Lexa stands in front of the mirror, trying to figure out what to wear to the party that night. She's mildly concerned by the continued absence of her roommate, but Lexa can't blame her for not returning; she already has a sore back after the mattress in her room. She knows that if she said one word to Gustus he would have a new one sent over immediately, but she doesn't want that. She has no desire to be that stereotypical rich kid.

There's a rattle outside the door, and then silence. Lexa ignores it, until it starts again. Curious, she walks towards that door and pulls it open to investigate, and startles to see Clarke staring back at her, clearly flustered.

"Oh, hi Lexa. I was trying to open the door, but my key got stuck. Sorry to disturb you."

"You're not disturbing me, Clarke. You live here too now."

She moves sideways to let the blonde in, and can't help but catch the scent of her hair again. Clarke drops her bag onto her bed and turns to look at Lexa. There's some tension between them, and Lexa isn't quite sure how to break it. She desperately runs through the standard conversation starters that she googled before arriving at college, before Clarke takes it upon herself to relieve the awkwardness.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back last night. My mom's staying at a nearby hotel before she flies back to DC tomorrow, so I decided to enjoy one last night of comfort before settling in properly. I know it's probably not the best room mate behaviour, but we'll have plenty of time to get to know each other over the next year."

Lexa can only smile shyly at the girl in front of her, unsure of what to say next. Luckily, Clarke seems like quite the talker as she pushes the conversation further.

"So, are you getting ready for tonight? I'm not much of a partier, and something tells me that you're not either, but the chance of free food was something I didn't want to pass up."

Clarke laughs at her own joke, and Lexa joins her. Turning back to the mirror, she fiddles with her clothes again. She's wearing an open red plaid shirt over a black tank top, paired with her favourite black skinny jeans and patent black leather Converse. Lexa never usually cared about her appearance, but she's suddenly concerned that she's underdressed for the occasion. This was one of the things that no amount of reading could ever prepare her for.

She finally decides to just settle for what she's wearing and stop acting so self-conscious. She's vaguely aware of Clarke rummaging through her suitcases behind her, presumably looking for her own ensemble for tonight. Lexa runs into their shared bathroom while it's still free and quickly applies some basic make-up, something that's once again out of character for her. She can't decide if she does it so it appears that she's making an effort for the first time that she meets people, or if she's doing it as a distraction from her anxiousness at meeting those same people. Perhaps a bit of both.

Lexa steps back into her dorm room, and promptly stops dead in her tracks.

Clarke is standing topless in the middle of the room, holding up different shirts to herself in the mirror, comparing them. She turns to Lexa, as if about to ask her opinion, but stops before she says anything when she notices that Lexa's gaping at her exposed body. Lexa can't manage to take her eyes off Clarke for a few seconds, her gaze glued to the lacy black bra that contrasts to much against her skin. The brunette flushes red when she realises what she's doing, and quickly trains her eyes on Clarke's nose again, not even bothering to try eye contact. She knows she wouldn't be able to maintain it out of sheer embarrassment.

"Uh, hey Lexa. Glad you're ready. I was just going to ask you which of these tops looks better with these pants, I'm not really good at this sort of thing..."

Lexa forces herself to make a quick decision before she succumbs to temptation to ogle her room mate some more. Whatever Clarke said about good etiquette before, Lexa certainly was not displaying it. She normally had far more self-control than this.

Clarke muttered a thank you before pulling the sky-blue blouse over her head. Lexa wanted to say that she chose it because blue suited her eyes, but stopped before doing so. She didn't need to make this conversation any worse than it already was.

"I saw you were going casual, so I decided to follow suit. If we're both underdressed, at least we'll have an ally in our inadequacy."

Lexa laughs again, and quickly realises that the blonde has done most of the talking since she arrived back to the room.

Talking is sort of an important factor in making friends, Lexa. Come on, say anything.

"Yeah, well, you seem to make casual look cool and chic, so it may just be me standing awkwardly in the corner looking at the beautiful college kids while feeling inadequate."

Lexa, what was that? You've managed to flirt with the girl and fall into the pit of self-depreciation all in one mangled sentence. Welcome back to the loner club, because this is not how normal people make friends.

Thankfully, Clarke just laughs and blushes at the odd compliment that had just been paid before starting to get her handbag ready. Lexa's stomach flutters again when she laughs. She was growing to like the feeling.

Lexa wasn't going to bother with a bag (her pockets had ample space for everything she needs), so she just sits on her bed and observes Clarke before her. She can't help but notice the cute frown that the blonde makes as she sifts through the few things that she has unpacked. It seems like she's looking for something in particular, but can't find it. Lexa doesn't know if it's polite to ask what she's looking for or not, but thankfully Clarke once again saves her from having to make that decision.

