a/n: second-to-last chapter Heck Yeah. this fic never really had a coherent plot but it's gay and fluffy so that's ok i guess. this could sort of be considered the last chapter while the next one is more like an epilogue maybe? idk all i know is that this fic is a mess
also spot the anime references
Lexa felt guilty for pushing Clarke under the table, waiting for her uncle to leave, but she knew that it was needed on some level. After he had made his way upstairs, Lexa held her hand out to Clarke, who took it graciously.
"What was all of that about?" she sputtered. "Why did you hide me like I'm Aden's dog? Why doesn't he notice that I exist? More importantly, your uncle is one of my teachers?"
"Yes."
"He's called me a delinquent! He hates everyone! You're telling me that guy is your uncle?"
"Yes, he is my uncle," Lexa said dryly. "Titus Fleim, legal guardian of Lexa and Aden Woods. He's rarely home, hence the reason why Aden clings to me as if I'm his mother. I don't resent him, he tries his best, but he hardly pays any attention to us unless it's regarding the future of the company."
"And the reason why you hid me from him was . . . what, exactly?"
"I haven't spoken to Costia in three years." Lexa let the words speak for themselves.
"I'm sorry."
"If it's not too much of a bother, do you think we could go to your house after school, in the future?"
"Yeah. You don't need to worry about it, Lexa. My mom likes you."
"Still, I wouldn't want to take advantage of her hospitality." Clarke laid a hand on Lexa's arm.
"You're fine, okay? Don't forget that." Lexa looked out the window, where a light rain had begun to patter down.
"Do you need me to drive you home?" she asked. "I've heard that it gets cold around this time of year, I wouldn't want to cast you out in this weather."
"It's fine." Clarke dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. "I've spent more time here than you have, I know how to get home." Just then, a flash of lightning lit up the dining room for a split second.
"I don't feel safe leaving you alone in a thunderstorm, Clarke."
"We hardly ever get thunderstorms, it's probably really far-" A deafening crash of thunder sounded at that moment, and Clarke let out a sigh. "Okay, okay. My mom wouldn't want me out in this weather either, I guess."
Lexa's car - or, her uncle's car, Clarke figured, though she couldn't be sure on account of how filthily rich the Woods family seemed to be - was surprisingly cluttered, littered with Aden's toys and bent tissue boxes.
"We're not meant to use this unless it's an emergency or the weather is dangerous," Lexa explained, as if voicing Clarke's confusion. "It's not difficult to sneak it away, admittedly." Clarke rubbed at an unidentifiable stain on the dashboard.
"Mr. - uh, your uncle, he doesn't seem like the kind of person who'd leave all of his stuff around. Is this all yours?"
"I don't bother cleaning it," Lexa replied, adjusting the mirror. "Aden says that it makes the car a bit more . . . homely. I suppose I can understand where he gets that from."
"Huh." Clarke was silent for a moment as Lexa turned on the car and it screeched to life with a sudden slide out of the driveway. "Wait, Lexa, do you have a driver's license?" Lexa blinked.
"Of course I do, Clarke. Why would I drive if I-" A squirrel dashed into the road, and Lexa swerved to avoid it as Clarke held onto her seatbelt for dear life. "As I was saying, why would I drive if I didn't?" Clarke wasn't entirely convinced. "Anyway, Aden was telling me about those cartoons you enjoy. I've seen a few of them, you know." The car was still going unnervingly fast.
"Which ones did he-" scree "-mention, exactly?" Lexa shrugged.
"I don't remember the exact titles, but I understood what he was talking about."
"Okay, just don't let him watch any of oh my god there's a pole right there, Lexa!"
"I know how to drive, Clarke," Lexa said calmly, narrowly avoiding the pole with a placid expression on her face.
"Maybe I should just take the bus or something, it's really rainy out here and it's probably clouding your vision or something."
"No, I'm actually just a terrible driver."
"That's not the kind of thing you're supposed to comfort people with!"
Lexa had, in fact, been on edge for the entire car ride, hoping and praying that she wouldn't cause any injury to Clarke. She tried not to let it show, but she got the feeling that Clarke knew how frightened she was, and she wondered for a moment if this would affect the relationship between the two of them - Clarke had just learned a secret that she, for whatever reason, was deeply unsettled by, and Lexa immediately jumped to the worst conclusion as gray rain poured from the skies outside.
"I'm sorry," she said, dodging avoiding another pole.
