For Trimberly, Prompt List 9, Prompt 9, "this Isn't My Safe Space, You Are"

+Bonus

Powerful Women Doing Flips Appreciation Post

The story of a generation. Comes to an end.

Powerful Women+Classical Elements:

Earth: Grounded, Stable, Focused, Disciplined

I know Kara's usually compared to a puppy or a golden retriever but I always think of her as a particularly kind and gregarious big cat (like a v tame lion or tiger) and now I can't let go of the hc that Kryptonians purr

The first time Kara spends the night is a bit of an accident. She's waiting on the couch while Lena fixes them a drink, and Lena returns to find her head draped over the backrest, mouth gaping open and glasses askew, completely conked out. 

Between the options of getting her to her apartment with a forklift and waking her up, Lena decides to let it lie. In the case of a midnight emergency, she has a secret backup super suit in the office anyway. 

She gently picks the glasses off Kara's face and grabs a pillow from the bedroom. She tucks it beneath Kara's head, and Kara turns her face into it and gives it a good sniff. With dawning horror, Lena realizes she forgot to change the pillowcase. 

Trying to wrest a very soft and teareable item from a slumbering Kryptoinian’s grip is a lost cause, and Lena can do nothing but watch, mortified, as Kara makes a face in her sleep and drags the possibly very stinky pillow from underneath her head to hold it in her arms, and lets out a relieved little sigh. 

Lena is ready to turn away and nurse her embarrassment in private when she hears a strange noise, a sort of soft, interrupted breathing. Does Kara snore? Oh, Lena is going to use this. 

She turns halfway in Kara's direction, closing her eyes and concentrating on the sound. It's quiet and regular with a distinct rise and fall, a low frequency warbling, and it has a strangely soothing quality to it; the more Lena listens, the more she wants to hear, almost like a---

---a purr. Kara, on her couch, clutching Lena's used pillow to her chest, purring. 

Lena flees to her office, filled with a sudden inexplicable energy, face flaming with something that feels, unfortunately, like more than embarrassment.

. 

. 

The second time Kara spends the night is a bit more intentional. 

"Never ever ever?" Kara asks in horror. 

"Well, unless you count boarding school."  

"Obviously I don’t! Mandatory sleep arrangements are not a sleepover, Lena!" 

And so Kara shows up Friday evening at Lena's apartment, equipped with snacks, board games, and two sleeping bags. 

They camp out on the living room floor after many harrowing but obligatory sleepover activities as per Kara’s direction. Kara snuggles into her sleeping bag until only her head is visible, and barely that in its entirety. She smiles at Lena. Over the hum of the fridge and the occasional traffic outside, Lena can hear her start to purr.

Lena wants to ask, wants to reach, wants to touch, but Kara closes her and is out like a light, rolling onto her side, her back to Lena, even as the purring continues.

Lena wonders what it would be like to feel it, to simply reach out and press her hand to Kara’s back, let those powerful vibrations travel up her arm, sense the corporeal manifestation of Kara’s contentment and comfort and ease.

Fuck. How invasive would that be? Lena’s in her own little sleeping bag, Kara in hers, a clear delineation between them. Kara had rolled onto her side, showing Lena her back. She trusts Lena enough to fall asleep in her presence, to---to purr about it.

Lena turns over, curling her hand to her chest, and allows that addictive, peaceful sound to lull her to sleep.

.

.

The seventh time Kara spends the night, Lena just invites her to bed. 

"Come on," she says. "My couch is sick of you. Give the poor thing some space." 

Kara doesn’t always seem entirely at ease in her body, but she sprawls all over Lena’s mattress, linking her arms behind her head, filling Lena’s space with her presence as naturally as if this bed has always been hers. Lena watches her from the corner of her eye as she wriggles a little in the sheets, hugging her pillow in one arm, luxuriating in the simple comfort. She’s magnetic.

Lena debates her options before picking her satin pyjama set and climbing in beside her.

Kara immediately flops onto her side, head propped on her arm, grinning. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Lena has left barely an inch between her body and the edge of the bed. She touches it, a reassurance, a promise. “Oh?” she asks. “Come here often, then?”

Kara leans closer. “I wish,” she says, voice low.

Lena stares at her for a fraction too long, laughs awkwardly to compensate, turns away to turn off the light. “Goodnight, you flirt.”

Kara reaches out and squeezes Lena’s hand in the dark. “Goodnight, Lena.”

.

They fall asleep on opposite sides of the bed. Lena knows this for certain; she checked. She can remember touching the edge of the bed just before falling asleep. But she wakes up---she wakes up with her arm wound around Kara’s belly, Kara’s butt tucked into her groin, Kara’s body vibrating palpably against her own.

Sleep foggy and enamored, Lena reaches an unthinking hand to press directly over Kara’s purring chest.

