“Missed you last night,” Clark breathes. Her fingers thread through his hair, tugging on the dark curls to get his mouth where she wants it, sucking marks into her neck. Thank God she’d thought to bring concealer. “Were you okay?” His voice loses some of its primal edge. He pulls back from her entirely, searching her face. “Are you okay?”
When he looks at her that intensely — like he loves her, adores her, would do anything for her — there’s always a piece of her that wants to run.
She blinks.
Marry me, Lois.
rating: e
words: 5,527
a/n: this definitely got away from me, but i had a blast writing it. enjoy!!
read under the cut or on ao3!
When Lois wakes, it’s still dark outside. Her phone says it’s 6:30 in the morning, and when she stretches, her arms hit the wall the bed’s pushed up against. There’s no shot she and Clark would both fit in one of these — he nearly takes up her whole queen bed at home. His apartment has some custom made monstrosity of a mattress that makes her feel tiny.
Tiny and safe, wrapped in the arms of Superman.
Sliding out of bed is a difficult task, what with the cold floors and chill permeating the room. There’s a radiator, but even it’s not enough to bring the air to Lois’ preferred temperature. In socked feet, she scurries across the room to throw on an oversized sweater and shove her pajama pants into her boots.
Clark’s bedroom door is still shut, and something in her relaxes at the thought of him getting some real sleep for once. Usually, he’s up well before she is, watching the news, checking police scanners, and, often, taking to the sky to keep Metropolis safe. Here, he can rest.
It’s then she heads downstairs, where she can hear logs crackling in the fireplace and a coffee pot bubbling. Turning the corner into the bright kitchen, she finds Martha and Jonathan Kent, starting their day together. She’s in and out of a little walk-in pantry, and he sits at the kitchen table with a newspaper. It’s idyllic. Quaint. Completely foreign to Lois.
“Good morning, sugar,” Martha says. “Sleep okay?”
“I did, thanks.” Jonathan looks up from his paper and gives her a wink. “Any chance I can get a cup of coffee?” she asks.
“I could use a second cup. How’s about I pour us two, and we go sit out on the porch and keep out of Martha’s way? She’s liable to hit me with that thing” — he juts his chin to a cast iron skillet on the counter — “if I don’t let her be.”
Lois eyes Martha and the skillet carefully, but the older woman just laughs. “That sounds perfect.”
Drinking coffee with Jonathan Kent on his screened-in back porch wasn’t how Lois thought she’d be spending her Saturday morning, but here she is. They’re on a weathered porch swing that probably used to be cherry red, based on the chipping paint, with matching mugs from a diner in town, and there’s a faded flannel blanket over her lap.
It’s shockingly cozy, given the wintry air around them.
From the open window behind them wafts the scent of browning sausage and biscuits in the oven. It’s easy to see how Clark Kent turned out the way he did, sitting amongst the sights and smells of his childhood.
Easier, too, when Jonathan starts talking. “Didn’t think we’d see you two again so soon, but it’s a treat.” He takes a hearty gulp of black coffee, still steaming fresh from the pot.
“I didn’t think we’d be back so soon, either,” Lois confesses. “Thank you again for having us.”
“Any friend of Clark is a friend of ours.” Jonathan breaks out into a broad smile, round cheeks rosy like ripe apples. “But you’re more than a friend, aren’t you?”
Lois drinks her own coffee. It could use more sugar, but God forbid the Kents think she’s insane before breakfast is even served. “I am.”
“That’s good,” Jonathan drawls, his accent wrapping around her like a hug. “He needs someone like you.”
“Need feels like a strong word.” In the distance, a flock of birds take flight, their dark wings silhouetted against tree trunks and the red watercolor sunrise. A rooster crows, and it almost feels like she’s an extra on a movie set.
“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”
She swallows a smile. “You sound just like Clark.” It’s now, after the coffee hits her bloodstream, that her journalistic instincts make an appearance. “What was it like, when you found him?”
