The Bittersweet Ballad of Pete Ross ~Chapter Sixteen~
Title: The Bittersweet Ballad of Pete Ross
Author: The Satyr Icon
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Set in Icon AU; Freshman Year
Classification: Smallville; Chloe/Clark; Pete Ross; het_fic
Disclaimer: All characters, references, and other things pertaining to 'Smallville' are property of the WB, DC Comics, Tollin-Robins, Al Gough & Miles Millar, and J. Siegal & J. Shuster; I am just writing for fun, and if I owned them, all would be good and clean in the World.
Summary: Pete and Clark go camping, but why is Chloe coming along? and why does that infuriate Pete?
Word Count: 46,164
Written: Start: Plot: December 2004 Actually Writing: July 2006 Finished: August 2007
Chapter Fifteen
http://the-satyr-icon.livejournal.com/130804.html
~The Bittersweet Ballad of Pete Ross~
~CHAPTER SIXTEEN~
The teens were bathed in the flickering yellow florescent light that radiated from the cracks in the walls. The humming died down but still Clark walked deeper into the cave, looking at the cracks, watching the beams of light. "Do you see what I am seeing?" Even he was amazed; the beams were bursting forth from two symbols in the craggy earth.
Pete watched the lights that broke through the dirt and shined brightly. He spoke in a raspy voice. "Bro...I never seen a light show like this..."
"The art looks...Native American in a way," Chloe thought, rubbing her brow, looking at the painted-on designs on the walls. "I'll say this....it's nice and warm in here."
The three gasped when the pulsating light show suddenly ended, the rays no longer blinking through rock and dirt. But the symbols continued to glow, the cave now lit in a soft light. As the Pete looked at the one of the symbols and Chloe checking around for something in particular, Clark stepped towards the other one and saw it up close, a stylized 'S' in a shield-like design. It looked like something he had seen before, but couldn't place where or when. He traced his finger around it, somewhat scared, a little excited.
Then Pete spoke up. "Come on guys. We should recognize the art at least. It's Kawatchee!" He waved his arms around, pointing out the artwork. "Remember John Standing Bear came in to our school last year? Did a presentation about the Kawatchee? He said that the tribe was rumored to have used caves in the winter, but that light show?" He looked at Clark. "That was out of this world."
"Yeah." Clark looked at that symbol again. It definitely wasn't a Kawatchee design, like some of the other paintings that were on the walls around them that he and the other two could see. "I have a feeling that these symbols could help explain why I am here...on Earth."
Clark walked away from the 'S-shield' to the opposite side of the cavern and looked at the other symbol while Chloe and Clark wandered around, looking at the intriguing art and finding old Kawatchee artifacts. Clark saw that engraved in the stone was a deep octagonal groove. There was an energy emitting from it, calling to him, he felt, something that was drawing him in close. His hand reached out to touch the groove, not knowing that it would trigger the Kryptonian gateway that his real father, Jor-El, had hidden in the rock hundreds of years before. It was a mechanism that could only be used by the Son of Jor-El, and it would somehow unleash all the latent powers stored away in Clark's body, powers that would allow him to fulfill his destiny, ones that could easily allow the teen to rule Earth. But before his fingertips could feel the deep impression and boost his already formidable alien gifts to the point where he could topple every single government and army on the planet on a whim...
"I found it!" Chloe shouted and Clark pulled his hand away. "If Pete got to see your spaceship, then I could certainly take this bracelet." He watched her as she grabbed a silvery bracelet that had seemed to be calling out to her from a shelf that was obviously carved out of the stone. "This is so beautiful," She said. It was like how he described the spaceship: silver, smooth and cool to the touch. The highly-polished band had strange markings on it, certainly not Kawatchee. They had to be alien in origin. Clark grinned as she wriggled her wrist into the bracelet and struggled to close the ends. She offered her hand to him and smiled coyly. "Close this for me, pwease?"
Pete watched Clark step up to Chloe, both on a rise in the cave, and he would have sworn that the light that came out of the symbols shined only on them, and they seemed to be cast in a soft yellowy glow.
"It really looks good on you," Clark said, taking Chloe's little hand and carefully pressed the metal ends together, closing the bracelet more around her wrist. "I think you can still take it off before you bathe or shower," he added, blushing, thinking of his girlfriend doing those things.
"I'll manage, babe. I like it a lot," she said twisting her wrist, looking at it, smiling at it, the band not too snug, fitting her just right, like she was meant to wear it. In one way, Clark merely clasped a bracelet on Chloe's wrist. In another way, Naman fastened the Kryptonian ceremonial marriage bracelet on Wa'kloe, and when Clark kissed Chloe, they sealed their foretold Kryptonian wedding.
"If you have two make-out in front of me, is this really the time for it?" Pete rasped, rubbing his throat and head, hurting still. The two teenagers in love reluctantly understood, stopped kissing each other and they all walked out of the cave into the rainy pit; since the breach opening was off the ground, the cave floor didn't get soaked with rain and mud seeping onto it.
"Dude, I almost forgot!" Pete said as they stood in the middle of the pit. "I saw the Shaggy Man! He was awesome!
