#mf halloween bingo

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[my-meadowlark]

fic: have you heard? [harry potter - fleur delacour/hermione granger]

Title: Have you heard? Fandom: Harry Potter Characters/Pairing: Fleur Delacour/Hermione Granger Rating: M Word Count: 6,744 Content warnings: Masturbation interruptus Summary: Hermione was a planner. On her first day as a trainee Healer at St. Mungo's, she already had the next four years of her training carefully mapped out. But life, as they say, is what happens when you're busy making other plans. There were five things Hermione had absolutely not planned for:

1. That her dream attending Healer would leave St. Mungo's. 2. That she'd be replaced by Fleur Delacour, of all people. 3. That she'd have a disciplinary meeting in a place of learning. 4. That Fleur Delacour, of all people, would be the one to put her in her place.

And last, but not least, 5. That she'd enjoy it. A lot. Or, Hermione discovers Fleur Delacour may not be as terrible as she originally thought, and she may have a thing for receiving praise from women in positions of authority. Prompts used: "Authority Kink" for the Halloween Bingo at @mfbingo "Praise Kink" for Kinktober Bingo "Have you heard?" for @flufftober

Read on AO3 HERE or under the cut.

Hermione arrived at St. Mungo’s with fifteen minutes to spare. She could go in right away, of course. Trainee healers had been told to be there at eight o’clock, but that didn’t mean the rest of the staff wouldn’t already be there.

Still, Hermione remained outside. There was a line, you see. A line between just eager enough to show you care and so eager you come off as desperate. A firm believer in the scientific method, Hermione had tested different hypotheses through her years as a student and had come to the conclusion that the line was somewhere between five and six minutes before the specified time.

She had high hopes to have it nailed down to the second by the time she finished her training.

As she waited for nine to ten minutes to pass, Hermione took in a deep breath and looked down at her shoes. She shifted her weight just enough for her feet to shuffle the slightest bit to the left, until they were perfectly lined up with a crack on the pavement.

She wasn’t nervous, mind you. Not really. She was excited. She’d spent all summer researching St. Mungo’s. She knew every Quality and Safety recommendation, every rule in the employee handbook, every step in every standarised procedure she’d been able to find. She knew, of course, the names and specialties of all the Healers on staff. So she wasn’t nervous. Why would she be?

She had butterflies in her stomach, like any sensible young woman would in her shoes. First day as trainee healer in Britain’s most prestigious magical hospital. Not feeling a bit of trepidation at the thought would’ve been alarming.

Three minutes now. Hermione took one step to her left, standing perfectly centered in front of the steps to St. Mungo’s. She hoped she’d be assigned to Delphia Hedge’s team. Healer Hedge had a reputation as tough and unyielding, extremely hard to please, and brilliant beyond belief. She was invariably the senior Healer who failed the most trainees every year, but the ones who made it were always outstanding. If you could survive Hedge — as several of the articles Hermione had gathered during the summer said — you were destined for greatness.

Hermione wanted to learn from Healer Hedge like she imagined a man in the dessert would want a drink of water. She wanted it desperately. And that meant she had to go in precisely now — between five and six minutes before the time she’d been told to arrive — so Delphia Hedge would know she was not just another trainee.

***

“Have you heard?”

It was one minute to eight when two young witches she remembered from last year joined Hermione in the staff room. They were nice enough, Hermione supposed. She hadn’t really had the time or the inclination to make friends since starting her healer studies last year. It was a competitive programme, and she had no intention to get distracted from her goal. She had friends already, after all.

“Heard what?”

Hermione didn’t mean to listen in on their conversation, but it was hard to focus on anything else when they were the only three people in the empty room.

“Healer Hedge is gone.”

Hermione’s eyes rounded, every muscle in her body suddenly tense. She wasn’t entirely convinced she wouldn’t fall over like a broomstick if someone were to bump into her right now.

“Gone?”

“Gone,” the witch said, making an sweeping motion with her hand to emphasise her point, “no more Healer Hedge.”

Hermione tried to stop herself. Really, she did. She tried to keep quiet and not let them know she’d been listening. But she simply couldn’t.

“What do you mean, no more Healer Hedge?” She said, unable to stop talking once she’d opened her mouth. “She’s— she’s an institution! Surely she can’t be gone.”

The two witches gave her a look that was somewhere between amused and judgmental. Hermione couldn’t say she cared. She had much more important matters to think about.

“My father works at the Ministry,” the witch said finally, “he said she’s been offered a position there, in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. A very tempting position. She couldn’t say no.”

Hermione opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She felt the wrinkle between her eyebrows make an appearance as she tried to wrap her mind around this unforeseen circumstance. How could she not have known? How had they not published this in the papers?

“But—“ Hermione said, ignoring the steady trickle of wizards and witches walking into the room, “but that can’t be right. I specifically requested her as my attending.”

The two witches — and the other twenty or so trainees that had already taking their seats around them — didn’t seem to understand the severity of the situation.

Delphia Hedge, gone. Impossible. She was— well, not the heart, but certainly the brains of St. Mungo’s trainee programme. How could she be gone? Who could possibly be a worthy substitute for someone like Delphia Hed—

“Talpin,” a voice suddenly said, making itself heard over the murmur of the trainees, “Rivers, Moone,” Hermione’s frown deepened as she looked around, trying to find the source of the familiar voice she couldn’t quite pinpoint, “and Granger.”

That accent. That voice. Hermione’s head whipped towards the source of the sound so fast for a second she feared she’d hurt something in her neck.

It couldn’t be. What would Fleur Delacour, of all people, be doing at St. Mungo’s?

“Please, come with me,” Hermione noticed with growing incredulity that Fleur seemed to be wearing the lime green robes of a healer, “I’m Healer Delacour. I will be your attending this year.”

***

“You could have at least warned me, Ginny!”

Ginny shrugged, infuriatingly enough. Although, to her credit, she’d remained remarkably calm in the face of Hermione apparating in her shared flat for the sole purpose of yelling at her.

“I would have, if I’d known.” Ginny’s bulletproof logic and calm tone of voice did nothing to fix Hermione’s mood. “You know we weren’t close even before the divorce. We’re hardly having weekly tea dates to catch up, you know.”

Hermione groaned in despair. How. How could this possibly be happening? She was finally a trainee healer in her dream programme, and instead of getting to train under world-renowned Healer Delphia Hedge she was going to be shadowing Fleur Delacour.

Fleur Delacour, of all people.

“It’s like Divination class all over again,” Hermione said dramatically, pushing flyaway curls out of her face.

“At least you do believe in medicine,” Ginny said, a hint of teasing in her voice, “so unless Fleur starts trying to find diagnoses at the bottom of her tea cup, I don’t think this will be quite as bad as Professor Trelawney’s class.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Hermione sat down with a sigh and drank a gulp of her tea. She had a long, long year ahead of her.

***

Two weeks into her first term as a St. Mungo’s trainee, Hermione was very nearly ready to quit.

She wouldn’t, of course. She would never. But sometimes she really, truly wanted to.

Fleur was every bit as… Fleur-like as she used to be as a teen. She carried herself with poise and confidence in a way that struck Hermione as arrogant. She looked even more infuriatingly beautiful in the St. Mungo’s green robes as she had in Beauxbatons blue. Which, Hermione supposed, wasn’t entirely Fleur’s fault. But still, it was a distraction.

Not for Hermione, of course. But for the others. The male trainees. The male healers. The male patients. Every male in a several-mile radius became next to useless when faced with Fleur Delacour’s disarming smile.

And, truthfully — Hermione told herself as she aimlessly flipped the pages of a book on counter-hexes — while looking like that had been the result of a genetic lottery win and not anything Fleur could be blamed for herself, Fleur made an effort to look her best.

And Fleur’s best, Hermione would have you know, was very nearly excessive. Distracting.

Not for Hermione, of course. She couldn’t stress that enough. But, for everyone else’s sake, she could’ve had the decency to not brush her hair, maybe. At the very least.

Because Hermione, after pouring her heart and soul into her exams and landing a spot in this programme, was here to learn. She was here to be awed by Healer Hedge’s medimagical prowess. Not to watch men leave snail trails of drool behind Fleur Delacour.

So, for the next few weeks, she did everything she could to get transferred to another attending healer’s team. She tried asking politely, she tried nearly begging, she tried strongly worded letters, she even considered making Fleur want her gone from her team, but quickly dismissed that plan as ridiculous. She wasn’t going to risk her place in the programme because Fleur Delacour insisted upon walking around St. Mungo’s like a devastatingly human angel fallen from heaven.

But Hermione remained Fleur’s trainee. And while she did her very best to remain polite and respectful, the fact of the matter was that… well. She had to admit, she took particular delight in correcting Fleur’s mistakes. Especially in front of more senior healers.

Hermione spent every waking moment studying. Going above and beyond even her usual sky-high standards. Chasing the high of catching Fleur in a mistake, however insignificant it might be.

With every passing day, pretending she respected Fleur as a teacher became harder to pull off. And it all came to a head when a young Hogwarts student appeared in one of the beds, ostensibly in need of more advanced medical magic than Madam Pomfrey could provide.

“What happened to him?” Hermione was already examining him, noting signs and symptoms like little breadcrumbs to follow towards a diagnosis.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Healer Delacour?” Her fellow trainee looked positively green as he looked at the oozing wound in the boy’s shin. “Or any other attending?”

Hermione knew he was right. She could recite the trainee’s handbook from cover to cover, and she knew first years were not allowed to perform any procedure without supervision.

And yet… Hermione knew what needed to be done. She’d read about it multiple times. She knew the counter-curse, the precise wand movements, the exact tone of the incantation. She knew the ingredients for the potion he’d have to drink for the next forty-eight hours while his flesh grew back.

If Hermione, a young first year trainee, could pull it off, surely they’d listen to her when she asked once again to be transferred to any other team. She would have proved she didn't need Fleur Delacour's so-called help.

And so, Hermione got to work. She could do this. She just had to focus, which was much easier to do without Fleur’s veela charm around.

Everything was going exactly the way her books had said it would. The boy’s leg turned orange first, and then an alarming greenish-blue that reminded Hermione of Stilton cheese. The wound’s ooze went from liquid to an almost jelly-like texture and then vaporized into a cloud of yellow smoke.

If she hadn’t read all about it, she would be just as horrified as her fellow trainees, who looked at her with a mixture of awe and terror as she worked on the wound.

“Miss Granger,” Fleur sounded more scared than angry as she rushed into the ward, “stop that immediately. You cannot do that without supervision.”

Hermione’s eyes remained on the wound as she muttered the incantation under her breath. She watched the skin turn a shade of pistachio green before finally settling into its usual, healthy warm brown. She listened to the quiet fizz and the final pop as the ooze completely disappeared.

“Well, clearly I can,” Hermione said, perhaps a little more smugly than she should have as she watched the boy’s flesh begin to grow and bridge the open edges of the wound, “and I have.”

It wasn’t until she heard the quiet snickers of the trainees around them that Hermione realized perhaps she’d gone a bit too far. She’d been on the receiving end of those teasing, cruel laughs. And while she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t wanted to upset Fleur when she decided to do this… well. She never meant to humiliate her.

But after only the slightest flash of something close to disappointment going through Fleur’s eyes, Hermione watched the older witch set her jaw and stand up straight.

“I will see you in my office after rounds,” Fleur said, voice sharp around the edges in a way Hermione had never experienced from a teacher.

All she could do was nod.

***

For the rest of her shift, all Hermione could think about was how disastrously this day could end.

Fleur could have her expelled from the programme. She could lose her place. She could be banned from ever becoming a healer.

By the time she knocked on Fleur’s office door, Hermione was ready to apologise and even beg for forgiveness if she must.

“Sit down, Miss Granger.”

There was no trace of the usual melodious tone in Fleur’s voice.

“Thank you, but I’m—“

“Sit down.”

Hermione closed her mouth and did as she was told, too shocked to argue. She’d always seen arrogance in Fleur. Arrogance and excessive self-confidence and even a hint of snobbishness. But this was something else. This was… this was authority. And Hermione, for reasons she couldn’t even begin to comprehend, felt a shiver run up her spine.

“I have tried— Merlin, I have tried to be very patient with you. Because of our past…” Fleur thought for a moment, like she couldn’t quite find the right word, “acquaintanceship.”

Hermione wondered if she’d hesitated because she couldn’t find the right word in English, or if she just found their tense, barely civil relationship hard to define.

“But this is enough.” Fleur Delacour could never do something as classless as slamming her hand on the desk, but she didn’t need to. Hermione felt the words hit her straight in the chest. “I am your teacher, Miss Granger. Your superior.”

Hermione felt her mouth go dry, heart beating noticeably faster than before. Suddenly Fleur Delacour was no longer an annoyingly beautiful girl she used to know and now had to endure during her time as a trainee.

Now she was… she was her teacher. Her superior. And still just as distractingly (not for Hermione, but still) beautiful.

“I treat you with respect. I have always treated you with respect, non?”

Hermione nodded, perhaps a little dumbly. Her lungs refused to fully fill up with air, and she feared her brain was going hypoxic. It would certainly explain the feeling inside her chest.

“So you treat me with respect. I speak, you listen. I say you cannot perform healing magic without supervision, and you obey.”

Obey.

Hermione shifted on her seat, thighs pressed together as she struggled to make sense of the onslaught of unprecedented feelings this conversation was somehow bringing up.

“Am I understood?”

Hermione nodded again, fingers gripping the edge of her chair so hard the knuckles had turned nearly white.

“Miss Granger. Am I understood?”

Fleur’s voice landed right between Hermione’s legs.

“Y— yes.”

Fleur raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. Hermione swallowed a little louder than she would have liked.

“Yes, Healer Delacour.”

Fleur nodded once.

“Bien.” The succint praise felt like the most delicious pinpricks on Hermione’s skin. “I will see you tomorrow.”

Hermione was surprised her legs were strong enough to hold her up and carry her out of the office without help.

***

The next day, Hermione realized she’d been put on probation.

Not officially, thank goodness. Her record remained pristine. But Fleur made it clear Hermione was on very thin ice. And it would be up to her to regain her attending’s trust.

She couldn’t remember studying this much or with this sense of urgency since her N.E.W.T.s. She no longer studied advanced and uncommon ailments in hopes of catching Fleur unprepared. Instead, Hermione found herself drinking in the very basics, the foundation of it all. She didn’t want to prove Fleur wrong, she just wanted… she didn’t even know what she wanted.

She wanted the thrill of knowing without a shadow of a doubt that she’d have the right answer when Fleur asked her mid-round about something so basic most healers didn’t even bother keeping the exact facts fresh in their brains. She wanted the delicate nod of Fleur’s head when she got the question right.

She wanted — craved, even — the subtlest hint of a smile she sometimes saw on Fleur’s face when Hermione made sure her answer to a question came with an unspoken ‘I do respect you’ wrapped around it like a bow.

There was nothing new about Hermione wanting to please a teacher, as Ginny had so helpfully pointed out during their last chat. But this was different, somehow. She’d never felt—

It had never felt like this.

