A/N: This is an acknowledgement of what Chlark means to
one another, at least from my perspective. It's not an affair fic but they do
talk about how deeply they care for one another. They're bonded right down to
the soul. Also MOS Jor-El? Hell yeah. Had to include him ;)
...
Clark want sure he liked the news he was getting from his father's AI. He
stood in the frigid confines of the Fortress of Solitude and listened to his
father talk about biology and changes. The temperatures didn't matter, not at
all. He was as comfortable in the arctic as he would have been standing in the
heat of Death Valley. The cold wasn't what made him shiver. It was the words he
heard coming from the handsome, bearded man who was the image, and the essence,
of his biological father.
"My body is going to go through changes? What sort of changes?"
Jor-El passed Clark a flat black disc. It wasn't remarkable in any fashion
and it wouldn't have drawn much attention from anyone. It could even, possibly,
be mistaken for a coaster.
"What is this?"
"Everything I have compiled on the changes I have been speaking
of," his father said. "Study, research, learn as much as you can. If
all else fails, ask your mate."
The AI vanished before Clark could ask it to elaborate on anything or ask
how he was supposed to read the disc. One thing was for certain, he doubted
Lois could either read the disc or understand the complex data about his
biology. Yet Jor-El had said to show it to her should he fail to understand the
contents. It would seem he knew more about his "mate" than Clark
realized.
Clark activated the disc and studied what had been loaded onto it but he
understood very little about the information that seemed to float in the air
all before him. He'd done fairly well up to a point but now it just seemed he
was reading complete nonsense. Defeated, Clark shut the disc down and slipped
it into his pocket. He had to get back to Metropolis, to Lois, to his job at
the Daily Planet.
...
Clark felt irritable. Everything frustrated him and things were starting
to smell funny. He used to love fried fish sandwiches from the little diner on
the corner of fifteenth and Thurman but now, as he opened the wrapper, he
couldn't stomach the scent.
"What's wrong? Has it gone bad?"
"It must have. Otherwise smelling it wouldn't want to make me puke,
would it?" he snapped.
Lois's eyebrows raised. "Bite my head off."
"I'm sorry," he said, apologizing with a heavy sigh.
"You've been irritated all day. Why don't you take the rest of the
day off? Go home, get some research done, put your feet up."
He felt a swell of affection for her and passed her the sandwich she was
reaching for. She sniffed it, found it smelled perfectly normal, and took a
bite.
"There's a possible reason I'm feeling this way. Something I learned
from my father today."
He had her attention now. She slathered tartar sauce onto the sandwich and
leaned back in her chair to start eating but Clark wasn't forthcoming with the
information he said he had. He was only staring at her, watching her eat the
sandwich and feeling mildly disgusted with the sound of her chewing.
"Well?" The crunching sound from the fish sounded unusually loud
to Clark. The unpleasant smell made him belch, something he'd only ever had to
do in the rare occasions he'd lost his powers.
He reached into his bag and grabbed the disc Jor-El had given him. He'd
stored it in a lead lined case. "Let's go. We'll take a look at it in the
supply room."
She side eyed him at once. "Clark, we've talked about this. We can't
fool around in the supply room anymore. Mr. Pinkerton said he'll write us up
if--"
"Lois, I'm serious."
"Fine."
She set her food aside and Clark followed her to the privacy of the supply
closet. He held up the box and she took the disc out, looking it over. It
covered about half the size of her palm but nothing happened when she held it.
"Hello," she said, speaking directly to it. "Abracadabra.
Open Sesame."
Nothing happened. She shook it a few times but still nothing happened.
"Work, damn you," she tried. Clark was annoyed. She clearly
wasn't taking the issue seriously. "You make it work."
He frowned at the disc in Lois's hand without trying to take it. "It
should work. He said my mate will understand it."
Lois slipped the disc back into its box and Clark felt his shoulders
slump. She wrapped her arms around his waist and he hugged her close.
"I don't know what to say, Clark. I can't activate it."
