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[frontpagenews]

Continuances, open RP, such things etc.

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Sick day for inprint

[frontpagenews]

Clark is off doing Superman things for several days, which would usually mean Lois is quietly worrying about him or at least keeping tabs on him via the news, if the thing he's doing is the kind of thing that gets covered. Either way, she's supposed to get all the details later tonight, since they have a date planned at his favorite Italian restaurant. He hasn't contacted her through his burner phone or Mr. Terrific's t-balls or whatever, so she should know it's still on.

The thing is she barely even knows what day it is. A scratchy sore throat had turned into an uncomfortable malaise and then a fever and now she's on the couch piled under about four blankets to combat what her body perceives as awful chills. On some level, Lois is faintly aware of her phone buzzing repeatedly, but it's out of reach and she's not really awake and she feels so, so shitty, so she's just going to smoosh her face harder against the cushions and hope the sound stops soon. It's really annoying. Clark who.

[inprint]

There hasn’t been anything too huge and newsworthy while Clark’s been away from Metropolis, aside from an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia which saw him featured a few times helping with evacuation efforts during a tsunami warning. Luckily that didn’t turn into much more than some flooded, empty hotels and debris in the streets, and after helping with cleanup and a few other, smaller incidents around Southeast Asia, he flew to the Fortress for a couple of days before heading back home. He sent Lois one or two texts each day to let her know he was all right, but she stopped replying a few hours ago.

Normally Clark wouldn’t worry, Lois gets into the zone sometimes with a story and leaves texts on read for hours, or doesn’t even look at them. He wouldn’t worry, except they have a date planned the evening he arrives back in Metropolis. His message to confirm they’re still on goes unanswered, and that’s…a little concerning, but again Clark figures she’s working hard on something and shows up at the restaurant as planned.

She isn’t there, though. Not after ten minutes, not after thirty minutes and another text message to check in. That’s when he gives in and calls her, but there’s no response to that either and now Clark really is starting to worry.

He calls a couple more times on the way to her apartment. It’s not like her at all to stand him up, Lois wouldn’t do that, so there’s a reason she’s not at the restaurant tonight, and the longer she goes without responding to his attempts to reach her the more his anxiety ratchets up. Thank goodness he’s picking up on her heartbeat at home. Clark’s outside her door before long, knocking and listening for her answer, and if she doesn’t at least call out in the next few seconds he’s going to break down the door.

[frontpagenews]

What the hell is that pounding noise? It's really aggravating her headache. Maybe it is her headache, having graduated from a general ache to a throb. Maybe it means her head will explode soon and this will all be over. That would be great.

But it's staccato, uneven, and after way too long, Lois realizes someone is knocking on her front door. Well, screw them, she's not getting up for a delivery or her landlord or even God. She has neither the energy nor the inclination right now and doesn't expect to have either anytime soon.

"Go away!" It's not a shout. It's a half-assed little mewling command (followed by a cough), any forcefulness it might have muted by the fact that she says it directly into the cushions. It doesn't even occur to her that the person on the other side of the door is Clark and that he'd be able to hear her response even if she whispered it. All Lois wants is for the knocker to shut up and let her remain uninterrupted in her miserable little couch pile, unable to even find relief via sleep. This dozey little half-awake, half-dreaming state is the best she's been able to manage.

[inprint]

“Lois?”

There’s no way to overstate Clark’s relief on hearing that scratchy, grumpy little demand to leave her alone. It reassures him that she’s not dead nor completely out of it, but she definitely does sound sick, which explains missing their date and not answering her phone. He’s sorry if she was napping and he woke her up, but also…not sorry to be here.

“It’s Clark. Can you let me in, please?”

He doesn’t hear her responding with anything other than a mumble, or any sounds that she’s getting up. Sheesh, this must be pretty bad. “I’m gonna try the door,” he calls just to be polite before he actually does try to see if it’s unlocked, which—nope. Clark sighs, a little aggrieved by the whole situation if glad she’s not lying around defenselessly with her door unlocked, then reaches for his wallet to see if the credit card trick will actually work. If it doesn’t—she might have her deadbolt on—he really is going to have to break through.

