a/n: high school musical is a treasure
Lexa remained unmoving in her bed the next morning, tightly wrapped underneath her covers with a thousand thoughts running through her brain.
I almost kissed Clarke Griffin last night. Clarke Griffin almost kissed me last night. If it hadn't been for that baker, we would have kissed. I can't talk to her about it, because it's fairly likely that I misjudged the situation to such a degree that talking about it could prove disastrous. Light had started to stream through the window and Lexa pulled the covers over her head to block it out. I can't ever mention it, because it could cause a misunderstanding, and then Raven would probably stop talking to me as well, and knowing my luck Niylah would somehow go away after that. Lexa had gained enough energy to wriggle around, now, and she covered her ears with her hands as if that could block out the thoughts. Anya's busy, too. I can't risk this, I can't risk losing everyone. If she had been just a tad more awake, Lexa would have chided herself for being so dramatic. As she was, however, all she could focus on were worst-case scenarios screeching themselves at her with such ferocity that she tried to go back to sleep, just to get the thoughts to go away.
They didn't.
"Lexa!" Aden was standing in the entrance to her room with an action figure in his hand, full of energy despite the early hour. How early was it, in any case? "It's almost 'noon,' aren't you gonna wake up?" Lexa stiffened.
"It's . . . noon?"
"Almost noon, yep!" Lexa flung the covers off of her bed, dashing out of her room as the blanket fluttered down on Aden's head. "Hey, what's the big rush?"
"Homework," Lexa replied as she ran downstairs. "I need to get a head start on homework, the date- the dinner with Clarke last night cut a significant chunk out of my work time, and on top of the student election . . ." She trailed off. Aden, now wearing Lexa's blanket around his shoulders like a superhero's cape, shrugged innocently.
"You'll be okay!" he chirped. "Homework's not that scary, is it?"
"The youth live in such bliss," Lexa muttered. I'm starting to sound like Anya.
"Anyway, I'm gonna go and watch TV." Aden strutted off, still wearing the blanket and humming a theme song from something Lexa thought that she might've watched in passing when she was younger.
Clarke woke up at the crack of dawn that morning, hoping to get as much as physically possible done before the mother-daughter feelings talk took place. The previous night with Lexa felt like it had happened a million years ago already. Clarke desperately wished to hold onto it, and this could only mean one thing for her morning - it was going to be filled with at least twenty drawings. Sitting up in her bed with Heda squashed between the blankets and the wall, she flipped through the closest sketchbook until she found a blank page and got to work.
Yet, as hard as she tried, it was impossible for Clarke to focus on drawing, and it was even more difficult to capture Lexa's features. Something always felt off, and Clarke hated it. She couldn't get her eyes, or that small smile, or the way she used that red sweater as a suit of armor more than anything.
After what felt like an hour, Clarke gave up drawing Lexa entirely and instead decided to focus on the nearest subject, which happened to be Heda. She propped up the stuffed raccoon, loosely sketching her familiar cartoonish outline. Heda had been a present from a distant relative when Clarke was too young to remember the event. The stuffed raccoon was a constant companion, even if she was never much for conversation. In any case, she had helped Clarke out of many an art block, and today didn't seem to be any different.
"Was it the Sailor Moon thing?" she muttered aloud as she started to draw Heda's fluffy tail. "Was it because I tried to kiss her? I must've thought that she wanted to when she was just being nice about my stupid parking lot. I'm an idiot, aren't I? I probably scared her off, I'm such an idiot, of course she isn't-"
"You're not an idiot," a voice called from the other room. "But you are loud." Clarke sighed.
"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"Could we maybe . . . postpone the mother-daughter feelings talk for a bit? I'm not feeling too great right now."
"That's fine, honey, as long as you quiet down a bit and let me sleep."
"Deal."
beep-beep-beep
"Anya?" Lexa awaited a response with baited breath.
beep-beep-beep
"Anya, are you there?" Nothing. Of course she wouldn't respond, of course-
beep-beep-beep
"Anya, I need-"
"Lexa? It's really early, remember the damn timezones." Lexa looked at the clock.
"It's eleven where you are."
"Time functions differently when you're in college. Anyway, what'd you wanna talk about?"
"Clarke."
"Oh, yeah, her. How's she?"
