Triangulation

by Caroline

http://linabean4.tripod.com

FEEDBACK: If you send it my way, I swear I'll give it a good home.

Triangulation
by Caroline
fannishbean@gmail.com

Clark glared at the pencil he'd ground into dust. See, his dad always asked him why his math homework always took him so long, but how quickly could he be expected to go when his school supplies kept disintegrating?

Last year, when he'd been upset about the amount of geography homework assigned, he'd gripped the book in his hand. Just for a second. And had left a deep imprint in the covers, clearly in the shape of his fingers. Of course, he couldn't bring it back to school like that. He'd had to tell the teacher it got dropped in the pond and buy a whole new textbook. Textbooks were startlingly expensive.

Clark rummaged around in his desk drawer. There were plenty of whole, undamaged pencils in there. Well, mostly undamaged. He'd chewed on most of them pretty well. So what, he liked to have one in his mouth while he was thinking. Pete, who was interested in psychology, had told him what that really meant, but Clark had heard of Freud too, and he thought Pete was full of shit. He'd told him so, too.

Big deal. Oral fixations were normal. And it wasn't like a pencil was much of a phallus. A cigar, sure, Clark could see that, but he didn't smoke. Unless you counted the pot he and Chloe had tried once during the summer, which he didn't. It hadn't even worked on him. No buzz, nothing. Chloe had told him he'd certainly jumped on board for the paranoia side effects, but Clark was pretty sure that was just the natural way to act when one imagined one's parents finding out. He felt uneasy just thinking about it.

All right. Geometry. Whee. Clark rolled his neck, cracking it. It'd probably make more sense if he was stoned. Ms. Distad was crazy about math--she never called it "math," always "mathematics"--she said it was about everything, ever, at its most basic. She'd told the class that when she a college freshman, she'd studied abstract algebra. What the hell was that? When he'd asked, she'd looked at him seriously and said she couldn't really explain it in words. Chloe and Pete were making bets on how long it'd take her to snap.

No, really, she was very nice, and it was good she had so much enthusiasm, because God knew he wasn't generating any on his end. She had tried appealing to Clark, telling him how important mathematics was to astronomy, but he wasn't really interested in the math part of astronomy. He liked looking at the pretty stars. There was poetry to astronomy. That's what he liked.

Of course, according to Ms. Distad, math was the final word on poetry. It was the "language of the universe." And Clark was aware that, sure, math was supposed to fit together so intricately and beautifully, and he figured he might even learn to appreciate that once he started taking classes more advanced than Algebra I and geometry, but that didn't mean that math was real, just because it hung together. It might just be an artificial construct.

Like, say you made your way over to the other side of a black hole. There might be planets where only whole numbers existed, and it was impossible to draw a straight line. There might be planets where the letters 'pi' and 'e' were meaningless. The might be planets where everyone could sneeze at the sound barrier on their way to school, and where young men who were, not to brag, pretty good-looking and fairly strapping earned more than good-natured pity from their next-door neighbors. Hell, there might be planets where it was normal to float a few feet above the bed at night.

Christ, how long had he been pulling that little stunt. There was no way to know. It wasn't like there was someone sharing his bed with him. Which, fine, was no big deal--he was only fifteen; he wasn't expected to be into the bed-sharing. But it did seem like it would severely curtail his bed-sharing in the future, which...kind of sucked. Just a little.

All right! Homework. Clark forced his eyes to clear and looked skeptically at the page in front of him. Heron's formula. How to prove a triangle had 180 degrees. Oh for... Why would you have to prove something like that? "I don't have to prove nothing to you," Clark muttered to the book, trying on his bad-tempered punk voice. Didn't sound convincing.

But really, what was there to prove? The definition of a triangle included the fact that its three angle added up to 180 degrees. Case closed. That's how it was defined. Clark rooted through his desk to find his pocket dictionary to prove it. Okay, so the definition was... "a three-sided polygon." He looked farther down the page, into the definition about the percussion instrument. Nothing about angle degrees. Huh. But still, everyone knew it had 180 degrees. If you had a triangle, you had 180 degrees.

It was like parallel lines. They did not meet. Ms. Distad had said, "Well, in a curved universe they could meet," but... Then they weren't parallel lines! If they met, then they weren't parallel lines. There was no room for argument, as far as Clark was concerned.