And it wasn’t only that. It wasn’t only the fact that one day during rounds Fleur had looked Hermione straight in the eye and delivered a “Well done” that had somehow turned into warm golden syrup and pooled at the bottom of Hermione’s stomach for the rest of the day. If it had been just that, it would have been nearly bearable.

But there was also the fact that her current unofficial probation period meant she was made to be with Fleur every minute of every hour she spent at St. Mungo’s. And though a big part of this arrangement was about giving Fleur the chance to keep an eye on her to make sure there were no more rogue procedures underway, there was another side of it: Hermione could also keep an eye on Fleur.

Both eyes, in fact.

Hermione had the chance to see her in action. To observe her. To drink her in. She remembered the dumbstruck looks on the boys’ faces when they watched the veela dance back at Hogwarts, and she wondered what they’d do if they could see the way Fleur talked to her patients. The way she twirled her wand between her fingers when she was deep in thought. She wondered if they’d even notice Fleur always counted in French under her breath when making potions, even if she said the final number in English so her students could write it down.

They wouldn’t notice, Hermione decided. Just like she was sure the drooling trainees staring at Fleur like she was there for their entertainment didn’t notice anything beyond the way her hair shone in the light.

But Hermione noticed it all. She realised what she’d been mistaking for arrogance was actually confidence in her own skills. Fleur stood taller when a patient doubted her. When they called her darling or sweetheart like she was just a dumb little girl and not the Healer in charge. And she relaxed, noticeably, when she felt seen.

When she felt respected, Hermione thought, not without a hint of shame.

Hermione’s studying transformed into something different about a month into her probation. Every night she’d review her notes until she felt confident she was perfectly prepared, and then she’d crack open a more advanced book and looked for something she didn’t know. It took nearly superhuman strength to stop herself from reading further — from finding out more about whatever new concept she'd found.

But she kept it in her pocket, wrapped up almost like a little present to offer to Fleur in between patients. Hermione knew Fleur would see right through her — and feel rightfully offended — if she asked her about things she already knew, so she always made sure her questions were sincere. That she was being honest when she told Fleur she didn’t know.

And Fleur always made the effort more than worth it.

Sometimes Fleur knew the answer right away. She’d deliver it with her usual poise and grace, sometimes pausing to translate something in her head before continuing on. Fleur lit up when she was teaching — really teaching — and Hermione filed the look in deep blue eyes away right next to the new learned concept, knowing she’d always remember it as something Fleur taught her.

Sometimes Fleur didn’t know the answer. The first time it happened Hermione watched her posture stiffen like she was bracing herself whatever Hermione’s next comment might be.

Hermione felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment for her past behavior, and then with something entirely different when Fleur let out an almost imperceptible breath.

“That is a good question,” she said, voice melodic as usual but with a tone to it that Hermione liked to think Fleur reserved for her, “I will do some research and get back to you.”

And she did. Hermione walked into St. Mungo’s the next morning only to find Fleur already there, looking for once like she hadn’t had the time to even think about combing her hair in the last eighteen hours. She had dark circles under her sparkling blue eyes and her hair held up in a makeshift bun by her wand.

(She’d never looked more perfect.)

“It is not a hex,” she told Hermione, “it is not a hex. That’s why I couldn’t find it. Mais then I remembered—“ Fleur showed her an open tome and tapped the word she’d used a spell to highlight, “it is just a jinx. See?”

Hermione nodded, unable to find her voice when her ribcage felt full of Fleur.

“It was such a good question,” Fleur said, eyes shining with the exhilaration of having found an answer after a night spent among books — a feeling Hermione knew well — and smile dancing on her lips, “thank you, Miss Granger.”

It would have been inaccurate to say finding questions for Fleur to answer became a habit for Hermione. It wasn’t a habit. There was no inertia to it. It became… it became something close to an addiction. Hermione spent her days chasing the next proud smile. The next confident answer. The next bit of praise.

She started spending more time in St. Mungo’s library, using her lunch break to try and find an extra question for the afternoon rounds. An extra hit of whatever it was that made Fleur’s approval so addictive to her. And she was in the middle of reading about ancient Egyptian curses when she heard Fleur’s voice behind her.

“Miss Granger.”

She knew Fleur had started calling her that instead of Hermione to put distance between them — to remind her that within the walls of St. Mungo’s Fleur was her superior and Hermione her subordinate. But strangely enough, for reasons Hermione couldn’t quite explain, it had started to sound almost like a term of endearment. It certainly made her feel like she'd heard one.

“You asked about fire rope burns last week.”

Hermione nodded, trying to focus on the conversation and not on the way her heart rate responded to Fleur remembering a past question, all but confirming the little ritual Hermione had become so invested in meant something to Fleur, too.

“Would you like to see one in person?”

Blue eyes sparkled with something that reminded Hermione of the giddy fluttering in her stomach whenever she came up with the perfect question for Fleur. That triumphant little fluttering that felt almost like being hit by the shock waves of someone else’s joy. Like watching someone open a present she knew they’re going to love.

Fleur was giving her a present.

“Yes, please!” Hermione did nothing to hide the excited smile tugging at her lips, figuring Fleur deserved proof of her gifting prowess.

She neatly placed a piece of parchment between the pages of the book to mark her place and stood up, walking towards the door Fleur was holding open. But when she walked past Fleur to go through the door, the blonde’s hand moved, fingertips brushing against Hermione’s curls. And for a second, Hermione felt time freeze around her.

She’d played with time before, mind you, so she knew what it felt like when it wasn’t running as it should. And right then, when Fleur’s fingers touched her hair and they were standing so close Hermione couldn’t take in a breath that didn’t fill her lungs with Fleur’s scent, time froze.

Until Fleur pulled her hand back and showed Hermione a fluffy white barb from the quill she’d been using at her desk.

“This happens to me, too,” Fleur said, gently blowing on her fingertips to make the little barb fly away.

Hermione watched it flutter in the air for a handful of seconds before Fleur’s voice reached her ears once again. It was softer than before. Barely above a whisper.

“On y va, Miss Granger.”

Hermione felt herself blush as she followed Fleur’s brisk steps towards the ward.

***

The burn was worse than Hermione had pictured. Worse than even the most realistic pictures she’d looked at. She was still thinking about the sound of sizzling skin as she watched Fleur gather the supplies she needed for the potion that would help, hopefully, save the witch’s leg.

“Had you ever seen one before? In person?”

Fleur didn’t look up from the vials she was carefully arranging next to the cauldron. “Yes. Not this bad. But I saw two during my training.”

Hermione nodded. She’d seen more shocking injuries since arriving at St. Mungo’s, but there was something about that burn that made her feel queasy in a way no amount of liquefied bones could.

“Don’t think about it,” Fleur said, opening a bright purple bottle and pouring its contents into the cauldron, “think about me.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “A— about—?”

Fleur’s light chuckle reminded Hermione of the sound of wind chimes as she opened the door to her favourite second hand bookshop.

“About what I’m doing,” Fleur clarified, nodding in the direction of the cauldron. Hermione had a feeling the miscommunication hadn’t been as innocent as she was trying to make it seem. “Tell me. What next?”

Hermione took in a deep breath and focused on bringing the recipe to the potion to the forefront of her mind. “Next you take five spoonfuls of dragon blood and reduce them over a low fire for thirteen and a half hours.”

“Yes, but—“

“We've got bottles of the reduction in the reagents cupboard. For convenience.”

Fleur’s eyes finally left the cauldron to give Hermione a look Hermione found hard to read.

“Yes,” she said, “but don’t interrupt your attending healer, Miss Granger.”

Hermione’s cheeks warmed up. Not because she thought Fleur was truly offended — there was a twinkle in her eye that told Hermione she truly wasn’t — but because of the reminder that Fleur was still above her.

“I’m sorry, Healer Delacour.”

Hermione would be lying if she said the tone of her apology was the same she would’ve used to apologise to any other teacher. She’d be lying if she said she was completely unaware of the slight… well, not flirtatiousness, of course. Not that. But playfulness, maybe, that simmered right under the surface of her words.

Fleur acknowledged the words with a nod, and the tone with the slightest, barely visible dusting of pink on the apple of her cheeks.

“Bring me the rest of the ingredients, Miss Granger.”

Hermione waited until her back was turned to let herself smile.

***

The burn was still sizzling with that sickening sound when they made their way back to the ward.

Hermione focused on breathing through an almost overwhelming urge to either leave or find the nearest bin to vomit into.

“Miss Granger,” Fleur said, “come here, please.”

Hermione had been standing at a safe distance, a few steps away from the bed. She could still see everything, but the smell of burning flesh wasn’t too strong where she stood.

“I’d rather watch from over here, for now.” She knew she’d get over the queasy feeling in her stomach eventually. She wasn’t weak. She just needed a bit more time to get used to the sight in front of her.

“It was not a suggestion, Miss Granger. It was an order.”

And Hermione knew, because Fleur herself had told her, what she was supposed to do when an attending gave her an order.

She was supposed to obey.

Hermione took one step forward, and then another, until only the bed where the unconscious witch was laying stood between them.

“Stand next to me. Bouge-toi, the potion will spoil.”

The look of slight exasperation on Fleur’s face was enough to make Hermione rush to the other side of the bed. Whether Fleur was torturing her on purpose or not remained to be seen, but the patient on the bed was very real, and Hermione knew that was their first priority.

“Don’t think about it. Don’t listen to it.” Hermione looked into Fleur’s eyes just to keep herself from looking at the sizzling wound. There was a warmth in them, something safe and solid that made Hermione think of the feeling of sitting next to the fireplace after hours in the snow. “Listen to me.”

Hermione nodded. She could do that. Focus on Fleur’s voice instead of the sound coming from the bed.

“Hold this,” Fleur gave her the small vial containing the potion she’d just brewed, “now your wand.”

Hermione’s eyes rounded in surprise as it dawned on her. Fleur was going to let her perform healing magic. Not just any healing magic — extremely advanced healing magic. Hermione knew the steps, of course. She knew how to heal a fire rope burn. But everything she’d read about it — and she’d read a lot while trying to find a question for Fleur — made her think this was not the kind of thing you were supposed to attempt while you were still a first year trainee.

“I don’t think—“

“Do you not know the steps to healing a fire rope burn, Miss Granger?”

“Yes, of course I do!” Hermione was almost offended. “I just think I should at least see it done once before attempting it myself.”

“I disagree.”

Fleur’s tone was disarmingly casual, like they were simply agreeing to disagree on whether strawberry or chocolate was the superior ice-cream flavour.

“But I—“

“Miss Granger,” there was that tone again, the one that sent shivers up Hermione’s spine and made warmth pool at the bottom of her stomach — the one that made her want to raise her hand and give Fleur the perfect answer to any question she may ask, “you will do as you’re told, yes?”

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Hermione just nodded, teeth digging into her bottom lip as she tried to ignore the flush spreading to her cheeks.

“Don’t worry. I will guide you through it.” Fleur gave a slight nod in the direction of the patient, and Hermione took in a deep breath and turned to look at the burn. “First, you—“

“Cast a protective charm on the healthy skin. So it won’t be damaged by the potion.”

“Good,” Fleur said, and Hermione swore she could hear a proud smile in her voice. “Go on.”

With her brain focused on going through the steps and her senses entirely distracted by Fleur, Hermione quickly stopped seeing the burn as a sizzling open wound to look at it as a problem to be solved instead. And there were very few things Hermione was better at than solving problems.

So she carefully performed every charm, muttering incantations and applying drops of the potion as the skin slowly but surely stopped burning, and then lost its charred black color to turn a slightly discolored pink.

“Almost done.” Fleur’s soft voice felt like finding a spot to rest and take a breath after climbing a mountain for hours.

This was the trickiest bit, according to all the books she’d read. The very last charm — the one that would close the wound and leave only the faintest scar. Or, if done badly, make the flames burn the witch’s leg to a crisp from the inside out.

Hermione frowned in concentration and held her wand over the wound. Her hand trembled slightly, and she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. "Counter-clockwise first," she muttered under her breath, touching each finger on her free hand to the pad of her thumb as she counted. "Counter-clockwise first, then swipe to the right, then—"

“I don’t think—“ Hermione shook her head. She knew the steps but her hand keep trembling and there was simply too much at stake.

“You can do it.” Fleur was suddenly standing behind Hermione, so close Hermione could feel Fleur’s breath against the back of her neck. Her knees felt even weaker than her hand. “You have done so well so far. You can finish.”

Fleur’s arm moved, slender fingers wrapping around Hermione’s wrist and giving it a gentle squeeze, almost like a reminder that there were bones and muscles in there Hermione could control. The touch along with the praise was almost too much to take.

“Counter-clockwise first,” Fleur echoed Hermione’s previous words, voice soft against Hermione’s ear as Fleur loosened her grip on her wrist to keep only two fingers under it, steadying it, right against her pulse, “when you’re ready.”

Hermione wouldn’t have been surprised if she'd looked down and found herself levitating a few feet off the ground.

“Bien,” Fleur smiled behind her when Hermione’s wand finally moved, “now swipe to the right. Like that. Beautiful, Miss Granger.”

It was like a perfect storm. The sense of accomplishment as she conquered such an advanced procedure when she’d only been training for a few months. The pride as the wound slowly healed. Fleur’s closeness. Her calming presence against Hermione’s back. The words of praise from someone she’d come to respect as a mentor. By the time the wound closed leaving only a pearly white line behind, Hermione felt like a live wire. Like the slightest touch would set off something she wasn’t sure she’d be able to control.

“Perfect,” Fleur said, taking one step back and making Hermione shiver with loss, “you were perfect. Well done.”

Perfect. Perfect.

Hermione had to hold on to the edge of the bed to keep herself safely on her feet.

***

Hermione had rarely used the small room where trainees could spend their breaks. The four beds in it were famously comfortable for naps, but Hermione was usually too busy for that. She’d much rather study or research during her breaks.

But after taking care of the witch’s burn, Hermione found herself stalking towards the room. She wasn’t tired. She just needed— she needed a break. From her thoughts, from Fleur, from the way every cell in her body seemed to stand at attention whenever Fleur was near.

She just needed a break.

So she wasn’t planning on sleeping when she climbed into one of the beds and closed her eyes. Which was a good thing, because her mind was so full of everything — so full of Fleur — that she wouldn’t have been able to sleep even if she’d wanted to.

She’d called her perfect. She’d stood there, calm and steady and trusting her unconditionally. Offering support and guidance but ultimately knowing Hermione would do it — would do it well. Would do it perfectly.

Hermione could still feel the warmth of Fleur’s body against her back. The light floral scent of her perfume (was it perfume, or was that just how she smelled?) filling her lungs. Soft fingers against her pulse and words of praise reaching her ear along with warm puffs of air.

She opened one eye to check that she was still alone in the small room. It was the middle of the day, so most trainees would be too busy to take a nap. She was alone and it was dark in the room and she was under the covers anyway. And her brain wouldn’t stop cycling through every word of praise — every proud look, every gentle touch, the way Fleur blew away that stupid quill barb she’d found in Hermione’s hair.

