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Lena wakes up in a daze, unsure of where or when she is. It takes a moment before her senses come back to her and she lets out a soft groan before reaching over and giving her alarm clock a quick whack. She sits up, too quickly, and it feels like all the blood in her body rushes in and out of her head in an instant. Lena swallows the lump in her throat and glances at her clock. She groans, internally this time, when she sees her alarm must have been going off for about 13 minutes before she actually woke up. Unsure of how she slept through it, she shrugs the blanket off of her unusually sweaty legs. Lena rises from her bed, stumbling a bit at first but finding her footing soon enough. She pushes open the door to her bathroom and braces either side of the sink with her body. She makes eye contact with herself in the mirror. She looks rough . Her eyes are bloodshot, her skin a pale sickly colour, and all the grease in the world seems to have decided to have taken a vacation on her head.
Okay Lena. You can do this. It’s just one of those days.
It’s just one of those days, because Luthor’s don’t get sick. They have days that are a little harder to get through than all the rest, but they don’t get sick. Lena picks up her toothbrush and starts haphazardly brushing her teeth. An act she is about halfway through before realizing she’d forgotten to put any toothpaste on her brush. She blinks hard. Get it together, Lena . She brushes her teeth (properly this time), and turns her shower on. She leaves the temperature cold today, figuring that it would help wake her up and stop her from sweating so much. Just to be clear, Lena hates sweating. It makes her feel gross and unproductive and she won’t have any of it. So she washes her body off thoroughly before exiting the shower. When it comes to choosing an outfit for the day, she opts for a thigh-length skirt with no tights underneath. She’ll need all the help she can get to combat the unforeseen heatwave that seems to have taken to following her around.
Lena decides to pass on breakfast for today, her appetite seemingly having disappeared. She makes it halfway toward the elevator before turning back, having forgotten her purse by the door of her apartment. She gives herself a gentle slap on the face in an attempt to clear her head, but all it does is send ripples of pain echoing around her head. She is especially thankful today that she has a personal driver. As she collapses into the back seat, she closes her eyes and takes deep breaths. In and out. Trying to wish away the jackhammer that has taken up residence in her head as the driver starts their normal route.
She makes it all the way to her office without incident and has just sat down in her chair when a rap at the door makes her wince. Her hand shoots up to rub soothing circles on her temples. “Yes” she calls out, too sharply.
The door opens and Jess enters the room. “I’ve got your order.” She holds up a cup of coffee in one hand and a croissant from Noonan’s in the other.
Lena lets out an appreciative groan. “Jess, my saviour.” She thanks her enthusiastically as she takes the coffee from her. But, stops Jess before she can place the bag on the table. “Actually, could you hold the croissant today? You can take it if you’d like. Just throw it out otherwise.”
Jess gives her a slow nod, not used to such a strange request. “You feeling okay, Ms. Luthor?”
Lena internally curses herself. Was it that obvious? “Nope.” She shakes her head emphatically, which she immediately regrets as pain bounces around her skull. “We don’t talk about feelings, that’s why this works.” She gestures between herself and her receptionist.
Jess smiles apologetically and gives a polite nod. “Thank you for the croissant Ms. Luthor.” She makes her way back to the door, calling back before she leaves entirely. “Your first call is on in 10.”
Lena curses under her breath as the sound of the door closing echoes through the room. She takes a sip of her coffee, the slight bitterness making her feel a little better. She opens her bottom desk drawer, taking out a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol. She keeps it in there exactly for days like these. She pops two of them and drops the bottle onto her desk. She rises from her chair, opening the door to her balcony. Hopefully the airflow might drop the temperature in her office by a couple degrees. She shivers as the breeze catches her. She’s still hot, but it definitely helps a bit. She sits back down at her desk, taking a couple more sips of her coffee and opening her computer in preparation for the coming meetings.
The morning passes excruciatingly slowly. Each short video call she entertains feels like hours. By the time she has seen to her last one, she’s heard enough superficial ‘ are-you-okay?’s to last her a lifetime. As if they care. She realizes now that in her stupor this morning, she’d forgotten to put makeup on. She never wears a ton of makeup, only enough to make her look presentable. Not too much that it looks like you’re trying too hard and not too little that it looks like you don’t care. She hears her mothers voice in her head, which is almost worse than the constant pain she’s in today. Lena can’t believe she slipped up like this. And she’s already done a whole morning of video calls to boot. In a world where being a woman is already considered to be a weakness, she can’t afford to show any more. She is just glad it’s her lunch break now. She roots around in her purse for a moment until she finds her makeup bag. It isn’t extensive but hopefully it’s enough to prevent her from looking like she is on Death's door. She pulls out a compact, concealer, eyeliner, and lipstick. She takes a steadying breath, trying to clear some of the brain fog she’s been experiencing and begins to apply concealer, attempting to cover the bags under her eyes. This proves exceedingly difficult when her hand won’t stop shaking. She is almost finished one side when the door opens without any warning. She looks up and understands when she sees Kara standing in the doorway, a bag of takeout in one hand.
