WARNING: SLASH AS IN MALE AND MALE SEXUAL SITUATIONS OR TALKING DO NOT READ IF THIS OFFENDS YOU PLEASE!

Day Six

Clark stood in a sea of black nothingness, alone. It felt akin to being in the void of space, a freezing dark vacuum where you could drift for an eternity. A cold shiver ran up his spine. Out of nowhere, he could hear faint footsteps. Coming closer, they got louder and louder until they sounded like thunder in his ears. Abruptly it became silent again. A soft male voice began to speak; the words echoed and surrounded him making him want to desperately escape them.

It was Lex. He asked why Clark had let him die. The voice assured him that he would never have purposely done anything to hurt Clark. That he had only ever wanted to protect him, to be Clark's friend. He asked him if they were friends. The verbal questions hit him like physical blows. Then Lex became more accusing and asked Clark why he had killed him, shouting out his name with an enraged question of, why?

He woke up mutely screaming and choking on his parched throat.

Not knowing how long he had lain there, Clark finally stirred after he heard his mother call him and question him on whether he was coming down to go to school or not. He sighed in relief, honestly happy to hear that question from her again.

As he got cleaned up and dressed, he became determined to avoid yesterday's events. Lex should be alive today, and if he didn't see his friend or talk him into taking him to Metropolis, then Lex would stay alive. That tragedy had been all his fault. He had changed something, and it had caused pain and suffering to someone he deeply cared about. Today, his lack of action would prevent it from happening again. How ironic that his inaction is what had killed Lex in the first place.

If only he could stop feeling so whole-heartedly depressed and worthless. And, if only he could stop seeing Lex die every time he closed his eyes. The only way he could think of stopping it would be to see Lex, but that was still a bad idea, why not call him? Hearing Lex's voice might make him feel better.

Using his cell phone Clark dialed the number. Feeling his heart hammer in his chest so hard it almost hurt, Clark was left wordless when his friend's voice said, "Hello." Rudely hanging up and turning his phone off, wasn't a very nice thing to do, but Lex was alive. Yes, alive. That was all that mannered. Clark couldn't do any simple talk right now, if he'd said anything to Lex he would have starting crying again. 'Lex is alive.' And his friend would stay that way if Clark didn't touch or see him or call him again.

Once downstairs, Clark sat on his chair like a big lump of coal. Santa must have crossed him off the good little boy list last night. Swallowing repeatedly, the thought of eating revolted him. He could only stare and play with the pancakes on his plate, while the sound of the tragic earthquake news droning on in the background was easily ignored.

"Honey, is something bothering you?" His mother was obviously quite worried about him, but he didn't care.

"No, I'm just not hungry, is all. I better get going." He threw the uneaten food into the garbage, "Don't wanna be late." Like a zombie, Clark then grabbed his backpack and began walking towards the door dragging his feet.

His mother called from behind his back, "Be sure to come home right after school, your father needs you to change the tire on the tractor."

"Sure, why not." He mumbled back.

School was horrifyingly predictable; the day was beginning to feel surreal. It was driving him mad having the day constantly repeat itself, and he felt ensnared by it. Like a fox with his paw caught in a trap whose only way of escape would be to eventually gnaw off its own foot. And in doing so, it would loose that part of itself forever.

By the afternoon, his frustration had caused him to act out in ways that went against his normal personality. He didn't actively want to, but just couldn't seem to help himself. Pure emotion overriding any logical thought processes.

First in English, after having his teacher snap at him about not paying attention in class, Clark bitterly complained that he already knew it all.

"Prove it. Tell me what does Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy mean?" His teacher looked at him way too snidely for Clark's tastes. He'd show him. Maybe even show off a little too in the process.

Getting up in front of the class, Clark held the play book in front of him and dramatically read it out loud in front of the whole class:

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…"

It wasn't till around halfway through that Clark realized that Hamlet was indeed contemplating suicide and that the fear of death "the undiscovered country" is what held him back. How ironic that Hamlet felt like a coward at his own inaction. His teacher was highly impressed, when Clark told the class that information and asked him to sit back down. Clark smiled warily as he was going back to his seat, humbled by his own performance. Chloe and Pete silently kept looking in his direction, and he did his best to ignore them. There was way too much death and dying for him to take today.

