Life, Non-Fat

Tom did not slam the door of his SUV as he climbed in the driver's side.  Instead, he cut a glare at the steering wheel that rightfully should have made it quake in terror.

Jamie, of course, got in quietly and sedately and logically as she did everything else, either oblivious to Tom's roiling crankiness, or pretending to be for simplicity's sake.

Tom jammed the keys into the ignition and twisted while Jamie wiggled his venti cappuccino into the cup holder at his elbow.  The SUV started with an irritable cough that perfectly reflected Tom's mood.

They drove in silence for ten minutes, all the way up Granville, until Jamie released a quiet sigh.  "Okay, what?"

Because even in this, she did everything right.  Her tone of voice was just cool enough to project a perfect sense of, 'My husband is being a big pouty baby and I'm attempting to have a mature discussion with him in spite of that.'

Tom gripped the wheel tightly, telling himself to smile and brush it off, it was nothing, this was only going to lead to one of those talks, this was going nowhere productive -- "Why do you have to say it like that?" he blurted.

A measured silence.  "Say what, exactly?"

You won't, Tom schooled himself.  You will not.  "He'll need that non-fat," he quoted bitterly.  "I mean ... god, Jamie!"

"That's what you're angry about?" she asked, incredulous.  "I ... Tom."  Oh, now it was the 'be reasonable' voice, which Tom usually responded to.

Today he wasn't responding so well.  "You know, it's bad enough that I spend two of my free hours at the goddamn gym every day, that I run and sweat and wear shitloads of makeup and go for three a.m. shoots and wear flannel constantly, when I'm not standing around in the cold and wet without my shirt on.  It's bad enough, Jamie." 

"So you're going to drink whole milk lattes from now on," Jamie replied evenly.  "Okay, Tom.  If that's what you want."

Her tone summoned an image of Tom, twenty pounds overweight, gasping with exertion as he jogged around the Smallville set.  How did she do that?  "That's not the point," Tom tried desperately.  "The point is ..."

"Yes?"

"The point is ... shit, I don't know what the point is, okay?  Just -- don't fucking order my coffee for me."

"If that's what you want," she repeated with a nod, because Tom was being Irrational and a Television Star and well, she signed up for this, didn't she?

They drove the rest of the way in silence.

Mike and Tom didn't talk very much anymore, now that Lex's scenes were getting shorter and were less often with Clark.  Michael was actually living in L.A. most of the time this season, which cut down on the annoying hovering around the set that Tom had been used to, Mikey grinning off-camera, trying to make Tom fluff his lines.  But today was a good day, a rare day, filled with a lot of Lex and Clark scenes, and when Tom parked his car, he could spot Mike, already shaved and half in wardrobe -- Mike's scruffy jeans with Lex's untucked dress shirt.

Jamie kissed Tom's cheek and climbed in the driver's seat he had just vacated.  "See you tonight," she murmured, smiling a little for the benefit of any watching crew members.  They always had to put on a good show, and Tom supposed that the hapless baristas at their neighbourhood Starbucks were probably the only people in the world who suspected that all was not rosy between the two Wellings.

As Jamie drove away, Tom lifted his head from his contemplation of the asphalt and caught Mike watching him, a little smirk on his lips.

Okay, the baristas and Mike.

Because Mike had a bullshit detector with a one-mile radius.

"Hey, man, good to see you," Tom said with a grin when he reached Mike.  It had been about a week since they last caught more than a passing glimpse of the other, so this was okay -- this little half-hug and squeeze by which Mike could convey all his understanding of the situation.

"Tommy," Mike answered, flicking the brim of Tom's baseball cap.  "Very classy incognito look."

Tom saluted Michael with his almost-full non-fat cappuccino, grinning more because sometimes it was easier to just react to Michael than to try and keep up with him.

"I'm a fan of --" Mike squinted at Tom's cap, the stitching.  "The Wisconsin Deer Hunters' Association?  Okay, where the fuck did that come from and why is it not in my wardrobe?"

"It came from Wisconsin," Tom answered, pulling the cap on tighter and finding that he wasn't forcing his grin anymore.  "Where the deer are."

"Where they used to be," Mike added, pulling a mournful face, "before they were decimated by you and your kind."

Then the director broke in and hustled Tom off to make-up and wardrobe, shuttling Michael back to whereever the guy was actually supposed to be at the moment.

The grin stayed through the make-up ordeal, even as his hairdresser berated him for flattening his hair with the cap.

"So spill," Mike ordered at noon, taking up too much of Tom's couch, while Tom was squeezed into an armchair in his trailer.

"I'm not -- what the hell are you --" Tom began in stops and starts.  Then, with a sigh, he tried again.  "She keeps --"

"You're not spilling, Tommy.  You're, like, vomiting up chunks of your issues."

Tom looked down at his lunch -- green salad with non-fat Italian dressing, a side of carrot sticks, several rolls of cold-cuts.  A diet soda.  Now Mike mentioned it, Tom did feel a bit like vomiting.

"I always have to get non-fat coffee in the morning, right?  I mean, I know that.  I'm twenty-eight years old, you know?" Tom sighed, frustrated by his inability to communicate what was bothering him.  "And she's all, 'don't forget it's non-fat.'"

Michael stretched out and took another bite of his cheese-laden pasta.  Lex hadn't had a shirtless scene in weeks now, and Michael was taking full advantage of the hiatus.  Not that Michael had ever picked up a spare pound in his life.  "So," Mike said lazily, wiping his fingers off on his old t-shirt.  "She's telling you what to do?"

"No," Tom quickly countered, because that wasn't it.  "I mean, it's not like she's ordering me or something.  You know, I'm probably just being an asshole."

"Well, I'm not going to argue there," Mike grinned.  "But sometimes a man just wants his whole-milk foam, you know?"

"Mike, that's not it," Tom sighed shortly, because he still couldn't say it, what was bothering him.  It was niggling in his brain but he couldn't put it into words, and if he could ever get Mike to shut up and listen, they might be able to figure it out.

"Then what?  Is it the whole being a star and staying fit thing?" Mike asked.

"No.  I mean, yeah.  Kind of sick of it, but it's my life and my job, you know, so getting pissy at my wife isn't gonna change that."

"Jamie probably gets that you're just stressed," Mike assured Tom.  "I mean, the woman puts up with the deerhunting cap, she's not going to freak out because of a little non-fat milk pissiness."

Tom tried to laugh, because Mike was being funny and friendly and sort of dismissive, like he couldn't quite be bothered to deal with what Tom was saying, and that made sense because they really weren't that tight anymore, and it was unfair for Tom to expect Mike to be still able to read Tom's mind, express Tom's thoughts.  Tom tried to laugh, but it came out all John Glover.  "Hmm hmm hmmm," Tom laughed, fucking Lionel Luthor screwing his son over yet again.

He and Mike had spent weeks perfecting that imitation once upon a second season, and Mike didn't fail to recognize it now.  He sat upright and twisted around to look Tom in the eye.  "Okay, what the fuck."  His blue eyes were suddenly serious, concerned, focused entirely on Tom, and christ, had Tom really missed that look so much?

Tom looked away, overwhelmed by a sense of terror and relief.

"Tommy.  What?  Is Jamie fucking around on you?  Or are you fucking around on her?"

Tom laughed, because really.  Only Mikey would go right there.  The last time they'd hung out at lunchtime was when they were filming "Bound", and they'd spent the entire lunch over pissing themselves laughing over the idea of Lex's so-called promiscuity.  When they stopped to add it up, Mike had racked up more than Lex's 13 lovers in the past year, and that was just counting extras and guest stars, even when Tom insisted that Emmanuelle only counted as one, never mind how many times and places.

"No, no one's fucking around," Tom smiled, shaking his head.  "And no one has cancer of the testicles or whatever, either."

"That was going to be my next question," replied Mike, cracking a grin in response.  "I was worried about your testicles, Tom."

Tom rolled his eyes and shifted his salad plate to give Mike a clear view of the V of Clark's jeans.  "No need to worry, they're still there."  His smile fell away as the topic reminded him of something else.  "Know what we're doing over the winter hiatus, Jamie and I?"  Mike inclined his head encouragingly.  With a wry smile, Tom continued.  "We're getting pregnant."

"Fuck off," Michael hissed in a very gratifying way.  "Shit, are you serious, man?"

Tom nodded slowly, avoiding Mike's incredulous stare.  "That's the plan.  We've got, like, these little ovulation tests and folic acid supplements and some sperm motility herb or some shit, and Jamie's blocked off this one entire week so we can have sex every twelve hours or something."  Tom had no doubt Jamie's plan would work, too.

Everything always worked out for her.  Tom used to admire that, how simple and lovely everything seemed when Jamie was around.  There was no awkwardness, no uncertainty, nobody spoke or acted wrong.  That used to make Tom crazy with adoration, that elegance, that glow of refinement.

"Well, I guess you guys have been married long enough," Mike was saying doubtfully.  "Two years now?  Time for little Wellings."

Tom was quiet, wondering why he'd brought this up, why he felt the need to mention it in such a panicked way.  He wanted kids, always had.  But he knew that Mike would react like Tom was planning to start a pig farm in his trailer.

"Tommy?  This have something to do with the thing between you and Jamie?"

Yes.  Yes, it did.  Shit, it really did.

"If you're not ready, man, you need to tell her."

But that wasn't it.  It wasn't a matter of Tom being ready.  Tom picked at his nails in thought.

"Tommy?"  That was the sound of Mike putting things together better than Tom ever could.  "Is it ... you and Jamie ... are you --"

Tom shook his head quickly.  "No, it's not that serious," he said abruptly, trying to smile, but the smile wouldn't come.

"Shit.  It's that serious," breathed Mike, awed.

Oh, shit.  It was that serious.  Tom was suddenly glad he hadn't eaten his lunch at all, because his stomach was heaving.

"Look, you need to talk to her, you need to do something, man, you can't just pretend everything's okay --" Mike was ranting.  Tom and Jamie, always the perfect couple, the young actor in a beautiful monogamous relationship, shunning Hollywood's expectations and the intoxicating freedom of being young, hot, and wealthy.  Even Michael needed it to be true, that was why he was acting this way.

"That's what she wants," Tom said, cutting Mike off.  "She wants to pretend everything's okay."

"Well, fucking show her it isn't, then!" Mike exclaimed, more visibly shaken than Tom.  "Jesus, Tommy, you can't--"  But he stuttered to a halt there.  "It's you guys."

It was.  It was them.  Right up until when?  One non-fat cappuccino too many?  One too many perfect dinner parties, carefully private interviews, posed and groomed red carpet events?  Everything was so damn perfect, Tom wanted to scream, but since when had he not wanted perfection?  Tom was all about order, neatness, simplicity.  That was what he loved about Jamie, that was why Mikey gave him such a hard time for trying so hard on set, being the young actor who was so earnestly dedicated to learning his craft when everyone knew Tom was mostly there to look pretty and take his shirt off.

"I need --" Tom began.  "I need to figure out this shit."

"Ask ... ask Kristin, she knows people in town, she can point you in the right direction, someone to talk to--"

"No.  I can't.  No one can know.  I just need to be away from Jamie, just for a few days."

