Saturday Morning, May 28th (Charleston, SC)
Anya could admit that the waterfront park down the road from the hotel was quite nice. The pineapple-shaped fountain, and the garden surrounding it, was particularly calming after processing the previous twenty-four hours.
After her car broke down Wednesday evening, and she was told it was basically irreparable, she'd spent the next day freaking out about how it decimated most of her plans for the next two weeks. After all, she didn't live next door to a grocery store, she lived next door to a pond. Transportation was a necessity. And she couldn't just go out and buy a car, she'd have to do all the proper research first.
It had taken a few hours Friday morning to get up the nerve to call Lexa about the bad news. After all these years, despite the distance, Lexa was still her best friend, and missing her wedding seemed unfathomable. Not that she would have missed it, but her brain just wasn't in the state necessary to figure out how to get there in a way that wouldn't have her spontaneously combusting due to immense anxiety.
Lexa's solution had seemed easy enough. Her best friend, Clarke, was about to embark on a road trip, where the woman would pick up Octavia and Raven, and then head north to the wedding. She was already friends with Octavia, and knew Clarke and Raven to some degree by how Lexa and Octavia talked about them, so it seemed reasonable. Leaving that day had been a bit of a gamble, compared to being picked up when the group was northbound, but Anya figured that with one car already broken down, she'd prefer to be with a group if it happened again, so that she could piggyback on a hypothetical solution if bad luck would befall them.
Of course, the two hour mayhem of getting packed and prepared had been more than Anya had bargained for, and when Clarke had shown up, she'd been just about at wits end with herself. Still, she'd kept her cool, and tried not to let how on edge she was get out.
Which, ultimately, she failed to do on numerous occasions over the following hours.
She'd been absolutely evasive and unwelcoming to Clarke's easy, casual questions, despite the woman clearly just wanting to know her better. She could have told Clarke that she literally could not stand in line to order food, and communicated some sort of basic request for food to her host; instead, she'd clammed up, claimed to not be hungry despite evidence to the contrary, and gotten hostile. She had bit at Clarke when the younger blonde hinted at having tried to butter her up for something; given the wonderful dinner, she shouldn't have treated Clarke as she had her family when they'd be polite and kind in order to earn concessions or sacrifices from her.
In short, she'd been fairly terrible by her standards, and Clarke not minding one bit had been utterly bewildering. That Clarke had been so quick to affection had also been confusing as anything. Sure, she'd looked somewhat nice because she'd had to have a thirty minute Skype session with her employer to explain her extended absence, and Lexa had gone on about Clarke being a little physical in her hospitality, but it'd taken her by surprise, really.
"And after this morning...I'm not sure how to handle this..." She spoke to no one in particular, the park fairly empty given the relatively early hour aside from the odd jogger.
She had needed that space, that isolation, after waking up to being surrounded in both sheets and limbs. It turned out that Clarke was both a covers hog as well as a clingy cuddler, and Anya had been a little overwhelmed to be cocooned in a nest of Egyptian cotton, warmth, soft skin, and the scent of vetivert and cedarwood.
After all, it'd been the first time she'd shared a bed with anyone since she was a child. To say she may not have been prepared for the whole experience was a bit of an understatement.
Sheepishly enjoying Clarke's gentle grip on her hand as she fell into slumber was one thing. She'd just barely been able to handle that hand-holding, but it was something she'd managed to enjoy without her anxiety going into overdrive as usual.
So her graceless, panicked exit from bed that resulted in the both of them falling to the floor in a tangled mess? It wasn't her finest hour. Neither was how she threw on her heels and her trench and practically ran out the door. Thankfully, she'd grabbed her phone and bag, but she knew there would be consequences. There had to be, she was certainly taught as much.
Still, she wasn't fond of facing those consequences quite yet, so she'd tried to be productive. In her haste to pack, she'd forgotten to get sun block, so she'd picked up some of that as well as a hat, given how much sun she was likely to see along the trip. The last thing she needed was to get sunburnt and be all peeling and sore while more or less trapped in a car.
The sound of her phone vibrating broke Anya from her thoughts and had her bones feeling like they were packed with trepidation instead of marrow. Her employers always called her, and her few friends back home did the same; only Lexa occasionally texted her.
Anya took few long, steadying breaths and dug out her phone from her bag, noticing Lexa had indeed texted her twice.
Lexa
Anya, are you okay?
Clarke called and told me you ran out of the hotel and it's been over an hour since you left
Anya frowned at the set of texts, her gut burning at the thought of worrying her favourite cousin. Which was only made worse as a third text rolled in.
Lexa
She's worried and I know I'm worried so please message me back and let me know what's going on?
The only positive from the mess she found herself in was that Lexa was letting her text instead of calling her. She was much more capable of clarity while anxious when she was texting.
Anya
I'm okay, I'm calming down. Was too overwhelmed when I woke
Lexa
That's good to hear you're alright. But what happened when you woke up?
Clarke says you tackled her off the bed but I can't see that
Anya's brow furrowed at the second text, knowing she absolutely did not tackle Clarke. The younger blonde was being overdramatic.
Anya
I did not tackle her! She was the one that tangled me up in her limbs and the sheets. I tried to leave without disturbing her but she clings
Honestly, it was a wonder how Clarke had managed to tangle them so thoroughly. Anya was fairly sure there was a knot in the sheet around her left kneecap that she'd had to push herself out of.
Lexa
Ha yes Clarke has that tendency. She doesn't mean any trouble. Her circulation isn't great, and in her sleep she is very adamant about keeping warm
At the very least, you and Raven will have that to bond over
It wasn't much, and joking about her host wasn't something she felt comfortable with, but as a last ditch thing, Anya could feel some relief in not going into meeting Raven entirely empty-handed. She knew a few things about the woman, but not enough to really know how to approach her. Some humour couldn't hurt. And learning that Clarke did her cocooning with everyone, and that it wasn't personal, was a massive relief, even if it might have been nice, in a terrifying way, to learn otherwise. Clarke, after all, was trustworthy, kind, and almost intimidatingly pretty.
Lexa
Clarke texted me wanting to know if you were up for some company and breakfast? You can say no
Anya considered her options, as well as her mental state, and figured she'd calmed down enough to see Clarke. They were scheduled to head out soon, anyways, and keeping to that schedule would certainly help avoid another anxiety spike.
