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He shakes his head.

"I told you ages ago not to apologize for taking care of yourself."

Just a short pause before-

"Whether you're doing it or you're asking me to do it."

The fact that he didn't enjoy slicing through Scott's flesh, the fact that the very idea of hurting him bothers him on such a basic level, is his own problem. He knows the practicality of it. He's no magician but he can make a guess or two. He's seen enough of their nonsense games. He doesn't begrudge either of them their fun (or what passes for fun) most of the time.

"Don't move around too much either. The skin there is fragile; too much movement and it'll crack."

This wasn't fun. It had started that way but the ending had been less than and Scott's actually discovered there are games he's just not fucking playing. He's not angry at anyone but himself and even that is mostly just exhaustion and depression.

And, okay, he's mildly humiliated, but that's just fair all things considered.

"It's probably going to crack. It might also stick to clothes. It won't get infected or kill me and that's assuming something else doesn't reset me first. I'll be fine, Clark."

Clark doesn't answer, can't really answer, because he really has nothing to say. There aren't even things he wishes he could say; if he had them, he'd say them. Instead, there's a great big messy, awkward ball of too much feeling that makes him glad that he'd spent so much time using his heat vision. That meant he was a little drained, that it was harder to activate.

Especially when Scott mentions being 'reset'.

Very glad.

"I should let you rest."

"Up to you." He pushes to stand up, anyway. He doesn't know what to say. He's pretty sure he should be inclined toward apologizing again but it's not like he can figure out what for or that's helping anything. He's already said thanks. He's just - at a loss all around.

But he is actually pretty damned sure by the time he's able to sleep that he'll be more 'fine' than he started. That's something.

Clark considers words again and finally steps closer, into Scott's space without touching him, and meets his eye, looks like he's going to speak.

Then he doesn't. Instead, he looks towards the door.

"Unless you had another idea."

They're certainly not fencing right now.

He has no problem with the closeness, possibly because he's just that fried and possibly just because it's Clark. Probably because it's both.

"You're welcome to stay if you want to stay. I don't have any entertaining plans, but if you want to hang out and chat, lecture at me, or just watch me sleep you can." You're always welcome to stay, Clark.

He glances at the door again before returning his eyes to Scott. Then he tips his chin towards the bed.

"Sleep and I'll watch. We could even talk before that."

Imagine.

After all, he's missed him.

"I'm really glad you said before." Since odds of him going straight to sleep aren't high, but yeah. He can lay back down (not on his back but his stomach) and fold his arms under the pillow. "We haven't done that in a while."

"I know you," he says as he lets Scott find a spot on the bed. He'll just pull a chair over near by and settle in.

"And no, we haven't. I suppose I feel I've been somewhat boring."

"You know me. Boring is good and usually means nothing's falling apart." He really doesn't like being on his stomach, but he's not going to even try for his side yet. Maybe in a bit. Probably tomorrow. "Though it does tend to make conversation hard."

"Only if you're bad at small talk."

He can't help a bit of a grin, though.

"I've...

"There's someone."

And Scott should be able to figure out from some of the context, namely that Clark's never mentioned it in quite that fashion, that this is a little different than anything purely physical.

"I'm bad at small talk." Just in case that had gotten missed in the knowing Scott, but. "Really? Are you going to tell me who?"

"I had no idea."

Flat as a pancake, this one. Because really, Scott.

"And yes, I was intending to. It's less... tenuous, this time.

"Have you met Fives?"

"I'm glad." that it's less tenuous. "We've met and spoken a few times. He seems like a good guy." Which is more than can be said for Scott, ever, but that doesn't mean he's oblivious. "And a good guy for you."

"An interesting observation. We're... just starting things. It's new."

He'd wanted to share it with Scott. Something happy and good.

"You deserve it." Not that this sort of thing is always about deserving it. "And to be happy. What's the interesting observation?"

He actually does the air quotes.

"'Good for me'," he repeats, though he doesn't actually argue it.

"...Do you think I'm wrong?"

"Did you hear me say I disagreed?"

No, he doesn't disagree. He's a little anxious about the whole thing, honestly, but he doesn't think it's a bad thing.

"No, but you don't say a lot of things to me. ...Which I actually appreciate." That's a joke - about himself, not Clark. "So, how new is new?"

"The things I don't say aren't said because you know them anyway," he points out. But he'll never be shy with his own opinions in other cases.

"And a few weeks. Since anything actually happened. I'd felt something a while before that."

"I think you might overestimate my intelligence." Clark probably doesn't, but that doesn't mean Scott can't mock his own stupidity when he's been stupid.

"So, have you talked about it with him?"

"In a sense," and that comes with a sort of see saw sort of kind of ehhhhhh motion. He makes it elegant like everything else he does, but it is what it is.

"And to be fair, you'd know the rest of the time, but I haven't actually taught you kryptonese yet."

"Feel free to teach me any time you like and meanwhile really assess what in a sense covers and doesn't and then take a good, hard, look at my back and think about it some more."

Not that he was going to talk to Erskine.

Possibly scream at him a lot, maybe throw things, possibly make creative threats - but not talk. And possibly not talk to the degree that he just waits out his month and goes home without saying a word.

But the advice is sound.

"I took an exceptionally hard look at your back, Scott," he points out mildly, "hence the loss of roughly 10% of your epidermis."

He almost says something else before detouring.

"And there's a difference between 'slow' and 'noncommunicative.' People do occasionally need time to process. And some of the differences between us are proving a little hard for him to swallow. I don't want to push."

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