Chapter Text
Lena hears yelling, she hears shouting, she hears whispers, she hears a slam? Or a slap? Maybe a punch?
She knew this would happen. It is all her fault. It always is. And she can do nothing about it. She’s an omen. Or a harbinger. A curse she lands on is a curse.
She crouches down to where she sees a wall flower.
She picks it up carefully, brushing off dust and debris onto the floor.
She spins it in her fingertips.
The stem is weak. It's a shock that it even held up the flower.
As she spins it the stem mushes under her gentle press of her thumb. The pith touches her cold skin, it's sticky like amber.
The flower is that same color. Orange, bright orange.
“That’s my favorite flower, you know?”
The voice is raspy and dry but looking up she sees the blond.
Her hair is messy, her hat is in her hands and her hands are shaking. Her eyes are glistening with the kind of wetness that comes after crying. Her face in a slight smile is a heavy one. LIke she is looking back on her entire life.
Like she is trying to pick her favorite memories and hold them tightly to her chest.
Her nose is bleeding. The blood is running down her chin against her active protest of wiping it constantly.
The dried up blood laying on her lips like a warning sign.
Like there is danger if you love her. Or that Lena will only bring her pain. She hasn’t decided yet.
She shuffles near Lena, sitting down on the sidewalk while Lena still stands. She looks down to where Lena picked the flower. Seeing no more flowers she plays with the little leaves.
“Your hurt-”
“Dont worry your pretty little head about it” she cuts lena off, not in a harsh tone but a slightly stern one, she smiles at the young women raising an eyebrow she places her jacket on the sidewalk next to her.
“Sit with me?”
And Lena complies, sitting on the jacket instead of the rocky ground, her dress getting a bit dusty. She didn't care. She never really did care about class.
But especially not right now.
Not when the blond looked at her such serenity.
She passes the cowboy the floor, their fingers brushing. It felt safe, it felt risky, it felt like nothing at all. An oxymoron, not a paradox.
“It's such a common flower”
Lena finally speaks up after a stretch of silence. It was a beautiful flower but it wasn't the kind that Lillian bought when they had balls, or the kind that Lena received when she was being courted.
Kara lets out a low chuckle,
“My ma’ used to say that” she fiddles with the flower brushing her rough hand on its delicate petals,
“They grew in every corner of my home town, every crack on every side walk,it was a fighter.” She pauses for a moment breathing deeply,
“When the sunrays caught it as it rested on the shore, it would glow for a second”
She looked out at nothing at all. Her line of vision simply hit the next store but Lena understood. She was looking far out back than at the rusty old town.
Her mind for a brief moment not tethered to the cruel present but drifting through nothingness of what was.
“Ma says i was like that flower, a fighter, growing joy in every corner that life hides in” she sighed, “she couldn't be so wrong i aint no fighter, im a martyr, or a coward”
Lena felt at that moment such incompetence in that woman's statement. Lena could not understand how she couldn't see it too.
That it was like the sun learned how to shine from her. That the moon seemed to only come out at night for the simple task of shining her eyes with its crescent figure. Or that the clouds parted only for her to see the blue skies.
She shook her head in disapproval at both Kara's statement and the fact that she cannot in words put upon an apposition. It was merely a pathetic fact, she didn't have the words to describe it. So she stood in silence. The wrong words can kill her mother once told her after yelling, better to say nothing at all she thought.
“Don’t worry about alex, she just protective of me she meant no harm” She smiles but the blood running down her nose disagrees
“Why is-”
“Oh that wasn't her” A sigh that lena was unwarily holding released,” that was some drunk she needed me to round off the jail cell, i swear it” she gives a soft smile, “she gets mad, yells, but she aint lay a finger on me” The blood on her nose drips down on her chin.
And Lena never really liked blood. It wasn't that she was scared of it, it just made her queasy. It was a constant reminder of how weak humanity was. How weak she was.
Every slap across her chin from her mother led out weak drops of that pitiful reminder. Lex had a sort of morbid obsession with it. He squashed bugs for it, dissected rats and pigs. She wiped the blood off the blondie's cheek.
“You are awfully messy for a cowboy,” she says, her voice slightly raspy, chuckling under her breath.
Kara looks at her with amusement,
“You ain't no better”
Her voice now just above a whisper,
“for a noble you are quite messy”
she kicks her frilly dress causing a puff of dust to cover them both. For they stared at each other, the raven haired girl's face covered in messy charcoal.
As she started at ocean blue eyes.
She wondered if this was the point.
Of everything.
Her smile easily released as she giggled.
“Why ought-” Kara starts up but is cut off by Lena's laughter
“Now listen here-” this time she can't suppress her own giggles.
The sun dripped down the sky leaving it painted with hues of gold and pink.
Lena reluctantly once more rides back on Kara's orange steed back to a house so devout of color that it burns in the sunset.
