#fabledzeal

[pulitzerpanther]

How do you help Kara deal with the fact that you're going to die, but she isn't going to for several centuries?

Cat doesn’t. 

Frustrating is an understatement.

She tries. Letters arranged to be released for months after she’s gone, pre-emptively aiming to talk Kara through grief that she’s never felt, and loss she can only imagine. And, oh, does she have some kind of existential crisis that she refuses to let cause another wrinkle over it, hand waving over the ‘Last Letter’ thrust into Olivia’s palm like some pissy viper, cloaked in scales and snapping forward without the aim of truly striking. 

Olivia will have letters, too. But those are somehow easier to write. Easier to give her. She shouldn’t have saved Kara’s for last--

Ridiculous final letter. Is saying goodbye so hard? Why wasn’t this topic covered in Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover. What is that final letter but a second death? It’s cruel. It’s cruel. A writer’s greatest, final nail tip-tapping away on a coffin like some undead Gene Kelly tapdancing on her satin-lined grave? Cat’s final work. 

It should have been my Magnum Opus--

I’m going to ignore the fact that you just called a Posthumous Letter a Magnum Opus--

What if I make Kara feel it all, again?

Olivia sighs and they both look so old. 

You will.

Cat doesn’t write the last letter until her deathbed, thanks to that. Best friends are horrible at assisting with writer’s block when they’re going to be so dramatic about it.

She tries. Quips about signing Kara up for a dating site--I wouldn’t mind watching from the great beyond, Kara--

That’s not funny, Cat--

--Despite knowing that it’s futile. 

Maybe it’s the most futile effort because trying keeps her from having to write that damn, last letter.

Be angry, she so wisely--so omniscient--pleas in the afterlife. Let yourself be angry. Let yourself feel. Let yourself be whoever you are with me and without me.

Cat writes and writes until her fingers bleed, and squirrels away letters like secrets even though Kara knows a month after she does. 

Let yourself smile without feeling guilty--

She takes what caused it to her grave--the fact that her blood shines a tint of green that even Lena Luthor can’t fix. They don’t lie to each other, but she lies by omission about this. 

Let yourself scream without remorse--

They don’t lie to each other, and maybe it’s selfish. Maybe Cat’s too selfish, so small on this too large hospital bed. She’s sounded so strong and so certain and so proud in her prose--a woman of steel in prose, who crumbles underneath a woman of steel wrapped around her. There’s a mortality that quakes the ridges of her lips when she murmurs into Kara’s shoulder--only Kara’s shoulder--

I’m scared.

And she knows, in that moment, that she’ll never help her. That she’s left a burden far too great on Kara--one she’s carried since she was a child. Watching a world wither away in her fingertips too far away to feel the heat from it fading away--too close to pretend it never happened. 

She’ll leave her. 

I love you--one time out of a thousands murmured against the warm skin of Kara’s shoulder, arms wrapping around her waist, nose slotting against the base of her neck when the tears have stopped between both of them. The letters won’t help. Finding someone else won’t help. Cat won’t help, she’ll only leave her. 

But she’s not leaving her, yet, and perhaps the last memory Kara will recall of Cat won’t be of her dying, it will be of her fighting to stay. 

It won’t help, Cat knows.

But at least Kara will know--she’ll know--

Let yourself let me go. Or don’t. 

One day, far, far in the future, she’ll be able to stop fighting, too.

But no matter what, let yourself live, Kara.

She tries, but she never quite succeeds.

[pulitzerpanther]

💋 - Kara (from the wrong blog, oops, oh well)

@fabledzeal​ sent in a sudden smooch || Meme Status: Accepting

Send “💋” to kiss my muse out of nowhere.

Surprise is rare in Cat’s world--she likes to openly claim omniscience to the point of one time calling the country to prove her wrong like a late-night fortune-teller’s ghostbuster, taking call after call on any subject to try to test her all-seeing eye. (Disgusting topics, a few of them--she loathes the SEC but loathes being wrong far more). She offered up a two-thousand dollar bounty to the person who could prove she was only human with a wry, charming smile and a wink. 

It bolstered her brand. None of them had won, of course, because there’s no brush of wind of change she doesn’t see coming, in some way, some shape, some form--

And yet, surprise breaks against Kara’s lips before Cat breaks a little against them, next, fingers raising up out of far more than just habit to curl vices in the wrinkling fabric of her lover’s blouse. It’s funny, really. Being with Kara feels like a second skin, these days--reminds her of old tales of soulmates because Kara’s unrelenting romanticism on the subject has stuck with her over the years in a way she just can’t ignore--

A contradiction. Because it still feels so unusual, to feel Kara against her, like this. Unplanned. Unguided. Outside of the confines of offices or corners or homes--half a decade of stolen moments elongated into days and weeks and the occasional month before they had to once more get used to empty sunlight on the city streets.