Anya
Can you tell her I'm along the northern edge of the pineapple water fountain in the park?
Lexa
Of course, Anya. I'm glad you're feeling better
Anya
I'm sorry for worrying you
Lexa
You always told me not to apologize for worrying you, that that's what people who love you sign up for.
I love you. You're okay. That's what matters
Anya smiled down at the text; it was awkward seeing her words flung back at her, but it did the trick in grounding her emotions. Lexa always found ways to make her feel like she wasn't a burden.
The soft sound of a body planting itself beside her drew her attention from her phone, Anya startling slightly at the sight of Clarke. "Hey, stranger. Breakfast?" The younger blonde asked, holding out a to-go bag.
Anya was more than a little puzzled at the immediacy of Clarke's presence, but she took the offering nonetheless, her stomach having been growling for the past hour. "Thank you. How did you get here so fast?"
"I actually spotted you thirty minutes ago when I went looking for you. I figured I'd head back, grab breakfast, and by then, maybe you'd be ready to have some company." Clarke admitted casually with a shrug, and okay, that made a bit more sense, given how often Clarke visited the city. It seemed reasonable that the woman would know the area well, and where to look.
It wasn't like I tried to hide...I guess I did end up in a pretty obvious place... She mused to herself as she peered into the bag. Scrambled egg and bacon sandwich on a croissant...seems tasty enough...
"Thank you, Clarke." Anya noted with a smile, before narrowing her eyes at the younger woman in a way she hoped was taken as playful. "I did not tackle you out of bed, though."
Clarke's laughter was light and airy, and just the kind of joy she needed to hear after a difficult morning. "You say tomato, I say tomahto."
"Clarke, you were clinging to me like a koala bear." Anya shot back, drawing a blush to Clarke's cheeks as the woman shot her a sheepish grin.
"Okay, yeah, I guess I do that. You don't have to worry, though, I'm sure Raven wouldn't mind bunking with you going forward." Clarke admitted, sending a small, bit-sized jolt of distress through her chest.
After all, it wasn't that she hated how she woke up. It wasn't that she was inherently uncomfortable with so much physical contact. Anya had just been caught off guard, taken by surprise, and it brought up some concerns about Clarke's reasons. Now that she knew Clarke did this with everyone, and it didn't mean anything, there weren't any undertones to have her fearing repercussions.
"I didn't mind how I woke up, Clarke. I just...hadn't expected it, and needed time to process. I haven't woken up in bed with anyone since I was a child, I don't have sleepovers. It was just new for me." She explained, not wanting the younger blonde to get the wrong idea, even if being so candid was a bit nerve-wracking.
"Oh...uh, well, so long as you're good with it. I remember you being really comfy before we fell off the bed." Clarke said, teeth finding her lower lip to gnaw on for a moment or two.
The blonde had been reacting oddly on occasion all trip, and Anya couldn't really pin down why. Clarke was pretty brazen about cuddling, so she surely wasn't embarrassed about it. Yet, what other reason was there for her to be blushing as red as a tomato?
It was all very confusing, so Anya decided she could distract herself from those thoughts with some food.
However, she was only halfway into her sandwich when she felt a slight tug against the brim of her hat. "Nice hat."
Anya turned her head slightly to catch Clarke's thoughtful expression, the blush still lingering in her cheeks. "It's not too much?" She asked, because while she really did like it, it was a bit more dramatic than her usual fare. She was more the beanie type, so a big black sun hat was a bit of a change of pace.
"Maybe with the trench, but with a dress, or at the beach? Yeah..." Clarke let out, voice trailing off as the younger blonde swallowed hard, that reddish tint growing a little deeper in her cheeks. "...Yeah, you'd really pull it off."
Clarke was certainly the more adventurous, outdoorsy type, so it was reassuring to hear the younger blonde's confidence. The last thing she wanted was to buy something that would not only look ridiculous on her, but draw attention to the ridiculousness.
"That's good to know. Thank you." Anya offered as she continued her breakfast, knowing they really did have to get going soon, or else they'd be behind schedule.
Clarke had already been enormously accommodating, putting her own comfort aside for Anya's countless times. She wouldn't allow her own issues to delay the younger blonde's road trip any longer than it already had been by her presence.
"Even if we're just dancing in the dark...hey, baby!" Clarke sang enthusiastically in the driver's seat as they passed the sign warning them that they'd just entered Florida.
God damn fucking Florida...here we go... She internally groused, trying to shift her focus to her host's apparent joy, hoping it might distract from where she'd be for the ext twenty four or so hours.
For as peppy as Clarke had been, Anya had expected more pop music on her playlist; there had been a few dozen, certainly, but the lion's share of it was some form of rock. And Clarke? Clarke was insistent on this leg of the trip being a sing-a-long.
She could practically time the countdown to the next request to the second. "Okay, seriously, you have to sing. I can't just sing alone."
Anya shook her head, even if the younger blonde's insistence had her smiling. "I don't sing." She retorted, even if that was a bit of a lie. She'd sing once in a blue moon, but only when she felt free and safe enough. And only alone.
Singing on a car ride? Just not her speed.
"Come on, everyone sings." Clarke argued with a pout, pausing the song that was just starting up, a bit of an escalation in comparison to the past portion of the trip.
"Clarke, you have asked me over two dozen times. Maybe another time, but not today." Anya offered, hoping that a future hypothetical would outweigh the current no to Clarke. At the slightest hint of hesitation, she figured she'd sweeten the pot a bit. "For what it's worth, you're very entertaining. You...well... you have a beautiful voice."
"Shit. I must be seriously annoying for you to stoop to flattery as an exit strategy." Clarke noted with a drooping frown, not at all the response Anya had expected.
Honestly, it was a little hard to believe Clarke underestimated her singing voice. Perhaps she wasn't displaying talent worthy of a recording contract, but she was pleasant to listen to. "I'm not...I was just...it was just the truth. I like your voice."
Clarke's head tilted her way, shooting Anya a brief glance. And then another a few seconds later. And then a third, accompanied by a growing grin that had her hoping the younger blonde felt more reassured.
"You think my voice is nice." Clarke spoke slowly, eyes narrowing as if she were slipping deeper into thought.
"I used a more specific descriptor, but yes, to put it mildly." Anya offered, unsure what track of thought Clarke would be taking her down next.