"Well, there's a fair chance that she doesn't return my feelings and I've made a complete fool of myself, so I think she's doing well. As for myself-"
"Don't finish, I already know what you'll say. Oh, I've destroyed every single chance of happiness in my life ever. Listen, Lexa, you'll be fine. If this Clarke girl doesn't return your feelings, then screw her! She sucks! Anyone would be an idiot to not fall for you, you're great! You're an absolute nerd who can't play chess or remain at a party for more than half an hour before passing out, but you're great. Believe in yourself, kiddo. You can't tell, but I'm sending you a virtual affirmative clap on the shoulder. Right now, as I'm saying this, I am affectionately patting this bed as if it's your shoulder."
"Thank you, Anya."
"Don't mention it. My roommates are almost awake now, so I'd better run. Good luck on the crush situation!" Lexa could hear the sound of Anya's phone clattering to the ground as she presumably stomped over to her roommates. "Listen, you asshats, if at least one of you could just replenish the milk for once, instead of selling it all to the fraternities, then maybe we wouldn't be out of milk, but guess what? None of you ever do that, you just slack off and throw parties that I have to clean up, and for what? What do you ever give me in return, huh? Honestly, I could just-"
"Anya? You didn't hang up the phone."
"Crap. Okay. Bye." Anya hung up with a click, and Lexa was once again left alone with a pile of homework and no idea how to face Clarke.
As it turned out, the mother-daughter feelings talk never came to fruition. After several hours of sitting alone in her room with Heda and quite a few text conversations, Clarke had finally mustered up the determination to go downstairs and tell her mother about the extent of her feelings for Lexa, only to find the house eerily silent.
"Hello?" she whispered. "Is anyone there? Mom? Mom, have you been kidnapped?" Clarke was greeted not by a kidnapper, but by a note stuck to the fridge with a chipped magnet, scrawled in pen.
C-
emergency at ark! pipe burst, vp needs to be there. food is in the fridge. love u.
-mom
Clarke smiled at the note before turning to the crumpled worksheets sticking out of her backpack.
"Great," she muttered. "This is just great."
"What's just great?" Clarke let out a sound something along the lines of "yeek!"
"Who's there? Is it the kidnapper?"
"Geez, relax. It's just me." Raven stood at the window, the same grin on her face as always, as Octavia trailed behind her. "Abby said that you might be kinda lonely and 'struggling with your emotions' so she asked me if I could come over! I figured that I should bring O, too, since she's, uh, what'd you say earlier?"
"Had enough of my brother to last a lifetime," Octavia muttered. "I know he cares, deep down, but he's really just a butt most of the time."
"If we're going to talk about stuff, could you two . . . maybe come inside? It's hard to talk like this." Octavia seemed to take that as a cue to jump through the open window directly into the kitchen, bowing to an invisible audience when she landed.
"I'll just take the front door," Raven said. "Leg. Doesn't do well with being flung through people's windows. Clarke nodded in understanding as Raven shuffled around the house to get to the door.
"Boring!" Octavia set her sword down on the kitchen table and grabbed a Pop-Tart from the nearest cabinet. Raven opened the heavy wooden door across the house, carrying a pile of seemingly disjointed parts in a backpack. "Can your microwave do this?" The younger girl tossed the Pop-Tart in the air and sliced it in half.
"Pointless, but admittedly pretty cool," Clarke noted. Octavia took a bow again.
"Don't fuel her ego," Raven muttered.
"That's a microwave, then?" Clarke asked, pointing to the heap of metal.
"It will be. The landlord said I'm not allowed to build anything that could explode anymore, so-"
"So, your response was to build something that functions on nuclear energy?"
"Yep!" Raven practically beamed with pride. "Technically, anything can explode if you mess with it enough, that's what I told the guy, so now I'm trying to make this thing in an attempt to save money on an actual microwave. It's sort of a pet project."
"Does it work?"
"Not yet. I still need a bunch of stuff, and hey, do you by any chance need that egg beater?"
"Probably."
"Dammit."
"Raven, you promised that we'd be stand-in moms," Octavia piped up. "What'd you mean by that?" Clarke slid into a chair and groaned.
"Oh, boy."
"It means," Raven said in a sing-song voice, looping her arm around Clarke, "that Clarke's going to tell us about her date with Lexa."
