tushanshu_logs | [closed] When it rains it pours and opens doors

Lois is, despite both of them wishing otherwise, entirely too used to Clark being gone for extended periods of time. It’s just part and parcel of being Superman and his wife: often the world comes first. Days, sometimes weeks, it’s the kind of thing that happens to them sometimes; at least this time communication isn’t hard to obtain.

Or rather, it shouldn’t be hard to obtain. They’re even in the same city. But this time is different. It’s harder—even if she talks to him, there’s the possibility someone will be listening and she won’t be able to speak freely. After the weeks away on that damned dragon mission, with this now compounded on top—to say nothing of the general fallout from it on several axes—she just wants to talk to her husband. If she knows him at all (and she does, as no one else can) he’ll be doing the Kryptonian emotional equivalent of a puppy whimpering in a corner.

And thanks to everything that’s happened, she’s not there to help him. Not that she thinks he’d let her help, not in his current state.

But once the news about Bruce comes in, and after she’s talked to Dick, it is long past time to try to talk to Clark—or Superman. Kal.

Whatever.

She does her best not to look too worn out by the stress and trying to do both their jobs at once when she does go to visit him—really, there’s no need to worry him. It’ll just add to his guilt complex. Most people probably wouldn’t even notice anything wrong; she hopes it’s enough to fool him. When she does reach him, she stops for a moment before swallowing and attempting a smile.

“Hey.”

No one said she was good at this stuff.

Edited 2014-03-20 20:31 (UTC)

He's reading, when he hears her voice. He's glad the shadows hide his bad leg.

"Hey, yourself."

Clark's already squinting his eyes to check for a fever or something by the sort before he remembers that no, he can't use them. Not while he's powerless in prison. He knows Lois has been overworking herself as well as he knows what he would do in her situation, but still the fact that she doesn't look about to drop death helps. He'd considered a lot of things before deciding to stay in his safe, cold cell- and Lois health, both physical and mental, had been one of them.

There are a few tell-tale signs that tell him what she's going through, but if she's had time to try to hide it from him? It means he can breathe in relief, again.

"I've missed your voice." He says, before he can stop himself. But it's true, and he'd missed her so much it made him want to yell at Evandau, at the guards, at someone to come and let him out because this wasn't where he was supposed to be. Until something, someone, even a dream made him remember what he did in the bottle and he knew he couldn't.

Not yet.

She knows what happened, Clark. Besides, she'll have to see sooner or later.

Lois knows that squinty-look, and it reminds her that in here he can't use his powers (the time that he was in serious danger from Eshai springs to mind). It makes her hurt a little, because if he can't hear as he usually does, she won't be able to say all the things under her breath that they'd rather anyone listening not hear. Not to mention it just makes everything harder. If he can't hover--

That thought makes her feel a little ill, and she quickly shoves it aside, especially in favor of what he just said. God, she misses him. Misses his warmth in bed, hearing him say 'I love you,' home cooking (despite whatever she tells people about take-out)-- in this past year she's gotten so used to having him around more thanks to how limited the world is. This is jarring now.

Still, it's Lois, and when in doubt she will take refuge in snarkiness and faked arrogance. "Hey, well, I've got the helm at the radio right now. We could always get one in here and who knows, if I volunteer to do broadcasting you might at least get some of my dulcet tones."

No one would ever accuse her of having dulcet tones.

After a moment, "I take it your keepers aren't getting much entertainment, if all they have to watch is reading." Translation: how likely are they to be overheard or seen?

His lips twitch in amusement, because he sees what you're doing there Lois. He might have missed her voice (and when you spend so much time expecting to her a certain voice they always sound like the most dulcet of tones to you) but it's obviously her brains he missed the most.

"My captors know being here was my decision, so they mostly leave me to my own devices, I presume while waiting for the moment Evandau decides he's had enough." That much he was sure of- but he gave her a wary look he hoped she got because he had no way of actually checking so it was better not to go overboard with the sharing.