“Hey,” a muggy voice greets her. Kara turns over onto her back, shoots her a blurry smile.

“Shit.” Lena tries to snatch away her hand only for Kara to grab her arm, keeping her hand against Kara’s chest. The vibrations intensify. “Sorry,” Lena mutters, eyes fixed on her own hand.

Kara grips tighter. “You like it?” she asks, her voice sleep-rough.

Lena swallows. Nods. Denial would be absurd at this point.

“It’s for you,” Kara rasps.

Lena feels her heart in her throat. Her eyes find Kara’s.

“I like your bed,” Kara says, words plain and eyes intense. “I like you.”

Kara’s purring swells and dips with her breath, loud in Lena’s ears, tangible against her skin. Lena puts her weight on the palm braced on Kara’s chest; Kara strains upward in an impressive show of core strength. They meet somewhere in the middle.

Kara kisses sweet and simple, a little sluggish with sleep, still gripping Lena’s forearm. The purring deepens, a low, insistent hum between them; a reassurance, a confession, a gift. Lena turns her head away, overwhelmed. Takes the hand off too.

“What?” Kara sits up further, hand sliding up to grip Lena’s wrist, thumb against her palm. The purring quiets. “What’s wrong?”

I just feel really loved right now, is a thought Lena could never verbally express in a million years.

“Gosh, Lena, are you crying?” Kara digs her thumb into the heel of Lena’s palm. “I’m that bad, huh?”

“The worst,” Lena agrees. Sniffs.

Kara smiles. “Okay. Let me try again? I’m a very good student.” 

Lena wipes a knuckle under her eye. “A real teacher’s cat,” she says.

Kara doesn’t dignify that with a laugh, but she does dignify it with another kiss. Lena slumps forward into her until Kara's back flops back on the bed and her arms come around Lena, physically cocooned within every tactile expression of Kara’s affection.  

Lena has no particular physiological mechanism to showcase her appreciation, so she pours it into the kiss instead.

Daensa Week: Day 7: Free Choice

Secret Clones AU

Short version: Secret Clones AU is the clones going into hiding in plain sight across the galaxy to force a fair wage and also to keep the babies safe from Kaminoans

The clones figure out the plan to take advantage of them, brain chips, etc. several years before the war hits. IDK how, maybe Jango decided to take a closer look with Mij and went Oh Shit. Doesn't matter. Point is, they caught on and decided that they needed to uhhhhh get Out.

There are millions of clones, yes, but there are tens of thousands of planets.

Once the chips are out and someone's jabbed them with anti-aging serum... they're not that different from standard humans.

And it's not exactly hard to tie up the Kaminoans long enough to get off planet.

So what happens is that a while, let's say a year and a half, before the war kicks off, you have a mass exodus from Kamino, and a wide dispersal of clones. They are generally staying together in groups of about half a dozen, claiming to be brothers, so that there's a 16-18-ish looking clone to take lead, with progressively younger cadets to look after. Each one has a commander they can 'report' to in case of emergency, and if something goes real bad, they can call in an Alpha (and Alphas can call in Jango in a worst case scenario).

It's still sort of a military structure, but... it's a phone tree.

And you have one of these groups of half a dozen clones in every major city. There are thousands of planets, and most of those planets have more than one city. Denon and Coruscant are nothing but city, so they can get counted as dozens of cities on their own. It's easy to disappear in places like that.

It's so easy for the clones, before anyone knows them, to just... disappear. Go into hiding in plain sight.

It's not like more than a handful of people know what to look for.

(It's not like they have a centralized record of who went where.)

(It's just the phone tree.)

They still get real excited-happy-eager when they run into a Jedi.

They want to work with Jedi. They're the good guys! And they're cool!

But your army did a mass desertion before the war started and finding/recruiting all of them is going to take a stupid amount of money. You cannot hire a bounty hunter for each and every clone.

And as @bytebun put it:

Somebody two years later: you look …familiar. Have we met? Clone: haha I get that a lot just one of those faces

AND THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT BECAUSE THE GALAXY IS HECKING MASSIVE

I think the Republic has to like… negotiate with Jango and the Alphas and set up paid contracts if they want these Ultra Skilled Warriors to fight for them.

The clones can fight. Some of them even want to fight. They are good at this and they recognize that many of the things that are occurring under Separatist invasion are Mega Bad.

But like. Pay them and treat them as citizens, first.

The Jedi are even more confused about this identical army that really loves them than they are in canon Where the heck did you guys come from Who trained you Why do you like us What the heck is going on

"Someone wanted us to be a trap for you but we took the trap out. Here we have a sample if you want. Anyway. We like you guys and want to fight with you because honestly civilian life is way understimulating. Let me punch a droid."

I think a few of the clones do 'scouting' where they voluntarily help a Jedi in the field to gather information on their validity as Friends. Cody keeps a number of spreadsheets that are just Various Jedi Encounters.

