Hi!
Whew, part 25 is done. One part left. Yeah, I know there are so many more twists and turns I could tell you about, but all stories have come to an end one day. And hey, there could always be a sequel.
Big thanks go to Kmar and Mona for their great work, edits, suggestions, support, and so on.
In case anybody noticed. I had Clark use shower curtains way back, and just learned that he has a glass-enclosed shower stall. I left him with the curtains for now and will renovate his apartment for the archives
The setting is right after “Season’s Greedings” in Season 2.
Blocks in >> << are literal thoughts by the character.
Rating: PG-13
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In part 24, Clark left Lois alone in order to fetch them Chinese takeout. The seemingly harmless gesture gave Lois the opportunity to talk to Clark’s parents, who couldn’t help but invite her to Smallville and tell her about today’s Superman rescues. But how is Lois going to deal with this new information?
Part 25 /
TOC /
Comments **********
Clark was racing back towards Metropolis as fast as he dared, laden as he was with bamboo containers. The trip had taken longer than he would have liked, but no matter his personal affairs, he hadn’t been able to ignore the shipwrecked crew off the coast of China.
Of course, now he was beginning to worry about leaving Lois alone for… Clark tried to extrapolate from the last time he’d checked the time, about half an hour. She’d seemed fairly content – dare he say happy – when he’d left her, but he knew just how mercurial Lois had been over the past few days; even by her standards. And if she’d time to think without him being there, who knew what crazy ideas she might come up with.
Besides, even if she was still happy, there was still the little matter of her being naked and more than willingly in his bed, and this matter alone was serious enough on its own. Clark poured on a little more speed, and soon he was cruising over the outskirts of Metropolis. There was the Daily Planet and now he was dropping down to his apartment.
Clark automatically scanned his home and quickly determined that Lois was still there and alone. Only, she wasn’t waiting for him in bed, and naked at that. No, instead, she’d put on the gray sweater she’d worn earlier and was huddled on the couch. A moment later, he realized that the TV was on and tuned to LNN, reporting the daily news in its hourly news show.
He quickly dropped down on his secluded balcony and placed the still steaming containers onto the kitchen table a mere second later.
“Lois, what’ wrong?” he asked her as she turned her head to look at him, her eyes blazing, and he knew she was obsessing about something.
She blinked, shook her head and patted the cushion beside her. “Sit.” It wasn’t a request.
Clark, still completely in the dark about the reasons for her sudden change of mood, decided that obeying might be the safest bet and walked over to her. He took a moment to spin into his t-shirt and jeans and then sat down at the designated spot.
Lois merely stared at him for a moment with wide-eyed surprise and then let go of an astonished “wow”.
Shrugging, Clark decided to cut to the chase immediately. “Okay, I’m sitting. So, what’s wrong?” he inquired again, making certain he sounded amiable and comforting in case Lois had acquired another set of cold feet.
“Clark!” Lois almost shouted at him. “Why did I have to learn about you helping out at a major disaster from your mother?” She jumped up, her hand gesticulating back and forth between the news program and his chest. “All those dead, Clark! They… they said the death toll was almost a hundred. And you… you where there the whole time. Oh god, Clark!“ Lois let herself fall back down and smack onto his lap, wrapping her arms tightly around him. “Why haven’t you said anything? You must feel horrible,” she almost sobbed.
Clark couldn’t help it but stare back at her in complete shock. This had been totally out of left field. For a brief moment he felt guilty about the fact that he was more interested right now in the way her lithe form pressed against his chest, the softness of her female curves, the scent of their earlier exertion as it still lingered on her body. Apparently, she hadn’t taken a shower during his trip, not that he minded.
He took a calming breath. Here was Lois, obviously concerned for his psychological well-being, and all he could think about was the way they seemed to be made for each other. >>What a *sensitive* thing to do…<< Clark congratulated himself sarcastically, before he gulped and got ready to answer Lois.
“Actually, I don’t.” His eyes sought hers, wide in disbelieve. “I mean, I do feel for the victims, and it’s not as if I don’t care and wish it hadn’t happened and everything…”
Lois nodded a little. “But?”
“But you’ve pretty thoroughly taken my mind off my super-work,” he told her agreeably, his hand caressing her back with little circles and abstract patterns. “You know, between what happened after the hostage thing and my obsessing and our discussion and our *other* discussion,-“ He winked and gave her a lopsided smile. “-it’s not like I had a lot of time to think about what I could have done differently.”
