The Kiss Off
By CC Aiken and Erin Klingler
Fundraiser Fic, 2005
from part 4:
She looked at him then. And she let herself see him. See everything she had been afraid to see. Everything she had never allowed herself to see...for so many reasons. He was here with her, unavailable to anyone else. He'd told her so. And once more he had put himself on the line for her. The very least she could do was...open her eyes. And stop lying. To herself. To him. To the entire world.
"I picked wrong," she said slowly, carefully, not letting their mouths separate, but trying to speak clearly. "I want the grey sedan."
His lips grew still and his hands froze in their ministrations. "Huh?" Then he moaned, letting out a rush of air. "For crying out loud, Loisss!"
He'd said it with enough volume that the judge started towards them. She pressed herself more firmly against Clark, watching his approach in her peripheral vision.
Clark kissed her in a convincing show of renewed energy, but his one eye was glaring at her.
When the judge had cleared them, moving away with a warning to be careful, Clark spoke once more, the words rumbling up from deep within his chest. "Isn't there a rule against switching?"
She nodded slightly, eyes dancing. "We're going to have to break it."
~*~*~*~*~
Now on to part 5...
"That's lunch!" announced the dealer. "Great show, folks. You have a half hour."
Clark heard Lois's stifled groan as she straightened. She was moving gingerly, despite the fact that getting down was easier--now that the bumper was absent a person.
The other couple, the non-pierced one, had been eliminated when it had become apparent the male half of the team was sleeping. Evidently that was against the rules, and his loud snores had given them away. His exasperated wife hadn't bothered to wake him. Instead, she had abandoned him there, head propped up against the hood ornament.
Bleary-eyed and confused, he woke as Lois slid past him. "Is it over? Where's Selma?"
"Probably home by now," answered Pierced Girl, who Clark knew as Stacey, since he'd actually asked her. "And I hope for her sake you're more exciting when the two of you are alone. Otherwise, I predict a really unsatisfying future for poor Selma..."
Clark took Lois by the elbow and moved her away from their less-than-happy group. "How's your back?"
"Stiff after being still for so long," she admitted, grimacing. She did a few stretches, putting her hands on her hips and turning slowly side to side, taking in the room as she did so. She brightened. "There are definitely fewer of us here."
"It wasn't just Selma who walked out," Clark agreed, smiling widely. "Another mini-van couple gave up. He said he was missing the game, and this was pointless anyway, and why on earth did she even think they needed a mini-van when he had no intention of marrying her? I think they broke up mid-kiss."
Her mouth dropped open. "Which couple? When was this? How did I miss it!"
"You didn't hear them," he said, more to himself than to her. And of course she hadn't. Stupid, Kent. "I...they...were practically arguing from the very beginning, so..."
"You certainly seem to stay aware of things," Lois said. And he eyed her carefully, to see if it was an accusation, or...if she thought he was Superman or something. But she continued to look at their competition. At everyone but him. "You aren't exactly lost in the moment, are you? I guess this is fairly dull for you. I mean, the scenery never changes." She laughed weakly.
"No, Lois." Now she was looking. And while the silence between them wasn't exactly comfortable, it felt different. Potent. Full of possibility, for disaster or for wonder or, knowing them, for both. "Believe me, this could never be dull. Not with you."
There. He'd said that much. And he was better at quiet than she was, so if he didn't rush it, maybe he'd get something back. A clue.
"Oh," she said.
He nodded encouragingly.
"Well..."
He raised his eyebrows and smiled invitingly.
"I'm glad," she finished, but only after she had clearly filtered through her inner thesaurus of things it was safe for her to be in light of his remark.
"And?" he prompted. He didn't want to bring up Elaine and the muffins, Lois's obvious jealousy, or her mysterious tears afterwards. But he really, really wanted her to do it.
"Annnnd," she responded, "I have to hit the ladies' room."
He barely stopped himself from saying, 'Again?'
She looked chagrined. "I never actually got in there last time."
Well, if it was avoidance, at least it came with a good reason. "I remember. The line was long."
"Um...right. That's why. The line was just...too long."