Jonathan purses his lips, cocks his head. “Well, y’know we’d been tryin’ for years.”
She nods. Clark’s given her the abridged version before. Flexing her fingers around her coffee mug, she wishes she had a pen and paper.
“So it was a real shock, first when the ship landed — crashed, more like — in the field out there.” He points off in the distance, where corn stalks would be in the summer. “And then there’s this baby. Well, toddler, really. He was big, I’ll tell you that much.”
“You were happy?” Lois asks.
“‘Course we were. But we were also scared — that’s the truth. A baby’s a big commitment, and usually, you get, what, nine months to get ready? We had all of two minutes before Martha was scooping him out of that ship and picking a name.”
Beneath the blanket, her knee bounces. “Martha was the one who was certain from the jump. Did you ever…I don’t know, did you ever have hesitations?”
When Jonathan answers, it’s clear he’s thought about this subject a lot. “You betcha. Didn’t know if I was cut out to be a father, really. I’d given up on it. But deep down, I still wanted it. And I had to make the choice to stop being chicken and just do it.” He pauses, drains the last of his coffee. “There’s something you want, that you’re scared of?”
Lois thinks of Clark, asleep — alone — upstairs. Thinks that she could be there right now. Could be there forever.
Marry me, Lois.
A dinner bell rings out from inside the house, and the interview’s over. Jonathan stands like he’s been well-trained over time. “I put that in for her when Clark was a boy. He’d be halfway ‘cross the farm, and Martha was worried he’d miss a meal. See, we didn’t know what his metabolism was like.”
“Smart thinking." The way they had to adapt to a superhuman child — couldn’t have been easy. Parents of human children aren’t always equipped to deal with what would be considered regular needs, something she knows from bitter experience.
Memories of her father, their moves across the country, the adage, “Be brave,” backed with zero emotional support, flood her brain. The teenage outbursts, the groundings, the locks on the bedroom door. Shouting matches, her baby sister crying and covering her ears.
All things Clark knows about now. All things that are part of why being here feels like an out of body experience.
Lois follows Jonathan inside, warmth creeping back into her bones as they approach the kitchen table. A dish of biscuits sits beside a bowl of steaming gravy. There’s a plate of crispy bacon and fried eggs, too. Enough to feed an army. Or, well, Superman.
A loud yawn snaps her attention to the staircase, where a large, pajama-clad form lumbers down the steps. Hair mussed, face soft. Is this what life on the Kent farm used to be like? Two salt-of-the-earth farmers and their gentle giant son? Lois blinks, her vision going a little misty.
“Mornin’,” Clark says, slipping into an accent a little closer to his parents’. “I didn’t mean to sleep so long. Must’ve been tired.”
Martha, holding a pitcher of orange juice like she’s the focal point in a Norman Rockewll painting, just smiles. “You always sleep better at home, that’s the truth.”
“You’re right.” He circles the table to find his seat, leaning down to press a kiss to the crown of Lois’ head as he passes. “Good morning,” he says just to her.
Despite herself, she flushes. “Glad you got some good sleep.”
Breakfast is delicious. It’s not often that Lois enjoys a home-cooked meal — especially one of this quality. Perfectly flaky biscuits, rich and thick gravy, crispy bacon. Lois wouldn’t be shocked to find out that even the orange juice is freshly squeezed.
“So what needs doing?” Clark asks when his plate’s clean.
“You don’t have to go to work for us, son,” Jonathan says. He’s drinking a third cup of coffee, a feat Lois admires. “You’re a guest today.”
“Come on, Pa.” Clark nods, and that’s when she picks up on it: the recognition that his parents are getting older. Is that why this visit was so important? “What’s on your list?”
Jonathan frowns but relents. “Well, there’s a hole in the roof of the barn needs patchin’. And a chunk of fence out on the far side of the farm that’s fallin’ down.”
“Sounds like we have our work cut out for us, then.”