"For what?"
"For the . . . dangerous driving, as well as for keeping my uncle a secret."
"It's fine." Clarke loosened her grip ever-so-slightly on her seatbelt. "I never asked, so it's not like you were lying."
"Are we almost at your house?" Clarke peered ahead, a thick mist making it difficult to see anything.
"I think so. Keep going straight on this road." Lexa snorted.
"What?"
"You said straight. Neither of us are."
"Well, I can't argue with the facts." Clarke had let go of the seatbelt entirely, though the imprint of it still showed on her hands. "Okay, slow down here."
"Have we arrived?" Clarke looked ahead again.
"Yep. You can, uh, just drop me off here." Lexa slowed the car to a stop, breathing a sigh of relief at having successfully driven both of them through the storm.
"Did you pack an umbrella?"
"My house is ten feet away, Lexa. I'll be okay."
"If you insist." Lexa leaned in to give Clarke one last kiss on the cheek before she ran back to her front porch, hoisting her backpack over her head in an awkward attempt to stay dry. She runs strangely, Lexa thought.
Clarke laid in her bed for a long time after that, her hair still dripping wet from the rain.
"It's normal to be worried, right, Heda?" she murmured. "Lexa's going to run some huge company when she's older, and where's that going to leave me?" Clarke rolled over to face the stuffed raccoon, the button eyes seeming to bore into her own. "I like her a lot, but this kind of thing can't last, can it? She was so nervous during that car ride, there must be something on her mind."
"Clarke?"
"Yeah, Mom?"
"Is everything alright? You've been cooped up in your room for the past few hours, I'm starting to get a little worried."
"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry." Clarke promptly slammed her face into a pillow.
Lexa was tired. The weekend, she thought, was an unexpected blessing - it gave her time to mull over things, time to try and decide what to do. The date of the student election loomed nearer, as did the holidays, but she couldn't be bothered to care.
"You've been super quiet lately," Aden noted one day, taking Fish out for a walk while Titus was away at some nondescript school board meeting. "Is everything okay?" Lexa looked down at the sidewalk, still damp from the rain.
"How old am I, Aden?" she murmured.
"You're sixteen! Uncle says that you're only two years away from . . . oh."
"It's such a small thing," Lexa chuckled. "I won't even be doing anything, not really - just overseeing useless numbers, nothing important. It's not a huge burden to bear, but I don't . . . I don't really want it."
"Hey, Lexa!" Aden wrapped his arms around Lexa in a sudden hug from behind, momentarily dropping Fish's leash. "It's okay! You've still got two years, and you don't even really have to do it!" Lexa blinked back tears.
"I don't?"
"Not if you really, really, completely don't want to!" Fish, surprisingly, didn't run away and instead stood at Aden's heel, thumping his tail excitedly. It occurred to Lexa that the dog had absolutely no idea what was happening.
"It's a family business. I'm the next in line. It seems fairly straightforward to me, Aden."
"Yeah, but you kept going on and on about how cool lady friend and her friends are like a little family, too!"
"Uncle calls them delinquents."
"Well, if he really thinks that, then Uncle's a . . . he's a . . ."
"Take your time."
"He's a super-duper crazy goofpants!" Aden squeaked. "Cool lady friend's awesome! I'm sure that her friends are, too! The company'd be lucky to have one of 'em running it! Who cares if they're dee-lin-kents? I actually started watching one of those annie-somethings about one, it was super cool! The main girl yelled a lot and-" Aden was stopped mid-sentence by Lexa holding him in a tight hug.
"Thank you, Aden," she murmured.
"I just said what was true!"
"And please, do me a favor and ask me before you watch any more shows that Clarke's recommended."
"Sure thing!"
The weekend, and the two weeks following it, passed in a blur. Before Clarke even really knew it, the Thanksgiving holidays had passed and news of the student election was pinned to the bulletin boards with technicolor thumbtacks.
"Your girlfriend's gonna kick Ontari's ass," Octavia noted, pulling down one of the flyers. "Those two are the only ones running, right?"
"Yep," Raven replied. "Neither of them seem to have set up much of a platform, though, so it seems like the speeches are gonna be the things that decide who the students vote for. Ontari's got the ninth grader vote, and Lexa's got . . . us, I guess?"
"She's practiced her speech at my house," Clarke said. "I'm no expert on public speaking, but Lexa could hold an entire room in silence from the very first word, if our living room sessions are anything to go by."
