(~(~)~)
Ever since that adolescent rebellion thing had kicked in, Clark had been shoving his most noticeable piles of crap into his closet every time his mother told him to clean. Looking at the federal disaster area that was the closet floor, he realized that five years of teenage sullenness was going to make one long afternoon of cleaning. Damn leaving for college, anyway.
Clark dropped to his knees and grabbed the nearest pile of paper. As he lifted the unwieldy stack over a grocery bag he'd take to the recycling club on Monday, a business card fluttered out. Shoving the papers into the sack, Clark breathed a stunned, "Now way" as his long fingers stretched towards the card. His face broke into a goofy grin as he re-read the long-memorized message scribbled of the back: 'Maude's getting a raise. Find a reason to come to New York.' Flipping it over, he ran his fingers over the legend on the front: 'Jeremy Goodwin, Associate producer, "Sports Night."' Three years since he'd met Jeremy. A year and half since they'd talked. Clark had been nowhere near New York. He moved the card toward the grocery bag. And then changed his mind and stuck it in his shirt pocket instead.
(~(~)~)
No sound had ever been as sweet in Clark's ear as the ringing of the phone four hours later. He raced around the bed and snagged the receiver half-way through the first ring. He didn't care if it was Mrs. Duffy the crazy beet lady - if it got him away from a closet that seemed messier now than when he'd started, he'd take it. "Hello?"
"Clark!" Chloe sounded startled. "That was eerily fast."
"I was standing right by the phone," he lied easily. "What's going on?"
"Well..." She took a deep breath. "Remember when you said you'd come to New York with me if I got the summer internship at the Daily Bugle?"
Clark grinned. He could feel her excitement thrumming the phone wires. "I think so."
"Then pack your bags, baby; we're going to the Big Apple!"
"Hey, cool. I've always wanted to see New York. The Guggenheim; Times Square - hey, do you think we'd get arrested for spitting off the top of the Empire State Building?"
"Clark!"
He hid a chuckle in his sleeve. Sometimes Chloe was too easy. "Oh. Uh, congratulations on the internship, Chloe."
He must not have kept the snicker out of his voice, because Chloe muttered, "Jerk." Louder, she asked, "Do you still think you can come?"
"Are you kidding? Chloe, this is the first step on your road to glory. I wouldn't miss it for anything." Stretching his legs in front of him on the bed, Clark settled himself in. "Tell me all about it."
(~(~)~)
Long after he hung up, Clark lay on his bed staring at Jeremy's card. Providence. That was the word Mrs. Duffy was always using. Divine fate. He was getting to New York after all. He should call Jeremy.
"Clark?" Martha called from the kitchen. "Dinner's almost ready; please set the table."
"I'll be right down, Mom." Clark propped the card against the phone cradle. He'd call Jeremy later.
(~(~)~)
But what with the schoolwork, and the swim meets, and the procrastinating, and, yes, Lex, 'later' became considerably later than Clark had meant. One morning he looked around and discovered that it was June; graduation was in two weeks; and he hadn't contacted Jeremy. But that wasn't because he was nervous. Because he wasn't nervous. Not at all. He made a vow to definitely, absolutely call Jeremy tonight.
One week later, he told himself that he was being an idiot and picked up the phone.
But what if Jeremy had moved? It had been a year and a half since they'd talked, and a lot could happen in that much time. Clark hung up.
But wouldn't Jeremy have let him know if his number was changing? Clark picked up the phone.
On the other hand, maybe he thought Clark's long silence meant that he didn't want to be friends anymore. Or maybe Jeremy didn't want to be friends anymore. He hung up.
But that was childish. Jeremy was a grown man; he would never act like that. Clark picked up the phone and dialed before he could give himself another opportunity not to.
"Goodwin residence."
Clark swore under his breath. That was the option he hadn't considered. The voice on Jeremy's end of the line was deep and masculine and didn't belong to Jeremy. "Uh. Hi. Is Jeremy home?"
The voice at once turned protective, suspicious. "Who is this?"
"Clark Kent."
Suspicious-Voice hummed a bit. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kent, but Jeremy is--"
"Michael?"
Even granting that Clark was hearing him from several hundred miles away, through a phone line, Jeremy sounded awful. Clark's stomach clenched.
"Jeremy, you're supposed to be in bed."
"The phone woke me up. Who is it?"
"It's not important, Jeremy; go back to bed."
"Who. Is. It?" Clark heard iron resolve under the weakness of Jeremy's voice.
Clark didn't want to be the cause of a domestic dispute. "If this is a bad time, I can call back later."
"Thank you, Mr. Kent," Michael said, relief warming his voice. "That would be--"
"Clark?" At once, Jeremy's voice sounded much brighter - and closer. "I want to talk to him."
"No, you don't," Michael said firmly.
"I do," Jeremy insisted.
"I could hang up," Clark offered.
"Would you, please?" Michael was almost pleading.
"I'm hijacking the phone. Right now." There was the sounds of a brief scuffle, and Jeremy's voice, labored but triumphant, greeted him, "Clark!"
"Jeremy, are you okay?" he asked, worriedly. In the background, he heard Michael stomping away.
"I'm not dying, if that's what you're worried about. I got a little sick--" Behind him, Michael harrumphed. "--and Michael appointed himself Lord High Gaoler."
"Forgive me for being concerned about your health!"
"Clark, could you hand on a second? I'm going to take this into the other room." A few seconds later Clark heard a door being shut, with Michael presumably on whichever side Jeremy was not. "Much better."
"So, are you all right?"
Jeremy sighed. "Remember when you were a kid, and your mom told you not to play in the rain or you'd get pneumonia?"
What Martha had said was, 'Don't play in the rain, or the other mothers will wonder why I never warn you about pneumonia,' but that seemed close enough for Clark. "Yeah?"
"As it turns out, that's a little bit true."
"You got pneumonia?"
"Yeah," Jeremy admitted.
"From playing in the rain?" Clark could really get behind the idea of a rain-soaked Jeremy.
"Playing? No. Let's just say that May was a very bad month."
"And now you're sick."
"And now I'm fine." Petulance crept into the edges of Jeremy's voice. "But Michael refuses to believe me."
"Pneumonia's pretty serious." Clark didn't know why he was defending Michael, who sounded like a jerk.
"He's being overprotective, like he's done since we were kids. He appointed himself some kind of third parent to Louise and me."
