The car he arrives at the club in that night is probably even hotter that the girl he's with. But he doesn't notice or doesn't care. Either way, the keys are passed off to some drooling admirer before he even gets in the door. Cars like that, for him, are a dime a dozen.
As he ditched the car, so does he ditch the girl, albeit in a more roundabout way. A kiss that leaves him cold and keeps him soft makes him angry, and he can't help grabbing her hand when she tries to touch the mark on his chest. He watches her scamper away, and doesn't care. The bartender makes some smart remark, and Clark wants to wring his neck for butting into his business, but plays it cool. He lets the words roll off his tongue and imagines he can see them dancing in the air.
The people on the floor are throbbing, gyrating, flowing in disconnected rhythms that Clark doesn't care much for. All he knows is that he wants to be a part of the heat, and he works his way through the crowd. People touch him in places he has never been touched before arriving in Metropolis, but he doesn't care. He welcomes the freedom and opens his arms when a particularly hot brunette steps up to the plate. He knows what she wants.
The heat moves in him. From his gut, up his intestines, through his stomach, all the way up to his throat. It passes through his nasal cavities and comes to rest just behind his eyes.
"Oh my God, your eyes." The girl says, and he jerks away from her. Panic rises like bile in his throat and he has to get out before he snaps.
He's in the phone booth before he even realises what he's doing. The heat has dissolved from his eyes and reappeared at his chest, but this time it's pain. The worst kind. The chafe of his shirt hurting more that the meteor rocks. It's gouging and scraping and tearing and the second he pulls the ring off the pain subsides.
He doesn't want the heat anymore.
His mother's voice over the phone is a whole new kind of pain that he doesn't even know how to name. She sounds desperate, just like him, he thinks. He wants to go home. If he goes now, he might make it there before she even hangs up the phone. If he hurries. Maybe, if he goes now, his dad won't hate him like Clark hates himself. Maybe Lana will forgive him for the things he said, and for leaving. Maybe Chloe will keep his secret long enough for him to tell it himself. Where he's been. Why.
Maybe Pete won't hate him for running away from his problems.
He doesn't let himself think about Lex, because there isn't anything to think about anymore. Lex is.
He puts the ring back on and runs home.
OOOO
Bank robbery is a lot cooler than he though it was. He felt powerful when he was dodging bullets. And catching that last one had been pretty cool, too. But now it's over and he feels just a little stupid for leaving so much stuff behind. The balaclava, for one thing, had been foolishly discarded. Now they had proof that the bullets had hit him. He hadn't even begun to consider the consequences of his actions...
It feels like Jonathan is in his head telling him to be careful. But he doesn't need to be careful because no one knows what can hurt him. And he wants to keep it that way.
He hears something. Footsteps climbing the metal staircase outside his building. Three people. He pulls the duvet over his head and acts natural.
When they shoot him he almost laughs.
The conversation that follows is almost comical. He feels like he is in some gangster movie and he doesn't like it. He doesn't like what Edge is saying and dismisses him without hesitation, but when the older man is gone he feels a stab of something he can't identify.
That day he goes to Lex's funeral.
He doesn't know what he expected to find or feel, but it certainly wasn't the stark emptiness that chills through his body and leaves him numb. Lana sees him and he runs. He's afraid of what he can feel even through the ring's pulsing energy. She could be the one to change him, he thinks. And then he decides, she couldn't. But she could be the one to join him. If she wants to.
He doesn't think she wants to.
But that's okay. He doesn't need her so much as he wants her, and he doesn't even want her for the right reasons. She's pretty and she's innocent and the allure of corrupting the seemingly incorruptible is very strong. But that's what makes it fun.
OOOO
The aftermath of Chloe's visit leaves shockwaves scorching through Clark's body for hours. It is not so much the guilt from their encounter as the memory of said guilt. The fact that it's there and he can't do anything about it without the ring driving him crazy. It makes him feel weak, and powerless.
He hates it.