Looking Back
By Zekkers
(Zekkers@juno.com)
Disclaimer: Yeah, right, I own these boys. Tell me another one.
Summary: Future fic. Monologue. What was, and why.
Rating: PG, probably G.
////
You can't keep everything a secret forever. I know that. Some things, possibly, but not everything. Eventually, I found out. About the lies, the evasions, the secrets. Bending steel and faster than the car I hit him with. Seeing through walls and… the other. The fact that, despite his looks and his modesty, he's not. Not human.
And that's the problem.
We fought- yelled and screamed at each other like a bitter old married couple. I'd bring up one of his lies, and he'd bring up one of mine. We tossed poison at each other- verbal, but there all the same- killing the trust we thought we had.
But then I stopped. Realized that we didn't need to do this. Took a deep breath, watched him pace on my floor. "Clark." I said, and then a little louder, "Clark!"
He stopped, watched me. I swallowed. "We've both screwed up." Which is as close to a real apology as I've ever come. "Start over?" I held out my hand, glad that it wasn't shaking.
He looked at it, and then… he was just gone. There was a breeze- he had run away.
I figured he needed time to think about it. Time to cool off. Time to realize that… I understood the need to hide- he was only protecting himself. Time to realize that I had had no idea that the meteor experiments by my personal mad scientist could do such damage. I had promised to stop him, right?
I called the 'good doctor', shut him down. Began to wait. A day went by, a week. Two, a month. And no word. At first I was hurt, impossibly so. And then, angry- furious that he could turn his back on everything we had, everything we could be.
I was angry for a long time. And acted accordingly.
Now, years later, I realize the problem.
He's NOT human.
The world keeps thinking that he is- just some improved version of humanity, some demi-god that's working to take all the bad stuff away.
I know better. A human, even a totally innocent, self-righteous one, would have realized that we both made mistakes. He would have forgiven. We would have forgiven, and we'd still be friends.
But an alien? What thought processes are different in that strange mind? The Kents- for all their good intensions- forced a completely human morality and thought process on an alien child. Did the alien mind survive the strain?
Sometimes I don't think so. He's too rigid, too black and white. His morality is surprisingly childish, surprisingly one-sided. There are good guys and bad guys and no one in-between.
And he's set himself up on an impossibly high- inhumanly high- pedestal. One from which he can never take a break, never be anything else but what they think of him. Set himself up in a role, a place in this world from which he can never escape. That's madness. Or maybe it's not- for an alien.
Like I said, at first I was hurt, then angry- but now? Now I'm just sad.
It could have been so different.
By Zekkers
(Zekkers@juno.com)
Disclaimer: Yeah, right, I own these boys. Tell me another one.
Summary: Future fic. Monologue. What was, and why.
Rating: PG, probably G.
////
You can't keep everything a secret forever. I know that. Some things, possibly, but not everything. Eventually, I found out. About the lies, the evasions, the secrets. Bending steel and faster than the car I hit him with. Seeing through walls and… the other. The fact that, despite his looks and his modesty, he's not. Not human.
And that's the problem.
We fought- yelled and screamed at each other like a bitter old married couple. I'd bring up one of his lies, and he'd bring up one of mine. We tossed poison at each other- verbal, but there all the same- killing the trust we thought we had.
But then I stopped. Realized that we didn't need to do this. Took a deep breath, watched him pace on my floor. "Clark." I said, and then a little louder, "Clark!"
He stopped, watched me. I swallowed. "We've both screwed up." Which is as close to a real apology as I've ever come. "Start over?" I held out my hand, glad that it wasn't shaking.
He looked at it, and then… he was just gone. There was a breeze- he had run away.
I figured he needed time to think about it. Time to cool off. Time to realize that… I understood the need to hide- he was only protecting himself. Time to realize that I had had no idea that the meteor experiments by my personal mad scientist could do such damage. I had promised to stop him, right?
I called the 'good doctor', shut him down. Began to wait. A day went by, a week. Two, a month. And no word. At first I was hurt, impossibly so. And then, angry- furious that he could turn his back on everything we had, everything we could be.
I was angry for a long time. And acted accordingly.
Now, years later, I realize the problem.
He's NOT human.
The world keeps thinking that he is- just some improved version of humanity, some demi-god that's working to take all the bad stuff away.
I know better. A human, even a totally innocent, self-righteous one, would have realized that we both made mistakes. He would have forgiven. We would have forgiven, and we'd still be friends.
But an alien? What thought processes are different in that strange mind? The Kents- for all their good intensions- forced a completely human morality and thought process on an alien child. Did the alien mind survive the strain?
Sometimes I don't think so. He's too rigid, too black and white. His morality is surprisingly childish, surprisingly one-sided. There are good guys and bad guys and no one in-between.
And he's set himself up on an impossibly high- inhumanly high- pedestal. One from which he can never take a break, never be anything else but what they think of him. Set himself up in a role, a place in this world from which he can never escape. That's madness. Or maybe it's not- for an alien.
Like I said, at first I was hurt, then angry- but now? Now I'm just sad.
It could have been so different.
