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krysyuy
Title: Free Fall (11.2/?)
Author: Krys Yuy
Summary: Clark isn’t willing to risk his heart again. But when Fate gives him a glimpse into his future, the only question is – how hard will he fall?
Pairings/Characters: Clark/Lois, Chloe/Bart, Oliver/Dinah, Bruce/Zatanna, Justice League
Warning: Spoilers up to Hex.
Rating: PG-13/T
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters used. This fic is purely for entertainment purposes only.
Special Thanks: To drvr8 for being my unofficial, yet amazingly awesome beta for this chapter. Trust me, guys. This chapter would have sucked a lot more without his help. Thank you so much! ♥
Author’s Notes: [See Part 1 for full AN.]
Chapter 11.2: Closer
(Con't from Part 1)
-
“What did you mean before?”
Lois kicked off her heels in the hallway closet, not looking back as her hands came up to take out her sapphire stud earrings. “Before?” she parroted, disappearing behind her bedroom door.
Assuming she was about to change, Clark didn’t follow her. “When you said my timing was a little off,” he answered from the hallway.
Clark took off his own dress shoes and placed them neatly in the closet, fixing Lois’s heels so they stood upright and not upended. He placed his watch and glasses in the bowl on top of the tall side table. He rummaged through his pockets and also dropped his cell phone on the wooden surface.
“Oh, that?” Lois asked, her voice muffled behind the white doorway. “It didn’t mean anything.”
Clark sped in and out of the spare bedroom, now in a fresh pair of pajama pants and a plain black T-shirt he figured Lois left for him in the bathroom. Still frowning at Lois’s answer, he hung up the pieces of his tuxedo ensemble in the hallway closet and closed the door. His fingers absentmindedly traced the outline of the ring hanging around his neck, hidden underneath his shirt.
“Lois,” he said, leaning back against the closet door. There had been something about the tremulous way she had said it, how the terror had taken a second too long to leave her eyes. “I know it meant something. Something about your Clark.”
“It was nothing, Smallville,” Lois said. She opened her bedroom door and walked out, revealing her new nightwear – his football jersey plus the bottom half of her pajamas from the night before. The bunny print pajama pants did nothing to distract him from the alluring picture she made in his old championship jersey. Her hair tumbled loosely around her shoulders, free from the white stone barrettes.
He remembered her irritated countenance the morning after Chloe and Jimmy’s engagement party. Wearing only his jersey, she had been rather cute; though that was something he kept to himself. Combined with her hangover, Clark could only be amused then.
Seeing her in his jersey now elicited an entirely different reaction. Clark swallowed and when his eyes locked with Lois’s, there was a knowing gleam in her expression. She smiled and shrugged, tugging at the ends of the red and gold fabric.
“Keep it in your pants, Smallville,” she said lightly, thoroughly horrifying him. She casually walked down the hallway and turned into the living room, switching on the lamp in the corner next to the bookcase. It must have been on its lowest setting because the light added only a dim glow to the otherwise dark room.
Lois plopped down unceremoniously on the couch and said, “This is one of my favorite shirts, and I need to be a little closer to him.”
Guilt and compassion poured in and buried his embarrassment, though the hot burn in his cheeks still took awhile to fade. He watched her from the hallway. “Lois,” he said softly. She didn’t turn around. He took a few steps and leaned his shoulder against the archway, his silhouette melding with the darkness.
Clark took a deep breath, wanting to somehow repair the hurt he caused her.
“I-I’m sorry I didn’t cross the street.”
Lois didn’t say anything, she didn’t even move. Clark stared at the back of her head, brow furrowing in concern. Why did he always mess up everything when it came to Lois’s feelings?
His left fist contracted and loosened at his side. “I sent her a text message. I lied and said I was swamped with work,” he confessed. “It was easier than admitting the truth, easier than letting her in.”
He remembered standing on the curb, gazing at her seated figure, watching as she looked for him. He could almost feel the cold wind biting at his cheeks again, the hesitation as his fingers hovered over the keypad of his phone.
