The House of the Earth Part 3: (5/8): Idyll
Title: Chapter Five: Idyll
Pairing/Characters: Kal/Bruce, Barbara Gordon, Pete Ross, Ollie Queen, Martha Kent, Jonathan Kent
Notes: " The House of the Earth" is an AU in which a few thousand Kryptonians escaped the destruction of Krypton to flee to Earth and conquer its people.
Rating: G
Word Count: 2800
Summary: Jonathan and Martha welcome the travelers to Smallville, a major stop on the route west.
"Clark!" A woman he had never seen before this moment threw her arms around him, hugging him. "Oh Clark. It's been so long."
"Ma," he said, finding his voice suddenly a bit thick at the undeserved welcome. Obviously Martha and Jonathan had not been told he was anything more than a human working for the rebellion who needed a cover identity. "I've missed you so much."
Behind the woman a man stood, beaming at Kal. As Kal broke away from Martha's hug, Jonathan reached out and clapped him on the back. "Son."
"Pa," Kal said, clearing his throat. "Pete was telling me this year's pumpkin crop was coming along well."
Jonathan's face creased in a surprised smile. "It is at that. I'll show you later, if you like."
"Oh, I'd like that," Kal said. Martha was hugging Pete now, much to Pete's delight and embarrassment. Clark gestured toward the two other men. "Ma, Pa, these are my friends Oliver and Bruce." Oliver and Bruce nodded politely and Martha insisted on hugging them as well. Behind them, Barbara had been hanging back a bit, and Clark put a hand on her shoulder, moving her forward. "And this is Barbara. We...met her on the road."
Martha's eyes took in Barbara's torn clothing and read something elusive in her face, then pulled her into an embrace that was gentler and longer than the others. "Any friend of Clark's is a friend of ours," she said. "And our home is your home for as long as you'd like to stay."
Barbara pulled in a sharp breath, then put her arms around Martha and held her. "Thank you," she said against the older woman's shoulder.
"Come in, all of you, come in," Martha said, keeping an arm around Barbara. "Supper's just about done and we'd love to have you all."
Over a simple dinner of chicken and greens, Kal eyed the faces of his "parents." They were an older couple, their faces lined with years of work, care, and sunlight. The corners of Martha's pale eyes were webbed with signs of much laughter, while Jonathan's face looked more care-worn. Martha caught him looking at her and smiled at him. "You're just...a sight for sore eyes," Kal said, and she chuckled and blushed a little, waving an embarrassed hand in front of her face before passing him more milk.
Pete kept the conversation going smoothly, saving Kal from having to pretend he knew Smallville more than he did. And Oliver was always glad to pick up the slack, although his conversation was much more family-friendly here. That left Kal free to take in the farmhouse: the worn and well-scrubbed wood, the threadbare homemade rugs, the overall air of careful frugality that didn't obscure the homeliness of the place. He found himself relaxing almost despite himself; looking over he saw Bruce smiling slightly at a joke, the light warm on the planes of his face.
After the meal was over, Pete and Oliver said goodnight and left together, still bickering. Martha caught Barbara in a yawn and suggested she show the girl her bedroom; Barbara agreed sleepily. Once they went upstairs, Jonathan leaned closer to Bruce and Clark, his posture all business now. "We got the message that you two needed a place to stay for a bit before moving west?"
Bruce nodded. "Clark's...newly-joined." Kal wondered briefly why he was still calling him by his false name, then realized that of course he couldn't call him "Kal-El" without making it obvious what he truly was. "I wanted him to see some of what we're doing here. Some of the progress we've made."
Jonathan nodded, refraining from asking what "Clark's" real name was, to Kal's relief. "Well, our house is open to you." He turned to Kal. "You expressed an interest in my crops? I could use an extra hand in the fields for a few days, if you don't mind getting up with the sun and getting your hands dirty."
Kal nodded, feeling a smile creeping onto his face. "That would be great. I'd like the chance to help."
They talked for a while longer about small things--Martha's cooking, the weather--and then Jonathan showed them to their rooms.
They were separate rooms, of course, Kal realized with a small jolt of surprise. There was no reason for them to share a room; they weren't a master and slave here, nor were they...well, anything else.