"So the radio is doing alright? Any interesting news you'd like to share?"

Lois nods, understanding that wary look all too well. Enough years of communicating volumes in a few words and glances in public--heck, in front of cameras sometimes--has made her quite adept at reading a lot of nuances in his body language as a rule. It sucks that they can't be sure they're alone. There's so much she can't say.

(Even if possibly he's already ruined some of that saying he missed her voice--oh well, the kedan don't really know how blurry things get with Superman and Lois Lane.)

"Has he given any sign how long that might take?" she asks, her head slightly tilted.

"Radio's fine--even with things starting to get a bit crazy, we're on top of it." She bites her lip for a moment. "I did have something I wanted to be sure you heard, about a mutual friend of ours." She almost hopes he already heard, and from someone who could be more precise than she will be to dodge anyone who might be listening in.

By this point he's been called 'Clark' more than once while he was in prison, so there really isn't much of a point- but it doesn't hurt to be careful, and there's a lot of other's people's identities involved if they start just talking without holding back. So a little bit of carefulness will not hurt.

"I- heard, about a friend. Who's back at home." He says, slowly, because he hopes it's Bruce she's talking about. He honestly doesn't have many friends left from home, and he will latch onto all of them with teeth and nails if he has to.

If it were anyone else he'd already be panicking, in case it was Lois they were talking about.

"Which is-" 'Good', he can't say it. He's the most selfish person on Earth but he can't say that out loud and mean it. "He deserves, to be home. We know he's safe, now?"

A little bit of carefulness could hurt a lot, actually. If they have to be carefully, she can't tell him to stop being an idiot and get over here, she can't try to persuade someone to let her in to talk to him and hug him, can't whisper in his ear that it will be okay. Not being able to reach out hurts plenty.

But this isn't the first time they've gone through these things; it isn't the first time she's had to hide grief over Clark beneath a mess generated by the cape. At least Clark is here and breathing.

She simply nods. "Good, someone told you. As far as I know, he's the only one. I could be wrong, but--" But she tries to check her facts. That Bruce is gone is undeniable. Still, the way he worded that makes her lips quirk up, despite herself.

"If he's at home, 'safe' is not the word I'd choose, flyboy." Because Gotham.

He doesn't laugh, not quite, but he does smile at her at her little quip. "Maybe not safe, no. But he would definitely 'happy' about it. He'll probably want to make up for all the time he's spent in this place-"

He pauses. Then, he looks down. "Or would, if he had any memory left of this place when he wakes up in Gotham."

"Sorry to be the professional writer on you, but the word is 'satisfied.' Not happy." There's an unsaid--and more or less untrue--joke about 'since when is Bruce ever happy' hovering in there. It's easy to just make these quips.

Easier than dealing with emotions, anyway. "Well, we don't know for certain he won't." Which might be a bad thing, considering the end of last month...

"If we're going to really nitpick the right way to put it would probably be 'at ease', and even then he never really is." God, how he misses her. Reaching to take her hand would be pushing it but if he could just run a thumb over the palm of her hand, if he could just feel here, truly convince himself she's here...

"He had been here for long, very long. Longer than most. I wonder if that means something?"

"Being at ease in his hometown would get him killed. I still say the word is satisfied--or possibly mollified." In the bullpen, this would be when and where they would get side tracked into vocabulary lessons and increasingly obscure tangents, and Perry would eventually interrupt, tell them who was right, and to keep the foreplay out of his newsroom.

She's gotten more used to life here; for the first time in a long time she aches for home quite viciously. The only real sign, given that he can't hear and see his usual physical clues into her mindset, is the aborted reach for him that ends in her lightly closing a hand around one of the bars.

"I could try to look at patterns of appearances and disappearances, if you want, or have people look at it. Could make a good story. I doubt I'll find anything, though."

[closed] When it rains it pours and opens doors

Jail, backdated to early March

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