dovelike | (no subject)

Entry tags:

futureverse,
kal

(no subject)

Six months ago, Eirene became engaged to an alien.

Fix months ago, she returned to her own world for almost two months, to make arrangements with Time himself so that she could pass through the Bar into Clark's world without things falling apart in her homeland without her presence.

Three months ago, the goddess returned to Clark's world with an agreement to go home twice a month to keep abreast of things and never leave her realm without a symbol of peace, barring any childbearing in which it would not be safe to travel.

Two month ago, she met with Senator Kent (and her future mother in law) and agreed to take cooking lessons when Martha had time.

An hour ago, Eirene completed her first solo dinner preparations, an early Halloween meal for herself and Clark. Except he's not returned from the office yet. Being late is generally an assumed thing with her fiance, and she's used to it. Really, it would just be nice if he called.

So she doesn't start panicking.

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Her arm is caught yet again, and he pulls her back in front of him. "I said you're not leaving."

Its pure instinct, honed over the last few years of working directly with superheroes, including a caped crusader who taught Eirene how to harness her inate abilities for self protection without resorting to harm, that spurs the goddess to plant her free hand against Clark's chest and unleash what he teasingly calls her 'whammy', a steady, powerful transfer of pure contentment or peace.

The moment his grip loosens, she tugs away and flees out of the apartment, and doesn't stop running until she finds herself in a park several blocks away.

It takes a few minutes for Clark to figure out what happened. And when he does, his only course of action is simple.

He hones in on Eirene's heartbeat and follows it in a beeline.

"Eirene?"

She's seated on a bench, the bag at her feet, trying to light a cigarette with still-shaking hands. She's been there for a while, watching the children and their parents go past in search of the few remaining bits of candy to be had before the youngsters get taken home and all the adult parties start.

He'll probably notice her tense when she hears his voice.

He stops a few feet away from where she's sitting, and really, the expression on his face should be indication enough that something's different. Or back to normal. Whichever.

The point is, he looks devastated.

"Eirene," more softly this time. "Eirene, I'm so sorry."

She concentrates on the cigarette until the damn thing is lit, and, for once, could care less about his views on smoking. It's not like she's done this in decades, evidenced by the brief coughing fit that follows the first drag, and remains silent for almost ten minutes.

(It takes that long to look up at him without crying.)

"You hurt me."

Clark will just stand there, awkwardly stuffing his hands in his jeans pockets and trying not to stare at her the entire time.

"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

She scoots over to the other end of the bench after a thoughtful pause and gestures to the empty half with her cigarette.

"You can sit down, but if you start going off on me again, I'll be at HQ faster than you can sneeze."

The cigarette is given a brief but distasteful glance and then he does sit down, but at the very far end.

"I won't. It's gone now. Whatever you did, it got rid of it."

Beat.

"And the last thing we want is me sneezing. Trust me."

It gets put out after a noticeable hesitation, ground underneath one of her sandals. She's not completely sure she should believe him, but the expression he's wearing is enough to punch her in the gut.

Eventually: "What was 'it'?"

"Red K. Chloe and I went to check out a construction site that hit load of unusual rocks. I should have known better, but by the time we got there it was in the dust and the air and I..." He trails off and sighs, gaze steady on his hands in his lap. "I didn't realize what it was until it was too late."

Pause.

"I'm sorry." He'll be saying that repeatedly for a while yet.

"I whammied you. It was the only thing I could think of that didn't involve violence."

Eirene takes a shallow, shaky breath and fights down the nausea.

"Red K removes your inhibitions, not what you think. Am ... Am I really just there to 'cater to your needs'?"

"Of course not." He answers that automatically and then takes a long, slow breath to try and work out a reasonable - and honest - explanation.

"Eirene, I love you and you're going to be my wife soon. And part of that involved having those... needs. And when I do, I want you to be the one I have them with, but that doesn't mean that's all I see you as."

He sighs. "You know, the first time I was exposed to red K, I accused my parents of treating me like nothing more than a piece of free farm equipment. And yeah, there were times I wished I didn't have so much work to do, or that they didn't rely on me so much, but I never honestly hated or resented them for it. It just all gets exaggerated."

Eirene scrubs a hand through her hair, and listens quietly, trying to sort through the last few hours and what happened, exactly.

"I didn't like what you became, Clark. To the point where I was ready to stay at HQ or ask Dinah if she'd mind a roomie for a while. But I still love you, and I don't know what that says about me."

She looks back down at the ground, a hand lifting to wipe away falling tears.

"I don't like what I become, either. And I wish I could control it, or better yet that it didn't exist, but I can't and it does."

He doesn't really know what else to say. There isn't anything he can do to erase the genuine hurt he caused her, and he knows it. "Thank you for what you did. I don't want to think about what might have happened if I'd had to wait for it to work its way out of my system."

"Neither do I," Her voice is quiet, with a certainty that she knows exactly what would have happened. "I ruined your dinner," Eirene adds after another span of silence. She sounds guilty about it, and her voice cracks on the last word.

Her fist hits his shoulder about three seconds later. "You scared the hell out of me, Clark!" It seems they've moved into the anger portion of tonight's escapade.

He takes it, and compensates so she doesn't hurt herself, but doesn't shield himself from any of it either. She has a right to be angry.

"I'm sorry. I never wanted to do that to you."

Pause.

Softly, "Do you want me to go to a motel or something?"

"I don't know."

Another shaky breath while she rubs at her face, trying to get rid of the one emotion she was never meant to house inside of her, and then springs off of the bench backwards (once she's checked to make sure all the kids are gone) to be sick in the bushes.

It doesn't matter how much Clark respects her space and the right to have whatever feelings she has about what happened, but there isn't anything that could keep him from her side right at this moment.

Even if he's not exactly beside her, but a few feet away. "Can I get you anything?"

She sits back after a minute, conjuring a bottle of water to wash her mouth out with and get some liquid inside her. There's a shrug of her shoulders, head kept down, but Clark will probably be able to figure out she's trying to cry quietly.

Eirene really does not know what to do.

"Please don't cry," he's practically pleading. Because... he may start himself. "Can we just go home and talk about this in private?"

"Take me home." Her voice is somewhat strained, but she offers a shaking hand without hesitation. In this, at least, she does trust him, and is willing to show that.

Slowly, he reaches out to take her hand-- and then they're in the apartment. Clark lets go of her immediately, and starts pacing in front of the couch.

"I don't know how to fix this."

It takes under three minutes of watching him pace for Eirene to reach out and tug him down onto the couch with her.

"There are issues that need to be talked about. So we talk, or yell. Whatever works."

He allows himself to be tugged and sits down, rather pathetically.

"I'm so sorry. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you, especially like this. Just-- please don't leave me. I need you. I wasn't lying when I said that."