"So..." He took a few steps back and pointed towards the tables being set up in the middle of the room. "Lunch is being catered by Barney's Fish and Squish Emporium. Should I get us a couple of plates and find us a seat?"
"Great. Perfect." She was already half-turned, headed towards the restroom.
"And then we have to talk, Lois." He raised his voice, drawing her back. "This thing that you're planning--it's never going to work."
Lois turned and paled. He saw her open her mouth to respond, but before she could, a flash went off near them, causing them both to jump. Clark looked over to see Jimmy standing nearby, grinning at them as he lowered his camera from his face.
"Jimmy!" Lois growled, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him.
This hadn't been the first time Jimmy had taken a picture of them, Clark knew. He'd been doing it all morning--snapping pictures of them kissing on the Cherokee...of Lois and Clark talking during breaks.... He'd always been there, lurking, waiting for the perfect, humiliating shot.
Lois's voice drew his attention back to her in time to see her taking a threatening step toward Jimmy. "I swear to you," she hissed, "if you take one more picture, I'm going to break your camera."
Jimmy let the strapped camera fall against his chest and he raised his hands in surrender. "Just recording every piece of the event," he said, still smiling. But he seemed to sense Lois was reaching her boiling point, and he had the good sense to back up and disappear into the crowd.
Lois shook her head and frowned, then turned back to Clark, her gaze anxious. "So, back to what you were saying.... How can you know for sure it won't work? We haven't even started. Just because I've been a little slow to realize, and I'm not exactly ready to talk about it, that doesn't mean I'm not ready to try--"
He moved towards her. "Fine. Then tell me how we're supposed to pull this off. How do we switch cars at this point? Just climb on the hood of the sedan and pray no one notices?"
"Oh. That."
"Yes 'that.' What 'that' were you talking about?"
"I got our 'thats' mixed up." She smiled at him. A smile he couldn't make heads or tails of. Again, he would wait her out. Wait for her to say more. He was better at quiet. Almost everyone was better at it than Lois Lane.
"I'm assuming you have a plan?" he blurted when she said no more.
"You know something, Clark? I really don't. I have no plan." She threw her hands up in surrender. "Planning has never been my strong suit, so I'm just...going to wing it."
"Wing it?" he echoed faintly. "Oh, Lois. Is this hair-brained scheme going to involve costumes? Aliases? Or fake accents? Just tell me now, so I can get the bail money together."
She clapped him on the shoulder and sent him off towards the buffet. "Can you do a fake accent? Maybe you could practice it while you wait."
He rolled his eyes, and despite himself he grinned. "Tell me, really. What's our plan?"
"I told you. There is no plan."
He knew he looked skeptical, but she deserved it. He may have been born in Kansas, yes...or, no, not really. Still, the point was, he wasn't born yesterday.
She shrugged. "Ok, I do have a plan."
"Ah," he said with deep satisfaction. "Spill it, Lane."
She leaned towards him, looking as if she was on the verge of imparting great wisdom. "From now on...you and I are just going to see what happens."
He straightened. "Wait. See what--what? How does that change anything?"
"It changes pretty much everything," he heard her mutter as she strolled away. It would have been inaudible to anyone else. But he wasn't anyone else, and she wasn't inaudible to him. He heard her clear as day.
Not that it made a bit of difference, since he had no idea what it meant.
~*~*~*~*~
Clark had set them up at a small folding table in the far corner. A plate for her and one for him, two bottles of water, some cutlery and napkins, and from somewhere, a cream soda.
In fact...
Lois halted so fast her sneakers squeaked on the linoleum tiles.
...it looked rather like...a date.
Clark completed the impression by standing up as she approached, one hand pulling her chair out. One of those Clark-things he did, but that he never really knew he did.
Could a flashy, shiny Jeep Grand Cherokee do that?
She halted again. And this time he did one of the other Clark-things he did without realizing. He looked at her warily, befuddled confusion on his really...kind of...nice-looking features.
"Oh, geez," she breathed to herself. "Oh...geez."
She squeezed her eyes closed and opened them again. The impression remained. It was still just Clark, yes. Still just lunch. A shared meal between them--and they'd had at least a thousand by now.
