A (Super) Brief Paws in the Heroic Life of Clark Kent
by Deja Vu

Summary: During TOGOM, Clark is in for a short but hairy (or rather, furry) adventure.
Rating: No language, hints at violence, some hints at sensuality.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Lois and Clark.
Characters: Lois, Clark, and others.
Author’s Note: First off, if you read this story, you’ll definitely need to suspend your disbelief. That said, the story is a mixture of the unserious and the serious, and I try to make it as “likely” as I can (which isn’t to say it ever seems completely likely). Secondly, I am shamelessly ripping off my own basic formula for this story (I began a “Brief Paws” series with Star Wars fanfics, of which I have done three). Thirdly, my approach to the tree-kangaroo I mention was inspired by a real kangaroo called the Bondegezou (or Dingiso) .
Author’s Thanks: Thanks to Kitt for her encouragement and suggestions. And many many thanks to Corrina for her beta reading! She encouraged me to extend the story, and I think doing that helped bring it to a WAFFy conclusion!

****

Dead.

Clark Kent was dead.

Dead as a doornail. Dead as iron . . . . Dead as steel.

He chuckled bitterly to himself. Well—that wasn’t entirely true. The steel part of him was still alive.

But it didn’t matter. Not really. Life as he had known it was over. From here on out, it was “do not pass go, do not collect two hundred million kisses from Lois Lane.”

Still, he couldn’t regret what he had done, even if he regretted what had happened as a result of his actions. He would have given up his life for her in a heartbeat. He didn’t regret trying to protect her from scum like Dillinger.

The only question was . . . what now?

What was he going to do now that Clark Kent had ceased to exist?

After he helped put Al Capone and his gang behind bars, he could move Superman to another continent and make up a new identity there. But nothing would ever be normal again. Not now that Lois Lane had been taken from his life.

Oh, he could still see her if he really wanted to. She had always seemed more than willing to talk to his superhero persona. But it wouldn’t be the same. Superman didn’t tag along as Lois picked locks and snooped through files . . . or go on long stakeouts with her and argue whether or not “chumpy” was a real word.

Things could never be the same between them ever again. The word “despair” couldn’t begin to cover how he was feeling.

He hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye to Lois. It had all happened so quickly. He hadn’t been given any time to think.

And now he was sitting in his apartment with the lights off, trying to think of his future and what country he should go to next . . . but really only able to think of Lois Lane and that wretched look that had been on her face when she had seen her partner die to the world.

He would have to leave Metropolis. Clark Kent was dead, and he couldn’t stand to be around her only as Superman. Every time he saw her, it would be a reminder of what he had lost.

On impulse, he stood up and walked over to a box on the shelf. While visiting New Guinea, he had visited a tribe and saved the life of the chieftain’s son. As thanks, the chieftain had insisted on giving Clark a wooden talisman that he said had mystical powers.

He opened the box and looked down at it. The talisman was made into the shape of a tree-kangaroo the tribe had appeared to view as an ancestor, and the small outlines of different animals had been carefully carved on the kangaroo’s wooden body. He slowly picked it up, clenching it in his hand like a lifeline. He closed his eyes and thought of Lois. She must have been hurting. This wasn’t just hard on him. It was also hard on her.
He wished he could have said goodbye to her. He wished he could go to her and comfort her. He wished he could be with her. He hated that she was hurting because of him . . . .

Hated that she was grieving his death when he wasn’t dead at all.

As he stood there with his eyes closed in the darkness and his hand clenched around the talisman, he felt something strange. It was like a shifting or a stretching or a compressing. It felt as if time and space were suddenly colliding together in an incomprehensible way, pulling him through the blackness and transporting him to something . . . different.

He clenched his eyes tighter as the strange sensation grew, reaching greater heights until he thought he might cry out. And then suddenly, it stopped.

Panting, he inhaled deeply, and then he opened his eyes.

