Hi Evie!
You did confirm it’s on the longer side of things. Well, now you got longer FDK, too… What goes around comes around.
This year would be different.
Fun start!
There was the year that her father had been caught indulging in decidedly non-Christmas related festivities with one of the triage nurses at the hospital holiday party.
Engaging in an Easter Egg hunt?
ELLEN: Wrong holiday.
LOIS: Looked like Valentines Day to me.
CLARK: Lois, will you be my Valentine?
The year after that had been closer to normal, replete with white snow from the blizzard that hit that year, but it seemed like her parents had left all the warmth of the season back in Hawaii. As Jack Frost nipped at their ice-covered windows, Ellen and Sam sniped at each other inside.
That entire paragraph
The dissolution of the Lanes’ marriage had still been a few years off from that snow-covered Christmas, but when it was eventually finalized, December 23rd had been the date on the paperwork.
Merry Christmas!
She’d never quite forgiven St. Nick for bringing her a second house for her dad to move into, instead of the new ice skates she’d asked for five years running.
Gold!
. Plus, the excuse of being assigned the holidays gave her good reason to make herself scarce around her own family, who seemed incapable of making merry.
Her colleagues are going to *hate* Clark and his unholy influence on the office worker bee.
No one else seemed to be saddled with her Christmas curse.
Hey, what if that’s actually a second curse?
The newsroom had provided her three years of peaceful, gentle drudgery.
Then Ralph was hired.
What a curveball
Her silent nights were unwillingly traded for holiday-themed, thinly-veiled innuendo.
Okay, I need to jot down “spitfire spunk in the stories” for the next GTA.
. His wholly inappropriate commentary about her ‘sugar plums’ made Lois retaliate by threatening her own personal version of the ‘nutcracker.’
Lois pulling Ralph during Secret Santa. She gifts him a wooden nutcracker.
and without Ralph’s crude interpretation of ‘ho-ho-ho.’
Which I assume is Ralph telling everyone what he wishes for himself at Christmas.
stalked by a vengeful creep she’d thought she’d sent to prison
KYLE:
I made the list?
She bought the plane tickets and a new bikini to match.
Three pieces of superman shields and some blue cord to tie it all together so Lois isn’t standing there in the altogether?
Glancing at the little clock on her stove, she realized that if she didn’t stop daydreaming, she wasn’t going to make it to the airport on time!
Oooooh
Crossing to her little home desk, she pulled her passport out of the top drawer and slid it into her purse.
Since you mentioned Kyle: Who checks their passport for correct information before going on a trip? What if the Prankster modified it? Getting her arrested in a banana republic?
The only decorations she’d see would be the little umbrellas in her tropical drinks.
I did expect this story to be a snowed in, fireplace Christmas tale when I thought Bakasi would be the author. Kind of like classic Christmas in the woods theme, you know? Anyway, I really hope that by now I would have reconsidered the author, Bakasi got a different style of story telling.
She wound her new wool scarf around her neck, an early Christmas gift from her partner,
Does it have a tracking device sewed in?
Santa Claus stood outside her door.
“Ho, ho, ho!” He said in a booming voice.
And that’s how Lois became Santa’s personal nutcracker.
“No, no, no,” said another voice down the hall. “You’re supposed to say, ‘You’re on the naughty list this year, Lois.’”
Griffin. You pulled a Chekov’s Gun.
A gasp rose in her throat.
That was a voice she recognized.
She slammed the door shut!
Wheeeeeeeeee!
But Santa was too quick, snaking an arm through her door before it could latch. He shouldered it open and threw the door wide again, sending her lurching backwards, trying to regain her balance as she tripped over her now underfoot suitcase.
/clears throat/
Help! Superman, HELP!
and opened her mouth to call for help.
How to end a story quickly.
“This year… all I want for Christmas is YOU, Lois Lane.”
Isn’t he romantic?
She had to force herself not to take a step backward. His words had a manically menacing quality to them, and she worried whether the return to jail had played havoc with his already disturbed mind.
They really should stop with the psychovolt therapy. Running 15 volts through the inmate’s brains isn’t adjusting their psyches the way the Arkham research suggested at first.
“So Victor and I hitched a ride on Santa’s sleigh, borrowed a suit, and decided to come wish YOU a merry little Christmas.” He stopped near her tiny tree, leaning toward her and affecting a wide grin. “Merry Christmas, Lois.”