"I'll have to take it to Watchtower, tell Chloe what it says and she
can interpret."
"Sounds like a plan. Now get outta here. I have work to do." She
gave him a quick kiss and then went back to her desk.
...
Clark was at Watchtower literally seconds later.
"Chloe?"
"Just a minute. I'm getting dressed."
"Well hurry, this is important."
He paced the room, feeling anxious. Not to mention hungry. He hadn't eaten
all day. He couldn't stomach the weird smell coming off of every bit of food he
picked up.
"What's so damn important, Clark? It's supposed to be my day off,
remember?"
"We don't get days off in the hero business," he groused as he
turned to her. "You know that better than - Jesus!"
Chloe smirked. "I know a lot, Clark, but I wouldn't bet I'm smarter
than the Almighty, or his son."
She stood in the middle of the room, stark naked, except for a pair of
white socks, and holding a pair of Nike tennis shoes.
"When I said hurry I didn't mean for you to walk out naked."
She blinked up at him, decided he wasn't making sense, and then sat down
to put on her shoes. "I'm fully clothed, Clark."
"Not to me. I can't see your clothes."
His emotions were roiling inside him, rolling and tumultuous like a vessel
filled with boiling water. He felt nervous, worried, confused, and aroused. She
was now standing there wearing nothing but a pair of socks tennis shoes. With
her hair wet from the shower and no makeup and just shoes and socks she was
both cute and sexy in the most absurd way.
"You're saying I appear naked to you?" she asked.
"Except the shoes and socks. I can see those just fine."
"Clark?"
"Hmmm?"
He was looking her over, his eyes drinking in every detail, from the swell
of her breasts to the flare of her hips and every angle and curve in between.
"If I look naked to you then why are you standing there
staring?"
She was right. It hit him that he shouldn't be ogling his best friend,
that he was invading her privacy, and he hastily looked away.
"Sorry."
"Yeah, I can tell. You sound wracked with guilt," she replied
dryly. "So why are you peeping?"
"I'm not doing it on purpose."
"So everyone is naked? Sounds like a glitch in your x-ray
vision."
She went to the bank of computers and sat down. Clark couldn't stop
himself from watching her walk over, from watching her round, firm bottom from-
"Eyes up, Clark."
She wasn't even watching him and she knew he was going to look. He felt a
surge of guilt. He had a girlfriend he was crazy about and here he was
eyeballing her cousin, who was also his best friend.
"So far it's just you who looks naked."
"Look into one of the other buildings. Tell me if everyone is in the
buff, just the women, or...men."
She giggled at his sigh of frustration as he searched a nearby building.
"Everybody's clothed," he reported.
"Anything else going on with you?" she asked after leaving the
computers and going over to the couch.
"What are you doing?"
"Playing Candy Crush."
He looked directly at her now, a little concerned with the rage that
welled up inside him and how high his emotions were riding.
"Candy Crush!"
"It's not like I have a Kryptonian WebMD I can scour for a diagnosis,
Clark. I'm not a doctor."
"And you obviously don't care that I'm seeing you, and only you,
naked! Don't you think that's kind of weird?"
"After all we've been through, does it matter? I have it some thought
and I don't have anything you haven't seen before. Just don't tell Ollie."
She had a point. She couldn't diagnose him and her days of freaking out
over every little change he went through were apparently over. He missed that.
Intensely. Too intensely, which told Clark that he was overreacting and that
was tired with whatever he was going through.
"So what's going on besides me being the only one you see
naked?"
He sat beside her and rubbed his sweaty palms on his pant legs. "I'm
irritable. Everything smells funny. I'm…kinda hot…"
"Cause I'm naked? Aw, Clark. I'm flattered."
He rolled his eyes while she laughed and continued her game. He finally
grabbed her phone and tossed it on the chair beside the window, the one she
liked to read in. He wanted her undivided attention.
"Hey! I was about to beat that level!"
"Too bad."
"Wow, you are irritable," she noted, sitting back with her arms
over her chest. Not that it helped. Her breasts were over her arms and her
nipples were so pink...Clark cleared his throat.
