Chapter Text
Clarke loves Finn. It's simple maths. Meet cute in a college bar equals coffee dates and matching mugs, holding gloved hands as ageing fingers sprout roots and turn to dust. (Does boredom personified, make an oxymoron of domestic lust?)
But even algebra can't explain why she's currently half drunk and half damned, not-so-cold palms resting dangerously on top of her best friend's. (And no solution on earth, could calculate the mass, weight, configuration of stars, in a sky she thought had long turned black.)
“- it's just, we'll never really know what Aristotle said about comedy,” Lexa semi-slurs, scooting closer to Clarke's section of the couch. “Doesn't that drive you crazy?”
If there were ever any stereotypes about inebriated English majors, Clarke is pretty sure that Lexa is fulfilling them all, and being downright adorable in the process. She attempts a smile in return, perhaps a fond “you nerd,” but only finds herself in hazy awe of the girl, she's forever seen through a “platonic” lens.
Except, that isn't quite true. Back when Lexa was dating Costia there was a “maybe” (a maybe writ in “too close” and purple prose, a soliloquy penned in the shape of her nose), but now...
Now Clarke is dating Finn, and if she's learnt anything from six years stuck in the “emo pop” of life stages, it's that them, this, migraine in her chest, is wrong with a capital “W,” and “R” for good measure.
It's wrong when she mumbles “I had a really great time tonight,” just to watch Lexa blush the same shade as her very pink drink, wrong when even the righteous “ping” of the brunette's microwave, cannot break their lingering gaze.
“I should, um...”
“Y- yeah.”
Ten years of late night plans and early morning whispers, and (after an hour of barely brushing in a too-loud club, sipping colourful liquid with a suspicious amount of fizzy bubbles), the pair can't even string a sentence together? Clarke should force a laugh, but she's fairly certain her suspension bridge ribs would snap, split, collapse.
Instead, she wills her mouth to form the word, “Popcorn?”- though she'd sooner be putting her tongue to better use, spelling out an artistic variation of “maybe crush yes,” on Lexa's exposed collarbone.
“Popcorn, right.” Her... friend jumps up, and she tries her hardest not to cringe at the loss, traces over the rip in her jeans, where Lexa's fingertips just (accidentally?) touched. She is: fire, ash, smoke, and I have already laid out bare bones.
“Or...” Clarke interjects, before she can help herself, vaguely able to note that it doesn't really seem all that wrong, when she grips Lexa's wrist to hold her back.
( How could she ever be a textbook Sunday school sin, when I'd drop everything on a Thursday afternoon, for the chance to pocket her grin? )
“Or what?”
There's an element of truth, of dare, like they're still thirteen year old kids who tell each other everything before bed. Perhaps this would have been simpler, then.
Clarke moves closer, so close that she can smell raspberry alcohol on Lexa's breath, so close that their heartbeats meet, melt, merge, stop-start all over again.
“I thought you were with Finn,” Lexa murmurs, and this should be the point where the decidedly unheroic narrator comes to her senses, chokes back selfish want and admits, “Yeah, he's still my boyfriend.” Because that's the truth, isn't it?
But all Clarke can picture is the way Lexa will recoil, revoke her waist to hip ratio, and pretend none of this ever happened. It's more than she can bear at one in the morning, at least 98% sure that this more than just the liqueur talking. Wrong universe, wrong timeline, wrong side of the sheets// can't I still crave you, in the shape of our defeats?
“We broke up,” she says instead, and is rewarded with a kiss for her lie, a second time in the soft noise, when her teeth find the warm skin of Lexa's throat.
“Clarke, I-”
Clarke cuts her off, before she can say something stupid, something wonderful, something that would soil the unforgivable.
“Please don't, Lex. Can we, uh, can we just...” She gestures at the glass gap between them, unsure what she's even really asking, other than: “Let me pretend I deserve you.”
Her answer: Multiply hands by hair, and divide by discarded t-shirt.
And yeah, okay, Clarke Griffin may be the worst person in the entire world, but when Lexa looks at her like that, she can't help but feel like the best.
(She can hate herself tomorrow, she figures. There's an expiration date written all over the weight on her thigh, but always plenty of time for regret.)