“… I was scared,” he admitted. “Scared of hurting her… scared of hurting you.” He kept waiting for her to say something, anything, but Lois remained uncharacteristically quiet. She still hadn’t turned around and it unsettled him. He whispered, “Scared of hurting again.”
Clark looked down at the ground, at the faint light on the carpet. He remembered too keenly his sense of loss, of being empty and hollow, hurting so much it felt like he couldn’t breathe. “I can’t… go through that again,” he continued, shaking his head as if that would erase the pain. “I can’t lose –” The tension in his chest tightened and he forced himself to take a few calming breaths.
“I can’t…” Clark’s gaze returned to the back of her head. “… risk everything again.”
She was quiet for several seconds, stretching the uncomfortable silence and Clark wished she would get angry and shout, let him know what she was thinking. She sighed and instead of calling him a jackass or a fool, she asked, “Why do you think you’re here, Smallville?”
Why he was here?
“Do you really think, after going to all the trouble of sending you to the future, that the powers that be sent you to the wrong place?”
That was the crux of everything, wasn’t it?
“I think…” he began slowly, “I’m here to figure out…” He scrutinized her long locks of dark brown hair. “… what I want.” She turned slightly and he took in her profile. “What I feel.”
“And what do you want?” she asked quietly. Her right hand came up to tuck her hair behind her ear as she turned her head towards him. The silver bracelet on her wrist gleamed in the light of the single lamp.
“I…” Shadows created by the lamplight darkened her features and made her gaze all the more intimidating. “I want…”
Clark found himself standing on the brink of the ledge in his mind. He looked around. Memories of his life before his time jump – with his parents, friends, Lana – played on the boundaries of his imagined realm. Down below, beneath the ledge, was a sea of white emptiness.
Clark opened the eyes he didn’t know he had closed. “I want to know what you meant,” he said. The ledge faded away and he was once again on solid ground.
The room was dark, but Clark didn’t miss the flash of disappointment on her face. His stomach clenched.
“I was joking,” she said, facing forward again so that she was looking at the blank television screen. “You saved me in the nick of time, like always.”
“But his timing is better,” Clark surmised, knowing his future self was always steps ahead of him. “He would have caught you before you even fell off.”
“That would have depended on where he was in the world,” Lois said, tilting her head back against the couch. “He’s not a superhero for my exclusive use. The world needs him, too.” In the pale light, he could see her eyes were closed.
“But?” Clark prompted. There was something she wasn’t saying.
She seemed to weigh her words carefully. “… but Clark always seems to know when I’m in trouble,” she continued. “At first, I thought it was sheer luck – my guardian angel in Kryptonian form.” She lifted her head and twisted her body around, her folded arms resting along the length of the couch, her chin atop her hands. “But later, he told me he could hear my heartbeat.”
“Your heartbeat?”
“No matter where he is, Clark can pick out my heartbeat,” she explained, smiling to herself. “When he’s not around, when he’s out being Superman, he listens in – he told me it’s like having the radio on in the background. It’s always there, but he doesn’t think about it until it changes drastically.” She must have remembered something because she laughed. “He said that’s how he knows where to find me. How he knows when I’m in trouble.”
No matter where? That was a strong statement. From what he gathered, as Superman, his future self could be thousands of miles away at any given time. But apparently, amidst the miscellany of the world’s sounds, his future counterpart had the ability to identify Lois’s heartbeat.
If his future self had been at the ball tonight, he would have listened in when he thought something was wrong, and he would have heard Lois’s elevated heart rate.
“How?” Clark blurted out, wanting to know. “I can hear someone’s heartbeat, but they have to be in close proximity. I can’t imagine –” There were hundreds of things he could hear, but elevate that to a global level, and then still being able to recognize one tiny sound… His own hearing abilities didn’t have such a range.
Lois seemed to read his insecurity because she further explained, “He can’t do that for just anyone Clark.”
