60. (gilmore/smallville/twilight) you're lost for tonight again.
title. you're lost for tonight again.
fandom. gilmore girls/smallville/twilight.
pairings/characters. lois lane. jess mariano. edward cullen. (jess/lois, edward/lois; clark/lois, jess/rory)
warnings. au. obvious spoilers for entire seasons for all three fandoms. smallville: goes along the lines of superman; lois knows clark’s secret identity. alters smallville later canon. gilmore girls: post-6x18. twilight: pre-twilight. (though, silly hints about bella.)
disclaimer. not mine.
words. 5328.
rating. pg.
for. choco_cherries summer fic exchange. written for: horselovergurl.
summary. army brats aren’t taught the basics to fairytales.
notes. feedback is ♥.
Superheroes become permanent markings on her forehead; loser translates into target and somehow Smallville was born upside down.
Neon green glows in forms of glass shards littering a path leading to her once upon a time. Cottages and hungry evil witches are replaced with cardboard cut outs of granite skin and pen-marked margins of paperbacks.
Ruby glass slippers are heavy on her feet; familiar combat shoes are bulkier with layers of thoughts pushed back into the recesses of a frantic mind.
Army brats aren’t taught the basics to fairytales.
-
Beginning:
Planning is clumsy movements over tables and chairs and boxes creased at the corners. “Where are you going to go?” Chloe crosses her arms over her chest, eyes wide and sad with loss as Lois takes another piece of Chloe Sullivan.
Guilt manipulates her movements and forces her, hand heavy on the back of her neck, to look down.
She fiddles, moves things in and out of boxes and curses as jealousy morphs into the form of tiny pricks from tips of needles as they trace the very edge of her spine because Lois Lane is not Lucy Lane and doesn’t know how to be tidy without splattering paint or breaking glass or purposefully annoying a military officer. She leaves behind breadcrumbs in the form of paint and dust and skid marks from tires. “Don’t know,” Lois finally looks up, breathing heavily as guilt and layers and layers of it settles on her stomach.
The familiar stench of stubborn filters into her nose.
Chloe looks down, fiddles with her hands, “If this is about Clark -”
She raises her hand, palm up and Chloe stops and stutters as Lois tries to find a tone that’ll be convincing without the obvious presence of lying being laid thickly on it, “It’s not. It’s not your fault, anyway,” she picks up some things, a scarf with crumbs littering it’s surface she found behind the couch and a pair of shoes she’s pretty sure are Lana Lang’s, “It wasn’t up to you to tell me.”
Chloe sighs, arms wrap around her and Lois’ glance flickers up before she realises the weight’s settling in and continues packing, rearranging how items fit in boxes messily and she’s not going to fit all of this in her car. “Chlo,” she says from her bent position, “it’s his fault. Stop blaming yourself.”
Lois moves into the kitchen, her steps messy and she bumps into the edge of the counter. Coffee pot stands still and stares as she finds a misplaced cup under the sink and Chloe spins around, lips tugging up with strain, “Where are you going to go?”
She finds a fork beside the coffee pot, “Forks?” she shrugs, smile and laughter accompanied and Chloe cocks an eyebrow.
-
It wasn’t meant to be literal.
World, Lois Lane wants to say, you have a very sick sense of humour.
-
She follows the yellow brick road painted in cobblestone and dirt.
The sun is allergic to Forks as clouds are shaded greys ranging from light to dark and rain threatens to pelt daggers. Lois looks forward, doesn’t look back and see the distance between meteor showers and farms and runs at-the-speed-of-light failing to follow behind her.
-
Forks is a graveyard for strained smiles and loud motorbikes.
Bookstores sell copies with notes written in margins.
Lois wonders if normalcy is hidden in the tiny cracks of buildings.
-
Ten days it takes for rain to fall and Lois to cut herself to the point of hospitalisation. She trips and stumbles and Lois Lane isn’t the most elegant ballerina to transfer from a town unheard of to another named after a kitchen utensil.
Chiselled features wrap up her arm, a wrist in plaster and Lois has to smile as a new record for first-injury-without-influence-from-the-supernatural-in-a-foreign-town finally makes it in her record books. “Thanks,” she says after her arm is free and heavy with thick white paper that reminds her of paper mache and ugly donkeys being beaten at birthday parties she wasn’t meant to attend.
Nametag reads Dr Cullen and he smiles, white teeth almost sparkle like a toothpaste commercial as dimples appear in his cheeks, “You remind me of someone I know.”
She cocks an eyebrow; comparisons are single roads divided into two, and choosing left over right (or right over left) may lead you to your potentially predictable horror movie death.
“You seem a little less dangerous than her,” he winks, her attention is drawn to the flawless skin of his face, as lines seem invisible on his flesh and Lois thinks this is some Ashton Kutcher skit.
She meets her fate with an axe murderer.
-
Fatal accidents come in threes.
One: She blacks out and hurts her wrist. It’s over and done and she’s exposed to the model part of the society.
Two: Paper cuts from books spoiled with thoughts from an invisible previous reader stain the pads of her fingers as newspapers and printed out sheets are replaced with paperbacks.
Three: Thoughts are stolen like a bunch of balloons tied to a pole left alone and a greedy child who knows how to tie his shoelaces steals them.
-
She flips a coin twice a day for two weeks before she results to picking petals off of flowers.
She sits in the park, backside damp with dirt, and petals are littering her legs and sticking to the pads of her fingertips, “Go to college,” she pulls a purple petal off of a rather pretty flower, “not to go to college,” and stir, repeat.
Four flowers flutter on by and see their life come to a total waste as Lois doesn’t like the answer - yes comes one and no comes thrice - before Park Police sends a model to do it’s bidding.
“Flowers have feelings too, you know,” looms a shadow and Lois’ pouting comes to a halt as a fresh flower is stilled between her fingers. “And people like looking at them,” he says in her silence, gestures with his hand sliding from his jean pocket at the purple flower in hers and the petals littering the floor like paper cut outs.
She raises an eyebrow, “Coins or flowers, take your pick,” she looks back down at the flower, rotates it in her fingers and looks at his legs from the corner of her eye.
“Pardon?”
“Either I waste coins or flowers.” She glances up, his eyes are laughing as his hand slides back into his front pocket, “And I’m pretty sure a man of your stature would prefer the latter.”
He blinks, “A man of my stature?”
Lois’ fingertip dances along the edge of a petal, the softness brushes against her skin and her eyes examine the pretty shades of purple, “I don’t think genetics are that generous.”
After a moment, he laughs. He licks his lips and Lois glances up, humour is etched into his voice, “Do you always speak so bluntly to strangers?”
“It’s an alternative to taking candy from them.”
He grins, “Edward,” he holds out a hand, “and I am, unfortunately, all out of candy.”
She takes a moment, assesses his immaculate hand, she twirls the flower, “Lois Lane,” and places the purple flower into his palm, “and I’ll have you know I’m a third degree black belt.”
-
Poetry bores her to nonexistent tears and Lois curses her idea of returning to college.