[frontpagenews]

Whatever, it's fine. By maybe the third sentence, Lois has recognized Clark's voice, which means he can do whatever he wants to do and it'll be okay. She trusts him. That doesn't mean she's going to let him in; comprehension of what he's actually saying is lagging behind by several seconds.

Anyway, she's not sure she could make it all the way to the door, so she's going to stay right where she is and Clark will have to figure it out. He can break it down or spontaneously develop a new power and phase through or fly around the balcony. Probably he can get through the door somehow? She doesn't remember doing the deadbolt earlier, but her head is stuffed full of cotton balls so that doesn't mean a lot. Lois just grunts and shoves her face further into the couch.

[inprint]

It takes a few tries but the credit card trick actually works, which has Clark feeling pretty pleased (and also like they need to get Lois a better lock). The deadbolt’s not in so he’s able to get inside without breaking it—nice to solve a problem some way other than punching through it.

Once he gets inside he spots Lois right away on the couch, curled up with her head buried in the corner between the back, the arm and the cushions. It’s kind of cute, would be really adorable if it wasn’t equally worrisome.

“Hey, honey.” Clark’s…not sure he’s ever called her that before. It just kind of slips out, as he comes over to the couch and perches on the edge of it, lifting a hand to pet over her hair. Or as much of it as she can reach with her all curled up against the back of it like she is. “What’s wrong? Not feeling good?”

[frontpagenews]

By the time Clark makes it inside, Lois is a little more alert. Someone clacking about with a credit card and her apparently kind of shitty front door lock will do that. It doesn't mean she's moved, even an inch; she's just slightly more aware of her surroundings. Yeah, someone is breaking into her apartment, but the someone in question is her boyfriend, so it's fine.

"You don't have to patronize me. I'm not a little kid." She speaks directly into the cushions, and is just aware enough to know that this looks ridiculous, so she summons the strength to turn her head and glare in Clark's general direction. "I feel like shit."

Wait. Clark's back. That means...they were supposed to do something, weren't they? "Is it Friday already?"

[inprint]

“Sorry, Lois." Clark’s not actually very sorry at all. Well, he’s sorry she’s not feeling well, of course, and that she feels like she has to defend herself against him breaking in and trying to soothe her, but he’s not at all sorry to be here where he can look after her. “You don’t look that great. Do you have a fever?”

He knows she does. He can sense it even without laying his hand against her forehead, which he does when she turns to him, mostly for show. He’s remembering—imitating—the kind of soothing prattle Ma used to use on Pa when he was sick, and however grumpy or agitated he seemed about not being able to jump into work on the farm, it always seemed to make him feel better.

“Well, it’s actually Saturday. But yeah, we had a date.” Clark pulls a throw blanket off the back of the couch to tuck around Lois. “Hang on, I’m gonna get your thermometer.” He knows she’s feverish, just doesn’t know her exact temperature by touch, and would like to make sure this isn’t something that necessitates a trip to urgent care.

[frontpagenews]

"Oh." That's...probably not great, that she's lost track of the days. His hand does feel good on her forehead, whether or not it's accomplishing anything, so she managers to work up enough energy and momentum to roll halfway over to face him. Gravity takes care of the rest.

"Sorry I forgot." It comes out in a mutter. Forgetting isn't the actual problem, she knows; even if she'd felt every passing minute accurately, she'd never have been able to make it to the restaurant. No one would want her there anyway, not even Clark. She nods when he declares his intent to get her thermometer (where the hell is it, anyway? Her medicine cabinet? One of her bathroom drawers?) and relaxes a little when he tucks a fifth (probably) blanket around her. That does feel a little cozier. She wishes she could stop shivering.