She pressed her thighs together in a desperate attempt to make the throbbing need between her legs go away, but all it did was make it worse. Make her even more aware of it.

Her hand traveled down under the covers, cheeks flushed with a mixture of bashfulness and something else entirely. Something like a thrill, because Fleur was to blame for all this, and she was somewhere outside that door right now. Teaching the rest of the trainees something, but not like she’d taught Hermione.

Fingertips reached the damp cotton of her knickers, and Hermione bit her lip to keep herself from making even the slightest sound.

She’d never felt this way about a woman before. She’d never felt this way about anyone before, but especially not a woman. Would she even know what to do? Would Fleur teach her?

Hermione’s hand clamped over her mouth to keep in a whimper that caught her entirely by surprise. She’d heard rumours about the dormitories at Beauxbatons. The very close friendships within. Would Fleur hold her hand and guide it like she had before? Would she whisper instructions in her ear?

Would she tell her she was perfect as she ca—

A knock on the door made her gasp, thighs clamping together around her hand.

“Miss Granger, there you are.”

Fleur walked into the mostly dark room and Hermione panicked for a second, wondering whether jerking her hand out from under the covers or leaving it where it was would make her… predicament, more obvious to her attending.

The warm wetness coating her fingers was the deciding factor to keep them hidden from view.

“I’m sorry. Were you asleep?”

Even in the barely lit room, Hermione blushed at the sight of a teasing glint in deep blue eyes.

“No.” Her voice came out low and a little breathless. “No, it’s okay. Just— I was just resting.”

Fleur let a beat pass. “I see.”

Was she smirking? If she hadn’t left her wand on the coffee table, just out of reach, Hermione would have made herself invisible right then and there.

“You are not on call tomorrow night, are you?”

Hermione struggled to make her brain focus on her weekly schedule and not on the situation under the covers or the fact that Fleur seemed to be keenly aware of it.

“No. No, I don’t think I am, Healer Delacour.”

Fleur let out an approving little hum.

“Bien. Would you like to have dinner with me, then?”

Hermione opened her mouth. And then closed it again. She frowned, more out of confusion than anything else, and then sat up with the covers still around her just because there seemed to be more dignity in a sitting position than in laying there while Fleur looked at her with that infuriatingly attractive spark of amusement in her eyes.

“Hermione.” She remembered thinking the way Fleur pronounced her name was irritating, but it must have been in a different lifetime because hearing it after being Miss Granger for so long made Hermione’s heart trip over itself. “Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow?”

She nodded. It took another second for her to fully regain the power of speech.

“Y— yes. Yes. I would.”

“Good.” Fleur looked down, tucking a strand of shiny blond hair behind her ear. The room was too dark to see clearly, but Hermione could just imagine the exact shade of pink that was probably on Fleur’s cheeks. “Perfect.”

Perfect.

Hermione did her best to keep the images of Fleur saying just that while she whispered how she liked to be touched in Hermione’s ear far, far away from the forefront of her mind.

“Oh, and Hermione?” Fleur’s hand was already on the doorknob, getting ready to open it, when she turned around once again. “Tomorrow at dinner, when we’re out of the hospital. You may call me Fleur.”

Hermione swallowed. Hard. She’d called Fleur Fleur a million times before, of course. But there was something about being given explicit permission. Something that turned it into a privilege instead of just an everyday thing.

“Fleur.” Hermione swore it had a taste. Something sweet and light and floral, like she imagined a lavender macaron might taste like.

“Good girl,” Fleur whispered with a wink as she finally left the room.

Hermione was definitely not going to be able to sleep.

[caiti-creative-corner]

Title - Steam on the Mirror Summary - An October date in a mirror maze turns into a game of cat and mouse . . . but can anyone truly tell who is the cat and who is the mouse? Prompts Multi-Fandom Halloween Bingo - 4 - Maze of Mirrors - @mfbingo Darcy Lewis Bingo - Queen of Halloween - Card C033 - C2: Kisses in the Dark - @darcylewisbingohq Warnings - Mood boards, Alternate Universe, NSFW (implicit, not explicit) Fandom - Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships - Bucky Barnes/Darcy Lewis Note - Should any of my mood boards prompt a fic, please link me so I can enjoy and brag! But please - take this as permission to write it!!

[fierysunrises]

Title: late night moment

Summary: Kazunari and Tsuzuru share hot chocolate together after one am.

Prompt: Late Nights for @mfbingo Halloween Edition, and Hot Chocolate for @flufftober

Warnings: None

Fandom: A3! Act Addict Actors

Relationships (optional): Minagi Tsuzuru/Miyoshi Kazunari

Word Count (optional): 1.1k

[sivan325]

Title: Bite Me, Claw Me, Make Me Yours Fandom: 9-1-1 Pairing: Buddie Chapters/Length: 4/5 I 6548 Rating/Warnings: Explicit, violence, tw: blood blood kink, blood drinking, alpha/omega, near death experience. Temporary MCD Event: Buddie Bingo + MF Halloween edition bingo Brief Summary: Eddie knelt next to him, offering his neck. “Bite me.”

The vampire looked at him. No one, ever, offered him his neck. He always used to be forced to take blood to live. It was a matter of kill or be killed, a survival mode.

“Are you sure?” The vampire asked, eyeing the neck as he licked his mouth.

(Written for Buddie Bingo + MF Halloween Edition Bingo)

1 I 2 I 3 I 4- Pregnancy - @buddiebingo + "I think I need to lie down." @mfbingo

[gammacousin]

“I’m not going in there!”

Summary: Yelena Belova and Jennifer Walters are visiting Bruce and Natasha for the weekend. When the couple announce they’ve got their own plans for Halloween, Yelena and Jennifer need to find their own entertainment.

Prompt: “I’m not going in there” (MF Halloween Bingo)

Warnings: None really. Nat flips Yelena off.

Fandom: Marvel

@mfbingo

[sagemoderocklee]

now that RtS and P-FL are in progress for posting, i can finally focus on october fics and i am sooooo excited to be working on some new horror fics. gonna make a checklist for myself for the last three months of the year, so this is mostly for me but if you're interested in what my end of year plans look like check below the cut

October

Blood on the Branches (GaaLee HorrorFest) 📒🖋

The Corn Maze House (MF Bingo)📒🖋

No Place Like Home (working title; Troped challenge) 📒🖋

IEYH CH3 🆕

MF Bingo Halloween Prompt❓

MF Bingo Halloween Prompt❓

MF Bingo Halloween Prompt❓

November

The Art of Love🆕

Absolution 🆕

Thirteen Strokes 🆕

The Beast of Cangdi (MF Bingo)❓

December

The Art of Love🆕

Absolution🆕

Thirteen Strokes🆕

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful 📒🖋

Assumptions (MF Bingo)❓

Overall Goals

reach 1million words

complete at least three Halloween event fics

fulfill at least one more bingo prompt (not counting the halloween prompt)

update at least one ongoing fic (TAoL, ABsolution, or 13S)

sequel to Flyweight Love (HB3)

[badassbutterfly1987]

Hello! Here is your MF Halloween Flash Bingo card. Remember to follow the rules and if you want any changes then make sure to request them before you start posting your fills. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an ask. If you have any prompts you would like to add to the prompts list then make sure to drop them in the Prompt Submission Form. Don't forget to join the Discord Server and if you post on AO3 then don't forget to add it to the MF Bingo collection. I will be keeping track of your progress and if you do not want me to include you in the master post that will have everyone who finished their cards then please say so. Other than that have fun with your spooky card!  

[caiti-creative-corner]

Title - Delicious Autumn Summary - Loving the many flavors of autumn. Prompts Multi-Fandom Halloween Bingo - 1 - Autumn Baking - @mfbingo Warnings - Mood boards Fandom - Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships - Bucky Barnes/Darcy Lewis/Clint Barton Note - Should any of my mood boards prompt a fic, please link me so I can enjoy and brag! But please - take this as permission to write it!!

[caiti-creative-corner]

Title - His Cold Hands & Her Warm Heart Summary - Freedom might have been his choice, but she was the one who helped him find a steady ground so he could truly experience his freedom. Prompts Bucky Barnes Bingo - B104 - C5: Holding Hands - @buckybarnesbingo Multi-Fandom Halloween Bingo - 5: "Your hands are cold” - @mfbingo Warnings - Mood boards, Alternate Universe Fandom - Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships - Bucky Barnes/Darcy Lewis Note - Should any of my mood boards prompt a fic, please link me so I can enjoy and brag! But please - take this as permission to write it!!

[caiti-creative-corner]

Title - No More Pumpkin Spice Summary - Grocery shopping in the fall can be a . . . frightening affair. Prompts Multi-Fandom Halloween Bingo - 2 - “Pumpkin Spice is not a good flavor” - @mfbingo Warnings - Mood boards Fandom - Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships - Clint Barton/Darcy Lewis Note - Should any of my mood boards prompt a fic, please link me so I can enjoy and brag! But please - take this as permission to write it!!

[caiti-creative-corner]

Title - Trick or Treat . . . Why Not Both? Summary - First a trick, then a treat . . . and why stop there? Prompts Multi-Fandom Halloween Bingo - 3 - Trick or Treating - @mfbingo Multi-Fandom Bingo - G3 - Costumes Warnings - Mood boards, Alternate Universe Fandom - Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationships - Bucky Barnes/Darcy Lewis/Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff Note - Should any of my mood boards prompt a fic, please link me so I can enjoy and brag! But please - take this as permission to write it!!

[my-meadowlark]

fic: monster mash [supergirl - kara danvers/lena luthor]

Title: Monster Mash Fandom: Supergirl Characters/Pairing: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor Rating: E Word Count: 3,134 Content warnings: Smut, Kara's cowboy impersonation Summary: The last thing Lena wants to be doing is hosting L Corp's Halloween party, but as the CEO, it's not like she has a choice. She doesn't like Halloween, she doesn't like the people at the party, she doesn't like that the best friend she has unrequited feelings for couldn't come to the party, and -- as if that wasn't enough -- she especially doesn't like Supergirl's cowboy hat. But sometimes all you need is a helpful super-heroine and an empty office to discover a newfound appreciation for celebrating All Hallows' Eve. Prompts used: "Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett" for the Halloween Bingo at @mfbingo "Celebratory Sex" for Kinktober Bingo "Kara" for Supercorptober 2022

Read on AO3 HERE or under the cut.

"Welcome to the L Corp Halloween dance!"

Lena hears herself say the words in her best corporate voice. Just this side of enthusiastic. Almost sincere. She smiles for the press and shakes hands with all the important people she has absolutely no interest in beyond the name recognition they bring to any event.

There are very few holidays Lena Luthor hates more than Halloween. And she uses the term holiday loosely.

"Miss Luthor! A picture, please?"

Lena flashes the photographer a smile that doesn't even attempt to reach her eyes.

She's never been a fan of Halloween, but this year she's feeling particularly curmudgeonly towards it. Maybe because she's getting more and more tired of feeling like everything she does has to count as networking somehow. Maybe because the one relationship that truly feels hers -- hers, not L Corp's – has accidentally crossed the line from friendship to a hopeless, very much unrequited crush. Maybe because her party is full of reporters but the only one she wants to see had to stay home to get her approaching deadlines under control.

Maybe Lena just needs a drink.

Maybe – she thinks when she finishes her drink and her mood hasn't improved one bit – she needs two.

And she's on her way to get it when she's intercepted by someone dressed up as Supergirl. Someone who very clearly did not get the memo that this is not a costume party. Just a party that happens to fall on Halloween.

But when Lena looks up at the Supergirl impersonator's face, she realizes it's actually...

"Supergirl."

In a cowboy hat, may she add. Supergirl in a cowboy hat. She swears she only had the one drink.

"Howdy," Supergirl says, touching the rim of her hat and winking at Lena in a way that's not even flirty. It's just friendly. Borderline goofy, even. So why – Lord, why – is Lena suddenly feeling like someone's cranked up the party's temperature by at least ten degrees?

"Are you all right?" Supergirl asks, suddenly serious. There's this... this concern in bright blue eyes that's devastatingly sincere and makes Lena think of another set of blue eyes that look at her like that sometimes.

And she can't have that. She can't—she can't stand here and try to mingle and network all evening while her brain is full of the kind of thoughts that can only be entertained when there's free time for wallowing in self-pity while rewatching Titanic. She just can't.

"I'm fine."

She very clearly is not. Supergirl either doesn't notice, or chooses to ignore it.

"I think I saw a bar over yonder," Supergirl says in an atrociously bad accent that Lena can't even place, "wanna go wet your whistle?"

Lena feels her skin flush pink, Supergirl's display of-- whatever that was working for her somehow. She purses her lips and shifts on her feet, thighs rubbing together as she considers her options. She could go have another drink or two or three or however many it takes to put her brain in stasis for the night. But that would not be too conductive to networking.

Or.

She could do the adult thing. Have a conversation with Supergirl. A mature conversation about double checking dress code instructions when receiving a party invitation and how she should never, ever, say 'wet your whistle' in her presence again.

"Pardner?" Supergirl attempts to pull Lena back out of her thoughts, and the combination of that goofy accent and the genuinely caring smile on Supergirl's face is nearly enough to make Lena choose option A and order a dozen stiff drinks.

Nearly enough.

"You," Lena says, and it comes out like she’s accusing Supergirl of something, "come with me. My office."

“All righty,” Supergirl says, already following Lena towards the elevator. At least it’s not yeehaw, Lena figures. Small victories.

It’s the longest elevator ride in history. It must be. Lena stares intently at the vertical line between the closed sliding doors, trying to ignore the fact that Supergirl is right there, right behind her.

When the elevator finally, mercifully dings and the doors slide open, Lena lets out a breath she hadn’t even noticed she’d been holding.

“Lena, seriously,” Supergirl’s hand wraps around Lena’s bicep, gently, and something about knowing how much self-control that must take for someone who can crush cars between her hands makes a shiver run down Lena’s spine, “are you all right? You’re kinda worrying me.”

“I’m fine,” she lies once again, pulling herself free from Supergirl’s grip and walking towards her desk.

“Well, somebody's poisoned the waterhole.”

Lena freezes mid-step. She recognizes that line. She recognizes that line because Kara’s been making Lena sit through the entire Disney-Pixar catalog to make up for everything she missed during her childhood, and they watched Toy Story just a couple movie nights ago.

“Okay,” Lena says, turning around and pointing her index finger at Supergirl, “that stops now.”

“What?”

“That. The cowboy…” Lena gestures in the general direction of Supergirl, “everything. Enough.”

“But why? It’s Halloween! Come on, Lena, yee your haw.”

Lena frowns. Stares at Supergirl like she can’t believe she just said that. Subtly pulls on the satiny fabric of her own dress because it’s just so hot in here for some reason.

“Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong? Maybe I can help. It’s kind of my thing.”

“Nothing is wrong. I just need—“ A quick lobotomy. An ice-cold shower. Hard liquor. “I need—“

Supergirl does it again. She looks at Lena like that again, concerned and sincere and like she cares so much. Like she’s desperate to fix whatever’s wrong. Like she’d do anything to make Lena feel better.

