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Follow on story from..Moving In...and..Damn It!

Clark/Jason


"Of all the people, why did it have to be her?"

"Her?"

He turned to his mother with a pained expression, "Lana! Why did it have to be Lana?"

"But I don't understand. I thought you were over her. You said so. So why are you upset that she is seeing someone else?"

Clark ran his hands up into his hair, grasping on tight. How could she be so blind? So stupid? He actually growled in frustration.

"Hold on, Son," lifting a placating hand, "Martha," he said gently placing the hand on her shoulder, "I don't think it's that she's seeing someone, its who she's seeing. Right, Clark?" looking over at him.

Clark dropped his hands, collapsing down onto the chair which made a splintered groan in complaint.

"But isn't she seeing Jason? They're always in the Talon together. I thought he was your friend?" Martha asked looking back at the 'tragic teen'.

Jonathan studied his son carefully and saw the twitch, almost wince, at his wife's words. People often took him for a dumb hick, even though the ones that knew him respected his honesty, hard work and integrity. But he had never been the most intuitive man in the world but now he was seeing something. He was uncertain, as the thought he was having was so outside of his purview, but once the nagging suspicion had wormed its way into his mind it grew and he became certain.

"Martha? Maybe Clark and I need a bit of guy time." He looked across at her with raised eyebrows.

"Okay, boys," she said lightly, fixing her husband with a, 'you will tell me later' look and "I think I'll go look to my garden." She left knowing from years of experience that Clark would often tell Jonathan things he would be embarrassed to speak to his mother about. Her son may be from another planet but he was still a teenage boy.

Jonathan pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sitting relaxed, he asked, "So? Has this something to do with what I saw last week? When I saw Jason driving away from here?"

Clark dropped his head in shame. The last time his lover… his Coach, he amended, had left here, Clark had just practically raped him.

"He was crying. I'm sure of it. What happened between the two of you?"

Clark's head snapped up and Jonathan saw pain in the eyes. "He was crying?" shocked. When he had left him up there in the barn, Jason had been flushed and fucked but had seemed more relieved and a little angry than saddened.

"Yes, I'm sure of it."

Probably because Clark did not just roll over and pretend he was okay with the man's other relationship. No, he admonished himself. Jason was not like that. But he had proved deceitful if by omission. And it still hurt.

Clark dropped his head again this time leaning his arms on the table, worrying at an invisible mark on the wood.

"Clark, Son, talk to me. Maybe I can help."

"I doubt it," Clark mumbled.

Jonathan let it pass. His son had sounded more regretful than intentionally giving him attitude. "You're not even willing to let me try?" he asked softly.

Clark sat back, sighing, but could not bring himself to look at his father. He knew, as always, that the Kents had his welfare and best interests at heart but he also knew, as always, they had very fixed ideas of right and wrong and high morel standards. He did not know how his Dad would react to his relationship with Jason. Jason was older, Jason was his Coach, a teacher. Jason was a man.

And Clark loved him.

"He's moved in with her," was all he could make himself say. Jason had moved in with Lana and it was killing him. The jealousy, the fact that he had moved in to live with someone else, with a woman, with Lana. The fact that he could set up 'home' with someone that would be acceptable and not frowned upon or ridiculed because men and women were supposed to do that. It was the fact that he had set up home with someone that was not, Clark.

His mind took him back to that first day he had met him. To the both of them moving and settling Jason's belongings into the apartment. They had instantly been so comfortable so… domestic, and it had been fun. Clark had enjoyed it. Not to mention the tension and then the sex. That had been 'wonderful', a word he had never really found the meaning of before.

He almost felt as if they had already set up home together. It should be him living with Jason, loving Jason, sharing Jason's bed. The thought of the two people he had loved sleeping next to each other made his guts hurt. It was jealously, plain and simple, and a longing so intense all his previous yearnings now appeared as nothing.

He knew it would be impossible. But, realism aside, it was a dream he had had often during these short months that he had known him. He had pictured them together, on their couch, beers in hand, watching the football. Totally domestic, totally at home together with his head resting in the crook of his partner's shoulder as the man played with his hair.

Clark wanted to cry now. Such a simple dream but so far beyond him. He was presumed to be a seventeen year old High School boy in the Midwest who would be expected to be good at sports and either go to college on a football scholarship or get married and 'farm'. Neither of which had to happen to him, neither of which were likely to happen to him, but were much more likely to happen to him than to get to live with the man he loved.

