thisisontherecord

( Lois squints up at him when he says he was only thinking about here, not surprised, but glad she's brought up that it's not what she was thinking. Lois is excellent at compartmentalizing, but if she starts down that path in personal relationships, she doesn't see it leading anywhere genuinely honest in the end. )

Maybe it is, but I'm not thinking short term.

( Not for this. Not in large and by all parts in anything they do, in a relationship, for the same reason she's so often looking forward in her life back home. Not because she's not grounded, and she is, a series of considerations of consequences and their cascading effects. She's just also the one who finds she gets swept up in moments because Clark is in her life now, and she rather... loves that, too.

Even if at other times she just wishes he'd pause a moment before acting. Right now is not one of those times. She even finds herself chuckling as the heat seeps into her skin, sinking deeper, into her bones. For a moment she's tempted to go boneless against him, but doesn't, instead tracing her hands down his backside to, ahem. Settle on his ass. )

Grumpy Lois can be a bitch.

( Lips quirked, eyebrows likewise raised. )

I know. I've lived with her for thirty years and counting.

Me either.

[She's got him for life, if she wants him. Clark isn't sure of a lot of things about how their lives are going to go from here, but he is very sure of that much. He's in love with Lois Lane. If there's really such a thing as The One, she's it for him.

He's still smiling, so maybe it blends in, but Clark can't pretend he's not happy with where her hands land. Really, they can go wherever they want. She's got an all-access pass.]

I've known her for three and still fell in love with her, so there you go. Actually, grumpy Lois is pretty hot.

[As are all Loises.]

( Bless him for not saying anything more than agreeing to thinking long term, because if he does want to see her balk again right now, it would be talking really long term. Her considering long term dating is what she's just gotten comfortable with: her accepting moving in is the process he's presently witnessing live.

Her hands give an appreciative squeeze, looking even more amused. )

I think you're a biased audience.

( She'd love to say she'd be less prone to being exactly herself, but she really isn't. Just more inclined toward being open and affectionate, beyond what her levels are with the coworkers she's close to at the Daily Planet. By and large especially Jimmy and Cat, though not exclusively so. )

Though that 'still' there is almost ouch worthy.

( Lois doesn't look remotely perturbed at this. It's a realistic evaluation of how she's not exactly sweet at work, and has never pretended or striven to be. Plus, she'd probably use the same word describing how she'd started noticing Clark. That sure as hell wasn't a simple, "and they were coworkers." The way he acts that isn't fully acting at work is part of how he is, and that had become endearing when time wore off the initial frustrations and started allowing her to appreciate his consistencies and quirks for what they were.

Not that she says any of that right now. She instead gives him a lazy sort of smile. )

Pass the body wash?

( She could reach for it. It's right there. )

What does really moving in look like to you?

( Lois, with her grand total of once or twice living with boyfriends of the past in temporary situations, can't really put a good picture together. Here it's easier: she'll hold off on thinking how merging homes might look back in Metropolis, though knowing herself, she'll still be thinking about that too. )

[Clark shrugs that off. Hey, he never claimed to be unbiased regarding Lois Lane and her many attractive qualities (yes even the grumpiness). It's not like he's writing articles about her.

He kind of thinks she'd be disappointed if he didn't have a clear mind regarding her prickliness as well as her soft spots. Like he wouldn't really know her.

(He grabs the body wash and squirts some into his hands before handing Lois the bottle. This can be a teamwork thing, too.)]

Practical stuff, for the most part. Bringing all my clothes and other stuff here, Jon not needing to carry his things back and forth or maintain two bedrooms. But also...thinking of this place as our place, so we both get an equal say. But that's more sentimental than anything.

[They both know Lois is better at making an apartment feel liveable.]

( Both hands now free, she takes the body wash and squeezes out her own dollop into one palm, jamming the bottle into the small shelf in the nearest corner. She's again for no particular reason very glad this shower's big enough that he can move around without elbows hitting everything, because that's clearly the concern with showers. Spreading the body wash between both hands, she reaches up and starts soaping up his shoulders and around the back of his neck, up on her toes. )

Okay.

( Practical things are easier. It was what they'd been doing, and while Jon's part of that equation, it wouldn't be the tipping factor for her. She's not that version of overflowing with maternal instinct; sure, being a Good Adult and loving him, but there's not some deep yearning ache of that's my kid. Maybe she'll never be that sort of parent. She won't spend energy wondering about the if's in that case when... anyway. It's not something they've discussed. That's a later thing. )

Equal say in what, specifically?

( That's more of an Etraya problem, given the lack of economy or regular avenues for Stuff and Things she'd expect back home, so it is a relevant question in her mind as she's soaping him up, and managing the calculus of limbs so he can do the same. )

[He leans into her soapy touch, letting out a quiet happy little noise. Strictly speaking, taking a shower isn't something that requires teamwork, but they are definitely good at doing it together.]

