By Erin Klingler <erinklingler@cableone.net>
Rated: PG
Submitted: November 2002
Summary: When Lois climbs into bed beside her husband one night, she's surprised to see a huge stack of papers beside him. Apparently, Clark's found a wonderful, fascinating Internet site called 'lcfanfic.com'.
Note: This is just a short, fun little story I hope you'll enjoy. It's more or less my tribute to all those authors out there who have caused me to fall in love with Lois and Clark over and over again because of the wonderful stories you've written. You guys have given me countless hours of reading pleasure, and this is my way of saying thank you! Also, thanks to Kathy and Pam for their help brainstorming the beginnings of this, and for the clever title. ;)
No authors' names or story titles are listed in this story, though I've decided to include the answers in a section at the end of this story, for those of you who want to read the stories I mentioned in this. See if you are good enough to name all the fanfics I've included! :)
***
Dressed only in his favorite pair of black silk boxers, Clark climbed into bed and let out a contented sigh. This was his favorite time of day. It was the time when the hours of research and following leads and writing stories during the day faded into the back of his mind, and he could finally relax.
Luxuriously, Clark slid further beneath the sheets, enjoying the feel of the sheets caressing his bare skin. Nothing felt as wonderful on a warm, summer night than wearing nothing but silk boxers and climbing between the cool, silk sheets, letting them chill his skin. He turned his attention to his pillow, fluffed it up, then propped it up against the headboard behind him and leaned back against it. Finally, he pulled the light blanket up over his lap and turned his attention to the rather large stack of paper sitting in the middle of the bed next to him.
He had just lifted the papers onto his lap when Lois walked into the room, dressed in a simple, white, satin knee- length chemise, and climbed into bed next to him.
"You've got to be kidding," Lois said as she pulled the blanket up over her and eyed the large stack of paper in her husband's hands. "After the overtime we put in at the Planet today, you're doing more work at home in bed?"
Clark smiled and shook his head. "Nope, this isn't work."
"Then what is it?" she asked warily.
Clark's eyes twinkled mischievously. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
She stared at him for a moment, wondering what on earth he was up to. "Try me," she finally responded.
"Would you believe that these are stories I found last week while I was surfing the Internet?"
Lois's brow furrowed. "What kind of stories?"
"Stories about us," he replied cryptically.
That caught Lois's attention. "About *us*?" she demanded, not sure whether to be flattered or afraid. "What are you talking about?"
"I found this website that has something like 2,000 fictional stories about us that have been written by our fans," Clark explained.
Lois snorted. "Fans? Now there's a word I'm not familiar with. You mean there are actually people out there who don't want us dead?"
"I guess so," Clark answered, chuckling. "Apparently, we've got quite a following on the Internet. There are just tons of people who are obsessed with writing stories about you and me…and Superman."
Lois gasped, her eyes widening in alarm. "You're kidding! Is this the same group of people who believe you're Superman?"
Clark chuckled. "Honey, I *am* Superman."
"Yeah, but they don't know that for sure like I do. Do they have to talk about it so openly? Go to all the trouble of writing stories about it? I mean, don't you worry about somebody believing what they believe? It could be a threat, you know…like the Diana Stride confrontation."
"And we all know how that turned out," Clark soothed. "We discredited her and sent her to jail. I'm not worried. It's like the whole Elvis thing."
Lois looked at him strangely. "What Elvis thing?"
"You know—all those people believing that Elvis faked his death and is still alive somewhere. Ask Perry, and I'm sure he's got a whole ton of stories to back up his belief that Elvis is still alive. And he's an influential person. But does anyone believe *him* about Elvis still being alive? Other than other Elvis fans who believe it, too, that is." He smiled and shook his head. "People will believe what they want to believe, and with the world having seen 'Superman' and me together at that press conference when responding to Diana's accusations, as well as at that Tempus/John Doe press conference, I've got more than enough 'proof' on my side."