"'To put it mildly'. Raven and O always teased me for sounding like a squawking harpy." Clarke clarified, lips dipping into a thoughtful frown, as if she were weighing Anya's words with what she'd heard in the past.
Which, really, was a bit ridiculous. "I can't speak for Raven, but I've heard Octavia sing a few times before. She's not unpleasant...acceptable, even. Drumming's her strong suit, though. You're easier on the ears."
A sharp burst of laughter filled the car's interior as Clarke smacked the steering wheel. "Oh, Raven's gonna lose her shit. I have a 'beautiful' voice and Octavia's is 'acceptable'...sorry if I'll be putting you in the hot seat, but I have to tell her you said that. Only Lexa's ever stood up for me on that front."
Anya offered a shrug, not seeing the big deal. Octavia already knew her opinion on her voice. It'd do no good to lie about it at any rate. "Well, that makes sense. We were both classically trained in music as children...her in cello, me in piano. Any one of us could hear that you stay in key, while Octavia strays and goes flat pretty regularly. Again, Octavia's not unpleasant, I've heard her sing quite a bit, but she's not really a singer. If Raven is defending Octavia's abilities over yours, I'm not sure why."
"Well, it could be that they're dating, but Raven's always been on my ass about my singing." Clarke clarified, and okay, she supposed that could potentially earn some favoritism, even if Octavia tended to enjoy complaining about Raven during their phone-calls.
"Ah. Well, I suppose I have your back, Clarke." Anya said, nodding to herself as she hoped that her decision wouldn't create any tension for the rest of the road trip once they picked Raven up.
"Any chance you could spare some time helping me get to know this person who has my back?" Clarke asked with a grin so hopeful that Anya couldn't quite will herself to believe shutting that front down would be a reasonable decision.
She'd gone into the road trip knowing that providing details of her life could result in some potentially dicey scenarios, mockery, disdain, or worse. It's not that she didn't trust Lexa's taste in friends, or that Clarke was a genuinely decent human being, but there were some things that people just didn't really have developed opinions on, and Anya knew that those things were generally best avoided.
Still, she could give Clarke something.
"What would you like to know?" Anya asked, hoping that a neutral opening without restrictions would prod the younger blonde towards the well-traveled path of least resistance, and away from some more tricky questions.
"Well, you know I paint and I curate an art gallery for a living. What about you?" Clarke asked, the question thankfully simple and predictable, even if her answer could lead to some scrutiny, depending. Clarke, she wasn't so entirely worried about, compared to Raven, who she knew very little about that Octavia and Lexa hadn't shared with her.
Anya swallowed back her fears, rolling her fingers against her thighs for a few moments until her heart rate slowed and she felt sufficiently calm. Or, calm enough to answer. "I write. I'm a writer, of sorts."
"Oooh, okay, I can work with that. You know, I did get a bit of an art vibe from you. We talking books? Scripts? Comics? Editorials?" Clarke probed, those sky blue eyes darting over at her accompanied with an oddly excited smile.
Anya nodded before she realized that it wasn't much of an answer, given Clarke had laid out more than one potential option. "I split my workload roughly in half between my personal projects and my contract work, though by the nature of it, I'm more productive with the latter."
"What kind of contract work do you do? Anything I've heard of?" Clarke probed again, drawing a sigh from Anya, knowing she couldn't get away with just giving vague answers with her host.
"I do a lot of work with Onyx Trail and Flight of Fantasy Games. Mostly writing short stories, lore entries, write-ups for characters and settings, but I've written and designed a few...well, full-length campaigns and stories for their products." Anya answered, though as she flicked her gaze to Clarke, she saw more confusion than understanding in her eyes. "The companies sell pen and paper roleplaying games, board games, card games, and the like, mostly built around horror and supernatural themes, like H.P Lovecraft's works, or your standard vampires and werewolves and ghosts. I've worked on one videogame, too, but that was a few years ago, and just once."
Clarke's eyes went wide before the woman shifted her focus back to the empty road ahead, apparently chewing on that information for a bit, which did nothing to calm the frayed nerves Anya was struggling to keep in check.
Dozens of thoughts began filling her head, each more negative than the last, more distant, more visceral in its rejection. It wasn't like she hadn't heard some of them from people in her life before, after all. Certainly even Clarke could come down on the wrong side of the fence in something. No one's perfect, after all...
"So...if I were to ask you to sit us down one night soon and run one of those games with us, would I be overstepping?" Clarke eventually asked, the pace of her words increasing as she went along, eyes still wide and bright. "Because I've always wanted to do one of those things, and I know they apparently take a lot of work to set up, but I think it'd be a lot of fun, and at least you'd know what you were doing, right? Because Raven's always wanted to do the whole dungeons and dragons thing, but I've always wanted more of a 'freak me the fuck out' kind of thing, and that sounds right up my alley."
Anya couldn't help but gape at Clarke as her brain processed the younger blonde's word vomit. Clarke...is...not put off? She's actually...excited? She wants to play a session? What?
"Not that you have to, or anything. It's cool if we don't, I'd totally understand." Clarke added quickly, a pink tint taking over the woman's cheeks. A sign of embarrassment that Anya had hoped to avoid herself, yet her delayed response had instead helped it fester in her host. Unacceptable.
"I'd be happy to. I just didn't expect you to be so...interested. Most don't want to hear about what I do, let alone take part in it." Anya clarified with a smile she hoped would set Clarke at ease. "I could get a hold of an acquaintance of mine in DC. He could deliver some things to your mother's address by the time we arrive, and we could hold a session sometime during our stay there? If there's time, of course."
"Yeah, of course! That'd be great!" Clarke exclaimed, shooting her an excited smile as she signaled to change lanes towards a turnoff. "You said you did some personal stuff, too. What sort of stuff are we talking about?"
Anya swallowed down her second bout of nerves and cast her gaze out the window. It wasn't that she was particularly ashamed of her personal works. It was just that they were hers. Her creations, built from the ground up. Facing scrutiny or criticism for her contract work was easier, given the source itself was a form of quality control, and responsibility of criticism tended to fall on the source as a whole instead of the contributors.
Not the case for her own material. That got unavoidably directed right back at her.
"I have written a few novels. I'm notoriously slow, so there's only three, and as you could maybe imagine, I don't stray far from the tree in that I write horror." Anya clarified, halfway praying to nebulous deities that Clarke hadn't read her works.