"I spoke to Jor-El. He says…he says I'm going to be going through
some physical changes."
"Are they life-threatening?"
"Probably not. From what I read they're not. He gave me this disc and
said my mate will be able to use it but Lois couldn't get it to activate. Maybe
he meant mate the way the British mean it? Best friend."
"I thought he only used colloquial terms that you would use,"
Chloe said. "You don't use mate as meaning a friend you use it to mean
partner, lover. Lois must not have handled it right or-"
"Or what?"
"Jor-El has the wrong idea about us," she said with a nervous
laugh.
He handed the disc to Chloe. As soon as it touched her palm Jor-El
appeared across the table from them.
"Who's that?" she asked, her eyes wide. This was her first time
actually seeing him.
"I am Jor-El," he said in answer to her question.
Chloe's mouth fell open. "Wow, Clark. Your dad's really hot! Like…smokin'
hot."
"Thank you, Miss Sullivan. I'm flattered," the AI said with a
smile.
"So, what's going on with Clark?"
"I've compiled extensive information on his transformative stage and
what can be expected. Only you and Clark can access the database."
"Why do you think Chloe's my mate?" Clark asked.
The AI looked directly at him. "You chose her, years ago."
He disappeared without another word, leaving Clark and Chloe in an awkward
silence, until he finally looked at her. "Um…I don't know what he's
talking about."
She laughed nervously. "Yeah, me either…I guess not even your
people's tech can get it right all the time."
"Exactly. Must be a program error."
She looked at the disc in her hand. "How do I call up the-oh. There
it is."
The information, including a schematic of Clark's body and every organ
inside it, came up. They sat and stared while Chloe continued reading. Clark
kept looking at her, his eyes always traveling south to the neatly trimmed
patch of blond curls between her legs, wondering how soft it would feel to the
touch. Oliver Queen was a lucky man to have Chloe. Had they made different
choices in life, had he made different choices, he'd know every inch
of her body rather than just wondering about it.
She was either so lost in the information before her she didn't notice his
staring or she just didn't care. She kept reading, pouring through the data
that changed when she needed it to, going beyond what he'd been able to
understand. After twenty minutes she rubbed her eyes and shut the data down,
placing the disc on the coffee table.
"Well…" she finally said.
"What's going on?"
She looked over at him with an amused smile. "In a nutshell? You've
got PMS."
...
Clark shot up out of his seat. "PMS? That's for women, Chloe."
"And, apparently, Kryptonian men. You're entering puberty."
"Puberty? I'm twenty-three years old."
"Clark, you need to remember you're not human. Your body is so much
different from ours internally."
She stood up and Clark felt the beginnings of an erection as he watched
her, which couldn't come at a worse time. He didn't want to have one in front
of Chloe and he certainly didn't want to have one because of her. He
tried to tell himself how it meant nothing, that he was just reacting to a
naked woman, but Jor-El's words about how he'd chosen her, apparently years
ago, kept ringing in his ears.
"You must be misinterpreting the data."
"Jor-El didn't think I would," she said, grabbing her purse and
digging through it.
"What's that? What are you looking for?" he asked nervously.
"Well, it's not a gun loaded with kryptonite bullets," she said,
shaking her head in amusement. She pulled out some cash and handed it to him.
"I'm hungry and don't feel like cooking. Will you run and get me a number
three from Bobby's?"
"How can you think about food at a time like this?" he asked,
his voice filled with desperation, which annoyingly amused Chloe.
"Don't be a drama queen, Clark. It's your period, it's not the end of
the world."
"Period? Oh, my God!" he said, sounding and looking stricken,
which only made her laugh harder. He was going to have periods. He couldn't
think of anything more humiliating than that.
"You won't bleed. You'll just…" She looked down and tilted her
head. "Get a lot of those."
He had a full-on boner now and it was aching in his pants, trapped against
his thigh. He pulled off his jacket to hold it over him.