“So, you’re okay, then?” she asked him carefully.
He nodded.
“No guilty obsessing going on?” her soft voice probed.
He shook his head.
Lois smiled and the veil of his own worry about her obsessing lifted until her stomach decided to break their congenial mood with a loud rumble.
Clark gave her a sad look and slowly began to pull her to her feet, standing up himself in the process and noticing for the first time that she wasn’t *just* wearing his old sweat shirt; no, she was *only* wearing his old sweat shirt. >>Lois. Hungry!<< he reminded himself, his libido already trying to convince his higher brain functions to devise the most effective way of removing the offending piece of cotton. Otherwise, said libido might decide to help things along and simply disintegrate the garment.
“Clark?” Lois asked him as he merely held onto her.
Letting go off a labored breath, Clark hoped he had managed to quell his desires for the moment. “Dinner, Lois,” he managed to elaborate onto the correct topic.
“Oh,” she replied sheepishly, her head turning to face the steaming containers on his kitchen table and her body reacting audibly to the scents wafting off of them. “Right.” Lois extracted herself from his embrace but held on to his right hand, pulling him towards the Asian delicacies.
At the kitchen table, Clark began to undo the strings that were securing the lids and spreading the wooden containers for Lois to inspect. “We have chow mein,” he pointed out the noodle dish. “Over there is sweet and sour pork.” Clark lifted the lid off another dish. “I also got us crispy chicken, kung pao chicken and-” He produced another container with a flourish. “-I do seem to remember you fell for the dumplings pretty hard.”
Clark had barely removed his hand from the container, when Lois squealed and dug into the offered food. As the first half of the dumpling had made its path down her throat, Lois exclaimed a full mouthed moan of appreciation and for a moment, Clark was reminded of the sounds she’d made earlier, when they’d been in bed. Perhaps he shouldn’t have gotten her food this good, he thought for a moment. Then he reminded himself just how lunkheaded it was to be jealous of food sliding down her throat. After all, it’s not like Lois would leave him for dumplings. Chocolate, perhaps, but never dumplings, no matter how good.
Shaking his head at his own ridiculous thoughts, Clark went to his cutlery drawer and pulled out two sets of wooden chopsticks before turning around and asking Lois, “Cream soda or tea?”
Lois looked up from where she was studying the food, frowned for a moment and then informed him with a smile. “Tea, please.”
A little surprised at her choice of drink, but readily accepting it, Clark quickly filled the kettle with water, heated it with a carefully measured burst of heat vision, and poured the steaming liquid into his teapot. He added some Oolong leaves from a tin can and grabbed two mugs before carrying everything back to the table.
“I think that’s everything,” he mused and handed Lois her chopsticks.
“Thanks.” She smiled and moved around the table until she was standing next to Clark, eyeing him expectantly.
Clark, thinking he’d understood Lois’ silent demand, quickly pulled out a chair and offered it to her.
Lois studied the offered seating accommodation for a moment, before shaking her head and pulling a surprised Clark around to push him down onto the offered chair, only to follow him immediately into his lap. “That’s better,” she sighed happily and speared another dumpling from the container right in front of her, offering the morsel for him to take a bite.
Clark mentally shrugged and forced himself to focus on the wooden eating implements in front of his face instead of the warm, soft woman in his lap, who was only clad in a sweat shirt and nothing else. Not that he had *any* hopes of her not knowing exactly just how much he was aware of her, or how much his libido was interested in things other than filling her stomach.
He carefully moved his mouth towards the offering, but before he could take the morsel, Lois pulled the chopsticks back and took a bite of the dumpling herself. Not willing to concede the food this easily, he followed her and quickly removed the remaining piece of dumpling from the chopsticks, brushing his lips against hers in the process.
Lois moaned in delight and Clark felt a corresponding rumble rise within his own throat. He enthusiastically chewed his food and picked up a shrimp roll with his fingers, dipping it into sweet and sour sauce, before holding the finger-sized treat out to Lois.
His girlfriend, and he was reasonably sure he wasn’t presuming here, eyed the dough-wrapped morsel for a moment, grinned, and lowered her lips to the offering. Her tongue darted forward and she sensuously licked over the saucy tip before closing her lips around the traditional Shanghai dish.