Martha turns her attention to Lois. “While they’re out there workin’ up a sweat, I’ll have plenty of time to pull out my collection of embarrassing baby pictures.”
The last time they were here, she’d poked around a little. Mostly in Clark’s room, waiting for him to look okay enough to leave. She’d seen pictures from high school, his hulking form in a group picture with Yearbook Club scrawled underneath in familiar handwriting. Inside one of the yearbooks, a love note from a different L.L.
Clearly, he’s got a thing for alliteration.
“I’d love that,” Lois says.
Clark helps clear the plates. When he’s done, he excuses himself upstairs to change, winking and arching a brow at her just before turning the corner out of the kitchen.
So Lois follows.
She finds him in his bedroom, shirt off, pajama bottoms slung low around his hips, rifling through his bag for work clothes. She’s never closed a door faster.
“Trying to seduce me?”
Clark pulls his bottoms off, and her mouth goes dry. “Of course not.” A moment later, he adds, “Is it working?”
Closing the space between them, Lois lets her eyes rove up and down rippling muscles, swirls of dark hair on pectorals, abdominals, trailing below the waistband of his boxer briefs. “Not remotely.”
She’s on him so fast it nearly surprised him — but then again, can anyone ever surprise Superman? He lifts her easily, hands finding her ass and pressing her close enough that she can feel just how hard he is. It takes her breath away like always. This has always worked between them, right from the beginning.
They fit together even though they shouldn’t. Human woman and Kryptonian man.
Realistically, with Clark’s tongue in her mouth, his hands digging into her skin, Lois knows she can never go back to before him.
“Missed you last night,” Clark breathes. Her fingers thread through his hair, tugging on the dark curls to get his mouth where she wants it, sucking marks into her neck. Thank God she’d thought to bring concealer. “Were you okay?” His voice loses some of its primal edge. He pulls back from her entirely, searching her face. “Are you okay?”
When he looks at her that intensely — like he loves her, adores her, would do anything for her — there’s always a piece of her that wants to run.
She blinks.
Marry me, Lois.
“Baby,” he says softly.
She blinks again.
“Lois, are you okay?” Clark sets her down on his bed. He kneels so they’re eye to eye and takes her hand. “Talk to me.”
“Sorry,” she says, throat feeling like it’s stuffed with cotton. “I’m just…thinking.”
“About?”
You. Me. My parents. Your parents. If I really get to keep you. “If I can convince your mother to send me home with copies of your baby pictures.” She smiles, sliding off the bed.
Clark stands, towering over her. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready, right?” His brow creases, and it kills her, holding anything back from him.
Biting her lip, she remembers telling him that things wouldn’t work out. How he left, dejected. How she couldn’t stay away then, and she can’t now. “I will. I love you.”
—
After flipping through every photo album in the house and picking the ones to make copies of, Martha decides it’s time to run into town to pick up a few things for supper. Lois’ multiple offers to drive are turned down, which leads her to sitting shotgun in an old red pickup, scanning the radio stations for any decent music.
She lands on Christmas music and wrinkles her nose. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.
“I never did believe in Christmas music in November,” Martha says. “Too soon, even if there’s snow on the ground already.”
Still, it’s that or static.
So Jingle Bells and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen accompany them until Martha parks the truck outside of a little grocery store.
“Just need a few things,” she says once they’re inside. The wind and flurries have turned both of them pink in the face, so it’s a relief that the store seems to have a good heater. So good, in fact, that Lois feels a sweat break out by the time they hit the meat counter.
Martha asks the silver-haired man behind the counter for three pounds of cube steak, and he nods. As he’s wrapping it up, he asks, “Clark back in town?”
Somehow Lois had forgotten that everyone here must know Clark.
“Sure is. Back at the house, fixin’ up the farm with John.” Martha beams.
“And who’s this?” the man asks, jutting his chin toward Lois.
Where are her manners? “Lois Lane,” she says brightly, not unlike how she introduces herself during an interview.
“Friend of Clark’s?”
