a/n: it's gotten to the point where i'm tired of the slow burn, and i'm the author
also, quick note, i might not be updating this as much since the inspiration for it comes and goes and i have some other projects i need to work on
the literal bomb: okay clarke.
Clarke: Raven? It's three in the morning on a Thursday, what's so urgent?
Clarke: Is your house on fire?
the literal bomb: why do you always assume that my house is on fire?
Clarke: Because it's happened at least three times in the two years I've known you.
the literal bomb: anyway, your gf called me three times last week asking me what kind of soup you liked.
the literal bomb: because of course i just happen to know your favorite soup off the top of my head.
the literal bomb: she's kind of intimidating, but she's also a complete dork.
Clarke: I've told her that she didn't need to do anything like that.
the literal bomb: well, she's smitten, that much is obvious.
the literal bomb: you do weird things when you're in love.
the literal bomb: doesn't make you innocent if you do bad things, obviously.
the literal bomb: finn collins the trash man is a good example of this.
Clarke: Even in my half-awake state, I can agree with that.
the literal bomb: if i ever see him again, i'm going to call octavia and have her punch him in the face.
Clarke: Why not just punch him in the face yourself?
the literal bomb: i think we both know that i'm the brains and octavia is the brawn when it comes to this little group.
Clarke: What does that make me?
the literal bomb: the ringleader.
the literal bomb: and also the mom friend.
the literal bomb: anyway back to finn.
the literal bomb: if i punched him in the face it might not hurt as much.
the literal bomb: octavia is more Powerful.
the literal bomb: and she has a sword.
Clarke: Good point.
Clarke: I still don't know why you texted me at three in the morning.
the literal bomb: couldn't sleep.
Clarke: What about Octavia?
the literal bomb: she sleeps like a
the literal bomb: uh
the literal bomb: what's an example of something that sleeps really soundly?
Clarke: A bear in hibernation.
the literal bomb: yeah, a bear in hibernation.
the literal bomb: the world could end and she'd probably sleep through it.
the literal bomb: you're clearly in no mood for conversation, though, so i'm gonna take this as my cue to stare blankly at the ceiling for the next five hours until school starts.
the literal bomb: see ya, princess.
Clarke shoved the phone off of the bed with a grunt and tried (rather unsuccessfully) to go back to sleep, clutching Heda in her arms as the dark, blurry outline of her room slowly faded into blackness and she slipped into dreamland.
Lexa had stayed away from the spot on campus where Clarke and her friends ate lunch ever since that Monday, instead choosing to stay atop the roof with the plants. They didn't make for pleasant conversation, but they smelled nice. Lexa occasionally found herself standing on the edge of the railing, watching the students run below her, barely specks from her position. It made her feel something like a queen, a powerful ruler overlooking her kingdom. Anya had encouraged her to run for the student government, an idea that Lexa strongly opposed.
"I have enough to deal with as it is, Anya," she had said the first time the topic had been brought up. "Something like this would only serve to further complicate things."
"Suit yourself. I'm just saying, your weird-ass rich family's probably going to shove you into the role of spoiled heiress as soon as you're old enough to run a company, so this might be good practice."
"That's precisely why I 'don't' want to do it. I've told you before, I refuse to get tangled up in that. I couldn't care less about it."
"Just think about it, okay? I think you'd make a pretty good leader."
Lexa would be lying if she said that the idea hadn't started to grow on her. It might serve as a good distraction, a way to avoid the ever-pressing issue of the increasingly large amounts of soup left over in the fridge, the candles she had been hoarding for years serving as her only escape.
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to fling myself into a campaign," she uttered aloud. The plants didn't respond.
Weeks passed, and Clarke had hardly seen Lexa around the school, save for the occasional glance in the hallways and the sacred time they spent together in the gymnasium after school. Aden followed her around like a lost duckling, and Clarke would be lying if she said that she didn't like the attention. Aden was a gentle soul, an innocent kid who had somehow managed to maintain his innocence despite being surrounded by high schoolers every day from three to four. Clarke knew that he talked her up to Lexa, and she didn't mind that. The other girl had been taking up a space in her mind more and more frequently, wrapping herself in Clarke's thoughts like a weaver spinning a soft cloth around her brain. Raven and Octavia had both encouraged her to invite Lexa on a date, but she had turned down the idea every time. There was no need, in Clarke's mind, to potentially destroy the fragile friendship the two had forged only for the sake of a relationship (even if she wanted it, wanted it, wanted it so much that it hurt).