Angssssst death of superman AU for inprint

[frontpagenews]

The thing about grief, Lois is coming to realize, is that you can be done with crying, but that doesn't mean actual progress is being made in the overall grieving process. She doesn't even know what that would look like — if she can think of Clark and not be immediately filled with aching sadness, does that mean she's recovered? What if she settled on not feeling like she's being crushed to the ground in a gravity well, would that be enough? Can it get any better from there? She has no idea. All Lois knows is that she's nowhere near whatever hypothetical endpoint exists but she also has no tears left to cry. It's kind of like being in the middle of the Sahara Desert — completely dry and going to kill her if she doesn't move forward.

It's been something like ten months since Superman died — disappeared into a collapsing black hole — died, refusing to use the word is just going to keep her in this hell of staying still, and the world is moving on. The memorial statue downtown had its unveiling the other week, complete with the Metropolis Arts Foundation's announcement of a scholarship in his honor. New metahuman heroes are popping up, talking about how they were inspired by Superman's sacrifice. In a way, it's probably admirable that the world has largely taken this tragedy and used it as impetus to do good things, rather than shrink back in fear because Earth's strongest protector is gone now.

Lois is...making progress, she supposes, but it feels like she's going through the motions halfheartedly, which doesn't do much for getting actual results. She's seeing a therapist but hitting a wall, because she can't be honest about how Clark really died, how he wasn't actually a tragic but mundane casualty in the rubble that day. She's packed up Clark's things and moved her own to a new apartment that has no ghosts, but hasn't actually unpacked most of her possessions if she doesn't need them for daily life. Her coffee table is two large boxes of bedding that she can't bear to use because Clark had picked out the nicer sheets and duvet set.

She's taken off her engagement ring but still spends some evenings staring at it, willing herself to cry again.

Sleep has also not been great or habitual. Lois has willed herself into becoming an insomniac because she keeps having nightmares about Clark's last moments, imagining him in pain, suffering for an extended period before the black hole collapsed and everything went dark. She hopes it was fast. She deeply, desperately hopes that he never even had time to be afraid, to think one last time about how he loved her. If the universe owes her anything, it's the knowledge that Clark had a quick death, but she'll never get it.

She's only human and requires sleep, so it does take her eventually. It's fitful tonight, but not because she's having bad dreams. Probably not because she's wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, either, because she ends up here at least half the time, stumbling out to the living room in the middle of the night because she dreamed about Clark holding her and woke up to realize he's gone, has been gone for a while. Lois would prefer the nightmares. Truthfully, it's fitful sleep because she hasn't known a good night's rest since her fiancé died saving the world, and doesn't know if she ever will again.

[inprint]

It doesn’t really hurt to cross dimensions. It’s happened to Clark before, though falling into a black hole—he always imagined that would destroy him as surely as it would anything else, whatever his powers of endurance may be. In a place where all the laws of physics fall apart, can he expect anything else to happen to him? But maybe it isn’t a true black hole, because he isn’t destroyed. He remembers that. He remembers the strangeness of the other side, the dark, boiling clouds above, the jagged peaks—maybe mountains, maybe spires. No sun. No yellow, healing warmth; not even a red sun, no star rising across the world, just the darkness and, now and again, flashes of a cold, painful light. A kind of irradiance, maybe. He’s not sure if it’s that or the world itself which drains him slowly of his powers, weakening him until he can no longer fly. Until he’s trudging across jagged rock, and then crawling.

There’s flashes of those moments in his mind: the rock, the dark, the cold, cutting light. Some hours or days pass on the unknown planet, he isn’t sure without a sun to mark time passing. And his thoughts—his thoughts are scattering, it seems to him, the longer he stays here, until he isn’t sure if it’s been hours or weeks, he isn’t sure where he crossed over, isn’t sure where he came from…

Lois. He remembers her, in his moments of lucidity. The love of his life. It feels like he keeps moving only to find her. To try to find his way back to her, whatever way that could be. His feet and hands are bleeding as he tries and tries. His suit is torn, wounds on his body, too, burns and lacerations, and he doesn’t know where they came from.

There are voices, he starts to think—starts to hear? Jeering at him, or pushing him on? Trying to draw him back, maybe, to home.

He’s lying on the rock when the rift that looks like black hole opens up in front of him again. Unmoving, wondering if this is the end, but then he does move, forces himself to move, drags himself towards it, falls into it without hesitation.