"Ah, looking at the beckonings of your demise?" Clarke didn't even need to turn around to know who it was.
"'Beckonings' isn't even a real word!" Octavia snapped.
"Oh, but does that really matter?" Ontari still wore a cocky sneer, though Clarke couldn't help but notice that there was some kind of hesitation behind it. It was difficult for her to seem intimidating with a platter of muffins in her arms, but she still stood as if she held the entire world in that muffin tray. "I'm going to destroy Woods, do you understand that?"
"You can try." Clarke, at that moment, really wanted to knock the muffin tray out of her hands.
"I will try. And I will win. I'm going to break her, do you understand that? Then, then, she'll hand over the Nightblood Corporation and it'll finally be mine!"
"You can have it." Clarke looked up to see Lexa standing at the top of a flight of stairs, her eyes downcast. "That is, if you're prepared to take on the responsibility. It's an outdated system, in any case. The next in line, firstborns, it's all somewhat ridiculous. They should really judge by who's the most competent."
"There's some trickery involved here, I can smell it!" Ontari snapped. "You wouldn't give it away so earnestly, not when your entire family has been building it for generations!"
"I don't care." Lexa descended the stairs with surprising grace, considering the fact that she was holding a casual conversation at school early in the morning.
"Look at her, watching us peasants from up high," Octavia muttered. Raven elbowed her. "What? She's nice, I just get pissed when people stand like that."
"Your uncle won't stand for this! He knows that you're the best for the job, or whatever garbage it is that you people use to excuse us getting left out of it!"
"I don't want it," Lexa said, her voice steely and unfeeling. Clarke shuddered, despite herself - it was difficult, she realized, to see this woman atop the stairs as the same girl who analyzed High School Musical and blushed every time Clarke held her hand.
"If I beat you in the election, will you hand it over? Will you admit defeat, Woods?"
"I've told you, Ontari, you can have it either way. I don't . . . I don't have any interest in the responsibility it holds." Lexa's voice wavered for a moment, and Clarke wondered exactly why she was doing this. "I'd like to think that my life holds other things in store, things that don't involve sitting in a stuffy office somewhere in a high-rise without much else to fill my life."
"Growing desperate, now, are we?"
"I'll go get the popcorn," Raven whispered. Clarke glared at her.
"If it affects your ego one way or another, then you can pretend that I 'admitted defeat.'"
"That's cheating!" Ontari shot back. "How can I be sure that you're not just lying?"
"You want this, don't you? I'm handing it over, or at least to the extent I can at this point. Titus - my uncle - he has no idea that this is happening, and you'll need to keep it a secret. Once I'm an adult, it'll belong to you. Two years, and it'll belong to you. Would that be alright?" Lexa's voice was beginning to lose its edge, softening as she looked at the younger girl. Ontari fumed in her spot, thumping a booted foot on the carpet.
"We'll talk about this after I've beaten you into the ground at the election," she muttered, beginning to shake again. "I'm not letting you get away with this, whatever it is!" With that, Ontari stamped away, her shoes thudding against the floor. Lexa sat down on one of the steps.
"What was all that about?" Octavia asked.
"I'm the next in line to inherit a rather large company. I don't want it, and she does. That's all there is to it." Clarke could see that Lexa was sweating, and she quietly tried to wave Octavia and Raven away.
"Hey, O, why don't we go . . . somewhere else?" Raven blurted out. "Wouldn't want these two lovebirds distracting us from our schoolwork, right?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever." Clarke waited until the two of them were out of earshot to talk to Lexa again.
"Seriously, Lexa, why did you do that?" she whispered. "Are you okay? Do you need me to take you to my mom?" Lexa shook her head.
"I don't want a future like this."
"Like what?"
"There's something alluring about power, something that draws Ontari and her stepmother to it against all reason, but what does it really do, in the greater scheme of things? The Nightblood Corporation doesn't do anything. It's not important, not really, it's merely a computer company that got lucky and ended up with a rather large sum of money. I thought that I'd be fine with running it when I was older, I figured better me than Aden or even Ontari, but . . . I just don't want that anymore. It's lonely. You're expected to stay in your lane, away from the limelight, away from everyone. You don't see the word Nightblood in newspapers because it goes by the book and never causes scandals."
She's talking about Costia, Clarke realized, though she remained silent. Lexa looked over at Raven and Octavia, who stood at the vending machine several feet away as they lightheartedly argued over which bag of chips to buy. Lincoln had shown up at some point, and Octavia held his hand.