"Me too!" Clark grinned back and they high-fived each other.
"That sucks! I didn't see nothing!" Chloe pouted. "Well I did get this nifty bracelet," She said with a grin. "Too bad you two have no proof of that beast."
"Don't be so sure," Clark said, and took out a wet stinky tufts from his jacket pocket. "When I shoved him...I grabbed some hair for you, Snugglebunny. Maybe you can get some people to run tests on them."
"You so rock, baby," Chloe grinned, already composing an article for the Ledger or the Torch or even her fledgling website about the weird stuff that was going on in Smallville, freakinweird.net. "Now, get us out of here before Pete and I get pneumonia!"
"Hold on, you two!" Clark yelled. Pete and Chloe held onto him as he jumped out of the pit, raced to the campsite, grabbed their gear and sped back to his house in less than a minute, barely slowed down by the meteor rocks.
After waking up Clark's mom and dad, each teen took turns getting into warm dry clothes. They each told the Kents how it was too windy and rainy to be outside (Pete and Chloe explained why were so filthy was because that, with all their gear and muddy footing, they had slipped a bunch of times and that caused their bruises), and after Judge Ross and Gabe were called to tell them where they were at now (and getting the okay to stay overnight), the three friends camped out in the living room. Mrs. Kent happily watched as the teens gorged themselves with delicious late-night snacks she prepared for them. "Now this is the best way to camp," Chloe said and the boys had to agree with her.
With a hot water bottle pressed against her stomach, Chloe laid comfortably on the couch as Clark and Pete were stretched out on the floor, each of them all snug in their sleeping bags, covered with extra quilts, and resting their heads on fluffy pillows until one by one they fell asleep, overcome by the experiences of the day, bonded together now by more than friendship, but by brotherhood and...marriage.
The next morning, the skies were clear, the rainstorm gone away, now attacking places East of Smallville like Keystone City and Midway. The Sun dried the ground enough by the noon that Pete and Clark grabbed a basketball and once more Clark was the Gotham Gators and Pete was the Metropolis Metros. Or maybe Pete said he was the Coast City Surfers and Clark was the Fawcett City Whizzes. In the course of the game it was forgotten. There were a couple rule changes, however; Clark couldn't use any of his powers or abilities and Pete couldn't be distracting by talking about what he did with girls on his dates with them when Clark had the ball. The game was one more in their endless series of match-ups.
Pete didn't let waking up with a mild headache and a stuffy nose stop him from driving to the basket, muscling his way for lay-up, and hustling around Clark for rebounds. His basketball game was still located mostly under the basket; any shot he made farther than six feet away from the basket was sheer luck.
Even without using his powers and abilities, Clark was a great player, scoring over Pete as usual, hitting jump shots from distance, gliding past Pete when saw an open lane to the basket."You know...I'm up by one point, man," Clark said, grabbing his friend's missed shot after clanged off the backboard. He easily dribbled the ball on the dirt, taking it past where the ball need to go before someone took a shot at the basket.
"Nope."
It wasn't Pete's voice. It belonged to Chloe, who spoke out before Pete could say anything. She sat on a hay bale, typing on her laptop. She laughed when Clark protested. "Oh, quit being a baby." She wiped her nose after she sneezed (Clark blessed her while Pete went the gesundheit route). She checked the score again, minimized one screen and maximized another, looking at the running total she had going on in Word Pad. "Yup. The score's tied, babe." She changed the score and went back to typing up her article for the Ledger, 'New Evidence Found: The Shaggy Man Exists!'
"In your face, Bro...in your face!" Pete laughed.
Chloe looked up again after taking a couple more Midol pills; she was achy but not curl up in her bed with her stuffed animals and a hot water bottle achy...yet. "I'll need some statements about The Shaggy Man from both of you two pretty soon. Try and make them interesting, especially you, Kent. Oh! Both of you remember that you have sports drinks here...replenish your fluids! I don't want you getting sick, Pete!"
"Oh...Okay." Clark looked at his girlfriend, amazed at her ability to keep score, write an article and watch out for him and Pete. Quickly, Pete shot out his hand and stole the ball from his friend. Pete took one dribble before Clark could get to him and he launched a shot from eighteen feet. All three of the teens, Pete, Clark and Chloe, watched the ball sail in the sky, spinning in a perfect rotation. Instead of ending up in the pigpen like so many times before, the ball gracefully swished through the hoop's netting.
"Ooh...good shot!" Chloe yelled. "You're winning now, Pete!"
"Someone finally learned to nail that shot," Clark teased. He grabbed the ball and took a few dribbles with it. "Game over, Bro?"
"Game over, for now," Pete smiled. He clapped hands with Clark. "Brothers forever."
Sometimes the more things change...the more they stay the same...
Chapter Links
Prologue ~ One ~ Two ~ Three ~ Four ~ Five ~ Six ~ Seven ~ Eight ~ Nine ~ Ten ~ Eleven ~ Twelve ~ Thirteen ~ Fourteen ~ Fifteen ~ Sixteen ~ Epilogue
The Satyr Icon