"You can use my place in False Creek, man ... I'm not using it, I'm in L.A. again tonight."

"I need --" Tom didn't know how to say it, but Michael always knew, when Tom could get him to pay attention, so Tom lifted his gaze and just looked at Michael.

A deep breath, and Michael was really into this crisis, because he raised his hand and rubbed a palm over his scalp, totally demolishing Natalie's airbrushing job and baring a patch of dark stubble.  And Michael hadn't done that in years.  "Okay.  Okay, man.  I can -- I'll make other plans.  But you have to promise me, you'll tell Jamie what's up.  Even if she doesn't want to hear it."

"After.  Once I figure out what I want to say," Tom countered.

"And in the meantime, we're -- what?  Having a fucking slumber party?"

"We're -- reconnecting.  For the show."

Michael laughed, because Tom was the only one who took the show that seriously, but then he nodded, slowly, blue eyes meeting Tom's gaze again.  "Okay," he sighed.  "Okay."

Jamie was seriously displeased to hear that Tom had chosen tonight to do some professional development.  "We were supposed to have dinner with Sonya and Sean," she said.

"I'm sorry, babe, I just -- hiatus is coming up and I really feel like I need to work this thing out before we film the last ep, you know?"

"And Michael is going to help with that?" she said, doubtfully.  Jamie and Michael didn't exactly hate each other.  They respected each other, actually, in the one-friend-removed kind of way -- Michael was okay with Jamie because she was Tom's wife, and Jamie had to be okay with Mike because Tom liked him.  Jamie found Mike's sense of humour inexplicable, though.  The first time she met him, and Tom had smilingly asked her what she thought of his new co-worker, Jamie had said, with a tight smile, "He's always performing."

And Tom had blinked quickly, because it was true, but Tom hadn't thought of it that way.

When Tom had gotten a chance to ask Mike what he thought of Tom's then-fiancee, Mike hadn't been as circumspect.  "She's seriously hot," he'd grinned.  "Not my type, but damn."  Then, after a short pause, something less flashy.  "She's -- she's like you, Tommy.  Classy, you know?  And really -- I dunno.  Real."

Now Tom was wondering if he and Jamie were always performing, too.  It was beginning to feel that way.  "He's a good actor," Tom said with all the honest warmth he could muster.  "Greg thinks it's a good idea."

The Lex-Clark arc was only getting uglier from here, and Tom privately felt like he really did need to spend time with Mike, if only to reassure himself somehow that the on-camera scenes they were shooting had no parallel in their off-screen friendship.

"Is Greg going to be there?" Jamie asked, a little tightly.

"No.  Just us."

"I thought Michael was in L.A. these days."

"He changed his plans for this."

A long pause.  "Should I pick you up tomorrow morning, then?"

"No.  Um, no.  Michael will give me a lift to the location.  He and I have the same call time tomorrow anyway."  It was probably a lie, but Tom needed this.

He needed this.

"Okay."  She was quiet for another moment.  "You still have a change of clothes at work?"

"Yes."  He did, if Jamie thought he did.  He wasn't actually sure, but she always knew where things were.

"I love you."

"Love you too," Tom murmured into the cup of his palm, into the cell phone.  But his eyes were fixed on the parking lot, where Michael was leaning up against his van, smoking.

"I bought you a car," Tom said, because really.  The van smelled like ass.

"I bought you a pair of ice skates," returned Mike innocently.

Okay, point taken.

It was almost nine o'clock, and Tom was drained, so he let his head loll back into the brown velour of the seat cover.  "Dinner?"

"Yeah, what the hell," answered Mike.  "Let's just hit Bridges.  We'll walk from my place."

Mike and Tom had been living in Vancouver the exact same amount of time, but somehow Mike had gotten into the city in a way Tom never had.  Mike knew driving routes, restaurants, good thrift stores (though that was probably Allison's fault), theatres, and community papers, while Tom was pretty much stuck on figuring out which coffee place was nearest to each of his homebases -- his house, the set, the farm in Abbottsford.

"Do they have steak?" asked Tom, stretching because the ass-smelling van really did have a good amount of leg-room.

"They have the best fucking onion rings you've ever eaten in your life.  And beer."

Onion rings, steak, and beer.

Jamie was probably expecting no different from Michael's evening out with Tom, so Tom grinned and rubbed one hand over his stomach lazily.  "And cheesecake?"

"With non-fat whipped cream, right?"  Evil grin.  Wicked flash of blue eyes.

"Fuck you, Rosenbaum."

"Just, tits like -- bam.  Tommy, you gotta come to L.A."

Tom raised an eyebrow at this, but Michael didn't really notice because he was off in bam-tit land.

"I'm telling you, getting laid is like -- you never had it so easy."

Tom had it easy for a long time, but this was exciting and new to Michael, because before there was Sexy Lexy and the Cult of the Bald Man, there was just a young skinny guy who was doing his damndest to be an actor, to turn his natural energy and fizz into fame and money and chicks.  Tom had never tried for this.

"So you're -- good.  I mean, L.A.  You like it."

Michael was thirty-two years old and sometimes he seemed decades younger than Tom.  Right now, with his eyes all lit up like Christmas and his body radiating sexual enthusiasm, Mike made Tom feel like he was a hundred and three, impotent, and exhausted.  "I fucking love it, man."

"I miss you up here, though," Tom said, though it wasn't what he meant to say.

Mike smiled, teasing.  "You don't need me.  You have -- you've got the fucking deer hunters and the ovulation pills and hours and hours of work."  But then Mike's smile fell a little.  "Is it -- are you guys really ..."

Tom shook his head.  "It's all me.  Jamie's -- she's Jamie.  I'm the one who --"  He blew out a breath, turning his beer mug in his hands.  "She and I want kids.  We really do.  And now's the time -- the show's going pretty good, we've got a house in a nice neighbourhood, and, I mean, professionally, people won't be as freaked if Superman's a dad after Clark finishes high school."

Mike laughed at this last, but didn't interject.

"I just --"

Mike swigged some beer and poked at the soggy onion rings on the plate between them.  "We're being noticed," he said quietly.  "Two tables behind you."

"We should --" Tom said, looking for their server, wanting to get their bill.  He hated this part, even if Michael didn't.

"Sit down, Superboy," Mike ordered lightly.  "We're not about to be swarmed.  If they ask for an autograph, you give it to them.  Then they leave you alone."  His voice was low and almost seductively smooth, Lex-voice, suddenly acoustically altered from the brash sounds of Michael the Actor.

Tom sat, wondering if he was ever going to stop getting a little hard when he heard that voice.  He wished he could just be like most other young male actors these days, ambiguously oriented and proud of it, but he was different because he was married.  He couldn't be like Ian on the show last year, who said, 'Fuck, Rosenbaum, stop making me pop wood, you fucking pervert,' when Mike kept getting in too close during one scene.

And Tom had looked at Mike, startled and wondering if Mike would be embarrassed, because Tom was embarrassed for Mike -- but Mike had just lewdly licked his lips in Ian's direction.

Ian was in that thirteen-person tally somewhere, Tom just knew it.  Because the new wave of homophilia was one thing, but the way Mike had looked at Somerhalder was something else entirely.

"I shouldn't have eaten all this shit," Tom said, mostly to change the subject.

"Yeah, you're going to wake up tomorrow with big love-handles, you fucking girl," taunted Michael.  "Come on, live a little.  The wife's not here to tell you non-fat."

"Let's go," Tom said abruptly.  He looked up at Mike, and there must have been something alarming in his eyes, because Mike reacted with a flare of hot blue intensity.

"Okay, let's go," he agreed, and they stood up, gathering their coats.

Mike stole Tom's deerhunting cap on the way out the door, settling it on his own head with a sharp flash of teeth.  "Slumber party."

The walk back to Mike's waterfront condo was brief, but it was Vancouver and it had begun to piss down rain like no one's business while they had been holed up in the Granville Island restaurant.

Tom shook himself like a dog once they were inside the door.  "I changed my mind, I'm coming to L.A. with you," he shivered, wishing for Clark's flannel shirts fervently.  Nothing felt worse than wet jeans.

"Sorry it's so cold in here -- had the thermostat turned down cause I was away," Mike apologized, soaked in his L.A. weather clothing.  "Come on, just get in the living room and I'll get the gas fireplace going."

They moved into the once-familiar condo in shivering silence, Tom wondering if he would even fit into any of Mike's dry clothes, since he needed to save his change of clothes for tomorrow.  "Take that stuff off, I'll throw it in the dryer," Mike called back over his shoulder from where he was fiddling with the gas controls.

Tom stripped off his shirt gratefully, then even more gratefully peeled off his heavy wet jeans.  "I can put it in, hand me your shit," he offered, but Mike was already standing and tugging at his clothes.

He was faintly hairy from his month's worth of clothed scenes.  Tom glanced down at his own freshly waxed torso and felt mildly envious.  That hair looked kind of warm.  Though Mike's nipples were tight and stiff, so obviously he was a little chilly anyway -- Tom averted his eyes.

"Here, man," he said, thrusting his wet clothes in Mike's direction.  "You got some sweats or something I could borrow for pyjamas?"

"Sure, I'll find some," Mike said easily, then his jaw dropped and he exhaled a moan.  A long, sexy, breathy moan.  Tom got hard again, which was not the best move when wearing wet boxer briefs.  "Shit, that fireplace feels so nice," Mike sighed, luckily with eyes closed in bliss.

"I'll take the clothes," Tom announced quickly, taking Mike's clothes and bolting for the laundry room.  He had to get this under control, because he was really confused enough already without having to deal with his repressed bisexuality on top of everything.  After all, Tom had made peace with that decision a long time ago, long before Jamie or Mike.

He lectured his cock while he stuffed the clothes into the dryer, and had talked himself down to a more decent state by the time he hit the start button.

"Here, wear these," Mike said behind Tom, and Tom turned to see Mike holding out a pair of -- oh, jesus.

"You're not funny."

"I swear, that's what I have here, man," Mike vowed, grinning.  "They're not mine anyway, they're -- they're not mine."

Tom could see that they weren't Mike's -- they were almost long enough for Tom, and the waist could probably fit two Rosenbaums inside.  Which meant they would sit low on Tom's hips, but they'd stay up fine.  "Not funny," Tom repeated, then held out the plaid flannel pyjama bottoms and stepped into them.

They were warm and nice and soft.

Tom made a face anyway, because he was really becoming too much of a flannel connoisseur.

"Come on, Tommy.  We have to make popcorn and talk about boys," lisped Mike in his campiest voice, grabbing Tom by the hand and hauling him out into the kitchen.

Tom was too tired to keep up with Mike, which wasn't so much an unusual state of affairs as it was an unfortunate but constant truth.  He drifted off partway through South Park, only wake up again with Mike poking him in the stomach, chanting, "Blame Canada!" in his godawful un-singing voice.

"I'm gonna go to bed," he said sleepily.  "Got eight a.m. call."

"No, you don't," Mike contradicted, reaching out to stuff a kernel of popcorn in Tom's yawning mouth.

