By Sara Betttina <betttina@yahoo.com>
Rated: PG-13
Submitted: March 2001
Summary: Lois and Clark try to have a nice evening *alone* but life — and Dan Scardino — keep interrupting them.
Whether it's the lateness of the hour, my willingness to procrastinate or my boundless courage, I am finally prepared to send in my stories, only a year or so after they were edited. Okay, here goes nothing…
The characters, neither "Lois and Clark: TNAOS" nor "Heaven's Prisoners", belong to me but the plot, feeble though it is, belongs to me. It was brought to my attention that not everyone on earth saw the movie "Heaven's Prisoners." For a quick explanation of this movie, see the end of this fic. Many thanks to my wonderful editors, zoomer71@yahoo.com; beth_supersaint@yahoo.com; bethyem@yahoo.com; and jomurf@ivilliage.com and to Volterra for her copyright advice. Praise me or yell at me, which ever you want, at betttina@yahoo.com
***
Lois and Clark were snuggled on the couch, watching her favorite movie, "Heaven's Prisoners. The remnant of a popcorn snack was still evident on the table. She was cuddled against his chest and both of them looked quite comfortable. When the phone rang, they both shot identical "grrr's" in the direction of the phone. She grabbed it after pausing the movie on her least favorite scene, just after Dave arrives at Bubba's house. Hiding his eyes from the television screen, Clark seemed embarrassed by this au naturel revelation — he busied himself arranging her sheep blanket more comfortably over his body and concentrated on counting the sheep pattern. Lois slammed the phone down and he looked up, startled.
"Why in the heck would I want a subscription to The Metropolis Star?" she growled angrily. Then she looked surprised. "Where'd the blanket come from? Too afraid to watch the movie?" His innocence never ceased to amaze her.
"No, I got cold without you." Clark grinned.
"Ooh, did you know I'm good at warming people up?" Lois asked teasingly.
"I can imagine!" he said, grinning even more. She crawled under the blanket with him and warmed him very effectively with a kiss. A split second later, the doorbell rang. Again, they growled, this time aimed at the door instead of the phone.
Clark looked through the door and groaned. "It's Scardino. Didn't you get rid of him once before?"
"I have a pretty good idea for getting rid of him permanently," she said as she threw off the blanket and began racing around the room. She threw on her Superman pajama top, purposely mismatched the buttons, and the doorbell rang again. "Um, just a minute!" she yelled. "Here, put this on, inside out. Hurry!" Clark spun into the Calvin Klein boxers and hid his super suit under her bed. She quickly messed up the bed while he tossed some of their clothing around the living room, grinning as he placed one of Victoria's Secrets' most infamous items on the couch. Then they raced to the door where she kissed him squarely on the mouth and flung open the door.
"Scardino!" she said, feigning surprise.
"Hi, Lois," the jerk replied, barely able to speak as he enjoyed what those mismatched buttons revealed. "I'm good at buttons," he smirked. "Need help?"
"Oh, I was getting undre, I mean, dressed," she said sweetly.
Scardino finally noticed Clark, clad only in his underwear. "Oh, hi, Kent. Did you know you're wearing lipstick?"
"Don't worry, you're not," Clark replied calmly.
"Can I come in? Thanks," Scardino said as he sauntered in without waiting for a reply. "Am I interrupting…?"
"No, no," Lois said too quickly, trying to appear embarrassed.
"Well, now that you mention it…" Clark trailed off as Lois pretended to glare at him.
"Oh this is the best movie ever! It's so racy!" Scardino flopped on the couch and made himself at home as the VCR unpaused itself. "She's such a BABE!" he drooled as he stared at the screen.
"Really," Clark commented coolly.
"Are you, ah, missing something, Lois?" Scardino asked as he removed a scrap of black lacy cloth from the couch.
"I was doing my laundry," she blushed. 'Where on earth did Clark find this?' she wondered. 'Oh, well, it's not like jerky-boy's ever gonna see it again! But Clark, he'll definitely be seeing it again — very soon!' She gathered up the remaining items of clothing, including Clark's shirt from the coffee table and hers from the lampshade. She tossed them in her room and slammed the door shut only after Scardino got a lingering glimpse of the extremely messy bed.
"Lois, I was hoping you'd be alone. I wanted to talk to you." He'd been planning to bring her a really *nice* gift —not a Lear jet, exactly, but something more along the lines of a diamond ring and a question. Remembering how she'd reacted previously to his sculpture and all the flowers he sent, he decided to go with something that would remind her of their happier past. He brought her a plunger nicely tied with a red bow. Scardino decided to just jump right in and say it. It had taken him weeks to get up enough courage to come over and he wasn't going to back down just because Lois appeared to be otherwise occupied.
"I'm not alone anymore," she said softly, staring at her left hand.
'Well, that changes things, doesn't it, sweetheart? Well, there's always hope, although I'm glad I waited with a diamond of my own.' Scardino told Lois silently. But he had already spoken and he couldn't — he just couldn't! — wimp out now.
