58) things you were afraid to say
Kara is accustomed to swallowing down the things she’d really like to say. Her life is built on protecting a secret that sits like rocks in her chest. There are days those rocks feel like the final remnants of an obliterated planet and there’s an entire galaxy stirring in her lungs, swirling to break free. She holds the final memories of her home, her planet, and sometimes she aches to sit and spill them all out at someone so it’s not just her.
When she first arrived and English was heavy on her tongue, her syllables and vowels so accented it was impossible to make it seem she was native, she’d crawl up to the roof at night and stare at the sky, the stars stretching out and the bursts of their constellations almost dizzying.
It was all so foreign and there would be a lump in her throat with how much she missed even the familiarity of a sky she recognised. It didn’t take long until Alex realised where she went each night. She’d always wait an hour or so, let the time slip past so Kara could process alone just for a little while, before she’d climb up and settle beside her, her limbs warm and gangly and close.
“Tell me something,” she’d say, her voice low in the night.
So Kara would, then. This was before she’d noticed how heavy it made everyone around her, to listen to the small, wide-eyed teen speak of her entire civilisation that had ceased to exist. She’d sit there and let the words flow like water, and tell Alex about the smell in the air at sunset. The way people smiled slower, on Krypton. Of the buildings that glittered and shone and the resilience in her mother’s eyes and the hope in her father’s. Of her Aunt’s love for sitting with her only niece and sharing stories and strange dreamings. Of the taste of her favourite food, of the sounds of music at the festivals, the likes of which she would never find on Earth as long as she looked.
And years passed, and Kara stopped sharing.
Alex would have listened, she knew. But her dreams were cloaked in Krypton, in the smell of her father’s cologne after a shower, in the feel of her mother’s fingers in her hair. In the giggling pitch of her best friend’s laugh. And Kara didn’t want to bring everyone down who listened to it all, and one day Eliza suggested she try to focus on what was on Earth, anything to stop Kara waking up with tears thick in her eyes that refused to fall, the lump in her throat so large she’d be unable to speak for hours.
But she carries those stories with her. She thinks of them if she sees the flash of someone’s hair that reminds her of a friend from school on Krypton. Of a voice almost the right tone. At the way the sky would colour a certain red at sunrise so rarely.
But she doesn’t share them anymore.
She thought Kal would want to listen. But her cousin is more human than Kryptonian, and that thought always sends a jolt through her stomach, a protectiveness for him that makes no sense when he’s so much older. An echo of a responsibility she will never get to fill.
Loneliness spreads through her limbs at the strangest of times.
Winn will tell a joke and she’ll laugh and something odd will spread through her veins. Lucy will call with anecdotes that Kara wants to swallow whole to hear and Kara will want, suddenly, to tell her parents. She’ll rub along in a culture she knows well enough but will never wear like the skin of her old.
She’s alien in every way and so many people have absolutely no idea.
So Kara is used to keeping things to herself, trapped deep down. So deep sometimes, she won’t even notice them itching at the corners.
But it isn’t about being scared to say these things. It’s about preservation, about not falling too deep into a pit of missing her family. It’s about making sure no one else worries about her, that no one sees how deep that loss has really cut.
No. Being afraid to say something is that fear that rears up around Lena Luthor.
Kara gets lost in her. In a new friend, in the lilt of her laugh and the delight that lights Lena up every time she sees Kara. It’s addictive, to feel that. To fall into that feeling and not look back. And when Lena calls her, after her mother is locked away at three am and asks if she can talk, Kara goes.
Lena’s living room is shadowed and she’s dressed in soft pants and an even softer hoody-the material well worn and loved. It’s the first time she’s seen Lena so dressed down and Kara’s fingers twitch with the want to run over the material and grasp at the softness. She clears her throat at the thought and sits next to Lena, their knees so close they could easily brush.
“How are you?”
Lena leans against the back of the sofa and shakes her head, her eyes staring up at the ceiling.
“I don’t really feel like talking.”
And Kara has no idea what to say to that. Lena invited her over.
“Okay,” she says, because she has no idea what else to offer.
Lena turns and faces her, the green of her eyes bright even in the almost-darkness of the room. Their knees touch and Kara wants to move in closer.
Lena smiles, and there’s something achingly sad in it, something Kara wants to pull away, to have the smile back she knows. “Kara?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know what happened?”