The skill became all the more appealing. Clark persisted. “How did he learn?”
“He never did tell me how,” she said, almost like she was talking to herself. “But he had me help him perfect it.”
His curiosity rose higher. “How?”
A glimmer of a smirk crossed her lips. “You wouldn’t want me to teach you,” she commented.
Apprehension tinged his curiosity, but he pushed further. “Lois, I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, but I have every intention of keeping you safe for him,” he said firmly. “If you can help me, then please. I need to know.”
Lois gave him a long, measuring look before she nodded. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said. She pushed herself off the couch and stood, holding out her hand.
Clark regarded her carefully and hesitated for just a moment, but then he took the steps he needed to be an arm’s length away from her. He placed his hand in hers.
Lois squeezed his hand and pulled him around the back of the couch. “Sit down,” she said.
Clark sat in the middle of the couch and let go of Lois’s hand. It fell to her side as she walked away. He turned his head in time to see her flick the light switch at the entrance. The hallway went dark and the only light was now the lamp in the lone corner of the living room. Puzzled, he followed her with his eyes as she returned to stand in front of him. Her figure blocked out most of the light as he stared up into her face.
“The darkness will help,” she explained. “You need to rely on your other senses for this.”
Clark nodded, though the darkness was actually putting him on edge. His nerves rattled and he breathed out, trying to relax.
“Close your eyes.”
He nodded, doing as he was told.
Lois sat in his lap.
Clark jerked, his hands automatically placing themselves on her waist to steady her. “Lois!” he yelped. He couldn’t stand, not when she was straddling him with her legs folded on either side of him. “What are you doing?!”
She tilted her head to the side questioningly, though he saw her biting back a laugh. “Don’t be prissy, Smallville,” she said casually. “You asked for this.”
His hands flexed on her waist and he felt her curves beneath the oversized jersey. He had a flashback to the only other time she had been on his lap, except then, she had on considerably less clothing. His hands shot up, as if burned, and he didn’t know where to put them. “I didn’t ask for this,” he stated vehemently.
Lois sighed, their close proximity obviously not a problem for her, and blew out a breath that ruffled her long bangs. “Do you want to learn or not?” she asked impatiently. “Pay attention and do what I say.” She scooped her hair so it all fell over one shoulder. “And if you could keep your questions to yourself, that would be fantastic.”
Clark frowned, muscles tensing, the rigidity in his body apparent.
“Relax.”
He had a lapful of warm Lois. Clark gave a shaky laugh. “Easier said than done,” he said.
He shut his mouth when she glared at him, though he tensed further when she shifted on his thighs. “Do you have to be on my lap?” he asked, hoping he didn’t come off as desperate as he thought he did.
This is for her protection, he reminded himself. God, she smells good. He leaned back as far as he could on the couch, which really wasn’t anything at all.
Lois noticed and rolled her eyes. “I’m helping you the way I helped him,” she said, but she was quick to add, “Not the same exact way. I was maybe wearing just this…” She looked thoughtful as she picked at the sleeve of his championship jersey, but paused as a blush flared on his cheeks. She bit her lip, obviously hiding a laugh. “… you get my drift.” He looked at her hopelessly. She took pity on him and said, “Look, Clark. All you’re going to do is extend your hearing and then rein it in until the only thing you hear is my heartbeat.”
“You can sit right over there for that,” he said, pointing behind him at the dining table.
Lois leaned back, her behind resting on his knees. She kept her balance by reaching out and placing her hands on the back of the couch, creating a sort of enclosure around him.
“I need to be close to you.” She grabbed his chin and tilted it up so he was looking straight into her eyes. Seriously, she said, “This is about connection, about feeling something so intense that it’s etched in your memory.”
Sadness fleetingly touched her brow, but it disappeared so quick he wasn’t sure he had seen it at all. Her hand dropped from his chin to rest on her thigh, but she didn’t break their eye contact. “I know that you’re determined to be an absolute blockhead about certain things, but you asked me to teach you,” she said. “Let me.” She signed an ‘x’ over her heart. “I swear, no funny business.”
