DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with the "Smallville" television show, and any copyright violation is purely unintentional.

As Clark drove his parents' truck to make his final delivery of produce to a market at the very edge of Smallville, he pondered his newest power discovered by himself and Lex: His mind.

Clark had told Lex on many occasions that his access to his abilities depended a lot on mental focus. So Lex had gotten the idea of testing Clark's ESP levels with those cards with shapes like stars, squares, and triangles on them. When they had done those tests, Clark had stood with his back turned to Lex so that he wouldn't be tempted to use his x-ray vision. After the first test, Clark had scored something like sixty-five percent. As the tests had continued, Clark's score had climbed higher and higher. Within a few days, Clark had named ninety-five percent of the cards Lex had been holding up correctly.

There was also the fact that Clark always seemed to know what Lex was feeling. Clark had never chalked that up to any special abilities; his starry-eyed romanticism had led to him to believe that it was how much he loved Lex that made it possible. But then there had also been Chloe.

Clark had always suspected Chloe had a crush on him, but a few days ago after finishing his chores, he had received verification of his suspicion from Chloe's own mind. Clark had been up in his barn-loft with his shirt off, and having just completed the work of four farm-hands on a hot day, he had been glistening with his own sweat when Chloe had been ascending the ladder to his Fortress of Solitude. Clark had known about his turbo-charged pheromones for about a month, and upon seeing Chloe's eyes fasten on him as she had approached, Clark had only been able to think, "Uh-oh!"

Fortunately, teenage girls seemed to have more control of their impulses than teenage boys. But looking into Chloe's eyes, Clark had been able to feel the waves of desire, adoration, and frustration rolling off her as if they had been a gale-force wind. He hadn't been able to read Chloe's mind as such, but it had been all too clear that Chloe had wanted to touch Clark so very badly that the feeling was hurting her. Their ensuing conversation had been awkward and strained, and Chloe had left soon after arriving. It had made Clark quite sad to realize that Chloe was probably going to start crying once she got back home to the privacy of her own room.

Clark had told Lex about what had happened later that day over the phone. "Poor Chloe," Lex had said. "I wish I could introduce her to some guys who could take her mind off you, but most of the guys in Metropolis I know who are in their late teens . . . probably not a good idea." Clark smiled as he pulled the truck into the parking lot of the small store next to a large field; Lex was always wanting to make things better for other people these days, and it frustrated him when he couldn't.

In the past few days, Clark had been relieved to discover he was only empathic enough to be able to feel somebody else's emotions when he was specifically focussed on them. He had felt how much his parents worried about him. He had also discovered that Pete was still struggling to come to terms with the fact that his best friend was bisexual and "doin' the nasty" with Lex Luthor; fortunately, Clark had also been able to tell that Pete was still his friend and would be able to deal with this.

Clark pushed these thoughts aside as he got out of the truck and took the organic produce delivery from Kent Farms to the back of Mr. Campbell's store. Upon completing the delivery, he went with Mr. Campbell to the front of the store so that the old man could write a check for the produce received. And who should be up at the check-out counter buying a soda but Whitney Fordman. As Mr. Campbell wrote out the check, Whitney eyed Clark suspiciously. Remembering the ass-grabbing incident in the locker-room so many months ago, Clark smiled wryly at Whitney once again, wondering what feeling he'd get from the insecure quarterback. He felt Whitney squirm emotionally. Whitney would usually suddenly look away at this point. But not this time. Whitney's jaw clenched, and Clark could feel Whitney arriving at a decision as the quarterback walked out the door with his soda. Clark knew that when he walked out the door to the truck, Whitney would be there waiting for him.

Clark gulped and opened the door. He avoided looking up until the door had closed completely. Sure enough, there was Whitney, leaning against the truck Clark was driving with his arms crossed, his fiery gaze boring right through Clark. Oh, this is not going to be pretty, Clark thought.

"Alright, Kent, this fucking stops and it stops right fucking now, damn it!" Clark did not need his empathic abilities to tell Whitney was pissed. But there was a lot more going on inside Whitney underneath his outrage and indignation. There was just so much it was hard to tell exactly what.