Also practical stuff. How stuff's laid out, what things go where, whether the toilet paper hangs over or under the roll. None of that's very romantic, but being at odds over it can make any living situation a hassle. At least you know I'm neat.

[To be fair, he doesn't have a ton of stuff to make a mess, but that's as true in Etraya as it is in Metropolis.]

( It's also more fun this way, and a better distraction and reason for sharing a shower, or something like that. Her hands really only pause for: )

Over the top.

( Look. Why let it dangle down the back. Why? She's back to soaping over the planes of his chest and then around his sides, stepping close so her hands are wandering with functional purpose of getting up to the middle of his back. )

Where you know I'm organized abundance that can in some lights look similar to chaos.

( Over-full might be the better word, since Lois definitely had everything organized and tucked away instead of left around. Here she's unlikely to end up with banker's boxes of files on corporations, but you never know. The walls of books are far closer to being in her reach. Also the lack of any romance in the minutia of living is, somehow, both appealing and a bit gut-dropping. She hasn't had to negotiate the small stuff since she started living on her own. )

No flannel sheets. I've never liked how they feel. Kitchen organization is however you want it, just leave me mugs where I can reach without climbing the counter.

( A pause before she tips her head back to look up to his face. )

Not that you haven't already organized the kitchens here.

( Lois has had very little stake in that race, aside from definitely making sure every easy to grab snack she's found at the various stores has made its way back here to the easy drawer and lower cupboard when it's not made entirely of sugar. Even with a sweet tooth, she keeps that mostly limited to the hard candies and the much worse form of sugar: whatever goes into her coffee. God, coffee. Too bad the caffeine actually works. )

[Obviously over the top is the correct answer. Clark nods along, encouraged that they are already aligned in the important stuff.]

I can live without flannel sheets. [Even if they are very nice for Kansas winters. This isn't Kansas, obviously.] I'll take a look at how the kitchen should go once I move my things over from the other kitchen.

[Yes, they've mostly been eating in one apartment over the other, but he hasn't always wanted to carry things next door, so there is some overlap. It's fine. This can be practice for how he and Lois will combine and/or weed out their possessions when they eventually move in together in Metropolis, too. Clark doesn't think of living together here as being any less real or meaningful than living together at home, but the idea does give him sort of a thrill.

He's got longer arms and the shower is large but not that large, so he can and does reach for the shampoo bottle without stepping away from Lois. Her hair has gotten drenched enough by now that he can start to give it a wash slash scalp massage.]

We'll have to mix and match pillows if we're sticking to one bed permanently. I know I like mine thicker than yours.

[Not so much that it's ever a consideration when he's just sleeping over with Lois. Clark is just happy to be there on those nights. But planning for the longer term, yeah, that's different.]

I probably won't cut down on number of pillows. You're a lovely body pillow, but sometimes I just need my own rigged equivalent.

( More of a side sleeper than a back sleeper, and not really one for stomach sleeping since breasts made it moot ages ago. Her hands on him slow into not so much helpful washing motions as little rubbing circles with her thumbs when he starts working on her hair. The slash scalp massage is getting her to close her eyes. Heck, the whole of the showering is helping her relax, which was part of the point.

She also likes being cleaner, however fun the sex is, as it tends to make her feel more clearheaded regardless of the reality. )

Is the dog a plant eater?

( The dog who isn't even here yet. )

That's fair. Bed's big enough for as many as we want, so it'll be fine.

[He's a back sleeper or stomach sleeper, depending on the day and how tired he is, but the important thing is that the bed is big enough for him. A king is the absolute bare minimum.]

Possibly. I don't have any plants in the fortress, but I'm not going to assume it won't be a problem until we know for sure.

[Scrub scrub scrub. It's kind of soothing to him, too.]

Maybe there's something we can spray on plants to make him avoid them.

( She only shifts so that it's easier for the water to run through her hair. Grounding details also make this real in a different way, and she co-opts the moment to lean back into him fully hair and skin against skin. )

I'm not always a peaceful sleeper. You may have noticed by now, ( it'd be difficult not to, Lois goes from sleeping tolerably to being a light sleeper to waking up gasping from nightmares, and that at present is about to get worse; ) but it's not a problem to wake me up. None of that sleep paralysis stuff.

( Her lips twitch down into a frown, before she slowly, painfully admits: )

I feel like anything we spray on the plants is just going to make him want to lick them more because we sprayed them.

( Tipping her head back and narrowing her eyes against the falling water: )

Bend down or kneel?

( Context would be useful, but the most she's giving is by reaching up to run her nails through some of his waterlogged hair. Hey, tall guy. )

[He's not immune to her leaning against him. Clark's hands go still for a moment as he smiles and presses a kiss to the top of her head. If that gives him a bit of a shampoo beard, oh well.]

