Author’s Note: hoooooohohoho lads, this is going to be a fun one. It was the most research-intensive out of all of these one shots and I'm pretty proud of it. Please enjoy, and have a wonderful end to your whumptober! (This fic is based on that one part in MoS where Lois arrives on Ellesmere and meets Jed Eubanks, who mentions that he’s read some of her articles from when she was embedded in the 1stD. Lois replies with a light joke about getting writer's block if she’s not wearing a flak jacket)
Lois didn’t hesitate.
Chief often quoted it as one of her strong points - Lois was always ready to jump the moment she smelled a story in the making, and that lack of hesitation had earned her more than a few recognizable awards in her field of journalism. Then again, Chief often quoted it as one of her weaknesses - Lois had a tendency to throw herself head-first into the insanity without actually thinking about the consequences, and while that usually won her the first page, it also won her front-row tickets to more than a few dangerous situations. Lois was starting to think that this was one of them.
The Planet had wanted a war correspondent in Afghanistan to cover the rising tensions and military progress over there - and Lois Lane, being the stubborn eldest daughter of the illustrious General Lane and a damn good journalist to boot, was the perfect candidate. Not being one for hesitation, Lois agreed immediately.
Within a month, her papers were in order, her kit and camera packed, the oath sworn, and tickets purchased. Things picked up pretty quickly from there, and two weeks later she was in the thick of it - embedded with a company of US First Division troops in a classified location somewhere south of Kabul, Afghanistan with the mission of ensuring village stability in the region. Lois fell into the routine like she’d been doing it her entire life, probably because she had.
Having grown up an army brat, she was plenty familiar with the inner workings of military life. Most of her childhood homes (and there were quite a few of those) had been very close and sometimes even on various US Army bases where her dad was stationed. Following training units around had been a favorite pastime and combat kit was weekend attire - of course Lois would take to wearing a flak jacket like it was a second skin.
Every morning embedded in a military unit was pretty much the same: get up before the sun had even considered it, put your kit on (not forgetting the bulletproof vest, helmet, backpack, water-carrier, camera case, and extra notebook and pens, of course), get some breakfast into you, locate the liaison to find out where Lois was and wasn’t allowed that day, then climb into one of the trucks for a bumpy, three-hour drive out to the nearest Afghan village.
Most, if not all, of the roads in that area were nearly unusable - asphalt would be riddled with potholes, and dirt tracks littered with craters from previously-detonated IEDs (that’s where the usefulness of military all-terrain vehicles came in). The entire region seemed to be made up of nothing but mountains, dirt, dust, and shrubs - somehow it seemed to Lois to be simultaneously both the coldest and hottest place on Earth, not to mention the dustiest and hardest to drive on. Still, the company typically made good time and arrived at whatever small town they were assigned to before noon to spend the rest of the day ‘ensuring village stability’ as the company’s captain aptly put it - it would become a phrase that Lois heard quite a lot during her embedding.
Such ‘stability’ could be ‘ensured’ in a lot of ways. The primary one was communicating with village leaders about the whereabouts of possible insurgents and finding out where outside assistance may be needed in day-to-day operations of the small town. This typically involved transporting water, screening the residents for diseases that the medic could treat, helping repair buildings or transportation, and generally providing the people with medicines and learning material. Whatever it was, Lois was sure to not be far behind, pen and notebook at the ready to take notes and often help where she could - there was, of course, a major language barrier to be overcome, but Lois had a knack for making herself understood wherever she went.
The primary subject of her articles submitted back to the Planet every Thursday was not the usual progression of US Forces advancements as nearly every other news provider was covering, but focused more on the background, unseen attempts to gain ground. The First Division that Lois was with didn’t see much action during her time with them, focusing instead on securing the alliance of the local Afghani people against the insurgents. This was done under the guise of what most outsiders saw as a humanitarian effort: what else would one call efforts to stabilize a village and protect the future of its people - except, Lois noted, an attempt to gain their support. It was, admittedly, more than a little underhanded… but at least it was working. None of what the Division was doing could be considered dangerous either to themselves or the people they were helping, and they weren’t (purposefully) drawing attention to themselves, so what could possibly be wrong with it?
There was nothing legally wrong with it - but then again, nothing in a warzone tended to be legal. Nothing in a warzone tended to be predictable either. They should have known that there would be some sort of retaliation against the Division’s efforts. In fact, they had known - they had just expected it to come in a form a bit more blatant than a covert ambush.
The company was about an hour into the three-hour drive back to base camp after a long day of digging irrigation wells for a nearby village whose usual source of water had dried up with the summer heat. Lois was thoroughly hot, tired, and covered in dust but she still took advantage of the precious free time to dutifully jot down her notes and observations into the notebook she kept on her person wherever she went. The rough jostling of the military transport made her handwriting even more illegible than usual, though Lois quickly realized that that might be the least of her worries when she heard a gunshot ring out farther down the caravan of army trucks.
Gunshots weren’t all that unusual in the presence of a military company - it was a normal, everyday sound to the point where Lois hardly looked up at the noise anymore. Sometimes she could even recognize what sort of armament had made the shot based on the sound, and right now she could definitely tell that whatever gun had just gone off in no way belonged to any soldier in her company - US servicemen typically didn’t carry high-caliber heavy machine guns in non-combat zones.
Lois didn’t hesitate.
She shoved her notebook and pen into the satchel at her side and tightened her helmet beneath her chin in the same moment that the soldiers in her truck reacted to the ambush. While Lois prepared to escape (being a non-combatant war correspondent and all), the servicemen prepared to counteract the threat, most of them re-checking their weapons and gear while another shouted into a radio communicator, requesting a visual on the perpetrator. They didn’t need one - a moment later the air was full of bullets as Afghani insurgents appeared on either side of the narrow dirt road, firing at the military caravan.
The small team of soldiers who had been riding with her were on guard in an instant, jumping out of the truck with their weapons raised to defend the company. More servicemen from other vehicles joined them, immediately moving towards the closest group of insurgents with the intention of disarming them, though oddly enough the revolutionaries seemed to ignore the very clear threat the US soldiers presented. That was the moment when Lois realized something terrible: the ambushers weren’t targeting the soldiers - they were targeting the trucks. Half-a-dozen well-aimed bullets could take out the lead vehicles’ tires and drivers, effectively trapping the rest of the company on the narrow dirt road, and killing the rest of the servicemen would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Her driver must have come to the same conclusion, and the truck lurched forward as he put the vehicle into high gear in an attempt to get away from the scene. Lois thought for the briefest moment that he was making a cowardly escape and leaving his fellow soldiers behind before she realized that staying put was the worst possible idea. If her driver could get the truck to a wider part of the road, it would (a) give the friendly forces somewhere to retreat and regroup away from the insurgents, and (b) if the truck did get hit, the rest of the caravan would easily be able to pass it by without getting blocked by the large vehicle.
Against her better instinct but too hyped on adrenaline to think clearly, Lois stuck her head out of the back of the truck, gripping one of the roll bars as she leaned out just far enough to see the road ahead of them. Damnit, even as late in the evening as it was, it was effing bright out without her sunglasses on and the dust in the air obscured her vision, but Lois was pretty sure she could see a spot maybe a klick farther down the road which would work for her driver’s purposes. The one problem was that Lois was pretty sure she could also see a man who was definitely not a ‘friendly’ tossing something that looked suspiciously like an IED onto the dirt ahead of her vehicle.
Her suspicions were confirmed half-a-second later as the driver slammed on the brakes the same moment that the device exploded less than a meter away from the front of the truck. Lois would later swear that the detonation sent both her and the vehicle flying at least a few feet into the air, though she only remembered gripping the damn roll bar like her life depended on it (it probably did) only to have it ripped out of her grasp when the military truck rolled onto its side and she was thrown from the crash.
The ounce of self-preservation instinct that her father, General Lane, had somehow managed to drill into her head over the years, suddenly kicked in when Lois was very violently reminded that even if she had survived the bombing of her transport (‘survived’ was stretching it a little bit - she was ninety-percent sure she’d cracked a few ribs and had at least a mild concussion), there was still the issue of being smack in the middle of a violent firefight without so much as a Sig Sauer in her fist.
Huddled behind a rock not far from her wrecked vehicle (now conveniently on fire) with her go-bag clutched firmly against her aching chest, Lois could only watch in horror as insurgents appeared on the hills around the road and fired repeatedly on the US soldiers. The thought that this could not be happening hammered repeatedly through her head, drowning out any other coherent ideas she might have had as Lois searched for her liaison, the captain, somebody, anybody who could tell her what the hell she was supposed to be doing when half of the company was getting shot down before her very eyes.
Her silent plea was answered a minute later when one of the other US military transports pulled up a few meters away from her makeshift hiding place and someone shouted over the constant pock-pock-pock of bullets being fired for the lady-reporter to get her ass in the truck.
Lois didn’t hesitate.
She did her best to make herself as inconspicuous and small a target as possible as she sprinted towards the vehicle, trying ignore the hail of gunfire surrounding her (Lois swore to never again complain about having to wear the heavy flak jacket) as she scrambled into the back when her escape from the danger zone was suddenly halted by the extreme pain of a bullet tearing through her left calf at a speed of around one-thousand-seven-hundred miles-per-hour.
