#undune

the comic store never gets any traffic, and most of the time, it feels like alex pays you to sit on your ass and flick through anything vaguely interesting and brightly-coloured. right now, you’ve got a recent captain marveI spread that’s mint condish and totally fucking cool. you have your feet resting up against the till, and because you’re the only one you’re expecting to see in the security cameras for the next three hours ‘til you’re finished, you bin the name badge and put some music on your phone on low.

the door opens with a resounding creak, coupling the quiet ding of the bell that tells you you’re not alone. you’re expecting jeremy -- dude in your computer class that you don’t pay attention to even though he keeps staring at you from across the lab -- or richard, the fifty-something trying to get in touch with his estranged kids, but you’re not expecting the hunched brick of a woman that squeezes through the door frame.

                             holy shit.

your first thought is to duck -- you recognise her from the hair to the letterman jacket, and you have a split second to decide whether you’re going to pretend your lace is undone and you can hide behind the new, unboxed mjolnir and batman figurines that are displayed so pristinely in the glass case that separates you from the checkout, or stay as you are, but you think she’s seen you in that moment you’ve been frozen. fuck.

“look at this.”   you’re stalled in front of a fucking bus stop, arms folded over your chest and staring. (there’s a poster of you but not-you, and the you standing like a goddamn christmas elf on some we love you supergirl poster that you have to fight the urge to rip off. oh, it’s hideous.)

“supergirl.”   lena’s at your side -- at least there’s that; you’re not stuck in this miserable timeline by yourself and she still looks up at you at your side like she knows you can crush her. you will, at some point, you think. just to see how much it takes to make her tap out. and then you’ll go a little further and wait for her to beg you for it again.

“how pathetic.”   one swift swipe and you crumple the poster, along with the plastic screen behind it, down with ease. there’s a loud clatter as it breaks and shatters across the sidewalk, and you step over it like it’s nothing.

viper lounge. you don’t think anything of it -- just one of those invite-only bars that the thin, skimmed national city elite file into and spend the guts of her yearly salary at catco in one night. it’s safe to say that you aren’t invited -- you’ve talked to roulette before, once, twice, and each time, she’s left you with a sour taste in your mouth. (why don’t you put that mouth of yours to better use, supergirI? still rings in your ears, and you won’t let your cheeks feel flushed when you’re on your way to her gosh darn bar late at night because you heard the rumblings of what you were always afraid of in the first place.)

what comes from veronica sincIair’s mouth festers like a wound -- she spouts the same kind of... bullcrud that you fight against. she hides herself out in her stupid-- and well-decorated, expensive and totally out of your price-range-- viper lounge and then think her words mean nothing. (you’re just glad that these places are always in penthouses. balconies make it a whole lot easier to sneak in with, and it’s like you know the sound of her heartbeat from wherever. or maybe it’s everything alex has been telling you over the past couple days. and the not-so-subtle way alex likes to keep track of everything and told you on your way out. lena’s here.)

you storm through it -- and you are nothing if not noticeable. the flash of red in your cape flows behind you as you stomp through room after room. (lena’s here. you know lena’s here. you have to find her, because rouIette is-- imprisoning aliens and making them fight, and she’d never--)

the door opens. (you don’t remember your hand going to it, but it does, and it swings open.)

“coppa tay for m’lady.”     oh god. oh god, why did that come out of your mouth. you’re grinning that usual, terrible, nervous grin that takes up three quarters of your face and you’ve never heard as bad an english accent as what comes out of your mouth. (you figure you must be getting better, but you know that’s just a hope. the gardener, as she’s known for all intents and storytelling purposes, but jamie to you -- a name you found out through mrs grose and owen -- gives you that look and you don’t quite know what to do with yourself.)

you’ve been out cold for the past couple of days, and it feels like the world’s turned everything else upside down in the meantime. your side aches like a bitch, but the jagged stitching at your collar throbs with every fucking movement. (maria’d spotted it the moment you pulled up in the truck -- tommy was shouting something you could barely hear, and you were stumbling out of the driver’s seat and onto your knees at the very gate. the blood was the first giveaway, and the duct-taped yellow-red rag that you’d wrapped around the side of your arm and the other edge of your neck to keep it in place was the confirmation. everything went quiet after that, while all three of you were dragged into the infirmary.)

you check it in the mirror -- she’d done a good job. you gingerly slide on an overshirt and wince when your arm lifts too high. you still feel like you’ve been hit by a fucking truck. you’re burnt all over -- your nose is peeling and someone’d taken your watch because there’s a visible mark around your wrist from where it was. you reach out for the mug of water you presume dina’d left at the side of the cot, and you pad barefoot (bending down to lace up your sneakers right now makes your stomach turn) out into the open.