"Your body is gearing up for mating, to reproduce, which is causing
hormonal changes. That's all that's happening to you. Now, I suggest you get
yourself something to eat because I'm not sharing."
"I can't eat. Nothing smells right and I find food kind
of...disgusting..."
"It might smell right around me. Clark…" her voice trailed off
and she bit her lower lip. A lip he'd give anything to nibble on right then.
"What?" he pressed, annoyed that she'd hold out on him now.
"You sort of imprinted on me or something, when we were around
eighteen," she told him.
"I imprinted on you? What does that mean?"
"It doesn't have to mean anything between us personally but
physically it means you've literally got my DNA mixed into every cell of your
body."
"And you think that doesn't have to mean anything between us
personally?" he said incredulously.
He stood there, his dick aching in his pants and his eyes starting to itch
and warm up, finding out that he absorbed Chloe's DNA and that he really had
chosen her. He remembered that time he'd been upset over Lana and he'd been
sitting with Chloe in the loft. He'd been vulnerable and kissed her. Really
kissed her.
"That time I kissed you in the loft," he said, sitting back down
beside her. "Lana…I was hurting and I kissed you."
"I remember. That was the most…"
"Intense kiss ever," he said.
"Yeah," Chloe agreed, her voice soft. "I remembered hoping
it meant you'd finally given up on her and wanted something more with me."
"I did," he admitted. "I was just afraid that if we went
there it would mess up our friendship. The thought of losing you has always
been my deepest fear. That's why I backed off. Big mistake."
"Okay, Clark. Let's not get overly dramatic."
"Don't do that," he said, annoyed and also a little sad.
"Do what?" she questioned.
"Try to brush me off."
"Clark, I'm not. It's just that there's nothing to be done about it
now, is there? We've grown up and moved on. You're with Lois, and you're happy,
I'm with Oliver, and I'm happy. We've made our choices. This isn't a matter of
the heart but a matter of DNA now. Biology. It feels like it's more but it
really isn't. After four days of this you'll get over it."
"Four days?"
She nodded and patted his leg. "Four days a month you'll go a little
nuts. You'll feel all sappy and soft and you'll pine after me and what could
have been and then it'll pass."
She squeezed his leg, making him hiss, and she realized where she'd put
her hand and what that cord of what felt like muscle was under her palm and
jerked her hand back.
"Jesus, Clark. Are all Kryptonian men so…well endowed?"
He ignored the rush of pride her words inspired and held up her money. He
also forced himself not to think about how good her hand on his dick, however
brief the contact, had felt. "Number three. I'll be back in a
minute."
It took him fifteen minutes, almost all of that time waiting on the food,
rather than the travel there and back. He was glad not to have to hold his
jacket over his front and pretend that he wasn't dying to get back to Chloe and
jump her. As he stood in line, almost gagging from the smell of cooking beef
and chicken and fries, he returned, hoping Chloe would appear clothed, but she
was still naked. He reached out and touched her arm. He could feel her blouse
he just couldn't see it, which was a strange experience. It was completely
invisible to him.
When they took out their food, two bacon cheeseburgers, it smelled
completely normal and Clark's appetite returned with a vengeance. He ate his
food and looked at her naked body and felt his erection return. He needed to go
off alone and take care of that before he got blue balls. He just wished she
could take care of it for him.
"Chloe, this imprint thing, does it go both ways?"
"I don't know," she said, leaving half her food uneaten, which
Clark happily grabbed to finish for her. "It might. I certainly feel very
close to you right now."
"Closer than usual?"
She nodded. "I imagine that when your time of the month ends those
feelings will fade."
They reclined on the couch, Chloe keeping distance from Clark, afraid
they'll cross a line they shouldn't just as much as he was.
"You make it seem easy, pretending not to feel anything for someone
when you want them literally on a cellular level."
Her smile was sad, one he'd seen too many times over the years, one he'd
been the cause of too many times, and he regretted it.
"Yeah, well," she said, and entwined her fingers with his, the
only contact she could give him, and that he would have to make due with.
"I've had a lot of practice."
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