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Tweak says, "Leather walls breathing"

Lois Lane; Intrepid Reporter (thatlanewit) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2013-04-21 14:12:00

Entry tags:

clark kent/superman, lois lane

WHO: Lois and Clark
WHAT: Dealing with a hunt gone horribly wrong and then even worse choices made afterward
WHEN: Sunday evening/Monday morning
WHERE: side of the complex
RATING: TBD!

It probably said something that Lois Lane hadn’t spoken out loud since she’d arrived in the medbay waiting area for any news on how Dick or Rose were doing. She’d sat in the woods with the unconscious boy for a few minutes after Clark had gone to bring Dick to the medbay and in those minutes of answering people’s inquiries on the boards had made a decision she had a feeling she’d always come to regret. But there was no taking back giving the child over to Loki and then in turn Guy. There was no changing the fact that the side of the complex now had the blood of a child splattered across it or that she’d had a part in the ending of that child’s life.

It was so easy to say monster and believe the creatures they were hunting were evil in the middle of hunting classes or when one was trying to eat her friends, but the boy hadn’t looked evil when he’d finally been knocked unconscious and was laying on the grassy floor. He’d looked like a child. He had been a child and no doubt had only attacked them because of what they had done to his mother. Part of her wondered if it was all part of a trick considering the Rakshasha’s were shapeshifters, but just because something shapeshifted didn’t mean it didn’t have feelings, emotions. It didn’t mean it couldn’t feel pain, right? Just because it wasn’t human that didn’t mean it didn’t deserve a chance to live.

She’d headed out to the area where Loki was supposed to have dropped off the kid, wondering if maybe they could bury him properly at least. It wouldn’t atone for much but maybe it would help some to at least do that for the dead boy. When she arrived in the gardened area there was no trace of the kid’s body, only blood where he had been slain. It had splattered against the wall and pooled on the walkway tiles, leaving a mess that no one seemed intent on cleaning up.

Lois stared at it for a long time, uncertain if cleaning up what was left of the child was honoring him or if leaving it there to dry would be. In the end, she couldn’t leave it for anyone else to do and gathered supplies from the lobby kitchen to start washing it away. The amount of blood and the way it patterned on the ground gave a good impression of exactly what Guy had done to it. The child hadn’t had an easy death. He’d definitely been tortured and that just made the whole thing a lot worse.

She had her own injuries that needed to be taken care of, scrapes along her arms and legs that needed to be cleaned, and she was fairly certain there was something along her back that was making her hurt and was bleeding if the way her shirt stuck to it was any indication. But she wasn’t leaving this spot until she got rid of every last piece of blood that was strewn across the ground.

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ex_savior698
2013-04-24 01:09 am UTC (link)

He could understand why she didn't want to go to the medbay. Everyone else was probably crowded in there now, either working at trying to save Rose's life or waiting to see if her life was going to be saved. Lois was in no shape to be around other people right now and that environment was already stressful enough. They weren't going there.

Clark kept a steady grip on her hand. With her current detached behavior, Clark was half afraid that she was going to give up and fall over if he decided to let go. "Okay," he agreed, "not the medbay." He would take her back to their apartment. It was quiet there, they'd be alone, and it was far enough from all this blood that Lois wouldn't have to force herself to look at it anymore. At least, physically she wouldn't. Mentally, it would take a lot more than a trip upstairs to keep the memory of all this blood from engraving itself into her mind.

She had lucked out in a way. She wasn't laying in the hospital this time, but those wounds on her back still looked deep enough to warrant some concern about their condition. Clark gave Lois' hand a squeeze, gave the bloody mess splattered along the side of the complex one final hard look, then he led the way back to their apartment. They had enough medical supplies in there, the last he checked. And if they somehow ran out? It wouldn't take him more than a minute to check out into the nearest store. They didn't need to go anywhere near the medbay right now. Clark was a fairly poor substitute for Martha or Rory, but Lois wasn't dying. He could handle clean-up and wrap duty. If she needed more care than that, he'd make it in point to bring Lois down to them once they were finished with Rose and Dick.