“Lena,” Supergirl says, strong fingers ever so gently wrapping around Lena’s wrist, and Lena swears she can feel her own pulse against Supergirl’s warm skin, and she feels her eyes flutter closed against her will, “just tell me. Anything you need.”

It’s something in the way Supergirl’s voice sounds when Lena has her eyes closed. Some kind of deep brain connection that sparks alive when she hears her voice like that. Lena will blame that for what happens next.

Because one second she’s standing there with her eyes closed and the next her eyes are still closed but she’s kissing Supergirl instead. It’s greedy and hungry and immediately — and enthusiastically — returned and Lena is so glad everyone’s busy with the party because she’s not sure she’d be able to stop even if every single reporter in the building walked into her office right now.

Lena presses her free hand against the crest on Supergirl’s chest to guide her towards the glass wall behind Lena’s desk. Supergirl’s back meets the glass with a soft thud, and she sighs into Lena’s mouth as she grabs Lena’s ass to press her closer, deepening the kiss, and Lena is so glad she chose to have a mature talk about this.

There’s a moment when Supergirl sucks on Lena’s tongue, lightly, and Lena’s knees buckle under her weight, and Supergirl holds her up and keeps kissing her without missing a single beat and Lena is pretty sure this is how she dies (and that’s ok) except suddenly it all stops.

“Oh!” Supergirl pants against Lena’s lips. “I love this song.”

“What?”

“They’re playing the Monster Mash at the party,” Supergirl explains like this is normal behavior, head bopping slightly to a rhythm Lena can (thankfully) not hear.

“Okay. Supergirl?” Lena extricates herself from Supergirl’s arms. “I need you to focus.”

She’s sure having superhearing makes tuning things out a little harder than it is for regular humans, so Lena decides to help her out. She crouches down just enough to wrap her fingers around the hem of her dress and starts pulling it up her legs, but when it’s just above her knees she hears Supergirl’s voice humming quietly. Humming the freaking Monster Mash.

“No singing.” She can tolerate the cowboy hat but she draws the line at having sex to the tune of that song.

“Aw, but I—“ Supergirl suddenly sees what’s right in front of her, blue eyes darkening as they roam up Lena’s legs and up where the dress is bunched up mid-thigh.

“Oh.”

Lena smirks. That’s more like it. And she wants to reward Supergirl’s redirected attention by taking her dress off, but suddenly Supergirl’s hands are on Lena’s, stilling them.

“No,” she says, voice just husky enough to make Lena feel it right between her legs, “leave it on.”

And then one of Supergirl’s hands is under her dress and Supergirl kisses her again, slow and deep in a way that feels almost like she’s showing off, and Lena suddenly feels the edge of her desk against her ass and she slides her fingers into the softest blond hair to have something to hold on to.

Not that Supergirl seems likely to let go any time soon.

Especially not when her hand slides up the inside of Lena’s left thigh and Lena can feel the exact moment she realizes just how wet she is because Supergirl moans quietly into Lena’s mouth and her breath catches in her throat.

Supergirl’s fingers press against damp lace and Lena moves her hands to strong biceps, feeling the muscle through the material of her suit.

And then, something changes. It’s a split second. Lena pulls back from the kiss to take in a breath and she opens her eyes and sees Supergirl looking into them, and for a second she thinks she sees—

But before Lena can let the thought fully form in her head, Supergirl grabs her waist and turns her around so the edge of the desk is now against her lower stomach, and then Supergirl presses herself against Lena’s back and moves her hair out of the way so she can kiss her neck and whisper a soft, “Is this okay?” which travels up Lena’s spine leaving goosebumps in its wake.

“Yes,” Lena breathes out, both hands on the cold surface of the desk, “yes, don’t stop.”

If it was an important thought, she’s sure it’ll come back later.

Because right now she has more important things to focus on. Like Supergirl hiking the skirt of her dress up over Lena’s ass and leaving it bunched up around her waist. Supergirl holds her there, strong hands on Lena’s hips and soft lips trailing kisses down the back of Lena’s neck, below the clasp of her necklace, down her spine, making Lena so very glad she chose a dress with a very, very low back.

Supergirl sinks down to her knees and Lena bends over her desk, already knowing she will need all the support she can take.

“That’s pretty,” Supergirl says almost to herself, fingers hooking under the elastic of Lena’s lacy black thong. She pulls it down over the curve of Lena’s ass and halfway down her thighs, following its path with a trail of soft, open-mouthed kisses that have Lena struggling to keep any air in her lungs.

“Still okay?” Supergirl asks, sincere as always even when her lips ghost over the spot where Lena’s right ass cheek meets her thigh.

The simple question makes all the warmth pooling on Lena’s lower stomach relocate to her chest for just a moment, and her voice comes out slightly shaky when she manages to speak.

“Yes.” Lena feels Supergirl’s lips on the back of her thigh and Supergirl’s hands on her ass, pushing just enough to spread her pussy lips open. “Yes.”

“So pretty,” Supergirl all but whispers, almost awed, and that’s really the last thing Lena can process because next thing she feels is Supergirl’s mouth on her cunt.

She doesn’t know exactly what Supergirl is doing — whether she’s using her alien powers or this is just plain superhuman skill — but Lena doesn’t think she’s ever been fucked this effectively in her life.

Flushed cheek rests against the cold surface of her desk, fingers gripping the edge of it like she’s scared she might lose all sense of reality if she lets go. Supergirl’s lips are around her clit and then her tongue is inside Lena and then teeth nip at swollen, dripping lips and all Lena can do is moan her encouragement and let Supergirl do whatever she wants to her. And then—

Lena hears the spank before she feels it, somehow, the sound of skin of skin thrilling between her legs right where Supergirl’s mouth keeps working its magic. It takes a fraction of a second for the sting on her ass cheek to fully register, and then Lena is fighting her incoherent brain to let out intelligible words instead of desperate moans.

“Oh—kay,” she manages, not without difficulty, just because she’s fairly sure she will die if Supergirl stops what she’s doing to check in on her feelings regarding being spanked right now, “I’m o— fuck,” one of Lena’s hands lets go of the edge of the desk just so she can slam it on the cool glass surface instead, thighs quaking as every flick of Supergirl’s tongue pushes her closer to her release, “don’t stop. Justdon’tstop.

And Supergirl doesn’t. There’s lips and teeth and God, that tongue, and another spank on Lena’s already sensitive skin and when Lena finally comes she presses her own hand against her mouth to keep herself from screaming but even she realizes just how ineffective it is.

She repeats Supergirl’s name like a chant, a little softer each time as Supergirl helps her ride out every wave with her mouth.

Lena’s muscles are still weakly contracting when she feels herself land back on Earth. Supergirl’s still between her legs, but her mouth feels gentler now — almost lazy, like she’s no longer doing this for Lena but for her own enjoyment. And Lena, still trying to catch her breath, is more than happy to oblige.

When Supergirl finally pulls away it’s with a sigh, something content and almost dreamy, and for a split second Lena has that feeling once again — that spark of something that could become a fully formed thought if she’d let it. But she won’t let it. Not right now, when she feels fully relaxed for the first time in weeks and her body feels weightless and like it’s made of lead at the same time.

So she focuses on the present instead. On the way Supergirl ever so carefully pulls Lena’s thong back into place. The way she kisses the lacy triangle and then the still tingling skin on Lena’s ass cheek before fixing the skirt of Lena’s dress and letting it fall into place once again.

Lena hears the slight rustle of the fabric of Supergirl’s suit as she gets back on her feet, and then Supergirl’s slick lips pressing a kiss to her shoulderblade.

“Better?” She asks, voice lower than before — lower than ever — as it hits Lena’s skin.

Lena nods and takes it as her cue to at least attempt to stand up straight and see if her knees will support her. Supergirl, unsurprisingly, is right there for Lena to hold on to as needed until she feels like she can stand on her own two feet.

“Thanks,” Lena says, feeling a little ridiculous the second the word leaves her lips. But she figures it’s really only polite.

Supergirl chuckles. “Hey. My pleasure.”

Lena just takes her in for a moment. The bright blue eyes and the even brighter smile and that stupid cowboy hat and her lips and chin glistening with Lena, and Lena doesn’t even know how she feels. Doesn’t even know how she’s supposed to feel. So maybe grateful will do just fine.

“Here. Let me—“ Lena reaches for the box of tissues on her desk and grabs a couple of them to wipe Supergirl’s face clean. She only realizes it’s a mistake when she notices the way Supergirl looks at her as she works — the way Supergirl’s breath hits her lips in warm puffs and Lena’s heart can’t seem to find its rhythm. And she knows Supergirl can hear.

“There,” she says, voice quiet and suddenly almost bashful, which is absurd after what just happened between them.

“Thanks.” Supergirl echoe’s Lena’s word from before, and her hand wraps around Lena’s fingers, and it’s suddenly a bit too much. It’s suddenly a bit too close to the way she feels about— It’s too much.

“Supergirl,” Lena starts, taking one step back, “you know this was—“

“Nothing,” Supergirl finishes with a smile and something Lena is completely unwilling to acknowledge in her eyes, “I know. Just… a Halloween celebration, right?”

Lena lets out a quiet chuckle. “Right. I’m nothing if not festive.”

“You could even call it a—“

Lena knows what’s coming. She knows what’s coming so she puts one finger up and opens her mouth to stop her, but Supergirl has Superspeed after all, and she finishes her sentence anyway.

“Monster mash. If you will.”

Lena stares for a second. “I will not.”

Supergirl laughs, something light and genuine, and it works to clear the energy in the room somehow.

“Oh!” Supergirl’s eyes round in delight, and she grabs Lena’s wrist once again, pulling her along towards the elevator. “They’re playing it again. Giddy up! We’re can’t miss it this time.”

And Lena is a bit too relaxed to argue with her.

***

On November 1st, Lena wakes up slightly hungover. Nothing scandalous. In her defense, you need a certain level of alcohol in your blood to endure a night of dancing to ridiculous songs with a superheroine who is fully committed to her Woody impersonation. All things considered, Lena thinks four drinks was close to angelic.

But she still feels… is guilty the right word? She’s not ashamed. Not embarrassed. She shouldn’t feel guilty, either. But when she walks into Kara’s workplace with two coffees and an extra jam-filled donut, she feels like she’s maybe trying to atone for something not even she can name.

Her mood lifts the second she sees Kara, bright and beautiful even this early in the morning. Lena often feels like she has her own personal sun to orbit around, and today is no exception. Especially when she notices Kara seems to be in an extra good mood this morning, smile even wider than usual as she does a cute little dance by the copy machine.

Lena takes a few steps closer, fully intending to surprise Kara with her favorite breakfast treats, but the second she’s close enough to hear the song Kara’s quietly singing as she dances, all she can do is freeze and keep herself from dropping the coffees on the floor.

They did the monster mash (The monster mash) It was a graveyard smash (They did the mash) It caught on in a flash (They did the mash) They did the monster mash

[my-meadowlark]

fic: i'm still here [supergirl - kara danvers/lena luthor]

Title: I'm Still Here Fandom: Supergirl Characters/Pairing: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor Rating: T Word Count: 12970 Content warnings: Ghost AU Summary:

Are you depressed, anxious?

Are you lonely?

Do you need someone to talk to?

The living impaired are known for haunting us. My question is, what's haunting them? It's a lack of resolution.

Ghosts are simply spirits without resolution, with unfinished business. It's our job to find out what that is.

Luthor and Son. This week we’re in National City. But next week, boo knows?

Lena Luthor may not believe in the family business, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have to work. The last thing she expected when she arrived at the El Manor for a job was to find an actual ghost, a new best friend, and the love of her life, but strange things tend to happen around Halloween.

Notes: Written for the prompt "Ghost AU" for the Halloween event at @mfbingo

Read it on AO3 HERE or under the cut.

Are you depressed, anxious? Are you lonely? Do you need someone to talk to? No problem, if you're a ghost.

You can call them ghosts, if you like, or as I prefer, the living impaired. But the bottom line is, they need help sometimes. Just like the rest of us.

Lena Luthor rolled her eyes as she listened to Lex’s voice coming from the radio in her car. Living impaired.

“Living impaired,” she scoffed as she obediently took a left turn when her phone suggested it.

The living impaired are known for haunting us. My question is, what's haunting them? It's a lack of resolution. Ghosts are simply spirits without resolution, with unfinished business. It's our job to find out what that is.

Lillian’s voice filled Lena’s car. She’d tried to talk her mother and brother out of this ad but, as per usual, they hadn’t listened.

Luthor and Son. This week we’re in National City. But next week, boo knows?

“Oh for crying out loud. Boo knows!?”

The cheesy, terrible pun was honestly the least of her issues with this whole thing, but it still made her shudder with second hand embarrassment. Maybe first hand embarrassment. After all, she was the one driving a car with a “Luthor and Son” decal all over its side.

At twenty years old, Lena still wasn’t sure whether the family business was a scam or her mother and brother honestly believed there was such a thing as ghosts. What was worse, being raised by scammers, or by absolute nutcases?

She honestly couldn’t decide.

Either way, as usual, she was the one who had to go do what they liked to call “field work”. Luthor and Son were in National City giving their usual talks and conferences, but Lena Luthor (there was no Luthor and Daughter, coincidentally) was driving to an abandoned house several miles out of the city.

Her car announced an incoming call from Lex, and Lena accepted it with a sigh. She’d learned to take the path of least resistance when it came to Luthor and Son, for her own peace of mind.

“Are you in the house?”

“Not yet. Nearly there.”

“All right. Good.” A short, tight pause, and then, “Lena, you know this is our most important job. This is it. You can’t—“

“Mess it up. Yes, I understood the first seventy times, Lex.”

“You’re not taking it seriously.”

Lena sighed as quietly as she could manage. “I’m taking it very seriously.”

“Not seriously enough.”

“Maybe Luthor and Son themselves should’ve been the ones doing this job, then.”

The silence felt like it stretched for minutes until Lex finally spoke, voice dripping with badly hidden anger.

“Call me when you’re set up.”

The call ended just as Lena pulled into the driveway of the old El Manor.

As far as allegedly haunted houses went, Lena was pleased to see it looked at least structurally sound. It was an old victorian house, but it had only been abandoned for about a decade, which already made it one of the least decrepit places Lena would have stayed in because of her job.

And, believe her, she used the term “job” very loosely.

Well, it wasn’t as if she was part of the scam, she told herself as she started unloading all her equipment from her car. She never lied. Not once. She liked to think she even helped in her own way.

After all, people called them when they were terrified they were being attacked by ghosts. Lena got there, set up her equipment just like Lex had showed her, and waited for it to do absolutely nothing. She didn’t even pretend to be surprised when Lex’s patented ectoplasm detector remained silent. She just looked for the true source of whatever noises and paranormal events people were experiencing, and fixed it for them.

That’s not an old victorian child who died of the consumption, sir. Just a raccoon in your wall.