Absorbing her words, Clark forced his limbs to loosen even with her body warming his lap. He took a couple deep breaths, centering himself. His hands, still hovering up in the air, crossed over his chest. Lois shook her head and grabbed his hands, placing them at his sides. His palms lay flat on the couch cushions, away from her bunny pajama pants.
“Close your eyes.”
This is a bad idea. Clark paused briefly before he did as he was ordered. He exhaled slowly.
“Stretch your ears,” she said. He tried to ignore her powerful stare and concentrated on following her instructions. “What do you hear?”
The sounds of the city were open to his senses. The nightlife hummed in his ears, busy and moving, an entirely different world from the day. Construction workers pounded and clanked their tools and machinery to finish the new skyrise apartments on 11th street, laborers drilled into the road on 1st and broke apart the fractured concrete, while clubs reverberated with the music thumping from their insides. Cars honked, dogs barked, people yelled, laughed, sang. Hundreds of conversations of those awake blended in his head, one jumbled mess, snippets occasionally tearing apart from the whole.
“Care to par–”
“– it’s way past your bedtime –”
“–elve bucks, buddy!”
“Quiet shift –”
“– speeding, officer.”
“– such an ass–”
“– marry me?”
The last one made him smile unwittingly. To Lois’s question, he simply answered, “Metropolis.”
“Keep your hearing there,” she said. “Now pick out my heartbeat.”
His brow creased. He tried to follow her instructions, but with her in his lap, he knew where she was and his hearing almost automatically leapt to her. Her heartbeat was a muted drum at the back of his head. That was entirely too easy. “Shouldn’t you be farther away so I can’t sense you?” he asked, eyes still closed.
“My way or the highway, Smallville,” Lois replied flippantly. “Now concentrate.”
Clark sighed, but once again used his abilities to hear the whirl of the city at night. Though it was extremely difficult, he pretended he was alone atop the apartment building, gazing at the twinkling lights below. The cityscape flickered to a white void and his eyes snapped open.
The first thing he saw was Lois’s frown. The shadows made her expression darker as she said, “Keep your eyes closed.”
Nodding, he tried again. This time he didn’t imagine he was anywhere. He simply let the city flow over him. It was relatively simple to spread out his hearing. But determining the minute sound of a heartbeat amid the larger and more demanding sounds of the city was daunting. He listened for one, but he heard them all.
He grunted in frustration, Lois’s body heat not helping the process. “There are thousands of sounds in my head – you want me to hear a metaphorical needle in a haystack.”
“You don’t hear needles in a haystack,” she retorted.
“You know what I mean!” he exclaimed, opening his eyes again. He frowned up at her, and he knew she could see him better than he could her. The light from the lamp touched his face every so often when she moved to one side. “How does he pick one person’s heartbeat underneath all the other layers?”
“I’m not just anyone, Clark,” Lois stated, but without a hint of arrogance. It was fact. This was a woman secure about her place in her husband’s life. With all her hair positioned over one shoulder, the curve of her neck was highlighted by the dim glow of the lamp. His fingers itched to feel the exposed skin.
She considered him carefully. “The opposite way, then,” she muttered to herself. She nodded. “Okay, Smallville.”
Lois’s hands moved back and then they were on his shoulders instead of the couch. He tensed, but mentally calmed himself with the sounds of Metropolis.
“You’re thinking too much,” Lois said. She leaned forward and shifted her weight on his legs. “Don’t think.” Slowly, she laid her palms on his cheeks and stared deeply in his eyes. Again, she said, “Close your eyes.”
Clark saw the flecks of gold in her gaze before he followed the order for a third time. The next thing he knew, her lips were next to his left ear, the ends of her hair brushing his black T-shirt. His knee-jerk reaction was to lurch away, but he forced himself to remain still.
“Listen to our home,” she murmured. Her hands returned to his shoulders. “Hear me.”