They didn't run into anyone on the way up, which Clark found himself feeling incredibly grateful for. He didn't particularly want to talk to anyone else right now. And if he didn't want to talk to anyone, he knew that Lois sure didn't.

Once inside of their apartment, Clark made Lois sit on the couch and instructed her to take her shirt off. He grabbed the med supplies from the bathroom, along with a soft washcloth soaked in warm water, and set them up on the table behind the couch. "Rose is going to be okay." Clark looked over at her, knowing that he could at least reassure her in this way. Martha and Rory were good at what they did. He had every faith that she was going to come out of all of this in one piece. "Dick, too. They're in good hands."

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thatlanewit
2013-04-24 01:47 am UTC (link)

Getting from outside to their room had moved in pretty much a blur for Lois and thankfully Clark had been there or she might have passed out in the elevator. Or at the very least wound back up in their apartment and collapsed on the bed without changing out of her clothes and left her wounds unattended. And that would have only exacerbated her withdrawal tenfold if she’d woken up still covered in the boy’s blood.

She’d done as Clark instructed and sat down on their couch, her shirt laying in a crumpled heap on the floor. She didn’t even want to wash the thing. Throwing it away seemed like the only way to sufficiently get rid of its presence. Which was possibly a little dramatic, but Lois thought maybe in this one instance that dramatics were an okay response. If she wasn’t going to be able to erase what had happened from her mind, nor did she want to, then at least she could get rid of the constant reminders in their home.

Removing the shirt had caused her a good deal of pain, and from the blood stains on the back of it, Lois had a feeling she’d been correct in her prior assessment that one of the cuts was a little deeper than the rest of marks that criss crossed her arms and legs. Moving so that she was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest and back exposed to him Lois focused on Clark’s voice, seeking the comfort she so often found in it. She wanted to believe what he was telling her. She knew just how good both Martha and Rory were, and considering Martha was also a good friend of Rose’s, Lois knew the doctor would do everything in her power to save her friend. Waiting for an outcome, whether good or bad, was going to be hard though.

“They have a better chance because you were able to get them to the medbay quickly,” Lois finally murmured. What would have happened if Clark wasn’t one to listen to her every movement? Dick might have been able to wait a bit for medical treatment, but Lois knew that Rose would have bled out long before any sort of ambulance could have made its way to where they’d been. “For all of the stalker jokes that people make, Clark, you doing your super hearing thing on me has saved me and others more times than I can even count. Even if you shouldn’t have to do that.”

Not that her saying that would ever stop him from listening for her safety. Lois doubted there was anything that could stop him from doing so. While she was definitely never attempting a hunt ever again, she knew she couldn’t promise not to ever do anything dangerous in her life ever again. Give her a week and she’d sniff the next big story in the wind and go barrelling off after it. That wasn’t going to change and she had a feeling Clark knew that. Though she didn’t want to start taking for granted the fact that he did have her back. That would prove to be both stupid and dangerous.

“Is it bad?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him and trying to read his expression in case he tried to sugarcoat the truth. Lois doubted he would, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Plus the movement helped keep her from falling asleep.

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ex_savior698
2013-04-28 05:29 pm UTC (link)

She said that he didn't have to look out for her all the time, but Clark knew that wasn't true. For multiple reasons. First and foremost, Lois Lane was constantly looking for trouble. And if, by some miracle, she wasn't? Trouble was looking for her. Lois was tough and he knew that she could hold her own in most situations where other people wouldn't have been able to, but he sometimes wondered how she managed to survive on her own with the stuff that she got involved with sometimes.

Her ability to get herself into a sticky situation wasn't the only reason he went out of his way to keep an eye on her, though. "I want to. If something happened to you -" He frowned. Something had happened to her. She got shot once before and, back then, it had been Lois on the operating table instead of Rose. And now? There was this. Lois may not have been in a life or death condition here, but she was hurting in more ways than one. "- if something happened to you, I'd never...I wouldn't know what to do." Nor did he want to find out. He couldn't bring himself to think about it. So he'd keep looking out for her. Maybe he wouldn't always be there to stop the bad things from happening, but he could at least make sure that the bad things didn't take her away from him.