The door closed behind him and he found himself alone, without Bruce in the room with him for the first time in weeks. It was a strange feeling. He had been looking forward, without even realizing it, to going over the day's events with Bruce. He looked at the closed door, reached out to touch it lightly. Two closed doors between them and some time free of his Kryptonian master for Bruce.
He went to bed, hearing the soft breathing of the many humans in the house all around him.
: : :
The next day was a blur of images, each a bright gem to be stored away for later:
In the fields with Jonathan, the first rays of sunrise starting to trickle over the horizon. The hoe makes a quiet chunk, chunk noise as they turn the ground together. Pulling weeds with his hands, the delicate tracery of roots coming free of the earth, releasing a scent of loam and dust. Dirt, black under his fingernails. He and Jonathan don't talk much. Picking tomatoes, the small snap as the red globe comes free. Zucchini. Squash.
Jonathan takes him to a barn, shows him: seed stores, a bewildering variety, stockpiled. "Too many Terran varieties have been almost wiped out to make way for the iao," says Jonathan. "We're saving them here." Tiny black seeds like sand, gray ovals, bulbs stored in the cool dark. A renaissance of plant life, waiting for a day of rebirth when the fields of red blossoms can be uprooted. For this alone everyone on the plantation could be executed.
Lunch back at the farm. The kitchen is hot with the scent of canning tomatoes. It turns out Barbara can read, and she's been put to work in an archive. She's alight with information, brimming over with it. "They've asked me to come back and help categorize the poetry they salvaged," she says to Kal. "They say I'm good at it." She throws her arms around him in a hug. "I'm going to stay here with your parents and help. Thank you."
Helping Martha dry meat into jerky in a smoker in the back. "For people making the journey west," she says. "It's not so easy on foot." He still doesn't know what lies west and isn't sure if he should even ask. "Jonathan says you've got a good hand for farming," she says. "Says you know the soil and how to treat it right." She pauses. "If you ever wanted to stay here, not move on...you'd be welcome." He doesn't know what to say but thank you, but that seems to be enough for now.
Pete gives him a tour of the rest of the plantation. They stop to pick a couple of apples and eat them, crisp sharp sweetness punctuating the conversation. Pete tells him stories about every corner, every field. "Isn't this dangerous?" Kal asks. "Keeping the archives, sheltering the runaways? What if the plantation's owner--"
Pete laughs and tosses the core into a field. "Gur-Ko? He's never once visited this place. I hear he's terrified of humans, thinks we're all infectious or something. Can't bear any contact with us. He had a radio installed decades ago to communicate with Jonathan and Martha, but I don't think he even uses that. Like our voices might contaminate him." He frowns. "Wish I could." Kal knows Gur-Ko--knows his name, at least. He's an older Kryptonian, a historian, who didn't make the transition well. Mostly he stays in his quarters and watches old holograms of Krypton's glories.
They walk by an archery range where Oliver is training a group of men and women in how to use a bow and arrow. "What can that possibly do against a Kryptonian?" Kal asks.
Oliver pulls the string taut and the arrow buries itself deep in the heart of the target. "Low-tech solutions to high-tech problems," Pete says. Kal remembers the burning green powder on the tip of Selina's whip and shudders briefly.
A game of some sort using a small white ball and a wooden stick breaks out as the sun sets. Kal struggles both to understand the rules that everyone else seems to know and to keep his enhanced abilities under control. As a result he's the clumsiest and least coordinated member of the team, prompting some good-natured jeers and catcalls from the other side. Pete almost gets into a fistfight with one of the jeerers. "Jerk," he says after Kal extricates him. "Someone oughta teach him to be polite to guests." Kal's team wins the game when Barbara steals home; she's carried back to the farm and dinner on the shoulders of her teammates.
: : :
Bruce was at the kitchen table already when Kal and Barbara came in; he looked up from a book and smiled at Barbara's flushed face. "Hail the conquering hero," he said.
Barbara laughed. "You've already heard?"
Bruce closed the book. "I might have been watching."
She looked curious as they sat down. "Why didn't you join us?"
