Superman, not the chicken

What follows is bad. Just plain bad. We make no excuse for it...we can't. We should probably be sorry, but we’re incorrigible. If you must search out a reason for why and how such a crime, a travesty, an embarrassment to humanity as this could happen, look to the decay of society, your present local political climate, and the poor state of network television. We're just trying to keep up. Keep this in mind as well: If we aren't caught, tried and convicted, we will probably become repeat offenders. Think about it.

Read on at your own risk...

BARBEQUE, OR GALACTICALLY STUPID?

By the alleged perpetrators: Nekanuq, zoomway, LissaCat, and chrispat, with a guest appearance by Demi

The storm-tossed winds gusted and howled, more like wolves than they sounded, as Superman beat into the heart of the storm to escape the gusting, howling storm in his own heart, which felt like wolves were eating away at it, at the thought of Lois Lane, the most precious love of his life, marrying Lex Luthor, his moral, mortal, morbid, more than dangerous, evil nemesis. The terrible storm (the real one, not the one in his heart) was throwing the debris of a ravaged land around like match sticks, and in all of it, Superman was suddenly a breast of a poor, bedraggled chicken, which if it weren't for the storm, would have been a flightless bird on the ground. The other storm (the one in his heart) tossed the debris of his emotional upheaval around like toothpicks, stabbing at his broken heart as if from the inside, like acupuncture needles.

"Hey, chicken," Superman said, "You look how I feel."

The chicken didn't answer, except mentally in Superman's head and said it understood how totally bad Superman was feeling right now. Like a Colonel Sander's day, and his beak seemed truly sadly expressive of that. Superman cradled the chicken in his arms and wished it was Lois, but he knew he'd never fly with Lois again cradled in his arms, so the chicken would have to do. He took the chicken all the way to Kansas where he grew up as a boy (Superman, not the chicken). When Superman got home to Kansas, he gave the chicken to his mom, Martha Kent, not his real mom who was dead a long time ago when Krypton exploded, but the nicest mom in the whole world who didn't blow up and told her the chicken was a pet, and not for barbequing.

<Demi>

Wickedly, the wild wind whipped wildly through the tangled, twisted, turned-up treetops, tumbling like tiny turnips over Superman's tasteless toupe and forcing the chattering chicken, still chilly from flight, to crow as though he weren't really in drag. But there was nothing left of the smoldering, simmering sandblasted soul of Superman's Kryptonite mother now, and so he mourned. (Superman, not the chicken). Mourned for mornings of breakfast sausages and chicken soup. He tightened his grip on the chilly, reminder of Lois, who wasn't a chicken, but then again, neither was he.

Superman (not the chicken) flew off after leaving the chicken (not Superman) with his mother (not his mother), to go back and howl at the storm, that tore at his heart like angry wolves.

Lois had noticed that the Man of Steel hadn't come to visit lately. She wondered if he knew that she was sacrificing herself to Lex to make up for the deep, dank, dark pit left in her heart, with the knowledge that she could never have him. Lois felt the wild and whipping winds (they reached farther than Superman had realized) and as she stood like a princess in a tower on Lex's balcony. She looked down, and to her surprise, she saw a chicken flying up through the air (not Superman's chicken, another chicken). Of course, Lois was more concerned about the safety of the chicken more than her own, so naturally she climbed on top of the balcony rail to try and catch the chicken and bring (him? her?) out of the wild, whipping, willful, wicked wind.

Lois flailed her arm wildly as she fell through wild, windy, blustery air. She kept her arm wrapped around the chicken.(not Superman's chicken. Her chicken) and screamed her heart into the wind.

"Help, Superman."

Superman heard the scream with his heart as he flew through the turbulent, tossing clouds. He flew faster than a speeding bullet to catch his love before she crashed into the waiting ground, just missing a taxi. As he lowered her to the drenched and soggy pavement, he clutched his heart and screamed, "Oh no! Kryptonite!"