"Hmmm," Lois responded noncommittally. She lifted the blankets slightly off her lap and slid closer to Clark, snuggling up against him. "So, tell me about the stories these fans have written," she suggested, nodding at the papers on her husband's lap. "Anything I'd find interesting?"
"Well, this isn't all of them," Clark pointed out. "I'm sure nearly 2,000 stories would've taken boxes and boxes of paper to print, but these are just a few that I picked to print off. I'll tell you, some of these writers have the craziest imaginations."
He chuckled to himself, obviously amused at the fans' apparent interest in them and their lives. Starting to thumb through the stack, he pulled out a few sets of stapled pages and handed them to her. "Here's a story by someone named Zoomway—"
Lois raised an eyebrow. "Zoomway? What's a Zoomway? Is that some kind of freeway or something?"
Clark smiled a little and shrugged. "No idea. But this person has written quite a few, and, according to the fans, many of Zoomway's stories are considered classics." He reached over and thumped the top set of stapled pages. "In this one, you've been married to Lex for three weeks—"
Lois groaned and rolled her eyes. "Is that very-near mistake going to come back to haunt me forever? Why'd they have to write about something like that?"
Clark laughed. "No, no, this turns out great! It turns out you only married him to enact revenge on him by using a special potion that prevents him from, er—how should I say this?—from…performing, if you know what I mean, and thereby destroying all his confidence as a man."
Lois let her head fall back against Clark's shoulder as she roared with laughter. "Now *that's* what I call a story! I'm going to be sure to read this one."
"You'll love the ending, too," Clark promised, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "I won't spoil it, but it has something to do with you and Superman in the bathtub."
"Ooh, I can hardly wait," Lois murmured with a smile.
Clark turned back to the stack of papers and pulled out another few. "Here's a really funny one where my dad's helping me master my spin-change technique in a wheat field on the farm. I lose my dad's favorite tie and rescue a cow."
Lois raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Rescue a cow? From what?"
Clark only grinned in response and shook his head. "That's all I'm going to say. You'll have to read for yourself. And there's another really funny one with a sequel where you've been missing for two days, and when I go to your apartment looking for you, I discover you've trashed your apartment. Inside, I find pictures of me and Superman side by side, with glasses drawn on Superman."
"Uh-oh."
"'Uh-oh' is right," Clark replied. "I go back to my apartment, certain that you've discovered my secret and are out to kill me, but to my shock, I find you in my bed…practically naked."
Lois started to laugh. "Not exactly the response you got from *me* when I found out your little secret."
"No, it sure wasn't," Clark agreed. "But I liked this author's version much better."
Lois smacked his arm and chuckled. "I'll bet you did."
Clark smiled and pulled another sheaf of paper from the stack. "There are also some really nice relationship-type stories that I'm sure you'll love. They have us meeting and falling in love in entirely different ways than we did, like this one here. It has us meeting at a journalism conference in Kansas City, and we fall madly in love."
Lois's eyes lit up as she took the papers. "Ooh, I love romances."
"Well, it's not all peaches and cream," Clark warned her. "We run into relationship troubles early on, of course."
"Of course." Lois rolled her eyes. "If we didn't, I'd seriously question whether or not these fans really know us at all."
Clark chuckled. "True. These fans sure seem to live for tormenting us in the relationship department, though. Take this one." He extracted another stapled set of papers. "We're divorced, and it's apparently because I had unresolved issues over the death of my parents."
"That's awful!" Lois exclaimed, horrified.
"Don't worry, the writer gets us back together at the end," Clark consoled.
"Thank goodness!" Lois breathed a sigh of relief. "Any more romances? Maybe ones that don't put us through an emotional wringer?"
Clark grinned. "Yeah, sure. But like I said, the writers seem to like to put us through emotional turmoil. As a matter of fact, I have a bunch of the more serious stories here."
"Serious how? Like dramas or something?"