Instantly, Clark liked Michael a whole lot better. "That's your brother," he blurted.
"Yeah. I've told you about my family."
"You did. I just hadn't realized that - never mind. It's sweet that he's taking care of you."
"It's smothering and overprotective, but let's not quibble over semantics."
Clark laughed. With Jeremy's sharp humor and awkward charm in his ear again, he couldn't believe he'd gone a year and a half without it. "So you have a serious illness and an overprotective brother. Anything else interesting going on?"
"Ummm...Dana's getting married next month."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. To a ratings expert named Sam Donovan."
"Donovan? He sounds very...mellow."
"He's a good guy, once you get past the bristliness."
"Donovan is bristly?"
"And mellow at the same time - how does he do it?" Clark heard the smile in Jeremy's voice. "Before this turns into an Abbott and Costello routine, how are you?"
"Swamped." Clark flopped back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. "Finals in two weeks, college in three months, that kind of thing."
"College. Jeez. I hadn't realized it'd been so long. Where are you going?"
"Met U. Gets me out of Smallville, but not too far."
"Any thoughts on a major?"
"Probably English or journalism." Clark dragged the phone cord between his fingers. "Maybe both."
"Journalism, huh? Chloe's finally got you convinced?"
"She's one of the most persuasive people I know. But it's not for sure yet."
"You have two years before you have to make a declaration; you have time to be indecisive. But Chloe's still set on it?"
Clark laughed. "Like she's Joan of Arc getting messages from God. Which is part of the reason I called."
"French Catholics having auditory hallucinations of the divine is probably more Natalie's thing."
Clark snickered. "No, I meant journalism. Chloe landed this great summer internship at the Daily Bugle and--"
"And you want me to look out for her." There was a fraternal swelling of Jeremy's voice that made Clark wonder Michael learned the overprotectiveness that Jeremy now chafed under.
"No. The last thing Chloe needs is 'looking out for.' But it starts the first week of July, and I promised to help get her settled."
From Jeremy's end, a long silence ensued. Finally, very quietly, he said, "You're coming to New York."
"Yes."
"At the beginning of July."
"Is that a bad time?"
"And you want to get together."
Clark felt as though his small intestines were sinking into his shoes. "Unless you'd rather not--"
Jeremy burst out laughing. "It's about damned time."
Relief made Clark's laugh reckless. "It has taken me a while, hasn't it?"
"It's taken you three years."
"The cows don't feed themselves, Jeremy."
"Cows." Jeremy snorted. "Let me tell you something about cows. If - except, you know what? I grew up in Boston. I can tell you nothing about cows."
"I didn't think so."
"Hang on; don't move; I'm getting my calendar. I can't believe I finally get to pencil in time with Clark Kent."
(~(~)~)
By the time Clark and Chloe set out for the airport at the end of the month, Clark had twenty messages from his father to the "Sports Night" crew. He bore them with good grace, sure he would forget at least half the instant the plane left the ground.
They yammered endlessly, mostly to keep Clark's mind off the flight, but not once did he mention Jeremy or the plans they'd made. Even three years later, he felt stung when he remembered the way Chloe had acted the day Jeremy came to Smallville. He'd get the scolding when he went to the studio; he wouldn't provoke it while trapped with Chloe on an airplane.
"We should rush a show." Chloe tossed t-shirts and underwear into a dresser drawer in the hotel room that would be her home until she could get into her sublet on Monday. Clark preferred to live out of his suitcase. "Not a musical. Something new and experimental."
Only half-listening, Clark flipped through the decadent number of cable channels. "Okay. Sure."
"We can do that Friday night. And we are very much doing MOMA tomorrow."
"No good," Clark replied automatically, morbidly entranced by an entire network devoted to golf. "I've got lunch with Jeremy tomorrow."
Only when there was no response from Chloe - when there was, in fact, a sudden and complete absence of motion from Chloe - did Clark give a second thought to what he said. And then he could only regret that he hadn't bothered to give it a first thought. "Um...oops. Surprise?"
"Jeremy." The way she said it, it sounded like a two-inch lump of mealy banana congealed on her tongue. "Jeremy Goodwin, stick-in-the-mud statutory rapist?"
Clark gritted his teeth. "Chloe, don't."
"And you're having lunch with him tomorrow?"
"I was hoping you'd come along."
Chloe chuffed a harsh laugh. "Fat chance, buddy. I don't trust him, and I don't like him."
"You never gave him a chance."
"A grown man who had sex with a fifteen-year-old boy he'd met five hours earlier? No, I didn't."
"It wasn't like that, Chloe!"
"What was it like, Clark?" she fired back, eyes snapping. "Because I've considered the scene a number of ways, and that's always the way it comes out."
Clark sighed and collapsed back on the mattress. "Okay, so it was like that. But he's such a great guy."
"And you want me to give him a chance."
"At least come to the studio with me. You don't have to come to lunch." Chloe continued to glare stonily at him. "Are you really going to pass up your chance to tell him off?"
She snorted. "You wouldn't let me do that."
"Well, no," he admitted. "But I at least owe you the chance to try."
Chloe scowled a minute longer. Then she sighed. "Fine. I'll go with you to the studio and deliver you to your lecherous little man. But I will not promise to like him; I will not promise not to view him with extreme prejudice; I will not promise to hold my tongue around him; and I definitely will not promise to go to lunch with you."
Clark grinned. "Thank you, Chloe. That's all I ask - a little fairness."
(~(~)~)
Standing in front of the CSC building, Clark was less sure that this was a good idea. He felt like he was back at the night after Jeremy left Smallville, watching "Sports Night" with his dad and realizing how out of place he would be in Jeremy's world. The building was huge, stretching up at least fifty floors, and a constant stream of people moved in and out.
Chloe raised an eyebrow at him. "There's one thing I owe you an apology for, I guess."
"Huh?"
"I thought CSC was small-time. I never expected..." She gestured at the building. "This."
Shaking his head, Clark took in the chaos again. "Neither did I."
The only person in the elevator was an accountanty-looking guy paying them no attention, but they didn't speak on the way up. Chloe's disapproval bounced off Clark's skin like flung ice chips, but he was relieved to have something to focus on besides his nervousness about seeing Jeremy.