Back against a bookshelf in a store that sells books already used, Lois yawns and looks straight ahead, counting the spines of books levelled with her eyes. Heavy footsteps fall on ugly carpet and her aisle light is shunned out like the clouds pushing the sun to another part of the world.
“Trying to bore yourself?”
She looks up, hands heavy with a book full of pretty lines and depth she’s incapable of grasping. She’s a swimmer in a pool of Kryptonite and too busy drowning to consider moving her arms in the motions of strokes, “No,” she says a little too haughtily. Preparation for college wants to spill itself from her tongue but she bites it a little too hard and “Ow” breaks the exterior she’s trying to uphold.
He smirks, lip crooked and hand by his hip is gripping a thin novel, “If you want to torture yourself, try The Fountainhead.” Standing on tip-toes, the novel slips back into place between two books, one immaculate and one tearing at the sides, and he smirks, eyes dark and he slides his hands into his pockets, “It won’t disappoint.”
-
Park benches are far more cleaner than grass. Her jeans suffer from brown patches that are slowly growing fainter with each wash.
With legs crossed and eyebrows mimicking, The Fountainhead is a struggle that makes her yearn for poetry with it’s unfinished lines and odd words and depth she can’t dive too deep for because holding her breath for long sections of time doesn’t come naturally for talkers.
She grunts and a familiar shadow, as if beckoned, dances with her light. “You,” she looks up, brows crossed as The Fountainhead lays heavily on her lap.
“Hello again,” Edward grins, perfect face pale as light grey clouds let the tiniest of sunrays through. “It’s nice seeing you off of the ground and the flowers intact.”
She rolls her eyes, “Whatever, Mr Model.” Lois swallows, fiddles with her fingers and his heavy shadow doesn’t budge; she clears her throat and Edward is failing at Cluedo. “If you don’t mind,” she tries to say without clenched teeth, “I’m trying to read.”
“Really?” he smirks, his lip tilts up and his eyebrow follows, “It didn’t seem like that seconds ago.”
“You interrupted me.”
“The Fountainhead is a very good book,” he grins, nods towards her lap and she looks at the fallen book, opened and turned over as the pages leak ink into her jeans.
She licks her lips, “It’s horrible. It’s like she’s speaking in another language.”
He laughs, “Well, I prefer poetry over novels.”
Lois makes a face.
Edward laughs, musical notes touch each tone and Lois finds herself almost transfixed, lost in a state of past-catching-up-with-the-present and she glances up quickly at the sky to see grey clouds not melting into green, “I’ll leave you alone then,” his hand gestures to her book, “I hope our paths cross again.”
His back is turned and distanced when “Karma will be sure to make that happen” falls from her lips and The Fountainhead collapses on her lap.
-
Typoes are nightmares of the past as newspaper articles are harder to write and fake stories look for another author.
Lois sighs and stares at her computer, thunder knocks wildly against her door as rain paints Forks with a thick atmosphere of damp heat.
She deems herself lost in a world that doesn’t offer compensation for determination wrapped in an eager package and curses herself for realising her dreams too late.
-
She returns The Fountainhead with a demand of a refund.
The boy behind the counter smirks, opens the till and slips cash back into her hand, “I was right.”
“You were,” Lois pockets the change, “Remind me to never listen to any your recommendations you have in the near future.”
His lip lifts further, eyes shine with amusement as he leans against the counter on his arms, “As you wish.”
-
Chloe calls after a week.
Sullivan is hesitant as “Clark’s gone back to Lana” spills and Lois closes her eyes, hand suddenly tight over the cordless phone and her side finds the wall to lean against.
With a sigh, “How predictable.”
-
Finally:
The world deals Lois a card.
-
Edward finds her in the park again.
Change happens as it’s at a little café that borders the green lined with pretty flowers in a garden bed; coffee is warm in her hands and he takes arrogance into his own and invites himself to sit. A flush of tingles settle in her stomach where layers of something forgotten reside like the Lochness and she groans into her mug, “Edward.”
“Lois,” he smiles, hands clasped together on the table, “nice to see you.”
She places her mug down, hands wrapped around it, “Unfortunate I can’t say the same for you.”
He grins.
-
She dials the Kents’ number once every two days.
Today she gets as far as the dial tone before she hangs up.
-
Lois starts reading fairytales.
Children tossed into a world without fake beliefs end up screwed in the end.
-
Edward asks questions -
“How’d you hurt your wrist?”
She’ll sigh, pink lightly paints her cheeks, “Sort of fell.”
He grins. “Where are you from?”
She pauses, “Smallville.”
“Never heard of it.”
She shrugs, “Never heard of Forks.”
“How come you’re not a reporter?”
Eyebrows crease, “How’d you know that?”
- But he never answers.
-
“People are perceptive, Lois,” Chloe will shrug over the phone line as Lois quizzes her cousin on Edward Cullen. “Not everyone is blind.”
-
Bookstore becomes butchered moments of Lois Lane’s memory.
His head is buried in a book and lifts at the sound of her entrance, “Arm still in a cast.”
She walks past, “Head still up your ass?”
-
She’s far away from the park.
Something spins and Edward is out of place at a pharmacy near the hospital.
“How’s the arm?” he crosses his arms over his chest.
She smiles, examines it, “Being freed.”
-
“Tell me a secret,” she says over coffee. A poetry book lies on top of a twisted version of Little Red Riding Hood.
Edward’s lips turn up, his eyes look down and his fingers trace patterns on the table, “I like glitter, especially in the sun.”
She laughs.
-
Army Brat witnesses Book Brat outside of the bookstore; coffee in his grip and a novel pokes out of his back pocket and today is the day she snoops and finds out his secret identity.
A rush of air builds up in her throat and escapes with a sigh filled with relief as Jess Mariano isn’t an alien living the double life.
-
Snow White is her next victim and is accompanied with a red apple in a hand.
“Think that’s wise?” Jess smirks, and Lois, leaning against a bookshelf filled with heavy spines lined with golden and silver letters, pauses.
She grins, “Planning on poisoning me?”
He shrugs, “Wouldn’t want to spoil it for you,” he steps over her legs and finds a gap further away from her to return a book to it’s home.
-
Lois forgets: She’s stopped falling.
What she doesn’t see: Pale running at the speed of light.
-
Home is wrapped up in a tornado and she’s found a world of technicolour.
Six months pass and calendars are blank with inked in dates and pages being flipped ten days into a new month and Lois Lane doesn’t click her heels wishing for there’s no place like home.
-
Edward promises coffee over lunch.
She waits and waits and after four coffees and onto her fifth she leaves.
-
“You do realise we have a seating area, right? It’s filled with these things called chairs that you can sit on,” Jess is back in her aisle, a different one from two days ago and she furrows her brow in confusion.
“Are you stalking me?”
He shrugs, “No,” and shifts a book into a gap, “wouldn’t want your ego to grow any bigger.”
She laughs, “Pot meet kettle.”
-
“Sorry,” Edward’s in the park and they’re inches from each other on a bench.
Somehow intolerable frustration turns into a routinely pattern of running into each other and planning lunch dates, and Edward Cullen is imprinting a mark on her skin.
She shrugs, “It’s okay.”