A flicker of something passed over Bruce's face and he shrugged wordlessly. Then Martha brought the biscuits to the table and the conversation veered away into discussions of the meal and Barbara's archiving duties.
There were crickets singing outside the window as Kal slipped between the sheets, and in the distance a chorus of frogs. He was still listening when there was a tentative scratch at the door.
"Come in," he said, expecting Barbara, and was surprised when Bruce slipped into the room, another shadow among the shadows. "What are you doing here?" he asked without thinking, and Bruce stopped.
"I wanted to...ask how your day was," Bruce said.
"Not bad. I didn't slip up. Everyone still thinks I'm human," Kal said.
"That's not--" Bruce started, then fell silent again.
"Besides, you were keeping an eye on me from a distance, weren't you?"
"Maybe a little." A short silence in the cricket-singing dark. "You looked like you were having fun. I felt my presence would be an...interruption."
Kal wasn't sure what to say to that so he said nothing at all. The shadow that was Bruce sat down in an armchair next to the bed, a soft creak of wood in the dark.
"I could spend more time with you tomorrow, perhaps." Bruce's voice was level, blank; Kal couldn't tell if there was hope or dread or duty behind it. He bit his lip and thought for a while before answering.
"You don't have to. You should do what you want to do."
Bruce chuckled, low and ironic. "What I want to do," he echoed.
Kal nodded even though Bruce probably couldn't see him. "It's your choice. Do what you want."
Another long pause. Then Bruce got up and went to the door. "I'll take your advice. Good night, Clark," he said.
"Sleep well, Bruce."
The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Kal alone in the dark, cotton sheets cool under his hands.
: : :
Kal was sipping coffee in the kitchen, getting ready to go out into the fields with Jonathan again, when Bruce came into the room rubbing his eyes and yawning. "Coffee?" he mumbled.
Jonathan handed him a mug. "You're up early."
"Mm." Bruce took a long sip of coffee, not looking at Kal. "Anna just came by to say they need me at the archives to translate some material from Hindi to English. I'll be there all morning." Then he looked up at Kal over the rim of his mug. "I'll be free from lunch on, though. I was wondering if...you'd like to spend the afternoon together? If Jonathan can spare you, of course."
Jonathan chuckled. "If he promises to work extra-hard all morning I think I can give him the afternoon off. If you'd like, of course," he added to Kal.
"Oh," said Kal. "Yes." He stared down at his coffee, afraid his blaze of delight and hope and yearning would be in his eyes for anyone to see. "I'd like that."
: : :
They walked, the afternoon sun warm on their shoulders, walked without speaking, without purpose, just walking through the fields. When they came to a little stream--no more than a rivulet, really, a tiny creek shaded by broad trees--Bruce stopped and washed his hands in the clear water. Then he sat down on a smooth rock on the bank and tossed pebbles into the water. Kal sat down on the other side of the stream and threw in a few pebbles as well; the rings and ripples touched and crossed each other. After a while, Kal said "You didn't have to--"
"--I wanted to," said Bruce, a bit irritably. "I'm not in the mood to second-guess myself today." He examined one of his pebbles carefully, as if it were very important to determine if it were quartz or granite before throwing it into the creek. "I'm tired. And I'm not very good at this," he said. "Talking to people. You probably should be hanging out with Pete and Oliver if you want to learn about humans. About friendship."
"I can't be friends with someone who doesn't know who I really am," Kal said. He missed the water and his stone pinged off another rock. "That's not friendship, that's a lie. Clark is a lie."
Bruce made a non-committal humming noise. "Clark's a good, decent man. He likes plants and the earth and Martha's biscuits. He hates slavery and he fights it. Those aren't lies." He tossed another rock into the water, not looking at Kal. "Being friends with that person isn't a lie."
"I'm Kryptonian."