"How 'bout I go make some coffee?" Clark asked, deciding to let Scardino have his say so that maybe, FINALLY, he and his fiancee could get on with their lives without future interruptions.
"Good idea, honey," she answered. The affectionate nickname slipped out unintentionally but Scardino knew from that moment on that he had lost the war: lock, stock, and girl to Clark. Scardino decided to try anyway. He didn't have anything to lose, and, besides, he wasn't a quitter even if his opponent had already placed the ring of victory on the prize's finger. Scardino was trying to be the sensitive guy, like Kent, that Lois seemed to prefer but he still couldn't understand how any girl, especially Lois, could prefer Clark's wimpy adoration over his masculine attentiveness — and his gifts. He explained quietly to Lois how lonely he had been and how he missed having her investigative help ("nice touch!!" he congratulated himself, "Prove to her that you value her brains and her bod!") and how he was willing to forgive her for dumping him and how he'd like to try dating again.
"I even miss the plunger in my stomach! So what do you say?" he finally finished. "Can we try dating again?"
She gave him a look that quite clearly said 'You're dumber than a piece of toast' and said firmly, "I'm not available."
Clark choose this exact moment to appear with the coffee and a plate of fudge.
Lois smiled up at him as she said, "We'll have to make more fudge soon."
Clark decided to practice a little less modest self-control and a lot more wicked inhibition, so he replied simply, "Good idea. But maybe next time you should wear a shirt so you don't get hot fudge all over your cute little tummy."
'They made fudge and she wasn't wearing a shirt?!? Lucky Kent!!!'
Lois and Clark could both just see these words flashing through Scardino's little mind. As the implications of what Clark said finally sank into Lois's mind she began choking, more with amusement at Clark's wicked sense of humor than for any real annoyance at his storytelling.
"Are you okay, Sugar Lips?" Clark and Dan asked at the same time. Clark, ticked that Scardino had any knowledge of the sweetness of Lois's kisses, glared at him over his glasses. Scardino glared back until he started to feel very warm. They both looked toward Lois as Clark pushed his glasses back up.
"Fine, I'm fine," she managed to say. "I guess I inhaled some of the fudge." She leaned, out of breath, against Clark's chest and immediately felt better. He put an arm around her and she turned to touch his cheek. They leaned closer together until Scardino reminded them of his presence by clearing his throat. They turned to look at him, no trace of embarrassment present on their faces, just a hint of annoyance. Scardino realized that Clark was quite capable of literally throwing him out the door and probably would if Scardino didn't leave soon.
"Lois, my offer still stands," he said sadly, knowing that she didn't care.
"Huh, what? Oh, right," she mumbled and returned her gaze to Clark. Scardino looked at them, so happy, so in love, and so very anxious to be alone.
He opened the door and said, " I'll leave the two of you alone now. Goodbye." He knew he'd never return — to either Lois's apartment or to her heart. Already he was nothing but a vague and rather unpleasant memory. He shut the door quietly and walked down the hall, knowing that Lois was probably already 'doing her laundry' and that she wasn't worried about buttoning her pajama buttons — just unbuttoning them.
Then suddenly he screamed. "I'm gonna rolf! I ate that fudge!" He made gagging noises and raced down the stairs.
Lois and Clark heard his exclamation and burst out laughing. "That reminds me," she said as she traced the CK logo on his shirt. "Where on earth did you come up with that fudge story?"
"Oh, it just popped in my head and out my mouth," he replied nonchalantly. She swatted him gently, laughing.
"Well, it's a pretty cute mouth, even if your head's a little messed up," she said, kissing him quickly.
"Oh, so does that mean you don't want to try it?" Clark asked, apparently serious.
"I didn't say that," she said, kissing him again. "Just one question — are we gonna be wearing shirts or not?"
Clark just looked at her. "Lois. Honey. If you aren't wearing a shirt, chances are we aren't gonna be making fudge," he stressed the word fudge just enough to let her know what he had in mind.
She favored him with her "death is coming" look, but quickly gave in and grinned. "You're probably right," she conceded, kissing him once again. He didn't answer, but then, he didn't need to. They began to get comfortable again… and Scardino was right about those buttons not getting rebuttoned, at least not anytime that evening.
***
Okay, the plot of "Heaven's Prisoners." It stars Teri Hatcher, so of course I had to see it. The only scene I refer to: As Dave (Alec Baldwin) drives up to Bubba's (Eric Roberts) house, Bubba's wife, Claudette (Teri Hatcher)is on the balcony and the **only** thing she's wearing is a butterfly tattoo on her belly. Scardino saying "It's so racy!" is a semi-direct quote from Jon Tenney, Teri Hatcher's husband. On Entertainment Tonight, when the movie came out in May 1996, she's asked if her husband likes her Cajun accent for the movie and she says that he loved it because it was so racy. It was a good enough movie, but it would have been better if she was in more scenes. This really dates my story; if I'd written it recently, I would have referred to Radio Shack commercials, Ripley's Believe It or Not, or the Broadway musical Cabaret.
THE END