“It’s not -”
“I’ve had worse.”
-
“Fairytales?”
Jess is a pest that keeps flying towards the light that’ll zap and introduce his demise.
“Yes,” Lois grunts, looks up from him as Cinderella has lost her shoe and the prince is running after her. She waits a moment for his quip, a little insult on how grown-up she is, but it doesn’t come.
Disappointment seeps into her fingertips and she frowns.
“No quip?”
He shakes his head, “Not today.”
-
As Lois learns:
Every story evolves into a love song.
- Or at least the fairytales do.
-
Edward takes her hand and holds it as if it’s made out of glass.
He makes her feel fragile, a piece of art the collectors dislike to touch in fear one movement will be fatal.
“Are you okay?” he asks and squeezes her hand, and she sighs, looks around and down at her feet.
“Yeah,” she says eventually.
The path is littered with small stones and gravel, and Lois kicks one as they pass a bed of purple flowers; she smiles and grips his hand tighter as the space between them doesn’t change and stays level, a medium shade of grey in the clouds that stalk Forks.
“I need to tell you something,” Edward says, eyes down and Lois studies his profile.
She swallows, “You’re not a serial killer, are you?”
He pauses a little too long before he laughs.
-
Sometimes Lois isn’t as daft as she seems.
White contrasts with dark:
Edward opens doors where Jess kicks her feet.
Cullen knows where Mariano presumes.
Edward doesn’t eat where Jess does.
Edward Cullen kisses her with a closed mouth where Jess Mariano writes Hi Lois in the margins of books.
-
The park is chilly.
“You should call Chloe,” Edward says, his cool fingers play with hers.
She quirks an eyebrow, lips tilt up in a grin, “I was just thinking about that.”
-
Jess Mariano buys her a hotdog and finds her in an aisle with bad lighting.
This one takes the cake.
“Don’t strain your eyes,” he kicks her legs lightly, alerting her of his presence and she looks up from her book of the Three Little Pigs.
She grins, “Don’t get sauce on the books.”
He smirks, “We wouldn’t want that.”
He sits opposite her, passes her a hotdog and she places the book beside her; his feet come up to her hip and he taps them against her. She manages “Are those your notes in the margins?” around her hotdog and taps the side of his leg with her bare feet.
His chews are long and wide like the strides of a man with long legs, “Yeah,” he nods, swallows, and his mouth is empty, “Doesn’t bother you?”
She shakes her head, “No,” and licks the side of her mouth, “sort of adds flavour to the story.”
-
They start representing her calendar:
Edward is tomorrow where Jess is today.
-
Edward disappears for long stretches of time.
Worry gnaws at Lois’ insides as phone numbers haven’t been exchanged on his side of the treaty and she’s not even sure he has a home.
-
“Wizard of Oz character,” Lois wriggles her toes; the thick book lays in her lap and Jess taps his feet at her side.
They sit in another alcove in the bookstore, surrounded by dust and better lighting and Jess keeps his eyes on her toes, “That’s a hard one.”
She grins, “I’ve finally stumped the great Jess Mariano.”
He smirks, laughs and pokes her toes with his finger. “If this was a life and death situation -”
“What makes you think it isn’t?”
He grins, “- then I’d probably want to be the lion.”
She stops wiggling her toes, “Why’s that?”
He shrugs, “Courage. Could’ve used it a while back, is all.”
-
Anything that goes up must fall down.
This crashes.
Edward sits with her in the park, at their bench, as night and the stars blanket Forks. She’s cold and the seat is damp from small pitter patters of raindrops. His hand is by his side, distance separates their bodies and fingers and Lois yearns for grounding.
“I have to leave,” Edward says, after time - moments and decades and green flashes of light - and Lois breathes out an “Oh.”
He doesn’t hold her hand.
-
Lois falls.
Scrapes her knee and her palms sting under chilled water.
-
She wants something different.
Days pass in a blur as Edward’s gone and Forks pours down with rain as sharp as knives and Lois stops reading fairytales.
She seeks for a castle with a white picket fence to house a dog and it’s two-point-five children, if she was to ever breed, and finds herself empty handed. She’s Indiana Jones searching for ancient treasure and she’s never been a fan of re-casting.
-
“You’re moving too fast,” Chloe says over the phone line, you’re too impulsive is a deeper voice, commanding and fussy and rebellion follows after. “Just slow down.”
“I feel so cold, Chloe,” Lois sighs into the receiver, closes her eyes, “I was warm before.”
-
A knock at her door and “Hello stranger” greets her as Jess Mariano pushes his way past her and into her apartment. “Cosy little place here. Better than mine,” he quips over his shoulder, smirks, and she’s lost in a sudden blur of displacement.
“How’d you find me?”
He sits on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, “GoogleMap.”
She blinks, closes the door and leans against it, “Why are you here?”
He tosses a book beside his feet, “Goldilocks.”
-
Scratch tomorrow.
Edward promises forever with revelations of secrets being hidden and Lois wonders if she’s the only one who has been writing in an adolescent diary.
“I thought you were leaving,” she says, arm against the doorframe.
He swallows, “I am.”
“So what are you doing here?”
He licks his lips, “I - Maybe you deserve the truth.”
“Maybe.”
She doesn’t make this easy for him. Lois Lane never makes anything easy for anybody; farm boys have to sputter out secrets of alien home planets and caves carved with extraterrestrial writing for her to believe a story.
“I wanted you to come with me.”
She huffs, “There’s past tense there.”
He falters, her mind lightly aches as charm is quickly shadowed by impatience and Edward Cullen is finally second guessing himself. “I guess I made a mistake.”
“Those are quite common,” she tries to soften, glances at his immaculate shoes and Edward breathes out a breath too forced to be claimed as normal.
“No one is perfect,” he concludes.
She pastes goodbye with “For not as long as you have been.”
Even gods fall off their pedestals every now and then.
-
Lois slows down as rain pelts Forks and ice-cream becomes a replacement for late night phone calls to Chloe.
She’s ill with a fever called being too-much-of-a-girl as she cries over a boy with an icy touch.
She pushes and pushes until there’s a cliff and someone’s falling off it.
-
“Tinman.”
“What?” Jess’ eyebrow creases, book in hand and elbows on the counter. “Have you been drinking coffee again? I swear to you it’s bad. You can even ask my uncle -”
She shakes her head, “Remember when I asked you which character you’d be?”
“This was when you flew over the cuckoo’s nest?”
“Well, I’m the Tinman.”
He sighs, closes the book with his thumb marking the page he’d been reading, “I don’t think we’re on the same page here -”
She sighs, exasperation makes her tone clipped, “You’re the cowardly lion to my heartless tinman, Jess.”
He blinks, “I don’t think there’s any need for those kinds of accusations -”
She rolls her eyes, “There’s no time for you to pretend your ego is bruised. The damage has been done and life has dealt me a pile of cards I can’t play with without screwing up.”
“So now you’re playing cards?”
“Be serious.”
“Stop being so nutty,” he laughs, places his book on the counter and his thumb slips out.
Lois sighs, runs a hand through her hair and mumbles, “I pushed him away.”