Martha snorts. “Girlfriend, Gabe.”
The man — Gabe — whistles. “Didn’t know he had it in him.”
Lois gives him a thin smile. “I’m sure that’s a compliment for everyone involved.”
He frowns, passing a wrapped parcel to Martha. “I love the boy, but he’s punching above his weight.”
“Gabriel,” Martha chides. “Leave the poor girl alone.”
“Runs in the family is all I’m saying.” He raises his hands in surrender, then breaks into a grin. “See you next week, Martha.”
“What was that about?” Lois asks as they meander through the aisles back to the front of the store, on the hunt for produce. Martha stops the cart in front of a row of fruit. Apple pie is on the menu for tonight, so they need — obviously — apples.
“Gabe went to school with Jonathan. And his daughter went to school with Clark. We’ve all known each other a long time.”
“He thinks you’re out of your husband’s league.” Lois raises her eyebrows. “Did you ever date?”
Martha’s eyes go wide. “Oh no, never. It was really just Jonathan for me.”
“How long have you two been married?” Lois asks. She picks up an apple, inspects it for bruises. Beside her, Martha does the same thing.
“Forever, seems like.” With discerning eyes, she puts the best Granny Smiths into the basket.
“How long did you date beforehand?” In classic Lois Lane fashion, this has turned into yet another interview. A fact finding mission. If only she had her recorder, she could write up everything later and really analyze it.
“Not long at all. See, we met the summer right after high school, and we were married come fall.”
It’s a common story. Her own parents met nearly the same way, just replacing high school with college. “How did you know?”
“Know what, sweetheart?”
Lois takes a carton of strawberries and inhales. They don’t smell like much — a given, since they’re out of season. But it's worth a try. Clark told her once that they’re his favorite fruit, so she checks every carton she sees, even in the dead of winter. “Know that he was right for you. Forever.”
The squeaky wheels on the cart draw her attention from the lackluster strawberries to Martha, giving her a quizzical look. “I don’t think you ever know forever. I sure didn’t.”
That’s the kind of answer Lois was afraid of. “But you married him anyway.” In a snap decision, she places the strawberries in the cart.
“Well, I loved him. I knew he was a good man, and I knew that he’d try. Always was a hard worker. If it gets hard — and a marriage always does — you want a man who’s not liable to run. Who’ll get his hands dirty to make things right.”
It’s like she’s describing her son. Lois thinks of every fight that Clark’s refused to back down from, no matter the opponent. Thinks of him running into danger to save his cousin’s dog. How he fought tooth and nail to keep Lex Luthor and Boravia from annihilating Jarhanpur — and Metropolis.
After Luthor was arrested and the dust settled, he’d told her he wasn’t going to let her go again. Lois had smiled, rolled her eyes. It hits her now that she’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for him to leave, like so many people have before.
But he brought her here to meet his parents. Asked her to marry him, even if it was a joke.
Day in and day out, he sticks around.
Maybe she’s finally ready to return the favor.
—
They pull up to the house to find Jonathan and Clark lounging out on the front porch. Despite the weather, coats and hats have been abandoned, and there’s a light sheen of sweat across both faces. Martha honks once, and they hop up immediately. Lois smiles, watching as Clark makes it to the bed of the truck ahead of his father and gathers the grocery bags into his arms.
One trip. Impressive.
More impressive when he flicks her door open on his way by.
Jonathan opens Martha’s door and gives her his arm as she climbs out of the truck. “Want to see the barn?” he asks. “Patched it up real nice.”
She nods, and they amble off through the snow, holding hands like teenagers in love.
Martha hadn’t been completely sure. And yet, here they are. A house. A grown, superhero son. If marriage is a leap of faith, the Kents have stuck the landing.
When she makes it into the kitchen, Lois finds that all of the groceries have been put away. Clark’s rinsing something in the sink — the strawberries, she notes, coming closer.
“They’re not great,” she says, sliding an arm around his waist. “But it’s the thought that counts.”
