.
He has far better vision than a person feasibly needs. He wore a pair of glasses once that are supposed to approximate what it’s like to have legal blindness, and he’d felt suddenly, achingly sorry for the human race. But then he’d found the glasses stand beside it with all their different prescriptions and shrugged it off. Humans are brilliant. He’s in awe of their persistence, their resilience, and their strength. He knows he can find it in himself to go on because they can, too.
He has better vision, and still he finds himself batted away from the entities like a bothersome fruit fly.
“Krypto?” he asks into the smog.
His borrowed dog flies at him with impressive speed, pressing his snout straight into a bruise.
“Ow!”
Krypto snuffles and hits at his arms with both paws.
“Krypto, stop! Jeez, stop. You’re such a pai– Ow! Get off.”
Krypto nibbles his shoulder.
Clark forces himself to sit up. At least he hasn’t killed the dog. Kara would probably eviscerate the planet country by country if something happened to her dog, not mentioning the aliens that started this whole thing. And he is good at bringing the suit when Clark needs it.
He rubs at his eyes and drags himself to his feet, back aching, eyes like sand. Nothing is healing because he can’t feel the sun, but he’s not too hurt. He can take a bad landing. He can take twenty of them.
“Krypto, stay.”
Krypto tilts his white blurry head.
“You’re not helping.”
Arf! Clark rolls his shoulders and shoots back into the air.
Krypto stays down, for now.
Clark takes a lap through the air, searching for signs of life with his ears. The eery quiet is beginning to fill with catastrophe.
“Clark?”
He stops dead in the sky.
“Clark?” you call, ten miles below him, shouting all clipped and scared. “Clark Kent! Are you out here? If you can hear me, call back to me!”
He says your name.
“Clark? I’m here!”
Clark looks up into melted-sugar shadows as they begin to curdle and makes a choice. Damn the aliens, they can have the sky, so long as Clark gets to keep you safe.
He has to keep you safe.
—
You’re watching a shadow plummet toward you when the sky opens up into shards of Technicolor. Concentrated around a single point of red and blue and moving so fast it turns puce.
—
There’s a scene in The Ocean where the main character realises his father has been dead before the beginning of the book. Dead for years. He goes searching for him because he’s scared to be alone, brave enough to realise it, and young enough to misunderstand the danger of the world. He treks sandbanks, ferries favour, turns in promises and follows the footsteps of a man long dead across the world. Clark told you once, privately, quietly, in a moment that immediately panicked him, that his parents had adopted him, and that his birth parents had left him with a letter after they both died.
What did it say? you’d asked.
To be good.
You find your copy of The Ocean cradled in familiar hands. You recognise its secondhand cover, the bends in the front where a previous owner had tented it for a long period of time. The spine is loose and lax with age. The pages are yellow with time.
Clark is sleeping quietly in the plastic-wrapped chair beside your bed. He doesn’t have a bruise or cut. He doesn’t look anything like Superman had as he’d flung himself at you, two seconds too late, his body a shield against an explosion that lit your body with fire and colour alike. The whole world had been red, and then yellow, and suitably blue. There was pain.
Not a darkness as people often say. Just hurting and now this.
You take a scary breath. Hitching and pained, you search for comfort and find none of it. There’s a needle in the back of your hand secured with a teddy bear wrapping. The sheets have been drawn to your chin and choke you as you try to sit.
After a moment of struggling, you sink back and try for another breath. Deep, aching breaths. You do it until your lungs burn, these awful, stringing breaths, eyes to the ceiling and fighting the spots of nothingness that cloud your vision.
“Hey,” a soft voice says, softer hand pressed to the curve of your neck. “Oh, hey, sweet girl, hey… it’s okay. The pain won’t last, they gave you a little more morphine a few minutes ago, it’ll kick in.”
“Uh–”
Clark makes a sound. “Oh.”
You let your eyes slide to him. He’s checking his wrist where it’s resting on you.
“I was sleeping for a long time, I… Honey, I’ll get a nurse.”
“No,” you breathe.
“Yeah, honey, I’ll get a nurse,” he repeats, stroking your neck with his thumb. His eyes are their usual calm blue, bearing down into your own with an emotion that’s somehow palpable and implacable. “It’s no good, you being in pain like this. I’ll come right back.”