“Pushed who?”
“I’m Coyote chasing after the Road Runner. Instead, I didn’t push Road Runner over the cliff, I pushed myself.”
The tip of his lip quirks up, “Now you’re not making any sense.”
-
She tries it again. Heavy notebook purchased, the lines are creased with an uncaring nature. Her pen sits behind her ear, ink stains her fingertips and there’s a man with a dog that’s taken her interest.
She’s frustrated, “Do you know what I mean?”
Crooked lip quirks, “No.”
-
She asks the weather for a sign.
Sun pours warmth over a utensil town.
This is a time for goodbyes.
-
Jess sighs. “The Fountainhead?” His face scrunches up and Lois smirks, slaps the novel on the counter with a smug smile.
She shrugs, “I was never really a fan of it to begin with.” She licks her lips and looks over her shoulder, scanning the bookshelves aligned with odd colour, and says quietly, “Wasn’t mine to keep, anyway.”
-
She chose wrong.
The dial tone rings, Smallville seems far away and even as thunder knocks at her door she closes her eyes, bites her lip and jumps at the voice of Martha Kent.
She finally says goodbye.
-
“You know when you’re a kid you want to be something stupid?” Lois squints in the sunlight, another happenstance of the weatherman being correct.
Jess swallows, “Yeah?”
“Well,” Lois folds her hands in her lap, the park bench is sweaty beneath her legs, “I wanted to be a reporter.”
“That’s not stupid.”
“It is when you can’t spell ‘newspaper’.”
-
She browses through a familiar aisle.
Jess appears at her shoulder, “Read this,” he pushes a book into her eyesight.
She takes it, “Beauty and the Beast?” she quirks her eyebrow, and he shrugs.
“Just read it.”
-
In the margin:
You can do anything.
Footnote: And spell ‘newspaper’.
-
Lois reads Hansel and Gretel a couple days later than schedule.
Seated in an aisle with books lined sloppily on shelves, Lois squirms on the hard floor and waits for Jess to block out her light.
He steps over her, bends to see the cover of her book and proceeds to place hardbacks between slipping novels, “Not a fan of that one.”
She tries to hide behind her book, her voice a soft squeak, “No?”
“No.”
“Why?” she moves the book away from her face.
He shrugs, rubs his hands together, “I never really liked the whole witch wanting to eat the kids kind of thing.” She blinks, and he places his hands in his pockets, makes a fuss about explaining and smirks, “I just find it ridiculous, is all. Kind of like how this one girl thinks she’s this cartoon that particularly fails in it’s line of work, when all I’ve seen is success.”
“She sounds particularly stupid.”
“Well, she is,” he grins at her protest of “Hey!”
-
She brings him coffee.
“This is a first.”
“No reprimand about drinking coffee near books?” she cradles her cup close to her face, the heat warming her cheeks and her stomach.
His lips tilt up; he glances at the plastic cup sitting on the counter, “Not today.”
“Not today,” she repeats with a smile, sips her coffee and he places his book down.
“What are you going to be reading today, princess?”
Lois shrugs, “I’m not sure,” she sips her coffee again, “what one is your favourite?”
“The one with the lost shoe.”
-
“Good books don’t start with Once upon a time, Lois,” Jess sits beside her, the park bench becomes too small for two and his leg touches hers as a light breeze picks up.
She rolls her eyes, sighs, and places Cinderella on her lap, “Do you go around telling little children that Santa doesn’t exist?”
He grins, glances at her lap, “Again?”
She shrugs, becomes suddenly shy, “I like this one.”
“I thought you would. It reminded me of you.”
She grins, “Finally the truth comes out. Jess Mariano thinks I’m a princess.”
He smiles crookedly, hands flat on his legs and he looks straight ahead, “Nah,” he glances at her, “you reminded me more of the shoe.”
-
She takes notes:
Edward doesn’t call and Jess doesn’t promise her eternity.
-
Lois is oblivious.
The Tectonic Plates shift.
-
She’s at the bookstore, this time sitting on a chair.
It’s quite comfortable. Granted there’s no coffee.
He eventually finds her, “What are you doing here?”
She rolls her eyes, “Reading,” and flashes her book quickly at him.
“What are you reading?” he ducks his head, trying to read the cover.
Her fingers splay sloppily on the front, “Nothing.”
“So you’re reading an invisible book which is visible?”
She nods.
He sighs, moves closer to her and manages to pluck the novel from her grasp. He says after a few moments, “You’re reading this?”
She nods, “It’s pretty good, if I say so myself.”
“But?”
She shrugs, “Besides the fact that the author is a little up himself and a bit short,” she grins as he reciprocates the gesture, “there’s no notes in the margins.”
He grins, “We’ll have to see about that.”
-
“This may sound sappy.”
She grins, “You’re always sappy.”
He rolls his eyes, “I’m not going to promise you once upon a time or a glittering shoe or a kiss if you ever eat a coma-inducing apple, because, quite frankly, you’re annoying and I could do with the peace and quiet.”
“What are you getting at?”
He shrugs, “I want to spend forever with you. However long our forever may be.”
His lips are light against hers, empty without secrets anchoring them down in a stormy sea.
-
She comes home to an immaculate purple flower sitting on her doorstep.
Between her fingers she pulls the petals off one by one.
There’s no chant of does he love me? does he not? tonight.
-
“You called me a shoe.”
“I remember,” his hand curls more tightly around hers, head bent down and he’s suddenly shy.
It’s sort of adorable.
The path crunches beneath her boots, “A shoe. Am I at least a ruby glass slipper?”
He shakes his head, “A converse shoe.”
“Converse?”
“You know,” he stops, wiggles his feet planted in a dominantly black shoe, “Converse shoe.”
She rolls her eyes, “I know what it is. But why that shoe?” She pouts as he tugs her forward, “I thought I was pretty.”
He grins, “Don’t doubt that,” she swings their hands roughly, “it’s just that I don’t see myself wearing ruby glass slippers.”
It’s her turn to still her movements. “What?”
He turns back to her, spare hand reaches for the back of his neck as pink flushes to his cheeks, “You’re the shoe and I’m Cinderella and that means you’re the right fit for me.”
She smiles, resists the temptation of aw and swings their hands, continuing their walk.
Moments later she laughs. “What?” Jess looks at her from the corner of his eye.
Her laughter intensifies, “You called yourself a princess.”
-
The sun finally shines.
-
They walk in the park.
Lois suddenly stops. She bends down and Jess, a few paces ahead, stops. “What are you doing?”
She smiles, her fingers unlacing her shoes, “Taking my shoes off.”
“This isn’t the beach.”
“So?”
He blinks, “Why are you taking off your shoes?”
She sits, pulls her shoes off with a grunt before standing up, wiping off the gravel stuck to her jeans, and winces as bits lodge themselves in the creases of her feet. She moves up to him, shrugs, “Finally feel like I’m not walking on eggshells.”
He grins, takes her hand and after a few painful yelps from her he manages, “You’re feet stink.”
She slaps his shoulder.
-
Ending:
Forever doesn’t start with closed-in shoes.
