Fanfiction for noellesullivan - Limits, Ch 2
A) title = Limits
B) type = fic, 8000 words
C) summary = There are things about Kryptonian puberty Clark never told Chloe. (Spans series, including middle school Chlark)
D) other pairings = Lois Lane/Oliver Queen
E) for whom = noellesullivan
F) prompt = middle school Clark abs Chloe, amusement park rides
Limits, previous chapter here.
September 5, 2001
Clark had missed the first week of school. It was inevitable he’d go back, but his parents weren’t sure how much they could lie or how well they could come up with a cover story for him. Granted, lots of kids had growth spurts. Pete’s older brother, Aaron, grew six inches between sophomore and junior year and that’s when he became the star of the football team. So, yeah, a lot of guys got big after a summer break.
Unfortunately, there was shooting up six or even eight inches and getting a squeaky voice and then there was whatever the Hell had happened to him.
Clark sighed and leaned back on the sofa in the loft. His stupid feet hung over the edge now, and it wasn’t comfortable anymore. Nothing was. Luckily, he’d spent the last three months since school got out in June just working hard on the farm. He hadn’t even seen Pete, who’d been out in Missouri with his grandparents, or Chloe, who went to Fort Bragg to see her cousin Lois. That was a very good thing. It was going to be hard to make people swallow that he’d grown fourteen inches in three months and gotten ridiculously big. He was just tall and broad and awkward as Hell and had to shave now, like a lot, and his voice was deeper than his dad’s.
And, yeah, that was what puberty was supposed to be about, sure.
But, as far as he knew (and they’d had this super embarrassing film strip last year in film class), other guys didn’t go to sleep and then wake up completely grown up. He’d basically pulled a Big not three weeks ago. He’d gone to sleep the same, shrimpy guy he’d always been, and then he’d woken up like twenty-five.
It was weird, even for him.
The worst part was that his strength and speed had grown just as fast. He wasn’t able to eat anything beyond pizza or pancakes or soup because he kept biting through---yes through---utensils. He’d tried to help Dad with some chores, just tightening up some screws on the truck engine and torn through gaskets there. Hell, he didn’t even trust himself to do more than walk. He’d practiced speeding and ended up in freaking California before he realized it.
In short, Clark was a complete mess.
He just had to get his powers under control and stop tripping over everything all the time. Eventually, he did have to go back to school, and Principal Kwan wouldn’t accept that he had shingles forever. Maybe he’d been wrong last year with Chloe. Maybe this was why his parents had sent him away. He was just so much stronger than he’d ever thought he’d be, and Clark had the distinct feeling he wasn’t even close to done yet. Hell, he’d bruised his Mom’s arms just hugging her two days ago.
Closing his eyes, he set a pillow over his face and tried to rest. He wasn’t sleeping great either. No matter how much he tossed and turned, he couldn’t get comfortable in his new frame. Everything just sucked.
And they were about to get a lot worse.
“Clark? Holy shit!”
He groaned. That was a voice he didn’t need. Chloe Sullivan had already been pestering him for the better part of the spring about his apparent ability to beat the school bus every day to school even though he kept missing it. (So he slept in a lot, so sue him). He still hadn’t worked out a cover story for instant puberty, and he wanted to be left alone.
“Go away.”
“Nope, today is the Summer Carnival, and I’m a whole five foot one now and I was ready to get on the ride. I was going to ask if you were feeling better so we could go and see if you beat the yard stick yet. Uh, I guess you did.”
“You’re not leaving are you?”
“Nope,” she said, and he heard her thick boots clomp on the wood of the loft’s floor as she assumed a seat on his steamer trunk. “Wow, you certainly ate your Wheaties all summer. You’re massive!”
Clark sighed and sat up very, very slowly. His powers were nuts right now and the last thing he needed was for him to blur to her perspective. “I’m not that big.”
“How tall are you?”
He blushed and looked down at his hands. Yeesh, even they were huge. “6’3.”
