alright, so maybe raven's forgetful. usually, it's little things. not texting lexa back here, forgetting a meal or two there. (the later is especially apparent from her daily texts from clarke: have you eaten yet?) but sinclair just assigned her a project, some spreads from the engineers- namely, wick- with a heavy sigh and the task, "fix it." and if raven is forgetful when she isn't committing her entire self to one task, it's almost concerning when she is. even worse is that sinclair only gave her eight days to fix them. the fact that anyone expects her to remember anything is kind of laughable, actually.
day 3 of "fix it" consists of this: wake up, fix the spreads for twelve hours straight, eventually pass out on her work bench to start the cycle again.
day four goes a little different: wake up, fix the spreads for five hours, lights in the apartment shut off, again, and raven's too caught up in her work to care why. she finds a flashlight, works on the spreads for another six hours.
eventually, when raven's head pounds and her stomach growls and she smells like she's been sitting in the same position for nearly twelve hours- oh, wait- she calls day four quits. she eats and shuffles toward the bathroom with a flashlight in one hand, a granola bar and the other. it takes her a good five minutes to figure out why the water isn't it coming on.
oh, right. day four is bill day.
that's how raven finds herself at the start of day five in front of apartment 323, hoping that her neighbor, octavia, will be kind enough to let her wash the filth of yesterday away in her shower which might have been a step beyond neighborly, especially considering she's never formally introduced herself to the girl before.
it's not that raven isn't neighborly, no matter how many times clarke says she's a bad one, she just hasn't gotten around to introducing herself with the promise of friendship in the form of home baked goods. she's in college and has a job, she's too busy to be neighborly.
but she's seen octavia and she's held conversations with the girl in the elevator. she gets texts from octavia to pick up packages when she's out and raven brings her leftovers when she remembers. they aren't exactly friends, more like surviving acquaintances who live next to each other and occasionally flirt in the elevator, more octavia's doing than raven's.
(not that she's complaining. the excessive use of the word babe definitely isn't causing her to complain.)
raven knocks and takes a step backward and it's only then that raven realizes that she probably looks like an idiot showing up at octavia's apartment with a towel, shampoo, and a brush. she makes her move to leave, tail hung between her legs because she is a bad neighbor- really raven, no cookies?- but then the doors opening.
shit.
it's a guy, floppy dark hair, freckles painting his skin, bright smile and near black eyes. immediately her throat goes dry and she feels like even more of an idiot for holding bathroom supplies. seconds later she mentally scolds herself for not being more neighborly- octavia had a roommate?- when the walking definition of the boy next door is only an apartment over.
from behind him, she catches a glimpse of pale eyes. it's octavia, the same dark hair as the guy in front of her is wound up into braids that sit on top of her head. her jaw is square, her lips full, she wears shorts and raven has to tear her eyes away to keep from staring at her toned thighs.
her neighbors are painfully attractive and raven's already screwed.
"can I help you?"
it's the guy again. he narrows his eyes at raven suspiciously.
"i've got this, bell."
octavia slips in front of him, gently shoving him backward to silently tell him to leave. she smiles so brightly at raven that she can't breath for a good second or two. "what's up, babe?"
raven actually chokes. a cough tears through her throat before she quickly recovers and fumbles out, "i-uh. my water."
while the word babe is frequently used, that doesn't mean that raven has started to recover from it's usage.
octavia's smile shapes into something more of a smirk. her brow raises. "your water?"
"i- i'm an mechanic," raven says stupidly. "and my water- it shut off."
she hums, amusement becoming more and more apparent. "and you can't fix it, miss mechanic?"
raven stares dumbly.
then she's laughing and stepping aside, motioning for raven to step inside. "i'm only kidding. you're asking to shower here, right?"
"just until my water gets turned back on?"
"sure, babe. it's a deal," she says, extending her hand outward. she's laughing again when raven starts to fumble around her bathroom supplies to stick out her own hand in agreement. "kidding again, miss mechanic."
never in her life has raven met a person who matched her in personally and sass. even more surprising is how flustered she is.
"well, raven, bathrooms down that hall, to your right," octavia tells her, all smiles. "bellamy and i are just going to be in here. holler if you need anything."
the guy, bellamy, rolls his eyes at octavia. "don't mind my brother, he's kind of an ass."