(Note there’s no happily ever after either.)
fandom. gilmore girls/smallville/twilight.
pairings/characters. lois lane. jess mariano. edward cullen. (jess/lois, edward/lois; clark/lois, jess/rory)
warnings. au. obvious spoilers for entire seasons for all three fandoms. smallville: goes along the lines of superman; lois knows clark’s secret identity. alters smallville later canon. gilmore girls: post-6x18. twilight: pre-twilight. (though, silly hints about bella.)
disclaimer. not mine.
words. 5328.
rating. pg.
for. choco_cherries summer fic exchange. written for: horselovergurl.
summary. army brats aren’t taught the basics to fairytales.
notes. feedback is ♥.
Superheroes become permanent markings on her forehead; loser translates into target and somehow Smallville was born upside down.
Neon green glows in forms of glass shards littering a path leading to her once upon a time. Cottages and hungry evil witches are replaced with cardboard cut outs of granite skin and pen-marked margins of paperbacks.
Ruby glass slippers are heavy on her feet; familiar combat shoes are bulkier with layers of thoughts pushed back into the recesses of a frantic mind.
Army brats aren’t taught the basics to fairytales.
-
Beginning:
Planning is clumsy movements over tables and chairs and boxes creased at the corners. “Where are you going to go?” Chloe crosses her arms over her chest, eyes wide and sad with loss as Lois takes another piece of Chloe Sullivan.
Guilt manipulates her movements and forces her, hand heavy on the back of her neck, to look down.
She fiddles, moves things in and out of boxes and curses as jealousy morphs into the form of tiny pricks from tips of needles as they trace the very edge of her spine because Lois Lane is not Lucy Lane and doesn’t know how to be tidy without splattering paint or breaking glass or purposefully annoying a military officer. She leaves behind breadcrumbs in the form of paint and dust and skid marks from tires. “Don’t know,” Lois finally looks up, breathing heavily as guilt and layers and layers of it settles on her stomach.
The familiar stench of stubborn filters into her nose.
Chloe looks down, fiddles with her hands, “If this is about Clark -”
She raises her hand, palm up and Chloe stops and stutters as Lois tries to find a tone that’ll be convincing without the obvious presence of lying being laid thickly on it, “It’s not. It’s not your fault, anyway,” she picks up some things, a scarf with crumbs littering it’s surface she found behind the couch and a pair of shoes she’s pretty sure are Lana Lang’s, “It wasn’t up to you to tell me.”
Chloe sighs, arms wrap around her and Lois’ glance flickers up before she realises the weight’s settling in and continues packing, rearranging how items fit in boxes messily and she’s not going to fit all of this in her car. “Chlo,” she says from her bent position, “it’s his fault. Stop blaming yourself.”
Lois moves into the kitchen, her steps messy and she bumps into the edge of the counter. Coffee pot stands still and stares as she finds a misplaced cup under the sink and Chloe spins around, lips tugging up with strain, “Where are you going to go?”
She finds a fork beside the coffee pot, “Forks?” she shrugs, smile and laughter accompanied and Chloe cocks an eyebrow.
-
It wasn’t meant to be literal.
World, Lois Lane wants to say, you have a very sick sense of humour.
-
She follows the yellow brick road painted in cobblestone and dirt.
The sun is allergic to Forks as clouds are shaded greys ranging from light to dark and rain threatens to pelt daggers. Lois looks forward, doesn’t look back and see the distance between meteor showers and farms and runs at-the-speed-of-light failing to follow behind her.
-
Forks is a graveyard for strained smiles and loud motorbikes.
Bookstores sell copies with notes written in margins.
Lois wonders if normalcy is hidden in the tiny cracks of buildings.
-
Ten days it takes for rain to fall and Lois to cut herself to the point of hospitalisation. She trips and stumbles and Lois Lane isn’t the most elegant ballerina to transfer from a town unheard of to another named after a kitchen utensil.
Chiselled features wrap up her arm, a wrist in plaster and Lois has to smile as a new record for first-injury-without-influence-from-the-supernatural-in-a-foreign-town finally makes it in her record books. “Thanks,” she says after her arm is free and heavy with thick white paper that reminds her of paper mache and ugly donkeys being beaten at birthday parties she wasn’t meant to attend.
Nametag reads Dr Cullen and he smiles, white teeth almost sparkle like a toothpaste commercial as dimples appear in his cheeks, “You remind me of someone I know.”
She cocks an eyebrow; comparisons are single roads divided into two, and choosing left over right (or right over left) may lead you to your potentially predictable horror movie death.
“You seem a little less dangerous than her,” he winks, her attention is drawn to the flawless skin of his face, as lines seem invisible on his flesh and Lois thinks this is some Ashton Kutcher skit.
She meets her fate with an axe murderer.
-
Fatal accidents come in threes.
One: She blacks out and hurts her wrist. It’s over and done and she’s exposed to the model part of the society.
Two: Paper cuts from books spoiled with thoughts from an invisible previous reader stain the pads of her fingers as newspapers and printed out sheets are replaced with paperbacks.
Three: Thoughts are stolen like a bunch of balloons tied to a pole left alone and a greedy child who knows how to tie his shoelaces steals them.
-
She flips a coin twice a day for two weeks before she results to picking petals off of flowers.
She sits in the park, backside damp with dirt, and petals are littering her legs and sticking to the pads of her fingertips, “Go to college,” she pulls a purple petal off of a rather pretty flower, “not to go to college,” and stir, repeat.
Four flowers flutter on by and see their life come to a total waste as Lois doesn’t like the answer - yes comes one and no comes thrice - before Park Police sends a model to do it’s bidding.
“Flowers have feelings too, you know,” looms a shadow and Lois’ pouting comes to a halt as a fresh flower is stilled between her fingers. “And people like looking at them,” he says in her silence, gestures with his hand sliding from his jean pocket at the purple flower in hers and the petals littering the floor like paper cut outs.
She raises an eyebrow, “Coins or flowers, take your pick,” she looks back down at the flower, rotates it in her fingers and looks at his legs from the corner of her eye.
“Pardon?”
“Either I waste coins or flowers.” She glances up, his eyes are laughing as his hand slides back into his front pocket, “And I’m pretty sure a man of your stature would prefer the latter.”
He blinks, “A man of my stature?”
Lois’ fingertip dances along the edge of a petal, the softness brushes against her skin and her eyes examine the pretty shades of purple, “I don’t think genetics are that generous.”
After a moment, he laughs. He licks his lips and Lois glances up, humour is etched into his voice, “Do you always speak so bluntly to strangers?”
“It’s an alternative to taking candy from them.”
He grins, “Edward,” he holds out a hand, “and I am, unfortunately, all out of candy.”
She takes a moment, assesses his immaculate hand, she twirls the flower, “Lois Lane,” and places the purple flower into his palm, “and I’ll have you know I’m a third degree black belt.”
-
Poetry bores her to nonexistent tears and Lois curses her idea of returning to college.
Back against a bookshelf in a store that sells books already used, Lois yawns and looks straight ahead, counting the spines of books levelled with her eyes. Heavy footsteps fall on ugly carpet and her aisle light is shunned out like the clouds pushing the sun to another part of the world.