A scream left her throat before she had the chance to bite it back, but Lois refused to let the debilitating agony get the better of her, and with the last of her energy managed to all but throw herself into the vehicle. Panting hard, she rolled onto her back in the empty truck bed (both relief and horror sweeping through her when she realized that the only other occupant of the transport was the driver - all of the soldiers, and their medic, would be out attempting to quell the attack), another groan leaving her as Lois tried not to get too bruised by the bouncing of the truck on the dirt road as she tore her headscarf off from beneath her helmet and bound it tightly around the wound on her leg, which was seeping blood at an alarming rate.
Lois was one-hundred-percent aware that she was in some pretty deep shit as it was, but her day got even worse when she was suddenly confronted with one of the Afghani insurgents hanging off the back of her truck. The man must have managed to jump onto the vehicle when it slowed down to pick her up and hopped in the back while Lois was tying up her leg, though instead of targeting the driver, he made his intentions very clear by pointing his rifle at her.
Besides the very obvious threat of a gun in her face, it was at that exact moment that Lois realized something terrible. With her strawberry-blonde hair mostly hidden beneath her helmet and dressed in what consisted of about two-thirds of the typical US servicemen’s kit (minus the weapons, comms, and survival tools), she probably looked almost identical to the soldiers fighting outside. Conclusion: Lois looked nothing like a noncombatant and definitely something like an enemy, which was the reason for the bad end of a M16 assault rifle pointed directly at her head.
A moment later, as the man shouted something that was definitely threatening at her in Dari, Lois realized something else slightly less terrible - there was a pair of survival packs tucked underneath the benches lining the truck bed, and the one nearest to her had a holster attached to the side. A holster, which conveniently enough, contained what looked an awful lot like a goddamn Sig Sauer P320.
Lois didn’t hesitate.
She gritted her teeth as she kicked out with her good leg, getting lucky enough to nail the insurgent right in the balls without his gun going off at her head. While he was busy screeching in pain, Lois took advantage of the distraction to roll onto her side (ignoring her protesting broken ribs as she did) and yank the pistol out of its hiding place just in time to point it at the man in the same moment that he pointed his rifle back at her. Fear flickered in his eyes at the sight of a weapon in her hand, but Lois did not doubt that something as simple as another gun in the game would stop him from taking her life - and damnit, she still had some stories to write.
The pistol was cool against her palm, the safety was off, and her finger was on the trigger.
Lois didn’t hesitate.
V*V*V*V*V*V*V
She woke up in what she almost immediately recognized as a military triage ward thanks to the distinct scent of antiseptic and the clean, white bandage on her calf. Any normal person’s first thought would have been something along the lines of I should find a medic to ask for stronger pain meds, but Lois was anything but normal and the first thought that entered her head upon regaining consciousness was Oh, shit, I killed someone - will I be charged with murder under self-defense or will I be tried as a soldier in combat?
Lois contemplated her situation. She was more familiar than most with the process of military and wartime law, and considering that she was there as a war correspondent (so a non-combatant) she couldn’t exactly claim innocence as a soldier doing their duty. But then again, even if her assailant had been an enemy she hadn’t wanted to kill him, just get him off the truck and leave her be. That surely had to count as self-defense.
Before she could worry about the matter any further, a voice off to her right broke through her thoughts, “Miss Lane?”
Her head shot up (spinning slightly at the sudden movement - a sure sign of a concussion), and Lois turned on her cot to face the man, who appeared to be sergeant-ranked medic, if the insignias on his shoulder were anything to go by.
“Sergeant Hunsicker,” he introduced himself, stepping closer, “I came by to see how you were holding up and ask if you needed anything. And to check the wound, of course.”
“How bad is it?” Lois asked, nodding to her injured calf as the medic examined the bandage for any signs of bleeding or infection. He shrugged.
“You’re not as bad off as some of the boys I’ve had in here today, but you’re decently high on the list. Luckily, the slug missed the tibial vein and only the muscle was torn - you’ll have a bit of a limp, though you should consider yourself lucky just to be alive, Miss Lane.”
Lois couldn’t help but smile at his last comment - he had no idea how many times she had heard that before.
“You have a mild concussion and a few bruised and broken ribs on your left side, though none of that can’t be cured with a few weeks of rest,” the sergeant medic continued, “I expect you’ll be back in fighting shape within the month. In the meantime, is there anything you’d need? Supper’s about to start, if you want some of that.”
“I’d like a crutch,” Lois answered immediately - she wasn’t about to be bedridden just because of a damn gunshot wound. Unfortunately, the medic must have picked up on that and shook his head in response.
“Sorry, Miss Lane, but you’ve lost too much blood to be moving around so soon. Maybe if you’re feeling better tomorrow. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Get Lieutenant Doherty in here - I want to talk with him,” Lois demanded after a moment’s contemplation. The sergeant paused, confused, then nodded in acknowledgement of the order, temporarily forgetting that it was given by an injured war correspondent and not his superior, and jogged off to find the press liaison.
Lois allowed herself to relax slightly into the uncomfortable cot, grateful that the ambush had been quelled and most of the company survived - though this was by no means a time to relax and recover. A hundred questions were still racing through her head from the experience: how had the insurgents known to attack there? How had the US military not spotted them beforehand? Was there a mole in the operation? Wasn’t this supposed to be a no-combat zone? What had the insurgents been after? What was either side’s goal in this war?
Bruised and banged up as she was, Lois smelled a story, and there was no way in hell she was about to let a little hesitation get in her way.
Link to the Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86724184
Title: Hypothermia - Darcie
Prompt: No. 30 ‘Digging Your Grave’ - major character death, left for dead, ghosts
Trigger Warnings: hypothermia
Word Count: 1948
Author’s Note: Bit of an out-there interpretation, but I’ve always thought of Digging Your Own Grave implying the idea of dying alone since there’s no one around to bury you. Best way to die alone: hypothermia.
Stormkrigeren had plenty of experience training in extreme temperatures, and as long as she kept moving, could survive with little to no protection in conditions as low as negative-forty Celsius thanks to her unnatural durability and high core temperature. She ‘ran warm’, as Dr. Schreyer had once described it, but that was not to say that Stormkrigeren couldn’t get cold.
It had been about negative-five out last time she had found a thermometer, which was three hours ago outside a small pharmacy in a town twelve miles south of her current location. Chances were it was about the same temperature now, though a combination of wind-chill and honest-to-goodness freezing rain of all things (fuck, it was only early autumn), Stormkrigeren doubted that it could be much warmer than below eighteen.
Four miles to go. Four miles to the nearest goddamn gas station where she could maybe, maybe buy her next few meals and a Greyhound ticket to Fort McMurray. Four miles of hiking beside the highway late at night in the freezing rain with not even so much as a ski jacket - just a pair of good boots, cargo pants, and a thick second-hand pullover from a charity shop. Four miles to go, and Stormkrigeren was well aware that she was running out of time with Stage II hypothermia starting to set in.
It wasn’t an issue - or at least, it shouldn’t have been an issue.
Almost to the day she had been found, it had been common knowledge among her caretakers that Stormkrigeren was a hardy little thing and much stronger than any human child. She never cried when she was hurt, did not flinch away from needles or machines during medical exams, and hardly seemed to notice when she got a cut, burn, or bruise during her training with Mr. Wilson. Stormkrigeren simply ignored the pain, and would carry on as she always did without ever allowing herself to be hindered.
But now with the clear symptoms of Stage II hypothermia - drowsiness, loss of fine motor skills, decreased heart rate, lack of shivering - making themselves apparent, Stormkrigeren knew that she would need to start addressing the issue soon. There was still at least another four miles to the nearest form of shelter, (a roadside gas station, of all things) so for now she kept herself busy alternating between vigorously rubbing her arms through the fabric of her sweater, stretching her fingers and toes to keep the blood moving, and stomping her feet on the icy asphalt as she jogged farther north. There was, of course, the chance that the hard movements plus a slow heart rate could cause her to go into cardiac arrest (which was why many doctors suggested against rubbing or massaging a hypothermic person to warm them up), but Stormkrigeren had already been in what was likely an unhealthy number of situations that could have lead to a heart attack even at her young age and it’d never happened back then, so she doubted that it would happen now.
The storm hadn’t been that bad when she’d set out that evening - fuck, it hadn’t even been a storm then, just a light drizzle that looked as if it would let up soon. Sixteen miles in that would’ve been a breeze, and the distance was nothing compared to some of the sprints Stormkrigeren had done during her training. The weather had turned nasty less than an hour later, but that was not to say that she allowed herself to slow down in her steady jog north, even when the asphalt of the highway she was running beside began to turn dangerously icy. Stormkrigeren ignored the hazardous conditions and maintained her pace, keeping to the shoulder to avoid any drivers that were stupid enough to be out in a storm like this after the sun had set.
Do not stop - that was the rule. Do not rest until the task is complete.
By her estimations, Stormkrigeren still had another two miles to go until she could rest.
The rain vehemently refused to let up, pelting her from all sides and soaking her to the skin while covering everything in a sheet of thin, icy frost. It might have been pretty if not for two very important reasons: (a), it was already quite dark out and even with her keen eyesight, Stormkrigeren could hardly see shit, and (b), it was too effing cold to be pretty. So Stormkrigeren dutifully ignored whatever sights might have been visible and kept running at her slightly-unsteady pace, refusing to acknowledge that she was definitely starting to lose her coordination, evidenced by every time she stumbled on the frozen asphalt.
Do not stop.
Do not rest.