I'll wake you up if it seems like you're having a bad dream. You don't have to worry about waking me up, though. I fall back asleep pretty easily and I don't actually need as much sleep as most people.

[For obvious implied reasons. Kryptonite recovery sleep marathons excepted. She's probably right about the plants, though, they'll just have to improvise.

He considers his options for a moment, but kneeling is just going to make him want to do more things that'll get them sweaty again, which will make them need to shower again, which could use up all the hot water. He bends down a few inches, far enough that Lois can reach where she needs to without getting dangerously up on her tiptoes.]

( Sharing is caring, even if sharing is what shampoo isn't washed out yet, and doesn't need to be. Don't most say let it sit? Or is that just conditioner. Lois isn't particularly caring to remember the particulars of hair care routines when her mind is filled with other things, so she ends up smiling at the kiss, and sighing a little when he makes the better call and tips his head forward.

Getting her own dollop of shampoo in her hands and rubbing them together, she lifts them and runs them through his wet locks, brushing them back first before she starts massaging the shampoo in with her fingers and nails. Which she needs to cut, she determines, the odd sort of thought that's not disruptive so much as witnessed and then dismissed for later.

It's what he says about not needing sleep that gets her expression to turn a little uncertain. Her voice is pitched low and soft when she asks: )

Clark... have you started thinking about if you want kids of your own one day?

( It's not about Jon. This is very much sounding out how much of the unhappy surprise of his bio-parents full message he is or isn't wrestling with on a personal revelations and processing personal wants irrespective of people's loving and misguided hopes. Probably a terrible thing to ask when they're talking about moving in together officially, but it's the same problem as earlier. Lois looking longer term to figure out what that looks like from each of their perspectives.

And how she has such trouble just indulging in the now alone when it's not physically and mentally engaging in a particular, focused moment. )

[Gosh, this feels good. Maybe they should do this more often. Clark makes a happy content sound until Lois brings up a completely different topic, and then he's just blinking in surprise, head raised, hair still full of foam.

Maybe it's because of where they are, close together in an impossibly intimate scenario, naked and warm and relaxed, that he doesn't automatically tense up. Or maybe he's just made some progress since that guilt-ridden conversation in WcDonald's.]

A little. Maybe.

[An answer to the question she actually asked and one for the implied follow-up. He thinks about it for a moment longer as he starts to rinse the shampoo out of Lois' hair, giving his hands something to do.]

I'm not going to pretend I'm over my parents' message, but it's...softer now. The very idea doesn't get me all seized up anymore. Some of that's because of Jon, and probably some is just time.

[Maybe one day it won't hurt anymore. Clark doesn't really believe that, but it's a nice idea.]

It also depends on whether I could make it work with being Superman. I can't not help people, but I can't be half in, half out of a kid's life, either. Whether they had powers too or not wouldn't matter. And it'd depend on who I was having kids with.

[Which obviously prompts the question — and she has to know it's coming — ]

Do you want kids?

( She's watching for reactions, and this is already softened from a few months ago, sitting across the table from each other in WcDonalds. Her shoulders relax a fraction, a tension she hadn't realized started creeping in when she was bringing up something that matters very much for him, in ways he hadn't thought it ever could.

Maybe it's because of what's just happened, or the fact they're through to the other side of the fog and Jon's also alright, or the fact the heat and the intimacy that isn't overtly sexual even if it could have been that makes it... simpler, in some ways, to simply lean in closer. Lois keeps her chin level as he works through rinsing out her hair, humming a sort of acknowledgement as he speaks.

When he turns the question on her, as she's been expecting, she leans in and presses a kiss to his breastbone before she answers. It's not cut and dry to her, but some of why she's brought up before. Part of it isn't so far off from what he mentions about wanting to be all in, so he'd have to figure out being Superman and Superdad at once, because being only one or the other is... asking for a partner to step up and single parent more often than not. Lois has a sort of sneaking suspicion that short of retiring, or relying even more on something like an expanded Justice Gang, it will still lean hazardously close to that direction, only with love behind it instead of the same sorts of things she knows from her own childhood.

Kids always know where they rank in their parents' lives. )

Most the time I'd say I don't know. I don't dislike the concept? But I've told you before, I don't have faith in being a great mother. I don't know what that looks like.

( And she hasn't seen a lot of it in her life. His parents, Martha and Jon Kent, have been one of the few times she's seen such unconditional, undisguised affection and care from parents to a child. It still blows her mind a little, even as it warms her heart.