"Yes, I do, it's the scene with the--" Tom closed his mouth against the popcorn, so Mike went for his nose instead.  "Fuck, Mikey, stop," he half-laughed, half-ordered.  Mike stopped just long enough to change directions again and poke the kernel towards Tom's ear.  "Eight a.m.," Tom repeated, batting at Mike's hand.

"No, I talked to Beeman.  He's giving you the morning off."

"You -- Mike!  I said I didn't want anyone to know what's going on!" Tom snapped, sitting up and pulling away from Michael's reach.

"And?  Beeman's not a person, Tommy," Mike cackled.  "He's -- Beeman.  This is the world through Beeman's ears.  I say: 'Beeman, listen to me.  It's Mike speaking.  Rosenbaum, Beeman.  Yes, that Rosenbaum.  Beeman, you need to give Tommy a morning off.  Tommy.  Welling.  Yes, that Welling.  Because he's going apeshit and also?  Because I said so.'  And Beeman, what he hears is this: 'Blahblahblah if you don't give Welling time off, Rosenbaum will be farting on set all day tomorrow in revenge.'"

Tom attempted a laugh, because Mike's trying really hard, but he can't help but feel like this is some sort of fuck-up, like he should just call Beeman and tell him Mike was wrong, that he'd be there -- but it was almost two in the morning and Tom could really use the sleep.

"You're gross, Mikey," Tom said fondly, and Mike took this as a signal to stuff the kernel between Tom's lips.  "Thanks, man."

"What are friends for, Tommy?" Michael said, reaching up to ruffle Tom's hair.  "Okay, you know where the guest room is.  Go to bed."

Tom hauled himself to his feet and stretched.  "Don't let me sleep in past eight-thirty, okay?  I don't want to get off schedule."

"You got it," Mike said, and he was -- watching Tom stretch.  Hmm.

"Goodnight," Tom said quickly, before he could process that event too carefully, and headed off to bed.

"Tommy."

Such a soft voice, and so disorienting.  Tom rolled over, reaching for Jamie, but she was already up, her voice was coming from somewhere not-here, and it was strangely low, like she had a cold.

"Tommy, wake up."

Jamie never called him that.  It was too -- silly.

Tom loosed a sleepy groan into his pillow.  "Mmwhat?"

Then a shock of motion, and someone bony was sitting on his back.  Someone was bouncing on his back.

"Michael," Tom growled.  "I said eight-thirty."  It couldn't be that late yet.

"It's nine thirty, man," Mike answered cheerily, still bouncing.  "I made waffles!" he continued in his Donkey-Eddie Murphy voice.

Tom lifted his head from the pillow and turned to look over his shoulder.  Mike was happily straddling his lower back, like Tom was somebody's overgrown labrador and Mike was a toddler playing horsey.

Mike grinned and burst out laughing.  "Tom, has anyone ever told you that you have, like, the worst bedhead in the world?"

"It's because it was wet when I feel asleep," Tom grouched, shifting a little, trying to dislodge Michael.

"It's all --" Mike's fingers reached out, tugging at Tom's curls.  "'Whee!' over here, like AstroBoy, and this part's all 'Ohhh,' and flat, and here --" Mike burst into giggles over the sheer wonder of Tom's hair -- "here, it's like this little shelf, like the rock in the Lion King, just sticking right out."

Tom was not a morning person and this was not amusing.  He reached up and caught Mike's fingers, squeezing.  "Cut it out."

"Oh, you love it," Mike cooed.  "Come on, up!"  He bounced a few more times.  "The waffles are getting cold."

"You did not make fucking waffles," Tom said, letting his head fall back on the pillow because actually this was almost -- nice.  This weight of Mike on his back, the heat of Mike.  The feel of his thighs straddling Tom's body.

"I made fucking waffles," Michael repeated seriously.  "And they are getting cold."  He jiggled again, so Tom could feel the muscles of Mike's skinny ass flexing on his bare back, through the cloth of Mike's boxers.

Tom had to get up.

Tom suddenly knew he couldn't get up with Mikey around to see how up he really was.

"Okay, I'll be down in a minute," he stalled, stretching his arms in a show of awakening.

"Now," Michael ordered, tugging at Tom's shoulders, trying to turn him over.

"I said in a minute!" Tom half-laughed, but it came out a little too nervous.

"What, do you have morning wood or something?  It's nothing I haven't seen before, man," Michael answered, still pulling, and Tom wasn't as strong as the guy he played on TV, so it was working.  Michael scooted back on his knees and really hauled on Tom, and then Tom was somehow twisted face up in the bed.

"Hey, you do have morning wood!" Michael exclaimed, sounding a little too pleased with the revelation.  "Yeah, I remember that.  It goes away when you get out of your twenties.  Heh.  Good old alarm cock."

Tom was pretty sure that he wasn't supposed to be able to blush like this at his age, either.

But Michael didn't give a shit, didn't guess for a second that him humping Tom's ass for five minutes would have anything to do with Tom's state, and he just made a playful-turned-on face and skittered back off the bed.  "Take care of that, then waffles," he said, all low and rumbly and Lex-like and Tom's hips fucking lifted off the bed, just a little, at that sound.  Michael didn't notice because he was halfway out of the room already.

Once Michael had closed the door behind him, Tom obediently tugged his borrowed pyjama pants down and stroked himself quickly, roughly.  Jamie in the shower, that one time in Mexico, when she'd -- oh, god, with the -- yeah.  And Jamie when they'd tried that -- hell, yeah.  And the day with the --

Michael watching Tom stretch last night, his blue eyes fixed on Tom's abs, his chest.

Tom came suddenly, violently, biting his lip against any stray sounds.

This was not how he was going to figure things out.

Michael was a good cook, when he bothered to do it.  It wasn't fair that everyone assumed Annette would make the best food just because she played a mom on the show.  Mike's waffles were -- though a bit cold -- really damn amazing.

"Okay, so ..." Michael said, clearing Tom's plate.  "What are we doing?  We have -- two hours."

"Can we ... I think I need to just talk about this thing with Jamie.  I mean, that's why I'm here, right?" Tom said uncomfortably.

"Yeah, sure, Tommy.  Let's do it.  We'll go and grab some coffee, sit down and --"

"No," Tom blurted.  "Not out.  I don't want --"

"You are so paranoid," Michael grinned, but he seemed to concede the point.  He crossed back to the kitchen table and pulled a chair out, straddling it backwards and crossing his arms over the top.  "Talk."

Tom cleared his throat a few times.  "When you're married, you're supposed to -- like.  Change together, right?"

"And you've been doing all the changing," Michael said easily.  He had such a way of getting things that Tom said.  It was a little eerie.

"Well, I mean.  Not that Jamie's been -- not changing," Tom protested, wanting to clarify.

"She's not stagnating, no," Michael agreed.  "But -- well, jesus, Tom.  Look how far you've come in your career the last four years.  It's pretty fucking incredible."

"It's not," Tom said, shaking his head and smiling.

"It is, you retard.  You -- you know, the first day on set, you were so --" Mike exhaled, apparently trying for the right expression.  "Okay, don't take this the wrong way, Tom, but everyone just thought you were the model they ordered to do the job.  And you were so inexperienced and awkward as shit and you didn't know where to stand or how to read lines or --"

"I sucked, is what you're saying," Tom provided, unhurt.  It wasn't news to him.

"Yeah.  Okay," Michael laughed.  "You sucked.  But now -- man, look at you.  You are -- your timing is ... doing a scene with you, now, Tommy, it's right up there with working with Glover, okay?  It's unreal, how far you've come."  It was rare, this sincerity from the man who was always performing, and Tom accepted the praise at its full worth.

"Thanks," Tom nodded.  "It means a lot, that you think that."

"The point is --" Michael continued, unwilling to linger around this dangerously emotional territory, "-- that Jamie -- she.  Okay, again, don't take this the wrong way.  But Jamie likes things to be ... the way she expected they would turn out.  She's so great, Tom, you know I love her like crazy, but she's not ..."

"She's not good at changing her plans," Tom suggested, because really, she wasn't.

"Yeah, I guess.  Anyway, I think maybe when you got together with her, you were ... I dunno.  Trying something on?  It's like, I have all these different characters I can play, like the asshole and the billionaire and the kid, and you were, like, playing the good boy.  You know, getting married and not letting the project go to your head and being so damn careful about how you played your cards."

Tom nodded slowly.  "But I wasn't really playing, Michael.  That's how I really am.  I'm -- careful.  I like things to work out the way I expected them to."

Michael accepted this with a blink, then inclined his head.  "I wonder, though ... do you really?  Because it seems like things are working out how you expected.  With Jamie, and with the show, and with your acting.  But you're -- you're all fucked up about it."

Tom was all fucked up.  He wasn't sure how Michael could know it, when he'd barely started to admit it to himself, but it was absolutely true.  Jamie wasn't the nexus of the problem -- she was one focal point in the mess that was Tom's brain.  He'd been on autopilot for so long, months probably, going through the motions of life, agreeing with fate and Jamie that this was how things were meant to be, and suddenly -- suddenly, they weren't right anymore.

"Jesus, I really shouldn't be reproducing," Tom sighed, wrapping his hands around the salt shaker in the middle of the table.  "You know?"  He looked up to see Mikey watching him, clear blue eyes with so much intensity, so much passion.

Michael was like that -- always on, always performing.  Jamie saw it with disdain, but Tom had never felt anything but admiration.  To be alive like that, to be unflinchingly passionate and playful and daring -- Tom wondered what it was like.  If it felt as amazing as it looked.

"Let's go get coffee," Tom suggested.  Fuck the public.  Fuck the baristas who always knew when something was up.  He was going to get coffee with his co-worker and everyone else could bite him.

"Don't forget your deer hunting cap," Michael teased, standing up.

"You can have it," Tom offered.  "I want to display my bedhead with pride."

Mike squinted at him.  "Dude, are you sure?"

"He wants a grande -- no, venti.  He wants a venti -- um.  What's the most fatty disgusting thing on your menu?"

Mike elbowed Tom aside, rolling his eyes.  "I just want a grande dark roast, thanks," he said to the barista who was giving them both the look that meant she recognized them.

"And I want --" Tom said, stretching out the words and staring at the menu.  "Um."

"He wants a peppermint mocha, extra whip.  Venti," Michael said, pulling out his wallet.  "Full fat."  He frowned at the bills inside.  "Oh, fuck, I only have real money."

"I got it," Tom said, taking his wallet from his jacket and pulling out a Canadian twenty.  The girl behind the bar looked a little awestruck, but she was clearly trying to play it cool as she made change.  It wasn't Tom's regular Starbucks -- it was the one just up from Michael's condo -- but Tom would bet that he would have been getting a stare from his regular servers, too, because he wasn't like this.  He was crabby and curt and unfriendly.  Today, he was acting ... well.  Like he'd gotten laid or something.

He gave the girl a five for a tip and tucked the other blue bill into his wallet.

They were electric.  They were sizzling and Beeman couldn't fucking shut up about it.  On one of his bad days, the guy couldn't do under a dozen takes of anything, and today he was giddy with excitement.  "You are getting the morning off more often, Welling!" he called every other take.