Clark nodded. "Something like that."
He took the stack of papers off the top, and Lois nearly gasped when she saw that the story he was holding was easily half a ream's worth of paper thick.
"This one should come with a five-hanky warning," he explained, tossing the heavy stack onto her lap. "I'm sent, as Superman, to stop an asteroid from destroying earth."
Her brow furrowed. "Kind of like the Nightfall asteroid you had to destroy?"
"Sort of," Clark agreed with a solemn nod. "Except that this asteroid turns out to be a piece of Krypton, and it's filled with Kryptonite. It's basically a suicide mission, and I have to say goodbye to you and the kids… I could hardly get through it." He paused a moment, then cleared his throat emotionally and went on. "And here's another one where you've been shot and paralyzed, and we have to turn to your dad for hopes of a medical breakthrough to have you ever walk again…"
Lois's jaw fell open in disbelief. "Those are positively morbid! Don't these people have anything better to do than put us in mortal danger or write about our looming deaths?"
Clark chuckled, his somber mood quickly dissipating at the sound of his wife's outrage. "Well, not all the stories are like that," he admitted. "There are some lighter, more fun ones. Take this one, for example."
The next story he lifted from the stack was considerably thinner, and Lois found herself breathing a sigh of relief. How much mortal danger could someone put them in in only a few short pages? Then again, she was afraid to ask.
"This one has us going camping with some friends, and we spend a…uh…rather incredible night together in our tent. The fans have really been going crazy over this one." Clark's eyes twinkled as he handed her the story. "I'd say you should *definitely* put this at the top of your must-read list. This writer really knows how to get the ol' hormones going." Clark waggled his eyebrows comically.
Lois took this story more readily, knowing that there might be a little…fun…in this offering. "Hmmm, a tent, huh?" she inquired with a smile. "I don't think we've ever tried that. Maybe we should sometime."
"Sounds good to me," Clark agreed with an acquiescent grin. "And get this," he continued around his broadening smile. "There's even a trilogy here, where my mom is President of the United States! I think I'll mention that to her. She'd get a pretty big kick out of that." He winked.
Lois laughed. "I'm sure she would!"
"That same writer also wrote a story whose basic premise was based on a novel by Elswyth Thane. We meet when you're a ghost, and we fall in love."
Lois scrunched up her nose. "A ghost? How can anything become of a relationship if I'm a ghost?"
Clark grinned maddeningly. "You'll have to read it to find out."
Looking at the still large stack of papers on his lap, Lois ventured, "And what else? I'm almost afraid to ask."
"Well, there are a whole bunch of different ones here that I'm sure you'd get a big a kick out of as I did, but it's not just the stories I find interesting—it's some of these authors. Take these stories, for example."
He handed Lois another large stack of papers. "They're written by some morbid guy named Grenade…no, Tank," he corrected, leaning over to verify the author's name on the top sheet. "I mean, what must his life be like to write such depressing endings for *fun*??"
Lois laughed, then Clark continued, "And take a look at these." He turned and grabbed another huge stack of papers at least three reams thick from his nightstand and plopped them down beside her. "They're all by this college lecturer in England. Talk about long stories! And they're not all fluff and fun! She's the same one who wrote that story about the asteroid from Krypton, and most of her other stories are just as heart wrenching. She really likes to torture her fans, doesn't she?"
Lois's eyes widened upon seeing the huge stack of stories written by a single author. "Geez, maybe Perry should hire her. If she's turning out this many huge stories, I'm sure she could write each daily edition by herself."
"I don't doubt it." Clark laughed, then rushed on. "You know, what really cracks me up is that the website that hosts all this fanfiction is run by an editor-in-chief who's called 'Doc. Klein's LabRat.' Not only does she run things, but you should see the incredible stories she writes! One of them is even over a meg!" Clark shook his head in disbelief.