“Lena!” Kara grins, big and beautiful when her eyes land on her.
Crap. Lena completely forgot about their lunch plans for today. Don’t get her wrong, Lena loves seeing Kara. Probably too much. But, she has a hard time keeping up with Kara on her best days. She’s basically a walking ray of sunshine. Which Lena loves about her, but today she’s kind of sensitive to bright lights.
“You used the door today.” Lena points out. Kara laughs before bounding over to the couch, chattering away about something. “Just give me a minute here.” Lena calls out, moving onto the other side with her concealer. This might actually work out for the best. Her shaky hands would never be able to apply her eyeliner or lipstick properly, but Kara can. She finishes covering the bags under her eyes before standing up. Which she does entirely too quickly. She has to brace herself against her desk so she doesn’t fall over when the headrush hits her. She glances up at Kara from across the room. Kara, who seems completely oblivious to the state of Lena and has already torn into the food. She is halfway through devouring a cheeseburger when Lena gathers her chosen items and starts carefully making her way to the couch. The closer she gets, the stronger the greasy aroma of the fast food gets. Frankly, it makes her a little queasy. She makes herself a mental note to add Pepto-Bismol to her drawer alongside her Tylenol.
“Sorry, I started already.” Kara begins. “I’m just starving today. Not sure why because I had a huge breakfast but by the time like 10:30 came around it was like I never ate at all. Don’t worry though I got you your favourite.” Kara picks up a bag from the table and holds it out to Lena, waiting for her to take it.
Instead, Lena pushes Kara’s hand away, shaking her head. “No thanks, not super hungry today.”
“Are you sure?” Kara leans forward, her eyebrows furrowing in concern.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Lena shoots out a weak smile, before leaning in intensely. “Could you do me a favour though?”
Kara hastily puts her food down on the table and wipes her fingers off with a napkin. “Yeah of course! Anything.” She fiddles with her glasses “Uh- anything for you.”
“Can you put my eyeliner on?”
Kara lets out a laugh. “Huh?”
“My eyeliner.” Lena responds simply. “I forgot to put any on this morning. And I don’t have a mirror here so I can’t put it on myself.” She rambles a bit, spitting out some excuse as to why she can’t do this herself.
Kara blinks. “Compact.”
This time it’s Lena’s turn to be confused. “Sorry?”
“You have a compact. I saw you using it when I walked in. You said you don’t have a mirror but you do.”
Realization dawns on her. “Oh! Right! Yeah of course I have a mirror, it’s just not a good one. Compact mirrors actually distort your reflection. It was fine for my concealer but eyeliner needs to be a bit more precise.” She is a little proud of herself for coming up with that lie so fast, but dismisses it even faster. Lying is in her blood, nothing to be proud of.
“Right,” Kara nods solemnly, as if she’s just been told ultra secure intel. “I will put eyeliner on you under one condition.”
Lena quirks an eyebrow at her. “What’s that?”
“You have makeup remover in case this goes horribly, horribly wrong.”
The blunt comment catches her off guard and she lets out a short laugh before wincing briefly at the feeling in her head. Kara gives her a concerned look at that, but she says nothing.
“I’ve got makeup wipes in the bag.” She nods toward the pouch on the table in front of them. “But, I doubt we’ll need those. I trust you.” She trusts her to do her makeup properly, she means. But, the comment leaves the air unnecessarily charged. It might just be in her head though. Her judgement today isn’t exactly what it normally is.
“Your makeup is always basically perfect, though. I just hope my skills are up to the task.” She smiles, the easy conversation between them easing a bit of the tension from before.
“You’ve got this.” Lena reassures. “Now, get to work.”
She hands Kara the eyeliner, who uncaps it and leans forward. Lena swallows, unused to having people in her space like this. Kara begins to apply the eyeliner and that brain fog from earlier reemerges in excess. All she can seem to focus on is the way Kara’s blonde hair falls ever so slightly out of place as she leans forward. Or the way she bites her bottom lip gently in concentration. Or the way her blue eyes seem to shine through the lens of her non-prescription glasses. Or the way the faint aroma of something sweet, but unplaceable, seems to cling to her skin. Her brain is fuzzy and completely overtaken by Kara .
