Chapter 28
Clark opened the door and set his clothes on the bed. The room was empty, but he could hear voices in the other room. He turned back around and closed the door, his hand lingering on the door handle for a couple seconds.
He was wearing a new pair of light blue jeans and a larger red t-shirt, but still it did very little to ease the worries about his inability to feel the woman he loved. Kicking off his boots and dropping the card on the table by the bed, he lifted his bag up and hung it in the closet. Lois's clothes dominated the small dwelling, but he found a spot to hang it. As he turned back around, he heard the door to the main room open.
"Clark?" Lois asked worriedly as she closed the door behind her.
"Yeah?" he replied absently, lifting a few pairs of jeans out of another bag and putting them in the closet as well.
She knew better than to ask him how he was feeling, but there were other things she could ask. "Where did you go?"
Lifting out a few new shirts, he slipped them into closet and closed it. "I had to get some new clothes." He smiled weakly at her as she walked over with her arms crossed. She looked angry, but something in her eyes told him that apathy was not in her realm of possibilities.
"Is that all?" She stepped up to him and stared hard into his eyes. They were soft and round, but somewhere inside them a slow burning anger was stewing.
"I talked to John too."
She held her stance. "And?"
He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, almost mimicking her frigidness, but kept his shoulders relaxed. "I know that whatever is troubling me isn't permanent." When she continued to stare at him, he began to understand why she was being so cold.
"I'm sorry for leaving like I did."
Lois nodded. "I understand that sometimes you need to be alone with your thoughts Clark. I was just worried you might do something you'd regret. Chloe has told me you did some pretty stupid things when you were younger."
"That was a long time ago, and I regret every minute of it. I'm not the same person."
"I don't know, Clark, sometimes I see that fire in your eyes that scares me. Take it, I'm not easily frightened, but sometimes when you get heated you tend to impose yourself. I don't mind that you have a temper, but because you hold everything in so tightly, when you finally release your frustration you tend to act like a completely different person."
He nodded and turned away from her, ashamed at his behavior. Guilt began to settle in, guilt at not staying around to explain things. He should have talked it through with her, but instead he ran off. "What you saw isn't a tenth of the anger I sometimes feel. There are times that all I want to do is set everyone around me on fire."
Lois walked up beside him and placed a hand on his left forearm. His skin was warm, but she knew that inside he was cold. "What could make you so angry that you you'd want to harm people?"
He sighed and blinked slowly. "It's not that I want harm to come to others, but it's the enemies I face. Sometimes I just want them to suffer, to feel the excruciating pain that I feel. My whole life has been full of pain and I just feel like venting it on something."
Reaching around and standing back front of him, she could see the pain in his eyes, the twitching of his right nostril as he let go of some of that emotion. "There are different ways of releasing frustration, Smallville. One is to hit everything around you and cause incredible destruction. The second is to talk, to tell someone how upset and angry you feel. Venting verbally is almost as good as imposing yourself physically."
A sudden smile worked its way onto his lips as he stared down to her. He was still surprised at how tall she actually was. Compared to Chloe, Lois was almost to his nose, while her cousin was barely to his chin. He remembered a comment about not having to strain his back to kiss her and it brightened his mood just a little.
"What?" she asked with a dubious smirk.
"Nothing," he replied with his smile still intact.
"You're smiling. Something is obviously up." She crossed her arms again and tilted her head to the left. "How can you go from being angry one minute then cheerful the next? Only I'm allowed to do that." She smirked even wider.
His grin got even wider as he said, "I guess some of you is rubbing off."
"And that's a good thing?" she challenged with a curt laugh.
It was his turn to cross his arms as he replied. "You tell me."
Lois laughed and slapped his arm playfully. "I never said I wanted a mimic for a boyfriend, but I can put up with some small intricacies."
"Intricacies?" he asked with raised eyebrows. They were slipping back into their playful banter, and it was making him feel really good.
Rolling her eyes heavenward, she turned around and opened the closet. She slipped out the large bag hanging from railing and held it out to the side. "Looks like you bought yourself a new suit too."
"We do have a function to go to."
"When did you start talking like a diplomat?" She laughed and turned around, unzipping the bag.
"Well, my mother is a senator after all."
"Excuses, excuses," she teased, lifting the coat out and laying it on the bed. She did the same with the rest of the clothes and put her hands on her hips and looked down at them.