Still, she ended up a stuttering mess when Aden stood in front of her with a cheeky grin on his face and asked her if she'd go to the Woods residence for dinner.
"You can cook, right?" he asked, tilting his head to the side like Lexa had done a few weeks ago. Must run in the family.
"No."
"Great! Neither can Lexa! We're getting pizza on Wednesday, you like pizza, right?"
"I guess."
"Awesome! It's been way too long since we've had someone over! I'll go and check with the big sis herself, stay here, 'kay?" Clarke nodded wordlessly. Internally, she felt like her organs were being haplessly thrown around inside of her body until she could hardly stand, wobbling on her unsteady feet. It's probably just an aftereffect of the cold, she tried to reason with herself. It was no real use, anyway - she had already long since realized that her crush on Lexa, if it could be called that, wasn't going to go away anytime soon. After what felt like no time at all, Aden scampered back to Clarke with a toothy smile. "She said yeah! I'll see you in a few hours, cool friend lady!" Clarke gave him a thumbs-up and glanced at Lexa, who didn't seem to be paying attention. At the moment, her face was buried in a tattered book, the title obscured by her hands.
Lexa didn't speak to Aden for the duration of the bus ride, keeping her grip on his tiny hand without looking him in the eye. She wasn't mad, not exactly - she knew that Aden hadn't found very many friends in his elementary school, so she thought it to be only natural that he would cling to someone he saw every day, without fail. Lexa wasn't excited for the dinner. Not at all, no, she was purely looking out for her brother, or at least that was what she beat into her brain every moment she could.
"Cool lady friend's coming over, cool lady friend's coming over!" Aden cheered, skipping around the carpet as soon as the two reached the house. Lexa set down her bag and pulled out the crumpled sheets of homework, keeping her hands on the railing as she walked upstairs. Aden's cheering became background noise to the girl as she smoothed out the worksheets and began the monotonous problems, formulas and numbers swimming in front of her eyes.
"Clarke is going to be here in a few hours," she muttered to herself, setting aside the calculus for the moment. "That's fine. It doesn't mean anything. Friends, platonic friends, invite each other over for dinner all the time. She won't think anything of it, and neither will I, because there's nothing to think about. It's perfectly normal."
"Hey, Lexa!" Aden yelled, snapping Lexa from her thoughts. "Should I order the pizza now?"
"Yes!" Lexa yelled back. "Make sure to tell them the correct address this time!"
"I will!"
"I'll believe that when the pizza arrives at the correct household!"
The clouds, gray and threatening, cast a dull gloom over the sidewalk, but Clarke paid the apparent omen no heed. She had never really believed in that sort of thing, anyway, there was no reason for her to start now, especially now that she was in such a lighthearted mood in stark contrast to the grayness of the weather. She hummed softly to herself as she dug through her pocket for her phone and typed out a quick message to her mother.
Clarke: Hi, Mom, just going to go over to a friend's house for dinner.
Clarke: I'll be back by seven.
Mom: Ok!
Mom: Be safe! :) :) :) :)
Clarke: Mom?
Clarke: That's a lot of emoticons.
Clarke: Ah, what the hell.
Clarke: :)
Clarke shoved the phone back into her jacket and headed down the sidewalk in the direction of Lexa's house, the address neatly scrawled on a scrap of paper.
Lexa nervously paced the kitchen, circling the table set for three. Aden stared longingly at the box of pizza perched upon the counter, occasionally leaning in to sniff it. A note hung on the refrigerator, but Lexa didn't even bother reading it - she knew exactly what it would say. That didn't stop Aden, clearly restless from waiting for Clarke, from reading it over and over again whenever he took breaks from watching the pizza.
"I will be away again tonight, I trust Lexa to find something to feed the two of you. Please try not to break anything in my absence. -T," Aden read aloud in a mock-deep voice. "He's never around! I kinda wanted him to meet cool friend lady!" Lexa agreed with the first statement, but she cringed at the thought of her uncle meeting Clarke. She was a free spirit, an artist, and because of that Lexa had a hunch that she wouldn't get along very well with the self-proclaimed guardian of the Woods family. He's hardly a guardian, though, I suppose. One would have to actually be around the children they're supposed to be guarding to be considered one. She hardly had another minute to dwell on the thought before the doorbell rang throughout the house and Aden ran as fast as his tiny legs could carry him to greet Clarke, who stood awkwardly in the doorway as Aden yanked open the door and immediately clung to her leg like a koala.
