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lady_bug_kay) wrote2008-02-09 08:54 pm
Supermanfic: Drag Your Feet (Clark/Destiny)
Author: ladybugkay
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Destiny
Rating: PG
Word Count: 500
Warnings: Angst. Spoilers through 7x11 (but you don't need to have seen any episodes of the show, really.)
Summary: Clark has his reasons for not becoming Superman just yet.
Disclaimer: DC and Gough & Millar own the rights. I'm just doing this for fun.
A/N: I had to write this one to get past my own irritation with the current stagnation of Clark's life and the seeming reluctance to allow his character to progress and evolve. (It's a bit meta.) It's been a while since I wrote fic for this show, mainly because it's been a long time since I've really enjoyed the show at all, and now this is my second Smallville fic in less than a week. Does this mean I need help?
Drag Your Feet (Just One Moment More)
He hears every word Oliver says, and he agrees with them all. He is wasting his time in Smallville, on the farm, doing absolutely nothing with his life and playing house with Lana. He’s closing his eyes as tightly as he can against the future he can see coming, and he feels exactly as much of a child as he knows he is being by trying to ignore it all.
It’s coming; it’s almost here. It should be here, by now.
But he’s terrified.
Because he can see his life spread out before him like a yellow brick road, and he hates every page of the script being handed down to him. He knows precisely where his life is headed and what it’s going to mean, and he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it.
Oh, he knows he’s going to do it, but he hates what it will set in motion.
And yes, he’s going to do it willingly. He is going to help people and make the world a better place, and he will want to do it. He will be a force for good and a symbol for people to admire and try to emulate, and he will make a difference in people’s lives all across the universe. Not a dictator, no, no matter what Jor-El did or did not intend for him to become – he will be a benevolent figure in human history. He will have power beyond imagining, and he will use it all to save people from themselves and from the horrors that come with being alive, and he will do it with a smile on his face.
But he will be alone. He will have to sacrifice every dream he’s ever had for his life and all the things he has wanted to be and to have. None of it will be for him, on his own terms, and he will never come first in his own life.
So he’s scared as hell of what is coming and who he is becoming. He’s clinging to the familiarity of his simple life on the farm and the vestiges of his dreams of wanting nothing but Lana, because it’s all counting down to zero, and he wants to be selfish while he still can. Soon he’ll be nothing but myth and legend and storybook heroism, and he wants to stay an ordinary person as long as it is still possible for him to do so.
He wants his life, and he wants it all to himself, but soon he knows he won’t even want that.
He will give it all up for the sake of everyone else, and he will do it gladly, but for these last few seconds that remain of selfishness, he will close his eyes and cover his ears. He will turn his back on the rest of the world and the cries that grow louder every second of every day.
For as long as he can.
Until he can’t.
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"But he will be alone. He will have to sacrifice every dream he’s ever had for his life and all the things he has wanted to be and to have. None of it will be for him, on his own terms, and he will never come first in his own life."
That part just moved me because loneliness is Clark's greatest fear. He's seen Oliver fail at relationships and Ollie is a human. Clark's an alien and when he takes that final step to complete his destiny, he will be leaving behind everything he's ever dreamed of. That normal life and I do think that's why he's still with Lana. Because he wants that normal life, has grown up around it.
How can he blamed for wanting marriage and a family when that's what he's grown up around?
But even he knows the inevitable is coming and that last line was just perfect.
Yay for you writing Smallville fics. I don't think that there is anything wrong with it. I'm really excited. :)
Thanks for writing and sharing!
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I needed to write this, because I needed to understand what would make Clark so resistant to starting out on his journey to become the hero he knows he will be. And then I realized that choosing to become Superman, to be that 'saviour' for the entire world, to accept that monumental responsibility for the whole human race, well, that really is the end of Clark being able to live just as Clark Kent. Although he has his secrets now and his relationship problems, that is nothing compared to what will happen once he becomes Superman.
Hence, this little ficlet, which I am very relieved to find out you enjoyed. Thanks a lot for your wonderful feedback, love!