“Trying to bore yourself?”
She looks up, hands heavy with a book full of pretty lines and depth she’s incapable of grasping. She’s a swimmer in a pool of Kryptonite and too busy drowning to consider moving her arms in the motions of strokes, “No,” she says a little too haughtily. Preparation for college wants to spill itself from her tongue but she bites it a little too hard and “Ow” breaks the exterior she’s trying to uphold.
He smirks, lip crooked and hand by his hip is gripping a thin novel, “If you want to torture yourself, try The Fountainhead.” Standing on tip-toes, the novel slips back into place between two books, one immaculate and one tearing at the sides, and he smirks, eyes dark and he slides his hands into his pockets, “It won’t disappoint.”
-
Park benches are far more cleaner than grass. Her jeans suffer from brown patches that are slowly growing fainter with each wash.
With legs crossed and eyebrows mimicking, The Fountainhead is a struggle that makes her yearn for poetry with it’s unfinished lines and odd words and depth she can’t dive too deep for because holding her breath for long sections of time doesn’t come naturally for talkers.
She grunts and a familiar shadow, as if beckoned, dances with her light. “You,” she looks up, brows crossed as The Fountainhead lays heavily on her lap.
“Hello again,” Edward grins, perfect face pale as light grey clouds let the tiniest of sunrays through. “It’s nice seeing you off of the ground and the flowers intact.”
She rolls her eyes, “Whatever, Mr Model.” Lois swallows, fiddles with her fingers and his heavy shadow doesn’t budge; she clears her throat and Edward is failing at Cluedo. “If you don’t mind,” she tries to say without clenched teeth, “I’m trying to read.”
“Really?” he smirks, his lip tilts up and his eyebrow follows, “It didn’t seem like that seconds ago.”
“You interrupted me.”
“The Fountainhead is a very good book,” he grins, nods towards her lap and she looks at the fallen book, opened and turned over as the pages leak ink into her jeans.
She licks her lips, “It’s horrible. It’s like she’s speaking in another language.”
He laughs, “Well, I prefer poetry over novels.”
Lois makes a face.
Edward laughs, musical notes touch each tone and Lois finds herself almost transfixed, lost in a state of past-catching-up-with-the-present and she glances up quickly at the sky to see grey clouds not melting into green, “I’ll leave you alone then,” his hand gestures to her book, “I hope our paths cross again.”
His back is turned and distanced when “Karma will be sure to make that happen” falls from her lips and The Fountainhead collapses on her lap.
-
Typoes are nightmares of the past as newspaper articles are harder to write and fake stories look for another author.
Lois sighs and stares at her computer, thunder knocks wildly against her door as rain paints Forks with a thick atmosphere of damp heat.
She deems herself lost in a world that doesn’t offer compensation for determination wrapped in an eager package and curses herself for realising her dreams too late.
-
She returns The Fountainhead with a demand of a refund.
The boy behind the counter smirks, opens the till and slips cash back into her hand, “I was right.”
“You were,” Lois pockets the change, “Remind me to never listen to any your recommendations you have in the near future.”
His lip lifts further, eyes shine with amusement as he leans against the counter on his arms, “As you wish.”
-
Chloe calls after a week.
Sullivan is hesitant as “Clark’s gone back to Lana” spills and Lois closes her eyes, hand suddenly tight over the cordless phone and her side finds the wall to lean against.
With a sigh, “How predictable.”
-
Finally:
The world deals Lois a card.
-
Edward finds her in the park again.
Change happens as it’s at a little café that borders the green lined with pretty flowers in a garden bed; coffee is warm in her hands and he takes arrogance into his own and invites himself to sit. A flush of tingles settle in her stomach where layers of something forgotten reside like the Lochness and she groans into her mug, “Edward.”
“Lois,” he smiles, hands clasped together on the table, “nice to see you.”
She places her mug down, hands wrapped around it, “Unfortunate I can’t say the same for you.”
He grins.
-
She dials the Kents’ number once every two days.
Today she gets as far as the dial tone before she hangs up.
-
Lois starts reading fairytales.
Children tossed into a world without fake beliefs end up screwed in the end.
-
Edward asks questions -
“How’d you hurt your wrist?”
She’ll sigh, pink lightly paints her cheeks, “Sort of fell.”
He grins. “Where are you from?”
She pauses, “Smallville.”
“Never heard of it.”
She shrugs, “Never heard of Forks.”
“How come you’re not a reporter?”
Eyebrows crease, “How’d you know that?”
- But he never answers.
-
“People are perceptive, Lois,” Chloe will shrug over the phone line as Lois quizzes her cousin on Edward Cullen. “Not everyone is blind.”
-
Bookstore becomes butchered moments of Lois Lane’s memory.
His head is buried in a book and lifts at the sound of her entrance, “Arm still in a cast.”
She walks past, “Head still up your ass?”
-
She’s far away from the park.
Something spins and Edward is out of place at a pharmacy near the hospital.
“How’s the arm?” he crosses his arms over his chest.
She smiles, examines it, “Being freed.”
-
“Tell me a secret,” she says over coffee. A poetry book lies on top of a twisted version of Little Red Riding Hood.
Edward’s lips turn up, his eyes look down and his fingers trace patterns on the table, “I like glitter, especially in the sun.”
She laughs.
-
Army Brat witnesses Book Brat outside of the bookstore; coffee in his grip and a novel pokes out of his back pocket and today is the day she snoops and finds out his secret identity.
A rush of air builds up in her throat and escapes with a sigh filled with relief as Jess Mariano isn’t an alien living the double life.
-
Snow White is her next victim and is accompanied with a red apple in a hand.
“Think that’s wise?” Jess smirks, and Lois, leaning against a bookshelf filled with heavy spines lined with golden and silver letters, pauses.
She grins, “Planning on poisoning me?”
He shrugs, “Wouldn’t want to spoil it for you,” he steps over her legs and finds a gap further away from her to return a book to it’s home.
-
Lois forgets: She’s stopped falling.
What she doesn’t see: Pale running at the speed of light.
-
Home is wrapped up in a tornado and she’s found a world of technicolour.
Six months pass and calendars are blank with inked in dates and pages being flipped ten days into a new month and Lois Lane doesn’t click her heels wishing for there’s no place like home.
-
Edward promises coffee over lunch.
She waits and waits and after four coffees and onto her fifth she leaves.
-
“You do realise we have a seating area, right? It’s filled with these things called chairs that you can sit on,” Jess is back in her aisle, a different one from two days ago and she furrows her brow in confusion.
“Are you stalking me?”
He shrugs, “No,” and shifts a book into a gap, “wouldn’t want your ego to grow any bigger.”
She laughs, “Pot meet kettle.”
-
“Sorry,” Edward’s in the park and they’re inches from each other on a bench.
Somehow intolerable frustration turns into a routinely pattern of running into each other and planning lunch dates, and Edward Cullen is imprinting a mark on her skin.
She shrugs, “It’s okay.”
“It’s not -”
“I’ve had worse.”
