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If meteor freaks and government conspiracies and even (potentially) aliens were real, who was to say that the fae were not?
Chloe stepped further into the darkening woods, nerves scampering up her shoulder and down her leg with every slight crunch of leaves. A squirrel skittered down the thick, ancient trunk of an oak, and the young reporter’s heart nearly jolted.
It was true that she was always looking for danger and running her mouth; perhaps not as bad as her cousin, though it ran in the family. Even so, she’d never sought out something quite like this.
Just when she was beginning to grow tired of her flashlight search, her legs aching with fatigue and her mind berating her own ridiculousness, she found it.
It was a small circle of mushrooms and white flowers like baby’s breath. The crop of nature in the middle of the forest was an unassuming thing, though if Chloe’s storybooks and online forums were right, this held all the answers.
She stepped into the circle, wincing as if attacked by cold or pain, though nothing happened. No beam of light. No booming voice.
“I,” Chloe started, her voice barely a whisper from her lips. She cleared her throat. “I’ve come to bargain.”
A grasshopper chirped. A toad croaked. Chloe’s boot squeaked in the slightly wet grass from the earlier drizzle.
God, this was stupid. She was looking at storybooks for god’s sake! Online forums full of people that never left their moms’ basement! She was better off talking to the toad and—
“A pretty girl like you shouldn’t be out alone in the dark like this…”
Chloe’s heart stopped.
“I,” she opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked around in search of the source of the voice. Finally, her flashlight landed on him.
“Clark?” Chloe asked incredulously.
At least, she thought it was Clark. Her eyes narrowed, taking in his form. The same broad shoulders and big arms, same handsome face with ruffled black hair, same green eyes, but…different. More sallow, features sharper as if carved with special intent from marble. His smile was different, a smug tug of his lips with an attitude like he had when he’d tried on his class ring. His teeth…he’d always had those slightly pointed canines that Chloe thought were adorable, but now they appeared even more pointed, like that of an actual vampire.
Most of all, his features were…blurry. The panes of his face glowed and blurred together as if Chloe’s eyes couldn’t comprehend his other worldly beauty.
Clark brushed a lock of hair behind his ear, upon which there was a single small black earring, and…a tipped point.
Like every picture and description of the folk from her storybooks. Like every wild theory and meeting experience described through hours of scrolling forums.
“Clark, you say?” The fae asked. “Interesting.”
“Interesting how?” Chloe raised an eyebrow.
An amused smile tugged at Clark’s (Not-Clark’s?) lips. “Well, we could explore many hypotheticals here. I could be any faerie in the world, glamoured to appear as a being you find most beautiful. Or I could be this ‘Clark’, finally free to engage in my true nature while you’re here in this circle with me.”
Not-Clark stepped closer, joining Chloe in the circle. The space was small, and Chloe was crowded, but she dared not back away. She looked up at Not-Clark, finding familiarity in his eyes if it was legitimate or not.
“Your true nature?” Chloe asked. “The Clark I know is the kindest person there is. He wouldn’t make me a plaything in any game regardless of his…nature.”
Not-Clark flicked his tongue over his lips, watching Chloe as if he were starved in a way which only she could satiate. “Perhaps. And this Clark, does he know your name, sweet mortal?”
“Nice try,” Chloe’s brows furrowed, though her cheeks flushed against her will. Hearing something almost like a pet name, hearing honeyed words all in Clark’s voice…it was enough to make her head spin. “I didn’t come all the way up here to fail the first quiz question and let you spawn frogs in my underwear.”
Chloe swallowed. She must’ve had a PhD in saying stupid things when she was nervous, and now…her pulse raced like a rabbit.
Not-Clark raised his eyebrows, his handsome smile not leaving his lips. It was that same troublemaker smile Chloe got to see once in a blue moon; he was so preoccupied with being a good and polite son for the Kents, it was only when Pete had cracked a dirty joke and caught Clark off-guard when Chloe saw that side of him.
Now, it had consumed him. Chloe was exhilarated and horrified by the concept at once.
“I’m sure there’s more appealing things to do in your underwear than spawn frogs?” Not-Clark asked, and Chloe could have killed him, or caught fire, or both. Luckily for the both of them, he merely shrugged. “You said you wished to bargain?”
Chloe frowned. She couldn’t voice her uncertainty now, not when she was so close. Beings like him reveled in the cute stupidity of humans. If she could just be confident and ask the question just like she practiced…
Chloe straightened, meeting his eyes. “I wish to know the secrets of Smallville. Every unexplainable thing explained.”
