Chapter Text
The wind is whipping at your hair and stinging at your eyes. The sun shines but it's weak and useless.
A burst of warmth hits your face and the rich smell of coffee fills your nostrils as someone opens the door of a Café just in the moment that you walk past. It makes you hesitate, the promise of heat for your insides as well as your blue fingers. Another gust of wind shakes the trees and it’s doesn’t take you long to step backwards and inside the door.
--
The Café is warm and the coffee is good but that is not why you come back.
--
“It’s Lexa, right?”
“That it is.’
“Well, in the spirit of fairness, my name is Clarke. And before you ask, I am not secretly superman. My dad was…
Her breathe hitches and you know it well, the way past tense can startle your chest. But her eyes do not dull and her mouth turns crooked only seconds later. She continues
“…a big science fiction fan. Plus, it means I’m much more likely to get people to consider my resume…although that's yet to really take off.’
It’s the bravest thing you’ve ever seen.
--
Each week you walk to the café with your computer heavy in a backpack and
you take a seat with every intention of working through the shoulder bag of case files.
But then the air is filled with her voice: the kind questions she asks everyone, the reeling off of coffee types and sizes, the various permutations of not a problem, no worries, no trouble, yes, of course, and the way she seems to mean it every time.
You have every intention of working but when you glance over at her, her smile is waiting.
--
You come in on a Thursday.
The door barely closes behind you when you hear a shout
“Griffin! Tall double shot is here!’
You look over to the counter to see Raven leaning against it with a smirk on her face.
“She’ll be right out’
You don’t get a chance to defend yourself against her wink because Clarke barges out from the kitchen door and she’s breathing like she’d been running and she’s grinning all creasy like and she pauses to catch a breathe and you feel so many things when you see her but Raven’s eyes are prickling and the only words you have are
“Actually, I think I’ll have a dash of milk today’
--
You’ve never thought of yourself as particularly funny.
It’s never been something you aspired to, never something people associated with your name. You were always content with smart or pleasantly surprised by the occasional synonym for good looking.
And yet, when you lean on a table or linger by the counter, you wish you’d paid more attention to the mechanics of humor, just so you could figure out sure-fire ways to see Clarke throw her head back and let out that rumbling laugh that makes you dizzy.
--
“Wait, you asked her out?’
You know Gus has stopped half way through getting drinks out of the fridge and is looking at you in disbelief. But you keep your eyes on the television when you say
“Always the tone of surprise’
You hear him laugh as he opens the caps of two bottles of beer and carries them over to where you are sitting on the couch. He hands you one and you nod in thanks before taking a sip and letting the familiar fizz slide down your throat. He drinks too and for a moment you think maybe that will be the end of it. Then his smile fades and he swallows and says
“It’s just that you haven’t…I mean, since Costia…’
It doesn’t make you flinch, her name. Not as much as it used to, anyway.
He doesn’t wait for you to speak, just lets a moment of mutual acknowledgement pass between you. He doesn’t expect anything from you and for that, you are grateful. There isn’t anything new to be said about all that, anyway.
The moment passes and he swigs his beer, smiles and says, in that cheeky way that he has
“Well her coffee must be pretty great, then’
--
You want to kiss her soft. You want to feel her soft cheek against yours and tangle your hands in her hair, map the knots of her spine with your fingertips.
You want to kiss her hard. You want to taste her neck with your lips and teeth and slam her hips against your own and make her gasp, tremble underneath you.
And when you do, she kisses you back soft and hard and just for a moment everything else beyond that is blurred and smeared.
But you’ve never been good at wanting and it frightens you.
--
“I don’t think Octavia likes me very much.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
“So it’s true.’
“So what if it is?”
“Well, did she say why?’
“She thinks you’re….It really doesn't matter.’
“Clarke.’
“I like you, Lexa. Everything else is unimportant.’
--
She wakes so early.
In the whole time you’ve been sleeping beside her, never once have you been the first to stir.
She teases you in the mornings, knows it takes time for the fog and the haze to fade. She kisses your cheek, hands you coffee and fastens your top button. She thinks she’s helping you get ready but in actual fact, she just makes it harder and harder to walk out the door.
--
It’s a Wednesday afternoon and they have to replace all the carpets in the office so Anya says you can all take the afternoon off. You call Clarke just to tell her not to bother meeting you later at the Chinese restaurant downtown and she says ‘ Wait, I’m leaving work now, meet me at the Cinema on John street’
The film, having been the only one showing this afternoon, is terrible. About half way through, when the male protagonist and his damsel in distress get caught up in a not even remotely suspenseful car chase, Clarke pushes up the armrest and shifts towards you. You’re still watching the screen but she takes your hand and so you glance at her and oh
You spend the rest of the film making out in the dark.
So, it hadn’t been a complete waste of money.
--
Sometimes, you feel like you and Clarke are from completely different worlds.
You are night where she is morning, she is hot when you are cold. But sometimes you look in her eyes and see the same storm.
--
Your back is already pressed against the table and you lean further into it as you breath in deeply, bite your lip and try and collect your thoughts.
Her voice had been low, had reminded you of metal and her blue eyes had flashed violently. She’s still wrong, you still think she’s wrong, but that doesn’t mean you meant it at all when you told her to leave.
The slamming of the door echoes through the air.
You breathe in, out, in, out and one more time.
And then, you do the only thing that there is to be done.
You pick up your jacket and the keys to the apartment and you go and find her.