Swallowing and doing his best to ignore Lois’s attractive allure, Clark soaked in the quiet stillness of the apartment. The hushed sounds of their breathing filled the spaces between them. Any remaining tension in his body gradually drained away with the soft, steady tempo of their breaths.
“Focus,” she said. Her mouth was still next to his head, her lips grazing the shell of his ear. She repeated, “What do you hear?”
He didn’t know when, but they had both started speaking in quiet tones. “Our breathing…” he answered faintly.
Lois pulled back slightly, the side of her head skimming his temple. She whispered, her breath a light puff of air against his cheek. “Now?”
His fists clenched at his sides. Clark counted the beats of her breathing to keep himself grounded. “The same,” he replied. “Just you and me...”
“Can you hear your heartbeat? Mine?”
Breathing in, Clark focused his hearing further.
Ba-bump… ba-bump… ba-bump… ba-bump… ba-bump…
“Yes.”
Lois curled her hand around his, bringing it over his shirt so that his right palm laid flat against his chest. Then she repeated her actions with his other hand, except this time she placed his left palm over her heart. Her hands stayed on top of his.
Then Lois lifted their hands and slowly began tapping a rhythm over both their hearts. The beat was off at first, but Clark took over for her, switching the positions of their hands. He listened long and carefully, and made sure their fingers mirrored the pulse of their hearts.
The unwavering cadence of their heartbeats wove a spell of tranquility and warmth around Clark. Though his eyes remained closed, all his other senses were alive and heightened by the proximity of the woman in his lap. Though she remained absolutely still, he sensed her eyes roving over his face. Trace scents of her lilac shampoo tickled his nose, while the smooth lines of her curves continued to make him all the more aware of her.
“Don’t think.”
Another kind of warmth curled up inside him, and it had nothing to do with innocent affection.
Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump –
The rhythm sped up unexpectedly and there was suddenly a light sensation against his lips, breaking his concentration. His eyes snapped open, caught off guard by the fleeting caress. “Lo –”
Her hazel eyes shone like gems in the dark and he couldn’t look away. “Shh… stop thinking.” She slipped her hands out from under his now prone ones. “Feel. Listen.”
Lois spoke close to his lips and Clark could taste her breath on his tongue, sweet like strawberries and absolutely maddening. “I am going to distract you,” she murmured, “but you have to focus on my heartbeat. Nothing else.”
“Nothing else,” he echoed, throat dry.
B-bump, b-bump, b-bump, b-bump, b-bump, b-bump, b-bump –
First, he felt the back of her knuckles trail down his cheek. Then her left hand slid into his hair. His own hands had fallen to the curve of her hips, but she didn’t react – her eyes continued to roam his face, her wandering fingers ghosting down the side of his torso.
Not once did she look away from him.
Indecision warred on her face, and for the briefest of moments, it felt like she was looking into him. Longing and tenderness colored her expression next and it was the softest he had ever seen her. She cupped his face in her palms.
Her eyes flickered to his forehead and she whispered, “Just once.” Her hazel eyes pleaded with him to understand as she searched for something in his gaze. “I promise.”
Lois touched her right wrist upon his brow, the crystal of her bracelet cool against his skin. That same peculiar tingle from before darted down his spine, and he felt a rush of fierce emotion. She smiled.
And then, she kissed him.
Her lips teased his, soft and smooth, electrifying his senses. Like they always did. His fingers clutched her waist. Her hands skimmed down his cheeks, then his neck before settling at his shoulders again. He didn’t have a chance to respond, not when she was already pulling away, dragging a little of his lip as she let go.
Lois looked down at him, like she was waiting for something. He couldn’t imagine what for because wasn’t she supposed to be kissing him? She bit her lip, uncertain, then moved to her knees as if to get off his lap.
Clark surged up, his arms coming under hers so that his hands gripped her shoulders from behind. The left part of his jersey was dragged up with the sudden movement, and he could feel her bare skin as his elbow pressed against her side.