Sunlight that cascades down blonde locks like a waterfall when Kara pulls away. It’s practically chaste, but suddenly the air between them is warmer, sun cloaking Kara’s shoulders in a blanket and, by proxy, engulfing all of Cat’s body in fire from the proximity, fingers skimming up the flexing muscle of a forearm. Curling around it with a long, laughing hum. A little breathless. 

A little openly happy. If she wasn’t omniscient, she might remind herself that they can do this now--be this. For a little while, at least.

“Hmm--” Cat doesn’t pull away, never one to step down from a challenge, thumb swiping over the moisture clinging to Kara’s lower lip, stolen from her own. “Not that I’m complaining, but I’d like to point out that you’re the reason we’re both going to wind up on TMZ in the morning. You know I,” Cat murmurs before tugging her back down, “Never lose the opportunity for a good I told you so.” 

[pulitzerpanther]

Kara didn't want to make a noise, a course she knew Cat would help, but she was always worrying her, and Kara didn't want to worry her tonight. She just needed to get the small piece out and she be fine. Just...Just fine. Sweat beaded on her brow as she sat down at the kitchen table, fiddling with the first aid kit to find the needles, ignoring the brief glimpse in the mirror of her faint green veins in her face. Shifting she looked at her abdomen, trying to steady her hand.

@elysianfell

“Kara.” A gasp and, oh, Cat hates sounding surprised. “Is there a reason--”

Sleep doesn’t cling to the voice rumbling through their kitchen as much as weariness might. Exhaustion hanging down bones like a heavy blanket might, the cold of the air settling in a dissipating puff of air as bare feet pad along stone that feels like ice underneath curling toes. Glasses slide up the bridge of Cat’s nose as she settles across from Kara, batting away hands that she can move far too easily, a green hue glinting off of tweezers and lighting up Kara’s dipping chin. Cat’s jaw tightens--rigid stone--eyes focusing on the task at literal hand so that Kara might not be able to see the concern seeping into green just as brightly as it might seep into her lover’s skin. 

Cat hates her never-failing sixth sense. She hates that knowing practical omniscience that keeps weary shoulders up, on nights like these. Kara’s not bleeding out on the floor, at least, and that should be nothing short of a victory, and yet--

A sharp breath, voice calm as a steady palm flattens out over Kara’s side. Ignoring the veins.

Ignoring, in the back of her mind, the image of that scar on Kara’s shoulder.

“You didn’t come wake me up? Outside,” And there’s something a little sharper than that calm. Something that thankfully dwarfs the concern, “Of your own reckless pride? What happened?” 

[pulitzerpanther]

@fabledzeal​ replied to your post “*covers Cat in glitter*”

Harley: HEY, ONLY I CAN DO DIS! And even I don't do it.

Keep it that way.

[pulitzerpanther]

“i’m worried about you.” - Harley

“Don’t be.” Cat doesn’t look up from her desk, papers strewn haphazardly over the surface. It looks like Superman might have been by, a tornado of white left in his wake, three separate cups of coffee settled on the edge of the desk. “There’s nothing to worry about.” 

[pulitzerpanther]

“Here you go, one forgotten, left it at home in a rush, lost item!” - Kara

@fabledzeal 

Well, there’s something to be said for super-speed. 

Cat immediately snaps up the…wind-ruffled folder before tugging Kara down in a thankful, lingering kiss from the window, breeze curling blonde locks around her neck. “Hmm, although–” And, oh, her smile spreads against her, voice light–teasing “I’m suddenly remembering why I was late in the first place. Go away, you’re distracting.”

[pulitzerpanther]

❝ what do you need from me? ❞ - Harley

@fabledzeal

“A reason. Some kind of explanation–anything.” Fingers curl tightly around the glass. It’s rarely been empty, these days, bitterness somehow tempering the burn of it all. And yet, nothing will wash out Gotham–Kahndaq–all of it–from her mouth. “Anything to keep going. What’s the point, Harley? People–” 

“People are despicable. We never change. Journalism isn’t going to change that. Telling the truth–you see what it does. It only ever hurts people that don’t deserve it.” 

[pulitzerpanther]

Kara was still stuck as a sugar glider. She had nestled into Cat's pocket, her little head peeking out to look at the one who had come into Cat's office. Great, it was Winn. Immediately, she tucked back into the pocket with a little squeaky noise. 'Cat,' Kara said with her telepathic bond to Cat. 'Whatever you do, don't let Winn know where I'm at, I know he's going to ask. I don't need him squealing about how cute I look now,'

@fabledzeal

Eyes roll, fingers scissoring out to open up her pocket with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, so it’s just better for him to think I’m insane and talking to my breast? Last week you were fighting a giant radioactive turkey in the middle of the city, this is the line you’re going to draw in the sand of your friendship?”