Chapter 8
Clark slept soundly. For the first time in days, the noise in his mind had ceased--banished by the warmth of Lois' skin, and the comforting press of her body.
His dreams were of her. And they were good dreams. He dreamed of the way she felt in his arms, the way her face lit up every morning when he brought her coffee, and the kisses they had shared.
***
Lois smiled softly, reveling in the warmth against her cheek and the faint smell of Clark’s cologne, woodsmoke and...wait. It was more smoky than cologne. She opened her eyes and stilled for a moment as her mind reconciled the dreamworld with the real world. She was sleeping next to Clark. Well, on Clark, sort of. Snuggled up next to him.
He’d come back. She’d known he would, but her heart had been afraid all the same. Another deep breath in rewarded her with the citrus-and-something-or-other of the motel shampoo and that hint of smoke, which made sense since he’d been out in the smoke-filled air for God knows how long. He must have showered and changed before crawling into bed.
She had a half a memory of him coming to bed and her instinctively seeking him out. She’d needed that shoulder, that chest. She’d needed his comfort, his arm around her like always, except not exactly like always because now they were lying down in bed instead of snuggled on his couch.
She'd needed him to hold her, and he had. Of course he had, she tried telling her heart. That was the one thing, if nothing else, she could still count on: Clark had always been there for her when she'd really needed him.
She prayed that Clark would now let her be there for him, let her be as good a friend to him as he’d been to her. And she dared hope that they could salvage what was left of their friendship. She needed him in her life; her heart could admit that much.
If she closed her eyes, it was so easy to pretend that he was hers, that they always did this, and that she had every right to wake up in his arms. Maybe once upon a time he'd wanted that, to be so close and so intimate with her. Now she wasn't so sure.
Her hand wandered before she could stop it, caressing the hard muscles of his chest that hid beneath his soft t-shirt. He moaned softly in his sleep and she froze. She'd be lying to herself if she'd said that had no effect on her, that her mind hadn't flashed to the first time they'd been in a hotel bed together.
She needed to get up.
Closing her eyes, she breathed in his scent deeply one last time before she gently lifted his arm so she could move away. He didn't stir, and she was half disappointed. But she needed a shower and some time to think about what to say, not to mention a strategy for surviving the car ride home. Plus, he looked so exhausted, not quite peaceful in his sleep, she didn't have the heart to wake him.
So, friends. She sat up on her side of the bed and glanced back over at him, his face dimly lit by the glow of the parking lot lights bleeding through around the edges of the curtains. Already, she was mourning the loss of his warmth and the security of his embrace. And the feel of his body next to hers. It would be a bad idea to snuggle back up and forget the world, right?
She'd been fortunate last night to sleep in his arms. That was unlikely to ever happen again. She needed to forget about her feelings, for their sake. For his sake.
Lois scooted off the bed gently and padded over to the bathroom. She entered blindly, not flipping the switch until she'd closed the door behind her, so as not to wake Clark with the light.
***
In his dreams he was a normal man in love and the feel of her--so present in his arms gave him peace.
And then suddenly everything shifted. One moment she was secure in his arms and the next she was gone. And with that, his dreams shifted too…
Suddenly he was surrounded by a darkness so oppressive, it stole his breath away. Images assaulted him so rapidly he could hardly make sense of them all.
Lois' face every time he ran out on her.
A raging fire that he was powerless to put out.
Ten bodies stacked neatly on top of one another--their glassy eyes looking right through him.
The sound of the bomb that killed Mayson Drake, her body going limp in his arms.
Being ten seconds too late.
Lois' disappointment in him.
Though some part of him knew it wasn't real, he was unable to force himself awake, which only increased his panic.
A claustrophobic feeling overtook him--as if the walls were closing in on him. Dingy motel room walls covered with flames.
He felt the smoke coat his throat and he clutched it as he gasped for breath. The room was hot and he couldn't see anything. He knew he had to get out, but his feet were rooted to the spot.