In Math class, he had tried harder to piss the teacher off, in order to make himself stop thinking about depressing stuff. It wasn't a good idea to keep thinking about what it would actually be like to die. He succeeded, after taking his hated exam crumpling it up into a tight ball and throwing it, using normal strength of course, at the teacher's head. It re-bounded off at least three feet before hitting the floor.

"Mr. Kent, what is the meaning of this?" Bellowed the shocked teacher.

Clark replied sarcastically, "I don't want to take the damn test?"

Many of the students began to laugh, and a few brave souls started to clap. The teacher on the other hand was not amused, neither were Pete and Chloe.

"I think you need to take a trip to the principle's office. Make sure you head straight there, for I'll be joining you shortly."

"Okay." Clark felt a small thrill at his disobedience. Humming to himself as he walked down the hallway to the main office, he thought that this would be a nice change of scenery.

By the time his math teacher arrived to the office, the man had become even more red-faced. It was quite entertaining to watch him puff out like a blow-fish.

Perspiration was running down the side of the man's face as he finished telling the principal the details of Clark's uncouth actions, "Clark Kent was being insubordinate in class. I won't tolerate such offensive behaviour in my classroom." Now staring directly at him the teacher demanded, "What do you have to say for yourself Mr. Kent?"

"I'm having a very bad day. Get over it. It's not like I trashed the room." Clark shrugged uncaringly, "I'll stay for detention. But, I don't see what the big deal is." He lied. It would be a cold day in hell before he went to detention.

The principal sighed, "Clark, this is a big deal. You know better than to assault your teacher. I'm going to have to inform your parents. Later, after I have spoken with them, we can discuss your punishment."

He rolled his eyes, "Whatever." The desire to punch one of the two men was beginning to become bothersome. Saved by the bell, he quickly left the room with the excuse of having to eat lunch. It wasn't like they could keep him in there forever.

Sulking off into the Torch, Clark was annoyed when Pete and Chloe showed up to pester him with their concerned questions.

"Man, how much trouble are you in?" Pete stood the closest to him.

"Nothing that I'm going to have to worry about." Clark hoped that by giving them the cold shoulder they'd take the hint and disappear.

Chloe moved to glance at the computer screen where he was quickly typing something on to it, "Clark, if there's something bothering you… You know, you can talk to us, right?"

"Ah huh."

"Hello?" She waved her hand in front of his face, and he literally looked right through it and continued typing.

Being preached to by his aggravating and annoying friend, made Clark want to grind his teeth. 'She wasn't going to shut up was she?' Deciding to solve that little problem, Clark said, "Shut the hell up already. Can't you see that I don't want you here?"

Her hurt expression only vaguely bothered him. 'Mission accomplished.'

"Pete, let's go. We're obviously not welcome here."

In his peripheral vision, Clark could see Pete looking at him rather suspiciously, but his friend seemed to hesitate on saying anything incriminating in front of Chloe. 'Good, get your high and mighty asses out of here already.'

Defeated, they finally left with a rather loud huff from Chloe. They were probably quite upset and angry with him. 'That's just too bad.' They should have taken the hint and left him alone sooner.

Finally, some needed peace and quiet. He congratulated himself on doing such a good job of being an asshole. Pretending that they were simply not there just wasn't enough, and they'd needed a little extra motivation. Chloe, especially, could be quite persistent when she put her mind to it. It's not like he was mad at them, he just wanted to be left alone.

Clark finished writing his rather morbid poem about death and posted it onto his Live Journal, pleased with the end result. As the bell rang, signalling the end of lunch, he stopped tapping his fingers on the computer screen. Getting up, he fumbled through some drawers until he found Chloe's laptop, and started searching the Internet for different kinds of porn. 'Why not be more adventurous?'

One site in particular caught his eye. A moving threesome of two men and a woman assaulted the screen. He watched as they double penetrated her, one lying under her with his dick up her crotch while the other man was standing doing her doggie style up the ass. 'Now this is different.' Mesmerized he watched as the men began to touch each other more than the girl. He gasped at the thrill of seeing the guys kiss.

Why did this turn him on? What was wrong with him? And how was he going to get rid of this tent in his pants? Confused at his response he logged out and checked the time. 'Oh, too bad that class was almost over.' Unwillingly he started to walk towards his Biology classroom, which would still be empty, trying to act as if he didn't have a hard on. First, he starts dreaming about having sex with guys and now he starts to enjoy just a little too much watching guys almost having sex with each other. Please, let there not be a third notch on that list.