Clark tugged the bottom of his blue Oxford. He ran his fingers through his mess of dark hair and wondered if he should've gotten it cut before they left. No, a Kansas haircut would've looked provincial. But maybe this morning at the hotel? He hitched up his belt buckle and then pushed it back down again.
"You're going to sleep with him again!" Chloe blurted as the doors slid open on the 37th floor to release the accountant. Oh, sure. Now he was looking at them.
"Chloe!" Clark hissed. The accountant had to jump off as the doors slid shut on him.
"I'm sorry," she snapped, "but it just occurred to me, and it bothers me."
"First of all," he began, but he never got to say his first of all, or any of his other of alls, because the elevator dinged, and they had arrived.
Throwing poisoned looks at each other from the corners of their eyes, they stepped out of the car into the flow of humanity and insanity that was the "Sports Night" offices. Jeremy didn't have an office; he'd told Clark to come to the bullpen (whatever the hell that was), and that he'd be easy enough to find after that.
"Elliot!" the blond woman yelled as she barreled backwards across the room, "we're going to be two minutes short in the 10-block if the Dodgers lose tonight."
"What do you want me to do about it, Dana?" a man, presumably Elliot, yelled back.
"Fix the game!" Dana half-turned, still walking, and slammed into Clark's side. "Whoa!" She took a step back and looked up - up, up - at Clark. Running around in her stocking feet, she didn't even come to his shoulder. "Whoa."
"Dana Whitaker?" Clark asked, smiling at her. She looked blankly at him, which he pretended wasn't a bad sign. "Hi, I'm Clark Kent, and I'm looking for Jeremy Goodwin."
Still staring at Clark, Dana yelled to the room at large, "There are children in my bullpen."
Clark winced. He felt Chloe bristle. "Ms. Whitaker," he began, "we're not--"
But Dana was walking away. "I have a meeting with Calvin's people. Would someone please find out why there are children in my bullpen?"
"Congratulations on your wedding," Clark called. Looking down at Chloe, he chuckled uneasily. "That was the producer. She's getting married next month." Chloe glared.
"Can I help you?"
Clark remembered that voice. He'd had a bad encounter with it. But he hadn't expected the woman attached to it to be so small. She didn't come anywhere near his shoulder. "Natalie."
Her eyes widened. "You know me."
"Kind of. I'm Clark Kent. We--"
The rest of Clark's sentence didn't stand a chance as Natalie opened her mouth and hollered, "Jerome!"
"Not the little boy name," Jeremy said, coming around the corner. "I prepped the interview; I recorded the teaser with Dan and Casey; there's no one to fire this week. So not the--" He stopped, took in the situation, and grinned. "Hey, Clark!"
Clark grinned back. "Hope you don't mind we're a little early."
"Not at all." He looked at Natalie and sighed. "The little boy name?"
She nodded and tapped him on the chest with her pen. "The little boy name."
Shaking his head, Jeremy turned to Clark and Chloe. "Come with me. We'll see if Casey and Dan will let us use their office." He smiled at Chloe as they crossed the room, leaving the still-scowling Natalie behind. "Hi, Chloe."
She inclined her head politely, the way her father had taught her. "Jeremy."
Jeremy rapped on the open glass door of a large office. "Hey, Casey, can we crash in here for a few minutes?"
Casey looked up and smiled at Jeremy. "For you, my good man, anything. But I'm backed right up against this deadline, so it's love my office, love me."
Jeremy smiled. "You know I do." He motioned the others inside. "Casey, these is my friend Clark and his friend Chloe, the newest investigative intern at the 'Daily Bugle.' This is Casey McCall. And this," he added, offering the space to Clark and Chloe, "is the most comfortable couch in all CSC."
"Oh, I disagree. I absolutely must disagree." The newcomer to the office buzzed over to the desk and started rifling through the drawers. "I've spent many a night on that couch, and it has served me like a good and faithful friend, but in the final analysis I must say I prefer the one in editing." He smiled disarmingly. "Dan Rydell."
"Clark Kent." And when it became clear that Chloe wasn't going to say anything, he pointed to her and added, "Chloe Sullivan."
Still raiding desk drawers, Dan said, "You're Jeremy's friend from...from..." Clark opened his mouth, but Dan shook his head. "No, don't tell me; I almost have it - Kansas. Jeremy's friend from Kansas."
Even Chloe was impressed. "Yeah," she said. "That was good."
"Ah, but ask him how he does it," Casey said, smirking.
"You!" Eyes narrowed, Dan pointed at Casey. "I am not speaking to you, fiendish thief. You stole my red vines, and I will see your head on a pike for it." Giving up on the desk, he grabbed a red pen from the cup by the computer and crossed to the door. "I'm in the archive if anyone needs me." He pointed at Casey again. "Except you."
Casey laughed and shook his head at the retreating back. "I don't think that man's getting enough therapy."
"Is he always like that?" Chloe asked.
"No," Casey said. "Usually he's a lot worse." He grabbed a tape from the corner of the small table he'd been working at. "I have to talk to some people in Graphics. Enjoy our office." He vanished.
"They really share this office?" Clark asked, watching him go.
Jeremy nodded. "Have since the beginning. They write better when they have each other to work off of. Also, Dan never bothered to mention to Casey that he has his own office."
Chloe frowned. "Are they...?" The end of the sentence trailed off delicately.
Jeremy laughed. "Your guess is as good as mine on that one." He looked at Clark. "The last time we really talked, you and Lex were having problems again. You get them resolved?"
Clark shifted on the couch. "Yeah. We got those problems worked out."
"Good."
"And then we had some other problems. And we fixed those, too. And then we had some problems I have no interest in fixing."
"How many times have you two broken up?" Jeremy asked, laughing.
Clark said 'four' at the same instant Chloe said 'three.' They fell into a heated argument about whether he and Lex had technically broken up 'that one time.' Jeremy left them to it and watched his friend again for the first time in three years.
If Clark had been handsome at fifteen, he was devastating at eighteen. Possibly taller than Jeremy remembered, with broader shoulders, he had grown into his long limbs and old, sad blue eyes. He sat now with a grace and surety that Jeremy was not only positive he hadn't possessed at that age, he wasn't sure he had it now.
The past three years had been kind of pathetic.
Chloe and Clark reached a kind of truce. "Lex and I have broken up 3.57 times," Clark informed Jeremy, who started laughing. "What about you? Date anyone else Natalie was pissed about?"