"Oh, right. Her. I had kinda forgotten about that in the midst of the whole ordeal with Bell."
"It wasn't a date," Clarke muttered.
"Are you sure?" Raven teased, dragging out the word sure as if she was the host of a game show. "From what Abby's told me, it fit everything you need to consider it a date." Clarke would have spat out her drink if she had been drinking anything.
"My mom told you about my date?"
"Well, yeah, but you just admitted that it was a date anyway, so I guess that doesn't matter."
"It's too early for this, Raven."
"It's two-thirty."
"My point still stands."
"Okay, fine, I'll tell you what happened." Raven perked up, leaning forward in her chair. "We went to dinner, I showed her the nice view from the parking lot, and then we went home. That's all that happened."
"You wouldn't have been so mopey if it had just been as simple as that," Octavia pointed out.
"How do you know that?"
"Raven told me on the way over."
"How much did my mom tell you?" Clarke asked Raven through gritted teeth. Raven shrugged.
"Everything she knew, which admittedly wasn't much. You went out with Lexa, left her brother here, and then came back in a bad mood and hardly said anything to her this morning. Pretty basic stuff." Octavia sliced another Pop-Tart in half as Raven dropped her microwave-in-progress onto the table. It was in that moment that Clarke realized that perhaps being so secretive wasn't helping anyone.
"I messed up," she muttered, almost too quiet to hear.
"Well, that'd explain the early-morning drawing session Abby told me about. You don't usually have those unless something's stressing you out."
"I almost kissed her, and then Bellamy texted me and she started acting awkward and then we talked about Niylah from the candle shop and-"
Octavia, having given up on her pastry-fighting endeavors, patted Clarke on the shoulder.
"My brother's a complete moron," she murmured solemnly. "I completely understand."
"I still don't know why you're worrying about this so much," Raven added. "Lexa won't hate you forever because the two of you almost kissed. Here, I'll even text her right now."
"Please don't do that."
"Too late." Raven held up her phone with a triumphant smirk.
"Raven, don't you dare-"
"Octavia?" Octavia perked up upon hearing her name.
"Yeah?"
"Could you hold her back? I need to text her one true love." Clarke suddenly found herself being lifted in the air by someone half her size, the breath knocked out of her by the sudden movement. "Don't worry, Clarke," Raven sighed. "I'm not gonna say anything embarrassing."
"I don't believe you," Clarke countered, struggling to be released from Octavia's iron grip and managing to snatch the phone for only a second before Raven got it back.
Raven Reyes: hi lexa.
Lexa turned at the sound of the doot-doot-doot, wondering who could be texting her in the middle of the day. It's Clarke, isn't it? It must be Clarke, she's probably telling me that last night was merely a fluke and she doesn't want to see me again. Lexa took a deep breath before picking up the phone, only to see about a dozen messages that seemed to get more and more garbled.
Raven Reyes: listen i don't wanna
Raven Reyes: Kdmcms e
Raven Reyes: seem weird or
Raven Reyes: anything
Raven Reyes: but clarke told me
Raven Reyes: N O she DIDN'T lexa stop reading this plz
Raven Reyes: that you two
Raven Reyes: did nothing! have a nice day nerd
Raven Reyes: hung out with her last night.
Lexa twiddled her thumbs as she waited for the stream of messages to stop, wondering what was exactly happening with Raven at the moment.
Lexa: i did
Raven Reyes: ok so just LISTEN
Raven Reyes: i'm hiding in clarke's bathroom saying this right now and she's only being held off by our tiny yet muscular mutual friend.
Raven Reyes: so, i'll just say it without any more introduction.
Raven Reyes: don't you dare hurt her.
"I'm done!" Raven called. "Clarke, I promise I didn't write anything bad, so you don't have to kill me. Octavia, you can stop suplexing her now." Octavia set Clarke down as one would with a rather clingy cat.
"Okay, Raven, you've done enough snooping for one day, could we maybe . . . do something else now? Please?"
"Yeah, I'm with Clarke on this one," Octavia said. "It's not easy to hold someone up for that long, you know. I'd rather do setting soft and relaxing now."
"You didn't need to be carrying me," Clarke muttered.