-
“Fairytales?”
Jess is a pest that keeps flying towards the light that’ll zap and introduce his demise.
“Yes,” Lois grunts, looks up from him as Cinderella has lost her shoe and the prince is running after her. She waits a moment for his quip, a little insult on how grown-up she is, but it doesn’t come.
Disappointment seeps into her fingertips and she frowns.
“No quip?”
He shakes his head, “Not today.”
-
As Lois learns:
Every story evolves into a love song.
- Or at least the fairytales do.
-
Edward takes her hand and holds it as if it’s made out of glass.
He makes her feel fragile, a piece of art the collectors dislike to touch in fear one movement will be fatal.
“Are you okay?” he asks and squeezes her hand, and she sighs, looks around and down at her feet.
“Yeah,” she says eventually.
The path is littered with small stones and gravel, and Lois kicks one as they pass a bed of purple flowers; she smiles and grips his hand tighter as the space between them doesn’t change and stays level, a medium shade of grey in the clouds that stalk Forks.
“I need to tell you something,” Edward says, eyes down and Lois studies his profile.
She swallows, “You’re not a serial killer, are you?”
He pauses a little too long before he laughs.
-
Sometimes Lois isn’t as daft as she seems.
White contrasts with dark:
Edward opens doors where Jess kicks her feet.
Cullen knows where Mariano presumes.
Edward doesn’t eat where Jess does.
Edward Cullen kisses her with a closed mouth where Jess Mariano writes Hi Lois in the margins of books.
-
The park is chilly.
“You should call Chloe,” Edward says, his cool fingers play with hers.
She quirks an eyebrow, lips tilt up in a grin, “I was just thinking about that.”
-
Jess Mariano buys her a hotdog and finds her in an aisle with bad lighting.
This one takes the cake.
“Don’t strain your eyes,” he kicks her legs lightly, alerting her of his presence and she looks up from her book of the Three Little Pigs.
She grins, “Don’t get sauce on the books.”
He smirks, “We wouldn’t want that.”
He sits opposite her, passes her a hotdog and she places the book beside her; his feet come up to her hip and he taps them against her. She manages “Are those your notes in the margins?” around her hotdog and taps the side of his leg with her bare feet.
His chews are long and wide like the strides of a man with long legs, “Yeah,” he nods, swallows, and his mouth is empty, “Doesn’t bother you?”
She shakes her head, “No,” and licks the side of her mouth, “sort of adds flavour to the story.”
-
They start representing her calendar:
Edward is tomorrow where Jess is today.
-
Edward disappears for long stretches of time.
Worry gnaws at Lois’ insides as phone numbers haven’t been exchanged on his side of the treaty and she’s not even sure he has a home.
-
“Wizard of Oz character,” Lois wriggles her toes; the thick book lays in her lap and Jess taps his feet at her side.
They sit in another alcove in the bookstore, surrounded by dust and better lighting and Jess keeps his eyes on her toes, “That’s a hard one.”
She grins, “I’ve finally stumped the great Jess Mariano.”
He smirks, laughs and pokes her toes with his finger. “If this was a life and death situation -”
“What makes you think it isn’t?”
He grins, “- then I’d probably want to be the lion.”
She stops wiggling her toes, “Why’s that?”
He shrugs, “Courage. Could’ve used it a while back, is all.”
-
Anything that goes up must fall down.
This crashes.
Edward sits with her in the park, at their bench, as night and the stars blanket Forks. She’s cold and the seat is damp from small pitter patters of raindrops. His hand is by his side, distance separates their bodies and fingers and Lois yearns for grounding.
“I have to leave,” Edward says, after time - moments and decades and green flashes of light - and Lois breathes out an “Oh.”
He doesn’t hold her hand.
-
Lois falls.
Scrapes her knee and her palms sting under chilled water.
-
She wants something different.
Days pass in a blur as Edward’s gone and Forks pours down with rain as sharp as knives and Lois stops reading fairytales.
She seeks for a castle with a white picket fence to house a dog and it’s two-point-five children, if she was to ever breed, and finds herself empty handed. She’s Indiana Jones searching for ancient treasure and she’s never been a fan of re-casting.
-
“You’re moving too fast,” Chloe says over the phone line, you’re too impulsive is a deeper voice, commanding and fussy and rebellion follows after. “Just slow down.”
“I feel so cold, Chloe,” Lois sighs into the receiver, closes her eyes, “I was warm before.”
-
A knock at her door and “Hello stranger” greets her as Jess Mariano pushes his way past her and into her apartment. “Cosy little place here. Better than mine,” he quips over his shoulder, smirks, and she’s lost in a sudden blur of displacement.
“How’d you find me?”
He sits on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, “GoogleMap.”
She blinks, closes the door and leans against it, “Why are you here?”
He tosses a book beside his feet, “Goldilocks.”
-
Scratch tomorrow.
Edward promises forever with revelations of secrets being hidden and Lois wonders if she’s the only one who has been writing in an adolescent diary.
“I thought you were leaving,” she says, arm against the doorframe.
He swallows, “I am.”
“So what are you doing here?”
He licks his lips, “I - Maybe you deserve the truth.”
“Maybe.”
She doesn’t make this easy for him. Lois Lane never makes anything easy for anybody; farm boys have to sputter out secrets of alien home planets and caves carved with extraterrestrial writing for her to believe a story.
“I wanted you to come with me.”
She huffs, “There’s past tense there.”
He falters, her mind lightly aches as charm is quickly shadowed by impatience and Edward Cullen is finally second guessing himself. “I guess I made a mistake.”
“Those are quite common,” she tries to soften, glances at his immaculate shoes and Edward breathes out a breath too forced to be claimed as normal.
“No one is perfect,” he concludes.
She pastes goodbye with “For not as long as you have been.”
Even gods fall off their pedestals every now and then.
-
Lois slows down as rain pelts Forks and ice-cream becomes a replacement for late night phone calls to Chloe.
She’s ill with a fever called being too-much-of-a-girl as she cries over a boy with an icy touch.
She pushes and pushes until there’s a cliff and someone’s falling off it.
-
“Tinman.”
“What?” Jess’ eyebrow creases, book in hand and elbows on the counter. “Have you been drinking coffee again? I swear to you it’s bad. You can even ask my uncle -”
She shakes her head, “Remember when I asked you which character you’d be?”
“This was when you flew over the cuckoo’s nest?”
“Well, I’m the Tinman.”
He sighs, closes the book with his thumb marking the page he’d been reading, “I don’t think we’re on the same page here -”
She sighs, exasperation makes her tone clipped, “You’re the cowardly lion to my heartless tinman, Jess.”
He blinks, “I don’t think there’s any need for those kinds of accusations -”
She rolls her eyes, “There’s no time for you to pretend your ego is bruised. The damage has been done and life has dealt me a pile of cards I can’t play with without screwing up.”
“So now you’re playing cards?”
“Be serious.”
“Stop being so nutty,” he laughs, places his book on the counter and his thumb slips out.
Lois sighs, runs a hand through her hair and mumbles, “I pushed him away.”
“Pushed who?”