Kara lets her back up those stairs, a gentle hand on her back constantly. She smiles as she opens the door for Lena,
“Wasn’t so bad was it?”
She looks so genuine that Lena is taken back for a second, confused at the fact that she can't see that this is the most fun she has had in years.
“It was great, kara” she smiles, dimples showing as she looks deep into those glimmering blue eyes.
“Why then” the blonde huffs, rubbing the back of her neck and avoiding lena’s stare, “I would like to” she fiddles around her hair, “hang out with you again” she looks up at lena’s eyes that are slightly wet at the request and squirms.
She wails her hands around, “Oh Golly! I mean only if you want to! I don't want to force you! I just would like to see you again! Geez, I'm sorry I ought to get going.”
She starts to walk down the stairs, her shoes leaving a little dirt print.
“Kara!” Lena screams out to Kara as she runs down the steps. “I would love too!”
Kara turns to look at her with widened eyes,
"Tomorrow!" the shorter girl exclaimed, “When the sun is high! I’ll be waiting with it!”
Kara leds out a grin, it's sloppy around the edges as one side is bigger than the other, it seems more genuine than the other in the way its unguarded, her lips still slightly stained from blood, the blond waves her hands above her in joy,
“And I'll be there Lena, I’ll be there" And Lena never felt so full.
And as dawn rose so did kara.
Little sunshine specks hit her face as she groggily opened her eyes tightened shut by weariness. She was careful as she walked to the bathroom. She let the cold water pipe flush away her old bones as she prepared for the date.
Oh well not quite a date she thought,
Dates were between people like James and Lucy. So she wasn't going on a date, nor was she courting. But her heart rang with the same vulgar joy.
She brushed her teeth and then went back to her room, where she stopped her sister putting on her vest.
Kara fiddled her fingers together as she spoke up,
“Uh alex” she started as Alex looked up at her “I was wondering if I could get the day off? See why, i was gonna, i was gonna hang out with Lena”,
Alex looked at her sternly but as she opened her mouth Kara spoke up, “I know you’s thinks she is all trouble but Alex she is so much more, “
At the softening of Alex's face she continues ranting about Lena. She explained just how beautiful her eyes looked in the moon light when Alex cut her off
“Okay, okay I get it buddy, careful you're gonna start sound like Mike and how he talks ‘bout you” Alex teased as Kara's face blushed a rose red.
She starts to hit the red haired girls arms a couple times, “why you ought to be such a bother, now now help me pick a shirt”
They decided on a blue button up with patterned flowers and trousers. Alex suggested the suspenders but Kara declined because it was a very casual thing.
But she still suggested doing her messy hair. As Kara sat on the floor Alex kneeled on the bed taking terrain of her blonde maze.
“I aint see you this fancy since” Alex pauses as she thinks “aint ever, not even when mike was” She paused correcting herself, “He is still trying to court you”
“Oh why you ought to shut it, you used a put on a proper dress! When that sheriff was watching our town” That earns her a whack on her head as she giggles mercilessly.
She puts her hair in a half up, curls drift down her face as more curls fall down her back. She looks properly fancy. She gently puts on her mothers necklace, careful to place it under her shirt for it not to get damaged. She hopes for good luck. But she is seeing lena today and thats as lucky as she thinks anyone can be.
Lena kept her promise waiting on those sliver steps for her. She mounts her horse as she runs up those stairs.
Lena is wearing a purple dress with a blue shawl and frills. She has a little book in her hands. The cover is a deep red and has golden highlights. The title reads, “Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.
“Oh Lena!” she says waving in front of her face to grab her attention. “Your knight is here!” she giggles out as she stares into her forest green eyes.
Lena looks up from her book with a smirk.
She stands up, dusting off Kara's shoulder, “You clean up well”.
The blonde rubs the back of her neck nervously blushing,
“Oh well, i thought i ought i look good for you” she looks away from Lena's eyes.
“Well thank you” the younger girl says as she picks her book back up. “Where are we off too?”
Kara insisted they went to the local bar and so they did, she showed her all the food they serve. They order a gluttonous amount of food as Kara once more insisted on her trying all the foods.
Lena agreed as long as Kara could keep looking at her like she meant something. Like she meant everything.
This ritually happened, ofttimes, every sunday.
The holy day and lena was certain that their was nothing more holy than spending the day walking sunshine with the one person that cares for her,
Kara would pick her up with her sunset colored steed, which Lena humorously learned was named streaky. Lena would wait by the steps reading her novel and Kara would walk up to her and tell a proper horrible joke as they rode to the bar.
There they would talk about everything.
Lena talked about her book or her family and Kara listened and talked about farming. Kara passed her the loose paper she had from writing poems and Lena told her about the process of making books.
It was soft, it was comfortable, it was theirs.