Chapter Text
Clark isn't really sure just what the hell is going on, but whatever it is, he doesn't mind it. As the days grow longer, he finds himself feeling kind of warm and restless and lazy. He sunbathes a lot, and wonders if he's going soft from this long peace, stretched out blissful and naked on the floor under the open skylight. Earth hasn't been this safe in a long time, and it isn't until he develops a swelling the size of a quarter on each palm that Clark actually becomes concerned. They're not at all painful, but they do itch a little, and they're warmer than the rest of his hand. Lois blinks in confusion when he shows them to her, and runs a fingertip around the edges of the left one. Clark shivers, that divide becoming more sensitive every day as the swellings get more pronounced.
"Well, Smallville, I'm not sure what to make of it," she says at last, still studying them. "They don't hurt at all?"
"Not a bit."
"You haven't been exposed to anything particularly strange lately, have you?"
"No blue kryptonite or sapient virii from Planet X or anything." He shrugs, a bit disquieted by the pulse he's starting to feel in each palm. "But they're really..." he trails off as Lois pushes on one, the feeling strangely like prostate stimulation. "Ohhh..."
"Clark?" She looks up at him, concerned, and he smiles back at her, feeling himself blushing.
"They're really strange. And also really sensitive, but in a good way."
"Is that so?" she says softly, and pushes both at once with her thumbs, harder and more purposeful. Clark moans, fingers curling as his knees go weak. Lois rolls her thumbs, slow and hard, and soon Clark is on his knees, head bowed as he breathes in quick, helpless gasps, making a soft and ecstatic noise with each exhalation. "Holy shit," Lois whispers, pausing long enough for Clark to raise his head and take in how dilated her pupils are. The scent of her human pheromones hangs in the air, thick and sweet, and Clark groans, leaning forward to nuzzle her thigh and then inward, until he's breathing in the scent of Lois through the yoga pants she wears for lounging on her days off. There's nothing underneath, and he makes a plaintive noise when she pulls him away by his hair. "Bed," she says, "now."
"Yes ma'am," Clark murmurs, and gathers her into his arms, carrying her to the bedroom and shutting the door behind them with one foot. Soon they're stretched out together, Lois sucking on his right palm as Clark moans. He loves this, and not just the way Lois's mouth feels on his skin. There's also the feeling he gets when they use the red sunlamps to take his strength down enough for Lois to tie him up and have it really mean something. Now he wonders if she'd be willing to use the strap-on, and then forgets everything as she lightly scrapes her teeth across the top of the swelling. He wails and bucks and almost comes, begging her to do it again as soon as he can speak. The harder Lois does it the better it feels, and Clark screams when something gives. She pulls away, eyes huge. "Clark? Clark, something popped, are you okay?" She sounds frantic, but for a long moment Clark is too busy spraying the bed with come to answer.
"Y-yes," he finally manages to gasp, and they both stare at his palm, which now has a golden patch of skin with a long, feathery frond growing from it. Tasting the slick fluid on it, Clark finds it sweet and vaguely familiar. His other hand starts to ache, and he shivers, offering it to Lois. "Please?"
"Jesus fuck this is so weird," she gasps, but takes it, licking and biting at the swelling as Clark whines and wriggles against the sheet. When this one pops Clark comes again, dry and a little painful this time. "Clark," Lois mumbles, the tip of the delicate frond in her mouth and making it almost impossible for Clark to listen, "why do you taste like maple syrup?"
"I dunno," Clark slurs, vision going gold around the edges, "but I wanna touch you."
"Uh..." Lois doesn't close her legs as Clark pushes her onto her back and reaches between them, but she does look slightly dubious. "Are you sure it's safe?"
"It doesn't feel like it's not." He feels weirdly fuzzy, and Lois cries out softly as the delicate frond on Clark's hand touches her clit. It strokes and slides just the way Lois prefers, and before Clark can stop it, it's pushing its away inside her.
"Clark?" she yelps, and Clark kisses her.
"It's okay," he says, watching the frond with microscopic vision even as it receives almost more pleasure than he can deal with. "It's at your cervix now, and... oh." Lois cries out as the golden tendrils slither deeper still, stretching and reaching, and... Clark doesn't realize what it's doing until it happens. Up the fallopian tube, finer than a hair, and then coiling around and sucking in a single oocyte. The lower branches of the frond are rubbing and humming against Lois, and she comes with that beautiful burst of pheromones and colors that only Clark can see as the frond slithers back out the same way it went in. Clark stares at it as curls up neatly, looking for all the world as if it's pleased with itself.
Lois freaks out a bit when Clark tells her what he saw, but she's mostly at peace with his alien nature, and quite willing to go with him to Antarctica to ask the Jor-El AI what the hell just happened. All Clark has to do is enter 'gold' and 'frond' together in Kryptonian and a hologram of his biological father pops up, looking concerned.
"Kal-El, are you telling me that you've Blossomed?" Clark can hear the capital.
"Probably. See?" He holds out his hands, fronds curled up into his palms like they're cold, even though the temperature is set for Lois.
"Oh, dear. Let's see, the original left me some notes about this..." His expression goes blank for a moment, processing. "Ah, here it is. Apparently this wasn't at all likely, but Jor-El was a methodical man. You're reverting to an atavistic form in response to a drastic drop in population, years of exposure to yellow sun, and presumably to those mammalian pheromones of Ms Lane's, since they're compatible enough for you to find them pleasing in the first place. Should one of your fronds take in a human gamete, it is very likely that you will bear fruit."
"I thought that only happened in stories!"
"By Jor-El's time, yes."
"What can you tell me about the process?"
"Kal, your voice patterns indicate rising panic. Has this already happened?"
"Yes," Lois says. "Am I going to be a dad?"
"...In mammalian terms, yes. One of your gametes has been taken into Kal's reproductive system, fertilizing him and allowing him to create your offspring from his body."
"Holy shit." Lois leans on Clark, who scoops her up off her unsteady feet and into his arms for his own comfort as much as for hers.
"So what do we do now?"
"Now you read this information, find a place to root, and explain things to whatever human authorities are interested."