"You were right, Clarke. Ontari is just a child. Perhaps she doesn't fully understand it yet, but I suppose she'll figure out soon enough that power isn't all that matters in this world." Octavia was trying to pry something out of the vending machine with her sword, now, while Raven held up her microwave to show to Lincoln.
"Won't your uncle be mad?" Lexa shrugged, allowing herself a brief crooked smirk. Clarke had never been more in love.
"Well, in the words of Aden - if he is, then he's really just a super-duper crazy goofpants."
Lexa: anya
Lexa: i did something horribly reckless and by all accounts somewhat troubling
Anya (cell phone): I don't even know what you did but I'm proud.
Lexa: there is a chance that i have destroyed my future because i am an emotional high schooler
Lexa: i have given up everything because i don't want a well-paying office job
Lexa: don't congratulate me
Anya (cell phone): Dude, if I had /half/ the courage you had, I probably wouldn't be hiding in the corner of my own dorm while my roommates threw the SEVEN MILLIONTH PARTY THIS GODDAMN SEMESTER
Anya (cell phone): I am going to fight every single frat bro, I swear to god, and then I am going to fight my roommates, and then I am going to ask the dean for new roommates next semester because otherwise someone is going to die and it won't be me.
Anya (cell phone): Anyway.
Anya (cell phone): What did you even /do/?
Lexa: i handed over the nightblood corporation to ontari
Anya (cell phone): That weird cousin of yours?
Anya (cell phone): The one who outed you to your uncle?
Lexa: yes
Anya (cell phone): ...why
Lexa: because i realized
Lexa: it would be lonely
Lexa: people say i'm a natural-born leader
Lexa: but she's the one who's rallied people behind her despite being absolutely terrible
Lexa: all i do is scare people when i don't mean to
Lexa: there are things more important than power
Anya (cell phone): This sounds like a goddamn Lifetime movie.
Anya (cell phone): Let me guess, someone's going to get a puppy next.
Lexa: aden adopted a stray dog a few weeks ago
Anya (cell phone): I WAS MAKING A JOKE
Lexa: i would be lying if i said i wasn't worried
Anya (cell phone): No dip, Sherlock.
Anya (cell phone): You just gave your family's legacy to an emo kid with no morals.
Anya (cell phone): Still . . .
Anya (cell phone): I can't help but be proud.
Anya (cell phone): It's cheesy, I know, but all of the best things in life are.
Anya (cell phone): The power of love, the power of friendship, it's all so dumb and yet there's something great in it.
Anya (cell phone): Live your life, you tiny useless lesbian.
Anya (cell phone): If your uncle wants to force you to run the company, he'll need to go through me first.
Lexa: thank you
Lexa held the phone to her chest as she took a deep breath, waiting for the signal to begin her speech. Clarke gave her a thumbs-up from the back of the small auditorium.
"Now," the principal - a tall, kindly man with a scruffy beard who acted as somewhat of a father to the students - said, his voice casting across the room. "We only have two people competing for the position at the moment. Lexa Woods?" The principal stepped off of the stage. Lexa gulped, willing herself to pretend that there weren't three hundred people staring directly at her. The papers in her hand felt like boulders, the room was spinning, and yet she started her speech anyway. They deserve that much, she thought.
"I began attending this school in the fall," she began. "I wasn't expecting very much, to be honest. I had heard that it was small, friendly, well-managed. Yet, all schools brag of things like that. There was no reason for me to expect Arkadia to be any more than a place to spend three tired years with people I hardly had a chance to know." Lexa could feel her hands dropping the paper with plans for free tampons and therapy dogs, letting it float and flop to the floor, though she wasn't entirely aware of her decision to perform the action - much like how one could do things in dreams they never would do in the waking world despite the dream seeming as real as could be.
"What's she doing?" Raven whispered. Clarke shrugged.
"I was wrong." Something in her mind was screaming, begging her to stop, to pick the paper back up, but she continued. "I was so very wrong, and since arriving here I've met some truly amazing people. I won't exaggerate and say that they taught me the meaning of being human, or anything as extravagant as that, because then I'd be lying. No, all they did was show me that high schoolers are idiots, and that they're the most incredible, heartfelt idiots anyone could ask for. I would be hard-pressed to remember anyone quite as incomprehensible back home, anyone who would bring a real sword to school or build a microwave from useless scraps or watch all of Sailor Moon in one sitting." The students all looked to each other in confusion, most likely wondering what this strange girl was rambling about.