He was on the floor of an unfamiliar place. As he lifted his head and looked around, he amended that thought. No, it wasn’t that the place was unfamiliar. It was just that he hadn’t been laid out on the floor there before. Somehow, he had made it to the hallway of Lois’s apartment building. And up above him was the golden “105” that signified Lois’s apartment number.

Clark looked left and then right, baffled as to how exactly he had ended up there. Had that wooden talisman done this to him? And why?

He looked down to his hands, mystified as to why there were black sticks beneath him. Then his jaw dropped.

Those black things beneath him were not sticks or hands . . . . They were paws.

In a panic, he twisted his head around, only to find exactly what he had feared: a tail.

What was going on?!

He spun around, trying to capture that tail in hopes that it didn’t belong to him, but he had no such luck. When he moved, so did it.

And then, not knowing what else to do, he sat down on his doggy haunches and actually howled in despair.

****

Lois Lane was inside her apartment binging on chocolate ice cream. She was about halfway through the tub and showing no signs of stopping.

After she had left what was formerly Georgie Hairdo’s club, she had come home in a daze and immediately gone to her stash of chocolate bars. Amid broken sobs, she had begun to eat the chocolate bar by bar. When that supply of chocolate had been depleted, she had pulled the ice cream out of the refrigerator. But all the sweets in the world couldn’t comfort her even an iota. They couldn’t change the fact that her partner was dead.

At some point during her sugar-seeking craze, she managed to put the phone off the hook and turn off her beeper. She didn’t want contact with anybody. The only person in the world she wanted to see right then was the one person she could never see again.

How could he have died? Why had he tried to protect her like that? If the gangsters had taken her away, she could have escaped from them. But instead, Clark had tried to keep her from getting hurt. He had given his life for her.

The scene had played in her head a thousand times. If only she’d done this . . . If only that had happened instead . . . If only Clark wasn’t dead.

She flung her spoon to the floor. It wasn’t fair! Clark Kent had been the nicest man on the face of the planet. Why had he had to die?

She was closing her eyes, about to let out a frustrated sob, when a howling sound came from outside her door. She froze, utterly confused as to why there would be such a noise in the first place, much less at this early hour. And then she rose shakily to her feet, wondering if she was about to see a ghost. She set her tub of ice cream on the counter and tightened her robe, and then she slowly unlocked her door. As she cracked it open, her eyes fell to the floor. Sitting there was a black Labrador that looked just as confused as she felt.

“What are you doing?” she wondered aloud as she stared down at it in puzzlement.

****

Clark hadn’t meant to let the noise escape him—but he had been feeling all out of sorts (admittedly, with good reason), and the sound had just come out. So when Lois heard him and opened the door and asked him a question, he didn’t know what to do.

His first instinct was to turn tail—literally—and run. His second instinct was to remain seated. Even in the body of a dog (no! he couldn’t really be in a dog’s body, could he?), he could tell that Lois had been crying. And that was enough to anchor him where he was.

He stared up at her sadly, his heart aching for her. Then he tilted his head and opened his mouth. But all that came out was a whimper.

“I don’t like dogs,” Lois said in a small voice as she wiped her still-wet eyes. “They shed. And besides, this apartment building doesn’t let anyone have dogs. So, go away.” She moved her arms in a shooing motion, though there wasn’t much effort put into the movement.

Clark stayed right where he was. He may not have been able to say anything to her in the body of a dog, but there was a chance he could comfort her nevertheless. He got to all four of his feet and gave a hopeful look into her apartment. Then, for good measure, he let out another whimper.

“I’m not letting you in,” she told him. But he could tell she was close to giving in, and he let loose one more whine. “Fine,” she sighed. “But only for a little while.”

Glad that was out of the way, he trotted past her into the room. Still, his ears perked up when he heard her mutter, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

She shut the door and locked it, and the noise somehow reminded him of just how strange a predicament he was in. What in the world was he going to do? Somehow, he didn't think biting down on a pencil and laboriously writing out “Sorry, Lois, I’m not dead. I just got reincarnated into the body of a dog. Love, Clark” was going to be his best option.