Tom grinned across at Mike, who was -- as ever -- completely out of character the second the take ended.  Tom couldn't do that as easily, couldn't snap in and out of Clark's mind with every shift of the camera, but today he could almost believe what Michael had said about him, that he was as good as Glover to work with.

Beeman finally cut for a dinner break after what felt like forty thousand shots, and Tom and Mike walked together in mutual understanding, heading for Tom's trailer after they visited craft services and loaded up a couple of plates.  "Potatoes?" asked Mike, seeing Tom's plate as they sat down beside each other on the couch.  "Bad Superboy."

They ate in silence, both a little tired by the amount of energy they'd been giving off.

Michael belched and sat back on the couch after he finished.  "You staying over again tonight?" he asked absently, as though it didn't matter, as though he weren't desperate to get back to L.A. and the bam-tits.

Tom felt guilty for about half a second before he nodded his answer.  "I -- yeah.  If you don't mind."

"Course not," Michael said, yawning.  "I'm done for the day, now.  You still got stuff to shoot?"

"Yeah, a couple more things, I think," Tom sighed, stretching a little.  He felt pleasantly full, pleasantly drowsy.  Warm being around Michael.  Happy to be extending his vacation from reality for another twelve hours.  "I'll call Jamie and tell her that I'm crashing with you again."

"You gonna tell her why?"

For a guy who snatched up guest stars like they were candy offered in a dish, Michael could sure sound sanctimonious as shit.

"No," Tom said, washing down his denial with a mouthful of soda.

Michael was quiet, then he replied.  "Okay, man.  Well, I'll stick around.  Review my stuff for tomorrow.  And come get me when you're through?"

They didn't bother trying to watch a movie tonight, only collapsed into two formless bundles in the living room.  Tom wasn't really tired.  He was simply overcome with a sense of timeless langour, a still feeling that reached into his muscles, made him lax and pliant.  And as for Michael -- well, occasionally he was overcome by this kind of laziness, but it usually lasted only as long as it took for him to find something new to get hyperactive over.

"Can't wait for hiatus," Michael said, turning on the TV and flipping channels erratically.

Tom didn't want hiatus.  Hiatus meant -- well.  A lot of things.  The one that concerned him most was the way Michael would be disappearing from his life for over a month.

Okay.  This stupid crush had to end now.  It was part and parcel of Tom's fucked up mind, and if he was ever going to sort his life out again, he should probably start with that.

Just as soon as Michael went back to L.A.

"Let's get pissed," Tom suggested.

Mike just laughed.  "Seven a.m. call, Tommy."

"Stoned?"

"Natalie will shit on my bald head if I show up with red eyes."

Natalie was another one Mike must have fucked.  Tom thought about it with great irritation and settled deeper into the sofa.

"Well, what, then?" he asked.

"Well, either we discuss how you're avoiding your wife some more, or we shut up, watch TV, and go to bed," Michael answered bluntly.  Tom had managed -- barely -- to convince Jamie that he needed one more night hanging out with Michael, that it was working and that their scenes today had been incredible.  She had said good night very coldly.

"I don't want to talk about Jamie," Tom said, flat-out.  He wanted -- shit.  This was why he wanted to get loaded.  Because otherwise, he would have nothing to blame this on, this urge to do something stupid and destructive and crazy.  Something Michael-like.

"Okay, then, TV it is.  Hey, look, Smallville's on."  It was on the French channel, something old, first season, and Tom started to laugh at the same time as Michael because their dubbed voices couldn't have been further from reality.

"I sound like -- who's that guy on the Chevron commercials?" Tom chuckled.  "I'm your town pump."

"Jesus, I sound like a girl.  Who the hell picks Mighty Mouse to be the voice of evil?"

"I don't know, Mikey, I wouldn't want to fuck with that guy.  It's the ones who have missing boy-parts that have the most to prove, you know?" Tom retorted.

"I can't wait to hear who they got for Glover.  Bet you it's, like, this twelve-year-old girl."

They watched, cracking up, for a few minutes, then the show went to commerical and Mike started surfing again.  Tom fought back the impulse to jump across the couch, jump Mike.  Because that would be stupid.  Even if he was just sitting there in his boxers, mostly naked and entirely too liquid-looking.

"Mike?" Tom said, because he couldn't keep his mouth shut, even without alcohol to make that okay.

"Hmm?" Michael sounded, pausing over a perfume ad that had a dozen women in swimsuits.

"Remember that phase you went through last season?  Where you kept pretending like you were going to make out with everyone on the set?"  Michael knew a great schtick when he had one, and he'd tried it out on everyone -- even Schneider.  That slow dip in, Rosenbaum's eyelids fluttering closed, the head tilt, the breath-away-from-touching, and everyone reacted differently.  Glover didn't bat an eye -- he never did, the bastard.  Annette playfully slapped Mike's cheek and called him fresh.  Kristin wrinkled her nose and ducked out of the way, exclaiming on Mike's grossness.  Schneider had stayed in character, muttering, "I always knew that Luthor boy was queerer than a three dollar bill," which had broken up the whole crew and kept Michael rolling on the floor for a good five minutes afterwards.

"Yeah," Michael said now, distractedly.

"Remember when you did it to me?"

Mike grinned, showing that he did remember.  "That was awesome," he said appreciatively.  "You totally went for it, Welling!"

Tom didn't smile back.  The memory was vivid -- on-set, filming "Asylum", and Michael was wearing those blue scrubs, all lithe and slender and intense.  He had Tom by the shoulders, was shaking him and delivering lines with honesty that was almost too good for a show like theirs, and Tom kept thinking, 'He's so with it.'  And then, a flubbed take -- something was wrong with the focus or the lighting, and they both knew it was a cut, and Michael had just -- leaned in, so close, his breath fluttering against Tom's lips, and Tom -- "I wasn't trying to be funny, Michael," Tom admitted. 

He hadn't meant to -- the move into the kiss had been instinctive, uncontrolled.  The merest brush of Mike's lips on his, the crew roaring with laughter, and then, insect-wing quick, Michael was pulling back and cackling with the rest of them, pounding Tom on the back and congratulating him.  "I really thought you were going to kiss me," Tom added, quietly.  "I -- wanted you to."

Mike didn't look at Tom, only hit the power button on the remote and sat in silence.  "What are you doing, Tommy?" he asked in a still, low voice.

"I'm -- probably making an idiot of myself," Tom answered steadily, staring at the blank TV, too, because it was safer.  Except he could see Mike's reflection in the glass, and Mike was -- watching him too.

"You're married."  Like that mattered today, in this place and time.

"I don't want to be, not right now."

"You can't just undo that, Tommy."  Grave voice.  The sinner, preaching to the choir.

"But -- can I forget it?  For -- just tonight?"

Michael was already shaking his head, looking panicked and worried and unlike himself, but Tom was thinking with a strange clarity, and he knew that if he moved across the space separating them right now, Mike wouldn't push him away.

So Tom did.

It was a lot like that almost-kiss on set, the one Tom hoped wasn't on the gag reel for the DVD set -- but the kiss didn't stop with the first instant of contact.  It stayed, static, pressure between two sets of lips, both of them afraid to move.  Then Michael's hand came up and cupped the back of Tom's head, and his mouth opened under Tom's like silk.

They kissed at an awkward angle, messy and unfit for human consumption, until Tom got his brain together enough to crawl onto Mike's lap, straddling his hips, grasping his bare shoulders.

Michael's cock was hard underneath Tom's leg.

This wasn't happening.

This couldn't be happening.

Slide of long fingers over Tom's back, pulling him in closer, digging into his skin.

It was happening.

They broke apart, panting, and Tom looked into Michael's eyes to see if he was panicking.  He was, but it was a simmering sort of panic, the same as Tom was feeling.  It was a kind of desperate desire to get past the point of thought, ideally to the point of being naked and writhing and -- Tom dove in again, opening Michael's mouth with the tip of his tongue, hearing Michael sigh and moan softly, feeling his hips thrust up into Tom's leg.

More kisses, tapering into bites and licks, as Tom made his way along the rough terrain of Michael's late-night beard.  Mike's head was tilted back, as though he was surrendering himself to Tom, to this moment.  Tom nipped the little corner under his jawbone, making Michael gasp and arch.  Michael, who had sex so often with all those anonymous partners, who lived for it, god, he loved this.  He wanted Tom's touch.

Tom slid one hand down Mike's chest, down to his navel, to the waistband of his boxers.

Michael made a sound like he was breaking, metal fatigue combined with a tearing noise mixed up with something darker, more organic, and now he was breathing words.  "Fuck, Tommy -- you don't know how long I've wanted this."

That was wholly unexpected, and almost enough to make Tom stop what he was doing, but his exploring fingers had just found a wet patch on Mike's boxers and now they were determined to find the source.

"I never thought you would, didn't think it could happen," Michael was saying, and then his voice trailed into a deep shuddering sigh when Tom curled his fingers around -- it just flexed in Tom's grip, hard and so long, and Tom had never been so desperate to get out of flannel in his life, and that was saying something.  Michael's eyes opened, slits of blue.  "Suck me, god, suck me, Tommy."

Tom nodded, dipping down to lick at Mike's collarbone one last time before he climbed back off the couch, dropping to his knees between Mike's eagerly splayed thighs.  Michael didn't wait on ceremony, only lifted his hips and shucked his boxers, nearly kicking Tom in the process.  Unshy, unselfconscious, Mike reached down and stroked himself, long cock heavy and hot in his fist.

Tom had to reach down and give himself a quick squeeze at the sight Michael presented, all lean stomach spooling down into the basin of Mike's hips, the dark gathering of soft hair, the way Mike's cock was so hard, god, so stiff and swollen, it was jutting up now, up from his body, curved up almost to his stomach, but it was too big to really stay there.

Tom licked his lips, because Michael was thrusting a little, just gently pistoning his pelvis up, teasing himself and Tom both, and that sight made Tom's brain go places, places that involved that motion of those hips, driving lightly, slowly, maddeningly, into Tom.

Tom sighed shakily, trying to calm himself a little, slow himself down, and he began by running his fingers up the insides of Michael's thighs.  But Mike was so turned on, so responsive, that even this small motion had him making desperate noises, had him jacking his cock harder.

"Don't," Tom ordered, because he wanted Mike to come because of him, not because of Mike's hand.  Tom reached up, loosened Mike's grip, and took it over.  Hard.  Long.  Hot.  Pulsing with blood.

"Oh, fuck, Tommy, ohfuckfuckfuck," gasped Michael.  "Oh, shit, suck me now, I'm gonna die waiting."

Tom shifted forward and gave the head of Mike's cock a gentle lick.  Salt bitter, so unlike -- unlike other things Tom wasn't thinking about -- and smooth and smooth and vivid like nothing else.  Tom jacked Mike's cock gently, bowed again and licked.  Mike was big, but if Tom just -- there.  That much.  And the rest with his fist -- thank god for big hands -- and Tom was moving up and down, a motion long-abandoned but never entirely forgotten.  He couldn't forget this moment, either, the way Michael was shivering and pleading and holding Tom's head in place, his fingers grabbing onto Tom's hair.