And it takes him back, spits him out again, into Metropolis. It’s a while before he can move here, either, collapsed into the street where he’d gone through before. It’s late night, few people around; he finally manages to drag himself out of the way of an oncoming truck, and then stagger to his feet. Lois is still the only thought in his mind. The sun is here, on the other side of the world, Clark can feel it, it’ll only be a few hours before it rises to heal him. But he has to go to her first, he has to find her. The sound of her heartbeat comes to him as he finally flies, following it to an unknown apartment.

That’s…he doesn’t understand. Clark doesn’t understand anything. He staggers through the unfamiliar balcony doors, guided only by the heartbeat he knows better than his own.

[frontpagenews]

Lois is used to the sounds of the city, drifting up from the street below. She's lived in Metropolis a long time so it's all white noise to her at this point. Maybe the siren of a fire truck on its way to a five-alarm emergency can pierce her consciousness, but not much else, not even these nights when her quality of sleep is terrible and she resents having to submit to its biological necessity.

Sounds inside her apartment, though. They're another story. There shouldn't be any sounds in her space, nothing more than the occasional sound of water rushing through pipes in the walls. The rattle of balcony doors isn't very loud, but fragile as her sleep is, it startles her halfway awake. The back of the couch is between her and the balcony, but when she cranes her neck, groggy and disoriented, she can see a dark shape silhouetted against city lights, big and tall enough to give the impression it's looming over her even with a few feet between them.

The sight is enough to jolt the other half of her awake and Lois immediately rolls away from the shape, off the couch, lands on her hands and knees and lunges for the bat that's leaning against the adjacent wall. It would be too far away in her old place, but the layout is different here, and there hadn't been a good spot to keep it close to the front door without it being obvious and kind of unwelcoming. She's thought about getting an umbrella stand for it even though she always breaks her umbrellas quickly, and is so glad she hasn't yet.

Lois doesn't call out a warning before she swings, doesn't give the burglar a chance to brace himself. That's something Sam Lane taught her, one of the few good lessons she ever received from her father. Whether it takes the guy down or takes him out isn't something she cares about right now; if he didn't want to risk death by baseball bat bludgeoning, then he shouldn't have broken into the apartment of a grieving woman who never even got to be a widow.

[inprint]

If Clark were more in his right mind maybe he’d know better than to push through the balcony doors of an apartment he doesn’t know, regardless of who’s inside it. He doesn’t think of that; he only thinks of Lois. He doesn’t even think what her reaction might be until the baseball bat is swinging at his head.

It hits his palm, not his head, and breaks into splinters against his hand. The pain of the blow against his already lacerated palm makes him groan briefly, and Clark is staggering down to his knees, letting go of the broken end of the bat, gasping for breath. Something like that—it shouldn’t have hurt him for an instant. It shouldn’t make him feel as winded as if he’s been fighting for hours instead of catching a weapon swinging at his head. Everything feels—wrong. A jumble in his mind he can’t piece together, but he looks up, and Lois is there.

“Lois.” His voice seems to crack straight down the middle. He must have been dying, back there in that world. He must have known he might not ever see her again, the agony of that knowledge still within him.

[frontpagenews]

None of what happens next makes any sense to her. It's all in an instant — the burglar catches the bat, who's fast enough to do that with no warning, what the hell, but still goes down. Lois nearly goes down with him, because in that same instant her balance changes completely. Luck and sheer force of will keep her upright, and it takes a couple of seconds for her to realize the cracking sound she'd heard had been the bat and not burglar bones. How — ?

She hears her name at the same moment it registers that details of the silhouetted figure she'd attacked are visible now, city lights illuminating him on the floor, and there's a sickening pang of familiarity. Red and blue, torn and damaged. His face. His voice.

"Clark...?"

Lois doesn't even recognize the sound of her own voice. She takes a step back, half a broken bat still gripped numbly in her hand. No. No, she can't do this. She can't face another dream that he's back, she can barely face the ones that play on repeat. She can't breathe. All the air seems to have gone out of the room.