Out of spite, he began to write in big and fancy letters, "Pete and Chloe are doing it" on the blackboard.

A high-pitched shriek filled his ears as he finished crossing the second T. "What the hell is that?" Chloe looked mortified at him.

"It was going to be a surprise?" He almost accomplished the facade of innocence.

"How dare you bring us into your own personal temper-tantrum!" Chloe pulled Pete over so that the two of them were standing within inches of his body.

"Get out of my face!" Using more strength than he had intended to, Clark literally pushed them rather hard onto their asses. Quickly, he x-scanned them to make sure that they hadn't been injured.

Pete yelped out, "Clark, what do you think you're doing. Have you gone mental?"

"You know what? I can do whatever the fuck I want, and NO ONE can stop me. And Pete, I promise that it won't do you any good if you try to use some green kryptonite against me." Clark knew that his secret's mask had shattered in front of Chloe, which would cause her to question and analyse him further. That fact irritated him even more, and for a second he wondered where all his hate was coming from.

"What's kryptonite? And why would he do that?" Chloe appeared almost pleased by his informational outburst.

"Just leave me alone. You can't help. Nobody can help me." Clark wanted to either bawl his eyes out or destroy something. Walking towards the doorway, he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

Pete just didn't seem to want to listen to his pleas; instead he grabbed onto Clark's red shirt and was somewhat able to pull him over to the side of the room near the far wall, only because Clark let him. Clark growled at the attempt at manhandling.

"What's with you man?" Pete began to feel the side pockets of his jeans while actively searching the rest of his body with his eyes, for…

"Pete! Stop it. I don't have that stupid ring. Damn, it was destroyed months ago." Clark pulled away from him further, "I can't believe you thought I was wearing it!"

"What do you expect me to believe? You're not acting like yourself, that's for sure. So, what's your problem?"

He sighed defeated, "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me. Don't you know by now that you can tell me anything?" Pete sounded so sincere.

Looking up he watched as Chloe started erasing the sentence off the board just as a few students begin to file into the classroom. Clark thought about it and came to the conclusion that anything was better than this, even when he could feel the irritation and hate pouring off of him in waves- he wanted to trust Pete.

"Okay. Lex was-" He was cut off before he could say more.

"God, Clark you're this upset because of that rich asshole? I can't believe-"

"SHUT UP!" Oh, he had been so wrong. He became furious at the hurtful words, as the adrenaline began pumping through his veins the emotion felt like an unbelievable amount of power and pain. Clark wanted to hit Pete, almost in horror he could feel his hand make a fist and begin to move towards its target.

Smash

The concrete wall beside Pete's head now had a large soccer ball sized hole in it, with his fist still in it. His actions had attracted the attention of several students nearby as a mob quickly gathered near Clark and his friends. He gawked as Pete began to back away from him with a look of outrage on his face. No, this was going wrong. Why was everything turning out to be so messed up? He was a good person. He so didn't deserve this crap. Shaking he could feel himself losing control even more. Staring too hard at the ceiling, he screamed as a large hole burned through it.

The smell of smoke and falling debris filled the air. He tried to calm down, but after opening his eyes he was appalled to see a crowd of gawking students surrounding him. They all knew. The teenagers stared at him with a wide range of negative emotions. He was a-

Someone on his left cried out, "It's another mutant freak!" and on his right he heard, "Monster!"

A girl whispered, "These horrible abominations should be hunted down and exterminated. All they ever do is trash things or kill people."

Looking around for a familiar face, all he could see were strangers.

As Clark tried to back away from the horde of loud obnoxious people, he felt a wave of distorting dizziness- Everything seemed to be assaulting him all at once, finally making him snap. 'How dare they mock and ridicule him? How many of these brats had he saved? What did he do to deserve this?' He knew now that this was going to turn out badly.

"You wanna see a FREAK! I'll give you a freak."