Tom was so hard, but his attention was all for the stretch of his mouth, the bump of the slick head against his soft palate, the little patch of skin behind Mike's balls that -- yeah -- Mike liked that, judging by the way he just yanked at Tom's hair.  Tom grew strangely fervent, moved faster and faster, tongue flicking out, jaw opening more, hand sliding messily on his own saliva.  Michael was -- yeah.  That was definitely shouting, and the little perfunctory attempts at gaining control, the little twists of hips, those had fallen into complete chaos, Michael surrendering utterly to Tom's rhythm, only reacting and twitching and arching.

"Tommy, yes, ah, ah, ah, yes, fu-uuuck, yeah," Michael was crying, louder and louder, and Tom couldn't stand it, worked one hand inside his flannel pyjama bottoms and jerked himself, twice, hard, and yeah, yeah, he was coming even before Michael went stiff and still.  "Swallow it, take it," Michael was ordering brokenly as he pumped come into Tom's throat, hard jets sliding against Tom's tongue, Tom struggling to swallow even as his own hand was slicked over and over by his come, wet and hot.

The space that followed, filled with commonplace realities of motion and breath.  Tom, drawing back, licking his lips, panting.  Michael, loosening his hold and sliding one hand around to Tom's mouth, thumbing his lips lazily.  Tom, pulling his hand out of his pants, laughing breathily at the sight of it, laughing at Mike's reaction as he realized that Tom had managed to jerk himself off in the middle of all that.

"That," Michael said, deep and rich, "was fucking incredible."

Tom clambered up on the sofa using knees and feet that weren't quite firing at full strength yet, but his mouth was working fine, and he used it to kiss Michael's sweat-damp neck.  He wiped his hand on the pants, wanting to use it to touch more, feel more of Michael under him.  "You're a noisy bitch, you know that, Mikey?" Tom grinned into the crook of Michael's shoulder.

Michael laughed, unsteadily stroking Tom's back.  "You were groaning a lot for a guy with his mouth full of cock, you know," he replied dryly.  "Felt -- shit.  Felt so good."

His voice was sleepier by the word, and Tom couldn't quite blame him, as his own eyelids were getting heavier.  "We have to get upstairs -- the alarm," he said, playing with one of Michael's nipples, still hard.

"Alarm, yeah," Michael agreed.  "Carry me up to bed, Superboy."

Tom snorted.  "You're on your own, Evil Incarnate."

The thing was, if Tom only had tonight, this one night, to have Michael, he didn't want to spend it sleeping.

It was this logic that woke Tom up at three in the morning.

Michael was stretched out beside him on his side, limp and naked and beautiful.  Also, deeply unconscious.

Tom wanted to touch, to see if all that blue moonlight skin was as ethereal as it seemed, but he was afraid that if Michael woke up suddenly, he would snap back into something like reason, and that was the last thing Tom wanted.  So it had to be gentle, slow.

Tom needed to learn the curve of Michael's bicep, so he started there, one index finger, gentle pressure, not a tickle.  When Michael didn't stir, Tom repeated the motion with the flats of all four fingers.

It had been a long time since the simple feeling of skin had made Tom hard.

This motion he chased with a press of lips, just singly, midway between shoulder and elbow.  The scent of Michael was stronger up close, and Tom paused for a long moment, just breathing it in -- soap and sweat and smoke, a little faint drift of sex.

Tom backed away again, and lowered one palm to cup Michael's buttock, only stroking a little as he settled his hand.  God, he wanted in there, he wanted to be in Mike, moving in him, it didn't matter how.  Soft and minute and tender or hard and vicious and driving, but Tom -- he wanted to be there.

Mike slept with his lips slightly parted, just enough to show his teeth a little.

Tom bowed his head and kissed, quick swipe of tongue over that white enamel.  Michael shifted a little, waking, but Tom didn't want him to open his eyes yet, so he followed the kiss up with another, deeper, feeling Michael's mouth open under his sleepily.

Tom's hand shifted from Mike's ass, up, sliding over skin to his chest, finding the hard peak of a nipple and flirting with it gently.  He could suddenly feel Mike's cock stirring against his own thigh, and Tom sat up on one elbow to watch, because --

Still flicking his thumb over the nipple, Tom threw his thigh over Mike's legs and watched Mike's cock fill and harden, heard as background noise the shortening of his breath, the soft half-catches of his throat.  Mike's cock first took on a little curve, then, when Tom rubbed harder, it moved more quickly, lifting off Mike's thigh, higher, longer, harder, until it fell in a heavy curve from root to head, belly to mattress.  Tom had to touch.

He didn't know how he'd so quickly gotten obsessed with this part of Mike, but it felt so incredibly sexy and live, this length of hard flesh in Tom's fist.  A couple of strokes brought it to full hardness, and now Michael was kissing Tom's shoulder, making little sounds of satisfaction.  Tom stroked a few more times, waiting for that first surge of pre-come, and when it appeared, he grinned and settled back on the mattress, not relinquishing his hold but turning his attention upwards, to Michael's mouth.

They kissed for long minutes in the silent moonlight, Michael repeating that slight sexy fucking motion with his hips, seemingly unconcerned with Tom's own cock, more focussed on Tom's mouth, his back, his ass, as long clever fingers pressed and slipped over Tom's skin.

Finally they broke apart with a messy click of saliva, Michael gasping and pumping his hips hard, once.  "Tommy," he whispered, his eyes fluttering closed, his hand just grabbing Tom's ass and squeezing.

"I want to fuck you," Tom said in a rough voice that wasn't his, and he stroked harder, faster, because it was so fucking amazing to see Michael's expressive face like this, by turns ecstatic and tormented and desperate.

"Yeah, fuck me," Mike exhaled shakily.  "Tommy, Tommy ..."

Tom was inspired by this sound, the sound of his name the way Michael said it, and he lifted up on his elbow again, watching himself, watching Mike's cock move in his hand.  He kept expecting Michael to try and join in or reciprocate -- Michael was so fucking tactile, couldn't ever stop touching himself and everyone around him -- but he was amazingly inert, falling half onto his back and just taking what Tom was giving him.

Tom wanted to make Michael come like this.

"Stop," said Michael suddenly, and Tom panicked, because that wasn't supposed to be his next line.  "Stop, Tommy, please," Michael said, and Tom didn't want to stop, not ever, so he leaned down and kissed the order into oblivion, kissing past Michael's resistance and his hesitation.

When Tom pulled away, Mike was making some sort of high-pitched sigh, shaken and rippled by every rough downstroke of Tom's fist.  His mouth was forming syllables, but Michael seemed trapped into wordless expression, his whole body responding like the surface of a glass of water, trembling away from the point of focus, from Tom's hand and Mike's cock, that hot slick marriage of skin, the sense that Tom's palm and fingers were systematically stripping away Mike's defenses, his pretenses.

Tom's hand motion was carrying through his whole body, too, he realized suddenly -- his breath was short and harsh, his mouth sucking in little gasps of air, his hips shifting to rub his hard cock on the sheets, not enough, but not allowing more because all his thought was for Michael, for the way Michael was breaking apart under his fingers.  He was fracturing into pieces of motion, sound, breath.

There.

Under the base of Tom's thumb, a powerful and always-unexpected pulse of motion, hard and fast, the lighting before the --

Thunder.

Mike's voice shattering like glass, his cock contracting and beating, loosening and uncoiling in Tom's fist, spilling hot and wet and slippery down onto Tom's fingers, up onto Mike's tense stomach muscles, over onto the sheets.

When Tom looked up to see Michael's expression, he was startled to see how intensely Michael was watching back -- blue turned inky in the moonlight, dark-red mouth waiting for a kiss.

Tom obliged, finally letting go of Mike's cock, so maddeningly turned on and overwhelmed by that dark look, by the feel of Mike's come all over his hand, by the taste of Mike's lips, that it was a thin line between kissing and attacking.  He had intended to ask Mike, but now it wasn't about Mike's preference, it was about how Tom needed it, so Tom pushed at Michael, turned him over so he was facing away from Tom, on his side.  Using the slick come on his right hand, Tom rubbed his index finger and thumb together and then slipped his hand down, down.

In.

Michael made a sound like pain, but Tom couldn't blink away the fog of lust that was wrapped around his thoughts.  He was so ready, god, he wanted inside now, he needed it now, fucking his index finger in and out like the most frustrating tease ever, because he wanted it to be his cock there.

Harder.  Two fingers.  Soon.

Mike was saying something, but Tom couldn't grasp the words.

Scissoring motion, and Mike's words fell into chaos in a gratifying way.

In, out.  Tom could feel the stretch, feel that Mike was almost ready for this.

Except -- he wasn't.  He was reaching around and tugging at Tom's wrist.  Tom made himself hear the words -- "I know you're used to chicks, Tommy, but give a guy a little downtime," he was saying, half-amused, half-angry.

We don't have time.

He didn't know he'd said it aloud until that hand on his wrist just squeezed, and pulled.

Mike rolled onto his back as Tom moved his hand away.  "We don't have time," Mike repeated slowly, low voice like a stone dropping.

Tom was so hard, he hurt -- he needed to get off, he needed release, and he didn't want to talk about it.  He moved his still-wet hand and wrapped it around his cock, jacking mindlessly.  "Mike, please," he groaned.  "I need --"

Mike wasn't listening or looking, though.  He was sitting up and wiping himself off on the sheets and seeming very agitated.  "You -- you ... don't have time."

Tom whimpered a little, because even now, when he should be upset and concerned and conciliatory, all he could process was how fucking gorgeous Mike looked, how lean and long and sexy.  He didn't mean to, but he jerked himself a bit more urgently, and the motion made him speak again, an echo of Mike earlier.  "Suck me, please, Michael."

There was an answering shudder of arousal, but Michael didn't move towards Tom.  "Tomorrow is the last day before hiatus," he said irrelevantly.

It was.  It was.  The line of Michael's spine, an impossibly straight divet erupting into the bumps of vertebrae near the top of Mike's back.  Tom wanted to lick his way up that line.

"And tomorrow you're going home to your wife and you're -- fuck.  Making a baby."

Tom's hand unclenched reflexively at the word 'wife'.  He let his erection fall from his fist and felt his insane lust drain out of him a little.

"So this is, like, one final fling at being crazy and impulsive and dumb, one last try at being honest with yourself before you settle down to do what everyone wants you to do."  His voice wasn't angry in the least anymore.  It was resigned and tired.  Mike sighed heavily before continuing.  "Fuck, I'm sorry, Tommy.  I thought I could do it."

"You --" Tom said, then stopped because none of this made any sense.

"I --" Another sigh.  "I thought I could be your belated bachelor party or whatever the fuck you decided to go after last night, okay?  I wanted to be that guy, fuck the consequences."

"You're -- what?" Tom asked slowly.  "You're saying you don't want to --"

Michael turned and looked at Tom.  Dark blue, so goddamn intense, so focused and real.  "I just -- I didn't want to remember that it ends tomorrow morning.  That you were going to fuck me and I was still going to spend all day tomorrow on set, feeling you still -- sore as a motherfucker, watching you get up in your fucking plaid shirt and walk around being so --"

"You're -- wait.  You actually give a shit about a one-night-stand?" Tom asked, because he couldn't quite believe that Michael was saying this.  It was so out of character, it was almost ridiculous, like Lex Luthor farting or Martha Kent shooting up.

