Illusions
Rating: "M"
Disclaimer: If I were their proper owners, would I be writing this?
Pairings: Green Lantern (John Stewart)/Supergirl
Summary: In the Justice League Unlimited Season 3 (or 5, depending on how one counts),the evil wizard Deimos trapped Supergirl, GL, Stargirl, and S.T.R.I.P.E. in Skartaris. Kara and John respond to this stress by having sex.
Spoilers: Considerable amount for JLU's "Chaos at Earth's Core."
This is wrong. Kara knows that much.
She isn't sure exactly why it is wrong. Maybe the three years living on the Kent farm had forced lingering side effects on her morality. Kara had never thought that she would actually come to miss that farm, or anything in Kansas, really. But she does, so very much. And Clark. . . well, Kara tries not to think much about him these days, both because she misses him too much, and because when she does think about him, she can see the look of disappointment on his face. Even in her imagination, that look hurts more than the rays of the Great Stone itself.
So instead, Kara tries to think of more pleasant things. Sometimes she thinks about having sex under a yellow sun.
She's never had sex under the yellow sun. She'd certainly thought about it, and wanted to. Before the last Justice League mission, the one that had stranded them here in this godforsaken hole in the center of the earth, she'd been in full fledged adolescence. The winning combination of a few dozen sweaty heroes clad in spandex along with over active hormones had frequently given Kara plenty of fantasies to keep her busy at night, or in the shower, or. . . well, her fantasies had kept her company in a lot of places. Before she and her teammates had been permanently cut off from the Justice League, Kara had come to know The Flash, Batman, Green Arrow, Booster Gold, Captain Atom, Captain Marvel, and even J'Onn all quite well in her head.. But upon coming to Skataris and getting stranded, she'd been a virgin.
She wonders sometimes if sex would have been different up there. With her powers, her skin was nearly invulnerable to pain and discomfort. Would she have been as invulnerable to pleasure? Would John - or whomever her partner would have been, because it certainly wouldn't have been him, had they been on the surface- have been strong enough to penetrate her hymen to begin with?
Kara has no way of knowing, of course. But that doesn't keep her from wondering, especially when John is actually touching her, as he is tonight. If they'd been on the surface, would her skin have been sensitive enough to feel each and every one of the lines in his calloused hands? As his fingers probe roughly inside of her in order to prepare her for him, Kara marvels that they managed to be gentle, demanding, and possessive all at once while simultaneously wondering if her powers would have prevented her from knowing and enjoying the roughness that made her insides ache with longing.
As she shifts beneath him, his hands moved accordingly. When one of his hands travels up her leg, his hand grips a little too tightly, and Kara knows it will probably leave a bruise. They both have quite a few marks from their activities - bruises from their enthusiasm, scratches from their impatience - and Kara knows that she wouldn't have borne those marks if she had been doing this on the surface. Absently, as John's fingers probe even deeper, she wonders if there had been a man on the surface who could have withstood her scratches and bruises on a nightly basis while she was in full possession of her powers. That is, anyone who wasn't her cousin.
Kara shudders at the thought and pushes the lower half of her body up to meet John's mouth. Her attempts at not thinking about the Kents haven't been going well today, as it was the fifth year anniversary of being stranded in Skartaris. It frustrates her, not because she didn't miss them; the fierceness with which Kara misses Jonathan, Martha, and Kansas is the strongest sense of loss Kara had ever known. She misses them more than she would ever be willing to admit with anyone - even the man sharing her bed.
But she tries not to think about them because she knew how much they'd disapprove of this. . . relationship that she and John share.
Kara doesn't hold any illusions about her relationship. She knows all that it is , and all that it isn't. For that matter, she knows that it isn't really a relationship. But it makes her happy enough.
But she knows they wouldn't approve. Dear, sweet, wonderfully naive Clark still believes in the notion of soul mates. Dear Clark - who is so hopelessly in love with Lois that he can't even begin to see her faults - would be horrified that she had even acknowledged the idea of "love the one you're with"; he wouldn't be able to bear the idea that she'd followed the principle almost every night for the past year. As for Jonathan and Martha, Kara isn't sure if they would be more upset that the man who shares her bed loves someone else, or that he doesn't love her.
With a frustrated sigh, Kara pushes the thoughts of long ago lost family out of her head and clings even more tightly to the only family she has left.
This is wrong.
It's not like John doesn't know that much. Though, really, it's pretty much all he knows.
He doesn't, for example, know why they've spent five years below the surface of a planet protected by heroes powerful enough to move mountains with their hands, oceans with their minds, and hurricanes with their breath.
He doesn't know why the Justice League hasn't found them.
He doesn't know why his ring, one of the universe's most powerful weapons, can't penetrate the shield that Deimos erected before Morgan killed him.