"High School Musical!" Raven blurted out, fanning the air as if to distill any tension that had formed. "Why don't we watch High School Musical tonight? Maybe it'd, uh, help us all calm down a bit."
"Fine," Clarke and Octavia muttered. Raven left her phone on the coffee table, Lexa's replies flooding the screen.
Lexa: raven
Lexa: raven i promise i won't hurt her but it's difficult to hurt someone when they're presumably ignoring you
Lexa: raven where are you
Lexa: i don't know what you meant
Lexa: promises are supposed to go both ways
Lexa: promises are meant to be taken together
Lexa: i don't doubt that i'd give up everything for her at some point in the foreseeable future
Lexa: but right now i can't even muster up the courage to call her
Lexa: you're the person expert
Lexa: not me
Lexa set down her phone with a sigh, the sun having long since gone down. The stack of homework hadn't seemed to grow any smaller, and Lexa was no less stressed then she had been at the beginning of the day. She couldn't talk to Clarke, it could go terribly, and Raven wasn't responding. Aden excitedly jumped around the house in anticipation of the newest episode of his favorite show, but Lexa had placed herself in self-imposed exile in the dining room, blankly staring at equations until they swam in front of her eyes.
"I'm going to do it," she muttered. "I'm going to call Clarke." Picking up her phone and clicking on Clarke's name with the intensity of a war general about to charge into a decisive battle, Lexa tensely awaited Clarke's response as the infuriating beep-beep-beep of her phone seemed to fill up the entire dining room, swirling around her until it felt as if it had engulfed every single one of her senses.
"Clarke?" She wasn't going to let desperation creep into her voice, she couldn't.
"Clarke, are you there?"
"Lexa?" Aden's excited yelling was the only thing tethering Lexa to reality. This, she thought somewhere in the deepest corners of her mind, might have been the reason why she didn't register Clarke's voice at first. "Lexa, is that you?"
"Oh, yes, Clarke. It's me. Lexa. From school." That was terrible. "Would it be alright if I went to your house?" That was even more terrible. "There are some . . . things that I would prefer to talk with you about in person."
"Raven and Octavia are here, it wouldn't exactly be the most-"
"That's fine," Lexa interrupted, afraid of losing the courage she had mustered up if she refused anything at this point. "I'll be right over there."
"Cool friend lady?" Aden squeaked. Lexa hadn't even noticed that he was there.
"How did you know that I was talking to Clarke?" Lexa asked, weakly attempting to mask the suspicion in her voice.
"Your voice gets all soft and mushy and stuff," Aden replied matter-of-factly. "Usually, when you're around other grown-ups, your voice is hard and kinda scary, but whenever you're talking to her, it's like a teddy bear, but it's a voice. Sounds kinda weird, saying it like that, but you sound weird around her, so I guess it's even." Aden shrugged and scampered away.
"Aden!" Lexa called.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think you'd be able to handle yourself for a few hours?" Aden's face lit up, and Lexa could practically see the cartoonish stars twinkling in his eyes.
"You mean you're letting me stay home alone?"
"Yes, Aden. You'll call me if there's any trouble, though, alright? And if I send you a text, you need to respond immediately."
"Yes, ma'am!" Aden chirped, dutifully nodding,
"I'll be back in a little while, then." Lexa felt a sense of urgency creep up her spine as she grabbed her bag from the table, pulled on her sweater, and ran out the door for the first time that day. It was cold, the wind nipping at her exposed hands, but she didn't care. There was something exhilarating and terrifying about high school crushes, tiny things that could go everywhere or nowhere. In any case, it was enough to fill her with the determination to drive all the way to Clarke's house, the car tense and silent as she focused on the darkening road.
"She's with her friends," Lexa spoke aloud to the too-empty car, keeping her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. "Most likely, we'll have dinner, do some homework, and I'll exchange a few words with her that can determine whether she hates my very being or wants to remain friends. Nothing more."
The driveway in front of Clarke's house was a welcome sight when Lexa arrived after a twenty-minute discussion with herself, accompanied by bad pop music playing on a station she couldn't be bothered to switch. The journey to the doorbell felt like a thousand miles, but Lexa steeled her resolve and rang the doorbell, closing her eyes and trying to steady her breathing. Clarke opened the door, bundled inside an oversized flannel shirt.