"Nope." Jeremy shook his head and tried to sound nonchalant. "I hit kind of a dry spell."
"A three year dry spell?" Chloe demanded.
Jeremy felt his cheeks redden. "Worse have happened," he said defensively. He didn't mention that, if he had to be celibate for the rest of his life, Clark Kent wasn't bad at all to go out on. Deciding he had to swim away from these waters - fast - Jeremy stood. "We should get going to lunch."
"Right." Clark stood and looked down at Chloe. "Are you coming?"
Chloe looked between the two men and held out her hand to Clark. "A girl's gotta eat."
"Thank you, Chloe," Clark whispered as they followed Jeremy back to the elevators.
"Don't thank me. If I thought I could trust him, I'd let you go alone. But the many hasn't gotten any in three years. He has 'sexual predator' written all over him."
"Jeremy?" Clark scoffed. "I don't think so."
"Believe what you want to," Chloe said, shrugging. "I've got my eye on him."
Clark sighed. "I bet you do." As he followed Jeremy onto the elevator, he brightened, grinning at Chloe. "So do I."
(~(~)~)
Lunch had been frosty and awkward. A walk through Rockefeller Center had been only slightly less so. Jeremy had had an insane desire at many points during the afternoon to take Clark's hand. But with Mother Sullivan chaperoning the affair, he'd been relegated to giving Clark fond smiles and hoping he didn't look like a love-struck puppy.
Only then Clark flashed a smile that made Jeremy suspect that he wasn't the only love-struck puppy here.
Leaving Chloe and Clark at their hotel, Jeremy went back to the studio, where Natalie was practicing her death-ray stare. "Is there something I can do for you, Natalie?" he asked as innocently as he dared.
"Nope." She leaned against his desk, sucking distressingly on a lollipop. "Just picturing you in a prison jumpsuit."
Jeremy grimaced. "Funny."
Natalie shrugged. "Or in a Kansas cornfield with the end of Jonathan Kent's shotgun against your sternum."
"Okay, for a woman from a small Midwestern town, that's an awfully stereotyped thing to say. Also, I'm not starting anything with Clark."
"Uh-huh." She pushed off the desk. "You keep telling yourself that, Jerome."
Jeremy sighed and dropped his pen onto his desk. "Still the little boy name?"
"Are you seeing him again?"
"Possibly," he said defiantly.
"Then still the little boy name." Natalie sashayed off. Sashayed. Really.
Casey and Dan collared Jeremy after the six o'clock run-down. "Your boy was cute," Dan said approvingly, and Casey nodded agreement.
"He's not my boy."
"Sure he's not," Dan said indulgently.
"He was still cute," Casey said as they wandered away.
Groaning, Jeremy buried his head in his hands.
(~(~)~)
When Jeremy's phone rang at five thirty, he grabbed it on the second ring and swiveled his chair away from whatever prying eyes might've been lying in wait for him. "Jeremy Goodwin," he said as professionally as possible, though every instinct said it was Clark.
"Hey, Jeremy."
Jeremy relaxed and sank back in the chair with a grin. He would keep his back to Dan and Casey's office, though. "How was the museum?"
If Jeremy could've seen him, he bet Clark would've shrugged. "Big. Full of weird art."
Jeremy could see how MOMA might not hold the interest of a high school senior. He grinned. "So, what now?"
"Chloe has this reception thing for the 'Bugle's' new interns that starts at six, and let me tell you how much I'm not going."
"You're passing up free food?" Clark ate like he expected world-wide famine in five minutes.
"I'm passing up who knows how many hours in a roomful of people I've never met, telling them, no, I'm no one who's going to be 'someone' in five years."
This was why Jeremy got into trouble about Clark - statements like that shouldn't come out of the mouth of an eighteen-year old. "What are you going to do instead?"
"Well, I was kind of hoping..." He paused, and Jeremy frowned. "I was hoping I could come back to the studio, hang around with you, watch the show?" He said this very quickly, as if hoping Jeremy couldn’t say no if he couldn't get a word in.
Not that Jeremy had any intention of saying no. He smiled. "No problem. We have run-down meetings at eight and ten, but other than that, you can do all the hanging around you want."
"Great." Jeremy pictured Clark's sunny smile, and the bullpen seemed brighter. "I'll be there around seven."
Jeremy grinned. "You haven't mentioned this part of your plan to Chloe yet, have you?"
Laughing, Clark said, "What 'yet'?" But there was a stab of disappointment in his voice. Feeling Natalie's eyes trying to pierce the back of his skull, Jeremy understood.
"I'll see you then."
Jeremy was arguing with Chris and Will at seven. At seven ten. And at seven fifteen. At seven twenty-five he cut off the discussion and practically ran back to the bullpen. When he got there, he realized he needn't have worried. Clark sat in his chair, tilted back, long legs out and crossed at the ankles, being regaled by Dan and Casey and their inexhaustible charm. Clark's dazzling smile caught Jeremy off as they spotted each other across the room. "Sorry I wasn't here," Jeremy said, skidding up to his desk.
"It's all right. Casey and Dan kept me entertained."
"This man cannot get enough of me," Dan asserted.
Casey laughed. "In Dannyland, that's an incontrovertible statement of fact." He turned his partner's shoulders towards their office. "Nice to see you again, Clark."
"Bye, guys." Clark watched until the glass door clicked shut behind them. "They are so having sex," he whispered.
Jeremy coughed. "Let me show you around."
Dana and Natalie were in editing. Dana looked from Clark to Jeremy and said, "Jeremy, you brought the children back to my studio," and Natalie yelled, "Don't forget your background for the Williams match, Jerome!"
Clark and Jeremy shuddered as they walked away. "Why are small women twice as scary as normal-sized ones?" Clark asked.
In the control room, three men with headsets argued about five things Clark didn't understand, and a man in an impeccable navy suit looked Clark over with a gaze that made him want to start apologizing for crimes he couldn't put his finger on. "Introduce me, Jeremy?" the man asked quietly.
Blushing, Jeremy stepped between them. "Isaac, this is my friend Clark Kent. I met him during my field work for the Dylan DeMassey piece three years ago. Clark, the managing editor of "Sports Night," Isaac Jaffe."
Clark wiped his unexpectedly sweaty palm against his pant leg and held it out to the older man. "It's an honor to meet you, sir." What is this? he thought in dismay. He wasn't even this polite to Principal Reynolds.