[inprint]

Clark closes his eyes as Lois recognizes him, saying his name, leaning forward on one hand. The pressure against his lacerated palm hurts, but at least that one isn’t—actively bleeding right now, like the hand he caught the bat in, which he cradles closer to his chest. Somewhere in his mind it comes to him that he doesn’t want to drip blood all over the floor. He has no idea why Lois was just sleeping on the couch of a strange apartment instead of in their bed, in their own place—

Maybe…maybe she’s staying at a friend’s. One of their coworkers, that would make sense. Probably Cat’s place; it wouldn’t be Jimmy’s, he’d recognize it.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, recognizing the need to be quiet, if there is someone else in here. He’s not hearing any other heartbeats, but—he’s not really listening for them. Just to hers. Just Lois’s heart. “Sorry I scared you. I’m—so sorry, Lois.”

For disappearing. For leaving her alone, these past days.

[frontpagenews]

It looks like Clark. Sounds like Clark, even if his voice sounds nearly as different from usual as hers does. Maybe — maybe she's started to forget what he sounded like already, or maybe it's just getting to be different in dreams.

He's bleeding. Why would she dream that he's bleeding — here in her apartment, now dying in the black hole? She doesn't think she would. She doesn't feel like she's dreaming, doesn't think this is actually one more evil trick of her subconscious. But...if Clark's here....

"Am I dead?" Maybe depression finally took her quietly as she slept. Maybe the terrible eating habits finally caught up to her and she's wasted away without knowing it. Lois can't think of why else she'd be here, at home, seeing Clark. He's gone. He's been gone. Maybe these are the last confused thoughts of a dying brain, conjuring up the sight of what she wants more than anything and can never have again.

[inprint]

“What?”

Clark looks up at her, bewildered, anguished. Why would she—

For a moment he’s terrified. He’s never felt such terror, deep down in his soul: that he’s still in that dimension, that place of black rock and piercing light, crawling and crawling on bloody hands and knees. That this is all a dream conjured in that hell. It feels like a nightmare, Lois asking if she’s dead. If anyone’s dead it’s surely him. But he can’t stand it, coming back to Metropolis, to her, thinking he’s home and safe again, only for it all to be snatched away.

“Don’t. Please, Lois.” Clark tries to stagger up to his feet again. He makes it, finally, by grabbing onto the back of the couch. Now he really is leaving bloodstains. At the moment, he just can’t care. “You’re here—right? This isn’t—this is Metropolis, right? Am I—am I really here?”

[frontpagenews]

Lois waivers. She has — she has no idea to answer that, how can she? If she's dreaming, her psyche conjuring up a brand-new hellish nightmare, then no, it's not Metropolis. If this is a near-death experience...same thing.

Both those possibilities feel less and less likely with each passing moment. If she hasn't completely lost it, which is certainly a possibility, that leaves only one other option, and that's —

"You were gone." Lois says the only thing she knows for sure to be true. She doesn't reach out to him, doesn't offer him support, because if her hand passes through him she thinks it really will kill her. "You've been gone."

There's something in the way you roll your eyes

[envyscalling]

Contrary to popular belief, this is not one of Lex Luthor's favorite ways to spend his time. Of course, it's always important to be seen in the right ways with the right people. And it's for a good cause, of course. But a gala fundraiser that he isn't hosting is an exercise in waiting it out.

He could be using this time to check on the progress of several dozen projects at various levels of confidential and offering input as to new directions, next stages. He's made the donation, a very generous one, and he's quite busy, but it doesn't matter. He still needs to put in an appearance, shake hands with Maxwell Lord in front of the press corps, and pose for photographs in his aubergine tuxedo jacket while doing so.

His glass of champagne usually goes mostly untasted at these events, but this time the host's supercilious greeting has inspired him to drink the first one straight down. Everyone else at least puts forward a show of getting along, even Bruce Wayne now that he's stopped hiding, but comparing LuthorCorp's recent stock dip to Lex's performance in the bedroom? Tasteless, especially in front of the press who hadn't made the cut to enter the venue.

