A/N: Ch.6 is here! I'll post chapter 7 after while. Ch. 8 is written and I only have two more to go before the end! I hope you enjoy!
Lois and I are sitting at the table as I'm plucking away at the laptops keyboard. We found all that we could on The Masked Merchant, Time Merchant, Ghost Merchant, whatever you wanted to call him Merchant. We were digging into lore and his first appearance when Clark came into the apartment with drinks and food in hand.
"Oh my God," I can't focus because of the food, "it smells so good! What is that?" Clark chuckles and tells me it's from an Italian place down the street. Said it's a hole in the wall and they have some of the absolute best pizza. From the smell I believed him.
He had gotten Lois and himself coffees and me a mountain dew. My adhd was going to love the sugar high I got from it and Clark was about to see how much of a mistake the mountain dew was. "Thanks." I smirk. I open it and take a big drink. Man, was it was refreshing.
He was absolutely correct about the pizza too. It was probably the best thing that had ever entered my mouth. "So the Masked Merchant," Lois says while eating her food, "is said to be able to manipulate time on his own will. Looks like you were right about that, Clark, but according to theories he needs the cube to travel across dimensions, realities, universes, worlds, whatever."
"He must be planning to leave again." Clark responds and I watch the two adults as they talk. No wonder they make a great team, they nearly finish each other's thoughts, and I wonder how long it will be before Clark tells her his secret.
That night I can't sleep, and Clark can't either, because I'm yapping his ear off. "Are you always this hyper when you consume a lot of sugar?"
"No? Maybe, kinda, usually no, but I haven't had mountain dew in awhile." I say and I'm not so sure he's convinced. "When I consume a lot of sugar my adhd seems to get a little heightened."
"You don't say?" Clark dead pans and I look at him. I'm pacing back and forth in front of the TV and he's lounging on the couch.
"So Clark, tell me about yourself. I'm only here for a short time, and once I'm gone, we won't cross paths again. What could it hurt?" He doesn't seem to want to say anything. "Ok, how about you tell me how you knew I had a cracked or broken rib?" I keep pacing.
"I saw it." He suggests but I don't find that answer good enough.
"You saw it? You mean like you can see through my body? Like, your eyes have a mode that you can turn on and see through my flesh?" I ask and he looks at me like he's cringing.
"I call it X-Ray vision, and yes, it's like a mode that I can use to see through stuff."
"That is the coolest thing I think I've ever heard in my life!" I exclaim.
"Then you'll be excited to know that I also have something I call heat vision. I can shoot lasers out of my eyes." He explains and my eyes widen a bit.
I take a seat on the couch, carefully to not hurt my side, and look at him. "How is that even possible?" He let's out sigh and tells me his story.
I look at him in awe. "That's amazing."
"It's also dangerous and absolutely nobody can know." He says seriously.
"I get it." I confirm. "Back where I'm from, my best friend, he's not what you would consider normal either. Well, I guess I can't say he isn't normal or that you're not normal, you're both just different." I correct and continue. "Not long after the start of our freshman year, I drug Scott out into the woods to find a half of a body, and he ended up getting bit by a wolf. Turns out that it wasn't a normal wolf and that lycanthropy is real."
"Oddly enough, that isn't the strangest thing I've heard." Clark tells me and it surprises me.
"The Derek guy I mentioned before, your look alike, he was actually born a werewolf. The half of a body we were looking for, and we ended up finding...which was absolutely horrifying, was his sister Laura. Derek, he's kinda been there since it all started, but he's very sour. All the time, just, so serious and always brooding." The hyper active energy is wearing off and I can feel drowsiness creeping in.
"Sounds like we're nothing alike." Clark answers and I nearly snort when I suck in a breath through my nose.
"You've got some of his reactions." I mention. "Like when you roll your eyes at me...he does that a lot." I say as I lean back just to rest my eyes.
The next several days pass by slowly. Clark put me on house arrest and absolutely wouldn't let me leave. He claimed it was for my own safety until he could find Manjaro. I told him that I can't stand being cooped up, I feel like I'm going to go insane, but he ignores my attempts to change his mind. Then has Lois keep an eye one me. She's as stir crazy as I am and I'm able to convince her to take me outside.
We go get soft pretzels from the Auntie Ann's down the street. We continue to walk around talking about why she wanted to be a reporter. She told me about her interest in Superman and how she knew he wasn't a threat from the beginning. She really had no clue that her partner was the man she had been chasing this whole time. Clark was right, none of them suspected him.
We are passing by an old bank that's apparently been closed for awhile, boards in the windows, when we hear a brief shrieking noise coming from inside of the building. We stop and look at each other before we approach the abandoned bank. We hear the same gibberish noise I heard back in Beacon Hills and my heart pounds with excitement. "The Merchant." We say it in unison. Even though I found that kind of odd, I also found it kind of cool, I hadn't done that before, not even with Scott.
Lois peeks in the door that has seen better days and gestures for me to follow her. I slide through the gap easily, as did she, and we creep along carefully so that we don't alert him we're there. We get behind some old boxes that are stacked and we watch him. He's messing with the cube and I assume he's struggling to use it. We keep watching in silence until Lois tries to reposition and our hiding place comes tumbling down.
"Crap." She says as the Merchant looks at us.
LOIS WHY