a/n: so. i'm very very angry about the direction the 100 has been taking and i don't want these poor kids to suffer anymore so i started writing this and. yeah. nobody is going to be sad in this fic ever.
Clarke Griffin was extremely tired. It was a feeling that she couldn't say she was unfamiliar with, admittedly. The day - only the fifth in the school year - had been exhausting. She wanted nothing more than to sleep, honestly. The bleachers were starting to look more and more comfortable by the minute.
we could be immortals
The same Disney movie as always was playing on some kid's phone. Clarke groaned - who watched the same movie five days in a row, anyway?
"It's a great film," the girl beside her commented. Clarke blinked, taking a moment to look at her new companion, who currently had a red sweater draped over her shoulder like a cape. She held an air of power, a commanding presence that made Clarke feel like she should be standing straight (ha) and addressing her like a business partner. The girl didn't seem like one to watch Disney movies - she seemed more suited to swinging a sword in some far-fetched, dystopian universe than sitting in a high school gymnasium with a kid who couldn't be older than ten. "The one watching the movie is my younger brother, Aden. He loves it more than anything. While I can't really understand why he loves it quite that much, it's still a good movie. I might have teared up the first time I saw it, admittedly."
"Why's he here?" Clarke asked.
"Waiting for the bus. The elementary school is only a block away, and nobody particularly notices a smaller child on a bus filled with rowdy high schoolers. The only thing he has to fear is being trampled. And stray bullets, I suppose."
"What?"
"You can never be too careful."
"Well, er, anyway, what's your name? I don't think I have you in any of my classes." Clarke vaguely remembered passing the girl in the hallways and seeing her perched on a bench during the beginning-of-the-year assembly, but she was a mystery otherwise.
"Lexa. Lexa Woods. We moved here this summer."
"I'm Clarke." Lexa extended her hand. Clarke tried not to seem rather taken aback by the rather formal gesture.
"Well, Clarke, it was a pleasure to meet you, but now I believe that we must part ways." Lexa stood up and headed for the door, her younger brother in tow.
"Bye, new friend lady!" he chirped, waving enthusiastically until he was out of sight.
Lexa would have liked to pretend that she didn't think about this Clarke girl after that first meeting, but she did. It wasn't as if she liked her or anything - it was impossible, she figured, to truly like someone after having exactly one conversation with them, especially when most of that conversation revolved around her brother. Besides, it would be . . . inconvenient, to say the least, if the first person she had actually talked to in this new town besides the teachers ended up also being her token high school crush. Every movie that she had seen (sans the ones that involved lovable robots and interdimensional portals) told her that high school crushes were generally a bad experience for everyone involved. Arkadia - or the "dropship," as students liked to call it for some reason - was a strange school, for sure, and the atmosphere would almost certainly take time to get used to, but Clarke seemed nice enough. If Lexa played her cards right, figured out the ins and outs of Arkadia's rules, then perhaps this move wouldn't be the horrid experience Aden had made it out to be.
"Hey, hey, Lexa!" the brother in question yelled excitedly, tugging at Lexa's sleeve. "This is our stop!" Lexa shook her head as if to clear her mind of thoughts pertaining to the girl she had just spent twenty minutes thinking about, and focused on navigating herself (and Aden) through the mob of high schoolers attempting to leave the bus all at once.
The two didn't see each other again until a week later, when Lexa's brother was once again watching the same movie while Lexa herself stared out the window.
"The traffic isn't looking good at the moment," she mused. Clarke looked around to see who she was talking to, but there was nobody in sight. Clarke gave an awkward half-wave.
"So, we meet again," Clarke said, attempting to break the silence. Lexa continued to stare out the window. "Hi? Lexa Woods, right?" Lexa wordlessly nodded, her back still turned.
"And you're the one called Clarke, if memory serves."
"Doesn't he ever get tired of that movie?"
"Who, Aden?"
"Yeah." Clarke nonchalantly leaned against the window to meet Lexa's striking green gaze.
"Well, the movie came out around a year and a half ago, and he's seen it at least seventy times since, so I doubt it."
"Huh." An uneasy silence fell over the two girls, and Clarke noticed Lexa tugging at the hem of her sweater, her fingers twisting the soft fabric over and over again as a group of seniors babbled behind her. "What kind of stuff do you do for fun?" Lexa seemed surprised by the question, and Clarke found herself wondering where exactly this girl had come from.
"I collect candles as a hobby," she answered. "They smell rather nice, in my opinion."
"They smell weird!" Aden yelled from across the room. Has he been listening this whole time? "And they have a bunch of weird names I can't pronounce!" The seniors seemed to notice him for the first time, pausing their conversation to look at the young boy. The supposed leader of the group - Clarke vaguely remembered her name starting with an O - leered down at Aden like a wolf watching its prey, or perhaps a vulture eying an already-dead meal. Her two cronies shuffled behind her, seemingly unsure of what to do.
"Who brought the runt?" she chuckled, snatching the boy's phone from his hands. Aden stepped back.
"Lay a single hand on him, and you'll answer to me," Lexa growled. Clarke stood behind her, unsure of what to do.
"Oh, you? What'll you do?" The leader, still dangling the phone over Aden's head, barked out a throaty laugh. The small group behind her awkwardly echoed the chuckling. A crowd was beginning to gather, and a few freshmen were starting to engage in a chant. Lexa gritted her teeth, and Clarke could see her fist clenching and unclenching repeatedly, the white bone of her knuckles flashing.