Rex does a scouting mission with Kenobi&Skywalker and just goes to Cody like "Listen. I know he's insane. But. I want that one."

Rex just "I call dibs" "Cody. Cody did you hear me. Dibs, I call dibs."

@catboydogma: stats for pong krell are all zeroes

Absolute shit tier Jedi They play rock paper scissors to decide who has to deal with him

A solid half of the clones don't get recruited because the lack of advanced aging (past a certain point) means they're physically still minors and My Dad (Alphas and CCs) Said No. They stay behind on their various planets to look after The Real Babies.

"Let me ask my dad" "Wait--" "He said no."

Just want these boys to have Civilian Lives they can return to or at least experience before war gets them all fucked up.

I think some of them try to Make Connections with influential people (whether politicians or like... Space Influencers) so they have people vouching for them once the war kicks off. And there can be at least some public pushback on functionally enslaving them.

"I can't believe you manipulated people into liking you! That's so mean!" "Well you see. I wanted to survive past the age of eleven. So."

#well mark me down as scared and h*rny

The Clone War was obviously a very stressful time for most beings in the galaxy. Most of all, the clones - and the last thing any jedi wants on their hands is a bunch of stressed soldiers running around. So, naturally, General Kenobi thought up a way to help reduce the stress levels of not only himself, but his troops. I present to you: Yoga with General Kenobi.

- the thing with being in the middle of a galactic war meant that they were always on the move; sometimes it was unavoidable that the meetings had to be in the middle of a campaign. therefore there was no set place where they met, and they would instead do it wherever suited best at the time... be it an old battlefield, in the hanger, the troops' quarters and even sometimes (in emergency situations) on the bridge.

- after years of jedi training and meditation practice, obi-wan was quite a qualified instructor. the 212th particularly enjoyed it; it was a nice opportunity for them to take off their armour and stretch out in their blacks.

- obviously, commander cody was the best at it. they didn't know how exactly you can be the 'best' at yoga, but he managed it.

- one thing nobody was expecting however, was the dedication of boil to these sessions. he was always there right on time, armour off, ready to begin. no matter where they were, no matter if the other troopers weren't even aware of the meeting, he'd be there. sometimes his dedication even startled obi-wan.

- the sessions would usually start with the general asking them to sit down cross legged and close their eyes, which was always an amusing test of the clones' suppleness. (most of them preferred to sit with their legs out in front of them)

- there was never an ordinary session. obi-wan always remembers that time they'd been in the middle of a downward dog and anakin walked into the room and just... stood there with a shocked face before backing out slowly.

- no less than 10 seconds later, none other than a very energetic fives burst into the room: "GENERAL SKYWALKER SAID YOU WERE DOING YOGA-"

- and from then on, when on missions together, it was inevitable that over half of the 501st would also join in (obi-wan had to find bigger spaces to do it, it was getting so crowded)

- cody managed to convince rex to join in once, and it resulted in so much teasing from echo and fives that he swore off yoga for life.

- wondering where all his troopers had disappeared to, anakin would search the base and surrounding areas until he found them, at which point hardcase's wild gesturing meant that he had to participate.

- despite being reluctant at first ("i've got THINGS to do-"), anakin soon discovered that yes, yoga was actually quite enjoyable, and it also equated to training as well, which resulted in him dragging along ahsoka.

- it would have been quite an amusing sight; walking into a room (or a field) of the finest republic soldiers completely silent and intently gazing at two jedi generals, one commander, and raising their arms above their heads whilst doing breathing exercises.

- as it happened, this did happen once, when they were stationed on coruscant. boil had been insistent that they continue the sessions (obi-wan had to admit, he had seen a drastic change in their flexibility) and spread the word.

- the clones collectively decided that the mess hall was the only space big enough, and began to move anything they could out of the way. after generals kenobi and skywalker had arrived, they began the session.

- as it happened, mace windu and master yoda needed to speak with obi-wan and anakin regarding new strategies, but they couldn't find them anywhere, nor any of their troopers. it was like they'd simply disappeared.

- after trundling around for quite some time, the two masters stumbled upon the mess hall, and what they saw when they opened the door made them freeze in their tracks.

- it was packed full of clones, armourless, on blankets and mats and anything else that was soft, in various positions, staring up at the front where obi-wan was demonstrating the scorpion pose, anakin was trying to clamber onto obi-wan's knees and see how long he could balance there, and ahsoka was staring at them, half concerned, half amused.

- nobody noticed the two masters silently watching as anakin toppled to the ground and obi-wan over balanced, flipping on top of him, whilst the hall erupted into laughter. every person in the hall looked free of stress in that moment: content, happy, simply enjoying not being on the battlefield for once.

- yoda and mace exchanged a glance; maybe the strategy talks could wait a while.

That glow up! First picture was taken in 2012, second picture today. Guess which one is happier?