“You were shorter than me in June!”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I just grew a lot, okay?”
Chloe hummed a bit too herself and, even if he wasn’t looking her in the face, Clark could feel her scrutiny. “You grew from 4’11 to 6’3 in three months?”
“No this is all an illusion,” he snapped.
Chloe snapped her fingers. “You never had shingles, did you?”
This time he did look back at her and started to shift a little under the intensity of her gaze. “No. I just…I feel really awkward right now.”
Chloe frowned. “Is this like how you’re really fast?”
Clark rolled his eyes. “Chloe, I don’t beat the school bus on foot. People can’t do that. That’s nuts. I just feel really awkward and off balance, and I didn’t want to go back to school yet. I have to soon but we decided to just wait a little longer. That’s all. I’m as normal as Pete.”
Oh man, God was going to strike him with lightning any minute now.
“It’s okay if you’re weird. I’ve been looking into the meteor shower and---”
“Chloe, I’m not weird. I’m just, well, kind of big right now.”
“Oh I’d say you’re gigantic. I mean, still lanky mostly but you could beat up like the whole football team!”
Technically, he could have done that at seven.
Clark sighed. “Can you go home now? I’m not feeling up the carnival at all, okay? I feel like such a freak.” He felt he could be a least a little honest. He was going to stick by the “this happened in three months” story until the day he died, but he still felt weird in a body that wasn’t really his own, at least didn’t feel like it yet. He could offer her that much.
Chloe stood up then and came to sit next to him on the sofa. “Yeesh, Kent, you take up the whole sofa now, give a girl some space.”
He obliged by scooting as close to one couch arm as he could. It was bizarre to look to his left and then have to look so far down on Chloe. It was like vertigo. “Sorry, I’m getting used to this.”
“I’ll say. Wow. You know when Pete sees you, that he’s going to beg you to buy us beer, right?”
“He is not, and I don’t drink.”
He didn’t think even if it were legal, that beer was that exciting. So far, medicine didn’t work on him, not that he’d had a cough or a cold since he’d been about six. Still, he had a feeling even if he’d never tried to prove it that alcohol couldn’t affect him either.
“Me neither. Lois does sometimes, and it worries me,” Chloe confessed. “She was kind of a mess this summer.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, thinking about something other than his own mess for the first time in three weeks. “I thought going out to the base was a family bonding thing.”
“Oh, it was but they had to send Lois to rehab half way through the summer. She met a boy on the base and he got her into drinking like, a lot. I think the General was in denial first and thought having me around would get her to quote ‘straighten up and fly right.’ But she’s been at Maple Acres for about two weeks and everyone says she’s doing well.”
“So that’s why you didn’t write a lot,” he concluded.
“You didn’t either.”
“I guess we were both distracted,” he admitted. “Chloe, look there’s nothing different about me. I just had a really long summer, that’s all. I just feel all gawky and weird.”
“You don’t look gawky,” she said, and then she blushed. “I mean…”
“I feel like it, though,” he continued. “I bump my head all the time, and I can’t get comfortable and now my feet hang off the bed and it pretty much sucks.”
“Well, you’ll get used to it, eventually. I’m sure. It must be nice to be tall and, hey, you are just like your Dad now.”
Clark smiled a little at that. That was cool. He liked being his Dad’s size. It made him feel like he was more like a Kent than he technically was. “That’s true. I guess I’m not going to end up a shrimpy guy after all.”
She gave him the once over and whistled. “Nope, not at all. I…are you sure you can’t come to the carnival?”
He shook his head. Clark couldn’t touch anything right now without shredding it. Even getting off the couch too fast could land him in Peoria without meaning to. “It’s a nice offer, but I think I’m going to stay here and adjust a bit longer.”
She nodded. “Would you like me to stay? I can just read a book or we can play checkers.”
“I don’t know if that’s safe.”
“I said checkers. I wasn’t going to do you here, yeesh Clark.”