“It’s already all over the news.” That and she was there, but that’s something she can’t yet trust with Lena. She wants to, though, and only the thought of what Alex would say stops her. Because really, she doesn’t even know Lena. Not well enough for that. Even if she did just save the entire city. “I’m sorry.”
Lena nods, and there’s something in her face, like she expected something else, something more, but again Kara is left wordless. She has no idea what to say to that. So she offers all she can.
“Family can be–”
And then Lena is kissing her. A hand sliding over Kara’s sternum, thumb against the pulse in Kara’s neck and fingers at the back of her neck. Her lips are soft, and teeth graze Kara’s bottom lip. It’s all too soon when Lena pulls back.
“I don’t want to talk,” she says again. And that’s fine for Kara, because she couldn’t even if she knew what to say, now. Lena’s nose brushes over her own and when she speaks again, her lips just barely whisper over Kara’s. “Is this okay?”
Kara answers by tilting her mouth to Lena’s and when Lena’s tongue glides over her own, Kara does what she’s been wanting to and her fingers move down Lena’s bicep, her fingertips against soft material, and then she grips the hoody over Lena’s stomach and tugs her down as she falls back against the sofa. It’s easy to wrap her legs around Lena’s waist, to pull her rolling hips harder against herself. Lena’s mouth is insistent and Kara responds in kind, teeth nipping and lips almost bruising.
Kara has no idea when she started wanting this, but it’s all she wants, now.
It starts a pattern. They kiss in Lena’s office with the door closed, fingers tugging at buttons and at zips. Kara loves Lena’s desk, the way Lena looks when she spread over it and the light is coming through the window. They’re almost caught by Alex in Kara’s apartment and are left fumbling excuses about a project Kara does not have for Snapper. Lena sends her a fast text message at 12 am and twenty minutes later she’s at Lena’s door, who’s opening it and pulling Kara through, hands already at clothes.
She learns what makes Lena cry out, what makes her whimper. Kara learns to run her tongue over her hip bone and to nip at her thighs. To change it up, all the time. To push her against walls, over the desk, to straddle her in her office chairs.
It’s an addiction, and one that just gets fed all the more when Lena’s mother goes to trial.
Lena’s a key witness and Kara’s called over every night, a distraction of lips and tongues and fingers. She’s there so often it’s a hard balance, to make sure she doesn’t have her suit under her clothes but it’s somewhere fast to grab, in case she’s needed.
It’s something Kara can’t stop.
She’s never lonely, with Lena, and she’s too afraid to whisper that into her neck when Lena’s nails are biting into her shoulder blades. The words take shape and threaten to spill over, to tell Lena that those rocks that sit in her chest, that stop her breathing, crack open to almost nothing when Lena’s hands tug at her hair and her fingers are between her legs.
But she doesn’t say it, because it’s far too terrifying. It scares her more than the fading memory of her planet imploding behind her. More than the shape of an unknown sky, overwhelming and too big over her head.
When Lena’s mother is sentenced to life, her attempt on countless lives abhorrent, Lena stands straight backed and face impassive as they take Lillian away in handcuffs.
But later, that night, her fingers are desperate and her kiss almost biting and Kara pushes back as much as she can and when Lena comes, Kara almost tells her then. She slides up her body and Lena’s fingers thread into her hair and tug her into a kiss so languid the contrast to how she pulled Kara to her just moments before is such a shock Kara almost lets it slip.
Lena’s flushed and sweaty and her legs are wrapped around Kara’s hips, holding her there so she can’t go anywhere. Her eyes open slowly, like she has all the time in the world and the smile she gives Kara isn’t sad. It’s blinding and radiant.
Kara wants to tell her.
But then there’s a shadow in her eye; her smile not going, but fading, just a little, and she bites her lip. Kara knows her well enough, to know when Lena’s about to say something. Lena pushes back some of Kara’s hair behind her ear, her fingers trailing down her cheek, her jaw, to rest against her neck.
There are words, building, and Kara wants them, more than she’s wanted anything in her life in that moment. She feels like if she can hear them, whatever they are, something will click and she’ll understand Lena in away she doesn’t yet.
But then Lena blinks, and swallows and pulls Kara back down, and Kara’s left wondering if they’re both too afraid to say what they’re really thinking.
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