Heroes and Gods

by lozzieee dreams

Just a piece of fluff I wrote while trying to sleep. Be gentle, it's a virgin! This is my first Smallville fic, but definitely not my first slash. Sweet Oliver/Clark. Set somewhere around season seven. Description: 'He was more than a man, more than a hero - he was a God among costumes and egos. He was perfection, and all he ever wanted.'

It felt like slow motion, but it happened faster than a gunshot. The bullets crawled towards him, on track for a back alley lobotomy - his eyelids crashed together and it was louder than a sonic boom. Eyelashes tickled his bicep, gliding down, a millimeter an hour, sending goosebumps where they fell. This was it: this was the end. He braced himself for death, prayed for mommy and wished for daddy, pictured them folding their arms around his frame and smoothing his blonde hair with unconditional affection.

He waited patiently, but it never came.

The charge in his arms sighed with shaky relief, as if she'd believed in salvation all along - he wasn't so sure, himself. The small brunette stranger looked up at him, brown eyes shining, and conveyed grace harder in her stare than he ever thought possible. His arms fell to his sides and the girl fled, the only thing feeding her faith and ignorance being a set of shades and a green leather hood.

He hadn't even heard the heavy thud, the keening of the metal as it bent beneath the weight and the force of the blow - the end of days had taken over, silent relief clouding his senses. It was all to end; he'd relished it. Now he felt robbed.

But now, as the wind whipped at his costume and sent his hood to rest at his shoulders, he remembered why life was worth living. Shining like a port in a storm, a sign of calm and comfort and safety, the shadow of a hero fell on him, both figuratively and literally.

For a brief moment, he forgot his troubles. He forgot he was alone in an evil world, fighting a losing battle on the one side that meant something in a sea of suspicion and fear, not that it mattered. He forgot he risked his life on a daily basis for a world that was turning against him, one person at a time. And he forgot how much it hurt, hiding it all from the one who was the only reason for feeling this way.

In an instant, it all flooded back. Despite the warm, wry smile adorning the broad jaw, hitting blue-green eyes and beyond, the pain was like a kick to the stomach and he was winded all over again, like so many times before and so many times to come. Such was the force of his emotion that tears swelled in his eyes but he blinked them away, instinctively.

Heroes and Gods can't fall in love - it was better this way.