Lois put down the chicken (hers, not Superman's) and put her hands on Superman's S. "For real, Superman? Kryptonite?"

Superman looked at her sternly, not because she'd put down the chicken which was now lost in traffic and in worse danger from the storm, but because she touched his S like she meant it. "No, Lois, not *real* Kryptonite, that green deadly rock from my planet that exploded and my parents (not the Kents) sent me here, but *you!*"

Lois looked surprised like when you step off a curb you think is really higher than it is, but it isn't, so you kind of stumble and look surprised. "Are you comparing me to Kryptonite, Superman?" she asked sadly.

"Yes, Lois, Kryptonite of the heart. It's like when we were told in school not to chew on our pencils because of lead poisoning but we thought the teacher meant the graphite part not the lead in the paint."

Lois nodded knowingly. "So we thought it was safe to keep chewing the paint part as long as we didn't chew the graphic and we were getting sick like I make your heart sick like Kryptonite makes your body sick."

"Exactly!" Superman said sternly and folded his arms over his S so she couldn't touch it anymore.

Lois was confused like she was still caught in the wind that whipped around the Lex penthouse building, her mind was a cyclone of emotions that could pierce a telephone pole like a straw could in a hurricane like she'd seen on the Discovery Channel. "Why are you saying these mean things to me, Superman," she cried but her tears were mixed with the rain so Superman couldn't tell.

Superman had to be careful, he forgot Lois had turned him down as Clark Kent, her partner at the Daily Planet when he confessed his love for her and not Superman who she confessed her love to, but he got mad and flew away, so Superman had to think fast. "You broke Clark's heart, and that made me mad, he's my friend and Lex isn't and he's bad." (Lex, not Clark)

"Oh, Superman! How can you say that???" Lois wailed into the wild wailing wind that was wrestling her hair into a Half Nelson. "When you say things like that, it's like my own Kryptonite, but I mean, not MY Kryptonite, but a Kryptonite type thing that would hurt me, like Kryptonite hurts you! And it's a terrible thing when Kryptonite hurts you, so just think what it would do to me? I mean, a Kryptonite type thing to me, of course."

Superman stood in the street, up from the sidewalk, down from the curb, in front of Lois, behind some parked cars, steely. His eyes were steely, his arms were steely, he looked just like the Man of Steel would look, if he were a steel statue.

"Lois! I would never hurt you! Why do you say things like that that hurt my feelings?" And Superman plopped down in the street, in the middle of the typhoon like storm that was eating up his heart. And started crying.

Not blubbering like a little kid crying when he skins his knee, because he was Superman, you know, and Superman could never get a skinned knee, unless someone made some sort of scraper thing with some Kryptonite they found and scraped Superman's knee with it.

Then Lois was sad, because Superman was sitting in the middle of the street with cars whizzing all around him, and she thought that didn't look like the best place to sit, in the middle of the street, and it made her want to hug him.

Superman, oblivious of the cars and the chicken (Lois' chicken, not Superman's) still floating around, continued to sob. He heard Lois say something or other, but through the haze in his head and the whipping, whistling, whining wild wind, he was unable to hear her. He chose not to use his superhearing, too.

For a moment, Lois really couldn't decide who needed more attention....her chicken or Superman (who was kind of acting like a chicken, in some ways). Then she realized the cars wouldn't hurt Superman, but would hurt the chicken, so she blindly ran into the street to save the chicken. Again.

Through the torrent of tears that teamed in Superman's eyes, and the shattering sounds that so broke his concentration, he didn't even realize what was going on. Fortunately, the chicken [the chicken chicken, not Superman] was behind Superman. So when the oncoming car that careening for Lois traveled down the street, it hit Superman first, which immediately stopped it [the car, not Superman].

Lois shrieked in surprise, which came at about the same time Superman decided to re-activate his superhearing. So now he was super deaf in one ear.

Superman grabbed Lois, surprising another shriek out of her and deafening his other ear. He flew up into the tossing, turbulent, shrieking wind. It was a good thing he was deaf. He flew faster than a speeding bullet to his apartment and landed on his tastefully decorated balcony.