"I don't remember seeing anything from you. I'm sure Lexa would have a few copies somewhere." Clarke probed thoughtfully, earning another sigh, knowing that giving her pseudonym would possibly open up a can of worms.
"I write under G.A. Trigeda." Anya admitted, followed swiftly by a sharp, dramatic gasp from her host. The pit in her stomach may as well have been weighed down by an anvil, given how outraged Clarke had sounded.
"Holy fuck, you! You...!" Clarke blurted out with a clear accusation on her mind, and all Anya could do was close her eyes and let her mental walls do what they could to dull the impact of the upcoming attack. "You're the reason I couldn't sleep one whole weekend last winter!"
Anya's eyes blinked open, instinct forcing her to blink a few times more to rid the wetness from her lashes before she turned her head to gauge Clarke's sincerity.
There, all red-cheeked and accusatory, all frowny and scrunchy-faced, was Clarke Griffin. "What?"
"That...that book about that creepy elder god and nuclear winter down in Florida? I just HAD to be visiting Raven. And the weather just HAD to dip below freezing enough to SNOW. In FLORIDA." Clarke raged, clearly very upset at some series of events from half a year ago, but all Anya could do was laugh from the swell of relief bubbling inside her.
"Oh my god..." She let out as she turned away again to try and stifle her laughter, earning a swat to her shoulder.
"Hey, it's not funny! I couldn't sleep alone for three whole days! I had to sleep with Raven, who kept kicking me off the bed! Onto the cold, hard floor in her uninsulated little shack of a home. Which would only bring the nightmares back and it was miserable. Miserable, Anya!" Clarke continued to rant, swatting her shoulder a second time a moment later. "Oh! Oh! And how could you just end it like that?! What the fuck happened to Therese?!"
Anya couldn't help but feel a fresh bout of laughter coming on so she let it out, reaching over to blindly rub Clarke's leg in hopes it would be seen as reasonably apologetic. Clarke's literal growls seemed to indicate her intentions weren't accepted, though the younger blonde didn't remove her hand.
"Clarke..." She let out, once her laughter had calmed down enough. "Clarke, you realize that there's a sequel of sorts that answers your question."
"What?! Since when?" Her host demanded alongside a third shoulder smack. At this rate, Anya was starting to wonder if she should wear a pauldron.
"Since two years ago when I published my third book. You read my second, by the sounds of it. The third opens in a different setting, but...if you must know...Therese makes more than a cameo appearance." Anya explained with a tilt of her head she hoped was as teasing as she intended.
However effective it was, Clarke did let out another sharp gasp. "You can't tell me that! We're on a road trip! If I read a horror novel on a road trip, I'm going to be a mess at night! Raven's gonna kick me out of bed, again, I swear."
"For what it's worth, I wouldn't kick you out of bed, Clarke." Anya offered, the smile blooming on her lips more drawn from the confidence and relief Clarke instilled in her than much of anything else, although the image of Raven kicking Clarke out of bed was a little humorous.
"No, you'd tackle me." Clarke shot back with bright eyes and a grin that was all too teasing to be sincere, but she couldn't help but take the bait.
"I didn't tackle you. I tried to detangle myself and leave the bed without you, but you clung, and you managed to wrap the sheets around me to where it began to knot, so I tripped, and you fell out of bed with me." Anya argued in a lengthy ramble as Clarke's grin only grew wider, her host punctuating the end of her argument with a laugh.
Clarke reached out and lightly patted her shoulder. "Whatever you say, Anya." The younger blonde joked airily, before narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "Be honest...you liked my blissful little sleep burrito. I was your exception."
Anya knew she was blushing. Her body had betrayed her, and red was certainly seeping down towards her collarbone. "It was a fire hazard, Clarke." She answered in kind, though she knew it was laughably transparent. The best she could do with memories of her first moments from that morning turned out to be quite sub-par.
It'd all been very new territory, and the further distanced she was from it, the more she found herself yearning it. Years and years of being perfectly fine sleeping alone, and Clarke undoes it in a single night. Just my luck...Anya mused to herself, knowing nothing good could come from that. As much as she yearned to have some things in her life that so many celebrated, she knew the odds were against her earning a stroke of luck. Let alone being able to make good on it without imploding from massive anxiety. No, no...best to just...tamp down on that. Nothing wrong with two budding friends sharing a bed...
"Well, good thing Raven's a light sleeper, so if there's an 'emergency', she'll be able to wake and untangle us. Problem solved." Clarke offered, the woman's steadily growing grin doing nothing to eliminate the blushing that Clarke was clearly playing off of.
"I'm sure you'll be singing the same tune after you're knee deep in my third book." Anya said with a dismissive flip of her hand, trying her best to just play it off as if she hadn't been having thoughts she very much shouldn't. Friends sassed each other. Anya could sass.
"Don't even! You're responsible for the creepy shit that goes bump in the night. It's only fair I'll have you to distract me from it." Clarke retorted at least halfway seriously; Anya could see the logic in that, even if it did seem a bit flimsy.
"If you say so, Clarke." Anya stated, before a thought from earlier came to mind. "You said Raven would want pizza when we pick her up. We're getting close, so perhaps we should stop soon."
Clarke nodded along to the notion. "Yeah, as soon as we pass Jacksonville, Lakeside'll be right there. She likes her pizza fresh but a little cooled off, so I figured we could pick it up there."
"Sounds good to me." Anya noted in return, turning her gaze out the window to take in the passing scenery. It kind of killed her to know they'd be spending around full day in Florida; Anya loathed the state, having taken a general position that it was best avoided if at all possible. She'd practically been counting down the minutes until they left the state the moment they passed the damn border.
Sure, it was warm, and was scenic in some ways, and was surrounded by ocean, but it was full of absurdities she'd rather not encounter.
"So, you live beside a national forest...have you done a lot of camping?" Clarke asked, likely making a fair enough assumption that she was outdoorsy.
"I think I've been to a major park maybe once in my entire lifetime. Camping and hiking weren't refined enough for my parents, so they generally kept me away from it. I don't mind the outdoors, but experiencing it alone always seemed unwise, at least for someone like me." Anya explained, drawing a gasp from her host.
