Whumptober Day 29!

Link to the Ao3:https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86685436

Title: Insomnia - Lois

Prompt: No. 29 ‘All Work, And No Play’ - “You’re still not dead?”, too weak to move, overworked

Word Count: 1289

Lois Joanne Lane was a night owl to the nth degree, though oddly enough, this was something of a recent development. Growing up in a military family, getting up with the sun had been a daily part of life and continued to be that way up until her second year of university when a combination of events including a midterm paper, a karaoke party, and what under highly specific circumstances could be considered a car chase suddenly revealed the truth: Lois got her best work done at one in the morning when there were no idiots around to bother her.

Her sleep schedule shifted drastically after that, and though it was a pain in the ass for a week or three as she tried to rearrange her classes to be mostly confined to the afternoon, it was around then that her professors discovered that damn, could this madwoman write. Lois rarely got to bed before two am, spending her evenings (and half of her nights) writing the articles, essays, reports, pieces, and works that would firmly establish her as one of the best journalists to come out of that university in nearly twelve years.

The habit continued, staying with her long after college and well into her first internship, then onwards and upwards to the bullpen of the world-renowned Daily Planet. Lois worked the typical nine-to-five bit in the office, ordered takeout (usually Chinese, but she had recently discovered an Indian restaurant on 5th and Barnes that had some mean curry), then began doing the investigative part of investigative reporting. Depending on the story, that could last long into the night but there would always be a bit of time and coffee-fueled energy left for Lois to return to her apartment and compile whatever notes she had procured into a nearly-legible Word document before passing out on her couch. The coworkers who didn’t call her ‘Mad Dog’ Lane for her tenacious passion for the work had started nicknaming her ‘Batwoman’, and to be perfectly honest, she couldn’t disagree with them. She loved working late and though it probably wasn’t the healthiest way to live her life, Lois found that she honestly didn’t give a fuck as long as it put her on the high road towards a Pulitzer Prize.

Unfortunately, being a night owl did not make Lois invulnerable to the bane of every writer’s existence - lack of inspiration caused by exhaustion.

She had been living off of four hours of sleep every night for a good week at this point, and it was finally starting to show - mostly in the bags under her eyes, but more worryingly in the fact that even a triple-shot espresso didn’t give her much more than a mild buzz. The worst had come to the worst: coffee had stopped working, and now Lois’ insomniac ass was just plain ol’ tired.

Most, if not all of her late night writing was done either at her dining room table or her couch, surrounded by piles of notes and empty coffee cups while the news played in the background to drown out any distractions while she diligently typed perfectly formatted Word documents containing what would hopefully be her next Pulitzer Prize-winning article. Even so, Metropolis Eight News played as loud as her neighbors would bear wasn’t enough to quite recreate the comforting bustle of the Daily Planet’s bullpen that had quickly become the tune to which her whole life danced. If she stopped her incessant typing long enough to think about it, Lois realized that her own apartment was quite lonely - and despite how much she told herself that she worked best when there were no idiots around to bother her, she still missed the company of fellow writers weaving the truth into their own articles and pieces.

Many of her coworkers at the Planet were constantly encouraging her to get a boyfriend, some even going so far as to set her up with dates which Lois really only went to for the free food. Cat Grant, who was well known for going through at least one man a month, also had a habit of catching Lois in the break room just in time to break into a long-winded speech about how a romantic partner would help get her mind off of work and teach her to have some fun.

(And help her sleep better at night, Lombard from Sports would add with what Lois assumed was his attempt at a ‘sexy’ wink. It honestly just looked like he had something in his eye.)

Lois was of the very firm opinion that there would be no significant others in her life anytime soon, and she wasn’t afraid to make that known throughout the bullpen - Lois J. Lane was officially unavailable and unofficially married to her job. That was about the closest she could get to telling Lombard to put his opinions about her home life where the sun doesn’t shine.

In the meantime, Lois was perfectly happy having her apartment to herself and satisfied any random urges she might have for a boyfriend with a weighted blanket, over-sugared coffee, and long showers. Speaking of coffee, her last mug of joe hadn’t done shit and her second wind was beginning to blow itself out… or maybe it was her third wind, though Lois knew that it could quite easily be her fourth - time tended to stop being real somewhere around one in the morning.

Setting her laptop aside, she got up to start the kettle boiling with the intention of brewing herself a nice, strong cup of black tea in hopes that her body would accept the caffeine she so desperately needed in a form other than coffee. She didn’t really expect it to work - she had already exhausted herself beyond any rescue besides sleep, though that would be just about impossible for Lois in her current state. Anyway, another caffeine hit was worth a try.

The next half-hour was spent waiting in vain for the tea to do its job and give her enough energy to maybe, maybe finish her article on the implications of a new tax law in consideration while Lois did her best to format one of her quotes from one of the city council members into something that would simultaneously grab her readers’ attention, accurately represent the situation and the council member’s statement, and still fit into a two-inch column of newsprint.

After a few minutes of useless effort, she redirected her attention to digging the tv remote out of its hiding spot between the couch cushions and turning the volume up a few clicks so she could hear the news a little bit better - not that she ever listened to the mud they broadcasted in place of real journalism these days - before she began to organize her mess of a coffee table slash workspace with a sigh. There were a pair of empty Starbucks cups that would have to go in the trash, along with a mostly-eaten takeout box of kung pao chicken and her pile of nigh-on incomprehensible handwritten notes for an interview she’d done that morning which Lois neatly stacked back into something that didn’t look quite as likely to topple over before collapsing back onto the couch. There wasn’t any point in trying to get more work when her brain was as frazzled as it was, though she was just as likely to catch even an hour of shuteye as she was to write a halfway-decent article at the moment. She knew for a fact that she wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep that night with her insomnia and tendency to overwork herself, but who needed sleep when they were in the running for a Pulitzer?