Suki Blue Fiction

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Oh, fuck. Clark rarely used bad language. He didn’t say it and he didn’t think it.

Tonight was an exception.

Xander looked at him, stared right through him and into him with a gaze that Clark felt enthralled by.

“I…” Xander started. “I’m having some trouble here.”

Clark shook himself and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Are you alright?” Xander had taken one hell of a tumble and was covered from head to toe in grass and streaks of dirt.

“Uh, yeah, fine here, but…did you see what you just did? With the car? Oh my god, Clark.” Xander’s voice dropped and the next part was whispered. “It hit you.”

Clark’s body still tingled from the impact. Like a billion minute bugs crawling beneath his skin, they pulsed, scurried and grew weaker as his body shook off the effects like they’d never been there in the first place. An inner panic took hold and shook him much more than running headlong into a car ever could.

He’d saved Xander. That was all that mattered. He’d pushed him out of the way and the car had hit him instead.

“I can’t believe you saved me,” Xander continued. “I can’t believe…you’re still standing. How are you still standing again? Because, that’s Hellmouth freaky.” He chuckled nervously.

Xander looked down at the skid marks on the road and then back up and into the distant blackness. The driver hadn’t stopped, not when Clark had appeared in front of him and not even when Clark had rolled over the top of the hood and hit the ground.

“What’s a Hellmouth?” Clark asked.

Xander shook his head and smiled in what appeared to be disbelief. He touched his hand to Clark’s chest and waited. “You don’t feel dead.” His hand dropped and Clark swallowed. “What are you really?” Xander asked. “And don’t bullshit me; the Hellmouth is a real place and I used to live right on top of it. I’ve seen things, Clark, and I know some of what’s out there.”

Lying was second nature now. It was automatic, programmed in like the time on his alarm clock and the equations in his calculator. To actually tell the truth after so long? It felt alien.

How very ironic.

“I’m…”

Xander was still waiting and Clark truly wasn’t sure if Xander was about to hear lies or the complete and whole truth. There would be no in-between, he was sure of that much.

“You can tell me.” Something in Xander’s expression told Clark that it really was safe, that he could confide and could let go of his burden just a little bit.

“I’m stronger than other people,” Clark said. “I’m…different.”

Xander nodded and laughed. “That much I figured. So, how about we do a quid pro quo kind of thing? I’ll tell you all about my life on the Hellmouth and you tell me what makes you so different, Clark Kent.”

He still wasn’t entirely sure he was doing the right thing and his dad was definitely going to burst a blood vessel when he found out, but Xander’s arm had linked through his and they were already walking back to the farm.

He was going to tell. And he was going to hold his breath until the moment Xander knew it all and was still with him, still his friend and still by his side.


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