Just promise you will never do Lex
“I SAID, ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS,’ LOIS,” he suddenly shouted, sweeping his
arm violently into her scrappy little tree and knocking it to the floor.
Eeep! You really capture his unstable psychotic behavior marvelously!
He’d definitely gotten more unhinged after this latest jail stint, brief as it was.
I told you, they should never have hired criminal psychiatrists Dr. Harleen Quinzel and Dr. Hugo Strange, no matter how recommended they came from Arkham Asylum.
“Now, what’s this? A suitcase! Well, we’ve got some holiday fun all ready for you, so you won’t be needing this anymore!” He reached forward and wrenched it from her hand.
Boy boy boy, you do a truly creepy Griffin.
And it was already too late to scurry off to Clark’s this time.
Awwww
The sinking feeling in her gut told her she’d never wear it in Tahiti now.
“Were you going to miss out on Christmas in Metropolis this year? We can’t have that.”
30 minutes. Perhaps less. That would have been all she had needed to avoid this.
Griffin pulled out a string of Christmas lights.
To tie her up with. Wrapped around like a Christmas tree!
She wasn’t as delighted as he was to be back.
I really shouldn’t quote every sentence.
The Metro Processing Plant looked like it was still under construction from the havoc he’d wreaked earlier that fall.
Metropolis criminals – we tear it down faster than you can rebuild!
But Griffin had decided to add a ludicrous insult to his hijacking of her vacation.
Did he have her dress up in the Tahiti bikini? He certainly was Lois’s most inappropriate suitor. Sure, Spencer Spencer suggested he make her an employee responsible for his personal satisfaction and Clark got her to be his concubine and Lex suggested companionship for survival, but Griffin always was the most lurid and inappropriate of them all. Might not even be possible to do this thing today without getting canceled.
He’d insisted that she change into the new bikini he’d fished out of her luggage.
See? On the plus side, she did not wake up in the bikini with no recollection how she got into it.
But Griffin’s goon had dragged her from her apartment before she could grab any other necessities.
Like shoes.
…Or pepper spray, she thought with malice.
also, I will decide to edit to ‘mace’ if that’s okay?
“Otherwise,” Griffin led him along, “…she’ll get away.”
you are doing marvelous Griffin. Yes, next time, I’ll look for the story with the most psychotic villain during the GTA.
Santa Victor was tying her up with Christmas lights.
As if they weren’t bad enough already.
She’d hate them with open ire after this.
when he turns them on, are they still the light bulb types, those that get hot when they burn?
Oh, no. That would have been too lucky for Lois Lane at Christmas-time. Instead, he’d wrapped them, mummy-like, with mere millimeters between rows.
Like a Christmas roast.
“What are you even after this time, Griffin?” she asked, following their formula.
She knew how this was supposed to go, even if this kidnapping did have an annoyingly unique holiday flavor. Get tied up, call the villain names, make them angry, entice their master plan out of them, call for Superman – or, better yet, take out the bad guys herself – foil the plan, write it up.
She got spunk!
“I don’t think you’ll like the way I prove it to you, Lois,” the Prankster said with a nasty smile.
Eeep!
“Do you know what went wrong on my last two forays into the criminal landscape of Metropolis?”
“Do you want a list?” she quipped back.
Eeep! She should be more circumspect. There’s some stories on the Archives about Lois ticking off psychotic villains that are not happy
. “And in all that time, you stayed right where you were when we met. Other women, they might have gotten married, bought a house, had a family.
This guy would make Lex’s naughty list.
She shook it off. She wasn’t exactly curing cancer, but she was making a difference.
She’s breeding superheroes. That’s important work!
“They did. I’m a Senior Reporter,” she scoffed,
Yes, she’s on top of Clark.
“And yet you’re still doing stories on me.”
Good press. People want to read about the lurid failures of others.
She could see his point and it irritated her. Writing up something so mundane as her own kidnapping wasn’t going to nab her a promotion or a Kerth
Kerth committee: Let’s see. Lane, Daily Planet, another story about her getting kidnapped by an international arms dealer. Next!
“Had any long-term relationships since we met, Lois?”
Superman. And Lex. Hell, she’d almost been long enough in a relationship to become a widow.