"Whoa, no way! We're definitely going to get you some time in or around parks on this road trip. I'll make sure of it, and I'd be happy to be your nature guide. I'm sure O will, too." Clarke exclaimed with a bright smile, and perhaps for the first time in her life, she was looking forward to a little bit of outdoorsiness. Clarke wouldn't lead her astray, certainly.
Soon enough, Anya could hear the music turn on again, Clarke back to singing along. If she had to endure Florida, Clarke's voice would go a long way to minimizing that annoyance, so once she was certain there wouldn't be any gator sightings, she turned her head enough to catch her host out of the corner of her eye.
"Don't worry 'bout you, baby! 'Cause I know why I don't worry...I sing me no sad songs. Happy, never sad for long..." Clarke sang, the genre of the music doing her no favours, but the blonde's enthusiasm and ability had Anya smiling as Clarke's theatrics, even if she had the urge to tell the woman to get her hands back on the steering wheel. Seeming to have noticed the return of her audience, Clarke turned her head and shot Anya a smile as she continued on. "Don't you call me anything doll, but your baby, I know..."
And like that, Clarke's focus was back straight ahead, clearly having more than enough fun. With any luck, the younger blonde would have enough fun in Florida for the both of them. She hoped that when Raven came long, that maybe she could just forget about Florida for a while. Octavia always said Raven was fun and friendly.
Anya sure hoped so.
Whatever Anya had expected the Kennedy Space Center visitor's complex to be, overwhelmingly crowded was not on the list. And yet, there she was, with swarms of tourists passing by as she and Clarke waited for Raven. The newcomer had claimed it'd save them time to basically pick her up at work instead of waiting around at her home an hour away, only to have to drive back in the other direction again.
It wasn't that Anya was particularly agoraphobic, though being around crowds of people after so long in semi-isolation was jarring and enough to get her anxiety jumping up a tick or two. It only took a few seconds to find all the exits nearby, so that helped, but she could feel her left hand tightening its grip on the paper bag that carried Raven's pizza slices. Part of her wanted to step more out into the open space, but Clarke had said that Raven asked for them to wait by the entrance gate, and so she stood.
It was two consecutive bodies bumping into her that had her running through her exercises to slow her heart back down to a reasonable level and get her breathing under control. Deep breaths...it's really busy, but I'm okay...I'm safe...I'm on a road trip with a new friend, and I've been having fun...I've...
A gentle squeeze of her hand brought Anya out of her thoughts, wondering when Clarke had taken hold of her hand. Or if she had unknowingly taken Clarke's. Either way, the gesture helped draw her attention away from her surroundings and back to the younger blonde, whose sapphire blue eyes were scanning her over for any sign of trouble. "She should be here soon." Clarke noted, offering a warm smile and a tiny nod that honestly did help her feel a bit more balanced.
Anya let out another deep breath, trying to focus purely on the woman holding her hand. "Right." She added, a light breeze bringing the scent of Raven's pizza to her nose. It reminded her that she at least had one more slice of her own waiting back in the car. Raven had requested Hawaiian, and Anya wasn't much of a stickler, she was game for most pizza. Hawaiian was as good as any.
"CLARKE GRIFFIN UNIRONICALLY LOVED JUPITER ASCENDING!" Anya heard yelled out practically right behind her, startling both her and Clarke, and causing the younger blonde's hand to leave Anya's as the woman spun around and shoved at Raven.
"Goddamn it! It's a fucking gorgeous film, Raven!" Clarke grunted out as she shoved Raven again, who was just straight up laughing at the response. "I can appreciate good art direction when I see it!"
"Cut me some slack, Little Griffin, I could have yelled out that you unironically rollerblade." Raven claimed as she crossed her arms, left eyebrow cocking in expectation of the artist's fury.
"Hey! We're pretty much the same height, and you're only thirteen months older than me! And anyway, it's a good substitute for skating. I live down south now, the ponds don't freeze over in Raleigh." Clarke asserted more than a little defensively, mirroring Raven's stance before letting out a slow grin. "Besides...taught you well enough to surprise Octavia up in Boston last winter for a romantic date out on the ice."
Raven just laughed. "Yeah, but my date took place on skates. Rollerblades are boring." Raven snarked back, and even though Anya was less than excellent at reading into facial cues, she could tell that this was more just to rile Clarke up than anything. An odd sort of bonding ritual for sure, but Anya wasn't about to step in.
"I know you're not dissing the second Mighty Ducks movie, Raven. That would be a critical mistake, and I have Octavia on speed dial." Clarke offered in warning, eyes narrowing in expectation of victory.
A victory that Raven seemed to concede with a shake of her head and an annoyed sigh. "Ugh, fine, whatever. But you're still a loser for liking chartreuse. What the fuck kind of colour is chartreuse?"
Anya found herself speaking before she could really think. "It's a vibrant colour. One that virtually demands to be seen, even in the darkest nights or the worst visibility." Anya cut herself off before more of her word vomit could continue. For whatever it was worth, Raven just looked thoughtful instead of annoyed.
Clarke, though, she looked curious. "Which chartreuse?"
It was a question Anya hadn't expected, but after a moment to swallow back the slight worries she had about her answer, she pushed ahead. "The...traditional chartreuse, though the newer chartreuse green is lovely as well. Pure split of green and yellow, a mix of the sun and the relentless growth of life. Traditional chartreuse, that's more a light in the darkness, a beacon of hope...unlike a lot of other colours, our eyes can see it even in the worst conditions."
Clarke nodded along, a thoughtful frown pulling at her lips. "Didn't take you as anyone who'd be interested in colour theory, or anything like that."
"Clarke, I'm a writer. I need to be able to evoke emotion from my readers. Colour, when applied appropriately, is quite effective." She explained, earning a slow nod from Clarke. Still, the conversation had dragged on a bit, so she looked to Raven and held her arm out. "Your pizza."
"Fuck, yes! I really needed this today after...shit, what's all this paper doing in here?" Raven asked, pulling out the insulation Anya had filled the bag with.
"I heard you like your pizza fresh, but warm...we were an hour out and I wasn't sure it'd stay that hot, so I...insulated it the best I could." Anya clarified, earning a long inquisitive stare from Raven as the woman pulled her wrapped up slices free from the bag, blindly handing the packaging to Clarke.
