#kara going down on lena on kitchen counters is an aesthetic holiday choice

[nevervalentines]

13 Supercorp

#13, supercorp 

“following the kiss with a series of kisses down the neck“

Lena gave her the key weeks ago. She’d folded it into Kara’s hand casually, like it didn’t mean anything at all.

“Just in case you get home before I do,” she’d said, blasé. She turned away then, so Kara couldn’t see her face, but she caught the pinking of Lena’s ears anyway. “It’s not a big deal.”

Kara let her lie. Sometimes the best way to put Lena at ease is to let her believe she’s fooling anyone.

(She’d caught Lena up in a kiss regardless, cupping at her jaw, reverent. Cradled the key gentle in her palm, careful not to crush the metal in her hand as Lena tangled both hands in the hem of her shirt.)

But here, now, the act of fitting the key into the lock of Lena’s apartment door is still a quiet thrill of delight, like finding leftover Chinese food in the fridge, or the moment of weightless tension before flight. She pushes open the door slowly, mindful not use her super-hearing to determine if Lena is inside.

“No cheating,” Lena tells her some nights, cupping both palms over Kara’s ears until the world muffles into a conch-shell echo. “Be here with me, Supergirl.”

Kara flicks on the light, and immediately smothers her smile behind her hand. She doesn’t need superpowers to find Lena: she’s in plain view of the parted doorway, surfacing from the couch in a disgruntled daze. Her cheek is creased with the seam of the plush cushions, and her once sleek up-do is a mess of wispy baby hairs and mussed curls.

She blinks into the sudden light, leveling a kittenish glare at Kara on the threshold. “Too bright,” she says, her words sleep-slurred, fist rising to rub hard at her eyes. “Turn it off.”

Kara grins, steps closer, closing the door behind her. “Nuh-uh, sleepy. You have an evening of mandated activities ahead of you.” She sets her armful of bags on the kitchen counter, careful to slip her key back into her pocket before she moves toward the couch. “Or did you forget?”

Lena collapses backward, burrowing into the cushions, pulling a balled-up fleece throw over her face. “Ten more minutes.”

Though Kara only turned on the foyer lights, the open floorplan of the vast penthouse apartment means the light bleeds into the living-room-turned-working-office. It laps gentle at the lip of the couch, shadows rippling off the coffee table, the crook of Lena’s bent knee, like a receding tide. The skyline of National City swallows the wall-to-wall windows, and a pearly dusk diffuses the unlit portions of the apartment into a syrupy liminality.

The couch is an island of calm in a near-fatal explosion of scattered papers, stacks of thick cream-colored manila folders, and textbooks—their spines cracked into an open yawn of diagrams and text. There’s a small pile of dirty mugs and plates at the foot of the coffee table, and a heaping mass of laundry threatens to drown an armchair in blouses and an excess of lacy, unfolded lingerie.

It’s a mess. Kara likes to tease Lena about it sometimes, her absolute domestic disrepair, occasionally verging on slovenly the day before the cleaning crew comes. Lena’s response is always to drape herself over Kara in dramatic repose—“I’m a genius, Kara. What do you expect?”

Kara props herself at the foot of the couch, lifting Lena’s legs into her lap. Lena settles against her automatically, tugging the blanket down to reveal her eyes. “Can I nap now?”

Kara pinches at Lena’s calf over the soft cotton of her L Corp branded sweatpants, soothes it with a stroke of her fingers. “Nope.” She lets her lips pop over the syllable, rubbing her thumb against the jut of Lena’s knee. “You aren’t getting out of it that easy.”

Lena sits up onto her forearms, letting the blanket fall to her lap. She’s pouting, lower lip pooched, eyebrows creased together. “Today’s my first day off in weeks.”

“Exactly.” Kara shuffles Lena’s legs to the side and wiggles her way up the couch, stopping when she is lying half on-top of Lena, chest to chest, her feet dangling off the couch. “And I let you have all day to nap. But now we’re gonna hang lights, and bake cookies and then, and only then, I’m taking you to bed.”

Lena’s face immediately sharpens with interest. She arches into Kara, mouth turning coy, lips pinching to the side. “Oh yeah?”

Kara leans closer until the tips of their noses touch. She runs a hand along Lena’s ribs, feeling the plush-soft of her skin, the rise-fall of her inhale-exhale. She can almost taste Lena’s breath, can smell the memory of her perfume. “Yeah.”

She ducks her head to nip a kiss at Lena’s chin, the hard line of her jaw, the soft skin under her ear. Lena fists a hand in Kara’s hair, groans. “Can we skip the rest of the nonsense?” She rolls her hips once, experimental. “I’m ready to go to bed now.”

Kara pauses for a moment, as though considering, before she grins, all wicked and teeth. She bounces off the couch, sudden. “Nope. Lights first.”

The blanket falls to the floor as Lena rolls into the back of the couch, spewing an expletive against the fabric. She only surfaces to throw a glare over her shoulder. “Tease.”