Clark plucks a strawberry from the colander, pops it into his mouth. His lips and teeth around the fruit are borderline obscene. “I love them. Thank you.”
Lois leans her head against his shoulder. “Can I try?”
“You didn’t sample one in the store?” He’s seen her do it before with grapes, berries, even an apple — that she paid for, missing bite and all. I like to be sure, she says every time.
She squeezes his hip. “You want your mother to think I’m stealing? God forbid the Smallville P.D. locks me up for sampling fruit.”
Clark just laughs, handing her a strawberry. She bites into it only to find that it’s not very sweet — doesn’t taste of much at all, actually. “You’re nuts. These are just bad.”
“Bad feels harsh.”
Peering up at him, Lois narrows her eyes. “Leave it to Superman to defend the merits of unripe fruit.”
He takes a step back from the sink, tugging Lois into the circle of his arms. “You seem happier.”
“Such an impressive journalist,” she teases. “How have they not given you a Pulitzer yet?”
Clark rolls his eyes, and she wants to stick her tongue out. “I mean it,” he adds. “You seem lighter, somehow.”
He’s always been able to read her like this, despite her best efforts. Even when he first came to the Planet, it drove her crazy that he could figure her out, break down her elaborately placed walls and traps. Now, it’s nice — though she’ll only admit it off the record. “I had a good conversation with your mom,” Lois says.
Above her, Clark’s blue eyes sparkle. “So whatever you were thinking about earlier is better?”
Lois nods. “Did my research and came to a nice conclusion.”
“Do I get to know what that conclusion is?”
The front door opens, and Lois hears Martha and Jonathan putting their coats and boots away. Looking up at Clark, she tilts her head. “I think so,” she says. “But you’ll have to be patient.”
“I can be patient.”
“I don’t know about that, Kent.” She flashes him a smile before turning on her heels and heading into the living room. “Remember our first date?”
“I seem to remember I wasn’t the only one rushing to —”
“Rushing to what?” Martha says. She turns the corner into the kitchen and gives Lois a wave.
Clark goes redder than a tomato. “Nothing, Ma. You need help with anything?”
Which is how they spend the rest of the afternoon peeling potatoes and snapping green beans together.
—
Dinner is even better than breakfast, if that’s possible. Chicken fried steak served with peppered gravy, mashed potatoes, buttery green beans, and homemade dinner rolls. Clark eats two plates in the time it takes Lois to make a dent in hers, and she has to stop herself because there’s still a pie to enjoy, and she’s not missing out on that.
Martha delivers her a small slice with vanilla ice cream on top, and it might be the best thing she’s ever eaten. As they dig into dessert, Martha and Jonathan delight in sharing every embarrassing story they can think of, from potty training to driving lessons.
“I only hit the mailbox twice,” Clark says, holding both hands up. “And if you remember, I fixed it. Both times.”
“That’s true,” Jonathan drawls. “But the dang thing was clear as day. It’s like you were aimin’ for it!”
“You shoulda seen him when he first tried flyin’, too.” Martha sets her fork down. “Thought he was gonna crash straight into the house!”
Beside her, Clark sighs. But there’s no malice in his eyes — just warmth, happiness. He grabs her hand, and she imagines doing this again and again: dinner with his parents. Lois feels more at home here than she ever did at her parents’ dinner table.
“It took some practice, but I got there,” Clark says. “And isn’t that what matters in the end?”
Jonathan and Martha nod.
“But who hits a mailbox twice?” Lois asks with a sly smile. Clark’s parents eye each other before bursting into laughter.
“She’s a keeper,” Martha says with a wink.
He squeezes her hand beneath the table. “Yeah, I know she is, Ma.”
When everyone’s finished and after the dishes are washed, dried, and put away, Martha and Jonathan say their goodnights. When it’s just the two of them, Lois notices the glint in Clark’s eyes. The way he watches her as she circles the kitchen to hang the dish towel back on the oven handle.