Clark mock-coyly looked off to his left. "Whitney, whatever do you mean?"

That was a mistake on Clark's part. What immediately came through loud and clear was Whitney's enormous sense of personal pride, and Clark's little play-act had played him for a fool one time too many. Whitney uncrossed his arms, clenched his jaw, and stalked over to Clark with the fire in his eyes flaring big-time. "ENOUGH of this bullshit, farm-boy! You know damn well what I'm talking about! I'm talking about this game you're playing with me where you pull my strings like I'm your little puppet!" Whitney poked his index finger right into Clark's chest as he brought his face much closer to Clark's. "Well, it's not fucking funny anymore. It never was. And you should thank your common sense for never doing that in front of Lana, because if you had, I would have done something about it much, much sooner than now. And if you think I'm fucking kidding, you just damn well try it and see what happens!"

Clark was suddenly prodded by a feeling from Whitney that poked through the enraged bluster. Whitney was deeply hurt that Clark had so little regard for him as to play on his insecurities as Clark had been doing since the last few weeks of school. He wanted Clark to like him, or at least respect him just a little bit. Underneath that was a pacing, anxious frustration at knowing their history made that desire unlikely to be fulfilled. Clark looked up from the finger pointing into his chest into the burning eyes before him and said, "I'm sorry, Whitney. That was wrong, I guess."

Whitney withdrew his prodding finger and backed up a step. He hadn't expected that and wasn't prepared for it. He opted to continue with the outrage, probably to further demonstrate he was not going to be played as if he were a fiddle anymore. "You GUESS? Oh, that's nice, Clarkyboy, that's REAL nice."

Clark sifted through his own mental hard-drive for the "placating enraged and/or hurt jockboy" file and found nothing. He'd have to wing it. "Okay, I know it was wrong. And I hurt your feelings. And I really am sorry."

Whitney's rage was being quenched much faster than Clark had expected. Whitney was aware of this, too and was a bit alarmed by it. His public image and the acclaim and approval that went along with it meant a great deal to him. "Oh, you hurt my feelingth. That'th tho thenthitive."

Clark sighed. As long as they were out in the open, Whitney would never let down his guard. The MVP quarterback to the bitter end. "Do you want to go somewhere and talk Whitney? Because you seem like you do, but this probably isn't the best place for it."

Now poor Whitney was truly at a loss for words. His feelings blared out the equivalent of "Oh God, yes!" as he looked around for any members of their peer-group who might be happening along. There were none. Whitney tilted his head up and said, "Why should I?" He had to know Clark really wanted to talk seriously.

"Because you know and I both know there are some things we should talk about, and since we both care about Lana, this hostility we've both been continuing isn't a good thing."

Whitney was as if he were a fish on the hook. His entire demeanor changed to something much more accommodating while at the same time maintaining his royal bearing. He pointed at the dense clearing of trees on the other side of the field next to Mr. Campbell's store. "Okay, then. We'll go over there and talk."

As they walked through the field, the sensations Clark felt from Whitney grew more curious. Whitney's heart was pounding and his stomach was in knots. When they got to the clearing of trees, they spotted a fallen, dead tree lying behind the bulk of the standing trees. Clark sat down, but Whitney remained standing. Clark thought it a good idea to try to put the quarterback at ease a bit before they really started talking.

"So how's your dad doing, these days? Okay, I hope?"

Sure enough, Whitney started to calm down and sat down next to Clark. "Looks like he'll be okay just as long as he takes care of himself. And my mother is seeing to that. Things have been a lot better between all of us now that he realizes how short human life is. A few weeks after he got back from Metropolis General, we had our first real conversation. He told me he was more proud of me than he'd ever been able to let on, and he wanted to tell me in case he never had the chance to again." And that had meant a great deal to Whitney, who was apparently far more fortunate in the family department than Lex was. "Thanks for asking. Funny, none of my friends on the team even bothered to ask me that." A warm feeling coursed through Whitney; understandable, because Clark knew Whitney was attracted to him.

"Clark?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I . . . touched you like that in the locker room. You don't deserve to be treated like that. I guess there's no more hiding the fact that I think you're really hot."