the sun makes you squint, and you think you should check up on her. and the kid. the other beds in the infirmary were empty, made, and any trace of her was gone already. (that’s when you see her -- speak of the devil, and all that. she’s hunched forward, sat on an old beer keg and a towel around her shoulders. she’s... getting a haircut. and that’s -- so weirdly mundane to see after the past month they’ve had. fucking hell.)

         abby’d said she hung out by the dock now -- that stretch of lake that no one went to because it was way too overgrown to do anything with without any real help. it’s been a few weeks -- you were pretty much back to fighting fit, and by fighting, you mean huffing into your stitches when maria told you you’re still not up for going back on the rota because knowing you, you’ll just get yourself killed by doing some reckless shit. maybe maria was a little more eloquent than that, but getting bitten twice in the last couple times you went outside those walls stands as reckless shit. 

you see dina a lot more regularly now, and spend your evenings wandering from joel’s to hers and back when dina had to rush out for evening duty and jj was ferried back off to her mom’s. (you told her that you didn’t mind hanging out with the little guy, but dina’d insisted, and you are so fucking bored that you feel like clawing out your eyeballs.)

you haven’t seen abby for a while -- you kind of look out for her when you go to the bar, when seth grunts something like a fucking asshole and when kc smacks him round the back of the head with a soggy dishtowel for being a fucking asshole, but you haven’t seen her. you’ve seen lev a couple times, but you still don’t have a whole lot to say to him after santa barbara, and you find yourself wandering out toward the dock not long after he runs off with a gaggle of other kids. okay.

you hear her before you see her, but it takes seeing her to put the noises together. it’s the methodic thump of a hammer coming down on wood, and when you parse through the thicket of ferns and grass, you see her hunched over a little boat that... actually looks pretty fuckin’ well done.

she’s so easy to wind up. she’s easy to find a reason to wind her up for, too. you’ve spent the day together, legs dangling into the pool and parting the water with the tip of your toe, or watching abby with some stupid fucking home work out that looks like a whole lot more work than it’s worth, and you’ve had your fingers covered in charcoal and lead to try and immortalise it when it happens. her dad’s out -- you haven’t seen his truck all day, and you think that’s probably a good thing. you see her relax a little more when he’s away (that knot in her shoulder’s a little less tight, and she doesn’t crane her neck away from the tension like she normally does). 

but hey. you’ve both been lazing out in the pool all day, and you’ve been laying back against the tiles with your legs splashing her in the water while you baked in the sun. it’s been nice, just the two of you -- fuck knows it doesn’t happen enough, but she’s got the day off (rest day, she’d call it, but you both decided that you were staying there tonight, and you’d both make the day of it). 

you’ve got one of her basketball hoodies on which hangs down past your thighs, and you’ve stepped out of your wet boxers and towelled yourself off. she says she’s going to make dinner, as diligently and meticulously as ever, and ten minutes later, you pad into the kitchen with your hair a towel-sopped mess and your fingers cold and prunish.

that doesn’t stop you though. she’s hunched over a pot of pasta, the water bubbling over the stove, and you wrap a hand around her waist. you plant a kiss to her shoulder blade, and another that trails up the side of her neck while your fingers playfully tap against the v-lines of her waist.

             why are you trying to make me horny? bitch, you know i’m making macaroni.

      you can’t help the laugh that thrums out against her neck and your hand dips a little lower into the hem of her shorts just out of spite. or maybe it’s confirmation. the lines are kinda blurred right now, and your tongue swipes out against the side of her neck, and you press a kiss to the skin at the back of her ear.

you’ve been moping like your first boyfriend just broke up with you all over again. (in reality, you just stuffed your face with ice cream because eliza’d let you, and moved on within the week. this hurts a whole lot worse.) alex keeps trying to talk to you, but you’re more interested in sending unanswered please call me back texts under every premise under the sun. (please call me back, i miss you. hi lena, i left you some pastries, please call me back. i’m sorry this got so messy, please call me back. you sound like a broken record and you feel a little too like a kicked puppy for the sympathy anymore.)

the deo got involved when you stopped being as effective as they want their resident kryptonian to be. they gave you coordinates, you acted like you had a satnav in your brain, and pretty soon, you found yourself out in nevada. (you never liked the desert - it reminded you of waking up in the pod. it reminded you of the way kal held out his hand and left you as soon as you could stand. you fly now through stretches of cloudless sky and all you feel is as alone as that first time. oh, god. but you have to focus. you have to- think. properly. lena might be in trouble- the text ignoring could be... intentional, or it could be because lillian’d managed to get her claws into her one more time and- oh god.)

it’s as unceremonious as it comes, because you come barrelling through the roof and there’s heavy concrete that’s sputtered out beneath your feet. you land the way james has photographed you so many times - knees, arms, total freaking superhero - and you emerge from the plume of concrete dust and see her.

“lena, oh- it’s so good to see you, i-”   she’s not looking at you. not really. you barely hold her attention and when you follow her gaze, you see why. that’s... he...