The autumn air was a crisp, champagne-sharp bite in the lungs, smelling of woodsmoke and the faint, sugary ghost of melted candy corn. On every porch, pumpkins grinned their jagged, candle-lit grins, their light flickering against the gathering violet dusk. Clark, a man who could perceive the spin of galaxies in the void, was currently preoccupied with the way a stray maple leaf, gilded in fire-truck red, had caught in the fluffy curls of your hair.

“Stop fidgeting, Clark,” you said, your voice a warm, familiar melody beneath the rustle of taffeta and the gentle clack of your sky-blue shepherd’s crook against the sidewalk. “You’re pulling at your vest.”

He dropped his hand, which had indeed been nervously plucking at the synthetic suede of his Woody costume. The pull-string on his chest was, he knew, purely decorative. If he pulled it, no benign, drawling voice would emerge, only the potential for catastrophic structural damage to the outfit. “It’s just… a little tight,” he lied. The costume was fine. It was the feeling that was tight, a sweet, constricting pressure around his ribs that had nothing to do with polyester and everything to do with you.

He looked at you as you adjusted the white little brooch lamb tucked into on the front of your dress. You were a vision plucked from a pastoral fairytale, a confection of soft, cloud-like confection of pink and white, the bodice snug, the skirt a whisper around your legs. The dress rustled with every step, a sound he found inexplicably alluring. Your crook was tipped with a pink satin bow, and the whole ensemble should have looked absurd, out here in the suburban wilds of Metropolis. On you, it looked like art.

“My favorite shepherdess.” He reached out, his fingers—the same ones that could calibrate the thrust of a satellite—brushing with infinite care against the lace of your puffed sleeve. The texture was a whisper against his skin. “You look… unbelievable, sweetheart.”

And she did. In the fading light, you were a splash of creamcolor in a world of newsprint. He, in his cowboy getup with a plastic sheriff’s star that felt flimsier than tinfoil, felt like an imposter next to your effortless charm. This was his internal conflict, the quiet war he waged even on nights dedicated to pure, unadulterated joy: the feeling of being a celestial secret walking beside a human miracle.

You looped your arm through his, the solid warmth of you seeping through his costume sleeve. “C’mon, Woody. There’s a house up ahead with the full-size candy bars. I can smell it.”

He let you lead him, his boots—authentic, a purchase he’d justified for “ranch visits” that never happened—thumping a steady, grounding rhythm next to the delicate tap of your heels. The neighborhood was a riot of life. Tiny ghosts and superheroes shrieked past their legs, their pillowcases bulging with loot. A father dressed as a zombie waved from his lawn. The world was alive, thrumming with a simple, joyful energy that Clark soaked in like sunlight.