#showtal

" of course you are, " he sneers, turning toward his bookshelf. whoever stocked it was certainly having a laugh . . . he pulls a brightly colored colleen hoover novel down, flipping it to a random page. fortunately for clark, it proves less interesting than his brother. he drops it on the floor with a dull thud before turning back around. " do you ever grow tired of mediocrity? " at least they've provided him with a dust-filled copy of the baseball encyclopedia, though his knowledge stops with its publication in 1990. maybe the meteors have improved since then.

" the cape is a nice touch. really. how could they fear something straight out of a children's coloring book? "

he's lonely, more than anything. he's lonely and he's bored and every day in this place is another day he spends unable to escape the walls of his childhood prison. he can't sleep. doesn't need to. wishes he could. instead he just closes his eyes and counts the seconds and tries not to remember the feeling of needles they could never get underneath his skin. he tries not to remember their rage.

if kal-el could see . . . if he would look. there might be something they could make of this world, after all.

" you know, then. it is an inevitability. their trust is transient. so what will you do, brother, when they decide to cage you, too? will you come quietly? will you trust their judgement? "

Clark holds back a scoff, his head tilting in annoyance. He could protest — the cape helps with aerodynamics, the slight silliness of his look keeps him approachable, his mother had made it for him... but he knows Tal is just trying to get a rise out of him. Something he's irritatingly good at.

"That's not..." It dies in his throat. There's a bit of truth to it. If he ever truly crosses a line, all the goodwill he's earned could be shattered in an instant. But isn't that true of everyone? Human and Kryptonian alike?