Then he started to laugh. "You know, I guess I never would've thought of naming myself after one of Doctor Klein's lab animals. Or, hey, maybe the site really *is* run by Doctor Klein's LabRat!" he joked. "You know, if you think about it, that little furry rat he calls Lucy who he has cooped up in the cage in the corner of his lab always stares right back at you whenever you look at her. Maybe she's smarter than we all give her credit for. Late at night after the good doctor goes home, maybe she lets herself out of her cage, logs onto Doctor Klein's computer, and indulges herself in a little fanfiction writing and coordination." Clark's voice gained momentum as he stretched his tale as far as possible, loving the sound of Lois's increasing giggles. "If that's the case, then apparently I'm not the only one who's ever thought of having a secret identity!"
They laughed together for a minute, then Clark sighed wistfully as he pulled out a slightly smaller stack of stories. "Of all the stories, though, these are some of my favorites. They're a series of stories by a Canadian writer that focuses on the lives of our grandkids and how they go about making the world a better place."
"Now those sound right up my alley," Lois agreed just as wistfully. She snuggled further into Clark's side, taking comfort in his closeness. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we *could* have children? The last time we talked to Doctor Klein, he was beginning to think it was possible. But he has to do more *research*…" She said the word disdainfully and put her hand to Clark's bare chest.
Clark reached up to cover her hand with his own. "Research," he echoed, a slow smile starting to work its way across his face. "Research doesn't always give all the facts, you know. I bet if we did enough 'research' on our own," he wiggled his eyebrows up and down, causing a smile to break out across Lois's face, "we could get our own results."
Lois grinned at her husband and sidled even closer. "I'm up for that," she said, a sultry tone in her voice. "What do you say we put all these stories away for now and see about acting out a story of our own? I think I'm in the mood to write a romance."
"Mmmm, romance sounds good," Clark murmured, his voice growing husky as he took her in his arms. "I bet we could write a really incredible romance. Maybe we could even put some of those writers to shame."
"Maybe," Lois agreed seductively. "At any rate, I think those bedtime stories of yours can wait. Don't you?"
Clark feigned uncertainty. "I don't know," he hedged. "These stories are pretty good."
Lois moved her hand lower on his chest, causing his heart to flutter uncontrollably. That was all the encouragement he needed. With a quick movement, Clark cleared the bed of the stacks of paper and turned off the lamp on his nightstand, drenching the room in darkness.
As he moved back over to his wife and drew her close under the covers, he murmured, a smile in his voice, "As good as the stories are, you're right. I think they can wait."
Eager to prove he was right, he leaned down and gently touched his lips to hers, steadily deepening and increasing the intensity of the kiss. When he heard an answering moan come from deep within his wife's throat, he could tell he'd succeeded.
Stories were one thing, he thought matter-of-factly as he grinned against her mouth. But having the real thing…that was quite another.
THE END
:)
As for the answers:
>>Clark smiled a little and shrugged. "No idea. But this person has written quite a few, and, according to the fans, many of Zoomway's stories are considered classics." He reached over and thumped the top set of stapled pages. "In this one, you've been married to Lex for three weeks—"<<
This was Zoomway's hilarious "Dirty Bubbles."
>>Clark turned back to the stack of papers and pulled out another few. "Here's a really funny one where my dad's helping me master my spin-change technique in a wheat field on the farm. I lose my dad's favorite tie and rescue a cow." <<
This was Carla Humbert's "Quick Change." Daisy the cow, and Carla's explanation for Clark's crazy ties made this story the hilarious one it is. :)
>>"And there's another really funny one with a sequel where you've been missing for two days, and when I go to your apartment looking for you, I discover your apartment's been trashed. Inside, I find pictures of me and Superman side by side, with glasses drawn on Superman."
"Uh-oh."
"'Uh-oh' is right," Clark replied. "I go back to my apartment, certain that you've discovered my secret and are out to kill me, but to my shock, I find you in my bed …practically naked." <<
This was B.B. Medos's "Lois' Revenge" and the sequel, "Clark's Response." I could hardly stop laughing!
