Superman fic mega-snippet
This is ca. 1500 words of that fic - currently at about 12K - I mentioned yesterday. It's a general-Superman-mythos AU in which Clark landed in Smallville in 1878 and came to Metropolis in 1900 - thirty to forty years before the earliest comic book versions, and more than 100 years before the Smallville universe version. As the major thing I am playing with is the time setting, it is massively CLois, but if you're a Clex fan (as I know many of my flisters are) then imagine in these scenes that Clark, like a good Victorian fellow, is massively in the closet and - a la many interpretations of SV "Exposed" - he is "afraid of the boobies". I had so much fun writing these scenes that I couldn't not share them, though the story is still unfinished.
Necessary background: It's November 1900. Yesterday Martha Kent died and Clark is very upset about it, particularly because he was off talking to Jor-El at the time, and went walkabout on the foggy moors like a good gothic romance hero the snow-encrusted, rainy Kansas farmland, before ending up at the farmhouse he had grown up in, now sitting empty for some time. He knows Lois from the offices of the newspaper that will one day be the Daily Planet; she's rumored to be quite unladylike, and even Jimmy knows the rumors that she might be - *gasp* - an uppity unnatural woman a suffragette. She and Clark hit it off after a while (Clexers may assume that they are Very Good Friends) and declared their undying adoration shortly before Clark returned to Smallville - a telegram summoned him to Martha's deathbed. Clark has not told her yet of his "unnatural heritage", as until his talk with Jor-El he really didn't know much himself (you're a farmer in 1878 and a kid falls out of the sky, do you even know the word 'alien' in the sense of 'extra-terrestrial'?) - in part due to this, there is no Superman - not yet, at least - though at their last meeting, Clark told her that there was something he needed to tell her when he gets back to Metropolis, which we of course know is the fact that he's a big dumb alien he can light candles with his eyes and floats from time to time. He does not have much of a secret identity yet: he does not wear glasses, he's not clumsy or awkward normally, and he's considered "a true gentleman".
“Clark?”
A woman’s voice - familiar - roused him, and he blinked in the sunlight which threatened to blind him. Someone had drawn open the curtains. He was still on the floor, though he had slumped over in his sleep and his head rested on the dust-covered floor. His eyes adjusted to the brightness and noted the hem of a woman’s skirt directly in front of his eyes. The impropriety of it woke him further and he quickly sat up. His back ached slightly from resting on the floor - it was rare that any part of him felt pain or discomfort - and he realized that the woman was Lois Lane.
“Lois?” he whispered, confused, for he could not imagine any reason for her to be in his parents’ house. She smiled and helped him up. “Slowly,” she said. “You’ve slept through most of a day, if Mrs. Ross is to be believed, and in wet and dirty clothing at that. I will be surprised if you do not fall ill yourself! Your friend Mr. Ross helped me draw a warm bath, though it was difficult, given that the pump was frozen, and Mrs. Ross brought us some food. So you will wash up, and you will have something to eat, and then you may go back to sleep in a proper bed. I found some bed-clothes which were free of dust in a cupboard, and while you wash, I shall see about making up a bed, and in the morning - well, the morning will be another day and we shall deal with it then.”
He stared at her, stunned. “Lois,” he whispered. “You’re here.”
She gave him an indulgent smile - he had seen her use it with Miss Lucy - and brought him into the kitchen. It was warmer there, the wood-stove crackling with internal fire, and lit candles all around. A pot of something pleasant simmered on the stove, and nearby a tub with steaming water sat invitingly. His suitcase sat nearby, unopened, his coat - forgotten at Mrs. Ross’s house the moment he had last seen his mother alive - carefully draped over it, his hat sitting on that, and it occurred to him, detachedly, that a change of clothing would be welcome. He let her lead him to a chair and he sat, less carefully than usual, but when the chair did not break under his weight, he relaxed. She knelt down before him and began loosening the laces of his boots. “Never mind that now,” she said, finally replying to his stunned words. “You need rest and warmth and a meal…” Her words trailed off as he felt her warm hands on his foot and she stared at it with a puzzled expression. Quickly, she moved to the other boot and managed to get it and the underlying stocking off in half the time it had taken with the first. She stared at his feet. “You should be chilled,” she said, as though half-awake. “You slept on the floor of this unheated farm-house after walking through the rain and the snow in nothing more than boots and trousers and shirt and you should be chilled to the bone, or worse. But you’re warm - warmer than I am…”
He could not understand, through the fog in his mind, why this was surprising: it had always been so with him. But, luckily, she did not question this oddity, and apparently brushed it aside and turned her attention to matters more easily dealt with. “Can you manage by your self,” she asked, “if I leave you now, alone? Or will you require help into the bath?”