“Clark, don’t go,” you whine.
It’s like the world has been placed heavy on your head.
Clark offers you relief. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to. Tell me what’s hurting, and I’ll fix it.”
You shake your head at him. Fuck, nothing hurts. It’s not pain you’re being smothered in.
“Okay,” he murmurs.
For a while, you don’t talk. Clark stays stooped over you, too tall and careful anyhow to stay out of your light. He holds your cheek, rubbing at skin with his thumb until it’s tickled into numbness, your body begging you to move away from his touch and your brain knowing you can’t. You’ll never duck away from his fingertips ever again.
Where he’d been unhurt, he isn’t unharried. His hair is in a complete disarray, curls in places pulled straight and greasy behind his ears. His face is pale. His eyes flicker obsessively between you and your monitor, as though he can decipher the information it displays. He must see something there that he trusts, sitting down again in the chair dragged quick and easy to the side of your bed. His hand stays at your face. He’s long. It’s simple work.
“You read The Ocean,” you whisper.
“I read all your annotations, too,” he tells you, turning his hand to run it down your cheek, his fingernails especially silky against the line of your jaw.
You turn your face toward his touch. Your eyes flutter closed as he indulges your deepest fantasy.
“I didn’t–” Oh, you can’t say it. You hadn’t meant to want him like this. You hadn’t known he was Superman, and isn’t that awful? Something cruel. Your best friend kept a worst secret.
He doesn’t rush you.
You’re ready to try again a few minutes later. His fingertips have started to draw a flower into your neck.
“I’m embarrassed that Clark knows what I said to Superman,” you say plainly.
“Superman didn’t tell Clark anything,” Clark says. His voice is light in contrast to your hesitancy.
“But you know it all.”
“I know you,” he agrees.
“I’m really… sorry. I’m sorry, I–” You search for his touch and he immediately cups your cheek again. “Clark, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come out looking for you. I didn’t realise you could look after yourself and I made things worse.”
“Do you even remember?” he asks.
Mildly. You’d woken once before and found a less fixed Clark covered in blood above you. A part of you had understood that it was Clark, even without his glasses, and a different part knew it was Superman. Then things had blurred, half-replaced by a memory of his hand behind your back in the middle of a meadow halfway across the world, that beautiful quiet valley where the water had been ice and the grass emerald velveteen under your legs.
In the dream, Superman (and this had been real until it wasn’t), turned to you, and said, with Clark’s dorky intonation, “That’s seriously beautiful, huh?”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“But–”
“You don’t. I won’t argue about it with you. You have no apologies to make, you did everything right and nothing wrong, and I lied to you, and I got you hurt, and…” He has the gall to pink in the cheeks, like you’ve taken the skin between your knuckles and pinched. “I wasn’t honest with you about my feelings. I almost kissed you as Superman, and that wasn’t fair.”
“You really are… him?” you ask weakly.
“Yeah, I am.”
Clark sits up as a doctor opens your room’s door.
“Everything okay?” she asks. When she sees you awake, she smiles broadly. “Hey, you’re up! Can we get you some dinner now?”
“You skipped breakfast,” Clark tells you.
“I was awake for breakfast?”
“Barely. We had you on some pretty gnarly painkillers,” the doctor says. She adjusts her white coat. “I just wanted to check in with your nurses and your lovely partner here that you hadn’t thrown up again.”
You flush. “I’m fine.”
Clark simply rubs your chest like a wave of his hand against your heart.
“I’m worried you haven’t gotten enough sustenance this past day, but we try not to hook you up with too many things,” the doctor explains, “much better for you to settle and then eat. And to drink some water!”
“I don’t feel very hungry.”
“The painkillers you’re on can make some people feel quite sick. But try your best, okay? I’ll come back after dinner to see what we can do about those broken fingers.”
You follow your arm down to your hand. Your pinky and ring finger on the non-dominant hand have been splinted but not casted.
“Oh.”
The doctor takes her leave, abandoning Clark to your questions.
“What’s wrong with me?” you ask.
“You got concussed again. It made you sick, and your hand is very nearly broken, but they think it’s just your fingers from the look of your x-rays. And you have a long cut.” He puts his hand on your stomach gently. “Here. Almost as long as your arm, but it’s a surface cut. You landed on debris. I’m sorry, my– honey. Sorry.”