Then Clark slammed his whole body through the classroom wall sending him falling out into the hallway. 'Hey, that was kind of fun.' Not worried about having to deal with any repercussions the next day, he continued on by pounding down another wall. And another. It felt so good to revel in the destruction of this prison of his. He barely noticed the people running and screaming to get out of his way. The cries of fright didn't seem real to him. This place wasn't real, and maybe if he destroyed the whole damn thing then this nightmare would end. Being here hurt him on the inside, but being anywhere else would have hurt so much more.

'Why did I choose to come back to Smallville?' At least in Metropolis he'd been in control of his life, his own destiny.

Jack Sawnson and a couple of his jock football player buddies that Clark barely recognized tried to subdue him to no avail, and it was a cheap thrill to send them flying down the hallway.

Clark bitterly snarled, "You can't stop me."

The fire alarm went off. The loud piercing noise instantly began to hurt his ears. Using his x-ray vision and super-speed he found all the alarm bells and instantly melted them with his eyes. Staring into his Math classroom he could almost hear it making fun of him. 'Now where was I?'

Smash

It was later, he didn't know how much later, but an uncertain amount of time had passed. He thought that he might have mentally blocked some of it out. Glancing around, he didn't remember doing half of the destruction around him. Most of the school was now a pile of smouldering rubble. At one point, the clamouring of people had almost stopped due to the fact that they had fled as fast as their normal legs could take them. Nevertheless, it could not last; more individuals had come to bother him. He longed for some sense of harmony to return within himself. It was distressingly absent.

Men in uniforms holding guns had surrounded what was left of the Smallville High School. Amazingly, Clark had made sure not to hurt anyone during his rampage. Even in his slightly deranged state, he didn't want to actually kill anyone. Unfortunately for him, the police appeared to see him as a dangerous 'would be' killer.

"Put your hands up!"

His conditioned responses to follow orders, made him involuntarily stop what he was doing and raise his arms high above his head.

"Now, get on your knees, slowly lie down on the ground in front of you, and face forward." As the officer moved closer to him, Clark watched as his gun shook with fear in his hands.

No way was he going to go to jail. He had been there before and didn't very much like it.

"If I don't, will you shoot me?" Staring menacingly, he put his hands back down and began to walk towards the man.

"Stop where you are!" A different voice shouted from behind him, "Don't move any closer!"

It was a stand off. Clark wasn't going to back down, and at the moment the police didn't know what to do with him. Once again, Clark knew that it would not last long. Lunging forward, he felt the first bullets hit him in the back as his grabbed the shaking officer's gun and crushed it into dust. Wow, maybe he was on red kryptonite? He felt the same sense of missing something, like a part of his soul had been ripped out.

"No one is going to tell me what to do."

After super-speeding to Smallville's main street, Clark began walking towards the Talon about a half a block away. He knew that somewhere behind him the police where trying to find him. Let them try. No one could even see him when he went at top-speed. As Clark entered the Coffee shop, he acted as if his red shirt didn't hang off him in tatters, singed from fire when he'd blown up the biology lab, or that dust didn't fall from his hair. Generally, he looked like he had just been through a war.

The Talon was sparsely populated, with only a few customers on the far side of the room. Before this whole repeating day thing had started to occur he had last seen Lana on Wednesday. They had an awkward conversation about her trip and on how she had sold the store, Sunday was to be the big closing day, and he had been invited to help celebrate. He hadn't talked to her the next day. It had felt like the final nail in the relationship coffin and he just didn't have the heart to see her again so soon. He found it strange that he had barely thought about Lana the last few days at all, but now he kind of did. He needed someone to make him feel better, to take his hurt and pain away. X-raying the room, he found her walking down the stairstalking to someone on her cell phone. He listened in, missing what the caller on the other end had just asked her.

"No I haven't seen him. And I have no idea where he may have gone." She walked down into the main room and glanced up, instantly seeing him. "Clark! You look…"

"Hi, Lana. Who are you talking to?" Clark leisurely sauntered up to her, and she mutely held the phone out towards him. Willingly he took it from her.

"Hello. Hello? There's no one there."

Her voice was full of concern when she asked, "What's going on?"

"Nothing. I thought maybe we could talk a bit. I haven't seen you in a while." He moved to sit in a chair near where she was standing. Hearing some sudden urgently sounding whispers coming from the other side of the room, he glancing over and gave a bad-tempered look towards the annoying people.

"W… We talked the day before yesterday." Surprised by her answer Clark glared at her, hoping to understand what she was talking about. Lana looked like she was going to puke she was so green. 'Maybe she had the flu?'

