slayers_desire | half way through the first semester ((tag Clark))

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clark,
university

half way through the first semester ((tag Clark))

April was nearly halfway though the first semester of her first year of college. More and more projects were starting to be assigned from her professors, as she was would only two months to finish them for her first semester marks. At least that was true for all the art courses.

She still had homework in the more academic courses. A couple of mid-term papers to write. And lab assignments that needed completion.

It was very overwhelming. But at least April still could count on Clark on support and was expecting him that very evening.

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Clark's schoolwork has increased as well, but his superspeed ability helps a lot with getting things done by his deadlines. And he has more stress on top of trying to balance his new double life without Lex or Fine catching on to what he's up to. All in all, it's quite a hectic time in his life, and it's been months since he was given the ultimatum by Jor-El. To the point where it's driving him to distraction, not knowing when the hammer's going to fall, and thinking maybe it never will.

He flies to Manhattan, dropping in at her apartment complex and walking the rest of the way to her door. There's a small cardboard box just outside the door, addressed to her, and he picks it up and lets himself in. "Anybody home?" he calls, knowing perfectly well she's there.

April was at her computer desk, trying to figure out a complicated (for her) math formula. And she looked up with relief when she saw Clark. "Oh thank goodness. The X and the Y in this formula are confusing me."

She notes the package. "Come bearing gifts?"

He leans over her shoulder, and points out the variables and how they fit together in the equation. He tries to explain it in a way that's easy to grasp, because he knows that she hasn't had formal schooling before and it's rather like tossing her in the deep end to teach her how to swim. He's proud of her, though, and all she's managed to achieve so far. "You're doing great," he assures her.

"Not exactly. Someone left it outside your door." He looks at the box a little more closely. "...it's from Lex."

The nice thing about Clark's help is that he doesn't give her the answers. He helps her though the equation. To see where the missing numbers are. And does in a manner she can use the explanation in other problems.

"Lex?" She turns and looks at the box. "Why would he send me something."

"I don't know." He turns the box over, searching for the seal, and there's a note attached to the side. He detaches it and flips it open. "April," he reads, "I hear you're taking geology and thought you might find this interesting. Hope this helps make up for some of the trouble I've caused."

She stands to take the box, and listens to the note. An eyebrow raises at the reason. Wondering if she should trust this situation -- considering its Lex.

For good reason, she doubts opening strange boxes. Especially after the Scourge send her mind-altering roses.

"Should I?"

Clark's thinking the same thing. They've not had good track record with strange packages showing up at her door. "Maybe I should," he suggests.

"Please. If you don't mind."

He splits the tape open with a finger, and unfolds the edges of the box. Something silver gleams inside, nestled in shreds of paper to pad its journey, and he reaches in to grab it.

He feels cool, bumpy stone underneath his fingers, but when he wraps his hand around it to draw it out, there's an extremely unwelcome and shocking flash of pain as something bites into one of his fingers. He makes an involuntary sound of pain, dropping the box and its contents out of surprise. And when he looks at his finger, there's a small cut there, bleeding as freely as it would on a human.

"Clark!" The smell of blood alerts her to the problem. She reaches for his hand. "What happened?"

He can't stop staring at his finger, and it's a ridiculously tiny amount of blood, a tiny cut, but there shouldn't be one there at all and it spooks him. "I don't know... it cut me somehow."

When he dropped the box, a silver-laced meteor rock rolled out onto the floor. It sits there now, deceptively innocent.

"Come on, lets go to the bathroom and put a bandage on it." She doesn't notice the meteor rock that rolled out onto the floor. Right now Clark is her priority.

((and now sleep))

He can't stop touching the cut, feeling that sting of pain every time, because he can't look at it and believe that it's really like that. There's no pain of kryptonite exposure, no sense of magic, no reason at all why he should suddenly be vulnerable to a little cut on the finger. He lets her lead him to her first aid kit, and put a band-aid on it, but that doesn't help make it look any less wrong to him. Wearing a bandage on his side to hide his non-existent gunshot wound was one thing. That was for show. This is real.

Gently caressing his hair, April led Clark to the couch to sit down. "You going to be okay?"

He shrugs, quite a bit freaked out. "I don't know. I still have my powers... why isn't it healing?" He doesn't physically feel any different, not like when he was human or when his powers have gone. And even sunlight isn't doing anything to heal the cut.

He looks down at the silver meteor rock, unwilling to touch it. "I've never heard of kryptonite being silver before."

She glances down to the rock, and quickly goes over to it so that it can be PINpointed away. "I am going to send it to the place with your other keepable Krytonitie artifacts. Until we know what it does."

"How do you feel?" Green made him hurt. Red made him Kal. Blue was going to be driven into his gut in knife form some day. She was worred about silver.

"I feel fine. Except for this," he says, holding up his finger. He still can't stop poking at it, because it shouldn't be like that and it's kind of scary to him.

There's only a tiny change in his aura, nothing that can't be explained by the fear, a small dark tendril taking root in his body, growing, unnoticed.

"Okay sweetie. Just stop touching it. We will figure this out." She continued to stroke his hair. Tee dark tendril not catching her attention yet, but she could sense that something wasn't right.

"Maybe we should go to Jor-El? Ask him about silver Kryptonite."

He gets up, suddenly restless, not wanting to just sit there when something totally weird just happened. "No, it's probably nothing. Maybe it'll heal if I wait long enough." He doesn't want to bother Jor-El for something as little as a tiny cut on the finger, and tries to convince himself he's overreacting. It's not even deep.

"I should probably go home. Maybe my parents will know what to do."

A growing difference in his aura really has April worried. She is tempted to go to Jor-El on her own, if Clark won't.

"Would you like me to go with you?"

He shakes his head, still restless. "No, I'll be okay. I'll call you later, okay?" He's so distracted and spooked that he doesn't even give her a goodbye kiss before heading for the door.

That's not good. And at the last moment, April swears she sees something dark and unfriendly in Clark's aura. It reminds her of helping Victor, when her Victorian male friend was possessed by the King of Hearts.

"Dammit..." She goes after him. Trailing him almost.

He speeds off, not even noticing she was trying to follow, too caught up in his thoughts.

Halfway back to home, something hits Clark from behind and he's jolted headfirst into an outbuilding on the side of the road, reducing it to splinters in an instant. He crashes through several more buildings before coming to a stop, and he gets up, looking around for what in the world did that. There's absolutely no one else around, which in his mind leaves only one possibility, that he was somehow hit with a missile or something else destructive, capable of hitting him at superspeed.

His PINpoint rings, and he picks it up, assuming it's April and going to tell her what happened. But instead, a distorted voice comes through the small speaker, only a whisper of a sentence, but one that chills him to the bone. "I know who you are." And then the call is disconnected.

With his superspeed and the whole flight thing, April can't follow Clark too far. And does her best to keep linked to his mind. They were going to practice this... so she doesn't know how long she can keep connected to him. Or if she will lose connection when he gets far away.

She can sesen that he is scared. And stops on the street to anxiously pull at her hair. Uncertain to what to do. Sure she could go to Jor-El... but that could potentially break her promise to the AI.

((is this appropriate time for her to contact Victor?))

Clark runs home faster than he ever has before, really needing to talk to his parents now. He thinks someone knows his secret, and there's no reason yet to doubt that what he just experienced was real. Which means that he and his family could be in danger.

((Maybe, but I was thinking we'd wait until about the time he flips out on his parents the day after, since he's still mostly okay right now, or at least acting like it. Should we have April interrupt in place of Chloe, or have Clark come to find her after?))

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half way through the first semester ((tag Clark))

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