You can’t fight the chills or your bewilderment. “What for?”
“I didn’t get to you fast enough.”
“Clark.” Your mouth is dry. He’s pretty. Your head goes round and round and aching and then with a dash of clarity, the world snaps back into place. Your hospital room is empty and bright, with a vase filled to bursting with sweetpeas in pride of place on your nightstand. There are voices drifting in from the hallway, and Clark is handsome even as he tears himself apart. The silver lining his bottom lashes doesn’t go unnoticed. “I’m okay, babe.”
He laughs wetly.
“I’m fine,” you promise, quieter now. “How couldn’t I be? You’re so gentle.”
Clark finds your hand, pulling it to his forehead, his body bending forward like a marionette on loosening strings. He shakes his head vehemently, his grip on your wrist tight but far from cruel.
“You’re gentle,” you promise under your breath, “I told you that before, didn’t I? You’re kind, and brave, and– it’s not your fault I went looking for you.”
“I should be comforting you. I should be helping you,” he whispers.
“You won’t catch me crying on your shoulder twice, Superman.”
His head flinches up, like he’s realising for the first time that you know who he is.
Whatever he sees in your face helps him to settle down. He curls long, thick fingers around your hand. You can’t help noting how adversely tender they feel while he holds your hand.
“What did you think of the book?” you ask finally.
“I didn’t know you liked to read,” he says.
You shrug. Let your head fall back into a thin pillow, wondering how you might go about getting a better one, and beginning to feel the effects of the painkillers they’d been talking about. “It’s not like it’s the most alarming secret, between us.”
He lets out a wounded whine. “Why do you hate me?” he asks.
“You’re due some hazing.”
“Can’t you take pity on me?” he asks.
You curl your fingers around his where they’d otherwise been limp. “I’m not really half as cool as I’m trying to act, Clark.”
He sulks beautifully. “I think you’re lying to make me feel better.”
Only a little.
—
Being cool around Clark Kent lasts about as long as the morphine does. The reality is this: Clark Kent —best friend extraordinaire, sweetheart farm boy who’s vetted all your worst ideas, held your hair back in the smallest toilet in Metropolis bar history after a too-happy happy hour, knows all your holey socks and questionable medical queries— is Superman.
And Superman?
He’d been courting you.
The word is antiquated and accurate. Superman had been cautiously courting you with his sparse visits, shy and brave at once, brash but remarkably put together. It is after you know the truth that you realise Clark had been not so secretly courting you simultaneously.
“Is that why you were bringing me dinner and stuff?” you ask, lured into the conversation by accident, now deeply curious.
“No. I did that stuff before I wanted you. It was hard to sort the feelings into boxes, like– platonically, I’ve loved you since you came into the office with your miserable laptop and– and romantically, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t realise until I tried to kiss you and you wouldn’t let me.”
“Sorry?”
“I tried to kiss you, and you thought it was a pity kiss.”
You hold him by the shoulder. “That was real?”
“Do you dream about it?” he asks knowingly.
“It was really going to be a kiss?”
He softens. Clark, big on your smaller couch, in his pajamas with his hair finally washed again and your hand in his lap, rests his shoulder into yours with a long-suffering sigh. “Best kiss of your life,” he promises.
“Prove it.”
“What?”
It’s been four days since the hospital and Clark is horrifically chaste. “Do you not want to kiss me?”
“You know I do.”
“So kiss me.”
He pinches your chin. “If you wanted a kiss, you could’ve just taken one,” he tells you, looking you straight in the eyes.
“From Superman?” you ask with a little scoff.
He moves his head from left to right. “From me,” he says.
There has been so much to tell him. So little space to hide from him. Lines of books you’d underlined for him, lines for Superman, for both of them. The guilty way you’d watched Clark Kent take off his shirt at the public pool in summer heat and the loop of Superman under your thumb as you’d fallen asleep scrolling SuperClub. You’ve been more honest with him than you’ve dared to be previously.
Clark has repaid you in kind.