He blinked, realizing she’d misunderstood him. “No, not safe like that. I mean, Jesus, Chlo. I just meant that…never mind.”
“Why wouldn’t you be safe to be around? You’re just tall, not radioactive.”
He sighed. “Forget I said anything.”
Chloe nodded and hesitated before she said anything else. That scared him. She never hesitated about anything. “I have to just pretend this didn’t happen, don’t I? Like all the stuff we never talk about.”
“What stuff? We talk all the time, and you’ve been talking non-stop about me being part of the school paper.
“The Torch and you will be,” she said. “This is like, yes, when you beat the bus or how you just had The Tales of the Weird and Unexplained in the loft randomly or why you’re so sad.”
“I’m not sad.”
“Yeah, you are a lot. I never understand why because your family is awesome and Pete and I are awesome and, thus, you are surrounded by awesome.”
“Thanks, that’s modest.”
“But you are. I…do you think your birth parents are super tall too?”
“I’m not going to like play professional basketball. I just grew a little fast.”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“What?”
“I just…I notice things about you because I’m a reporter, and we pretend I don’t because you get so defensive, Clark. It’s okay, you know. Even if you grew really fast. You’d never do anything too weird for me. Does that make sense? And I’m sure you’re safe to be around,” she said, hugging him tight.
Clark went still as a statue. He was terrified if he moved at all that he’d kill her or, at least, break her ribs if he hugged her back. “Thank you. I don’t trust me right now. I, uh, maybe bruised Mom a little with such a big hug earlier. I have more muscle than I thought.”
Chloe nodded and sniffled a little. “I’ll say. Okay, so you’re going to stay here.”
“Definitely.”
“But I’m bringing you the biggest funnel cake available so just wait up for me, okay?”
“I---”
“Clark, we’re best friends. We’re always going to be best friends so let me get you a present, okay?”
“Sure,” he said, smiling a little for the first time in weeks. “Chloe?”
“Yeah?”
“Have fun on the Flaming Tornado this year. You earned it.”
“Not as much as you!”
**
Chapter 3...
B) type = fic, 8000 words
C) summary = There are things about Kryptonian puberty Clark never told Chloe. (Spans series, including middle school Chlark)
D) other pairings = Lois Lane/Oliver Queen
E) for whom = noellesullivan
F) prompt = middle school Clark abs Chloe, amusement park rides
Limits, previous chapter here.
September 5, 2001
Clark had missed the first week of school. It was inevitable he’d go back, but his parents weren’t sure how much they could lie or how well they could come up with a cover story for him. Granted, lots of kids had growth spurts. Pete’s older brother, Aaron, grew six inches between sophomore and junior year and that’s when he became the star of the football team. So, yeah, a lot of guys got big after a summer break.
Unfortunately, there was shooting up six or even eight inches and getting a squeaky voice and then there was whatever the Hell had happened to him.
Clark sighed and leaned back on the sofa in the loft. His stupid feet hung over the edge now, and it wasn’t comfortable anymore. Nothing was. Luckily, he’d spent the last three months since school got out in June just working hard on the farm. He hadn’t even seen Pete, who’d been out in Missouri with his grandparents, or Chloe, who went to Fort Bragg to see her cousin Lois. That was a very good thing. It was going to be hard to make people swallow that he’d grown fourteen inches in three months and gotten ridiculously big. He was just tall and broad and awkward as Hell and had to shave now, like a lot, and his voice was deeper than his dad’s.
And, yeah, that was what puberty was supposed to be about, sure.
But, as far as he knew (and they’d had this super embarrassing film strip last year in film class), other guys didn’t go to sleep and then wake up completely grown up. He’d basically pulled a Big not three weeks ago. He’d gone to sleep the same, shrimpy guy he’d always been, and then he’d woken up like twenty-five.
It was weird, even for him.