"I thought that I could make this school better, perhaps, by joining the student council, but there aren't many foreseeable ways in which I could make it better. I deal with the future, long-term planning, not the frantic, wonderful spur-of-the-moment type things we have here." Lexa took in another deep breath. "That's why I'm choosing to step down from this election. There are other things I care about a bit more."
"Yes!" Ontari sprang from the crowd, the happiest Lexa had ever seen her. "Oh, you'll all soon feel my wrath! I've won! I've finally, finally won!" Lexa smiled, patting her on the shoulder before joining Clarke and her friends in the corner.
"You quit?" Clarke whispered. Ontari was beginning to give her acceptance speech, a strange ramble about how she was about to have 'absolute power,' but Lexa was too absorbed in the moment to care. Suddenly, without hesitation, she took Clarke's face in her hands and kissed her. She felt as wonderful as always, like fireworks and blue skies and warmth in the middle of winter, and Lexa thought that nothing could ever top what she felt in that very second.
"Clarke?" Clarke looked up from her homework to see her mother standing over her, carrying a stack of folders.
"Yeah?"
"I wasn't expecting your girlfriend to do something like that. She had it in the bag, you know. We had to review the speeches beforehand, to make sure that the students didn't plan on crowdsurfing or anything like that, and the freshman just handed in a bunch of nonsense, promising that she was playing by the rules and writing in her 'secret language.' She's an ambitious kid, though. I don't doubt that she'll do well on the council."
"Are you proud?"
"Of course I'm proud, Clarke. Lexa's brave. She's a good person, I think you two are going to be very happy together. Not to mention the fact that Aden isn't the worst son-in-law a woman could have."
"Mom," Clarke groaned, feeling her cheeks turn red. "It's not like we're getting married or anything."
"Just wait, Clarke. The two of you are smitten, I can tell. Now, I think I heard your phone buzzing upstairs. You might want to check it before it vibrates itself off the table." Clarke didn't need another excuse to dash upstairs, picking up Heda from where she had fallen on the floor before checking her phone.
~the dream meme team~
the literal bomb: so.
the literal bomb: how about lexa's speech?
SWORD WOMAN: i was just stunned by the fact that none of the teachers said anything to me about my sword afterwards!
SWORD WOMAN: guess that means i can bring it around
SWORD WOMAN: whenever i want!
SWORD WOMAN: }:)
SWORD WOMAN: hell yeah
the literal bomb: they were probably more concerned about the ninth grader winning the highest position of power in that puppet government of theirs.
the literal bomb: oh well.
the literal bomb: i'll be out of there in a year and a half, anyway.
the literal bomb: unlike you two.
Clarke: Hey.
the literal bomb: oh hi clarke.
SWORD WOMAN: we were just talking about how RAD your girlfriend is!
SWORD WOMAN: :P
Clarke: Yeah, I saw.
the literal bomb: speaking of which, did you ask her about the whole nightblood corp thing?
Clarke: Yep.
Clarke: It's fine.
Clarke: She's fine.
Clarke: More than fine, actually.
Clarke: She's happy.
SWORD WOMAN: well, if our dear friend kidz bop bring me to life doesn't end up liking the position of nightblood corp ceo, then i'm always here!
SWORD WOMAN: ;)
the literal bomb: i'm also here, with actual knowledge of economics and how to build things.
SWORD WOMAN: we'll both be ceos then, how about that?
Lexa: that sounds like a good backup
the literal bomb: wait.
SWORD WOMAN: LEXA?
SWORD WOMAN: when did you let her in here clarke?
Clarke: Earlier this afternoon.
the literal bomb: great, now i get to listen to you two being all adorable and cuddly over text, too.
SWORD WOMAN: you never complained about adding lincoln on the chat!
the literal bomb: he never talks!
the literal bomb: one time i asked him if he needed a ride home and he said 'yeah' and that is literally the extent of our text conversations!
the literal bomb: if you two acted half as cute as you do at school on here then i would not hesitate to block both of your asses.
Lexa: is this how they always text
Clarke: Yep.
Lexa: ...
Lexa: it's nice
Lexa: i like it
Lexa: a lot
Lexa: thank you, clarke
Clarke: I love you too.
the literal bomb: it's starting already, isn't it?