Clark kept his eyes transfixed on the show taking place a few inches in front of his face. His pulse increased a couple of beats and he felt himself begin to sweat. Lois was doing it on purpose, he knew. When she finally pulled her mouth back, taking almost half of the pastry with her, Clark forced himself to a torturous gulp, his mind fighting a losing battle against his libido.
But Lois needed the food, he knew, even if she would wholeheartedly agree if he were to decide to remove the nourishments of the body from the table and place his newly discovered nourishment of the soul onto it instead. And for future reference, he decided with a regretful slump of his shoulders, he would make certain that Lois would always be well fed, so hunger wouldn’t interrupt more pressing concerns.
The matter decided, Clark offered Lois the second half of the shrimp roll, and the little minx just had to close her soft, warm lips over his fingers, suckling them as she pulled the morsel into her mouth. Perhaps Lois might be more determined to concentrate on eating after taking a short break, he wondered wistfully, but another deep rumble reminded his bundle of joy, that she was still human and required more than one form of physical attention.
Lois smiled regretfully, picked up some chow mein and began to focus on removing the food from the table at super-speed, her throat emitting sounds of utter contentment at the tastes of the Chinese specialties.
Clark watched his lover’s indulgence in open-mouthed awe, but then shifted to remove the tea-egg and poured the hot beverage into their mugs. Once this task was done, he picked up his own chopsticks and began to partake in their meal.
They kept eating in companionable silence, only occasionally focusing on each other to share some of the bites they took.
It was only when they’d cleaned out most of the containers, that he decided to bring up the subject of his early morning rescue. Now might not be the best time to talk about this, his sulking libido reminded him with what he imagined to be a flipping-off gesture, but he knew that Lois was like a pit-bull, and he had no intention of talking about this before they dozed off to sleep. No, it was far better to discuss the day’s events now, and then retire for a delicious dessert that would exorcise all concerns from their minds.
Thus decided, he focused his eyes on Lois, waiting patiently for her to become aware of his gaze. “So, about the train disaster this morning…,” he began slowly. Lois’ brows furrowed a bit and he took this as his cue to continue with a quick reassurance. “No, I’m not obsessing about how I could have saved more people. I know I worked as hard as I possibly could have.” His eyes hardened a bit. “But I also think I know who’s to blame for the dead and the injured.”
Lois drew in a sharp breath, her food forgotten as she redirected all her attention towards him.
“Intergang.” It was but one word, and he had pronounced it with a total lack of emotion, not willing to let his anger at the horrifying attack seep into the bond he shared with Lois.
“Intergang?” Lois slowly asked him around the remaining bite in her mouth.
“Yes,” Clark sighed, pulling her closer and wrapping his arms tightly around her waist, his head resting on her shoulder. “It wasn’t really that obvious, and we’d still have to find actual proof, of course, but I’m certain that Intergang was behind today’s disaster.”
Lois began to squirm in his arms. “Then why are we still sitting here?” she asked him agitatedly.
Clark kept a tight hold on her, realizing that Mad Dog Lane was about to make a comeback. “Lois,” he soothed her. “Relax.” He pressed a kiss into her hair. “It’s almost eight now, and Intergang won’t blow wide open with just one night’s work.”
“Are you saying we shouldn’t do anything?” Lois asked him with a dangerous undercurrent in her voice.
“No! Of course, not,” he hastened to reassure her. “It’s just, all I have is my gut feeling and Perry’s consent to look into things” He took a calming breath; Lois was still shifting around, trying to extricate herself from his embrace.
“See,” she tried to make her point. “Even Perry thinks it’s a worthwhile story.”
“Lois, just because Perry trusts in my gut, doesn’t mean we can run anything in the paper.” Lois was still giving him a doubtful state and so he hastened to add some more reasons to his explanations. “And even if we could, unless we have a rock-solid case built, blowing the whistle on the Intergang connection will only send the whole bunch into hiding.”
Lois demonstratively sighed as she mulled the fact over. “Fine,” she finally consented. “But I still don’t have to like it.”
“I don’t either, Lois. Believe me, I don’t either.” Clark afforded her a regretful smile. “And I know just as well what you’re going through. There’s nothing I’d love more than to haul their collective rears in front of a judge and jury.”