Stormkrigeren had stopped feeling cold a few miles back, her feet like bricks inside her boots, but still she did not stop. Keeping moving, don’t stop, don’t rest-
The gas station seemed to appear very suddenly - one minute, she was still in the dark rainstorm in the middle of nowhere, and the next she was stamping her feet on the ground beneath a sign boasting of low diesel prices bordering the tiny parking lot. Two very contrasting thoughts swept through her head at the sight of the low building, simultaneously setting her on edge and almost dropping her guard in relief. On one hand, here was someplace where she could warm up and rest and prepare for the next leg of her escape in relative safety - but the other side of the coin was her fugitive instinct screaming danger at the sight of a gas station. Places like this had cameras, and the last thing Stormkrigeren wanted was for someone to have proof of her existence.
Then again, places like this were warm and Stormkrigeren’s fear of being recognized was just barely outweighed by her fear of significant frostbite. It was late, she was tired, she was hungry, she was cold, and she had just run nearly twenty miles in a storm bordering on sleet - in short, she didn’t have the mental capacity to be too worried about anything. With that makeshift courage bolstering her up, Stormkrigeren crossed the small parking lot and entered the convenience store beside the pumps.
One of the first things she noted (besides, of course, the location of the four cameras that could possibly catch a glimpse of her face) was a small coffee shop near the back - one of those little ones that was just a counter with a barista behind it and no chairs or tables in sight. But, Stormkrigeren also noted that it did have hot, black coffee fresh from the pot.
She made her way across the virtually empty convenience store, keeping her face out of sight beneath her cap from the nearby cameras, employees, and a balding customer currently browsing a nearby aisle containing medicine, sports magazines, and juice concentrate. The barista noticed her the moment Stormkrigeren looked remotely interested in the coffee shop, and immediately perked up as she approached, “Hi! What can I get you?”
“Canni-”
Stormkrigeren stopped herself mid-sentence, recognizing that she was slurring a bit - that wasn’t a good sign, maybe the hypothermia had affected her mind more than she had thought. She needed to be fully awake and alert, and the damn cold wasn’t helping much.
“Can. I. Please. Get. A. Large. Black. Coffee. As. Hot. As. You. Can. Make. It,” she tried again, forcing herself to pause between each word and say her piece slowly and deliberately so that she didn’t muddle it again. The barista shot her an odd look but didn’t push the matter and started calculating the total at the cash register.
“Alright, that’s one large black coffee to go. Your total is two-ninety-nine, ma’am.”
Stormkrigeren proceeded to pull out the exact amount in loose change collected in the front pocket of her backpack while the basista bustled about finding a cup and filling with steaming dark brew straight from the pot. She secretly hated coffee with a passion - it was bitter and had always brought up bad memories ever since she’d turned thirteen, but it was the quickest way to raise her internal temperature which was her highest priority at the moment. Accepting the hot cup, she paid for her drink and thanked the barista before promptly downing half its contents without so much as scalding her tongue. Stormkrigeren had a brief coughing fit afterwards but her insides felt all the warmer for it, so that could only be a good thing.
She proceeded to absently wander around the gas station, occasionally taking slow swigs from her coffee and mostly looking out for something to replace her thoroughly soaked clothes - there was a pair of clean jeans in her backpack which were probably only a little bit damp, though her pullover would definitely need to be replaced for something both dry and waterproof. Doing all of her shopping out of local Walgreens and gas station convenience stores probably wasn’t the cheapest or the easiest way to live on the run, though Stormkrigeren made it work simply because while gas stations were rife with cameras, customers were significantly less likely to be identified by the employees compared to someplace that had greeters like Walmart or Costco. Admittedly, gas stations often didn’t sell clothes (mostly because very few customers came in looking for anything more than a sandwich), but Stormkrigeren was in luck as this one had a few sweatshirts emblazoned with sights from a local tourist attraction. It would have to do.
After grabbing a few other necessities - including a hothands packet, a box of tampons, and six microwavable breakfast burritos - she made her way to the cashier with her total already calculated in her head. The man scanned the purchases and confirmed her math while Stormkrigeren counted out a few ten-dollar bills, made the exchange, and did her best to look like she wasn’t shivering violently throughout the whole interaction. Fuck, she needed to sit down. But even if it was warmer than the outdoors, the convenience store was in no way safe - too many cameras around. Except, Stormkrigeren reminded herself, in the bathrooms.
She scooped up her purchases and thanked the cashier before making her way to the little girls room on the other side of the store, shoving open the heavy door with her shoulder to discover that luck was with her and the place was empty. Not only that, but there was a heating vent embedded in the wall relatively close to the tiled floor. Stormkrigeren nearly collapsed in relief when she saw it and wasted no time in sitting down with her back against it while she stripped out of her still-dripping pullover and long-sleeved tee beneath. With her cold and trembling hands, it took her longer than she would have liked to put on the new, dry shirt and yank her damp boots and socks off her aching feet, but once she did, it was bliss.
She didn’t care that she had close to no idea where she was or where she was heading or what she was going to do next, that someone could walk in at any moment, that the cramped space reeked of toilet cleaner and the odd papery smell she had come to associate with public bathrooms - all that mattered was that she was out of the cold. Stormkrigeren slowly allowed her mind to temporarily let go of the razor-sharp focus that kept her alive as she pulled on a dry pair of socks, wrapped her travel blanket around her shoulders, and snapped the hothands packet to activate it. For the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to relax just the tiniest amount.
Link to the Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86685436
Title: Insomnia - Lois
Prompt: No. 29 ‘All Work, And No Play’ - “You’re still not dead?”, too weak to move, overworked
Word Count: 1289
Lois Joanne Lane was a night owl to the nth degree, though oddly enough, this was something of a recent development. Growing up in a military family, getting up with the sun had been a daily part of life and continued to be that way up until her second year of university when a combination of events including a midterm paper, a karaoke party, and what under highly specific circumstances could be considered a car chase suddenly revealed the truth: Lois got her best work done at one in the morning when there were no idiots around to bother her.
Her sleep schedule shifted drastically after that, and though it was a pain in the ass for a week or three as she tried to rearrange her classes to be mostly confined to the afternoon, it was around then that her professors discovered that damn, could this madwoman write. Lois rarely got to bed before two am, spending her evenings (and half of her nights) writing the articles, essays, reports, pieces, and works that would firmly establish her as one of the best journalists to come out of that university in nearly twelve years.
The habit continued, staying with her long after college and well into her first internship, then onwards and upwards to the bullpen of the world-renowned Daily Planet. Lois worked the typical nine-to-five bit in the office, ordered takeout (usually Chinese, but she had recently discovered an Indian restaurant on 5th and Barnes that had some mean curry), then began doing the investigative part of investigative reporting. Depending on the story, that could last long into the night but there would always be a bit of time and coffee-fueled energy left for Lois to return to her apartment and compile whatever notes she had procured into a nearly-legible Word document before passing out on her couch. The coworkers who didn’t call her ‘Mad Dog’ Lane for her tenacious passion for the work had started nicknaming her ‘Batwoman’, and to be perfectly honest, she couldn’t disagree with them. She loved working late and though it probably wasn’t the healthiest way to live her life, Lois found that she honestly didn’t give a fuck as long as it put her on the high road towards a Pulitzer Prize.
Unfortunately, being a night owl did not make Lois invulnerable to the bane of every writer’s existence - lack of inspiration caused by exhaustion.
She had been living off of four hours of sleep every night for a good week at this point, and it was finally starting to show - mostly in the bags under her eyes, but more worryingly in the fact that even a triple-shot espresso didn’t give her much more than a mild buzz. The worst had come to the worst: coffee had stopped working, and now Lois’ insomniac ass was just plain ol’ tired.
Most, if not all of her late night writing was done either at her dining room table or her couch, surrounded by piles of notes and empty coffee cups while the news played in the background to drown out any distractions while she diligently typed perfectly formatted Word documents containing what would hopefully be her next Pulitzer Prize-winning article. Even so, Metropolis Eight News played as loud as her neighbors would bear wasn’t enough to quite recreate the comforting bustle of the Daily Planet’s bullpen that had quickly become the tune to which her whole life danced. If she stopped her incessant typing long enough to think about it, Lois realized that her own apartment was quite lonely - and despite how much she told herself that she worked best when there were no idiots around to bother her, she still missed the company of fellow writers weaving the truth into their own articles and pieces.
Many of her coworkers at the Planet were constantly encouraging her to get a boyfriend, some even going so far as to set her up with dates which Lois really only went to for the free food. Cat Grant, who was well known for going through at least one man a month, also had a habit of catching Lois in the break room just in time to break into a long-winded speech about how a romantic partner would help get her mind off of work and teach her to have some fun.
(And help her sleep better at night, Lombard from Sports would add with what Lois assumed was his attempt at a ‘sexy’ wink. It honestly just looked like he had something in his eye.)
Lois was of the very firm opinion that there would be no significant others in her life anytime soon, and she wasn’t afraid to make that known throughout the bullpen - Lois J. Lane was officially unavailable and unofficially married to her job. That was about the closest she could get to telling Lombard to put his opinions about her home life where the sun doesn't shine.
In the meantime, Lois was perfectly happy having her apartment to herself and satisfied any random urges she might have for a boyfriend with a weighted blanket, over-sugared coffee, and long showers. Speaking of coffee, her last mug of joe hadn’t done shit and her second wind was beginning to blow itself out… or maybe it was her third wind, though Lois knew that it could quite easily be her fourth - time tended to stop being real somewhere around one in the morning.
Setting her laptop aside, she got up to start the kettle boiling with the intention of brewing herself a nice, strong cup of black tea in hopes that her body would accept the caffeine she so desperately needed in a form other than coffee. She didn’t really expect it to work - she had already exhausted herself beyond any rescue besides sleep, though that would be just about impossible for Lois in her current state. Anyway, another caffeine hit was worth a try.