“Can I touch you?”
Lena chokes.
What?
“What?”
“Well I’ve been trying not to, I don’t wanna mess up whatever makeup you’re already wearing but it’s sort of hard to get the angles right while also trying not to touch your face.”
Right. Makeup. Kara doing her makeup. Of course. I don’t know why I thought- nevermind. She lets out a shaky laugh while trying to will her heart rate to come back down within normal bounds. “Y-yeah of course, go ahead.” She hates the way her voice shakes and she hates the way she sounds nervous. Why is she nervous?
Kara’s right palm, the one holding the eyeliner comes to rest against her cheekbone. Her other hand snakes over Lena’s left cheek, the lightest pressure holding steadfast against her face. Kara’s hand only rests there for a moment before it wanders, slow and exploratory, up the side of her face and up toward her forehead.
“You’re hot.”
What?
Lena can’t even think to respond before Kara rushes to explain herself. “Your temperature! You’re really hot.”
And, wow, Kara has to be doing that on purpose. At least she seems to understand how strange that one sounded at first.
“Hm.” Lena makes the briefest sound of acknowledgement, expecting her to move on, but Kara doesn’t seem to have the same idea.
Kara’s hand flips over, the back of it pressing more firmly against Lena’s forehead now. “Lena, you're burning up.” she states, almost accusatory. “Do you know you have a fever?”
Lena gives a halfhearted shrug. She didn’t directly know, but she isn’t surprised. It would explain why she’s been feeling like she’s overheating practically all day.
Kara’s eyebrows raise, like she’s making her own connections inside her head. She leans back and points at Lena’s desk. “Tylenol!” She cries as if she’s yelling out a revolutionary idea. The noise makes Lena cringe, her head once again betraying her. Kara catches this reaction and places a hand over her own mouth, a wordless apology for suddenly shouting. “Lena, you're sick.”
Lena immediately rejects the idea. “I’m not sick ,” She says the word with all the disdain in the world. “I’m just having a bad day.”
“Lena…” And she hates the way Kara says her name, like she’s somebody to pity. “You have a fever, that means you’re sick. You took biology pretty much all the way through school, I know you know what a fever means.”
Lena shrugs again absentmindedly, just wishing they could move on from this conversation.
Kara stands, suddenly. She offers her hand to Lena. “Come on.” Lena accepts her hand and stands as well. Partly out of habit, partly just wanting to feel Kara against her skin again.
“Come on, what?” Lena questions.
“Come on, I’m taking you home.” She clarifies.
Lena pulls her hand away at that. “What? No.” She replies, incredulously.
“Yes,” Kara states urgently. “You need to go home and rest. Honestly, I’m not sure why you came in at all today, you obviously feel terrible.”
“I’m fine!” Lena insists, but she knows as her voice cracks that she doesn’t sound convincing, not even to herself. “And I came in today, because I can’t afford to take a sick day.”
“Yes, you can.” Kara replies. “I promise you, people will understand.”
“Yeah, right.” Lena laughs without humour. “They’ll understand that I’m weak and that they don’t want to do business with people who skip out on important meetings just because they’re ‘not feeling too good’.” She feels tears prickle at the corner of her eyes and she sits back down on the couch, letting her head fall into her hands. She takes a steadying breath. She can’t cry right now. It’ll make her head feel 10x worse and she just can’t. Not here, not at work and not in front of Kara. She takes another breath, trying to take control of her body. Her head feels like it’s been filled with cotton balls, her limbs feel suddenly weak, and her clothes stick to her skin in uncomfortable ways.
“Lena…” Kara starts again.
“Please! Stop saying my name like that.” She gets up from her spot on the couch, intending to go sit back down at her desk and distract herself with work. But, she does it again, she stands up too fast. Her head rushes, but this time the edge of her vision goes black. She’s falling into oblivion.
Lena wakes up, and for the second time that day, it takes her a couple moments to realize she’s in her own bed. She concentrates, trying to remember how she got there, but nothing is coming to her. She just remembers eating lunch with Kara in her office. Then she was here. Kara. Where is Kara? She looks around the room, finally taking stock of it. Kara is nowhere to be seen. The thick duvet cover that is normally covering her bed is gone, leaving only the thin flat sheet below it. She lifts that, to check her own state of dress. She’s wearing the same thing she had been at work, but her heels are gone. Her dress shirt has been untucked from her skirt and unbuttoned ever so slightly, not enough to reveal anything, just to loosen its hold on her body. The corner of her bed houses a neatly folded set of light, airy pyjamas she recognizes to be from her own dresser. Looking to her bedside table, there is a rather large glass of water with partially melted ice in it. Beside the glass are two little pills that look to be Advil. Both the windows in her room are open, letting in the cool afternoon air.