Lois finally caught her breath. "What are we doing here, Superman?"

"Huh" Speak up. I can't hear you."

Lois screamed in his shell like ear." I SAID, WHY ARE WE AT CLARK"S APARTMENT?"

"Huh?"

Lois gave up and stalked like a panther into Clark's bachelor decorated living room. Superman followed in a romantic daze. He was going to tell her his big, earth shaking, really secret secret right now, but he wished he could hear her bell like voice.

Lois was grumbling as she followed the love of her life, even if he didn't know it. She suddenly remembered the chicken. Her chicken, the one she had saved, but they had left it in the street to be run over by whizzing taxicabs and limos like the one Lex had. She caught up with Superman just as he opened his secret, but not from his real parents, his Kansas parents, closet.

Superman turned and looked at Lois, she was so beautiful, he suddenly felt his boots filling up with wetness, but that's because his cape was still really wet and was dripping. He had to tell her the secret, so he could get it over with and have Lois love him in glasses or a cape or even a wet cape, just so she'd love him, but Lois stared in the closet and was shocked, almost electrically so.

"Superman," she said in that voice that was soft and not yelling, but Superman couldn't hear her, but could read her luscious, glistening lips that looked like mandarin orange slices on a beautiful saucer which was her face.

"What, Lois?" He queried.

"What are your costumes doing in Clark's closet in a secret compartment that I've never seen before as many times as I've been here even when Perry White was hiding there?"

"Lois, I can read your lips, but that was harder than I thought."

Lois who didn't want to repeat what she'd just said because she couldn't remember all of it anyway, walked over to the costumes and pointed to them and shrugged. A light bulb went on over Superman's head like happens in cartoons and he said "Oh, you want to know what my costumes are doing in Clark's closet in a secret compartment that you've never seen before as many times as you've been here even when Perry was hiding there...right?"

Lois nodded as if to say yes, and so Superman said "There's a good reason for that, Lois," he said and made a pregnant pause which hasn't anything to do with pregnancy oddly enough. That pause was frightening to Lois, there were so many reasons his costumes could be in Clark's closet, but none of them seemed good and one seemed truly disappointing. "I have my costumes in this closet because it is *my* closet, Lois." Lois's eyebrows started worming their way up her forehead. "Your closet? Does he share the dresser too?" Superman laughed, but that kind of ironic laugh that isn't laughing 'ha ha' but the kind of 'man, does she need puppets now?' kind of laugh.

"No," his voice thundered rivaling the real thunder outside and even the chicken (Lois's, not Superman's back in Kansas with his mom, not the one who blew up on Krypton) "This is my closet, my floor, my couch, my TV, my bookshelf, my.." "Okay, okay," Lois sighed, "It's all yours, Superman, so I guess that means Clark moved away when I broke his heart, and he's subletting?"

Loises face was beat red, (not beet like the vegetable), but like she'd been beat up, which, in a way, was how she felt, all beat up inside, trying to figure all this stuff out. Which was better than being all beet up inside, because then when you go to the bathroom, everything's just all red. And that's gross. So she was almost happier she was beat up, instead of beet looking, but it wasn't helping her figure out where her poor chicken was.

Anyway, Superman was talking, and so she should listen. "Lois, if I'm subletting Clark's apartment, because you broke his heart, then I'm subletting his heart, too, because mine's broken inside, like it was punctured with acupuncture needles, as previously mentioned in a previous part of this story."

"Oh, Superman, why is your sublet heart broken and punctured? Do you need a transplant? I don't know where we can get another alien heart, but I saw on the Discovery Channel where baboon hearts are pretty close."

Superman shook his head from side to side, first to the right side, because even though he was from another planet, he was right-handed, like 90% of Earth people, and then to the left, because that was the other side he could shake his head to, and he had to shake his head, because Lois didn't get it.

