Ah, the alliteration! I'm not sure if there is any protocol before you post stories, but I haven't seen any official guidelines, so I'm assuming I can just stick this up here. Fair warning, it hasn't been beta'ed. This takes place shortly after Clark breaks up with Lois "for her own good." I haven't really seen many LnC episodes since the series first aired (I was in elementary school then...) so my chronology isn't the best.
Okay, so here we go. Be gentle.
Found
He stood at the door dripping wet, with tiny rivulets of water running down from the curl plastered to his forhead and ending under his chin, where they clung in halved pearls. She knew he couldn't feel the cold, but she shivered involuntarily anyway.
"I shouldn't have come," he whispered, but he didn't move.
Something bad had happened. She didn't need to turn on the news or hear from a source to know it. His eyes reflected tragedy in their depths--Lois had seen that look before, both from Clark and Superman. Two facades for the same soul which was now outside her door.
She grabbed his coat sleeves and pulled him inside, shutting the door behind him. She didn't speak as she undid the buttons of his coat, even though she could feel his eyes bearing down on her. The same eyes that had looked right into hers and told her they couldn't be together. That he was breaking up with her for her own good, whatever she might think on the matter.
Well, his eyes didn't have the same resolve now that they had then. Today, they looked broken.
She slid the coat from his shoulders and placed it on a hook. She grabbed his hands--they felt like ice!--and led him to the couch, sitting beside where she guided him down. Clark followed numbly, his eyes on her the only sign of life in his rigid body. Then she leaned back, pulling his head against her chest, and his body moved: in one breath, all the strain fled his muscles and he went limp against her, sobbing into her neck. Lois threaded her fingers through his hair, pulling the moisture from it as she drew strands out between her fingers rhythmically.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
His arms squeezed her on either side and she felt him shake his head. She nodded and continued her minstrations, one hand in his hair and the other running along his back. His shirt was dry, but beneath it his suit was still damp and it clung to the shirt where she pressed them together.
"Let's take this off." She reached under his collar and fingered the spandex.
He followed her lead as she stood him up and when she began unhooking his buttons, he reached up and pulled at the sides of his shirt, releasing all of them in one motion. Lois quirked an eyebrow. I guess he does that a lot. She untucked the shirt, eased it off his shoulders, and let it fall to the floor. She saw the fine details of his muscles, colored in blue, and watched as they suddenly bunched. She looked up and saw he was looking in the mirror that hung behind her couch, seeing himself clad in the red 'S'.
She moved so that she was in the frame of the mirror too. I have to make him understand. He needs to see how he needs me, how I need him. She raised her hands to his face and he turned to her, but she pointed him back towards the mirror. He watched their reflections as she pulled the glasses from his nose and set them on the couch. He tried to turn away from the image of himself, the superhero, but again she guided his head back with a gentle hand to his cheek. Wait. Watch.
His cape was already gone--did he wear that under his clothes normally too?--so she reached around his neck and felt for the suit's zipper. It came down with a faint buzz, then she peeled the suit down across his front, revealing first his hard shoulders, then the smooth expanse of his chest. He helped her pull off the sleeves, then ceremoniously, she let the garment fall to hang about his waist. They regarded him in the mirror for a moment before she raised her mouth to his ear, her eyes never leaving his reflection. "There you are. I've found you."
