*Fixed formatting*
Hey there,
Given the current state of the world and the fact that tomorrow is my birthday, I decided I'd not only push updates for my current published stories but give you two new ones! That's right, I now have four published works up and a fifth in the starting process. They are all a little different, so if you like my style feel free to dive into a new read. One of the two new reads is a canon divergent intended to be a bit more dramatic. And the last is another modern AU that I am very excited about writing, but won't spill much about. ;)
Please, be safe. Stay sane and enjoy life as best you can in these times.
Clarke slept hard. So hard she had no desire to get out of bed when her phone buzzed repeatedly.
"Ughhhhh." She groaned and fumbled for the phone, sliding it onto the bed beside her with little to no energy. It was useless shit, no real reason to wake her but those damn notifications did the job and now she felt obligated to get up. Especially when she realized it was eleven. Since she adopted Madi, sleeping the day away had been a long lost treat. Conceding, she pulled herself out of bed and into a nice hot shower. While in the shower, she noted a tenderness below the waste and was concerned for a moment only for that concern to turn to embarrassment as she recalled last night. It wasn't just her debut as an artist last night, that's for sure.
Clean and clothed casually for the day, she jogged down the stairs to find food. She also found Madi sitting on the floor in front of the couch with her eyes glued to her phone. The TV was purely ambient noise for the pre-teen.
"Hey, you." She greeted her daughter. Madi leaped up from her spot and ran over to Clarke, throwing her into a hug.
"Last night was so awesome." The praise from her child made her heart swell with love.
"Yeah? Did you have fun?" She asked as they separated again. Clarke turned to the fridge and Madi took up a stool at the counter.
"Yeah. Abby was so proud of you. We had lots of people asking if I was the girl in the portrait, but I don't mind. I'm awesome, so it's natural everyone would be drawn to me."
Clarke laughed at the words coming out of Madi's mouth. She couldn't deny the charisma oozing from the kid. "You were the star of the show." She beamed.
"Oh no, I was not!" She declared, very matter-of-factly. "You should have seen the attention Bellamy was getting."
"I'm sure he's used to it looking like that," Raven interjected, joining them. She had just walked in the front door and was rubbing her hands on a hand towel. Clarke felt a buzz of something at the change in topic but she ignored it while she pulled some cut fruit out of the fridge. She set it out and leaned against the counter at a corner. She plucked a piece of honeydew out of the tub and popped it in her mouth.
"He's so hot," Madi said and Clarke nearly choked. Raven laughed.
"Oh!" Madi perked up after looking at her phone. "Octavia is doing a teen's self-defense class today at a local park and invited me. Can I go?" Her pout was devious. Clarke didn't want her to go and she knew that.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea." She reasoned.
"Well, you're the only one." Madi huffed. "Abby thought it was a good idea. So did Raven." She stuck her nose up as she declared the support she got. Raven shrugged when Clarke clocked her with a knowing look.
"Of course Raven did, but Mom? Huh." She commented. Silence fell over the girls for all of a minute before she gave in. "Fine. You can go. Don't beat everyone up." Clarke rolled her eyes and Madi jumped up, rounded the counter and wrapped her arms around Clarke.
"Thanks, Clarke." She looked lovingly to the older woman. She then ran over to the sliding glass door that faces the Blakes and slid it open.
"Wait, you meant now?" Clarke asked, moving to a stand.
"Well yeah, it's in like forty minutes." Madi said, her face reading 'duh'.
"Okay, I guess." She shrugged like she had no say and popped a grape into her mouth.
"Oh hey Boss, send tall dark and brooding over for me." Raven gestured.
Madi looked back at her, deadpanned. "I mean, that applies to both of them." Both older women choked on laughter. It was so true, but for a 12-year-old to realize that and agree to it was too funny.
"Okay, we'll stick to Freckles then."
"Roger!" Madi jumped out onto the patio and disappeared through the gate and across the lawn. Clarke stopped paying any mind.
"Wait, what? Why do you need him to come over? And when did you and my kid make up a nickname for him?" Clarke shook her head between topics and realized exactly what just happened. She looked confused.
Raven, on the other hand, was all smiles. "I need his help with the car. He offered and I'm holding him to it. And last night Madi was going on about his freckles at the gallery." She shrugged.
"Car? Mine? No." She defied.
"No, Clarke. The Jeep I bought like two months ago? It's over in the dirt, they delivered like two days ago."
"Oh." She blushed. "I guess I've been busy. Does it run?"
"Yep! It needs a lot of work though. He offered to help and he's a clean freak so I figured I'd get him to help with the interior."
Clarke looked out the sliding glass door to see if he was coming, anxiety rising within.