"Lexa," she said, gesturing for the other girl to come in. "Hi. I, uh, wasn't really expecting you to be here this early." Lexa could see Raven and Octavia shuffling around in the living room, carrying bowls of popcorn and whispering incomprehensible things. "We're about to watch High School Musical." Raven seemed to take notice of Lexa for the first time, waving eagerly as she set down her leg brace next to the couch.
"Hey! Lexa! You've finally decided to come and watch the pinnacle of American cinema with us, huh?"
"I didn't even know that you were planning on watching it," Lexa replied as she found her way to the living room. "I just needed to . . . talk to Clarke about some . . . things, and this seemed to be the ideal time to do it."
"Sure, Jan," Raven sighed. Lexa couldn't see her face from where she stood, but she was almost certain that Raven was facing the glowing television with a smirk. Octavia sat perched on the arm of the couch, fiddling with her phone.
"Clarke, are you sure that the movie's even going to play? You've had the disc for a while now."
"We're all in this together, Octavia," Clarke replied, with a completely deadpan expression. "It'll work." Not a second later, the three burst into laughter.
"Is this how you always spend your weekends?" Lexa inquired. Clarke shrugged.
"If you mean making bad jokes and watching weirdly entertaining dumb movies, then . . . yeah, pretty much."
"Hmm." Lexa wanted to pretend that she was uninterested, that she was above it all, but some part of her knew that it would be a useless attempt. Clarke could see right through her, and besides, why would she do that? This, whatever it was, seemed like it could be fun. Lexa slid onto the couch, still weakly trying to maintain the air of elegance, and Raven immediately flicked off the house's lights.
"Are you ready for this, Woods?" Octavia yelled. Lexa covered her ears - Octavia was hardly a foot away from her, and she was practically screaming. "This is pretty much an initiation ritual, y'know. The first time watching this movie, it marks you."
"It marks me as what?" Lexa was completely and utterly perplexed, in all honesty. If she had been able to see in the near-complete darkness, she would have seen Raven give an overdramatic shrug of her shoulders.
"Just go with it," she sighed. "You won't want to miss a second." Clarke plopped down next to Lexa, and she tried to focus on the trailers for movies that had already come out a decade ago instead of how close Clarke was, how she practically radiated warmth. A too-small blanket lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, and Lexa picked it up, hoping to keep herself warm without someone to help her.
"Hey," Clarke said. The movie's main menu had shown up, now, but nobody made a move to play it. "I used to play with that blanket all the time when I was a kid. We keep it up here for some reason, but I haven't seen anyone use it in years."
"Is that a problem, then? I could just-"
"No, Lexa, it's fine." Lexa breathed a sigh of relief and wrapped herself in the blanket, Clarke's body heat still glaringly there.
"Hey, are we gonna watch this movie or not?" Octavia groaned. "I wanted to see whether or not they actually thanked the guy at the end." Raven elbowed her and whispered something in her ear - Lexa could only make out the words no - date - couch.
"What are they talking about?" Lexa asked. Clarke shrugged - that seemed to be this trio's primary form of communication, she thought.
"Actually! I think! I have to go!" Octavia blurted out, accentuating every few words as if she was reciting a strange poem. She grabbed her sword - she really does have one, Lexa thought - and ran to the door like her life depended on it. Not a second later, Raven yelled a similar excuse as she hobbled away, joining Octavia at the door.
"Sorry, Clarke, I just need to, uh, fix some things! At my house! Yep!"
"Enjoy the movie, you two!" Octavia called. Clarke rolled her eyes.
"They're probably trying to set us up on an impromptu date or something," she chuckled. Lexa awkwardly laughed along, hoping that Clarke didn't notice how she had started to lean against her.
It's the way the couch leans, Lexa thought. Nothing more.
"You're tense," Clarke noted. "Are you okay?"
"You ask that a lot," Lexa muttered, a bit more defensively than intended.
"My mom's the closest thing the dropship has to a nurse. You learn to check people for symptoms of problems, y'know? She's taught me a bunch about medicine, too, so if you . . . I dunno, suddenly got shot in the stomach, I'd probably be able to save you." Lexa ignored the last part of the comment the best she could.
"Why do they call it the dropship?" she asked instead.