Why had this happened to him? Was this development permanent? Was he going to literally become Lois’s lapdog?

One step at a time, he told himself. You’ll figure something out.

At least, he hoped he would be able to figure something out.

His eyes moved to the spoon on the floor and then up to the counter where an open tub of ice cream sat. He felt a stab of guilt. He’d done this to her.

He turned his head up toward her and felt his long ears flop. She was looking at him with a puzzled expression, and then she walked over and placed a hand on his back and started to bend over. “Are you a boy or a girl?” she was saying, and he let out a yelp and scurried off to hide in the kitchen.

But he didn’t make it before she determined, “A boy, I see.”

Clark felt utterly abashed. Lois Lane had just checked him out—only it wasn’t his body, it was the body of a dog, and he thought he was going to die of embarrassment. Had that really just happened? He pressed his fur-covered forehead against the ground. This was something else he had not planned for. His fantasies of being violated by Lois Lane had gone nothing like this.

“What are you doing?” she asked him, and he couldn’t have answered even if he’d been in the body of a dog who could actually talk.

****

Lois stared at the strange creature in her apartment.

The dog was acting really oddly. She wasn’t sure why he was touching his forehead to her kitchen floor, and she was beginning to wonder if she’d brought in a stray with a few screws loose. But when she had asked him what he was doing for the second time, he had slowly brought his head up and looked at her with dark brown eyes, and a chill had traveled down her spine. There was something about those eyes . . . something almost . . . human.

She looked away from him, feeling uncomfortable. “Maybe you should go,” she said softly, but he let out a whine like he knew what she was saying, and she found her gaze drawn back to him. What was it about this dog? Why had she let him inside in the first place? She’d never even liked dogs. And he was probably shedding all over her floor even now.

Lois sat down on the couch, and the dog came over and stood in front of her. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said he looked concerned. But that was ridiculous.

They sat there in utter silence for what seemed like forever. Though she wanted to bring her thoughts back to the death of her partner, there was something about that dog which held her to the spot. He looked like he wanted something from her, but what that could be, she had no idea.

Finally, she jumped up, deciding she would stall for some time to think. “I feel grimy. I’m going to take a shower, all right? Will you be fine by yourself?” She paused, as if waiting for an answer, and then she shook her head. “You’re going crazy, Lois,” she muttered. “Like a dog is going to answer you back.”

****

Clark watched as Lois left the room looking frazzled. Great. Just great. He’d scared her off.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to act like a dog. That was definitely not a skill set he’d picked up on his travels.

Exhaling, he lifted a paw and stared at it, trying to wiggle his toes without much success. He was still in shock as to how exactly this had happened. If he’d known that was really a magical talisman, he would have never touched it. This was ridiculous.

But as he began to think about it more, he realized that he had been given a chance. Here was the opportunity to comfort Lois. Superman didn’t make a good figure for that sort of thing, but a dog . . . A dog was perfect.

Filled with new purpose, he gave a brief nod of his head to himself. It was settled, then. He was going to try to be a good—if furry—friend to Lois.

Now, he just had to occupy himself until she returned . . . .

He looked around. He couldn’t exactly pick up a book and read it. So, what was he going to do?

Feeling like a snoop but unable to stave off his curiosity, he padded quietly into Lois’s bedroom and sat down in the doorway. This was a place that was generally off-limits to him, so he hadn’t really been able to give it a long look. The room was pleasant enough, but it lacked a certain something . . . . It didn’t really feel like home.

He took several steps forward, looking around. His gaze moved upward, and he saw the black-and-white bear he had won for Lois in Smallville up on her dresser by a pile of laundry. His heart began to throb anew, and he left the room in sorrow. He wouldn’t be able to win her any more stuffed animals.