And that's when he saw her and felt his heart freeze with terror. In the middle of the hotel room right next to the bed, surrounded by flames was Lois.
***
She turned the handle on the shower, cringing at the creak it made and the rush of water that followed as she maneuvered it toward the H. She hoped Clark was a deep sleeper.
Could she do it? Work every day with him, next to him? Be his friend and nothing more while her heart ached with the knowledge of what she'd lost?
Is that what Clark had done?
<I want the same thing that you want. For us to be friends, partners. Forever.>
She'd tried to tell him then. But if she was honest with herself, surely she hadn't been ready then for anything more than friends. Had Clark known that? Is that why he'd said it? Or had he taken it back because she'd hurt him so badly? He had always seemed to know her better than she knew herself.
Except lately. They'd been so out of sync lately.
After testing the water and deeming it the right temperature, she shed her clothes and stepped into the shower. She spent only a few minutes washing her hair and body, and then she stood still, letting the hot, steady stream of water wash over her.
Today was going to be a long day, and she wasn't sure if her heart was ready for it. The water felt good against her skin, warming her muscles, but it did nothing to soothe the heavy feeling in her heart.
Clark needed a friend right now, nothing more. Whatever his issues with her were didn't matter. For some reason, he couldn't or wouldn't or didn't seem to want to have a romantic relationship with her anymore. As much as it pained her, she had to be the one to put a stop to their failing efforts at something more than partners and friends. She didn't have to be right this time.
***
He tried once more to run to her, but his feet refused to obey his commands and his screams were swallowed by the smoke and flame.
He could hear her calling out to him, arms outstretched as tears streaked down her smoke-stained face. He had never felt so powerless...so desperate.
And then, as if his prayers had been answered, Superman swooped down into the motel room and landed next to Lois. He would save her. He would get her out.
But he didn't.
Lois didn't even glance Superman's way, didn't seem to see him at all. Clark struggled as Superman watched the flames creep closer to Lois, his arms crossed and his face a mask of cold indifference.
"Save her!" he managed to croak, his voice cracked and haggard. "Superman! Get her out! Save her!"
But Superman did nothing and Lois couldn't see him. All she saw was Clark. His heart broke as she pleaded for help. Wild panic overtook him but his feet remained firmly fixed to the ground as the flames seemed to close around her.
He tried to scream her name but instead he choked on it.
Help me, he thought as he struggled desperately for consciousness. Lois, wake me up. Get me out. Help me!
***
She sighed heavily and turned off the shower, letting the last of the water run down her body before she wrung her hair and stepped out. She'd dried her body and was just toweling off her hair when she heard Clark groan and cry out.
What the heck? She finished quickly and threw her shirt, shorts, and underwear back on. When she emerged from the bathroom, she saw him rolling around in distress, fighting against the sheets. She inhaled sharply, feeling a sudden ache in her chest.
“Clark,” she called as she hurried to the bed. She wasn’t sure if he’d heard her or not, but he had stopped thrashing and was now just restless, tossing and turning his head and shoulders a bit.
She climbed back into bed and under the covers before she quite realised what she was doing. She hesitated, not sure if holding him was the right thing to do or not. But then his brow furrowed and he whimpered, and she was there, back in her spot on his chest.
***
And just as quickly as the nightmare came, it disappeared. He found himself inside his apartment, standing in front of his oven with a spatula in his hand and the familiar smell of scrambled eggs tickling his senses.
Lois stood in front of him wrapped in his bathrobe, her hair wet from what he imagined was the use of his shower. His subconscious cursed the fact that this was also clearly a dream.
"Those smell incredible," she said, moving closer into his arms. She took the spatula out of his hands and wrapped her arms around him.
Though he knew it was a fantasy, he couldn't believe how real it felt. The scent of her perfume mingled with the softness of her pressed against him in all the right places. Not to mention that bathrobe. What did she have on under it? How far would this dream go if he tried to find out?