But his respectful formality won him points, for Isaac seemed to unbend minutely. "You, too, son." He fixed a hawk-like gaze on Jeremy. "Remember who we work for, Jeremy."
His blush intensifying, Jeremy nodded. "Yes, sir. I do."
They returned to Jeremy's desk, and he dropped into his chair with a sigh. "That was painful in many unexpected ways."
"It's cute the way they look out for you." Clark perched on the edge of the desk.
"As though I'm a child incapable of looking out for myself."
"Well, you have been single for three years."
Jeremy stared at him. "Where did that come from?"
Clark looked away. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that. I didn't mean anything by it."
"You must've, or you wouldn't have said it."
Clark licked his lips and looked hesitantly at Jeremy, praying he wasn't about to make an enormous mistake. "How much does that have to do with me?"
He watched Jeremy's pulse flutter rapidly in his throat, and if he x-rayed Jeremy's chest he would see how fast his heart was racing. Still, Jeremy raised his eyes to Clark's face and answered without a tremor, "Quite a bit."
Clark's joy was a tangible thing. He was losing his way in Jeremy's brown eyes, and, busy office or no, he was very tempted to lean forward and kiss the man. "I'd hoped so."
"Come to my place after the show," Jeremy blurted, and then flushed crimson. "Not for that. Well, okay, maybe for that." He grinned. "But to talk. Just hang out some."
"That sounds great," Clark said, giving a smile that was a bizarre but alluring mix of slyly seductive and first-date nervous.
"What about Chloe?" Jeremy asked so abruptly they both winced.
Clark frowned. "I'm a big boy. I don't need Chloe's permission to live my life."
"But you'll call her at some point, won't you?" Jeremy pressed.
"Of course. I'm not that crazy."
(~(~)~)
The show was dead on. Clark sat in the control room next to Jeremy and couldn't get over the fact that he was in the "Sports Night" studio, watching "Sports Night" being broadcast. Dan and Casey played off each other like acrobats on a trapeze, and the glint in Dana's eyes every time she announced time back told him that even she was impressed.
At the end of the broadcast, Dan said, "That's it for us, and on behalf of Casey McCall and myself I'd like to thank Clark Kent for sticking around and being an inspiration." Jeremy nearly fell off his chair; Clark half-choked on his Coke; and on the set, Casey looked like he hadn't been expecting that. For once, Clark hoped like hell his father wasn't watching.
The show wrapped, everyone yelled, "Good show!" to everyone else, and Clark felt the stare Jeremy had dubbed 'the laser-beam of death' zero in on his head. Turning with his heart hammering in his ears, he found Natalie studying him with paralyzing intensity. Then she nodded and half smiled. "I guess you're okay." Her smile broadened as she turned to Jeremy. "Good show, Jeremy."
Jeremy blinked a couple of times and smiled back. "Good show."
"We're going to Anthony's. Coming?"
Jeremy shook his head and pointed at Clark. "Not twenty-one."
Shaking her head, she said, "You are such a moron."
"How well I know it." Jeremy winked at Clark.
They yakked at each other on the elevator and through the parking garage. Jeremy's car was nice, if slightly battered. Though Clark couldn't spot any of those pine tree air fresheners, the interior had a faintly sweet scent as though there were always one of those pine tree air fresheners around. The plastic Yoda Clark remembered from the Jeremy's Smallville rental car sat on the dashboard, and Clark rubbed its head and greeted it like an old friend, earning a snicker from Jeremy.
He smiled back. "The show was terrific tonight."
"I'm sorry Dan said that."
"It should be okay as long as Chloe wasn't watching."
"Care to lay odds?"
Clark considered. "Fifty to one?"
Jeremy sighed. "I've lost on better."
"Yeah." Clark nodded. "Still, I think we're safe, just this once."
That was part of the problem, though. Jeremy didn't make Clark want to be safe. He made Clark want to be reckless and daring and unburdened by the obligations of a family farm and a senior year and a bunch of superpowers. Jeremy made Clark want to be free, and for Clark, that was a dangerous thing to be.
He was so lost in his musings that he never saw the truck.
A pedestrian crossed against the light. Two cars and a truck swerved to avoid her. The truck was swerving right at them. Clark yelled, and Jeremy jerked the wheel, but it was too late. In ten gut-wrenching seconds, they were wedged between the truck and a lamp post.
"Jeremy!" He shook the other man's shoulder. Oh, God, if he's dead--
Blood raced down Jeremy's face from a cut near his hair-line, but he forced his sticky eyes open, and breathing got easier for Clark. "Clark," he whispered, startled. "I was afraid I'd hall-- halluci--"
"Shhh. Don't talk. We have to get you out of here." A quick x-ray revealed two broken bones in Jeremy's right leg. Damn it.
"Okay," Jeremy said affably. "I'm just going to close my eyes until you figure out how to do that." The brown eyes fluttered shut.
"No!" Clark yelped, shaking Jeremy's shoulder again. "Stay awake, Jeremy. I don't know how badly your head was hurt, so you have to stay awake. Stay with me." His heart slammed against his ribs. Jeremy was bleeding so much. He had to get to the hospital, to an ambulance, something.
Deep breaths, Clark. Breathe.
The first thing he needed to do was open a door. He looked out the driver's side. The entire length of the car was crushed against the pickup; neither of those doors would open. His own door was against the pole, but maybe the back would go. Shaking Jeremy again and begging him not to go to sleep, Clark crawled into the back seat and tried the door. It didn't budge. "Okay, Jeremy," he said, just to have something to say, "the door is jammed. It must've jarred in the crash." Clark heard distant sirens, but they wouldn't make it in time. With the amount of blood Jeremy was losing, he had to have help now. "But don't worry," he babbled on. "I'm going to get you out."
A little alien-strength leaning popped the rear passenger door off its frame like a big metal Lego. But how to get Jeremy out? Clark scrambled out of the car and onto the sidewalk, where, even at this hour, a dozen rubberneckers created the screen he needed to sneak Jeremy away - if he could keep them from noticing what he was doing. He leaned into the car from the back. "Hang on, Jeremy. Jeremy?"
"Clark?"
"Stay awake, Jeremy; just a little bit longer."
"I'm glad you're here, Clark. I missed you."