Something came to him in the air, and he began to sniff. His canine nose appeared to be just as strong as his superhuman one had been. He licked his lips—well, his jowls, or whatever it was dogs had. It couldn’t hurt to get a little food, could it? Lois usually kept on hand a supply of Twinkies and Dingdongs for him, knowing his penchant for junk food. Chocolate was bad for dogs, so he needed to lay off the latter, but surely a Twinkie or two couldn’t hurt him?

But as he walked into the kitchen, he realized there was a problem. How was he going to get to the Twinkies?

As a human, all he had to do was reach up and grab them. Unfortunately, right now he lacked both height and opposable thumbs.

Glancing around, he spotted a wooden chair that he should be able to move without any difficulty. But after trying to push it across the floor with a front leg, he gritted his teeth briefly and then clamped his jaw around a chair leg. This was ridiculous. Surely no Twinkie was worth this.

He brought the chair forward, trying not to think about the fact that the chair leg his mouth was currently enveloping. Finally, he was done dragging it. After thinking for a second, he crouched down and then leaped up into the chair.

Clark opened his mouth in a canine grin, but he closed it when he heard something thumping. Turning his head, he realized his tail had been hitting the chair, and he swallowed. He had not just wagged his tail . . . had he?

He cocked his head and listened to the sound of running water. Lois was still in the shower. That was good. He still had some time.

He turned his gaze toward the kitchen counter. Another crouch and leap later, and he had made it up onto the countertop. He carefully sat up, bracing a leg against a cabinet close to the one that was his goal. Then he reluctantly bit down on the Twinkie-containing cabinet door’s handle. He pulled, and—

—the cabinet door went flying across the room and crashed into a lamp.

Clark cowered down in mortification, the words “Uh oh” shooting through his head like thunder. This wasn’t good.

He hadn’t realized that he still had his super powers. He’d thought the super sniffer and the super hearing had all been a result of his being in dog form. It was hard enough to have special abilities in a body he was comfortable with—how in the world he was going to handle them as a dog was beyond him . . . .

He swallowed, his eyes moving to the unopened box of Twinkies. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound . . .

He reached out a paw and knocked the Twinkies box to the ground. Then, he carefully hovered down off the countertop and on to the ground.

This Twinkie had better be worth it, he thought to himself.

And then he realized he had another problem. How was he supposed to open the box?

He tried pawing at it, attempting to get a claw beneath the top of the flap on the side, but it was no use. His paws were too clunky for this. It looked like it was back to using the teeth again.

Clark pressed a paw against the box to hold it down, and he began gnawing at the side of the box. This was humiliating, but he really wanted that darn Twinkie!

Finally, there was a pile of bits of the box beside him, and he could reach a paw inside and bring out a Twinkie. Now, he had to figure out how to open the wrapper . . . .

****

Lois had hoped the hot water would make her feel better, but it didn’t. She just kept thinking about Clark.

He had meant so much to her. Just by bringing her coffee in the morning, he could brighten her day. There was no one in the world like him.

Amid the roaring of a gangster’s gun, she had lost her partner and best friend . . . and someone who could have been even more.

As she thought of him lying there—of the residual warmth of his body against her body—her chest constricted. He had died without ever knowing how she had felt about him. After the Lex Luthor fiasco, she had been about to reveal her feelings to him, but then he had retracted his declaration, and she had left the words unsaid.

But she had loved him. She really had. And she still did. Somehow, she knew she always would.

There was something special about him. His kindness and honesty had marked him as different from the very beginning. He really had been the world’s last Boy Scout.

She began to cry again as she rubbed her loofah across her arms, and the water washed her bitter tears down the drain. But they kept coming, and she pounded a feeble fist against the shower, the loofah showering the wall in a fountain of soap. He couldn’t really be gone!

A sudden crashing noise from the other room came to her ears, and she froze. What was that dog getting in to?

She quickly finished cleaning herself off, and she stepped out of the shower and into a robe. After wringing out her hair, she hurried outside the bathroom.

She found the dog in front of a box of Twinkies, his snout utterly covered in cream. A doorless cabinet revealed the clue of what had made that loud sound.

On seeing her, the dog licked his chops and stared at her.