I was re-reading Feathers when I had a different idea how HiM might have occured. This piece was cobbled together in all of twenty minutes. All mistakes are mine. None of the characters are.


Negotiations
By Elisabeth

Lois said her good nights, but Clark stopped her before she headed into the bedroom. "Wait a minute," her partner protested. "Aren't you forgetting
something?"

She stopped, too tired to be amused. "Forgetting what?"

"This is our first night here... alone together," he pointed out.

She frowned. She hadn't expected him to make a move on her, but she supposed that she should have. He was a man after all. Every man had an angle.

But that didn't mean she had to go along with it. "So?"

He fished in his pocket. She wasn't looking forward to what he found there. "So, let's flip for the bed," he surprised her by suggesting.

Chivalry was dead. "I have a different idea. How about I get the bed and I'll lend you a pillow. I think I saw five pillows, so I might even be nice enough to let you borrow two."

He smiled, obviously enjoying himself. His voice dripped with sarcastic praise. "You're so generous. How about we alternate nights?"

"How about we don't?" Exhaustion was draining her patience.

He rocked back on his heals as he continued to dicker. "Well, it's a really big bed. How about we share?"

There would be icicles in heaven before she would ever share a mattress with the likes of Clark Kent. It was hard to believe that the smalltown gentleman would turn on her.

She thought back to her trip to Smallville just a short while ago. While Clark's parents certainly knew how to joke, she couldn't believe they would ever be intentionally rude without just cause.

She decided to call his bluff. "I'll take the couch," she acquiesced. She surpressed a smirk when his eyebrows shot up, but said nothing. Still, she had expected him to argue a little bit more. "Just let me make a phone call first."

He turned his back toward the window, purportedly continuing with their investigation. She pitched her voice just quietly enough to give the appearance of desiring privacy, but certainly loud enough for him to eavesdrop as she picked up the phone and dialed the number for information.

Moments later, she punched in the number for Jonathan Kent, Smallville, Kansas. Martha answered.

"Hi, Martha. It's Lois Lane. You'll never guess where your son and I are." She chuckled, more to get a rise out of Clark than at anything that his mother said. Since it wasn't possible for her partner to hear more than one side of the conversation, she wanted to make it good. "We're at the honeymoon suite in the Lexor Hotel."

Clark glanced at her with his eyebrows raised. He didn't look amused. His mom was decidedly more excited.

"Oh, it isn't like that. We're just doing some surveillance work. Still, I thought you would get a kick out of it." Lois only half-listened to Martha's response. She was more interested in Clark's visible annoyance. "Actually, Clark's doing surveillance. I'm just getting ready to sleep on the couch. Your son said that the only way I would get the bed would be to share it with him, and... well, you understand I'm not interested."

She shifted her ear away from the phone for an inch or two since it suddenly got painfully loud. "Clark, your mom wants to talk to you before I hang up." She shrugged innocently.

Lois Lane never lost.