But not like this one.
Not when she was finally aware. Or awake...or ready. She wasn't sure which of those it was. Her short time spent in the ladies' room had been so full of chatter she hadn't had a spare second to decide that, or how or what she was going to do about it once she had.
She just knew that her excitement on discovering that Elaine and her gigantic partner had called it quits and gone home just minutes before had been mixed with a large dose of relief. Elaine was gone. And she hadn't gotten what she'd wanted.
Sedan Lady had informed Lois, to the contrary, that she had. Elaine's partner, tired and cramping, had offered to just buy her the car as long as she let them leave. General consensus among all present in the restroom was that that had been Elaine's intent all along.
Lois could almost admire her for stacking the deck in her favor that way...
"It's calamari and I happen to know you love it," Clark said now, waving a hand in front of her face, proving he was more than just a mirage. "Do I want to know what you're thinking?"
"I don't know," she told him honestly. She didn't. She had no idea.
He nodded as if that made sense. "Want to sit?" He was still standing, still holding the back of her chair.
She covered the space between them and took her seat, waiting until he was seated across from her.
"We've got twenty minutes left," he said to her. "That feels like a luxury, doesn't it? And you don't have to worry about Jimmy snapping more candids during lunch. He came by to introduce me to Melissa--"
"Melissa?" Lois asked.
Clark nodded. "She's the red-head he's been hanging around with today. Apparently, her family owns that new Italian restaurant in town, and she's taking him there for lunch. Oh, and on a more contest related note--you'll like this. Elaine and the Met Net guy are in the lobby right now and he's writing a check for--"
Lois couldn't take the small talk any more. She just couldn't. "I'm not stupid, right?" she interrupted, getting right to the point. And she was aware that it had been a blurt, but she *had* said that she was going to wing it.
Clark paused, fork poised in midair. "Of course you're not stupid."
"There is evidence to the contrary," she argued, and she didn't know why she felt the need to argue it, just...she was winging it, remember? She took a deep breath and said the name she hadn't spoken since the day he died. The name that had grown so large between the two of them, even more so in death. "Lex Luthor..."
Clark put his fork down and said nothing.
Which was the exact right thing to do, and another one of those Clark-things she was realizing more and more she had such a fondness, or, kind of, love for. Also, she was really warming up to this winging-it thing, so it was good he didn't slow her down.
"Lex Luthor came with all the bells and whistles and bucket leather seats." She shook her head ruefully. "It wasn't the luxury that appealed. I know that's hard to believe..."
"I believe you," Clark said quietly.
"Thank you." She looked up at him and lost some of her nerve. She started pushing her strangely colored calamari around the plate. "It was the idea that he was so assured. Certain. Larger than life. And since my life felt...wind-swept and out of control, I sort of latched onto that. To him. Stupidly."
"Lois, he fooled a lot of people--"
"No." She cut him off. In previous months, he had tried to offer the very same speech numerous times over. Each time she'd deflected it. Didn't let him finish. It was no excuse. And it wasn't even true. There had been an entire list of people--well known and well loved by her--who hadn't been fooled. Clark was at the very top.
"The analogy breaks down a little here..." She cleared her throat, then had to do so again as Clark pried the fork from her grip and replaced it with his hand in hers.
"Go on," he said.
Winging it. She was winging it. So she said it. "Superman. Superman was...the top of the line. No way could you possibly afford it but wouldn't it be amazing...the ride of a lifetime." She flushed hotly. "I told you the analogy is weak, but..."
"But I get the idea," Clark said.
"Ok." With her free hand, she retrieved her fork and went back to mangling her lunch. "That's...good."
Clark spoke slowly, measuring his words. "Before, back there on the hood, you said that you'd...picked wrong."
She nodded, very grateful that he had gotten it. "Yes."
"You said you wanted...the grey sedan."
Her heart in her throat, she made herself look up from her plate. No sense in winging it half-heartedly, not if she was going to hesitate on the follow through. She couldn't have controlled the shakiness in her voice. And she didn't try. "Yes. I do."