MINDY CHURCH:
“I heard about one. Of course, your relationship wasn’t as long as the afterlife you drove him to.”
That’s another way to put it.
“And then, of course, there are all the rumors about you and the Big Blue Wonder. Ever get inside those tights?”
Not yet. But give it another year and she’ll be wearing pink ones.
“You DID!” Griffin crowed. “Wow, I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen your face with my own eyes. He turned you down!”
He didn’t want Lex’s seconds.
What about that partner of yours?”
He’s into the blonde law and order type.
Convincing,” Griffin commented wryly. “But at least that explains why you’re not married and bouncing a kid on your knee in the suburbs by now, instead of chasing me.”
He does realize that she’s twenty-seven, doesn’t he?
And by the way, Lane, I’m not interested either.” He laughed.
Probably the only one good thing. Although, Victor had previously made his interest known.
“You’re kidding!”
The Prankster guffawed, obviously drawing his own conclusions.
“No family? You were going alone?”
His eyes lit.
Kind of funny!
She hadn’t been expecting the emotional assault he’d designed for her. It was unexpectedly mean and more well-researched than she’d have expected.
Griffin certainly was one of the more colorful miscreants on the show.
Everyone was always telling her that she had a big mouth. She used it.
She spat directly into his face.
And Clark was a good friend.
But then again… he’d been assigned to her, too.
The whole bit. It’s terrible. And very good.
“You know what your fatal flaw is, Griffin?”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that,” Griffith said in a merry tone, stuffing the Santa hat into her mouth.
Delicious prose
Cute, isn’t it?” He asked, seeing her stare. “I told you that I got you a present.”
And it goes tick tick boom!
The Prankster pointed at the clock’s face. “When the little hand reaches the twelve, my special gift for you will go ‘BOOM!’ And you’re going to crumble like a gingerbread cookie.”
How Christmasy! It will deck all the halls with
Holly Lois.
Victor followed, looking back at her with a sad, hesitant wave before skittering after Griffin.
Poor guy. He so wanted a pet Lois. Also, Griffin does the same stupid thing all the villains do – he comes up with an overly complicated and long-winded plan to kill his foe when a simple bullet would do. And thus, ensuring he fails.
Reaching forward with her toes, she pulled it directly under her and stuffed her bare, icicle-like feet into it.
Good thinking!
If she pulled them apart, she’d run the risk of electrocuting herself.
She abruptly stopped pulling.
She would get warmer.
She slipped back down, landing hard.
Blowing her hair out of her face, she reassessed.
Very vivid!
Looking at the Prankster’s clock, she calculated that she had just over three hours to escape, if Griffin hadn’t lied about the countdown.
He’s extremely cocky!
Besides that, there were a number of the little bulbs that had been trapped against her skin when Victor had tied her up. The lights had been on for nearly a half hour now and she could feel that they were getting really hot.
See? Which brings up, why did none break when she plopped back down on the bench, forcing her to sit on shards of Christmas lights?
Lois had spent her life sleuthing out the bad guys, fighting for the little guy and slamming her fists against the glass ceiling so hard that she didn’t even bother to wipe the blood off before sticking her already fractured hand into some other door that was rapidly closing in her face.
And where had it all gotten her?
A cold, empty warehouse on her least favorite holiday, insultingly tied up and effectively strapped to a bomb.
I did mention quoting too much before, didn’t I?
On Christmas Eve, the day when you were supposed to be with the people you loved most, she realized that she didn’t have anyone that loved her most.
Too be fair, she is with the person who loves her most.
LOIS:
Too soon?
How long would it take for them to notice she was missing?
I do wonder, do US electrical regulations prescribe a ground fault interrupt, because she could fairly safely cause a short circuit, even electrocute herself a bit without really risking her life. Especially in these circumstances.
Would Perry think she’d abandoned the Planet? Or would he know that something must have gone horribly wrong once she missed a deadline?
This is adorably sad!
She wanted someone there with her, someone who did love her.
Instinct took over.
“Clark!” she shouted into the night.
Awwwww
“Lois?”
Clark!
She opened her eyes.
Oh.
“Superman,” she breathed, surprised. Disappointed?
“There’s a bomb! It’s about to go off!”
“Where?”
“Here! I don’t know! In the building!”