Bruce stood up suddenly, a sharp motion as if he couldn't sit still another moment. He jumped over the creek in one fluid leap and landed next to Kal on the rock, crouching next to him, eyes intent on him. "Is that the sum total of what you are? Is that all you are?" he asked. He was leaning close to Kal, very close. "Because I see much more than that." He reached out, his hand almost touching Kal's cheek; Kal could feel the warmth of his fingertips, so close to his skin. "Clark isn't a lie. He's there, he's you, he's waiting for--" One fingertip grazed Kal's cheek, infinitely light, and he pulled his hand back. "--waiting for the right day." Kal didn't think that had been what he was going to say. But the moment was past; Bruce was starting to move again, down the creek bank. "Don't insult the people of Smallville by assuming they're such bad judges of character," Bruce said when Kal caught up to him.
Kal shrugged. "I can't help it; they seem to like you, so I have to have my doubts."
Bruce stared at him. "Did you just make a joke?" He blinked. "Wait, did you just insult me?"
Kal grinned. "Human males seem to do that a lot to each other; I thought I'd better practice. What do you think? Natural?"
Bruce shook his head sadly, disappointment etched on his features. "Honestly. I thought you were smarter than that." He waved one arm in a despairing gesture, as if calling the universe's attention to trials he had to put up with. "You've been all over the galaxy and you can't even get this right."
"What? What did I get wrong?"
They were almost to Jonathan and Martha's porch when Bruce stopped and looked at Kal. "It isn't something human males do to just any human males." He started up the steps. "They do it to their friends."
He swung open the door. "Idiot," he shot back over his shoulder as he went in.
Kal charged into the kitchen hot on his trail. "Oh yeah?" he retorted. "Well...uh..." He stopped, realizing suddenly he had no snappy comeback at all. Martha and Barbara were washing a few dishes, pausing with dishcloths in hand to look at him. Bruce had already snagged a biscuit and was eating it, looking smug. "You're the idiot," Kal concluded lamely.
Barbara looked confused. "What's the matter?"
Martha patted her hand. "They're just teasing each other. Boys are like that. There's no problem, is there?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow at Bruce.
Bruce shook his head around a mouthful of biscuit, swallowed. "No, ma'am."
Kal sat down next to Bruce, but not before stealing his biscuit. "No problem at all," he said as Bruce sputtered and Barbara laughed at them.
And for a little while--for a few stolen hours--it almost seemed true.
Pairing/Characters: Kal/Bruce, Barbara Gordon, Pete Ross, Ollie Queen, Martha Kent, Jonathan Kent
Notes: " The House of the Earth" is an AU in which a few thousand Kryptonians escaped the destruction of Krypton to flee to Earth and conquer its people.
Rating: G
Word Count: 2800
Summary: Jonathan and Martha welcome the travelers to Smallville, a major stop on the route west.
"Clark!" A woman he had never seen before this moment threw her arms around him, hugging him. "Oh Clark. It's been so long."
"Ma," he said, finding his voice suddenly a bit thick at the undeserved welcome. Obviously Martha and Jonathan had not been told he was anything more than a human working for the rebellion who needed a cover identity. "I've missed you so much."
Behind the woman a man stood, beaming at Kal. As Kal broke away from Martha's hug, Jonathan reached out and clapped him on the back. "Son."
"Pa," Kal said, clearing his throat. "Pete was telling me this year's pumpkin crop was coming along well."
Jonathan's face creased in a surprised smile. "It is at that. I'll show you later, if you like."
"Oh, I'd like that," Kal said. Martha was hugging Pete now, much to Pete's delight and embarrassment. Clark gestured toward the two other men. "Ma, Pa, these are my friends Oliver and Bruce." Oliver and Bruce nodded politely and Martha insisted on hugging them as well. Behind them, Barbara had been hanging back a bit, and Clark put a hand on her shoulder, moving her forward. "And this is Barbara. We...met her on the road."
Martha's eyes took in Barbara's torn clothing and read something elusive in her face, then pulled her into an embrace that was gentler and longer than the others. "Any friend of Clark's is a friend of ours," she said. "And our home is your home for as long as you'd like to stay."
Barbara pulled in a sharp breath, then put her arms around Martha and held her. "Thank you," she said against the older woman's shoulder.
"Come in, all of you, come in," Martha said, keeping an arm around Barbara. "Supper's just about done and we'd love to have you all."