"Hey, do you have an iPhone charger? I can't seem to find mine."

Lexa jumps up too eagerly and immediately takes hers out of her neatly packed drawer. She hands it over to Clarke, their fingers lightly brushing in the exchange.

"I don't actually use it for an iPhone," Lexa says as she returns to her position on the bed, "I use it for my iPad, which I don't actually use that often. You can keep the charger for as long as you need, until you find your own."

"Wow, an iPad, that's fancy," Clarke says, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

"Well, so is an iPhone," Lexa retorts.

"Not really, I only have it because my mom couldn't work it properly and decided to go back to blockias. It's actually a few generations old, but the charger still fits."

"Oh, I see." Lexa is suddenly uncomfortable at Clarke's comment. She would have assumed that the daughter of a top surgeon would have the latest model, but she didn't question it. Maybe Clarke just didn't care about the latest gadget fashion as much as the throngs of her peers did.

Before they can fall into another bout of silence, there's a knock on their door. Seeing that Clarke is busy with her phone, Lexa strides over and opens it to see a smiling Octavia, accompanied by a large brooding man. Lexa gives her a mildly confused look before composing herself.

"Hey, Lexa, hey Clarke. This is my boyfriend Lincoln, we came here to study together. We're super lucky that we both got in," Octavia shoots Lincoln an adoring look, and Lexa can immediately tell that they're one of those couples that had no issues with PDAs. Lexa hated those kinds of couples. "Anyway, are you guys ready? We were just about to head to the rec room now."

Lexa nods in acknowledgement to Lincoln, who nods back with a severe look on his face. She looks back to Clarke, who smiles and nods at her, which Lexa assumes means she's set to go.

"Sure, we're ready. Let's go."

The music's blaring already, and Lexa's surprised that she couldn't hear it from her room. She doubts that the building is modern enough to have soundproofing, so assumes that the door is just extraordinarily heavy. That could be beneficial for ignoring the antics of her fellow students in future, she ponders to herself.

Lexa, do you even want to make friends? Finding ways to ignore them isn't quite the way to do that.

Clarke walks close to her, and both are trailing Octavia and Lincoln, who are walking arm in arm towards the rec room. Despite her dislike for displays of affection, Lexa can't deny that they looked oddly cute, despite the huge size mismatch between the two. Lincoln hugely dwarfs her, but seems gentle in spite of his sheer bulk.

"I know that this sort of thing is supposed to be exciting, but I'm actually kind of nervous. I don't really drink, which seems to be the main aim of these events. I'm more of a pizza and movie kind of girl."

Lexa is surprised by the information just offered by Clarke; she knows that the blonde mentioned her lack of enthusiasm for parties earlier, but Clarke seems to exude confidence. There's no hint of anxiety in her voice, and Lexa wonders if she's just saying these words to make the obviously agitated Lexa feel slightly better.

"Yeah, me too. I don't know how long I'll stay, though. You should know that I'm an early riser, I like to jog in the mornings."

Clarke turns fully towards Lexa and gives her a full look over, causing the latter girl to blush. Lexa knew that she had a good body; she works hard to ensure that. That doesn't make her any more confident when someone is visually inspecting her, though.

"You're an athlete, I assume. Track?"

"Boxing, actually."

Clarke's eyebrows lift in surprise. Lexa's used to such a reaction; rich girls usually do hockey, not boxing. Maybe that's what attracted her to the sport in the first place.

"Oh, wow, that's intense. I'm normally in a comatose state in the morning, but if the jog helps you ensure that you're not knocked unconscious in the ring then I guess I can tolerate it," she laughs to herself, and Lexa smiles with her. "I need to get used to getting up for 9 am lectures anyway, college isn't very considerate of us poor premeds' sleeping schedules."

"Well, maybe one day you'll be able to get up early enough to join me for a jog."

Lexa, if this is you flirting, it's worse than pathetic. The girl just pointed out that she likes her sleep. A jog at five in the morning is not something that she'd enjoy.

Lexa's astonished to see that Clarke looks like she's considering the offer. Before she can get a response, they reach the doors to the rec room, and Octavia is waiting a few feet ahead of them before they venture in. Her excitement is probably more than the sum total of her three companions combined, but that doesn't seem to bother her.

"Clarke, Lexa, Lincoln," she eyes each of them in turn, clearly trying to maintain a straight face. "College life is about to begin."