He liberated the fork from her other hand and entwined their fingers together, both hands clasping tightly over Barney's Fish and Squish Emporium's Friday Special. "Let's drop the car analogy, because I don't want to misunderstand."
"You need to hear it straight," she said for him. "Because I turned you down so completely that day. And...I picked wrong, Clark."
"So I'm...?"
"The grey sedan," she spelled it out for him, understanding why she needed to.
"And you want to..."
"Switch." She blew out her breath and sat back in her seat. There. She'd done it.
She picked up her fork and eyed her watch. "Better eat. I killed a lot of time with that strangled car-metaphor thing. Just be glad I didn't try it with chocolate. I almost did. 'Unseen, yummy goodness on the inside, but you don't know until you bite it.' Wait. Strike that. That sounds... You know when you get a big sampler box--Lucy sends me one every Christmas--there's no way to know what's what? And some chocolates are just dreamier than you could have imagined, but others have that weird mint-y gelatin stuff inside...which...is insane. And should be illegal. Because who in their right mind..."
"Lois."
"...would ever say, 'hey, yeah, that's how I like mine the best.' That's nearly as bad as adding raisins to chocolate, which...well, I've told you my feelings on that..."
"Lois..."
"And...oh god, I hear myself Clark. I do. I hear me. I just can't...I can't..."
He slid out of his seat and moved her plate away; she had hacked her calamari into fish bait for minnows. Slipping one hand along the nape of her neck, he pressed his lips to hers. Hard. Completely. Being certain, she knew, that she didn't have the space to mumble.
She did, though. But only for a second as she murmured, "Thank you." And his lips softened, kissing her more gently.
"That's time, folks. Back to your cars. And I see we have a couple who couldn't wait!'
The booming announcement didn't even embarrass her. And better still, Clark didn't even seem to notice it. She had to gesture towards the grinning couples pointing their way.
He finally pulled back and grinned at her, resting his forehead on hers. "We've got the hang of that, don't we?"
"It's all the practice we've had," she whispered back.
"Let's go win this thing." He drew her to her feet and, hand in hand, they walked back to the Cherokee, surprised to find that only Pierced Girl, Stacey, and her Pierced boyfriend, Brick, remained on the SUV.
"Where is everyone else?" she asked. There had been two couples on the back bumper. Lois hadn't seen them in a while, but she had heard them and knew they were there when they'd stopped for lunch.
Pierced Girl gave her usual, eloquent shrug before filling them in. "Said they weren't feeling well."
And just in case they didn't get it, Brick clarified, "Puking their guts out."
"Too bad," Lois muttered as Clark lifted her onto the hood. The warning bell rang.
"So..." She glanced at him, taking a moment to puzzle over what appeared to be dramatically dwindling numbers around the showroom, before remembering what she'd been going to say. "You never said how you felt about...switching. If that's a yes or..."
The horn sounded. Clark swept her into his lap, pulling her close. "Put me down for a very definite yes."
It was the last thing he said for a long, pleasurable while.
~*~*~*~*~
She had given him everything. Unexpectedly and all at once, it had just dropped into his lap. Clark tightened his hold on the warm, responsive woman in his arms--quite literally.
He could hardly wrap his mind around it. Around...them. And they were a 'them' now. A definite them. Lane and Kent. Friends again. And so much more.
He chuckled, unable to hold it in, and felt her reflexive smile. He'd be doing a few thousand barrel rolls over the city tonight. Shouting in the artic, only this time not in pain...
Pain. All pain. The losing-Lois-to-Luthor pain. The bars-of-the-kryptonite-cage pain. The pain of the rejection in the park and the open invitation to Superman immediately following. Gone. Vanished.
'Healed?'
Yes, he decided. That too.
'Without so much as a word about it?'
Clark shifted a bit uneasily, concentrating on Lois's hands stroking his hair. Her slow, steady, contented heart beat...
'Without telling her?'
He sighed. There it was. And he knew better than to think it was just going to go away. That he and Lois would win the car and drive off into the sunset...where he might mention all the sunsets he'd seen the world over.
And she might say, "Oh, really? In your travels?"