Tears stung the back of Clark's eyes even as a tiny smile curled his lips. "I've missed you, too." He ducked out of the car and looked around. For the moment, the spectators were too wrapped up in watching some drama unfolding around the pedestrian to pay him any mind. The lamp post had been bent until it was at a forty-five degree angle to the ground. Clark leaned his shoulder into it - hard. It snapped off at the base and hit the sidewalk with a deafening clang. Yelling, "Look out!" he took advantage of the panic in the crowd to rush forward and yank the front door off its hinges. "Almost free, Jeremy," he called.
Jeremy responded only by turning towards Clark's voice like a plant towards the sun, and Clark's pace zoomed again. They say you learn a lot about yourself during a crisis, and Clark was learning plenty - about how he would feel if Jeremy didn't survive this. But Jeremy would survive this, because Clark had the door off, and he refused to let anything go wrong now.
"Come on, Jeremy," he cajoled, leaning across the seat. "Just have to get your seatbelt off. Come on, Jeremy, take off the seatbelt." Jeremy fumbled at the clasp, but Clark was too keyed up to be patient, so he moved Jeremy's hands away and pushed the button himself. Nothing happened. "Damn it!" It, too, had jammed in the crash. But a seatbelt was two seconds' work - compared to two doors and a lamp post, it was child's play.
As he reached across to lift Jeremy from the seat, Clark noticed the network of cracks spreading across the lenses of Jeremy's glasses. He sighed and removed them. They were shot. But the frames were such a part of his mental image of Jeremy that he couldn't bear to leave them and have them destroyed when the car was towed. After half a second's thought, Clark slid them into his own shirt pocket.
And then he had Jeremy cradled in his arms like a child as he crawled out of the car.
After a quick check that Jeremy was still breathing, and an even quicker one that the onlookers were still otherwise occupied, Clark trained his ears towards the sounds of the nearest hospital and raced off. If anyone saw him, he couldn't have been brought to give a damn, as focused as he was on the too-still man in his arms.
(~(~)~)
The first thing Jeremy was aware of, when he became aware of things again, was pain. Immense, stabbing pain in his forehead above the left eye and his leg below the right knee. Moving hurt, so he stopped trying. Breathing hurt, too, but that felt like a thing he should keep doing.
The second thing he was aware of (and that took longer, as opening his eyes seemed like such a bad idea) was the angel sleeping in the chair beside his bed, the one with the disheveled dark hair, the stubble, and the violet half-circles under his eyes. "Clark--" he tried, but his voice scratched and caught, barely sounding like a voice at all.
It was enough, though; the being in the chair sat up and leaned forward, taking Jeremy's hands in his. "You're awake!"
Jeremy winced. The angel's voice was awfully loud, awfully close. "What happened?" he asked weakly.
"There was an accident. You hit your head on the steering wheel and broke two bones in your leg slamming on the brakes. You don't remember?"
He started to shake his head but recalled in time that that would hurt a lot. "No," he said, and frowned. "Glasses?"
Clark picked them off the bedside table and handed them to him. He fumbled them onto his face, and the world gained a sharper focus. But things looked fuzzy at the edges. "These are my spares."
Clark nodded sadly. "The others shattered in the crash. I had Natalie bring the spares from your apartment."
Jeremy grimaced. "Natalie was here?"
"And Casey and Dan," Clark said, nodding. "And Mr. Jaffe. And Chloe." He pointed at the windowsill. "Dana sent flowers and says she'll come back after the noon rundown."
Eyes narrowed, Jeremy asked, "What time is it?"
Clark looked at his watch. "Quarter to eleven. Technically, visiting hours don't start until eleven, but I pouted and pulled up a couple of tears, and they let me stay. Oh, I told them I'm your stepbrother. Which reminds me that your mother should be here around two thirty."
"My mother?" Jeremy shook his head. "You aren't usually this hyper, are you?"
Clark held up an empty Styrofoam cup. "I've had a lot of coffee."
"So I've been unconscious for ten hours."
Clark nodded. "They've been taking good care of you; you should be out of here by tomorrow afternoon."
"That's good." Jeremy's head sank into the pillows. Then he looked sharply at Clark. "You ripped the seatbelt."
Clark's eyes widened. He shook his head and freed one of his hands to run it through his hair. "All the things I did last night, and that's the one that gets me caught."
"What are you talking about?" Jeremy's brain was having trouble keeping up.
"I've done a lot of thinking in the past nine hours, and I...I...you mean a lot to me."
Oh, Jeremy couldn’t handle this now. He sighed. "You mean a lot to me, too, Clark."
"More than I'd realized," he continued softly, as if Jeremy hadn't spoken. "And if there's a chance - any chance at all - that something's going to happen between us--"
"Clark, do we have to do this now?" Jeremy begged.
"When else? Later this afternoon, after your mom shows up? A couple of days from now, when I'm back in Smallville? This is important, Jeremy. To us."
"Clark--" Despite the stabbing pain in his head, Jeremy struggled to sit up so he could look his friend in the eyes. "Clark, there is no 'us.'" He winced; he hadn't meant to sound so harsh.
Clark shrugged and shifted in his chair. "Not now."
"Oh, my God, Clark, you're eighteen."
"Maybe."
Jeremy squinted at him. "What do you mean, 'maybe'?"
Sighing, Clark picked up a random piece of plastic from the bedside table. "Here's the thing. You know Chloe's theory that the weird shit that happens in Smallville is because of the meteors?" When Jeremy nodded, too confused to do anything else, Clark continued, "She's right. The rocks do weird things to people. I don't know how many people have died, and a bunch more have become...well, they're the ones on the Wall of Weird."
Jeremy closed his eyes, but he couldn't shut out the vision that was beginning to seep into his mind. "And you?"
Clark sighed again. "I was adopted when my parents found me playing in the field that was hit hardest by the meteors. They think I was three, but I couldn’t been older."
"And the rocks didn't make you sick?"
"No," Clark whispered, staring at Jeremy with an expression that pled with him to understand. "They found a spaceship next to me. I'm an alien. The meteor shower is what came down with me."
"So you..." Jeremy tried to push up his glasses, but the motion pulled at his IV, so he let it go. "Last night...the seatbelt..."
"And both passenger side doors, and a lamp post. And knowing your leg was broken. And getting you to the hospital in four minutes."