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I really, *really* love what you've done here, giving up this peek into just what he's thinking during all this. I've been so fed up with his characterization the last few years, but this sort of broke through all that. I just want to hold him and tell him it'll be okay, that even though he might be exhausted at the end of the day (or *days*), that people love him, and will keep loving him, and that he *can* still take time for himself sometimes, and have some semblance of a normal life.
*sigh*
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Oh, good. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Because I have shared that horror at what Clark has become in the last few seasons - I cringe each time I try to watch an episode - and the first line of this popped into my head today as a way for me to justify the terrible character-limbo the writers have given Clark, lately. And if what I wrote made sense to you, I'm very happy.
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Clark knows he'll be pulled this way and that when he finally takes on the cape.
I can't really blame him. That kind of responsibility is frightening.
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Love your icon, BTW!
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The very least they could do, though, is let him start wearing the glasses. I had such high hopes for them way back when after he first went blind and then wore them for part of that one episode. Tom Welling looks gorgeous in glasses.
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I agree about the glasses. I think a gorgeous guy in glasses is extremely sexy! :) And his beautiful eyes are accentuated in those glasses, like in this season's "Noir".
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The show has been driving me crazy, and I've been saying for a while now that they should just leap ahead 5 years, have Clark working at The Daily Planet and ready to become Superman or already Superman, and just call the show Metropolis. Because I loved it so much for the first few seasons, and now I just keep track of it in (rapidly diminishing) hopes of something good happening.
Anyway, thank you for commenting; I'm really glad you enjoyed my attempt at explaining the mess Clark's character has become.
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Bravo.
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Though, I don't think anyone (not even a wonderful author like yourself) can convince me that there is *any* reason Clark should still be sitting around the farm.
Yeah, I didn't convince myself, either. Because it's just getting so damned frustrating that they're quite literally keeping him down on the farm. (*snickers at her own cheese*) But I had to try to find a way to make it at least a little bit rational and comprehensible, because otherwise, I'd have to scream. And I've done that enough over the last couple of seasons of this show.
But, if I *were* to be convinced, this would be the thing to do it.
Thank you!
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But he will be alone. He will have to sacrifice every dream he’s ever had for his life and all the things he has wanted to be and to have. None of it will be for him, on his own terms, and he will never come first in his own life.
That's the horrific aspect of being forced to be a superhero. Everything else comes second. Your needs can never be your focus. Oliver, Bruce- they chose to take on this burden, he didn't. SVClark would much rather be at home, have a family and a normal life. Clark gets the burden of power in a way that I wish politicians could grasp.
Marvelous piece.
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Oliver, Bruce- they chose to take on this burden, he didn't. SVClark would much rather be at home, have a family and a normal life. Clark gets the burden of power in a way that I wish politicians could grasp.
That's it, exactly. Not only did Clark not choose this, he's had it since he was a child, and he can never give it up. Some day, Oliver and Bruce will retire (if they don't die, first). They can take days or nights off. They always have the option of not doing the hero-gig. Clark will never have that.
Poor guy.
best pairing ever...
So... comments of substance: I really like the last two lines, and find your use of the subjunctive (?) really interesting. How you use the phrase will be, will want, etc. So instead of Clark wanting to make the world a better place right now, he's only going to want it later. I don't know if that was intentional or even actually true, but it was interesting. Like Superman and Clark are completely different people.
Re: best pairing ever...
I really like the last two lines, and find your use of the subjunctive (?) really interesting. How you use the phrase will be, will want, etc.
Yes, that was intentional. The thing about Smallville, the show, is that its entire self-referential purpose depends upon the person Clark is going to turn out to be. We all know it's coming, and it's nearly impossible to believe that Clark himself can't see it coming. So in an effort to make the show's painfully delayed transformation of Clark into that character something that I could understand and accept (somewhat), I needed to explore that Clark's perspective.
Besides, I think it's a lot more interesting to have Clark deliberately make the decision to become Superman, with full knowledge and understanding of what that decision will mean for his life. It's more heroic for him to recognize exactly how self-sacrificing he is going to have to be, and still commit to that road anyway.