"Oh cool." She idly said. She saw their door open and she quickly turned her eyes back to Raven. "Well, I have uh-" she hesitated. She had no excuse but damn did she need one right now. "... a lot of shit to clean up from this opening." Her words came together and weren't actually far from the truth.
"Okay." Raven was none the wiser. "Have fun?" She laughed.
"Cleaning day all around." She smiled fakely, more than anxious to get out of that room before Bellamy showed up but alas, he appeared on the patio.
"Hey, Madi left your gate open." His voice melted her composure and she quickly walked out of the room and retreated to the upstairs. She vaguely heard Raven laugh about Madi leaving the gate open and how she was going to work Bellamy hard.
In the sanctuary of her room, her back to the door, she breathed for what felt like the first time in hours but had only been moments.
'Why am I so anxious?' She thought to herself, flushed and ten degrees warmer than the air was. She quickly fanned herself off and decided to put her attention on cleaning. She couldn't deny that part of her wanted to replay what happened last night but at the same time, it wasn't something she was proud of. She told herself it was a moment of weakness, a lapse in judgment, and an embarrassment. On top of that, she droned on to herself about what he could possibly feel or be thinking about her. Did he think she was easy? Did he plan that? The chain of thought just kept digging deeper, back to comments he made the day they spent together when her car was acting up. Finally, she couldn't take her own thoughts and turned on some music. It streamed out of her laptop at a volume that could drown out just about anything in the room and it helped ease her thoughts if it only a little bit.
Time slipped away and Clarke had pretty much all of her storage and art supplies sorted. She was at her laptop now putzing around in Photoshop retouching some photos when someone knocked on the door.
"Yeah?" She said, unaware of the world outside of her focus.
"So what happened?" Raven's question pulled her back to reality and the anxiety she held earlier just dropped like a brick in her gut.
"Uh, what are you talking about?"
"Bellamy," Raven stated. Clarke's body reacted by warming over as she became flustered. She didn't say anything though, just looked at Raven. An awkward silence of thirty or so seconds elapsed before anyone spoke.
Raven moved to sit on Clarke's bed, which faced her at her desk. "Funny thing." She started and Clarke's gut tensed up.
"We were cleaning the interior of the car and I asked about last night, how he felt with all that was going on." Her eyes were just drilling Clarke's for a reaction.
"He got a little.. Weird. Asked me what I was talking about. I explained that I was asking about all the attention he got, for you know, being the man on the wall. He looked so relieved when I explained. I let it go."
She stood and leaned over, her palms on the desk. "Until it dawned on me how weird you were when I told Madi to send him over earlier." Raven's face read as inquisitive with a smirk hiding under pursed lips.
"I'm never wrong, so tell me what I missed that you two are being weird as fuck over." She demanded, her smirk on display in full.
While she couldn't see her own face, she could only imagine it denoted how hot and uncomfortable her body was. Sure enough, her cheeks were red and her leg was shaking under the desk.
"Told you I'm never wrong," Raven noted as she pointed to Clarke's leg on the other side of the table.
"It's nothing." She boldly lied through her teeth. "He checked on me last night and I just said a lot about a lot. I probably weirded him out. You know how I get when I'm stressed out. I talk, a lot. About everything. I ramble and I was emotional. So he probably thinks I'm some kind of freak." Clarke locked eyes with Raven, boring holes through her to see if she would buy her lie. Raven gave no emotion. Clarke couldn't read her.
"Hmmm." She let out a long questioning hum, her eyes narrow as she playfully judged Clarke.
"You're a troll." Clarke rolled her eyes and Raven's stony expression broke into a smile.
"I do love messing with you." Raven moved to the door. "I'm sure he'll get over it." She shrugged. "Jumping on the emotional rollercoaster is a part with being friends with you, some people just have to get used to it." Raven jabbed and winked at Clarke who was very relieved.
Just before closing the door on her way out, Raven left Clarke with a line that sent her into an embarrassed heat. "You're a wild ride, Griffin."
Clarke wanted to throw something at her but she closed the door before she could react. She leaned back in her desk chair with a heavy sigh, releasing her embarrassment through it. It felt like an elephant in the room or sitting on her chest but only two people knew what happened last night. She was so mortified of the reality of it though. Fucking him in the basement wasn't her only one-hit-wonder, so to speak. But this one felt so much different. It felt wrong on so many levels, or at least that is what she kept telling herself. She berated herself, thinking she was easy, weak, and made a bad choice that hurt people. In reality, it didn't affect anyone but her as far as she knew. As she sat there, a cloud moved overhead masking some of the bright light outside the window, showing the life behind reflective windows for a moment. She saw Bellamy walk into the smaller room he spent a lot of time in and her heart rate suddenly picked up. She turned being flustered into being angry. Grumpily, she jumped up out of her chair and left the room.
Once downstairs, she found Raven lounging on the couch. "Did you two finish with the car?"