"Lo-is," he said in mock complaint. "The eggs will burn if you keep distracting me."
"We wouldn't want that," she murmured, her voice a soft rumble against his neck. And though it was meant to be intimate, a thrill of fear suddenly coursed through him and he fought back images from the nightmare that preceded the dream. Dreams weren't always linear and he knew his mind could put him back there at any moment.
***
“...ois...” She heard him breathe out what could only have been her name, and he settled, his arm automatically circling around her back and shoulder to hold her tighter. She could feel him calming, the tension bleeding out of his body as she held him. For one minute. Two minutes. And he was sleeping again, his arm slackened and his breathing even.
She could only guess that he’d had a nightmare, no doubt reliving Mayson’s death. What was it like, how terrible was it to have someone die in your arms, especially someone you cared about?
Her mind flashed back again to that horrific night at Georgie Hairdo’s casino. She knew. She knew the shock and devastation, the helplessness. But she'd, miraculously, gotten Clark back. He'd gotten a second chance at life, and she'd gotten a second chance at…
She should have told him then.
She'd tried. She should have tried harder. Because she'd known it then, known it with certainty. But he'd fallen asleep and she'd lost her nerve the next day, afraid to risk the best thing in her life for something more. And then he'd backed off, given her room again. Always retreating when she was ready and willing.
She tilted her head back so she could look at his face. That face.
She’d only ever seen him sleeping a handful of times, she being the one who usually fell asleep first on movie nights and such. And come to think, she'd never seen him without his glasses. He looked different, especially with his face cast almost cinematically with soft light and shadows, but he was still her Clark all the same.
She was relieved. He looked so calm. So handsome. So perfect.
Had she lost him? Or was he just feeling lost? She knew she felt lost.
She saw his brow furrow again, and she reached up to caress it lightly, letting her fingers run gently down the soft skin of his cheek to the rough stubble along his jawline. She marveled at the fact that her touch calmed his features almost reflexively.
Her voice. Her closeness. Her touch. She had calmed him
That had to mean something, didn't it? That his body had reacted to her of its own volition? Just like when she was anxious or scared and he hugged her close to his chest, the sound and feel of his heartbeat calmed her so swiftly and absolutely. Did that mean more than friends, best friends? Even best friends as good as they were didn't have such a physical connection, did they? She didn't know.
She thought back to their first kiss, how her body had come alive. Was that to be their only kiss? She didn't think she could bear it if it was.
She raised her hand to his face again, cupping his cheek. Her thumb moved to brush across his lips, almost reverently. She felt the warmth of his exhale against the pad of her thumb and shivered slightly. She applied gentle pressure to his cheek, willing him to face her more fully.
Oh, Clark. What had she done? Could he ever forgive her? Could she ever forgive herself?
Her lips drifted towards his unwittingly, impulsively, and she kissed him. Gently. For goodbye, she told herself. Goodbye to what could have been, what would have surely been the best relationship of her life.
***
He wanted to stay here forever and never wake up. Especially since the feelings she was evoking in him were ones he had been denying himself for so long. His hands drifted down the sides of her body and he felt his own react. He wondered what it would feel like to kiss her in this dream state.
A moment later the question was answered as Lois leaned in, and pressed her lips lightly to him. It felt so real and Clark felt himself roused into a half-waking state.
Her hand drifted down to his chest and she began to pull away. He didn't know much about what was real and what was illusion, but he knew he couldn't let her go. He needed her.
***
Soft, gentle, and brief, it was over almost before it had started. And she was just starting to pull away, her hand falling to the relative safety of his chest, when his lips came back to meet hers, like a mirror echo of their first kiss. He must be half awake, half asleep; she must be dreaming, though she'd hardly felt more awake in her life.
She wasn't certain if she'd deepened this kiss or if he had, but she was almost sure he was awake now, as his hand had come up to cup her cheek and then he ran his fingers through her hair. He urged her closer with his touch on the back of her head as their lips met again and again.