Two hours in and Lexa is wishing that she had never come to the party. She's sitting on the couch, with the same cheap beer in her hand as she had at the start of the party. Octavia and Lincoln stuck around for all of five minutes before finding a secluded corner for themselves, and Clarke stayed for slightly longer until she saw someone that she recognised from a summer school she did a while back and went over to talk with them, leaving Lexa alone.

Lexa doesn't mind being alone, but what she can't figure out is why she's staying. She supposes it's some perverted loyalty to stick around until the people she came with were done with the party, although she knows it's unrealistic that she'd actually leave with Octavia and Lincoln. That left Clarke. Yes, she was probably staying for Clarke.

"Looking at the cool kids won't really make you one of them."

Lexa looks up and seems a tall girl standing over her, extending a beer in her direction. Too awkward to refuse, she hides her now warm beer on the couch beside her and takes the offering from the girl. Interpreting this as an invitation for further conversation, the girl sits beside her and cracks open her own beer.

"I'm Anya, second year lawyer, and last year I was the girl sitting on the couch watching the world go by at my first party too. Don't worry, these things really don't matter. You'll make friends in other ways, this really just serves as to separate the drinkers from those more serious about their studies."

Lexa nods and takes a swig of her beer. It was just as bad as the last bottle, but she didn't really expect any better anyway.

"Wow, maybe you're even worse than I was. At least I talked to the people who tried to make friends with me."

Lexa flushes with embarrassment as the girl points out her impoliteness, and tries to motivate herself into furthering her conversation with the one person who's taken an interest in her for the past couple of hours. Oddly, she appreciates Anya's forwardness; it saves her a lot of trouble.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. I'm Lexa, first year lawyer. Pleased to meet you."

She extends her hand towards Anya, who smirks and shakes it.

Their conversation lasted for a few hours until people started to leave the party to move on to the nearby club. Lexa finds herself in awe of Anya; she came top of her year last year, and won a place on an internship in a top law firm over the summer. If Clarke was confident, Anya acted like a queen. Lexa can't figure out why this clearly successful woman was spending any time with a shy fresher, but she was grateful for the company. Topics of discussion remain fairly light, ranging from societies to the debating scene, until Clarke suddenly interrupts the pair.

"Hey, Lexa. You enjoying the party?" Clarke doesn't wait for a response before she continues. "A few people that I've been talking to are interested into going to a nearby bar called Grounders, you interested in coming? I tried to find Octavia and Lincoln, but they've already gone back to his place."

Lexa's touched by the offer, but she figures that it stems from the same obligation that caused Lexa to stay at the party in the first place. Lexa politely refuses, and but tells Clarke to have a good time. The blonde smiles back at her before turning to rejoin her new gang of friends.

There's one guy in particular who seems to take a particular interest in Clarke. He has a ridiculous bird's nest haircut, and smiles widely when she makes her way back to them. He puts his arm around her, and Lexa feels her heart clench suddenly. Her jealously must be evident on her face, as she can hear Anya laugh beside her.

"I wasn't going to make any assumptions based on your attire, but I can see by the look on your face that you're gay as fuck. I can see your heart in your eyes, Lexa. Although, seeing as you've known her all of 24 hours I'm surprised by the degree of your infatuation."

Lexa curses herself as she blushes, but decides that there's no point in hiding it. Anya may be the only ally that she has at the moment.

"Come on, just admit it. I've watched enough of Faking It to know that nothing good ever comes of straight girl crushes. It's best just to forget it now, especially if she's your room mate."

"Okay, okay, I admit it. I've a slight infatuation for Clarke, but it's nothing I haven't dealt with before. It's stupid, but I fall for people pretty easily," she shrugs at her own admission, trying to brush it off casually. "I'll get over it as soon as she comes in drunk at 4 am, I'm sure."

Despite her words, Lexa's pretty unsure that that will happen. She believed Clarke when she said she was much of a partier, but who knew what could happen at one's first night in college.

Anya scoffs at Lexa's words, and drinks the last of her bottle.

"Whatever you say Heart Eyes. Don't come crying to me over your inevitably broken heart. Just be warned; that guy getting comfortable with your girl is Finn, the most suave guy in my year. He mightn't look like much with his crazy hair, but he has a reputation as a bit of a lady killer. Clarke won't even give her doe-eyed roomie a second glance once he has an eye on her."

"Woah there Anya, I think you're taking this a bit far. It's a tiny crush, really. I'd rather we dropped this now."

Anya shrugs, but she has a knowing look on her face.

Lexa hates it when people know things that she doesn't.