Did you know, he’d confessed, when you were still grody from the hospital and he’d demanded you let him stay, that night, that everything I’m good at is because of the sun? I can function without it. I can store up the energy in my cells and I don’t need much to stretch it far, but without the yellow sun, I’m just like you?
How could I know that? you’d thought. Why are you telling me this? you’d asked instead.
I want you to know.
Clark loves the sun, you realise now. He turns his face up to it often, soaking it in silently. He gets this look whenever he stops to take it in. Perfect contentment. Trust, that it will make him feel better.
Clark tilts his chin against yours, nudging your face gently inward, giving you the shortest glimpse of that content stretched across a smile as it presses into yours.
You hyperventilate your way into an open-mouthed, gasping sort of thing, and find Clark a fiercer kisser than you could’ve imagined. All those daydreams about Superman saving you from another day copyediting your own messes, you’d never thought to picture the boy sitting at the desk across from you, how his hand might slide behind your neck like water. How he’d take the breath from your lips and offer his own in a shaky, wanting gasp.
Superman, breathless under your touch. No one would ever believe you.
“Did you want me to tell you how it ends?”
You break away from him, panting, vaguely confused. “Sorry?”
“The Ocean? You never finished it.”
“Oh. Maybe you can read it to me. You know, afterwards.”
Clark grins. “After,” he promises, leaning down for another kiss.
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
thank u Bec for proofreading ur brains are irreplaceable <3 and thank u everyone else for reading!
#clark kent x reader#clark kent x you#clark kent x y/n#clark kent#clark kent fic#clark kent blurb#clark kent drabble#clark kent imagine#clark kent fanfic#clark kent fanfiction#superman x reader#superman#superman x you#superman blurb#superman drabble#superman fanfiction#superman fic
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She learns so fast. Two 5-10 minute training sessions and shes learning be calm already
#starting with the unwilling participant princess bc shes obsessed with her#and is learning that princess is nice if shes calm around her#she learned that if she goes into princesses bed and sits still she can sit by her but then she gets frustrated bc she wont play#Artemis has found a spot she cant reach and will not leave it#she now gets very upset by being caged so we're learning not to bark and cry#she cried for about 5 minutes so i told her to stop#and kept telling her to sit and be calm#walked up to her when she did and opened her food bag to give her some as a training treat#id walk away out of the room for about 30 seconds telling her to sit and be calm if she cried. and came back as soon as she stopped#5 min later she was just doing some small wines and last one she barely wined#which was sooo good#im letting her sleep in my bed now and she keeps farting 🙃#my reward for being nice and not making her stay in her pen bc it upsets her too much#gotta create positive associations before i expect her to be okay with it long term like if we go out#all meals and water are in the crate#gotta remake the cage so its more comfortable and not a prison#im gonna get her one of those beds thats like trampoline material??? idk what theyre called#i think she'll like it more bc she gets so hot
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“Who’s calling?” Your husband, Nanami, huffs from above you, his hips snapping into you. Your teary eyes glance at your phone while you let out small whimpers. “I-it’s our son.” You breathe out, your thighs tremble beneath his hands holding them down beside you.
Nanami groans and stuffs his dick fully into you, a whine escaping your lips as he picks up the phone. Between his work schedule and your 4 kids, there isn’t time for you and your husband to partake in a your shared activities other than the few times you guys got creative.
There was this one time you guys had your oldest watch the kids while you guys went to the pharmacy to pick up some medicine, which ended in a quickie in the dark parking lot before heading home.
Or the other time you guys had a pool day and you went inside to start getting the snacks ready. Nanami followed shortly after to have himself his own quick snack. Both of your days are pretty busy, but Nanami never fails to make some time for you and your pussy. You can admit sex hasn’t really been a priority, until tonight. Upon realizing all the kids would be gone, you immediately called Nanami to be sure he brings his ass home when he is off and not do any overtime- yes you used your mom voice too. Nanami agreed not wanting to be scolded.
When he did get home, he noticed a few things, there was any tv on, or music blasting from your two oldest rooms. There weren’t toys scattered in the living room or the dining room table from your two youngest, no yelling or screaming from all of them in general, it was just quiet. He smelt food in the air, he usually does every night he comes home but it’d be already eaten, or everyone will be eating at the dinner table (he insists not to wait for him because he often stays late) but since he left early from work, it isn’t ready just yet. He quickly rushes up the stairs, starting to feel the panic seep in just a bit, all the kids rooms are empty.