The worst part was that his strength and speed had grown just as fast. He wasn’t able to eat anything beyond pizza or pancakes or soup because he kept biting through---yes through---utensils. He’d tried to help Dad with some chores, just tightening up some screws on the truck engine and torn through gaskets there. Hell, he didn’t even trust himself to do more than walk. He’d practiced speeding and ended up in freaking California before he realized it.
In short, Clark was a complete mess.
He just had to get his powers under control and stop tripping over everything all the time. Eventually, he did have to go back to school, and Principal Kwan wouldn’t accept that he had shingles forever. Maybe he’d been wrong last year with Chloe. Maybe this was why his parents had sent him away. He was just so much stronger than he’d ever thought he’d be, and Clark had the distinct feeling he wasn’t even close to done yet. Hell, he’d bruised his Mom’s arms just hugging her two days ago.
Closing his eyes, he set a pillow over his face and tried to rest. He wasn’t sleeping great either. No matter how much he tossed and turned, he couldn’t get comfortable in his new frame. Everything just sucked.
And they were about to get a lot worse.
“Clark? Holy shit!”
He groaned. That was a voice he didn’t need. Chloe Sullivan had already been pestering him for the better part of the spring about his apparent ability to beat the school bus every day to school even though he kept missing it. (So he slept in a lot, so sue him). He still hadn’t worked out a cover story for instant puberty, and he wanted to be left alone.
“Go away.”
“Nope, today is the Summer Carnival, and I’m a whole five foot one now and I was ready to get on the ride. I was going to ask if you were feeling better so we could go and see if you beat the yard stick yet. Uh, I guess you did.”
“You’re not leaving are you?”
“Nope,” she said, and he heard her thick boots clomp on the wood of the loft’s floor as she assumed a seat on his steamer trunk. “Wow, you certainly ate your Wheaties all summer. You’re massive!”
Clark sighed and sat up very, very slowly. His powers were nuts right now and the last thing he needed was for him to blur to her perspective. “I’m not that big.”
“How tall are you?”
He blushed and looked down at his hands. Yeesh, even they were huge. “6’3.”
“You were shorter than me in June!”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I just grew a lot, okay?”
Chloe hummed a bit too herself and, even if he wasn’t looking her in the face, Clark could feel her scrutiny. “You grew from 4’11 to 6’3 in three months?”
“No this is all an illusion,” he snapped.
Chloe snapped her fingers. “You never had shingles, did you?”
This time he did look back at her and started to shift a little under the intensity of her gaze. “No. I just…I feel really awkward right now.”
Chloe frowned. “Is this like how you’re really fast?”
Clark rolled his eyes. “Chloe, I don’t beat the school bus on foot. People can’t do that. That’s nuts. I just feel really awkward and off balance, and I didn’t want to go back to school yet. I have to soon but we decided to just wait a little longer. That’s all. I’m as normal as Pete.”
Oh man, God was going to strike him with lightning any minute now.
“It’s okay if you’re weird. I’ve been looking into the meteor shower and---”
“Chloe, I’m not weird. I’m just, well, kind of big right now.”
“Oh I’d say you’re gigantic. I mean, still lanky mostly but you could beat up like the whole football team!”
Technically, he could have done that at seven.
Clark sighed. “Can you go home now? I’m not feeling up the carnival at all, okay? I feel like such a freak.” He felt he could be a least a little honest. He was going to stick by the “this happened in three months” story until the day he died, but he still felt weird in a body that wasn’t really his own, at least didn’t feel like it yet. He could offer her that much.
Chloe stood up then and came to sit next to him on the sofa. “Yeesh, Kent, you take up the whole sofa now, give a girl some space.”
He obliged by scooting as close to one couch arm as he could. It was bizarre to look to his left and then have to look so far down on Chloe. It was like vertigo. “Sorry, I’m getting used to this.”
“I’ll say. Wow. You know when Pete sees you, that he’s going to beg you to buy us beer, right?”
“He is not, and I don’t drink.”
He didn’t think even if it were legal, that beer was that exciting. So far, medicine didn’t work on him, not that he’d had a cough or a cold since he’d been about six. Still, he had a feeling even if he’d never tried to prove it that alcohol couldn’t affect him either.