“What?” she asks, leaning against the counter.
Here, in the dark kitchen lit by a single lamp in the living room, he looks one hundred percent farm boy, fresh off a hard day’s work fixing up the barn. Which, she supposes, biting her lip, is exactly what he spent today doing. Heat curls low in her belly — apparently this is really working for her.
“I just like seeing you here, that’s all.” Clark’s voice is so goddamned earnest; it makes her want to jump his bones. She wants to pull him apart, wring him out. Take everything he’s got and give it back just as good. “You look a little flushed, Lois. Feeling hot?”
He knows. Of course he knows. He could use that X-ray vision right now to see the damp spot in her panties. She rolls her eyes and leaves the kitchen, clicking the lamp off as she crosses into the living room, heading toward the stairs. The footsteps behind her let her know that Clark’s close behind.
So close, in fact, that she’s scooped into a pair of strong arms before her foot hits the first step.
Clark flies them up the stairs in the time it takes her to blink, and then he’s laying her out on his twin bed like his own personal feast. “Are your parents heavy sleepers?” Lois asks. She’s already out of breath, and her clothes aren’t even off yet.
“Like you could be quiet,” Clark says with a smirk. She wants to kiss it off his face.
“Like you could be quiet, either.” She arches a brow.
He tuts. “We both know you’re a screamer.” And then, to demonstrate, he unzips and pulls her jeans off in one fluid motion, nearly rips her panties off, and licks a long strip down her cunt.
“Fuck!” She slaps a hand over her mouth and narrows her eyes at Clark, who looks up at her like he’s just won a trophy. From her vantage point, she can just make out the dimples framing his smile before he’s diving back in and circling her clit with his tongue. Her hips buck up on instinct, but then his strong hands pin her down so she can’t move.
“Come — oh—on,” Lois says through her fingers. “If you want me to be — fuck — quiet, this isn’t the way to do it.”
Clark sucks a mark into her inner thigh, and she has to bite her lip to keep from crying out. “I never said I wanted you to be quiet, Lois.” And then he’s sliding two fingers into her cunt, the stretch too much and not enough all at once. Every part of him is so fucking big, the smug bastard.
It doesn’t take long, with his teeth and lips and tongue and fingers all working her into a frenzy, higher and higher, until she goes taught and pleasure explodes behind her eyelids. Lois can’t help but cry out, especially when Clark talks her through it.
“Good girl,” he says, crooking his fingers against that spot inside her that always makes her see stars. “That’s it, come for me, baby. All over my fingers — just like that.”
She has to shove him away when it becomes too much. When her clit is too sensitive, and her nipples are pebbled to the point of aching. When she feels like she might die if he makes her come again.
For his part, Clark just sucks her slick from his fingers and doesn’t break eye contact. “You’re,” she starts, weak and wobbly —
“Not done with you yet.” In a flash, his clothes are off, and Lois is met with the sight of his naked, muscled form, his cock standing proud between strong thighs. “Take the rest of that off, please,” Clark says, eyeing where she’s still wearing her sweater and bra.
They come off easily and get tossed somewhere in the dark expanse of his bedroom. She’s never felt shy being naked in front of Clark, but the trip, all of the conversations with his parents, the echo of Marry me, Lois, have her feeling a little more vulnerable than usual.
“Come here,” she breathes, crooking a finger.
His eyes soften, and then he’s on top of her, one hand cradling her head against the pillow and the other gripping her hip. He covers her like a blanket, and Lois feels herself relax even more. “I would, you know,” Lois says softly, watching his blue eyes shine in the lamp light.
“Would what?”
“Marry you. Someday. I mean, not right now, because it’s only been, like, nine months. And you were probably joking in your apartment, but that’s been the thing on my mind, and I finally realized that — oof!”