A breath of bitter laughter.  "Yeah, Mikey and his fucking one-night-stands, Rosenbaum and his best buddy, his dick.  Fuck you, Welling."

That cut.  That sliced into Tom and he couldn't breathe.  "I should -- go."

"Go, stay, fuck me, don't fuck me, what the hell do I care," Michael snapped.  "We still end up on set tomorrow, awkward as shit and acting two roles at the same time."

Tom didn't get this, where this anger was coming from, how it had arisen, and -- well.  Michael was usually the one to explain things when Tom didn't get them, and he didn't seem about to do that.  Tom scooted up onto his knees and threw back the covers.  He wanted out of the room, out of this scene because he didn't have a fucking clue what his line was.  He didn't even know who his character was.

Michael didn't look over or up, not when Tom moved off the bed, not when Tom stood up and walked towards the door.  He was frozen, forehead bowed onto his hands, a study in -- something Tom couldn't begin to understand.  Was this Michael performing again?  Or was it --

Tom bowed his own head and slipped out the door, heading for the guest room and a restless night.

Last day of shooting before winter hiatus.  Tom took a cab into work, slipping out of Mike's condo ridiculously early, and took a long hot shower in his trailer, washing away sex and guilt and a million other things that Clark Kent wasn't supposed to wear on his sleeve most of the time.

One of the directors had said once, talking about chemistry, that he didn't give a shit if his actors loathed or loved one another -- that his worst nightmare was utter indifference, because that was what killed a scene dead.  Tom had never quite believed it, never believed that he could do a passionate love scene with someone he hated or viciously confront someone he loved, but today was proving him all kinds of wrong.

It was an ugly scene between Clark and Lex, the last to be shot for the episode, and when Mike walked onto the set, Tom didn't have any clue what to think.  He was instantly charged with lust and fear and anger, mostly because Mike looked so -- bland.  He was grinning at the crew, cracking jokes with everyone, walking around the set with his usual energetic buzz.  He was -- totally normal.

Tom, in turn, felt like his feet were ten sizes larger than usual, that his mouth had stopped working sometime during Michael's first round of banter, and that he couldn't remember his lines if his career depended on it.

Which it sort of did.

But then they started shooting, and it was like yesterday all over again -- Tom forgot everything except what they were working on, what they were building, and the energy that crackled between the two of them during their scene was overwhelming and strange.  His anger as Clark wasn't fuelled by his confusion regarding Michael -- it was entirely separate.  In fact, when they cut partway through a reading, Tom caught himself flashing a grin in Mike's direction, old habit of camaraderie floating to the surface.  And Mike -- smiled back, quickly, instinctively.

Acting two roles at once.

Lex.  And Michael Rosenbaum.

Clark.  And Tom Welling.

They were both always performing.  It was only their roles that varied.

When did they ever stop?  When were either of them truly genuine, vulnerable ... real?  Tom thought and thought about it over his solitary lunch break in his trailer, and couldn't come up with even a perfunctory answer.  Because, really, when was Tom not trying to be what he was supposed to be?  Something as simple as grinning and nodding at a director's note, instead of cringing at his own inabilities.  Something as complex as -- as marrying Jamie, saying the words in a small church, wondering how he'd come to the point of making all these promises to all these people, promises about who he was and how he was.  How he would be, from now on.

Everyone was full of shit, Tom realized.  Everyone was bullshitting everyone else and no one ever said what they thought or acted as they felt.  It was all one continuous take, and no one ever had the balls to yell 'cut'.

They wrapped the Clark and Lex scene an hour later, and Michael was saying goodbye to everyone, about to hop a flight to L.A.  Tom smiled, threw an arm around Mike's shoulders, and wished him a happy Hannukah.

So much bullshit.

Michael squeezed him back and threatened him with a second pair of ice skates and everyone laughed at them, two good friends, like brothers, and Michael left the set in his shitty old van.

Jamie called Tom's cell phone three times during the dinner break.

Tom didn't answer.

Even marriage counselling, it turned out, was a lot about acting.

"He just -- I don't always feel I can trust him to be there.  To tell me what he's thinking."

Good save, Jamie.  She scored points for remembering that she felt Tom was a giant asshole.  The fact that Tom was a giant asshole wasn't on her list of allowable statements.

Tom breathed out slowly as the counsellor turned on him.  "Tom?  How do you feel about what Jamie's saying?"

"I feel --" like Jeopardy, please phrase your response in the form of an emotion, "--like Jamie doesn't always get how time-consuming my job can be."

"Tom, you disappeared for two days," she said, for the millionth time, and the counsellor interjected with a gentle reminder that Tom knew that.

"I felt --" smothered.  Heh.  She'd love that.  Both of them would.  "--I felt like I needed to devote that time to my work, and that you wouldn't understand that."

It went on and on, Tom neatly batting back responses, unfailingly hitting the right places, but never once admitting that this wasn't a matter of the wrong game, or the wrong court.  It was worse than that.  Jamie was the wrong opponent.

Jamie had wisely decreed that this wasn't a good time for them to be trying to get pregnant, not when 'things' were 'like this' -- not when Tom was being a giant asshole.  But their decision to resume use of condoms and birth control pills really had no impact on their lives -- they slept on the far sides of the bed, bricks holding down a mattress that might otherwise get blown away in the wind.

"Let's not go to your parents'," Tom said, packing his suitcase.  "Let's go to Italy."

Jamie looked up from her stack of clothes, startled.

"Let's go to Vermont," he tried.

"Tom."

"New Zealand."

She almost laughed, because he must be cracking a joke.

"Hawaii."

"Tom--"  More lightly, almost fondly.

"Let's stay here and make homemade porn," Tom said, even though he couldn't imagine it happening.

The smile dropped from Jamie's face.  "Tom."

"Come on, we can use that strap-on Allison bought as a joke."  Tom wanted that, christ, so dirty, Jamie fucking him senseless, but she never would.  It was out of her realm of existence, so he'd never even jokingly suggested it before.

"What's going on?" she said sharply, hands resting on a pile of sweaters.

"I could spread my legs for you and you could just --" Tom went on with a sly smile, because yeah.  Now he thought about it, Jamie probably would love that, if she ever let herself be that person.

She went still, stiff.  "You're not funny."

"I'm not trying to be," Tom replied honestly in a dry tone.

They had a major fight about it -- Jamie even shouted and cried, for once -- I don't even know who you are anymore! -- and Tom had answered, shouting back -- Well, neither do I! -- and in the end, she went to her parents' alone.

Four days, three pizzas, and two pounds later, Tom realized that he didn't want to spend his Christmas vacation jerking off to internet porn and pretending that he didn't miss his wife.  The sensible thing to do would be to get his shit together and fly out to Jamie's parents' place, made all the right shame-faced proclamations, and -- with luck -- be welcomed back into the fold.

Instead, he scrolled through his cell phone contact list until he hit the one that said -- Michael -- L.A.

"You've reached my voicemail.  Leave me a message, I'll call you back."  His voice sent a dark thrill through Tom's body.

He hung up without leaving a message.

Michael called back three hours later.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"You called me."

"I -- wanted to know how you were."

Silence.

"Jamie and I went to see a marriage counsellor."

"Oh."  Almost interrogatory, but not quite.

"Then we had this huge fight and she went away for Christmas without me."

Another pause.  "So ... no baby making?"

"No."

"And you guys are -- what?  Separated now?"

Tom hadn't thought of framing it in those terms, but --  "Yeah, I guess we are.  At least, right now we are."  He breathed out slowly, marvelling at the way Mike could still put things together so quickly, so easily.  "I don't know about after Christmas."

"Tabloids will have a fucking field day, man, if word gets out."

"I'm not that famous, Mikey."

Breath of laughter.  "Well, it'll show up in People, then.  Us."

"Well, it's the way things fucking go, right?  Hollywood.  First marriage is always a bust."  It was startling to say it, but suddenly Tom felt it to be true.  His marriage -- was over.

"Tommy's living by the goddamn book, what's new," muttered Michael, nearly affectionately.

"So what's next, if you're the big expert?"

"Well, next you date a supermodel or a pop star and then you fuck around on her."

"Is that what I should do?"

He laughed, sounding warm and distant at the same time.  "Do whatever the hell you want, man.  I'm not your agent."

"I want --"  The words stopped because they couldn't be fulfilled.

"Tom, you should.  Call Jamie.  You guys are better than this bullshit."

Tom had no reply for this, because he couldn't explain what was wrong between him and his wife.  He couldn't tell Mike that he'd lost his motivation for that role, because Mike -- he'd go into the role of helpful mentor, experienced big brother, and what Tom wanted from him was that simplicity of breath, that honesty of nakedness that they'd had during that one night.

"Tommy?  You gonna call her?"

Tom sighed shortly.  "What have you been up to, anyway?  Getting laid out of your mind?"

The conversation fell back into an old dialogue, one they both knew by heart, and Tom hung up feeling exhausted.

There was a short official meeting just before the first day back filming.  It was just Tom, his agent, and the producers.

"Heads up, Tom," said Miles slowly.  "Ratings have been falling all season.  We don't think --"

Al took over when Miles seemed unable to continue.  "We don't think we're coming back next season.  The network's going to pull the plug at this rate.  We're just hoping they let us finish up this season first."

Tom laughed, surprised by his own reaction.  "I've lost my wife and my job.  Now all I need is for my dog to die, and my life will be complete."

He hadn't said aloud before, the thing about Jamie, and everyone appeared a little startled.  "Tom, it's good, it's a good thing," said his agent over lunch afterwards.  "We've always talked about avoiding having you branded as Superman for the rest of your career, this is probably a good time to bow out, look into other projects.  Ratings aside, you're doing amazing work on this show and directors will see that."

Tom nodded.  It was perfectly true.

"You can move back to L.A., start looking around for some smaller roles, just build into it.  We might be able to get you another TV gig if you want--"

"No, not again," Tom interrupted, stirring his coffee and adding aspartame.  He was back to his pre-Christmas weight.  "Movies, yeah, but no more TV."

Every cast member had gotten some variation of the Talk, Tom could tell.  They were all reacting differently -- Annette with the pacific benevolence of someone whose work was only a pastime for her, Kristin with visible relief, Allison with teary moments, Schneider with increased humor... and Michael, when he flew in for the third day of shooting, with unbelievable energy.  The chemistry that he and Tom had been sparking before the hiatus was back with a vengeance.  Even as the reruns over hiatus continued to garner unenthusiastic audiences, Michael and Tom were diving into their characters, their work, with unprecedented vigor.

The same could be said of their alter egos.  They made no mention of what had happened before hiatus, of Tom's failing marriage, of Michael's move back to Vancouver.  Tom's work consumed him to the point where he couldn't have contemplated having a social life anyway, so it didn't seem odd to anyone that the once-close pair of friends spent no time together on or off-set.