“But?” she probed.
“But I don’t have any proof, as I already told you.”
“Right,” she acquiesced. “So, how *did* you figure it out?”
“Well, it all be became clear after I’d read your article on the hostage situation and the timing of it,” he began to elaborate, his hands stroking up and down her back in a comforting gesture. “Just think about it. How likely is it for a train to catastrophically derail just before a group of Intergang mercenaries take an entire courtroom hostage with the intent of pressing the defendant – a high-ranking member of their organization – free?”
“Sounds awfully coincidental,” Lois mused. “And the leader did seem pretty unconcerned about you showing up,” Lois reflected as she craned her neck to look into his eyes.
“Yeah, I think so, too.”
“You know, it almost worked, too,” Lois continued, her eyes clouding over. “Mayson. They’d been all set to execute her when you crashed their party.”
Clark sighed heavily. “I know. And I shudder to think what would have happened had I lingered a minute longer at the rescue site.”
Lois let the information sink in for a minute or two. “So, why did you arrive when you did?” she asked him with a slight catch in her breath. “I mean, I don’t assume the rescue workers kept you up to date on the hostage situation and only told you to go and fly back when the need became too dire.” Lois pulled back a little, her eyes suddenly wide open. “Oh, god, that’s not what happened, is it? You didn’t just intend to make a quick trip to the courthouse and then rush back to the other rescue when I… when I…”
Lois swallowed and Clark rushed to reassure her. “No, oh, no, Lois.” He shook his head emphatically. “We didn’t do anything that endangered the train disaster’s victims. I was already working on the cleanup when I felt…” Clark paused, trying to figure out the correct words.
“When you felt…?” Lois probed warily.
“I don’t know. Something.” He sighed. “A pull, for the lack of a better word. I just knew I had to fly back and my body was homing in on an invisible beacon.”
Lois swallowed audibly before she whispered almost inaudibly. “I guess Mayson was pretty scared when she realized what was about to happen.”
“Mayson?” Clark asked her in genuine surprise.
“Well, yeah. I mean, you were pretty infatuated with-”
Clark immediately retrieved his left hand and placed a finger over her mouth, shushing her. “What are you talking about, Lois?” Clark’s heart ached at the lost look in her eyes. “Mayson’s just a friend, Lois. You, on the other hand…”
“But you felt her distress, didn’t you?” Lois half accused him, half pleaded with him to deny her accusation.
Clark shook his head again. “Oh, Lois,” he sighed, trying to figure out how to dispel her worries. Then he had an idea. “And what about your distress?”
“My distress?” Lois asked him with surprise in her voice.
“Yes,” Clark elaborated. “From what you’ve told me, you’d been completely aware of what was about to happen, right?”
“So?”
“So, am I wrong in my assumption that you were feeling pretty distressed yourself by the turn of events?” Clark asked her with a raised eyebrow.
“No,” she conceded. “But are you saying that *I* was calling out to you like that?”
“Well, it’s the best theory I’ve got. He shrugged.
Lois kept silent for more than a minute, before her eyes cleared up. “This trick is going to come in handy, you know?”
Clark blanched. “Lo-isss!” he exclaimed. “You can’t be serious, now can you?”
She swatted his chest, her mind having returned from the land of gloomy thoughts. “Relax, Clark. I’m not going to jump into the jaws of death just because Superman is my boyfriend.” She caressed his cheek. “But it does mean that we’re not going to get stuck in tight spots so easily anymore.” Her eyes dropped suggestively.
Clark huffed in mock indignation even as his heart jumped at her declaration. “So, that’s why you’re my girlfriend?”
“Yep,” she beamed at him. “You’re extremely good in dealing with tight spots, and you can bring home takeout from all over the world. What more does a girl need?”
“Perhaps a fortune cookie?” Clark asked her in answer to her question; in his hand he offered her one of the crisp pastries.
Lois eyed the offering for a moment before picking it up and quickly producing the fortune hidden away inside. “It’s in Chinese,” she stated and held the paper-slip out to him for translation.
Clark carefully took the paper between thumb and index finger and looked at the Chinese signs. “Love is like a hot shower.”