The superhero looked around.
“I don’t…” He looked upward and then down before looking back at her. “I don’t think there is.”
Given it was just a second left, it had to be no bomb.
She’d been told that a bomb with her name on it was nearby and on a countdown.
Usually that meant that it would go ‘boom.’
yes, but her dying of hypothermia while getting spit roasted as she only focuses on the bomb in a bikini is much more effective.
There hadn’t ever not been a bomb before.
Then it sank in…
The Prankster.
“He lied! I can’t believe he would lie about that! What kind of sicko drags a girl into an abandoned, colder-than-snow building on Christmas Eve, ties her up, tells her he’s going to blow her up, and then doesn’t even bring a bomb?!”
well, he did blow up her Christmas plans. That counts for something, doesn’t it?
“Why don’t we get you out of those…” he paused, really looking at her now, “uh, Christmas lights.”
His eyebrows rose when the lights fell away, revealing her tropical bikini, but he didn’t stare and didn’t say anything.
Wow, the lights actually dressed her up modestly! She’s more dressed than if she’s wearing macrame. Hmm…No, with Queenie, it would be Clark wearing the macrame.
Thank goodness for small miracles.
If Clark were here, he’d be teasing her about it.
And she’d like it.
Actually, if Clark were here, he’d be blushing at her state of near undress, and that familiar tension would rise between them until he cracked a joke to dissolve it. Then the teasing would begin.
Awwwww
“They aren’t that bad,” she said dismissively, analyzing another red mark just above her hip, pointedly ignoring his proffered arm. “They feel like sunburn.”
She fell asleep beneath a tattered umbrella on a Tahiti beach.
Yes, but who’s gonna apply it to her?
Superman looked disturbed, and – was that anger flashing across his eyes? “Did he – What did he –”
The Pranksters Final Prank, it went too far and now Griffin is sitting in a cave in Antarctica, hoping Superman won’t find him.
Well, it was different.
It was worse.
“Of course,” he said. “I’d be happy to wait if you wanted me to take you somewhere else for the holiday after you stopped off at home. Your family?”
Tahiti.
And he wanted her to follow procedure.
She taught him, cops for proof, the story next, then a short nighty night.
So that they could start tracking down Griffin.
Well, she didn’t have the strength to fight right now.
He looked like he might argue, so she followed up with an attempt at humor. “That’s what Christmas is for, isn’t it?” It came out laced with bitterness instead of comedy.
/imagines Superman in a red suit kicking in Kyle’s door, shouting ho-ho-ho!
Besides, it had taken him three hours to get to her. If the bomb had been real, she’d be dead.
Sounds perfectly reasonable.
He tilted his head to gesture to her, brows furrowed. “You’re crying.”
“Oh.” She pulled a hand from beneath the cape to touch her face. Fresh tears were tracking down her cheeks.
Given where we are in the story, I’m thinking you needed Griffin just to mess Lois up so Superman could then take care of her.
GRIFFIN: You saying I’m a plot device?
LOIS: No, stupid, he’s saying that you’re a tool!
PERRY: Merry Christmas, people! This new reporter here comes highly recommended from our good friend Mr. Randolph Goode.
Until next year, she thought miserably. Then the curse would come for her again, and she’d be alone. Just like this year.
The Christmas Curse!
Between his reassurances and the rare display of affection he was offering her, she felt her breathing slow.
He slowly moved to her other cheek and gently kissed her there, too.
She’s not gonna establish the in-bed-with-Superman-at-Christmas tradition, is she?
And then he was kissing her.
Or was she kissing him?
Oh boy.
He held her gaze. “Merry Christmas, Lois.”
“Merry Christmas,” she returned. “Thank you for, well, for everything tonight,” she said unsteadily.
“I’m glad to be here,” he said, hugging her to him more securely. With a soft smile, he suggested, “Let’s get you home.”
Awwww… and the story’s not over yet! There’s an afterstory! And I did spy an epilogue, too!
enduring the Prankster’s perilous countdown, but also reliving his mental games that had effortlessly taken up real estate in her head.
He’s a brain squatter!
But while he’d soothed her panic of the night, the interaction hadn’t quite made up for the disappointments of Christmas past.
After all, he’d left right after that.
Yes, no super nookie!
trekked to the nearest precinct to make her report alone.
