Shades of Blue
by Nymph Du Pave

"What do you see?"

"Some kind of, I don't know, blue slime."

"What kind of blue?"

He shrugs.  "I don't know."

I wait.  Nothing.  No second try.  No real attempt at describing what's in front of him.  Just 'blue'.  Blue slime.  I wonder about Chloe, in all her infinite vocabulary and quirky wisdom, with that editorial mind of hers; I wonder: would she let him get away with this.

He stands up and stares at me.  He knows me well enough to see that I am dissatisfied with his answer.  "What?"

I decide I'm not going to let him get away with it.  I'm going to be as ardent that he clarify as Miss Sullivan would be.  I feel a need to be her sagacious proxy in this absence of her own judgement.

Besides, this way I get to tease, Clark.  Most people would consider this more of an entertaining preoccupation, a hobby of sorts, but not me.  I see him so little -- a few hours for a few days a week mostly -- that I must make perfect use of the time that I've got.

"That's really expressive, Clark.  You illustrate the picture so clearly for those of us in the scientific world, those of us who wish for precision."

He rolls his eyes and I try to avoid smiling at all costs.  I love that he doesn’t put up with the occasionally snobbish, lordly ways of speech and that he still stays.  He still likes me.  "Okay.  Light blue."

"Is that the best you can do?"

"Yes."

I shake my head.  "Didn't you have a box of Crayola's when you were younger?"

He leans up against the table and I take a moment to appreciate the comfort he has around me.  He's so relaxed in my presence, the same relaxed that he is around Pete, Chloe, his parents and, more recently, Lana.  I push away my thoughts on just what that fact's significance and, instead, focus on what his leisure means to me.

I know body language like the explicit details of my most flagrant mishaps.  Stiff and wary limbs.  Suspicions.  Oily, glossed up images that mean shit when you're in the metaphorical dirt.  I've made my slick salesman's pitches and my careful offensive assaults on those who let their guard down for even one foolish second.  Yet, here he stands, willing… trusting.

And smiling.  Not a bitter or knowing smile.  Not a flat smile of contempt, but a curvy, beautiful, playful smile full of enjoyment.

No one has ever given me that level of comfort and sometimes, honestly, I don't know what to do with it.  It seems too intimate, this repose, so perversely private that I have to look away.  Telling myself that we can't be that close.

But we are.  And I wish I could find a way to repay him.  To give to him the thing that is missing, the thing he never knew he needed.  The one thing that fills his heart and makes him blind with happiness.

I sometimes wonder if Lana is really the answer.

He inhales and looks down at his feet.  "Crayola's.  You mean, like Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown and Razzmatazz?"

"Yes, though I've always preferred Eggplant.  Vivid Violet.  Purple Pizzazz."

He doesn't seem to be surprised by this and it hits me that he wouldn't.  The last present he'd gotten me for no real reason was packaged in crisp lavender paper, unevenly wrapped, but perfect in my mind.  He'd put it together himself.

"Fine."  His eyes are bright when they meet mine.  "Green-blue."

I rub my temples in mock impatience.  "Okaaay."

He laughs.  "What is it, Lex?  The goop, not the color."

"It's a kind of bacteria."

"Yuck."

"Take another look?"

"No thanks."

I sigh and look myself, adjusting the eyepiece.  I feel gypped that it's not still warm from his skin.  "When you intensify the magnification, there are golden slivers that seem as if they're catching light.  They sparkle.  It's actually quite beautiful."

"It's bacteria."

"Yes."

"You find a lot of weird things beautiful."

I look up at him, thoughtfully.  "Yes, I do, Clark."

The boy blushes and I look back at my microscope pretending to not notice.  I know that, somehow, someway Clark has realized my feelings for him are beyond that of boy-boy friendship.  Just the way he's been acting lately has piqued my interest.  I'm so attuned to Clark that I've noticed him being more careful about how he words things.  When he sees me waiting outside for him -- even in the searing sun or the violent rain -- as he delivers my produce I see the shyness that hadn't always been there.  Before he was just happy to see me.  Now it's as if he knows why I'm there.  And, to my dismay, the touches are less often, though when they do happen I can't help but wonder if they're longer, more lingering.

Maybe I've just come to appreciate them more.

Chloe's smirking face when I made the mistake of telling her that Clark's welfare was a common interest and that it was higher on my list of needs then my own…

I sigh.  The smirk comes into mind, as does her keen observation and way with words.  Her elucidating hints and her need for all, including Clark, to see the truth.
I don't think I need wonder very hard just how the obvious came to be so prominent to Clark.

So, I understand that he knows in some little tiny way that I have some sort of 'crush' on him.  I doubt he knows that I'm in love with him, but, oh well.  A step at a time, right?  And maybe, if there's no hope for an 'us' I can keep that fact from him and Chloe.

At least I have the knowledge that my feelings for him will not chase him a way.  A single cloud from my overcast sky has evaporated from the strong light of the sun, so far overhead that I can not yet see it.  Maybe someday, with Clark's help, the majority of the sky will be bright blue, with tiny white clouds obscuring full sight from time to time, instead of the oppressive, slate gray ones that cover my life.