I’m afraid the whistle wasn’t your Great Aunt Myrtle’s beloved kettle, ma’am. You have tinnitus.

They all seemed relieved. Most of the time. Some people were oddly attached to the idea of having the tortured soul of a long-gone person haunting their plumbing. But, most people were relieved. They thanked her profusely and were happy to be rid of their irrational fears.

Luthor and Son were scammers, but Lena was not.

“Luthor, I presume.”

Lena gasped, startled by the unexpected presence of a woman in the living room she’d decided to use as her base of operations. She was a little bit older than Lena and looked at her in a way that made her feel like she was supposed to apologize for her very existence.

Not a new feeling, to be perfectly honest, but definitely unusual outside her family home.

“I’m Lena.” She bit back her last name like not speaking it out loud would make it disappear.

“Alex. Danvers.”

Oh. Well, that explained the barely concealed hostility. Alex Danvers — Jeremiah Danvers’s daughter — had been the one fighting Luthor and Son for the last ten years to keep them away from El Manor.

Now she really felt like she was supposed to apologize.

“I’m sorry. About your father.”

Jeremiah Danvers had disappeared in this very house ten years earlier along with his friends and colleagues, the Zor-Els. Lena had heard the story a million times before. Their work in the field of converting ectoplasm into sustainable energy. Their groundbreaking discoveries which were the basis for the equipment Lex had engineered. The tragic disappearance of the three scientists and the Zor-Els' young daughter.

If only Lena believed in ectoplasm, she would’ve been in awe of standing in the very same house where it all had happened. As it was, she was just sorry their delusions had left Alex fatherless.

“Right.” Alex’s eyes narrowed just enough to make Lena feel like the slightly older woman was not above physical violence, given even the slightest provocation. “Well. I’m the grounds keeper, as you know.”

Lena nodded. She honestly hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to the legal saga that was Luthor and Son vs. Alexandra Danvers, but she knew El Manor had been transferred to the City when the rightful owners had been presumed dead seven years after their disappearance. She knew for the next three years Alex had tried to keep the house in the City’s possession to protect it. And she knew the Luthor money had won in the end, so El Manor was now, as Lex had repeatedly pointed out, L Manor.

Hilarious, Lena was sure. You just had to be there.

The one part of the house they hadn’t been able to buy was a small house at the far end of the back garden where the Danvers family used to live. That had been inherited by Jeremiah’s daughter, who had been working as the grounds keeper for the last ten years.

“I live in the house out back. The one you don’t own?”

Lena wanted to clarify she technically owned nothing since she was neither the Luthor or the Son, but Alex didn’t seem like she was in the mood for a discussion on technicalities.

“Anyway. If you need anything…”

Lena had a feeling the sentence ended with ‘go fuck yourself’ in Alex’s mind.

“Right. Thank you.” Path of least resistance. Sometimes it was just easier to pretend you were a little bit dim.

Ask her how she knew.

***

Ten hours later, the living room had been completely taken over by Lena’s equipment. She could’ve called Lex right away and started letting the machines do nothing at all as usual, but she decided she deserved a break. Her favorite part of her job had always been getting to explore all the different houses she investigated.

And the gardens. Mostly the gardens.

Old houses always had the best gardens to get lost in, and Lena never missed a chance to do just that. El Manor would not be an exception.

It was a balmy summer evening, and the moon was already out when Lena walked out of the house and started walking along a winding gravel path. For a house with a working grounds keeper, the garden looked distinctly unkempt. But Lena liked it that way. A little bit wild. With personality. Nothing depressed her more than a manicured lawn.

“Hi.”

Lena gasped, bringing one hand to her chest as if that would stop her heart from beating right out of it.

“Jesus. What is wrong with you!?” Who snuck up on someone in a gloomy garden at night? Come on!

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Well thank God for that.” Lena couldn’t fully keep the sarcasm out of her voice. In her defense, she was still fighting an impending heart attack.

“Who are you?” she asked.

Lena looked at the young woman in front of her with a mixture of confusion and annoyance in her eyes. She was a bit taller than Lena, with long blond hair up in a ponytail and sensible glasses not much different from Lena’s. She looked around Lena’s age, and Lena would’ve told her to get out of her property if it hadn’t been for the disarmingly clear look in the girl’s blue eyes.

The pretty smile did not help.

“I’m Lena Luthor.” Recognition flashed in the girl’s eyes like someone had poured a drop of ink into a glass of crystal clear water. Lena straightened her back and pushed her own glasses up her nose. She had nothing to be ashamed of (technically). “And who are you, exactly?”

“Kara. Kara Danvers, I uh— Alex’s sister?”

Great. There were two of them. Lena was suddenly outnumbered by Danverses. Kara didn’t look quite as likely to resort to violence as her sister, but Lena was sure she’d at least cheer Alex on while she beat Lena up.

“Right. I guess you’re just as thrilled as she is that I’m here.”

Kara shrugged slightly. “Well I mean… you guys don’t have the best record? Scamming the living impaired and all.”

It was boarding school all over again. The Luthor freak whose family believed in ghosts.

“You may have noticed that’s Luthor and Son. And I’m neither.” She shook her head, disappointed to find out the beautiful girl with transparent blue eyes was just like everyone else. A shame. “I’m just a girl trying to do her best. That’s all.”

Kara looked like she was going to say something, but Lena walked away before she could get a single word out.

***

Lena was still glaring at her phone after talking to Lex the next morning when she heard a knock on the back door. She figured it had to be one of the Danvers sisters, and sighed as she braced herself for another round of mostly undeserved judgment.

Being a Luthor hadn’t been her choice, after all.

“Morning.”

Alex Danvers stood on the back porch as she delivered the driest greeting Lena could ever remember receiving. Fantastic start to her day. Lex, and now this.

“Hi. How can I help you.”

Lena’s tone wasn’t much friendlier than Alex’s. She figured she was entitled to a bit of broodiness of her own if she had to put up with this… bullshit, from both her family and theirs.

Alex Danvers looked down at her well-worn leather boots. And then up at the sky like she was asking God to grant her the strength to do… whatever she was there to do. And then, finally, she looked at Lena.

“You’ve met my sister. Kara.”

Cryptic. Very thematically appropriate, given the allegedly paranormal circumstances.

“I have. Briefly.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

Lena heard the tap-tap-tapping of her own left Converse shoe against the aged floorboards under her feet as her patience grew thin.

“Right,” Alex said again, and then made a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a grunt as she tackled the nearly insurmountable (apparently) effort of holding a mug out for Lena to take.

Lena had binged enough true crime podcasts to know not to take drinks from people who very likely had her name written down on a hit list somewhere.

“I don’t want that,” Lena said, perhaps a little too defensively.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Alex rolled her eyes, took one step forward, made Lena take one back, “don’t be a baby.”

“I’m not a baby. I’m also not a moron. I don’t take beverages from people who hate me.”

“It’s not from me. Why would I bring you coffee?” Lena chose to ignore the fact that Alex hadn’t denied she hated her.

“To poison me, obviously. Laxatives, at the very least.”

Alex let out a quiet ‘huh’ and looked at the mug like she was slightly disappointed she hadn’t thought of that herself. “No, but it’s not from me. It’s from Kara.”

“And that’s… somehow supposed to make me trust it?”

Alex looked genuinely confused. Like she couldn’t believe someone would even think Kara would be anything but completely trustworthy.

“Obviously.” Alex held the mug closer to Lena. “She’s Kara. She’d never make you crap your pants, that’s preposterous, if hilarious.”

Lena did not laugh.

“Listen. She said she felt bad for whatever happened last night between you two. I told her whatever she did you definitely deserved it, but she wouldn’t listen.” Alex shoved the mug towards Lena once again, and Lena finally took it. Path of least resistance. “Said she’s sorry. And please accept a coffee as a token of friendship.”

Lena looked into the mug of delightfully hot coffee and then up at Alex once again.

“Why did she send you?”

Alex shrugged. “She’s busy.”

“Oh.” Weird. “Okay.”

“Right. We’re done here.” Alex had already climbed down from the porch when she turned around to shoot Lena a warning look. “You better drink that, Luthor. Don’t disrespect Kara’s token of friendship.”

Lena took a sip, just to shut her up. And she made sure she was within running distance of a restroom at all times for the rest of the day.

***

“Zero,” Lena muttered, reading the little dial on the side of one of Lex’s beloved machines, “and zero again,” she went to another one, “and oh, won’t you look at that? Zero.”

No ectoplasm in the El Manor. Which would only be surprising if Lena believed in the stuff. But because she lived in the real world where things like ectoplasm and ghosts did not actually exis—

“Hi, Lena.”

“Jesus Christ, Kara!”

Lena turned around, heart once again galloping against her rib cage like it was trying to escape.

“Would it kill you to be a bit noisier? It’s like you just—“ Lena gestured in the general direction of the empty space between them, “appear, out of thin air.”

Kara laughed a little too hard, considering Lena wasn’t aware she was even making a joke.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lena. Appear out of thin air. As if.”

“What are you doing inside?” Lena was aware the Danvers sisters lived in the property, but the house wasn’t theirs. Lena was entitled to some sort of privacy, right? Personal space, and all that?

Kara shrugged, ignoring the question completely. “I hope you liked your coffee.”

Lena considered insisting for just a moment, and then decided she didn’t actually mind Kara being there. She seemed kind, for a Danvers. Certainly kind in comparison with the other Danvers in the vicinity of this house.

“I did. Thank you.” Some kind of ancestral sense of manners kicked in then, and Lena reached for the first edible thing she could find. “Kale chips?”

Kara looked downright offended.

“No. No, thank you.” She shook her head. “Not hungry.”

“More for me,” Lena said, popping one into her mouth. If Kara couldn’t appreciate the finer things in life, that was certainly not Lena’s problem. And with that established, she went back to making sure all machines — as expected — marked big fat zeros on their dials.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Kara said eventually, “I shouldn’t have assumed you were…”

Like them. A Luthor. At home she’d always been treated differently — reminded that her failure to perform what was expected of her as a Luthor made her unworthy of the name. But out in the real world, where that would have been an asset, she was very rarely given the chance to prove that she really wasn’t one of them.

She’d always been stuck. In-between. Not a Luthor, but not not a Luthor, either. Stuck.

“It was a fair assumption. Can’t exactly blame you.”

“Still,” Kara said, and her voice was so soft it made Lena want to cry, “I should’ve given you a chance.”

Lena nodded, but she made sure her eyes didn’t meet Kara’s, just in case the blonde could read anything in them.

“Lena? Wanna start over?”

Lena checked off the last zero of the night and looked at Kara. At the bright, clear eyes and the pretty smile. And she sighed.

“I’m Lena Luthor,” she said with something close to a smile on her lips, “and who exactly are you?”

***

A week into her stay at El Manor, Lena had stopped complaining every time she talked to Lex.

The equipment remained, unsurprisingly, completely silent. No ectoplasm to be found. No readings to report. But Lex wanted her to stay there. This was it, after all. The job. She had to stay until he was absolutely certain every single cubic millimeter of the space within the walls of the old Victorian house had been analyzed.

Why he expected to find a microscopic ghost, Lena didn’t know. And, frankly, she didn’t care.

Her cold (for now, she feared) war with Alex Danvers had reached a sort of equilibrium where Alex brought her breakfast every morning at Kara’s request, and in exchange Lena smirked when one of Alex’s verbal attacks managed to hit her funny bone.

Alex was, as it turned out, a funny — yet grumpy — lady.

And every night, Kara showed up. Lena knew to expect her right around sunset, so she very rarely got startled by her these days.

And three weeks after her arrival at the manor, Lena surprised herself by feeling at home within its walls.

And even outside its walls. Which is why Lena was currently out on the terrace on top of the roof, feeling the chilly late summer night air on her cheeks while she kept warm with a blanket wrapped tightly around herself.

“What are you doing up here?”

Kara’s appearances no longer put Lena on the edge of a heart attack, but she’d be lying if she said being around Kara had no effect on her heart.

It beat just a little bit faster. A little bit louder. A little off-rhythm.

“No clouds at all. You can see every single star.” Lena figured that was enough of an explanation, and she patted the spot next to her as she unwrapped the blanket to offer Kara half of it.

“I’m okay. I run hot,” Kara said, accepting the seat but not the blanket.

“It’s your turn,” Lena said as soon as Kara had taken her seat, “you start tonight.”

Kara hummed as she thought of a question to ask. They’d started an ongoing game of 20 questions that had turned into close to 200 by now, but neither of them seemed too willing to stop.

“What’s your favorite food?”

Lena chuckled, something lazy and a little distracted as she tried to focus on looking at the stars instead of the girl next to her. “You’ve asked me that at least ten times already.”

“I’m hoping you’ll develop good taste at some point.”

Lena rolled her eyes with a smile. “Creamy kale pesto pasta is amazing, I don’t care what you say.”

“Hopeless. You’re hopeless.”

“Okay, Madam Potsticker. Do you really think you’re in a position to be snobby about food tastes?”

“Do not disrespect potstickers.”

Lena chuckled and looked up at the stars once again. “My turn,” she said, “What’s the thing you hate the most in the world?”

Kara thought for a long time, which was unusual. Normally she answered quickly with whatever popped into her mind.

“The fact that it’s been so long since I’ve had potstickers I can hardly remember how they taste?”

There was something in her tone. Lena didn’t think she knew Kara well enough to read it, but she could feel it simmering right below the surface.

“What about you? The thing you hate the most?”

Lena could have answered that question in many different ways, but she chose to follow Kara’s lead and go for the safest option.

“When I’m in a rush and can’t find my keys.”

Kara giggled quietly, and when Lena stole a glance she saw she was looking up at the stars. She looked particularly beautiful like this, relaxed and happy in the moonlight, and Lena settled into the comfortable silence between them without any trouble.

“I love the stars,” Kara finally said, voice soft and a little airy, almost like she wasn’t really there. “When I was younger I wanted to be an astronaut.”

There was that feeling again — the feeling of something Lena couldn’t see or name right under the surface of Kara’s words — but this time Lena felt it like a small wave of sadness crashing at her feet.

“I’m glad you stayed on Earth.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lena saw Kara’s hand move just an inch towards Lena’s. If she simply stretched her pinky finger, she could touch Kara’s skin for the very first time.

She was about to do it when Kara moved her hand away, and Lena swore she saw a hint of pink on the bridge of Kara’s nose.

***

“Fuck.”

Lena walked out of the office she’d been using as a makeshift bedroom, pulling her hair up into a messy bun as she scanned the living room for the twentieth time. Sticking to the bottom floor of the manor had been an excellent call, because if she’d had to run up and down the stairs instead of simply rushing in and out of the office she probably would’ve lost her mind by now.

“So goddamn late.” Her morning coffee sat untouched by the back door where she’d abandoned as soon as Alex had left, and Lena hopped on one foot and then the other as she tried to put on her shoes while still looking over every surface in the room.

Stupid keys. Stupid fucking keys. Where the hell were th—

Her frantic movements stilled immediately as she heard a sound she couldn’t immediately recognize. When Lena looked in the direction of it, she saw a pen rolling across a coffee table and then falling on the floor.

