InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Eating oranges is cannibalism!"

Flying was Kal’s favourite thing to do, so it was no wonder it featured frequently in his dreams. The sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier never failed to put a smile on his face and he let his speed open up fully, hurtling toward the ocean and sending up spray as he passed by, just centimetres from the surface. When the lights of Metropolis came into view he slowed, heading for a quieter part of the shore, spiralling upward for the sheer fun of it, then floating lightly back down, feeling gravity trying to speed up his descent, but denying it's hold.

Blue.

That's what Matt was seeing.

He'd forgotten it almost completely: the dizzying expanse of sky above him, broken up by clouds and rapidly approaching nightfall; the muted gray-blue of the water beneath him, stretching out to a darker blue at the horizon. From this height, he could make out the curvature of the Earth.

A pressure built steadily behind his eyes, but he still turned, twisting in the air. The shape of the city behind him wasn't familiar. Even so, the buildings held the kind of depth he hadn't experienced since he was a kid. Shadows stretched everywhere, and so did light, gloriously varied in yellows, blues, and reds.

Another shape filtered into his awareness, making him look over. He knew the outline, but now more specifics were colored in— literally. "Clark?"

A familiar voice calling his name wasn’t unusual in his dreamscape, but usually it was someone who belonged there. Lois and Richard in Metropolis, or his Mom and Lana in Smallville. Settling into a hover, he looked across and smiled when his gaze settled on Matt. "Yes, that’s me."

This was the first time he’d dreamed of anyone from San Francisco, but it figured that he would do so eventually, especially as his friendships grew stronger. Letting the offshore breeze push him closer to his friend, he swept his hand across the vista before them. "And this is Metropolis, my home city."

Then suddenly the full picture registered and his eyes widened. "You’re flying."

Blue eyes to match the skies around them. A stab of pain made him wince, but Matt couldn't stop staring all around. Thankfully, the revelation of his own gravity defying didn't reassert the force's control; he remained aloft, bobbing on air currents alongside his friend. "I'll do you one better: I'm seeing for the first time in decades. This is your dream, right?"

"You can see?" Clark was so used to Matt being hyper aware of his surroundings even without sight that he’d pointed out his city without really thinking. The reporter in him had a thousand questions but he only allowed two. "But it’s been decades?"

Probably looking a little silly, Matt floated around in a circle. Everything was so breathtakingly beautiful, and he couldn't look away even though he knew he was experiencing the worst case of eyestrain somewhere out in the waking world. (Most likely his bed, since that's where he remembered being. He'd be worse for wear if he was face first on some rooftop instead. Wouldn't have been the first time.) "Since I was eight. That's when the accident happened. A bad multi-car wreck, and a chemical spill right across my eyes after I pushed someone out of the way. Last thing I saw was my dad's face."

The last bit of information came out choked. Even that was growing harder and harder to recall as the years slid by. He turned back. "The only thing I can imagine about all this is it's probably because it's your dream. I'm seeing the way you do, instead of how I normally do. It's—" Matt swallowed thickly. "It's beautiful."

He hadn't asked about Matt's blindness before now, unwilling to make his friend recall past trauma or pain, but he listened carefully as his friend explained what had happened. Unable to even imagine what it must have felt like to have his sight taken away. Or how he had managed to come to terms with the loss and become the crime fighter he was today. "Even at that age you were saving people." Clark's tone was warm with admiration, "I'm sorry that happened to you."

Taking in the varying hues of the ocean and sky, Clark couldn't agree more with the statement. Earth was beautiful, vivid, while Krypton had been paler. "Alien eyes probably have different lenses?" Clark bobbed in a mid-air approximation of a shrug. "Can you see through me? You can fly, and it's my dream, so maybe you have my other abilities too." His words picked up pace slightly as new ideas popped into his head. "Which means you can fly fast and go all the way up too."

People were, in general, endlessly fascinated by his blindness, but most people never felt comfortable enough to ask. He didn't mind sharing when the curiosity was genuine, and that was Clark down to a T. Matt shrugged, and was a little amused at the way it moved him through the air. "I wouldn't be who I am today if it hadn't happened. As weird and counterintuitive as it probably sounds, I wouldn't actually go back and change anything. Well, maybe I'd make sure fewer people got hurt because of what happened, but what's life without regret?"

As soon as Clark made the suggestion, Matt's vision shifted. All at once, he got an impression of muscle and skeleton before he shut his eyes tightly. He had enough red in his life and didn't want a return to that. It took a force of will, but he felt the moment it was okay to look around again. "Well, that was interesting. Have you always been able to control it? All the things you can do? No wonder you also went into the hero-ing business." He grinned at his friend. "If I'm like you for now, what do you say you show me all the sights?"

"Oh, sorry, I should have warned you." Kal rubbed the back of his neck, apology written clear in his expression. X-ray vision could sometimes be a little gory. "Not always, while I was growing up I would do things without meaning to. The heat vision was particularly uncontrollable during puberty. Actually, being a superhero wasn't something I really considered until I was an adult. I just wanted to be normal when I was at school, and play football."