Clark looked down at the medical supplies thoughtfully, then he shook his head. No, definitely not thinking about it. He picked up the washcloth first, knowing all too well that the wounds across her back were first priority. After applying a little peroxide, Clark took a seat next to Lois on the couch and quietly looked over the raw skin on her back. It could have been worse. Much worse. But that didn't make what he saw better. The Rakshasha had left it's mark on her. Several marks, in fact. The only thing that Clark could even compare her back to right now was a scratching post and, honestly, that only made her wounds look all the more painful.

"They're deep," he told her honestly, "you're going to have to be careful with your back for a while." She'd have to sleep on her stomach and she'd have to be particularly careful with what she chose to lean against when she sat down. He'd have to make it in point to set up some pillows along some of the stiffer chairs between here and work in case Lois forgot. "You might need to go see Martha tomorrow. I think they'll be okay without stitches, but I'm not the most qualified person to be making that call." And he didn't want to be wrong.

"This is probably going to sting some." It wouldn't be worse than what Lois was already feeling from her injuries, but sanitizing the scratches on her back wasn't going to be a pleasant process. Clark folded the cloth in half and carefully dabbed it against the top part of one of her scratches, taking extra care to avoid pressing down on the open wound too hard in the process. He'd try to be quick about cleaning her up, but he couldn't make any promises. Not if he wanted to do a good job.

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thatlanewit
2013-04-28 07:15 pm UTC (link)

It had taken all of her willpower not to turn away when Clark had talked about wanting to watch out for her. For all of their conversations about her needing to be more careful or the dangers she faced on a constant basis, actually seeing the array of emotions displayed on his face when he’d said he wouldn’t know what to do was jarring. He’d carry on doing what he did, wouldn’t he? Keep on being the strong, selfless man that she loved. Her death couldn’t stop him from doing that, could it? Not that she was planning on dying anytime soon, but...

Lois had known love in her life. Her mother had never been one to give up a chance to tell anyone in her family how much she cared for them, but once the woman had died instances like those had been far from common in her household. Lois knew her father did love her and her sister, but the General had never been one for emotions once Ella Lane had passed away. Even in her cousin’s side of the family it wasn’t an emotion shown all that often. Except between her and Chloe, but until Lois had moved to Smallville, keeping up with Chloe had been a phone call here and there during the year. Possibly a few weeks spent together during the summer. She’d seen how the Kents loved one another and the hardship they’d both endured when Jonathan died.

But right there, glancing back at Clark, Lois didn’t think she’d ever truly known the depth of his feelings for her until that precise moment. He was still talking, something about her injuries, but she barely paid attention to any of that, confident he’d take care of them as best he could. Not that she didn’t bite her lip against the sting once he started sanitizing the scratches. She watched him work until she couldn’t anymore and then turned away, staring off at nothing in particular.

“You’d be okay,” Lois finally started, not entirely sure she even wanted to have this conversation. “Maybe not at first, but you wouldn’t let it destroy you, Clark. Eventually you’d pick up the pieces and build your life again.” She looked back at him, hoping he was done with the cleaning part because she wanted to have this conversation while looking at him if she could. “And not just because I’d come back from the grave and kick your ass if you didn’t, but because you couldn’t turn away from the cries of everyone needing your help forever.”

She caught one of his hands in her own, squeezing gently as she reached up to touch her other hand to his cheek. “You wouldn’t want your death to break me--” Not that she was entirely sure it wouldn’t. The thought of losing him was one that she lived with everyday, Seal or no Seal, and while Lois knew she’d take it hard, probably harder than anything else in her life, she thought she’d keep on going through the motions until the day she died. She wouldn’t ever love again, but like hell she wouldn’t work to keep his legacy alive through her own means. “--so mine can’t do it to you.”

It was such an easy thing to say, but living it was probably infinitely harder. “It’s not something I want either of us to deal with. Ever. But.” It wasn’t as though they lived forever. “I don’t want to be what destroys you. I will kick your ass so hard from beyond the grave if that happens.”

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