I really enjoy writing these two. I hope some of you are enjoying reading them as well. Do let me know!
"Okay, I know that look." Raven is back on Clarke's case exactly one day after the last time she had antagonised her roommate. Clarke was now strewn out in the living room, on a proper mission as she crafted what ought to be the next damn Mona Lisa. "This is your, 'I'm in love and I am determined to be amazingly artful because of it' look."
"I don't even think artful is a word," Clarke sighs. She was too busy to be distracted right now. She had already begun sketching landscapes and doodling comics and drawing wide, large brush strokes for a sunset. But none of it was good enough. Even if what she was trading it in for the most trivial piece of information.
"Mm, well it should be," she declares. She throws herself onto the couch behind Clarke, a Ben and Jerry's pint in her hand. It was Clarke's Ben and Jerry's but she was having enough struggles as it was that she didn't even bother bringing it up. "Did you meet them at a party? Or in class? Have you had sex yet? Tell me you've had sex before falling in love again."
The worst part was that she didn't even have a defence. Except maybe that she wasn't in love, that would be absurd. She was in like. And it just so happened that she was in like with a girl who's name she may not know. But she just keeps on at what she's doing, trying to remind herself not to press too hard onto her current work out of frustration.
"Clarke, I have been single for months, okay? Actual, literal months. Give me something to live vicariously through. I'm begging you."
In all honesty Raven did look pretty pitiful strewn across the couch, industrial size spoon in hand as she devoured ice cream that wasn't even hers. Out of true love for her friend Clarke stops what she's doing, pulls the ice cream from Raven's hands and tugs her off the couch with a firm pull. This time Raven catches herself and stands up, mumbling underneath her breath about how Clarke has got to stop doing that. Clarke walks over to the front door and pulls Raven's coat off the hook and holds it out to her. "Are you kicking me out? I pay half the rent. You can't kick me out."
With a roll of her eyes Clarke shakes her head. "I'm making you go find someone. I don't care who it is or what you do with them. But use protection and have a grand old time. Get it out of your system and leave me the hell alone."
Raven's face is one of pure incredulousness. "Are you, Clarke Griffin, suggesting I go have sex with some random man or woman simply to pull myself out of this dry, invasive funk I've managed to lower myself into?"
"Or drink some wine or do the tango or eat their expensive ice cream." She pushes the coat into Raven's arms. "I don't care what you do. Just come home with a story of your own to tell instead of sticking your nose in mine. Got it?"
She shrugs her shoulders and pulls the coat on. "I guess, but if anyone ever asks I'm telling them that you are a terrible life coach."
"Sue me," Clarke answers in a dry voice. The door shuts behind Raven and Clarke is left with a pile of art supplies and some mild regret. Perhaps the distraction had been nice after all.
/
Never has Clarke felt stupider than the next morning when she walks into Java Jaha with a perfectly ordinary sketch tucked into her school folder. Odds are it was remaining precisely in that location, but it's mere existence made her feel silly for bringing it along at all.
It was a late start for her today, her first class of the day had been cancelled and she had used the extra hour to catch up on some much needed sleep. So it is a bit of a surprise when Clarke finds her unnamed friend still sitting at the bar, cup clutched in her hand.
When Clarke goes to the counter to order she realises that her eyes are on the girl instead of Bellamy when he says, "Anyone home?" She jerks her attention back to him, not missing the subtle turn of the girl's lips who had been skillfully avoiding Clarke's eyes until then. Little eavesdropper. "You know, the least you could do is spare me a look."
She rolls her eyes and slides her card through to pay for the drink he had already rung up for her. "As if you need any more attention."
"I'll have you know my girlfriend broke up with me. I'm fragile right now, princess."
She offers him a sympathetic arm pat in condolence. "Fish are in the sea, or something like that," she says, her attention once again on the girl who casts a single glance with a less than innocent smile. "Best wishes." She probably leaves Bellamy behind with a shaking head at how obvious she was being but whatever. That wasn't important right now.