The next half-hour was spent waiting in vain for the tea to do its job and give her enough energy to maybe, maybe finish her article on the implications of a new tax law in consideration while Lois did her best to format one of her quotes from one of the city council members into something that would simultaneously grab her readers’ attention, accurately represent the situation and the council member’s statement, and still fit into a two-inch column of newsprint.
After a few minutes of useless effort, she redirected her attention to digging the tv remote out of its hiding spot between the couch cushions and turning the volume up a few clicks so she could hear the news a little bit better - not that she ever listened to the mud they broadcasted in place of real journalism these days - before she began to organize her mess of a coffee table slash workspace with a sigh. There were a pair of empty Starbucks cups that would have to go in the trash, along with a mostly-eaten takeout box of kung pao chicken and her pile of nigh-on incomprehensible handwritten notes for an interview she’d done that morning which Lois neatly stacked back into something that didn’t look quite as likely to topple over before collapsing back onto the couch. There wasn’t any point in trying to get more work when her brain was as frazzled as it was, though she was just as likely to catch even an hour of shuteye as she was to write a halfway-decent article at the moment. She knew for a fact that she wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep that night with her insomnia and tendency to overwork herself, but who needed sleep when they were in the running for a Pulitzer?
Link to the Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86626177
Title: Bloody Hands - Clark
Prompt: No. 28 ‘It’s Not Just In Your Head’ - “Good. You’re Finally Awake.”, nightmares, panic
Trigger Warnings: blood
Word Count: 2225
The pub had once been an old storehouse - someplace to keep goods indoors and out of the unpredictable weather that often came out of nowhere on the northern edge of the Great Slave Lake. The building had been laying empty for years before someone came along and decided to turn it into the Bearcat Pub, only to give up halfway through the renovation and sell it to the likes of Weaver - who despite being a terrible businessman was pretty decent at getting things done. The storehouse was repaired, made watertight, and generally converted into a trucker bar now known by the name of ‘Cassidy’s’ after Weaver’s ex.
Time went by. Beer was made and sold, burgers and battered fish were added to the menu, and a fryer was bought for the kitchen to speed up the production of Weaver’s famous gravied crinkle-cut fries - though the damn machine tended to leak oil, becoming the reason that Jake was fired and thus a position for the role of busboy opened up at Cassidy’s Pub.
Jake wasn’t too happy about ‘getting the sack’ as he called it, and made that very clear to everyone in the restaurant as Weaver demanded that he clear out. A scuffle ensued between the ex-busboy and a regular patron over whether the discharge had been deserved, though Jake very quickly learned that he was in the wrong (not to mention at the wrong end of a fist) and hastily made his escape, shoving his way out the front door so violently he nearly knocked down the young man who had hardly mounted the porch steps.
“What’s going on in there?” the younger man asked, eyeing the disheveled Jake with surprise, and Jake eyed him back with a dirty look.
“None of your business,” he spat, and started towards his run-down truck at the far end of the parking lot when the dark-haired stranger called after him.
“Do you know if they’re still serving lunch?”
“Lunch is served till three,” Jake called back, who despite having recently been fired still felt it his duty to help out a potential customer as he turned back to give the boy some advice, “Listen here: that’s Weaver’s place, and you want nuthin’ to do with the man. Sure, the booze’s good and the poutine is the best in the province, but you blink wrong just once and you’ll be out on the street ‘afore ya know it. I wasn’t even in the damn kitchen when the fryer cracked, and look at me now!”
The younger man blinked, taking in Jake’s sudden rant with quiet contemplation.
“Well, if it isn’t your fault, couldn’t you just explain that to your boss?” he asked slowly, “Let’s go talk to… Weaver? That’s his name, isn’t it? I’m sure it's all just a misunderstanding and can be cleared up pretty quickly.”
“Son, if you can talk some sense into that old rat-bastard’s head, I’ll buy your lunch myself!” Jake professed, and jogged after him up the porch stairs into the bar.
The young man chuckled and held the door for him, “My name’s Will, sir.”
The inside of the pub looked decently clean (considering the fact that it was typically populated with long-haul truckers and local miners), though it still reeked of stale beer, sweat, and the overpowering scent of fatty bacon frying on a griddle.There were a few customers sitting at tables scattered around the room, talking just loud enough to be heard over the radio in the corner on which a newscaster was discussing a recent hockey game and traffic alerts. An older, unkempt-looking man wearing a dirty apron stood behind the bar, simultaneously watching a sizzling pan of bacon and polishing beer glasses - the young man could tell by the way Jake’s eyes darted towards him that this must be Weaver.
Approaching the bar, Will straightened up a bit, adjusting his bag across his back as he coughed politely to get the bar owner’s attention.
“Mr. Weaver, sir,” he addressed him, indicating Jake standing a few feet away as he did, “I was wondering if I could speak to you for a minute about this man’s position as busboy. I believe there’s been a mis-”
Weaver stopped him with a raised hand, balancing the half-cleaned glass and cloth in the other as he looked the man over. A young kid - couldn’t be much older than twenty-five - and an out-of-towner to boot, if his American accent was anything to go by. He had a duffle slung over one shoulder and was wearing an old green jacket likely picked up from a charity shop somewhere, all pointing to him being a drifter of some sort, though judging by his language and recently-shaved face, he was likely an honest one - better than Jake, at least. He would do.
Weaver nodded once and went back to wiping the glass. “Alright. Job’s your’s, kid.”
Will paused in surprise, blue eyes opening wide as he made to protest but Weaver shut him up with a hard glare.
“What’re you waiting for? Closet’s by the men’s room - now get your ass back there and put an apron on, busboy!”
V*V*V*V*V*V*V
Winter set in quickly that year, and within weeks the territory had gone from receiving the occasional light frost to full-on snowstorms that often brought highway traffic to a standstill - not that it stopped any of Cassidy’s regular patrons from coming in for a pint. It was after one such blizzard that the leak was discovered: a bit of siding that had rotted away over the years and was letting snow into one of the walk-ins near the back of the restaurant. Weaver, who was not all too bothered about a bit of weather getting into a room that was already ‘cold as hell’s teeth’, was forced to reluctantly put an order in for the leak to be repaired before it got any worse.
Monday morning, a pair of part-time construction workers and someone’s brother showed up to inspect the issue and get started on fixing it up. Will, the new busboy who had hardly been working at the pub for more than two months, took a special interest in the repair work - partly because he had grown up on a farm in the middle of tornado country and had been replacing siding since he was eleven, and partly because somehow three men, a hammer, a nailgun, and a tablesaw sitting outside were still louder than a bar full of inebriated truckers.
His break time came around, and instead of sitting down with a glass of cola and a meal as he usually did, Will went around back behind the pub to see how the repairs were coming along. It was nigh on mid-afternoon now and the leak apparently fixed, though it would be another hour or two before the job could be called ‘done’ as there was still new weather/water-resistant paper to be installed and the siding to be replaced. Having nothing better to do, Will offered a hand and was soon put to work nailing weather paper to the side of the building with one of the workers while the other two measured and cut new boards to replace the rotted siding.
They had been at it for about half-an-hour when the accident occured. One of the men - Harold, Will remembered he’d said his name was - had been working the table saw when the plank slipped and the spinning blade hit his hand instead.
His scream brought everyone running, his friends immediately dropping their tools in favor of locating the very obvious problem - Harold was missing a finger, and what was left of it was bleeding profusely. One of the men yanked his phone out to dial 9-1-1 while the other tried to calm his injured buddie, reassuring him that everything was gonna be okay, they were gonna get him to a doctor and everything would be all right. Will was the only one of them who had the sense to grab a clean dish rag out of his back pocket and wrap it tightly around Harold’s stump, attempting to stem the flow of blood that was quickly staining the white cloth red, not to mention Will’s hands.
Will did his best to ignore it. He did his best to ignore the heavy metallic scent that seemed to linger in the air, and he did his best to ignore the crimson droplets scattered across the concrete beneath their feet, and he did his best to ignore the warm, sticky feeling dripping down his palms. Will did his best to ignore the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him every time he caught sight of the wound and focus instead on helping Harold sit down, constantly reassuring him that everything would be all right (even if Will himself didn’t feel that way). He found that he was trembling a bit now, hands shaking as the nausea settling in his stomach and he caught himself backing away - he would never admit that the sight of blood frightened him, that it sent him reeling and feeling as if he were about to pass out, but Will would admit that someone should let Weaver know what had happened.
He was up the stairs and in through the back door of the pub before anyone could ask where he was off to, his legs feeling unusually shaky as he made for the owner’s office. Someone had to tell Weaver, tell him that Harold had lost a finger, tell him that Harold was bleeding, tell him that Harold was covered in blood, and Will had blood on his hands…
A fresh wave of nausea hit him at the thought, and instead of continuing down the hall towards the office, Will found himself stumbling into the nearby men’s room. It was just as he had told Harold: everything was gonna be okay, everything was going to be all right. Only now instead of telling those words to an injured coworker, Will was chanting them to himself as he promptly lost the contents of his stomach into a grimy toilet, leaving bloody handprints on the bowl.