>> "There are also some really nice relationship type stories that I'm sure you'll love. They have us meeting and falling in love in entirely different ways than we did, like this one here. It has us meeting at a journalism conference in Kansas City, and we fall madly in love." <<
This is Chris Mulder's incredible "Meet Me in Kansas City." Definitely a classic. :)
>>Clark chuckled. "True. These fans sure seem to live for tormenting us in the relationship department, though. Take this one." He extracted another stapled set of papers. "We're divorced, and it's apparently because I had unresolved issues over the death of my parents."<<
This is Demi's "Heaven's Prisoners." Read it with a box of tissues. ;)
>>"This one should come with a five-hanky warning," he explained, tossing the heavy stack onto her lap. "I'm sent, as Superman, to stop an asteroid from destroying earth." [snip] "Except that this asteroid turns out to be a piece of Krypton, and it's filled with Kryptonite. It's basically a suicide mission, and I have to say goodbye to you and the kids… I could hardly get through it." <<
Wendy Richards' "For the Greater Good." (And yes, have tissues handy for this one, too. <g>)
>> "And here's another one where you've been shot and paralyzed, and we have to turn to your dad for hopes of a medical breakthrough to have you ever walk again…" <<
Sheila Harper's wonderfully WAFFY and WHAMy "A Shot in the Dark."
>>"This one has us going camping with some friends, and we spend a…uh…rather incredible night together in our tent. The fans have really been going crazy over this one." Clark's eyes twinkled as he handed her the story. "I'd say you should *definitely* put this at the top of your must-read list. This writer really knows how to get the ol' hormones going." Clark waggled his eyebrows comically. <<
As if anyone hasn't read this one. <bg> This is Kathy Brown's "Camping With Clark."
>> "And get this," he continued around his broadening smile. "There's even a trilogy here, where my mom is President of the United States! I think I'll mention that to her. She'd get a pretty big kick out of that." He winked. <<
This is Pam Jernigan's "President Kent" series. Very original. ;)
>>"That same writer also wrote a story whose basic premise was based on a novel by Elswyth Thane. We meet when you're a ghost, and we fall in love." <<
Again, by Pam Jernigan. It's called "Tryst." Personally, I loved it!
>> "They're written by some morbid guy named Grenade…no, Tank," he corrected, leaning over to verify the author's name on the top sheet. "I mean, what must his life be like to write such depressing endings for *fun*??" <<
LOL. Sorry, Tank, I couldn't resist. <vbg>
>>Lois laughed, then Clark continued, "And take a look at these." He turned and grabbed another huge stack of papers at least three reams thick from his nightstand and plopped them down beside her. "They're all by this college lecturer in England. Talk about long stories! And they're not all fluff and fun! She's the same one who wrote that story about the astroid from Krypton, and most of her other stories are just as heart wrenching. She really likes to torture her fans, doesn't she?" <<
I won't even bother apologizing to Wendy Richards for this one. Hey, she DOES like to torture us!!! <vbg>
>>"I don't doubt it." Clark laughed, then rushed on. "You know, what really cracks me up is that the website that hosts all this fanfiction is run by an editor-in-chief who's called 'Doc. Klein's LabRat.' Not only does she run things, but you should see the incredible stories she writes! One of them is even over a meg!" Clark shook his head in disbelief. <<
Disbelief is right! <g> The story referred to here is LabRat's own "Caped Fear."
>>They laughed together for a minute, then Clark sighed wistfully as he pulled out a slightly smaller stack of stories. "Of all the stories, though, these are some of my favorites. They're a series of stories by a Canadian writer that focuses on the lives of our grandkids and how they go about making the world a better place." <<
These are Irene Dutch's wonderful "Firestorm" series.
Okay, there ya go. Happy reading, folcs! :)
THE END