Over a simple dinner of chicken and greens, Kal eyed the faces of his "parents." They were an older couple, their faces lined with years of work, care, and sunlight. The corners of Martha's pale eyes were webbed with signs of much laughter, while Jonathan's face looked more care-worn. Martha caught him looking at her and smiled at him. "You're just...a sight for sore eyes," Kal said, and she chuckled and blushed a little, waving an embarrassed hand in front of her face before passing him more milk.
Pete kept the conversation going smoothly, saving Kal from having to pretend he knew Smallville more than he did. And Oliver was always glad to pick up the slack, although his conversation was much more family-friendly here. That left Kal free to take in the farmhouse: the worn and well-scrubbed wood, the threadbare homemade rugs, the overall air of careful frugality that didn't obscure the homeliness of the place. He found himself relaxing almost despite himself; looking over he saw Bruce smiling slightly at a joke, the light warm on the planes of his face.
After the meal was over, Pete and Oliver said goodnight and left together, still bickering. Martha caught Barbara in a yawn and suggested she show the girl her bedroom; Barbara agreed sleepily. Once they went upstairs, Jonathan leaned closer to Bruce and Clark, his posture all business now. "We got the message that you two needed a place to stay for a bit before moving west?"
Bruce nodded. "Clark's...newly-joined." Kal wondered briefly why he was still calling him by his false name, then realized that of course he couldn't call him "Kal-El" without making it obvious what he truly was. "I wanted him to see some of what we're doing here. Some of the progress we've made."
Jonathan nodded, refraining from asking what "Clark's" real name was, to Kal's relief. "Well, our house is open to you." He turned to Kal. "You expressed an interest in my crops? I could use an extra hand in the fields for a few days, if you don't mind getting up with the sun and getting your hands dirty."
Kal nodded, feeling a smile creeping onto his face. "That would be great. I'd like the chance to help."
They talked for a while longer about small things--Martha's cooking, the weather--and then Jonathan showed them to their rooms.
They were separate rooms, of course, Kal realized with a small jolt of surprise. There was no reason for them to share a room; they weren't a master and slave here, nor were they...well, anything else.
The door closed behind him and he found himself alone, without Bruce in the room with him for the first time in weeks. It was a strange feeling. He had been looking forward, without even realizing it, to going over the day's events with Bruce. He looked at the closed door, reached out to touch it lightly. Two closed doors between them and some time free of his Kryptonian master for Bruce.
He went to bed, hearing the soft breathing of the many humans in the house all around him.
: : :
The next day was a blur of images, each a bright gem to be stored away for later:
In the fields with Jonathan, the first rays of sunrise starting to trickle over the horizon. The hoe makes a quiet chunk, chunk noise as they turn the ground together. Pulling weeds with his hands, the delicate tracery of roots coming free of the earth, releasing a scent of loam and dust. Dirt, black under his fingernails. He and Jonathan don't talk much. Picking tomatoes, the small snap as the red globe comes free. Zucchini. Squash.
Jonathan takes him to a barn, shows him: seed stores, a bewildering variety, stockpiled. "Too many Terran varieties have been almost wiped out to make way for the iao," says Jonathan. "We're saving them here." Tiny black seeds like sand, gray ovals, bulbs stored in the cool dark. A renaissance of plant life, waiting for a day of rebirth when the fields of red blossoms can be uprooted. For this alone everyone on the plantation could be executed.
Lunch back at the farm. The kitchen is hot with the scent of canning tomatoes. It turns out Barbara can read, and she's been put to work in an archive. She's alight with information, brimming over with it. "They've asked me to come back and help categorize the poetry they salvaged," she says to Kal. "They say I'm good at it." She throws her arms around him in a hug. "I'm going to stay here with your parents and help. Thank you."
Helping Martha dry meat into jerky in a smoker in the back. "For people making the journey west," she says. "It's not so easy on foot." He still doesn't know what lies west and isn't sure if he should even ask. "Jonathan says you've got a good hand for farming," she says. "Says you know the soil and how to treat it right." She pauses. "If you ever wanted to stay here, not move on...you'd be welcome." He doesn't know what to say but thank you, but that seems to be enough for now.