Jeremy considered a moment, tracing random patterns on the railing with his fingertip. "You save my life again."
Thinking of the day they met, Clark chuckled. "That time, I really didn't--"
"That's how you got me out of the mud!"
Clark laughed. "Yeah." His expression sobered. "What do you think?"
Jeremy exhaled slowly. "I think I owe you my life twice over. I think you might have confused fear for my safety with love--"
"Hey--"
"And I think I'm awfully glad you might be older than eighteen."
It took a minute, but when Clark got it, he started laughing, a joyous sound that bounced around the corners of the room.
"You know what the worst part is?" Clark asked, his hand closing over Jeremy's.
"There's something worse than what you've told me already?" Jeremy couldn’t imagine what it could be.
"We've been glared at all weekend, accused of terrible things, you were almost killed, and I told you all my secrets, and I haven't kissed you once all weekend."
Jeremy chuckled. "That seems easy to fix," he said, pulling at Clark's hand. Clark smiled and came closer, his lips settling softly on Jeremy's.
Jeremy yawned.
Clark was on his feet in an instant. "You need sleep. I should go."
"You should not," Jeremy said, yanking Clark down into his chair. "I get three days of you; I don't intend to lose a minute of any of them."
Grinning widely, Clark resettled himself in the chair. "Then I'll stay." He frowned. "But I should call Chloe."
"No need. Chloe has arrived." She leaned on the doorframe in her best diva mode. Someone behind her snickered, and she turned an embarrassed scowl at them. "How are you feeling, Jeremy?" she asked, coming into the room.
Jeremy believed she cared. "I feel weird, but Clark tells me I'm going to live, and he wouldn't lie to me." He looked at Clark and winked. Clark looked panicked for a second but then smiled back.
"Good." she said.
"So, Chloe," Clark asked with a pointed look at her dark-haired shadow, "how was your party last night?"
"It was fantastic," she said. Then, noting the stare-down between the two younger men, she said, "Oh! Clark, this is Peter Parker; he's a photographer at the Bugle. Peter, Clark Kent."
They sized each other up across Jeremy's hospital bed. Clark was still holding Jeremy's hand and showed no indication that he was going to move it. Peter seemed reassured by this. "Hi, Clark."
"Hey." He pointed his free hand at Jeremy. "This is Jeremy."
Peter nodded to Jeremy. "Sorry about the accident. I photographed it for the Bugle. An ugly scene."
Jeremy nodded. "That's what Clark tells me, but I don't remember much beyond a lot of blood and a lot of yelling."
Clark blushed. "The yelling was mostly me."
Peter laughed, and even Chloe looked almost amused. She spared another scowl for the two men's linked hands, and then she sighed and came farther into the room, making room for Peter, who stuck to her like a second skin.
An awkward silence settled. Clark considered three or four conversation starts and then rejected them.
"We watched the show last night," Chloe blurted.
Clark and Jeremy exchanged worried glances. "Yeah?" Clark asked.
"That was nice, what Dan said about you."
Clark raised an eyebrow at Jeremy. Nice? Jeremy shrugged. "Yeah, it was," Clark said.
"It was totally cool," Peter said, a bit too enthusiastically. "Dan Rydell called you an inspiration."
"Clark is an inspiration to us all," Jeremy deadpanned, and Clark snickered. Then Chloe lost it, too. She couldn't seem to help herself. They laughed it out of their systems while Peter stood looking confused. It seemed to help, and though Chloe and Peter stayed only ten minutes more, the time did not pass awkwardly.
The same couldn't be said of Natalie's visit. She alternated between throwing herself at Clark to thank him for saving Jeremy's life and glaring death-rays at him, demanding to know why he had to be so young. Clark bore it with amazing fortitude.
Jeremy started getting antsy around two. Natalie had left; Dana had been and gone, bearing messages from Casey, Dan, and Isaac, as well as promises of later visits from Kim, Elliot, and the production techs. Jeremy had called Michael and managed to convince him that he wasn't at Death's door, and that Michael shouldn't rush back to New York. Between the visitors and the hospital personnel poking and prodding him, he was exhausted. But at two, he started fidgeting and looking at Clark out of the corner of his eye. Clark, who after three years off and on with Lex, knew a thing or two about body language, sighed. "Do you want me to go before your mom gets here?"
Jeremy ran his thumb over Clark's palm. "I don't want you to, but you'd better. I don't think she's quite ready for you today."
"Okay." Clark nodded and stood. "I'll go. But I'm coming back."
"You'd better."
Clark leaned over the railing and kissed Jeremy gently. "Oh, yeah," he whispered, "I'm definitely coming back."
The smile lingered on Jeremy's face long after Clark was gone.
(~(~)~)
Jeremy got out of the hospital Friday morning. Friday evening, at Jeremy's insistence, though Clark would much rather have stayed with him, Clark and Chloe - along with Peter - rushed their show. After the show (and after the after-show coffee and cake, because taking Chloe away from the Torch office by no means subdued her caffeine and chocolate addictions), Clark went, for the first time, to Jeremy's apartment.
"You should've heard them tonight," Jeremy greeted him.
"Dan and Casey?"
"On behalf of Dan and himself, Casey thanked you for hanging around to save my life." He shook his head, disbelieving. "He almost started crying."
Clark leaned over and kissed him. "I did cry. It was a bad day."
Embarrassed, Jeremy retreated to indignation. "I could've gone to work today."
Clark snorted, looking around the apartment that was pretty much exactly what he'd expected. The place was neat, and spare in its decorating. He sat on the couch, and Jeremy settled next to him. "You could not."
"There is a very important PGA tournament going on today. There is stock car racing in Miami. There is, moreover, a rumor that the A's starting first baseman is about to be traded to the Padres, and their back-up guy has been on the DL for almost a month." Worked into a near-frenzy, he tried to leap off the couch.
Clark held him down. "Jeremy! You're not going anywhere."
"But the show--"
"I know it's hard to admit, but there are other people who can make the show run." He pushed harder on Jeremy's shoulders.
"I won't stay. I'll just run down to the studio and--"
Clark sat on him.
Jeremy's mouth opened and closed in shock a few times. Then, "You just like sitting on me, don't you?"
Clark grinned. "It has its advantages." He kissed Jeremy, and when Jeremy wound his fingers through Clark's hair to pull him closer, Clark didn't resist. But when Jeremy thrust his hips up, Clark pulled away, shaking his head. "Uh-uh."