Poor dear!
LOIS: just hand me an LL/K-P, I’ll fill in the date and location and you can file it with the rest.
Once she’d passed the height, and the valley, she was just dropped back into her regular life again, no thrill, no warmth, no real way to contact him.
Yes, but if she would add dinner and nookie, she’d still get more date nights out of it than a regular married couple.
Great, she sighed. Now the holiday season had extended its bleak reach even to Superman.
And every inch of it was strung with Christmas lights.
Eeep! He’s baaa-ack!
It’s ‘The First Noel.’”
She turned to the familiar voice that spoke softly behind her.
Clark.
Of course.
Did she like it? ‘Yes’ seemed nowhere near enough when he’d somehow begun to repair a faith that had been broken since she was seven.
Awwww
He flew you back to Metropolis?”
Clark nodded slowly, with a half grin. “Something like that.”
Clark was in Smallville. Then Superman could be seen in Smallville. Then Superman flew back to Metropolis. And now Clark is in Metropolis. You do the math.
LOIS: Hmmm, three!
He leaned in, and she held her breath. Was he going to kiss her?
Oh my god, he was!
Before she had the chance to say – or impulsively do – anything, he glanced up with another disarming smile. “Mistletoe.”
She’d thought that mistletoe was dangerous before.
Clark was setting a new bar with the berry-hung menace.
yes, nothing is so dangerous as a welcome mistletoe.
Whipped cream and Clark sounds like a great Christmas tradition, her mind supplied wickedly.
She could even apply some chocolate sauce underneath.
Clark’s hand slid around her, coming to rest on her lower back – and causing another palpitation. She let herself lean in closer to him and followed as he led her down into the bullpen.
Awwwwwwww which makes me wonder if that is for Sara. She does like this interaction.
Was this what other people felt every year?
I might be repeating myself here… Awwwwwwww. Also, about the question: only Clark’s girlfriends.
“You don’t have any happy Christmas memories?”
“There was the year of the trucker’s strike. There was no one else here that year, and I got the byline. It was one of the first I ever had on my own.”
and also Awwwwwwww
I meant childhood memories,” he said.
Nope.
“Marley was dead: to begin with,” hadn’t struck her or her sister as the opening to a story they wanted to finish.
You went all out!
Every holiday memory she could come up with seemed to be tainted.
But Clark had asked. So she searched even further back in her memory banks.
Awwwwwww
And instead she’d only gotten a devastating analysis of her personality, a freezing flight home and the urge to reassess her relationship expectations with her pilot.
For that, she’s probably gonna gift Griffin her favorite nutcracker the next time he comes by.
She realized she couldn’t take one more wound this year, and she didn’t want to give Clark the chance to be the one to inadvertently inflict it.
Oh look, shiny new wall.
“Did you want me to?”
She sighed in response, eyes cast down. She didn’t, but it was too complicated for her to understand why.
Only complicated if you want it to be.
like earlier tonight, but things tended to come up to distract her.
Corrupt things.
Criminal things.
And often things in blue spandex tights.
Superman was around for the action, but she needed Clark to survive.
Awwww… so, Superman for the bedroom and Clark to keep the house and raise the kids?
It turned out that it was the man in the impossibly ugly, light-up reindeer tie,
You sneaked that in! Clark went with the over-christmassed theme of the newsroom.
Doesn’t count for the Kerth revelation category.
Last night, she’d been taunted by the Prankster as a physical embodiment of Christmas past, and pulled out of the year’s horrific Christmas present by Superman. Now, watching the expressions flitting across Clark’s eyes, she wondered if maybe he could be her Christmas future?
Nice foreshadowing with Dickens and now plopping it in. Wonderful craftsmanship
“—think of you as family already. They’d love it if you’d come.”
She’d even get a Clark in her room.
Lois ignored the selfish voice in her head telling her to quit resisting and to instead get this offer in writing.
Maybe by next year, Clark would be exclusively dating Mayson Drake, and the blonde harpy wouldn’t want Lois tagging along as a third wheel.
Only one way to prevent that.
LOIS: shock:
ER: /hands Lois bomb making materials/
LOIS: ohhhhh
And maybe the Kents would leave their mistletoe up through the new year, her mind whispered.
LOIS: Clark, why is there mistletoe above your bed?