"Not bad, Smallville. They fit, right?"
"Of course," he replied with a gaff and a snort. "I just bought them."
"Well, you never know with that ever changing body of yours." She looked over at him and smirked wide, causing him to shake his head and chuckle. "Oh come on, you have to admit that you're body undergoes more transitions than a girl at puberty."
"Lois," Clark admonished with a sour tone.
"Lighten up, Smallville. I'm just playing."
"I know," he replied as he walked over and scooped up the slacks. "Now, I believe the convention starts in roughly half an hour. If you would please excuse me, I'd like some privacy to change."
"I don't think so; I need to change as well." Lois turned to him as he pouted. "That doesn't work on me, mister. I'm not some harlot with a soft spot for puppy eyes."
"Damn," he said softly as he sunk his shoulders and laughed. "And here I thought I had a simpleton for a girlfriend."
"Shut up," she replied with a soft punch to his shoulder. Walking around him, she slipped her shirt off and reached into the closet. When she turned back around with a long black dress in her hand, she looked at him and asked, "What do you think?"
Clark didn't really know what to say, his eyes firmly transfixed on her exposed bra.
Seeing him almost salivating, she rolled her eyes again and held the dress in front of her chest. "How about now?"
"What? Oh, it's good."
"Just good?" she teased.
"Great?"
"Just wait until you see me in it."
Clark unzipped his jeans and dropped them to the floor. "Then I'll be impressed?"
"You better be," Lois replied as she dropped her pants as well, and kicked them into the corner.
"And if I'm not?" he challenged with a cocked brow.
"Then you'll be going to the convention alone." She stared at him with a hard look and he gulped.
"Right." He went back to his changing and picked up his pants off the floor. Setting them on the bed beside the black coat, he grabbed the slacks and slipped them on quickly. "Don't you need to do your hair and all that sort of stuff?" he asked as he did up the button and zipper.
"My makeup only takes a few minutes and I'll just Chloe to brush my hair for a second. I thought you knew by now. I'm not a very materialistic woman." She slipped into the long black dress and struggled to get the zipper up all the way. "A hand here?"
"Sure." He gulped at the striking figure in front of him. Her rear end jutted out slightly as she presented her backside to him. He walked over, squeezed the small zipper and gently pulled up.
"What's wrong? You're hands are shaking." When he didn't respond, but only finished with the zipper, she turned around to look at him. His jaw was clenched, but his eyes didn't waver from her. "What is it?"
"Nothing," he stammered in response, trying desperately to hide his reddening cheeks by turning around a taking off his shirt.
"Oh, I see. You like how I look from behind do you?" She smiled devilishly as she saw his back go rigid and his hands stop moving. Staring at his muscled backside, she smiled even wider. "The feeling is more than mutual." She could have sworn she could see smoke coming of his neck from the incredible shade of red it was.
Clark fumbled for his dress shirt and slipped it on, doing up the buttons with shaky fingers.
"Always a prude," Lois said with a loud laugh, turning back to the closet and bending over. She rummaged for her shoes and pulled them out.
He wanted desperately to say something, but instead he turned around and caught a glimpse of her bent over. A groan escaped his throat as she stood back up and turned around.
"Staring again? I'm going to have to talk to your mother about this." She smirked and slipped the high heels on. They fit perfectly, the many plastic threads and loops providing a rare comfort for such a high pair of heels. That's why she bought them though, for the surprising comfort.
Clark fought his embarrassment and managed to squeak out and apology. "Sorry."
"Quit saying you're sorry. I'm not Lana; you won't get in trouble for staring at me when I'm not looking. Although, if you take that telescope back out and start stalking me, I'll have your eyes."
He wanted to laugh, but the striking image of her in the dress and her heels overtook any feeing of boisterousness. "You're right, Lois."
"Right about what?" she asked as she saw his eyes wandering up and down her. "Oh, this?" She rubbed her hands up and down the sides of the dress, the bottom going neatly to her ankles and showing off her black heels.
"Yeah, that!" He smiled wide and tucked his shirt in. The cut of her dress wasn't particularly low, but it showed her ample bosom. It was almost strapless, the spaghetti strings showing off her shoulders. "I don't get the zipper, what's it there for?"
Lois shrugged and tussled her hair a little. "Beats me, but it's there nonetheless."
"You look great." He did up the cuffs of his shirt and as she smiled back warmly.
