Just something to get me out of my writer's block. If this helps, I'll be updating my other story tomorrow. If you haven't yet, go read my other story Skai Heda!
Also, keep me, my friends and family, and all of the south and southern islands in your thoughts as we deal with and recover from Hurricane Irma. Donate if you get a chance please! There's so many people that need it today.
Anyway, here's the story.
Lexa sighed once again. They had been at this for two hours.
"Finn, just spit it out!" She was truly getting exasperated and didn't want to help anymore.
"But what if it's not right? What if she says no, just based on the way I phrased it? Or my posture?"
Lexa had been helping her cousin prepare to ask Clarke on a date for weeks now. Clarke and Lexa had known each other for two years, since the end of high school. Once she and Finn moved in together, he had met Clarke and immediately found her attractive. But whenever she was around, the boy was a bumbling mess and he had asked Lexa to help together,ce she knew Clarke the best.
Truly, Lexa was already reluctant. She had also had a crush on Clarke from the moment they met, but the girl never gave her even the slightest indication that she returned her feelings, so she was content to have the girl as a best friend.
But helping Finn woo her friend still left an uneasy feeling in her stomach.
"I promise you Clarke isn't gonna turn you down based on your posture." Lexa rolls her eyes.
"OK, OK. How about I just text her? That way, I won't get all sgdvxnkdld." Finn makes a flustered gesture with his hands as he speaks and Lexa chuckles.
"That'll definitely earn you a no. Clarke hates making plans over text." The girl rolls her eyes, again, and watches Finn plop on the couch. "It's really not that hard, Finn. I could do it in my sleep."
The boys ears perk up. "Would you show me?" He sees Lexa's hesitant expression and clasps his hands together. "Please, please, please? It'd be soooo much easier if I could see it?"
Lexa rubs her temples briefly and then sighs. "Fine. Just say-"
"WAIT!" Finn slides out his phone. "I wanna record this, just in case." Lexa rolls her eyes, AGAIN, then sits across from her cousin and begins to think.
"I don't know, maybe just say..."
Clarke rises as she hears the firm knock on her door. Finn had called earlier to ask if he could come over. She usually didn't like company on Sundays, but it sounded important, so she agreed.
She can tell she was right as she looks at Finn's nervous expression upon opening the door.
"Uh, hi." He breathes out and she steps aside to let him in.
"Hey, is everything OK?" She glances at his hands, wrung together, knuckles white and she begins to worry.
"Oh, uh, yeah. Just really wanted to talk to you about something."
"Oh, alright, uh, water?"
"Sure." It probably won't calm his nerves as he hopes it will, but he can at least try.
He waits until Clarke walks away and takes glances around her apartment to take his mind off the decision he's trying to make. He sees subtle touches of Clarke everywhere of course, but there's an undertone of something else. He sees it in the dark contrasts of colors to bright paintings around the room. Smells them in the strawberry scent of the apartment, mixed gently with vanilla and oak. He feels it in the goofy pictures of two girls that nearly cover the front wall of the living room.
"Here ya go." Clarke finally arrives back and he's thankful for the time she took. His decision is suddenly painfully clear.
"Thanks." He takes the water glass and immediately sets it down, confusing the girl. "I uh-" suddenly he realizes that he has no idea how to say any of this or how it will even sound. "I- c-can I show you something?" Finally deciding the video is the best way to go, he waits for Clarke's perplexed nod and motions to the couch. He pulls out his phone as they both sit and pushes play.
Clarke watches as Lexa pops up on the screen and listens in to her words.
"I don't know, maybe just say... I like you a lot Clarke. Like a ridiculous amount. Enough to make me fumble like a clutz around you all the time. But honestly, sometimes I do it on purpose, because I know you'll laugh and your laugh is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard in my fucking life. That and your smile make my heart like, seize in my chest. And I try to look away, to catch my breath, but then I look in your eyes and I just start drowning. And I know that sounds... sooo freaking cliche, but it's true. Your eyes are like the deepest blue, like an ocean. But they're also clear. So so clear, and sometimes when I feel like I don't know who I am, I look into your eyes and I see myself the clearest there. And I couldn't imagine any part of my life where I don't see those eyes. I love them. I love you." Lexa's comes out of her emotional haze and sees Finn's mouth hanging open and eyes watery. "Uh, ehm, uh yeah, something like that." Finn stops the video and drops his phone.
"Lexa-" he breathes, for the first time in two full minutes, but she cuts him off.
"Just-" she tries to cover the blush creeping to her face "Just ask her out, okay? Make her happy. She deserves it." And then she storms to her room and slams the door and Finn just stands stock still in the living room.
Clarke's eyes look misty, just as Finn's did after Lexa's speech and he tries to smile at her. "Yeah, I know."
"Finn, I-" she takes a shaky breath and then stands up, wringing her own hands now "why did you show me that?"
Finn sighs. I'm wondering that too. "I came over here to ask you out today, Clarke. I've been trying to for weeks." Clarke looks shocked and Finn continues talking in her silence. "I asked Lexa to help me figure out how to ask you and that's where that video came from." Finn stands then, too. "I came here because I really like you Clarke, and I'd love to have a chance to take you out." He grabs her hand gently until she looks at him. "But I think there's someone else that a-lot-more-than likes you and I thought it'd be fair to know before you accepted my offer. Because yes, I like you, but honestly, even I would have a hard time saying no to that." He smiles and watches Clarke blush and sniffle slightly. She seems to be contemplating something and then she looks at him like an orphan puppy and he drops her hand, resigned.
"Yeah, I figured."
"I'm so sorry Finn." He can tell she means it. "I liked you at first, too, honestly." She means that too. "But Lexa? I- she's my..." And she doesn't even finish her sentence but he can feel she means whatever comes next too.
"You love her." He nods and it's not a question, they both know it. "She told me earlier to make you happy." He smiles at her. "I think I know how."
Lexa bookmarks her page as she hears keys in her door. Finn will probably want to gush about Clarke accepting his date. Or he wimped out again, and he'll want a pity party. Lexa scolds herself for hoping for the latter. Either way, she won't get a lick of quiet.
Lexa looks up at Finn's smiling face and immediately her heart sinks. Well, I guess that answers that.
What she doesn't expect is to see Clarke follow behind him. She immediately hops up, dropping her book to the floor. "Clarke! What-" she sees the girls slightly red eyes "is everything OK?"
She sees Finn gathering some things near the end table and he glances up to Lexa. "Oh yeah, I showed Clarke the video." He continues digging through papers nonchalantly as Lexa's eyes widen.
"You what?!" Lexa looks horrified to Clarke, the other girl's expression remaining unreadable. "Finn!" She hears her cousin shout out a little triumphant 'aha' as he holds up his ID and then turns his attention to the situation at hand.
"You two are so ridiculously, hopelessly, in love with each other, I'm surprised you haven't exploded." They both look at him with slight annoyance and slight adoration and he chuckles. "Yeah, I never stood a chance." He shakes his head and walks to the door. "Gonna head to the bar with some friends. Don't wait up and oh, Lex," he loves how mortified she looks right now, but he can't help but make it worse "remember our sock-on-the-door policy." He winks at her and trots out into the hall.
He spends the elevator ride thinking about all the time he spent fumbling over Clarke, not even noticing his own cousin's feelings for the girl, her willingness to help him, in spite of those feelings. He can't be upset about missing out when he thinks about that. Lexa thought that Clarke deserved happiness. He thinks Lexa does too.
They deserve each other.
I don't even.
Thanks for reading though.