"a beautiful one," he adds, motioning for octavia to join him on the couch, a playstation controller outstretched in her direction.
octavia shrugs. "enjoy your shower."
raven practically trips over herself to get into the bathroom, closing the door and breathing out so heavily she's afraid that octavia and bellamy might hear it.
she showers quickly and slips out of their bathroom even quicker, hardly glancing at the siblings as they send some snarky remark her way.
before she leaves she hears octavia making some joke about wet birds.
she doesn't get much work done that day.
the next day, day six, she's knocking on octavia and bellamy's door just as the sun sets. for the sake of her career and not pissing sinclair off by missing her deadline, she opts to tackle the daunting task that is her neighbors after she'd gotten her work done for the day.
the door swings open and octavia's there wearing a hoodie and shorts. her eyes are sort of red and she smiles sleepily at raven. "hey, babe," she says, voice soft. "late night?"
raven's eyes widen when she realizes that she woke her up. bad neighbor, bad neighbor, bad-
"oh, shit. were you sleeping?"
octavia yawns and shakes her head. "doesn't matter, i'm supposed to be studying anyways."
she shuffles backward, allowing raven into the apartment.
raven scans the room in search of bellamy. "your brother?"
"s'just me actually. he was just visiting. he lives with his boyfriend like twenty minuets from here," octavia says through a yawn. her tired eyes wrack over raven's body shamelessly. "you look good."
raven blushes, shifting to keep hold of her towel and shampoo bottle. "thanks, o. just work clothes."
"you seem stressed," octavia points out a second later. her head sort of tilts and raven gets antsy again, suddenly feeling like octavia is trying to figure her out. "is it work related?"
it's you related, raven says in her head.
"yeah, just work stuff," she says aloud.
"mechanic stuff? is mechanic stuff stressful?"
raven breaths out shakily and octavia laughs. she does that a lot.
"take your shower, miss mechanic. i'll be here."
raven does. the entire time the water runs over her she tries not to imagine the way octavia's lips curl up into her flirtatious smile, or how cute she looks in her oversized hoodie. she tries even harder to forget octavia's tanned, toned thighs or the way she doesn't even try to hide checking her out. an earlier conversation they had pulls into her mind, then. one in the elevator where the two of them somehow got on the topic of relationships.
"people make it harder than it needs to be," octavia told her. "sometimes people are just attracted to each other. people are hot. sex happens. sometimes it's more than that and sometimes it's not."
the shower isn't very productive.
when she's done octavia's curled into her couch, eyes hardly open. her cheeks are flushed and a lazy smile graces her features.
"night, rae."
raven lingers a second too long to be considered neighborly. "night, octavia."
they carry on like this for about a week, raven slipping into octavia's apartment when the sun sets and slipping out again with wet hair and a towel wrapped tight around her body. sometimes octavia comments on raven's lack of clothing- ever the gentlewoman- but sometimes she doesn't.
the guys in the shop have dubbed this week, the week the empire fell, her former name, the sun never sets on the reyes empire, swapped out for her ultimate demise. while she finished the spreads, early might she add, she's found it increasingly hard to concentrate at work and her coworkers have unfortunately picked up on that. she'd never let them know but it might have something to do with her green eyed neighbor.
she's working when wick's knocks her on the back of her head at the shop, a sly smile playing at his features.
"what's your deal reyes?"
raven ignores him, rubbing at the back of her head irritatedly.
"is it a guy?" he sing songs, making kissing faces in raven's direction.
miller perks up at that, dropping whatever weapon he works on to join in. "oh! is it raven? you've been needing one of those. ever since finn, you've been kinda, well, you know."
raven ignores him, pulling out her phone that buzzes in her pocket. it's octavia. of course it's octavia.
wick leans over her shoulder, snatching the phone from her hands. "who's octavia?" he questions. "is she your girlfriend?"
monty looks up from his computer for a second, "you've got a girlfriend?"
"wick!"
and then miller's back in, famous miller smirk plastered across his face. "you know, the two of you can always go on double dates with me and byran."
"hey babe, you coming over tonight?" wick mocks in a feminine voice, obviously reading the text raven just got from octavia.
she's three shades redder, trying desperately to get her phone from wick who stands nearly a foot taller than her with two working legs instead of one. the three boys hoot and holler for a moment, kissy noises and 'babes' rolling out of their mouth like the twelve year olds that they actually are.