And their energy was infectious, spreading all over the cast and crew.  They were laughing between takes like never before, having fun and playing and finally, finally Tom knew what Glover was always talking about when he said those words: 'fun', and 'play'.  The world -- Smallville -- could end any minute, as soon as the word got handed down from the network execs, and the apocalyptic frenzy that was fizzing all over the show only got more and more volatile.  Soon, it spread even to the writers out in L.A., because the scripts that were coming back -- not action-movie trite anymore, because the world was ending and these people needed to get all of it out of their systems, too.

Tom relished his lines, his scenes, especially the ones with Michael.

"All I've ever offered you is trust and friendship!" Michael shouted at him in Lex's study.  "All I've ever given you is help and support!"

Tom was just reading lines for him off-camera, deerhunting cap on his head, script in hand, but he couldn't not get into the moment.  "Is that what you really believe?" Tom sneered.

"Believe -- believe!" Michael exploded, and they cut, and Mike and Tom just stood there, both panting a little with left-over emotion, shaking limbs and heads like boxers between rounds.

Beeman, holding a piece of paper, grinning at Tom and Mike.  "Ratings in for last night's episode --" the third one, post-hiatus -- "and ... they're up.  Way up."

They all cheered quietly, but no one wanted to get overly excited, because it was too late in the season for them to be making this comeback.  Too late to change important minds.  It was all for them, this public pat on the back, and hell, if they were going out anyway, they could go out with the public roaring its disapproval.

"Lunch in my trailer?" Tom asked Mike impulsively, when they broke early in celebration.

Mike was surprised, but he nodded and followed Tom to craft services.

"You're back onto salad," Michael observed as they settled into once-familiar places on Tom's couch.  "I thought that was Jamie's thing?"

Mike was the first one to say Jamie's name to Tom.  Tom prodded his spinach salad with his fork.  "Nah.  I mean, I feel better when I eat healthy.  And, you know, I have to take my shirt off a lot in this job."

A sly smile.  "I like that about your job."

And Tom was instantly hard.  He put his salad plate in his lap as an ineffectual cover and sat back on the couch to watch Mike surreptitiously.  It was the first time they'd been alone since that night at Mike's place, the first time they weren't acting their parts for everyone else's benefit, and Tom was again overcome with the sense of being lost in a scene.  Who were they to each other?  No longer best friends, not fuck buddies.  People who had hurt each other but were too closely entwined to let that stop them from being -- whatever they were.

Hurt each other?  No, the hurting had really been one-way.

"I'm sorry," Tom heard himself say.  "Mikey?  I'm sorry about that night."

Michael was quiet, taking a swallow of his soda.  He didn't look at Tom as he replied.  "Sorry that it happened?"

"No," Tom said immediately.  "Sorry it happened the way it did.  I shouldn't have... it was stupid."

"Jamie know?"

"Nope.  And she doesn't have to.  It didn't have anything to do with ... that's not true.  But it was just a ..."  Damn words, never coming to the rescue when Tom needed them.

"A catalyst?" Mike provided.

"Yes."  Mike knew, he always knew, he got Tom in a way that no one ever got Tom, not Jamie, not even Tom himself and why was Tom just now figuring out that maybe that meant something?  Something more than it being part of who Michael was in and of himself.  Something about who Michael was when it came to Tom.

"I knew it.  I knew you guys were winding up, I took advantage of that, I thought I could just ..." Mike trailed off, and Tom was busy trying to grasp the enormity of this moment.  Flash of blue eyes.  "I couldn't.  Do it."

The sounds of their breath counterpointed in the silent trailer, Tom's quickening as he contemplated the mechanics of crossing the space between them, of pinning Mike in the corner of that couch and kissing him until there were only two of them in this space, not four or eight or however many multiples of two people they seemed to carry everywhere.  "I'm glad you said no," Tom admitted, moving his plate again, onto the table in front of him.  Clearing a path.  "Because -- it's not just.  Me and Jamie, we weren't just wrong because we were wrong.  It was also because -- someone else was more right."

A startled, wondering look from Michael, tightened slender fingers on that soda can.  "Tom, this is so many bad ideas packed into one bad idea," Mike warned quickly.  "You're just separated from Jamie, we work together, we're on set, we have to go back and finish that scene in five minutes ..." He trailed off, because Tom had moved next to him, Tom was moving in close, breathing against Mike's open mouth, taking away the embryonic beginnings of whatever reasoning Mike was about to speak.

"Kiss me," Tom ordered in a soft, low voice.

Michael tasted sweet like soda and once his mouth got over its slack surprise, it was taut and live and wet under Tom's lips and tongue.  Tom could hear the soft groans that meant Michael's brain was still fighting this moment, still trying to establish barriers and rules and reason, but Michael's whole body was here, and that was enough for now.

They broke apart, panting, when Tom's hand slid down to cup Michael's erection through Lex's pants.

"I want to fuck you," Tom said.  "But we don't have --" Time.  Supplies.  Space.

"Tommy," Mike groaned, "I never got to make you come."  His hand reciprocated Tom's gesture, moved hard and hot, the heel of his palm grinding into Tom's cock.

Slithered to the floor like he didn't have bones or mass, and then Mike was -- opening Tom's pants, pulling at him, extracting him from too-tight and damp boxers.  "Oh, shit, Tommy, you're fucking beautiful, you know that?" he murmured, stroking Tom, watching his slit contract and spurt out more pre-come.  "What do you want?"

That was a completely unfair question, because Tom wanted everything and his brain wasn't capable of expressing any of it.  Mike should know, Mike always knew, what Tom wanted.  What he needed.

He did know.  On his knees, leaning forward, one palm on Tom's hipbone, and down.  Down, down, Tom's hips trembling and jerking, and down, his lips spread against the base of Tom's cock, his soft throat swallowing around Tom, ah god, yeah, like the softest vise grip in the world.  Tom's fingers were suddenly wreaking havoc with Michael's airbrushed make-up, Natalie was going to fucking kill them both, but, ah, god, she didn't knew what this felt like, what it looked like, Mike licking his way up and down Tom's cock, his lips candy red and his eyes painfully intense.

Tom was breathing in pained little gasps, his mouth dry and open, his whole body uncoiling towards that single point of focus, where Michael's head was bobbing -- bobbing -- in Tom's lap -- on his cock, for god's sake, where Michael was not-so-innocently but unconsciously redefining the words 'good' and 'hot' and 'suck' and 'deep' and 'tight' and yeah -- oh, yeah -- 'close'.

Mike would have to be deaf and insensate to not know, but Jamie had always wanted to know, and it was out of long-reinforced habit that Tom ground out the words.  "Oh, fuck, fuck, Mikey, fuck, oh, fuck.  Mikey, I'm gonna, gonna -- fuck -- come."

The hand on his hip lifted up and then it was right there, on his balls, rolling and playing and slipping backbackback oh yeah where it had been too long since Tom was touched and yeah.  There.  "I need to --" Tom said, grinding up and back at the same time, faster, harder, deeper, "oh, I need to --"

Come.

Shout breaking Tom's larynx for the rest of the day.

The hard quick splash-back of his come hitting the back of Mike's throat, the clamp down of swallowing, drawing it out of Tom, drawing the orgasm from his heels, his fingertips, his eyelids, pound, pound, pound of climax, dictated by the press, press, press, of Mike's fingers behind his balls.  Tom could feel that his eyes were open, but he wasn't seeing anything but white bright alternating with blood-red.

There was nothing and nothing and then when Tom blinked, Michael was straddling his lap, smiling smugly.  "Now who's a noisy bitch?" he asked, leaning in for a messy come-soaked kiss.

Natalie was, as predicted, royally pissed, mostly because Michael had to get her to do a quick and not-so-neat patch job on his head without any explanation for the need to do so.  Tom wasn't brave enough to go and stand by Michael in case Natalie snapped, so he occupied himself in openly stalling things on-set, pestering that week's director (who was new and easily distracted) with questions about blocking, motivations, and which words to hit in a single line.

His reward was a grateful look from Michael when he slipped onto the set, late and newly bald.  Mike's scene with Tom wrapped in another two hours, but Tom wasn't close to done for the day.  He had a few hours to learn his next scene, then they were going out on location to shoot a night action sequence while Michael was free to leave at any time.  Tom would be working until three or four in the morning.

They had a quick conversation while the crew worked on dismantling some special lighting equipment.

"I have to see you again tonight," Tom said under his breath, grinning easily as though they were just chatting idly.

"Tom, it's not a good idea," Michael said, smiling back for the benefit of their onlookers.

"Mikey, the show's ending soon -- it could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be a month from now... the point is, we could either wait until it does, or we could just --" Tom let his eyes finish the sentence for him.  "Mike," he added in a tender, rough voice, one that Clark Kent could never use.

Michael was tense, but he didn't seem able to resist this notion.  He actually grinned ruefully, a real grin, and chuckled.  "Remember when I was the crazy impulsive guy around here?"

Tom glanced around and checked that no one was watching, then ran a light hand over Mike's forearm.  "I'll come by when we wrap.  Leave a key under the mat."  A slight squeeze of fingers, and Tom surprised himself with an overwhelmingly possessive flare of lust at the sight of his own broad fingers on Mike's pale freckled skin.

"This is ... insane," Michael said in a choked half-laugh.  "We're fucking insane, to be doing this."

Tom wanted to kiss him in reassurance, but there was no way he could.  He instead let go of Mike's arm and smiled slowly.  "Don't wait up for me."

A slow, sweet smile in kind.  "I make no promises."

The lights were out, but the key was under the mat as Tom had requested.  Tom was actually completely exhausted, but he was somehow rejuvenated slightly just by stepping into Mike's dark and silent front entrance.

It smelled the same.

There was a paper bag in Tom's leather coat pocket that crackled loudly when he extracted it.  Pit-stop at the all-night drugstore where hopefully no one recognized Superboy buying lube and condoms.

He toed off his shoes, Canadian habit, leaving his size fourteens askew next to Mike's ratty sneakers, then padded up the carpeted stairs in stockinged feet.

A soft light shone into the hallway from Michael's bedroom door, but when Tom paused to listen, he could hear Mike's even slow breaths, sleeping breaths, so it was no surpise when he pushed open the door and found Mike curled up in his duvet, lit by his bedside lamp.

God, golden skin in the lamplight, so much and so soft, and Tom knew Mike made a big joke of it, but Tom loved the soft down of hair on Mike's chest and forearms, so different, so masculine and so Michael.  He loved all the little ways Michael was beautiful without trying to be, so unlike Jamie and her thousand dollar outfits, unlike Tom and his fucking waxed chest, unlike anything anyone had ever decreed beauty to be ... nothing but Michael being himself, unconsciously breathtakingly beautiful.

Tom unzipped over his erection carefully, tossing t-shirt and jeans to the floor, throwing boxers down, too, upon further consideration.  A polite boyfriend -- boyfriend, christ, was that what he was? -- would slip under the covers silently, roll onto his side and fall asleep, waiting for morning and for his bedmate's awakening before initiating anything.

Tom stroked himself absently, surveying Michael, and decided he wasn't a polite -- well, whatever he was, he wasn't polite.  He clambered ungently onto the mattress and stretched out beside Michael, lighting into him instantly, starting from the corners, like opening a package, a kiss to the tip of Mike's ear, a whisper of fingers over Mike's shoulder, the insinuation of a foot between Mike's ankles.  A swipe of tongue over his waking-startled mouth, and now a palm flattened over his naked back, and a little push so that Mike was on his back now, his legs pinned under one of Tom's thighs.