"Thanks. Now, only if you could learn how to do up your own tie." She walked up to him as he draped the blue and red tie around the uplifted collar of his shirt.
He smiled weakly and said, "I don't what it is, but I can never get a hang of this." Giving up after a few tries, he looked up to see Lois reaching out, grabbing both ends and slowly doing it properly. "Thanks."
"No problem, but one of these days you'll have to learn. It's been what, three years since your high school graduation? It's times you learn. I wonder though, for the Boy Scout you are, you can't do up your own tie."
"What are you getting at?" he asked as she did the last loop and pushed it up snuggly to his neck.
"There's still a little boy trapped inside that big body of yours." She smiled a patted the tie on his chest as she nodded her head pleasingly at a job well done. When he continued to frown at her, she gave him a sloppy smirk and grabbed his tie.
Clark's eyes went wide when she pulled him down into a kiss. His eyes suddenly closed as he felt the press of her tender lips to his, her perfume, not before noticeable, filling his nostrils and captivating him. He moaned softly as she strengthened the embrace, but pulled away before he could push at her lips with his tongue.
Opening her eyes and staring at him longingly, she straightened out his tie and patted it on his chest again. "Put your coat on and let me get a look at you." He didn't seem to hear her, but after a few seconds, and after the look of ecstasy on his face disappeared, he did as she said.
His mind still foggy from the smell of her and the heat still present on his lips, he managed to slip the large overcoat on and turn towards her. He pulled on the sleeves just a little and then extended his arms outwards. "So?" he asked, lifting his eyes from his coat and to her. She seemed to be in thought and he frowned suddenly. "What?"
"I don't know." She tapped her lips with her right index finger. Her tapping stopped and her eyes lit up. She reached out and undid the buttons on the coat. "There," she said triumphantly, as if she had just created a magnificent work of art.
"Are you sure? I like it with the buttons done up."
"Really?" When he nodded, she bit her bottom lip and did up only the top button. She pulled back and got a good look at him. "I guess that'll do."
"Not a bad compromise I'd say."
"Now, how about that hair, we need to do something about it." She reached up to touch it.
Clark took a step back and put his hands up in front of himself defensively. "There's nothing wrong with my hair."
"Of course not, I like it shaggy, but it's a little uneven." She pushed his hands out of the way and ran her fingers through it until it was to her specifications. "There."
"You're like my mother, always fretting over what I look like."
Lois rested her hands on her hips and stared at him with a disappointed look. "Sometimes the dense ones don't really know how to present themselves. Your mother only does it because she loves you."
"Wait, I'm not dense," he argued.
"Okay," she bent, "maybe just a little slow sometimes, but I love you and I want to make sure you look respectable."
"It doesn't matter. With you by my side I'm pretty sure no one's eyes will be on me." He smiled when her expression softened and her smirk made another appearance.
His eyes suddenly went wide. "Are you blushing?" he asked, surprise clearly evident within his voice.
Lois turned away and retorted. "No."
"Liar," Clark teased as he reached out and touched her arm. He spun her towards him and placed one his right palm on her left cheek. "Yes you are, and you don't need to be embarrassed. You look even more beautiful."
"Shut up," she replied softly, her cheeks going even redder as she removed his hand from her face. "I'm a Lane, I don't get embarrassed."
Clark knew she was putting on a mask of ignorance, but she was failing miserably. "Right! And I don't brood." He smiled as the corners of her lips tugged upwards slightly at his sarcastic remark.
Playing with his large fingers in her hands, she lifted them up to her mouth and kissed the tip of his index digit.
"What are you doing?" he asked as his heart skipped a beat. He couldn't feel it, but the action was still visually erotic.
"I just wanted to see if your fingertips coated in sugar." She smirked wildly and slapped the back of his hand as he laughed. "Lucy would laugh at me if she knew I was this soft."
"You're admitting that you're soft?" he challenged with a funny expression.
"Only around you." She dropped his hand from hers and pointed a finger at him. "But if you go and tell anyone, I'll-,"
"Yeah, yeah." Clark interrupted her. "You'll do something to me that I won't find enjoyable. You're getting predictable you know that?" When a growl began to emanate from the back of her throat, he bent down and kissed her suddenly.
He pulled back and smiled. "And please don't change."