As he stared at her, as she asked this, he noted the beautiful pink of her cheeks. The room is warm, his mind whispered. “I - I can manage,” he said, though in all honesty he was uncertain. But somehow she thought he was capable of it, so he trusted her judgment.
She nodded. “Then I leave you to it,” she said, and quickly exited the room, taking a bundle from the table with her.
He awoke, briefly, in the middle of the night to the creak of floorboards as someone stepped inside. He was confused, barely remembering getting into bed at all, and the room was not his own - not the room he had had in childhood, and not the room he rented in Metropolis, but the room and bed that his parents had shared. He heard the rustle of outer clothing being shed and the working of deft fingers at shoe-laces and the faint whisper of a hair-braid being unpinned and dropped below the neck. Finally, more footsteps - stocking feet - and he both heard and felt the covers of the bed being pulled back and another body climbing into the bed. “Lois?” he whispered, half-asleep.
“Shh,” she said. “Go back to sleep.” Her head settled on the pillow beside him.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping you warm.”
“But I am not cold.”
“And you will explain that to me some day soon,” she whispered. “I have not forgotten what you said to me on the streetcar.”
“But-”
“Then you can keep me warm. Go to sleep.”
He did.
He awoke to discover that it had not been a strange dream. Lois slept beside him, her braid turning golden in the early sunlight, her stocking-covered feet intertwined with his legs. It was surprisingly pleasant, he realized, and did not fight the warmth which flooded his body at the sight of her. She is the one I cannot live without. The thought did not startle him: it was but an affirmation of all that he had felt and thought since the first moment he had seen her.
The quilt had fallen from her shoulder in their sleep, exposing the clean, white cotton of her chemise, and he blushed at the intimacy of it. He reached for the edge of the quilt and pulled it up, covering her, but the act woke her. He panicked - an unfamiliar feeling, for the things which mortal men feared generally did not frighten him.
Her eyes opened, albeit slowly, and she smiled. “Good morning,” she said softly. He could determine instantaneously when she noted the panic in his face: “Clark, what is the matter?”
“I - you - we -” He pushed himself away - How could I have lingered in bed with her - and promptly fell off the bed and onto the floor.
Lois laughed at him as she sat up. Her only ladylike affectation in the matter was one hand covering her mouth as she did so.
“I do not see the humor in this at all,” he told her, his pride wounded. “Your reputation - your good name - I would not see it tarnished -”
She could barely speak through her own laughter. “Clark, we committed no sin,” she said, as if saying it made it so. “We did nothing but keep each other warm on a cold night in a cold house with no other bed available.”
“But-”
“And what if someone were to think that we committed the vital act?” she asked, still laughing, though her cheeks turned red as she said it. “My reputation is of little concern to me as it is - or did James Olsen not tell you all the rumors which follow me? Let them think it, if it should get out. I rather think you would be congratulated, rather than pilloried, for achieving what no other man has, and in particular no man currently or formerly working in that office.”
“Lois!”
She giggled. “Though I fear Mr. White may shoot you on my father’s behalf. I am not worried; you’re a sturdy fellow. I would wager on the side of your survival.”
He had had enough, though somewhere in his mind he knew she was mostly teasing, and scrambled to stand upright at last, though he fervently wished he was wearing something more than just his nightshirt and stockings. A quick glance at the room proved that his suitcase was still downstairs in the kitchen. “I will leave you now, Miss Lane,” he said formally, but before he could say anything else, he noted that the quilt had slipped again from her shoulders and now exposed more of her barely-covered bosom than could possibly be prudent. He stepped backwards -
And tripped over her bag.
He quickly righted himself and hurried out of the bedroom. Behind him, he could hear her calling: “I trust you can manage the stairs without injuring yourself!”
ETA: Also, if anyone has good resources on Victoriana - clothes, technology, language, euphemisms for sex (I've made up the ones I've used so far), I'd be much obliged.