She gets out of bed, her legs shaking a bit as she takes her first few steps, but growing stronger as she keeps walking. She makes her way down the hallway, arriving in the kitchen/dining room. There, a familiar head of blonde hair stirs a pot on the stove.
“Kara?” She’s surprised by how hoarse her voice is, it sounds briefly as if it came from somebody else.
Kara spins around to greet her. “Lena!” She’s at Lena’s side in a blink. Perks of superspeed I guess. She rubs her shoulders affectionately, “I’m really glad to see you’re up, but you should probably still be in bed. I don’t want you spending too much energy.”
Lena shakes her head. “I’m perfectly okay to walk down the hallway.”
“You also thought you were okay to walk back to your desk in your office but then you passed out.” Kara retorts.
Lena’s jaw goes slack for a moment. “I passed out?”
A deep frown ebbs at Kara’s features. “You don’t remember?” Lena shakes her head in confirmation. “You could have gotten really hurt if I hadn’t been there to catch you.” Kara gazes intensely at her.
Lena clears her throat “Where are my shoes?” She asks, as inconspicuous as possible.
“Why?” Kara responds, not answering the question.
Lena sighs, “I need to get back to work, Kara. I have so many calls and meetings I need to be back for. I own the company, I can’t just leave.”
Kara shakes her head. “I took care of it. I talked to Jess and she rearranged your schedule.”
Lena’s jaw drops again for the second time in about a minute. “You did
what?
”
“I’m sorry Lena, but look at yourself! You’re in no condition to be working right now. If you went back in you’d be doing more harm than good.” Kara rubs soothing circles into Lena’s shoulder.
Lena just pushes her hand away. “I… I can’t. I need to go back. I need to be strong.” Tears sting the corners of her eyes again. She can’t for the life of her figure out how Kara does this to her. She has a lot of superpowers, and it seems that being able to reach into Lena’s soul and extract her deepest vulnerabilities is one of them.
“Lena.”
Lena can’t manage to meet Kara’s eye. “Please, just stop doing that.”
“Doing what?” Kara’s hand hovers in midair, as if wanting to comfort Lena, but respecting her wishes not to be touched right now.
“Stop saying my name like I’m weak, like I’m someone to pity.” She crosses her arms in front of herself, half cradling her own body.
“Lena, I know you’re not weak.”
Lena’s eyes slide back up to find Kara’s. Her eyes are sympathetic but there’s a strange fire in them as well.
“I think you’re the strongest person I know.” And Kara smiles so heartwarmingly at Lena that she thinks she’s going to die. “And I know a lot of people with superpowers.”
Lena manages a light laugh at that. Kara always knows how to make her laugh, even when she feels like she wants to crawl into a hole.
“I know it’s hard to feel vulnerable like this. But, I think it takes a lot more strength to let yourself be vulnerable than it does to pretend to be untouchable all the time. So tell me, are you strong enough to let me take care of you?”
For a CEO who prides herself on her charisma and ability to charm people through her words, Lena suddenly finds herself completely and utterly speechless. It’s not that she doesn’t know what to say, but her mouth feels physically unable to form the words she wants to say. As if any verbal function has abandoned her. Instead she just nods slowly.
“Come with me.” Kara offers her arm which Lena begrudgingly takes. They walk back to Lena’s bedroom where she helps her back down onto her bed. She gestures at the pyjamas sitting on the bed. “You should get changed.” She gestures back at Lena’s state of dress. “I did what I could but I wasn’t gonna… you know.”
Lena’s cheeks grow hotter at the implication than they already were from the fever. Though, the lightheartedness eases some of the tension from before. She coughs, covering a laugh.”Yeah, I don’t think we’re quite at that stage. In our friendship.” She quickly tags her specification on to the end.
It’s quiet again.
Lena finally breaks the silence, “Are you going to let me.. get changed?” She picks up the pyjamas, placing them in her lap.
Kara’s eyes widen, “Oh! Yeah, of course! Sorry! I should get back, I’ve got soup on the stove. Hope you like chicken noodle.” She laughs awkwardly before leaving the room, closing the door behind her.