The ordeal left him trembling harder than before, and oddly enough, cold - Will never got cold, he hadn’t been cold in years… He didn’t really have the strength to wonder why, all of his energy sucked out of him by the mere sight of a little bit of blood.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, slumped on the floor of the bathroom stall and his vision swirling uncomfortably as he absently tried to rub the red liquid off of his skin. Nothing he did was working - it just continued to spread and it was getting everywhere and he couldn’t breathe- something about the whole ordeal shocked him enough that he was finally able to pull himself together, clarity hitting him like a tidal wave. Will still felt cold and shaky and weak, his pulse pounding in his ears like he had just run the longest race in the world when in fact he hadn’t stumbled much farther than fifty feet to reach the men’s room. Despite the nausea still churning in his stomach, he was just grateful he hadn’t passed out completely like the last time he had witnessed a bloodied wound. Grateful, and more than a little upset with himself.
Will had been nine years old the first time he fainted at the sight of blood. It was mid-summer, and he had been helping repair the old fencing along the property line when his dad cut his hand on a bit of barbed wire - Will had barely lost the contents of his stomach in the long grass before he promptly passed out. He woke up a few moments later, sick to his stomach with fright and both of his parents leaning over him worriedly, though his mom repeatedly reassured him that he was perfectly fine. Being so sensitive to others’ pain was nothing to be ashamed of, she told him time and time again.
And his mom would have been right, if only Will hadn’t been in a small town school, surrounded daily by rowdy sophomore quarterbacks and throwers with nothing better to do than tease the one boy who never played football. High school was torture, and for none of the usual reasons - every time someone walked past him in the hall with a broken nose or bloodied mouth from a lost tooth, Will would struggle for hours afterwards to hold himself together.
He hadn’t the slightest idea why the sight of a little bit of blood made him so sick - it wasn’t as if he would ever get hurt himself. In all of his twenty-six years on Earth, Will had never so much as gotten a cut or even a scrape much bigger than his fingernail, much less broken a bone. His fainting and nausea wasn’t caused by any particular medical problem as far as he or any doctors could tell. The only possible reason Will could come up with was very plain and simple: he was a coward, afraid of something that could do him no harm.
And looking down at his hands, still red with the blood of another man, that simple fact hurt more than any wound he could ever get.
It was still kept in the same clear generic plastic container, and had the same texture and color too, but it tasted different from her usual stuff. It wasn’t that even that big of a difference - her shake was only slightly chalkier and more metallic beneath the artificial chocolate flavoring. Stormkrigeren put it down to the milk she had used for it - the flavor could change occasionally between batches, but as long as it didn’t look or smell bad, it was usually all right. Not like she couldn’t simply walk off any mild food poisoning that might result.
Stormkrigeren quickly polished off her breakfast of protein shake and fruit salad, washing out her dishes in the kitchen sink before returning to the main Room to perform some warm-up stretches. It was an arms and core day, which were always fun because it meant she could use the punching bag. The bag was usually stored in a cupboard in the storage/kitchen room, but now Stormkrigeren brought it out into her main Room and hung it on the folding steel bar against the south wall in preparation for the workout. Sixty minutes of alternating sprints, boxing drills, crunches, pushups, kicks, and punches. Certainly not the most challenging fitness routine she had ever done, but it was hard enough to make her satisfyingly sore when it was finally over. Stormkrigeren wiped sweat from her forehead as her alarm went off, signaling the end of her workout, and ignored the tenderness around her middle when she did one last crunch before getting up. It hurt a bit more than it usually did - but then again, everything tended to cramp a little bit when her menstrual period was approaching.
Stormkrigeren showered quickly and changed into some clean clothes before pouring herself a glass of orange juice and getting back to work. It was some online organization for one of LexCorp’s foreign subsidies - they were preparing another shipment to New York, and she had been assigned to come up with an analytics report on the proposed method of transporting the cargo. A simple, but not monotonous or necessarily challenging task, but Stormkrigeren still struggled to concentrate and ignore the uncomfortable churning in her stomach. She ignored it, of course, and carried on somewhat-normally for another half-hour or so before the nausea set in.
Abdominal pain, nausea, cramping, and a distinct lack of concentration - all early symptoms of many different sicknesses, but Stormkrigeren’s caretakers had long ago ruled out the possibility of the subject contracting any normal human illnesses. The last time she had ever felt like this had been last year when Mister Wilson had conducted a few ‘poison tests’ to see how she could handle various toxins and gases. Her body had little to no reaction to most of them, but a few of the more potent ones… had felt an awful lot like this. With her headache pounding the way it was, Stormkrigeren could only think of one logical conclusion: she had been poisoned somehow. And she needed to remove said poison from her system as quickly as possible.
“Fuck,” she muttered, stumbling up from her chair and towards the kitchen door, “Fuckfuckfuckfuck, oh shit - didn’t fucking recognize it sooner...”
Her legs were already trembling from the effort of sprinting to the bathroom and gave way beneath her as she crouched on the tile, but she still managed to lift the spotless toilet seat before shoving any stray hair behind her ears. She had not been gassed or injected, that she was sure of - most fumes would cause respiratory symptoms before gastrointestinal, and she couldn’t remember experiencing any needles or sharp pricks since her weekly blood tests a few days ago. It must have been something she ate or drank, and the quickest way to get it out was to make it come back up.
Mister Wilson had taught her how. ‘Just for emergencies’ he said. Comfortable position on knees, hair out of the way, head forward and gentle pressure on the abdominal area. Index and middle fingers in pointer position, pressed into the back of her throat to trigger the pharyngeal reflex and induce vomiting. Remain calm and relaxed, do not panic, never allow yourself to panic.
She eventually managed it, and promptly lost most of the meagre contents of her stomach into the toilet, along with much of her energy. The ordeal left her cold and trembling from the forced effort, muscles burning just from the effort of keeping herself upright. Her vision was swimming now as she clutched at the toilet bowl and tried to brush any loose hairs out of her face, taking deep breaths to calm the panic in her chest. It hadn’t been enough, she hadn’t gotten all of it out, there was still some of the poison inside her-
“One more time,” she panted, giving herself a goal to cling onto when the whole world seemed to be falling apart, “Damnit, one more time, get it all out.”
It wouldn’t do any good, she couldn’t possibly get all of it out this way, but she at least had to try. Stormkrigeren pulled herself up into position, her body trembling from the effort and vision flickering in shades of dark and light. She could feel herself slipping - physically or mentally, she couldn’t tell - slipping, falling, cracking, shattering, and finally slumping to the floor as oblivion took hold.
V*V*V*V*V*V*V
Movement woke her - nearby, to her left, footsteps on smooth concrete. Heavy footsteps, likely male, moving closer, stopping right within arms reach and crouching down beside her.
Her eyes flew open the same moment that Stormkrigeren kicked off the blanket and aimed a blow at the potential attacker - only for Mister Wilson to easily catch her wrist long before it made contact.
Stormkrigeren blinked, taking in the sight of him leaning down beside her, the usual scowl on his face and both of her wrists caught in his grip. She knew him well enough to tell that he wasn’t necessarily angry that she had tried to attack him unprovoked - approving, more like, but he didn’t tell her so aloud. Instead he tightly squeezed her left wrist until she was forced to open the hand, into which he pressed a full waterbottle in a subtle order to drink up.
“Pulse,” he ordered. She obeyed, pushing herself up into a sitting position and tilting her head to one side so he could press two fingers against the side of her throat, taking a moment to analyze her surroundings.
She was on the floor of her Room’s kitchenette, shivering slightly on the cold concrete - which would explain the blanket that had been tossed over her. There was an empty bucket off to her right, likely put there by Mister Wilson along with the blanket, and a warm, spicy, sweet smell coming from the nearby hob letting off small clouds of steam. Rice pudding - the kind with nutmeg in it that her teacher sometimes made.
“Did Dr. Schreyer call you?” Stormkrigeren ventured, finally working up the courage to point out the one small irregularity in the entire situation - it was the medically-approved Lisa and not Mister Wilson who was legally required to nurse the injured Stormkrigeren back to health in the case of an emergency.
“Off duty,” came the reply, “Lee’s the only one in the Watching Room, and he didn’t call me - didn’t even know you were hurting till I arrived for your lesson and politely explained to the bastard that something must be wrong because you hadn’t put your punching bag away.”
Part of her inwardly flinched at the mention - she was always supposed to put her punching bag away when she finished a routine, that was the rule, and somehow she had completely forgotten and broken that rule. There would be punishment for her negligence, there was no doubt of that, but she had no idea what or how severe it would be. Stormkrigeren found herself tensing in preparation, waiting for her teacher’s gentle hand on her pulse to turn into a fist for the inevitable blow. But Mister Wilson only frowned and muttered something to himself about her heart rate being too slow as he removed his hand to return to his place at the stovetop. Stormkrigeren let out the smallest sigh of relief when he stepped away, keeping her gaze trained on him at all times as he continued to rhythmically stir the pot before he finally spoke up.
“What do you think it was?”
“Arsenic?” she hazarded a guess, thinking back on all the symptoms she had shown before losing consciousness. Mister Wilson nodded.
“Likely. I’ll ask Luthor about it when I get the chance.”
It suddenly clicked and Stormkrigeren realized why her teacher was acting more protective than usual, rare worry lines creasing his usually grim face.
“You… didn’t put it there.”
“No,” he answered in a low growl, still stirring the bubbling pot, “But part of me wishes I had just so I wouldn’t have to address that bastard about running poison tests on my student without my permission.”
Mister Wilson snorted softly in annoyance and moved to grab two bowls from a nearby cupboard, “Of course, with the way you’re looking, you’re going to be out of commission for a few days till your body flushes it out. Won’t even be good for some light training, I’d expect - and no, you’re not ‘fine’. You were out like a light when I found you.”