Pete gives him a tour of the rest of the plantation. They stop to pick a couple of apples and eat them, crisp sharp sweetness punctuating the conversation. Pete tells him stories about every corner, every field. "Isn't this dangerous?" Kal asks. "Keeping the archives, sheltering the runaways? What if the plantation's owner--"
Pete laughs and tosses the core into a field. "Gur-Ko? He's never once visited this place. I hear he's terrified of humans, thinks we're all infectious or something. Can't bear any contact with us. He had a radio installed decades ago to communicate with Jonathan and Martha, but I don't think he even uses that. Like our voices might contaminate him." He frowns. "Wish I could." Kal knows Gur-Ko--knows his name, at least. He's an older Kryptonian, a historian, who didn't make the transition well. Mostly he stays in his quarters and watches old holograms of Krypton's glories.
They walk by an archery range where Oliver is training a group of men and women in how to use a bow and arrow. "What can that possibly do against a Kryptonian?" Kal asks.
Oliver pulls the string taut and the arrow buries itself deep in the heart of the target. "Low-tech solutions to high-tech problems," Pete says. Kal remembers the burning green powder on the tip of Selina's whip and shudders briefly.
A game of some sort using a small white ball and a wooden stick breaks out as the sun sets. Kal struggles both to understand the rules that everyone else seems to know and to keep his enhanced abilities under control. As a result he's the clumsiest and least coordinated member of the team, prompting some good-natured jeers and catcalls from the other side. Pete almost gets into a fistfight with one of the jeerers. "Jerk," he says after Kal extricates him. "Someone oughta teach him to be polite to guests." Kal's team wins the game when Barbara steals home; she's carried back to the farm and dinner on the shoulders of her teammates.
: : :
Bruce was at the kitchen table already when Kal and Barbara came in; he looked up from a book and smiled at Barbara's flushed face. "Hail the conquering hero," he said.
Barbara laughed. "You've already heard?"
Bruce closed the book. "I might have been watching."
She looked curious as they sat down. "Why didn't you join us?"
A flicker of something passed over Bruce's face and he shrugged wordlessly. Then Martha brought the biscuits to the table and the conversation veered away into discussions of the meal and Barbara's archiving duties.
There were crickets singing outside the window as Kal slipped between the sheets, and in the distance a chorus of frogs. He was still listening when there was a tentative scratch at the door.
"Come in," he said, expecting Barbara, and was surprised when Bruce slipped into the room, another shadow among the shadows. "What are you doing here?" he asked without thinking, and Bruce stopped.
"I wanted to...ask how your day was," Bruce said.
"Not bad. I didn't slip up. Everyone still thinks I'm human," Kal said.
"That's not--" Bruce started, then fell silent again.
"Besides, you were keeping an eye on me from a distance, weren't you?"
"Maybe a little." A short silence in the cricket-singing dark. "You looked like you were having fun. I felt my presence would be an...interruption."
Kal wasn't sure what to say to that so he said nothing at all. The shadow that was Bruce sat down in an armchair next to the bed, a soft creak of wood in the dark.
"I could spend more time with you tomorrow, perhaps." Bruce's voice was level, blank; Kal couldn't tell if there was hope or dread or duty behind it. He bit his lip and thought for a while before answering.
"You don't have to. You should do what you want to do."
Bruce chuckled, low and ironic. "What I want to do," he echoed.
Kal nodded even though Bruce probably couldn't see him. "It's your choice. Do what you want."
Another long pause. Then Bruce got up and went to the door. "I'll take your advice. Good night, Clark," he said.
"Sleep well, Bruce."
The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Kal alone in the dark, cotton sheets cool under his hands.
: : :
Kal was sipping coffee in the kitchen, getting ready to go out into the fields with Jonathan again, when Bruce came into the room rubbing his eyes and yawning. "Coffee?" he mumbled.
Jonathan handed him a mug. "You're up early."
"Mm." Bruce took a long sip of coffee, not looking at Kal. "Anna just came by to say they need me at the archives to translate some material from Hindi to English. I'll be there all morning." Then he looked up at Kal over the rim of his mug. "I'll be free from lunch on, though. I was wondering if...you'd like to spend the afternoon together? If Jonathan can spare you, of course."