He remembered from art class in middle school that, for the sake of perspective, parallel lines were supposed to converge at the vanishing point, but that was just an illusion. Parallel lines never touched. He wondered whether he and Lana were parallel lines. Nah. If she were parallel to him, she'd at least be able to see him. They were skew. In completely differently planes.

Clark reddened slightly. Okay, lame metaphor. Somewhat embarrassing to catch himself thinking that. He knew it was normal for kids his age to try to get everything in the world to relate to them, and to do it in a flowery way, but he didn't want to be normal. He wanted to be extraordinary.

Well, no. Not extraordinary extraordinary. But extraordinary in a normal way. Like, have enough talent to come up with good metaphors, instead of lame ones. So if he were to write, say...oh, a love sonnet, it would be moving instead of stupid. Just a little extraordinary, that wasn't too much to ask. Like, okay, thanks for giving me the ability to outrun cheetahs, but couldn't you make it so I ran just slightly faster than Whitney?

And that was the thing, he could handle himself so he was running just a little bit fast. Or even a little slow, if people were getting suspicious. He had control over himself. Man, his dad should've let him try out for the team. He could at least be the kicker; then he wouldn't have to risk pulverizing somebody during a tackle. But no, his dad probably figured that he'd get too zealous for an extra point and put someone's eye out or something.

Clark kicked at the leg of his desk. "See, Dad?" he muttered. "Kicked the desk. The desk yet stands. Completely in control here."

The thing was, though...control was an issue. Not in the heat of a football game, like his dad thought, because, after all, it was just a game, but in the heat of...real heat...

He knew he'd be fine when he, well...came. The actual, physical...release wasn't a problem. His old tube sock was unharmed. Except for the, um, stickiness, but that washed out. But the first time he had jerked off in bed, he had punched finger-holes in the sheet with his unoccupied hand. There was grounds for concern there.

His mom, thankfully, hadn't made a big deal of it; she'd smiled and nodded when he mumbled something about a nightmare while handing over the bed linens for the washing machine. But then, later in the day, his dad had tried to have The Talk with him. Christ. Pretty early into it, Clark had held up his hands and said, "Hey, I've grown up on a farm and go to public school; I know all about it. Thanks, Dad." His dad had seemed relieved.

So that minor embarrassment had been mostly averted, but there was still this larger problem. A pretty significant problem. He'd imagine himself touching Lana's hair as she went down on him, and then sometimes his mind would helpfully flash to his accidentally crushing her skull. And, God, no, it wasn't like he thought about Lana sucking him off all the time. She was a sweet girl. He wasn't a pervert or anything. But he couldn't help what he thought about when he was asleep. Or about to go to sleep. Or when he was soaping up in the shower. Or sitting in English class. Or standing in the lunch line.

But, you know, that was normal. Normal, hormone-based, guy thoughts. He was supposed to have them. The skull-crushing part wasn't so normal, but...well, it was pretty academic for now and was likely to remain so. Stupid Whitney. "Oh, I'm sorry I crucified you, Clark."

To be honest, though...it wasn't Whitney. Lana was just too good for him. If he'd come to terms with that, he'd be a lot better off. Yeah, like that was gonna happen.

Was he doomed to die unblown?

Clark sucked on the tip of his pencil thoughtfully. There were probably lots of people who wanted to blow him!

They just didn't live in Smallville.

Although...

He remembered the feel of Lex's skin. He'd been cold when Clark had dragged him out of the river, and, in general, he seemed to give off an air of...coolness. There were times, though, when Lex looked at him that Clark would swear that... well, it was like the guy had heat vision or something equally implausible.

And the looks had been vaguely familiar, which was odd, because he didn't remember anyone ever looking at him like that before, and he would have noticed, he was sure of that. But then he realized that, maybe, that was the way he looked at Lana. Or, rather, not really. Clark was pretty sure he didn't have the ability to smolder. If he'd looked at Lana that way, she would have paid attention. Or maybe called the cops. But nonetheless, Lex's looks reminded him of the way he thought about Lana, or, maybe...those looks were something new. Reminding him of something he didn't know.

He took the pencil out of his mouth and tapped it on the desk. Geometry! All right, problem six. These triangles are congruent because...they have the same measurements for a side, a side, and the included angle. On a roll now.

Maybe he wasn't a line forever speeding along a plane. He could be an angle. He pictured himself lying on a bed, his legs spread in a V. He blushed as he flipped back a couple of pages and reread the definition of "bisection."

He lowered his hand to his jeans and gave himself a quick squeeze.

His dad always wondered why his math homework took so long.

The end