Lex has yet to determine how it is that Max continues to maintain his success rate with LordTech when he himself continues to be such an idiot. He'll look into poaching some of LT's better employees. That will make him feel better.

After making the rounds with a fresh glass, Lex overhears a woman's voice saying "Daily Planet" and decides he may as well get Cat's interview over with. One step closer to leaving quickly without prompting interest. "Ah, Ms—oh. Ms. Lane." He catches himself before calling her the wrong name, but his surprise is clear.

[frontpagenews]

The gala fundraiser is exactly what Lois expected, despite having fairly minimal firsthand experience with such events. Which is to say that the hors d'oeuvres are acceptable, the champagne is pretty good, and the schmoozing is immense and insufferable. Not that she's indulged in much of the above; she's here for a job, not here to party. Unfortunately, the schmoozing is the only aspect that's mandatory.

Dammit. She'd like to tell herself she'll let Cat do her another favor and incur a debt again, but there's no guarantee. In the future she'll definitely be sure to dictate the terms of the deal.

Lois can admit that stepping in for her friend and colleague is harder than expected. Not that she was some not-like-the-other-girls snotty bitch, Cat's great at covering this kind of thing and if it were easy it wouldn't be worth including in the Planet, but she'd expected her own experience to be more transferrable. But apparently she's not supposed to grill the gala attendees, which leaves her with far fewer options than usual.

"Lois Lane. Filling in for Cat Grant." In other words, this isn't her new beat, so Luthor shouldn't make the mistake of assuming she won't use his comments as a launchpad for future, non-gala related stories, should he slip and actually say something interesting. Which he won't, they never do if they've had decent media training, but Lois has to pass the time somehow, and daydreaming about better possibilities is nice. "Care to comment on your generous donation?"

She doesn't care if he does. It's obvious from her expression and Lois can't hide it. For a reporter, her poker face isn't that great. But she's obligated to ask, so that's what she's doing.

[envyscalling]

So Lois hasn't decided to jump ship from Features after all. Message received and understood. He's grateful for the heads-up, but then, he's dealing with a professional of a different stripe than Cat, who delights in disarming.

That said, it's patently obvious Lois isn't at all interested in what comments he makes about his generous donation, and it actually prompts a smile. A real one, much smaller, not the PR-trained smile for public appearances. "It was for a good cause. Unfortunately this good cause is attached to Max Lord, but even I can't have everything."

[frontpagenews]

Interesting. A smile isn't usual the reaction Lois gets from her interview subjects — at least not the ones who know better, which is all of them after the first time. It even looks reasonably genuine, not just an attempt to charm her, though of course any well-made attempt wouldn't seem like that.

"Life's never perfect." And it's her turn to smile, though she manages to restrain it to nothing more than a twitch at the corners of her mouth. She's here to be professional, after all...but Max Lord is a huge dick. "I'm sure you'll find a way to console yourself."

[envyscalling]

Aha. They're both being polite, but that doesn't mean Lex can't spot a suppressed smile when he sees one. "I'll think of something, for the next seventy-nine minutes until I can politely leave."

He does risk a glance over toward the door, but Lord is gone and immediately Lex's eyes narrow in suspicion. So they're beginning with hide and seek. "Did you get your quotes from our...audacious...host yet, Ms. Lane?" Does she see him? Lord is far too good at popping up unexpectedly.

[frontpagenews]

Audacious. That's one word for him. Not the one Luthor would most like to use, judging by that barely-there pause.

"First thing. I wanted to get it out of the way to make sure I had it. Also to make sure I had it in case he's one of those rich windbags who gets drunker as the night goes on and drones on, giving me more quotes than I need or want. Happens more often than you think."

There she goes, being bluntly honest again. She's really not meant for this kind of beat.

[envyscalling]

Now she gets a snort, a small one, but it's still a distinct snort of disdain as Lex looks around, trying to spot the quarry before they're pinned down. "He is, he does, and do you think he only happens to reporters? Can you see him?"