She breathes in, closing her eyes for a moment. What she's about to say is an internal debate first, talking theoreticals in broad strokes, or talking theoreticals in specific ones. When she opens her eyes again, it's to lift her chin and look Clark in the face, water raining down and making her blink more than she would otherwise. The waterfall showerhead at least makes speaking while looking up doable, compared to some showerheads of apartments pasts. The internal debate has landed on one path forward, and if she's already naked and vulnerable, can she stick with that trend and not regret it right after? )

If we ever decided on that, if we decided on a whole slew of things leading up to that, if you could find a balance that doesn't leave one of us as a single parent due to logistics... then yes. I think that's something I could imagine with you.

( Not in general, but this is also her nod and callout to the fact it's a balancing act she's not sedately going to pick up the slack on. Lois knows she can, as needed, and as tradeoffs require it, but for the same reason she wouldn't have imagined herself dating a superhero before... for the same damn reason she'd told him she didn't expect him to avoid danger, but to consider more. )

One of these days.

[Her answer doesn't come right away and Clark doesn't expect it to. He doesn't mind. The kiss is a sign that she's not completely lost in her own head, mulling it over, and it makes him smile and run his fingertips up and down her arms as he waits for her answer. He could wait for her forever and be fine with it.

His heart lifts when she does give an indication of what she's thinking and feeling, and he's not initially sure whether that's because uncertainty still leaves room for possibility, or because she's not sure either way and that's not really so different from his own thoughts, even if he likes the idea of being a dad (on purpose and not via multiversal acquisition.)

He doesn't tell her that it's okay not to know how to be a great mother, that he does know what being a great father looks like but still doesn't know how to do it. That kind of thing is something they both have to figure out for themselves, on their own, until they might decide to figure the rest out together.

But the rest of what she says...the water is still plenty hot and has been for a while, so that can't be why Clark feels a sudden warmth blooming in his chest.]

It wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me either way. Because no matter what specific form our future takes, I want to get it right.

[He takes his arms around her back, holding her loosely but closer than before.]

But if we both wanted it, and could make it work, I could see doing with you, too. One day.

( Lois would be lying if part of her doesn't want to squirm in this conversation, and not in a fun way, only in the uncomfortable facing herself way. Facing Clark feels easier, which she's not sure she wants to examine either. She will, at some point, but that point is not presently the one she's perched upon.

But the heat of the water keeps her warm, and the gooseflesh she breaks out in is more reaction to mental stimulus than physical temperature changes. With his arms around her back, she steps into him, bringing her arms up over his shoulders in such a familiar, easy, known way. )

Mmm. How about instead of right, we do it well?

( Mess up, figure it out, keep going. Right feels almost impossible to do in a relationship, whatever forms it takes. Doing everything as well as they can, making good and making up, arguing and agreeing, nitpicking and supporting, all that can be done well.

So can... kids, maybe. Not getting it right, but doing it well. Along with marriage, which has been the elephant her brain's been dancing away from this whole time, and which continues to stand in the corner of the bathroom, pink and unacknowledged. There's only so much deep reflection she has energy for right now, and mostly? She just wants to lean her forehead against Clark's chest. )

[Some small part of Clark is marveling at and remembering a year or so ago, when he'd been nervous about sharing his secret identity with Lois and half-terrified of asking her out. Now they're talking about multiple years down the line, whether they want to have kids together, and there's the unspoken but adjacent topic of whether they might want to get married eventually.

They've come a long way from there, and not only because interdimensional travel and the existence of their alternate timeline son has pushed them to consider certain versions of their future. It doesn't feel that far, that fast, is the thing. It feels natural, him and Lois. Not easy, exactly — loving her is easy, but love is far from the only thing that makes a successful relationship. Still, he can't help but feel that they're on the right path, that they can do it well if they want to, if they stick together and stay as honest as they have been.]

Doing it well sounds like a good plan to me.

[He wraps his arms tighter around her and kisses her head again, wanting to hold her close even though he can sense that she's getting tired. Just for a minute or so.]

Want to dry off and go to bed? We can figure out moving logistics in the morning.

( Lois lets herself lean into him, eyes closed, warm even as part of her still is unsettled. Less than it was earlier. A lot less, if she's honest. Should this feel more world changing, or less? Is she awake enough right now to decide either way?

Opening her eyes, she squints up at him to avoid getting water droplets directly into her eyes. )

Yeah, let's do that. Both the drying off, the sleeping, and figuring out logistics later. Haven't had to even worry about moving logistics for... years before now, anyway.

( Meaning she'll squirm around to reach for the shower handle, cranking it off and leaving the waterfall dripping less and less as it goes. )

This'll be like a warm-up, then. There's not even much to move and it all belongs to me and Jon.

[Clark can't see Lois ignoring them and not helping, but still. It won't be much of a move when they've already been halfway living together; this just makes it official.

He drops a kiss on her head before reaching for one of the towels hanging over the shower door.]

I love you. I'm really happy about this.

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