He doesn't know why Morgan couldn't have killed Deimos just two seconds faster.
He doesn't know why Morgan picked their particular team to bring down to this desolate place.
He doesn't know why his team took the javelin that day when everyone of them could fly.
He doesn't know why not one of them evacuated immediately when the ship started to malfunction.
He doesn't know if that actually would have helped.
He doesn't know why he wasn't fast enough to save Stargirl or ST.T.R.I.P.E. from the warlords that took their lives; he doesn't know why he and Kara were spared.
Most of all, he doesn't know how he ever believed any of that bullshit about Green Lanterns and willpower. The woman lying next to him in his bed proves that he has none.
She assures him she's 20 earth years old. They've been sharing a bed for a little over a year, which means she was 19 when they began. He, of course, has always been a good deal older. Still, there are nights that John lies flat on his back after a long day of goat herding and the only solace he can find is in the fact that she was a legal adult before he touched her. He has done many unforgivable things over the past five years. But he is not a child molester. Sometimes the thought is comforting enough to get him to go to sleep.
On other nights. . . he remembers that she was so young when they were stranded here. He remembers that she looked up to him as the leader. He remembers that he failed his team by not finding a way to keep their ship from crashing. He remembers that he failed them again when he couldn't find a way out of Skartaris. He remembered that he failed Stargirl and S.T.R.I.P.E. as the leader of their team by letting their lives be taken in a raid. He remembers that he failed Kara as a leader the night he'd first had sex with her. He remembers that there are plenty of boys Kara's age, and women his age that would make better partners for either of them.
When he's done remembering, he wonders what Shayera would say if she could see them now. Or Mari. Or hell. . . Superman.
He's pretty sure he does know about the last one. Though, perhaps he'd get some amnesty from Superman's wrath (or Shayera's) if he explained that he'd never had any intention of touching Kara until the day he'd walked in on her on her knees in front of Morgan.
That very night, after pounding Morgan with his fist repeatedly, John's old, tired, and very needing body had pounded into Kara's willing, still virginal body as enthusiastically as he could. On nights such as this one, John tried to tell himself that he was different from Morgan. The years of prosperity had gone to Morgan's head, and Morgan clearly viewed Kara as just another in a long line of conquests.
For all that the had done wrong, John had never believed that. Even though they had nothing in common, she wasn't just a conquest to him. Whereas Shayera and he had shared a similar intensity and he and Vixen had shared a similar temperament. . . well, Kara and he were simply not at all alike. This didn't change the fact that he needed her. He needed this.
Although time in Skartaris, the loss of Stargirl, and constantly being surrounded by death had tempered Kara's mood, she was still lively and spirited as ever. Maybe it was the influence of her cousin, maybe it was something in her Kryptonian DNA, maybe it was her comparably still young age.
Whatever the cause, John was willing to admit that he enjoyed it. This somber medieval hole they lived in at times threatened to swallow John with the same cruel casualty that it had done to their javelin. It was weak of him, but he simply couldn't stand the daily grind of farming, herding, fighting dinosaurs, and planning against opposing warlords' raids without some sort of counterbalance to the cheerless existence that was his life now.
He was stronger, once.
He thinks about the time when he was stronger, on the surface, as well as the people that lived there. He thinks about them all -Clark and Diana's strength, Batman's courage, Wally's friendship, J'Onn's dedication, Mari's loyalty, and Shayera's. . . well, he thinks of Shayera a lot.
He tries really hard not to, especially when he is with Kara. For the most part, he's successful. But occasionally when Kara rolls over and his hands find her still firm, flat stomach, he knows that because their DNA is so different, it will always be flat. On those nights, even as his hands tighten around her waist, John thinks of the son he and Shayera were supposed to have. He's no longer the son they're going to have, or even the son they might have; he's the son they'll never have.
While John knows he and Shayera will never have their son now that they are stranded in Skartaris, he knows that Shayera might. She might even have one now. Five years is a long time.
John wonders what her children with someone who isn't him will look like.
He wonders if she will have Shayera's red locks, her green eyes, both, or neither. He wonders if he will have organic wings, or if he'll manufacture a pair like Warhawk. He wonders what the child's first word will be, whether he'll play sports, whether she'll play with dolls, whether she or he will follow in Shayera's footsteps and become a superhero. . . he wonders a million little things that drive him a little bit closer to crazy each time his mind wanders. It's fruitless to wonder about any of it, because he not only doesn't know the answers to them, he'll probably never know.
When they drive him a little too close to crazy, he kisses Kara's neck until he's sure she's awake, rolls back on top of her, and silently acknowledges that he has absolutely no willpower.
He wonders if he ever really did.
The End.
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