Since when did pens roll off flat, level surfaces on their own?

“Maybe there are ghosts after all.” Lena’s voice dripped with sarcasm as she crouched down next to the coffee table to get the pen and saw… her keys. Right there on the floor, almost completely hidden by the couch.

“Huh.” Lena placed the pen back on the table, flung her messenger bag over her shoulder and made a beeline for the front door. “Thank you, Casper. I owe you one.”

***

The first night Kara didn’t show up, Lena was on the roof. It was a moonless night, dark and quiet, easily the coldest since she’d arrived at the manor.

There was a sort of excitement crackling under Lena’s skin like a live wire. She was going to take a step. Cross a line. She was going to let Kara know she thought about her when they were apart. And if something else happened as a result? If they crossed another line or two or more?

Well — Lena smiled at the take-away containers neatly set up next to her blanket on the floor — she wasn’t going to complain about that.

Lena waited until just after midnight before giving up and walking downstairs. She sat in front of the television and ate reheated potstickers for two, and by the time she went to bed she’d changed her mind on the appropriateness of crossing lines.

***

Two weeks later, for the sixty-second time in a row, Lena wrote down a neat, round little zero next to each of the parameters Lex’s machines were supposed to measure.

Zero ectoplasm. Shocking, she was sure.

But she wasn’t complaining. She liked El Manor, even if she only really used the ground floor and the roof. She loved the garden in all its wild, defiant glory.

She loved seeing Kara nearly every single night.

Which is why, when the sun went down and the first stars started being visible in the night sky, Lena cut her garden walk short to head back home. Kara would be there any second, and the last thing Lena wanted was for her to think she’d gone out without her.

She didn’t usually go anywhere near the little house at the end of the garden. She and Alex were mostly civil these days, all thanks to Kara, but she still wouldn’t put it past her to do bodily damage if she felt like Lena was in her turf.

But that night Lena had gotten a bit disoriented among the tall grass and overgrown bushes, and she’d found herself walking right along the side of the little cottage on her way back home. And that’s when she heard it.

Kara’s voice, coming from the open window.

“I can’t. I can’t— I can’t tell her, Alex.” There was an anguish in Kara’s voice that made Lena feel like someone was squeezing her heart in their fist. “I just can’t.”

“Then you have to stop. No— Kara, look at me. You have to stop seeing her. Stop letting her see you. Because she’s going to figure it out.”

“She won’t—“

“She will, Kara. She will figure it out, and it’s gonna be even worse.”

There was a long silence, heavy with things Lena couldn’t even name, and when Kara spoke again there were tears in her voice.

“I can’t stop seeing her. I can’t. Don’t ask me to do that.”

Lena heard an exasperated sigh. She hoped Alex was holding Kara. Drying her tears. Making her stop hurting for whoever they were talking about.

“She’s a Luthor, Kara. Have you forgotten?”

Oh.

“She’s different.”

“Kara—“

“No. No! You don’t understand, Alex. You don’t know her like I do. You don’t see her like I do.”

Lena heard Kara stop talking to sniffle, and she covered her own mouth so no sound would come out as she felt the first tears start to fall.

“She’s— I trust her, Alex. She’s not like them. She’s not like anyone else.”

Another silence. Even more tense than the last one.

“If you trust her, why can’t you tell her?”

Lena held her breath. If Kara trusted her, why couldn’t she tell her… whatever they were talking about?

“I just—“ Kara let out a quiet sob, “I don’t know what I’d do if she hated me.”

Lena heard another sigh. Softer this time. And when Alex spoke again, her voice sounded gentler than Lena thought possible from the older Danvers sister.

“Oh, Kara.”

Kara was still crying when Lena ran back home.

***

Kara didn’t show up that night, but the routine was re-established the night after that.

There was nothing different about Kara, at least on the surface. But Lena kept thinking of a secret she was supposed to know, but didn’t. A secret Kara couldn’t — wouldn’t — share. A secret that could potentially make her hate Kara.

But over the last few days since she’d heard the conversation between Kara and Alex, Lena had thought about it almost constantly, and she’d come to a conclusion: there was nothing — absolutely nothing — Kara could tell her that would make Lena hate her.

“Remind me the name of that one?” Kara pointed up at the stars from her spot next to Lena on the roof.

Lena followed Kara’s gaze towards the starry sky. “That’s Lacerta. The—“

“Lizard,” Kara finished for her, “I remember.”

Kara loved the stars, and she loved listening to Lena share trivia and little facts about them. Lena had started reading up on astronomy during the day just so she’d have things to share with Kara at night.

And once again, she realized there was nothing Kara could say to make Lena hate her. Because Lena— well. Lena felt things. For Kara. The kind of things you don’t forget because of someone’s deep, dark secrets.

And because Kara couldn’t exactly bring up the subject without admitting she’d been eavesdropping, she decided to do the next best thing. She’d let Kara see a little bit of how she felt. Give her a hint.

Even if it had to be a tiny one.

Taking in a trembling breath, Lena moved her hand along the floor until it was right next to Kara’s, and then gently, slowly, stretched her pinky finger to touch… Nothing.

Lena frowned slightly. Had she miscalculated her move? She was so glad Kara hadn’t noticed, because this was on the same level of embarrassing as those scenes in movies where the boy yawns to put his arm around the girl at the cinema and whacks her in the face instead.

So she decided to try again, but this time she wasn’t going to go in blind. She looked down at their hands just to see how much she’d have to move to reach Kara’s, and—

Lena couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t do anything, because what she was seeing with her own two eyes was her pinky finger in Kara’s hand.

As in, her pinky had gone through Kara’s hand. Kara’s hand that looked distinctly translucent now that Lena’s finger was in it.

It took her a few seconds to react, and when she did it was by scrambling to her feet and taking two steps backwards.

“What— what the fuck, Kara?”

“What?” Kara seemed confused at first, following Lena’s gaze to her hand (which looked normal again) and clearly not seeing what was happening. And then. Then, Kara looked at Lena’s face, into Lena’s eyes, and Lena could tell the exact moment Kara realized what she was seeing in them wasn’t hatred. It was fear.

“Lena. Lena, please, I can— I can explain.” Kara was on her feet now, pleading, taking one step forward for each one Lena took back. “Please don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what, Kara? Like you’re—“ The word tasted bitter at the back of Lena’s mouth. Bitter and impossible but real and like it would infect everything else in Lena’s world. “A ghost!?”

“Lena…”

“I’ve been— God, I’ve been here all this time, feeling so guilty about my family bothering you and Alex. So… unworthy of you.” Lena felt her eyes burn with tears, but she refused to let them fall. “And you knew. You knew they were right and you didn’t— you let me keep feeling that way!?”

“Lena, please. Please just listen—“

“No!”

Kara flinched like Lena’s voice had physically hit her.

“No. You’ve had— you had plenty of chances to tell me. I would’ve listened any other time.” Lena shook her head. “I can’t even look at you right now.”

The last thing Lena heard before slamming the office door shut was a quiet ‘Lena, please’.

***

Twelve hours had not been enough to process her feelings about what had happened on the roof.

Lena stood in the shower, letting the warm water fall over her like rain, picturing the darkness in her head washing off her and running down the drain.

Sadly, she was well aware it didn’t work that way.

She felt… betrayed. All her life she’d been an outsider in her own home, always set aside. She was the other child. Not Lex. The other one. Her age hadn’t hit double digits yet the first time she noticed a conversation between Lillian and Lex abruptly ending when Lena walked into the room.

She’d thought Kara was different. She thought Kara saw her differently — trusted her enough to let her in. But she’d been wrong. Just like Alex, Kara saw her as an outsider. A Luthor, even if the Luthors didn’t see her as one. Someone who couldn’t be trusted — not fully, anyway.

Lena stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. When she walked past the mirror, she saw a message on the fogged-up glass.

Roof tonight?

Lena pressed her palm on the mirror and wiped the message away.

***

Lena went up to the roof anyway.

Two hours after sunset, just to make it clear was still angry. Still hurt. Still not okay.

Kara wasn’t there when Lena walked out on the terrace. At least not visibly. When she saw her appear out of thin air for the first time, Lena couldn’t help the way she gasped and took a step back.

The look in Kara’s eyes when she saw she’d scared her made her want to cry.

“My name is Kara Zor-El.”

“Zor-El. As in—“

“Yes.” Kara nodded. “My parents— Jeremiah and my parents discovered a way to turn ectoplasm into a clean, renewable energy source. They thought—“

“I know. I know the science.” Lena shook her head. She’d been hearing about the goddamn Danvers-Zor-El experiments for years. “And I’m using that word very loosely.”

It suddenly dawned on her that the fact that Kara existed — that Kara was a ghost -- meant everything else she’d always thought was nonsense may very well be true.

“My family has been trying to pick up where yours left off,” Lena said, “I always thought it was ridiculous. Pseudo-science at best. But if it isn’t…”

God. What if it wasn’t? “It could make the world a better place.” When Kara was a little girl, she wanted to be an astronaut. Lena had always wanted to make the world a little bit better.

Kara nodded. “I was thirteen when the accident happened. They thought they’d found a way to gather ectoplasm, but they accidentally— they crossed us over. They only had enough power to send one of us back so they sent me, but I— well. I got stuck.”

“Stuck?”

Kara reached for a leaf on the ivy climbing up the wall, and Lena watched Kara’s hand go through it without disturbing it at all. “Stuck. In between.”

“So you’re not…” Lena couldn’t bring herself to say the word out loud.

“Dead?” Kara said bluntly, like she’d been practicing. “No. No, I’m not dead.”

“Just in between,” Lena said, a little thoughtfully, like she fully understood what it all meant.

“Just in between.”

Lena closed her eyes just to be able to focus on her thoughts. The experiments, the notes her mother and brother had made her read over and over again. It was all real. All true. Ectoplasm existed, even if, for whatever reason, Lex’s machines couldn’t detect it. Maybe Kara was different. Maybe they were all just slightly off on their calculations.

“Lena?”

Kara’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “You’re the Zor-El girl,” she finally said, like that was the most important detail in this whole mess, “so you’ve been… like this for—“

“Ten years.”

Ten years. Ten years in between, whatever that meant. Ten years in which Kara had aged, evidently, because she looked twenty-three and not thirteen. And out of all the questions she could ask — all the questions her scientific mind could come up with — Lena could only come up with one.

“Why. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Kara looked down like she was gathering her thoughts. Like she couldn’t quite meet Lena’s eyes. If you asked Lena, she deserved to feel at least a little bit ashamed.

“All that equipment. The commercials about the living impaired. Your family fighting Alex in court all this time to get access to the house…” Kara shook her head and finally looked up, “I thought I’d lose you, Lena. If you knew who I really am. What I really am.”

Lena let out a quiet, bitter little scoff. “So after all this time, you really think that’s all I am. Just another Luthor. Someone to keep at an arm’s length.”

“No!” Kara took a step towards Lena, and Lena surprised herself by not stepping back. “No. Lena. You’re so much more than that. You mean so much more than that. What I feel for you—“ she shook her head, “I would never push you away. I could never give up on this. Never.”

Lena set her jaw. “Then why,” her voice came out strained from the sheer effort of holding back her tears, “did you think I would?”

Lena watched Kara struggle to find something to say for six heartbeats before she turned around and went down to her room.

***

Kara appeared in Lena’s kitchen two nights later, while Lena was in the middle of doing the dishes.

“You didn’t show up last night,” Lena said as a greeting, her back still to Kara.

“There was no moon.”

Lena finished washing up and used the time to think about what Kara had just said. What it meant. What it implied. It wasn’t necessarily easy to wrap her head around a reality where ghosts existed, let alone trying to understand all their rules and idiosyncrasies.

“Is that why you only come at night?” Lena turned around and leaned her back against the counter, wiping her hands dry on a small tea towel. “You need the moon?”

Kara nodded. “I’m here during the day, too. I’m always here. You just can’t see me. Or hear me.”

“So the moon— the moon makes you… visible?”

“If I want to be. I can stay hidden away.”

Lena savored the implication in Kara’s words. The acknowledgment that Kara had had a choice in all this. She let Lena see her because she wanted to. She could’ve simply stayed away, but she didn’t.

“Was it you? Did you help me find my keys the other day?”

Kara smiled, something small and almost hesitant, like she was scared if she showed any emotion other than remorse Lena may shut her off again. Lena felt like someone had turned on the light in her heart.

“You said you hated losing them.”

Lena nodded and let out a sigh. “I do. I really do.”

For the first time, the silence between them felt uncomfortably thick.

“I’m so sorry, Lena.” Kara took a step forward. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I wasn’t brave enough and I’m so sorry.”

Lena looked at the damp tea towel in her hands for a moment. She was at a crossroads, she figured. She could wallow in self-pity. In the very real feelings of betrayal and rejection and anger swirling around in her stomach. She could let them fester there for weeks and months and years until she either got over them or Kara stopped caring enough to keep apologizing.

Or. She could acknowledge the feelings and rise above. Prove Kara wrong and herself right. Accept that there really was nothing Kara could do to make Lena hate her.

“You hurt me.”

“I know,” Kara whispered, voice just a little watery. “I know I did.”

Lena took in a deep breath and let it out in a slow, steady stream. She could never hate Kara Danvers. Or Kara Zor-El. Not in this reality, and not in whatever in-between parallel dimension she inhabited.

“So. Can you leave?” Lena asked, “Can you go away?”

Kara wiped a couple of stray tears rolling down her cheeks and smiled even though Lena could tell she was trying not to. She understood, didn’t she? She understood Lena could never give up on this.

“Not too far. I can go to Alex’s. Maybe a couple steps down the street.”

“No, I mean— can you go fully… well, away. Into… the beyond?” Lena didn’t even have the vocabulary to talk about this whole new reality Kara had opened her eyes to.

Kara was kind enough not to laugh at her as she shook her head. “I’m stuck.”

“Forever?” Thinking about forever without ever holding Kara’s hand made something ache deep inside Lena’s chest.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Kara shrugged slightly, and it became clear to Lena, in that moment, just how far ahead Kara was in her understanding of all this just by virtue of having had ten years to wrap her mind around it. She talked about it like it was nothing — like it was no more extraordinary than the weather or the phases of the moon.

“I do age. So I kind of— I assume I’ll die, eventually. And just cross over like everyone else.”

Lena mulled over the words and their meaning in silence for a moment. “That’s a bit morbid.”

“Well. I am a ghost. Morbid comes with the territory.”

“Right.” Lena wrapped her fingers tighter around the tea towel just to keep herself from doing something as unspeakably stupid as trying to touch Kara. “Can you feel? Physically, I mean.”

“Not in the strictest sense of the word.”

Lena hesitated for a moment. Tightened her grip on the towel until her knuckles went white. And then took two steps forward and traced a line down the back of Kara’s hand, from her wrist to the tip of her middle finger.

It felt like nothing, and it felt like everything.

“Did you feel it?”