"I don't actually know. I think it's meant to be sort of a passive-aggressive jab at how it's like, an experimental hippie school or something. We're the test subjects, the lab rats, and Arkadia's the vessel? I've never really understood it myself, to be honest."
"Huh."
"Anyway, I guess we should stop chatting and watch the movie. Troy and Gabriella aren't going to start singing themselves." Lexa nodded in agreement as Clarke fumbled for the remote.
"How many times have you seen this?" Lexa asked, the words New Year's Eve flickering across the screen.
"At least twenty. Probably more, if we're being honest."
"We are."
"We are what?"
"We are being honest. This is the talk we seemed to mutually agree on having, isn't it?" The guy - Troy, probably, Lexa thought - was complaining on the screen about being dragged to a party. Lexa sympathized with the feeling, but not a second later the film switched to a view of the girl - Gabriella? - curled over on a couch, holding a book with a title obscured by her hands.
"She's cute, huh?" Clarke said. Lexa nodded. The girl on the television didn't want to go to the party either, it seemed, and Lexa already knew what would happen next. A light, cast onto the two reluctant teenagers, was the thing that pulled them together.
"He's certainly talented for someone who says he doesn't sing," Lexa noted. Clarke shrugged.
"It's a cheesy movie, you're kinda supposed to suspend disbelief for ninety minutes of song and dance."
"Hmm. I'll get you some snacks, if you want. It's late, we should be prepared for a long night ahead of us."
"It's an hour and a half, Lexa."
"My point still stands." Lexa stood up and headed for the table, only to see something move out of the corner of her eye. "Clarke?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you have a cat or something like that?"
"Nope. We're not allowed to have pets, Mom's allergic." Lexa dismissed the sight as a figment of her imagination and decided to focus on gathering the popcorn abandoned by Octavia and Raven.
"This is based on Romeo and Juliet, right?" Lexa asked, about a third of the way through the movie.
"Yeah."
"Who's supposed to be Mercutio, then?" Clarke thought deeply for a moment before answering.
"Chad, probably."
"That makes sense." Lexa, somehow, hadn't noticed how Clarke had started to lean on her for warmth.
Don't make her uncomfortable, you idiot, Clarke thought to herself. Lexa was raptly engaged in the world of the movie, humming along to the tunes of the songs whenever she could figure them out fast enough. "Do you like it so far? The movie, I mean."
"Yeah. It's not the kind of thing that I usually watch, but it's . . . nice. Peaceful."
"What stuff do you watch, then?"
"Documentaries, mostly. Sometimes the occasional indie film, and of course Aden often drags me along to watch cartoons with him."
"There's nothing wrong with cartoons!" Clarke yelped indignantly.
"I never said that there was." The students onscreen were starting to sing about the status quo, now, seemingly desperate to keep it intact after some tiny actions had rocked their world.
"I love this part," Clarke whispered.
"Why?"
"You'll see." As if on cue, the exaggerated dance moves around the tables began as the entire lunchroom broke into a chorus.
"That's . . . elaborate. All because a brainiac and a jock decided to join a musical? This school's social hierarchy must have been pretty rigid until these two came along. Nobody else attempted to rebel against the arbitrary system shoved in place by the queen bee?"
"It's High School Musical, Lexa, not an intricately woven film about . . . anything, really. You're not supposed to take it seriously. Now, shh, you're about to miss the best line."
"I play the cello!" Immediately, the table erupted into chaos. Clarke burst out laughing. A small smile spread across Lexa's features, and her hand rested on Clarke's hip for half a second, but it was enough to send warmth through her body.
"Okay, I'll admit that was funny."
"Y-yeah, it was. Funny. Yep." This isn't going to be easy, is it? Confessions, Clarke found, were even more difficult when the time to confess loomed closer and closed as the girl she had fallen for sat right beside her, laughing at the overdramatic actions of the characters onscreen.
"Lexa?"
"Yeah?" The song had ended with a scream, and that was more or less how Lexa felt inside as Clarke turned to her with a determined expression.
"If it hadn't been for Bellamy interrupting us, would you have . . . you know . . ."
"Probably." Lexa couldn't form a more detailed response than that.
"Oh."