"You don't wanna find out!" Aden squeaked, pumping his fist in the air. Clarke wondered if he was actually aware of the danger he was in.
"Silence, worm," the leader snapped before turning back to Lexa. "You're a fool, Woods, if you think you can bring words to a fistfight and expect to win."
"What does that even mean?" Aden groaned. Yep. Definitely unaware of the danger he's in.
"Ontari," Lexa muttered, in a voice low enough for only the leader (Ontari, apparently), Clarke, and Aden to hear. "What satisfaction would you receive, stealing a cell phone from an innocent child, especially when you are not much older than a child yourself?" Lexa's voice was even, steely, unwavering. It sent a chill through Clarke's spine, and she was so focused on the other girl's commanding presence that she didn't question the fact that Ontari was apparently much younger than she let on, or how she even knew Lexa's last name. "You're a pretentious teenager with a superiority complex," Lexa continued. "On top of that, you're a bully. Now, give the boy his phone back, or you'll hear from more than just me."
"What, you're gonna tell on me?" Ontari sneered.
"Somehow, I doubt that your stepmother would enjoy hearing about this, and neither would the school board." Aden slowly tried to sneak away, but Ontari grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and pulled him back.
"You're just proving my point," she snorted. "That's . . . that's literally what you're doing. Ha, who would've expected the great Lexa Woods to be such a goody-two-shoes, eh?" Ontari said the word great with an exaggerated drawl, nearly laughing at herself as she dangled the phone over Aden's head. Clarke was just about ready to punch her in the face, but Lexa stopped her with a raise of her hand.
"I wouldn't suggest traveling any further down this path, Ontari," she warned. "It's . . . unbefitting."
"Oh, Miss Woods, I'm so sorry," Ontari mocked. "It doesn't matter, anyway. This is a waste of time. The kid can have his damn phone back." She tossed the phone in question to Aden, who caught it in his grubby hands and held it close to his chest, like a precious treasure. The boy scurried to Lexa's side.
"Did she hurt you?" Lexa's voice softened as she checked her brother for injuries. "Aden. I said, did she hurt you?" Aden blinked.
"That was awesome!" he squeaked. "You would've kicked her butt, I know it!" Lexa breathed a sigh of relief. Ontari and her group still stood a few feet away, muttering incomprehensible things to each other as they slowly backed out of the gym.
"Well, if the clock on that wall over there is correct, then it's just about time for us to take our leave," Lexa sighed.
"Can the cool friend come with us?" Aden asked, pointing to Clarke. Lexa shot her an apologetic glance, a more effective "it's-okay-you-don't-have-to-do-it" than words could convey.
"Sure." Clarke wasn't exactly sure why she was saying yes. Maybe it was because she felt sorry for Aden (who couldn't be older than ten), maybe it was because she had just seen Lexa talk down a slightly power-hungry freshman, maybe it was because her eyes were so brilliantly green and- no, Clarke thought to herself. I'm not going down that rabbit-hole again.
"Yeah!" Aden cheered, snapping Clarke from her thoughts.
"We'll need to hurry if we want to catch the bus," Lexa said. "Why don't you go on ahead, Aden? I'll catch up." Aden dutifully nodded and ran out of the gym, pushing open the doors with all the strength held in his (rather small) body. Lexa waited until he was out of the school building before starting to walk at a leisurely pace.
"Shouldn't you be trying to catch the bus, too?" Clarke asked.
"We're not actually behind schedule. I just told Aden that so he wouldn't talk your ear off about his favorite movie." The sun shone overhead, so bright that Clarke had to squint to see anything.
"I guess I should be thanking you for saving me from a cruel, superhero-filled fate, then?" she joked. Lexa didn't respond. Clarke shrugged and continued walking. "Anyway, who was that girl? And how did she know your name?" Lexa took a deep breath.
"We're . . . family friends, of sorts, although friends might not be the most accurate term. She's supposedly a distant cousin, or something along those lines, and her stepmother considers that to be enough to make her the heir to Nightblood Industries?"
"Nightblood Industries? What, are you a vampire?" Lexa let out a chuckle.
"No, it's nothing quite as interesting or morbid as that. In all honesty, it's fairly boring. It's just a small computer company that did the right things over a period of years and ended up with a sizable fortune sitting in a bank somewhere. I don't care about what happens to it, but Ontari and her family do. I've stayed out of that, as I plan to do until I die. Ontari, she was bearable when we lived several plane rides away apart and only saw each other every few years, but she's been intent on making my life - and Aden's - something of a living hell ever since we moved here." A silence fell over the two girls, after that, a silence that hung heavy and remained until they arrived at the parking lot, the bright yellow school bus looming over the students waiting there.
"Hey!" Aden yelled. "Lexa, you said that we were almost late! I've been waiting here forever!" Clarke checked her watch.
"I'm pretty sure that it's only been five minutes." Aden ignored her.
"C'mon, we've gotta get on the bus now!" he insisted, tugging Lexa along.
"We'll see each other on Monday, then?" Lexa inquired, slowly resisting Aden's pull as the boy dragged her onto the bus. Clarke nodded.
"Monday. Definitely." The doors closed, and Clarke could see Lexa through the dimly tinted windows, practically tackling her brother into a seat before the bus lurched to life with a low grumble. Clarke stood, watching it drive away until it was nothing more than a yellow speck in the distance.
This can't be good.
a/n: and so it begins