All the air leaves her lungs as Clark kisses her, pressing his whole body against hers. It’s gentle. Soft. Like a promise, a prayer, a plea. And then the current shifts — his hand slides from her hip to her ass, pulling her even closer. He’s still hard against her core, and the friction is torture. Then he gets to her breasts, one hand practically covering both, and she can’t think.
“Nine months, two weeks, and one day,” Clark says into her mouth, thumb circling her nipple. “Four hours, and about seven minutes, too.”
“Of course you keep track of that,” Lois breathes, wrapping her legs around his waist. The head of his cock brushes against her entrance with every move he makes, and it wouldn’t take much for him to finally be inside. Just a subtle shift of the hips. She shivers, grinding up even more firmly.
Clark groans, and she feels herself grow impossibly wetter. “Hard not to,” he says. “And I was only half-joking yesterday.”
“Really?” Her cunt clenches around nothing.
He nods. And then he’s pushing into her, inch by inch, stretching and filling and killing her with every press forward. Her eyes flutter closed, but Clark has other ideas. “Uh-uh, look at me.” They’re nose to nose when she opens her eyes, and being that close is almost too much. She can read the adoration and lust mixing on his face like an open book, and she squirms against his hips.
Lois digs her heels into his ass, trying to urge him along.
“Want something?” Clark asks. She might think him unaffected if she couldn’t see how his eyes have gone dark. It sends a thrill through her, that she’s the one to get bright-eyed Superman like this.
“I do,” Lois answers, circling her hips. “Please?”
He groans, then pulls her face down in a sloppy kiss, more tongue than anything else. It makes her feel a little insane. “Okay,” Clark says, and before she can say anything else, he’s flipping them so she’s on top. She braces a hand on his chest, breathes through the stretch of the new position.
Lois is no stranger to riding Clark Kent, so it only takes a few moments to adjust before she’s raising her hips and dropping them down again. He’s got one hand loose on her hip, and the other grasping her breast, and she luxuriates in the way he’s looking up at her. It makes her feel as powerful as Superman.
“Good?” she asks, voice breathy and high.
“You’re kidding, right?” he manages.
Lois circles her hips, a sigh falling from her lips as she hits that spot again, the same one that made her fall apart the first time. “It’s — oh — it’s always nice to get f-feedback.”
“You — fuck — want feedback?”
She nods, and then Clark’s pulling her down so they’re chest to chest, both of hands going to her hips so he can drive up into her. “Perfect,” he says in her ear. “Could do this forever. Want to do this forever. Want you f—forever, Lois.”
It’s that, and a hand snaking between her legs and circling her clit that brings her to an abrupt, fast-cresting orgasm. She comes apart in Clark’s arms as he thrusts up, and she might be crying, might be screaming, might be giving away names of anonymous sources for all she knows.
God, his parents had better be heavy sleepers.
“I love you,” she breathes in his ear as she comes down from those great heights. “I love you, Clark. So much — you have no idea.”
And that’s what does him in; Lois feels his release, feels his hips stutter and come to a stop against hers. “I love you, too.” Clark’s voice is hoarse, run ragged. “Thank you for coming.”
She can’t help herself — she laughs. “You’re welcome?”
Beneath her, Clark cringes. “I mean for coming here. To Smallville. But thank you for that, too.”
“Thank you for inviting me,” Lois says, voice suddenly sincere. “I mean it.”
He kisses her, and it feels like coming home.
—
Once the afterglow fades into dark, deep comfort, and the sweat on their skin begins to dry, Clark tucks them both underneath his childhood quilt. Here, curled into his chest, Lois feels more at peace than she ever has before. She hums, tucks her face into the space between his shoulder and neck, and kisses the warm skin there.
It’s paradise.
“Just how long do I have to wait?” Clark asks, breaking the silence.
“What?” She shifts, propping herself up on an elbow.
“I mean, is there a countdown going in your head?” He brushes a strand of hair from her forehead. “When it reaches zero, can I propose?”
“I think you already did,” Lois says. “But no. I don’t know. A year?”
“From now?” Clark huffs. “Way too long, Lois.”
