M’darling Smirkster,
Sorry for the very, very belated FDK! I was a bit preoccupied with my own fic. I’m now offically in the First Time Fic-Posters club, right along with you! *shakes hand* Do I get a button?
This was an adorable chapter! I was so afraid that Clark wouldn’t be able to keep their date! Glad that turned out well.
You know, I love your little details:
it was almost ten o’clock, by the glimpse he had caught of a rushing businessman’s wristwatch as the man had struggled down below with an uncooperative umbrella.
(Cause he’s got t-e-l-e-s-c-o-p-i-c vision!)
she could have sworn she saw him bite his lip, if only for a second as he ran a hand through his sopping hair.
Classic Clark maneuver! Figure it out, Lois!
And your way of color-coding emotions, sounds and scents. The scent of rain is blue, and exhaustion is grey.
And your imagery:
Lois reached over and picked up a towel from where it was sitting neatly folded on her coffee table and held it forward, as if trying to lure a little animal inside.
It’s like Superman is some wary, exotic bird with a hurt wing. Adorable!
Clark was marveling at the power of that glow again, and took a moment to come up with an answer. “I’m glad,” he said softly. “I’ve missed you.”
And he had, and not only because he had gone to Smallville for those days. No—even seeing her at work, spending all those hours with her on the case—it just wasn’t the same. He missed seeing her—a side of herself that she didn’t allow Clark Kent to see.
There was a moment of silence save for the stead, and then Superman closed his eyes.
“Oh my gosh.”
Lois swallowed her first bite so quickly she almost choked on it. “What is it?” she demanded, sitting up straight and putting down her spoon.
Kal-El opened his eyes at her sharp reaction, and gave an embarrassed smile. “Nothing. It’s just . . . this cake . . . ” He took another bite slowly, closing his eyes again as he positively savored it. “It’s the best thing I’ve tasted for days.”
His slow delight was bewitching, and Lois cleared her throat and took a bite of her own to distract herself. “And I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what you’ve eaten during the past few days, hm?”
Clark looked up at her and suddenly even the richness of the cheesecake was forgotten. Blushing slightly, he took another bite, but didn’t look away from her. Lois opened her eyes and caught him staring, they looked at each other for a minute, the awkwardness palpable. Clark swallowed his last bite, and an awkward grin struggled at the corner of his lip as Lois’s eyes glittered with unhidden mirth. At the same time, each of them gave a stifled laugh, then looked at each other in surprise, and Lois began to snicker.
It was ridiculous. There was nothing funny, but something was hilarious. Clark couldn’t help himself, and a grin grew on his face as he felt a chuckle rising in his chest, and before they knew it the cheesecake was forgotten as they were bent over in downright, open hilarity.
Anyone watching might have thought them both gone mad, for there was absolutely no cause for their mirth, but for the next five minutes every time either of them started to settle down, either Lois would begin snickering madly or Superman’s chin would start shaking from his failing attempts to regain a serious expression and it would start all over again.
Superman put down his fork, stopping himself from further decimating the remnants of the cheesecake on his plate, which was now just a pile of crumbs and mush. “Lois . . . I don’t think you know me as well as you think you do,” he said, not looking at her
Lois bristled at that, sitting up straight. “Don’t you dare!” she hissed, suddenly stiff and fiery as an angry cat. “Don’t you dare start that now, Kal-El!”
Clark was completely taken off guard by the sudden defensiveness of Lois’s tone and posture. “What?”
“Don’t feed me that hogwash of ‘we can’t be friends because it’s not safe.’ We’ve been over this. I don’t know if you realize it, but Lex’s interest with me has nothing to do with you. I won’t be any less in danger if you take off and move to China. So don’t you dare do what you did to Clark and try to leave me for my own good! I’m a grown woman and can make those kinds of decisions for myself!” she said, her voice taking on a slightly frantic tone.
“Oh, you didn’t,” Clark said, chuckling as she came back to sit on the couch beside him.
“You said you liked it,” Lois defended herself, drawing her legs up onto the couch and leaning against him. She rested her head on his shoulder.
“I do love it,” Clark said, but he wasn’t looking at the television screen.
The opening notes of The Scarlet Pimpernel started the movie. They watched in silence, their fingers intertwined and Clark’s head resting lightly atop hers. The tale progressed, and the two watchers’ eyes slid slowly closed, until both unknowingly slipped into the oblivion of peaceful sleep as the rain beat a steady and peaceful rhythm outside of the quiet apartment.
Early writers and directors insisted that Superman was the real man and Clark was just the façade. Modern takes on the story insists he was a regular guy who had a flare for spandex. Yours is the first instance where I have seen a story that doesn’t try to separate the two personas, preferring instead to focus on how the man was very much an amalgamation of two very real and valid personalities.
