Title: All These Things I Have Done

Author: SC182

Genre: Possible Songfic. Angstfic

Notes: The title was shamelessly borrowed from The Killers. With all the early SV love, I focused in on one of my favorite characters from the first two seasons. Canon has been manipulated here…

He wondered if this was like adding chloride to a silver solution, because there was always a precipitate then. And now, he wondered if just maybe he caused this to be the precipitate too.

You could only wait so long, leave so many words unsaid before the lack of things offered and exchanged caught up to you in the most unforgiving ways. He'd said "I'm sorry" once, meant it and hadn't said anything else, simple or profound for weeks.

Why was he thinking about chemistry now? Bonds, ionic and molecular and all the types in between, had gone over his head before. Never producing two thoughts that made an ounce of sense. But here. Right now, watching them walk together before going somewhere away from prying eyes, he paused in his hiding spot, wondering about all the things he'd done.

Surely, there were minor things that brought them closer. But these things couldn't have been his fault, could they? He'd been the golden boy; the one capable of walking on water on the football field and when in the company of supposedly good buddies, he was capable of walking through walls. This was just a minor bridge, a nudge, but entirely a cause for this. He was never meant to have heard, to have to relive his personal shame again, but stirrings of fate put him outside Chloe Sullivan's door that day, and gave him conformation that without a doubt he lost his chance a long time ago.

There were moments he didn't deserve like kind words over his dad, sympathy for losing his scholarship, supportive silence when his girlfriend left him—the one that was going to be there forever, the one that the boy he wanted also wanted. When no more options lay in supply for him, he did the only thing he could do, he left. Still no words were uttered, still no silences broken, or distances shrunken. He'd gone away and come back in slightly less than one piece, hoping maybe, just maybe things would be as he hoped.

So he was back to watching them, this time a little more boldly. Already he'd received looks of warning full of absolute knowing, but he pressed on. Walking, following, stalking; always on his guard, ready to see if there was anything left for him. Maybe a sliver of hope on his part, just friendship between them, instead of what was whispered about by people in town or loudly insinuated about in cafeteria lunchrooms in school.

It wasn't a car crash or sharing the breath of life that brought them closer like atoms sharing electrons. And it wasn't Lex rescuing Clark from a cross nestled in a sea of silent corn either. They stopped walking, so Whitney stopped walking; a quick look around to survey their surroundings before Clark kissed Lex softly on a pale cheek. It was only a few seconds in passing, the movement so fast, but million years had never passed so slow. Whitney's heart had broken a thousand times, over and over again in a devastating rhythm. The weight of Lex's smirk was felt long before it was seen. Whitney couldn't do anything to face it, not like Clark had actually noticed, but Lex had. So, he stood there in his invisible rubble of his broken heart and his broken dreams, so much scattered around him it felt as though the whole world were crumbling in one groundbreaking shake. Somehow, it seemed fitting that Clark and Lex be the only ones able to walk on solid ground.

They were the silver and the chloride, destined to make something happen in an inert solution and he just happened to be the other stuff. A spectator ion as he recalled, never destined to cause a precipitate, never destined to participate. And it was like this for a reason. This was his penance for the things that he'd done. Nothing.

When there's nowhere else to run
Is there room for one more son
One more son
If you can hold on
If you can hold on, hold on
I wanna stand up, I wanna let go
You know, you know - no you don't, you don't
I wanna shine on in the hearts of men
I want a meaning from the back of my broken hand

Another head aches, another heart breaks
I am so much older than I can take
And my affection, well it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no no no no

Help me out
Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner
You know you got to help me out

And when there's nowhere else to run
Is there room for one more son
These changes ain't changing me
The cold-hearted boy I used to be

Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner
You know you got to help me out
You're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down

I got soul, but I'm not a soldier (x 10)
Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner
You know you got to help me out
You're gonna bring yourself down
You're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner
You're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down

Over and out, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done
All these things that I've done
If you can hold on
If you can hold on

"All These Things I've Done" by The Killer