Punching Clark in the shoulder with determined force, but not enough to hurt herself, she laughed. "Stop being such a sap. If your goal is to make me blubber from happiness, it's not going to work."
Clark laughed as she spun away from him and walked into the bathroom, but not before turning to him and smiling seductively. His stomach tightened at the sight, his eyes lingering on the door as it closed soundly. He was helpless and he knew it. She had him so tightly wrapped around her fingers that she could make him do anything.
Shaking his head and almost laughing, he folded down his collar and did the last button up. He tightened the tie right and walked out of the room, only to find Chloe and Jimmy already pepped to the nine and ready to go.
"Clark," Chloe said as she rummaged through her purse on the kitchen counter.
"Yeah?" he responded as he shoved his hands into his pant pockets.
Looking up and smiling, she nodded. "I thought you had gone out for a new suit. You look handsome."
He shrugged. "I try my best."
Chloe was wearing a very stylish dark blue dress with a small black coat that went only to her midriff and didn't close. The dress only went to her knees, showing off her calves and dark heels. Jimmy was dressed almost as similar and Clark was, except he wore a bowtie.
"I like your choice in tie. It suits you," Clark commented with a nod to he photographer.
Jimmy adjusted the tie and grinned smugly. "Chloe bought if for me a while ago. She said I'd look good in it."
"And you do," Lois said as she poked her head out of the bedroom door. "Chloe, could you give me a hand?"
"Oh, sure thing, Lois," the blond woman replied as she scooped up her purse and headed to the bedroom.
Clark watched as the doors closed, but not before Lois smiled at him again and wiggled her eyebrows. His heart was melting again, all his worries and pain disappearing instantly. It was an incredible feeling that he had rarely ever experienced.
"Lucky, aren't we?"
"What?" Clark asked loudly as he snapped out of his pleasant thoughts and looked to Jimmy.
"I said we're lucky." His eyes drifted to the bedroom.
"That we are," Clark replied with a smile as his eyes followed the same path to the doors.
"Hey, C.K. Can I ask you something?"
Turning around, Clark leaned on the counter and nodded. "Sure."
Jimmy shifted his weight in the stool he was sitting on and rubbed his neck. "Do you think Chloe would make a good roommate?"
Frowning, Clark raised his eyebrows. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, we sort of decided that we are going to move in together once we get back."
"Wow," Clark whispered softly. "I guess a congratulation is in order then." When Jimmy nodded, he frowned. "What is it?" There seemed to be something bugging the man.
"If Chloe is going to move to Metropolis to live with me, then that means Lois will have the apartment at the Talon all to herself…"
"And you're worried Lois would get lonely?" he finished for the young man.
"Exactly."
-
"So," Chloe said as she bent over and applied a light coat of blush onto Lois's cheeks as her cousin sat on the edge of the bed.
"What?"
"What did you and Clark talk about when he came back?" She didn't want to pester, but she and Lois were pretty close.
Lois shrugged as Chloe continued with the makeup. "He said he was sorry for darting off."
"And?"
"He spoke with John. I guess that Martian has a way of getting through to him."
Chloe nodded as she slipped the brush into the little box on the bed and pulled out a tiny round bottle and looked at Lois with a skeptical eye. "Glitter?"
Staring at her cousin with a death like glare, Lois said, "I'm not a whore."
"Hey, that's not nice. I'm not a whore." She smiled ruefully as she put the small container away.
"The only time I've see you wear glitter was when we were possessed by those slutty witches from the dark times."
"Don't remind me," Chloe replied as she handed Lois a bottle of clear lip gloss.
"I'm sure you have a million stories that you can tell Jimmy now. Ever since he found out the truth about Smallville, there are a million things you'll have to tell him." When her smaller cousin nodded, she continued. "It's not like he can't handle it. He always accepted the fact that there was something strange about the town."
"Did you always find it different?" Chloe asked.
Lois shrugged and put on a thin coat of lip gloss, just enough make her lips shine a little. "I guess I always had my suspicions that the town was a little different. You had always told me so, but until I saw it first hand I was skeptical."
"What about Clark, how long did it take before you realized he wasn't exactly like everyone else?"
"Honestly?"
"What, you've been lying to me all these years?" Chloe mocked. When her cousin looked at her like she was stupid, she nodded. "Yes, honestly."