Stormkrigeren swallowed back any protests she had about being well enough to train, knowing that her teacher would shut the argument down immediately with solid logic. Her body needed to recover first before Mister Wilson would even consider letting her do a few minutes of sparring practise, but the best she could do for herself at the moment was restore any fluids she had lost (vomiting tended to be very dehydrating).
She quietly drank from the waterbottle he had handed her earlier, the cool liquid soothing her burning throat as she watched her teacher at the hob. Mister Wilson had finally decided the porridge was thick enough and turned the heat off in favor of scooping rice pudding into the two bowls he had grabbed before finally moving to sit down nearby on the hard concrete floor with a low sigh.
“See if you can keep that down,” he muttered, passing her the smaller portion, which Stormkrigeren took with a grateful nod. It probably wasn’t the best thing to eat after having recently survived an attempted poisoning, but it was comfort food and might help to calm the twisting tension that lingered inside her since the ordeal. She followed orders and ate the pudding slowly, watching her teacher pull a pack of playing cards and an assortment of foreign loose change from his pockets.
“Ever played poker?” Mister Wilson asked, shuffling the cards.
“No, sir.”
He sighed, mildly annoyed and resigned, then smiled softly to himself as he moved a little closer to sit facing his student.
“I came all this way to give you a goddamned lesson,” he chuckled, laying out the cards, “Might as well teach you something.”
Link to the Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86534524
Title: Adrift - Clark
Prompt: Alt. No. 15 - Anxiety
Word Count: 1798
Clark liked taking the ferry.
Not only was it the quickest way to travel between Metropolis and Gotham across the bay (besides flying, of course) but it also had a nice view of Stryker’s Island and the inside of the boat had the second-best seating Clark had ever come across in public transportation, only topped by the comfy padded bus seats on Route 8 through Metropolis. The crowd on the ferry was always just enough passengers to be considered ‘a lot’ but also polite and orderly in a way that didn’t make such a gathering uncomfortable, and the little booth benches on the boat’s second floor were the perfect spot for him to get a bit of work done during the forty-five minute trip. Lois was not as big a fan of the ferry as Clark was, but he chalked it up to the fact that she had lived near a coastline nearly her entire life whereas the Kansas farmboy still got excited at the cry of gulls and the smell of the ocean.
He had just finished covering a story in Gotham - something about a change in import regulations at the harbor and the effect they would have on shipping charges - and Clark managed to catch one of the last ferries home before they stopped for the night. It had rained a bit that morning, though now the stormclouds had descended and covered Hobb’s Bay in thick fog only abated by a very light sea breeze. Visibility would be down, the ferry captain announced over the PA as the boat left Gotham Harbor, but the radio towers and instruments were operating fine so they would only be a few minutes behind schedule due to reduced speed.
That was fine by Clark - it gave home more time to compile his notes from the interview in Gotham, and he had a snack that he always kept in his bag in case he got hungry. Even with the delay, it wasn’t going to take more than an hour to reach the Metropolis side, then maybe another half-hour by subway to get home around five-forty-five which gave him just enough time to break out the Korean dumplings and start a pot of rice before Lois got back from work. He knew that neither of them had any urgent projects, so maybe if they finished their respective articles before nine they could put on a movie…
Clark knew none of those domestic fantasies of a nice night at home with his girlfriend would come to fruition the moment he heard the soft clunk of what must have been one of the ferry’s propellers, followed by a significant decrease in the boat’s speed - it wasn’t hard to tell that something was wrong.
He considered himself to be a curious person, but unlike Lois, he wasn’t much of a snooper or eavesdropper. Much to both her and Chief’s displeasure, Clark typically preferred to wait until the whole story played out before he started asking questions, and by then he had already missed his chance at breaking the ‘breaking news’. Lois often urged him to take a more direct approach: if he saw something, he should say something. Now Clark could clearly see that the ferry was in a bit of trouble for some reason or other, and he knew that, of course, the quickest way to find out how or why it was in trouble would be to talk to the captain.
A bit reluctantly, Clark grabbed his bag and got up from his seat to seek out the wheelhouse, which wasn’t too hard. After rapping politely on the door and enquiring to the man who answered whether the captain was in, he was presented to an older man who looked genuinely tired with the whole situation and in need of a cigarette as he introduced himself as Captain Pokorny. The captain, after seeing Clark’s press pass, reluctantly gave him admittance into the wheelhouse where most of the ferry’s crew was currently gathered in discussion, and explained the situation.
A propellor - one that had been showing signs of wear-and-tear and was supposed to have been fixed in the last maintenance check-up - had somehow either jammed or broken off of the boat completely, leaving only one working engine that the captain was reluctant to complete the trip on in case it overheated from the strain, which was highly likely considering how old the boat was. In short: they were a little bit stuck.
There was no danger of the ferry sinking in Hobb’s Bay - that would require a leak of some sort, the captain explained - they were just unfortunately stranded and adrift in the open water until the Coast Guard could arrive to give them a tow back to harbor. There was, of course, the chance that the Gotham or Metropolis Harbor Police would show up first, but the general sentiment in the pilot house was that ‘those boys take as long crossing the Bay as it takes to drive damn around it’.
Clark dutifully recorded all of this information, writing it down for a potential story to turn in at the Daily Planet when he got the chance, and asked a few more questions about what the maintenance schedule was like, what sort of improvements the crew thought could be made to the ferry system, and how long before the Coast Guard was expected to arrive.
Having got his answers and what he considered to be a pretty solid basis for a human interest story, Clark thanked the captain and returned to his favorite seat on the ferry’s second floor to wait out the estimated hour or so until help arrived (the Coast Guard had been alerted and would be on their way soon, the radio officer had assured him, but were caught up with an incident involving some missing fishing boats further north).
Clark dutifully transferred his notes from the moleskine notebook he had taken to always carrying with him to the backup drive on his phone so that he could at least have both a physical and digital copy of his work - a skill taught to him by Lois, who was well-familiar with the importance of keeping backups and often kept up to five copies of her stories on various flashdrives, dropboxes, and in desperate times, even her own notebook (a dollar-store composition pad in the bottom of her emergency go-bag). And speaking of her, it occurred to Clark that he should probably let his girlfriend know that he would be a little bit late, except there was one issue: cell service in Hobb’s Bay was patchy at best and straight up non-existent on a normal day, so instead of giving Lois a call and getting the chance to hear her voice, he had to satisfy himself with a short, explanatory text that would hopefully go through sometime soon.
The funny thing was, he could resolve the whole situation all by himself if it weren’t for one tiny issue: Clark was on a boat packed with passengers, and there were just a few too many curious eyes around for the reporter to vanish and Superman appear without somebody noticing the change. No private corners to turn his cape, no hidden closets for him to conveniently step into - even the bathrooms were out of the question considering the ever-present line leading into them. In short, Clark was just a little bit stuck where he was.
He would not say that he had anxiety, he was far too level-headed for that. It was just that sometimes, if he was a bit stressed or under pressure or hadn’t eaten or slept in the past few days, he had the tiniest bit of trouble with keeping his thoughts from wandering to some… unpleasant scenarios.
The boat could sink. The weather could get worse. The Coast Guard or harbor police could get lost and never find them. Or if they were found, the rescuer wouldn’t be able to do anything. To put it plainly, there was the possibility that Clark wouldn’t get home that night simply because there were too many watchful eyes on a ferry in the middle of Hobb’s Bay.
It was a shout from the ferry’s upper deck that caught his attention and pulled him out of his unhealthy downspiral of anxious thoughts. Said shout was followed by many running steps, someone gasping and another praying under the breath as onlookers gathered on the floor above. Clark was obviously curious, and mounted the stairs with a group of passengers ascending to see what the commotion was about, and he was met with the sight of lightly-drizzling fog surrounding the boat, still uncomfortably thick but now punctuated by a sharp flash of color in the mist - a bright red cape drifting on the breeze nearby.
She spotted him immediately - of course she would, he’d have expected nothing less considering how overprotective she was - but made no sign that she recognized him besides a hint of a smile as she observed the gathering crowd, and a slight raising of the eyebrows in his direction as if to teasingly ask ‘what sort of fuck-up have you found yourself in now’.
The uncomfortable ball of ice that had been forming in his chest suddenly got a bit lighter at the sight of her, and Clark found himself almost sighing in relief. She was here, everything would be all right now, he didn’t have to worry anymore - but that wasn’t to say she couldn’t use his help. Clark gave her a quick summary of the situation in hushed tones, knowing that not even the crowd surrounding him would hear while she would pick up his voice with ease.
Once he had explained the issue, she gave him the slightest of nods in acknowledgement, her gaze sweeping the boat itself in a quick glance as she located the problem, assessed the ‘fuck-up’ she had come to rescue him from, and allowed herself to drift on the light breeze just close enough to the boat to ask to speak with the captain about giving them a tow.
The anxiety that had been settling uncomfortably in Clark’s stomach released its hold slightly, and a little more when the captain arrived and an arrangement was worked out between him and Superwoman over the issue of getting to harbor. A Coast Guard vessel was already en-route but it was agreed that the Kryptonian would be allowed to tow them across the rest of the Bay to Metropolis with the CG acting as backup in case something else broke. All in all, the ferry would only be delayed by about ninety minutes and have Clark back on dry land in less than that without having dented his enjoyment of taking the boat in the slightest.