***
Instinct took over as he pulled her close and deepened the kiss. Whatever vestiges of sleep remained melted away and he found that his entire body was suddenly on high alert. His heart hammered in his chest as her body pressed lightly closer to his and he found himself reaching for her, caressing her face and running his fingers through her hair.
This was better than any dream he'd ever had and all the reasons why he shouldn't be doing this melted away in the face of one simple truth: she was kissing him back.
Deeply. Eagerly. Passionately. Her heart was racing in time to his and he shifted his body ever so slightly so that she couldn't tell just how much he was affected by her touch. This was too new, too fragile.
He never wanted it to end and yet he feared it would if she saw just how much he wanted it. Wanted her.
Needed her.
He felt overwhelmed by that need--so raw and demanding. He wondered if she could sense it in his kiss because she eventually pulled away, and their eyes met as he fought to regain some sense of control.
"Clark, she said and he couldn't mistake the breathless way she said his name. His entire body hummed with anticipation as he drank in the features of her face, flushed from his kisses. "You're awake."
***
After an eternity--or had it been a second?--their lips parted and she risked looking up into his heavy-lidded eyes. "Clark," she breathed. "You're awake."
She held his gaze and her breath as she waited for his reaction. She hadn't meant to…it was just supposed to be a quick, final kiss. And he'd…and then…
For a moment, he didn't speak, but the electricity seemed to arc along the small distance between them. "Lois…" came his reply, breathy and almost desperate.
She searched for both the questions and the answers in his deep, brown eyes and found a spark of desire and…something more?
***
He waited for the anger he knew was sure to come. Despite the fact that she'd kissed him first and with an eagerness that both surprised and aroused him, he couldn't help but brace himself for the anticipated rejection.
Instead, he was shocked to see desire where there should be fury, heat when she should be ice cold.
He didn't deserve her, but oh man did he want her. He didn't know if it was because of what he'd just gone through with the fire or because he was still exhausted, but he was no longer able to find a reason not to kiss her.
He felt an almost desperate need to feel her against him again--as if she alone was capable of banishing the nightmares, both waking and asleep.
He wanted to tell her all these things and more, but instead, his voice murmured her name as if it were both a prayer and a plea.
"Lois…"
***
She didn't have time to think about it before his lips were back on hers, his fingers threaded through her still slightly damp hair. His body shifted against hers, turning so that they were facing each other, and sent a shock of pleasure down her spine. Her hand wound around his neck to help pull him closer as he continued his intoxicating assault of her mouth, her tongue, her lips.
She felt his hand move torturously slow over her shoulder, down her arm, and finally settling at her waist. Instinctively, she moved her hips closer to his, even as he was moving his hand to the small of her back to urge her toward him.
A small, almost undetectable voice at the back of her mind protested, reminding her that she was supposed to be pulling back, salvaging their friendship, saying the hard words that he was too kind to tell her. But this…this was…
She thrilled at his uninhibited exploration of her, her body alive and tingling everywhere. Everything in his actions, the way he was holding her, kissing her...silenced that voice. This is what she'd needed, wanted, some sign from him that he was still as invested as she was. That he did want her. That he needed her like she needed him.
***
She didn't say anything, but the feel of her lips on his told him everything he needed to know. He stifled a moan as he ran his hands through her hair.
Bolts of heat shot through him as their kiss deepened and his hand moved of its own accord slowly down the curve of her hip. She whimpered into his kiss which only served to drive him crazy.
Her skin was warm and slightly salty from the thin sheen of sweat. She was like a live wire, all electricity and heat. He wanted to disappear into that heat--to give himself over completely to the sensations she was eliciting until he couldn't tell where he ended and she began. His hand settled on her waist, and he felt her press herself flush against him, urging him closer. His body complied, and Clark stifled a groan as his fingers tightened against her waist. He wanted more. His normally hard-fought sense of control seemed to desert him entirely once their lips had touched.