Kara, back at the kitchen counter, fishes a tangle of fairy lights out of the open mouth of a plastic bag. She straightens her shirt, smiles. “Yeah, but you love it.”

“I hate it.” Lena sits up, rumpled and flushed. “You’re lucky I like you.”

That’s a new development, these open admittances, and Kara is careful not to draw attention to it—she just grins, Cheshire pleased. “I know I am.” She holds up the tangle of lights. “Now come help. Let’s put your brilliant engineering brain to work.”

Lena’s lips curl, haughty. “I can’t even begin to express how graduated I am from Christmas lights, Kara.” She’s all venom, but Kara notices she gets up to help anyway, pulling her hair out of her bun and letting it fall in waves. She runs her fingers through it as she crosses the room, smoothing tangles. Kara tears her eyes away before she forgets her own ultimatum.

“We’re gonna string them around the room. Try to give your apartment some semblance of holiday cheer.”

Lena glares. “You know I hate the holidays.” She leans both elbows on the counter, content to watch Kara wrestle the tangles. “It’s all commercial nonsense. Completely inconsequential.”

“I think your traditions are fun,” Kara says. She glares at the stringed lights.  It’s possible she’s making the knots worse. “Human worship is so interesting.”

“It’s just pointless repetition,” Lena says. She reaches over, absent, takes the lights from Kara’s hands, begins to unwind them. “Purposeless.”

“There’s always purpose to celebration,” Kara says. She cups her chin in her palm, watches Lena’s hands, half-way to mesmerized, her long, slim fingers passing the strands over-under-over-under, brow furrowing as she works. “It brings us together.”

Lena looks up, arches an eyebrow. Amused. “You’re such a sap.”

Kara straightens, defensive. “And you’re a pessimist.”

“Obviously.” Lena hands her the lights, untangled, wound into neat coils. “Also I think the cold weather makes Euripides upset.” She gestures to the far end of the room where the dark, sleek cat is coiled on top of the bookshelf. He turns apathetically from their gaze, licks at a paw. Goes back to sleep.

Kara feels suddenly and hopelessly fond. It bites into her keenly, a physical ache under her collarbone. “Lena, your cat doesn’t have seasonal depression.”

Lena sniffs. “How can anyone really say?”

Kara discards the lights on the counter, side-stepping closer until she can wind an arm around Lena’s waist. Her sweatshirt is riding up, and she strokes two fingers along the exposed skin, curls her hand across Lena’s stomach, dips into the indent of her navel.

Distracted by the excess of plastic bags on the counter, Lena pays her little mind. She fishes through a heap of baking items, wrinkling her nose. “Kara, why are there like four cans of whipped cream in here.”

Kara looks away, guilty. “No reason.” She moves behind her, frames Lena’s waist with both hands, dips her head to leave a kiss at the valley between Lena’s shoulder blades, mouths a brief love-letter against the nape of her neck.

Lena turns in her arms. “Why is it so important I feel your non-denominational holiday cheer?”

“I’m just trying to celebrate with you,” Kara says. She’s barely hearing her own words, desperately distracted now. Heat drops low in the pit of her stomach. Lena’s looking up at her through veiled lashes, all dark-brow and perfect pout. There’s a smudge of lipstick on her bottom lip, and Kara finds herself utterly lost in her study of the dimpled bow of her lip, the hint of tongue caught between teeth. Kara loses her resolve—ducks in for a kiss, pulls back to whisper: “We really should bake those cookies.”

Lena arches to tiptoe, catches her mouth in full, licking into her eagerly, impatient. Their foreheads knock and Lena winds her arms around Kara’s neck, nips hard at her lip. Kara surrenders, boosting her to the counter top, sweeping the lights aside. Lena pulls back, gasping a laugh. Her cheeks are flushed pink, and she brackets Kara’s hips with her legs, nudging her closer with the heels of her bare feet.

“Who needs cookies when we have all of that whipped cream?”

Kara kisses into Lena’s smile, trails her lips to the corner of Lena’s lips, her jaw, the divot of her throat. She murmurs into the crook of her neck, feeling her pulse flutter beneath her tongue. “I just want you to like the holidays.”

She drops slowly to her knees, scratches her fingers along the outside of Lena’s thighs, tugging down her sweatpants as she goes. Lena chokes on her laugh, tangles a hand in Kara’s hair.

“Oh God,” Lena gasps. She slumps lower, splays her free hand over her eyes. “Trust me, I’m starting to.”

On the ground, the lights tangle in a forgotten heap. Lena knocks a box of baking powder to the floor, then a bag of flour. It bursts open, coating the kitchen floor in a light snow-fall of silky granules. Kara pulls back for a moment, regards the white dusting on the hardwood. 

She shrugs. “Close enough.”

“Kara for the love of God—”

Kara’s mouth meets skin. Lena stops talking. They’ll get around to decorating later.