“I’m Coyote chasing after the Road Runner. Instead, I didn’t push Road Runner over the cliff, I pushed myself.”
The tip of his lip quirks up, “Now you’re not making any sense.”
-
She tries it again. Heavy notebook purchased, the lines are creased with an uncaring nature. Her pen sits behind her ear, ink stains her fingertips and there’s a man with a dog that’s taken her interest.
She’s frustrated, “Do you know what I mean?”
Crooked lip quirks, “No.”
-
She asks the weather for a sign.
Sun pours warmth over a utensil town.
This is a time for goodbyes.
-
Jess sighs. “The Fountainhead?” His face scrunches up and Lois smirks, slaps the novel on the counter with a smug smile.
She shrugs, “I was never really a fan of it to begin with.” She licks her lips and looks over her shoulder, scanning the bookshelves aligned with odd colour, and says quietly, “Wasn’t mine to keep, anyway.”
-
She chose wrong.
The dial tone rings, Smallville seems far away and even as thunder knocks at her door she closes her eyes, bites her lip and jumps at the voice of Martha Kent.
She finally says goodbye.
-
“You know when you’re a kid you want to be something stupid?” Lois squints in the sunlight, another happenstance of the weatherman being correct.
Jess swallows, “Yeah?”
“Well,” Lois folds her hands in her lap, the park bench is sweaty beneath her legs, “I wanted to be a reporter.”
“That’s not stupid.”
“It is when you can’t spell ‘newspaper’.”
-
She browses through a familiar aisle.
Jess appears at her shoulder, “Read this,” he pushes a book into her eyesight.
She takes it, “Beauty and the Beast?” she quirks her eyebrow, and he shrugs.
“Just read it.”
-
In the margin:
You can do anything.
Footnote: And spell ‘newspaper’.
-
Lois reads Hansel and Gretel a couple days later than schedule.
Seated in an aisle with books lined sloppily on shelves, Lois squirms on the hard floor and waits for Jess to block out her light.
He steps over her, bends to see the cover of her book and proceeds to place hardbacks between slipping novels, “Not a fan of that one.”
She tries to hide behind her book, her voice a soft squeak, “No?”
“No.”
“Why?” she moves the book away from her face.
He shrugs, rubs his hands together, “I never really liked the whole witch wanting to eat the kids kind of thing.” She blinks, and he places his hands in his pockets, makes a fuss about explaining and smirks, “I just find it ridiculous, is all. Kind of like how this one girl thinks she’s this cartoon that particularly fails in it’s line of work, when all I’ve seen is success.”
“She sounds particularly stupid.”
“Well, she is,” he grins at her protest of “Hey!”
-
She brings him coffee.
“This is a first.”
“No reprimand about drinking coffee near books?” she cradles her cup close to her face, the heat warming her cheeks and her stomach.
His lips tilt up; he glances at the plastic cup sitting on the counter, “Not today.”
“Not today,” she repeats with a smile, sips her coffee and he places his book down.
“What are you going to be reading today, princess?”
Lois shrugs, “I’m not sure,” she sips her coffee again, “what one is your favourite?”
“The one with the lost shoe.”
-
“Good books don’t start with Once upon a time, Lois,” Jess sits beside her, the park bench becomes too small for two and his leg touches hers as a light breeze picks up.
She rolls her eyes, sighs, and places Cinderella on her lap, “Do you go around telling little children that Santa doesn’t exist?”
He grins, glances at her lap, “Again?”
She shrugs, becomes suddenly shy, “I like this one.”
“I thought you would. It reminded me of you.”
She grins, “Finally the truth comes out. Jess Mariano thinks I’m a princess.”
He smiles crookedly, hands flat on his legs and he looks straight ahead, “Nah,” he glances at her, “you reminded me more of the shoe.”
-
She takes notes:
Edward doesn’t call and Jess doesn’t promise her eternity.
-
Lois is oblivious.
The Tectonic Plates shift.
-
She’s at the bookstore, this time sitting on a chair.
It’s quite comfortable. Granted there’s no coffee.
He eventually finds her, “What are you doing here?”
She rolls her eyes, “Reading,” and flashes her book quickly at him.
“What are you reading?” he ducks his head, trying to read the cover.
Her fingers splay sloppily on the front, “Nothing.”
“So you’re reading an invisible book which is visible?”
She nods.
He sighs, moves closer to her and manages to pluck the novel from her grasp. He says after a few moments, “You’re reading this?”
She nods, “It’s pretty good, if I say so myself.”
“But?”
She shrugs, “Besides the fact that the author is a little up himself and a bit short,” she grins as he reciprocates the gesture, “there’s no notes in the margins.”
He grins, “We’ll have to see about that.”
-
“This may sound sappy.”
She grins, “You’re always sappy.”
He rolls his eyes, “I’m not going to promise you once upon a time or a glittering shoe or a kiss if you ever eat a coma-inducing apple, because, quite frankly, you’re annoying and I could do with the peace and quiet.”
“What are you getting at?”
He shrugs, “I want to spend forever with you. However long our forever may be.”
His lips are light against hers, empty without secrets anchoring them down in a stormy sea.
-
She comes home to an immaculate purple flower sitting on her doorstep.
Between her fingers she pulls the petals off one by one.
There’s no chant of does he love me? does he not? tonight.
-
“You called me a shoe.”
“I remember,” his hand curls more tightly around hers, head bent down and he’s suddenly shy.
It’s sort of adorable.
The path crunches beneath her boots, “A shoe. Am I at least a ruby glass slipper?”
He shakes his head, “A converse shoe.”
“Converse?”
“You know,” he stops, wiggles his feet planted in a dominantly black shoe, “Converse shoe.”
She rolls her eyes, “I know what it is. But why that shoe?” She pouts as he tugs her forward, “I thought I was pretty.”
He grins, “Don’t doubt that,” she swings their hands roughly, “it’s just that I don’t see myself wearing ruby glass slippers.”
It’s her turn to still her movements. “What?”
He turns back to her, spare hand reaches for the back of his neck as pink flushes to his cheeks, “You’re the shoe and I’m Cinderella and that means you’re the right fit for me.”
She smiles, resists the temptation of aw and swings their hands, continuing their walk.
Moments later she laughs. “What?” Jess looks at her from the corner of his eye.
Her laughter intensifies, “You called yourself a princess.”
-
The sun finally shines.
-
They walk in the park.
Lois suddenly stops. She bends down and Jess, a few paces ahead, stops. “What are you doing?”
She smiles, her fingers unlacing her shoes, “Taking my shoes off.”
“This isn’t the beach.”
“So?”
He blinks, “Why are you taking off your shoes?”
She sits, pulls her shoes off with a grunt before standing up, wiping off the gravel stuck to her jeans, and winces as bits lodge themselves in the creases of her feet. She moves up to him, shrugs, “Finally feel like I’m not walking on eggshells.”
He grins, takes her hand and after a few painful yelps from her he manages, “You’re feet stink.”
She slaps his shoulder.
-
Ending:
Forever doesn’t start with closed-in shoes.
(Note there’s no happily ever after either.)