He opens his shared bedroom to see you just laying on your stomach, in the silky robe he got you, reading a book. He calms down because if you were okay, surely, the kids were too. His eyes gaze down your figure, your feet are in the air crossed, while you read. The robe sits at your upper thigh, and since it’s so thin, your ass pops out in the most desirable way possible. “Honey?” He eyes you suspiciously, taking a breath as he starts to settle down, “Where are the kids.”
You heard the front door shut, squeezing your thighs together, feeling the arousal hit you even more. The book you have been reading had been in your mind, and hearing your husband come home really made you ready to take him, full. You had dinner cooking in the oven, almost ready to serve for just Nanami and you. Your oldest son is at a movie with his friends and they are going to go eat after. Your second oldest daughter is spending the night with her best friend, and your two youngest are sleeping over with their grandparents. To say you were practically rushing your oldest son to leave already, since he was the last one to go, was an understatement.
“They are busy and safe.” You closed the book and turn your body towards him, your eyes hungry before you looked at him, but damn near starving when you did. That damn suit and tie. You explained where they all were as you sat up in the bed, impulsively pushing your chest out as you leaned back on your arms. Nanami didn’t ignore the lustful look in your eye, the way your nipples perked against the thin fabric, only assuming you had nothing on underneath. He quickly put a few things together, why you called him to not do overtime. He knew what his wife wanted, at least he thought so.
When your sweet loving husband started off kissing your neck, waiting to use the few hours to just worship your body, you, your hands cupped his chin and looked him dead in the eye, “Honey, I love you so much and I know that you do but tonight-right now I need you to fuck me like you don’t. I want y-“ His eyes darkens more at your plea, how desperate you were truly. How can he ever say no to his gorgeous wife. He cuts you off with a kiss before he started fucking you every way loose. Yes exactly what I said. But of course no matter what time it is, you guys are parents after all….
“What?” Nanami answers the call, still buried deep inside you, grinding against you as his thumb circles your clit.
“..Oh Hey dad, where’s mo-“
“She’s busy, are you okay, why are you blowing up her phone?” Nanami cuts your son off, his eyes focused on you squirming around, biting your lip to keep any lewd sounds hushed while he was on the phone with your son. He speeds up his movements on your clit, softly sucking in a breath when you clench tightly around his dick.
“I wanna buy some snacks and get some food after the movie, mom said she’ll send me m-“
“How much?” Nanami asked wanting him to get to the point so he can get back to his wife. He slowly pulling out before pushing himself back in. Your hand quickly covers your mouth as you shut your eyes. Your legs were shaking crazy. Your husband wasn’t one to always be rough in bed, but the times he is, you would feel it for days, in the best way possible. (He has that dog in him😞) Nanami definitely isn’t holding back, not when it’s been this long you guys were kid free for a few hours and together at that. Nanami was making up for lost time, fingering you until you couldn’t talk properly, eating your pussy like it personally offended him, fucking you left, right, up, down, diagonal, all up until your phone kept blowing up.
“Like about $40.”
“Okay, give me a moment.” Nanami grunts, as he bottoms out again, the way you squeezed his dick nearly knocked him out cold. He feels his dick throb inside you and pulls the phone away from his ear, breathing heavy.
“Thanks d-“
Nanami hangs up the phone and tosses it beside you before leaning in closer to you, peeling your hand away from your mouth and pulling it above your head. “Tell me something honey.” He hums kissing your swollen lips.
You whimper as he fucks you again, slow but rough this time, ”y-yes?” You gasp as he hits your cervix.
“When the kids ask for money, do you send it to them from my account?” He looks into your eyes, sweat dripping down his head watching your reaction to his question really his dick.
You’re screwed. Both literally and physically.
“Not alwa- o-ooh shit.” You moan, his hips moving faster than light. Nanami absolutely hates when you use your own money, hell, even when you were working. When you guys first started dating he already knew you were going to be his wife. Nanami would always say you didn’t need to work but you didn’t want him to be the sole provider. Eventually, you guys moved in together and you were still working. Though, he convinced you to work less hours and took you out on a date when you agreed. It wasn’t until you got pregnant with your first baby, did his wish come true. Shit, he was more excited when you both went down to your job to quit than he was to see the 2 pink lines.