And then he'd say, "As a matter of fact, yes. Also I'm Superman, so that makes traveling much easier."
And her eyes would grow wide and she'd say, "Well, how about that? Isn't that great for me? Teamed up with Superman, all those sunsets in my future..."
He groaned. Lois groaned too. Not because she was reading his thoughts and critiquing their very high, Kansas-Farmboy cheese factor, but because she was hurting. Her hands had left his hair and were reaching for her back, rubbing and kneading.
"Cramp," she gasped against his lips. He could feel the muscles in spasm, and knew by her uneven breathing how bad it was.
He started to pull away, but she hooked one arm around his neck, scowling fiercely. "No. No way. No stopping."
"Then let me, ok?"
He started to guide her into a laying position across his lap, but she stiffened...and then gasped as the resistance caused the pain in her lower back to intensify. "Clark, what are you doing?" she rasped against his lips.
"Just trust me," he murmured, then felt her relax slightly.
With gentle hands, he eased her onto her back as flat as possible across his lap, and leaned over her, careful to keep their lips touching. Ignoring the catcalls and cheers of encouragement, he traced her spine to her lower back, finding the inflamed muscles by feel. He wished he could risk a dart of heat vision, but clearly they had an avid audience.
"I love these two!" crowed Dealin' Dan into the microphone. "Still going strong!"
"I'll kill him." Lois was beyond furious, but when Clark's fingers found the right spot and went to work, massaging firmly, she melted. It took all of two seconds before she uncoiled, a deep, heavy sigh of satisfaction transferring from her mouth to his.
He grinned. She did too.
Maybe this could be a bargaining chip? 'Lois, I'll rub your back every day and twice on Sunday if you'll just hear me out about the sunset and Superman thing...'
For a guy who'd just had everything he ever wanted dumped into his lap, it didn't seem that impossible a dream.
~*~*~*~*~
It was a really fast hour. The easiest by far. This feeling between them, completely natural and unforced, was unlike anything she'd known before. Better and more wonderful than she could have imagined. And she had imagined. Not something she'd admit out loud, but her Ivory Tower video collection and secret stash of romance novels...things Lucy was in charge of burning and shredding should anything ever happen to her in the line of duty...those were the secret hopes of her heart. The ones she had thought forever dead...after Lex, after Superman, after...all of it.
Lois felt the renewed quiver of those butterflies from the initial countdown as Clark's hands continued to move across her back, his fingers never growing tired. In a blissful, pain-free induced fog, she lifted her hands to his chest and let them splay across the muscles she could feel beneath his shirt.
An image from over a year ago flashed into her mind--an image of Clark answering his motel room door in nothing but a towel. He had looked nothing less than spectacular. The sight of those flawless pecs and abs had left her more than a little breathless.
Subconsciously, her fingers started to roam across his chest. Beneath his shirt she could feel the same muscles she remembered seeing, and they felt as defined as before. She brought her hands together slowly...and felt something strange.
What on earth was Clark wearing under his shirt? Her brow furrowed as her fingers began to trace the outline of whatever it was. It seemed to be sort of triangular in shape, and appeared to be centered only over his chest area.
What kind of undershirt was this? All the undershirts she'd ever seen were plain, with nothing sewn on them. After all, that was the point...not having anything next to your skin to rub against you under your clothes. But upon further consideration, she realized that whatever he was wearing under his shirt was thicker than any regular undershirt. In fact, it even made a kind of friction noise as the fabric of his white work shirt rubbed over it. That indicated something slick beneath.
A slick undershirt? With something sewn onto the chest? Was Clark crazy? Who would elect to wear something tight and slick under your clothes with a triangular emblem stitched over...the...
Lois's hands stilled, and it took her a moment to realize that they had done so because Clark's hands had left her lower back and were now holding hers, stopping them from moving any further.
Clark's breathing seemed to have quickened, as she could feel his breath on her lips. She opened her eyes and saw...something...lurking in his eyes. His brown and very familiar eyes. At this proximity, it was as if the lenses he wore weren't even there.
~*~*~*~*~
to be concluded in part 6...