Clark blushed deeply and looked away. "Well, I know guys our age get carried away sometimes and all. I mean, you really freaked me out, but I'd be lying if I said I was totally insulted."

"You were freaked out? I spent the rest of the day hoping it was just a bizarre dream! When you were out on the field talking to Lana after the game where our mutant coach torched himself in the locker room, and Lana let out that huge scream, I was scared to fucking death you had just told her about my wandering hand! I was like, 'God, please kill me NOW!'"

"Du-ude, you were watching us? That screaming thing Lana and I were doing was a joke. We were just letting off a little steam over frustration with our respective parental units, there. I'd never hurt her by telling her about that. And I knew you didn't mean it. Well, I knew you wanted me, but I also knew you just lost control of yourself for a moment."

Clark could tell Whitney's heart was speeding up again. "You're not like any guy I've ever met, Clark. It's like you're not even from this planet." Clark blinked and flinched. "I mean that in a good way. A really good way."

"Okay." But Whitney wasn't mentioning something that Clark found curious was going unmentioned, something which by definition had to be the main issue between them. "But I'm surprised you chose that to apologize to me for. I seem to remember something else that happened a few weeks earlier."

Clark's mention of the Scarecrow Incident hit Whitney in the gut like a full-force punch. Whitney's breathing became labored, and a volcano of emotions erupted from him: shame, guilt, horror, regret, fear . . . as well as deep desire and love. For Clark. Whitney Fordman was in love with Clark Kent. Clark's mind was bleeping and blinking like one of those old pinball machines. He would never have imagined that he might ever see Whitney as he saw Whitney now, eyes hollow and frightened. Guys like Whitney didn't cry, or at least they did so as rarely as possible, and never in public, a lot like Lex. The result was that things that made them want to cry were repressed and not dealt with.

"You're probably angry at me because I did that to you and just got away with it." Whitney finally said in a shaky voice. "Well, I didn't really get away with it Clark, not at all. Every year some poor, helpless freshman is abducted and humiliated with that horrible Scarecrow shit, and every year someone manages to find the guy before anything really bad happens. But I aced Roman history, Clark, and I know what happens if someone is left tied up suspended in mid-air if someone doesn't take them down. They suffocate to death as their lungs become more and more tired. It's slow and horrible. I could have killed you Clark, and I didn't think about that until two full days later, by which time you could very well have been . . . " Whitney swallowed visibly . . . "dead, and it would have been too late for me to do anything about it."

Whitney didn't know about the meteor-rock necklace of Lana's that he had placed around Clark's neck, and that as a result Clark would have been dead much sooner than a day or two later, so he didn't feel the need to let Whitney off the hook. Clark felt the resolve congeal within Whitney underneath the hurricane of emotions.

"And the real reason I did that to you is because I love you, Clark, and it drives me crazy. You drive me crazy. And so I did something crazy." What then came from Whitney was even more disturbing: How when he had stripped Clark down before tying him to the Scarecrow Cross, the way he had thought about what it would be like to claim Clark's mouth with his own; what it would be like to sensuously run his lips and tongue down Clark's chest, across both Clark's nipples, and down Clark's rippling abs and into his navel; what it would be like to make moaning, screaming love to Clark right there in that cornfield as the rows of corn watched in silent judgement of his volcanic lust. This was the first time feelings from someone Clark was reading were accompanied by images, let alone such graphic and emotionally potent images. Clark couldn't help but squirm where he sat.

"The week after that happened," Whitney continued, "I realized full-on how I really felt about you. And realizing I could have killed you haunted my dreams. One night I dreamed about finding you dead up on that cross, and I woke up screaming your name. My dad ran into my room and was like, 'Who the hell is Clark?' I just told him I was having nightmares because I had eaten all of half a pepperoni pizza late at night, and he said, 'Well that was stupid. Take some antacid and go back to bed.' So I did, even though I didn't need any fucking antacid. There were more than a few nights that October when I didn't sleep very well at all."