"For you maybe, not me." He continued sarcastically, "I haven't had the misfortune of forgetting everyday."

"What are you talking about? Clark, you're scaring me."

He was a bit confused. "Am I?" Lana continued to stare at him like he had grown a third eye. Finally, he took a good look at himself and remembered. It's amazing how fast the mind can repress traumatic events, some of them anyway.

Quickly he apologized, "Sorry, I guess I kinda came out of the closet, so to speak."

His eyes glazed over as he started to re-live some of the memories from the High School. Emotions swirled and bled together, causing him to continue talking in an emotionless monotone, "I don't want you to start screaming. I don't like the screaming. It hurts my ears." Aimlessly, he got up and began to walk around the room.

"What?" Lana looking panicked followed him.

Clark frowned, "They left me. Chloe and Pete. I made them really mad at me and they left. I thought it was what I wanted. I was wrong."

Lana tried to touch him, but he wouldn't let her. "Look, it can't be that bad. Do you want me to drive you home?"

Clark sighed, "No, it's bad. I think I'm going crazy. I don't know what to do. There's nowhere for me to go."

He fixed his super-hearing on the familiar sound of sirens approaching.

Starting to become angry again, he yelled at the group of quickly leaving customers. "Did you call the police!" They gave him one last terrified glance then took off through the front door and down the street. He continued to scream at them, his voice full of hate, "How dare they call them! They weren't supposed to find me." Banging his fist on a table, it legs cracked and splintered beneath his strength.

Lana glared at him like he had gone mental, "What are you talking about? I don't hear anything." She seemed torn between being angry, afraid, or concerned.

As his eyes darted suspiciously around the store, he began to feel paranoid, "Did you phone them? Is that who was on the phone?"

"No! It was-"

"I thought I could trust you!" He started to lose it more. The walls were starting to close in again, mocking and laughing at him for trusting or thinking that anyone was really his friend.

"Clark, please calm down." She had backed almost all the way towards the rear entrance. "I'm your friend. I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. Do you want to call your parents?"

"You know what I did, don't you?" He had pursued her and was now towering, in an intimidating way, over her. Lana was always so pretty, always so innocent.

"N… no."

"You're lying. You know I'm a freak." She backed away from him even further. "You've always wanted to know what I could do, so here I am." Clark super-sped to several places in the room, sometimes breaking something or using his heat-vision to melt an object, happily showing off his many abilities in front of her. He then grabbed a knife and Lana watched as it shattered violently after hitting him in the chest. "You see, I'm much worse than a freak of nature. I'm not even human. What trick do you want me to do for you next?"

The Talon door was flung open, and she looked over his shoulder towards it unable to come up with any response. She wasn't his friend either. He had no friends.

His anger vanished when he heard a familiar voice passionately call out his name.

"Clark!" A dishevelled Lex dressed all in black stood in the doorway of the Talon looking paler than usual. It looked like he'd just run a marathon.

Lana called out, "Thank God, you're here. I didn't know what I was going to do- Clark is… Something's wrong with him."

Now it was Clark's time to back away, "Go away! You're not real! None of this is really real!" 'No, before Lana wasn't talking to the police, she must have been speaking with Lex!' He couldn't think. He tried too, but it hurt too much.

"Clark, of course I'm real." Lex slowly walked up to him-- like he was some sort of feral carnivorous animal.

Lex looked so real. Clark could hear Lex's lungs breathing and his vulnerable heart thumping at an accelerated pace. And now, that he was standing but a few feet away Clark could smell him. He loved the way Lex smelled, especially after a work out. Clark could see himself holding his friend in his arms. His friend who was all covered in sweat and blood… the phantom vision of death mocked him. God, he couldn't stop remembering yesterday.

"The Sheriff is going to be here in a few minutes. Clark, I'll try to get you out of here. I need you to-" Lex looked so concerned for him and it was so…

"No. No! NO!" Clark fell to his knees and started laughing hysterically, reliving his recent stunt of pounding the high school into a pile of ruins, and then to the memory of Lex dead in his arms, which would not stop replaying in his head. A horrible sense of vertigo made him clench at his stomach and dry heave several times in between each deep breath. 'Is this what having a nervous breakdown felt like?'