CLARK: Mo-o-om!
Once she’d had the chance to experience that full force, she didn’t know where she’d be if she had to give it up.
She could simply set up camp at his place.
Was he just being kind? Or had he just subtly proposed, offering her a lifetime of family Christmases with him?
He’d told her outright that he wasn’t in love with her.
But nearly everything he did made her think she’d gotten that one crucial detail wrong somehow.
People lied, didn’t they?
But what were you supposed to do when the pool looked full when you checked it?
Sniff to see if it’s water?
She resorted to the tried and true Lois Lane method.
She jumped.
Those Christmas ficathon stories will be hard to top during the rest of the year!
“Let’s start another new tradition,” she said.
And she leaned forward and kissed him.
She’d forgotten what a good kisser Clark was, and he was doing an indecently admirable job of reminding her.
Oh, looky there, such a toasty fire.
Not wanting there to be any confusion later about whether this was just a friendly Christmas peck, she leaned her body closer to his and deepened the kiss.
CLARK: Wow, not even my dental hygienist back in Smallville does such a thorough job.
He made a low noise in the back of his throat and her toes curled. His hand came up to press against her cheek, and he guided her to tilt her head, taking advantage of the better access.
I hope Lois realizes that tradition demands they invite Griffin to their wedding.
For someone who behaved so innocently, his kiss was searing, sensuously indulgent, and thorough.
JIMMY: People work here!
Kissing for the first time without it being part of some sort of subterfuge was another revelation. She knew at that moment that she’d be spending the rest of this holiday in Smallville, and she’d follow him back there the next year and the next. She’d follow him through time and space if he asked.
When she finally pulled back, he was staring at her with a certain degree of awe.
Her nerves kicked in.
LOIS: Door. Yes, door. Slammy. BYE!
Say something, she thought.
“There’s no mistletoe,” he said finally, looking up as if to double check.
“I know,” she replied evenly, wondering if she was about to sustain an incurable injury at the bottom of an empty pool.
Yay for keeping the theme alive!
She held his gaze, feeling more vulnerable by the second.
She’d jumped. She needed him to decide whether he was going to catch her or not.
Awwwwww
“I love this tradition.”
He leaned forward and kissed her again, and she realized her toes hadn’t uncurled yet.
Something about his kiss was familiar though, just on the tip of her memory. Before she could identify it, he pulled back and rested his forehead on hers.
Like when she kissed one of her former suitors? Ummm… L… something or other. Oh yes, El. Kal-El!
“Does this mean you’ll come back to Kansas with me?” he asked earnestly.
She laughed softly and sat up to meet his eyes again. “If we can find flights, yes.”
Ahhhhhhhh
She’d let him surprise her, she decided. She hadn’t regretted following his lead yet.
You know, given how recently the whole shooting dead incident was, them arriving in Smallville with a ticked off Lois would be quite… funny.
MARTHA: So, Clark is on the couch again?
“Merry Christmas, Lois.”
“Merry Christmas, Clark” she replied, marveling that, against all odds, this Christmas really had turned out to be a merry one.
I keep repeating myself: awwwwww
He leaned in to kiss her again, and her last heady thought was that if this was Clark’s idea of a Christmas tradition, she couldn’t wait to see what he had in mind for New Year’s.
Give her fireworks?
Want:
-A really, really amazing kiss (like, first kisses and sweeping emotional ones are best)
-Some sort of revelation (doesn’t have to be THE revelation)
-Some sort of rescue
Don’t Want:
-Clones
-Dan or Mayson
-Pregnancy
Sadly I pre-checked so I can’t say if for certain if no-clones would have given it away, but it probably would have confirmed my guess of KSaraSara for the prompts.
You did a wonderful story, Evie! See you in the epilogue!
Darth Michael, what gave it away? Good guessing, though! I do love an em-dash. But I threw in those emoji snowflake section separators just for you, to give you one less clue that would align.
Yes, those separators were evil. And something that stumped me from guessing you since I had no idea just how deep you already waded into the whole Guess the Author genre. And I didn't even outline the whole guessing strategy when the story was posted. As to what narrowed it down originally: I'm sorry to say it was exclusion principle to the last. You did hide most of the easy-to-spot typographical stuff. I did manage to jot down some stylistic idiosyncrasies for next time
Michael