“All the hours I work, being kept away from our family, my perfect wife -ngghh- my perfect wife’s pussy. And you still insist on usi-fuck- using your own money when you have access to my money- no our money, shit your money.” He moans grabbing your other hand and pulling it above your head with your other.
“Y-you pay for e-ever-“
“I’m supposed to baby. I want to.” He interrupts you, lifting your legs to his shoulders, and grabbing your phone with his free hand and sending your son $100 from his account. “Why must you make things complicated, love. I am the man, it’s my job to take care of you, our family. Let *thrust* me. Use my money for the kids, the house, the cars, whatever it is, I have enough, more than.” He kisses your lips softly, opposite to his thrusts. “Use your money I give you for you, whatever you want for you- shit for you. Everything I do is for you, everything I make, it’s yours, ours on paper, but it’s all yours. All for you.” He grunts into your ear, as if he’s teaching a lesson. Technically, he is.
“Don’t let me find out you aren’t using my money first again, okay hun?” He hums at you, a moaning teary mess.
“Now where were we?” He smiles before pulling out and flipping you on your stomach, lifting your ass up and spanking it. “Oh, right.” He chuckles as he spreads your cheeks apart, seeing your drooling sensitive pussy, clenching on air.
*edited but not proofread*
More:
Pussywhipped!Choso | part 2
Married!Eren x Maid!Reader
Ex-husband!Eren
Sylus mini
Nerd!Armin x reader x boyfriend!eren
Best friend!jean x reader
Boss!Hiromi
#fae's lore#nanami kento x reader#jjk drabble#jjk nanami#nanami kento#jjk x poc!reader#gojo satoru#ryomen sukuna#geto suguru#eren x black fem!reader#aot college au#aot x poc!reader#nanami x you#jujutsu nanami
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This might be a wild one.
But hear me out okay.
Simon has his hand somewhere intimate at all times whenever it’s the two of you together.
NOW okay stay with me…
At first, it was somewhat innocent. You’d both be watching a movie on the sofa, he’d deliberately have you lie across him just so his hand can rest on your ass. Casual couple things y’know.
But as your relationship progresses and he’s very used to being able to touch his pretty girl whenever possible…he tends to stray to more intimate places.
There would be one time, you’d be standing in the kitchen, cooking dinner for him on the rare occasion he gets to have a home cooked meal for once. And he’d stand behind you, humming some dumb song that’s been stuck in his head for days. But his hands will be on your tits.
Now, there’s nothing sexual about it really. He just likes holding them. Likes touching you. He’d probably give the occasional squish now and again because let’s face it he’s a man and they’d all do it.
But the only time his need to be touching you would turn sexual, is by complete accident.
(Hear me the fuck out okay?)
So you’d both be lying in bed, you’d be scrolling through your phone as he’s reading beside you (he reads, it’s obvious).
But his hand, would be down whatever pants or shorts you’re wearing for bed, underneath your underwear if you are wearing any at the time…and his hand would simply be resting on your cunt.
Like I said, it wouldn’t be sexual at first and it was an accident this time around.
Because this man can’t sit still at home, it’s too quiet…too calm…he needs something to do.
So what does he do? Play with your cunt.
The pad of his middle finger would idly rub up and down over your clit, not even trying to put any effort in all whilst he focuses on reading. Even if you’re there slightly squirming from the pleasure that the rhythmic motion of his finger creates, he wouldn’t really notice straight away.
He’d circle it a few times, all the while you’re trying to keep quiet as to not disturb him. Having to hold in every moan or soft sound your body aches to let out.
And for the most part, he seems completely focused. Even when his finger would slide down and gather every drop leaking out of you and bring it back to your clit just for more stimulation.
It’s only when you’re close to cumming from the lazy but constant stimulation that he’ll lean down slightly just to whisper in your ear.
“C’mon…give it to me love…please…”
He knows.
He always knows.
#cod smut#ghost cod#cod ghost#ghost x reader#simon ghost riley#simon ghost x reader#simon riley x reader#ghost smut#simon riley smut#ghost
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