Lena doesn’t move for a moment. It almost feels like taking off her work clothes is admitting defeat. It’s not though. She remembers Kara’s words. She can be strong even in her pyjamas . She strips off her clothes and tosses them into the open door of her bathroom to be dealt with later. She has to admit, it does feel a lot better to have the thick clothing off. She sits for a minute, just enjoying the feeling of the cool air moving over her skin. It strikes her suddenly that she’s naked in her apartment with Kara somewhere on the other side of the door. That is enough to break her stupor and she swiftly puts on the clean pyjamas. She hates to admit it, but she really does feel better. She reaches for the water on her nightstand, taking a small sip at first, but that quickly turns into borderline chugging the rest of the water. She coughs a bit when some of it goes down wrong and she puts the glass back down. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. She eyed the Advil on the table. She wondered if Kara made sure it was Advil on purpose. She wouldn’t be able to take more Tylenol since she already had some earlier, but she could take Advil. She takes the pills and gets back underneath the thin sheet.
In Lena’s opinion, boredom is the worst emotion out there. Growing up, she was taught that if she was bored, it meant there was work she could be doing. This made it exceedingly uncomfortable for her to lay in her bed doing nothing while Kara busied herself in the kitchen. This was all the more reason to challenge herself in this way. So she sat, waiting, doing nothing more than zoning out.
When the door to Lena’s bedroom finally opens, she’s unsure of how much time has passed.
“Sorry I took so long.” Kara is carrying a bowl of chicken noodle soup in one hand and yet another glass of water in her other hand. She places both down on the side table before crossing to the other side of the bed and crawling in next to Lena.
“It’s okay.” She reassures her. Lena feels her face redden as Kara keeps scooting closer and closer until she is practically spooning her. She’s worried Kara can hear her heart rate skyrocket. As the blonde tries to suppress a smirk, she’s sure that Kara can hear her heartbeat. That should be coming back down… any day now. “You probably shouldn’t sit so close, I don’t want you getting sick.”
Kara rolls her eyes. “You’re not getting off that easy. Kryptonian, remember? I don’t get human sick, I only get alien sick.”
“Right.” Is all Lena replies with. She picks up the bowl of soup Kara gave her and swishes the spoon around. She leans in to inspect it closer when she notices a strange shape in her soup. “Is that… ice?”
Kara smiles sheepishly. “I didn’t want you to burn yourself.”
Lena can’t comprehend any of this. “How…?”
Kara quirks an eyebrow, confused. “You don’t believe me? Humans have very sensitive mouths, it’s very easy for you guys to burn. I just wanted to be extra careful. But, if it’s too cold now let me know and I’ll warm it back up on the stove for you.”
“How are you real?” Lena finishes.
“Pure cosmological luck.” Kara giggles in response. Her face turns serious all of a sudden. “I know your appetite has been down and I don’t want you to force yourself, but you really should try and eat some. Your body needs energy. I’d give you some of mine if I could but unfortunately humans don’t work like that.” Kara pouts a bit at that last part.
Lena’s eyes widen. “Do Kryptonians work like that?” Kara mimes zipping her lips shut and throwing away the key. Lena is able to eat about half of the bowl before she feels her stomach starting to turn on her. She swirls the spoon around in the bowl, trying to work up the courage to take another sip.
Kara eyes her worriedly. “Lena, if you’re full you don’t have to eat any more.”
Lena worries her bottom lip. “But you put in all this effort to make me soup. The least I could do is not waste it.”
Kara takes the bowl from her and reaches across Lena’s body, placing it on the side table closest to her. “You’re not wasting it. I only made you soup to make you feel better. If you feel better now then the soup was worth it. It doesn’t matter if you took one sip or drank the whole thing.” Kara looks at Lena so lovingly it feels like she’s looking right through her. She finds herself once again questioning how Kara is real. How it’s possible for someone so genuinely good to exist in a world that does nothing but beat her down. Lena gets the sudden inexplicable urge to kiss Kara. Kiss her in the platonic way that people do to show gratitude. She looks away and dismisses that thought quickly though. Lena never quite understood why people did that, kissing someone out of gratitude. She blinks hard, she needs to stop thinking about kissing people and Kara in the same train of thought.
She can’t stop thinking about it though when Kara is still looking at her with that brilliantly beautiful sparkle in her eyes.
So, instead she turns over and squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m going to go back to sleep.” She states, borderline robotically. She can hear Kara doing that adorable giggle from over her shoulder, but neither of them says anything. Only a couple moments go by before she feels one arm snake under her side and wrap around her front, pulling her body closer to Kara’s. She feels the other hand slide into her black hair and start soothingly scratching against her scalp. She tries to stave off falling asleep for as long as possible, trying to preserve this moment in time forever. But eventually, sleep takes her.
Lena still isn’t okay with the idea of being sick, but she figures if it gives her moments like these with Kara, that maybe she can learn to live with it.