"So," the girl is saying before Clarke has even situated herself. "I trust you have come with ample offering?"
The comment leaves Clarke wondering how long she had been waiting here. Was it really coincidence? Or had she been nursing a half warm drink for the last hour? "Um…" she starts and then fades out because she's distracted by the 'ample offering' that suddenly seems ten pounds heavier in her bag. She makes the mistake of looking at it and the girl's eyes follow hers. When Clarke meets them again she looks nothing if not mischievous.
Then she's smiling and holding out her hand and Clarke is so embarrassed that she's pretty certain even her toes have developed a blush. "Come on, you know you can't resist the mystery."
There's something about her taunting tone that has Clarke pulling her folder from her bag and reaching in to grab the first piece of paper on the right hand side. She doesn't even look as she pulls it out, just slams it on the counter and slides it over with as little fanfare as possible. "It was good homework practise," she mumbles because she hates the way this feels as the girl stares silently down at the counter and Clarke's heart about beats out of her chest. This is not what crushes were supposed to feel like. They were meant to be light and exciting. Not heavy and incapacitating.
"You drew this?" she asks and Clarke doesn't miss the awe in her tone. It was the reverent sort of voice, one that seemed as if to think it would break the moment if it were raised too loud.
She shrugs in response because it wasn't anything she was necessarily that proud of. Just a sketch. Clarke sketched daily. But then the girl is tracing her fingers over the Java Jaha sign and a smile plays on her lips at Bellamy behind the counter, swirling a mountain of whip cream onto a latte. There are people throughout the café, as it often was most mornings. One family sat at the corner table, a gentleman read his newspaper at the bar. A few high schoolers had backpacks slung over one shoulder as they waited in line. The two people that the girl stops to marvel at though are the two girls, one with light, wavy hair and one whose hair was tied halfway back in intricate braids, sitting in the very stools they sat in now.
It was obvious she liked it and the thought made Clarke's throat run a little bit dry. "It's just a sketch," she repeats from the recesses of her mind but then the girl is lifting the paper off of the counter and frowning when she sees the stains of coffee that have collected on the back. She holds it out in offering back to Clarke, but she just shakes her head. "You can keep it. I have enough drawings at home."
The girl's eyes go back to the drawing and they must land right on Clarke's signature because her face breaks into a wide smile as she says, "Thank you, Clarke," and the first time her name rolls off the girls tongue might just be the first time Clarke has ever understood what it must be like to love someone you barely know. "Black."
"What?" she asks, dumbfounded by the proclamation of colour.
"That's how I drink my coffee," she says with a shy smile. "I just take it black. Though, this arrangement hardly seems fair now."
"You could…offer me something else?" Clarke suggests, her voice nervous and her smile matching. "Something worth the trade."
First she bites her lip and then the girl says, "Lexa. My name is Lexa." And everything just sort of falls into place. Because of course Lexa has bright green eyes and drinks black coffee and loves charcoal sketches. And who else but Lexa laughed like it cost her nothing and wore long cardigans and arrived two hours early to a coffee shop just ensure she got the stool she wanted before surrendering it anyway. It's the sort of name that was tailored to fit a girl like the one who sat next to Clarke.
When Bellamy places her drink in front of her Clarke realises how foolish she must look, all dopey smile as she stares at the girl she has known for weeks now with a name she's just learned. "Well, Lexa, it's nice to…meet you?" Halfway through her sentence Clarke recognises the inaccuracy and shakes her head.
Clarke feels slightly less embarrassed when Lexa's face splits into an equally dorky grin, green eyes bright as she extends a hand. Clarke takes it out of habit, hoping Lexa doesn't notice that her palm is slightly moist from all of the nerves she was still recovering from. If she does, she must not care very much, because she holds it in her grasp a few beats too long as she says, "It's nice to meet you too, Clarke."