“Me neither. Lois does sometimes, and it worries me,” Chloe confessed. “She was kind of a mess this summer.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, thinking about something other than his own mess for the first time in three weeks. “I thought going out to the base was a family bonding thing.”
“Oh, it was but they had to send Lois to rehab half way through the summer. She met a boy on the base and he got her into drinking like, a lot. I think the General was in denial first and thought having me around would get her to quote ‘straighten up and fly right.’ But she’s been at Maple Acres for about two weeks and everyone says she’s doing well.”
“So that’s why you didn’t write a lot,” he concluded.
“You didn’t either.”
“I guess we were both distracted,” he admitted. “Chloe, look there’s nothing different about me. I just had a really long summer, that’s all. I just feel all gawky and weird.”
“You don’t look gawky,” she said, and then she blushed. “I mean…”
“I feel like it, though,” he continued. “I bump my head all the time, and I can’t get comfortable and now my feet hang off the bed and it pretty much sucks.”
“Well, you’ll get used to it, eventually. I’m sure. It must be nice to be tall and, hey, you are just like your Dad now.”
Clark smiled a little at that. That was cool. He liked being his Dad’s size. It made him feel like he was more like a Kent than he technically was. “That’s true. I guess I’m not going to end up a shrimpy guy after all.”
She gave him the once over and whistled. “Nope, not at all. I…are you sure you can’t come to the carnival?”
He shook his head. Clark couldn’t touch anything right now without shredding it. Even getting off the couch too fast could land him in Peoria without meaning to. “It’s a nice offer, but I think I’m going to stay here and adjust a bit longer.”
She nodded. “Would you like me to stay? I can just read a book or we can play checkers.”
“I don’t know if that’s safe.”
“I said checkers. I wasn’t going to do you here, yeesh Clark.”
He blinked, realizing she’d misunderstood him. “No, not safe like that. I mean, Jesus, Chlo. I just meant that…never mind.”
“Why wouldn’t you be safe to be around? You’re just tall, not radioactive.”
He sighed. “Forget I said anything.”
Chloe nodded and hesitated before she said anything else. That scared him. She never hesitated about anything. “I have to just pretend this didn’t happen, don’t I? Like all the stuff we never talk about.”
“What stuff? We talk all the time, and you’ve been talking non-stop about me being part of the school paper.
“The Torch and you will be,” she said. “This is like, yes, when you beat the bus or how you just had The Tales of the Weird and Unexplained in the loft randomly or why you’re so sad.”
“I’m not sad.”
“Yeah, you are a lot. I never understand why because your family is awesome and Pete and I are awesome and, thus, you are surrounded by awesome.”
“Thanks, that’s modest.”
“But you are. I…do you think your birth parents are super tall too?”
“I’m not going to like play professional basketball. I just grew a little fast.”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“What?”
“I just…I notice things about you because I’m a reporter, and we pretend I don’t because you get so defensive, Clark. It’s okay, you know. Even if you grew really fast. You’d never do anything too weird for me. Does that make sense? And I’m sure you’re safe to be around,” she said, hugging him tight.
Clark went still as a statue. He was terrified if he moved at all that he’d kill her or, at least, break her ribs if he hugged her back. “Thank you. I don’t trust me right now. I, uh, maybe bruised Mom a little with such a big hug earlier. I have more muscle than I thought.”
Chloe nodded and sniffled a little. “I’ll say. Okay, so you’re going to stay here.”
“Definitely.”
“But I’m bringing you the biggest funnel cake available so just wait up for me, okay?”
“I---”
“Clark, we’re best friends. We’re always going to be best friends so let me get you a present, okay?”
“Sure,” he said, smiling a little for the first time in weeks. “Chloe?”
“Yeah?”
“Have fun on the Flaming Tornado this year. You earned it.”
“Not as much as you!”
**
Chapter 3...