Lois thought for a second as her cousin applied a faint color to her eyes. "I knew the first day I met him that he wasn't like everyone else. It wasn't because I found him lying naked in a cornfield, but it was the way he approached me at your headstone."
"Elaborate," Chloe said as she continued her work.
"Like I said, we were at your grave and I was pretty broken up. I almost cried."
"Liar, you cried."
"Okay, maybe just a little, but Smallville suddenly jumped me from behind. I wasn't particularly happy that he interrupted me. So, being me, I put up that classic wall around my heart and stiffened up like a prickly cat. I wasn't sure how much he remembered about the rest of what happened, but he said he did. Next thing I know he's planning on helping me find out who killed you."
"That's Clark."
"Of course it is, but I didn't know that at the time. We're family, and granted that there comes a certain need to know what happened to you, but you know me as well as anyone. Once I'm interested in something, I go all out until I know everything about it." When her cousin nodded rhythmically, she continued. "Well, I was certainly surprised that Smallville wanted to help. I told him I'd do it by myself, but he wouldn't give up. There was something in his eyes, something strange, as if he could read me like a book one second and then say something that bit into the core of me the next."
"What do you mean?"
Lois shrugged again and stood up as her cousin finished. "It's hard to explain, but when he talked about me to my face, it was if he was reading my mind. Sure, we confused the hell out of each other all the time, but there were moments where I think we both understood one another more than we liked to admit. It was strangely instantaneous, but then again after what we went through I'm sure there's a reason for it."
"So, you were saying?" Chloe asked as she handed her hair brush over.
"Yeah, I was saying. Smallville was pretty determined to help and I really couldn't just shrug him off. As much as I wanted to, simply because he unnerved me and I am incredibly independent, I just couldn't ignore him. Right then I knew he wasn't like most men, but that's not unusual. Everyone is unique in one way or another."
"Then what was it that made you stop and think that there was something more to him?" She hastily grabbed the brush from Lois's fingers and finished her hair for her.
Ignoring her cousin's snatching, she said. "When I went to leave and he told me you were alive. I turned around, thinking he might have lost his mind, but the look in his eyes told me something else. He looked so sure of himself, as if there was no argument. At that moment I knew there was something about him, a determined part of him that wouldn't give up. I guess that was the first moment I really saw the true person he really is."
"It frightened you didn't it?" Chloe asked as walked away and tossed the brush onto the counter in the bathroom.
"I was as scared as hell. Don't ever tell him this, but for those first few days I was incredibly nervous around him."
Chloe's eyebrows went skywards. "Clark said you were at your prickly and bold self."
"Of course I was, but I had my protective barrier up in full force. I didn't want to show any weakness; especially to a man who could give back almost as good as I gave."
"You couldn't deny his heart was made of pure gold though?"
Snorting a laugh, Lois went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Satisfied with the way she looked, she turned off the light and walked back into the bedroom. "That scared me even more to tell you the truth. No matter how much we pushed each other and bickered, there was always a softness in his eyes that I couldn't place. At first I thought it was pity, pity of me losing you, but it wasn't so."
"It's Clark; he was sharing in your pain. All you had to do was open up and he would have made it all better." She smiled wide as Lois slugged her. "Hey!"
"You know better than that. I don't open up to anyone, save maybe you or Lucy. There was no way I was going to open up to him at that point."
"But you can't say you didn't think about it."
Lois cringed as her cousin caught her. She pointed a finger at her and waggled it. "Okay, you've got me there. There were a few moments when I considered opening up to him."
"Even though you have tougher skin than anyone else I know? I'm surprised."
"Surprised, really? Because after having gotten to know him I realized that it's not that far fetched. There was something about him as I said before. I can't begin to tell you how scared I was of that too. No man had ever made me want to open up. And he hadn't even asked me to."
"You've always been comfortable around each other; I think that stems from it."
"Probably," Lois replied, patting her hair for the last time. "Either way, it's the past."
"But not a past you can soon forget?"
"Exactly," she said as she smiled, opening the door and walking out. Two men dressed to the nine almost dropped there jaws to the floor as she entered the kitchen. "What?" she asked with a sheepish smirk as she lifted her purse onto her shoulder.
Clark stuttered. "I-I-you-you look-uh-beautiful."
"Thanks Smallville. Now, if you could pick your chin up off the floor, I'd like to get going."
As she smirked at him wildly, he nodded like an idiot. "Yes, ma'am."