Raven looked up, a bit tired. "Huh? Oh no. Well, yes but no. We washed everything on the interior pretty good. He had a carpet extractor and it was so satisfying to use. The seats are on the patio to dry." She pointed limply, her legs up on the coffee table.
Clarke nodded. "What do you want to eat?" She offered as she realized what time it was. The sun was creeping away but it was still bright out.
"Give it like ten and you can take the little boss's order. Beef-cake said Octavia would be bringing her home just after five. I'm down for whatever." Raven smiled softly.
"You know she's just going to want noodles." Clarke huffed with a smile and sat down on the other end of the couch. The TV was the perfect level of volume to hear but still talk over and Raven was watching Criminal Minds, a show all three of them had seen many times.
"Mhm" Raven mumbled sleepily, her eyes on the TV. Clarke let her be after that and as projected, Madi walked in the front door just over ten minutes later. She looked tired herself but still bubbly.
"Today was AWESOME." She exclaimed, plopping down between her guardians.
"Oh yeah? You beat the shit out of everyone little boss?" Raven smirked and Clarke rolled her eyes.
"No, I mean-"
"You what?" Clarke sat up and turned to her kid.
"No. We sparred with foam katanas and it was really fun. According to Octavia, I'm 'a little fighter' so I guess I did good?" She shrugged and eagerly defused Clarke.
"Is this going to be a new thing?" Clarke asked, knowing Madi's reply beforehand.
The pre-teen perked up and turned to face the blonde. "Can I?" She asked eagerly to Clarke to smiled and sighed.
"Yeah, I guess." Madi dove in for a hug of appreciation that lasted shorter than expected when Clarke playfully pushed her off.
"On one condition, you go shower after because you smell nastyyyy." Clarke pinched her nose and Raven added to it.
"She's not wrong. You stanky." Madi pouted between the two before she rolled her eyes. They all laughed and she headed for the stairs.
"Hey, wait. What do you want to eat?" Clarke called out through the room between her and the stairs. A disembodied voice replied to her.
"Can we have stir fry?" She asked. Clarke and Raven traded a look of surprise.
"Yeah, sounds perfect," Clarke replied while shrugging to Raven. They were both relieved to not be eating noodles again. Madi lived on pasta before Clarke adopted her, so it was ingrained into her subconscious to always eat noodles. They tried to reprogram that but she just loved pasta.
A few minutes later, when a commercial came on, Clarke pulled herself out of the couch and stretched her hands over her head. "Guess I should get cooking." She smiled.
"Want help?" Raven half-heartedly asked. Without hesitation, Clarke clocked her with a look of sarcasm that silently denoted she was nuts to ask and knew better. Raven smirked and settled into a bit more comfortably, leaning into the arm. After a tasty meal and a quick clean up of the kitchen, the trio sought refuge in the comfort of the couch and watched a few episodes of Criminal Minds together. Once in bed later that night, Clarke was restless. The room was too hot, too cold without a blanket. The light of her clock and powerstrip bothered her as if she was noticing them for the first time. And she was thinking about everything and nothing all at the same time. Literally nothing of substance was on her mind and yet there was a lot of it. She finally gave up and got out of bed. A few steps away she turned back to grab her phone off her pillow and she caught the glimpse of light across the lawn.
He was awake too. It was past two in the morning and he wasn't just awake; He was working out. The sheer panels over her window obscured things just enough for her privacy but she could see the outline of his naked torso and the waistband of something black covering the rest of him as he hoisted his body up in that door jamb. Up, down, up, down. The pattern wasn't slowing down in the few reps she watched. He just effortlessly pulled his own weight up and down as if he weighed nothing. He finally dropped and stretched, turning toward the window. The slight difference of dry and wet skin was just barely noticeable through her curtains, telling her he had worked himself into a sweat. Brainlessly, she moved around the foot of her bed to the window and created the smallest gap in her curtains to look out, unobstructed. He looked soaked. Doing cross-body arm stretches and rolling his neck, she peered out just a little bit more, all but drooling. Suddenly, his head rolled to a stop and his eyes, dark as they may be, landed right on her window and she froze. A wave of fear and stiffness penetrated her body and took over any voluntary power she had. Of course, the curtain was dropped and the two-inch gap she had made was back to never existing. Clarke didn't realize she had ducked down and was not kneeling under the sill.
Blue eyes flickered around the room and she reassured herself. "There is no light on, surely he can't see me." She whispered aloud to herself. Sitting with that thought didn't work though. No, she crawled away from the window and slid back up into bed without so much as a blonde hair passing above the edge of the window sill. Tucked back into her bed safely where she knew she couldn't be seen, day or night, she relaxed. Eventually, she faded into slumber, probably exhausted from embarrassing herself.