Clark suddenly realized he was wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open. "And now you hate me for real." Whitney continued. "I don't blame you, it's what I deserve." Whitney wanted Clark's forgiveness with depth and desperation that seemed to Clark to thicken the very air around them. But guys like Whitney Fordman never cried and never pleaded, and they knew when it was time to take their just deserts like a man, even when it broke their hearts. Whitney looked away from Clark and got up abruptly. "I should really go now." He started walking away from the fallen tree.

Clark could feel so keenly how much Whitney had suffered and still suffered whenever Whitney allowed himself to think about what had happened, he couldn't let it end this way. He got up and grabbed Whitney by the shoulder, spinning the quarterback around. Whitney didn't resist, but Clark could feel him tensing up for a fight in case that was what Clark was intending. Whitney may have loved Clark, but no guy was going to use Whitney Fordman for a punching bag, not now, not ever.

"Oh no, you don't," Clark said. "We've gotten this far, and we're going to hash this out."

"So do you hate me, Clark?" The desperate hopefulness Whitney was keeping out of his voice so well virtually throbbed in his heart.

"No, Whitney, I don't hate you. Yeah, you could have killed me, but you didn't. And at our age, the feelings you were dealing with, well, sometimes they're just too much." Clark tried something new with his extrasensory abilities. He tried calming Whitney by looking into the older boy's eyes and projecting peace and forgiveness. It seemed to be working. And it had an entirely unexpected result.

Whitney grabbed Clark into a tight and passionate embrace. "I'm so sorry, Clark. I'm such a fuckhead sometimes."

Though somewhat taken aback at first, Clark returned the hug. It felt pretty good, and this was kind of Whitney's moment, even if thinking of Lex made Clark feel a bit guilty. "It's okay, Whitney. Don't worry about it anymore."

Whitney regained his composure and let go of Clark. "Jee-zuss God, I can't believe I just did that!" Whitney was blushing and looking down at the ground.

Clark couldn't help but be a bit concerned about someone he still considered a friend, even if his crush on her was over. "But you do love Lana, right? I mean, you two are going to Metropolis U. together after your senior year and all that."

Whitney smiled. "Yeah, I love her, and I hope it turns out to be the marrying kind of love, but I guess I'm too young to know that for sure yet. Funny, until I met you, I didn't think it was possible to be in love with more than one person at the same time. It's confusing as all hell, especially when one of them is a guy! But there's just something about you, Clark."

Clark grinned his goofy grin, which made Whitney blush and abruptly look down again. "Something about me?"

"Yeah, and it's not just that you're so easy on the eyes. When my dad was in the hospital and I felt like I couldn't tell anybody, not Lana, not my friends on the team, not the guidance counselor, that one time when we were talking in the library at school, I just looked into your eyes and knew I could trust you. And even though it hurt you to do it, you talked me into telling Lana what was up with me. After that, my relationship with her got a lot better. She wasn't so much into everything having to be about her. She's grown up quite a bit in the past few months. I have, too. I guess we did that together. And you had a lot to do with that, Clark. Funny how the relationship with the woman I love was made so much better because of the guy I love. Damn confusing, too."

Clark was silent for a few moments. He had done good here, and he just wanted to take a bit to absorb that knowledge and appreciate it. "Yeah, life's complicated, isn't it?

"Isn't it, though?" But Clark could tell Whitney was very happy right now. Whitney was about to go off into his future with Lana at his side, and he could do that with a peaceful heart now that he had squared things with Clark. "Well, I actually should go soon, Clark. I'm supposed to meet Lana at the Beanery in about a half-hour."

Clark started to leave but Whitney held up a hand. "Let me go first, Clark, in case somebody from school is around. I've got a reputation to uphold, and you've got three more years in Smallville, so people might talk if they saw us walking out of this place with me all flustered and giddy. Not something you need to deal with, especially with all the time you spend with Lex Luthor!"

Clark's heart skipped a beat, perhaps two. "Uh, Whitney. . . ."

Whitney flashed Clark a friendly but still mischievious grin. "You're not the only one who can play 'torture the insecure high-school kid, Clark!'"

Clark could tell Whitney suspected more than knew, but Clark also knew that Whitney was trustworthy. Still, he wasn't going to confirm or deny anything. He just grinned back and said, "So I see."