Raven gave the pizza a good look over before biting into it, the woman seeming to melt on impact as a low groan escaped her. "Ohhhh my god you're a pizza goddess." The astronaut let out, forcing that familiar heat to fill Anya's cheeks once more. "This honestly almost makes up for what you said about my girl's voice."
Anya let out a sigh and shook her head as Clarke laughed. "Octavia's known my thoughts on her voice for years now."
"And she said I have a beautiful voice." Clarke teased, poking and prodding at Raven's midsection, much to the other woman's dismay, who was too busy eating pizza to avoid the strikes.
Raven held her thoughtful, perhaps scrutinizing, gaze on Anya for a few seconds before shifting it to Clarke, eyes narrowing in some mix of suspicion and amusement from what she could tell. "Did she, now?"
Honestly, the look in Raven's eyes had confused and unnerved Anya, and reminded her of exactly where they were. "Could we get back to the car? We really should be going."
"Yeah...yeah, sure." Raven noted with another watchful gaze cast her way, the astronaut's unnerving level of interest in her having Anya hoping it wouldn't continue too far into the trip. She really didn't need unnecessary attention. Whatever Raven was trying to find by staring at her, Anya hoped she just found it soon and got it over with. Raven took another bite of her pizza and broke her one-way staring contest, eyes fluttering closed in seeming ecstasy. "God, this fucking pizza."
Raven refused to be quiet about her food orgasm as they made their way to Clarke's SUV, so thankfully it wasn't parked far away. Still, when Raven went to get into the back seat, Anya couldn't help but pause. "Are you sure you don't want to sit up front?"
"Nah, I'm gonna defile this slice, and I don't want to scar either of you for life. Best I do what I do in relative privacy." Raven explained with a small shrug as she took another bite.
Not that Anya was going to complain, given riding in the backseat of any vehicle tended to make her motion sickness a lot worse. The seating arrangements sorted out, Anya slipped into the passenger seat and buckled up.
"So... I guess you've known Octavia for a while, then." Clarke let out once everyone was in the car and they were on their way. It was clearly an icebreaker for another probe through her history, but with them picking Octavia up the next evening, it probably wouldn't do any harm to divulge.
"You knew her from Lincoln, right?" Raven piped up from the backseat, a fair enough and largely accurate prediction.
"She worked at a music store we'd go to when I went to visit Lincoln. He was always a mess around her, so I may have pushed them together a bit one time we were there together. I made a hasty escape, of course, but they'd scheduled their first date before the day was done." Anya recalled how nervous and flustered her brother would get around the woman. It was a shame they didn't work out, but clearly Octavia was happy with Raven, from what she'd heard. "I only first got to know her the week before Bellamy's wedding, though."
"She didn't tell me you knew Bellamy." Raven called out inquisitively, though her words were a bit muffled from speaking with half a mouth full of pizza.
"I didn't. As you both well know, Octavia was...absurdly sheltered growing up. To no fault of her own, she wound up an adult lacking certain abilities that she might be expected to have by some. Gina's wonderful, but her family is...well, difficult. Octavia was going to attend with Lincoln, but she wasn't at all prepared for the gauntlet of upper class nonsense she was sure to endure, so Lincoln offered her my...experience... and that was how we officially met, six years ago." Anya relayed, hoping that she'd done enough priming with her word choice to keep focus on Octavia instead of herself.
Raven seemed all too curious, and Clarke all too eager; Anya wasn't quite ready for the inquisition they could launch together.
"What kind of help did you give her? I mean, she's always seemed pretty up to speed when I was around her." Clarke noted as they turned off onto I-95.
Anya felt a little pride in that, knowing how Octavia had started off. "Gina's family are fragile enough of an upper class family to concern themselves too much with etiquette and 'manners' as a way to uphold their sense of superiority. I taught her silverware and place settings, of course, and ran her through a crash course on posture, language, and all that. She wanted to dance with Lincoln, so I instructed her, and picked out a dress that would let her dance without offending anyone important. It was...a difficult week, but she's a fast learner."
"That's my girl." Raven let out jovially, though it was Clarke's sidelong glance that had her thinking that maybe she'd decentralized the topic from Octavia enough to draw focus.
"You know how to dance?" Clarke asked, proving Anya's fears correct.
Suddenly, it was a little hard to think of an exit strategy that was remotely realistic. "That's beside the point. Anyway, the wedding went smoothly enough, and so she got a hold of me, asking if she could return the favour...she really does hate being in anyone's debt." Anya continued, drawing an immediate nod from Clarke at the fact of Octavia's stubbornness. "I'd never gotten around to learning more practical self defense. More...structured forms, sure, but I'd never had the opportunity for something more grounded. So every month, I'd travel and see her, and we'd spend a day together, training. That went on for two years, give or take a week or two...at that point, it just turned into social visits, mostly."
"That...why the hell do I know next to nothing about you, then?" Raven piped up, tossing out the question with an answer too large for a single leg of a road trip. Too intimate for a relative stranger and a new friend to tackle.
"I asked her not to talk about me. All my family, really." Anya clarified, shifting focus from Raven to Clarke, knowing it wasn't a satisfying answer for them. It just was not the time to get into any of that mess.
"What are you so ashamed of that you have to ask your friends to keep your histories a secret? What, if I get into your inner circle, would you muzzle me too?" Clarke's words shot out like stray bullets, the anger and hint of venom in her tone more than enough to have Anya trembling in her seat as old memories started to encroach on her consciousness.
It'd been a while since she'd had to pinch herself to feel even slightly grounded during a swell of anxiety. Another entry in my log, then, I guess... She thought to herself as she counted down and focused on her breathing, not happy with how quick they were coming on, and a little worried at her inability to draw in all that deeply. She waited until it was anywhere near controlled before responding, though she knew exhaustion would prove to be a factor soon even if an actual attack wouldn't happen. "It has nothing to...I could never be ashamed of them. It's complicated...you wouldn't understand, since I don't really have the energy or desire to storytell for the next few hours, so if you don't mind, can we please move on?"
"You had veto power yesterday, not today. We're all going on a damn trip together, and I'm not going to keep quiet about it. Octavia and Lexa might be okay with that, but I'm not." Clarke growled, and Anya could feel the familiar lightheadedness coming on as she leaned her noggin against the passenger side window, lungs seizing for a moment.