"Lois, my heart is broken like a Ming vase (he said vase the snobby way, "vaaahhhz" like he was some high-falutin' kind of guy that thought vaaahhzes were better than vases which rhyme with bases), It's broken because you broke it, like you broke Clark's."

"I didn't break you heart, you broke mine!" Lois cried loudly, even though they were inside out of the storm where the wind whipped and wailed like banshees on a bad hair day. "And you lost my chicken!" Lois poked him in the chest, like someone who pokes someone to make a point.

"Oh no, Kryptonite!" Superman cried.

Superman blew a small stream of air at her to push her away. "Tempus was right! You are galactically stupid!"

Lois looked at him puzzled. "Who in the world is Tempus? You're pulling weird names out of thin air now?"

Superman smacked himself in the forehead, but not hard enough to cause himself any damage. "Of course...you don't remember Tempus yet. That hasn't happened...won't happen for another two years yet. Oh, what have I done?!"

"Why is this person calling me galactically stupid? Because of my chicken, which you have lost?"

Superman was very, very, very tempted to give up and just let Lois remain galactically stupid. And she wouldn't give up on this chicken! He wished her chicken was safe like his chicken was, back in Kansas, with his Earth mother, not his Kryptonian mother, so they could just get past that issue.

In the silence, Lois began to poke Superman again, waiting for her explanation as to why this stranger who she had no clue about was calling *her* of all people galactically stupid.

"Ah! Kryptonite!" He moved back and away. "You need to stop doing that, Lois. You'll never get an answer out of me if you keep poking me."

"The chicken," Lois answered without hesitation.

Superman sighed. "Somehow, I knew that's what you would say." He scooped Lois up and flew her, again faster than a speeding bullet, to where they had seen the chicken last.

They arrived just in time to see Nigel, Lex Luthor's valet or majordomo, or whatever the hell he was scoop up the chicken and put it into Lex's limo.

Lois clutched Superman around his muscular, but not too muscular neck. "Oooh," she squealed, deafening the nearest ear, "Lex has the chicken. He'll take care of it."

Superman looked at Lois. This was the woman he loved? The one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with? The one he wanted to bear his children? He looked again. Her luscious lips were inches from his cheek. Her soft breasts were pressing into his chest. His hands were cradling her thighs. Oh yeah. This was what he wanted. Who cared if she was galactically stupid? Who cared if she thought a weasel like Luthor was a real philanthropist?

She was the woman he loved. "Lois, the chicken is safe for now." He had visions of Lex asking Asabi to barbeque it. He could always get another chicken. She wouldn't know the difference.

"Lois, there's something you should know." He let go of her long enough to spin into his Clark clothes, forgetting they were airborne in a raging storm.

Lois plunged earthward , screaming loud enough to wake the dead. "Oops," Clark said and plunged after her, catching her just in time to avoid another taxi.

They landed in the middle of the street as the traffic screeched around them, causing fender benders everywhere. "Oooh. I get it," Lois squealed. "You're Clark."

"Are you surprised?" Clark asked apprehensively and partially defensively because he was utterly in the open like. He did have to pick her up and carry her to the sidewalk after flying debris from the many car wrecks were scratching her up here and there though.

"Clark, I love you!" She blurted with enthusiasm as she stanched the flow of blood from one of her flesh wounds.

"Are you just saying that because you know I'm Superman too?" He asked in a boyish way and that was good because he wasn't girlish in any manner.

She kissed him hard. She kissed him really really hard, so hard that his soft full lips parted, and Lois was able to jab her tongue into his mouth as if to say, this bud's for you! Clark's head was spinning, figuratively speaking or Lois's tongue would have been cut off. Lois pulled from the kiss breathlessly and the sound was like a plunger unclogging a sink, it would have stopped traffic if the many accidents hadn't done that already. "Well, Clark, does it matter if I love you just because you're Superman?"

"Who's Clark?" He asked, and reset the plunger. They lived a lie, but they lived it happily ever after.

THE END