"And this somehow has made you angry?" Jonathan kept his voice quiet and calm, making sure what he was thinking did not enter his voice. That it was none of his boy's business, what Lana and the Coach did. That he should not be concerned about them if he was not still in love with the girl as he has stated. That he knew there was something that Clark was not telling him, and it was big.

He could not look at his father. He wanted to say, yes. 'Yes, because Jason is mine. Jason should be with me not with her'. That his heart was breaking because he could not have the man he loved here, in his arms, and keep him from Lana's. His head hit his arms on the table.

"What did you say to Jason?" and then the man sat waiting for the patient silence to get to Clark. It took a while, the dark head raising slowly, the thumb resuming its attack at the invisible spot.

"I hurt him."

Jonathan was incensed. After all they had taught him. But he held his anger in check and asked, "How?"

Dreading the memory up, hearing the hatred he had used in his voice, he admitted, "I told him that he could live with Lana if he had to but he'd better not fuck her." Then looked up startled that he had used such a word in front of his father.

"And just why is that any business of yours?" amazed at himself for sounding civil nevermind not reaching for soap and flannel to wash his son's mouth out with, but also relieved that Clark had not physically hurt the man.

Clark sat up then sank back in the chair defeated. He could not help it, his lip began to tremble and he admitted through a thick tear filled throat, half relieved to say it out loud, have terrified that his father would never speak to him again, "Because… I love him."

Damn, they had been over this. The boy had said he was over the girl. No wait, "Son? Did I hear you correctly? Did you just say, him?"

Clark just nodded. He could not find the will to raise his head and look at the man.

Jonathan, too, sank back in his chair. His son, his only child had just, 'come out' to him and he had no idea what to say, what to feel. He already knew he was unlikely to have grand kids, that Clark being an alien may never be able to have children but, and then there was the fact that… and then there was….and …and…

He ran his hand over his face and asked softly, "Are you sure?"

'Of course I'm fucking sure', Clark wanted to scream at the man but he just lifted his head and saw his father's expression. Worry for him, concern and still…love. "Yes," he said equally low. "You don't hate me?" looking up, hope in his eyes.

"I could never hate you, Son. You must know that?" shocked at the idea but then he was not blind to the ways of the world, to the bigotry and prejudice that abounded. Besides, his son was an alien, if he could handle that he could handle anything. He placed his hand on his son's, resting on the table. "Tell me?"

"What?" as he covered that loving hand with his own.

"Tell me how, when, why Jason? Is that why he was upset? You wanted something from him that he can't give you?" He knew the man to be friendly with Clark but then that was a Coach's job. Had it gone further than that? Had something happened? Jason was an adult, a teacher and Clark just a teenager. That would not be right. He was not too sure that he should be seeing Lana, nevermind moving in with her. She was of age sure but…

"I've been seeing him since the day he moved to Smallville," Clark admitted. He could see anger flare in his father's eyes and said quickly, "I met him on the street. He didn't know who I was. He'd not started his job at the High School. I helped him move in. I liked, like him.

"Its not his fault," still defending the man from that suspicious frown, "I didn't tell him how old I was. He thought I was like him, an adult," pleading with his voice, with his eyes for Jonathan not to be mad at Jason, for him to understand.

"So…so, when you say seeing him? You mean..?"

"Yes," spoken eagerly and containing the surprise that he still felt today, "yes. And I didn't injure him. I can do it, and not harm him and its wonderful…" he trailed off seeing the look on his father's face. Pretty much the same look he would wear, no doubt, if they were talking about his parents having sex. Everyone knew about it, that their relations had sex, but no body wanted to admit or think about it, nevermind discuss it.

Jonathan felt his own face redden and wondered idly if it was the same colour that Clark's had just turned. "So.. if you were seeing him, when, why did he move in with Lana?"

Oh, the look Clark gave him. It was all there, the heartache, the loss, the… 'I don't know but its killing me look'. "Damn, Son. I'm sorry," and he meant it. A selfish part of him was quite relieved. If the…affair? was over, he would not have to deal with his son dating another man. But if he could fall in love with one, then he could do it with another. So the real problem was his son's feelings for this man, for Jason Teague, and how he was going to help him get over it.

"I won't give him up!" Clark stated. "I hate him!"

Jonathan Kent sighed inside. So much for that idea and his boy was hurting.

"Okay, Son. I'm listening."

==000==

TBC…