Link to the Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/85120435
Title: Comfort - Clark
Prompt: Alt. No. 8 - Comfort
Word Count: 1181
He was in his usual spot when she got back to their shared apartment - center chair at the dining room table with his back to the bookshelf, focused entirely on his computer screen and notes spread out in front of him, and absently clutching an untouched mug of tea in his hands. The only unusual thing about the whole situation was that he hardly noticed when she came in, which was more than a little odd considering that he could hear heartbeats on the other side of the planet.
“Hey, Smallville,” Lois piped up in greeting, dropping her purse on its hook and slipping off her shoes. It was the sound of her voice that finally caught his attention, and Clark blinked slowly as if dragging himself out of his thoughts before registering her presence with a small smile.
“Oh. Hi,” he responded, getting up out of his chair to help her with her coat, “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. How was the interview?”
“Eh, went as expected. Nothing really exciting - the whole situation turned out to just be some ‘accidental’ misfiling which turned out to be deliberate because of all sorts of very interesting reasons which you can read about in the Thursday morning edition,” Lois explained with a hint of sarcasm before turning her attention back to him, “How about you? You’re looking a little pale, are you feeling okay?”
Clark paused at the question, thinking it over for half-a-second longer than she would have expected before brushing it off with a quick shrug, “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
“Alright,” she nodded acceptingly, albeit reluctantly. She knew something was off about him but she didn’t want to intrude, so the best thing she could do at the moment was let it go and hope Clark either opened up about it later or eventually worked whatever was worrying him out of his system. Deciding that now would be a good time to change out of her work clothes into something a bit more comfortable to write in, Lois headed for the bedroom, sparing a glance at Clark’s workspace on the dining room table as she passed by. His notes were meticulously organized, as usual, but the Word document open on his computer hardly had two sentences in it and both had apparently been written yesterday, not to mention the forgotten mug of tea nearby which had already gone cold. Somebody was struggling with writer’s block, she quickly surmised.
When Lois returned a few minutes later, having changed into some loungewear and let the stress of working at a well-known newspaper begin to dissipate, she found Clark back in his spot, still clutching the cold mug and staring at the near-empty Word file.
“I’m going to make some tea,” she announced, “Do you want some?”
He opened his mouth to politely decline and explain that he already had some before noticing that his own cup still clasped in his hands was uncomfortably cold - a glance at the clock confirmed that he had made it nearly forty-five minutes ago and had never gotten around to even taking the first sip.
“Sure,” he relented, setting the cup aside, and Lois put on a smile to hide the worry in her eyes. Something was wrong, and she could only hope that he told her what it was sooner rather than later.
Setting the kettle on to boil, she pulled mugs and tea bags from a nearby cupboard to prepare for brewing - green tea for herself, and chamomile for him - and turned the television in the living room on to one of her favorite news channels. Lois always worked best with some background noise, and careful experimentation had revealed that the news was both the most monotone and informative drone for writing investigative articles, closely followed by true crime podcasts. Clark had gradually come to tune out her work-noise as well, though with a bit more difficulty considering his enhanced hearing, but every time she offered to turn it off he would politely tell her it was all right. He himself had now moved to sit on the couch with his computer and a few choice notes, though still with an oddly distant look in his eyes.
Once the tea was done brewing, she passed Clark his mug, grabbed her laptop and purse, and made herself comfortable next to him on the sofa with the intention of getting some work done before dinnertime. But despite her efforts to focus on transferring her interview notes from her composition pad to her computer, Lois found herself paying a bit more attention to the news story than necessary. The anchorman was giving an updated report on a flash flood in the Philippines while playing footage of the damage done. Multiple small towns had been affected by the rising waters that had begun to threaten the area early that morning but Superman had arrived in time to help evacuate many civilians from their ruined homes to higher ground. The emergency responders had been working hard all day to rescue and give medical treatment to as many people as they could, and an hour before had announced that the worst of it was over. Thanks to Superman’s help, the casualties were way lower than anyone had expected considering the population of the flooded region - as few as thirty-two individuals had been severely wounded, four were still unaccounted for, and only six had died. The anchorman went on to say that it was a miracle the numbers were so low, and they had Superman to thank for that-
“Can you turn it off?” Clark spoke up over the newscaster, “Please?”
Lois complied immediately, turning the tv off with a click of the remote before turning to him to see what was the matter, but a first glance revealed nothing except that his tea was getting cold again, the Word document open on his computer was still untouched, and Clark had dejectedly slumped an inch or two deeper into the couch beneath him, still staring at the dark television screen.
“Are you okay?” she asked gently, well aware that she had already asked him that and not at all surprised when Clark simply nodded in response. It was fine if he wasn’t in the mood to talk, knowing him he would probably open up later and let her comfort him through whatever he was dealing with, but he surprised her by choosing to do it then.
“I-I know it’s difficult,” he said at last, reluctantly meeting her gaze, “I know that I can’t possibly help or save all of them, but...”
Clark trailed off, staring off into space again as Lois reached over to rub slow circles between his shoulder blades, hoping to calm him down.
“But think of all the people you did save,” she reminded him, “They are alive because of you, Clark. And even if you couldn’t do enough for all of them, you did do your best, and that really is all that you can do.”
“I know,” he answered softly, “But it still hurts.”
Link to the Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86424658
Title: Broken Bones - Lois
Prompt: No. 24 ‘One Down, Two To Go’ - self-induced injuries to escape, flashbacks, revenge
Trigger Warnings: broken bones
Word Count: 862
Author’s Note: I’m sorry, it’s honestly not my best work, hopefully tomorrow will be better - enjoy!
Lois would admit that it was her fault she had, from what she could tell, broken her arm in three different places. Or at least it was mostly her fault - if her most recent interviewee hadn’t pulled a gun on her and forced her to get into the waiting car, she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
Hostage situations were relatively common in Lois’ line of work - investigative reporters tended to get into all sorts of trouble with their findings, but were also considerably valuable. This wasn’t the first time Lois had been shoved into a car with no explanation of where she was being taken or why, but she had a bad feeling about the whole situation. Best to get out of it quickly, and the quickest way out was through the passenger door when the car had slowed to a stop at a red light.
The dumbass should've hired a driver who could actually remember to turn the child lock on.
Lois was already in a full sprint before her would-be interviewee even had the chance to shout in surprise, and she had managed to cross the road just as the light turned green and the car pulled away with the man still yelling from the backseat to chase after ‘that damned reporter’. She wasn’t taking any chances, so quickly slipped into a narrow alley between two buildings where the car certainly couldn’t follow, keeping pace down the block and out onto another side street when a sharp turn and a bit of wet grass sneaking it’s way over the sidewalk sent her tumbling. She swore she felt her left arm twist and possibly even snap as she landed on her side, but Lois wasted no time wondering what the hell she had broken as she was back on her feet and searching the area for a place to hide and phone the police before her captor could catch up.
Ten seconds later, she was hiding behind a dumpster and doing her utmost best to quiet her hard breathing and racing heart. It took Lois a solid minute to calm down enough to notice two things: (a) she had left her goddamned purse in that idiot’s getaway car, and (b) her left arm was hanging at a bit of a weird angle against her side. The amount of adrenaline pumping through her veins would dull the pain for a little bit, but there was no doubt in her mind that it was going to start hurting soon - she knew from experience that broken bones tended to hurt, and they hurt even more when you had two… no, three of them.
Well, shit. What a wonderful way to end an interview with yet another corrupt CEO on their blatant embezzlement and money laundering.
Her blouse certainly couldn’t be saved after a tumble like that but maybe her arm could, and it would certainly hurt a lot less once she could get all the bones set back where they belonged.
Okay, she told herself. Okay. Her work-bag had been left in the car, and her phone along with it, so she couldn’t call the police or Perry to come pick her up and take her to get her arm checked, but that wasn’t to say Lois couldn’t do so herself.
Breathing slowly to calm her nerves, she gingerly squeezed her wrist and winced at the bolt of pain that shot up her arm at the pressure but was able to note with some satisfaction that the bones weren’t too badly broken, perhaps only sprained. Better to wait for a doctor to take a look at it rather than try to set a semi-broken wrist herself.
One glance at her forearm and she knew that it was much worse off - the skin was already beginning to bruise, not to mention that it both looked and felt like the bones inside had been snapped neatly in half like glow sticks. Careful not to apply too much pressure, Lois felt along her arm until she came across the very clear compound break near her elbow and swore under her breath - this wasn’t going to be comfortable.
Ignoring her screaming muscles and the unsettling sensation of the two broken bone-ends grinding against each other inside her arm, Lois positioned her hand to put pressure on one side of the break while holding the other half of the bone in place. She would have vastly preferred for an actual doctor to set the broken bones, but she also had about zero ounces of patience in her system at the moment and just wanted to get this over with. Gritting her teeth, Lois pushed.
It took everything in her not to yelp when the break rubbed against itself and back into place with a sickening pop, but luckily it did not require a second attempt to set it - she would just have to be careful not to jostle it too much on her way to the hospital. Unfortunately, Lois was still left with two more broken bones also vying for her agonized attention.
“One down, Lo,” she muttered to herself, “One down, two to go.”
Link to the Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86363698
Title: Screaming - Clark
Prompt: Alt. No. 7 - Screaming
Word Count: 744
He woke up struggling to breathe.