Drifting with the breeze along the coast, he pointed out a house on the waterfront, where a sea plane bobbed against a jetty built at the edge of the yard. "My family lives there." His gaze focused on the building for a moment, seeing through the walls to pick out each person inside, Richard and Jason already seated at the dining table, Lois running through from the office to join them.

Diverting his gaze back to Matt, he smiled, "But houses are dull, let me show you a view I never get tired of." Giving a wink he propelled himself upward, soaring in an arc over the city as he headed for the darker swathes of sky above. The air started to thin the further he flew, but it didn't bother him in the slightest, just let him fly faster and a boom cracked the atmosphere in his wake. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Matt keeping pace alongside him and he laughed in delight at having a companion capable of doing so.

Matt wished he could have held back the light snicker at the remark about Clark's teenage years, but it just didn't happen. With a slight wave of his hand, he sent his friend a contrite smile. "Sorry, sorry. It's not really funny, I know. Imagine being blind and still worried about acne. Probably not the same scale you're talking, but all our growing pains were traumatic while we lived them, right?"

Clark didn't seem interested in trying to visit the house he'd pointed out, and Matt thought he'd probably feel the same in his shoes. If this was real and it was the crappy apartment he'd shared with his dad, no force on Earth or otherwise could have stopped him. Dreams were memories that got twisted up by the whims of one's subconscious. Sometimes they could be pleasant and mundane, but they remained a sort of tease. At the end of the day, it wasn't real. Matt thought better about reaching out to offer his sympathy.

Whatever Clark's dream was supposed to be, Matt was doing his best not to turn it maudlin. He was, after all, a visitor.

"Looks nice," was all he commented before he was pulled along Clark's flight path at speed. He got the sense he could move under his own power if he wanted, could take off in whatever direction he fancied, but this wasn't his world, so sticking with his friend seemed like the smartest thing to do. Especially when the air began to thin, and Matt had to do his best not to panic.

He waited for his lungs to protest and his skin to register the cold and pressure. They never did. Besides, he was then far too busy exploding (not literally) into impossible speeds and watching the globe beneath him become a streak of colors and shapes. Matt let out a whoop of glee. Somehow, it didn't simply tear out of his mouth and get lost in the sound barrier. "I can't believe you get to do this all the time!"

"They definitely felt traumatic at the time." Kal agreed, High school had definitely been a long four years. Especially when you had to hide who you really were. He smiled at the little chuckle, not offended at all.

Matt's excitement was infectious and his smile didn't slip as they slipped free of the thermosphere and into the much colder exosphere. The lack of oxygen was no problem for him and naturally that applied to Matt while in his dream. "I know, I'm so lucky." Humans, aside from a select few, never got to see the earth as he did, and he wanted to share the spectacular view with his friend. Coming to a complete stop, he twisted in place to look back on the green and blue orb hanging in space.

"I come up here to recharge," He explained, gesturing to the sun, "It's easier to absorb the energy without all those layers between me and it. The view isn't bad either."

Even with the constant reminders to himself that this was a dream, Matt kept waiting for his body to panic at the cold and lack of air. He couldn't really feel either. He kept breathing like normal and didn't feel much beyond an average room temperature. Back in the waking world, he was probably wrapped up in Phil. He couldn't wait to tell his partner about the big blue and green marble spread out in front of him.

"Not bad is an understatement," he murmured, then turned a wry smile in Clark's direction. "Makes you want to bring everyone up here to show them how small we all are. Not that I think it'll make a lasting impression, but it might give some people some much needed perspective. Must get frustrating to do so much, and yet there's always some new issue or problem you have to fly off to—usually manmade, if I'm guessing right. I was only watching over a couple of blocks in Manhattan. I can't imagine an entire world."

"It definitely is." Clark chuckled, "You’d think I’d have thought of a more fitting description, considering my day job."

An expression of melancholy flitted across his face at the truth in Matt’s words and he nodded. Humanity thought of thousands of ways to destroy itself and its planet over the centuries. Sometimes he felt as if he was fighting a never ending battle against the very people he was trying to protect. "There is so much potential down there for good, but in many cases somehow along the way, it’s warped into something short of that."

Looking across at his friend, he guessed he’d experienced the same in his world. The same could probably be said for most of the people drawn to San Francisco from their native universes. There would always be good and bad, but there was also hope, which was what he held on to.

"Are you hungry? Ma’s just baked brownies." It was a familiar dream scenario, and a comforting one, which felt right to share with Matt. "But be prepared for a culture shock, there are no brownstones for you to fall off of in Smallville. Maybe a barn."

Matt could have let himself fall into a spiral of guilt and frustration about the constant grind of trying to keep good people safe, but Clark semed to have just the right way of getting him out of his own head. The whole dream vista in front of him definitely helped. It looked real enough that he could almost believe he'd actually be able to taste the promised baked goods. And it didn't matter to him that it wasn't likely; all Matt cared about was this brief respite from a world on fire.

With a low chuckle, but a growing grin, Matt nodded toward the blue and green marble below them. "I think you underestimate my ability to fall off things, Clark. You're right, though. I'm not sure I know what to do with open farmland with no buildings over three storeys. But meeting your mom? Couldn't think of a better way to end this whole experience."