"You're not serious!" Jeremy groaned.
"I'm completely serious."
"It's your last night here."
"And you almost died yesterday!" Clark shot back, his voice nearly breaking. He sat back and dragged his shaking hands through his hair. "And I never realized - I never would've realized--"
"Hey. Hey, come on." Jeremy grabbed Clark's wrists and held on tight. Of course he'd never be a match for Clark physically, but sometimes a guy just needed to be held, even if none of them would ever admit it. "Everything worked out. You saved me."
"Yeah, but--" Sniffling, Clark lowered himself to lie along the length of Jeremy's body, clutching him like a too-large security blanket. "But I was so scared you weren't going to make it."
My God, Jeremy scolded himself, what are you doing? He's eighteen. Eighteen. But he knew. He had lost the battle, and now all he could do was comfort the survivors of the war. "But I did, Clark," he whispered against Clark's temple, his voice gone low. "I did, and I did my time in a hospital bed, and now all I want is to enjoy the only night I get with you."
Something in his voice convinced Clark. Jeremy saw it in the way his eyes glazed over. "Yes," he whispered.
Jeremy traced Clark's lips with his thumb. "We should move to the bedroom."
All blood had moved away from Clark's head. He nodded, and Jeremy sensed that this was all he had it in him to do. "Okay."
Sliding his fingers down Clark's neck and undoing his top button, Jeremy said softly, "I could get there better if you weren't sitting on me."
Too lust-dazed for his usual three rounds of apologies, Clark nodded and slid off Jeremy's legs. Jeremy winced as blood rushed back into his calves. He climbed off the couch and pulled Clark down by the shirt-front.
"Wha--" Clark began, cut off by Jeremy's lips against his. "Oh." Honestly, you wouldn't think the boy had dated Lex Luthor for three years.
They staggered to the bedroom, tossing clothing to the ground as they went. The only illumination came from the building's emergency light, and the way it spilled across Clark's chest made Jeremy lick his lips. Clark saw that and was on him in an instant, tumbling him to the bed.
Jeremy grinned hazily at him. "Sometimes I have really good ideas."
Growling, Clark leaned down and bit Jeremy's collarbone. "Jeremy, shut up and fuck me."
Jeremy laughed and kissed him again, hard enough to bruise. "Sometimes, you have even better ones."
(~(~)~)
In the morning (almost afternoon for a boy who got up with the cows, almost the middle of the night for a man whose first obligation was at noon), they lay in bed, Jeremy's arms around Clark's torso, Clark's cheek against Jeremy's chest, staring out the window at a tiny patch of grayish sky.
"You have to go today," Jeremy said. Clark just nodded, his hair brushing against Jeremy's shoulder. Jeremy sighed. "How much trouble are you in with Chloe?"
Clark shrugged. "Nothing I can't handle. You?"
"Natalie?" Clark nodded again. "I've been through worse."
Clark closed his eyes, sliding his palm up Jeremy's chest. "Are we crazy?"
Jeremy laughed, his hands flexing at Clark's shoulder blades. "I have no doubt of it."
Chuckling weakly, Clark said, "That's good to know, then."
"Look into NYU," Jeremy said suddenly. "Or Cornell. Or...or something closer."
"Jeremy--"
The lie did not bear telling. Clark would never leave Kansas; Jeremy would never leave New York. Someday, someday this could be the thing that drove them apart. For today, it was just one more thing that made this relationship the dumbest thing either of them had ever done.
"Should you call Chloe, so she knows you're not dead in a ditch somewhere? Or--" He raised his head to look at Clark. "Or isn't that something that can happen to you?"
"It can if I'm exposed to enough meteor rocks. But Chloe doesn't know."
"Oh." Jeremy's head fell back to the pillow. "I hadn't thought about it being a huge secret, but I guess it must be. So, your parents and Lex are the only ones who know?"
Clark squirmed. "My parents and Pete. Lex doesn't know."
Jeremy sat up fast, spilling Clark to the other side of the bed. "You dated Lex for three years, and he doesn't know?"
"If you were involved with Lionel Luthor's son, would you tell him something like that?"
"Well, no," Jeremy admitted. His eyes narrowed. "But you told me."
Clark sat up, nodding. "My relationship with Lex died because of lies. I don't think either of us was really honest once in three years. I won't start from the same place with you."
Leaning over, Jeremy placed a kiss to the side of Clark's eye. "This is the best stupid thing I've ever done."
Clark laughed and squeezed Jeremy's hand. "Me too."
At eleven, Clark picked up the backpack that was the only thing he'd come with, slung it over his shoulders, and stood in front of the door looking at once stern and dejected. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to go to work today."
Jeremy wrapped his arms around himself. "It beats my other option, which is sitting around here thinking about how long it's going to be before I see you again."
Sighing, Clark put his hand on Jeremy's shoulder. "We'll work it out somehow," he promised. "I'll have vacations. You'll have vacations. Dylan DeMassey's been drafted by the Royals; do a follow-up story on him." He gave the shoulder a squeeze. "Somehow."
Jeremy nodded, curving his hands around Clark's hips. "I know we will. Doesn't make it any better."
"All right. I'd better go before Chloe calls the National Guard." His lips pursed. "And that would've been so much funnier if there wasn't a good chance she'd do it."
Jeremy chuckled. "I could give you a ride back to the hotel."
"Thanks, but--" Clark shook his head. "I think it's going to hurt less if we say our good-byes here." He took a deep breath. "So...good-bye, Jeremy."
Jeremy stepped in close. "Good-bye, Clark," he said quietly.
Leaning down, Clark kissed Jeremy one last time. He was slow and thorough, memorizing the tastes and textures of Jeremy's mouth. Who knew how long this kiss would have to last them?
When they had to break apart, Clark ran his hand down Jeremy's cheek, whispered, "I'll call," and slipped out the door. He wouldn't let himself look back.
Jeremy locked the door and went to get ready for work. He had this job to do. So he'd sleepwalk through it for a few days; eventually he'd get over the accident, Clark's revelations, Clark's departure - well, no, maybe not that - and be his old self again - to anyone who wasn't paying close attention. Of course everyone at "Sports Night" would be paying close attention, so he wouldn't fool anyone who mattered.
Except that maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could fool himself.
END