Panic enveloped him immediately, and he tried to sit up only to be sharply reminded of the restraints binding him down and digging into his chest and ribs. His already-labored breathing quickened in place as it occurred to him that something was wrong, he couldn’t move, it wasn’t supposed to be this dark-
It took him a moment to realize that the screaming he could dimly hear over the sound of his own pounding heart was also his own, his voice hoarse from shouting out in a fear of something he couldn’t quite remember. It was too dark, too quiet, General Zod was nowhere in sight… and it was only then that Clark realized with relief that he was in his own dim bedroom and not the prison-ship Black Zero.
The adrenaline still coursing through his bloodstream kept him gasping for breath, but he was awake enough now to recognize that the room was exactly as it had been when he had gone to sleep, though a few hours had passed if the dim moonlight peeking through the blinds was anything to go by, and his blankets were considerably messier than he remembered. Even though he knew that it was just a nightmare that had woken him and not an angry Kryptonian intruder, Clark couldn’t help but scan the apartment for anyone who wasn’t supposed to be there and he found it empty besides himself.
Just a nightmare, he told himself as he tried to relax a little bit only to be surprised by how taut he still was even when awake. It was just a nightmare, he had nothing to be afraid of, but he could still feel the alien restraints pinning him down and his throat was raw from screaming…
Clark briefly wondered how much he had been screaming in his sleep, guiltily imagining having woken the neighbors up before his train of thought was suddenly broken by an incredibly jarring buzz shattering the silence of his bedroom. He flinched in surprise at the sound, frantically searching for the source of what he was almost entirely sure was a chainsaw close by before he recognized his phone on the bedside table, chiming brightly with a new message. Sighing in relief but now dealing with even more panicked adrenaline than he had a moment before, Clark unlocked it to see the familiar image of Darcie’s profile picture next to a notification signifying that she had recently texted him.
Are you hurt? the small words read, written in her typical overly-concise style that Lois both admired and detested for being so on-the-nose. Clark’s phone pinged again in his hands a moment later, the first text followed by a second message stating, I heard you scream. Is there someone in the apartment? Do I need to come home?
I’m fine, he typed in return, Just a nightmare - no need to come rushing back.
The little bubble indicating that Darcie was typing popped up, and stayed there for an unusually long time before finally responding, Are you sure?
Was he sure? Was he really sure? Clark knew that she could be there in under twenty seconds if he asked her to, all flustered and windblown as she alternated between telling him what a wuss he was and interrogating him about what was really a minor situation. She would probably march around the apartment checking all the locks and windows for signs of an intruder in her sharp well-intentioned but admittedly-overprotective way before forcing him to down a cup of tea and get back in bed. He knew that Darcie meant well and was genuinely concerned about him but he also knew that she had a terrible habit of brooding over the slightest threat to his safety, which apparently included nightmares - a night that he should have spent sleeping and her working would turn into an awkward situation once he had to admit that he had called her home over a bad dream. With a sigh, he shook his head and typed up his response.
Yes. I’m going back to sleep now, he sent, Goodnight.
Clark set his phone aside and switched off the light, pulling the covers up over his head just as the device pinged a final time. He didn’t bother checking what Darcie had said in response but knowing her it was probably either a poor attempt at Sleep tight or Check the lock on the front door.
Link to the Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86312209
Title: Self-Harm - Darcie
Prompt: No. 22 ‘They Made Me Do It’ - cursed, demon, obsession
Trigger Warnings: self-harm, blood
Word Count: 1451
It was a defense mechanism of sorts - nothing could hurt you if you hurt yourself first. The pain would keep you awake and alert, the pain would make you want to avoid enduring such agony again, and the pain reminded you of your place in the world.
Darcie was painfully well aware of her place in the world. There was a word for it: protector. And there was also a way to be it: following orders.
Darcie, unfortunately, had not followed orders. She had not obeyed, she had not stood still while being inspected, she had fought back - and that was unacceptable. So, of course, she deserved punishment for that, so that she remembered to never do it again.
It was an accident, she told herself as she slipped out of their darkened motel room and out into the hallway, carefully and quietly closing the door behind her. It was an accident - she hadn’t meant to move when Clark leaned close, she hadn’t meant to strike out when he put his arms around her in what Darcie was now realizing was supposed to have been a comforting embrace, and she hadn’t meant to let her eyes burn the way that they had. It was an accident, she told herself, but she still had to pay for it.
The motel was quiet this late at night, only interrupted by the hum of a vending machine and the distant voices of the receptionist chattering with the manager in the office at the end of the hall. Darcie had no trouble getting outside, suppressing a shiver as she did - winter was approaching quickly and she had been more focused on separating herself from Clark than remembering to grab her coat. She wasn’t going back for it now. She deserved to be uncomfortable, to be in pain, so Darcie forced herself to feel the cold and start running.
The town was small and lit only by streetlamps and the occasional bright store window illuminating the sidewalk this late at night, so it was relatively simple to escape the urban area without being seen. Small neighborhoods gave way to sparse forest dotting the tundra where the only light came from the stars but Darcie refused to allow herself to enjoy the sight of the heavens overhead. She was focused entirely on her singular goal - find a decently-sized boulder, and make it hurt.
She had no idea how long she walked - maybe it was only a few minutes, but considering that her legs were starting to burn just the tiniest bit when she finally slowed down, it likely was closer to a couple of hours. The air was crisp and cold and burning in her lungs, clouding the air with every breath she took as Darcie paced through the copse of evergreen trees, her boots tramping on rocks as she searched. The forest-dotted tundra had become a low ridge at some point, freezing earth and broken stone dividing the trees from each other, and it was on that ridge that Darcie found her goal.
There was a large boulder, maybe the size of a truck if she had to guess, on the low end of the cliff and perfect for her plan, so she wasted no time in scrambling down towards it. The rock was hard and cool and rough to the touch - some form of slate or smooth sandstone, though it was difficult to tell by the light of the stars alone. Honestly all Darcie cared about was the fact that it was both breakable and a pain to do so.
She rested her fist against its sloping side, lightly pressing in before cocking her arm for a sharp blow. It had been badly aimed on purpose, and instead of hitting the rock head on her knuckles glanced against it in what should have been a painful scrape… but it wasn’t. Her hand didn’t hurt - hell, it wasn’t even bleeding or raw - but her boulder of choice was looking a little worse for wear in the spot where she had struck it.
Huh.
It was seemingly impossible, but considering the events of the past few days and just how much she was learning about herself by simply being around Clark, she had to admit that she wasn’t all too surprised to discover that stone could be broken while she remained unharmed. It was a change, a big one, and Darcie wasn’t sure if she liked it - she preferred life and pain to be predictable, and this certainly was not.
She hit the boulder again, harder and with better aim, and this time she felt the familiar grinding pain that one expected when they punched something hard, though it still hurt far less than she was used to. Oddly enough, there was now a decently sized bit of stone missing from the boulder where she had hit it, pulverized by the impact.
Another hit, harder and faster and a little to the right. Finally, burning pain blossomed in her fist as the stone fell away like dark chalk stained red by her blood, a dent made in both herself and the boulder. And even though it hurt, damn, it felt good.
She hit the rock again, and again, refusing to pull her punches when her bare knuckles hit rigid stone and throwing her weight into each blow. More power, more strength, more dust at her feet, blood on her hands, and pain paying the price of her transgressions as she continued to throw punches into the dark wilderness night.
She had known Clark for exactly a week, and so far had been able to keep her unforgivable mistakes to a minimum - until tonight, at least. It was her fault that he had gotten dragged into this mess, her fault that her Hunters would be after him now, and her fault that she had hurt him when she was supposed to be protecting him. She had failed at her purpose, and no matter how many times Clark tried to reassure her that it was all right, he was okay, it was only a bruise, that did not change the fact that she had failed.
Failure was inevitable, but that did not mean it was in any way acceptable. A lot like mistakes.
“Mistakes are inevitable - they are part of what makes us human,” her Teacher had once explained after a particularly difficult hunting session in the Rooms, “You, unfortunately, are not. So don’t you ever think for a moment that even one mistake will be tolerated for even an instant.”
She had failed, she had made a mistake, and since Clark refused to dole out the universe’s punishment for such a crime, she did it herself in the form of broken bones and broken stones. Bones to remind her of the frailty of her existence and obedience, and stones as a representation of what she must become in order to succeed. Mister Wilson’s damned ability to read meaning into everything he did was beginning to rub off on her - in all honesty, Darcie had just wanted something to punch.
She only stopped because her once-large boulder was now a pile of dust and rubble at her feet, and the stone that remained was not worth the effort of crumbling any further. It didn’t matter anymore - her bruised and bloodied hands were proof enough of her fulfilled punishment. Darcie took a moment to examine them, noting with some frustration that she had broken a few fingers and sprained her left wrist (those would take some time to heal) but interestingly enough, the skin on her knuckles that she could have sworn had been scratched, torn, or beaten into a bloody pulp when she first began her rampage was already beginning to scab over - odd, she had never healed this fast before.
She decided not to waste what precious patience she had worrying over it and shook herself instead, a small cloud of rock dust coming loose from her clothes and hair, though she should have expected that. Picking herself up and stretching to relieve the tension still clenching her shoulders in a fighter’s pose, she kicked absently at a nearby chunk of rock that had survived her assault and was still a half-way decent size, unsurprised when it crumbled instantly under her half-hearted blow. She wrinkled her nose in its direction and rubbed her eyes tiredly in a useless attempt to get the gritty feeling coating them to go away, doing her best to ignore the exhaustion finally catching up with her.
Damn, she needed a drink.
(And maybe, it occurred to her about two-thirds of the way through her hike back to town, maybe she needed a hug.)