In the instances above, between Superman and Lois Lane, Superman seems to usurp Clark’s role in the dynamic we would come to expect of them later on in the series. While this is not special in itself, the deviating factor from the common fanfic fantasy is that Lois is sharing such a relationship with a man she still understands as alien, calls him by his alien name and still accepts him as human. She embraces his alien roots, human core and superhero burdens as wholly and completely as I’ve ever seen in any of their incarnations, thereby validating the existence of one whole man, without sweeping aside either of his alter egos.
I wonder whether this is a reflection of the thinking of our generation. In early decades, people needed to believe in absolutes. A person was either a god or a man. Either inherently good or evil. In contemporary years, the demand for super men has given way to a new appreciation for the ordinary man on the street, who could have girlfriend troubles and overdue taxes and still have the power to make a difference. The idea of a person as a multi-faceted individual of no absolutes, where the divine and the human could merge into a harmonious whole seems to be what will shape the thinking of our own generation.
*Looks around* *sees everyone staring* *scrambles off soapbox hurriedly*
Btw, you say tom-ah-to, I say tom-ay-to. You say “pure fluffy WAFF”; I say “rip-your- heart-out –and- pound –it- with -a -three-inch-stiletto”:
“Lois,” he said. “I . . . I can’t help but think that . . . part of the reason why . . . Bureau 39 . . . ” He swallowed, clasping his hands under the table to hide his slight shaking, but even as he paused to compose himself Lois’s hand slipped on top of his. He flinched at first, not wanting her to feel his fear, but her small hand intertwined with one of his and didn’t let him go. “I . . . I think that if the people know . . . more about me then maybe . . .”—Lois’s hand tightened on his, feeling his fear in the reflection of her own—“. . . Maybe they won’t . . . be afraid.”
Lois’s frowned and her hand went slightly stiff in his, though she still didn’t pull away. Instead, she moved over to open the fridge, actually dragging him forward a couple steps so she could open it and reach inside. “I missed you too,” she said, but she didn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry for leaving you, Lois. I’m sorry you worried.”
Lois pulled a box out of the fridge and set it on the counter before reaching in and pulling out a carton of milk. “I know you are. But you must have realized I would worry no matter what kind of note you left. And I realize you thought it wasn’t safe at my apartment. It turns out you were right.” She looked back at him as she pried open the box to show a full-sized, heavenly-looking raspberry cheesecake. She pulled a knife out of a drawer beneath the counter and began trying to cut it with one hand. “You knew Luthor was responsible for Bureau 39 all along, didn’t you?”
Clark winced as the cake slipped as Lois tried to cut it. He gently pulled his hand from hers. “I think it might work better if you used both hands, Lois,” he said. “I’d rather not have to fly you to the hospital tonight.”
Lois shrugged it off, but obeyed in using one hand to hold the box as she cut. “But you didn’t answer the question.”
I nearly cried at the way she was terrified to let go of his hand, as though she were a little girl afraid of being abandoned again.
Random comments:
I take it from this passage that you’re going to diss the whole “Lord Kal El of the House of El” and New Krypton deal, in favour of the original back story?
“I was the only child,” he said. “My father was a scientist, who predicted the destruction of the planet but . . . the council didn’t listen. Jor-El sent me away against their orders. I’m . . . all that’s left.”
One of the horrible answers he had received. He was all that was left, except for a side note which Jor-El had dropped about some criminals being held in some alternate dimension called the Phantom Zone, but Clark hadn’t really understood, and had changed the direction of the conversation when his biological father had began a long and completely confusing explanation of it.
This is a bit of Smallville I could have done without. I hate the sixth season as much I loved the fifth. The recent Lexana wedding episode was about the icing on the cake. *pulls out barf bag*
Wasn’t that enough to show that Earth was more of a home to him than Krypton could ever be? That he was more of an . . . an Earthonian, or whatever, than anything?
Basically sums up what I spent three paragraphs trying to say above. The ultimate amalgamation between Terran and Kryptonian. Neither of earth nor a child of the stars, but very much belonging to the best of both worlds.
Lois blinked and flushed dark. “Oh! No, I didn’t mean anything like that. Just, you know—height, weight, favorite spandex brand, you know,” she said hastily.
Clark’s eyebrows shot up. “Spandex brand?”
“You know what I mean!” Lois said, smacking him on the shoulder, but it wouldn’t have hurt him even if he wasn’t invulnerable. “Just—normal stuff—what you like, whatever.”
“Spandex brand,” Clark repeated.
“Would you lay off it? You know what I meant.”
Clark just shook his head and pushed his hair from his eyes. His spit curl fell over his forehead perfectly. “Okay. But . . . I can’t reveal the spandex brand. That’s . . . too personal,” he finished somberly.
Another SuperClark moment! I love this soo much.
Much as I’m enjoying all this, Smirkster, I think it’s time for a little something, now. Ten letters. Starts with an R. Ends with an N. Has E-V-E-L-A-T-I-O in between. Guess what it is?
Don’t take too long!
Hasini.
