Title: "Fade"
Author: Niggle
Genre: AU/Action/Romance
Rating: R (for violence)
Summary: What if (another one of those!) Clark's fight with Eric Summers in "Leech" had turned out differently?
He walked slowly up the stairs to his apartment, books in one hand, keys in the other, and mail in his teeth. Metal jangled against metal as he fumbled with the key chain, pushing up and in to coax the temperamental lock.
He shoved the door open and walked through, shutting it behind him with his foot. He threw the books on the sofa, and dropped the mail into his free hand, tossing the keys on the end table so that he could flip through the wad of envelopes.
Phone, gas and electric, water, Discover...nothing that can't wait.
He crossed to the white Lucent answering machine on the table beneath the window and pressed "play". Chloe Sullivan's voice greeted the quiet room with her usual perk.
"Clark, it's me. I'm swinging by later to drop off the Frost notes. If you're home maybe we can start studying for the final. I'm thinking five o'clock? Well, bye."
He grinned at her choice of words and her tone of voice. She had more in mind than reviewing Dr. Lambert's critical analysis of "Home Burial". It hadn't taken long for their study dates to move from the Metropolis University Library to the relatively private environs of the "pad" (as his erstwhile roommate called it) that he shared with Pete.
After all those hours arguing over whether Beowulf or Odysseus was really more "heroic", discussing the pros and cons of iambic pentameter and wondering whether libel should be considered a capital crime, they had progressed to less...intellectual pursuits.
He glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes. Just enough time to shower off the sweat from the afternoon's inter-mural basketball match. He stripped off his t-shirt and headed for the bathroom.
He turned when he heard a thump behind him and visibly jumped at the sight of the dark clad figure crouching on his windowsill.
The windowsill of his fourth story window.
The figure slowly climbed the rest of the way into the small apartment and stood silently in a long leather coat, staring at him with gray-green eyes that made words stick in his throat. They were intense, but somehow familiar, looking at him in combined rage, fear, pain, but most of all: hatred. He backed up several steps and swallowed, wishing for the first time in years that his powers had not been taken that day on the dam. The man was shorter than Clark, but about the same age, with a narrow face and a mouth that seem twisted in a perpetual grimace. He was surprisingly muscular for someone with such a slender frame. His long fingers held a black box, a hand's width in length, and the look he gave Clark was pure murder.
"Nothing to say?" he spat after a time.
"I don't...who...?"
"You don't remember me, do you? Why should you? You just took my life and left me with your curse. I'm a walking corpse because of you. Do you know how many times I've tried to kill myself, because of you?" His voice shook with barely contained tears. Whether of pain or anger, it was impossible to tell. His voice sank to a whisper, his head tilted in pain. "All I want to do is die. And you're going to help me."
"What are you talking about?"
The man's eyes flashed and he jumped forward, impossibly fast, to grab Clark and hurl him twenty feet across the room. Spots exploded across his vision as his head collided with the wall. He felt something hot and wet on his back where the computer desk had gouged it as he fell. He managed to roll painfully onto his side just as the man lazily approached him and hauled him to his feet. With a growl, the intruder slammed his palm into Clark's bare chest, driving him back into the other wall. Clark staggered to his knees and the man grabbed his blood-matted hair and yanked his head back so that he could look in his eyes.
"Is this starting to feel familiar?" he snarled bitterly. "Probably not. You're probably not used to being on the receiving end."
Clark suddenly felt very cold.
"Eric?"
"Oh wow. I'm touched you remember my name."
"I thought you...you were back to normal after that night." The throbbing in his skull was making it very difficult to concentrate. Eric released him roughly, turned his back, and stalked to the other side of the room.
"I was. Just long enough to fool everyone. Even myself. But it started again after we moved to Central City. And it only got worse." He shook his head self-deprecatingly and held his hands up before his face, looking at them as if he had never seen them before. "I spent six years trying to figure this thing out. Six years of not knowing what it is or how bad it would get or what kind of a person it makes me. I've gone over that day a million times in my head. It took me a while to get it. It was so obvious when I finally put it together; I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. Maybe intuitive leaps of logic come with the strength and invulnerability. Or maybe I'm not as dumb as my dad thought I was."
"Where is your dad?" Clark asked, instinct telling him he would not like the answer to that question.
"Let's just say he's not thinking much of anything these days," he replied with a truly ghastly smile. It disappeared quickly as he abruptly continued his tirade. "All those things you said, what you tried to tell me. I would have almost thought you were trying to help me, if I hadn't found out about how the meteorites work."
"I don't understand."
Eric whirled and grabbed him by the throat, shoving him brutally into the wall again. Clark gasped at the amplified pain in his head and the lack of air as his feet dangled uselessly several inches off the ground.
"Don't play games with me!" Eric screamed, trembling. Clark looked down at him, struggling to breathe. Eric held him there for several moments before wrenching his hand away to watch him fall to the floor, panting. "I know about the meteorites! You knew they would hurt me, that's how you stopped me. It didn't take much to make the connection: lightening, you, the rock. I did some checking. I've read your girlfriend's meteor theories. I persuaded certain people to look into it for me. Their results were pretty conclusive: the changes that the meteorites induce in normal people are a combination of circumstance and desire. You have to want it, on some level. And you wanted it! You wanted to get rid of what you had so you passed it on to me. And now I'm going to pass it back!"
Clark struggled to remain conscious as Eric shoved the black box in his pocket and dragged him down five flights of steps to the basement of the apartment building. The low-ceilinged room was littered with bits of furniture, clothing and papers. Years of disuse had left their mark, a thick layer of grime over the floor and walls. A single naked bulb burned wanly, dispelling little darkness. Eric walked straight to the dusty circuit breakers on the left. He then paused and looked back towards the stairs.
Footsteps. Someone was coming down. A five foot two someone with blond hair. Eric watched darkly, waiting.
"Chloe, don't!"
He caught the makeshift club effortlessly, snapping the wood of the two by four with careless ease before casually backhanding her across the floor, where she lay stunned. Clark was unable to break Eric's grip on his neck as the man ripped the metal casing from one of the electric panels and exposed the power lines. He opened the black box he had been carrying and removed a small green stone, grimacing as he felt its effects. He placed it in his palm as he grabbed Clark's hand, the rock digging into their flesh. He looked at Clark and smiled bitterly.
"Now it ends." He rammed both their fists through the fuse box to catch the line that carried the electricity for the entire building. Clark threw his head back and screamed.