Jonathan chuckled. "If he promises to work extra-hard all morning I think I can give him the afternoon off. If you'd like, of course," he added to Kal.
"Oh," said Kal. "Yes." He stared down at his coffee, afraid his blaze of delight and hope and yearning would be in his eyes for anyone to see. "I'd like that."
: : :
They walked, the afternoon sun warm on their shoulders, walked without speaking, without purpose, just walking through the fields. When they came to a little stream--no more than a rivulet, really, a tiny creek shaded by broad trees--Bruce stopped and washed his hands in the clear water. Then he sat down on a smooth rock on the bank and tossed pebbles into the water. Kal sat down on the other side of the stream and threw in a few pebbles as well; the rings and ripples touched and crossed each other. After a while, Kal said "You didn't have to--"
"--I wanted to," said Bruce, a bit irritably. "I'm not in the mood to second-guess myself today." He examined one of his pebbles carefully, as if it were very important to determine if it were quartz or granite before throwing it into the creek. "I'm tired. And I'm not very good at this," he said. "Talking to people. You probably should be hanging out with Pete and Oliver if you want to learn about humans. About friendship."
"I can't be friends with someone who doesn't know who I really am," Kal said. He missed the water and his stone pinged off another rock. "That's not friendship, that's a lie. Clark is a lie."
Bruce made a non-committal humming noise. "Clark's a good, decent man. He likes plants and the earth and Martha's biscuits. He hates slavery and he fights it. Those aren't lies." He tossed another rock into the water, not looking at Kal. "Being friends with that person isn't a lie."
"I'm Kryptonian."
Bruce stood up suddenly, a sharp motion as if he couldn't sit still another moment. He jumped over the creek in one fluid leap and landed next to Kal on the rock, crouching next to him, eyes intent on him. "Is that the sum total of what you are? Is that all you are?" he asked. He was leaning close to Kal, very close. "Because I see much more than that." He reached out, his hand almost touching Kal's cheek; Kal could feel the warmth of his fingertips, so close to his skin. "Clark isn't a lie. He's there, he's you, he's waiting for--" One fingertip grazed Kal's cheek, infinitely light, and he pulled his hand back. "--waiting for the right day." Kal didn't think that had been what he was going to say. But the moment was past; Bruce was starting to move again, down the creek bank. "Don't insult the people of Smallville by assuming they're such bad judges of character," Bruce said when Kal caught up to him.
Kal shrugged. "I can't help it; they seem to like you, so I have to have my doubts."
Bruce stared at him. "Did you just make a joke?" He blinked. "Wait, did you just insult me?"
Kal grinned. "Human males seem to do that a lot to each other; I thought I'd better practice. What do you think? Natural?"
Bruce shook his head sadly, disappointment etched on his features. "Honestly. I thought you were smarter than that." He waved one arm in a despairing gesture, as if calling the universe's attention to trials he had to put up with. "You've been all over the galaxy and you can't even get this right."
"What? What did I get wrong?"
They were almost to Jonathan and Martha's porch when Bruce stopped and looked at Kal. "It isn't something human males do to just any human males." He started up the steps. "They do it to their friends."
He swung open the door. "Idiot," he shot back over his shoulder as he went in.
Kal charged into the kitchen hot on his trail. "Oh yeah?" he retorted. "Well...uh..." He stopped, realizing suddenly he had no snappy comeback at all. Martha and Barbara were washing a few dishes, pausing with dishcloths in hand to look at him. Bruce had already snagged a biscuit and was eating it, looking smug. "You're the idiot," Kal concluded lamely.
Barbara looked confused. "What's the matter?"
Martha patted her hand. "They're just teasing each other. Boys are like that. There's no problem, is there?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow at Bruce.
Bruce shook his head around a mouthful of biscuit, swallowed. "No, ma'am."
Kal sat down next to Bruce, but not before stealing his biscuit. "No problem at all," he said as Bruce sputtered and Barbara laughed at them.
And for a little while--for a few stolen hours--it almost seemed true.