"knock it off and get back to work!" it's sinclair coming to raven's rescue. she mouths thank you to him and he rolls his eyes, shutting his office door behind him, clearly trying not to smile.
wick snickers and drops raven's phone back on her desk. she slides her lock screen over only to find that wick sent 'of course baby' with a string of heart emojis in reply.
raven groans loudly, dropping her head into hands while monty, miller, and wick howl with laughter.
raven fishes her headphones out of her pocket, shoves them into the jack then into her ears and presses play. raven decides that even her phone's against her when 'you've got it bad' is the first song to come up on shuffle.
maybe she did.
"oh you definitely do," hours later it's clarke who regrettably pulled information about octavia from her over the phone. "you've got it so bad the guys at work found out?"
"keep it down!" raven shushes. "i don't want lexa hearing, too."
"whatever, dumbass. when you're both happily sleeping together like the mature, adult women that you are-"
"goodnight, clarke!"
raven hangs up and decides that her bed is probably the only thing that isn't going to taunt her today. still, she's proved wrong when she hears octavia on the other side of her wall, singing softly to god knows what when she's tucked into bed, moments from sleep. maybe it's a sign, maybe it's her shit luck, maybe it's because she can't stop thinking about this girl but whatever it was, well, it is going to have wait until tomorrow.
(jokes on her because she doesn't find sleep until nearly two am.)
when raven meets octavia the next night to shower, octavia's far flirtier than usual, if that's possible.
"hey, babe," she chirps happily, eyes giving raven a one over. "i saw your text. it's baby now, is it?"
in that instant, raven swears she's going to kill wick and miller and monty, too. in her head she fumbles for a coherent response, her mouth however: "so what? you call me babe."
octavia seems surprised by that. raven's surprised by it. her brow raises, a coy smirk playing at her lips. "fair enough."
octavia let's her in easy enough. raven slips past her, already halfway down the hall to shower when octavia calls out for her.
"hey raven?"
raven whips around expectantly, looking toward octavia for whatever she needs. she's slightly put off when octavia looks nervous for a second. raven doesn't ever think she's seen the girl present anything but 300% confidence at all times.
"yeah, o?"
octavia shakes her head. "never mind raven, sorry. i forgot."
raven nods, eyeing octavia quizzically as she turns back around. "sure, let me know if you remember."
raven showers quick enough, stepping away from the stream of water, shutting it off and patting herself dry. for once, she lets her hair hang free of it's pony tail, wet waves coiling around her shoulders as droplets of shower water drip onto the floor. she wraps her towel tightly around her body, giving herself a one over in the fogged up mirror. flushed skin, red lips, wet hair. oh well.
she pads out into the hall and strangely finds octavia standing in her same spot in the living room. "oh," raven says softly. "did you need something?"
"yes, actually," octavia's in front of her in seconds, her hands visibly shaking far harder than raven ever remember them before.
"are you-"
octavia's kissing her. like, kissing her, kissing her.
her shaky hands cup the side of raven's face, warm lips press against raven's cool ones. raven lightly "oh's" against octavia's mouth, hands instinctually coming around the small of her back and pressing her closer. both of them ignore the shampoo bottle that clamors to the floor between them.
octavia moves timidly against her, her mouth unalike her big, bad personality. the kiss is sweet and warm, gentle and slow until it's not. octavia's head tilts and raven's chasing her mouth, tongue darting along her bottom lip in a silent tease. she feels octavia grin against her, the grin melting away with a quiet noise when raven nips at her bottom lip. the sound alone causes raven to shiver.
they break away seconds later, not for air but for clarity. raven's chest heaves and her heart pounds dramatically in her chest. her eyes open slowly, her vision blurring into octavia's pale green irises.
"hey raven?" octavia asks quietly, thumb swiping across her cheek affectionately.
"yeah, o?"
"i think i remembered what i was going to say."
raven laughs, moving forward to brush their lips together for a moment. "did you?"
octavia kisses her again, their lips sliding against each other familiarly, like they belonged.
"yeah," a kiss to her cheek and then her forehead and then her lips again. "yeah, i think i did."