"Time's it?" asked Michael in a dark-chocolate-low night-voice.

"Four something," Tom answered, seeking and finding Michael's half-swollen cock.  "I'm so horny, Mikey, let me fuck you."

Deep shudder of laughter, Mike's hips tilting up to thank Tom's fist for its attention.  "I thought you might feel that way," he said, and now he was splaying his thighs a little and Tom was slipping between them.

"Wait, I brought some --" Tom interjected, even as he gasped at the feel -- the first feel, familiar as breath -- of Michael's cock skimming alongside his own.  "Some supplies," he managed.

"Don't need 'em," Mike said.  "I left a condom under the pillow," he continued, reaching up and coming back with a neat plastic package in his grasp.  "And lube."  Another deposit.  "Now, hurry up and fuck me."

Tom laughed at Mike's impatience, even though he was shaking a little eagerly at the thought.  "Shouldn't I ..." he intimated, sliding back on his heels and slipping his fingers down into Mike's crack, intending to circle his hole sexily, draw a little groan, but --

Another laugh, darker this time, from Michael.  "I told you I knew you'd be like this," Mike said, as Tom's fingers brushed against the flare of the butt-plug.

"You always know," Tom said, trying for teasing and ending up somewhere between worshipful and desperate.  He could barely do it, barely open the condom and roll it on, because yeah, any second now, he would be there, be in there, god, he needed it, and Mike wasn't making this any easier, loosing those little impatient sighs and thrusting his big gorgeous cock up into the blank air above it.

"Mmm, it feels good in there, but you'll feel better," Mike said in this low purr, this almost painfully hot murmur.  "Hurry, Tommy, I want to feel you fucking me."

Tom hurried and finally he was ready, slicked up and sheathed, and he felt stupid with lust, overeager to have this, like junior prom and that first desperate fuck, but so much better because it was Michael and it was their second chance at that night that ended so badly, and Tom was tugging a little too roughly at the plug, making Mike curse and arch.

"Shit, careful, you'll make me --" Mike grunted, and Tom forced his hands to slow, to listen and twist and turn, not yank and grab.  "Ah, yeah, fill me up again."  Mike's hole, bereft, slick all around from the lube he'd used on the toy, Tom could see him just flexing a little, missing that intrusion, seeking --

"Oh, god," Tom said, squeezing himself harshly.  "Mikey, you're so --"  Stretched out, splayed open, hard and hot and writhing just a little.  Waiting.  For Tom.

"Get up here, you fucking cocktease," Michael ordered, half-smiling.  "Come on, Tommy.  Give it up."

Shift forward, so that Mike's knees were crooked up and over Tom's thighs.  Lean down, one hand braced on the pillow, the other on Tom's cock, guiding it.  Letting his legs press and splay Mike open, and there -- there, the sweet spot that was, christ, grabbing for Tom's cock, hungry for it, swallowing the head in the first tentative rock forward.  "God, god, yeah," Tom panted, driving his forehead into the pillow momentarily, overcome by sensations of tight and hot.

With a sigh of -- what? Satisfaction? -- Mike tugged his own legs back a bit more, and -- relaxed.  Just opened up for Tom, so that the next glide in was a full one, Tom's balls resting right against Mike's ass.  Tom lifted his forehead, surprised and almost amused, because of course Mike was an expert at this, he was good at everything he did, but the look in Michael's eyes made everything just.  Stop.

Blue, fixed, longing.  "I wanted this from the first minute I met you," Mike said into Tom's open mouth, and arched up to kiss.

Without meaning to, without intent or plan or purpose, Tom's hips began to move, echoing the thrust and give of Mike's tongue in his mouth, until the pleasure of his cock sliding in Mike's ass began to take over Tom's awareness.  The kiss disintegrated and Tom shifted up a little, planting his hands down by Mike's waist and beginning to fuck in earnest.  He wanted to rise up more, watch where he was going into Mike, watch himself penetrate and retreat, but he was instantly distracted by Mike's nipples, little peaks for kissing and biting.

Tom loved fucking, always had, never understood what was comical or farcical about this liquid motion, this inevitable rhythm that drove his hips up and in, what everyone else could find funny about it all.  It was amazing and it was serious, and it was nothing like the punchline to a joke.  And now...

And now, with Michael under him, around him, Tom couldn't help but laugh, because this was an act of joy.  Joy was in Michael's rapt face as it smoothed and clenched with each new assault.  Joy was in the clean-fast snap of Tom's pelvis, the drag of his cock against that spot that made Mike arch.  And joy was in the little pat-patting sounds of their flesh meeting and parting, the almost-playful tap of Tom's balls against Michael's skin.

Tom leaned in again, capturing Michael's mouth, biting away his gasps and half-uttered pleas.  "You okay?" he asked, drawing away and tucking his face into the safe crook of Mike's neck and shoulder, where he could shudder out his held breath briefly.

Mike's answer was punctuated with the sharp spikes of each of Tom's deep thrusts.  "Ah, yeah, yeah, I'm -- unh -- fucking incredible."

"You want it harder?  Slower?" Tom asked, dragging his mouth over Mike's stubbled jaw.

Mike's heels came up, pulling Tom in deeper.  "Tommy?"

"Yeah," Tom answered, then added, because he couldn't help it, "yeah, uh, yeah."

"You don't have to fuck me just the right way -- oh, fuuuck, Tommy," Mike breathed.  "Just -- do what feels right."

It was almost a silly directive, because nothing about this moment felt remotely wrong, and without a polar opposite to guide him, Tom wasn't sure he could direct himself any better.  But the answer came on its own.  He wanted to see Michael's eyes.  He wanted to make Michael come.

Only a little shift this time, braced over Michael, a breath away, and Tom began to fuck Mike harder, faster, deeper, recklessly and thoroughly, driving the noises and curses from him in a continuous stream.  "Fuck your hand," Tom asked.

Mike shook his head, his eyes closed.  "Don't need to," he said, almost dreamily, before breaking back into a frantic moan.  "Gonna come just from this, just from your cock."

That thought drove Tom up another notch of intensity, so he had to settle back a bit farther, pull Mike's legs up over his shoulders, and start fucking deeper, faster yet.  From this angle, Tom could see Mike's hard cock, see it purple and angry and flexing with each thrust, see it painting wet trails on Mike's lean stomach, see Mike's balls drawn up tight and smooth.  He was so close, Tom realized, so close and Tom was going to make him come.  Three hard drives, each one tearing a sharp scream from Michael, and he was -- oh, god, shooting, yeah, untouched, long streaks of white and wet across that downy dark, and Tom remembered just in time to look up and see Mike's eyes, see how blue they could get, how focussed.

Michael's voice was actually crackling when he spoke, still curling up into his waning climax.  "Tommy, Tommy, I want to feel you come in me."

Tom wanted to be there, so badly, he could feel it, almost there, just beyond his reach, just -- just --

Mike's fingers, wet with a swipe of come, pinching Tom's nipples.  Mike's hand, reaching up and pulling at the back of Tom's neck and god Mike was flexible, because they were kissing, outstretched tongues like that was the vital connection, and shit, it actually was, because slip of tongue on tongue and orgasm hit Tom's lower back like something sharp and heavy and speeding.  He slammed forward into Michael, deepest, and emptied load after load, until he was trembling and almost crying from the force of it.

Two shaky exhalations, Mike's legs slipping down on wet-sweaty shoulders, and they were -- still entwined, kissing haphazardly, like their mouths didn't yet realize that the sex was finished.  Tom didn't realize that he was crying actual tears until Mike's thumb rose and swiped away one of them.  Tom kissed his thumb as it retreated, like kissing a child's scraped knee better.  "Glad we didn't wait?" he said wickedly, as soon as words became a possibility again.

Michael laughed, still sounding rusty and a little broken.  He shifted, and Tom half-slipped out.  "I swear to god, Welling..." he began in warning, with a grin.

Tom grinned back and reached down to pull himself out properly, condom and all.  Mike sighed a little at the retreat, but seemed more content when Tom returned to kiss away all the come on Mike's stomach and chest.  "Hairy again," Mike observed, a little apologetically.

Tom licked the last streak, slowly.  "I like that about you."  Something Mike would never believe, but that didn't mean it wasn't worth stating.

"Come back here," Mike said, ignoring Tom's declaration predictably.  Tom scooted up and straddled Mike's legs.

It was the time and place for first declarations, but when they looked at each other at that moment, Tom knew that they were agreeing to put it off indefinitely.  They spent too much time reading lines to each other to bother with it now.  What was important was this -- this press of sex-damp skins, this langourous kissing, this slow drifting away from consciousness towards something softer, more forgiving.

This wordless reality needed no expression.

Epilogue

"I can't believe you're making me do this," Tom said, hoping against hope that this was all a terrible dream.  Because before him loomed the Starbucks he and Jamie had frequented for almost three years during their sojourn in Vancouver.  And at his side was Michael Rosenbaum, sporting a three-month old growth of dark hair and a pair of sunglasses that weren't going to fool a soul.

"Making new memories, that's why," Michael said with a pointy grin.  "Get your ass in there, Welling."

Tom sighed, trying not to smile, and went in.  The baristas blinked a little at the sight of him accompanied by his co-star, but they were at least used to serving one Smallvillian -- a second wasn't about to faze them.  "I'll have a --"

"He'll have a venti mocha frap, extra whip," interrupted Michael smoothly.  "One for me, the same."  He cut a smile in Tom's direction that made Tom forgive him instantly.

"Well, you aren't doing a nude scene in the premiere," Tom said almost loud enough for others to overhear.

"More's the pity," lamented Michael, plucking two long green straws up from the bar.

Tom didn't want to be arrogant about it, but sometimes it seemed to him that it hadn't been Al and Miles' dramatic new directions for the show that had brought Smallville back from the brink of death.  It wasn't the brilliant season closer for season four.  And it wasn't that Kristin had been written off the show with a tear-jerking cancer subplot.

Tom thought, sometimes, that the thing that had save the show was -- this.  This thing between him and Mike.

They weren't exactly public about it -- all official inquiries received a polite 'no comment' -- but then it didn't take a genius or a paparazzi mob to figure it out.

Lex Luthor was boffing Clark Kent, and together, they had saved the world.

Well, the world of Smallville, anyway.

"Two venti full-fat mocha fraps," said the barista behind the bar, setting down two drinks topped with a truly alarming volume of whipped cream.  "You two ... enjoy those."  So, yeah.  Even the barista had it figured out.

Tom got all the way out to Mike's ugly-ass smelly van before he took an experimental sip of his drink.

He must have looked surprised, because Mike glanced over at him and laughed.  "Well, what do you think?"

Tom smacked his lips and pictured all those whipped-cream molecules merrily making his way to his waistline.  "I think," he said slowly, then smiled.  "I think I like life better, full-fat." 

Then, caring nothing for the possibility of anyone seeing or caring, Tom leaned in and kissed Michael up against his van door.

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