Lois quirked her eyebrow. “A hot shower, huh?” She shrugged. “Well, I guess… Which reminds me…,” she stretched languorously, before getting up and walking towards his bathroom. “I think I could really use one before I got to bed tonight.”
Clark merely nodded, still a bit surprised at the quick ending of their discussion as Lois sauntered off to his bathroom. He finally shook himself out of his reverie, super-sped around the kitchen-space, cleaning away the remaining food and placing it into the fridge.
A few seconds later, the water started to run in the shower and Clark quickly decided that the kitchen was clean enough. Picking up a condom from the newly bought package on his bedside table, he hastened towards his bathroom and a naked Lois inside his shower.
**********
Lois dropped the sweat shirt to the floor as she stepped into the shower; everything within her itched to bring Intergang to justice. She hadn’t been there for the fall of Luthor, but now she had gotten a second chance. A flick of her wrist later and the hot water began to pour down on her sore muscles. But Clark was right, she admitted grudgingly as she held her face into the steady stream, they wouldn’t be able to crack this case open tonight.
“Missed me?” a deep, growling voice intruded into her thoughts, accompanied by a cold draft from the pulled back curtain.
Feeling his warm lips caressing her shoulder and the base of her neck, Lois lowered her head to the side, making sure to give her lover all the access he required. “No,” she replied huskily. “All I was thinking about was that I’ve gotten another chance after Luthor.”
“Luthor?” Clark asked her with a pained wail. “You’re standing in my shower, thinking about me being *another* chance after Luthor?”
Lois turned around and looked up at him. “Oh, Clark,” she giggled, deciding humor was the best way to deal with this past hurt. “-not you, Silly. Intergang. Intergang is my second chance to bringing down a worldwide criminal organization.”
Clark tilted his head at that, and even as his eyes cleared, the frown remained. “So, you’re standing here in my shower and all you can think about is bringing down a criminal syndicate?”
She shrugged demonstratively. “Hey, you knew what you got yourself into. And unless you have something else to occupy me with…?” she teased him coyly, glancing up at him from underneath her lashes.
“Well,” he drawled, a lazy finger running up and down her arm, blazing a fiery trail over her wet skin. “I do seem to remember a fortune telling me about making love in the shower.”
Lois snorted. “Clark, I believe that was *my* fortune and you translated it as ‘Love being like a hot shower’.” Her own hand trailed over the rock-hard hills of his well-defined chest, her nails scraping over his pebbly nipples.
“So, you’re saying you *don’t* want to make love in the shower?” he asked her with mock hurt in his voice and he even pulled back a little.
She quickly dipped her hand lower, pressing it flat against the ridges of his abs. “I never said that,” she breathed huskily.
Clark drew in a sharp breath and his own hand wandered up to her shoulder, before letting it drift down to the soft swell of her breasts. “So, you *do* want me to make love to you in the shower?” he asked her with a heavy strain evident in his voice.
Lois’ breath hitched as Clark’s fingers fluttered over her sensitized skin and the way this conversation so much reminded her of the moments before their passion had literally broken free in the courthouse earlier that day. “Yes,” she assented, not bothering with the pretense of saying ‘no’.
“Good,” Clark grinned, before his eyes darkened as her fingers mapped out the sudden dip of his navel and began to twirl the hairy trail leading the way to very much explored territory. “Oh, Honey,” he exhaled a moment later.
Her breathing quickened as well until a husky “Yessss” proved to be all the further encouragement Clark had needed from her.
Lois felt her back being pressed against the cold tiles of the shower stall when Clark’s entire body made contact with her burning skin, his mouth fasting onto hers in unbridled passion. She eagerly allowed his tongue entrance, suckling at the muscle and caressing the welcome visitor in her moist cavity with her own.
Clark’s fingers kept just as busy as her own and Lois felt herself being drawn deep and deeper into the well of her desire, but never quite falling. She was just about to muster her strength and demand him to stop toying with when she became aware of the passionate sparkle in his eyes. Of course, Clark knew exactly what he was doing to her. Her farm boy sure was a quick study and apparently their lessons over the past two days had been very educational to him. And if her mind weren’t so occupied right now with shutting down for the day and handing over control to her limbic system, she might even…
The rest of her thoughts washed away as Clark took gentle possession of her body, proving that even cold tiles in a shower stall could not douse the heat that sparked between them.
**********
tbc