He caught her surprised gasp with his mouth, falling back against the couch. Her weight once again pressed him as her lips opened to his ministrations and she wound her arms around his neck. He drowned in the same dizzying feeling from his first day in the future as he kissed her, deep and certain and wanting. He felt her all around him, how she invaded his senses, leaving nothing but her.
Their heartbeats – a constant thrum in his head – grew louder and faster, the musical score to their collision.
Her hands entangled themselves in his hair as his fell to clench her bared sides, the jersey falling over his arms. He massaged the middle of her back and touched her silken skin, shadowing every curve. The delicious warmth spreading through his limbs tightened in his gut as she melded herself closer and closer against him. Her dark brown locks tumbled like a curtain around their heads as she tipped his head back.
Lois kissed him, kissed him until all he was aware of was her and their matching heartbeats.
And he surrendered.
A necessity for air caused them to break apart, breathing heavily and hearts racing, pounding in his ears. Her fingers played lazily with the hairs at the nape of his neck. Clark smiled against her lips.
“Lois,” he breathed. He opened his eyes to find hers still closed.
Clark watched her eyes slowly open, noting a curious blankness about them. She took in his face and the most beautiful smile bloomed on her lips. It was so breathtaking that it prompted a matching one of his own. A beat later, and awareness seeped back into her gaze. Her smile faltered and realization came down swift upon her, chasing the light from her eyes.
He frowned, concerned. “Lois, wh–”
She placed her index finger on his lips and shook her head. “Patience was never one of my better qualities,” she murmured.
His eyebrows furrowed. What was she talking about? She raised her wrist and he felt the cool surface of a stone against his forehead. She brushed his lips with hers just as a familiar tingle ran down his spine, and the same rush of emotion that flooded him checked itself.
Clark pulled back, blinking. Her heartbeat faded from his mind and then all he could hear was their mismatched breathing. What transpired replayed with startling clarity and his hands dropped from her sides like they had been singed. The red and gold jersey once again covered her torso as he stared up at her.
“Lois, I’m s –”
“Shh…” she interrupted, shaking her head again. “Be quiet. Please.” Her left palm pressed lightly on the side of his neck, her other hand tracing the contours of his ring. “Just for a minute.” She rested her forehead against his and closed her eyes.
Clark obeyed, but only because he was still reeling from the aftershocks. The pleasure he felt lingered, but was soon joined by generous heaps of guilt and consternation. He hadn’t been fair to Lois at all. How could he have kissed her, knowing she was missing her husband? He remembered being caught off guard by her fleeting caress, and then an abrupt feeling of liberation, wanting only to feel the passion in Lois Lane that was unmatched.
Lois exhaled, the small puff of air tickling his face. “You heard me, right?” she asked.
“Yes, but –”
Lois shook her head. “When you’re far away, think of this moment. Think of how strongly you made me feel. How much I feel for you. Remember and listen,” she said quietly, pulling back so their foreheads no longer touched. “Listen and try to match my heartbeat among all the millions of sounds you can hear when you concentrate. Focus.”
Her eyes wandered over his features and dashes of pleasure and nostalgia graced her face. “Even thousands of miles away, you should be able to pick me out of a crowd.”
Clark looked up at her, unable to accurately describe what she made him feel.
Lois relaxed a bit and returned his look, somewhat bemused. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I just…” He took in her bright hazel eyes and the soft halo around her head from the lamplight. “It’s overwhelming.”
You overwhelm me.
Lois seemed to understand. “Just breathe, Smallville,” she whispered, brushing a stray lock from his forehead.
“Just breathe.”
Complete Chapter List HERE.
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Date: 2009-11-10 01:23 am (UTC)What a fantastic idea! I may have to steal it! Just joking! *hee*!! Aww, yes, lessons from Lois. You gotta love it! :D
Thanks! :D
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Date: 2009-12-22 07:05 am (UTC)Thanks for commenting! ♥
Stay tuned - the Interlude will be posted soon. :D