His senses were overwhelmed with the feel of her. It was as if their bodies were finally able to say the things to one another that their words had been unable to. She was everything he imagined she would be and more. She kissed him with an urgency that surprised him and he responded in kind.
Logically, he knew all the reasons this couldn’t happen--shouldn’t happen. And yet, in this moment with her body pressed tightly against him, he was unable to think of a single one. The only thought his brain was able to process was the way she felt under his hands, soft curves and sharp angles mixed together. It was the way she seemed to writhe against him, as if their bodies couldn’t get close enough. It was the way all the air seemed to leave the room as he claimed her lips over and over again in long, deep, intimate kisses.
The room was filled with the sounds of gasps, sighs, and near-desperate moans as Clark felt his desire for her climb to new heights. She had to know how much he wanted her--had to feel the evidence of his need pressed insistently against her. Instead of repelling her, it only seemed to spur her on, and he felt her hands exploring his body as well, moving slowly down his chest.
He drew a sharp intake of breath as her fingers lightly grazed the skin under his t-shirt. Her touch felt like a brand and he fought to maintain his self-control. All he could think of was how badly he wanted to touch her--skin to skin. How badly he needed to be one with her.
She was the only one who could chase the nightmares away.
He was rapidly losing all sense of self-restraint as her lips found their way to his neck, her tongue and teeth kissing and softly nibbling their way down his skin. He bit back a hiss of pleasure at the feel of her. His trembling fingers slid the top of her t-shirt down over her shoulder, where he proceeded to leave a string of kisses all over her skin.
Her breath was coming in short pants, and he knew she was just as affected as he was. He bit down ever so gently on her shoulder, and reached down to the bottom of her t-shirt.
His fingers found bare skin and he began to pull her shirt up when something caught his eye.
His duffel bag lay in the corner--a shock of blue covered in soot and ash as black as night peeked out of the top of the duffel. Superman’s black and bloodied suit.
Images invaded his mind all at once of fire and ruin, death and desperation. And then, as if he'd been bitten, he leaped off the bed and backed himself into the corner of the room, running a frantic hand through his hair as he did so.
He shook his head violently, trying to banish the images and regain control of his body, which was staging its own rebellion after being ripped so unceremoniously away from Lois.
His chest heaved as he fought for breath. Lois looked at him, worry etched into her features. Worry for him.
"What is it?" she asked, and he could tell that she, too, was still affected by the kiss. Her face was flushed and her chest rose and fell with her rapid breathing. It was all he could do not to crush her lips to his, in an attempt to forget. "Why did you stop?"
"I...I can't. This isn't....I mean we shouldn't." He wanted to tell her. All of it. But between the images that still threatened in the deepest corners of his mind and his blood flow being entirely redirected elsewhere, he found it near impossible to string together a proper sentence. "I shouldn't."
"Why?" He tried to ignore the hurt in her voice. It was like a knife to the heart. "Clark, please. Talk to me."
"I can't do this. I'm sorry." He hoped he sounded final. Resolute. And he must have, for he felt his heart crack in two as her face crumpled.
"Is it me?" she almost whispered, and he had never hated himself more for the self-doubt he saw in her eyes. "Is there something about me that...do you not...want me?"
He gave a harsh laugh.
"Lois, one look at the state of me should tell you I have never wanted anyone more." The moment he said it he regretted it especially as her eyes drifted below his waist and the most enticing faint blush covered her cheeks.
"Then why?" she pleaded. "What's stopping you?"
"I can't...You need to know." He shook his head fighting the onslaught of things he wanted to say to her. I need you. I love you. I am Superman. "You need to know the truth. I owe you that and I just..."
He trailed off and sunk down onto the bed, his head in his hands. "Lois?" he whispered, his voice small like a lost child. "I'm sorry."