"Hello, Clarke," Lexa said, her voice even as she tried not to betray any emotion. Clarke stepped inside, Aden still hanging from her leg. She looked up at the arched ceiling and the assorted lit candles.
"Uh, nice place you've got here," she commented. "I think that Aden mentioned something about pizza, is that right?" Aden looked up at her and nodded, letting go of her leg to dash into the kitchen. Lexa finally took a real look at the other girl, and it was all she could do not to gasp. Clarke was practically radiating, effortlessly looking like some kind of goddess fallen from the sky. The moment was interrupted by Lexa's phone loudly beeping in her pocket.
Anya (cell phone): Lexa.
Anya (cell phone): Please calm your gay butt.
Lexa: do you have some kind of camera following me around
Anya (cell phone): Nah, your little brother just called me an hour ago to scream about the "cool friend lady" coming over here for dinner and I put two and two together and assumed that she was the Clarke you mentioned a few weeks ago.
Lexa: you just assumed that i have managed to make exactly one friend over the course of two months
Anya (cell phone): Yep.
Anya (cell phone): And that would of course mean that you're probably staring at her like you used to stare at Costia.
Lexa stiffened, nearly dropping the phone. Clarke tapped her on the shoulder.
"Lexa? You look really pale, are you okay? I think Aden's getting impatient."
"Hmm? Yes, I'll be there in a moment. You two can go ahead."
Lexa: i'm in the middle of a lot of things right now so it'd help if you didn't stress me out with mentions of...her
Anya (cell phone): I could make an extremely obvious joke right now, but because I'm a slightly better person than that, I won't.
Lexa: wonderful
"Woohoo!" Aden squeaked as soon as Lexa entered the kitchen. "Finally!" Clarke smiled fondly at him before turning her attention back to Lexa.
"What was that back there?"
"Nothing," Lexa responded, a bit sharper than she had intended.
"It didn't sound like nothing," Clarke retorted. "It's none of my business, but I think I'm allowed to be concerned for a . . . friend." The other girl stumbled over the word friend, and Lexa was left to wonder what Clarke thought of her.
"Lexa, can we please have the pizza now?" Aden groaned. "It feels like I've been waiting forever!"
"Oh, right. Of course." Lexa tried not to think of Clarke's unexpected concern as she stood up from her chair and picked up the pizza box, tried to ignore the flapping butterflies in her chest when she set it down on the table.
Of course, they never quite went away.
Clarke didn't bring up the phone again, instead spending her time engaging in small talk with Lexa and learning mundane things about the girl seated across from her that seemed like close-held secrets from the way she talked about them.
"Okay, so, what's the weirdest thing that's happened to you in middle school?" Clarke was becoming slightly braver with the questions as the cold pizza crusts sat on the plate, having long since moved past hobbies and pets.
"I started a flower-selling business in the halls around Valentine's Day. It went surprisingly well, actually - I suppose smitten children enjoy giving plants to the object of their affections - but I think that the strangest thing was when a girl in my grade bought a bouquet of, hmm, roses, I think, and she immediately turned around and gave them back to me. I wasn't exactly what to make of it, honestly." Lexa looked down at the table, clutching the ends of it with tense fingers as if she would be flung into space if she let go.
A girl. A girl liked her, and she probably liked the girl back. Stay calm, Griffin, it probably means nothing, it doesn't mean anything, she could just be-
"We actually struck up something of a relationship, after that."
"Oh. Cool." Clarke didn't know what else to say, honestly.
"You don't have a problem with that, do you?"
"Of course not! Actually-"
"Hey, cool lady friend!" Aden interrupted. "It was really fun having you over here, but it's bedtime for me, so could you leave soon maybe?" Clarke sighed.
"I guess I'm supposed to leave, then?"
"I'm sorry about Aden, he tends to get like this after the sun goes down. I'll see you at school tomorrow, though. Maybe then you'll tell me what the strangest thing you experienced in middle school was."
"Yeah. Tomorrow." Lexa led Clarke to the door with an air of formality that seemed out of place, considering how just a few minutes ago she had been talking about flower-selling escapades. Clarke stepped out the door into the fresh air with a wave, her thoughts overflowing as she tried (and failed) to make sense of what had happened. Only one thing managed to make its way through the seemingly endless cycle of clashing ideas and fears and newly-formed memories.
Oh, Griffin, you've got it bad.