Not-Clark blinked at her, momentarily stunned in the way Clark usually looked when they had a pop quiz in history. God, Chloe wished this being would not masquerade with her best friend’s face. Her feelings for him were bad enough when he was simply a human at her desk.
“You’re asking for the knowledge of a god,” Not-Clark stated.
“If that’s what it takes,” Chloe replied, keeping her voice steady.
“Your human mind may not be able to comprehend everything,” Not-Clark continued.
“I didn’t know insults to my intelligence were in the job description,” Chloe sniffed.
“It’s not that, it’s just,” Not-Clark shook his head. In his uncertainty, he seemed a lot more like Clark, always worried and protective of her. “I shouldn’t even be saying this, but even the folk don’t know everything.”
“But you know more than we do,” Chloe insisted. “Please, I deserve to know what’s going on. I live for the truth.”
Not-Clark appeared to roll the thought about his mind, his gaze wandering to Chloe’s rounded human ear. “It’s quite the ask, honeydew,” his voice was so low, Chloe almost missed the endearment. The childish, lovestruck part of herself clung to it, even if it wasn’t from the real Clark.
“Allow me two nights to consider,” Not-Clark settled. “A bargain like that would have quite the cost.”
“I’ll pay anything,” Chloe replied, determined.
“Humans are always saying that before they know the cost,” Not-Clark’s tone was mournful, as if he were writing Chloe’s eulogy. “I was hoping you’d be smarter than that.”
Chloe pursed her lips. “Again, the insults to my intelligence are not helping. I could just as easily find another faerie that would accept my bargain and—“
“Don’t.” Not-Clark’s large hand gripped around her wrist urgently, as if Chloe had tried to hop into a roaring bonfire. “Do not ever try to make that sort of bargain…any sort of bargain…with another of my kind.”
Chloe nodded. A nod wasn’t binding in the way words were, and Not-Clark probably knew that better than anyone.
“Another faerie wouldn’t wear the features of my best friend as if they were his own,” Chloe said, though uncertainty laced her words.
“Perhaps not,” Not-Clark’s green eyes flickered with guilt and…something else. Something foreign. Chloe knew about how shrimp could see colors humans could not—she’d spouted that fact all the time as a kid. The folk, too, had to be that way with their very minds. Not-Clark had to be experiencing a wave of emotion that would be lethal to the average human.
For a delicate moment, full of all the affection she had for Clark, she wondered if she could shoulder that burden for his faerie counterpart.
“Return in two nights unless you have changed your mind,” Not-Clark continued. “For now, we should get you to the safety of your bed.”
Without warning, the faerie swept Chloe up into his strong arms. A wave of excitement filled her, potentially propelled by his magic. The smell of summer sun and freshly mowed grass hit her nose, the taste of melted strawberry ice cream on her tongue.
“Clark,” to her own surprise, she let out a soft laugh; the mere aura of his magic must have been making her giddy and stupid. “You must be from the Summer Court…”
“You wouldn’t believe where I’m from,” Not-Clark murmured under his breath. “Just close your eyes, honeydew, and I’ll get you home.”
He wasn’t glamouring her, that much Chloe knew. But she was drunk on his magic nonetheless. She blinked, and she was on top of her bed, Not-Clark sitting on the mattress.
“Now this is a familiar sort of dream,” Chloe giggled, her head woozy. Something pinged within her, a tiny notice that perhaps she shouldn’t have said that, though she dismissed the notion. “You’re as frustrating as the folk in storybooks, but…you’re nice, Not-Clark. I’ll be glad to see you again.”
Not-Clark smiled that soft, sad sort of smile he did sometimes, and that feeling always made Chloe feel as though she’d hit some sort of emotional wall. It made her want to cup his face and kiss the feeling away.
“Have sweet dreams, Chloe,” Not-Clark leaned in and pressed his lips to her forehead. He pulled away, a hint of sharp teeth poking out in a smile as Chloe felt his pointed ear unabashed. “I hope that for your sake, you never visit me in those woods again.”
Chloe’s eyes grew heavy, and at her next weighted blink, Not-Clark had vanished. He’d left the glow and magical warmth of summer nights in his wake, lulling Chloe to a quick sleep. Her dreams were filled with past summers with Pete and Clark—watching Mr. Kent light fireworks from the view of the barn, popsicles in the town square, swimming in the lake in her first bikini in the hopes of catching Clark’s eye.
It was sort of a funny thing, the thought drifting in and out, dissolving before it could mean anything: Chloe had never told Not-Clark her name, and yet…he knew it.
By the morning, the memory was lost in the haze of sleep, replaced only by “honeydew” on the faerie’s lips.