“A year from our first date. So what, another — “
“Three months, two weeks, and six days,” he finishes easily.
She expects to feel fear, that telltale sign to run for the hills and build more walls. But it doesn’t come. Instead, she just feels hope. Excitement, even. “Does that give you enough time? You know, to buy a ring or whatever it is you have planned.”
Clark’s mouth curls into a broad smile, bracketed by those devastating dimples. “Bold of you to assume I don’t already have one.”
Her tongue goes numb. “Do you?”
He leans over her to click the lamp off. In the darkness, his lips at her ear, he hums. “You’ll just have to be patient.”
“Oh, I can be patient.”
“We’ll see about that, Miss Lane.” Clark presses a soft kiss to her forehead, drawing her closer in his arms.
With her head against his chest, his heartbeat strong in her ear, Lois thinks something she’s never thought before:
I met lou today totally randomly on the street and knew I had to ask him about 911 and he was so kind but made it pretty clear that he won't be back. it was a bummer but like I guess it's better to know. he's so nice and BIG omg he will miss playing tommy
you know, I actually did have a high school teacher who was into Sherlock, a la Tumblr Fake Stories tropes. this was c. 2010, when it was still the Hot New Show
she never gave me a higher grade for fandom reasons, though. just wrote "ha ha :)" next to my Sherlock-themed vocabulary sentences
one time I accidentally gave her a printout of an explicit yaoi fanfiction I was proofreading for a friend instead of my own (PG-13) short story she'd offered to look over and give feedback on. sometimes I remember that and want to flee society and live in the forest forever. but I digress
18 for armisolving (damn your wife universe if possible) 🥰🥰
Armisolving—(18) broken windows, waist high grasses, and lit matches.
A fat crimson droplet blooms over the pale skin of his thumb where the glass has sunk in. Sol drops it reflexively, hears it fall into the deep grass in a low murmur.
“Ah, fuck,” he tsks in between clenched teeth before he puts the finger into his mouth.
This year spring has caught up to them too. The grass is overgrown in the back of the house, the path that leads from the yard to the forest barely suggesting where one should tread, engulfed by the weeds and wildflowers that John had so carefully put him to trim in the front weeks ago. No wonder a fox can sneak into the henhouse unseen. No wonder they have already lost three of the girls to the red devil.
Sol pities the poor thing, knows that in a day or two the grass will be lower, the undergrowth visible, and that John will have him or Tommy out with a shotgun at dusk the moment they go out for a smoke or a piss. Sol has never been good at not pitying the underdog.
The match he lights sparks dangerously close to the dry grass, the fag he’s holding between his teeth suddenly a stupid sacrifice to make for a scorched backyard. Nothing happens, though. The cigarette ignites. The match dies. John Irving’s grounds remain unscathed.
“Gonna get into trouble if you keep that up.”
Sol treats the lad with a wolf whistle, followed by an appraising look to disguise that he had not heard Tommy coming. He is wearing that long blue dress John had rescued from a half-hidden cupboard in his London estate, a crooked little bow tying his black curls back while keeping some ringlets astray to frame his pale face. Tommy looks nice like this, very nice.
“Going to town? Can’t imagine a lass like you would do herself this pretty jus’ for me.”
The compliment makes Tommy blush, her hands fisting the hem of the skirt as he protests with a low. “Sol… stop that.”
“Just speaking things as they are, no harm in calling my favourite lass pretty, is there?”
“I’m gonna tell him you called me your favourite.”
The threat makes Sol laugh, his hands coming up to encircle Tommy’s waist as if he were cinching her stays, pressing just enough to make the lad gasp.
“Will you now?” Sol can’t imagine John would mind, might even make him pull out that pretty long dress of his instead. “Might need to do something more about it,” Sol exhales a little smoke from the corner of his lips, watches Tommy’s baby blue eyes lock on the cigarette, on his mouth. “Make our mistress truly have something she can complain about.”