The events of the movie had never felt slower, dragging on and on until it felt like Clarke was being pulled through molasses by strangely well-choreographed dance numbers. Neither girl had been willing to speak after Clarke's "confession" - if she could even call it that - but Clarke noticed the amount of distance Lexa had put between the two of them.
"Would you?" Misunderstandings were resolved all too easily as the two protagonists stood on a balcony together.
"What?"
"I'm asking you the same question, Clarke."
"Well-" Clarke's answer was cut off rather abruptly by the beginnings of yet another song.
I'm pushing my luck. I've already asked her once, I can't just do this. Clarke was grinning as what was most likely this movie's version of an action-packed finale began to play out in front of her. It seemed like Lexa's subconscious managed to do it for her, hands gently touching Clarke's as if that was all they were ever meant to do.
"Lexa?" Lexa took a shaky breath as the characters began their tentative duet.
"I like you, Clarke. It might not be an all-consuming love, the soulmate story for the ages, but that's fine. We . . . we can find all of the energy for the soulmate part later, if it works out, but for now I just like you. A lot." The song picked up in tempo, and if it hadn't been for the emotionally draining confession, Lexa might have wondered how Troy didn't get sweaty while dancing around the stage in a thick jacket. Lexa awaited Clarke's response with baited breath - a response, it seemed, that just so happened to be a kiss.
Or, at least, it would have been a kiss if Lexa hadn't gotten tangled in the blanket and practically tripped over herself in surprise after Clarke leaned in.
"Oh my god," Clarke snorted. "That was really cute." Lexa could feel her cheeks turning red.
"Could we try that again?" Lexa muttered, and answered her own question by closing the distance between her lips and Clarke's. It was not an explosion, that was Lexa's first thought. It was soft, like stardust and youth and the feeling of adventure, gentle and warm and the most incredible feeling Lexa could hardly put to words.
"We're missing the last part of the song," Clarke murmured between kisses, laughing and vibrant and happy. "'S a good song."
"We can rewind the movie later," Lexa said. "It'd be nice if we could just . . . stay like this for a while."
"Mm-hmm."
"I knew it!" Clarke and Lexa both jumped at the sudden noise. Octavia sprung out from behind an armchair, a smug grin on her face. Lexa couldn't help but think of the image of a cat with a knife pointed at it that Raven sent her sometimes. Raven. She's probably here too.
"Crap, Lexa, why couldn't you have waited a few more days?" Raven groaned, practically on cue. "Now I owe this asshole ten bucks."
"You two were betting on us?!" Clarke yelped.
"Yep. I said no, they wouldn't do it during the movie, but it'd help them get closer and we'd be hearing an official girlfriend announcement a few days later. This hopeless romantic-" Raven jabbed a finger in Octavia's direction "-said of course they'll make out on the couch during Breaking Free, because that's what all couples do, apparently."
"And I was right!" Octavia chirped. Lexa stood up abruptly.
"Lexa?" Clarke said. "Lexa, where are you going?"
"Home. Thank you, Clarke." Lexa left with the door still wide open, a cold draft blowing through the house. Raven and Octavia followed suit, and Clarke was left alone.
"They were watching us," Lexa muttered to the car. "It couldn't have been a setup, because Clarke was just as surprised as me, but that doesn't make it any less unsettling. On that subject, we kissed. We actually kissed this time, too, instead of being interrupted. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about this."
Lexa slammed the door to the car and ran inside as fast as she could, somehow convinced that her bedroom held the key to every mystery she was currently trying to solve in her head.
It didn't.
Clarke's clock blinked midnight when her phone buzzed - she had muted it after declaring herself too tired for the sound of airhorns at ungodly hours.
It's Lexa, she thought. It can't be anyone other than Lexa. She's probably going to tell me that this was all a fluke, that it meant nothing, that-
~the dream meme team~
SWORD WOMAN: sING US A SONG YOU'RE THE PIANO MAAAAAAANNNN
the literal bomb: octavia.
the literal bomb: i can't believe i'm saying this, but now is not the time for shitposting.
the literal bomb: clarke's probably looking at this chat right now, expecting the text to have been from her sort-of gf.
Clarke was too tired to tell Raven that yes, that was actually exactly what she was doing.
Really, all she wanted was to slip into a peaceful slumber and wake up to resolved conflicts in the morning.