You should never have allowed this to begin whispers an unkind voice somewhere in his head. Loving Clark is a weakness that lets him use the other man as a crutch, and now he'll have made everything worse for him when he's been through so much already. You're going to hurt him, just like you've hurt everyone else. You can't stop. Everyone you come near decays, because of you.

"No."

Clark doesn't need to know.