"Blue Green."

"No," he says.  "Green blue, Lex.  If you remember, there is a difference."

I do remember.  Green Blue was more blue.  Blue Green was more green.  At least, that's the way that I think it goes.

"Right," I say.  "You couldn't have come up with, I don't know...  Teal Blue?"

"That's not teal."

"Pea Green."

"I don’t remember that one.  Besides, I said blue."

"How about Bleu Cheese?"

He just looks at me.  "Right."

"So, if you know it's not any of those, then what is it?"

He thinks for a moment.  "Like Robin's Egg Blue.  But darker."

I smile, pleasently surprised.  "That's more like it.  How'd you remember that one?"

He shrugged and crossed his arms.  "I remembered being surprised that robins' eggs weren't white."

I nod.  "I like periwinkle," I say out of nowhere.  It feels strange telling him this.  I don't know why, but I've always kept that as my own little secret.  The name, the light, meditative shade of blue...  It always seemed so happy and at peace.  So far away from my life.  "It just... relaxes me."

Apparently my admission has surprised him.  "Really?"

"Yeah."

He bites his bottom lip for a minute, before continuing.  "I still have a box at home."  He laughes.  "98 shades."

"I've got one," I whisper.  I don't know if it's to him, or myself.  It doesn't really matter.

He looks at me for a moment in a comtemplative manner.  I can't really judge what he's thinking.  Then he walks towards the microscope and peers in.  "A couple months ago, when you were in Metropolis, this was before Victoria left, it rained like crazy and me, Pete and Chloe were stuck in the barn.  We didn't really want to do anything, so Pete starts drawing naughty pictures and Chloe's busy trying to put clothes on them.  I get out the crayons a little afraid they're gonna make fun of me for it.  But they were excited.  Pete picked Ocean Blue right away, making the comment that there's a color named after a place with babes, you know?  Chloe picked Pacific Blue.  Just like she used to.  I never even took it out of the box myself.  I just don't like that shade.  It's too grown up and there's a sort of bitter darkness that I think draws her attention."

That fit.  "How about you?"

He stands up and looks me over.  My stomach constricts at the linear attention.  "What?"

"I like Cadet Blue."

Though the tag on my eighty dollar shirt says Gray Day Blue, it is very -- for those of us who spent their speciial hours coloring with mothers who cared, mothers who loved us-- clearly an almost exact Cadet Blue.

I swallow, knowing that I'm picking up the wrong vibes from my suddenly screaming 'posture alarm'.  He's leaning against the table again, but this time there doesn't seem to be comfort as much as purpose.  It looks more like the kind of stillness, coiled tightness that a cat might have before launching towards it's prey, and his eyes hold me in place.  I wonder if I might like to move or whether being caught has it's own rewards.

He looks down at his shirt, a shade of muave, and swipes at nothing but invisible dust.  He starts towards me, still swiping away.  "You know what else?"

I shake my head and am backing up at the same pace as he walks towards me.  I know I'm being hunted, and I like the feeling, think I want it to continue.

"There's another blue that I like."

"What's that?"  I'm horrified and pleased to find that the tone of my voice is gone and has been replaced by a squeaking, crackling noise.  It's amazing that someone can reach through the muck inside me to my heart and have me react this way.

"It's a color of heaven that I can't really place.  It's not Cobalt, or Cerulean."  He looks at me as I bump into the inner apex of the corner table.  It’s all made of stone slabs and heavy wood.  I've got no where to go.

"It's not Sky Blue, or Baby Blue.  Not Grandma Hair Blue or Green Blue."

His hands brush up against my hips as he plants them on either side of me and I feel the heat from his body  mergeing with mine.  He moves closer and looks up my frame slowly, sensuously.  I know that if he looks at me like that much longer, I won't be able to hide my physical reaction to his proximity.

"It's not even the color of those sexy little Ty Nant bottles you drink from."

I cough.  "Sexy?"


His hand comes up and rubs my smooth head.  I feel the kind of self-consciousness that I only feel around him, the jabbing worry that maybe, no matter how hard I try, I will never be good enough.

"It's the color of your eyes, Lex."

The fears go away and I look at him, actually meeting his gaze.

"It's the color of my dreams.  The color of your cars and the world around us when you're driving me somewhere, anywhere.  It's the color of the river you drowned in."

He leans in and I feel his lips close to mine, touching mine, but we're not yet kissing.  I don't think I'm breathing, then I hear the panting and it concides with the air that I happen to have moving through me.  I feel his hand on my chest.  I can't hold back the moan that starts from inside and makes it's way through the air.

He shuts his eyes.  "It's the color of my life when I'm around you, alone with you.  It's the color of my love for you, Lex."

"I love you, Clark," I whimper, frantically trying to get the words out now.  "I always have.  I just couldn't tell you.  You're so important to me, I couldn't lose you."

"I know," he says and licks an outline of my lips.  I feel the tug of my libido.  "It just took too long to see.  I'm sorry for that."

He kisses me, soft and slow, probing.  His kiss is caressing my fears and opening my life up to him.

I shut my eyes and see shades of blue.  They're the color of us.
 
 
 
 
 
 

FIN