Kara’s eyes had fluttered closed, and she swallowed before she looked at Lena. “Not— I mean yes. Just not in the same way I would out there. It’s— different.”

“Can I feel you? Can you let me feel you?” Maybe it worked like being seen. Maybe Kara could control it.

But Kara shook her head. “During the day, maybe. Kinda. I can touch things.”

“Like the mirror?”

“Yeah. So maybe.”

Lena nodded. Maybe was better than no. Maybe was much better than never.

“Well, and then there’s Halloween.”

Lena stopped looking at her hand to meet Kara’s gaze. “I’m sorry. Halloween?” Now that crossed the line. Up until now Lena had kept an open mind, but that was a bit much for her suspension of disbelief.

“Don’t you know the story? All Hallow’s Eve? Samhain? When the portal between both worlds opens and—

“You’re kidding, right? You’re not actually expecting me to believe it’s all true.”

Kara shrugged. “Maybe not all of it. But I can cross over on Halloween. Just for the night.” Kara smiled, and Lena shook her head in disbelief. “I eat potstickers and get hugs.”

Kara was looking at her with those eyes of hers, and Lena couldn’t see a single hint of mockery in them. Kara was telling the truth. Somehow, this was reality. And Kara would be able to cross over on Halloween.

“And you’ll feel it if I touch you?”

Kara nodded. “Just for the night.”

Lena did her very best to maintain her poker face, but something told her she wasn’t being completely successful. “And if someone kissed you. Would you feel that?”

A dusting of pink appeared across Kara’s cheeks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d feel that, too.”

***

Ever since she’d found out about Kara, Lena spent most of her time in the library. A month ago she’d have said most of the antique books in there were nothing more than old wives’ tales, but now…

Well. Now she was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

As usual, Lena walked towards one of the floor to ceiling bookcases and picked a book at random. She hadn’t read enough about this whole new side of reality to get a feeling for which things related to which, so she was taking a more… eclectic approach to her research.

As soon as Lena opened the book, the pages flipped on their own.

“Oh, you’re here. Good morning to you, too.”

Lena looked up from the book when she heard a distinct, rhythmic tap-tap-tapping on a nearby shelf. When she looked at it, she saw one of the books slide ever so slightly backwards until it was visibly misaligned with the rest.

“What is this, literature recs from the beyond?” Lena smirked and grabbed the offered book. “Very seasonally appropriate for October, I must say.”

Pages flipped on their own once again, but this time it felt like there was a purpose behind it. On a particular page, the pages stopped turning and Lena heard that tap-tap-tap once again.

“Every nineteenth year,” she read out loud, “a full moon shines on Samhain, and the portal fully opens. Oh, and it comes with a chart, too. Handy.” Lena followed the lines on the chart until she reached the number she’d been looking for. “This year. There’ll be a full moon on Halloween this year.”

Lena looked at the empty space in front of her. Having a conversation was so much easier when she could at least see the expression on Kara’s face.

“Okay. I have no idea what this all means. The portal fully opens? I thought that happened every year.” She shook her head. “What does it mean, Kara?”

Tap-tap-tap.

Lena turned around. The sound hadn’t come from the book or the bookcases. “Kara?”

Tap-tap-tap

The window.

Lena walked over just in time to see the first letter appear on the condensation on the glass.

I

“You what?”

I’ll stay.

***

“Haven’t you eaten anything all day?”

Lena figured the sun had set, but only because she could hear Kara’s voice. She’d been reading up on the Halloween full moon situation since morning.

“Not hungry.”

“That’s because you eat goat food. I wouldn’t be hungry either if leaves were on the menu.”

Lena rolled her eyes, but there was no keeping the smile off her face once she actually looked at Kara.

“What does it mean?” Lena figured she didn’t need to provide context. “You’ll stay where?”

“Here. There. With you.” Kara’s cheeks immediately turned a beautiful shade of pink. “I mean— you know. On that side. Which you are in.”

Here. With her.

“Not just for the night?”

Kara shook her head. Lena felt her own cheeks warm up.

“Okay. That’s— that’s good. That’s good news.”

“So will you help?”

“Me?” Lena could barely comprehend the situation, how on earth was she supposed to help? “How?”

“Alex and I— we have some of my parents’ and Jeremiah’s old notes. But they’re incomplete, and—“

“I have them. I have the rest. In the lab.”

Maybe that would be how Lena Luthor could make the world a little bit better. Helping put Kara Zor-El back in it.

***

The visit to the Luthor lab had been quick and uneventful. Luthor and Son were touring nearby college campuses giving talks about the living impaired and how to help them, and they were more than happy to leave Lena to watch the equipment and keep registering zeros every day.

Whatever Lex thought he’d built, it was clearly not working if it couldn’t detect Kara at all.

For the next two weeks, all Lena did was study. She went over Jeremiah and the Zor-El’s notes, modified some of Lex’s equipment, tried to make sense of physics that didn’t follow the rules Lena knew like the back of her hand.

Tap-tap-tap.

“Morning, Kara.”

A strand of hair had gotten loose from the bun on top of her head, and Lena felt it swish against her neck as if someone had blown on it.

“You do know I’m working on helping you cross over, yes?” Lena tried to sound stern, but the smile on her face betrayed her.

A round metallic piece fell off her desk and hit the floor with a sound that was far too rhythmic for it to have been a coincidence. And then it started rolling across the floor.

“Are you serious?” Lena chuckled and stood up, following Kara (it felt a bit less ridiculous to think she was following Kara than to think she was being led by a piece of metal) towards the stairs.

Tap-tap-tap.

“Up? All right. This better be quick, though. I was about to make a breakthrough.”

Lena hadn’t really explored the top floors of the manor yet. She’d stuck to the ground floor for living and the garden and roof for exploration and stargazing, respectively. The two floors in between were a mystery to her.

But not to Kara.

Lena followed the taps on the wall along a hallway until she was standing in front of a door with a red and blue “K” painted on it.

“Was this your room?”

She took the knock on the door as a yes and walked inside.

The room looked dusty, but not like it’d been abandoned for ten years. She figured Alex had been keeping it somewhat presentable for the last decade. There were yellowing posters on the walls, all of them related to space. Planets and constellations and galaxies everywhere. There were discolored spots on the walls where Lena was sure glow-in-the-dark stars had been stuck for years.

“It feels yours,” Lena finally said, “It really does.”

The lamp on a vanity flickered on and off. Lena smiled at the sight of what was meant to be a spot for Kara to start experimenting with make-up and curling irons being covered in science fiction novels and comic books instead.

Kara tapped on the chair, and Lena obediently sat down.

There was a quiet sound. Like wind chimes, maybe, but softer. Lena couldn’t figure it out until she noticed a golden chain dangling from a hook on the side of the mirror. Kara made it swing and make the metallic little sound once again.

Lena took the chain in her hand and looked at the two pendants on it. A golden K, and the Big Dipper with a small blue crystal on the North Star. It reminded her of the color of Kara’s eyes.

“Ursa Major,” Lena said as she traced the lines connecting the golden stars, “they’re beautiful, Kara.”

And then.

Lena felt Kara. It was unlike anything else she’d felt before, but it was her. One fingertip. Two, maybe. Drawing a painfully slow line around Lena’s neck.

For a moment, Lena forgot how to breathe.

“Y— you want me to put it on?”

Lena placed the delicate chain around her neck and carefully fastened it in place.

She felt Kara’s finger tracing the chain, and the touch — for lack of a better word — echoed all over her body.

And then, just as she was still trying to make her pulse go back to normal, she saw the mirror on the vanity fog up like someone had breathed on it.

Happy 21.

“Is that today?” Lena looked at her watch. October 24th. She was twenty one years old. One year closer to being able to access her trust fund and say goodbye to Luthor and Son. But she had much better things to focus on today.

“One week,” she said, and she wished she could see Kara’s face, “and I’ll thank you in the flesh.”

***

The night before Halloween, Lena didn’t sleep.

She stayed up with Kara, huddled under a blanket under the stars and talking about them. About life after Halloween. About togetherness.

“Sun will be up soon,” Kara said in a whisper.

“I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“Last time.” Kara smiled, already starting to fade. “Tomorrow night I’ll stay forever.

“I like that word. Forever.”

“Most people find it daunting.”

“Most people don’t even know what it means.” Lena sighed, but knowing she was mere hours away from finally having Kara — really having her with her — made her heart feel light. “I’ll finish reading your parents’ notes today. We’ll be ready to go by sunset.”

Kara nodded. When she spoke, it sounded like her voice came from far away. “I know I’m in good hands.”

“What are you looking forward to the most for tonight?” Lena knew she was just trying to make these last moments together last a little bit longer. “Potstickers?”

Kara chuckled nearly silently and shook her head. Lena watched her fully fade as she leaned in, and felt Kara’s cool breath on her lips.

“I think—“ Lena sighed and hesitated for only a second. After tonight, she’d never be with Kara without seeing her again, and some things were simply easier to say when you couldn’t look into the other person’s eyes. “I think I’m in love with you.”

***

Lena spent the rest of the day hiding away in her favorite corner of the garden, going over the last of the Zor-Els’ notes.

It was a secluded little spot. She figured it wouldn’t have been this peaceful with a more traditional approach to gardening, but Alex’s chaotic neutral style meant the vegetation around it had turned into a natural hideyhole of sorts.

Lena’s mother — her mother, not Lillian — had always called her a library mouse. She had a certain affinity for burrows of all kinds, especially when she had to read.

She’d made Kara promise to stay away. Lena loved hearing the little tap-tap-tapping that told her Kara was around, but she couldn’t afford the luxury of getting distracted. She had to finish reading up on the process of getting her back before the sun set. She had to get it all exactly right, because nineteen years would be too long a wait. Nineteen years was an unthinkably long time to wait.

So Lena focused on her work. She triple checked her math in her head and on paper. She would run the same calculations through her laptop later, of course, but in her experience computers weren’t much more accurate than she was when it came to math. Still, it couldn’t hurt. She looked at the diagrams on the page, noted little adjustments Kara’s parents had made to the original design. Tried to figure out what, exactly, had made it all go wrong.

And then.

Then everything changed. In a split second. In the tiny fraction of a second it took for her to turn a page.

Suddenly the handwriting changed. It wasn’t Astra Zor-El’s neat, no-frills cursive or her husband’s more angular print. It was—

Lex. It was Lex’s tight, rushed, barely readable handwriting. She must’ve accidentally grabbed some of his papers when she took the Zor-Els’. And for a moment the feeling of something being terribly wrong overwhelmed Lena so much she couldn’t even read.

But she did, eventually. She read. She skimmed, if she was being perfectly honest, heart beating faster with each word as her reality shifted once again and she discovered yet another secret that had been built and maintained around her.

Lex knew. Lillian knew. They knew about Kara. The equipment — they had the real data streamed to their lab directly while they kept Lena busy recording zeros and keeping the machines in perfect working condition. Ectoplasm was real and its energetic potential nearly endless, and Lena felt a wave of nausea hit as she kept flipping pages and saw the rest Lex and Lillian’s plan: revolutionizing the arms industry.

An image of a bomb with her name stenciled on its side flashed through her mind, and the only reason Lena didn’t throw up right then and there was she’d been too busy reading to eat.

And then it hit her.

Kara.

Kara was the key. Kara who was in between and could open the portal that would allow them to harvest all the ectoplasm they could ever need. Kara who — according to Lex’s notes — could be a source of ectoplasm herself. Kara who could be harvested.

“KARA!”

Lena shoved the papers off her lap and started running back towards the house. It was still early afternoon and the moon wouldn’t be out for hours. God, she hoped Kara would hear.

“Kara! Don’t— don’t cross over! It’s a trap!” Lena reached the back porch panting, barely able to get her voice out and wishing she’d given sports more than a passing glance over the years. “Kara!”

Lena opened the back door and walked inside, looking around at every glass surface where Kara could conceivably leave any kind of sign that she was there. That she could hear her.

“Kara, please! Can you hear me? Don’t cross over tonight. Whatever you do— I’ll wait.” It took Lena a moment to register there were tears running down her cheeks. “I’ll wait, baby, please just— stay put and—“

Lena’s eyes rounded in surprise as she noticed a handbag that was very much not her own resting on the coffee table in the middle of the living room.

“No,” she whispered once she recognized it as Lillian’s and realized she may very well be too late, “Kara! Stay away, Kara, plea—“

She didn’t hear steps behind her. Maybe if she’d been less hyper focused on warning Kara, she would’ve noticed someone behind her and could have gotten away.

But the first thing Lena noticed was the damp cloth against her nose and mouth that smelled like the waiting room of a hospital, and then the sting of a needle in her arm.

And by then, it was too late.

***

Lena woke up with a pounding headache, a sore throat, and so thirsty she felt like she could resort to physical violence for a glass of water.

Her brain felt like a sponge.

Like a dry sponge.

As she slowly returned to consciousness, more and more of her muscles made themselves felt.

It took her a while to fully process her surroundings and realize she was on a cold tile floor.

On the cold tile floor of the bathroom.

In El Manor.

Kara.

“Kara,” Lena choked out, voice hoarse from all the yelling she’d done the day before. Had it been the day before? How long had she been out? Bits and pieces of the situation started filling up her brain as she struggled to get up.

Lillian. Lex. Kara.

“Kara?” Her voice quivered. Had she crossed over? Had they taken her? Was she gone?

Forever didn’t seem like such a good word right now.

“Kara, are you here?” It was light outside. Even if Kara was there, she wouldn’t be able to answer. “Kara, please. Just— just be okay.”

Tap.

Lena turned her head so fast towards the mirror that she felt a little dizzy.

“Kara?”

Tap-tap-tap.

And then a cloud of fog on the surface of the mirror, like a breath, and Lena watched through the tears in her eyes as a little heart-shaped doodle appeared on the glass.

“Kara,” Lena breathed out.

She decided nineteen years were nothing in the grand scheme of things.

***

Lena spent the next October 31st decorating the house. She spared a thought or two for Lex and Lillian — Luthor and Son — on the anniversary of their disappearance in the same tragic circumstances that had once taken Jeremiah Danvers and the Zor-Els, but she quickly decided her mental energy was better spent on something else.

She’d never been big on holidays, but she knew Kara liked a bit of festive flair, so the El Manor was a cornucopia of pumpkin-themed decorations.

Over the ornate arch that separated the living room — now free of machinery — from the kitchen, she carefully painted the numbers from one to nineteen.

Loud groups of trick-or-treaters ohhed and ahhed at the old El Manor as they walked up the path to the front door. Lena pretended she didn’t see when little hands double-dipped into the bowl full of candy while she complimented plastic Iron Men and lopsided witch hats.

The last pieces of candy were gone before the sun had fully set, and Lena busied herself with setting a table for two (no kale, just potstickers) until it got dark outside. And then she felt her.

She felt her.

“Happy Halloween.”

Kara’s voice sounded different. More real. Lena leaned backwards and felt the solid strength of Kara’s body against her back, and she had to take a moment to breathe through the sudden need to cry.

She turned around slowly, looked into Kara’s eyes, and was delighted to see they looked exactly the same on this side. Still bright blue and transparent and clear.

