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Lois had dreamed about him for nearly as long as she could remember. She thinks the dreams started when her mom was sick, when she didn’t understand what dying really entailed.
They tried to keep her and Lucy in the dark as much as possible, her mom and the General, but the longer it went, the more she saw. Tall orange bottles multiplying, Mom spending more and more time locked in the bedroom. One day she left for the hospital and never came home again.
At first the dreams were a sense of dread. She’d wake up scared and confused, with no one to turn to when they came.
As a child, she didn’t have the words for how the dreams made her feel. She assumed the shadowy, faceless figure must have been a reaper, who took her mom and was now taunting the same fate in front of her.
But the older she got, the less she saw this figment starring in her dreams as something to fear, but instead as something entirely different.
The pillowing red cape, the occasional flash of sky blue, it all started to inspire something closer to comfort. Like a guardian angel who only showed hints of himself to her while she slept.
She saw less a dark, shadowy something, and more a someone. A man.
When she thought about it now, she didn’t see a figment of death— but instead one of life. A light in the dark.
The older she got, the closer he came, little by little, until she became familiar with the quick brush of his skin, until she found safety in the feel of strong arms whooshing in and saving her from harm. A large, warm hand pressed to her shoulder, and a smell of something manly and foreign and yet uncannily similar to the only place she’s ever really felt completely safe, the farmhouse kitchen after Mrs. K has cooked dinner. And somehow, all that just culminated to home.
She had thought this was all just a figment of her subconscious, creating a mystical savior to anchor her in dreams, as her days became increasingly chaotic.
At least, that’s what she had thought until this savior walked out of the recesses of her mind and into reality.
Slowly, surely, this hero that had dug his heels protectively into the city of Metropolis, who had chosen her out of all those who undoubtedly were vying for his attention to trust, had merged with her nighttime hero. And he had been there every time she had needed him in her waking hours ever since.
So when Clark, sweet, good-natured, perpetually closed off Clark, asked her if he himself would be enough for her if the Blur and the purpose he brought to her life were to disappear, she was at a crossroads. Because he was. Absolutely he was. If this was just about who she wanted, about what arms she wanted to wake up in each morning for the rest of her life, it was undoubtedly the ones that belonged to the man she knew as her partner and best friend. Her boyfriend, whether she ever said that title out loud or not.
But she couldn’t help but feel that she was meant for a greater purpose than writing about other people doing important things, that she could be doing more in the time she spent watching movies and eating ice cream off of one spoon on the couch with Clark.
She was in love with Clark Kent— but she couldn’t help but believe her true purpose, for the greater good of the city and the world, lied in being the Blur’s closest confidante.
Even with the voice modifier he had to use to protect her from discovering his identity, she still could make out the fear and loneliness the strongest man in the world shouldered all on his own. And she’d do anything she could to help lessen that burden for her mystery hero. For the sake of the world, sure, but mostly just because he was a person, and a wonderful one at that. One she could tell anything, more than she’d even want Clark to ever know about or see.
She couldn’t be selfish. She couldn’t pick her own happiness over what would be best for everyone. For the world.
She had a strong connection, a once in a lifetime kind, with both men. Both were kind, and heroic to the height of their capacity. They were similar in a way Lois couldn’t articulate in words. It was no wonder she had such strong feelings and cared so deeply for each of them. To the point where she felt like she was cheating on Clark, even though her relationship with the Blur never wavered into romance, the lengths to which she’d bared her soul felt inappropriate.
And in her dreams, new ones that involved lips and exposed skin and a red sun, the two men had became one. Clark’s face, the Blur’s strength, their shared stoicism, all rolled into one perfect man that she loved so much it scared her.
If only she could merge them the same way in real life.