She already felt drained from the topic at hand with how tight and sore her ribcage felt over her thrumming heart and waning lungs, especially given the other incidents earlier in the day. Her breaths were coming on too shallow and weak, it'd be hard to keep herself in check enough to prevent the others from witnessing. The last thing she needed was anyone thinking they needed to baby her; Anya knew she could handle herself.
"I'm not asking you to. But ...is it so bad to want people to know me from being around me, instead of from what other people say about me?" Anya said softly and steadily as she could muster with what little breath she could draw, her surroundings feeling a little hazy as she fought to keep her voice from breaking. I'm okay...I'm safe...they're upset but I'm not in danger...I'm not in danger...just one breath after the other...I'm okay...
"I get it. I mean, all of us went through high school, we know how terrible gossip can be, but...like, we're adults. I'd like to think we're better than that petty shit." Raven countered, sounding all too casual and dismissive for Anya's nerves to not fry a bit from the very physical memory of when her trust in that belief had been shattered.
Still, the shift in conversation to a less hostile speaker provided her enough breathing room, so to speak, to try and steady her breathing out a little. One...two...three...four...one... two... three... four...four...three...two...one... Anya counted in her head as she willed her aching lungs to cooperate, demanding they keep it up for a little longer.
"It's certainly a nice thought, Raven." Anya let out between breaths, doing her best to keep them quiet and unnoticed. The last thing she needed was either of them thinking she was being overdramatic; it was a little early, after all, to bring up all her history of health. "However...adults can be much worse than teenagers. And we all can make mistakes...even the best of us."
Anya was thankful that silence stretched on for an extra few seconds, giving her a little more time to try and calm herself, which was aided by the decidedly less hostile atmosphere her comments seemed to have provided, given a lack of immediate response from Clarke. She hadn't offered much of an explanation, but it was both vague and directed enough to perhaps get them thinking. Unlikely drawing any accurate conclusions, but that was also a bonus.
"So...what? You just ask people to be quiet about you, and live in fear of them slipping up? That's not healthy, Anya." Clarke asserted tiredly about a half minute later, with more than a little worry in her tone. Not that she was comfortable with how close that sounded to pity. Not at all.
"I have nothing to fear but history repeating itself, Clarke. The worst of the damage has already been done. This is about principle. This is about empowerment, about me taking control of my...my narrative, of sorts...and trusting my family to allow me that. My personal truths don't amount to much, but it's everything to me that...that they're mine to entrust with others, or keep safe." Anya reasoned as well as she could with the amount of oxygen she could draw for each breath, feeling a pull for Clarke to at least understand where she was coming from. If nothing else, she just wanted the younger blonde to understand.
She heard Raven shift closer to the gap between the front seats and braced herself for some sort of comment. She hadn't quite pegged Raven down yet, and that left a lot of options open, and that stirred up a bit more of that anxiety she'd been doing so well at containing for the past minute or so.
"Yeah, but no secret stays hidden forever. Eventually, it all comes out." Raven offered quietly, almost hesitantly, as if there could be history there. Intriguing, but not the time or place, if ever.
"Yes, and it's better that they come out because I made that choice. My history is mine to share. Who and what I am are mine to share." She spoke, each word slow and measured as she could manage, knowing she couldn't talk towards the window forever, that Clarke would likely think something was wrong if she did. Composing herself, now that her anxiety was trailing off, having staved off an attack, was her top priority. That meant letting her body heal. "Say what you will about things we might do together on the trip, but I prefer people approach me as if I'm a blank slate when they first meet me. Let me make the first impression. Let me guide them to the decision of whether they want to know me or not... no matter how that might end up. At least if someone uses their knowledge of me to tear me apart, I'll only have myself to blame. At least the lines in the sand will be distinct." Anya rambled once her lungs didn't feel like charred husks anymore, just wanting to get her perspective out there in its entirety so that maybe they could change topics and move on to something more lighthearted.
"Honestly, Anya? Living life viewing the glass as half-empty isn't a great way to live." Clarke spoke, that oddly tired tone returning again.
"I'll take whatever glass gives more control and clarity, thanks. Doesn't mean I can't be happy. Doesn't mean I can't be lighthearted. Doesn't mean I can't hope for better. Doesn't mean I can't forgive, Clarke." Anya hoped beyond hope that she could stop talking about this, even if Clarke and Raven weren't giving hostile reactions anymore, because damn if her eyes weren't starting to droop. What I'd give to just go back to her singing in the car...
"Can't blame you for how you deal with your damage, I guess. Me, I'd break the glass and shank my enemies, but maybe that's just Octavia's influence talking." Raven remarked, the halfway offering of support helping Anya feel a hell of a lot lighter, hoping this really was drawing to a close.
In truth, Anya envied Raven's simple approach; had her situation not been so precariously intimate, perhaps she would have gone a similar route. She just couldn't hurt someone she loved. And perhaps Raven was drawing something from Octavia's temper, but she knew her friend couldn't hurt someone she loved either. At least, Anya was pretty sure she wouldn't.
"You know violence isn't the answer, Raven." Clarke said with a hardly suppressed grin.
"Oh, please. Like you've never imagined shanking Finn or Bellamy." Raven shot back, drawing a laugh from the driver's seat.
"Okay, that's...that was just once!" Clarke argued, taking a long deep breath before angling her head to look back at Raven. "Finn had been dating me for almost a year, and I had to find out he'd been dating you for three? On our anniversary? I may have thought about stabbing him. But those were special circumstances!"
Anya found her eyes bulging at the revelation. She'd heard some vague gripes about someone named Finn from Lexa and Octavia over the years, but the truth was something else. She couldn't imagine two-timing women like Raven and Clarke, especially for so long.
"Eh, at least you got a friend out of it. And we DID throw his stuff in a dumpster and lit it on fire." Raven noted with a wistful tone, her addition making Anya feel much better about that bit of history. At least there was some justice, some closure. "Anyway, enough with this jabbering! Gimme what I want, woman!"
"Really, Raven? Already?" Clarke let out in a moan, even if she seemed more amuse than anything.
"Yep! Can't hold back tradition, Griffin!" Raven called out, cheering when Clarke sighed and began scrolling through her phone.
The opening cowbell and guitar riff had Anya's jaw dropping, brow furrowing as she tried to recall the song. I've heard this before...isn't this...?