Lena pressed the palm of her hand to the left of Kara’s sternum and closed her eyes for a moment until she felt the thump-thump-thumping of Kara’s heart against her hand. If she had any musical talent, she would write at least a dozen songs to its beat.

“You’re tall,” Lena finally said, taking a step closer to press herself flush against Kara.

Kara pressed a lingering kiss to Lena’s forehead. To the bridge and then the tip of her nose. “I’ve always been tall.”

“You feel taller in the flesh.”

Kara smiled against the wet, salty skin of Lena’s cheek.

“I feel like I should apologize in advance. I hear first kisses can be a bit clumsy.”

It took a second for Lena to understand what Kara meant. Not just the first kiss between them. Her first kiss ever. Because she got stuck at thirteen and, Lena figured, there were no homecoming dances in the beyond.

“Well. Practice makes perfect,” Lena teased, feeling Kara’s heart beat faster as the taller woman leaned in, “no shame in learning a new skill.”

Their first kiss was a bit clumsy. A bit too hesitant, a bit too nervous, a bit too much teeth because of their smiles.

The second was slightly better.

The sixth was cut short when Kara saw the potstickers, and the seventh landed on Lena’s cheek because she turned her head with a shriek to dodge Kara’s potsticker-covered lips.

Lena had lost count when Kara pressed her up against the wall halfway up the stairs and kissed her until her knees were weak and her body humming with a year’s worth of waiting.

In the middle of the night, Lena wrapped a soft sheet around her naked body and sneaked out of bed to go downstairs. She stood on her tiptoes to reach the top of the arch between the living room and the kitchen and used the same paintbrush she’d used to paint the numbers to cross out the first one.

“Eighteen to go.”

***

The house smelled like burnt pumpkin bread (hey, at least they tried), the cinnamon candle Lena had lit to try and get rid of that first smell, and them.

Kara didn’t own any t-shirts, technically, but she’d mentioned seeing Lena wear one of them as one of those silly romantic fantasies from her teenage years. Lena had had to enlist Alex’s help to track down a large t-shirt from the high school Kara was set to attend after the summer when she got stuck in between two worlds, but it had been worth it.

Kara had blushed every single time she’d seen Lena in it, from her last birthday until Halloween.

Even now, in the middle of her 3AM potsticker break, Kara’s cheeks glowed pink when Lena walked into the kitchen. Best purchase ever.

“Wanna do the honors?” Lena asked, offering Kara a small jar of orange paint and a brush.

Kara popped the last potsticker into her mouth and hummed an affirmative reply as she walked out of the kitchen through the arch and looked at the numbers on top of it.

Carefully, almost reverently, Kara crossed out number five.

“Fourteen to go,” Lena said, arms winding around Kara’s waist to pull herself as close as she possibly could. She found her favorite spot against Kara’s side, nose resting against Kara’s neck so she could breathe her in, and committed this feeling to memory. Just a little while longer, and then another year without this.

Two hours later, as they laid in bed in silence, Kara stopped drawing idle patterns on Lena’s naked back to speak.

“Baby?”

“Mhmm?” There was absolutely no way Lena would fall asleep before the sun came up and Kara went away. But she was so relaxed her voice came out quiet and soft.

“I’m so sorry.”

Lena shook her head. She stretched out on the bed, making sure Kara saw just how much of an effort it was for Lena to even move after the night they’d spent together. Everyone liked an ego boost once in a while, right?

“What could you possibly,” Lena let out a content hum, “be sorry for?”

“I’m just—“ Kara let out a quiet sigh, “I’m sorry I can only give you one night a year.”

Lena rolled onto her back so she could look Kara in the eye. She was wholly unprepared for the sadness she saw shining through.

“Kara Zor-El,” Lena said, voice steady and firm, “you give me so much more than that. You give me everything.”

When Lena sat up and kissed her, she realized it was the very first time she’d felt Kara’s tears.

“I’m in love with you every single day. Listen to me, Kara,” Lena cupped Kara’s cheeks with her hands, “you make me happy every. Single. Day.” Lena wiped Kara’s tears away with the pads of her thumbs and waited until watery blue eyes looked up at her. “The one night a year is just…” Lena’s voice trailed off as she tried to find the right metaphor.

“Confetti?” Kara offered.

Lena let out a quiet chuckle. If Kara was going to quote the shows they binge-watched at her, there were worse ones to pick, she figured.

“Yeah.” Lena nodded and kissed Kara’s lips for good measure. “Just confetti.”

***

Lena looked up at the numbers above the arch, wet paint dripping slightly where she’d crossed out number ten. She took in a deep breath and allowed herself a moment to bask in the feeling of being more than halfway done.

Ten years gone, nine to go.

Walking up and down the stairs was more of a chore at thirty-one than it had been at twenty-one, but Alex had warned her things didn’t truly start going downhill until thirty-five. Lena chose to believe this was already rock bottom, just for her own peace of mind.

Quietly, Lena walked to the end of the hallway, to the room with the K on the door. She leaned against the door frame and simply looked at the scene in front of her for a little while. Kara, solid and here, messy hair up in a ponytail and blue eyes so full of love Lena needed to take a moment to breathe through the sudden rush of tears.

“Haven’t you picked her up yet?”

Kara didn’t look away from the baby in the crib. She just shook her head and kept watching her sleep. Lena couldn’t blame her, really. In her own scientific opinion, their daughter was awe-inspiring. A true work of art from her long dark eyelashes to her pouty pink lips.

“She won’t mind, you know. If you wake her up. It is a special occasion.”

It took Kara another minute or two to finally make up her mind. Slowly, carefully, oh-so-gently, Kara slid one hand under the baby’s fuzzy little head and another under her body and lifted her up and out of the crib.

“She’s so small. Lena.” Kara still couldn’t tear her eyes away from the baby, and Lena watched as she shifted her in her arms until she was comfortable once again. “She’s so small.”

Kara’s voice was full of awe and emotion, and Lena decided there was no need to comment on the fact that their daughter had more than doubled her birth weight in the three months she’d been in the world.

She could be proud of her daughter’s clearly above-average growing skills at some other time.

The little girl in Kara’s arms stirred awake, and Kara offered her pointer finger for a tiny fist to wrap around. Lena heard a quiet sniffle and wrapped her arms around Kara’s waist, pressing a kiss to her shoulder blade.

“Hi, Luna,” Kara cooed, voice watery with tears, when round, dark blue eyes looked up at her, “sorry it took me a while to pick you up.”

Lena kissed the top of their daughter’s head. This, she decided. Making Luna. Making this family. This was how she’d made the world a better place.

***

“You have got to be kidding me right now.”

Lena, arms akimbo, watched in abject horror as her wife (they’d decided several years earlier that they didn’t need anyone’s signature to get married) and daughter stuffed their faces with candy and potstickers in front of the TV.

“Popsticker?” Luna offered, holding a half-eaten dumpling in Lena’s direction as she rummaged through the candy pile.

“Who are you people?” Lena sat on Kara’s lap anyway, and accepted a candy corn flavored kiss.

“Your mommy eats leaves, Lulu,” Kara chuckled when Lena lightly smacked her arm, “can’t expect her to know culinary brilliance when she sees it.”

“Oh!” Luna’s blue eyes rounded along with her mouth as she clearly remembered something important. “We gotta bake the cookies for school!”

The bake sale was two days away, but it was so rare for a school thing to land on Halloween so Kara could participate that Lena didn’t even think about questioning it.

“Are you sure you want Mom to help us, Lu?” Lena smiled when her daughter practically leapt into Kara’s arms the second they got off the couch. “She may wanna put potstickers in the dough.”

“Please focus on saving the planet and leave the cuisine to the experts.” Kara winked at Lena before pressing a kiss to her lips. And then another one.

El Corp — stylized as L Corp, because Lena had a sense of humor — had revolutionized the world. Lena had found the mistake in Jeremiah and the Zor-Els’ experiments and managed to find a sustainable, renewable, completely clean source of energy. But she still thought her family was her contribution to making the world a better place.

On the fourth kiss, Luna stuck her little hand between her mothers’ faces.

“Cookies, please!”

Lena winked at Kara. There was officially no bedtime on Halloween, but she knew Luna well enough to know she’d be out like a light before midnight, and then she’d get Kara to herself.

Kara was about to cross the arch into the kitchen when she stopped and took a step back. “Wanna cross out a number, Lu?”

Lena handed her daughter one of the million pieces of crayon that seemed to appear out of thin air all over the house, and watched as she crossed out number fifteen while Kara held her up.

“How many to go?” Kara asked.

Luna very seriously, very carefully, touched the numbers one by one. “Four!” She announced, clearly proud of herself, showing Kara four fingers in one of her hands before extending her thumb as well. “That’s one less than me, ‘cause I’m five.”

Kara nodded. “Four. That’s not a lot.”

Lena pressed a kiss to Kara’s cheek as she walked into the kitchen. “Four’s nothing at all.”

***

“Luna Zor-El!” Lena called out from outside the car. She hoped the neighbors wouldn't mind her raising her voice after sunset for once. The front door of the house was open, but her daughter was — of course — nowhere to be seen. “I’m gonna leave without you, and I’m not the one in the play!”

“Please don’t rush Dancing Pumpkin Number Five. She’s going to carry the weight of the show on her shoulders and needs to be prepared.” Kara appeared at the open door and gave Lena a mock disapproving look.

It took only three more minutes for Luna to finally emerge from the house, orange tutu bouncing with each step she took to climb down from the front porch.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said with a tone that put the fear of teenage years to come in Lena’s heart. She couldn’t remember being sarcastic at nine years old. But she couldn’t focus on that for too long, because she suddenly noticed Luna was holding out a cupcake and a (poorly) wrapped box.

“From me and mom,” Luna explained, “cause we love you.”

“And…” Kara prodded.

“Oh! And cause it’s your birthday.”

“Well, thank you very much.” Lena took a bite of the (strawberry cheesecake) cupcake and then handed it back to Luna so she could use both hands to unwrap the little box.

“Aunt Alex took me to the store since Mom’s stuck till Halloween.”

“Very kind of your aunt,” Lena said, glancing at her daughter only to see her stuff the rest of the cupcake in her mouth. Kara’s influence clearly was not deterred by not living in the same dimension.

It didn’t take long to peel the too-small paper off the little box, and Lena blinked back tears as soon as she opened it. A little golden charm in the shape of the number nineteen.

“It’s for your necklace,” Luna reached up to tap the golden chain around her mother’s neck, “Aunt Alex said if we push you into the lake you’ll go fwoop—“ she made a dramatic downward motion with her hand, “— straight to the bottom at this point.”

“Again, Luna, your aunt is so very kind.” Lena shook her head, a smirk on her face. If she was being perfectly honest, her little golden chain had gotten a bit heavier over the years. There was the letter K, and the Big Dipper. A full moon Kara got her for her 25th birthday, and a crescent moon she got for their daughter. And now, number nineteen.

“I love it,” Lena sniffled and wiped away a stray tear, “thank you. Both of you. Best present ever.”

Lena leaned down to give her daughter a tight hug, and grinned when Luna pressed a loud kiss to her cheek.

“Another one for me, please, Lu,” Kara said, and the little girl rolled her eyes as she delivered a second kiss.

“Okay, come on!” Luna climbed into the car and onto her booster seat. “We’re gonna be late!”

Lena nodded, but she made no move to follow her daughter into the car. Not yet. The golden number nineteen shone in the moonlight as she held it on the palm of her hand.

“You gonna put that in with the rest?” Kara traced the chain with her fingertip, and Lena felt nothing and everything all at once.

She shook her head. “No. You can do it on Halloween.”

Kara nodded once. “Happy 40th, baby.”

It wasn’t always easy, this whole thing. Even nineteen years in, sometimes it was just… it was just hard. Painful. Sometimes not being able to touch Kara felt like not being able to breathe.

And Kara always, always knew when it was one of those times. Lena was convinced she saw it in her eyes.

“One week,” Kara whispered, “just one more week. And then—“

“Forever.”

Kara smiled at her, and the pain faded just enough to be able to keep going. “Yeah. Forever.”

Lena winked at her wife and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“I want everything on tape, okay?” Kara said from the driveway as Lena started the engine.

“Always.” Their daughter’s entire life outside the El Manor had been painstakingly documented by Lena over the years.

But only for one more week.

***

The sun was already up in the sky when Lena stirred awake.

She stretched her arms up above her head and wiggled her toes under the covers, feeling joints crack here and there as she forced them awake.

Forty. Lena missed being thirty-one and thinking getting a little winded after climbing up the stairs would be the height of her decrepitude.

Letting out a grunt at the effort of actually moving her body this early in the morning, Lena rolled onto her side and glanced at the alarm clock on her bedside table.

7:23 AM

And then, underneath,

Nov 1st

November first.

Lena didn’t roll over right away. She took a second to breathe in and out, look down at the red and purplish marks scattered on her body that proved Kara had been there — really been there — last night.

Her fingertips traced the charms on the golden chain around her neck. The K and the Big Dipper. The full moon. The crescent. She really had met Kara. She’d turned twenty five with her and they’d had Luna. And then, number nineteen.

Nineteen years, and it was November first.

And once she’d made herself believe it really had happened, she finally rolled onto her other side.

And Kara was still there.

She’d never seen her in the morning light, and Lena stared for a moment, at the soft blond hair shining in the cold November sunshine and the thin lines she’d seen appear on Kara’s face year by year.

She gently traced the long lines of Kara’s fingers and watched the way her skin seemed to glow in the morning sun.

And then she kissed her awake. She’d never done that before, and Lena could taste the salt of her own tears in each kiss.

Kara’s eyes were even more beautiful in the sun.

“Hey,” Kara said, and it took her a second to realize what was happening. The first thing she did was trace Lena’s bottom lip with her fingertips, like she wanted to make sure she really could touch her. She really could feel.

“I’m still here.” Kara looked at Lena with blue eyes full of wonder, like a part of her never fully believed this day would come. Lena knew that feeling very well.

“Say it,” Lena said eventually, after a long stretch of silence. They’d talked about this. About the things they’d never gotten to do or say. About the one thing Lena had never heard Kara say.

Kara let out a watery chuckle, kissed her, and whispered against Lena’s lips.

“Good morning, my love.”

[fierysunrises]

Title: Treasured Day

Fandom: Boueibu Happy Kiss, Boueibu

Word Count (optional): 1.5k

Summary: Taishi and Yumoto go to an amusement park together.

Prompt: Haunted House for @mfbingo Halloween, and Winning a Teddy for the Other for @flufftober

Warnings: None

Relationships (optional): Manza Taishi/Hakone Yumoto

[caiti-creative-corner]

Multi-Fandom Halloween Bingo Masterpost

Autumn Baking - Delicious Autumn “Pumpkin Spice is not a good flavor” - No More Pumpkin Spice Trick or Treating - Trick or Treat . . . why not both? Maze of Mirrors - Steam on the Mirror “Your hands are cold” - His Cold Hands & Her Warm Heart