"MISSISSIPPI QUEEN! If you know what I mean!" Raven sang at a nearly uncomfortable volume, apparently quite endeared to old southern rock music.
Her voice wasn't as smooth and beautiful as Clarke's, but as Raven continued on, the woman's enthusiasm was more than enough to have Anya relaxing in her seat. She couldn't help but grin as Raven kept prodding Clarke to sing along, the younger blonde eventually taking over the second verse, though not with the bravado their passenger demanded.
"Clarke, you gotta dig deep, this is serious business! Mississippi Queen would be disappointed in you!" Raven snarked, though her words seemed to get the desired effect, Clarke singing louder along with Raven for the rest of the song.
Anya knew if the rest of the day's ride continued like this, well, she could happily manage that.
Anya had to give Raven credit for booking a decent hotel. The shower wasn't as nice as the bath from the Vendue back in Charleston, but it was still refreshing, and it wasn't cramped or unhygienic. It wasn't tremendously late, but after a long day of traveling in Florida, she'd felt in need of a shower, so she'd jumped in once Clarke had finished.
The trip to Tallahassee had been fairly uneventful. Other than a quick stop in Ocala for food, and two stops for gas, it'd just been them on the road. Raven had insisted on some older, perhaps cheesier tunes, which Anya quite enjoyed; eighties rock ballads and nineties R&B were something of guilty pleasures for her. Not that she'd admit that, but it was sort of nice hearing Raven rock out to Journey and Boston.
Thankfully, it had remained that same lighthearted tone the rest of the way, though when Anya stepped out of the washroom and spotted Raven sitting on her bed looking restless, Clarke nowhere in sight, she had a feeling that tone was about to change.
"Did Clarke go out?" Anya asked, figuring it was fairly obvious her host had, but perhaps it was just for a moment.
"I forgot to pack some things, so she went out to get them for me." Raven answered with a yawn, stretching all her limbs out on the bed before scooting up against the pillows and headboard.
Anya nodded and set herself up on the remaining bed, pulling the tiny flexible light down from the headboard so she could write in her notebook unimpeded even if Raven turned the light off eventually. She had been in a bit of a rut regarding her newest work in progress novel, but the past two days had managed to stir something in her, and she found a few ideas floating around.
"I shouldn't have come down on you today. I get that, now." Raven voiced about ten minutes later, as Anya was midway through putting another of her ideas to paper. The return to that topic scattered her thoughts, but as much as she wanted to voice her frustrations, she could tell the other woman was trying to be polite. Anya turned her head to meet Raven's gaze and offered a nod, unsure exactly what kind of response the woman was looking for.
"I'm not a talker, I'm a doer. I thought you were just...hiding, and letting some shit in the past control you, but I get it, I do. My mom...she sacrificed for me, growing up. Did everything...everything...it took to get me where I needed to be to succeed. Once I got into MIT, she finished her degree, got a job in marketing. Five years later, a friend at work can't keep her mouth shut after my mom gets a promotion, and some of those things she did for me? They got her fired, blacklisted." Raven spoke, voice low and angry, snapping out those last few syllables. Anya just nodded along, knowing the situations were a bit different, but certainly similar enough. "She had to move, went back to her maiden name, before she could get work again. She shouldn't have had to do that, she didn't deserve that, but that was her call. If her friend hadn't fucked her over in a jealous fit, if my mom hadn't trusted the wrong people...who knows? But it changed her. And you...I'm sure you've got your reasons, too, and you're just trying to move on. So fuck, ignore what I yammered on about earlier. "
To say she was surprised at the pseudo-apology would be an understatement. Still, she respected Raven for doing so, even if a literal 'I'm sorry' didn't seem to be in the woman's vocabulary that night. "I appreciate that, Raven. Thank you for telling me."
"Eh, O says you two are pretty tight, and Clarke seriously likes you, so that's enough for me to reel back and admit when I've been wrong." Raven noted with a small shrug as she let out another yawn. "And Clarke does like you, you know."
That Raven felt a need to state the obvious was a bit odd. "Yes, I know. I'm sure one disagreement on how I live my life hasn't killed whatever brief friendship we've started."
Raven just stared at her, brow furrowing in apparent concentration, before the woman let out a sharp laugh. "Yeah, okay. So that's how this is gonna be." The astronaut mumbled before letting out another laugh and shifting off the bed. "Shit, this should be interesting."
"What should be interesting? Raven?" Anya called out, but Raven just waved over her shoulder as she grabbed some clothes and headed into the bathroom, presumably to shower. The woman's need to remain cryptic was honestly annoying, and Anya had a feeling she'd have to put up with more instances of that over the span of the trip.
Still, even if her logic had insisted that Clarke still liked her, those whispering fears at the edge of her mind had allowed some doubt to fester throughout the day. Raven asserting that Clarke did in fact like her relieved all but a sliver of it. What she really needed was confirmation from Clarke herself; the woman had been upfront and honest with her so far, so there wasn't any reason to suspect misdirection or dishonesty.
She'd have an answer soon enough, she hoped. It couldn't hurt to wait up for the younger blonde's return. Her exhaustion could wait until Clarke was back, safe and sound from the dangers of late-night Florida.
A/N: Day 2 is done! Glad to give a window into Anya's perspective. I won't be sticking strictly with one POV per day, but probably one POV per chapter. I initially considered having a chapter per day, but some plot shifts have made that a bit of a difficult proposition to uphold. This fic will cover Friday May 27th through the evening of June 5th, anyways.
As per the prompt, Anya's main source of anxiety's going to be relationships, and the conflict between yearning for a quality relationship & intimacy after being alone for so long, and the fact that she's terrified of romantic relationships (and the thought of never having one) due to plenty of hang-ups around age and experience. The big event she alludes to here is a source of pain for her, and brings back anxiety when she thinks of it, given the nature of the discussion, but it's something she can handle well enough on her own, even if it's a bit of a struggle. I tried to recall my own experiences with mild-moderate anxiety from last year and how some of those felt while I wrote this. Not sure I translated it well to the page, was hard to tap into that and keep flow.
Apologies to Floridians, but I just got the idea of Anya hating Florida, and I couldn't let it go. Headcanon that she's read far too many FloridaMan articles for her own good.
Would have had this chapter out last night, but my Sharks went to triple overtime, and I lost a lot of editing hours to that.
Anywho, hope you enjoyed!